Chapter 1: A Brand New Day

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As the sun climbed ever higher into the sky, another day began in the peaceful land of Equestria. All across the nation; from the elegant Canterlot to the humble Ponyville, ponies of all shapes, sizes, races, and colors started waking up and going about their daily routines. Life carried on as it normally did, despite the frightening events that had happened only months prior.

It was hard to imagine getting used to normality after the hooded ponies were defeated and the knowledge of monsters and the supernatural became commonplace, but somehow everyone moved on and peace was restored. With only bad memories and the slight fear of the unknown to remind them of the experience, most ponies chose to not think about the past few months.

Although most of the ponies throughout the land were just now waking up, there were a few that started their day early. One such pony was a purple unicorn named Twilight Sparkle. The early bird catches the worm so they say, and Twilight was usually the type of pony to wake up early to start her day and get as much done as possible.

On this particular day, rather than roaming around Ponyville and spending time with her friends, the unicorn had more important business to attend to. Twilight sat in the back of a horse-drawn carriage with two pegasus stallions clad in royal guard attire ferrying her to Canterlot.

Dearest Twilight Sparkle… Searching for something to occupy herself with, Twilight read off the scroll that had arrived a few days ago from the princess silently.

It has been a while since you have written me with a friendship report. Are you doing alright? I know that you have more important things to do, so you don’t always need to give me a report if you can’t think of one, but it would be nice if you would check in every once in a while, especially considering recent events. Anyway, if you aren’t too busy, I would like for you to come to Canterlot this Thursday. I would like to talk to you about something very important, and I would like to do it in person instead of writing you these messages.

“Hmm…” Twilight pondered over the words in her head while wondering what her mentor could have wanted. She had neglected to write to the princess for the past few weeks, but she did have a justifiable reason at least. Ever since Raven Feather and her veritable cult of followers had been defeated, she had been assigned, or rather volunteered, to catalog and archive all of the books left behind in their mansion hideout. The old building held hundreds of books from several parts of human history. The estate’s usage throughout the ages meant that even books long past the time period of the house were included in its vast library.

Before she could elaborate further on her thoughts, Twilight noticed that she was descending from the air. The journey had come to an end, and the two stallions were bringing the carriage down right in front of Canterlot palace.

The carriage shook slightly as the pegasi’s hooves hit the ground. They gradually slowed their speed so that they could give their passenger a pleasant stop rather than giving her whiplash. Once they had stopped, Twilight quickly hopped out and trotted up to them. “Thank you for the ride.” She said courteously while passing by the two guards. They smiled before offering a stoic nod in response.

Twilight walked forward and took in the sight of the palace before her. No matter how many times she visited the princess, she would never get tired of admiring the palace’s stark beauty and magnificence. Anything that was damaged in the attack from months prior seemed to have been fixed or replaced. It almost looked like nothing had happened at all.

Not wanting to waste any more time, the unicorn started making her way up to the main entrance. After making her way through the large doors, she paused and stared ahead at the room before her. Twilight felt a slight chill going up her spine as she looked down at the floor in front of her. In this very spot just a few months ago, she had died.

It was an odd thought to have, but everything about the purple mare’s life had been odd after what had happened. She was dazed at the time, but she could still vividly remember the moments leading up to her untimely demise. She could still hear the frantic cries of her friends as they tried to save her. She could still see them crying over her bleeding body as she lay dying on the floor. And most vividly of all, she could still feel the icy coldness that came just before death.

Taking a quick glance to the side of the room, Twilight thought about someone she hadn’t thought about in a while. Her life had been so busy, and he had been absent for at least a month, so the unicorn had neglected to even think about her human friend that much. But now that she was seeing the spot where she died and remembering how he brought her back to life, memories of the blue-suited boy came flooding to her mind.

“*Sigh*… I hope you’re not working too hard wherever you are, Tom.” Twilight shrugged as she thought about the human’s absence.

“Hello, Twilight.” The voice of her mentor coming from across the room broke Twilight away from her thoughts. She looked up to see Celestia smiling at her while walking closer.

“Princess!” The purple mare exclaimed joyfully while rushing forward to meet the white alicorn. Once she got up to her, she immediately embraced her in a warm hug.

“It’s so good to see you, Twilight.” Celestia said in a sincere tone while looking down at her faithful student.

Twilight smiled as she forgot all about the grim thoughts that had plagued her mind just moments before. “It’s good to see you too, Princess. Sorry I haven’t written you in a while… things have been really busy for me lately.” She stated in an apologetic manner. Celestia merely smiled at her student as she tried to justify her reasons for not keeping in contact.

“It’s alright Twilight. You’re here now, and that is what matters. Now then, why don’t we go find somewhere comfortable to talk?” The princess suggested while motioning behind her with her head.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Twilight replied with a cheerful nod. With that said, the two walked across the room and made their way through another door. “So princess… why did you ask me to come here?” Twilight asked curiously as she followed the princess through the halls of the palace.

Celestia thought for a moment before replying. “Do I need a reason to talk with my faithful student?” She said with a slight smirk.

“Well… no, I guess not, but couldn’t you have just written letters to me if you just wanted to talk?” Twilight asked with a confused tone.

Celestia looked away for a moment while contemplating what to say next. “I suppose I could have… but I wanted to see you instead of just writing a letter. Those scrolls that we send back and forth are so… informal. I like to meet face to face every once in a while.” The princess explained in an almost awkward tone while hiding a smile. If Twilight didn’t know any better, she would have thought that the alicorn was hiding something from her.

“Right…” The purple mare muttered suspiciously.

Soon enough, the princess and her student found their way into the study. Various shelves lined with books adorned the walls of the room, while several tables and desks cluttered with scrolls and other such items were scattered throughout the area. Celestia sat down on a cushion and motioned for Twilight to do the same. The purple mare sat down across from the alicorn and smiled as she enjoyed the fact that she was having a moment with her mentor.

“So what have you been up to recently Twilight? I certainly hope that you haven’t been burying yourself in all of those books we found.” Celestia chuckled slightly until she noticed the unicorn looking away awkwardly.

“Yeah… about that… heh.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head nervously as she recalled how much time she had been spending on her studies of human history.

“Twilight… I know that learning about the human world is exciting, but you need to remember that there is a world outside of books.” Celestia gently chided the purple mare for not taking time out of reading to enjoy the finer things in life. “So, how are the girls doing? Have you at least been out of the library long enough to see your friends?” The princess asked curiously. She hadn’t been to Ponyville in a while, so she was interested to know what the other element bearers had been up to.

“I’ve been out a lot… I’m not exactly a shut-in, Princess.” Twilight said lightheartedly. She then paused and quickly tried to think of what all of her friends had been up to. “Well… Applejack has been busy down at the farm. Pinkie Pie has been trying extra hard to cheer up the citizens of Ponyville ever since they learned that monsters are real. Rarity has been busy with the boutique lately. Fluttershy has been preoccupied with her animals. And Rainbow Dash… well, she is pretty much still doing what she always does.” She explained what she could recall of her friends’ routines.

“I see… so everyone is doing alright.” Celestia said with a pleased tone. Twilight nodded in confirmation.

Now that the topic of what everyone had been doing was brought up, the unicorn’s mind drifted to her human friend again. She wondered what Tom had been up to since his departure from Ponyville. After everything that happened, the slayer had decided to live in Ponyville with Twilight and Spike, but he was unable to stay for long. The princess asked him to take care of several missions to eradicate monsters across Equestria, and he had been away for the past month or so.

“So, how is Tom doing? I haven’t heard from him in a long time.” Twilight asked curiously.

Celestia smiled and glanced over to the doorway behind her. “Funny you should ask that Twilight. That is actually why I asked you to come here.” She mused with a slight chuckle. Twilight tilted her head in confusion at the princess’s words.

“What? Why? Is he alright?” The unicorn asked quizzically.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” A familiar voice spoke up from behind Twilight. The purple mare gasped in shock and turned around. The moment she did, her face lit up with excitement. Standing in the doorway was the same blue suited human that she had learned to call friend all those months ago.

He was dressed in the same blue track outfit that he had always worn since becoming a slayer. The only thing missing from his apparel was his sword and holster. The blade had been broken during the struggle at the palace, and he had not found a replacement weapon since, so he removed the holster from his back.

Despite the lack of equipment that he had, he carried out his missions with the same spirit and heart that Twilight had come to love about him, and he still showed it even now. The boy smiled as he looked at the unicorn staring back at him with her jaw agape. He always looked at her like she was a dear friend to him, despite the short time that they had known each other.

“Tom!” Twilight exclaimed happily while getting up and rushing to the boy. She practically tackled him, although he was expecting her to do so. Still, he barely had enough time to brace himself before the unicorn plowed into him and wrapped her forelegs around his waist.

“Uh… Twilight… can’t breathe.” Tom barely managed to gasp out his words as the purple mare squeezed him tightly. Twilight smiled and laughed warmly as she let go of the human and backed up slightly. She was smiling so much that her face was hurting, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t even contain the feeling of happiness that was welling up inside of her from seeing the boy.

“I’m so glad to see you! It’s been forever since you’ve visited us!” The unicorn said while trying to calm herself down enough to carry on a conversation.

“Sorry about that. I’ve been a little busy mopping up Equestria. It seemed like every time I was about to go back to Ponyville, another assignment popped up.” Tom explained with a slight awkward chuckle.

“I apologize for sending you on so many missions Tom. I know that you deserve to have a little downtime, but there have been so many paranormal creatures appearing all over Equestria ever since Raven Feather attacked us.” Celestia said with a regretful expression. The human had wanted so badly to just stay in Ponyville with his new friends for a while, but he was the only one capable of handling the supernatural. He was the slayer after all, and killing monsters was in his job description.

“I’m not surprised… When Raven Feather and her brother unleashed all of that energy, it was like popping the cork on every evil thing that had been lying dormant since the humans died out. It’s ok, though, I’m fine with helping you guys out and keeping Equestria safe.” Tom stated with an earnest smile. He seemed genuinely happy to be keeping the land and everyone in it safe. Twilight and Celestia couldn’t help but admire the boy’s eagerness to protect the innocent. “So, how have the girls been?” Tom asked curiously while glancing back to Twilight.

“They’ve been alright, but Scootaloo and the others have been missing you a lot… we all have actually.” The unicorn admitted while smiling slightly. “But I’m sure that they’ll cheer right up when you come home with me.” She added cheerfully. Tom frowned at the purple mare’s words, much to her confusion. Suddenly it dawned on her that he wasn’t here to stay. As soon as she thought of this, Twilight’s cheery disposition vanished.

“Sorry, Twilight… I still have one more assignment to take care of. I’m heading out for Fillydelphia tonight.” The human explained sadly. Twilight shrugged and looked to the floor in disappointment.

“Don’t worry, Twilight. I have decided to give Tom a much-needed break after this mission. Once he gets done over in Fillydelphia, he will be free to come home to Ponyville for a few weeks… assuming no giant monsters try to destroy Equestria during that time.” Celestia said with a slight smirk.

“Fingers crossed.” Tom added with a lighthearted smile while holding up his hand and crossing two of his fingers.

“Really?” Twilight asked with a growing smile. She looked over to the princess for confirmation. Celestia closed her eyes and nodded in response. The small smile that had been building on the unicorn’s face exploded into a cheerful grin. “Yes!” The purple mare exclaimed joyfully while jumping up and wrapping her forelegs around the human again. Tom couldn’t do anything but hold on tightly while the unicorn bounced up and down eagerly with him clutched in her grasp.

“Easy Twilight… we need our slayer friend intact if he is going to help us.” Celestia said with a warm chuckle while watching the excited mare. Twilight managed to contain her joy for a moment and let go of Tom. She settled down and nodded in agreement, though her smile remained in place even if her outburst had been calmed.

“I’ve got some time to kill before my ride to Fillydelphia gets here, so why don’t we go out to eat or something? My treat.” Tom suggested with a smirk.

“That sounds wonderful.” Twilight replied with a warm smile.

“Before you two head out, there’s one more surprise I have for you, Tom.” Celestia spoke up as the pair was walking out of the room. Tom and Twilight paused and turned around curiously.

“A surprise…?” Twilight muttered curiously.

“For me…?” Tom added curiously. “I love surprises.” The boy hummed eagerly at the prospect of a surprise from the ruler of Equestria.

“It’s in the other room along with my sister. She has been dying to see you ever since she learned that you would be back today.” Celestia said while motioning towards the doorway across the room.

“Luna is here? I thought she was away managing Glimmer Shine and the others.” Tom asked in a confused tone. Last time he checked, the blue alicorn was going around Equestria to stay with Glimmer Shine and his two teammates as they completed missions.

“Well, Glimmer Shine and the others have proven capable of handling themselves, so Luna decided to return home while they continue completing assignments on their own.” The princess explained.

“I hope they don’t get hurt…” Twilight said in a concerned tone. She had grown to know the team of monster hunters as friends. It pained her to know that they had lost half of their members during the raid on Raven Feather’s mansion, so she knew that their performance must have been suffering.

“Don’t worry, they should be fine. We have been giving the really dangerous missions to Tom, and they have been taking it easy since they need to get back on their feet.” Celestia said in a reassuring tone. “In fact, I’m fairly certain that they are taking a short break after their next job. They might be back in Ponyville around the same time as Tom.” She added with an intrigued expression.

“I certainly hope so. They could use a break from everything… I can only imagine how it must feel for them without Brimstoke and the others around… especially for Glimmer Shine.” Twilight stated in a sad tone. She didn’t even want to think about the pain that the stallion must have been feeling from losing his brother. She at least knew that she would be devastated if her own brother died, so it was scarily real to the unicorn to be able to put herself in Glimmer Shine’s place.

“Let’s get going. I wouldn’t want to cut into the time you two have before Tom has to leave.” Celestia suggested while getting up and walking over to the other doorway. Twilight and Tom nodded in agreement before following the princess.

The trio walked through the door and entered into another hallway. They traveled through the lavishly decorated corridor and continued walking until they passed through another door on their right. The door led into an open room with several racks filled with weapons adorning the walls. There were a few wooden dummies with markings on their chest used for target practice and training in the center of the room, along with a familiar blue alicorn.

“Tom, Twilight, it’s good to see you!” Luna exclaimed cheerfully while walking up to the three. Twilight immediately walked up to the princess of the night and gladly accepted a hug from her, while Tom merely stood back and smiled.

“It’s good to see you too Luna.” Tom said while holding his hand out to shake her hoof.

Instead of grabbing the boy’s hand, Luna simply smiled and walked in closer. “I think we’ve moved past the handshake stage at this point Tom. Come here.” The blue alicorn said with a warm chuckle while wrapping her foreleg around the human and pulling him close. Tom was caught off guard by the friendly gesture. It still surprised the boy how enthusiastic the princess of the night could be with her greetings.

After taking a moment to release the human and hug her sister, Luna backed up and smiled at the group. She hadn’t seen any of them in a long time, although some of them she had seen more recently than the others. “I assume that you’re ready to show him?” Luna asked her sister curiously. Celestia nodded while glancing over to one of the shelves to the side of the room.

“Show him what?” Twilight asked in an intrigued tone. The suspense was even starting to get to her. She was excited to see what the princess had in store for the human.

Luna turned around and walked a few steps to the right. She lit up her horn and focused on an object on one of the shelves. The two hadn’t noticed it before, but now that it was enveloped in a magical aura it was easy to see. The princess was lifting what appeared to be a sheath and sword into the air. Judging from the slight curvature of the sheath, the group could tell that it was a katana, possibly similar to the one that Tom originally had. The handle to the blade was decorated differently, although it was still just as ornate as the boy’s first blade, with black and blue thread adorning it.

“Is that what I think it is?” Tom asked with a giddy smile on his face as the alicorn levitated the sword over to him. The boy grabbed the weapon and lifted the sword out of its sheath a short ways. Even without the bright blue glow that accompanied his old sword, the blade was still shiny and impressive.

“It is as close to your old sword as we could get it short of gluing the pieces back together.” Luna explained cheerfully while observing the human. He resembled a young child browsing through a candy store with money in their pocket with how much he was smiling.

“We did contemplate fixing the old one, but we figured that making a new one would be for the best.” Celestia added while glancing to Twilight with a slight twinge of unease in her voice. Everyone agreed that it would be best to forget about what happened, and keeping the blade that was used to kill the purple mare around would only remind the human of his failures.

“If I may?” Tom asked while motioning towards the practice dummies with his head. The two alicorns nodded before stepping back to give the human some room.

Tom stepped towards the wooden dummy and held the sheath out in front of him before bringing it to his side. He quickly grabbed the hilt of the blade and whipped it out. In one swift motion, the boy swiped the sword across the dummy’s neck. After a brief pause, the dummy’s head fell backwards and rolled across the floor. Tom looked down at the sword and flipped it a few times in his hand before smirking.

“Do you like it?” Luna asked with a hopeful grin.

“Like it? It’s perfect!” Tom replied happily while placing the sword back in its sheath. Celestia and Luna smiled at the success of their gift.

“All that’s left is for you to imbue it with positive energy… That, we can’t do for you.” Celestia said while thinking back to the glowing blue blade that the human used when he first came to Equestria.

“No problem, I’ll do that later.” Tom said while placing the sheath to his side. He then glanced over to Twilight, who was still admiring the blade that he had received.

“I think that you two should get going. We have taken up enough of your time.” Celestia suggested while looking over to her sister. Luna nodded in agreement. Twilight seemed to be hesitant to ditch the two princesses, but they were encouraging her to leave after all.

“Are you sure? We can stay and talk if you want.” The unicorn offered courteously. Celestia smiled and shook her head.

“No Twilight, go ahead and go.” The princess said while motioning towards the door. The purple mare hesitantly smiled before turning to Tom.

“Well then… I guess we should get going. What was that you said about going to eat? If I recall, I believe you told me that it was your treat.” Twilight said with a slight smirk.

“I guess I did. I don’t suppose the princess’s student has expensive taste?” Tom asked curiously.

“I guess we’ll find out.” Twilight replied with a chuckle. She walked alongside the human toward the door while waving goodbye to the two alicorns.

The pair strolled out of the palace and walked through the busy streets of Canterlot, all the while talking and catching up with each other to make up for lost time. The ponies that passed by them offered curious stares and brief whispers of intrigue. Most people in Equestria had heard about the human that had arrived and defeated Raven Feather’s cult. A few ponies were skeptical of the boy, but most had grown to like him for the general and sincere kindness that he treated even perfect strangers with.

After spending a long time walking around and talking, the pair finally settled on a restaurant to eat at. Thankfully for Tom, Twilight had opted to keep things cheap. Ever since she moved to Ponyville, she learned to appreciate the simpler things rather than expecting luxury, not that she was rich before.

“So, you’re heading out to Fillydelphia?” Twilight asked curiously while waiting for her meal to arrive. The two were sitting at an outdoor table enjoying the view of the city. Although Canterlot was a lot more crowded than Ponyville, it still had a certain beauty to it.

“Yep... well, the countryside outside of Fillydelphia to be precise.” Tom clarified while thinking back to the details of his mission. The added detail only peaked Twilight’s curiosity even further.

“What’s going on over there?” The purple mare asked in an intrigued tone.

“According to the reports that have come in, some ponies have heard some kind of animal howling in the direction of a nearby forest, and some animals have turned up dead with claw and bite marks all over them… I’m thinking it’s a werewolf.” Tom explained in an almost casual tone. It never ceased to amaze the unicorn how much he forgot about the bizarre nature of his line of work.

“A werewolf…? Seriously?” Twilight asked in a surprised tone. “Like… full moon and everything?” She added curiously. She was surprised to hear herself asking about such a silly concept, but then she remembered that she was talking to a time traveling monster slayer with supernatural abilities.

“Well, not all werewolves operate on the whole full moon thing. There are differences sometimes between the same species of monsters.” Tom elaborated, though he was unsure of whether or not his explanation was satisfactory to the lavender pony.

“I’m not sure if I should be fascinated or confused every time I talk with you.” Twilight admitted with a slight chuckle.

“I do like to keep people guessing.” Tom said while smirking cheerfully. Twilight shared a lighthearted giggle with the human.

Suddenly, a stallion in a spiffy bowtie walked up to the pair carrying plates on his head and on his back. He carefully lifted the plate from his back onto the table and gently pushed it closer to Twilight. The plate held a simple sandwich filled with flowers. The waiter took the plate from his head and placed it in front of Tom. The human’s plate held a salad with as many normal ingredients as the boy could find on the menu.

“Your meals.” The stallion said with a slight bow before walking away.

“Thank you.” Twilight offered a passing statement of gratitude before turning her attention to her food and rubbing her hooves together eagerly.

While the purple mare picked up her sandwich and took a bite out of it, she glanced over to the human as he picked up a fork to enjoy his salad. She couldn’t help but wonder at how well he had adjusted to Equestrian cuisine.

“So… have you gotten used to our food yet?” Twilight asked curiously.

“It’s not so much the getting used to your food that is the problem. It’s getting used to what food you don’t have that’s been bugging me.” Tom grumbled with slight annoyance while poking at his salad with his utensil.

“Oh yeah, I read that humans were omnivores. It must be hard to not have any meat… unless by chance you were vegetarian?” Twilight asked with a slight twinge of hope in her voice. The boy rolling his eyes at the mention of vegetarianism told her that she was dead wrong.

“Good lord no… I actually hate salad by itself… I have to drown it in dressing to even tolerate it, but it beats anything with hay in it… or a flower sandwich.” Tom said while watching the unicorn taking a bite out of her sandwich with mild disgust. She looked down at her meal and chuckled awkwardly before setting it down.

“Well, I’m sure that we can find something you like.” Twilight suggested optimistically.

“Thank god you guys have cheese… I think I would go insane otherwise.” Tom said while haphazardly pouring a small container of blue cheese dressing over the entirety of his salad. Twilight was suddenly intrigued by the boy’s statement.

“I’ve actually been meaning to ask you about that. What religion did you follow when you were alive? I’ve been reading through some books on the subject, and I’m not sure which one is the primary religion humans follow… There are so many of them! I read one about this guy that walked on water, and another about this other guy who reached enlightenment through meditation, and-” Twilight started naming off all of the knowledge she had learned on human religion until she was interrupted by Tom.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa… hold on there Twilight. I wouldn’t delve too deeply into the subject of religion if I were you. Humans believed in a lot of things, and it can be a bit overwhelming for someone who isn’t… adjusted to human norms.” The boy explained in a cautionary tone. Twilight chuckled slightly at the notion that she couldn’t handle learning about something.

“I’m sure it will be fine. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?” The purple mare said in a confident tone.

“Pssh… just wait till you hit Scientology.” Tom muttered to himself, but apparently, he spoke loud enough for the unicorn to hear him slightly.

“What was that about science? Ooo I bet a religion based off of science must be really intriguing!” Twilight said in an excited tone. The human couldn’t find it in him to burst her bubble.

“Yeah… sure…” Tom added with an awkward smile while tugging at the collar of his shirt.

The two spent the whole afternoon talking to each other and walking around Canterlot. Tom accompanied the unicorn as she browsed through a few bookstores, went to a museum, and even went sight-seeing. All the while they were smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves.

As a nearby clock chimed, Tom shrugged as he realized that it was almost time for him to go. He looked over to Twilight, who was still smiling brightly, and sighed sadly. As soon as she noticed the downcast expression on the boy’s face, she frowned in realization.

“Time to go?” Twilight asked in a disappointed tone. He nodded slowly in response.

“Yeah… looks that way.” Tom stated while looking down sadly.

“I really enjoyed seeing you again.” Twilight managed to smile slightly to lighten the mood.

“Me too… but don’t worry, I should be back home in a few days… heck, all of us should be. I hear Glimmer Shine and the others are in Fillydelphia too working a case, so we might be done around the same time.” Tom explained in an intrigued tone.

“Wow, that’s an interesting coincidence.” Twilight said with an amazed expression.

“Yeah, maybe now I’ll get to test out that communication spell Glitterball put on me. She says that it should have synced me up to them, but I haven’t had the chance to try it yet.” Tom added with an eager expression. He then shrugged as he got up from his seated position.

“Well, I should probably get going. Come on, I’ll walk you back to the palace.” The human offered while extending his hand to help the unicorn off the ground. Twilight nodded before taking the boy’s hand and lifting herself up. She then followed the human through the streets of Canterlot on their way to where they would have to inevitably separate.

Chapter 2: A day in the Life

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Another day came and went in Fillydelphia. Another normal day filled with normal everyday things. Most ponies would never believe that a small group of seemingly average looking ponies passing by them on the street would have such a strange career, but that was exactly the case for Glimmer Shine and his two teammates.

There were three members of the Supernatural and Paranormal Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Intervention Team; A strong-willed and an equally strong hearted earth pony, a laid back and curious unicorn, and a boisterous and daring pegasus. All three of them seemed like they wouldn’t even know each other, much less work with each other. Just the same, they had one of the most important jobs in Equestria.

Whenever a pony would complain about a supernatural problem, be it a monster or an odd occurrence, they would report it in and Princess Luna would send in Glimmer Shine and the others to deal with the problem. They had been all over Equestria since they went into official duty after Raven Feather’s defeat. Despite their diminished numbers, they completed every job with speed and efficiency. At least, that is what they liked to think.

“So what do we have here?” Sunspot asked while walking alongside her two partners through the city streets. She didn’t like to bore herself with the details of every case, so she usually just left it up to either Glimmer Shine or Glitterball to brief her.

“Apparently there is a haunted house on the outskirts of town. Ponies have claimed to see one particular apparition multiple times in the past few months.” Glimmer Shine explained their mission as best he could remember. Upon hearing the subject of the mission, Sunspot’s face paled and she looked down for a moment.

Memories of what happened at the ancient mansion that Raven Feather and her cult of followers used as a base came flooding back to her. She had lost three very dear friends to her, one of whom was Glimmer Shine’s own brother, so she wondered why they were handling a case involving ghosts so soon.

“I know you’re not too pleased with the aspect of dealing with a ghost again. Believe me… neither am I, but someone has to take care of this stuff, and we’re the only ones in the business other than Tom.” Glimmer Shine said in a sympathetic tone as he observed the distressed pegasus.

“Just warn me ahead of time if we’re going to be handling ghosts…” Sunspot grumbled angrily.

“Maybe I would if you would pay attention during the briefing.” Glimmer Shine said with a slight glare at the lazy mare. Sunspot returned the annoyed glare before returning her attention ahead.

“Speaking of Tom, isn’t he supposed to be in Fillydelphia too?” Glitterball asked curiously, moving past the issue the others were having and turning her thoughts to their human friend.

“Yeah… I think he is outside of town handling a case. He should be here by now if memory serves.” Glimmer Shine explained with a hint of intrigue in his voice. He hadn’t seen the human much since they both started handling jobs around Equestria, so it was interesting to finally be in the same town as the boy.

“Hey, why don’t we see if we can reach him? You did remember to sync him up with our communication spell the last time we met up didn’t you Glitter?” Sunspot asked curiously while glancing at the unicorn.

“Yes, but I’m not sure if it will work. I did tweak the range a little bit, but Fillydelphia is a big place.” Glitterball replied while doing a mental comparison of where they were to where the human was supposed to be.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Sunspot said while putting a hoof up to her ear. As she concentrated on the human, her ear and hoof were enveloped in a blue magical aura. “Tom, are you there? Can you hear me?” Sunspot asked curiously. Glimmer Shine and Glitterball placed their own hooves up to their ears to see if they could join the conversation if the human responded.

“Sunspot…? Is that you?” The familiar voice of their human friend rang out in their ears. Sunspot smiled excitedly as her experiment worked.

“Hey! It actually worked!” The pegasus cheered happily.

“I would hope so… I didn’t volunteer to have Glitter poke me with her horn for ten minutes straight just for nothing to happen.” Tom replied in a lighthearted tone.

“Well, there was a fifty-fifty shot of success I suppose.” Glitterball chimed in with a nervous chuckle.

“So anyway, what are you up to Tom? We heard that you would be in town, but nobody told us what you were doing here.” Sunspot asked in an intrigued tone.

“Oh, nothing much… I’m just outside of town dealing with a werewolf.” The human replied casually as if it weren’t that big of a deal. The three ponies were equal parts surprised and confused at the boy’s mission.

“A werewolf?” Glitterball asked to clarify.

“Seriously?” Glimmer Shine added in a tone of slight disbelief.

“Like… full moon and everything?” Sunspot raised an eyebrow while pondering the possibility of a werewolf being real.

“Why is that such a hard thing to believe?” Tom asked in a surprised tone. He at least expected the team of monster hunters to not be shocked at the existence of a werewolf.

“Well… while you’re hunting down wolfman, we’re clearing out a haunted house.” Sunspot said to inform the human of what they were doing.

“Really…?” Tom asked uneasily. He wasn’t sure if taking on a ghost was a healthy thing for the three ponies to do considering what the last ghosts they ran into did.

“Yeah, apparently there’s this mare in white that appears once a month for one night only. We wouldn’t be taking something like this if there wasn’t a chance that the legend might be true and she does only appear once a month.” Glimmer Shine explained with a troubled tone.

“Most legends are based on at least a single truth… but if it is true, you better get down there now. I may be in the middle of a forest, but even I can tell that the sun is setting.” Tom said with a slight tone of urgency. The ponies looked at the sky and noticed that the sun was indeed on its way past the horizon.

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there now. I talked with the owners of the house earlier, and they gave us the entire place for the night.” Glimmer Shine said in a reassuring manner.

“Well, good luck guys,” Tom said with a hint of friendly concern in his voice.

“You too Tom… We’ll call you in the morning.” Sunspot said before dropping her hoof to the ground to end the call. Glimmer Shine and Glitterball did the same before turning their attention ahead. As soon as they did, the yellow stallion noticed the same building from the picture he had been given coming into view.

“There’s the place.” Glimmer announced to his two teammates while observing the sprawling property. They were in the more upper-class section of Fillydelphia, so mansions and high-end estates weren’t uncommon, but it was still impressive to behold.

The house itself wasn’t nearly as big as the last haunted mansion they visited, but it still seemed much too large for just a young couple to live at. There was a lush hedge that went around the property, complete with archways to serve as gates. The hedge was only on the outskirts of the property, except for the large hedge maze that was to the right of the house itself. There were also several lavish decorations scattered around the front yard, most notably of which was a large fountain with a unicorn statue on top standing on one leg with water spouting out of its horn.

“Wow… these guys must be loaded.” Sunspot stated in an amazed tone while admiring the sight of the property.

“They are… which is why they asked the princess to send us here personally.” Glimmer Shine said while turning to his two companions.

“Well, we should probably get inside and settle in. We need to find this ghost and take care of it as soon as possible.” Glitterball suggested while pointing to the moon rising into the sky. Glimmer Shine and Sunspot nodded before continuing forward on their way to the mansion.

Meanwhile, out in the countryside outside of Fillydelphia, Tom was already starting his investigation. He was walking through the forest where the animal noises had been reported. The forest wasn’t nearly as boggy or unruly looking as the Everfree was, but it was still plenty creepy looking in the moonlight.

There were branches blowing in the wind, adding a constant rustling to the already ever-present ambiance of insects and frogs croaking. Occasionally, an owl or another nocturnal creature would make its presence known with a slight noise. Despite all of these noises and sights that would make any pony shiver with fright, there was something that even unnerved the human slightly.

It was hard to tell in the dark, but there was a slight tint of red strewn along the grass and on the bottom of one of the trees. This, along with a few claw marks on the trees, gave the impression that some horrible beast had been through the area.

“Looks like somebody has been hungry,” Tom said while placing his hand on one of the spots wet with blood. Judging from the temperature and the amount that was still wet, this particular spray was probably from the previous night. Maybe an animal had been killed, and the creature had taken the body with it further into the forest.

“Let’s see what we have here.” The human took in a deep breath and centered himself. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment before exhaling a puff of blue mist out of his mouth. As the myriad of senses and feelings rushed over him, he started to map out the area around him to look for energy signatures.

As he let out another burst of his senses, he began to feel trace amounts of energy from an evil creature directly in front of him. This was most likely the traces left behind during the beast’s last kill. He could also feel a stronger energy signature somewhere deep inside of the forest. A distant eerie howl cemented his suspicions. Whatever monster he had been sent to hunt was indeed making its home in the forest.

“Alright… looks like I’m going on a wolf hunt.” Tom shrugged and glanced down to a small holster he was carrying on a belt around his hips. “And me without a rifle… I guess this will have to do.” He said while taking a small dagger out of the holster. The silver blade gleamed in the moonlight, eliciting a small smirk from the slayer as he put it back in its original place and patted it with a sense of assurance. Without further delay, Tom stepped into the forest and began his search for the elusive beast.

As he continued walking further and further through the thicket of trees, the human continued using his senses to try to confirm his suspicions on the identity of the creature he was hunting. All the while, he kept following the trail of blood along the ground. It seemed like the further he got into the forest, the larger the splatters of blood along the ground were.

“What are you…?” Tom muttered while trying to make sense of the faint reading he was getting. “Ok… definitely a werewolf. And I’m not feeling anything too special about you… so I’m guessing you are just a run of the mill wolf.” He added with a small smile. It felt good for the slayer to be able to understand his foe. It made him feel more confident in his ability to kill whatever he was up against if he knew about it beforehand.

Suddenly, the thicket of trees opened up slightly. Tom looked up from the blood trail to see where he was going, only to pause in surprise when he noticed a gruesome scene before him. The blood trail kept getting bigger and bigger until it reached its source. There was a small clearing with a tranquil pond in the middle of it. Strewn around the pond, were the ravaged bodies of several dead animals.

Among the bodies, Tom could identify a deer, and at least two rabbits, though it was hard to tell which segment belonged to which animal. All of the bodies were ripped apart, with dried blood almost completely covering them. Along with blood, the animals were covered from top to bottom in claw and bite marks.

“Yikes… it’s a good thing Fluttershy isn’t here. She would probably freak out if she saw this hot mess.” Tom said while gagging slightly over the smell of decay. He didn’t even want to think about how the timid pegasus would react to seeing such a horrific scene. She hated to see animals getting mildly hurt, so this would probably give her a mild stroke.

Against his better judgment, the human took in a deep breath and used his senses again. The only way he could willingly use his senses was to exhale, and that proved to be difficult when his only source of air was contaminated by an odor so thick that he could taste it.

“Here we go,” Tom said in a cheerful tone as he picked up the monster’s scent so to speak. He could sense a definite reading that felt like a supernatural monster, and assuming that there wasn’t more than one bloodthirsty monster in the forest with him, that was most likely his prey.

“*Whistle* Here wolfy, wolfy…” The human spoke loudly in an attempt at coaxing out the monster. He walked around the pond and continued on his path through the forest on his way to the source of the energy he was feeling.

“Here wolfy… I got a nice shiny stick for you. Come on out and get it.” He whistled once more in a playful manner.

Elsewhere, back in Fillydelphia. The moon had climbed far into the sky, and the ghost hunt was well underway. The members of team S.P.I.R.I.T had split up and scattered across the house to search it more effectively. Glitterball was out in the hedge maze, Glimmer Shine was in the basement, while Sunspot had opted to take the first and second floors of the mansion.

The suited pegasus crept through the upper floor. She clutched a small chain and carried it with her. If her previous experiences with ghosts had taught her anything, it was that iron was really effective at hurting them.

The only sounds that could be heard were the quiet clatter of her own hooves against the carpeted floor and the chain beside her. With the lights off and the looming threat of a ghost lurking in the halls, the lavish mansion was much creepier than it looked on the outside.

Moonlight streamed in through each window she passed, making the atmosphere even eerier. Despite her creepy surroundings, Sunspot was steady and confident in her abilities. She still felt fear, but she kept it inside so as to not let it affect her actions.

“Sunspot, Glitterball, check in.” Glimmer Shine’s voice rang out in the pegasus’s ears, making her jump slightly. She put a hoof up to her ear and calmed her nerves before answering.

“I’m here,” Sunspot announced.

“I’m here too.” Glitterball’s voice chimed in. Sunspot was relieved to hear that her teammates hadn’t been brutally murdered in the time that they were away from her.

“Any sign of our mare in white?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously. Sunspot leaned around the corner she was up against and looked down the next hallway just to be safe. As she expected, the only sign of movement was some curtains blowing in the breeze further down the dark hall.

“*Sigh* Nothing up here… Any luck down in the hedge maze, Glitter?” Sunspot asked curiously while glancing towards the window next to her.

“I’m afraid not. I’ll keep looking.” Glitterball replied in a disheartened tone.

“Remember girls, only use your strobes if you’re in danger. We only have one shot at this, and the ghost might not come back tonight if we disrupt it with an energy blast to the face.” Glimmer Shine instructed as a reminder.

“Heh… if I have my way, I won’t need my strobe.” Sunspot said with a chuckle while gripping the chain in her hooves tightly.

“Sunspot… Remember what I said about taking the ghost on alone?” Glimmer Shine asked in a suspicious tone.

“Uhh… something about making it look as cool as possible?” Sunspot said with an awkward smile, even though her teammate couldn’t see it.

“Just be sure to call us before you do anything stupid.” Glimmer Shine replied with an annoyed groan.

“Yeah, yeah… don’t get your horseshoes bent out of shape.” Sunspot waved off the stallion’s advice. Although he dropped the call, she could tell that he was probably unimpressed with her words.

Taking a look down at the many vials dangling off of her Wonderbolts uniform, Sunspot shrugged and grabbed her detector to get a look at it. As she expected, the liquid in the vial was only faintly glowing as it had been since she arrived at the mansion. The reading offered little more than the knowledge that a ghost was present, but she already knew that. The pegasus didn’t want confirmation that there was something supernatural nearby, she wanted to know where it was.

“Ugh… I wish I had Tom’s senses right about now.” Sunspot muttered in frustration. “Hey now… there’s an idea. Maybe a little advice from our resident slayer could tell me how to find this pest.” She said with a pleased expression at her own idea.

The orange mare put her hoof up to her ear and concentrated for a moment on the human. Once she was certain that the connection had been made, she took in a breath to speak.

“Tom, are you there?” Sunspot asked in a hopeful tone. She suddenly heard a frightful yelp, followed by rapid breathing.

“Sweet mother of mercy, Sunspot!” Tom spoke up in a startled tone. He was very upset that the pegasus had spoken up so suddenly.

“Sorry… I didn’t think I would scare you.” Sunspot said with an awkward grimace.

“I wasn’t expecting you to call until morning, I’m in the middle of a forest at night, and I’m hunting a bloodthirsty werewolf. Of course you would scare me!” The human yelled before taking a moment to calm himself down. “Now then… what is it?” He asked in a composed tone, though there was still a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“I was just calling to ask for some advice on finding this ghost. We’ve been at this for most of the night and we haven’t found anything.” Sunspot explained in a pleading manner.

“Well… judging from what you guys said, if this ghost only appears once a month, she must be a creature of habit. Try searching the areas where ponies have reported seeing her.” Tom suggested in a confident tone.

“Of course… why didn’t I think of that?” Sunspot chuckled to herself with a cheerful smirk.

“Out of curiosity… what are you guys going to do once you find this ghost?” The human asked with an intrigued inflection in his voice. He was curious to find out what the team’s plan was for dealing with the spirit.

“According to the legend, the mare in white can’t leave the property grounds. We’re going to capture her with iron chains, and then we’re going to forcibly pull her over the property line.” The pegasus explained while glancing down to the chain at her feet.

“That might actually work. Most ghosts can’t leave the area they haunt, so that is probably the best option you have to disrupt her spirit without digging up her body and burning it.” Tom said in an impressed tone.

“We thought of that already, and we couldn’t find out who she was, much less where she was buried. This will do just fine as a replacement plan.” Sunspot explained.

“Just be careful when you do find the thing Sunspot. Ghosts can be aggressive when they’re cornered... even the more passive looking ones.” The human said with a cautionary tone.

“I think we can handle it.” Sunspot replied with a pleased smile. Suddenly, a low growl sounded out and bled through the call. The sound caught the pegasus off guard, even though she was certain that it wasn’t coming from her end.

“Tom… what’s that noise?” Sunspot asked with a concerned tone.

“Uhh… I need to go. Good luck with that ghost Sunspot… I-” Tom was suddenly interrupted by the growl erupting into a loud snarl. Sunspot heard the human exclaim in surprise before he dropped the call.

Sunspot was worried about the boy, but she figured that he could handle himself. At any rate, there wasn’t anything she could do to assist him. Deciding to return to her own mission, she got up from the floor and prepared to continue searching.

Suddenly, the pegasus felt one of the vials on her suit vibrating. She looked down and noticed that her detector was glowing a solid color rather than a faint one. Sunspot feverishly grabbed the vial and brought it closer to her face. She gasped in surprise as she noticed that the liquid inside was glowing in the direction behind her.

Hearing a rustling sound coming from the hallway around the corner, Sunspot crouched low to the ground and slunk back to the wall. She felt a sudden decrease in temperature, adding to her already tense nerves.

Slowly, she moved her head around the corner to peek into the next hall. As soon as she could see what lay down the hallway, she froze. There it was, in all of its stark glowing white glory. There was a pale white mare with flowing gray hair standing and looking out of one of the windows.

The strange pony was completely see-through, with a soft white aura shining around her. She was looking out into the yard with a gloomy expression and haunting blue eyes. If Sunspot wasn’t already expecting her, she would have been scared stiff.

“Oh man… oh man!” The orange mare muttered in a quiet panic. She wasn’t sure if she was more excited or nervous, although she was probably both.

“Glimmer Shine, Glitterball…!” Sunspot frantically put her hoof up to her ear and whispered in an eager tone for her teammates to hear her.

“Sunspot…? What’s wrong?” Glitterball asked in a concerned tone.

“I see it! It’s right in front of me!” Sunspot explained while trying her best to keep her voice quiet.

“What?!” Glimmer Shine spoke up in a surprised tone.

“Are you serious?!” Glitterball asked with shock clear in her voice.

“I am serious as a heart attack right now! I’m up on the second floor and I see her. She really is white and everything!” Sunspot said while peeking her head around the corner to see if the spirit was still there. Thankfully, the white mare hadn’t moved and was still staring out the window.

“Ok… Sunspot, wait right there. We’re coming up to you.” Glimmer Shine instructed in a calm voice.

“Wait here…? Are you kidding?! She will disappear by the time you two get up here!” Sunspot stated in an upset tone.

“You can’t handle her by yourself Sunspot. Wait until me and Glitter get there!” Glimmer Shine raised his voice in a desperate attempt at getting the pegasus to listen to him.

“Hay with this.” Sunspot shrugged in frustration while dropping her hoof.

“Sunspot!” Glimmer Shine tried to argue the point to the orange mare, but her mind was already made up. Sunspot stood up and clutched the chain in her hooves with confidence.

“Alright you ethereal featherbrain, let’s rock.” Sunspot said with a small smirk while glancing around the corner. The pegasus suddenly thought about how she would actually capture the spirit. She was relatively far away, and she could very well disappear before she could get close enough to wrap the chain around her. Suddenly, as she looked down at the chain, she got an idea.

“Heh… now then, how would Applejack do this?” She asked herself while thinking about how to go about performing her plan. She reached down and tied the end of the chain in a knot, forming a loop.

With a confident smirk, Sunspot stepped around the corner and started twirling the chain above her head like a lasso. It was slightly heavier than rope, but it would work just fine assuming she could throw it hard enough.

“Hey! Are you the mare in white?” She asked while stepping forward with a determined expression. The ghost turned her head and looked down the hall curiously at the pegasus.

“If you are, then I have something for you!” Sunspot yelled fiercely while throwing the chain at the ghost as hard as she could. The loop flew at the spirit and landed around her shoulders. The mare let out a yell of pain as her body burned from being in contact with the iron chain.

Sunspot grabbed the chain and held it as tightly as she could as the ghost writhed in her grasp. The constant screaming was hurting her ears, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting the spirit downstairs.

“Alright, let’s just head downstairs and… hey!” Sunspot exclaimed in surprise as the ghost tugged hard on the chain. She had to pull with all of her strength just to stay still. The orange mare had expected a fight, but this spirit was displaying more strength than she thought possible from such a non-threatening looking ghost.

“Stop pulling on me! You aren’t going anywhere, so just give u- WOAH!” She yelped in shock as she felt the ghost pulling her off balance. Not only did the mare start dragging the chain down the hallway with her, but she started pulling the pegasus along with her too.

Sunspot felt the chain pulling taut around her back leg. In all of the commotion, she had gotten her leg tangled up in the chain. She didn’t even have time to react before she was pulled from her feet and started sliding down the hallway on her back.

“Ahhh!” The orange mare yelled fearfully as she tried to find something to grab onto to slow herself. The ghost of the white mare kept running down the hallway towards the far window.

As the spirit approached the window, she jumped and went straight through it. Due to the solid chain being around her neck, the window shattered as she glided through it and out into the night. Sunspot saw the approaching window and widened her eyes in shock.

“AHH!” The pegasus screamed in terror as she was forcibly dragged through the window. She tried to spread her wings and fly, but the chain was dragging her down. The ghost kept floating away, taking her along for the ride.

After a few moments of trying to stay in the air, Sunspot grew tired from fatigue and dropped like a rock. She closed her eyes and prepared for her demise until she was suddenly stopped short. The pegasus felt a violent tug on her leg, causing her to stop in midair. She looked up to see that part of the chain had caught on the windowsill.

Taking a frantic look around her upside down surroundings for the mare in white, the orange pony quickly realized that she was nowhere to be seen. The loop she had made at the end of the chain was laying on the ground beneath her.

“Ughh… I almost had her!” She groaned in despair while covering her face with her hooves. She couldn’t believe that she had made such a big mistake and that Glimmer Shine was actually right for once. She could practically hear the stallion chewing her out already.

“How’s the weather up there?” Suddenly, Sunspot heard the familiar voice of the stallion speaking up to her. She almost thought it was in her head until she looked down to see her two teammates looking up at her with varying amounts of relief and annoyance on their faces.

Sunspot crossed her forelegs and pouted angrily. She could tell that the stallion was getting a little too much enjoyment out of seeing her getting her karmic retribution. Although she knew that he was probably just as happy to see her unharmed, she didn’t view him as her friend right now, she viewed him as the person that just won an argument that she completely ignored.

“Shut up… I don’t want to talk about it.” The pegasus grumbled while staring straight ahead to avoid looking at the pair.

“You know… this wouldn’t have happened if you would have just listened to me.” Glimmer Shine said with a slight smirk.

“Hmph.” Sunspot mumbled under her breath, although the annoyance in her voice was clear.

“What did she say? I didn’t catch that…” Glitterball asked curiously while glancing to the yellow stallion beside her.

“She wants me to shut up… I don’t need to understand her to know that.” Glimmer Shine replied with a slight chuckle.

True to her word, Sunspot only made small noises to communicate her disapproval. She was starting to get lightheaded from all of the blood rushing to her head, but she still pouted as hard as she could while staring ahead with a stoic and ticked off expression.

“I think we need to have a talk about your listening skills Sunspot. I’m just trying to help you out… we are on the same team after all.” Glimmer Shine said in a sincere tone while trying to bury the hatchet with the pegasus.

“Hmph...” Sunspot grumbled again.

“Was that one shut up as well?” Glitterball asked curiously while trying to make sense of the odd form of communication the suited mare was using.

“Oh, definitely.” Glimmer Shine replied with a confident tone. “Look Sunspot… I know you messed up, and I’m pretty sure you know that you messed up.” The stallion said while pointing out the orange mare’s predicament. She was still softly swinging back and forth in the breeze while being kept suspended just below the window.

“But I am willing to put this behind us if you just say three words… say I was right, and we can all move past this.” Glimmer Shine offered with a smug smirk.

“Grr…” Sunspot growled under her breath at the notion of admitting defeat. She wasn’t denying that she messed up, she knew that full well. But to admit it out loud would be to concede defeat, and that was unacceptable.

“Let me guess… you want me to shut up, and you want us to come up there and pull you up?” Glimmer Shine asked in a confident tone.

“*Sigh*…” Sunspot sighed silently before nodding her head. She would still be upset at the stallion, but she was starting to feel sick from staring at an upside down world for so long.

“Let’s go get her, Glitter.” Glimmer Shine said to the unicorn with a small smile. Glitterball nodded and followed the yellow pony as he walked towards the front door to the mansion.

Meanwhile, while the three ponies were licking their wounds from a humbling defeat, Tom was running for his life through a dimly lit forest. Ever since he had been pounced by the vicious creature that interrupted his call with Sunspot, he had been running to prevent it from getting the upper hand.

“Ok, I admit… I look kind of tasty, but you do not want to eat me! I will give you the worst case of indigestion that you have ever had!” The human yelled behind him while running forward. He could barely hear himself over the snarls and growls coming from the monster. He hadn’t seen much more than a furry blur of motion when he was attacked, but he was confident in his assumption that it was indeed a werewolf.

Due to his senses, he could feel every move the creature made as it bounded between the trees to chase after him. While this definitely gave him more incentive to run, it was also terrifying at the same time.

Spotting a low tree branch in front of him, the boy jumped as high as he could and grabbed onto it. He used his forward momentum to flip up onto the branch and quickly jumped backwards. As he expected, he flew over the furry beast and landed behind it. While the creature was turning around to find him, he was already recovering from his tumble and positioning himself to attack.

With one smooth motion, Tom pulled out the silver dagger on his belt and readied it. He charged forward and ducked to the side to avoid any strike the beast might throw so he could stab it clean through the chest.

“Ow!” He yelled in pain as he felt the monster’s clawed hand swiping the dagger out of his own hand. While he reeled from the strike, he watched the dagger fly off into the distance before disappearing into the forest.

“Ok… that is just rude!” The boy exclaimed angrily while staring at the furry monster. The creature looked like a giant wolf, although it had more human-like hands and was capable of standing up on two legs. Thankfully, Tom figured that this werewolf was not a pony that had been bitten and transformed into a monster, but rather it was just an average werewolf.

As the beast snarled at the human, it swiped its claws at him again. Tom jumped backwards and kept a sizable gap between him and his adversary. He clenched his injured hand as blood trickled onto the ground from it. He cringed slightly as he used his healing powers to make the wound vanish in a vibrant display of flames and ashes.

“Ok… my sword probably won’t make much of a dent in this guy, and my silver dagger is… elsewhere.” Tom shrugged while thinking about his options. “I guess I’ll have to use old tried and true.” He smirked slightly before dropping his arms to his side.

The werewolf growled and snorted angrily as fire sprang from the human’s fingertips. As the flames traveled into the air and vanished, the metallic claws that he was gifted after becoming a slayer were left behind. The boy lifted his hands up and readied himself into a defensive stance while brandishing his spirit weapons.

“Ok, Fido… it’s time for you to play dead.” Tom said while sizing up the monster in front of him and preparing for him to strike.

Suddenly, the werewolf bolted forward on all fours and rushed at the human’s legs with his vicious looking teeth bared. His speed was daunting, but the human didn’t flinch. Tom leaped into the air and stepped on the monster’s back as he passed him. The creature snarled angrily and turned around to snap at the boy, but he was already on his way past him.

Tom spun around in the air and slid to a halt as he landed while facing the monster. The werewolf swiped at him with its large arm, but he was wise to the attack. The human ducked and weaved to the side to let the swipe pass him, once it did, he made a swipe of his own at the monster’s side.

The werewolf howled in pain as the blades sliced through his side with ease. Blood sprayed from his wound, but he was un-phased by this. The beast reached downwards in an attempt at grabbing the human, but he was too quick. Tom ducked around the side and slashed across the monster’s back.

The anger filled burst of adrenaline caused by its injuries gave the creature a small boost in speed and aggression. The beast whipped around sideways with its arm and smacked the human into the air. The boy flew into a nearby tree and groaned in pain as he collided with it.

Tom looked up to find the creature, only to see a furry blur traveling towards him rapidly. Before he could react, the werewolf slammed into him and went straight for his face. Tom shoved his hands into the beast’s shoulders to halt its advance. He was barely able to keep the monster from biting his face off.

As the werewolf wrestled him from the tree onto the forest floor, Tom kicked at him with his free legs. The creature paid no attention to the human’s attack and instead continued pushing down on him. Tom cringed in pain as the beast raked its claws across his cheek. The wound wasn’t deep, but he could feel blood trickling down his face.

Finally, the monster reared up and prepared to slam its weight down on the human. Tom realized that he wouldn’t be able to strong-arm such an assault. He closed his eyes and shoved his hand out with his fingers pointed upwards in the hopes of stabbing the beast.

He heard the monster yelping in pain as his claws impacted its body. The creature’s weight drove the claws through its chest as it fell. Tom felt the monster’s dead weight coming down on him as the beast expired.

“Woo… that was exhilarating.” He said with a small victorious smirk. He then groaned from exertion as he tried to get the monster off of him. His claws were stuck inside of the beast’s chest, and even if he made them vanish to free his hand, his arm was pinned. With only one arm in a viable pushing position, the human heaved as he tried moving the werewolf off of him. After a few moments of barely getting the beast to move, he quickly realized that he would have a hard time of lifting it up enough to slide out from underneath it.

“Great… I guess it’s a good thing there was only one monster in these woods… I hope.” Tom shrugged as he rested until his next attempt at moving the creature. It would definitely be a long night for the slayer if he couldn’t lift the beast.

Chapter 3: Reunion

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As Celestia’s sun climbed into the mid-morning sky, all the denizens of Ponyville were waking up and preparing themselves for another bright day. Twilight Sparkle yawned and stretched her arms tiredly as she stirred from her sleep. She felt well rested and alert, despite the hard day of work she had put in the day before. Taking a glance to the side, she noticed a book lying open beside her. She must have fallen asleep while reading and forgot to put the book away before dozing off.

Hearing a soft yawn beneath her, Twilight looked over the side of her loft and noticed that Spike was waking up too. “Morning, Spike.” The unicorn called down to him. Upon noticing that his friend was awake, Spike looked up and managed a small smile despite his tired exterior.

“Morning, Twilight…” Spike yawned lazily while rubbing his eyes to better acquaint them to the daylight streaming into the room. “Ugh… don’t tell me you fell asleep while reading again. You do know that those books will still be here if you slow down the pace right?” The dragon asked while glancing up at the unicorn as she lifted the book off of herself.

Twilight glanced to the book and cringed in embarrassment. She quickly put the book behind her and made an awkward smile in an attempt to brush off the matter, but clearly, her assistant wasn’t buying it. “I guess I must have dozed off without realizing it… oh well. I just can’t help myself, Spike, these books are so interesting! You know humans were just as into poetry and stories as we are?” She asked with an eager smile.

Spike shrugged in response to the unicorn’s giddy excitement. She had been this way ever since she got her hooves on the large collection of human books. She was so enthralled by what she read that she often took several of the books to bed with her. Thankfully reading was a silent pastime, so the unicorn didn’t keep the dragon up with her late night reading sessions.

“I’m sure that’s all fine and dandy Twilight, but don’t you think that you should get out some more? Maybe get a little exercise? I’m sure that sitting indoors and reading all day can’t be good for the muscles… and between you and me, I think the others are starting to talk about how flabby you’re getting.” Spike said in a quiet whisper as if he were divulging a well-kept secret.

“I’m just going to pretend that you didn’t say that…” Twilight muttered while eyeing the dragon with a raised eyebrow. “Anyway… I don’t think that the others are talking about how flabby I’m getting… which I’m not… getting flabby I mean.” The unicorn said while looking down and sucking in her gut self-consciously.

“Yeah… how would they know? You barely leave the library anymore.” Spike said while rolling his eyes at the reclusive unicorn.

Twilight furrowed her brow in annoyance. The dragon’s comments were starting to get on her nerves. “Alright… you know what? I’m going to go around town and see the others… and you’re coming with me.” The purple mare said in a stern tone. She smiled slightly as she saw the dragon’s shocked reaction.

“What?! Now… hold on a minute Twilight. You aren’t that flabby, so you don’t need to go out of the library today. How about I go grab you one of those books? I think I saw one about sciencetology… or something like that.” Spike offered with a nervous smile. He clearly didn’t want to be going around town this early in the day.

Twilight started to say something until she thought about the dragon’s words for a moment. She wasn’t sure if she was more upset at him for indirectly calling her flabby again, or for trying to weasel his way out of accompanying her.

“Sorry Spike, but it’s like you said. I don’t go out often enough anymore… and besides, I need to let the girls know that Tom and the others will be in town for a few weeks.” The unicorn explained in a smug tone. The dragon seemed to be excited to shift to the topic of the human returning to Ponyville.

“I can’t believe that the princess gave him a week off! When was he supposed to get here again?” Spike asked curiously.

“Well… he probably arrived in Fillydelphia yesterday, and I imagine that it wouldn’t take him longer than a day to get the mission done.” Twilight pondered out loud as she estimated when the human would return. “Actually, he might make it here tonight if he caught the train.” She perked up with excitement as she came to the realization.

“That’s great news. Maybe we could get the others together and throw them a welcome back party.” Spike suggested eagerly.

“I’m not sure if we could get a decent party put together by tonight.” Twilight said with a doubtful expression.

Spike chuckled slightly. “Clearly you underestimate the force of nature that is Pinkie Pie.” He retorted.

Twilight smirked as she thought about her pink friend. “Maybe you’re right… I suppose we could go see if Pinkie wants to set up a party.” She said while hopping out of bed and walking down the stairs to the waiting dragon.

“Since when does Pinkie not want to set up a party? You could walk up to her on the street with no reason at all and ask her for a party, and you can bet your bottom bit that she would jump at the chance.” Spike stated with a confident expression.

“Yeah, that is true. I’m sure Pinkie can come up with something to give Tom and the others a proper welcome back to Ponyville.” Twilight said eagerly while opening the bedroom door and walking out.

Spike started to follow her until he got a bright idea. He slowly and quietly walked over to his bed and climbed back in. “Heh… you can’t make me come with you if you forget about me.” He said while a small smirk while cozying up and laying his head on his hands to take a nap. Suddenly, he heard a magical hum and felt his body getting lifted off the ground. “Hey what the- WOAH!” He yelped in surprise as he was whisked out of his bed and floated over to the door where a very annoyed looking unicorn was waiting. Twilight hovered the dragon in front of her face so she could properly glare at him.

“So uh… I suppose you still want me to go with you? Heh…” Spike chuckled nervously while trying to avoid the piercing stare of the purple mare. Twilight shrugged before placing the dragon on her back and turning to walk back down the stairs. Spike groaned in protest while resting his chin on his hand with an annoyed expression.

After a brief walk through town, Twilight and her reluctant travel companion arrived at Sugarcube Corner. Just walking into the festive building and catching a whiff of the many treats inside immediately made her think about her energetic pink friend. It was like everywhere Pinkie went, she irradiated fun and happiness. Twilight had no doubt in her mind that the party pony was the right place to go for a party on such short notice.

“What?! What do you mean you can’t throw a party on such short notice?!” Twilight asked in a shocked tone while staring at the pink mare with a stunned expression. Pinkie was busy frantically rolling out dough and throwing ingredients together in various mixing bowls in the shop’s kitchen while Mr. and Mrs. Cake were running the front counter.

“Sorry Twilight… normally I would jump at the chance to throw a party, especially for a friend, but I have my hooves full here.” Pinkie said while feverishly rolling out a blob of dough until it was flat. With how hard she was working, Twilight thought she was going to bust a gasket.

“I thought you usually did this stuff really fast so you had the rest of the day off?” Twilight shrugged in disappointment.

“I do! But today we need to work extra hard! We just got an order in to cater a huge party in Canterlot, and we need to prepare everything by tomorrow. I think I’ll be back here rolling dough for most of the day!” Pinkie exclaimed while working up a sweat. Despite how fast she was moving, she didn’t appear to be making a dent in whatever large amount of sweets she was making.

“*Sigh*… do you at least think you will be free later tonight so you can come see Tom and the others when they get here?” Twilight asked with a pleading expression. She wanted to make everything perfect for the human’s return to Ponyville, and one of the most important things was making sure that all of his friends were there to see him.

“Yeah, I think so. Sorry Twilight, I wish I could do more to help you out… maybe you could make the party with the others? I’m sure that if they help out, you should be able to put together something nice by tonight. I might even be able to sneak you a few cupcakes or something.” Pinkie suggested in a quiet whisper while glancing around suspiciously as if she were divulging a well-kept secret.

“That sounds great Pinkie… I’m sure that the others will want to help out.” Twilight said with a small smile. She would have to make compromises, but she was sure that she could pull off a decent party with her planning skills.

After waving goodbye to Pinkie and the Cakes, Twilight and Spike exited the store and walked back through the streets of Ponyville to their next stop, Carousel Boutique. The pair knew that Rarity would be pleased to hear that her human friend was coming back to town.

“Sorry, darling… I don’t think that I will be able to help you today.” Rarity shrugged in disappointment while running a piece of fabric through a sewing machine.

“What…? But… but… why?” Twilight asked in a dumbfounded tone.

“I’m afraid that I will be occupied until later tonight with a large order of dresses that came in yesterday. I may be able to come with you to the train station later, but I don’t think I can help you plan a party for Tom and the others.” Rarity explained with a troubled expression.

“What’s that about Tom and the others?” Sweetie Belle asked curiously from behind the group. Everyone looked over to see the young unicorn trotting up to them with an eager expression.

“Tom and Glimmer Shine’s team will be coming to Ponyville for a week. They should get here tonight if nothing happens.” Twilight explained.

Once she heard that the human and the team of monster hunters would be returning, Sweetie Belle gasped in excitement. “You mean Tom and the others are coming here tonight?! Yaaay!” The filly cheered while hopping up and down eagerly. “You should throw a party for them!” Sweetie Belle suggested with a wide grin.

“Well… we’re trying, Sweetie Belle, but nobody seems to be able to help us so far.” Twilight admitted while shrugging in annoyance.

“Maybe we could help you? I’m sure Scootaloo and Applebloom would love trying out a party themed cutie mark. Cutie Mark Crusaders, party planners!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed loudly. Even though her two fellow crusaders weren’t with her, her outburst was loud enough to make the others cringe uncomfortably.

“Umm… I think we’ll pass on that one Sweetie Belle. Maybe you and the girls can try that another day.” Twilight suggested while trying not to disappoint the young unicorn. Surprisingly, Sweetie Belle was un-phased thanks to her high level of excitement.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we can pencil that in at the next meeting. For now, I need to go tell Scootaloo about this!” The filly exclaimed eagerly before rushing out of the door. Before anyone could even react, she was out of earshot.

Rarity sighed before returning her attention to the purple unicorn. She could tell that her friend was upset that she couldn’t help out. “Sorry again Twilight… I’ll be sure to come find you once I’m done with these dresses.” The white mare said with an apologetic expression.

“Don’t worry about it Rarity. I’m sure that the others can help me out… it might be harder with fewer people, but I think I can manage.” Twilight said with a hopeful tone. Rarity smiled slightly as the pair waved goodbye and exited the boutique with a bright outlook.

Now that two of her friends were unable to help her, Twilight was starting to get desperate. She had to hope that nobody else had important matters to attend to. Deciding to ask Applejack next, the unicorn made her way to Sweet Apple Acres.

As she walked through the apple orchards in search of her friend, she glanced over to her side and noticed the orange mare pulling a cart of apples along with her little sister Applebloom. Every so often, she would park the cart in front of a tree and buck it until more apples fell into the cart. Applebloom was carrying a spare bucket, most likely to be used when the cart got too full.

“Hey Applejack!” Twilight called out to the farm pony while trotting to catch up with her. Applejack turned to watch the unicorn walking up to her and smiled warmly.

“Howdy Twilight, howdy Spike.” Applejack greeted before returning to her task. “What brings you around these parts?” She asked curiously.

“I have some good news to share with you, and I was hoping you could help me out with something.” Twilight explained with a hopeful expression.

Applejack shrugged before glancing around her at the numerous trees full of apples. “Sorry Twilight, but I can’t do much of anything until I get these apples harvested. We’re a little behind on apple buckin’, so I need to catch up.” The orange mare explained with a tired expression. She already looked like she had done a full day’s worth of work, even though it was in the afternoon.

“That’s… inconvenient.” Twilight muttered sadly.

“Now, what was that good news you were talkin’ about?” Applejack asked curiously.

“Tom is coming to Ponyville for a few weeks, along with Glimmer Shine and the others. They should be here by tonight.” Spike chimed in eagerly. Applejack and Applebloom immediately perked up upon hearing the news.

“Really? Tom and the others are comin’ back to Ponyville?” Applebloom asked with a growing smile.

“That’s wonderful Twilight! You should go ask Pinkie to throw them a party!” Applejack suggested cheerfully.

Twilight shrugged in frustration at the orange mare’s idea. “I already tried that… she is just as busy as you are. I was hoping that you guys could help me out to put something together, but apparently, that isn’t going to work out.” The unicorn said in a defeated tone.

“Cheer up sugarcube… I’m sure that Tom could care less if you throw him a party or not. All he needs is to be with his friends… I might not be able to help you out right now, but I should be free to come see them later on tonight with you.” Applejack said in a reassuring manner.

“I want to come too!” Applebloom chimed in with a pleading tone.

“You can come, Applebloom, but first we need to get as many apples as we can off’a these trees.” Applejack replied to the young filly.

“I guess we’ll get out of your mane…” Twilight sighed before turning and walking away gloomily. Applejack and her sister felt bad for the unicorn. She had a bad habit of getting worked up over the smallest things.

“Twilight… don’t you think you’re taking this a little too hard? Maybe you should just accept that we won’t be able to throw a party tonight… I’m sure that we can just throw one another night. They are going to be here for a couple of weeks after all.” Spike said while taking note of the stressful tension in the purple mare’s body. She was practically clenching her teeth from how frustrated she was.

“No… we need to throw one tonight! I want this to be perfect… Tom deserves a good welcome back home after spending so long out there fighting monsters… and so do Glimmer Shine and the others.” Twilight stated in a passionate manner.

“Yeah… I agree, but we don’t have enough people to put together a party.” Spike reminded in a pessimistic tone.

“Well, hopefully we can change that. Rainbow Dash is the fastest flyer in Equestria… I think she can handle setting up a party in no time flat.” Twilight said with a confident expression.

“Maybe, if you can find her.” Spike said while glancing up into the sky.

“She should be around here somewhere…” Twilight said while squinting her eyes and looking around. Her cyan friend usually lounged around on a wayward cloud when she wasn’t hanging out with one of them, but the sky was seemingly crowded with places to look for her. In fact, there seemed to be a lot more clouds than usual in the sky. “Hey… wasn’t it supposed to be clear today?” The unicorn muttered curiously while observing the cloudy sky.

“Look! There she is!” Spike announced while pointing up in the sky.

Twilight looked up and noticed the cyan pegasus flying overhead. “Rainbow Dash!” She yelled to get her friend’s attention. Rainbow Dash looked down and smiled as she noticed the pair. Twilight and Spike watched as the pegasus did a loop in the air before landing in front of them.

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” The cyan mare asked cheerfully.

“Hey Rainbow… we need your help with a party we’re throwing for-” Twilight started to explain until she was interrupted by Rainbow Dash speaking up.

“Whoa, whoa… hold on a second Twilight. I would love to stay and chat, but I’m kind of busy here. There was a mishap over at the weather station, and now there is a load of clouds floating around where they shouldn’t be.” The pegasus explained while pointing up at the sky.

“What?! Are you serious?!” Twilight asked with a shocked expression.

“Yeah, sorry… I’m probably going to be clearing the skies all day. Now, what was it that you needed?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously.

Twilight could feel her eye twitching in frustration. Four of her best friends were all too busy to help her. Now all she had to work with was Fluttershy, and that was assuming she agreed and her schedule wasn’t as full as everyone else’s was.

“Ughh… well… Tom and the others are coming to town tonight. I was going to throw a party for them, but everyone is busy. You were kind of my last hope.” The unicorn shrugged in annoyance.

“Hold up… Tom and the others?! They’re coming here… tonight?!” Rainbow Dash asked with an excited smile.

“Yeah, they should be… either tonight or tomorrow… depending on if they catch the train.” Twilight explained.

“Holy cow! I am definitely going to see them first thing when they get here… I need to clear the sky now if I’m going to get done in time!” The cyan mare exclaimed before spreading her wings and flying into the air. “Good luck with that party thing! I’ll see you later!” Rainbow Dash waved in the air before zipping through a line of clouds and out of sight.

“Bye… I guess.” Twilight muttered while staring ahead at the spot where the pegasus was just a few moments ago.

“So much for your backup plan…” Spike said in a droll tone. Twilight growled in frustration before rushing off in the direction of Fluttershy’s cottage. The young dragon barely had time enough to hold on before the unicorn raced off.

“Whoa! Twilight, slow down!” Spike pleaded as he tried his best to remain on the purple pony’s back.

Twilight paid no heed to his instructions and instead sped up a little bit. “I am not about to just roll over and admit defeat! I said I would throw them a party, and by all that is good and sacred, I am going to throw them a party!” She exclaimed furiously.

“You can’t do everything by yourself! And Fluttershy is the only option you have left!” Spike said in an attempt at getting the unicorn to come down to earth. Suddenly, Twilight skidded to a halt. The young dragon yelped in surprise as he was almost sent flying forwards.

Twilight took in a deep breath before returning her calm disposition. Despite her clarity, Spike could still tell that she was on the verge of a psychotic break. Her eye would still twitch uncontrollably every once in a while, and she was almost a little too giddy with excitement. “I know that Spike… and you, Fluttershy, and I are all we need to throw a party. I can’t wait to see the look on everyone’s faces when I manage to throw the best party in Ponyville history with just three people!” The unicorn said with a determined tone in her voice.

“Well, time’s a wasting… we don’t have that long to put this… whatever it is together.” Spike said while looking up at the sun as it moved across the sky.

“Which is exactly why we need to get to Fluttershy as fast as equinely possible!” Twilight announced while preparing to speed off towards the yellow mare’s house once again.

“Wait a minute! I didn’t mean to- AHH!” Spike yelled as the unicorn took off like a speeding bullet. She was running so fast that she would have given Rainbow Dash a run for her money.

After a quick run, probably quicker than Spike would have liked, the pair arrived at Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight looked around at the various animals scurrying to and fro around the property. She smiled slightly as her plan was coming to fruition. If the yellow mare could handle taking care of so many animals, then there was no reason to doubt that she could help put together a party. Or at least, the connection made sense to Twilight.

Taking a quick stroll up to the front door of the cottage, the unicorn softly knocked and waited for her friend to answer. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting that was probably mere seconds in real time, Fluttershy opened the door and smiled upon seeing her friends.

“Hi, guys… what are you doing here?” The pegasus asked curiously while glancing between the two. Twilight was oddly almost as cheerful looking as Pinkie Pie, while Spike was clinging to the unicorn’s back with a pale expression.

“Hey Fluttershy, you’ll never guess who’s coming to Ponyville for a week!” Twilight said in an excited tone.

“Umm… is it the Wonderbolts? I think I saw Rainbow Dash flying through here just recently with an excited look on her face.” Fluttershy said while looking up into the now clear sky. Apparently, the cyan mare had become motivated enough to double time her clearing of all the clouds.

Twilight somehow managed to smile wider, probably hurting her face in the process. “No, it’s even better! Tom and the others are coming here on a break! They should be here tonight!” She exclaimed cheerfully.

“Tom and the others…? That’s wonderful!” Fluttershy smiled warmly as she thought about her monster hunting friend. She had been through a lot with each of them. Tom had saved her and her best friends numerous times, even going so far as to bring Twilight back from the dead. And as much as she didn’t want to think about it, she felt a close bond with Glimmer Shine and his teammates as well ever since their time in Raven Feather’s mansion.

“Yeah, I know! See, me and Spike here were going to throw a party for them, but everyone else is preoccupied with other things. We were hoping that maybe you could-” Twilight started to ask the pegasus for help when she suddenly groaned uncomfortably and averted her eyes.

“Umm… Twilight, I would love to help you throw a party for them, but you see… umm… I’m kind of-” Fluttershy could barely even form her next sentence before Twilight exploded into her face.

“BUSY?! Oohoho no! You are not telling me that you are busy, are you?!” The unicorn demanded in a frantic tone while getting right into the yellow mare’s face and glaring at her. Fluttershy recoiled into her house a short ways, but Twilight followed her, all the while managing to never break distance or eye contact.

“Umm… w-well… I-I mean… I…” Fluttershy stammered nervously as she tried to think of something to say. She could barely stand the purple mare staring at her so intensely. If she didn’t know any better, the pegasus would have figured that her friend had somehow learned how to do the infamous stare.

“Just tell her you aren’t busy Fluttershy! Maybe she will go away!” Spike suggested in a frantic attempt at helping the yellow pony.

“But… I don’t want to lie! Please don’t be mad at me Twilight! I was just going to go get more food for the animals!” Fluttershy admitted before closing her eyes and cowering to the floor. She covered her head and waited for the unicorn to explode with anger.

Twilight’s eye twitched even more so than usual. She gritted her teeth and growled under her breath. Spike could feel the unicorn trembling with anger and frustration. The dragon turned away and covered his ears in preparation.

Suddenly, all of the anger left the unicorn. Twilight stopped shaking angrily and instead hung her head in defeat while letting out a drawn out sigh. “That’s fine…” She muttered in a calm yet saddened tone. Fluttershy and Spike looked up in surprise.

“What?!” Spike exclaimed in shock.

“It is…?” Fluttershy squeaked timidly.

“Yeah… I guess I can’t control everyone’s schedule. I’ll just have to admit that I can’t throw a party for them tonight…” The unicorn explained with a gloomy expression while turning around to leave.

“I’m really sorry I can’t help Twilight…” Fluttershy said in a sympathetic tone while watching her friend leave. “If it makes you feel better, I should be back in time to-” She was suddenly interrupted by the purple mare turning around and speaking.

“Don’t… just… don’t. I have heard that four times already today… just be sure to drop by the library later so we can go see them tonight.” Twilight shrugged before returning her attention forward and sadly walking out of the cottage. Fluttershy couldn’t help but feel bad for the unicorn. She must have been through a long day to feel this upset.

-Later that evening-

Not that many ponies took the late night train to Ponyville. By the time the last station rolled around, most of the passengers had departed. The train was so empty in fact that Glimmer Shine and his team had their train car all to themselves. Well, mostly all to themselves.

Glimmer Shine sat across from Glitterball, while Sunspot sat across from them on the opposite aisle. The suited pegasus was still a little annoyed at her teammates from last night, so she decided to sit near them, without actually sitting near them.

Sitting in the seat in front of Sunspot, was their human friend Tom. The slayer had apparently gotten done with his job around the same time the team of ponies did, so they managed to get on the train at the same time as him.

The group had much to talk about with the boy. After all, they hadn’t seen him in a long time. But even with the high interest the ponies had with the human, their conversation topics had run dry two stops ago.

Sunspot tapped her foot against the armrest at the end of her seat as she lay across it. She was laying on her forelegs while staring up at the ceiling in utter boredom. The steady sound of the train chugging along was the only thing breaking the silence in the car, and even that had become annoying a while back.

The orange mare glanced up to see what her teammates were doing on the opposite row. As she expected, they were still sitting quietly and doing the same thing they were doing the last time she checked. Glimmer Shine was leaning back into his seat with his eyes closed, while Glitterball was just looking around pensively.

“Ughh… I am so boooooored.” Sunspot droned in an exaggerated tone while thumping her head back against the cushion. She would give anything for some sort of stimulation. She almost missed the days when everywhere she went there would be a surprise attack from the hooded ponies waiting for her. Now, whenever she went on a boring train ride that lasted for hours, she really was just going on a boring train ride that lasted for hours.

“I don’t want to hear anything from you about boredom… I spent like an hour and a half last night trying to get a dead werewolf off of me in the cold silence of a forest… with a tree behind me. Do you know how comfortable the bark of a tree is? Let me answer that for you… not very.” Tom shrugged in annoyance at the pegasus’s statement.

“Well excuse me, nature boy… did it ever occur to you that we could have come to get you? You could have called us at any time.” Sunspot explained in a snarky tone.

“I…” Tom started to speak up in protest until he paused mid-sentence at the sudden realization. “Don’t talk to me right now Sunspot…” He muttered in an irritated tone while ignoring the orange mare’s smirk of victory.

“Wow Sunspot… you’re just getting on everyone’s nerves lately aren’t you?” Glimmer Shine spoke up from across the aisle while still keeping his eyes closed.

“Shut it Glimmer… we’ve been over this enough times.” Sunspot muttered while glaring in the general direction of the stallion.

Glimmer Shine smirked as he felt the pegasus’s icy stare beaming into the side of his head. “And I’m sure we’ll be over it a few more times… that is if the owners of the house will let us come back in a month after what happened to that window.” He said with a shrug.

“I can’t wait to finally get off this train and get away from you people for five seconds… Maybe the girls will let me have a conversation with them without bickering with each other.” Glitterball groaned uncomfortably.

“If it makes you feel better, I could have a conversation with you without bickering.” Tom offered in a helpful tone.

“I appreciate the offer, Tom… but I think I just need a break from these two.” Glitterball smirked slightly at the human before returning her gaze out of the nearby window. Although she usually didn’t get involved in her teammates’ arguing, the unicorn did get tired of listening to it. At the end of the day, she just wanted the two to settle on who was giving orders so she could follow them and get the job done.

“Hey… we’re not all that bad.” Sunspot said in a surprised tone. “Well… I don’t know about Glimmer Shine over there, but I’m not all that bad. I try to make our kerfuffles as small and civilized as possible, but it’s kind of hard… I mean just look at what I have to work with.” She stated with a playful smirk while glancing over to Glimmer Shine.

Glimmer Shine stared back at her with an expression of disbelief plastered on his face. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.” He muttered in annoyance.

“Technically you just did.” Sunspot replied in a smart-alecky tone.

“Oh boy…” Tom and Glitterball groaned in unison while shaking their heads uncomfortably. They only hoped that they would arrive in Ponyville as soon as possible.

Twilight and the others waited patiently at the train station for their friends to arrive. All six element bearers, along with Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were scattered around the various benches of the relatively empty station. Only a few worker ponies manning the station were present, so the group only had each other to occupy themselves with.

“I can’t believe that Tom is going to be back here for a few weeks.” Rarity stated in an amazed tone.

“Yeah, it seems like just yesterday that we met him.” Rainbow Dash added while thinking back to the day where everything in her life got turned upside down. It had only been a simple trip to Zecora’s hut when they departed for the Everfree Forest that day, but it turned out to be the beginning of a very harrowing and dangerous journey.

“I just wish that he didn’t have to travel around and fight monsters… he barely even knows his way around Ponyville, so I can only imagine how lost he must feel in the rest of Equestria.” Fluttershy said in a worried tone.

“Someone has to fight all of the monsters that have been poppin’ up Fluttershy… besides, he volunteered for the job. Right, Twilight?” Applejack asked for confirmation while glancing over to the purple unicorn.

Twilight’s mind seemed to be elsewhere, but she looked up upon hearing her name called. “Well… he certainly agreed to go along, but it was the princess’s idea to ask him.” The unicorn explained while staring down the train tracks in anticipation. She wondered how much better this welcome party would have been if it were an actual party.

“At least she was nice enough to give them some time off. Oooh, we’re going to have so much fun!” Pinkie Pie giggled in anticipation of all of the activities she had planned to make the group’s small vacation even better.

Suddenly, the ponies could hear the far off rumble of a distant train. They looked down the tracks and spotted the passenger train they had been waiting for all night. The anticipation was rising as the group watched the train pull into the station.

After a short wait, the ponies saw movement at one of the doors to the train. The door popped open, and Glimmer Shine and his two teammates walked out, closely followed by Tom. The four were surprised to see everyone walking up to them and surrounding them.

“Hey, guys!” Sunspot exclaimed cheerfully while glancing around at the small crowd of friendly faces. Glimmer Shine, Glitterball, and Tom quickly joined the pegasus in greeting their friends.

Twilight and the others were surprised to be suddenly pulled into a group hug by Pinkie Pie. The pink mare was so eager to greet the four that she decided to just hug all of them at once. After a few moments, the group settled down and gave the others some room to breathe.

“Wow, I didn’t expect to see all of you here this late.” Tom said while glancing up at the night sky. Upon mention of how late it was, Spike yawned, causing several of the others to yawn in response.

“I guess it is a bit late… but we all wanted to see you guys when you got here.” Twilight stated with a warm smile.

“Sorry guys, but we have had a long day. Maybe we could get together tomorrow and do something?” Glimmer Shine suggested tiredly.

“Yeah… I think I’m going to fall asleep standing up at this rate.” Sunspot added while stretching her limbs.

“Aww…” Scootaloo and her two fellow crusaders whined in disappointment. “But we just got here!” The orange filly protested.

“Now, now girls… It is way past your bedtimes… as a matter of fact, it is way past my bedtime as well.” Rarity admitted with a slight yawn.

“I agree… we should all be gettin’ home. Besides, Tom and the others need a good night’s sleep after their long trip to get here.” Applejack added while looking to the three fillies sympathetically.

“Ok…” The fillies said in reluctant acceptance.

“Well, it was nice seeing you guys. See you all later.” Glimmer Shine said while waving to the group. Glitterball and Sunspot waved as well before following the stallion.

Everyone walked back through town and went their separate ways. Before long, Twilight only had Spike and Tom to keep her company. It felt good to be walking home with her human friend again. The unicorn missed having him around.

After a few minutes, the three found themselves back at the library. Tom looked at the building and smirked slightly before following the purple mare inside.

Twilight smiled while turning to the human. “Welcome home, Tom.”

“Feels good to be back.” Tom stated while stretching his arms.

Taking a quick glance behind her, Twilight realized that Spike had fallen asleep on her back. She smiled softly before slowly making her way up the stairs to the bedroom. “We have the guest bed made up already. I think I’m going to just head to sleep.” She explained to the human in a tired tone.

“Yeah… I think I will too. We can figure out something to do tomorrow.” Tom replied.

With a nod of agreement, Twilight yawned before opening the bedroom door and stepping inside. She levitated Spike into his bed and pulled the covers over his body. Once the dragon was nestled away in his bed, the unicorn walked up the steps to the loft and quickly hopped in her own bed. Tom climbed into the bed set up in the corner of the room and immediately settled in. The pair scarcely had time to say goodnight before they drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 4: The Job Offer of a Lifetime

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As the morning sun shone down onto her face, Twilight shifted in her sleep. Finally, her body gave up on remaining dormant and she opened her eyes. After a few moments of adjusting her eyes and getting the sleepy feeling out of her system, the unicorn sat up and stretched before looking around the room.

As expected, Spike was still sleeping peacefully in his bed down below. However, the bed off in the corner of the room was empty. Scratching her head for a moment, the purple mare figured that the human must have already gotten up.

Deciding to let Spike sleep a little longer, Twilight carefully got out of bed and walked down the steps to the bedroom door. After quietly exiting the room, the unicorn walked down the stairs to the main room of the library. She immediately noticed Tom sitting at a table with a book in his hands.

“Wow… you’re up early.” Twilight said in an amazed tone.

“I usually am.” Tom replied while glancing over to the purple mare and setting the book down.

“Oh yeah, I forgot that you don’t need as much sleep as the rest of us.” Twilight nodded as she remembered the odd sleeping patterns the human had. She then turned her attention to the book that the boy was reading. “What are you reading there?” She leaned in closer with a curious expression.

“Oh, this?” Tom said while picking the book up and showing it to the unicorn. “This is an old classic I used to read when I was a kid. I saw it in your pile of books over there, so I picked it up. Unless you have a time machine lying around somewhere, I assume this is from the mansion?” He asked while looking over to the pile of books on a nearby table. The pile was so large that there were a few stacks placed on the floor.

“Yeah… the princess let me catalog all of the books from the mansion. I’m sending them to the palace as I finish them.” Twilight explained while chuckling nervously at the absurdly large pile of books.

“Good lord Twilight… I hope you don’t intend on reading all of them. There were a lot of books in that library.” Tom said while thinking back to his brief time in the mansion.

“Well, I probably shouldn’t say all of them. As much as Spike and the others think I’ve been reading too much, I did send most of the collection to the palace right away. Anything I couldn’t fit on that table had to go… I can’t exactly store hundreds of books in this place now can I?” Twilight said while looking around at the shelves that held the normal books of the library. Most of the shelves were already full, so they couldn’t hold the large collection of human books from the mansion.

“Anything that couldn’t fit on that table eh?” Tom raised an eyebrow while looking at the stacks that were placed on the ground next to the table. “I guess you were a bit lenient with that definition.” He chuckled slightly.

Twilight chuckled nervously and looked down at the floor with an awkward expression. She clearly remembered overshooting the limits of the table and still picking more books to keep.

As they heard the sound of the bedroom door opening upstairs, the two looked up to see Spike descending the stairs slowly. The young dragon yawned and scratched his chin as he sleepily continued on his way. Once he got to the bottom step, he finally turned and addressed the pair in the main room.

“Hey, guys… morning.” Spike mumbled in a drowsy tone. He could barely open his eyes any more than half way.

“Morning Spike.” Twilight said with a passing smile while looking at the sleepy dragon. She always found it amusing to watch her assistant trying to keep himself steady and walk around after just waking up.

“So… what are we doing today?” Spike asked curiously while turning his attention to the pair.

Twilight paused for a moment and hummed curiously as she thought about what she could do that day. There weren’t any important matters to attend to, so she pretty much had free reign with what she wanted to do. “Hmm… I’m not sure.” She stated while deep in thought. “I guess we could go do something with the others.” She finally suggested the best thing she could come up with. Now that the unicorn actually had the freedom of choice, she wasn’t sure what to do.

“That sounds good to me… anything that doesn’t involve fighting monsters is cool with me.” Tom said with a relieved smile.

A sudden knock at the door shifted the group’s attention forward to the door. Twilight glanced at her two friends curiously. She wasn’t expecting anybody, and she had no idea who would want to see her this early in the day.

“Who could that be?” The purple mare said pensively while walking up to the door. She grabbed the handle and pulled the door open to greet her new visitor.

Standing outside, was a familiar blue alicorn. Princess Luna smiled at the unicorn as she opened the door. Twilight was surprised to see the princess of the night in Ponyville. She wondered what she could have been doing.

“Princess Luna…? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Hello, Twilight. My sister and I had something we wanted to talk to all of you about, so I came here to tell you in person.” Luna explained while glancing behind her to a small tote bag she had on her back.

“Oh, ok then. Please, come inside.” Twilight said while opening the door and beckoning the princess inside. Princess Luna followed the unicorn into the library and closed the door behind her. Once Spike and Tom saw who the strange visitor was, they smiled and walked up to the alicorn to greet her along with the purple mare.

“Hello, Princess.” Spike said cheerfully.

“Hello Spike, hello Tom.” Luna said while smiling at the two. She watched as Twilight walked up to her two friends and turned to see what she had to say with an intrigued expression.

“So, what did you have to talk to us about?” The unicorn asked curiously.

“Well… my sister and I have a job for Tom and the others to do.” The blue alicorn explained with a hidden smile. Twilight and Spike glanced over to the human sadly. The disappointment on their faces was clear as day.

“A job…?” Twilight asked while trying to hide her sadness. Tom didn’t seem to be any more pleased by the news.

“Don’t worry… I think that you will like this one.” Luna said with a brief smile while using her horn to open the bag on her back. The princess lifted a small piece of paper up and levitated it over to the purple mare.

Twilight used her own magic to grab the paper and leveled it to her eyes. The paper appeared to be a flyer advertising some sort of water park and resort. As she read the name of the park, she was surprised to see that she recognized it.

“Fun Land…? Hey, wait a minute… I think I’ve been there before.” The unicorn stated in a surprised tone.

“Really? Let me see that.” Spike said while reaching up and taking the flyer out of the purple mare’s grasp. He read over the flyer curiously to ascertain the general idea of the park. “Hmm… says here it’s a water park and resort… Fun Land huh? That’s an odd name for a water park.” The dragon stated with an intrigued tone as he read off the large text at the bottom of the flyer.

“Yeah… I used to go there when I was a filly. It used to be a regular theme park a long time ago if I remember correctly…” Twilight muttered while looking down in thought.

“That is right. The park closed down many years ago after an earthquake destroyed much of the property. It reopened years later as a smaller water-themed resort, which is probably where you know it from.” Luna explained while glancing to the unicorn.

“What does all of this have to do with a job?” Tom asked curiously. Twilight and Spike joined the human in looking at the blue alicorn with puzzled expressions. They all wanted to know where the princess was going with this.

“Well… the park closed down a second time a while back. It has remained closed, up until recently. The daughter of the previous owner is trying to start the family business back up, but there have been some complications to opening the park back up.” Luna explained while looking between the three curious listeners.

“Complications…?” Spike asked curiously.

“Let me guess… complications of the supernatural variety.” Tom said with a confident smirk. He had a feeling that the alicorn wouldn’t just send him to take care of a run of the mill problem.

“Precisely… however, this is where it gets interesting. The park has been experiencing some low-level paranormal events… things like cold spots, disembodied whispers, feelings of being watched, and other such things.” Luna continued.

“Hmm… sounds like a simple cut and dry ghost haunting. That shouldn’t take much effort to take care of.” Tom stated with an intrigued tone.

“That is exactly what we thought. We were going to just let Glimmer Shine and the others take care of it in a few weeks, but then the owner made an offer that we thought you would like.” The princess said with a warm smile. “The park doesn’t have very much money, and they need all the resources they can get to work on the park before it opens, so they can’t pay you in bits. However, they have agreed to give you and anyone you decide to bring along an all-expenses-paid stay at the resort for one week if you take care of their problem.” She explained in an excited tone. The alicorn smirked as she saw Twilight gasp in surprise and look around at her two friends eagerly.

“So you’re saying that we could go stay a week at a water park, and we can bring the others?” Twilight asked to clarify what she just heard. Luna smiled and nodded in response, eliciting the unicorn’s already bright smile to grow tenfold.

“Woohoo! That sounds amazing!” Spike cheered happily while thinking of all the fun he could have at a water park with his friends.

“Judging from your reactions, I would assume that you’re ok with this, but I feel like I need to ask Tom to clarify if he wants to do this. I know how much you didn’t want to be doing any more jobs for a while… so how about it?” Luna asked in a playful manner while glancing over to the human.

“You know what? I think I can make an exception this one time. Sign us up!” Tom replied eagerly.

“Splendid! I will arrange for your transportation. You should go ask the others if they want to go with you. Come find me when you’re all ready to go.” Luna said before turning and walking to the door. She turned and waved to the three before opening the door and heading outside.

Now that the princess had left, the trio could let out their excitement properly. Twilight and Spike cheered happily, while Tom simply smiled in excitement.

“We should go tell the others about this right away!” Twilight exclaimed eagerly.

“You guys can go do that. I’m gonna go pack!” Spike stated with equal eagerness before scampering upstairs. Twilight and Tom glanced at the dragon rushing away before chuckling slightly and looking to each other.

“Well… I guess we are going to do something with the others after all.” Tom stated lightheartedly while walking to the door with the unicorn. Twilight smirked and nodded before opening the door and stepping outside.

Without delay, the pair went around town to find their friends and tell them about the momentous news. Stopping by Sweet Apple Acres first, Twilight and her human companion walked through the apple orchards in search of their orange friend. Finding no sign of the cow pony out in the orchards, the pair decided to check by the farm house. Sure enough, as they got closer they could see Applejack and her brother talking over by the barn.

Once they noticed the pair approaching them, Applejack and Big Mac turned and smiled at their visitors. The red stallion seemed especially happy to see the human walking alongside Twilight. He hadn’t seen Tom ever since he left Ponyville several months ago.

“Hey, guys.” Twilight greeted as she walked up to the siblings.

“Howdy Twilight. What are you two doing here so early?” Applejack asked curiously while observing the pair.

“We just got a visit from Princess Luna, and she has some great news for us.” Twilight replied eagerly.

Applejack could tell that the unicorn was enjoying leading her on a little more than she should have. “Really? Well, don’t just clam up on us now, tell me what the news is!” The orange mare replied anxiously.

“Well, you see-“ Twilight started another vague explanation until she was interrupted by Tom speaking up in her place.

“The princess offered us to come stay at a water park and resort for a week if we deal with a small paranormal problem they have while we’re there. She said that we could bring you guys along… if you want to go that is.” The human explained, much to the dismay of the unicorn beside him. Twilight pouted slightly in disappointment at the boy ruining her fun.

“That sounds great!” Applejack exclaimed excitedly. Suddenly, her excitement shifted to disappointment as she frowned and looked at the ground sadly. “Well… that would be great and all, but I’m afraid I can’t go with you guys.” The orange mare shrugged uncomfortably, much to the surprise of Twilight and Tom.

“What?! But… why not?” The unicorn asked in a disappointed tone.

“I would love to go… don’t get me wrong, but there is so much work to do around here.” Applejack explained sadly while motioning around her. “We still need to harvest apples, we need to fix a leak in the roof, and we need t-” The orange mare started listing off all of the chores she had to do around the farm until she was nudged by Big Mac.

“*Ahem*” The stallion cleared his throat while looking at his sister sternly.

Applejack was confused as to why he interrupted her. “What’s wrong Big Mac?” The orange mare asked curiously.

“You’ve been working yourself ragged around here Applejack. You need to take a break, and when opportunity comes a knockin’, you should answer it.” Big Mac explained while glancing back to the unicorn and the human.

Applejack shrugged as she felt the strain of fatigue on her body. She had been working extra hard to get things done around the farm, but she didn’t want to shirk her duties. Still, it was hard to argue her point with bloodshot eyes and strained muscles. “But… what about all of the chores? The orange mare asked curiously. Even if she did need a break, there were things that still needed to get done around the farm.

“I think I can handle things around here myself for one week while you and Applebloom have some fun.” Big Mac offered with a small smirk.

“Really? Are you sure we shouldn’t bring you and granny along?” Applejack asked while glancing towards the house.

“I don’t mind… And do you really think Granny Smith is the type to go to a water park?” Big Mac replied knowingly.

Applejack glanced over to Twilight and Tom as she thought about the matter further. The sight of her friends smiling back at her only made her feel happier and more willing to go with them. She felt a warm smile building on her face as she considered the prospect of spending a week with her friends at a water resort.

“Are you sure?” The orange mare asked courteously while glancing to her brother again.

“Eeyup.” Big Mac replied stoically.

Applejack turned to the unicorn and the human again and smiled in excitement. “Well, then it’s settled!” She cheered happily. Twilight and Tom shared in the farm pony’s excitement, although the human couldn’t match the enthusiasm and energy of the two mares as they celebrated. “I’m gonna go tell Applebloom. She’s up in the clubhouse with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. You want to come with me?” Applejack asked while motioning with her head for the pair to follow her.

“Sure, we can ask Scootaloo if she wants to go with us… and I’m sure Sweetie Belle wants to come too, but that’s Rarity’s decision to make.” Twilight stated while thinking back to how busy the white unicorn was yesterday. She hoped that she would be able to come along.

“I’m sure she will agree to come with us… if not, we can just tie her down and carry her with us.” Applejack suggested with a slight smirk. Twilight wasn’t entirely sure if the orange mare was joking or not.

Without any further delay, Twilight and Tom followed the farm pony around to the back of the house. The group kept walking for a while until they spotted the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse up ahead. The three fillies used a small treehouse as their base of operations. It let them play and hypothesize their next attempt at getting their cutie marks, while also keeping them far enough away from the house to not disturb the Apple family.

As they drew closer to the clubhouse, the group could hear the three fillies chatting and playing from above. It was a few weeks into their summer vacation, so they usually spent their downtime together at the clubhouse.

“I don’t know Scootaloo… didn’t we already try that?” The muffled voice of Sweetie Belle could be heard as the trio gathered underneath the clubhouse.

“Yeah, I guess we did… oh! Maybe we could try pogo sticks!” Scootaloo suggested eagerly.

“We tried that last week…” Applebloom shrugged in a bored tone.

“Girls, could you come down here for a minute?” Applejack spoke up.

“Ok, we’re coming!” The three fillies replied in unison. The group waited anxiously while watching the ladder of the treehouse for any signs of movement.

Soon enough, Scootaloo started climbing down the ladder, followed by her two friends. Once the fillies got on solid ground and gathered in a line, they brightened up once they noticed Twilight and Tom standing beside Applejack.

“Hey, guys! Did you come to see us?” Applebloom asked curiously while smiling warmly at the human.

“Sort of… we’ve actually got something to tell you.” Tom said while glancing to the orange mare.

“Really? What is it?!” Scootaloo chimed in excitedly.

“Twilight and the others are headin’ to a water park for a week, and they’ve asked us to come with them. Big Mac volunteered to handle things around here, so we’re free to go.” Applejack explained with a wide smile while glancing to Applebloom.

“*Gasp* that sounds amazing!” The yellow filly cheered in excitement.

“Ooh, can I go too?” Scootaloo asked in a pleading tone.

“You certainly can Scootaloo.” Twilight said with a slight smile as she watched the young pegasus explode with excitement.

“Yes!” Scootaloo cheered happily while bouncing up and down.

“What about me? Can I come too?” Sweetie Belle asked with a hopeful expression.

“We will have to ask Rarity if she wants to come, but as long as she is alright with it, you all can come with us.” Twilight explained.

“Ooo! I need to go ask my sister! I think she is over by Sugar Cube Corner.” Sweetie Belle said while preparing to dart off eagerly.

“Don’t worry Sweetie Belle. We’ll go ask her for you. We’re heading down that way anyway to see if Pinkie Pie wants to come.” Twilight said while stepping in front of the young unicorn before she rushed off.

“You mean to tell her about it so she can come… I may have only known her for a few months, but since when has Pinkie Pie ever turned down something as potentially fun as a water park?” Tom asked with a slight chuckle. Twilight and the others giggled at the thought of the pink mare’s reaction when she found out.

“Well, we’ll see you later Twilight. We’re going to get ready to go, so we’ll come to the library later on.” Applejack waved to the pair as she gathered that it was time for them to leave.

“Alright, bye everyone!” Twilight waved back while turning to walk away. Tom waved to the four before following the unicorn as she walked back towards the front of the farm.

A short walk through town later, the pair arrived at Sugar Cube Corner. As expected, there were ponies going in and out of the store in irregular intervals. After all, it was early in the morning, and this was the best place to get sweets and baked goods in Ponyville, and arguably the surrounding area.

Twilight opened the door and walked inside, closely followed by Tom. As she looked around the interior of the store, the unicorn saw a couple of ponies walking up to the counter where Mr. and Mrs. Cake were taking their orders and dispensing them.

Off to the side of the room, Pinkie Pie was sitting down at a table along with Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Sunspot. The group was chatting happily while enjoying a few cupcakes. They seemed to be catching up with the orange pegasus and asking her about what she had been up to with Glimmer Shine and Glitterball.

“Hey guys, come on over and take a seat!” Pinkie Pie suggested while waving the pair over. Twilight and Tom nodded before walking over to the group and sitting in two empty chairs.

“So what are you two doing over here?” Sunspot asked curiously. Twilight was surprised to see the pegasus without her iconic suit. Usually, she wore her Wonderbolts outfit everywhere she went. Then again, the unicorn hadn’t really seen the orange mare too often when she wasn’t on the job.

Taking a quick glance downwards, Twilight noticed a small holster strapped to Sunspot’s back leg. The holster held a single vial with blue liquid inside of it. Even when they weren’t on the job, Glimmer Shine and his team always kept their strobes with them just in case. An understandable practice, Twilight thought.

“We have something important to talk to all of you about.” Twilight said while looking to Tom knowingly.

“Really? Well, we’re all ears.” Rainbow Dash said in an intrigued tone while leaning forward and resting her forelegs on the table.

Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out the rolled up flyer. He placed it on the table and scooted it forward for the group to examine.

“Fun Land…?” Rarity read off the flyer in a curious manner.

“Hey, I know that place! I used to trade party planning tips with the owner Berry Swirl.” Pinkie Pie stated while examining the flyer closer.

“What’s with the flyer Twilight? You don’t seem like the kind of pony to go to theme parks.” Rainbow Dash stated curiously while eying the purple unicorn and waiting for her to divulge more information.

“Princess Luna just offered Tom and the others a small job at Fun Land. In exchange for helping them out with their problem, they will let us stay there for a whole week!” Twilight explained excitedly. The others seemed eager to hear about the offer.

“A whole week at a water resort for free?! That is so cool!” Rainbow Dash said happily while looking around at the others for their opinion. Sunspot was just as excited, Pinkie Pie was just as giddy and energetic as usual, and Rarity and Fluttershy seemed open to the idea.

“And they will just let you bring all of us?” Fluttershy asked curiously.

“Yep… they don’t have the money to pay us, so they are giving us a free all-expenses-paid stay instead.” Tom stated with a pleased smirk.

“What job did they have for us? If I’m going to be heading to a water park on a mission, I would at least like to know what I’m getting into.” Sunspot said with a slight tone of paranoia.

“It didn’t sound like anything too bad. Just some minor ghost activity… shouldn’t take more than a day to clear out, and then we have the rest of the week to ourselves… literally. The park is opening up again sometime in a few months, so we will be the only ones there.” Tom explained.

“Wow! I’ve never had a water park all to myself for a week!” Pinkie Pie stated with an amazed expression.

“So how about it girls? Will you come with us?” Twilight asked while glancing around at her friends.

“Well… I would have to find someone to watch Angel and the other animals while I’m gone, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I would love to go.” Fluttershy said with a cheerful smile.

“Heck yes, I want to go! This is like the best summer getaway I’ll ever have!” Rainbow Dash stated eagerly.

“Hmm… I suppose it couldn’t hurt… ooh, I wonder if they have a spa there!” Rarity perked up at the thought of having access to a free spa for a week. Even if they didn’t have a spa, the thought of relaxing poolside with her friends was enough for the white mare.

“I would love to go! But first I need to go ask Mr. and Mrs. Cake if it will be ok for me to take the week off.” Pinkie Pie said while glancing over to the couple manning the counter.

“What about you Sunspot? Are you and the others coming with us?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously while shifting her attention to the orange pegasus. Sunspot thought about the matter for a moment before speaking up.

“Well, I guess we might as well make the most of our downtime. I’ll go ask Glimmer Shine and Glitterball if they want to come, but I’m pretty sure the answer will be a resounding yes.” Sunspot stated confidently.

“Alright, well I’ll see you guys tonight.” Twilight said while getting up from her chair.

“Hold on Twilight. Why don’t you guys stay for a while and celebrate with us! I’ll go get you some cupcakes.” Pinkie Pie suggested while getting up and rushing to the kitchen. One look at the rest of her friends told the purple mare that they didn’t want her to leave just yet.

“Ok… I guess we can stay for a while longer.” Twilight said with a slight chuckle while settling back into her seat. Everyone smiled eagerly as they prepared to celebrate their big plans.

Throughout the course of the day, Twilight and her friends all prepared for their vacation. After getting permission to leave work for a week, Pinkie Pie proceeded to pack all of the things she would need, which mostly consisted of anything she thought would be fun to play with at a water resort. Fluttershy quickly found someone to take care of her animals so she could spend the rest of the day packing and spending time with Angel before her big trip. Rarity and Applejack had their hooves full dealing with their younger siblings’ concentrated energy and excitement while also trying to pack. Rainbow Dash decided to take a nap after she got done packing. After all, she had a big week of excitement and fun ahead of her, and she needed the energy. Sunspot had managed to convince her two teammates to come along, though it was hard to turn down an offer to spend a week at a water park for free.

Once the sun was setting, everyone made their way to the library as they had agreed. The ponies were greeted by Twilight, Tom, Spike, and Princess Luna standing outside waiting for them. Twilight and Tom had bags on their backs and around their shoulders respectively. Suspiciously, Spike wasn’t carrying anything, even though Tom had an extra bag. Perhaps the dragon had convinced the human to be his pack mule for a while.

“Is everyone ready?” Princess Luna asked while looking out at the sizable gathering of ponies.

“I would say so.” Rainbow Dash stated eagerly. Even at the end of the day, the excitement in the air was too great for the cyan mare to be bored.

“Splendid. Now then, if everyone will please follow us to the train station, I have arranged for a first class car for all of you.” The blue alicorn explained with a pleased smile as she watched the shocked and excited reactions from everyone in the crowd.

“A first class car?! Sweet!” Rainbow Dash could barely contain her excitement as she looked around at her friends in disbelief. She contemplated pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t still napping.

“I would say that you all deserve a little extra luxury for your vacation. The train will take you straight through to where you need to go.” Luna said with an amused chuckle at the excited pegasus.

After looking back to Twilight to make sure that she was ready, the princess walked forward and started on her way to the train station. Everyone quickly followed the blue alicorn through town, all the while chatting with each other about all of the things they would be doing in the following week.

By the time they arrived at the station, it was already night. There was a single train on the tracks, doubtlessly the one that the group would be departing on shortly. Once they gathered in front of the train, Luna handed each of them a ticket and told them where their train car was located.

“You all be sure to enjoy yourselves.” Luna said as she watched the group preparing to enter the train.

“Oh, I’m sure we will.” Twilight said while looking around at her friends. It was nothing but bright smiles and excited expressions as far as the eye could see.

“Thank you so much for doing this for us Princess… and please, thank Celestia for us when you get back to Canterlot.” The purple mare said with a grateful tone.

Luna smiled warmly at the unicorn while nodding. “I’ll be sure to let her know… now go on. You should probably get going now… the train will be leaving soon.” The alicorn said while glancing up at the clock on the main building of the station. Twilight nodded and turned to her group. Everyone started filing into the train and finding their way forward to their car.

As she was about to enter the train, Twilight turned and waved to the princess. Luna waved in return as she watched the unicorn walk forward to join her friends. She felt good knowing that the ponies were getting the break they deserved.

Chapter 5: Departure

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Twilight gradually made her way through the many cars of the train on her way to join her friends. She looked around each car as she passed them, but many of them were empty. Other than her and her friends, there might have been one or two other passengers total on the train. It wasn’t surprising considering how late it was.

Looking ahead, the unicorn could see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy walking one car ahead of her through the window in the door. The first class cabin must have been near the front of the train for them to be still walking through cars.

Finally, Twilight could see the two pegasi walking into a car with the rest of her friends. She quickly made her way through the car she was in so she could catch up. As the purple mare opened up the last door and stepped into the car, she was thoroughly impressed.

Due to the small amount of space available on the train, even first class had its limitations with what it could have, but it was fairly comfortable looking. Instead of rows of uncomfortable looking seats lining the aisle, there were large and heavily cushioned seats set aside in various sections. There was more distance between each set of seats, but there were still enough rows to offer the large group a choice of where they sat. A few tables lined with drinks and small snacks were placed in the empty space between seats.

Most of the others had already found their seats, but a few were still stowing their luggage in the overhead area and settling in. With a few exceptions, most of the group had an entire seat to themselves and sat across from each other. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were all sharing a single seat across from a reluctant Rarity. The white unicorn seemed to have her hooves full with attempting to settle the three fillies down.

“Wow… this looks incredible.” Twilight said while admiring her surroundings.

“Are you kidding? This is amazing!” Rainbow Dash stated while eagerly plopping her entire body on a seat and lying back on the fluffy cushions.

“Considering I was expecting a dismal and uncomfortable train ride… this is a pleasant alternative.” Rarity said in agreement with the pegasus. Even if she did have three rambunctious fillies across from her, she was still enjoying the level of comfort and luxury of her surroundings.

Twilight walked over to the section across the aisle from Rarity and the three crusaders. Spike had already sat down across from Tom and was waiting eagerly for the unicorn to join him. The purple mare sat down next to the dragon and levitated her suitcase up to join the others.

Deciding to look at the flyer for the park again, the unicorn pulled it out of a small compartment on her suitcase before gently lifting it downwards and grabbing it with her hooves. She stared at the picture on the flyer while thinking back to her previous experience with the park.

Although Twilight had only visited the park once, she was curious about its history. When she visited it as a filly, the resort was a water park, but it didn’t start out that way. She remembered tales of the park in its glory days back when it was a full blown amusement park. Ponies would come from miles around to try the rides and to see the shows that the mascots would put on for them, but those days wouldn’t last forever. Ever since most of the park was destroyed by an earthquake, it had been all bad luck and misery for the owners. After the park closed down a second time, Twilight never thought she would hear about it again, but apparently, she was wrong.

“So Twilight… where is this park anyway?” Applejack asked while peering over the back of her seat to face the unicorn. Twilight turned around and saw the orange mare sitting one section behind her with Pinkie Pie across from her.

“Hmm…” The unicorn hummed curiously while looking down at the flyer. Truth be told, she hadn’t even bothered to look at where the park was reopening at.

“Looks like it’s in Trottingham… hey, isn’t that where it used to be?” Twilight asked curiously to no one in particular while thinking back to her childhood memories of the place.

“Yeah, I think that the owner must be trying to restore the place to how she remembers it as a kid. What better way to do that than to use the original location?” Pinkie Pie chimed in with her knowledge of the suspect.

“You said you were friends with the owner right, Pinkie? What’s she like?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously while glancing over to the pink mare.

“Oh… Berry? She’s really nice. We would always try to find the best way to throw a party together. She always dreamed of taking over the park when her dad retired… I guess she finally realized her goal!” Pinkie explained with a cheerful smile for her old friend’s success.

“So… what’s this park like anyway? I’ve never even heard of it.” Scootaloo asked curiously while glancing at the flyer Twilight was holding with an intrigued expression.

“Well, here you go… I guess the best way to describe the park is with this.” Twilight said while levitating the flyer over to the three fillies. Scootaloo grabbed the piece of paper and read it while her two friends looked over her shoulder.

“Hey… what’s up with this rabbit thing here?” Sweetie Belle asked while turning the paper around and pointing out the anomaly to her sister. Rarity glanced to where the filly was pointing, only to raise her eyebrows in surprise.

The flyer itself was a picture of some of the more prominent features of the park. There was a resort building with some pools and slides in front of it, with Fun Land printed across it at the bottom. Standing in front of the resort building, however, there were three cartoonish looking animals that were waving at the viewer.

The animals looked very robotic in nature. Each of them had joints and other individual segments that connected to each other to make up the bulk of their body. All of the animals had their jaws open in big goofy grins, revealing full sets of blocky looking teeth and the painted insides of their heads. All of the animals also had dimples on their cheeks and overly exaggerated cutesy eyes and eyelashes. They all had a shiny plastic appearance to them, almost resembling children’s toys.

The one that Sweetie Belle was pointing out was a bipedal blue bunny with green eyes, a red bowtie, and segmented ears. He stood at about Tom’s height from the look of the picture. Next to him, there was a bear that stood on all fours and was smaller because of it. The bear had a black top hat on with red trim, as well as a small microphone clutched in his front paw on the ground. This animal seemed to be modeled more closely to pony physiology due to how it stood on four legs, and how its body was shaped. The last animal was another bipedal one around Tom’s height. This one was what appeared to be a female yellow chicken in a white tank top and red swimming trunks. The tank top had the words “let’s swim!” printed across it, along with a pattern of small life savers of various colors printed all around it. The chicken appeared to be holding a red life saver under her arm as well.

“Hmm… well, Sweetie Belle… those are… umm.” Rarity tried to come up with an explanation as to the odd animals, even though she was failing.

By this time, many of the others had gotten up and walked over to the white unicorn’s section to view the flyer. They looked at the depiction of the park with amazement, even though they themselves were also clueless about the odd animals.

“Well? What are they?” Sweetie Belle asked again.

“They look so weird…” Applebloom stated curiously while staring at the flyer.

“That’s easy… those are the park’s animatronic entertainers.” Twilight spoke up to shed light on the strange topic.

“Ani-ma… what? Scootaloo asked curiously while trying to wrap her head around the odd word.

“Animatronic… you know, like a robot.” Twilight explained to the group.

“Whoa… hold on a second. You mean to tell me that you have animatronics? I didn’t think your technology was advanced enough for that.” Tom stated in a surprised tone while glancing over to the picture. Scootaloo passed the flyer on to the curious human, who quickly examined the three robotic animals with an intrigued expression.

“To be fair Twilight… I’ve never heard of robot critters either.” Applejack said while sharing a confused glance with the others.

“I don’t think they actually have any complicated technology to them. I think that they used magical components to function back when I went to the park… and even then they didn’t do much other than sing and dance.” Twilight explained while thinking about how such a machine would actually function.

“Oh, I get it… so they’re pretty much mechanical puppets.” Tom said in an intrigued tone.

“Well… when you put it like that it doesn’t sound nearly as fun.” Twilight replied with a mildly offended shrug. She might not have gotten out much as a kid, but she fondly remembered her time watching the show that the animatronics put on at the park.

“So… those are robots? That sounds kind of cool.” Scootaloo stated with an interested tone of voice. Twilight seemed to be pleased that the fillies were intrigued by the park. She almost felt like she was introducing them to a new world of amazement and wonder, one that she went to as a kid.

“Yeah, that one there is Bonnie the bunny, and that one is… Chica the chicken.” The purple unicorn explained while trying to recall the animatronics’ names from memory.

“Let me guess… that one is Barry the bear?” Tom interjected with a slight chuckle while looking at the ridiculous animals.

“No… actually that’s Freddy. Your guess is as good as mine as to why they went with that name.” Twilight said in a confused tone.

“Huh… that’s… odd.” Tom said while scratching his head with a puzzled expression.

“I think it’s a nice name… he’s my favorite!” Sweetie Belle said eagerly while looking at the bear and smiling.

“How can he be your favorite? You’ve never even seen him in person.” Scootaloo said while shrugging at the young unicorn.

“Well… I like him. Don’t you have a favorite already from just looking at them?” Sweetie Belle asked while raising an eyebrow suspiciously. Scootaloo seemed to be uncomfortable about picking out a favorite animal. She felt like the animals looked a little too childish for her likings, or at least too childish for her to openly admit while the others were looking.

“Uhh… I guess the bunny… he looks kind of cool I guess.” The orange filly admitted begrudgingly while trying to play off the question.

“I think the bunny looks weird… I like the chicken better.” Applebloom chimed into the conversation in a condescending tone.

“Hey! He doesn’t look that weird!” Scootaloo suddenly became very defensive as she glared at the earth pony.

“Yeah, he does… he has buck teeth for crying out loud.” Applebloom replied while pointing to the picture.

“At least mine has teeth! Yours doesn’t even… huh?” Scootaloo paused suddenly as she stared at the picture suspiciously. Sure enough, the chicken actually had teeth in her beak. Applebloom smirked at the young pegasus’s confusion before sticking her tongue out at her. “Well… that doesn’t make any sense! Chickens aren’t supposed to have teeth… yours is stupid.” Scootaloo said while getting in the yellow filly’s face and glaring at her.

“Why do you hate chickens so much Scootaloo? You have so much in common with them…” Applebloom stated with a small smirk.

“Oh yeah? How’s that?” Scootaloo asked suspiciously.

“You’re both flightless birds for one.” Applebloom said with a devilish smile building on her face.

“Why you little!” Scootaloo yelled angrily while preparing to strangle her friend. The two fillies were preparing to fight, while Sweetie Belle tried her best to keep herself from being struck by the two reaching over her to get at each other.

“Now, now girls… settle down. Let’s just agree to disagree and pretend that we like each other for the rest of the train ride.” Rarity spoke up while separating the two feuding crusaders and giving them an icy glare. The last thing the white mare wanted was to listen to two bickering fillies for the rest of the trip.

Suddenly, a series of mechanical noises started coming from outside. The ponies heard and felt the train starting to come to life as the conductors prepared to depart. Before long, the train was lurching forward as it started down the tracks.

“Looks like we’re moving… I guess we have a long trip ahead of us.” Rainbow Dash sighed as she thought about how long it would take them to arrive.

“*Yawn*… Maybe we should get some sleep? I’m all for curling up on this seat and taking a nap until we get there.” Spike suggested while patting the cushion next to him to test its softness.

“I suppose it has been a long day… maybe some sleep would be good.” Rarity suggested while noting how tired she felt. The unicorn looked around, only to see that most of her friends shared her opinion. Fluttershy was about to fall asleep in her seat. Pinkie Pie looked like she could definitely use the sleep. Even the Cutie Mark Crusaders were collectively tired.

“Well… I don’t know about you guys, but I’m definitely hitting the proverbial hay.” Sunspot stated while stretching and laying down across her seat.

“I’m right there with you.” Glitterball said while reaching into her bag and levitating a small neck pillow and a sleeping mask down and settling in.

“You brought a neck pillow?” Glimmer Shine asked with a raised eyebrow while watching the unicorn across from him laying down sideways and propping her head up.

Glitterball smirked while lifting the mask off of her eyes a short ways to look at the stallion. “Yeah… a girl’s got to get her beauty sleep. Don’t get jealous just because you didn’t have the sense to bring one.” She stated while laying her head down and pulling the mask back over her eyes.

“*Sigh*… Whatever.” Glimmer Shine shrugged while leaning back against his seat and settling in.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Twilight were glancing around as their friends all prepared to go to sleep. Spike was already somehow fast asleep next to the unicorn. The young dragon nudged into her every once in a while as he shifted around in his sleep, but Twilight couldn’t find it in her to wake him up to reposition him.

“So… are you going to sleep Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked quietly to not disturb those around her. She looked across the aisle to see how her purple friend was faring. Twilight looked like she was trying to stay awake, but she was also unfocused and drowsy.

“Umm… maybe… I’m going to try to stay up for a while, but at this rate, I might end up nodding off.” The unicorn stated while holding back a yawn and glancing over to the pegasus. “What about you?” She asked curiously.

“Nah… I got some sleep earlier. I might take a nap before we get there, but for now, I’m going to enjoy the view. It’s not every day I get to ride first class, you know?” Rainbow Dash said while looking out the window at the passing horizon.

“Heh… just be sure not to stay up too late. You don’t want to sleep through our first day there.” Twilight said with a slight chuckle at the cyan mare.

“Oh, definitely not. What would you guys do without me at the pool to liven things up for you?” Rainbow Dash replied with a smirk.

Twilight smiled at the pegasus’s statement before turning her attention down to the flyer in her hooves. She wondered what the first thing the group would do when they arrived. Surely there would be too many things to choose from.

Glancing up at her human friend, she realized that even he had started drifting off to sleep. Other than Rainbow Dash, Twilight was the only one awake. Or at any rate, they were the only ones not trying to sleep.

“*Sigh*…” The unicorn shrugged while leaning her head back against the seat. Suddenly, her eyes drifted to the window beside her. Although it was dark, the sight of the landscape whizzing past the train was mesmerizing. All the colors and shapes blending together into one single blur, along with the constant noise of the train had a sort of calming effect on her.

Twilight felt a slight haze of drowsiness coming over her as she brought her hoof up to her mouth to catch a yawn. She didn’t think that she would be this tired so soon, but she was almost falling asleep against her will.

The thought of fighting to stay awake crossed her mind, but she felt far too relaxed to bother. The purple mare continued looking out of the window, all the while growing progressively more and more tired. Slowly, her eyelids began drifting closed. Another yawn escaped her mouth as she nuzzled her head into the side of the seat. The fabric felt cozy and warm against her face. Finally, Twilight closed her eyes and felt her mind drifting away.

A sudden jolt made Twilight sit up in mild alarm. She shielded her eyes as they strained under the light shining in through the window. The unicorn quickly realized that it was daylight. Not only was it daylight, but the train was slowing to a halt.

“Ughh…” Twilight groaned while glancing beside her. There was a small damp spot on the corner of the seat where her head was just lying. A cold and wet sensation on her cheek told her that the damp spot was her own drool.

“Finally… it’s about time you got up.” Spike said in an amazed tone. Twilight looked to the side, only to see that the young dragon was awake and staring at her musingly. She wiped the drool from the side of her mouth before stretching her legs.

“How long have I been asleep?” The unicorn asked while looking around with a dull expression. Taking a look around the train car, she realized that all of her friends were awake as well.

“You slept all night. In fact… you slept through the whole trip. We’re here.” Tom explained while motioning towards the window.

Twilight glanced outside to see where they were. Sure enough, the train stopped moving, and it was plain to see why. The group had arrived at the train station in Trottingham. There were ponies walking around everywhere with bags and suitcases in tow.

“Wow… the whole trip huh?” Twilight asked in amazement. She couldn’t believe that she slept for so long.

“Yeah… we were starting to wonder if you would ever wake up.” Rainbow Dash said with a slight chuckle while looking over to the drowsy unicorn.

“*Giggle* You snore a lot.” Pinkie Pie chimed in from behind the unicorn. Twilight glanced over her shoulder in surprise to see the pink mare chuckling to herself.

“What? I do not!” Twilight stated defensively. She always slept silently, or at least she thought she did.

“I hate to break it to you Twilight… but Pinkie is right. You darn near woke us up twice.” Applejack said with a slight chuckle as she watched the bewildered expression on her friend’s face grow. Twilight looked over to Spike and Tom for support, only to find them offering silently accusing eyes in return.

“*Sigh*… well, I must have slept in a weird position because I usually don’t make a sound when I sleep.” The unicorn said while folding her forelegs and avoiding eye contact with her friends. Everyone giggled quietly while trying not to let the purple mare hear them.

“Ok guys, I think we should start getting our stuff together so we can leave.” Glimmer Shine suggested to the others while pulling his suitcase down with his teeth.

“Yeah, I want to get to the park as soon as possible so I can start having some fun!” Rainbow Dash said eagerly while looking around to see who would join in her excitement. As expected, the first three to cheer in response were Scootaloo and her two friends.

“Yay!” The fillies cheered in unison while getting up and bouncing on the seat eagerly. If they had been tired the night before, they had gotten more than enough sleep to return their almost limitless enthusiasm and energy.

“This is going to be the best week ever!” Sweetie Belle stated while laughing and jumping between her seat and Rarity’s seat. Before long, Applebloom and Scootaloo were following her example and bouncing back and forth in a line, much to the dismay of the white unicorn.

“Now girls… settle down.” Rarity pleaded nervously while trying to avoid one of the excited fillies smacking into her by accident.

“So, where is this park exactly Twilight? I hope that somepony knows where we’re going…” Applejack stated while glancing out of the window. She had never been to Trottingham before, so she was pretty much lost.

“Princess Luna said that the owner of the park will meet us at the train station. It should be fairly easy to find her considering she is looking for us, and Pinkie knows what she looks like.” Twilight explained while glancing back to Pinkie Pie for confirmation.

“Ooo! I can’t wait to see Berry again!” Pinkie exclaimed with an excited smile while gluing herself to the window to look for the park’s owner. She shifted her eyes around rapidly in search of her old friend.

“Well, any friend of Pinkie’s can’t be too bad.” Tom said in a hopeful tone.

“Heh… you seem to be forgetting that Pinkie Pie is friends with everybody.” Rainbow Dash said with a slight chuckle.

“Good point… how does that even work? You can’t possibly be friends with everyone you’ve ever met…” The human replied while raising an eyebrow as he watched the pink mare.

“Oh, that’s easy! You just have to play games with them, and invite them to parties, and tell them jokes, and-” Pinkie started naming off an entire list of explanations until she was interrupted by Tom speaking up.

“But what about their personality? What if you don’t like them?” The boy asked curiously.

“Don’t like them…? PFFHAhahaha! *Snort*” Pinkie started laughing heartily at the human’s question. Tom looked to the others, who offered a shrug in response. Meanwhile, Pinkie was still recovering from laughing so hard. “Hahaha… *wheeze*… oh, that was a good one Tom. You are so funny!” The pink mare said while getting up and repositioning herself. She had been laughing so hard that she fell back into her seat and held her sides.

“Right…” Tom said while nodding his head uncomfortably.

“Anyhow… let’s get moving. We don’t want to keep Berry waiting.” Twilight suggested while levitating her bag along with Tom’s and Spike’s down from the luggage rack.

“Hold on a moment… hrk!” Rarity groaned while trying to lift her bag down with her magic. She was straining just to levitate the large suitcase a few inches off the ground.

“Sweet Celestia, Rarity… what in the hay do you have in that thing?” Applejack asked in an amazed tone while helping the white mare get her bag to the ground. The suitcase fell to the floor with a sizable thud, nearly landing on the two ponies.

“Oh, just a few of my summer outfits. I can’t exactly go to a water park without the proper attire now can I?” Rarity said with a slight smirk while getting the bag upright so she could wheel it around easier.

“So you’re tellin’ me that you just have clothes in there? I don’t even want to think about how many pounds that thing is.” The orange mare stated while eyeing the bag uneasily.

“Well, at any rate, thanks for the help.” Rarity said in an appreciative tone.

“Anytime… just try to pack lighter in the future.” Applejack replied.

Without further delay, the group gathered their luggage and exited the train. The early morning sun and clear blue sky perfectly complimented the excitement that the ponies were feeling. It was the beginning of a beautiful summer day, one that would mark the standard for what they would be enjoying all week if everything went as planned.

The station was buzzing with life as several ponies walked around the area. Although there was a sizable crowd, the area still felt open and vacant enough to not be constrictive. Still, even with the relatively small amount of ponies walking around, it was a daunting task trying to find the owner of the park. Twilight and the others had no idea what she looked like. In fact, Pinkie Pie was the only one who had ever even met her before.

“So Pinkie… do you see her around here somewhere?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously while looking around at the various ponies walking around. There were a few individuals standing around in various places, but only a few of them were mares.

“Hmm…” Pinkie strained her eyes and put on her best focused expression as she scanned the area. Twilight and the others watched as the pink mare looked up and down in the search for her old friend. “I don’t see her.” Pinkie reported while continuing her search.

“She has to be around here somewhere… It can’t be that hard to find a group as large as us leaving the same train.” Twilight said as she took a quick glance around, even though she had no idea what she was looking for.

Suddenly, Pinkie paused as she looked off by the side of the station. She squinted her eyes while trying to focus on a pony that stood out to her. “Oh!” The pink mare exclaimed while rushing off in that direction. The others barely managed to keep an eye on her as she zipped away.

The group watched as Pinkie rushed up to a lone earth pony mare by the side of the station. The mare was a soft and dark shade of purple, with a lighter shade in her hair and eyes. She had short hair with a pink band in it, and her tail had two pink bands on it as well. She was also wearing what appeared to be four pink leg warmers near the top of her hooves. Her cutie mark was a glass with light purple liquid in it and a tiny umbrella sticking out of it.

“Berry!” Pinkie exclaimed while rushing up to the purple mare. Upon noticing the excited pony approaching her, the mare turned and smiled while opening her forelegs to give her friend a hug.

“Pinkie!” The purple pony cheered excitedly as she caught the speeding pink blur into a friendly embrace. As Pinkie backed up and smiled at her old friend, she smiled back at her with a slightly confused expression. “Pinkie, what are you doing here? I thought you lived in Ponyville now?” Berry asked curiously.

Before Pinkie could answer, she noticed her other friends walking up behind her. “Well, you did just hire my friends, silly.” Pinkie replied while backing up and letting the others step forward. Tom and Glimmer Shine stepped forward and walked up to the purple mare.

“Oh… so you must be the ones that the princess sent. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Berry Swirl.” Berry said while reaching forward and shaking the pair’s hand and hoof respectively.

“Yes, we’re the reigning experts in the field of unusual problems like yours. I’m Glimmer Shine, those are my teammates Glitterball and Sunspot, this is Tom, and those are our friends.” Glimmer Shine explained while pointing out the rest of the group. Twilight and the others smiled and waved at the purple mare, who smiled in return.

“Well, any friends of Pinkie’s are okay in my books.” Berry said with a friendly tone of voice while glancing around at the group of ponies.

“Here, let me introduce you to my friends, Berry.” Pinkie suggested while walking over to the others. “This is Twilight Sparkle, that’s Spike, over there is Rainbow Dash, that’s Rarity and her sister Sweetie Belle, over there is Applejack and her sister Applebloom, that’s Fluttershy, and that’s Scootaloo.” The pink mare explained while pointing out each member of her large group of friends. Everyone smiled and nodded to the purple pony as they were introduced.

“It’s very nice to meet you all. I’m sure you can’t wait to start your vacation, so if you’re all ready, I can lead you to the park.” Berry suggested while noting the amount of heavy looking luggage the group was toting with them.

“That sounds great!” Pinkie cheered happily while looking over to her friends. Everyone shared in her excitement as they prepared themselves to start their vacation properly. Once the group had settled down, they let Berry Swirl lead them out of the train station and into town.

Chapter 6: Welcome to Fun Land

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Spirits were high as the group followed Berry Swirl through town. Most of the ponies had never been to Trottingham before, so it was an intriguing experience to be able to take in all of the sights and sounds. The daily hustle and bustle of ponies in Ponyville wasn’t very noteworthy because everyone was accustomed to it, but it was always interesting to see the locals of a new town going about their business.

Twilight glanced behind her to see her friends following along behind. The other elements of harmony were chatting happily amongst themselves, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were playing as they walked to the side of the group, even Glimmer Shine and his team were off by themselves, but they seemed to be discussing business rather than pleasure.

“So, how long do you guys think it will take to get rid of the problem when we get to the park?” Twilight asked curiously while glancing between the team of ponies and the human walking beside her.

“Well… that depends on what the problem actually is.” Glimmer Shine said while glancing over to Tom for confirmation. Even after all of these months, the human was still the one with the most knowledge on the paranormal. Then again, it would be hard to outmatch the boy on his knowledge considering he had the memories of the slayers before him and all of their experience with monsters.

“Yeah… it could take a few hours, or it could take a few days depending on a lot of factors. It would help if we knew exactly what was going on.” Tom said while looking ahead to Berry Swirl. The purple mare realized that she was the only one with the knowledge the group needed. She looked down in thought for a moment while trying to put into words what had been happening at the park.

“Well, you see… we only just started working on getting the park up and running again about a year ago. Everything was fine for a while, but we have noticed a lot of strange things going on recently. Tools and other small objects would go missing, only to turn up in the strangest places. The temperature in certain rooms would drop suddenly. But the most prominent issue we have been getting is the voices.” Berry explained with a slight twinge of unease in her voice.

“V-voices?” Fluttershy asked nervously. Even the mere mention of such an eerie concept made chills go up and down her spine.

“Yeah… I thought my employees were going nuts when they first told me about it, but then I started hearing them too. It wasn’t anything too significant… usually, it would just be a quiet whisper or faint giggling coming from just outside of the room, but there have been a few instances where we have all heard the same thing… usually, it would happen in the basement.” Berry Swirl said while glancing behind her to see if the group was still paying attention. Most of the group was listening intently, while Fluttershy was cowering behind Rarity and her large suitcase for protection.

“Disembodied voices are a common occurrence when dealing with ghosts. If they are as quiet as a whisper every time, that usually means that the ghost, or ghosts, in question aren’t that strong.” Tom explained in a confident manner.

“It’s nice to hear that you guys know your stuff. I’m glad I have some real experts handling this.” Berry stated with a pleased smile.

“Trust us on this one. Tom and the others are the best there is when it comes to beating up ghosts, monsters, and anything else that ails you.” Rainbow Dash said with a confident smirk while looking over to the team of monster hunters.

“Yeah, they were the ones that took care of the hooded ponies when they attacked the palace in Canterlot.” Spike chimed in, eager to praise the group for their efforts.

“I heard about that… they caused a lot of havoc in Ponyville didn’t they?” Berry asked while glancing at the group for confirmation. “I’m glad somepony finally put a stop to those guys… who knows what they would have done if they succeeded in overthrowing the princess?” She said with an uncomfortable shudder. Twilight glanced to her friends and shared an uncomfortable expression with them. If anyone knew the full extent of the hooded ponies’ evil, it was the purple mare and her friends.

“Well, we don’t need to worry about that anymore! We beat those meanie pants fair and square. We were all like KAPOW! And then Tom came in like PEW PEW! And then they went KABLOOEY!” Pinkie Pie said while waving her forelegs around as she made sound effects with her mouth. Twilight and the others stared at the pink mare with raised eyebrows.

“Pinkie Pie… you are so random.” Rainbow Dash stated with an amused chuckle. Everyone else giggled lightheartedly at the party pony’s antics.

While the group laughed together behind her, Berry Swirl took a moment to look ahead to see where they were. She raised her eyebrows in surprise as she noticed the sight of her beloved park coming into view.

“We’re here, everyone!” The purple mare announced excitedly while pausing and pointing ahead for everyone to see. The ponies all gasped in excitement as they looked to where the earth pony was pointing.

Just ahead, there was a large fenced in area with a large and decorative sign over the front gate that read Fun Land in big colorful letters. Much of the space inside of the fence was just empty landscape, but further inside there were the silhouettes of large water slides and the main resort building.

“Last one in’s a rotten egg!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed before bolting towards the entrance. Everyone else barely had time to react before they started running after the cyan pegasus. Berry Swirl shrugged with a slight smirk on her face before following the crowd of eager ponies.

Once they made it past the front gate, the group followed a large path through the rolling green landscape around them. The area almost looked like a completely barren field with nothing but grass to either side as far as the eye could see.

“Wow… this place sure does have a lot of empty land.” Applejack observed while looking to either side and admiring the large grassy areas to her sides.

“I’m not surprised… this place was a larger park a long time ago. Isn’t that right Berry?” Twilight asked while looking ahead to the purple mare in front of the group.

“That’s right. Back when my great grandfather owned the place, it was a regular old-fashioned amusement park. After the earthquake hit the place and sank the majority of the property underground, the park closed down. My grandfather picked up the pieces and made it a water resort a long time ago, and my dad picked up where he left off.” Berry Swirl explained while looking ahead at the growing shapes of the actual resort.

“How is your dad doing Berry? I’ll bet he must be so proud of you for re-opening the family business!” Pinkie Pie stated while smiling eagerly as she thought back to the purple mare’s father. Berry looked down and frowned sadly at the pink pony’s question.

“Unfortunately my father passed away last year.” The earth pony explained in a somber tone. The others all looked at the purple pony with distraught expressions of sympathy.

“I am so sorry to hear that Berry… I had no idea.” Pinkie Pie said while momentarily dropping her normal energetic appearance and adopting a genuinely sad expression.

“Don’t worry Pinkie… I’ve already grieved my loss appropriately. Now I just want to keep my father’s legacy alive by restoring the park to its former glory.” Berry said in a slightly more cheerful tone. Even though she didn’t return a bright smile to her face, she seemed to be comfortable with moving on from the gloomy memory of her late father.

“Well, we’re here to make sure nothing gets in your way… nothing paranormal at any rate.” Tom said to shift the conversation to something less somber and saddening.

“Well, you’re welcome to enjoy yourselves for as long as you want… just as long as you take care of things before you leave.” Berry said in a friendly tone.

“It will be our pleasure Ms. Swirl.” Glimmer Shine stated in a sincere manner while looking back to his team. Sunspot and Glitterball nodded while smiling back at the purple mare.

“Please… call me Berry, and feel free to make yourselves at home.” Berry explained while motioning around her. By now, the group had reached the main part of the park. They looked around them with their jaws agape in awe as they stared at the numerous water slides and the glistening pools all around them.

Now that they were in the actual park, the grassy fields to their sides had been replaced with tiled areas that led to pools, various shacks with colorful pictures of food and refreshments painted on the side, and changing areas complete with towels and pool toys. The pleasing smell that came with the chemicals used to balance the pH in water was drifting through the wind, almost acting in place of the smell of the sea that would come from walking along a beach. There were water spouts shooting out from many of the pools and slides, many of which arched in the air and came down in a different section of their respective pools. The entire atmosphere had changed from empty green fields to a warm and sunny summer paradise, and at its center, was where the group would be staying for the next week.

“Wow… Get a load of this place.” Spike said while looking ahead at the large resort building.

The building looked like what the group expected a luxurious resort building to look like. There were several paths leading around the building, past numerous decorations and water fountains, and up to the main entrance. The entrance sat atop a flight of marble stairs, with an archway of colorful awnings shading the area in front of the main doors. The doors themselves were glass, and there were glass windows to either side that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, so the group could already see a little bit of the building’s interior, which was spacious and inviting.

“Are you telling me that’s where we’re staying?” Rainbow Dash asked in a tone of disbelief.

“Yep… that would be the resort.” Berry explained with an amused chuckle at seeing the awestruck ponies.

“Someone pinch me because I must be dreaming! This week keeps getting better and bett-OW!” Rainbow Dash yelped in mild pain as she felt a pinching sensation on her foreleg. She looked over to see Pinkie Pie pulling her hoof back from pinching her. The pink mare smiled awkwardly and backed away as the pegasus glared at her.

“I must say… this place looks incredible on the outside. I can’t wait to see what it looks like on the inside.” Twilight stated eagerly while looking around at her surroundings. She could already picture herself lounging poolside with her friends while reading a good book, or even playing around in the various pools and waterslides.

“Well, you won’t have to wait long. Let’s head inside so I can introduce you to everyone and give you the tour.” Berry Swirl suggested while motioning towards the resort. Everyone nodded in eager agreement before following the purple mare up the marble steps and into the resort.

If the pools and tiled areas of the park outside amazed everyone, then what they were seeing now must have doubled their excitement and wonder. As they walked through the glass double doors and into the lobby of the resort, the ponies were rendered speechless at their surroundings. The lobby itself was huge, with vaulted ceilings giving the impression of even more space. There was a large circular rug in the middle of the room that was a deep and inviting blue color, which perfectly complimented the cool colored wallpaper and carpet, creating a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. The air in the room was cool enough to offer refuge from the heat of the sun, but not abrasive enough to freeze anyone walking in from the pools outside.

The group looked ahead to see a large desk at the front of the room, with a small placard on it that aptly read front desk. Behind the desk, there was a cream colored unicorn mare with white hair. The mare was wearing a white collar, a black bow tie, and brown reading glasses, giving her the appearance of someone who would doubtlessly work at the front desk of a hotel or resort of such caliber. Her cutie mark was a small bell that resembled one that would be used to summon a bellhop.

“Hey Silver. I’m back, and I brought our new friends with me.” Berry Swirl said while trotting up to the desk. The mare behind the counter looked up and smiled upon seeing the group of visitors.

“It’s nice to meet you all. Welcome to Funland!” The mare said in an enthusiastic tone that sounded rehearsed as if she was supposed to say that to everyone. Still, she did have a genuine smile on her face and she did put a lot of energy behind her greeting.

“Everyone, this is Silver Bell. She’s the general manager for the resort.” Berry explained while introducing the cream colored pony to everyone.

“And currently the receptionist, but I digress.” Silver said with an amused smirk.

“We’re pleased to meet you, Silver.” Rarity spoke up on behalf of the group with a friendly smile.

“So, I assume you’re going to give them the tour of the place Berry?” Silver Bell asked curiously while glancing over to the purple mare.

“Yeah, but first I need to have someone take their bags up to their rooms. Would you mind letting me use your radio?” Berry asked in a polite manner. Silver Bell reached under the desk before pulling out a small black walkie-talkie.

“Alright, here you go.” Silver said while handing the radio over the counter to the waiting hooves of the purple earth pony. Berry pressed the button on the radio down and cleared her throat before speaking into it.

“Hey Sparkplug, this is Berry. Our new guests have arrived. Can you send Bonnie over to the lobby to help them get settled in?” Berry asked in a clear tone before waiting intently for a reply. Before long, the group heard the voice of another mare speaking through the radio.

“Sure thing, he should be there soon.” The mare stated before falling silent.

“Thanks… I’ll probably come find you in a little bit so we can give our guests a tour.” Berry said while pressing down the button again. The purple mare looked over to the group of ponies, only to see them looking at her with puzzled expressions.

“That was Sparkplug, she’s our maintenance pony. I just asked her to send one of our animatronics over to help take your bags upstairs.” Berry explained while placing the radio on the front desk. Judging from their expressions, the ponies were even more confused than before.

“Wait… You asked her to send an animatronic over? What do you mean by that?” Twilight asked curiously. As far as she knew, the only things the animatronics could do was dancing on stage and playing pre-recorded songs and phrases.

Before Berry could answer, a series of mechanical sounds, followed by footsteps, made the group turn their heads to the side. Everyone was surprised to see the same blue rabbit from the flyer walking through a door and approaching them. The animatronic was much bigger than it seemed in the flyer. It was still around Tom’s height, but it was so unexpected to see something bigger than a pony walking up to them so casually.

“Ah, there he is. Everyone… this is Bonnie. He is one of the animatronic animals we have here at the park. Say hi Bonnie.” Berry instructed while looking at the blue rabbit. The robotic animal’s joints clicked and made a constant mechanical sound as it slowly moved its arm up and waved at the ponies. He moved in a choppy sort of fashion that was fluid enough to seem realistic, but obvious enough to realize that it was a robot.

“Hiya kids! My name is Bonnie the bunny. Are you ready to have some fun?” The rabbit spoke in a friendly manner. His voice had a slight distortion to it that made it obvious that he was using some kind of voice box to speak. His mouth barely moved at all when he spoke, remaining in a goofy smile and revealing his buck teeth. When his mouth did move, it merely moved up and down to give the illusion that his voice was actually coming from him.

Everyone marveled at the robotic animal with mixed expressions ranging from curiosity to outright amazement. They had never seen anything like it in their whole lives. Even Twilight was surprised to see the mechanical rabbit out and about. She was used to seeing animatronics like him on a show stage and performing prerecorded actions.

“Wow… that’s amazing… how is he able to walk around and understand you?” Twilight asked curiously while looking to Berry for answers.

“After my granddad took over the park, he was working on making the animatronics walk around and interact with guests for a while. He actually had a few models that could do the same stuff Bonnie here can do even back then, he just didn’t have them roaming out in the park. They work by using magical components on top of the usual machinery… Sparkplug would be able to explain it better, but they can understand and perform basic commands, speak using a voice box, and they even have their own personalities.” Berry Swirl explained while putting a hoof on the robotic bunny and resting on him. Bonnie stared ahead and continued looking around at the group of ponies. It was almost like he was analyzing them in his head.

“Their own personalities? Wow… that sounds so cool!” Rainbow Dash said while looking at the robotic animal with an amazed expression.

“I don’t know… it looks kind of creepy.” Fluttershy stated nervously while warily looking at the mechanical rabbit from the back of the group.

“I thought you liked animals Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash said while playfully smirking at the yellow mare.

“I do, but he looks kind of… umm… how do I put this?” Fluttershy said while staring at Bonnie’s eyes uncomfortably. They reminded her a little too much of a lifeless doll.

“He does look a bit creepy I suppose. Anything that tries to imitate life tends to come off as a little eerie.” Twilight stated in agreement with the pegasus. Even though she didn’t feel creeped out by the animatronic, she did understand why someone might find its hollow gaze unsettling.

As the robot laid eyes on Tom, he paused and stared at him. The human felt a little uneasy from being stared at by such a creepy looking creature. The rabbit looked a little too doll-like for the boy’s liking, and he had learned to be wary around dolls from his experience as a slayer.

“Why is it looking at me like that?” Tom asked uncomfortably while glancing over to the purple earth pony.

“Umm… I guess he has never seen a human before. He’s probably just trying to figure out what you are… Try talking to him.” Berry suggested while backing up to give the human and the rabbit some room. Tom was surprised to hear the earth pony reference the robot like it was an actual living thing. He would never have guessed that he would be trying to make friends with a mechanical bunny when he woke up earlier.

“Talk to him? Like… make conversation with it? Can it even do that?” Tom asked curiously while glancing between the ponies and the animatronic. On top of its unsettling appearance, it was trippy that the rabbit was actually at eye level with the human.

“Go on Tom, make a new friend!” Pinkie said while gently shoving the human forward.

Tom uneasily backed up slightly to prevent himself from running into the blue robot. “Umm… uh… hi, Bonnie… my name is Tom.” The boy said while hesitantly extending his hand to the rabbit. Much to his surprise, Bonnie reached forward and gripped his hand before shaking it up and down. The robot’s level of enthusiasm was astounding, especially since the human hadn’t expected anything to happen. Tom felt himself jostling up and down as the bunny shook his hand firmly.

“Hello Tom! Nice to meet you!” Bonnie said while letting the human go free. Tom’s head was spinning from how much he was shaken.

“Hehe… I think he likes you!” Pinkie stated with an amused chuckle.

“I would hate to see what he would do if he didn’t like me.” Tom said while rubbing his hand where the rabbit gripped him.

“Well, I think Bonnie should get your luggage up to your rooms now. You’ll have time to socialize later.” Berry said with a slight giggle before turning to the animatronic rabbit. “Bonnie, take our guests’ bags up to their rooms.” She instructed in a clear voice. Bonnie turned to look at the group for a moment. He looked down to their bags and made a note of which bag belonged to which pony before walking up to Rarity and reaching for her suitcase.

“Whoa, there partner… I don’t think you can handle Rarity’s bag. It’s a bit bulky if you ask-” Applejack started to speak until she was silenced by Bonnie picking up the unicorn’s suitcase with relative ease. “Wow… he’s a strong feller isn’t he?” The orange mare said in an impressed tone.

“Yep… he has a metal endoskeleton underneath his cutesy exterior. He might not look it, but he is strong enough to lift anything you might have in that bag of yours.” Berry said with an amused chuckle before looking over to the rest of the group.

“Well, Bonnie is going to take your bags up to your rooms. I hope you don’t mind, but I told him to lead you to shared rooms with three or so beds. It’s a lot easier for us to keep up with managing seven or eight rooms instead of fourteen. If you want, I can change it so all of you have a room to yourself.” Berry said in a courteous tone. Twilight and the others glanced at each other for a moment to gather their opinions. Nobody seemed to be against sharing rooms with some of their friends.

“No, that’s fine. We’re ok with sleeping in the same room. Can I ask which of us you have booked to which room?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Once Bonnie takes you upstairs, you can choose who goes into what room. We have several different suites with different numbers of beds. Just be sure to tell one of us which rooms you decide to stay in… you can even tell Bonnie if you want.” Berry said while giving the robot a pat on the leg. Bonnie glanced beside him to the purple mare for a moment before returning his gaze forward.

“That sounds great Berry. We can’t thank you enough for letting us come here like this.” Twilight said in a friendly tone while glancing to her friends. Everyone nodded sincerely as the unicorn expressed their gratitude for them. Hearing so much praise coming from her guests made the earth pony smile coyly.

“It’s the least we can do to repay you for helping us out. Now then… I think that it’s time for Bonnie to start taking your bags upstairs. You can follow him up there to get settled in right away if you want, but I’m willing to give some of you a quick tour of the place if you’re willing to stay. I’ll even take you over to maintenance so Sparkplug can show you how the animatronics work.” Berry Swirl suggested in a friendly tone.

“I am definitely up for finding our rooms and then heading straight to the nearest pool. Who’s with me?” Rainbow Dash said while looking to her friends, eager to see who would join her. Almost everyone stepped forward and cheered eagerly at the prospect of heading up to see their rooms. Before long, only Twilight, Tom, Spike, and Applejack were left standing by Berry Swirl. “You coming with us Applejack?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously.

“Nah, I’ll catch up with y’all later. I’m actually pretty curious to see how those robot critters work.” Applejack said while looking over at Twilight and the others. The unicorn was happy to see a desire to learn in the farm pony. Without further delay, Bonnie reached forward and grabbed another bag by the handle. As he was turning around, the robotic animal turned his head to face the group that was coming with him.

“Follow me.” The rabbit instructed in a friendly manner before walking forward towards the same doorway he entered through. Rainbow Dash and the others grabbed some of their other bags before following the animatronic, leaving Twilight and her three companions to wait for Berry to escort them.

“I can’t wait to find out more about those robots.” Tom said while watching the group of ponies following the blue rabbit curiously.

“Yeah… robots… that sounds cool I guess.” Spike sighed in a bored tone while resting on Twilight’s back. It didn’t take much to figure out that he didn’t really want to go on a tour of the building.

“You can go with them if you want Spike.” Twilight suggested with a knowing smile.

“Really? Are you sure?” Spike asked in a surprised tone.

“Of course… we can just meet up la-” Twilight spoke up until she was interrupted by the young dragon jumping off of her back and rushing over to the others.

“Ok, bye guys!” Spike said as he rushed off to catch up to the group while they followed the mechanical rabbit out into the hall. Twilight smiled and shook her head at her young assistant. She was surprised to see how willing he was to ditch her, but she understood that he was still a kid.

“Well… I guess we’re ready to take the tour Berry.” Twilight said while turning to the purple mare.

“Ok then, follow me. I’ll take you to our security room so you can meet Sparkplug and we can explain the layout of the park.” Berry said while motioning for the three to come with her. Twilight, Tom, and Applejack nodded before following the purple mare to the right.

The group walked through a few hallways and other rooms of the resort as they continued forward. They passed through a room full of couches and chairs before taking a left and entering into a door marked employees only. The four found themselves walking through a hallway with gray carpets and walls. It looked vastly different from the colorful rooms back in the public areas of the resort. There were storage areas and janitor’s closets spread along the hallway. Finally, Berry paused in front of a room marked security and turned to the others.

“In here is where we monitor all of the security cameras in the park. Hopefully, Sparkplug will be in there… she usually either hangs out here or over in the maintenance area.” Berry explained while motioning back towards the hallway with her head.

“Is Sparkplug the security guard too?” Twilight asked curiously.

“No… we’re kind of understaffed for the moment, so everyone pitches in for certain jobs. As you saw earlier, Silver usually takes care of the front desk as well as keeping an eye on things to make sure everything is spick and spam.” Berry Swirl stated in a praising tone. The group was impressed by how close of a relationship the earth pony had with her employees.

Without further delay, the purple earth pony grabbed the door handle with her hoof and pulled open the door. Twilight and her two companions followed Berry inside and into a small room. The room contained a wall of monitors that had various images from around the park, each with a small overlay of text that denoted which camera was on the screen. Below the monitors, there was a console full of buttons and switches that looked far too complex to warrant an average pony’s comprehension.

Sitting in a swivel chair in front of the wall of monitors, there was an older looking brownish-orange earth pony stallion with black hair. He had a wrench and a screwdriver crossing to form an x as his cutie mark. Once he heard the door closing as the group walked into the room, he spun the chair around to see everyone.

“Hey, Berry.” The stallion greeted the purple mare with a friendly smile.

“Hey Copper,” Berry said before turning to her group. “Guys, this is Copper Coil. He helps out Sparkplug with fixing up the animatronics and keeping this place from falling apart.” She explained while motioning towards the stallion.

“I assume these are our new guests?” Copper asked curiously while observing the group.

“You assume correctly. This is Twilight Sparkle and her friends Applejack and Tom.” Berry said while pointing to the three respectively. “Tom and a group of other ponies will be taking care of our problem for us. They brought a bunch of their friends to stay at the resort with them.” She explained cheerfully.

“Well, it’s about time we had some company. A water park isn’t really a water park without ponies to enjoy it. It’s nice to meet you all.” Copper said while smiling at the group. Twilight, Applejack, and Tom stepped forward and shook the stallion’s hoof with friendly smiles.

“Copper, have you seen Sparkplug around here? I thought she might be in here with you. I’m giving them a tour of the place, and she would be the best person to explain the animatronics, and show our human friend here where the problem areas are.” Berry said while taking a cursory glance at the bank of monitors in the faint hope that she might be able to find the maintenance pony. Copper looked down and scratched his chin while thinking for a moment.

“I think Sparkplug is in her workshop at the moment. You want me to call her and ask her to come here?” The stallion asked curiously while motioning behind him to a small radio placed on the console.

“No, I’ll just head over there to see her. Besides… you know how absorbed into her work she gets. I would be surprised if she heard you over the radio.” Berry said with a slight chuckle.

“Alright then, let me know if you need anything else.” Copper said with a friendly nod as the earth pony and her three companions prepared to leave.

“Will do… alright everyone, let’s go.” Berry said while opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. Everyone followed the purple mare outside and walked with her back the way they came.

“So, how many employees do you have currently?” Twilight asked curiously while turning to Berry.

“Counting myself, there are currently five ponies working here. You already met Silver and Copper. The ones you haven’t met are Sparkplug and our resident lifeguard High Tide.” Berry Swirl explained while thinking about all of her employees.

“You have a lifeguard? Then again… I suppose that does make sense considerin’ this is a water park and all.” Applejack stated while thinking further about the matter.

“Yep, we really want to make this place as safe as possible for our guests.” Berry said with a sincere tone.

The four walked through the hallways for a while longer before Berry paused in front of another door. The door had maintenance plastered across it in white letters. There was faint music playing through the door, making the group curious as to what waited for them inside.

As Berry pushed open the door, the music got slightly louder. The group stepped inside and looked around, only to find a room much larger than the tiny security room. The area was full of shelves and tables that had items on them ranging from pieces of scrap to small tools and machines.

Twilight and her two friends walked around the room and examined the various components on the shelves and tables while Berry walked over to an opening in the back of the room that led into another section of the room. The farther they got into the room, the louder the music got. It sounded like someone was playing rock and roll music over a radio.

The four slowly found their way to the back of the room and entered into the other section. Once they got around the corner, they saw a gray earth pony mare with white hair working on what appeared to be another animatronic lying on a table. The source of the music was a small radio that sat on a table at the back of the room behind the gray pony. The mare was wearing blue coveralls that had holes on her flank to reveal her cutie mark, which consisted of two gears meshing together. She was also wearing a backwards cap that let a tuft of her hair poke through the hole in the front.

“Sparkplug!” Berry raised her voice slightly to get the mare’s attention over the music. The gray pony looked up from her work and sat the tools she was using down. She then walked over and pushed a button on the radio, shutting it off and silencing the music.

“Hey Berry, how’s it going?” Sparkplug said while walking back over to the group. She glanced over to the three strangers standing behind the purple earth pony and examined them curiously.

“Sparkplug, these are the people who are going to be staying with us this week.” Berry said while motioning towards the three.

“Howdy, I’m Applejack.” Applejack said while reaching forward and shaking the gray mare’s hoof.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight said while shaking Sparkplug’s hoof as well.

“And you must be the human I’ve heard so much about. Tom, isn’t it?” Sparkplug asked while holding her foreleg out in front of the human.

“Yes… Thomas Greene, or Tom for short.” Tom said while reaching forward and shaking the pony’s hoof with a friendly smirk.

“Wow… I can’t believe we actually have the human who saved Equestria staying at our park.” Sparkplug said in an amazed tone while admiring the human for a moment. The boy chuckled awkwardly while rubbing his arm. He wasn’t used to having a fan, let alone meeting one.

“Well, I didn’t really save Equestria. Twilight and the others did most of the work.” Tom said while glancing behind him at the two mares. Twilight and Applejack smirked with flattered expressions at the mention of their heroism.

“So umm… what are you working on, if you don’t mind me asking?” Twilight asked while examining the animatronic laid out on the table next to the gray mare.

The animatronic was another bipedal one around Tom’s height. It was a dog with reddish brown fur. It had freckles on its face, as well as whiskers on its elongated muzzle. Its eyes were green, much like Bonnie’s were, but this animatronic lacked the exaggerated eyelashes and red dimples on its cheeks that the others had.

“Oh, this? This guy is a new animatronic I’m working on. Made him myself… his name is Sparky.” Sparkplug explained while motioning towards the robotic animal.

“Wow, so you made this guy yourself?” Applejack asked in an impressed tone.

“Yep… well, my assistant Copper Coil helped me out a lot. I assume you met him already.” Sparkplug said while looking to Berry for a response.

“Yeah, I was actually looking for you down there.” Berry said with a playful leer.

“Sorry. I had to get some parts to fix a camera, and I got a little caught up with this guy.” Sparkplug said while motioning towards the animatronic on the table. “Hey, do you guys want to see him work?” She asked while looking at Twilight and her two friends.

“He works? I thought you were still working on him?” Twilight asked curiously.

“I’m still working out a few kinks in him, but he has all of the basics parts needed to function in place. Here, let me show you.” Sparkplug said while walking over to the other side of the table. Twilight and the others watched curiously as the gray mare went to the animal’s head and lifted it up slightly. She flipped open a panel on the back of the dog’s head and fiddled around with a few switches for a moment before closing the panel and setting its head back down.

“Sparky, wake mode.” Sparkplug said in a clear voice while stepping back from the animatronic. Suddenly, the dog’s pupils blinked red a few times. A shrill beep sounded out each time the red light blinked on and off until the lights stopped coming on and only Sparky’s normal black pupils remained.

A series of mechanical clicks sounded out as the robotic animal started moving. Twilight and Applejack backed up slightly in surprise as the dog sat up and looked around slowly. It settled its gaze on Sparkplug before pausing and remaining still.

“His A.I is really basic right now, so he can’t walk around on his own, but I can tell him to do things.” Sparkplug explained to the intrigued onlookers before turning back to the robotic dog.

“Sparky, wave to our guests.” The gray mare instructed while pointing to the group. Sparky turned his head to look at the ponies for a moment. He then slowly raised one of his arms and waved his paw left and right in a mechanical fashion before dropping his arm to his side again.

“That’s amazing. I can’t get over how good at speech recognition these things are.” Twilight said in an intrigued tone.

“Yeah, well that just goes to show you how many things you can do with magic. When you get down to it, these things are just glorified buckets of bolts. It’s their magical components that let them do all of the cool stuff.” The gray mare explained with a chuckle while tapping on the robot’s head to prove that it was, in fact, a hunk of metal.

“You want to try?” Sparkplug asked while noting how excited the unicorn seemed. Twilight looked at the gray mare with a surprised expression.

“Really? You want me to tell him to do something?” Twilight asked to clarify.

“Go ahead, give him a command. Anything you want him to do. He can walk around, you just have to tell him where to go and what to do.” Sparkplug explained while patting the robotic animal on the shoulder.

“Umm… Sparky, stand.” Twilight said in the clearest tone she could manage while looking squarely at the animatronic. The dog stared at the unicorn for a moment before starting to move in a clunky fashion. Sparky moved forward and off of the table while planting his feet on the floor. He stood up straight before turning to face the purple mare and waiting in place.

“Wow…” Twilight said in amazement while admiring the robotic animal.

“Sparky, stand on one leg.” Tom instructed with a curious tone. He was interested to see just how much these robots could do. Much to everyone’s surprise, Sparky shifted his weight over to his right leg and lifted his left leg off the ground. He waited like this for a few moments before returning to his natural stance.

“Ok… color me impressed.” Tom said with a satisfied nod.

“Sparky, speak.” Applejack said while looking at the animatronic expectantly.

“Actually that’s not such a-” Sparkplug started to speak up with a nervous expression until she was interrupted by Sparky opening his mouth and doing as he was instructed. The noise that came out of the robot was what one would expect a dog to sound like, but it was loud and distorted. On top of being loud, the sound looped back on itself, providing a double of every bark that the robot made.

Twilight and the others cringed and covered their ears to shield them from the unpleasant sound. Sparkplug quickly walked over and pounded on the robot’s back for a moment. After giving the dog a few good whacks, the sound died out and Sparky fell silent.

“Sorry about that… still working on his voice box.” Sparkplug said with a nervous chuckle.

“Well, he certainly sounds like a dog… you got that part right at least.” Applejack said while glancing at the robot with an awkward chuckle. Sparky stared back at the ponies as if his outburst had never happened at all.

“Maybe we should shelf Sparky for a while… I guess there’s a reason why he isn’t even in the system yet.” Sparkplug said while pressing down on Sparky’s shoulder to get him to sit back on the table. “Sparky, lay down.” She instructed while moving around the other side of the table. Everyone watched as the dog put his feet on the table and laid back down in the position they found him in.

“Sparky, sleep mode.” Sparkplug instructed in a clear tone. Sparky’s eyes blinked red a few times like they did when he first woke up, causing a series of beeps to sound out before falling silent as the animatronic shut down again.

“You said that Sparky isn’t in the system yet… what did you mean by that?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that you’re new here. Sorry, I’m not used to us getting visitors yet.” Sparkplug said with a slight chuckle while walking over to another table. She picked up a small tablet-shaped device before walking back over to the group and showing it to them.

“This is the main controls for all of the animatronics we have at the park. They are all linked together on this system to let us monitor and control them better.” Sparkplug explained while pushing a button on the side of the device. A green light lit up on the side, and before long, the screen lit up with a display that had three boxes on it. One was marked, animatronic status, another was marked park map, and the final box was marked settings. Sparkplug pressed the animatronic status button before handing the tablet off to Twilight.

Twilight looked down at the screen curiously. The screen held five boxes that had pictures of each animatronic’s head. Three of the pictures the unicorn recognized to be Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy, but two of them she had never seen before. One was what appeared to be a red cat, while the other was a white cat with pink accents. Next, to each of the pictures, there was a small colored dot that was either red or green.

“These are all of the main animatronics we have at the park. Those lights there show you which ones are currently active, and which ones are sleeping so to speak.” Sparkplug explained while pointing to each of the features on the screen.

“Here, let’s see what Bonnie is doing.” Sparkplug said while reaching over and pressing the icon that held Bonnie’s head. Another screen popped up that contained a full body image of the robotic rabbit. The gray mare tapped another box down at the bottom of the screen that said location. After a moment, another screen popped up that showed a map of the building. There was a small icon on the screen shaped like Bonnie’s head that was moving through a hallway.

“Looks like he is still helping your friends with their bags.” Berry stated while taking note of the location shown on the map.

“Wow… this is a mighty impressive setup you guys have here.” Applejack said in an amazed tone.

“So, where are the other animatronics?” Twilight asked curiously while hitting the back button on the screen. She cycled through the screens until she arrived back at the screen with the list of animatronics.

“Well, the inactive ones are in a storage room down in the basement. The active ones are scattered around the resort.” Sparkplug explained while pointing to the various animatronics.

“Hey, what are those two?” Applejack asked while pointing to the red cat and the white one with cutesy features.

“Well, that’s Felix, and that’s Party Favor.” Sparkplug explained while pointing to the red and white cats respectively. “They usually hang out in the kids’ play area.” She added while pressing their images and letting the group look at them.

The cats were another example of bipedal animatronics. Felix had red fur with a light peach coloring on his stomach and face. His eyes were yellow, and he had four whiskers on each side of his face. Party Favor looked similar to the other cat, but all of her features were overly exaggerated and cutesy. She had pink dimples on her cheeks, as well as pink accents all throughout her design. Her eyelids were pink, her lips had pink lipstick, her stomach and paw pads were all pink. Somehow, she managed to appear even more pink and feminine than Pinkie Pie, despite her main color being white.

“So, you can monitor them and give them commands from this thing?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Yep… they all have maps hardwired into their systems, so they can go to any area we tell them to. When they aren’t on orders, they usually roam around and look for guests to entertain or help out. Chica usually sticks around pool areas, Felix and Party Favor stay with the kids, Freddy usually stays on stage in the dining room, and Bonnie roams around freely.” Sparkplug explained with a cheerful smirk. She enjoyed seeing the wonder and amazement on the group’s faces as they learned about the animatronics.

“Well, if everyone is done asking questions, there is a lot more to see than just the animatronics. Why don’t I give you guys a rundown of the park?” Berry suggested in a friendly tone. Twilight glanced to Applejack to get her opinion on the matter. The orange mare nodded knowingly as she gathered that the unicorn’s curiosity was satisfied for the day as well.

“That sounds like a great idea Berry. I would love to learn my way around the park before meeting up with the others.” Twilight said with an excited smile. She couldn’t wait to dive headlong into a pool with her friends.

“Hey Berry, do you think you could show me where you have been getting the most paranormal activity? I would like to get a feel for what we’re dealing with before I chalk the rest of the day up to poolside fun.” Tom asked while glancing to the purple earth pony curiously.

“Of course…” Berry replied before turning to Sparkplug. “Sparkplug, if you aren’t too busy working the kinks out of Sparky, could you take Tom down to the basement and show him around?” She asked in a courteous tone.

“Sure thing, let me just put my tools up.” Sparkplug said while picking up the tools from the table Sparky was on and walking across the room to a shelf that held various tools and toolboxes. As the gray mare walked by a table full of assorted mechanical parts and devices, Tom’s eye caught something that intrigued him.

“Hold on a second…” The human said in a curious tone while walking forward and picking up the item that caught his attention. The object was a small box with an antenna on it that had a series of lights built into the side of it. Noticing the boy’s curiosity, Sparkplug turned around to see what he was examining. “Is this an EMF meter?” Tom asked with a slight twinge of excitement in his voice. The gray mare was caught off guard by his sudden interest in the device.

“It most certainly is… you must have a good eye if you picked that thing out so quickly.” Sparkplug stated in an impressed tone.

“For those of us who aren’t technically inclined, what is an EMF meter?” Applejack asked in a confused tone while waiting for what she hoped would be a simple explanation.

“EMF meter stands for electromagnetic field meter. This bad boy is what people without magic or the ability to sense evil use to detect ghosts. I used to love old school ghost hunting tech like this back when I was still an average human.” Tom explained with a giddy expression on his face. “Did you build this yourself? It looks custom made.” He asked while glancing over to Sparkplug. The gray mare blushed slightly and looked down in a bashful manner.

“Umm… yeah, it’s kind of a hobby of mine. I’ve always wanted to be a ghost hunter ever since I was a filly. Spirits and the supernatural just intrigue me a lot, so I made one of those rather than spending a lot of bits on one. It’s more fun to build your own tech anyway.” Sparkplug explained with a small smile building on her face.

“Does it actually work?” Twilight asked curiously while examining the small device herself.

“Well… it should. I haven’t actually been able to accurately test it. Even if it does get a reading, I can’t be sure if it’s the real deal… especially with all of the tech around this place sending out electromagnetic waves like they’re going out of style.” Sparkplug said with a disappointed shrug.

“Hmm… why don’t you let me test it for you?” Tom suggested while holding the small device in one hand.

“Really? You could do that?” Sparkplug asked in a surprised tone.

“Yeah, it would be easy. I can sense evil, so I can tell you if a reading is accurate or not. Plus, I was kind of a total ghost hunting nut when I was younger, so I know exactly how these things should work.” Tom explained with a confident smirk.

Sparkplug smiled at the human’s proposition. She was excited to be able to finally see if her hard work would pay off, or if she just had a pile of junk on her hooves. Either way, it would definitely intrigue her to watch a real ghost hunter at work.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Greene.” Sparkplug stated with an eager smile while reaching forward and shaking the human’s hand.

“Try not to have too much fun down there Sparkplug.” Berry Swirl said with an amused chuckle while walking towards the exit with Twilight and Applejack in tow.

“I make no promises.” Sparkplug replied with a sly smirk while waving to the trio. Twilight and Applejack waved to Tom and said their goodbyes as they followed the earth pony out of the room. Tom waited for Sparkplug to finish up before following her out of the room and starting towards the basement.

Chapter 7: Settling In

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As Bonnie the mechanized bunny marched through the resort, Rainbow Dash and the others followed him closely as they anticipated reaching their rooms. Once they got settled in and unpacked, the ponies could start their vacation off properly.

The animatronic animal led the group around the first floor until they reached a stairway. They walked up the stairs until they reached the third and final floor of the resort. They turned down a hallway until they suddenly found themselves walking through a stretch of rooms numbered one hundred onwards. Apparently, their rooms were still a ways to go because Bonnie showed no signs of stopping. Still, the atmosphere in the hallway was pleasant enough to make walking around the building a positive experience for the group.

The dark blue carpet beneath their hooves was soft and clean. There was a spiral design set into the carpet that repeated every few feet. This pattern was also blue, but it was a slightly lighter shade than the rest of the carpet.

Along the bottom of the walls, there was brown trim that covered all of the space on the walls save for the doors. The walls were a dim shade of white that, when combined with the calm blues and the deep browns of the rest of the décor, created a peaceful and serene atmosphere. There were brown spiral shaped shells painted onto the white wallpaper in a pattern. The shells themselves were of various sizes and orientations, but they were all brown, and they all had intricate patterns painted into their spirals.

Other than the occasional painting on the wall and a few tables with vases of flowers on them, there weren’t many other things in the way of decorations. Despite this, the hallways still managed to look fancy and luxurious, while not shoving art in the face of guests so much that it took away from the serene atmosphere.

“Wow… this place keeps getting better and better.” Applebloom said while marveling at her surroundings.

“I can’t wait to see what our rooms look like!” Sweetie Belle stated eagerly while smiling from ear to ear. Most of the group shared in the fillies’ excitement, even though they showed it in their own ways. Still, the ponies couldn’t help but wonder when they would actually reach their rooms.

“Speaking of which… how long are we going to be walking around for?” Rainbow Dash asked her friends rhetorically, only to receive shrugged shoulders and uncertain expressions. Finally, the pegasus sighed before turning her attention to the robotic animal leading her along through the hallways. “Hey Bonnie, how much farther is it to our rooms?” Rainbow asked with hopeful optimism that the animatronic would understand her. Bonnie turned his head to look behind him at the group of ponies. Although he didn’t spin his head around all the way, which would have been plenty creepy in its own right, his expressionless eyes looked a bit eerie as he stared back at them from the corner of his vision.

“We’re almost there. Your rooms are just down this hallway.” Bonnie said with his usual friendly demeanor in full swing. The ponies wondered if he was capable of sounding like anything other than an overzealous clown at a birthday party.

Satisfied with the answer given, Rainbow Dash returned to her daydreams of everything she would be doing in the next week. There was so much to do in so little time. She could swim and play around with her friends to her heart’s content, and at the end of the day she could retire to a luxurious hotel room and kick back.

While the cyan mare was adrift in her own mind, the others were happily enjoying their time together. They had been incredibly busy with their personal agendas in recent weeks, so even walking through a hallway was a good opportunity to make up for lost time.

“So, what have you guys been up to since the last time we got together?” Pinkie Pie asked curiously while glancing around at her friends to see what they had been up to.

“Well… if you must know, I have been keeping myself busy with designing a new line of summer clothing. So many ponies go to the beach and to the pool when summer rolls around, but they have nothing stylish to wear.” Rarity explained in an appalled tone. It never ceased to amaze the others how much drama could arise from clothes for the white unicorn.

“That sounds neat, but I think I could think of an even better way you could have spent that time.” Pinkie Pie said with an eager smile while getting closer to the white mare. Rarity nervously chuckled as she thought of what her friend could possibly say next. If she knew the pink mare like she thought she did, she knew that it had something to do with parties.

“Is it partying?” Rarity asked hesitantly.

“No, even better! Partying with me and everyone else!” Pinkie corrected the unicorn while grabbing Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and pulling them into a tight hold as if she were presenting them to the white mare for reference.

Rarity shrugged. “That sounds great darling, it really does… but sometimes life gets in the way of having fun and throwing parties.” She said with a slight frown. She really would have rather spent the past weeks with her friends, but she had been so busy at the boutique that she barely had time to see her own sister, let alone anyone else.

“Well, that changes right now. We have an entire week together! We can throw a party anytime we want!” Pinkie said in an excited tone.

“Slow down there Pinkie. We have to at least get to our rooms before we think about what to do next.” Sunspot suggested while trying to keep the pink mare’s energy in check.

“Besides, I think we should keep things simple for today at least. I think a little poolside fun will be plenty of excitement for me right now.” Glitterball added.

“Alrighty then, I guess we can throw a simple party without any streamers or cake or anything like that. Ooh, we can throw a pool party. I love those!” Pinkie suggested eagerly.

“What do you qualify as a pool party?” Rarity asked curiously.

“Playing around in a pool, silly! We can play marco polo, and splash each other, and all kinds of other fun stuff.” Pinkie replied, preventing herself from going off on a lengthy tangent.

“Whatever floats your inner tube.” Sunspot said with an amused chuckle.

While they were talking, the group turned around a corner into another stretch of rooms. After walking a short ways down the hall, Bonnie stopped and turned around before setting the two suitcases he was carrying down.

“Here we are! These are the best suites in the resort! You may choose which room to stay in. They are all unlocked for the moment.” The animatronic explained while motioning towards the rooms behind him. “I will go get the rest of your bags.” He stated before walking past the group and back around the corner. The ponies looked down the empty hallway and listened to the metallic footsteps made by the robotic animal as he walked away.

“I guess he isn’t the type for small talk.” Rainbow Dash said while glancing at the others with an awkward shrug. The animatronics may have been able to produce speech and understand commands, but they were far from passing for normal. Then again, it wasn’t really their purpose to blend in.

“So, we can just pick a room and check it out?” Spike asked curiously while glancing around at the numerous doors in the hallway.

“I guess so… I got dibs on first pick!” Sunspot said while smirking and opening one of the doors to look inside. The others followed the orange pegasus as she stepped in and took a look around.

“Whoa…” Scootaloo and her two fellow crusaders exclaimed in unison as they looked around the interior of the room. Everyone else shared in their amazement as they observed their surroundings.

The room they were standing in appeared to be a living room of sorts. There were a few couches and tables dotted around the room, as well as a number of chairs. Paintings and miniature shelves full of books lined the walls, which were a light shade of blue with a darker trim about midway down that ran across the entire room. The carpet was gray, with a spiral pattern set into it that ran throughout the room.

There was a small kitchen area at the back of the room, an open bathroom on the left wall, and a doorway in the middle of the back wall that led into a bedroom. As the group walked into the bedroom, they noticed that it had three queen sized beds in it, along with a walk-in closet and a desk. There was also a window facing out into the rest of the park.

“Wow… check out that view.” Sunspot said while staring out the window with an astonished expression. Even though there wasn’t much to see beyond the park itself, the extravagant pools and water slides were a sight to behold.

“And check out these beds!” Rainbow Dash said while hopping up and plopping down on the middle bed with a relaxed groan. She stretched for a moment before admiring the cozy texture of the blankets and the soft cool pillow.

“They’re so soft.” Fluttershy said while pressing down on one of the beds with her hoof.

“And bouncy!” Pinkie Pie added while jumping up and down on the remaining bed. The pink mare was able to get some surprising height off of the springy mattress, to the point where her friends were concerned that she would bump her head on the ceiling.

Glimmer Shine smiled contentedly while looking around. “I guess I could get used to staying here for a week… why don’t we share this room, guys?” He asked while turning to his two teammates.

“I am definitely ok with that.” Sunspot replied eagerly.

“Ditto.” Glitterball added with a smirk.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go pick out our own rooms!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed before rushing off eagerly.

“Yay!” Scootaloo and her two friends cheered while rushing to follow the cyan mare. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy giggled before following the excited fillies out of the room while Glimmer Shine and his teammates got settled in.

As they went back out into the hallway and searched through the rooms, everyone found a room they were comfortable with. Most of the rooms were similar, but they all had a varying number of beds. Some of them even had two bedrooms with two beds each.

After a rousing few minutes of everyone claiming rooms and playfully arguing over who would be staying where, the ponies came to a consensus as to who would be lodging together. Thanks to the number of rooms with several beds, they wouldn’t have to occupy that many rooms.

Applejack and Rarity would be sharing a room with their two siblings and Scootaloo. Although the white unicorn wasn’t too keen on sleeping in the same room as her orange friend and three fillies for a week, she was hopeful that everything would sort itself out and Applejack would agree to it when she got back from the tour of the resort. There were four beds in the room, so at least two of the fillies would have to share a bed. After delegating for a few minutes, the crusaders decided that Scootaloo would get a bed to herself while Applebloom and Sweetie Belle would be sharing the remaining bed.

Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash decided to stay in the same room together. Pinkie was already getting excited with all of the games she could play while spending time in the room with her friends before everyone went to bed. Somehow, she still found the time to unpack while fantasizing about all of her plans.

Spike found a room with three beds that he could share with Twilight and Tom. He would have to show it to them after they got back from whatever they were doing downstairs. The young dragon enlisted the help of Glitterball to assist him with unpacking the unicorn and the human’s bags as well as his own.

After everyone got settled in, they decided to start getting ready to head to the nearest pool. Pinkie Pie had her snorkel and flippers ready, along with some colorful floaties. Everyone else merely brought standard swimming gear.

The group gathered out in the hallway, but they quickly realized that they had no idea where they were going. Everything they traveled through thus far was a mess of hallways with barely anything in between for context.

“I don’t suppose anyone saw a map when we were walking?” Sunspot asked sarcastically while glancing around at the group.

“Not exactly… but I might have something better.” Rainbow Dash said while looking down the hallway. She noticed a familiar animatronic rabbit walking over with the remaining luggage from downstairs.

“Bonnie, can you tell us how to get to the nearest pool?” Rainbow asked in a clear tone while walking over to the robotic animal. The blue bunny paused and looked at the cyan mare before setting one of the bags down and pointing down the hallway.

“Go down this hallway and follow the next one down to the stairs. Go to the first floor, head left and the pool is the fifth door on your right.” Bonnie explained in an instructive tone. After he was done addressing the pegasus, he picked the bag back up and continued walking.

“Oh, and before I forget… Bonnie, could you tell Silver Bell that we’re staying in rooms one-hundred and fifteen, one hundred and seventeen, and one hundred and eighteen?” Rainbow Dash asked in a polite tone, despite the fact that she was talking to a machine. It felt odd for her to talk like she was addressing an actual sentient being when talking to the robotic rabbit.

“I’ll be sure to do that right away!” Bonnie replied cheerfully before setting the bags down and walking away. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy took the bags into their room before walking back out to join the others.

“Well… you heard the five-foot tall mechanical talking rabbit… let’s go!” Sunspot stated while starting her way down the hall. Everyone cheered in agreement before following the orange pegasus as she marched onwards.

Everyone walked through the hallways as instructed until they came to a stairway. They walked down the steps until they reached the first floor, where they turned left. As they counted the doors on their right, they noticed a set of double doors with blurry glass windows set into them. Through the doors, there was a room with a large rectangular pool, as well as two figures inside.

“This looks like the place.” Pinkie Pie stated while peering inside of the pool area.

“Looks like there is someone in there already…” Rainbow Dash noted while glancing between the two silhouettes in the room. One was shaped like a pony, while the other was another figure around Tom’s height.

“That must be another one of the animatronics.” Rarity said in a curious tone while observing the bipedal figure. She couldn’t see much more than the color yellow on the figure, so she gathered that it must have been the chicken animatronic she saw from the flyer.

“Well, let’s head inside. I’m sure whoever is in there won’t mind.” Sunspot suggested while reaching for the door handle. Everyone nodded in agreement as they watched the orange pegasus push the door open.

As the group stepped inside and took a look around, they smiled as they came across the usual peaceful atmosphere that any pool had before the commotion of ponies playing and swimming filled the air. The floor was made out of hard tiles that felt cold on the group’s hooves. The tiles were white, with blue tiles mixed in every few feet in a diagonal pattern. There were several white lounge chairs with mesh bodies strewn around the pool. Next to each set of chairs, there were white tables that held blue towels on top of them. There was a door to a storage closet on the wall to the right, and next to the door there was a small dial. The dial most likely controlled the hot tub that was nestled into the corner of the room.

The smell of chlorine filled the air, combining with the soft sound of water splashing to create the unmistakable aura of a pool. Light shimmered and reflected along the sides of the pool as it bounced off of the tiny ripples and waves. In the ceiling, there were a series of dome-shaped lights that had decorative casings of glass with designs set into them. These lights offered the entirety of the light in the room due to the lack of windows, but they were enough to create a comfortable level of lighting.

“Wow… this place is cool!” Sweetie Belle announced with an eager smile as she looked around the pool.

As they looked around, the group noticed the two figures from before looking back at them with equal curiosity. One was a tan earth pony stallion with brown hair. He was wearing a white tank top and red swim shorts that covered up his cutie mark. He also had a whistle hanging around his neck by a string.

The other figure, as expected, wasn’t a living creature, at least not in the typical way of describing one. A bipedal chicken animatronic was standing on the other side of the pool. She appeared to be female judging from the pink dimples on her face and her exaggerated eyelashes. She had a yellow colored body, with an orange beak and a set of white teeth that helped her to form a cheerful smile. She was also wearing a similar white tank top and red swim shorts that the stallion was wearing, only her tank top had brightly colored lifesavers on it and the words “let’s swim!” printed across it. The chicken also had a red lifesaver under her arm.

Upon noticing the group entering, the tan stallion walked over to them with a friendly smile on his face. He carefully walked around the corner of the pool and stepped up to the group of ponies watching him curiously.

“Hello, sir.” Rarity greeted the stallion on behalf of the group while stepping forward.

“Hi… you must be that group that Berry said was coming today, am I right?” The stallion asked curiously.

“You most certainly are. My friends came here to help solve your special problem, and we tagged along with them.” Rarity explained in a friendly manner while looking back at Glimmer Shine and his two teammates.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. All of these strange occurrences have been starting to creep us out, so it’s nice to see someone who can take care of them for us. I’m High Tide. I’m the lifeguard here at the park.” The stallion introduced himself while reaching out his foreleg to shake the group’s hooves. Everyone stepped forward and introduced themselves while accepting his gesture.

“So you’re the only lifeguard here? That must be pretty tough.” Rainbow Dash said in an intrigued tone.

“Yeah, I’m the only one here… at least for the moment. I do have some help, however.” High Tide explained while turning to look at the animatronic chicken across the room. “That’s one of our famous animatronics over there. I assume Berry told you a little bit about them when she brought you here?” He asked curiously.

“She told us the basics about them. That one is Chica isn’t it?” Rarity asked while recalling what Twilight called the robotic animal earlier.

High Tide nodded. “That’s right. She helps me keep an eye on things around the park to make sure everyone is safe.”

“How does she do that?” Glitterball asked curiously while observing the mechanical chicken from afar. Chica stared back at the group as they stared at her, all the while standing still as if they were merely a slight distraction from her usual routine.

“Her A.I works a little differently than the other animatronics. She is patched into all of the security cameras around the park. If she spots someone in distress, she will send all the information I need to a pager I usually keep on me.” High Tide explained to the eagerly listening crowd. Everyone was intrigued by the capabilities of the mechanical mascots.

“Can she still follow orders and talk to people like Bonnie can?” Rainbow Dash asked while looking at Chica curiously.

“Sort of… she will interact with guests and talk to them when spoken to, but she doesn’t have the ability to understand complex orders right now. Our maintenance pony is still tweaking with her A.I to make it on par with the other animatronics we have. Here, let me show you.” High Tide stated before turning to the robot. “Chica, come here.” He raised his voice to carry across the room better.

Chica raised her head and turned her body to better face the group of ponies. She then started walking over to them. As she walked, her head barely moved and she didn’t even blink. She seemed to be missing the slight mannerisms that Bonnie had to make him appear slightly more realistic, like looking around at random or moving his body in a different way each time he moved.

Once the animatronic reached the group, she stopped and stood still without saying a word. She looked down at High Tide as if to wait for more orders, but otherwise, she didn’t show any sign of paying attention to the ponies.

Applebloom giggled cheerfully as she looked up at the robotic chicken. Even if Chica didn’t act nearly as lifelike as Bonnie did, the filly still liked her. Back when she saw the flyer with the robotic animals on it, she never expected to see them walking around and talking to her.

Noticing the filly staring up at the animatronic with a cheerful smile, High Tide smirked warmly. He knelt down to get at eye level with the yellow filly before speaking up. “Hey, what’s your name?” The stallion asked in a friendly tone.

Applebloom looked over to the tan pony with a curious expression. “Applebloom.” The filly said with a slight expression of confusion. She wondered why the stallion asked her for her name specifically.

High Tide stood up before turning to the animatronic and looking up at her. “Chica, say hi to Applebloom for me.” The tan pony instructed in a clear tone. A slight mechanical noise sounded out as Chica looked down to the yellow filly. As if a switch were flipped, the robotic chicken blinked and fluttered her eyes before bending down and placing her hands on her knees in a cutesy fashion. She seemed to be acting much more lively now, perhaps as some sort of routine she followed when talking to guests.

“Hello Applebloom, how are you doing today?” Chica asked in a friendly tone before tilting her head curiously. Her voice had the same robotic distortion that Bonnie did, but her voice was that of a higher pitched female to match with her appearance.

“Hehe... I’m fine.” Applebloom chuckled as a giddy smile formed on her face. She knew that the creature in front of her was nothing more than a mechanical puppet, but she still felt warm and fuzzy inside from hearing it address her by name.

Everyone smiled warmly as they watched the filly interacting with the animatronic. They couldn’t help but to sit back and watch as Applebloom spoke to the chicken like she was real.

“Wow… she’s really nice.” Applebloom stated while shifting her attention from the robotic animal for a moment.

“All of our animatronics are designed to treat our guests nicely.” High Tide said in response before turning back to Chica. “Chica, go down to the storage room and enter sleep mode. I think you’ve had enough excitement for today.” The stallion instructed in a clear tone.

Chica got up and walked towards the door. Her movements returned to being choppy and straightforward as she focused more on completing her given order rather than appearing realistic.

“Aww…” Applebloom frowned slightly as she watched the animatronic leaving out of the double doors.

“Sorry about that. Chica can say a few different greetings, but she can’t do much else other than monitoring the park for now. If you want someone to play with you, maybe you should check out the play area sometime. There are two more animatronics that stay in there, and they can interact much better with you than Chica could.” High Tide explained in a sympathetic tone.

“That sounds like a good idea… maybe we could go down there tomorrow.” Applebloom said while pondering about the matter eagerly. She would have to ask her sister about it the next time she saw her.

“Well, I’ll leave you guys to have some fun. If you need anything, I’ll be across the hall in the break room.” High Tide said while walking over to the door. Everyone nodded and waved as the stallion exited the room, leaving them alone.

Rainbow Dash looked around and smirked as she realized that nobody was looking. She was prepared to make the best of having fun in the pool, and she was eager to kick things off properly. “Last one in’s a rotten egg!” The cyan mare exclaimed while taking a running jump into the pool. Everyone cringed as water splashed into their faces from the pegasus’s impact. Scootaloo and her two fellow crusaders glanced to each other with wry smirks before scrambling to be the next ones in the water.

“Woohoo!” Pinkie Pie cheered while hopping into the pool after the fillies. Glimmer Shine and Sunspot bolted forward with an amused chuckle while trying to beat each other into the water. Glitterball unstrapped her strobe from her leg and levitated it over to a nearby table along with her two teammates’ strobes before hopping in.

Meanwhile, Rarity was still flinching her eyes closed as wave after wave of water hit her in the face. She was prepared to get herself wet, but she had hoped to ease into it at her own pace. As she sputtered and blew the wet strands of hair out of her eyes, she realized that her plans were apparently too slow for the others. She also realized that she was the last one in, and would be named the proverbial rotten egg.

“Ugh… I wish there was a way to enjoy a pool without endless hours spent fixing my hair afterward. Oh well…” The white unicorn shrugged before holding her breath and jumping in after her friends. Everyone cheered and laughed eagerly as they started to swim around and splash each other.

Meanwhile down in the basement of the resort, Sparkplug was leading Tom around to show him the areas where the strange activity had been experienced. As she walked through the darkened hallways, the gray mare flipped on light switches to turn on the lights further ahead.

“This place is really big, especially considering how few people are working here.” Tom noted while looking around at the many doorways to their sides.

“Berry plans on expanding the staff once we get more up to speed.” Sparkplug replied.

Tom nodded with an intrigued expression while looking at the gray mare beside him. “So how long will it be before you guys can open up the park?” He asked curiously.

“Well… we still have a lot of work to do on the animatronics. Most of the park itself is already functional. We just need to touch up some things here and there, but the animatronics still have a ways to go before they are ready for the public.” Sparkplug explained while thinking about the matter further.

“They seemed to work just fine to me… well, other than Sparky. But you are building him from scratch, so a few bugs are to be expected.” Tom stated with a slight cringe while thinking back to the mechanical dog.

Sparkplug tilted her head. “Well, you did only see Bonnie to be fair. He is the most complete out of the bunch. None of them are broken or anything mind you, but other than Bonnie, they can’t handle doing everything at once. Chica only monitors the pools for safety purposes. Party Favor and Felix work well with interacting with guests, but don’t do so great with anything else. And Freddy… well, he just knows how to go to and from the stage and entertain guests with prerecorded songs.” She explained each animatronic as best she could.

“So the idea is for all of them to be able to do everything at once.” Tom said as he caught on to what the mare was explaining.

Sparkplug nodded cheerfully. “Exactly.”

Before anyone could say anything else, the gray mare paused and opened a door on the right labeled “parts and storage”. The human followed the pony inside before taking a look around the dimly lit room for himself.

The room was an open space with tables and shelves lining the walls. The shelves were full of animatronic parts ranging from arms or random pieces of metallic gray endoskeletons to empty heads belonging to a range of animatronics that Tom hadn’t even seen yet. Scattered among the tables were full endoskeletons laid out across them. The endoskeletons had jaws full of blocky teeth and stock eyes that looked entirely different from the eyes on the finished animatronics.

Sitting up against the right wall were two inactive animatronics that were slumped over and motionless. One of the animatronics was a pony shaped brown bear with a black bow tie and a top hat. He had a microphone clutched in one of his front paws. Tom recognized this animatronic to be Freddy.

The other animatronic was a bipedal cat with red fur. He had a lighter peach coloring running down his stomach and on his face. He was wearing a bright red bowtie on his chest similar to what Bonnie was wearing.

“Are those Freddy and Felix?” Tom asked curiously.

“Yep, this is where the animatronics go when they are inactive. This is also where we store the spare endoskeletons and parts.” Sparkplug explained while flipping a light switch on. Two overhead lights flickered on, bathing the room in light.

“So that’s what they look like on the inside.” Tom said while observing two of the endoskeletons on a nearby table. One of the metal frames was built for a bipedal style of animatronic, while the other one was roughly shaped like a pony.

“Yep… they’re kind of unsightly without the friendly looking shells on aren’t they?” Sparkplug asked with a slight nervous chuckle while looking at the bare endoskeletons. The way that their eyes and teeth stood out from the dull gray frames that made up their body was rather disturbing. The pony shaped endoskeleton especially seemed creepy to the human, perhaps due to him still being used to his own physiology.

“Yeah… you could say that.” Tom said with raised eyebrows while staring at the two endoskeletons in surprise.

“Well if it makes you feel better, those endoskeletons don’t even have A.I programmed into them yet. They’re nothing but hunks of junk right now.” Sparkplug said in an attempt at lightening the mood. She picked up the bipedal endoskeleton’s arm and let it flop back down onto the table to prove that they were, in fact, lifeless.

Tom tilted his head curiously while looking over the bipedal endoskeleton. “Why do you guys have humanoid animatronics anyway? Freddy seems to be the only one that is modeled after a pony.” He asked while glancing over to the motionless bear leaning against the wall.

Sparkplug paused briefly in thought. “Well… to be honest, we just carried on where Berry’s father and grandfather left off. Most of the notes on how to make these guys came from their combined work, so we just made some models based on what they were trying to do. I guess they figured that bipedal robots would be able to do more around the park. They are a little easier to work on for sure. That’s most of the reason why we’ve been having trouble getting Freddy up and running like the rest of them. Silver Bell helped me out a little bit, but she could only do so much. Without a professional unicorn to help me out, we can’t do much to fix his A.I. and improve all of the others, and we definitely can’t make more pony shaped animatronics or animatronics in general without fresh parts. I was lucky to find the parts needed for Sparky when I started making him. I guess we will have to wait until Berry hires someone to help out before perfecting the animatronics.” She explained in a troubled tone.

Satisfied with the answer given, the human nodded before returning his attention to the room itself. “I assume you didn’t just take me here for fun?” Tom asked while getting back to why he was down in the basement in the first place.

“Nope, I didn’t. This is one of the places where we heard the voices. I’ve also noticed a few parts move from where I put them last, and I know nopony else touched them.” Sparkplug explained while looking around the room curiously.

“Hmm…” Tom muttered, walking around the room while deep in thought. “Are you sure that the voices aren’t just a malfunctioning voice box?” The human asked while glancing to the shelves full of parts.

“I’m positive. None of the spare voice boxes here are connected to a power supply. Not only that, but we’ve heard the voices in other locations too, with no animatronics or any other voice boxes nearby.” Sparkplug replied confidently.

“Alright, just checking to be sure… you would be surprised at how many ghost hauntings turned out to be fake in the human world. Most people get freaked out by the smallest random noise in a spooky old house and are convinced that it’s haunted.” Tom said with a slight chuckle.

“Well, there weren’t exactly that many real ghosts in Equestria… at least until you showed up and stopped those hooded ponies.” Sparkplug said.

“I’m sure there were a few paranormal things in Equestria before the hooded ponies performed all of their rituals, but there are a lot more now that all of that energy got released.” Tom explained with a slight shrug of disappointment.

“Huh… I would have thought you would be thrilled to have more monsters to fight?” Sparkplug asked lightheartedly.

“To be quite honest, I would be fine if monsters up and went extinct. My reason for being here might be to fight evil, but that doesn’t mean that I would prefer to do it.” Tom stated in a somber tone. The gray mare was unsure of what to say in response to the boy’s words. The two sat in silence for a moment before they returned their attention to the business at hand.

Tom flipped a switch on the side of the EMF meter, causing the red lights on top to light up as a shrill tone filled the air. The human walked around while using his senses, comparing what he was feeling to what the red lights on the machine were telling him. As he walked around with the small device, more of the red lights lit up in certain places, causing the tone being emitted to change in pitch slightly.

Sparkplug stood back and watched with an intrigued expression as the boy walked around. “Are you getting something?” She asked eagerly while watching the boy walking towards the door slowly. He seemed to be following something using his senses while also looking at the EMF meter to see how it was reacting.

“I’m picking up a faint trail of energy leading out into the hallway, but it’s too small for the machine to detect. This room is full of ambient energy, which the meter seems to be picking up just fine. All in all, I would say it works like a charm.” Tom said before switching the meter off and handing it over to the gray mare. Sparkplug was pleased to hear that her device worked, but she was also curious about the human’s statement.

“A trail of energy leading outside? What, like a ghost trail?” Sparkplug asked curiously.

“Sort of… The energy I’m picking up right now is ambient, meaning that it isn’t attached to any active entity. It could have been left behind from a ghost moving around in the area, but it could also have been left behind a long time ago. It’s hard to say what the cause of it is at the moment, but I’m going to try and follow it to the source.” Tom explained while opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. Sparkplug turned off the light in the room before following the human outside and closing the door behind her.

Instead of the gray mare leading the human around, their roles had now switched as Tom took the lead. Sparkplug watched curiously as the boy exhaled blue mist from his mouth every few moments. A shrill and slightly eerie hiss followed each puff of mist. The display was strange and intriguing to the pony, and certainly unlike anything she had ever seen before.

“How do your senses work?” Sparkplug asked curiously. The boy was a little surprised by her question. He hadn’t been asked anything about his abilities since he first arrived in Equestria. Still, he decided that he would try to answer her as best he could.

“Well… it’s kind of complicated to explain to someone who doesn’t have them. Imagine trying to explain colors to a person that has been blind since birth.” Tom said while trying to think of an elegant way to describe his powers.

Sparkplug cringed slightly while thinking about such a task. “I guess that would be pretty hard. You could always give me the simplified version if you want.” She suggested in a helpful tone.

“Basically, I can feel a lot of different things whenever I use my senses. I can pick up on energy traces that have been left several days in the past, and I can pick up current energy signatures left by something recently, and I can usually tell the difference between the two. I can also feel different things about what monster I’m hunting. This allows me to determine what monster it is before I even see it. Even if I have never come across the monster before, I can sometimes figure out what it’s like if I feel aspects of its energy that are familiar to me.” Tom explained as clearly as he could.

“What do you mean by that?” Sparkplug asked in a confused tone. She was trying her hardest to follow along with the human’s logic, but she was having trouble understanding everything he said.

“Like for instance… if I run across a shadow creature I’ve never seen before, I would be able to tell that it’s a shadow creature from a distance based on how it feels to me.” Tom said in an attempt at simplifying his lengthy explanation.

“Hmm… that must come in handy when you’re hunting something.” Sparkplug nodded with an intrigued tone.

“Oh, definitely… my senses also let me know if there is something evil in the area that I don’t know about. They really make my job a lot easier.” Tom stated with a slight smirk.

Sparkplug paused and looked to the boy with a curious expression. “If your senses tell you if there is something you don’t know about, then why aren’t they telling you about where these ghosts are?”

“Well, my senses only go off defensively if there is a sudden change in energy that I’m not aware of. Like for instance, if there was a monster behind me about to rip me to shreds, my senses would go off without my influence to warn me about the danger. Every time I use my senses, the area directly around me is what I can feel most vividly. I have to concentrate and use my senses multiple times to scope out a larger area.” Tom said before turning his attention back to his search.

“Wow… that is pretty cool. I’ll bet the princess must be incredibly relieved knowing that she has you to help protect Equestria.” Sparkplug stated in an amazed tone.

“At the end of the day, I’m just one of the many tools that the princess has at her disposal to keep Equestria safe. I do whatever I can to make sure that nothing evil can thrive in this world, and in return, the princess makes sure that I never run out of things to slay.” Tom said in a sincere manner. The gray mare could tell that he took his job very seriously from the passion in his voice.

Before Sparkplug could ask any more questions, Tom paused with a curious expression and looked around. He used his senses a few more times while glancing around in an almost confused manner as if he were looking for something.

“I’m feeling something underneath us… is there anything down there I should know about?” The human asked curiously, half expecting the park to have been built on an ancient graveyard or something else along those lines.

“Umm… yeah, there are a few rooms underneath us that are left over from when Berry’s grandfather tried to make an expansion to the building.” Sparkplug said while recalling from memory anything that might be lower than the basement.

“Could you take me down there? I think whatever ghosts you might have are coming from there.” Tom said while using his senses again to confirm his suspicions.

“Sure, just let me stop by a supply closet to grab a flashlight. Some of the lights don’t work down there… We haven’t really been down there since we got here, so it’s in a state of disrepair.” Sparkplug explained while walking down a fork in the hallway. She walked over to a door and opened it before rifling around in the small opening. Once she found what she was looking for, she closed the door before walking back over to the human with a flashlight. “Follow me.” Sparkplug said while walking down the hallway. Tom followed the gray mare as instructed.

The two walked for a few moments before reaching the end of the hallway. Sparkplug turned left and walked up to a door at the end of the shorter hallway that waited for her. The door had a small window set into it that looked like any door to a stairwell would.

Once Sparkplug opened the door, she flipped on the flashlight and walked inside before waiting for the human to join her. As Tom peered over the metal bars that served as the railing to the tight stairway, he noticed several cobwebs and lines of dust on the segmented metal steps. The stairs descended downwards until they reached a concrete floor that was covered in more dust. It almost looked like a storm cellar that had been left to accumulate dust and debris over the years.

“Yikes… you weren’t kidding when you said state of disrepair were you?” Tom asked in an amazed tone.

“I hope you don’t have asthma… or a fear of spiders.” Sparkplug said with a slight awkward chuckle before walking down the stairs.

Tom chuckled at the mare’s words before pausing as he realized what she just said. “Wait… what was that about spiders?” The human asked with a slight twinge of nervousness. Sparkplug ignored his question as she descended the staircase.

Each step the pair made rang out as their feet clanged against the metal stairs. The sound reverberated off of the walls in the small stairwell, creating an echo that made it sound like they were descending into something of far greater importance than an extension to a building.

Once they reached the bottom, Sparkplug opened up another door with a window set into it and stepped inside. Tom followed her as she walked out into what appeared to be another hallway, but this one was vastly different from the one upstairs.

The entire area was pitch black. There were a few lights scattered along the ceiling with broken or missing fixtures, but if what Sparkplug said earlier was true, they didn’t work. There were rooms dotted along the sides of the corridor, but they were missing doors. As the human and the mare walked through the dusty hallway and looked inside of each room they passed, they only saw half-finished rooms full of old and forgotten items. There seemed to be construction tools in some of the rooms, but they were left as they were, as if whatever workers were using them just left in a hurry and forgot them.

“So you said this area was supposed to be an extension of the building?” Tom asked curiously while glancing around at the aged rooms around him.

“Yeah, apparently Berry’s granddad tried to make an underground section for the resort. It would give the resort more rooms and allow for more attraction space.” Sparkplug explained.

“Oh yeah, this place was a park even back then wasn’t it?” Tom asked curiously.

“Right… After the theme park closed down, Berry’s grandfather and great grandfather wanted so badly to return the park to its roots, but they couldn’t just rebuild it with everything that happened. There wasn’t enough free space left on the property that didn’t get damaged by the earthquake.” Sparkplug said while thinking back to the story Berry told her of her grandfather and his dreams.

“So their solution was to build down?” Tom asked in a surprised tone. He would never have figured that a theme park owner in Equestria could take on such a task.

“Yeah, I guess so. Berry’s great-grandfather retired shortly after building this place with his son. It was Berry’s grandfather that decided to build down here. His original idea was to make a small extension to the resort and build as many attractions as he could underground, but he didn’t get very far with the actual construction of anything other than the layout.” Sparkplug explained while looking around and picturing what the musty hallways she was walking through could have been used for.

Tom shook his head in disbelief. “A miniature theme park built underneath a water resort? That sounds like a rather ambitious project.” He said with an amazed expression while looking around. He wouldn’t have believed such a thing to exist if he wasn’t seeing it with his own eyes.

“Well, Berry’s grandfather was an ambitious pony. Being the son of one of the most successful theme park owners in Equestria didn’t hurt either.” Sparkplug said with a slight chuckle.

“So what happened? I assume that everything didn’t go according to plan.” Tom said while looking around at the disrepair around him. It looked like the entire area was simply unfinished.

“Well… everything was going according to plan for a while. Cotton Swirl, Berry’s grandfather, had everything running smoothly. He had plans to build a few walk-in attractions that would bring in the crowds, and he even started working on animatronics down there using a few of the rooms as workshops. Then a roof caved in on the floor below this one… It killed a lot of workers and destroyed a lot of the work they had down there. Berry’s grandfather gave up after that… he even gave up on the resort entirely. The resort would have closed down sooner if Berry’s dad didn’t take over.” Sparkplug explained sadly.

“Why did Berry’s dad close down the park anyway?” Tom asked curiously.

“I don’t know… he never really told anyone, not even Berry. I guess the weight of everything happening must have eventually gotten to him. Most people thought him and his family were cursed with bad luck. Maybe he didn’t want any tragic events happening around Berry or anyone else. I mean… between the earthquake and the roof collapsing, they were pretty accident prone.” Sparkplug said in response, shifting her eyes down sadly at the thought of her friend’s family having such misfortune.

“That sounds horrible…” Tom said before thinking about the matter further. “I don’t suppose that’s the reason why there are ghosts here now?” He asked curiously.

“Maybe… I would imagine having a building topple down on your head would make you a little irritable in the afterlife.” Sparkplug said in agreement to the boy’s reasoning.

“Hey… if the place caved in on itself, wouldn’t that make this entire building unsafe?” Tom asked uneasily.

“That’s what we thought too, but apparently it’s fine. Berry’s dad had the place looked at before he decided to pick up the torch so to speak, and the hole that was created got filled in with all of the rubble. As long as no one digs down there anymore, it should be perfectly fine. We’re having some surveyors come out to assess the place in a few weeks just to be safe, though.” Sparkplug explained.

Tom was going to ask another question until his eye caught something over to the side. By the time he looked over to see what it was, Sparkplug moved the flashlight to where the light didn’t reach the area the human was looking at.

“Hold up for a second, I think I saw something in that room.” Tom stated while hanging back in the darkness. Sparkplug paused and turned around before walking over to the boy and shining the light into the room he was pointing to. What he saw inside the room made the human jump slightly in fright.

Lying in a crumpled heap on the floor was what appeared to be an animatronic bunny similar to Bonnie. It had the same blue and white coloring that the robotic animal from upstairs had, but it looked incredibly run down and decrepit.

The bunny’s normally colorful shell was faded and cracked in several places. The metal endoskeleton underneath managed to show through numerous holes in the body. Several wires poked out around its limbs and head. Its entire right hand had worn away, revealing the metallic skeleton in its entirety. Rust and grime covered several places, along with dust and cobwebs. The robot’s jaw was broken, causing it to slant oddly. Its face had a large crack going down one of the eyes, which were shaded by darkness, making it appear as though they were missing entirely. One of the ears on top of its head was bent in a manner that made it obvious that it was broken, and the other ear was completely gone. The animal’s teeth also had a buildup of some sickly looking yellow substance on them.

“Mother damn!” Tom exclaimed in a frightful outburst at seeing the disturbing appearance of the robot so suddenly.

Sparkplug tried to stifle a chuckle. “Sorry. I guess I should have let you know that was down here.” She said with a sympathetic expression while watching the human catching his breath.

“What is that?” Tom asked while recomposing himself to get a better look at the animatronic.

“We found that when we first came down here. We’re pretty sure it’s an older model of Bonnie from back when Berry’s grandfather ran the place. I was going to salvage it for parts, but most of it is so broken and obsolete that it’s useless. I guess we never got around to throwing it away.” Sparkplug explained while walking up to the motionless hunk of metal and kicking one of its legs pensively.

“Are there any more old models I should know about before my heart explodes?” Tom asked while breathing an anxious sigh.

“Nope… that’s the only one we could find. The other animatronics must have been down in the next floors when everything collapsed. They weren’t exactly used in public very often back then. Berry’s grandfather was working on them as more of a hobby, so not many of them ever made it outside. Maybe he was afraid that they would scare people like you.” Sparkplug said with an amused chuckle. She didn’t like laughing at the boy’s misfortune, but he made it so hard to keep a straight face.

“I wonder why…” Tom muttered sarcastically. “Let’s get moving then, shall we?” He asked while stepping out of the room in a hurry to get away from the disturbing relic on the floor. Sparkplug giggled under her breath before following the boy and shining her light back down the hall.

Before long, the pair came to the end of the hallway. The corridor opened up into a larger area that felt more like a room than the end to a hall. Directly in front of them was a large shelf placed in the middle of the wall. Oddly enough, there weren’t any other shelves or any other pieces of furniture in the area to indicate that a shelf even belonged there.

Tom walked up to the shelf curiously and knelt down. He could just barely feel a cool breeze coming from underneath it. After using his senses a few times, he concluded that the room didn’t just end here. There should have been another section to it somewhere.

“I feel a draft here… I think there’s something behind this shelf.” Tom stated as he prepared to move the large obstacle.

Sparkplug stepped in front of the boy to save him some trouble. “Don’t bother. I already know what’s back there. There are a few more hallways and rooms and then there’s a stairway leading down into the rest of the old building. Berry’s dad told her to never go in there because of how dangerous it is, and Berry told us to do the same. Apparently, the floor is collapsed in there and there is nothing but a blocked off room full of rubble downstairs.” She explained.

Tom stopped what he was doing and looked at the shelf curiously. “Alright then… I should be able to get rid of the ghosts without going in there anyway. From the feel of it, there is some ambient energy down there, but all of the active stuff is around here.” He stated with a confident expression.

“Isn’t it a little weird that all of the ghosts are up here?” Sparkplug asked curiously.

“I guess… I expected to find a lot more energy down there, but there isn’t anything other than trace elements from when the collapse must have happened. I can’t even really tell the layout of the next floor from how little energy there is.” Tom said while scratching his head curiously. Any tragic event like an underground cave-in that claimed a lot of lives should have been a hotbed for paranormal energy, but there wasn’t anything more than the signs of a few wayward spirits.

“Sooo… are you done looking down here? This place gives me the creeps.” Sparkplug stated with a slight shudder.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I can look down here more when I clear the place out tomorrow with the others.” Tom said in an understanding tone. He knew the gray mare must have been feeling uncomfortable in such a dismal location.

Sparkplug smiled gratefully before turning to walk back down the hallway. Tom followed the pony as she walked back towards the exit to the dusty and forgotten corridor. He would have to tell Glimmer Shine and the others what to expect when they finally stopped playing around and actually did what they came here to do, but for now, the human would have to join them in enjoying their vacation.

Chapter 8: Poolside Fun

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“Wow… Look at this place.” Applejack said in an amazed tone while taking in the sights. The orange mare and her unicorn friend were following Berry Swirl around the park outside. The three ponies were walking along the outer edge of a large circular pool. The pool had crystal clear water, so clear that a stylized sun could be seen painted on the bottom of it.

Twilight marveled at the various water fountains and colorful decorations. “This is certainly living up to my expectations… in fact, it’s even better than I remember.” She said with an impressed nod.

Berry Swirl raised an eyebrow in surprise as she looked to the unicorn. “You’ve been here before?” She asked curiously.

“Yeah… my parents took me here to celebrate when I passed my magic exam.” Twilight explained cheerfully as memories came flooding back to her.

The purple earth pony smiled as she saw the unicorn having a nostalgia trip. She was pleased to see that the park could still make people happy. “Well, I’m glad to hear I’ve done such a good job of sprucing the place up… especially from someone who’s been here before.” Berry added.

“So, what did you do back when your dad owned the place?” Applejack asked, looking around at the water slides and pools with an intrigued expression.

Berry paused for a moment to recall her past. “I mostly just played around and helped my dad tinker with the animatronics. Well… I say helped, but it was more like I watched him work on them. He got his love of working on them from his father. He would always say that they would be ready to roll out into the park and replace the older models in no time, but he never got to finish them.” She explained with a dejected sigh.

“Well, you did a great job at picking up where he left off.” Twilight said in a reassuring tone. She flashed a brief smile as the earth pony brightened her expression back to normal.

“Right, sorry… I try not to ramble on about my past, but I get all nostalgic sometimes when walking around this place.” Berry said with a brief chuckle to wave off any somber thoughts lingering in the air. It was easy to see how someone like her would be close friends with Pinkie Pie in the past.

“That makes two of us.” Twilight added with a cheerful smirk.

After sharing a quick bout of warm happiness, the three mares fell silent while looking around at the park around them. The soft trickling of water fountains splashing into the various pools and slides filled the air, creating a peaceful atmosphere that enveloped the ponies.

Berry Swirl cleared her throat and rubbed her foreleg awkwardly. “I guess that’s pretty much it for the tour. You’ve seen the entire park by this point.” She gestured around with her hoof.

“Well, thanks for showin’ us around Berry.” Applejack said cheerfully.

“Yeah, we really appreciate the opportunity to see the place.” Twilight added in a friendly manner.

“Oh, of course, it was my pleasure. Now, why don’t you two go run along and have some fun? Maybe find your friends and go find a pool to jump in?” Berry suggested with a bubbly smile.

“That sounds like a great idea… I wonder where they would be, though.” Twilight pondered out loud with a pensive expression.

Berry took a moment to think of a possible answer herself while the two mares tried to figure out where their friends might be. “Umm… you might want to check with Silver Bell. If Bonnie knows where they went, she can call him over for you so you can ask him.” She suggested.

“Thanks.” Twilight said with a grateful smile.

After waving goodbye to the purple earth pony, Twilight and Applejack walked back towards the main building. Once they made their way back through the park, the two ponies found themselves facing the resort building again.

Opening the glass door and stepping into the lobby, the two could already see Silver Bell standing behind the front desk. The cream pony was leaning against the desk with her front legs while facing away from the two approaching mares and talking to a familiar animatronic rabbit.

As she noticed the pair walking into the lobby, Silver turned and got off of the desk before smiling and walking over to the two ponies. “Hello… I assume Berry finished giving you the tour of the park?” Silver asked curiously while glancing between the two.

“Yeah, we just got done. We were hoping that either you or Bonnie could tell us where our friends are.” Twilight said while looking over to the robotic bunny. The blue rabbit looked over to the unicorn and her orange friend as if he were listening intently.

“Umm…” Silver Bell muttered pensively while turning to face the animatronic. “Bonnie, do you know where the others went?” She asked in a hopeful tone.

“I told them how to get to the indoor pool, they might be in there.” Bonnie replied while turning to face the white haired unicorn.

“The indoor pool? Where’s that?” Applejack asked curiously.

“It’s just down that hallway… it’s the second intersection. Just head to the left and look for the double doors.” Silver explained while pointing to the opening on the right side of the room. “I can send Bonnie to lead you there if you want.” She added while turning to the rabbit.

“No thank you, I think we can find our way alone.” Twilight politely declined while smiling at the two. She felt odd thinking that she would somehow be inconveniencing the robot by asking it to lead her around.

“Well, I’ll be back here if you need anything.” Silver replied with a friendly smile. Twilight and Applejack returned the gesture before walking towards the doorway that the cream pony pointed out to them.

As the pair walked down the quiet corridor, they looked ahead for intersecting hallways amid the doors, paintings, and assorted plants and other decorations. After a short walk, the two passed one intersection, and after a few more steps, they could see the second intersection up ahead.

Twilight turned around the corner and looked ahead for the double doors that would lead her to her friends. Although she couldn’t see the door to the pool, the smell of chlorine in the air was getting stronger. Before long they could hear the splashing of water and the muffled yells of several excited ponies.

Spotting a pair of double doors with blurry glass panes in their upper sections, the two ponies smirked in achievement. They were ready to finally unwind and join their friends in actually enjoying their vacation for the first time.

Opening the door made all of the noises in the room intensify as the two mares stepped into the pool area. They could see most of their friends scattered around in various areas of the pool enjoying themselves and playing around.

Rarity and Glitterball were lounging around in the hot tub off in the corner of the room, Rainbow Dash was swimming around the deep end of the pool with Pinkie Pie and Sunspot, Fluttershy was sitting still in the shallow end of the pool while watching Spike and the crusaders play around, and Glimmer Shine was holding the side of the pool while idly kicking his legs and watching the others.

“Hey, guys.” Twilight announced in a cheerful tone to get everyone’s attention. Once they heard the unicorn, everyone turned to see their newly arrived friends standing on the edge of the pool.

“Twilight! Applejack!” Pinkie greeted the two mares eagerly.

“It’s about time you two showed up!” Rainbow Dash added with a pleased smirk.

Twilight chuckled slightly. “Sorry it took so long. This place is a lot bigger than it looks at first glance.” She said while looking around at her friends and taking in the sights and sounds of the pool. She couldn’t wait to get settled in and swim the rest of the day away.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Come on in, the water’s fine!” Pinkie said while motioning for the pair to join her in the pool.

Applejack smirked playfully. “You don’t have to tell me twice.” She replied while rushing forward. She jumped into the middle of the pool in the nearest open spot she could find. The resulting splash caused by the orange mare made Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Glimmer Shine flinch their eyes shut as water flew in their faces.

Once Applejack resurfaced, she blew water out of her mouth and adjusted to floating on her own. She exclaimed in surprise as she felt the cold temperature of the water jolting her system. The water was relatively warm after a few moments spent in it, but it was much cooler than the orange mare was initially expecting.

“Hey, watch it.” Rainbow Dash said with a slight chuckle while blowing water out of her mouth and offering the cow pony a playful leer.

“What’s the matter Rainbow? You’re already wet… a little more water couldn’t hurt.” Applejack replied while using her hoof to splash in the cyan mare’s direction. Rainbow Dash flinched again as the wave of water impacted her.

“Oh… it’s on.” Rainbow said with a sly smirk. The pegasus splashed towards the orange mare as hard as she could. Before long, the two ponies were having an all-out battle between each other using water as their weapons. Even Pinkie Pie decided to join in by sending a wayward splash towards the two.

Twilight smirked as she watched the group returning to their games and fun. She walked forward and stepped on the small stairway that led into the shallow end of the pool. Taking things slow, the unicorn placed a hoof into the water to see how warm it was. After a few moments of preparation, she walked forward and fully lowered herself into the pool.

Before the unicorn could think about what to do next, she heard the sound of the door opening again. As she and the others turned around, they noticed their human friend walking into the room. Tom smiled as he saw the ponies gathered in one room enjoying themselves.

“Tom! You finally made it!” Twilight greeted the human while slowly walking through the shallow end of the pool to reach the front. She paused in front of the pool’s edge and watched the human as he walked up to her.

“Yep, Sparkplug and I just got done downstairs.” Tom said in a relieved tone.

“So did you find anything?” Sunspot asked while swimming across the pool to see the human. Glimmer Shine, Glitterball, and everyone else in the room paused what they were doing and looked at the boy curiously as the subject of their trip was brought up.

“Nothing too disconcerting… It looks like a few ghosts might be hiding downstairs somewhere. I couldn’t find out exactly where they were, though.” Tom explained while looking over to the three members of Spirit.

“Sounds good… I suggest we take a look down there tomorrow to see if we can flush them out.” Glimmer Shine said while looking to his two teammates and the human to see their opinions on the matter.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Glitterball nodded while walking over to the side of the pool and sitting on the edge. The unicorn dangled her back legs into the water and paused while adjusting to leaving the hot tub and entering the relatively freezing pool.

“Alright, now that that’s settled, why don’t you go get changed and join us, Tom?” Sunspot asked cheerfully while directing her attention to the human.

Tom shook his head with a slight smile. “Nah… I think I’ll save the pool for another day. Besides, Sparkplug says that Berry will be going into town to get us all some food in an hour or so, and I would like to walk around and get a feel for the place before then.” He explained.

“Aww, come on… you can’t just bring us on a vacation to a water resort and not swim in the pool with us!” Pinkie said in a disappointed tone while trying to coax the human into the water.

“Yeah, that isn’t fair! We’ve been waiting forever to see you!” Scootaloo said in agreement with the others.

“Please come and play with us…” Applebloom pleaded while pouting sadly at the human. The sight of the filly’s puppy dog eyes was enough to melt even the steeliest of hearts.

Tom stared at the yellow filly and the others while trying to keep his determination. He looked over to Twilight and her friends for assistance, but they didn’t look like they could help him out. Finally, he shrugged in defeat as he returned his gaze to Applebloom pouting. “*Sigh* Alright fine, how about I join you guys after dinner? That way we can both be happy.” He suggested while glancing between the three fillies with a hopeful expression.

“Yay!” Scootaloo and her two friends cheered in unison. Twilight and the others smiled as the fillies accomplished what they failed to do before. They hadn’t intended to guilt the human into joining them, but it all worked out in the end.

“I’ll see you guys whenever dinner is ready.” Tom said with a brief wave while walking towards the door. Twilight and the others watched as the human stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him, leaving behind only the sounds of the pool and a few soft noises from someone swimming.

A grand total of ten seconds went by without anything disturbing the serene atmosphere. Ten peaceful and unassuming seconds, which is also the time it took Rainbow Dash to climb out of the pool and take a few steps back.

“Cannonball!” The cyan mare exclaimed loudly before jumping into the middle of the pool and tucking herself into a ball.

The others barely had time to turn their heads before a wave of water splashed out in a circle. Everyone from the deep end to the shallow end got varying amounts of water splashed at them, which accomplished everything from providing an unpleasant splash to the face to completely covering them in water. Even Rarity managed to feel a few droplets spraying across the room and into the hot tub.

Rainbow Dash gasped for air as she shot to the surface. After catching her breath, she looked around at her soaked friends and started laughing. Her laughs grew less and less prominent as she noticed several ponies glaring at her with upset expressions plastered on their faces.

“Heheh… heh… a little water never hurt anyone… right guys?” Rainbow Dash asked nervously while looking around at her friends and their annoyed faces. Just as abruptly as the pegasus leaped into the pool, Pinkie Pie splashed as much water as she could at the cyan mare.

“Water fight!” Pinkie exclaimed loudly, only to be interrupted by Applejack sending another wave of water at her. The pink mare giggled cheerfully while splashing back. Before long, nearly everyone in the room was joining in with the mock battle. Water was flying everywhere and excited squeals filled the air as everyone continued enjoying themselves.

The merriment and excitement made the time pass in the blink of an eye. One game shifted into another, and not long after that, another game was suggested to take its place. After a while, the group lost track of time completely as an hour came and went.

The sound of the door opening drew everyone’s attention to the front of the room. They spotted a tan stallion that they immediately recognized to be High Tide walking into the area. He wasn’t wearing the white tank top and red swimming trunks that he was the first time the group saw him, though he still had a whistle around his neck. His cutie mark consisted of a red life preserver floating on a few ripples of water.

“Hey, guys. I assume everyone’s having a good time?” High Tide asked with a slight smile while glancing around the room.

“Yeah, we’re doing alright.” Rainbow Dash said while swimming over to the shallow end of the pool to casually rest.

“You must be that lifeguard Berry told us about. It’s High Tide, right?” Twilight asked courteously while getting up to address the stallion.

“Yep…. And you are?” High Tide asked curiously while glancing between the purple unicorn and the orange earth pony in the room.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight stated with a friendly tone.

“And I’m Applejack.” Applejack added with a welcoming smile.

“Nice to meet you,” High Tide replied with a brief nod before returning his attention to why he was there in the first place. “I hate to break up such a good time, but Berry just got back from town with some food. Are any of you guys hungry?” The tan pony asked curiously.

Everyone paused suddenly as they felt their stomachs collectively rumble. Before, they hadn’t paid much attention to their appetites, but now that the subject of food was brought up, everyone felt hungry.

“Hungry? I’m starving!” Rainbow Dash said eagerly while climbing out of the pool. She walked over to a nearby table and grabbed a towel to dry herself off with.

“I must say, I could use a bite to eat as well.” Rarity chimed in while gladly accepting a towel thrown by the cyan mare.

“I think we could all use a bite to eat.” Twilight stated while looking to the others for their opinion. Everyone nodded in agreement while making their way out of the pool.

“Well once you all get dried off, I’ll take you over to the dining room.” High Tide suggested with a friendly smile while leaning up against the wall.

“Thank you, darling, you’ve been incredibly helpful.” Rarity said with a coy smile. She eyed at the stallion in a fashion far more flirty than anyone else in the room was comfortable with, especially High Tide.

The stallion avoided eye contact with the unicorn while rubbing the back of his head with a flustered expression. “Umm…” High Tide muttered awkwardly. “Well uh… we aim to please here at Fun Land.” He said with a nervous chuckle while desperately trying to ignore the white mare. The others couldn’t prevent themselves from giggling at his discomfort.

After a few minutes of everyone reluctantly leaving the pool and getting dried off, they all gathered behind their appointed tour guide and followed him back out into the hallway. High Tide walked the group around the first floor until they finally reached the dining room.

The entire area had blue and white checkered tile flooring. The walls were mostly white, with a stripe of similar checkered tiles running along the middle. There were rows of tables with blue tablecloth lined up, with several chairs at each table. At the back of the room, there was a window-like opening into the kitchen where a few plates were stacked neatly in piles. There was also a door to the right of the window that most likely led into the kitchen itself.

To the left side of the room, there was a large stage area that had blue curtains concealing most of it. Poking out from behind the shaded area of the curtains, a drum set and mic stand could be seen. Streamers and other colorful decorations lined the top of the stage, and there were a few streamers placed in seemingly random locations throughout the room.

Gathered around the opening to the kitchen, Berry Swirl and her employees were sitting around and waiting for everyone to show up. Even Tom was leaning up against a wall in anticipation. There was a stack of pizza boxes on the counter behind the purple earth pony, which was creating a pleasant odor that permeated the room.

“It’s about time you guys showed up.” Sparkplug said with an anxious tone. “Did you get lost or something? I wouldn’t be surprised considering you’re following this guy around.” She said while walking up to High Tide and giving him a playful punch on the shoulder.

“I can find my way around just fine thanks… I have been here longer than you after all.” High Tide replied while offering the gray mare a playful leer.

“So now that we’re all here, who’s ready to eat?” Berry asked with a slight smirk while glancing around at the others. Judging by their expressions, the purple mare didn’t even need to ask the question.

“I am!” Pinkie Pie stated eagerly while raising her hoof in the air.

“We are too!” Scootaloo and her two fellow crusaders announced in unison. The three fillies were practically bouncing eagerly at the prospect of finally eating something.

“Settle down guys, there is enough for everyone.” Berry Swirl said with an amused chuckle while turning around and grabbing one of the pizza boxes. “I hope you guys don’t mind pizza. We don’t really have a team of chefs right now.” She explained while laying each box out on the counter and opening them up.

“Pizza sounds good to me.” Applejack stated while eyeing each different pizza eagerly.

“Don’t worry Tom, I didn’t forget about you. I got a plain cheese pizza just for you.” Berry explained while nudging one of the boxes over towards the human.

“Thanks.” Tom replied in a grateful tone while looking over to the other pizzas. Most of them had ingredients on them that he never even thought could be put on a pizza, let alone consumed by a human.

“Alright everyone… grab a plate and help yourselves.” Copper Coil stated while rubbing his hooves together eagerly.

With that said, everyone scrambled to grab themselves a plate and a piece of pizza. Once they got their selected pieces, the ponies walked across the room and settled down in one of the many chairs. Due to the high number of chairs per table, everyone was able to comfortably occupy two or three tables.

Twilight sat together with her five fellow element bearers and Spike. Scootaloo and her two friends sat together next to Rarity and Applejack. Tom and Glimmer Shine’s team sat at the table next to the others. Meanwhile, Berry and her employees were scattered around the next table.

“This is some pretty good pizza.” Spike said while taking a bite out of his piece. The others couldn’t help but agree with the dragon as they enjoyed their own meals.

“God what I wouldn’t do for a piece of peperoni right now…” Tom muttered quietly while staring at his plain pizza. He enjoyed cheese as much as the next guy, but the drastic change in his diet was starting to get to him. While the human stared at his plate with a pitifully wanting expression, the others couldn’t help but giggle slightly.

As time went on and everyone enjoyed their meal, Berry glanced over to Pinkie Pie with a curious expression. The pink mare was playfully laughing and telling jokes to cheer her friends up. She certainly hadn’t changed very much from when Berry first met her, but she never figured that she would be friends with a human and a team of monster hunters.

“So, how long have you guys known each other?” Berry asked while glancing between Glimmer Shine’s team and Pinkie’s group of friends.

“Going on a few months now I believe. It seems like forever ago.” Twilight answered while looking over to Tom and the team of ponies seated across from him.

“I hear that you all did your fair share of fighting that cult of hooded ponies.” Copper Coil said with an impressed expression.

“Well… I don’t mean to brag, but yeah… we did do a number on those guys.” Rainbow Dash replied with a cocky smirk.

“It wasn’t originally our intention to get involved with fighting them, but they kind of forced our hoof.” Twilight said while thinking back to the attacks the hooded ponies made on Ponyville.

“I’m glad none of you got hurt too badly. That must have been really dangerous… I mean, you could have died.” Silver Bell said in a timidly concerned manner. Everyone glanced to Twilight with uncomfortable expressions. It never occurred to them that the news wasn’t made public that one of them actually did die. Still, the mere thought made everyone, especially Twilight, uneasy.

“Right, well… it’s a good thing that didn’t happen.” Rainbow Dash said while trailing off with an uneasy chuckle.

“So anyway… how long have you guys known each other?” Pinkie asked curiously while looking around at Berry’s employees.

“Well… Copper has worked for my family since my grandfather was building the resort, but everyone else has only been here for a few months.” Berry explained while glancing to her team of workers.

“To be honest not much has changed since then… well, aside from finally getting the animatronics up and running.” Copper Coil said while thinking back to his previous stint of working at the park.

“Hey, just be thankful that my grandfather did most of the work for you.” Berry said before turning to Twilight and the others. “It’s a good thing that we already knew how to make them from my grandfather’s work, otherwise, Sparkplug here would still be trying to get them running.” She added with a wry smirk.

“Oh come on Berry, I’m not terrible or anything… I made Sparky from scratch after all.” Sparkplug said in an amused tone while waving off the purple mare’s jests.

“Yeah, and we all know there’s nothing wrong with him.” Copper said with a slight chuckle, eliciting the others to bust out laughing.

As she was eating, Rarity couldn’t help but look at Pinkie and Berry with a curious expression. They seemed like they were good friends, Pinkie’s policy on all of her friends notwithstanding, but the pink mare had barely said anything about her past with the park owner. “Say… Pinkie,” Rarity spoke up in an intrigued tone.

“Hmm?” Pinkie looked over to the unicorn while still chewing a bite of her food. She finished masticating while her friend composed her words.

“How did you and Berry meet?” Rarity asked while glancing over to the purple mare.

“Well… it was a little while after I got my cutie mark. I was on a trip to town to get some more party supplies when I bumped into her in the store.” Pinkie explained. She furrowed her brow in thought as she tried recalling something. “I can’t really remember how we started talking… I think I was having some trouble with picking out something.”

“It was streamers.” Berry chimed in. “You couldn’t make up your mind about what color streamers you wanted.”

“Oh yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed in revelation. “You walked over and gave me your opinion. Now I remember.” She mentally chastised herself for forgetting such an important detail.

Berry Swirl smiled as she pictured the event in her mind. “Yeah… me and my father were taking a trip to meet some other people in the entertainment business. I had just gotten my cutie mark for helping out around the park, so I wanted to go along. We stopped by the local party supply shop to take a look around when I found Pinkie having her dilemma. After that, we just sort of became friends.” She explained.

“I’m sure Pinkie didn’t give you much of a choice.” Rarity added with a lighthearted smirk directed toward the pink mare.

“After Berry left, she somehow convinced her father to offer me and my family a trip to the park for free, but things were too busy around the rock farm, so we had to say no.” Pinkie said with a slightly regretful expression. “But after that, I visited her at the park a few times before they closed down. I even got to help with some of their decorations and color schemes for one of their attractions.” She smiled warmly at the happy memories floating through her head.

Rarity and the others couldn’t help but smile as they saw their friend recalling her past. Hearing the story of how the pair met only further cemented their belief that Pinkie left a trail of new friends wherever she went.

After a few more minutes of talking and getting to know each other a bit more, everyone finished eating. Despite the large number of people present, everyone got their fill, with some even managing to somehow stuff themselves to the point of discomfort.

“Ohhhh… my stomach.” Pinkie Pie groaned while leaning back and distancing herself from the pizza still on her plate.

“You never did learn self-control when it came to pizza, did you Pinkie?” Berry asked with an amused chuckle as she watched the pink mare trying to soothe the sick feeling in her core.

“No… I don’t think she learned it for sweets either.” Twilight added with a slight smirk while gathering up all of the empty plates on the table in front of her. She carried all of the plates over to the kitchen window and sat them down on the counter.

“Thanks for dinner guys.” Glimmer Shine said while getting up and turning to Berry and the others.

“Yeah, it was definitely one of the highlights of the day… even if Pinkie probably doesn’t think so right now.” Rainbow Dash said while giving the pink mare a playful tap on the shoulder. Pinkie groaned uncomfortably while curling up in her chair.

“Speaking of highlights of the day, shouldn’t we be getting back to a pool or something?” Scootaloo suggested eagerly. The young pegasus and her two companions were all excited to get back to their fun and games, although they had different ways of showing it.

“Wow… you don’t miss a beat, do you? Aren’t you worried about swimming so soon after eating?” Rainbow Dash asked in a jesting tone.

Scootaloo tilted her head with a doubtful expression. “I’m pretty sure the whole waiting an hour before swimming thing isn’t real.”

“Relax Scoots, I’m kidding. Besides, me and Tom will go with you.” Rainbow Dash said with a smirk while looking over to the human.

“What have I told you about volunteering me up to be a chaperone Rainbow Dash?” Tom asked while offering the cyan mare a mildly annoyed expression.

“Aww, come on Tom… you wouldn’t want to say no to that cute face would you?” Scootaloo asked while nudging Applebloom suggestively. Right on cue, the yellow filly produced the best pout she could muster and pointed it full force towards the human.

Tom glanced to the pouting filly before averting eye contact and sighing. “Ok fine, I’ll go… no need to use your secret weapon on me… which by the way is not the reason why I am agreeing to this.” He said while shaking his head in denial with a slight smirk.

“Yeah, yeah… let’s just head upstairs and change, tough guy.” Rainbow Dash chuckled slightly. “Anyone else want to join us?” She asked while looking around at her friends.

“No thanks, I think I’m going to just head back down to the indoor pool and relax in the hot tub for a while.” Twilight said in a slightly tired tone.

“I think that we’re just going to head up to our rooms and settle in a little bit.” Rarity said while glancing to Fluttershy and Applejack, who both nodded in return.

“And I’m pretty sure we’re gonna need to walk Pinkie Pie back with us…” Applejack suggested while looking over to the pink mare. Pinkie was struggling to move a few steps without looking like she was going to throw up.

“Sorry guys, but we’re going to pack it in for the day too. We need to finish getting our gear ready for tomorrow.” Sunspot shrugged in disappointment while looking over to her two teammates. As much as she wanted to enjoy herself, they did have a job to do after all.

“Fine… suit yourselves, but we’re not going to waste any time on this vacation.” Rainbow Dash stated eagerly. Scootaloo and her fellow crusaders grinned with excited expressions while the cyan mare and their human friend prepared to take them to have more fun.

“Woohoo! I can’t wait to get back out there!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed while bouncing eagerly.

“I get first dibs on whatever we decide to do!” Applebloom said in a resolute tone while grinning at her two friends.

“Hey, no fair! That isn’t how this works!” Scootaloo stated in annoyance. She glared at the yellow filly in a semi-serious manner while waiting for her to retract her previous statement.

“Yeah, it is… you can’t argue with the dibs system.” Applebloom replied with a smug expression.

“Settle down girls. I don’t want to hear about any trouble when you guys get back, and I have it on good faith that Tom and Rainbow Dash will sell you out in a heartbeat.” Applejack said in a playful tone while still making her message clear to the fillies.

“It’s true… I was notorious for being the tattletale in my family.” Tom added with a slight smirk. The three fillies shrugged before nodding and agreeing to act civil, at least for the time being.

“Have fun you guys, we’ll see you later.” Twilight waved before taking Spike and walking out of the room. Everyone waved to each other briefly before walking, or racing eagerly, out of the room and heading to their respective destinations.

After heading back to their rooms to change into fresh pairs of swimwear, Rainbow Dash and Tom escorted their three young followers through the resort to find something interesting to do for the rest of the day. Having already swum in a regular old fashioned pool, the cyan mare decided that it was time to explore the more exciting avenues of entertainment that the park had.

“Wow Tom… I didn’t really take you for the floral pattern type.” Rainbow Dash stated in an amused tone while taking note of the swimming trunks the human had decided to pick. They were blue to match his usual attire, but they also had a spiraling pattern of flower shapes on them.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I can’t go shopping for a wardrobe anywhere. I’m lucky to have anything other than that track outfit.” Tom said while trying to defend his pride to no avail.

“Still… it looks a little weird, that’s all I’m saying.” Rainbow Dash replied while hiding a snicker. She looked behind her to see the trio of fillies giggling uncontrollably, much to the dismay of the human next to her.

“I really need to be more adamant when I let Rarity make clothes for me… it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Tom shrugged while trying to ignore the hushed attempts of Scootaloo and the others gaining control of themselves.

“Don’t worry Tom, she does that to all of us.” Rainbow Dash said with a smirk while giving the human a reassuring pat on the side. Tom sighed before shaking his head with a forced smile as he contemplated what to say the next time Rarity decided to enforce her designs on him.

As they walked out of the building and into the park itself, the group was awestruck at all of the possibilities they had. There were numerous different pools dotted around the park of varying shapes and sizes that had water jets spouting out columns of the liquid that shimmered in the mid-day sun. There were also more than a few unique rides and attractions to garner the ponies’ attention, from raft rides to water slides and everything in between. There was even an endless wave ride that had a selection of surfboards and body boards to choose from.

“Wow… Twilight was right. This place is way bigger than it looks.” Rainbow Dash said in an amazed tone.

Tom nodded while looking around at all of the attractions. “I’m sure we’ll have time to go on every ride at least a handful of times. After all, we have all week.”

“The question is which one do we go on now?” Rainbow Dash asked while looking around curiously. She wanted to make sure that her first pick was an exciting one, one that would get her blood pumping and her adrenaline flowing. This might not have been an actual amusement park, but that didn’t mean that the pegasus couldn’t indulge her inner thrill seeker.

Finally, the cyan mare settled her eyes on a water slide off to the left. The slide itself was one of the tallest ones in the whole park from the looks of it. It started on a raised platform made to look like a small mountain, and it twisted around the decorative façade before stopping just above a pool built in front of the mountain. The pool looked like a decent enough place to swim, with water streaming out of hidden pipes in the mountain to create a makeshift waterfall at the edge, but the slide was what was capturing the pegasus’s attention the most.

“I think I just found the perfect thing to do.” Rainbow Dash said in an eager tone while looking towards the large slide. As the three fillies looked over to where the cyan mare was looking, they were stunned into silence by the sheer sight of it.

“Wow… that thing is big.” Sweetie Belle said in an amazed tone.

“Alright! Let’s head over there!” Scootaloo suggested while scampering off in the general direction of the slide. Everyone followed the orange filly as she made her way forward.

After a brief walk over to the decorative mountain, the group made their way behind it to a set of stairs leading up into a colorful enclosed area. Although there were guard rails, and the climb up wasn’t astronomically high, it was enough to elicit a slight feeling of anxiousness in the ponies, or at least the ones who couldn’t fly.

Finally, the five made it to the top. They were standing in a small area with a covered roof above them that matched the color of the wall sections that prevented anyone from falling. Taking a look into the gaping red opening created by the slide, and peering over the edge to see where the slide would take them, some of the group started getting a little more nervous.

“Ok… this is a lot higher up than I thought.” Sweetie Belle muttered in a nervous tone.

“Don’t worry Sweetie Belle, you’ll be fine. We could always make Tom go first if you’re worried.” Rainbow Dash suggested with a devilish smirk while looking over to the human.

“Oh, I see how it is… Make the immortal guy go first.” Tom said while hiding a twinge of nervousness in his voice.

Rainbow Dash raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights?”

“No… Maybe… Why does it matter?” Tom asked in an accusatory tone while trying to shift attention off of himself.

“Alright, fine. You don’t need to go if you don’t want to.” Rainbow Dash said in a casual tone before turning away. The human shrugged uneasily as the cyan mare prepared to go down the slide first. He hated having his masculinity challenged by a sentient pony.

“You know what? Move aside… let me show you how this is done.” Tom said in a determined tone while amping himself up and walking over to the entrance of the slide. The cyan mare backed up with a surprised expression as the boy sat down in a seemingly confident manner.

“Are you sure about this?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously. She noticed the human hesitate for a moment as he peered down the slide and let a small smirk creep across her face.

“Oh yeah… sure… just let me prepare myself for a second an- WHOA!” Tom yelped in surprise as he felt a shove on his back sending him on his way. Rainbow Dash and the three fillies behind her watched and listened with mixtures of amusement and surprise as the boy zipped through the slide and looped around the mountain. Due to the size of the decoration, the ponies could hear Tom completing a loop every few seconds as his muffled yells got further or closer. Finally, the group saw their friend popping out of the opening at the bottom and splashing down into the pool.

Tom resurfaced and sputtered as water flew everywhere. After ridding himself of the water around his mouth, he looked up to find the cyan mare and the three fillies looking down at him. He could barely see them due to a soaked strand of hair in his eyes, but the unimpressed expression on his face was clear.

“Pfft… *snort*” Rainbow Dash held back from laughing hard as she looked down at the human. “How was it?” She asked while stifling a chuckle with her hoof.

“Oh, it was tons of fun… why don’t you come down here and join me?” Tom raised his voice slightly to carry up to the ponies. The cyan mare could hear him contemplating to strangle her even from where she was standing.

“Heheh… why don’t you go next Scoots? I think I’ll give him a minute to cool off before I head down there myself.” Rainbow Dash said while turning to the orange filly, who was eager to oblige her.

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Scootaloo said while rushing over to the slide opening and going down on her stomach. “Woohoo!” She exclaimed in an adrenaline fueled burst of excitement as she started looping around the slide. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle anxiously awaited their turns, for more reasons than one in the young unicorn’s case.

After a couple hours of fun had passed, the sun was getting low in the sky and the light was fading. Although the three fillies protested, the cyan mare and her human companion decided to call it a day and head back inside. Once they found a few towels and dried off, the group headed straight back to the resort.

“So how do you guys like the park so far?” Tom asked curiously to break up the silence as he walked along a path around the outside of the resort building with the ponies. The others had tired expressions on their faces, but they were also smiling contently from the excitement and fun they just had.

“Are you kidding me? That was awesome! I can’t believe we get to stay here for a whole week!” Scootaloo stated with an excited grin.

“Yeah, it was definitely the best way I’ve spent a vacation day in like forever.” Rainbow Dash said while chuckling slightly at the sight of the overenthusiastic fillies in front of her. However, there seemed to be something troubling at least one of the crusaders.

“Hey, Tom… do you think those ghosts will be a problem? I don’t really want to see or hear anything scary…” Sweetie Belle said in a slightly nervous tone. Perhaps it was the sight of the sun setting and the park getting covered in darkness, but the young unicorn couldn’t stop thinking about the real reason she and the others were here.

“Sweetie Belle, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Tom and the others won’t let anything scary happen to us on this trip.” Rainbow Dash stated in a reassuring tone while leveling with the filly. Still, she seemed to want to hear the human’s opinion on the matter before she felt more at ease.

“Rainbow Dash is right Sweetie Belle. Those ghosts won’t be causing you any trouble.” Tom added with a confident tone of voice.

“Really?” Sweetie Belle asked with a hint of uncertainty.

“Yeah… everything will be fine. You’ll have all of us with you most of the time, and the ghosts aren’t even that strong anyway. I doubt you would even have a chance of hearing or seeing anything out of the ordinary all the way up on the third floor. Besides, we should have everything cleared out by tomorrow, so you don’t need to worry one bit.” Tom said in a lighthearted tone while offering the white filly a reassuring smile.

“Ok… thanks. That makes me feel a lot better.” Sweetie Belle said while returning a soft smile to her face. The sight of the filly smiling made the others smile in return.

“I think we should be getting back to our rooms now. I don’t know about you guys, but I am beat…” Rainbow Dash said while holding back a yawn, to no avail. Everyone quickly turned their attention to how late it was getting and how tired they felt.

With a unanimous nod of agreement, the group started walking again and turned the corner that led to the front entrance. Soon enough, they would be heading upstairs and finding their way back to their rooms so they could finally get some sleep after the long day of fun and adventure they just had.

Meanwhile, back upstairs, Twilight and Spike were settling in for the night as well. They were still awake, with the purple mare huddled up underneath the covers of her bed enjoying a book, and the young dragon brushing his teeth in the bathroom located just off the bedroom. The lights were dim in the suite save for a small lamp beside Twilight’s bed and the light coming through a crack in the slightly ajar bathroom door.

Twilight looked up curiously as she heard something softly fall to the floor in the bathroom, followed by the sound of Spike groaning in annoyance. The unicorn wondered just how tired he must have been if he was knocking things over left and right.

“Spike, are you almost done in there?” Twilight asked while raising her voice slightly to carry across the room. She immediately heard the sound of something else falling as the dragon yelped in surprise.

“Um… yeah! Just give me a minute!” Spike replied while scrambling around, presumably to pick up all of the items he knocked over. The purple mare shook her head and sighed before returning to her book with a slight smirk.

Hearing the sound of the door to the suite opening up in the other area, Twilight looked up to see who had entered. Through the small corridor into the living room area, the purple mare saw her human friend walking into view.

“Hey Tom, how did it go with the others?” Twilight asked curiously while sitting up in bed and setting her book down.

“It was alright... we had a lot of fun.” Tom said while walking into the bedroom area. Just as the human made his way into the room, Spike walked out of the bathroom and nearly bumped into him.

“Oh! Hi, Tom… sorry, I should probably watch where I’m going more.” Spike said with an awkward chuckle.

“Words to live by.” Tom replied with a slight smirk while heading into the bathroom and closing the door again. After a few moments, he walked back out clad in his usual blue track outfit.

“I think I’m going to head to bed. I need to be up early to start investigating the basement with Glimmer Shine and the others.” Tom said while walking over to the bed furthest to the left and climbing in. Spike and Twilight both yawned tiredly as they thought more about going to sleep themselves.

“Yeah, I think I’m going to bed too.” Spike said while walking over to the bed next to Twilight and hopping up.

“Me too,” Twilight added while setting her book on the night table next to her and shutting off the lamp. “Night guys… see you tomorrow.” She said while cozying up under the blankets and laying her head back on her pillow.

“Night…” Spike and Tom said in unison while already face deep in their own pillows.

The peaceful atmosphere combined with the comfort of their luxurious beds to ensure that the three would sleep deeply. Twilight could already feel her mind hazing and her body relaxing. In no time at all, she would be soundly asleep, and she would most likely wake up in the morning wishing that she could sleep in for once. However entertaining the thought might have been, the young dragon and her human friend would hardly let the unicorn live down being so lazy. Still, the musings that were drifting through her mind were gradually becoming more unfocused as she fell deeper into sleep.
..
…
…..

*Tap* *Tap*

A soft knocking sound suddenly broke the silence in the air. Twilight lifted her head up and looked around the dark room to find the source of the noise. Her head felt hazy, and her senses had yet to return to her in full, but she quickly deduced that someone was knocking on the door in the other area of the suite.

“What the…? Who would even be up this late?” Twilight asked while glancing over at the clock on the wall. Perhaps it was too dark, or perhaps she was sleepier than she thought, but she couldn’t clearly make out the time. Still, judging from her pitch black surroundings, she gathered that it was very late.

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

The knocking sounded again, confirming the purple mare’s suspicions and informing her that whoever was at the door didn’t care about whether or not she and her friends were sleeping. Working on pure curiosity and muscle memory, Twilight pulled back her covers and stepped out of bed. Taking a look to her right, she saw that Tom and Spike were still fast sleep under their blankets. Not wanting to disturb them, she decided to go and answer the door herself.

As she slowly walked through the pitch black bedroom and felt her way into the adjoining entryway that led into the living room area, she looked around with a slight feeling of nervousness inside of her. The foreign surroundings of the resort suite looked beautiful in the day, but without the light to bathe them in vibrant colors, the sights around the unicorn were slightly unnerving to behold. To think that anything was lurking ahead of her in the darkness was absurd, to say the least, but given her experiences with what lurked in the dark in the past, the thought still remained in her head.

The knocking happened for a third time, this time with a more hurried pace. Twilight heard a faint and muffled giggle coming from the door. Judging from the high pitch of the voice, she figured that it belonged to a young filly.

“Ugh… I really hope Scootaloo isn’t pulling a prank… I just got to sleep.” Twilight muttered in an agitated tone while walking up to the door and looking out of the peephole. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now, so she could see through to the other side. However, she couldn’t see anyone standing outside of the door. The unicorn fumbled her hooves over the latch on the door to silently unlock it. She then opened the door up and peered outside.

There was nothing but the empty hallway and the overbearing sound of silence waiting to greet her. It was so quiet that Twilight could actually hear the sounds of the building settling softly echoing in the corridor. As peaceful as it might have been, the silence troubled the purple mare as she looked around for whoever had knocked on the door.

“Hello? Is anyone out here?” Twilight whispered while looking around once more. All of the doors to the other rooms were closed and most likely locked, offering a strong hint that everyone was asleep except for her. As she went back in her head to see if she imagined the noise, she quickly discarded this thought due to the repetition of the knocks and how vivid they were.

Just as she was about to give up and head back inside, a blur of motion caught Twilight’s eye. She turned just in time to see a small shape darting around the corner at the far end of the hallway. From what information she could gather before the shape disappeared, she estimated it to be a young filly with white fur.

“Hey, wait up!” Twilight called out instinctively before hushing herself and looking around anxiously. She looked back to her room and contemplated going to get Tom, but she didn’t want to wake him. Besides, by the time she returned with the human, the filly would most likely be gone. Prank or no prank, the unicorn was about to find out what was going on.

Twilight gently closed the door behind her and trotted down the hallway. She lit up her horn slightly to light her way, and she tried her hardest to go as fast as possible without making much noise. Once she turned the corner, she saw the filly again, if only for a brief moment. The filly was darting around the corner at the far end of the hall again, though this time Twilight got a better look at her. Although she didn’t get much of a look at her, the thing that troubled the purple mare the most was that the filly looked nothing like Sweetie Belle, or any of the crusaders for that matter.

Racing to follow the mysterious filly, Twilight turned around the corner and kept going. Now that she was away from the general area that her friends were sleeping in, she started running a little faster to catch up with the filly.

The purple mare looked ahead down the next hallway, only to find no traces of the white filly. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she picked up her pace and rushed to make it through the hall so she could hopefully catch up. As she turned the next corner, Twilight stopped when she saw nothing but darkness greeting her again.

“Ugh… I lost her.” Twilight shrugged while looking around. There were stairs leading down to the lower floors to her left, and the hallway had a few forks in it further up ahead. All of these openings combined with the fact that any of the numerous rooms down the hall could be unlocked meant that the filly could be in dozens of places by now.

Just before she gave up hope that she would find the strange filly again, Twilight heard a soft giggling coming from the stairway. As she walked over and looked over the railing, she was surprised to see the filly all the way down on the first floor. Right as the unicorn made eye contact with the filly, she darted out of view off to the left side of the stairs.

“Wait!” Twilight called out before sighing. “I can’t believe I’m chasing after a kid I don’t even know… what is she even doing here?” She muttered pensively while trying to figure out what the young girl was doing. Why did she knock on the door to the purple mare’s room? Why was she running away? And why was she seemingly waiting for her to catch up? Despite all these puzzling thoughts, Twilight had to keep moving to find the filly and ask her for some answers.

Descending the stairs all the way to the first floor, Twilight looked around to find any sign of the filly. As expected, the purple mare found her poking her head around the corner at the far end of the hall. Also as expected, the filly darted her head back around the corner as soft footsteps rang out. Without so much as pausing, the unicorn started walking down the hall at a calmer pace. Whatever the filly was doing, she wanted Twilight to follow her.

As she followed the filly through the winding hallways of the resort, Twilight looked around at the familiar sights she had seen during her tour earlier in the day. She passed by the front desk, walked down a few more hallways, and into the employees only section. Even though she seemed to be going down the same path Berry had used to find Sparkplug, the unicorn was slightly unsettled at how dark and foreboding it was. The employee areas of the resort were only gray, lacking any of the comforting colors that pervaded the public areas. The lonely hallways were only made more lonely and eerie by the fact that Twilight’s footsteps were echoing slightly against the thinly carpeted floors. It almost felt like she was being followed, however silly the thought might have been. Strangely enough, she couldn’t actually hear the filly’s footsteps at all, even though she could see her running ahead of her.

Twilight looked around and quickly realized that the filly was leading her into unknown territory. This fact was further cemented as she turned a corner and saw the strange girl walking into a door that looked like a stairwell and heading down, presumably into the basement. The purple mare gulped nervously as she walked over to the stairs and paused. She hadn’t been to the basement in her tour, but she knew that Tom and the others would be investigating the area as their primary pick for where the ghosts were. Swallowing any fear she had and focusing on her curiosity, the unicorn walked down the steps and continued following the filly through the basement.

Although the basement looked similar in every way possible to the upstairs employee areas, knowing that it was haunted somehow made it infinitely more eerie and disturbing to the purple mare. Twilight stopped wondering what the filly wanted with her and started worrying about it. She had a sneaking suspicion as to why a strange filly suddenly appeared in the middle of the night and decided to lead her down to a secluded basement away from her friends when ghosts were involved.

Finally, as she turned another corner, Twilight paused as she saw the filly sitting in the middle of the corridor. She seemed to have no problems with being in total darkness, even to the point of sitting in between two open doors that led into only more blackness. Now that the unicorn could actually get a better look at the strange filly, she could see her appearance in full. The filly had white fur with blonde hair, and although she was looking at the floor, Twilight could just barely see that she had yellow eyes as well. Due to the fact that she didn’t have a cutie mark, the filly must have been incredibly young, possible even around the age of the cutie mark crusaders.

“Hello? Is this where you wanted to take me?” Twilight asked in a soft tone. “What’s your name? Do your parents know you are here?” She continued while slowly walking toward the filly. As the purple mare stepped forward, the white filly raised her head to look up at her. She had a concerned, almost fearful expression on her face, which completely caught the unicorn off guard.

“Help me…” The filly spoke in a timid tone. Her voice sounded slightly distorted and faint.

“Help you…? What’s wrong?” Twilight asked with a hint of hesitation in her voice as she heard the odd distortion coming from the filly. She didn’t want to assume the filly was a ghost before, but now it was the only thought forefront in her mind. Still, not all ghosts were evil or powerful, so perhaps the filly really did need her help with something.

The filly turned her head and looked behind her. She adopted a sadder expression as she looked at the fork at the end of the hallway, particularly the left side of it. She turned back to face the purple mare and avoided eye contact with her.

“I just want to go home.” The filly said in a pleading tone.

A loud clanging noise erupted from behind her, causing Twilight to jump out of her skin in fright. She whipped her head around to see a small pipe rolling out into the hallway, presumably coming from a storage closet on the right. As she turned back to look at the filly again, the unicorn widened her eyes as she saw nothing but the dark hallway greeting her.

“Hello? Little girl…? Are you still here?” Twilight asked, barely managing to hide the fear in her voice. Now that she was truly alone, she felt chills going up and down her body. The eerie atmosphere of the basement was all she had left to focus on, and she wasn’t even sure if she remembered the way back upstairs.

Suddenly, a deep and distorted laugh echoed down the hallway. The disturbing sound immediately froze the purple mare in place from fright. Every fiber of her being told Twilight to flee from whatever was making the noise, but it was almost impossible to even tell which direction it was coming from.

Before she thought her heart would explode, another sound broke the eerie silence of the basement. What seemed to be mechanical clicks and heavy footsteps were walking toward Twilight from up ahead. As she looked forward with chattering teeth and amped nerves, she was surprised to see a pony shaped silhouette coming into view. Soon enough, the silhouette came into the light and revealed itself. The dark shape was actually one of the resort’s animatronics, namely a brown bear with a top hat and a mic clutched in its paw.

“Freddy? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked in a confused tone as she recognized the bear. The animatronic didn’t reply to her, instead opting to stand silently and stare at her with its unblinking eyes.

The distorted laugh made its presence known again, seemingly fading in and out of existence at will. However, the laugh was a lot closer than it was before. In fact, if Twilight didn’t know any better, she would have thought that the laugh was coming from the animatronic bear.

“I’m getting out of this place… Freddy, can you please show me the way upstairs?” Twilight asked, hopeful that the bear could understand her instruction.

Freddy started moving forward with sluggish and deliberate movements. Instead of moving around the unicorn to show her the way out of the basement, he continued moving toward her without looking away. Twilight backed up a few steps, but the animatronic kept walking closer to her. After backing up some more, the unicorn grew slightly concerned as to the odd behavior of the robot.

“Freddy, what are you doing?” Twilight asked nervously. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t stop looking at the bear’s empty and lifeless eyes. The cheerful façade of the smiling face plastered on Freddy only made the fact that he was staring at her more disturbing.

A low moaning sound started coming from Freddy as he continued stepping forward. The sound didn’t have the robotic distortion that Bonnie had when he spoke. It somehow sounded organic, like it was being made by an actual pony.

Twilight tried to turn around and run, but she immediately hit the wall behind her and ran out of room. Before she could try running to the side, Freddy picked up his pace slightly and caught up with her. If she tried to move, the animatronic would move slightly in that direction, silently telling her that fleeing wasn’t a good idea.

As a firm feeling of terror cemented itself into the purple mare, she looked down and noticed the bear raising its free paw up slowly. Twilight watched the paw approach her until it was resting on her shoulder. She tried to move again, only to be forcibly held down by the oppressive strength of the bear.

“Stop it… let me go!” Twilight cried while struggling to break free. “Freddy, sleep mode!” She yelled while thinking back to how Sparkplug deactivated the animatronics. Much to her dismay, the command did nothing to stop the bear from pressing on her.

Twilight looked back up at the bear’s face as she tried to process what was happening. She recoiled slightly in horror as she noticed something she hadn’t before. Freddy’s eyes had glowing silver dots in their center. The burning white lights held a sort of overwhelming sensation that made the unicorn’s heart skip a beat. Whatever the thing in front of her was, it wanted to hurt her.

The unicorn watched with her body trembling and her eyes wide with fear as the robotic bear opened its mouth slowly. The blocky dull teeth didn’t look like they would be very painful, but even they could crack a bone with the strength of a metal endoskeleton behind them.

“AHHH!!” Twilight screamed fearfully as Freddy darted toward her with his mouth opened wide. A different scream carried over hers, one that sounded like a robotic screech and a child screaming mixed into one. A flash of red filled the unicorn’s vision, followed by nothing but blackness.

“Gah!” Twilight yelped while jerking upwards. Her heart was racing and her breathing was heavy, but the most troubling thing was the pitch blackness in front of her. As she slowly looked around and felt her surroundings, she noticed that she was sitting on her bed back in the hotel room.

As she felt the covers on her bed, her shoulder, and her face in a panic fueled rush, she tried to slow her thoughts down to see what was happening. Taking a look over to the side, she saw Tom and Spike still sleeping in their beds amidst the darkness of the room.

“A… dream?” Twilight muttered to herself quietly while still trying to calm her racing heart. “It was a dream? But… but… it felt so real.” She said while shuddering slightly at the terrifying thoughts still buzzing around her head. The feeling of panic from her apparent dream was still present. The sound of the animatronic screaming and the sight of its eerie white eyes were also still vivid in her mind.

The longer she looked around the dark hotel room, the more her nerves and primal fears got to her. Twilight laid her head back and pulled the covers closer to her while closing her eyes. Despite having her eyes closed, she stayed awake due to the fear she felt.

The peaceful ambiance of the room and the soft sound of her young assistant and her human friend breathing were slowly calming the unicorn’s nerves. However, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about her dream. She tried relaxing again and focusing on falling asleep, but somehow she knew that she would have a hard time getting a good night’s rest now.

Chapter 9: Marvelous Mechanisms

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As sunlight started beaming down onto the Fun Land resort, most of the ponies inside were waking up and getting started on their day, most of them at any rate. Sunspot was still sound asleep in her bed despite the orange tinted light streaming in through the curtains.

The pegasus wasn’t exactly a heavy sleeper, but she didn’t get up unless she was good and ready. All her time with the Wonderbolts hadn’t beaten her laziness out of her, and she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to enjoy her luxurious bed for a while longer.

A quiet rustling sound abruptly ended Sunspot’s slumber. With an agitated groan, she opened her eyes and looked around without even moving her head. As she looked around to find the source of the disturbance, she saw her two teammates out of bed and digging through the suitcases they had brought along.

Glitterball was putting her tactical vest on, or at least trying to. The unicorn was struggling a bit to actually get the vest on, but she was giving it her all. Glimmer Shine already had his vest on, and he was sitting on his bed in a professional manner with several vials and other pieces of equipment on the bed next to him, seemingly taken from his vest. Glimmer would pick up one of the pieces of equipment, examine it to ensure that it worked, and place it in the rightful place on his vest. While picking up one of the vials to inspect it, the stallion glanced over and noticed the orange mare stirring.

“Well, well… look who’s finally awake.” Glimmer Shine said in an amused tone while smirking at the pegasus as he placed the vial he was holding into a pouch on his vest.

“Ugh… I don’t want to get up.” Sunspot groaned in an agitated tone while thudding her head back into her pillow.

“I don’t think you have a choice in the matter Sunspot. We have a job to do.” Glitterball said while still struggling with her vest. She finally shrugged in defeat as Glimmer Shine reached over and helped her with it.

“Oh yeah… I forgot this wasn’t just a vacation for like five seconds.” Sunspot muttered tiredly while refusing to get up. She closed her eyes again in an attempt at getting a few more moments of sleep until she felt something getting tossed onto her head. As she pulled the object off of her and examined it, she noticed that it was her modified Wonderbolt suit. The numerous pouches, pockets, and clips full of equipment added on to the suit made it obvious what the harder objects she felt hitting her were.

“Get up and get dressed Sunspot. We’re meeting Tom downstairs so we can get started with investigating the basement. If we’re lucky we might get these ghosts cleared out by tonight, and then you can sleep all you want.” Glimmer Shine said in an understanding tone. As much as he wanted to be in bed himself, he and his two teammates had a job to do.

“Fine… I guess I can hunt ghosts while half asleep.” Sunspot muttered drowsily while sitting up and pushing the covers off of her. After hopping out of bed and stretching her legs, she started the process of putting on her uniform and tallying her gear.

After a few minutes of waking themselves up and getting geared up, the members of Spirit were ready to go. The trio made their way out of their room and through the hallways toward the stairwell. Once they hit the first floor, they headed to the front entrance where everyone had agreed to meet once they got up.

As they walked through the doorway into the lobby, the group could already see their friends dotted around the room. Sparkplug and Silver Bell were talking behind the front desk, while Twilight and her friends were sitting on the couches and chairs further back or standing around. Almost everyone was present save for Berry Swirl and the rest of the staff, and they all looked eager and ready to start the day, or at least most of them did. Twilight seemed to be a little drowsy, even to the point of having to prevent herself from nodding off.

“Wow… Check you guys out.” Tom said in an impressed tone while watching the trio walk toward the group. “I feel a little underdressed now.” He added while glancing between his own outfit and the professional looking team of ponies.

“Yeah, you guys really do look like a team of monster hunters.” Rainbow Dash said while admiring the sight of some of her friends donning tactical gear. She was still getting over the fact that she knew two ex-guards and one ex-Wonderbolt turned paranormal investigator.

“If it makes you feel better, we look a lot more professional than we actually are.” Glimmer Shine said in an amused tone while looking to Sunspot and thinking back to her deep and intense struggle with getting out of bed just a few minutes ago.

“You guys will do fine. This isn’t your first rodeo after all.” Applejack stated reassuringly.

“Yeah… I’m not exactly sure I would equate getting knocked around by Raven Feather’s goons as a rodeo, but I guess that analogy works.” Sunspot said in a lighthearted tone. She paused for a moment and looked away slightly as darker memories from her first official job with her teammates crept back into her head. She was surprised to feel the yellow stallion next to her patting her on the shoulder and laughing slightly at her quip.

“Heh… we sure have come a long way since then. So, are you ready to go Tom?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously while letting his hoof linger on Sunspot’s shoulder for a moment. The orange pegasus couldn’t help but feel like he was trying to offer her a little bit of comfort to prevent her from thinking about all of the tragic losses they had suffered without directly drawing attention to it.

“Uh, yeah… I guess I am.” Tom said in a confident tone while getting up from his seated position next to Twilight. As he walked by the purple mare, she let out a slight yawn and shook herself awake again.

“Hey, are you ok Twilight? You don’t look like you slept well.” Glitterball said in a slightly concerned tone. Twilight looked around to see the rest of her friends directing their attention to her as well. They had noticed her drowsiness before, but now that someone had asked, they were curious to find out if anything was wrong as well.

“Uh… um… yeah, I’m fine. I just… had a bad dream is all. I should feel more awake after a few minutes.” Twilight explained in a reassuring tone while trying to make herself appear more alert than she felt.

“Well if you need somethin’ to wake you up, maybe you should head to the pool with the rest of us after we get breakfast.” Applejack suggested while looking around at the others to gather their opinions. Everyone else seemed open to the idea of helping their purple friend to snap out of her drowsiness and having some fun at the same time. Well, mostly everyone at any rate.

“Hey, Applejack… do you think we could go to the kid area instead of the pool? I really wanna see the robots in there.” Applebloom asked in an unimposing manner while offering a pleading expression to her sister. The orange mare couldn’t say no to such a request, especially considering who it was coming from.

“Alright, we can go down there if you want, Applebloom.” Applejack said with a warm smile as she watched her sister’s face brighten up.

“I’ll come too. I’m sure Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo would love to go along with Applebloom.” Rarity suggested while getting up and walking over to the orange mare.

“I can handle watchin’ the girls if you want to do somethin’ else Rarity.” Applejack said while offering the unicorn a curious expression.

Rarity shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I want to spend some time with Sweetie Belle anyway.” She smiled warmly while glancing over to the white filly.

Now that their friends had decided on what to do for the next few hours, Tom and Glimmer Shine’s team walked toward the doorway to the right of the front desk. Before they made it very far, however, they were stopped by the gray earth pony walking up to them from behind the desk.

“Hey, before I forget, why don’t you guys take this radio with you? You can use it to reach me if you have any questions or need anything.” Sparkplug said while offering the group a small two-way radio similar to the ones the rest of the staff used. Glimmer Shine accepted the radio before putting it on a clip on his vest.

“Thanks, Sparkplug, but hopefully we won’t be down there very long. We should have things cleared up by the time we get back.” Glimmer said in a reassuring tone.

“Well here’s hoping. I’m sure Berry would love to hear that our ghost problem is over after she finally gets up.” Sparkplug chuckled while noting the absence of the purple mare and the rest of the staff. High Tide and Copper Coil were most likely doing something elsewhere in the resort, but the gray mare was confident that her boss was still in bed.

With everyone ready and all of their gear in order, the team left the room and headed down the hall. After a few minutes of walking through the resort, the four ducked into a gray door and entered the employees only area.

As they went further and further into the secluded corridors of the more private areas of the resort, Glimmer Shine and his teammates’ locator vials started glowing softly. The faint readings combined with the quiet and creepy atmosphere to really sink in the fact that they were walking through a haunted area.

“So what do you guys think we should do here?” Tom asked curiously while looking around to see how the three ponies would handle the situation.

“Well… assuming we don’t find any physical manifestations of the spirits, I suggest we set down some symbols for a spell and do a minor cleansing of negative energy. Any weak ghosts should clear out after that.” Glitterball suggested while thinking back on her training and everything she had learned about the paranormal.

“Good thinking. It’s nice to see you guys coming into your own as paranormal investigators.” Tom said in a pleased tone.

“We’re getting there. I’m not sure if we’ll ever have as much know-how as you do, but those books from the mansion helped out a lot.” Glimmer Shine stated with a flattered smile.

“Just be thankful a lot of that stuff is legit. I do not have the time or the patience to give out educational lectures on everything I know.” Tom said with a slight chuckle, eliciting a chuckle from the ponies as well.

“Well before we can do anything, we should probably get a better idea of what we’re dealing with. Once we get down to the basement, we should start gauging how powerful these ghosts are and where they are most active. Hopefully, we won’t need to coax them out.” Glitterball shrugged uneasily at the prospect of having to search endlessly for the ghosts. Being a paranormal investigator wasn’t always a glamorous job.

After making their way down into the basement, the group started their search. Slowly and methodically, they used their respective means of detecting supernatural energies to scan the area. Although there were faint readings all around the area, the intensifying traces of spirits led them toward the stairway leading down into the abandoned extension to the building.

As the door to the stairwell creaked open, Glimmer Shine and the others looked into the dusty and forgotten opening with surprised expressions. After being introduced to the lavish and colorful resort upstairs, seeing such an uninviting sight before them was unexpected, to say the least.

“Yikes… what’s the story with this place?” Sunspot asked curiously while eyeing the stairwell and the darkness below.

“It’s apparently an addition to the resort that Berry’s grandfather made. It was never finished on account of the ceiling caving in on one of the floors further down.” Tom explained what Sparkplug had told him the previous day.

“Well, I suppose the ghosts have to come from somewhere.” Glimmer Shine shrugged while thinking of the task ahead. He glanced back to the others for a moment before heading through the door and walking down the steps. Glitterball followed the yellow stallion down, taking slow and deliberate steps to avoid slipping and falling or touching anything to her sides.

“I don’t suppose we can avoid going down there?” Sunspot asked hesitantly while glancing at the grimy looking stairwell. If the entrance to the abandoned floors were anything to judge them by, then the actual floors themselves would undoubtedly be horrible places to venture through.

“Welcome to the life of a monster hunter Sunspot. As it turns out, most supernatural occurrences don’t happen in nice looking places.” Tom said in an amused tone while walking down the stairs with the others. The orange mare sighed uncomfortably while contemplating whether or not to abandon her friends and cut her losses.

“Blech… I feel like I’m gonna get tetanus down here.” Sunspot muttered while sucking up any disgust she felt and following the others down the stairs.

The group could hear their footsteps reverberating off the metallic steps and through the stairwell. The abrupt sounds were the only sounds to be heard in the otherwise silent air. The temperature was also noticeably colder, though the four were uncertain whether or not this was caused by ghosts or simply a lack of heating.

As they reached the bottom steps and gathered by the door, the group opened it up and stepped out into the hallway. The lights cast by the three ponies’ vest mounted flashlights and the human’s single flashlight were all they had to see due to the lack of other light sources. The four beams carried down the hallway to create a solid cone of visibility that revealed a corridor full of doorways that led into more darkness.

The air felt a little more thick and dirty than it did upstairs, although it may have been due to the particles of dust floating around in the flashlight beams. No matter what was causing the feeling or whether or not it was valid, the area felt cold and disgusting.

“Getting some stronger readings down here… looks like we’re in the right place.” Glitterball stated while examining her locator vial. The liquid inside of the vial was glowing more solidly, indicating that they were getting closer to the source of the reading.

“I would never have guessed that unless you told me, Glitter.” Sunspot said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice while staring down the hallway. The dark and forgotten corridor looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

“Enough messing around… let’s hurry up and clear these ghosts out. The sooner we can leave this place, the better.” Glimmer Shine said in a resolute tone while stepping forward and walking down the hall slowly. The others nodded in silent agreement before following the stallion.

Without wasting any more time, the four started sweeping rooms and searching for any abnormal readings. Tom would check rooms on the right, Sunspot and Glitterball would check rooms on the left, and Glimmer Shine would stay in the hallway to watch out for anything further down. The readings the group was getting weren’t anything out of the ordinary, at least from what they expected. Tom could feel trace amounts of spiritual energy, while the two mares’ vials were glowing slightly. Despite the lack of concrete evidence that a spirit was present, the rooms they were searching made them feel uneasy and tense.

Most of the rooms were seemingly unfinished, with bare minimum furnishings and fixtures in them. What few pieces of furniture were present looked and smelled unpleasant from the sheer amount of time they had been down here with no maintenance. Whatever had a flat surface was covered in dust and a few empty cobwebs, seemingly signifying that even the spiders had left the area and forgotten about it.

A few of the rooms looked a bit more finished and lived in than the others, complete with tables, chairs, and cabinets. There were even a few tools and hard hats placed around as if they were abruptly left there by the workers.

“Find anything?” Glitterball asked with a hopeful expression while watching her human friend step out of a room.

“No… nothing. It’s really weird how calm it is down here. I should be feeling a lot more activity, but I can’t make anything out other than some energy.” Tom explained in a puzzled tone.

“Don’t tell me the ghosts decided to move on to the afterlife the same day we show up.” Sunspot shrugged uneasily while walking down the hall to find the next room to search. The last thing she wanted was to be walking through a dusty basement for no reason.

“That wouldn’t make much sense… most ghosts stick around where they haunt for a long time.” Tom said while scratching his head curiously.

As the group walked past a door on the right, Tom glanced at it and paused suddenly. He used his flashlight to further examine the room and noticed that it looked familiar. What he didn’t notice however was the presence of something that should have been there.

“What the…?” Tom muttered in a confused tone while looking around. Noticing their friend stopping behind them, the ponies paused and turned around to see him looking into a seemingly average room with a troubled expression.

“What’s wrong, Tom?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously while walking over to look into the room and see what was so unusual about it. The room was just another empty room with dust strewn along the floor, so the stallion had no idea what was troubling the boy.

“When Sparkplug took me down here yesterday, we came across an old animatronic from back when Berry’s grandfather was still working on this place,” Tom explained in an uneasy tone while still looking around like he was making sure that he was remembering things correctly.

“So… what’s the problem?” Sunspot asked, oblivious to what the human was insinuating.

“The problem is that it’s gone… it isn’t here anymore.” Tom replied while pointing to the empty spot on the ground just in front of the doorway.

“What…? It was here? Are you sure?” Sunspot asked in a confused tone.

“Yeah, I’m positive. It scared the heck out of me when I found it.” Tom stated uneasily. As the ponies looked down to the area just in front of the door, they suddenly noticed a spot where there wasn’t as much dust, as if something had been sitting there previously.

“Maybe Sparkplug or someone else moved it… hold on a sec.” Glimmer Shine said while reaching for the small radio on his vest. He pulled it out and pushed the button on the side, eliciting a small click of static from the device as he held it in front of him. “Hey Sparkplug, are you there?” Glimmer asked curiously before waiting for a response. Everyone watched anxiously while hoping that the gray mare would admit to moving the animatronic.

“Yeah, I’m here… what’s up?” Sparkplug spoke up in a curious tone.

“We’re down in the sub-basement, and we were just wondering if you or someone else moved the old animatronic that was down here?” Glimmer Shine asked in a calm tone. He didn’t seem to be feeling the slight sensation of unease that everyone else felt.

“What, that old model of Bonnie? No… I haven’t even touched it, and I’m pretty sure nobody has been down there since yesterday.” Sparkplug explained in a casual tone. The gray mare’s words suddenly left a pit in everyone’s stomachs. They immediately looked into the empty room before setting eyes on each other nervously.

“Alright… thanks, Sparkplug, we’ll get back to you later.” Glimmer Shine said while trying to hide the nervousness in his voice. He put the radio back on his vest before turning to his teammates. Any confidence he had that the animatronic had been moved through normal means was completely gone.

“So… is anyone else going to tell me that there is a perfectly normal explanation for this?” Sunspot asked curiously.

“Come on guys… it didn’t just get up and walk away did it?” Glitterball asked in a rhetorical and insincere manner. As she looked around to see the uneasy expressions on her friends’ faces, her question suddenly took on a terrifying light.

Now that the thought of a haunted robot was floating around the air, the dark corridor ahead of the group and all of its concealed rooms felt a lot more foreboding. They had all of the proof they needed now. They weren’t alone anymore.

“Let’s keep moving… just keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.” Tom suggested while returning a calm and collected tone to his voice and walking ahead of the group. The ponies nodded hesitantly before following him and keeping their strobes at the ready.

Meanwhile back upstairs, Rarity and Applejack were walking through the halls of the resort on their way toward the kid’s play area. Ever since they sat down with the others to eat breakfast, the three fillies in their care had been antsy and anxious to see what fun they could have. So while the others went off to do their own things, the two mares decided to take the crusaders where they wanted to go most.

Applebloom walked at the back of the group with her two friends. The fillies were excitedly chatting amongst themselves and imagining what was in store for them when they finally reached their destination.

“Are we almost there?” Sweetie Belle asked while looking ahead to her older sister with a pleading expression.

“Patience Sweetie, we will be there soon.” Rarity replied in a reassuring manner while looking back to the anxious fillies. They seemed to be far less confident in her claim than she was.

“Do you even know how to get there? I think we’ve been going in circles.” Scootaloo shrugged with a bored expression.

“Don’t worry about that, Scootaloo. We asked Berry how to get there while we were eating.” Applejack said while trying to curb the wave of annoyance and boredom arising from behind her. Although her younger sister was the quietest out of the bunch of fillies, she seemed to be the most anxious as well. Ever since the group had retired to their rooms last night, the orange mare hadn’t heard the end about how much the filly wanted to go see the animatronics. However amazing the robotic animals might have been, Applejack’s curiosity was swiftly being overtaken by annoyance towards the three fillies.

Just before the crusaders exploded from anticipation, a set of brightly colored doors came into view on their right. The doors themselves were white, but they had a splash of blue on them to mimic water. There were small windows set into the doors that revealed the inside of the room. Seeing nothing but bright colors and open space through the windows, the two mares decided to open the doors to save their younger companions from waiting any longer.

Stepping through the doorway, the mess of vibrant colors they had seen before opened up into a spacious room painted and decorated to fit a more child-friendly atmosphere. The floor was comprised of a checkered patterned carpet of blue and white, with enough thickness to it that it acted as padding to guard against any roughhousing children are capable of. The walls and ceiling were painted sky blue, with detailed white clouds added to complete the motif it was aiming for.

“Woah… check this place out.” Scootaloo said in an amazed tone while taking in the surroundings. Even Applejack and Rarity were surprised at how much of a bright atmosphere was in the room without kids playing in it.

Aside from the look of the room, its many decorations and play areas were just as colorful as everything else. There was a large open space in the center of the room, with several different toys and attractions dotted along the sides. There was a ball pit at the left end of the room, with a small slide leading into it and a climbing net along the edges. The right side of the room was dominated by a decorative pirate ship with many colorful tubes leading in and out of it for kids to crawl through. There was also a climbing net stretching from midway up the ship to a few feet away, seemingly to catch anyone who fell off the edge. And standing off in one of the corners, there were the two animatronics that the group had come to see in the first place.

“Hey, there are those anima-things!” Applebloom stated eagerly while pointing over to the pair of robots.

Perhaps hearing the sound of visitors to their lonely area, the two animatronics turned their heads to look at the group of ponies. Both of them were bipedal cats, and both of them Applejack recognized from her brief time learning about the resort’s animatronics. The one in red was Felix, and his partner was Party Favor. The two cats seemed polar opposites of each other in terms of appearance, with Felix’s deep red coloring clashing against his counterpart’s pink and white motif.

“Hi, there! Welcome to the play area! Are you ready to have some fun?” Party Favor spoke up in a cheerful tone while stepping forward slightly. She seemed to be much more lively than any other animatronic the ponies had seen, even going so far as to seem slightly realistic. She gestured with her arms when she talked, and shifted her weight around like an actual creature would. Meanwhile, her red counterpart remained back in the corner silently while watching the group.

“Can we go play?” Sweetie Belle asked her sister in a courteous tone while mustering all of the patience she could to stifle her excitement.

“Go on girls, we’ll watch you from here.” Rarity said with an understanding smile. She giggled slightly as she watched the three fillies cheer eagerly while scampering off to go inspect the animatronics up close. She couldn’t help but think back to when she was that young and all of the things she did to find entertainment.

Sweetie Belle and her two friends walked across the room and passed all of the enticing toys and playthings to go straight to the robotic animals. As they approached the pair, the white cat watched them intently while tilting her head.

“Hello! My name is Party Favor, and this is my friend Felix.” Party Favor explained while briefly turning to face the red cat. “What are your names?” She asked curiously while looking down at the three fillies.

“I’m Sweetie Belle, these are my friends Applebloom and Sc-” Sweetie Belle started to introduce herself and her friends when she was interrupted by the orange filly shrugging audibly and rolling her eyes.

“You don’t need to talk to it like it’s real, Sweetie Belle.” Scootaloo said in an unimpressed tone while noting her friend’s childish behavior. She was surprised to hear the robotic cat protesting her comment.

“Hey, that’s not very nice! I have feelings too you know.” Party Favor said in a played up sad tone. She put on the best pouty expression she could, given her limited facial freedom, before crossing her arms and looking down.

“Woah… they made them really lifelike didn’t they?” Scootaloo asked in an amazed tone while turning to her two companions. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom smirked at the young pegasus as she was essentially shown up by a robot.

“That lifeguard did say that these guys can interact with people really well.” Applebloom said while thinking back to the day before. She was impressed to see just how advanced the magical components made the animatronics. They almost felt lifelike in a sort of way.

“Whatever, let’s go play. Maybe we should head over to that pirate ship?” Scootaloo suggested to her friends while glancing behind her at the other end of the room. The numerous tubes and the climbing nets on the ship made it an appealing place to start playing.

“Do you think they could come with us?” Sweetie Belle asked curiously while looking back at the animatronics. The white filly and at least her yellow friend hoped that the two cats would be able to play some games with them. Party Favor observed the fillies for a moment before closing her mouth and partially closing her eyes, creating a warm expression. She then turned to look at the red cat behind her as he remained silent and observant.

“Come on Felix! Let’s go play with the kids!” Party Favor said in an excited tone while motioning for the red cat to follow her. The three fillies and their newfound mechanical friend looked at Felix expecting him to speak or move. After what seemed like a few moments of looking ahead at the group silently and shifting his eyes around, Felix started moving a bit more naturally and opened his mouth.

“Ok! Are you guys ready to have a blast?” Felix asked in an eager tone. His voice held the same faint distortion that the other animatronics had, but it still conveyed emotion well.

“Yay!” Sweetie Belle cheered in excitement while rushing away with her friends. The two animatronics followed them, making soft and steady clicks as they moved. Although they were slower than the fillies, they would catch up to them as they went over to the pirate ship and started climbing on it. Meanwhile, the two mares at the front of the room were watching the crusaders playing with empathetic smiles.

“Wow… I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing those things.” Rarity said in a surprised tone while eyeing the two robots. While the pink one was alright enough, the other one was still displaying the soulless qualities that any cheap imitation of life had, a clear and unavoidable limitation of technology. Even magical components had their limits, but the robotic animals were charming enough to make up for these shortcomings.

“The novelty would wear off if you got used to them.” Applejack stated with a slight chuckle at the unicorn’s words.

“I suppose you’re right. That would defeat the purpose wouldn’t it?” Rarity asked rhetorically as she caught on to the orange mare’s meaning.

“Still, as long as the kids like ‘em, they’re alright to me.” Applejack said while smirking as she watched her sister playing with her friends. The two animatronics were standing by the pirate ship and watching the fillies playing, but they would interact with them whenever they paused to notice them.

“I guess. I’m not so sure if I would feel comfortable talking to something that isn’t alive, though.” Rarity said warily.

“What, are you creeped out by them or somethin’?” Applejack asked curiously.

Rarity shrugged. “Perhaps… I just think they are a bit off-putting.” She replied, making an attempt at shaking off any negative thoughts lingering in her mind.

“Are you sure you’re not just creeped out by the thought of ghosts in this place?” Applejack asked with a slight hint of nervousness in her own voice. The thought of why they were actually here hung over everyone’s head, though they tried to suppress and replace it with happier ones.

“I’m sure the others will take care of any ghosts downstairs.” Rarity said confidently, albeit with a hesitant pause.

“I still don’t like the idea of being so close to any ghosts… not after what happened back at that mansion.” Applejack shrugged and shook her head as a heap of unwanted memories came flooding back to her.

“Don’t worry Applejack… not all ghosts are that powerful, or that evil. Nothing like that will ever happen to us again.” Rarity said while offering her friend a reassuring expression. The orange mare nodded while lightening up a bit.

“OW!”

A sudden thump and a yelp of pain drew the two mares’ attention to the three fillies. They saw Scootaloo and Applebloom staring over the side of the pirate ship with surprised and concerned expressions, and they saw Sweetie Belle curled up on the floor clutching her ankle.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle! Are you ok?” Rarity asked in a concerned tone while trotting over to the white filly. As she reached her little sister and knelt down to level with her, she looked up at the other two fillies to see what had happened.

“She just fell off the climbing net… is she ok?” Scootaloo asked while looking to her friend with a worried expression.

“I think she just sprained her ankle… hold on, let me see.” Rarity said while gently examining her sister’s leg. Despite how gentle she was being, it wasn’t enough to prevent the young unicorn from feeling pain.

“Owch!” Sweetie Belle yelped painfully while Rarity tried picking up her leg.

“Sorry darling, I need to see how bad it is. Try to hold still.” Rarity said in a sympathetic tone while frowning at her sister. Sweetie Belle tried to prevent herself from squirming, but the shooting pains she was feeling weren’t making things easier.

“You’re making it worse… ow!” Sweetie Belle complained in a distraught tone. She had a few tears welling up in her eyes from how badly her leg hurt.

Everyone watched with concerned expressions as the white mare tried to tend to her sibling. Even Party Favor was watching from the sidelines with an uncertain expression, almost like she was trying to figure out what was going on. Felix, on the other hand, was watching silently, and very intently. The red cat watched Rarity moving the filly’s leg and Sweetie Belle stifling cries of pain, almost fixated on them while remaining motionless and silent. The ponies were far too occupied to notice the two animatronics however as they kept their eyes on the two unicorns.

“Ugh… I think this will swell if we leave it alone… probably going to bruise as well.” Rarity shrugged uneasily while setting her sister down and turning to the others.

“You should get her back to the room and let her rest.” Applejack suggested while frowning with concern at the injured filly.

“Yes… but first I need something to help with the pain and swelling.” Rarity said while looking around in thought for a moment. She turned to the two animatronics with an idea in her head. “Oh, um… Party Favor, can you go find me an ice pack please?” She asked in a clear tone while facing the white cat with a hopeful expression. Party Favor looked at the white mare silently. After a moment of nothing being said, the robotic feline shifted to a confused expression.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that. Could you say that again?” Party Favor asked in a less organic manner. It sounded like she was simply spouting out a prerecorded message rather than actually using her voice box and personality to form words.

Applejack tilted her head, feeling equal confusion to the animatronic. “What? How could you not understand that?”

“*Sigh* it must be the limitations that High Tide mentioned. These two can’t handle anything other than interacting with guests.” Rarity said with a frustrated tone in her voice.

“I can go find where they keep the ice packs if you want.” Applejack offered in a helpful manner, to which the white mare shook her head.

“No, I’ll just take Sweetie Belle up to the room and find one myself. Thank you for the offer, though.” Rarity said before turning to her sister with a sympathetic expression. “Come on Sweetie Belle, let’s get you back to bed so you can get some rest.” She lit up her horn and gently picked the filly up. Sweetie Belle sighed in disappointment as the older unicorn floated her up to her back and gently sat her down.

“Girls, let’s head back with them. I think you’ve had enough roughhousin’ to last a while.” Applejack suggested while turning to the other fillies. Applebloom and Scootaloo voiced their disappointment with verbal groans and sighs while climbing down from the pirate ship, all the while being careful to not fall off like their friend had.

While Rarity carried Sweetie Belle out the door and started on her way back to the room, Applejack and the other two crusaders slowly followed her out. Before closing the door and leaving, Scootaloo turned to look at the animatronics that were still watching from the side.

“Bye Party Favor…” Scootaloo said in a sheepish tone, still feeling a little bad about her previous dismissal of actually talking to the animatronics. Party Favor waved with a friendly expression as the orange filly walked out of the door. While the white cat waved at the departing ponies, Felix stared at the door in silence, even longer than his white counterpart did. After a few moments, the red cat took a step forward and slowly walked towards the door.

-A few minutes later-

After spending a few minutes walking around the resort and trying to wake herself up, Twilight finally settled in at the front desk. She was chatting idly with Fluttershy and Berry Swirl, who had finally managed to get up and about.

Despite the unsettling dream she had the night before, Twilight somehow managed to feel upbeat and energetic at last. Perhaps it was the bright atmosphere of the resort, or maybe it was just being around her friends, but the purple mare felt good as new.

“Thanks for sending High Tide into town to get some food Berry. Breakfast was really good.” Twilight said gratefully. While she wasn’t about to complain about the seemingly unprofessional meals they had received, she did enjoy the extra effort the earth pony was putting in for them.

“Well, you guys deserved more than just fast food for your vacation. Just be thankful that Silver Bell knows a thing or two about cooking.” Berry Swirl said with a slight chuckle.

“She seems to know a thing or two about a lot of things… you got a real keeper there.” Twilight said sincerely.

Berry smirked as she thought about how much work the cream mare put into the resort each day. “Yeah… the whole team would fall apart without her, that’s for sure.”

“It’s really nice to see that you and the others are so close. It’s like you’re a family and not just coworkers.” Fluttershy said with an impressed expression.

“We are a family… or at least it feels that way. After I lost my dad, it was pretty tough for a while. Copper helped me out with the plans for getting the park up and running again… he worked with my dad toward the end of his career in this place. Finding the others and talking them into going on this little adventure was another challenge… Sparkplug almost didn’t say yes. I guess she had the sense to make the right choice, but she signed up anyway.” Berry explained lightheartedly. It seemed like she was fondly remembering her past and looking forward to making the park as good as it was when her father owned it. Twilight and Fluttershy couldn’t help but feel for the purple mare as she kept her head held high through any problem she had, even if the problem was ghosts in the basement.

“Well I’m sure you guys will do a great job when you finally open this place-” Twilight was suddenly interrupted by another voice coming from one of the hallways to the right.

“Hey!”

A familiar voice exclaimed in an agitated tone. The three mares walked over to the doorway with surprised expressions as they listened to the distressed sounds coming from the corridor.

Looking out into the hallway, the ponies saw Rarity standing in front of an animatronic cat with red fur. The unicorn had what appeared to be ice packs on the floor next to her, seemingly dropped suddenly from her magical grip as the robotic animal blocked her path and stared at her silently.

“Rarity? What’s wrong?” Twilight asked in a concerned tone while looking at the white mare to see what was happening. Rarity turned her head to see her friends looking back at her with curious and concerned expressions.

“I was on my way back to our room when this thing just stepped in front of me and knocked into me!” Rarity explained in an upset tone while looking back to the red animatronic with an icy glare.

“He knocked into you?” Twilight tilted her head in confusion while looking at the cat. He seemed to be paying no attention to the fact that he was intruding on the white mare’s personal space.

“You’re absolutely right he knocked into me! If I didn’t have consideration for other people’s property, and I didn’t consider that walking hunk of junk to be other people’s property, I would have half a mind to give it a few good kicks.” Rarity huffed in frustration while picking up her ice packs off of the floor. She groaned in annoyance while getting up and attempting to walk around the animatronic. She was surprised and a little bit startled to see the robotic cat stepping into her path again and knocking into her.

“What in the name of Celestia is wrong with you? Let me through!” Rarity said in a frustrated tone while raising her voice slightly. The cat simply kept staring down at her silently, paying no attention to her outburst.

“Felix, what are you doing? Stop that right now.” Berry said in a commanding tone while stepping forward slightly. Much to everyone’s surprise, the animatronic didn’t budge an inch.

“He isn’t listening to you Berry… is he malfunctioning or something?” Twilight asked in a confused tone while looking between the animatronic and her understandably upset friend.

“I don’t know, maybe… he shouldn’t even be outside the kid's play area.” Berry stated in an utterly puzzled tone before turning back to the animatronic. “Felix, come here.” She instructed, hoping that a more simplistic command would work better.

Rarity and the others watched as the robotic cat remained perfectly still. The white mare, in particular, was starting to get a little creeped out by how intently it was eyeing her. She slowly took a step back to distance herself, only to backpedal in surprise as the animatronic followed her.

“Berry… what is it doing? And why is it so fixated on me?” Rarity asked in a concerned tone.

“Hold on a second,” Berry said before turning around and trotting back into the lobby. Twilight and Fluttershy turned and watched the purple mare heading to the front desk and going behind it. Rarity merely shifted her eyes to the side while keeping her full attention on her new metallic friend.

Berry quickly trotted back over to the others with a radio in her hooves. She took a quick breath before pushing the button on the side and bringing the radio up to her mouth, all the while keeping her attention on Felix.

“Hey Sparkplug, has Felix been acting strange recently?” Berry asked anxiously. The ponies waited for what seemed like forever for a response when finally the gray mare picked up on the other end of the line.

“Who, Felix? Um… no, I don’t think so. Why do you ask?” Sparkplug asked curiously.

Rarity sidestepped to try and get by the robotic cat once more. Every time she moved to one side, Felix moved to follow her, keeping himself between her and any exit behind him. The white mare was starting to feel threatened by the hulking animatronic.

“That’s enough. Felix, sleep mode!” Berry said in a frustrated tone. Nothing happened to Felix, let alone what the purple mare expected. There were no flashing lights in his eyes, no beeping to indicate that his systems were powering down, nothing at all.

“Girls… I would really appreciate it if you got this thing away from me.” Rarity asked in a nervous tone while locking eyes with the animatronic. Something about his silent stare was incredibly unnerving to her, but she couldn’t look away.

“Sparkplug, I need you to do a manual shutdown on Felix. He isn’t responding to any commands, and he is really starting to freak us out.” Berry said in an anxious tone. Twilight, Fluttershy, and most of all, Rarity, were all glad to hear that the situation was finally being taken care of. They could finally get back to their normal day, and not have to worry about anything other than how to stave off boredom.

“Uh… Berry, Felix isn’t online.” Sparkplug spoke up in a confused tone. The gray mare’s words hung in the air and made Berry’s eyes widen.

“W-what?!” Berry asked in a stunned tone. Twilight and Fluttershy looked at the earth pony as she stared at her radio in disbelief. They looked back to the animatronic standing in front of their friend with a new glint of fear in their eyes.

“Yeah, Felix hasn’t been online for a while. Nobody even activated him this morning… you mean he’s up there with you?” Sparkplug asked in a more concerned tone.

“Sparkplug, call Tom and the others and get them up to the lobby right now.” Berry instructed in an urgent and hushed tone before turning her radio off and setting it down. She stepped in front of Twilight and Fluttershy and looked ahead to see Felix still locking eyes with Rarity.

“Felix, sleep mode.” Berry said in one last ditch effort at shrugging off this whole experience as a glitchy animatronic. She slowly walked forward until Rarity took another step back. Strangely enough, the robotic cat remained in place while the white mare recoiled, though his silent stare was still firmly fixed on her.

“What’s wrong with him?” Fluttershy asked timidly while backing up slightly and staring at the animatronic with wide eyes. She hoped that her friends would have the sense to get as far away from the cat as possible.

“Felix, sleep mode.” Berry instructed in a louder and more deliberate manner. Still, the animatronic did nothing but stare ahead. Finally, an idea popped into her head. The mere thought sent an uncomfortable chill down her spine, but she had to entertain her idea.

“Felix… wake mode.” Berry said hesitantly.

*Beep, Beep, Beep*

Two sets of three rapid beeps sounded out as red lights blinked on and off in Felix’s eyes. The robotic cat moved his head to the side slightly, as if he had just woken up. Just as suddenly as the first beeps had come, another set of six beeps sounded out and the lights blinked again before turning off. Felix suddenly shifted his gaze back to Rarity and took a step forward. The white unicorn stepped back again, only to have the robotic cat take another step. Although she had gained distance on him from when he stayed put before, Rarity was outright terrified now.

“Get away from me… get back!” Rarity yelled defensively.

Suddenly the group heard frantic footsteps coming from behind them. They turned to see Tom and Glimmer Shine’s team running into the lobby and over to the doorway where they were. They darted their eyes around while trying to find out why they were called back so suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked while looking to Twilight with a concerned expression. Before the purple mare could speak up, a bone-chilling noise erupted from the animatronic cat.

Felix opened his mouth and let out a heavily distorted growl that built in pitch and intensity before turning into a shriek. As he screeched, his eyes had a small glint of white in them that gave them a terrifying air. The robotic cat raised his arms and started rushing forward towards Rarity.

“AHH!” Rarity screamed and fell backwards onto the floor as she watched the animatronic make a dash toward her. Before Felix could close the distance between himself and the hapless unicorn, Berry Swirl darted forward and raced up behind him.

The purple mare stood up on her hind legs and reached up to the back of the animatronic’s neck. She grasped something on its neck and pulled on it, eliciting a small click from it as she stumbled backwards onto all fours.

The lights in Felix’s eyes disappeared and his shriek ceased. The robotic cat froze in place for a moment before going limp and falling over, landing on the floor and settling in a motionless heap. The still traumatized Rarity looked down at the cat before looking around at her friends. Fluttershy was cowering behind Twilight, while Tom and the others were paused mid-step as they ceased their imminent rescue attempt. Finally, the jittery unicorn looked ahead to see Berry Swirl holding a small ring attached to a pin in her hoof.

“Y-you… stopped it?” Rarity asked in a confused tone. The purple mare twirled the pin around by the ring for a moment while showing it off.

“It’s a safety mechanism we use to do a hard shutdown if any of the animatronics get a really bad error. It bypasses every system they have and prevents them from functioning.” Berry explained while still calming herself down after her rush of adrenaline.

“Are you guys ok? What the hay happened with that thing?” Sunspot asked in a concerned tone while examining Rarity as she got up from the floor. She seemed to be taking the experience in her stride, but she was visibly shaken.

Before anyone could even try to offer an explanation, the group heard the sound of someone rushing in from the other room. They turned around and saw Sparkplug walking over to them with a panicked expression on her face. Once she saw the motionless animatronic on the ground and the frightened expressions on Rarity and the others, she froze in mid-step.

“Holy cow… what happened?” Sparkplug asked in a stunned tone.

“I don’t know… Felix just flipped out and tried to attack Rarity.” Berry Swirl said in a confused and equally concerned tone while looking to the white mare.

“I noticed that thing looking at me funny ever since I carried Sweetie Belle out of the play area.” Rarity said while trying to fathom why she was having the worst luck in the world.

“Wait, you carried Sweetie Belle out of the play area? Is she ok?” Twilight asked in a concerned tone while looking down to the ice packs the unicorn was carrying before.

“Yeah, she just sprained an ankle after falling in the play area. Come to think of it… Felix started staring at me like that when I tried examining Sweetie Belle’s leg.” Rarity explained in a curious manner while thinking back to when her sister injured herself. She was too occupied with tending to the filly at the time to notice, but she did remember the red cat acting oddly the entire time the group was in the play area.

“I don’t understand how this happened… the animatronics aren’t finished by any means, but they aren’t so broken that they would do this!” Sparkplug said in a bewildered tone while walking over to the animatronic and kneeling down to examine it.

“Maybe it was acting on free will?” Tom suggested curiously while using his senses a few times and staring at the animatronic pensively.

Sparkplug shook her head in disbelief. “That’s not possible… they are designed to appear lifelike, but that’s it… just appearances. Even with their magical components, they are still just mechanical puppets.”

“I think you aren’t getting what Tom is suggesting.” Glitterball said while looking down to her locator vial and slowly catching on to the human’s meaning. The liquid in her vial was glowing softly, indicating a paranormal presence nearby.

“Huh?” Sparkplug muttered while tilting her head in confusion. The unicorn and the human seemed confident in whatever theory they had, but it wasn’t nearly as obvious to the gray mare or anyone else.

“I think Tom means that one of the ghosts was controlling Felix.” Glitterball explained to get the human’s point across to everyone else.

Sparkplug’s face shifted to a surprised expression. “A ghost possessing an inanimate object… is that even possible?” She asked, equal parts intrigued and unnerved.

“Not only is it possible, but it’s already happened. When we went down in the subbasement, that old model of Bonnie you showed me last night was missing. We didn’t find it… but judging from what just happened here with Felix, I would say that one of the ghosts hopped into it and used it to walk away.” Tom explained while turning to face the group. Most of the ponies had concerned expressions on their faces and hints of fear in their eyes.

“But, I thought the ghosts here weren’t very strong? How did they come upstairs so easily? Let alone possessing an animatronic and using it to try and attack Rarity.” Twilight asked nervously. The others could tell that she wasn’t so hot on the idea of being so close to powerful ghosts, and they perfectly understood.

As everyone looked to Tom and the others for certainty and confidence, they found them offering uncertain expressions in return. It seemed like they were just as in the dark as the rest of the group was, and that made the ponies even more nervous.

“I’m not sure why the ghosts are acting like this, or how they could do this in the first place. It’s been hard for me to gauge how strong they are… it’s like their energy and the energy in this place keeps fluctuating… I don’t fully understand what is going on.” Tom admitted hesitantly. He hated not being able to tell the ponies that everything was under control, especially when it meant that they could be in danger.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this, though… You guys shouldn’t worry about it, right?” Sunspot said reassuringly while looking to her teammates for support. Although they still felt unsure and uneasy themselves, Glimmer Shine and Glitterball softened up their expressions and tried to appear confident.

“Yeah… we’re going to head back down to the basement and see if we can’t find out what’s going on… not to mention track down our missing animatronic.” Glimmer said with a determined expression.

Rarity glanced back to the motionless animatronic on the ground with an uneasy expression. “Is this going to happen again? I don’t want another one of the animatronics to try and kill me.” She asked in a concerned tone while still trying to recover from the traumatic experience she just went through.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to send all of the animatronics down to the store room until they find out what’s going on.” Berry said while glancing down to Felix and shrugging uneasily.

“Come on Rarity, why don’t we go find the others and try to relax?” Twilight suggested while noting the tense atmosphere. She was certain that Tom and the others would do their best to solve the problem, but she still felt a twinge of anxiety and nervousness that wouldn’t go away. Hopefully, some time with their friends would ease their fears.

“That sounds good… let me take these ice packs up to the room first. Poor Sweetie Belle is probably still in pain waiting for me to get back.” Rarity said in a worried tone while picking up the ice packs on the floor yet again. Hearing about the white filly’s predicament made the others frown with sympathy.

“We’re going back to the basement now… we’ll catch up with you guys later. And Rarity, I’ll stop by your room later and heal Sweetie Belle’s ankle for you.” Tom offered while walking away with Glimmer Shine and his two teammates.

“Thank you, darling, I’m sure she would appreciate it. Stay safe for us down there, all of you.” Rarity said while waving to the departing group along with Twilight and Fluttershy. After watching the four disappearing into a hallway, the white mare turned to her friends and waved before walking down the hall toward her room.

Twilight and Fluttershy watched as Sparkplug examined Felix while Berry stood to her side with concerned expressions all around. The threat that the ghosts posed had escalated to new heights. The ponies were unsure of whether or not the spirits could do something this brash again, or whether or not they were capable of more than simple mischief. Either way, they were filled with a nagging fear that wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

With a new feeling of urgency and tenseness accompanying them, the members of Spirit and their human companion descended back into the forgotten sub-basement of the resort. As they stepped out into the dusty corridor and took in a breath of cold and stale air, their stern resolve made them press forward in spite of the mild ill feeling in their guts.

Tom exhaled a puff of blue mist and the three ponies held out their detector vials. Now that they were actually pursuing an active spirit that was able to possess something as heavy as an animatronic animal, they felt much more on edge than they did the first time walking through the dark halls.

The group scanned their eyes to each room they passed, giving them a cursory search to determine if their missing robot was lurking in the shadows. All of the rooms were still empty, for the moment at least. The ponies figured that the animatronic was wherever it had been since it moved from the spot Tom found it in, but they still kept on their toes just in case they were wrong.

A solid few minutes went by as the four swept through the hallways. Eventually, they passed the point where they were when they were abruptly called upstairs by Sparkplug.

With the looming thought of new territory playing into her already stressed nerves, Glitterball instinctively reached for her strobe before remembering what she was actually expecting to fight. “So, does anyone actually know what we’re going to do assuming we find this thing?” She asked in a concerned tone. If a ghost actually was hiding in the decrepit animatronic, then fire from strobes would likely do little to nothing to it.

“Well… assuming we find a lifeless hunk of rusted metal, we’ll probably just continue our investigation.” Tom said to offer his opinion on the matter.

“And if we find said hunk of rusted metal out on a leisurely stroll? I don’t think we’ve got anything that can take down one of those things.” Sunspot fretted while briefly looking down to her suit and mentally tallying her inventory. There was a small taser that caught her attention, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to bank on that working if she ran into a ticked off spirit inhabiting a five-foot tall metallic rabbit.

“Uh… I guess I could hit it?” Tom suggested awkwardly, eliciting strange looks from his equine friends. “What? I’m a slayer… my plans don’t usually go much further than finding a monster and killing it.” He added defensively while shrugging his shoulders.

A soft buzz coming from the vials in their hooves drew the ponies’ attention downwards. They saw the liquid in the vials glowing slightly brighter than before. Oddly enough, the liquid seemed to be dimming and brightening slightly in certain areas seemingly at random.

“Huh…? This is weird… the signals down here are fluctuating so much that the detectors can barely figure out what’s going on.” Glitterball said in a confused tone while pointing her vial around in a circle. Moving the vial didn’t cause the amount of change she would have expected, although it did make it dim and brighten at different rates. She pointed it closer to one of the rooms to see if she could get a solid reading anywhere.

Tom used his senses a few times to get a lay of the area. The confused and mildly frustrated expression on his face told the others that his brief search had yielded similar results to what they were seeing with their detector vials.

“Ugh… this is flying in the face of everything I know about hunting ghosts. I can hardly even tell where the trail of ambient energy I felt last night is… it’s like the energy in this place keeps changing.” Tom shrugged in a defeated tone.

“Is that a bad thing?” Glitterball asked hesitantly while turning her head to face the others.

“Maybe… If the energy here really is unpredictable, I might have been completely wrong when I gauged how strong these ghosts are, or even how many there are.” Tom suggested with an uneasy expression, much to the dismay of his colleagues.

“Great… that’s just what we need, more uncert-” Glitter froze up suddenly as she turned her head back to examine her vial again. As she trailed her eyes up into the room she was facing, she found the hollow eyes of the missing animatronic staring back at her.

The blue rabbit was leaning around the corner of the doorway, seemingly peering out to view the group out in the hallway. The eyes that went with Bonnie’s shell were cracked and rotted into a sickly yellow color, but there seemed to be a slight red glow coming from behind them, most likely from the endoskeleton’s set of eyes. Its jaw was hanging crookedly, but it looked like it was forming into a silent growl directed toward the white mare.

“Uh… ah… AH!” Glitterball yelped fearfully as she finally processed what she was seeing. As she cried out, the aged animatronic suddenly leapt forward. Bonnie rushed past the terrified unicorn, knocking into her and sending her to the floor as it tore down the hallway with a broken shriek and a series of mismatched mechanical clicks.

“Glitter!” Glimmer Shine exclaimed in a shocked tone while rushing to the unicorn’s side along with the others. He briefly turned to see the animatronic disappearing down the dark corridor before returning his attention to the white mare on the ground.

“Are you ok?!” Tom asked in a concerned tone while examining the unicorn for injuries.

“I-I’m fine… I’m fine! He’s getting away!” Glitterball stammered in shock while pointing down the hallway.

Before the ponies could even get their comrade off of the floor, they heard their human friend taking off running. The trio turned to see Tom running full sprint down the hallway in pursuit of the fleeing animatronic. Deciding that they should help their friend, the members of Spirit rushed forward to try and catch up with him.

Meanwhile, Tom was running as fast as he could while trying to avoid the miscellaneous objects strewn along the floor. He followed the faint glimpses of the old robot down the hall until it turned to the right, eliciting the human to turn after it.

Tom could hear a loud metallic thumping as the animatronic’s feet pounded against the floor and it knocked into the walls while running clumsily. He wasn’t sure if the withered body the spirit inhabited was unable to move smoothly or if it was just not used to moving with it.

Despite him being able to follow the animatronic easily from the distant sounds, the human was barely able to keep him at the edge of his flashlight’s reach. As a few more twists and turns aided the robotic rabbit in gaining ground, Tom found himself unable to see his target anymore. Suddenly, the sounds of Bonnie’s footsteps and metallic body ceased.

Tom slowed to a halt as the hallway opened up into a small intersection. He panted heavily while scanning the area around him for the missing robot. Strangely enough, he noticed that he had come out near the shelf that was blocking the rest of the building last night. Even stranger was the fact that the shelf was now pushed to the side, revealing another dark corridor where it once was.

Hearing rushed footsteps behind him, Tom turned around to see flashlights bouncing up and down as his colleagues caught up with him. Glimmer Shine and his two teammates seemed even more out of breath than the human was, most likely due to their natural stamina.

“*Pant*… *Wheeze*… did you… did you lose him?” Sunspot asked while trying to catch her breath. She looked around the area in between bouts of hanging her head low to the floor. The orange mare and her teammates were naturally drawn to the large shelf and the dark corridor that it was sitting next to. Almost on cue with everyone losing hope that they would find the animatronic again, a loud clang sounded out from further down the eerie hallway.

“He went down that way… come on, let’s go.” Glimmer Shine said while walking toward the hallway. He was interrupted by Tom stepping in front of him to block his path.

“Hold up… Sparkplug said that this area was blocked off due to it being unstable from the collapse. I should go alone on the off chance the floor caves in.” Tom suggested while glancing between the three ponies.

“Are you sure?” Glitterball asked in a concerned tone. She wasn’t sure if she was comfortable with letting the human go alone into a possibly dangerous location to chase after a definitely dangerous haunted robot.

“Yeah, I’m sure. If the floor collapses, I would rather it happen to me than you guys. I can get back up afterwards… you might not.” Tom explained in a confident tone.

“Alright… what do you want us to do? Should we wait for you here?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously.

“No sense in you wasting time waiting for me. You guys go back and continue sweeping this floor for energy. See if you can make sense of these whacked out readings while I go find our animatronic friend.” Tom said while starting to make his way into the hallway. Glimmer Shine and his two teammates hesitantly walked back toward the hallway toward the rest of the area.

“Be careful in there Tom.” Sunspot said in an uneasy tone while pausing to turn her head toward the human. Tom offered a wave with his hand without turning around to signify that he heard her. The orange mare watched the boy leaving with a concerned expression. She hated not being able to do anything to help. Finally, she turned and trotted to catch up with her teammates as they walked away.

Meanwhile, Tom was making his way further into new territory. Before, he at least had a vague idea of where he was going due to Sparkplug’s brief tour of the place, but now he was on his own. Being in yet another eerie and dusty location hunting down ghosts sort of reminded him of his days as a slayer back in the human world, however brief they might have been. However, back in the human world, he wouldn’t have been hunting a possessed animatronic bunny, which was a scenario that still sounded ridiculous in his head.

Taking a look around yielded no signs that this hallway was any different than the other ones. There were still darkened rooms waiting on either side of him, and there were still forgotten decorations left lying around to offer the illusion that this place was originally supposed to be lived in. However, the knowledge that the structural integrity of this place might be compromised left a strong feeling of apprehension in the boy that made him very aware of where he was stepping. The floor still left hollow echoes of his footsteps like the hallways and rooms further back, but he couldn’t hear any signs of creaking or cracking.

As he used his senses a few times, he was left with little more than fluctuating pockets of ambient energy like before. He couldn’t even feel whether or not there was a haunted animatronic lying in wait to kill him, let alone how close it was or where it was hiding. His inability to make sense of the readings he was getting made the human let out a frustrated groan before continuing with his search.

Suddenly, Tom saw a box toppling over up ahead at the end of the hall. He immediately paused and shined his flashlight over the area anxiously. The hallway opened up and went a few feet more before ending in a wall. Set into the wall was a large opening with a set of stairs that looked much friendlier than the cramped stairway that led down into the sub-basement. The stairs stretched from wall to wall, with wooden handrails on either side. The carpet from the hallway followed the stairs down as they went on a short ways before doubling back and descending into unseen darkness.

Noticing that there was space for the animatronic rabbit to be hiding in the corner where the hallway opened up, the human crept forward slowly while keeping on his toes. He was fully prepared to body slam Bonnie onto the floor as soon as he entered the larger area, or at least he would give his best attempt considering his opponent was practically his size and made of metal and plastic.

As he neared the corner, Tom finally decided to swallow his apprehension and jumped forward while shining his flashlight to the right. Much to his surprise and relief, he found nothing but empty space in the corner.

“Man… I need to work on my horror movie senses… I totally thought he would be there.” Tom shrugged while shaking his head in disappointment. He had been able to apply a surprising amount of skills from watching scary movies with his friend to his job as a slayer, but apparently, real horror situations were less predictable than in the movies.

Deciding to take a look around, Tom turned and used his flashlight to check the rest of the area. Panning the flashlight to the left revealed the ominous stairs in the center of the wall, a few dead plants still in their pots, some peeling wallpaper, and a five-foot tall mechanical rabbit.

“Wait, what?!” Tom exclaimed in surprise while jerking back slightly. He scarcely had time to finish his statement before the looming animatronic lunged forward and grabbed him by the throat.

“Oh right… turning around is usually bad in horror movies.” Tom said as he noticed the irony of the situation, though he could only communicate this via strangled croaks as the withered model of Bonnie tightened its grip on his neck.

Tom kicked at the robotic animal and clutched at its arm as it squeezed him tightly, though without much effect. He could barely think straight with the animatronic’s powerful grip cutting off the blood supply to his head. The relatively soft shell of the blue rabbit was almost completely worn away on the hand it was using to strangle him, revealing the metallic endoskeleton underneath that equally looked and felt painful.

As Bonnie looked at the human with his lifeless gaze, he tilted his head while watching him struggle. Without much effort, the rabbit lifted the human off the ground and tossed him to the side in one motion. Tom flew a short distance away before hitting his head and upper back on the ground with a painful thud.

Before Tom could even look up, he heard an ear-piercing shriek coming from in front of him. The shriek sounded slightly distorted, but it sounded far too lifelike and terrifying for it to have been made by a voice box, even if it was decades old and broken down. The human looked ahead and saw the robotic rabbit charging straight for him with its arms jutted out in front of itself. Bonnie leapt at the boy, being just barely held back by his arms being shoved forward.

Tom grunted in a mixture of pain and distress as the animatronic sat on top of his lower body. He couldn’t even move Bonnie off of himself due to his heavy frame. The robotic animal tried to claw at his face, but he did his best to grab its arms and keep them at bay.

“Hrk... gah!” Tom winced in pain as Bonnie inadvertently knocked his hand into his jaw. Even without the animatronic doing it on purpose, the metallic appendage felt like a ton of bricks being knocked into him. The boy quickly realized that he would lose this fight if he didn’t do something to gain the upper hand.

Glancing up at the disturbing visage of the decaying animatronic, he saw the rabbit’s crooked jaw forming into a sort of half smile and half scowl that matched its unwavering stare perfectly. As he looked at the rabbit’s neck, an idea suddenly popped into his head.

Tom fought the haunted animatronic and reached his arm towards its head. Straining to reach past the rabbit’s reaching arms, he started clumsily feeling around the side and back of its head and upper neck. After what seemed like hours of struggling and feeling around, the human suddenly came across a small ring shape. Remembering how Berry Swirl shut down the animatronic cat that attacked Rarity, Tom smirked and grabbed ahold of the ring before pulling. The ring offered slight resistance before coming loose with a satisfying click.

*BZZT*

A couple of sparks shot out from the exposed opening in Bonnie’s ear. The animatronic paused as Tom looked up at the ring in his hand and the pin it was attached to. The pin was worn down in several places and the ring was rusted slightly, but it perfectly resembled the safety mechanism that Berry had used to shut down Felix.

Bonnie stared ahead silently and kept his arm in mid-reach, almost like he was a statue. Suddenly, the animatronic’s eyes shifted to the side with a soft mechanical sound. It looked at the ring in the human’s hand before shifting its eyes back in an almost nonchalant fashion. The crooked smile that was frozen on the robot’s face seemed almost eerily fitting as it reached forward and grabbed him by the neck.

“Cr…ap.” Tom croaked silently as his plan failed spectacularly. If anything was accomplished by pulling the ring out, it was pissing off the robotic bunny and making it more violent than it was before.

Struggling to think of something to do without oxygen reaching his brain, Tom realized that there was only one thing he could do. Mustering all of the strength he could, he balled up his fist and gave the best left hook he could toward the animatronic’s head. With a solid and painful thump, the human managed to make the robotic animal recoil slightly, although his hand was now on fire with stinging pain and possibly a fractured knuckle or two. Spotting his chance to escape, he grabbed Bonnie by the side and the head and pushed him back. Thankfully, the animatronic stumbled and fell to the side, allowing Tom to scramble backwards and out from underneath the hefty rabbit.

Before Bonnie could regain his balance and get back to his feet, Tom jumped to his feet and jumped him. With an angry yell, the human kicked the animatronic in the head as hard as he could, using his heel to transfer as much energy as he could with minimum pain to himself. Bonnie fell backwards with a metallic clang, barely reacting with little more than a turn of the head.

Tom quickly delivered a stomp to the fallen animatronic’s head, causing a few cracks in his colorful shell and sending shooting pains through the human’s foot. However painful it might have been for him, he stomped on Bonnie’s head again as hard as he could. Right now he was in a good position to do some damage, so he would have to deal with the possible broken foot he would get after he disabled his foe.

The robotic animal tried reaching up to stop the human’s assault, but it twitched and let its limbs fall back to the floor as its head cracked more. Tom didn’t even stop to rest for a good few moments, delivering kick after kick until his foot felt like it was about to shatter into pieces. Finally, the boy stopped as he noticed that the animatronic had stopped moving, and with good reason.

Bonnie’s already decrepit and aged head was completely cracked. One of his eyes was cracked open, revealing a broken endoskeleton eye beneath it. The entire center of his face was caved in, with the endoskeleton underneath broken as well. Tom stared at the motionless animatronic while breathing heavily. He remained still, almost in disbelief while waiting for the rabbit to get back up.

“Are you done…?” Tom asked in a threatening tone while out of breath. “*Pant*… good… I thought so.” He said while wiping his forehead and stepping to the side. Whatever damage he had caused the animatronic, it was apparently enough for the spirit inside to vacate its vessel.

Tom stood in the middle of the hallway while hunched over with his hands on his knees. His body felt sore, his hands and his foot felt terrible from where he had collided with the metallic animal, and he was completely exhausted despite how brief his encounter was. He didn’t even care that he was mostly staring into darkness due to his flashlight sitting on the ground at an angle a few inches away.

Suddenly, a hurried group of footsteps approached as beams of light appeared at the other end of the hallway. Tom looked up to see the unexpected sight of Glimmer Shine, Glitterball, and Sunspot trotting up to him.

“Tom, are you ok?” Sunspot asked in a concerned tone as she made it up to where the human was standing. His hair was disheveled, there was a red mark on his neck in the shape of a blocky hand, and his clothes were covered in dust and scuff marks.

The three ponies looked behind the exhausted human and saw the broken down remains of the animatronic rabbit lying in a crumpled heap. The sight of the animatronic was both surprising and enlightening. It certainly explained why their friend was out of breath and disheveled to such a degree.

“I thought… *Wheeze* I thought I told you guys to stay back there?” Tom asked while pointing behind the trio to save his breath. Despite how exhausted he was, the ponies could tell that he wasn’t impressed that they disobeyed him to enter a supposedly dangerous area.

“We heard a struggle coming from down here, so we came to see if you were alright.” Glitterball said in a concerned tone while trying to determine if the human was more injured than he was letting on.

“Besides, the floor looks stable enough to me… well, as stable as the rest of this place anyway.” Sunspot said while taking note of her dingy surroundings.

“That is a little bit odd. I would have thought that this place would at least be a little bit broken up from what Sparkplug told you.” Glimmer Shine said in a confused tone while returning his attention to the human. Tom glanced back to the stairwell behind him curiously. Sparkplug had said that down those stairs there was nothing but a room full of rubble, but there were no signs of a cave in from up here.

“We can investigate that tomorrow or something. I really want to call it a day right now. Besides, we should head upstairs and tell the others that it’s safe. Hopefully, no more ghosts will be able to pull anything like this again for a while. They must have spent a lot of energy going all puppet master on these animatronics.” Tom explained while glancing down to the broken bunny on the floor. Even with the bizarre readings they were getting from the energy in the basement, the group was certain that it would take a lot of energy to continue possessing inanimate objects, and average ghosts just didn’t have that amount of energy.

“Yeah… I guess you’re right. We need to rethink our plan before we take this any further anyway.” Glimmer Shine suggested with an uneasy tone. He was dreading the number of unknown variables that they were encountering, especially since they were dealing with ghosts.

With a unanimous nod of agreement, the four decided to leave the rundown and eerie hallways of the sub-basement. Now that they had dealt with the missing animatronic, they hoped that the ghosts would quiet down a bit and leave them alone until they could get some rest and come back with fresh heads.

Chapter 10: The Morning After

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After meeting up with the others and giving them a report of what happened, the members of Spirit and their human companion went back up to their rooms to rest. Tom stopped by Rarity and Applejack’s room to heal Sweetie Belle’s sprained leg.

Sweetie Belle sat on her bed and tried to remain as still as possible while the human healed her. The blue light emanating from his hands felt warm as it passed over her leg. It also made her feel a tingling sensation that made it incredibly hard for her to burst out into a fit of ticklish giggling.

Finally, after a few short moments, the human stepped back and let the filly put weight on her ankle to test it out. “There, that should take care of your sprain.” Tom said in a friendly tone while watching the filly stretching her leg.

Sweetie Belle moved her ankle around and gingerly stepped on it a few times to see if it still hurt. An excited smile crept across her face as she realized that the limb was back to normal. “Wow… thanks, Tom! That feels so much better.” She said while eagerly hopping off the bed. With her hoof no longer hurting, she was finally free to roam around as she saw fit.

Rarity and Applejack watched the young unicorn with warm smiles. Ever since she was injured, she had wanted to go back downstairs with her friends to go play with the others, but she couldn’t do it with a sprained leg.

“Thank you for healing her, Tom. I really appreciate it.” Rarity said in a grateful tone while turning to the human.

“Don’t mention it.” Tom replied with a small smirk.

“Hey, are you sure you’re alright? You look like you just got in a fight with a brick wall.” Applejack stated in a mildly concerned tone while noting the human’s disheveled appearance. He had a few bruises forming, not to mention all of the scuff marks on his clothes and his messed up hair.

Tom shrugged while thinking back to his brief fight. “Well… you’re not far off. I had to deal with one of the ghosts that hopped into an old animatronic downstairs. Everything should be fine now, though. I doubt they have enough energy to do anything meaningful anymore.” He said with a reassuring tone of confidence.

“I’m still not sure if I’m comfortable with going near one of those things again… even if they are safe.” Rarity said uneasily while thinking back to her encounter with the animatronic cat. She could practically hear the horrible sound it made as it rushed for her. She was just thankful that Berry Swirl stepped in so quickly to stop it.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m pretty sure Berry and the others are deactivating the animatronics for today.” Tom explained, hoping to ease the unicorn’s fears.

Sweetie Belle lowered her head and frowned with disappointment. “Aww…”

Rarity couldn’t help but feel bad for her younger sister. Even if she did have a negative experience with the animatronics herself, she knew that the others loved them, especially the three fillies. “Cheer up darling. I’m sure that they will turn them back on tomorrow.” She suggested while offering her sister a reassuring pat on the head. “We can even go back to the play area then… Just try not to fall off of anything.” She added with a slight cringe.

“Ugh… Scootaloo and Applebloom will never let me live that down.” Sweetie Belle shrugged uneasily as she pictured her friends’ teasing comments and nicknames already. The two mares and the human tried to stifle their chuckles as they watched the filly pouting.

Tom let out a pensive sigh, his thoughts turned elsewhere. “Well, I’m going to head into town to see if I can do some research on what happened here to make all of these ghosts. Some of the readings I got down in the basement have been bothering me, so I need to know more about that extension to the building. If you guys decide to go find Twilight and the others, tell them I won’t be back for a while.” He said while walking out of the bedroom and offering a brief wave of goodbye.

“Bye Tom.” Sweetie Belle waved back at the human along with the two mares. With the passing sound of the door to the room opening and closing, the three ponies were alone once again. A grand total of three seconds went by before the dullness in the air hit the trio and filled them with a sense of boredom or restlessness.

“Maybe we should go downstairs with the others. They said they would be down by the pool didn’t they?” Rarity asked curiously while turning to the orange mare.

Applejack nodded in agreement. “Yeah… I think we could use some time to unwind.” She glanced to the white pony and observed her with a mildly concerned expression. After Rarity returned to the room from getting the ice packs and described her traumatic experience with Felix the cat, the orange mare had been worried that she would be a bundle of nerves for the rest of the day. Thankfully, however, the unicorn seemed to have calmed down and briefly moved on from the experience, though she still had a slight air of unease about her.

With the thought of more poolside fun with their friends ahead of them, the two mares and the young filly accompanying them headed out of their room with excited expressions. They weren’t going to let ghosts ruin their vacation time, at least not easily.

Meanwhile, Twilight and her friends were spending some time down by the indoor pool they found the previous day. While everyone else swam around or floated peacefully, the purple unicorn did her best to explain what had happened to Rarity with the animatronic cat. It didn’t take long for the others to notice Fluttershy acting more nervous than usual, so figuring out what happened wasn’t but a few questions and pleading expressions away.

“Wow… so it just flipped out like that on the spot?” Rainbow Dash asked in a stunned tone while picturing the scenario in her head. She felt a little bit of secondhand concern for the white unicorn as she heard more about the brief incident.

Twilight nodded. “Yeah, it just freaked out and started reaching for Rarity until Berry rushed over and pulled some kind of failsafe on its back.” She explained while still getting over the tense situation herself. Hearing that one of the animatronics had tried to hurt one of their friends made the others fall into an uneasy silence.

After a few moments of contemplation, it was Spike who decided to speak up again. “Does that mean that the rest of those robots are dangerous?” The young dragon asked in a slightly nervous tone. His apprehension and fear were felt by nearly everyone in the room. Even Scootaloo and Applebloom were shocked to find out that the white unicorn was almost attacked by one of the animatronics they had just been playing with not too long ago.

“No Spike, I’m sure the animatronics are fine. Tom and the others think a ghost from downstairs got into Felix and made him do what he did. They went down there to make sure the ghosts couldn’t do that anymore.” Twilight explained in a reassuring tone of confidence. Although the young dragon breathed a sigh of relief from hearing the unicorn’s explanation, there was still a hint of nervous uncertainty left in him.

The sound of the door opening lifted everyone from their uneasy thoughts and made them turn to see a group of ponies entering the pool area. Rarity and Applejack were walking through the door, but they also had Sunspot and Glitterball in tow behind them. Once the four mares saw everyone else waiting for them, their expressions brightened and they let out relieved sighs.

“Finally… you would not believe how hard you guys are to find.” Sunspot remarked while stepping over to the edge of the pool and waiting by the edge while the others waded into the shallow end.

“Hey, guys. I assume you’re all done downstairs since you’re here?” Twilight asked curiously while directing her attention to the orange pegasus and her unicorn friend. Glitterball and Sunspot shared exasperated glances with each other before shrugging and turning to face the group.

“I wish… We still haven’t done the thing we went down there to do in the first place, which is clearing out the ghosts.” Sunspot huffed in a frustrated tone while finally stepping into the pool and sitting down to relax.

Hearing that the ghosts were still around wasn’t exactly comforting to the group. Even if these ghosts were run of the mill when compared to the spirits that caused the group so much trauma three months prior, it was still concerning to know that they were still present.

Perhaps noticing the uneasy tension in the air and the fear and worry on the others’ faces, Glitterball decided that she should be the one to soften her companion’s insensitive comment and ease everyone’s mind. “Don’t worry guys. We took care of that spirit that was hopping into animatronics. Even if it was more than one ghost, they shouldn’t have enough energy left to do it again.” The white mare explained with a reassuring smile.

“So, where are Tom and Glimmer Shine?” Twilight asked curiously while noting the strange absence of the human and the yellow stallion.

Sunspot was the first to speak up and explain. “Tom ran into us in the lobby. Apparently, he is going into town to do some research about the collapse down in the sub-basement that caused this mess. Glimmer Shine decided to go with him and help him out.” She said, taking a brief moment to be thankful that the stallion didn’t volunteer her up as well. Meanwhile, the others were intrigued by the subject of why there were ghosts at the resort in the first place.

“Sub-basement? I thought there was only one basement floor in this place?” Rainbow Dash tilted her head with a confused expression.

“There is… kind of. Berry’s grandfather apparently decided to make an expansion to the resort by building down and making a new floor beneath the place. Before he could finish, the roof caved in somewhere and caused a lot of damage. We think that’s where the ghosts came from in the first place.” Glitterball said with a hint of uncertainty in her voice. “Once we know more about what we’re dealing with, it should be easier to clear the place out.” She added in a more reassuring tone.

“That’s good to hear. I don’t like ghosts… I wish they didn’t even exist.” Fluttershy stated while looking down with a passing expression of gloom as her thoughts drifted elsewhere. The others looked to the yellow pegasus with concerned frowns as they saw a familiar sadness in her eyes.

“Ghosts usually aren’t that big of a deal. What happened to us was a very unlikely scenario.” Glitterball explained in a softer tone while trying to tread lightly around bringing up the past. Despite their best efforts, the ponies couldn’t stop thinking back to their time at the mansion, while the younger members of the group could only wonder what happened with concerned expressions.

“Well… how about we stop dwelling in the past and liven up this bore fest?” Sunspot suggested, shifting the atmosphere to a lighter tone.

“That sounds good to me!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed eagerly while producing a beach ball from beside her and holding it up proudly.

Twilight raised an eyebrow curiously. “Wait… Pinkie, where did you get th-” She began to question how the pink mare got her hooves on a bulky beach ball without actually bringing it into the room with her until she was rudely interrupted by the soft ball of air smacking into her and bouncing off.

“Ball tag!” Pinkie announced with an excited grin before swimming away from the purple mare. Everyone else took a moment of confusion before smirking and swimming away from the unicorn as well.

Twilight rubbed her forehead instinctively while still getting over the jarring sneak attack. She looked around to her friends before spotting the beach ball floating beside her. By the time she processed what had just happened, she was already it. “*Sigh*… well, if you can’t beat them.” Twilight shrugged her shoulders before using her magic to lift up the ball. She took aim at the nearest person, which just so happened to be Rainbow Dash, and gave it her best toss.

While Twilight and her friends were having a good time and forgetting about what happened earlier with Rarity and Felix, Sparkplug was actually focusing on the event. Despite the fact that she was certain that the problem was supernatural, her inquisitive mind couldn’t stop goading her into examining the animatronic cat to see if anything was different.

The gray mare sat in a swivel chair in the back area of her workshop. There was a rock song playing softly from the radio nearby, bathing the area in a quiet ambiance. The only light in the area came from a few small lamps scattered around on various tables, and the doorway leading to the front area where Copper Coil was working. Despite the dim light, Sparkplug was roaming around just fine as she looked for various tools and parts.

Sparky the unfinished animatronic dog still remained motionless on his table, but there was another animatronic present in the room. Felix the cat was leaning against the wall in a seated position, inactive and with a small compartment on the back of his head open.

“Ok… let’s see how your systems are doing.” Sparkplug muttered to herself while scooting her chair over to the animatronic and pulling its head forward slightly to access the back of it. She fiddled around with the exposed switches and machinery for a minute before pulling out a small card-shaped object from a slot. The card was riddled with transistors and other such technical bits and bobs that would only blend together into a jumbled mess to the average viewer.

Sparkplug wheeled her chair over to a table by the side of the room that had a bulky computer monitor on it. She opened up a specific slot on the computer itself and inserted the card into it. After typing away on the nearby keyboard and making a few clicks with the mouse, some text in a few popup windows made her pause with intrigue.

“Hmm… nothing wrong, or at least nothing I can see. I guess that ghost didn’t leave any traces.” Sparkplug said while taking off her hat and scratching her head. Hearing a soft knocking sound off to the side, she looked over to see Copper Coil standing in the doorway.

Copper looked around, noting the dim lights and the animatronic cat slumped against the wall. “Are you still back here?” Copper asked with a slight sigh.

“Well… that’s kind of obvious don’t you think?” Sparkplug asked with an awkward smile while trying to shift focus off of herself. Judging from the expression on the older stallion’s face, her attempts weren’t working.

“Crimeny Sparkplug… you’ve already taken Felix apart five times already. I think you might want to give the poor thing a break.” Copper stated while looking over to the robotic cat with a sympathetic expression. The gray mare merely smirked while wheeling her chair back over to the animatronic with the card she removed earlier in hoof.

“I’m sure Felix appreciates the concern Copper, but I don’t think he will mind if I examine him to make sure he doesn’t have any kinks.” Sparkplug replied while grabbing Felix by the head and reaching around the back of it to put the card back in place. “Besides… it’s not like I’m going to hurt him or anything. He’s like my baby… my pwecious little mechanical baby that I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to.” She added in a cutesy tone while patting the animatronic on the shoulder as she fitted the card back into his head. As the small component offered resistance to her attempts at returning it to its home, she gave it a forceful tap, and then another. Copper merely watched the gray mare getting more frustrated as she tried vigorously shoving the card back into place. Finally, the card made a disconcerting noise as it slid back into the slot.

Copper cringed slightly as he looked to the gray mare. “I’m sure you would make a great parent if you treat all of your babies like this.” He said while shaking his head slowly and trying to hide the smirk on his face.

“You’re darn right I would.” Sparkplug retorted with a wry smirk while scooting her chair back over to the table she got it from. Once she moved a few tools and her work station was back in order, which just so happened to be a relative junk pile of sorts, the gray mare got out of her chair and walked over to the stallion. “So, did the others get done with their search down in the basement yet?” She asked curiously.

“Yeah, they got back around an hour and a half ago.” Copper replied in a matter of fact tone, much to the surprise of the gray mare.

“Wow… has it really been an hour and a half?” Sparkplug asked while looking over the stallion’s shoulder to the clock on the far wall. Judging from the slight burning sensation she had when she looked into the fully lit up portion of the workshop, she wagered that it really had been a long time since she retired to her own devices.

“Yeah… it has. You really should try keeping an eye on the clock instead of… whatever you’ve been doing for the past hour and a half.” Copper Coil said while looking around the dimly lit area behind the mare to see what she could have been doing aside from examining Felix. He really hoped that she had multiple projects going instead of working on just one thing.

“Well, you know me, Copper. I’ve always been married to my work.” Sparkplug stated with a smile while going to turn off the lights and the radio behind her.

“You’re married to your work and you have a five-foot tall mechanical cat as a baby. It is official Sparkplug… you are the strangest pony I know.” Copper said while watching the gray mare walking up to him with an amused expression.

“And you wouldn’t have it any other way would you?” Sparkplug asked while flashing a brief smile before turning her thoughts elsewhere. “So does Berry really want us to shut down all of the animatronics for the day?” She added in a more curious tone.

“Well, one of them did almost maim one of our guests.” Copper replied uneasily.

“To be fair, we don’t really know what Felix was going to do. Berry didn’t even give him a chance to reach Rarity thankfully.” Sparkplug said while trying to imagine what the spirit possessing the animatronic wanted with the white unicorn.

“Whatever he was going to do, it couldn’t have been good.” Copper stated while shuddering slightly at the dark thoughts hanging in the air.

“Right… I’ll go grab the tablet and send them all to storage. Hopefully, those monster hunters can get this mess sorted out tomorrow.” Sparkplug shrugged uncomfortably while walking back into the dark area behind her to fetch the tablet that controlled the animatronics. Copper Coil lingered for a while longer before accompanying the gray mare out of the room as she finished her task.

For the rest of the day, everyone in the resort did their best to have a good time, and they mostly succeeded. The vacation wasn’t exactly going as Twilight and the others had planned it, but they were still confident that their monster hunting friends were in control of the situation.

After sending all of the animatronics into storage for the night, Berry Swirl and her staff managed to round up some ingredients to make a decent meal for their guests. Without a professional chef on hand, it was hard to make anything up to standard, but it was good enough for everyone who tried it.

Hours went by, and before long it was already sunset. By now all of the ponies were tired from their long day of playing around and swimming, so everyone made the unanimous decision to go to bed. After saying their goodnights to everyone else, Rarity and Applejack led their troop of fillies into their room for the night.

Applejack stretched her neck, taking a moment to hold in a yawn. “Whew… I can’t wait to get some shut-eye after all of that runnin’ around.”

“You didn’t exactly need to join in on Pinkie’s game of speed marco polo if you didn’t want to.” Rarity stated while thinking back to the pink mare’s bizarre twists on pre-existing games.

“Heh... it was fun at the time, though, right girls?” Applejack asked while turning to her sister and her friends.

“Yeah! I had a blast!” Scootaloo exclaimed eagerly while still coming down from her adrenaline high. The other two fillies were equally hyper and cheerful from earlier. It was a wonder they still had so much energy left this late in the day.

“Say what you will about Pinkie… she certainly knows how to have a good time.” Rarity admitted with a slight smirk while stepping further into the room. She looked ahead into the short hall that led to the two separate bedrooms their suite had and glanced back to the three fillies. “Ok girls, time for bed.” The unicorn said in a tired tone while yawning slightly. She could already tell that her seemingly simple request wasn’t exactly what the crusaders had in mind.

“Aww… can’t we stay up a little longer?” Sweetie Belle whined while giving her sister the best pleading expression she could manage on the spot. The white filly’s puppy dog eyes were a common sight to her older sister, and although Rarity had mostly been able to ignore their effects, they did have a small hold over her still.

“I’ll tell you what Sweetie Belle, if you girls can find something to do in your room, go ahead and do it. But you better not make a mess, or make any noise. And you better be in bed within the hour.” Rarity said in a firm tone.

“Ok! We’ll be as quiet as a mouse, right guys?” Sweetie Belle asked while turning to her two friends, who nodded eagerly in agreement.

“Run along you three. And don’t forget to-” Rarity started to add another thought until she was interrupted by the three fillies rushing off toward their room in a noisy sprint. They quickly opened the door and headed inside before shutting it behind them with a sizable thud, which was followed by the faint sound of something falling and landing on the floor. “Be quiet…” Rarity finished her statement with a sigh. She shook her head slowly while managing a small smirk before walking down the hallway with her orange friend. Their drowsiness was slowly managing to catch up with them, and they both silently agreed that it was time for sleep.

The two mares stepped into their room, closed the door, and briefly admired the cool and peaceful atmosphere. After such an eventful day, it felt good to retire to such an inviting room complete with two cozy beds.

Rarity used her magic to switch on a lamp over by the two beds before walking over to hers and sitting down at the foot of it. “Ugh, it has been such a long day.” She groaned while watching her orange companion walking over to her own bed.

“Feels that way doesn’t it?” Applejack asked rhetorically while hopping into bed. After a few moments of peeling back her covers and getting comfortable, the orange mare reached over and switched off the lamp sitting on a table between her and the unicorn. She then took off her hat and hung it on the corner of the table. “Night Rarity.” Applejack said while flashing a brief smile and turning over.

Rarity smiled softly as she watched her friend settling in for the night. “Goodnight Applejack.” She said while scooting back to the front of the bed and getting under the covers.

As she laid her head on her pillow and stared up into the darkness of the room, Rarity tried to relax her mind and drift off to sleep. However, the longer she sat in the darkness, the more she noticed a feeling of nervousness building inside of her as thoughts of what happened earlier drifted through her mind. Despite not wanting to think about such unnerving things, she couldn’t keep herself from picturing the animatronic cat reaching for her in her head.

Rarity turned over and pulled her blanket closer to her head to shield herself from the empty void of darkness waiting for her in the room. She buried her face in her pillow and forced the disturbing thoughts from her mind. Eventually, her exhaustion started to outweigh her unease, letting her drift off into an uneasy sleep.
.
…
…..

“AH!” Rarity let out a frightened cry and sat up in bed as she was jolted awake from a nightmare. Her heart was racing and her entire body felt tense. As she darted her head around to take in her surroundings and assure herself that she was alright, she noticed faint light streaming in through the nearby window, and her orange friend lifting her head up in surprise.

“Sweet apple pie, are you ok Rarity?” Applejack asked in a concerned tone as she woke up to see the unicorn in such a distressed state. The white mare’s eyes held a palpable sense of panic to them, and she looked like her heart was about to explode.

“Oh…” Rarity muttered while putting a hoof up to her face, half to ensure that she was awake, and half to wipe the cold sweat off of her. “Sorry to wake you, darling… I just had a terrible dream.” She explained in an exhausted tone while still trying to calm her racing heart.

Applejack sat up and wiped the sleepiness from her eyes. “Yikes… must have been a real bad one to make you scream like that.” She frowned sympathetically as she saw how shaken up the unicorn was. “You want to talk about it?”

Rarity paused for a moment while thinking back to her dream. Her memory of the nightmare was already fading, but the pervasive feeling of dread and fear in her body was still present. Still, she could remember parts of it vividly, especially the end. She was standing alone in a dark room, and she could hear footsteps around her. When she turned around, she saw the animatronic cat Felix reaching for her with its hand like before, but it was covered in blood and what looked like rust. The faint white dots in its eyes and the disturbing screech that it made still haunted her thoughts.

“I think it was about what happened with that robotic cat. I guess it must have affected me more than I originally thought.” Rarity explained with a shrug.

“Well, that’s over now. I understand why you would have nightmares about it, though. I had a few sleepless nights myself from a lot of the stuff the hooded ponies put us through.” Applejack said in what she hoped would be a reassuring tone.

Almost at the same time, the two mares noticed the blue tinted light in the room. They looked over to the window and peered through the cracks in the curtains to see that it was early in the morning. The sun wasn’t even over the horizon yet, but yet they were wide awake now.

“Ugh… I don’t think I could get back to sleep like this.” Rarity said while taking note of how uneasy she still felt.

Applejack stretched before getting out of bed. “Well… since we’re up, you want to head downstairs and find something to do?” She asked curiously while grabbing her hat and putting it on.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” Rarity agreed with a nod while tossing the covers back and getting out of bed herself. The others would probably be up in a few hours if they weren’t already, so it made sense to start the day early to get her mind off of her dream.

Applejack and her white companion made their way out of their room and into the hallway. Taking a look at the door ahead of them, they glanced at each other to confer their thoughts before nodding and quietly going to check on the three fillies. As Rarity opened the door as silently as she could and looked inside, she noticed the crusaders still sound asleep in their beds. Apparently, the unicorn’s outburst from before hadn’t woken them. Making sure to be as quiet as possible, the white mare closed the door and walked away with her friend in tow.

After exiting their room, the pair walked out into the resort halls and made their way to the stairs. They walked down to the first floor without much of an idea as to what they would be doing. With a brief moment of brainstorming, they figured that it would be best if they checked to see if anyone else was awake yet. Now that they had a destination in mind, the two ponies started making their way to the lobby where their friends usually met.

As the doorway into the lobby came into view, the two ponies looked around eagerly to see if anyone was present. The area was practically devoid of life, and the dim blue light coming from the entrance only served to further punctuate the fact that it was early in the morning. However, as they actually entered the room, the pair noticed a single pony standing behind the front desk.

Silver Bell was leaning on the desk while reading a book lazily. She seemed to have been there for a while considering how comfortable she had gotten in the silent atmosphere. The cream unicorn didn’t even notice the two mares walking into the room until they got right up to her.

“Oh… hey, guys. What are you doing up so early?” Silver asked in a surprised tone as she finally looked up and noticed the two ponies. Applejack and Rarity looked at each other briefly while trying to determine the reason for themselves.

“I couldn’t sleep, so we decided to come down here to find something to do… we haven’t decided what we’re going to do just yet.” Rarity shrugged with a slight tone of disheartenment.

“Couldn’t sleep huh? I guess that makes sense. I usually get up early to take care of a few chores before everyone else wakes up.” Silver Bell explained while motioning to the book she was reading over. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be a small piece of paper on one of the pages that had a checklist of sorts with a few tasks crossed off on it.

“You really do earn your keep here don’t you?” Applejack said with an impressed smirk.

“I try...” Silver looked to the floor bashfully for a moment. “Hey, since you two have nothing to do, you want to come get some breakfast with me downstairs?” She suggested in a friendly tone. The sudden proposal surprised and intrigued the two ponies.

“Downstairs?” Rarity asked with a mildly confused expression while glancing downward.

“Yeah, there’s a break room down in the basement. There are a few others scattered around the resort, but the one down there is the most stocked up. I can whip us up something while we wait for the others to get up.” Silver Bell explained in a hopeful tone while watching the pair for any signs that they were considering her offer. She seemed eager to spend some time with other people instead of just eating alone.

Applejack nodded with a pleased expression while considering the offer. “Hmm… that sounds good. What do you think Rarity?” She asked curiously while turning to the white mare beside her.

“That does sound nice… I suppose we could go.” Rarity agreed with a slight smile and a nod.

Silver Bell smiled eagerly. “Alright, follow me.” She said while walking around the front desk and beckoning the pair with her hoof. Rarity and Applejack followed the cream mare as she headed through the right doorway out into the halls.

The long corridors and connecting rooms and intersections passed by like a breeze as the two mares followed their tour guide closely. The route they were taking was fresh and new to Rarity, but Applejack had a vague idea of where they were going due to her brief tour of the resort with Twilight. Before long, the trio walked into the employee’s only area and made their way through the gray halls down to the stairs that would take them to the basement.

Even though Silver Bell switched on the majority of the lights as she went, it still felt a little eerie down in the dull corridors. Perhaps it was the sight of the darkness ahead just before the lights were switched on that was causing the ponies to feel uneasy, or perhaps it was the lingering thought that ghosts were still around somewhere, or even a combination of the two. Still, the group pressed onwards and did their best to overcome any feelings of nervousness that they might have felt.

Spotting a room labeled parts and storage, Rarity paused slightly as she imagined what was behind the door. The obvious assumption was that this was where Berry and the others stored their animatronics. The passing thought of Felix and all of the other animatronics lying dormant just behind the door made the white mare anxious enough to pick up her pace to follow her two companions.

After walking down hallway after hallway and making what seemed like a dozen turns, the cream unicorn paused and let a small smile come over her face. Applejack and Rarity looked ahead and immediately noticed a room on the right that had a small placard on it that read “break room”.

“Alright, here we are.” Silver Bell stated while walking up to the door and opening it. “Welcome to our little slice of paradise after a long shift.” She added with a smirk while flipping on the nearby light switch and letting the two mares step inside.

As the lights came on, the two ponies were introduced to a medium sized room with warm and inviting colors painted on the walls and carpet. The area directly in front of them held a white table with chairs positioned around it. To either side of the table, there were counters with everything one might need to prepare lunch or a small snack for their break. There was a small microwave on the counter to the left, with a few paper plates and cups sat next to it and a trash can conveniently located underneath in a cubbyhole in the counter. There was a refrigerator on the right wall and a few cabinets and a sink next to it. There was even a toaster among the odds and ends dotted along the counters. At the back of the room, there was a couch big enough to sit two ponies comfortably. Next to the couch, there were two end tables, one of which held a stack of magazines and a few books, and the other held a small radio.

“Wow… this place isn’t half bad.” Applejack said in an impressed tone while looking around as she stepped into the room. All and all, the space felt comforting and warm, which was probably what it was going for in the first place.

“It’s alright I suppose.” Rarity said in an agreeable tone while taking note of her surroundings.

“So what are you guys in the mood for?” Silver Bell asked curiously. The two mares turned to see the unicorn standing in front of a few cabinets near the microwave. Applejack and Rarity looked at each other for a moment before actually thinking about what they wanted to eat.

“Uh… that’s fine Silver, I’m sure we can find somethin’ ourselves.” Applejack said while politely declining the cream colored mare’s offer.

“I insist. It will go faster if I make us something since I know where everything is. And besides… I make a mean breakfast wrap.” Silver Bell said in a confident tone.

“Well alright. That sounds good to me… how about you Rarity?” Applejack asked curiously while turning to her companion.

“That sounds wonderful darling.” Rarity said with a sincere nod. The two mares’ agreement made the unicorn across from them giddy with excitement.

“Great! I’ll have some made up in no time!” Silver Bell stated in a pleased tone. And with that, she was off. Rarity and Applejack watched as the cream pony darted to and fro, gathering plates and various ingredients from the fridge and nearby cabinets.

After a few minutes of throwing ingredients together with a moderate amount of skill and finesse, Silver Bell levitated three plates over to the table and sat two of them over by her guests. Sitting on each plate was a neat looking tortilla shell stuffed with all manner of delicious goods, or at least goods as delicious as an employee break room could produce. At any rate, the two mares were satisfied with their breakfast items.

Applejack immediately started eating, while Rarity hesitated for a moment while inspecting her wrap closely. From what she could gather from watching Silver Bell prepare them, the wraps had lettuce, tomato, and numerous other veggies in them as well as what appeared to be salad dressing. Although she was no stranger to such ingredients, one nibble told the white mare that Silver was at least decent at preparing food.

“This is really good Silver.” Rarity said in a sincere tone.

“Yeah, you should consider bein’ the cook for the resort if managing gets a little dull for you.” Applejack added while still enjoying her meal.

“Heh… thanks.” Silver Bell chuckled shyly as she watched the two ponies admiring her work. She had heard from Berry Swirl and the others that she was good at many things, but it was always a pleasant surprise to receive compliments, especially from two people that were essentially her guests.

“So Silver, have you always wanted to be a manager?” Rarity asked curiously, eliciting the cream unicorn to pause in thought.

“Hmm… well, I suppose not originally.” Silver explained. “At first I wanted to own my own hotel, but later on, I figured that owning a hotel wasn’t where the most fun was. Organizing everything and making sure things don’t fall apart… I kind of like it. I’m definitely glad I ended up here with Berry and the others.” She said with a pleased expression.

“I’m sure Berry and the others are just as glad as you are.” Rarity stated with a friendly smirk as she watched the unicorn gushing slightly over her own passions.

After finishing their meals and tossing the paper plates in the nearby trashcan, the three ponies stood around and stretched for a moment without anyone really knowing what they were going to do afterward.

“Well, thanks for breakfast Silver. It was mighty tasty.” Applejack said in a pleased tone while looking over to the cream mare.

“No problem… So, are you guys ready to head upstairs? I can lead you back if you want.” Silver Bell suggested while motioning behind her to the door. Applejack and Rarity both seemed like they were ready to properly start their day now that they had woken up and gotten some food in their systems.

“Would you? That would be so kind of you darling.” Rarity said with an appreciative expression.

“Heh, it’s no big deal. I’m just doing my best to make sure our first guests have a great time.” Silver Bell stated with a smirk while turning and heading to the door. The two mares followed their unicorn host as she opened the door and flipped off the lights before heading out into the hallway.

Rarity and Applejack wondered if their friends had gotten up yet. They had neglected to really look at the clock that was on the wall in the break room, but not too much time could have passed since they were eating. They hoped that the three fillies asleep in their room would be able to navigate down to the lobby if they woke up before they returned.

However many thoughts were going through the three ponies’ heads, they only managed to take a collective total of four steps out of the break room before they were halted to a stop by an unexpected and bizarre sight.

Standing in the middle of the hallway ahead of them was a familiar looking animatronic. The red swim trunks and white tank top made it obvious, aside from the obvious fact that there was a humanoid bird in front of them, that the group was looking at Chica.

“What the…? Chica, what are you doing awake? I didn’t think anyone else was up to activate you.” Silver Bell said in a puzzled tone while looking to the robotic animal for some answers.

Chica was standing silently in the exact middle of the hallway staring at the three ponies with an almost unnerving expression of passive cheerfulness on her unmoving face. The sudden appearance of the animatronic made the ponies more than a little uneasy, especially since she seemed to have been waiting for them to exit the break room.

“Why is she just standing there?” Applejack asked in a confused tone.

“Her A.I doesn’t let her understand that many commands, and she usually just stands around… I don’t know why she’s here, though.” Silver replied in a troubled tone while stepping forward slightly. “Let me try something. Uh… Chica, play back activation logs.” She spoke in a clear voice while trying to remember the more complicated commands she was taught by Sparkplug.

The animatronic chicken remained silent and motionless in the face of the unicorn’s command. She was just staring at them passively, and with a fervor that was both unnerving and impressive at the same time.

“Silver… this is exactly what Felix did to me yesterday.” Rarity whispered in an uneasy tone while eyeing between the cream mare and the robotic bird, silently hoping that Silver would back up a few steps.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s just having some kind of malfunction. She has been one of the more finicky ones to work with. Besides, didn’t your friends say that the ghosts shouldn’t be able to do anything to the animatronics?” Silver asked curiously. The two mares were unable to give her a confident answer, but their expressions told of how uneasy they were starting to feel. Deciding to figure out what was happening once and for all, the cream mare steeled herself for a moment before taking a step forward, and then another.

“Silver!” Rarity anxiously and quietly pleaded for the unicorn to rethink her actions. Before she could even contemplate reaching out to stop her, Silver was out of reach and slowly walking over to the animatronic.

Applejack and Rarity watched nervously as their cream companion hesitantly moved her way forward. Perhaps she felt a little nervous herself, but she apparently wanted to figure out whether or not the animatronic bird was haunted or just malfunctioning bad enough to risk her own skin.

Silver walked, or rather, shuffled, over to Chica and started making her way behind the animatronic. If she could maybe get the back of Chica’s head open, then maybe she could use her limited knowledge of the animatronics to do a manual reset. Before she could act on these thoughts, however, Chica suddenly stepped in her path and looked down at her.

“Ah!” Silver yelped in surprise while falling back to the floor. “Chica, sleep mode! Sleep mode!” She exclaimed frantically while covering her face. She looked up, half expecting the animatronic to be lunging for her, only to see the robotic animal staring down at her silently. Her command didn’t even do anything to faze the robotic chicken.

“Silver, are you ok?!” Rarity asked in a stunned tone. The cream unicorn looked behind her to see the two mares stepping forward slightly, apparently ready and willing to come rescue her from the demented chicken if the need arose. Silver wasn’t sure whether or not to be comforted by this fact.

“I-I’m ok… I’m ok.” Silver stammered slightly while scooting away from the animatronic as fast as she could. She turned around and stumbled to her feet before rapidly closing the distance between her and the two mares. She felt like continuing to run down the hallway, but she had to stay and help them deal with this new and possibly dangerous situation.

“Ok… so… let’s hypothetically say that one of the ghosts somehow hopped into Chica. Where do we go from here?” Silver Bell asked while trying to calm herself down. The three mares had to quickly glance to each other while keeping the animatronic bird in sight at all times. Thankfully Chica seemed to just be silently watching them for the moment.

“I’m not sure… Tom had trouble dealin’ with one of them himself… and that was an older model if I remember correctly. I doubt we could fight it… and I really doubt we could get around it.” Applejack said in a troubled tone while eyeing the animatronic nervously. Chica wasn’t moving very much, but she was in the middle of the hallway for a reason, almost like she was trying to block the path.

“What about that safety mechanism Berry used to shut down Felix? Does Chica have one of those?” Rarity asked curiously.

“Uh, yeah… she does. But one of us would have to be close to her to activate it.” Silver explained with a slight gulp. Before anyone else could suggest another option or volunteer, Applejack stepped forward slightly with a determined expression on her face.

“I’ll do it… What am I lookin’ for?” Applejack asked while looking to Silver Bell for more information on the apparent safety mechanism.

“Applejack, you can’t be serious. You can’t go near that thing! What if it tries to attack you like Felix was going to attack me?” Rarity asked in a shocked tone. She couldn’t believe that the orange mare was even considering something so bold and possibly stupid.

“There’s no time for arguin’ over this right now Rarity.” Applejack said adamantly before turning back to Silver Bell. “Now Silver, I need to know what to do once I get over there.” She asked while trying to convince the cream mare to agree to her plan.

“Umm… there should be a small pull ring on the back of Chica’s head. It would be near the base where her neck meets her head. If you pull that out, she won’t be able to function.” Silver explained in as calm a manner as she could manage at the moment.

“Ok… I can handle that.” Applejack nodded in confirmation before setting her sights on her target. Although the animatronic was motionless for the moment, she was confident that it wouldn’t be pleased to see her trying to shut it down.

“Applejack, please… I implore you to reconsid-” Before Rarity could even finish her plea, the orange mare bolted forward towards the animatronic. The two unicorns watched in anxious silence as their friend charged head first into possible danger.

Applejack ran towards Chica while trying to be as centered as she could. Once she got close enough, she leapt into the air with an adrenaline-fueled yell. The orange mare stared at the animatronic’s head with steely resolve while reaching her hoof up and around it. She intended to quickly leap up on her hind legs to reach the back of Chica’s head, and then quickly find and pull out the safety mechanism in one swift motion, but something got in the way of her plan.

Before Applejack could even make contact with the back of the animatronic’s head with her hoof, she felt something cold and hard clasping down on her foreleg tightly. She then noticed that Chica’s hand had moved to swiftly grab her before she could finish her job. At the same time, the orange mare noticed that the animatronic’s hollow and lifeless eyes were solely fixated on hers.

“Ow!” Applejack yelped painfully as the robotic animal held onto her foreleg roughly. She immediately backpedaled, only to fully realize that she was being held in place by her front leg as she stumbled and put more weight on her shoulder.

“Applejack!” Rarity and Silver Bell yelled in unison with panicked expressions shared between them.

“Let me go!” Applejack exclaimed while trying to forcibly pull her foreleg out of the animatronic’s grip. The more she pulled, however, the more she received throbbing pains to indicate that she was indeed stuck. Finally, she resorted to banging on the animatronic to try and get it to release her.

Suddenly, a low noise started coming from Chica. It sounded like some kind of broken moaning coming from her mouth, but it sounded far too organic to be caused by her voice box. As Applejack looked up in surprise to see the animatronic’s face, she noticed a strange and eerie white glow in Chica’s eyes.

“Uh… ah…” Applejack muttered fearfully as she stared into the white lights. They looked like they were the animatronic’s pupils, but they seemed to be coming from behind her exterior shell as if they were inside of her. The low and garbled moaning grew louder until it intensified into an agitated growl that continued building. Chica slowly yet methodically raised her other arm with her hand open and reached up toward the orange mare’s neck area. At the same time, she opened her beak slightly, revealing the blocky teeth in her mouth that oddly looked like they could somehow cut into bone.

Before the animatronic could grasp ahold of the orange mare’s slender neck or get any closer with its mouth, it paused abruptly. Applejack looked at the robotic animal in a mixture of fear and confusion for a moment before she heard a soft click. Looking to the side, the trapped pony noticed a magical aura behind the animatronic’s head, and she also noticed a small ring-shaped object with a pin attached to it levitating away.

“Ah!” Applejack yelped suddenly as she and the animatronic chicken fell. Thankfully Chica fell backwards, so the orange mare wasn’t harmed by the robot’s hefty body landing on top of her. As the animatronic crumbled into a heap on the floor, Applejack heard the sound of the two unicorns rushing over to her.

“Applejack! Are you ok?!” Rarity asked in a concerned tone while hovering near the orange mare to offer help if needed. Applejack had landed with Chica still holding onto her foreleg, but thankfully she was able to quickly yank herself out of the animatronic’s limp grasp, albeit with some resistance.

As she stumbled backwards to distance herself from the motionless robot, Applejack was caught by her two friends. She turned to see the pair with concerned expressions as they examined her for injuries, but she also saw Rarity with her horn lit up and a small pull ring next to her.

“I’m fine… Thanks for that, Rarity. You saved my tail.” Applejack stated in a relieved and grateful tone.

“I’m just glad you weren’t hurt by that dreadful thing. I almost didn’t find the safety in time.” Rarity said while briefly glancing to Chica to ensure that the animatronic was in fact deactivated. Sure enough, the robotic bird was still lying in a motionless heap on the ground with its beak still open from before.

The three ponies walked over to the animatronic and looked down at it with stunned expressions. They were still getting over their adrenaline rushes from what just happened, and they still felt their hearts pumping a little.

“We need to get out of here. This place isn’t safe if the ghosts can keep controlling the animatronics like this.” Silver Bell stated while still staring down at the motionless bird. She felt a little lightheaded from such a jolt to her system, but she knew that she had to make sure that her colleagues and her guests were safe.

“We should wake up Tom and the others if they aren’t already up. They need to deal with this before someone gets hurt.” Rarity suggested uneasily. The other two mares nodded sporadically as a sign of agreement, mostly due to the fact that the white mare’s suggestion implied them leaving the general vicinity of the basement.

Just as the trio started to walk toward the animatronic to step around it, they paused in surprise as they noticed movement coming from the lifeless chicken. Chica’s body was starting to shake slightly. The sporadic and uncoordinated shaking quickly turned to sluggish movement, and soon enough the robotic animal started moving its arms and legs to push itself up.

The three ponies backed up fearfully as the animatronic stumbled to its feet. As she got up, Chica continued making the disturbing moaning sounds from before, and her movements were slowly becoming more deliberate and less shaky. Still, the robotic bird seemed to move like some sort of demented puppet, and it looked and acted like it was possessed.

“T-that’s not possible… the animatronics can’t function with their safeties tripped.” Silver Bell stammered in shock.

“I don’t think anyone thought to mention that to the ghosts.” Rarity said in a nervous tone while keeping her horrified gaze fixed on the still twitching animatronic.

Chica finished getting to her feet and snapped her head up to look at the three mares, causing them to jump slightly. She tilted her head and looked between them, seemingly studying them for a moment. Still, she had a certain disturbing look in her already eerie looking eyes that told of how much of a threat she was.

“Silver… where can we run to from here?” Applejack asked in a hushed tone of nervousness while briefly glancing to the cream unicorn.

Silver Bell looked back at the orange mare with a stunned expression of fear still plastered on her face. She did her best to focus her racing mind on answering the question posed to her. “Uh… uh… there isn’t anywhere.” She replied uneasily.

“There has to be somewhere we can go… Maybe we can loop around and lose her if we run fast enough.” Applejack said in a frustrated tone. Despite her attempt at looking ahead to an escape plan, the cream unicorn was just as adamant as before that they were essentially sitting ducks.

“You don’t understand. We’re pretty much at a dead end. This hallway just goes to… to… *Gasp* the sub-basement!” Silver exclaimed in revelation as she thought of the extension to the building. Suddenly, Chica let out a piercing screech and started rushing toward the three ponies.

“Run!” Applejack yelled in a panic while turning tail and running as fast as she could. Her two companions needed no confirmation as they joined her in sprinting down the hallway.

The ponies could hear the metallic sound of Chica’s feet thumping against the floor as she gave chase. Nobody wanted to turn around to check and see how close the pursuing animatronic was, but they wagered that it was right on their tails. The only thing keeping them slightly ahead of the robotic animal was the adrenaline rush that pushed them to flee for their lives.

After rounding the corner of the hallway, the trio could see their options for escaping vanish instantly. The hallway was full of doors that would doubtlessly lead to dead end rooms, and that was assuming they were unlocked. With the vicious bird chasing them with the full intent on ripping them to shreds, the group had little chance to survive if they couldn’t find somewhere to run.

Silver Bell used every ounce of her energy to pull ahead of her two companions as they neared the end of the hall. After sliding to a stop near the door at the end, she grabbed ahold of the handle and threw it open. Rarity and Applejack didn’t even take the time to process the fact that they were running into a disgustingly ancient looking stairwell leading to a doubtlessly even more disgusting location. The two mares just sprinted through the doorway and did their best not to sail over the railings from their momentum. Due to the lack of light further down, Rarity was forced to light up her horn just so she could keep descending safely.

“Ah!” Silver Bell exclaimed fearfully. Rarity and Applejack stopped with a cold feeling of dread in their guts as they heard the distinctive sound of their unicorn friend tripping and falling.

The two mares quickly spun around and looked up to see Silver lying on the landing above them and recovering from a nasty fall. She apparently tripped in her rush to get through the doorway and into the stairwell. Judging from where she was positioned near the metal bars of the railing, she probably hit her head as she fell, but it didn’t look too severe. However, there was a much more troubling sight at the top of the stairs. Due to her sudden fall, the cream unicorn had failed to close the door behind her.

Without even taking a moment to think or confirm their actions with each other, Rarity and Applejack rushed back up the steps to rescue their companion. The distance they had descended before the unicorn tripped wasn’t too great, with the two mares barely even making it to the first turn in the staircase. Despite the short distance they had to cover, due to the adrenaline pumping through their bodies and the looming thought of the psychotic animatronic bird flying through the doorway at any moment, the pair managed to make it up the stairs in record time.

“Get up Silver!” Applejack stated in a frantic panic while racing to grab the still dazed unicorn and pull her to her feet.

While Rarity was helping the orange mare with getting Silver Bell up, she took a passing glance out of the open doorway to confirm just how much trouble they were in. However, instead of seeing Chica right in her face as she expected, the unicorn was greeted by another sight that made her pause with a confused expression.

Applejack and Silver Bell noticed their white companion staring ahead and remaining still. Given the urgency of the situation, they couldn’t believe that the unicorn was just wasting time when they needed to be running away.

“Come on, Rarity!” Applejack said while grabbing her friend by the foreleg.

“Wait, guys… look.” Rarity stated while pointing forward. Despite every fiber of their beings telling them to run away, the two mares did as the white unicorn instructed and looked out of the open doorway.

Chica was still there, and she was still fully intent on killing them from the look of it, but for some bizarre reason, the animatronic was standing still a few feet away from the entrance to the stairwell. She was staring the ponies down with the same eerie glow still present in her eyes, but she wouldn’t move forward.

“What the…?” Applejack muttered in a confused tone.

“Why did she stop?” Silver asked curiously while glancing to her companions for an answer. Neither of the two mares had any clue what was going on. They never imagined that it would be so easy to get the demented chicken to stop chasing them.

Chica took a few steps back hesitantly. The animatronic kept staring at the ponies, but it seemed to be incapable of going down the stairwell. However, just as quickly as the robotic bird started retreating, it stopped and held its ground a few feet back into the hallway. After a few moments went by without either party moving, the ponies turned their attention to the predicament they were in.

“I don’t think she’s leaving.” Applejack stated with a troubled expression while turning to her two companions.

“What do we do now? Should we just wait here and hope the others wake up and find us?” Silver Bell asked hesitantly.

“No… the ghosts might be using the other animatronics as we speak. We need to get back upstairs and warn everyone.” Rarity said with a concerned expression. All of her friends and even her little sister were in the resort upstairs. If the rest of the animatronics were possessed, then she had to keep everyone safe.

“You’re right. We should find a way upstairs… but how?” Rarity shrugged uneasily as she turned her attention to the animatronic bird still staring at her.

“Maybe you could teleport behind Chica and run?” Applejack suggested in a hopeful tone.

“I admire your creativity darling, but I doubt that would work. I’m hardly as good at using magic as Twilight is… I’m not even sure I could pick it up and hold it if I wanted to. And unless Silver knows how to teleport, we aren’t getting past that thing.” Rarity said while briefly turning to the cream mare. Silver Bell silently shook her head as a sign that she didn’t know how to pull off such a complex spell.

“Uh… maybe we could find another way up through the sub-basement?” Silver Bell suggested with a hopeful tone while glancing down the stairs.

“Is there another way upstairs down there?” Applejack asked curiously.

Now that both of her companions’ eyes were on her, Silver felt a little nervous as she tried to recall from memory any details she knew about the extension to the building. “I’m not sure… I barely made it past the stairs the last time I came here. I would assume so.” She said in an uncertain tone while shrugging her shoulders.

“Well… that’s probably the only choice we have. Let’s go.” Applejack said in a resolute tone while starting to descend the steps without her two friends. Rarity and Silver Bell wasted no time in following the orange mare down the cobweb-ridden metal staircase. They hoped that they could get back up to their friends before something bad happened to them.

Chapter 11: The Lingering Past

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Elsewhere, back up on the third floor of the resort, Twilight Sparkle and her young assistant were still asleep. After a few moments of being exposed to the progressively increasing amount of light in the room from the rising sun, the purple mare finally started waking up.

She opened her eyes as her sleep abruptly ended, leaving her in the foggy haze that usually came with waking up. The unicorn took a moment to shift her eyes around before sluggishly lifting her front legs above her head and stretching.

As she sat up in bed and tried to speed up the process of shaking off her drowsiness, Twilight looked around the room. The faint orange tinted light streaming in from behind the curtained off window to her right told the purple mare that it was still early morning. Spike was starting to wake up as well over on the bed next to hers. However, the third bed in the room was empty, and her human friend was apparently missing.

“*Yawn*… oh, hey Twilight.” Spike mumbled groggily as he noticed the unicorn sitting up in bed. He hadn’t even managed to lift himself off his pillow yet, but he was making every effort to get out of bed.

“Hey, Spike.” Twilight replied with a warm smile. While the dragon slowly made his way out of bed, she decided to hop out of bed as well and get up and about.

Spike finally managed to plant his feet on the ground. He looked around the room, still feeling the effects of drowsiness. However, even through his daze he noticed the bed next to his was empty. “Huh…? Where’s Tom?” He asked curiously.

“I don’t know… he didn’t come back last night.” Twilight said in a confused tone. The boy said he was out looking for information on the extension to the building, but she didn’t think that it would take all night.

“He probably snuck back in, got in a quick nap, and got back out before we got up. He’s like a ninja.” Spike suggested in a mildly impressed tone as he pictured the human slinking into bed without making so much as a noise.

“Yeah, a ninja that runs on three hours of sleep. We’ve known him for three months now and I still barely understand him sometimes.” Twilight added with a slight smile while shaking her head.

“You want to head downstairs? I don’t really feel like sleeping in today.” Spike suggested while making his bed in a surprisingly alert fashion.

“Don’t feel like sleeping in? Who are you and what have you done with Spike?” Twilight asked while raising an eyebrow at the young dragon.

“What? I can be an early bird.” Spike said in as good of a confident tone as he could manage. The unicorn chuckled at the dragon’s attempt at pulling off a straight face.

“And I suppose the fact that we’re in a water resort has nothing to do with it?” Twilight asked with a wry smile. “Come on, let’s go. Maybe we can catch the others before they head off without us.” She suggested while walking out of the bedroom. Spike followed her as she headed into the living room section of their suite and exited out into the hallway.

As they stepped out into the hallway and looked around, the pair noticed that a few of their friends had apparently woken up already. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were lingering in the hallway near their room, having apparently been there for at least a few minutes.

“Hey, look who’s up!” Rainbow Dash stated cheerfully as she noticed the purple mare and the young dragon walking over to her little group.

“Hey, guys. I wasn’t expecting to find you up here.” Twilight said in a surprised tone while looking between the three ponies.

“Yeah, well we decided to wait around for a little bit to see if anyone else got up. And here you are! Now, all we need to do is wait for Applejack and Rarity to get up.” Pinkie Pie said with a surprisingly patient expression while looking over to the room where the two mares and the three fillies slept.

“We’ve been waiting here for a long time already Pinkie. I’m sure Applejack and Rarity wouldn’t mind if we headed downstairs without them.” Rainbow Dash suggested in a hopeful tone.

“I think they would mind. I would mind if I knew that you guys were waiting for me and then you just gave up and left me.” Pinkie Pie replied adamantly while keeping herself firmly cemented in place between Rainbow Dash and the hallway.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at the pink mare blocking the hallway. “Seriously? Pinkie, if it’s that important to you then why don’t you wait for them up here while we go on ahead?” She suggested, hiding a pleading expression. She hoped that she could somehow get out of having the pink mare volunteer her up to wait in a hallway forever.

“Hmph… fine. But when you hurt Applejack and Rarity’s feelings and they only have me to support them, don’t come crying to me.” Pinkie said while folding her forelegs and offering an unimpressed leer at the cyan pegasus.

“Pinkie, I…” Rainbow Dash started to speak up again until she paused and figured that it would be best if she didn’t humor the pink mare. “Never mind… just don’t open your mouth and she can’t find something else to get upset about.” She muttered to herself while trying to avoid the stern gaze of the disgruntled pony.

Before anyone else could interject their thoughts on the matter, the sound of a door opening to their side made the group look up. Much to their surprise, they saw Scootaloo and her two fellow crusaders making their way out of their room and stepping out into the hallway without Applejack and Rarity.

“Oh… hey, girls.” Twilight greeted the three fillies in a surprised tone. She wasn’t exactly expecting the crusaders to be unchaperoned in their room. Normally Applejack and Rarity were extra careful to keep their younger siblings in check, especially when they were with their friends and they combined into a trifecta of childish energy and mischief.

“Hi everyone.” Applebloom greeted the group on behalf of her friends, though Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle offered a brief wave and a smile. They seemed to be still waking up judging from their tired expressions.

“Are Rarity and Applejack not up yet or something?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously.

“No… we couldn’t find them anywhere. We thought they were out here with you guys.” Sweetie Belle said in a mildly concerned tone as she realized that the others didn’t know where her sister was either.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure they just went downstairs before us.” Twilight suggested confidently to ease the fillies’ concerns.

“Awww… you have got to be kidding me! This whole time we’ve been waiting for them, and they’re the ones who left us up here!” Pinkie Pie stated in a frustrated tone while crossing her forelegs and pouting. The others silently decided to leave the pink mare to her own devices for a moment while they figured out what to do next.

“Well, let’s go find them. Hopefully, they are still in the lobby.” Twilight said while starting down the hallway. The others were more than eager to follow her as she made her way toward the stairs.

After navigating around the twisting hallways and descending the stairs, the group found themselves on the first floor. At this point, the path to the lobby and most of the key locations on the first floor had become engrained in their minds, so finding their way to the entrance was easy.

As they stepped through the opening into the lobby, the ponies looked around expecting to find their two friends. Berry Swirl was standing behind the front desk with most of her employees standing in front of her. Sparkplug, Copper Coil, and High Tide were all conversing with the purple earth pony and discussing what needed to be done around the resort. Along with the staff of the resort, Sunspot and Glitterball were chatting with each other over by one of the couches in the front area of the lobby. Although the room was far from empty, Applejack and Rarity were nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, guys!” Sunspot called out as she turned and noticed the group walking into the room. All of the other conversations ended immediately as Berry and the others looked over to the four mares and the kids accompanying them.

“Hi everyone.” Twilight said with a brief smile while looking around at the various ponies in the room while her friends did the same.

“It’s nice to see you all up around the same time. We were just thinking about getting some breakfast for everyone.” Berry Swirl said with a pleased tone of voice. While her proposition was appealing to the group, they all had something else on their minds.

Twilight glanced over to the three fillies at the side of the group. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom both had anxious expressions on their faces that told of how much they wanted to find their older siblings. Scootaloo seemed sympathetic for her two friends, but she wasn’t sure what she could do to ease their concerns. The purple unicorn frowned sympathetically before deciding to speak up on the two fillies’ behalf.

“Uh, hey Berry… would you or anyone else happen to know where Applejack and Rarity are?” Twilight asked in a hopeful tone. The sudden question made Berry pause to look around to see if anyone else knew off the top of their heads. Everyone seemed to be thinking about whether or not they had seen the two mares, and they were all coming up blank.

“Umm… no, I don’t think so. Are they not in their room or something?” Berry asked in a confused tone.

“No, they weren’t. We don’t know where else they would be... I was hoping one of you might have seen them going to a pool or something.” Twilight replied with a disheartened shrug.

“Come to think of it… I haven’t seen Silver anywhere either. Normally she would be up by now and waiting for us to get down here.” High Tide stated while noting the bizarre absence of the cream unicorn. The sudden realization that three of their friends were unaccounted for was more than a little troubling to the group.

“This is really strange… hmm.” Berry Swirl pondered out loud while letting her hoof linger on her chin pensively. “I’m sure that they are all off in a room somewhere. Silver would have left a note for us if she went into town.” She reasoned, a hint of worry starting to show in her face.

“I’ll head down to the security room. Maybe I can find them on the cameras.” Copper Coil suggested while taking a few steps toward the hallway on the right.

“Good idea Copper.” Berry said before turning to the gray mare in front of her. “Hey Sparkplug, could you head down to the basement and reactivate the animatronics?”

“Uh, sure… which ones do you want me to activate?” Sparkplug asked curiously.

“All of them except for Freddy. You can ask them to help look for Silver and the others. Besides, I want to see if they are functioning properly.” Berry said with a slight shrug. She hoped that the added help of the animatronics would be able to locate the three mares.

“Sure thing.” Sparkplug replied while nodding in agreement. She quickly trotted out of the doorway with Copper Coil casually following behind her to get to his own destination.

Now that finding their missing friends had become a serious task, the group felt a little uneasy. They had a hundred different scenarios racing through their heads that were all worse than the last one. Still, they did find some comfort and reassurance in the fact that there was a good chance that the three mares would be found now that the cameras were being checked and the animatronics were sweeping the resort.

Before anyone could speak up to comment on the situation or lighten the tense atmosphere a little bit, the sound of the front doors to the resort opening tore everyone’s attention away. The ponies turned around and noticed two familiar people stepping through the glass double doors. Much to everyone’s surprise, Tom and Glimmer Shine strolled into the lobby carrying one box each. The human held his box under one arm, while the yellow stallion carried his on top of his back. The boxes were gray in color, with their tops opened up and what appeared to be several pieces of paper and newspaper articles carried within.

“Holy cow… did you two pull an all-nighter?” Sunspot asked in a surprised tone while watching the pair walking up to the group. The orange pegasus and her unicorn companion hadn’t seen the yellow stallion returning to his room last night, so they assumed that he had come back while they were sleeping and got up before them.

“Well… he pulled an all-nighter, I pulled as close to an all-nighter as I could get before passing out.” Glimmer Shine stated while glancing to the human beside him with a smirk.

“What all did you do last night?” Twilight asked curiously while eyeing the two boxes the pair brought with them with her intrigue rising by the minute.

“We went around town digging up as much information as we could and sifted through it until we got all of this stuff.” Tom replied while holding up his box for reference. Judging from the number of papers crammed into the boxes in neat rows, the two must have gotten somewhere in their research.

“What were you looking into? I thought we already figured out where the ghosts were from?” Berry asked in a confused tone while glancing over the numerous files and papers in the two boxes. This level of research was surprising considering this was supposed to just be a routine haunting.

“Well, we’ve been getting a lot of confusing readings down in the basement and the sub-basement. We’d like to cover all of our bases and find a better way to tackle this… so we decided to start from the beginning.” Glimmer Shine explained with a soft sigh.

“Right… that sounds like a decent enough idea.” Berry said while nodding in agreement.

“We’ve already found everything we could. We put all of the pertinent stuff in these boxes so we could go over it together. It would be great if you could join us Berry.” Tom suggested while looking to the purple mare and waiting for her response.

“Ok, I can do that. Anything to help you guys sort this mess out.” Berry replied in a compliant tone. Once she agreed, Glimmer Shine ushered his two teammates over to the back of the lobby so he could start laying out all of the information in his box on one of the coffee tables. Tom and Berry Swirl quickly followed them.

Twilight watched the group across the room with her curiosity reaching a peak. “I think I’m going to stay here and join them. You guys want to come with me?” She asked her group of friends while glancing over to the yellow stallion and the human setting their boxes down and starting to dig through them.

“You go ahead. We’re going to help look for Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell.” Rainbow Dash said while turning to Pinkie and Fluttershy. The two mares were in complete agreement with their cyan companion. High Tide was standing off to the side, ready to lead the group around the resort to aid in the search. Even Spike and the cutie mark crusaders had set their minds on searching for the missing ponies.

“Ok, good luck with finding them. I’ll see you later.” Twilight said with a brief wave, which her friends reciprocated.

With that, the group headed out of the room to start their search, leaving Twilight standing by herself. The unicorn looked over to the group gathered around one of the tables at the back of the lobby. She started walking over to them, letting her curiosity run wild as she watched Tom and Glimmer Shine preparing a presentation to their companions.

Meanwhile, Sparkplug was making her way through the employees-only area of the resort on her way down to the basement. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of Copper Coil as he walked down a long hallway toward the security room, but otherwise, she was alone. Despite not having anyone around, she only had one thing on her mind. The gray mare was starting to get worried about her cream friend and their two missing guests. She wondered what had happened to make three ponies disappear at the same time. She wondered if the two mares going missing and Silver Bell going missing were even related. But most of all, she was worried for the wellbeing of her friend and two fellow ponies.

Even though her thoughts were preoccupied, she still had other things to worry about. She held a clipboard and a pencil close to her chest that she would use to jot down any notes about the animatronics once she activated them. She wanted to make sure that there weren’t any funny kinks or suspicious behavioral patterns that would indicate a glitch, or even worse still, a ghost.

The tedious and familiar path down into the basement didn’t last nearly long enough to occupy all of the gray mare’s thoughts. Before she knew it, Sparkplug was rounding the corner and walking down the hallway that led to the parts and storage room. The plain door with a familiar placard came into view on her right, and just as quickly, she was standing in front of it.

Sparkplug pushed open the door and took a couple of steps inside before flipping on the light switch. As the fluorescent tubes of light above flickered to life, the storage room was illuminated, revealing a menagerie of robotic animals among the mess of parts and endoskeletons. All of the park’s animatronics were leaned up against the wall in different spots. Some of them were tipped to the side slightly, but they were all in stable resting positions.

“Good… gang’s all here still.” Sparkplug said while briefly discarding her previous thought that she would find the storage room empty. “Let’s see here…” She muttered while taking out her pencil and holding her clipboard at the ready. She then looked up to the group of animatronics.

“Bonnie, wake mode.” Sparkplug spoke in a clear tone while looking at the robotic rabbit at the end of the row.

A series of three shrill beeps sounded out as Bonnie’s pupils flashed red three times. After the lights and the beeps stopped, the rabbit lifted its head up and pushed itself off the floor and settled into a standing position. Once it was standing up, the animatronic started looking around and moving in a very lively fashion.

“Oh, hello Sparkplug!” Bonnie said in a cheerful tone while briefly waving to the gray mare.

“Hello, Bonnie.” Sparkplug replied with a slight smirk while scribbling down some notes on her clipboard. “Ok… Bonnie, perform a system check.” She instructed in a clear tone while looking back up to the robotic animal.

A series of mechanical noises sounded out as Bonnie stood in place for a few moments. He didn’t look around and he didn’t blink, but he didn’t stay this way for long. Once he was done with what he was doing, he tilted his head to the side slightly.

“Systems are normal… I’m feeling great!” Bonnie announced while offering an enthusiastic gesture with his arm.

“Perfect.” Sparkplug stated, making a few more notes on the rabbit before looking back up. “Alright Bonnie, listen up... I need you to search the resort. Silver Bell and two of our guests are missing.” She explained while observing the animatronic to see how he would react.

“Two of our guests are missing? That’s awful! What are their names?” Bonnie asked while tilting his head curiously.

“Applejack and Rarity… you already met them when they first came here. Applejack is an orange earth pony mare, and Rarity is a white unicorn mare with purple hair.” Sparkplug said in a clear tone.

“Right, I’ll go look for them right away!” Bonnie announced in a determined tone before starting to march away at the same steady pace he always walked in. Sparkplug smiled and nodded while scribbling down a few more notes on her clipboard. She looked up and turned her attention to the pair of animatronic cats leaned against each other against the back wall.

“Party Favor, wake mode… Felix, wake mode.” Sparkplug announced while observing the two with an expectant expression. Like clockwork, the two animatronics blinked to life as a mismatched series of six beeps filled the air. Almost in unison, Felix and Party Favor started moving around and getting up from the floor. Before long the two cats were standing and looking around.

“Hello, Sparkplug!” Party Favor greeted with a friendly wave. The sight of the white cat acting normally was reassuring to the gray mare, but she was more concerned about Party Favor’s companion.

Sparkplug looked over to Felix and noticed him being silent. She immediately grew concerned about the possibility that the animatronic was still acting strangely. “Felix… hello?” She said uneasily while giving the robotic animal a wary look. Much to her relief, Felix tilted his head to look at her and waved.

“Hello, Sparkplug!” Felix greeted with equal enthusiasm to his white counterpart.

“Hmm… direct conversation... facial recognition… good. Looks like your complex systems are functioning normally.” Sparkplug muttered to herself in a pleased tone while scribbling on her clipboard again. Once she finished, she looked up to activate Chica so she could finish her evaluation and send the three animatronics to go join Bonnie in his search. “Chica, w… huh?” Sparkplug paused suddenly in confusion as she laid eyes on the animatronic bird. Chica was leaning up against the back wall beside the two cats, but she was leaning at a different angle than the gray mare remembered from last night.

Sparkplug took a few steps forward and examined Chica with a puzzled expression. She looked around while thinking about what could have moved the animatronic. As far as she knew, nobody else had been in the storage room since she shut down the animatronics yesterday, but perhaps she was mistaken.

“Party Favor, did anything bump into Chica after she shut down?” Sparkplug asked while turning to the feminine cat. Party Favor looked to the gray mare before briefly glancing to the sleeping animatronic to see what she was talking about.

“I don’t know. We’ve been asleep since yesterday.” Party Favor said while shrugging her shoulders. Despite the animatronic’s playful avoidance of the fact that she was a machine that got shut down, the obvious answer came as a verbal face-palm to Sparkplug.

“Right… of course. *Sigh*” Sparkplug scratched her head while turning back to the animatronic bird. The gray mare would have assumed that one of the ghosts hopped into Chica and took control of her, but why would it bring the animatronic back and make an effort to put her in exactly the same spot it found her in? Finally, she realized that she couldn’t find any meaningful explanation to the odd occurrence and decided to return to what she was doing.

“Chica, wake mode.” Sparkplug announced in a clear tone. Much like the previous three animatronics, Chica came online and got off of the floor without acting strangely in any way. The robotic bird looked at the gray mare silently, but she had always done that due to her unfinished programming.

“Ok guys, listen up. I need all of you to find some missing ponies. Silver Bell, and two of our guests have gone missing and we don’t know where they are. The two missing guests are an orange mare and a white unicorn with purple hair. I want all of you to search the resort for them.” Sparkplug instructed while glancing between each of the animatronics. Chica remained still and silent, but the two robotic felines seemed to be shocked to hear such troubling news.

“Oh no! I hope they’re ok…” Party Favor said while putting on as good of a saddened expression as her limited facial freedom would allow.

“Come on Party Favor, let’s go find them!” Felix suggested in an eager tone while motioning for his partner to follow him. Sparkplug stepped out of the way as the two animatronics walked out of the storage room. The mechanical sounds of the pair’s footsteps eventually faded as they continued down the hallway. Finally, the gray mare was left alone with the robotic bird.

Sparkplug looked to Chica, half expecting her to go out and join the two cats in searching the resort for the three missing mares. The longer the animatronic remained still, the more the gray mare started to realize why she wasn’t responding. “Ugh… we really need to fix your A.I.” She shrugged and shook her head before leveling with the animatronic. “Chica, search the camera feed for Silver Bell, an orange earth pony mare with yellow hair, and a white unicorn mare with purple hair.” She instructed while taking pains to be as clear and specific as possible.

Chica didn’t respond verbally, but she nodded before walking towards the door. Sparkplug sighed as she scribbled down some notes on her clipboard. Despite how unnatural the animatronic bird seemed, she was functioning normally. She couldn’t wait until she had a unicorn helping her so she could completely fix the animatronics.

Back upstairs, Twilight and Berry Swirl, along with Glitterball and Sunspot were watching intently as the human and the yellow stallion finished sorting through all of the information they had to find a good starting point.

After a few moments of fishing for a specific piece of paper, Tom was the one to start talking. “Right… so, first, we looked into what happened down in that extension to the building.” He said while glancing around at the group patiently waiting in front of him.

“You mean the collapse that killed the workers?” Berry Swirl asked in a confused tone. She figured that it was obvious where the ghosts came from.

“Yeah, that. Like you, we figured that the ghosts would have come from that collapse. But the readings we were getting down there were too hard to interpret and the area past that shelf in the sub-basement was far from structurally unstable from what we could see.” Tom explained in a confused tone.

“What? It wasn’t unstable?” Berry said with a puzzled expression.

“Not at all… I mean, we didn’t exactly do a thorough examination or anything, but I got knocked around by one of those obsolete animatronics down there, and the floor didn’t even crack. Who told you that the floor was unstable back there?” Tom asked curiously.

“My dad did… I never even really checked, I just took his word for it. The rest of the place was run down looking enough, so it wasn’t too hard to believe.” Berry said in a surprised tone.

“Which is what confused us so much…” Glimmer Shine added. “So, we did some digging. We scoured over every piece of town history that we could get a hold of. We looked for news reports, obituaries… anything.” The stallion said while laying a newspaper down on the table and pushing it forward for the group to read. Twilight lit up her horn and lifted the newspaper up so everyone could read it better.

The newspaper was dated around ten years ago. There was a picture above the front page article with a headline emblazoned beneath it in bold letters. The picture was of the resort back when Berry’s father owned the place.

“Fun Land closing its doors for good… owner refrains from offering explanation.” Berry read off the headline in a surprised and quiet tone. As she and the other three mares beside her trailed their eyes over the smaller print that briefly described the article, they came to the conclusion that the news had no idea what had caused the sudden closure.

“Nobody seems to know why your father closed down the resort… and assuming he didn’t tell you, he must have kept it a secret. As for the old extension to the building, a few reporters interviewed some of the workers about the extension after the place shut down back then, but nobody would talk in depth about anything. There isn’t much of anything on paper about the place or what all happened up until the closure. Since you don’t have any records either, I’m assuming your grandfather went through a lot of trouble to limit the amount of information that leaked out. The only thing of note we could find about what happened with the closure is that one of the workers was admitted to a mental hospital shortly after the project was shut down.” Tom said while setting some small bits of paper and a few files on the table.

“A mental hospital? So… something made someone go crazy down there.” Sunspot surmised in an intrigued and slightly disturbed tone.

“Well, there was supposed to be a collapse that killed a lot of people. I’m sure that would be enough to send someone over the edge.” Glitterball reasoned while looking over the various pieces of information about the worker in question. Nothing she saw caught her eye, and the worker didn’t even ramble mindlessly about any of his experiences.

“We couldn’t find anything mentioning a collapse… let alone any deaths.” Glimmer Shine explained curiously. “The construction project was mentioned in some of the stuff we could dig up… we found some records and even early plans for what was going to be built. It was left unfinished for sure, but nothing here says how far along with the project they were. From what we can see it looks like they were working on it for several years. And as far as the public eye is concerned, there was no collapse.” He said, looking around to see what the others were thinking. Despite the fact that he and the human beside him held more information than the rest of the group, neither of them looked like they knew all of the answers.

“But there had to be a collapse… why would Berry’s grandfather lie about that? Why would her father lie about it as well?” Twilight asked in a confused tone while offering the purple earth pony a concerned expression.

Berry seemed to still be processing her own thoughts. “My father was really adamant about me not going down there… I thought he was just concerned about the collapse. What other reason could he have had?” She said, still pondering about the matter. She seemed to be a little distressed as she scrutinized her father’s actions in her head, though she was holding up rather well.

“More importantly, where did the ghosts come from if there wasn’t some tragic event here?” Sunspot asked in an equally confused tone. The question hung in the air and puzzled the group to no end. For there to be ghosts, there had to be dead people. It was a simple, if not a little bit grim, piece of logic, but it was absolute.

Perhaps sensing the confusion amid his companions, Tom reached over and pulled out a few more pieces of paper from his box. He laid them out on the table before fanning them out to make them readable. The papers had several lengthy reports on what had happened on the resort grounds throughout history, but nothing was eye catching.

“We looked back as far as we could for any notable deaths in the area. We couldn’t find anything. No graveyards or burial grounds that the property was built on, no murders or suicides or anything else. The only thing remotely pertinent that we found was this.” Tom said while placing another newspaper article on the table and pushing it forward. Again, Twilight picked up the newspaper and showed it to everyone while looking over it herself.

The newspaper was very faded and worn, even more so than the previous one. It had tattered edges, and it looked as if it had been dusty before the human and the stallion got ahold of it. The black and white picture was a little hard to make out, but it looked like it depicted an old-fashioned amusement park, complete with a merry-go-round and a Ferris wheel. There was another header and a sample of an article emblazoned beneath the picture in faded ink, and they were equally hard to make out. The ponies had to squint a little bit and take a moment extra to read the words, but finally Twilight managed to make the article out and read it out loud.

“Tragedy in Fun Land... another child reported missing from local amusement park. Owner ensures that he is doing everything he can to assist the royal guard in finding the three missing children.” Twilight read off the headliner and subsequent text in a somber tone. The mere thought of such a horrible event made everyone frown with sympathy.

“Apparently, three kids went missing back in the old amusement park throughout the course of a month. The authorities came to the conclusion that it was a serial kidnapping and murder, but no evidence stuck to any suspect and no bodies were found. The third victim was reported missing a few days before the earthquake that sunk half the property underground.” Glimmer Shine explained while motioning to the newspaper for reference.

“So… you think that these missing children are our ghosts?” Berry Swirl asked in an uncertain tone.

“That’s the best idea we could come up with. But that still doesn’t explain the weird readings we’ve been getting. Whatever is going on here, I think it has something to do with that extension to the building.” Tom said confidently while thinking back to the stairs he found leading further down.

Before anyone else could elaborate on their thoughts any further, the group heard several footsteps entering the room. Everyone looked over to see Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and High Tide, along with Spike and the cutie mark crusaders. Judging from the disappointed expressions on their faces, and the distinct lack of a certain three mares with them, the group discerned that the search party had failed.

“Did you guys find them yet?” Sunspot asked in a hopeful tone.

“They aren’t anywhere on the first floor… we were hoping you guys were doing better off than us.” Rainbow Dash said in a dismal tone, essentially confirming what everyone already knew.

“I’ll call up Sparkplug and Copper to see if they had any luck.” Berry said while getting up and trotting over to the front desk. She went behind the desk and picked up one of the small radios that she and her staff used. The purple mare pressed the button on the radio before bringing it up to speak into it. “Hey Sparkplug, have you or the animatronics found Silver and the others?” She asked with guarded optimism brimming in her voice. After a short wait, the group heard the gray mare respond.

“Uh, no… none of the animatronics have reported back to me. I have the control tablet with me, so I will let you know when one of them finds anything.” Sparkplug said in a reassuring tone.

“*Sigh*… thanks, Sparkplug. What about you, Copper? Have you had any luck?” Berry asked while trying to stay positive.

“I haven’t seen them on any of the live feeds. I’m checking the tapes from this morning to see if I can find where they went.” Copper Coil reported, much to the disappointment of the group listening.

“Thanks… keep us updated.” Berry said before shrugging and letting her foreleg droop away from her mouth.

The lack of any developments on the whereabouts of their friends was making everyone uneasy. Given how long they had been missing and the lack of any notes or forewarning, the group was getting more and more concerned that something bad had happened to the three mares.

“Are they going to find Rarity and the others?” Sweetie Belle asked in a worried tone. Everyone looked over to the young unicorn to see her wearing a saddened expression of concern and uncertainty. Not knowing where her sister was must have been killing her on the inside, and knowing that Applejack and another pony were missing as well couldn’t be helping matters for the white filly.

“Don’t worry, Sweetie Belle… I know that Rarity will be fine.” Applebloom said in a reassuring tone while walking up to the young unicorn.

“Really?” Sweetie Belle asked with a surprised expression. The yellow filly seemed to be confident in her statement, even though she looked to be a little worried as well.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Rarity and Applejack and Silver Bell are probably together wherever they are. I know for a fact that my sister wouldn’t let anythin’ bad happen to anyone.” Applebloom said while flashing a brief smile. Still, behind her confidence, it was easy to see that she was still a little uncertain.

“Thanks, Applebloom… I know Rarity won’t let anything bad happen to Applejack either.” Sweetie Belle said while offering the yellow filly a quick hug. The others couldn’t help but smile as they watched the two fillies reassuring each other. Still, they were also driven to ensure that their sisters came back to them unharmed.

Suddenly, a series of mechanical noises started making their presence known. The sounds seemed to be coming from the right hallway. The group immediately recognized the sounds to be the footsteps of the animatronic entertainers that they had become familiar with in recent days. Soon enough, their suspicions were confirmed as they saw three robotic animals walking into the room. Bonnie, Party Favor, and Felix were all walking into the lobby where they paused in front of the group at the front desk.

“Bonnie… did you find them? Did you find Silver and the others?” Berry Swirl asked while looking to the animatronic rabbit for a reason as to why he was here.

“No, we haven’t found them yet.” Bonnie stated in an optimistic tone as if he were confident that his search would yield results soon. Despite the enthusiastic answer given, the group was confused about what the animatronics were doing in the lobby if they weren’t reporting their success.

“What? Why are you here if you didn’t find them yet?” Berry asked in a confused tone.

“That’s a silly question… you called us here.” Bonnie said in a matter of fact tone. Judging from his tone, he seemed serious, but that didn’t mean that his statement made sense.

“What?” Twilight asked in a confused tone while looking around at her friends to see if she misheard. Everyone else was just as confused as the purple mare.

Berry shook her head in confusion while looking to the blue rabbit. “Bonnie… I didn’t call you here. Nobody in here sent you here.” She said.

The earth pony’s response seemed to baffle the animatronics more than their presence baffled her. Party Favor and Felix looked around in surprise while Bonnie shifted his expression to what one could loosely identify as confusion.

“What? But… we were told to come here.” Bonnie said in an uncertain tone while looking down for a moment. He moved less as he seemingly tried to figure out what was going on from his end. Before anyone could ask any more questions, a voice sounded out from Berry’s radio.

“Berry, you need to come see this.” Copper Coil said in an urgent tone.

The purple mare raised her radio up to her mouth and shifted her attention to it. “What is it, Copper?” She asked curiously while briefly glancing up to the animatronics.

“I found Silver and the others on the recordings,” Copper announced in a suspiciously uneasy tone. Despite the unease in his voice, the stallion’s statement was great news to the purple mare.

“That’s great Copper! Where did they go?” Berry asked in an eager tone. As the stallion on the other end of the line hesitated, her excitement slowly died and was replaced with discomfort.

“They all went down to the break room in the basement to get breakfast or something. When they came out, they ran into Chica in the halls.” Copper explained in a hesitant tone. The statement hung in the air for a moment, bringing confusion to most of the group and dread to a few who had already gathered where this conversation was going.

“But Copper… the animatronics weren’t activated until a few minutes ago.” Berry said in a confused tone. Soon enough, her confusion shifted to dread as she realized what she was saying.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

A shrill series of three beeps sounded out. By the time everyone looked up, they were just able to catch Bonnie’s pupils blinking red on and off once as his head drooped down. Suddenly, Felix’s pupils started blinking as well as another series of beeps rang out. One by one, each of the three animatronics started beeping as their eyes blinked red. Soon enough, a choir of high-pitched robotic beeps was filling the air.

Berry Swirl and the others backed up a step while the group towards the back of the room huddled together. Spike and the three fillies inched their way behind the five mares standing and silently watching. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie looked on with mild expressions of fear on their faces while Fluttershy started backpedaling along with the four children. Sunspot and Glitterball stepped in front of the others defensively while Glimmer Shine and Tom got up and walked over to their teammates.

All at once, the beeping stopped and all of the animatronics fell silent. Their eyes weren’t blinking, and most of them were looking downwards while standing still. Twilight and High Tide stood behind Berry Swirl as she looked on with a nervous expression.

As a high-pitched hiss of air came from behind them, the group turned their attention to see Tom exhaling a puff of blue mist involuntarily. The news that something supernatural was happening wasn’t exactly unexpected. Everyone was staring at the animatronics with mixed reactions of anxiousness and uncertainty, waiting for the worst to happen.

Bonnie slowly raised his head up. His eyes were as cold and lifeless as they normally were, but they felt eerier without his energetic voice and slight mannerisms to accompany them. The robotic rabbit took a small step forward and settled his gaze on the three ponies in front of him. The other animatronics remained in place, but they raised their heads and looked ahead silently.

Berry Swirl raised a shaky hoof up to her mouth and pushed the button on her radio down. Her body felt cold, and she was sweating nervously as she stared at the ensemble of animatronics in front of her. She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to steady her hoof. “Sparkplug… deactivate the animatronics… now.” Berry spoke in a cold and pleading tone. Behind her voice, a great deal of fear and desperation could be heard.

“What the…?! Berry, the animatronics are offline… all of them. What the hay is going on?” Sparkplug replied in a stunned tone. The gray mare’s statement made the groups’ stomachs collectively sink.

“Berry, stay back.” Twilight suggested uneasily, hoping that the earth pony would retreat like she wanted.

Instead of taking the unicorn’s advice, Berry stayed her ground and pushed the button on her radio again. “Don’t joke around with me right now Sparkplug. Shut down the animatronics… Do a manual shutdown, pull the emergency switches, do whatever you need to do.” She said, a strong feeling of desperation in her voice.

Before the gray mare could respond, Bonnie took another step forward. The animatronic continued walking at a slow pace toward the purple earth pony and the others behind her. Twilight and High Tide instinctively backed up, but Berry Swirl remained frozen in place. Whether out of fear of confidence, the purple mare wasn’t moving.

“Berry, get away from him. Back away slowly.” Twilight said in a more concerned tone while stopping. She wanted to distance herself as much as possible from the animatronics, which would ideally mean going over to the back of the room with the others, but she couldn’t leave the earth pony by herself.

Bonnie stepped over to the purple mare and paused in front of her. Berry Swirl looked up to see the robotic animal staring down at her silently. Her thoughts immediately turned to the safety switch on the back of the rabbit’s head.

“Bonnie… stay still.” Berry instructed while trying to keep her voice from trembling. Much to the shock of everyone else, the purple mare started reaching towards the animatronic’s head.

“Berry, what are you doing?!” High Tide asked in a tone of disbelief.

The purple mare kept reaching up toward the back of the animatronic’s neck. She cautiously raised herself onto her hind legs and slowly but steadily worked her hoof toward the side of Bonnie’s face. She was shaking slightly, but she hoped that she could pull out the ring on the rabbit’s head before he could realize what was happening.

Just as Berry’s hoof started reaching around Bonnie’s head, she felt a hard plastic hand clamping down on her foreleg roughly. The shock of the sudden maneuver made her let out a frightened yelp. As expected, she saw Bonnie holding onto her tightly with his left hand.

“Bonnie let go!” Berry pleaded while tugging on her foreleg to free it from the rabbit’s grasp. Pulling on her limb only resulted in more pain for her as the animatronic refused to let go.

Suddenly, Berry noticed a faint blue magical aura on the back of Bonnie’s head. With a soft click, the pull ring was separated from the animatronic and floated in the air before dropping to the floor. With a disconcerting mechanical noise, the purple mare felt the rabbit’s hand open as he took a step back. Just as suddenly, she felt someone grabbing her by the waist and pulling her backwards away from the demented robot.

“Berry, are you ok?” Glimmer Shine asked in a concerned tone while examining the purple mare’s foreleg. Berry looked over to see Glitterball standing nearby with her horn lit up, along with Tom and Sunspot standing behind her.

“I’m fine… thanks.” Berry said shakily while allowing the stallion to back her up a few more steps.

Everyone turned their heads to see Bonnie as he backpedaled from having his safety tripped. The animatronic rabbit stumbled and flailed his limbs around limply as if he were fighting being shut down. All the while, a low and grating mechanical screech was being emitted from the animatronic. The sound didn’t seem natural by any stretch of the imagination, and it paired well with the chaotic display of the rabbit stumbling around. Bonnie stopped flailing around abruptly and remained in a hunched over position. His body shook and shuddered in a disturbing fashion. Suddenly, Bonnie snapped his upper body up until his head bent back a little ways. After a short moment of hesitation, the animatronic lowered his head and stood upright on stable legs, much to the shock of everyone watching.

“W-what?!” Berry Swirl exclaimed with a dumbfounded expression.

“How is he doing that?! None of the animatronics can move when their safeties are tripped!” High Tide said in an equally stunned tone.

“I don’t think the animatronics are in control anymore.” Glimmer Shine said in a concerned tone while sizing up the situation in front of him. The two animatronics that had been silent and motionless started slowly walking forward to join Bonnie.

“Get to the entrance!” Tom shouted while getting in front of the others. The group all raced to turn tail and run towards the front door. Glimmer Shine’s team and their human friend stayed in front of the group and escorted them as they rushed to the entrance. The animatronics were still standing in place and staring ahead silently.

Rainbow Dash was the first of the crowd to reach the door. She quickly grabbed the handle and pulled on it, fully expecting it to open with no resistance so she could usher her friends out to safety. As the double doors remained firmly shut, the cyan mare tried again, only to yield a similar result.

“What the hay?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed in a confused tone while pulling on the door with all of her might.

“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked nervously as she watched the pegasus struggling with the doors.

“The door is stuck… gah…! it won’t open!” Rainbow Dash said with a frustrated expression.

“Is it locked or something?!” Scootaloo asked in a slight panic. The orange filly wasn’t the only one freaking out now that their escape route wasn’t opening.

While everyone else gathered around the entrance and either tried to help Rainbow Dash with opening it or stood around with anxious expressions, Tom used his senses a few times.

“I’m still getting mixed readings, but I can feel a lot of energy… I don’t know how it got here so fast. If these ghosts are using it, they could keep the door closed.” Tom explained in an uneasy tone.

“Break the glass then!” Twilight suggested nervously while looking behind the group. The three animatronics had started walking forward at a slow pace.

“That wouldn’t work… that’s shatterproof glass.” Berry explained with an uneasy expression.

“Even if we managed to get through it, it might just fix itself. We don’t know how strong these ghosts are. It could be just like back at the mansion.” Glimmer Shine shrugged in frustration.

“That’s not a scenario I want to think about Glimmer!” Sunspot said in an anxious tone while watching the animatronics get closer.

Tom and the others watched the three robots approaching while trying to figure out something to do. Their hearts were racing and their minds were going just as fast. Suddenly, the human turned to the purple unicorn with an idea. “Twilight, teleport outside and go get help.” Tom instructed in an urgent tone.

Twilight briefly glanced back to the glass doors and the windows beside them. It would be easy enough to teleport outside assuming there weren’t any supernatural forces to prevent her. Still, as she looked back at the rapidly approaching animatronics, she felt a strong need to protect her friends.

“No time! Let’s make a break for it!” Twilight said while rushing to the left side of the room.

“Twilight!” Tom yelled in a surprised tone as he watched the unicorn rushing over to the hallway. Finally, he shrugged before motioning for the others to follow the purple mare. “Come on, let’s go!”

Everyone ran as fast as they could to get by the animatronics. As soon as the majority of the group started escaping, Bonnie and the two felines picked up their pace a little bit and moved to intercept the group.

Fluttershy yelped in fright as she saw Bonnie making a sprint for her. She was on the outside of the group, so she was the first one within reach of the robotic animal. Before the animatronic could get to her, however, the yellow mare was surprised to see a purple aura being wrapped around the terrifying automaton. She looked over to see Twilight straining to hold the animatronic back. Whether it was from how heavy he was or from the ghost inside of him fighting back against her magic, Bonnie seemed to be winning the fight with the unicorn.

“Everyone move!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed urgently while giving Fluttershy a nudge in the right direction. The yellow mare wasted no time in running with the others toward the opening to the hallway. Twilight groaned from exertion as she threw Bonnie off balance before joining the others as they fled.

“Why didn’t you do what I asked back there, Twilight?” Tom asked in an irritated tone while running alongside the unicorn.

“Do you really think I’m just going to abandon you guys so easily? It would take me forever just to get word to the princess, let alone find a way to help you.” Twilight replied in an adamant tone, much to the dismay of her human companion. “Ok, let’s forget about that for now. What are we doing?” She asked while trying to figure out what their plan of action was.

“All of the ghosts must be making their move at once. They probably have all of the animatronics under their control. We need to head upstairs and get our gear, and then we can find out how to stop them.” Glimmer Shine said while managing a level-headed tone.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Twilight said with a brief nod of agreement.

The group darted through the hallways on their way to the stairs. They didn’t slow down for an instant. Along with the clamor of their own footsteps, they could hear the mechanical sound of the three animatronics running after them. If the trio were moving slowly before, they were done toying around now. As the ponies frantically darted around the next corner, they saw the stairs immediately on their left. The sight of the stairwell made a soft wave of relief wash over them.

“Come on guys. We need to get to our room and then head down to the basement.” Glimmer Shine said while taking a few paces up the stairs. The group behind him was terrified and more than a little exhausted. The three fillies in the middle of the crowd were looking back to see how close the animatronics were getting.

“Why the basement… shouldn’t we lock ourselves in our rooms?” Pinkie Pie asked nervously while trying desperately to catch her breath. Somehow she knew that she wasn’t done running.

“I don’t think closing ourselves off in a dead end would be good. We need to find out where these ghosts are coming from and get rid of them. That extension to the building seems like the best place to look. Now come on, those robots will be on our tails before long.” Glimmer Shine said while motioning for the others to follow him. Everyone pushed through their faint exhaustion and started up the stairs after the yellow stallion.

The ponies scarcely made it up the first flight when they heard a high-pitched shriek ring out. However, the shriek didn’t come from behind them. It came from just in front of them. The others looked ahead to see Glimmer Shine falling backwards in surprise, and an animatronic bird lunging down the stairs where he just was. The sudden appearance of Chica with her beak open and her teeth bared made more than a few people let out a startled cry of fear.

“Sweet Celestia, back up!” Sunspot yelled while dragging Glimmer Shine to his feet as she backed down the steps. Everyone scrambled to turn tail as the animatronic walked down the steps and reached for them. Chica stumbled and smacked into the wall on the landing due to how fast she was going, but the ponies were already backpedaling down the steps and into the hallway.

Glimmer Shine and his companions looked back at the hallway they came from to see a faint glimpse of Bonnie and the two cat animatronics rushing toward the corner. In a few moments, the three animatronics and the robotic bird on the stairs would be on top of them.

“Horsefeathers... everyone run!” Glimmer Shine yelled while ushering everyone down the other end of the hallway. Once the others were moving, the yellow stallion and his teammates ran after them.

Taking a glance back at the animatronics, Twilight noticed that Chica was staying behind while Bonnie and the others chased after her and her friends. Putting more thought into it, the purple mare realized that the group of possessed robots was trying to cut them off.

“*Pant* I think… I think they know we’re trying to get upstairs.” Twilight said in between breaths while running full stop down the hallway.

“Grr… these ghosts must be smarter and stronger than we first thought. I doubt they will let us get to your gear.” Tom said in a frustrated tone while turning to Glimmer Shine and his teammates.

“What do we do now?” Glitterball asked nervously. Taking one look around gave the impression that the white unicorn wasn’t the only one that was scared and unsure of what was going to happen.

“We’ve got no choice. We have to get to the sub-basement and hope that we can find a way to fix things down there.” Glimmer Shine suggested uneasily.

“First we need to find Sparkplug and Copper Coil. I’m not leaving them up here with those things.” Berry said in a concerned tone. The others felt their hearts sink as they thought of the gray mare and the older stallion. They knew they couldn’t leave them behind, but finding them was an uncertainty that would take time and potentially invite more danger into their already risky plan.

“Don’t worry Berry. We’re not going anywhere without them.” Twilight said in a reassuring manner while turning to the purple earth pony. Berry Swirl smiled softly and nodded with a grateful expression as she saw that the others agreed with the unicorn.

With how fast the group was running, they almost didn’t notice a set of double doors labeled “employees only” coming up at the end of the hall. By now their lungs were burning, but the sight of their goal in front of them offered enough of an adrenaline boost for the ponies to make it the extra mile.

Panting heavily and resting his hoof on the door handle, Glimmer Shine turned to look at the group behind him. Everyone was almost as exhausted as he was, if not a little more. The group’s terror hadn’t died down and with good reason. Taking a look down the hall, the yellow stallion could see the animatronics giving chase. Despite how fast their pursuers were going, the ponies seemed to have earned themselves a decently sized lead on them.

“Come on, through here!” Glimmer Shine yelled while pulling the doors open and rushing through with everyone following him. He expected to start running down an empty hallway again, but as he stepped forward, he knocked into something cold and solid.

The crowd behind the stallion gasped in horror and recoiled slightly as they looked at what their friend had bumped into. There was a brown animatronic bear standing around an average pony’s height, although slightly taller. The bear had a stylish black top hat on its head and a plastic looking microphone clutched in its paw, there was no doubt about it. The ponies had just stumbled upon Freddy, and he didn’t look happy to see them.

“AH!” Glimmer Shine yelped in fright as he processed what was in front of him. Before he or anyone else could react further, the animatronic bear lunged for the stallion while emitting a shriek similar to the other animatronics.

Everyone either averted their eyes or stared ahead in shock as Freddy neared Glimmer Shine, apparently aiming to bite into his head and take a decent chunk out of his frontal lobe. Nothing they could do would be fast enough or effective enough to help their friend.

*Thwack*

An abrupt metallic clang rang out as something struck Freddy in the back of his head. The strike barely did much to the animatronic, but it was enough to make its head bend downwards and force it to stop its attack to catch itself.

All at once, everyone darted their eyes to the side to find their sudden savior. They saw Sparkplug and Copper Coil standing in the hallway, with the latter standing behind the former, and the former holding a metal pipe and not so gently applying it to the back of Freddy’s head.

When the jilted animatronic started raising its head up to look over to its attacker, Sparkplug reeled back and swung the pipe to batter the bear again. This time, however, she didn’t stop. The constant sharp ringing of blow after blow of the pipe filled the air, making all who heard it cringe as Freddy was slowly beaten to the floor.

Sparkplug panted heavily, most likely out of exhaustion and a touch of shocked nerves. She and everyone watching took a brief moment to ensure that the animatronic bear was staying on the floor. Once it was more or less confirmed that Freddy wouldn’t be moving in the next few moments, the gray mare looked up to address the group properly.

“Hey, guys… *Pant*” Sparkplug said while briefly taking her hat off and wiping her forehead of any sweat. Before the stunned group could return the greeting, a loud noise behind them drew their attention away. The frightening realization that they were still being followed by the other animatronics hit the ponies like a ton of bricks and made their hearts collectively skip a beat.

While everyone else was tensing up or starting to glance behind them, Rainbow Dash and Sunspot briefly locked eyes. Judging from their expressions, they both knew that they had to do something fast before they were overrun.

In the blink of an eye, the two pegasi rushed behind them to the two doors on either side of the group. They scarcely had time to move anyone else out of the way before they slammed the doors shut and put their weight against them.

All at once, a loud bang sounded out and the two mares scrambled to regain their footing and press back on the doors as the animatronics on the other side crashed into them. Realizing that their friends needed help, Glimmer Shine and Tom rushed forward and helped the pair to keep the doors closed.

“Berry, do these doors have a lock?!” Twilight asked in an urgent tone while turning to the purple earth pony. Most of the members of the group were in a fearful panic, and Berry was no exception, although she was taking things better than most of the others.

“Uh… y-yeah, it does. But it needs a key to lock it.” Berry Swirl explained nervously.

“Grr… just our luck.” Twilight growled under her breath before lighting up her horn and focusing on assisting the others with keeping the doors closed.

“What do we do now?!” Sweetie Belle asked in a panicked tone while distancing herself as far away from the doors and the animatronic on the floor as possible. The sight of the young filly and her friends in such a state of fear was troubling to the rest of the group, but they weren’t sure if they had the answers she was asking for.

“We need to find a way to keep this door closed so we can make a break for it!” Glimmer Shine suggested urgently while straining to hold his half of the doors closed along with Rainbow Dash.

“Even if we could use the lock on these doors, the animatronics could probably bust them down.” Sparkplug reasoned with an uneasy expression.

“Maybe not…” Tom muttered while trying to piece together his knowledge on ghosts and how the animatronics were behaving to find something useful. “The safety ring worked on Felix yesterday, but it didn’t work on Bonnie today or that older model of Bonnie downstairs. It took a while for them to be able to come upstairs…The ghosts might be getting used to their new bodies, so they might not be able to use their full strength yet. If we can block this door, it might buy us some time to escape.” He suggested while looking around to try and find something to use.

While everyone was frantically trying to find something to barricade the doors, Sparkplug was shrugging uneasily while looking down at the only weapon she had. Finally, the gray mare rushed forward and stuck the metal pipe she used to beat Freddy in between the handles to the doors. As a test to see if the improvised barricade would work, the others cautiously backed away from the doors. The animatronics shoved against the doors again, causing the group to jump slightly. Thankfully, however, the metallic pipe seemed to be holding for the moment at least.

“Come on, let’s move!” Twilight suggested while motioning for the others to run. Taking this as their chance to flee, Berry and Sparkplug rushed ahead so they could lead the group down to the basement. The others quickly followed her, using the sounds of the doors being rammed into as motivation to run faster.

“So… since we’re running for our lives, I’m assuming the ghosts are in total control of the animatronics?” Sparkplug asked curiously while briefly looking behind her.

“Yeah, it seems that way. We’re hoping that we can find a way to stop them down in the extension to the building.” Glimmer Shine said in a carefully optimistic tone.

“I saw Silver and the others running that direction when Chica chased them. They’re probably still down there somewhere.” Copper Coil suggested uneasily.

“I hope they’re doing ok… I know Silver must be freaking out. She’s afraid of dark places. I almost didn’t convince her to go down there with me to check the place out before all this.” Berry stated in a concerned tone. Although the thought of their friends being in some dark and dank underground hallways was troubling to most of the group, it made Sparkplug think of something else. The gray mare skidded to a halt suddenly and looked around. While the others paused to find out why their companion had stopped, she rushed over to a doorway a little ways behind them and went inside.

“Sparkplug, what are you doing?! We need to go!” Berry Swirl said in an urgent tone while walking over to the doorway to see what the gray mare was doing. As Sparkplug flicked on the lights and rushed into the room, the group noticed that they were standing outside of her workshop.

“It’s darker than a moonless night down there, and we only have two unicorns here. If we’re going to be looking around for a way to stop these ghosts, we’ll need flashlights.” Sparkplug reasoned while quickly scanning the various tables and shelves around her for flashlights.

Berry glanced back at the group gathered around her. They all realized that the gray mare was right. Assuming they didn’t find Silver Bell and Rarity right away, they would only have Twilight and Glitterball with them to provide light, essentially making it impossible to effectively split into groups to do anything productive. Copper Coil quickly rushed into the room to help the gray mare with her search. Meanwhile, the rest of the group anxiously stared down the hallway for any sign that they were being followed.

“Hurry up guys. We don’t have time to waste here!” Berry pleaded with a desperate expression while watching the two ponies zip around the room.

Sparkplug and Copper Coil looked to each other before briefly looking down to see what they had collected from their search. Three flashlights and a few batteries were all they had to show off, but they knew that the workshop didn’t hold anything else they could use without a longer search. With a frustrated shrug, the pair started exiting the room.

Before leaving the workshop entirely, Sparkplug paused as she noticed a small video camera on one of the tables. The gray mare had many models of various electronics laying around, but this one, in particular, she recognized to have night vision. She quickly grabbed the camera before continuing out of the room with her friends already running back down the hallway.

The group quickly rounded the last few corridors and started down the steps into the basement. The ponies followed Berry Swirl and her staff as they led the way toward the sub-basement stairs. However, while most of the group had no idea where they were going, the twists and turns they were taking through the halls seemed eerily familiar to the purple unicorn at the back of the group.

Twilight looked around at her surroundings with a fleeting bundle of memories welling up in her mind. She recognized the placements of many of the turns and intersections, as well as a few of the rooms passing by. She knew these hallways from somewhere, even though her tour of the building hadn’t ventured to the basement. No, her knowledge came from somewhere else.

“What’s wrong Twilight?” A concerned voice suddenly made the unicorn look beside her. Twilight saw Spike running alongside her with a worried expression on his already frightened face. Seeing the purple mare looking around with such a nervous expression must have been more than a little disconcerting for the dragon.

“Don’t worry Spike… It’s nothing.” Twilight said in as reassuring a tone she could manage while still withholding information from the dragon. She knew that the dream she had a few nights ago was more specific and troubling than she once thought, but she didn’t want to further frighten the dragon or even herself by discussing it with him.

Suddenly, the group grinded to a halt as the heavy pants and wheezes of some of their weaker members stopped behind them. Everyone turned to see Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and all four of the children standing still and trying to catch their breath.

“Can we… *Pant* can we stop running for a minute?” Scootaloo asked with an exhausted expression. She looked like she was about to pass out, and she was faring slightly better than her friends.

Twilight and the others looked around at each other while taking note of their own levels of exhaustion. While it was true that their lungs were burning and their hearts were still beating rapidly, they could probably go on running for a while longer if they were being chased. Still, they had to take a rest if their friends were struggling to continue.

“Well… it doesn’t look like they are following us right now. We’re almost to the stairway anyway, so maybe we could walk?” Berry suggested while turning to Glimmer Shine and his team for their advice. The three ponies and their human friend looked around at their exhausted group while thinking about whether or not it was safe to slow down.

“I think we can manage that. Just be ready to run if they catch up to us.” Glimmer Shine suggested in a sympathetic tone.

With a relieved sigh, the ponies started walking down the hall at a relatively relaxed pace. Twilight let Spike climb up on her back so he could rest, and Fluttershy even volunteered to carry Sweetie Belle. Although the looming tension in the air was still present, the group was confident that they would be safe as long as they kept their wits about them. At the front of the group, while Berry Swirl led the way toward the sub-basement, Sparkplug and Copper Coil were taking inventory of everything they managed to swipe from the workshop.

Twilight glanced to the two ponies as they fiddled with the three flashlights and all the batteries they had. She wondered just how useful the flashlights would be. After all, the more she thought about where she and her friends were going, the more she realized that she would probably be in the dark both literally and metaphorically.

“Do we have enough batteries for all of those?” Twilight asked in a hopeful tone. Although she had her horn to offer herself and anyone she traveled with light, she would feel better if the group had more than just her and Glitterball to provide their only method of seeing.

“Uh…” Sparkplug muttered while briefly glancing back to the unicorn. She finished inspecting her two flashlights and looked over to Copper Coil to see how he was faring. “It looks like we have just enough batteries to power all three of these flashlights. Hopefully, we won’t need more than two spares. Luckily this camera still has some juice in it too.” Sparkplug said in a pleased tone while examining the camcorder.

“Good to hear. You should get those ready because I’m sure we’ll need them soon.” Berry Swirl suggested while noting how close they were to the stairs that would take them into the extension to the building. Most of the lights were on in the hallways they were in now, but downstairs it would be pitch black.

“Where are we even going? Why are those anima-things chasin’ us?” Applebloom asked in an audibly frightened tone. Taking one look at the yellow filly and her two friends told of just how scared they were about this situation.

“We’re going to go find out how to get rid of the ghosts so the animatronics will stop, Applebloom.” Twilight explained in a reassuring tone while looking back at the filly with a sympathetic frown.

“Yeah, but where are we going? I heard you guys talking about an extension to the building, but how big can it be if it’s below us?” Scootaloo asked in a curious tone. Everyone else looked to either Berry Swirl or Glimmer Shine’s group to see if they could provide a solid answer. However, the purple mare and the team of monster hunters were unsure of what to think about the mysterious extension to the building.

“My grandfather planned to make the underground extension relatively big. As far as I know and remember, he didn’t finish it, but he probably got close. Then again, my father seems to have gone to great lengths to make sure that nobody went down there after he searched the place.” Berry said in a troubled tone. Hearing the normally cheerful mare in such a downcast state made the others sympathetic for her.

While most of the group was watching Berry Swirl and contemplating something they could say to make her feel better, a foreign noise came from up ahead of the group. The unexpected noise sounded like something falling over and bouncing along the floor. Everyone nearly jumped out of their skin and fell into a panicked hush as they all darted their heads forward toward the dark hallway ahead of them.

Berry Swirl and Copper Coil backed up slightly while Sparkplug remained where she was. Tom and Glimmer Shine slowly made their way in front of the group while Sunspot and Glitterball stayed with the others and kept a cautious eye on the hallway ahead.

“W-what is it?” Fluttershy asked timidly while looking around nervously. She could barely muster the courage to look down the hallway for fear that something terrifying would pop out of the darkness.

“I thought all of the animatronics were still behind us? How could one of them have caught up so fast and gotten ahead?” Rainbow Dash asked in a confused tone. The cyan mare’s question made the others wonder what was happening as well, but it didn’t make them any less afraid.

“Maybe one of the ghosts decided to face us without a suit for once?” Sunspot suggested while looking to her teammates for confirmation on her idea.

Being the only one with any ability to scan their surroundings, Tom used his senses a few times to get a better idea of what was going on. However, the same mixed array of dull readings and confusing energy traces from before were still present.

“I can’t feel anything different from before… wait… no, something is in front of us. I can’t tell what it is, though. Ugh, these readings are seriously getting on my nerves now.” Tom shrugged in a frustrated tone.

While the tension in the air was rising, the ponies stared ahead and listened silently, hoping to find their enemy before it caught them off guard. Well, before it caught them off guard any more than it already had.

Suddenly, a mismatched series of metallic clicks and footsteps came from the darkness ahead. The footsteps were erratic, sometimes taking abrupt pauses or not moving entirely for a few moments at a time. The sounds pretty much confirmed that there was an animatronic present, but the group had no idea which one it could be. All of the animatronics that were in the resort’s system had been accounted for.

The ponies could feel their collective heart rate increasing the longer the sounds went on. Even the steeliest members of the group were feeling a bit nervous, but the more sensitive people were a different story. Fluttershy was at the back of the group with the three fillies and Spike. Sweetie Belle was clinging to the yellow mare’s leg and shaking like a leaf, which harmonized perfectly with the pegasus shaking herself out of sheer fright. Scootaloo and Applebloom were faring a little bit better, but they were equally terrified despite their outward show of it. Spike was trying to poke his head around the group to see what was going on, much to his regret as he finally managed to stare at the shadowy abyss waiting for him.

After what felt like an eternity, a dark silhouette finally appeared further down the hallway. The figure was seemingly limping at first glance, but the group quickly realized that it was having trouble moving entirely, making erratic movements and sudden shifts in posture almost constantly.

Sparkplug suddenly looked down to the flashlights clutched under her foreleg and scrambled to grab one of them. She flicked on the switch, nearly blinding herself in the process as she inspected it to see if it worked, and pointed it down the hall. The cone of light traveled much further than the meager light provided by the two unicorns did, revealing a rather startling sight.

Standing in the distance was a tall animatronic dog with reddish brown fur and green eyes. He seemed to be struggling slightly to walk, but he didn’t pay any attention to that as his gaze was fixed squarely on the group of ponies.

“Oh, Sparky… not you too.” Sparkplug muttered in a saddened tone while looking at her once proud creation with a glint of fear in her eyes.

Sparky opened his mouth a short ways and let out a distorted bark. The sound was rapidly changing in pitch and even volume, ranging from a quiet and deep sound to a high pitched and ear piercing sound. The disturbing display was both terrifying and ear grating, and the group was thankful that it didn’t last long as the animatronic fell silent.

“There’s no way around him. What do we do?” Berry Swirl asked in a concerned tone while looking around at the others. Doubtlessly, the path that the animatronic dog was blocking was the path that they needed to take.

Before anyone else could speak up to try and find something to do, Tom stepped forward. The human seemed to be at least a little confident in what he was doing, or at least the ponies hoped so. Either way, he seemed eager to make sure that nobody else confronted the possessed robot.

“Don’t worry… I’ll handle this guy.” Tom said in a steely tone while sizing up his opponent.

While the crowd behind him watched in silence, the human walked closer to Sparky. The animatronic looked back at the boy with an almost confused look on his face, like he didn’t expect one person to confront him like this. He and the ponies certainly didn’t expect what happened next.

With a fierce yell, Tom suddenly charged forward and reeled back his arm while balling up his fist. In one swift movement, he ran up to the animatronic dog and aimed his strike at its head before blasting his arm forward as hard as he could.

*Thunk*

“OW!” Tom yelped in pain as a cringe-worthy crack sounded out along with the hollow sound of his fist hitting metal. Sparky’s head bent back a little bit, but otherwise, he was unscathed. Tom’s hand, on the other hand, bent at an unnatural angle and sent a mind-numbing wave of pain through him.

The ponies collectively winced as they watched their human friend clutching his hand and cradling it like it was about to fall off. Judging from the way it was limply dangling and its appearance, the comparison wasn’t too farfetched. It certainly looked broken at the very least.

“Why did you punch it?!” Sparkplug asked in a tone of disbelief while trying not to pay much attention to the human’s hand. Tom took a moment to cope with the pain he was feeling before looking back over to the group with a pained expression.

“I thought I could take it! The old model of Bonnie hurt when I punched it, but not that much!” Tom stated while making all manner of painful moans and groans, even going so far as to try and silence himself by moving around and trying to ignore the pain.

“The old models used a softer metal for their endoskeletons. We upgraded them to make them more durable.” Sparkplug explained in a sympathetic tone.

“You couldn’t have told me that like five seconds ago?!” Tom asked with a strained tone of voice.

While the human was still coping with his new injury, Sparky was progressively getting more and more annoyed. The animatronic dog let out a distorted growl and shifted his eyes into as good an upset expression as he could. Without further warning, he swiped his arm in an attempt at smacking the human, who was forced to duck to the side to dodge the strike.

Twilight and the others gasped as they saw their human friend in danger. The purple unicorn looked around and quickly realized that there wasn’t much that Glimmer Shine and his team could do to help. However, perhaps there was something she could do with her magic.

“Tom, duck!” Twilight yelled while pushing to the front of the group and charging up her horn. Tom looked at the purple mare and saw her horn bursting with energy. He quickly gathered what she was about to do and dove to the floor.

Once the human was clear of her line of fire, Twilight shot out a bolt of magic from her horn and aimed it right at the menacing animatronic. Sparky did little more than look at the ball of light as it sailed right into him, exploding into colorful sparks and sending him flying backwards a short ways.

As the dust settled, the group looked back to see Sparky lying on his back with a scorch mark on his chest. However, the unicorn’s attack didn’t seem to do very much damage to him as he started getting back up almost immediately.

Twilight widened her eyes in surprise as she realized that there wasn’t much to be done to structurally damage the animatronic dog. Charging up a more powerful attack could take several minutes, and even then it wasn’t a guarantee that it would work. Either the structural integrity of the animatronic’s metal endoskeleton would weather the blast, or the ghost inside would use its own power to keep its vessel intact.

“Glitter, help me hold him down! We need to move!” Twilight exclaimed urgently while wrapping her magic around the animatronic dog. As she expected, she already felt Sparky fighting off her magic like she wasn’t even putting effort into holding him.

“R-right!” Glitterball stammered after taking a moment to process what was happening. She rushed to use her own magic to wrap around the animatronic, being careful to actually help the purple mare rather than hinder her by making their two auras clash.

Sparky strained to lift his upper body and head off the floor as the magical field holding him grew stronger. Twilight’s purple aura and Glitterball’s blue aura melded together and combined their strengths. Even with their combined power, they couldn’t hold the animatronic for very long.

“Come on guys!” Tom said in a frantic tone while motioning for the group to follow him. The ponies took a brief look at the animatronic struggling on the floor and the two unicorns struggling to keep the robotic animal captive before realizing that time was of the essence.

While Twilight and Glitterball did their best to walk while focusing on their magical grip on Sparky, everyone quickly ran ahead. As they passed by the animatronic on the floor, they slowed down a bit and kept a nervous eye on it as they carefully walked around it.

The two unicorns were straining so much that their horns were sparking. The animatronic dog and the spirit within were proving to be too much for them to handle. They clenched their eyes shut and slowly walked forward, barely being able to hold on until they could make it past the animatronic. Tom and the others hesitated past the animatronic, with the human staying closer to ensure that the two mares made it past.

“Gah!” Glitterball fell to her knees suddenly and Twilight clutched her head as Sparky bucked upward, breaking their grip on him. The pain of their magic being overwhelmed was nearly crippling, but the fear they felt when they looked beside them and saw the animatronic looking at them while getting up dwarfed their suffering.

“Run girls!” Glimmer Shine yelled from the front of the group as he watched Sparky getting to his feet. The others gasped and widened their eyes in fear as they watched their two friends in such close proximity to danger.

Twilight shook her head and pushed through the fading headache she had to look beside her at the white mare still on the floor. She grabbed Glitterball’s foreleg and pulled her to her feet while moving forward. She didn’t even dare to look to the right to see how close Sparky was to her, but a high pitched shriek that rattled her ears and sent a shiver down her spine made her hurry her pace.

Once the two mares were running toward them with a seriously pissed off possessed animatronic right behind them, everyone else turned tail and started bolting down the hallway. They could hear the sound of metallic feet chasing them at high speed, giving them even more reason to run as fast as they could. Nobody looked back, for fear that actually confirming the dog’s location would somehow make it closer than it could have been. Everyone just kept running and silently hoped that Berry Swirl knew where she was going.

A long hallway and a left turn whizzed by without the majority of the group paying much notice, but Berry and the other members of the staff suddenly noticed just how close they were. If memory served, the stairway leading down was just ahead.

“We’re almost there! The stairs are at the end of this hallway!” Berry announced in an eager tone while glancing behind her. Everyone was glad that they were about to have a solid doorway between them and their metallic pursuer. If everyone made it into the stairwell in time, they could slam the door on Sparky and hopefully hold it closed, buying them some room to think at the very least.

Realizing that they would have no time to pause and open the door to file everyone inside, Sparkplug did her best to run ahead of the group. The gray mare saw the door at the end of the hall coming up on the bubble of light created by the unicorns behind her and made a break for it. Once she scrambled to open the door in relative darkness, she turned and motioned for everyone to hurry their pace.

“Hurry up guys, everyone down the stairs!” Sparkplug yelled while holding the door for everyone else to rush inside.

In a frantic mess, Rainbow Dash and the others quickly made sure that the kids made it inside first before helping them down the first few steps in the dark. Once all of them were inside, Tom and Glimmer Shine made sure that the rest of the group made it into the stairwell.

Just before Twilight entered the stairwell, she looked back to see if Sparky was right on top of her as she expected. However, instead of seeing an agitated animatronic in mid-leap waiting to rip into the first person it caught on landing, she saw Sparky standing still a few feet away.

“Huh?” Twilight muttered in a confused tone while pausing from surprise.

“Wait… what is he doing?” Sparkplug asked with equal confusion to the purple mare as she noticed that the animatronic dog was staying in place.

By now, several of the others had walked back up to the landing to see what had halted their friends. Once they noticed what the others were staring at, they too grew confused and wondered just what was going on.

Sparky stared at the ponies in the stairwell silently with a blank expression on his face. Much to the surprise of all those watching, he took a step backwards, and then another. The robotic animal seemed to be slowly backpedaling as if he were hesitating.

“He’s… walking away?” Sunspot said with a dumbfounded expression on her face while looking at her companions in the hopes that they had figured out some sort of explanation to the puzzling behavior of the possessed animatronic.

“I think he looks scared.” Sweetie Belle chimed in while moving to the side of the group. The others briefly looked at the filly before looking back to the animatronic. Surprisingly, the comparison wasn’t too inaccurate. Sparky seemed like he really didn’t want to go anywhere near the stairway.

“What is a ghostie afraid of?” Pinkie Pie asked in a confused tone. The question seemed innocent enough, but it brought up an unnerving thought in everyone’s mind. As everyone turned and looked back to the cobweb-ridden forgotten stairwell that they were just about to descend without a second thought, they felt a little twinge of fear building inside of them as they thought of what was waiting for them below.

“I guess we’re going to find out.” Glimmer Shine said in a blank voice while looking to the others. Everyone quickly realized that there was nothing left for them to do but go down.

The ponies slowly started making their way down the dust ridden steps. Their hooves clattered on the metal of the stairs and echoed into the darkness beneath them. Glimmer Shine closed the door at the top, sending a final noise through the air that signified that they were shut off from the bright and colorful resort upstairs. What they expected to find, and what was waiting for them down in the sub-basement, was a mystery.

Chapter 12: What Lurks Beneath?

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-A few minutes earlier-

Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell made their way through the forgotten hallways of the sub-basement. Their dust ridden surroundings and the pervasive darkness around them combined to create a rather unpleasant and eerie atmosphere. However much they didn’t want to go forward, it was the only path open to them. With the possessed animatronic guarding the stairs long behind them, they had to find another way to get back to their friends.

Rarity, in particular, seemed to be averse to progressing in this horrid mess of a place. Aside from how stale and thick the air felt, which would have been a nightmare for her mane in its own right, everywhere she looked was either covered in dust or some form of disgusting ancient cobweb that had accumulated dust and grime until it became what one could loosely describe as “icky”.

“Eww…” Rarity shuddered slightly as she accidentally brushed against a low hanging cobweb. After frantically brushing it out of her hair, she was mortified as she realized that it was now stuck to her hoof.

Applejack looked back as one of the only sources of light in the area paused and started moving around in an odd, erratic fashion. She was greeted with the sight of her friend trying to desperately fling something off of her hoof to no avail. “You… ok there, Rarity?” She asked with an unsure raise of the eyebrow as she and the cream mare beside her stopped to look at the unicorn, who had finally managed to rid her hoof of the foreign substance plaguing it.

“No, Applejack. If you must know, I am far from ok here. This place is going to make me sick if I stay any longer! Are you sure we can’t just turn around and head back upstairs?” Rarity asked with a pleading expression while softening her voice up a bit.

“And risk runnin’ into Chica again? Sorry Rar, but I’m not doing that. We were lucky she didn’t follow us down here the first time. I’m not gonna tempt fate by danglin’ myself in front of a five-foot-tall haunted hunk’a metal.” Applejack shook her head in refusal to the unicorn’s ludicrous suggestion.

Rarity sighed as she saw the reasoning behind the orange mare’s refusal. “Ugh… fine, but I don’t have to like it if we’re staying in this dreadful place. We better find a way back up soon or I am convinced that the filth on the walls is going to evolve and try to eat us.” She stated while walking between the two ponies watching her with her nose turned up. Applejack and Silver Bell couldn’t help but crack a smile and hide a snort as the unicorn walked into yet another cobweb.

After another short walk, the trio came out into an intersection of sorts. Judging from their surroundings, they recognized the place. Earlier they had found a fork in the hall just before an opened up area and another corridor. The first hallway must have looped around and led them back to the opening they saw.

Taking a look to the open area at the end of the hall, the ponies laid eyes on a large bookshelf that was sitting beside another corridor in the center of the wall. Something had seemingly pushed the shelf aside judging from its odd angle.

“There’s that bookshelf again. We must’a gone in a circle.” Applejack shrugged at the lack of progress she and her friends were making.

“But we’ve searched everywhere else, and there wasn’t a staircase or anything.” Silver Bell chimed in with an audibly disappointed tone in her voice.

Rarity looked to the hallway next to the bookshelf curiously. “Why don’t we just go down that hallway?” She suggested, pointing to the hall with her hoof.

Silver Bell seemed discomforted by the mere mention of going down the new corridor. “I don’t know guys… Berry said that nobody should go down there. Her father told her that the floor is unstable.” Silver said in a concerned tone while offering her companions a hesitant expression.

“Well… we’ve been everywhere else.” Applejack said with a shrug. She walked up to the dark hallway and sized it up, contemplating whether or not to press forward. Rarity and Silver Bell stayed behind the orange mare as she waited at the opening. Suddenly, Applejack took a few cautious steps forward.

“Wait! You can’t just walk in there… what if the floor caves in?!” Silver Bell asked nervously while reaching out to the orange mare.

Applejack glanced back to the two mares with steely resolve in her eyes. “If you have any better ideas, we’re open for suggestions. You two can stay out here if you want, but I’m goin’ ahead.” She said in a confident tone while walking ahead at a slow pace to be on the safe side. She made it a few steps into the hallway before realizing that her bubble of light had run out.

The orange mare looked back and saw that the two unicorns were staying firmly cemented in place. She looked back to the inky black void in front of her before realizing that she wasn’t doing anything without her friends with her, at least not if she wanted to see where she was going. “Ok… maybe I should rephrase that. Could you two please come with me?” Applejack sighed in a dejected manner as she realized that she couldn’t very well do things on her own.

The white unicorn contemplated things for a moment before realizing that she would be better off following the orange mare. “Alright, we’ll come with you… right Silver?” Rarity said while looking to Silver Bell with a pleading expression. The cream pony seemed hesitant to agree, but she didn’t exactly want to stay by herself either.

“*Sigh*… ok, ok.” Silver finally admitted defeat and started following her two companions.

“Just stay apart and watch your footin’. We should be fine.” Applejack said in a reassuring manner.

The three mares slowly made their way down the hallway. Every step they took, they hesitated slightly to see if the floor could support their weight. They also had to worry about where they were actually going. The dark void in front of them seemed never-ending, but they could only wonder as to how much longer they could keep wandering.

After a few more minutes of walking through the same hallway and finding nothing noteworthy in the surrounding rooms, an opening appeared up ahead that led into a bigger area. The first thing that caught the trio's attention was what looked like a decrepit version of bonnie lying on the floor a little to the left of the opening to the hallway.

“Yikes…” Applejack muttered in a surprised tone while looking at the motionless animatronic.

“This must be that old animatronic that Tom mentioned.” Rarity said while thinking back to when the human healed Sweetie Belle up in their room. He mentioned that he had fought with an animatronic down in the sub-basement, and it was easy to see now why he looked so disheveled.

Bonnie’s entire body looked withered and broken down, but there was some damage that looked like it had been inflicted by a person rather than the ravages of time. The animatronic’s face, in particular, looked like it had been caved in by some blunt force trauma, leaving much of the interior machinery damaged beyond recognition.

Applejack slowly walked up to the motionless rabbit and hesitantly poked its leg with her hoof. She reeled back defensively and waited for the animatronic to move.

“Is it… alive?” Silver Bell asked while peering past her two companions and staring at bonnie warily. She was out of her element when it came to dealing with ghosts, so she had no idea if the animatronic was possessed or not.

Applejack cautiously poked the animatronic a few more times before hanging back and observing it. After a few more moments of the rabbit remaining motionless, she turned to her friends. “I don't think so. Tom apparently already beat the hay out of it when he came down here.” She said with a hopeful expression. Still, she made a mental note to keep a close eye on the robotic animal.

Now that they were at least somewhat sure that they were safe, the three mares turned their attention to the second thing they noticed upon stepping into the enlarged area. There was another large opening set into the middle of the wall ahead of them, though this opening didn't lead into another room or a hallway.

What appeared to be another set of double wide stairs leading down sat before them. There wasn’t really a stairwell or even a door to speak of. It was just a large opening with a lengthy set of carpeted steps leading down to a landing before doubling back. If it weren’t for the faded carpet and the odd smell accompanying it, the area would have looked somewhat fancy.

“Looks like these go further down… is there even a further down? Where do these go?” Applejack asked while looking down the steps with a pensive expression of confusion on her face.

“According to Berry’s father, there should be a cave in down there that blocks off the area just off the stairs.” Silver Bell chimed in while looking down the steps curiously.

“I don’t know about that…” Rarity said. “If there was a cave in down there, shouldn’t there be at least some sign of it up here? I mean, the floors aren’t even unstable.” She noted while shifting her weight onto one spot to test the ground beneath her. Although it looked like the years hadn’t been kind to this area of the resort, the floor wasn’t exactly crumbling.

“Well… we’ve come this far. We might as well see what’s down there.” Applejack suggested in a resolute tone. The two unicorns looked at each other for a moment before shrugging and coming to the same conclusion as their orange companion. There was nowhere else to go but down.

Deciding to take the lead, Rarity hesitantly started walking down the steps. The stairs creaked slightly beneath her, eliciting a mild feeling of concern as she continued toward the first landing. With her small band of troops following closely behind, she stepped around the landing and started to walk down the next flight. As she looked up from her feet to see what she was actually walking towards, she paused suddenly and stared ahead with an astonished expression.

The white mare had expected to maybe find another hallway at the bottom of the steps. It was a safe assumption, as the cramped stairway leading into the floor above opened into a hallway. At the very broadest end of her expectations, she thought that maybe she would find a small room blocked off with rubble and some ghosts waiting to yell boo at her. However, what she actually found was enough to stun her and her friends into silence.

The walls to the sides of the three mares opened up into a vast room with a relatively high up ceiling. The air was much colder, almost to the point where it felt like a totally different place than upstairs. The stale and dusty feel to the air was replaced with something a bit mustier. There was mostly darkness waiting in front of the group, but they could see a red tinted carpet on the floor with what appeared to be a faded spiral pattern.

As the ponies looked around to marvel at the sheer size of the opening, they realized why the staircase was so long given that it only had two flights. They took a solid moment to stop gawking in surprise before one of them decided to take the first step into the room.

“Good heavens… this place is massive. It looks like the entrance to an entire building.” Rarity stated while slowly walking forward and gazing up at the raised ceiling. The room wasn’t really any bigger than a room in the resort upstairs, but when compared to the cramped rooms that littered the sub-basement, it might as well have been made for giants.

While Silver Bell remained close to Applejack, perhaps from feeling vulnerable in her strange new surroundings, Rarity decided to walk forward. There were many dark silhouettes outside of her light’s reach, and she wanted to get a better understanding of where she was.

There were a few couches and chairs nestled into the corner off to the right that had a thick layer of dust on them, and there was a table in the center that had what seemed to be an old hard hat and a tipped over coffee mug on top of it.

Up ahead toward the back of the room, there was a large desk that enclosed an area for someone to stand behind. There was also a door behind the desk that looked like it led into another small room. All in all, it looked a lot like the front desk to a hotel or resort, not unlike the one upstairs.

“What is this place?” Rarity muttered out loud in a stunned tone of amazement. Everywhere she looked led her to believe that she was standing in the lobby of a hotel, but she was deep underground by this point.

“Looks like Berry’s granddad wanted to move the resort down here… or at least make an extension to it. Check this out.” Applejack said while pointing out a small frame on the wall behind the desk. She moved around the desk to an opening toward the back and walked up to the frame.

Inside of the frame was what appeared to be a map of sorts, although it was hard to tell. There was a thick layer of dust accumulated on the surface of the laminated paper. Applejack reached up and wiped away most of the dust before brushing it off of herself. The map was much larger than they expected this area to be, with numerous hallways and blocks of what must have been at least a dozen hotel suites and other rooms.

“Hmm… we’re obviously in the lobby. That must put us… here.” Rarity said while pointing out a small ‘you are here’ marker in a more open looking room. She and the others briefly scanned their eyes around the map and wondered as to how all of this stuff was built.

“Wait… look at this.” Silver Bell stated eagerly while pointing to a spot on the bottom left corner of the map. Rarity and Applejack noticed some text toward the end of one of the hallways that seemed to go nowhere. The words ‘service entrance’ were posted with a small arrow pointing to the end of the hall.

“Service entrance…?” Applejack muttered while raising her eyebrow curiously.

“Of course… it wouldn’t make sense for there to only be one small entrance to this place down a flight of steps. They must have made a route leading to the surface to transport the heavier equipment and materials they would need when constructing this place.” Rarity exclaimed in revelation while letting an excited smile creep across her face.

“So that means there is a way out? We can get back to the others?” Silver Bell asked with careful optimism.

Applejack nodded with an eager smirk. “It’s our best bet for now.” She said confidently. Now that they had a plan, the three mares returned to studying the map to find a way to the service entrance from where they were.

“Ok… it looks like there’s a hallway that goes past a few party rooms for kids. If there aren’t any obstructions, it should take us right to the entrance.” Rarity traced a path on the map in her mind that seemed to be the shortest route possible. The last thing she wanted was to spend a long time in this place.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s hurry up and get out of here.” Applejack stated eagerly while motioning for the others to follow her. The new development on their situation had certainly lifted their spirits, so they understood why the orange mare was so excited about getting out of the basement.

With a clear goal to push them forward, the trio headed toward one of the openings that led out of the room. The doorway revealed a hallway that seemed almost claustrophobic in comparison to the wide open lobby. There was a fork in the hall that left three options for the ponies to choose from, with a path going straight and another hallway cutting through to form an intersection. Since the service entrance was a fair distance away, the group headed down the straight path.

The carpet in the hallways was much thinner than anywhere else they had come across. The three mares barely had any padding to prevent their footsteps from ringing out and echoing slightly around them. The eerie silence only served to further remind the ponies of where they were. No living creature had been in this place for many years, and it looked and felt like it. The group felt hesitant about stepping any further, but they had to if they were going to escape and help their friends.

After a few more intersections passed by, Rarity turned down what she remembered to be the right hallway. If the map back in the lobby was accurate, then the service entrance should have been further down the hall to the left. As she and her two companions rounded the corner, however, they paused suddenly as they noticed something ahead of them.

The three mares had stumbled upon yet another animatronic. This one resembled a deer and was quadrupedal. However, it was in terrible shape. It was lying on its side a few feet away, but even from where they were standing the ponies could see a lot of structural damage. The brown and white exterior shell of the animal was scratched up and yellowed, with several holes exposing the endoskeleton underneath. One of its hooves was missing, with the endoskeleton foot underneath missing as well. One of its ears was snapped at the base, and its tail had the tip broken off, removing any illusion that it was furry or soft.

“Oh, my…” Rarity muttered in a disquieted tone while looking at the motionless animatronic. Judging from the lack of antlers and the pink eyes and cheeks, she could estimate that the deer was a female, but it certainly didn’t look cute or innocent.

“Another animatronic? I didn’t think Berry’s grandfather made any more than Bonnie and the others.” Silver Bell said while examining the animatronic from afar with a confused expression.

“Well, apparently he did…” Applejack shrugged before taking a moment to eye the withered doe suspiciously. “What if it’s alive?” She asked uneasily.

“W-what?” Silver Bell stammered slightly in a nervous tone while turning to look at the orange mare and her friend. The question was simple and obvious enough, but now that they were thinking about it, the three ponies suddenly felt very uneasy from where they were standing.

“I’m not sure if we should just jump to such hasty conclusions Applejack.” Rarity said in what she hoped to be a confident tone. Despite her best attempts to wave off the orange mare’s concerns, she couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge of unease as she stared at the robotic animal ahead.

“Think about it for a minute, guys. Tom and the others said that they were havin’ trouble findin’ the ghosts upstairs. What if all of the ghosts were hidin’ down here or something? This is where they were supposed to come from.” Applejack reasoned while making sure to keep the animatronic in her peripheral vision at all times while leveling with her two companions.

“But… there weren’t any signs of a cave in like there was supposed to be. This place looks perfectly fine aside from the neglect… why would the ghosts come from here in the first place?” Silver asked in an audibly unsettled tone. It was clear to see that she was starting to freak out about the possibility that not only was there another possibly possessed animatronic in front of her, but there was also a strong possibility that there were more ghosts and more animatronics for her to worry about.

“I don’t know, but there are obviously ghosts here. If these things can just hop into those critters and wake them up at any time, then we might be lookin’ at a real problem here girls.” Applejack explained while trying to prevent herself from freaking out. If they were going to survive, they had to be smart and not let their fear rule over their decisions.

“You’re right… we can’t risk going near those things. We barely got away from Chica upstairs.” Rarity said while shrugging uneasily. She looked around for a brief moment while trying to ascertain how they were going to reach the service entrance now. Their new friend was currently lying in the center of the hallway they needed to take in order to reach the supposed exit to this place.

“Hey… maybe we could cut through there to get around that animatronic?” Silver Bell piped up while pointing to a doorway set into the wall to their side. Applejack and Rarity both looked to where their cream friend was pointing, only to find an opening into another room just to their side.

The opening lacked a doorway, but it had colorful moldings on the door and a few streamers and decorations in view that were just barely hanging down from the inside. Taking another look around, they noticed around three more similar open doorways on either side of the hall, along with what looked like an actual door a few feet past the dormant animatronic.

“Hmm… wait, that might actually work.” Rarity said. “I think I remember seeing this area on the map, and I’m pretty certain that these are the party rooms for kids. Most of them looked like dead ends, but one of them was larger and led into a kitchen. If that door down there is the kitchen, then maybe we can sneak past that thing through here?” She suggested in a hopeful tone while motioning toward the opening on the right. The other two mares smiled softly as they both agreed to their new plan of action.

“Sounds good to me.” Applejack nodded while walking over to the doorway and stepping through. “Stick close guys… It’s dark as hay down here.” She stated while noting the absence of light around her. The two unicorns made sure to stay right on their friend’s tail as she entered the party room.

Taking their first few steps inside, the ponies looked around the room and tried to make out their surroundings despite the hazy shadows and pitch blackness outside of their bubble of light. The party room certainly lived up to its name. There were long tables covered in patterned cloths that had rows of colorful party hats set up near the chairs. The walls had a border of green and blue checkers running along the lower section of them, with the upper section plastered liberally with a confetti pattern. However, the amount of time the room had sat for was also showing through. The checkered tile flooring had a lot of dirt strewn along it, and a few of the streamers had unclipped from the ceiling at one end, leaving them dangling down on their respective wall. There were also a few black stains on the wall that looked puzzling, yet also utterly disgusting.

Silver Bell looked around with an astonished expression. “Whoa… I thought this place was unfurnished? It looks like they had it ready for parties before they stopped working on the place.”

“Hmm…” Rarity muttered to herself in an intrigued tone while looking at one of the streamers on the far wall. “Happy birthday Tropical Swirl?” She raised an eyebrow while reading the faded letters on the streamer. Once they heard mention of Berry’s father, Applejack and Silver Bell turned to see what the white mare was looking at.

Sure enough, there was a streamer along the ceiling that was made up of letters that spelled out a birthday greeting to Tropical Swirl. There were also a few deflated balloons lying on the floor near the banner.

“Now that I think about it… Berry’s grandfather abandoned this place around the time of her dad’s birthday. Maybe he was planning on throwing a party for him down here?” Silver Bell suggested curiously.

“Possibly… it would certainly explain why this place looks like it was ready for guests.” Rarity nodded in agreement with the cream unicorn before trailing off in her own thoughts. “Now then, where is that kitchen?” She asked nobody in particular while scanning her eyes around. She could see that the second opening that was on this side of the hallway led into this room as well, but she couldn’t see the kitchen.

To their rear was just a wall with more streamers and stains on it. Taking a few steps forward and letting her light reach more of the room, Rarity noticed another wall, but this one was more promising. There was the silhouette of a door off to the right, and there was a large opening into what looked like a kitchen area, most likely how the food was brought out to the customers.

“Aha! There it is!” Rarity exclaimed cheerfully. Applejack and Silver Bell looked ahead to see their friend pointing at what she had found with a triumphant smirk. The sight of the kitchen and the thought of getting closer to returning to the surface made them smile in excitement.

“Good job Rarity. We can find a way around through there.” Applejack said in a pleased tone. The white unicorn couldn’t help but revel in her discovery. But before the trio could even start to approach the kitchen, something made them pause.

“Does anyone else hear that?” Silver Bell asked while tilting her head slightly and trying to focus. Rarity and Applejack perked their ears up and listened intently, and they soon realized what their cream friend was referring to.

There was a low sound making its presence known above the eerie silence in the room. From listening to it for a few moments and straining their hearing to make it out, the ponies surmised the sound to be some sort of radio static. The sound was getting slightly louder as if it was moving, but it wasn’t getting any noticeably easier to pinpoint its location. Still, it sounded like something was coming through the static and being garbled into a distorted mess, like a signal being lost due to interference.

The three ponies listened to the odd sound and looked around with mild feelings of apprehension as they tried to find where the noise was coming from. The implication of why a foreign noise was being created down in an abandoned building was troubling enough, but the faint sounds of some kind of voice and other disturbing noises being jumbled up in the static made the hair on the back of their necks stand on end.

“What in the world…?” Rarity muttered with a confused expression while trying to find out what could have possibly been making the noise she was hearing and where it was.

“Sounds like it’s… over here? No… now it’s over there.” Applejack walked around and tried pinpointing the noise, but every time she thought she had it narrowed down it seemed to move slightly. Wherever it was, it sounded a little bit like it was above them.

Before their curiosity or nervousness could reach a peak, the noise faded and vanished completely. The sudden return of silence to the room and their unanswered questions hung in the air and troubled them to no end.

“What was that?” Silver Bell asked hesitantly. Judging from her expression and how close she was hovering near her two companions, the odd sound must have freaked the cream mare out a considerable amount, and her new friends couldn’t blame her.

“I don’t know…” Rarity said while looking down in thought. When she looked up, she realized that her brief statement hadn’t exactly comforted the timid unicorn. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now, Silver. Come on, let’s get out of here.” She added in a more reassuring tone while gently taking hold of the cream mare’s foreleg. While the two unicorns slowly made their way toward the doorway leading into the kitchen, Applejack followed close behind and kept her eyes and ears peeled just in case the strange noise returned.

The walk across the room was much shorter than the three mares would have liked, and before long they were standing in front of the door. After hearing the static come out of nowhere and disappear just as fast, they were incredibly tense as they peered into the window and checked over the counter to their left. Even though they could see where they were going, the kitchen somehow felt a lot eerier than it once did. Despite their apprehensions, the ponies opened the door and stepped inside.

As the door swung closed behind them, the trio took a quick look around at their new surroundings. The kitchen was fairly small, especially considering that it had to serve such a large area. Despite its size, it looked standard as far as kitchens went.

There was a central area that had numerous rusted pans and skillets hanging down from the ceiling. Some of the pots had fallen down over the years and now lay scattered along the floor waiting to trip someone who wasn’t paying attention. Beneath the many pans and along the walls were several stovetops and various other cooking amenities. Toward the back of the room, there was even an oven that looked like it was designed for pizzas. Cupboard doors were left hanging open in some places, revealing even more miscellaneous culinary items that had been forgotten. The entire place smelled foul as if some food had been stored somewhere nearby and left to rot. Judging from the horrid stains and stomach churning liquids that adorned some of the sinks and containers, the three mares didn’t want to go searching for any particular cause to the smells now flooding their nostrils.

“Ulgh... I think I’m going to be sick.” Rarity groaned while covering her mouth with her hoof and trying not to look at some brownish liquid congealing at the bottom of one of the sinks.

“Ok… I think I’ll agree with you on this one Rarity. We should get out of here before we pass out.” Applejack said in a strained tone. Although she wasn’t covering her mouth like her two companions, she was having a hard time adjusting to the musty air around her.

With their stomachs reminding them to hurry things up, the three ponies searched around for a door. It didn’t take them long to converge eyes on a single door at the back of the room that looked like it would lead them back out into the hallway. Without even hesitating or confirming with each other, everyone made a cautious break for the door, slowing down their pace enough to avoid touching anything unsavory, which amounted to every single item in the room. Rarity grabbed the door handle with her magic and swung it open. She rushed out into the hallway and took a big breath of relatively fresh air. The stale and sickening air out in the halls was far from clean or appealing, but compared to the thick fog bank of filth and horror that she just walked out of, the white mare felt like she was in the great outdoors breathing in air straight from the source.

Once she was done hyperventilating and trying to get the horrible smell out of her nose, the white unicorn turned and closed the door before looking to her friends. As she remembered what she was doing, her thoughts immediately turned to the service entrance, and then the hallway in front of her. Taking a brief glance behind them to make sure the deer animatronic was still where it was supposed to be, the ponies marched onward toward freedom.

As they kept walking, the trio noticed that the floor seemed to be sloping upwards slightly. Wherever they were going, they must have been getting close to the service entrance. All they wondered was where they would come out once they reached the surface.

“So, Silver… where do you think this entrance will take us?” Applejack asked curiously while turning to the cream mare.

Silver thought for a moment before answering. “Well… There are some buildings left on the property from around the time Berry’s grandfather first built the resort. Most of them are rundown, and we typically left them alone. It’s possible that this place leads up into one of them. Some part of this place must reach the surface… just look at those vents.” She explained while pointing up to the ceiling. The other two mares looked up and to the sides of the hallway and suddenly noticed that they were passing by air vents. Every once in a while they would pass by a symmetrical pair of vents with coverings on either side of the hallway. Strangely enough, though, some of the vent coverings had fallen off.

“It would make sense. I’m sure that this place was supposed to have more than a few ways up to the surface after everything was built. If they added the stairway up into the resort upstairs later in the project, it would explain why those hallways weren’t as finished as the ones down here are.” Rarity reasoned while taking note of the many decorations passing by. Although they were decayed and sometimes even strewn along the floor, there were several paintings and potted plants dotted around the place. There even seemed to be a few signs for directing people around, though most of these were not so conveniently too hard to read.

Suddenly, a familiar sound started cutting through the air in the distance. Once their ears picked up on the noise, the three mares immediately recognized it to be the same radio static from before. They all froze and darted their eyes around nervously while trying to find the source of the sound.

“There’s that noise again.” Applejack said uneasily while perking her ears up and looking around.

The static sound crackled and the myriad of noises within sent shivers down the three ponies spines. Oddly enough, the sound seemed to be moving like before. In fact, it seemed to be getting louder and closer.

“W-what is that?” Silver Bell asked while backing closer to her two companions. The three mares looked down the hallway, then back where they came from, and then to the few closed doors dotted around them. No matter where they looked they couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Still, the noise got louder and louder, seemingly homing in on their location and getting closer. Soon enough, the noise grew so loud that it snuffed out any other sound.

“What could possibly be making that terrible racket?!” Rarity exclaimed anxiously while cringing and holding her ears. Her companions barely heard her over the unending static, not that she could even clearly make out her own words.

Although the sound was grating and plenty disturbing, it wasn’t quite loud enough to hurt their ears. They could even start to hear another noise over the static, albeit faintly. What sounded like hollow thuds started sounding out near them, but they couldn’t tell where or what was causing it. As the thuds got closer, the ponies realized that they sounded slightly metallic, and that thought sent them into a panic.

Suddenly, the thuds stopped and the static quieted down slightly. Despite the light reprieve on their ears, the ponies still couldn’t find where the static was coming from. It sounded like it was right on top of them, but there was nothing in sight.

Rarity backed up a few steps while looking down the hallway where she and her friends came from. Applejack and Silver Bell were still looking down that way as well, trying to find something to explain the terrible noise. The white mare stopped as she noticed she was getting a bit far away from the other two mares. Deciding to search the front area again, she turned around. What she saw next would probably haunt her nightmares for the next several years.

All at once, a flash of white and pink appeared in front of her as something dangled down from the ceiling above. It took her a solid second to process what was happening amid the initial jolt to her system, and as she stared in front of her with wide eyes, Rarity could make out a nose, glowing white eyes, and metallic teeth.

“AAAAHHHHH!!” Rarity screamed at the top of her lungs while catapulting backwards as fast as she could. She fell on her back and crawled away while still staring at the thing in front of her. Applejack and Silver Bell spun around in alarm as their friend cried out. They immediately noticed the white mare crawling towards them while staring ahead fearfully, and they immediately saw what had terrified her.

Hanging on the ceiling, there was some amalgamation of a cutesy animatronic fox and a little kid’s fever induced nightmares. The animatronic was tangled up in a mess of its own limbs and endoskeleton parts. The only parts that had the brightly colored animal shell on them were its face and a single hand and foot. The face was that of a white fox with a pink snout that had red lipstick haphazardly dotted in the center of it, but the rest of it was simply chaos. Its endoskeleton appeared bent and rearranged, with its limbs hanging at odd angles and several wires dangling down everywhere. Its endoskeleton head was separated from the fox mask, with one eye still on the small gray lump of a head and a set of stock teeth in its mouth. The fox mask had a more vicious looking set of teeth, and its jaw appeared broken and unhinged to boot. The single eye that was sitting in the fox mask was squarely looking at the three ponies, and the static in the air shifted to a more garbled sound that resembled some kind of messed up screech. The three mares could hardly comprehend how the animatronic was even moving, let alone hanging off the ceiling. The only word they could even come up with to describe the terrifying beast was a mangled monster.

“Sweet Celestia!” Applejack exclaimed in shock while jumping back slightly. She looked down to the white unicorn still on the ground and darted her attention back to the animatronic. The orange mare knew that there was only one course of action they had to take. They had to run for their lives.

The thing on the ceiling opened its mouth incredibly wide and swung its neck closer to the three ponies while letting out another garbled screech. Much to their horror, the animatronic started using its mismatched limbs and some of the other parts of its body to locomote forward along the ceiling in a jerky and uncoordinated manner. All three mares started screaming while scrambling to flee. Once Applejack managed to pick Rarity up from the floor, she and the two unicorns bolted back down the hallway as fast as they could.

None of them wanted to look back, but the clatter of metallic noises and the static sound growing louder made their spines tingle. Finally, Rarity found the courage to take a look behind her. Much to her shock, the animatronic fox was somehow keeping up with them despite its handicapped appearance. It was frantically unhooking its limbs from the ceiling or walls and using them to push itself forward so fast that it almost looked like it was effortlessly gliding along the ceiling toward them. All the while, a mighty racket of metallic thuds and clanks followed the fox as it raced to catch the fleeing ponies.

Before long, the trio could see the intersection they reached before coming up, and the inactive deer animatronic in the middle of the hallway. They didn’t even care whether or not the deer started coming to life because they were certain that the mangle of parts behind them was the greater of the evils between the two animatronics.

In their haste to jump over the fallen deer, Silver Bell tripped slightly on her way over. She didn’t even linger on the floor for an instant. With her heart pumping and her fear fueling her, she got back up and kept running without even missing a beat.

“Go left!” Rarity exclaimed while turning to look back at the animatronic. Applejack and Silver Bell looked back to see the white mare charging up her horn. Once she gathered enough energy, she fired off a bolt of energy toward the ceiling just in front of the animatronic.

Although the energy blast didn’t do much damage to the animatronic or even the ceiling, it exploded in front of the robotic animal and made it fall to the floor. The fox landed roughly, having barely had time to reorient itself to lighten the impact. Spotting a chance to get ahead of their pursuer, the three mares bolted around the left corner of the intersection.

Applejack and Silver Bell briefly wondered why the white mare had instructed them to go left, but they quickly found out. Just up ahead was another fork in the hallway leading to the right. If they could break line of sight with the animatronic for long enough, maybe they could duck into a room and hide.

With the sound of the animatronic stomping after them already in their ears, they used every ounce of energy they had to pick up the pace and round the next corner. The trio quickly spotted a series of rooms and ran up to the second door on the right.

Applejack was the first to reach the door. She grabbed the handle and silently prayed that it wasn’t locked or stuck. Thankfully, the handle turned in her shaky hooves and she threw the door open as quietly and quickly as equinely possible. Once her two friends had made it into the room with her, which just so happened to be a small supply closet, she closed the door and held it shut.

The sound of static and the metallic clanging of the animatronic’s movements grew closer and closer. Although the ponies expected the robotic beast to follow them, hearing it drawing nearer to them still sent them into a panic.

“Ssshh, put out your light!” Rarity whispered frantically while letting her horn blink out. Silver Bell felt terrified by now, but she did as instructed and let her horn die out. The small space they were in was pitch black now. They couldn’t even see each other or their own hooves in front of their faces. Still, the three mares huddled together to make sure that they didn’t feel alone and explode into a panic attack.

While Applejack held the door shut, the trio listened nervously as the sound of metal and static entered the hallway outside. Silver Bell had to clasp her hoof over her mouth just to prevent herself from making noise. The ponies could feel themselves shaking as they desperately hoped that the beast outside wouldn’t find them.

The footsteps slowed down as the animatronic neared their door. It was seemingly looking around for them, but it could have also been readying itself to barge into the door and eat them alive. Everyone held their breaths, fearful that the mechanical monster could hear them if they didn’t remain absolutely silent.

Entire seconds went by without any movement from the animatronic outside. Only the soft sounds of it shifting its contorted body around and the mind-numbing radio static remained in the air. The ponies tucked away in the small room felt like they were never going to leave the supply closet alive, but somehow they managed to contain their fear enough to remain deathly silent.

Finally, the sound of the creature presumably latching onto the ceiling sounded out. After a few moments, the animatronic started moving away back down the hallway from whence it came. The static grew less intense, and finally, it started to fade. Before long the three mares were left in utter silence.

Applejack and Silver Bell shielded their eyes slightly as Rarity returned light to the dark room. She was keeping the light relatively dim, but even then she felt hesitant about having it on. Still, she couldn’t bear the darkness anymore.

“Great job Rarity. We would be that thing’s chew toys if you didn’t distract it and help us lose it.” Applejack said in a relieved tone, still keeping her voice low as a precaution.

“What the hay was that thing? That was horrible!” Silver Bell stated while trying to calm her racing heart.

“I don’t know… but whatever it was I never want to see it again.” Rarity replied while also trying to catch her breath and calm down.

After waiting a few more moments to make sure that the animatronic monstrosity wasn’t going to come back and partially to gather up courage, Applejack slowly opened the door a crack. Rarity and Silver Bell tried to maneuver their heads to see out into the hallway, but the small opening wasn’t exactly big enough for all three of them. Finally, with a shared expression of anxiousness and hesitation, the three ponies opened the door and ventured out a few careful steps from their safe haven.

Nothing jumped out and tried to eat their faces off within the first few seconds, but all the same, they felt frightened and exposed now that they knew what was wandering the halls with them. Still, they had to move forward if they were going to escape. And now escaping was even more important. Now they weren’t just trying to get upstairs to warn their friends, now they were trying to survive.

“Come on girls… we need to get to that entrance before that weird creepy-crawly thing comes back.” Applejack whispered in an urgent tone. The two unicorns nodded in agreement before following the orange mare as she cautiously walked down the hallway toward the direction of the service entrance.

Just before they made it to the end of the hall, Applejack paused and held her hoof out to indicate for the others to stop. After a brief moment of confusion, Rarity and Silver Bell realized what had spooked their orange friend. The soft sound of static was moving into earshot and quickly getting closer to them. Once the sound got close enough to warrant the ponies to assume that it was coming their way, they panicked.

Applejack turned tail and frantically flailed her foreleg to get the message across that they had to run, but it wasn’t exactly necessary. The others were having a mini panic attack themselves, so they got the gist that they had to run very quickly in the general direction of away from where they currently were. The three mares quietly rushed toward the other end of the hallway with a violent chill going up their spines. They wanted to outright bolt down the hallway, but they were afraid that they would never lose the animatronic fox again if it heard them and started giving chase. Their only hope was to make it around the next corner before the robotic creature saw them.

Once they reached it, the trio practically dove around the corner and put their backs against the wall. Rarity cut off her horn’s light before silently motioning for Silver Bell to do the same. After a second of hesitation, the cream mare gulped nervously and killed her light as well. The unwelcome return of the absolute darkness around them made them incredibly nervous, but they didn’t have any choice but to remain hidden and hope that whatever ghost inhabited the robotic fox couldn’t see in the dark.

Even though she couldn’t see anything, Rarity could feel the corner of the wall right next to her. She felt more small and vulnerable now than she ever had felt in her life, yet she still felt a morbidly curious desire to peek around the corner despite the fact that she wouldn’t be able to see anything.

The static sound grew slightly louder and the faint sounds of metallic clangs reached their ears. The ponies had to prevent themselves from whining fearfully due to the sheer stress of the situation. After a few tense moments of waiting, the static left again without even getting close enough to distinguish the rest of the creature’s unnatural noises.

All three mares let out the breath they were holding in unison as a wave of relief washed over them. Rarity dimly lit up her horn again before looking around the corner to be sure that the robotic fox wasn’t somehow sneaking up on them by turning off its static.

“That thing is still around here… is it looking for us?” Rarity asked while turning to her two companions with an uneasy expression.

“I don’t like this… I want to get out of here.” Silver Bell whined softly while trying to stem the amount of fear in her voice. Applejack and Rarity felt bad for their companion. The cream pony was desperately trying to remain composed, but she was far too fragile to be unaffected by such terrifying situations. She almost reminded them of Fluttershy. The sudden thought of their yellow pegasus friend made the two mares think about how she was faring upstairs.

“Don’t you worry none, sugarcube. We’re gettin’ out of here for sure. We just need to find a way to get to the service entrance without that ugly hunk’a junk findin’ us.” Applejack said in a reassuring manner. Silver Bell seemed to be comforted a little by the orange mare’s statement and the confident expression she was giving her.

“Still… that is quite the problem. For all we know, that thing could be guarding the entrance… like some messed up dragon guarding a castle.” Rarity added while shuddering slightly as she tried to avoid thinking about the white fox.

“I don’t know much about dragons, but I don’t think any dragon alive is that weird or scary.” Applejack replied uneasily. “I know it’s all broken and everythin’, but does it really need to crawl on the ceilin’ like that?” She shuddered while shaking the disturbing thoughts from her head.

“Ok, enough dawdling. We need to find a way past that thing.” Rarity paused and concentrated while trying to picture the floor map in her head. “Umm… I think there are a couple of other hallways that lead around the area where the service entrance is. If we can use one of them, maybe we can bypass that mangled up mess entirely.” She said in a hopeful tone.

“And what if it finds us again?” Silver Bell asked nervously. The sudden question immediately killed the triumphant mood that was just starting to fill the air and replaced it with the familiar unease and uncertainty that the trio had felt since arriving in this underground cornucopia of terror.

“Well Silver… I guess we’ll just run away again.” Rarity said earnestly while offering the cream mare a reassuring hoof on the shoulder. The uncertain expression on the white unicorn’s face wasn’t exactly as comforting as she wanted her statement to be.

With that, the two ponies hesitantly followed their white frontrunner as she led them forward through the hallways back toward the lobby. They hoped that her memory of the map was accurate and that she could get them to the service entrance with little issue. Somehow, though, they knew that they hadn’t seen the last of the terrifying metallic fox and that it wasn’t the last horrible thing they would find lurking in the abandoned corridors around them.

Chapter 13: Search and Rescue

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Back upstairs with the larger group, things were starting to look down. The adrenaline of being chased by haunted animatronics had mostly worn off, only to be replaced by dread and fear as they walked through dusty and pitch black abandoned hallways toward some unknown goal. The only decent sources of light were coming from Twilight and Glitterball’s horns. Sparkplug and Copper Coil had given away two of their flashlights to Sunspot and Glimmer Shine while the gray mare kept one of them. Still, even with the added light, the area around them was eerily dark and silent.

“Gah…” Tom winced in pain while holding his injured hand gingerly. The ponies looked at the human near the front of the group with sympathetic expressions as they watched how his broken wrist and hand were moving around.

“Are you ok Tom?” Fluttershy asked in a concerned tone while trying to avert her eyes from the oddly bent appendage. His wrist was starting to swell up, and it certainly looked as painful as he was making it out to be, if not more. Still, he seemed to be hiding most of his suffering behind an indifferent façade.

“I’m fine. It’s… probably just a sprain.” Tom hesitated while noting how floppy his hand was and how hard it was to move it. The clear avoidance of his own health was more than troubling to the rest of the group, especially to Twilight.

The purple mare was well acquainted with how the human coped with pain and tried to hide it from others. He outright ignored his own safety on numerous occasions just for a shot at helping her and her friends. While she was eternally grateful to him for taking care of her friends and even bringing her back to life after a mortal injury killed her, she hoped that he would take better care of himself as well.

“Oh, Tom…” Twilight muttered to herself while shaking her head slowly.

“Yeesh… I can’t believe he just decked a piece of metal.” Sparkplug cringed while looking back to the purple unicorn.

“Well… that’s Tom for you.” Twilight said with a brief empty smirk.

“Does he always do stuff that’s so… so…” Sparkplug paused while trying to find the best word for the situation.

“Stupid?” Twilight finished the gray mare’s statement while shifting her eyes to look at the human with a cynical expression. “Yeah… he does do stuff like that a lot. Hey Tom, are you sure you’re ok?” She asked while softening her voice to a more concerned tone.

“I already told you guys I’m fine.” Tom replied while managing a reassuring smile. His words weren’t exactly having the comforting effect that he hoped.

“How are you fine? That looks really painful.” Sweetie Belle spoke up in a concerned tone.

“Yeah Tom… maybe you should let one of us take a look at that for y-” Glitterball started to speak up until she was interrupted by something that hushed her into silence.

Tom sighed before grabbing his injured hand by the wrist. Much to everyone’s confusion and sudden horror, he pulled on the broken appendage violently, resulting in a loud pop and an equally loud yelp of pain. The others let out a brief gasp and cringed as they finally processed what the boy was doing. After his joint was in the right place again, the skin around the knuckles of his hand started glowing orange as his healing abilities kicked in.

Twilight and the others watched with their jaws on the floor as Tom let out a series of restrained noises of pain while trying to cope with his hand healing. He seemed to be taking this a lot better than he should have been. After he was done, he clenched his fist shut and exhaled triumphantly.

“Wow… that did not feel good.” Tom stated to nobody in particular before turning his attention to the stunned ponies around him. “See? All good as new.” He explained with a smirk while holding out his freshly healed hand and moving it around to show that it was, in fact, better.

Twilight blinked rapidly, struggling to get over the shock of what she just witnessed. “Tom… could you… not do that again? Like… ever?”

“You guys were the ones worrying about it. I had things under control.” Tom shrugged while smirking lightheartedly. Before anyone could say anything further, he turned and ignored anything having to do with what just happened.

“I… but… *Sigh* Never mind.” Twilight shook her head as she decided to leave the subject alone. She was sure that she would probably have to beat a sense of self-preservation into the human’s thick head one day, but right now she didn’t have the time or the patience.

As the group continued walking down the dusty old corridor, the uncertainty and unease they felt before returned in full. Most of the group didn’t even know where they were going, and the people leading them only knew where they were going up until a certain point. If they couldn’t find a way to get rid of the ghosts upstairs, they would be trapped in the resort building indefinitely.

“Ah, there it is.” Tom stated eagerly from the front of the group. The members in the back and in the middle looked around their friends to see another hallway opening up in front of them with a bookshelf off to the side.

“Looks like it. Good news guys, the stairway down shouldn’t be far from here. We should be able to find the others and get rid of the ghosts in no time.” Sunspot reported to the rest of the group with an excited smile.

“That’s great! You hear that guys? We’re going to get out of here in no time!” Pinkie Pie cheered eagerly while looking around at the others. While the pink mare’s attempt at lifting their spirits worked for most of the group, some of them weren’t looking on the bright side of getting closer to wherever they were going.

“I don’t know about this…” Spike said in an uneasy tone.

“I’m scared… I want to find Rarity and go home.” Sweetie Bell whined softly while looking down with a gloomy and nervous expression. The others looked at the young unicorn and the other children with sympathetic expressions. They were dealing with their own fear, but kids as young as they were shouldn’t have been in such horrible situations.

“Don’t worry guys, we’ll be fine. Tom and the others will keep us safe, and we won’t let anything happen to any of you.” Twilight said in a reassuring manner while glancing between the young dragon on her back and the white filly just beside her.

“Ok… I’ll keep going.” Sweetie Belle said hesitantly. Despite the purple mare’s words of assurance, she still felt nervous and gloomy. Still, she resolved that she had to keep going if she was going to see her sister again.

With the unease in the air lessened slightly, the group continued walking down the new hallway toward the mysterious stairwell that would take them further down. Although the stark blackness and eerie shadows around them made them jumpy and paranoid, they found no other troubles on their brief journey. Soon enough they made it into another open area.

Looking to their left, the group was immediately given a shock as they noticed a broken down animatronic rabbit next to them. They either jumped slightly in fright or widened their eyes until they realized that the robot wasn’t moving.

“W-what is that?” Fluttershy stammered nervously while staring at the horribly disfigured animatronic.

“It looks like Bonnie… if Bonnie got trampled six or seven times.” Rainbow Dash cringed while noting the rabbit’s caved in face.

“It’s ok. Tom already took care of that thing the last time we were down here.” Sunspot explained in a reassuring tone. The group was surprised to learn that the human had fought with an animatronic and apparently won.

Twilight raised her eyebrows in surprise. “That’s the animatronic you found down here?”

“Yeah… he did a real number on me before I got the upper hand on him. I’m just lucky these older models aren’t as strong as the others.” Tom said while thinking back to the fight he had with the decayed rabbit. He cringed slightly and held his neck while imagining the feeling of being strangled by the animatronic.

“Oh my gosh… I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I had no idea things would get this bad.” Berry Swirl said in a more downcast tone while looking at the human and his companions sadly.

“Don’t worry about it, Berry. It isn’t your fault any of this is happening. If we had known things would get this bad, we would have had everyone leave the resort until we could take care of it.” Tom shrugged uneasily while still lamenting his lack of progress of finding out what was going on.

“Well… there’s no use in dwelling on past misfortune.” Glimmer Shine said while directing his attention and his flashlight beam to the stairway up ahead. “We should get moving. The others are probably down there if we haven’t found them by now.” He added in a concerned tone. Everyone immediately fell silent as they thought about their friends being in some dark and terrifying place with possible dangers everywhere.

The group was filled with a new sense of determination as they stared at the daunting stairway. No matter what they found further down, they had to find their friends before they left. Their priorities were set, and regardless of whether or not they could find a way to beat the ghosts, they would still search every inch of the extension to the resort until they found the three mares.

With the doubt in the air withdrawing for a moment, the group started walking toward the stairs. Before their hesitation got the better of them, they took the first few cautious steps down into the unknown blackness.

Everyone glued their eyes to the opening to their left as they rounded the corner and descended the second flight of steps. Although it was still pitch black, they could see a large opening up ahead. A wave of chilled air hit them all at once, almost tangibly signifying the change in atmosphere. Now they were treading unknown ground.

As everyone stepped off the stairs and looked ahead to see the three flashlight beams illuminating the room ahead, they noticed that the ceiling opened up as well as they stood at the threshold of the room. The group was hesitant to keep walking, but they entered the room and kept looking around with stunned and uneasy expression.

“Wow…” Pinkie Pie muttered in amazement while spinning around to take in the full size of the room. “This place is huge! Haha... and echoie… Helloooo!” She raised her voice and listened as it reverberated off of the walls.

“Definitely no cave in down here… I guess we’re in the extension for sure now.” Tom said curiously while looking around.

“What is this? It looks like we’re in a hotel lobby. I didn’t think my grandfather got this far along with the construction process.” Berry Swirl stated while noting the front desk at the back of the room and the furnished surroundings.

“Hey… look over there.” Twilight said while squinting her eyes to see better in the darkness. The others turned to see the purple mare walking over to the front desk and stepping to the side where an opening was. They looked to where she was heading and noticed a framed picture of something on the wall behind the desk. Judging from its appearance, it seemed to be a map of sorts.

Everyone slowly made their way over to the desk and peered over it to get a better look at the map. It looked like it had dust all over it recently, but it seemed to have been wiped away. The sheer size of the map made everyone widen their eyes in shock.

“Holy cow… this place is huge.” Rainbow Dash said in an amazed tone. Her eyes quickly shifted over the illustration, until she came across something that made her even more surprised. “Wait… floor one? This isn’t the only floor?!” She stated with an expression of disbelief. Everyone looked over to the corner of the map, and sure enough, there was a little mark that read ‘1F’.

“Yeah… I remember coming down here once to help out Berry’s grandfather with an animatronic. I never made it past this floor, but I think there are two more besides this one.” Copper Coil explained while looking down in thought.

“Do you remember anything else that could help us, Copper?” Berry Swirl asked curiously, to which the stallion shook his head sadly.

“Like I said, I only came down here once. It was a long time ago. They weren’t even that far along with the construction at the time, so I can’t think of anything noteworthy. Sorry…” Copper shrugged with a gloomy expression.

“That’s ok… I’m sure we can find our way around anyway. Alright… what’s our plan?” Berry asked while turning to Tom and the others for their opinion. The human and his three fellow monster hunters looked at each other to see if anyone had a strategy in mind, but nobody seemed to be speaking up.

“Our number one priority at the moment is finding Silver Bell and the others. But, at the moment we should also try to find somewhere safe. If we’re going to figure out how to stop these ghosts, we should make sure you guys aren’t in danger first.” Glimmer Shine suggested while looking around at Twilight and the others.

“Well if that’s what we’re doing, maybe I can help,” Berry stated before turning and walking around the front desk to where Twilight was. She stood beside the unicorn and studied the map intently. “I might not know much about this place, but I helped redesign most of the resort upstairs. If I know anything about construction, there should be a service entrance around here somewhere to get equipment and workers underground. Once we find that, we should be able to leave and let you guys handle things.” She explained while concentrating deeply.

“That’s a good idea… nice thinking Berry.” Sunspot said in a congratulatory tone. The orange pegasus and the rest of the group watched as Berry Swirl scoured every inch of the map with steely conviction. After a brief search, she exclaimed in excitement and pointed to a spot on the lower left corner of the map.

“There it is. It looks like it isn’t that far away from here either.” The purple earth pony said while smiling brightly.

“Alright… now we just need somewhere safe to leave you guys while we go check out that entrance.” Tom said while nodding cheerfully. The human’s statement was more than a little confusing to some of the group.

“Why don’t we just come with you to the entrance? What sense is there in making separate trips?” Berry Swirl asked in a confused tone.

“Because we don’t know what we might run into on the way there. And besides… do you really think any of them would leave without finding Applejack and Rarity?” Tom asked while motioning toward the rest of the group.

Berry looked over to see the others with determined expressions on their faces. As her thoughts drifted to Silver Bell, she immediately felt a burning need to rescue her as well. She quickly understood why the human was so certain that nobody was going to leave just yet. “Right… I understand.” Berry said with a brief nod.

“So, where can we go in the meantime? I have a bad feeling that there might be more animatronics waiting down here for us.” Glitterball asked uneasily. The thought of more haunted robotic animals was terrifying to most everyone, especially now that they were actually thinking about it. The inky black darkness around them and the many doorways that led out of the room now carried a lot more fear and dread to them as the group suddenly felt much more vulnerable.

“I think I saw a security office on the map. It probably has doors we can lock, so it would be our best bet at safety.” Berry explained while motioning back towards the map.

“Alright, that sounds like a plan to me. Glitter, Sunspot, you two go with the others and take them to the security office to hunker down. Tom and I will go check out the service entrance in the meantime.” Glimmer Shine said while briefly looking at the human, who nodded in agreement. However, not everyone was as accepting of the stallion’s plan.

“Wait… you want me to go with the others? Wouldn’t it be better if more of us went to check out the entrance? I think Glitter can handle watching the others, but you two might run into trouble if the ghosts are guarding the only other way out of here. They seem to be smart enough to strategize.” Sunspot reasoned while looking at the yellow stallion with a concerned expression.

“We can handle ourselves Sunspot. I would feel better if you were keeping everyone safe with us away. Go ahead and toss Tom your flashlight so we can get going.” Glimmer Shine said in a resolute tone as if he expected the conversation to end.

Sunspot looked over to see the human waiting for her to throw her flashlight to him. She was certain that the boy would be fine with his powers, but even he had trouble with just one of the animatronics in a fight. If the pair got overwhelmed, Glimmer Shine might get seriously hurt, and he couldn’t just heal himself and walk it off like Tom did. Still, the yellow pony was her leader, and he did know his way around a fight.

“*Sigh*… fine.” Sunspot moaned in defeat while tossing her flashlight over to Tom. “You guys better be careful and take care of each other. We don’t know how dangerous it is down here.” She added in a concerned tone.

“We’ll be fine. You guys stay safe too.” Glimmer Shine said with a brief smile before turning to his human companion. “Come on, let’s get going. We’ll meet up with you guys in the security office after we’re done.” He explained while looking over to the map to make sure he knew where the entrance was. The human and the yellow stallion waved to the group as they started walking toward a doorway to the left of the front desk. Once they were out of sight, the pair looked at each other and nodded silently before starting off toward the service entrance.

After a few moments of walking, the wide open space of the lobby gave way to a series of hallways. While the walls were decently spaced apart, something about the atmosphere was starting to make Twilight and her group claustrophobic. Perhaps it was the thought of being so far underground, or maybe it was the unknown ahead of them, but they all felt hesitant about stepping forward.

Sunspot stayed at the front of the group and led the way along with Berry swirl while Glitterball stayed at the back. The two mares might not have had their gear with them, but they were still determined to make sure that their friends were safe. And even though the pair was essentially unarmed, the others felt safer with them around. Sunspot was originally in the Wonderbolts, and Glitter had royal guard training, so they were definitely able to take care of themselves.

“Ok… I think we’re getting close. If the map was right, the security room should be only a few intersections up ahead.” Berry said while looking around and trying to compare her memory of the map to the layout of the dusty corridors.

Everyone looked around with a pervasive sense of unease filling them as they slowly walked forward. There were forgotten mementos to the underground resort’s past littered all around them. A lot of the furniture or shelves in the rooms around them were either tipped over or moved from what would seem like their original position. It was hard to tell the cause of most of the mess around them, but some things looked like they had been bumped into by someone or something.

“What happened down here?” Spike asked nervously while keeping himself close to Twilight as he rode on her back.

“Must have been something bad if everyone just up and abandoned the place… looks like they left in a hurry too.” Rainbow Dash noted while observing some of the rooms that looked well used. It looked like the construction workers were using some rooms for various tasks, and it definitely looked like they left without much notice due to the objects left haphazardly strewn along tables.

“Maybe we can find out something about what happened while we’re down here? Got to be something written down… maybe a report or a memo, or something.” Sparkplug suggested with a hopeful expression. While a lot of the group didn’t feel as interested in the resort’s past as others, they knew that the key to their escape lied in finding out how to get rid of the ghosts.

A few more minutes of walking passed by with nothing of note happening, and Berry Swirl finally stopped. The earth pony looked over to a door on the right wall up ahead pensively. The door looked a bit sturdier than the other doors they had run across, even going as far as resisting a lot of the aging that this place had gone through. There was also a series of letters across the door that spelled out security. Berry smiled excitedly while rushing over to the door and turning to the others.

“This must be it!” Berry stated eagerly before trying the handle, which turned easily in her grip. The others hurriedly flocked over to the purple mare as she opened the door. Twilight and Glitterball hesitantly poked their heads through the doorway and noticed nothing dangerous inside. Once it was deemed safe, everyone started filing into the room.

The darkness of the space within gave way to a more comfortable, if a little eerie, lighting as the two unicorns’ glow filled the room. The security office was of a decent size, fitting the large group relatively comfortably. A large console with many buttons and screens took up the majority of the left wall. Two spinning chairs sat abandoned at their posts watching the monitors, with a little bit of rust on their metal components and a foul odor most likely trapped in their cushions. There was a desk at the far wall with a few drawers on its right side and a string of papers strewn along the top of it. Cabinets of various types were set on their own or next to the main console on the left, with one being dedicated to files. The rest of the walls were relatively barren, with only a small waste bin, an air vent, and a cork message board set against them to distract from the dull gray wallpaper.

Berry Swirl closed the door behind her as the last person entered the room. She briefly inspected the door before she noticed a lock on the handle as well as a hefty looking deadbolt. With a small smirk, she twisted the latches on the locks and made sure the door was secure.

“Alright… we should be safe in here. If there are any animatronics down here, I doubt they could bust down this door.” Berry explained in a slightly relieved tone.

“That’s good… we can finally settle down.” Scootaloo shrugged in relief while deflating to the floor in a relaxed mess. Everyone else let their bundled up nerves calm down a bit as they mentally confirmed that they were safe.

And now that they were, in fact, safe, the only thing they had left was waiting. The reprieve from the oppressive atmosphere of uncertainty and fear outside was a welcomed change. However, as the group started looking around their new safe haven, they discovered something interesting.

Sparkplug looked down to the desk she was pensively leaning on and noticed that one of the drawers was ajar slightly. Curiosity peaked, she grabbed the drawer and slid it the rest of the way open. There was a mess of cobwebs and dust inside the drawer, but there was also a small object. The gray mare picked up the strange object and dusted it off. As she examined it in the light, she quickly deduced what it was.

“A tape recorder?” Sparkplug muttered curiously, drawing the attention of the others. Everyone noticed the earth pony examining the aged recorder and were immediately hit with the same intrigue that she felt.

“Woah… nice find Sparkplug.” High Tide said in an impressed tone.

“Does it work?” Sweetie Belle asked while perking up slightly at the prospect of something new happening.

“I don’t know… I doubt it.” Sparkplug said while flipping the tape recorder over in her hooves and further examining it. Even though she had reason to believe that the device most likely stopped working long ago, she let her curiosity run wild and reached for the battery compartment.

The small cover on the back of the device popped off with relative ease. There were no batteries inside luckily enough. If there had been, they would have assuredly corroded over the years and ruined the connectors. The metal prongs used for conductivity were still in decent shape, most likely due to the cover being just airtight enough to prevent rust. All in all, it looked like the recorder was in working order, but there could have been any number of problems with the inner workings.

“Hmm… spindles look good… no rust or corrosion in the battery compartment.” Sparkplug stated pensively while flipping the small device around and eyeballing it closely. “Looks like it… could work. I guess…” She added while hesitating slightly as she tried to make a solid call on the state of the recorder.

“I guess? Is that your official verdict?” Berry Swirl raised an eyebrow curiously as she watched the gray mare scrutinizing the small device feverishly.

“Well, it’s hard to say. These things don’t have too many complicated parts to them… it could have broken since this place has been abandoned, or it might still work. Either way, we won’t know without batteries and a tape to play.” Sparkplug shrugged her shoulders while setting the recorder down on the desk.

“Hold on a second… it looks like some of our spare batteries would fit that.” Copper Coil suggested while taking another look at the still exposed battery compartment of the small device.

“Really?” Sparkplug asked in a surprised tone. She picked up the tape recorder again and looked at it before reaching into a pocket on her overalls and pulling out one of the spare batteries for comparison.

“Would our batteries even work on that old piece of junk?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously. Surely such an old piece of technology wouldn’t even be compatible with newer batteries.

“They might if they fit. It doesn’t matter how old something is. As long as the batteries can supply electricity to the device and it is enough to power it, it should work.” Sparkplug explained while fiddling with the batteries and trying to put them into the recorder.

Everyone watched with passive curiosity as the gray mare fitted the batteries into the tape recorder. The batteries made a satisfying click as they nestled into their respective places. They seemed to fit enough to be passable. At any rate, they were in the compartment and pressed up against the conductors.

The group waited patiently as Sparkplug replaced the battery cover and turned the device over again. They half expected the recorder to start working or at least do something, but their rational expectations lessened the disappointment when the room was bathed in a brief awkward silence.

“Right… now we just need a tape to play.” Sparkplug sighed as she realized just how much time she had wasted if they didn’t find a tape, or worse still if the recorder was in fact broken as she had originally assumed.

With a room full of expectant eyes watching her and her own curiosity at its peak, Sparkplug turned back to look at the desk and the many drawers. She started opening the drawers and searching through them haphazardly.

One drawer held miscellaneous junk such as paper scraps and pencil erasers, and another held a small notepad that had a few doodles on the cover most likely made by a worker that was bored out of their mind, much like the gray mare that was now searching through drawers to find a hypothetical cassette tape. Finally, the second to last drawer slid open and a series of objects tipped over.

“Aha… paydirt.” Sparkplug let a goofy smile of triumph creep across her face as she laid eyes on three cassette tapes. Without delay, she picked up one of the tapes and briefly examined it. There was a label on it with a date fifty years old written on the faded paper in equally faded ink. Picking up the other two tapes and comparing the dates, the gray mare took the earliest tape out of the bunch and stuck it into the tape recorder before hitting the rewind button to be safe.

Much to everyone’s surprise, the familiar sound of a tape skipping as it was wound back filled the air as the tape recorder came to life. Apparently the mismatched batteries were supplying enough power to make the device run, and apparently, the recorder was in good enough condition to still work.

Soon enough the high-pitched gibberish ceased as the tape finished rewinding. Everyone’s attention was glued to the small device as Sparkplug hovered over the play button. After a brief hesitation, she pushed the button and started the tape.

“*Krzzt*Hello…? Hello, hello? Is this thing on?” The monotone sound of a stallion’s voice faded in with a slight distortion. Sparkplug shook the recorder for a moment, seemingly clearing up the audio as the tape continued. “Ok… this is Straight Ruler, and I’m the foreman on this site. We’re getting some new recruits soon, and Mr. Cotton Swirl has been busy with the resort upstairs and his son Tropical Swirl, so he wants us to make some recordings to help out with bringing them up to speed on the project when they get here. It’s also a good way to keep records on our progress, so I’ll probably be making a few of these.” The voice explained in a casual and slightly dull tone.

“Tropical Swirl? Isn’t that…” Pinkie Pie spoke up in a hesitant tone while looking over to Berry with a concerned expression.

“My father.” Berry replied with a slightly somber tone in her voice. Despite the sad memories brought up by hearing her father’s name, the tape continued.

“Umm… moving on… We just started renovating the first floor. If everything goes according to plan and we keep schedule, we should finish up there and head on to the second floor within the year. I have to say, it is a real pain working this far underground under a preexisting building, but Mr. Swirl has helped out a lot with planning things out. I guess all those things they say about him inheriting his dad’s mastery of every aspect of the trade are true. I’m hopeful that uh… that we can move forward smoothly without anything messing up. I’ve never really taken on a job of this size before… oh well. I guess there’s nothing else to really talk about… I’ve uh… pretty much covered everything. Again, this is Straight Ruler… signing off.” The tape screeched briefly as the recording ended, leaving the room filled with silence.

“Sounds like these are from the foreman of the construction project.” Berry Swirl said in an intrigued tone.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Pop the next tape in Sparkplug.” Copper Coil suggested impatiently while waiting for the gray mare to move.

Sparkplug snapped out of her own thoughts and ejected the tape from the recorder. She grabbed the next tape in sequence and loaded it into the deck before hitting rewind. After a brief wait and the tape finished, she pressed the play button and the same voice from before cut in.

“*Krzzt* Ok, it’s about time for another report. We’ve made some real progress on the interior and moving all of the old furniture out. The boss did most of the structural work when he first built this place with a different crew, but he didn’t get very far when it came to furnishing. I wouldn’t be surprised if we can clear out the second floor in a few days. The third floor is another story entirely… there’s uh… a lot of work that needs to be done down there. The foundation is all there, but a lot of the flooring isn’t finished and some of the walls aren’t up in a few of the sections. In some places, you can just walk from a finished looking hallway into nothing but concrete and beams. I don’t even want to think about how we’re going to get lighting down there… at least up here there’s some wiring for us to work with using portable generators. Umm… oh yeah, we found something else down on the third floor. It’s kind of weird now that I think about it. There’s actually an opening into some kind of cavern off of one of the unfinished rooms. It looks like Mr. Swirl and his old construction crew stumbled on it while hollowing out the nearby rock. They explored it a little bit, but they didn’t get very far. It must be from the earthquake that sank the old amusement park underground. It looked pretty big from what I saw of it, although I didn’t go that deep in before getting the creeps and chickening out. Uh… it shouldn’t be anything to worry about, though. We already finished recharging the seismic dampeners that Mr. Swirl had built in, so this place is as solid as a rock. Anyway… I need to go help the boys out with prepping the walls for painting, so I guess I’ll stop the tape here.” Straight Ruler cut out again as the tape ended. The overflow of information was confusing to the listening group as they tried to gain anything meaningful by deciphering the contents of these forgotten mementos.

“Hold on a second… what’s a seismic dampener?” Sunspot asked in a puzzled tone while trying to figure out just what the stallion on the tape was talking about.

“They’re used in construction to stabilize floors and prevent damage from earthquakes.” Sparkplug explained as she recalled what information she knew about the strange devices.

“I think I’ve heard of those…” Twilight said with an intrigued expression. “They are basically big poles that project unicorn magic out through floors to hold them together. They actually used them to help build the city of Canterlot if I remember correctly.”

“Wow… I’ve never run across those before.” Glitterball raised an eyebrow in surprise at the apparent importance of an object she had never seen or heard of before.

“They are pretty uncommon. Only a few people even use them since they are fairly difficult to make.” Twilight explained. The brief and lackluster description did little to quell the sense of curiosity the group had about the device.

“I guess we should play the last tape…” Sparkplug suggested while ejecting the tape in the recorder and grabbing the last one. “Huh… this one is dated a while after the last one; about a few months later from the look of it.” She stated curiously while trying to think of an explanation for the time discrepancy. After shrugging and chalking it up to the other tapes having been misplaced, the gray mare placed the third tape in the recorder and rewound it. The high pitched garble of the tape couldn’t end fast enough. Everyone wanted to know what came next. They needed more information on what happened to make the underground resort abandoned.

“*Krzzt* Straight Ruler here, and it’s that time again. I’ve started making these every week or so now. Anyway, we just got done with all of the workshops on the second floor. Mr. Swirl has even started bringing some of those weird robot things down here and working on them. He’s made like two new ones since the last time I checked… says they will be able to walk around and talk one day. I don’t know about that… but hey, if it’s possible he can probably do it. It’ll certainly be easier for him and the rest of us to work down here now that we solved the lighting problem. We still haven’t hooked this place up to the grid, but we have a permanent solution in place until we do. We finished installing the emergency generators that the place will use if the power ever goes down, so we’re using them. They work on some kind of fancy state of the art system… I think it’s called magic conduction or something like that. Anyway, all we need is one of our boys to juice up the generator with their horn, and we should be good to go for days. Sure as hay beats the portable crank generators we’ve been using. Maybe we’ll finally get some work done on finishing the third floor. We still need to install carpet and tile in the staff areas and the mascot workshops, but most of the crew is scared to go down there. They keep claiming to hear voices or see things out of the corner of their eyes. I say they need to take a break and go topside instead of falling asleep on sight after pulling an all-nighter. I appreciate the dedication, but some ponies need to see the sun every once in a while or they’ll go stir-crazy. Anywho… if we don’t stop making excuses for why we’re neglecting the third floor, the boss will probably send one of his robot pets to snap at us… heh… But hey, at least we’re making astounding progress on the first and second floor.” The tape ended abruptly, leaving the ponies wanting, but intrigued nonetheless. They picked up on many interesting tidbits amid Straight Ruler’s lengthy and somewhat awkward report. They even found a few things that unsettled them as they thought about them more in relation to where they actually were.

“Sounds like they were having some paranormal occurrences even back then.” Glitterball said in a curious, if a little uneasy, tone.

“Only down on the third floor too… did the ghosts come from down there maybe?” Twilight suggested with a puzzled expression. The others could only shrug their shoulders since they didn’t know any more than she did. Still, her hypothesis was a good start at figuring out what was going on.

“I wonder if this is why my father didn’t want me coming down here.” Berry thought out loud. “Maybe he found this place and ran into some of the ghosts?”

Sparkplug scratched her chin while deep in thought. “That would explain why he up and closed the resort so quickly.”

“Hold on… did he say something about a magical conducting generator?” Copper Coil asked while looking down in thought. He seemed to have an idea coming on from the way he sounded.

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve never heard of one of those before though.” Twilight replied in a confused tone. While most of the others were clueless as to why the stallion was so interested in the generator, some of them were starting to catch on.

“Wait, are you thinking what I’m thinking, Copper?” Sparkplug asked while perking up slightly.

“I think so. If this place has a magical conducting generator, then maybe we can power it up and turn the lights on.” Copper Coil suggested eagerly while smiling at the thought of having a more reliable source of lighting.

“That would be nice…” Sunspot said in a pleased tone. “Maybe these cameras could help us out with finding the others if they still work.” She motioned toward the bank of monitors with an intrigued expression. Everyone was excited at the prospect of having lights on instead of being stuck in a pitch black maze of hallways and rooms.

“Maybe so, but I’m not sure if heading out there to find the generator would be a good idea.” Glitterball suggested with a concerned expression. Now that they were thinking about actually going to find the generator, the others were a bit more hesitant to go along with the idea.

“It should be fine. I don’t think it would take me that long to power up the generator if I had one of you two with me.” Sparkplug said while looking to Twilight and Glitterball. “And look at this, the generator room isn’t even that far.” She added while pointing out a small map on the message board. Sure enough, there was a small room marked as ‘generator’ not too far away from where they currently were.

Everyone thought about the matter for a moment to decide whether or not it was worth the risk to go for the generator. On the one hand, having electricity down in the abandoned resort might be useful to them later on, and it would make searching for Silver Bell and the others much easier. But, on the other hand, they still didn’t fully understand what they were dealing with. For all they knew, there might have been a dozen possessed animatronics waiting for the ponies to stumble across them.

Sunspot looked to Glitterball to see what she was thinking. The white unicorn seemed hesitant to venture out into the unknown. The security room was safe, and tempting fate didn’t usually end up in their favor. Still, the pegasus knew that they needed every advantage they could get down here. “Well… it’s settled then. I’m going to go find that generator with Sparkplug… assuming you want to go.” Sunspot said while looking at the gray mare with a hopeful expression.

“Yeah… of course.” Sparkplug nodded eagerly while stepping forward.

“Sunspot, I really don’t think you should be doing this. We should wait for Glimmer Shine and Tom to get back.” Glitterball stated uneasily, hoping that the pegasus would understand the danger in the situation.

“Really? Because I was kind of hoping you would come with us.” Sunspot replied with a slight smirk, much to the white mare’s dismay.

“What?! You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding…” Glitterball said while backing up hesitantly.

“Oh come on, Glitter, we’ll be fine. It’s just a few hallways away. Besides, we need a unicorn to charge up the generator from what I can tell.” Sunspot said while looking over to Sparkplug for confirmation. The gray mare nodded silently in response, eliciting the pegasus to look back over to her teammate with a pleading expression.

“No, Sunspot. I’m not going… and I really think you shouldn’t go either. If you want to turn on the generator, have Tom and Glimmer Shine go with you. We need to stay as safe as we can down here.” Glitterball said in a more adamant tone.

“We’re not getting any closer to finding the others or figuring out how to stop these ghosts by wasting time in here. Think about it for a minute… it would be better if we have multiple groups doing different things. You and Glimmer always tell me to strategize anyway.” Sunspot reasoned with a determined expression. She looked over to the white unicorn pleadingly in the hopes that she would come with her, but Glitterball wasn’t having any of it.

Finally, Sunspot sighed and looked to the floor with a deflated expression. She almost gave up the idea of going to turn on the generator, until she looked up and shifted her attention to the other unicorn in the room. “How about you, Twilight… do you want to come turn on that generator with us?” She asked in a defeated manner, half expecting the purple mare to decline her request as well.

Twilight started to dismiss the orange mare’s request until she paused and thought for a moment. It was true that waiting for Tom and Glimmer Shine would be the safer option, but there were other variables to consider. Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell had arrived in the abandoned extension sooner than they had. The three ponies could have been in serious danger wherever they were. Thinking about her friends in trouble made the unicorn realize that there was really only one thing she could do, and that was to make sure that they were found as soon as possible.

“Ok… I’ll go with you. We need to see if those cameras work so we can find the others.” Twilight said in a determined tone. The others looked at the purple mare with a mixture of surprise, respect, and concern.

Sunspot smiled eagerly as her plan started working out. She looked over to Sparkplug, who was already set to go, before turning and walking toward the door. However, she was greeted with the sight of Glitterball hovering near the door with an uneasy expression. She expected the unicorn to try to stop her from leaving, but Glitter didn’t seem to be in her way.

“You three stay together… and you better head right back here when you’re done. I don’t want to be the one to tell Glimmer Shine that you got lost or hurt.” Glitterball said in a sterner tone while still showing a healthy amount of concern. The orange pegasus smiled a little as she listened to her companion displaying so much care for her.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Glitter. We’ll be in and out before you know it.” Sunspot stated confidently before turning to her small troop. “Are you guys ready?” She asked curiously.

Sparkplug nodded confidently “Ready when you are.”

Twilight looked around to see her friends looking at her and the two mares she would be going with. They all had varying degrees of concern and uncertainty written on their faces, especially Spike and the other children. The purple mare flashed them a brief smile before turning to face Sunspot.

“I’m ready.” Twilight said while stepping forward eagerly.

The orange pegasus smirked before walking over to the door and unlocking it. “Alright, let’s head out. You two stay right next to me and keep on your guard. Just because we need this generator doesn’t mean we don’t need to be careful.” Sunspot instructed while motioning for the others to join her. Sparkplug eagerly stepped forward and Twilight lit up her horn before joining the gray mare.

Glitterball and the others watched anxiously as the trio opened the door and stepped out into the dark hallways. They looked around for any signs of danger before nodding back to the group inside and waving as they walked down the hall. The white unicorn took one last nervous look to the three mares before sighing and closing the door again and locking it. She hoped that Sunspot knew what she was doing, for her sake and the sake of the two ponies following her.

Chapter 14: The Place of Dead Memories

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Meanwhile, Tom and Glimmer Shine were still making their way to the service entrance. The pair walked slowly and searched their surroundings at every given chance, both to examine the area and find out if they were being watched by something unsavory. Of course, they had the faint hope that they would run across Silver Bell and the others cowering in some dark room, but somehow they knew that it wouldn’t be that easy to find them.

Still, the service entrance proved to be an enticing goal. Ever since they had arrived at the resort, they had constantly lost control of the situation every time they tried to plan things out. If they could find a way out onto the surface, then they could get the others to safety while they took things slower and figured out what was going on.

“So… any ideas on what we’re going to do after we find the service entrance and get everyone out of here?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously while turning to his human companion.

“Well… I’ve been thinking about a few possible solutions, but I can’t think of anything that really works right now. Going off of what we know right now, if these ghosts keep hiding in animatronics it will be a pain in the ass to get rid of them.” Tom shrugged in frustration while remembering the dull throbs from his earlier encounters with the robotic animals.

“I still can’t figure out why the ghosts are acting like this… not to mention those weird readings. Maybe there’s something we’re missing?” Glimmer Shine suggested uneasily while straining to come up with a logical explanation. Ghosts were normally hard to predict, but something about how these spirits were acting seemed off to him, even with his relative lack of experience.

“Whatever. We can worry about this after we find Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell. I don’t like the idea of any of them being down here with us.” Tom said with a concerned expression while thinking about Twilight and the others being in such a dangerous location.

“I hear you there…” Glimmer Shine nodded understandingly before turning his attention to where they were going. He paused in front of an intersection and tried to think back to the map from the lobby. After a brief moment of contemplation, the yellow stallion realized that they were on the right track before walking down the left fork.

Up ahead was a series of open doorways in yet another empty hallway. Taking a brief look into the rooms yielded the discovery that they were dining rooms of some sort, most likely party rooms for children judging by the colorful décor.

Out of instinct, Tom exhaled a puff of mist and used his senses to check the surrounding area. He wasn’t really expecting much. With the whacked out readings he was getting upstairs, he thought that he would only get a vague feeling of his direct surroundings. However, what he actually felt was so stunning that it made him stop mid stride. “What the… hell?” He muttered in a completely shocked and dumbfounded tone.

Glimmer Shine stopped walking and turned to see the human exhaling more puffs of blue mist with a frantic expression on his face. “Something wrong?” The yellow stallion asked with slight concern. The boy seemingly ignored him and kept using his senses while looking around in confusion.

“No, no, no… this can’t be right. How is that even possible?!” Tom said in a more alarmed tone, officially garnering his yellow companion’s full attention.

“Tom, calm down and talk to me. What did you feel?” Glimmer Shine grew slightly more on edge as he listened to the genuine shock in his friend’s voice.

“I can’t feel the floor above us… it’s like this floor is completely isolated.” Tom explained uneasily while using his senses again to confirm his observation.

“What? What do you mean isolated?” Glimmer Shine asked in a concerned tone.

“I don’t know when or how it happened, but at some point coming down the stairs we crossed into a whole other pocket of energy signatures. I knew it was strange that I couldn’t feel any energy down here when I was with Sparkplug a few days ago. And that’s not even the worst of it… there’s a lot more energy down here than upstairs.” Tom said with a troubled expression.

By now, a solid lump had formed in Glimmer Shine’s stomach. He knew that they were out of their element before, but now they were on a whole new level of not understanding how deep in they were. “*Sigh*… can you feel any of the ghosts more clearly since we’re down here?” Glimmer asked while trying to keep at least some optimism in his body.

“I’m not sure… I can feel some faint readings that resemble ghosts, but it’s still hard to tell. The readings down here are still just as messed up as they are upstairs. Ugh… if only my senses were better.” Tom groaned in frustration while resting a hand on his face and looking to the floor. He seemed to be blaming himself for everything being so hard to figure out.

“Don’t sweat it, Tom. Let’s just keep moving and keep our wits about us. The plan hasn’t changed for the moment. We need to get to that entrance.” Glimmer Shine suggested in a determined tone. The human sighed while getting his own frustration under control and nodded. With a passing look of concern to their now even more unsafe and unfamiliar surroundings, they walked down the hallway past all the party rooms.

Continuing forward a ways, the pair noticed the floor slanting upwards slightly. The service entrance was just down the hall, and it was getting more and more apparent.

Tom shined his flashlight around to look at the sides of the hall. Up toward the ceiling were a series of air vents placed at intervals on either side. Most of the covers were intact, but some were broken off and lying on the floor or missing entirely. “Oh boy…” The human shrugged hesitantly while looking at the vent covers with a troubled expression.

“What’s up?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously while noting the apprehension in his companion’s voice.

“Those vent covers look like they’re a little too far away from the vents to have just fallen off, don’t they?” Tom replied while pointing out the numerous broken covers on the floor.

The yellow stallion looked around himself and noticed what the boy was talking about. Some of the covers were lying in the middle of the floor, with some being so far away from the vent they belonged to that they were actually off to the side. “Huh… that’s weird.” Glimmer Shine raised an eyebrow in surprise while pausing to further examine the vents and their broken covers.

“It’s not just weird, it’s bad.” Tom added in a troubled tone, much to the confusion of his yellow companion.

Glimmer Shine tilted his head in confusion, struggling to see the human’s reasoning. “Bad…? What’s so bad about it?”

“Glimmer, when you’re in the business of hunting monsters, you start to notice little things that most people wouldn’t catch,” Tom said while turning to look at the stallion. He quickly realized that his friend wasn’t following where his statement was going. “Ok… so, pop quiz. What could have happened to make those vents’ covers fall off if they didn’t fall off naturally?” The human asked suggestively, hoping that a hint could lead the stallion to figure it out on his own.

“Umm… something pulled them off?” Glimmer Shine asked in an uncertain tone before paling slightly as he realized what the boy meant. “Which means…”

“Which means that something was able to climb up there and pull them off so it could crawl through the vents.” Tom finished the stallion’s statement while eyeing the vent openings uneasily. Glimmer Shine looked around at the many vents without covers and noted how many of them were broken. Now that he studied them more, he noticed that most of the broken vent covers were on opposing sides to each other. Whatever was using the vents to travel around must have done it often.

“Let’s… let’s uh, go find that entrance.” Glimmer Shine said with a nervous chuckle while starting to walk away. He let his stare linger on the open vents as he walked before straining to look back down to the hallway. Trying to walk around without thinking about something crawling above them and waiting to take a bite out of their heads would be very difficult now.

A few moments of paranoid walking later and the two noticed something coming up at the end of the hall. After their flashlights reached it and lit it up, they smirked slightly as they saw a pair of double doors with a sign next to them. The sign was much too faded to read, but the double doors themselves signified that they were close to the entrance.

As they hurried their pace to reach the doors, they started to notice a terrible odor coming from within. The smell grew in intensity the closer they got until it was burning their nostrils and forcing them to step back for a moment.

“Sweet Celestia, what is that?” Glimmer Shine asked while covering his nose and mouth in disgust. The pungent odor resembled rotten eggs mixed in with copper and ash. He had never smelled anything like it in his life, and he hoped that he would never smell anything like it again.

“Whatever it is, it can’t be good.” Tom replied in a strained voice. Despite the powerful odor coming from the double doors, the pair forced themselves to march on.

Tom hesitantly reached for the handle of one of the doors and pulled it. The door slid open with relative ease, letting a whole fog bank of the terrible odor fly out to greet them. Taking a moment to avoid gagging, the two hesitantly shined their flashlights inside to see what was waiting for them.

The room was large, with an open area to the left that had a ramp leading up into the unknown. There were shelves and boxes lined with tools and construction hard hats along the sides of the walls. However, the most glaring feature of the room was something much different than either of the two could have expected.

What appeared to be some kind of black gunk was strewn along the walls, floor, and even the ceiling and some of the shelves. Judging from the smell, whatever odor was filling the air was most likely coming from the strange substance.

“Good lord…” Tom muttered in amazement and disgust. It seemed like the more he shined his flashlight around the space, the more of the black substance he found.

“What is that stuff?” Glimmer Shine asked while struggling to keep his lunch settled where it belonged. The smell was almost overpowering, which wasn’t surprising considering how much of the foreign substance there was.

Much to the stallion’s confusion and dismay, Tom hesitantly walked into the room and knelt down. There was a particularly large area of the concrete floor in front of the door that was covered in the black filth. The human reached out and used the tip of two fingers to pick up a bit of the substance. The black ooze felt gooey and more than a little sticky to the touch.

Tom seemed to be deep in thought while his stallion companion was looking at him with a mortified expression. Finally, the boy wiped the disgusting slime off on the floor before standing up and turning to the yellow pony.

“Glimmer, I think this stuff is ectoplasm.” Tom said in a troubled tone.

“Ectoplasm? I think we read about that in the books you picked out for us. Isn’t it left behind when ghosts interact with the physical world?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously, to which the human shook his head.

“Most books on the paranormal will tell you that, but it’s just a misconception. Real ectoplasm can’t be made by just any ghost. This stuff is only created by entities with some serious negative energy behind them. I’ve never actually seen this much of it in one place before.” Tom explained while looking around uneasily.

“Why is it that we always get the situations that you or any other slayers have never seen before?” Glimmer shrugged in a troubled tone while hesitantly stepping into the room and looking around. As he scanned his head around and further examined the room, he looked down to step around the pile of black gunk on the floor. When he did, he paused as he noticed something peculiar. “Hey, check this out.” The stallion said while pointing to the floor. Tom looked down and raised his eyebrows in surprise as he noticed what his companion was referring to. On the left edge of the pile of ectoplasm, there was a small round section of it that was cleared away. Now that he was looking at it, the human realized that the shape looked a lot like a hoof.

“Looks like someone stepped in it while walking in here.” Tom said in a mildly disgusted tone while picturing himself stepping in the black goo barefoot.

“Maybe it was Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell?” Glimmer Shine suggested with a hopeful expression.

“That would make sense… If they saw the map in the lobby, the service entrance would probably be the first place they would go.” Tom nodded while smiling slightly at the thought that the three mares were trying to escape.

“The question is… if they aren’t here, where did they go?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously. As the stallion and the human looked at each other to try and confer a solid opinion on the matter, they suddenly shifted their eyes to the ramp on the left side of the room.

Taking a few steps forward and diligently avoiding the black substance on the ground like the plague, the two approached the ramp and peered around the corner. As they initially expected, the ramp sloped upward and traveled a short distance until it ended at another pair of double doors. A large set of red letters were above the door that read “exit”. However, the uplifting sign wasn’t the only thing present.

Tom and Glimmer Shine walked up the ramp slowly while looking forward with silent expressions of unease. There was more of the ectoplasm leading up to the door along the walls and ceiling, but there were also scratches in the floor and on the walls. The scratches were of varying sizes, depth, and length, with some having been made with different numbers of lines ranging from one large scratch to four or five smaller scratches grouped together. It looked as if multiple creatures had made the scratches, and they were all leading up to the door.

Tom instinctively reached forward and tried to pull the doors open. Unfortunately for him, no matter how hard he pulled, neither of the doors would open. The teasingly simple obstacle in their path to freedom was like a slap in the face. They had gotten so close, only to have a locked door stop them.

“Damnit… we’re stuck down here then.” Tom let out a frustrated shrug.

“Wait… Tom, look.” Glimmer Shine said while pointing his flashlight directly at the doors and looking closely. The human stopped what he was doing and looked where the stallion was, only to notice something that stunned him into silence.

As they paused in front of the doors and looked closer, the pair noticed more scratches that were much fainter than the others. However, these scratches didn’t just consist of claw marks or scuffs along the wall. These scratches actually formed words.

Above the exit sign, something or someone had aptly scratched out the word “no” in large letters. And across the doors themselves, there was a single word written so large that it took up most of the space on the doors.

“Abandoned…?” Glimmer Shine read off the word in a confused and hushed tone. “I thought all of the construction workers made it out of here alive?” He asked while trying to think back to the information he studied on the construction project and the alleged collapse.

“They did…” Tom replied in an uncertain tone while trying to figure out what the scratches meant.

“Well if they didn’t make these, then who did?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously while thinking about the matter further. Around the same time, both of them made a startling conclusion. The scratches were made in a solid wall, and some of them were fairly deep. They also looked like claw marks, so the simplest deduction was to assume that they were, and the only thing that the pair could think of that could make claw marks like that would be metallic fingers.

“This place just keeps on getting weirder.” Tom shook his head uneasily while trying to make sense of why any of this was happening.

“*Sigh*… come on, let’s get out of here. We need to head back to the others and think of a new plan.” Glimmer Shine suggested while motioning for the human to follow him. Tom nodded in agreement before walking back down the ramp with the stallion ahead of him.

The human paused and took one last look back at the exit doors. If there was no other way out for them aside from going back upstairs from where they came, then how were they going to handle things? If they didn’t get the others to safety, then they would have a much harder time controlling the situation. Finally, Tom shrugged in frustration before hurrying to catch up with Glimmer Shine. The sooner they could leave the oppressive atmosphere of the odor ridden room, the better off they would be.

Meanwhile, over by the security room, Sunspot and her two companions were making their way toward the generator room. The distance wasn’t that far on the map, but they still proceeded hesitantly and with caution.

Twilight and Sparkplug stayed close to Sunspot as she took the lead. The purple unicorn used her horn to provide light for the group while they walked. While they kept a wary eye on every passing shadow or unlit opening into a room, they made sure to keep moving every chance they got.

Finally, Sunspot turned abruptly down the left side of a three-way intersection and stared down the new hallway expectantly. She paused for a moment in thought before nodding to herself as she recalled the map she glanced at in greater detail.

“Ok, I think the generator room is down here.” Sunspot reported in a pleased tone while looking back to her small troop.

“I hope you memorized where to go. I would really hate for us to get lost in this place.” Twilight while eyeing the pegasus with a concerned expression to see if she was really confident in her ability to lead the way.

“Don’t worry, I looked at the map. I’m almost… ninety percent sure that it’s this way.” Sunspot said while pausing briefly to recall her memory of the map. She motioned toward the hallway and tried to reassure her purple companion via a confident expression.

“So, you just put faith in one person to know where we’re going?” Sparkplug asked in a surprised tone while looking to the unicorn.

“Well, you did too. So if we want to blame someone for getting lost, we can really only blame ourselves… and Sunspot.” Twilight said while briefly glancing to the orange pony suggestively.

“I’m right here you know… and I can get us lost on purpose.” Sunspot replied in an agitated tone while returning the unicorn’s suggestive stare.

“Relax… I got a look at the map before we left. She was right before, it’s just down there.” Sparkplug said while pointing down the hall toward the right side. The purple mare and the orange pegasus glanced to the gray pony for a moment before looking to each other and raising an eyebrow cynically.

“Well, lead the way pathfinder.” Twilight motioned for the pegasus to go ahead. Sunspot sighed before walking forward and looking to the right to find the right room.

Numerous doors were in sight, and only one of them was the one they needed. Even ignoring the left half of rooms and going on Sunspot’s ninety percent accurate memory, the trio had a fair bit of searching to do unless they could find the generator room without checking every door.

“No… no… nope… no…” Sunspot muttered to herself while reading some of the faded signs next to some of the doors. It seemed that the majority of this hallway was dedicated to staff rooms like lounges or supply closets.

Suddenly, the pegasus paused in front of one door about halfway down the hall. She leaned in close and strained to make out the damaged letters on the plaque. Judging from what she could make out, she deduced this room to be labeled as “generator”.

“Ah… here we go.” Sunspot let a pleased smile come over her as she reached forward and grabbed the handle. The door popped open with relative ease, revealing the beginnings of a room and a lot of darkness as the purple unicorn and the gray earth pony stayed back behind the pegasus. As their orange leader stepped into the room, paying no heed to the pitch blackness she was walking into, the two mares followed in after her.

The light from Twilight’s horn chased the shadows back, revealing the room to be of medium size. The walls behind them were barren, save for a few hooks on them to hang items and tools from. The most prominent objects in the room were on opposite sides at the back. To the left side, there was a bulky machine that took up the majority of the left wall. Judging from first appearances, this was most likely the generator they were looking for. Off to the right was some sort of square pillar that went clear from floor to ceiling. The pillar had all manner of mystical symbols and glyphs printed onto it, nearly covering its surface in light purple.

“Woah… this is pretty cool.” Sparkplug stated in an enchanted tone with her eyes lighting up as she looked over the large device on the left and the strange pillar on the right.

“I assume that’s the generator we’re looking for?” Twilight asked curiously while motioning toward the machine on the left.

Sparkplug trotted over to the machine and looked it over briefly before turning to her companions with an answer. “Yeah, this is it.” The gray mare reported with a confident nod.

“Ok… but what’s that thing over there?” Sunspot asked with a puzzled expression while pointing off to the right. The other two turned their heads and immediately realized that the pegasus was referring to the large pillar.

“That’s probably the seismic dampener.” Sparkplug replied while still examining a panel on the generator. The other two mares looked back over to the strange pillar with their curiosity refreshed.

Twilight walked up to the pillar and traced her hoof down its surface. Aside from a small accumulation of dust, the entire column was as smooth as the stone it seemed to be made from. The various symbols written along the surface were familiar to her. She had seen them many times in her studies on magic, so she could most likely decipher their meaning if she inspected the whole pillar for a time. “So this thing is a seismic dampener?” The purple mare asked in an intrigued tone to nobody in particular while still admiring the pillar.

“I think so.” Sparkplug spoke up from off to the side. “I’ve never actually seen one, but judging from appearances that looks like how I imagine one would. That whole thing goes through the floor down to the bottom of however deep this place is. If it were charged up, it would be sending magic right under our feet throughout each of the floors, ceilings, and supports.” She explained with a brief smirk while watching the unicorn look over the pillar-like she would look over an animatronic upstairs, or at least she would if they weren’t trying to kill her right now.

“That’s some grade-A pony engineering for you.” Sunspot smirked briefly before turning her attention to the generator that Sparkplug was looking over. “Alright, enough sightseeing… we need to get this generator up and running.” She said in a more serious tone while walking over to the gray mare to see what the generator looked like.

Sparkplug was standing in front of a panel that held all manner of dials and gauges. Among the mess of mechanical bits and bobs, the orange mare could identify what looked to be an on and off button near what could be loosely identified as a small round hole in the console. She could identify the buttons to be on and off buttons because of their bright green and red paint, and she could identify the hole in the console to be very deep because she couldn’t even see the end of it.

“So uh… do we just hit a button and we’re good to go?” Sunspot asked with an awkward smile while hoping that Sparkplug could take things from here. As brave of a leader she thought herself to be, she wasn’t exactly what one could describe as technically inclined.

Sparkplug narrowed her eyes pensively while giving the machine one last once over. “Looks like everything’s relatively intact… I think we just need Twilight to charge it up for us and we should be good to go.” She said in a chipper manner while stepping back and turning to the purple mare.

With all eyes now on her, Twilight looked at the daunting console and sweated slightly. “Umm… could you… show me what to do? Do I hold my horn near a certain place and just fill it up with energy or… something else?” She asked in a hopeful tone while trying to make sense of whatever dials and instruments that were in front of her.

“See that hole right there?” Sparkplug asked while pointing to the small round hole. Twilight nodded while looking at the hole again. It was fairly deep, and now that she looked at it again, it was almost the perfect size to fit a unicorn’s horn.

“Yeah… is this where I channel my magic through?” The purple mare asked curiously while trying to see if she could actually see the back of the small cavity. She already had a pretty good idea of what she had to do, but she wanted to be sure before she started sticking her horn into unknown places.

“Yep, just put your horn in there and give off some magic. It should charge right up for you.” Sparkplug explained while waiting for the unicorn to complete her task.

Twilight glanced over to Sunspot with slight with a hint of nervous hesitation. After seeing that the pegasus was watching her expectantly as well, she finally sighed and inched closer to the console. She sized up the hole and briefly imagined everything that could have gone wrong. Shoving her fears aside, she moved her head and craned her neck to fit her horn into the slot.

As the unicorn lined up her horn and pressed her head forward, the entire room went pitch black due to her light being contained by the tight space. There was a small portion of her horn left uncovered that let a faint light out and allowed the two mares watching to actually see what was going on. Twilight closed her eyes and ignored the bizarre sensation of having her horn fit so snugly into a tight space before focusing and channeling her magic out around her.

Suddenly, a muffled whir filled the air from within the generator as a faint red light came on and started climbing higher. Sparkplug and Sunspot looked over and noticed that a gauge with a power indicator was lighting up and filling from a red section at the bottom to a green section at the top.

After the gauge filled up, Twilight felt a subtle change in the slot around her. Her energy was no longer being channeled into anything, so she reeled back and brushed off her horn. She looked over to find her companions standing in front of the lit up power gauge and the red and green buttons.

“That’s it?” Sunspot asked while looking to the earth pony beside her for confirmation.

“That’s it… fire ‘er up.” Sparkplug replied confidently. With that, the pegasus reached for the green button and prepared to hit it.

“Wait a second…” Twilight said in a troubled tone while motioning for the pegasus to stop.

“Huh?” Sunspot muttered in confusion while pausing and looking at the purple mare. “What’s wrong?”

“Should we really be powering this place up?” Twilight asked uneasily. “What if we start a fire or something? This place is like fifty years old and hasn’t even been finished, let alone maintained. I’m sure that some of the electrical wiring can’t be intact after all these years.” She suggested with a nervous expression. The sudden thought of sending electricity through a whole building worth of potentially shoddy wiring made Sunspot reel her foreleg back away from the green button. However, Sparkplug seemed to be much more confident than her companions.

“Don’t worry about starting any fires. Magical conduction generators like this are almost always paired with magically insulated wiring. It makes the wires easier to work on and keeps them protected from surges. Once the energy from this generator circulates through the wires and charges them up, the worst that will happen is some of the lights and appliances not working.” Sparkplug explained with a reassuring tone of voice.

Twilight and Sunspot looked at each other hesitantly before shrugging and reaching for the button. They trusted their new friend’s words, but the thought still lingered in their minds. Almost at once, the two mares hit the green button with a satisfying click.

A louder groan of machinery filled the air as the generator came to life. The noises within sounded just as likely to be the generator about to blow up as they were to be it starting up for the first time in years. Soon enough the mishmash of noises steadied out into a constant hum as the lights in the room miraculously flickered on.

The three mares heard the distant sounds of many electrical devices turning on, with some less pleasing noises that were most likely bulbs burning out outside. Sunspot walked over to the door and peered outside to confirm that the power was on everywhere else. Just as she suspected, there were lights on in the hallway. However, there were a lot of patches of darkness from where lightbulbs refused to work due to their age.

“Hah! We did it!” Sunspot cheered in excitement while turning back to her companions, who also had smiles on their faces. They had finally done something that would help them with getting the upper hand.

“Nicely done girls… I never would have thought we could bring this place back to life when we got down here.” Sparkplug stated in a congratulatory manner while grinning at her companions.

Suddenly, Sunspot heard the familiar voice of Glitterball coming through in her head. She placed a hoof on her ear to trigger the communication spell so she could better hear and reply to the unicorn.

“Sunspot, you there?” Glitterball asked curiously.

“Yeah, I’m here Glitter.” Sunspot replied.

“Well, I assume you just found that generator, because this place just lit up like a pumpkin on Nightmare Night.” Glitterball explained with a healthy hint of an impressed tone in her voice. The pegasus couldn’t help but smirk slightly.

“We found the generator alright. Anything useful turn on in the security room?” Sunspot asked with hopeful optimism.

“Umm… yeah, we think so. Those security monitors and the console lit up. Right now, Copper Coil is looking them over to see if he can get them working so we can start searching the cameras. You guys should come back here now.” Glitterball suggested in a slightly concerned tone.

“Alright, we’ll be back as soon as we can.” Sunspot said while nodding, even though the unicorn couldn’t see her. Finally, she dropped her hoof from her ear, causing the magical glow to vanish as she turned to her companions. Twilight was watching with passive curiosity, but Sparkplug seemed much more intrigued by the conversation the pegasus just had.

“What was that? You were talking to Glitterball?” Sparkplug asked while tilting her head with a mildly confused expression.

“It’s a communication spell that Glitter made. It lets us talk to each other over long distances.” Sunspot explained while briefly putting her hoof back on her ear to show off the magical glow again. If she wanted to, she could concentrate on any of her teammates and talk to them as long as they were conscious and had a hand or hoof free so they could reply.

“Oh… that sounds pretty useful.” Sparkplug said with an understanding nod of satisfaction.

While the pegasus and the earth pony started to leave the room to head back to the others, Twilight lingered for a moment and looked back to the seismic dampener. While the generator had various lights on that signified it was turned on, the pillar didn’t have anything that implied that it was working. None of the magical runes were lit up, and there was no steady hum of magic or tingly feeling. Of course, given the importance of the stone pillar, the unicorn wanted to ensure that it was working. If some of the floors further down were unstable, then that could have spelled disaster for them. After all, the ghosts in the resort were supposedly created from a cave in, and one could happen regardless of whether or not it had in the past.

“Hey guys, shouldn’t we charge up the seismic dampener, just to be safe?” Twilight suggested while motioning behind her toward the pillar. Sunspot and Sparkplug paused and turned to see the unicorn standing in front of the odd device with a hesitant expression.

“Well… the generator should give it energy over time, but you can charge it up fully now if you want. It should be fairly straight forward… just use your horn on it.” Sparkplug explained while motioning toward the pillar.

Twilight looked back at the stone column before briefly glancing to her companions. After realizing that they were indeed going to wait on her, she turned around and walked up to the dampener. The large monolith of a pillar waited silently for her to interact with it, its many runes teasing her to explore them with her magic.

Lighting up her horn brighter and tapping it to the pillar, Twilight immediately felt her magic flowing through it. The many runes started lighting up and filling the pillar with an aura that made her tingle slightly. Still, she kept channeling energy into it and made sure to keep going until it was fully charged.

Sunspot and Sparkplug watched the unicorn bringing the pillar to life with mesmerized expressions. The magical glow of the various symbols was a sight to behold. They could practically feel the magic flowing beneath their feet and out into the floor, although this was most likely in their heads.

Suddenly, Twilight felt something bizarre as her magic interacted with the pillar. She felt an odd tingle in her head that was growing in intensity. Using magic was such a common practice to her that she often didn’t feel much of anything while using it at times, but it did have its moments of sending sensations through her body. Still, this hazy sensation seemed strange and new to her.

Before the purple mare could think any further on the odd sensation, the pillar ceased accepting her energy and forced her to back away and dim her horn. The tingling was still present, but it was fading enough to warrant her to chalk it up to a passing feeling.

“Alright, that should take care of any structural problems we might encounter later,” Twilight said with a satisfied nod. “Let’s get back to the others.” She suggested while walking over to the others by the door. The two mares nodded before following their friend out of the room and closing the door behind them.

“Come on, I think we can snake through some rooms and get back faster this way.” Sunspot suggested eagerly while walking toward the right side of the hallway away from where they originally came from. Now that the electricity was on, the pegasus was much more confident in their ability to take care of the ghosts. With the cameras in the security room, it would be easier to get the lay of the land and find their three missing friends so they could get them to safety and find out how to get rid of all of the pesky spirits plaguing the place.

“You sure you know where you’re going still?” Sparkplug asked in a jesting tone while following the pegasus toward the end of the hallway.

“I’ll have you know that I have not gotten us lost a single time. If you’re so sure of yourself, then why… don’t you…” Sunspot paused in confusion as she realized that the bubble of light wasn’t following her and the gray mare. She turned with a puzzled expression to look for the purple unicorn, only to see her standing in place a few feet away. “Twilight, what are you doing? Come on already.” Sunspot motioned for the unicorn to hurry along, but she still remained standing in place, staring blankly ahead.

The longer the purple mare went without responding, the more concerned the other two became. Twilight wasn’t moving aside from sluggish movements of the eyes and head, and even then she seemed unable to move from where she was.

“Twilight…? Are you ok?” Sunspot asked uneasily while stepping a little closer to the silent unicorn.

Unbeknownst to the other two ponies, the strange tingling sensation from before had returned even worse than it was. Twilight could hardly think straight as a thick haze filled her mind and body. Her legs felt weak and wobbly, and she could only stare forward with a dazed expression.

“I… I… d…” Twilight tried to say something to explain what was happening or at least call for help, but she felt so numb that she couldn’t get the words out. Suddenly, her legs gave out and she fell to the floor on her side.

“Twilight!” Both Sunspot and Sparkplug exclaimed in unison while rushing forward. They gathered by the fallen unicorn’s side and watched as she struggled to remain conscious.

Twilight was gradually getting more and more sluggish and unresponsive, but there was no visible cause for her sudden ailment. The orange pegasus checked her over for injuries to the head or elsewhere, but nothing she found made sense about why the unicorn was passing out.

“Twilight, what’s wrong?! Can you hear me? Say something!” Sunspot said in a distraught tone while gently shaking the unicorn. Despite the orange pony’s attempts at keeping her alert, she wasn’t responding to anything around her.

Twilight could barely hear the two mares anymore. All sounds reaching her were faded and getting quieter by the minute as they vanished into the numbed mess of her other senses. She fluttered her eyes shut and gave in to the wave of exhaustion flowing through her.
.
..
…
As quickly as her senses left her, Twilight felt a rush of sound and feeling hitting her as she became aware again. Judging from how she felt, she didn’t think she was on her side anymore. Strangely enough, she could even feel ground beneath her feet. Finally getting the courage to open her eyes, she had to shield them abruptly as a bright light flooded her vision.

“Uh… wh..at?” The purple mare groaned while rubbing her eyes. As she finally looked around, she discovered that Sunspot and Sparkplug were nowhere to be found. The dusty and forgotten hallway she was just in moments ago wasn’t present either. In fact, she was in a completely different location.

There was brightly colored orange wallpaper adorning the walls of the room around her, which appeared to be some sort of sitting room. There was a table with two chairs behind her in the center of the room, with a few other smaller tables and chairs dotted around the room. There were two doors leading into and out of the room, and there was a window on the wall in front of her letting bright sunlight into the room.

A window…?...! Twilight rushed forward and caught herself on the windowsill as she raced to look out of the window to see where she was. Oddly enough, she wasn’t underground anymore. She wasn’t even in the resort anymore.

There was what appeared to be an amusement park outside. There was no other way to explain it, but there it was. There was a large Ferris wheel taking up the majority of the skyline, and there were colorful tents and booths with various ponies walking by. The unexpected sight stunned her into silence. She contemplated calling out to one of them, but they probably wouldn’t hear her through the window.

Hearing voices to the side, Twilight turned and looked to one of the doors out of the room. The door opened and two ponies walked in. One was an older looking stallion with dark purple fur and pink hair with a handlebar mustache. He was wearing a pink and white checkered jacket and a hat with a similar pattern. His cutie mark was a simplistic Ferris wheel not unlike the one outside.

The other stallion was much younger looking than the pony next to him, looking to be fresh out of his teen years. He had white fur and striped orange and yellow hair, and a cutie mark consisting of two sticks of cotton candy tilted at an angle as if they were being juggled. He was wearing a bright yellow bow tie on his neck. He also seemed to be holding a newspaper.

“Yeah… that’s really tragic. I hope they find them soon.” The younger pony said in a disheartened tone. The two stallions seemed to ignore the purple mare in the room and continued the conversation they were having before they walked in.

“Umm… excuse me, could you help me? I don’t know how I got… here…?” Twilight paused as she noticed that the stallions weren’t noticing her. She walked over to them and tried to get their attention, but they just kept talking amongst themselves.

“So, are you sure you’re ready to handle interviewing a new hire?” The older stallion asked hesitantly, much to the younger stallion’s dismay.

“I’ve told you this like a hundred times dad. I can take care of this.” The white pony said in a reassuring manner while flashing a confident smile.

“Heh… I guess so. I’m just not used to my son being so grown up just yet.” The purple stallion replied with a slight chuckle, causing the other pony to blush slightly and look away in embarrassment.

“Hello…? Can you two hear me? My name is Twilight Sparkle… I need some help getting back to my friends.” Twilight persisted while raising her voice slightly and getting right in front of the pair. She wanted to make sure that she wasn’t ignored this time.

Suddenly, the two stallions started walking across the room. Twilight started to move to get out of their way, but before she could they ran into her… and went straight through her.

“Wh…w-what the?!” Twilight jumped to the side and stared at the two stallions with wide eyes. Hesitantly, she caught up to the two ponies and tried to touch one of them with her hoof. Like before, her body didn’t even make contact with them, instead passing through them like she wasn’t even there. She couldn’t even feel anything strange when seemingly ignoring the laws of physics. It was like she was some kind of ghost.

With that last thought ringing in her mind and making the disturbed feeling in her gut worse, she turned her attention to the only things in the room other than her. The white stallion sat the newspaper down on one of the tables and leaned against the wall while his father stood next to him.

“Right, well… I’ll send him in. Try not to scare him away, we really need the help.” The purple stallion said with a brief chuckle while walking back toward the door that he came through a few moments ago. The younger pony nodded before walking over to the table in the center of the room and taking a seat.

Twilight looked around her with a mixture of confusion, shock, and unease on her face. She had so many questions about just what the hay was going on right now, but she had no one to explain anything to her as long as everyone couldn’t hear her. Spotting the newspaper over on the table, she felt her burning curiosity growing even more intense.

Rushing over to the table, she briefly looked over to the white stallion sitting nearby. Of course, he was still occupying himself and not paying attention to her. Shifting her eyes back to the newspaper, she started reaching for it to pick it up. Much to her frustration, her hoof passed right through the paper and the table it was sitting on.

“Grr…” Twilight furrowed her brow in annoyance while staring at her seemingly intangible hoof. Finally, she shrugged and lowered her head slightly to read the paper better. After scanning over the various articles and pictures, she adopted a somber expression as she realized how grim the covered topic was. The main article was about a string of unsolved kidnappings, with the most recent one happening last month. Strangely enough, the pictures were in black and white.

“Wait… what?” Twilight muttered in a confused tone while looking over the pictures. She hadn’t thought about it at first, but now it was blatantly obvious that the pictures weren’t in color. Finally, she drifted across something that made her eyes widen and her face pale.

The date on the paper was almost seventy years ago.

The text was bold and clear. She read over it multiple times, but still, it didn’t change. She could only stare ahead with a shocked expression while having a mental crisis as she tried desperately to cling to any semblance of logic. However, there was no logic to be found. She shouldn’t have been here. She hadn’t been born yet. Her mother and father hadn’t even been born yet, and her grandparents were likely still in school.

“S…s-seventy years?” Twilight parroted her own thoughts in a broken voice. “D-dream… this… this must be a dream.” She said while closing her eyes and straining to think of what happened up to this point. She remembered passing out, so perhaps she really was just dreaming. After all, it did make sense. The Ferris wheel and the park outside, the black and white newspaper, she was probably imagining herself in the old amusement park. Still, this dream was much more vivid than she could have ever wanted.

*Knock* *Knock*

An abrupt knocking at the door behind her drew the unicorn out of her maddened daze. The stallion sitting at the table next to her looked up as well before straightening the bow tie on his chest and clearing his throat.

“Come on in.” The white pony spoke up. After a few moments, the door opened and another stallion walked into the room.

This stallion was a little older looking than the white pony sitting at the table. He had dark orange fur and short black hair that looked neat and up kept. His cutie mark was a single purple balloon with a smiley face drawn on it in crude crayon-like writing.

“Uh… are you Mr. Swirl’s son?” The stallion asked in a hesitant tone.

“Yes, I am. You can call me Cotton if you want. Please, take a seat.” Cotton introduced himself while motioning toward the chair across from him. The orange pony nodded before walking over and sitting down.

“Cotton Swirl…? Isn’t that the name that was on the tapes?” Twilight muttered curiously. The white stallion must have been Berry’s grandfather.

The purple unicorn watched silently as the two stallions seemingly began a job interview. Cotton Swirl pulled out some papers and sifted through them while looking the orange pony over and getting a better sense of him.

“*Ahem* So… Mr. Dream Catcher… what job were you hoping to get with us here at Fun Land?” Cotton asked with a composed tone of voice.

“I think I can fit in wherever you guys want to put me. I have a lot of experience in a variety of careers, and I think I can bring my positivity and work ethic here if you hire me.” The orange stallion explained in a confident manner while maintaining a cheerfully casual expression.

“Hmm… that sounds very interesting. Tell me about some of the other careers you’ve had.” Cotton Swirl asked curiously while briefly looking down to the stack of papers he had.

“Uh… I’ve had fairly standard jobs. I’ve worked as a sales clerk in stores before, so I think I am a good people person.” Dream Catcher replied after thinking about the matter for a moment.

Time passed by at a crawl as the two stallions passed questions and answers back and forth. Twilight tried to pay attention, though she was heavily distracted by still trying to rationalize what was going on. However, the doors out of the room seemed to have locked themselves, and the conversation going on in front of her was the only relevant thing happening, so she decided to focus on the other ponies for the time being.

Finally, Cotton Swirl set his papers down and looked up at the other stallion before clearing his throat. “Ok, everything about you seems to check out. It sounds like you would be a great addition to our big happy family. Oh… before I let you go, how are you around children? Kids are a good portion of our customer base, so we want to make sure that our employees can handle being around them all day.” The white pony asked curiously while watching the other stallion expectantly.

The orange pony paused for a moment and smiled. His expression was cheery and friendly enough, but it seemed somehow off to Twilight. The white stallion watching didn’t seem to notice whatever was causing the unicorn to feel uneasy. “Kids…? Oh, don’t worry… I’m great with kids.” Dream Catcher explained in a lighthearted tone.

Suddenly, Twilight felt the same hazy feeling from before returning. The room in front of her and the two stallions gradually blurred and her hearing faded. She tried to keep herself awake, but the wave of drowsiness washing over her was too strong to fight. Eventually, the world faded to black again and she fell into a void of nothingness.

Chapter 15: Cornered

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Back in the security room, the atmosphere had drastically changed now that the lights were on. Although the lightbulb overhead dimmed faintly every few seconds, it made the room feel relatively safe and comfortable. The ponies could actually start to forget about the anxiety and fear waiting for them in the halls outside. Glitterball could even dim her horn and rest for a moment.

While most of the group was resting and waiting anxiously for their friends to return, Copper Coil was busying himself with trying to fix the bank of monitors. Once the power came on, a few lights blinked to life on the console, implying that at least something was still functional. Deciding that he should be at least somewhat useful to his friends, the stallion sat down in one of the swivel chairs and tried to get the neglected machinery up and running.

Berry Swirl looked over to the stallion messing with buttons and switches curiously. “How is it looking over there, Copper?”

“Not sure… I can get some lights to turn on, but I’m not sure if it’s going to work. This equipment has been sitting here for a while without any maintenance.” Copper Coil reported with a frustrated shrug as he tried everything he knew to get the monitors to turn on.

Berry walked over and stood next to the stallion, peering over his shoulder. “Here, why don’t I try something on it?” She suggested optimistically.

“What could you possibly try that would fix this old thing?” Copper asked while raising an eyebrow curiously at the purple mare. In all his years of knowing her, he knew that she wasn’t nearly as technically inclined as her father. She enjoyed tinkering with the animatronics at a young age, but she never mastered anything in the field.

Berry simply stood and stared at the bank of dark and lifeless monitors. The few lights that were on the console seemed to imply that everything was working except for the video feed itself. Using every ounce of ingenuity in her body, she prepared to try the one technique that could fix any mechanical problem.

*Thunk*

The purple mare casually lifted her leg and gave a forceful kick to the side of the machine. Everyone in the room expected nothing to happen, but much to their surprise the row of monitors flickered to life as a static-ridden video feed displayed on each of the screens.

“Little trick I learned from Sparkplug.” Berry smirked coyly while enjoying every bit of the dumbfounded expression on the older stallion’s face. Copper Coil appeared as if he wanted to explode into a rant on how asinine the mare’s trick was and how much it shouldn’t have worked, but his words seemed to fail him as he deflated into a silent expression of irritation.

“Wow… I didn’t think that old thing would work. Can you use the cameras on it?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously while marveling at the blank screens. Although they were currently displaying nothing but static, there was an overlay of text that labeled each camera with numbers and hinted at their functionality.

“Well… let me see here,” Copper muttered while fiddling around with the many buttons and switches on the console. After a few combinations of button presses, the monitors switched to various pictures of different rooms and hallways. “Aha! There we go… now we’re in business.” The stallion remarked with a pleased expression. Everyone smiled as they looked at the newly fixed camera feed. Each of the monitors were displaying faded images that were crackling with varying degrees of static, but they would make finding their missing friends so much easier.

Before anyone could celebrate the first great success they had had since arriving in the forgotten resort, the sound of the door opening drew their attention away. The group looked over to see Glimmer Shine and Tom stepping into the room while curiously observing the lights and electronics that were now suddenly functional.

“Glimmer, Tom… you’re back. Did you find the service entrance?” Glitterball asked in a hopeful tone. The others perked up slightly as the subject of the entrance was brought up. Even if they were determined to find the three missing ponies before they left, knowing that they had a viable escape route would have been comforting. However, the downcast expressions on the yellow stallion and the human’s faces immediately removed their own bright smiles.

“No… well, yes, but it’s locked.” Tom explained with a dejected sigh.

“Oh…” Glitterball looked down sadly as their only exit that didn’t involve fighting past six haunted animatronics was removed from the list of possible strategies. Now the only way they were getting out was to get rid of the ghosts entirely.

“Glitter, uh… I couldn’t help but notice the lights came on… and there seems to be fewer people in here than I remembered. Is there anything that happened while we were gone?” Glimmer Shine asked in a curious tone while trying to ignore the gnawing feeling of dread building inside of him.

The white unicorn paused hesitantly as she was asked to explain what happened. She knew that the stallion wasn’t going to be pleased to hear that Sunspot had gone off on her own for any reason that wasn’t super important. And as handy as having the lights on was, she didn’t think that it was super important. “Sorry Glimmer… Sunspot took Twilight and Sparkplug to go turn on a generator. I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how she gets.” Glitterball explained in an apologetic tone while frowning slightly.

“*Sigh*… Yeah, I know how she gets.” Glimmer Shine shrugged while shaking his head. “Well… if the lights are on, that must mean that they did something right. Hopefully, they are on their way back and we won’t have any problems.” He added in a slightly more optimistic manner.

“They said they would head straight back here after they were done. The generator wasn’t too far away, so they should be back in a few minutes.” Glitterball added with a reassuring nod, partially to convince herself that the orange pegasus knew what she was doing.

And around the time that everyone was starting to feel confident that everything was going to work out ok, Glitterball, Glimmer Shine, and Tom all heard a familiar voice in their ears that sounded more than a little nervous.

“Umm… hello? Guys? We could use a little help over here.” Sunspot said uneasily. The others couldn’t tell if the pegasus was nervous because of her situation, or because she was asking for help from the people she just tried to convince that she would be fine.

Glitterball and Glimmer Shine shared an expression of disbelief with each other as they listened to the mare in distress. They almost couldn’t fathom that the universe would allow for such situations to exist, and yet here they were.

“You don’t plan for these things to happen, do you?” Glitterball asked while looking to the stallion with a dull expression.

“If I had psychic powers, I would not be using them for this.” Glimmer Shine replied before sighing and putting a hoof up to his ear. “We’re here Sunspot. What’s wrong?” He asked in a sincere tone, managing to suppress his desire to go off on the pegasus for endangering herself and two others.

“Glimmer Shine… before I say anything, I want it to go on the record that this is not my fault.” Sunspot said in a cautionary manner, almost like she was expecting the stallion to berate her.

Glimmer had to stifle an agitated groan as he tried to remain as serious and understanding as possible. “We’re not saying this is your fault Sunspot… now tell us what happened.” Glimmer Shine asked in a more pressing manner. He could hear the pegasus sighing before adopting a more serious tone.

“We got to the generator and turned it on just fine. We were about to leave, but Twilight just passed out right in front of us.” Sunspot explained in a concerned tone.

“W-what?! Oh my gosh… is she ok?” Glitter asked with a shocked tone, eliciting the others to listen with worried expressions.

“She’s fine from what I can tell. She’s breathing ok, and there’s nothing else wrong with her. We just can’t wake her up.” Sunspot added with a dejected sigh of concern.

“Ok, just bring her with you and come back here. We’ll take a look at her once you’re safe.” Glimmer Shine suggested while being as level headed as possible given the situation.

“Uh… see, about that… we kind of can’t move from where we are.” Sunspot said in a more nervous tone, though this time she seemed genuinely afraid of something. As the pegasus spoke, the others could hear what sounded like faint banging coming from off to the side.

“Sunspot… what’s that noise?” Glimmer Shine asked uneasily.

“That’s part of the problem… See, after we tried to pick up Twilight and leave, we heard some freaky laughing and saw a pair of glowing eyes around the corner. We high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could. It kept cutting us off every time we tried to get back to the security room, so we had to find a room we could hole up in. While we were running we bumped into another animatronic wandering around... thankfully we found an unlocked room to hide in before it caught us.” Sunspot explained anxiously while pausing every once in a while, seemingly to check behind her to see if the door to the room would hold.

“Ok… just stay calm Sunspot. We’ll come and get you. Can you tell us where you are?” Glimmer asked reassuringly.

Sunspot paused, struggling to remember anything useful about her location. “Umm… I don’t know. We left the area of the map I memorized after we started running. I think we passed some stairs leading down when we ran in here.” She explained. “Please hurry Glimmer... I don’t think we can do much of anything if that thing breaks in here.” She pleaded in a dreadful tone.

“We’re on our way now, just sit tight.” Glimmer Shine said before dropping his hoof from his ear. He looked to his two teammates, who had equally concerned expressions on their faces. “I assume you guys heard all that?” He asked curiously.

“Yeah… she said they were by some stairs leading down.” Glitterball nodded before turning and looking over to the bank of security monitors. “Copper Coil, do you think you could find the stairs on the cameras?” She asked with a hopeful tone while looking to the reddish stallion.

Copper Coil turned and scooted his chair closer to the console. He swiftly pressed a button and switched through the various cameras available on this floor. After searching through static ridden images, he finally stopped as he noticed a set of stairs leading down in the middle of a well-lit hallway. “There, found it.” Copper announced while leaning back so the rest of the group could get a better look. The stairs were at the end of an intersection with a single light shining down on it. The stairwell itself had what looked to be bars going from floor to ceiling, with a gate built in to access the stairs. The camera was at an angle, and the stairwell was shaded by the bars, so it was hard to see much of anything beyond the gate. The group could, however, tell that the gate was closed.

Glimmer Shine, Tom, Glitterball, and the rest of the ponies looked at the monitor with various expressions of concern as they thought about their friends in such a dangerous situation. Suddenly, however, Glitter noticed something that made her blood run cold. The longer she stared at it, the more her heart kept racing and her eyes widened.

“W…w-what is that?!” Glitterball asked while pointing to the left side of the screen. Everyone looked to see what had freaked the unicorn out so badly, only to flinch as they saw it.

The intersection itself was well lit, but the hallways to either side of the stairwell were bathed in darkness. Peeking out from around the left corner, there was a pair of glowing white eyes sitting in the darkness, looking directly at the camera.

“AH!” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle yelped in unison, while Scootaloo simply jumped back in fright.

The others reacted with either jumping back in surprise or letting out brief shrieks of terror. Despite how terrified they were, they couldn’t look away from the disturbing sight. Before anyone could say anything else, the monitor screen flickered with static and the eyes were gone in an instant. The sudden disappearance unsettled the majority of the group as if they expected the creature to be right outside the security office door now.

“Ok… there’s no way that thing was an animatronic.” Glimmer Shine muttered in a stunned tone while calming himself down.

“That still doesn’t help us very much if it isn’t, Glimmer.” Glitterball stated uneasily. The thought of the ghosts using animated hunks of metal to attack them was terrifying, but the thought of the ghosts attacking them by themselves was even more troubling.

“Copper, can you see if there are any cameras near the stairs? If they are in the same area, then maybe we can find them.” Tom suggested while stepping closer to the bank of monitors and trying to decipher any way to see the locations of the cameras. Unfortunately, there seemed to be only text to describe the name of each camera instead of where it was on the map.

Copper quickly started switching through the cameras again. The myriad of dark or lit up rooms and hallways didn’t yield much promise of actually finding their trapped friends. Despite the daunting task of finding the proverbial needle in the haystack, the group kept their eyes glued to the screen in order to find anything that could lead them to their friends. Still, they felt a little nervous as they entertained the thought in the back of their minds that told them something scary was going to appear on the screens.

Suddenly, a flash of out of place color made the stallion pause and go back. As the group settled their eyes on the image before them, they were taken aback by surprise.

The camera showed an angled view of a dimly lit hallway. The most prominent part of the feed was the sight of a tall, humanoid animatronic pounding on a door and trying to break in. The animatronic was almost a striking image of Chica from upstairs, but this chicken was far from normal looking. The colorful yellow shell of the bird was rusted and worn away in places, revealing the aged endoskeleton and wiring underneath. The animatronic’s entire left arm was broken off at the shoulder, leaving a tangled mess of wires and exposed endoskeleton parts sticking out. Oddly and terrifyingly enough, Chica’s beak was also missing, showing off a set of yellowed teeth inside a gaping hole of a mouth.

“Yikes… that must be them.” Tom raised an eyebrow in surprise as he watched the animatronic chicken going to town on the door with one arm. Thankfully the door seemed to be sturdy enough to hold fast, but anyone inside would have been trapped if there were no other exits.

“There, I found the stairs on the map. We should go find them right now.” Glitterball suggested in an urgent tone while looking at the map on the wall. The stairwell leading down to the other floors was at the top of the layout, a fair distance away from where they currently were.

“Agreed… let’s head out.” Glimmer Shine said while trotting over to the door, quickly followed by Tom and Glitterball. The others watched the trio with concern as they wondered if they would reach their friends in time. The withered animatronic pounding on the door showed no signs of giving up anytime soon.

“You guys want some help out there?” Rainbow Dash asked while stepping forward from the group. The cyan mare and at least a few others were more than willing to brave the unknown halls outside to rescue the three trapped ponies.

“No, we’ll be fine. You guys stay in here and keep the door locked until we get back.” Glimmer Shine instructed with a serious tone of voice. The cyan pegasus hesitantly nodded in response as the trio exited the room. While the distant footsteps of their friends rushing off to rescue Sunspot and the others faded into silence, Rainbow Dash stepped up to the door and locked it before turning to the others.

“Will they be alright?” Spike asked nervously while watching the monitors and eyeing the old model of Chica warily.

The others watched the young dragon and the three fillies watching the screens with concerned expressions of dread. They were concerned for their friends as well, but they knew that Glimmer Shine and the others wouldn’t let anything bad happen on their watch.

Berry Swirl walked over to the bank of monitors and switched the camera feed off of the frightening animatronic. She flashed the brightest smile she could manage and chuckled slightly in an attempt at reassuring the children and perhaps even the rest of the group. “Don’t worry… I’m sure they’ll be fine. Your friends seem to know how to take care of themselves.” Berry explained in a confident tone while glancing to the others for support.

“Y..yeah… they’ll be alright. Twilight and Sparkplug have Sunspot watching out for them. Even if that bag of bolts does get in there, I’m sure she can send it packing no problem.” Rainbow Dash stated in agreement with the purple earth pony. Thankfully the kids seemed to be a little reassured by their statements. However, they weren’t sure if they had the same level of confidence.

“Ugh…” Twilight groaned in exhaustion as she came to her senses again. Her head felt heavy, and whatever ground was beneath her felt cold, leading her to believe that she was lying down.

Slowly managing to open her eyes, she was met with a dull gray ceiling with a single lightbulb in the center. Even the relatively dim light of the aged bulb hurt her eyes, forcing her to shield them as she slowly lifted herself up into a seated position.

“Twilight… you’re awake!” A familiar voice exclaimed from the side.

The purple mare looked over to see Sunspot and Sparkplug rushing over to her side and staring at her with relieved expressions. “Uh… S..Sunspot? Where are we?” Twilight asked in a confused stupor while taking a better look around the room.

The room wasn’t too large, being mostly used for storage judging from the shelves and boxes full of miscellaneous junk. The door in the left side of the wall in front of the three mares was shut, and something seemed to be banging on it every once in a while from the sound of things.

“We had to pick you up and move you when you passed out on us. Something started chasing us, so we couldn’t get back to the security office.” Sunspot explained in a troubled tone while glancing back to the door to check if it was still holding.

“Chasing us? What chased us… is it still here?” Twilight asked in a more alarmed manner while starting to get up. She was met with the orange pegasus and the gray earth pony gently pushing her back to a resting position.

“Calm down, we’re safe for the moment… I think.” Sunspot shrugged uneasily. “Anyway… we heard some freaky laughing right after you conked out. We didn’t stick around long enough to see it, but we heard it running behind us. After that, we ran into another animatronic blocking our way, so we had to duck into this room.” She explained while trying to ignore the sporadic pounding against the door. The thundering knocks would come in singular intervals every several seconds, but the door didn’t show any signs of weakness.

“Why didn’t you just take us to the generator room?” Twilight asked in a confused tone. The generator room was much closer than wherever this place was, and it looked like it had a solid door that could be held shut if necessary.

Sparkplug shook her head with a troubled expression. “We couldn’t get in there. Once that weird thing started chasing us, all of the doors we came across started locking… I don’t even think most of them had locks.”

“Well, that’s ghosts for you… They like to make up their own rules to play by.” Sunspot stated with a twinge of disdain in her voice.

The knocks on the door sped up as the animatronic outside flailed angrily. The mares could hear a high pitched shriek that was heavily distorted. The shrill noise made them shiver slightly as they realized that the only thing keeping them from that horrid creature was a wooden door.

“I assume you guys called for help since I’ve been out?” Twilight asked with an expectant expression.

“Yeah… we called a few minutes before you woke up. Glimmer Shine and Tom should be here soon.” Sunspot said reassuringly before pausing. “That reminds me Twilight… do you have any idea why you passed out?” She asked in a hopeful tone.

The purple mare paused and widened her eyes slightly as she thought back to her abrupt stint of unconsciousness. The things she saw came flooding back to her as vividly as they were when she experienced them. She would have called the odd experience a dream, but she wasn’t too sure at this point. “I… I think I had a vision.” Twilight stated in a stunned tone, which equally stunned her two companions.

“What?” Sunspot asked with a puzzled expression.

“A vision…? Like… a near death experience or something?” Sparkplug asked in a confused manner while trying to somewhat rationalize the unicorn’s statement.

“No, not a near death experience.” Twilight shook her head while waving off the gray mare’s speculation. She had actually died once, and not once had she had a near death vision like what she just saw. “I’m not sure how to describe it… I was in a building in an amusement park. A newspaper I found dated back seventy years, so I think I must have been seeing Funland back when Berry’s great-grandfather ran the place.” Twilight explained while recalling the vivid experience in her head. The other mares were stunned and puzzled at what they were hearing.

“Seventy years…? Twilight, are you sure you weren’t dreaming?” Sunspot asked while trying not to sound too skeptical.

“I’m fairly certain. In the dream I had a few nights ago, the one that made me lose sleep, I went down into the basement chasing after a young filly. I waved it off as just a weird nightmare, but the layout I saw in my dream perfectly matched the basement… even though I hadn’t been down there before. I think this… vision or… whatever it was… was something similar to that dream… I just can’t figure out what any of it means.” Twilight said in a frustrated tone while deep in thought.

Sunspot looked to the purple unicorn with an uncertain expression. She believed what she was saying, but the pegasus wasn’t sure what to think of it. She certainly hoped that the strange visions didn’t mean anything bad was going to happen to her purple friend. “Twilight… I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t think of a good explanation for it either. We should probably hold off on thinking about it too much until we get out of here. I’m sure Tom could help you out.” She said in a hopeful tone. She was certain that the human and his extensive knowledge on the paranormal would be able to offer the unicorn more insight into what was going on.

Twilight contemplated the vision for a moment longer before sighing and turning to her two companions. She nodded silently while trying her best to suppress the troubling thoughts drifting around her mind.

Now that their focus was off of the purple mare and her strange experience, the trio could put their full focus on the animatronic trying to break into the room, not that it was easy to ignore anyway. The robotic animal outside was still pounding away on the door, despite it showing no signs of breaking anytime soon. The knowledge that they were safe was merely a hollow comfort to the ponies. At any rate, they were trapped in their apparent safe haven until help arrived. There were no other exits, and with a ticked off animatronic and possibly another unknown entity waiting for them outside, fighting their way out was not an option they were willing to risk.

Twilight tried her best to sit quietly and ignore the incessantly erratic blows on the door. However hard she tried, she couldn’t relax with the jarring noises and occasional shrieks from the creature outside. And however hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the thought at the back of her mind that told her that the animatronic would bust in at any moment to slaughter her and her friends.

“So... umm… did you guys get a good look at the animatronic before you hid in here?” Twilight asked uneasily, perhaps trying to rationalize the situation and ease her fears. The orange pegasus looked back at her with a sympathetic expression. She had known the unicorn for long enough to tell that she was trying to lessen her fear and that it probably wouldn’t work.

“I wish we hadn’t. It looked like an older model of Chica from upstairs, but this one was messed up. It was even missing an arm… I’ll never understand why a ghost would choose to live in a body like that. Then again, I don’t think I’ll ever understand ghosts in the first place.” Sunspot muttered with a hint of sad frustration in her voice. “Gah… I can’t believe our luck. This is the second run-in with ghosts we’ve had since back then, and this is the second time things have gone south for us.” She added while kicking a box beside her angrily.

“Second time? Wait… when was the first?” Twilight asked in a confused tone. She didn’t figure that the trio would have taken a case involving ghosts so soon after what happened. The only reason they took this case was because it was supposed to be easy to deal with and they got a free week at the resort.

The orange pegasus looked away from the others for a moment while recalling the embarrassing ordeal. It just now occurred to her that nobody else had been made aware that they had failed to complete an assignment. “Well uh… you know that assignment we had in Fillydelphia? Well… we were clearing out a haunted house. It was just one ghost, so we were pretty confident that we could handle it.” Sunspot explained hesitantly.

“What happened?” Sparkplug asked curiously, hoping to gain more insight into what the ghost hunters did on the job.

“I… umm… I messed up.” Sunspot looked down sadly. “I found the ghost before the others, and I ignored Glimmer Shine’s orders so I could take care of it myself. The ghost got away… and we… well, I… broke a window.” She said in a more embarrassed manner.

“Oh my gosh… were you hurt?” Sparkplug asked in a more concerned tone.

“Only my pride…” Sunspot muttered silently while looking down in a dejected manner.

“Sunspot, why did you ignore what Glimmer Shine told you?” Twilight asked with a shocked expression. The orange pegasus grew more uneasy as she was forced to continue on this subject.

“Well… me and Glimmer haven’t been getting along too great recently. I guess I sort of just went with my gut.” Sunspot said after pausing briefly.

“Really? You two seemed friendly enough around each other whenever I saw you.” Sparkplug stated with a confused expression.

Sunspot looked down slightly as she thought about her relationship with the yellow stallion. She didn’t like thinking about the matter in the first place, but now she was getting more and more upset as she focused on it for the first time in a long time. However, the purple unicorn across from her seemed to be thinking about other things.

“So… how has Glimmer Shine been doing after… you know what?” Twilight asked hesitantly. Of course, the pegasus immediately knew what she was referring to, and the thought alone sent her into an uneasy silence.

“He doesn’t like to talk about it, and we don’t like to bring it up. Other than that… he is holding up better than I expected. He is always so eager to get a job done and help people… I don’t know how he does it.” Sunspot said with a troubled expression.

The unicorn fell silent for a while after the orange mare finished her somber statement. Sparkplug still wasn’t sure what the two were talking about, but she could tell that it was a very gloomy subject, so she remained silent and let the pair think.

Much to Sunspot’s confusion, Twilight started fidgeting and looking down sadly. She seemed to be fighting back tears as she thought of something. “You know… I can’t help but think that I played some part in what happened to Peppermint.” Twilight said in a remorseful tone while barely managing to keep herself from crying.

“Twilight…” Sunspot looked at the unicorn with a sympathetic expression.

“I… I knew there was a possibility of something bad happening when I took everyone to go look for the last symbol, but… I never imagined something like that. If I hadn’t suggested that we leave, then maybe… m-maybe Peppermint would… would…” Twilight sobbed slightly as a single set of tears fell down her face. She was stopped suddenly when she felt a hoof being placed on her shoulder reassuringly. The unicorn looked up to see Sunspot offering her a concerned expression.

“Twilight, none of that is your fault.” Sunspot said in a softer tone.

“B-but-” Twilight started to speak up again in a shaky voice until she was interrupted by the pegasus.

“But nothing… I don’t care what you’ve thought to yourself to try and explain what happened. It’s not your fault Pepper died… if anything, it’s my fault. I’m the one that let you go out to search for that symbol. It was a good idea… not surprising seeing how you’re the one that had the courage to come up with it. You wanted to find the symbol faster so nobody else had to get hurt, I can’t blame you for that… and Glimmer Shine would never blame you for it either. But if anyone is responsible for not acting when they should have, it was me. I should have realized that it was too risky… I should have done something. That’s my guilt to carry around… not yours.” Sunspot explained in a reassuring tone. Still, her voice held a hint of sadness to it as well.

“Sunspot…” Twilight muttered while looking to the pegasus with a saddened expression.

The room fell silent after that, with nothing being said to disturb the somber atmosphere. The only noises were those of the animatronic waiting outside. Even Sparkplug was frowning slightly from the sparse pieces of the conversation she could understand.

Suddenly, the constant pounding on the door ceased, causing the three mares to shift their attention away from their heartfelt conversation. They could hear the animatronic outside shrieking, but it faintly sounded like it was facing another direction. A muffled clamor of scrambling feet and metal clangs came from outside the room, along with what sounded like faint voices.

The noises grew louder, and a loud crash rang out as the animatronic seemingly hit something with great force. Another series of distorted cries from the robotic animal pierced the air, causing the confused and concerned ponies to cringe nervously.

“What’s going on out there?” Twilight asked in a concerned tone while looking back and forth between her two companions, hopeful that one of them had an explanation for her.

Before Sunspot or Sparkplug could even try to form a reply, the door to the room popped open. Instead of a rampaging metal death machine entering the room like the trio expected, a familiar yellow stallion stepped through the door.

“Guys, come on!” Glimmer Shine urged while motioning for the mares to follow him. He glanced behind him with an anxious expression as another loud crash rang out, followed by a groan of exertion from Tom.

“Glimmer?!” Sunspot said with a shocked expression. She couldn’t believe that she was being rescued so abruptly.

“Tom, watch out!” Glitterball announced from somewhere outside. Shortly afterward, the human yelped in surprise as another agitated cry from the animatronic indicated that something was happening.

Sunspot and her two companions looked at each other briefly. Although they had no idea what was going on, they knew the situation was urgent. Without wasting any time, the three mares followed Glimmer Shine out of their safe haven and into the hallway.

Standing outside in the dimly lit corridor, Glitterball was to the right of the room staring ahead with a concerned expression. As soon as they looked to the left, the others immediately understood the cause of all the commotion.

Tom was squaring off a few feet away with the animatronic that had been keeping the three mares trapped. The animatronic in question was an old model of Chica, which given its terrible appearance and ferocity, scared the living daylights out of Twilight.

“Sweet Celestia!” The purple mare jumped in fright as she laid eyes on the robotic bird. Chica was currently hunched over, ready to leap forward and maim the ponies at any given moment with her sharp teeth and remaining arm. The only thing standing in her way was Tom.

“Guys, get back to the security room! I’ll take care of this thing!” Tom instructed in an urgent tone while briefly glancing behind him. He already had a scratch across his face from where the animatronic clipped him.

“Not a chance Tom!” Glimmer Shine stated with a determined expression while standing his ground and preparing to rush into battle. Sunspot and Glitterball stepped forward and stood in line with their yellow companion, waiting for the opportune moment to move.

“Grr… why can’t you make things easy for me just once?” Tom groaned in frustration before putting his full focus on the robotic animal in front of him.

Not wasting any time on planning out her attack, Chica charged forward and let loose another ear piercing cry. She reeled back her arm and swiped at the human with her sharpened metallic fingers. Tom barely managed to duck to the side, but the decrepit robot kept coming. Chica flailed wildly at her elusive target, using her arm and her mouth to snap at him in an attempt at either grabbing him or cutting him in some way.

Tom arched to the side and stepped forward, sending a kick toward the animatronic’s shin. Hoping to knock her off balance, he put as much force behind the blow as he could. However, just as with the old model of Bonnie, the bird’s metallic body resisted his attack and absorbed most of the force. Chica barely even noticed her leg moving an inch backwards, instead opting to use the human’s failed attack to her advantage.

Using its arm, the animatronic grabbed Tom by the shoulder, digging its claws in and making sure that the boy couldn’t shake it off. Tom yelped painfully as his shoulder was pierced by the metallic fingers of the beast. Before he could try to think of a way to free himself, Chica pushed the human into the wall forcefully.

“Tom!” Twilight exclaimed fearfully as she watched the human being smacked into the wall. Much to the horror of everyone watching, Chica lunged forward with her head, biting at the human and aiming for his face.

Tom barely managed to push his arm up to stop the animatronic from biting him, but he wasn’t able to get much leverage in time. Chica shifted her aim slightly, catching the human’s arm in her mouth and biting down.

“AGGH!” Tom yelled in agony as the bird’s jagged and worn teeth pierced his skin deeply. The ponies gasped in shock as they watched their friend screaming while blood poured from his arm. Chica remained in place, letting her teeth sink in further as she seemingly enjoyed listening to the human’s cries.

“Someone do something! Get her off of him!” Sparkplug pleaded from the back of the group. She had full intention to run over to the human and help him herself, but there wasn’t much she could do with the animatronic clinging to his arm like that.

Glitterball and Twilight looked to Sunspot and Glimmer Shine in a nervous panic. Finally, they steeled their nerves and nodded to each other. It was about time they started proving their worth and paying the human back for all of the times he had fought for them.

“Who’s freaking idea was it to give these things teeth?!” Tom exclaimed in a pained tone while trying to loose himself from the animatronic’s steel grip. He tried punching her head, but this only led to more pain as she refused to move or release his arm.

A sudden magical zap filled the air and a blur of light zoomed toward the robotic bird. With precision aim, a bolt of blue energy exploded into Chica’s head, sending a shower of sparks into the air and knocking her back. The stunned animatronic released her grip on Tom’s arm, stumbling to regain her balance after being struck. Tom looked over in surprise and saw Glitterball standing with her horn lit up and a serious expression on her face.

As Chica snapped her head forward and faced the annoying unicorn with an agitated shriek, she was met with another blur of motion just ahead of her. Everyone watched as Glimmer Shine charged at top speed toward the robotic animal.

The yellow stallion let out a fierce yell while swiftly turning and kicking out his back legs. In one single motion, Chica had her left leg kicked out from underneath her and Glimmer Shine kept moving past her. While the animatronic fell to one knee and tried to push itself off of the ground, Tom rushed forward and prepared to kick the offending robot in the head.

While Tom was about to connect his blow, Chica used her arm and her lowered stance to sweep his leg out from underneath him. The human fell to the floor and rolled to distance himself from the animatronic once again. Chica let out a rage filled cry and prepared to bolt forward after her attackers. It didn’t matter if she had to crawl to get to them, the robotic bird was out for blood.

Suddenly, the animatronic was completely covered in a purple aura. Chica was locked in place as Twilight used her magic to grab her from across the hallway. The purple mare could already feel a strain on her magic as she tangled with the paranormal energy contained within the metallic shell of a bird. Before the animatronic and the spirit within could use its immense power to overwhelm her magic like last time, she slammed its head to the side as hard as she could.

“That’s it Twilight! Cause as much structural damage as you can! Once the animatronic is damaged enough, the ghost inside will leave it!” Tom cheered the unicorn on as she slammed Chica’s head into the nearby wall. The group could hear the harsh sound of metal parts breaking inside of the animatronic as it received blow after blow. The wall was receiving a sizable dent in the shape of Chica’s head, but her metallic body wasn’t being damaged nearly as much as the others were hoping. Bits and pieces of the colorful outer shell of the animatronic started chipping off and cracking, but it seemed as though the endoskeleton underneath was holding up enough to keep the spirit inside.

Twilight groaned from exertion as Chica jerked upwards. She strained to keep a hold of the rampaging robot, but she could barely keep it from moving. Every time Chica would make a jerky movement forward, the unicorn would jerk her back again, trying desperately to keep the bird from getting to her or her friends.

“Gah… I… c-can’t hold it for much longer. It’s like it’s fighting me.” Twilight growled through clenched teeth while putting every ounce of will she had into her magic. Lifting an object of this size would normally be no problem, but whatever energy the animatronic had inside of it was much greater than she could handle. Thankfully it seemed as though the robotic animal couldn’t fully control its own strength, allowing her some time to overpower or at least contend with it.

Spotting an opportunity, Glimmer Shine rushed up from behind the animatronic and grabbed it around its slender waist. With help from leverage and the purple mare’s magical struggle with the beast, the stallion managed to put all of his weight down on Chica and forced her back to her knees. Not wanting the metallic bird to maim his friend, Tom joined in and grabbed the animatronic’s arm before it could lash out and do some damage.

Chica shrieked and jerked from side to side in an attempt at getting free. Realizing that Twilight was about to be overwhelmed, Glitterball used her own magic to help keep the animatronic in place. However, just as the group was trying to think of a way to go back on the offensive, Chica bucked upwards with great force and threw the stallion and the human off of her. The surge of strength from the animatronic made a wave of shooting pains hit the two unicorns in the head, forcing them to let their horns dim as they yelped in agony.

Twilight fought through her pain and looked up to see Chica preparing to leap onto Glimmer Shine while he was down. Widening her eyes and letting out a brief gasp, she raced to think of something she could do. Her magic wouldn’t be able to contain the animatronic for very long if she tried again, but perhaps there was something else she could do.

“AH!” Glimmer Shine yelped and covered his face with his forelegs as he saw the animatronic bearing down on him with its clawed hand outstretched. Before his doom could reach him, however, Chica was enveloped in a purple aura again, only this time it was just around her head.

Twilight yelled from exertion while using her magic to perform a twisting motion. It was hard to move the animatronic due to the immense power that was still present within it, but somehow she managed to put more force in than Chica could react to.

A sickening snap rang out as Chica’s head twisted too far to the side. The joint in her neck broke like a metallic twig, sending a brief spark into the air as she stumbled backwards. Twilight was forced to let go, but at least she had done some damage beforehand.

Much to everyone’s surprise and dismay, the animatronic was still standing. Chica’s head was limply slanting off to the side, but the unnatural gleam in her eye sockets still remained. With a furious distorted roar, the metallic bird sprinted toward the purple mare abruptly, catching her off guard.

“…!” Twilight flinched and stumbled backwards fearfully as she noticed the rampaging animatronic bolting toward her. It seemed like the neck injury she sustained wasn’t going to stop Chica from tearing off the unicorn’s head with her teeth.

Before the animatronic reached its target, it was met with another obstacle. Sunspot rushed ahead of the purple mare and jumped into the air. She somehow managed to use her wings to get a little bit of lift in the confined hallway. With momentum on her side, she arched her body backwards and flung out one of her back legs, aiming as high up as she could.

*Clang*

In one swift motion, Sunspot’s leg collided with Chica’s head and kept going. The animatronic’s head completely separated from its body as the metallic joint in its neck snapped with a grating crunch. While the body stumbled backwards from the impact, the head kept flying a short distance until it smacked into the floor and kept rolling, nearly hitting Glimmer Shine as it bounced past.

Chica’s body twitched for a moment before growing still. Finally, gravity kicked in and the chicken’s body fell to the floor with a sizable thud. The two parts of the once fierce animatronic didn’t move once they settled in place, giving the impression that the ghost inside had abandoned its shell.

The group panted heavily while catching their breath after such a tense struggle. They looked around for a moment to ensure that no other mechanical horrors were waiting for them before turning their attention to each other.

“Is everyone ok?” Glitterball asked in a concerned tone while looking over her friends to see if they had any injuries.

“*Pant*… Yeah… *Wheeze* I’m good.” Twilight said in between breaths. As exhausted and tense as she felt, she was thankfully unharmed.

Finally, everyone turned to look at the one person who they knew to be injured during the battle. Although Tom appeared relaxed and unfazed by the fight with the animatronic, he was cradling his still bleeding arm delicately.

“Tom, are you alright?” Glimmer Shine asked while looking at the sizable bite marks on the human’s arm with a sympathetic expression.

Tom winced in pain while looking down at his injury. He clenched his fist and cringed even more while letting his healing abilities kick into action. The bloody wounds on his arm were enveloped in embers and flames, replacing them with healthier and intact skin and restoring his clothes to their former glory. “I’m fine. It’s going to take a bit more than a hunk of junk with teeth and claws to get rid of me.” Tom said in a confident manner while coping with the last twinges of pain as the flames dimmed from his arm. The brief display of his healing powers made the others feel a little bad for him, but they were glad that his wounds were at least gone.

“Speaking of hunks of junk with claws and teeth… that is a bit of a problem. Every ghost we’ve come across so far in this place has been hiding in an animatronic. How do we get rid of them if they just keep jumping from suit to suit?” Glitterball asked in an uneasy tone while eyeing the motionless remains of the old model of Chica. When the robotic bird was defeated, there was no visible cue to tell that the ghost had vacated the animatronic. And with Tom’s senses being messed up by the strange readings in the area, it would be nigh impossible to do anything to the ghosts once they actually left their bodies.

“That is a tricky question…” Tom muttered pensively. “it looks like these guys have grown attached to these suits. They must have been inside of them for a long time to have gotten used to moving around and staying inside of such a damaged vessel. I suppose the best thing to consider right now would be how many animatronics there are down here.” He suggested while glancing over to Sparkplug.

The gray mare stepped forward from the back of the group and paused as she tried recalling anything she knew about the extension project. “I honestly don’t know… From the look of it, Berry’s grandfather brought a lot of his work down here to finish it. We’ve already seen old models of Bonnie and Chica… it’s hard to say how many more there could be… especially considering there could have been animatronic mascots entirely different from the ones we use now.” Sparkplug explained with a troubled tone. The mere thought of there being more animatronics down here waiting to get up and attack the group made them shiver nervously.

“Well… let’s not get spooked worrying about uncertainties right now. We should head back to the security office. Come on.” Glimmer Shine suggested while motioning for the others to follow him. Everyone was eager to leave and get back to the safety of the well-lit and securable security room, so they nodded and walked to join the yellow stallion.

The area around them was lit up for the most part, but several parts of the hallway had lights that had burned out or broken, leaving patches of darkness in between each island of light. Knowing what they saw on the security cameras, Glimmer Shine and his two companions were more wary of their surroundings than Sunspot and the others.

“So, did you guys get a look at the thing that chased you here before you ran into Chica?” Glitterball asked hesitantly while glancing back to the orange pegasus and the other two mares. Twilight could only look to Sunspot and Sparkplug curiously as they thought back to their experiences after she passed out.

“Not really… we mostly just heard it. It had a really short high pitched laugh, and it moved really fast from how it sounded.” Sunspot explained in an uneasy tone while shivering slightly as she remembered the strange entity’s laugh.

“I think I caught a glimpse of it before we rounded the first corner when we were running. All I could see were some white glowing dots. It was all the way at the end of the hall, and the lights weren’t on back there, so it’s hard for me to say what it was.” Sparkplug said while checking behind her in a paranoid fashion.

“Yeah, we didn’t have much time for looking behind us with Twilight the way she was. Our first priority was getting out of there.” Sunspot replied. Now that the unicorn’s brief stint of unconsciousness was brought up again, the others grew more concerned as they thought about it more.

“Are you sure you’re ok Twilight? What happened anyway?” Tom asked while looking back to the purple mare with a worried expression.

Twilight paused uncomfortably as the subject of her sudden blackout was brought up. She knew that she had to discuss her bizarre vision, but the thought alone made a pit firmly cement itself in her stomach. She was almost expecting her vision to be some sort of omen that meant that she was physically or mentally unwell, and that was being generous. The world of the supernatural was strange and new to her, and right now she was terrified of it.

“I… umm… I’m not sure what happened really. I was just walking one second, and the next I felt this buzzing in my head. I guess that was around the time I blacked out… but…” Twilight shrugged hesitantly as she tried to think of a way to bring up her experience.

Noticing the purple unicorn’s troubled expression and tone of voice, the others stopped walking and put their full attention on her as they wondered what was wrong.

“Go ahead Twilight, you can tell us anything. Did something happen?” Glitterball asked in a sympathetic tone.

Twilight finally decided to push through her unease and just explain everything she saw. “I don’t know what it was… it must have happened after I passed out, but I had a sort of… dream, or something.” Twilight said with a troubled expression as she still tried processing what happened herself. “I was in a building inside of an amusement park… it looked exactly like the pictures on those newspapers you showed us. Judging from a newspaper I saw… it was around seventy years ago. I would have thought it was just a regular dream, but… I don’t know. I had a nightmare a few nights ago where I went down to the basement of the resort, and the layout I saw matched the actual layout perfectly. I think it might have been some kind of vision.” She explained in a drained tone. No matter how hard she tried to think about the experience, nothing else made sense to her and calling it a vision wasn’t exactly a sound explanation for her.

The others looked at each other with concerned expressions as they thought about the unicorn’s strange experiences. Most of them didn’t have any idea what to think about the apparent visions, and even if they could find something that made a little sense, the thought alone of what it could have meant for Twilight made them uneasy.

“Well… it could have been a vision. Can you remember anything important that happened with what you saw when you passed out, or your nightmare?” Tom asked curiously while trying to sound as reassuring as possible to not freak out the purple mare.

“Umm… not much else happened in the vision I had after I passed out. I saw Berry’s grandfather interviewing a new employee for the park… oh! Wait a minute… I think I saw an article in the newspaper talking about a string of kidnappings. And in the nightmare I had, there was this little ghost girl.” Twilight said while recalling the details of her dream. She could still picture the white filly with golden hair and piercing eyes vividly in her mind.

“Little ghost girl? You mean you actually saw one of the ghosts?” Sunspot asked in a surprised tone. The thought alone of a ghostly child was more than a little unnerving. The group hoped that the ghosts they were being hunted by weren’t mostly children. Being chased by a fully matured and grown spirit was bad enough, so the last thing they needed was for all of the enthusiasm and energy of a child to be put toward being terrifying.

“I didn’t just see her… she led me down to the basement. I tried talking to her, but she didn’t respond very much. All she said was help me, and I just want to go home.” Twilight explained while suppressing the chills that she was getting from remembering the filly’s hauntingly echoic voice.

“Ghosts have been known to show things to people… maybe she really did want help.” Tom suggested. “It would certainly explain your visions. You’re probably more susceptible to paranormal experiences like visions and negative feelings when around ghosts, so you were the one she picked to reach out to.” He explained while scratching his head in thought. The human’s statement was less than comforting to the purple unicorn.

Twilight paused and tilted her head in shock. “More susceptible, what the hay is that supposed to mean?!”

“It’s nothing too major… you’re probably just a fraction more likely to experiencing something supernatural than the average person. I mean… you have died, Twilight. That kind of thing does tend to leave some kind of lasting effect on a person.” Tom explained in a softer tone. Being reminded of the purple mare’s fatal incident made most of the others fall silent uneasily, while it just outright confused a certain gray earth pony.

“Wait, wait, wait… she died? Am I missing something here?” Sparkplug asked in a puzzled manner while looking around in the hopes that someone could explain.

“It’s a long story… I’ll tell you about it after we get out of here. Speaking of which, let’s get moving. I don’t want to dwell on the fact that I’m now a walking talking ghost magnet for very long.” Twilight shrugged in irritation while walking ahead. The others watched the unicorn before deciding that it was best to move on. Sparkplug, however, was still mentally struggling to try and understand how the purple mare could have died in the past and still be around today.

After a short walk, the group reached a lit up intersection with darkness waiting just outside in the other hallways. To their right, there was the stairwell leading down. The entire opening that led into the stairwell was blocked by a framework of metal bars. The bars had only one door built into the right side of them, and it was currently closed.

The group was going to ignore the stairway and walk down the left corridor to get back to the security office, but Twilight suddenly noticed something that made her pause. As she got a better look at what she saw, she gasped and rushed over to the stairs.

“Guys, look at this!” Twilight eagerly waved the others over to where she was. Everyone paused and turned around to see what the unicorn was talking about. As they walked over to the stairs and looked to where she was pointing, they widened their eyes in surprise.

Sitting on the ground near the first landing, there was a familiar Stetson hat covered in the striped shadows of the bars. It was just sitting there by itself, almost perfectly placed to where one would notice it if they looked at the stairwell.

“Oh my gosh… is that…?” Glitterball muttered in a stunned tone.

“Applejack’s hat… it has to be! They must have gone down to the second floor!” Twilight exclaimed cheerfully while quickly reaching for the door. However, as she pulled the handle near the edge of the metallic door frame, she was met with solid resistance. “What? No… not now.” Twilight groaned in a distressed tone while trying the door again. Much to her dismay, it wasn’t budging anytime soon.

“Is it locked?” Sunspot asked, despite how much of a hard time the unicorn was having with getting the door open.

Finally, Twilight sighed heavily while releasing the door and stepping back with a disheartened expression. “It must have locked after they went in.” She said while shaking her head sadly.

“Maybe they left Applejack’s hat here to let us know that they went downstairs?” Glitterball suggested curiously while observing the lonely hat sitting beyond the barred gate.

“That must be why… Applejack wouldn’t leave that hat anywhere without a good reason. But if they went downstairs, how are we going to get to them with this locked door in the way? *Sigh* If only we had your equipment with us… I’m sure your cutters could get through those bars.” Twilight muttered sadly while glancing to Glimmer Shine and the others. As she thought more about her own statement, she suddenly dawned on an idea that might solve their problem. “Wait a minute… I can get through those bars! Maybe I can unlock the door from the other side?” She suggested eagerly. Before anyone else could even voice their opinion, she turned to face the gate and lit up her horn, concentrating on the other side.

The others stood back and watched as the purple mare blinked out of existence temporarily, only to reappear behind the bars a moment later. Twilight quickly rushed to the door and examined the lock to see if there was some sort of way for her to unlock it.

Twilight looked over the lock feverishly, hoping to find something different from the other side. Unfortunately for her, the lock was uniform and completely latch-less. “Ugh, no good... looks like we're going to need a key to open it after all.” She shrugged while sliding from the door with a dejected expression.

“I'm sure there are some keys somewhere on this floor. Come on back over here, Twilight. We don't know what could be down there.” Tom said in a mildly concerned tone while motioning for the unicorn to teleport to the other side again.

Twilight glanced behind her to the steps leading down. The opening into darkness that was the landing and stairs further down was suddenly much more eerie and foreboding than it was when she rushed over to this side. There was currently a thick set of metal bars standing between her and her friends. If something wanted to creep up the stairs and drag her down to the darkness below to have its way with her, it wouldn't be that hard.

“Uh… heh… right.” Twilight chuckled nervously while quickly lighting up her horn again and scrambling to teleport over to the safety of the other side of the door. Before she did, however, she reached down and picked up Applejack’s hat to hold onto it.

While the purple mare finished popping back into existence, the others were already pondering what to do next.

“We need to find a way to get down there if we're going to find the others and get to the bottom of all of this.” Glitterball suggested in a determined tone.

“You’re right… but first, we need to get Twilight and Sparkplug back to safety.” Glimmer Shine said while turning to the others in thought. “Glitter, why don’t you take them back to the security room while we start looking for those keys?” He suggested while looking to the white unicorn.

“Are you sure?” Glitterball asked in a hesitant expression. She wasn’t sure if she felt comfortable with leaving her friends to search through such a dangerous location on their own. Then again, she wasn’t sure how much help she would be if they actually ran into something bad.

“Yeah, go on ahead. You can look over the map with the others to see if you can find anything that might help us locate the keys to that gate.” Glimmer Shine replied confidently.

“Alright… You guys be careful.” Glitterball said before turning to Twilight and Sparkplug. She motioned for the two mares to follow her as she walked down the hallway toward the security office. While the trio walked away, the yellow stallion was left with only the human and the orange pegasus.

Now that they had the goal of finding keys in mind, the already huge and unknown resort around them seemed even more massive. They only hoped that the keys would be in a reasonable place that seemed like keys would be stored there, but there was a very strong possibility that they were just laying around in some random location in some random room, and that was assuming they were even still down in the resort.

“Come on guys, we better start looking. We’ll start with this hallway until Glitter can find a better place for us to search.” Glimmer Shine suggested while glancing around at the numerous rooms to either side. Tom and Sunspot shrugged uncomfortably as they realized just how much work was ahead of them. Still, they had to find the keys. It was the only way they could find Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell, not to mention finding out how to defeat the ghosts.

Chapter 16: Laughing in the Dark

View Online

-Earlier-

“Gah! Open you stupid little… thing!” Rarity fumed angrily while violently pulling on the door in front of her, which was showing no signs of giving in to her assault.

Applejack and Silver Bell stood behind the agitated unicorn with varying degrees of agitation on their faces as well as they watched their friend wrestling with the freshly locked stairway door. The metal bars were practically shaking from the white mare’s efforts, but all in all, it was just a waste of time. Still, Rarity didn’t seem to have figured out what her two companions already knew.

“Give it a rest, Rar… I don’t think it’s openin’.” Applejack sighed in a defeated tone while slowly accepting that they were now locked out of the first floor.

“Grr… how did the door even lock?! It was unlocked when we got here, and I don’t see a latch anywhere on this stupid thing!” Rarity yelled one last time while kicking the metal bars with an upset expression. Her rage numbed any pain that she might have felt, and she hoped that the inanimate door was feeling double the pain.

“I knew we shouldn’t have come down here… what are we going to do?” Silver Bell asked in a concerned tone while shifting her weight around uneasily. Just standing at the top of a stairwell leading down to another floor was making her feel a strong sense of dread. The floor she was currently on terrified her, but at least she somewhat knew what to expect lurking around every corner.

“I know darling, but it was the only thing we could do to hide from that dreadful monstrosity. All of the doors were locked, and the stairs were the only place for us to go.” Rarity explained in a reassuring tone. As she put more thought into the matter, she quickly realized that the situation looked a lot like a trap. “Oh no… you’re right, we shouldn’t have come down here! I’ve gone and gotten us stuck. We probably played right into that ghastly ghoul’s hands! Oh, woe is me!” She whined in a distraught manner while giving into the feeling of panic that Silver Bell was already feeling.

“Relax Rarity… it’s not like you’re the only one that decided to come down here. I figured we could hide downstairs and then come back up after that critter passed by, but I guess we’ve been outsmarted. We might as well keep movin’ forward and try our best to find another way out of here.” Applejack suggested in a calm and collected tone while trying to cease the white mare’s overly dramatic weeping.

After taking a moment to stop her downward spiral, Rarity looked up and noticed her friend wearing a confident expression. She was surprised that the orange mare was so composed, but then again, she was a very strong-willed person. “*Sigh* You’re right… we just have to carry on… we must. I won’t let anything get in the way of us getting out of this horrid place, least of all my own emotions.” Rarity stated in a determined tone while putting a hoof up to her chest.

“Uh… Rarity…?” Silver Bell spoke up hesitantly as she noticed something.

“What is it?” Rarity asked with a confident expression, ready to do anything in her power to resolve the nervous mare’s undoubtedly troubling question.

“I think you still have some of that black stuff on you from earlier.” Silver replied while cringing slightly as she pointed to the white mare’s hoof.

Rarity looked down and noticed a splotch of dark black goop on her otherwise clean hoof. Back at the service entrance, the unicorn accidentally stepped in the disgusting black mess before discovering that the entrance was locked. She thought she had wiped it all off of herself, but apparently, she was mistaken. “Gh... g-guh… g… gh… gaaAAAHHH! Get it off, get it off, get it OFFFFFF!” The unicorn yelped while frantically wiping her hoof on the floor. The mere thought of having the foul smelling substance on her for so long made her shrivel up on the inside, and right now she was grinding her hoof across the carpet like she was trying to get acid off of herself.

After an enthusiastic display of the white unicorn flailing her foreleg around and frantically wiping her hoof on the carpet while making the most distressed expressions the others had ever seen on another pony, Rarity somehow managed to satisfy herself that her hoof was now at least relatively clean. “*Huff*… *Pant*… let’s… let’s get going, shall we?” She muttered while trying to recompose herself. Although she was failing miserably, she still walked down the steps with an air that somewhat radiated class and grace.

Applejack sighed while shaking her head at her friend’s odd behavior. Somedays she felt like the white unicorn was a member of a whole different species to her. Still, she was at least moving forward for the moment, and that was something good.

Silver Bell started to follow the two mares down the steps until she paused and looked back to the locked gate behind her. The more she thought about where she was and how big this place was, the more a troublesome thought found its way into her head.

“Hold on guys.” Silver spoke up to get the others’ attention. Rarity and Applejack turned and looked up at the cream unicorn curiously as she lingered by the metallic bars.

“Something wrong, Silver?” Rarity asked while walking back up a few steps. Silver Bell seemed to be uneasy for some reason, but she couldn’t imagine why.

“What if the others come down here to look for us? If they find this door locked, they might assume we’re on the first floor. It could take them forever to find us.” Silver suggested in a concerned tone.

Applejack and Rarity paused and thought about the unicorn’s statement for a moment. They quickly realized that she was right. If they knew their friends well enough, then they knew that their first priority would be to find them. However, if the door to the stairwell was locked when they found it, they would probably scour the first floor to find them before trying to find a way to get downstairs.

“You’re right… there’s no way they will know we are further down with that door locked.” Applejack said while shrugging uneasily.

“If only there was a way we could leave them a message telling them that we’re down here…” Rarity pondered out loud while struggling to think of something to do. Her companions silently tried coming up with a solution as well, but the solution was closer to them than they might have thought.

Rarity drifted her eyes over to Applejack. As soon as she noticed the orange mare and her iconic hat, an idea popped into her head, an idea that she immediately regretted having, and also loathed herself for still thinking about it. “Applejack… umm…” Rarity paused uncomfortably and looked down as she struggled to find another viable solution.

“What?” Applejack asked while looking to the white mare with a confused expression.

Rarity was having a hard time getting her words out, and she had a guilty and hesitant expression on her face. “I know how this sounds… and I immediately want to clarify that this is only an idea that I am neither for nor against, but… what if we left your hat here?” She cringed as she finally managed to complete her suggestion. She received roughly a moment to sweat nervously and anticipate the horrible reaction that she would get from the orange mare. Perhaps she was overreacting. Maybe Applejack would realize that this was the only plan they had, and she would give in to the greater good.

“W-what?!” Applejack flinched slightly as she heard the ridiculous request. She backed up and shifted into a more defensive posture while instinctively adjusting her hat and keeping a tight grip on it.

“I know, I know… I’m sorry to even ask this, but we don’t have many other choices here. I would suggest we leave Silver’s collar or glasses, but her collar would be too hard to spot and I’m fairly certain she needs her glasses to see.” Rarity reasoned while looking to the cream mare for confirmation. Silver Bell nodded in response while adjusting her glasses.

“W… why in the hay do we need to leave somethin’ here? Can’t we just… I don’t know, write a message for them or somethin’?” Applejack said in a slightly agitated tone.

“We don’t exactly have a pen or anything, darling.” Rarity replied softly while offering the upset mare a sympathetic expression. “I know how much that hat means to you, but I wouldn’t ask if it wouldn’t be effective. If the others saw that hat back here, they would know for sure that we’re past that gate.” She explained pleadingly.

Applejack silently stared at the white unicorn with an expression one would loosely describe as upset. She looked back and forth between Rarity and Silver Bell, seemingly thinking about something. Whatever she was thinking about wasn’t making her any happier. “Grr…” The orange mare growled under her breath before finally sighing and taking off her hat. “Ok… but if anythin’ happens to this hat, I am holdin’ you personally responsible.” She explained while maintaining a very serious glare with the white unicorn and begrudgingly placing her hat down on the ground.

“Thank you Applejack. I know that wasn’t easy.” Rarity said in a grateful tone while smiling slightly at her orange friend, who was still harboring a little bit of negativity in her expression.

“Let’s get moving before I change my mind.” Applejack suggested while turning and walking down the steps. The two unicorns offered a brief glance to each other before following the farm pony downstairs.

The wide carpeted stairway eventually ended at another landing with an enclosure of metal bars, which in turn led out into a more open area. The faded wallpaper and carpets on this floor were different than the ones upstairs. While the wallpaper upstairs was mostly white or gray throughout most of the halls, there was a stripe of dark blue here along the bottom where the molding met the wall. The carpets here were blue as well, and they seemed to be in roughly the same condition as the ones upstairs, with a severe amount of discoloration being the primary effect that age had had on them.

At the sides and at the end of the open area in front of them, there were more hallways leading out into the rest of the floor. The area before the hallways was relatively small, offering a sort of miniature resting area before walking around the spacious corridors. There were a few chairs and a table nestled in the corner of the walled area beside the left hallway, and there were even a few paintings that were covered in dust sitting on the wall at tilted angles.

To their immediate left was another flight of carpeted stairs leading down, with another gate. Although, this gate was closed like the one upstairs was. The amount of anxiety and unease that the trio was getting from having such a large unknown area around them was almost unbearable. Even if the door to the next floor would open, they weren’t sure if they wanted to go any further down.

“Ugh… it’s even colder down here.” Silver Bell stated while shivering slightly and trying to maintain any semblance of warmth. After stepping through the open gate and out into the second floor, it had gotten noticeably colder in a short period of time.

“I’m not sure if that would be due to a lack of heating down here, or from the ghosts… and I’m not sure which one is worse.” Rarity added with a hesitant tone. Despite their apprehension, the three mares stepped out into the open area.

“Now that we’re here, what do we do?” Silver Bell asked curiously while trying to ignore the fear in the back of her mind from looking around at the various dark hallways.

“Gotta’ be a map around here somewhere…” Applejack muttered while scanning around the area for any sign of a map. If the map upstairs only covered that floor, and it was near the stairs, then perhaps there would be something similar near the entrance to this floor.

Spotting one particular painting on the far wall that stood out due to its shape, the orange mare and her two companions walked closer to it. As they got up to it and examined it, they could barely decipher what it was due to the thick covering of dust. Applejack wiped off a section of the dust, smiling as she noticed the beginnings of a map. “Here we go.” The orange mare stated with a pleased expression while cleaning off the rest of the map. Silver Bell and Rarity looked over the large layout of the map as their friend revealed it in its entirety.

Judging from first appearances, this floor looked to be bigger than the floor upstairs. It was wider than it was long, with a few rooms that were large as well. There were some labels on various rooms to denote what they were, and some of them stood out more than others.

Among the more unique looking rooms, there was one large room to the far right of the map that was apparently called “museum”. There were also four uniform looking rooms spread out around the map, each with the label of “workshop” followed by a number from one to four. At the bottom of the map was perhaps the most bizarre looking room they had ever seen. The layout of the room was large and irregularly shaped, with some curves and abruptly ended shapes that made it look more like a geometrical figure than a room.

“Pirate cove…?” Rarity muttered in a puzzled manner while examining the strange room. The implications of the name made it sound like an attraction. Judging from some of the other rooms dotted around the floor, there were some play areas for kids and small attractions mixed in with the hotel rooms and staff rooms, but the ponies would never have expected to see such a bizarre looking thing on a map of a resort.

Silver Bell looked at the apparent attraction curiously while deep in thought. “Looks like some kind of attraction for the park… I wonder what it is?”

“I don’t know, but it sounds… crude.” Rarity added in a mildly haughty tone. However, while the two unicorns were trying to figure out what the odd attraction was, their orange friend was focusing on something else.

“Hey, look at this.” Applejack spoke up in a brighter tone while pointing to the map. “It says there’s a fire escape back there in pirate cove. If I’m right about where we’re facing, that should be right around the area where the service entrance is upstairs.” She explained eagerly.

“But we didn’t see a fire escape or any stairs in that blocked off room,” Silver Bell pondered out loud before coming to the next logical conclusion. “Which means…” She said in a stunned tone of revelation.

“Which means that it’s probably behind that locked door we found! Liven up girls, I think we just found our way out of this place!” Applejack cheered excitedly, eliciting her two companions to smile brightly and cheer as well. With their spirits lifted after setting their sights on a new plan of escape, the three mares briefly memorized the map before setting off down the dark and eerie hallway across from the stairs.

The slight change in the surrounding décor hadn’t even slightly lessened the oppressive atmosphere of loneliness and dread as the trio stared into the everlasting darkness just outside of their view. They had been fortunate to have only run into a few ghosts while in this place, but their luck was going to run out at some point.

After a few moments of walking, the ponies ran into a wall, forcing them to deviate from their straight path and head down the right side of the intersection. The nearest opportunity they had, they turned left to continue toward the back of the map so they could reach the pirate cove.

The majority of the rooms down on this floor had complete doors like the floor above, though a lot of them were left hanging open. The trio only found one room without a door in their time walking, and they were afraid to look inside for very long. Still, the shadows cast by the open doors and the anticipation of walking around the ones opened outward to look into the rooms was making them tense.

Silver Bell whined softly while peering behind her in a paranoid state. Every time she turned around she felt like something was watching her. The echoed footsteps that she and her two companions were making weren’t helping the situation. She was barely managing to keep herself composed, and that was without thinking about how far down underground she was and letting claustrophobia sink in.

“Are you alright Silver?” Rarity asked in a concerned tone while looking to the timid unicorn sympathetically.

“Y-yeah… I think so. I just want to get out of here.” Silver replied while swallowing the lump in her throat and making an attempt at appearing calm.

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there. I think it should be down the next hall.” Applejack said with a reassuring expression, hoping to comfort the cream mare. Silver nodded and suppressed her fear in the hopes that she would be leaving this place without running into anything else that would give her nightmares.

…Hey…

Out of the darkness around them, a deep voice echoed suddenly. The voice was so distorted in pitch and heavily echoed that the three ponies couldn’t tell where it came from, but it immediately made them freeze as all of the hairs on their bodies stood on end.

“Wh… w-what was that?!” Rarity asked in a panic while darting her head around to look for the source of the demonic sounding voice.

“I don’t know… and I don’t think I want to know.” Applejack replied nervously while backing closer to her friends. She looked back and forth between the two directions of the hallway, but nothing revealed itself from the shadows.

...Want to see my head come off…?

The voice beckoned in an almost casual manner. This time, it seemed to come from their side. All at once, Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell slowly turned their heads to look where they didn’t want to look. The voice’s distorted nature and its disturbing statement made their blood run cold, but they felt compelled to at least see the horrific monster that had just spoken. Immediately to their side was another open door, though this one seemed far more sinister than the others. The room within had no visible furniture or decorations to distinguish it from any of the others. There was only carpet, ceiling, and pitch blackness that seemed to go on forever past the faint light that the two unicorns managed to shine into the room.

As the trio eyed the darkness and scanned it for movement, the chill at the back of their necks returned and increased in severity. It seemed as though the longer they stared, the more unnerved and tense they became, like their bodies were trying to convince them to flee.

Silver Belle could practically feel her heart thumping in her chest and her knees getting weaker as she struggled to avert her gaze from the open room. “G-girls… let’s get o-out of here.” She suggested timidly, taking a hesitant step back and away from the doorway.

“We’re right behind you Silver…” Applejack stated in a terrified manner while slowly backing up along with the cream unicorn.

Before the three mares could backpedal any further away from the open room, a deeply distorted and low pitched chuckle reverberated out into the hallway from within. The voice made the trio’s collective heartbeat skyrocket and their spines tingle with chills racing up and down them. As they glanced back into the room, they saw it.

Within the darkness, just barely faint enough to see, there were two glowing yellow dots. The realization that the dots were actually a pair of eyes hit the ponies all at once. Suddenly, they felt their chests tense up and their hearts race. Their minds screamed out in panic as they stared headlong into the yellow lights. Perhaps it was in their heads, but they could almost swear that the dots were getting slightly closer.

“RUN!” Applejack yelled as she somehow managed to break out of her trance of fear. Silver Bell and Rarity jerked to the side, letting their feet carry them as they kept staring blankly ahead in terror. As soon as they cleared the doorway from their vision, they bolted down the hall as fast as they could.

With their adrenaline racing and their lungs burning, the trio sprinted past every other room they found on their way toward nothing in particular. They were conveniently going the right way toward their original destination, but they didn’t care. They could have been going back where they came from for all they cared, just as long as they were getting away from that room and the two yellow dots.

Their collective stamina ran out and they puttered to a stop as they rounded the corner to another intersection. They stood around while panting heavily and struggling to catch their breath, all the while looking behind them nervously for fear that the terrifying creature had followed them.

“*Pant*… *Wheeze*… oh… oh my gosh…” Silver Bell managed to speak in between breaths. Despite her immense exhaustion, it was easy to tell that she was terrified. The other two mares couldn’t exactly blame her. They were still shaking themselves from the unnerving experience they just ran from.

“Did we… did we lose it?” Rarity asked while leaning on the wall desperately for support. From how fast her heart was racing, she felt like it might explode out of her chest.

“I don’t know… *Pant*… I’m not even sure if it was followin’ us.” Applejack replied while peering around the corner back where they came from. Although it was dark as a moonless night down the hallway, and her imagination and nerves were playing havoc on her mind, she didn’t see any glowing dots floating in the air menacingly.

“That wasn’t normal… what was that thing?” Silver Bell asked, a disturbed look still cemented on her face.

“Ghosts possessing animatronics aren’t exactly meant to be the norm, darling.” Rarity stated while noting the cream mare’s unnerved tone.

Silver shook her head with a troubled expression. “No… that thing was different somehow. I felt like I was going to pass out from fright whenever we saw one of the animatronics upstairs, but that… I don’t know what that was. It felt like my head was spinning just by looking at those eyes.” She explained in a confused and nervous manner. Just thinking about the experience made her mind lock up and chills go down her spine.

“I felt that too… and I think my vision was blurry.” Applejack said with a similarly troubled look in her eyes. “Let’s keep moving. Whatever it was, as long as it isn’t following us, we should be fine. The sooner we reach that fire escape, the better.” She added while walking forward and motioning for her two companions to follow her. Rarity and Silver Bell hesitantly glanced back down the hallway they came from before walking to keep up with their orange friend.

Assuming their memories of the map hadn’t been shoved from their minds by their brief terrifying experience, the three mares estimated the strange pirate cove to be up ahead. Within a few moments of walking, their suspicions were confirmed as the walls opened up further down the hall. There was an open intersection ahead with the hallway continuing further down. To the left was a seemingly larger hallway, and to the right was a large opening into a room. There was a colorful bunch of decorative stars hanging down from the frame of the doorway, and there were faint hints of different colors inside as the trio got closer.

Stepping around the corner, the ponies were met with a wide open room that stretched out before them. There was light purple carpet and dark purple wallpaper, along with a series of star decorations hanging down from the ceiling in a few places. The ceiling itself was painted black with white dots to resemble a starry sky.

There were two other doorways set at angles on the back left and right sides of the room. Both doorways led to what appeared to be curved hallways with similar carpeting and wallpaper. There was a sign to the side of each doorway, with an arrow pointing in opposite directions and the words “entrance” and “exit” printed across them respectively.

To the front of the room, there was a desk enclosure that was designed to resemble a pirate ship. There was a decorative poster next to the desk with numerous colorful and adventurous shapes on it, as well as a wall of text.

“Woah…” Silver Bell exclaimed in awe while looking around the colorful room. From the look of things, it wasn’t entirely finished, but it still looked impressive.

Rarity walked over to the desk and examined the poster more closely while her friends looked around. The poster was a bit faded and dusty, but it was readable due to the brightly colored text. After scanning over the whole of the text, her suspicions were confirmed as she realized that this was indeed an attraction for the resort. “It looks like this place is a walk-in attraction of some sort. It says that children of all ages can enjoy searching through pirate cove to find the hidden treasure.” She announced while turning back to face the others. Applejack and Silver Bell looked over to the white unicorn curiously before walking over to join her by the desk.

“Huh… Foxy the pirate and his crew of scallywags…?” Applejack asked in a confused tone while reading over part of the poster. “What in the hay is that?”

Silver Bell and Rarity returned their gaze to the poster as they heard their orange friend’s confusion. They hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a side note on the poster next to a cartoonish depiction of a red fox in brown pants with an eyepatch and a hook. The note warned in a playful manner for people to keep an eye out for the fox and his apparent crewmates throughout the attraction.

“Maybe they are part of the attraction? They’re probably animatronic mascots…” Silver Bell said in a casual tone. Her statement didn’t make her feel uneasy until she noticed her companions’ unsettled expressions and she thought about it herself.

Before the three mares could think further about what to do, a faint buzz filled the air. Along with this buzz, the distant sound of mechanical whirring and devices turning on came from all around them. Much to their surprise and initial shock, the lights in the room flickered to life, softly illuminating the area. The lights continually flickered and buzzed, with a few of them burning out. Finally, the remaining lights settled and remained on.

“W-what the…?” Applejack muttered in surprise while looking around at the newly lit up area. The lights were dim, either from age or aesthetic design to go along with the attraction, casting faint shadows and making the cool colors around the trio pop.

“Someone just turned on the lights…” Silver Bell stated the obvious while deep in thought. “Does that mean that the others are down here with us?” She perked up slightly as she came to the conclusion that something or someone must have turned the power back on. It didn’t make much sense for the ghosts to light the place up.

“I’m not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing… I hope none of the others came down here because they were worried about us.” Rarity said in a more troubled tone while thinking about her sister and her other friends.

“Don’t worry about them. I’m sure they would be safer than we are with Tom and the others with them.” Applejack stated with a reassuring expression while sympathizing with the worried unicorn. Rarity softened up her expression a little bit, but she was still a little concerned.

“So uh… do we wait for them or something?” Silver Bell asked while tilting her head in uncertainty. She hoped that the other two mares would suggest going back to the stairs and waiting.

“Well…” Rarity looked down in thought for a moment while mulling over the issue by herself. “Normally I would agree with you on that. I don’t want to stay here any longer than we need to. But, we need to help the others any way we can. We’re already close to the fire escape, so we might as well check it out. If it isn’t blocked off or anything, we can come back to it after we meet up with the others.” She explained in what she hoped would be a confident tone. As much as she wanted to help get things back to normal, she was still just as nervous as the cream unicorn.

Applejack nodded in agreement to the white mare, leaving Silver Bell standing beside the pair and looking at them with a timid expression of disbelief.

The cream unicorn gulped nervously and turned her gaze to the curved hallway to the left. Even if it was a little lit up now, the hallway into the unknown still filled her with terror. “You’ve got to be kidding me… you really want to go in there?” Silver Bell asked hesitantly.

“We know how you feel Silver… If you want, you could wait out here for us to get back.” Applejack suggested in a sympathetic tone while leveling with the unicorn.

Silver seemingly contemplated the orange mare’s offer for a moment before sighing with a frustrated expression. “No… I can’t just leave you two alone. I would feel horrible if something bad happened to you. Ugh… curse my conscience.” She muttered in a troubled tone while still trying to justify her decision to herself. The other two couldn’t help but feel a little bit of respect for the cream unicorn.

After taking a moment to get over their apprehensions, the trio pressed onwards and walked through to entrance on the left. The winding hallway was mostly lit up, with a single lightbulb being burned out at the end. The deep shadows and contrast between the darkness and the light somehow made the area look even eerier.

The hallway ended and opened up into another large room. This room was longer than it was wide, and they could already see the next doorway at the far end of the room. The same carpet was present, but the wallpaper had changed in a few places, being replaced by murals of water. There were a few closed off areas to the sides that appeared to be alcoves for scenery and decorations to make it resemble a beach or a cove. Most notable among the strange decorations was a series of animatronic mascots standing still and lifeless in posed positions.

The three ponies immediately grew wary of the animatronics. There were three of them in total. Two of them were in the alcove to the left, and the other was in the alcove to the right. The two on the left were a bipedal hippo with striped pants, a peg leg, and a stereotypically puffy shirt and pirate hat, and an orange cat with darker orange stripes on it that was sitting on a barrel. The cat had green eyes and a gold earring, along with a green bandana. The animatronic on the right was a dolphin with a pirate hat that was jutting out of a water decoration on the ground that was surrounded by a similarly colored mural.

Applejack cautiously walked through the middle of the room while facing the robotic animals. She had no doubt in her mind that they would be coming to life and chasing her as soon as she turned her back. However, the longer she examined them, the longer they remained motionless. “I don’t know about this, girls…” Applejack muttered uneasily while picturing how fast she would have to run to escape the three animatronics. She didn’t imagine that the dolphin or the hippo could move very fast, but the cat was slim enough to potentially run as fast as her.

Silver Bell hesitantly stepped closer to the enclosure that held the hippo and the cat. After getting over her building fear for a moment and taking a closer look at the pair of robots, she made an interesting discovery. “Hold on… I don’t think they can hurt us.” Silver said pensively while moving her head a little closer to get a better look.

“Careful Silver, don’t get too close. Just because they look like they’re not turned on doesn’t mean that they can’t move.” Rarity cautioned uneasily while trying to get the cream mare to back away from the animatronics.

“No, look at their feet.” Silver Bell stated while pointing to the ground near the animatronics.

Rarity and Applejack followed their cream companion’s instructions and looked down at the animatronics’ feet. Strangely enough, they noticed something gray and metallic between the colorful animatronic shells and the floor. The odd shapes were mostly circular, and they were jutting out of small grooves in the floor that were barely noticeable if you didn’t purposely look for them.

“What the hay are those?” Applejack asked with a confused expression while trying to figure out what the strange objects were.

“I think they’re tracks for the animatronics to move on. I don’t think these are real animatronics… they’re more like mechanical puppets.” Silver said, surprised at her own sudden revelation.

“Mechanical puppets…?” Rarity parroted the cream mare’s words as she tried to wrap her head around her reasoning. It was true that the tracks on the floor and the bolts holding them in place didn’t look like they could be released easily, and it did make sense that the dolphin to their rear wouldn’t be capable of walking.

“They would have to be. This place was being built back when Berry’s grandfather was still creating the animatronics. He must have been working on them down here, or there wouldn’t be any here in the first place. These guys must be what the resort was using before the animatronics were finished.” Silver Bell explained in an elated manner while smiling slightly. The knowledge that the robotic animals couldn’t come to life and attack her made the unicorn more than a little bit relieved and excited.

“That would make sense… Berry did mention that the animatronics weren’t ready to show off to the public even back when her grandfather made them.” Applejack reasoned with a nod of agreement.

“Even if they can’t walk around, I don’t really feel comfortable around them… let’s go find that fire exit and get out of here.” Rarity suggested with a hint of unease in her voice. Even though the animatronics couldn’t move around very much if they did turn on or get possessed by a ghost, they still looked a little unsettling with their faces shaded by the shadows in the room. The dim lighting wasn’t helping matters very much either.

With a little bit more confidence in their fragile state of safety, the three mares made their way through the room to the doorway at the far end. After passing through the opening, they were met with another pirate themed room. This one was heavily themed to resemble some sort of island interior, complete with fake jungle fauna nearly everywhere. Amidst the thick plastic vegetation, there was a clear path that led into a sort of circular area. In the center of the dirt colored carpeting, there was a sign with various arrows pointing to three other paths.

To the left was an area marked off as “kiddy cove”. There was a faded symbol of a simplified pony in an inflatable pool next to the arrow, so the three mares figured this area to be some kind of swimming area for kids. Judging from what little they could see of the area in the distance, they were most likely correct in their assumption. It looked like there were some decorations that made the area out to be a sort of cave, and there looked to be an empty cavity in the floor that was most likely one of the pools.

Deciding against investigating the kiddy cove, the group turned their attention to the other two signs. The sign that pointed to the right read “camp scallywag”, and it seemed to be a play area of sorts for children. Through the opening at the far end of the vegetated path, the ponies could see the beginnings of some kind of pirate-themed playground. There was even what looked to be an animatronic monkey hanging from a prop tree in the back of the room.

“Wow… this place looks kind of fun. It’s a real shame it was never finished.” Applejack stated with a hint of empathetic regret.

“Yeah… Sweetie Belle would have loved it here.” Rarity suggested while picturing her sister playing with her friends and scampering to and fro around the attraction. She frowned slightly as she remembered that she didn’t exactly know what the young unicorn was doing, or what had happened to her.

Noticing her friend’s gloomy expression, Applejack tried to think of why the unicorn would be upset. Her thoughts quickly turned to her own sister and she immediately understood what was ailing the white mare. “Let’s keep movin’. I’m sure the others will be finding a way down here soon enough, so we want to be done here before they get here.” Applejack suggested while walking down the path toward the back of the room.

Rarity took a moment to shake the lingering thoughts from her head before following the orange pony. Silver Bell briefly read off the sign that belonged to the path she would be following before rushing slightly to catch up with her friends. It seemed innocent enough. The sign simply read “treasure trove”.

The deep green of the faux jungle leaves gave way through the wide doorway into another large room. Compared to the last official room they were in, this one seemed like it was on a whole different scale. The heaping rectangle of an area looked big enough to host a small crowd, and its purpose seemed to justify the estimate.

All around the three mares was mostly open space decorated to resemble the edge of an island. There was sandy looking carpet along the floor, with a foam path of gray ovals made to resemble stones leading sideways across the room. Toward the back of the room, there were some areas that receded back further than others which were used to create the illusion of docks and an ocean, complete with murals on the walls to resemble a distant ocean and a moonlit starry sky.

There were also wooden huts of varying sizes and shapes dotted around the makeshift beach. Nearly all of the huts held items inside that seemed to be objects needed to play a host of old-fashioned carnival games. There was a ring toss to the left that used crude looking wooden rings and poles, or at least props made to look like crude wood. There was a booth near the border between fake sand and water that held water pistols and an array of cartoony skull targets in the back. There were even a few kiosks that most likely sold cotton candy and balloon animals.

“*Whistle*… now that is mighty impressive. It’s like a little carnival down here.” Applejack said in an enchanted tone while surveying the vast area before her. It seemed like everywhere she looked was another booth or decoration that made her feeling of wonderment even stronger.

“Yes, I must admit that all of this is rather remarkable. It’s hard to remember sometimes that we’re several feet underground.” Rarity added with a satisfied nod while briefly taking in the sights around her. “Now… where is that fire escape?” She muttered curiously while scanning around the room diligently. However, much to the white mare’s chagrin, her companions didn’t seem to be as focused on their task as she was.

“Oh my goodness, they had balloon swords! Pinkie would love it here.” Applejack chimed from off to the side. Rarity turned to see the orange mare examining some of the booths and huts around the area. Meanwhile, Silver Bell was trying on a pirate hat she found hanging on the wall.

“*Ahem*…” Rarity cleared her throat loudly, drawing the others’ attention to her and her icy glare of annoyance.

“Right… sorry.” Applejack said with a nervous smile before returning her efforts to searching for the fire exit.

While the orange mare started looking, Rarity glanced over to Silver Bell to make sure she was being productive. The cream mare lingered in her mindset of goofing off until she received a raised eyebrow from the white unicorn. Finally, Silver shrugged and put her pirate hat back where she found it.

Now that they had officially returned to their search, the three ponies spread out around the large room and looked around for the elusive fire escape. They searched around and behind many of the booths, and even looked inside the enclosed areas meant for decorations, but they couldn’t see anything.

Taking a look toward the front of the room at the area where the makeshift beach met the makeshift jungle, Silver Bell noticed something amid the plastic vegetation. In front of the center wall, there was an area ahead of the painted tree line mural on the wall that held a few treasure chest decorations. The chests themselves were standard fair for a pirate theme, even being complete with overflowing gold and jewelry, though it was clearly fake. What was bothering the cream mare, however, was what was in front of the chests.

There were metallic grooves on the ground that looked similar to the ones in the other room that belonged to the animatronics. However, strangely enough, there weren’t any animatronics attached to the tracks. Silver would have thought them to be something else entirely, but the presence of two rounded bits of metal sticking out of the grooves pretty much confirmed her original deduction that an animatronic was meant to be bolted to the tracks.

“Huh?” Silver muttered with a confused expression while examining the tracks closer. She couldn’t imagine why there would be tracks meant for an animatronic puppet without said puppet being present. Everything else in the attraction seemed to be relatively finished, so why wouldn’t there be an animatronic here?

“Hey guys, look over here!” Rarity announced from across the room, drawing Silver out of her thoughts. The cream unicorn looked over to see her white companion waving her and Applejack over to the corner of the room behind a patch of fake trees. With another passing glance back to the vacant tracks on the ground, Silver shrugged before heading over to see what her friend had discovered.

Applejack and the cream mare arrived around the same time. The pair walked over to Rarity and stepped around the obscuring wall of plastic brush to see what she was pointing at. Much to their surprise, they saw a greyscale door with red symbols and text across it that indicated it was a fire exit.

“Nice find, Rarity!” Applejack stated in a praising tone while smiling eagerly at the sight of the door.

“You can thank me if it’s not locked… let’s get out of here.” Rarity suggested while stepping forward and walking up to the door. The other two mares followed the unicorn eagerly and waited as she grabbed the handle and turned it.

Much to their initial confusion and dismay, the white mare paused after pushing on the door to open it. Rarity muttered a confused and uneasy statement before shoving her weight into the door again. Eventually, the ponies realized that the door wasn’t budging.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Rarity exclaimed in frustration while kicking the door and backing away angrily.

“Is it locked or something?” Silver Bell asked hesitantly.

“No, that’s the problem. The handle turns just fine… it isn’t locked, it just won’t open for some reason.” Rarity explained with an exasperated shrug.

“Let me try something…” Applejack suggested while walking over to the door. “Rarity, hold the handle down.” She instructed while turning around and steadying herself. The white mare immediately knew what her friend was doing.

“Got it.” Rarity said while backing up and using her magic to twist the door handle.

Silver Bell and Rarity stood back and watched as their orange companion sized up the door. After a moment of centering herself, Applejack reared up her back legs and shot them out, delivering the strongest kick she could muster to the center of the stubborn door.

A mighty thunk sounded out and reverberated through the door. The ponies could see the door shaking a little bit from the impact, but unfortunately, it did not budge.

Applejack steadied herself after finishing her kick and spun around with a shocked expression. “What the hay?! I put everything I had into that kick. It doesn’t feel like anything is blocking the door, why isn’t it opening?!” She vented her frustration while trying to conceive just what was keeping the door closed. It was almost like something invisible was holding the door shut.

“The door isn’t locked… the handle turns just fine… it doesn’t feel like anything’s blocking it…” Rarity pondered out loud while trying to think of a possible solution. “Oh no…” She paled suddenly as she thought of something troubling.

“W-what’s wrong?” Silver asked in a concerned tone while noting the white mare’s dreadful expression.

“It seems like the only logical explanation is that one of the ghosts is holding the door shut.” Rarity explained hesitantly. The implications of such a statement made the other two mares’ hearts sink. They were trapped down here. Even if they did reunite with the others, the only way they could get back out would be to deal with the ghosts.

Before anyone could say anything further, a stray noise made the ponies’ ears perk up. What sounded like a loud creak came from the room behind them. The noise was far too loud and distinct to have been made by the building settling around them.

The three mares froze up suddenly as a wave of panic washed over them. They turned and looked out into the room, but their view was mostly obscured by the wall of brush beside them. They could only see out into the jungle hallway they came from, and there was nothing but the shadows of a burned out lightbulb to greet them there.

“Everyone down!” Applejack stated in a hushed and nervous tone while crouching low to the ground. Rarity and Silver Bell followed the orange mare’s example and got low to the floor while hugging the wall of fake vegetation. They couldn’t see through the thick plastic trees and vines enough to search the room, so they would have to poke their heads out if they wanted to find anything.

“What do we do? We’re like sitting ducks back here!” Silver Bell whispered frantically. It was easy to tell that the tense situation was getting to the cream mare, not that the others could blame her. She wasn’t exactly wrong either. If something had wandered into the room and found them, there was nowhere they could go with the door behind them locked.

Applejack anxiously looked in the general direction of the rest of the room and thought about how to get herself and her friends out of this mess. If they weren’t already found, they would be screwed if they were discovered waiting behind the wall of plastic plants. Then again, they might have been screwed anyway.

“You two wait here… I’m gonna’ go take a look.” Applejack said in as brave a tone she could muster while turning to her two friends. Although she knew she didn’t want the other mares getting hurt, she still felt nervous about going by herself to investigate the area.

Rarity gasped quietly as she processed the orange pony’s proposal. “Applejack, are you crazy?! You are absolutely not going out there by y…” She slowed down with a shocked expression as she watched the cowpony ignoring her words to start walking out into the room. “Applejack! Get back here!” She whispered frantically while motioning for the stubborn mare to return to the relative safety of their hiding spot.

Applejack ignored the white mare behind her and cautiously walked out from the wall. The room was still and quiet, just as the group left it when they went to inspect the fire escape. Somehow, however, it seemed to hold much more uncertainty and danger behind each corner and wooden hut.

Taking a look to the right, Applejack noticed a clearing in the fake vegetation where there was an area full of decorative treasure chests. She hadn’t seen the area before at any point when she was looking through the room, mostly because she was examining the many booths and huts. She must have been really unobservant at the time because there was an animatronic standing in the area that she didn’t even notice.

The animatronic was a red fox with yellow eyes similar to the one the ponies had seen on posters and artwork at the start of the attraction. The fox was wearing brown pants similar to his depictions, and he also had a matching hook for a hand and an eyepatch on one eye. His jaw was agape, revealing numerous sharp looking teeth. He was mostly intact looking, although some of the colorful shell around his legs and head was worn away slightly, revealing the gray endoskeleton underneath.

So this is Foxy? Applejack thought to herself briefly before glancing around in a paranoid manner. There were so many obscured corners and areas where something could have been hiding, waiting to pounce on her.

“Do you see anything...?” Rarity whispered while peering out from the wall of plastic vines. The orange mare looked back to see her white friend offering her support from behind her hiding place.

“Nothin’s here… there’s just huts, decorations, and this feller here.” Applejack replied back anxiously while double checking to ensure that nothing else was in the room.

Upon hearing the orange pony mentioning something as “feller”, Rarity and Silver Bell stepped out and looked over to where she was standing. While Rarity examined the animatronic with passive curiosity and anxiousness from the previous noise, Silver paled suddenly and widened her eyes in fright upon seeing the fox.

“*Gasp* Applejack, get away from that thing!” Silver Bell exclaimed in a panic, much to the confusion of her two companions.

“What’s wrong, Silver? It’s just a puppet.” Applejack stated, unaware of why the timid unicorn was freaking out so much.

“You don’t understand, that thing wasn’t there before!” Silver explained nervously with a deep feeling of fear in her voice.

Before Applejack could process the situation any further, she heard a soft metallic click behind her, followed by a distorted growl. She immediately felt chills running down her spine as a thick feeling of dread firmly cemented itself in her stomach. She didn’t want to turn around, but she started to anyway.

The crimson fox wasn’t looking off into the distance anymore. Its yellow eyes were piercing directly into Applejack’s, and its jaw was closed into a silent snarl. Now that all pretenses of the animatronic being lifeless were shattered, it started moving its hooked hand and raising it above its head.

“Applejack!” Rarity and Silver Bell cried in unison as they watched the animatronic preparing to strike their friend.

Applejack yelped in a panic while finally managing to snap herself out of her terrified stupor. She dove to the side, hoping to evade whatever the animatronic was preparing to do. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t move quite fast enough. “AGH!” The orange pony screamed as the fox’s hook sliced into her back leg. Although the hook itself wasn’t metal, it seemed as though there was a thin wire inside of the plastic shell that was poking through due to wear and tear, and the plastic shell had been worn down to a sharp edge from wear and tear as well. Blood sprayed out of Applejack’s leg as she finished her path to the floor. Luckily the hook didn’t stay inside of her, but the wound was painful looking.

The robotic fox screeched fiercely while stepping to the side. It reached down and grabbed the injured pony by her still bleeding leg and tried to pick her up. Applejack yelped from a mixture of pain and terror as she turned over and struggled to stay on the ground.

“GuaAAAH! Ge- get off me!” Applejack pleaded while trying to free her leg from the fox’s literal iron grip. She used her free leg to kick at the mechanical monstrosity, barely managing to even hit a solid target amid the chaos of the animatronic trying to pick her up and her own efforts to remain on the floor.

Foxy continued shrieking at the orange pony in his grasp, nearly making her ears bleed from how loud his distorted cries were. Having had enough of his tug of war with the stubborn mare, the crimson fox raised his hooked hand into the air once more, fully intent on impaling her and gouging her insides out.

Before the animatronic could strike, however, he was suddenly enveloped by a magical glow. As it tried to swing its hook down toward the orange mare, the fox was met with resistance as an invisible force pulled back on it. Applejack looked over to the side to see Rarity and Silver Bell with their horns glowing fiercely and pained expressions on their faces.

“Guh... he’s… he’s too strong!” Silver Bell stated while pulling back on her magic with all of her might. Despite the combined efforts of the two unicorns, the animatronic was just barely being restrained, and he was not happy about it.

Foxy strained and jerked his body in any direction it could go, trying desperately to rid himself of the annoying unicorns and their grip on him. Although it was slow going, he seemed to be able to move in small increments as his immense strength easily overpowered the two mares.

“Grr… A-Applejack, hurry and do something! We can’t hold him much longer!” Rarity exclaimed in a panic, hopeful that her orange friend was capable of doing something to free herself. With how much the two unicorns were struggling with the animatronic, they could barely move without breaking concentration. Right about now the white mare wished that her lavender friend was here to help with her magical capabilities.

Applejack shoved and kicked as hard as she could to wrench herself free of Foxy’s grip. Even with his limited range of motion, the animatronic was keeping a tight grip on his prey. Finally, however, one of her kicks managed to land a solid hit on the robotic animal’s body. The combined force of the orange mare’s kick and the two unicorns pulling back on the animatronic at once caused him to stumble. Seeing an opportunity open up, Rarity and Silver Bell directed all of their efforts to pulling Foxy off balance.

The two mares yelped from pain as their heads practically vibrated from the exertion they were putting them through. Just before they felt like they were going to pass out, the animatronic tipped over and fell on the ground, releasing the trapped pony in the process.

Applejack ignored the stabbing pains in her back leg and shot up from the floor. Once she was upright, she turned and saw her two friends panting and drooping their heads from exhaustion. Turning her attention back to the animatronic, she saw that the crimson fox was already trying to get to its feet. “Come on girls! We need to go, NOW!” Applejack yelled to snap the two unicorns out of their stupor. Rarity and Silver Bell fought through their pounding headaches and started running in the general direction of their orange friend. The three ponies quickly made a beeline for the doorway on the other side of the room, with the thunderous pounding of the animatronic’s metallic feet and its piercing cries already hot on their tails as it chased after its fleeing prey.

The trio didn’t even stop to see where they were going, they just ran for the nearest opening they could find and hoped that they didn’t run into any dead ends, literal or figurative. They bolted out into the next room, another mock coastline with decorative boats along the shore from the look of it. There were plastic palm trees jutting up from the middle of the floor, forcing the ponies to maneuver around them while maintaining speed.

The animatronic behind them let loose another distorted cry. It resembled what the three mares imagined a tortured soul inhabiting a metallic shell to sound like, but right now it sounded like it only wanted to kill them, and it sounded close. The group could hear the thumping of the fox’s feet right behind them. They were probably just barely keeping ahead of the beast, and none of them wanted to turn to look behind them. All they knew was that if they slowed down or stopped running for an instant, the crimson animatronic wouldn’t give them another chance to slip up.

Another room opened up in a blur as the three mares kept running. This one seemed to hold a few more mechanical puppets to the side and in the center. There was a monkey, a rabbit, and a snake, all of them wearing miscellaneous pirate clothes. The trio didn’t even pay attention to the animal entertainers. The only thing they were focused on was a small sign near the ceiling of the far doorway that read “exit”.

“Keep going, we’re almost out!” Rarity exclaimed while dodging to the side to avoid running into one of the stationary animatronics. She jumped over the outcropping of fake rocks the robotic animal was sitting on and kept going, briefly looking beside her to ensure her friends were still with her.

The ponies heard a loud metallic bang behind them. They hesitantly looked back to see Foxy the pirate barging into the animatronic they just past. The fox jumped over the fake rock the animatronic was sitting on, knocking the inactive robot off its perch and snapping several components off of it as he kept going.

Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell tore out into the entrance of the attraction. As they suspected, they came out through the door they saw earlier on the right side of the room. Still, they couldn’t linger for an instant if they were to outrun the fox behind them.

While she was running, Rarity noticed a rope divider meant for use in forming lines off to the side of the room. Desperate to slow down her pursuer in any way, she lit up her horn and picked up the divider by one of its anchoring poles and swung it out into the area directly in front of the doorway she just came from.

Much to their surprise, the trio heard a loud clamor as the animatronic ran into the rope divider. Although it offered little to no resistance to the towering fox, it apparently caused enough confusion and interference to make him trip slightly. With an agitated cry of frustration, Foxy fell forward and face planted on the floor.

The ponies used their few seconds of a distraction to run out of the door to the attraction. They bolted around the corner and down the relatively tight corridors of the resort in the hopes that they could lose the creature hunting them.

As expected, they heard Foxy running behind them, but he was a fair distance further away than he was before. Still, with their collective stamina running on fumes, they wouldn’t keep ahead of him for long if they didn’t do something fast.

Without so much as an end goal in mind, the trio kept running. They weren’t even sure where they were anymore. They tried to retrace their steps back to the stairwell to stay on their mental maps, but the route they were taking was backwards, and they couldn’t exactly carefully follow directions they memorized from the map while they were running as fast as they possibly could.

Applejack and her two companions could feel their hearts pounding in their chests as they rounded another corner, even amid their frantic efforts to keep breathing enough to sustain their bodies. However, the earth pony was dealing with an obstacle that the two unicorns didn’t have to; A rather nasty looking leg wound.

The orange mare had mostly fought through her pain to keep running, but even then it was hindering her severely. She barely managed to keep up with her friends as unbearable stabs of pain reminded her of her injury and the crimson trail of blood she was doubtlessly leaving behind. Finally, her handicap caught up with her.

“Gah!” Applejack yelped as her leg turned to a stinging mass of unresponsive jelly under her weight. She tumbled to the floor and just barely managed to cushion her fall with her front hooves.

Rarity and Silver Bell skidded to a halt as they heard their companion smack into the floor. They turned around and saw Applejack struggling to get to her feet, assuming she could get off the ground at all.

“Oh no… Applejack!” Rarity squeaked fearfully as she stared at her injured friend in shock. She couldn’t believe that this was happening right now. The thundering sound of the animatronic’s footsteps indicated that it was still chasing them, and it was right on their tails. Without even thinking about the consequences, the two unicorns rushed forward and knelt down to start to pick their friend up.

“Come on, Applejack… get up!” Silver Bell pleaded while pulling the orange mare to her feet. Despite the help given by the two mares, Applejack faltered again and gritted her teeth as her leg prevented her from steadying herself.

“Girls, run! Get yourselves out of here!” Applejack instructed while nervously glancing down the hallway. The animatronic fox would be here any second, and it wouldn’t show mercy to the two unicorns for stopping to help their friend.

“If you think I’m leaving you here you’ve got another thing coming cowgirl.” Rarity explained in an appalled tone, shocked that the orange mare would even suggest abandoning her.

Before Applejack could speak again in protest, the metallic footsteps got louder abruptly then ceased. The trio looked up as they heard a low snarling, only to see Foxy the pirate standing at the end of the hallway, and he did not look like he was about to congratulate them for making it through pirate cove.

Applejack tried once again to get to her feet. However, she stumbled again before succeeding in trying to walk with three legs. She looked down to her injury and cursed under her breath. The bleeding she was suffering was starting to take its toll on her strength. “You two head back to the stairs and wait for the others, now! I’ll try my best to keep him b…” Applejack paused suddenly as she watched the two unicorns standing up and standing in front of her. They had terrified expressions on their faces, but there was also steely resolve behind all of the fear.

“I already told you, I’m not leaving. I’m not going to look Applebloom in the eye and tell her that I let her big sister get mauled by an overgrown fleabag with an eyepatch!” Rarity stated in an adamant tone.

“I’m not leaving either… I couldn’t live with myself if I let something happen to you.” Silver Bell added after gulping hesitantly. Still, she stood her ground along with the white unicorn, blocking the animatronic’s path to the injured mare.

Applejack couldn’t believe her ears. Her friends were about to literally risk life and limb to keep her safe. She would have started tearing up and crying, but her emotional thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a metallic thud.

The ponies looked up to see Foxy slowly walking into the hallway toward them. He seemed to know that they were staying where they were and they wouldn’t run. Rarity and Silver Bell lit up their horns and stood fast in front of their orange friend. They fully knew that there wasn’t much they could do to harm or impair the beast, but they would act as meat shields if they had to.

Foxy growled and opened his jaw to expose all of his teeth, which had been worn down to razor sharp edges over time. The ponies wouldn’t be surprised if the fox had spent some time gnawing on other animatronics to sharpen them. The three mares felt their bodies tensing up and shivering as they watched the metallic beast approaching them. They could already picture the robotic animal using his hook to impale one of them while he killed the other two by biting them. Finally, they closed their eyes as they saw him preparing to rush the rest of the way down the hall to pounce on them.

…Hello…

An eerily familiar distorted voice echoed through the hall, causing everyone to freeze. Even Foxy stopped dead in his tracks as the voice made its presence known. The ponies looked around to find the source of the voice. They quickly realized that they recognized this hallway, and the doorway a few feet in front of them that was sitting between them and the crimson fox.

Foxy backed up a step and let out a muffled noise that sounded almost distressed. He darted his head around before finally settling on the doorway to the left. Even with most of the hall being illuminated by overhead lights, the room within was pitch black, as if a void of darkness had swallowed it up.

The ponies watched with utterly confused expressions as the animatronic stared into the room. Suddenly, he backed up another step, and then another. The fox glanced back to the ponies and growled before looking back to the doorway, almost like he was contemplating something.

The same low pitched and broken chuckle that the ponies heard before came echoing into the hall. The mere sound of it made their spines tingle and their blood run cold. There was no doubt about it, whatever creature the yellow eyes they saw belonged to was still inside that room.

Foxy let out another distressed snarl. He shrieked at the doorway while walking back down the hall the way he came, all the while facing the dark room. Once he was a sufficient distance away, he turned tail and ran around the corner, not showing any signs of stopping as his metallic footsteps kept going and disappeared into the distance.

Applejack stared down the hallway where the fox just was and blinked in disbelief. She couldn’t imagine what had possessed the robotic fox to run away like that. In fact, it almost looked afraid. “It… it ran away…?”

“There’s that room again…” Silver Bell said uneasily while hesitantly looking at the deep shadows within the room. Even though it was a fair distance away, and she could only see a little bit beyond the doorway due to her angle of viewing, the cream mare still expected to see those piercing yellow eyes staring back at her from within the darkness.

“I’m hoping whatever that thing is it doesn’t leave that room to come at us… I think it must fancy staying in there if it’s still here.” Rarity suggested nervously, desperately hoping that she wouldn’t have to relive the experience she had before.

“Still, we shouldn’t give it the chance to come after us. I hate to sympathize with a haunted robot critter, but I think that fox had the right idea in running away.” Applejack said while trying to get up again. She yelped in pain as her leg refused to hold her weight again.

“You’re not going anywhere with that leg the way it is…” Silver Bell said in a concerned tone while kneeling down to examine the orange mare’s wound closer. “Oh my goodness… that looks like it’s deep.” She covered her mouth with her hoof as she saw the full extent of the bloody gash. The wound went vertically down Applejack’s back leg a short ways past the cutie mark, and it looked nasty. Although to be fair, the sheer amount of blood that was covering it and spilling out onto the floor didn’t make it look any better.

“It’s not that bad. I should be fine until we get back to the stairs…” Applejack said while trying again to get up. She finally managed to tough through the pain and stood on all four legs, albeit she was wobbling like a newborn deer. To her credit, the wound wasn’t as deep as it first appeared, but it would still be a problem if she didn’t get it treated. She had already lost a fair amount of blood.

“We can’t just ignore that cut darling… you could bleed to death.” Rarity stated in a concerned tone.

“We don’t really have any first aid kits on hoof, Rarity.” Applejack replied with a shrug.

Rarity looked down and bit her lip anxiously while straining to find a possible way to help her friend. “Ugh… where’s Tom when you need him?”

While the two mares were trying to figure out how they were going to make it any decent distance without the orange pony keeling over from blood loss, Silver Bell was examining the wound and thinking to herself. “Hold still, Applejack.” Silver instructed while lighting up her horn. Much to the surprise of the others, the cream pony took off her black bowtie and unfurled it. She also took off her collar and folded it until it was compressed into a rough rectangle shape. Applejack did as she was told and held still while the unicorn worked.

Silver took her now folded up collar and gently pressed it against the orange mare’s cut. Floating the black length of cloth that used to be her bowtie over beside the white pad, she started wrapping the cloth around Applejack’s leg and tying it off into a knot. Although it was crude and it couldn’t be as tight as the cream mare desired, the finished product actually resembled a bandage of sorts. Most importantly, however, it was stunting the blood loss from the wound.

“Wow… thanks, Silver. I didn’t know you knew your way around a bandage.” Applejack said in an impressed tone while testing out her leg. Although it still hurt like the dickens, she was confident that her strength would at least partially return now that she wasn’t running for her life and bleeding to death.

”I wouldn’t exactly call that a bandage…” Silver shrugged while noting the crudeness of the wrapping. Still, it didn’t matter as long as it worked.

Hearing a noise from behind them, the trio turned and looked back down the hallway. The noise directed their attention to the pitch black room that they had their encounter with the strange yellow dots.

Just looking at the doorway and thinking back to the events from before made chills go down their backs. The longer they stared, the more they began to realize that their heads were actually starting to hurt slightly.

“L-let’s get out of here…” Silver Bell suggested nervously, backing away to distance herself from the already distant doorway. Even having it in sight gave her the creeps.

“Y-yeah… let’s head back to the stairs.” Rarity nodded eagerly in agreement to the cream mare. With the decision being unanimous, the three ponies started walking in the opposite direction from the eerie room. Applejack needed help with walking at times, but the trio still managed to move at a healthy clip in order to get as far away as possible.

Chapter 17: Creepy/Crawly

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The air was quiet again as Glitterball led her two charges through the dimly lit hallways of the underground resort. Ever since they left Glimmer Shine and the others, the only noises around them had been their own footsteps and the occasional sound of lights flickering in some room beside them.

Despite the quiet atmosphere, the tension hadn’t lessened any for the three mares. With their adrenaline still returning to normal from the battle with the old model of Chica, they dreaded the thought of running into another animatronic, or something worse. After all, it took practically their whole group working together to beat a single animatronic that was broken to begin with, and if they were attacked by something else, Glitterball’s strobe and her other equipment was still upstairs with everything else her team had brought to fight ghosts. For all intents and purposes, they were up a creek without a paddle, and there were vicious piranhas circling the water beneath them.

“Keep close. I think we’re almost back to the security room.” Glitterball announced from the front of the group. The news that they were close to a safe haven was certainly comforting to the ponies.

“So… you guys have a plan for dealing with the ghosts yet?” Sparkplug asked curiously, eliciting the other two to pause and face her.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked with a confused expression.

“Well, obviously right now we’re just trying to find Silver and the others and get the group back together, but what are you going to do after that? I mean… you don’t exactly have anything to shoot the ghosts with.” Sparkplug said while noting the white unicorn and her lack of equipment.

Glitterball briefly looked down and sighed as she saw only her own body without any sort of protection or tools. “I think clearing out ghosts is a little more complicated than just shooting them, Sparkplug.” Glitter explained with a slight smirk and a chuckle. “But, I do see your point. Even if we had our strobes, that wouldn’t do us much good in the long run. Even if we could get the ghosts out of the animatronics and see them for long enough to get a clear shot, that probably wouldn’t get rid of them permanently.” She said in a more troubled tone.

“Ok then… how do you normally get rid of ghosts?” Sparkplug asked with genuine interest and curiosity. However, the white unicorn seemed hesitant to answer the question.

“Umm… well… we don’t really have much experience with ghosts. We’ve only… *ahem* had two cases where we’ve dealt with them. The normal practice for getting rid of a ghost is to find their remains and burn them, but we had to use other means when we encountered them due to special circumstances.” Glitterball explained while also trying to mull over how they were going to handle the situation with the ghosts they were currently dealing with.

“I’m guessing this would be a special circumstance considering there aren’t any bodies around here… at least I hope there aren’t bodies around here somewhere.” Sparkplug said uneasily, giving the area around her a brief search for good measure.

Glitter nodded pensively. “Right… that is the problem. We don’t have equipment to work with… and removing ghosts without burning the bodies is hard, even without that handicap. I would suggest that Tom could get rid of them, but I don’t think his spirit weapons can actually kill a ghost… so to speak.” She pondered out loud with a frustrated expression.

“Maybe they can?” Twilight chimed in. “The example we’re both thinking of wasn’t really a picture of standard ghosts. Those three that we dealt with back at the mansion were enhancing themselves with magic, so they were really strong.” She added curiously.

Glitterball groaned as she hit another mental dead end. The time spent thinking about such a frustrating topic was starting to get to the white unicorn. “Ugh… let’s worry about that later. Right now we… Oh, we’re here!” Glitter exclaimed eagerly as she saw the familiar sight of the security room door just down the hallway.

Twilight and Sparkplug smiled brightly as they watched their white companion rush over to the closed door. As they walked over to join her, Glitter knocked on the door a few times to let the group inside know they were waiting.

“Guys, open up… It’s us.” Glitterball announced impatiently while trying to listen for any sign that someone heard her. After a brief wait, the trio heard the sound of the door unlocking and stepped back as it swung open.

As the door opened, a familiar cyan pegasus was left standing in the doorway with a group of curious onlookers behind her. Once they saw the three mares outside, everyone in the small room smiled cheerfully.

“Thank goodness you guys are alright. Hurry up and get in here.” Rainbow Dash said while ushering the trio into the safety of the security office. Glitterball and the others quickly walked inside and out of the eerie hallways. As they did, the cyan pegasus closed the door again and locked it.

Twilight and Sparkplug immediately went over to their colleagues and friends and shared a warm embrace. The group was elated to see the two mares return unharmed, especially after hearing about their run in with another possessed animatronic.

“Twilight! I’m so glad to see you!” Spike said cheerfully while rushing up to the purple unicorn and hugging her leg.

“Spike… I’m glad to see you too.” Twilight replied while smiling and wrapping a foreleg around the young dragon.

“You guys had us worried for a while there. I’m glad to see you made it back in one piece, Sparkplug.” High Tide said while offering the gray mare a pat on the back.

“Aww… I didn’t know you cared so much, High Tide. Your soft spot is showing you big aquatic teddy bear you.” Sparkplug smirked while playfully nudging the stallion, who chuckled shyly in return.

Meanwhile, while the two mares were being welcomed back by their friends, Glitterball was already fast at work with looking over the floor map. The white unicorn quickly scanned over the map before going through a grouping of papers scattered around the office.

“Hey, where are the others?” Fluttershy asked curiously while noting the absence of the unicorn’s two teammates and their human companion.

“They’re trying to find keys to the stairwell gate, and I’m trying to help them. We found Applejack’s hat on the other side of the gate, so we think they went downstairs.” Glitterball replied without looking up from her work.

“You mean they really are down here?” Applebloom asked eagerly while looking to the hat Twilight had been carrying with her. The filly had seen it right as the three mares entered the room, and she was wondering why the unicorn had something so dear to her sister.

Twilight knelt down and floated the hat over to the yellow filly. Once Applebloom accepted the relatively oversized hat, the purple mare flashed a reassuring smile and tried her best to appear as confident as she felt. “They probably left Applejack’s hat on the stairs to let us know they were down there. We’ll find them in no time once we find those keys.” Twilight said in a hopeful tone.

“How long will it take to find the keys?” Sweetie Belle asked with a more hesitant expression on her face. It seemed that the young unicorn wasn’t as uplifted by the news that the missing ponies were close by. In fact, it seemed like she was still just as concerned for their safety as she was before.

“Hopefully not long…” Glitterball spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention to her. The unicorn was looking over a stack of papers while also looking at the map on the wall. After a moment, she put her hoof on her ear and an aura of blue light surrounded it as she focused on communicating with her teammates. “Hey, Glimmer Shine. We made it back to the security office.” Glitter announced while still looking back and forth between the map and her papers.

After a short wait, she heard the yellow stallion speaking up. “Good to hear, Glitter.” Glimmer Shine said in a pleased tone.

“I don’t suppose you guys have had any luck with finding the keys?” Glitterball asked with guarded optimism. The audible sigh on the other end of the communication spell pretty much confirmed what she already knew.

“Unfortunately, no… it’s nothing but empty rooms and disappointment over here.” Glimmer Shine explained in a deflated tone.

“Putting extra emphasis on disappointment in this case…” Sunspot chimed in with an equally aggravated tone of passive annoyance.

“I might be able to help you guys out in that department… I’m currently staring at a lengthy amount of paperwork, notes, and other things strewn around the office.” Glitterball explained while flipping through the various pages in front of her.

“Sounds fun… is there anything on the keys there?” Sunspot asked curiously.

“Not directly… but there are some mentions in here of important things being kept in a few places. Where are you guys right now?” Glitterball asked while looking to the map expectantly.

“Uh…” Glimmer Shine paused briefly while trying to figure out where he was in relation to the map. “I think we’re like one hallway past the stairwell… I believe that was on the left side of the map.”

Glitterball traced her hoof along the map until she found the stairwell. She then quickly found a path down to one of the locations she singled out in the stack of papers. “Ok… first place you should check is an office used by Berry’s grandfather. Follow the hallway you’re in away from the stairwell. Pass every intersection you come across until you can’t go straight anymore. Go left and head two intersections down, and it should be the fourth door on your right.” Glitter explained in a semi-confident tone.

“Got it… we’ll head there and get back to you if we find something.” Glimmer Shine said before falling silent. Glitterball nodded, even though the stallion obviously couldn’t see her. She briefly glanced to the eager crowd listening behind her and wondered just how crazy she looked talking to herself.

“The others are looking for the keys in an office my grandfather used?” Berry Swirl asked curiously, wondering what was on the other side of the conversation she just heard.

“That’s right… I’m sure we can swing you by there after all of this is over if you like.” Glitterball suggested in a sympathetic tone, to which the purple earth pony shrugged.

“I’m not sure if I would want to… Thanks for offering though.” Berry said while managing to flash a brief smile.

Meanwhile, while everyone else was wondering what to do next while they waited for the trio out in the halls to find the keys to the stairs, a group of fillies was huddling together around their yellow friend. Applebloom quietly sat on the floor while holding her sister’s hat and looking at it longingly. She wondered if the orange mare was ok. The filly wasn’t concerned about Rarity and Silver Bell, and not for the reasons one might think. She knew full well that her big sister wouldn’t allow her two friends to come to any harm if they were in danger, and that worried Applebloom a little bit. If Applejack risked her life to protect her friends, what if something bad happened?

“Hey… are you ok, Applebloom?” Scootaloo asked in a soft tone while trying to level with her gloomy friend.

“I… I don’t know…” Applebloom replied with a hesitant tone while stifling a sniffle. “I just want to see my sister again.” She added while hugging the leathery hat closer to her body.

Seeing the yellow filly in such distress made the other crusaders frown sadly. Sweetie Belle was worried about her sister as well, but perhaps seeing her sister’s hat and thinking more about the situation was making Applebloom even more upset than usual. Still, they were unsure of what they could do to cheer her up. The young earth pony was usually the one to cheer them up, not the other way around.

“Hey… why so upset, Applebloom?” The three fillies looked up suddenly as they heard Pinkie Pie speaking up. Sure enough, they saw the pink mare walking over to them with a reassuring expression on her face. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle felt relieved now that the resident party pony was trying to brighten up their friend’s spirits. If anyone could cheer up Applebloom, it was Pinkie Pie.

“I don’t wanna’ talk about it… thinkin’ about it is bad enough.” Applebloom replied in an uninterested tone while turning away and clutching her sister’s hat close to her body.

Unphased by the gloomy filly’s attempt at avoiding her, Pinkie walked over and sat down next to her. “Aw, come on. There’s nothing bad to think about. I’m sure that Applejack and the others will be back here in no time! Do you really want your big sis to see you like this when she walks through that door?” Pinkie asked while pointing out the filly’s greatly oversized frown.

“I… *Sniff*… I guess not.” Applebloom said while wiping away the small buildup of tears in her eyes. She managed to shift her expression to a more blank one instead of a frown. Although it wasn’t outright a smile, it was a step in the right direction.

“That’s better. Now, how about we find something to keep you occupied while we wait for the others to find those keys so they can go get your sister? I know the perfect game we could play.” Pinkie suggested with a slight smirk.

“I don’t know Pinkie… I don’t think I’m in the mood for a game.” Applebloom said while trying to sound less upset than she was before. Unfortunately for her, the pink mare wasn’t having any of her refusals.

“Don’t be silly! Come on, let’s get up and have some fun! Anybody can join in if they want… we’re gonna play some party games!” Pinkie said while grabbing the gloomy filly and pulling her to her feet. Applebloom reluctantly played along as her two friends and a few of the other people in the room walked over to the pink mare while she prepared to explain the rules of their first game.

-Earlier-

“Got it… we’ll head there and get back to you if we find something.” Glimmer Shine said with a nod before removing his hoof from his ear and turning to the hallway he was in. His two companions were standing idly next to him while he finished talking with Glitterball.

“Berry’s grandfather had an office down here, eh?” Tom asked with an intrigued tone.

“Yep… and apparently that’s the most likely place that we would find the keys.” Glimmer replied confidently.

“Well, what are we waiting for? The sooner we find those keys, the sooner we can find the others and sort out this mess.” Sunspot suggested eagerly while starting down the hallway. Tom and Glimmer Shine shared the orange mare’s desire to get out of this dimly lit dirt hole as soon as possible.

With their goal set, the trio walked onwards toward the very end of the hallway they were in. Although they had cleared many of the rooms behind and around them, they were rapidly approaching the threshold of new territory, and with new territory, came new threats.

The light fixtures above provided a somewhat comfortable view of the hallways and rooms around them, but they seemed very strained and looked as if the ones that were working could fizzle out at any moment. When the area wasn’t being bathed in dim, yellow light, it was back to the familiar darkness that had greeted the group when they first arrived down in the abandoned halls of the resort. However, with light to contrast with the darkness, it seemed far worse now than it was before.

After traversing the quiet corridors for the better part of five minutes, the trio finally saw a wall up ahead that blocked their progress straight forward. There was a door to the right that most likely led into a supply closet, and more importantly, there was a fork to the left leading into another hallway.

“Alright, we’re almost there. Glitter said it would be four doors to the right after two intersections, right?” Sunspot asked to confirm her own remembrance of the unicorn’s directions.

“That’s right… hopefully, the keys are in there.” Tom replied with guarded optimism.

“Why do you always need to jinx things?” Sunspot asked while sighing at the human and his eagerness to say the first thing that came to mind.

“You know, drawing attention to the jinx only makes it worse.” Tom added in a facetious tone, eliciting a stare of disbelief from the orange pegasus.

“Will you two knock it off? There’s no such thing as jinxes… at least not in the sense you’re talking about.” Glimmer Shine said with an annoyed expression. Before anyone else could even get in another word, the stallion walked ahead and turned the corner, leaving the pair behind.

“Nonbelievers always get the worst karmic retribution…” Sunspot muttered quietly while turning to her human companion. Tom nodded to himself while following the orange mare as she trotted to keep up with their leader.

As the pair rounded the corner and met up with Glimmer Shine, they found him standing before a wall of darkness. Apparently, the only working light in the hallways ahead was the one they were currently standing under. Although the lights were only a recent comfort, the group was hesitant to leave the relative safety that they provided.

“*Sigh*… I guess we shouldn’t have expected all of the lights to work in this place... Flashlights out guys.” Glimmer Shine suggested while flicking on his own flashlight and pointing it down the hall. Tom and Sunspot shrugged in annoyance and turned on their own lights. Now that they had three spotlights of visibility between them, they pressed onwards in search of the office.

This area of the resort was full of hotel rooms and staff rooms, with the guest rooms being on the left side of the hall, and everything else being on the right. The rooms they were passing were pretty standard fair. There was a lounge and a set of restrooms, along with a few supply closets. Soon enough, the first intersection appeared at the edge of the cones of light scanning through the hall.

Around the time they were making a mental note of their progress, the ponies and their human companion noticed a faint smell drifting through the air up ahead. As they got closer to the apparent source, the smell grew in intensity and became rather unpleasant.

“Oh… sweet Celestia, what is that?” Sunspot asked in a disgusted tone while covering her mouth with her foreleg. The smell was getting more and more pungent and unbearable the more they walked forward, and it was strikingly familiar to all but the orange pegasus.

“Smells like more ectoplasm…” Glimmer Shine noted while scanning his flashlight around to locate the source of the smell. Sure enough, there were traces and streaks of the inky black substance along the right wall up by the intersection.

“Ectoplasm? You mean that weird ghost snot from the books?” Sunspot asked while still trying to find a way to breathe without hurling from the strong odor. Judging from her strained voice and nauseous expression, she wasn’t having much success.

“So you were paying attention…” Glimmer Shine raised an eyebrow in surprise. “But yeah… if that’s the way you want to put it. Ghost snot…” He added with a dismissive expression while returning his attention to the black substance on the walls.

As the trio walked closer to the intersection, they could see more of the dark goop on the walls and even on the ceiling. The black substance was mostly in thin trails along the walls and ceiling leading in a relatively straight path, but in some places, it was laid on much thicker. In fact, it looked like the ectoplasm was leading into an open doorway on the right.

The splintering trail of black filth ended on the wall before the intersection, but there was more of it on the other side, and it was definitely meeting at the first doorway and leading inside the room. The smell was far too overwhelming for this small amount of the substance, so the trio wagered that there was more nearby.

“Why is there so much of this stuff? Tom said that only powerful spirits can make ectoplasm in the first place.” Glimmer Shine thought out loud while trying to find out what the purpose behind the inky mess was.

“Well, whatever made this mess it looks like it went in there.” Sunspot pointed out while motioning toward the doorway. The faint glimpses they could get of the room within were bathed in ominous shadow, and they couldn’t see much more without getting closer.

Since their goal was still further ahead, the trio had to keep going. Cautiously they inched forward while hugging the left side of the hallway. If something was going to jump out at them, they wanted to give it a healthy amount of space to give them as much time to react as possible.

Tom slowed his pace while observing the many streaks of ectoplasm in deep thought. In all of his experiences with the paranormal, he had never seen ectoplasm being left in trails before. The most defined formation of the stuff he was used to seeing was a small puddle barely an inch thick, but this stuff seemed to be plastered on the wall as liberally as paint. “What kind of ghost leaves this much ectoplasm…?” The human muttered to himself while tracing the lines of black gunk with his hand.

“Psst… Tom!” Sunspot whispered frantically, causing the human to look over, only to find the two ponies huddled outside of the doorway ahead.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked in a hushed tone of concern while walking toward the pair slowly.

“I think there’s something in there… it looks like it might be another animatronic.” Glimmer Shine said while nudging toward the room.

Tom silently approached the two ponies as they cautiously peered into the room. They didn’t even point their flashlights forward for fear of alerting the ominous shape they were watching. As he got closer to the room in question, the human began to feel a cold chill going down his spine.

Finally reaching the pair huddled next to the door, Tom leaned around them and looked in the room. There was nothing more than pitch blackness greeting him inside, with only a threshold of dim visibility from the flashlights illuminating the hallway to the side. Sunspot pointed her hoof toward what was presumably the corner of the room, and that was when he saw it.

There was a small silhouette sitting in the darkness toward the back of the room. It was so close to the cutoff of light that it seemed to blend into the wall of black nothingness. Glimmer Shine prepared to switch his flashlight on to inspect the shadowy figure, but before he could, a shrill hiss filled the air as Tom’s senses went off.

…Hi…

A high pitched, almost child-like voice came from the back of the room where the silhouette was. Around the time the group processed their reactions to the voice and Glimmer Shine turned his flashlight to spot the silhouette, Tom’s eyes widened and his face paled.

Suddenly, the human shoved both of the ponies back around the corner of the doorway. They barely managed to catch a glimpse of the figure as the light from the flashlight fell on it for a brief moment. Tom had moved so quickly and urgently that he actually knocked the yellow stallion’s flashlight out of his hoof.

“Don’t look at it!” Tom yelled while keeping himself between the two ponies and the room. The pair was understandably confused and more than a little bit concerned with the human’s sudden strange behavior.

“What’s wrong, Tom? It’s just a ghost.” Sunspot said, looking at the human with a surprised expression.

“That thing is not a ghost.” Tom explained while looking over his shoulder in a paranoid fashion.

“What?” Both ponies asked in a surprised and mildly alarmed tone. They glanced toward the room and felt a slight twinge of unease urging them to look away.

“*Sigh*… you can look at it, just don’t look in its eyes whatever you do.” Tom said while stepping out of the way and motioning for the pair to come closer.

Sunspot and Glimmer Shine looked at each other briefly before letting their curiosity take over as they slowly stepped forward. They huddled around the doorway with the human and watched as he cautiously moved his flashlight over to the corner in a slow and steady fashion.

Their brief glimpse of the animatronic had been enough to see most of its form and color palette, but actually seeing it in the light was more than a little unnerving. Sitting by itself in the corner was what appeared to be an animatronic made to resemble a young colt. It had tan fur with orange hair, and its orange cheeks and nose were obviously cartoony and plastic looking. It was wearing blue pants and a red and blue striped shirt, with a little propeller hat with a matching pattern and an orange cap on top. Stuck in its stiff and unmoving block of a hoof was a hard plastic string leading up to a fake balloon. Its other hoof was held up and to the side, and it was holding a sign that aptly read “balloons!”

On top of the faded colors on its body due to age, the animatronic was almost covered from head to tail in ectoplasm. The inky black substance wasn’t very thick, but it was strewn everywhere on the colt’s plastic body. The black goop everywhere made even the dimmest colors on the animatronic pop by comparison, especially its bright goofy smile and glowing yellow eyes, which were surprisingly hard to avoid looking at.

The ponies felt a wave of dread and unease washing over them as they looked at the animatronic, almost like it was radiating a disturbing aura of fear and discomfort. They could see the piercing yellow eyes out of the corner of their vision, and they felt a deep chill in their bones as they even started to move their gaze closer to the soulless dots. Strangely though, they also felt a faint and morbidly curious desire to look the animatronic in the eyes, even though the mere thought terrified them.

“Tom… if that isn’t a ghost, what is it?” Glimmer Shine asked in a hushed tone, growing more uneasy by the minute. Although the animatronic hadn’t made a move to indicate that it had noticed them aside from its brief and eerie greeting, the ponies didn’t want to startle it or make it mad.

The human swallowed uncomfortably while briefly looking at the robotic colt. He seemed to be dreading whatever he was about to explain as he was thinking about it. Finally, he turned to the ponies with a serious expression. “Back when humans were still the dominant species on the planet, and the ghosts primarily found in the world were human, we called these things inhuman spirits,” Tom explained with a quiet tone. “Truth be told… nobody in the business of monster hunting or paranormal investigation knew what they were… not even slayers really know where they came from or what they are. We used to think they were demons… but they’re just… denizens of the ghost realm I guess. They’re drawn to locations that have had incredibly traumatic and violent events occur, most likely to feed off of the negative energy.” He said with a troubled expression while keeping a wary eye on the animatronic off in the corner.

“Inhuman spirits, huh? That’s… not creepy at all.” Glimmer Shine said while trying to play off his nerves.

“Geez, my head hurts… I think that thing is giving me a headache.” Sunspot noted while clutching her head. Ever since she laid eyes on the animatronic, a dull throbbing and tingling had been building in her head.

“I’m not surprised… try not to look at it for too long. Inhuman spirits are wicked powerful… and they are practically unpredictable. They can mess with your head if you have a line of sight on them… especially if you make eye contact.” Tom explained in a concerned manner.

“So… uh…” Sunspot paused nervously as the animatronic let out a high-pitched chuckle, only to fall silent again. “How do we deal with Mr. Freaky over there?” She asked with a nervous laugh herself. As much as she usually liked to take control of the situation, she had no idea what to do here.

“These things are hell to deal with in a controlled environment…” Tom said while taking a brief look to the hallways outside. “For the moment, let’s just leave him alone and keep looking for the keys.” He said with a dreadful expression, eager to move away from the strange entity.

“What…? You just want to leave that thing free to waltz around?” Sunspot stated in a shocked tone while still keeping her voice down. Even if it wasn’t moving, she felt like the animatronic might get up and run after her if she spoke up.

“Trust me on this one… you don’t want to open that can of worms. Just give these things a wide berth for now and let me deal with it later. Hopefully, it will stay where it is if we leave it alone.” Tom suggested in a serious manner.

“Tom’s right… we should get going.” Glimmer Shine said while nodding in agreement to the human’s plan, much to the dismay of the orange pegasus.

“But… but… Glimmer, you can’t be serious!” Sunspot said while shaking her head in disbelief.

“Look, Sunspot… normally I would agree with you, but we’re out of our element here, and we don’t have our strobes. If Tom is the only one here keeping that thing from eating our faces off, then I’m inclined to follow his lead if he says he doesn’t want to poke the big scary thing with a stick. Besides, Applejack and Rarity are stuck downstairs right now, and this place just got more dangerous. We need to find those keys.” Glimmer Shine suggested with a serious expression.

Sunspot shrugged in frustration while looking back to the animatronic colt sitting off in the corner. He seemed to be staying put, and even though he was looking right at them with his piercing yellow eyes, the robotic pony didn’t seem to be interested in moving closer to them. “Ok… but I am reserving the right to say I told you so if this thing is breathing down our necks in five minutes.” Sunspot said while walking away from the room and toward the rest of the hallway. The human and the yellow stallion offered one last paranoid glance to the animatronic, which was quietly chuckling to itself in a distorted voice, before walking away to join their friend.

After hurrying their pace to distance themselves from the room behind them, the trio continued down the hallway while resolving to keep a wary eye on their surrounding area just in case the entity decided to follow them.

Thankfully, once they reached the end of the trails of ectoplasm on the wall, the smell started to die down as no more of the black substance came into view in the distance. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine were certainly glad to be able to breathe relatively fresh air again. It was only their first and second time encountering ectoplasm respectively, but they already hoped that they never saw more of the inky mess in their lives. Somehow, however, they had a feeling that they would run into more during their stay in the abandoned resort.

Another intersection came and went, and the group’s spirits lifted as they neared their destination. Looking to their right and counting four doors down in their heads, they finally laid eyes on what would hopefully be the door to Berry’s grandfather’s office beyond the reach of their flashlights.

“Alright… we’re here!” Sunspot announced eagerly while trotting over to the door. Sure enough, there was some faded lettering etched into the door that read “Cotton Swirl”.

Tom and Glimmer Shine waited as their orange companion reached for the door handle and prepared to enter. Their excitement practically deflated as they heard the sound of the door catching on something and saw Sunspot’s smile vanishing.

“Let me guess… locked or blocked from the inside?” Tom asked in a dull tone.

“*Sigh* none of the above… feels like it’s stuck.” Sunspot replied while giving the door an agitated kick as she stepped away with a displeased expression.

Tom stepped forward and tried the door. The two ponies gave the human some room as he started pushing on the door with all of his might. After numerous attempts at forcing it open, and even a shoulder barge or two, everyone quickly realized that they had run into a literal and metaphorical dead end.

“Great… what do we do now?” Tom asked in a frustrated tone while turning to his two companions, hopeful that they had a plan of action.

“I’ll call Glitter and see if she can help us out.” Glimmer Shine said while struggling to maintain a positive outlook. He put a hoof up to his ear and focused on the white unicorn back in the security office until he felt the connection go through. Tom and Sunspot cupped their own ears to listen in on the conversation. “Hey, Glitter…?” Glimmer spoke up curiously. After a brief pause, the unicorn spoke up in response.

“Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?” Glitterball asked curiously, blissfully unaware of the roadblock that her teammates were about to inform her of.

“We’ve run into a bit of a snag. The door to the office is stuck, and we can’t get it open.” Glimmer explained with an unimpressed tone.

“Oh… uh… give me a sec.” Glitterball muttered while presumably flipping through some papers judging from the sound bleeding through her end. After a few moments, the trio heard the white mare exclaim with accomplishment. “Ah, here we go… looks like there’s a workshop next to the office… should be where you came from. If I’m not mistaken, it looks like it should connect right to the office from inside. Maybe you can get in through there?” Glitter suggested optimistically. Although the unicorn’s plan wasn’t exactly a surefire solution, it was promising enough to make her teammates smile.

The trio pointed their flashlights off to the side to where they came from. Sure enough, there was another door a few feet away that looked like it belonged to some sort of workshop. It was metallic instead of wooden, and it looked like it was somewhat soundproof. If the distance between the two doors was any indication of the size of the room, then the workshop must have been a decent size.

“Thanks, Glitter, you’re a lifesaver. We’ll get back to you if we find anything.” Glimmer Shine stated in a cheerful tone, eliciting a shy chuckle and most likely an unseen smirk from the unicorn.

“Right… Good luck guys.” Glitterball said before falling silent, having dropped her end of the call.

With their goal within reach, the trio eagerly walked over to the metallic door and stood before it. Glimmer Shine hesitantly grabbed the bar that served as the door handle and pulled. Thankfully, the door slid open, letting out a gentle wave of cool air and revealing an expanse of darkness and obscured silhouettes inside.

While the stallion held the door open, Sunspot and Tom slowly stepped inside and examined the area with their flashlights. They were surprised to see just how big the room was. The workshop was roughly the same size, if not a little bigger, of Sparkplug’s work area upstairs, although this place was laid out horizontally instead of vertically.

Much like the gray mare’s workspace, this room held numerous tables spaced out along the walls of the room and even two rows spaced out along the middle. The tables held all manner of objects, ranging from tools and bits of mechanical equipment to pieces of animatronic endoskeletons or even half completed animatronics. To their right on a table at the back of the room, there was a purple humanoid rabbit animatronic that resembled Bonnie in all regards except for color. Off in the corner was a mostly completed prototype of Chica, or at least the group assumed that it was a prototype due to roughly half of the animatronic’s colorful plastic exterior not being assembled. There were two more pony-shaped animatronics, a purple and blue raccoon and a green dog, sitting on various tables that had pieces of their shells sitting next to them as if they were still being assembled. However, the most complete looking animatronic was on the floor to the left side of the room leaning against a table. This animatronic was a brown and white doe that was another pony shaped model.

After holding the door open to let their yellow companion into the room, the group let the door shut and cautiously settled into the center area. The many animatronics and endoskeletons in the room set the trio on edge almost immediately. They seemed to be inactive for now, but that could change at any moment.

“Hey… look over there! It looks like another door.” Sunspot said eagerly while pointing her flashlight over to the left side of the room. Just beyond the center row of interspaced tables, there was another metallic door at the back wall.

“That’s probably our ticket into the office… Fingers crossed that it isn’t locked.” Tom stated with hopeful optimism.

“I think you’re going to have to do that on your own pal.” Glimmer Shine said in passing while walking through the room toward the back. Realizing that he was surrounded by quadrupedal talking ponies, the human shrugged before following the yellow stallion’s lead.

The floor space in the workshop was crowded, to say the least. Although the various tables were spaced a fair amount apart and there should have been plenty of room, there was junk and other items littering the floor, seemingly having fallen off of the tables and bounced or rolled a short ways. The group stepped around or over whatever got in their way to the best of their ability.

“I don’t need any detector to tell me this place is haunted… this place would be haunted even if it wasn’t haunted.” Sunspot said while carefully stepping around the deer animatronic slumped against one of the tables. Its cold and lifeless pink eyes made the orange mare so uneasy that she nearly bumped into a nearby paint can while maintaining eye contact with it.

“Ignoring the fact that that doesn’t make any sense… did you really expect anything less?” Tom asked curiously.

“He’s got a point there, Sunspot.” Glimmer Shine stated while making his way over to the door. His two companions stood behind him and waited in quiet anticipation for him to test the door. “Welp… here goes nothing.” Glimmer said while grabbing the door and tugging on it. The pair behind him was already making a silent bet on whether or not the door was locked.

As the stallion pulled on the door, it miraculously popped open. Waiting for them inside was another dark room, although this one was considerably smaller than the one they were currently in. Due to the presence of a desk and a chair, the trio surmised this to be the office they were looking for.

With a victorious smirk shared between them, they stepped inside and looked around the area. Spotting a small doorstopper on the floor, Glimmer Shine left the door to the workshop propped open to keep an eye on their only escape route.

The room wasn’t too large, with the desk in the middle and two bookshelves against the back wall taking up most of the space. There was what looked to be a painting between the two bookshelves, but it was hard to tell what it depicted due to a thick covering of dust obscuring it from view. There were also several filing cabinets and other containers dotted around the area, increasing the potential hiding places for the elusive keys.

“Let’s get to it, guys… if the keys are in here, I want them found yesterday.” Glimmer Shine said in a serious tone, receiving a nod in response from his two companions.

Tom flipped a nearby light switch up and down to test it. As expected, the lightbulb overhead remained inactive and the room remained dark, save for the three flashlights cutting into the shadows. The next item of interest was a small reading lamp on the desk. While her two teammates were still looking around, Sunspot walked up to the desk and pushed a button on the side of the lamp. Much to her surprise, the lamp turned on, bathing the immediate area of the desk in relatively comfortable lighting while leaving the rest of the room in dim light.

“Keys… keys, keys, keys…” Sunspot muttered to herself while briefly scanning around the desk. As her eyes settled on the top of the desk itself, she noticed what appeared to be a machine of some sort sitting on it. “Huh…? Hey guys, check this out.” The orange mare announced while waving her two companions to the center of the room.

Tom and Glimmer Shine examined the curious device their teammate had pointed out. The machine had an area that resembled a tape deck, and it had several buttons that looked like simplistic controls for something that required fast forwarding and rewinding.

“Looks like a cassette player... and check that out, it looks like it might still work.” Tom noted while pointing out a small red light on the machine. Thanks to the player drawing power from a nearby outlet, it didn’t have the opportunity to be ruined by batteries corroding over time.

“Hmm… that might come in handy. Be on the lookout for some tapes.” Glimmer Shine suggested before walking back over to the side of the room he was previously searching.

While her two teammates looked all around the area for the keys, Sunspot started rifling through the drawers of the desk. Although many of them had locks on them, they were thankfully left unlocked and free to search.

One drawer held a pile of papers that looked far too uninteresting and tedious to even read through. Another held some office supplies, particularly a used up stapler and the remnants of a marker pen. Still no sign of the keys she was looking for or even any keys at all. Even the jump in excitement she would get in finding a set of keys, only to find that they were the wrong set would be welcomed at this point.

The final drawer slid open, yielding the same low expectations that the other drawers had gotten from the orange mare. However, something caught her eye amid the miscellaneous junk and lengthy bits of paper.

“Now we’re talking.” Sunspot smirked triumphantly while grabbing the small tape cassette and holding it up proudly. She examined it, only to find a label similar to the other tapes. From what she remembered from briefly looking at the dates on the other tapes, this one was a few weeks after the last one she heard. “Hey, I found a tape. Maybe it can tell us something useful?” Sunspot suggested eagerly. Her two companions merely offered her a brief glance while they were still searching for the keys.

“Go ahead and try it on the machine. Hopefully, it works.” Glimmer Shine said while going through a filing cabinet.

Sunspot shrugged while shifting her attention to the machine on the desk. After spending a few moments deciphering the many buttons on the device, she popped open the tape deck and slid the cassette inside.

Hitting the rewind button yielded no results. The orange mare was concerned that either the tape or the player wasn’t working. Reluctantly, she pressed the play button in the hopes that someone before her had already rewound the tape. Soon enough, the familiar crackle of an aged cassette playing filled the office and a familiar voice spoke up in an informal manner.

“*Krrzt* It’s Friday the fifth already. Summer came and went faster than I remember… ah well, time flies as they say. It’s time for another update on our progress down here. Not much has been going on in terms of progress. We’ve mostly got the first and second floor painted and furnished. We would have been done with the third floor, but we keep running into complications. As of now, we have the flooring and the walls finished everywhere, and we’ve started painting a lot of the rooms.” Straight Ruler reported in an awkward monotone. Despite how many logs he had made, he still wasn’t used to speaking into a recorder from the sound of it.

“Who is that?” Tom asked curiously while briefly looking up from his search.

“It’s the Forman of the construction project. We found some other tapes back in the security room and listened to them… That’s how we found out about the generator.” Sunspot explained before returning her attention to the tape.

“In other news, the boss just wrapped up the first official public testing of the animatronics. In a word… it didn’t go well. The animatronic did fine, and I was actually pretty impressed… but apparently, some parents can’t keep their kids in line. A couple kids tore the thing apart… I don’t even know how they did it… I guess the connections or whatever weren’t as solid as they could have been. However it happened, that pink and white fox thing is trashed. Mr. Swirl had me help with carrying it back down here. It’s in his workshop if anyone wants to see it. It’s almost sad and funny to look at how mangled it is. The boss is taking it in his stride… I guess he’ll put them together better and kid-proof them this time. *Sigh*… speaking of people messing with things, we still haven’t found out who’s been stealing tools from the site. All three floors keep having things go missing… it’s mostly small stuff, but it gets costly over time, and it keeps happening. Boss has come up with a solution. Since nobody is coming forward, and we don’t want to go on a changeling hunt, we’ve decided to monitor who goes on what floor and what tools they use. We’ve decided to do this by installing gates on the stairs and locking them. We’ve also made some designated areas to store tools, and we will have someone watching them at all times. Workers will have to check out their tools from these locations and check them back in when they are finished with them. As for the keys to the gates, the new tool room personnel and the security offices should have them on hoof. In a pinch, I know the boss will have a set for each floor in his office.*Krrzt*” The tape ended, leaving the room in silence as the group processed what they just listened to.

“Sounds like there are some keys in here after all.” Glimmer Shine said in a pleased tone.

Now that they had confirmation that the keys should have been in the room, everyone put even more effort into their search efforts. Sunspot tore through the rest of the drawers in the desk. Tom sifted through the various filing cabinets and boxes on the right side of the room. And over on the left side of the room, Glimmer Shine was turning the place upside down in his attempts at finding anything even resembling a key.

Stacks of paper and folders were flying through the air, only to smack into the floor or a nearby wall. Office supplies and other items were littering the area as the trio scoured over every square inch of the room. No matter where they looked or how hard they did it, they couldn’t find the keys.

“Ugh… what the hay?!” Sunspot exclaimed in frustration while looking to her companions for suggestions on where to search. One look at the blank and agitated expressions on their faces, along with the room being completely overturned, told her that they had searched pretty much everywhere.

“Where the hell are those keys?” Tom asked while looking around and sighing. If the keys weren’t in the office, then they were essentially back at square one. Still, they had to find the keys. Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell’s lives potentially depended on them being able to get downstairs. As reluctant as they were to admit defeat, the trio had drawn a collective blank.

*Clang*

The echoed sound of something clattering to the floor suddenly sprang to life, startling the group into silence. They looked in the direction of the still open door back into the workshop where the foreign noise came from. The dim light from the office barely allowed them to see any shapes or silhouettes past the doorway, but something had made that noise. These rooms had been left to settle for decades, so there was no way any items could have fallen by chance. The trio was not alone anymore.

Needing someone to take action and assess the situation, Glimmer Shine broke through the hesitant feeling in the air and stepped forward with his flashlight at the ready. Sunspot and Tom quickly and silently followed the yellow stallion into the other room.

The group swiftly scanned their flashlights around the area to search for anything amiss. Everything seemed normal at first glance, but then they noticed a red spot on the wall, as well as a silhouette on the floor. Looking to the floor, the trio discovered an old paint can spilling out red paint into a messy puddle, seemingly having fallen from the nearby table.

“What the hell…?” Tom muttered while examining the paint can further. He would have assumed it just fell, but this place and all of the items inside of it had been sitting around for decades, so that wasn’t likely.

“Hey… wasn’t there a deer here a few minutes ago?” Sunspot asked in an uneasy tone while pointing out the table the paint can fell from. As the other two looked over the area, they realized that their companion was correct. They very clearly remembered a deer animatronic leaning up against the table.

“That’s not good…” Glimmer Shine stated the obvious with a troubled expression. He checked around to see if the other animatronics were still where they were before. His mental count matched how many were present, minus one deer of course.

“That’s not good either.” Tom announced uneasily. The ponies looked over to see the human a few feet away, staring straight ahead at the wall. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine turned to see what the boy was looking at, only to fall silent.

Tom had brought their attention to the red spot they had first noticed on the wall. However, it wasn’t just a spot of red as they first thought. They now realized why there had been a paint can knocked over in the first place. Scrawled across the wall in big red letters was a message, and it seemed to be directed at the trio.

“Looking for something?” Sunspot read off the message with a disturbed expression. There was a small object drawn crudely next to the message. Although it was a little hard to make out due to the dripping paint, it looked like a key.

“What the hay does that mean?” Glimmer Shine asked in a confused tone while shaking his head.

“It means we’re getting messed with by a ghost… I hate getting messed with by ghosts.” Tom groaned uneasily.

“What… so one of those things took the keys?” Sunspot asked in a more upset tone. She huffed in disbelief and shook her head.

Before the trio could ponder the message or what to do next any further, another noise cut through the silence in the room. What sounded like metal knocking against things rang out around them, subtle at first, but growing in intensity and number.

The group spun around, searching the room with their flashlights for the source of the noise. Their panicked flashlight beams struggled to find anything at first, but it didn’t take long to figure out what was going on. And as soon as they did, their hearts skipped a beat.

All of the animatronics in the room were moving.

“Oh… crap!” Sunspot exclaimed in shock while jumping back slightly.

Sure enough, everything that had legs and a head was getting up off of tables or the floor. All of the bare endoskeletons, the two quadrupedal animatronics, even the two humanoid animatronics were all waking up. While most of them were still trying to get off of tables, the purple bunny looked over to the three onlookers and reached for them while walking forward.

“Guys… I think right here isn’t a good place to be standing right now.” Glimmer Shine suggested nervously.

“What do we do? The door is over there, and there are way too many to fight!” Sunspot stated in a more alarmed manner.

The broken down animatronics ignored whatever structural damage they might have had and climbed over the many tables and obstacles to get at the trio. Their eyes held the same silver glow in them that every other possessed robot had, offering a look into the tormented soul within. Every one of them looked like they could rip them to shreds with their teeth or metallic fingers.

The ponies and their human companion raced to come up with a solution. They were backed into a corner, and the only exit they had was on the other side of what was backing them into a corner. On top of everything else, they were outnumbered. This was not a fight that they wanted to have.

“Let’s book it!” Tom suggested urgently. Glimmer Shine and Sunspot weren’t sure if running was the best option, but they followed the human nonetheless.

The trio made a sprint toward the door, hoping to get around the animatronics before they closed in around them. The yellow stallion and the orange mare snaked around the various tables between them and the other side of the room, trying their best to keep away from anything coming after them.

Sunspot ducked around the raccoon animatronic as it lunged for her with a shrill screech. She felt her adrenaline pumping as the metallic animal stumbled over itself while pursuing her. Glimmer Shine kicked a humanoid endoskeleton as it tried to climb off of a table to grab him. After jumping up on a table and jumping back down to the side, he made a straight bolt toward the exit. Tom saw the purple rabbit near the door, blocking the path and heading for his two companions. The human sped up ahead of his friends and headed straight for the threatening animatronic. Spotting the boy charging forward, Glimmer Shine sped up as well.

The purple bunny let out a fierce cry and stomped toward the approaching duo. As it reached for him, Tom barged into it and shoved it as hard as he could to the side. With the robotic rabbit stumbling from the sudden assault, Glimmer Shine reared his legs up and kicked the animatronic the rest of the way, sending it tumbling to the floor.

“Get the door!” Glimmer Shine yelled as he noticed the human was going to reach the exit before him. Tom needed no further instruction as he bolted to the door and grabbed the handle to throw it open.

“AHH!”

The pair heard Sunspot yelp from behind them. They turned to see the orange mare on the floor, with the animatronic dog pulling on her back leg with immense strength. The pegasus grabbed onto a nearby table to stand her ground while kicking at the animatronic with her free leg. The robotic canine seemed to pay no heed to the pony’s struggles as it kept tugging on her while its comrades got closer and closer.

“Sunspot!” Glimmer Shine exclaimed in a shocked tone. Without even giving the matter a second thought, he bolted forward and grabbed the orange mare by the hoof to pull her out of the animatronic’s grip.

“Get it off me!” Sunspot pleaded while trying her best to wriggle free of the animatronic dog. In response to her constant kicking and squirming, the dog bit down harder on her leg, causing her to scream painfully as blood trickled out of it.

Tom rushed over to assist his friends, moving beside the struggle and sizing up the animatronic. There wasn’t much he could do physically to the robotic dog without hurting Sunspot’s leg any further. The animatronic had a good grip on her, and it wasn’t letting go anytime soon.

“I hope this works!” Tom stated nervously while holding his hand out in front of him. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine shielded their eyes as a blast of bright blue light filled the area in front of them. Much to her surprise and relief, the orange mare felt the animatronic releasing its grip on her as it let out a discomforted shriek.

“Let’s go!” Sunspot said urgently while kicking the animatronic with her good leg. She scrambled to get up with the help of Glimmer Shine before rushing for the door.

As the trio reached the door and opened it, they briefly locked the door from the inside before rushing out into the hall and slamming the door shut behind them. Although it was a faint hope that it would actually work, they wanted as much as possible sitting between them and that room.

The brief adrenaline high was still present, even if it was calming down slightly. Still, they had gotten out relatively unscathed. All things considered, Sunspot getting bitten on the leg could have turned into something much worse if they lingered long enough for the other animatronics to catch them.

“Think they are smart enough to unlock that door?” Sunspot asked curiously while briefly examining her leg and cringing.

“I don’t want to stick around and find out. Let’s put some distance between us and here.” Glimmer Shine suggested. The other two were inclined to agree with him as they heard the sound of the door shaking next to them.

With the yellow stallion helping the reluctant mare walk with her injured leg, the trio hurriedly made their way down the hallway, all the while silently hoping to not hear the sound of the door behind them being busted open. After rounding the far corner of the next intersection, the group paused and allowed Sunspot to lean up against the wall to rest her undoubtedly painful injury.

“Gah… that thing has some sharp teeth.” Sunspot winced while sliding to a seated position and cradling her still bleeding leg gingerly.

“Are you alright?” Glimmer Shine asked in a concerned tone while looking over the injury further. There were two sets of well-defined bite marks on opposite sides of her leg. Each individual hole was shaped differently, most likely from the animatronic’s teeth wearing down over the years. Despite the profuse amount of blood it was spewing out, the bite didn’t look like it went very deep.

“It stings like hay, but I think I’ll be alright.” Sunspot said while gritting her teeth and trying to put weight on the leg again. She could stand on the injured appendage, but it pained her greatly judging from her expression.

“Here, let me take care of it.” Tom suggested while kneeling down and preparing to heal the pegasus’s wound.

Sunspot backed away from the human with a heartfelt expression while shaking her head. “Tom, no… you don’t need to waste any energy on this. It’s just a little blood… I’ll be fine.” Sunspot said in a reassuring manner while trying to dissuade the boy from putting himself out for her.

“It wasn’t a proposal… hold still.” Tom said in a more adamant tone while reaching forward and grabbing the orange mare around her injury. Instead of hurting her, he was already channeling healing energy to his hand, dulling her pain and restraining her at the same time.

Sunspot sighed before doing as instructed and holding still. If she struggled any further, she would probably just cause him more trouble. It was clear that he wasn’t letting the matter go. She felt a comforting warmth flowing into her leg, and she also felt a slight tingling sensation where her skin was mending and her injury was closing up.

After the human was done, he released her leg and stepped back. Sunspot lifted the formerly bloodied limb and examined it. Aside from some of the bloodstains in her fur, everything else had been completely removed as if the bite never even happened.

“Thanks, Tom… you really didn’t need to do that.” Sunspot said with a slight frown. She had seen firsthand what using excess energy could do to the human, and she knew that he wasn’t keen on conserving energy when people were in need.

“It’s no big deal… just be thankful I managed to get Fido off of you before it got worse.” Tom replied in a relieved tone as he thought back to his brief gamble.

“Yeah… that reminds me, how did you know that would work? I thought your light didn’t affect ghosts?” Sunspot asked curiously.

“It doesn’t have very much of an effect on them… especially when said ghost is hiding inside of a metal body. There wasn’t much else I could have done without driving its teeth further into your leg. I just tried it and hoped that it would hurt it enough to make it let go… and I guess it worked.” Tom admitted in a sheepish tone. Although the human didn’t have any other plan to save her other than a guess, the orange mare was still grateful.

“I think we should get moving… we still need to find those keys.” Glimmer Shine suggested in a serious manner. The others immediately thought of the three ponies still trapped on the floors below and frowned slightly.

“But what are we going to do? There weren’t any keys in the security office, and the only other keys mentioned by that tape are either downstairs, or taken by that deer thing.” Sunspot said with a troubled tone. The prospect of a ghost having the literal key to reaching their friends was more than a little disconcerting.

“I don’t know… we’re chasing a literal ghost. I’m sure it’s not going to be easy to find.” Glimmer Shine shrugged while trying to come up with a solution.

“We should take a look around. I’m sure that deer and whatever is inside it must be feeling pretty mischievous if it stole something we were looking for. I’ll bet it will try to toy with us some more… if not, it will probably be hiding around somewhere. All we can hope is that it didn’t ditch the keys somewhere.” Tom said in a confident tone.

“Yeah… I don’t think all your training on interrogating perps will be worth much on ghosts, Glimmer.” Sunspot remarked while looking to the yellow stallion.

With their search area expanded even bigger than before, the trio prepared to start checking rooms again. If it took them all night, they would get those keys. They had to protect their friends, and they had to clear out the ghosts.

Meanwhile, back in the security office, spirits were higher than they had been in a while as everyone watched Pinkie Pie doing what she did best. The cramped security room inside of a dark and haunted abandoned underground resort didn’t seem so cramped or dark or even haunted. Everything seemed like it would be ok. Tom and the others were searching for the stairwell keys, and after they had found them, things could get back on track with putting things right.

“Come on, guys! One more round!” Pinkie cheered eagerly upon the completion of yet another game of duck, duck, goose. It was astounding how exciting she could make the most mundane of party games.

“Pinkie, don’t you have something else we could play?” Rainbow Dash asked in a mildly annoyed tone. Although most of the participating group, specifically the three fillies and young dragon, were enjoying the game, some felt that it had grown a little stale.

“Aww… what’s wrong with duck, duck, goose? It’s a classic!” Pinkie Pie said with a surprised expression.

“Yeah! I thought it was really fun.” Scootaloo added defensively.

“*Sigh* I like it as much as the next pony, but it’s getting a bit old. Can’t we try something new?” Rainbow Dash asked hopefully.

“You know, Rainbow… there isn’t much we can play down here without anything to use. Would you rather play I spy or twenty questions?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.

The cyan mare looked over to see Pinkie grinning eagerly at the mere suggestion of the two games. “N-no! I’m good… we can keep playing duck, duck, goose.” Rainbow Dash stammered uncomfortably.

The others laughed warmly at the cyan mare’s sudden change of heart. Over on the other side of the room, Sparkplug and Copper Coil were standing near Glitterball while she read over the various papers in front of her. The white unicorn had been waiting for her teammates to contact her with an update.

Just as she was starting to enjoy listening to the merriment being made behind her, Glitterball heard the familiar sound of her friends’ voices in her ear.

“Glitter, are you there?” Glimmer Shine asked in a drained tone. It was clear that something had happened recently to frustrate the stallion.

“Yep… do you have the keys yet?” Glitterball asked curiously with a hint of hopeful optimism in her voice. The audible sigh she heard on the other end immediately deflated her positive outlook.

“Not quite… we think an animatronic stole them.” Glimmer Shine said hesitantly.

“What…? Are you serious?” Glitterball tilted her head in disbelief.

“Wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it… not that I saw it… it’s kind of complicated.” Sunspot explained with a tone that sounded as confusing to others as it must have been for her.

“Umm… ok… didn’t see that one coming. What’s our plan now?” Glitterball pondered, curious to find out how her teammates were adapting to the situation.

“We’re searching the area now. It can’t be too hard to find a robot the size of a small pony, can it?” Glimmer Shine asked in a semi-confident tone.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was casting side glances between what they were doing and the white unicorn talking by herself. Of course, most of them knew that Glitterball was simply using a spell to communicate with her teammates, but it was still strange seeing her talking to nobody in the room.

Suddenly, Sweetie Belle’s ears perked up as she heard something strange. It was incredibly faint, but a new sound was making its presence known in the room. Was it coming from behind her? No, that was impossible. There was just a wall there. Still, she could hear it even more clearly as it seemingly got louder.

“Does anyone hear that?” Sweetie asked curiously while straining her ears to pick up on the sound. By now everyone had turned to her and even given a brief listen to see if they could figure out what the filly was referring to.

“Hear what? I don’t hear anything.” Scootaloo said in a confused manner.

“No, wait… I hear it too.” Twilight said while getting up and slowly walking closer to the wall and putting her ear to it. “It sounds like… radio static…?” She narrowed her eyes in a confused state of disbelief.

Before anyone else could put forth their opinion, a dull metallic thud rang out faintly and the noise drew closer. Now everyone could hear the static, and it was starting to make them more than a little nervous. Twilight and anyone else that was near the wall backed up slightly and stared ahead while still trying to pinpoint the sound coming through.

Another thump made itself known, and then another. All the while the static grew louder and closer. Now the ponies could make out garbled noises and the faint remnants of voices inside of the white noise. It sounded like someone was tuning in a horribly out of range radio channel, and whatever content the channel held was lost inside of the distorted mess.

Glitterball had paused mid-sentence as she turned and noticed what had made everyone stop what they were doing. She darted her eyes around the wall nervously, but nothing seemed like it could be making the noise. A clock, a painting, a vent covering, nothing looked out of place. And then it dawned on her. Perhaps it was her guard training coming back to her, or maybe it was a feeling in her gut, but right now she had a thought that wouldn’t leave her head and made her blood run cold.

“The vent…” Glitter muttered in a disturbed tone.

“Glitter, are you still there?” Glimmer Shine asked in a mildly concerned tone. It was at this point the unicorn realized that she was still communicating with her teammates.

“Guys… I think something’s wrong here…” Glitterball said in a hushed tone, wary that whatever was causing the static might hear her.

“What…? Glitter, what’s wrong?” Sunspot asked in a more serious tone of concern.

Before the unicorn could answer, another series of dull thuds rang out and the static grew even closer. The others were starting to slowly move to the back of the room as they all stared ahead of them. The three fillies hid behind the group, while Spike remained close to Twilight. It was clear to them now, something was moving inside of the vent.

“S-something’s in the vent… I don’t know what it is. We need you to get back here right n-” Glitterball was cut off suddenly as a loud noise erupted in front of her. A mass of screams filled the air as the stunned unicorn looked ahead in shock.

The room was barely audible anymore due to the static and the fearful screaming. The vent cover was lying on the floor a few feet away from the vent it belonged to. And in the middle of this mess, sticking out of the vent and crawling out of it, was a pink and white animatronic fox head.

Of course, the fox head was one of the few parts of the beast that had color. It seemed that the rest of the robot was comprised of metallic endoskeleton that had been bent and rearranged into a mess of parts. Despite it looking like it couldn’t even move, the beast let out a shrill roar as it started coming out of the vent and hanging onto the ceiling with its limbs.

“Everyone run!” Glitterball announced through the initial shock of seeing the creature. Although she was just as utterly terrified as the others, she knew that there was no way they could fight that creature, let alone fight it in an enclosed space with innocent people nearby.

The ponies scrambled toward the only exit to the room other than the vent. Everyone screamed bloody murder as they heard the horrific animatronic stomping on the ceiling toward them. Suddenly, the mangle of a fox unhinged from the ceiling and swung down toward the crowd with its broken jaw hanging open and its sharp teeth bared. Fluttershy yelped and dove to the floor, taking Applebloom with her and shielding her as best she could as the vicious robot sailed just over them and snapped at them. While the pair was still recovering from their miraculous evasion, the others were already getting the door open and funneling out of the room.

“Fluttershy, get up! We have to go!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed while dragging the terrified pegasus and young filly to their feet. Fluttershy immediately started running, while Applebloom quickly grabbed her sister’s hat off the floor and bolted as fast as her little legs would carry her.

Sparkplug was holding the door open, ushering the crowd out into the hallway in their terrified rush to flee. As the last few people were making it out, the animatronic caught up with them and prepared to attack. The creature let out another shriek and arched its broken body downward to bite the nearest pony, which just so happened to be Pinkie Pie. Before the fox could hit the pink mare, it was suddenly enveloped in a purple aura of magic and held back. The group left in the room briefly looked outside to see Twilight straining to focus her magic. If holding the other animatronics was hard for her, then holding onto the vicious fox seemed nigh impossible as it wildly bucked and fought her with intense strength.

“GAH!” Twilight yelped as the fox broke her hold over it. While the purple mare clutched her head and stumbled backwards, Sparkplug ushered the last of the group outside and let the door swing closed as she ran.

The door thundered back open as the animatronic slammed its body forward like an unstoppable train of metal and teeth. The radio static and the beast’s chilling distorted cries made the ponies’ blood run cold as they all ran for their very lives.

After a few minutes of running, Twilight felt like passing out on the spot. Her lungs were burning, her legs were practically blurred underneath her from how fast she was running, and on top of everything else, her exhaustion from having her magic overwhelmed wasn’t helping matters in the slightest.

Once the sounds of the animatronic’s metal limbs pounding on the ceiling died down and the radio static ceased, the unicorn finally managed to get enough courage to look behind her. As she looked down the hallway, her eyes widened and her face paled.

Nothing… there was nothing down the hallway. No animatronic fox, no ghost waiting to jump out at her, no other horrible beast made out of aged metal and plastic to chase her. The others paused as they heard the sound of someone skidding to a halt behind them. They all turned to see Twilight panting to catch her breath with an alarmed expression on her face.

“Twilight, what’s wrong?” Glitterball asked in a concerned tone. Although the beast was nowhere in sight, it could still have been following them.

“Where are the others?!” Twilight asked in a panic while looking around feverishly.

It was around this time that everyone else took a look around and tallied their numbers up. Sure enough, there were some people missing from their little group. Berry Swirl wasn’t present, and neither was Pinkie Pie or Sparkplug or…

“*Gasp* Oh no, the kids!” Fluttershy paled as a thick feeling of dread washed over her. Everyone else immediately realized the same thing that she had. Scootaloo, Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and even Spike were all missing as well.

-Elsewhere-

Applebloom panted heavily as she sprinted through the twists and turns of the hallways. Her two fellow crusaders, along with a young dragon were running up ahead, and further ahead of them were Sparkplug, Berry Swirl, and Pinkie Pie. All of them were running as fast as they could, and they all knew why.

A distorted cry carried over the distant sound of radio static and metal clanging to reach their ears. The yellow filly was terrified to turn around. Although she was somewhat confident that the fox was a fair distance away from her, she was the slowest out of the group, so turning around would cost her valuable time. All she could do was keep a tight grip on her sister’s hat and keep following the others until they lost the animatronic beast in the halls.

“*Pant* *Wheeze*… guh…” Applebloom felt like she was going to have a heart attack from how hard it was pumping. Her legs already felt tired, and her friends showed no sign of stopping, nor should they have with the creature still giving chase from the distance. It was a wonder they had outrun it thus far. Perhaps when they split off from the other group they had temporarily confused the robotic animal, making it hesitate and giving them some distance between them and it.

The lights overhead were getting more and more interspaced due to a lot of them not working. The terrified filly struggled to keep track of her friends as they disappeared into darkness, only to reappear and take a different turn than she expected. She was fearful that she might lose them.

“Applebloom, keep going! You’re going to fall behind!” Scootaloo stated while looking back to the struggling filly with a concerned expression.

“*Pant*… I’m… *Wheeze* I’m tryin’!” Applebloom replied, somehow managing to muster the lung power to raise her voice.

Suddenly, the yellow filly yelped as she entered a patch of darkness only to trip on a stray cord on the ground and go tumbling to the floor. Everyone paused and looked back to see Applebloom on the ground just outside of a patch of darkness, still settling from sliding across the floor from her trip.

“Applebloom, are you ok?!” Pinkie Pie asked in an alarmed tone as she watched the filly struggling to get up. Either she injured herself during her brief fall, or she was more tired than everyone originally thought.

With the sound of the animatronic fox more distant than it had been in a while, the group figured that they had at least some time before it appeared at the edge of the hall. Still, they rushed over to the fallen filly as fast as they could.

Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Spike reached her first. The young pegasus knelt down to examine her friend and help her to her feet.

“Are you hurt? Can you still walk?” Scootaloo asked with a hint of nervousness in her voice as she glanced to the hallway behind the yellow filly.

“I… think so. Ow…” Applebloom muttered while rubbing her head gingerly and letting her friends help her up. Before the three children could get their friend off the floor, something happened that made them pause in alarm.

Sparkplug, Pinkie Pie, and Berry Swirl all skidded to a panicked halt as they heard a violent crunch ring out from in front of them. Much to their horror, the floor around the four kids started cracking and fissuring out.

“Kids, get out of there!” Berry yelled fearfully while rushing forward to grab the children. Before she could, the cracks got worse and the floor started shifting downward faster than anyone could react.

“AHH!” Applebloom and her friends screamed as they felt the ground giving away beneath them. The confused and terrified children tried to scramble to safety, but they couldn’t even manage to jump from the already falling pieces of floor to reach anything solid.

The three mares tried reaching for the falling group, but all they could do is watch in abject horror as they plummeted down to the next floor. The event was over in about three or so seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Thankfully, perhaps the only good thing to happen in the last several minutes happened.

The hole the kids fell through sent them tumbling to the second floor, but they didn’t hit anything too hard when they finally finished their descent. The hole had opened up into what must have been a children’s play area because the kids fell into an already full pit of colorful plastic balls.

The three crusaders and the young dragon splashed into the pit and disappeared beneath the assortment of colored balls. Although the ponies still watching above were almost certain that the impact was still dangerous and painful, at least there was a good chance they survived.

“Oh… m-my gosh!” Berry covered her mouth and slid back away from the hole. She thought she would have a stroke when she was watching the kids falling. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to react, but she couldn’t do anything.

“What are we going to do?! We have to get them out of there… Hey, are you guys ok?!” Pinkie yelled down into the dark expanse of a room. The high ceiling and large area made her voice echo slightly as it reverberated off the walls. Still, the children didn’t respond and the ball pit remained still and motionless aside from the debris still settling.

Suddenly, the three mares heard a chillingly familiar distorted cry as the thundering sound of metal and the radio static returned to their attention. They looked down the hallway, only to find it empty. However, the animatronic sounded like it would round that corner at any moment.

“Oh no… what do we do?! We can’t just leave them down there!” Berry Swirl flew headfirst into a panic attack as she paced back and forth while trying to figure out a solution.

Meanwhile, while the other two ponies were having a mental and nervous breakdown while trying to think of something to do, Sparkplug was still standing in front of the hole in the ground. In reality, the hole wasn’t very big. It would only be large enough to fit one pony at a time if they tried to go down there. The kids probably only fell at the same time because they were all huddled around Applebloom, and the floor sloped downward as it fell.

“You guys… get away from that fox thing and go find the others.” Sparkplug said while gulping slightly and steeling herself from something.

“Sparkplug, what are you doing?” Berry Swirl asked in a confused tone. Before the gray mare could answer, the metallic thumping grew in intensity as the animatronic came into view on the ceiling at the far end of the hallway.

“Just trust me!” Sparkplug announced before suddenly rushing forward and jumping into the hole in the floor.

“*Gasp* Sparkplug!” Both Berry and Pinkie yelled in unison as they watched the gray mare plummet into the floor below. Although she had planned her actions, she still let out a frightened yelp as she fell down before hitting the ball pit as the children had before her.

Berry Swirl and Pinkie Pie stared at the dark room beneath them with their mouths agape and their eyes as wide as dinner plates. They couldn’t even fathom how much of a stupid decision the gray mare had just made, yet they still contemplated doing the same thing. Before they could think about going through with following their companion, they heard the beast in front of them cry out again.

The two mares shared a nervous glance with each other while backing up. They looked at the hole in the ground one more time before turning tail and picking up their pace to flee from the metal monster. All they could do now was run. They silently resolved to escape the animatronic as fast as possible so they could find the others and tell them about what had happened.

Chapter 18: Mementos

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The room was silent as the last few flecks of debris settled to the floor. The muffled sounds of running and radio static from the hole in the ceiling above had passed minutes ago, leaving nothing to disturb the ambiance. Suddenly, there was movement. Inside of the ball bit, the colorful orbs were shifting as someone started climbing out.

Scootaloo spit a ball out of her mouth and panted heavily. On top of her stamina still being drained from running for her life for so long, her body was now sore from having smacked into the bottom of the pit. The many plastic balls offered a surprisingly decent amount of cushioning, but she did fall from a great height. “Ugh… my head.” Scootaloo groaned while clutching her tender cranium and clinging to the edge of the pit. Before she could climb her way out, she heard movement behind her and turned her head to investigate. There was only one working light in the vast room around her, and the area she was in was on the dark side of the room. Still, she could make out the sight of more people climbing out of the pit.

“Gah…” Spike took a moment to catch his breath as he wriggled to the top of the pit. “Is… everyone alright?” He asked while looking around and trying to find the others. Off to the side, two more ponies climbed up to the surface of the pit and clung to the edge. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle slowly climbed out of the pit before rolling onto their backs and resting.

“Oww… I think I hurt my side.” Sweetie Belle cringed while rubbing her side gently. Her ribs felt like they were bruised, and they probably looked like it too, though it was hard to tell in the dim light.

The four looked up at the ceiling to find the hole they fell through. They were surprised to see just how high up the fall actually was. The room was fairly big vertically, and it looked like it was a play area of sorts. There were a few large slides and hanging decorations, which explained the high ceiling. What they were more surprised to see, however, was a surprising lack of a gaping hole in the ceiling.

“What the hay…? Where’d the hole go?” Scootaloo asked in a confused manner while darting her eyes around. They had to have fallen through something, but the ceiling was completely intact. There was still debris on the floor from the supposed collapse, but everything else indicated that nothing had happened at all.

“What are we going to do…? Are we stuck down here?” Applebloom asked with a concerned gleam in her eye.

Scootaloo looked to the seemingly solid ceiling with a frustrated expression. “Hey! Is anyone up there?!” She raised her voice to carry upwards. Nothing but silent darkness greeted her in return. As much as the filly hoped that someone would hear her through the ceiling and respond, she decided against yelling again for fear that something else might hear her.

Much to their surprise, the kids noticed someone else climbing out of the ball pit. A familiar gray mare in coveralls popped up and took a moment to catch her breath and regain her bearings.

“Sparkplug?” Spike said while looking to the earth pony with a confused expression.

Sparkplug looked around and breathed a sigh of relief as she noticed the four children. “Oh… thank goodness you guys are alright.”

“What are you doing down here?” Sweetie Belle asked curiously while watching the gray mare starting to climb her way out of the pit.

“I jumped down after you… I couldn’t just leave you guys alone.” Sparkplug explained in a lighthearted tone while getting to her feet. She took a look around the room briefly while trying to figure out where they were. Their initial assumption that this was a play area for kids was correct. There were toys and various colorful decorations scattered everywhere, and the walls were painted black with white dots interspaced to resemble stars in a night sky. “Ok… ok… is anyone hurt?” Sparkplug asked while turning her attention to the four children. She walked over to the side of the pit and helped Scootaloo climb up while Spike was making his way out on his own.

“I think I hit my head… does it look bad?” Scootaloo pointed out where her head was hurting while brushing her hair out of the way for Sparkplug to see clearly.

The older mare gently examined the filly’s head. It was hard to see in the dark, but it looked like she was bleeding slightly from a small cut on her forehead. “I’m no doctor or anything, but it definitely looks like you hit it. Do you feel ok?” Sparkplug asked with a concerned frown of sympathy.

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t feel tired or anything.” Scootaloo said while gently holding her head with a slightly concerned expression.

“That’s good… I think.” Sparkplug said in what she hoped would be a reassuring tone. “Just don’t go falling asleep for a while… you should be fine.” She stated before turning her attention to the others. Across the ball pit, Spike and Applebloom were huddled around Sweetie Belle, who was still on the floor holding her side.

Scootaloo made her way over to the other side of the pit with Sparkplug. As she and the gray mare approached, they could see the young unicorn clutching a black and blue spot on her side. “Are you ok, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asked with a concerned expression of sympathy as she paused in front of her friend.

Sweetie Belle cringed before stiffening her expression and trying to ignore the pain she was in so she could sit up. “Nghh… I… I’m just resting. My ribs hurt, but… I don’t think it’s too bad.” She replied.

“That’s a relief… I would have thought you would be worse off considering how far we fell. I can’t believe the floor just opened up like that.” Sparkplug said while craning her head to look up at the hole in the ceiling. She was taken aback by confusion as she was met with the exact opposite of what she expected. “Wait… where did the hole go?”

“We don’t know… it just vanished.” Scootaloo suggested in an equally confused manner. “It must have happened after you jumped down and the others left.”

Upon mention of the other two mares, Spike frowned slightly in concern. “Did Berry and Pinkie get away from that thing?” He asked while looking to the gray mare, hopeful he would receive a comforting answer.

Sparkplug frowned slightly as she thought about what could have happened to the two mares after she jumped down after the kids. “I told them to run. I would assume they got out of there once that fox thing came around the corner. If they didn’t run, they would be down here… right?” She said in what she hoped to be a confident tone. It was easy to tell that she was trying to reassure herself as well as the four children waiting with concerned expressions on their faces.

“Where exactly is down here anyway?” Sweetie Belle asked while giving the room a second look around. Now that everything was starting to sink in, she was becoming much more nervous about her new location.

“Well… we fell. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we must be on a lower floor.” Scootaloo replied in an aloof manner.

“Do you think we’re on the floor Applejack and the others are on?” Applebloom perked up slightly at the prospect of meeting up with her sister. Sweetie Belle was also eager to entertain the idea that they would find the three missing ponies, and Sparkplug was determined to make sure Silver Bell was safe.

“It’s a possibility.” Sparkplug said. “As long as they didn’t go any further down, they should be around here somewhere.” She explained while trying to keep her own expectations within reasonable levels. However, the yellow filly and young unicorn weren’t as good at keeping their excitement contained.

“We should go look for them!” Applebloom suggested eagerly while walking off to the side and picking up her sister’s hat from where it landed.

Sweetie Belle ignored her aching side and sprang up from the floor with her energy replenished anew. “Yeah! I’m sure they would be so glad to see us!” She said with an eager grin on her face as she pictured her sister’s reaction to seeing her again.

Sparkplug sighed while looking around in thought. She had jumped down to this floor to keep the kids safe, but she couldn’t deny that this was their best chance of reuniting with the three mares. At any rate, they couldn’t just stay in one place and wait. Any number of things could have happened before the others could reach them. Right now, their best option was to keep moving. “Alright… if you guys are able to walk, then we should get going. We can look for Applejack and Rarity while we move.” Sparkplug stated while motioning for the others to follow her. Spike and the three fillies nodded before slowly shuffling forward while the gray mare tried to find a way out of the room.

As much as they wanted the entrance to the play area to be in the well-lit half of the room, there was no such luck. If there was another way in aside from the missing hole in the ceiling, and Sparkplug really hoped that they hadn’t fallen into a sealed off room in some bizarre stroke of misfortune, then they had to go further into the darkness.

Luck hadn’t been kind to them recently. After all, they had just fallen through the ceiling when everything should have been stable due to the seismic dampener. Still, they had stumbled across some form of luck as they ran across the entrance. There was a set of double doors propped open near the corner of the room beside a small climbing net.

The group huddled near the doors and peered out into the equally dark hallway. Now that they were further away from the light back in the room, they could hardly see their hooves in front of their faces. From the look of it, there was another light to the far left side of the corridor, but most of the area was bathed in darkness.

“Gosh… it sure is dark out there.” Applebloom said in a small voice while trying to refrain from getting too unnerved.

“How are we going to find the others if we can’t even see?” Scootaloo asked in a defeated tone.

“Well… I might not have a flashlight, but…” Sparkplug muttered while digging around in her pockets. After a moment, she produced what looked to be a video camera. “I might be able to make this work in the meantime.” She added while opening up the screen and fumbling around to find the power switch.

Spike eyed the small device warily. “Does that thing even work?” He asked while raising an eyebrow in doubt.

“It should… I swiped it from my workshop upstairs. I think it has night vision on it if I’m not mistaken.” Sparkplug replied in an unfocused manner while waiting for the screen to come on. Once the display lit up, she pressed a few more buttons while trying to switch on the night vision. Finally, the screen flashed green and the group could see a view of the hallway ahead of them through the small viewing window. “Aha… there we go.” The gray mare said with a triumphant smirk. Although the camera produced little to no light other than the screen, it would offer them enough of a view of their surroundings to make their way through the dark.

“Really…? There’s no way that will work. We will be bumping into things left and right.” Scootaloo stated in a skeptical manner while eyeing the small screen that was their only method of navigation. The others were a bit wary as well, but they weren’t sure what else they could do.

“Where are we even going?” Spike asked hesitantly. Without any sure fire way of finding the three missing ponies, the dragon didn’t know where they could search, or even if he wanted to go wandering around.

“Uh… I don’t know.” Sparkplug said with an awkward shrug. Needless to say, the gray mare’s response wasn’t what the children expected from their designated adult guardian.

“What?!” Scootaloo exclaimed in shock. “How do you not know? I thought you had a plan!”

“My plan stopped at jumping down here with you… give me a break.” Sparkplug said defensively. As she looked around, hopeful to find suggestions, she only found the three fillies and young dragon looking to her with uncertain expressions. “Ok… uh… Maybe we should go to the stairs? I mean… maybe the others will have the keys by then?” She said with a hopeful expression. She never expected to feel so judged by a group of children.

“That sounds like a good plan… If they haven’t found the keys by then, we can just go look for Applejack and the others.” Applebloom suggested in a compliant tone. The gray mare was eager to accept the yellow filly’s approval.

“Well, that settles it. Stay close, everyone… We’ll try to stick to the lighted areas, but a lot of the bulbs are probably burned out.” Sparkplug instructed before taking a few steps out into the hallway. The three fillies and their dragon companion followed along with varying amounts of fear and hesitation among them.

Working off of memory and where she was facing before everything went sour, the gray mare tried to figure out the direction the stairs would be in. Her best estimate put them to their rear when they were in the play room, but there wasn’t an exit in that direction. Now she would have to loop around, elongating the trip they would have to take far more than anyone would have liked.

With the light at the far left end of the hall in mind, Sparkplug decided to head left. She walked slow, half to make sure that her young followers were staying close, and half to orient herself in the darkness. The only way she had of seeing where she was going other than the distant lit up area was the small viewing screen of the camera. The green snapshot of the dark hallway made it seem a little less spooky than it was before, but it was still eerie having darkness on all sides. It was somewhat odd to be looking down at something to see where they were going. Given how small the screen was, it felt like they could walk into something without even knowing it.

Sparkplug and the others drew their eyes upward as they neared the lit up portion of the hall. Apparently, there was a single working bulb, and it was at an intersection. Everything outside of the sphere of light was a void of blackness, and even though they could get a look at what was waiting within that void, the ponies weren’t sure if they wanted to.

“I think the stairs were this way…” Sparkplug ventured while walking toward the left fork in the hall. As she rounded the corner, she paused as she noticed a wall of absolute darkness waiting for her. If there was only a single light in the hallway, it was the one they were currently under. Given the terrifying sight before them, the group would have wondered if any of the lights worked on this floor. “Ugh… you have got to be kidding me.” The gray mare muttered reluctantly. Despite whatever anxiousness she felt, she pressed onward and relied on her trusty camera to tell her where she was going. Of course, the four children followed close behind, mostly for fear of being left alone.

If the area was eerie before with at least some light, it was outright terrifying now that they were literally surrounded by darkness. The further they walked, the further away the waning light of the singular lightbulb got. It almost felt like they were being swallowed up by a black hole.

“I don’t like this place... I’m scared.” Sweetie Belle stated nervously while peering around her in a paranoid fashion. She fully expected another terrifying metallic monster to come out of the dark at any given moment. The stark silence in the air wasn’t helping matters either.

“Just keep moving, kid… we’re all here with you.” Sparkplug said in a reassuring tone. Although she couldn’t tell who did it, the white filly felt one of her friends patting her on the shoulder in a comforting manner. At least she hoped it was one of her friends.

All eyes were fixated on the little screen held by the gray mare. Any obstacle they came across managed to be avoided since they could see it coming. It was astounding how much they felt like they were blind, even though for all intents and purposes they could see pretty much anything in front of them.

After slowly maneuvering through the halls, making it through a few twists and turns along the way, the group was relieved to finally see a light at the end of the corridor. Not only was there a light, but there was also a set of stairs set into the back wall.

“Phew… we made it.” Sparkplug said with a slight smirk while picking up her pace to reach the lit up area. The four children eagerly rushed to escape the darkness for fear that something might reach out and spirit them away right under everyone’s noses.

The stairs leading down were blocked by iron bars. Sparkplug walked up and briefly tried to open the gate, but to no avail. It was locked up tight, and if nothing had changed, the way upstairs would be impeded by a similar gate. “Darn… looks like we are stuck on this floor.” Sparkplug muttered with a deflated expression.

“Hey guys, come look at this!” Applebloom announced from off to the side. The others turned to see the yellow filly over on the right fork of the intersection just before the cut off of darkness. She was pointing eagerly to the wall, and it was easy to tell why. There was what appeared to be red paint smeared across the wall, and it seemed to spell out a message.

“The key to success lies in the past…? What the hay is that supposed to mean?” Scootaloo read off the crudely drawn message as she walked over to where the yellow filly was standing. There was what appeared to be a small key drawn next to the message. Was this referring to the keys to the stairs?

Before anyone else could ponder the meaning of the message, a light suddenly appeared off to the side. Everyone darted their heads to investigate the area with varying degrees of alarm. They expected to find that one or more of the ghosts had found them and would chase them all around the floor. What they didn’t expect to see, however, were three ponies walking toward them from the far hallway. The stunned group stared at the trio for a moment in disbelief as they finally paused and noticed that they weren’t alone. The light was coming from two unicorns, both of which looked very familiar. And the third pony immediately sent a wave of excitement through a certain yellow filly.

“Applejack…!” Applebloom exclaimed with a cheerful gasp. Without so much as a care for the darkness separating her and the three ponies up ahead, she rushed forward and made a beeline straight for her sister.

“Applebloom…?” Applejack muttered in a stunned tone. Her face brightened up as she realized that this wasn’t just some fear-induced hallucination. The orange mare quickly trotted forward along with her friends and caught the speeding filly with open forelegs. After hugging her sister for a moment, Applebloom gently placed the leather hat she had been holding back onto the head of its rightful owner.

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle cheered in excitement while rushing over to the group and leaping at the white unicorn.

“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity widened her eyes in stunned amazement as she knelt down and hugged her little sister as tightly as she could.

Sparkplug walked over along with Spike and Scootaloo, eager to greet their friends that had been missing for so long. Each group seemed to be just as surprised as the other that they had found each other.

“Sparkplug…? What are you guys doing down here?” Silver Bell asked curiously while looking to the gray mare for answers.

“It's a long story… In short, we got chased down here by the animatronics and came looking for you.” Sparkplug shrugged as she thought about all of the things that had happened in such a short period of time.

“Did you find the keys to the gate?” Rarity asked with a hopeful gleam in her eyes.

“Not exactly…” Sparkplug admitted sheepishly.

“Yeah… we kind of fell through a hole in the ceiling while running from one of those robot things. The hole was gone somehow by the time we got up… so I guess we're stuck down here with you.” Scootaloo stated uneasily.

“Don't worry about that right now… I'm sure the others will find a way to us. I'm just glad you guys are ok.” Applejack smiled warmly. Although it was troubling to know that they were still trapped, the three mares were relieved to have found some familiar faces down in the dark halls.

“Hold on…” Silver Bell muttered curiously while looking over to the area by the stairs. “What’s that over there?” She asked while pointing at something. While Applejack and Rarity slowly walked forward to see what their friend was referring to, Sparkplug turned and noticed that her colleague was pointing out the message on the wall.

The three mares walked over to the lit up portion of the hall and went past the stairs to examine the words scrawled on the wall in red paint. They seemed to be just as confused by the message as the others had been when they first found it.

“The key to success lies in the past?” Rarity read off the message to herself quietly with a puzzled expression. “Who wrote this…?” She asked curiously while turning to the gray pony and the four children.

Sparkplug raised a surprised eyebrow as the unicorn looked to her for an answer. “You don’t know? I thought you would have seen this when you first got down here.”

“That wasn’t here when we first got down here… someone must have drawn it while we were lookin’ for another way out.” Applejack suggested uneasily. The prospect of them not being alone down in the eerie corridors wasn’t exactly new, but it was still disturbing to think about. Most of the group figured that the animatronics weren’t capable of the complex thought required to write out a message for others to see. Then again, it wasn’t just average ordinary animatronics they were dealing with. Ghosts were capable of many things, and a lot of them had sinister intentions for the living.

“What does it mean anyway? It looks like it’s talking about some kind of key… but where would it be?” Scootaloo asked while puzzling over the message further in her head. From the look of things, the orange filly would sooner hurt herself from over exerting her mind than come up with a plausible answer.

Silver Bell and the others looked over the message again. Aside from it being drawn in red paint, the words didn’t tell much else about who or what wrote them and what they meant. However, as the young pegasus had pointed out, the small key drawn next to the message did seem to indicate that it was referring to a literal key.

“The key to success lies in the past…? Hey… isn’t there a museum on this floor?” Silver Bell asked curiously while thinking of her limited knowledge of the map layout.

The others turned and watched with passive intrigue as Rarity and Applejack rushed over to a map hanging on the wall. It looked like it was a map of this floor and everything on it. The gray mare and her four charges were amazed that they hadn’t noticed it sooner.

After some searching, Applejack let a small smile creep across her face. “Silver is right… there’s a museum about the history of the park on the right side of the map.” She reported eagerly while pointing at the section of the map she was referring to. There was a sizable room tucked away at the upper right-hand side of the map. Judging from their current location, it would have been clear on the opposite side of the floor from them. It was actually not that far away from pirate cove.

“I don’t know about this, guys… That place is awful close to where we found that animatronic.” Silver Bell pointed out warily. It was easy to tell the cream mare wasn’t keen on seeing the red fox again.

“I know darling, but that might be our best bet to find the keys to the stairs. I mean look… there’s even a security office inside the museum.” Rarity said while motioning toward a small outline of a room inside the museum marked off as “Security”.

“Maybe we should just stay here? I’m sure the others will find a set of keys upstairs and come get us in no time.” Silver Bell suggested with a hesitant expression.

“I’m not too sure of that… they were having some trouble finding the keys when we had to… *ahem* relocate.” Sparkplug explained in a disheartened manner.

Silver Bell looked down and fiddled her hooves together uncomfortably. Most of the others had already decided what they were going to do, but there were some that were still hesitant. Even so, everyone wanted to reunite with their friends upstairs. The sooner they got back together, the sooner they could focus on the reason they came to the resort in the first place.

“I think we should go. We’ve been everywhere else that we can think of to look for an exit to this floor. If the keys aren’t in that museum, we should hole up in the security room until the others find us.” Rarity suggested in a confident tone.

“I don’t know guys… shouldn’t we look around more for those keys if we don’t find them?” Sparkplug asked curiously. The question was innocent enough, but the mere thoughts that it provoked made the other three mares fall into an uneasy silence.

“You don’t know what’s down here… We’ve run into some scary stuff, and I’m not just talkin’ about robot critters.” Applejack explained in a cold tone. Rarity and Silver Bell immediately knew what the orange pony was referring to.

The genuine dread in the three ponies’ faces made the gray mare and the four children pause nervously. They must have seen something truly awful to be so adamant about not roaming the halls. Their imaginations ran wild as they thought of what could have spooked their friends so much.

“Ok… security room it is. Hopefully, the keys will be there somewhere so we can get out of this dump.” Sparkplug said while walking over to the map on the wall. While she was memorizing the route for herself, the others waited on the edge of the intersection and looked ahead.

“Stay close to us Applebloom. Not that I think you would, but you guys shouldn’t be wanderin’.” Applejack suggested while looking to her sister and her friends.

The yellow filly briefly looked to her two fellow crusaders and the young dragon next to them. “Yeah, ok.” Applebloom said with a nod. The other three children nodded as well while huddling close together.

Hesitantly, the group walked down the right hallway toward their new goal. Although it was comforting to be in a larger group and have some light, the darkness around them was still unnerving. Every doorway they passed could have been hiding something terrifying. The ponies couldn’t wait to get out of the haunted resort.

Applejack and Rarity stayed in the middle of the group. The two mares kept a close watch on the children walking beside them. Silver Bell hung back at the rear and tried her best to keep moving. She didn’t really want to be exploring the darkened hallways, but she shuddered to even think of losing her friends. At the front of the group was Sparkplug, leading the way to the back of the floor layout toward the museum.

Although it was silent as the grave aside from their own hooves sinking into the carpet, the ponies kept their ears perked up and their heads on a swivel. At any moment they could encounter a ghost or an animatronic, and they wanted to avoid that risk at any cost.

A few minutes of walking went by, and finally, the group ran out of forward progress. According to their knowledge of the map layout, just up ahead was the very back of the floor. Somewhere off to the left, past the corner, was the entrance to pirate cove. Applejack and her two companions didn’t need any reminders of what was within the childish attraction.

“Looks like that’s what we’re looking for.” Sparkplug pointed out while motioning to a set of double doors on the right side near the end of the hall. There was a sign above the doors with bold letters. Although they couldn’t fully make out what the sign said due to it being concealed in darkness, but they had a good hunch that is said museum.

“Why does this place have a museum anyway?” Scootaloo asked in a puzzled tone while the group walked over to the double doors.

“Well… I would assume it’s based on the old amusement park. This place was a pretty big deal back in the day… and so was the earthquake that closed it down.” Silver Bell suggested with an intrigued glint in her eye. She wondered just what the museum would have inside of it regarding the resort and its past.

The group hovered near the two doors, waiting for someone to open them so they could walk inside. The doors themselves were wooden and had ornate patterns etched into them symmetrically. It looked as though the ponies were about to enter an entirely different atmosphere.

Rarity grabbed ahold of the two handles on the doors and gave them a tug. The doors were unlocked and offered little resistance, giving way and pulling open to let out a cold rush of air as the group stared inside. The floor was mostly wooden from the look of things, and it was relatively unmarred by the ravages of time, save for a thin covering of dust and other particulates. A collective feeling of awe fell over the group as they stepped inside.

The ceiling above receded a fair ways from out in the halls. Sparkplug and the four children could make a height comparison to the play area they found themselves in after falling to this floor, but the museum seemed to be the bigger one out of the two rooms. There were a few lights scattered along the sides of the room. Most of these weren’t on, but there were a couple that functioned enough to dimly illuminate some of the area. Just ahead of them was a circular desk area most likely intended for an employee to stand behind. There were a few dust laden pamphlets of some sort in a small receptacle on the desk. The group couldn’t see the pamphlets from where they were, but they wagered them to be guides for visitors to use while touring the museum. The wall to their left immediately terminated roughly a foot away, while their right side went on for much longer.

“Woah…” Spike exclaimed as he trailed his eyes around, taking in the sights of the large room and its contents with curious wonderment. “Twilight would love it here… this place is huge!” He added in an impressed tone. The others were inclined to agree with the young dragon.

In basic terms, the room was shaped like a big rectangle, and they had entered near the bottom left corner. Past the front desk, there were numerous glass display cases of varying sizes lined up in the center, along with a few uniquely shaped exhibits to the sides of the room. Toward the back of the room, there was a set of double wide stairs that led up to a large balcony of sorts that looked like it housed even more displays. The display cases themselves held a wide range of items. Stuff ranging from newspaper clippings to objects that looked much older and more decrepit than anything else the group had run across in the resort.

“I must say… this does look rather impressive.” Rarity commented while walking to the left a short ways to examine some objects on the back wall. It seemed that there were a few thinner displays framed up on the wall, each with a placard describing what the item held within was and its historical importance.

After taking a moment to break away from her curiosity, Applejack took another look around to search for the security room. There was much of the room obscured by the many display cases up ahead, not to mention the expansive balcony and the area behind the stairs which seemed to hold even more exhibits. “Alright… we can look around and search at the same time. Come on guys, we’ve got to find that security room.” She suggested in a determined manner.

“Right.” Silver Bell replied with a compliant nod. Everyone else nodded as well before turning their attention to the task at hand.

The group walked past the front desk and made their way along the right side of the room, slowly moving forward and looking around for any signs that indicated where the security room was. And although they were confident that the keys would be in the security room, they were slow and kept their eyes peeled anyway. The clue they were following was vague at best, and according to it, the keys could have been anywhere in the museum.

The glass displays to either side of the ponies held various framed artifacts and items ranging from pieces of wood to bits of cloth with faded colors on them. Almost everything was caked in so much dirt that it was hard to tell what it was meant to be originally.

“Where did they find all this stuff?” Applejack asked while reading the aged writing on the plaques under the displays.

“We found a cassette tape upstairs that said they found a cavern on the floor below this one. They think it was made during the old earthquake, so they probably got the stuff from in there.” Sparkplug explained in an intrigued tone while looking around herself.

“Wow… So all of these things really are seventy years old?” Applebloom said with an amazed expression.

“It’s kind of weird to think that this whole place is kind of a museum by itself.” Sweetie Belle suggested curiously. Although they had to take a moment to think about the filly’s statement, the others saw where she was coming from. The halls they were walking through were fairly old themselves, so to see a room dedicated to even further in the past was a bit odd.

After passing the last set of display cases, the group was nearly half way across the room. The rest of the area was mostly open floor space due to the rest of the displays being against the walls. Up ahead, there were the stairs and the area behind them.

It seemed as though the back wall behind the steps was dedicated to stuff small enough to fit into frames on the wall. Only one of the visible lights back there worked, and the only item they could see from this distance was a tattered flag that looked like it once held a colorful pattern on it.

Trailing her eyes upward, Sparkplug looked to the balcony with intrigue. There wasn’t much in terms of other doors down where they were currently. If they were going to find the security room, and by extension the keys, then they would most likely need to look upstairs. “I’m going to take a look up there. You guys keep searching down here.” Sparkplug suggested while pointing toward the upper area.

“I’ll come with you. You might need some light up there.” Rarity said while noting the many broken lights around her. Although it seemed like some light was coming from upstairs, she wasn’t sure if she trusted it to be reliable.

“Alright… holler if you find somethin’.” Applejack said with a cautionary tone. The two mares nodded before separating and letting the others continue their search downstairs.

Sparkplug and Rarity made their way up the steep staircase at a slow pace. They weren’t sure what was waiting for them, and they didn’t want to make any undue noise against the hard steps. As they drew closer to the top, they could gradually see more and more of the balcony. Judging from first appearances, there were only a few more displays up here. To their immediate left was a small hallway embedded into the wall that led to what looked to be restrooms judging from a faded sign above the hall. To their right, however, was something far more jarring.

“Woah…” Sparkplug recoiled slightly from brief shock. She stared ahead into the hollow eye sockets of what appeared to be Bonnie and Chica. However, things weren’t as they first appeared.

A thin pane of glass separated the two ponies from the mascots. They were sealed away in individual display cases, which made sense considering how they looked. Instead of being animatronics, these iterations of the two animals seemed to just be pony sized suits meant to be worn by a performer and looked very different from their animatronic counterparts due to a number of reasons.

The suits weren’t much larger than an average pony, but they were a little bulky in places. Their quadrupedal design looked strikingly bizarre when compared to the humanoid design they usually had. Their mouths had insides made of felt, their fur was made out of actual imitation fur instead of hard plastic, and their eyes were empty holes that seemed to be constantly staring at the viewer. On top of everything else, they were incredibly grimy and worn, looking like they just came out of the ground, which in all likelihood they may have.

“Wh… what in Equestria are those?” Rarity asked in a disquieted manner while eyeing the two animal suits.

“Hmm…” Sparkplug stepped closer to the displays and looked them over while glancing to the placard embedded into their bases. “Looks like these were some of the original mascot suits used by the park.” She explained with intrigue.

“They look absolutely dreadful. It isn’t hard to imagine these being seventy years old.” Rarity stated with slight disgust. Still, she couldn’t help but marvel at the historical significance of the suits.

“Wow, so these were their original designs.” Sparkplug muttered with an intrigued smirk. “Bonnie, Chica, and…. Wait… what?” She paused suddenly as she read off the words from the placard. The description mentioned the two suits as expected, but they also named Freddy the bear. The two mares looked up and noticed that there were three display cases next to each other. The third case was empty, and the third suit that would have resided there was missing.

“There’s supposed to be a suit of Freddy here? What happened to it?” Rarity asked with a confused manner. Her confusion briefly turned to concern as she remembered where she was and what she was dealing with. Still, there was no broken glass or any other signs of foul play.

“I don’t know… maybe the suit was still being prepped for display when everything went down?” Sparkplug suggested with an unsure expression.

“Maybe… Let’s just find that security office and get out of here.” Rarity stated uncomfortably while taking another look around. “Speaking of which... look over there.” She pointed ahead with her hoof eagerly as she spotted something.

Back toward the wall, there was another hallway like the one behind them. However, this one seemed to be a little longer than the one leading to the restrooms. There was a sign above the hall that read “Employees Only” that beckoned for the pair to investigate.

“Nice… looks as good a place as any to put a security room.” Sparkplug said with a pleased smile. Before the pair could set off, however, Rarity walked off to the side over to the railing at the edge of the balcony. She leaned over and noticed her friends still searching around downstairs as she left them.

“Hey everyone, we might have found the security room up here. We’re going to take a look.” Rarity announced to the group below. The others turned and looked up to the white mare curiously.

“You found the security room? That’s great news!” Sweetie Belle cheered eagerly. Although the others were keeping their expectations in check, it seemed the three fillies were certain that all of their problems would be solved by finding that security office and the keys that would definitely be inside.

“You two be careful up there. And don’t take too long either… I don’t wanna’ have to come up there after you.” Applejack stated with a cautious tone.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes.” Rarity replied with a reassuring smirk before walking back over to her gray companion.

Without further delay, the pair walked across the balcony and entered the small hallway. The light from outside failed to reach very far into the enclosed space, casting deep shadows and leaving a wall of darkness waiting for the two ponies. Within the darkness, the outlines of some walls and doors could be made out. From this information, the mares gathered that there was a split in the hall a short ways in, with one path going left and the other path continuing forward. There was a pair of doors past the intersection on the right wall. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like there was a sign next to each door that could have denoted them as employee restrooms.

Before Rarity decided to light up her horn, they arrived at the intersection and noticed a light off to the left. There was a room without a door that had a bright light on, illuminating the hallway and revealing a sign next to the doorway that read “Security” in bold letters. The pair almost smiled in unison as they laid eyes on the sign. They could practically taste their freedom from the dark and dilapidated hole they found themselves in.

Turning left and walking closer to the lit up room, the ponies noticed that the hallway kept going beyond their destination. There was even another turn up ahead to the right. Ignoring the slight feeling of heebie-jeebies from being in a dark enclosed space with a lot of unknown around them, they pushed forward and stepped into the open doorway.

The light in the room seemed to be whiter tinted than the ones out in the museum. Perhaps the lightbulb overhead was in better condition. The tiled flooring gave way to thick carpet as they walked into the small security office. There was a single chair in front of them that stood before a bank of monitors on the right wall. To the left side of the room, there was little more than a painting on the wall, a potted plant that was long dead, a filing cabinet tucked away in the corner, and a little bit of walking room to let the guard stationed in the office stretch their legs. However, there was one more thing on the left half of the room. There was another gaping doorway that led out into seemingly another hallway, though it was almost impossible to tell. While the door they came in through was slightly illuminated, the other doorway was at such an angle to the light that there was only darkness waiting for them outside.

“Wow… not very roomy is it?” Sparkplug observed while still taking in the sights of the cramped room. It made sense that there was only one chair in here. Two ponies being cooped up together in such a small space would have been far too claustrophobic.

“I couldn’t imagine how anyone would want to work in such a dingy place.” Rarity crinkled her nose up in disgust as she reluctantly walked around the room. The carpet was caked in dust, and there were more than a few dead bugs littered around the edges where the floor met the wall.

“I don’t think it was intended to look like this, Rarity…” Sparkplug said in a surprised tone while watching her unicorn companion try to find a place to stand that wasn’t quite so filthy.

“Either way, I don’t think it would have been much of an improvement even back in the day. Let’s find the keys and get out of here.” Rarity suggested, eager to leave as soon as possible.

With her companion’s patience draining by the minute, Sparkplug started her search. She sat down on the old rolling chair and scooted up to the desk. The bank of monitors was currently offline, though there was a blinking light on what must have been the interface that controlled them, which consisted of a set of arrows, a button in the center of the arrows, and a power button.

“Hmm…” Sparkplug muttered with intrigue while hovering her hoof over the power button. With a brief push, the monitors flickered to life as a video feed similar to the one upstairs popped up.

“That old thing still works?” Rarity asked with a surprised expression.

“Yeah, apparently so. We found another security room like this upstairs, and there was a video feed like this up there too. It didn’t show any cameras from any other floors though… Maybe each floor has a separate chain of cameras?” Sparkplug pondered out loud. Looking back to the screen, she noticed something a bit different to the security room upstairs.

There was some text denoting the number of the currently viewed camera, but there was also something else in the bottom right corner of the screen. There was a series of black and white lines and shapes that seemed to form a map. There were boxes placed in certain locations that were labeled as cameras, and the presence of small white text beneath the boxes that denoted their named location further confirmed that this was a map. If this was to be trusted, the security room they were currently in was in the center of a rectangle of hallways. Apparently, the doorway behind them connected to another hallway that looped back around to the entrance. There was an employee lounge and a supply closet out in the other hallways around them, but there was nothing else of note out in the darkness, much to their relief.

“Huh… looks like a lot of the lights down here don’t work.” Sparkplug stated while flipping through many of the cameras out in the rest of the floor. After fiddling around with the buttons available to her on the screen, she found that each of the cameras had a sort of night vision function. It wasn’t as advanced as she would have liked, but it got by and allowed her to see despite the lack of lighting in a lot of rooms.

As a test, she tried to find the area where she and the children fell down from the ceiling. Clicking on a camera in a place labeled as “Play-Room One”, she found a familiar view of a half-dark room with a ball pit in the center.

“Man this place is big. I can hardly believe all of this has just been sitting under us for all these years.” Sparkplug said with an astonished tone while completely losing her surroundings to her pursuit of looking through the cameras.

“Umm… darling, could you perhaps lend me a hoof with looking for those keys?” Rarity asked in a forced polite tone while trying to suppress her annoyance at the gray mare for leaving her to search by herself.

“Oh! Right, sorry… Guess I got carried away for a minute there.” Sparkplug said with an awkward chuckle while scratching the back of her head and trying to withstand the unicorn next to her staring daggers into her eyes. Finally, she turned and switched off the monitors before hopping out of the chair to actually start being productive.

Sparkplug stepped to the side of the desk and turned her attention to a set of drawers embedded into its corner. Apparently, Rarity had already been looking through a similar set of drawers on the other side of the desk. As she pulled open the first drawer, the gray mare had to lower her expectations as a mess of papers and miscellaneous items came sliding out. Despite her initial shrug of disappointment, she started sifting through the contents of the drawer before finding nothing useful and moving on to another one.

A few moments passed by while the pair ransacked the desk. While Rarity was a little more gentle and clean with removing items from the drawers to search them, her partner seemed to just throw things out of her way willy-nilly to get past them.

Suddenly, Sparkplug paused as she came across something of note. In fact, she happened upon a note scribbled on a scrap of paper. As she picked up the tattered bit of paper and strained to read the faded ink, she discerned it to be a memo from one worker to another. “Hey, check this out.” Sparkplug spoke up curiously while waving the white mare over.

Rarity walked over to her companion and peered over her shoulder curiously. “What’s that?” Rarity asked while briefly trying to make out the faint writing herself.

“Looks like a note. Hold on…” Sparkplug muttered while preparing to read the message aloud. “Loose Screw, this is the last time I fill in for you. I know you don’t like it in here, but this is just ridiculous. Someone needs to keep an eye on things, what with all the tools going missing and all. Three times convincing me to take your shift because you’re paranoid is three too many in my books. Look, I get it. I get the creeps down here too, especially with those freaky suits out in the museum. I was down there when they found those things, and they didn’t look much better in that cave. But still, you need to either man up or ask for a reassignment. Oh, and since you keep missing shifts in here, I should let you know that I moved the keys to the stairwells. If anyone comes asking for them, they are in the filing cabinet.” The gray mare trailed off as she finished the note. It was signed by someone called Hole Punch, and it definitely referred to the office they were currently in.

“So the keys are supposed to be in there?” Rarity asked while looking back to the filing cabinet behind her. “Nice find, Sparkplug.” She turned back to her gray companion and flashed a smile before rushing to go search the cabinet.

Sparkplug watched as the unicorn started sifting through the many drawers in her search for the keys. “You uh… need some help over there?” Sparkplug asked curiously, though she vaguely knew that the white mare could handle searching a single file cabinet.

“No, I think I’ve got this. Why don’t you go tinker with the cameras while I’m looking?” Rarity suggested with a wry smirk.

“What…? Ok, well… if you really want me to. It’s not like I was thinking about doing that or anything…” Sparkplug stated sarcastically in a lighthearted tone, managing a slight chuckle from her unicorn friend. Now that she had free time and permission, she turned back to the bank of monitors and switched them on again.

Rarity smiled slightly as she heard the gray mare flicking through the cameras. Sparkplug must have really enjoyed messing with technology to find watching some static ridden screens entertaining. Either way, the background noise combined with her own search provided a much-needed distraction from the doorway directly to her right. The pitch black opening was just at the corner of her vision, but she tried to ignore it. It sent chills up her spine just being so close to it.

“Huh… I found the others. I guess this really is a live feed.” Sparkplug commented while looking at one of the cameras in the museum. The camera overlooked the downstairs area facing the balcony. She could see Applejack and Silver Bell searching around the area behind the stairs, with the four children dotted around and examining the many displays. Although it was a bit dark in the corner the camera was located in, the sparse lighting in the rest of the room proved enough to render the night vision useless.

Turning her attention back to the small map, Sparkplug trailed her eyes over to the area she was actually in. The security room and the rectangle of surrounding hallways were obviously marked on the map, but there were only two cameras in the area. One camera was apparently just outside the hallway that led out into the museum. The pair must have missed it on their way in. The other camera was in the hallway outside the other doorway beside Rarity. According to the map, the camera was pointed down the hall, so it had a view of the doorway and everything past it. Curiously she flipped to it, only to see darkness as expected. With her interest growing by the second, she hovered her hoof over the night vision button.

“…!” Sparkplug gasped quietly and paled as she shakily trailed her eyes to her side.

“Aha! I found them!” Rarity announced cheerfully while lifting the keys out of their drawer with her magic and snatching them up eagerly.

“Rarity… I need you to calmly… and slowly… step away from the door.” Sparkplug instructed in as composed a manner as she could manage. Despite her attempts to remain calm herself, she was audibly and visibly shaken by something.

“What’s wrong, darling?” Rarity asked in a confused tone while turning to face the gray mare. She saw Sparkplug staring back at her uneasily. The gray mare had moved slightly, giving the unicorn room to see the monitors behind her.

On the screen behind Sparkplug, there was a green-tinted view of a hallway. A short way down the hallway, there was an opening into a room that looked familiar. What was most jarring about the image, however, was the sight of what appeared to be the missing Freddy suit standing right outside the doorway. Its hollow eyes showed up as dark holes in its head, indicating that nobody was inside the suit.

Rarity paled as she trailed her eyes to her left. She felt her entire body freeze up as her heart started pounding. Gathering the courage to make the smallest of movements, she turned her head and looked at the opening. Nothing but pitch blackness greeted her. It was at that moment that she realized something. All of the other animatronics had shining eyes that made them visible even in the darkest rooms. However, the mascot suit didn’t have any eyes. It only had holes in its head as dark as the surrounding shadows.

“S-Sparkplug…” Rarity said in a low tone, trying to maintain her composure. Her trembling legs weren’t doing as good a job as she was.

“Yeah…” Sparkplug replied nervously while watching the unicorn staring straight ahead.

“Are you s-sure that camera is pointed where I think it is?” Rarity asked while straining to remain as still as possible. At this point, she was afraid that if she moved she might anger the thing waiting in the darkness.

Despite her certainty, the gray mare darted her head back to the monitors. Sure enough, she had the camera outside the security room selected, and it was indeed a live feed. “Y-yeah…” Sparkplug parroted in a shrill tone. “Wh… w-what do we do?” She asked nervously.

“W-well, darling… I t-think the only thing we can do…. is…” Rarity paused and felt her heart sink as she heard the sound of quiet breathing in front of her. The breathing gradually shifted to a low groan that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “RUN!” Rarity yelled and turned tail to sprint toward the exit. Sparkplug practically knocked the chair over as she rushed to follow the unicorn.

As they tore out into the hallway, they heard what they imagined to be the sound of a hollow mascot suit clamoring after them. The dull and muffled footsteps and the sound of the different sections of the suit smacking into each other were fairly distinct, and the low growl that accompanied them gave the pair ample reason to keep running.

Around the corner and back out into the light, the two mares raced back into the museum at top speed. Rarity hesitantly looked behind her. As she did, she saw the expected sight of the Freddy suit running close behind.

“Hey, what’s happenin’ up there?” Applejack spoke up from downstairs with a concerned tone. Apparently, the racket that was happening was enough to carry through the room.

“Everyone run! We’ve got company!” Sparkplug yelled down to the group waiting below while still making a beeline for the stairs.

“What the hay?” Applejack muttered in a confused tone while walking over to the stairs. Silver Bell, The three fillies, and young dragon watched the balcony upstairs anxiously as they wondered what was going on.

Before Sparkplug could clarify further, the sound of glass breaking rang out beside her. As a distorted cry pierced the air, she darted her head to the side just in time to see a display case breaking and a flash of yellow coming straight for her.

“AHH!” Sparkplug yelped and fell to the side as she jumped in fright.

Rarity looked behind her to see her friend on the ground with glass shards everywhere. The Chica suit had apparently come to life and broken out of its display case by force. “Sparkplug!” Rarity widened her eyes in panic as she saw the possessed suit lunging for the gray mare. Racing to light up her horn, she wrapped her magic around the yellow chicken and pulled as hard as she could in the other direction. At great strain to herself, she managed to get the haunted mascot off of the ground and flung it into the back wall. Chica thudded against the wall and limply settled onto the floor.

Hearing more footsteps and a low growl in front of her, Rarity looked up and noticed Freddy a few inches away. She yelped fearfully and instinctively tried to do something, anything with her magic. Something, in this case, meant discharging a bolt of energy that sailed straight for the charging bear. The magical beam crashed into Freddy, exploding into a shower of sparks. The force of the impact blew the hollow suit off of its feet and sent it sliding backwards with a small hole in its shoulder.

Sparkplug was amazed at the unicorn’s swift dispatching of the two suits. Her smile faded as she noticed both Chica and Freddie were starting to get back up. And soon, her awe turned to alarm as she heard something moving to the left. “Rarity, lookout!” Sparkplug exclaimed while pointing behind the white mare. The unicorn turned just in time to see the Bonnie suit smashing through the glass separating itself from her and her friend.

“AH!” Rarity screamed and recoiled as the mascot rabbit pounced at her with its jaw hung open.

*Thwack*

A loud crack rang out as an orange blur rushed in from the side and slammed into the mascot. The two stunned ponies looked up to see Applejack recovering from a kick, and the Bonnie suit still rolling off to the side from the impact.

“Come on girls, let’s go!” Applejack announced urgently while noting that the other two suits were getting up to chase them again. Rarity and Sparkplug needed no reminder of their situation as they scrambled to their feet and ran with their orange savior.

Silver Bell and her young companions watched anxiously from the bottom of the stairs as their three friends rushed down like they were being chased by a timber wolf. The otherworldly cries and moans coming from behind them made the comparison a little too easy to make.

“Lookout!” Spike gasped while pointing behind the trio descending the stairs. Being the closest to the back of the group, Sparkplug looked behind her and widened her eyes as she saw a familiar looking bear mascot sprinting after her with its jaw open and its empty eye sockets burning holes into her with its icy gaze.

Deciding to take the offensive for once, the gray mare reared up for a kick and aimed it as high as she could, given the incline. Her hooves collided with something that felt hollow and covered in dirty imitation fur. She heard the sound of something being knocked free as whatever she hit went flying. Hesitantly, Sparkplug turned and nearly jumped in surprise as she saw a bear head flying back upstairs while its body limply fell and tumbled behind her. The inside of the suit was merely a dark and empty space, all but confirming that these were merely mascot suits. If she didn’t believe in ghosts before, she would be reconsidering her beliefs right about now.

“Nice one, Sparkplug!” Applejack cheered eagerly at the gray mare’s brief victory. Realizing that their celebration was far too early, the trio kept running until they were down the steps and reunited with the others.

“What are those things?!” Sweetie Belle asked with a terrified expression. With how little of an explanation they had received, and with how sudden things had turned sour, the white filly and her friends had no idea what was going on.

“No time for questions right now, Sweetie. We need to go… come along darling… quickly now.” Rarity ushered her sister forward with a nervous tone while trying to appear calmer than she felt. The young unicorn didn’t take long to start running for the door along with the others.

The ponies and their dragon friend ran as fast as they could for the exit. They could already hear the sound of the remaining suits catching up to them as Freddy was still settling to the bottom of the stairs without his head.

“How are we going to lose these things? They look like they can keep up with us, and I seriously doubt that they will lose interest!” Silver Bell suggested nervously. The others looked back and gulped uneasily as they confirmed for themselves. Perhaps it was from how powerful the ghosts were, or perhaps it was from how lightweight the suits were. Either way, the haunted mascots were easily keeping up with the group at full sprint. The door was fast approaching, and it didn’t have a lock. The ponies needed a solution fast.

Sparkplug looked to the sides and searched her surroundings for something useful. The museum was full of glass displays or paintings, so there wasn’t much in terms of supplies that could be made into killer ghost deterrents.

However, over by the front desk, something caught the gray mare’s eye. There was a small barrel-shaped container by the desk that contained what appeared to be miniature flagpoles. Most of the flags were small enough to be held in the hoof, but there were a couple medium sized ones that looked big enough to decorate a yard or something else in this case.

“Get those doors open!” Sparkplug instructed while bolting to the side. The confused group was more than a little nervous to see their gray friend doing something other than running with them.

“Sparkplug, what are you doing?!” Silver Bell asked urgently.

“Just trust me!” Sparkplug replied while focusing on her work. She rushed up to the barrel of flags and grabbed one of the larger ones in her mouth.

Realizing what the gray mare had in mind, Applejack and Rarity nodded to each other before rushing ahead and grabbing the doors. While the pair pulled the hefty doors open, Sparkplug ran over and joined the group rushing outside.

Once everyone was out of the museum, the two mares swiftly got on the other side of the doors and pulled them shut. Almost as soon as they did, they felt something crash into them from inside, nearly knocking them off. Soon enough, the force shifted from ramming into the door to pulling on it to get it open.

“Hurry up!” Rarity pleaded urgently while straining to hold the doors closed along with her orange companion. The group could hear ghastly noises coming from inside, making their hearts pound with fear.

Sparkplug swiftly rushed between the pair and shoved the flagpole she was carrying in between the door handles. In one motion, the three ponies backed up and cringed nervously as they silently prayed that this would work. The door offered a mighty racket as the possessed suits tried to open it, only to be met with stiff resistance from the pole. Thankfully, it seemed to be working for the moment.

The group let out a collective sigh of relief as they realized they were safe. The flag pole showed no signs of breaking or coming loose, and the doors weren’t opening as long as it was in place. They had earned one more victory against the denizens of the resort, and they felt accomplished.

“*Pant*… *Pant* did you… did you find the keys?” Applejack asked in between breaths while turning to the white unicorn and her gray companion.

Rarity and Sparkplug looked at each other for a moment before smiling. They were still breathing heavily and exhausted, but they still let out a slight chuckle as the unicorn held out the keyring and jingled it for a moment for show.

“Yeah… *Pant* we found them right before that thing chased us out of there.” Rarity stated in a relieved tone while still catching her breath. The others lit up with joy behind their exhausted expressions at the sight of the small object.

With unanimous agreement, the group decided to get up and start making their way back to the stairs. They finally had the keys that would reunite them with their friends. And once they were back together, they could finally figure out how to deal with the ghosts so they could leave the abandoned resort altogether.

“Heh… so kids, how did you like your trip to the museum?” Sparkplug asked with a wry smile while looking around at the three fillies and the young dragon.

“I think next time we go on a field trip I might just skip out… I want to do something a little less exciting.” Scootaloo stated in an exhausted tone. Her two fellow crusaders agreed wholeheartedly.

The others laughed warmly as they walked down the dark hallways. It hadn’t felt this good in a while, and they were certainly enjoying it. They couldn’t wait to finally be safe in the presence of their friends, and they couldn’t wait to get back to the surface.

Chapter 19: Broken Things

View Online

-Earlier-

“Glitter…?! Glitterball?!” Glimmer Shine called urgently while holding a hoof to his ear and staring ahead with an alarmed expression. Despite the glowing aura around his ear to indicate the communication spell working normally, there was nothing but silence on the other end of the line.

“What the hay happened?! Why isn't she answering?!” Sunspot asked while holding her own hoof to her ear as if she could somehow elicit a response from the unicorn by checking herself.

Glimmer thought back to the brief and fearful message that Glitterball got out before dropping the call. Judging from what the white mare said and the faint uproar that managed to bleed through the spell, it was safe to assume that something attacked the group. But how did it get into the security room with the only door locked?

“Come on, we need to go help them!” Tom announced while rushing down the hall, ever eager to protect his friends. The two ponies wasted no time in following the human back toward the security room. The cones of light from their flashlights bounced up and down the hall as the trio sprinted as fast as they could.

“Do you think it was an animatronic?” Sunspot asked in an unsure tone. Having her friends in danger without a clear way to control the situation seemed to have the pegasus on edge.

“Had to be… what else could it have been?” Glimmer Shine replied.

“Maybe it was one of those inhuman spirit things?” Sunspot suggested uneasily. The mere thought of the others being exposed to what she had seen before sent a chill down her spine.

“We better hope not.” Tom stated dismissively, not wanting to even discuss such an outcome. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine perfectly understood.

As they ran through a few halls and turned another corner, the trio tried to pick up their pace to reach their friends sooner. However, they would reach the others much sooner than they thought as something impeded their progress.

“Ooof!” The trio grunted as they collided with something, or rather, someone. Another series of familiar grunts sounded out along with theirs, and once they looked up, their suspicions were confirmed.

“What the… What are you guys doing here?” Glimmer Shine asked with a confused expression as he looked around to see the group that was supposedly under attack.

Almost everyone was present. Glitterball and Twilight were in front, and they were the ones the group had run into. Behind them was a confused group of onlookers that had only just narrowly avoided plowing into each other from the sudden stop. Strangely enough, there were a few people missing. Among those not present were the children, and that was particularly troubling.

“Oh my gosh, I am so glad to see you!” Twilight stated with joyous relief while untangling herself from Tom and getting up.

“You're glad? We thought you were being eaten alive over there! What happened?!” Sunspot asked in a demanding tone. Still, she was also relieved to see the group unharmed.

“Some kind of messed up fox animatronic crawled in through the vent… We got out of there as fast as we could, but a few of us must have gone the other way.” Glitterball explained with a worried expression.

Now that attention had been shifted onto the subject, everyone grew fearfully concerned about their missing friends. Sparkplug, Berry Swirl, Pinkie Pie, Spike, and the cutie mark crusaders were all unaccounted for, along with the monstrous animatronic that was chasing the group.

“Oh no… we've got to find them!” Sunspot suggested urgently. Everyone was eager to agree with the orange pegasus.

It took a short time of running through winding corridors to make it back to the hallway outside of the security room. As expected, the group found nothing ahead but the door to the room hanging open. There weren’t any signs of a trail that could be followed, and the others could have been anywhere on the floor by now.

“Ughh… where did they go?” Rainbow Dash huffed with a frustrated expression while anxiously looking around.

“They couldn’t have gotten far. Come on, we need to split up and find them!” Tom stated impatiently while stepping toward one of the forks in the hallway. If they hurried, maybe they could cut off the fleeing group somewhere down the line before the animatronic fox caught up with them.

“Sounds like a plan to me. Glitter, you stay here with the others. We’ll get them back.” Glimmer Shine instructed in a serious tone, to which the white unicorn nodded obediently. However, not everyone was ok with the stallion’s plan.

“Glimmer there is no way we are staying behind. We’re coming with you to look for them!” Twilight said adamantly while stepping forward.

“But… Twilight, I-” Glimmer Shine started to protest until he was met by a seriously agitated unicorn getting right up in his face.

“Do you really want to be wasting time right now?! I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but our friends are in danger. Spike and the kids are in danger! And I will not stand here while there is a monster chasing them!” Twilight yelled urgently. The yellow stallion was hesitant to speak up to oppose the purple mare and the others staying put, for obvious reasons.

“Umm… o-ok… you can come with us to look for them.” Glimmer Shine parroted the unicorn while nervously nodding his head.

Without wasting any more time, the group split into two and rushed down two hallways. Tom and Sunspot went down the left hall from the security room back toward the main entrance, while Glimmer Shine and Glitterball went down the fork just to the right of the security room in the hopes of cutting off the missing ponies. Each team was followed by Twilight and the others as everyone rushed off urgently to find their friends.

Twilight panted heavily while darting her head side to side in order to quickly scan the rooms she passed. Although she was confident that the others were most likely still fleeing the creature, they could have hidden from it long enough to break line of sight with it. Still, she didn’t want to take any chances.

Glimmer Shine and Glitterball were at the head of the search party the purple mare had chosen. Running alongside or just ahead of her were Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. High Tide and Copper Coil must have gone with the others down the left hall. Although their numbers were small, they had to find their friends. They just had to. Their numbers had already dwindled ever since they lost Rarity, Applejack, and Silver Bell. Twilight wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she let something bad happen to Spike or the three fillies, not to mention her own friends.

“Come on… they have to be around here somewhere.” Rainbow Dash fretted anxiously. No matter how many hallways or open rooms they passed, there was no sign of the others anywhere.

“Hold up…” Glimmer Shine skidded to a halt and looked back.

The hallway the stallion was looking at was seemingly empty, with one of the lights in the middle of it broken.

“What is it?” Twilight asked while looking around to try and figure out what was amiss.

“I think I heard something.” Glimmer Shine replied without turning away from the corridor. He was straining his ears trying to pick up on any sounds coming from far away.

Twilight and the others fell silent and joined the stallion in listening. Soon enough, they heard something faintly coming from down the hallway. After a while, it grew louder until the group could identify it as radio static.

Glimmer Shine tilted his head with a confused expression. “What is that?”

Fluttershy paled slightly as she recognized the noise. “Oh no… That’s the sound we heard when that fox thing attacked.” She explained nervously.

“Wait… does that mean-” Rainbow Dash started to speak when she was interrupted suddenly by another sound carrying over the radio static. Two distinct screams and a series of metallic clangs rapidly grew closer to the group.

Before they even knew what was going on, the ponies saw Pinkie Pie and Berry Swirl running around the corner at the far end of the hall, and a familiarly terrifying robotic mess of a fox was tearing after them along the ceiling.

“Holy hayseed!” Glimmer Shine exclaimed while recoiling in shock. He was prepared to fight with an animatronic, but he was taken aback with fright from the unexpected sight of such a disfigured creature.

“See? I told you it was messed up!” Glitterball stated nervously while steeling herself for a fight.

Glimmer Shine turned to face the white mare briefly. “You weren’t kidding were you?”

“AHHHH!!” Pinkie and Berry yelped fearfully as the animatronic fox swiped at them with one of its long reaching arms. The disjointed mess of endoskeleton parts gave the robotic animal an unnaturally long range. With their pursuer hot on their tails, the two mares put everything they had into running faster.

“Girls, come over here!” Twilight motioned for the pair to get behind her and the others, though they didn’t need to be told as they made a beeline for their friends. Before the two could make it to the group, Twilight charged up her horn and fired a magical blast at the animatronic behind them.

The bolt of light sailed past the fleeing ponies and smacked into the robotic fox. The mangle of parts let out an agitated screech of radio static as it was sent flopping down from the ceiling onto the cold hard floor. While the fox was recovering, Pinkie and Berry had enough time to reach their friends.

“*Pant* Oh my gosh… I am so glad to see you guys!” Pinkie Pie said in an elated and exhausted tone while rushing up and hugging the nearest pony, which just so happened to be Glimmer Shine.

“Get behind us. We’re going to have to take care of that thing.” Glimmer Shine instructed to the pair, who gladly nodded in agreement before huddling to the back of the group.

“Uh… Glimmer… how exactly are we going to take care of that thing?” Glitterball asked nervously while eyeing the animatronic fox as it got up from the floor. The mess of parts was practically shaking with anger, or perhaps that was due to its unstable structure. Either way, it did not look or sound happy to see the group.

“That old model of Chica went down after we did enough damage to it… maybe this one will too?” Twilight suggested hopefully, though she had a hint of anxiousness in her voice.

“To be fair, this one looks like it has already been damaged… but I guess we don’t have any other choice.” Glimmer Shine said while readying himself for battle. Everyone willing to fight squared up along with the yellow stallion, standing strong against their mechanical foe.

The screech of the radio static intensified as the animatronic clamored to its mismatched feet. It settled its set of eyes on the ponies and opened the jaw on its mask wide while rushing forward. As the metallic monster stomped toward them, the group had to react fast if they were going to keep the upper hand.

Twilight and Glitterball nodded to each other before lighting up their horns. In almost perfect unison, they synchronized their magical auras and wrapped them around the fox. Although they knew that the power held by the spirit inside the animatronic would overwhelm their magic soon, they also knew that every second counted in the battle.

As expected, the robotic animal screeched and bucked its entire body in an attempt at freeing itself. The two mares could already feel a great deal of energy building up and acting against them. It was almost like the possessed animatronic didn’t have full control over its own energy. Still, it wouldn’t be long before Twilight and Glitterball would be forced to let go. Before the fox could break out completely however, Glimmer Shine rushed forward and reared up for a kick.

“Take this!” Glimmer yelled fiercely while delivering the best kick he could muster with his back legs. Although Applejack wasn’t present, she would be proud to see one of her friends producing such a powerful buck.

The two unicorns shoved the animatronic with their magic just as the stallion’s back legs connected with what the group could loosely identify as its chest. The combined force of the magical push and the kick sent the fox reeling until it crashed into the floor on its back. Everyone couldn’t help but smile over their small victory.

“Alright! Nice one, guys!” Rainbow Dash cheered excitedly as she watched the trio successfully gain an advantage over the monstrous machine.

Before the ponies could capitalize on their golden opportunity, the animatronic wriggled off of the floor using its many disjointed limbs and body parts. With the hiss of static filling the air, the beast lunged its plastic fox head forward at an alarming rate. The metal jaws unhinged, opening wide like a mobile bear trap and swinging down. Glimmer Shine tried to turn tail and flee to dodge the incoming danger, but he was unable to prevent the fox from wrapping its jaws around his back leg and clamping down hard.

“GAAHHH!” Glimmer screamed out in pain as the razor sharp rows of teeth sank into his leg. He was driven to the floor from the sudden pain and weight on his limb, with blood already gushing out around the injury site.

“*Gasp* Glimmer Shine!!” The others paled as they watched the stallion getting bitten. Judging from how close together the fox’s jaws were, the ponies imagined that the many metallic teeth were sent into Glimmer’s leg very deeply.

Springing into action, Twilight and Glitterball wrapped their magic around the fox head to try and pull it free of the stallion. At the same time, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Berry Swirl all rushed over to Glimmer’s side and grabbed hold of part of the animatronic’s jaw. With everyone pulling at once, the group expected to be able to free the stallion easily. However, the animatronic had other ideas.

“Hrrrrk… gah! It’s no use… it’s not budging!” Rainbow Dash groaned as she failed to pry the jaws open with the aid of her friends. Thankfully the animatronic was occupied with hanging onto Glimmer Shine’s leg, so it couldn’t retaliate against the four ponies so close to it. Not that it had to retaliate in the first place.

“Get it off!” Glimmer Shine pleaded desperately while joining the efforts to try and free his leg from the metal jaws.

Twilight strained as hard as she could with her magic, but to no avail. If her experience with the previous animatronics had taught her anything, she knew that they wouldn’t be able to force the jaws open with the spirit exerting so much energy.

Looking around in a panic for something to do, the purple mare settled her eyes on the animatronic’s endoskeleton head. The small gray lump of a head was detached from the fox mask, but it looked fairly vital.

“Hang on, Glimmer! I’ve got an idea!” Twilight said in what she hoped would be a confident tone of reassurance while charging up her horn. Taking aim and pushing her shot nerves aside, she fired a bolt of energy as concentrated as she could produce at the animatronic.

The purple laser zipped through the air and exploded into the endoskeleton head with a solid bang. Much to the ponies’ surprise, the metallic head had a hole blown into it from the force of the explosion. Half of it was completely gone, and the other half was showing signs of damage.

The radio static filling the air grew shrill for a moment as the animatronic fox recoiled. The clamping jaws unhooked and freed the stallion’s leg, allowing the others to scoop him up and help him get some distance from the metal monster.

“Glimmer Shine, are you alright?!” Glitterball asked with a shocked expression as she looked down at the yellow pony’s leg. There were well-defined bite marks that were pouring out blood around them, nearly creating a crimson ring that wrapped around the appendage.

Glimmer Shine stifled a yelp as he clutched his injury. He rocked his head back for a moment before managing to toughen through the pain enough to face the group of concerned onlookers. “Gah… I’m fine… just worry about that thing for now!” He instructed urgently before laying back to cope with the pain he was going through.

“Uh… guys, I think we made it mad.” Rainbow Dash stated nervously while pointing forward, directing everyone’s attention back to the animatronic.

The fox was thrashing around, flailing its remaining head and lashing out with its mismatched limbs. The piercing cry of static nearly made the ponies cover their ears from how sharp and loud it had become. Finally, the robotic animal stopped flailing around and settled its singular eye on the ponies before letting out an angry roar.

“Well… any ideas?” Anybody?” Berry Swirl spoke up fearfully while looking around at the others. Most of the group shared in her fear, but they were at least trying to ready themselves in the event that the monster came charging at them.

Suddenly, Twilight looked to her fellow unicorn and paused. If the old model of Chica could be defeated by causing a lot of structural damage, and their magical blasts actually affected the metallic fox, then why couldn’t they just gun it down?

“Glitter, shoot it with your magic! Its endoskeleton must be too weak to take the hit!” Twilight exclaimed while readying her horn for another assault. The white unicorn looked to her purple companion for a moment before directing her attention forward.

“O-ok… ok.” Glitterball nodded and swallowed any apprehension she felt while charging up her horn.

The deafening sound of metal rang out as the twisted animatronic bolted forward. Its limbs pounded against the floor and the walls as it used every available foothold to gain momentum. All the while, it was bearing its many teeth and letting out a disturbing battle cry of distorted static.

“Fire!” Twilight yelled fiercely while steadying herself. All at once, the purple mare and her white companion let loose a barrage of energy blasts from their horns.

The others hid behind the two unicorns and cringed as the robotic monster got closer. The first of the bolts hit the fox all across its body, creating sharp noises and small explosions of multicolored sparks. Still the animatronic shambled forward, letting out shrieks of pain through the static as its body and limbs were perforated and blown apart by the magical onslaught.

Just when the ponies thought the robot would reach them, one of its legs collapsed and it flopped to the floor. It tried to anchor onto the walls with its arms, but the two unicorns swiftly aimed at more of its joints.

As all of its limbs cracked and snapped off, the beast opened its unhinged jaw as wide as it could and lunged forward as best it could in one final attempt at reaching the pair. Twilight and Glitterball moved in perfect unison and aimed a shot into the gaping mouth of the fox mask.

The two bolts of light zipped into the open maw of the metallic monster, where they immediately exploded at the back. The animatronic fell backward and the radio static abruptly stopped as its head was blown into two pieces. With one final thundering clang, the mangled creature settled to the floor and remained still and silent.

Twilight and Glitter stood tall in their battle stances, panting heavily and processing the sight before them. The others remained silent as well, staring ahead with stunned expressions. Everyone waited and watched the smoking pile of metal and plastic, wondering if it would get back up again. Still, the animatronic didn’t even have a head, let alone limbs to stand on. The ponies were confident that whatever spirit was trapped inside had vacated its vessel.

“Is it… is it dead?” Berry Swirl piped up anxiously, still staring at the former animatronic and expecting it to get up.

“Yeah… *pant*… I think it is.” Twilight replied in between breaths. She turned to her fellow unicorn and smiled softly.

“Nicely done girls… you really put that thing in its place.” Glimmer Shine stated in a pleased tone. Suddenly the stallion yelped in pain as he tried moving to get up.

The group turned to watch the yellow pony clutching his still bleeding leg with a pained grimace on his face. Everyone frowned sympathetically as they imagined how bad it must have felt to have the monstrous fox bite him so hard.

“Glimmer, are you ok?” Glitterball asked in a concerned tone while walking up to the stallion and kneeling down to examine his injury.

“Gah… I’m fine. It’s just a little scratch.” Glimmer Shine insisted through all of his cringes of pain. The bloody state of his leg seemed to tell a different story.

“That’s the biggest little scratch I’ve ever seen.” Twilight said while eyeing the wound with a concerned expression.

“Little or not, we should get you patched up. And given our lack of equipment, I think Tom is our best bet.” Glitterball suggested.

“Yeah, we need to update them anyway.” Glimmer Shine nodded in agreement while glancing to the two mares the group just rescued. Although the absence of Sparkplug and the four children was troubling, the ponies were glad to have found some of their friends and destroyed the animatronic that was chasing them.

Glitterball placed a hoof to her ear and focused on her other two teammates. Soon a familiar magical aura formed around her ear as the communication spell activated. “Sunspot, Tom, are you guys there? We found Berry and Pinkie.” Glitter announced. After a brief wait, the unicorn heard the sound of her pegasus friend speaking in her head.

“Really, you found them?! Where are you?” Sunspot asked eagerly.

“We’re just off the hallway we were searching.” Glitter replied.

“What about that animatronic?” Tom spoke up in a more concerned tone.

“We took care of it… but Glimmer got hurt. It’s nothing too bad… but he could use a little magical pick me up.” Glitterball said while glancing to the yellow stallion. Glimmer Shine smiled slightly to signify that he was still holding up.

“We’ll be right there. Just sit tight.” Sunspot stated before falling silent.

Glitterball sighed and dropped her hoof to the floor while turning to the others. “They’re on their way.” The white mare reported with a pleased expression. The others were relieved to hear that Glimmer Shine was going to be taken care of soon.

Now that they had defeated the crazed animatronic, and their friends were on route, the group’s attention was free to focus on other things.

Twilight turned to Berry and Pinkie with a more anxious expression as something gnawed at her. “Guys… I’ve been meaning to ask, where are Sparkplug and the kids?” She asked hesitantly, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer or not.

Berry Swirl and Pinkie Pie frowned slightly and looked at each other with unsure expressions. The unease in the two mares immediately made everyone else pale with dread.

“They… fell through a hole in the floor.” Berry Swirl spoke up in a sad tone. The sudden statement caught much of the group off guard.

“W-what?! Oh… oh my gosh!” Twilight recoiled in shock. She stared at the two, scrutinizing their expressions to see if they were joking or not. Still, part of her knew that neither of them would have joked about something so serious.

“What happened? Are they… are they alright?!” Rainbow Dash demanded while trying to keep her composure. Hearing about the three young fillies and Spike having something so horrible happen to them was enough to shake even her.

“We don’t know for sure… We were running from that fox thing, and then Applebloom tripped. When we went to check on her, the floor just started cracking open like an egg!” Pinkie Pie explained frantically.

“They must have fallen into a play area on the floor below. There was a ball pit beneath them, so they could have been unharmed by the fall. We tried to find some way to get to them, but the animatronic caught up to us. Sparkplug jumped in after them and told us to run… we didn’t see any of them get up before we had to leave.” Berry Swirl added in a worried tone.

The ponies had to take a moment to process what was happening. They could hardly contain their concerned feelings of anxiousness as they thought about what could have happened to their friends. They were only kids after all, and now they were stuck downstairs as well, assuming they had even survived the fall. However, the group couldn’t think about such a grim possibility. The five had survived the fall, they had to have.

Before the group could process their emotions or thoughts any further, the sound of footsteps approaching drew their attention away. Glitterball stepped around the corner and looked down the hallway, only to see flashlights from down the corridor.

“Guys, over here!” Glitter called out to the group as she recognized who the many silhouettes belonged to. The two flashlights immediately picked up their pace and eventually Tom and Sunspot’s group came into view.

“Hey everyone, sorry we’re late, we…” Sunspot paused abruptly as she rounded the corner and looked around. The sight before her was surprising to say the least. There were the remains of an animatronic sprawled along the floor behind the group, Glimmer Shine was sitting up against the wall with his back leg bleeding from a gruesome looking wound, and everyone had concerned expressions on their faces. “Woah… what did we miss?” Sunspot asked curiously, completely unaware of just how much she had missed in the past few minutes.
.
..
…
After Tom healed Glimmer Shine’s wound, the group started explaining to the others what had happened up till now; the fight with the animatronic, Berry and Pinkie escaping, and most importantly, what happened to the children and Sparkplug. The shocking state of affairs was enough to stun the others into concerned silence as they finished explaining everything.

“And that’s everything we know…” Twilight stated while looking down sadly.

Sunspot and Tom, along with Copper Coil and High Tide, seemed unsure of what to say. They were certainly concerned for the missing members of their group, but they weren’t sure of what to do first. Finally, the human spoke up to further the conversation.

“So… the floor just opened up all of a sudden?” Tom asked in a confused tone while looking over to Berry and Pinkie, the only witnesses to the scene available.

“Yeah... it all happened so fast. There wasn’t anything we could do.” Berry Swirl frowned and looked down somberly. She had been next to useless ever since the group arrived in this terrible situation. She couldn’t even keep a group of kids safe. Pinkie Pie tried to cheer the sullen pony up by putting a hoof on her shoulder, but Berry simply ignored her and continued pensively looking ahead.

“Hmm…” Tom scratched his chin while deep in thought. “Do you think you two could take us to the spot where they fell?” He asked curiously.

“I think so… I’m pretty sure I remember where we ran from.” Pinkie replied while recalling the route in her head and nodding confidently.

“Good. We should find out if we can make our way down through that hole.” Tom said while getting to his feet. The others stood up as well with new confidence.

Pinkie Pie and Berry Swirl walked ahead of the group. The pink mare motioned for the others to follow as she started retracing their steps. Twilight and her group marched forward, eager to find the children and the gray mare safe and sound.

The ponies winded through hallway after hallway, making their way along the path the two mares had run on in their brief chase. Pinkie and Berry would pause occasionally, conferring with each other and making sure that they were going the right way.

Finally, after what seemed like several minutes of walking, the pair paused. They looked around with expressions that were more confused and uneasy than the others would have expected, paying specific attention to the floor.

Berry Swirl looked around with a dumbfounded expression, seemingly searching for something that wasn’t there. “Wh… what the hay?” She exclaimed while shaking her head in confusion.

“Is something wrong?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously. The two ponies simply kept looking around, desperate to find something that the others seemed to be unaware of.

“This is where we were… the hole in the floor should be here.” Pinkie stated, looking around and scanning the floor with similar confusion written all over her face.

The group behind the pair was stunned at their discovery. The floor all around them was indeed in perfect condition, or as perfect as could be considering the age of the building. Yet somehow the two mares were able to identify this spot as where they had been separated from the others.

“Are you guys sure? Maybe we made a wrong turn or something.” Twilight reasoned, trying to make sense of the situation.

“No… they’re right.” Tom spoke up while walking forward toward the two confused ponies. The others were understandably confused as they looked to the human for an explanation. Instead of explaining however, he knelt down and picked up a small bit of powdery substance that was on the floor.

“What do you mean we’re right? There’s no hole here… We must have made some kind of mistake.” Berry said while looking to Pinkie with an uncertain expression. Although the pink mare was confused as well, she was still confident that they had retraced their steps correctly.

“There’s no hole here now, but there was one. Look at all of this debris.” Tom pointed out while drawing attention to the ground around him. The others looked closer, only to find little flecks of material that looked like it would have come from the inside of a wall or ceiling.

“He’s right. Those look like pieces of wood.” Glitterball said before noting how little sense her own statement made. “But… why are those here? It’s not like a hole in the floor can just up and vanish.”

“Why was there even a hole in the first place? I thought that seismic thing we charged up in the generator room was supposed to prevent this place from falling apart.” Sunspot asked with a confused expression. Although the terminology was foreign to most of the group, Twilight and Berry Swirl knew what the orange pegasus was referring to, and they too wondered why the dampener wasn’t working.

“Well… we are dealing with ghosts here, and powerful ones at that.” Glimmer Shine reasoned. “Is it possible that they created the hole, and then sealed it up afterward?” He turned to Tom for his insight on the topic.

The human thought for a moment before answering. “Depending on how powerful the spirits are, it would definitely be possible. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why the ghosts would want to drag the kids to a lower floor.” Tom explained uneasily. The thought of the ghosts taking any sort of interest in the three fillies and young dragon troubled the group deeply.

“It doesn’t matter why it happened. Right now, the only important thing is getting downstairs to the others. We need to find those keys.” Glitterball suggested in a serious manner.

The group was in agreement to the white mare, but there was quite the problem with her plan of action. Glimmer Shine, Sunspot, and Tom shrugged with dreadful expressions on their faces. The others already didn’t like where this conversation was going simply by looking at them.

“That’s all fine and dandy in theory, Glitter… but that deer animatronic made off with the keys. As far as we know, it’s probably hiding from us and snickering to itself in some dark corner somewhere.” Sunspot crinkled her face up in agitation as she thought about the missing animatronic. With the message it left to taunt them to go by, the possessed machine probably didn’t intend on returning the keys anytime soon.

“We should split up and go look for it. It has to be somewhere, right?” Rainbow Dash suggested eagerly from off to the side.

“I don’t know… I’m not sure if I feel comfortable with all of you wandering around down here.” Tom said warily. Glimmer Shine was inclined to agree with the human. After running into so many animatronics, not to mention the bizarre and unpredictable inhuman spirit, the stallion didn’t want to be taking any risks.

“Maybe they don’t have to…” Sunspot chimed in thoughtfully. “What if we all take a group and search around? That way we can keep an eye on them and cover more ground at the same time.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Sunspot.” Glimmer Shine stated in an impressed tone. The orange pegasus couldn’t help but let a pleased smirk fall across her face.

“You guys can do the searching while I head back to the security room. Someone should be on the cameras just in case.” Glitterball said while taking a few steps toward the intersection.

“Alright, sounds like a plan.” Glimmer Shine nodded before turning to the others. “Anybody that doesn’t want to be out here with us should head back with Glitter.” He instructed, looking around to see if anyone was showing signs of hesitance or unease.

Suddenly, Copper Coil walked over and stood beside Glitterball. “I should probably come with you. You might need some help workin’ the cameras.” He suggested with a helpful tone of voice.

“Thanks, Copper Coil. Is there anyone else who wants to come with us?” Glitterball asked curiously while looking around. Although a few people had to think about the offer for a moment, nobody stepped forward to accompany the white mare and her brown companion. They all felt a burning desire to help find their friends, and if that meant searching around the dark resort, then they were more than willing to take that risk. “Alright then… We’ll keep in touch if you need any help. Be careful out here.” Glitter reminded the group with a friendly look of concern. With a nod from her friends in response, the unicorn and stallion started their way back toward the security room.

Now that the matter of who was staying behind had been sorted out, the ponies were left to form the teams that would perform the search. Sunspot, Glimmer Shine, and Tom all lined up and waited for everyone to decide who they would be following.

After a few minutes of deliberation, the search parties had been formed. Berry Swirl and High Tide opted to go with Glimmer Shine. Twilight and Pinkie chose Tom, huddling near him with eager expressions of determination on their faces. And finally, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy decided to stay together and go with Sunspot.

The three groups gathered around in a rough circle, sticking close by their appointed teammates. While most all of them had chosen to help wholeheartedly, a lot of them were still a little nervous about what they might find.

“Ok, everyone… listen up. We’re going to be searching this place top to bottom until we find those keys. Stay close to your group, and stay out of trouble.” Glimmer Shine explained in a professional tone of confidence. It was easy to see how all of his years spent training to become a royal guard gave him a sense of authority when he needed it. As the yellow stallion began walking toward his chosen search area, he paused and purposefully glanced at Sunspot. “And be sure to report anything you find to us before you do anything else.” He explained while giving the pegasus a suggestive look, much to her annoyance.

“Aye, aye, captain…” Sunspot muttered with an unimpressed roll of the eyes. Glimmer Shine smirked slightly before walking off with Berry Swirl and High Tide in tow.

Tom and the two mares following him gave one last goodbye to their friends before walking off in the same direction as the others. Soon enough, the trio of pegasi was left by themselves in the lonely hallway, with only the mangled remains of the animatronic fox and each other to keep them company.

Rainbow Dash turned to her two companions and shrugged. “So, what’s the plan? Where do we start?” She asked curiously.

Sunspot thought for a moment before replying. “Well, the others are searching pretty much everywhere else, so I guess we could search over by the stairs. That’s around the area we last saw that deer anyway, so… I think that’s a good place to start.” She suggested while trying her best to sound like she knew what she was doing. As prestigious as the Wonderbolts were, the entry exam to get on the team didn’t cover solving mysteries or finding missing robots that also happened to be haunted.

“Sounds good to me, let’s get moving.” Rainbow Dash nodded eagerly. Even if they were hunting another animatronic, they were doing it to get to their missing friends. Every second could have counted if Applejack and Rarity were in trouble, not to mention Silver Bell, Sparkplug, and the kids.

The ponies steadily made their way toward the stairwell at the edge of the floor. While Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were relatively clueless as to how to get around this part of the resort, their orange leader knew where she was going due to her previous excursion around the area. Soon enough, they could see a light at the end of the hallway illuminating an intersection, along with a closed-off set of stairs leading down.

The three mares paused at the intersection and looked around. To the left and right were two equally dark and foreboding corridors with sparse lighting, and with a plethora of rooms to search. The stairs in front of them hadn’t changed since they had discovered them. Rainbow Dash approached the gate and tugged on it to satisfy her curiosity. Sure enough, the door was still locked up tight.

“Alright… let’s go find us a robot deer.” Sunspot shrugged before preparing herself for the tedious search ahead. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy followed the orange pegasus as she walked down the left fork in the hall. As they reached the first set of doors, they began their search and spread out.

The trio stayed close together, not wandering more than one door away from each other. They did this partially to stay safe in a group, and partially because they couldn’t see very far ahead of them. There was only one flashlight in their possession, and although the cone of light and the few faded lights overhead provided a decent view of their surroundings, they did need to wait for each other occasionally to search a pitch black room.

Sunspot made sure to keep a close eye on her two charges, checking on them before and after entering a room and keeping verbal communication at all times. Rainbow Dash was making a good trainee, clearing rooms thoroughly and in a timely fashion. Fluttershy was doing a similar job, though she was hesitant to enter most rooms.

“Nothing in this one!” Sunspot heard Rainbow Dash calling out from somewhere out in the hall.

“Same here… nothing I’m afraid.” Fluttershy called out after her cyan friend. Sunspot sighed as she finished looking around the room she was in. Although she had given the flashlight to the yellow mare to help search darker rooms, the low light didn’t hide anything of worth from her. And if memory served, this was the last set of rooms to be found in the hall before another turn.

The orange mare slowly stepped out of the room and back out into the hallway, hanging her head tiredly with an irritated expression on her face. Her two companions were waiting for her, looking at her like she was their leader, which for all intents and purposes she was.

“What now?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously while looking around the corner to the next hallway.

“I guess we should keep going... We’ll work our way around when we hit the next-” Sunspot paused abruptly as a noise drifted down the hallway. It was hard to make out due to how faint it was and how long it lasted, but it sounded like something metallic settling on the floor back toward the staircase.

The trio spun around and perked their ears up, scanning the darkness for any sign of whatever caused the sudden noise.

“Did you hear that?” Fluttershy asked nervously, eyeing around her and trying to find some confirmation that the area was safe.

“Yeah… it sounded like it came from down there.” Sunspot said while taking the flashlight back. “Come on, let’s go!” She announced quietly before trotting forward. Rainbow Dash immediately followed, leaving Fluttershy to linger for a moment before rushing to reunite with her friends.

The trio raced down the hallway, scanning the darkness for any signs of movement or any hint as to what they were chasing. Nothing but shadows greeted them for the longest time, and soon they reached the stairs again.

The ponies slowed to a stop in the lit up intersection that housed the stairwell. They panted softly while darting their heads around in search of anything out of the ordinary.

“What… the hay… *Wheeze* I know I heard something down here.” Sunspot groaned while still scanning around with her flashlight. Furrowing her brow and straining her already frustrated expression to look closer at the darkness around her didn’t yield any results.

“Maybe it was just the building settling or something?” Fluttershy suggested. As much as she might have doubted such a mundane and safe explanation in spite of herself, nothing was jumping out at her literally or figuratively. The area was silent and nothing was around.

“No… it sounded like something metal. I’ll bet it was one of the ghosts... probably hiding in another animatronic knowing our luck.” Rainbow Dash shrugged while still keeping a wary eye on her surroundings.

Just before giving up and losing faith in what they heard, the group stiffened up as they heard another noise. A startling laugh came from directly in front of them. As they drew their eyes ahead to follow the noise, they were met by a dark silhouette with two silver glowing dots for eyes. The figure was simply standing in the middle of the dark hallway, staring back at the ponies silently. Judging from the rough shape of the shadowy figure, they estimated it to be their missing doe.

The pegasi froze up as they laid eyes on the menacing shape. They couldn’t see much of its features past its shadowed outline, but its piercing eyes stared back at them with chilling intensity. Sunspot and her small troop were left with their own racing thoughts as everyone remained still and silent as the grave.

“There it is…” Sunspot whispered anxiously. She seemed eager to finally meet up with the ghost that had caused the group so much grief with such a simple action.

“W-what do we do now?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly, trying her best to not pay attention to the two glowing dots belonging to the shadowy figure in front of her. The mere sight of the animatronic further down the hall made her break out into a nervous sweat.

“We catch it… what else?” Sunspot stated while turning to the yellow mare with a surprised expression. The dangerous aspect of rushing into the fray seemed lost on the orange pegasus, but Fluttershy wasn’t so keen on doing something so rash.

“Shouldn’t we call the others?” Fluttershy said with a pleading expression. The last thing she wanted to do was chase after a haunted robot without the appropriate backup.

Sunspot sighed and rolled her eyes slightly at the mention of calling for assistance. It was just one animatronic. Surely getting the keys and getting away wouldn’t have been that hard with how fast they were in comparison to the robotic animal.

“Normally I would be all for tackling this thing as soon as possible, Sunspot… but maybe Flutters has a point. I mean, we don’t even know if this thing still has the keys on it.” Perhaps sensing the stubbornness of her leader, Rainbow Dash chimed in as the voice of reason. There were other people’s lives potentially at stake, and she wanted to make sure that they got the keys at the end of all of this.

Almost as if in response to the ponies’ hushed discussions, a light jingling sound filled the air. The three mares looked ahead to see the animatronic lifting one of its forelegs into the light. Dangling from its plastic covered hoof was a small keyring with a couple of keys on it. The animatronic chuckled again before letting its leg settle back to the floor and into the shadows. Before the pegasi could even think about how to process this new information, the doe turned around and darted down the hallway.

“Hey, get back here you little klepto!” Sunspot yelled after the fleeing animal. Seeing no signs of the animatronic stopping, the pegasus shrugged before rushing off in pursuit.

“Sunspot, wait up!” Rainbow Dash called out to the orange mare in vain. With no other options left to them, the cyan pony and her yellow companion ran off to follow their leader.

Running as fast as they could, the pair managed to at least somewhat catch up to Sunspot as she sprinted through the halls. Up ahead, they could just barely catch a glimpse of the animatronic doe rounding the next corner at the far end of the hall. Losing sight of their target, the group pushed their already exhausted bodies and ran faster in the hopes of reaching the next hallway before the animatronic could turn off somewhere.

Skidding to a brief halt to avoid plowing into the wall, Sunspot darted her flashlight beam down the next corridor in search of the robotic animal while her two companions caught up to her. Thankfully, she managed to find the doe pausing briefly at the edge of her flashlight. The ghostly animatronic swiftly turned tail again and started running.

Although it seemed like the animatronic wanted them to follow, the ponies had little choice but to run after it. Sunspot was not about to let the only way to get to the others slip through her non-existent fingers. Even if she had to pry those keys from the animatronic’s cold lifeless grip, which was probably the only option she had anyway, she was going to do it.

As the trio ran down the hallway, a pungent odor began filling their noses. The faintest whiff of the scent was enough to make their faces crinkle up in disgust, however, it also triggered a startling flashback of memories for the orange mare as she slowly realized where she was and where she was running towards.

“Uh oh…” Sunspot muttered with a troubled expression. Just before her two companions could question her sudden hesitance, the animatronic skidded to a halt ahead of them.

“Gah… what is that smell? It reeks in here.” Rainbow Dash groaned, her voice muffled from covering her nose.

Everyone looked around as they finally had a chance to stop. Sure enough, there was a black substance smeared along the right wall. Although Sunspot had been here before, she and the others had been too wrapped up in chasing the animatronic to even notice the disgusting material.

Sunspot looked ahead to see the animatronic standing still ahead of the next intersection and facing them. In fact, the doe was standing in front of a very familiar doorway that was practically covered in the black substance. “Oh no… not here.” She stated out loud, a feeling of dread swiftly overtaking her.

“What’s wrong, Sunspot? I-is something bad over here or something?” Fluttershy asked while looking around uneasily.

Sunspot started to explain things to her confused troop, but before she could she was interrupted by the animatronic moving. The doe lifted its foreleg up again, dangling the keys in plain sight as a taunting display for the ponies. Suddenly, the robotic animal shifted its head and looked to the side, right into the room it was standing near. It looked back to the three mares and chuckled deviously.

“No, don’t you even think about it! Put those down right now!” Sunspot demanded while inching forward. She was fully prepared to rush ahead and tackle the animatronic before it could complete what she knew it was thinking. However, she was far too late.

The animatronic tossed the keys into the room where they landed with a soft clatter out of sight. All the while, the mischievous doe didn’t even break eye contact with the orange mare.

“No!” Sunspot reached her hoof out while arching forward. She could only stare wide-eyed at the animatronic as it chuckled back at her. After snickering at the band of ponies, the doe turned tail again and ran off, though the pegasi didn’t feel compelled to chase it now.

Rainbow Dash stepped forward and started walking toward the other side of the intersection. She would have made it all the way to the room the keys were in if it wasn’t for Sunspot rushing ahead of her and blocking her path.

“Wait, don’t go in there.” Sunspot cautioned with an uneasy expression, much to the confusion of the cyan mare.

“Why not? That thing just ditched the keys. We should be celebrating!” Rainbow Dash said while motioning toward the room. She wondered why they had such a stupidly lucky break, and the troubled expression on her companion’s face made her enthusiasm slowly vanish.

“Look… we came through here earlier when we were looking for the keys. We found something in that room, and it scared Tom white as a sheet.” Sunspot explained while glancing back toward the doorway. Just being this close to the room made her feel uneasy.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were taken aback by the orange mare’s recounting. “Really? Are we talking about the same guy here? It takes a lot to freak Tom out.” Dash stated with an unconvinced tone. However, the concerned expression on Sunspot’s face made her doubt shift to nervousness.

“Trust me on this one. He called it an inhuman spirit… it was using one of the animatronics as a shell I guess… kind of like the ghosts. But this thing is much worse than the ghosts. Tom said that they are unpredictable, and they can mess with your head if you look at their eyes.” Sunspot shuddered slightly as she thought back to her previous encounter with the inhuman spirit. The robotic colt’s piercing yellow eyes held an unnatural aura to them like they didn’t belong to something that should have existed.

“That sounds r-really bad…” Fluttershy took a few steps back while watching the room up ahead. “M-maybe we should call the others?” She suggested nervously.

“Yeah… I think I’m going to agree with Fluttershy here. We could use some backup, Sunspot.” Rainbow Dash nodded while looking back to her yellow friend. Both mares didn’t want to find out what was lurking inside the room.

“Hold on, I want to check to make sure the keys are still there before I get the others involved. That ghost might be pulling another fast one.” Sunspot stated while turning around. She gulped hesitantly as she realized what she just volunteered for.

“What? Are you crazy?! You just got done explaining why we shouldn’t go anywhere near that thing!” Rainbow Dash said with a shocked expression.

“Sssh!” Sunspot hushed the cyan pegasus frantically while glancing back to the doorway. There were no noises or signs of movement. “Look… I’m just going to take a peek. That thing was pretty docile when we were here the last time. I’ll just keep my eyes on the floor and make it quick.” She explained with a reassuring expression.

Fluttershy shared a concerned glance with Rainbow Dash. They knew the orange mare to be a risk taker, but this was ridiculous. As they looked back to their fearless and possibly suicidal leader to try and talk her out of her plan, they noticed that she was already quietly walking up to the room.

“Sunspot, get back here!” Fluttershy pleaded in a panicked whisper. Receiving no response from the orange pegasus, the two mares cringed before following after her as quietly as possible. They were traversing a proverbial minefield now, and the slightest sound could tip off the creature within to their presence if it didn’t already know they were out here.

Sunspot reached the doorway and paused. She looked back to the others hesitantly and breathed in and out to gather some courage. Apparently, she wasn’t even confident in her own plan, but she was sticking to it. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could only watch now. The orange pony was on the threshold of the room, and they would rather one person try to sneakily peek inside rather than two people try to pull the one away.

Keeping her head craned to the floor, Sunspot slowly arched around the corner. She was shaking a little bit, and she was cringing while keeping her eyes shut. Finally, she swallowed her fear and peered out from her hoof. Only the floor at the bottom of the doorway greeted her.

So far, so good… heh, She chuckled nervously in her head. Anything that gave her the courage to move at this point was a plus. Slowly but surely, she trailed her eyes upward until she settled on the object that everyone had been searching for the better part of their stay in the abandoned resort.

The keys!

Sure enough, there they were. Sitting deceptively near the door, close to the center of the room. The keyring was laying near a clearing in the mismatched splatters of ectoplasm that littered the room. Although her target was in sight, something else was missing from the room entirely.

Sunspot didn’t feel afraid, or at least she didn’t feel any more afraid than normal. Before when she was this close to the inhuman spirit, she felt uneasy and disturbed from simply being in its presence. However, she felt nothing that seemed like it wasn’t her natural fear response.

Taking a hesitant look along the floor, the orange pegasus scanned the room to see if she could find the animatronic colt. When her search yielded nothing but more ectoplasm, she slowly looked upwards until she was searching the room at normal eye level.

“Huh…?” Sunspot muttered with a confused expression.

“Sunspot, get back here!” Rainbow Dash whispered pleadingly. The orange mare looked over to see her two companions silently yet frantically motioning for her to step away from the room.

Taking another moment to look back into the room and double check her findings, Sunspot turned back to the others. “Guys… I think it’s gone.” She said with a guarded tone while holding back a smile.

“What?” Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash stated in unison while staring back at the pegasus with confused expressions.

“H…hello?” Sunspot raised her voice slightly while peering back into the room. She shined her flashlight around as well, slowly trying to ascertain if the room was safe, and half expecting to have to bolt down the hallway as the blackened colt sprang out at her. After a short wait, and much to her surprise, nothing happened.

By now, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had slowly and hesitantly made their way closer to their orange leader. The trio of ponies all scanned the room with caution in mind, but nobody could find hide nor plastic hair of the animatronic. Only the keys at the center of the empty room caught their attention at the end of their search.

“You guys keep an eye out here, I’ll go grab the keys.” Sunspot suggested.

“Huh…? Why do you want us to watch out here?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly.

“That ghost tossed the keys here for a reason. Maybe it didn’t know that thing wasn’t in here anymore? Or maybe it knew it was going to be back shortly. Either way, you two should keep an eye out. If you see anything, look away and let me know.” Sunspot explained with a reassuring expression. The two mares conferred their opinions with each other for a moment before nodding silently.

Sunspot slowly stepped into the room. The intense smell of the ectoplasm was almost unbearable inside. Still unconvinced of such a lucky break, she looked around again. Nothing was lurking in the harder to see corners of the room now that she was inside, and she was greatly thankful for that. Finally, she turned her attention forward to the keys.

They were just sitting there, teasing her with how simple it would be to acquire them. It was almost like she hadn’t spent the past hour or so searching a dark and haunted underground pit to find them. As she reached them and snatched them up in her hoof, she couldn’t fight the smile building on her face anymore.

“Finally… something goes our way for once.” Sunspot stated in a pleased tone.

*Splat*

An abrupt spatter of some sort of thick liquid dripped onto the orange mare’s hoof from above. The sudden and unexpected event made her jerk her foreleg back.

“Ack! What the… uugh…!” Sunspot shuddered with revulsion as she looked over the inky black substance now sprayed over her foreleg and the keys. The repulsive smell coming off of it identified it as ectoplasm.

More wet chunks of the substance fell to the floor from above her, nearly hitting her. The air in the room grew colder at an alarming rate, and a familiar feeling of unease made its presence known at the back of her neck. Sunspot trailed her eyes upwards, following the dripping black gunk to its source. As she craned her neck all the way, she was met with a startling sight. Clinging to the ceiling, and covered in liberal amounts of ectoplasm, was a familiar animatronic colt.

…Hello…

A chilling voice rang out, loosely coming from the plastic head of the colt. And all at once the orange mare realized, she could see its face. Somehow, the animatronic’s head was spun around and facing backwards, and it was staring down at her with glowing yellow pupils in its otherwise empty eye sockets.

“…!” Sunspot froze up from a mixture of surprise and terror as she inadvertently locked eyes with the blackened pony. She tried to look away, but somehow her body wouldn’t listen to her demands. She could feel herself twitching as she desperately tried to flee, only to be kept cemented in place through some unseen force acting within her.

The piercing yellow dots stood out so much from the otherwise dark exterior of the animatronic and the goop covered ceiling, almost like they were filling her vision. Her ears started to ring, and a hushed laugh echoed through her mind. The world around her blurred, and she was filled with an all-encompassing feeling of fear.

“Uh… ah…” Sunspot muttered a series of incoherent noises of distress. She felt an overwhelming urge to scream, but she somehow couldn’t. It was like she was trapped in a nightmare, and her own body was betraying her.

…Sunspot…

A muffled voice called out from the darkness around her, though her attention was still transfixed on the yellow lights. They were a window into the soul of whatever creature was before her, or at least they would have been if the creature had a soul. The weight of the unbearable stare was getting to her, making her fragile mind crack. She wasn’t looking at whatever was sitting inside of the hollow animatronic, it was looking at her, and it was exploring every fiber of her insignificant being.

“Sunspot!”

A voice called out again, though this time it seemed familiar. Sunspot felt something grab her from behind, causing her to let out the pent up screaming she was unable to produce earlier. Even through the constant sound of ringing, and the distorted mess that was now her vision, she felt something pulling her away.

When the movement stopped, she covered her face with her hooves. Something else grabbed ahold of her shoulder. However, the ringing in her ears and the feeling of fear was slowly subsiding, allowing her senses to return to her. As her frantic screaming finally died out, she could hear something else at last.

“Sunspot, are you ok?!” Rainbow Dash asked in a panicked voice.

Sunspot hesitantly opened her eyes and looked up, only to be greeted with the concerned faces of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy above her. She quickly discovered that she was on the floor out in the hallway. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she was in a cold sweat, with parts of her body still trembling in shock.

“Wh… w-what h…” Sunspot tried to make an intelligible statement, but she was still too shocked to speak. She looked around frantically, though the two mares were blocking her view of one of the directions of the hall. Judging from their surroundings, they were a fair distance away from the room she was in just moments ago.

“You saw that thing and just started freaking out. We had to pull you out of there kicking and screaming.” Rainbow Dash explained while nervously glancing behind her. Thankfully nothing seemed to have followed them.

“Thank goodness you snapped out of it… we thought you were going to pass out from shock.” Fluttershy added. The timid pegasus looked distraught with worry, though she had a slight smile of relief on her face.

“Oh man… my head is spinning.” Sunspot closed her eyes and tried to deal with the intense feeling of dizziness still present in her head. “That thing really threw me for a loop… I made eye contact with it, didn’t I?” She asked while struggling to think back to the encounter. Although it was just moments ago, her mind was cloudy on the events that took place after she looked up at the ceiling. A cold chill went down her spine as she tried to remember, so she decided to stop trying altogether.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy nodded silently, confirming the obvious. Sunspot adopted a saddened expression and looked down. She was glad that the two mares rescued her and handled themselves well in a bad situation, but she was supposed to keep them out of trouble, not the other way around.

“Well… on the bright side, we got the keys.” Rainbow Dash said, perhaps noting the orange mare’s frown.

“Really? I thought I would have dropped them in there.” Sunspot perked up at the mention of the keys. The cyan pony held the keyring up, jingling them for show and letting a smirk build on her face. “Haha… yes!” Sunspot smiled in return and chuckled triumphantly.

“Come on, let's get out of here before that thing decides to follow us.” Rainbow Dash suggested anxiously.

“Yeah… we should probably let the others know what happened now anyway.” Sunspot added, receiving judging expressions from her two companions. “What? Better late than never…” She said with an awkward smile. The other two mares shook their heads silently while the orange pegasus got up and started walking down the hall.

Elsewhere in the resort, Tom and Glimmer Shine’s groups were steadily running out of areas to search. The elusive keys were nowhere to be found, and their patience was wearing down with each empty room.

Twilight sighed as she finished searching yet another room. As she turned back toward the hallway to check on her companions’ progress, she realized they were having about as much luck as she was.

“Ughhh…” Pinkie Pie groaned audibly while ducking out of the room she was in. “How hard can it be to find one set of keys?!” She said with a frustrated look of exasperation plastered on her face.

“At this point, I think finding a needle in a haystack would be easier.” Tom stated passively while walking down the hall to his next designated search area.

Pinkie tilted her head in confusion. “Well duh… all you need to do is sit down to find a needle in a haystack.”

“Unfortunately for us, all sitting down is going to do here is waste time.” Twilight shrugged, taking a moment to rest despite her statement.

A few moments went by as the trio continued their search. They could go up and down this hallway and the next all day and probably not find anything. Or perhaps it was night already. It was impossible to tell the time of day this far underground. Any clocks they found stopped working long ago, and it did feel like it had been forever, though this was probably an exaggeration.

“Hey guys, we found something I think you're going to like!” A sudden voice in his head made Tom pause and perk up.

“Hold on, Sunspot is calling us.” Tom reported to his two charges before putting a finger up to his ear.

“Ooo! Did she find something?!” Pinkie asked while bouncing in place eagerly.

“It sounds like it. Give me a minute here, will ya?” Tom said while briefly dropping his hand from his ear and drawing attention to it.

“Oh… sorry.” Pinkie whispered with a regretful cringe. With the pink mare and the purple unicorn listening in quiet anticipation, the human returned his attention to the voices in his head.

“Well, speak up, Sunspot. Don't just leave us hanging here. What did you find?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously with a slight hint of impatience in his voice.

“Only the keys to the stairs… no big deal.” Sunspot said with a forced casual tone. The smirk on her face was practically audible.

“That's great, Sunspot! Where did you find them?” Glitterball asked curiously. The orange mare on the other end of the line hesitated before answering.

“Uh… about that. We found that animatronic doe with them, and… it kind of tossed them into that room we found that inhuman spirit in.” Sunspot explained uneasily.

“Ah, horse feathers… That can't be good.” Glimmer Shine stated in a dreadful tone.

“Don't worry about it, I handled things. We got the keys and got out of there, no problem.” Sunspot said in a reassuring manner.

“Wait, what?!” Glimmer Shine exclaimed in shock.

“Sunspot, do you want me to even begin to describe how stupidly dangerous that was? You could have gotten yourselves killed! Why didn't you wait for us to get there?!” Tom asked with a more serious tone.

“Look, I get it… I thought the room was empty, but it wasn't… not my smartest moment, I know. The important thing is that we're all fine and we have the keys.” Sunspot said with an exasperated sigh.

“I… I just…” Glimmer Shine muttered in a state of utter disbelief. “*Sigh*... Just meet us down at the stairs. You better hope my urge to strangle you goes away before we get there.” He said while trying every available method of calming himself down.

“Yeah, yeah… Sorry.” Sunspot shrugged before falling silent.

Tom sighed and shook his head while dropping his hand from his ear. He couldn't believe how reckless the orange pegasus was. He turned around to see his two companions waiting eagerly for him to dispense the information he now had. “Well girls, it looks like our search is over. Sunspot and the others just found the keys.” Tom explained in a less than thrilled tone. Still, he couldn’t deny that the orange mare did a good job, even if she went about it in all the wrong ways.

“*Gasp* That’s great news! You hear that, Twilight? We’ll find Spike and the others in no time, now!” Pinkie cheered eagerly while turning to see how the unicorn beside her was reacting. However, Twilight wasn’t jumping for joy as much as the pink pony thought she would be.

The purple mare was staring ahead blankly with a confused expression on her face. She twitched a few times, seemingly trying to move or say something. However hard she was trying, nothing was coming out of her mouth but a few strained noises.

“Twilight…? Are you ok?” Pinkie asked in a concerned tone while eyeing the unicorn warily. She waved a hoof in front of her friend’s face, and although Twilight seemed like she was aware of her surroundings, she couldn’t move.

“N… n-not again…” Twilight muttered as a familiar feeling washed over her. All at once, a thick haze filled her mind and her legs grew weak. After trembling for a moment, the unicorn’s legs buckled and she went toppling to the floor.

“Oh my gosh, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie gasped in a panic and rushed to her friend’s side. The purple mare was unconscious by the time she hit the floor, but nothing else seemed to be wrong with her.

“Twilight?” Tom called the unicorn’s name in a mildly alarmed tone. He walked over and examined the purple mare while the pink pony desperately shook her and tried waking her up like she was dying.

“Tom! Do something!” Pinkie pleaded while turning to the human for support.

Tom briefly examined the unconscious pony. After making a few attempts to check if she was responsive, and checking her overall health, he shook his head and sighed. “Relax, Pinkie… she’s fine. This has happened before.” Tom said before getting up and stepping away for a moment. He placed a couple of fingers up to his ear, triggering the communication spell as he focused on the members of Spirit. “Guys, we’re going to be a bit late with getting to the stairs. Twilight is having another of her… episodes.” He explained in a disheartened tone.

“Episodes…?” Pinkie muttered with a confused expression while turning back to Twilight. For all intents and purposes, the unicorn seemed physically fine aside from her sudden bout of unconsciousness. The state of her friend troubled her still, and she wondered why this had happened before, or at all for that matter.

“She passed out again?” Glimmer Shine asked with a surprised inflection in his voice.

“Do you think she’s having another… vision?” Sunspot chimed in curiously.

“I’m not sure… it’s looking that way though. We won’t know for sure until she wakes up. I’ll see if I can carry her over to you guys... we’ll be there as soon as possible.” Tom said before dropping his arm to his side.

“Roger that… keep an eye on her for us, alright?” Glimmer Shine said with a healthy bit of concern before falling silent.

Tom turned back toward the two mares in the center of the hallway. Pinkie was still crouched low to the ground, cradling a foreleg around Twilight and holding her head up.

“What’s wrong with her?” Pinkie asked hesitantly while looking down to the purple mare’s dazed expression.

“She passed out like this back when Sunspot took her and Sparkplug to go turn on the generator. She woke up just fine a while later… and apparently, she had some kind of vision.” Tom explained with a calm tone, hoping to reassure the pink pony.

“A vision…? Like… she saw the future or something?” Pinkie asked, half intrigued and half concerned.

“The past more likely… She said she was in the old amusement park this place was built over. She even met Berry Swirl’s grandfather and his father.” Tom said with an intrigued smirk.

“Wow… I never knew she was psychic! How did she keep something like that from us for so long? Oh man… how am I going to plan surprise parties for her now… *Gasp* What if she knew about all of the surprise parties I already threw for her and just pretended to be surprised?!” Pinkie asked with a stunned expression of shock.

Tom raised an eyebrow and stared at the pink mare. “Uh… Pinkie… she isn’t psychic. It probably has something to do with when she died back in Canterlot. She is more susceptible for paranormal events to happen to her.” He explained while walking over to the pair. “Well, we should probably get going. The others will be expecting us.”

“Hold on,” Pinkie said while getting up from the floor. “I’ll carry her.” She stated while picking the unconscious mare up and gently placing her on her back.

“Are you sure?” Tom asked curiously.

“Yeah… I want to help. Besides, I’ll feel better if I can keep a close eye on her.” Pinkie said while looking back to see the unicorn balanced across her back.

“Alright… follow me.” The human walked down the hallway back toward the area of the resort that held the stairs. Pinkie Pie nodded and carefully followed the boy. All the while she made sure to keep Twilight from sliding off or having a bumpy ride. She hoped that whatever the unicorn was experiencing, it was more pleasant than being down in the abandoned corridors of the resort.

Chapter 20: Where Spirits Dwell

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Suddenly, Twilight snapped back to reality as her senses came back to her all at once. She opened her eyes, only to clench them shut again due to the brightness of her surroundings. Judging from the sensory information she could gather, she was lying down on her side. Oddly enough, she could feel grass beneath her.

“Urgh…” Twilight groaned softly while slowly making her way to her feet and adjusting her eyes to the light. Just as she tried finding out where she was, she heard a childish giggle coming from behind her.

As she spun around in surprise, she was greeted with the sight of a family of four strolling by casually. There were colorful tents in the background. The sweet smell of cotton candy filled the air, along with calliope music softly playing somewhere nearby.

Twilight was still stunned by her sudden change in surroundings, but she gradually calmed down as she took in the sights around her. “I… must have passed out again. I guess that means this is Fun Land?” She muttered curiously while briefly admiring the sun shining down on her.

The world felt oddly distant like she was having an incredibly vivid dream. Still, it was a welcome change from the claustrophobic and oppressive atmosphere of the underground resort. It was so warm and nice here, but she still felt a little uneasy.

“If I’m here… and if these really are visions, then that means one or more of the ghosts want me to see something. The question is… what?” Twilight looked around and tried to find anything of note. It seemed to be just a normal day at the park, or at least what one would expect to be a normal day at the park. There were ponies of all sizes, colors, and races going to and fro with bright smiley expressions. It was easy to see why Berry’s family was so successful.

While she was walking around the various tents and attractions of the park, Twilight paused suddenly as she heard a familiar giggle. As she turned and scanned through the crowd, she saw something that made a cold chill pass over her.

There was a small filly standing in front of a cotton candy stand. She had snow white fur and golden blonde hair. Her flanks were barren of a cutie mark, but she didn’t look any gloomier for it. Twilight had seen this filly before, in far less bright and colorful surroundings. This was the filly that she had chased into the basement during her dream.

“It’s you…” Twilight said in an amazed tone while stepping closer to the filly. She made it half way to the stand before remembering that she was practically a ghost in this world. Besides, even if the filly could hear her, she probably wouldn’t be able to answer any questions. This was presumably a vision of the past after all.

Off to the side, another familiar looking pony caught her attention. Twilight looked over and saw Cotton and Candy Swirl in the distance, seemingly having a discussion with a pair of royal guards. The purple mare briefly glanced back to the white filly. The young girl happily scampered back over to what Twilight presumed to be her parents with her pink cloud of sugar in hoof. Deciding to leave the filly, for the time being, Twilight started making her way toward the ponies talking in the distance.

Despite the royal guard present in the park, everyone else seemed to be having the best time of their life. Only a couple of ponies even took notice of the two stoic white stallions clad in armor, pausing to look at them with unsure expressions before carrying on. Candy Swirl and his son, however, seemed to be much more troubled, and Twilight had a vague idea why.

“I’m terribly sorry that we can’t be of more help, sir.” Candy Swirl stated with a regretful frown. Twilight shrugged as she apparently got into earshot toward the end of the conversation.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Swirl… We will contact you if we have any further questions or find anything of note.” The older looking out of the two guards explained in the resigned tone of voice common among the royal guard. Twilight was impressed to see that not much had changed about the princess’s protectors throughout the years. She wondered where the alicorn found so many white stallions that fit the requirements to become a guard.

As the two guards walked away, the purple stallion and his son were left to their thoughts, however troubling they might have been. Finally, after a while of sitting in silence, Cotton Swirl sighed and shook his head.

“I can’t believe this… how could two kids just up and vanish like that? And from right under our noses too…” Cotton Swirl fretted with a troubled expression. He hung his head low, seemingly deep in thought as he tried to piece together a possible explanation.

“Don’t worry, my boy… I’m sure that they will be found safe.” Candy Swirl assured, though his attempt at sounding chipper and confident was hindered by his own feelings of doubt and unease.

Cotton sighed and paused for a moment before looking to his father again. “We’ve already searched the fairgrounds at least twice over. They aren’t anywhere in the park anymore.” He stated while glancing around at the crowds of happy ponies. He seemed to be slightly ashamed as he watched them spending time with their friends and family, completely unaware of the tragedies that had already taken place at the park.

Twilight stood beside the two stallions, passively observing them as they were completely unaware of her presence. “They must be talking about those missing children. Hey… did he say two kids?” She muttered with a confused expression. She could have sworn that the newspaper she read mentioned three children going missing from the park.

“What about that old maintenance shed over by the property line? Did they search in there?” Candy Swirl asked curiously.

“I took the guards there myself when we searched the grounds. I thought they might have been hiding in there somehow. Nothing was in there but some old mascot suits… Besides, the only way inside is a locked door.” Cotton Swirl explained.

“Thank the princess they weren’t. That old building looks like it’s ready to collapse any minute.” The purple stallion shrugged uneasily. “Hey… aren’t there some of your old projects still in there?” He asked curiously while turning to the younger pony.

Cotton looked away pensively. “Just one… That old mechanical puppet I was making out of one of those yellow suits we used to have. I left it in there… it’s way too dangerous to mess with anyway. I made the parts compress so you could take the suit pieces apart for easier storage, but now the springs I used are so worn they are liable to break. I don’t want anyone getting their hoof or something caught inside if they mistook it for a mascot suit.” He replied.

“Hmm… it’s probably for the best then.” Candy Swirl nodded. He remained silent for a moment before adopting a somber expression. “Listen, I don’t want you going in there anymore either. I need to get in touch with some people to tear the shed down anyway, it’s just too dangerous. The door is locked you said?” He asked, to which the white pony nodded. “Good… just leave the keys in my office. As for the missing children, we just need to trust that the royal guard will find them.” He said while putting a foreleg around the younger stallion. With that, the pair started walking away.

Before the two ponies walked out of earshot, Twilight heard Cotton Swirl speak up. “Hey… you don’t think these kids went missing like those others, do you?” He asked hesitantly, to which the older stallion looked at him with a troubled expression in response.

“What… you mean those kidnappings?” The purple stallion looked away for a moment before shaking his head and shuddering. “Nonsense… Don’t even say such a thing. That animal was in Canterlot when they found his hideout. The royal guard is probably hot on his hooves as we speak. I certainly hope they make him pay for what he did to those poor children.”

Twilight watched the pair walk away until they disappeared into the crowd of ponies. Although their conversation was intriguing, and a little bit somber, the unicorn wasn’t sure about what information she could glean from it. Turning around and walking back through the park, she thought about everything she had heard and how it fit together with what she already knew.

“Hmm… maybe those kidnapped children are our ghosts. But why are there so many ghosts if only three children went missing at the park?” Twilight muttered pensively while looking down.

“Goldy…? Goldy, where are you?!”

A distressed mare called out from up ahead, drawing Twilight’s attention away. She looked forward and noticed a pair of ponies amongst the crowds with alarmed expressions on their faces.

“Huh…?” Twilight watched the pair as they darted their heads around frantically. They seemed to be looking for someone.

“Glistening Gold, where did you go?! Get back here right this instant!” The mare called out again desperately.

All at once it dawned on Twilight. Her eyes widened and a gasp escaped her mouth. She recognized the couple. They were the same ponies she had seen the white filly with blonde hair running up to before. “Oh no, the third kidnapping… That little girl was the third child… this must be the day she was taken!” Twilight exclaimed in shock. It hadn’t occurred to her why the white filly was a ghost in the first place. The answer was obvious now of course. The filly was among the children that went missing at Fun Land, and her kidnapping was happening right now.

Twilight darted her head around and scanned the area for the young filly. There were no signs of her, and nobody stood out of the crowd by doing anything suspicious. If the unicorn was going to find the person responsible, she had to move fast.

Running to the left, the purple mare raced toward the area of the park that held the large Ferris wheel. She pushed through the crowd, which was quite easy considering she passed through every pony like they weren’t even there. All the while she frantically looked for any signs of the white filly or the person that was responsible.

No matter where she searched, Twilight couldn’t find hide nor hair of the missing filly. All of the ponies around her were blending into a mess of colors. Despite the fact that this was a dream of sorts, she was starting to get exhausted mentally and physically.

“*Pant*… *Pant*…” Twilight struggled to move as fast as she could. The park was so large, and there were so many places to check, but she couldn’t be everywhere at once. At this rate, she was going to miss the kidnapper entirely.

Just as she was giving up all hope, a spot of yellow and white caught her eye. Looking past the crowd ahead of her, the unicorn widened her eyes as she finally saw the young girl. The filly was following a pony in a mascot suit toward one of the many colorful tents. The suit was that of Freddy the bear, though this one was colored differently. This suit was yellow, and the top hat upon its head was purple instead of black.

“Wait!” Twilight called out, despite the fact that nobody could hear her. She raced forward and ran straight for the pair, hoping to catch them before they reached the tent.

The filly still had her cotton candy from earlier clutched in her hoof. She seemed hesitant to follow the mascot into the tent. “I don’t know about this, Freddy… I don’t think my mommy wants me to wander this far away from her.” Twilight heard the filly speaking somehow, despite the distance between her and the tent. It was like the girl was speaking directly in her head.

The purple mare hurried her pace as she watched the filly pausing at the edge of the tent while the mascot went inside. Even if this was the past, she thought that maybe if she caught up to them that she could somehow save the filly. Her emotions outweighed her sense of logic. She had to reach them in time.

“Get in here you little brat!” A muffled voice rang out in her head, much like the filly’s voice did before. Just before Twilight reached the tent, she saw a mascot paw reach out from inside and grab the filly by the leg, yanking her inside.

“AH!” The filly yelped in terror as she was pulled into the tent. A moment later, her screams were cut short.

“No, wait! Don’t hurt her!” Twilight pleaded while rushing up to the tent. She briefly looked down to the cotton candy splattered on the ground outside before rushing in through the same flap the filly had been pulled in through.

Suddenly and very abruptly, the loud noises of the crowds outside ceased. The music that was playing and the sounds of the rides and attractions stopped as well, leaving the world in silence. As Twilight stepped into the tent, she paused in stunned surprise as she realized that it was nearly pitch black.

Twilight looked around with a confused expression. As she looked behind her and pushed aside the tent flap with her foreleg, her jaw hung open in shock from what she found. “Wh… what the…?”

It was night out; not only that, but the park outside was also completely empty. The full moon shone down onto nothing but grass, and the wind blowing through the area ruffled the many tents anchored to the ground.

…Help me…

A shrill and timid voice echoed through the tent. Twilight jumped in fright and spun around. As she lit up her horn and darted her head around in a panic, she realized that the tent was empty. The filly and the suited pony were nowhere to be found. However, there was a different mascot suit slumped up against a box at the back of the tent.

“H-hello…? Little girl?” Twilight tried to keep her voice from trembling, but she couldn’t. Up until now, her visions had simply been events from the past replaying before her eyes, but what was happening now seemed more sinister.

Taking a few cautious steps into the tent, she kept her head on a swivel. Every creak of the tent poles shifting in the wind set her even further on edge. Despite how vulnerable she felt, she kept moving forward, getting closer and closer to the mascot suit.

The suit was a bonnie suit that was limply settled on the floor. Its head was facing her, and its empty eye sockets indicated that nobody was inside. It looked vastly different from the friendly animatronic she had met when she first arrived at the resort, being more purple than blue, and being quadrupedal instead of bipedal.

…Stop! It hurts…!

The voice echoed again. Twilight recognized the voice to be the white filly, but she was nowhere to be seen. The distress in her voice was easy to hear, even through the eerie distortion it held.

Suddenly, Twilight heard a noise coming from the bonnie suit. It sounded like a hushed, raspy groaning. The sound was chillingly familiar to her somehow. She had heard it before, but she couldn’t remember where.

“Glistening Gold? T-that’s your name… right? What are you trying to show me?” Twilight spoke up nervously while looking around her. Even if she couldn’t see anything around her, she was confident that the ghostly filly could hear her somehow.

“I just want to go home…” The filly’s voice whispered from directly in front of the unicorn. It sounded real as if she was actually there.

Twilight snapped her head to look down where the voice had come from. Her gaze only met the mask of the purple rabbit on the ground. As the disturbing groaning noise returned, Twilight noticed a pair of silver dots glowing at the back of the suit’s empty eyes.

Flashes of memories came flooding back to her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She remembered now where she had heard the noises before. She had heard them coming from inside of Freddy the bear in her dream, which was also the last place she had seen glowing dots like that.

A sudden image literally flashed before her eyes, along with a deafening screech. The image was of the white filly, standing in the same tent she was currently in along with the pony in the Freddy suit. The sound and the image only lasted an instant, but they were enough to make the unicorn’s heart skip a beat.

Twilight started breathing heavily as a wave of panic overtook her. She stared down at the bonnie suit as more images flashed in front of her. She saw still images of the suited pony getting closer to the filly and lifting its hefty paws up toward her neck. The noise from the bonnie suit grew louder in between each image.

“N-no…” Twilight whimpered, frozen in place from fear.

The images returned, progressing more and more towards the sinister conclusion the unicorn already knew was coming. The pony in the mascot suit wrapped its paws around the filly’s neck, squeezing her tightly. In the background, Twilight could see a purple shape coming into view. The same bonnie suit that was lying in front of her was there in the tent before.

“No… no!” Twilight clenched her eyes shut as the images kept going. A blood-curdling shriek rang out in her head, followed by a sickening crack. She knew what happened now, and she didn’t want to see it. As silence engulfed her mind again, she could hear her own shaky breathing and her beating heart.

It’s… it’s over… She thought to herself. The ghosts had shown her everything she needed to know. Nothing was keeping her here anymore. Once she opened her eyes, her vision would start to fade and she would wake up with her friends again. She didn’t need to see anything more.

As she slowly peeked open her eyes, she expected to be greeted by the empty tent again. However, something else greeted her instead.

“…!” Twilight jerked her head back and opened her mouth in a silent scream. Her voice caught in her lungs, and a jolt of fear ran through her.

The bonnie suit was standing in front of her now. Its jaw was opened wide, and the darkness of the hollow suit inside was clearly visible. But something was inside of the suit, or rather, someone was inside of the suit.

The white filly was lying motionless in the chest cavity of the suit. Her neck was twisted at an unnatural angle, her pale face was facing toward Twilight, and her eyes were open. The once colorful yellow orbs were now milky and lifeless. An expression of terror was frozen on her face.

Twilight recoiled from the sight before her, horrified but unable to look away. “GAH!” She yelped incoherently. Her legs were trembling so much that she thought she might fall.

The same silver dots slowly lit up in the filly’s lifeless eyes. Along with this, the glowing dots in the mascot suit’s eyes returned brighter than ever. The bonnie suit stepped forward, closing its mouth and reaching for the fleeing unicorn. Twilight tripped over herself and fell to the hard ground below. She stared up at the possessed suit helplessly as it drew closer to her. Trying to get back up yielded no results as a violent wave of numbness overtook her body.

Suddenly, bonnie lunged at the purple mare. The suit opened its mouth again as a terrible roar filled her ears. The all-encompassing blackness of the suit’s hollow insides rapidly filled her vision as the beast pounced on her.

“AHHHHH!!” Twilight screamed at the top of her lungs as she shot up from the floor. The roar of the mascot suit was gone, and apparently so was the mascot suit itself. The world around her was no longer filled with darkness. In fact, it seemed incredibly familiar to her.

“Twilight, are you ok?!” A familiar voice rang out from nearby. Twilight looked around and noticed that she was sitting on the floor in the middle of an enclosed hallway. The dull and faded wallpaper, the worn carpets, and the cold chill prevalent in the air were all dead giveaways. She was back in the underground resort.

Taking a look around, the purple mare discovered many of her friends huddled around her with concerned expressions on their faces. Everyone except for Tom and Glimmer Shine seemed to be present, along with all of the other people that were already missing.

“Oh my… you look pale.” Fluttershy fretted softly from beside the unicorn. Apparently, she was the voice that spoke before.

Twilight took a moment to calm her racing heart and frantic breathing. She put a hoof up to her face and groaned with relief. She was awake again, and she was very glad for it. If all of her visions were going to be like that, then she wasn’t sure if she wanted to have any more. “I’m ok… I’m ok…” Twilight parroted, partially to assure the others that she was alright, and partially to remind herself.

Rainbow Dash looked at the jilted unicorn with a doubtful expression. “You were screaming bloody murder for a minute there, Twi… are you sure you’re alright?” She asked while frowning with concern.

“Yeah… I’m good.” Twilight took in a few more deep breaths, resetting her breathing pattern back to a more stable level. As she looked around her surroundings, she realized that she didn’t recognize the area. “Hey… where are we?” She asked curiously.

“We’re down on the second floor, by the staircase.” Sunspot explained while motioning toward the side.

Twilight looked over and noticed the stairs embedded into the wall around a corner. The group was sitting on the edge of a sort of entryway for the second floor. “Wow… I must have been out for a while if you managed to carry me down here.” She raised her eyebrows with surprise. The vision she had seemed rather short in retrospect, but apparently the time she spent in her dreams was unrelated to how long she was unconscious.

Pinkie Pie shifted her expression to a more intrigued one as a thought occurred to her. “Hey, did you have another vision?” She asked curiously. Everyone else perked up eagerly as they turned to the purple mare for more information on her sudden collapse.

Twilight briefly thought back to her experience. Although she remembered the entire dream vividly, the end of it is what was forefront in her mind. A cold shudder went through her as she pictured the dead filly sitting inside of the bonnie suit. “Y-yeah… I did. I… don’t want to talk about it right now though.” She explained hesitantly. The others looked at each other with concerned expressions of sympathy for the unicorn. Despite how curious they were, they took the hint and didn’t bother the troubled mare any more about what she saw.

After taking a moment to get her bearings, Twilight got up from the floor and walked around. “Where did Tom and Glimmer Shine go?” She asked curiously, bringing up the absence of the pair she noticed earlier.

“They went to go search around this floor a little bit… although they will be back soon since they don’t really need to search.” Glitterball explained.

“What do you mean by that?” Twilight shrugged, feeling like she missed out on so much by falling unconscious.

Seeing the confusion on the purple mare’s face, Rainbow Dash pointed her toward the stairs. “Take a look down there.” She stated while motioning toward the flight leading down.

Twilight walked over to the stairs but paused midway to them as she noticed something she hadn’t before. There was a trail of some kind of inky black substance tracked all the way to the stairs, even going down them. The trail resembled hoof prints, albeit slightly large ones. The substance itself had a faint and disgusting odor wafting off of it that made her nose crinkle up. “Ulgh… what is that stuff?” Twilight asked nobody in particular while distancing herself from the black goop. She hadn’t really expected an answer, but she would receive one as Sunspot walked up beside her.

“That’s ectoplasm. It gets left behind by something more powerful than the ghosts we’ve been dealing with called an inhuman spirit. Long story short, they are bad news.” Sunspot shuddered slightly and shook some troubling thoughts from her head.

“We think whatever left these went downstairs after Applejack and the others.” Glitterball added while stepping over to the edge of the stairs.

Twilight looked past the white unicorn and down to the next landing of the steps. The black substance continued down, however, there was a familiar red bow on the ground that had some of the goop splattered on it.

“Is that Applebloom’s bow?” Twilight raised her eyebrows in surprise while briefly picking up the small ribbon of fabric with her magic. Once it was off the floor and out of the black gunk, there was no doubt about it.

“That’s what we figured. They probably left that there as another sign that they went further down like they did before with Applejack’s hat.” Sunspot explained with an impressed smirk. She was glad to see that the others were smart enough to try to send them messages despite their situation.

“I hope Sparkplug and the kids found the others. They will be safer in a group until we can get to them.” Twilight sighed while staring at the bow held in her magical grip and thinking of the group of children. She started cleaning off the black substance from the bow, resolving to give it back to Applebloom once they found their friends.

While the group was gathered by the stairs, they noticed footsteps coming from the hallway behind them. As they turned to look, they saw Tom and Glimmer Shine walking towards them, having returned from their search empty handed.

As they reached the gathering of ponies, the pair looked at the purple unicorn with surprised expressions.

“Twilight… it's good to see you awake.” Tom said with a pleased smile.

Twilight smiled in return before adopting a slight frown. “Hey, guys… I guess you didn't find them?” She said, noting the obvious lack of anyone else following behind the pair.

Glimmer Shine shrugged in disappointment. “No, unfortunately not. We're thinking they all went downstairs after all.” He said while motioning toward the red bow that the unicorn was holding.

Twilight glanced behind her toward the descending stairs. She and the others had spent so long trying to get down to the second floor, and now they were going even deeper. Just how far down does this place go? She wondered.

Shifting her eyes over to the trail of black goop formed into hoof prints, the unicorn thought to her missing friends. She hoped that she could reach them before they found something bad that they couldn't get away from. There was pure evil in this place, and death was not shy about rearing its ugly head.

“Come on… let's get down there. We need to find them as soon as possible.” Twilight said with a steely expression. The others looked at each other for a moment before nodding and gathering behind the unicorn. They were all ready to brave the unknown depths if it meant finding their friends, and a possible end to this nightmare.

-Earlier-

Applejack, Rarity, and their small group descended the stairs toward the third floor slowly. An uneasy feeling of apprehension hung in the air, and everyone was tense to some degree.

Applebloom and her friends huddled behind the four mares as they walked, staying close together and keeping their eyes and ears open for any signs of danger.

“Man… I can't believe those stupid keys only worked on the gate leading down here. And after we went through so much trouble to get them!” Scootaloo groaned in frustration.

“That's just our luck I guess… Nothin’ much has gone our way since we came down here.” Applejack said with an unimpressed expression.

“Don't worry everyone. I'm sure the others will come find us soon! Once they see my bow, they will come down here and rescue us.” Applebloom chimed in eagerly. The yellow filly's spirits were certainly left intact despite their bleak surroundings.

The group suddenly ran out of stairs to climb as they rounded the last bend. Another opening with another gate stood before them. There was a dark hallway that stretched out beyond the gate, with the area before the hallway bathed in orange-tinted light.

Rarity took the keys they had acquired earlier and brought them up to the locked gate. After unlocking the iron barred door, she swung it open, cringing slightly as the sound of squeaking metal filled the air.

As the group stepped out of the stairwell, they took a look around at their surroundings. The walls were a sickly yellowed shade of white, looking more aged than the relatively clean floors above. The brown carpet was dirty looking and faded. The light bulbs overhead had simple housings, letting their dim light spread out evenly across the room. However, a lot of the lights in the three hallways around them weren't functional at all, bathing the area in darkness.

“Look over there. I think there's another map on the wall.” Silver Bell pointed toward the left wall across from the stairs. Sure enough, there was a map of the floor framed up on the wall.

“Nice find, Silver.” Sparkplug congratulated the cream unicorn before walking over to view the map.

The ponies gathered around the frame on the wall, looking it up and down as Rarity and Silver Bell lit it up with their horns. Judging from the layout of the floor, this area was around the same size as the second floor. However, it was shaped differently with rough edges and a non-symmetrical layout. There were also more rooms in between hallways rather than hallways cutting around groupings of rooms.

“Hmm…” Rarity muttered curiously while eyeing the map and looking for something that stood out. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for, considering that finding a room labeled “emergency exit in case of ghost attack” was highly unlikely.

“I doubt any of the fire escapes will be open judgin’ by what happened to us earlier.” Applejack stated with a shrug.

“True… although we don't need to escape as urgently now that the others are down here with us.” Rarity added. She knew that the only way they were getting out of the resort now was to wait until the others got rid of the ghosts entirely.

“So, what do we do?” Sweetie Belle asked in an uncertain tone. The others were equally unsure of what to do, and more than a little uneasy.

“Well, we should keep moving. We don't want to make ourselves anymore of a target than we already are.” Sparkplug suggested while glancing around the area in a paranoid fashion.

“I think we can all agree on that. And since we're down here anyway, we might as well search around and see if we can find something useful… some information that could help Tom and the others fight the ghosts perhaps?” Rarity said with careful optimism brimming in her voice.

“I suppose takin’ a look around couldn't hurt none. Where to first?” Applejack asked curiously while taking another cursory look around the map.

Rarity looked over the map again. Aside from perhaps one or two areas, not much stood out. There were a lot of mascot workshops, which was an interesting change from the animatronics upstairs. “Uh… ooo! Look here!” The unicorn stated while eagerly pointing to a section of the map. “It looks like Berry's grandfather had a personal workshop down here. I'll bet we can find something there.” She suggested excitedly, happy to contribute to the group.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Sparkplug nodded in agreement to the white mare. She briefly looked over the map and memorized as much of it as she could before turning toward the hallway across from the stairs. “Come on, I can get us there no problem.” She motioned for the others to follow her as she stepped over to the dark corridor.

Although the group was slightly hesitant of walking around yet another dark floor that was most likely haunted, they all decided that staying put wasn't a good idea. Rarity walked ahead of the gray pony to light the way while everyone else trailed close behind.

However, unbeknownst to the ponies walking down the hall, they were already being watched. A black shape slowly staggered off of the stairs, pausing and watching the group’s fading light disappearing into the distance.

A few minutes went by as the group continued walking. The hallways on this floor were much windier than those upstairs. The few rooms they passed through seemed to be staff oriented, and most of them seemed unfinished. There were many boxes lying around, and the walls were bereft and devoid of wallpaper or any other sort of decorations. It looked like only the bare basics were completed before the work crew abandoned ship.

Spike and the three fillies kept in the center of the four mares as they walked. The kids looked around nervously, peering into every dark opening that led into more unknown. Despite how safe they convinced themselves they were, the entire floor was unknown to them. They were walking blind figuratively, and nearly literally.

The children weren’t the only ones afraid in the group. Everyone was on edge to some degree. For some reason, they were more uneasy here than they were on either of the two floors above. Something about this floor seemed different, almost like there was a constant presence around them that felt unnatural and wrong.

Arriving at another room that served as an intersection, the ponies and their dragon companion slowed to a halt. There were two more angled hallways to either side of the room, and a set of two doors on the back wall. One of the doors was cracked open slightly, and both doors had similar signs above them with large text written on them.

“Where to, navigator?” Applejack asked curiously while turning to Sparkplug. Her own recollection of the map was hazy at best, and she had lost track of where they were.

Sparkplug looked around the room for a moment and compared the exits to her memory of the map layout. “Uhh… I think it’s down that way.” She said while pointing toward the left hallway.

“You think or you know?” Rarity raised an eyebrow uneasily at the gray mare that was supposed to be leading the group. In her own words, the earth pony said that she could get them to their destination without a problem, but now the white unicorn was unsure.

“I know… I think.” Sparkplug smiled awkwardly before shying away from the shocked and accusing stares of the white mare. “Relax, I just got a little confused about where we were. That layout wasn’t exactly straightforward. I’m pretty sure we’re going the right way.” She clarified in what she hoped would be a reassuring tone.

Rarity sighed and shook her head while resting a hoof on her face. “I really hope you aren’t getting us lost darling… I don’t want to be in this place any longer than I have to be.” She said while trying to suppress the annoyed tone in her voice.

“What is this place anyway?” Scootaloo asked while looking around the room and trying to figure out the general purpose of the floor. Judging by the rooms she had seen thus far, she wasn’t sure what the space was meant to be used for.

Rarity took a few steps further into the room, casting her light over the darkness. Now that they were lit up, the signs above the two doors could be made out. They read “Mascot prep 4” and “Mascot prep 5” respectively. Through the crack in the door on the left, a rack with what looked to be costumes on it could be partially seen.

“Hmm… I suppose this is where the costumed characters would get ready to perform.” Rarity pointed out while opening the left door all of the way with her magic. Inside the small room, there were a few boxes sitting against the wall across from the costume rack. There was a mascot head of some sort of cat character sitting on one of the boxes. There were also a few other miscellaneous parts of various other mascot suits ranging from external clothing to entire headless suit bodies strewn around.

“I thought this place used robots instead of ponies in suits?” Apple Bloom tilted her head curiously while making her way closer to the open room with the others.

“No… the animatronics were still being developed when this place was built. The park back then used mechanical puppets or mascot actors.” Sparkplug explained. “Still… I don’t think a place this big would need this many prep rooms for costumed characters.”

The others were inclined to agree with the gray mare. Five rooms and possibly more filled with costumes seemed to be more suited toward a much larger theme park.

“Maybe Berry’s grandfather had plans on expanding even further after this place was done?” Silver Bell suggested semi-confidently.

While Sparkplug and the three fillies stepped into the room and examined it further, the others stood outside. Rarity and Silver Bell tried their best to remain close to the group to provide light, but much of the room was still dark, including the three openings leading out into hallways.

Rarity watched in abject disgust as Sparkplug rifled through the many costumes and outfits on the rack with ease. The faded clothes were much too dusty for her comfort level, and she didn’t like her younger sibling being so close to such filth. Sweetie Belle was watching in curious wonderment as Scootaloo picked up the empty mascot head on the box and examined it.

“Wow… this thing must have been sitting here forever.” Scootaloo said, briefly entertaining the idea of putting the head on until she saw how dusty and grimy it was. The hollow inside of the orange head smelled about as off-putting as one would expect for something over fifty years old.

Sparkplug turned and looked at the mascot head that the trio of fillies was examining. “Huh… I don’t recognize the character. I guess the park had a much larger roster of mascots than we do now.” She noted with intrigue.

“Umm… Sparkplug, could we… perhaps… get moving?” Rarity asked with a pleading tone of voice.

The gray mare looked outside to see the unicorn nearly having a breakdown from watching others rooting around in ancient filth. “Aww, come on Rarity. A little dust never hurt anyone.” Sparkplug said with a jesting smirk.

“Actually I think that statement doesn’t apply to things this old. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that fabric had mold growing on it.” Rarity said anxiously. “Scootaloo darling, could you please put that dreadful thing down. You don’t know where it’s been.”

Scootaloo glanced over to the older mare before looking back to the mascot head she was holding. “Aww… fine.” She frowned slightly while putting the cat back in its rightful place, which was fairly easy considering a sizable dust ring had formed on the box where it had been.

…Bless your soul…

Suddenly, a deep voice rang out around the rooms. The chilling disembodied voice immediately sent a chill through all who heard it, making them freeze up in fright.

“Did… anyone else hear that?” Spike asked nervously while looking around the room in a paranoid fashion.

“W-what was that?” Applebloom stammered while hiding behind one of the boxes in the prep room.

The group darted their heads around, but nothing could be seen except for the dark edges of the larger room. The voice didn’t seem to come from any specific direction. It was as if it came from directly inside the room they were in. Before they could wonder further about what the strange voice was, they heard scuffling coming from the left hallway.

“Guys, get over here!” Applejack whispered frantically to Spike and Silver Bell. The two briefly stared toward the darkened hallway with wide eyes before racing to get closer to the group.

As the young dragon scampered to get into the relative safety of the smaller prep room, the others lingered at the doorway for a moment and listened. Much to their horror, the scuffling noises got closer to them as a wave of coldness swept through the room.

Applejack and Rarity glanced to each other for a moment. Their nervous cringes made it clear that both of them wanted to hide. With a frantic nod of confirmation, they rushed into the small room with their friends and closed the door.

“Silver, turn off your light!” Rarity whispered frantically as the noise continued to get closer. By now it sounded more like frequent footsteps than random scuffling. The panicked unicorn did as instructed and let her horn dim. Rarity did the same before bracing herself up against the door and holding the handle along with Applejack.

“W-what’s out there?” Scootaloo asked hesitantly while poking her head out from around her fellow crusaders. In the darkness of the small room, looking at anything else was more fear inducing than any of the children could take.

“Ssshh… stay quiet.” Applejack hushed the group softly and remained facing toward them while propping herself against the door. She hoped that she could reassure the terrified kids, but she herself was scared out of her wits on the inside.

God…? …God….. God…?

The footsteps grew closer as the same voice from before echoed through the area. Once they reached the room outside, the footsteps stopped. Most of the ponies in the enclosed room were shaking with terror, while the others were frozen in anxious fright.

Silver Bell kept her eyes shut while covering her ears and clenching her teeth to prevent making noise. Still, her hushed yet frantic breathing mixed in with the others’ quiet noises of panic. Someone pressed against the door probably wouldn’t be able to hear them, but the noise from inside the room might as well have been a group of infants crying loudly as far as they were concerned.

Applejack and Rarity remained as still and silent as possible while holding the door closed. They eyed around the dark room, looking between their friends and each other and hoping to find something to keep themselves occupied and sane enough to keep relatively calm. The room outside was deathly quiet. The footsteps had stopped, and they couldn’t hear breathing of any sort except for their own.

A faint, stomach-churning odor started making its presence known. Rarity, Applejack, and Silver Bell all recognized the smell immediately. The room grew colder as a chill seemingly passed over them slowly. A pervasive feeling of dread was welling up inside everyone as their fear grew in intensity by the passing minute.

Suddenly, the door handle started to jostle. The unexpected movement nearly made Rarity squeal in fright, but somehow she swallowed her gasp and kept quiet.

I know you’re here… so, please help me out… please… I only ask for blessing…

The voice said in the same sort of gloomy monotone, though it was so unnaturally deep and distorted that it sounded like it belonged to some kind of demon. The ponies weren’t sure if its cryptic messages meant that it wasn’t entirely aware of its surroundings, or if it was just repeating random nonsense. Either way, they hoped that it wasn’t referring to them.

The jostling of the door handle grew more severe in spite of the two mares’ attempts at holding it still. Rarity and Applejack silently clenched their teeth from sheer stress as they put their all into keeping the handle from turning. Suddenly, however, the knob jerked and rotated all the way. The door was unlocked and nothing but their strength was keeping it shut now.

While the two ponies’ hearts skyrocketed and they silently accepted that they were going to die, the door remained closed despite the handle being twisted. Whatever was on the other side didn’t seem interested in opening the door itself.

After what seemed like an eternity, the doorknob released. Rarity and Applejack practically fell over from the slight movement from how much effort they were putting into keeping the door from opening. The sound of the footsteps returned, though this time they were moving back where they came from.

…God…? Where are you, god?

The voice echoed again, though this time it seemed to be getting quieter. The footsteps receded back toward the left, presumably taking the hallway out of the room. The ponies remained silent while listening to the noise getting fainter and fainter until they were left in silence again.

Applebloom let out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. The other crusaders and their dragon companion also let out sighs of relief, albeit quietly. The group decided to remain relatively quiet just in case the danger wasn’t entirely gone.

Waiting for a solid minute or two, Rarity finally looked over to get Applejack’s opinion on what to do. The orange mare gave a guarded nod, which the unicorn nodded understandingly to in return. After spending so long in the dark and cramped room, the white pony carefully lit up her horn and started opening the door.

Rarity slowly peered out of the crack in the door. The room outside was empty as far as she could see, though the ominously dark openings to the hallways still loomed at the edges of her light. Still half expecting whatever terrible creature had just been outside to return, she gradually opened the door the rest of the way and stepped outside.

The others lingered near the door as the unicorn swept the room like some sort of designated scapegoat. Applejack was the next to step outside, wanting to be closer to her friend to back her up if the need arose. Eventually, everyone filed out of the room and scanned the area for danger.

Rarity silently peered around the room, her body still trembling every now and again. Nothing but the darkness around her and the empty room was there. “I… I think it’s gone… whatever it was.” She stated, hoping that her disbelief in jinxes wouldn’t come back to bite her.

“What in the hay was that thing? I didn’t know ghosts could be that scary!” Scootaloo said with an appalled expression.

“Do you think it was that thing from upstairs?” Silver Bell asked while turning to Applejack and Rarity for their opinions.

“No… that thing sounded a little different. Besides, it seemed awful interested in staying in that room we found it in. I don’t think it would come down here… I hope.” Applejack said with guarded confidence.

“Well whatever it was, we should head in the opposite direction.” Sparkplug suggested while turning toward the right hallway. “Thankfully that won’t be hard considering we were going that way to begin with.”

“You still remember the map after all that?” Rarity asked with an impressed raise of the eyebrow. With how scared she was, she would be lucky to be able to spell her name right if someone handed her a piece of paper.

“I told you I had us covered. Also… there was another map back in there.” Sparkplug replied with a confident smirk. The white mare could only chuckle warmly while smiling back.

“Well then… lead the way navigator.” Rarity said while bowing lightheartedly.

Sparkplug chuckled to herself briefly before taking the lead once more. The group closely followed the gray mare as she walked down the right hallway. All the while they kept a close eye to their rear, fearful that the owner of the disturbing voice would return.

More tense minutes of walking through dark hallways and rooms followed. The group passed through a sort of lounge area for employees, along with a kitchen, though this one was smaller and decidedly less disgusting than the one on the first floor. While they scanned through the areas they found, they kept moving toward their eventual destination.

Sparkplug looked around her surroundings to find any points that identified where they were and where they were going. Thankfully, they were making good progress if she was interpreting the area and comparing it to the map correctly. “Hey, I think we’re almost there.” She announced while turning to face the group.

“Really? That’s good news.” Silver Bell smiled with a pleased expression at the prospect of something going according to plan.

Sparkplug smirked before furrowing her brow and thinking back to the map. “Yeah, I think it’s… just at the end of this hallway actually.”

“Glad to hear. Hopefully, we can find somethin’ useful in there.” Applejack said optimistically.

With their goal close by, the ponies started paying more attention to the doors they were passing. Out in the darkness beyond the light provided by the two unicorns, the group could just start to make out the end of the hallway. There was an intersection that split off into two more directions past one last set of rooms. One of the doors at the end must have been the workshop they were seeking.

Sparkplug, having a better idea of where she was going than most of the others, rushed ahead of the group slightly and eagerly slunk to a door on the right. While the others caught up to her, she looked up to a placard on the door that read “C. Swirl” and smiled.

“This is the place.” The gray mare announced while grabbing the handle. She gave it a twist, expecting it to pop open with ease, only to be met with stiff resistance and disappointment. “What the…? Aww, come on!” She kicked the door lightly with her front hoof and shrugged before turning to the others.

“Locked?” Rarity asked with a disappointed frown.

Sparkplug nodded while still getting a handle on her frustration, confirming what the group had already gathered. “I can’t believe what rotten luck we have! Shouldn’t it be a statistical impossibility for this many doors to be locked when we need to get through them?” The gray mare asked nobody in particular. The others offered her little more than a shoulder shrug and some sympathetic expressions.

“Alright… there’s got to be some way to get in there.” Applejack reasoned with a determined expression. “Sparkplug, do you remember anythin’ from the map that might help?” She turned to the gray pony optimistically.

Sparkplug looked down in deep thought and focused. “Uhh… I think… oh! There are some supply rooms nearby. They are right in this hall if I remember correctly. Maybe one of them has the keys?” She suggested, motioning toward the rooms around the group.

“Well… it’s our best shot at the moment. At any rate, it’s better than standing around doing nothing. Let’s search around and see what we can find.” Rarity said with a determined expression. The others nodded eagerly, ready to do whatever it took to help.

The group split off into two teams, one for each side of the hallway. Silver Bell and Rarity were designated team captains due to their horns being valuable sources of light. Sweetie Belle decided to stay with Rarity, along with Spike and Sparkplug. Meanwhile, Applejack and Applebloom grouped up with Silver Bell, with Scootaloo joining as well. Both teams decided to start near the workshop and work their way back down the hall until they found something of note or ran out of rooms.

Although they weren’t more than a few feet away and never left earshot at any point, the ponies felt a little nervous with searching through the rooms lining the hallway. Some rooms branched off into other rooms, and some rooms had openings into other hallways entirely. All of the rooms, however, were steeped in darkness and potential danger, making it doubly important for everyone to work together and stick close to each other.

Sweetie Belle glanced down the hallway at the other group. Through some circumstance, the others were roughly two rooms ahead of them. Applebloom and Scootaloo glanced back to her briefly before they followed the two older mares inside.

“Don’t dawdle, Sweetie Belle. I want you to stay close to us.” Rarity called from inside the room the filly was supposed to be in.

“Coming!” Sweetie Belle hurried inside, not wanting to disobey her sister or stay out in the dark by herself. As she entered the room and caught up with her group, she took a look around.

The room was another medium sized one, taking up the space of two smaller rooms. There was a dividing wall that split up the room into two halves, with one serving as a lounge area of sorts, and the other serving as a mini dining area. The lounge had only one piece of furniture, which was a dusty green couch in the center of the room facing away from the opening into the dining area. There were a few boxes and crates dotted around, some of which were open and filled with loosely organized items of random assortment. The dining area was partially concealed by the two sections of wall, making the corners impossible to see from this angle. From what could be seen, however, the filly could tell that there was a rectangular table with a few chairs dotted around it.

Sweetie Belle looked over to find her companions, only to see them taking in the room as well and deciding where to search. Rarity stood in the center of the room, providing light for the group and looking around the room from where she was.

“Go ahead and take a look around, everyone. Just be careful and give a yell if you find something… unsavory.” Rarity cautioned without trying to sound too intimidating. Despite the unicorn’s attempt at levity, the prospect of bumping into something else out in the dark corners of the room unnerved the two children slightly.

Sparkplug was already sifting through some of the boxes off toward the back of the lounge, while Rarity started searching the couch cushions. Spike stood off to the side, seemingly overwhelmed and unsure of where to start.

“Hey, Spike… want to search in there with me?” Sweetie Belle offered, motioning over toward the dining room. The room was lit up well enough, and it did seem to be safe.

Spike took a moment to look over toward the other area before answering. “Uh… sure.” He nodded.

Sweetie Belle adopted a more serious expression and nodded to her newly acquired partner. She crept toward the dining area before reaching the dividing wall. Spike and the young unicorn both slowly stepped over the threshold formed by the two walls and took a look around.

The dark corners that seemed so intimidating before were revealed to be empty. However, there was an end table tucked into the front right corner that looked like it had a drawer. There were also other boxes behind the table that were open, beckoning to be searched.

With a nod of confirmation, the pair spread out and each took a side of the room. Spike went to go investigate the open boxes, while Sweetie Belle went straight for the end table.

Sweetie Belle stepped around a chair that had been knocked over and walked up to the table. This area of the room was heavily shaded in shadows due to Rarity’s light being blocked. Although it was more than a little unnerving, the filly had already cleared the room with her dragon companion, and there were no other openings to worry about.

“Now let’s see what’s in here.” She muttered to herself curiously while grabbing the knob of the table’s drawer. Giving it a tug, the filly realized that the drawer was stuck. After a few moments of aggressively pulling on the small drawer, it finally popped open, nearly sending her falling backwards in the process.

With the sound of her dragon friend rummaging through boxes somewhere behind her to remind her that she wasn’t alone, Sweetie Belle shifted all of her attention forward. Much to her intrigue and excitement, she saw a silhouette sitting inside the drawer. Reaching inside and pulling out the small object, the unicorn tried to see what it was in the darkness.

“Huh?” Sweetie Belle tilted her head curiously while flipping the object over in her hooves. Judging from shape and size, and what little she could make out amid the shadows, the filly determined the object to be an old cassette tape. “What’s this doing here?”

“Find something?” Spike called out from behind her, much closer than she remembered him being just moments ago. The filly yelped slightly, nearly losing her balance and falling until she steadied herself with a little help from the surprised dragon.

“Don’t just jump out at a pony like that, Spike!” Sweetie Belle chastised the dragon with an upset frown.

“Sorry…” Spike winced sympathetically as he saw just how badly he startled the filly.

Sweetie Belle exhaled, taking a moment to calm herself down. “Anyway… I found a tape thing.” She said while holding out the tape for the dragon to see. “Too bad we don’t have anything to play it on…” She deflated slightly as she realized that her discovery was pointless without something to use it with.

Spike sighed while nodding slowly. “Yeah… that’s kind of a bummer. Oh well, at least we cleared the room. We should go back in there.” He suggested while motioning to the side. The filly glanced over to the lounge area and nodded in agreement. Even if they hadn’t found anything of use, they had searched the area like they were supposed to.

As the two children made their way back around the corner into the lounge, they saw Sparkplug and Rarity finishing up their searches as well. The pair frowned slightly as they noticed that the older mares had come up empty hooved just like they had.

“Oh good, you’re back.” Rarity said with a relieved tone as she saw the two kids walking back into the room. “Did you find anything?” She asked curiously, glancing down at the object held in her sister’s hoof with intrigue.

“Well… *Sigh* I found this in a drawer in there, but it doesn’t do us much good without a way to play it.” Sweetie Belle explained while holding up the cassette tape and wiggling it for show.

Sparkplug perked up slightly at the sight of the tape. “Here, let me see that.” She said while holding a hoof out expectantly.

“Huh…? What for?” Sweetie Belle asked with a confused expression, though she handed over the tape as requested.

The others watched curiously as the gray pony briefly examined the tape. Sparkplug quickly reached into one of the pockets on her coveralls and fished around for a moment before coming back out and holding up another small object. She was holding a tape recorder.

“What the… How did you get that?” Sweetie Belle asked, confused as ever but slightly amazed.

“I swiped it from the security room on the first floor before we ran out. I’m not the type to just leave something useful lying around.” Sparkplug explained with a smirk. With her companions offering her impressed and eager smiles, she loaded the tape into the recorder and hit rewind.

The high pitched sound of a tape being wound back rang out. Soon enough, the noise stopped and the recorder clicked, indicating that it was ready to play. Sparkplug quickly hit the play button and listened along with the others as the tape played out.

“*Krrzt* This is Hole Punch… it is currently Friday the seventh, and I am formally making a request for a reassignment.” The voice of a stallion played over the tape. Although the four didn’t recognize the voice, the name seemed familiar to two of them.

“Hole Punch…? Didn’t we find a note from a person with that name up in the museum?” Rarity asked curiously while looking up at Sparkplug. The gray mare nodded as she recalled the brief note.

“As of making this recording, I am part of the crew working down on the third floor. I… *Sigh* to put it simply, I really don’t like it down here. I’m not one to believe in ghost stories and rumors tossed around by some poor sleep deprived sap jumping at shadows, but there is some freaky stuff going on down here. Nearly everyone on the crew has heard or seen something… usually around the mascot workshops or the entrance to that cavern. I myself have had more experiences than I would like to admit… most of which I will probably be bringing up with a therapist sometime in the near future. I’ve already described in detail my utter disdain for that stupid rabbit suit. I wish they would hurry up and finish it already so they can jam it in some closet somewhere. I know for a fact I’ve heard that thing talking at night… it doesn’t help that the others know about it. And I know that the entrance to the cave is locked at all times, but people keep hearing noises coming from in there. Loose Screw actually asked me to go in there and check it out with him one night… heh… he wishes we were that good of friends. At any rate… I don’t care if anyone believes me or not. The bottom line is I want out of this madhouse. You can put me on the first or second floor, hay… you can even sit me in one of the tool rooms and let me babysit the tools all day. Whatever you do, I’m not staying another day in this place… and I am definitely not spending another night. You can fire me for all I care. *Krrzt*” The tape cut out, filling the room with silence once more.

The group looked at the tape recorder and pondered the message uneasily. Hearing someone describing ghostly events happening where they were wasn’t exactly comforting. For one of the construction workers to have been scared by what he experienced so much that he was willing to risk his job, the hauntings must have been bad back then, and they could only have gotten worse over time.

Sparkplug was the first to speak up. “*Sigh* Well, aside from making me feel worse about walking around here, I would say that didn’t help very much.” She said in a disheartened tone.

Sweetie Belle frowned slightly as her discovery got shot down. It wasn’t so much that the tape wasn’t useful that got to her, it was the fact that the tape had been their biggest find since they started their search.

Perhaps noticing the gloomy expressions around her, Rarity cleared her throat and spoke up. “I suppose we should get moving. I’m sure we’ll find something elsewhere.” She said optimistically, flashing a confident smile to brighten the mood.

“Yeah… there’s nothing else in here anyway.” Sparkplug noted while glancing around the room. They had already turned over the lounge area, and the white filly and her dragon companion had thoroughly searched the dining area.

The others got up and headed over to the door. Rarity opened it and ushered everyone out into the hallway. Once outside, they turned toward the next room they would be searching. However, they paused as they noticed Silver Bell’s group waiting for them.

“Are you guys done searching?” Rarity asked curiously.

Applejack smirked and walked closer to the four. “You could say that.” She said while holding up a small object for show. The others brightened up their faces as they saw that the orange mare was holding a keyring.

“You found the keys?” Sparkplug asked with an eager smile, to which the others nodded. “That’s great!” She cheered excitedly.

“How about we celebrate after we get into that workshop?” Applejack suggested with a slight chuckle.

With the keys in their possession, the group hurried back down the hall. They stopped toward the end of it and gathered around the workshop door. Applejack held up the keyring and started sifting through the keys to see which one would fit. While she was trying to unlock the door, the others were anticipating what they would find inside.

“I wonder if we’ll find some information on where the ghosts came from?” Scootaloo mused with an excited expression.

“I bet we’ll find some keys that will get us upstairs to the others.” Applebloom suggested confidently. Although the prospect of such a thing happening made the ponies smile slightly, they had more guarded assumptions with what they expected to find.

“Settle down girls. We’ll find out what’s inside soon enough.” Rarity said while getting the excited fillies under control.

Before the group could get the door open, however, they started to notice a change in the area around them. The air grew colder, and the darkness around them seemed more foreboding somehow. Despite how eager and excited they were for finding a way into the workshop, they felt uneasy and afraid all of a sudden for no discernable reason.

“Umm… is it just me or did it get really cold all of a sudden?” Sparkplug asked while rubbing her shoulders. As everyone looked around and noticed that they weren’t the only ones feeling uneasy, their concern only grew.

“Hey, does anyone else hear that?” Sweetie Belle asked nervously, hopeful that she wasn’t imagining things. The others fell silent for a moment and listened, only to widen their eyes as they heard what the filly heard. Muffled footsteps were coming from down the hallway.

They were sluggish and erratic, but they were definitely footsteps. It sounded like whoever was making them was stumbling or dragging their feet, and they were being painfully slow, but they were definitely getting closer.

All eyes were transfixed on the hallway now. The three fillies and Spike slowly backed up and huddled together behind the four older mares. Rarity and Sparkplug took a step forward while Silver Bell remained near Applejack, staring ahead nervously.

Although it was hard to make out, the ponies could start to see a shape moving in the distant darkness. They could hardly make it out, but it looked around the same height and shape as a pony.

“What on earth…” Rarity muttered anxiously while mentally preparing herself for the worst.

“Applejack, get that door open.” Sparkplug instructed uneasily. Whatever was coming their way, it wasn’t anything good.

“I’m workin’ on it… none of these dern keys fit.” Applejack replied with a frustrated tone. She hastily kept trying keys, hoping that the keyring they found wasn’t a dud.

Sparkplug strained her eyes while trying to discern what the dark silhouette was. She suddenly remembered the camera in her pocket and its night vision capabilities. After fishing around her pockets for a moment, she pulled the camera out and switched it on. As she flipped on the night vision and pointed it down the hallway, the sight that met her stunned her into silence.

“Wh… w-what the hay?!” Sparkplug exclaimed in a confused stupor. She looked up and down from her camera to the hallway frantically, her face growing paler with each passing second.

“Sparkplug, what’s wrong?” Rarity asked in a concerned tone while observing the panicking mare.

“That’s… that’s not… W-what is that?!” Sparkplug backed up a step and stared down the hallway with a terrified expression.

Now that the gray mare had their full attention, the others grew more fearful of the approaching figure. Rarity walked over to her companion and tried to calm her down. However, as she looked at the screen of the camera, she widened her eyes in shock as well.

There was a grainy green-tinted view of the hallway, which was to be expected from a night vision camera. What wasn’t to be expected however was the silhouette that was walking toward them. The ponies viewing the screen didn’t know how to process what they were seeing. There was a roughly pony-shaped mass of static where the figure should have been. Rarity thought that the camera was malfunctioning at first, but then she saw that the static was moving. It was like a perfect outline of dead pixels was fixed to wherever the strange figure was.

…Hey…

A deeply distorted, gruff, and chillingly familiar voice called from down the hall.

…Wanna see my head come off?

Suddenly, a pair of glowing yellow eyes opened up in the darkness, roughly where the group could see the head of the dark figure. Just glimpsing at the yellow orbs made Rarity’s head start ringing. There was no doubt in her mind now. This was the creature they had seen upstairs.

“Don’t look at it!” Rarity yelled urgently while stepping in front of the four children. Although they were terrified and confused, the three fillies and the dragon beside them did as instructed and looked away.

Rarity did her best to avert her eyes from looking at the silhouette. She managed to dart her head to the side and cover her face with a foreleg. As she searched for anywhere else to look, however, she noticed Sparkplug still staring ahead wide-eyed.

“Uh… g-gh…” Sparkplug was audibly and visibly distressed as she kept her shaking eyes locked on the mesmerizingly eerie yellow lights. She seemed to be trying to look away, but she seemed physically unable to move her head or close her eyes.

“Sparkplug!” Rarity called to the gray mare while reaching up and turning her head away. Sparkplug dropped her camera to the floor and loosely struggled in the unicorn’s grip.

Rarity gently shook the distressed pony while keeping her from looking elsewhere. “Sparkplug, snap out of it!” She pleaded, briefly glancing to the side to see how close the figure was getting.

A deep chuckle echoed from the hallway. The sound seemed to have no correlation to the distance between the creature and the ponies, being loud enough that it sounded like it was in their heads constantly.

Finally, the shadowy figure reached the edge of Rarity’s light. The group could start to make out blurry details of it, though it paused as its two front legs stepped into the light. The legs were yellow and looked like they belonged to a mascot suit judging from the paws on the floor. The entirety of the suit’s fabric was covered in a thin layer of the same black substance the ponies had found upstairs that spidered out in streams and lines. However, the telltale smell that normally accompanied the substance was seemingly overshadowed by another smell that the group couldn’t identify. Whatever it was, it smelled sour and rotten.

It seemed like the more of the creature that became visible, the more intense the feeling of fear became for the observers. Even though she wasn’t looking at the creature’s eyes anymore, Rarity started feeling dizzy and disoriented again.

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle cried in a terrified and shrill tone.

“Grab Sparkplug and get away from it!” Applejack suggested urgently.

…Too late…

The suited figure stated with a brief chuckle. However, it didn’t seem like it was referencing the ponies or anything they were saying.

Rarity and the others watched in abject horror as the pawed feet on the ground lifted up and out of the light. The yellow eyes disappeared as the silhouette reached for its own head area. The sound of fabric brushing up against itself filled the air as the suit grabbed at its head with clumsy, impatient movements. After a short pause, the sound of something tearing filled the air. The sound was organic, much more organic than the ponies could stomach. Suddenly, something plopped to the floor just inside of the light with a wet splat. Rarity shakily trailed her eyes down and recoiled as she saw some kind of curdled and thick yellow liquid on the ground.

A terrified scream filled the air as the tearing sound continued, though the ponies were unsure of which one of them was making it. Before the mortifying display could continue, a bright flash of blue light whizzed around them, completely engulfing the hallway and surging toward the suited figure.

The ponies heard a distorted yell of pain as the light died down. They looked ahead to see the image of the yellow suit stumbling backwards fading back into the darkness. Suddenly, they heard footsteps behind them.

“Everyone, this way!” A familiar voice called out to them. The group turned and noticed Glimmer Shine and Sunspot, along with Tom, standing at the end of the hall. The human was closer than the ponies were, and he started rushing over to them with his hand outstretched and his palm open.

“G-Glimmer Shine… Sunspot… Tom?!” Rarity stammered in a stunned voice while staring at the new arrivals wide-eyed.

Another distorted laugh filled the hallway as the shadowy figure stumbled forward. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but it seemed to have smoke or steam trailing off of its body. Despite whatever damage was caused to it, the creature kept moving forward in a slow and uncoordinated shuffle.

Tom got in between the ponies and the suited figure and held out his hand again, creating another brief blast of blue light. “Come on! Let’s go!” He exclaimed with a commanding tone while ushering everyone backwards. Rarity helped Sparkplug walk as she and the others headed toward Sunspot and Glimmer Shine, who were waving them over and directing them down the next hallway toward an intersection.

While the human kept pushing the mysterious yellow creature back with short bursts of his light, everyone else was distancing themselves from the area as fast as they could. Once they were a decent ways away, Tom started following them as they broke out into a run.

“Follow us! We’ll take you somewhere safe!” Sunspot said while pulling ahead of the pack of fleeing ponies.

While the group was fleeing, the still smoking mascot suit was left standing in darkness as their light faded and eventually vanished. It giggled to itself, purely because there was no one left to hear it, before turning and walking away at a slow pace.

Chapter 21: Near and Far

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Elsewhere, amid the eerie silence and dimly lit corridors and rooms of the third floor, Twilight Sparkle and her group of friends lingered by the stairwell, waiting for any news from Glimmer Shine and the others. Twilight sat on the outside of a loose circle that everyone had formed near the landing to the steps. The ponies talked to each other quietly, occasionally sparing a moment to dart their eyes down a darkened hallway, convinced they heard a noise or seen a flash of movement against the dull shadows.

Glitterball stood away from the group, keeping a near constant watchful eye on the two hallways and hoping to hear some sign of communication from her teammates. The white unicorn trailed her eyes down to a trail of black stained footprints leading down a hall. “*Sigh* I hope you guys aren’t in trouble… just hold out until Glimmer and the others find you.” She muttered with a quiet tone of concern.

“Hey Glitter, hear anything from them yet?” Rainbow Dash asked hopefully from behind the unicorn.

Glitterball glanced over her shoulder to see the group of ponies looking to her with guarded optimism. “Nothing yet I’m afraid.” She reported with a slight frown before turning back to her post. The others looked around uncomfortably, some turning to gloomier thoughts or sighing in a deflated manner.

Berry Swirl fidgeted her hooves together anxiously, trying to occupy her thoughts. “Oh… I just know they are in danger somehow. If any of them get hurt… it’s all my fault.” She frowned sadly while looking to the floor.

“Hey… lighten up.” Rainbow Dash said while putting a reassuring hoof on the purple mare’s shoulder.

Berry looked up, surprised to see the cyan mare with a relatively confident expression on her face. “You aren’t worried about them?” She asked hesitantly.

“Of course I’m worried about them… at least a little bit,” Rainbow admitted without wavering her reassuring expression. “But I know them better than you do. Applejack is one tough pony, and Rarity might not look like it, but she can hold her own. As long as they are together, they won’t let anything get in their way. I mean… you trust Sparkplug and Silver Bell’s abilities, don’t you?”

“I…” Berry paused for a moment before removing her frown and setting her mouth in a line. “I do… I trust them. I know that Sparkplug wouldn’t let anything happen to Silver Bell… or the kids.” She stated with a confident nod.

“Well, then there you have it. They’ll be fine… we just have to trust them to get back to us alright, and we have to trust Glimmer Shine and the others to find them in one piece.” Rainbow Dash explained with a resolute expression.

Berry smiled softly and nodded once more. Many of the others adopted confident expressions as well as they thought about how strong the missing ponies were. They knew that each of the four mares would fight valiantly to protect each other.

Suddenly, Glitterball heard a voice ring out in her ear. “Glitter… *Pant* we found them!” Sunspot reported excitedly, seemingly catching her breath from some strenuous activity.

“What?” Glitterball asked in a stunned tone with a smile building on her face. “Say that again?”

“We found them all. Applejack, Rarity, Sparkplug, Silver Bell, the kids… they’re all alright. We’re heading back to you right now.” Glimmer Shine explained in a clearer manner, though he sounded like he was running as well.

“R-right… right!” Glitterball nodded frantically, despite the fact that her teammates couldn’t see her. Her building smile turned into a wide grin as she dropped her hoof from her ear and turned to the others. “Guys, Glimmer and the others found them!” She reported eagerly. Everyone erupted into surprised gasps of joy and stunned smiles at the sudden news.

“What? You mean even Sparkplug and the kids?!” Twilight asked excitedly.

“Yes, all of them! They’re coming back this way as we speak.” Glitterball replied with a pleased expression.

Twilight, her three friends, and Berry Swirl’s group all started cheering in excitement. Pinkie Pie roped Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy into a hug, Copper Coil heartily patted Berry Swirl on the back, and everyone shared a collective feeling of relief and eager anticipation as they neared the moment when they would be reunited with their missing friends. It was almost hard for them to contain themselves and keep relatively quiet in consideration for their unknown surroundings, but they didn’t care. They were going to be together again for the first time since they started their journey into the depths of the resort.

Once the initial excitement had died down, everyone returned to waiting around in a circle and quietly talking to each other. However, now their spirits were lifted higher than ever as they had something to look forward to.

Twilight stared off into the distance as she focused on her thoughts. Her mind drifted to the young dragon and a soft smile crept across her face. She couldn’t wait to see Spike again and to embrace him and make him feel safe again. No matter where she was, as long as her number one assistant was with her everything seemed brighter and more cheerful. She also couldn’t wait to be reunited with her other two friends. The unicorn couldn’t imagine what it would be like if she lost one of her five best friends, so she was ecstatic to know that they were in safe hands and on their way back to the group.

A few minutes went by with nothing but silence around the ponies. No more animatronics made their presence known, and no ghostly noises or sights came from the darkness around them. Although they were thankful that nothing bad was happening, the suspense and anxiety in the air was still high.

Suddenly, Glitterball noticed a beam of light coming from down the hall. As the others turned their heads and watched the light getting closer, their faces lit up as they could make out the sight of Glimmer Shine and the others walking down the hallway. Behind the two ponies and their human companion, Applejack, Rarity, and all of the others were following closely.

“There they are!” Glitterball exclaimed excitedly, though most of the others had already noticed. The white mare flinched as a pink blur raced past her and down the hallway. She looked ahead to see Pinkie Pie bolting toward the group. As everyone saw the impatient pony going to greet the others, they started walking forward with eager expressions as well.

“GUUUYS!!” Pinkie cheered loudly while zipping down the corridor like a bat out of Tartarus.

Glimmer Shine and Sunspot saw the pink pony racing toward them at the speed of Pinkie. They each took a moment to process the situation before taking a single step to the side. Tom, who was still staring ahead in confusion, did not move out of the way in time as the pink mare ran past him to get at the others.

While the human nearly got blown off of his feet, Applejack and Rarity got sent to the floor as Pinkie figuratively and literally jumped them. The two ponies were now the recipients of one of the tightest hugs they had ever experienced, all without even signing up or saying a word.

“Oh my gosh I thought we were never going to see you again I was so worried I thought you were goners and I was so sad because I haven’t thrown you any parties lately and I thought I wouldn’t have another chance but now you’re here and I’m so GLAD!” Pinkie spoke frantically, barely pausing to take a breath. She buried her head into the two mares and squeezed them tightly.

“We’re… glad to see you too, darling.” Rarity croaked out with a smile, silently reaching toward the ceiling and trying to grasp something to free herself from her friend’s surprisingly powerful grip.

“Yeah… ya could say we’re… speechless…” Applejack wheezed while patting the pink mare on the back and gradually accepting her fate.

The cutie mark crusaders stood by and watched Pinkie embracing the two mares with hesitant expressions. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom weren’t sure if the pink pony was assaulting their sisters or hugging them, but they figured that it would be best to not intervene.

Spike glanced behind him to see the group of ponies approaching from down the hall and smiled brightly as he noticed a certain purple unicorn. “Twilight!” He exclaimed while rushing forward.

“Spike!” Twilight picked up her pace, pulling ahead of the group and meeting the dragon in the middle of the dark hallway. She knelt down and immediately pulled Spike close to her with her forelegs and buried her head into him.

While the unicorn and dragon were sharing a loving embrace, the others gradually caught up to the group. Everyone had bright smiles on their faces as they walked up to people they never thought they would see again.

Berry Swirl and High Tide gladly hugged Silver Bell, while Copper Coil did the same for Sparkplug. Rainbow Dash smirked softly as Scootaloo hugged her leg, giving the filly a pat on the head in return. Once they were done with their initial greetings, and Pinkie Pie was done nearly suffocating the pair, Twilight and the others gathered in front of Applejack and Rarity.

“Applebloom… I believe this is yours.” Twilight said while levitating the red ribbon over to its rightful owner. She smiled softly as the filly’s face lit up with joy.

“My bow!” Applebloom cheered while eagerly accepting the ribbon from the unicorn and tying it on her hair again. “Thanks for holdin’ onta’ it for me, Twilight.” She said with a grateful expression.

“It was no problem. That was awful clever of you to leave it there for us to find… I guess it runs in the family.” Twilight said while glancing over to Applejack and Rarity with a warm smile. “You know, you girls really had us worried for a while there.” She playfully chastised the two mares with a jesting tone.

“We were worried for you as well. I can’t believe you all came down here after us… you’re all simply too much.” Rarity had to take a moment to try and not cry tears of joy as she was finally reunited with her friends.

“We didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter… but even if we did, we still would have come and got you.” Fluttershy stated with a confident glance to the others, who all nodded in response.

“Aww… come here, guys!” Pinkie Pie said in a heartfelt tone while reaching forward and pulling all five of her best friends in for a hug. Applejack and Rarity were hesitant, but thankfully the pink mare was leaps and bounds more gentle with their fragile bodies.

The others left the six mares alone for a moment so they could quietly hug it out. After a few more minutes of everyone enjoying each other’s company, the group finally decided to head back to the stairs to discuss more serious matters of importance.

Twilight and the others gathered around Glimmer Shine and his three companions as they thought about what to do now that everyone was back together. They didn’t need to worry about missing friends anymore, so the only thing to focus on was the root of their problems. They had to get rid of the ghosts somehow.

Glitterball was the first to break the impatient silence. “So… now what?” She asked, hopeful that some of her teammates had suggestions.

“Well, we need to find a way to remove all of the ghosts… that’s fairly obvious. The question is how do we do that?” Glimmer Shine pondered out loud. He looked around his team, as well as the larger group of ponies, wondering if anyone would step forward with a suggestion while he thought.

“I might not be an expert in this kind of thing, but given the lack of information and options we have, maybe it would be a good idea to check out the source of the ghosts?” Sparkplug said, hoping that her idea had some merit and wouldn’t be immediately shot down.

“Do we even know where that is? Judging from the tapes we found upstairs, the paranormal activity seemed to start down here on the third floor, but that doesn’t get us very far.” Sunspot shrugged with a deflated expression.

Sweetie Belle chimed in from the back of the group. “What about that cave place we heard about on that tape I found?” She asked curiously. Though most of the group was clueless about what the filly was referring to, Sparkplug, Rarity, and Spike could appreciate her good idea.

“Huh? A cave?” Glitterball parroted the young unicorn with a confused expression.

“Actually, that might be it. Good work, kid.” Sparkplug said while briefly looking back to the young filly, who was smirking bashfully. “We found a tape down here talking about a cave somewhere. I think it’s from way back when the earthquake sank the amusement park underground. The construction crew found some stuff that they put into a museum up on the second floor, so that might be the closest thing we have to a source.” She explained.

“Yeah, I think I remember hearing something about that on the tapes upstairs. That would be a pretty good place to start.” Sunspot suggested while looking to her teammates to gather their opinion. The others were open to the idea. However, some people looked less enthused.

“Umm… I hate to ruin good plans darling, but if you’ll recall I believe that tape we found said that the entrance to that cave is locked at all times. And unfortunately… I don’t remember it mentioning where the keys were stored.” Rarity added with a slight frown.

Sparkplug deflated slightly. “Ugh… darn.” She groaned in frustration. The others were upset as well as they realized they had hit a massive roadblock in their plan.

While most of the ponies had given up on the idea of getting into the cave, Glimmer Shine didn’t seem to be defeated. “Well, that does put a wrinkle into things. But… maybe we can find those keys?” The yellow stallion suggested optimistically.

“Glimmer, that could take ages. At least with the keys upstairs, we had a lead to follow. Down here, we have nothing to go on.” Sunspot said with a shrug.

“I think he’s right,” Tom chimed in. “We need to get into that cave. It is the only solid lead we have on a possible angle on these ghosts. If we split up and search some key areas, maybe we can find the keys.” He added with a slight smirk, noting his unintentional wordplay.

“*Sigh*… alright, I’ll bite. Where would we even start?” Sunspot asked curiously. Although she didn’t like the idea very much, she did understand where her teammates’ logic came from.

Tom and Glimmer Shine walked over to the map on the wall. While they were looking around, some of the others stepped over and helped in the search.

“Let’s see here…” Glimmer Shine muttered to himself while trailing his eyes across the map and scanning the many rooms.

“There’s a storage room here.” Tom pointed out, referencing a relatively large shaped rectangle near the middle of the map on the left side.

“Looks pretty big… maybe it was used to store Animatronics or mascot suits?” Twilight suggested.

“It could have also been used to store other things… like keys, if we’re lucky. That’s a good start… What else?” Glimmer returned to his search while still leaving the discussion open for anyone to join in.

“Cotton Swirl had a personal workshop on this floor… up there.” Sparkplug said while pointing to the precise location on the map.

“Yeah, we were checkin’ it out when you found us. I think I left the keys there when we ran away from that thing.” Applejack added with a slightly disappointed expression. She couldn’t believe she just let such an important item slip from her mind; although, she was terrified beyond belief at the time.

Glimmer Shine nodded without turning away from the map. “Good thinking. I was wondering what you were doing over there.” He suddenly paused as he came across something of interest. “Aha… looks like there’s another security room down here as well.”

The others looked to where the yellow pony was pointing. Sure enough, there was a small room at the far left side of the map labeled “security” among some other staff rooms and mascot workshops.

“Seems like we’ve got enough to keep us busy for the moment… how about we group up and check these places before searching elsewhere?” Tom asked while turning to his companions for their input. After some delegation, Glimmer Shine, Sunspot, and Glitterball all nodded in agreement.

“Now all that leaves is for us to decide who goes where.” Sunspot stated blankly, turning to the others and hoping they had a better idea of how to split up teams than she did. Thankfully, Glimmer Shine seemed to know what he was doing.

A solid few minutes went by as the three ponies and their human companion talked with the others about what they were going to do. Twilight, her friends, and Berry Swirl and her staff all stood and talked about what they wanted. It was eventually decided that Glitterball would take a group down to the security room to search and that the group that went would stay there for safety reasons. Twilight and the others were asked to eventually go to the security room, but they declined. Now that they were getting down to business at hoof, they wanted to help with solving the ghost problem.

Finally, the teams had been decided. All of the children, along with Rarity, Berry Swirl, High Tide, and Copper Coil would go with Glitter to stay in the security room. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine would search the storage room. And lastly, Tom would take Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Applejack, and Sparkplug to go investigate the workshop.

The three groups stood close to each other and gathered before the three hallways that would separate them. They all looked determined to fulfill their part in making sure everyone made it home safely, and they were eager to finish what they had started. Still, there were some concerned expressions of doubt and nervousness among the group as they wondered if their friends would be safe.

“Are you guys sure about this?” Glitterball asked curiously, looking to Glimmer Shine and Sunspot with a hesitant expression. The pair would be by themselves as they searched.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. We’ll meet up with Tom and the others at the workshop after we clear out that storage room.” Glimmer Shine said with a confident tone and a reassuring expression.

Berry Swirl looked over to the gray mare going with the human’s group with a concerned frown. “Sparkplug… you know you don’t have to do this. You can just come to the security office with us.” She said with a pleading expression.

“Sorry Berry, but I’ve made up my mind. I want to help them.” Sparkplug replied with a steadfast attitude. Berry nodded understandingly in response. The purple mare and the others wanted to help as well, but Glimmer Shine insisted that they stay somewhere safe. The only reason the gray pony was going along was because she threatened to bite if they tried to force her to stay, and they took her word for it.

“Ok, everyone… listen up.” Tom spoke to get the others’ attention. “Let’s lay out some ground rules before we split off. If you see anything with yellow eyes, run the other way. There are a lot of inhuman spirits down here with us. Some of you don’t know what that means… but just know that it is bad. Aside from them, we shouldn’t have to worry about much else. If any ghosts are down here, they are most likely hiding away from the inhumans. Glitterball, your group should have a straight shot to the security room if you follow that hall. Just keep on your guard, and be cautious… and that goes double for you two.” He explained while pointing to Glimmer Shine and Sunspot. “We’ll meet up back here if something goes really wrong. Stay in contact, and stay out of trouble.”

As the human finished his pep talk, the ponies offered a stoic nod in response. Pinkie saluted as well, even though Tom was mostly addressing the other groups.

“Alright guys, let’s head out,” Glitterball stated while turning to walk down the hall with her troop. “Stay safe everyone.” She said, turning and glancing to the others as they departed as well. The groups all said their last messages of encouragement and goodbyes as they all walked away toward their destinations.

The rainbow-haired unicorn took the lead and walked down the leftmost hallway. The large line of ponies behind her gave her a sort of confidence that helped her quell any unease she might have felt. She was their leader, and she was going to protect them no matter what.

Rarity stayed toward the back of the group to give them light. Sweetie Belle opted to walk alongside her, and the other kids gravitated around the young unicorn simply because she was there. Berry Swirl and her three colleagues took up the middle of the group, trying to stay as close together as possible without crowding each other.

“Are you sure Twilight and the others will be alright?” Spike asked uneasily from beside the white mare. Rarity looked down to see the dragon with a concerned expression on his face, and she understood why.

“Don’t worry your pwecious little head, Spikey-Wikey.” Rarity paused for a moment and ruffled the dragon’s scaly hair before holding him by the cheeks and smooshing them together. Although Spike was slightly embarrassed to be forced into making such an odd expression in front of strangers, he wasn’t opposed to getting this much attention from the unicorn.

“But I-” Spike started to say something in a muffled garble until he was cut off again by the white mare.

“But nothing, darling... Twilight and the others have Tom to keep them safe. And besides, they can take care of themselves just fine if they braved the horrors of this wretched hovel just to come rescue us.” Rarity said in a confident and slightly impressed tone.

“It’s true… your friends are some of the bravest ponies I have ever met. They never once decided to run away and leave without you.” Berry Swirl added with a healthy amount of respect for the four mares.

“Yeah… they really are.” Spike said with a warm smile. He knew that nothing was going to get in any of the six mares’ way if one of their friends was in danger. He always admired that about them and felt honored to be part of their circle of friends.

With most of their concerns dealt with or at least alleviated, the group continued walking. The sparsely lit hallways around them kept quiet mostly, with only a few out of place noises that were most likely normal things taking advantage of their stressed nerves. And although everyone was expecting something to jump out at them from the shadows, nothing happened.

Finally, after several minutes of walking, Glitterball spotted the area where the security office was located up ahead. At the end of the hallway was another three-way intersection, and the white mare could see a door on the far wall that looked like it read “Security” in bold letters.

“Looks like we made it.” Glitterball said with a pleased smile. If she was being honest, she expected something to go horribly wrong, but thankfully it seemed like she was just being jumpy.

“Let’s hurry up and get inside.” Rarity suggested, eager to finally be free of the dark hallways and enter somewhere even remotely safe.

Sweetie Belle perked up eagerly as well. “Maybe we’ll find those keys inside?” She mused with a level of enthusiastic optimism that only a young child could produce.

“Only one way to find out.” Glitterball replied with a brief chuckle and a smirk. She admired the young unicorn’s hopeful outlook.

The ponies walked up to the door and gathered around it. Glitterball grabbed the handle and twisted, managing to turn it all the way. As the relieved unicorn opened up the door and everyone peered inside, they were met with another dimly lit small room.

There was a single chair sat in front of another bank of security monitors and a simple desk. The video feeds were on, revealing static-laden views of various cameras out on the floor they were on. There were sparse few decorations in the room, with only a single potted plant in the corner and a painting hanging on the wall. All in all, the room was standard fare, although the light was fainter than the group would have liked. Still, they would be safe here, and that was what mattered.

Everyone piled into the room and got as comfortable as they could. Although they weren’t exactly shoulder to shoulder, they didn’t have much room to roam around in. Copper Coil occupied the only chair in the room, taking a moment to fiddle with the security console. Berry Swirl, Silver Bell, and High Tide stayed near the brown stallion in a group. Rarity, the cutie mark crusaders, and Spike were left to stand around the right side of the room.

Glitterball closed the door and briefly examined it. There was a lock on it similar to the one in the first-floor security room. Thankfully, the vent in here seemed to be too small for anything to crawl through, or at least she hoped so.

“Well… I don’t think we’re going to find the keys in here.” High Tide stated while going through the last of the drawers in the desk. The stallion and his companions hadn’t found anything of note, and there weren’t any other places to search in the small room.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure the others will have better luck.” Glitterball said with a reassuring expression. “Speaking of which… I think I should get going. You guys should be safe in here.” She said while turning around to leave.

“Glitter, wait!” Berry Swirl called after the unicorn while walking over to her.

Glitterball paused and turned back. “What is it?” She asked curiously.

The purple mare smiled softly before looking down and trying to think of what to say. “I… I don’t know how I can possibly thank you and the others enough for helping us through this. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, things might be a lot worse for us than they are now.” Berry said with a grateful tone.

“Don’t mention it. We’re just doing our job.” Glitterball replied with a warm smile.

“If you’re going back out there… be careful, ok?” Berry said with a hint of friendly concern.

Rarity stepped forward to join the pair by the door. “Yes, please make sure you get back to us in one piece darling. And be sure to remind the others about that once you find them.” She added while putting a reassuring hoof on the white mare’s shoulder.

Glitterball smiled as she looked around and saw everyone looking her way with bright and confident expressions. “Thank you, I’ll be sure to do just that.” She said before turning and opening the door. As she stepped outside, she turned briefly to see Berry and Rarity waiting inside. “Just keep this door locked, and don’t open it for anything until we come and get you. You’ll be fine.” She added in a reassuring tone. The group inside nodded and waved as the unicorn closed the door.

Glitter sighed as she was left by herself. The dark hallways around her were a lot more foreboding now that she didn’t have anyone to talk to or any extra sets of eyes to look for danger. Still, she had to brave the unknown if she was going to reunite with her teammates. After brightening her horn and swallowing her fear, she started walking down the hall toward the distant workshop.

-Elsewhere-

Meanwhile, Sunspot and Glimmer Shine were still on their way to the storage room. The pair walked through the quiet halls, keeping their flashlights close in case they ran across a dark patch. Thus far, they had managed to get by using the dim lighting around them as they focused on reaching their goal.

Glimmer Shine glanced over to his pegasus companion and narrowed his expression. “So… you want to talk about that stunt you pulled upstairs?” He asked with an unimpressed tone. The stallion had put off discussing the orange mare’s brash actions due to more important things getting in the way, but now that they were alone he figured that this would be a good time to talk. His partner, however, did not agree with him.

“Really? You want to bring that up now?” Sunspot asked while rolling her eyes. “Did you just pair up with me to chew me out?” She retorted suspiciously.

Glimmer Shine shrugged quietly, having expected some resistance from the pegasus. “Not exactly… I don’t really plan these little chats of ours ahead of time. I would say I paired up with you because you’re a good person to have as a partner, but after what you did to get those keys, I’m not so sure anymore.” He said while trying to sound less disappointed than he felt.

“What do you want from me, Glimmer?” Sunspot asked while pausing and turning to face the stallion. “I already admitted that I screwed up… I thought the room was clear and I made a judgment call. You would have done the same thing if it meant reaching one of the others faster.”

“No… not when there were other people involved. You heard Tom explain how dangerous those spirit things are. That judgment call of yours could have gotten Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy killed too… not just you.” Glimmer Shine said with an aggravated tone before sighing and calming down slightly. “You’re right… I would have done the same thing, but only if there was no other way, and I was sure that I wasn’t putting someone else in danger.”

Sunspot scowled while looking to the side, though she was still listening. “Alright… I hear you. Next time I’ll be more careful.” She said with a forced tone of irritated calmness.

“If you keep being careless like how you’ve been recently, there might not be a next time, Sunspot. I’m not telling you this to be a hard flank. I’m worried for you… and Glitter is too. If anything happened to you, she would be heartbroken.” Glimmer Shine explained in a genuine tone of concern while softening up.

Sunspot softened her expression up as well and hid a smile. “And how about you? Would you be heartbroken if I was gone?” She asked in a semi-serious manner.

“Well… as much of a pain in the tail as you are, I’ve kind of grown attached to you. You’re like a sad unruly puppy I have to watch so it doesn’t run off into the wilderness.” Glimmer Shine replied with an impish smirk while starting to walk again.

“Hey, I take offense to that! You know darn good and well that I am more of a feisty kitten than an unruly puppy.” Sunspot replied with an impulsive chuckle and smirk.

The pair continued winding through another hallway until they suddenly reached an intersection. As Glimmer Shine peered around the two paths they had to take and thought back to the map, he paused abruptly as he noticed a double door marked “Storage” off to the left.

“Wow… I guess we’re here.” The stallion said with a surprised expression. He had expected to have to walk further to reach his destination, but apparently he overestimated the distances on the map.

“Thank Celestia for that. The less time spent walking around this place, the better.” Sunspot said while suppressing a shudder. Just standing in the sparsely lit corridors and looking into the surrounding rooms gave her goosebumps.

Being the designated leader, Glimmer Shine walked over to the doors and tried the handle. He had spent so long searching for keys that he was actually surprised to feel the knob turning all the way. With a brief glance and a nod of assurance from his partner, the yellow pony slowly and quietly opened the door.

It was dark inside. Any lightbulbs on the ceiling above had burned out long ago. The room was large, and the ceiling went on for what seemed like forever. There were numerous rows of metal shelves that stretched all the way across the room and nearly to the ceiling, making it resemble something one would find in a warehouse. Shining their flashlights around through the doorway revealed a few boxes and heaps of assorted metal scrap on the two shelves in their view.

Glimmer Shine and Sunspot cautiously stepped through the doors and let them softly close behind them. The sound echoed ever so slightly due to the size of the room and the many shelves. The more they shined their flashlights around, the more they started to not like the room ahead of them.

“Oh boy…” Sunspot muttered uneasily while looking around. While there were a few boxes and piles of scrap here and there, the majority of the space on the shelves was completely filled by animatronic parts and mascot suits, with a large number of completed animatronics dotted around.

Glimmer Shine walked toward the left wall while Sunspot took the right. They each shined their lights as far as they would go, barely catching a wall at the end of the beams. The shelves along the walls were shorter than the others, and there were a couple of work tables interspaced throughout. Through the empty spaces in-between and around some of the shelves, the ponies could see another smaller door set into the middle of the back wall. However, there were a lot of shelves in between them and there, and there were a lot of potential bodies for the ghosts to occupy.

Many of the animatronics seemed either damaged or incomplete, and a lot of them didn’t even have anything more than an endoskeleton. The mascot suits were mostly in pieces, with the heads and bodies of each suit stored above and below each other. There were, however, some complete suits lying lengthwise across some shelves, with some lying on top of each other like they were crammed in there and forgotten. The entire place was a neat freak’s worst nightmare.

“*Sigh*… I suppose it would have been too easy for the keys to be out in the open.” Glimmer Shine said with a deflated expression. “Keep your eyes open and start looking. I know Tom said that the ghosts were hiding from the inhuman spirits, but I don’t want to be caught with my hoof in the cookie jar if these things wake up.” He explained with a cautionary glance to the orange mare. Sunspot nodded understandingly before slowly walking down the rightmost row.

Only the soft echo of their hooves shuffling against the floor filled the air. The thick silence served them well for keeping an ear out for danger, but it was nearly suffocating. They each scanned their flashlights around, examining the contents of the shelves in more detail.

Sunspot paused before a miniature raccoon suit and cringed slightly. The purple rodent seemed to be designed to be placed over some kind of armature because a pony definitely couldn’t fit into the small humanoid shaped animal. The hollow eye sockets stared back at her blankly, and the toothy grin frozen on the mask’s face creeped her out to no end. She pushed aside her apprehension, and also the suit as she searched the pile of objects beside it.

“Ugh… how long has this stuff been sitting here?” Sunspot crinkled her face up in mild disgust while holding up a piece of pipe that was caked in dust and other such filth. The scrap bits of metal that the pipe was under settled onto the shelf with a slight rustle as the pegasus dropped it. “Having any luck over there?” She asked while glancing behind her. Although she couldn’t directly see her companion, she hoped he had already found the keys.

“If by any you mean none... There’s nothing but piles of junk and robot endoskeletons over here… which have been sitting in the junk for so long that they might as well be part of it.” Glimmer Shine called back with a revolted tone. The pegasus understood what he meant perfectly. Although the mascot suits were a little more organized and cleaner than the animatronics, even some of them had things piled on top of them. Whatever Cotton Swirl had intended for these suits and animatronics, they were most likely being discarded as trash or unused junk.

Glimmer Shine spoke up again. “Maybe we can find something in that room over there? If I remember the map correctly, it should be a smaller section of the storage room.”

Sunspot turned her attention off to the side. The door at the back of the room had another flashlight beam pointed at it, confirming that the yellow pony was referring to it. She could only hope that it was less cluttered than what she was currently seeing.

“Yeah, maybe you’re…” The pegasus trailed off suddenly as she saw something catching her light off to the side. She widened her eyes and smiled joyfully as she noticed a pegboard hanging on the right wall with a few sets of keys hanging on the pegs. “Hah! Glimmer, I think I just hit paydirt!” She exclaimed eagerly while rushing toward the board.

“Really…?” Glimmer Shine perked up as he heard the excitement in his partner’s voice. He quickly made his way around the shelves and over to the right side of the room where the orange mare was already examining the board on the wall.

The board was hanging above a work table that held various tools on top and some more junk endoskeletons underneath. The board itself was also full of hanging tools like screwdrivers and wrenches. Most of the tools were rusted, but they weren’t what caught the ponies’ eyes. There were also numerous keyrings dangling from different pegs, each one with various numbers of keys on them.

“Well, crud… First, we don’t have enough keys, and now we have too many. The universe must really hate us huh?” Sunspot asked rhetorically while turning to the stallion.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Sunspot. Let’s just focus on finding the right keys.” Glimmer Shine muttered while leaning in closer to see if he could differentiate the different sets of keys.

Thankfully for the pair of ponies, the keys did, in fact, have ways of identifying themselves. Each keyring had at least one key that had a faded rubber covering on it, each with different colors. The keyrings also had small strips of paper placed above them on the board, and although much of the writing was faded, they did seem to explain what the keys were used for.

Sunspot and her partner strained their eyes to make out the faded or smudged labels above the keys. One set was dedicated to hotel rooms on the floors above, while another was for staff rooms. Thus far, they hadn’t even seen anything pertaining to the floor they were on.

Suddenly, the orange mare read something that made her pause. “Hmm… I think I might have found it.” Sunspot reported while pointing to one of the keys near the top of the board. The label seemed to read “Third floor” but much of the text was hard to decipher.

Glimmer Shine looked to the keys in question and struggled to read the label. “What does that say? Third… floor?” He muttered before shrugging. “Well, it’s not exactly confirmation, but it’s the closest we’re going to get I think.”

“Sounds close enough to me.” Sunspot said while giving her flashlight to the stallion for him to hold. While her companion backed up to give her some lighting and some room, the pegasus stepped onto the table with one foreleg before balancing on her hind legs and stretching to reach the top of the board.

“Need some help there?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously while watching the orange pony trying to gain as much height as possible without falling over.

“No… hrk… I think I… almost got it.” Sunspot muttered while deep in focus. She could almost grasp the keys with the tip of her hoof if she only had a bit more reach.

Before the pegasus could reach the keys or try something else, however, a sound came from beneath her and something cold clamped around her back leg tightly. Sunspot yelped as she was pulled off balance by whatever had a hold of her.

“Sunspot!” Glimmer Shine caught the falling mare and helped break her fall as she was sent to the floor backwards. As both ponies huddled on the floor and looked ahead, they were stunned into shocked silence as they saw two red eyes staring back at them from under the table. The endoskeleton that was formally lying under there was now reaching out and firmly holding onto Sunspot with its metal fingers.

“Get off me you hunk of junk!” Sunspot yelled while using her free hind leg to give the endoskeleton a fierce kick to the head.

With a hollow crack, the animatronic’s head bent back and it let go as it was sent back under the table. Glimmer Shine helped the orange mare crawl backwards to gain some distance from the possessed robot.

The pair bumped into the shelves behind them and watched as the endoskeleton recovered from Sunspot’s kick. The broken torso bucked upwards in an attempt at getting out from the cramped space under the table. The force of the movement caused the table to jump up slightly, knocking into the pegboard above it and knocking it down from the wall. The board hit the table and started falling to the floor. The two ponies covered their heads as the board and everything on it came clattering down to the ground. Thankfully, nothing but some dust flung up from the floor managed to hit them.

“What the hay?! I thought Tom said the ghosts were hiding down here?” Sunspot quickly got to her feet and stepped to the side to get the endoskeleton back into her line of sight. She briefly tried to find the keys amid the chaos surrounding the board, but they were most likely underneath it.

Glimmer Shine stepped over to his teammate, all the while never breaking eye contact with the table. “I guess one of them was hiding in here.” He stated, still anxious about the potentially dangerous endoskeleton still in front of them.

The animatronic let out a faded and broken cry that sounded like the whine of a mechanical device shutting off. While the two ponies could see the endoskeleton starting to move the table and the board as it crawled, they also heard something else coming from behind them.

More distorted cries and the sound of metal scrap moving rang out all around the room. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine turned around and saw many red lights in the darkness, along with a lot of movement. Their faces paled as they realized what was happening. Several of the animatronics and mascot suits around them were waking up and climbing off of the shelves.

“Ok, scratch that last part… more than one!” Glimmer Shine exclaimed in an alarmed tone.

“We need to go, now!” Sunspot said in a panic while turning back to the board leaning against the table in front of her. She quickly tried to find the keys again, only to jump back as she saw the endoskeleton underneath swiping at her. She tried to move around it, only to be pulled toward the side by the yellow stallion.

“No time for that! We need to get out of here before they box us in!” Glimmer Shine said while running with the orange mare toward the entrance. Sunspot was frustrated that she had to leave the keys, but as she looked ahead, her eyes widened.

There was already a living mascot suit in their row, blocking their path. It was the purple raccoon that Sunspot noticed earlier, and it didn’t look any less eerie now that it was standing upright and staring at her with its hollow eyes. Toward the end of the shelves by the double doors, a quadrupedal endoskeleton was turning the corner as well, and there were many more animatronics on the way.

“Out of the way you little freak!” Sunspot pulled ahead and kicked out her foreleg as she reached the purple raccoon. The suit’s head flew off and rolled along the floor, and the body fell backwards as the ponies rushed by.

As they reached the pony-shaped endoskeleton, it opened its jaw and shrieked at them. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine ducked around the haunted hunk of metal as it lunged for them, completely ignoring it and making a break for the door.

“Get the door!” Glimmer Shine shouted urgently as he watched the orange pegasus rushing ahead. Thankfully she needed no confirmation as she raced over to the double doors and reached for one of the handles.

A loud snap erupted in front of her and a green shape bolted into view. Sunspot jerked her hoof back as she watched an animatronic slamming into the door and biting down on the handle, breaking it off. She was suddenly met face to snout with a five-foot tall cartoonish alligator. Its enormous jaw was chipped along the edge, one of its eyes was cracked, and its mouth was full of fake teeth that at one point in time were most likely blocky and dull, however they were now jagged and sharp. As it turned to face the two ponies, the animatronic let out a guttural growl that didn’t sound too far off from something a real alligator might produce.

“Uh… Glimmer, do we have a plan B?” Sunspot muttered, her eyes the size of pinpricks as she stared at the robotic predator standing in front of her.

Glimmer Shine looked off to the side, trying to find a way out. The only escape route he saw that didn’t involve going through their new toothy friend was the smaller closed off area on the other side of the room. “This way!” He said while grabbing his companion by the foreleg and pulling her along behind him down the center row of shelves.

The alligator snapped from behind them while giving chase, but it didn’t seem to be running. Even if it was, the two ponies were beating feet to get across the room as fast as they could before the rest of the animatronics reached them. They could hear them off to the sides, and even see them moving in the darkness outside of their flashlight beams. The pair’s hearts were practically ready to explode from how much they were panicking.

“Keep going! *Pant*… keep going!” Glimmer Shine egged the pegasus on from beside her, straining to catch his breath.

“I know!” Sunspot replied while ducking under an endoskeleton foreleg swinging at her from one of the shelves.

Past the few animatronics and suits dotted around their row, the pair could see the far end of the room getting closer and closer. The door ahead that would lead them to safety might as well have been miles away, despite the fact that they were halfway there already.

“AGH!” Glimmer Shine suddenly yelled in pain behind Sunspot. She skidded to a halt and turned around, only to gasp in shock.

Another humanoid animatronic had darted around one of the shelves and lashed out at the stallion. It was a pink vulture that stood taller than most of the other robots, mostly due to its long neck. The rigid white rings of feathers around its stringy neck were chipped or missing, and the neck itself was snapped at one of the joints further up. The robotic bird’s head was hanging upside-down beside its body as its neck dangled limply. One of its eyes was missing, and the other was loose in its socket. It had somehow managed to whip its neck around and used its metallic beak frame to peck at Glimmer Shine’s foreleg. The limb was bent backwards, and blood was dripping out of it, explaining why the yellow pony was in so much pain.

“*Gasp* Glimmer Shine!” Sunspot exclaimed while reaching a hoof out toward her companion.

The animatronic bird yanked its beak out from the stallion’s leg, causing a small spray of blood as it spun around to face the orange mare. Its head swayed before settling back into place beside its body. Its singular eye seemed to be little more than a painted ball inside of its head, but it still managed to stare right through her. The bird didn’t have long arms, having custom made stubby wings instead. However, even without limbs to grab her, the animatronic had already demonstrated how dangerous it was, with its bloodstained beak and the crippled stallion serving as a testament to its ability to harm others.

Sunspot backed up a step as the bird staggered closer. It didn’t move its beak or make a sound, but it looked like it had the intent to kill. Glimmer Shine was still clutching his injured leg, trying to get up from the floor to no avail. With the other animatronics still closing in, the pegasus had to do something fast.

Sunspot swallowed uneasily while turning around. “Here goes nothing.” She steeled herself before reeling in her back legs and shooting them out toward the vulture’s head. Her hooves connected with the dangling skull of the animatronic and sent it whipping backwards. The already broken joint of its neck snapped even further, causing the head to keep flying as some wires got torn out. The bird’s body fell backwards, and the head came to a sudden stop as the wire in its neck prevented it from totally disconnecting. With her foe lying motionless on the ground, the orange mare briefly celebrated before racing to her companion’s side.

“Gah… I think it might be broken.” Glimmer Shine reported through clenched teeth while accepting the concerned mare’s assistance with getting up.

Sunspot cringed as she saw how the stallion’s limb was bent. Although it wasn’t bleeding very badly, it looked like it would be impossible to walk on it. “Here, let me help you walk. We need to get moving!” She said while gently pulling Glimmer Shine along by the shoulder.

The pair moved as fast as they could, given their new handicap. Although the stallion was limping now, he was still moving fairly fast with the orange pony’s help. Soon enough, they reached the door, and not with much time to spare. They could already hear the animatronics in the room breathing down their necks and converging on them. With a silent prayer to anyone that might be listening, Sunspot flinched her eyes shut and grabbed the handle.

Much to their relief, the door flew open and they staggered inside. Glimmer Shine fell to the floor and Sunspot swiftly turned around. She slammed the door closed and locked it, being incredibly thankful that it even had a lock. With a startling bang, the animatronics outside rammed into the door, but it was holding with no signs of failure.

Sunspot let out a huge sigh of relief while falling to a seated position. She wiped the sweat from her brow and took a moment to calm her racing heart. For now, she was safe. However, the painful cringes of her companion made the pegasus shift her expression from a relieved smile to a concerned frown.

“Oh man…” Sunspot shook her head sympathetically as she saw Glimmer Shine examining his injury. “Yeah… I’m no expert, but even I can tell that is broken.” She stated in a concerned tone.

“I think I’ll live…” Glimmer Shine flinched in pain before looking up. “Where even are we?” He asked curiously while looking around.

Now that the subject was brought up, Sunspot looked around the room as well. “Don’t know… I guess this is just another storage room.” She said curiously while scanning her eyes around. The area was much smaller than the storage room outside, with only a couple of tables and filing cabinets up against the walls. There was a relieving lack of animatronics in this room. However, there was also something even more uplifting present. There was another door at the back wall.

Sunspot walked over to the door and tried the handle. It firmly resisted her attempts at turning it, causing her smile to vanish immediately. “Of course… this one had to be locked.” The orange mare sighed in frustration while stepping away and running a hoof down her forehead.

“Take it easy… we’re at least safe in here.” Glimmer Shine said optimistically.

“Yeah, for now… Who knows how long that door is going to hold out?” Sunspot asked rhetorically. “We need to find a way out of here.” She urged while looking around the room again.

Glimmer Shine shrugged while his partner checked the room. “I think we should call Tom and Glitter and see if they can help.” He suggested confidently.

“No… they would get here too late. And besides, how are they going to get us out of here exactly? There’s an army of those things out there… probably just waiting for an opportunity to kill something.” Sunspot muttered while blankly scanning around the room for a third time. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head as she laid eyes on something.

Glimmer Shine watched curiously as Sunspot walked over to the wall to the right of the door back into the storage room. The pegasus ignored the door, opting instead to climb onto the table against the wall and reach up toward the air vent cover close to the ceiling. The stallion narrowed his eyes uneasily as he realized that the vent was roughly pony sized.

“Sunspot… what are you doing?” Glimmer asked suspiciously. Sunspot ignored him and grabbed ahold of the loose looking vent cover. With a grunt of exertion, she pulled the cover off, nearly falling off the table in the process.

“Hear me out on this one, Glimmer.” Sunspot said while tossing the vent cover to the floor. “I can fit through here. This vent probably leads to the one on the other side of the door above the shelves. If I can get back in there, I can sneak around the animatronics, grab the keys, and head out the way we came. Then I can swing around here and unlock this door to let you out.” She explained, fully confident in her own ability and plan.

Glimmer Shine shook his head. “No way… That is way too dangerous.” He said in a firm tone.

“Really? You want to explain to me how waiting to get slaughtered like rats in a cage is any less dangerous? There’s no way for us to deal with that many animatronics… and there is absolutely no way you are getting back through that room with that leg the way it is.” Sunspot explained bluntly while pointing to the stallion’s limb.

Glimmer Shine stifled a cringe while glancing down to his broken foreleg. He tried to move it and put weight on it, but it only resulted in shooting pains through the leg. “Ok, you’ve got a fair point there, but there’s got to be another way besides you risking your life out there.”

“Glimmer… I can do this, and you know I can do this. Stop treating me like I’m a kid!” Sunspot said with an aggravated tone.

“Maybe I wouldn’t treat you like a kid if you didn’t rush off into danger every five seconds!” Glimmer Shine replied, raising his voice as well. “Think about it, Sunspot. There are at least a hundred things that could go wrong and get you killed if you go out there. The doors might be blocked, or the animatronics might catch you, or the keys might not even work… if you can even find them!”

“I remember what color they were. They had a yellow marker on them… I just need to get over there and snatch them. It would take like a minute to get in and get out.” Sunspot explained, stubborn as ever.

“I said no, Sunspot, and I meant it. I’m calling the others for help… just sit down and let me get us out of here.” Glimmer Shine instructed bluntly before turning away and putting a hoof up to his ear.

Sunspot screamed internally, letting a little of her frustration escape as she kicked the wall. She was fed up with the stallion preventing her from taking action and treating her like a rookie. As she slowly got off of the table and started to walk away, she suddenly paused and looked back. She glanced over to the stallion for a moment before looking to the air vent and shifting her expression to a more serious one.

Glimmer Shine started to concentrate on his other teammates so he could communicate with them until he heard a sudden noise beside him. He turned his head just in time to see Sunspot running up to the table and jumping on it before climbing her way into the air vent.

“Sunspot, what in Equestria are you doing?!” Glimmer Shine yelled after the pegasus, but to no avail. She wriggled her body into the opening of the duct and rushed inside and out of sight. Glimmer tried to get up and go after her, but his leg immediately gave out and he nearly fell to the floor.

Cringing and pushing himself up, the stallion put a hoof up to his ear frantically. “Sunspot, you get back here right now! I swear I am going to kill you if those robots don’t beat me to it!” He said in a demanding tone. Nothing but silence greeted him on the other end of the communication spell. Either the pegasus was busy, or she was ignoring him, and he was willing to wager that it was both in this case.

Glimmer Shine could hear Sunspot removing the vent cover on the other side. The animatronics hadn’t made any drastically different noises, so they had apparently not noticed her yet. The yellow pony heard the pegasus hop down from the vent, seemingly onto a shelf. After a few other faint sounds of her making her way around, she went quiet.

Glimmer Shine sweated bullets as he stared at the door and listened. He was certain that he would hear the sound of the pegasus being eviscerated and her blood-curdling screams soon. He could only pray that she would be safe somehow.

“I’m almost to the board… They’re all still gathered by the door, I don’t think they’ve noticed me yet.” Sunspot suddenly whispered in his ear through the communication spell. The stallion was vastly relieved to hear her voice, and even more so to hear that she was still doing ok.

“Just get to the entrance and get out of here, Sunspot. Don’t push your luck by trying to find those keys.” Glimmer Shine said in a hushed tone of concern. Although she didn’t respond, he somehow knew the orange mare wasn’t going to follow his instructions.

The stallion limped over to the door and put an ear up to it. He could still hear the animatronics’ metallic bodies moving around, but he couldn’t hear much else, let alone any signs of the pegasus. Still, he kept listening, hoping to be able to distinguish a noise that would let him know of his friend’s progress.

Time ticked by at a painfully slow crawl. Glimmer Shine knew that Sunspot would most likely be moving slowly, but the tension was killing him. He had to shake the thoughts of the pegasus already being dead out of his mind. She was out there somewhere, or at least he hoped she was.

“Ok… I’m with the keys. I just need to find the right ones now.” Sunspot reported quietly. Glimmer Shine heard a soft sound bleeding through the call, most likely the orange mare lifting up the pegboard to search underneath it.

For the first time since the pegasus left through the vent, Glimmer felt good about her chances of success. She was at the halfway point, and now it was just a short race to the finish. If she hadn’t been noticed by now, she would be in the clear once she found the keys.

“I think… yes… yes!” Sunspot had to contain her excitement as she cheered quietly. “I found them! I found the keys!”

“That’s great Sunspot, you did an amazing job! Now hightail it out of there!” Glimmer Shine said with an impressed smirk. He couldn’t believe that she actually pulled it off.

“Wait… what was that n-” Sunspot’s voice trailed off abruptly. Before the stallion could ask what was wrong, a loud scream of terror erupted from the storage room. It was the orange pegasus.

“Sunspot…?! Sunspot?!” Glimmer Shine called after the mare to no avail. The sudden clamor of the many animatronics outside shrieking and running off made the yellow pony’s heart plummet.

A loud noise rang out as something fell. More animatronic cries and metallic feet pounding against the floor followed. Another clang sounded out, followed by another noise indicating a shelf falling. Soon enough, the animatronic footsteps slowed, but their cries and shrieks still pierced the air in the distance.

“Sunspot, say something! Are you alright?!” Glimmer Shine demanded while looking to the floor with wide eyes. His blood ran cold in his veins and his heart raced as the silence went on. There were only a few reasons why the animatronics would have stopped chasing the pegasus, and he didn’t want to accept the obvious answer.

After what seemed like an eternity, a panicked and exhausted voice finally spoke up in his head. “I’m… *Pant* I’m ok… I’m ok.” Sunspot said while catching her breath. “I made it out… That alligator thing broke off the other door handle. They can’t open the doors from their side. Sit tight. I’m coming around to get you out of that deathtrap.”

Glimmer Shine let out a painfully intense sigh of relief as he slid to the floor. He let his hoof drop from his ear and leaned his head back against the door. After taking a moment to calm his racing heart, he slowly got up and started making his way over to the other door.

A minute or so went by as the pegasus walked around the hallways outside trying to find the door from her end. Soon enough, Glimmer Shine heard footsteps rushing closer from behind the door.

“I’m here, Glimmer. Just give me a minute to find out which key unlocks this thing.” Sunspot’s muffled voice carried through the door, followed by the sound of her trying keys on the lock.

Glimmer Shine waited impatiently, still processing what had just happened. The more he thought about the orange mare’s death-defying escape, the more upset he became. She had completely undermined his instructions just because she didn’t like his plan better than hers. And although he was immensely happy that she had survived, he was getting angrier by the minute as the pegasus worked on unlocking the door.

Sunspot exclaimed cheerfully as one of the keys fit. “Aha, got it!” She opened the door with a pleased smirk on her face, revealing the stallion staring blankly at her. “Never fear, the cavalry is here.” She remarked with a playful chuckle while bowing and motioning for the yellow pony to step outside. Glimmer Shine merely kept staring back at her with unimpressed eyes.

“Are… are you insane?!” Glimmer Shine said with a stunned tone. The orange mare’s smile immediately vanished.

“You’re kidding, right? I just saved your tail, and this is how you thank me?” Sunspot asked while looking to the stallion in disbelief. He ignored her remark and limped past her while muttering to himself in thought. The yellow pony paused in the hallway and turned back to face her with a dumbfounded expression.

“I don’t get it, Sunspot… I really don’t. Help me to understand your thought process here.” Glimmer Shine said while falling to a seated position and throwing his good foreleg up.

Sunspot groaned while shaking her head. “You know what? I don’t need you to understand me. I just saved both of us, and got the keys we need.” She said while holding the keys up and jingling them in a condescending fashion.

“By going into an enclosed space full of killer haunted robots? Absurdity of that last statement aside, are you suicidal Sunspot? Do we need to have your head examined when we get back? Because after pulling something like that, I’m convinced you either have a death wish, or you’re crazy!” Glimmer Shine raised his voice slightly, more so out of shock than anger.

“Don’t call me crazy, Glimmer,” Sunspot yelled back, mirroring the stallion’s volume. “I’m the only one on this team aside from Tom that isn’t afraid to get things done, and he isn’t even technically on the team!” She threw her hooves up and shook her head. At this point, their tempers were flaring so high that neither of the two cared for how much noise they were making.

“Tom can heal himself after doing something really stupid! And if you think you’re as indestructible as he is, maybe you should rethink being on this team at all! I’m not going to be the one to tell your family that you died.” Glimmer Shine lowered his voice slightly, though he still had a harsh tone.

“Well then maybe I should leave this stupid team. I’m not going to waste my time being put on a leash because my leader thinks I can’t take care of myself!” Sunspot glared at the yellow stallion and gently shoved him. “Between you criticizing me on every move I make, and telling me to stop considering things just because of a little danger, this team hasn’t been functional since Pepper and the others died!” She yelled. As the pegasus finished getting her words out, she immediately regretted her statement as she realized what she was saying.

Glimmer Shine paused with a stunned expression and drew back slightly. He had to take a moment to think of what to say, but nothing came out as his mouth hung open silently.

“O-oh my gosh… Glimmer, I… I’m so sorry. I… I didn’t mean to say that.” Sunspot said in a quiet and apologetically sad tone.

The yellow stallion kept staring back at her, his eyes shakily looking her over while deep in thought. He looked to the side briefly, trying to hide any sadness or other emotions that might have bubbled to the surface. Still, he couldn’t manage to produce any expression other than stunned shock.

Glimmer Shine opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off by another voice ringing out in both their heads. “Hey guys, come over to the workshop quick! We think we might have found a way to beat the ghosts!” Tom’s voice spoke in an excited tone, though it did not have the desired effect on the two ponies.

Glimmer Shine exhaled silently and stiffened up his expression as best he could. “We’ll talk about this later… we’ve got a job to do.” He said in a hollow tone before turning around and starting to walk away. Although he was limping from his injury, he didn’t seem at all interested in receiving help from the orange pegasus.

Sunspot lingered in the hallway, staring at the stallion with saddened eyes. She reached out to him and opened her mouth, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. She wasn’t sure if she could say anything. As much as she wanted to take back her words, the damage had been done. Finally, she got up and followed the yellow pony while hanging her head regretfully. She hoped that the human was right and the crisis with the ghosts was almost over because right now she desperately wanted this night to end.

Chapter 22: The Joy of Creation

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-Earlier-

Twilight and her friends followed Tom as he led them across the floor toward the workshop used by Cotton Swirl. The purple mare stayed in the middle of the group, providing light for them while the human used his flashlight to scan the area ahead.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stayed near the front of the line, just behind Tom. The cyan pegasus seemed confident as ever and relatively unfazed by her surroundings, but her yellow companion was showing signs of nervousness.

Sparkplug lingered toward the back of the group, with Pinkie Pie and Applejack a little ahead of her. While the orange mare and her pink friend were having a conversation, seemingly about suggestions for a party that Pinkie was already planning, the gray pony silently followed along.

Twilight glanced behind her every once in a while, partially to make sure her friends were still following her, and partially to satisfy her paranoia. She had been nervous ever since she arrived in the lobby of the abandoned resort upstairs, but somehow this floor seemed different. She felt more unnerved and uneasy, though she couldn’t find any obvious reason for this. However, she did have some troublesome thoughts that could have been contributing to her already tense nerves.

“Hey, Tom…” Twilight spoke ahead to the human at the front of the group.

Tom glanced to the purple mare amid the ponies behind him before turning back to the hallway ahead. “What’s up?” He asked curiously.

“What are inhuman spirits? I heard the others mention you ran into one up on the first floor.” Twilight said with a sense of morbid curiosity.

Tom shrugged hesitantly before replying. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about what they are. Nobody really knows anything about where they come from. The best consensus the paranormal community had on them is that they were never alive in the first place. They just… reside in the ghost realm.” He explained, though it seemed as though he was just as unnerved by the strange creatures as the ponies were.

“Hey, was that thing you saved us from one of them spirit things?” Applejack spoke up from the back of the group, having gained an interest in the conversation.

“Definitely… it had all of the tell-tale signs of an inhuman. They have yellow eyes. They usually have deeply distorted demonic-sounding voices. And if anything is able to produce the amount of ectoplasm we’ve been seeing, an inhuman spirit would definitely be my prime suspect.” Tom said while recalling the animatronic colt he found upstairs. Both the animatronic pony and the yellow mascot suit were covered liberally in the inky black substance.

Rainbow Dash cringed uneasily as she pictured something capable of gaining the feared respect of a monster slayer. “Yikes… these things sound pretty bad.”

“They sound pretty scary…” Fluttershy added, trying her best not to paint an image in her head that would terrify her.

“You don’t know the half of it. That thing almost scrambled my brain just by me looking at it… ugh.” Sparkplug shuddered slightly as she recalled the experience.

“You alright, Sparkplug? That thing did get you pretty good.” Applejack asked with a concerned tone.

“I’m fine… I just get goosebumps whenever I think about it. The memory is a little fuzzy, though… I don’t even really know what all happened between when that thing showed up and we started running.” Sparkplug replied with a confused expression as she struggled to think back to the encounter. Not only did it make her feel uneasy to think about it, but a large portion of what happened was obscured and distorted behind a hazy mess.

“That doesn’t surprise me. Inhuman spirits can affect your mind if you’re within a certain distance of them… and especially if you make eye contact. You’re lucky it took it easy on you.” Tom stated with a solemn tone of concern in his voice.

Sparkplug scoffed lightly upon hearing the human’s statement. “Easy? If that’s what you call easy, I would hate to find out what else it can do. That thing threw me for a loop… and I didn’t even get a good look at it.”

Tom remained silent with a grim expression on his face. “Trust me… you don’t want to know.” He said while shaking his head. The ponies quietly gulped as they wondered what the human was thinking of. It must have been really bad if he refused to even describe it to them.

“Ok, so… making eye contact is a no, no. Other than that, what do we do if we run into one?” Twilight asked with an uneasy, yet curious expression. As disturbing as the subject was, she wanted to know as much as possible about a possible threat that she might face.

“If you’re by yourself, you run the other way and you don’t stop running until you’re sure it isn’t following you. I’ll figure something out if we run into one. I’m really hoping the one we saved you two from isn’t still hanging around that workshop. They are really difficult to deal with due to how unpredictable and strong they can be.” Tom said while glancing back to Applejack and Sparkplug. The two mares looked at each other and nodded in agreement. They never wanted to see that yellow creature again. They could still hear it laughing to itself as the human blasted it with his positive light.

Sparkplug paused suddenly and looked around her. Things were starting to look very familiar. “Hold up guys. I think we’re getting close to where we were.” She announced.

Applejack and the others looked around curiously, though only the orange mare and the human knew what to look for. Sure enough, they were incredibly close to the hallway that held the workshop. In fact, it was right around the corner up ahead.

Tom took a moment and let out a puff of blue mist while looking around suspiciously. “I think we’re clear. Even if the readings I’m getting are still messed up, I would be able to tell if we were close to an inhuman spirit. I’m pretty sure that yellow freak is gone.” He reported in a relieved tone. The others let out a sigh of relief as some of the weight of their anxiety was lifted.

The group walked down the hall and hesitated near the corner of the intersection. After Tom inspected the area down the next corridor, they all stepped around the wall and looked ahead. Almost immediately, they noticed the remnants of when Applejack and Rarity’s group had been there.

Sparkplug’s camera was still sitting on the floor where she had dropped it. A few feet ahead of the camera, there were black-stained paw prints the size of a pony. The goopy tracks approached from down the hallway before stopping, going backwards in a clumsy pattern, and turning to walk away. Most importantly, however, they saw a set of keys sitting on the ground near a door on their left.

“Good… the keys are still here.” Applejack said with a pleased smile.

The ponies gathered by the door as Tom picked up the keys and started trying them on the lock. While they were waiting, everyone turned and watched the perimeter for any signs of movement.

Sparkplug walked over to her fallen camera and knelt down to pick it up. She looked it over and frowned as she noticed a crack on the screen. “Ah… dangit, it’s busted.” She sighed and folded the screen back into its compartment. No matter how many times she pushed the on button, the device wouldn’t come to life.

“Better a camera than you.” Rainbow Dash said while offering the gray mare a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“You’ve got a point there.” Sparkplug smirked before shifting her expression to a frown briefly. “Still… I kinda wish it didn’t break. This thing got us through some pretty dark patches… literally.” She shrugged while tucking the camera away into her coveralls. “Maybe I can fix it after we get done down here.”

“Here’s hoping that happens soon. How’s the door coming along, Tom?” Twilight asked curiously, looking to the human as he continued trying keys on the door with a blank expression of annoyance.

“Are you guys sure these are the right keys?” Tom asked curiously without looking up from his task. No matter how many keys he tried, none of them were even fitting into the lock, let alone unlocking the door.

Applejack cringed nervously as she watched the human struggling. “I sure hope so. We found em’ in one of the supply rooms ‘round here. They were the only set we could find.” She said while silently hoping that she and the others hadn’t searched around for nothing.

The ponies’ hopes gradually fell as they watched Tom exhaust almost all of the keys on the ring. They slowly started to accept that they had run into another dead end, when suddenly the sound of metal clicking into a tight space softly came from the door, followed by the human exclaiming in excitement.

“Ha!” Tom cheered as he turned the key in the lock. “Of course it would be the very last one I check… Oh well, we’re in!” He quickly opened the door and took a look at what was inside. The ponies followed their human friend inside the room, all the while looking around and taking in their surroundings.

The room was one of the most well-lit rooms they had come across on this floor, though it was still dark enough to cast deep shadows in the corners and under tables. Speaking of tables, there weren’t that many, certainly not enough to qualify this as a workshop. The only tables that could be used to work on were one up against the left wall, and another at the back. There were, however, a couple of desks and even a filing cabinet present.

The most identifiable feature of the room and the first thing the ponies noticed upon entering was a cork board adorning the back wall. The board was chock full of various newspaper articles, bits of notes, and pictures, all pinned to it with safety pins and connected to each other through a series of red threads that crossed all over the place and formed a web that was more than a little daunting at first glance.

“Woah…” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow in surprise while looking around the room. Judging from some empty takeout containers strewn around and a makeshift bed made out of a sleeping bag and a pillow, it looked like someone had been using the room as a space for living rather than working, or perhaps it was both.

“Looks like Berry’s grandfather spent a lot of time down here working on something… but what was it?” Twilight asked rhetorically, her eyes fixed on the cork board while deep in thought. While her friends searched the rest of the room, she approached the board and examined it with Tom, trying to figure out what it all meant. The many newspapers hung on the board were almost as ancient looking as the place they were located in. Many of them were black and white, and nearly all of them were faded to some degree. Twilight struggled to read them until she came across one that she actually recognized. “Hey… I’ve seen that one before.” The purple mare said while pointing up at one of the papers.

Tom glanced over at the paper with an intrigued expression. The paper was about a string of kidnappings happening in and around Canterlot, and it was dated seventy years ago. “Really… where?” He asked curiously.

“In my first vision… it was on a table, and Cotton Swirl and his father were talking about it before they walked into the room I was in.” Twilight explained, curious as to the connection between the newspapers and what was going on.

“Wait… Hold on a minute. Did you say your first vision?” Applejack tilted her head in confusion.

Twilight shrugged. “It’s a long story A.J… basically one of the ghosts of the children keeps showing me things by giving me these weird dreams.” She explained with a drained expression. Although her brief covering of the topic shed some light on the issue, the orange mare was still confused as ever.

“Kidnapped children? Oh, my goodness…” Fluttershy shrank back from the board as she read off the titles to some of the newspapers. The mere notion of such a terrible thing happening to innocent children unsettled her deeply.

“Hmm… well, it looks like Cotton Swirl was looking into the kidnappings. All of these papers have to do with the three kids that went missing in Fun Land, and even some other cases elsewhere… dating back before the park closed.” Tom said while skimming over the titles of the many newspapers and notes. “Hey Twilight, didn’t you see one of the kids being taken in your second vision?” He asked curiously, thinking back to the brief explanation the jilted unicorn had given him before they went down to the third floor.

“Right… Ugh, I can’t remember her name. My memory of the vision is starting to get blurry… I should have told you more about it after I woke up.” Twilight frowned regretfully while looking down.

“Was it Glistening Gold by any chance?” Tom asked.

Twilight raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Yeah… that sounds familiar. How did you know?” She asked in a confused tone. The human merely pointed up to the board in response. Twilight looked at the paper he was referencing and read it off as best she could. “Third victim in amusement park tragedy? Glistening Gold to join the ranks of children missing in the wake of a string of kidnapping cases.” She squinted her eyes, partially to read the faded print, and partially to focus her thoughts. The article went on to describe what the authorities at the time believed to be a series of connected kidnappings that had gone unsolved. Judging from the date, it was written some time after the park had closed due to the earthquake.

“Hey guys, check this out.” Sparkplug called from off to the side. Twilight and the others examining the board looked over to see the gray mare looking through one of the desks with Pinkie Pie.

“What is it, Sparkplug? Did you find something?” Twilight asked, hiding the eager intrigue in her voice. She walked over to the desk and looked to a small notebook the gray pony had clutched in her hoof. Sparkplug let the unicorn lift the book out of her hooves so she could levitate it over to herself and read it aloud.

“Hmm…” Twilight muttered curiously while skimming through the contents of the notebook. “It looks like a journal… it must belong to Berry’s grandfather.” She said, noting the signature at the end of each entry.

“Well, don’t just keep us waiting, Twi… go on and read it!” Rainbow Dash suggested impatiently, eager to hear the contents of the journal. Twilight glanced behind her to see her friends crowding around her, waiting for her to dispense the knowledge to them.

Twilight rolled her eyes and shrugged before flipping to the earliest passage and reading it. “April fourth, Wednesday, six thirty PM… It’s over. I never thought I would live to see the day, but it’s gone. The entire park has been destroyed in last night’s earthquake. In all our years living here, neither my dad nor I have seen a quake this big and destructive. I walked through the rubble with my father, and he nearly cried. I don’t blame him. So much had been going wrong so quickly… first, it was the missing children, and now this. They are still searching the grounds and making a headcount, but it doesn’t seem like anyone was caught in the park at the time. Of course, nobody should have even been in the park so late at night, but still… best to be thorough. I’m not sure what we’re going to do now, but I sincerely hope that this string of bad luck doesn’t follow us into our next endeavor.”

“Poor thing… it must have been awful for him and his father back then.” Fluttershy said with a saddened expression.

“At least he didn’t give up. We wouldn’t be standing here if he did.” Sparkplug said lightheartedly. Though, the others weren’t sure if it was a good thing that they were standing where they currently were, especially considering that they were several feet underground with ghosts lurking around every corner.

Twilight continued going through the journal. Finding the next few entries to be mundane and devoid of anything useful, she skimmed over them until she paused at something that caught her eye. “April seventh, three twenty-three PM… That new hire of ours, Dream Catcher, is still missing. There were no signs of him at what’s left of the park. The royal guard has started to think that he may be a suspect… princess forbid that should turn out to be true. Whoever it is, I know that the person who kidnapped the children from the park is the same one responsible for all the other abductions… I just know it. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find any evidence supporting this hunch. The park was swept clean of evidence even before it sank beneath the ground. Ah well… that’s what I get for playing the part of a detective. I need to have a talk with dad about what we’re going to do next… Perhaps a career change might be in order after all.” She finished the passage before skipping ahead again, feverish for more information. After turning the page, however, she was surprised to see that the date was twenty years later than the previous entry. “Wow… he didn’t write again for a whole twenty years.” Twilight said with a surprised expression.

“Maybe he didn’t feel like it?” Pinkie suggested, though the others weren’t so keen on her idea.

“No… that doesn’t make much sense. If he stopped writing for twenty years, he probably lost interest or started writing somewhere else… which means that something must have happened to get him writing in this journal again.” Sparkplug inferred, staring eagerly at the purple mare and motioning for her to continue.

Twilight cleared her throat before reading again. “*Ahem*… January third, five fifteen PM… I just finished another expedition down in the cavern. I ran out of paper to document my findings, so this dusty old book will have to do. We haven’t made any more progress with item reclamation since we dug up those three mascot suits last week. However, there has been a bit of a setback. The foreman of the construction crew went with me on my latest excursion. I lost track of him for a few minutes as he went off on his own. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem seeing as most of the cave has been explored and mapped out, but apparently, he found something that gave him a terrible fright because the next thing I know he comes screaming out of the cave like Nightmare Moon herself were chasing after him. Now he’s gone and taken his whole crew with him and left. I tried to talk to him and get him to change his mind, but he is dead set on never returning to the site… he wouldn’t explain to me what he saw that would drive him to make such a drastic decision either. I’ll have to get a new construction crew if I want this place finished… and I’ll have to be more careful with who I take into that cave with me until I can find what I’m looking for. I know something is down there that will shed some light on those kidnappings… but I’m not even sure if I know what I’m looking for anymore. It’s been so long. Oh well, I’ve come this far… I have to keep going. On the plus side, it’s rather easy to hide my reasoning for digging around in that old cave. We keep finding the motherlode of buried bits and bobs from the old park. The revenue that museum I’m building upstairs will net us alone will get us back in the green. I certainly hope so… my passion projects haven’t been faring too well. I had to sell two more animatronics I couldn’t get working. Thankfully my father knows some other people in the entertainment business willing to buy some scrap mechanical puppets for parts.” She trailed off as she finished the passage, already thinking about previous parts of it.

“Sounds like we had the right idea… Whatever caused all of this mess seems to be in that cave.” Applejack chimed in curiously.

“Given the date of this entry… you’re probably right. This is the earliest documented case we have of something paranormal happening here. Don’t ghosts extend their range of influence out from their initial point of manifestation as they gain power?” Twilight asked, turning to the human for his insight.

Tom nodded with an impressed expression. “That’s right… Have you been reading those books we found at the mansion?” He asked, eliciting an awkward chuckle from the purple mare.

“Hehe… I uh… I dabbled… a little bit.” Twilight admitted with a sheepish smile. While the human had no context to put her response in, her friends looked at her with unimpressed expressions.

“Still, that doesn’t explain why there are so many ghosts here or even multiple inhuman spirits. Three kidnappings is a terrible thing… but it isn’t enough to cause all of this trouble.” Tom thought out loud with a perplexed expression. “I just feel like we’re missing something.” He walked back over to the wall of newspapers, hoping to find something new.

Twilight started to read through the journal again, but something stopped her. She stared ahead blankly as a familiar buzzing filled her head. All at once, she realized what was happening and tried to put the journal down and get to a better position to pass out in. Unfortunately, she was already starting to feel dizzy and numb. “Ngh… Here we go… again…”

The others turned and looked at the unicorn with concerned expressions as she abruptly dropped the journal back onto the table and stumbled backwards. Applejack caught the purple mare as she fell to a seated position and nearly kept going. “Twilight, are you ok?!” The earth pony asked while struggling to keep her friend upright.

“Relax, Applejack, she’s fine. She’s just having another vision.” Tom said while kneeling down in front of the pair and taking note of what was happening. “Twilight, can you hear me?” He asked curiously as he watched the unicorn drifting out of consciousness.

Twilight could barely hear her friends anymore. The world in front of her was disappearing into a blurry haze. She was familiar with the experience by now, but that didn’t make it any less jarring. She felt herself being lowered to the floor, most likely by the orange mare cradling her in her forelegs. As she struggled to keep her eyes open, Twilight could see the faces of her friends looking down at her with uncertain expressions of concern. Finally, the drowsiness she was feeling overpowered her and she drifted into blackness.

Twilight sluggishly opened her eyes again, only to be greeted by darkness. Her senses were still returning to her, so she assumed that she was somehow still asleep. However, as she felt and heard wind softly hitting her body, and cold grass beneath her, she realized that she wasn’t in a dark void as she originally thought.

“Huh?” She muttered, still shaking the drowsiness from herself as she sat up. She realized that she had been laying on her back, staring up into the night sky. She was outdoors, seemingly in a grassy clearing. However, as she drew her eyes in front of her, she saw the distant shape of a Ferris wheel just over a hill.

“I guess that means I’m at the park again… somewhere.” Twilight said while looking around curiously.

The area was dark, only being lit by the moon in the inky black sky above. She couldn’t see any stars, however, almost like the sky was an unnatural void that only held the lunar orb as a source of light for the world below. The clearing she was in felt eerie and empty, similar to what she felt toward the end of her previous vision. The wind was blowing, rustling some distant trees and whipping through the grass. There was a chain-link fence in the distance to her left that continued behind her and out of sight. And as she got up and turned around, the unicorn was met with the sight of a building.

Twilight was surprised to find that the clearing she was in was far less vacant than she first assumed. The building was the only sign of civilization in sight aside from the fence and the distant Ferris wheel. It was small, more closely resembling a shed than a full-fledged building. It also looked fairly old and run down, almost like it was untouched by the dream and its ability to bring the past back to life.

The door had a large padlock on it, and it looked as though it would have been rickety if it weren’t for the lock holding it in place. The wooden walls were faded and warped, with many holes and cracks that let the wind into the shed. The roof wasn’t entirely intact, having several sections that were bent out of shape or broken. However, despite how rundown it appeared, it didn’t seem like there was any way inside the structure without finding a key for the door.

“Is this… that old shed Candy Swirl was talking about?” Twilight thought out loud with a curious expression. She slowly approached the building, looking it over and trying to find a possible way in. On a whim, she knocked on the side of the wall, vaguely hoping to pass through it like she did to the people in these visions. Unfortunately for her, as far as buildings were concerned she was solid. “Darn… there’s got to be a way inside.” She distantly stared at the wall, trying to think of something to do. If she had woken up here instead of inside the main park, then surely this was where she needed to be.

Suddenly, she heard a noise coming from behind her. As she turned around, she briefly jumped as she saw the startling sight of someone in a Freddy mascot suit approaching the shed. The pony in the suit was carrying another mascot suit on its back. The two suits were chillingly familiar to the unicorn watching from the sidelines. It was the same golden Freddy costume that she saw before, along with the Bonnie suit from the end of her previous vision.

“You must be the kidnapper… no… murderer.” Twilight narrowed her eyes and glared at the person in the suit, though they couldn’t see or hear her.

The golden Freddy slowly walked toward the back of the shed, ferrying the Bonnie suit with it. The purple rabbit seemed to be hollow and empty, but Twilight wasn’t so sure about that. Curious to see what the ghosts obviously wanted her to see, she followed the suited pony around the back of the building.

As Twilight turned the corner, she saw the Freddy suit standing idly around the back of the building, with the Bonnie suit leaning against the wall on the ground. The yellow bear looked around in a paranoid fashion, making sure the area was clear. However, it had no way of knowing that it was indeed being watched. Twilight was glad that her ethereal nature in this world was starting to pay off.

After ensuring that they weren’t being spied on by prying eyes, the suited pony turned and faced the seemingly solid wall in front of them. However, as they reached forward and lifted one of the pieces of wooden paneling, it came loose and pulled free of the building, revealing the darkness waiting inside. The Freddy suit grabbed the Bonnie suit and dragged it inside before closing the secret entrance it had made. Twilight made sure to pass through before they had a chance to close the door in her face.

As her mysterious companion carried the Bonnie suit further into the room, they seemed perfectly content in the darkness. Twilight lit up her horn and took a look around, thankful that her light was just as invisible as she was to the pony in the suit.

The shed was unsurprisingly small, consisting of only four walls, a floor, and a ceiling with little else inside. There was a table up against the right wall directly in front of Twilight. The suited pony lifted up the Bonnie suit and placed it on this vacant table. There was another table in the room off to the left, but it already had something on top of it. What appeared to be another mascot suit was sitting in pieces on the other table. It was yellow and resembled a rabbit, not unlike the purple Bonnie suit. However, it looked heavier and older than any of the other mascots the unicorn had seen.

“What is this…?” Twilight muttered while inspecting the yellow rabbit closer. She tilted her head in confusion as she noticed that there were metal components inside the sections of the suit. However, they were tightly compressed to the sides of the suit somehow, leaving just enough room for a pony to fit inside, albeit uncomfortably. “Is this that mechanical puppet Cotton was working on?” She asked nobody in particular.

Hearing noise behind her, she turned around and saw the suited pony standing in front of the Bonnie Suit on the table. As she hesitantly got closer and watched, the pony started removing the head off of the rabbit’s suit. After a brief struggle, the head came off and Freddy set it aside.

Twilight peered inside the hollow suit and widened her eyes in shock as she confirmed what she already suspected. The lifeless corpse of Glistening Gold was sitting inside the chest cavity of the suit, much like she was the previous time the purple mare had seen her. However, there were no glowing lights in her eyes or disembodied voices this time. The white filly was dead, and whoever killed her was now removing her body from the suit.

Twilight felt sick and appalled as she watched the pony in the yellow suit laying the filly down on the table like she was some kind of doll. After a moment, Freddy stepped back and started pulling his own head off. The unicorn watched anxiously, waiting to be able to put a face to the horrible atrocities she had witnessed.

“Ah… that’s much better.” The pony exclaimed as he finally got the head off and gasped for air. Twilight immediately recognized him. The stallion had dark orange fur and black hair that he kept short. It was Dream Catcher, the newest employee at Fun Land.

“It’s you… I knew it.” Twilight muttered angrily. She had suspected the orange pony to be the one behind the kidnappings. Ever since she saw him in her first vision, she knew that something wasn’t right about him.

Dream Catcher set the Freddy head down on the table, removed his paw gloves, and got to work. He produced a knife and a piece of thick string from a toolbox he kept under the table before walking up to the lifeless filly. He stroked her hair and put a hoof on her face, admiring his sick work for himself. The unicorn watching felt her skin crawl. If she were able, she would wrap her hooves around his neck and strangle him herself for even touching the filly after what he did.

“This place is getting to be more trouble than it’s worth…” Dream Catcher muttered to himself while grabbing a lock of the filly’s golden hair. “After I get rid of you… I think I’ll be moving on to greener pastures.” He chuckled heartily before bringing the knife up and cutting off a piece of her hair.

Twilight watched with a morbid and disgusted sense of curiosity as the stallion looked at the lock of hair like he was admiring a fish he just caught. With the same care and diligence a trained professional might use, he folded the lock of hair up and started wrapping the piece of string around it tightly. After tying a small knot into the string, the orange pony was left with a neat little bundle.

Dream Catcher reached into his suit, digging around near his neck. He pulled out a small pouch he kept on a string necklace and set it down on the table. The pouch looked like it was full of something. Much to the observing mare’s horror, he opened the pouch up and stuffed the lock of hair inside, adding it to the already immense collection of other locks of hair he had.

Twilight’s face paled as she looked at all the different bits of hair inside the pouch. Each one was wrapped up with string, and each one looked like it belonged to a different pony. “H-how… how many?” She asked while looking back up to the sadistic stallion. He had a contented smile on his face as he tied the pouch up again and set it down on the table.

“Alright, kiddo… let’s take you somewhere more private and get you all warmed up… you’re cold as ice… heh.” The stallion chuckled to himself while putting on his mask and gloved feet again. He grabbed the filly and draped her over his back, steadying her and walking out of the back entrance again.

“You’re sick…” The purple mare shook her head slowly with a disturbed expression on her face.

Twilight tried to follow him, but she suddenly felt her body seize up and go numb. She struggled to move forward before taking a step back and looking down at her hooves with a confused expression. She had never been restricted from moving around in her visions before.

“Maybe there’s still something here that I’m supposed to see?” She wondered out loud. Now that she had made it clear that she wasn’t going to leave, she tried moving around again. Thankfully, her body allowed her to move, and she was able to walk around the shed.

Suddenly, the world went black again, but only briefly. Twilight found herself standing in the exact same spot she had been in before, albeit now with a confused expression. As she looked around, expecting something to have changed, she saw everything in the exact same spot it was in just moments ago. However, something was different after all.

Through one of the holes in the ceiling, Twilight could see the moon up in the sky. It was higher than it had been before, indicating the passage of at least a few hours. It had gotten colder as well, and the wind outside had died down a little bit.

Why is it later now? Twilight wondered while staring up at the sky through the many holes in the ceiling. There still weren’t any stars out, or anything else to make it seem like she wasn’t staring up into an empty void, not that the sky wasn’t technically an empty void to begin with.

As she stared up while deep in thought, a sudden noise made the unicorn dart her head around in alarm. A series of muffled, high-pitched whispers were carrying through the room. There were many voices, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. However, she could tell that the voices were most likely children.

Twilight widened her eyes fearfully as she saw the Bonnie suit’s paw move slightly. A low growl emanated from the general direction of the suit before falling silent. Although it might have been the newly intense moonlight shining in through the roof, the purple mare could almost swear that she could see two silver lights inside of the rabbit’s hollow eye sockets.

Backing up slowly, Twilight did her best to distance herself from the Bonnie suit. If this was anything like the end of her previous vision, then she wouldn’t like what was about to happen. She bumped into the other table, nearly jumping out of her skin as she turned and saw the empty head of the yellow rabbit next to her. She turned back to the Bonnie suit, only to see it still sitting on the table, its leg still swaying back and forth from being moved slightly.

All at once, the whispers ceased as the loose board at the back of the shed opened up once more. Twilight turned and saw the yellow Freddy suit walking back inside. She almost couldn’t believe that she was glad to see Dream Catcher return.

Dream Catcher sighed drowsily while taking off the bulky bear costume. He leaned the suit up against the wall and stood in front of the table. “Gonna’ need to put this rabbit back where I found it.” He droned in an annoyed tone.

A single voice from the choir of whispers before returned, uttering a brief incoherent statement before falling silent again. Twilight noticed the orange stallion darting his head around in a panic. He heard it too.

“Who’s there?!” Dream Catcher demanded angrily while still scanning the room. He looked right past Twilight, eyeing the area with an anxious expression. The purple unicorn was doing the same thing, making sure to keep a close eye on the stallion in case something happened she was meant to see.

Suddenly, a soft glow started coming from the small pouch the stallion had left on the table. It was faint, but Twilight could definitely see a silverish light emanating from the bag of hair. Dream Catcher seemed to be unable to see this phenomenon as he frantically grabbed the pouch and put it around his neck again, still searching the area for movement.

As the stallion backed into the center of the room, a childish giggle echoed through the shed. Dream Catcher seemed to hear this voice as well because now he was outright scared, most likely of being found than anything else.

“Damnit… who the hay is out there at this time of night?” Dream Catcher muttered quietly while trying to peer out of the cracks in the walls to see outside.

Unbeknownst to the orange stallion, a wisp of light suddenly shot out from the pouch around his neck. Twilight watched as the luminescent orb flew into the empty Bonnie suit. Several more of the glowing lights followed suit, each flying directly into the rabbit costume lying on the table.

The silver dots from before appeared in Bonnie’s eyes, shining more intensely than ever before. Twilight watched in abject horror as the rabbit suit started moving again. The costume’s head slowly slid toward its body, connecting with it and moving as the whole suit started to get up.

As a distorted groan came from the suit, Dream Catcher spun his head around and finally saw it. He froze in place, eyes wide as dinner plates, and his jaw hung open in shocked disbelief.

“W…w-what the…!” Dream Catcher stammered while taking a few steps back, or at least trying to. He suddenly found that he was unable to move for some unknown reason; Unknown to him at least.

Twilight could see that several more of the colorful wisps had shot out from the pouch around his neck. The orbs of light zipped around his body until they were each hovering near one of his limbs. They seemed to be holding him down forcefully. The unicorn wasn’t sure if this was actually the case, or if this was just a visual representation meant to explain to her what was happening.

“My legs… I can’t… move…” Dream Catcher struggled to make his body respond to his commands, but he seemed too numb to do anything other than stare ahead fearfully.

The bonnie suit flopped to the ground and got to its feet, using slow and clumsy movements. The possessed rabbit marched toward the helpless stallion, staring at him with its piercing eyes. Twilight nervously stepped aside and watched as the mascot walked up to Dream Catcher and stared down at him.

“N-no… get away… get away from me!” Dream Catcher yelled, a terrified look in his eyes. He suddenly regained the use of his legs, only to have the Bonnie suit reach up and grasp his throat. The stallion croaked out a series of distressed noises while groping at the mascot’s foreleg. Despite the hollow sound of the material, the suit didn’t seem to be responding to his attempts at freeing himself.

The Bonnie suit silently dragged the struggling pony toward the back of the room. It threw him down in front of the table, hard. As Dream Catcher hit his head and looked up in a daze, he saw a yellow rabbit head falling into his lap.

“Huh…? No… wait, what are you… No! Stop!” Dream Catcher pleaded, but his cries fell on deaf ears.

Twilight watched like a passive spectator as the purple rabbit forcibly jammed the pieces of the yellow suit onto the stallion. It seemed like no matter how hard he struggled, Dream Catcher was unable to do anything to stop what was happening. Even if the Bonnie suit wasn’t able to manipulate his body that well, it seemed like an invisible force was also assisting with making him put the suit on.

Once the stallion was completely dressed up in the cramped suit, Bonnie stepped back and fell to the floor, almost like he had never been alive in the first place. Twilight saw the glowing lights disappear completely, leaving only her and a very jilted Dream Catcher in the shed.

“W-what in the name of Celestia just happened?” Dream Catcher muttered while presumably still staring at the Bonnie suit in terror. The yellow rabbit actually had plastic eyes, with tiny holes in them for the performer to see out of, so it was hard for Twilight to see what he was looking at.

…Look away…

A familiar voice whispered in her ear suddenly, making Twilight jump. As she darted her head around, she realized that nothing was around her. Even the costumed stallion didn’t seem to hear the distorted voice. “Glistening Gold?” The unicorn called softly, recognizing the filly’s voice.

Dream Catcher started to get up from the floor, taking a moment to maneuver in the cramped and bulky suit. The sound of metal creaking came from inside the suit’s parts. Before Twilight could even think to heed the suggestion given to her, all hell broke loose.

*SNAP*

“GAHHHHHH!!”

A bone-crunching crack filled the air as something metal snapped inside the suit. Twilight felt her surprised gasp die in her throat as she stared ahead with shaking eyes. Dream Catcher was screaming violently in pain as his right foreleg trembled. There was blood leaking out all around the outside of the suit where the appendage was, indicating that whatever had broken, it had happened inside the leg while the stallion was inside. Dream Catcher fell to the floor and screamed again in agony, trying to clutch his injured leg to his chest, but he was unable to move it.

*CRACK*

Another sickening pop happened abruptly, sending streams of blood gushing out of the suit’s other foreleg. The stallion on the ground could hardly move as his broken limbs twitched and he writhed in pain. A pool of blood was steadily starting to form underneath him.

“H-help me! Someone he-AGHH!” Dream Catcher’s desperate pleas were cut off as two more sections of the suit snapped from within. Now all of his legs were bleeding profusely, most likely broken beyond repair from the metal components meshing into them.

Twilight backed away slowly, unable to turn away from the gruesome scene playing out before her. She never thought that she would feel remorse for the orange pony, but nobody deserved this. She would have even helped him if she somehow could, but right now all she could do was bear witness. She tried to steady her trembling body and calm her rapid breathing, but she was physically disturbed and horrified as she listened to another sickening crunch. The metal parts in the lower half of the suit had broken. It seemed like the more the stallion tried to move around, the worse he made it for himself.

Dream Catcher screamed one more time at the top of his lungs when suddenly, his cry was drowned out by another snap. The stallion’s yells shifted to painful gurgles as he started choking on his own blood. His lungs were most likely punctured, along with most of his other internal organs.

Tears started streaming down the purple mare’s face as she watched the pitiful creature on the floor twitching. Somehow, the stallion was still taking in labored breaths and making garbled noises of distress, though he sounded like he was on the verge of death. Against all of the pain he was undoubtedly going through, he reached one of his forelegs out and brushed it clumsily against the ground, trying to push himself up in vain. The sound of metal creaking returned, though this time it was coming from the yellow suit’s mask.

*CRACK*

Twilight clenched her eyes shut and shielded her face while turning away from the pony on the floor as one final snap rang out. Dream Catcher wasn’t making any more sounds. There were only the sounds of the unicorn’s strained breathing and blood leaking out onto the floor to be heard. Despite every fiber in her body telling her not to, Twilight slowly opened her eyes and looked ahead.

“O-oh… oh, sweet Celestia.” Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof and fell back onto her haunches. Her body felt weak, and she thought she might vomit or even pass out entirely.

The yellow rabbit costume was lying on the ground in a puddle of blood from the stallion inside. It wasn’t moving anymore, and its limbs were stiff, most likely from the metal parts locking them in place wherever they were when the suit broke. The smell of copper was so thick that the purple mare could taste it, which wasn’t surprising given how much blood there was. The crimson fluid was pouring out of every joint and crack in the suit, even the two small holes in the eyes.

Twilight wasn’t sure what to think as she stared ahead with watery eyes and heavy breathing. A part of her was glad that the orange pony had received some form of punishment for his atrocious crimes, but was this fair? No… this wasn’t justice, this was cruel. Nobody should have to suffer like this, not even murderers.

A sob started forming in the back of her throat. She wasn’t crying because she felt sorry for the stallion, even if she really did to some degree. The unicorn was crying because of the sheer brutality she had just witnessed. She wished that she had taken the ghostly filly’s advice and turned away when she had the chance. Hearing the stallion dying would have been bad, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as horrible as watching it happen.

Just as she started to think that the vision was over, the whispering from before came back. The voices grew louder and louder, and soon the faint sound of high pitched screaming could be heard behind them. A low rumble filled the room, and the ground started shaking beneath the unicorn’s feet.

“Ooof!” Twilight grunted as she was knocked off balance and fell to the floor. She barely caught herself and looked around nervously before another bout of shaking made her cling to the ground. The shaking grew more intense, and pieces of the roof above her started falling down. “What’s going on?!” She asked fearfully.

As the tremors continued and worsened, Twilight suddenly realized what was happening. This was the night that the earthquake hit the park and sank it underground, and she was going to experience it firsthand.

A cracking noise erupted from beneath her as fissures started splintering up through the floor. The wood fractured and bent upwards, breaking apart in some places. Twilight urgently tried to get to her feet, but she was shaking so much that she had to take things slow or risk getting tossed around like a sock in a dryer.

“AHH!” Twilight yelped as a large crack opened up beneath her, moving her legs apart slightly. She jumped to the side as the crack continued traveling the length of the shed before splitting into two lines in front of the orange stallion’s corpse. Twilight watched with wide eyes as the section of the floor that the yellow mascot was on opened up, revealing nothing but blackness underneath. Dream Catcher’s body slowly slid off and fell into the abyss, continuing down and out of sight.

The roof caved in around her. Twilight used her horn and made a forcefield around herself, blocking the pieces of falling ceiling. However, nothing she did could have prepared her for what happened next. The ground beneath her cracked violently, sending the pieces of floor up at steep angles as the earth itself started falling.

“No!” Twilight yelled in denial while making a leap for safety. She felt the ground giving way under her hooves as she jumped into the air. She wasn’t even sure what she was leaping towards, but she hoped that it was solid ground.

The unicorn’s hopes were dashed as she saw a large pit opening up underneath her. She reached her forelegs out and grabbed at the only piece of ground within reach. Her lower body smacked into the side of the ground underneath where the floor had been. She swiftly realized that she was hanging off of a ledge.

Twilight looked down, receiving only an eyeful of the seemingly bottomless chasm that was sucking everything around her into it. The entire world was still shaking, and her ears were filled with a loud rumbling.

“N-no… not like this!” She pleaded. “Glistening Gold! Uh-AHH! W-wake me up!” Twilight yelled to the dark sky above, praying that the ghostly filly was listening. She didn’t want to fall into the darkness below, but everything around her was collapsing.

In one last attempt at saving herself, she started climbing up onto the sanctuary of floor that she was anchored to. As she struggled to pull her own dead weight up onto the island of floor, she felt it give way and sink slightly as a disconcerting crack rang out. Her nerves exploded and her heart raced as a brief feeling of weightlessness overcame her. She hid her head and waited for a moment until the ground stabilized slightly.

Looking up to the ledge she was trying to climb on, she gasped in surprise as she saw a white filly with golden hair and piercing yellow eyes looking down at her. “G-Glistening Gold?” Twilight muttered in shock. The filly still had glossy, dilated pupils, but she didn’t look like a ghost otherwise.

Glistening Gold looked past the unicorn down into the abyss below. “You’ll have to go down there eventually… one way or another.” She said blankly. Much to the purple mare’s surprise, the ghostly filly reached her tiny hoof out and left it hanging in front of the edge.

Twilight smiled softly and slowly reached up one of her forelegs. The ground was still shaking so much that it was hard to move, but she kept reaching up somehow. The white filly had a small, friendly smile on her face as well, as if she were genuinely trying to help.

Just before the unicorn could grasp the filly’s waiting hoof, she felt her other foreleg slipping. All at once, her grip vanished as the piece of floor she was hanging on gave way. Twilight screamed and felt herself falling away from the filly and down into the darkness. Looking up in terror, she saw the fading image of the white pony looking down at her with the empty night sky above. Everything grew smaller and smaller as she fell into the chasm along with a load of debris. Soon, only darkness filled her vision and the feeling of panic inside of her grew more intense.

Twilight gasped and shot up to a seated position, suddenly finding herself on solid ground. As she breathed heavily and darted her head around, she discovered that she was back in the workshop she passed out in. She was lying on top of the sleeping bag and pillow placed in the corner of the room. Apparently, the others had moved her there after she lost consciousness.

“Easy, Twilight… you’re safe now.” Pinkie Pie said in a soft tone from beside the unicorn. Twilight looked over and found the pink mare sitting next to her, looking at her with a reassuring expression.

“Ugh… what a trip.” Twilight shook her head and touched her face, taking a moment to calm her racing heart and weather through her lingering drowsiness. By now, everyone in the room had shifted their attention to her as she recovered on the floor. “How long was I out?” She asked curiously while noting how the others were seemingly waiting around for her.

“Not long actually… probably ten minutes. It’s definitely the shortest you’ve been out before.” Tom explained with an intrigued expression. “Did you see anything important?”

Twilight thought back to her brief experience. Although it was slightly less traumatizing than her last dream, she did witness a rather interesting event that seemed crucial to whatever was going on at the resort. “I think so… I think I know where the ghosts are coming from.” She explained while looking toward the board with the newspapers on it. “It’s like we’ve been thinking. It’s the children… but not just the three that went missing at the park. All of those kidnapping cases were caused by the same pony… and all of their souls became the ghosts we’ve been seeing.” She said confidently. The unicorn was confused to see her friends with less than excited expressions on their faces.

Tom shook his head and sighed. “Sorry, Twilight… but you’re wrong there. The victims of these kidnappings can’t be our ghosts.” He stated bluntly.

“Huh?” Twilight replied in a stunned stupor. “But why?” She asked with a confused expression. The human merely pointed at one of the newspaper articles up on the board.

Twilight got up from the floor and approached the board. She had to get in incredibly close to even read the headline of the paper due to the ink being faded, which is probably why she passed over it on her first inspection of the board. Finally, she barely managed to read aloud the words emblazoned across the front of the paper. “Kidnappings end in tragic murder?” She muttered slowly, still struggling to read the headline and the article beneath it.

Seeing the unicorn straining to make out any more of the article, Tom interrupted her. “They found one of the kidnapper’s hideouts from when he took some kids in Canterlot. The kidnapper left right before they arrived, but they found two of the children’s bodies. They were in the process of being burned to ash… most likely how the guy disposed of his victims. A ghost can’t appear if it doesn’t have any remains to anchor itself to… so the children can’t be our spooks.” He explained in a dejected tone. With their only lead shot down, he wasn’t sure what else to think.

Twilight smirked triumphantly in spite of the seemingly bad news she had just heard. “No… they still could be our ghosts. In fact, I’m almost positive that they are.” She stated in a confident tone.

“I’ve seen that look on your face before, Twilight. Mind fillin’ us in on what you know?” Applejack asked with a wry smile. The purple mare chuckled slightly before turning to face the group.

“In the vision I just had, I saw the kidnapper. He was dragging the third victim from the park to an abandoned shed on the outskirts of the property.” Twilight started explaining.

“Woah… you saw the kidnapper? Who was he?” Sparkplug asked with an eager tone.

“Umm… he was one of the park’s new employees. Some stallion named Dream Catcher.” Twilight said, uncertain as to how that information would satisfy the gray mare. “Anyway… when he was getting the filly ready to go dispose of her, he cut off a piece of her hair. He had a pouch full of locks of hair, probably from each of his victims.” She grinned as she saw her friends catching onto her line of reasoning.

“That might actually make sense… a lock of hair would probably be enough for a spirit to anchor themself to. And if he kept trophies from all of his victims, then their spirits would be bound to that pouch.” Tom said with a pleased smile.

“But where would that pouch even be?” Sparkplug asked with a doubtful expression. “It’s been like seventy years… I don’t think it will be easy to find, even if we’re assuming it is here somewhere.”

“Ughh… don’t tell me we’ve got to go hunting for something else in this place. I’m tired of searching for needles in this rotten hole of a haystack!” Rainbow Dash groaned in frustration.

Twilight stepped in before her friends could continue bemoaning their terrible luck. “Relax guys. I know where the pouch is… sort of.” She explained in a semi-confident tone.

“Thank goodness for that. I was gettin’ tired of runnin’ around this place myself.” Applejack said, sighing in relief and looking to the purple mare expectantly.

“Well? Go on and tell us where this thing is so we can go settle this ghost business and get out of here.” Rainbow Dash said, anxiously waiting for the unicorn to reveal what she knew. It was easy to see that everyone was starting to grow tired of being trapped underground.

Twilight shrugged uneasily and shook her head. “I don’t know where it is exactly, but I know it’s in that cavern. In my dream, I saw the kidnapper getting killed the night of the earthquake. He had the pouch around his neck when the earthquake hit, and he fell down along with the rest of the park.”

“Wait… you watched him get killed? What happened?” Tom asked in a confused tone.

“The ghosts killed him. They… forced him into this unfinished mechanical puppet Cotton Swirl was making out of a mascot suit. The parts of the suit must have broken while he was inside. After that, the earthquake happened and my dream ended. It almost seemed like the ghosts were the ones that started the quake.” Twilight shuddered as she thought back to the experience. While most of the group was sympathetic and concerned for her, the human was concerned about something else.

“The ghosts killed him? You’re sure?” Tom elaborated with a puzzled expression on his face.

Twilight nodded. “Yeah… there wasn’t anything he could do. They possessed another mascot suit… and there were these colorful lights that let me see what they were doing. They just held him down and crammed him into the suit.” She explained, unsure of why the human was so confused.

“That doesn’t make any sense…” Tom muttered while scratching his chin in deep thought. While he was looking off to the side, the ponies were looking to him with equally confused expressions.

“Why doesn’t that make sense? It seems simple enough to me.” Pinkie said with a clueless shrug of the shoulders.

“Yeah, Tom… ghosts killing people isn’t that farfetched of an idea.” Twilight added in agreement to the pink pony.

“No, it’s not that they killed him that doesn’t make sense… it’s how they were able to do it in the first place.” Tom said. The others raised an eyebrow, still unable to see his reasoning. He shrugged before continuing. “Ghosts shouldn’t be powerful enough to do all of that on their own. Sure, there were a lot of spirits confined in the same place over a long period of time… but forcefully holding someone against their will long enough to put them in a mascot suit? Not to mention starting an earthquake. I don’t know exactly what you saw, but it would take a massive release of spiritual energy to do all of that.” He explained.

“But… didn’t you say that there is a lot of energy in this place? Maybe the ghosts were feeding off of that?” Sparkplug inferred.

“No… I don’t think the energy here was like this before. It seems like it has been building and compacting ever since the ghosts showed up. The inhuman spirits most likely came sometime down the line and made things worse with their negative energy. I don’t know why this place is so prone to storing energy in the first place though.” Tom sighed with a mentally drained expression on his face.

“Hold on… that has been bothering me for a while.” Twilight pondered curiously. “Tom… you and the others have been getting messed up energy readings ever since we got here, right?” She asked to clarify, to which the human nodded. “Well… if that’s true, and if the inhuman spirits were drawn here by some buildup of negative energy… Ugh… I can’t make sense of any of this.” The unicorn groaned in frustration as she tried to think of some explanation that made sense. She didn’t know a lot about the paranormal, but nothing made sense with what she did know.

“Wait… wait… wait, wait, wait.” Tom muttered suddenly in frantic revelation. He looked away in thought and paced around, seemingly struggling to remember something. “*Gasp* Oh my gosh! I know what’s going on!” He exclaimed in a stunned tone of excitement.

“You do?!” Twilight perked up suddenly. She and the others looked to the human with eager grins as he was still awestruck from his apparent epiphany.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think about it before now. It’s so simple!” Tom mentally slapped himself, as if he had just solved a riddle that was so easy that a child could solve it.

Pinkie Pie could barely contain her anticipation. “What is it?! Tell us!” She grabbed the human by the shoulders and frantically shook him like she was trying to unhinge the answers from his body.

“Ley Lines! We’re on a Ley Line!” Tom stated with a hearty laugh and a goofy grin on his face. His apparently groundbreaking solution fell on confused ears.

“Huh?” Pinkie tilted her head curiously, letting the human go and stepping back with an overwhelmed expression.

“Tom, let’s pretend that we don’t know anything about… Ley… Lines, and take things a bit slower. What are you talking about?” Twilight asked in a confused tone.

Tom had to take a minute to contain his initial excitement so he could explain in further detail. “Ok… Ley Lines are… how do I explain this? They’re kind of like these giant pathways for paranormal energy that crisscross the world. Humans believed that many of the ruins of important spiritual sites for ancient civilizations were connected with each other by invisible lines. Many of them lined up with each other on maps, so people figured that there was some spiritual importance to how they were placed. If this location is sitting on a Ley Line, then that would explain why things are so weird around here.” He said with a confident expression.

“So… that’s why all of the energy in this place is out of whack.” Twilight nodded as she listened to the human’s explanation.

“Exactly, the energy from the lines supercharged the ghosts the night of the earthquake, and ever since then it would have kept building until it reached a cap. That’s why the ghosts were having trouble moving to the upper floors. Everything is all compartmentalized down here, so it must have taken a lot of energy to move their range of influence so far away from their remains.” Tom smiled as he finally found a sensible explanation to all of the strange happenings that had been plaguing the group.

“This is good news… really good news. We can finally put a stop to all of this!” Twilight cheered eagerly. “All we’ve got to do is find Dream Catcher’s body down in that cave and burn it. All of the ghosts will have nothing left to tie them here.”

The others all gave an excited cheer as they finally had an end in sight to the nightmare they had descended into. Pinkie Pie hugged the nearest person, in this case, Sparkplug, and jumped up and down eagerly with joy. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy joined in with the celebrating, although much less enthusiastically than their pink companion. Even Tom couldn’t help but smile happily.

Once the ponies settled down, Tom adopted a serious expression. “Alright, I’ll contact the others and tell them to meet us here.” He explained before walking toward an empty corner of the room and putting two fingers up to his ear. “Hey guys, come over to the workshop quick! We think we might have found a way to beat the ghosts!” He explained, unable to hide the excitement in his voice.

After a few moments of silence, Glitterball’s voice spoke up. “Really? That’s great, Tom! I’ll be right there!” The unicorn said eagerly before falling silent.

A few more moments went by before Glimmer Shine chimed in. “We’re on our way… we’ll be there in a few minutes.” He said, though his voice seemed distant and blank for some reason.

“Uh… did something happen over there? You sound awful, Glimmer.” Glitterball asked in a concerned tone.

“Hmm? Oh… uh… no, everything is fine over here. Right, Sunspot?” Glimmer Shine replied, managing to cheer up slightly. Still, he sounded like he was suppressing a hint of sadness in his voice.

“*Sigh*… yeah… just peachy.” Sunspot replied in an equally deflated tone.

Tom was uncertain about how to react to the two ponies’ apparent problems. Judging from the uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line, he figured that Glitterball was dealing with the same uneasiness. Without knowing what had happened, if anything, the pair weren’t sure how they could help.

The human turned back around to see the ponies watching him in anticipation. He dropped his end of the call and shrugged. “They will be here soon. We should get comfortable and wait for them.” He said with a bored expression.

Twilight and the others were already in their preferred waiting around positions, but hearing that they had nothing to do but wait put a damper on their previously felt excitement. Still, they sat in silence and patiently waited for their friends to show up, confident that they could put an end to things once they were all together.

Chapter 23: Around Every Corner

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Inside of Cotton Swirl’s personal workshop, Twilight and her small troop were waiting for the members of team Spirit to arrive. Although there wasn’t a working clock in the room, the ponies could all feel the minutes ticking by at a painfully slow rate.

Everyone was anxious to go out and find the source of the ghosts in the resort so they could finally escape the dimly lit corridors they had been sneaking through all day, or at least they hoped it was still day outside. All sense of time on the surface had left them a while ago. The best any of them could figure, at least a few hours had passed since their forced descent into darkness, but nobody was certain of what time it actually was.

Pinkie Pie sat down on the makeshift bed off in the corner and bobbed her head around passively. She hadn’t been waiting around for long enough to make her boredom outweigh her enthusiasm, and she was still eagerly looking forward to when the group would be victorious over the ghosts. “Hey, guys… what are you going to do once we get out of here?” The pink mare asked curiously, looking up and around at her friends. The others were surprised by the sudden question. They had been too preoccupied with their fears and anxieties to pay attention to what came after they had won.

Rainbow Dash was the first to come up with an answer. “Well… I don’t know about you guys, but I am taking a nap once we get topside. I have had my fair share of excitement for one day.” She said while trying to ignore her mental exhaustion from being in such a depraved place for so long.

“I have to agree with Dashie on this one… I’m going to rest for a while.” Fluttershy chimed in. It was easy to see that she was more than ready to be done with the terrors of the abandoned resort.

Pinkie frowned slightly in disappointment. “Aww… I was hoping to throw a party to celebrate once we’re done! I can’t have a party if all of you are sleeping…” She protested.

“Hehe… I’ll tell you what, Pinkie. If you can find a way to throw a party that doesn’t involve physical activity, I will gladly join you.” Twilight chuckled lightheartedly.

“Hmm… challenge accepted.” Pinkie said with an intrigued expression.

The abrupt sound of the door to the room opening drew everyone’s attention away. As they looked over to the entrance, they saw Glitterball stepping into the workshop, but she wasn’t alone. The unicorn had a concerned expression of urgency on her face as she assisted Glimmer Shine with walking through the door. One of the stallion’s forelegs was clutched to his chest, with everything below the knee bent at an odd angle. There was blood covering the site of the apparent injury, so it was hard for the group to see just what had happened.

“Oh my gosh!” Rainbow Dash got to her hooves and backed up to give the injured pony room to walk.

“Are you ok, Glimmer Shine?!” Fluttershy asked in a shocked tone while staring at the yellow pony’s injury with her mouth agape and her eyes wide.

Sunspot came in behind the pair and closed the door after her. “See, I told you it looked bad.” She said while trying to assist Glitterball with setting her teammate down somewhere. The yellow stallion merely waved her off, eliciting a slight frown as she heeded his wishes.

“It’s fine, Sunspot. I’ve had worse… gah!” Glimmer Shine yelped suddenly as Glitterball let go of him.

“What happened? I thought you were just checking out a storage room?” Twilight asked while walking over to the group huddled around the stallion. She cringed sympathetically as she saw the scope of the injured leg and imagined how much it must have hurt. Glimmer Shine either had a high tolerance for pain, or he was trying to play it off as less severe than it actually was.

“We uh… ran into some trouble while we were looking around.” Sunspot explained hesitantly. “But, we did manage to get these. We think they might get us into that cavern.” She held up a set of keys and displayed them to the group.

“Yeah, I sure hope that they are worth all the trouble that we went through to get them.” Glimmer Shine said while glancing to the orange pegasus with a hidden glare.

“Looks like you went through a lot more than what I would call trouble. Your leg looks like a snapped twig.” Twilight noted in a concerned tone. “Tom, do you think you can fix this?” She asked while looking over to the human with an uneasy frown.

Tom knelt down and gently examined the stallion’s injury while everyone gave him some room. After looking at the scope of the wounded leg, he sighed and looked at Glimmer Shine with a serious expression. “Lucky for you, I should be able to put it back in place and mend the bone.”

Glimmer chuckled briefly before cringing in pain. “Great… I feel really lucky.” He said with a sarcastic smile.

“Hold still and I’ll make this as fast as I can. You shouldn’t feel any pain, but just be aware that I am reconnecting a bone and growing back the broken parts of it. My powers nullify pain, but even they have their limits.” Tom explained while settling in and preparing to start the healing process.

The others watched as the human gently took hold of the stallion’s foreleg and moved it back into a normal position while projecting his healing light. The only thing Glimmer Shine could feel was a tingly warm sensation, which was leaps and bounds better than the throbbing pains he had been going through up until now.

The process took a little longer than usual, perhaps due to the severity of the injury. While Tom held the yellow pony’s leg steady and bathed it in blue tinted light, the group decided to bring the three ponies up to speed on what they knew about the ghosts.

Sunspot scratched her head with a slightly confused expression on her face as she listened to Twilight explaining her vision and what Tom had said. “So… let me get this straight for a second. This Dream Catcher guy goes around Equestria, kidnapping and killing kids for a long time before even showing up at the park,” She shuddered in disgust as she pictured such a terrible thing happening to children. “And then he brings a bag full of hair from his victims to the park… taking three more kids in the process and exposing their spirits to the energy from the… what did you call the weird line things again?”

“Ley Lines.” Tom interjected without looking up from his work.

Sunspot nodded. “Right… those things. So the ghosts off the guy, and then they cause an earthquake, destroying the park and inadvertently trapping themselves underground. Have I missed anything?” She asked while looking around, vaguely hoping that she had at least somewhat of a grasp on the events.

“No, you got it pretty much correct.” Twilight said, slightly impressed at how fast the orange pegasus understood the information that puzzled her at first. Then again, perhaps Sunspot didn’t really have a full understanding of things and was just going with the flow.

“So the inhuman spirits and everything else that has happened has just been a result of the ghosts building up energy and feeding off of it, with assistance from the Ley Line.” Glitterball recapped, hoping that she got things right as well. “But… there’s one thing I don’t understand about all of that.” She said while struggling to think something through.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Just one? I would have figured you would be a bit more confused with that knowledge bomb we just dropped on you.”

“It’s kind of our job to accept weird things that don’t make rational sense as fact… Anyway, go on, Glitter.” Glimmer Shine said while nodding toward the unicorn.

Glitterball shook her head and sighed, failing to come up with a solution to whatever she was mulling over. “If all of this energy has been sitting here for at least seventy years, then why did it take so long for Berry and the others to experience paranormal events on the surface?” She asked curiously, hoping that someone else had an explanation.

The question was simple enough, but nobody seemed to have an answer. Twilight had initially just ignored the details of how they had come to even be here in the first place. The ghosts showing up upstairs just made sense to her, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Wouldn’t the energy from this place eventually just give them enough power to extend their influence upstairs?” She asked with a semi-confident expression.

“No… I don’t think so. Without anybody being down here to feed off of, the ghosts would only have a limited amount of energy to work with eventually. Their range of influence would have capped off around the first floor judging from all the animatronics we found up there.” Tom explained. “I would say that they were borrowing energy from the inhuman spirits, but I doubt they would want anything to do with them. The ghosts we found upstairs didn’t even follow us down here they were so afraid.”

“Yeah… when we ran away from Chica, she just stopped chasing us at the stairs.” Applejack said with an intrigued tone as she thought back to what had happened earlier in the morning.

“But the ghosts had to have gotten upstairs somehow. We wouldn’t be here if they didn’t… and we definitely wouldn’t have had any weird happenings around the resort.” Sparkplug chimed in with a confused tone.

“Obviously the ghosts did get up there, but they were trapped down here for a long time. If the ghosts are scared of the inhuman spirits, then it would make sense for them to try to get to higher floors. Why didn’t they get past the stairs leading out of the extension though?” Twilight said while deep in thought.

The group thought of a possible solution for a solid minute in silence. Nobody knew anything that could explain the sudden appearance of the spirits. Twilight and the others had sparse knowledge of the paranormal at best, and all of the experts were stumped as well.

“Wait…” Glitterball suddenly looked up with a stunned expression. “Sparkplug, when did you guys first notice something supernatural at the resort?” She asked while turning to the gray mare.

“Huh?” Sparkplug replied with a confused expression.

“You called us here because you consistently heard disembodied voices, but when was the first time you noticed something odd? It doesn’t matter how small… maybe a cold spot, or an object moving from where it was last seen.” Glitterball elaborated.

Sparkplug had to think for a moment. “Well… if I had to put a concrete number to it, I would have to say around three months ago.” She said while still scratching her head in thought. She was more than a little confused as she saw everyone else getting a look of revelation on their faces.

“Hey, isn’t that around the time when-” Fluttershy started to ask when she was interrupted by Twilight finishing her thought.

“Raven Feather and the hooded ponies attacked Canterlot… The same attack that ended with a shockwave of energy exploding out across Equestria.” Twilight said, reaching the same conclusion that many of the others had.

“The gift that keeps on giving…” Sunspot said while shaking her head uneasily.

Glitterball tilted her head curiously. “But… would that energy have even reached Trottingham?”

“Well… me and Twilight weren’t conscious to see it, but from what I’ve been told, that shockwave made it clear out of Canterlot and kept going. It might not have been visible or tangible a certain distance away, but it probably spread out across the whole country. It’s actually part of the reason we’ve been so busy lately.” Tom explained while looking to Glimmer Shine and his teammates.

“So it all makes sense now… I think.” Glimmer Shine added hesitantly. “Well, now that we know why all of this is happening… I think it’s about time we do something about it.” He looked ahead to see the human’s progress on his leg. “Are you almost done playing doctor?”

Tom stopped producing his healing light and examined the stallion’s foreleg. After feeling the bone to ensure it was mended, Glimmer Shine felt no pain or soreness at all. “I think you’re good to go.” The human said with a slight smile.

“Thanks… it feels good as new.” Glimmer said while getting on all fours again for the first time in a while. He stood up and turned to face the eagerly waiting group. “Ok gang, we know what to do. Our best and only bet at getting rid of these ghosts is to burn their remains… and to do that, we need to find them.” He explained with a serious expression.

“Assuming we’ve got the right keys, getting into that cave shouldn’t be a problem.” Sunspot said while displaying the keyring she found with a smirk.

“However, once we’re in there we’ll need to search around and find Dream Catcher’s body.” Glimmer Shine looked around at the six mares as he spoke. “Needless to say, it is going to be dangerous. Normally I would tell you all to go back to the security room with the others, but we’re a little short on gear right now, so we could use the help. And besides… I figured most of you would want to help finish what you started. Am I right in assuming that?” He asked with a small smirk building on his face as he saw the eagerness in the listening troop’s eyes.

Rainbow Dash smirked confidently. “Count me in.” She said in an excited tone.

“I want to help too.” Fluttershy added, mustering her best courageous expression.

“Well… I think it’s safe to say we all want in.” Twilight said while glancing to Applejack and Pinkie to confirm their opinion. The two mares nodded eagerly in response.

“How about you, Sparkplug? You can go stay with the others where it’s safer if you want. We can handle this.” Glitterball chimed in reassuringly, looking to the gray mare at the back of the group.

“Nope.” Sparkplug shook her head firmly. “I’m sticking with you guys. I wouldn’t be a respectable member of Fun Land’s staff if I let our guests do something dangerous without help. And besides…” She pulled the bill of her hat down to better fit it on her head. “I’ve wanted to hunt ghosts my whole life. I’m not going to pass up this opportunity.” She said with a smirk.

“Good to hear that we’re all on the same page.” Glimmer Shine said while walking to the door. “Are we all ready?” He asked curiously, turning to the others and looking them over expectantly.

Twilight and her friends nodded as they gathered together. Sunspot and Glitterball were ready and eager, and Tom was always prepared to hunt evil creatures.

“Ready when you are.” Glitterball said with a confident expression.

Glimmer Shine smirked before turning to the door and flipping on his flashlight. “Alright, let’s get down to business.” He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway outside. Everyone followed the yellow pony out into the darkness in a single file line. The group left the workshop behind them and marched onward toward their final goal.

The eerie silence of the rooms and hallways around them was slightly lessened by the sound of hooves treading the faded carpet and the soft breathing of the large group. With three flashlights and two unicorns between them, they were able to create a comfortable area of light that let them spread out a little bit.

Twilight and her friends were toward the back of the group, while Sparkplug and the others were heading up the front. Everyone made sure to keep their eyes open and scan their surroundings vigilantly as they followed their leaders through the winding corridors.

Sunspot tried to keep relatively close to the front of the group with Glimmer Shine. She would glance over at him occasionally and briefly frown before looking away. Although they weren’t sure what was going on between the pair, the others could definitely tell that something was up. Still, they decided that it was best left untouched for the moment. The stallion and the pegasus seemed to be putting things aside to finish their job at any rate.

“So… how big do you think this cave is?” Rainbow Dash spoke up to break the uneasy silence. She hadn’t directed her question to anyone in particular, but Glitterball was the first to reply.

“Hmm…” The white unicorn pondered for a moment before shrugging. “I suppose we haven’t really heard anything detailed about the place. Judging from the few tapes we found that mention it, and the fact that Cotton Swirl had been searching through it for quite some time, I would imagine it to be decently sized.”

“And we’re supposed to just search all of it until we find what we’re looking for?” Fluttershy asked with a hint of unease in her voice. She was starting to regret agreeing to come along. The thought of exploring a dark underground cave would be scary enough if she didn’t know for a fact that it would be haunted.

“That’s the idea… If we somehow can’t find the remains we need, then that brings us back to square one.” Glitterball replied.

Twilight raised an eyebrow hesitantly. “What do we do if we find ourselves back at square one?”

“You just let us worry about that.” Tom said. “If it came down to that, we would hike you guys back up to the surface and find a way past the animatronics so we could find a different approach… one that involves more prep work and less running around screaming for life and limb.” He suggested in a serious tone. The purple mare wouldn’t be surprised if the human would forcibly drag her back to the surface if she refused.

Sparkplug chuckled sadly and sighed. “Yeah… we have been doing a lot of that recently.”

As the group walked, they passed by many different rooms, all of which looked far more creepy than anyone was comfortable with searching for an extended period of time. There were mascot prep rooms spaced out in pairs or sitting by themselves every few turns. All of the numbered rooms were around the same size aside from one or two exceptions, and most of them had their lights off or their doors closed. Some of them, however, were open, allowing the ponies an unnerving look inside to catch an empty mascot suit or head staring back at them silently. The paranoia alone that a ghost would be hiding in one of the suits and come after them once they looked away was mind numbing.

“So, Applejack,” Twilight turned to the orange mare with a curious expression. “What all did you do down here before we found you guys?” She asked, hoping to shed some light on what had happened to the trio after they were forced down into the abandoned resort.

Applejack whistled while thinking back to her experiences with Rarity, Silver Bell, and eventually Sparkplug and the kids. “That’s a tall order you’re placin’ Twilight. We had quite the adventure while we was tryin’ to get back upstairs.” She explained.

“Oooh… I like adventures!” Pinkie perked up and waited eagerly for the farm pony to share her story.

Applejack smiled and shook her head before shrugging. “Well… when we first got down here, we tried headin’ to that service entrance up on the first floor.” She said with a dull and mildly exhausted expression.

“I’ll bet that went over swimmingly.” Tom remarked from the front of the group with a brief chuckle.

“I take it you’ve been there, then?” Applejack asked with a knowing smirk.

“Yeah… you could say that. We wanted to secure a way out of here, and we figured that would be the first place you would go. We found it the way you did, judging from that hoof print in that mess of ectoplasm.” Glimmer Shine stated while looking back to the orange pony. “Who was it that stepped in that stuff anyway?” He asked curiously, eliciting a stifled giggle from the farmer.

“Rarity did.” Applejack said while trying not to laugh at her absent friend’s expense. She could still remember when the unicorn had found out about the black substance a little too late.

“Oh wow, really? How did she not have a stroke?” Rainbow Dash asked, doing a decidedly worse job at holding in her laughter.

“She just about did. Me and Silver darn near had to peel her off the ceiling just to get her out of there. It’s too bad the exit was locked. Poor thing almost cried when she found out we did all that for nothin’.” Applejack continued while flashing a brief sympathetic expression for the white mare. “Anyway… after we got out of there, we ran into this weird robot critter that had chased us before. It crawled through the vents and kept cuttin’ us off at every turn, which is actually why we went to the second floor in the first place.” She explained while shuddering slightly at the thought of the mechanical mess of parts.

“Wait, do you mean that white fox thing?” Twilight asked curiously.

Applejack looked to the unicorn with a surprised expression. “You mean you saw it?”

“Saw it? I guess you could say that.” Twilight shrugged. “That freak popped out of a vent when we were in the security room waiting for Tom and the others. I’m pretty sure it shaved a few years off of my life expectancy alone. It was why Sparkplug and the kids fell down to you guys. They were being chased by the animatronic.” She explained.

“Yep… that sounds about right.” Sparkplug nodded in agreement.

“Really?” Applejack asked with a surprised tone. “Well, I’m glad nobody got hurt. I just hope that that fox freak doesn’t come crawling down here.” She said with a hesitant expression.

Twilight smirked reassuringly. “Oh, don’t worry about that thing anymore. We broke it… Well, we broke it more than it was already broken.” She explained, still wondering how such a damaged vessel could hold a spirit.

“Glad to hear that.” Applejack sighed with relief before continuing. “After we ducked down the stairs to the second floor, that gate locked on us. That’s why we had to leave my hat for you all to see.” She tugged on her hat, reaffirming its rightful place on her head.

“Who’s idea was that? Because I know it couldn’t have been yours.” Rainbow Dash asked curiously.

Applejack narrowed her eyes slightly and shifted to a blank expression. “It was Rarity… though, I can’t rightly blame her. It was a good idea, and apparently, it worked. Still, I wish she had brought some of her fancy hairspray or somethin’.” She said, harboring a slight tone of annoyance. “Leave that girl alone to pack for five minutes and she takes half the Boutique with her, but ask her to have somethin’ on hoof in a pinch…” She paused as she noticed the wary stares she was receiving from the others. “Ahem… right… so, anyway. After we got to the second floor, we went to go find a fire escape at the back of some weird attraction meant for kids. I think it was called… pirate cove or somethin’?”

“Pirate cove?” Twilight asked with a confused tone.

Pinkie Pie chimed in eagerly. “That sounds like fun! Do you think we could go there after we take care of the ghosties?” She asked while looking around, hopeful that someone else would like her idea.

“Heh… I thought you might like the sound of the place. It was pretty much what you would expect. There were some different areas for kids to play around in, a kiddie pool, and it had this one room that looked like a carnival. They had balloon swords, and pirate hats, and games-” Applejack started listing off the many sights to be found at the attraction when she was suddenly interrupted by a gleeful gasp from the pink pony.

“Did you say balloon swords?! That sounds amazing! Oooh, guys! I know what my next party is going to be themed as!” Pinkie announced eagerly. The others couldn’t help but smile as they saw how excited their friend was.

“After findin’ another locked door, we had a run in with another of those animatronics. That other fox I told you about earlier.” Applejack said while looking ahead to Tom and the others.

“Is that the one that attacked you?” Tom asked curiously.

“Yeah… thanks for healin’ that cut by the way.” Applejack said with a grateful expression while looking down to her previously injured leg. “We almost didn’t get away from it. Lucky for us it got scared off by that thing you saved us from.”

“Sounds about right… Inhuman spirits tend to have that effect on people, even after they die.” Tom surmised.

Applejack shrugged. “After that, we ran into Sparkplug and the others, found the keys to the third floor over in that museum, and you pretty much know what happened after that…” She paused as she remembered something. “Oh yeah, we ran into another of those inhuman spirit things.”

“Another one? Geez, how many of those things are down here?” Sunspot asked with an uneasy expression.

Tom seemed more surprised than anyone else. “Are you sure it was a different one?” He asked curiously.

“Seemed like it. We didn’t get to see it, but it sounded different than that yellow thing.” Applejack shuddered slightly as she thought back to the mysterious voice that forced her and the others into hiding.

“So that’s… three separate inhumans in one place? Yikes… there must be a lot of negative energy stored up to draw that kind of attention.” Tom said with a concerned expression.

The group exited a hallway, only to find themselves in another open area. There was another hallway directly ahead of them, and there were two more doorways in the room off to the right. Judging from appearances, this seemed to be an in between area meant for resting and relaxing. There were a few couches against the wall next to the hallway, though they were dust ridden much like everything else. There were also several boxes in the room, with even more through one of the doorways to the right. The other doorway seemed to lead out of the room through yet another hallway.

“I hope you guys know where we’re going.” Rainbow Dash fretted from the back of the group while warily inspecting how many different paths there were to take.

“Relax… the cavern entrance shouldn’t be much further.” Tom said while ignoring the hallway directly ahead and cutting through the open area. The group hesitantly followed him, making sure to inspect every dark corner they passed for possible dangers.

…Don’t bless this one…

A deep voice echoed from somewhere around them. The ponies immediately froze and darted their heads around trying to locate the source of the eerie voice.

“W-what was that?” Fluttershy asked nervously while peering out from behind her friends.

“That sounded familiar…” Applejack paled as she looked around for the source of the chilling voice.

“One of the inhuman spirits you were talking about?” Glimmer Shine asked uneasily.

Applejack nodded. “Yeah, definitely… it sounds like that thing that trapped us in that dressing room.”

“Eyes open everyone… and make sure to look away if you see any yellow lights.” Tom cautioned while still looking around.

The ponies kept deathly silent as they slowly crept through the room. They weren’t even sure if whatever the voice belonged to was aware of their presence, but they didn’t want to take any risks. No matter how many times they looked around the various dark corners and doorways, they couldn’t see any sign of movement or anything yellow and menacing.

“Let’s just keep moving. Maybe it doesn’t know we’re here?” Glimmer Shine suggested in a hushed tone.

“It sure sounded like it knows we’re here.” Sunspot retorted in an equally quiet tone of unease.

A sudden creaking sound came from the doorway to their right. As they looked into the room, they noticed that it was another storage room of sorts. There was a wide box and a shelf that were close together, nearly completely blocking their view of the back of the room.

Tom silently motioned for the group to move past him as he crept closer to the door. Glimmer Shine led Twilight and the others closer to the exit. Everyone kept their eyes glued to the human approaching the room as they snuck by, making sure to be as quiet as possible.

Another creak came from behind the crates as Tom reached the doorway. It sounded like something was shuffling around back there, and he did not like any of it. With the ponies watching behind him, ready to flee or help at a moment’s notice, he slowly stepped into the room.

The box wasn’t very tall, but it was long enough to conceal a large area. The human tried to peer over it, but he still had to get closer.

“I don’t like this… this is not a good idea.” Fluttershy whispered while anxiously watching the human.

“Don’t worry, Tom knows what he’s doing.” Twilight whispered back in what she hoped would be a reassuring tone. If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t even sure if the human had a plan of action.

Tom held his palm out, ready to blast anything that moved with positively charged light. After doing a brief mental countdown, he sprang up and looked behind the crate. Much to his surprise, he didn’t see anything other than some ectoplasm smeared on the ground.

“Where the hell…” Tom muttered uneasily while backing up with a confused expression. All at once, a cold chill went down his back and his senses went off defensively. Around that time, he noticed a flash of yellow directly to his right.

As he spun around, he saw a blur of black, white, and yellow darting for him as a distorted scream filled his ears. Something small and surprisingly heavy leapt at him, sending him falling backwards out of the room.

“Tom!” Twilight and the others widened their eyes as they saw the human being sent to the ground. There was a black shape on top of him that was hard to make out due to how much the boy was struggling with it.

The shape had black ears on a rounded head, indicating that it was some sort of rabbit. Its face was white, with two black ovals for eyes. However, the eyes had yellow dots inside of them as well. Its toothless mouth was able to articulate, moving up and down frantically as the grating scream continued on. It didn’t appear to have arms, only having legs, a stubby tail, and bluish green shorts on. For all intents and purposes, it looked like an unfinished mascot suit meant to be propped up somewhere, but now it had something more sinister inside of it than a mere mannequin frame.

“Gah!” Tom winced as bleeding scratches started appearing on his face. Despite the size of the rabbit, he seemed to be having a hard time getting it off of him. Finally, he managed to throw it off into the storage room.

The rabbit landed behind the crate with a hollow thunk. The deafening scream ceased momentarily, being replaced by eerie silence. Tom backed up and got to his feet, running a hand over the scratches on his face before quickly healing them.

“Are you ok?” Glimmer Shine asked in a concerned tone, joining the human in watching the crate for signs of movement.

“I’m fine… That thing is stronger than it looks.” Tom replied.

“How can something so small be so strong? It doesn’t even have arms for crying out loud.” Sunspot said with a shocked expression.

“Don’t let its appearance fool you. It can use most any ability a ghost can… including being able to telekinetically interact with its surroundings.” Tom explained warily while inching forward.

…God…? Where are you…? I only wish to be blessed…

“Oh, I’ll give you a blessing alright you little freak,” Tom muttered while preparing himself for the hectic mess that was about to take place. “You guys head to the cavern. I’ll meet up with you once I’m sure this guy won’t follow us.” He instructed without turning away.

“Tom, there’s no way we’re going to leave you to deal with that thing by yourself.” Glimmer Shine said adamantly while standing his ground. The others were inclined to agree with him.

“You guys won’t be much help to me if I have to worry about you. You don’t have any equipment, and you are way out of your depth with th-” Tom was interrupted suddenly by a sound coming from in front of him. He looked ahead to see the possessed rabbit suit hopping up onto the crate, staring out at the group with its unblinking eyes.

Twilight and the others averted their gaze, but they could still feel an intense sensation of dread and fear from being this close to the entity.

Tom held his hand forward and unleashed a burst of positive light. The room flashed blue for a moment, and a deep and distorted yell came from the creature, though this time it was far quieter than the previous screech it made.

When the light cleared, the rabbit was pushed back a little ways on the crate, and it had white smoke trailing off of it. Still, it took a step forward and kept staring ahead.

“Ok, I’m getting sick of you.” Tom steeled himself before letting loose a continuous stream of light. The ponies had to shield their eyes from the intense shine.

After a solid thirty seconds of nonstop exposure, the human let his arm rest at his side while inspecting the room. There was white steam everywhere, nearly obscuring his vision. The sound of something searing could be heard, along with a soft, booming chuckle. When the steam cleared, the small rabbit could still be seen on top of the crate. Aside from the searing noise and the steam, it didn’t seem to have any outward appearance of damage being done to it.

“Grr…” Tom growled under his breath while looking at the mascot with disdain. He briefly turned back to the others, who were still cautiously waiting behind him. “Everyone stay back. This might get a little ugly.” He stated while relaxing both of his hands.

The sound of metal scraping faintly rang out as fire flickered to life at the human’s fingertips. The flames washed over the tops of his fingers and continued out into the air, leaving his spirit weapons behind. Tom readied himself into a fighting stance as the flames died down, sizing up the rabbit and scrutinizing its every move. Although they were still concerned, the ponies backed up as the human requested. They watched the boy slowly stepping back into the storage room with tense nerves.

Tom hesitantly stepped forward, moving slowly and cautiously as if he were approaching a wild animal. The rabbit was staring ahead blankly, but it didn’t seem to be paying attention to him otherwise. It was like it was staring past him, dwelling on its own thoughts as it subconsciously tried looking the intruders in the eye.

Deciding that enough was enough, Tom bolted forward and made a jab at the rabbit. The possessed suit did nothing to resist, allowing the human to stab his claws through the midsection of its cartoonish body. The claws made a wet squelch as they punctured through the relatively thin suit and hit something thick and gooey inside. Some sort of yellow liquid oozed out around the four newly made holes, causing the human to cringe in disgust.

…Why do you hate me…?

The rabbit looked up, staring passively as the human continued to impale it. The sound of searing returned, seemingly coming from the four puncture wounds in the suit. More steam started coming from the places contacting the claws, and thinner streams of the yellow liquid started pouring out. Suddenly, the rabbit’s midsection lit on fire.

Another deep, loud yell erupted from the ghostly creature and a shockwave of air shot through the room. Twilight and the others shielded their faces as a load of dust was kicked up and blown at them. They looked up, only to see that nearly every object in the room was either shaking or moving around erratically.

The couches behind the ponies were rocking back and forth, smacking into the wall and nearly tipping over. The paintings that were on the walls were rotating around in place, sometimes pausing or switching directions and speeds at random. The crate and the shelf inside of the storage room were shaking so much that it seemed like they would fly up into the air at any moment.

Tom stumbled backwards with the twisted mascot still hanging from his claws as the crate it was standing on broke apart. As the flames around its midsection started to spread around its body, the human heaved and tossed the rabbit away as hard as he could.

The bunny smacked into the wall and fell to the floor, limp as it should have been all along. Tom backed away and out of the room as the flames grew more intense. Although the entire rabbit was engulfed now, the fire didn’t seem to be spreading or otherwise burning anything else.

Everyone watched in stunned silence as the distorted voice started laughing to itself. The flames crackled, and the rabbit stared back at them while on its side, the yellow lights peering out from behind the fire. Although they weren’t looking at them directly due to the human’s warnings, the ponies could see that the yellow eyes were starting to fade.

…Bless your souls…

The voice echoed through the room one last time, much fainter than before. Gradually, the items around the room that were moving stopped and settled back into place. The yellow dots behind the fire slowly kept fading away, until finally, they vanished. The flames engulfing the rabbit suit slowly died down as well, leaving the charred remains of the mascot lying in a heap. There was a blackened liquid around the suit that most likely oozed out while it was burning, and the smell that it produced mixed in with the thick odor of smoke to create a nearly suffocating aroma that burned the pony’s nostrils and made them sick.

Everyone stared ahead quietly while processing what had just happened. The eerie feeling of dread at the back of their minds had disappeared, leaving only the mild disturbance they felt from watching such a disquieting scene play out in front of them.

Tom panted slightly while trying to catch his breath. He let his claws vanish into the fire they came from before wiping the sweat off of his forehead. “Man… I really hate those things.” He said while shaking his head.

“Is it… dead?” Twilight asked while hesitantly stepping forward and staring at the charred suit. She had to remind herself that the blackened remains were just a hollow mascot suit and not some living creature that had just burned to death.

“It was never alive to begin with… but yes, I think it’s gone.” Tom replied with an exhausted smile.

“Nicely done, Tom… Sorry we couldn’t be of more help.” Glimmer Shine said with a hint of regret in his voice.

Tom chuckled slightly. “Don’t sweat it… I handled the situation.” He looked over toward the hallway the group was heading toward beforehand. “Now… why don’t we keep moving? We don’t want to bump into any more of those creeps.” He suggested anxiously.

Glimmer Shine looked over to see the group of ponies gathered beside him. Everyone seemed more than willing to move on. “Right… let’s go.” He nodded while walking toward the opening to the other hallway. The others quickly followed the stallion, casting uneasy glances back toward the storage room as they left.

A few more minutes of walking through the dark hallways and the group finally reached what they assumed to be their destination. Up ahead, the hallway ended abruptly at a wall. However, there was another area that opened up on the left.

The area seemed mostly unfinished, with barren walls and no carpets along the floor. And as the ponies walked closer and peered around the corner, they saw it.

There was another security gate standing between them and the rest of the opening. Further along, the walls and floors gave way to actual earth and stone, with a large opening into blackness set into the face of the rock. There was a wooden support frame at the edge of their vision, and crudely placed wires running along the ceiling that stretched into the darkness.

“Woah…” Sunspot’s jaw nearly dropped as she stared past the iron bars of the gate and into the opening. Her voice echoed softly, further confirming that they had found what they were looking for.

“They weren’t kidding were they?” Tom said while looking around with an impressed expression.

Glimmer Shine walked over to the door of the gate and gave it a cursory tug. Of course, the bars were locked tight, and a keyhole was set into the base of the handle. “Hand me those keys.” He instructed while holding his hoof out behind him. Sunspot gave the keyring to the stallion and watched as he started trying keys.

After exhausting several of the keys on the ring, the stallion finally found one that fit the lock. The gate unlocked and slid open with an aged creak, allowing the group to walk forward up to the entrance to the cave.

Spotting a light switch screwed into the wooden support frame that led up to the string of wires, Glitterball flipped the switch with her magic. The sound of aged bulbs flickering to life came from up ahead, and a soft orange glow illuminated the narrow tunnel, coming from bare lights hanging from wires. A cold waft of air seeped out of the cavernous opening, sending a chill through the band of ponies gathered before it.

“Any last minute changes of heart?” Glimmer Shine asked curiously while turning toward the group. “We’re not that far away from the security room… we could take anyone that doesn’t want to go in there.”

Although they were harboring feelings of nervousness and uncertainty, nobody spoke up as they blankly stared back at the stallion.

Glimmer shrugged while turning back to the cave entrance. “Ok… let’s go spelunking, shall we?” He stated with a slight hint of unease in his voice, though nobody could blame him.

Twilight and the others followed their four companions as they walked into the tunnel. Their footsteps echoed as they treaded the rocky floor. Their lights cast deep shadows along the walls and ceiling. Even though the opening wasn’t exactly small, everyone felt a little claustrophobic as they continued into the darkness.

Just outside of the opening to the cave, and completely unnoticed by the ponies marching forward, a shadowy figure was lingering near the open gate. It watched the fading light from the group vanishing into the tunnel, silently observing them. With a faint chuckle, the figure slowly staggered forward and headed into the rocky opening, its yellow eyes piercing the darkness.

Chapter 24: Into the Deep

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The group of ponies continued making their way through the dark tunnel on their way to the cavern that apparently held the key to their freedom. Although they had ample sources of light between their three flashlights, Twilight and Glitterball’s horns, and the few lightbulbs hanging overhead, it was nigh impossible to see anything outside of their field of illumination. There were two walls of pitch blackness behind and in front of them, and they were more than a little unsettled as they walked further in.

Before their claustrophobia could get any worse, the ceiling up ahead receded and another opening came into view. The ponies were ecstatic to see that they had finally reached their destination, so they picked up their pace. As they all flooded out of the opening and looked around, however, their jaws collectively dropped.

They were currently standing in one of the largest caves they had ever been in. The ceiling was barely visible at the very edge of their vision, and they couldn’t even see an actual end to the cavern.

There was a sharp drop off to their right a few feet away that looked like it descended into nothingness, though it was hard to see without getting closer. In front of the chasms, there were rope barriers anchored into the ground, apparently placed there by Cotton Swirl and his crew. The rope barriers wrapped around the entire island of ground around them, with a stone bridge ahead of them that looked like it connected to another section of solid ground across the black trench.

Along with the rope fences, there were lights attached to poles stuck in the ground spaced throughout. These lights consisted of oil lanterns, however, there was one electrical light hanging near the mouth of the opening the ponies just left. Of course, none of the lanterns were lit, meaning that the majority of the area around them was utterly steeped in blackness.

Pinkie Pie whistled while admiring the sheer size of the cavern. As the sound echoed around, a smile fell across her face. “Hellooooooo!” She called, taking a moment to see how far out the echo would travel. Judging from the sound alone, she gathered that there was much more to the cave than they were seeing.

“Wow…” Twilight walked closer to one of the rope barriers while taking a look around. She focused more energy to her light spell, causing the sphere to extend and reveal more of her surroundings. “I wonder how far back this goes?” She asked nobody in particular while searching beyond the rope guidelines and into the rest of the expansive cavern.

Meanwhile, the others were walking closer to the large stone bridge ahead of them. They paused near the edge, still looking around with awestruck expressions.

Rainbow Dash stepped over to the edge of the bridge and peered over one of the rope fences. The empty blackness beneath her extended so far down that she couldn’t see a bottom, only a few rocky outcroppings on the face of the chasm walls.

“Just how far down is the third circle of Tartarus?” Glitterball asked from beside the cyan mare. Rainbow looked over to see the unicorn staring into the abyss with some of the others. Her eyes were shaking slightly and she looked a little pale as she cautiously made sure her feet were planted.

Rainbow Dash gathered a bit of saliva in her mouth and spit over the side. The ponies watched the ball of spit falling down past the edge of their vision and listened closely, hoping to hear it hit something solid. Even after several seconds, no noise came to indicate that the projectile had stopped falling.

“I’d say really far.” Rainbow remarked while still glancing over the side. She looked up and saw the white unicorn looking like she was going to throw up.

“Everyone… I think this goes without saying, but watch your step.” Sunspot announced while grabbing ahold of one of the rope barriers and giving it a test tug. The rope was frayed, and it creaked as if it were just barely holding onto the posts it was attached to. If anyone fell into one of them, it wouldn’t do much to stop them from hurtling over the edge.

Tom took a step onto the stone bridge and pointed his flashlight forward and to the right, looking at what seemed like the only path available to them so far. “Looks like there’s only one way to go.” He observed.

“We need to find that body before we can do anything else.” Glimmer Shine reminded while stepping onto the bridge with the human. He turned to the boy curiously. “Do you think you can feel where it is with your senses?”

“Maybe… it is the source of the ghosts’ manifestations after all.” Tom replied while taking in a breath of stale cave air. As he exhaled, a high pitched hiss left his mouth along with a puff of blue mist. Just as suddenly as he made the attempt to use his senses, a brief fit of coughing overcame him. “Ugh… looks like the energy in here is just as jacked up as it was back in the resort. If anything, it seems like there’s more of it… unfortunately, I can’t get an exact read. I can only tell that there is a mass of energy behind us and in front of us.” He explained, mildly frustrated at his lack of success.

“The energy behind us is probably from everything in the resort.” Sunspot inferred while glancing back at the tunnel behind the group.

Glimmer Shine stared ahead and sighed. “And the energy in front of us is probably the thing we’re looking for.” He turned back to the others and stiffened his expression. “Come on, guys. We should get moving.” He motioned for everyone to follow him as he careful started walking across the bridge.

The ponies followed the human and the yellow stallion as they headed for the other side of the chasm. Those with a fear of heights stayed in the center of the group, looking at their feet and trying to ignore the fact that they were walking above a seemingly bottomless pit.

Twilight glanced over the side of the bridge uneasily as she heard the sound of pebbles moving and rock settling. Although there were rope barriers, and the bridge seemed stable enough to hold their weight, she still felt a little twinge of fear nipping at the back of her neck and making her hairs stand up.

“H-hey… you guys would catch me if I fell, right?” Glitterball asked nervously while glancing to the three pegasi in the group.

“Of course we would, Glitter.” Sunspot replied reassuringly. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy nodded as well.

Glitter nodded shakily. “Ok… j-just had to check.” She chuckled nervously, trailing off as she glanced toward the sides of the bridge.

“Don’t worry, sugarcube, we’ve got you. Just keep walkin’ and look at the floor.” Applejack said while putting a hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder for assurance. Glitterball did as instructed and did her best to calm down as the group made it over the rest of the rocky walkway.

The bridge sloped up slightly in the middle before leading down to more solid looking ground. There was a rounded face of rock ahead of them, with more of an open area to the right. The wall seemed to stretch from where they were all the way up to the ceiling far above. The stone floor wrapped around the wall and continued, with more drop offs and rope barriers along the edges.

The group walked around the wall and spread out now that there was more ground beneath their feet. As they turned the corner and illuminated more of the area ahead, they noticed a few interesting features. Foremost of these features was a set of tents and tarps set up against the cave wall. A few boxes and tools could be seen through the openings of the tents.

Further up ahead, the group could see the wall to their left giving way to another large open area. There was an arch formed by some of the rocks, and a wide path led under the arch and into a flat area that had three other paths branching off of it. There were more lanterns spaced around the area and a few far off rope fences that indicated more harrowing cliffs.

The ponies immediately walked up to the three tents and examined them. Glimmer Shine and Tom went inside one, and Sunspot and Glitterball went inside another.

Deciding to satisfy her curiosity, Twilight stepped into the leftmost tent and looked around. The tent was relatively small, most likely not meant to be used as shelter by anyone. No, the tent was most likely meant to be used for storage judging from the few boxes sitting up against the side.

There was a portable oil lantern sitting on one of the boxes, and a few jars and pots on the tarped floor in front of them. Twilight picked up one of the jars with her magic and peered inside. There was a thick layer of dust caked along the walls of the container, with even more settled at the bottom.

“Huh?” Twilight paused curiously as she noticed a small barrel next to the boxes. The barrel had black text emblazoned onto its side, and although it was faded, it could easily be made out to read “oil”. Twilight smiled softly with intrigue welling up inside of her and lifted the top of the barrel off.

As she poked her head into the container, the thick smell of oil greeted her. Sure enough, there was still some of the viscous liquid sitting at the bottom of the barrel, with a layer of dust and debris floating on the surface.

“Hey guys, I think I might have found something we can use.” The purple mare announced while turning back toward the tent opening. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were curiously watching her and looking around the tent themselves from outside, and the others were gathered nearby, still watching the other tents being searched.

Everyone exited the other tents and gathered near where the purple unicorn was. Twilight smiled and eagerly pointed out her discovery to the others.

“Wow… nice find, Twilight.” Tom said while inspecting the oil. “I’m sure we can use this for something.”

Sunspot glanced toward the edge of the ground several feet away and noted the many lanterns hanging from posts. “If we’re going to be searching around, maybe it would be a good idea to light up some of these lanterns?” She suggested, looking around to see what the others were thinking.

“Maybe so… and maybe we can use this area as a home base of sorts.” Glimmer Shine mused while scratching his chin and looking around. “Twilight, Glitter, see if you can put this oil into some containers for us. I’m going to go check some of the lanterns to see if they would even work.”

Twilight and her fellow unicorn nodded and gathered around the barrel as the stallion exited the tent. The others watched as the pair levitated some of the empty jars and pots over to the barrel and started siphoning the oil out with their magic.

Soon, the pair had amassed several containers full of oil, leaving the barrel nearly empty. They placed the last lids back on the jars and set them aside, offering each other a smirk of accomplishment for their job well done.

The two mares walked outside of the tent with one jar each in tow. They looked ahead to see many of the others dotted around, some assisting with inspecting the lanterns, and some observing their surroundings.

Glimmer Shine turned to see the unicorns walking up to him with their jars held beside them. They set the jars down next to a book of matches the stallion had found in one of the other tents and stepped back.

“Do they look usable?” Glitterball asked curiously, turning to the lantern the stallion was fiddling with and inspecting it herself.

“Aside from disuse, they seem like they are in good condition. Let’s get a few of them lit up here and move on.” Glimmer Shine said while pointing to some of the other lanterns around the area. The two unicorns nodded and took one of the oil jars with them as they walked over to the next lantern.

The ponies managed to light three lanterns near the tents before they decided to move on. Depending on how big this place was and how long they would be searching, they needed to ration their oil, using it only on a few lanterns in each area they came across.

Once they were gathered together again, everyone made their way toward the stone archway and the flat area beyond. They glanced up at the arch as they passed under it.

There was a decently wide area near the top that looked like one could stand up there. There were also some rocky outcroppings near the left column that melded into the cave wall. If one were adventurous enough, they would be able to climb up to the top of the arch with relative ease.

Further ahead, the ponies could see three more stone bridges to the sides and up ahead at the ends of the large flat area. The whole area looked like a circle of ground suspended among many pits and holes that seemed just as deep as anywhere else. The bridges led to other islands of rock of various shapes that went even further into the cave, with seemingly no end in sight.

“Let’s split up and search around for a bit.” Glimmer Shine suggested while glancing around the area.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Fluttershy asked with a hint of uncertainty in her voice as she eyed around the vast cave around her. It seemed like any number of dangers could be lurking anywhere, ready to pounce on them at a moment’s notice.

Glimmer Shine smiled confidently. “We’ll be fine as long as we stick in groups and don’t stray too far. We’ll meet back here if we find anything… or if we don’t find anything I suppose.” He explained, eyes still distant in thought as he scanned the three paths available to him. “I’ll take that way and work my way back.” He said while pointing to the right. There were two more directions beyond the stone bridge that skirted another wall, with one way going further into the cave and the other going back towards the direction of the entrance.

“I’ll go with you.” Sunspot volunteered eagerly before catching herself. She softened her expression and looked to the stallion with hesitant eyes. Thankfully he didn’t seem too upset at the prospect of her joining him. However, he did sigh to himself quietly.

“I’ll take the other direction by myself. We can cover more ground that way.” Tom suggested while looking to the other path across the right bridge. He seemed confident in his ability to take care of himself, and the others didn’t doubt him.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had grouped together, stepping toward the center bridge. “We’ll take this way.” The cyan pegasus pointed forward with a confident smirk.

Applejack walked over to join the two mares. “I’ll head with you two.” She stated, assuming that there would be no objections. The other two ponies didn’t seem to mind the extra company.

Twilight and Glitterball, along with Pinkie Pie and Sparkplug, glanced over to the left bridge. The way beyond seemed to only head in one path that stretched on for a while, so they would have a lot of ground to cover.

“I guess that leaves us stuck with each other.” Twilight said while looking over at her three companions. The others smiled, eliciting a smile from her as well.

Glimmer Shine faced the group while standing toward the right with Sunspot and Tom. The others stood around with their chosen search area to their rears, gathered in a partial square. “We’re looking for a dead body stuck in a mascot suit. We don’t know if it will be just lying around out in the open… or if it’s even somewhere reachable. If you can’t find anything, or feel lost, or run into any trouble, just run back here and wait for us.” He explained in a serious tone while shifting his gaze around at the lineup of ponies. Everyone nodded with varying degrees of confidence in their faces before breaking off and heading with their appointed groups.

Twilight and her three companions walked over to the leftmost bridge and started crossing it. The purple mare paused and turned, watching her friends crossing their bridges and heading toward the darkness. Rainbow Dash’s group had one flashlight and one lantern, Tom had a flashlight, and Sunspot and Glimmer Shine had a flashlight and a lantern as well.

“Come on, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie called from up ahead. Twilight turned and saw the others already near the other side waiting for her.

“Coming!” She replied while hurrying her pace to catch up with the three mares.

After parting ways with their human companion after crossing the rocky bridge, Sunspot and Glimmer Shine walked along in uncomfortable silence for minutes on end. The path they were taking skirted the edge of a chasm and narrowly avoided running into the cavern wall in places. Luckily the rope barriers in place made it so the pair never got too close to the edge.

Glimmer Shine walked ahead of the orange mare, carrying the flashlight and staring ahead blankly. Meanwhile, his pegasus companion seemed more anxious than he was.

Sunspot looked to the stallion with a hesitant frown as she thought back to their brief argument outside of the storage room. In the heat of the moment, she didn’t keep as close of a watch on her words as she should have, and things were said that she deeply regretted. The yellow pony seemed to be ignoring the obvious elephant in the cave, or at any rate, he wasn’t outwardly showing that he was thinking about it.

“Glimmer…” Sunspot spoke up, straining to think of something to say. She looked to the floor and sighed while preparing to throw all sense of pride out the window for the sake of her friendship with the stallion.

“Yeah?” Glimmer Shine asked flatly without even turning to face the pegasus. Judging from her unease, he could already tell what she was thinking.

“I’ve been thinking about what happened earlier… and… umm,” Sunspot rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably. “I just wanted to say that… I’m sorry. I crossed a line… and, I really wish I could take that back.” She frowned as she looked ahead to see the stallion still staring blankly into the distance. Suddenly, Glimmer Shine stopped walking and turned to her, making her avert her eyes sadly.

“It’s ok… It’s no big deal.” Glimmer said, though he didn’t sound too sure of his words.

“Huh?” Sunspot looked back to the yellow pony in confusion before shaking her head. “No… it’s not ok. I lost my temper, and I said some things that were really not cool.” She insisted.

Glimmer Shine shrugged. “Don’t sweat it, Sunspot. Let’s just move on and get this job done.” He turned and started walking again, leaving the pegasus in stunned silence.

“W-wait!” Sunspot trotted to catch up and walked alongside him. “You can’t just be ok with this! You’re the one who said we should talk about it later. Well… it’s later!” She had to take a moment to get her emotions under control before looking to the stallion with soft eyes. “Please talk to me… Say something to let me know how you feel. If you’re mad, or upset… I understand. You have every right to be livid with me. Just… don’t leave me hanging.”

Glimmer Shine turned to face the orange mare. She was staring back at him, failing to hide the sadness in her eyes. He sighed before adopting a thoughtful expression. “Sunspot… can I ask you something?” He said in a matter of fact way, catching the other pony off guard slightly.

“Umm… yeah, of course.” Sunspot replied with a confused nod.

Glimmer briefly bit his lip and left his mouth agape, carefully thinking of how to put his next words. “Do you want to be here?”

Sunspot was taken aback by the sudden question. She blinked rapidly, wondering if she misheard or misunderstood him. “W…w-what?” She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t understand… what do you mean?”

“Well, obviously I don’t mean right here… we’re in a haunted cave looking for dead bodies for crying out loud,” Glimmer chuckled with a hollow smile before shifting his expression back to a blank one. “I mean… do you want to be part of this team? You might not have meant everything you said earlier, but you seemed pretty upset. You know, you don’t need to stay with us. If you don’t like the way things are handled here, you’re more than free to go,” He explained without any anger present in his voice. “I don’t want you to work somewhere you’re constantly unhappy… and I definitely don’t want you to get yourself killed. If this isn’t working out for you… and it really doesn’t look like it is, then we can manage without you.”

The stallion’s words hung in the air as the orange mare stood in silence. Sunspot was so shocked that she couldn’t even formulate a response. Initially, she was slightly offended by the question, but her expression softened and she looked down with uncertainty in her eyes as she gave her answer more thought. Of course, she loved being with Glitterball and even the yellow pony, but why was she having such a hard time with the stallion’s question if that were completely true?

Perhaps sensing the mare’s hesitance to answer, Glimmer Shine smiled softly. “It’s ok… you don’t have to answer. Just think about it once we get out of here.” He nodded to the side, eager to keep moving.

Sunspot nodded quietly while still looking to the floor. If she was troubled before, now she was downright upset at herself and the stallion’s words.

The pair kept walking along the rocky path, waiting for something interesting or out of place to catch their eye. Finally, they could see the end of the cave coming into view. The entrance to the cavern was across a chasm off to the right, standing out amid the darkness due to the lights above the tunnel. And off to their left, the wall they had been following curved and went further ahead for a short ways before ending in another dead end.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing over here.” Glimmer Shine shrugged while turning to the orange mare with a drained expression.

“Should we head back?” Sunspot glanced back where they came from pensively.

Glimmer nodded blankly. “Seems like the best option.”

With their search turning up as a dead end, the two ponies made their way back toward the flat area where they were supposed to meet with everyone. They hoped that they wouldn’t find anyone there and that the others were having more luck with their searches.

After a few minutes of walking, the lantern light of the circular area came into view up ahead. The pair could see the area was vacant, so they continued toward the stone bridge.

They briefly looked toward where the human was searching, only to see nothing but a path leading further ahead. They contemplated going to help him with his search briefly, but decided that it would be for the best if they waited for the others to return instead.

As they started crossing the bridge back to the flat circular area, something caught Sunspot’s eye amid the flickering light of the lanterns.

The group hadn’t lit many of the lanterns in the flat area, having only brought one jar of oil and left it near the center. However, there was something on the ground beside the lone jar; something black and grimy looking.

“Oh no…” Sunspot’s heart sank as she looked ahead at the black stains. She rushed ahead and finished crossing the rest of the bridge. Glimmer Shine started to call after the pegasus until he noticed what she had seen. His face paled and he trotted toward the unsettling sight along with the orange mare.

Now that they were closer to the substance, they could immediately recognize it. It was a trail of inky blackness in the rough shape of paws. A faint disgusting odor wafted off of the goop. The two ponies followed it back with their lights to see that it came from the direction of the cave entrance. And as they followed it to see where it was heading, they converged on the bridge in the middle of the platform.

“That’s not good.” Glimmer Shine muttered in a troubled tone while looking back to the orange mare. He put a hoof up to his ear and focused on his human friend. “Tom, get back to the meeting spot right now. I think an old friend of ours followed us into the cave.” He explained with a quiet sense of urgency. If the creature that the ponies knew made these footprints was heading toward Rainbow Dash’s group, then they were in grave danger.

Twilight and her small troop continued cutting through the darkness and searching the vast cavern around them. The eerie silence was occasionally broken by a muffled and echoic noise around them that was usually just a rock falling or air moving. Occasionally, however, a particularly disconcerting noise would make the ponies pause and dart their heads around anxiously.

The most interesting thing they had found thus far were some rock formations jutting up from the cave floor, sometimes large enough that they had to walk around. After a few more minutes of walking, however, something other than rocks and darkness came into view.

Up ahead, embedded into the ground partially, was what appeared to be rotten pieces of wood and fabric. The pieces were scattered around at odd intervals and positions, like debris from an explosion. There were also some small flags posted into the ground near some of the areas with debris. These flags looked newer than the debris, but they were still old.

“Woah… check that out.” Sparkplug pointed ahead to what looked like the broken, aged remains of a former building. The structure was little more than some broken pieces of wall frame that were still somehow together, but it was still impressive to behold. The pieces seemed out of place sitting in the cave, creating a very strange juxtaposition to the otherwise barren rocks and earthen sections of the cave they had seen up until now.

Twilight craned her neck and examined one of the flags more closely. It had a faded number designation on its surface, and so did many of the others. “It looks like these were put here when Cotton Swirl explored the place.” She looked ahead, noticing more random bits and pieces of wood and metal at the end of her light’s reach.

“I guess the park really did fall down here… at least partially.” Sparkplug sat down and picked up one of the smaller pieces of wood. The broken plank was nearly falling apart in her hooves. “It’s a wonder those mascot suits they pulled out of here were in such good shape.”

Pinkie Pie perked up slightly at the gray mare’s statement. “You found some mascot suits from the old park? That sounds so cool!” She smiled eagerly as she pictured being able to see a part of the park’s history so closely. She wondered how Berry Swirl would react to seeing such artifacts from her family’s past.

Sparkplug chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah, it was pretty cool… until they started moving around and trying to kill us.”

“Oh…” Pinkie deflated slightly, offering the gray mare a sympathetic expression.

Twilight shrugged while standing back up and looking ahead. As interesting as their new surroundings were, they probably wouldn’t have what they were looking for. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything in the areas that Cotton Swirl explored. We should keep going and see if there’s a cutoff somewhere that he didn’t get to.” She suggested. The others seemed to agree with her reasoning, so they followed her as she pressed onwards.

The further they went into the cavern, the more artifacts from the old amusement park they found. Most of the smaller items were absent, probably having been brought back to the resort by the crews that mapped out the area and set up the lanterns, rope barriers, and flag markers. However, there were a large number of ruined wood structures, pieces of torn and faded fabric that looked like they once belonged to a colorful flag or tent, and other solid pieces that looked like they belonged to rides and attractions.

Pinkie Pie happened on a piece of a merry-go-round lying on the ground at an angle. The once colorful miniature carriage had broken sections of a pole sticking out of the top and bottom, and many of the smaller pieces of decoration were missing. While the pink mare found the piece to be a pleasant reminder of what it was like to be at a carnival, the others viewed it as a disquieting reminder of where they were, and what had happened in the past in this location.

As they weaved around the many roped off areas and the rubble of buildings and rides, they suddenly found themselves in another wide open area. The guide ropes at the edges of the ruins led toward the right, where there was seemingly a dead end in the form of a rock face.

Twilight scanned around the area with her light, trying to catch anything out of place amid the rocks and wreckage. As much as she entertained the bizarre and morbid idea of running into a yellow mascot suit with a corpse inside, she had no such luck. “Don’t tell me we’ve hit a dead end…” Twilight shrugged, scanning over the same areas over and over again in the hopes that she missed something.

“Ok, I won’t.” Pinkie Pie said in a helpful tone before leaning in close to Sparkplug. “Hey… don’t tell Twilight, but I think we hit a dead end.” She whispered while holding a foreleg up to hide her conversation from the unicorn and eyeing off to the side to see if she was looking.

Twilight rolled her eyes and groaned, kicking a rock in mild frustration. How many places could there be in a giant cave to hide a dead body? She wondered, though she didn’t really want to think about that question too much for fear of coming up with the obvious answer.

“Hold up,” Glitterball paused curiously while focusing her light and shining it up ahead. Her eyes lit up joyfully as she happened across something promising. “Hey, I think I found something. Look over there!” She directed while waving her light over the area to draw the attention of her companions.

Twilight and the others looked over to where the white pony was shining her light. She was directing them to an area beyond the rope barriers toward the wall in front of them.

The rope guidelines weren’t snugged up against the cave wall. There was some space to walk around back there, and it seemed as though the area hadn’t fully been explored by the previous ponies to come through here. Up against the rocky wall, there was a decently sized hole that looked like it led somewhere else.

Twilight chuckled softly and let a wide grin build on her face as she laid eyes on the opening. “Good work, Glitter!” She turned to her fellow unicorn with a congratulatory cheer. Glitterball seemed a little bashful about all of the sudden attention she was getting, but she smiled softly with a pleased expression on her face.

The four mares made their way past the many piles of rubble and debris toward the back of the cave. They stepped over the rope barrier and walked up the slight incline until they were standing near the wall next to the opening.

Twilight poked her head through the opening, discovering that it opened up a short ways in. It seemed like a hole that led from this side of the wall to the other, and there was a path they could take that would keep them moving forward.

“I don’t see any signs that Cotton Swirl or anyone else has been through here.” Twilight reported, noting the distinct lack of rope barriers around a chasm to the right of the opening. There also weren’t any lanterns or flags, which were good signs that they might make some progress if they went this way.

“You think we’ll find Dream Catcher in there somewhere?” Glitterball asked curiously, waiting for the purple mare to back out of the opening to get her opinion.

Twilight smirked with a newly renewed feeling of determination welling up inside of her. “I think that is exactly what we will find in there.” She stated confidently. The three mares gathered around her smiled in return and prepared to venture where no pony had ever gone before.

The purple unicorn craned her head and ducked under the low ceiling, stepping through to the other side. Pinkie Pie followed next, with Sparkplug going after her. Glitterball lingered outside of the opening for a moment and looked behind her. She wondered just how far they would be able to go into this cavern before getting lost, or possibly worse.

Feeling a thick sense of anxious paranoia, the white mare quickly stepped through the opening and joined her friends. She definitely didn’t want to leave them alone in a place like this, and she definitely did not want to be alone either.

Elsewhere in the cave, Rainbow Dash’s group was still out on their search. The three mares kept close together, with Applejack carrying a lit lantern in her mouth, and Fluttershy wielding a flashlight to illuminate further ahead.

While her two companions didn’t seem particularly fazed by their surroundings, Fluttershy was not nearly as calm and collected. She had been on edge ever since she entered the cavern, but at least before she was in a large group with relatively good sources of light. Now she only had the dim flame of the lantern that her orange friend was holding and the beam of light provided by the flashlight clutched in her hoof. The only thing keeping her nerves in check was the fact that she wasn’t alone, and she had two of her bravest friends with her.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack scanned their eyes around as their yellow companion shifted her flashlight beam around the area ahead. Although her movements were a tad bit shaky, Fluttershy was doing a fairly good job of checking everywhere to find anything that might have been of interest. In fact, she was doing a bit too good of a job as she trailed the light back and forth to the same places multiple times.

“You doing ok, Fluttershy?” Applejack spoke through the lantern handle in her mouth, a hint of sympathetic concern in her muffled voice.

Fluttershy took a quick breath and nodded. “Yeah… I think so. I just really don’t like it here.” She stated uneasily while trying her best to ignore the ambiance of echoed noises around her and the never ending darkness of the cavern.

“Don’t sweat it, Flutters. We just need to check through here until we either hit a dead end or find what we’re looking for. After that, we can head back to the others. It’ll be nice and easy.” Rainbow Dash reassured the timid mare with a confident smirk as if things really were as easy as she made them out to be.

“Right… right… nice and easy.” Fluttershy parroted the cyan pony’s words before taking another breath and trying to calm herself. She wasn’t doing too bad all things considered, but she could feel her muscles tensing from hesitation as she peered around the darkness.

Suddenly, a noise from behind the group made the yellow pegasus pause in her tracks. Her ears perked up and the hairs on the back of her neck did the same. Fluttershy turned around and waved her flashlight along the ground to the rear, trying to find any sign of movement.

Noticing the beam of the flashlight spinning around, the other two mares turned to see their friend staring off into the distance where they just came from, scrutinizing the shadows for some unseen threat.

“Uh… Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash tapped the pegasus on the shoulder.

Fluttershy briefly turned to see her friends looking at her with confused expressions. She quickly turned her head back and shifted her eyes around one last time. Did they not hear it…? She thought to herself while double checking to see if the area was still as empty as it seemed. She knew for certain that she heard something scuffling against a loose rock behind her.

“Somfin wrong?” Applejack mumbled before briefly taking the lantern out of her mouth and looking down at it with an annoyed expression.

Fluttershy sighed and looked to the ground in embarrassment. She had heard many things since walking through the cave. Rocks and loose dirt shifted around almost constantly. She wasn’t sure what had made that particular noise stand out to her. Perhaps she was getting too jumpy. “Sorry… must have been my imagination.” She explained regretfully, turning back around and pointing the flashlight forward like she was supposed to. She already felt bad for depriving the cyan pony of the light because she felt nervous, and now she felt like she was misusing one of their precious light sources.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack didn’t seem at all upset with the frowning pegasus for slowing them down, in fact, they seemed sympathetic. Rainbow placed a reassuring hoof on her friend’s shoulder as the group started moving again. She only hoped that they could find what they were looking for soon so the yellow mare could get out of this cave.

After a few minutes of continued walking, the trio started to notice a change in their surroundings. Bits of broken wood and metal could be seen littering the cave floor, with some of the pieces even hanging down from precarious ledges along the walls and some of the lower ceilings.

Before anyone could comment on the strange objects, something in the darkness up ahead caught Rainbow Dash’s eye. “Hey, shine the light over there.” She said while directing the yellow mare with her foreleg.

Fluttershy aimed the flashlight into the distance slightly to the left. There was a large chasm in that direction, with a narrow path leading over there off to the right. What most held their attention, however, was a large metallic structure that stood on the other side of the chasm.

Judging from the odd design, the ponies could tell that the structure was a Ferris wheel, or at least what was left of one. The base of the wheel was snapped off partially, and the support poles weren’t anywhere to be seen. The wheel itself was broken in many places, with the metal frame and bars twisted beyond recognition. The entire thing was upside down, having been wedged into a crack in between two rocks. There were only two or three carriages left on the structure, and they looked like they were hanging on for dear life. One of the carriages was sitting at the bottom of the wheel, having snapped off of its supports.

“Wow…” Rainbow Dash’s eyes lit up with excitement as she gazed at the distant structure. “That is so cool!”

Applejack whistled while taking in the sheer size of the wheel and how it somehow fit into the cave. “That sure is a sight to behold.”

Fluttershy searched the area near the forgotten attraction with the flashlight. It seemed like there was a little alcove on the other side of the wheel. And although it was hard to see with part of the cave wall and the wheel itself being in the way, but she could just barely make out what looked to be the remnants of some broken buildings.

“It looks like there’s some stuff over there. Maybe we should check it out?” Fluttershy suggested while turning to her two companions with a slight smile of intrigue.

“Uh… yeah!” Rainbow Dash replied. “I’ve always wanted to see one of those things up close. Let’s go!” She urged the others forward with her excitedly. She probably would have already been there by now if she didn’t want to leave the others, whether it be for their light or their company.

The three ponies walked down the incline and over to the only path that seemed to lead over to the Ferris wheel. The path in question was the one they had already been on, but it funneled inward until it reached the cave wall up ahead and became incredibly narrow, winding around until it broadened over on the left side where the wheel was.

Applejack glanced over the edge of the ground as she saw how narrow it got up ahead. She gulped slightly as a black void met her gaze. Although she was confident that her two flying friends would rescue her if she slipped, the thought of falling alone made her legs a little weak.

“Remmf mv agaf wh we nft o tak fhe lngffef?” Applejack attempted to speak through the buildup of spit that had formed between her mouth and the handle of the lantern. The understandably confused ponies ahead of her turned and looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“AJ… I can’t understand a word you’re saying with that thing in your mouth.” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

The orange mare groaned in annoyance while removing the obstruction from her mouth and carrying it beside her instead. “I said… remind me again why we need to take the long way?” She asked while nodding her head to the side.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked over and noticed what their friend was talking about. The curved ledge they were walking on to get around to the Ferris wheel was far from the most direct route considering that two of them had wings. And considering that the orange pony didn’t have wings, the narrow sliver of rock that they were walking on was probably more than a little unnerving.

“Ok… I see your point. But let me ask you this, Applejack.” Rainbow turned back to the earth pony with a smug smirk. “Would you really want one of us to carry you over that?” She asked while pointing to the seemingly endless abyss beneath them.

Applejack stared at the empty expanse that was still between them and the other section of land. It seemed like there was more hole than solid ground as far as the eye could see. She chuckled nervously as the corners of her mouth twitched. “Nevermind… the long way is good. A little walkin’ never hurt nobody.”

The cyan mare held back a giggle as she watched the farmer gawking at the harrowing heights they were standing near.

With everyone ready to go, some more than others, the trio slowly made their way toward the curved path that skirted the cave wall. The path was little more than a ledge, though two ponies could stand shoulder to shoulder if one of them was more adventurous and didn’t mind planting a hoof on the edge.

There were no signs of this section of the cave being explored yet, which meant that there were no rope barriers. Even if the rope was so aged that it would probably snap if anyone actually fell, its absence made the drop-off at least twice as unnerving.

Still, Applejack swallowed her apprehensions and pressed forward. While the two pegasi were a little more haphazard with their footing and how close they were to the edge, she made sure to be extra aware of where she was walking.

As they slowly rounded the curve and started heading in the direction of the Ferris wheel, the ground started widening out again, much to the relief of the earth pony. Now that they were on solid ground again, the three mares turned their attention to the area ahead.

The ruined Ferris wheel was up ahead to their left, cemented in place a little beneath the edge of the precipice that lined the ground. There were a couple of broken sections of buildings off to the right, and a little further back there was a dead end as the cave wall finished wrapping around.

The ponies approached the little alcove next to the broken down wheel and looked around, intrigued by the wreckage around them. They shined their light up to admire the sheer size of the Ferris wheel and tried to picture how it looked in pristine condition.

“Man… to think that this used to be up on the surface way back when.” Rainbow Dash stepped closer to the twisted frame of metal, staring up at it in wonderment. She spread her wings and jumped up, hovering and getting a better look at one of the broken carriages still hanging near the top.

Meanwhile, while Fluttershy was watching her friend and providing light for her with the flashlight, Applejack stepped over to the side toward the rubble near the back.

The orange mare peered in through some of the holes in the structures. It was hard to tell if they were originally meant to be windows or doors with how much they were bent out of shape. She wasn’t even sure if they were upside down or not.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anythin’ here.” Applejack noted blankly while examining the other structures. There was only a mess of rocks and debris inside, so unless the body they were looking for was buried, then they would have to look elsewhere, and Applejack really hoped that the body wasn’t buried.

Rainbow Dash landed with a slight frown on her face. She had genuinely hoped that they would find something over here, or at least that the others would find something while she got a look at the Ferris wheel.

Rainbow sighed while walking over to join her two friends. “I guess we should head back, then.” She glanced across the chasm toward where they came from and mentally groaned with annoyance as she remembered how much walking through the empty and dull cavern they had done to get here.

Fluttershy noted the disappointment on her friends’ faces and frowned slightly. “Cheer up. I’m sure the others have found something by now.” She suggested optimistically.

“I sure hope so,” Applejack added. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m plum tired of bein’ in this cave… or underground at all for that matter.” She shook her head as she struggled to think of how long it must have been since she last saw the sun.

Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. “I hear you there… Let’s get moving.” She motioned for the other two to follow her as she started back toward the path around the chasm.

The trio walked at a steady pace up to the ledge they crossed before. Although they had already done it once, the narrow walkway and the steep drop still made at least one of them a little uneasy. However, the orange mare was confident that the crossing would have no problems now that she knew the ground was stable.

As they were slowly trekking around the curved shelf of rock, the coldness of the cave started nipping at them with newfound intensity. In fact, it seemed to be much colder than they remembered it being just moments ago. Before anyone could comment on this strange finding, a soft breeze blew around them.

Applejack paused and glanced down as the flame in her lantern was abruptly snuffed out. Although Fluttershy’s flashlight still provided light for her, the yellow mare was in front of her, leaving her feet in relative darkness.

“What the hay? Oh, come on…” AJ muttered in annoyance while holding up the fancy paperweight she now had. Without any matches to re-ignite the flame, the lantern might as well have been useless.

Rainbow Dash looked around with a wary expression. “That’s odd… there hasn’t been any wind in here since we got here.”

Fluttershy stopped and looked behind her to see her two friends still occupied by the now extinguished lantern. She turned back and glanced down, noticing how close they were to the point where the ground widened out. “Come on guys, we’re almost there.” She suggested while motioning for the pair to press onward.

As the other two looked ahead to their yellow friend, something startling happened. The flashlight Fluttershy was holding flickered once, briefly suspending them in complete darkness. The sudden event made the ponies’ hearts jump. It only happened once, and it was only for a split second, almost like it was meant to remind them just how precious their only remaining light source was.

“What the hay was that?!” Rainbow Dash asked, her eyes wide in alarm.

“Don’t tell me that thing is goin’ out now of all times!” Applejack exclaimed anxiously, watching the flashlight with a cringe.

Fluttershy looked to the flashlight clutched in her hoof nervously. “M-maybe we should go… like... right now.” She started walking at a hurried pace. Rainbow Dash and Applejack nodded frantically and joined their friend.

Once they left the narrow ledge and made it to solid ground, they started to pick up their speed. Before they could reach a galloping sprint, however, the flashlight beam flickered twice more, causing them to grind to a halt.

“Uuahh… n-no… please no!” Fluttershy pleaded while gently holding her flashlight as if it were listening. Despite the yellow mare’s gentle persuasion, the only beam of light they had started violently flickering on and off at a steady pace.

If the three ponies were nervous before, they were panicking now as they huddled together and watched the flashlight spiraling out of control. Every flicker of the beam would briefly leave the area pitch black. They were in the middle of a cave that they barely knew how to navigate without sight, and there were deep chasms nearly everywhere they turned. If the flashlight stopped working entirely, they were in serious trouble.

The light started flickering at an irregular pace, ranging from a couple of second-long intervals to a series of rapid blinks. Along with the flickering, the trio started to notice something else that made the hairs on the back of their necks stand up. There was a faint whistling sound coming from somewhere out in the darkness.

“Does anyone else hear that?” Applejack asked while perking her ears up. The other two turned their heads and looked ahead of them as the noise grew louder.

It was slightly echoed, but there was definitely a shrill whistle drifting through the cave. It seemed much too defined, and it seemed to have a clear melody to it, so the ponies were fairly certain that it wasn’t the sound of wind flowing through the cavern.

As it got louder, the hauntingly slow melody it was forming became easier to distinguish. It sounded like a song of some sort, but it was distorted by how slowly it was being whistled. Along with the constant eerie tune of the whistling, the three mares could hear the shuffling of feet approaching them from out in the darkness.

Their hearts started racing as they backed up slowly and huddled together. Fluttershy pointed the flashlight ahead, but its flickering beam made it hard to see much of anything as she scanned around the many stalagmites in the distance, trying to find the source of the noise in a panic.

The constant flickering of the light seemed to have some correlation to the whistling. Although the light didn’t follow the tune, it did happen in such a way that it didn’t seem to be a naturally failing battery.

“Who’s there?!” Rainbow Dash called, making every attempt to hide the fear in her voice. “You better show yourself before I come over there and beat you up!”

The melodic whistling grew louder until it seemed to be in their heads somehow. The sound of something shuffling against the cave floor was much fainter by comparison, but it sounded like it was getting a lot closer.

All at once, the shuffling stopped and the flashlight beam died. Fluttershy squeaked fearfully and shook the light to no avail, desperately trying to get its life-saving beam to return. The last droning note of whatever song was being whistled faded into the darkness of the cave that now surrounded them.

The air felt cold, and the ponies could feel their skin crawling from the intense feeling of dread and uneasiness coursing through them.

“AH!” Fluttershy yelped as something touched her back.

“It’s me, it’s me! Easy, Flutters…” Rainbow Dash spoke up softly, much to the relief of the yellow pegasus.

“Try to stay together girls. I can’t see my own hoof in front of my face.” Applejack said from somewhere nearby. Rainbow Dash was keeping a foreleg planted on Fluttershy to keep track of her. The orange mare was somewhere to their right, most likely right next to them by all accounts, but it was nigh impossible to tell.

“W-what was that noise? Is… is s-someone here with us?” Fluttershy asked nervously. The tense silence and darkness surrounding her was too much for her to handle. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to focus on the feeling of her friend touching her, and her own efforts at smacking life into the seemingly broken flashlight.

“I don’t think one of the others would be messing with us like this.” Rainbow Dash darted her head around uneasily. She spun around, inspecting the area despite her inability to see. Fluttershy felt the cyan mare briefly letting go of her, but thankfully the sensation returned. Judging from how cold her hoof felt, she must have been incredibly nervous, not that Fluttershy blamed her.

“But if it’s not one of the others… then that must mean that it’s one of the ghosts…” Applejack gulped nervously from roughly where she was previously. “Or… one of those inhuman spirit things.” She added, a palpable sense of dread in her voice.

Fluttershy desperately smacked the flashlight against her other hoof in fearful frustration. “Come on… work you stupid thing!” She muttered through clenched teeth. She would be more vocal with her frustration, but she thought that whatever was making the whistling noise might hear her if she yelled any further. Miraculously, the light flickered on and remained steady at last. “Oh thank the princess!” The yellow mare sighed with relief.

“F-Fluttershy…” Rainbow Dash spoke up in a hushed tone of utter terror, though her voice was a little further away than Fluttershy remembered.

Fluttershy turned and shined her flashlight behind her, only to pause in stunned confusion. Rainbow Dash was standing a short distance away, staring back at her with wide eyes and a pale expression. Next to the cyan pony was Applejack, with a similar expression of fear on her face.

Fluttershy was baffled by the sight before her. Both of her friends were there, but that couldn’t be right. She still felt the hoof on her back from earlier, which she assumed to be one of the two mares.

As she trailed her eyes to the side, a cold chill firmly cemented itself in her spine. The flashlight beam revealed the person standing next to her, yellow lights catching and reflecting back at her. A pawed glove was resting on her back.

…Hey…

A deep voice echoed from right in front of her, shaking her to her core.

…Want to see your head come off…?

Chapter 25: Body and Soul

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Fluttershy widened her eyes in shock as she stared up at the creature before her. The gold colored bear suit towered over her, gazing down at her with its hollow eyes, two yellow orbs shining dimly in their center.

A broken chuckle came from the suit, though its mouth didn’t move. The unnatural sound was deep and raspy, and it filled the ears of whoever listened to it. The yellow mare felt the mascot’s paw on her back shifting to her side and pressing down, attempting to pull her closer.

“AHH!” Fluttershy screamed while jerking back. In her clumsy rush to get away, she fell backwards and landed rear first on the cold stone floor. The flashlight bounced to the floor and rolled to the side, casting light on the twisted visage of the mascot bear.

The Freddy suit staggered forward, its paw still reaching for her. Fluttershy crawled along the ground backwards, just barely managing to avoid eye contact with the yellow lights as she stared ahead fearfully.

Before the suit could catch up to the yellow mare, a blur of movement and color shot in from the side, getting in between her and the bear.

“Get away from her!” Rainbow Dash yelled fiercely while shooting out her foreleg and punching the mascot across the face. A hollow thwack resounded through the suit, followed by a stiff crack. The mascot stumbled back, reeling from the cyan pony’s strike.

Fluttershy stared at the pegasus bravely standing her ground against the ghostly creature. “R-Rainbow Dash…” She muttered in stunned shock. The cyan pony briefly turned her head back and smirked before facing the threat and adopting a serious expression. Fluttershy would have kept staring if it weren’t for Applejack reaching down and picking her up from the floor.

“Are you ok?” The orange mare asked with a concerned expression while briefly turning to watch Rainbow Dash squaring off with the yellow bear.

Fluttershy nodded, though her muscles were still jittery. “Y-yeah… I’m fine.” She said before turning to see how her cyan friend was doing.

“Listen up you creep! If you want to get to her, you’re going to have to go through me.” Rainbow stated, her eyes burning with determination.

The Freddy suit was still reeling from the punch to its face. It was backed out of the light so far that the ponies could barely see it. Suddenly, it staggered forward and steadied its feet on the ground. Its head was bent at an odd angle, with its immovable gaze tilted up at a slant. Something wet dripped from the suit’s neck and onto the cave floor, creating a faint plop.
Another crack rang out as the mascot readjusted its head. It moved its neck and jerkily managed to snap it back into place, creating a sickening display of sound. More drops of the yellow liquid fell to the floor, seemingly coming from inside the suit. A distorted laugh accompanied the bear as it looked back at the ponies’ almost as if it were taunting them.

“Alright…” Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes, glaring at the creature as best she could without making eye contact. “You want some more? Because there’s plenty more where that came from!” She leaped forward, using her wings to gain momentum. She zoomed straight for the yellow mascot, aiming right for its jaw with her foreleg reeled in and ready to deliver.

The Freddy suit stared ahead, not lifting so much as a paw as the pegasus sailed at it. Rainbow Dash prepared to sock her hoof out and punch the bear again until she whipped to a halt as an invisible force slammed into her chest.

“Ack…!” Rainbow coughed forcefully as all of the wind was knocked out of her lungs. She tried to flap her wings to back away, but the force holding her beat her to the punch as it wrapped around her fully and flung her backwards at high speeds.

The two mares gasped as they watched their cyan friend soaring over their heads. “Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy called after her, taking a few steps toward her and watching her falling and smacking into the ground.

Rainbow Dash grunted painfully as she rolled and bounced along the hard cave floor. She tried using her legs to grab something and lose speed, but she just kept rolling as her bruised body kept going.

Finally, she started coming to a stop. Just before she did, however, she felt the ground beneath her giving way to a sizable drop. Even if it was pitch black outside of the reach of the flashlight, she could tell that she was near the edge of the chasm.

“Woah!” Rainbow Dash narrowly managed to halt her momentum as she teetered on the edge. She rolled over and let out a sigh of relief as she rested on solid ground. Although she could have used her wings to save herself, she would have rather not careened off the side and into a dark pit.

The demented bear laughed giddily as if it enjoyed seeing the pegasus being tossed like a Frisbee. Applejack and Fluttershy turned from their friend to see the mascot staring at them. Just having the two yellow dots on the side of their vision made them feel uneasy.

Applejack turned to Fluttershy before looking back to the bear costume and lowering her expression into a serious one. “Stay back, Fluttershy. I think it’s time this bear learns why I’m the best apple bucker this side of Equestria.” She pulled down the rim of her hat, steadying it on her head and smirking confidently.

Before the yellow pony could even offer any of her insight, Applejack rushed off at a gallop toward the Freddy suit. The spirit inside of the suit hadn’t changed where it was looking, choosing to stare through the orange pony as she approached at full steam.

Freddy reeled up on its back legs and raised its paws in the air. As Applejack got close, the suit lunged down at her, but she was wise to the tactic. The farm pony dodged to the side as the suit pounced, landing with her back legs to it in the perfect position for what she had in mind next.

“Hold onta’ your head, Fred!” Applejack stated with a wry smirk while reeling in her back legs. She shot them out, aiming square for the side of the bear’s mask.

Her hooves collided with something solid, and a sound like bones popping rang out. The mascot’s head twisted to the side and kept going, letting out a sickening rip. As Applejack turned to admire her handiwork, she was stunned into a disturbed silence.

Freddy’s mask was separated from its body, but it wasn’t falling to the floor. Instead, it was hanging limply by something thin and stringy. It was dark due to the flashlight being on the ground a short distance away, so the orange mare couldn’t see the fine details of what she was looking at, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. Whatever was keeping the head connected to the body, it looked organic.

More of the yellow liquid fell to the floor in thick, curdled chunks. The sour smell of the substance filled the air, mixing in with the already foul odor of the thin layer of ectoplasm covering the suit. Suddenly, the silhouette of the string connecting the head to the body retracted with a wet, sloppy sound. The mask of the bear twisted and jerked, apparently searching for the right orientation its head should have been in.

“What the… uulgh… what are you?!” Applejack recoiled in disgust as she watched the sickening display.

My head comes off… does yours?

The mascot asked in a hushed echo. As it finished its disturbing question, its head snapped back into place and jerked to the side in one motion, leaving it staring at Applejack.

Applejack swallowed uncomfortably as any sense of bravery she felt before left her. “N-now hold on a minute there feller… I like my head right where it is.” She spoke softly, unable to hide a hint of nervousness as she slowly backed up.

“Applejack!” Fluttershy called off to the side. “Get away from it!”

The orange mare turned to see the pegasus standing just outside of the light where she left her, a concerned look in her eyes. She would have followed her friend’s advice, but something prevented her from doing so.

“AH!” Applejack yelped as she was suddenly shot backwards by some unseen force, almost as if a unicorn had grabbed her and flung her. She flailed her legs wildly, trying to right herself so she could land. Unfortunately, she suddenly found herself coming down and nearly sailing over the edge of the chasm behind her.

Fluttershy gasped as she barely saw her orange friend falling off the edge. “Applejack!” She yelled fearfully, reaching out a foreleg and inching forward.

Thankfully, Applejack managed to reach out and cling to the ground with her forelegs before she completely plummeted. However, her grip was tenuous at best as she struggled to prevent herself from sliding on the many loose rocks along the cliff.

“Hghh… gah…” Applejack strained to pull herself up, barely making any progress. Suddenly, she felt her hooves slipping and her body receding back toward the drop off beneath her. “Ah… UAH!” She yelped as she desperately clawed at the rocky ledge, trying to find a grip on something. Her heart plummeted as she realized that she was going to slide off and into the darkness below.

“Hold on, AJ!” A voice called from behind Fluttershy. The yellow mare turned her head just in time to see Rainbow Dash sprinting past her at full speed toward the earth pony.

The cyan pegasus beat hoof as fast as she could, skirting the edge of the cliff and racing to make it to her friend before she fell into the dark abyss. She completely ignored the yellow mascot still present to the side and made a flying leap while reaching out with her forelegs.

Applejack screamed as she started to fall. When suddenly, she was stopped dead in her tracks by something grabbing onto her forelegs. She looked up to see the dark shape of Rainbow Dash, reaching down and locking hooves with her while dangling over the cliff partially.

“I got you… I got you!” Rainbow said frantically, managing a slight chuckle of triumph.

Applejack couldn’t help but smile and chuckle back at the pegasus. “What took you so long?” She asked, her voice holding an audible sense of exhaustion, relief, and panic.

While the two ponies were laughing quietly to themselves at their miraculous rescue, they heard another laugh coming from behind them, though this one was deep and distorted. Rainbow Dash turned her head and glanced behind her, only to widen her eyes as she saw the golden bear staring directly at her and slowly staggering toward her.

“What’s goin’ on up there?” Applejack asked hesitantly as she listened to the demonic sounding laughter.

Rainbow Dash dug her hind legs into the ground and started pulling urgently to get the orange pony up from the cliff. “Hurry up and start climbing!” She instructed anxiously. Applejack needed no further information to know that they were in trouble if she couldn’t get up with the cyan mare’s help.

The pair struggled to gain ground, with Rainbow Dash pulling with all of her might, and Applejack pushing against the cliff face with her hind legs. Still, they were making slow progress due to the disadvantage both ponies had with their positions. The pegasus had most of her body flat against the ground while her forelegs dangled off the cliff, and Applejack was, for lack of a better word, dangling off the cliff.

The disembodied chuckling became more intense as the possessed costume inched closer. It bore down on the pair, staring at them with the endless pits it had for eyes, letting the yellow orbs of light pierce into them.

Rainbow Dash cringed nervously and used every ounce of her strength in pulling. She even flapped her wings to get more lift, but even that wasn’t working very well due to her awkward positioning. Slowly but surely, the orange mare was making progress in getting hoisted up, but it wasn’t happening nearly fast enough for the urgent situation they were in.

Before the yellow bear could reach the struggling ponies, something small flew through the air and harmlessly bounced off of its head. Soon, another rock smacked into it, drawing its attention to the side. Standing just outside of the beam of light made by the flashlight was a yellow pegasus with a rock clutched in her hoof.

“Hey!” Fluttershy yelled, managing to momentarily suppress her fear. “Leave my friends alone!”

Rainbow Dash watched from the edge of her vision with a stunned expression as she saw the timid pegasus standing tall before such a frightening foe. Although she trembled slightly as the mascot stared at her with its glowing yellow eyes, she stiffened her expression and tossed another rock at it as hard as she could.

“If you want to attack something, attack me!” Fluttershy glared at the ghostly creature, making sure not to look it directly in the eyes.

Much to her confusion, the yellow bear didn’t react any further to her taunts. In fact, it turned back toward the two ponies dangling off of the cliff and started walking again. Fluttershy gasped as she saw that her tactic didn’t work.

Rainbow Dash desperately tried to grab the orange pony by the shoulder for better leverage, only to fail. “Hrrk… AJ… I really need you to be up here right now!” She stated urgently.

“I’m tryin’, I’m tryin’!” Applejack replied. All she could do at this point was attempt to push herself further up with her back legs while the pegasus pulled her up.

Finally, Rainbow Dash managed to pull the earth pony’s upper body back over the edge. She let Applejack grab onto the cliff side while she went to pull her by the shoulders. A sudden hollow footstep in front of them made them look up, only to have the color drain from their faces as they saw the yellow bear a mere foot away.

Freddy, or at least the spirit inside him, chuckled to itself as it raised a paw up and reached for the pair. Rainbow Dash and Applejack felt their heartbeats racing as they were caught between a possessed mascot suit and a cliff. Sure, the cyan mare might have been able to get away, but the earth pony still had her lower legs dangling off the cliff.

Before the possessed bear could finish whatever sinister thoughts it had for the two ponies, a loud yell from the side drew everyone’s attention away. The two mares and even the yellow bear turned to see Fluttershy making a mad dash straight toward the mascot suit and jumping onto it at full speed.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash widened her eyes as she watched her friend clinging to the mascot’s back while it moved around sporadically.

“What in tarnation are you doing?!” Applejack asked in shock while staring at the pegasus.

Fluttershy had her legs wrapped around the yellow suit’s body, and she clung to it tightly while keeping her eyes clenched shut. “G-go! G..g..get out of h-here!” She stammered, partially from fear and partially from the fact that the bear was trying to buck her off of itself.

Finally, Rainbow Dash managed to pull Applejack up from the cliff. The orange mare rolled onto her back, while Rainbow fell onto her rear. They quickly got up and rushed to assist their friend, but as they spun around, they saw that they were too late.

The Freddy suit stopped moving around. Fluttershy did her best to keep her hold after being jostled around so much. Suddenly, however, she felt something grabbing her back. Before she even knew what was going on, she felt herself being violently ripped off of the mascot and flung through the air.

“AHHHH!!” The yellow mare screamed as she flew wildly into the dark. She tried to spread her wings and break her momentum, but she didn’t have enough time before she smacked into the ground, hard. A stabbing pain shot through her abdomen as she landed on her back, eliciting a shocked yelp. As she brought her hoof down to clutch the area where the pain was, she felt warm, sticky liquid, along with something foreign sticking out of her skin.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack watched the pegasus’s crash with pale expressions of shock. “*Gasp* Fluttershy, no!” They both cried in unison.

The possessed mascot let out another chuckle as Fluttershy cried out in agony as if it were satisfied with its actions. Whether or not the chaotic spirit was laughing at the wounded pony or not, it didn’t matter. The mere sight of it filled the other two mares with rage.

“Why you… you… Grrr,” Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth while glaring at the bear. “You’ll pay for that you freak!” She stamped a foreleg down, fully prepared to run up to the creature and rip it limb from limb. Applejack was prepared to join the pegasus with how upset she was.

Before either of the two mares could rush forward, the spirit used its invisible influence to fling them to the sides. Rainbow Dash went flying to the right, while Applejack went to the left. Both ponies yelped in surprise and grunted as they skidded to a halt along the ground.

Applejack pushed her battered body off of the floor and looked over to see Rainbow Dash doing the same on the opposite side of the creature. “Ow… ugh, are you ok?” The orange mare spoke in a concerned tone as she noticed how worn out her friend seemed.

The pegasus clutched her head briefly and groaned before standing up. “Yeah… I’m alright… gah.” She shook her head and ignored her soreness. After she got all the way to her feet, Rainbow looked over at the yellow pony off at the back of the cave before looking back to Applejack. “Go grab Fluttershy and get ready to run. We can’t fight this thing and win.” She explained with a hint of frustration in her voice.

Applejack looked to the possessed mascot uneasily before glancing to the cyan mare. “Alright… but what are you plannin’ on doing?” She frowned as she noticed an expression on her friend’s face that she knew all too well.

“Don’t worry about me right now! I think Fluttershy is hurt. Go and get her, I’ll keep this thing busy until you two are ready to run.” Rainbow Dash said, more urgently than before.

Applejack glanced at the ground in front of her, spotting the flashlight where it had been laying since Fluttershy dropped it. She quickly grabbed it and started trotting toward where the pegasus had fallen on the other side of the area.

The Freddie suit turned to look at the earth pony running across the area and took a step forward. It was interrupted as the cyan pegasus rushed in front of it and got in between it and the others. “Hey ugly, you’re dealing with me, not them.” Rainbow Dash said with a determined expression. She kept low to the ground, ready to jump one way or another or to hold on for dear life if she got picked up again.

Meanwhile, Applejack quickened her pace to reach the yellow pony faster. She saw Fluttershy writhing in pain, with blood trickling down her side from her lower stomach. As she got closer, she halted and gasped as she saw what was wrong.

Fluttershy had landed on an outcropping of rocks. Most of the rocks seemed to have broken upon impact, but one must have remained solid. There was a thin spike made out of stone jutting up through the side of her abdomen, which was bleeding profusely.

“Fluttershy… Oh my gosh…” Applejack covered her mouth as she stared at her wounded friend. The sight of the pegasus lying on the ground, covered in blood and with something impaled through her made the farm pony’s face pale.

Fluttershy whined softly while lifting her head. “A…A-Applejack?” She spoke, though her voice was weak and strained. Her eyes widened as she saw the extent of her injury in the light. “Hhngh… w-what the?! Owww!” Her head rocked back as another wave of pain hit her from her attempt at moving.

Applejack cringed sympathetically while rushing to her side. “Easy, girl… easy… You’re gonna be fine sugarcube.” She said while placing a comforting hoof on the yellow mare’s shoulder and further examining her wound. The more she tried to wrap her head around what to do to help, the more uneasy she became.

“Where’s… ungh… w-where’s Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy asked, giving up on trying to look around and laying back. She was breathing heavily, and her movements were shaky and weak, either from the fear or the blood loss.

“Rainbow Dash is fine, don’t you worry,” Applejack assured before turning to check on the other pegasus. Rainbow Dash was still having a standoff with the possessed mascot suit. “Dash, we’ve got a big problem over here!” She called over to the cyan mare before turning back to Fluttershy and flashing a reassuring smile. However hard she tried, she couldn’t hide the concern in her face.

Rainbow Dash briefly glanced back to the two ponies behind her before taking a step back as the yellow bear moved toward her. She couldn’t see anything other than the two yellow lights in its eyes getting closer. “Problem? What kind of problem?” She asked with a groan of disbelief before adopting a worried expression. “Is she alright?”

Applejack bit her lower lip and hesitated before answering. “Umm… not exactly… she’s hurt kind of bad. We can’t move her like this… she would bleed out before we could even get back to the others.” She explained uneasily.

“Dangit…” Rainbow Dash cursed under her breath. She tried to think of a possible solution to their problem. However, her thought process was interrupted as she felt something gripping her by the neck and lifting her upward. “Ack!” She let out a strangled cry while clutching at her throat. Her hooves didn’t collide with anything other than her neck, but that didn’t stop the force from tightening its grip on her.

Hearing the cyan pony’s muffled noises of distress, Applejack turned and shined her flashlight in that direction. She was startled to see the pegasus floating in the air, most likely being held by the same invisible power that the inhuman spirit had displayed before.

“Rainbow Dash!” Applejack gasped as she saw the pegasus getting the life choked out of her. The golden Freddy suit was nearby, slowly walking toward the suspended pony with clumsy movements.

Before the earth pony could even consider rushing forward to assist her friend, she noticed something that made her turn to the side. Another beam of light was shining toward them from the direction of the path back, and footsteps could be heard. Soon, Applejack could make out a tall, humanoid shape approaching from the distance.

Applejack smiled in relief as she saw her human friend walking closer. “Tom! Help us!” She yelled as loud as she could while waving her forelegs frantically.

Up ahead, Tom slowed to a stop as he heard the orange pony calling to him. He could see faint silhouettes of the group, and his confusion swiftly turned to concern as he noticed the yellow bear suit near Rainbow Dash. “Oh crap…!” He muttered before urgently rushing forward.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash croaked while kicking her hind legs and flailing her wings. No matter how much she struggled, she only succeeded in putting more pressure on her throat. Her lungs were burning, screaming for air that she couldn’t provide. Her vision started to fade, and her struggles grew weaker and weaker.

Suddenly and very abruptly, the pegasus was sent falling to the ground as the force let go of her neck. She laid motionless on the cave floor, one hoof still resting on her throat as she gasped and gulped down precious oxygen.

While she was still recovering, Rainbow Dash lifted her head up and looked ahead. She saw the Freddy suit illuminated by Applejack’s flashlight, but its head was looking off to the side. She suddenly noticed a second flashlight beam bouncing rapidly along with the sound of someone running. Before she could process what was going on, a flash of blue light flooded her vision, forcing her to clench her eyes shut.

A distorted wail of pain rang out from in front of the pegasus, followed by the sound of something sizzling. She opened her eyes back up, only to see the possessed mascot shrinking backwards with steam trailing off of it as a bright light died down.

“T…Tom?!” Rainbow exclaimed in stunned surprise as she turned and noticed the human rushing toward her. He finally reached her and jumped between her and the still smoking bear suit.

“Are you guys ok?” Tom asked without breaking his focus on the recovering mascot.

“Nngh… I’m alright… I think.” Rainbow Dash said before glancing upwards and looking toward Fluttershy and Applejack. The pair were staring back at her and the human with stunned expressions. Although she was conscious and aware of her surroundings, Fluttershy looked like she was in bad shape. “Fluttershy got hurt fighting that thing, though… She’s bleeding.” The cyan mare explained with a worried expression while looking back to the human.

“I’ll take care of her once this thing is gone.” Tom replied in a serious tone of voice. Not wanting to mess around, he readied his hands in front of him and formed his claws.

The Freddy suit finally steadied itself and looked ahead at the others. Another deep laugh echoed through the cave, though this one sounded like it wasn’t being made directly by the bear. The yellow lights in its eyes burned fiercely as it stared at the slayer standing in front of the ponies.

Tom yelled fiercely while charging at the spirit. He reeled his arm back, ready to swipe sideways and cut into the possessed suit. Before he could make contact, however, an invisible blow sent him flying backwards.

Rainbow Dash watched as the human tumbled along the ground beside her. Deciding that she wasn’t just going to sit idly by, she got to her hooves and readied herself for battle once more. “Hey, over here!” She yelled while quickly trotting to the left of the creature, drawing its attention away.

As Tom recovered from his brief flight, he looked up and saw the cyan mare jumping around the possessed suit, taunting it and running circles around it. “What the heck are you doing?” The human asked with an expression of disbelief.

“Helping you, what does it look like I’m doing?!” Rainbow Dash retorted. “Stop worrying about me and start worrying about beating this thing!”

The Freddy suit lifted a paw off the ground and raised it toward the annoying pegasus. Rainbow Dash felt its invisible grip washing over her legs, gently tugging her upward. Before she could be flung, however, another flash of blue erupted from behind the mascot, stumbling it and forcing it to let go.

The mascot yelled and cried, filling the cavern with distorted echoes. It spun around to face the human, preparing to defend itself. The demented bear made an attempt at tossing the human into the air again until something crashed into it from behind.

“Hyah!” Rainbow cried fiercely while following her yellow friend’s earlier example and jumping onto the creature. She locked her legs around it, doing her best to ignore the repulsive ectoplasm covering it and the effect it was having on her senses. Just being this close to whatever was inside of the suit made her skin crawl.

Freddy staggered from side to side, clumsily trying to buck the pegasus off. Either it was losing strength, or its chaotic nature was getting the better of it because right now it seemed to be unable to make coordinated movements.

Rainbow Dash felt the invisible force trying to pull her off of the mascot. She locked her legs tighter and cringed while trying her best to stay on its back.

Just when the cyan mare thought she was going to lose her grip, both her and the yellow suit looked ahead as they heard footsteps rapidly approaching. A disgusting stabbing sound rang out, and Rainbow looked up to see Tom stabbing one of his clawed hands into the bear’s chest cavity. Like what happened before with the previous inhuman spirit, yellow liquid spilled out around the boy’s claws, and the area around the impact burned intensely as steam poured out.

Tom turned to the pegasus still hanging on the creature’s back with a serious look in his eyes. “Jump off, now!” He yelled while lifting his other hand up and using his palm to cover the bear’s mouth. Seeing what was coming next, Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and let go, falling roughly onto her side.

A soul shattering scream pierced the air as blue light erupted from the human’s other hand. The light traveled into the suit, leaking out around the edges of its mouth and even through seams in the suit itself.

After a solid few moments had gone by with the possessed bear struggling in vain to free itself, Tom gave it a mighty shove, sending it backwards and ripping his claws out of it. Despite the light being gone, the creature sizzled and burned from the inside out. The golden Freddy fell roughly into a seated position. Its body still steaming, its head limply rolled to the side. Suddenly, it burst into flames around its chest and mouth.

As Rainbow Dash pushed herself up on her forelegs, she looked ahead to see the mascot suit burning. The cave was lit up with orange tinted light as the flames licked at the bear costume like a bonfire. Shadows danced along the walls in time with the stunning display.

The ponies and the human watched in stunned silence as the suit burned. The ghostly creature within was still present, evident by the intense yellow lights in the suit’s empty eyes. A runny substance started dripping out of the eyes and the seams of the costume. The liquid was either ectoplasm or the strange yellow substance from before. It was hard to tell due to it being blackened by the fire.

Amid the crackling of the fire and the faint sizzling of the creature, a distorted whistling could be heard, humming a slow tune that was familiar to the three ponies. The droning sound was eerily chilling on its own, but it was even more so when accompanied by the sight of the bear suit burning.

…Bye bye…

A warped voice called from the suit, almost sounding amused and contented. All at once, the flames died down and the whistling faded on the final note of its melody, leaving the cave dark once more. The yellow lights had vanished from the now charred suit, and it moved no further.

Rainbow Dash blinked a few times while processing what just happened. “It’s… gone?” She asked in a quiet tone while turning to the human for confirmation. She looked back to the blackened mascot as Tom nodded in response.

The sound of a pained groan drew the pair’s attention behind them. They immediately noticed Applejack sitting next to Fluttershy, comforting the wounded pegasus as best she could.

“Fluttershy…!” Rainbow Dash sprang to her feet and rushed over to the yellow mare. As she knelt down beside Fluttershy and got a better look at her wound, Rainbow’s face paled and she frowned with concern.

“Ungh… h-hey Dashie…” Fluttershy smiled softly while looking up at the cyan pegasus beside her. She cringed and laid her head back down while reaching for her wound again. Her voice sounded weak and quiet, almost like she was struggling to make herself audible.

“Don’t worry, Flutters… Tom is gonna fix you up,” Rainbow Dash assured while resting a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. The yellow pony felt cold to the touch, eliciting a saddened frown from the cyan mare. “You can fix her… right?” She asked while turning to the human, desperation evident in her eyes.

Tom knelt down and examined the extent of Fluttershy’s wound. The pegasus was impaled clean through her lower stomach region, but thankfully the wound was off to the side, so it didn’t seem like it would have hit anything vital. Either way, it needed to be dealt with soon or she would die from blood loss.

“I think I can… but not while she is still on this spike.” Tom explained while sizing up the rock that was jutting through the mare.

“So… we need to… *Gulp* pull her off of it?” Rainbow Dash asked uneasily. She turned to see Fluttershy with an understandably fearful expression on her face, or rather, in her eyes. The pegasus was so weak that she had difficulty emoting anything but pain through her face.

“How bad is it gonna hurt her?” Applejack asked hesitantly. Although she knew from previous experience that the human’s healing powers canceled out pain, she wasn’t sure if that would work for something this severe.

“It shouldn’t hurt at all as long as I at least touch her while starting to heal. I won’t be able to lift her up very well if I do that, though… so you two need to be the ones to pull her up.” Tom explained.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash shared uncertain glances with each other. Their faces softened up as they looked back down at their injured friend and saw her looking back at them with a trusting expression. Finally, they nodded to each other and turned back to the human.

“Alright, we’ll do it.” Rainbow said with a determined expression.

Tom nodded. “Good… get on opposite sides of her. I would recommend picking her up from the front and back while I focus on making sure she doesn’t feel anything.” He said while scooting over and gently placing his hands above and below where the entry and exit wounds were.

The two mares quickly got into position, with Rainbow Dash at her tail end, and Applejack up by her head. They each took a moment to figure out the best way to lift her straight up and off of the rock. Even if the human was making sure she felt no pain, they didn’t want to make things worse for her.

Rainbow looked down at the resting pony and flashed a reassuring smile. “Just sit tight, Fluttershy. We’ll have you up and about before you know it.” She stated with a confident façade, despite her inner feelings of nervousness.

“Are you guys ready?” Tom asked curiously while turning between the two.

“Ready…” Applejack reported while gently placing her hooves under Fluttershy’s shoulders.

Rainbow Dash did the same, putting her hooves under the yellow mare’s lower back. “Ready.”

“I’m ready…” Fluttershy said, managing a weak nod as the trio looked to her for her opinion.

“Alright… lift her straight up on three.” Tom said while channeling energy to his hands. His palms glowed a soft shade of blue and he pressed down on the pegasus’s wounds. Fluttershy immediately felt the pain in her side vanishing and being replaced by a warm fuzzy sensation that was rather pleasant.

“One…”

The two mares readied themselves anxiously.

“Two…”

They sweated nervously as they pictured a million different things going wrong. Despite their apprehensions, they were more than willing to do whatever it took to help their friend get better.

“Three!” The human announced, using whatever leverage he had and pushing upward on the yellow mare.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack heaved and gradually started lifting Fluttershy up. The rocky spike slid out of her slowly, making a disconcerting squelch as it went. All the while, the pegasus seemed to be feeling no pain, making sure to remain as still as possible while her friends struggled to free her from her impalement.

Finally, the trio managed to raise the fragile pony up and completely off of the spike without it breaking. The rock was stained crimson with her blood, and a decently sized puddle had formed where she was laying. Blood was already pouring out of the two holes in Fluttershy’s abdomen, though she seemed relatively calm despite this fact. The group gently moved her and set her down on her side on the relatively flat ground. Once the two mares let go of her, Tom went to work.

The human held his hands back a short distance and projected his healing light at full force onto the two gaping holes in her body. Much to the relief of everyone present, the wounds started to close up. Once all visible surface damage was healed, Tom placed his hand on Fluttershy’s side in the middle of where the wounds were and continued projecting light into her body.

After a solid thirty seconds had gone by, Tom groaned from exhaustion and let his light die down. He let the pegasus sit up and examine her side.

“Does anything feel like it still hurts inside of you?” Tom asked curiously while still catching his breath.

Fluttershy poked her stomach gently where her injury had once been. Even though the warm tingling feeling had subsided, nothing felt out of the ordinary with her insides. “I think I’m alright…” She smiled brightly as her strength was returned to her. “Thank you so much, Tom.” She said while looking up at the human with a grateful expression. Her joy swiftly turned to concern as she noticed how much the boy was struggling to catch his breath.

“Are you ok, Tom?” Applejack asked with a worried expression.

The human groaned heavily as he got up from the floor. “I’m fine… I just need to… *Pant*… get my strength back.” He explained reassuringly. “I should be alright by the time we make it back to the others.” He added, looking toward the way he came with his flashlight.

“Yeah… I think it’s about time we headed back. Don’t you two agree?” Fluttershy asked lightheartedly while turning to her two friends. The two mares shared a chuckle with the pegasus before nodding.

“Definitely… I am sick of this place already.” Applejack stated in agreement.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here already… it smells like burnt bear.” Rainbow Dash cringed as she inhaled through her nose. The others cracked a smile and joined the cyan pony as she started walking back through the cave.

Twilight and her three companions searched around the undiscovered portion of the cave they had found. While their curiosity had peaked ever since entering un-treaded territory, they were quickly growing frustrated with the lack of progress they were making.

Aside from one or two scrap pieces of wood or metal, there weren’t nearly as many signs of debris from the old amusement park in the relatively smaller space. The ceiling was much closer to the ground than most other places in the cave, making it seem like a more cramped area despite it actually being fairly large. Still, there was nothing but rocks and darkness as far as their limited view could see ahead of them.

Pinkie Pie looked ahead to the purple unicorn and audibly sighed. “Twilight… I don’t want to sound like I don’t believe your visions… but are you sure that Dream Catcher guy fell down here?” She asked with an exhausted tone.

Twilight turned to look at the group behind her. Glitterball and Sparkplug were just as tired of walking around and finding nothing as their pink companion, and the unicorn couldn’t blame them. “I know what I saw, Pinkie. He’s down here somewhere…” She trailed her eyes back ahead, trying to remain optimistic.

“Ok… but what if his body got buried under a ton of rock? For all we know we might not even be able to reach him, let alone find him.” Sparkplug considered, further dwelling on just how pointless the search seemed at this point.

“That may very well be true,” Twilight replied. “But we have to keep looking. Even if we don’t find his body, we need to make sure that we’ve exhausted all of our options. If we can’t find those remains, then it will be a lot more difficult for Glitter and the others to get rid of the ghosts.” She turned toward the other unicorn sympathetically.

Glitterball looked down and frowned as she began to think about what else they could do about the ghosts. Without their equipment, and without a surefire way to track the ghosts down once they were forced out of whatever body they were inhabiting, they were essentially up a creek without a paddle if they couldn’t find the remains and burn them.

As they continued walking through the blackness, they gradually saw something coming into view up ahead.

The expanse of rock formations and stone floors came to an end at a pile of rubble and another wall.

The rubble seemed to be from some larger building, and it seemed relatively intact. The whole structure was upside down, and it was crumbling in on itself in many places, but it looked like someone could get inside and have a bit of room to walk around. There were many openings in the walls, and the windows also allowed for a way inside.

Sparkplug shrugged while noting the closed off area around them. “Well… it looks like we've hit a dead end.”

“Not necessarily,” Glitterball said. “It looks like we could take a look in that building. Maybe we can find something in there?” She mused, trying to remain optimistic.

“I don't know about that… That place it looks like it could come down on top of us at any minute.” Sparkplug added while scrutinizing the ruins warily.

Twilight examined the far off building curiously. The gray mare’s concerns were well founded from just looking at the integrity of the walls.

“It's worth checking out, just to be safe.” Twilight concluded.

Sparkplug cringed apprehensively while eyeing the pile of rubble. “I don't think safe and that thing go together in a sentence.”

Despite any initial hesitations they might have had about the ruined structure, the ponies approached it, looking around and sizing up any entrances they might have had. Many of the openings were either too small or blocked by debris from the inside. However, a few of the windows had broken open even further, allowing easy entry.

Twilight peered in through one of the openings and looked inside. Much of the space inside was cluttered by debris, but much of the floor was traversable. As she glanced up, expecting to see some crumbling remnants of a ceiling, she was surprised to see that much of the roof- or perhaps it was the floor? - was absent, leaving a gaping hole that looked up into the cave above.

“Huh…” Twilight raised an eyebrow curiously. “Doesn’t look like there’s much of anything to come down on top of us,” She climbed through the hole, turning and looking back at the others. “Come on in.” She motioned with her foreleg toward the inside.

Pinkie Pie was the first to join the purple mare, eagerly crawling through the opening. She was followed by Glitterball, and then Sparkplug. Soon all four mares were standing inside of the twisted remains of the ruined structure.

Glitterball kicked over a smaller piece of wood lying on the ground, taking a look around. “Not so sure about our chances of finding anything here anymore.” She flattened her ears and sighed as she saw nothing but piles of rock, wood, and scrap.

“Yeah… right there with you.” Twilight admitted hesitantly. “Still, we’re already here, so we might as well check the place out.” She shifted her expression to a resolute one and tried to focus on the task at hand. The others shrugged and nodded before spreading out around the area and searching the building.

The four mares searched through every nook and cranny they could reach. Many of the rooms were blocked off, or at least weren’t easy to get to. Still, they were thorough in their inspection.

Twilight was exploring around one of the rooms on the first floor. Glitterball was in sight, standing through the doorway to her rear. Sparkplug was near the back of the structure, searching through the small section of the upper floor that was present and accessible. Pinkie was somewhere up ahead on the first floor, though the purple mare hadn’t seen her in a little while, only managing to keep in contact through speech.

Walking over a pile of rocks and looking around a destroyed counter of some sort, Twilight scanned for any signs of yellow. She wasn’t even sure if she believed that anything could be found in the cave, let alone where they were right now. At this point, she was starting to think that Dream Catcher’s body had either fallen into a chasm or gotten stuck between some rocks.

“Anything look promising?” Glitterball asked, walking into the room and up to the other unicorn.

Twilight sighed through her nose and shook her head while turning to the white pony. “Nope… nothing.” She reported, feeling a little less than enthused.

“Right…” Glitterball paused and frowned briefly before clearing her throat. “Maybe Sparkplug is having some luck?” She suggested, looking toward the section of the upper floor that the gray pony was searching.

“I doubt it. She said that there wasn’t much up there last I checked. I don’t think much of the furniture in this place survived the quake.” Twilight said, growing more disheartened and frustrated by the minute. “Who are we kidding? We’re not going to find those remains. I’m starting to think we aren’t even going to be able to beat the ghosts another way. Ugh… what are we going to do?” She asked, not really expecting an answer. The white mare beside her wasn’t sure what to say to reassure her, not that Twilight could blame her.

“Hey, guys!” Pinkie Pie’s voice called from somewhere off in the building. “Get over here, I think I found something!” She announced urgently. Although the pink mare was usually energetic, she seemed to be really excited by whatever it was she found.

Twilight and Glitterball shared a brief glance with each other. They felt a slight smile building on their faces before they both rushed to go find their pink friend. The two unicorns winded around the many blocked off paths through the ruins, making their way toward the back of the structure.

As they neared where they thought they heard Pinkie from, they met up with Sparkplug, who had also come running to see what the party pony had discovered. The trio walked through another doorway until they paused as they spotted Pinkie standing ahead of them, looking away at something else.

“We’re here, Pinkie… what did you find?” Twilight asked curiously, slowly walking up to the pink mare while catching her breath slightly. Pinkie pointed ahead with her foreleg, though the others could already see what she was referring to. The unexpected sight made them pause mid-stride and look ahead with stunned expressions.

Over at the back of the room, lying atop a pile of rubble, there was an aged mascot suit. Of course, this suit was special. It was a yellow rabbit, slightly resembling the other Bonnie suit if it had teeth and eyes. The sections of the suit were bulkier than regular costumes, and the pieces connected to each other more closely, almost like they were stuck. It was almost completely deteriorated, with its fur dirtied and faded beyond recognition by the ravages of time, and a heavy covering of dust and debris.

Twilight and the others stared at the suit silently. Their initial excitement quickly shifted to mild disturbance and unease. Inside of the costume limply sprawled out on the ground was the dead body of a stallion, and not just a regular stallion, a stallion that had kidnapped and murdered numerous children.

“Did I do a good job?” Pinkie asked with a giddy smile, taking pride in showing off her discovery to her friends.

Twilight opened her mouth to chuckle, but the sound died out as she stared at the sight in front of her in disbelief. “You did a lot more than a good job, Pinkie.” She smiled widely. The pink pony seemed satisfied with her job well done.

“So that’s the guy…” Sparkplug spoke, a slight somber inflection to her voice. The gray earth pony was still processing every tragic event that she had learned about, and now she was standing in front of the one responsible… or at least his corpse.

“It’s… just a body. Dream Catcher died seventy years ago.” Twilight reminded everyone, including herself while shaking the unnerving thoughts from her head. “Still… I wonder what he’s doing here? This place doesn’t look anything like the building I saw him die in.” She wondered curiously while noting the different building. The yellow rabbit seemed incredibly out of place. It wasn’t even really buried under anything, instead only sitting on top of some rubble. She expected it to look more worse for wear considering it went through an earthquake and sat in an underground cave for seven decades.

“Who cares how it got here? Let’s just grab that pouch and burn it. The faster we get rid of the ghosts, the better.” Glitterball suggested eagerly.

Twilight nodded, turning to the yellow suit with a serious expression. “Right…” She stepped forward, her expression falling as she drew closer to the rabbit.

As she slowly walked over to the costume and looked down at it, a disquieting feeling of hesitance washed over her. Although the lack of a rotten smell indicated that the body was most likely a skeleton by this point, it was still skin-crawlingly disturbing to even look at it.

With her friends watching from behind, Twilight knelt down and examined the suit. The area where the neck met the chest piece was very tightly put together. She wasn’t sure if that was how the suit was designed, or if that was a side effect of the mechanical parts within breaking off and snapping shut. Even through the holes in the suit, she couldn’t see any signs of the pouch, and she didn’t want to look too closely at those for fear that she might see something else.

“Ugh… I feel so wrong doing this. I know he was a terrible person and all, but technically this is body desecration.” Twilight cringed with disgust while rooting around with her hoof, trying to find a way to reach into the suit. She could feel a thick layer of grime covering the costume, and she shuddered to think of all it might have been. In all likeliness, she was touching the remains of seventy-year-old dry blood.

“Just…” Sparkplug paused, trying to find something helpful to say behind her slight revulsion. “Just think of it like an animatronic.”

Twilight nodded sporadically, averting her eyes while still groping around the suit. “Right… an animatronic.” She parroted while trying hard to suppress the skin crawling sensation she was feeling.

“Yeah… it’s just an animatronic. With wires, and oil… and… *gulp* an endoskeleton… oh, princess… I think I’m gonna barf.” Sparkplug paled slightly as she dwelled on the thoughts that everyone else was trying to avoid.

“Not… helping… Sparkplug.” Twilight suppressed a shudder, focusing on the task at hand. Finally, she shrugged with frustration as she failed to find an opening in the suit. “Dangit… there’s no way inside large enough to find the pouch and get out.” She stepped back and wiped her hoof on the relatively clean floor.

“Hey, you said that he died from some metal parts snapping inside of the suit, right?” Pinkie Pie asked with a thoughtful expression.

“Umm... yeah,” Twilight replied, unsure of what her pink friend was thinking of.

“Well, what if the pouch got stuck inside some of the parts? It would probably be really hard to get it out if that were the case.” Pinkie suggested, somehow able to skirt over the gruesome thoughts implied by her words.

Twilight glanced down to her hoof and held it up with a disgusted expression. “Pinkie, you couldn’t have brought that… rather simple deduction, to my attention before I started touching the dead body?” She asked with an agitated tone, partially towards the pink mare, and partially towards herself for not thinking of the same thing.

“Sorry… I figured you had something in mind when you volunteered to be the one to get the pouch out.” Pinkie responded, shrugging her shoulders with a sympathetic expression.

“So what’s the plan now?” Sparkplug asked curiously.

“Well…” Twilight stepped away from the body while thinking, the others following close behind. “We could just burn the whole body… can’t believe I didn’t try that first.” She suggested, looking to the others for their opinion.

Glitterball brought a hoof up to her chin pensively. “I don’t know if we could get it to burn up as well as we would need. There are presumably a lot of metal parts in there to get between the fire and the pouch. And… for all we know the suit could be fire retardant.”

“That is a good point.” Twilight exhaled while struggling to think of a solution. “Maybe we should try pouring some oil on it? I’ll bet if enough flammable liquid seeps in through the holes in the suit, the pouch should burn up along with everything else.” She thought out loud with an intrigued expression.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie was staring at something else while the others were still gathered in a circle. “Uh… guys?” She spoke up timidly, though her question was lost on deaf ears as the others were still formulating a plan.

“That sounds like it might work. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring any oil with us.” Sparkplug’s eager expression deflated slightly.

“We’ll just have to head back and get some, then.” Glitterball stated in a matter of fact way.

Twilight nodded in agreement. “Of course… we already got the hard part out of the way. It’s not like this guy is going anywhere.”

“Guys!” Pinkie raised her voice urgently, garnering the attention of the three mares. They looked ahead to see her staring at them with wide eyes.

“What’s wrong, Pinkie?” Twilight asked with a concerned expression.

The pink mare merely pointed behind the group with a fearful look in her eyes. All at once, they heard a shuffling noise behind them.

The ponies turned around hesitantly, a sizable knot developing in their stomachs. As they looked behind them, they froze up and widened their eyes in shock. The rabbit suit was moving.

Twilight backed up slowly as she watched the pony suit on the floor stirring. The yellow mascot made stiff and uncoordinated movements as it groped at the floor with its legs and tried getting up. The purple unicorn mentally kicked herself as the realization dawned on her. There was a reason why the mascot wasn’t anywhere near the shed he fell with, and that it was just sitting out in the open, surrounded by other things that got buried under rubble.

“Of course… Dream Catcher’s body is still in there. His spirit must still be trapped here as well.” Twilight reasoned, a palpable sense of fear in her voice.

Gradually, the mascot managed to get to its feet. It shook and faltered, managing to move its jittery body to face the group of nervous ponies. The cracks in its mouth, along with its blocky teeth, formed into a permanent grin. Through the tiny holes in its eyes, a set of faintly glowing silver dots could be seen. Its body shook as a grating roar emanated from within. The noise held a slight distortion that indicated it being made by a ghost, but otherwise, it sounded organic like some poor dying soul was crying out from within its metallic prison.

“Umm… Twilight, I think now would be an excellent time to kill it with fire!” Glitterball suggested urgently while watching the animated corpse stepping closer.

Twilight glanced to the white unicorn before turning her attention back to the yellow rabbit, her eyes swimming with uncertainty. Finally, she shifted her expression to a serious one and pushed her fears aside. “Alright, stand back!” She instructed while taking a step forward and charging up her horn. The others watched as the purple mare lowered her head and prepared to fire a blast of fire magic at the possessed suit.

Twilight’s horn buzzed as she focused her magical energies. The sparks forming at the tip intensified until a solid flame appeared. She aimed her attack and planted her feet, fully prepared to incinerate the walking corpse.

Before the unicorn could discharge her spell, however, something happened to interrupt her; something, in this case, being an invisible force sending her flying backwards at an alarming speed.

“Wh-AHH!” Twilight yelped fearfully as she was flung through the air. Her body smacked into the wall behind her and kept going, crumbling the already fragile structure and sending her crashing into the next room.

“Twilight!” The others exclaimed in shock as they watched their friend getting propelled into the next room. As the purple mare smacked to the floor with a painful grunt, the three ponies rushed to gather by her side.

“Oh my gosh, are you ok?!” Pinkie asked in a panic while watching the dust settling from the unicorn’s impact.

Twilight groaned softly while sitting up. Her back was sore, and her head had seen better days, but otherwise, she was unharmed. “What the… hay… just happened?” She muttered while holding a hoof to her head gingerly.

“You totally just went through a wall!” Sparkplug stated, pointing out the obvious lack of a wall between the two rooms.

“I think she gathered that, Sparkplug.” Glitterball said while helping the purple pony to her feet.

The ponies looked ahead to see the decayed rabbit suit staggering towards them. Despite its slow pace and stiff movements, it held a very menacing air about it as it stared holes into them with its eyes.

“I didn’t think these ghosts could toss people around like that. None of the other animatronics could do that.” Twilight noted, still feeling a few twinges of pain from her brief flight.

“Maybe this one is different somehow?” Glitterball reasoned uneasily while standing in front of the others protectively.

Twilight walked up beside the white mare and squared off against the approaching threat. “Let’s try this again…” She lit up her horn, pointing it at the mascot same as before. This time, however, she wouldn’t give the ghost as much of a chance to fling her away before she could cast her spell.

With an orange flash, a burst of fire shot out of Twilight’s horn and zipped through the air. The ball of flames collided with the rabbit suit, staggering it backwards a step as the fire exploded outwards. The spirit within let out a painful outcry that nearly made the four mares’ ears hurt.

Twilight and the others smiled triumphantly as they watched the flames flickering on the suit. Although the area affected was small, it would spread soon enough and engulf the entire costume inside and out.

Suddenly, a violent gust of wind surged through the room, seemingly coming out of nowhere. The wall of focused air blew the ponies’ hair over their heads and nearly knocked them off balance. The wind surged forward, hitting the burning mascot and snuffing out the flames spreading across its body.

“What the hay?!” Sparkplug exclaimed with a startled expression.

Pinkie Pie’s jaw nearly dropped at the sudden upset. “That’s not fair! He can’t just do that… it’s cheating!” She said, turning to the others with an appalled look on her face.

Dream Catcher, or whatever spirit inhabited his body, let out another bellowing cry. The very walls of the building around them seemed to shake with the yell. The ponies quickly grew alarmed as they realized that the walls were indeed shaking.

“What’s happening?!” Glitterball asked in a panic. She struggled to steady herself as the shaking intensified.

Twilight looked ahead to the angry spirit. It didn’t seem to be having any trouble with the ground trembling beneath it. “I t-think the ghost is more powerful than we thought. We… s-should probably get out of here!” She suggested urgently. With how much the area was shaking, the walls around them could topple over and crush them.

The other mares had no objections with following the purple unicorn as she bolted toward the other direction. They looked back as they left the room to see the yellow rabbit stomping after them at a surprisingly fast pace.

Twilight did her best to wind through the path back to the entrance as fast as Equinely possible. As she slid to a stop to make a turn, she looked behind her to see her friends running along with her. Another droning yell erupted from behind them, indicating that they were still being followed by the creature.

Somehow, the ponies managed to escape the ruined building and shot out into the cave. They continued running for their lives, stumbling over the rocky outcroppings on the floor and racing to gain as much distance from their pursuer as possible.

As they neared the opening out into the discovered portion of the cave, their hearts were all pounding in their chests and their lungs were burning. The shaking had stopped some time ago, and they hadn’t heard any noises since they left the ruins. Still, they ran up to the hole in the wall urgently and gathered in front of it.

Twilight panted heavily while turning around and scanning the area behind them. As she had suspected, there was no sign of the yellow rabbit anywhere. “I… *Wheeze* I don’t… think it’s following us any… anymore.” She said in between breaths.

Satisfied that the purple mare’s observation was correct, the others took a moment to sit and rest. Sparkplug took off her hat and used it to fan herself while leaning up against the wall. Pinkie Pie was breathing heavily with a drained expression, using Glitterball as a support to lean on. Glitterball was exhausted too, but she managed to quiet her gasps for air while her companions looked like they were about to pass out.

“What… ugh… what do we do now?” Glitterball asked with an uncertain expression. She contemplated calling her teammates, but perhaps it would be better to go to them rather than asking for help.

Twilight pondered the matter for a moment in between catching her breath. Finally, she turned to the others and inhaled once more to reset her breathing. “I think we need to head back to the others and let them know what happened. We can come up with a better plan once everyone is on the same page.” She suggested while leveling with the others. They seemed to have no idea about what to do as far as beating the ancient mascot suit was concerned, and she wasn’t faring much better at the moment.

“I… *Pant*… I like that plan. That sounds like a good plan.” Sparkplug nodded with a content smile plastered on her face.

Pinkie Pie nodded slowly, still having trouble with calming her breathing and racing heart. “What she said… Just… please, no more running.”

“Alright…” Glitterball smiled softly while getting up and gently pushing the pink mare off of her. She started making her way through the small opening in the cave wall. Once she was on the other side, she motioned for the others to follow her. “Let’s get moving.”

The others quickly moved to start crawling through the hole. Pinkie Pie went first, and then Sparkplug. Twilight lingered while the other two ponies made their way through to give them light. Once all her friends were on the other side, the purple unicorn ducked and walked forward. She paused before arriving on the other end, turning and giving one last look toward the distance. Somewhere out in the darkness, the key to their freedom was waiting, and Twilight was determined to make sure that everyone made it out of the cave in one piece.

Back at the central area of the cave, Sunspot and Glimmer Shine were waiting anxiously for their friends to return. It had been a few minutes since Tom called ahead with the news that he had found the three mares and defeated the inhuman spirit. While the pair was confident that the human and his group would be fine, they hadn’t heard anything from Glitterball since she had begun her search with Twilight and the others.

Sunspot paced back and forth uneasily, her eyes shifting around as she muttered to herself in thought. The yellow stallion was watching her from a short way away; dealing with his concerns internally as he patiently waited and watched either of the two paths out into the cave.

“Relax, Sunspot. I’m sure Glitter and the others are fine.” Glimmer Shine spoke up, tired of the exhaustion by proxy he was getting from watching the pegasus wearing a hole into the floor.

Sunspot glanced over to her companion and briefly paused. “Why hasn’t she called us then?” She asked with a hint of paranoia in her voice.

Glimmer shrugged and rolled his eyes before flashing a reassuring smile. “She probably hasn’t found anything worth reporting. You need to stop worrying so much about things.”

“How can you not be worried about things? We’re in a haunted cave looking for dead bodies to burn so we can un-haunt the cave. There’s like a million things that could go wrong.” Sunspot replied, continuing her routine of pacing and staring off into the distance.

“I am worried… You’re just, like… a smidge too worried for your own good.” Glimmer Shine said.

Sunspot made an attempt at staying still and relaxing. She made it around fifteen seconds before fidgeting her hooves uncomfortably. Finally, she gave up and continued walking around. Glimmer Shine shrugged and turned away from the pegasus. He was tired of watching her driving herself up a wall, even if he understood where she was coming from.

Suddenly, a light from across the left bridge caught Sunspot’s eye. She squinted for a moment while the light drew closer. Soon enough, she could start to see the familiar shapes of four ponies approaching from the distance.

“Hey… check it out!” Sunspot spoke up eagerly, gathering the attention of her yellow companion.

Glimmer Shine looked off into the distance and noticed the four mares walking closer. “See? I told you they were fine.” He smirked wryly while glancing to the pegasus from the corner of his eye. Sunspot shot him an unimpressed look before walking over to the bridge to greet the group once they made it back.

As they made it over to the bridge and started crossing, the four mares smiled when they saw the pair waiting for them.

“Hey, guys!” Glitterball walked up to her two teammates and happily gave each of them a brief hug.

Sunspot looked around at the group, smiling brightly. “Glad you all made it back alright.”

“Believe me… we are just as glad as you are.” Twilight added with a relieved sigh.

“I take it you found something?” Glimmer Shine asked with a guarded sense of curiosity.

“Yeah, you could say that…” Glitterball replied distantly, looking around the area in search of something that wasn’t present. “Hey, uh… where are the others? Are they still out searching?” She asked.

“They’re on their way back right now.” Glimmer explained before shifting his attention elsewhere. “How about you tell us what happened with you guys while we wait for them?”

The four mares looked at each other with uncertain expressions, seemingly trying to delegate how to divulge the information they had. Finally, Twilight cleared her throat and spoke up. “We found what we were looking for.” She explained, her eyes strangely holding a hesitant look in them despite the seemingly great news she was dispensing.

“You mean you found the remains?” Sunspot asked eagerly. Her excitement only doubled as the others nodded. “That’s great news! Were you able to burn them?” The pegasus probed, completely unable to read the shared expression of hesitancy between the four ponies.

“Umm, not… exactly,” Twilight elaborated with a nervous smile. Her expression fell as she decided to stop beating around the bush. “We found Dream Catcher’s body, but we ran into a problem before we could try to burn it.”

“Problem?” Glimmer Shine repeated the unicorn’s statement with a confused tilt of the head. “What kind of problem?”

“It woke up…” Twilight finished with a blunt delivery. The others nodded with similar expressions of unease on their faces.

“Oh… that kind of problem,” Sunspot’s excitement all but vanished. “Well… at least we found out where he is. It shouldn’t be too hard to light him on fire, right?” She asked, chuckling nervously at the blank frowns she was seeing. “Right…?”

“Normally? No, it wouldn’t… but this ghost seems to be a lot stronger than any of the others we’ve found thus far. It has a very powerful control over telekinesis and other abilities you might see a ghost using.” Glitterball explained, a troubled tone to her voice.

“That doesn’t sound good.” Glimmer Shine shrugged uneasily.

Pinkie Pie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it tossed Twilight through a wall like she was a hoofball!”

“Ugh… don’t remind me, Pinkie.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head tenderly.

“Yikes… through a wall?” Sunspot cringed sympathetically for the purple unicorn. “Are you alright?”

“To be fair, it was a really old wall. It might as well have been made out of cardboard… still didn’t feel too good. That thing really had some oomph behind it.” Twilight explained. “I was trying to light it on fire when it threw me. I tried a second time and actually landed a hit, but it must have made a gust of wind blow through and snuffed out the fire. I think it has a very good sense of self-defense.”

“We ran out of there as fast as we could… Figured it would be better to come back here and plan things out with you guys.” Glitterball added.

“Good thinking. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.” Glimmer Shine said with a smirk of admiration. “Speaking of which… how do we go about taking care of this?” He asked while looking around, open to suggestions from anyone.

“Well, if we’re all fine with the assumption that the pouch of hair is still inside of the suit with Dream Catcher, all we need to do is find a way to light him on fire without him being able to put it out.” Sparkplug pondered out loud. “Twilight had a pretty good suggestion earlier. We could douse the suit in oil and then roast him like a marshmallow.”

“Hmm… toasty.” Sunspot cringed slightly at the thought of burning a dead body.

“Morbidity aside, that does sound like a good idea. It would be much harder for the ghost to put itself out before the fire destroyed the remains that way. But… if it is so powerful and aware of its surroundings, it would probably be able to deflect anything it sees coming at it.” Glimmer Shine added while thinking about the matter further.

Twilight glanced back toward the bridge behind her, her eyes drifting upward. As she looked at the many rocky outcroppings along the cave wall, she grinned slightly as a plan started formulating in her mind. “I think I might have an idea.”

Tom walked through the darkened cavern with the three mares he rescued earlier trailing behind him. Everyone was eager to be reunited with their friends, and they were hopeful that the others were having more luck than they were in finding something useful.

The human looked ahead, spotting some lights in the distance. “I think we’re almost there.” He announced to the ponies behind him. The others sighed with relief as they saw the familiar sight of the flat clearing.

Fluttershy smiled warmly as her thoughts turned to her other friends. “I’ll be glad to be back together again… especially after everything that just happened.” She trailed her eyes down nervously and suppressed a shudder as she pictured the yellow bear suit.

“I don’t know, Fluttershy… you handled yourself pretty well back there.” Rainbow Dash said while looking to her fellow pegasus with an impressed smirk.

“R-really? You think so?” Fluttershy asked bashfully.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Think so? You were totally awesome, Flutters! You jumped on that creep without so much as a moment of hesitation.”

“Yeah… you saved our hides if you ask me.” Applejack added, eager to give the timid mare the praise she deserved.

Fluttershy looked away and put a hoof up to her mane, her cheeks flush and a small grin on her face. “I don’t know about all that… I was just trying to help any way I could.”

As they approached the stone bridge leading over to the flat clearing, they could see the others busy doing something. The closer they got, the more confused they became by watching their friends. Glimmer Shine and a couple of the others seemed to be breaking down some of the rope barriers around the area. Twilight could be seen lifting a barrel of some sort high above her while Pinkie watched, and Sunspot and Sparkplug were somewhere in the background holding something.

Once she noticed the approaching group, Pinkie rushed over to them with eager excitement written on her face. And of course, once the pink mare got the ball rolling, the others gradually paused what they were doing to either walk over to them or look their direction cheerfully.

“Hey everyone,” Rainbow Dash greeted her friends before shifting her attention back to what they were doing. “Did we miss something?” She tilted her head in confusion while looking around at the various things that were going on around her.

“Twilight and the others found Dream Catcher’s body.” Glimmer Shine explained, briefly looking up from his seated position tending to some rope.

The cyan pegasus raised a surprised eyebrow. “Really? That’s great!”

“Unfortunately it woke up and started trying to kill us…” Twilight added while attempting to balance the barrel in her magical grip on top of a rocky ledge over by the leftmost bridge. “So, now we’re setting a trap for it so we can douse it in oil.” She paused anxiously as the barrel teetered on the edge. Thankfully, it settled into place as she let go of it.

“Ok, the barrel I get, but what is all of this other stuff for?” Applejack asked while pointing out all of the commotion going on back toward the tents. It was hard to make out what the two mares were doing, but Sunspot and Sparkplug seemed to be fiddling around with many small jars and other containers. Not to mention whatever it was Glimmer Shine and the others were doing.

Twilight made sure that the barrel was secured up on the ledge before turning to her friends and preparing to break down her plan for them. “Well, as you most likely figured out, I plan on dumping that barrel of oil over Dream Catcher once someone lures him here over that bridge.” She nodded behind her. “As for what the others are doing. Glimmer Shine is stripping some rope so we can use it to distract Dream Catcher and hopefully hold him in place.”

“Makes sense,” Rainbow Dash chimed in with an understanding nod. “But what are they doing?” She asked while turning toward Sunspot and Sparkplug. The pair smiled and waved as they noticed the others looking at them.

“They are taking whatever oil we could spare from the barrel and putting it into separate containers. I would rather not put all of our eggs in one basket… or barrel, in this case.” Twilight said while glancing up at her handiwork. “Assuming my plan doesn’t work out, we’ll still have some containers of oil to throw at him.”

Applejack nodded while looking around with an impressed, and slightly confused, expression on her face. “Well… it sounds like you know what you’re doin’. How can we help?” She volunteered eagerly. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy seemed willing to help out as well.

Twilight briefly looked around to see how things were progressing. “Uh… you can go help Sunspot and Sparkplug with the oil. After they are done with that, we’ll still need more rope.”

“Roger that.” Rainbow Dash replied before quickly making her way toward the tents where the two mares were working. Fluttershy, Applejack, and Tom all did the same.

While everyone else was tending to their given tasks, Twilight briefly admired the sight of her friends working together. “Everything’s coming along nicely…” Her smile faded as she looked across the bridge behind her and thought about the yellow mascot suit and the body inside. “I hope this works.” She muttered to herself with a hint of unease in her voice. Finally, she turned and went to go help with preparing the plan that would hopefully lead them to victory, and freedom.

Chapter 26: Ghosts of the Past

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Several minutes went by as the group continued their work. The light of the nearby lanterns flickered, bathing the area in a dim, orange tint. The overwhelming silence, along with the wavering shadows around them, made them uneasy, but somehow they felt at least a little safe in their makeshift base.

Glitterball sat near Glimmer Shine with a pile of rope in front of her. She was tying any strands that looked strong enough to hold weight together. The yellow stallion beside her and some of the others off to the rear were doing the same thing.

The white unicorn glanced over her shoulder to see Sunspot off in the distance, finishing up with lighting the other lanterns. She looked back to Glimmer Shine and frowned slightly. Ever since the pair had returned from the storage room, they had been acting very distant toward each other.

“Hey, umm… Glimmer…?” Glitter scooted closer to the stallion while still trying to think of what to say.

Glimmer Shine glanced beside him before looking back to his work. “What’s up?”

“You want to tell me what’s going on between you and Sunspot?” Glitterball asked, adopting a more serious expression of concern.

“Oh…” Glimmer Shine frowned uncomfortably. “You noticed huh?” He looked to the unicorn and set the rope he was working on aside.

“It’s not like you’re being subtle,” Glitterball said, briefly glancing toward the orange pegasus. “You’ve barely said anything to her, and she looks at you like a sad puppy.”

Glimmer Shine chuckled quietly. “I told her she was like a puppy…” He muttered, much to the unicorn’s confusion.

“What?” Glitter tilted her head with a puzzled expression.

Glimmer Shine shrugged and shook his head, avoiding looking at the white mare. Finally, he looked up at her and adopted a somber expression. “Alright… you deserve to at least know why we’ve been acting so weird. Me and Sunspot… we uh,” He paused hesitantly while eyeing over to the pegasus. “We had a bit of a… heated, discussion after we found the keys to the gate. Some things were said… things that both of us would rather be… unsaid.”

Glitterball frowned as she noticed a hint of sadness in the stallion’s eyes as he looked down in thought. “Are you ok?” She asked with a concerned tone. She might not have known everything that happened, but she had a rough idea of what it could have involved.

“Yeah… I’m alright. I know she didn’t mean any of it.” Glimmer Shine replied, still harboring a bit of gloom in his expression. “Umm… I’m not sure how I should say this. We had a talk a little earlier when we were alone. She tried to apologize… and, I asked her if she really wanted to be here.” He explained hesitantly.

“Huh…?” Glitterball paused, unsure of what the stallion was telling her. “What do you mean?”

“You and I both know how often she… improvises her own plans. She’s only gotten worse since we’ve been here. I don’t even want to talk about how many times she’s almost gotten herself killed. That’s actually the reason we even had an argument to begin with.” Glimmer explained. “I just want her to be safe… and in this line of work, doing the things she does isn’t exactly healthy. I wanted to give you a heads up… she might be leaving the team after today, of her own decision of course.” He said with a somber expression.

“O-oh…” Glitterball was taken aback by the yellow pony’s words. She looked over toward Sunspot with a regretful frown, unable to find anything to say. “…Ok…” She nodded slowly, her eyes beginning to water. Not wanting to let the stallion see her in such a vulnerable state, she sniffled and wiped her eyes.

Glimmer Shine rested a hoof on her shoulder reassuringly. “It’ll be ok…” The stallion said softly. “Let’s just get through this mess for now, ok?”

“Right…” Glitter nodded, managing to put on a determined expression.

The pair looked up as they heard footsteps approaching. They saw Twilight walking over to them with the others in tow.

“All finished?” Glimmer Shine asked, noting the jars of oil being carried by Pinkie, Sparkplug, and Fluttershy.

Twilight nodded after doing a brief mental check. “I think so. All we need now is for you two to get that rope tied up.” She motioned to Applejack, who had a lasso held in her mouth.

Glimmer Shine and the white mare beside him glanced down to the ropes they were working on. They already had them at the length they would need, so it shouldn't take long for them to tie the ends into loops.

“Alright,” Glitterball got up and looked around pensively. “Once we get that done, what's next?”

“Well…” Twilight paused hesitantly as she looked across the stone bridge leading further into the cave. “All that's left is for someone to go lure Dream Catcher here.” She said, her eyes hiding a glint of unease.

Sunspot glanced around at the others curiously. “So, who's going to be poking our not so dead friend with a stick?”

Everyone remained silent as they looked around for volunteers. They knew that somebody had to go bring the yellow mascot to them for the plan to work, but they weren't sure how they felt about their friends being live bait.

“I'll go.” Tom suggested while stepping forward confidently.

“I'm coming too.” Rainbow Dash chimed in. “Somebody needs to keep an eye out for you.”

Glitterball stepped forward to join the cyan mare and the human. “I'll come with you… to watch your backs.” She said, suppressing any feelings of nervousness inside of her and flashing a confident smile.

“Hold on,” Sunspot spoke up while stepping to the front of the group. “If you're going, I'm going too.” She stated, looking to the white mare protectively. She was surprised when the unicorn shook her head at her.

“No, Sunspot… you need to stay here. You can't just abandon your part in the plan to come with us.” Glitterball said, pointing out the rope clutched in the orange pony's hooves.

“But…” Sunspot protested before pausing and sighing.

“I'll be fine… Tom and Rainbow Dash will keep an eye on me for you.” Glitterball assured with a warm smile. She appreciated the pegasus’s concern for her.

“Alright,” Sunspot shrugged in defeat before softening up. She smiled as the unicorn walked up to her and wrapped a foreleg around her neck. “Just be sure to be careful out there, ok?” She added, receiving a soft chuckle and a nod in return.

Glitterball backed up and joined her two designated companions. The trio walked over to the stone bridge with the rest of the group following behind. The ponies gathered to see their friends off as they prepared to head out into the darkness.

Glimmer Shine looked at the trio with a confident expression. “By the time you get back, we should have everything ready to go. Just focus on getting Dream Catcher over that bridge and we'll do the rest.” He explained. Glitter and the others nodded.

“Good luck guys.” Twilight smiled at the brave troop.

Pinkie waved at the trio as they started to walk across the bridge. “Go show that big meanie who's boss!”

Glitterball and her two teammates turned and waved back at their friends. They could see the group beginning to rush off to ensure that the final pieces of the plan were in place. All the trio could hope for right now was that the plan would work.

The cave stretched onward as the unicorn led her group forward. Although the light cast between her horn and Tom’s flashlight wasn’t nearly as good as when Twilight was with her, they still had a comfortable bubble of illumination around them.

“So…” Rainbow Dash coughed and scratched the back of her head. “Does anyone actually know how we’re going to get this thing to follow us?” She asked with a clueless expression.

Tom shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know… shouldn’t be too hard though. From the sound of it, this guy is really aggressive and unstable. Not surprising considering he’s been stuck in a mascot suit in this place for the better part of a century. He should just want to chase us naturally.”

“Why is he so strong anyway?” Glitterball asked.

“Maybe he is somehow feeding off of all the energy down here? He is right next to all of the children’s remains.” Tom suggested pensively.

Rainbow Dash narrowed her expression at the conversation topic. “I still can’t believe some creep would stoop low enough to kidnap and kill kids.” She shuddered with revulsion.

“He definitely has a lot to answer for.” Glitterball added with a serious expression.

Tom nodded. “Unfortunately, the only justice we can give the kids is to make sure their spirits can rest.”

With renewed determination to complete their goal, the two ponies pressed onwards through the cave with their human companion. For the next few minutes, they made their way through the areas previously discovered by Cotton Swirl and his crews, until they finally passed the smaller opening that led into the area of the cave where their target was lying in wait.

A few minutes later, a noise drifting through the cave up ahead made the trio pause. The echoed sound was unmistakably the distorted groans of the spirit trapped in the ancient mascot suit.

The ponies crouched low to the ground and hid behind a rocky outcropping with the human. They peered out around their cover and scanned the area ahead for any spot of yellow.

“What the hay…? I thought he would be back in that building we found him in?” Glitterball looked between her friends and the cave ahead with a confused expression of concern.

“He must have moved after he chased you guys.” Tom reasoned while keeping his eyes fixed ahead. He cautiously stepped over the rocky ledge and silently motioned for the two mares to follow him.

Rainbow Dash and Glitterball shared an uneasy glance with each other. The unearthly noises coming from up ahead were skin-crawlingly unsettling to them, but they had a job to do, so they couldn't let any fear or hesitation get in their way. Slowly and quietly, they stepped up and stayed low as they followed Tom.

The pair saw the human pause at another ridge up ahead. He looked down into the area below before jerking his flashlight away. After checking over the ridge again, he nodded for the ponies to join him.

The pegasus and the unicorn crept up and crouched near the ridge on either side of the human.

Glitter looked down the steep slope and into the area ahead. She vaguely recognized it from her previous journey with Twilight and the others. The ruined building they originally found the yellow rabbit in was just a short walk further into the cavern from here.

As her light caught on a silhouette moving in the darkness, she gasped quietly and dimmed her horn. Standing just outside of the light’s reach was a very familiar looking pony shaped mascot suit.

“Looks like he hasn't noticed us.” Tom noted in a hushed tone.

Judging from appearances, the human seemed to be right. The aged mascot was facing away from them, and it was shuffling around slowly, making jittery movements that were somehow sluggish at the same time.

The suit reached up with its forelegs and tugged at its head, letting out another labored groan.

Rainbow Dash watched the strange display with her jaw agape with stunned curiosity. “What's it doing?” She turned to the others, seeing that they were in a similar state of silent observation.

Tom and Glitterball could only shake their heads as a response. Neither of them could offer any insight as to what they were watching. However, if they were to wager a guess, it looked like the suit was trying to rip itself apart.

“Ok…” Glitterball exhaled anxiously. “How do we get its attention?” She asked, hoping to plan out what to do next with her teammates.

Tom looked to the floor and smirked before bending down and picking up a rock. “Are you kidding me? That's the easy part.” He stood up and reeled his arm back, chucking the stone as fast as he could.

The rock sailed through the air, smacking the yellow rabbit on the back of the head and bouncing off.

The two ponies cringed and watched the mascot in nervous anticipation as it stopped moving. As they expected, the rabbit slowly turned around and looked toward them. Another deep outcry shook the walls of the cave as the possessed suit shook angrily.

Glitterball took a step back uneasily as she watched the yellow rabbit staggering toward her. “Yeah… ok, that wasn't what I had in mind… but that works I guess.”

“So that was the easy part,” Rainbow Dash said hesitantly. “What's the hard part?” She turned to the human, hopeful that he had a plan.

Before Tom could speak up, a gust of air blew up at them, knocking some of the looser rocks on the ridge past them and startling them into jumping. They looked ahead to see Dream Catcher picking up his pace as he steadily got closer.

“Getting him back to the others without getting killed!” Tom exclaimed while breaking into a run.

Glitterball glanced back toward the ridge behind her before settling eyes on the cyan mare. “You heard the man, let's book it!” She said while running after the human. Rainbow Dash quickly followed her two companions as the ghost followed after them.

Back at the flat clearing, the others were geared up and ready as they waited for their friends to return.

Twilight was sitting back near the rocky archway along with Pinkie Pie, Sparkplug, and Fluttershy. The purple mare was keeping a clear line of sight with the barrel of oil perched high above the stone walkway, ready to tip it over on top of Dream Catcher. Meanwhile, the three mares beside her had seven smaller jars of oil arranged into a pile beside them, meant to be used as a backup.

Glimmer Shine, Sunspot, and Applejack were sitting closer to the stone bridge. The trio each had makeshift lassos in hoof that they had crudely fashioned from some of the rope barriers back by the tents.

The yellow stallion examined the rope in his hooves with a bit of confusion. While the two mares seemed to have no trouble with how they planned on using their lassos, he wasn't so sure. “Uh…” Glimmer fidgeted with the rope awkwardly while trying to picture how to use it. Sunspot and Applejack noticed the stallion struggling and watched him in silent amusement.

“Need some help there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, using every ounce of her willpower to hide her internal giggling.

Glimmer Shine looked up in surprise. “Huh? Oh, umm… n-no… I've got it under control.” He stated sheepishly. Finally, he shrugged as all of his attempts at figuring out a proper technique failed. “But uh… let's say I didn't… have it under control?” He looked up at the pair and chuckled awkwardly.

Sunspot failed at hiding her smirk, unlike her companion. “Hypothetically speaking, right?”

“Of course… right.” Glimmer nodded.

The pegasus chortled softly while getting up and spinning her lasso around. “Just watch and learn.” She explained while directing her attention forward. After a moment of aiming her rope, she flung it forward, managing to snag one of the posts against the edge of the chasm.

Applejack raised an impressed eyebrow and whistled. “Not bad… not bad at all. Where’d you learn how to do that, Sunspot?”

“I uh… had a bit of practice.” Sunspot replied while looking away slightly. She ignored the subdued chuckling from the yellow stallion and went to collect her lasso.

Suddenly, Sunspot and Glimmer Shine heard the sound of Glitterball’s voice in their ears. “Guys! I hope you're all set over there because we're coming in hot!” The unicorn exclaimed urgently.

The pair glanced at each other anxiously, making sure that they weren't imagining what they heard.

“Look alive everyone! They're on their way back right now!” Glimmer Shine spoke up so the whole group could hear him.

Twilight and the others immediately tensed up and stood at their respective posts, shifting their attention over toward the other side of the leftmost bridge.

The yellow stallion and the two mares beside him spread out around the area, keeping near the bridge and staying relatively hidden behind rock formations with their ropes at the ready.

Fluttershy peeked out from around the stone archway. She looked ahead to see Twilight standing at the ready, looking far more composed than she felt. “Are you ready, Twilight?” She asked nervously. If the purple mare didn’t execute her part of the plan, then the only way they could succeed was for Fluttershy and the others to use their oil jars.

Twilight glanced behind her to see the yellow pegasus and her two companions waiting out of the way, prepared to leap into action if things went south. “Yeah… I am. Don’t worry. Everything should be over quickly after I pour the oil onto Dream Catcher.” She assured, briefly looking up at the oil barrel perched on its ledge.

Over at the bridge, Glimmer Shine clutched his rope tightly while scanning the darkness across the chasm. He was the closest to the action, hiding a little to the left of the bridge near the rope barriers and the cave wall.

As the stallion narrowed his eyes in search of the others, he suddenly heard frantic footsteps echoing down the cave. Soon enough, the sight of lights could be seen wavering as the footsteps got closer and closer. As if to further confirm the urgency of the situation, a chilling growl rumbled through the cave coming from behind the approaching group.

“Here they come!” Sunspot announced from off to the side. Everyone could feel their nerves kicking into overdrive as their plan was about to be stress tested.

The three members of the scouting party ran as fast as they could toward the bridge. Even from across the cavern, the others could tell that they were exhausted and panicked. As they paused at the bridge and spun around, they revealed the yellow mascot suit giving chase to them near the edge of the path.

Tom picked up a rock from the floor and tossed it in the rabbit suit’s general direction. “Come on, ugly! What are you waiting for?!” He taunted before joining Glitterball and Rainbow Dash in sprinting across the bridge.

“Wow… that thing looks mad.” Glimmer Shine muttered with a stunned expression as he laid eyes on the disturbing creature. Although the suit’s facial expression was permanently unchanging, its clenched teeth and cracked exterior made it look like it was either smiling or enraged almost constantly.

Rainbow Dash was the first of her group to make it across the bridge. She rested briefly while looking around at the setup her friends had made. “I… *Pant* I really hope… you guys know what you’re doing.” She said uneasily.

“Believe me, so do I,” Sunspot replied. “Now get back there with the others where it’s safe.” She nodded behind her toward Twilight and the three mares behind the archway.

Rainbow Dash nodded and followed Glitterball and Tom as they raced to get out of the way. At the same time, they were hoping to lure the decrepit mascot across the bridge by running further away.

While the trio rushed to reach the relative safety of the back of the clearing, everyone else was keeping their attention squarely fixed on the darkness across the chasm. They could hear the groans and labored footsteps that the yellow rabbit was making, but they couldn’t see it. After a few moments of waiting, they finally saw its silhouette crossing the bridge.

Glimmer Shine, Sunspot, and Applejack all crouched down and hid as best they could, with Twilight doing the same. The group waited tensely as the possessed suit stumbled over the walkway, getting closer and closer in its dauntless chase.

The rabbit paused as it stepped onto solid ground once more. It looked around the clearing, scanning its head around and searching for any signs of its targets.

Just looking at the decayed mascot was unsettling to the ponies. It was nightmare fuel by appearance alone, but it was even worse when the fact that there was a dead body inside of it was brought into consideration.

Dream Catcher, or at least the spirit dwelling in his body, looked down and brought a foreleg up to his head. Another chilling groan filled the air as the suit briefly tugged at itself before twitching and settling back onto all fours.

“Now!” Glimmer Shine announced while hopping up from his hiding spot. Applejack and Sunspot did the same, twirling their lassos in the air and preparing to capture the mascot.

Applejack managed to hurl her rope first, followed by Sunspot and Glimmer. The three loops all landed around the mascot’s head, pulling taut and making it stumble as the three ponies pulled on it with all of their strength. The yellow rabbit struggled against their hold on it, trying to step backwards or free itself from the ropes.

Spotting her opportunity, Twilight lit up her horn and focused her magic on the oil barrel. The barrel glowed purple as her aura wrapped around it and she lifted it up with relative ease. She quickly floated the barrel toward the suit as it struggled to break free from its bonds.

Twilight smirked as she hovered the barrel above the mascot. “Have a load of this you freak.” She muttered while starting to tilt the barrel. As the unicorn was starting to pour the oil, the yellow rabbit stopped struggling against the ropes and looked up. Noticing the purple light coming from Twilight’s horn, it growled while taking a step forward.

Suddenly, Twilight felt an invisible force slamming into her. She yelped in surprise as she was knocked backwards. With her hold on the barrel still intact, it jerked to the side before her magical connection was broken as she smacked into the base of the archway behind her.

All at once, the barrel fell to the ground and broke open. While the black fluid inside splashed out, barely any of it even got close to the yellow suit.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy gasped while rushing to help the dazed mare. Twilight groaned and held a hoof to the back of her head as the pegasus helped her to a seated position.

“Oh no…” Twilight’s heart sank as she looked ahead to see the remains of the barrel shattered against the ground. The mascot suit was still dry as a bone, and now it was seriously ticked off.

Glimmer Shine and the others struggled to keep a hold on the spirit. It seemed like the rabbit was somehow pulling on them despite not even reeling back. Before anyone could formulate another plan, the force pulling on them intensified, jerking them forward as they held onto their ropes.

Sunspot and Applejack fell face first into the ground as their ropes were yanked from their hooves. However, their stallion companion was not as fortunate as they were.

“AH!” Glimmer Shine yelled fearfully as he was sent hurtling into the rope barrier in front of him. The fragile ropes creaked under his weight briefly before snapping. He tried to reach out and grab something to halt his fall, but he couldn’t do anything to stop himself from plummeting off the edge.

“*Gasp* Glimmer!” Sunspot bolted to her hooves and sprinted after the stallion. She unfurled her wings and leapt off the edge before zooming down into the abyss. She caught up with the falling pony and miraculously managed to grab him by the forelegs before he fell out of the light’s reach. She pulled up hard, countering the stallion’s weight and slowly lifting herself up.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Sunspot grunted while pulling the yellow pony up.

Glimmer Shine chuckled hysterically while smiling at his winged savior. His smile suddenly shifted to a shocked expression as he looked past her. “Sunspot, lookout!” He exclaimed.

Before Sunspot could look up, she felt something hard smacking into her back. She yelped in pain as the weight of the impact knocked her out of the air. She flapped her wings in an attempt at breaking her fall, but she knocked into something else before she could. The pegasus found herself falling onto a ledge on the cliff face. The ledge was barely big enough to fit her, and she was dangling off of it partially while still clinging onto Glimmer Shine.

A rock whizzed past her left, nearly hitting her. More rocks started falling from above, leading her to believe that she had been struck by one before. Sunspot tried to flap her wings again to get away from the danger, but as she did, one of the larger rocks smacked into the base of her right wing.

“AGHH!” Sunspot cried painfully and rocked her head back as a stabbing pain filled her side. She instinctively tried to fold her wing back in protectively, but the only thing that resulted in was more pain.

“Sunspot, are you alri- WOAH!” Glimmer Shine’s voice dropped an octave as the ground started shaking. The tremors weren’t very intense, but with the steep incline they were on, the shaking was enough to make the pegasus slide further down the ledge.

Sunspot fought through the mind numbing pain she was going through and dug her hind legs into the rocky outcropping. She managed to just barely halt her sliding, but not before losing even more ground. Now she was laying at an awkward angle with her forelegs dangling completely off of the ledge, with the stallion in an even more precarious situation than he was before.

“I’ve… tch… I’ve g-got you. Just h-h-ooowww… hang in there.” Sunspot cringed and clenched her teeth while making every effort to keep ahold of the yellow pony. She looked over to her injured wing, the color draining from her face as she saw how bad of a condition it was in.

“How are we looking up there, Sunspot?” Glimmer Shine asked hesitantly while glancing to the endless void beneath him. The mere sight of the abyss he was dangling over was enough to shift the contents of his stomach.

“Glimmer… I can’t move my wing.” Sunspot reported with her voice barely holding together. The weight of the situation was finally starting to sink in for her. And as the stallion’s eyes widened, he quickly came to the same conclusion she had. They were stuck on this ledge, and the pegasus couldn’t just fly them out of danger if they fell, which was becoming more and more likely by the minute as the ground kept shaking.

Back up on relatively solid ground, Twilight and the others were still reeling from the powerful display made by their ghostly opponent. The ground around them was shaking, and small bits of dust and debris were falling from the ceiling. Although they could stand easily enough, the tremors were more than a little alarming considering where they were.

“What’s happening?!” Fluttershy asked fearfully.

Twilight looked over to see Dream Catcher still standing where he was before. The three ropes were still around his neck, but their wielders had since been scattered, with only Applejack remaining where she had been flung. The farm pony was struggling to get to her hooves due to the ground shaking, but the mascot suit a few feet away seemed to be having no trouble with moving around.

“It’s Dream Catcher… he must be doing this somehow!” Twilight said while turning to the others.

“His power must be fluctuating. We need to stop him before he brings the roof down on top of us!” Tom suggested urgently. It wasn’t hard for the others to see his line of reasoning. Perhaps it was in their minds, but the shaking seemed to be getting worse.

“H-hello?! Is anyone still up there? We need some help!” Suddenly, Tom and Glitterball heard the panicked voice of their orange companion in their heads.

Glitterball looked around, only to find no traces of the pegasus or the stallion she was supposedly saving. She put a hoof up to her ear and focused on her friend. “Sunspot, where are you?” She asked, concern brimming in her voice.

“Off the side of a cliff!” Sunspot replied urgently. “Look, I can’t explain right now! Just get someone to help us!” She said before falling silent, presumably dropping the call. Judging from the urgency in her voice, it wasn’t hard to tell that she was in trouble.

Glitter shifted her attention to the leftmost edge of the clearing. The rope barriers had been broken where Glimmer Shine fell. Assuming the pair hadn’t moved, they would most likely be there somewhere. “Uh… guys, we’ve got a huge problem.” She said while turning back to the others.

“You mean aside from the one we already have?” Rainbow Dash replied, nodding toward the possessed mascot suit.

“In a word… yes. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine are in trouble. They haven’t gotten back up yet… I think they’re stuck down there, and it sounds like they are just barely hanging on.” Glitterball explained urgently.

“Oh my gosh…” Rainbow Dash muttered with a shocked expression. She looked over to the cliff side where the pair fell before looking back to her fellow pegasus. “Come on, Fluttershy! We’ve got to help them!” She suggested while trotting forward. The yellow mare nodded and swiftly followed her friend into the fray.

As the two mares closed in on the edge of the cliff, they spread their wings and took off. In the air, they were much faster, and right now they needed to reach their friends as quick as possible. However, before they could pick up much speed, they suddenly felt their bodies being flung in the opposite direction.

Fluttershy yelped while being tossed backwards and landing on the floor. While the yellow pony bounced along the ground painfully, Rainbow Dash attempted to correct herself in midair. She managed to break the majority of her momentum, but not before coming to a rough stop as she skidded on the cave floor.

Rainbow Dash held her side tenderly while getting to her knees. “Oww… what gives?!” She muttered angrily while looking around. She paused nervously as she noticed the yellow rabbit suit staring back at her.

“Ooof…” Fluttershy took a moment to cradle her throbbing head while resting on the floor. She looked up to see that she had landed near her friends back at the archway. The others were already gathered around her, waiting to help her up.

“Are you ok?” Pinkie asked worriedly while slowly helping the battered pegasus to her feet.

Fluttershy nodded slowly, taking care not to shift her head too much. “Yeah… I think. What happened?” She looked behind her with a confused expression, trying to piece together the events leading up to her abrupt landing.

“It’s probably that ghost. It’s the only thing capable of flinging us around like this.” Glitterball inferred, looking over to the mascot with a troubled frown.

“But if he keeps tossing us around, we won’t be able to do anything to help Sunspot and Glimmer Shine!” Fluttershy said, her eyes full of panicked worry.

Twilight looked over at Dream Catcher as he twitched in place as the ground kept shaking beneath his feet. She then snapped her head to the side as she remembered her backup plan. “Guys, grab the jars! We need to burn him!”

The others looked behind them to the grouping of jars they had placed behind the archway. The seven containers of oil had been little more than an afterthought that nobody thought would be needed, let alone work, but now they were much more important in the group’s eyes.

“Right.” Glitterball nodded. She quickly lit up her horn and cast a levitation spell on the jars, bringing them closer to her. She kept one by her side while handing the others out to her companions. Pinkie Pie, Sparkplug, and Fluttershy all accepted the small containers and held them with a sense of determination welling up inside of them.

Tom stepped forward and stood beside Twilight. “You guys make sure to make your shots count. Twilight and I will distract him, and you can nail him while he focuses on us.” He explained before turning to the cyan pegasus. “Rainbow, you see if you can slip past him while we’re attacking and get to Sunspot and Glimmer Shine.” He said while nodding to the side.

“On it.” Rainbow Dash nodded with a serious expression.

Twilight stared ahead with a determined gleam in her eyes. “Alright everyone, let’s go!” She exclaimed while rushing forward. The human beside her did the same while the others trailed behind.

With Glitterball and the others lagging behind and waiting for an opportune moment to strike, Twilight used her range to her advantage while darting to the side. She charged up her horn and fired off a bolt of magic at the mascot’s feet. The laser exploded almost harmlessly, but it did get the possessed suit’s attention.

The yellow rabbit leered at the unicorn, its lifeless eyes burning holes into her. It stepped toward her until some more movement caught its eye. As it spun around, it saw Tom running toward it at top speed. The human leapt into the air and kicked his leg out while aiming right for the suit’s mask.

Tom’s attack collided with the mascot, sending it stumbling backwards as its head was snapped back. The human dodged to the side, getting around the suit in the hopes of further drawing its attention away. Just as the boy hoped, the rabbit turned to keep its attention fixed on him.

Meanwhile, the others were using their newfound opportunity to act. Rainbow Dash picked up her pace and sped toward the edge of the cliff. At the same time, Glitterball reeled back the jar in her grip and sent it flying.

The jar zipped through the air directly toward the mascot. However, just before impact, the suit convulsed and twitched, lowering its head and allowing the projectile to just barely miss its mark. The container smacked into the ground just behind the suit, cracking and spilling its contents everywhere with a loud crash.

The yellow rabbit snapped its head to look at the broken pieces of the jar before turning around. It saw the approaching ponies and paused. And although it couldn’t move its face, the four mares could almost swear that they could see it vibrating with anger.

Glitterball and the others skidded to a halt. Fluttershy panicked slightly and threw her jar at the mascot. Before the jar could even reach the midway point in its flight, another invisible force surged out of the decayed suit and blew everything in its path backwards.

Rainbow Dash felt a massive gust of wind erupting behind her. She paused and turned around, only to gasp as she saw her friends being hurled backwards. The four mares, the human, and even the purple unicorn to their side were all sent flying through the air briefly until they smacked into a hard and abrupt stop.

While most of them landed relatively unharmed by bouncing along the cave floor, Glitterball caught more of the blast and was sent flying all the way into one of the pillars of the stone archway. Her body made a sickening crack as it smacked into the rocky wall and flopped to the ground. She barely even let out a cry of pain before she was rendered unconscious.

Rainbow Dash reached a foreleg out toward the white unicorn. “Glitter!” She cried with a shocked expression. Her concern for her friend quickly turned to alarm and regret as she clasped a hoof over her mouth and stared at the possessed rabbit suit. “Uh oh…”

Dream Catcher turned to see the cyan pegasus off to the side behind him. Just as quickly as the mascot spun around, Rainbow felt something grabbing her by the neck and lifting her up. The familiar feeling of being choked by something invisible was short lived however as she was flung through the air back away from the edge of the cliff. The cyan mare bounced along the ground before rolling to a stop. As she groaned while lifting her bruised body up, she looked around and saw that she was right back where she started over by her friends.

Spotting Fluttershy over by the motionless unicorn on the ground, Rainbow Dash staggered to her hooves and hurried over to the pair. As she got closer, she thankfully saw the gradual rise and fall of the white mare’s chest to indicate she was alive. “Is she ok…?” Rainbow asked, looking to the yellow pegasus with a concerned expression.

“She got hit pretty hard,” Fluttershy said softly while gently examining the unicorn for other injuries. “I think she just got knocked out… I hope anyway. There’s no real way to tell if she has internal damage.” She explained regretfully. Looking around her at the sight of all of her friends picking themselves off of the ground with various cuts and bruises made her frown sadly.

Rainbow Dash turned and looked behind her, only to see the yellow mascot standing between her and the two ponies stuck on the cliff. She growled under her breath in frustration while turning back to the others. “What are we going to do? As long as that thing keeps tossing us around, we can’t do anything to help Sunspot and Glimmer Shine.”

Twilight bit her lower lip while racing to find a solution to save her friends. She glanced over to their remaining oil jars, only to frown as she saw just how many were remaining. Along with the two used by Glitterball and Fluttershy, a few of the other jars had broken when everyone got flung through the air. Now they only had three containers to use. “Dangit… we’re running out of oil here.” She muttered uneasily while looking ahead at the decayed suit. If they didn’t have any oil to use, then they had no way of igniting the mascot for long enough for the remains inside the suit to be burned up. More importantly at the given moment, if they couldn’t take care of the possessed rabbit, then they couldn’t help Sunspot and Glimmer Shine.

Suddenly, a voice off to the side snapped the unicorn out of her thoughts. “Any ideas, Twilight?” Tom asked curiously, putting full confidence in the purple mare.

“Uh… umm…” Twilight sweated nervously as she realized that all of her friends were looking at her expectantly. Either they had run out of plans, or they thought that she could come up with something better. Shifting her eyes around, her mind raced in a panic to come up with something useful. Finally, as she laid eyes on the remaining oil jars, a thought popped into her head that made her even more hesitant and uneasy. “Hold on…” She spoke up before swallowing uncomfortably and sighing. “I think I’ve got an idea.”

Meanwhile, while the others were desperately trying to find a way past their ghostly opponent, Sunspot and Glimmer Shine were desperately trying to survive their harrowing predicament.

The sporadic shaking that would happen every few minutes made the rocks and the very cliff around them tremble as if they were going to break. The ledge that the wounded pegasus was clinging to would shift underneath her as several small rocks on the edge would crumble and fall past the stallion and into the abyss beneath them.

Sunspot gritted her teeth to cope with the pain from her wing and the added strain on her forelegs from the stallion’s weight. She wasn’t exactly in the best position to be holding onto the yellow pony, but she refused to let go even for an instant.

“Just… hang in there Glimmer.” Sunspot said reassuringly. She grunted as she tried to lift her friend up higher so she could get a better grip on him. Feeling her grip loosening, she quickly stopped moving and tightened her hold as best she could.

Glimmer Shine cringed as he felt himself lowering slightly. The orange mare was slipping on the rocky slope, and it seemed to be just barely holding together on top of everything else. Although she was making a good effort at keeping herself anchored to the ledge, she was clearly fighting a losing battle.

“Sunspot…” Glimmer spoke up somberly while looking up at the pegasus. “Things aren’t looking too good for us right now. That rock can’t hold the both of us much longer… I think it’s time we had an adult conversation about what we’re going to do,” He hesitated uneasily before adopting a serious expression. “Or rather… what you’re going to do.”

Sunspot locked her widened eyes on the stallion. “W-what?! You better not be insinuating what I think you are… because the answer is no!” She tightened her grip on the yellow pony’s forelegs with a shocked expression.

“But, Sunspot-” Glimmer Shine started until he was interrupted by the pegasus.

“But nothing!” Sunspot snapped before pausing to focus on digging her hind legs into the ledge and pulling herself back. She didn’t manage to get very far. “Look… the others are going to come and pick us up. This discussion is over.” She explained with a stern expression.

Loud commotions from above them made the pair look up, or at least as far as they could. They heard a myriad of shouting and footsteps, along with several distorted cries from the possessed mascot. All at once, the shaking returned and a shower of small rocks and dirt came flooding down onto them from above.

“AHH!!”

Sunspot yelped as she felt the ledge shifting beneath her. She was sent to the floor completely, ruining any attempts she had made to reel herself and the stallion up. As Glimmer Shine was partially ripped out of her grasp, she frantically grabbed at him, managing to barely catch him by the foreleg with one hoof.

The shaking died down to barely noticeable levels. The sounds of rocks falling and settling in place gradually slowed as well.

Miraculously, the rock the pair was on was holding steady despite everything that was going on. It was flimsy for sure, but it was staying intact. However, the stability of their precarious safe haven wasn’t going to be relevant to the ponies for much longer.

Glimmer Shine was dangling even further down than before. Sunspot only had one hoof clamped onto his, and she was in an even more compromising position now than she was in before. She practically had to hold onto the ledge with her other foreleg while keeping the stallion from falling at the same time.

“G-Glimmer… I’ve got you, ok?” Sunspot said shakily, unable to hide the fear in her voice anymore.

The stallion was staring down into the chasm of darkness below him. He was holding up surprisingly well, but he was starting to panic a little bit. All he could do was hold onto the orange mare’s hoof with his own and hope against all odds that everything would be fine. However, the constant shifting from the pegasus sliding and struggling to hold on was making it hard to stay optimistic.

Sunspot tried her hardest to pull the stallion up. After failing this, she tried to reach her other hoof down to reach him. Feeling herself falling off the ledge slightly, she returned to her previous strategy of clinging onto the rocky cliff for dear life.

“You... y-you wanted to know if I want to be here, right?” She asked, looking to the stallion with trembling eyes.

Glimmer Shine looked up with a confused expression. “Huh?”

Sunspot hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Yes… of course I want to be here! Joining this team is the best thing to happen to me since I got accepted into the Wonderbolts. I want nothing more than to go around hunting evil things with you and Glitter… and I’m sorry if I’ve been doing anything that would make you think I hate being here.” She stated sincerely. A few tears welled up in the corner of her eyes as she saw the stallion smile back at her.

“Sunspot… you don’t know how happy it makes me to hear you say that.” Glimmer said with a hollow chuckle. His smile faded as the pegasus slid further and he drew his attention downward. “But right now… I need you to do something else for me. I need you to let go… ok?” He said while looking her in the eye with a bittersweet expression of calmness on his face.

Sunspot grunted and maneuvered her body to the side. Once she was balanced, she slowly brought her other foreleg down and grabbed the tip of the stallion’s hooves. “No… I’m not letting you go. I already let your family down one too many times.” She explained adamantly. Despite her own precarious position, she was steadfast as she tightened her grip on her companion.

“What…?” Glimmer Shine paused in confusion. “What do you mean?” He asked. Much to his surprise, he heard the pegasus sniffling slightly.

Sunspot averted her teary eyes from the stallion, which meant just burying her face into her shoulder considering her positioning. As she looked back, her lips were trembling and a sob was barely being kept at bay in her throat. “It’s… i-it’s my fault. Peppermint dying w-was my fault.” She finally managed to speak. Glimmer Shine remained silent as she continued. “I… *hic* I didn’t stop him f-from going out there and getting himself killed. I didn’t stop the girls from going out there in the first place. I… I just stood there and let everything happen! Every night I wonder… if I had just done something… maybe… *Sniff*… m-maybe he would still be here. I’m so sorry Glimmer… I’m so sorry.” She wept while pressing her face into the ledge beneath her.

Glimmer Shine looked up at the pegasus silently, letting her cry while deep in thought. Finally, he sighed and shook his head with an empty smirk on his face. “Sunspot…” He spoke up, causing the orange mare’s outburst to cease. “I tried blaming a lot of people after Pepper and the others died… myself included. I wanted it to be someone’s fault… so that I could have something to direct my feelings toward. But even in the darkest moments I went through… I never blamed Pepper for what he did. I never blamed Twilight and the others for what they did. And… I never blamed you.” He explained, devoid of any sadness or resentment.

“Wh…” Sunspot stared back at the stallion, her mouth agape in speechless awe. “W-what?”

“You heard me… I never blamed you. There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop Pepper from going to help the others. You had broken ribs for crying out loud… and even if you didn’t, there still wasn’t anything you could have done. Once Pepper set his mind on helping out someone in need, there wasn’t any force on this earth that was going to stop him or change his mind… no matter the cost to himself. I think he knew what he was doing that night… he understood that stepping into that room might have been a one-way trip.” Glimmer Shine took a moment to process his emotions before smiling slightly and continuing. “I know you would have done anything to save him… just like you’re trying to do everything you can to save me. But I want you to listen to me on this one Sunspot… I am not going to take you down with me. If you only do one thing I tell you to ever again… then make it this one. Let me go.”

Sunspot felt a buildup of tears welling up in her eyes. The broken sobs she had been holding back gathered in the back of her throat as her jaw quivered. She shook her head while clenching her eyes shut, allowing her tears to fall freely. “No! I’m not doing it… y-you hear me? If we’re going to die here… then we’re doing it together!” She said, her face full of stubborn determination.

Before Glimmer Shine could say anything further, another bout of shaking rocked the ground beneath them. The ledge they were clinging to gave a mighty crack as it shifted violently downward. The pegasus felt her body falling forward. As the rock stopped moving, she narrowly avoided sliding completely off. However, her grip on the stallion was loosened during the sudden movement.

“Glimmer!” Sunspot cried while desperately holding onto the stallion with one hoof. She had a tenuous grip on his wrist, and it was getting worse by the second. Despite the fact that she was barely sitting on the edge of the cliff, she tried reaching down to grab her companion’s other hoof.

As the pegasus reached forward, her weight finally outdid the fragile balance she was in. Her body slid forward and didn’t stop as gravity took hold of her. Both ponies let out a fearful scream as they plummeted down.

Sunspot clenched her eyes shut as she fell, the sound of her own scream mixing in with Glimmer’s and echoing through the cave. She had never felt so helpless in her life. Normally falling through the air held no fear in her mind due to her wings, but now the only things she could feel were her nerves screaming at her and a pit in her stomach bottoming out.

Suddenly, the falling sensation stopped. Disoriented and confused, Sunspot peeked one of her eyes open, half expecting to already be dead. Much to her surprise, she could still see the cliff face above her, along with a sparkling purple light in front of her face. As she looked to the side, she saw Glimmer Shine suspended in the air as well with a similar purple aura around him. All at once the pieces clicked together in her mind. She was being held by unicorn magic, and not just any unicorn magic at that.

“Twilight!” Sunspot exclaimed cheerfully while looking up. As she expected, she saw the faint shape of the purple mare standing atop the distant edge of the cave floor.

The pair felt the unicorn starting to move them upwards. She quickened the pace as much as she could without giving the two whiplash. Soon enough, Sunspot and Glimmer Shine were back on truly solid ground.

“Oh… oh my gosh… I really thought that was it for a second there.” Sunspot breathed heavily with a hysterical smile on her face. “Twilight, I could kiss you right now.” She added, turning to the purple mare and contemplating whether or not to hug her.

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as the pair was safely recovered. “Thank goodness I made it on time. Are you two ok?” She frowned slightly as she noticed the bad shape that the orange mare’s wing was in.

Sunspot cringed slightly before sucking up the pain and stiffening her expression. “Nothing that can’t be fixed later… How are we looking up here?” She asked while directing her attention past the unicorn and to the apparent commotion going on behind her.

Tom and the others were doing everything in their power to keep Dream Catcher’s attention away from them. The decayed mascot looked like it had been tossing a few of them around, but they kept egging it on and forcing it to face them.

“Not too good…” Twilight said. “He kept picking us up and tossing us away whenever we tried getting to you, so we had to use one of the three jars of oil we had left on him. It didn’t work… but I figured it would keep him occupied long enough for me to teleport over here and out of his sight.”

“Three jars?” Glimmer Shine asked uneasily.

“Yeah… Err, I suppose it’s more like two now.” Twilight clarified with a troubled expression. “He keeps sending out waves of energy whenever we try anything on him. Most of us are pretty beaten up, and Glitter got knocked out.”

Sunspot narrowed her expression as she looked at the possessed suit that almost got her and the yellow stallion killed. “So what’s our plan for taking this guy down?”

“Do you think maybe you could hold him down with your magic?” Glimmer Shine suggested with guarded optimism.

Twilight paused slightly as she thought about the stallion’s plan. “Uh… I’m not sure. He seems to be leaps and bounds more powerful than any of the animatronics we’ve encountered, and I could barely hold onto them for more than a few moments with Glitter’s help once they started breaking out.” She said hesitantly. Still, she was willing to try anything if it meant beating the monstrous spirit. “I can try… but I can’t promise it will buy very much time.” With that, she blinked out of existence once more.

While Sunspot and Glimmer Shine watched from the other side of the clearing, Twilight popped back into sight behind the rest of her friends. As soon as she appeared, she had to cover her face and steady herself as another gust of wind blew through the archway past her. Much to her surprise and alarm, she heard a grunt of pain beside her and looked down to see Pinkie Pie on her back.

The pink mare looked up and smiled as she noticed the unicorn above her. “Oh hey, Twilight… are you back already?” She asked, seemingly ignoring any pain or discomfort she had felt on her rough landing.

Twilight looked ahead to see Tom and the others barely managing to contend with the furious spirit. The best they could do was to taunt it loudly and hope that they could dodge out of the way of its chaotic outbursts of invisible energy. “Yeah, I am… and I think I might have another plan.” She explained while helping the pink mare to her hooves.

“Another plan?” A voice approaching from off to the side made the pair turn their heads. They saw Sparkplug breaking off from the others and walking up to them. “I’m game to try anything you have in mind… We aren’t really doing much to him other than seriously ticking him off.” She said while cringing sympathetically as Applejack got blown backwards and rolled along the ground behind her. The constant gusts of wind and unseen hands grabbing onto people and throwing them were happening much more often now.

“Good, I’m glad you’re onboard. I’ll need help from both of you.” Twilight explained, flashing a confident smile to the two ponies. “Where are the two jars of oil we have left?” She asked curiously while looking around.

Pinkie Pie walked behind her toward the back of the archway, away from all of the commotion. “We moved them back here after you went to go help Sunspot and Glimmer Shine so they wouldn’t get broken.” She said while stepping around the unconscious body of Glitterball. The group had collectively decided to move the helpless unicorn out of harm’s way so she wouldn’t be in any further danger.

Pinkie reached down and picked up the two lonely jars from their resting spot against the rocky pillar. She walked back over to her friends and presented them eagerly until one of them got lifted out of her grip by a magical aura.

Twilight gave the second jar to Sparkplug, who accepted it with a mixture of confusion and uncertainty on her face. “You two are going to throw those at Dream Catcher while I hold him down.” The unicorn explained, hiding a bit of nervousness from the others as she sized up her task mentally.

“Are you sure about this, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked while hesitantly looking down at her jar of oil. The group only had two left, and things would get a lot harder for them if they failed.

Twilight frowned slightly. She couldn't honestly say that she was totally confident in her plan’s success. “Just make your shots count.” She said.

The two mares nodded silently, managing to suppress the tension they felt. With their roles assigned, they cautiously got closer to the battle going on in the clearing.

Pinkie and Sparkplug spread out to either side of Twilight, inching closer to the possessed rabbit suit and staying low to the ground. They each looked back to their purple leader, waiting for her to make a move.

Twilight let out a shaky breath and steeled her nerves. She charged up her horn and looked to the yellow mascot, an intense feeling of unease washing over her. Pushing her anxiety aside, she quickly wrapped her magic around the rabbit costume.

Dream Catcher let out a confused and agitated noise as his body was enveloped in a purple aura. He tried jerking to the left, only to be met with stiff resistance.

“Do it now!” Twilight yelled urgently. She could already feel her magic straining as the immense power inside of the suit started fluctuating.

Sparkplug reeled back and prepared to chuck her jar at the decayed mascot. Just as she started to let her projectile go, the ground started shaking once more. “Woah!” Sparkplug fell to the floor as the intense tremor passed through her. The jar of oil clattered to the ground and broke open, but the gray mare was too busy holding on and riding through the quake to care.

“Gah!” Twilight yelped as she fell to her knees. On top of the violent shaking, a mass of energy shot out from inside the yellow mascot, completely shattering her magical hold over it.

Everyone in the clearing had to steady themselves or cling to the floor as the ground shook beneath them. More rocks and dust fell from the ceiling, nearly hitting a few of them. The stuff being shaken loose wasn’t too big, but it was still alarming to think about how much more the cave walls could take.

Thankfully, the shaking died down again before any serious damage could be done. Twilight uncovered her head and looked up, only to see her friends doing the same. She could see Dream Catcher still standing a few feet away as if nothing had even happened.

As she looked to her side, she saw Pinkie Pie still holding onto her jar of oil, which had somehow survived the quake. “Oh no… what are we going to do?” Twilight said with a defeated frown. “Anything we do to him just sets him off.”

Sparkplug frowned sadly as she looked at the broken pieces of her jar on the ground. “Whatever we do, it better work. We’ve only got one jar left.” She stated.

Meanwhile, Pinkie took a look around while her friends were already lamenting their defeat. She looked between the jar in her hooves and the possessed mascot ahead of her while deep in thought. Finally, she looked up at the archway overhead and smirked.

Twilight looked to the side and noticed her pink friend walking away. Pinkie seemed to be focused on something as she circled around to one of the stone pillars. “Pinkie, what are you doing?” Twilight tilted her head curiously as the pink mare started climbing up the rock face.

“I’ve got an idea… but I might need your help.” Pinkie said while carefully keeping the jar of oil balanced as she climbed. The rocky ledges were relatively easy to scale, but she had to be extra cautious with the only remaining source of oil they had.

Twilight glanced to the gray mare beside her before turning back to Pinkie. “Umm… ok. What do you have in mind?” She asked curiously. At this point, any idea was worth trying if it meant finding a way to beat the haunted suit.

Pinkie grunted while working her way further up the pillar toward the top of the archway. “Can you lure him under the arch and keep him distracted for me?” She asked without turning away from her task.

Glancing back to Dream Catcher, Twilight grew slightly hesitant as she realized what the pink mare was doing. “I think we can manage that… but are you sure about this, Pinkie? You’ll only have one shot.” She explained uneasily.

“Don’t worry about that. Just get him close to me and I’ll do the rest.” Pinkie replied confidently while finishing her climb. She crouched behind one of the rocky outcroppings at the top of the archway and offered her friends a reassuring smirk.

Twilight nodded before exhaling anxiously and turning toward Dream Catcher. “Sparkplug… you might want to step back.” She said while charging up her horn. The gray mare beside her took a few steps away while nervously watching the unicorn preparing to kick the proverbial hornets’ nest.

Steeling her nerves and taking in a few deep breaths, Twilight fired a bolt of energy at the mascot’s feet. The blast did little in terms of damage, but it did get the yellow rabbit to look over at her. “Hey, Dream Catcher!” She yelled fiercely.

The others watched with concerned expressions as the rabbit suit stared at the purple mare. They couldn’t believe that she was trying something so bold.

“What is she doing?” Fluttershy asked her cyan companion while looking ahead worriedly.

Rainbow Dash was just as clueless and concerned as the yellow mare was until she looked up. She could just barely see a pink shape poking out from behind one of the rocks at the top of the archway. “What she usually does…” Rainbow smirked while nudging the pegasus beside her and pointing up. Fluttershy gasped in silent revelation as she looked to the purple unicorn with newfound anxiousness.

Everyone either figured out what was going on or figured that Twilight had a plan. Either way, they stood back and watched as the possessed suit staggered forward one step at a time.

Twilight swallowed nervously as she felt the suit’s dead eyes locking onto hers. She backed up slowly, making sure to not get too far away and possibly anger the ghost into another outburst. “Yeah… I know you’re in there. I know what you’ve done.” She continued egging the ghost on, managing to hide her fear behind the resentment she felt toward the orange stallion.

The mascot kept slowly walking forward, keeping its eyes focused on the purple pony. It tilted its head and let out a quiet hiss as if it understood what she was saying. Slowly but surely, it kept moving closer to the unicorn, and by extension, the trap she was setting.

Twilight kept a straight face and continued talking while backing up. “You might not believe it, but I was there the night you died. I saw you… what you did to those children.” She stopped walking as she saw the suit getting into place. She briefly looked up to see Pinkie waiting in place, silently looking down at her. She then turned back to the mascot with a disgusted scowl. “You’re sick… you caused so much pain and suffering to so many people. And if you ask me… you deserve to be stuck in that suit.” She said while glaring back at the walking corpse.

The yellow suit stopped walking right where the unicorn wanted it to. It stared at her, its wide mouth full of teeth conveying a false expression of happiness. However, behind its hollow eyes, she could feel intense hatred.

Suddenly, Twilight felt something grabbing her by the throat and squeezing hard. The intense sensation made her croak out a surprised cough as she clutched at her neck. Surprisingly, she wasn’t being lifted up in the air, but it felt like she was being squeezed by an iron vice.

Sparkplug widened her eyes and rushed forward. “Twilight!” She tried her best to help the purple mare in some way. However, there was nothing that could be done. Whatever was strangling her was invisible and intangible.

The mascot suit watched the unicorn falling to the ground and clutching her throat. It seemed to enjoy watching her suffocating, which was unsurprising considering it was the reason she was being choked in the first place. It stood still, quietly staring ahead, making sure that it didn’t miss a single moment of the purple pony’s suffering.

Before the grisly act could be completed, however, a shower of black liquid fell down onto the mascot’s head.

Twilight gasped for air as the invisible force let go of her. She remained on the ground while catching her breath and looking around in surprise. She looked up and noticed the yellow rabbit covered in a black substance that was dripping off of it, along with a pink pony holding an empty jar upside down even further up.

“Ha! Take that you big jerk!” Pinkie exclaimed while sticking her tongue out at the possessed suit. She tossed her now empty jar down at the mascot, where it broke into pieces upon hitting it in the head.

The yellow rabbit groaned in discomfort while wriggling around, seemingly trying to shake the substance off of its body. Despite its efforts, the oil was already dripping through the seams and cracks in the suit, doubtlessly covering the insides of its chest and neck.

“Hey!” Twilight yelled to get the mascot’s attention. The suit looked ahead to see her standing up with her horn lit up once again, a slight smirk on her face. “This is for Glistening Gold, and everyone else you’ve hurt.” She stated in a resolute tone. Without any further hesitation, she charged up her horn and fired out a ball of flames toward the rabbit.

Time seemed to slow down as everyone watched the fireball flying through the air. The rabbit suit tried to move out of the way, but it was too late. The fiery orb crashed into its body, erupting it into flames.

Every inch of the mascot touched by the oil was immediately engulfed in an alarming display of fire. The flames licked at the air around the suit, climbing higher and higher as they crackled and smoked.

Through the sound of the fire popping, a distorted scream could be heard. The sound was deep, yet it was also shifting pitch to become a piercing wail. The mascot writhed around and frantically tried to put itself out, but nothing was working.

Twilight and the others watched in silence at the disquieting display. They each had mixed feelings about seeing the source of all their problems being burned alive, or rather, dead. Some were disturbed, some were relieved, and some felt a faint sense of enjoyment in watching the orange stallion finally getting his punishment.

As the mascot and the remains inside continued burning up, dust and debris from the floor started kicking up in random spots around the clearing. A few of the ponies could feel stray gusts of intense wind appearing and then disappearing just as quickly as they arrived. It was like the energy inside the suit was lashing out at random in defiance of what was happening.

Finally, the charred rabbit suit stumbled and fell to the floor. It twitched and convulsed weakly, its movements slowing down over time. The distorted cries died down as well until they disappeared completely.

The group waited for a few moments to make sure the suit didn't get back up. After the mascot remained motionless for a solid minute, the ponies started moving closer and gathered around the still burning costume.

“Is it… gone?” Sunspot was the first to speak up. She glanced around at her companions in between staring at the flames.

Tom nodded. “I think so. No ghost can survive something like that.”

Twilight rubbed her neck and breathed a sigh of relief. “Nice timing, Pinkie. You really saved my tail.” She said while looking up at the pink mare, who was still standing atop the stone arch.

Pinkie smiled triumphantly while looking down at the group. “I'm just glad I didn't miss.” She chuckled slightly.

“How did you even get up there, Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously.

“I climbed, silly.” Pinkie replied. As she looked behind her, her smile faded and she paled slightly. “Uh… guys, could one of you help me out? I'm not sure how to get back down.” She whined nervously.

The others laughed, partially from the pink mare’s predicament, and partially because they were in disbelief at their victory. They finally felt at ease again, and they couldn't contain their positive emotions any longer.

While Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy went to retrieve their pink friend from atop the archway, Twilight stole another glance at the burning remains of Dream Catcher. She looked up in surprise as something else caught her eye.

Standing behind the others at the other end of the clearing, there was a young filly with white fur and golden yellow hair. Her form was slightly transparent and shimmering faintly.

Twilight looked around at the others. They seemed to be unable to see the ghostly filly. Even so, she immediately recognized the young girl.

The filly smiled back at her, showing happiness for the first time since Twilight met her.

“Thank you…” The filly’s voice echoed softly. Once again, the others seemed unaware of the ghostly visitor, as if she were in Twilight's head.

Twilight smiled and nodded slightly. She was glad that she was finally able to bring peace to the white filly and the other children.

Just as suddenly as she appeared, Glistening Gold’s form vanished amid the smoke and embers flickering into the air from the foreground. Twilight felt a little sad to see the filly go. She felt like she had bonded with her, despite their lack of two-way conversations and their brief meetings. Still, she felt good as she dwelled on the thought that the filly was moving on to a better place, perhaps even to be reunited with her parents.

“Twilight…? You alright there?”

A voice from beside her brought Twilight out of her thoughts. She turned to see Applejack offering her a confused and slightly concerned look. Not surprising considering she had been staring off into the distance and smiling like a goofball.

“Oh,” Twilight said in mild embarrassment. “Uh… I was just uh…” She softened up and sighed. “Just thinking about an old friend.”

Applejack smiled, perhaps catching the unicorn’s meaning. “Well… are you ready to get outta’ here?” She asked curiously.

Twilight looked around at the others for a moment. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had already retrieved Pinkie from her perch, Tom was tending to Sunspot’s broken wing while Sparkplug watched with a bit of queasiness evident on her face, and Glimmer Shine was gently waking up Glitterball, who had been unconscious throughout the majority of the battle. Everybody seemed to be just about ready to leave, and that was when it finally occurred to the purple mare. She could leave. They were finally free to head back up to the surface.

Twilight nodded with a relaxed smile. “Yes… I think I am.” She said confidently.

Once everyone was ready to leave, they all gathered under the stone archway. After taking one last look at the burning remains of Dream Catcher, the group started making their way back toward the entrance of the cave. They couldn’t wait to reunite with the others so they could finally depart from the underground hallways and rooms of the abandoned resort.

Chapter 27: Looking to the Future

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Back in the resort, Rarity was still waiting in the security room with the others. The atmosphere in the dimly lit room was dull and dreary, though the ponies still felt a little unease from their surroundings. However bored or anxious they were, everyone felt one thing more intensely than anything else. Worry.

Ever since Glitterball had left them, they had been sitting with a thick feeling of worry in their guts. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t stop thinking about their friends and colleagues.

Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Sweetie Belle sat off in one of the back corners of the room, with Rarity sitting nearby. The fillies were attempting to occupy themselves with idle chatter or perhaps a game or two, but it was clear to see how uneasy and concerned they were.

Berry Swirl and the others were gathered over by the security monitors on the left side of the room. Copper Coil was using the swivel chair and blankly flipping through the cameras around the floor. Spike stood nearby, watching the screens as well and trying not to think too hard about the potential danger his friends could be in.

“*Sigh*… I wonder what the others are doing?” Spike thought aloud, wanting to fill the silent void with some sort of conversation.

Rarity glanced over to the young dragon and flashed a reassuring, if a little hesitant, smile. “I’m sure they’re doing fine, Spike.” She said with a forced tone of confidence. She hoped the others were alright herself, but she couldn’t deny her own thoughts of concern.

“Yeah,” Scootaloo chimed in, more confident than most of the others in the room. “I’ll bet they’re already doing something to stop those ghosts.”

“I hope one of them doesn’t break in here before the others can take care of them.” Sweetie Belle fretted nervously.

Berry Swirl looked over at the group of fillies with a reassuring expression. “Don’t worry. Nothing is getting through that door.”

“But can’t ghosts walk through walls?” Applebloom asked hesitantly.

“Not while they are inside of an animatronic or one of those mascot suits.” Rarity ventured. “Every ghost we’ve seen down here has been inside something physical… Nothing is going to get us in here.” She offered the yellow filly a pat on the head to ease her fears.

Suddenly, a series of knocks came from the door at the front of the room. The abrupt break in silence in the otherwise quiet room was more than a little jarring to a majority of the group.

After their initial jump of fear, the children, along with everyone else in the room, turned to look at the door with varying emotions written on their faces. While the kids were unnerved by the sudden visitor, everyone else was mostly curious.

After a brief wait, a muffled voice came through the door. “Hey, open up! It’s us!” The voice requested impatiently. Everyone immediately recognized the owner of the voice to be Sunspot.

With smiles and excitement building on everyone’s faces, Rarity got up and rushed to the door. The others stopped what they were doing and went to gather around the white mare, eager to greet their friends.

Rarity quickly unlocked the door and opened it up. As the orange pegasus had claimed, everyone was standing outside and waiting in the hallway.

Twilight and the others had a somewhat disheveled appearance to them as if they had been rolling around in some dirty old cave. Some of them had minor cuts and bruises, indicating some sort of battle. If a fight had occurred, then the human at the back of the group had most likely healed anyone with severe injuries.

“Guys!” Rarity exclaimed while rushing forward and hugging the nearest pony, which happened to be Pinkie. Twilight and the other three mares gradually closed around the pair and joined in their embrace. “Thank goodness you’re all safe.” Rarity said with a relieved smile. She turned to see that Berry Swirl and the others had gathered out in the hallway and were greeting Sparkplug in the same way she had greeted her friends.

Berry Swirl briefly hugged the gray mare before pulling back. “You had us so worried Sparkplug!” She vented the overwhelming joy and relief she was feeling as she smiled at the earth pony.

“Sorry about that.” Sparkplug said with a slightly saddened expression. “I had to see things through to the end and help them out.”

Copper Coil chuckled warmly while the gray mare went up and hugged him along with High Tide and Silver Bell. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have it any other way.” The stallion said with a proud expression.

“So does that mean you guys got rid of the ghosts?” Scootaloo asked curiously.

Twilight and the others smiled as their friends looked to them with eager anticipation written all over their faces. “Yes, Scootaloo… we did. All of the ghosts are gone.” The purple mare stated with a joyful smile.

“So… we can finally leave?” Sweetie Belle asked with eagerness building inside of her. The others nodded in return. “Yes!” The young unicorn cheered.

Sweetie Belle turned to her two fellow crusaders and celebrated their freedom. The others couldn’t help but smile as they watched the fillies jumping up and down with joy. They felt like jumping around themselves, so they couldn’t blame the kids.

After giving the children some time to vent their happiness, the others felt that they would much rather celebrate upstairs. “Settle down, kids. I think it’s time we left this horrible place, don’t you agree?” Rarity asked curiously. The three fillies immediately stopped and turned to face the white mare.

“Right!” The trio stated in unison, still unable to stop grinning widely.

With unanimous agreement, the group started walking down the hallway toward the stairwell that would take them up.

Around the winding hallways and rooms, they went, still processing the fact that everything was back to normal. Their dark and eerie surroundings reminded them of where they were and what had happened to them in their previous journeys around the three floors of the old resort. They still felt like something was lurking in the darkness around them, though this illusion was quickly dispelled once they reached the stairs and climbed up to the second floor.

Near the landing of the stairs, a humanoid fox animatronic was sprawled out on the floor. Rarity, Applejack, and Silver Bell were extremely familiar with the red fox, and even though it was merely a lifeless shell, they stared at it warily as the group continued up.

All through the first floor, they continued finding the empty and lifeless husks that were formally animatronic hosts to the spirits that dwelled in the resort. It was a strange sight to see for the ponies, and they still felt a little uneasy to be walking over or around things that were trying to kill them all day.

As the group made their way to the lobby of the underground extension, Sunspot and Glimmer Shine lagged behind slightly. The pair let the rest of the group walk ahead of them so they could have some time to themselves.

Ever since their experience in the cave, the pegasus and the stallion had looked at each other in different light. Each was surprised by what the other had felt about past events, and each was surprised about what the other was willing to do to protect a friend.

Sunspot sighed as she tried to find a way to break the awkward silence. “So… are you mad at me for almost getting myself killed again?” She asked playfully while turning to the yellow pony.

Glimmer Shine chuckled briefly before falling silent and smiling. “Well, that was pretty stupid…” He said. Sunspot could only shrug and nod in agreement. “But I think I’m willing to let that one slide as long as you don’t do it again.” He added with a lighthearted expression.

Sunspot snorted through her nose while fighting an impish smirk off of her face. “Maybe I won’t need to do it again if you stop falling off of cliffs.”

“Ok, let’s not overdo it. I was just starting to feel something other than a desire to strangle you for once.” Glimmer Shine laughed, eliciting a hearty chuckle from the pegasus. He stared at her in silent contemplation before smiling. “I’ll tell you what… I’ll try to stop being so strict if you start trying to listen to me.”

Sunspot turned to see the stallion sticking a hoof out to her. She smiled and shook her head before grabbing his hoof and shaking it. “Deal.”

“And… I’m serious about that Sunspot. I’m going to get gray hairs if you keep running off into danger.” Glimmer Shine pleaded.

“I don’t know… I think you might look better in gray.” Sunspot replied with a smirk.

Glitterball glanced behind her as she walked. She smiled as she saw her two teammates chatting and smiling amongst themselves. Whatever conflict had arisen between them seemed to have been resolved amicably, and she was glad to see them treating each other like friends again.

After a few more minutes of walking, the group reached the lobby of the extension to the resort. The stairs that led them down to this dark and sinister place were just ahead. With eager expressions, they continued forward and up into the sub-basement of the actual resort.

Winding through more dusty corridors for a few more minutes, the group finally reached the narrow stairwell that led up into the basement. They all filed into the stairwell and started climbing the metal steps.

“So, what are you going to do with that place, Berry?” Pinkie asked curiously, most likely referring to the underground resort.

Berry Swirl thought for a moment before replying. “I’m not sure… I might repurpose it someday, maybe finish it up like my Grandfather wanted… either that or I’ll have to fill it all in with concrete.” She thought out loud. “Either way, something needs to be done to make sure the place stays stable. Thank goodness for that seismic dampener down there. We just don’t have the money to do anything with that space right now, so we can use that to make sure everything is safe.”

“It is safe to go down there now, right?” Silver Bell asked with a hint of nervousness in her voice as she looked to Glimmer Shine and the others.

Tom spoke up on behalf of the group. “Well… me and the others will have to head back down there to give the place a thorough search and take care of any remaining inhuman spirits. They wouldn’t have dispersed like the other ghosts did when we burned the remains.”

“Are you kidding me? We have to go back there?!” Sunspot groaned.

“Relax, Sunspot. I’ll be doing most of the work. I don’t want you guys messing with those inhumans. And besides, I think there was only the one in that colt animatronic left.” Tom explained.

“Best to make sure… I’m sure Berry and the others wouldn’t want any of those freaky things laying around down there.” Glimmer Shine inferred. Judging from the expressions on Berry and the others’ faces, the stallion was correct.

Finally, the group made it back into the basement of the resort. For the first time since they ventured down into the abandoned depths, they were back in familiar territory.

Up ahead, sprawled out on the ground, was an animatronic dog that most of the group remembered to be called Sparky. The robotic dog must have been waiting for them by the entrance when the spirit inside of it was removed.

Sparkplug lingered for a moment as the group walked past the animatronic. Its head had a sizable dent in it from their previous encounter with it. She frowned sadly as she thought about how much work it would take to fix the damage.

Making their way through the basement and eventually, up to the main floor, the ponies all had cheerful expressions on their faces as they drew closer to freedom. They all couldn’t wait to exit the employees-only area so they could get back out into the colorful resort. They only hoped that it was still daylight out so that they could enjoy the sight of the sun once more.

After a few more lengthy hallways and turns, the double doors leading out into the resort came into view. Freddy the bear could still be seen where he previously was, lying on the ground with severe damage to his head.

Berry Swirl walked up to the doors and paused. She looked back to the others, who nodded as a sign for her to do the honors. With an eager smile, she grabbed the pipe wedged into the door handles and removed it before opening the door.

The familiar inviting colors of the resort hallway outside were like a breath of fresh air to the group of ponies. However, there was also a more disquieting sight waiting for them. All four of the other animatronics were sitting outside.

Party Favor was slumped up against a wall, while Felix was lying on the ground face down behind her. Chica was in a crumpled heap in front of the two cats. And sitting nearest to the doors, was Bonnie.

Seeing the once proud animatronics in such a sorry shape was an oddly saddening experience for the ponies. Sure, the robotic animals had tried to kill them earlier, but that wasn’t really their fault. After all, they were just mechanical puppets being used for a purpose more sinister than they were intended for.

Sweetie Belle frowned as she looked around at the motionless entertainers. “Are they… back to normal?” She asked while looking up to the others with a hopeful expression.

“Only one way to find out.” Sparkplug said with a reassuring glance to the young unicorn. She walked closer to the animatronic rabbit and looked down at it before clearing her throat. “Bonnie, wake mode.” She spoke clearly and directly.

Everyone watched in silent anticipation as the blue rabbit remained silent. Finally, two red lights flashed on and off in Bonnie’s eyes and a few beeps sounded out. Much to the group’s surprise, the animatronic bunny started getting up.

Bonnie stood up and looked around in a seemingly confused manner. He paused as some more mechanical clicks came from within his body.

“*Krrzzt* Error… internal records show discrepancy with activation logs… What happened?” Bonnie asked while turning to the gray mare expectantly.

“Don’t worry about it, Bonnie. You were just… sleeping, for a while.” Sparkplug explained. The mechanical rabbit blinked a couple of times before nodding.

“Ok… I’ll just pretend that didn’t happen.” Bonnie reasoned casually. “How can I help you, Sparkplug?”

Sparkplug chuckled briefly and shook her head. “Why don’t you head to the kitchen and grab me some water? I could use a drink after everything that’s happened.” She asked curiously.

Several of the others immediately felt hunger pangs or bouts of thirst hitting them all at once. With everything that had happened, they hadn’t thought about the fact that they hadn’t eaten or drank anything since they got up.

“I’ll get right on that. Be right back!” Bonnie stated cheerfully before turning and marching away. As the animatronic bunny walked down the hallway, the others watched him while deep in thought.

“So… what do we do now?” Scootaloo asked curiously. She heard the sound of her friends’ stomachs growling in response.

Sweetie Belle held her empty gut and groaned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m finding something to eat first.”

“Well… yeah,” Scootaloo shrugged in agreement. “But what about after that?

Twilight smiled as she looked down at the fillies. “Isn’t it obvious?” She asked, receiving confused expressions in response. “We get back to our vacation, that’s what!” She stated eagerly.

The others brightened up as they realized that all of their problems had been dealt with. They had defeated the ghosts, and now there was nothing to get in the way of the vacation they had interrupted. With how much time they had spent running away and hiding from ghosts fearfully, they almost forgot that they were actually supposed to be relaxing and having fun this week. Before they could think further about returning to their vacation, more rumblings from their stomachs drew the ponies’ attention back to their fatigue and hunger.

“Uh… yeah… we should probably find something to eat first.” Twilight suggested with an awkward smile.

Berry Swirl stepped forward from the group, eager to please her hungry guests. “I think there should still be enough food left over to make something decent for dinner.” She said confidently.

“Last one to the kitchen is a rotten egg!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed from the back of the group. Before anyone could process what she said, the pink mare bolted down the hallway with a surprising amount of energy despite the hunger she must have been feeling.

The others stood and stared at each other for a minute while watching the pink pony running. Finally, they started moving down the hallway at a quickened pace as they gradually accepted that they were now part of a race.

“Slow down, Pinkie! Head starts are cheating!” Rainbow Dash called after the pink pony, though she was already far ahead of the pack. Twilight and the others laughed cheerfully as they each tried to keep ahead of their friends.

The rest of the week went by in a flash. Time flies when you’re having fun as they say, and the group had more fun than they could possibly contain once they were free of any supernatural happenings to put a damper on their moods. Not only were they having a great time, but they all had a feeling of accomplishment from putting an end to a long period of suffering for some innocent spirits.

Eventually, the poolside fun and wild times out in the park had to come to an end. Despite how much they wanted to stay, the end of their trip had arrived, and the group had to prepare to leave their luxurious surroundings.

Twilight and the others gathered up all of their belongings and made their way down to the lobby of the resort. As they all walked into the room, they were surprised to see Berry Swirl and all of her staff members present to see them off. Even Bonnie and the other animatronics were in the background to say goodbye.

Berry walked up to the group with a warm smile on her face. She gave Pinkie Pie a hug before stepping back and addressing the others. “Thank you all so much… for everything. I don’t even know what we would have done if you didn’t show up.” She said with a grateful expression.

“Berry… I think I speak for all of us when I say, it was our pleasure.” Twilight said, receiving unanimous nods of approval from the others.

Glimmer Shine stepped forward and set his suitcase down. “As promised, you are now officially ghost-free. It might have taken us a little longer than expected, and we might have taken a slight detour,” He said with a slightly embarrassed expression. “But we got the job done. I hope you guys have a successful future now that you don’t have the past hanging over your head.” He reached out a foreleg to shake the purple mare’s hoof. The stallion was surprised as Berry Swirl stepped in close for a hug.

“Thank you guys especially.” Berry said while flashing a bright smile to the stallion’s two companions and their human friend.

While the group was preparing to leave, Sparkplug was watching them with an anxious expression. Berry Swirl looked back at the gray mare and nodded toward the others with an encouraging expression. Sparkplug nodded with a small smile of embarrassment before walking forward.

Glimmer Shine and the others watched curiously as they saw the gray pony walking over to them. She seemed to have something on her mind that she was trying to talk about, but she also seemed hesitant to bring it up.

“Umm… hey…” Sparkplug said while fiddling her front hooves together nervously as she looked to the team of monster hunters. “I was just wondering if uh… I could maybe… you know…” She tripped over her words, growing more nervous by the minute.

“What is it, Sparkplug?” Glitterball asked curiously.

Berry Swirl chuckled and spoke up for the gray mare. “What she’s trying to say is she wants to join your team.” She explained.

“Yeah… that.” Sparkplug rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably.

“Join us?” Glimmer Shine repeated with a confused and surprised raise of the eyebrow. “Why would you want to do that?”

Sparkplug sighed before swallowing her anxiousness and looking fully ahead at the group. “It’s always been a dream of mine to be a paranormal investigator… to hunt ghosts and find proof of their existence. Well, now that I know they exist… I want to help people who are having problems with them. You guys are incredible with what you do… and if you would let me, I would like to be a part of that.” She explained with a modest tone, trying not to flinch away as she waited for an answer.

Glimmer Shine glanced back at the other two members of his team. The two mares had equally uncertain expressions on their faces. “Uh… could you give us a moment to discuss things amongst ourselves?” He asked while walking off to the side and motioning for Glitter and Sunspot to follow him.

Sparkplug watched anxiously as the trio huddled in a circle. They each started whispering while occasionally glancing back to her, which made her incredibly nervous about her chances of actually succeeding.

“So… what do you guys think?” Sunspot whispered curiously while turning to her two teammates.

Glimmer Shine seemed hesitant, though he kept an open mind. “I don’t know guys… I mean, she did do really well down there with us, but… she isn’t royal guard or anything.”

“Huh? Since when has that been a requirement?” Sunspot tilted her head with a puzzled expression.

“I don’t know…” Glimmer replied with an unsure tone. “I just figured that the princess mostly recruited people with royal guard training.”

Sunspot shrugged her shoulders. “Well, clearly not… I mean, I’m a Wonderbolt for pony’s sake... well, an ex-Wonderbolt… but still, I haven’t even seen the inside of a guard academy.”

“She has a point,” Glitterball nodded in agreement with the pegasus. “I’m pretty sure the princess just wanted to recruit people who had skill sets that would be valuable to the team.” She inferred while looking to the stallion.

“Yeah, and Sparkplug has a great skillset we could use! She builds robots for crying out loud!” Sunspot added eagerly.

“Sunspot… we are not getting a robot.” Glimmer Shine stated adamantly.

Sunspot pouted in response. “You never let me have any fun.”

“Still, I do see your point… she does have a way with gadgets and technology. Having someone like that onboard could come in handy.” Glimmer reasoned.

Finally, after some more whispered debating the trio turned around and walked back over to the group. Sparkplug was scrutinizing their expressions and trying to figure out what they were thinking. She wasn’t succeeding, but it was making her incredibly nervous. “Well…?” She asked anxiously.

Glimmer Shine spoke up on behalf of the team. “Sparkplug… we would love to just accept you on the spot. You’re very capable, and you braved through things tonight that would make other ponies cower in fear.” He praised the gray mare with an impressed smile. However, his smile soon turned to a hesitant frown. “However… we would have to ask Princess Luna and see if she thinks you’re up to snuff.” He explained regretfully.

“Oh…” Sparkplug said before breathing a sigh of relief. “That’s good actually. I still need to help Berry and the others with fixing this place up.”

“And how long do you think that would take?” Glitterball asked curiously.

“Well… everything should speed up once we hire a new unicorn to… I guess replace me. I think… maybe a month?” Sparkplug suggested while deep in thought. “Would that work for you guys?”

Glimmer Shine shared a slight smirk with the two mares beside him. “I think we can make that work.” The stallion said confidently.

“Really? That’s great!” Sparkplug cheered giddily. Her enthusiasm died down as she noticed Berry Swirl and the others looking at her with bittersweet expressions.

“You better come and visit us if you plan on running off and hunting ghosts.” Copper Coil said with a playfully serious look on his face.

Sparkplug rested a hoof on the older stallion’s shoulder and smiled softly. “I will… Don’t think you’ll be getting rid of me anytime soon.”

Looking over to a clock on the wall, Berry Swirl shrugged as she noticed how much time had passed. “Well everyone, I think it’s time we headed out. We don’t want you to miss your train back to Ponyville.” She said while turning to her group of visitors.

Twilight and the others nodded while gathering their things. They waited for the purple earth pony to walk over to them so she could lead them back through town to the train station where she would inevitably bid farewell to them.

“You guys take care of yourselves!” Silver Bell called after the group, putting special focus on Applejack and Rarity.

“Same to you, darling.” Rarity replied.

“Bye bye!” Party Favor and the other animatronics waved to the departing group.

“We hope we see you again soon!” Bonnie added. The ponies were flattered to see all of the robotic animals bidding them farewell. Although they needed to be instructed to do so by Sparkplug, even Chica and Freddy were waving.

The group exited the resort and started their way across the park grounds. As they looked around, they were a little sad as they thought that this would be the last time they saw the lavish resort and the water park surrounding it. Most of the group resolved to return one day to see how the resort would grow.

Tom glanced to Twilight with a slight smirk as he looked behind him at the shrinking resort building. “Well, did you like your vacation?”

Twilight snorted through her nose as she looked back at the human. She couldn’t help but smile as she thought about what he meant. “Aside from the part where we almost died a few times… yeah, it was nice.”

“Next time, can we maybe do something more relaxing? Maybe sit in the library and read that pile of books you have?” Spike suggested, eliciting a brief chuckle from the others.

“Yeah… I see what you mean. I didn’t expect to get so much excitement out of a vacation to a water park.” Tom said.

“I’ll bet the princess is going to love hearing about everything that happened.” Rainbow Dash added with a wry smirk.

“Ooof… don’t remind me about that. I’m still trying to think of a way to break it to her lightly. She sent us here for us to rest… not for us to get chased around by ghosts for the better part of a day.” Twilight cringed as she thought about how the white alicorn was going to react to hearing that her student almost died a second time at a water resort of all places.

While the purple mare didn’t find the idea to be funny, everyone else got a good laugh out of it. Still, despite everything that happened, they would miss their stay at the resort, but at the same time, they were eager to return home to their quiet and peaceful homes. As Berry Swirl led them onward, they all reflected on how great of a story they had to tell their friends and families once they got back.

-One Month Later-

Every city or town in Equestria has some form of ghost story, and Fillydelphia was no exception. In this bustling city, almost everybody knew about one particular mansion in the upper-class portion of town. The building was supposedly haunted, and that was enough to draw eager thrill seekers or curious onlookers in from far and wide. On this particular dark and eerie night, a group of local children was gathered at the edge of the property. The local legends were far too enticing for them to pass up.

One colt at the front of the group held a flashlight under his face as he recounted the history of the legend to some of his more skeptical friends. “And they say… that if you enter the mansion on this night, the mare in white will appear… and get you!” He raised his voice, eliciting a few jumps and frightened squeals, along with some eye rolls.

“I don’t know about all that.” A unicorn filly from the middle of the group piped up in a cynical tone. “I don’t believe one bit about that hokey old story.”

“Oh yeah?” The colt at the front replied with a raised eyebrow. “What’s not to believe about it?”

The unicorn stood up and addressed the others with a condescending expression aimed toward the colt. “My mom knows the ponies that live in that house, and she says there’s no such thing as ghosts, and anyone that believes otherwise has hay for brains.”

“I don’t think your mom would have said that exactly.” Another filly chimed in.

The first filly sighed. “Well… I may have improvised a bit, but that is more or less what she said.”

The colt at the front of the group chuckled with a smug expression. “If you’re so sure that ghosts don’t exist, then why don’t you go up to the house and knock on the front door? The owners are out of town for the weekend anyway, so there’s nothing stopping you… unless you’re scared?” He asked with an impish smirk.

“Pfft… scared? I’ll show you who’s scared.” The filly replied while walking up to the front gate and preparing to step through.

Before the young unicorn could reach the gate, however, there was a flash of white on the other side as a pony shaped blur popped up in front of them. The group screamed fearfully while jumping back, only to quiet down as they saw the pony in more detail.

The pony standing on the other side of the gate was a white unicorn mare with multicolored hair tied up into a short ponytail. The mare was wearing the strangest looking black vest that held many pockets and pouches full of even stranger looking equipment.

“Oh, my… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The mare said with a regretful frown. She lightened up and adopted a serious expression for a moment. “You kids really shouldn’t be here right now.”

The colt from before picked himself up off the ground and stared at the unicorn mare with a stunned expression. “Hey… aren’t you one of those monster hunters that saved Equestria a few months ago?” He asked, barely managing to conceal the excitement in his voice.

The unicorn mare seemed surprised by the sudden recognition, but she nodded anyway. “Umm… yes, I suppose I am… Sorry, but my friends and I are working a case right now… Official business, sorry I can’t say more. You guys should head home. It’s dangerous to just roam around at night.

The children all had wide eyes and their mouths were agape in shock. Some of them looked between each other and the strange unicorn in disbelief. Finally, they all got up and started running down the street.

“See? I told you that place was haunted!” One of the colts exclaimed to one of the other kids as he ran.

Glitterball watched the children running until they were out of sight. She sighed and shook her head with a slight smile on her face.

“Glitter, are you out there? We’re almost ready.” A familiar stallion’s voice in her ear broke the unicorn out of her thoughts.

Glitterball put a hoof up to her ear while turning around and trotting across the property towards the house. “Sorry about that. I just had to take care of some unexpected guests. We should be good to go now.”

Meanwhile, inside the mansion, Sunspot was sitting in one of the upstairs hallways near a corner. She had become intensely familiar with the spot she was in from the last trip she and her team had made to this house. Still, she had high hopes that things would go differently this time.

“Testing, testing… is this thing on?” Another voice awkwardly spoke up through the communication spell.

Glitterball could be heard giggling before speaking up. “Yes, Sparkplug… we can hear you just fine.”

Sparkplug chuckled nervously. “Oh, right. Sorry… I’m not used to using this spell just yet. I’m still trying to remember all the gear on this vest… is this thing always so itchy?” She asked curiously.

“You’ll do fine, Sparkplug.” Glimmer Shine chimed in. “This ghost should be a cake walk compared to what you went through back at Fun Land. Do you remember what to do?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ll just follow your lead once everything kicks off.” Sparkplug replied.

“I’m in position again. I’m all ready when you guys are.” Glitterball announced.

“Good… that’s perfect.” Glimmer Shine said with a pleased tone. “Everything should go smoothly as long as we stick to the plan… right Sunspot?” He asked. Although she couldn’t see it, the pegasus could feel the wry smirk on her leader’s face.

“Are you sure there isn’t any wiggle room for improvisation?” Sunspot asked curiously.

“Sunspot…” Glimmer Shine replied with an unimpressed tone.

Sunspot laughed. “I’m just kidding… take it easy.”

The orange mare leaned back against the wall behind her and clutched the iron chain in her hooves tightly. She wasn’t about to mess up the same mission twice. This time she would be prepared to deal with the ghostly pony.

Suddenly, the temperature in the hallway dropped. The detector vial on her suit vibrated and buzzed. As she pulled the vial up to her eyes and examined it, Sunspot gasped eagerly as she saw the glowing liquid pointing behind her. She slowly peered around the corner, and sure enough, there it was. Standing in exactly the same spot as it was last month, was a spectral white mare.

Sunspot ducked around the corner and took a moment to calm her racing nerves. She lifted a hoof up to her ear and focused on her teammates. “Guys, I found her… she’s up here with me, right where she was last time.” She explained in a hushed and serious tone.

“Alright, everyone… you know what to do. We’ll move on your mark, Sunspot.” Glimmer Shine stated.

Sunspot nodded to herself in return while getting up. She stepped around the corner, confidently brandishing her iron lasso as she approached the ghostly figure.

“Hey, you!” She announced while twirling the chain around to gather speed. The ghostly mare turned to look at her, staring past her with blue eyes blazing. “Remember me?” Sunspot asked with a wry smirk. Wasting no time to allow the spirit to escape, she tossed the chain forward.

The chain sailed through the air, hitting its target almost perfectly. The loop at the end of the chain landed around the ghost’s neck, eliciting a painful outcry as it burned her form.

Sunspot immediately felt the ghostly mare pulling to break free of her. She gripped the chain tightly and pulled back with all her might.

“Hrk… you’re just as strong as I remember.” Sunspot grunted while putting all of her weight into her struggle. Despite her best efforts, the spirit was rapidly gaining the upper hand and dragging her across the carpet.

Before the pegasus completely lost the battle, another iron chain landed around the ghost’s neck from behind. The mare in white screamed in agony from having so much iron in contact with her body. Sunspot looked up, only to see Sparkplug standing at the opposite end of the hallway.

Hearing hoofbeats coming from behind her, Sunspot turned to see Glimmer Shine and Glitterball racing up to her with similar iron chains in hoof.

“Now!” Glimmer Shine exclaimed while twirling his chain around in the air. Glitterball followed suit, and both ponies tossed their makeshift lassos at the ghost, catching her around the shoulders like the other two. The ghostly mare bucked and struggled in any way she could think to escape the burning chains. With numbers on their side, the four ponies managed to keep their hold on her.

“Come on, let’s get her downstairs and over the property line!” Sunspot suggested urgently. The others were eager to agree with her.

Once Sparkplug made her way past the angry spirit and joined the others, they all started dragging their prisoner with them as they made their way toward the stairs.

The mare in white never stopped kicking and screaming as she tried every way imaginable to get free from the chains. Every time she tried flying away or phasing through an object, the group would pull her back into a manageable position and continued on their path.

Eventually, the ponies finished their long and arduous trek out into the yard. They forcibly dragged the spirit with them toward the front gate.

As she saw where they were going, the mare in white became more aggressive and panicked. The team had to use all of their strength just to get themselves on the other side of the gate. Slowly but surely, they pulled her closer and closer to the outside of the property.

The moment the spectral mare crossed the edge of the gate, she let out a piercing shriek as her form erupted into flaming smoke. Her body flickered violently until finally, she vanished. The mess of iron chains flopped to the ground as the mare’s screams died out and faded into the night.

The four ponies panted heavily and took a moment to rest. Everyone had exhausted and drained expressions on their faces after such a rough struggle to drag the spirit so far.

“Woo… that went… *Wheeze* a lot better than the last time.” Sunspot stated with a pleased smile as she fought to catch her breath.

“Yeah… *Pant* for a minute there I thought you might go through another window.” Glimmer Shine remarked.

Sunspot narrowed her expression as she looked to the smirking stallion. “Are you ever going to let me live that down?”

“Not likely.” Glimmer chuckled in response. Glitterball had to stifle her own laughter as the pegasus glared at the both of them.

Suddenly, another voice cut into the group’s conversation. “Glimmer Shine, are you laughing at Sunspot’s misfortune again?” The group turned to see none other than Princess Luna walking up to them from down the street. “Was it the window again? I’ll have you know the owners of the house found that to be far less amusing than we do.” The alicorn said with a brief giggle.

“Does everybody in Equestria know about that?” Sunspot asked with an annoyed pout.

Luna ceased her laughter and adopted a more professional expression, leading the others to do the same. “I must say, you all did an excellent job in there. Your new recruit seems to be holding her own as well.” She said while turning to the gray mare behind the trio.

“Well, what do you think Princess? Did she pass the test?” Glimmer Shine asked with a slight smirk. Sparkplug seemed bashful as the alicorn looked her over.

Finally, Luna softened up her expression. “I wouldn’t call this a test so much as on the job training, Glimmer Shine… But if you really want my opinion, Sparkplug did an astounding job. She works well with you three, she has a passion for the job, and from what you’ve told me about your experience at Fun Land, she is very brave.” She said with a sincere smile.

Sparkplug chuckled nervously while rubbing the back of her head. “Well… I don’t know about all that. I was just doing my part.”

“Well, if you keep doing that, you will make a great addition to this team.” Luna added while sticking her hoof out toward the gray pony. “Welcome aboard, Sparkplug.”

Sparkplug stared at the princess for a moment with a stunned expression. Finally, she smiled widely while shaking the alicorn’s hoof. “Thank you, Princess. I won’t let you down.” She said excitedly.

“Glad to have you with us.” Glitterball said while patting the gray mare on the back. Sunspot and Glimmer Shine did the same as they all celebrated the new arrival to their team.

“Hey, why don’t we head back to the hotel and throw a party?” Sunspot suggested eagerly as the group started walking down the street.

“I don’t know, Sunspot… I’m sure Pinkie Pie would want to be the one to throw a party for her when we get back to Ponyville.” Glimmer Shine replied with a cautionary tone.

“Aww come on… who knows how long it will be until we head back there? Besides, she wouldn’t mind that much if we celebrated a little bit without her… would she?” Sunspot asked, a hint of uncertainty in her expression.

Glitterball shook her head and chuckled. “I don’t know, but I know I’m not going to be in the room when you tell her.”

Glimmer Shine, Sparkplug, and even Princess Luna laughed heartily while the orange pegasus contemplated what would happen if she incurred the pink pony’s wrath.

The group continued down the street and into the night. With another job well done, and a new team member in their ranks, team S.P.I.R.I.T was doing better than ever. The yellow stallion and his companions felt closer than ever before, and they were ready and willing to face any challenge that their job threw at them in the future.

Spiritus ex Machina

by wonderkid125

Chapter 1: A Brand New Day

Chapter 2: A day in the Life

Chapter 3: Reunion

Chapter 4: The Job Offer of a Lifetime

Chapter 5: Departure

Chapter 6: Welcome to Fun Land

Chapter 7: Settling In

Chapter 8: Poolside Fun

Chapter 9: Marvelous Mechanisms

Chapter 10: The Morning After

Chapter 11: The Lingering Past

Chapter 12: What Lurks Beneath?

Chapter 13: Search and Rescue

Chapter 14: The Place of Dead Memories

Chapter 15: Cornered

Chapter 16: Laughing in the Dark

Chapter 17: Creepy/Crawly

Chapter 18: Mementos

Chapter 19: Broken Things

Chapter 20: Where Spirits Dwell

Chapter 21: Near and Far

Chapter 22: The Joy of Creation

Chapter 23: Around Every Corner

Chapter 24: Into the Deep

Chapter 25: Body and Soul

Chapter 26: Ghosts of the Past

Chapter 27: Looking to the Future