//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Epilogue // Story: Pinkie's Fun Palace: a MLP x FNAF Story // by EnvironmentalText850 //------------------------------// As expected, the police didn't believe Grape at first. They were only convinced when they watched the camera footage. The cameras had captured everything, from the events leading up to the fight, to Pinkie's confession, to her death, and the battle between Grape and Afton. Needless to say, everyone except for Grape was shocked. This caused the police to review the security footage from the day when the five mares dissappeared. Lo and behold, the tampering Afton had done to the footage was gone, showing what really happened. It seemed his defeat had caused the effects of his abilities to fade away. The footsge now showed him using Pinkie to lure her friends into the Storage Room, Afton stopping her from calling for help, and her being forced by him to drag their bodies outside, where they were burned. Everyone at the Ponyville Police Department was silent, but one could tell b their faces they were horrified. This wasn't just a simple missing pony case now. This was something way outside their area of expertise. Grape was sent to the Hospital, where they properly bandaged the wound on his foreleg. He claimed he got it while fending off a burglar. After that, he went home. As he entered his house, he went straight to his room, and he laed in bed. Despite the fact that he'd usually be eating breakfast at this hour, he didn't want to eat anything. As he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, he reflected on what had happened that night. As he did, something, or more specifically, a phrase. caught his attention. "...I ALWAYS COME BACK!" What did that mean? Was it a warning? A threat? Whatever it was, it didn't sound good. Those four words echoed in his head over and over again, as if to taunt him. Grape already knew that whatever Afton was, it wasn't natural. The way he was able to possess Pinkie Pie's dead body with ease, or how he was able to screech so loud it made his ears hurt, or even the fact that he couldn't even see his true form, was enough proof of that. As he thought about it, Afton didn't seem to match with any spectral entity he'd heard of, or seen in a movie. That was... until a thought came to his mind. "Was Afton a demon?" Now, Grape wasn't very familiar with the concept of demons. He had heard about them while reading up on ghosts the previous days, but not on demons specifically. As a matter of fact, all the books he had read about ghosts barely even mentioned them, simply stating things like: "Demons are extremely dangerous", or: "Do not attempt to communicate with a demon", without much elaboration other than "They are the definition of evil". He could ask Spooky about it, but what if demons were outside his area of expertise? He could go on the library to try and find anything on the subject, but he didn't want to end up in a list. If Afton was some kind of demon, or something similar to one, then Grape didn't want to encounter him ever again. Eventually, Grape fell asleep. He didn't have any nightmares, or any dreams at all. His mind was too exhausted for that. As he slept however, he hoped that Afton was dead, and that he wouldn't be able to harm another pony ever again. However, it appears fate had different plans... Meanwhile... As the six mares opened their eyes, they realized that they were no longer in the Storage Room. They were now in a completely white place, with a large tree with a swing in the distance. Despite the ground being completely white, Pinkie could feel grass touching the bottom of her hooves. "Where... Where are we...?", Twilight asked, as she looked around. "Is this what the afterlife looks like...? Seems kind of boring...", said Rainbow Dash, a bit underwhelmed. "NO.", a mysterious, intimidating voice said. The six ponies looked around, trying to find the source of this voice. Then they blinked, and ust like that there it was. It was a large, bipedal figure, with a segmented body, covered in golden fur. It wore a small, magenta colored top hat, and a bowtie of the same color. On it's chest were two, black, circular objects that looked like buttons, and it was holding what appeared to be a microphone. It's head was large, and seemed to be divided between it's lower and upper jaws. The lower jaw was limp, and was hanging open, leaking a black substance. The same substance leaked from it's eye sockets, and from holes on the figure's chest, and from between it's elbows. Fluttershy thought it somewhat resembled a bear. One of it's ears was missing, and two small wires, one red and one blue, were popping out from the hole where said ear should be. "YOU ARE IN THE SPACE BETWEEN THE WORLD OF THE LIVING, AND THE WORLD OF THE DEAD.", it said, in that same deep, intimidating voice. "And who are you...?", Applejack asked. "I AM THE ONE HE SHOULD NOT HAVE KILLED.", the figure said. "BUT YOU MAY CALL ME CASSIDY." "Well... Cassidy...", Rarity said, gazing at the towering figure. "You certainly look like you've seen better days..." "That's because this isn't her true form...", said another voice. This one was a lot more gentle than Cassidy's. Suddenly a second figure materialized in front of the mares. This one was a lot smaller, and was holding what appeared to be a mask. Twilight immediatly recognized what this figure was, as she had briefly turned into one a few years back. It was a human, a girl, to be precise. It seemed to be a child, wearing a sweater and dark pants, with several slash wounds across her body, one on her neck, and four on her torso. She seemed to exude an air of safety, but also one of sadness. "Who are you...?", Fluttershy asked. She had never seen a human before, so she didn't exactly know what to make of her. "I'm Charlotte... Charlotte Emily...", she said as she approached Fluttershy. "But my friends call me Charlie..." "N-nice to meet you... Charlotte...", Fluttershy said, a bit nervous. "I'm Fluttershy..." "Nice to meet you too... Fluttershy...", Charlie said, a friendly smile across her face. "Okay... so... why are we here...?", Rainow Dash asked. "Shouldn't we be somewhere else...?" "THAT IS BECAUSE YOU CANNOT MOVE ON.", Cassidy said. "NOT UNTIL-" "Ummm... Cass...? Can you please return to your true form...?", Charlie said, interrupting Cassidy. "I think you're scaring them with that voice..." "FINE.", Cassidy said. In the blink of an eye, Cassidy revealed her true form. A little girl, similar to Charlie, only she was wearing a striped shirt, with suspenders, and had pigtails. She was also covered in horrible wounds, as if she had been used as a pin cushion. "Better now...?", she asked. The six mares could only look at the poor girl. Whatever happened to her, it hadn't been good. "My goodness...! What happened to you... Darling...?", Rarity asked, horrified at Cassidy's wounds. "I was killed by the same man who killed you six...", Cassidy explained. "It's a long story... That form i took was the Animatronic i ended up possessing..." "Wait... you are also one of his victims...?!", Twilight said, surprised at this revelation. "And you ended up possessing an Animatronic too...?!" "Yes..." Charlie said. "We are both previous victims of his... As for the second question... Yes... we both ended up possessing Animatronics too..." "The reason for that was that our souls became bound to the Animatronics after our deaths...", Cassidy explained. "It's the same reason for how we managed to save you five..." "Huh...?", Applejack said, confused. "What do ya mean by that..." "See... after you died... we managed to bind your souls to your Animatronic counterparts...", Cassidy explained again. "Unfortunely... we forgot to explain this to you when you all woke up... sorry about that..." "Ok... but coming back to Dash's question... why are we here...?", Pinkie asked. "Shouldn't we have moved on...?" "Well... you see... Pinky...?", Cassidy asked, as she didn't quite know Pinkie's name. "Close...", she replied. "It's Pinkie..." "Ah... I see... Anyways... the reason why you can't move on... is because he is not dead yet..." "Wait... WHAT...?!", Dash asked. "But we saw him die in front of our very eyes...!" "Yes... you did...", Charlie said. "But you killed him the wrong way..." "What do you mean...?", Pinkie asked. "We tried to kill him the same way you did...", Cassidy said. "But he didn't truly die... his soul became bound to his corpse... and he came back..." "So that means... he can cheat death...?", Applejack asked. "Yes...", Charlie said. "But there's one way to defeat him..." "Really...?", Fluttershy asked. "How...?" "Fire...", Cassidy said. "Fire weakens him... If he's exposed to fire for too long... he will become weak... Weak enough for us to banish him to where he came from..." "I have a question...", Pinkie said. "Who is he...? And why did he kill me and my friends...?" "His name is Afton...", Cassidy answered. "He was a very bad man in life... and somehow... even worse in death... it seems..." "Cassidy banished him to hell a long time ago...", Charlie explained. "But somehow... he escaped... and that's why we're here..." "Well, what are we waiting for...?", Rainbow Dash said. "We know his name... and we know his weakness... so let's get him...!" "We can't...", Charlie said. "Why...?", Dash asked, in confusion. "Because fire also affects ghosts...", Cassidy responded. "We need to get someone to do it for us... or else the fire will consume us as well..." The six mares thought very hard, who could possibly help them defeat Afton once and for all? Then Pinkie had an idea. "I might just know the pony that can help us..." Meanwhile Inside the Storage Room, the corrupted body of Pinkie Pie laid trapped inside it's Animatronic counterpart, seemingly dead. Suddenly, it twitched, and it's eyes started glowing. The man in purple lives again... TO BE CONTINUED...?