//------------------------------//
// The Final Night 
// Story: Several Nights at Pepperoni's 
// by Mod On Death 
//------------------------------//

	Ret woke up to find himself in a hospital bed, tubes sticking in his body. He tried to move up to get a better view and found himself too weak to move up more than a few inches. Feeling desperate to contact anypony, he took a deep breath and let out a yell.
"Anypony there!" he called out.
"I'm right here," a doctor said to the right of him.
"Oh. Sorry. Just didn't see you," Ret explained.
"That's alright. From what you've been through I'm glad you're able to yell like that," the doctor replied. "The ponies you were staying with heard the noise you made after tripping and came downstairs to find you all curled up."
"What time was that?" Ret asked, wondering what time he had encountered whatever he saw.
"It was five after six in the morning," the doctor told him. "They found you right after having a heart attack and called it in. If they hadn't done it right then you most likely would have been lost. Actually, you were dead for about five minutes."
"WHAT?" Ret was completely surprised by this news.
"Yeah. You had a second one right after you were brought in. Most ponies wouldn't survive having two heart attacks that soon after the other, but you somehow managed it."
"Look, Doc, thanks for saving my life, but I need to make a call to my partner stat. You mind getting a phone for me?"
"Of course. I should get home soon though. It's almost midnight." The doctor went and brought the phone over to Ret who proceeded to put in Shining Armor's number. The line only rang once before he picked up.
"Ret!" exclaimed Shining Armor, sounding out of breath. "Heard what happened but couldn't visit. Think I found out what happened. You remember how that pizza place had those robot mascots?" 
"How could I forget," he replied dryly.
"Listen. Apparently the place got turned into a video store. It got shut down. Then it became a beanie buddy store. That got shut down. Then it became a neon jacket place and became successful before shutting down once again. Now it's something a little more permanent - a comic store. The guy I met there apparently worked there ever since the pizza place and says that before he worked there it was a robot fighting arena. The animatronics there were made from the spare parts of those machines and may have been programmed to kill when set on free-roam." 
"What?" Ret wasn't even sure if he was surprised at anything his partner was saying.
"Yeah. The managers had them roam at night to keep their servos from being stuck or something. Eventually they started to cause damage to the place and there was another one of them made that never got to be put out. It's job was to maintain the other bots and keep them from injuring themselves and to set them back up before the place opened up."
"Shining, how exactly did you learn this stuff from your source?" Ret asked, suspicious about how anypony could know this much.
"Simple. The guy was a janitor there. Everypony knows that janitors are the best at finding information. Our Intelligence Department is literally a guy in a janitor's closet with a CB radio. You'd be surprised to learn how much he knows about everypony."
"Whatever. What about these killer robots you're talking about?"
"Apparently the company that owned the place managed to hide the fact that their animatronics did this and scrapped them while hiding the other one they created to maintain them. Turns out that one was much more intelligent than anypony thought. Creator was a bit of a mad scientist, putting in a super-powered battery, high-processing brain, and an unstoppable thirst to perform its task. Managed to be considered too important to be destroyed and was left untouched." This news suddenly brought a spark to Ret's eye.
"Wait, what happened to that one?"
"That one was owned by the creator's wife. I met and talked to her. Apparently she didn't like having it around and sold it online for cheap along with a creepy message machine simply to get it out of the house. Pointing that out since those creepy messages turned out to be left by the victim recalling the events of those nights he worked there."
"Meet me at Pepperoni's Place! I think the last bot might be there!" Ret yelled at Shining Armor, forgetting to let him know where that was. "Doc, you have any way to get me to town fast?"
"Do I!" The doctor ran out into the hallway and quickly returned with a wheelchair with flames and spoilers on the sides. "This baby can go sixty miles per hour and has nitro. Only reason not everypony's in one of these is because it's called 'horrifically dangerous' and 'unwieldy'. We'll show them! Now hop on out!" 
"YEAH!" Ret slowly got out of his bed, slowly removing the tubes and moving over to the chair with difficulty. He sat himself down and put his hoof to the control stick, immediately going at 30 mph out into the hallway. Without thinking much, Ret decided to launch out the window. Luckily for him the doctor had hung on and deployed the retractable wings that came with it just in time.
"Let the world know that I, Dr. Spacepony, have created the most awesome wheelchair ever!" The two cheered as they flew into town.

"So that's why Jenshiro now has blue hair," Buronson complained to the group. He and several other coworkers decided to go to Sound's late that night to discuss the movie in progress. The group performed a collective groan at the knowledge that the director was making some odd choices.
"It's like the guy never read the books," Golden Bell, Public Relations Manager, complained.
"To be honest, neither have we," Heyfield, one of the writers, admitted in front of them.
"Look, let's be honest and say nopony here reads anypony else's work," Bates, Chief Editor, told the group. "I know the reason why me and Cloverbud know your stuff better than you is because we had to read all your stuff at least five times." The groups discussion was suddenly cut off when there was a knock at the door.
"Wonder who that is," Sound asked as she got up to check it out. She opened the door to find their neighbor standing there with four large packages behind him.
"They delivered to my place. Again." Bob said, agitation in his voice. "What did you guys get this time?"
"Don't exactly know. I'll get my dad." Sound went upstairs as Bob dragged the packages in. Sound returned with her dad, hoping he would know what was in the box.
"I really don't remember buying anything new." Pepperoni looked at the labels and saw that it was linked to his account. "Let's open it up to see what's going on." The box was pulled open and inside was what looked like a giant mascot costume for a rabbit. "What?"
"Let's check the other three," Bates suggested. Heyfield, Sound and himself went and opened the others to find a bear costume, a chicken costume, and a fox costume.
"What they hey are these for?" Heyfield asked as he looked inside one of the helmets. It was surprisingly cramped and filled with lots of metal pieces. Obviously not meant to be worn by somepony. 
"Buck if I know," Buronson said. At that point both Cleversong and Bloomheart came down from their rooms to check on the racket going on.
"Is that a robot head?" Cleversong asked as she looked at the fox's head.
"Your guess is as good as mine." Before Pepperoni could guess anything else, the lights for the room went dark, surprising them all except for the family.
"You still do the timed lights?" Cleversong asked.
"Sometimes I forget to turn them off. Too bad I can't turn them on again. Freakin' electricians," Pepperoni was about to go on a rant just before Bloomheart calmed him down.
"Sorry everypony, but you should go home now. It's just about midnight," she reminded them, hoping they would let her sleep that night and stop complaining about their 'craft' and 'integrity of artistic value'.
"Well, I'll be heading off now," Bates said, gathering his stuff. "Cleversong, you mind holding onto the tape that demoed today? I know you won't forget to hand it back to them. It's still in that tape recorder on the counter."
"Will do," she replied before he left. The door closed and suddenly bolted shut to everypony's surprise.
"What was that?" Pepperoni asked. Bloomheart was surprisingly the one to answer this time.
"Oh, I just installed a security system that would look the door automatically at closing time since you keep on forgetting," she said in a tone that made it obvious that this happened frequently. Happens automatically at midnight."
"Okay. Wanna continue this discussion tomorrow?" Buronson asked, getting up along with the rest from their seats.
"Sure. I wanna get to-" Golden Bell became silent as she suddenly heard some quick shuffling. "Heyfield, is that you?"
"I'm right over here," he said, holding her right hoof. "Come on and let's-" Heyfield suddenly became stiff when he heard that same shuffling from moments ago draw closer to him. "Uh, who's shuffling? Sound like you're gonna run into me."
"Hold on." Pepperoni went behind the counter and grabbed a flashlight, giving them something to see with. "Now who's doing-" Now even Pepperoni was cut off as he saw something blur through the light, everypony else seeing the same thing.
"Can somepony stop cutting everypony off with their-" The shuffling that cut Cleversong off became full on sprinting now. Pepperoni heard where it was coming from and shined his light at the spot just in time for everypony to be horrified.
"BUCK!" cried out Pepperoni.
"Fudge!" cried out Bloomheart.
"DUCK!" Cleversong yelled as she was suddenly grabbed by the animatronic with its mouth open, howling in what sounded like pain. Everypony was in shock at seeing this happen right in front of them.
"Stop it!" Heyfield yelled out. He and Buronson rushed it only for the robot's claws to pierce Buronson before slashing across Heyfield's face!"
"Heyfield!" Golden Bell screamed, approaching her boyfriend. "Are you alright?"
"Guys?" Buronson said weakly as he was bleeding out his wounds.
"GET OFF OF ME!" Cleversong continued to yell, squirming in the thing's arm. It approached one of the boxes and pulled out what looked like the fox's head.
"Foxy mascot," it said in a grinding voice, the voice box not in use for so many years. It started its attempt to place the painful looking head on Cleversong while she tried to uselessly push it back. Everypony who could tried to rush the machine from behind and damage it or somehow stop it. Bloomheart and Pepperoni attacked from the side.
"Let go of my girl you piece of spinach!" Pepperoni yelled, knowing very little of intimidation. The wolf animatronic responded by biting down on his head.
"DAD!" Cleversong and Sound cried out when they saw this. Cleversong's fore-right leg got crushed when the wolf turned to bite, destroying her resistance to the helmet. She started to yell in pain as it started being forced down on her head.
"No!" Sound yelled without thinking. She got backhanded right into the counter, knocking over the tape player in the process. As it landed on the floor, the tape started to play.

First was the guitar.

Then there was the keyboard.

And  then there was the vocals.



"You wa shock!" the song belted out. Sound was suddenly filled with a new kind a flowing energy that fought for righteousness and peace in this chaotic world. She saw the sight of her sister's torment and felt pure fury rage inside her hoofs. Without a second thought, she launched herself toward the wolf animatronic.
"Atatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatata!" she yelled as her hooves mashed against the metal head, breaking its hold on Cleversong. The thing staggered back for a moment before letting out a howl and rushing Sound.
"Sound, move!" her sister warned. Sound did not comply and thrust her hoof forward. The wolf seemed to anticipate this and bit straight down on her hoof. The group was horrified to see this.
All except for Sound.
"Life is a privilege," she said, pulling her arm out of its mouth, ripping the jaws out of the head in the process, "and you don't deserve it!" She took the jaw pieces that were stuck in her arm and thrust them straight into its torso. The wolf started moving again but found it much more difficult.
"I've punctured the battery located in your chest as well as the fluid pump right under it. Soon the acid located in the battery will flow into the tube and reach every single joint in your body, burning it up in the process. In other words," she grabbed the head and pulled back her other hoof, finishing with, "you're already dead!" The other hoof punched straight through the other side of the animatronic head. The wolf's movement was much less coordinated now and was struggling to move. Sound pulled her hoof out of the head and it crumpled down to the floor with a final twitch.
The music finally reached it's conclusion and the tape stopped. With its final click, Sound shook her head and asked, "What just happened?"
To make things even more complicated for everypony, a giant red wheelchair suddenly burst through their wall with Ret and another pony screaming, "Oh yeah!". The two looked pumped up before seeing the mechanical heap on the floor.
"Guess we were late," Ret said. "So, anypony here need a doctor? This guy's one." At that point everypony raised their hoofs and collapsed on the ground.

The next few days of recovery were difficult for everypony. Sound's drawing arm had been shredded by the bite, so she could not draw for a while. Pepperoni's bite to the head, while being substantial, did not affect the way he could bake pizzas. The only real change for him now was that he would sometimes shriek out loud for a solid minute at exactly 8:53 PM every night now. Heyfield got an awesome scar out of the whole ordeal while Buronson learned the wonders of a liquid diet. Cleversong's head was not severely injured, but she did notice that she was now terrified of putting anything on her head. Ret and Shining Armor were now happy that the case was solved and that they could now sleep in peace and feel justified in their hatred of animatronics.



THE END










OR IS IT?

















Yeah. Sorta. They've still got a movie, remember?