Scootaloo flipped the page of her second book of Mortality Pad, ignoring the macabre irony of reading a manga series about a pony with the ability to kill with a single drawing while she was riding the fine, wiry line of death herself. Sweetie Belle had taken it upon herself to help Apple Bloom with her final 3DS game; Professor Hayton and the Lost Alicorn, as the farm filly was having trouble solving quite a few of the puzzles. Dinky was fumbling around with some of the paperwork folders she found in the security guard’s pigeonhole, scanning over a few of the documents to while away the time.
“Hey, guys!” she suddenly squealed, throwing her hooves up in the air in a victorious fashion. The other four ponies near jumped out of their fur as their attention was jerked toward the celebrating unicorn. “I’ve just found a maintenance report on that Fáfnir character. It turns out that his servers seemed to go haywire last week, due to heavy flash photography at a birthday party Fancypants was holding for his niece; Silver Bell.”
Everypony else exchanged confused glances, all sharing the same unvoiced question.
“What’s that got to do with them becoming pony munching berserkers?” Scootaloo enquired, having failed miserably to follow what Dinky was cottoning on to.
“According to his maintenance record, Fáfnir’s servers seemed to completely spazz out because of the rapidly flashing lights. Normally, if the animatronics’ severs were to break down, they’d reset their proxies and reboot their whole systems. But there was so much flash photography that day, Fáfnir just never recovered. He was supposed to be serviced this weekend coming up. But, the longer the repairs were delayed, the more spastic his mechanics seemed to get. That might explain why he was the first to get overridden by Sombra’s dark magic.”
Everypony looked at each other with a renewed sense of dread and doom at this new theory.
“So… how does that help us any?” Apple Bloom asked. Dinky’s eyes twinkled as she shot the yellow Earth pony a confident smile.
“Because, I just managed to hack into some of the restaurant’s lighting rigs!” She squealed as she threw her hooves around Fluttershy’s neck to embrace her, causing the buttery Pegasus to blush heavily. “Now, if any of the animatronics get close to hurting anypony, we can hack the lights to start flickering, and scramble their proxy servers, forcing them to reboot.” She pulled away from her “mummy’s” neck, a hopeful shine in her golden eyes. “Maybe nopony has to die in here, afterall.”
Those words elicited a few more shudders than Dinky would’ve liked, but she did her best to shrug it off and look confident in her statement. She snuggled into Fluttershy’s breast with the widest smile on her lips any of the gang had managed to maintain since this whole nightmare began. Fluttershy looked down at the unicorn filly cradled in her bosom, and slowly joined her in her smile, albeit considerably smaller than Dinky’s. The prospect that everypony could walk away from this Tartarus pit alive filled her with a sense of hope she had started to lose her grip on, and the little filly currently using her chest as a pillow was the little mastermind who would keep everypony safe.
Her thoughts, however, took a macabre turn when she saw something flicker out the corner of her eye. Something on one of the camera feeds. She didn’t get a good enough look to draw any definitive conclusions, but she would almost swear that she had seen the unmistakable coat of Red June, and her half-mauled cranium, wandering around the pizzeria without course or destination. The thought of that poor filly’s lifeless body walking around like some grizzly thrall to Sombra’s corrupted magic made her skin crawl with disgust and horror. She turned her attention to the clock in the corner of the camera feed. Midnight. For the next six hours, the pizzeria would become a hostile house of horrors, with little hope of survival and even less hope of escape. She felt the burn of bile rise in her throat as she pulled Dinky closer to her breast on instinct alone, and offered a silent prayer for everypony’s safety.
The first half hour was surprisingly peaceful. Too peaceful, even. Freddy hadn’t moved an inch from the stage back in the party room, but seemed to be disturbingly interested in the camera, as he was staring very intently the security device, as if peering into the guard office through the CCTV system. Dinky had found Vinyl, with her leg now wrapped up in toilet paper, as she limped through one of the dark hallways in search of a drink and something to eat. Luckily, Twilight had managed to teleport in more care packages, and they were all easy to find while not posing a risk to anypony’s safety by distracting them from the roaming robots. Lyra and Bon Bon had emerged from the maintenance closet, with their manes looking like they’d been vaguely smoothed down in a hurry. Fluttershy made sure the camera wasn’t focused on them too long, not wanting to have to answer any awkward questions if the fillies got curious.
After thirty five minutes, however, there was an almighty metallic scream, and a horrific bang came from the security office door. The five ponies screamed in horror as Fáfnir began slamming his weight against the door ferociously, shredding his scaly fursuit that covered his metal endoskeleton. Same as the cameras, hacking into the lighting systems had cost the ponies dearly, when it came to the enchantment on the door. The magical fortification was now working at just over half efficiency, and the door was slowly bending inwards with the force from Fáfnir’s vicious attacks. After thirty seconds of assault, the door was already at seventy five point three percent, and the dragon was still having a crack at knocking it down.
“What’ll we do‽” Apple Bloom cried, wrapping her hooves around Sweetie Belle for dear life. Scootaloo had already started busying herself with writing out a set of barely legible epitaphs for herself and the others on the backs of the papers that made up Fáfnir’s last maintenance report. Dinky, meanwhile, was cowering into Fluttershy’s bosom, crying in terror as the Pegasus mare looked around frantically for anything they could use to protect themselves. Her eyes fell upon a pocket in the back of the night guard’s chair, where a black handled device poked through the edge. She lunged forward and grabbed the device in her mouth and pulled it out, letting out a tense breath of relief when she found it was exactly what she had hoped it was; a torch. With a few flaps of her wings, she was airborne and at the office window, where she kept Dinky cradled in her fetlocks, hiding her face from the monster that lurked outside and frantically clicked the power button in her teeth, causing the torch to flicker on and off at uncoordinated intervals. The light shone into Fáfnir’s eyes again and again, and the lenses that made up his optic receptors narrowed, as if to try and limit the amount of light that reached his internal processor. Fluttershy continued to dazzle the robotic dragon with her torch for as long as she could, her jaw aching from the repetitive motions of clicking the torch on and off. Finally, after a tense minute since Fáfnir arrived, the banging ceased. Fluttershy dared to open her eyes, which she hadn’t realised she had closed so tightly, and found that Fáfnir was now stood completely motionless, his mechanics whirring and hissing spastically. With juddering, halted movements, he made his way down the hallway, away from the office, and back to his lair.
Everypony dared to heave a sigh of relief, having survived the traumatic experience – physically – unscathed. The door, however, was looking like a train had hit it. A quick look at the computer monitor revealed the full extent of the damage; ‘DOOR INTEGRITY: 50.3%’.
“That was TOO close for comfort,” Sweetie Belle complained, burying her face deep into Apple Bloom’s mane.
“If any more of those robots come by, we’re totally dead.” Scootaloo curled herself up into a tiny ball in the corner of the office, trying to settle herself back into her manga books. Fluttershy returned to her spot in the room to sit in silence, with Dinky in tow. She placed a kiss on the top of Dinky’s head as she cradled the whimpering unicorn in her hooves, whispering comforting words in her ear.
Apple Bloom took up post at the computer desk, flicking through the camera feeds to find the animatronic characters throughout the restaurant. Sweetie Belle slowly plodded over to her and clambered into the chair beside her, resting her head against the farmer’s shoulder. Apple Bloom simply allowed the alabaster unicorn to take whatever comfort she could find from her as she kept her vigil, surveying the cams for any sign of the prowling bots.
“AB?” Sweetie’s eyes rolled up to find the yellow filly watching the screen with all the concentration of a hunting owl.
“Yuh-huh?” Apple Bloom didn’t turn her gaze away from the screen for a single moment as she answered her friend.
“C-can I, um… l-let you in on a, um… little secret?” The unicorn shifted uncomfortably in the seat of the chair she currently shared with her hardworking farmer friend.
“Sure, Sweet. What is it?” Sweetie Belle felt her face heat up as she leaned forward to rest her lips behind Apple Bloom’s ear. As softly as she could, she imparted her secret, graciously unheard by the other three occupants of the room. Apple Bloom’s eyes lost all focus as they widened into an expression of shock and revelation. She turned to face her friend, who was hiding her face in shame, attempting to make herself melt into a puddle so she would be able to soak herself into the carpet and escape from the awkward position she now found herself. The yellow Earth filly cleared her throat, her voice coming out huskier than usual as she spoke.
“Wull… Ah, uh… Ah-Ah don’ rightly know what ta say, Sweetie,” she stumbled, awkwardly. “Ah, uh… never pinned ya ta, um… yeah.” She turned back to the computer screen, hoping to distract herself from the awkward tension that now hung over her and Sweetie Belle like an old dead goose. It didn’t help in the slightest, as now Sweetie Belle’s secret played on her mind like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. She glanced around the room, finding Fluttershy, Dinky and Scootaloo all caught up in their own business. She licked her suddenly parched lips and leaned aside to whisper into her friend’s ear. “T-tell ya what, though, Sweet,” she stuttered, the heat of bile catching in her throat as the nervous tension in her belly consumed her, “i-iff’n ya’ll help me admit mah feelin’s ta Pipsqueak, then, uh… maybe Ah could, uh…” she cupped a hoof over her muzzle to secretively whisper her offer into Sweetie Belle’s ear. The unicorn’s ears perked every now and then as the odd detail caught her attention. When Apple Bloom was done whispering, Sweetie Belle’s expression was mixed between hopeful excitement and awed shock.
“You…y-you really mean it?” She squeaked, flinching a little at the over eagerness in her tone. Apple Bloom simply nodded, scratching the back of her neck awkwardly. Sweetie Belle mirrored her and gave her a curt nod. “Ye-yeah. I… I’d appreciate that. Thank you, AB.” She beamed as broadly as she could; a gesture Apple Bloom returned as well as possible. The two fillies were drawn away from their exchange, however, when they heard a familiar rattling resonating from overhead. They turned their attentions to the screen and found that Busby had made his way into the ventilation system again. Sweetie Belle, instinctively, jumped for the light switch, plunging the room into darkness, leaving Busby to ponder what was happening. The robot’s internal processor whirred and buzzed for a minute before giving up on trying to locate itself and making for the nearest accessible exit from the overhead tunnels. The ponies heaved a sigh of relief as the clanging of Busby’s movements gradually retreated. Their relief, however, was short lived as the sound of dozens of voices screaming in terror filled the air.
Apple Bloom flicked the camera feed to the arcade. There, stumbling to her feet from beneath a pile of metal shrapnel and debris, was Philly, who had clearly fallen through the ventilation tunnels herself. The colts and fillies all ran around in circles, some of them managing to coordinate themselves just enough to try prying the clutter they’d assembled as a barricade away from the door. The Earth pony’s blood ran cold as she watched the robotic Phoenix stand to her full height and attempt to make sense of the commotion around her. She looked round to where Fluttershy and Dinky were cradled together, and found Dinky frantically worming her way out of her adopted “second mummy’s” hooves and dashing to the desk. She hopped up into the seat and started frantically pressing buttons on the keyboard, her eyes wild with fear and concentration. Everypony’s eyes were glued to the screen as Dinky punched in some sort of sequence of codes and button mashes, her goal – as yet – unclear.
Soon, all the attractions in the arcade lit up and sang with their assorted jingles and theme tunes. The noise was deafening, and the lights were so spastic, they could’ve easily induced a fit. Philly didn’t seem to notice at first, as she swung round to grab Rumble from the top of an air hockey game and lift him high by his tail. She dug her claws deep into his flank, eliciting a scream of pain as she drew blood from the helpless colt. Suddenly, the terrifying Phoenix stopped her assault on the young stallion and froze in place, her cold unfeeling eyes buzzing with binary code as her servers started to break down and reset themselves due to the flashing lights that filled the arcade. A young Earth pony colt managed to wrestle Rumble out of Philly’s claw, draping the injured Pegasus over his back and dashing out the, now unblocked, door to the entertainments room. All the young ponies had fled, and were now making their way to the prize room, where they hid themselves amongst the many stuffed toys.
Fluttershy let out a breath she had held in for too long, judging by the way her lungs burned as oxygen flooded hr respiratory system. She scooped Dinky up in her fetlocks and planted a motherly kiss on the unicorn’s cheek, practically singing praises to the filly as she clutched her to her breast as if she was her prized teddy bear. Dinky happily accepted the motherly affection from the buttery Pegasus, and snuggled into her fur as she tried to get her heartbeat to even out.
Everypony looked up as they heard bells chime six times. Another night successfully survived. They allowed themselves to relax a hair, and they all turned in for as much rest as they could snatch, before the horrible nightmares started again.
As they drifted off into a fitful sleep, the camera fed buzzed a little, flickering from a view of the party room to a pair of dead, robotic eyes that stared out into the security room. After ten seconds of flashing from one image to another, the camera settled on the party room, where Freddy Fazgriffon stood proudly on the stage, staring down at the only other occupant of the room; Red June, who returned his gaze with a cold, unfeeling glare.