Five nights at Sombra's

by Fossil-Dragon-Messiah

Day two

Twilight paced restlessly, her mane and tail bedraggled and greasy as her left eye twitched like she had a beach-worth of grit in it. She’d been up all night trying to find a way into the pizzeria, with no progress being made whatsoever. She conducted an emergency census on the population of Ponyville, to find out how many ponies had become trapped inside Sombra’s trap. She counted thirty missing ponies; including not only Fluttershy, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Dinky, but Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon, Rumble, Vinyl Scratch and Red June – who, according to descriptions that Twilight was able to get from her available sources, might very well have been the poor little filly Fáfnir the Dragon bit the head off of.

All through the night, the Princess of Friendship and her friends tried breaking down the doors with brute force, heat spells, and even explosives, after a quick alteration to Pinkie’s trademarked party cannon. But no matter what they did, the doors to the eatery of horrors stood firm, like iron. As far as she was aware, Twilight hadn’t heard of any other deaths during the first night inside the restaurant, but she couldn’t guarantee the safety of Sombra’s captives for long. Sooner or later, another pony could be seriously hurt, if not killed. She had to find a way into that building, at all costs.

Twilight’s horn flickered into life, and a rolled up blueprint of Freddy Fazgriffon’s Pizzeria floated down from one of the top shelves of the library, and unfurled the azure parchment in her aura, laying it out on her desk. She traced the multiple lines that ran through the building’s layout with a hoof, tracking the various entrances and exits, as well as all the plumbing, wiring and ventilation systems threaded through the restaurant. From the scale scratched out on the plans, the ventilation pipes were just big enough for a pony to crawl through, which could offer Twilight a way to get her friends into the pizzeria without risk of getting caught by Freddy and his friends.

However, there was a slight flaw in her plan. Well, when I say slight…

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Fluttershy gingerly opened a bag of gummy bears, pouring equal amounts into four small pots for the young fillies that currently resided in this little prison with her. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Dinky each accepted their provisions with heartfelt gratitude, before rationing their sweets to last as long as they possibly could. Scootaloo swapped a few of her green ones with the others, since she wasn’t too keen on the green bears, and Fluttershy busied herself with nibbling on a dry cracker she had retrieved for herself. During the night, Twilight had managed to teleport in a few provisions for the trapped ponies, as well as hiding a few more care packages around the pizzeria for the other captives to retrieve on their own time.

Dinky had managed to get five surveillance cameras operational, so that she and the others could keep tabs on Freddy and company. Philly the Phoenix was currently raiding the kitchen, clanging all the pots and pans noisily as she searched for any escaped ponies. Fluttershy had spotted Bon Bon hiding in a cupboard under the kitchen sink, and silently prayed for the Earth pony’s safety.

Unfortunately, shortly after getting the cameras up and running, the five ponies realised that the power required for the cameras put a massive strain on the enchantment keeping the door stable. This meant that, although the door was still an effective barrier against any raiding robots, the enchantment would take longer to regenerate, so the animatronics could very well bust down the door in a few hours, if they were persistent enough.

One of the cameras Dinky managed to get a picture from was situated in the ventilation shafts, to which Scootaloo argued was a pointless endeavour, as the animatronics were prowling around in the multiple rooms of the pizzeria, and not in the vents. Dinky pointed out to her, however, that the vents were large enough for a pony to crawl through, so by having an eye on the series of tunnels that stretched over their heads, they would be able to see if any of their fellow captives were close by to the security office, and direct them to safety via the cameras.

Sweetie Belle had plugged Apple Bloom’s 3DS into one of the empty mains sockets to charge, once the animatronics had stopped pounding on the door. It seemed that, during the day, the dark magic controlling the robots was weakened, and the freaky machines were only able to roam around the restaurant aimlessly, unable to do more than just opening and closing doors to get in and out of the various rooms. Luckily, they weren’t very bright, so they didn’t think to open any of the cupboards in their search for their prey.

Apple Bloom decided that, in order to boost morale between attacks from the prowling robots, she would share her 3DS with the other fillies, allowing them to take turns playing Super Smash Sisters to distract themselves.

Sweetie Belle’s horn began flickering again, and a sound like radio static crackled through the room.

“Hello?” Came Twilight’s voice, seemingly from nowhere. “Sweetie Belle? Are you there?”

“Twilight!” The unicorn filly squeaked, beaming happily. “Ugh, you have no idea how good it feels to hear a friendly voice right now.”

There was a moment of silence at this remark, before Twilight started talking again, sounding unnervingly fearful.

“W-well, I wish it were under better circumstances.” The room suddenly felt five degrees colder at this comment. “I-I’m afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news.” Sweetie Belle’s blood ran cold at this.

“Wha-what d’ya mean, Twilight?”

“Well,” cam Twilight’s hesitant reply, “I’ve just been looking over the blueprints for the pizzeria, and I found the air ventilation shafts are big enough for a pony to crawl through.”

“Yeah. We found that out, too,” Scootaloo piped up. “Dinky’s gotten some of the security cams online, and one of them is in the vents. So, if anypony tries to climb through the vents, we hope to be able to direct them to us with the camera.”

“That may not be such a good idea, Scootaloo.” Twilight deadpanned. “I’ve run a few calculations, and it turns out that the characters are also able to crawl through those vents.” Dinky let out a short squeak, which would’ve become a scream, if Fluttershy hadn’t been quick enough to nab the terrified filly and clutch her to her breast in a comforting hug. “But it’s a good thing you have the camera working. If any of the animatronics starts crawling around in those vents, be prepared to turn off the lights in the office. If you turn the lights off in time, they’ll lose their point of reference, and they’ll, hopefully, pass right over you.”

The uncertainty in Twilight’s voice as she recited this theory did nothing to quell the rising fear in the room.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy reported, trying to make her voice audible enough with being too loud, not like she should’ve bothered with muting her volume, but it was a comforting effort, “we’ve noticed that the robots seem to be sluggish during the day. I-I think Sombra’s magic must be weakened in daylight hours.”

“That’s good to know,” Twilight noted. “Have there been any more casualties?”

“No, thank goodness,” Fluttershy sighed, receiving a similar response from the Alicorn.

“Excellent. I’ll be sending a report to Princess Celestia as soon as we finish our little chat. I’m getting worried that, if we don’t get in there as soon as possible, the animatronics might very well get more hostile as time progresses. Just keep your wits about you, make sure you don’t draw any unwanted attention to yourselves, and turn your lights off if any of the robots make their way into the vents.”

With her warning issued, Twilight cut the telepathic link to Sweetie Belle, and left the five mares in silence. Dinky nuzzled against Fluttershy’s chest, prompting the Pegasus mare to wrap her wings around her. The unicorn filly took a deep inhale of Fluttershy’s scent.

“Your wing hugs feel just like mummy’s,” she commented, absently. Unnoticed by the four fillies, Fluttershy’s cheeks bloomed with a slight pinkish tinge at the comment. The ponies huddled together, Scootaloo taking it upon herself to check the camera feed, flicking from camera to camera at distantly spaced intervals. She glanced at the corner of the screen. 6 PM. In a couple of hours’ time, the robots would be at full power. And the nightmare would continue.

Comments

[High_Light]

I've played FNaF and FNaF2 and those games really freaked me out. You're doing a great job keeping the tension and anxiety up in this story, and I can't wait for more! Quick word of advice though. There are far too many commas in here. Knock some of them out (especially in the spoken sentences) and the flow will go a lot better. Keep up the good work!

[TheMusicalBoy93]

5341321 This was my chapter. But thank you for the feedback on the commas, I'll keep that in mind when I write Night Two