Strike 57- The Joy of Creation (Part 2)
When Lance had found out that the one who had just helped him a few moments ago... was one of the same animatronics that he was asked to watch over, he had a lot of questions bounce around in his head. But could not entirely form the words in order to say it due to how shocked he was. “W-what? H-how-?”
The voice coming from the animatronic though... had a much different question for him. “I haven’t seen momma in a long time… where is she...?”
“Y-your… momma?” He asked, trying to understand what the animatronic filly was saying. “W-what do you m-mean? W-who a-are you?”
“Momma calls me Willow, but the others call me Circus Filly.” That… made some things clear, but still didn’t answer other questions formulating inside his head. But… there was one question he could ask that might clear some things up.
“Do you know… your momma’s name?” The Adept asked, trying his best to remain calm after everything that just happened.
“Momma is momma, I don’t need to know a name. You seem to be in trouble.” The voice said.
“T-trouble?” The adept asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked back at Circus Filly. “W-why would you think that?”
“The others are saying spiteful things about you…” That… made the Azure Striker a bit puzzled. Did this somehow involve what had happened before with Equilis and the Purple Mare? What exactly did this ‘Willow’ know about him? And the biggest question he had on his mind… what was she going to do to him?
“What spiteful things, Circus Filly?” He asked, still trying to remain calm despite what was going on. “And who said them?”
“Mostly Key and Fixture.”
“I… never heard of them before.” He replied back, thinking carefully of what to say next before speaking. “Do they go by other names? Like how your momma calls you Willow?”
“Those are their other names, but the workers call them Funtime Fili-Second and Funtime Zappy.” That had a bell ring in Lance’s head, realizing that the two names she just said were two of the other animatronics that he was asked to watch over. Now, there was only one thing that he wanted to ask the filly regarding this subject before asking anything else.
“What… do they say about me? Is it anything bad?”
“Many things.” The filly told him.
“W-what kind of things?” He said, now beginning to get worried.
“Momma said to not speak of them.” That… seemed to have his senses die down a bit, but he was still concerned about some things. First off, it seemed that trying to understand what some of the other animatronics were saying about him was completely off the table and if that were the case on other ponies too, then it would make finding out what happened to Geronimo much harder.
So… he then asked something else. “Does… anyone come to visit you and your friends? Key and Fixture?”
“Only momma, but I haven’t seen her in weeks. She was nervous about work.” Well, that did not go as well as he had hoped for. But… there was one detail that Lance heard that could potentially lead to something important as he began to sit up on the floor.
“Work? Do you know where she works at, Willow?” He then asked her, thinking that if she said a particular location, then he might get an idea as to who she was talking about… in theory, of course.
“Um… a restaurant.” That… made a chill run down his spine. He had only been to one particular restaurant most recently… and other than Saffron, there was only one other pony who was working there, which was Cupcake. But, he did not want to rule out the possibility that she was talking about the Pizzeria either.
“Willow… I’m not entirely sure who your momma may be… did she happen to have any friends?” He asked, thinking that if she said somepony else, it could clear things up.
“What are friends-? They’re listening now… I can’t hear them anymore.” That… confused Lance for a moment, before looking back at her.
“Uh, Willow… What do you mean by ‘they’?” He didn’t get a response to the question, so he then decided to answer her question. Going on the assumption that when she meant ‘they’, she was referring to the other Animatronics. “Friends are those who help each other out and care for each other, no matter who they are…”
“They want you gone… You shouldn’t return here again.”
“Willow… I promise you that after tonight, I won’t need to come back again…” He told her in response. “But… have there been others that have come here before?”
“Only mother and the ones who tear us apart and put us back together.” That last part… confused Lance a bit, until he thought about how Coco mentioned that she had some maintenance ponies work on the animatronics during the day. “Though mother looked different last time. I knew it was her though!”
“How often did she come here?” He then asked, thinking that the more he found about this ‘mother’ figure, the more it could possibly help him get to the bottom of things.
“Really often, but the last time she did she said that she had to take care of some things. She even took care of one of the meanies that tore us apart before she left! But she’s started to smell…” That, had Lance look back at Circus Filly with a raised eyebrow for a moment, before looking up at one of the monitors in the security room. More specifically, at the map.
There were numerous different rooms in this facility after you left the elevator, including the breaker room, the galleries for Radiolora and Circus Filly, the ‘Funtime’ Auditorium and a few other rooms. However, with what Willow had just said previously… there was a chance that he might find what he was looking for at one particular location.
Parts and Services, directly next to the Funtime Auditorium. “Willow… Would you happen to know where the auditorium would be?”
“Your right.” Hearing this, the azure striker turned his head in that direction and seeing the door that was labeled ‘Auditorium’ on the front. Getting up off the floor, he picked up his weapon and instead of holding onto it, he holstered it and grabbed what looked to be a flashlight off of the security desk. Using his electricity, he was able to provide power to the device as it shined brightly.
“Thanks Willow… Before I go though… Did your mother ever visit the auditorium?” He asked her kindly. The thought that came to his mind was that if the ones that Willow referred to as the ‘meanies’ were from Maintenance and her mother took care of one of them… then it was possible that there were clues somewhere in parts and services.
“She visited everywhere. Why are you interested?”
“Well… If you said that she took care of that… meanie, then I would think that there’s some kind of clues hidden over in the room next to it… like a scavenger hunt,” He explained to her in the best terms that he could think about. “I just thought that if I visited, I could find some clue as to who your momma is and help find her. I’ll be back in a moment.”
With that, he left the control module that was at the center of the entire floor and proceeded to go to the door that lead directly to the auditorium. “Lumen, how are we on camera’s right now?”
“Uh… From the looks of it, Radiolora is b-back at her stage and e-everything else is n-normal…” Lumen spoke to him mentally, stuttering a little as she was speaking. “Sorry… that whole thing earlier just really frightened me.”
“It’s okay, Lumen… The sooner we get through tonight, the sooner that we don’t need to worry about this place again.” The Adept assured her, slowly pulling down the handle to the Auditorium and slowly opening the door. At first glance, it did not look like Fun Time Zapp had moved from her original position… but he still didn’t want to be taking any chances. His goal was to reach the parts and services room on the opposite end, but Zapp was directly in the center of the auditorium. Meaning that one false move could alert the animatronic to where he was.
So… he slowly crept around the backside of where Zapp’s personal stage would be, inching his way over to where the other side of the auditorium. But just as he reached the door… “Lance, wait!”
“Lumen, what is it?”
“It’s that Zapp thingy… she’s just twitched-” That had Lance look back towards the stage, and notice how she looked to be jerking all over the place. Before suddenly glaring directly at him and beginning to move.
Acting on impulse, Lance shined the flashlight directly at Zapp, hoping that it would do something. Turns out, it did and caused Zapp to stop advancing forward, backing away as it tried to shield it’s eyes. The Adept… used this to hold back the animatronic a little bit longer as his hand felt a metal handle. Looking up, he found a door directly behind him. One that had the words ‘parts and services’ directly on top of it. “Okay… Here goes nothing.”
With a quick impulse, he opened the door and bolted inside. In doing so though, his light moved away from Zapp for a split second and caused the Animatronic to come racing at him. With seconds between him and the animatronic, Lance shined the flashlight one more time at Fun Time Zapp, just to buy him enough time in order to close the door before the animatronic could even touch him. “Okay… that was too close.”
“You’re lucky that you used that light. Otherwise, you would’ve been toast.” Lumen commented.
“Yeah-” Before Lance could comment though, that was when something else hit him. “Ugh… God, what is that smell?”
“Is something off in there?” He heard Lumen speak up mentally.
“Yeah, it smells like rotten meat in here… You would think that for a place like this, things could be a bit more…” It was as he was speaking to Lumen though that he noticed something… bad. A discoloration on the floor. Most of the entire building would have colors such as white and pink, but what he had come across was a big dried up stain of red all over the floor… and some of it leading to a nearby closet. “… Sanitary… I got a very bad feeling about this.”
Placing his hand on the floor, he could tell that something like this wasn’t red paint. Nothing… was anything like that from what he had seen before. Slowly, he moved to the closet… but as he opened the door, what he found almost made him sick to his stomach. There was a dead mare in the closet, one with blood all over her head and a large brutal gash that looked as if something was torn off of her head. No doubt… this was who Willow referred to as the ‘meanie’.
But this kind of handiwork… was not like anything he had seen once before. And there was no way that he could be able to use his bracer to run facial recognition on somepony whose face was mutilated like this. It only left him with one option… which was to do the same thing that he did before when finding out about what happened to Sassy Saddles.
So… Taking a deep breath, he slowly placed his two fingers directly on the mare’s forehead and closed his eyes. Letting the memories come to light.
“Geez, when in the world did fixing some of these animatronics get so complicated?” The mare that was the maintenance pony said to herself as she looked to be fixing the foreleg of an animatronic that had come loose. “Just a small tweak here… and there we go. All done. Now I can be able to finish my shift and get back home.”
The mare was just finishing the final touches on her work though… when she heard the door open to her workstation and somepony walk inside. When the mare turned around though, she saw what looked to be a white unicorn mare… with a black mane and a cutie mark of what looked like parchment. However, the maintenance pony could not see the mare’s face at all. “Ma’am? I’m sorry, but civilians aren’t allowed to be down here. Please go back upstairs or-”
Before the mare could finish her sentence though, the mare stepped forward as she saw a deep smile appear on the mare’s face. But instead of teeth, she saw metallic fangs and a red glow in the mare’s eyes. The maintenance pony tried protecting herself with the wrench that she had been using in order to perform maintenance, but it was knocked away from her as the pony was forced to the ground.
Then… she saw the face of her killer… and had witnessed her own horn being ripped off of her head in her final moments. All while her killer was enjoying every moment of it.
When Lance came back to reality and fell back on the ground… he could not believe what he had just witnessed. He had seen a mare tear off the horn and face of another mare… but not just any mare. It was somepony that he had met before.
“Lance, are you okay?!” Lumen asked him, sounding incredibly concerned for him the moment that he removed his hand from “W-what happened?! Did you see anything?”
Personally though… Lance himself was questioning what the hell he had just witnessed. He knew that he saw Blank Page… but the way she had attacked the maintenance pony was almost like that of Cupcake. It was… well, if he were really honest with himself, he had both answers as well as several questions that were attached with it. But… some parts of it were things that he could worry about later. “I saw more than enough… I’ll tell you later, but right now I need to get back to the control room. I think I finally have an answer for Willow now.”
Lumen honestly did not know what he meant by that… but decided to leave him be as the Adept got back on his feet… while also picking up what looked like the employee badge of the maintenance pony. Turning his flashlight on as he began to walk back through the auditorium, being careful not to alert Fun Time Zapp as he traversed the room and reached the other side as he closed the door behind him.
Looking both ways and making sure that there was no animatronics lurking in the hallway and waiting to ambush him, he carefully moved back to the control hub, where he happened to find Willow waiting for him inside.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Willow suddenly spoke.
All Lance could do was nod his head. “It was… odd. There were parts I did get… and some that I didn’t,” He sighed, before looking back at the animatronic. “But I think I know a bit more about your mother now…”
“Oh? She’s amazing, I hope you two can meet!”
All Lance could do was smile at that stray comment from the animatronic filly, just as he noticed the clock on the desk reached 6:00 AM as a small alarm went off. “I hope so too, Willow. I really want to get the chance to talk to her… It was a real pleasure having the chance to meet you.”
After Lance had took a moment to clean up his workstation that he was at, he used his employee badge to scan the entrance to the elevator, which had the doors part open as the adept stepped inside the elevator. Once he made it to the top floor and the doors opened though, he was greeted by somepony… he didn’t think he would find at the building this early in the morning. “Oh… Good morning, Ms. Pommel. How are you today?”
“Great now that I know you’re okay.” He heard the mare sigh in relief upon seeing him.
“I’m glad to hear that…” The Adept told her, before clearing his throat for a moment. “But… there’s something I found last night while keeping watch. You might not like it though.”
“What…?” Coco asked, shrinking in her seat.
“Well…… I found this while checking something in Parts and Services… but I found… one of the ponies that I think you hired for maintenance,” He told her back in response. “I looked at her memories using one of my powers and… I think somepony found a way to get inside before they… well…” He took a deep breath, looking back at Coco. By now, the adept was unsure if she understood what she meant or needed more explaining… so he instead got out the employee badge that he found down there. With a small bit of blood that was already stuck on the plastic sleeve. “I’m sorry Coco… I wish there was something I could do to help, but…”
“I-it’s okay… it’s not your fault…” Coco looked down, despair clear on her face. All Lance could do was try his best to comfort her and calm her in the present moment.
“Coco… I really wish there was something I could do to help not just your business, but you as well…” He told her as the mare looked back at him. “If you need help with anything… anything at all… Let me know and I can do my best to help.” The Adept then attempted to offer a shoulder for Coco to cry on and try to comfort her in that moment. “I’ll always be able to help a friend in need.”
End Strike 57
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Something tells me those animatronics will be showing up again sooner than we think....
I just read over in the story "of magic and machines" that max' world got swallowed up by the void is that actually cannon?