Braveheart: The Untold Stories

I landed at Twilight’s Castle and stepped inside. Twilight looked up from her book and waved at me.

“Hi, Braveheart,” she said. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”

“No, I’m not,” I said. “I didn’t have a very pleasant week.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said. “What happened?” I sat down next to her and began my story. I told her about the Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza in Canterlot and how Quick Thinker had offered me a job there as a night guard. I made mention of the condition the animatronics were in; the old, rotting condition. I told her about the Phone Guy and how he seemed to die on the fourth night. I explained that the restaurant had closed down the other day due to sanitary conditions. I told her about the Springlock Sonata suit and how it tried to grab me. I ended my story with the newspaper clippings and the fillies’ corpses inside the animatronics.

“Wow,” Twilight breathed. “That sounds horrific.” I nodded.

“Anyway, I came by to see if you had a book on the topic,” I requested.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight said, glancing up at her library shelves. I know I have a few books on Canterlot culture. There might be mention of the pizzeria in one of them.” Twilight levitated a few books to me. All of them were about Canterlot’s social culture from different years. One from the 1960s, one from the 1980s, and one from the 1990s. Each of them were pretty thick.

“Good luck,” Twilight said. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thanks,” I said. Twilight turned back to her book as I opened up the first book.

After searching through the books for hours, I had found out very little about the pizzeria. The only piece of information I could find was another mention about the Bite of ’87. According to the short article, in 1987, at an earlier location of Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza, somepony was bit in the head by an animatronic, with their frontal lobe removed as a result. The article didn’t mention if the victim had lived or not, but the pizzeria was closed due to the incident. I slid the books back to Twilight.

“Find anything?” she asked.

“Just some vague details on the Bite of ’87,” I replied. “I’m going to try some other methods of research.”

“Good luck,” Twilight said. I left the castle and flew back to Canterlot. I walked back into my house and pulled out a book of potions. I flipped through the pages until I found what I was looking for. The recipe was for a Flashback Potion, the same kind Twilight had used when she first became a princess. This would probably be the only way I could get some firsthoof research on Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza. I took a quick look through the ingredients of the potion and made a list of what I needed. I immediately left Canterlot to get the parts.

I returned to my house with all of the potion ingredients. I put together the potion quickly and followed the instructions on the page. I drank a bit of the potion and set it down. It tasted kind of funny. Nothing happened for the first few seconds. My eyes suddenly went white and I was temporarily blinded. My vision quickly returned, and I was in a small town with cabins after dusk. I walked around the place. The ground wasn’t paved, the ponies wore old fashioned clothing, carried around lamps, and the Canterlot Castle was still standing. Nopony took notice of me. I wondered if they could even see me. I waved my hoof in front of two ponies in conversation. They didn’t even turn their heads. I shrugged and walked on. I made the assumption that this was Canterlot, but I had no idea what year. I couldn’t ask anypony, because I was invisible and inaudible to them. After walking around for a bit, I came across a small building, called Dagi’s Family Diner. Curious, I took a look around the building, and into the windows. There were a few families of ponies in the diner, with an Adagio Dazzle animatronic passing around cake and pizza, all while holding Sonata’s taco. I was confused, until I noticed that Adagio was the only animatronic there.

“Interesting,” I thought to myself. I spawned in a notepad, quill, and ink and jotted down a note. “Dagi’s Family Diner. First location in the franchise. Adagio is the only animatronic there.” I wrote. As I walked to the back of the pizzeria, I saw a lone filly. She was crying, wanting to be let in, but nopony noticed her. I felt bad for the filly, but I couldn’t do anything. All of a sudden, the purple pony ran up, only much younger. I could only watch helplessly as the purple pony held a hoof to the filly’s mouth and stabbed her in the throat. Once the deed had been done, the killer laid the body against the wall of the pizzeria, hid his knife, and ran off. I wrote down another note. “Crying filly murdered outside Dagi’s Family Diner. Killer was a purple pony.” As I passed the entrance, I saw a young mare and stallion walking out of the pizzeria. The stallion was a Pegasus, and the mare was a unicorn. Both of them had similar features to mine; dirty blonde mane and tail, dark tan coat, and bright blue eyes. I wondered if these two were my early parents. I shook off the thought and walked away. I decided to hang around the pizzeria for a bit, and see if anything else would happen. Sure enough, something did. An employee walked around the pizzeria, making his rounds, and he saw the filly’s bloody corpse. Other ponies saw this as well. I suddenly saw all white, and I was transported to later that week.

There was a for sale sign in front of the pizzeria building, with a pony who I assumed was a younger Quick Thinker talking to the owner of the building.

“Are you sure you want to buy the place?” the owner asked. “I mean, there was a murder outside our walls.”

“Of course I want to buy it,” Quick Thinker said. “I’ve wanted to start a pizza business for a while. Besides, Dazzle Entertainment will take extra precautions with the place.”

“Very well,” the owner said. She pulled out a piece of paper on a clipboard. “Just sign here.” Quick Thinker signed the paper, and I was transported to another point in time.

~~~

When I regained vision, I was in front of the Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza building. The same one that I would work at years later. I quickly wrote down another note. “Dagi’s Family Diner is bought by Dazzle Entertainment and changes the name to Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza.” Ponies were walking into the pizzeria. I followed them inside and took a look around. It smelled a hell of a lot better, and looked to be in better condition. I looked toward the stage and saw the Golden Adagio suit and the Springlock Sonata suit, both of them in remarkable condition. I saw an employee step behind the Golden Adagio when nopony was looking and open it up. He stepped inside and walked off the stage, causing the foals who looked back to cheer. I wrote down another note. “After a grand opening of Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza, the pizzeria uses two Springlock Suits. Springlock Adagio and Springlock Sonata.”

“I wonder how these turned out to get decommissioned,” I thought out loud. I transitioned again to a birthday party for a foal, who was crying. This one seemed afraid of something. Four older stallions, one of them presumably his brother, were dragging him over to the stage.

“Hear that?” one of them said. “The little guy says he wants to give Dagi a big kiss.”

“No!” the colt cried, choked up through tears. “Let me go!” But the older stallions didn’t listen. They lifted the poor colt up to the Springlock Adagio’s mouth. The colt’s head got stuck in the mouth, and he struggled to get out. I could see his tears start to flood the mouth, and suddenly, Adagio’s upper jaw snapped shut, crushing the colt’s head. I and the older stallions were in shock. I couldn’t believe what I just saw. “Colt dies from a Springlock Adagio malfunction.” I jumped times again. I was still in the same pizzeria, only Adagio and Sonata were both walking around. I assumed that there were two employees in the suits. I suddenly heard a crunch, and the suits started to hobble away. I followed them to the hidden safe room, where they fell to the floor, pools of blood starting to form around them. A paramedic ran into the room and pried the employees free. He tried listening for a heartbeat, but found none. He left the safe room, and I saw white once again. When I regained vision, I only caught a brief glimpse of the Springlock suits being dragged into the safe room, decommissioned and unsafe for employees. I jumped times once more. I was back at the pizzeria. As I looked to the stage, I saw the Adagio and Sonata that I had to deal with, only in brand new condition. I looked to the corner, and I saw Pirate’s Cove, open with Aria inside, in better condition as well. Their voices seemed state of the art, and their movements were smooth. Ish. I saw somepony dressed in the golden Sonata suit walking with four foals into a back room. These foals were one I didn’t recognize, but the other three were a filly Adagio, Aria, and Sonata. They must have followed me back to Equestria, then got stuck in the past.

I suddenly remembered the newspaper clippings. A stallion dressed as a mascot lured foals into a back room and murdered them. I followed the costumed pony and the foals, and I saw the purple pony take off his mask, pull out a knife, and slaughter all of the foals. When he finished his work, he grinned evilly, got out of his suit, and left. I wrote down “Purple pony lures four foals into a back room and kills them.” as the time fast forwarded to after closing hours. The foals’ corpses were still lying on the floor, blood on the floor and in their eyes. I heard a door creak, and I turned to look. There was a tall, skinny mare figure. It had no mane, but instead wore a mask. The eyes were hollow, there were red cheeks, and a large, hollow mouth. Thick purple lines decorated the mask, streaming down from the eyes to the mouth. They kind of looked like tears. The coat was black with white stripes on the hooves. This animatronic looked like some kind of marionette puppet. I silently watched as the Marionette tried to give the foals presents. They did nothing. The Marionette seemed to get sad. It looked to the stage, then back at the dead foals. It picked up one of the foals and carried her over to the Sonata animatronic. I followed the Marionette. The puppet gently opened up the Sonata animatronic and slid the filly into the suit.

“Huh,” I said. “I thought the killer stuffed the bodies into the suits.” I jotted down another note. “The Marionette puts the bodies into the suits to try and save the souls of the dead foals.” The Marionette put the other foals into the Adagio, Aria, and Golden Adagio animatronics. I took a quick inspection of the Golden Adagio suit. Its endoskeleton had been removed. The time jumped again, putting me in front of a different building. It had a sign for a grand opening of Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza. I followed a few ponies inside, and saw that this building was nothing like the other one. It was significantly larger, there were a number of party rooms, and there were more animatronics. There were new toy versions of Adagio, Sonata, and Aria, but Aria was just a mess of parts. I overheard a pony call the Aria, “Mangled Aria.” Among the other animatronics, there was the Marionette and a shorter figure that looked like a baby dragon. It was called Balloon Boy. Its eyes and smile scared me, so I moved on. I walked into the equipment closet, and was met with an ugly sight. The original Adagio, Sonata, and Aria animatronics were lying on the ground, torn up. Pieces had been removed, supposedly for parts for the toy robots. Golden Adagio was there too. I wrote down another note. “New restaurant opens years later, using new toy robots.” The time suddenly flashed forward to 1987. All I caught a glimpse of was another set of 5 foals getting killed in the back room. The time shifted to a week later, and I was in the dining room with a group of ponies gathered for a birthday party. A lone security guard walked around, observing the situation.

“Wait,” I wondered. “If this is 1987, then does that mean…” My thought was proven right when I saw Mangled Aria crawling on the ceiling, out of sight of anypony else. I bit my lip, waiting for the worst. Sure enough, Mangled Aria screeched and came down on the security guard. When he pulled himself free, he fell to the floor, half of his brain torn away, blood gushing from his head. Everypony ran out of the room, horrified. I looked at Mangled Aria, and saw a bit of brain and lots of blood dripping from her mouth. I was just as horrified. “Bite of ’87 caused by Mangled Aria. The victim was a lone day shift security guard.” As I finished my writing, the time shifted to after I quit the night shift. I could see the purple pony axing away at Adagio, Sonata, and Aria, destroying them. But as he walked away, I saw the souls of his victims appear in front of him. And boy, did they look pissed. They chased him into the safe room, where I followed. I stepped in a few puddles on the way. The purple pony, clearly desperate to escape the ghosts, got into the nearby Springlock Sonata suit. He laughed at the ghosts, satisfied he had outwitted them. But we all heard a spring, and the springlocks came loose. The purple pony could do nothing but cry out in pain as he was crushed by the springlocks. As he did, I saw the spirits fade away. I took one last look, and the Springtraped purple guy seemed to die, twitching involuntarily. My vision went white, and I was suddenly in a safe room from the past. I saw the purple pony on a recording device.

“Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night,” the purple pony said. I couldn’t believe this. The purple pony was the phone guy. This shocked me. In fact, I was glad he was now Springtrap. He had attacked me and Sunset Shimmer, and he tried to kill us. He killed Adagio, Aria, and Sonata, but they deserved it. I would have to write about this, to forever remember this tragedy. My eyes turned a brighter white than before and stayed that way for longer. I regained my vision a few seconds later, and I was back in my house. Rainbow Dash was right up in my face. I stumbled back and fell on my ass. Rainbow gave a chuckle.

“Sorry,” she said, smiling. She offered a hoof to help me up. I took it and Rainbow pulled me to my hooves.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“For about 30 minutes,” Rainbow replied. “Watching you do absolutely nothing with your eyes glowing white.”

“Oh,” I recalled. “Yeah, about that. I was using a Flashback Potion to see into the past. I was trying to do some firsthoof research.”

“Research on what?” Rainbow asked, confused.

“The Adagio Dazzle’s Pizza restaurant,” I answered. “You’d be surprised how dark its history is. Here. You can read what I wrote if you want.” I gave Rainbow Dash the notepad, and she read it over. Her eyes widened as she read.

“Well holy shit,” she said. “That is dark. Did you know who the first foals were.”

“Only three of them,” I said. “You might be surprised, but they were the Dazzlings.”

“Really?” Rainbow asked, clearly surprised. I nodded, and Rainbow gave a low whistle. “So they survived after your victory in the human world?”

“I guess so,” I assumed. “It's kind of ironic actually. They could survive a powerful blast of magic straight to the heart, but couldn't survive something as simple as a knife.”

“Well, I guess I'll see you later,” Rainbow said.

“You too,” I nodded. Rainbow left my house and flew away, leaving me alone. I sat down at my table and started to write the story of Adagio Dazzle's Pizza.