Prologue: The Previous Guard
The dusty wall clock pointed its' hands, signalling that the time was 5:50. Sitting alone in an office, a buck in a dark purple button up shirt and hat kept his eyes glued to a small monitor that rested between his forehooves. On his chest, a golden, rectangular badge that read 'Security' sat pinned to the cloth.
"Ten minutes...ten minutes...come on Rotary, you can get through this. One last shift and it's goodbye nightmares..." he muttered to himself. His eyes kept racing up to the clock, the time seeming to stretch on with each look. Suddenly, his head craned up and looked to his left, leaning his body towards a dark doorway. Reaching a hoof forward, he slammed a white square button, activating a hall light outside the room. The buck screamed as the animatronic form of a lavender alicorn stared at him with murderous intent. The bucks' hoof moved from the light and slammed a red button above the white button, causing a metal door slab to shut as the robotic mare began to lurch forward. Moving back to the monitor, the buck gave a horrified gasp as his eyes landed on a power indicator.
1%
"Oh fuck..." he whined quietly. At that moment, the percentage went from one to zero. Within a second, the lights in the office went dark, accompanied by the sound of the dying generator as it ran out of power. Silence fell throughout the establishment. Darkness was the bucks' only company. The only light that did dare enter the room was from a ceiling window, allowing the approaching rays of daytime to pour through the dirty windows.
Thud...thud...thud...thud...
The buck began to shake violently as he looked to his left in the darkness, the small monitor dropping from his hooves and clattering to the floor. The heavy thudding drew closer to the doorway until it stopped right outside the office. Erratic ticking echoed before a music box sprung to life, followed by a set of eyes of a pink animatronic mare being illuminated by an interior light.
The bucks' heart seized in his chest as he jumped to his hooves. With a scream, the buck dashed out the doorway to his right, racing down the dark hall. Behind him, the thundering of metal hooves drew closer and closer with each gallop. Entering the main eating area, the buck skid on his hooves as he quickly changed direction. At that moment, a high pitched screaming rang though the air, making the buck freeze on the spot. From the darkness, a hook slashed at the buck, cutting him across his face. Blood rushed from his torn eye, forcing him to scream as he resumed his running towards a back room. Skidding into the doorway, the buck barely made it over the threshold before the hook from before lashed out again and sunk itself into his ear leg. The buck screamed louder than ever and slammed face first into the tiled flooring, his snout breaking with a sickening CRACK! Immediately he began being dragged backwards out of the back room, the hook still deep into his leg.
"LET ME GO!!" he roared, kicking his intact hoof against his assailant, but to no avail. The attacker flipped him onto his back, removed the hook from his leg, then plunged the hook down into his open mouth, the metal piercing through his lower jaw and effectively hooking him like a trout. The buck squirmed and thrashed violently, shock over taking his mind as his head was slowly raised up. The attacker leaned forward, revealing a cyan robotic mare with an eyepatch and several sharp teeth.
And with one jerk, the animatronic mare snapped the bucks' neck, ripping his lower jaw off in the process.
As the buck laid on the floor, the light of life leaving his eyes, other forms gathered around his prone form in the darkness.
And with his last breath, they picked him up and took him away into the darkness.
Captain Suicide Presents
The Night Guard
Early winter winds blew across the small hamlet of Ponyville, delivering bone-chilling temperatures to the residents within the valley town. Normally lush and vibrant with blue skies in the warm seasons, Ponyville was now shrouded by a low gray cloud ceiling, courtesy of the weather factory in Cloudsdale. The weather had forced Ponyvilles' residents to being breaking out their winter apparel. Most were dressed up in heavy jackets, while others donned scarfs and ear muffs in a failing attempt to hold onto the warmth of Summer.
Trotting along in the cold was a toffee colored buck, his upper body dressed in a leather bomber jacket in the style of the Equestrian Naval Forces. His hooves took him along Mane Street, eventually turning onto Carriage Way.
"So the direction said right off Mane and onto Carriage...then left down Orchard Drive...?" he muttered to himself as he walked along the tree lined street. His destination was one of poor reputation, but one that used to be the center of family outings and gatherings.
The place is simply known as Pinkie Pie's Pizzeria.
Once proudly following their mission statement of "A place for foals and parents alike, where fun and entertainment bring smiles and endless joy!", the pizzeria started out as a simple project created by the baffling mind of Pinkie Pie herself. In conjunction with Filthy Rich, the two teamed up to bring Pinkie's idea to life. When the establishment first began, Pinkie's friends provided live entertainment with music, magic tricks and aerobatic stunts. Eventually, her friends could not keep up with the demand for live entertainment.
So naturally Pinkie always had a back-up plan.
After a brief renovation, the pizzeria re-opened with a new source of live entertainment; Animatronics. With robotic technology on the rise in Equestria, Pinkie Pie had Filthy Rich invest some of the restaurants funding into obtaining some of the new technology. The result? Six animatonics based on Pinkie herself and her five friends. The new robots were an instant success with the customers, especially the younger kids who were fascinated by the technological marvels.
So, for a time, Pinkie Pie's Pizzeria became the number one place to go for parties and gatherings. Everything seemed to be going well and the restaurant turned a positive profit.
Then the Party of Saturday Night happened.
No one could quite recall what happened exactly, except for that a young colt had ventured too close to a party cannon and received a face-full of confetti, effectively causing brain damage. The colt was rushed to Ponyville General and was reported to have fallen into a comatose state. Only Luna knows of the nightmares that may plague him in this state of mind.
The incident caused a bit backlash with the restaurant, and for roughly two weeks no one had booked a party or even bothered to enter the pizzeria. Once the local police had called for an investigation into the incident, it was discovered that the party cannon was tampered with; tampered meaning that a bowling ball was put into the cannon and covered up the confetti that would shoot out of it. After another month, and reassurance that everything was now fine, customers began trickling back into the pizzeria. For roughly a year, life seemed to go back to normal for the establishment, albeit with an atmosphere is heavy wariness.
But soon, the final nail in the coffin was struck.
Over a period of a week, five foals went missing at the pizzeria, their parents threatening to sue Filthy Rich and Pinkie Pie if nothing was immediately done. At the same time, complaints began flowing in about a rotting stench that seemed to be coming from within the animatronic ponies. Looking into these complaints, Filthy Rich had the animatronics dismantled and washed.
What they found inside the suits would forever scar the maintenance crews.
The five foals that went missing were crushed into the compact spaces within the animatronic endoskeletons and suits. In the time of their encasement, their decaying bodies had entered a state of fusing with their surroundings, slowly becoming one with the metal beams and fiberglass shelling. The discovery was made public, and the residents of Ponyville began demanding that the pizzeria be shut down permanently. Immense shame over came Pinkie Pie, eventually causing her to relinquishing her ownership of the restaurant to Filthy Rich. With no other option and a sliver of hope left for the pizzeria, Filthy Rich tried his best to maintain the restaurant. However, over a period of another two years, the restaurant would soon become a shell of its' former self, the building literally falling apart at the seems.
"Holy shit this place looks awful." Timeless said as he stopped at the entrance to the pizzerias' parking lot. If the broken and dirty sign was any indication of the building itself, then simply walking in might be a deathtrap for any who already worked there. Trotting across the parking lot, Timeless approached the stained front doors and cringed at the sight of the filth and marks of small hoofprints all over the window.
"Damn. I might need a hazmat suit before I go in." he said as he slowly pushed the front doors open. Once within, his hearing was assaulted by the screaming and crying of young foals. Peaking around the corner, he saw that a birthday party was well under way, but half way to burning the pizzeria down. One of the older mares, the mother Timeless assumed, had a strained smile and a panicked look in her eyes, unsure of how to calm the children down. Most of the kids were smothered in ruined birthday cake or were smacking each other with large, inflatable hammers that brandished the pizzerias' logo.
"It's been like this for three hours..." growled a mare. Timeless jumped back and to his right, his gaze filling up with the sight of a white earth pony mare, her mane a tail a cherry red, with a few piercings adorning her ears and face. Her red eyes held exhaustion and anger within them. "The spoiled brat didn't get what she wanted for her birthday. And to top it off, one of the other kids made her faceplant into the cake which caused a massive food fight." she explained, the two looking back to the chaos within the dining room. The mare looked back to Timeless, looking him over now.
"What are you here for anyway? You're too dressed up for a shit hole place like this." she pointed out.
"Oh, uh, interview with Mister Rich. I'm applying for the new night guard position." Timeless explained. The mare rolled here eyes a bit and shook her head. "What?" Timeless asked.
"The last guard just disappeared last night. I was suppose to get the building keys from him this morning but the asshole never showed up. I think he just upped and left at the end of his shift." she explained, agitation mixing into her already angered features.
"Oh, well that's kinda rude of them, isn't it?" Timeless asked. "Where can I find Mister Rich?" Timeless added. The mare pointed a hoof down the hall to Timeless' left.
"Down the hall and an immediate right. You can't miss the office." she instructed, returning to the greeter desk. Nodding, Timeless trotted down the hall and passed a large series of drawings made by the colts and fillies that had visited the pizzeria in its' glory days. The drawings had started to lose their color and began curling at the corners. Most of the photos had depicted drawings of kids' favorite animatronics in party scenarios.
Then there were the few, more disturbing ones.
One of the drawings had shown an eyeless Applejack, her mouth turned down in an endless maw. The child before her seemed to be in a frightened if the twin streaks of tears were any indication. The whole image seemed to have been drawn in a series of erratic scratching and rushed coloration, as if the child was terrified that they'd be caught drawing the picture.
"Well...that's cheerful..." Timeless said stepping away from the drawing. Turning back to the hall, Timeless soon peaked his head into the office, looking for Ponyville's resident millionaire. The aged brown earth pony buck sat hunched over paperwork, a small monitor sitting next to him. The upper corner of the screen was cracked, sending a spider web of breakage along the glass.
"Uh, Mister Rich?" Timeless asked, trying not to be a bother. Filthy Rich looked up from the paperwork before him and spat out the pen clenched between his teeth. Seeing Timeless, Filthy seemed to relax a bit and put on an easy-going smile.
"Ah, Timeless Toaster, isn't it?" Filthy asked, getting up from his seat to give Timeless a hoofshake.
"Please sir, just Timeless. I'm dropping the second half of my name. Just doesn't mesh well." he said politely.
"Not a problem good sport." Filthy said, their hooves meeting and shaking a bit before the contact was broken. "I used to work with your father, you know." Filthy adds. "I even helped fund your surgery. How're the wings holding up? Developed as they should?" he asked. Pulling his forelegs out of the sleeves, Timeless draped his bomber jacket over a nearby box to allow a set of magnificently detailed cyber wings extend from their folded position.
"They didn't develop as the surgical techs said, more like they ripped out of my back a few months back." Timeless said grimly, gesturing to the mass amounts of scar tissue criss-crossing across his shoulders, right where the metallic wing joints met with his spinal column.
"Oh dear, I guess cybernetics are still far from perfect; Pity. Anyway, you're here for the night guard position, yes?" Filthy asked as he returned to his seat.
"That I am." Timeless said with a simple nod.
"Well, I'll save you the interview. I've known you long enough to know that I can trust you with this responsibility." Filthy said, taking a rubber stamp into his mouth and stamping a paper in front of him. Spitting the stamp out, Filthy looked back to Timeless with a confident smile. "Congrats Timeless, you're hired!"
Smiling, Timeless gave Filthy another, if not eager, hoofshake. "Thank you sir! I can start tonight if you'd like." he said happily.
"That would be preferred. Be here by 11:30, your shift starts at midnight and ends at six in the morning. Sound good?" Filthy asked.
"Sir, I've spent nights playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends for entire weekends. I got this." Timeless said with a cocky smirk. Filthy chuckled at the statement and waved Timeless off.
"See you tonight." Filthy said as he returned his attention to the small monitor. Grabbing and putting on his jacket, Timeless left the office and tried to keep himself from skipping his way down the hall with giddiness. Returning to the main eating room, the chaotic party from earlier had descended even further into Hell, the children screaming and crying in terror as the animatronics tried to entertain them. The mother had collapsed to the floor, having fainted from a sudden panic attack. Ignoring the ruins of a birthday party, Timeless approached the punk rock mare greeter with a smile.
"You got the job?" she asked, her mood seeming to have gone from angered to bored.
"Yup! First job ever! Can't afford to be picky, even if the place is a dump." he said with a chuckle. The mare rolled her eyes, but nodded in agreement.
"Another week or so for me and I'm out of here." she said with a hopeful tone. "Gonna get a job at the Nightmare Night store that's being built across town." she said, an eager smile reaching her lips now.
"Didn't catch your name by the way." Timeless said.
"Sinful. Sinful Vengeance, but most of my friends call me Sinny." she replied, giving a small, flirty smile at the end of her statement.
"Odd name." Timeless pointed out simply.
"Well, when you're born out of wedlock, and your bastard father ends up killing his would-be wife? Yeah, the name is kinda fitting. It's all good now, the asshole is rotting in jail for it." she said with a pinch of sadistic glee.
"Damn, quite the history." Timeless said, an eyebrow raised.
"Oh yeah? Where'd you get your name? What is it anyway?" she asked.
"It's Timeless. Long story short, I found a time traveling toaster and things got weird." he said, trying to keep his story as short as possible.
"Sound interesting Mister Timeless." Sinny said with a wink and smile. Giving another chuckle, Timeless bid the mare goodbye and made his way out of the pizzeria. Once he was a good couple feet away, he hopped into the air and gave a cheer, a feeling of giddiness overcoming him as he trotted home. However, unknown to Timeless, malevolent forces that watched over the run-down pizzeria began licking their chops, ready to throw the new night guard into a world of metal anguish and torture.