Twilight Sparkle was super exited. She and her friends had volunteered for the night shift for the week (five nights) at a brand-new restaurant in Ponyville. And their first shift was tonight. She had gathered her friends with her at the Golden Oak Library to talk with them, but none of them were particularly interested in talking about it. Rather, Pinkie had turned the Golden Oak into a giant party of sorts, and made her special super sugar-fizzy punch for it. Rainbow Dash refused to drink it. What none of them noticed was a small pod of shadows by a window. They all looked like ponies, but none of them really were. In the pod of shadows, one them was a chicken, another one was a bear, the third was a bunny, and the last was a fox. They had all been broken-down and deactivated for a very long time, and they were dying to... meet the night guards. The bear laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh. They may not have been able to talk, necessarily, but they could certainly listen. And the group, regardless of how old they were, knew very well that doing the night shift would be no easy task. They had been shifted all over Equestria, and through many night guards.
Later that night, Rainbow Dash arrived at the pizzeria. Freddy Fazzbear's Pizza, she read. She realized that the name actually sounded really familiar. When she arrived at her new office, she found a black work suit and a flashlight on the desk. While she was putting on the work jacket, the phone on the desk rang. She put the flashlight in the jacket pocket and answered the phone.
"Uh, hello? Hello? Okay, hi, and welcome to your new job at the new and improved..." the person on the other end of the phone droned on.
"You can use the flashlight provided to flash the vents to each side of you, as well as the hallway you can see in front of you." Rainbow Dash flashed it into the hallway and vents.
"There are cameras all around the building, so you can check those when you want to..." Rainbow Dash fiddled around the desk until she found the cameras, and brought them up. When she checked out all the rooms, she saw little groups of animatronics scattered about some of the rooms.
"Yeah, you probably noticed the animatronics around the place. When it gets too quiet, they want to go to where the ponies are. And you are where... well, where the ponies are, so they will end up trying to get into your office. The last guy complained about... conditions, so we moved him to the day shift. So that's why we need you. So for the five nights you're gonna have to check on all of them. The show stage is where we keep the animatronics used every day for shows and such. They tend to... be the most active at night, so I suggest you keep the most tabs on them." Rainbow checked the show stage, and realized that the blue one was gone.
"In Parts and Service, we keep the older animatronics from the old joint. They're rarely active." Rainbow sighed in relief. Looking at them, she saw the purple one was missing its face.
"In the game center, we have the Marionette, as well as a music box you can use. It doesn't repel all of them, just a few." Rainbow wound up the music box and checked out the Marionette. With its face, white and expressionless, it reminded her of less of a marionette and more of a Puppet Master.
"Oh, before I forget about it, I left you with a mask you can wear so that if anyone comes in the vents, you can just put that on and they'll leave. It also works for the animatronics that might come in your hallway." Rainbow Dash grabbed the mask, putting it on experimentally.
"And lastly, before I hang up on you, in Kid's Cove, we have an animatronics that was going to be the new face of Kid's Cove, but it started to fall apart, so eventually it just became a matter of taking it apart and putting it back together again. Sometimes she flares up, but It's not particularly important to keep a lot of tabs on her." Rainbow realized that there was a giant mass of parts complete with a white head. And then the person on the phone hung up.
Rainbow was definitely shaken up, but she was also sure there was nothing to worry about. She checked the cameras, and saw that the blue one had gone into one of the party rooms. Boy, Pinkie Pie would love this place, she thought. Just then, she heard a crawling sound. She ignored it, thinking it was nothing. As she checked her cameras, she noticed the yellow one was gone now, too. In fact, when she flashed her light in her hallway, she saw it standing there. Suddenly and without warning, the blue bunny leapt out at her. She shrieked. The bunny grabbed her wings which were now outstretched with his teeth (what else would he grab her with?) and dragged her off. She kicked at him repeatedly, over and over again until eventually he lost his grip on her wing. Well, almost. Rainbow Dash had kicked him so much, but he wouldn't let go of her wing. She had heard a tearing kind of sound, and suddenly she was free... but the half of her wing that was in his mouth wasn't. Regardless, she still dashed out of the joint as fast as she possibly could on her feet.
When she got back to the Golden Oak Library, she felt faint because of blood loss. When Twilight saw what had happened, she offered to let her sleep at the Library for the night, or as long as she needed, since they both knew she couldn't fly back to Cloudsdale for the night.
As she was falling asleep, Rainbow Dash could have sworn she saw a muddled, messy, torn-up version of the brown bear standing over her, revenge and hate painted on its face.
