It was a night like any other – a barely visible half moon hung in a cloud-covered nightly sky; the stars hadn't shown themselves for days.

She didn’t mind. In fact, she didn’t even give the thick layer of clouds a second thought as she turned her head back, driving her gaze away from the small window behind her chair and focusing her attention back on the book in front of her.

It was the third night at her new job and she was starting to like it. While many ponies had warned her about Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, saying it was a scruffy, rundown, and downright ‘dangerous’ place to be, she couldn’t really complain as of yet.

Of course, it wasn’t the cleanest, tidiest or best-maintained establishment she had ever seen, but seeing as they paid her good money for doing basically nothing but sitting around in a tiny room for six hours and looking at a small monitor from time to time, she felt like she could ignore one or two grease spots and broken tiles.

Besides, seeing the restaurant, a place where kids flocked throughout the day, laughing, playing, having fun, at night, completely abandoned, shrouded in darkness … it was a sight that made her skin creep - in a positive way. She was … excited to be there.

What had confused her were the phone calls she had received at the beginning of each shift at around midnight. The voice at the other end of the line had –after giving her a short introduction into her new job- warned her about the animatronics –two-legged robots designed to look like animals; the restaurant’s main attraction- wandering around at night, roaming the restaurant and, well, forcefully stuffing her into a fur suit on sight.

So far she had received three of those calls, each more confusing than its predecessor. The voice seemed to imply that there had been other night guards before her, which must have been killed by the animatronics for some reason she couldn’t make sense of. It had also given her more or less useful advice, just to overthrow them seconds after and recommend her to try and survive.

She had heard rumors about ponies disappearing, but she had never given those rumors a second thought, and saw no reason to do so now since the last two nights had been quiet.

She didn’t know if somepony was trying to pull her leg here, but ever since she had first stepped into the restaurant, neither of the three animatronics –a bear, a bunny, and something that must have been a duck- on the stage in the restaurant’s main hall had moved an inch.
She had been spending those last nights just sitting in her little control center, reading a book, occasionally checking the monitor in front of her just to see that the animatronics were still standing on stage like the lifeless robots they were.

Unlike some of her friends, she did enjoy being alone. She found comfort in the silence of night, and the long hours in darkness her new job entailed. She couldn’t explain it, but in some way the darkness seemed to give her new power, kind of like an inverted solar cell.

She loosened her glance from her book for a moment and gave the monitor another short look – nothing new, as always.

Turning her head, she then looked at a clock that hung behind her: it was shortly after 2am, still four hours until her shift would end.
With a short-lived sigh, she lowered her book and placed it on the desk, then stretched out her tired legs. "I’m getting tired,” She muttered to herself, “Should have brought some coffee from home.”

Her look fell onto the two open doors to her left and right and new curiosity awoke inside her. She had never been in most of the restaurant’s rooms, seeing as her work-room was so close to the main entrance, and as such, gave her no reason to venture any further.

Now that she was starting to get bored with four more hours of absolutely nothing to do, she began wondering what the rest of the restaurant held in store.

She had already seen most of the restaurant thanks to the cameras mounted in each and every room, but she just felt like seeing them in real life for some reason. Besides, she was starting to feel just a little drowsy from the long hours of sitting around, so a short walk might be just the thing she needed.

So she slowly arose from her worn-through bureau chair and got to her hooves, heading for the left door. She couldn’t hold back an excited grin as she stepped through the door and out into the darkness of the restaurant.

It was unclear how much time had passed since she had left her little chamber, but it didn't cross her mind. As weird as it may sound, she was starting to enjoy her little tour through the darkened establishment.

The overall silence in combination with the omnipresent darkness gave her a feeling of total relaxation – she could feel how the muscles in her body started to slack off, and every kind of stress or tension started falling off of her. She didn’t remember when she had last felt this calm and relaxed in her life.

This was indeed a little odd. She was sure most of her friends would have wet themselves by now. Being alone in the dark was no big deal for them, but when it is coupled with being in a nearly abandoned, rundown restaurant, bearing rumors about mysterious death cases and obsessed robots roaming the place and trying to kill you in mind, was another matter altogether.

Heck, she was sure even the ‘bravest’ of them all –a pegasus named Rainbow Dash- would be trembling like an aspen leaf if put in her situation.

But she wasn’t afraid. What was there to be afraid of, anyway? She had never been one to pay attention to what others said, may it be rumors or bodiless insults, and the idea of robots having their own mind and even trying to kill her just sounded way too absurd.

Allowing a weak smile to flash over her face, she stepped into the darkened main hall of the restaurant – a huge room presented itself to her. Several rows of long tables in different colors with leftovers of the day’s decorations on them were standing opposite to a big stage that made up about a quarter of the whole room.

A stage that was empty of entertaining robots.

The pink pony curiously raised an eyebrow as she stepped closer to the stage’s edge, a faint tingle making itself noticeable in her neck as she realized that apparently the person on the phone hadn’t been talking mere nonsense.

Indeed, the animatronics appeared to be gone – in front of her was an empty stage. The bare minimum of lighting revealed three sets of large footprints visible thanks to a noticeable layer of dust that had settled on the stage.“Hmm…” she muttered to herself as her gaze followed the line of the footsteps, leading down from the stage and into the darkness of the hall, “This looks interesting.”

The fact there was darkness shrouding the hall followed by several rooms and one flickering light didn't bother her one-bit. No, she persued down it with a cheerful grin and hop to her step. "This is going to be fun~" She cooed.

At the other end of the restaurant, behind a narrow, old and greasy door was a small broom closet. There were no windows and only a burnt out bulb for light- without the bulb, the room was as dark as the night outside.

The closet had several cleaning utensils in it; none of them had seen any fresh water recently. The smell of old, stagnant water accompanied with a malfunctioning drain somewhere on the ground caused the room to have an undefinable odor. It was not a nice place for anypony to be - unless of course, they weren't ponies at all.

“N-now she’s c-c-coming f-for us.” A fearful voice whispered into the darkness, accompanied by the gentle humming of small servo motors, “S-she has s-s-seen that we’re off stage and now she’ll search for us and…” the voice cut itself off, instead letting out a muffled whimper.

“I-isn’t there anything we can do?” a second voice that had a somewhat female touch to it replied, “I … I don’t want to d-die. … Not here … not now. …. N-not by the hands of h-her!”

“You two, calm down!” a third voice interrupted them, “There’s no need to be afraid of that … puny horse out there. Heck, we’re three times her size, what could she do to harm us, anyway?”

“B-but F-Freddy,” the first voice spoke up again, quivering with fear, “D-don’t you know who that pony is? Don’t you know what she has d-done?”

“I, uh,” the third voice stuttered, “Of course I know her! But … I mean … all those things are just made up … right? Harmless things to entertain harmless ponies”

“I-I don’t think so, Fred.” The second voice replied, “If all those things were made up, why would there be-“

A spine-chilling knock-sound coming from the door to the closet made the animatronic silence abruptly. Another one followed shortly after, and another one, each of them sending intense shivers through the three artificial bodies.

“I know you’re in there!” the dreadful proclamation came from the other side of the slightly moldy door.

“D-d-damnit! She’s here!” the first voice whimpered, “We’re screwed.”

“F-feathers!” the second voice cussed, “What should we do? That door isn’t going to hold her back for longer than-“

“Shut it, both of you!” the third voice, now also reduced to a mere whisper, cut them off, “We … we can do this. Let me just…” the voice went silent for a moment, contemplating its further actions. “There, I got it! We’ll just … we’ll scare her out of here!”

Unfazed silence followed.

“We do that a lot, right?” the third voice continued, "We’ll just have one of us jump out of the door, scare her to death, and before she realizes what’s going on she’ll be running home screaming for her mom.”

A few seconds of silence followed, then the female voice spoke up again, “Freddy do you know just how absurd that sounds? Do you really think we can scare somepony like-“

“I’ll give you ten seconds to come out before I come in there!” a second announcement came.

“It’ll have to work!” the first voice said, loaded with new horror. The sounds of something rummaging around on the floor echoed throughout the room, then the voice spoke up again, “Here, some jackass kid hid those in my fur this morning.” A big, furry, purple hand appeared in the thin beam of light in front of the door, holding up three white straws of seemingly equal length, “We’ll let the straws decide about who will have to go and face her.”

The other animatronics hesitated, neither of them wanting to play the hero.

“Ten!”

Slowly, with deliberate hands, each of the robots took hold of a straw.

“Nine!”

Two straws were pulled, one of them left behind in the first hand.

“Eight!”

Hastily the hands opened up, revealing the true length of each of the straw.

“Seven!”

The violet hand held the longest of the straws, the brown hand the second longest.

“Six!”

The yellow, feathery hand opened up, revealing to be the owner of the shortest straw.

“Five!”

A weak sigh of relief and a muffled chuckle resonated from the closet walls, shortly followed by a mischievous and relieved, “Stage is yours, Chica.”

“Four!”

“Fuck.”

Pinkamena Diane Pie was standing in front of the broom closet in which she had located the runaway robots.

And she was angry.

Clenching her teeth, she impatiently tapped her right hoof on the filthy tiles, then said, “You have three seconds to come out or I swear to god I will come in there and-“

Her threat was cut short as the small door opened abruptly, and a tall, yellow figure jumped out, planting itself in front of her with an ear-shattering shriek that made her want to cringe in pain. However, knowing who was in front of her, she kept her straight face, waited until the racket had died away, then craned her neck and looked right into the furry robot's eyes.

“And just what do you think you’re doing in there, huh?” Pinkamena asked with a dead serious calmness, “Are you trying to hide from me?”

The reply wasn’t long in coming: noticeably frightened, the robot took a short step back, just to shoot forward again and let out another one of those horrid screeches.

This time Pinkamena made no effort to hide her anger as she furiously raised a hoof, pointed it at the robot’s face and said, “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, mister!”

The animatronic seemed to resemble a duck, at least concluding from its massive beak -that ridiculously enough appeared to have a full set of human teeth integrated- and three furuncles that must have been supposed to look like feathers on top of its head. Other than that, it had a bib saying “LET’S EAT!!!” tied around its neck; the deeper meaning behind that didn’t disclose itself to Pinkamena.

The creature opened its mouth to say something but the pink pony didn’t leave it a chance to do so. Taking a few slow steps forward made the animatronic back up, so she continued, “I don’t know what kind of stupid game this is, but if you’re trying to buck around with the night guard, then let me tell you, Mister Duck, you have chosen the wrong night guard to buck around with!”

The creature in front of her had started to shiver, intimidated by this unambiguous declaration. Now supporting itself against the doorframe of the closet door, it slowly opened its mechanical mouth and stuttered, “I … I’m a ... a g-g-g-girl.”

For a second the pink pony looked at the avian being with a touch of confusion in her eyes, but then she continued, “Well you sure behave like one, Duck Duck. You’re a little too big for a duck anyway, don’t you think?”

“A-a-actually I-I’m a … a ch-ch-chicken.”

A condescending smirk appeared on Pinkamena’s face as she replied, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a yellow chicken before.” Her face got serious, “Now get your feathery ass back on stage, Duck Duck, otherwise I…” she paused for a moment, giving the robot a delectable look, “Actually, wait a minute. I’ve always wanted to try that new fricassee-recipe grandma gave me. Mmmm~” She said with a mischievous grin and licked her lips.

At a speed Pinkamena had only expected from Rainbow Dash, the chicken had disappeared.

The pink pony took a slow step towards the broom closet and peeked her head inside, spotting the two other animatronics sitting in a corner in each others arms and shivering like aspen leaves.

“You two!” she spoke up; their heads spun around, their eyes focusing on her with horror, “Get. Out. Of. There.”

No two seconds later, she had the two standing in front of her, looking at her like two lambs on their way to the slaughterhouse, their mechanical legs shivering ever so slightly.

One of them was something that clearly was supposed to resemble a bunny –it didn’t seem like the designers had put that much value on a lifelike design of the characters- with purple fur and two long bunny ears on his head. The other one…

“You.” Pinkamena raised a hoof and pointed it at the animatronic to her right; a light brown bear in somewhat formal attire – the black, ridiculously undersized top hat as well as the small black bow tie around his neck didn’t quite match with the look of deadly terror on his face. While he made a noticeable effort not to move by an inch, he couldn’t help but wince just a little bit as he was approached by the new night guard.

“Y-yes?” he finally managed to force out.

The pink pony gave him a stern, inspecting look, reminding him to that of a drill instructor. “You’re the one in charge, am I right? Freddy Fazbear if I’m not mistaken.”

Freddy had to pause for a moment to gather up some more courage, then he replied, “Y-yes, ma’am.”

“Hmm.” Pinkamena said and stepped to the side, walking a small circle around the two animatronics whose eyes were following every step she took, afraid of a surprise attack from the pony. “Then please tell me,” Pinkamena stopped, now standing still and eyeing the two robots from bottom to top, “if you’re in charge of this … group, what are you doing here, sitting in a damn broom closet,“ Her angry glare slowly reached Freddy’s horrified face, “instead of standing on the godforsaken stage like you’re supposed to be!”

The two animatronics flinched just a little bit but did their best to stand tall and not step back.

Freddy tried to explain himself, “I, uh …w-we thought that-“

“I don’t care.” Pinkamena cut him off dryly, “I know it must be boring to stand on that stage all day and play the same songs every day, and I sure as hell can imagine that you feel like stretching your legs at night, but let me tell you…” she paused for effect, clearing her throat, “As long as I” she pointed a hoof at her chest, “am the night guard in this dump of a restaurant, you will listen to what I say.” She made another pause, allowing the animatronics to give her a weak, confirming nod, “And when I tell you to stand on the damn stage for six hours, you will stand there and not move a bucking muscle for six hours!”

Another pause; a controlling look was cast at the bunny and the bear. “Did I make myself clear?”

A simultaneous “Yes, ma’am!” followed.

“Good…” Pinkamena paused to cast another stern glance at the figures, “Now get your asses back on stage before I’m going to get impatient!”

Another, more frightened than respectful, “Yes, ma’am!” and the rest of the Fazbear band was back in its destined place.

Pinkamena Diane Pie stood still for another moment, allowing the content smirk to find its way back onto her face, then turned around to slowly walk back to her command center.

That encounter sure was unexpected, but nothing that would have surprised her to an extraordinary extent. Even though initially she did find it a little odd that the robots that were at least three times her size were this scared of her.

Truth be told, if one of them had actually had the courage to stand up to her, she wouldn’t have known what to threaten them with. They were robots after all, metallic endoskeletons underneath a thick layer of plastic – there was no possible way they could actually feel pain or experience something remotely comparable to death.

And even if they could, there was no way she could actually go any further than threatening them. Sure, she didn’t look like the friendliest pony in all of Equestria, and she sure as heck wasn’t what you would call a cheerful soul, but she could never imagine herself actually causing harm to another living being. Heck, the mere thought of it made her cringe in disgust.

Nevertheless, it was clear that the animatronics were nearly scared to death when facing her; clearly afraid of something unspeakably gruesome they expected her to do to them.

The only question is: what? Or even better, why? Why were those tall, somewhat intimidating robots this terrified of her? What on earth had she done to earn this kind of reputation? Those poor robots must have taken her for a killer, for an insane mass murderer if they would voluntarily hide themselves in a small, musty broom closet just to avoid contact with her.

Pinkamena arrived back in her small surveillance headquarters, letting out a weak sigh as it slowly dawned on her: it wasn’t important how she had gotten this infamous reputation, neither did it matter what exactly the animatronics expected her to do should they ever get on her bad side.

They did seem to have accepted Pinkamena as the one in charge at night, and seemed to be convinced that they had to fear severe punishment or even worse should they ever disobey one of her orders.

Truly, it seemed they had accepted her as their new leader - a strict, unforgiving and unspeakably cruel leader.

Just the way she liked it.

With a smug grin on her face, Pinkamena then dropped herself back into her chair, casting a short look at the monitor just to see that the three animatronics had returned to their regular positions on the main stage, as motionless as ever, and allowed her eyes to gently drift close.

It seemed this job had been made for somepony like her. Apparently all that was needed to stop a horde of homicidal animatronics was a good load of proper respect, and a short but emphatic clarification of who was the leader of the pack and who was part of the entertainment program.

“Maybe…” Pinkamena muttered to herself before drifting off into a light snooze, “I’ll get to that impudent fox tomorrow.”