"Spike, you have the morning paper?" Private Eye asked.

"Yeah, right here."

The detective took it and unfolded it on his desk, taking a sip of his coffee. Ever since reading a couple days ago about how a griffon was brutally killed in her sleep, he dreaded opening up the newspaper. He figured seeing somepony else die out in some far off place, way outside his jurisdiction, was going to become a regular occurrence. One that he wished he could do something more about. Yesterday, however, had been quiet. Even that was unsettling to him in a weird way instead of comforting.

The top headline quickly shattered Private Eye's already waning peace of mind. He sighed heavily, pulled the newspaper up and read it aloud.

"'Buffalo Chief, Sheriff Found Dead'. You don't suppose– "

"Wait, a buffalo chief?" Spike queried, cutting him off.

"Yeah," Private Eye said, glancing up at the dragon. He quickly studied Spike's surprised yet knowing face. The detective knew almost instantly. He always was good at spotting details. "You know one, don't you?"

Spike looked away sadly and grabbed onto his tail. A nervous habit of his when something was bothering him. He responded slowly, "If.. what that headline indicates, I have a feeling you should've asked if I..knew one. But.. yeah. Yeah, I do."

"And the sheriff?"

"I wasn't as familiar with him as the Chief, but I met him too. Wh-What does it say?"

Private Eye skimmed through the article, looking for anything that mentioned their bodies. It didn't take long for him to find it. "The Chief was scalped and had some burn wound on his throat, and the sheriff.. well, it looks like he hung himself in his jail cell, but that's not it. His.." the detective paused, trying to find the right way to tell Spike the gruesome details without making them both sick, "it looked like he was ripped apart. He was the only suspect they had, but it didn't seem to matter in the end."

"And this all happened in Appleloosa, I'll bet?"

The stressed officer silently laid down the paper and nodded. The young drake's head and heart sunk. "It's her. No question in my mind. I don't have to be there to know it after reading this."

"Does it mention anypony else?" Spike whispered.

"'Fraid not. They look like they're the only ones, unless something else has happened since then."

The paper gently fell back onto the desk and Private Eye rubbed his forehead. He felt another migraine coming on, and he didn't need to deal with one this early in the day just yet.

"Spike, take a letter. May as well let the Princess and Twilight know about this."

Celestia looked out the window and studied the empty desert landscape from the comfort of the train's VIP car. The foreground zoomed by, teasing with an occasional shade of green, most likely from a random cactus. In the distance, soft purple and red mountains watched over the scenery, barely moving with train as the two mares readied themselves for the last leg of their journey to Dodge Junction. Twilight whispered the spell to herself a few times while her teacher proudly looked at her from the corner of her eye.

They had been awake for a couple hours now. The sun had risen without any delays just like the other recent days with Luna controlling the motions of the heavenly bodies. Even though she had been relieved that her younger sister had shown she was indeed capable of such feats, she hoped this whole ordeal with Pinkie would be over with soon so she could get back to her regular duties. Handling paperwork and dealing with upset citizens was far less stressful than what she had been going through lately.

In a quick flash of magic, a letter dropped out of the air and landed in front of the Princess. The soft rapping of the scroll on the floor caught Twilight's attention as well, pulling her away from her practice. A soft golden glow took hold of the parchment and unrolled it for Celestia. She looked over it quickly, her calm demeanor slowly giving way to helplessness as she learned the fates of Pinkie's latest victims.

She turned to her student. "Do the names Thunderhooves or Sheriff Silverstar ring any bells, Twilight?"

"A bit, yes. I.. seem to recall Thunderhooves from.. gah, where was it?"

"Appleloosa?" Celestia asked bluntly.

"That's it, yes!" Twilight froze up when it occurred to her why the Princess was asking such a thing. The last time they received a letter, it was grim news about Gilda. "Oh no."

Celestia nodded sadly and popped the scroll away. "Private Eye suspects it's Pinkie Pie again. He didn't go into detail in the letter, but he mentioned seeing some.. descriptive terms in the paper. I have a feeling he's probably correct again."

Twilight's eyes fell to the floor. Hearing about one murder after another, with her unable to do anything about it, was making her frustrated. It didn't help that a part of her was angry because, thanks to seeing things spiral out of control as of late, she hadn't died that night so she could be with her friends again. Maybe then, this nightmare would have already been over. From what Spike told them in his first letter to them, Pinkie only wanted Twilight. Now it seemed that she was killing these others out of spite more than anything else.

She gritted her teeth behind angry, pursed lips. Her head started to throb just enough to get her to notice. Finally, she snarled out loud, "Ugh! Can't this train go any faster?! We need to find a trinket of hers now!"

"It's going as fast as it can, Twilight. Please calm down."

"I can't calm down!" she snapped without thought. "Gilda, Thunderhooves, the sheriff, they're all dead because of me! Spike said it himself! She wants me! Maybe.. maybe it'd be easier if.. if I just– "

"No," the Princess cut her off. "I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. We have no idea if doing such a thing would make her stop. I'm not going to take that chance. We've both already lost so much. I don't want to lose you too."

Ashamed, the young mare looked away, still seething a little. She stomped a hoof on the bench cushion. "But.. it's– "

Celestia quieted Twilight by lifting her up and laying her gently next to her large white body. It seemed to soothe her enough; the unicorn was still upset, but not as much as she was a minute ago.

"This hasn't been easy on anypony, my student. But we will stop her. I promise. You already know what you need to know."

"I guess," Twilight mumbled. She took a calming breath. "How much longer do you think we'll be until we arrive?"

"You know we still another day until we reach Dodge Junction."

"Ugh! Listen, when we arrive, Princess, to be honest, I'd prefer to start asking around, see if anypony knows where her old home is, as quickly as possible. I don't want to stop until we've found the place," Twilight demanded.

Her forward attitude surprised Celestia, but only briefly. She couldn't blame her student for feeling aggravated. The sooner they get their hooves on a keepsake of Pinkie's, the sooner they could put this to bed.

"I understand. Until then, do try and remain calm. Losing your cool isn't going to help anypony, and we need you to be focused when we are ready to perform the ritual. You don't want to stress yourself out so much you forget the lines," Celestia said with a relaxing tone.

Twilight sighed, regretting her outburst. "I'll.. I'll try. I'm sorry, Princess."

"It's alright, my student. It's alright."

The arrival at the train station couldn't come soon enough for Twilight. As soon as the loudspeakers announced that the train had come to a complete stop, she was off the bench and out their cabin door in a flash.

Once the two mares where outside, Twilight trotted across the road to a local market. Nopony who worked there knew who the Pie family was nor had heard about a rock farm. They stopped in one building after the next, asking everypony who worked there and had even started asking the customers. If Princess Celestia hadn't been there, the store owners would likely have thrown Twilight out after a while.

Nopony at the local restaurants, the bank, the police station, any of the manufacturing buildings, or anywhere else seemed to know who Pinkie's family was. It was beginning to look more and more like a dead end as the day crept on, so much so that it was becoming probable that they would have to venture outside of town and simply hope and pray that they happened to run into a farm of some sort.

With every other defeat, Twilight became more disheveled and worried. Was their trip going to be all for nothing? Pinkie needed to be stopped. They were so close they could taste it! It was then that a sudden stroke of good luck found them in the form of a newspaper stand.

"Oh yeah, I know that old guy," a stallion with a faded teal coat and a short white beard said. "Comes by every day about five or six o'clock asking for the evening edition. Sometimes hangs out for a little while, talks a bit. Think I'm the only one he says much to. Never seems to know much about what other ponies in town are doing.

"But, he seems pleasant enough. Even invited me over for dinner a couple of times. Why do you want to know? He in some kind of trouble or something?"

The mares looked at each other nervously. "No, not exactly," Twilight said, picking her words carefully. "We need to find something that belonged to one of his daughters. It's for.. an experiment of sorts. It has to be something from when she was very young. Crazy magic stuff, you know?"

"Is that right? Well, to get to his place, you head down that way," he pointed east, "and head right at the last building at the end of the street. You don't want to make a hard right, just about half way, and you keep going straight until you come to a half-dead tree with three real big branches forking up, you'll know it when you see it. About fifty or so feet ahead, you'll spot a trail in the road. Follow that trail and his place is about a good hour and a half, maybe two at a slow pace, away. Ain't much to look at out there. Mostly just a bunch of rocks all over the place.

"By the way, any idea how his little girls are doing? You seem to know at least one of them by what you said."

"We knew one, yes. Her name was Pinkie. She.." Twilight hung her head, misery being replaced by anger. She repressed her emotions and fought off furrowing her brow. "She was a friend. She isn't with us anymore though."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I'll let you be on your way then. Has the old man found out yet?"

"I'm not really sure to be honest. She never said much about her home life from when she was young."

"Well, give them my regards and my sympathies. Take care, little missy, your Highness," the newspaper pony said, bowing to the Princess.

According to the sun's position in the sky, Celestia estimated that it was somewhere between three and four o'clock when they arrived at a rather run-down looking farm. Just as the old stallion said, there were rocks decorating most of what could be considered fields if one squinted hard enough. A long dead tree stood about fifty feet away from a silo that had seen better days. Most of the wood that made up its walls was rotted and cracked thanks to years of neglect. The topsoil was loose and grainy under their hooves, puffing into tiny dust clouds every time the two mares stepped.

How anypony could live in such a place was a question that ate at both Twilight and the Princess as they approached the small house with the faded brown roof in front of them. Its empty, forgotten appearance made them shiver uncomfortably. Everything around the pair just screamed creepy. Seemingly just to drive the point home, the windmill beside it, which was lacking a few blades, spun a few inches as a gust of wind blew by. It spoke with a loud, jarring squeak.

Twilight took a deep breath when they reached the front door. She knocked softly. Nothing. She bit her lip and glanced at her teacher, who looked back at her. Twilight gathered her courage and tested the doorknob. It was open. She pushed it ajar, and a long creak filled their ears.

"Hello? Anypony home?"

Silence.

"Hello?" Twilight repeated.

Still nothing.

Cautiously, she and her teacher entered the home, the low sun casting the only light in through the windows. Were they at the right place? It was the only sign of life down the path so far, not counting Dodge Junction itself. They walked unsteadily through the living room, going over the details of the place.

There wasn't any dust anywhere. Not on the furniture, not on the chairs. On one of the end tables was a folded up newspaper. Celestia lifted it up and looked at the date at the top. It was from the day before. Seemed like the stallion at the stand was telling the truth.

Their suspicions were proven correct when Twilight noticed the mantle over the fireplace. It had some typical decorations: A couple candles, a small potted plant, a few scattered books. But what caught her eye was the picture frame near the center. On it were a four dull-colored ponies, two young and grey with two older ponies, one grey and the other a light tan color, standing behind them. Most noticeable, however, was on the right side of the picture.

A small pink ball of fluff stood beside the young pair in the photo with a subtle look of melancholy on her face. A tiny pout of her lips and the sad angle of her brow were enough details for Twilight to see that, when the picture was taken, she was unhappy. The others in the shot had neutral expressions, not looking terribly concerned about being photographed at the time or of anything else, one could argue.

"Pinkie.."

Celestia set the paper down and magically reached for the photograph. Pulling it in for a close look, she asked, "That's her as a filly, I assume?"

"It has to be. The only thing that looks different is her mane, but I've seen it like that before. She was furious with us when we threw her a surprise birthday party a couple years ago because she thought we were ignoring her. Her mane had flattened against her head, and.. she looked the same when she attacked me in my dream."

The Princess replaced the picture frame and the two quickly looked over the room. To the left of the fireplace was door, and to the right was a hallway that led to a table in what they reasoned was the dining room. Before the archway, to its left, was another door.

"I'll check this room," Celestia pointed to the left doorway. "You check the other. See if we can find anything that could have been precious to Pinkie, provided they still have of her things."

Nodding, Twilight trotted to right and cautiously entered the hallway behind the door. Almost as soon as Celestia stepped into the room in front of her, she let out a loud gasp. Twilight heard her teacher and feared the worst. She raced the short distance across the room and barreled into the Pie's master bedroom, almost knocking the Princess over. Twilight was going to protect her mentor, regardless of the danger.

Twilight's breath suddenly escaped her upon seeing the carnage laying on the bed. Her eyes shrank and she began to shake in panic. In an instant, she dove back out of the room, covering her mouth and failing to stop herself from sobbing in terror. Her pounding heart threatened to break through her chest.

The Princess slowly backed away from the grisly scene and quietly shut the door. Somehow, she managed to appear even whiter than she normally was. She wrapped her foreleg around her horrified student and pulled her close.

"Twilight," she paused, wiping away her tears with a conjured tissue, "go search the rest of the house. We.. we still need to find something of Pinkie's. Just pray there's something here. If we can't, I.. I may not be sure what to do."

Celestia glanced at the door to the bedroom and sighed. "I'll give the Pies a proper burial outside while you look around. It's the least I can do for them."

The Princess solemnly entered through the front door, a heavy weight in her heart. She had just finished giving some silent words of comfort to the deceased and arranging some of the rocks into a pair of make-shift memorials. She hoped that what she did was acceptable to them in some way. While Celestia had attended many, many funerals over her long life, including those of her own parents, she never personally buried anypony before.

Actually laying them to rest herself made her think about the lives of some of the closest companions she had to say goodbye to and what it must have been like on their family and friends. It made her think about her own life as well. Immortality did not make one invincible. Alicorns like her didn't need food or sleep or even air, but they could still be injured or killed. Just like her mother and father. Just like she almost was when Chrysalis revealed herself at the royal wedding some time ago.

As she magically closed the door behind her, she headed down the hallway that Twilight ventured. The first door to the left revealed a pair of small beds, likely for children, with very little else in the room. There was some normal furniture one would find in a bedroom, like a set of shelves and a dress, but no toy chests. No board games. No dolls. It was as barren and dull as the farm itself was.

The next door led to a bathroom. She moved on and up to the last door on the left, finding Twilight laying on the floor in the center of her room with a book in front of her. The unicorn looked away from the pages upon hearing the clip-clopping of hooves on the hard wood floor.

"Pinkie's diary," she stated. "There wasn't anything in the other room, and I reasoned that it must have belonged to the other two fillies from that picture. Maybe they were twins or something. As far as I can figure, her parents left everything as it was when they left home. There's just so much dust on.. well, everything. It doesn't look like things have been touched in a long time.

"But this book of hers, this diary I found, it's.. it's just so depressing."

"Did she mention anything important to her that we may be able to use, provided we can even find it?"

"I think I saw something that sounded interesting. Let me find it." With several flips of pages backward, Twilight came across the entry and began reading. "Here we are."

'I made a new friend today. Actually, it's my first one. I really don't count my sisters because we don't really say much between us. Nothing bad, but nothing good either. I doubt I could ever go to them and talk to them about how sad this place makes me.

I found a rock outside while working earlier today. It was so perfectly smooth. I found it kind of' –she skipped over three attempts Pinkie made to spell 'fascinating' and crossing out each try– 'cool. I took it inside at the end of the day and drew a happy little smiley face on it. At least one pony should be happy in this place. I call him Rocky. It's the only thing I can think of. Can't imagine why.'

Twilight turned a couple pages ahead and continued, "There's something else here too."

'Rocky's such a good listener! I can tell him jokes and share with him my wishes and hopes and dreams and not worry about being looked at like I'm stupid or worthless. I've tried talking to my parents about what I want to do with my life and about what kind of cutie mark I may get, but they ignore me more than anything. I wonder if they even love me at all. They probably just want me to stay on this stupid rock farm forever.'

"It seems that this rock was especially important to her. That just may work," Celestia thought out loud, rubbing a hoof on her chin. "Does it say where it may be anywhere in the diary?"

"I haven't found anything yet. She just mentions a lot about how much she doesn't like it here. I came across an entry just before you came in that mentioned her getting her cutie mark. After that, the entries seem to sound more like the Pinkie Pie I knew. Upbeat, full of joy.. happy," Twilight explained. "But not long after, it seemed to get bleak again. She was still happy, but I guess the novelty of a new cutie mark ran out quickly for her family. Looks like she was the first of the sisters to get one too."

Celestia slowly went over the mostly empty room while Twilight jumped to several blank pages in the second half of the journal. Pinkie must have stopped writing, either out of disinterest or moving away. She bounced back and forth between entries and empty pages until she found the last piece of writing. She skimmed through quickly, looking for anything that may have mentioned Rocky. Suddenly, she raised an eyebrow.

"I think I have something," she said. Clearing her throat, she read from the journal again.

'I think this is going to be the last time I write in this. For the last several days, I've been going through some books about other cities around Equestria. Total snoresville! You think they'd add in some excitement when talking about other places to make them sound, well, exciting!

I suppose I just need to get out of here. Even with Rocky around to keep me company, I know I'll never be happy here, and now that I have my cutie mark, I just have to spread the kind of joy that I felt the day I saw that amazing rainbow and the next day when I got my cutie mark to others.

I read about this place called Ponyville. It's a short distance from Canterlot, the royal city where this Princess lives! That's just so cool! It looks like it's a nice, quiet little town that has plenty going on all the time. Festivals, games, fun, the kind of things I want to do! And if I want to see a big city, I can just take a train ride and bam! Canterlot! I wonder how nice the ponies out there are?

To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd want to visit here again. Everything around here, except for Rocky, did nothing but make me so sad, and I don't want to be sad anymore! I just know that meeting all those ponies in that Ponyville place will be the bestest thing I could imagine, but just in case things don't work out and I have to come back here, I want what will hopefully used to be my only friend in the whole world waiting for me with the rest of his friends! Yes, I went outside and gave Rocky his own friends and family! Aren't I weird? I like it, it's fun!

I put them in a small box in the corner of my closet, just in case I don't remember. If I really don't remember, hopefully it'll because I'm making so many new friends that I won't have time to remember! This diary got me through a lot of bad days, and I had it a lot longer than Rocky, so I know I won't forget where I put this. I suppose I should ask my parents not to move this book too. Hopefully they'll actually respect my wishes for once. I'm going to miss you lots, Rocky, but I know you're happy for me! Wish me luck!

Pinkie Pie'

Twilight rose quickly and whipped open the closest, her eyes darting from corner to corner. She spotted a small box in the third one, just like Pinkie wrote. It glowed a light shade of purple and floated toward the center of the bedroom. Setting it down, Twilight pulled open the box and found several plain but jagged rocks randomly tossed in. One by one, they lifted themselves into the air and were placed on the floor. Finally, when the box was mostly empty, Twilight saw it.

She reached in with her hoof and pulled out the only smooth stone she saw. It had a pair of big, blue eyes and a wide, blue smile. The color was faded quite a bit, as it appeared to have been drawn in chalk that likely hadn't been reapplied since the last time Pinkie played with it. Twilight stared at Rocky with a renewed sense of comfort; she had what they came for.

A second later, a scroll fluttered into the room in a puff of smoke and landed in front of Celestia. With a curious eyebrow raised, she raised it to her face and unrolled it. Her features hardened as she sped through the letter.

"We have a situation."

"What's wrong?"

"We need to return to Ponyville."