Chapter 1

Chronology notes:
Stop! You are reading the Tenth story in the series started by The Kindness of Strangers!

Please read The Kindness of Strangers first!
/story/389/

The second part of the story is Putting the Pieces Back Together found here:
/story/407/

The third part of the story is Midnight in the Heart of Equestria found here:
/story/419/

The fourth part of the story is Tomorrow is Always a New Day found here:
/story/433/

The fifth part of the story is To Each Their Own found here:
/story/526/

The sixith part of the story is Imperfect found here:
/story/600/

The seventh part of the story to Paradiso found here:
/story/687/

the eighth part of the story is Broken Record found here:
/story/732/

This story is the direct sequel to Home Sweet Home found here:
/story/826/

The still air in Ponyville was broken with the loud roars of machine gun fire. Rainbow Dash released the trigger on the control yoke and looked down range.

“Aww yeah! Ain’t nobody coming back from that!” Rainbow Dash cheered as she inspected her handiwork. She was clad in the prototype for the Ponyville Pattern Sen Gun that she and Twilight had cobbled together as a concept model for Emerald Ordinance, the South Island government owned company that produced the famous kangaroo Emerald Rifle and the Sen Light Machine Gun.

Rainbow was looking down range that the target that she’d shot up, it was, make that had been, one of Rarity’s display dummies that she’d dressed up to look scary. Rarity had donated the dummy and the failed dress that it was clad in after realising that it looked and to quote: “simply dreadful and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I’d designed that horrible piece of garbage.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash had noticed a change in Rarity lately, she too, like Applejack had come to them an offered an apology and her help in the war effort, practically out of nowhere, and unlike Applejack, was actually still around.

Applejack had completely disappeared from Ponyville entirely. The Canterlot Police Service were looking for her, two of their detectives, Detective Sergeant Lucky, and his partner, Detective Constable Banana Crème had practically moved into town and made it a point of asking everypony, sometimes multiple times a day, for more information about Applejack. According to them, Applejack was wanted for Grievous Bodily Harm against Apple Bloom. Something that Twilight and Rainbow couldn’t believe was possible, but no pony on the Apple family farm was around to deny it.

To make matters worse, Fluttershy had shut herself up in her cottage, refusing to come out, and no pony had seen or heard from Pinkie Pie in a very long time. While Twilight and Rainbow were glad to have Rarity back, they missed their other friends terribly.

Sugarcube Corner’s construction had finished, and the bakery had finally reopened for business... but it simply wasn’t the same without Pinkie Pie there.

“My my!” Rarity called out inspecting the Sen Guns effect on the dummy. “Twilight, Rainbow, I simply don’t know if it is even possible to design barding to protect against that!”

Twilight frowned at this statement, causing Rarity to add: “but I will certainly try!”

“That’s all we’re asking Rarity,” Twilight assured her. “And I think that the Ponyville Pattern Sen Gun is finally ready for Emerald Ordinance, we’ll have to ask Ambassador Goyle to send a letter to get one of their representatives out here to see it in action!”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash had spent most of the last month designing and assembling the prototype. Rainbow had scribed the design from memory, having memorised every detail of it from her flash forwards. Now they were ready.

Rainbow Dash had informed Twilight what she had seen at her flash forward to the Battle of Cloudsdale, it had been a slaughter, without Ponyville Pattern weapons, it would be a slaughter again. Twilight didn’t trust Rainbow’s flash forwards considering where they were they were supposed to have come from, and neither did Rainbow, to a point, but Rainbow knew that Cloudsdale was a huge target that the gryphons would eventually come for. Cloudsdale personally created the weather for Canterlot Province, but it was also the central hub for all weather control operations in the entirety of Equestria. Cloudsdale in gryphon talons was bad. Rainbow knew what would happen if they had to destroy the Cloudsdale weather engines... but it was better than what the gryphons would do.

Crash!

Rainbow Dash looked up and saw what was happening, more gliders.

With a lack of airfields in Equestria, kangaroo cargo planes couldn’t land. Instead, they loaded supplies up in gliders and let them fly in on their own. Of course, they were extremely quiet; you didn’t know one was coming until it already was on the ground. This was quite possibly the brilliance of the design. Rainbow Dash leapt into the air to look for where it landed, and discovered that it had landed just on the outskirts of town to the southwest, near Fluttershy’s cottage

“I’m going to go see what they brought!” Rainbow called to Twilight.

“Just be careful Rainbow! You’re still wearing the prototype!” Twilight called back.

“I’ll be fine egghead! What’s the worst that could happen?” Rainbow asked.

“You just JINXED us! Come down here and take it off right now!” Twilight called out.

Rainbow sighed and did as she was told; she landed back on the ground and slid the Ponyville Pattern weapon off her back.

Twilight thanked her by giving her a light smack on her arse.

“Hey! I thought you were the one who said no PDA?” Rainbow called back.

Twilight responded by winking at her.

Rainbow smiled back and dashed off to the kangaroo glider. She arrived at it and found it stock full of weapons, Emerald Rifles, Austin Submachine guns, Sen Light Machine Guns, SPGATs, crates of ammunition for each.

Something was off though; the pilots were nowhere to be found. Rainbow checked the cockpit, empty. It was standard procedure to wait with the gliders until other kangaroos from town came to collect the supplies. Rainbow looked around; they were a hundred metres from Fluttershy’s cottage. She might have invited them in for tea or something... but still, this was an awful lot of ordinance to leave just lying around. It was irresponsible more than anything.

Rainbow trotted over towards Fluttershy’s cottage and knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again.

This time however, a very tired looking Fluttershy opened the door with a kitchen knife in her teeth.

“Fluttershy...?” Rainbow Dash asked. “What is that for?”

Fluttershy noted the knife in her mouth and set it down.

“Heh... sorry Rainbow... you caught me in the middle of... making a salad! I was just chopping some lettuce,” Fluttershy said sweetly. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“You wouldn’t by chance have seen any kangaroos around here would you?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Kangaroos? No... I haven’t seen any kangaroos here lately. Why?” Fluttershy asked, looking concerned.

“Did you not hear the glider that just landed right next to your house?” Rainbow asked her.

“No, I was down in my cellar getting vegetables until you knocked on my door,” Fluttershy said.

“Well, all right. If you see the pilots, tell them that they’re in big trouble!” Rainbow said.

“I will, goodbye Rainbow,” Fluttershy said as Rainbow Dash left.

...

Fluttershy locked the door and picked the knife back up, she went over to her cellar stairs and trotted down them. She set the knife down again on the table and smiled brightly to those sharing the room with her.

“I’m sooo sorry about that! I promise that there won’t be any more interruptions!” Fluttershy said smiling sweetly. “We’re going to have so much fun together!”

Fluttershy picked the knife back up, causing the two bound and gagged pilot kangaroos’ eyes to widen with fear.

...

Twilight had entered the Ponyville Library to find a white Alicorn filly with a pink mane standing on the table grinning madly.

“Twilight! Twilight!” Tia called at her. “Look what I can do!”

Tia closed her eyes and her body reformed into a cloud of white smoke, howling loudly and proceeding to zip around the room.

Racka-racka-racka-racka-racka-racka!

The White Smoke charged towards Twilight, reforming into Tia who skidded to a stop in front of her.

“Wasn’t that so cool!?” Tia asked her in excitement.

Twilight’s mouth fell open in shock. “Yes... Tia, we need to talk about this new found talent of yours.”

Tia frowned; she figured that she was in trouble.

“You’re not in trouble!” Twilight reassured her. “But just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you always should, showing off isn’t good.”

“I understand,” Tia said, Twilight didn’t want her to do it, so she wouldn’t.

“Good, I’m glad that you do!” Twilight said. “Just remember, it’s okay to be special, but it’s not okay to show off.”

Tia nodded, and trotted over to one of the bookshelves to grab a book.

Twilight was worried about Tia. She hoped that she was going right by her, but she frankly had no idea what she was doing. When Princess Luna had asked her to take care of her, she had gladly taken up the role.

She just hoped that Tia would grow into a pony as good as she was supposed to be.

Chapter 2

Detective Sergeant Lucky and Detective Constable Banana Crème were standing at the edge of Ponyville. Their investigation was going nowhere. Applejack was nowhere to be found. They’d searched the Apple farm top to bottom, every nook and cranny three times over. It was time to branch out. That’s what they were doing here, Fluttershy’s cottage. The only one of Applejack’s friends that they had yet to talk to was a Pegasus by the name of Fluttershy. She apparently hadn’t left her home for several weeks, about the time Applejack went missing.

DS Lucky was trained to see things like this, maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe this Fluttershy was hiding Applejack in her home. There was only one way to find out.

The detectives knocked on the door. No answer.

“Police! Open up!” DS Lucky called out, knocking again.

“Umm... could you give me a minute? I’m not decent!” called a quiet voice from inside.

Lucky rolled his eyes, and after a moment, the door opened, revealing a yellow Pegasus clad in a bathrobe and her mane held inside a towel.

“I’m sorry... you caught me in the middle of a bath,” Fluttershy said quietly.

“My apologies miss,” Lucky said. “I’m DS Lucky, this is DC Banana Crème. We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions?”

“Oh... my, what about?” Fluttershy asked. “I’ll try to help you if I can! Please, come in.”

Fluttershy smiled oddly at the two detectives, stepping aside and allowing them to enter. DC Banana Crème felt slightly uneasy, and did her best to quietly communicate this to her partner, something was off about this house, but she didn’t know what.

DS Lucky didn’t pick up on it. “You’re friends with Applejack, aren’t you, Fluttershy?”

“Applejack? Well... yes, but I haven’t seen Applejack in a very long time... which is unfortunate, because I’d really really like to talk to her.” Fluttershy said.

“Well we would to, so anything you could tell us would be much appreciated,” Lucky said with a smile.

Fluttershy was about to reply, but was interrupted by a squeak from the cellar door. Fluttershy looked over to it, it had popped open slightly.

“Oh... I thought I fixed that!” Fluttershy said with mild annoyance.

DS Lucky and DC Banana Crème looked at each other, and then back to Fluttershy. “Would you mind if we had a look downstairs?”

“Downstairs...? Well... okay, I suppose...” Fluttershy said.

DC Banana Crème opened the door, and went down first, DS Lucky followed her, and they were shocked upon reaching the bottom of what they had found.

The remains of two disembowelled kangaroos littered the floor, fresh blood covered every square centimetre of the floor, and organs lay haphazardly scattered as if they’d been thrown about with homicidal glee.

Banana Crème and Lucky were stunned by what they were looking at.

With a quick flash, Banana Crème’s throat had been cut, she gasped for air and fell to the floor blood spilling out and mixing with the blood of the kangaroos. Fluttershy had thrown off her robe and towel, revealing that the pegasi’s coat was covered in blood. DS Lucky sprung into action, charging at the Pegasus and attempting to give her a subduing kick. Fluttershy was too fast, she dodged and countered, planting the knife in her teeth between Lucky’s ribs, puncturing his lung and kicking him to the ground.

Fluttershy smiled at her handiwork, and rolled Lucky onto his back, taking the knife and cutting into his chest.

DC Banana Crème watched in horror until the last bit of life escaped her.

DS Lucky wanted to scream in pain, but couldn’t, Fluttershy had placed her hoof over his mouth, muffling him, he tried to fight her off, but the pegasi mare was surprisingly strong. She finished cutting through the chest, exposing several of the Detective’s organs.

“Hmm... let’s see, what do we not need?” Fluttershy said maniacally, grinning with pleasure. “Lungs! Those are gone!”

Fluttershy ripped the Detective’s punctured lung out of his chest, and tossed it aside haphazardly. She was giggling intensely.

Lucky’s blood had spilled on the floor, mixing with DC Banana Crème’s and the kangaroos who’d been here before.

Fluttershy was rolling around in it, coating herself completely in the blood of four individuals, squealing with intense pleasure.

DS Lucky felt his life leaving him, the last thought he had go through his mind, was that his luck had just run out.

...

Fluttershy had taken to pleasuring herself now, she rubbed fresh blood over herself, coating every square centimetre of herself in it, she moaned loudly, she was about to reach her horrific climax, and soon enough she felt herself relieved

“Oh... that was wonderful!” Fluttershy said, panting in exhaustion. She looked to each side of her, the cold, lifeless eyes of DC Banana Crème and DS Lucky looked back at her. She didn’t like them looking at her like that. They reminded her of the way the kangaroo pilots had looked upon expiring. Well, they simply had to go.

Fluttershy proceeded to gouge out the detectives eyes, smashing them on the ground. They wouldn’t look upon her again.

“Oh Fluttershy, just look at the mess you’ve made!” she said, playfully scolding herself. “This won’t do... this won’t do at all!”

She went over to the sink inside her cellar, grabbing a small garden hose and attaching it to the faucet, she proceeded to spray herself off, the cold water caused her to shiver slightly, but otherwise, it felt nice. After spraying her coat clean, she floated herself into the air and sprayed her hooves clean.

“There you go Fluttershy! Now you won’t get your nice clean floor upstairs dirty!” She said to herself. She turned to the bodies before her on the floor; she would have to do something with them. It would be dark soon. She’d take the bodies and dump them in the forest, nopony would think twice if they discovered the heavily dismembered bodies in there, they’d all think some wild animal did it, who would ever suspect that poor, timid Fluttershy had done all this?

Night came, and Fluttershy loaded the two kangaroo pilots along with DC Banana Crème and DS Lucky into a small cart, and pulled it through Everfree forest, dumping a body every five hundred metres or so.

First went the kangaroo pilot. After another five hundred or so metres went DC Banana Crème, another five hundred went the kangaroo co-pilot, and another five hundred after that went DS Lucky. Fluttershy was proud of herself for being so clever, she pushed her cart into the river that ran through Everfree, where the current would take it down stream, smashing it to bits.

Fluttershy took flight, flying slowly and surely back to her home, where she intended to take a nice, long, relaxing, hot bubble bath. She felt that she deserved it after such manual labour.

Fluttershy slipped herself into the bathtub, only vaguely aware that she had violently murdered four people.

...

Derpy Hooves was in the middle of her rounds when she noticed the commotion in the centre of town. It was the middle of the morning; she landed and trotted up to the first familiar face she found, which belonged to Trixie.

“What’s going on?” She asked her azure unicorn friend.

“Trixie is not sure,” she said with a shrug. “Trixie noticed a crowd, and Trixie went to investigate.”

“I’m going to see if I can’t get a closer look,” Derpy said. She smiled brightly when she discovered what everypony was looking at. It was a Blue Box.

The Doctor was back.

Derpy landed back next to Trixie, smiling brightly. “He’s back!”

“Who’s back?” said another voice from the other side.

Derpy and Trixie looked to find a brown earth pony with a spiky brown mane wearing a tie and an hour glass cutie mark smiling at them.

“Hello!” The Doctor said brightly. Derpy and Trixie tackled the earth pony, hugging him profusely.

“Oi! Can’t breathe!” he called out, causing the two mares to release their grips on him, but only slightly.

“I missed you all too!” the Doctor said. “Wish you would come with me when I go places! But I can understand why you wouldn’t.”

“To what do we owe the pleasure of a return by Ponyville’s most elusive resident?” Trixie asked.

The Doctor grinned at her. “Don’t know yet! But that’s half the fun!”

Chapter 3

“Twilight?”

Twilight opened her eyes; Tia was sitting at the edge of the bed, prodding her trying to get her attention.

“Tia? Is everything all right?” Twilight asked the filly before her.

“I can’t sleep,” the filly said with a shrug. Clearly, Twilight wouldn’t be either. Not that she minded. “I have questions!”

Twilight looked over to Rainbow Dash, who was lying asleep next to her, Twilight gently folded back the covers and got out of bed, she whispered a quiet “shh” to Tia and the two walked out of the room and onto the balcony, looking up at the night sky.

“Twilight? Who made the sky?” She asked.

“Your big sister Luna did,” Twilight said with a smile.

“It’s so pretty!” Tia exclaimed. Not what Twilight was expecting coming from the princess of the day. “I could never make something as pretty as that!”

They sat looking up at the stars for a few minutes, before Tia asked another question.

“Twilight? How come I live here with you and not with my big sister?” Tia asked.

Twilight wasn’t sure how to answer that, she knew the reasoning why Luna wanted the filly here, but putting it into words that she would understand was difficult.

“Because your sister wants you to have a normal childhood, and that’s not something you can have living with her, because there wouldn’t be other kids for you to play with. Here you have Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell to play with!” Twilight said.

Tia frowned, “I don’t want to get in their way...”

Twilight reassured Tia that she wouldn’t, and that Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo would be happy to have her along. “Tell you what? How about tomorrow we go introduce you to some of the other kids in town?”

“Okay...” Tia said.

Twilight smiled, this would be good for her, having kids to play with would help her to have a normal life.

...

Twilight and Tia were walking towards the Ponyville school house. School was in session, but Twilight didn’t think it was going to be an issue. They had arrived just at the beginning of recess.

“Hello Cheerilee!” Twilight said, greeting the teacher pony, who was keeping an eye on her students as they ran about the playground.

“Hello Twilight Sparkle!” Cheerilee said, the filly catching her eye. “Now who is this?”

“This is Tia, my... niece who is living with me for a while, she doesn’t have any friends in town, and I was hoping that she could meet some of the other kids!” Twilight said.

“Certainly!” Cheerilee said she blew on a whistle that she was carrying around her neck; all of the school aged ponies froze in place and turned to look at their teacher. “Everypony, this is Tia! She’s new in town, and I hope you’ll make her feel very welcome here!”

“Go on Tia!” Twilight said, nudging the shy pony forward.

Most of the children went on doing what they were doing before. Twilight and Cheerilee had stopped paying attention to them and started talking to each other.

“Hey!” one of the other fillies called out, this one was an earth pony wearing a crown on her head.

Tia approached her and her friend, also an earth pony wearing glasses.

“I see you have your cutie mark!” the crown wearing pony said.

“Oh yes...” Tia managed.

“You should stick with us, lest you be known as one who associates with blank flanks.” The glasses wearing pony said. “I’m Silver Spoon, this is Diamond Tiara.”

“I’m Tia...” she managed quietly.

“Want to have some fun, Tia?” Diamond Tiara asked.

Tia nodded in affirmation.

“Go tell Sweetie Bell that she sucks at singing,” Silver Spoon suggested, snickering to herself.

Diamond Tiara pointed towards Sweetie Bell, who was sitting with Scootaloo at the other end of the playground.

“Um... okay,” Tia said, she didn’t really want to because it sounded like a mean thing to do, but she didn’t want Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to not like her, so she, reluctantly, trotted over to where the two fillies were sitting.

“Um...” Tia said she cleared her throat, looking directly at Sweetie Bell and spoke: “You suck at singing!”

“What?” Sweetie Bell said, tears began to form in her eyes, she began to cry. Now Tia felt bad for saying it, she opened her mouth to say that she was sorry, and that she didn’t mean it, but she didn’t get a chance. Scootaloo popped her right in the nose, knocking her to the ground.

“Who do you think you are? What makes you think you can say that to somepony?” Scootaloo yelled at her angrily.

Tia was lying on the ground, clutching her nose in pain. Tears were forming in her eyes. She started crying too. Unintentionally, her body formed into the White Smoke, letting out a loud howl that got everypony’s attention, and began zooming away.

Racka-racka-racka-racka-racka-racka!

Twilight watched in horror as the White Smoke zipped past her, driving itself into town. Catching the attention of a crew of Kangaroo leaning next to a VC Firefly that was parked several hundred metres away from the play ground.

The kangaroos hopped into the Firefly and took off after it, the medium tank rolling through the streets in hot pursuit of the White Smoke.

“Oh no,” Twilight said, and took off in pursuit of the Firefly.

...

There was nothing more dangerous than what Vinyl Scratch was doing. Her onion soup recipe required everything to be done just right. She’d just finished stirring in the onions into the broth, it was almost ready!

Onion Soup was Vinyl Scratch’s favourite meal, and hers was the best.

Her ear twitched, something was coming this way.

“Wonderful, why is it that this town can’t go without a crisis in the time it takes me to make my onion soup!?” Vinyl cried out in frustration.

She turned towards the open window; there was a loud howling noise and a cloud of White Smoke darted past.

Racka-racka-racka-racka-racka-racka!

A few seconds later, a VC Firefly passed by.

A few seconds after that, Twilight Sparkle ran past.

“No no no no no no no no no no no!” she cried as she ran past.

Vinyl looked at the sight before her for a moment before making a comment on it. “What the hell is wrong with this town?”

Vinyl turned towards the stove, and turned the burner off. She slapped her goggles down from where they were resting on her forehead and down onto her eyes, and dashed out the door. “I swear, this town if built on top of an ancient burial mound or something!”

Within a few minutes, Vinyl Scratch had caught up to Twilight.

“How ya doing?” Vinyl said, grinning like a madmare as she came within eye contact.

“I’m chasing a kangaroo tank, which is in turn chasing a sentient cloud of White Smoke! How do you think I’m doing!?” Twilight exclaimed starting to pant from exhaustion.

“You know you should really try to pace yourself, you’re going to get burnt out running at full speed like this,” Vinyl said.

Twilight huffed in annoyance. “If you’re planning on doing something useful, do it now!”

“Fine, fine,” Vinyl said, she picked up speed and leapt up onto the Firefly tank, knocking on the turret hatch.

The kangaroo tank commander opened it and poked his head out.

“Pull over buddy! And I’ll need to see your licence and registration!” Vinyl said.

“You’re funny,” the tank commander said.

“I know right?” Vinyl said with a grin. “Seriously though, pull over.”

The tank commander popped his head back inside, the VC Firefly slowed and pulled off to the left side of the street. Twilight galloped past, hoping that the White Smoke would stop running if the tank was no longer chasing it, which it did not. The White Smoke disappeared into the tree line of Whitetail Wood.

Twilight was exhausted by this point, but forced herself to keep running.

Soon enough, she reached the point that she could go no further, and collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily. “Maybe this was... a bad idea.”

Twilight heard crying in the distance. She forced herself to get up, and she trotted as fast as she could towards it.

Tia was sitting on a fallen tree, crying her eyes out.

“Tia... what’s... wrong?” Twilight managed between pants.

“I’m bad Twilight!” Tia said sobbing. “I made Sweetie Bell cry! Then Scootaloo hit me.”

“Why did you make Sweetie Bell cry? Wait, Scootaloo hit you?” Twilight cried in surprise.

Tia nodded. “Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon told me to tell Sweetie Bell that she sucked at singing. I didn’t want to because I thought it was mean... but I wanted Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to like me! So I did it.”

Twilight frowned, “Oh Tia...” She sat down next to the crying filly. “You need to apologise to Sweetie Bell for making her cry... and it sounds like to me that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon aren’t very nice ponies. Maybe you shouldn’t hang around them?”

Tia shrugged. “I will Twilight; I’m going to go do it right now!”

Tia stopped crying and got up, she and Twilight walked back to town.

...

Tia walked up to where Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo were sitting.

“Um... Sweetie Bell?” Tia said. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for making you cry.”

Sweetie Bell looked at her oddly. “You made me cry? When?!”

Scootaloo facehoofed. Tia looked confused.

“Don’t worry about it Tia,” Scootaloo said. “I’m sorry for hitting you.”

“You hit her?!” Sweetie Bell exclaimed. “Scootaloo why would you do that?”

Scootaloo sighed and looked off in the distance. “Hey Sweetie Bell! Look! A banana!”

“Where!?” Sweetie Bell called out excitedly, after a few seconds of looking, she turned back to Scootaloo. “What am I looking for?”

“I dunno,” Scootaloo said with a shrug.

“Okay!” Sweetie Bell called out excitedly, and started staring off in the other direction.

“Well... um... bye!” Tia said nervously, backing away from the two fillies.

“Tia!” called another pony from the distance. Tia turned to discover that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were waving to her. Tia galloped over to them.

“There you are! Come on! School’s over!” Diamond Tiara said. “We’re going to the reopening of Sugarcube Corner! Come with us!”

“Oh... okay!” Tia said excitedly, and the three fillies trotted off towards town.

Chapter 4

Fluttershy had become horribly bored, and that simply wouldn’t do at all. The things she had done with her time in the past could no longer be done. All the animals she took care of were dead. Angel Bunny, her chickens. All of them killed by the Black Smoke.

The Black Smoke however had done them a favour. Where any of them still alive for Fluttershy to get her hooves on... their deaths had been quick and painless, the deaths that they would have met under this new Fluttershy would not have been.

Fluttershy looked to the door to her home, she’d not been outside in the last month save twice, the first time was trapping the kangaroo pilots, and the second time was taking the bodies of the kangaroos, plus DS Lucky and DS Banana Crème into the Everfree forest. Well, it settled it then, Fluttershy was going to have to go out and find somepony.

Or some Kangaroo, Fluttershy wasn’t prejudiced.

Fluttershy donned a coat and went outside her door.

Fluttershy made her way into town, and discovered lights from Sugarcube Corner, it seemed that the reconstruction had finished, and the Cakes had reopened for business. Fluttershy figured it was as good a place as any.

She walked inside, the bright colours, lights, and decorations of the all new Sugarcube Corner paled in comparison to anything that Pinkie Pie would have done. Alas, the pink party pony was not here. She hadn’t been spotted in town for a very long time.

Fluttershy scanned the room, looking for someone that she could have some fun with, and soon discovered a prospect. A brown coated stallion, chestnut mane, and a three leaf clover for a Cutie Mark, sitting alone in a corner, quietly sipping a glass of punch through a straw, Fluttershy trotted up to him.

“Hi,” Fluttershy said in her most sensual voice possible.

The Stallion looked up in surprise.

“What’s a handsome stallion like yourself doing here all by your lonesome?” Fluttershy asked playfully, she noted to herself that she didn’t even sound like herself. It was if she was just watching from a distance and letting somepony else do all the talking.

“I... uh... I...” the stallion said, stumbling over his words.

Fluttershy giggled sweetly at him. “I’m Fluttershy, what’s your name?”

“M... Melilot,” the stallion said.

“Well Melilot, I don’t think this is quite the place for either of us, how about we go somewhere a little more... quiet.”

...

Fluttershy’s head rolled back as she rode up and down, moaning with pleasure, she was lying on top of Melilot as the stallion thrust between her hips, shy in public, certainly not shy in the bedroom... or in this case, the cellar. Fluttershy moaned loudly, her body growing hot in excitement.

The stallion kept going, he’d been holding back, he thrust harder and harder, causing Fluttershy to continue to yelp in both pleasure and pain until the stallion could keep himself no more, Fluttershy felt his warmth shoot through her body, she could stand it no more and let out a loud yelp, her muscles tightened and her head rolled back, she moaned Melilot’s name and collapsed forward onto the stallion, placing her hooves around his neck, panting heavily. Fluttershy kissed the stallion gently.

“Did… did you like it?” he asked her.

Fluttershy smiled at him warmly. “Oh yes! It was a nice... warm up.”

Melilot’s eyes widened in excitement, oh how had he become so lucky that this beautiful mare had practically fallen into his haunches.

“Would you like to play... a game?” Fluttershy asked him.

“What kind of game?” Melilot asked.

Fluttershy smiled seductively at the earth pony before her, working her feminine charms to her favour. “How would you like... being tied up?”

The stallion’s eyes widened, she was into that.

“I’d do anything for you!” he said enthusiastically, exactly what Fluttershy wanted to hear.

Fluttershy fetched some ropes, binding the ponies fore and hind legs together, gagging his mouth, and leaving him waiting anxiously for his final reward. It was when Fluttershy picked up her knife that he began to realise that luck was not what he had.

Fluttershy plunged the knife into the stallion’s chest, slicing him open, he screamed in pain, but made little noise as Fluttershy had gagged him, the filly cut him open, spilling his organs onto the floor and haphazardly tossing them about with homicidal glee.

Fluttershy reached in and gently picked up Melilot’s heart, she smiled at him, showing him, and proceeded to crush it between her hooves.

The stallion closed his eyes, and drifted off into the endless sleep.

...

Um... Fluttershy? If I can talk to you? It would be really nice if I could... Fluttershy heard a small voice say inside her head.

NO! DON’T LISTEN TO HER; SHE WANTS TO STOP ALL OUR FUN! Cried another voice from inside Fluttershy’s head.

I don’t mean to be a spoil sport but...

“NO!” Fluttershy screamed.

GOOD GIRL! Shouted the louder, more menacing sounding voice.

The quieter voice squeaked in fear, and retreated into a dark corner of Fluttershy’s mind, leaving only the louder voice.

THAT WAS FUN!

Fluttershy had to admit, it was. “Oh but I’ve made a mess again!”

SO WHAT?

“Well, I have to figure out what I’m going to do with the body. I can’t just keep dumping them in the forest, people will notice!”

BURN HIM!

That would do it. Fluttershy did have plenty of paraffin oil for use in oil lamps, more than she could ever possibly use.

BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN!

Fluttershy dragged Melilot’s body outside, dumped paraffin oil over his body she struck a match and dropped it on him.

The stallion’s body erupted in flame, incinerating deceased stallion.

“Burn! Burn! BURN!” Fluttershy found herself chanting; she tossed wood onto the fire every so often, trying to keep it going as long as possible. Soon enough, it was indistinguishable from just a regular bonfire. After an hour of watching the fire burn, Fluttershy found herself beginning to get bored again. She allowed the fire to die down, and she went back inside to take a nice bubble bath.

...

Derpy Hooves trotted into the post office in order to get started on her shift. Her goal was to deliver the entire town’s mail before lunch time, though she was unlike to meet it, she never did.

However, something was different about the post office today. There were two posters that were not there yesterday.

MISSING:

DETECTIVE SERGEANT LUCKY

DETECTIVE CONSTABLE BANANA CRÉME

PLEASE CONTACT CANTERLOT POLICE SERVICE

WITH ANY INFORMATION ABOUT WHEREABOUTS

500 POUND REWARD

The poster had the two Detectives pictures on it; they weren’t anypony that Derpy recognised. Derpy hated seeing these posters, because she never knew anything that would be helpful to the case. Otherwise she’d report it post-haste, not for the money, though Derpy did admit, that having 10,000 bits would be nice, but simply because it would be the right thing to do.

Derpy didn’t think anything else of it; she grabbed her mailbag, and checked her compass. To her annoyance, the needle was pointing towards her, indicating that she was facing south. She knew that this was wrong, because the direction she was facing was most definitely west. She turned to the south, the needle continued to point towards her.

Derpy looked crossly at the compass; she knew it wasn’t the compasses fault. Somepony had placed a magnet in her mailbag again. Derpy groaned in annoyance, her mail bag was perfectly sorted. This was why she could never finish before lunch.

She dumped her mailbag out, discovering the trickster’s magnet and tossing it away in the waste bin. Now she had to re-sort the mail, by hoof, and then deliver it.

It was going to be a long day.

...

The clock struck two by the time that Derpy made her last delivery, Carrot Top’s Home was the last stop on her route, and by the time she knocked on the door, Carrot Top opened the door and gave the Pegasus a cold glare for being several hours late.

Derpy was usually polite while doing her rounds, regardless of how impolite the recipients of the mail were, but Derpy was not having it today. She was angry, and turned over the mail, and as she turned to leave she added a quiet “get stuffed” as she flew away.

Derpy returned home to her flat, she went to grab her keys out of her bag, but realised that she was carrying her mailbag, and not her personal bag, thus, her keys were still at the post office.

Derpy facehoofed herself for letting herself be so flustered to make such a mistake, she went down to the post office, swapped her mailbag for her personal bag, and made her way back home.

She trotted up to her doorstep, took her keys out, but she stopped herself upon noticing that the lock wasn’t right.

Somepony had jammed up the mechanism with superglue.

Derpy clenched her teeth, and let out a loud scream of frustration. She broke down and started crying on the steps that lead up to her flat. Why did this keep happening to her? What had she done to deserve all this? The endless pranks and jokes at the pegasi mare were starting to get to her.

As it so happened, Lyra & Bon Bon walked by and noticed the crying pegasi on the steps.

“Derpy? Is everything alright?” Lyra asked.

“No...” Derpy said with a sniffle. “I’ve had the most rotten day. Somepony put a magnet in my mailbag. So I had to dump out and re-sort the mail by hoof. I was late with everyponies mail, so they all gave me looks for it. Then I get home and find that someone put superglue in my locks, again!”

So was a day in the life of Derpy Hooves.

Both Lyra and Bon Bon gave the sniffling pegasi a hug. “There there, it’s all right! How about you come and stay the night with us, and we’ll get a locksmith out to your flat tomorrow morning,” Bon Bon suggested.

Derpy smiled, wiping the tears from her eyes. “You two are great friends, you know that?”

Lyra and Bon Bon smiled, and the three of them walked back towards their flat.

Chapter 5

When Tia, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon walked into Sugarcube Corner, Tia couldn’t help but let out a gasp, she had never seen such a place like this.

“This is amazing!” Tia called out in excitement.

“Eh, the first one was better,” Silver Spoon said apathetically.

“Oh,” Tia said, looking down at the ground in embarrassment.

“Look! It’s the blank flanks!” Diamond Tiara said, pointing at Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo sitting in the corner. “Come on girls; let’s go say ‘hello’”

Silver Spoon giggled, Tia however said nothing, but followed anyway.

“How’s it going blank flanks?” Diamond Tiara sneered at the two ponies sitting in the corner.

“We’re doing awesome! Thanks for asking!” Sweetie Bell said with a smile, causing Scootaloo to facehoof.

“What?” Sweetie Bell asked, looking at her friend.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than make fun of us for not having our Cutie Marks?” Scootaloo asked in annoyance.

“Nope! We cleared out our evening schedules just for you!” Silver Spoon said.

“That was considerate of you!” Sweetie Bell exclaimed, causing Scootaloo to facehoof again.

“Shut up Sweetie Bell!” she cried out in frustration.

“Hey! Don’t tell me to shut up!” Sweetie Bell exclaimed.

“Um... Silver Spoon? Diamond Tiara?” Tia asked. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Don’t go anywhere blank flanks!” Diamond Tiara exclaimed.

“We won’t!” Sweetie Bell said, causing Scootaloo to facehoof again. “You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep doing that!”

Tia, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon walked over towards another end of the room.

“What is it Tia?” Diamond Tiara asked with mild annoyance.

“Um...” Tia began. “Don’t you girls think that you’re being... kind of mean to them?”

“Pfff,” Diamond Tiara exclaimed. “What does it matter?”

“Yeah!” Silver Spoon added. “They’re blank flanks! They’re like, totally not special!”

“Everypony is special,” Tia said quietly, she looked up at both of them, managing the bravest face that she could. “And you two are MEAN!”

Tia stared intensely at the two fillies before her, they looked back, as if they were mesmerised by Tia’s glare. After a few moments, they shook their heads and looked at each other in confusion.

“Maybe... maybe we are mean?” Diamond Tiara said.

“I don’t want to be mean!” Silver Spoon replied.

“You’re right,” Diamond Tiara said, looking at Tia with a frown. “Come on Silver Spoon let’s go say sorry to the blank... to Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo.”

Tia looked at her friends as they turned and walked back over to Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo in confusion. Tia didn’t know it yet, but she had influenced the two fillies’ minds into being nicer.

When the possibility dawned on her, Tia looked around in excitement, if she could get everypony to be nice all the time, it would make Twilight proud of her! It had to!

Tia trotted over towards her friends grinning with accomplishment, she was so happy that she just couldn’t contain it.

...

Sugarcube Corner closed at ten. Scootaloo, Sweetie Bell, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Tia trotted out together, chatting with each other. Tia was beaming; her friends were all getting along with each other!

Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell turned to the south east towards Carousel Boutique. Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Tia went north.

“They’re not bad,” Diamond Tiara admitted. “We could have been good friends!”

“Well now we can all start fresh!” Tia said, beaming with happiness.

“Yeah!” Silver Spoon agreed with enthusiasm.

Tia waved her friends goodbye and went inside the Ponyville Library. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon waved back, and continued on their walk north towards their homes.

After shutting the door behind her, Tia looked up to see that Rainbow Dash was talking to one of the kangaroos.

“... I just want everything to be perfect for Emerald Ordinance tomorrow Sergeant Tebbs! I mean ‘Lef-tenant.’”

Tebbs smiled at her. “Rainbow Dash. I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times! Call me Percy! Besides, the promotion to Second Lef-tenant is temporary at best.”

Tebbs looked towards the door, and discovered the pink maned filly standing at the door. “Why hello! Who might you be?”

Naturally, Tia shied away from the unfamiliar kangaroo.

“That’s Tia, she’s shy,” Rainbow Dash said. “Tia, this is my friend Lef-tenant Tebbs!”

“Percy!” Tebbs reminded her. The kangaroo Lieutenant kneeled down to look at the filly. “It’s very nice to meet you Tia.”

Tia didn’t reply.

Tebbs smiled at her and stood back up. “Well, it’s getting late; I need to be getting back. Good luck with Emerald Ordinance tomorrow!”

Tebbs hopped towards the door, opened it and then quickly shut it behind him. Rainbow waited a few seconds before turning to Tia.

“You could have said ‘hi’!” Rainbow Dash scolded her.

“He’s scary!” Tia cried out.

“He’s not scary! He’s... different,” Rainbow explained. “Everypony... everyone is unique in their own way, but being different doesn’t make them weird! You’re going to apologise for being rude to him tomorrow during the Emerald Ordinance trials!”

Rainbow Dash was very glad that Vinyl Scratch wasn’t around, otherwise she would have made a comment on how much like a mother Rainbow Dash was sounding.

There was a knock at the door, Rainbow Dash went over and opened it; Vinyl Scratch was standing at the door, grinning like a madmare.

“You were just thinking about me weren’t you?” Vinyl Scratch asked. “”Cause I was just thinking about you... in bed!”

Rainbow Dash gave the unicorn before her a blank stare. “You never get bored, do you Vinyl Scratch?”

“Nope!” Vinyl said. “Good thing too, otherwise a huge bomb would fall on the town!”

“Huh?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking at her friend in confusion.

“You know, because it’s unlikely to happen?” Vinyl said with a grin. “Okay... I’ll admit. It was funnier in my head.”

“Do you want something Vinyl?” Rainbow Dash asked in annoyance.

“Nope! Just waiting for Scootaloo to come through this way, see ya Rainbow!” Vinyl said with a wave she trotted away, leaving Rainbow Dash standing confused in the door step.

“Tia?” Rainbow Dash said. “When you grow up, please try not to be like Vinyl Scratch?”

“By the way!” Vinyl called back. “You sounded like a mother!”

...

Apple Bloom opened her eyes just slightly, light poured in and her eyes took a minute to adjust. She was in a room with white walls, and a white ceiling, and white everything else!

She didn’t know how she got here, she tried to turn her head to get a better look but found herself unable to move. She tried moving her legs, no response; she tried to open her mouth. No response; it seemed that all she could do was look around the room with her eyes.

She had no feeling in any part of her body; it was if her mind had been disconnected from her body entirely.

Then she remembered. She remembered Applejack on top of her, stomping her into the ground, she remembered the feeling of her bones breaking. She remembered Big Macintosh carrying her away from Sweet Apple Acres; she remembered the ride on the VC Firefly tank that carried her to the hospital.

She remembered everything, and she wished that she didn’t.

Apple Bloom felt her mouth begin to move, it was coming back under her control.

“Some...pony!” she exclaimed weakly. Nopony heard.

“Somepony!” she cried again. “Somepony!”

A black Pegasus pony clad in a medical coat walked into the room, discovering that Apple Bloom was awake.

“Oh no...” he said. “You’re not supposed to be awake yet!”

“What?” Apple Bloom asked.

She began to feel her own body again, the intense pain of her condition became noticeable, Apple Bloom started to cry out in pain.

“I need sedatives!” the doctor pony called out. “I need them now!”

A unicorn nurse followed the doctor pony into the room with a syringe full of sedatives.

“You’re going to be all right. I promise,” the doctor pony said, his amber eyes shining at the filly brightly as she reeled in pain. The unicorn nurse stuck the syringe into Apple Bloom’s IV and soon enough, the filly drifted back off to sleep.

“I need to know whose patient this is,” the pegasi doctor said. “They’re not paying attention to her, and as in bad of condition she is, she’s lucky I was around the corner when she started calling.”

“It’s Doctor Asiago’s.” The nurse said.

“Not anymore, you can tell him that I’m taking over.” The Pegasus said.

“Yes, Doctor Nightsinger.”

Chapter 6

Very few townponies came out to watch Rainbow Dash and Twilight perform for the representatives of Emerald Ordinance. They had set up stands for the few that did, which were now being occupied by Vinyl Scratch, Scootaloo, Sweetie Bell, Tia, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and several of the kangaroo commandos notably, Captain Reginald Blackthorn, Lieutenant William Cutting, and Private Wilfred Dillingham.

Lieutenant Tebbs and his crew had been helping Rarity to design and construct a suitable obstacle course for the two ponies to run through. Complete with concertina wire, hand dug slit trenches, several broken up gliders, and the burnt out hulks of several kangaroo and gryphon tanks.

Two Mark VIII cruiser tanks had been parked on either side of the course; they would be firing blanks from their 7.55mm Sesa machine guns and would advance alongside the ponies during the trial in order to simulate the chaos and confusion of war.

Rainbow Dash had already strapped herself into the Ponyville Pattern Sen Guns; Twilight loaded two fresh magazines into the contraption and cocked each of them. She felt unnaturally heavy under the weight of both the Sen Guns and Rarity’s prototype combat barding.

“Ready to go Rainbow!?” Twilight called in excitement.

Rainbow Dash looked at her and smiled. Twilight would be running through the course with her, due to the fact that it was physically impossible to reload by herself, while under fire. Twilight was carrying all the ammo and would slide new magazines in with her magic whenever Rainbow needed them.

“I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be,” Rainbow said nervously. Ordinarily, Rainbow Dash loved showing off her stuff... but when it was something that actually mattered, like the Best Young Fliers Competition in Cloudsdale, or the trial for Emerald Ordinance. Rainbow got nervous.

“You’ll do fine,” Twilight said, planting a kiss on Rainbow’s muzzle. “Eyes down range, teeth on the control yoke, and blast all of Rarity’s creepy looking fashion dummies!”

Twilight levitated her revolver out, snapped open the breech, and checked the ammunition, satisfied she snapped it shut.

Rainbow Dash looked over in the stands again. Several more ponies had showed up. Derpy, Trixie, Lyra, Bon Bon... the Doctor?

Rainbow Dash was surprised to see that he was here, but then again, for all she knew this was something he would enjoy watching. Rainbow Dash barely knew him. All she knew was that he liked to be called “the Doctor.”

But what caught her eye the most was Fluttershy. Fluttershy was sitting by herself in the top corner of the stands, watching intently, their eyes met causing Fluttershy to give her a small wave.

Rainbow tried to wave back, but not accounting for the weight of the Ponyville Pattern Sen Guns caused her to fall forward on her face. Twilight giggled.

“Stop that!” Rainbow said coldly. Twilight ignored her, continuing to giggle as she helped the Pegasus up.

Rainbow Dash looked back towards the corner. Fluttershy was gone. She blinked several times and looked again. No Fluttershy.

“Huh,” Rainbow said aloud to herself. That was certainly odd.

Rainbow Dash eyed several important looking kangaroos take seats. These were the people from Emerald Ordinance.

“May I have your attention please!” called Lieutenant Tebbs through a bullhorn from the hatch of his tank. “We thank everyone for coming out, and especially would like to thank the kangaroos from Emerald Ordinance for taking time out of their busy schedules to watch the trial runs for the Ponyville Pattern Sen Light Machine Gun. In this scenario, the Light Machine Gun team, consisting of Ponyville’s own Corporal Twilight Sparkle and Lance-Corporal Rainbow Dash, will advance under simulated fire from the two Mark VIII Cruiser tanks at each side of the course. The tanks machine guns are loaded with blanks. Half way through the course, enemy targets will pop up at random. LMG Team, please take your positions.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash looked at each other, they didn’t have ranks, but they figured that Tebbs had given them some to make them look professional.

“You ready?” Twilight asked.

“As ready as I’m ever going to be,” Rainbow said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you,” Twilight said.

“That’s comforting; at least you’ll have a nice view of my arse the entire course!” Rainbow Dash said.

“LMG team! On the sound of the tank shell, begin!” Tebbs called out.

Tank... shell?

Twilight and Rainbow Dash looked over at the Lord Stuart; Tebbs was pulling himself inside the tank, shutting the hatch behind him. The light tank’s turret rotated slightly towards the north and fired its 37mm cannon.

On cue, Rainbow Dash and Twilight ran forward, ducking into the trenches. Machine gun fire from the Mark VIIIs overhead rang in the two ponies ears, but they kept moving and quickly as they could. They reached the end of the trenches, towards a wall of piled up sandbags. Good enough for cover.

Two targets popped up, each of them had an Emerald Rifle taped to the side of them, but what did not expect was the fact that the targets shot back at them. Rubber Bullets whizzed by the two ponies as they kept their heads down. One of the rubber bullets struck Rainbow Dash’s brodie helmet and bounced off.

Twilight peeked around the sandbag, the rifles were glowing, there were unicorns operating them from a distance.

“Ready Rainbow?” Twilight said.

Rainbow didn’t answer; instead, she popped up and bit down on the control yoke. Ripping apart the ex-fashion dummy,

Several more dummies popped up, Rainbow Dash turned towards them and bit down hard, spraying bullets in their direction. Interestingly enough, several of the dummies dropped back down, taking cover from Light Machine Gun fire.

They had to give Rarity and the Kangaroos credit; they knew what they were doing when they designed this scenario.

Rainbow Dash continued to fire, then her Sen Guns clicked empty, and she dropped back down into cover.

“Reload!” she called out, from now on, she needed to pay more attention to how much ammo she was using, or she’d run out when she needed to not run out the most.

Twilight pulled the old magazines out from the Sen Guns, allowing them to fall to the ground; she slid two new ones in.

“Go!” she called.

Rainbow Dash popped back up and fired, cutting down two more of the dummies. To even more of their surprise, all of the dummies that were in cover popped up and began moving towards them! Whoever was operating them really knew what they were doing.

Rainbow kept her focus, using her ammo sparingly. The last thing she wanted to do was run out here.

She fired, mowing down the dummies as they approached her until there was one; it was three metres from where they were. Rainbow bit down hard, intending to cut this last one to pieces.

Click Click.

Empty!

Twilight heard the clicking, and just as the dummy came up to the sandbags, she pointed her revolver at it and pulled the trigger, sending an 11mm magnum bullet right through the dummies head, knocking it over.

The machine gun fire from the Mark VIIIs stopped.

“And there you have it!” Tebbs called out.

Everyone in the stands was cheering.

...

Rainbow Dash and Twilight made their way back out into the open. Vinyl Scratch and Scootaloo were grinning at them in accomplishment. Lyra and Bon Bon were stomping their hooves in applause. Derpy was cheering; Trixie was smiling warmly at them. The Doctor kept a neutral face.

But most important of all, the kangaroos from Emerald Ordinance were clapping. They had been impressed. They’d done it! They’d won!

Eventually the applause died down, and everyone piled out of their seats.

“How did you like the targets?” Trixie asked. “Trixie certainly couldn’t make it easy for you, of course!”

“That was you? All of it?” Rainbow Dash cried out in surprise.

“Well, Lyra helped too, but Trixie did do most of them,” Trixie affirmed.

Captain Blackthorn and the Kangaroo Commandos walked up to them.

“Good show!” Blackthorn called out. “If we have even a hundred ponies like you, we’ll kick the gryphons back for sure!”

“Corporal Sparkle?” Another kangaroo that they didn’t recognise said. “Peter MacGregor, Emerald Ordinance, you’ve certainly impressed us! We’ll be putting the proposed design into production post-haste!”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash grinned at each other. This was the happiest they’d been in the longest time.

...

Twilight and Rainbow walked back into the library. They were out of combat barding, having turned it back over to Rarity. Rarity had complained that it smelled, but the two ponies had just laughed at her.

“I need a nice long bath,” Twilight said.

“What’s the point? We’re just going to get dirty again,” Rainbow said sensually, stroking a hoof down Twilight’s flank.

“Twilight! Rainbow!” Tia called out.

The two mares froze, they had completely forgotten about her, and both of them turned red in embarrassment.

Tia fortunately was too young to pick up on it.

“That was so cool today! You two were amazing!” Tia called out in excitement. “It was super loud too! I had to keep my ears covered!”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash smiled at each other. They were parents now after all. They’d have their time later.

Chapter 7

“Vinyl Scratch!” Rainbow Dash called out at the top of her lungs.

Vinyl popped her head into Ponyville’s Library, smiling intensely. “You rang?”

Rainbow Dash was looking at a rather lewd note left addressed to her from an “anonymous pony.” Lewd letters from anonymous were always Vinyl Scratch in origin.

“Why do you continue to do this to me?” Rainbow Dash asked in annoyance.

Vinyl climbed in through the open window, regardless of the fact of the unlocked front door less than a metre away.

“Because it’s hilarious to see you blow up like this,” Vinyl said.

“I hate you so much,” Rainbow Dash scowled in annoyance.

“No you don’t!” Vinyl said, rubbing the top of her head against Rainbow Dash’s chest. “You love me and you know it.”

“Out you! Stop leaving me these notes!” Rainbow said.

Vinyl stuck her tongue out at Rainbow Dash and climbed back out the open window.

“Please use the door like a normal pony!”

“I am not a normal pony!” Vinyl called back.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Rainbow Dash said with a scowl.

Episodes like this were entirely normal in the friendship between Rainbow Dash and Vinyl Scratch. It was how they showed affection for each other. Tia on the other hoof did not know this, and assumed that Rainbow didn’t like Vinyl Scratch at all.

Tia frowned, Vinyl wanted to be Rainbow’s friend, and Rainbow just wasn’t giving her a chance, she decided that she needed to take matters into her own hooves and fix it!

She stared intensely at Rainbow Dash, reaching into her mind and planting the right thoughts.

Good as new! Tia smiled at her handiwork; Rainbow Dash was going to be a lot nicer towards Vinyl Scratch from now on! Things couldn’t possibly go wrong!

...

Vinyl Scratch knocked on the door to the Ponyville Public Library.

“Come in!” Rainbow Dash called from inside.

Vinyl Scratch pushed open the door and found Rainbow Dash lying on the sofa, sitting on the table was a bottle of wine and two lit candles.

“Hi Vinyl,” Rainbow Dash said sensually. “Come sit with me!”

Vinyl Scratch knew, or at least, thought she knew what Rainbow was doing, she was trying to get back at her for all the jokes she played on her. Vinyl decided to play along, she if she could turn the joke back around on her friend. She trotted over and sat down next to Rainbow Dash was sipping on a glass of wine, she poured one for Vinyl and offered it to her.

Prank or no, this sent up a red flag. Vinyl was a recovering alcoholic, Rainbow Dash was very well aware of this, and wasn’t cruel enough to actually offer her alcohol... was she? If so, this was turning into a very bad joke. Vinyl refused it, but found that she was unable to take her eyes of the glass as Rainbow set it back down on the table. Rainbow Dash set hers down as well, flipping herself over and crawling towards Vinyl.

“Ha ha. Okay Rainbow, you got me! You can stop pretending now,” Vinyl said uneasily. She didn’t think it could happen, but Rainbow Dash had finally outdone her.

Rainbow Dash looked up at her and smiled coyly. “Who’s pretending?” She leaned in close and planted a kiss right on Vinyl’s lips.

Red flag number two.

Vinyl pushed Rainbow Dash off her, sending the cyan Pegasus into the other corner of the sofa. “Okay... I know that we joke about getting intimate with each other all the time, but that is NOT okay! Rainbow, what would Twilight think about this!?”

“Who says she has to know?” Rainbow asked.

Red flag number three.

“I cannot believe I just heard that from you of all ponies!” Vinyl Scratch exclaimed. She smacked Rainbow Dash hard across the face, snapping her to her senses.

Rainbow shook her head in confusion. “Huh... what just happened?”

“I hit you is what just happened!” Vinyl cried out. “You had better explain yourself before I start hitting you again!”

Rainbow shook her head again. “I... don’t know I knew what I was doing... but it was like something was keeping me from acknowledging that what I was doing was wrong.”

“Aww! You’re not supposed to be fighting!” called a soft voice from the stairs.

Vinyl Scratch and Rainbow Dash looked over at Tia, who was standing there looking terribly disappointed. She had lot of explaining to do.

...

“You did what?!” Twilight cried out in anger.

Twilight, Vinyl, and Rainbow Dash were standing around the filly, looking upon her in anger at what she had done.

“Rainbow Dash was being so mean to Vinyl Scratch! So I made her be nice... with my mind!” Tia explained again.

“Tia! You can’t do that to ponies! You can’t make them change who they are! It’s not right!” Twilight called out.

“Well why not?!” Tia called out in frustration. “I did it to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon! And now they’re way nicer! Everypony is happier for it! Especially them!”

“Tia!” Twilight Sparkle called out. “You need to go undo it right now!”

“No!” Tia called out; she looked into Twilight’s eyes intently.

“Oh no you don’t!” Twilight said breaking eye contact with the filly. “Tia... I am so disappointed in you that you would actually try and do that to me.”

Tia tears began to flow from the filly’s eyes, she started crying, pushing past the three mares and running out the door.

“Tia! No! Come back!” Twilight called out.

...

Tia kept running, not paying attention to the direction she ran to, she kept on going, sobbing her eyes out. She just wanted to make the world nicer, was that so bad?

Tia ran headlong into somepony, causing her to stagger backwards in surprise.

“Oh... my! Are you all right?” the pony she ran into said.

Tia looked up to find that a pink maned, yellow coated Pegasus was standing over her.

“No...” Tia said truthfully. She looked around, she had run out of Ponyville and was near a small cottage next to the Everfree forest, luckily she stopped when she did otherwise she would have been halfway through the forest before she knew it.

“I’m sorry to hear that. What’s your name?” the Pegasus asked.

“Tia...” she managed.

“Nice to meet you Tia, I’m Fluttershy. I was just about ready to put on a kettle for tea, would you like some?” Fluttershy said with a smile.

Tia didn’t really want any tea, but she felt it would be rude to say no; instead she nodded in affirmation, and followed Fluttershy into her house.

Tia was hit by a horrific smell upon entering the cottage, unlike anything she had ever smelled before. She couldn’t help but cry out in surprise.

“What is that?!” she asked.

“Oh!” Fluttershy cried out. “My pie! I almost forgot!”

Fluttershy dashed into the kitchen and pulled a pie out of the oven.

“Phew! Didn’t burn!” Fluttershy said, sighing in relief. She turned towards the filly and with a smile asked if she would like some.

Once again, Tia didn’t really want any, but she didn’t want to sound rude, so she accepted a small piece of pie that Fluttershy offered her. Fluttershy put a kettle of water on to boil, and returned to the table where Tia was sitting at.

“Do you like the pie?” Fluttershy asked with a smile.

Tia did not, not only did it smell funny, it tasted funny, and the texture was unlike anything that Tia had ever eaten before in her entire life, but once again, she felt it would be rude to criticise it, so she simply nodded in affirmation, causing a bright smile from the Pegasus.

“Oh I’m so glad it turned out all right! This is my first time making it! It’s my own special secret recipe that I’ve been working on!” Fluttershy said enthusiastically.

Tia smiled, she’d made Fluttershy happy, and she hadn’t even needed to influence her mind. Twilight was right; she didn’t have to make ponies happy with her mind. She could do it through her actions.

Fluttershy poured Tia a cup of tea, which too tasted funny, but she didn’t say anything about it, she was a guest, after all, and a guest must always be polite.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what was troubling you?” Fluttershy asked the filly.

Tia looked at the floor guiltily. “I did something I shouldn’t have... it was wrong of me to try and force somepony into doing something they didn’t want to, even though it would help them... Fluttershy? Thank you for helping me see that.”

“You’re welcome,” Fluttershy said, knowing full well she hadn’t done or said anything.

“I need to go and apologise, thank you so much for the tea and pie! It was... nice!” Tia said with a smile.

Fluttershy smiled back. “You’re welcome! Feel free to come by and visit again sometime Tia!”

“I will!” Tia said, she got up from her seat and trotted outside the door and back towards Ponyville. Not realising that the Pie she had eaten had been made from the organs of DS Lucky and DC Banana Crème.

Chapter 8

Tia had not made it half way back to the library before she started to feel sick. She wanted to vomit, but struggled to keep it down.

The feeling was horrible, like nothing she’d ever felt before, Tia made it only another metre forward before she dropped to her knees and vomited violently in the street.

She collapsed on her side, beginning to shake and continuing to vomit not only on the street, but over herself. It was if her entire stomach disagreed with her and intended to purge every last bit.

Tia didn’t understand what was happening, and began to cry.

It was at this time a kangaroo commando on patrol, Dillingham to be precise. Took notice of the fallen filly, and rushed over to her.

“Oi! You all right kid?” he asked.

Tia’s only answer would be another round of vomiting. She needed a doctor.

Dillingham picked her up, not minding that he was getting covered in her vomit and hopped over to one of the parked Mark VIII cruiser tanks.

“Oi! This one needs to get to hospital! Get the lead out!” he called to the tank’s crew.

Everyone piled inside, and the Mark VIII cruiser tank A Gryphon Dead is Worth Two in the Bush. Drove off at flank speed towards the Royal Hospital in Canterlot, Dillingham held on to the filly for dear life as the Mark VIII rocketed through the river that ran through Ponyville and back over the other side.

This didn’t go unnoticed, at such speeds, the tank was very loud. Rainbow Dash had taken to the air to search for Tia, and spotted the fast moving tank rocketing towards Whitetail Wood. She dived down upon them, noticing that Dillingham had Tia in his arms.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Found her lying in the street covered in her own sick. Getting her to hospital, why? She yours?” Dillingham asked.

“Not exactly...!” Rainbow Dash yelled over the noise of the Mark VIII’s engine. “Just get her there safe! We’ll meet you there!”

“Aye!” Dillingham said.

Rainbow Dash peeled off back towards Ponyville. A Gryphon Dead is Worth Two in the Bush continued to rocket up the mountain.

Crunch!

The tank halted abruptly, causing Dillingham to nearly lose his hold on Tia.

“What the hell happened?”

The tank commanded poked his head out, climbing out of the tank. “We blew out the suspension! We’re going nowhere.”

Dillingham scowled. “You want something done right? Do it yourself.”

Dillingham gripped Tia tightly, hopping off and bursting forward at full speed. A kangaroo at full hop was just as fast if not faster than a Mark VIII. It reinforced that if kangaroos were good at anything, it was fast attacks.

In under a minute, Dillingham tore through into the city proper, hopping madly towards the Royal Hospital, he burst through the door and breakneck speed, sending them flying off their hinges.

“This girl needs a doctor!” he called out.

Tia vomited again.

...

Twilight, Vinyl, and Rainbow Dash were galloping up the mountain towards Canterlot. They’d caught a ride on another Mark VIII that had gone up to assist the broken down A Gryphon Dead is Worth Two in the Bush. They’d be hoofing it the rest of the way.

Twilight was worried, Rainbow Dash had said that Tia was sick, but with what she didn’t know.

Soon enough The trio made their way into the Royal Hospital, through the open doorway that was no longer covered thanks to Dillingham.

Dillingham was waiting for them at the receptionist counter. Waving over towards them. He led them back to where the doctors had taken her.

“She’s fine. I got her here in time. The Doctors are emptying the contents of her stomach.” Dillingham said. “That’ll tell us what made her sick. I’m surprised that kid had anything left to empty!”

Off in the distance, there was a Pegasus doctor chatting with a nurse over the status with another patient.

“Apple Bloom is doing much better today...” the nurse said. “I think we can finally take her off the sedatives, the magical healing seems to be doing its job.”

“Excellent,” the Pegasus doctor said. “What about that unicorn filly that was just brought in?”

“Stomach is empty, sent the contents off to be analysed,” the Nurse said. “We’ll know by morning.”

Twilight perked her head up. They had to be talking about Tia!

She trotted over towards the doctor and nurse. “Excuse me did I hear you talking about a unicorn filly...”

Twilight stopped as she got a better look at the Pegasus doctor. She let out a scream in surprise. It was Nightsinger.

Dillingham drew his submachine gun instinctively. Vinyl and Rainbow Dash ran over towards her friend.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” Rainbow spat at him.

“Begging your pardon miss,” Nightsinger said. “I’m just trying to do my job, and that’s taking care of a very sick unicorn filly.”

“Don’t play games with us Nightsinger!” Twilight cried angrily at him.

“Games? Miss I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Drop the act Nightsinger! We know who you are and you know who we are.” Vinyl called at him.

“Miss, please. I’ve never seen any of you before in my life, and you!” Nightsinger said, pointing a hoof at Dillingham. “Put that away before you hurt somepony! This is a hospital, not a shooting gallery!”

Dillingham obeyed, putting the Austin submachine gun away.

Twilight and her friends however looked at Nightsinger in confusion, but then they thought about it. Celestia had been turned into a filly and lost all her memories, could the same have happened to the Siblings Nightmare? But why was he still a full grown pony!

“Miss, if you and your friends don’t calm down, I’m going to have to call security,” Nightsinger said.

They looked at each other in surprise. Maybe he really didn’t know who they were.

“I’m sorry... doctor, I think I mistook you for somepony else,” Twilight said.

Nightsinger didn’t buy it for a minute, but he went on as if he didn’t care either way. “Yes, the unicorn filly, name unknown. Brought in by a kangaroo, and vomiting up her entire stomach. We pumped out the contents and sent them to be analysed. They should be back tomorrow morning; we’ll be keeping her here until then.”

“Okay... thank you doctor, can we see her?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“Are you members of her family?” Nightsinger asked.

“Umm... no, not exactly,” Twilight said.

“Then I’m afraid the answer is no. Family only... considering we don’t have records of who she even is... I’m not letting anypony see her until after we get the results from the stomach pump back,” Nightsinger said. “You can wait over there.”

Twilight frowned, but gave in. She wasn’t going to argue with an immortal, all powerful being of chaos, despite the fact that he likely didn’t know that he was that at all.

Instead, Twilight, Rainbow, and Vinyl sat down on a bench, and waited for Nightsinger to go away.

“I can’t believe this!” Rainbow Dash cried out in frustration. “Him of all ponies!”

Twilight nodded in agreement.

“Do we think he was telling the truth?” Vinyl asked.

“The siblings aren’t exactly known for being honest, Vinyl. We’ll trust that he was telling the truth... for now, but we’ll be keeping a very close eye on him,” Twilight said. “He mentioned Apple Bloom, which means that Big Macintosh is going to be around here somewhere. I’m going to go find him and talk to him about it.”

“He doesn’t know about the Siblings, neither does anypony else outside of us!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Are we going to tell him?”

“Yes. He’s got a right to know if Nightsinger is looking after Apple Bloom,” Twilight said simply. “You two wait here. I’m going to go find him.”

Chapter 9

Big Macintosh caught himself staring blankly at the wall again. The draught pony was lost in his own thoughts, not only about Apple Bloom, and her current status, but the way his life was going in general.

Big Macintosh felt somewhat guilty that he was spending all his time here at the Royal Hospital and none of it at home. He’d left Braeburn to deal with the farm chores all by himself. He knew his cousin understood, and naturally wanted to help. That didn’t make him feel any better.

Sweet Apple Acres had been in financial trouble for the last few years, ever since Big Macintosh’s grandfather had died. Granddaddy had always taken care of the business side of the Apple Farm. While Granny Smith had done the actual farm work. She knew everything there was to know about the growing side, but when it came to business... she didn’t have a clue.

Years of mismanagement had sent the Apple Family swarming in debt, and it had only gotten worse with the passing of Granny Smith during the winter.

Applejack had inherited both Granny Smith’s talent for growing, and her talent for business. This was why she let Big Macintosh run the business side of it, because unlike her, he actually knew what he was doing.

One would not have been able to guess by looking at him, but the simple farm pony was actually quite intelligent. He’d been attending the University of Canterlot for the last six years, taking classes during the winter semester, bucking for degrees in agricultural science and business management. It was taking longer than he’d like, but considering that he could only manage a single semester per year, it was slow going from here on in. He couldn’t afford to be away from Sweet Apple Acres for more than a year.

Applejack didn’t know a thing about business, and despite allowing Big Macintosh to take care of that side, she had liked to poke her head in anyway. Several corporations had made offers to distribute Sweet Apple Acres apples all around Equestria for a very reasonable price. It would be enough to keep the farm from defaulting for the next several years. Applejack had butted her head in and said no, of course.

Big Macintosh didn’t want to sell all his crops off to a corporation either. But splitting the profits with a corporation would be better than having no profits at all. Big Macintosh had tried to explain this to Applejack many-a-time, but to no avail. Since Granny Smith’s passing, it seemed like all the two ever did was fight over everything as insignificant as how to run the farm, to something as important as Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom... Applejack had grown unreasonable in the last few months, she’d hurt Apple Bloom badly for disobeying her, now Big Macintosh sat around the Royal Hospital, day in and day out, hardly ever leaving his little sister’s side.

Apple Bloom had been placed in a magical coma. She was healing, ever so slowly, but she was indeed healing.

On some days, Big Macintosh was joined by his kangaroo friend, Corporal Elliot Southerland, who he’d gotten to know very well over the last month, Elliot was very fond of Apple Bloom, and had been part of the reason why Apple Bloom was here now.

Elliot had given Apple Bloom and her friends a ride on his tank, which had angered Applejack to no end. When Applejack confronted Apple Bloom about it, the filly told her off, causing Applejack to get angry and beat the ever loving day lights out of her.

Big Macintosh suspected that Elliot blamed himself for what had happened. Big Macintosh did not. He blamed Applejack.

This had been bound to happen sooner or later, Applejack had become increasingly hostile towards her friends, her family, and frankly everyone she met. As the days went on, she got angrier. It didn’t excuse her behaviour, but they were heading for this for a very long time.

What Applejack had done was unforgivable. Big Macintosh was certainly in no hurry to offer forgiveness.

“Big Macintosh?”

Big Macintosh turned his head towards the door; standing in the opening was Twilight Sparkle.

“‘Ello Miss Twilight,” Big Macintosh said. “Somethin’ Ah can do fer ya?”

Twilight trotted into the room and sat down next to him. She told him her tail, sparing no detail of the Siblings Nightmare, what had happened to Applejack, and what had brought them to this point. Big Macintosh listened intently.

“I know that sounds crazy...” Twilight began.

“‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't,’” Big Macintosh quoted, catching Twilight off guard. “Ah believe ya. Ya’ll might be surprised, but Ah’m a learned pony.”

Twilight wouldn’t have guessed. She didn’t know Big Macintosh that well, he rarely came into town, and even when he did, he always looked incredibly bored and disinterested in everything around him, but she supposed that behind that bored expression, ticked a very active brain.

“Ya want me ta keep mah eyes on this Nightsinger fella, well he’s been takin’ care o’ mah sister, so you believe me Twilight, Ah intend to.”

“Thank you, Big Macintosh... is Apple Bloom doing all right?” Twilight asked.

“Eeyup.”

...

The night came and went; Doctor Nightsinger received the test results of Tia’s stomach pump back. What he found shocked and disgusted him to no end. He went out into the waiting area where Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Vinyl Scratch had all fallen asleep, leaning on each other’s shoulders.

Family or no, these mares were better than nothing.

“Excuse me,” Nightsinger said audibly enough for them to hear.

The three mares opened their eyes slowly, looking up at the pegasi doctor.

“I have the results back from the stomach pump... family or not, I figured that you wanted to hear this. The contents of your little filly’s stomach had large amounts of meat. Considering how much she was vomiting, I’m surprised that there was still any left to pump out... but that’s not the disturbing part, further analysis on the meat revealed it to be several organs... from a pony.”

The trio of mares’ mouths dropped open.

“Multiple... ponies in fact, the lab is doing further testing to see if they can’t identify DNA and see who those organs belong to.”

Twilight wanted to vomit. The idea of a pony eating meat was disgusting enough... the idea that Tia had eaten parts of another pony were even worse.

“I don’t suppose you three would know anything about this?” Nightsinger asked with suspicion.

They each shook their heads no, too stunned to speak.

“Figured as much,” Nightsinger said. “As you can figure, there isn’t going to be anypony seeing her until this mess is resolved. I highly suggest, and by suggest I mean ‘get out, or I’ll have security escort you out,’ that you go home.”

Nightsinger turned and went around the corner, leaving the three mares confused as to what they had just been told.

“What a piece of work he is!” Rainbow Dash seethed. “I think I preferred him when he was trying to kill us.”

Twilight frowned. “I don’t suppose you still have your Canterlot apartment, would you Vinyl?”

“Still mine for another few months!” Vinyl said with a smile. “Been meaning to get all my crap cleared out of it, glad I didn’t.”

“Glad to see your laziness is working out for us Vinyl,” Twilight said with a smirk. “We’ll go there. I for one don’t intend to leave this city without Tia.”

“You know we both got your back Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Whatever you decide we’re going to do, we’ll do!” Vinyl said grinning.

They’d give Nightsinger his time, but not a second longer.

Chapter 10

More missing posters had been posted in the Ponyville Post Office. There were now six posters hanging on the walls in the Ponyville Post Office. Two for the missing detectives, another one for a pony named Meilliot, two posters for missing kangaroo pilots, and a third for a missing representative of Emerald Ordinance.

This troubled Derpy Hooves to no end, and as such, she found herself hopelessly distracted during her delivery route, and despite the fact that nopony had sabotaged her mailbag today, she didn’t come anywhere close to making her deliveries on time.

Derpy returned her mailbag to the post office, and was about to make her way home when she bumped into Trixie. Neither of them had been paying attention.

“Sorry Trixie...I’ve got my head in the clouds today,” Derpy said.

“Trixie does too. I’m disturbed by all the missing person posters that have been plastered around town,” Trixie replied understandingly.

Somepony had taken to posting them everywhere they could. The missing detectives had been missing nearly a week at this point; everypony was worried to say the least. Nopony knew anything. Everyone who had gone missing either wasn’t from Ponyville, or kept to themselves.

“I think we need to do something!” Derpy said. “I can’t keep going to work and watch as more and more posters pile up!”

Trixie frowned at her friend; she was an illusionist, not an investigator. Derpy was a postal worker, what could they possibly do that the police weren’t already? Derpy understood Trixie’s convictions, but she couldn’t sit by anymore.

“I understand if you don’t want to get involved... but I need to,” Derpy said simply.

Trixie smiled at her friend. “Trixie has a few months to live at most, might as well spend it doing something worthwhile.”

Derpy smiled at her friend, she was glad to have her along for the ride.

...

They had no idea what they were doing.

Derpy and Trixie discovered very quickly that they had gotten in way over their heads. If they were going to crack this, they were going to need more help.

Lyra and Bon Bon were naturally good choices to ask, and of course, they agreed without hesitation. The Doctor would have been if he were an easy pony to find, which of course, he was not.

Derpy, Lyra, Bon Bon, and Trixie had found themselves on the edge of the Everfree forest. So far, it was the only place that the police hadn’t looked.

“We’re... we’re not really going to go in there, are we?” Lyra asked.

“It’s the only place that hasn’t been checked,” Derpy said. “CPS won’t go anywhere near it!”

“For good reason!” Bon Bon exclaimed. “There are... monsters in there!”

Derpy nodded. “We’ve faced down monsters before and come out okay,” Derpy smiled and placed a hoof on Bon Bon’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine. I promise.”

Lyra and Bon Bon felt much better with Derpy’s reassurances, and with that, the four mares took a deep breath and entered the forest.

Truth be told, it was not as bad as it had been in the past. Fire and kangaroo had cleared out many trees and the sun was visible overhead. The forest had been thinned so that walking along a predetermined path wasn’t necessary, because they weren’t going to find clues along the main road anyway. Everfree felt different now. The new found openness to the forest made it feel more like Whitetail Wood than the dark and scary Everfree forest. While things still operated on their own, the ponies felt that if they wanted to retake the forest and bring it back under their control, they could parts, maybe.

Everfree was vast, while the forest itself was relatively condensed around Ponyville, which was at the forest’s northern end, the forest extended hundreds of kilometres to the south and expanded east and west the farther south you went. While Everfree had at one time been under Equestrian control, retaking the forest now would take years upon years to claim the entirety of it.

Lyra and Bon Bon were trotting along the path, still slightly nervous about the situation, Derpy and Trixie had taken to searching just east of the path where the trees were thicker.

Lyra smiled at her friend, hoping to alleviate some of the uneasiness.

Bon Bon however did not smile back, she froze, and her mouth dropping open at what was lying before her. She let out a scream of terror, causing Derpy and Trixie to run to their aid.

Lyra looked at what Bon Bon was screaming at. When she saw it, Lyra screamed too.

Before them was a decomposing body of a unicorn mare. Eyes gorged out, despite being partially decomposed, they could tell that the mare’s coat was yellow. The body before them was one of the missing ponies. Detective Constable Banana Crème. Further walking around the area turned up the bodies of Detective Sergeant Lucky and the two Kangaroo pilots. All of them in equally bad shape.

Both Lyra and Bon Bon found themselves vomiting heavily. They had never seen something so horrible, so brutal, in their entire lives. None of them had.

What was worse was that there were still two unaccounted for. Derpy tried her best to get the group to stay positive, the bodies of Melilot and the Representative from Emerald Ordinance were not to be found, in the forest, there was hope, however slim, that they were still alive.

Trixie noted that the bodies were roughly along a straight line with each other, which meant that whoever dumped them here had walked in a straight line when they did the deed. Derpy smiled, this was the clue that they needed, and they could follow the line back to its origin. They were close to finding out the truth.

...

Following Derpy’s compass on as straight a line as they could, the mares walked towards the eastern edge of the Everfree forest. They broke the tree line and stopped. They were right next to Fluttershy’s cottage.

No... It couldn’t be! The line had led them here, but Fluttershy couldn’t be the one behind it, could she?

The four looked at each other in fear, silently communicating to each other that caution needed to be exercised from here on out.

The four took the first step, going up and knocking on the door to Fluttershy’s cottage. Fluttershy opened the door and was surprised to see the four of them together.

“Um... Hello,” Fluttershy said nervously. Though that wasn’t anywhere out of the ordinary. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Trixie glowered angrily at the pegasi, causing her to recoil slightly. “We know,” she said.

She was bluffing, they didn’t know if Fluttershy was behind this or not, but she figured that if they confronted her in this manner, she’d break down and spill everything. Turns out, Trixie was spot on.

“You... do?” Fluttershy said her eyes widened with fear. “Oh no... No no no!”

Fluttershy tried to slam the door in their faces, but Trixie was too fast, she caught the door with her hoof, pushing it open and sending the Pegasus flopping backwards.

The four closed in on her. Fluttershy panicked, her eyes darting around the room for an exit. She found one, the large open window at the other end of the room. Fluttershy took flight, darting quickly out the window as fast as she could.

“Lyra! Bon Bon!” Trixie called out. “Go after her! We’ll look and see if those other two are here!”

Lyra and Bon Bon nodded, running outside and towards Ponyville.

Derpy and Trixie went over to the partially open cellar door, pushing it open and trotting down the stairs.

Sitting bound and gagged was a kangaroo, his eyes wide with panic. Derpy and Trixie undid his gag, dropping it to the floor.

“She’s crazy! You hear me! She’s insane! You have to get me out of here before she comes back!” the kangaroo said.

“Relax!” Derpy said. “We’re here to help you!”

Chapter 11

Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Vinyl Scratch walked into Ponyville’s limits, passed the dug in Iron Hoof of Cromwell, each of them bitter by the day’s events.

“So much for plan A,” Twilight said in annoyance.

“Hey! I said I was sorry!” Vinyl called back. “What more do you want from me! I haven’t had to use that flat in almost a year!”

Twilight frowned and gave the off-white unicorn an apologetic look. “I’m sorry Vinyl, it’s not your fault. I just don’t like the idea of leaving Tia alone in Canterlot with Nightsinger watching over her. If Nightsinger was bluffing, then who knows what he’ll do!”

“You’re worrying too much Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said trying to relax her. “She IS still Princess Celestia after all, what can Nightsinger really do to her?”

Twilight sighed, Rainbow was right, she was worrying too much.

“I’ll help Vinyl look for her keys, Rainbow, can you go get a few days worth of food from the Library?” Twilight asked.

“I’m on it!” Rainbow Dash said, she leapt into the air and flew off towards the Library, landing in front of it and going inside, not aware that another pony was rapidly approaching the Library behind her.

...

The door to the Ponyville Library opened and quickly slammed shut behind it. Fluttershy dropped to the floor, panting heavily from exhaustion.

“Fluttershy?”

She looked up to see Rainbow Dash standing over her. Fluttershy leapt up, throwing her forelegs around Rainbow’s neck and pulling the cyan Pegasus close to her.

“Oh Rainbow!” Fluttershy said. “I am so happy to see you!”

“Clearly,” Rainbow Dash said returning Fluttershy’s hug. “I haven’t seen you in forever! Where have you been? What were you doing?”

“I’ve been keeping busy, doing things around my home, you know?” Fluttershy said sidestepping the question. “Do you care about me, Rainbow?”

Rainbow Dash was caught off guard by Fluttershy’s question, her eyes blinked, thinking that she might have misheard her friend. “What kind of question is that? Of course I do!”

Fluttershy smiled. “I care about you too, Rainbow... a lot. Ever since we were fillies! You were there, sticking up for me when those bullies gave me a hard time about not being very good at anything. I... I liked you a lot.”

“When you say ‘liked me a lot...’?” Rainbow started too asked, not entirely sure where Fluttershy was going with this.

“I... have had a crush on you since we were in flight school together,” Fluttershy said. “I love you, Rainbow Dash. I’ve loved you for years, but I was too scared to every say anything or do anything about it... and now I’m worried...”

Fluttershy broke down into tears; she knew what was going to happen to her. Derpy, Trixie, Lyra, and Bon Bon were going to expose her. She was going to be locked away forever... or worse. She had no other options; she needed Rainbow to protect her.

“Fluttershy...” Rainbow Dash said. She frowned at her friend, not liking where this path had taken her in the slightest. “You’re my friend, Fluttershy. I do care about you, I really do! But I... don’t love you. I’m sorry, but I’m with Twilight.”

Fluttershy felt her heart crack. The sting of Rainbow Dash’s rejection ripped her mind in two; the worry had been replaced by rage.

Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed, anger surging through her entire body. She pushed Rainbow Dash away, and pounced on her, tacking the surprised Pegasus to the floor.

“Twilight! You’ve known Twilight for two years! How could you love her more than me! We’ve been friends since we were fillies!” Fluttershy said, her voice was quiet, but filled with rage.

“We weren’t that great of friends then Fluttershy...” Rainbow said, trying to reason with her. It ended up being her biggest mistake. Fluttershy lifted her wing, revealing the knife stained with the blood of five.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened with fear, and as she looked back into Fluttershy’s eyes, she noticed that they were filled with murder. When Fluttershy drew the knife, she panicked, trying to break free of Fluttershy’s hold.

The meek pegasi was much stronger than she looked, Rainbow only managed to get a singly hoof free, she pushed it under Fluttershy’s chin, trying to keep the knife away.

Fluttershy’s rage filled strength proved to be more than a match for Rainbow, the knife began to lower towards Rainbow’s chest in spite of her attempts.

“Fluttershy! No! Stop! Please!” Rainbow cried in desperation, her hoof slipped, and she lost control of the only thing keeping her from harm.

Fluttershy plunged the knife into Rainbow Dash’s chest, causing the cyan Pegasus to gasp in surprise. The pain was unimaginable, amplified by the fact that her assailant was the most gentile of all ponies.

Rainbow Dash was drowning, her lungs were filling with her own blood, and she choked for any air that she could get. Fluttershy pulled the knife out and stabbed her again.

“Ooo lub be nah?” Fluttershy asked stabbing her again, and again, and again.

Rainbow Dash was crying, she lay on the floor in her own blood, she felt her life slipping away.

She gave Fluttershy a last look, she tried to speak, but was unable. Her eyes rolled past Fluttershy’s and the world seemed to wash away in a brilliant white light.

I’m sorry.

That was the last thought that went through Rainbow Dash’s mind, and with it, she drifted off into the endless sleep.

...

Twilight opened the door to the Library and stepped inside. “Rainbow! We found Vinyl’s keys! I... ” Twilight stopped and looked at Fluttershy standing over Rainbow Dash, knife clenched in her teeth, Rainbow’s lifeless body at her hooves.

She screamed, not in fear but in anger, Twilight tackled Fluttershy to the ground, catching the Pegasus off guard and knocking the knife away.

“You killed her!” Twilight cried in rage, she pressed her hooves on Fluttershy’s neck, blocking off the Pegasus’ airway.

Fluttershy gasped for air, but found herself unable to take any in. She struggled to push Twilight away, but like she had been with Rainbow, rage made Twilight too strong to push away.

Fluttershy’s face was turning blue, she tried to plead with Twilight to make her stop, but no sound would come. Fluttershy made a last attempt to breath, but she could not, she looked at Twilight, her eyes fell to the side, and her head drooped.

Twilight realised what was happening and backed off. She prodded Fluttershy, but the Pegasus would not move. She had stopped breathing.

Twilight began to cry, Rainbow Dash, the love of her life, was dead, and now so was her assailant, at her own hooves.

Twilight backed away, sitting against the wall, she could only watch in horror at the sight before her.

Her saddlebags had fallen off; Twilight looked to her left and discovered that her revolver was lying on the ground next to her.

She levitated the revolver up to inspect it. Emerald Ordinance No.4 Revolver, 11mm magnum. She snapped open the breach, it was fully loaded. Twilight snapped it shut and pulled back on the hammer. She sighed and looked back at the bodies of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy lying on the floor in front of her. When she came to Ponyville, she had six friends. Spike had long been out of contact, on the diplomatic staff of an Ambassador with the Green Dragonflight. One of their members had been destroyed by Overdrive, causing a political scuff up. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were dead. Pinkie Pie and Applejack were nowhere to be found. Now it was just her and Rarity.

If Twilight was going to get her way, soon enough it would be only Rarity left.

Twilight pointed the revolver at her temple, and closed her eyes, she took a deep breath. She was ready.

“Twilight? I saw your door was open and... what are you doing!?”

Twilight’s eyes opened to find Vinyl Scratch looking at her from the opening.

“You need to put that down! Right now!” Vinyl called out to her, her voice was filled with panic.

“What’s the point?” Twilight asked. “Rainbow Dash is dead. Fluttershy is dead. All of my friends are either dead or gone.”

“Hey! Don’t talk like that!” Vinyl said; she slowly walked over to her. “Not everypony is gone. I’m still here. Remember what I said? You will always have me until you decide you don’t want me around.”

Twilight looked up at her friend, she smiled faintly at her, she eyed the revolver, still levitating in front of her and frowning at it.

“Do you think...?” Twilight began but was interrupted by Vinyl wrapping her magic around it.

“That I could hold on to this for you for a while?” Vinyl Scratch finished. “Of course.”

Twilight released it, allowing Vinyl to slip it away into her saddlebags. The mares embraced each other.

“It would be really nice if you could lie and tell me that everything would be okay,” Twilight said, tears streaming down her face and onto Vinyl’s shoulders.

“Yeah...” Vinyl said. “Yeah it would.”

Epilogue

“Twilight? Ya need ta wake up now.”

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes shot open, she was tired, it was the middle of the night, and she’d had a hell of a day. The police had already been by, and taken away the bodies of both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, the Library was still considered a crime scene, though the police believed that Twilight had only acted in self defence. She was staying with Vinyl and Scootaloo until the Police gave her the okay to go back home.

Twilight sat up in the bed and looked in front of her. Applejack was sitting on the floor, looking at her with sad eyes, sad, blood red, eyes.

“Applejack?” Twilight asked.

“Sorry Twilight, this ain’t a social call, Ah gots a message ta deliver,” Applejack said. “From Overdrive, He ain’t happy with ya. Says that ya’ll just handed victory to the Siblings Nightmare, he intends ta punish ya.”

Twilight frowned. “Whatever it is, I deserve it.”

Applejack scowled. “He ain’t just punishin’ ya Twilight. He’s punishin’ everypony! Now ya listen ‘ere. In Whitetail Wood, there are caves. These caves are hidin’ somethin’ that’s been hidden fer a real long time. You and Vinyl Scratch need ta go there an’ find it. She already knows where it is. Jus’ ask her an’ she’ll take ya. Ya understand?”

Twilight nodded in affirmation.

“Good.” Applejack said, she turned to leave, but stopped short and turned her head back. “One las’ thing. Ya’ll better do it. ‘Cuz if ya don’ Ah’ll hafta come back ‘ere. Ya’ll don’t want that. Trust me. Ah ain’t got freewill no more. If he sends me back here ta motivate ya... somepony’ll get hurt.”

“I... understand,” Twilight said. “Applejack? I’m sorry.”

“Ah am too. G’night Twilight.”