//------------------------------//
// Ground Zero 
// Story: Murder in Ponyville 
// by Roobles 
//------------------------------//

Life can be funny sometimes.

Not in the cracking up with laughter, sides hurting, hard to breathe sort of way.  No.  That's more of Pinkie's game.  And she's good at what she does, in the moments that she can.  I'm talking about that special kind of way, when you're laughing at things you shouldn't.  When you're so broken up, that your body slows down.  When your nerves stop working, and you just can't feel it anymore.  No thoughts.  Don't know if you're breathing.  And all you have is that special kind of laughter.  Yeah.  That kind of funny.  The moments when you sit back and realize that all of life is just a fucking joke.


I lost a friend today.


Not in a dramatic or metaphysical way either.  What I mean is, yesterday we had a night on the town together.  Real good time; met some pretty ladies.  Finest cider in all the land. But this morning?  Well, I found him on the side of the road.  Rigid.  Cold as ice.  Never made it home.

But that's just the sad part.  Shit happens, and we all know it.

You want to know what's funny?  It's that nopony fucking cares.

You hear these stories.  Terrible, sad stories about a mare that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Butchered like a julienned carrot, and left sitting pretty.  You know the type?  Royal guards lining up the crime scene, mayor gushing to make a public statement.  Tears and broken hearts all around.  It usually happens in a place like Manehatten, or somewhere dark like Filly.  It's not so common in a town like Ponyville.

But that's just fine.  Because that's not how things went down this morning.

I wasn't the first to find him.  Not the third, fourth or fifth either.  The truth is, I'm still even nursing a bit of a hangover.  So I wasn't exactly an earlier morning riser.  By the time I found his body, ponies were already filling up the street.  But they weren't there to pay respects.  Hell, they weren't even gawking.  They were just going about their daily chores.  Business as usual.  Walk around the corpse if you have to, and be on your merry fucking way.

You want to know what else is funny?  I couldn't do a thing about it.

I just stood there, mind collapsing, caught in a moment of disbelief.  Turn my head one way, and there's the second best friend I ever have had.  Unmoving.  Face down on the ground.  Turn my head again, and a bunch of everyday ponies.  Some with the gall to even wave as they passed me by.


Unreal.


But I had to book it.  

Much as he meant to me, I couldn't stick around the crime scene.  I was the last one anypony saw him alive with, and now I had to deal with the implications of that.  I was sitting in the hot seat of prime suspect number one, should anypony ever bother to stop, look, and give a fuck.  





So I found myself pacing around the front of Sugar Cube Corner, failing to piece it all together.  Empty mug of hot chocolate and crumbs were the only remnants on my table, and I was stepping with a nervous twitch.  Always looking behind my shoulder to see who or what might be coming.  Be it the guard, or something more sinister.

None of it added up, and time was not on my side.

Ponyville is not a town of killers.  And even if it was, there are plenty of jackasses that have it coming more than my friend.  No offense to the mules, but honestly even I think about offing one from time to time.  Call it a community service.

Was it something personal?  Did he have debts?  Enemies I didn't know about?  Were there parts of his life he never told?  I tried to remember anything I possibly could.

He moved into town about a year ago; came from Canterlot.  No baggage.  No fuss.  Nothing.  He was never much in the way of working, but he got by.  I didn't ask, and he didn't tell.  But I never saw him pick a fight before.  Never had to bail him out in a pinch.  Never even heard him raise his voice for anything other than a toast.

Fuck.  I was beginning to tear up just thinking about it.  Who would want to kill a guy like that?

I was halfway through another sip of my empty mug, when I was startled by that awful southern drawl.

"Well howdy there, Mrs Cake.  Any chance of a Pinkie round these parts?  I've got some apples..."



Farmponies.  



Maybe that was the answer.  Ponyville was a rural town, with an earth pony mindset. 

Maybe it wasn't personal.  Maybe it was a message.  Maybe it was the work of Earth Pony Supremacists.

You hear stories about them from time to time.  Burning wicker pony effigies, and stringing ponies up by their necks.  Burning crops and killing pets.

It would explain why nopony seemed to care.  Why the town mocked me, and turned a blind eye to the fresh corpse on the side of the road.  

Bigots.  The lot of them.  I was seething, just thinking about it.

I didn't believe the dopey, orange pony had it in her.  Not directly.  I was well aware of her wretched poker face, and that's a bit of a prerequisite in any kind of a blood sport.  No.  But that didn't rule out her freakish brother.  Don't get me wrong; my friend was built like a fucking rock.  But he wouldn't have been a proper match for that red, hulking beast of a stallion.

It was a stretch, even for my standard lines of reason.  But it's all I had to work with.  And based on those implications, anybody not an earth pony, self included, could be in mortal danger.  And if I was next on their chopping block, the last place they'd look is their own back yard.  If they were coming for me, I at least was going to have the element of surprise.  

And if I was wrong?  Well, my addiction to sweets isn't much of a secret.  Anypony looking for me, for any reason, is bound to check out Sugar Cube Corner.  And when your friend mysteriously shows up dead one day, it doesn't exactly leave you wanting to be found.