"The Buck, Pinkie!" Rainbow shouts back. "What happened?" She points down to the floor, her eyes locked on the scene in front of her. Doug is laying on the ground, face down in a puddle of red liquid that slowly spreads away from his body. "Doug's been..." Rainbow's painted hooves clasp to her muzzle, giving the impression that somepony took two large bites out of her chin. "...Murdered!"
"Oh, you did read your paper!" exclaims Pinkie Pie, excitedly pronking around the room. The pie around her jiggles, the mare bouncing up and down with it. "I was worried for a moment there!"
"Everypony, Please!" Rarity shouts, the other ponies murmuring to themselves coming to a pause. "We need to calm down! There is an emergency here, and it must be taken care of!" Rarity quickly moves to the refreshments table, gathering a stack of paper towels and refilling her drink from the punch bowl. She quickly walks back to the body, dropping down and wiping the floor with her hooves. "Stupid restrictions against using my horn," she scoffs, looking at the stack of towels clutched in her hoof.
Applejack continues staring down at Doug's body, just laying on the floor. Her eyes move up, taking a hard look at each of the other ponies and how they are reacting. Fluttershy is holding back, her mane set in such a way to hide the gruesome sight. Pinkie Pie is pronking around the room, looking for clues or some such nonsense for the game Doug had set up.
"Oh, come on, Rarity, it isn't that bad. I can't fly, neither can Fluttershy." Rainbow says, getting to her hooves. "What we need to do is figure out what happened!" She holds up a hoof for Rarity, the hoof still painted completely black after it is wiped clean.
Rarity nods vigorously, her eyes staring at Doug's lifeless body. She carefully moves forward, whispering, "There, there, everything is going to be okay. It's okay, Rarity, it's okay." She lays down one towel after another, slowly covering the thick liquid on the laminated wood floor. "It'll be okay, you don't need to get upset." She picks his head up, cradling it as the last of the paper towels are used to get the liquid underneath, and wipes the floor clean. Rarity nods, a pleased smile on her muzzle, unceremoniously dropping Doug's head back to the floor as she carries the wet towels to a trash can, dumping the lot inside.
"Okay, now that Rarity's done being... Rarity, we need to get to the bottom of this!" Applejack looks around the room, staring each pony in the eye. "Ah'm not the murderer, and Ah want each pony to say the same!"
Fluttershy shies down, covering her muzzle with her mane. Applejack stares at her, her eyes narrowing at the reluctant pegasus. Fluttershy cautiously peeks an eye up, immediately hiding again when she sees Applejack's stare. Pinkie Pie finishes shutting and locking all the doors to the room before returning to the group.
The clock in the back wall strikes 9:05 as Rainbow says, "Oh, come on, Applejack! Nopony's going to admit to being the murderer!" Her hoof raises, pointing at Applejack, "In fact, it's probably you!"
Applejack holds a hoof to her chest, mouthing the word 'me?' as Pinkie Pie giggles, "Come on, silly! You've gotta have a reason to pick out somepony as the murderer! Otherwise we can just accuse everypony and then we're all winners! Well, except for the killer, because they failed to kill everypony else!" She sits down, her glass of juice in one hoof as the other pats her chin, "Well, and everypony who got killed before we figure it out. I suppose they don't win either."
"Okay, well," Rainbow says, tapping her hoof against the floor, "Applejack is trying to get to the bottom of this, right? And that's what she'd do if she was innocent. But all of us are acting pretty innocent here." She starts stalking around Applejack, a sniff of the overripe apples coming from the farmpony's costume. "I think she's hiding something and she knows it."
Fluttershy quietly adds, "Um, well, that's right, but. Well, what if we think about this. I mean, we know the... killer has to do something to their victims. So all we have to do is figure out what that something is, and then link it to the pony doing this!" Her face brightens, slowly coming out from behind her mane and looking around the room for any sort of clue as to how Doug died.
Pinkie Pie nods vigorously, "Yupperoonies! I mean, we have to think about this logically, right? About who the killer is!" Rarity begins looking around Doug's body, carefully stepping around his outstretched arms as she scans back and forth, her hoof coming up to tap her mouth.
Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes, "Right, Pinkie, you get right on that." She grits her teeth, "I still thinks it's Applejack." Applejack grits her teeth, staring at Rainbow Dash and fuming.
The clock strikes 9:10 as Pinkie Pie says, "I mean, she's in this very room!" the pink mare continues, pointing a hoof at Applejack, "She could be you!" Her eyes grow wide as she points a hoof at herself, "She could be me!" Her eyes narrow, a hard expression as she points a hoof at you. Yes, you. "She could even be-"
The lights go off again, silence pervading the pitch black room. A quiet whisper before a pony gives a gurgling scream, the loud thud of a body hitting the floor, followed by the quiet 'tink' of glass and a splash of liquid.
The lights turn back on just as quickly as they went off. Rainbow is laying on the floor, her throat stained red and a similar red pool spreading from her body. Her eyes are closed, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, her body still.
Fluttershy lets out a quiet 'eep!' as Applejack backs up, her eyes growing wide. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy both stare at Applejack, accusing stares in their eyes. Fluttershy begins stammering; Pinkie Pie looks like she wants to say something as well but she waits, letting the pegasus try to get the words out.
Rarity gasps and dashes back over to the refreshment table. She gathers up another stack of paper towels, her glass refilling, and quickly begins sopping up the liquid around Rainbow. She grimaces as a drop of the liquid touches her hoof, nearly knocking over Rainbow's full glass as she towels her own hoof off. Her attention turns to the puddle, the remainder of the towels picking up the viscous fluid and then dumping them into the trash can.
Fluttershy finally manages to say, "Applejack's the killer!" She points a hoof at Rainbow, "Rainbow was going to accuse her, and then she... she killed her!" The pegasus manages to hold the angry expression for a few seconds before dropping down, going back to her normal shy self and hiding behind her mane. "Um... that wasn't too much was it?"
Applejack winks at Fluttershy before saying, "Now, 'Shy, let's not go jumping to any conclusions here! Ah already said, Ah ain't the killer!" She backs up a little more as Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy advance on her, barely holding onto her glass of tomato juice. "Let's calm down and be reasonable about this! Ah bet the killer got Rainbow, to try to put more suspicion on me!"
"Or, you couldn't hold in your temper! And decided to do her in yourself!" Rarity points an accusing hoof at Applejack, "You and Rainbow are always competing about every little thing, and you've taken the opportunity to knock her out of the game first! Because you knew that she would be the one to figure out how you killed Doug!"
"A likely story!" exclaims Pinkie Pie, a gray and white detective cap finding its way on her head. "But don't you think it's just a little too convenient for Applejack, for Rainbow to be the one killed?"
"What do you mean?" asks Fluttershy, Applejack raising an eyebrow. Rarity glances up at the clock before moving over, listening as Fluttershy continues, "But, you're saying if Applejack is the killer, that's good for her. But if Applejack isn't the killer, it's also good for her?"
"I think it's good for Applejack whether she is the killer or not!" says Rarity, holding a hoof to her mouth and tapping. "After all, she is still in the game, yes?"
Pinkie Pie blows a bubble out of a pipe that mysteriously appears in her hoof, "Hmm, you may have a point, Rarity, that each of us are, indeed, lucky to still be in this game. But! In regards to what you said, Fluttershy. You are correct on the second point, that if Applejack is innocent then Rainbow being murdered helps her. Because, you see, you have to consider the reverse. Does it really help her if she is the killer?" She paces back and forth, an uncommon occurrence for the pink pony, "It would seem instead that it does not, because it would put more suspicion on her!"
The clock strikes 9:15 as Rarity says, "But, if killing Rainbow decreases the chance of us suspecting her to be the killer, doesn't that make it more likely for her to kill Rainbow instead of somepony else?"
Applejack rubs her head with her free hoof, "Ah'm sorry, all this game theory is starting to hurt my head." She shakes her mane a few times, "Maybe start over?" She goes to the refreshment table, looking for something stronger before sighing disappointingly. She chugs her glass of tomato juice before refilling it, grabbing a cupcake and moving back to the group.
"I don't think we need to!" exclaims Pinkie Pie, pointing a hoof between Applejack and Rainbow, "Because we all know that Applejack wouldn't have thought that far ahead, not in the brief window she had between Rainbow accusing her and when the lights went out!"
"Yes, well, I think you were accusing somepony at that point," Fluttershy says.
"No no no," Pinkie Pie says, shaking her head, "I was just making a point that any of us could have been the killer!" Fluttershy opens her mouth as Pinkie Pie continues, "And by me taking suspicion away from Applejack, who is obviously not the killer, that lets us get to the root of who the real killer is!"
Fluttershy says, "I mean, I can kind of follow what you all are saying about this. Don't you think it's a little, um, outside the purview of the game? We're supposed to be looking for evidence around here, not trying to figure out the killer based on their personalities."
Applejack shakes her head, "Ah'm with Fluttershy, Ah don't want to be messing with any of this outside stuff." She and Fluttershy move over to the body, each trying to find anything that is missing or there that shouldn't be there, but nothing immediately stands out to them.
Rarity replies to Pinkie while she is walking around the room, "Well, but doesn't that only make it more likely that you are the killer, Pinkie? By trying to protect Applejack, who you claim is innocent, you throw suspicion off of yourself!" Rarity nods a few times, "That makes it more likely that you are the killer, trying to make yourself seem like you are just trying to get to the bottom of this!"
Applejack and Fluttershy walk a lap around Doug's body. The chains are still there, the shoulder pad slightly bent from how he is laying on it, nothing jumping out at them. They make their way to the refreshment table, each grabbing a small bite of cake as they look at the various desserts, the punch bowl, and the stacks of paper towels conveniently laid out if there happened to be a spill. Rarity walks over to the refreshment table, joining the two mares there. Pinkie Pie moves over to Rainbow's body, looking down at the pegasus' hooves.
The clock strikes 9:20 as Pinkie Pie smirks back at Rarity, "Very perceptive, Rarity! That's very-"
The lights go off, a flurry of hooves stomping on the floor. A loud thump echoes through the room, followed by the splash of liquid as a glass hits the wood. The clop of hooves returns, heading back to the refreshment table.
The lights come back on, Pinkie Pie lying on the floor. She has her hat half covering her face, the sound of giggling coming from underneath. A puddle of red liquid is growing from near her, the half-eaten pie costume bent awkwardly around her but still intact.
Applejack walks over, lightly kicking Pinkie Pie with a hoof, "Hey, Pinkie, you're supposed to play dead."
"Oh! Oops! Bleagh!" Pinkie Pie's hat drops down, her head thumping against the floor, though her body continues jiggling from the giggling.
"Ugh," moans Rarity, grabbing yet another stack of paper towels from the table, "I'm going to kill Doug for real if this stains. Or at least make him help replace the wood." She bends down, starting to lay out the paper towels. A stifled laugh comes from Rainbow Dash, the mare immediately moving a hoof to her mouth and quieting down.
"Oh dear," says Fluttershy, glancing between Rarity and Applejack. "So, if the killer gets one more of us, then they win." She nervously paces back and forth, drinking the remainder of her glass of tomato juice. "I sure hope that doesn't happen. That would be just... terrible. I don't know if I could live with myself."
"That's right, 'Shy," Applejack says, moving over to Doug's body. She looks down at the area Rarity cleaned up first as the unicorn mops up the most recent stain. Applejack watches Rarity carefully as the unicorn looks back up at her.
"Think you see something, Applejack?" Rarity says, smirking up at her. "Or you just worried that you left a clue behind?" She grabs the used towels, dumping them in the trash. "Because I think I know who the killer is!"
Fluttershy walks over to the three bodies, laying on the floor. She frowns, tapping her hoof against Doug's full glass of tomato juice. She glances over, seeing Pinkie Pie's full glass, standing upright next to the pink body. Fluttershy grins, "I know who the killer is, and I can prove it."
Applejack shakes her head, "Oh, come on, 'Shy, how'd you go and figure out how Rarity did it?" She looks down at the three bodies, "Ah sure don't see anything that don't belong."
Fluttershy cowers down, hiding behind her mane, one eye peeking over. Rarity smirks, walking over to the refreshment table and grabbing a cupcake, taking a long bite. The unicorn says, "Are you sure, Applejack? Not just trying to stall for enough time for the lights to go off again? Because I have a suspicion of who the killer is, too."
Applejack smirks right back, "Well, Ah hope you have some good proof. Because Ah'm sure that the killer is staring right at me."
"Oh, come on," groans Pinkie Pie, "They're both staring at you. It's not like there are a lot of choices."
"Pinkie Pie, you're supposed to be dead," Rainbow whispers from next to her. The pink pony grumbles, going back to laying still.
Fluttershy steels herself, coming out from behind her mane. She stands up, raising her hoof and pointing it between Rarity and Applejack. "Well, I do have proof, and the killer is..."