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// Start! 
// Story: My Little Doubt 
// by Knackerman 
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	"Whaaaaaat!?" The sound, halfway between a gasp and a scream came from the room that Applejack and Twilight had awakened in. Pinkie Pie had managed to sit up in such a way that her gaze fell on the open door and the horror that lay within. "Fluttershy!? Wh-what happened? Who did this!?" The pink pony was in tears, her large blue eyes somehow even bluer than usual as thick sobs threatened to overwhelm her speech. Applejack hurried back to try and comfort her friend, tears welling up in her eyes as well.
Applejack hugged Pinkie Pie tight as the pair cried together, Pinkie's crying loudly while Applejack just barely managed to hold her own sobs in check. The country pony turned back to Twilight as she stroked Pinkie's mane comfortingly, "So neither of ya think this coulda just been an accident? Ah'll grant ya, Ah don't really see how this could've happened on accident, but who would want to do something like...that...to Fluttershy?"
Before Twilight could answer, a rattling sound came to all three pairs of ears. Leaving the room that housed the pegasi's grizzly remains, Twilight Sparkle made her way back into the room with her still living friends and moved cautiously to the wall opposite of where they were huddled. Pinkie Pie's sobs had quieted as the three ponies stared at a hunk of crystal embedded in the wall that vibrated violently back and forth. It sounded for all the world like something was scratching at the other side. Without warning the hunk of crystal began to glow and slide slowly open. Something ghastly white suddenly landed on the floor with a sickening thump. "Oh, thank goodness! I was so worried it was just me down here!"
"Rarity!" the other three ponies shouted as one. "How did you get in here?" asked Twilight.
"Oh I just haven't the foggiest dear. I woke up in the dark and started fumbling may way along the wall. I tried to lighten things up a bit with my horn, but it didn't seem to help much at all." The fashion minded pony paused, raising one hoof to her face. She still had on her sunglasses. She blushed gently before removing them. "But I see now what my problem was there. *Ahem* So does anypony have any idea how we came to be here?"
"Ya don't remember anything either Rarity?" questioned Applejack.
"I'm afraid not, one moment I was admiring Fluttershy's darling little ensemble she had made for Angel," Rarity didn't seem to notice her friends wince as she continued, "and the next everything just went dark! The next thing I know, I'm banging against this shiny...lump of...gorgeous crystal." As the suddenly enraptured Rarity moved closer to the slab of stone that had moved to allow her entry, something just below her throat began to glow.
Twilight moved closer to have a look. "Rarity, what's that on your chest?"
"What's wha-ha-ha-aaaaahh!?" Rarity scrambled back as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the crystals surface. An ornate sigil pulsed a haunting white against her alabaster coat. The emblem was strange, almost like a serpent coiling around a sword, twin heads splitting in two different directions. It's glow faded as the unicorn backed away from the stone, and flared again as she leaned in for a closer look. "Why I have no idea where this thing could have come from!" She brushed at it frantically with her hooves. "It won't come off!" she shouted, panicked.
"Now just calm down sugarcube," soothed Applejack. "Twilight, have ya ever seen anything like that before in yer studies?"
"I'm not sure," replied Twilight as she studied the glowing rune. "The symbol seems familiar but...I don't think I've seen it in a very long time." The purple princess turned her attention from Rarity to the portal she had come through. "But from what I can tell, it looks like that sigil is what allowed you to open this pathway. It's tied to this stone now." It seemed the room Rarity had awoken in was much larger than the one they had found themselves in. Twilight's light extended several feet in front of her, but only barely illuminated a distant set of stairs, that lead downward, that seemed to be carved from the cave itself.
"Is there anyone else here?" Inquired Rarity, following Twilight's gaze.
A look of shock crossed Pinkie Pie's face and Twilight herself felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. How were they possibly going to break the news to Rarity? "Ac...Actually..." Twilight began. A sharp thump stopped her from continuing.
"It's just us." Applejack said quickly, leaning nonchalantly against the slab of stone that she had closed over the doorway to the room where Fluttershy still hung in silence. With the stone door back in place, it looked just like any other wall in the room. "It's just the four of us ponies locked in here. We were just about to try and figure a way out. Good thing you came along when ya did." Why was Applejack lying? "Why don't ya and Pinkie Pie sit tight here while me and Twilight have a look around out yonder. That way we don't have to leave Pinkie here in the dark. Ah don't think she's well enough to move just yet." Applejack motioned for Twilight to follow her as she slipped passed Rarity 
"Twilight, be careful," called Pinkie Pie piteously, tears still visible at the corners of her eyes.
The alicorn princess followed swiftly after Applejack, as the farm pony was already at the end of the landing and gazing down the stairs into the deeper darkness of the cavern below. "Applejack! Why didn't you let me tell Rarity about Fluttershy?" she demanded.
"That was...wait just a minute, do ya hear that?" Applejack seemed to be straining her ears to hear some sound rising from below. Cautiously, the earth pony began to make her way down the stairs. Now that she was closer, Twilight's magical light just reached to the bottom of the stairs.
"Hey, answer me!" Shouted Twilight as loud as she dared.
Applejack glanced back over her shoulder. "Do ya really think tellin' Rarity about that in this situation would be wise, Twi?" The farm pony drawled, as she continued making her way down into the darkness. "She would've lost it, just like Pinkie Pie. Ah don't know about you, but Ah'm thinkin' we're gonna need to stay calm and collected until we figure out just what's goin' on here. Trust me, Ah'm no happier about keepin' Rarity in the dark than you are, but we've got bigger problems on our hooves right now." With that, she reached the last step and turned her head back and forth, trying to see if she could hear the sound she had heard before once more. She paused and squinted into the darkness to her right, "Ah think Ah see somethin'..." was all she said before she trotted off into the darkness.
"Applejack?" Twilight was only about halfway down the stairs, but her light wasn't doing anything to illuminate the part of the room her friend had slipped into. Shadows twisted and danced into macabre shapes as she sought vainly for even a glimpse of the blonde maned pony. "Applejack, this is no time to mess around...please answer me!" Testing her wings, Twilight hovered, and then glided the rest of the way down the stairs, hoping that she'd have a better chance of finding Applejack once she reached the bottom. She landed roughly, not yet practiced at using her wings in enclosed places. "Applejack?" she called out again. The texture of the darkness just beyond Twilight's light seemed to shift and change. Suddenly something rose on ebony wings, soaring out of the darkness. It's yellow eyes flashed in the light as it moved to pounce. Without thinking, Twilight let a surge of magic pulsate from her horn, slamming the creature to the cavern floor. "So it was you! You're the one who murdered Fluttershy!"
As Twilight drew closer to get a better look at the monster she had brought low, she gasped and immediately felt a wave of guilt. Rainbow Dash, still in her Wonderbolt uniform, lay sprawled on the crystalline floor.
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Twilight found Applejack just a bit further along, lying on the cavern floor dazed. A small amount of blood trickling from her head where she had been struck once again. Rainbow Dash had apparently attacked her in the dark, thinking she was the pony responsible for their being there. Together the two fliers helped Applejack back up the stairs, to the room that they had started out in.
"Dashie!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily as the three returned. "Am I glad to see you! Wait...is Applejack okay?"
For her part the earth pony slumped next to the door and, taking off her hat, prodded her head gently with one hoof, surveying the damage. Wincing slightly Applejack said, "Don't worry about me sugarcube, Ah'm tougher than that. Ah'll be fine if Ah just take it easy for a bit."
"Can somepony please tell me what the hay is going on!?" Rainbow Dash suddenly yelled. "I opened my eyes and everything was blacker than a storm cloud in the middle of the night. As soon as somepony started sneaking up on me in the dark I figured they were the pony responsible but...I guess not." It seemed like she was as upset that she had hurt Applejack as she was with their current situation. "Well? Does anypony know why we're here?"
"I'm afraid not darling. That's just what Twilight and Applejack were trying to discover when they, er...bumped into you. Although," here Rarity paused, a look halfway between delight and concern suffusing her features, "if we're all here, then maybe there's a good chance Fluttershy is locked up somewhere around here too! Oh the poor dear. We should probably make finding her our top priority." Pinkie Pie immediately burst into tears. "Why whatever is the matter Pinkie? Was it something I said?"
Twilight glared at Applejack and with a regretful look, the earth pony nodded. It was time. "Actually, there's somethin' ya'll might need ta see. Rarity, there's another doorway in this room over yonder. Do ya think you could use that sigil, or whatever it is, ta open it up?"
"Oh...I suppose I could give it a try." Rarity moved to the section of wall that Applejack had indicated. Her rune flared briefly, and then its light was suddenly extinguished. The door remained motionless. "It doesn't seem to be working. How strange.
"I...might be able to open that door," Pinkie Pie sniffled as she lifted herself off the floor. Much of the curl had gone out of her hair, so she had to brush her mane from the side of her face before the others saw what she meant. Another sigil, much like Rarity's, was branded into the flesh just at Pinkie's throat. A little timidly, the pink pony crossed the room. As she drew close her sigil flared a deep, rich red and the door responded in kind, gliding open silently. Pinkie took a step back as Rarity and Rainbow Dash approached the door curiously. Immediately Rarity fell to her knees, a look of abject shock etched on her face.
"F-Fluttershy?" The little pony still hung as she was before, her dead eyes staring serenely into the void. Death had done nothing to mar her beauty and grace save where the cruel spiked shards jutted through her chest and legs. She floated like an angel in a shroud of crimson.
"This is a joke right!?" exclaimed Rainbow Dash in disbelief, "Some sick, twisted prank one of you thought up to give us a little scare? This can't be real!" The infuriated flier hovered closer to Fluttershy's remains, but she cringed back at the scent of the coagulated blood. "No...no...this just can't be. I know she's timid, and kind of weird and a little lame sometimes, but this is Fluttershy! She wouldn't harm a fly! Who would DO this!?" The blue pegasus slammed one hoof into the wall, trying hard to choke back tears of sadness and rage, her face inches from the friend she'd known since fillyhood. The blow to the wall shook Fluttershy's body, and the one wing that had been pinned to the wall before slumped down to her side, revealing a message scrawled in blood.
"What's that? 'A sin for which a single death alone is not enough to atone'," Twilight read. "'The liar must die', what is that supposed to mean?" And why did this all sound so familiar, like something out of a fairy tale. Or maybe something simpler. Like something from, "A game. It's a game."
"A what?" asked Dash in a whisper.
"It's a game. The sigils, the words, this whole set up. It's just like a party game we used to play in Canterlot." Twilight grew excited and moved to inspect the symbol etched in Pinkie's flesh more closely. "That's where I remember these runes from, though they were never this elaborate! The idea was to get a group of friends and have them work together to solve a puzzle. Usually the puzzle was something simple, like finding a stuffed toy or a present. Usually the setting would be a manor or some kind of hedge maze with locked doors or other obstacles that only party guests with the right enchantment could pass through. But The real object of the game was to figure out who was lying about helping the others."
"Why would anypony want to do that?" asked Applejack confused.
"Because the real twist was that one of the players played the role of the changeling!" exclaimed Twilight Sparkle triumphantly. "You see, that pony's job was to mess with the other guests and try to throw them off finding the prize. If she could separate pony's off from the rest of the group, she could 'tag' any pony by herself and then that party guest was out of the game. If by the end of the game no pony could figure out who the changeling was, then the changeling won and the game was over."
"That's sounds like a positively dreadful game." said Rarity, unable to peel her eyes from Fluttershy's corpse, even as a look of disdain curled her dainty lips.
"Well a lot of games fillies and colts play when they're little seem dreadful when you're older," responded Twilight.  "Like Ring Around the Roses or Blind Mares Bluff. If I remember my folklore, the game originated as a way to teach foals about the dangers of changelings trying to infiltrate pony society and to help them try and catch out liars that might try to take advantage of them. It's really quiet an interesting teaching tool if you think about it," the alicorn finished as she moved to more closely examine Fluttershy's corpse. It was faint under all the blood, but it looked like a sigil had been etched into her left leg, just above her cutie mark. "Though this is pretty extreme for a game."
"How dare you," Dash growled through clenched teeth. "How dare you sit here and talk about party games and folklore while Fluttershy hangs there dead!? What does all that nonsense even have to do with the fact that she's gone!? Does it even matter, huh? Do you have something you're trying to say!?"
"What I'm trying to say," replied Twilight calmly, "is somepony here might not be who she says she is." Rainbow Dash backed away, a look of confusion on her face. The others began to look at one another, a worried expression crossing all their faces. All except for Twilight, as she continued, "We're in the caves below Canterlot, or at least a series of caverns very similar to them. The last time somepony tried to imprison me in a place like this, that pony turned out to be the Queen of the Changelings. Then we find we have all these elements from a game where the object is to discover a changeling in our midst? I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a coincidence. The fact of the matter is, Fluttershy's murderer could be in this room, right now!"
"One of us?" asked Pinkie Pie in confused disbelief, but trying to keep up.
"Yes...well no, not really. Not the real one of us, I hope, but rather a changeling in disguise!" concluded Twilight. "From opening these two doors we've determined that once a rune is used it becomes the key for that door. As far as I can tell the sigil won't work with any other door. Add to that the crystalline nature of these caverns and it makes it highly difficult to escape using either magic or conventional means aside from the sigils provided. So as it stands, we have at most three more chances to find the right door that leads us out of here. But just finding the door won't be enough...we have to find out who, or what is behind this game or..." the alicorn swallowed uncomfortably. "Or we might all end up like Fluttershy." 
"No! No way!  I can't...I can't take this!" Rainbow Dash was breathing rapidly. She began to dart around the room frantically. "There's no sky here. No room! We need to get out of here! We need to get out of here now and tell somepony whats going on!"
"Whoa there! Just simmer down Rainbow," said Applejack.
"Yes, losing ones composure, while understandable under these circumstances, will do nothing to improve our situation," cautioned Rarity rising from the floor. 
"You guys, I don't think that's it," cried Pinkie Pie. "I think Dashie might be having a panic attack! I think she might be claustrophobic."
"Clauster-whut now?" asked Applejack.
"Claustrophobic," said Twilight Sparkle rising into the air to try and grab Dash by her shoulders. "It means fear of enclosed or tight spaces. It's going to be okay Rainbow Dash, just keep breathing."
"Breathing? Breathing? Oh sure, keep breathing while I can right? Because one of my friends is secretly a monster and I might not get the chance to breath again if I get left alone with her right!?" The blue flier struggled violently, thrashing back and forth in midair. "Get OFF ME!" With a powerful pulse of Dash's elite class wings, she broke free of Twilight's grasp, but in the process sent her friend flying back into the cavern wall. It wasn't on purpose, but the back of Twilight's head slammed right in the spot where she had been hit before. A wave of pain and nausea assaulted Twilight's senses as blood suddenly poured out of her nose and dripped down her face. Her wings faltered and she slumped to the floor, losing consciousness once again.
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