//------------------------------// // Interlogue- trombrony98 // Story: Thirteen Little Ponies // by trombrony98 //------------------------------// Fluttershy paced nervously in the parlor of the house, cringing in fear every time a crack of lightning or mysterious squeak echoed through the room. Despite the high occupancy of the building, she amazingly hadn’t seen a single soul pass through the room since she entered it nearly an hour beforehand. The last pony she had seen was Twilight, who she had come across in the library, searching frantically for anything she could find related to poisons. “No… wrong color… can’t be chlorine either… cyanide possibly? I might have to look into that.” After that slightly disturbing conversation, she had decided to walk around to ease her nerves. Not that walking helped much; the eerie ambience of the house made the occasional loud crashes even more frightening. This omnipresent tension sent her running to the door when the power had gone out. Thankfully, she managed to avoid running into anything before the lights came back on. In front of her, the door was creaking with the power of the wind and the rain outside. She had briefly considered just running out the door and making a mad dash back to Ponyville, but the weather outside was convincing her otherwise. The next hour had gone by slowly, with the frightening level of seclusion slowly seeping into her mind. After mere minutes, she saw nonexistent shadows moving across the room. The walls began to close in on her, despite showing no sign of structural weakness. She even thought she had seen a lifeless body through one of the windows. Panicked, she attempted to focus on anything other than her current situation: feeding Angel, chuckling at Discord’s antics, even her first time on the ground as a filly. Nothing worked. The isolation of the room slowly tore into her until she broke into a cold sweat and bolted out the door. The moment she stepped outside, the thick curtain of rain blinded her. Desperate, she kept running away from the house, only to trip over a large object in the middle of the porch. She tumbled head over heels to the ground, getting her mane and coat muddy. She laid on the ground for a few brief moments as she waited for the blood to rush back into her head. She could feel a throbbing pain coming from her left wing, and a nasty gash on her left foreleg was letting out a slow trickle of blood. Shaking off the pain, she turned around to see what she had tripped over. Her face turned pale with horror at what she saw. On the ground in front of her was the body of Thunderlane, his burnt body letting off wisps of steam as the rain matted what fur he had left intact. His wings and limbs were contorted in impossible positions, and a trail of uprooted grass and dirt formed a trail leading to his disfigured corpse. Fluttershy let out a scream as she ran back toward the forsaken manor, muddying her already filthy coat. The wind had blown the heavy oak doors shut, locking her outside in the rain. She pulled on the handle with all of her might, but the door stubbornly refused to budge. Seeing she was trapped outside, she began to look for an alternate route into the house. The upper levels of the house were obscured by the downpour, but she could make out a light coming from one of the windows toward the end of the house. Bracing herself against the wind, she stretched out her wings and flew toward the light. Despite her injured wing, it took a surprisingly short time to reach the window. The window was closed tightly, and there was a one story drop beneath the ledge, but she perched herself on a nearby tree branch and peered into the window. Between the streaks of water on the window, she could barely make out the outlines of a number of the guests huddling in the center of the room. Leaning in closer, she attempted to listen in on the conversation. “Look, I don’t think he’s to blame. He didn’t hit the ground that hard.” “Well then, who did? There’s been at least four deaths tonight, and some of us haven’t been seen in hours. Speaking of which, has anyone seen Fluttershy? I haven’t seen her since just after Cherry died.” Fluttershy’s ears perked up at the sound of her name. She tried to wave to them, but accidentally fell to the ground in her haste. She landed on the ground with a thud, throwing her already broken wing further out of line. Wincing, she screeched in pain, only to white out seconds later. *=*=*=*=*=*=* Filthy Rich sat next to Twilight’s bed. his legs bound to the bedpost by his necktie. It was a mind-numbing experience; Twilight was the only other person in the room, and all she could do was mull over what could have happened to Pinkie Pie. The princess sat at the desk in the room, fiddling with a device that looked strangely like a crane. “That crate had to have been rigged after I entered the room, or else I would’ve been crushed when I first came in. But how could that have happened? I didn’t hear anybody upstairs, and that crate wasn’t exactly light.” She took a paperweight out of the desk drawer and attached it to the device. “Twilight, how long are you going to keep thinking this through? It’s been well over an hour, and you still haven’t come any closer to an answer.” Filthy had already told her this earlier in the night, but all that had prompted was a quick trip to the library for her, leaving him alone in the room.Those had been the worst minutes of the night; alone in an empty room with a psychopath on the loose, and absolutely no way to escape should he find himself as the next victim. “Look, I know I haven’t found any answers, but I’m as desperate here as you are. There are at least two dead ponies in this building, and if I don’t figure this out, one of us might be next. So I’d appreciate some peace and quiet.” Flustered, Twilight attached another weight to the device, causing it to snap in half. The weights collapsed onto desk, sending the rest of the shattered pieces across her half of the room. Filthy Rich rolled his eyes. Throughout his time chained to the bedpost, he had seen her break two similar devices, cause five explosions by mixing chemicals, and accidentally light one book on fire in frustration. It would honestly be humorous to watch, if he didn’t know exactly what she was trying to do. Sadly, that was not the case. In his time as the executive of Barnyard Bargains, he had had this happen to him often. She was trying to get inside the mind of her competition, or, rather in her case, her predator. This villain was slowly driving her insane, and he was not enjoying any minute of it. “You know Twilight, you aren’t going to get any closer to an answer by locking yourself up in this tower.” Curious, Twilight turned to look at him with a quizzical look. “Don’t you see? You aren’t going to get inside their head by merely trying to figure out some master equation to this enigma. You have to observe your competition- er, suspects, find out what makes them tick. Trust me, when you’re a marketing executive, you have to be something of a psychiatrist too.” Twilight’s face perked up. “You’re a lot smarter than you let on, Filthy. But I figured that a while ago. You were trying to sweet talk Miss Jubilee into a business deal before she died, right?” Filthy nodded, unsure of what she was trying to get at. “I thought so. It’s second nature to a stallion like you to make alliances. But she’s also bound to have enemies. See where I’m getting at?” It suddenly clicked for him. The answer had been right in front of his face all along. Granny Smith must have planned this all out. It made perfect sense. Both Cherry and Pinkie were competitors to Sweet Apple Acres. It would only make sense for her to get rid of them. “You’re implying it’s Granny Smith?” “Yes- and no. You see, I concluded that she would be the most likely candidate for killing them. This would make sense if it weren’t for the fact that there is no way she could have lifted that crate by herself.” Twilight picked up a piece of paper from her desk and pointed to a rough sketch of a pony with a question mark. “The only logical way that this could be done is if she had an accomplice. That’s what I’m having trouble with.” This truly was a puzzle. Surely no one else here would be willing to commit murder? Unless… His thoughts were interrupted by a large crowd of ponies bursting into the room. Time Turner, who was apparently leading the pack, ran up to Twilight and shook her violently. “Lyra… Granny Smith… Trenderhoof… Thunderlane… all dead… Fluttershy is hurt badly…” He promptly passed out on the ground in front of her. *=*=*=*=*=*=* To be continued...