One by One

by DreamWings

Ten.

McFly swallowed down his cider and licked his top lip. There was nothing better than a cool drink before going to uncover a large break in a case. This discovery was by far one of his greatest achievements; wouldn’t be long now until the Princess offered him a medal of honour and begged him to date one of her noblest friends. Why, if word got about how brave and cunning he’d been surely Celestia or Luna themselves would offer up their hoof in marriage to him, the greatest stallion to ever wander the fields.

He grinned at himself in the glass window covering the front of the pub where he was sat. He sure did look handsome today; you’d have never guessed that he wasn’t the young colt ponies assumed he was. Today was going to be a great day, he could just feel it.

“Sir. Sir.” A voice called through the crowd. Great, just as he thought he’d be able to get some peace and quiet for a second his young Deputy had to come and ruin it for him. Who did she think she was, the great and powerful Twilight Sparkle? This Unicorn certainly needed knocking down a peg or two and McFly would gratefully oblige to be the one to do it. He spied the young mare pushing through herds of stallions trying to find him, her amber eyes scorning every drunken pony she saw. This was not her kind of scene. She turned her head and spotted the old Captain in the corner, his head bent over his empty glass.

“Sir,” she called, rushing over to stand by his side, “everypony’s waiting for you Sir. They’re awaiting your orders.”
The greying stallion grunted and tugged on his tie. Of course they were waiting for him, he was the Captain; they had to wait for him. And wait they should until he had a few more rounds of drink. Nopony was going to ruin this moment whilst he was in it, and that included the know-it-all Siren.

“Be patient.” He said looking into the empty glass and swirling the tiny remnants of his drink around the bottom. Siren grimaced, noticing his comb-over wrinkling up his long-worn brow. How she wished that this job could be how she had originally picturing it being. She had thought, when being told that she was being placed under the watchful eye of an elderly Policepony, that he was going to be somewhat like her Father; somepony she could look up to in times of crisis and garner help from when she wasn’t quite sure what she was meant to do. No such luck it seemed. No, the only pony who could help her with the Boss she had was herself. She had solved so many cases without the help of anypony and yet she had never been given any credit for them. McFly passed all of her hard work off as his own. He was nothing but a lazy, grouchy, narcissist, and she was smart enough to know that while she was working underneath him she was not going to get any further in her career.

“Sir, we’d better get there now.” She racked her brains trying to think of something that may persuade him to come with her to the crime scene. “Erm… Sir, if we don’t get there soon sir, Inspector Longshot said he’d just take over the enquiry…er… sir.” She raised her hoof in a mock salute, praying that this attempt to jab at his pride would spark him into action. Thankfully she had been correct.

McFly grunted and stood up onto his hooves, painfully squeaking his chair along the floor as he did so. The ponies in the bar all held onto their ears shivering over the noise his movement had created. He carefully lifted his badge and headed towards the door, just being able to shout ‘Add it to my tab’ before walking out into the streets.

Siren shook her head in disbelief. What was he talking about? They’d only been in Ponyville for a little while. He didn’t have any form of tab in this bar. She frowned, placing four bits of her own money onto the counter before heading after her cocky, nonchalant partner.

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the street where all of the action was taking place. Pony after pony ran around behind the yellow tape gathering up as much evidence as they could to give to those that were above them in the rankings. Other ponies guarded the area making sure that no civilian could pass through to peer at the carnage that had appeared near their very own paths. McFly shrugged and pushed himself through the yellow paper, tearing it in the process, and receiving very angry glares from the members of the Police that had worked so hard to put it up for him. The blood in Siren’s mind began to boil in annoyance. He didn’t care about anything at all, did he? She apologised to the older Policemare before wandering off to the edge to begin putting a new strand of tape up for them. It was only fair.

Longshot gave the Captain a quick glance as he wandered up to him. McFly didn’t acknowledge the existence of his fellow co-worker beyond a few simple questions all deriving the same pointless answers that would get them nowhere. Longshot had always been told that ponies from Canterlot were far wiser than those from ‘the sticks’ like Ponyville, yet this bumbling miserly old fool could never be described as being too bright. It was like the light was on in the house but nopony was there whatsoever when it came to his brain. Longshot grew bored of the constant questioning.

“If you want to know anything about it, you’d better ask Soft-shoe over there; he’s the one who discovered the body.” He pointed his hoof towards his shaking Deputy and then wandered off to talk to another pony on the Forensics team. McFly clicked his tongue and wandered over to the colt in the corner. Soft-shoe looked up as he came over.

The young Deputy needed somepony to comfort him right now. He knew that it wasn’t very tough or official to need somepony to hold his hoof and look after him but after what he had just seen he felt he needed it. Longshot hadn’t been able to help him through it. It seemed his Boss struggled to show feelings for somepony who had been hurt—either that or he was trying to hint that Soft-shoe should Stallion-up and not cry about everything. Though Soft-shoe preferred to think that wasn’t true, and still felt all alone without anypony there to help him. Maybe this new stallion would help him in his time of need.

“You the kid who found the body?” McFly shouted at the poor colt underneath him. Siren rushed over to the Captain and witnessed something she wished she hadn’t before. Yet again her Boss had managed somehow to be so rude and demanding that he’d forced another traumatized police-pony to break down into tears like a little foal. She sidled up to him and coughed. McFly shot his glance to her.

“Yes?” he questioned.

“The Forensic Ponies are ready for you sir.”

“Oh, good.” And with that he walked off, leaving Siren with Soft-shoe all alone. Watching him carefully she sat down on the grass next to him and spoke to him in her soothing voice words which would calm him and made him feel good. Soft-shoe’s mind began to feel more at peace with the world; everything seemed to slow down and follow him rather than against him. It wasn’t often he’d felt like that.

His mind wandered to the happenings of the day. The plans Longshot had made, the areas they had all been told to search, the snack of a Hay muffin Soft-shoe had collected ‘as evidence’ from SugarCube Corner to sustain him for the afternoon. And then the house, on the street he’d been told to look down, with its normal looking front door and porch. He’d only gone to check all around the house because he had been told to in the briefing; if he hadn’t he would have never even noticed the lifeless corpse of the young mare hanging from outside the window. He wouldn’t have even seen the pale rims of her eyes, the whiteness of her pupils and the foam deriving from her trapped neck as she hung limply through the window.

He shuddered as he thought about it again. Siren rubbed his back, still speaking to him as a friend so that he didn’t feel threatened by her in any way. She threw her gaze to look around the area. Whoever did this had to have been in the house to close the window on top of the mare’s spine to crush it like they did, but they had to have been outside to hit them with the poison dart that had been found next to it. There was one thing for sure though, the window had been shut from the inside of the house and the door was locked so that only a pony with a key could get in. It didn’t look so good for the resident of the house at this moment in time, although somepony else may have possessed a key as well. The house didn’t look much lived in from the inside as it is, there was barely any furniture inside. Looks can be deceiving, she thought.

Orange hooves pattered up to the yellow tape, the pony’s mouth wide open in astonishment. She could barely believe her eyes. She had… She had been discovered? But how? It was impossible; her plan had been so perfect. Longshot cast his eyes in her direction and whispered something into the ear of the young Policemare next to him. She in turn moved over to Captain McFly and managed to squeeze out her murmurings in between all of his yelling at disturbing his recent conversation. He nodded, brushed his bald patch and wandered over to the yellow tape, pointing towards the mare in the crowd for two members of Police to bring forward.

Scootaloo looked for a way to escape but couldn’t find it. There were ponies all around her, locking her in. It would be best to play innocent; she might be able to get away then. She moved forward, following the push of the ponies behind her.

“This is your house?” Longshot questioned, annoying McFly by being the first one to speak.

“Yes. What’s going on here?” she asked, knowing full well why they were. Her face stayed straight as she defiantly stared into the eyes of the officer in front of her.

“Yes, well…” Longshot tried to say his next sentence but found a certain Canterlot official butting in his questioning.

“You listen to me punk,” he shouted, “this is your house, we’ve just found a pony dead in your window, and you’ve got to explain what’s been going on. Do you understand that?!” The mare remained unmoved and silent.
“Well, what do you have to say?” Scootaloo peered around at them.

“No comment,” she uttered. McFly tugged on his tie, his face turning red.

“Now you just listen here Missy…”

“No proof, no comment,” she said, shuffling closer to his face.

Hooves clacked on the wooden floorboards of the house’s porch. A wheezing stallion fled through the doors holding up a piece of paper in one hoof.

“Sir,” he called, “There’s a list here, sir.” Siren moved forward away from Soft-shoe.
“A list of what?” she asked. McFly glared at her. Darn mare was always taking over his job.

“A list of ponies, sir. In the exact order of those that’ve been killed sir. Apart from the last one.”

Longshot glanced at Scootaloo’s expression. “Who’s the last one?”

“Smarty Pants sir.”
Eyes fell upon the object that had been discovered hanging by the thread on a thorn bush near the house. The shredded up pieces of an ancient teddy building up in a mound. Shock rippled around the watching crowd and McFly seized his opportunity with a vengeful grin.

“Miss, I arrest you on suspicion for the murders of nine ponies in Equestria. I suggest you get yourself an especially good Lawyer.” He snorted with laughter at his joke. Siren cringed.

The world slowed down as the shackles fell onto the front hooves of the orange pony’s body and she was herded towards the Ponyville Police station well away from her house or anything she had left behind. The Police followed her, Siren included, to move the crowd far away from the homicidal murderer.

Soft-shoe watched them all go and shivered. The killer was caught—yet he didn’t feel right yet. After all does it really just stop at…

Ten?