One by One

by DreamWings

Interrogation.

I can see his smarmy smile on the other side of the glass; I don’t know why he thinks he’s not being seen through it. He seems to think that all of the windows in the police station are like those fancy ones in his Canterlot office. You know, the ones that ponies can only see through when stood on the other side of the wall. Idiot. Nothing but a big, foolish idiot.
They seem to think I’m going to stay here, but I’m not. They couldn’t catch me if their lives depended on it, which it does, so the irony carries on whilst they remain blind to it. No. Shan’t be long until I’m home free and running away. Home? Home? What home do I have anymore? I can’t believe how stupid I was leaving key evidence in my own house, and then walking straight back into his silly little trap.

He hates me. I can sense how badly he hates me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been waiting for this moment his entire life. It certainly seems that way. These poxy police are all the same; waiting so long just for the chance to snap the trap shut on another ‘guilty’ pony, like me. I could ask them what I was guilty of but there would be no point in that. They found my list; the list I thought I’d burned to cinders… Apparently not. The amazing thing is—actually more than amazing, it’s funny in some ways—even though they’ve caught their suspect some of them still don’t look too happy. Those two young Deputy’s don’t look very pleased—I guess their appalled, after all I am younger than them. ‘Barely a mare’ they would say. Doesn’t stop the fact my friends were enough of mares to leave without a single call back into Ponyville.

No! I shan’t say anything. I wouldn’t want to anyway, not even to save my own skin. Best that I’m just put in a cell and they throw away the key because I’m not going to squeal on anypony. I’m definitely not telling him, or that other one. They both sneer at me like monsters in a scary tale, except I’m not the hero; they don’t see me as anything like that. The little Filly had better be careful with these beasts looming around the streets, I don’t know how many foals’ souls they’ve eaten but I’d bet it was quite a few. Evil, evil creatures of darkness. Nightmare Night’s over, you can take off the mask. Ha!

No, I’m not saying anything about what’s going on. I wouldn’t. Any kind of word would just bring up your suspicion more and then I’d never be free. I need to be free; I need to help all of the mistreated ponies. I need to help them! But you wouldn’t understand that would you? You don’t care about anything but this job. Nothing else matters. It’s all just this police station and all of the jobs to you. How’s your Deputy? Or do you not care that they’re hurting inside. Ha! You didn’t even notice how upset they are about all this.

The mysterious door opens—Quiet Scoots, quiet!

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Siren walked in behind her boss and looked towards the orange pegasus sat at the table in front of her. She looked so young, so normal; how could anypony like that commit all of these horrendous crimes? A mare? No, it couldn’t be; her courses taught her the different styles of killing. All of these hadn’t been a mare’s style. Admittedly some of them had been a mare’s style, like the poisoning of Mrs Cake, but surely not this mare; why, she looked relatively sane. Perhaps a bit different than other ponies she’d met, but not cruel enough to go around killing positive strangers. What would be her motive? She couldn’t think of anything.

Siren pulled a face seeing the smug look covering McFly’s face. He was so proud about finding a head suspect; no doubt it didn’t matter if the mare was innocent or not, she would always be convicted just so that he could get his moment in the spotlight. And no doubt that Siren wouldn’t get any of the thanks either. Then again, if the mare was accused without key evidence then she didn’t want to have any thanks. It was cruel to wrongly convict somepony innocent. Siren knew this all too well.

McFly sat down opposite the suspect, pushing back his few hairs over his head and stroking his new ‘important pony’ tie. Siren rolled her eyes and stood in the corner of the room to guard the proceedings, carefully holding her truncheon in case of any attack on the old Captain. McFly wasn’t afraid of this one. They’d caught her red-hoofed, now she had to fess up.
“This interview begins at three-thirty P.M. Interviewing officer: Captain McFly, Accused: Miss ‘Guilty’ Scootaloo.” McFly stopped and turned towards the hastily scribbling record-keeper sat next to him. “Well, did you get that?” The pony saluted and McFly proceeded with his job. The pegasus stayed still and silent, raising her eyebrows at all that was happening in front of her. ‘Idiots’.

“Now Miss, care to explain the pony hanging through your window?”

“No, I’m fine,” Scootaloo answered, her face staying still; showing no form of emotion.

“What?”
“You asked me if I ‘cared to’ and I don’t.”

McFly chuckled to himself and then lay what he thought was his ‘bad-cop eyes’ but looked more to Siren and the other ponies like an old stallion who had just had some kind of epileptic fit. Siren wouldn’t have been surprised, the lights were quite bright in here as requested by Longshot. Ponyville Police had many strange ideas about how to catch criminals, including ‘sweating the truth out of them’ from the heat of the lights in the station. Siren couldn’t understand it but, then she didn’t understand some of the procedures used by the Canterlot force either.

“You’re going to have to tell us. We’ll get it out of you eventually. One way or another.” He stopped mid-sentence and tried to smoke a piece of hay to show the orange pony how sinister he was. Scootaloo remained unimpressed. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” Siren groaned. Really? Did he really just ask what she thought he asked? He had been reading far too many of the Police comics recently.

“So Missy, what do you say?”

Scootaloo stopped and stared up at the old stallion, who had now proceeded to don a large pair of black sunglasses. Her face remained a blank canvas.

“No comment,” she stated and closed her mouth. McFly sneered at her and stood onto his hooves and move right up to her face.

“Well Missy, you should be aware that just today I received information about your little ‘group’. I assume they were your accomplices in this whole operation?”

“No comment,” she stated again refusing to back down.

“Listen here Missy, you can stay quiet as long as you want but one of your little piggies’s is sure to squeal. Now, tell me who they are!”

“No comment.”

“Fine. I’ll hunt them down myself.” McFly signalled to his two officers in the room with him and they all began to exit through the door. Just before he left the Captain turned to the disgruntled pony in the room and said a line that would have made anypony believe that the police were merely incompetent fools.

“You’ve just got to ask yourself one question. Do you feel lucky? Well, do you Punk?”