The Blade of the Scissors

by Anomal Malvale

First published 27th of March, 2012

Applejack encounters a serious problem, causing her to do the one thing you never thought she would

Applejack finds herself in a serious argument that quickly escalates. As a result, she commits a heinous deed which leads to her beginning to hear voices in her head. When things start to get out of control, the encroaching insanity and guilt causes her to do the one thing you never thought she would ever do.

Insanity

It was a dark, gloomy night. It rained softly as Rarity ran through the streets of Ponyville, knowing she was late.
She turned a corner and sped up the street as fast as she could, almost knocking somepony over as she barged through. Her hooves clopped loudly as she ran and her mane bounced up and down, getting wetter and wetter and annoying Rarity as the water moistened the hair on her face.

Finally, she rounded yet another corner and slowed down to a stroll as she caught her breath. She trotted towards her boutique and, as expected, Applejack stood right next to the door.

“I was startin’ to think you weren’t gonna get ‘ere” Applejack grinned.
“I’m dearly sorry, Applejack” Rarity panted. “I was getting my mane straightened at the salon”.
“At this time o’ night? Rarity, you’re always pamperin’ yourself too much”.
Rarity lifted her chin proudly as she closed her eyes.
“It takes a lot of effort to look beautiful” she said smugly
Applejack rolled her eyes.
“Let’s jus’ do this, k?”
Rarity opened her eyes and nodded. She reached for her keys in her purse and opened the door before politely allowing Applejack to walk inside. The inside of Raritys boutique looked the same as usual; clean and pristine, with not a speck of dirt to be seen.

A pony-model stood near the back wearing a dress. The dress was bright green and had a red lining around it, as well as hand-sewn pictures of apples on the side.

“What do you think of it?” Rarity said proudly.
“What do I think of it?” Applejack said detestably. “I don’t like it. It’s too colourful and frilly”.
Applejack turned to Rarity.
“Rarity, I asked ya if ya could make a new work outfit fer me when I go apple buckin’. This is nice, but it won’t do”.
“Why not?” Rarity asked, feeling a little offended.
“Honestly, Rarity, the dress looks lovely. But apple buckin’ is hard work and I need somethin’ that’s more durable”.
Applejack felt the dress and examined the fabric from which it was made from.
“This would jus’ get drenched in sweat and weigh me down all day an’ it could easily get ripped”.
Rarity scoffed.
“You never like my dresses” she moaned. “How can you not like it? The apples were hand-sewn and I even double stitched them!”
She grabbed the dress and admired it.
“I appreciate the effort” Applejack said matter-of-factly. “But I’m gonna need somethin’ better”.
“Better?!” Rarity said in a shocked and angry tone. “How can it be better? You asked me to make you a dress for apple bucking and I wanted to make you a dress that you could feel proud to wear”.
“Well I’m not gonna feel very proud when the loose fabric on this dress gets caught on a branch and rips off o’ me” Applejack argued back.
“It’s tailor made to handle the environment you work in. That’s why I used extra strong stitching” Rarity retorted.
“It won’t matter if it gets caught on a branch. It won’t rip at the stitchin’. The whole material’ll just rip” Applejack said a little more angrily.
“Why do you always criticize me? And not just my dresses; my mannerisms, my sense of style, the things I like. You always think I’m too soft”.
“Because you are too soft, Rarity!” Applejack yelled. “You need to stop being so worried about gettin’ dirty and stop always getting hooficures and your mane restyled. You need to lighten up”.
Rarity scowled.
“I refuse to expose myself to anything dirty. Being neat, clean and tidy is my way of life and I’m sticking with it”.
Applejack grunted irritably.
“Stop being such a clean-freak!” she growled.
Rarity looked hurt, but then just as angry.
“How dare you call me a clean-freak!” Rarity shouted. “I am not a clean-freak! I just take care of myself and keep clean. At least I don’t get muddy and filthy all day”.
“Do you think I just go divin’ into mud puddles? I have to do hard work on the farm to keep it runnin’ properly and that’s dirty work. But I still have to do it”.
“Well you could at least bathe once in a while” Rarity said mockingly.
Applejack looked deeply shocked and hurt, but this very rapidly evolved into rage. She struck Raritys face with her hoof. Rarity stumbled back and moaned in pain.
“Why did you do that?!” she demanded. “That really hurt!”
“You insulted me” Applejack said angrily, trying to keep herself from yelling again. “So I’m leaving”.
Applejack turned to leave, but Rarity stepped forwards and gave her a hard push.
“How dare you strike me!” she howled with rage.
She hit Applejacks face with her hoof, almost breaking Applejacks nose, but Applejack fought back by giving Rarity an uppercut to her chin.
Rarity fell back against one of her desks and was dazed for a moment. Applejack was furious and just lost it after that. She grabbed Raritys head and smashed her face against her desk, but then as she went to do it again Rarity countered and knocked Applejack back. Rarity gave her a savage haymaker which actually almost knocked Applejack off her feet, but Applejack fell against a mannequin and used it for support as she readied her body for more fighting.

The two ponies savagely hit each other with their hooves, hurting each other badly and even knocking their teeth out. Finally, Rarity grabbed Applejack and hurled her at a table. Applejacks body skidded along it and crashed to the floor at the other end, knocking everything from the table as well.

Applejack fell on the floor head first and almost fell unconscious. Some office supplies fell on the floor around her and she grunted when a stapler fell on her head.

But then she had a thought. She grabbed the stapler as Rarity stormed around the side of the table.
Applejack grasped the stapler tightly and smacked it against Raritys leg. Rarity screamed as the staple pierced her soft skin and made blood begin to drip from her. Applejack felt a slight sense of victory, but then gasped when she saw Rarity pick up her large, heavy computer monitor and stand up on her hind legs as she held the monitor high in the air with her forehooves.

“You bitch!” Rarity shrieked.
Applejack put her forehooves up in defence and closed her eyes. She was terrified of being maimed or even potentially killed.

Rarity felt the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she stood menacingly over her friend. She felt accelerated and her heart pounded furiously as she brought the monitor down on Applejacks body.

Applejack screamed as she rolled onto her stomach, but her attempt at defence failed miserably as the monitor smashed into her back. The glass shattered against her body and spread glass all through her mane, stinging her like tiny nettles.
She arched her back in agony, fearing her spine had been broken. Fortunately, it hadn’t, but she just knew that it had to be bleeding profusely.

Meanwhile, Rarity stood panting over Applejacks wounded body, staring at the crimson mass that was Applejacks back. The blood flowed through her orange mane, staining it with it’s viscous texture and softly dripping over her sides. The shards of glass shone in the light like small beads of glistening water.

Rarity stood over Applejack disdainfully, still clutching her destroyed monitor in her forehooves.
“Had enough, bitch?” Rarity panted as she lifted her wrecked monitor up to her belly.
Applejack shook her head.

Rarity sighed irritably.
“Here were go again, then!” she shouted as she lifted her monitor up once again.
Applejack thrust her body around and launched herself up at Rarity. Rarity made a gurgling sound and gasped for air. Her whole body was overcome with debilitation and she lost her grasp on her monitor.

It fell and struck her head with a lot of force, almost certainly breaking her neck. Her limp, lifeless body collapsed to the floor, her pounding heart reduced to no beating whatsoever in the space of a second.

A pair of scissors protruded from her neck leaving a huge wound from which a lot of blood poured from like a quiescent waterfall. Her lifeless eyes seemed to gaze across the room as her last breath escaped her lips, sealing her unfortunate fate.
Applejacks body quivered uncontrollably as she realised what she’d just done. Raritys body lay before her; the body of a pony she’d just murdered. Much more horribly, a pony she used to call a friend.

She sat down on the floor and held her head in her hooves and cried. Despite her back being in excruciating agony, tears still dropped from her eyes, ran down her cheeks and dripped from her chin, staining her soul as she came to grips with having murdered her good friend.

She took a deep breath and stood back up. She calmly grabbed the pair of scissors from Raritys throat with her mouth and placed them in her handbag, knowing full well that it was clear evidence. It was the murder weapon and if she was discovered with it she’d almost certainly be charged with Raritys murder.

She simply exited Raritys boutique like nothing had happened and set off for home. As she trotted through the desolate streets, her back still in pain, she felt like everypony was watching her, judging her, scorning her. Loathing her for her dreaded actions. She could claim self-defence, but she’d still get time in prison for manslaughter. The farm would potentially fail without her skill of apple bucking which filled her mind with a sense of dread.

She walked into her home and took hours to get the pieces of glass out of her back. She knew the road to recovery for her back would be arduous if she was nurse her wounds on her own, but she didn’t want anypony else to know she had these wounds. When the forensics team saw Raritys monitor on the floor next to her body and just inches from her forehooves, they might believe that she was acting in self-defence. And likely to be the only pony in Ponyville with a large wound on their back and probably tiny pieces of glass inside that she was unable to remove, the police would find it very likely that she murdered her in cold blood.

She slept terribly that night, experiencing a mixture of mourning over her deceased friend and worrying for her own quality of life; life in jail at such a young age would be a sad, sad fate.

2 days later…

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy sat in Sugar Cube Corner sharing a bag full of candy. Pinkie Pie smiled as she stuffed a hoofful of licorice into her mouth.

“It’s nice to see you again, Pinkie Pie” Fluttershy said in her usual, quiet tone.
“It’s great to see you to, Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie said in her oppositely loud tone.
“So, how come you wanted to meet me here?” Fluttershy asked.
Pinkie Pie suddenly stopped smiling and instantaneously drooped down in her seat, almost beginning to cry; a rare sight.
“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked.
“I thought I should tell you…about Rarity…”
Fluttershy felt confused.
“Oh, what happened to her?”
The bell at the front of the shop rang, indicating somepony was coming inside. Mr Cake stood behind the counter and said his usual, mundane greeting.
“Hi, welcome to Sugar Cube Corner” he said cheerfully.
Applejack slowly stepped inside. Still mourning over the death of Rarity, she felt depressed. She also felt enraged at herself for thinking of attacking her friend with such a deadly weapon. But Pinkie Pie had asked to meet her at Sugar Cube Corner, saying she needed to tell her something, so she felt it best to show up, fearing that if she didn’t it might make Pinkie Pie suspicious.

She felt like she was starting to go insane. The previous night she even heard voices in her head, telling her to retrieve the body from the morgue and burn it before the forensics team could conduct a full DNA investigation.

“Hey, Applejack” Pinkie Pie called out from across the table she shared with Fluttershy, her tone a mixture of her usual cheerfulness and her grievance that related to the topic she was about to discuss.
Applejack wandered over and sat next to her friends.
“So, what was it you wanted to tell me?” Applejack asked, knowing full-well what it was.
“Yes. What happened to Rarity?” Fluttershy added.
Pinkie Pie took a deep breath and sighed miserably.
“Fluttershy, Applejack. What would be the worst thing that could ever happen?”
Fluttershy thought hard for a moment, while Applejack felt a sense of guilt as she pretended to think.
“There are a lot of terrible things that could happen” Fluttershy said, breaking a long pause.
Applejack hastily nodded in agreement.
Pinkie Pie took a took another deep breath and gulped before she began to speak in a grim tone.
“The night before last night, Rarity…”
She sighed solemnly.
“Rarity was found dead in her boutique”.
Applejack acted shocked, but Fluttershy immediately began to cry. Her face flooded with tears as she started wailing quietly.
“That can’t be true” she cried. “Rarity can’t be dead!”
“I thought the same thing” Pinkie muttered, she herself also beginning to cry. “But she is”.
Applejack decided to take on the role of the strong pony here, although inside she felt the worst possible feeling she could ever imagine existed. It felt like she had a swirling torrent of guilt and despair charging through her stomach, making her feel more and more nauseous with anxiety and regret by the minute.

“I’m sure she’s in a better place right now” Applejack sniffed, beginning to cry genuine tears.
But despite these tears being tears of anguish, as were the tears of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, Applejacks tears also possessed a sense of not only guilt, but anxiety. She dreaded the thought of anypony finding out what she’d done.

“Where she can make dresses to her hearts content” Fluttershy added, beginning to calm down a bit.
Pinkie Pie nodded.
“Anyway, the funeral is in 3 days. The forensics team are still doing an investigation and the chilling part is, they’re very sure that it was a murder”.
“Murder?!” Fluttershy gasped. “Somepony in Ponyville is a murderer?!?”
Pinkie Pie nodded reluctantly.
“Oh, shucks, that’s terrible!” Applejack gasped, pretending to act horrified.
“It is. A broken computer monitor was found by her head, although there are no visible signs of it being used to hurt her in anyway” Pinkie Pie continued. “Although one of the detectives said there was a large, deep wound in her throat, like she’d been stabbed, and other than that she just had bruises, grazes and cuts all over her and her mane was a mess, so they reckoned there’d been a fight shortly before she was killed”
Fluttershy and Applejack gasped in unison.
Oh no, they’ll find out it was me soon enough Applejack thought in her head. Her heart started racing faster and faster. She grabbed her bag underneath with one of her forehooves and clutched it tightly. She could feel the pair of scissors she’d killed Rarity with just less than 48 hours earlier. She held it tightly, and couldn’t stop herself from breaking out into tears.

“I have to go, sorry” she cried out.
She grabbed her bag and ran out of Sugar Cube Corner in tears. Fluttershy got out of her seat and flew out after the furiously galloping pony.
She flew swiftly through the air just a few feet off the ground, catching up to Applejack.
“Applejack, what’s wrong?” Fluttershy called out feebly.
Applejack had tears streaming out of her eyes, but when she heard Fluttershys voice she ignored it and picked up the pace. But Fluttershy was determined to find out what was wrong with Applejack.
Applejack sprinted a corner as fast as she could, almost knocking over some barrels as her hooves skidded along the concrete road. Fluttershy flew around the corner with ease, still in pursuit.
The two ponies were heading towards the market, although Applejack didn’t realise it because she was blinded by her tears. All she wanted to do was run from the sound of Fluttershys wings. A few ponies jumped out of the way as Applejack barged her way through the crowd. Her vision was blurry and she could only vaguely see large stalls which she dodged at the last second. She ran hectically past a broccoli stall and the owner yelled out to her, telling her to stop running.

But she didn’t want to stop running. She didn’t even want to slow down. Not just because she feared Fluttershy might interrogate her if she caught her which would be an absurd thing, but also because she felt like she was trying to escape her problems. Normally this courageous pony would face her problems head on; but these problems were like a mountain, too insurmountable for her to climb to the top and thus deal with. She felt alone and miserable, even though she had many friends. However, aloneness and loneliness are two very different things.

She was almost out of the market when somepony stepped out in front of her, carrying a basket of oranges. She collided with the stallion and the latter was knocked to the ground. Applejack stumbled forward and fell over him, landing on her face.
She lay there motionless, just wanting to lie there and die.

“Applejack…! What’s wrong?” Fluttershy whimpered.
Applejack lifted her head slightly and groaned when she saw Fluttershy standing directly next to her.
“Are you ok?” Fluttershy asked.
She extended her hoof in a gesture implying she wanted to help Applejack up. Applejack accepted and grabbed her hoof.
“I’m fine” Applejack answered abruptly as she dusted herself off.
She reached down and started helping the deeply irritated stallion pick up his oranges. Fluttershy helped to.
“I’m sorry I ran away” Applejack apologized as the disgruntled stallion trotted away.
“I understand that you’re sad” Fluttershy responded. “I just needed to make sure you were ok. I’m worried, you seem tense”.
Applejack gulped and felt like Fluttershy knew what she’d done.
“I’m not tense, I’m just mourning” Applejack said slightly aggressively.
“Oh, please don’t get mad” Fluttershy said defensively.
“I’m sorry” Applejack sighed. “I just…I just can’t believe she’s gone”.
“You’re not the only one. I don’t know what to make of it…”
Applejack again cried for the umpteenth time.
“Why did this have to happen?”
“I guess somepony out there is just a really sick pony” Fluttershy shrugged. “But, it’s been done. What more can we do?”
“You’re right”.
“I wonder if Rainbow Dash knows?” Fluttershy asked rhetorically.
“How would she know when she wasn’t there?” Applejack blurted out.
She immediately put her hooves over her mouth, then slowly lowered them down like nothing had been said.
You fucking idiot! Now she probably knows! This thought swarmed through her head like a hive of bees.
“What was that?” Fluttershy asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Nothing. Uh, yeah. Nothing. I’ll go tell Rainbow Dash the bad news. I’ll tell her in a way so she won’t get too upset”.
Fluttershy nodded.
“I need to go back to my cottage and feed Angel. He gets mad if I don’t feed him when he’s hungry”.
“Alright, goodbye then” Applejack said abruptly.
She ran in the opposite direction and started running through town.
You’re an idiot! If they gave you an IQ test, you’d score a negative ten on it and a shovel would score a positive 5 on the same test!
You don’t deserve your life, you retard!
You just can’t keep your mouth shut, can you?
Fucking idiot.
You’re stupid.
Go away, we don’t want you.
Why don’t you just go die in a hole?
These thoughts circulated around in her head as she ran through the streets of Ponyville. She didn’t even know where exactly she was going. She just wanted to leave this world and never come back.
Suddenly, she fell to the ground.

“Hey, get off of me!” somepony squealed.
“I’m sorry” Applejack blubbered.
She rolled over on the concrete and opened her eyes. Rainbow Dash methodically stood up and brushed some dust out of her mane with her forehooves.

“Why I oughta- Oh! Applejack! It’s you” she smiled.
She helped Applejack stand up.
“I haven’t seen you since last week. What’s going on?”
Applejack also felt like Rainbow Dash knew what she’d done, even though she was clearly oblivious of Raritys fate.
“I…I have something terrible to tell you…” Applejack said grimly.
“What’s that?” Rainbow Dash asked in a puzzled tone.
“Well, you see…Raritys dead…she was murdered the night before last night…”
Rainbow Dash looked confused for a moment.
“What?”
“I just told you” Applejack said. “Rarity’s dead. I-“
She stopped herself.
“Somepony murdered her in her boutique.
Rainbow dash looked stunned.
“You’re…you’re kidding? You’ve gotta be joking…no, no, I’m clearly just dreaming”.
“It’s not a dream, but do you know how much I wish it was?” Applejack replied.
“No…No, she can’t be dead…”
Rainbow Dash sat down and started bawling her eyes out. Applejack calmly rubbed her back, comforting her; hoping someone would come along and at least attempt to comfort her.

Applejack felt like her body contained a black hole, absorbing every shred of positive emotion out of her body, leaving only anguish and pain where happiness once laid. She knew that in time this pain would stain her soul to the core as she succumbed to it’s depression.

She just couldn’t believe she’d done what she’d done.

1 week later…

The funeral had been and gone. It ran for about an hour and while no words were uttered, everypony spoke their emotions through their bitter tears. Almost everypony in Ponyville made an effort to go to it, as it wasn’t often somepony died. And it was much less often that somepony was murdered.

Everypony in Ponyville mourned over the loss of Rarity and not a single Pony was exempt. Banners were hung from local stores and buildings bearing Raritys picture and name, in respect and remembrance of her. A musician also dedicated a song to her and played it at Raritys funeral.

The mayor of Ponyville also delivered a speech just a few hours after Raritys funeral, explaining that all of Raritys unsold dresses would be sold and the money raised from that would go towards hiring some expert detectives to find the murderer, so that Raritys death would be avenged, much to the horror of Applejack.
On the other hand, virtually nopony wandered the streets after about the time it became dark each day. Especially not when there was a potential murderer lurking the streets.

“So you want me to come to the court hearing?” Applejack gulped as she spoke into the receiver of her phone.
“Well, you were there about the time it happened” Fluttershy spoke softly into the other end.
“I never saw anypony suspicious wander in and kill her” Applejack said firmly, which was technically true.
“Well, they want you to appear in court, since you were at her boutique around the time it happened. Sweetie Belle overheard Rarity saying it not long before…you know”.
Applejack sighed.
“Ok…ok, I’ll go there and tell them that I didn’t see anypony wander in and kill her, then I can leave, right?”
“Of course” Fluttershy said. “But why are you so uptight?”
“I’m fine, ok?” Applejack said angrily, although she immediately calmed down and spoke a lot softer.
“I’m sorry. Look, I’m just having a tough time with things right now. I…I’ll see you later, Fluttershy”.
She hung up and grabbed her bag. She clutched it tightly, feeling the scissors that had caused this tragedy as she headed out the door.
She looked up at her surroundings and even though there was clearly nopony near her, she felt like somepony, or multiple ponies, were watching her. Staring at her. Judging her. Like they’d witnessed what she’d done and were angry with her.
“Get away from me!!” she screamed into the air.
She ran all the way to the courthouse; the quicker she got there the quicker she could get out. She knew she was going crazy. But she also knew she couldn’t prevent it. Her emotions were tearing the very fabric of her sanity to pieces and all she could do was cry. Nothing could ever rectify this.
She walked into the courthouse and saw a bunch of ponies about to walk in. Rainbow Dash was amongst them.
“Hey, Applejack” she said solemnly. “So you’re here to explain what you saw?”
“More like what I didn-” Applejack answered.
But she stopped at the end of her sentence.
She couldn’t handle the guilt. She couldn’t handle the regret. She had to tell somepony. She desperately needed to confess.
“Rainbow Dash, can you keep a secret?”
“Of course”.
Applejack beckoned for Rainbow Dash to follow her to the mares public toilets. She checked in all the toilet stalls to make sure nopony was in them as Rainbow Dash stood near the entrance feeling confused.
“Alright…” Applejack said.
“What’s going on?” Rainbow Dash asked feeling highly confused.
“Rainbow Dash, I…”
A tear trickled down her cheek.
“I have to confess something to you”.
“What’s that?
She didn’t know how to tell her. She couldn’t find the words. So she did the only thing that came to mind. She reached into her bag and pulled out the scissors she’d kept all this time. At first, she’d taken it because it was obvious evidence, but later she kept it as a grim reminder of the friend she once had.

She dropped it on the bathroom floor at Rainbow Dashs hooves. The blades were covered in dry blood and Applejack herself hadn’t actually seen it since the night she killed Rarity. She’d only put it in her bag and felt it through the material her bag was made of. Until now, she couldn’t bring herself to look at it.

“What…what’s that?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Applejack knew there was no going back now.
“That’s the murder weapon…I…I was the one…”
Rainbow Dash was stunned.
“You…you murderer!”
She stumbled back.
“Please, keep your voice down!” Applejack pleaded.
Rainbow Dash gazed at her in disbelief.
“Why…? Why did you do that?”
Applejack took a deep breath.
“We got into an argument. It became more aggressive from there and eventually erupted into a fight…she hit my back with the computer monitor that the forensics team found by her body. I grabbed a pair of scissors and in self defence, right after she hit me…”
She burst into tears and collapsed to the floor.
“I shot up and stabbed her throat!”
She lay on the floor and whimpered as Rainbow Dash started quivering.
“I...I don’t know what to say…” Rainbow Dash uttered.
Applejack slowly stood up and wiped her tears away.
“Please…please, don’t tell anypony. If I go to prison, Sweet Apple Acres will surely fail”.
Rainbow Dash sighed.
“I…Ok”.
She nodded.
“I won’t tell anypony”.
Applejack smiled gratefully.
“Thank you so much. But there’s one more thing”.
“What’s that?”
Applejack picked up the scissors and passed them to Rainbow Dash.
“For whatever reason, they might feel the need to search me. Can you please hold onto these?”
Rainbow Dash clearly didn’t want to, but after a few seconds she nodded reluctantly.
“Ok...sure. I mean, I am loyal”.
Rainbow Dash took the scissors and put them in her own bag which she carried with her. Afterwards, the two ponies went outside and went into the court hearing. Applejack sat down in the seat where witnesses were supposed to sit.
“All rise for the honourable judge” a police officer called out across the room.

Everypony stood up as a judge entered the room and sat in the judges chair.
“All sit” he announced.
Everypony did as he said.
“We are now commencing with the trial of Raritys murder. First, we will hear from Miss Applejack, who was present at the boutique at roughly the time of Raritys murder”.
Applejack sighed guiltily as a lawyer walked over to her.
“Applejack, do you agree to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” the lawyer said.
Applejack reluctantly nodded.
“Right then”.
The lawyer faced the jury.
“Now, this pony was at Raritys boutique at roughly the same time Rarity was murdered. How do we know this? Because Raritys younger sister, Sweetie Belle, had heard Rarity mention that Applejack was coming over at that time. Of course, Sweetie Belle was having a sleepover at her friends house so she can’t be a witness”.
The lawyer turned back to Applejack.

“Applejack…let’s be frank here. Did you kill Miss Rarity?”
Applejack gulped. Time seemed to slow down as the words repeated in her head, echoing throughout her skull. Not only was she under oath, but she represented the element of honesty. She couldn’t lie. And now she was in a position where if she did tell the truth, she’d very likely be facing life in prison.

Do it! Do you really want to go to the slammer? Do you?
It’s just one little lie, it’s no big deal.
You’re still young, do you really want to spend your life in prison?
She could actually hear voices in her head telling her these things, persuading her to lie.
She sighed softly.
“No…no, I did not murder Rarity”.
The words she spoke gave her a deep feeling of dread. She’d just told a lie.
“Alright then” the lawyer said. “Well, is the murderer sitting in this room here?”
Applejack nodded. This was true.
“Could you point to the murderer then?”
Applejack raised her hoof. She was tempted to point at herself, but that would contradict her earlier statement and would not only show that she’s guilty, but it would also show that she lied.
Her hoof hovered over the audience before abruptly stopping over a particular pony.

“That’s her” Applejack muttered.
“Is that so?” the lawyer said.
Applejack nodded.
“What?!” Pinkie Pie shouted. “Rainbow Dash is the murderer?!?”
Rainbow Dash had zoned out during the court hearing but immediately came to her senses.
“What’s going on?!” she said hectically.
“Can you prove this?” the lawyer asked Applejack.
“Check her pockets. She probably still has the weapon”.
The lawyer nodded to a police officer standing against a wall. The officer walked over to Rainbow Dash, but Rainbow Dash flew up into the air.

“What are you doing?! I didn’t do anything!!” she screamed.
She couldn’t believe her ears at what Applejack had just said. But she had bigger problems now. Two pegasi who were also police guards also flew up into the air. She tried to evade them but they were too fast and grabbed her. They brought her to the ground and locked her wings together with a set of wingcuffs so she couldn’t fly, as well as locking hoofcuffs onto her hooves.

One of the officers held Rainbow Dash in an attempt to restrain her but she was resisting like hell. The other officer checked through her bag and it didn’t take him long to find the scissors.

“Looks like we found the weapon. This looks like it probably was the weapon used to kill Rarity. It’s clearly from her office since it has her boutiques logo on it. Plus her throat wound looked like they’d been made by scissors” the officer announced.
Everypony gasped and broke out into a series of murmuring and shouting.
“Order in the court!” the judge yelled as he banged his gavel.
Everypony took a few moments to stop.
“Is the forensics team still working on the murder case?” the judge asked the officer.
“Yeah. They’ve even got blood samples so we can check the blood on these scissors to her blood. But yes, your honour, they are”.
“Not anymore, they’re not” the judge said kind of rudely. “I hereby declare Rainbow Dash guilty of murder and is to serve the remainder of her life in prison”.
These words hit Rainbow Dash like a freight train.
“No! I can’t go to jail for life! You don’t understand, it wasn’t me! You’ve got to listen!!!” she begged.
The two guards ignored her pleads for justice and dragged her out of the room as everypony began to stand and leave.
“Somepony! Help!” she screamed.
She stared over at Applejack and they gazed into each others eyes. Applejack mouthed “I’m so sorry” to her, while tears ran down her face.

“I’ll get you. I swear I will” Rainbow Dash mouthed back.
Applejack sat back in her chair and thought about the last few minutes. She’d just told a terrible lie…and now, because of her actions, one of her friends was dead and another was being sent to prison to serve a life sentence.

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think. All she could do was cry. Throughout this whole event, she now felt the most troubling guilt of all; betrayal of one of her closest friends.

The Nefarious Truth

A van drove briskly through the cold night, carrying many passengers; one of which was Rainbow Dash. The van was headed for the prison of Ponyville and was just a simple black carrier van, with seats for up to 10 ponies and thick, steel wires to keep the prisoners away from the driver. Two guards stood on the opposite side of the wire to the prisoners, armed with loaded rifles, ready to shoot anypony who made a scene.

Rainbow Dash sat between two other mares, her feeling of depression matched evenly by her feeling of anger. Furious was an understatement to describe how she felt about Applejack at this moment; her betrayal marked one of the worst moments in Ponyville. Unfortunately, only two ponies knew, and nopony would believe one of them and the other would never tell.

The van turned sharply into the prison entrance, making Rainbow Dash almost fall off her seat. She accidentally fell onto a unicorn sitting in the seat next to her and got a sharp jab in the ribs from her horn as she fell over her.
“Hey, get off me!” the unicorn shouted irritably.
She shoved Rainbow Dash off of her and she fell to the dirt covered, linoleum floor. A few ponies scoffed and laughed as she meekly picked herself up.

“Sorry about that” Rainbow Dash apologized to the pony she fell on.
The pony didn’t say a word, but instead got up and struck Rainbow Dash in the throat with her hoof. She had a fast hit and Rainbow Dash never saw it coming.
A few ponies sitting nearby erupted into laughter as Rainbow Dash fell to the floor, coughing and spluttering. The pony who hit her felt proud of her actions as she sat back down in her seat. It’s a sad day when an innocent pony is made to be subject to this kind of cruelty.
Just moments later, after Rainbow Dash settled back into her seat and got control of her coughing, the doors of the van opened.

“Alright, come on out you worthless scum!” a guard shouted.
The ponies on board loosely organized themselves into single file; Rainbow Dash being near the back. It was an arduous van ride and they’d only just arrived at 6am. The light emanating from the sun rising over the horizon hit Rainbow Dashs eyes as she stepped off of the van into the prison courtyard. The inmates who were already here were still in bed, but were about to be made to get up.

A group of guards stood near the exit of the van and before Rainbow Dash could take more than a couple of steps, a guard locked a pair of wingcuffs onto her wings.
“What the?” Rainbow Dash said in confusion.
“It’s so you don’t fly away” the guard told her. “You can’t be trusted, killer”.
Rainbow Dash felt disgusted.
“I’m not the one who murdered Rarity!” she screamed.
The guard pulled out a baton from his uniform.
“See this? I’m gonna smack the shit out of you with it if you don’t do what we say. You speak out, you get this to the head. You got that?” he snarled.
Rainbow Dash grunted, but reluctantly nodded.
“Good. Now follow me, I may as well show you your cell” he said, sheathing his baton.
Rainbow Dash followed the guard over the courtyard as other guards led other new inmates to their cells. There appeared to be four different cellblocks, each with about 20 individual cells inside. Rainbow Dash followed the guard through an entrance and up a dilapidated, concrete hallway. The walls were grey and bare and gave the building an eerie, lonely feeling. Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but feel confined by the nature of the hallways and how their stone floors made her hoofsteps echo across the hallway, showing just how empty her new home was. The way the walls made this building seem so lifeless, like it absorbed all positive feelings from everypony who fell under the unfortunate circumstance of being made to walk down it, gave Rainbow Dash a chilling feeling. After what seemed like hours of walking down the lonesome, cold hallways, the pair walked around a corner, leading to a line of cells.

“Welcome to Ponyville Mares Prison” the guard said half heartedly. “If you need anything, don’t ask”.
He opened a jail cell with a set of keys and gave Rainbow Dash a shove as she stepped inside. The sound of the door being locked shut behind her filled her soul with a feeling of unjust confinement and when she turned to see the metal bars preventing her escape from her new six foot by eight foot home, her expectation was turned into a grim reality.

An hour passed by until Rainbow Dash was told to get up by a guard. She felt groggy from her mere 15 minutes of rest, only being experienced after 45 minutes of weeping tears of anger and hurt.
The shouting made by Rainbows Dashs fellow inmates echoed from the concrete walls as she wandered down the line of cells through the crowd of inmates, not even sure where she was going.

She meekly tapped somepony on the shoulder next to her. The pony turned around and almost made Rainbow Dash jump back in shock when she saw she only had one eye. The other eye, it appeared, had been gouged out.
“What do you want?” the mare asked in an aggressive tone.
“I…I just wanna know where we’re going” Rainbow Dash said weakly.
“Breakfast” the mare said, before snorting and spitting on the concrete directly beneath Rainbow Dash. The sight of phlegm and blood being spat underneath her sickened her to her very core, causing her to gag.
She gradually but rapidly moved with the rest of the mares to the dining hall where she sat alone at the back, feeling miserable and angry. However her lifeless attitude and actions were silenced by the obnoxious yelling and the odd fight of everypony around her.

She looked around the dilapidated cafeteria at all the ponies she now had to live with. She felt overwhelmed with grief seeing all her fellow inmates doing everything from yelling to fighting; and these fights were a lot more brutal than just your average fight where the two ponies just shove each other around and throw the odd hoof.
Rainbow Dash, for the first time in her life, now understood the difference between loneliness and aloneness. In here, she had no friends; nopony to help her if somepony decided to beat her up. She was surrounded by many, but allied by none.

---

Meanwhile, Applejack sat with Fluttershy in her cottage. They’d just been to see the squirrels and now sat at Fluttershys table, enjoying a warm cup of tea.

“Thank you for visiting” Fluttershy smiled, setting the teapot down on the bench.
“It’s fine” Applejack smiled back.

Applejack seemed ok at a glance. She looked happy, always wearing a cheery smile with eyes full of blithe to match. But inside her heart, a storm of guilt brewed, striking her conscience with it’s lightning of regret, matched by it’s thunderous cries of remorse. However her mind had an opposite feeling of the dilemma at hoof.
Better her than you the voices would shout, echoing off the base of her skull with relentless fortitude, reminding her always of that day in the courtroom. A day she wanted to forget. But she couldn’t stop herself from playing that scene over and over in her mind, again and again like a movie reel being shown in a theatre where the audience was her conscience, her sense of honesty, her sense of remorse, and so on; forever judging her with every showing of the reel and torturing her with their bitter opinions.
A war waged between the conscience of her heart and the ruthless voices in her head, Applejack being caught in the middle of the conflict.

How could you betray your friend? her sense of regret would cry out.
And even worse, how could you lie? her sense of honesty would add.
If she hadn’t done what we said, we’d be rotting in prison right now! One of the many voices in her head would scream.
That farm would be driven to the ground in an instant without Applejack! another voice would argue.
Rainbow Dash was an innocent pony. Who knows what she’s going through in prison? Does she deserve to be beaten up by the other inmates? Because she probably is! her sense of remorse shouted acidly.
She’s just a casualty in a predicament that happened because of self defense another voice in her head shouted back.
This kind of arguing happened every day since that day in the court room, usually persisting for hours. Applejack couldn’t sleep because she was always being scolded for lying by her sense of honesty. She couldn’t rest, talk, work or have fun without being reminded of her actions that day by the constant conflict in her mind, waged by her altruistic heart and the pernicious voices in her head.

“So, I can’t believe Rainbow Dash did that to Rarity” Fluttershy said sadly.
Her words felt like a dagger in Applejacks heart, but she did her best not to show it.
“I know” Applejack replied, not physically able to bring herself to utter anymore words.
“Would you like some scones?” Fluttershy asked sweetly, eager to change the subject.
At the sound of her friends voice, Applejack snapped out of the trance-like state she’d suddenly entered when Fluttershy reminded her of how everypony thought it was Rainbow Dash who’d murdered Rarity.
“Yeah, sure” she said, almost about to cry.
The pegasus turned to fetch the scones from her oven, but Angel stood in her way. He looked annoyed, with his arms folded and a scowl on his face.

“Oh, did I forget to feed you?” Fluttershy said pusillanimously.
Angel nodded.
“Oh, Applejack, I hate to bother you, but um…could you please get the scones while I prepare Angels lunch?” Fluttershy asked.
“Sure” Applejack smiled, grasping the opportunity to do something active in the hope that it would help her ignore the conflict in her head.
She methodically stood from her chair and wandered over to Fluttershys oven. She grabbed an ovenhoofmitt and opened the oven doorway. The smell of freshly baked scones filled the air, pleasing Applejacks nose with its delicious aroma. She was eager to taste them, knowing that the smell of Fluttershys cooking was what made you want to eat them, and the taste was what made you not want to stop.

“These look delicious” Applejack grinned.
She set down the tray on the bench as small trails of steam rose from each scone. She glanced over at Fluttershy, who was cutting up a head of lettuce on the bench a few metres from her. She grabbed a few of the scones to put on a plate, but dropped them immediately. Her hooves filled with a painful burning sensation.
“Argh, these are hot!” Applejack gasped.
“Sorry, I should have told you about that” Fluttershy said sheepishly.
Applejack went to grab the ovenhoofmitt, but Fluttershy meekly stopped her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but you can’t use those” Fluttershy said weakly.
“Why not?” Applejack asked incredulously.
“They’re too big and you’ll crush the scones. I’ll go grab a smaller pair”.
She raced out of the room and upstairs.
“Another pair? I can do it with these” Applejack scoffed.
She put the ovenhoofmitt on and grabbed a scone, but as she went to place it on a plate, Fluttershys prediction turned into a reality. Crumbs were littered all over the floor as Applejack grunted angrily. Of course, the voices in her head were quick to judge her for her folly.

“Dang it!” Applejack groaned.
She opened a cupboard to grab a dustpan to clean the mess she’d just made. But in the first cupboard, all she found were spices. She looked in the next one over, but again just found more cooking ingredients.
“Where could that dustpan be? I know I’ve seen a dustpan in one of these cupboards before…” Applejack said.
She went across the kitchen and opened a cupboard completely at random. But she gasped at the sight she saw when the cupboard doors opened.
“How could Fluttershy do that?” she said, completely shocked.

---

Rainbow Dash wandered weakly across the courtyard, her eyes darting in every direction. All around her, everypony was either relaxing, fighting or anything in between. She looked over at some ponies lifting weights. They looked tough and gruesome with the way they pushed themselves to the limit lifting dumbbells and doing benchpresses.

Rainbow Dash moved on, eager to get away from a group of ponies who were a lot bigger and stronger than her. She saw a gang of ponies standing around a tree, just talking. She decided that if she was going to survive in here, she couldn’t do it alone. She needed allies.

She gulped, fearing for her safety, but pushed through her anxiety and forced herself to approach the gang of ponies amalgamated around the old oak.
“Then I shoved her up against the wall and told her, “if you look at me like that again I’ll rip off your clit and shove it down your throat”. She ran away crying” one of the tougher looking ponies in the group laughed.
The remark made Rainbow Dash shudder and almost gag.
“Ahh, hello there” Rainbow Dash muttered timidly.
The gang of ponies turned to face her. One of them stepped towards her and shoved her to the ground.
“What do you want, bitch?”
“I…I was j-just wondering if you could let me hang out with you” Rainbow Dash said timorously.
The pony who shoved her looked confused, but irritated.
“Who put you up to this?” she asked snidely.
“Nopony” Rainbow Dash answered as she picked herself up from the dirt. “I just wanted to make some friends”.
“Get the buck out of here” the pony said maliciously.
Rainbow Dash felt like crying as she turned and walked away. She stepped a few feet away and stared up at the sky. A soft meadow of clouds danced through the azure sea of air above her, taunting her with their pure, celestial charm and how it reminded her that that was the opposite of the dirty, confining prison that was now her home. The clouds looked gentle and welcoming, and the long ocean of air stretching over the crimson horizon beckoned for her to soar across it.

She went to stretch her wings, but all that happened was she let out a painful cry as the wingcuffs almost dislocated her wings. This pegasus could not fly, and thus could not fill her hearts desire to soar the sky.
But the surrounding ponies laughed at her weak attempt to fly away; including the ponies she’d just walked away from. She turned around and saw them standing around the tree. Pointing at her. Laughing at her. Insulting her.

“What a bucking idiot!” one of them laughed.
Rainbow Dash became enraged. Finally, to her slight happiness, all the anger she’d built up since that day in the courtroom could now be focused on somepony. In fact, multiple ponies.
She charged at them as they continued to laugh. She tackled one of them into the tree as hard as she could, actually breaking some of the ponies ribs. The pony she tackled gasped out in agony as Rainbow Dash threw her to the dirt. She put her hooves up, ready to fight, as the others formed a circle around her.

She felt deeply anxious, not sure what to do or say. She threw a wild hoof, smacking one of the tougher ones in the nose, but after that the group erupted into a mass of brutal fighting.
One of the ponies slammed Rainbow Dash against the tree and bashed her nose with their hoof. Rainbow Dash fought back by hitting the ponies throat with her forehooves, but the others immediately jumped in and slammed her to the ground. She curled up in a ball as a fury of kicks hit her head and belly. She actually feared for her life as the kicking evolved into stomping.

“Help!” she screamed out.
But no help came. For a brief moment she opened her eyes and stared between the legs of one of her attackers and out across the courtyard. Nopony bothered to look. In fact, they looked frightened.
Nopony helped Rainbow Dash that day and her beating left her with severe bruises and cuts, as well as a concussion. The part that hurt Rainbow Dash the most though, was how one of the attackers, during her beating, screamed “take this, you bucking murderer!”

So it was clear now; everypony thought it was her who’d killed Rarity. Nopony would ever believe her.
She knew that every day, we do work, which prepares us to work again tomorrow for the day after tomorrow, meaning that yesterdays work was so that we were able to work today. But it was different in prison. That savage beating almost killed her, and every day was a gift for now on.

---

Applejack was speechless. She couldn’t bring forth words to describe her emotions at the sight before her.
An open bottle containing a viscuous liquid stood alone in the cupboard. The bottle was about half empty, and the label read ‘Truth Serum’. She felt appalled, but immediately closed the cupboard when she heard Fluttershy flying back down the stairs.

She raced back to the scones in time to see Fluttershy walk around the corner into the kitchen area.
“Ahh, I tried it with the big ovenhoofmitt…” Applejack grinned sheepishly as the pair stared down at the crumbs on the floor.
Fluttershy chuckled.
“It’s ok, I’ll clean that up. Here, take this and put those scones on some plates. The ones on the left side are yours and the ones on the right are mine”.
Applejack nodded. She took the much smaller ovenhoofmitt and wore it as she put the scones onto plates. She made sure Fluttershy had her head down when she tore open one of the scones on the left side and looked at the inside of it. Sure enough, she saw the truth serum smeared across the inside of the scone.

The conflict that constantly filled her head now switched to the subject of the truth serum.
She’s trying to get a confession out of you! one of the voices in her head screeched.
She suspects it’s you! Kill her now, while you still have the chance! Another voice pleaded.
This will lead to justice. Don’t do a thing her conscience demanded.
Each part of her argued what to do. These thoughts spun around in her head making her feel confused. She didn’t know what to do.
She mixed the scones up, putting some scones containing truth serum on Fluttershys plate. If Fluttershy was going to do something like this, then maybe she could get some truth out her; like why she was doing this, or if she had accomplices.
Fluttershy put the crumbs in the bin and strolled to the dining area as Applejack put the plates on each end of the table.

“These look delicious” Applejack smiled.
“I hope you like them” Fluttershy said.
“I’m sure I will” Applejack responded.
The pair started eating the scones on their plates while sipping their cups of tea. Applejack felt that the scones were delicious, but it was time to put her plan into effect. However, she could taste the truth serum in some of her scones. It didn’t have much of a taste, but she was able to detect it. And knowing that within moments the truth serum would take its grasp on her and she’d be forced to speak the truth for at least a few hours, it would make her susceptible to giving a confession.

“So, you put truth serum in this, didn’t you?” Applejack said bluntly.
Fluttershy looked shocked.
“Yes, I did” she said reluctantly. “How did you know?”
Applejacks tongue and lips began to move and her voice box began to produce sound, but it was completely against her will. She physically couldn’t stop herself from giving an entirely truthful response.

“When you went upstairs I went to find a dustpan to clean up the mess I made. I opened a cupboard and saw a bottle of truth serum, then later I opened up one of the scones you wanted me to have and saw that it had truth serum inside”.
Fluttershy gulped.
“I suspected it was you who killed Rarity” Fluttershy said in a bashful tone.
Fluttershy was also unable to speak anything other than the entire truth, which she now realised. Applejack erupted out of her seat.

“I knew you suspected something. The voices in my head told me” Applejack shouted.
Fluttershy looked horrified.
“Voices?! What voices?” she gasped.
Applejack immediately responded, again completely against her will.

“The voices that have been talking to me ever since I killed Rarity” Applejack said, doing everything she could to stop herself from saying that.
Fluttershy got out of her seat.
“I knew I could make you confess!” Fluttershy said.
Applejack trembled with anxiety. Everything was out in the open now; Fluttershy knew that Applejack was the murderer now.
Do something! a voice in her head cried out.

Applejack shook with fear, unsure of how to handle the situation. But then she remembered her plan.
“Fluttershy, do you really want to get me, your friend, put in prison?” she asked softly.
“If it’s for justice, then yes” Fluttershy responded.
Applejack stepped closer to Fluttershy, making the pegasus step back a few feet.
“Is that just the truth serum talking? Do you really want me to go to jail?”
She stepped towards Fluttershy and carefully stroked her mane. Fluttershys level of anxiety rose. Applejack had already stated proof that she was going insane, having said she could hear voices in her head.
“If it’s for justice, then yes I do”.
“For justice? So if it wasn’t for justice, would you still want me to go to prison?”
“No, I wouldn’t” Fluttershy said.
“I’m sure Rainbow Dash can handle it in prison” Applejack said soothingly.

This was Applejacks honest opinion; or at least the opinion that had been impressed upon her by the voices in her head.

“Justice needs to be served, don’t you think?” Fluttershy said pusillanimously.
“Justice does need to be served” Applejack said, unable to stop herself from giving that remark.
She stopped for a moment and tried to control her speech. But it seemed like a futile effort.
Ask more questions. Then what you’re saying can’t be the truth, nor a lie one of the voices in her head recommended.

“How do you think Rainbow Dash is doing in prison?” Applejack asked.
“I bet she’s having a terrible time” Fluttershy replied. “I bet anypony would hate to be in prison”.
Applejack began to walk in a circle around Fluttershy, making the pegasus feel constricted.
“Are you sure? How can you say she’s having a bad time if you haven’t seen her?” Applejack asked.
“I bet she is having a terrible time. How can you have a good time in prison?”
Applejack couldn’t stop herself from answering Fluttershys question.
“You can’t” she said hastily, then stopped and took a deep breath.
Don’t let her ask questions, or else that truth serum will make you answer truthfully! a voice in her head yelled.
“Fluttershy, do you remember when you and Rainbow Dash were fillies in Cloudsdale and Rainbow Dash knocked you out of the clouds and you fell to the ground?”
“Yes” Fluttershy spoke.
“How did it make you feel to have her just arrogantly push you out of the clouds?”
“At first I felt…mad…but if that hadn’t happened I never would have gotten my cutie mark”.
“So you felt mad? What made you feel mad?” Applejack asked, feeling intrigued.
“I felt mad because nopony tried to rescue me and Rainbow Dash never made sure I wouldn’t fall” Fluttershy said in the most demure of tones.
“Doesn’t that hurt your feelings? Doesn’t it hurt that nopony gave a buck about you?”
Fluttershy did everything she could to resist, but she’d already eaten enough truth serum to last at least an hour.
“Yes, it does hurt” she said, finally giving in to the force of the truth serum.
“Why don’t we go back to why you want me to go to jail?” Applejack said dastardly. “So if justice wasn’t going to be served, you wouldn’t want me to go to jail, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t”.
“Then why are you doing this? Do you seriously want your friend to wind up in prison?”
“No of course not” Fluttershy muttered weakly.

Applejack picked up a vase off of the table. She spilled the water and roses inside out onto the floor, leaving a large puddle.

“I want to smack you in the head with this so that you won’t remember any of this” Applejack uttered without hesitation.
Fluttershy shook with fear. She slowly stepped back, too scared to utter even a single word as Applejack approached with a menacing gleam in her eyes.
“I don’t want to go to jail” Applejack grunted, tears beginning to drain from her eyes.
Fluttershy stumbled backwards into the kitchen and crashed to the floor. Her wings locked up and she was unable to get up and run as Applejack stepped towards her, beginning to swing the vase around more and more violently.
“You’re going insane!” Fluttershy finally screamed.
“Am I? What if we live in a world where everypony is insane and I’m just turning sane?” Applejack said.
“Get away from me” Fluttershy shouted.
She skidded back across the floor, in an attempt to get as far away from Applejack as possible.
“You really wanted me to go to jail, didn’t you?” Applejack said, now breathing a lot heavier.
“Yes, but only so justice could be served. Why do you keep asking so many questions?”

Applejack grunted and groaned. She dropped the vase and it smashed to pieces on the floor, sending hundreds of shards of opaque glass across Fluttershys kitchen.
Applejack clamped her hooves over her mouth, but the truth serum could not be stopped.

“A question can’t be the truth, nor a lie, so that means I can use propaganda against you to persuade you not to turn me in, while still being affected by the truth serum” Applejack blurted out.
Fluttershy looked shocked, but yet she felt intrigued.
“So if I ask questions, the truth serum can’t affect me?” Fluttershy asked, deciding to adopt this strategy.
“Yes” Applejack replied, finding herself unable to do much as she answered questions.
“Why did you murder Rarity?” Fluttershy asked, beginning to stand up.
She decided it was time to begin the interrogation she was planning to do. It hadn’t gone as planned, but at least now maybe she could get more evidence out of Applejack than just a confession, which she knew Applejack would never repeat to anypony.

“I was arguing with her. The argument escalated quickly and we broke out into a fight, which resulted in her smashing a computer monitor on my back. I shot up and stabbed her throat with a pair of scissors” Applejack said.
She’s onto you! a voice in Applejacks head screamed in rage.
How could you let this happen? Now she’ll tell everypony! another shouted.
“Did you frame Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy asked, grinning as she realised she had some power over Applejack.
She had to be careful though, as Applejack had the same power over her.
“Yes, I did” Applejack answered.
“How did you frame Rainbow Dash?”
“I gave her the scissors in the bathroom of the courtroom before we went in, and you know the rest because you were there to see it”.
Fluttershy smiled.
“We need to go to the police station so we can get you to confess this to them” Fluttershy said.
“No, I don’t want to do that!” Applejack whined.
“It’s for the best” Fluttershy responded.
She’s not asking questions! Ask some while you still can, you idiot! a voice told Applejack.
“What if what’s for the best was that Rainbow Dash stayed in prison? Do you really want me, your friend, to go to a prison and get hurt?” Applejack asked.
Fluttershy gasped and grunted, but couldn’t stop herself.
“Justice needs to be served though” Fluttershy said, now returning to her normal, unassertive tone.
“Does it? What if we just stayed this way? Does anypony really need to know? Don’t you think Rainbow Dash would like to be away from all of us anyway?”
“No, she’d rather be with her friends” Fluttershy said.
“Would she? Don’t you think she’d find everypony here annoying? Don’t you think she’d find you annoying, Fluttershy”.
“No. I’m not annoying…”
“Aren’t you? What if I told you Rainbow Dash said you’re annoying?” Applejack said.
Fluttershy shook her head.
“I know you’re trying to use propaganda, but I’m not gonna accept it”.
“Are you sure? I mean, are you sure Rainbow Dash doesn’t deserve this?” Applejack said, trying to get Fluttershy to believe that Rainbow Dash wasn’t as innocent as she seemed, despite that she was.
“I’m not going to believe you” Fluttershy said.
“I know what I’ll have to resort to then” Applejack grunted.
She grabbed the teapot and before Fluttershy could speak a single word, she struck Fluttershys head with it. There was a loud smacking sound as metal met flesh, and Fluttershys body collapsed to the floor. Her lifeless legs fell to the ground next to her, just inches from the glass of the broken vase, as she fell unconscious.

Applejack stood over her, breathing heavily.
“Oh Fluttershy, what to do with you…” Applejack sighed, with her insane side beginning to surface again.

---

Rainbow Dash sat alone in her cell, nursing her wounds. A gargantuan sea of misery swept across her mind, laying waste to her happiness and leaving her devoid of cheerfulness as it filled her body with sorrow. Likewise, a storm of hatred and bitterness swarmed over this sea, leaving Rainbow Dash unable to see or hear anything but its thunderous cries of anger and its lightning strikes of fury as her conscience sailed a ship over this tormenting sea of depression, the waves of which were exhilarated by the storm of hate relentlessly and fiercely rumbling overhead.

Rainbow Dash held up the shank she’d just been sharpening for over two hours with a rock. It was made from another rock and she was very careful not to let anypony see her with it.
She stepped towards the front of her cell, where the bars were, and looked up and down the hall. There was only one guard on duty, and he looked bored and tired.

“Hey, can you come down here?” she called out.
The guard turned around from examining a window and frowned at her.
“Shut up and leave me alone” he called back.
“I need help” Rainbow Dash shouted to him. “There are tarantulas in my bed”.
“That’s your problem, not mine” the guard shrugged.
Rainbow Dash grunted angrily. This guard was testing her patience.
“Please, I need help!” she whined.
The guard sighed irritably. He marched up the line of cells and stood in front of Rainbow Dash.
“Your bed looks fine from here” he said sternly.
“No, you’ll have to come in here and check it” Rainbow Dash told him weakly, pretending to be distressed.
The guard groaned angrily.
“Turn around and I’ll hoofcuff your hooves to the jail bars” he told her.
She nodded, but before turning around she took the shank, which she’d been holding behind her back throughout the conversation, and concealed it in her fur. She buried it deep so he couldn’t see it.
She then turned around and put her hooves between the cells bars. The guard locked a pair of hoofcuffs tightly onto her hooves so that she couldn’t move away from the bars. He then unlocked the door and walked inside.

“I don’t see any tarantulas running around” he said.
Rainbow Dash grabbed the shank out of her coat and started using it to break the chains of the hoofcuffs.
“They’re over by my bed” she said, again pretending to be distressed.
The guard sighed and walked over to the bed. Rainbow Dash furiously filed away at the chain, and eventually it snapped.
The guard pulled her bed apart but couldn’t find anything.
“There’s no spiders here at all. Is this some kind of joke?”
Rainbow Dash clutched the shank tightly in her hooves as she continued to keep her hooves behind her, to give the illusion that she was still confined to the cells bars.

“Ok, you got me” she said playfully.
The guard grunted.
“You little bitch” he said.
He stomped towards her and put his hoof in her face.
“If you pull that kind of shit again I’ll beat the shit out of you. You hear me? I’ll hurt you”.
“Think again” she muttered under her breath.
In one fluid movement, in less than a second, she brought the shank out from behind her back. Using the momentum of the shank being pulled out from behind her, she sliced it along his belly, cutting shallowly into his flesh.
He stood back and gasped in a mixture of pain and shock.

“What the?!” he shouted out.
Before he could say more, Rainbow Dash plunged her shank into his stomach, then ruthlessly ripped it out. The guard moaned quietly, then collapsed to the floor. His uniform was soiled with blood as he let out gurgling noises, the likes of which were painful to listen to.

He began coughing blood, and even though Rainbow Dash didn’t want to murder, she did want vengeance. She ripped his uniform off of him and held it firmly against his stab wound, then kicked the back of his head.
This knocked him out, but she lay him on his back and put his hoof over the uniform which was held against his wound. To keep his hoof in place, she took a pair of hoofcuffs out of the pocket of the uniform, then locked one end of them on the hoof that held the uniform to his wound, then with the other end she stretched out and put under his body. This way his hoof wouldn’t fall off. She then grabbed a set of keys out of his uniform and held them tightly.

She stood up and felt stricken with guilt. But this was outweighed by her longing for vengeance. She looked at her wings and realised that it would be difficult to find a way to get those wingcuffs off. But she’d find a way, somehow.
Meanwhile, escape was imminent.

She stepped out of her cell and down the hall. She reached the end and used the keys to unlock the doorway to the staff room. When she opened it she peeked inside, but was delighted to see that nopony was in there.
“I may not be able to fly yet” she muttered under her breath as she climbed through a window and jumped out of it.
She landed in some bushes and grinned when she saw that she was outside the gates of the prison.
“But I’m coming for you, Applejack”.

Abominable Intentions

The young filly sat alone in the lounge of her parents house. Her parents were out and trusted her to be home alone for about twenty minutes while they bought some food for dinner. Undoubtedly, her parents knew what had happened to their daughter Rarity, as did Sweetie Belle. Her pure, crystal-like tears seemed to dance in the light as they dropped from her eyes, splashing at the end of their fall to Sweetie Belles chest before slowly running down through her fur.
“How could Rainbow Dash do that?” Sweetie Belle muttered depressively, her words drifting through the somber, empty room.
Or at least it seemed somber and empty to Sweetie Belle; her sister, her idol, dead in the blink of an eye, her company escaping her like a whisper eluding oneself through the wind, once taken for granted, but now never forgotten. This young filly perceived the world around her to be like an encroaching entity composed of pain and misery, encompassing her soul, but never moving in for the kill; just simply leaving her to suffer its depression impressed upon her, and lay in a puddle of bitter tears, slowly flooding her soul with their unrelenting anguish.

A quiescent ball of emotion, made almost entirely of depression but tainted with anger, boiled within her heart. Her soul felt dead to its shriveled core, but her body lived on. The mix of colours in Rainbows mane accurately represented the mix of depression, anger, bitterness, betrayal and loneliness Sweetie Belle felt. And Rainbow Dash was one of two mares Sweetie Belle just couldn’t push out of her mind.

She stood up and tried to free her mind from its despondent state by going out for a walk. She put a note on the fridge telling her parents what she was doing, then she locked the front door behind herself as she set out down the street.
Birds chirped and did somersaults as they soared through the air. Flowers blossomed in the gardens around her as the suns light stretched over the landscape, welcoming everypony with its warmth. Butterflies danced in the air and squirrels sauntered over freshly cut lawns and up into trees to feast on the nuts they’d collected.
But Sweetie Belle couldn’t enjoy any of this. She couldn’t enjoy the beauty of the flora and fauna around her. Her depression had buried itself into her mind, grasping her emotions with its jagged claws and flooding her soul with grievous tears. The slight remembrance of Rarity filled her with the deepest feeling of anguish and suppressed all positive emotions, causing her to enter an intensely forlorn state of mind.

She turned and trotted up a narrow street, her despair evident in the manner of which she walked. Her hooves hit the pavement softly, yet in a hollow way, expressing her lugubrious attitude.
She ambled up this street, tears beginning to drip from her eyes as she stopped and stared up the street. The Carousel Boutique stood before her, about twenty feet away. She began to tremble with sorrow.
Tears drained from the fillys as she turned and galloped up the road. She raced around a corner and sprinted up a street, desperately trying to get away from not only a place that gave her such a vivid memory of Rarity, but also the place of Raritys murder; the last place Rarity lived in this world before having her life ruthlessly taken from her and extinguished forever.

A young stallion had to jump out of the way as Sweetie Belle barged through, making a prodigious commotion as tears rained from her eyes like a storm of pain, her wailing acting as the thunder and her hooves striking the pavement as the lightning.

She was blinded by the copious amount of tears flooding her eye sockets and staining the pure, white fur upon her face. She ran full-force into somepony, knocking them a few feet away as Sweetie Belle tripped on something they dropped. She collapsed to the ground and her head skidded across the concrete, scraping and bloodying her young face, exposing a few trickles of blood, but mostly just leaving scrapes which would heal soon after.
It didn’t hurt too much, but Sweetie Belle just felt like lying there; staying there on the ground forever, slowly decaying into nothing. She’d almost lost the will to live.

“Are you ok?” a female voice said worryingly.
Sweetie Belle turned her head and gazed up at the mare standing over her. She slowly blinked as sunlight flooded into her eyes, but she just was able to make out the figure of a pony extending her hoof to help her up. She grabbed it and she pulled her up onto her feet.
“Thanks” she said softly.
She looked up at the pony and was surprised to see that it was Pinkie Pie.
“Where are you running in such a hurry?” the overly exuberant pony smiled.
“Nowhere” Sweetie Belle replied meekly, struggling to stop more tears from joining the ones already moistening her fur.
“Why were you going so fast then?” Pinkie asked.
“No reason” Sweetie Belle lied.
“Why are you crying, Swe- …oh” Pinkie said, before stopping herself.
Pinkie sighed quietly and looked down at the ground, immediately realising what was wrong with the filly, like a kind of a kind of telepathic connection had just been built. Sweetie Belle didn’t even have to say a word; the tears that began to fall from her eyes, run down her cheeks and fade away on her lips, explained it all.

“I’m sorry about it, Sweetie Belle” Pinkie said sympathetically.
“It’s ok” Sweetie Belle shrugged, wiping tears out of her eyes. “It’s not like I could’ve stopped it”.
Pinkie sat down on the curb and patted the concrete next to her, beckoning Sweetie Belle to sit with her. Sweetie Belle sat down on the curb-side next to her and Pinkie put her hoof over the fillys shoulders and gave her a warming hug.
“It’ll be ok” Pinkie whispered, almost about to cry herself. “It’ll be ok”.
“It’s just…I always took her for granted” Sweetie Belle cried softly. “The last thing I ever said to her was just “yeah, whatever” when her and I got in a small argument and I decided to leave and go stay the night with Apple Bloom. That was the last thing I ever said to her before she died, and I have to live with that”.
Pinkie understood Sweetie Belles forlorn attitude, especially now that she’d learnt this unfortunate truth. She desperately wanted to help the young filly, to at least bring her some kind of closure.
“Look, what would you say if I told you that Rarity always treasured you?” Pinkie asked.
Sweetie Belle sniffed and looked up at Pinkie.
“I’d say that isn’t true” Sweetie Belle sniffed.
“But it is” Pinkie said. “She always loved you. I bet at the time of her death, she probably wanted to turn back time and properly say goodbye as well”.
“Yeah, maybe. I just wish this had never happened…”
Sweetie Belle stood up and her anger began to take charge, overwhelming her depression.
“Damn Rainbow Dash!” she squealed, kicking the curb-side as hard as she could.
Pinkie wasn’t sure what to say.
“Look, maybe she had a reason?” Pinkie said, trying to make sense of the situation.
“Yeah, to make me as sad as possible” Sweetie Belle cried.
She turned and spontaneously ran up the street.
“Wait, Sweetie Belle!” Pinkie yelled out.

Sweetie Belle heard Pinkie, but she ignored her and ran as fast as she could. Happiness was all she wanted, but as time went on from the death of Rarity, she found that all her positive emotions had been eradicated; drowned in a sea of misery, composed of the tears she cried all day and all night, weeping from her eyes as they fell down and stained her very soul with bitter anguish.

All she desired was to see Rarity again. For one last time. But for this desire, there was no hope.
When Sweetie Belle was a very young filly, just old enough to walk, Rarity was just beginning dress-making. Sweetie Belle found joy in wandering up the halls of her parents house, putting one hoof in front of the other, and wondering what kind of adventure she’d encounter today. Perhaps she’d get to go down to the market and see her friends, or she’d have to suffer through a bath. Either way, every day was like an adventure and Sweetie Belle was ready to take it head-on.
She found delight in walking, although struggling to achieve the simple task of placing one hoof in front of the other. But she was determined, and this process often led her up the corridor and into Raritys bedroom, where she saw the mare who she believed to be like a saint; the mare she always looked up to and would do anything to please and appease.

She’d wander in, an affectionate look worn on her face, as Rarity experimented with differing cloths, attempting to make beautiful dresses like the ones in her magazines. Tried as she did, the equipment she had at hoof was inadequate; she didn't even own a sowing machine, but instead just a thread and needle. However, just like Sweetie Belles will to walk, she was determined to make dresses and fulfill her goal of one day opening her own dress-making store.
“What do you want?” Rarity would say in an irritated tone, a long thread dangling from her mouth as she struggled to get it in the eye of her needle.

Sweetie Belle, of course, hadn’t learnt to speak, and just gazed up at Rarity with the edges of her mouth curling upwards, in an attempt to show Rarity that she was happy with her.
“Please, just leave” Rarity would often say soon-after. “I’m trying to make this dress”.
Sweetie Belle hadn’t quite gotten the grasp of communication, and her affectionate look changed to that of confusion. She was puzzled, yet Rarity couldn’t see it and just felt agitated by not being able to make her dress properly.
As the years went on, the two grew older and matured slightly. Sweetie Belle had perfected walking and talking, just as Rarity had perfected sowing and stitching. But of course, Sweetie Belles area of exploration had begun to expand outside of just her parents house, especially since she’d been enrolled in school, and she began to find new role models. Inevitably, the glory that seemed to once emanate from Rarity began to fade, like the sun lowering over the horizon in the dusk of day, leaving the landscape to be shrouded in darkness as it leaves, only now, never to return once again and begin the process anew.

Sweetie Belle, now a school student, began to expand her list of friends beyond just Rarity and found that Rarity wasn’t the only great pony in the world. As time went on, Rarity began to seem like just another pony. Of course, Sweetie Belle still loved her, but never looked up to her in the way she did prior to going out and beginning to explore Ponyville.

One day, Rarity and Sweetie Belle were left home alone for a few hours in the evening. Undoubtedly, Rarity was in charge of Sweetie Belle. Her dress-making hobby was beginning to blossom and she was actually beginning to make a small business. She’d gotten her cutie mark and her parents, and herself, were so overwhelmed with glee that they went and bought a sowing machine for her, increasing her production of dress-making ten-fold.
Rarity decided, in the middle of making a hat, that she obviously needed to cook a meal for Sweetie Belle. She went to the kitchen and made a simple meal; just a roast chicken with mixed vegetables. But she cooked it well and when it was ready she served a plate for Sweetie Belle and herself.

“What do you think?” Rarity asked her sister, eager to hear her opinion of her cooking.
Sweetie Belle swallowed a large mouthful of chicken and began to speak.
“The chicken’s good, but the vegetables taste terrible” she said flatly.
“Oh” Rarity said in a surprised tone.
She was puzzled; she knew Sweetie Belle had always looked up to her, looking to her like she was a saint. But now, she’d given her criticism, very unlike the Sweetie Belle she’d come to know.
“How come you don’t like it?” Rarity asked.
“I don’t know. Vegetables are nice but you cooked these all wrong” Sweetie Belle said critically.
Rarity felt a bit hurt.
“I’m sorry” she said. “Are they under-cooked?”
“No, they’re just all soggy, and blagh!” Sweetie Belle said, expressing her disgust.
“I’m sorry they don’t suit your taste” Rarity said apologetically, putting a fork-load of carrots in her mouth.
“It’s just gross” Sweetie Belle said acidly.
She picked up her plate and hurled it to the floor. The glass plate shattered when it collided with the linoleum floor, sending large shards of crystal-like fragments scattering across the kitchen, as well as chicken bones and vegetables.
“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity yelped in an alarmed tone.
“That food was icky” Sweetie Belle said nastily, before getting up and leaving.

That evening seemed to play over and over in Sweetie Belles head, again and again as she ran from Pinkie, swirling around through her skull, a hurricane of regret. How could she treat the pony she loved with such cruelty?

---

Applejack dragged Fluttershy out of her home, using most of her strength to carry the unconscious pegasus. She dragged her around the outside of her house and dropped her near the back.
“Oh, dear Celestia, what have I done?” she moaned.
Inside her mind, her voices screamed at her, yearning for her to end the pegasus’ life, for she clearly knew too much. But Fluttershy was her friend. Could she really kill her friend in cold blood? Then again, she did murder Rarity, and Rarity was her friend.

She stomped her hoof on the dirt and shook her head.
“I don’t know what to do” she mumbled.
She mulled it over in her head. If she did nothing, Fluttershy would more than likely go to the police and Applejacks freedom would be ended.

On the other hand, she could do something to her, even murder her, then she couldn’t tell anyone. However, she loved Fluttershy. Could she really do that to her friend?
She galloped as quickly as she could back to her house, running through the streets. Some ponies looked at her in odd ways as she sprinted down the road, barging through small crowds of ponies.
“Hey, watch where you’re galloping!” somepony shouted as she ran by.
She slowed down to a fast trot as she approached the entrance to her farm. She looked around worryingly, but then found an old cart; just what she’d been looking for.

She hooked herself up to it, not even bothering to put the straps on properly.
She wasn’t sure why she was acting so frantically; time wasn’t crucial here, although it seemed to be. Fluttershy would be probably be unconscious for a while, so why the rush?
However, the voices in her head prodded, demanding she go faster.
The quicker you do this, the quicker we can go back to relaxing! one of them yelled.
“I don’t want to do this to my friend, though” she whispered to herself, shedding a tear.
Do you wanna go to jail? Huh? Do you wanna get the crap beaten out of you by everypony in prison? Cause that’s what’ll fucking happen if you leave Fluttershy alone! Now get moving!
Applejack now understood the metaphor 'being trapped between a rock and a hard place'. Her conscious and her true nature begged her to simply take the cart back to her farm, leave Fluttershy and let the pegasus explain everything to the police so that justice could be served. Or even better; confess herself.
However, these thoughts were conflicted by the numerous voices in her head, urging her to carry out these abominable intentions. They presented a good argument; although murdering a friend initially has the cost of guilt and remorse, the payoff would increase the longevity of her freedom.

Unfortunately, while definitely myopic in their nature, the voices were good arguers, and were capable of persuading Applejack into almost any situation. Although, usually they’d utilize this ability to cause her undertake actions that would place her in a situation where She would only experience a short period of happiness until a new problem arose from her prior actions; in this case, her intention of murdering Fluttershy.
They’ll never catch you if you kill Fluttershy! a voice howled.
No! This’ll just create more problems! Don’t you have a heart, Applejack? How can you end the life of another pony, nay, the life of a friend? her sense of remorse pleaded.
Don’t listen to them! It’ll take less than ten minutes and then you’ll be fine forever! a second voice said persuasively.
They can’t catch you if nopony says anything a third voice added.
Applejacks breathing rate escalated quickly. Her vision became woozy and she felt nervous. Out of all the times her good qualities and her cold, calculating side had argued, this was the worst she’d experienced. The argument was heated, and all the voices and of her good qualities seemed to all be shouting at once.

It was a constant argument in the mind of Applejack during her short voyage back to Fluttershys cottage. Her eyes twitched nervously and her mane drooped as her heart rate increased substantially, in response to severe anxiety.
Her muscles became limp as she lowered the cart next to Fluttershys lifeless body. Her pink mane danced in the wind as a gust of air flew by. A feather dismembered itself from one of her wings and slowly drifted through the air, caught in an updraft. It soared upwards towards the long, blue ocean of air above which seemed to mimic a restful, beautiful sea on this cloud deprived day. The yellow, fragile feather rose steadily higher and higher, taunting Applejack with how her actions would never let her rise to Ponyheaven, before finally blowing away in an instant, never to be seen again.
Applejack gulped as tears ran from her eyes. They poured onto Fluttershys face like soft rain as Applejack held her head over the pegasus, admiring her for one last time.

She knelt down and stroked Fluttershys mane.
“I love you, Fluttershy…” Applejack whispered soothingly in her ear. “But I can’t let you turn me in. I just can’t”.
She took a deep breath, then methodically stood back up. She picked up Fluttershys limp body and put her in the straps of the cart, then grabbed her mane with her mouth and began dragging Fluttershy, along with the cart, downstream towards a nearby lake. Her plan was to push Fluttershy and the cart into the lake, with Fluttershy strapped to the cart, thus making it look like an accident.

She stopped at the edge of the lake and looked out across it. There was nopony in sight, yet she felt like the entire world stood over her, judging her. Scorning her. Mocking her. Yelling at her.
She stared up at the sky, almost sure there actually were at least some pegasi hovering above and watching. But inevitably, all she saw was the still, clear blue sky, not tainted by a cloud, nor anything else. It’s only rival being the sun, sitting lazily in the corner of Applejacks eye. Welcoming her with its warmth, only to fade away just mere hours later and have this warmth, this plentiful light, taken away. As daylight dies and dusk is born once again, darkness thrives in this absence of light, mocking us with our inability to see through it, inevitably leading to our brains to imagine the bizarre, yet believe it to be reality.

Applejack thought about this, realising eventually, that the sunlight was her happiness, its death the murder of Rarity, and each ‘monster in the dark’ a new problem that would arise from that, and the darkness they were contained in was the judgment of the voices in her head, not allowing to see these problems, yet to approach them in promise of freedom. These ‘monsters’ don’t have to exist if she doesn’t want them to! If they aren’t tangible, why let them affect her?
She shook her head and gazed over at Fluttershy.
“I’m so sorry” she said softly.
Applejack wandered over to her and stroked her hair with her hoof.
“Fluttershy, I’m so sorry for what I was about to do”.
She continued to stroke her, but suddenly recoiled in horror. Her hoof had just brushed over something she couldn’t bring herself to believe. She raced around to the back of Fluttershy and gasped when she saw the back of Fluttershys head.
Her skull was completely cracked open, her brain was partially exposed and blood slowly seeped out. Applejacks heart rate increased ten-fold, knowing this must have happened when she struck Fluttershys head with that teapot.
“Oh, Celestia!” she gasped, unable to believe the sight before her.

It took her a moment to calm down, but she immediately checked her pulse when she did. There was a pulse, but it was incredibly weak.
She picked up Fluttershy in her forehooves and, even though it’s very difficult for ponies to walk in this fashion, forced herself to use just her back legs to race to the back of the cart. She carefully placed Fluttershys body in it, then got in the straps at the front.
What are you doing! Carry on with the plan! a voice in Applejacks head insisted.
For once, Applejack decided that enough was enough.
“No, I’m saving my friend” she muttered as she turned the cart around.
She struggled to keep her breathing steady as she pulled the cart up the hillside as fast as she could without going so fast that Fluttershys affliction would be worsened by something like a bump in the track.
She reached the top within less than a minute.
Turn back. Now! a furious voice screeched.
“I refuse to” she said quietly to herself.
She started pulling the cart along, but within seconds she suddenly felt woozy. It was like…it was like the voices in her head were making her brain shut down.
Or maybe she was starting to be persuaded to turn back and this was the result of not doing what she desired, even though she wasn’t sure what she desired.
Applejack stopped and tried to think for a moment, although the woozy feeling persisted slightly.
“Maybe I should kill Fluttershy…or should I save her?”
She turned her head and looked back at Fluttershy. She was completely unsure of what to do. If she took her to the hospital and she recovered, she’d then tell everypony that she was the murderer. But maybe she’d suffer amnesia? But what if she didn’t? But if she murdered her, how would she deal with the body? Would it be better to leave the body like she’d done with Rarity, or dispose of it herself? But what about her morals? What about the analogy she’d thought about before?
These thoughts spun around in her head, a web of complicated thought processes, but this entire conflict of what to do could be broken down into one basic battle: morals VS freedom.

Applejack felt queasy with remorse and confusion, having no idea what to do. She sat down on the road and held her head in her hoofs, allowing her tears to run down her forelegs, soiling her orange fur as it dripped down onto the concrete beneath, staining it with its forlorn anguish.
Applejack, her eyes lost in a sea of bitter tears, gazed over at Fluttershy. Her sight lay upon the wound on her head, filling Applejacks soul to the brim with a sense of dread and misery which stained her soul to the core with grief. Her soul set alight with sparks of misery, leading to flames of guilt. The smoke of remorse rose from this fire of regret, until her soul was left charred to the core. Reduced to being black with depression, destroyed and crushed, left broken and forgotten in this cruel, unforgiving world we call our home.

---

Rainbow Dash wandered down a road far from the prison she’d just escaped from. A shower of rain fell from the grey clouds above her, covering the sky and soiling its once clear, blue look with their depressing grey colour, almost matching the pegasis emotions. Had there been a booming crack of thunder and a flash of lightning, her surroundings would have accurately matched her emotions, for she was furious and boiling with rage, like a jug of water boils vigorously over a fire. But this pegasus was close to boiling over.

A trickle of water slowly ran down her nose as she grunted angrily, trying her best to rid herself of her wingcuffs. But they were made of a strong metal alloy and she lacked the tools necessary to remove or break them.
She felt cold, her body fully exposed to the cool, crisp air, protected only by her thin blue fur. The wind whistled through the trees on the side of the road as it sped through the air and her hooves stepping on the road was one of the only audible noises in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere.
But the pegasis eyes lit up when she heard a second set of hooves walking nearby. Her eyes darted around furiously, but the air was filled with a hazy fog that made hearing much more useful than sight. But finally, she spotted a stallion pulling a cart along the road in the distance. The stallion was just up ahead and looked tired and apathetic, pulling the cart lethargically.

She steadily trotted over, but when she got within 30 feet of the stallion, she stopped and felt slightly shocked. She leapt into some nearby bushes and sheltered herself in the leaves, fearing she’d be seen. But in this fog, this was extremely unlikely.
She peered out through the bushes, her eyes the only exposed part of her body as she looked around for the stallion. Eventually, her sight lay upon the stallion once again. It was, unfortunately for Rainbow Dash, Big Mac.
“What is he doing out here?” she quietly muttered to herself.

She looked at all the junk in his cart and wondered to herself; perhaps he had something she could use to break her wingcuffs? But of course, what would Big Mac say or do if he saw the pony he thought murdered Rarity, outside of prison with no guards around? Undoubtedly, he’d run away and contact the police, who were probably already searching for her.
She sat down and sighed slowly as she thought it through. She needed to check his cart to see if he had any useful tools, but he was a lot bigger than her and could probably quite easily overpower her if he wanted to, which he probably would.
“Damn it, should I take the risk?” she whispered, peering out of the bush again.
She sighed, coming to the realization that she was in the middle of nowhere. The chances of coming across another pony around here who potentially had tools that could remove wingcuffs, was virtually nil. She had to grasp this opportunity with all her effort.

And so, she sprinted across the road and jumped into another set of bushes, just mere metres from Big Mac. The stallion jumped in shock and looked behind him, but inevitably saw nothing. He shrugged it off and thought of it as nothing more than just a bird or something.
Rainbow Dash emerged from the bush she hid behind and stepped up behind Big Mac, taking each step as quietly as possible. After just a moment, she lunged forward and hit the back of Big Macs head with her forehooves. Big Mac slumped forwards and gasped loudly.
Rainbow Dash feared that her actions were unsuccessful, but she felt elated when he collapsed to the ground. She raced over to him to see that his eyes were closed and his breathing was slow. The massive stallion had been put to sleep.
Rainbow Dash immediately sprinted to his cart and started rummaging through its contents. She felt almost euphoric when she found a pair of bolt cutters laying amongst the clutter.

“Oh, perfect!” she yelped.
She grabbed them, placed the blades over her wingcuffs and pressed down with them as hard as she could.
But nothing happened.
“What the?” she said in confusion.
She tried again, but the same thing happened. Again and again, she tried frantically to cut the wingcuffs, but they just would not snap, nor even break in any way whatsoever. Not even a scratch could be seen when Rainbow threw the bolt cutters at the ground with fury.
“Why won’t you cut them?!” she screamed.
She was enraged, but then gasped when she looked a little more closely at the bolt cutters. She picked them up off the moist concrete road, made wet by the soft downpour of rain, and ran her hoof along their blades. She slowly turned her hoof towards her face and stared at it, only to find that the bolt cutters hadn’t cut her.
“These bolt cutters are blunt!” she yelled. “Why did that fat lummox have blunt bolt cutters in his cart!?”
She dropped them on the ground and went back to rummaging through the cart, but couldn’t find anything else capable of cutting through her wingcuffs.

“Fuck!” she screeched, her voice piercing through the cold, still air.
She furiously kicked the cart and broke one of the wheels in her rage. But, accepting the fact that there was nothing more for her here, she stepped back and picked up the bolt cutters she’d dropped. She decided that she’d have to take them somewhere where she could get them sharpened. Then she could remove her wingcuffs and get on with her plan.
And so, the pegasus, driven by anger, began walking up the middle of the road towards Ponyville. She clutched the bolt cutters tightly with her teeth, ignoring the disgusting taste of the plastic handles. The rain began to get heavier and puddles stood in her path. But she strode through the rain, eager to find Applejack and achieve vengeance. Her mind became solely focused on this objective, and as she steadily walked up this road, nopony knew of what would come during the upcoming days when Rainbow Dash arrived in Ponyville.

The Anathema

The light hit her eyes with blinding force. She blinked multiple times, her pupils struggling to adjust to the artificial light emanating from above her. She turned her head slowly, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the world around her, but her vision was masked with blurriness. She could only just make out the silhouettes of some ponies standing a few feet from her, their figures moving methodically around her. Her brain struggled to make out what was happening, not to mention comprehend. But as her eyes began to adjust, the figures around her came into focus and she saw that they were wearing white coats. They hadn’t noticed that she’d woken, or if they had they weren’t too worried about it.

Slowly, the young mare looked across the room and saw what filled her with a feeling of both blithe and dread; a window. However, it was not the window itself that induced these emotions, but for the view beyond its transparent sheet. She fixated her eyes on a sign that read ‘Ponyville Hospital’ that stood just outside the window, next to a lovely set of bushes that appeared to house animals that would have sent Fluttershy into a series of exultant yelling and cheering, had she been there to see them.

Fluttershy!

Applejack burst out of the thin sheet that lay over her disheveled fur and mane. She exploded onto the floor, not even knowing where she was going, and raced towards the closest exit she could find. However, two doctors stood in her path. They turned and looked shocked to see their patient charging at them!

One of them jumped back and tripped over a cord on the floor, sending him crashing into a sink on a bench. He looked unconscious as his head struck the edge of it, causing him to collapse down the side of the bench and onto the floor.
The other doctor was a bit luckier, however. Applejack hit her with full force, although this was unintentional; her will to see Fluttershy and find out whether she was ok or not drummed through her heart like a wild swarm of wasps, and this will could not be stopped by just one doctor standing in her path. Thus, she was ready to barge through whatever or whoever stood in her way.

She sent the female doctor crashing to the ground as she sprinted towards the exit. She had no idea where she was going. But fear and suspicion had been implanted in her mind and heart; Fluttershy was in a catatonic state when Applejack last laid her eyes upon her, before falling unconscious due to the massive onset of anxiety, mixed with nausea. She had no way of telling what her condition was now, nor how much time had passed. Therefore, not quite in the right state of mind, she galloped up the hall darting in and out of every doorway up it. The rest of the doctors who were in her room at the time of her sudden outburst were quick to chase after her, but stood back when they saw her just randomly running in and out of rooms. They watched her, bewildered, wondering what the hell she was doing.

“She must be delirious” one of the head doctors sighed. “I’ll alert the guards. Somepony help those doctors she knocked down”.
The rest of the doctors nodded, all wanting to impress him as he was their superior, and went back into the room to help them. The head doctor walked quickly to a nearby telephone that was on the wall next to a door and called for some guards.

Meanwhile, Applejack frantically sprinted in an out of every doorway she saw. Her mind was racing, her heart beating furious, her arteries clogged with adrenaline. She knew she couldn’t forgive herself if something happened to Fluttershy. But was running around a hospital in search of her and disturbing everypony going to help her? No. But she wanted to find her, merely to put her heart at ease.
She ran into a room for the umpteenth time and saw a stallion laying in a bed watching T.V. The stallion didn’t notice Applejack at first. But Applejack breathed heavily as she entered the room and gave the room a chilling feeling as the stallion turned his head to see a frightening sight.
“Who are you?!” he exclaimed in shock. “What are you doing here!?”
“Where’s Fluttershy!??” Applejack demanded.
Good. Find Fluttershy, then finish her off one of the voices in her head said out of nowhere.
It had been a while since Applejack had heard one of those foul voices, and this was also the first time she’d heard it since she woke up. It made her stop and stumble for a second, not sure of how to react to it.
“No. I love her” she whispered.
Do you really want to go to jail? You probably already gave Fluttershy brain damage. Why not euthanize her, instead of forcing her to be subject to a miserable life of inadequacy? the voice retorted.
Find her and kill her. It’s for the best. For you both another voice added grimly.
Applejack spontaneously burst into tears. Her nose began to run and her eyes welled up as images of Fluttershy in a coffin six feet under forced themselves into her mind. She couldn’t suppress the image of Fluttershy laying in a hospital bed, in a catatonic state, moments from death. Angel at her side, experiencing his emotions being desolated to a barren wasteland of emptiness, devoid of any last shred of happiness as he uttered his last words to Fluttershy. Though she could not hear, he spoke them anyway, before leaning over and softly pressing his lips against her forehead, leaving a small patch of saliva as a symbol of his never-dying remembrance.
And just as the sun fades, just as daylight dies and darkness is brought upon by the absence of the forgiving, warm light, Fluttershys pulse weakened to the point that it became stagnant. Her last breath escaped her lips, idly waving its way through the room, unto that of steam, its streams of gas breaking out in all directions, before finally fading into nothing, gone forever. The heart rate monitor inevitably flat-lined, bringing forth tears of which nopony had seen the likes of, erupting from Angels face like a powerful current sweeping through a river, demolishing all in its path of destruction, though composed of tears that represented the harshest of scorn, amalgamated with a surging torrent of misery, the likes of which unto us have not suffered.

All of this, Applejack could not bear to witness as it flashed before her eyes, a nightmare seemingly so authentic it had the potential to be reality.
She immediately snapped out of her trance when she heard the hospital patient yelling. She glanced over at him.
“Can somepony help? There’s somepony in here and they’re acting strange. I think she might be crazy!” he cried out.
These words, although only what they were, just words, still felt like daggers in Applejacks heart. The remark, claiming her to be ‘crazy’, was what stung the most, cruelly leaving the last blow. The pain it left in her lingered for a moment as it tore a hole through her heart, ripping it to pieces.

Somepony thought she was crazy. No, they knew she was crazy. After all, she could hear voices in her head. Is that what the mind of a sane pony would experience?
I said go find her! a voice from within howled acidly.
“Leave me alone!” Applejack shouted.
“Can somepony please help?!” the patient called out, this time clearly a lot more distressed.
Applejack thrust her forehooves against her head and held them there, almost frothing at the mouth as she descended into a fit of madness, induced by a mixture of fear and having no idea of what to do, with literally seconds to decide before somepony entered the room to remove her.
The once valiant pony crumbled to the floor, now reduced to a clump of messy, orange fur, soaking in tears, for she had succumbed to the incessant voices from within her skull.
Get up, and go kill that bitch! one of the voices screamed from deep within her brain.
“I don’t want to! You can’t make me!” she shouted.
She refrained from opening her eyes. She was terrified by the world around her. What was once a world of happiness and care-free joy, now as it seemed, was a world composed of terror and despair. For this pain was breaking the encasing that enclosed her understanding of this harsh, unforgiving world.

---

The cyan pegasus wandered past a sign that read ‘You are now entering Ponyville’. She glanced at it and gave a mischievous smirk; her objective was nigh. She slowly walked down the road, glad to be away from the gloomy area that surrounded the prison and to be within the city limits, where blithe persisted and everypony was content.
The sun slowly rose over the horizon, showering the land in its warming, orange glow. For it was the early hours of the morning. Nopony was awake, but Rainbows rose-black eyes still darted from side to side, watching out for anypony who might see.

She was a fugitive, and she knew this. But the potential consequences that faced her seemed to escape her mind; it was simply vengeance she was after. Applejack suffering, being brought upon by Rainbow Dash, was what Rainbow sought after now; justice would be the result. Murdering her traitor unto would finalise this vengeance, for Rainbow had sworn a non-spoken vendetta against her former friend.

Rainbow strode into the city limits, stepping through the cold shadows that hung from surrounding buildings as a crisp breeze swept through the air, cutting through Rainbows fur like icy knives. It seemed to flow through the long, multi-colored threads of her mane, generating a whistling sound that sent chills emanating through Rainbows very soul. Somehow, she felt her presence wasn’t welcome. She sensed that she was unwanted, unforgiven for the deed that which she had not committed.
The suns golden edge rose over a hill in the distance, sending out rays of light that, as the day progressed, would shroud Ponyville in enlivening light, which would console the hearts of even the most grieving of ponies; yes, some ponies, many ponies, still mourned for Rarity.
But there were of course shadows that could not be touched, could not be tamed, by these rays of light that escaped the sun; shadows that Rainbow hid within. The soothing light could not cheer her up, for she was already too furious.

“Where is that bitch?” Rainbow grunted, edging up against a wall, well out of the reach of the sun, where she would be clearly visible.
Of course as the day went on, the shadows would grow minuscule as more and more light filled Ponyville, and potential hiding places would become rare. But for now, they were abundant. Utilising this, Rainbow edged along the wall and peered around the corner. A mare was trotting down the street, quietly singing to herself.

Rainbow hurriedly hid back around the corner, pleading for the mare not to see her. Fortunately, the mare didn’t notice her as she carried on past Rainbow. She waited a moment, breathing silently, before making her move.
She clutched the bolt cutters in her mouth as she galloped right across a street, running as quickly as possible to avoid being seen. She carried on into an alleyway and peered around another corner. There was nopony in sight.
She sat down and tried to devise a plan; she needed to get these bolt cutters sharpened if she was going to kill Applejack. But of course, she couldn’t just walk into a workshop and ask them to sharpen it. Being arrested would follow soon after.

She needed to be cleverer about how to do this, as well as elusive. And so, she carefully crept up the road and made her way to the closest workshop in Ponyville. When she arrived, she felt gleeful to see the large sign out front. But work was still needed to be done, so she jogged around the side of it and approached a half-open window. She carefully grabbed the window ledge and pulled herself up with her forehooves, taking her time. If anypony saw her, it would mean the end of her chance of ever achieving vengeance.
As quietly as possible, she slid down into a dimly lit room. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling, barely lighting a small workshop filled with tools and crafting objects. Rainbow grinned, knowing that completion of the first phase of her plan was within her grasp.
She walked past a large bansaw and over to a special saw, specifically made for sharpening metal blades. She dropped the bolt cutters on a workbench and picked up the saw with her mouth; it was cold to the touch, its titanium handle leaving a bitter, metallic taste in Rainbows mouth. It was also heavy, and Rainbow struggled to lift it onto the bolt cutters. But she managed to hold the bolt cutters in place with her hooves and slowly grinded the saw against the blades, beginning to sharpen them.
She was about half-way through, when suddenly, her hoof slipped. A painful scream escaped her lips as her hoof ran along the edge of the saw, slicing through her flesh. Blood trickled down her leg, staining her cyan fur with its crimson charm. It flowed through her fur, a quiescent river of viscosity, draining from deep within her wounds like it was escaping her very soul itself, a sap of conscience. It was like a bitter red wine cascading from her flesh, the very tonic of the reaper.
But worse problems were imminent. Her wound stung, but she heard a voice call out from the door across the room.
“Hey, is somepony in there?” the stallion yelled.
Rainbow panicked. She grabbed her bolt cutters, as well as the saw, and frantically looked around the room. The footsteps were close, getting louder with every step. They seemed to pound against the wooden floor, beating it like the dramatic beating of Rainbows heart.
She hurried over to the closest bench with a cabinet underneath that she could find. She opened it with her hooves and leapt inside. The saw almost cut her face as she did this, but she was in too much of a panic to even care. She shuffled herself against the back of it and just as she closed the doors, a mare and stallion emerged through the doorway. She didn’t quite get time to close it properly, so she just rolled herself up into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible, in an attempt to not be noticed. The doors of the cabinet were still half-open, left ajar, and all Rainbow could rely on was that the cabinet was down low and was dark, so it was unlikely they’d look over and notice her. But then again, it was still possible, which was why Rainbow still felt the feeling of anxiety that rippled through her body, sending out shockwaves of fear across her nerves, all throughout her. For the first time in a long time, she actually felt deeply afraid.

“Damn hoodlums” the stallion yelled angrily. “Breaking into my workshop”.
The stallion was an engineer, dressed in overalls with grease on his face. He had a metal hammer in his mouth, striking Rainbows heart with anxiety. But he soon dropped it on a bench.
The mare appeared to be his assistant, a lot younger and with more tidy looking overalls.

“That’s the fourth time this month” the stallion growled.
Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief. At least they thought of this as nothing more than simple hoodlums, breaking and entering and possibly stealing, just for a cheap thrill. As opposed to them thinking it was a serious burglar.
“Should we call the police?” the assistant asked.
“Nah, don’t bother. They’re probably long gone, Jennifer. Look, that window’s wide open”.
The engineer pointed to the window Rainbow had entered through.
“We need to get a burglar alarm installed, Byron. What if they steal something?”
“Do I look like I have the money? Everyponys been depressed after Raritys murder and barely anypony needs to get things fixed because they’re too sad to do stuff”.
A few tears trickled down Jennifers face as Byron realised what he’d done.
“I’m sorry” he said.
“Please don’t mention that name” she cried softly. “I miss her”.
“Everypony misses her. But…but she’s gone” Byron said grimly.
Byron now began to cry a little to. Rainbow felt a sense of dread, knowing that even though this deed was not committed by her, she was still being blamed for it. Of course, the rest of the conversation not only proved that, but revealed something further.

“I can’t believe somepony like Rainbow Dash would do that to such a sweet, darling pony” Jennifer sniffed.
Byron slowly shrugged, then wiped a few tears from his moist eyes.
“I guess some ponies are just more than what they seem” he reminded Jennifer.
“Yeah. But, murder? How could she do that? How could she kill Rarity?”
Her tone began to turn more aggressive.
“I hope she gets the shit beaten out of her in prison, that bitch!”.
“Take it easy, Jennifer. We all hate her. Everypony does. But if you let her get you angry then she wins. That’s probably what she wants, that bucked up psychopath”.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe her ears. She just couldn’t.
“I hope I read the newspaper one day and see that somepony in prison’s beaten her to a pulp. That sick, twisted buck” Jennifer growled.
“I couldn’t agree more” Byron nodded. “I’m just glad she was caught out by Applejack and brought to justice”.
That last sentence made Rainbow snap. She just about burst out of the cabinet and attacked them, furious for what they were saying. Applejack was the murderer! And she knew it!
“Look, let’s just open the store and hopefully we’ll get some customers. Maybe that’ll take our minds off of that whole Rainbow Dash thing?” Byron suggested.
“Yeah, maybe” Jennifer said. “It just really bugs me that some ponies have the heart to do that”.
They both walked out of the room. Rainbow waited about thirty seconds before slowly and silently emerging from the cupboard. With both the bolt cutters and saw in her mouth, she climbed out of the window and landed in the space next to the store, knowing it was far too dangerous to carry on sharpening in there.
Her wound had already begun to heal, but her emotional wounds were just peeling back open. The anger that once filled her mind began to fade and the empty void it left began to fill with depression and angst.

She sharpened her bolt cutters, dropped the saw in a nearby dumpster, burying it deep down in the trash so nopony would find it, then ventured around Ponyville. The morning was now well underway and ponies were stepping out of their homes to begin a new day. So of course, Rainbow had to be much more careful. But as she hid in the shadows, eavesdropping on conversations, it appeared that the murder of Rarity wasn’t the only hot topic around Ponyville; everypony wrongfully thought Rainbow was the murderer. And with each conversation that Rainbow eavesdropped on, the more her self esteem became crushed. Inside, she was still enraged with Applejack and was still after vengeance. If anything, this just fueled the raging inferno within her. But this rage was now coupled with depression, from knowing now that everypony in Ponyville hated her for deeds she was not responsible for. She felt wrongfully hated; betrayed, unforgiven and scolded. I suppose now you could say, she was the anathema of Ponyville.

---

A surge of fear coursed through Applejacks veins and up into her heart before constricting itself around it like an anaconda, as she still lay in the hospital room she’d walked into. And as it squeezed the life from her already blackened-to-the-core heart, a feeling was induced, causing her to feel more insignificant than anything else in existence. She proceeded to roll up into a ball as she gazed around the seemingly endless room, or more accurately a living hell, filling with darkness as each photon of light was eradicated before her eyes. She squirmed and writhed, attempting to free herself. But this pain had already sunk its unrelenting hooks into her flesh and would now consume her with its pain and misery.

Her eyes still remained closed, but unwillingly her eyelids were opened. She peered into the eye of the demon before her; not a real demon, but the demon that resided deep in her mind and represented her suffering, visible now, for this was a grim, graphic epiphany. She knew none of this was real. But the pit of depression she’d plummeted into seemed like a vacuum from which no being could escape, willingly or not. She closed her eyes and uttered two words, containing immense hope; “please, stop”.

The demon hesitated.
“For those who believe they are free, elusion is not possible” he exclaimed grimly, his voice scratchy and hoarse.
The dark entity then seemed to instantaneously turn into a shroud of mist, before combining into one long stream of jet-black smoke which flew straight at Applejacks head, seeping into her mind; a fate that terrified her but was necessary for this torture to end.

A sharp intake of breath, and she awoke once again, only this time on the floor next to the patients bed. That line, “for those who believe they are free, elusion is not possible”, repeated through her mind again and again as she lethargically rose from the linoleum floor. The definition of that very statement seemed to escape her. The whole experience seemed to last only seconds, although to Applejack, years would be a more accurate word. She couldn’t get her mind straight and more thoughts of a decaying Fluttershy began to invade her mind once again. It was time to move again.
“Please! Somepony, help! Anypony!” the patient yelled pleadingly.
Applejacks breathing increased rapidly, as did her heartpace. Footsteps could be heard just outside the entrance to this room and shadows could be seen on the opposite wall. Almost instantaneously, her initial ‘find Fluttershy’ response kicked in again. She forgot about any potential consequences and scrambled out of the room, only to find two large guards. But using the element of partial surprise, she managed to duck between them and tear off up the hallway.
She turned a corner, racing around it at speed and almost skidding on the floor, then carried on up the next hallway. She employed her original tactic and began entering every room, one after the other. But she could hear the guards footsteps actually sprinting up the hallway from behind.
Applejack raced in and out of each room with stupendous velocity, but time slipped from her grasp as she ducked in and out of each room. Finally, she emerged from a room, her mission still unsuccessful, and was immediately tackled to the ground. The guard landed on top of her and his knees dug into her chest as he put most of his weight on her to hold her down.

Just like during her dreadful experience earlier, she squirmed and writhed with pain. She was a tough, strong pony, but these guards were employed by their overbearing strength and intimidating stature.
“Inject her with the tranquiliser!” the guard screamed in a panic.
Applejack grabbed him with her hooves and tried to shove him off her, but he was too big. She used all of her strength.
“Hurry!” the guard yelled.
The second guard, a lot slower than the first, bolted around the corner with a syringe in his mouth. He ambled up the hall towards them, but the first guard was fixated on his arrival and, using this momentary distraction, Applejack managed to wrestle the guard off of him.

She immediately set off, but the guard grabbed one of her back legs.
“Oh no you don’t!” he growled, baring his teeth.
She ruthlessly bucked his face with her other back leg, leaving him dazed with a bloodied nose as she tore off up the hall.
But the second guard was hot in pursuit and followed her, managing to equal her speed. She sprinted around multiple corners, running into a few doctors whom she either pushed away or knocked down and trampled over. She just didn’t care; finding Fluttershy was her top priority. But escape was essential.
The burly guard charged after her, running across the halls she’d laid waste too just seconds earlier, littered with the bodies of confused and injured doctors and nurses. He ran as fast as he could without slipping, furiously trying to catch this mare. He held the syringe so tightly in his mouth, it was close to breaking as he grinded his teeth against it.
However the tension was elevated for Applejack. As she ran around yet another corner in this maze of halls, wondering as to whether she’d already passed Fluttershy or not and the likelihood of that having happened, a door opened unexpectedly.

She ran head first into it and her nose crumpled. She fell backwards at least a metre and collapsed to the ground. Her nose was in agony, having taken the full force of the hit, and she felt a sudden feeling of fright when she saw a blood stain on the wooden door she’d just run into.
But this problem was minuscule; she looked behind her and remembered the much larger problem at hoof. Pain is a temporary obstacle, but failure is a result of succumbing to it; a result that may lead to Applejack never seeing Fluttershy again, except in photos and possibly even at her funeral.

And so, the pain-stricken but determined pony sprang up from the floor. But, somepony stepped around from the other side of the door. Unfortunately, this pony was a guard who immediately grabbed Applejack. He wrapped himself around her and even though she struggled, he held her tightly.
The guard with the syringe raced toward them. Applejack squirmed and struggled. The guards grip began to loosen, but he still held on tight. Escape was nigh, but only if desperate measures were taken.

Applejack lifted one of her backhooves and ruthlessly stomped on the guards testicles with vigorous force. He let out a piercing, bloodcurdling scream that filled the hall, almost stopping the running guard dead in his tracks.
But, the guards grip was loosened and she grasped this opportunity. She stood up and turned, only to have the guard who she’d just escaped from pull out a tazer. She had no idea of this, but seconds later it was all she could comprehend.

10,000 volts of electricity coursed through her body when the tazers hit her back. She collapsed to her knees. She was so determined, but the pain was excruciating. She turned her neck and gasped when she saw the running guard just metres from her. She tried to jump up, but remnants of the electrical flow still ran through her body, crippling her temporarily.

She gasped as the syringe pierced her flesh, right into her back. The needle sunk in deep and within seconds, was empty. Applejack, with all her might, bucked the guard in the face. However, he was still clutching the needle with his mouth.
The syringes needle ripped out of her flesh, producing a large wound from which escaped a crimson mass as the guard collapsed back behind her.

The air stung her fresh wound, almost certainly at least an inch deep in her back. But she galloped up the hallway nonetheless. Turning a corner abruptly, she went back to her original tactic a third time, checking each door.

She wandered into one room and found a young filly. She looked at her with confusion and angst.
“Are you the crazy pony that’s on the loose?” she asked meekly.
She sighed and went to exit the room, but she was stopped by her voice.
“I will never forgive you, Applejack”.
She stopped and turned around. But too fast; almost suddenly, she felt stricken with dizziness and the room began to feel twisted and weird.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I said, I’ll never forgive you”.
Applejacks vision was beginning to get heavily blurry. She could only make out the figure of the filly, although she had no idea who exactly she was. However, her voice was familiar.
She heard shouting from outside. The voices sounded familiar; they were doctors.
“I bet it was you. I heard Rainbow Dash say it was you on that day in the courtroom, and I trust her, not you!” she shouted angrily.
“I’m…”
Applejack didn’t know what to say. She felt like apologizing to the filly, but that would make it certainly seem like she was guilty.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about” she said plainly.
“Well then, why is Fluttershy two doors down with a headwound? Why was she found with you?! You’ve been acting very bucking weird these last few days”.
By now, the amount of dizziness Applejack had been struck with was phenomenally high. All noises, all voices spoken, sounded like they were being spoken to her through long metal pipes connected between their mouths and her ears, where the sound waves echoed around inside.
Her perception of sight was unbelievably poor, but she only paid attention to the first part of the fillys sentence.

“Is Fluttershy just two doors down?!” Applejack exclaimed excitedly.
Her vision was so bad that everything became looked distorted. But most of all, her head felt like a bowling ball on top of a pencil. She was stumbling about in a stupor, like she was heavily drunk. She couldn’t even stand still properly.

“Yeah. What’s it to you?” the filly said nastily.
Suddenly, Applejack could hear the sound of crying. On top of that, the shouting from the doctors outside grew louder, and she knew they were edging closer. She didn’t have time for this.
“You put my idol in jail!” the filly cried out.
It was at this point, it all clicked. The filly was Scootaloo. It made sense.
Kill her! She knows! a voice from within Applejacks mind hissed.
“She doesn’t know; she only suspects” Applejack whispered.
She could still possibly break your cover. At least give her amnesia.
The voice was unbelievably persuasive. Applejack couldn’t control herself as she wandered over to a table and picked up a vase containing flowers and water. It was like some sort of entity was controlling her body.
She poured the contents of the vase onto the floor as Scootaloo sat in her bed confused.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Applejack grunted as she lunged at the small, orange filly. She ruthlessly swung the vase at her head with a lot of force. The vase collided with Scootaloos skull, knocking her out cold.
Now deal to Fluttershy the voice added.
The vase was stained with blood and small pieces of glass were lodged in Scootaloos flesh.
“No” Applejack uttered.

She dropped the vase to the ground. It smashed on impact, sending hundreds of shards across the room.
What are you doing?!
“I’m going to make sure Fluttershy is ok. That’s it”.
Applejack regained control of her body once again. She turned to the door, but was terrified to see three figures standing in it.
She bared her teeth and charged for the door regardless. These were just doctors, but they were ready for her and as soon as she tackled them, she suddenly found herself entangled in something. She spread out her hooves as wide as she could, but felt just netting.

She panicked. She had been captured in a net! She struggled to get out, but the three doctors held the opening closed tightly. She gnawed at the netting, but the material was too tough to bite through. She bucked it and hit it with her hooves, but nothing worked. She fell to the floor, reluctantly accepting this. And as this mission, while its end very nigh, was unsuccessful, Applejack was unsure of what her future now held. Where would she be taken?
The doctors weren’t exactly bodybuilders, but the three of them managed to drag Applejack down the hall at a steady pace. Things immediately began to get dizzy and the world began to spin around her. She shook her head, but this only stopped the inevitable for but a few seconds. She slowly lowered her head to the floor and lowered her eyelids.

Time seemed to slow down dramatically as she slowly opened and closed her eyelids. The tranquiliser was now in its later stages; in just a few moments, she’d be out cold. She peered up at her captors, who seemed proud of their feat. One of them was even laughing about it. Of course, Applejack was so drugged up that she could barely hear it. But as they passed a doorway, her tunnel vision was initiated. Her eyes lit up when she saw the one pony she’d been trying to find since she’d awoken earlier in that rock-hard hospital bed. Fluttershy lay peacefully on a hospital bed. The door was left ajar, but it was open enough for Applejack to peer through.
She had a drip stuck in one of her legs. In fact, multiple drips. Some would contain drugs to help keep her alive; others would contain food and water, being pumped straight into her blood stream. Her pink mane lay placidly beside her head, stained with a few drops of blood. Her head was encased in bandages, and frighteningly, a breathing apparatus was connected to her mouth and nose, basically breathing for her. In other words, she was on life support.
Applejack extended her hoof outside the netting and reached for the door. It got within just centimetres of her hoof, but she reached out too late; if she’d reached out half a second earlier, she could have at least held onto the doorframe and, catching the guards by surprise, have them suddenly let go of the net due to the unsuspected force, which would give her time to run inside.
But all hopes of finding out whether she was truly ok or not were gone. Dead, like the long lost life of Rarity. Faded, like mist rising from boiling water over a stove, rising higher and higher, almost reaching the ceiling, until, they are gone.
And as the realization of this event sunk into Applejack, so did the tranquiliser. She let out a few elongated breaths, before finally, her eyelids closed, then half-opened, then closed once again, not to be opened again for some time.

All But A Pawn In Her Plan

In our fury we sought after it, but does what we seek exist? We claim ourselves to be humanitarians, but how does one deserve this title when one allows superfluously negative feelings such as this to engulf oneself? Lest they let their victim breathe; for deeds committed, perhaps forgotten, but never forgiven.
It is worth nothing to no one, yet means everything to some.
It brings anguish to all, and for happiness, there is none.
Revenge is what I speak of, of course.

The cyan pegasus calmly rejoiced as she stretched out her stiff wings. The bolt cutters clattered as they fell to the ground in front of her hooves. Despite her depression and anger, she couldn’t help but let a small gasp of cheerfulness escape her lips. Her wings felt stiff, but had a yearning to take to the air and cut through the clouds high up in the sky.
But the time for content was not now, nor near. For a desire for vengeance was all that filled Rainbow Dashs unstable mind. The anger burning within her was a raging inferno with an intensity of a thousand white suns, quelled only by her current inability to find Applejacks exact location. Her feathers were rustled and messy, thus it took some time for her to get to fly properly again. But after just a few tries at leaping off the ground, her wing muscles felt rejuvenated, her feathers straightened out and her wings felt much less sore and stiff.

Now that her wings were finally available to her once again, she could stop using her fatigue stricken legs; something she desperately craved after all the distance her hooves had stepped across. The pegasus took to the air, swooping behind a building to avoid being seen by ponies walking along the street. She carefully calculated her next move, knowing it could mean the difference between sweet revenge and being put back in prison.

She hovered above a roof top, just inches from its wooden top, her wings slowly oscillating up and down in the breeze. She scanned the streets with her eyes, similar to how a hawk scans a field for mice; the bird hunters were the police, just as Applejack was her pray. But Applejacks yellow mane and orange coat couldn’t be seen amongst the small crowds of ponies down below. Rainbow grunted and gently landed on the rooftop. Her breathing was heavy as she contemplated a safe route to Applejacks farm. Now that she could fly, this broadly expanded her options. But of course it made her far more conspicuous; many ponies enjoyed looking up at the clouds floating through the azure sea of air that was the sky.

Then she had a thought; the clouds! She tilted her head upwards and gazed up at the sky. She grinned slightly when she saw a cluster of clouds almost directly above her, billowing like waves in the sky that accurately portrayed a quiescent ocean. She gulped slowly as she readied herself for takeoff. A sharp outtake of breath shot out from her mouth and her legs wobbled beneath her. Fear became instilled in her mind and emanated from her eyes; anypony looking at her face would clearly be able to see her terror. The chances of somepony seeing her seemed miniscule before, but now that she was about to attempt the feat, they appeared almost certain.
However her wings stretched out far from her sides, her cyan feathers flowing with the soft current of air. Her wings seemed to possess a mind of their own; they’d been locked up for what seemed like an eternity, and now begged for a lengthy, assiduous and swift flight. In fact, they pleaded for a hypersonic flight that would quickly evolve into a sonic rainboom. She felt able, and she had the will, but knew better. The amount of attention that would attract…it would be phenomenal.

She shook her head and tried to get her thoughts straight. She took three short breaths, then forced herself to fly up into the air. She aimed directly for the mass of clouds above her, and within seconds she could feel the gaseous clouds covering her fur and tickling her skin. She stopped, dead in the centre of a cloud, and sighed in relief.

“I’m safe”.

Those words softly exited her lips and escaped in the breeze, a whisper in the wind. But she knew it wasn’t over. No, there was still much work to be done if vengeance was to be acquired.
She used the clouds for cover as she darted across the sky, always looking down on the maze of streets beneath her for any potential onlookers. Her eyes darted up and down in their sockets, first in front of her then down on the streets, just as fast as her body cut through the air. She was more than weary of anypony seeing her; it would spell her end.

But it only took about ten minutes of swooping carefully through the air for Sweet Apple Acres to come into view in the distance. She smiled mischievously as her wings curved in mid-flight, beginning to slow her body down before descending. She landed just next to the Apple families large barn, skidding forwards slightly and leaving small hoofprints in the dirt as she jogged forwards a few feet. She had braced herself for the landing and therefore didn’t fall flat on her face.

She immediately checked her surroundings, but all seemed clear, so she slowly ran to the barn doorway and peered inside. Nopony was inside the old, decaying barn though, so she went to the Apple families house and looked in through a window. She immediately crouched down when she saw Apple Bloom walk into the room she was looking into though.
Apple Bloom appeared distraught though, which made Rainbow feel slightly confused. Why did she look depressed? This peeked Rainbows curiosity, and so she crept around the side of the house until she reached a window that was a lot closer to Apple Bloom. This window was also open, letting Rainbow sit underneath as she listened to what Apple Bloom had to say.

“I just wish she didn’t have to leave!” Apple Bloom cried out.
Rainbow felt even more confused.

“She couldn’t stay here in the state she was in” Granny Smith called back.
“What the?” Rainbow muttered under her breath.
The conversation carried on, so Rainbow continued listening.
“She’s my big sister and I love her. Why did this have to happen?” Apple Bloom sobbed.
Rainbow realised they were talking about Applejack. But what had happened to her? Where was she? Did she die or something?! Rainbow dreaded this thought, for it would of course mean she couldn’t get revenge.

“”I know you love her, but do you honestly think she could stay here if she was going to act like that?” Granny Smith asked.
Apple Bloom sighed.

“I suppose not” Apple Bloom said miserably. “But I just miss her so much, even though it’s only been two days”.

“We all miss her” Granny Smith said softly. “But they had to take her away”.

Apple Bloom began to cry as Rainbow tried to comprehend what she was hearing.

“Once she gets better, can she come back?” Apple Bloom asked, with a sense of begging in her tone.

“I don’t know. Maybe” Granny Smith said unsurely. “But as for now, she’ll be there for a while”.

That was it; Rainbow couldn’t handle anymore. The suspense was too much, she needed to know what had happened to Applejack.
She burst up and jumped in through the open window, landing right in front of Apple Bloom. Granny Smith stood in the doorway a few metres away. Both of them jumped back immediately, which of course is the normal basic instinct when somepony jumps in through a window at you unexpectedly. But when Apple Bloom gazed over Rainbows multi-coloured mane and followed it with her eyes down onto Rainbows cyan coat and across her wings, her scream seemed to pierce through Rainbows very eardrums.

“It’s Rainbow Dash!!” Apple Bloom shouted fearfully.
Granny Smiths ears perked up at the mention of the cyan pegasi’s name.
“What?!” she gasped.
Rainbow began to wonder if she’d made the right move, watching as Apple Bloom went up against the wall and cowered in fear.
“You fowl murderer!” Granny Smith screeched, stepping out of the doorway that went through to the kitchen.
Rainbows thoughts of hesitation immediately changed to that of anger.
“I’m not the murderer!” she shouted. “Applejack is!”

Granny Smith looked bewildered.
“How dare you say that!” Granny Smith retorted.
The old mare turned to face her grand-daughter.
“Apple Bloom, call the police!” she told her.
Apple Bloom cautiously wandered over to the telephone on the other side of the room as Rainbow began panicking. Her breathing accelerated with every step Apple Bloom took; the fillies footsteps against the hard wooden floor acted like echoes of the pegasi’s heartbeat, loud and rapidly getting faster, with Apple Bloom slowly picking up her pace as she reached the telephone.
Rainbows fear took control of her body. She raced past Granny Smith and charged towards Apple Bloom through the air as she picked up the receiver, which trembled in her hands. She began dialing the number for the police, but then turned around when she heard the sound of wings flapping. Her scream almost shook the house down when she saw Rainbow coming right at her.
“Get away from me!” she howled as she collapsed to the floor.
The receiver hung over the table the telephone sat on, but not for long. Rainbow picked up the entire telephone and smashed it against the wall. It shattered into a dozen pieces as both Apple Bloom and Granny Smith let out frightened gasps.
“Get out of here!” Granny Smith yelled.
Rainbow was prepared to take desperate measures in order to be able to get revenge. She grabbed Apple Bloom, who immediately began panicking more than you could imagine. Her body squirmed and writhed as Rainbow tried to keep hold of her. Her back hooves hit Rainbows face, but she held on and squeezed her tightly.
Granny Smith shrieked as Rainbow threw the filly at a small window, sending shards of glass all over the grass underneath it outside. Apple Blooms panic began to fade as she slipped into unconsciousness. Her face was full of glistening pieces of glass that filled every inch of skin on her face, filling and staining her fur with a crimson mass of blood. But Rainbow wasn’t done. She grabbed a large shard of glass off the wooden floor with one hoof while she held Apple Blooms limp body up with her other hoof.

She held the glass against the fillies throat and stared into Granny Smiths eyes.
“What do you want?!?” Granny Smith begged, her body trembling to the very core.

“Where’s Applejack?” Rainbow demanded, speaking quietly, but her tone full of rage.
“She’s at the mental health institute in Ponyville” Granny Smith said, shaking vigorously in fear. “Why are you doing this??”
“I’m asking the questions!” Rainbow growled, clutching the shard of glass tighter against Apple Bloom throat. “You want me to kill her?!”
“No, please! Please don’t!” Granny Smith pleaded.
A cascade of tears ran down the old mares face, symbolizing her immense fear. Rainbow felt remorse for her actions, but her anger told her she needed to carry on if she wanted sweet revenge.
“What room is she being kept in?” Rainbow asked.
“Room 7B” Granny Smith sniffed.
Rainbow nodded and threw the fillies body at the floor ruthlessly. She sprinted to the window as Granny Smith ran to her grand-daughters aid. Rainbow felt a large sense of guilt for what she’d just done, as she tilted her head and looked back at the filly she’d just threatened to murder in cold blood as her grand-mother stood over, wailing and crying. But the pegasus shrugged it off; if lives had to be lost or destroyed for her to gain what she wanted, so be it.

---

Her eyes opened with a startle, but then her eyelids began to droop once again. Her vision was blurred as her eyesight hovered over the room. All she could see was a white, tiled wall a few metres away. She looked left and right; it was the same thing. What was going on?

Then she remembered what had happened; the incident at the hospital.
Applejack rose from the floor and rubbed her head. She was in need of painkillers for a headache she was stricken with, but right now that was the least of her worries. She had no idea where she was, or how long it had been. Her eyes followed the milky white tiles across the wall until her vision met with a camera mounted high up on the wall. A small red dot of light flashed on and off on the side, with a two second period in between each flash, and there was a constant humming sound emanating from the camera. She also noticed that there was only one door in the room, which was directly behind her. It was a tall, white door, with a small window on it that she could look through. However, there was something covering it on the other side.
She sighed and closed her eyes, hanging her head in shame. A few tears dripped from her face and hit the floor like raindrops, which ran across the small spaces in between each tile and formed tiny rivers, made of bitter tears.
A knock at the door startled her, and her eyes immediately opened.

“Applejack, you’re scheduled for a meeting with a psychologist now that you’ve woken up. Please get down on the floor on your back and put your hooves on your head”.
Applejack slowly did as the voice said, and as soon as she was on the floor the door creaked open. Two stallions dressed in pure white lab coats entered the room. They wore goggles with lenses that couldn’t be seen through, and one held a pair of hoofcuffs. Their names were Mike and Jasper.
The stallion who didn’t have the hoofcuffs was Mike, and held a tazer in his hooves, which he aimed at Applejack as Jasper ruthlessly picked up her up off the floor and locked the hoofcuffs onto her forehooves as tightly as possible. Her forehooves were now in shackles, and the chain connecting them was small, meaning that Applejack could only take tiny steps. Thus, she couldn’t move quickly, so if she tried to escape she’d be easy to catch.

She again hung her head in shame as the two doctors escorted her out of the room. Mike stood behind the other two aiming his tazer at Applejack, as Jasper walked just beside Applejack, his eyes watching Applejacks every move like a hawk as the trio walked up the chillingly empty stone hallway. The walls were drywall, but the floor was stone, the hallway itself was narrow and their hoofsteps sent echoes up and down it; the only audible sounds other than the soft breathing of the ponies. Not a word was spoken as they walked up the lonesome hall.

They all turned around a corner. Applejack looked from side to side every now and again, looking at all the doors along this empty hallway. Its emptiness reminded her of her conscience, and how shallow it felt after the insane actions she’d performed in the events leading up to where she was now. Inevitably, her voices weren’t letting up right now; they badgered her with insults, demanding to know why she’d let herself get caught and thrown in what seemed like a prison.

The hallway was dark, with just dim lights above the trio to light their path. Many sections of the hallway were shrouded in darkness and made Applejack feel nervous, even though a fear of the dark is an unfounded phobia. She shook her head and tried to think about everything that was going on. She had no idea where she was, how much time had elapsed or what was going to happen to her.
It was then, now that they’d almost reached a door marked as ‘Head Psychologist’, that the first words were spoken for the trios short journey.
“Alright Mike, have you got the keys?” Jasper asked flatly.
But there was no response.
“Mike, did you hear me?” he asked.
He turned around, as did Applejack, only to see the space behind them devoid of any life. Mike was nowhere to be seen, nor heard.
“What the??” Jasper gasped. “Mike, where’d you go?”
There were no sounds at all; you could hear a pin drop in that hallway. Jasper began to feel deeply afraid, which was evident in his breathing and heart rate. He grabbed a cell phone out of a small bag that hung from his side and began dialing a number. Applejack turned around and looked up the hallway. It felt blood curdling that the only audible noise was her breathing and the sound of a phone being hastily dialed.

Then something happened that almost made the mare jump out of her skin. The sound of something being smashed against the floor sent out shockwaves of sound up and down the empty hall. Right behind her, where Jasper had just been standing.
She spun around, but jumped back at the sight before her. The cell phone lay in pieces on the floor, although now she knew of Mikes unfortunate fate.
A pair of bolt cutters were stabbed straight through his head, and the end of the blade carried on stabbing straight through Jaspers head and into the drywall. Their limp, lifeless bodies hung from the bolt cutters by their heads as the bolt cutters were stuck in the wall, going straight through both of their heads.
“How…? What…?!”
Applejack began hyper-ventilating. She couldn’t stop herself from screaming. She fell to the floor and shook with fear as she began looking around her, immense distress and despair in her eyes. Fear ran rampant throughout her body, making all of her muscles uncontrollably shake as her breathing rate rapidly increased. But the voice in her head had other ideas.

Grab those bolt cutters and cut through your hoof cuffs! a voice shrieked.
She slowly and lethargically stood up, thinking about what the voice just said. It was a good idea, especially since two ponies had just been killed and she would probably be next.
She reached up and used all her effort to rip the bolt cutters out of the heads of the two doctors. There was this gross sound as the metal blades slid against the skulls and flesh of the two ponies. Their bodies immediately collapsed to the floor once she removed the bolt cutters. Its blades were covered in blood, reflecting all light with a reddish tint. She looked at her reflection; it was like a mirror, that reflected everything, but with a blood red tint. She closed her eyes and began to cry tears of anxiety. Was she about to be killed?

She opened her eyes again, which opened widely with panic when she saw the rose tinted eyes staring back at her, reflecting off the shiny, metal blades. The bolt cutters clattered to the floor as she spun around, her heart skipping a beat. But Rainbow and her crimson eyes were nowhere to be seen. From the angle of reflection, Rainbow should’ve been standing right behind her, but now she’d vanished. Applejacks heart began racing twice as fast as her eyes looked at every inch of visible space in the room, scouring the area for any sight of Rainbow. But the hall appeared completely empty, except for her.

Cut the hoofcuffs! the voice demanded.
Applejack gulped as she remembered what she was meant to be doing. She almost didn’t want to pick up the bolt cutters, scared to death that she’d see Rainbows eyes reflected in them again. Her hooves shook with fear as she carefully used them to the cut the chain between her shackles. There was a crunching, metallic sound as the chain cut.

Now get out of here! the voice shouted.
Applejack tried not to let her fear overwhelm her, but it was a futile effort. She dropped the bolt cutters and began running, faster and faster, right down the hallway in the direction from whence she came.

The sound of her hoofsteps sent echoes down the hallway, but she stopped when she heard a second set of hoofsteps following her. She instinctively turned her head, inevitably seeing nopony. Applejack began to cry, fearing for her life.
She carried on running, looking at every doorway, searching desperately for an exit. She felt reminded of the hospital scenario with the way she was looking at every door, except that all of them were locked, preventing her from stepping inside.
Her breathing was fast, her heart beat faster, as the orange coated mare tore up the hall as fast as she could. She looked constantly left and right, trying to find some kind of exit. But the maze of halls had just more and more endless halls at every corner, driving her back to insanity, coupled with only depression and fear. Her eyes darted around the halls, searching frantically for any door that looked like it might be unlocked.

She tried every door she could, grasping the handle with her sweaty hooves and twisting the knob, only to find that it was locked. There were constant hoofsteps behind her, but every time she looked there was nopony there. These hoofsteps were getting louder with every corner she took, every door she tried to open.
Finally, she found a door marked as ‘Janitor’, the only marked door in this insanity inducing maze of halls. Applejack twisted the handle and actually felt a shred of hope as she heard the door handle click open. She pushed it open and jumped inside, before slamming it shut as hard as she could. She searched the janitors closet for something; anything. There had to be something she could use as a weapon, or some kind of escape route.

She saw a broom and slowly picked it up. But it fell from her hooves as her head spun around and faced the door, for its handle was turning.
But it turned incredibly slowly, giving her enough time to do something she felt like kicking herself for not immediately doing; locking it.
The handle stopped turning and again, there was silence. She stepped back cautiously and accidentally stepped in a bucket half full of dirty water. Her hoof slipped forwards, and she found herself falling backwards as her feet came out from under her. She landed hard on her back and let out a quiet grunt as her spine hit the broom she was holding just seconds earlier.
She had one eye open, gasping in pain as she stared at the ceiling. But there was a sense of relief when she spotted an entrance to an air duct in the ceiling. She got up and climbed up the shelf at the side of the closet, desperately trying to reach it. There was a metal sheet covering the entrance to the air duct, dotted with hundreds of tiny holes. She grabbed it with her forehooves and pried it off. It fell to the floor and clattered loudly as she pulled herself up.

Just as she entered the air duct, she heard the closet door crash to the floor. It made her jump, and she had to cover her mouth with her hoof to stop herself from screaming. Somepony had just smashed down the door in an instant, and were now likely to be searching the closet she’d been in just less than five seconds ago.
She tried not to think about that as she crawled through the air duct. It was very small and narrow, thus she had to lie on her belly and inch across its metal floor using her forehooves to pull herself along. She felt uncomfortable, with her belly sliding across the metal as she used her forehooves to pull herself along, but it was too small to be able to stand.

It was also so small that she couldn’t even look behind her, and the metal constantly creaked as she slid across it, so she knew that Rainbow would easily be able to hear her. The air duct was also pitch black with darkness; she couldn’t see more than about a foot in front of her.
She slowly crawled up the air duct, reaching a corner about every twenty seconds. The fact that she couldn’t see only added to her anxiety; these air ducts were a maze and there were multiple paths she could crawl down, meaning that if Rainbow had crawled the other way and gone around, she could be just feet in front of Applejack at any time, without her even knowing it.
She tried to forget that thought as tears streamed down her face. She was trying to be silent, but with this level of anxiety, fear and depression, that was impossible. Just the sound of her rapid breathing alone sent echoes up and down the air duct, not to mention her sobbing.
She reached a corner for the umpteenth time. But unfortunately, it was a crossroads. She could go left or right. She couldn’t see up either of them and had no idea which led to an exit and which led deeper into the maze of the air duct. She chose one at random and started crawling up it. She had this constant fear that she’d just chosen the wrong path. But it didn’t matter now; the air duct was too narrow in order to turn around and go back, no matter how much she wanted to.
All she could do is look forward and hope she found an exit soon. Her eyes struggled to see up the air duct though, leaving her only to know what was just a foot in front of her; anything outside that boundary was completely unknown to her until she crawled towards it.

She tried to control her breathing; an impossible feat in this situation. She just tried to focus on crawling forward. Suddenly, the sound of metal being thrust against metal was made about a dozen metres behind her. Her heart rate tripled, and she let out a blood curdling scream. She crawled forward faster than ever, eager to get away from where she’d heard the sound.
She turned left at the next corner. But just as she turned, she stopped when she saw the rose coloured eyes sitting amongst the darkness about three metres in front of her. She was petrified with fear. There was nothing else visible; just two, rose coloured eyes surrounded by darkness, staring right at her.
The eyes disappeared after a few seconds, then reappeared, but now a metre closer. Applejack couldn’t even breathe, she was that afraid.
The eyes then disappeared again, then reappeared just a metre from the terrified mare. They seemed to be staring into her very soul, relishing in her anxiety.
They disappeared for a third time, then didn’t appear again.

Applejacks heart rate was off the charts. She waited about thirty seconds, trying to stop her emotions from taking over. She couldn’t even bring herself to slide even just an inch forward; her nerves wouldn’t let her. Fear had taken over.

Get moving!! the voice in her head howled.
She wiped away the tears from her eyes and sniffed, before taking a long, deep breath. She very slowly began crawling forwards, but encountered nopony as she carried on up through the air duct.
She turned around another corner, then another, crawling endlessly through this maze of corners. This carried on for almost forty minutes until finally, she saw a light up ahead. She raced toward it, so relieved to find it. She didn’t even care about her surroundings anymore; she just wanted to reach that light. It had to be an exit.
Once she reached it, she saw that the light was above her. Hundreds of tiny beams of light shone down on her. She reached up with one of her forehooves and softly touched the source of the beams of light. She ran her hooves across it and realised that it was a metal sheet filled with tiny holes, just like the one that she had to pry off in order to get into this air duct.
She lifted her strong back legs and bucked the metal sheet as hard as she could. It popped right off and she heard it hit the ground on the other side. Carefully lifting her head, she lifted herself up through the hole above her and looked around. All she could see was Ponyville in the distance. However, it was the dead of night.
She very quickly realised that this was the roof of the building she was in. She pulled herself up and out of the air duct and onto the concrete roof. As soon as she pulled herself up out of the air duct, she scooted away from it as fast as she could.
She looked around frantically for some kind of way to get off the roof, but found nothing.

She stood up, her legs shaking, and started walking around. She stepped over to the edge of the roof and looked out at Ponyville. It looked so quiet and peaceful at night; quiescently beautiful.
“And now I’ve found you” a voice whispered.
Applejack immediately spun around, and almost fell off the roof. She was terrified to see Rainbow Dash standing right in front of her, holding the same blood coated bolt cutters that had been used to kill Jasper and Mike earlier.
“Please don’t hurt me” Applejack pleaded as she fell to her knees. “I didn’t mean to frame you…I don’t know why I did it. I just, I just couldn’t let myself get arrested. Sweet Apple Acres would go out of busine-“
“Shut up!” Rainbow shouted.
Applejack stopped mid-sentence. She gulped, now more terrified than ever.
“Do you know how horrible it is to be framed by somepony you thought you could trust?” Rainbow asked calmly, but with slight anger in her tone.
Applejack was too afraid to make any sound, let alone speak properly.
“Do you?!?” Rainbow screamed.
Rainbow held the bolt cutters threateningly over Applejacks head.
“I got thrown in a prison with lots of cruel thugs who just tried to bully me. Hurt me. And not just with words. When I broke out, killing you was the only thing I could think of. I ran into some hardships along the way, but now, here you are”.
Applejack felt more horrified than ever. She knew her life now hung in the balance. She put her forehooves over her head as she cowered in fear. She pressed her face against the hard, cold concrete, just waiting for the bolt cutters to go straight into the back of her head and kill her.

But then there was a gunshot.

Applejack opened an eye, and saw Rainbow lying on the concrete before her. She took her hooves off of her head and slowly stood up. Almost immediately, a hooded pony stepped out of the darkness, a few metres away. Applejack looked at her, then stared at the gun in the ponies forehooves, with smoke wafting out of the barrel.
The pony walked purposefully towards Rainbow. Applejack stepped away as the pony kicked Rainbows body over the edge of the roof.
“Who…who are you? Why did you save me?” Applejack asked, her voice stifled with fear.
She was practically choking with anxiety. The ponies head turned, although a hood covered most of its face.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. Although, I will tell you this. I’m sorry”.
Applejack felt confused.
“Sorry? You just saved my life”.
The pony shook its head.
“No, I mean what I’ve put you through. Or as it seems to me, what I’m going to put you through”.
“What are you talking about?” Applejack asked.
She felt oddly intrigued, but more confused than any other point in her life. The pony stared up at the sky and began explaining.
“Long ago, Rarity did something to me. Ever since then, I’ve felt a rage that only Rainbow Dashs anger towards you could have rivaled. I can’t express how angry I was at her. Then, you murdered her for me”.
Applejack was speechless. She didn’t know what to say.
“Or rather, I murdered her”.
The pony faced Applejack again, although she still couldn’t see its face. However, the pony then lifted its hood as Applejack tried to understand what she’d just heard. But to her utmost confusion, when the hood was lifted, Fluttershys yellow coat and pink mane were revealed.

“Flu…Fluttershy?!” Applejack gasped. “How are you here?? You’re supposed to be in hospital in a coma!”

“I woke up and knew I should come here, if my plan was to work. Like I said” Fluttershy began. “A long time ago, Rarity did something to me, which I don’t want to explain. Ever since then I’ve had a deep hatred for her. I wanted to murder her, so, so much. So before any of this happened, I devised a plan. A very complicated plan. I’ll try to explain it simply”.
“You see, I did a ritual that would allow my spirit to possess the mind of the pony who was closest to Rarity at the time that was shortly before her death. From there, I could use that pony to murder Rarity. Of course it would mean I would also have to die, but I just didn’t care. With what she did to me, killing her was all I wanted. But of course I didn’t want to do it in my own body; my quality of life would never be the same with the police after me. No, the best option was to kill myself and let my spirit possess the pony who was closest to her, which happened to be you. Unfortunately, I messed up the ritual and therefore wasn’t able to fully control your mind, and instead only had a large influence on your actions. But most of what you’ve done between the time of Raritys death and now was because of what my spirit has been telling you to do”.

“If you killed yourself, how are you here right now?” Applejack asked.
“I’m talking from the point of view of the voices in your head right now, not from my own point of view right now” Fluttershy explained. “I’m about to kill myself to complete the cycle, so my spirit can travel back to the time shortly before Raritys murder and possess your mind. So you see, those voices in your head aren’t schizophrenia; that was all me talking to you. But of course I disguised my voice. And now that you’re aware of my spirits presence, my spirit will be able to go onto the afterlife”.
“Now you see, I know this is complicated to explain. But, basically, I didn’t want you to be blamed for the murder, so I got you, well my spirit got you, to use Rainbow Dash as a scapegoat. I’ve never really liked her anyway. Then, all that was left was for me to die so that my spirit could travel back in time to possess your body and complete the loop. But you wouldn’t let me kill me, so it had to happen like this. I suppose that’s good though, because otherwise Rainbow Dash would’ve hunted you down and killed you. And you’ve always been one of my favorite friends, so of course I wouldn’t want that to happen to you”.

“So…you killed yourself, let your spirit go back in time, possess me and then use me to kill Rarity, then you got me to use Rainbow Dash as a scapegoat?” Applejack asked.

“Well, I haven’t killed myself yet. But now there’s only one thing left to do”.
She put the gun to her head.
“I want you to remember one thing before I pull this trigger” Fluttershy said.
Applejack didn’t know what to say or do. A few tears dripped down her face.
“Go live your life, Applejack. Enjoy it to the fullest. No deep wounds of such horrific evemts heal without leaving a scar, but just know that you were all but a pawn in my plan to murder Rarity. That’s it. And now that’s it over, you can carry on with your life”.
She turned away from Applejack, about to pull the trigger as Applejack began crying.

“For those who believe they are free, elusion is not possible” Fluttershy spoke softly into the still, night air.