The Cutie Mark Killers

The Cutie Mark Killers

Part one: The after-school special

Scootaloo sighed. It was near the end of the school day, and she was anxious to get home. She looked up at the clock; two-thirty. Only a half hour remained. She wasn’t even pretending to listen to Mrs. Cheerilee anymore, her eyes kept glazing over and drifting around the room. She glanced out the window, at the beautiful day she was being robbed of. It wasn’t fair! Mrs. Cheerilee had given this lesson at least a dozen times, the same old song about cutie marks relating to everyponies special talents, and how it takes real dedication and patience to make one appear.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes at the thought. Who was more dedicated then her and the other cutie mark crusaders? At that, she lazily turned her head towards where her two best friends sat. AppleBloom looked nearly comatose, her eyes heavily lidded, drooling slightly onto her desk. Suppressing a giggle, she looked past AppleBloom to see Sweetie Belle. To her surprise, Sweetie Belle was sitting at rapt attention; hanging off Mrs. Cheerilee’s every word. She seemed to be silently repeating something under her breath, with a look of pure determination set on her face. Finally, when Cheerilee stopped talking for a moment, Sweetie Belle shot her hand up. The dramatic movement was enough to wake up AppleBloom.

Cheerilee smiled softly and said: “yes, Sweetie Belle?”

“Well…” She began: “If a cutie mark is what reflects what you are best at, what happens if what you are best at is something bad?”

Cheerilee’s sweet smile faltered slightly. “What do you mean?”

“ummm…” Sweetie Belle trailed off, not sure how to continue. “Let’s say that there was a pony who was a really good robber. Would his cutie mark be something that reflects that?”

All of the eyes in the class turned to Cheerilee.

“Well you see… umm…” The teacher stammered, having never been asked that before. However, she knew the answer of course. “You see… Even if a pony’s talent is against the law, it is still a talent, so yes, it would be reflected in their cutie mark.” “However…” she quickly stated, seeing the confused-looking faces around the room, “That doesn’t make it any less wrong to break the law, and it makes a pony much easier to catch if they run around with a robber cutie mark.” She chuckled lightly at her own joke.

Sweetie Belle nodded with a smile on her face.

“Huh. Why didn’t I think of that?” Scootaloo thought to herself.

“OK class, looks like we’re out of time for today! Remember, your assignments on Alicorn history are due Monday!”

“Finally!” Thought Scootaloo, and she nearly leapt out of her seat. She was just about to bolt to the door when she heard Sweetie Belle give her and AppleBloom a hoarse whisper.

“Wait here until everypony leaves… I need to ask Mrs. Cheerilee something” She said. Sweetie Belle was sweating slightly, and her front hooves were shaking. She looked almost… nervous? No, more… anxious?

The three of them waited in their seats until all of the other students had left the classroom to go home.

Cheerilee looked up from the stack of papers she was stuffing into her bag, seeing the three fillies alone in the classroom, looking up at her.

“Is there something you need?” She asked, confused.

“Yeah, actually,” said Sweetie Belle, “I need to ask you something. I think I found out how to get a cutie mark really easily, and I wanted to know if you would help me out with it.”

Cheerilee chuckled to herself. These three always had some scheme or adventure planned to obtain there marks.

“Of course!” she said, mostly humoring the filly.

Scootaloo noticed that something wasn’t right. Sweetie Belle was acting strange. Her horn glowed faintly with turquoise light, and her desk slowly creaked open.

“Would you do aaanything to help us?”

“I’ll try my best.” Cheerilee said, closing her eyes and beaming at them.

“Good”

Scootaloo saw the knife far too late. Like a bullet, it shot from Sweetie Belle’s desk, flung with magic at their teacher.

There was a dull “thwick” as the blade sank deep into Cheerilee’s purple chest. Her eyes bulged open, and she staggered back a few steps, a look of pure confusion and terror on her face.

Time froze.

Sweetie Belle was standing on her desk, front leg stretched out in front of her like she had physically thrown the knife with her hoof.

AppleBloom was staring at the knife in Cheerilee, mouth agape.

Scootaloo couldn’t even start to process what just happened.

A river of dark red started to flow from the knife, dripping to the floor. Cheerilee looked at Sweetie Bell, and managed to take a shaky step towards the filly.

“Grab Her!” Shouted Sweetie Belle, her horn lighting up again. “Don’t let her get anywhere!”

Acting on pure instinct, Scootaloo dove at Cheerilee, grabbing her front leg. She was dimly aware of AppleBloom doing the same to the other one. The force of the impact knocked Cheerilee off balance, and she toppled to the floor, rolling onto her back. The teacher let out a hoarse scream as she got over the initial shock and felt the blinding pain of the blade that was lodged inches in her chest.

Sweetie Belle pounced on top of her teacher, her horn alight. The knife became wrapped in her magic, and was pulled out of the wound. As the tip left Cheerilee, blood began flowing more freely, pouring down her sides, forming a pool crimson around them.

Sweetie Belle looked manic. A huge grin split her features, and her eyes were light up with delight. She had been looking forward to this all day. It had to work; there was nothing left to try. She would get her cutie mark today!

She brought the blade back down into Cheerilee, sinking it even deeper into a spot a few inches from the first wound. Their teacher let out another pained scream, and arched her back towards the ceiling in agony. She tried to push herself off of the floor, but her rapidly draining strength couldn’t overcome the three foals pinning her down. The blade was extracted again, and for a third time, it dove into her, this time lower down, in her stomach.

“NOOO! NO NO NO!” She screamed. “Stop this! Please!” She started sobbing, the blinding pain was too much to bear. AppleBloom, with a terrified look on her face, shoved her hoof into Cheerilee’s mouth, attempting to silence her.

Sweetie Belle frowned. It wasn’t supposed to take this long. She had assumed that her teacher would just drop dead instantly. She started stabbing her repeatedly, spraying blood and bits of mangled flesh everywhere. Again and again the knife came down, shredding the writhing pony underneath her. However, the Teacher still screamed her blood-curtailing scream into AppleBloom’s hoof. Sweetie Bell had to try something else.

“Make sure you hold her still.” She told her friends.

“Sweetie Belle…” AppleBloom croaked. “What’s happening? Why are you doing this?”

“I’ll explain when I’m done, but right now you have to have my back on this. You have my back?” Sweetie Belle looked between the two fillies, a determined look in her eye.

“…I have your back” Scootaloo whispered. She couldn’t explain it, but everything that was happening made sense, like she found the last piece of a puzzle.

“Good! And you?” Sweetie Bell said, looking towards AppleBloom.

“Uhhh… Yeah…” AppleBloom stammered. Her normally off-yellow coat hat turned slightly pale. She looked down on the sobbing pony underneath her. Gathering herself, she solemnly nodded. “I got your back”

“Excellent, now, just hold her down” Sweetie Belle said.

With all her power, she sank the blade right in the middle of Cheerilees torso, and pulled down on it. The sharp tool neatly cut a line from her ribcage down towards her pelvis. Setting the knife aside, she pulled aside the twin flaps of ragged skin and muscle like curtains.

Inside was the worst sight Scootaloo had ever seen. Her organs were there, in full view. The stomach was punctured in several places, with bile bubbling out and collecting in the cavity surrounding it. Her intestines were even worse off, with slash marks all over them. They were almost severed in places. Blood began to pool into the gaping wound, congealing into a dark brown puddle. Cheerilee couldn’t scream anymore, she drifted in and out of consciousness, the life slowly draining from her.

Sweetie Belle stepped into the wound with her hind legs, separating the sides of the incision even further.

Using her magic, she picked up the knife again. She grabbed the large intestines, and with a small smile, cut them loose from the stomach. Sweetie Belle bundled them up with her front hooves, and pulled them from the body with a horrible squelching noise. A sickly green sludge began to drip from the severed end. Placing them to the side of the body, she turned her attention to the stomach. She slashed at it with the knife, shredding the thin tissue. Rivers of foul-smelling acid and half-digested food spilled from the destroyed organ. Tearing it from the cavity with her hooves, she placed it next to the intestines on the floor.

Reaching into the now mostly-empty maw with her knife, she thrusted up towards where she hoped the heart and lungs were. Clumsily she stabbed upwards repeatedly, each time drawing less and less blood.

“Sweetie Belle…”

Sweetie Belle continued thrusting, sinking the blade again and again through the diaphragm and into the bottom of the lungs.

“Sweetie Belle!”

Startled, she looked up. AppleBloom was looking at Cheerilees face. Their teacher’s eyes had rolled up in their sockets, and her mouth was hanging open, blood dripping from it. Her chest no longer moved, and the flesh underneath her seemed strangely cold.

Cheerilee was dead.

Scootaloo took a few steps back to take in the grisly scene before her. Blood was everywhere. In her frenzied swinging, Sweetie Belle had managed to spray it nearly six feet in every direction. The corpse in front of her was stained red, with clumps of skin and flesh hanging loosely from the massive hole in its torso. Dozens of smaller wounds dotted the body. The pool of blood under the body had stopped spreading, and was mixing with the juices from the organs, created a sickening stench that filled the classroom.

AppleBloom was still clutching the corpse’s leg, looking even more pale than before. Her face was an expressionless mask looking down into the half empty chest cavity of her former teacher. Shaking, she dipped her hoof into the mess and scooped up some of the bloody pulp, examining it closely.

Scootaloo looked back at Sweetie Belle, who was cleaning her knife with the side of Cheerilee’s leg. She was covered in gore, her normally white coat stained with red.

“What did we do?” AppleBloom asked, voice trembling. “She was our teacher… and we…”

“We did what we had to do to get our cutie marks!” Replied Sweetie Belle, turning towards her. “You heard what she said, cutie marks can appear even if we do bad things. And since we have tried every good thing imaginable, this was our last option!”

“yeah… I guess you’re right.” Said Scootaloo from behind them, deep in thought. Was this their special talent? Killing ponies? She did feel something when she watched as Sweetie Belle was stabbing their teacher. It felt really exciting, like it was what she always wanted to do, but never knew it.

It was fun.

She wanted more.

Sweetie Belle was circling in place, attempting to get a good look at her own flank. “Did it appear? Do I have a mark?”

“Sorry Belle, still blank flank” replied Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle sighed warily.

“Oh well, we’re just going to have to try harder next time” She said. “Right AppleBloom?”

They both looked at the tan earth pony. She was still looking at the mass of red mush in her hoof. She leaned forward and sniffed it, then gave it an experimental lick.

“EWWWWW!” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo squealed together.

“What?” Said AppleBloom, looking genuinely confused.

“That is sooo gross!” said Scootaloo.

“Not really, it’s actially really good!” AppleBloom licked the pulp again, and a soft moan escaped her throat. “I always wanted to know what meat tasted like, living entirely off apples gets mighty boring after a while.”

“Sooo gross…” Repeated Scootaloo.

“we should clean up a little here… it looks a little… murder-y” said Sweetie Belle, looking around the scene in front of her. The other two crusaders nodded in agreement, and went about fixing the place up. They cleaned up all of the bodily fluids, dumping them into the sink in the washroom. With that done, they dragged Cheerilee, (with her insides hastily re-inserted) and shoved her into the broom cupboard at the back of the class.

“So what now?” asked AppleBloom, who was idly chewing on the remainder of the gore in her hoof.

“Well, we need to decide which pony should be next, and we need to find a way to erm… take care of them more silently.” Sweetie Belle said, rubbing her chin with her hoof.

“Im sure Zecora has some powerful sleeping potions!” Exclaimed AppleBloom.

“And Ms. Sparkle would have a useful binding spell at the library!” Said Scootaloo. “That way, we won’t need to keep holding them down.”

“Them?” Asked AppleBloom skeptically.

“Well yeah, it might take more than one to really get our talent down and make our marks.” Scootaloo secretly just wanted to feel the thrill of taking a life again and again, cutie mark or no.

“Makes sense.” AppleBloom said. She swallowed, and sighed as the last of her impromptu meal slid down her throat. “Man that’s good”.

“So its decided!” Scootaloo declared. “We go straight to the library, then Zecora’s so we can get our cutie mark crusade on!”

The Crusaders bumped hooves and trotted out of the class, not sparing another thought to the cadaver they left in the broom cupboard.

---===---

Fluttershy trotted along the outskirts of the town square, where the crowds of ponies were thinnest. The timid pegasus normally stayed away from town on Friday afternoons, but she had promised Cheerilee that she would deliver the cookies she had ordered from Sugar Cube Corner. Normally Pinkie Pie took care of deliveries, but they had such a terrible backorder that Fluttershy had volunteered to help.

As she crossed the square, she saw three familiar fillies running full tilt towards the library. Seeing them brought a little smile to Fluttershy’s face. Off on another crusade, she guessed. She made a mental note to check on them later. Whenever they went on their little adventures, they usually managed to get into some kind of trouble. Mostly minor but…

She shuddered, remembering the incident in Everfree forest. Ok, checking up on them was priority, after she finished with Cheerilee, she decided.

A few minutes later, she was at the school. It looked like classes were done for the day. It seemed oddly peaceful without dozens of fillies and colts running around. She stepped inside, and looked around. Cheerilee was nowhere to be seen. Strange, she usually stayed in the classroom a few hours after school hours to grade papers and prepare the next day’s lesson.

Oh well, Fluttershy would just have to try Cheerilee’s house. She was just about to turn around when she heard a faint dripping sound. Curious, she turned to where the sound was coming from. It seemed to be from the back of the class.

She cautiously edged towards the sound, starting to feel slightly alarmed. It was silly, she knew, but she couldn’t really help it. She took a deep breath, and sang a song in her head that Pinkie Pie had taught her a long time ago.

“Giggle at the ghostly,

Guffaw at the grossly…”

The sound was getting louder, but the time between drips was getting longer.

“Chortle at the cooky,

Snortle at the spooky…”

Fluttershy had followed the sound to the far corner of the room, where the broom cupboard was. She leaned towards it to look closer. A thick red fluid was tripping from the corner of the door. It almost looked like…

Fluttershy let out a terrified squeak. There was no mistaking it now. Trembling, she reached her hoof towards the door handle. With a sudden movement, she whipped it open.

All that she remembered seeing was Cheerilee falling down towards her, knocking Fluttershy over and landing in a heap on the floor, face-first. Fluttershy bolted back up to her feet, now in full panic mode.

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh…”

She gently prodded the pony on the ground. When no response came, Fluttershy turned her over onto her back.

What she saw nearly made her pass out on the spot. There were cuts everywhere on Cheerilee’s chest, thin ones, but unmistakably deep. What drew Fluttershy’s eye, however, was the massive laceration going down the earth pony’s stomach. It was separated slightly, a horror show of misplaced organs underneath. Fluttershy stumbled backwards, distancing herself from the dead teacher.

“not again…” She thought. She looked around, nopony was there of course. Trembling, she walked over to the windows and shut the curtains. Glancing back over to the corpse, she felt a sickening yet familiar sensation bubble within her. It had been years since she last felt it, and the results had been… messy.

“I’ll just be cleaner this time…” She thought, rubbing her front hooves together. “This one last time.”

A predatory grin lit her face up, and she walked towards the body.

End of part one.