One By One

"Another one, eh?" one police officer asked.

The two officers stood over the mangled and bloody Rainbow Dash, who died a few hours ago, the maggots and other scavengers went away for now.

One officer, Officer Lucky, was a light green pegasus with blue eyes, an Irish green mane and tail, and a three-leafed-clover as his cutie mark. The other officer, Officer Butch, was a dark brown earth pony, with tan eyes, a black mane, and a golden police badge as his cutie mark.

"Yup," the other officer, Butch, answered. "Once again, it has the carved-in 'X' on her cutie mark."

"We have a serial killer on the loose, don't we?" Officer Lucky asked with a sigh.

"I'm afraid so, my friend," the dark brown earthpony answered, placing a comforting hoof on the discouraged  pegasus's shoulder.

"I'm here!" Twilight Sparkle cried, running towards the two officers.

Oh no...

Officer Butch had called up Princess Twilight Sparkle without thinking about who the cyan pegasus was. This would be one of those moments he would regret later. Why hadn't he thought of this sooner?

When Twilight Sparkle reached them, the officers took off their hats and bowed their heads, Twilight looked at them, confused.

"What's the matter?" Twilight Sparkles asked.

The officers stepped aside reluctantly to reveal the very familiar cyan pegasus's corpse.

Twilight's eyes widened in horror and in shock. "No..."

Twilight Sparkle slowly started to walk to her friend's corpse. "Please... No..."

Twilight tried to fling herself to her dead friend but Officer Lucy and Butch held her back as she screamed her best friend's name.

"RAINBOW!" Twilight cried, tears flooding from her eyes. "NO! NO! NO!"

This couldn't be happening, there is no way that her best friend is dead, she just talked to her yesterday!

The purple alicorn stopped struggling and fell to the ground, covering her face as she cried, the officers let go of her, bowing their heads in grief, not only for the cyan pegasus, but for the princess's sorrow as well, one would call this sympathy. This was the moment that the green pegasus began to regret calling up the princess.

Twilight had lost two of her best friends and one of her acquaintances in only two days, this was too much even for the purple alicorn. She'd rather just face all of the villains she faced before and fight them by herself then experience this grief, no, this agonizing pain she felt right now.

"I'm sorry for your loss, princess," the green sympathetic pegasus said, his head still bowed.

The princess stood up shakily, wiping the tears from her eyes. "It's alright."

Twilight Sparkle looked at the two officers with a vengeful look in her purple eyes. "Because whoever this pony is, we are going to catch them, and we are going to make them wish they was never ever born."

...

On the Apple Farm, Applejack was the only one home due to Big Macintosh and Applebloom being away with Granny Smith on some family business in Appleloosa, something about somepony getting married. Applejack was not fond of the sappy lovey-dovey stuff, never was, never will be, so she just told Big Mac to congratulate the lucky mare and colt for her, problem solved.

Applejack kicked an apple tree with her back hooves making all the apples fall conveniently fall into the baskets that were below the big apple tree.

After this, Applejack set her hooves back down on the ground and wiped the sweat from her brow.

"Hoo-whee!" Applejack exclaimed. "Nothing like some nice hard work to calm one's emotions down."

A stray tear fell down Applejack's cheek, as she suddenly recalled the recent events, this made her collapse, falling back on her rear end, as more tears began to flood down her cheeks, huh, so much for just crying on the inside.

Applejack, after a long time of holding it all in, had finally gotten the time to let it all out, she gave a short shout at nothing in particular and let her tears fall, some reaching the ground.

"Rainbow Dash!" the orange earthpony cried. "Rarity! No! Please come back!"

Applejack hiccuped as she remembered all the memories she had with those two mares, competitions, baking cupcakes, throwing parties, everything, every precious memory that held a special place in her memory, now was haunting her as if they weren't good times, but terrible regrets.

She sniffled as she got back up on all fours, wiping her tears off her face with her right hoof, blinking away her final tear. "Enough crying, AJ, back to work.

Applejack put the baskets in the nearby cart along with the rest of baskets of apples, she then got in the front of it, put the cart strap on, and trotting to the barn.

Applejack started humming to herself as she unhooked herself from the cart and began to remove the baskets from the cart into the barn, she did this until she heard a twig snap.

"Hm? Who's there?" Applejack asked, alarmed.

When no one answered, Applejack shrugged and continued humming and unloading baskets of apples.

Strangely though, Applejack felt as if she was being watched she turned her head to the and then to the left... nothing but some hay on the ground where a pitchfork sat up.

Applejack looked behind her, this time, she flinched a bit at the bright light, but then her eyes slightly adjusted more and saw a silhouette of a stallion.

"Big Mac?" the orange earthpony asked. "Are ya back already?"

The stallion then held something that was barely recognizable as a shadow, until Applejack's eyes adjusted to the bright sun. To her horror, it was the pitchfork that stood beside her originally, this time this stallion had it aimed at her.

Before the pitchfork was thrown, Applejack immediately recognized the stallion. "Wait a second... You're Pinkie-Pie-!

Applejack was interrupted by the pitchfork that had punctured her throat, making her fall to the barn floor.

"Ack!" Applejack yelled, choking on her own blood, as it seeped down the corners of her mouth.

Her world slowly went black, as she got a final look at her and, most likely, her dead friends' killer.