Strange Voice on the Phone

The Mayor put down her quill and re-read the speech she had been working on. In light of the recent events in Ponyville, she had decided that it was her civic duty as the mayor to give the citizens a rousing speech to assure them that all was well enough in Ponyville and that with the royal guards searching every nook and cranny, the mysterious caller was sure to be found within a few days at the most. She had used her position as mayor to call a town meeting where she would give her speech in the hopes that the citizens would in fact calm down and get back to living their lives without too much fear. she knew that she couldn't make all of the fear go away, but she hoped that she could at least help. She adjusted her glassed and cleared her throat. "My dear citizens of Ponyville," she said, reading the speech quietly to herself, "I cannot deny that these are indeed dark times that we are in, but have no fear! There is no reason to panic right now! Nopony has actually been hurt yet and our beloved princess herself has sent the best of the best to help catch this evildoer," She scanned the paper again. "Hmmm, I should cut the part about nopony being hurt yet. I..." At that moment, the phone rang loudly. The Mayor jumped up, having been snapped out of her concentration and turned towards the phone. As the phone kept ringing, The Mayor took a deep breath and assured herself that the odds of it being The Caller himself were slim at best. She was always getting calls late at night, especially recently. She put the headset on and answered the phone. "Hello, this is The Mayor speaking," she said in her most businesslike tone.

"Good I called the right number," said the voice on the other end. The Mayor's heart sank. This was undeniably the voice of The Caller himself. "Now Miss Mayor, I want you to listen to me very carefully. If you don't want to get hurt you will do EXACTLY as I say. Do not deviate from my instructions at all or things will get very messy. Acknowledge me if you understand," said The Caller in an incredibly threatening tone.

"I...I understand," said The Mayor shakily. She had never been as scared in her entire life as she was right now.

"Excellent. Now, I know that you are sitting in your office alone. You decided to foolishly send the two royal guards who were protecting you home. Nopony can help your right now," The Caller paused for a brief moment. "Now that I think about that, why did you send your bodyguards home hmmm?"

"I didn't think I needed them tonight. I decided to give them a night off," said The Mayor, hoping she hadn't made a mistake that would cost her her life.

"You don't say, a night off? I gotta admit, I heard you weren't the brightest mayor this town has had, but I never thought you were that dumb," said The Caller with a cackle. The Mayor looked around her desk to see if she could find anything to use as a weapon in case she actually came face-to-face with The Caller. All she really had was her quill and that would be useless if she was attacked. She realized that she had to play his game right now.

"What do you want from me?" she said, fearing the worst.

"Now Madam Mayor, I'm glad you asked that. You see, I know that throughout this entire investigation, you have been working closely with the royal guards hunting me. I admire that you are doing your very best to protect the citizens of this town," Said The Caller mockingly.

"So what do you want?"

"I want to know what they know. I know you know what they know about me," said The Caller. "I find myself in a position where I need to know what is going on around me and you can give me that information. It's not like I can just go up and ask some random guard to give me information. So, I decided to come to you," The Mayor stuttered for a few seconds, unsure of how to respond. "So, let's hear it. Tell me what you know...NOW!" yelled The Caller. The yell startled The Mayor and she gave a small squeal of fear. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

"Well...we know that you are average sized, we know that you are a unicorn, we are pretty sure you are male, we know you use a voice-changer to hide your voice, we know you are from Ponyville and are obviously still in Ponyville," The Mayor felt her resolve to keep answering weakening. Would this information be used to harm other ponies? If The Caller knew all of this, then he could probably avoid capture longer which meant that this nightmare would continue.

"Please continue Miss Mayor, I don't have all night," said The Caller sternly.

"Well, we know what kind of costume you wear, we have your knife and a shred of your costume and our top forensic ponies are analyzing them as we speak."

"What have they found?" said The Caller interestedly.

"Well, nothing so far. We can't track the knife or the costume to see who sold it too you. The knife is too common and the costume seems to be custom made."

"Your deductive skills are very good," said The Caller sarcastically. "do continue."

"We know you have a cell phone because you called Pinkie and Fluttershy close to their homes. That's all I can think of right now," she said, feeling awful about how much information she had just given The Caller.

"Well done Miss Mayor, you did a very good job and I thank you very much for the information you provided," said The Caller.

"Well, uh, yes I see," she took a deep breath, hoping this would soon be over. "Okay then, whoever you are, are we done here?"

"Mmm, not quite. Do you see that eloquently written speech on your desk?" He said.

"Yes," said The Mayor.

"Destroy it, and see to it that you don't write another one. In fact, I think it would be in the best interests of everypony in Ponyville if you just cancelled that town meeting that you had planned for tomorrow. You wouldn't want anypony to be hurt because of some silly town meeting would you?" he said in the most threatening tone he could muster.

"Oh, yes, of course I will cancel it," said The Mayor, tearing up her speech into tiny scraps. "In fact, I won't try to call another town meeting about you at all."

"I do appreciate that very much. now, Miss Mayor, you have done very well tonight and this is almost over. I only have one more task for you to complete. I want you to go to the town square, next to the fountain. There you will find a note with further instructions. Once you have completed the tasks set for you on the note, you personally will never hear from me again," said The Caller in a tone that almost sounded like an attempt to be soothing. The voice hardened. "However, if you disobey me, even slightly, I will make you feel terror that you never imagined possible. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," said The Mayor, feeling very scared again.

"Good. Now hang up and go," said The Caller. The Mayor heard a dial tone on the other end as The caller hung up. The Mayor hung up her phone as well. She galloped over to a coat rack and grabbed her jacket. She put it on and opened the door to her office. To her horror, she saw a figure in a black cloak with a white mask on. The Mayor stood frozen to the spot, every inch of her body screamed at her to run away. The Caller gave a terrifying giggle and used his magic to raise a large, jagged knife over his head.

A piercing scream split the calmness of the night.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Applejack's eyes flew open and she sat up in bed quickly. She thought she had heard a loud scream. She scanned the room for anything out of the ordinary. She listened for a few seconds and discovered that nopony in the house was awake. Her family slept soundly in their beds. A cursory glance around her room wasn't enough to assuage her fears that something was amiss though, and she gut up out of bed and lit a candle.. Applejack tip-hooved around her house, checking to see if anything was out of the ordinary. After a few minutes of searching, she discovered that everything was as it should be and Applejack calmed down. She realized it must have simply been nerves that had woken her up. The thought of a maniac running loose in Ponyville had made everypony nervous. She blew out her candle and proceeded to go back to her bed when she heard a commotion outside. She nervously trotted to her door and opened it slightly. She saw a group of royal guards rushing towards an unknown destination. Applejack's heart sank as she realized that somepony had been attacked again. If Twilight's brother had been right, then it was one of her friends! Who was it this time? Rarity? Rainbow Dash? She chastised herself for thinking that way. "Hold your horses girl, your friends are just fine. They aren't hurt. If one of them was attacked they got away, just like Pinkie and Fluttershy." she said quietly to herself. When the group of guards had passed, Applejack's curiosity got the better of her and despite her mental warnings, she slipped out into the night.

She followed behind the group of guards, making sure never to be seen or else she would be forced to return to her home and she wouldn't know what was going on. As she followed them, she realized what direction they were headed: Carousel Boutique. Apple Jack started to panic. If they were indeed headed where she thought they were headed, then it had been Rarity who had been attacked! She trotted along behind the guards, always making sure to keep a good distance between her and them. They were whispering to each other but Apple Jack was too far behind them to hear what they were saying. As they moved farther along, Applejack's worst fears were confirmed. She saw Rarity's dress shop grow larger and larger as they approached it. She saw a detachment of guards already standing in front of Rarity's door. "Oh no, not Rarity." said Apple Jack to herself.

The group of guards stopped in front of the guards in front of Rarity's door and Applejack saw that they were having a conversation. Applejack started shaking in fear. Was Rarity alright? Did she get hurt? However, to her surprise, the entire group of guards walked away towards a different destination. Applejack stood there trying to figure out what was going on when she realized that the guards were headed someplace else. She breathed a huge sigh of relief, Rarity was safe in her bed and no harm had come to her in the middle of the night.

She noticed the group of guards trotting farther away and she sped up to keep them in her line of sight. To her surprise, she saw that they all stopped in front of Town Hall. There was a huge commotion in front of the Town Hall and Applejack snuck around and dove into a bush that was close to the action. She could hear the guards taking just fine from here. They were talking about how somepony had been attacked. Applejack grimaced and wondered with fear about who had been attacked. She hoped whoever had been attacked was okay. Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"Okay, can somepony please tell me what is going on here? I only heard the basics that The Mayor was attacked," Applejack looked to see that it was Twilight's brother speaking. One of the guards went over to talk to Shining Armor.

"You heard right, The Mayor was attacked in her office. She wasn't as lucky as the other two," he said grimly.

"Is she alive? Have the medics checked her out yet?" Armor asked urgently. The guard he had been talking to pointed towards a group of three ponies. They were huddled on the front steps of the Town Hall with looks of pure shock and horror plastered all over their faces. "So, she is dead," said Armor in a deflated tone.

"The head medic has been in the bathroom throwing up ever since she went into The Mayor's office," said the guard grimly. "I went in myself to take a look," The guard looked down at the ground and spoke next in a shaken tone. "I'll be having nightmares for weeks." Shining Armor looked at the Town Hall sadly.

"That bad huh?" he said.

"Worse. I never imagined that somepony could do this to somepony else. I learned the hard way that that wasn't the case tonight," said the guard.

"Okay, I think I had better go take a look. Come with me and give me details about the crime scene on the way," said Armor in a commanding tone. The guard nodded and the two of them walked into Town Hall. Applejack heard the beginning of the report.

"We know for certain that no sexual abuse was involved. We didn't recover anything of The Killer's this time around but we're going to keep..." at that point, the pair was too far away from Apple Jack for her to hear anything else. She sat in the bush in shock for a few seconds. The Mayor of Ponyville was dead. The Mayor of Ponyville was dead and it had been brutal. The words sounded foreign in her head, like her own mind was rejecting what she had just heard. A single tear rolled down her face and she snapped out of her shock. Once the coast was clear, she got out of the bush and bolted back towards her home. Once inside, she slammed the door behind her and locked it. She ran over to all of the windows and locked them all as well.

Big Macintosh awoke to slamming windows and the sound of crying. He sat up and when he went to investigate the noise, he saw that Apple Jack was running around the room shutting the windows. The sobs were hers. He walked downstairs to see what was wrong. "Uh, AJ," he said. Applejack yelped in shock and spun around to see her big brother behind her with a worried look on his face. "What's wrong?" he said worriedly. Applejack ran over to her brother and buried her head in his shoulder. Between sobs she managed to say what was wrong.

"Oh Big Mac, The Caller attacked The Mayor tonight," she said, sobbing harder than ever. Big Macintosh's eyes widened and he placed a hoof on his sister's shoulder.

"Is she okay?" he said, already knowing the answer but hoping for a different one anyway.

"No. No she isn't, The Caller got her. She's dead Big Macintosh, The Mayor is dead!"