Later That Evening…

“What happened here?” asked Shining Armor as he entered the room where the bodies of Twilight’s killers lay, being examined by forensics as his replacement as Captain of the Guard, a thestral mare by the name of Evening Glory approached him.

“We’re… not entirely sure, sir. Do I still call you ‘sir,’ or do I call you ‘Your Majesty?’” Evening asked Shining Armor, shaking his hand.

Shining chuckled. “Sir will do,” he replied.

“Okay, sir, as I was saying, we’re not entirely sure what happened here. I mean, clearly, there has to be a reason these guys were murdered,” said Evening as a third guard approached them.

“Uh, Captain,” the guard said, whispering something in Evening Glory’s ear, causing her eyes to widen.

“You sure it’s them?” Evening asked. The guard nodded. Evening turned to face Shining. “It’s them.”

“‘Them?’ What do you mean, ‘them?’” asked Shining Armor.

“These are the rogue guards who murdered Princess Twilight. Shining, these are your sister’s killers,” she told her former superior.

Shining Armor said nothing for a long time as this news sunk in. He probably wouldn’t have said anything for even longer, before a forensics analyst called out to them.

“Captain, you might want to have a look at this,” the analyst said.

Shining and Evening made their way over to the analyst who’d spoken and squatted down. In the analyst’s hand was a small glass container.

“What do you make of this?” the analyst asked.

Shining and Evening squinted their eyes. Inside the container was what looked like some kind of small metal pellet. Except, it didn’t look like any pellet either of them had ever seen before.

“What is that thing?” asked Shining Armor.

“No idea. Pulled it, along with a few dozen more out of this one’s chest. The others show similar injuries, all of them fatal,” explained the analyst.

“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” said Evening.

“Yes, Captain. In order to do this type of damage, these things would’ve had to have been launched faster than a Wonderbolt. And judging by the fact that all of wounds that these things were in were fatal, whoever or whatever launched them knew what they were doing.”

Evening looked over at Shining Armor. “What in Tartarus could’ve done this?” she asked her former superior.

Shining Armor stood up and turned to face the troops he once commanded. “As much as I don’t want to, considering that they’ve just done the Princesses, my family, and Progressives as a whole a public service by killing these oathbreakers, that doesn’t give this guy the right to murder. We need to find them take them down before they hurt anypony else.”

“Agreed,” said Evening Glory, nodding her head. “And to do that, we need to find out who these killers were working for and get to them before this nutcase does. All right, men, let’s pack it up and move it out!”

…

Red Hood pulled opened the door of his abandoned steel mill hideout. There wasn’t really much that could be said about it just by looking around, aside from the lumpy hide-a-bed that someone had left on the side of the street. Not far from the sofa were several stacks of crates that made the trip with him, and by an insane coincidence, just so happened to be filled to the brim with the supplies he needed to make his custom-made bullets and other projectile weapons.

Titanium composite hollow point bullets with a C4 kicker. Fastest, most explosive ammo in the world. Well, my world anyway. Judging from the fact that the soldiers at that Princess’s funeral were all carrying crossbows, and that I just killed a bunch of horse-people who were using swords, I’m guessing it’s probably the ONLY ammo in this world. thought Red Hood, a smirk hidden by his mask. Also coming from his world were a couple AK-47s, a shotgun or two, a bazooka with some spare ammo, and a variety of grenades.

Red Hood reached up, lowered his jacket’s hood, and pressed a button on his mask, allowing the pressure hatches to open so that he could remove it, followed swiftly by the eye mask underneath. Jason Todd looked to be in his early 20s with short black hair and bright blue eyes. He tossed both his masks into a corner and flopped down on the couch, closing his eyes as he took a deep breath. Opening his eyes once more, grabbed a few sheets of old paper that had been lying around and got to work, making the start of his list. Although the little dragon he’d met had told him about Twilight’s reforms, and although he’d gotten the names of those behind Twilight Sparkle’s death from one of her killers, not to mention he’d taken ownership of the knife that killed her, they were only a part of the problem. It was the Traditionalists as a whole that were the cause for Twilight’s tragic demise. They were the reason that poor kid was now an orphan, the reason six… mares, he supposed, who should’ve been lifelong friends, had been whittled down to five. Even those who had no part in Twilight’s murder were, in effect, guilty by association. Any reservations or doubts they had were thrown aside purely for the sake of maintaining their power and influence.

Well, I’m not going to take their power away, thought Jason as he jotted down the names that assassin had given him, and began making a conspiracy web. But, I’ll take everything else, their pathetic lives included. They traded their honor for power and influence. They will not be missed. He started putting up some pictures that were made for each of the traditionalists. He began connecting them with string and needles, making sure they stayed where they were. Once he was finished he looked at the finished web… near best he could tell these bastards weren’t that much different from Bludhaven politicians. You can get the small fry bastards but if you leave the bigger monsters on top you’re only nipping the problem at the bud.

I’ll start with the ones behind Twilight’s death first. Then, I’ll deal with the others before going after the ringleader behind all this, thought Jason, gazing at the center of the web he’d spun, where, instead of a picture, there was nothing.

Something crawled its way up from the depths of Jason’s worst memories… the first time he and Batman met the Joker. Bruce, his predecessor as Robin Dick Grayson, and himself had hammered the Mob to the point of desperation, and in that desperation they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand. A man who wanted nothing more than to watch the world burn while he snacked on some popcorn. What were the odds that these Traditionalists wouldn’t do the same?

I can’t afford to worry about that now. That’s future Red Hood’s problem. If and when it happens, I’ll deal with it then. Right now, my concern is with these bastards, thought Jason as his gazed wandered over to a picture of a mare, Lady Sundancer.

And I know just where to start…

…

Lady Sundancer, who was unicorn mare with a sleek orange and yellow mane and tail, with narrow-rimmed glasses, a crisp suit and skirt, and black heels made her way out of the Parliament Building with an almost enraged look on her face. The usurper had been dealt with, Celestia was safe from being overthrown, and all was well again.

Until that meeting she was just in. Celestia had informed the whole of Parliament that she was taking Executive Action, in that every last one of Twilight’s reforms would be made the law of the land, stating that her death would not be in vain.

“How… how dare she… after seeing how pointless her plans were she still… UGH!” Sundancer growled as she stomped back to her home. “That ungrateful cow. She doesn’t see the damage that whorse will cause… But she will. She has to… this will not have been pointless.”

As she arrived at her manor house, grunting and groaning all the way there, and opened the door, she went to turn on her lights.

Only to discover that they wouldn’t turn on.

Suspicious, Sundancer made her way over to a nearby stand, opened it with one hand, and pulled out a small crossbow. She put a bolt in and got it ready to fire as she cautiously made her way through her house looking for the intruder she suspected was inside.

“Whoever’s there? I promise that you will regret breaking in today.” Sundancer growled. “I’ve had a really bad day and am not in the mood.”

“We all had a bad day at that meeting.” A voice said, startling Sundancer who jumped and fired her bolt, the arrow nearly piercing the speaker’s head.

“Are you crazy?! I could’ve killed you!” said Sundancer.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to take you by surprise, my dear. But, none the less, we have another problem that needs to be dealt with outside of that merry band of fools who think themselves national heroes,” the speaker said.

“Problems? What kind of problems?”

“It seems the guards we hired to put an end to Twilight Sparkle’s reforms have been met with a rather violent end of their own by someone in a red mask and hood, using weapons technology far in advance to our own,” the speaker said, placing a small container holding a small metal pellet of some kind on the table.

Sundancer raised an eyebrow as she examined the pellet. “How is that possible? Not even those filthy-half breed griffons have anything like this.”

“There’s more. Whoever or whatever this being is, he got a certain mole to talk, naming names. Including yours. We need to step up our plans if we are to put an end to these so-called heroes before this… Red Hood comes to visit you and the rest of our associates. Make no mistake, Sundancer. There is little to no chance that you’ll be walking away from an encounter with this creature alive. He even went as far as to kill Gallant Heart, even after he told him why he went through with the hit.”

Sundancer smirked. “Sounds to me this guy’s a few apples short of a bushel. What are we going to do to deal with him?”

“I’ll take care of that. In the meantime, focus on the task at hand. If you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to elsewhere. Good night, Lady Sundancer.”

A small glow came from the direction of the speaker’s voice, before there was a bright flash of light. Once Sundancer’s eyes had cleared up, the light were on and the speaker was nowhere to be found. And there was a crossbow arrow in the wall.

…

“ANOTHER!” Rainbow yelled in a slurred tone as she slammed her wooden mug to the ground, causing it to break into splinters. “I ain’t drunk yet.”

“Ma’am you had TEN drinks over the last few minutes. If I let you keep going you’re going to get alcohol poisoning.” The bartender said as he denied Dash her drink.

“I-I’ll tells ya… I’m an Element of Harmony and a future Wonderbolt. Ya ain’t gonna deny me this.” Rainbow snarled as she tried reaching for a drink but the bouncer grabbed her.

“I think it’s time you left ma’am.” He told her before taking her to the door and throwing her out the pub.

“Y-yeah?! WELL BUCK YOU TOO!” She shouted as she tripped over herself and fell onto some mud. With a little bit of effort, she took to the air and made her way back over to her cloud home, weaving like the drunken sailor she was. Or flier, as the case may be. No sooner had she reached her home than she collapsed on all fours and began to vomit profusely. Once she’d finally let out all her demons, she crawled her way to her front door and opened it.

The interior was a great big mess. From the looks of things, it looked like the week or so since she’d found out that Twilight had been murdered had really done a number on her. But, that was only half the story. About the day she died, Rainbow Dash had gone to Twilight to ask her to use her newfound role and authority to get her onto the Wonderbolts. Twilight, of course, had refused, and the two of them had had a big fight over the issue.

The last words Rainbow had ever said to Twilight had been “I hate you!”

Now, she was never going to get the chance to make that better between them, thanks to the bucking Traditionalists who couldn’t see that Twilight was just trying to help make things better.

As Rainbow Dash tried to make her way up to her bedroom to sleep off tonight’s booze, she heard something behind her. But, being as drunk as she was, the noise didn’t register with her. But, what happened next most certainly did.

Someone threw a rope around Rainbow’s neck and pulled the ends together, tightening the cord around her throat. Rainbow choked and gagged, desperate for air. As she did so, she heard a female voice speak from behind her, causing Rainbow to look behind her and see two glowing yellow eyes behind her.

“You have no idea how good this feels, Dash. How long I’ve been waiting to do this for what you did to me. Hell, I’d have done this for free, but you know what they say, ‘if you’re good at something, never do it for free. Thanks to you, I’ve reinvented myself into the perfect weapon. And now, I’ve killed you with it. Good-bye, Rainbow Dash. It hasn’t been a pleasure.”

As Rainbow’s face started to turn an unhealthy shade of blue and her vision started to turn black, she had only one thought on her mind.

Twilight, I’m sorry… forgive me…

With a final shuddering gasp, Rainbow’s body fell to the ground, her eyes glassy and staring with tears leaking down her face.

The figure behind her chuckled. This was just too easy. Now, the real work began…

…

Okay…. you can do this. You can do this. It’s just a dumb apology. Gilda Gruff thought to herself as she got off her train. She had heard of the recent assassination of Twilight and knew things were tense but… she needed to do this. She made a mess from last time and wanted to fix things and step one was to ask forgiveness.

As she made her way in the direction towards Rainbow’s house, she drew more than a few funny looks, either because she was a griffon or because they recognized her. She wore a black leather jacket with a white t-shirt underneath, tight black jeans, and black leather boots.

“So you’re back huh?” A voice said. Gilda paused and turned to see Pinkie who was looking at her with a… sorta mad face of her.

“Listen I’m not here to cause any trouble I promise. I’m…. I’m sorry okay?” Gilda said as she put her claws up in defense. “I’m actually here to… apologize… especially towards you and Dash… what I did was… it was really uncool.”

“.... you really mean it?” Pinkie asked as her face softened a little bit.

“Yeah…. so uh…. yeah I suck at apologies a little but I am sorry.” Gilda said as she opened her wings and flew off. Pinkie smiled a little as she flew away… happy to see that Gilda was opening herself up a little more. She then chuckled a little when Gilda had to readjust her flight towards Rainbow’s home.

When she got to the empty field where Rainbow’s cloud home was, she caught a whiff of a disgusting smell, and looked to see a large puddle of vomit of varying age down beneath the cloud home.

Whoa. Rainbow is really taking that Twilight chick’s murder hard, thought Gilda, who was slightly repulsed by the vomit puddle, but somehow knew that this meant Rainbow needed a friend now more than ever. Swallowing her pride, and pinching her nose, she landed at Rainbow’s front door and knocked with her free hand. “Rainbow! Rainbow! It’s me! It’s Gilda! Look, I need to talk to you!”

She kept at it for the better part of five minutes until both her claws were sore. Finally, she decided to screw being proper and opened the door herself.

What she saw inside chilled her to the bone. Rainbow was there, but she wasn’t drunk off her plot or incredibly hung over.

She was…

“RAINBOW!”

Author's Note

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all she wrote for this chapter! So, I'd like to thank my good friend VampDash for coming onboard for this project. He, like Hopelight, is honestly a better friend than I deserve. Also, thank you to those of you who saw fit to support this project, and I hope I can count on your supposrt again in chapter 3 when Red Hood investigates Rainbow's death and faces off against his first enemy! And remember: dying is easy, comedy is hard!