"The death of a friend is equivalent to the loss of a limb." ~Unknown

A grey zipper fastens to secure Rarity's body into a black bag. A separate one was needed though for her head. As both are strapped to a gurney, the paramedic pushes as hard as he can through the mess he's surrounded in: the chalk outline on the floor, the devastated young sister Sweetie Belle struggling to stop him, and past the broken window that indicates someone broke in, before he's finally out the front door on his way to the outside ambulance where the Mane 5 are speaking to a nearby police officer. His name plate glistens off the moonlight with the words, "Officer Nightstick."

"So what happened, Officer?" Twilight asked him.

"We don't know, Ms. Sparkle," Nightstick answered, "At 9:31 PM, we received a call from the little girl Sweetie Belle that her sister was found dead. We arrived an hour later to the grisly scene. Her head was cut clean off, so whoever did this was an expert with a blade. There was blood splattered on the nearby wall and a crimson pool all around the body, so the culprit was fine killing Ms. Rarity but not in trying to hide the evidence. So it must've been deliberately left behind. But for what purpose?" He tapped his chin in wonderment over that.

"Um Mister Nightstick. Can we... go check out the crime scene? We know Rarity personally so maybe we can find out more than you if we look around?" Fluttershy asked, her one eye hidden behind her hair as she spoke.

"Well Ms. Fluttershy. If you and your friends are trying to be junior detectives, go look around then. My crew already searched and found nothing, so the murderer left after doing their deed. No harm in double checking, I suppose."

"Come on, gals." Applejack said as she pushed her way through some leaving policemen, one of which was holding onto Sweetie's hand.

"Wait, Officer. Where you gonna take her?" Applejack asked him.

He explained, "Well with no sister here, she'll have to go live with her parents. I'm just taking her there with my car as I don't feel safe letting her go off by herself. Especially with the killer still at large."

The weeping Belle quickly hugged Applejack, looked up to her, and pleaded:

"Please Applejack. Find out who did this. And make them pay."

"Don't worry. Just go with the man and get yourself to safety. We'll take care of this." Applejack promised.

Sweetie Belle smiled weakly and resumed to grab the officer's hand as he escorted her out of the boutique.

The investigators have since left the scene to go search the city. "Now that the coast is clear, we can turn into our symbiotic forms to get us 20%... cooler," Rainbow Dash boasted, each of them returning to their more intimidating states.

"This makes no sense," Anti-Life pondered as she circled around the body cut-out of Rarity on the floor. "Even without turning into Pain, Rarity's formidable in combat. So who would have the knowledge and skill to kill her?"

"Well remember, even we symbiotes do have a weakness: that being fire. Fire automatically shuts down our transformation and exposes our mortal bodies," Poison stipulated.

Pollutant then points to the decapitation part of the cut-out. "But Poison, the murderer chose to behead her. Why that method? On top of that, we don't see any scorch marks around her body. So maybe there's another weakness."

Slaughter responds, "Anti-Life already did all the tests with her own symbiote. Only fire can harm it."

Shriek then pouts, "Ugh, I'm so frustrated by this I could just kick something." She ends up kicking the air before slipping and falling down.

"Oops, sorry." she apologized.

"Wait a minute Shriek," Pollutant notices. "Look."

In Shriek's attempt to kick, her heel scraped on the floor beneath her, revealing something black and charred. Looks like scorch marks were hidden away with a fresh coat of paint.

"Slaughter, get your claws out and find what's hiding here." Anti-Life ordered her.

Slaughter obliged, extending her fingers to begin clawing up the floor around the cutout. Tearing through the new paint, she not only uncovers the hidden scorch marks, but a hole containing a scroll. She then picked it up and unrolled it to reveal a message:

"One down, five to go. Until we meet again, Symbiotic Six. ~Pinkie Pie"

Anti-Life immediately shoved Slaughter straight up against the nearby wall.

"YOU DID THIS, SLAUGHTER?!" Anti-Life yelled at her, smashing her fist through the bricks next to her as a warning.

"No, no, no Anti-Life! This wasn't me! I have no motive for doing this!"

Shriek picked up the scroll and called out, "Wait guys, there's more on the back."

"I DID do this for the thrills. It's just so fun, like you all said. But when killing people to achieve such a rush gets boring, it's best to begin fighting others as tough as you. The easiness of the prey, the silenced screams they produce, the blood pouring all over your body as your victory confetti. It's terrific but kinda messy. Way more fun than mere tourists lost in the city or even Rainbow's sister, am I right?"

Anti-Life begins shaking Slaughter violently, "YOU HAVE FUCKING FIVE SECONDS, SLAUGHTER! TELL ME! TELL ME!"

Poison then hastily broke up the fight by pushing Anti-Life off Slaughter. She then exclaims:

"Stop it, Anti-Life! Don't jump to conclusions! For all we know, it could even be Scootaloo's son. He might be trying to seek justice for his mother and frame Slaughter to break us up. It'll then be easier to pick us off one by one. Don't believe everything you read!"

Anti-Life lowered her head and sighed, "I'm sorry. I just don't know wh-"

Before she could finish her sentence, they heard the front door creek open as the officers reentered, including Nightstick who says:

"So ladies, did you find anything use- OH MY FUCKING GOD! IT'S THE SYMBIOTES! FIRE AT WILL!"

The officers quickly pulled out their pistols and began unloading their clips, many of which bounced off the skin of the five. The Mane 5 would've just slaughtered them, but they found it in bad taste to kill them next to the place where their friend had just died. Instead, they ran to the second floor, broke through a window, and began firing ropes of goo from their arms to swing through the buildings outside. They didn't stop until they reached the rooftop of the new Flim and Flam Factory at the outskirts of Pony City.

"Trust me, you guys. I didn't do it." Slaughter reiterated, trying to convince her friends. Anti-Life, extending her gooey arms, responded by grabbing her by the shoulders, raising her 10 ft off the ground. She then shouted at her:

"You may say that now Slaughter, but I'm keeping my eye on you! I care for my Symbiotes but if one's trying to backstab the rest, I'll make sure that one burns for their crimes!"

"Isn't that hypocritical to say when we're all murderers?" Slaughter mentions, raising an eyebrow.

Anti-Life hissed, "None of those people were important. The world is overpopulating, we're just trying to prevent a crisis here. But it's become personal now, Slaughter. So if I find more members of this group dead with your little messages around the scene, I'll come for you."

Shriek looks down to see the police cars scrambling to find them. She then shouts to the group:

"Guys, we should probably go back to being the Mane 5. The police already have tried to catch us back at the boutique. We don't want the military to get involved."

Anti-Life drops Slaughter and replies, "Good point. Alright everyone, meet at my place in the morning. It's time we find out who truly did this. I'm still not letting YOU off the hook, Slaughter."

They split up and began swinging back to their homes to make it seem as if they were simply sleeping after leaving the boutique. Slaughter still wonders though: Why would this killer say they were Pinkie Pie? SHE'S Pinkie Pie. Unless... no they're all gone now. It can't be changelings again... Let's just hope this doesn't get any uglier.

Author's Note

For Reference:

Twilight Sparkle: Anti-Life
Pinkie Pie: Slaughter
Rainbow Dash: Poison
Rarity (Dead): Pain
Applejack: Pollutant
Fluttershy: Shriek