Fluttershy found out the hard way that a bucket full of cold water to the face made a very effective, if also very uncomfortable, alarm clock.

Fluttershy fell backwards, as if someone had shoved her, sputtering and gasping in shock at the sudden chill of the water. She looked around, squinting against a bright light positioned on a table in front of her as it shone off the series of lone droplets clinging to her face and chest.

“Get up!” a gruff voice commanded from the light.

Fluttershy flinched at the sound of the voice, curling up in an effort to make herself smaller, “Wh-what?” she replied with fright.

“I said: get up!” the voice spat back.

Fluttershy yelped as a telekinetic grip dragged her into a seated position with unnecessary roughness.

“Why’d you do it?” the voice growled menacingly.

“D-do what?” Fluttershy replied with a squeak, utterly confused by the turn of the events.

“Kill your friends, the other elements of harmony!” the voice yelled back, “We know you did it! Why?”

Upon hearing the accusation of being the one responsible for the deaths of her friends, Fluttershy was again brought back up to date on the news. With the flood of memory, however, came an unfamiliar feeling to the meek pegasus. It was an emotion that she’d rarely expressed in her life...the feeling of anger.

“I didn’t do it!” Fluttershy yelled back, confused to an insane level on the inside. Had New Fluttershy come back with a vengeance? “I wasn’t the one who killed my friends, mister!” Fluttershy continued with a growl, she rose from her seat and slammed her hooves on the table, “so if you wanna find somepony to blame, make sure it’s the RIGHT ONE!”

“Don’t you get cross with me!” the voice roared back. A telekinetic grip once again grabbed onto FLuttershy, shoving her backwards with force and earning a yelp in return.

Fluttershy was blinded by darkness as the light on the table clicked off, her eyes compensating to see a large, darkly colored earth pony stallion clad in Royal Guard armor come around the table and approach her.

“Now you listen to me, little mare,” he said, grabbing her by the anti-magical yoke around her neck and bringing her face to face, “You’re gonna start talking or else I’ll...”

“Dreadhoof,” a voice from now open door cut in.

Fluttershy and the pony holding her, assumedly Dreadhoof, turned to the door.

“Thank you,” a, less, darkly colored pegasus guard said to a unicorn positioned by the door, trotting in, “That’s enough for now, I’m taking over the interrogation.”

Dreadhoof dropped Fluttershy, turning to the pegasus guard, “Under whose orders?”

“Captain Armor’s,” the pegasus replied.

“I thought that the captain was indisposed at the moment,” Dreadhoof countered.

“Indisposed to take part of the interrogation, not decide who does,” the pegasus jerked his head to the door.

Dreadhoof spared Fluttershy a single glare before turning and exiting the room, the unicorn guard posted by it shutting it closed behind him.

“Sorry about that,” the pegasus said, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table, “Lieutenant Dreadhoof can be a little...overzealous with his methods of getting a confession.”

“I didn’t do it!” Fluttershy growled, getting to a seated position where she’d been thrown.

“Fair enough,” the pegasus replied calmly, “Not the first time I’ve heard that, and we’ve been wrong before. It’s just that the evidence isn’t in your favor, Miss Fluttershy.”

“What evidence!” Fluttershy snapped, horrified on the inside and wishing that she could apologize, yet unable to.

“Well, take a seat...” the pegasus gestured to the opposite side of the metal table, “...and I’ll try to help you with this. I’m Lieutenant Thunderclap by the way.”

“No,” Fluttershy replied.

Thunderclap sighed, gesturing to the unicorn guard by the door, who moved Fluttershy to the desired position with his magic.

“I may not be as harsh as Dreadhoof, but I’ll still require some cooperation on your part, Miss Fluttershy,” Thunderclap commented, “Now,” he continued, “as I said before, the evidence isn’t on your side in this case. A more thorough sweep of the maze turned up a few bits of your down in a few different chambers...”

“How do you know they were mine?” Fluttershy asked rudely.

“I was getting to that,” Thunderclap replied, “We compared it to some of your down and, with the aid of magic, came up with an exact match. Now, this alone isn’t damning evidence, but it’s not all we have.

“Going off the feathers, we tried to find further links that might prove whether or not the first piece of evidence was valid. We ran through some of your banking records and came up with a series of purchases that match what the maze was built with,” Thunderclap said, “exactly.”

“What? But I didn’t buy any of that!” Fluttershy retorted, anger still dominating her more normal psyche.

“That may be the case,” Thunderclap replied, “But that’s not what the evidence says. The things required for constructing the maze were no small sum, if someone else had bought these things through your account, you should have seen it and reported it. You didn’t.

“You’ve got us on how the maze was built, but we’ve got our theories,” Thunderclap considered something for a moment, “You aren’t part of some cult or larger group of ponies, are you?”

“I didn’t do it,” Fluttershy replied, fighting against the anger that was taking control of her actions.

“There’s also the question of where you were found,” Thunderclap said, “You didn’t partake in the tests and you were found in what appeared to be a sort of control room where a pony could watch everything. You were one of the elements of harmony, so why was it that you were singled out and put in a room to watch your friends die instead of joining them?”

Fluttershy glowered in silence, trying to force away the emotion that had taken control of her body.

“Oh, and do you have any idea what that button in the room did?” Thunderclap asked.

“It...would have killed my friends,” Fluttershy replied, anger dying down just a tad as sad memories took her mind.

Thunderclap sighed, “I had hoped that you said that you didn’t know, because that’s another piece of evidence against you. How would you have known that if you hadn’t built the maze in the first place?”

“What!?” Fluttershy snapped, anger rising again, “You...you tricked me!”

“So if you didn’t do it then how the hay did you know what that button did?” Thunderclap replied, voice rising a bit.

The memory floating back into her head, Fluttershy’s anger dwindled a bit.

“A...a voice told me.”

“A voice or a pony?” Thunderclap replied.

“A voice,” Fluttershy replied, looking at the table as she saw the scene replay in her head, “It...it said that the button would set them free...that it would...kill them...”

Thunderclap thought over this for a moment, “Was it a recording of a voice, or somepony actually talking to you?”

“S-somepony talking to me,” Fluttershy whimpered, the anger in her dying, “I-I’m sorry I yelled at you...earlier,” she apologized, unable to meet the pegasus’ eyes.

“You’ve had a rough day,” Thunderclap retorted, “This voice, though. Did it sound like anyone that you know?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

Fluttershy was silent for a moment, “Me,” she finally said.

Unseen by Fluttershy, Thunderclap threw a quick glance over at the one-way window, which served as a wall, to his left. What he had just heard might just be the confession they were looking for. Thunderclap was no shrink, but hearing voices was certainly not the mark of a sane pony, especially when those voices hinted at killing one’s friends.

“Well I think that that’s all for now, Miss Fluttershy,” Thunderclap said, getting up to leave, “Is there anything you need? Food? Something to drink?”

“No,” Fluttershy moped.

“Okay, well just give a knock if you need anything,” Thunderclap said, motioning to the unicorn guard who opened the door and followed him out.

The guard stayed behind at the door, guarding it. Thunderclap, on the other hand, trotted down the corridor a short ways before turning right and heading in through a door.

“She do anything yet?” he asked once a door closed behind him.

“No,” Dreadhoof replied, not taking his eyes from the pony on the other side of the one-way mirror, “I still think that I could’ve gotten something outta her my way.”

“Yeah? Well the shrinks disagreed, sorry about it,” Thunderclap replied, turning to the other three ponies in the small room, “Speaking of shrinks, what’s your guys’ call? She insane?”

One of the three doctors turned to the pegasus, “We’re afraid so,” he said, “she seems to be showing some signs of following the Cöbbler-Moss model of grief. Whether that means she regrets killing her friends or is truly grieving for them is still up to debate, but hearing her own voice tell her about the self-destruct mechanism?” the doctor threw a glance at his clipboard, held aloft with magic, “There’s no other explanation.”

“And before you ask, no,” Dreadhoof spoke up, “No unexplained fluctuations in the magical polygraph, she’s telling the truth on all regards.”

Thunderclap sighed, turning back to Fluttershy, “The princesses aren’t gonna like this at all...”

Author's Note

The anger part might be a wee bit confusing, but it's part of the Kübler-Ross model or the "five stages of grief." Hence my play on words, the "Cöbbler-Moss" model. Anyone who got that little joke deserves a pat on the back, because.

Anyways, to anyone who isn't smart enough to get it yet, Malum planted that information to frame Fluttershy, she never really bought any of that stuff, it's just Deception Essence doing its job.