The crew gathered back in the rec room, Rarity carrying Stables' body and Vinyl helping an emotionally distraught Pinkie Pie into the room.

"So, what's the plan AJ?" Fluttershy asked, standing in the corner of the room. Applejack placed down a box she grabbed from the storage room onto the table, she reached in and took out a few coils of rope and tossed them to Soarin and Vinyl.

"Vinyl, Soarin, you two tie the others down." Applejack ordered.

"What? Why?" Shining shouted.

"This thing is defensive down to the particle, according to Whooves' notes before he died. When I saw Maud-thing's head detach back in the infirmary, that made me realize that each part of this thing is a whole, willing to try to escape if threatened. So I'm going to cut open each of your hooves to get a drop of blood, and I'll test it with a hot copper wire, if the blood reacts, then that pony is a thing." Applejack explained.

"I'm not taking part in this. You may think you're still in charge, but for all we know, you're a thing!" Rarity spoke up. Applejack took out her gun.

"Then I'll have to kill you Rarity, and I really don't want to." Applejack said sternly.

"We should all just calm down." Fluttershy said quietly, inching her way towards the confrontation.

The two ignored Fluttershy and stayed focused on themselves.

Rarity stepped forward, defiantly, "Then I guess you'll have to kill me." Rarity said with a serious look.

"Girls, Please..." Fluttershy tried to speak up, taking another step forward.

Applejack slowly rose the gun barrel up to Rarity's muzzle.

"I'm serious." Applejack said in a quiet yet serious tone before cocking the hammer back.

"I guess you are." Rarity said, taking a tiny step back.

"GIRLS! PLEA-"

*BANG*

It all happened so fast, Applejack had her gun aimed squarely at Rarity's head, when suddenly, Fluttershy stepped forward and attempted to grab the gun out of Applejack's hooves. When Fluttershy grabbed the barrel of the gun, Applejack fired it and Fluttershy then fell to the ground.

The crew were all frozen, silent, and horrified. Fluttershy was laying on the floor of the rec room, not moving, with a bullet hole in her head.

Maintaining her focus, Applejack turned to the crew with a frown.

"Soarin, Vinyl, tie the others down."

The crew lamented and all agreed to be tied down. Vinyl and Soarin both tied down the others. Pinkie was tied to a chair, while Rarity and Shining were tied to the couch. Soarin tied down both Dr. Stables' and Fluttershy's bodies to a table.

"Tighter Soarin." Applejack ordered.

"Come on AJ, they're dead!" Soarin argued.

"Just do it!" Applejack shouted. Soarin complied and tied down the bodies tighter.

"Okay, now Vinyl, tie Soarin there." Applejack said, pointing at the end of the couch next to Shining, and Soarin was tied down.

"We're ready to go." Vinyl said. Applejack then took a scalpel and the already labeled dishes for the blood and slowly maneuvered around the room, making small cuts in everpony's hooves and squeezed a few drops of blood into each dish, finally ending with Vinyl.

Applejack used a small spool of copper wire and heated it against the muzzle of her flamethrower to heat it up. Then she grabbed Vinyl's dish to test the blood. Vinyl was standing next to the couch, her face a mixture of curiosity and fear. The wire finally touched the blood and fizzled. Vinyl sighed in relief.

"Okay, I guess that means you're good, go put that on and watch them." Applejack ordered, pointing over to the others. Vinyl listened and slipped on the flamethrower and stood next to the couch.

"Now, I'm gonna show you all what I already know." Applejack said as she heated up the wire again, she then placed the wire in the dish labeled with her name, and the blood fizzled like Vinyl's.

"This is all bullshit." Rarity muttered. Applejack ignored her as she heated the wire again. The air was thick with tension in the room.

"Now the Doc and Fluttershy." Applejack said. She then dipped the hot wire into Dr. Stables' blood, it fizzled like before. Applejack then heated the wire again before putting it into Fluttershy's dish. The blood fizzled, and Applejack felt a pang of guilt.

"So, Fluttershy was a Pony, so that makes you a murderer doesn't it?" Rarity said. Applejack ignored her again, and heated the wire.

"Now Soarin." She said. Soarin just sat there with a blank expression.

"This is all ridiculous, it doesn't prove a thing." Shining spoke up.

"I thought you might say that Shining, you were the only one who could've gotten to that blood, we'll do you last." Applejack said before sticking the wire in Soarin's dish. The blood shot out of the dish and made a high shrieking noise, startling Applejack and making her drop the dish, wire, and flamethrower.

The room was silent for a moment, before Rarity and Shining began to thrash and scream. Soarin began to shake violently, with the blank expression still on his face as his head began to deform, bubble and burst with blood.

Applejack tried to fire her flamethrower, but it wouldn't light. The ponies on the couch kept screaming and thrashing. Vinyl found herself frozen with fear. Soarin-thing finally burst out of it's binds and flew into the ceiling.

"Vinyl! Blast it!" Applejack shouted.

Vinyl finally snapped out of her fear induced trance and stepped forward and aimed her flamethrower at the thing on the ceiling. But suddenly Soarin-thing dropped in front of Vinyl, and she once again froze with fear, looking at the now unrecognizable abomination in front of her. She was unable to react as Soarin's head split open and a tongue shot out and wrapped around Vinyl's neck and pulled her head into it's jaws. The Soarin-thing chomped down on her head and lifted her up and swung her around the room as she flailed.

As the thing attacked Vinyl, Applejack kept trying to light her flamethrower, but to no avail.

Vinyl's flailing ended up smashing the hanging light in the room, and eventually, the Soarin-thing threw her body into a side table, blood pouring from her head wounds, turning her normally snow white coat crimson.

Applejack finally fired the flamethrower and lit Soarin-thing ablaze. It let out an otherworldly scream and ran, bursting through the wall of the building to the outside, running just a few meters before collapsing in the snow. Applejack followed it, and used a stick from the bundle of dynamite she had to blow the Soarin-thing to smithereens.

Back in the rec room, Vinyl's corpse began to assimilate and move again. The last 3 in the room that were still bound began screaming again, so Applejack walked back in and burned the Vinyl-thing before it could finish assimilating. Once the room was quiet again, Applejack looked back over at the remaining crew, panting

"Okay...let's...continue." Applejack said between breaths...

Author's Note

I'm really happy to finally get this chapter out, it's my favorite.