With a bounce in her step, Pinkie Pie trotted back to the front of the table, moving the table so it laid flat. Once it was down, she had perfect access to Applejack's stomach and chest. Applejack was silent, strapped to the table and anticipating a stab or a slice or maybe even for Pinkie to kill her outright. Pinkie did none of those things. She reached back into the box and pulled out a container full of some sort of liquid, and cut the packaging off with the big knife she had grabbed. The container was set on the table as she continued to root around in the box for something. Applejack strained to read the label of the container. It said "Cisatracurium" which was definitely not a word that Applejack had ever seen. She silently debated asking what it was, but by then, Pinkie had turned around. She had an unopened surgical syringe in her mouth, that she set down next to the container.

"Pinkie Pie? Is that... some sort of anesthetic?" Applejack really hoped it was, because she was certainly not looking forward to the night's promise of agonizing torture.

"Nooo silly! Its a paralytic. I can't reach all of your body with the straps and chains on, so I'm gonna paralyze you from the neck down. Now, usually surgeon ponies can only use this for general paralization of the whole body, buuuut with just a dash of chaos magic I can make sure that your face is left unparalyzed," Pinkie smiled at her own cleverness.

"But why though?" Applejack blurted out.

"So we can still talk, silly! You're only gonna be around for one more night, and we'll have all night to catch up before you have to go."

Applejack knew exactly what she meant by "go" but she silently prayed to any deity that existed, that there was some way to get out of this. Maybe the paralyzing thing won't work, and she could knock Pinkie out the second she's released!

"Applejack, did you forget that I can tell what you're thinking? This medication is going to work, sorry."

"Fuck," Applejack let slip a curse word. For the first time that night, Pinkie was the one who was shocked.

"Applejack, I've never heard you curse before! At least, never one of the big ones," Pinkie smiled, "it's so sweet that you let me experience that before you're gone."

"For the love of Celestia can you stop pretending like you're the good guy here! You keep talking like I'm heading to a nice summer home in Saddle Arabia! You are going to kill me and you're sitting here getting sentimental over me SAYING FUCK!" Applejack seethed, trapped in a hole with the craziest pony in Equestria.

"Applejack, do you want the gag again?"

"NO! I WANNA GO HOME!" Applejack finally lost it, and burst into tears. "Ah, ah didn't *hic* even get to say," she let out a whimper, "to say goodbyyyyyye," she sniffled loudly, crying out to the mostly dark room, "Granny *sniff* Big Mac *sniff* A- Apple Bl- Bloo- APPLE BLOOM!" She sobbed loudly, tears flowing down her face and drenching her neck. "I wanna go home," she said, quieter, "please..." her crying stayed consistent, tears continued coming, but she quieted down again.

Pinkie stood there, not saying a word as Applejack finally broke. She had expected it, everypony usually had a point where they broke down in tears, but this was quite the reaction from the strong-willed Applejack.

"It's okay, let it out," Pinkie said, finally showing a bit of remorse and compassion.

"Don't act like you're my friend, you bitch," Applejack spit out. "You are so far gone, you don't even care when you kill somepony that loved you like family. Somepony that might actually BE family. Ah.. ah can't believe you. You're a Monster." Applejack shut her eyes, and turned her head away as far as it would go.

Pinkie's poofy hair deflated a bit. She never much liked this part, when everypony would finally lose all patience with her and say such hurtful things. But, regardless, she had to continue. And she had to remain as cheerful as possible. If she let things like this get to her, she'd have to stop her sacrifices. What she didn't tell Applejack was how she would be punished if she failed to do a sacrifice annually. Not just her powers would be taken away.

"Look, Applejack. I know you don't want to call me your friend, and I understand that... but I have an obligation. So, I would appreciate it if you tried a little to... think of this as a bonding experience."

A glob of spit landed in Pinkie's eye. She finally cracked, and slammed her hoof on the table. "Applejack, you do something like that again and I won't just gag you, I'll cut out your FUCKING TONGUE, DO YOU HEAR ME?" The room shook with her outburst, pure chaotic energy flowing around her pink head. Applejack's eyes once again turned to pinpricks and she nodded her head. No sense in making this worse than it already was. The room calmed down as Pinkie did as well. She did an about face and picked up the syringe where she had dropped it, still sealed in it's factory packaging. She walked behind a shelf and pulled an IV drip out from behind it with her.

From the box on the floor, she took out some rubbing alcohol and some gauze pads. Moving to Applejack's stretched out foreleg, she wiped down a small portion of it and hooked the syringe to the IV. The syringe was really just a small butterfly needle with an attached reservoir to monitor the dosage. Once everything was hooked up and working, she inserted the needle into Applejack's foreleg, applying pressure. Applejack barely flinched, as she had been on an IV before after the time she had gotten a heatstroke one summer while bucking apples. A tiny bit of blood spurted out regardless, splatting unceremoniously onto the shiny metal of the table. Pinkie stuck the needle, after it was inserted fully, to Applejack's foreleg with some sticky tape.

Returning to the shelves, Pinkie brought down several more boxes, feeling Applejack's eyes on her the whole time. Finally, she pulled out a small metal table on wheels, the sides rusted a bit with age. The wheel made an annoying squeaking noise with each turn, as it was brought closer to Applejack.

"Sorry about the squeaky wheels and... and how some of my tools aren't exactly up to par. I thought I would have a lot longer to prepare than, well, this."

Applejack found herself nodding apologetically, before catching herself and freezing. She couldn't possibly be feeling sorry for this.. this... murderer, could she? She was too tired, though, from her previous outbursts, and from the paralytic flowing through her veins, to really fight the feeling. Applejack closed her eyes briefly, thinking to herself. She thought, maybe, maybe if she could understand everything from Pinkie's point of view, she could find peace before her inevitable demise.

"Pinkie Pie. Ah.. can ah ask you some questions, seeing as I'm not long for this world anyway?" Applejack asked, defeated.

"Sure you can, AJ," Pinkie said, a bit of cheer returning to her previously melancholy voice.

"Well... first ah guess, uh, was it you or- or, uh, that Tartaros fella that came up with the whole sacrifice thing?"

"It... it was him. I, well, it was more of a mutual agreement I guess. He wanted my soul, and was willing to do a lot to get it, because things like that give him power. But I uh, I'm a born rock farmer, and I can't be budged that easily. Plus, I like my soul right where it is. But, since I had kind of barged in on his summer house, he said I had to give him something. And I mean, he did say he'd give something great in return, but I really didn't like the idea of becoming soulless."

Applejack was nodding along as she listened, even as she saw Pinkie grab a scalpel, a bone saw, and some clamps to set on the smaller metal table.

"So I asked, was there anything else I could give him, and he said sacrifices. I... I was young, and scared, and I figured that, as long as I kept my soul I would at least still be myself, even if I had to m- murder somepony every year," Pinkie sighed.

"So, what was he going to do if you didn't give him anything at all?" Applejack asked, picking up on Pinkie's somber mood.

Pinkie Pie figured that Applejack was paralyzed by this point, so she added an extra chain around her neck, and carefully released all of the ones holding her to the table from the neck down. She kept the ones that were only on her upper hooves, because they weren't really in the way.

"He said... well, he said he'd do a lot of things. If I didn't willingly give him something, he'd take something forcefully. But he didn't want to just take my soul forcefully, because that wouldn't be enough suffering. He.. he said he would take Marble's soul... I couldn't let him turn my sweet little sister into.. into... a soulless thing." Pinkie Pie's eyes narrowed as she picked up the scalpel, holding it delicately in her hooves with the grace of a clawed creature. "And now I'm bound to a contract anyways. If I fail to give him a sacrifice, he... well, let's just say murder can't come close to comparing to what he'll do." The knife was set down again. Applejack was confused, but she saw Pinkie turn back to the rubbing alcohol again. Pinkie felt Applejack's curious stare, and looked up to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, AJ, I'm just... a bit frazzled. I don't think I've ever told another pony about this. I wonder... if your element is at play here." Pinkie let out a soft chuckle as she wiped a towel soaked in the rubbing alcohol onto AJ's stomach, acting as a disinfectant.

"Ah suppose.. ah guess that would make sense, though I've never had my element do anythin' like that before," Applejack said quietly, more to herself than to Pinkie.

"Well, let's just say long story short, this is now my obligation to society. One pony must die yearly so... so that total annihilation doesn't rain upon ponykind." Pinkie was back to holding the scalpel. "Okay, time to get started for real this time.

"Why can't you just... kill me outright and save yerself some time?"

"I, uh... kinda developed a taste for pony after all these years, and I have to remove the organs anyways, so why not do some of it while you're still conscious. Tartaros doesn't keep the bodies or the souls that I sacrifice, just the life essence. So don't worry, your spirit will cross over and you'll see Rainbow again."

"Wait, hold up an apple pickin' moment. Yer gunna eat me??"

"Well... yeah. I was thinking it'd be fun to make an apple pie with a real apple," Pinkie let out a cute chortle, her nose scrunching up with her laugh, "I mean honestly though, ponies taste pretty dang good."

"Ew... that's somehow worse than the murder thing," Applejack was slightly green, thinking about eating ponyflesh.

"Oh, Applejack, don't act like that. You've always loved my annual holiday treats. For Hearthswarming, or Hearts and Hooves Day, or even my Nightmare Night candies a couple times."

"You... you've been feedin' us ponies?!"

"Yeah, and you seemed to enjoy them probably the most out of any of our friends. Honestly, Applejack, I remember one year you ate ALL of my Hearthswarming fruitcake. That year was... hmm let me think.... ah yes! That year was Honey Cake! He tasted great, and nopony could tell at all because fruitcakes just kind of look weird and fleshy to begin with!"

Applejack felt bile rising in her throat, remembering how she had pigged out on that fruitcake that she had thought only had fruits and nuts in it.

"I recommend you don't throwup, AJ."

"Ah, ah'm try- t- tryin' ughh," Applejack choked out, swallowing down the spit that was gathering in her mouth.

"It's not even that bad. Dragons eat other dragons all the time and nopony questions them."

"Ughhh. Can we please stop talking about this," Applejack pleaded, as she was teetering on the edge of throwing up all of the cookies that Pinkie had force fed her.

"Sure! It's time for my first incision anyhow." The knife penetrated Applejack's flesh with a sharp prick, sending a jolt of pain through her paralyzed body.

The feeling of the scalpel mere millimeters beneath her skin somehow felt ten thousand times worse than the needle had, but then Pinkie pushed it deeper. Applejack's eyes shot wide open, unable to recoil in pain due to most of her body being paralyzed. A few small tears trickled from her eyes, falling delicately off of her bottom eyelashes to land on her cheek. Once Pinkie had the scalpel deep enough, she began to drag it, skin spreading like butter as she sliced through it. Blood was welling up from the cut but Pinkie ignored it. She was slicing a practiced incision into her belly and chest, one straight line, straight up and down.

Applejack gritted her teeth, looking down to see the scalpel flowing through her skin easily as if it was made to be sliced open. Blood was now pooling in her belly button as Pinkie finished the incision, peeling away the skin to reveal the taut muscle beneath. There was blood everywhere, and though Applejack prided herself on not being squeamish, the combination of the pain and seeing so much blood caused her to feel faint. Pinkie had prepared for this, though, and quickly pricked her neck with a small syringe. Whatever was in it was enough to bring her back to being fully awake.

Applejack was confused, though, because she only felt that energy in her face and mind, and not in her still paralyzed body.

"Experimental drug from Zecora. It's like 12 cups of coffee compressed into a tiny little bit of liquid," said Pinkie, answering AJ's unasked question. "Very useful and much more convenient than adrenaline shots."

Pinkie's attention returned to the incision, grabbing a couple of the clamps to hold open the skin as she went back to slicing, this time to cut away the muscle that still covered Applejack's bones and organs. She didn't bother with cauterizing the incision, but she did dab over it all with a few towels so the scalpel would be less slippery with the blood.

The pain that was coursing through Applejack's body had stunned her into silence. She thought she had understood pain before, but this was like nothing she ever could have imagined. The jolts of pain pulsated with every beat of her heart, and she could feel the blood rushing in her ears as her body was overwhelmed with sensation. When she was a little filly, she remembers a day where she decided to see what it felt like to pet the fire in the fireplace. The flames that had licked at her fur and singed her skin would have been like feathers brushing against her in comparison to the feeling of her muscles being sliced apart and her insides being opened up to the dank air of that hole in the ground. She truly felt like she was in her tomb, slowly suffocating at the bottom of a pit as ponies went through their daily lives so very far above.

Soon, her muscle had been sliced through and clamped open. Pinkie turned to grab the bonesaw, her hooves darkened with the blood of her friend. She looked up to meet Applejack's mostly vacant expression as she continued to bleed out on that table. It was time to harvest her organs, and so she injected some more of Zecora's drug. It had no effect, and as she watched the life slowly drain from her friend and possible cousin's eyes, she let one small tear of her own drop free from her own eye. It splashed to the floor, but was quickly lost in the pool of blood that was slowly trickling outwards from the table.

"Sorry, AJ," muttered Pinkie Pie.

But she had to finish the job.

Author's Note

Is this the end? Maybe. Probably. I don't know. There's more of a nod to the original Cupcakes in this chapter. Dunno if I'll write anymore after this chapter, at least not for this fic. Maybe I'll write a fun porn next or something.

Hope you liked it anyway. I should sleep.