The Drop

Nightmare Moon stopped at the same spot and turned around and walked back in the other direction until she reached the other spot she turned around at. Her body was pacing and her mind was racing and she didn’t have a clear plan for what she was about to have done.

A bat pony guard poked their head into the hall and told Nightmare Moon the guests were here.

In an instant, Nightmare Moon stopped herself, centered herself in the middle of the hall and faced toward the door and awaited the guests entrance.

The doors swung open and the six guests were escorted into, each bound by the hoofs and wings, along with having bags covered over their heads. They were all quickly forced to the ground once they had been lined up by their respective guards who each then removed the bags, tossing them to the ground and moving behind their respective representatives and pointing pistols at their heads.

Nightmare Moon stared at the six intently while this all went down but once her guests were in position she let a smile grow on her face and said, “The trump cards have arrived! The Elements–” Nightmare Moon didn’t bother finishing that comment.

“I have an order for you. One transcends our country. One that is of great importance to the whole world.” Nightmare Moon walked up close to the elements and leaned into the closest one, Fluttershy, and continued, “And you lot are going to succeed.”

Applejack, who was to Fluttershy’s left, spoke out, “You already took over the entirety of Equis! You know the Griffons won’t take kindly to an invasion!”

Nightmare Moon turned and looked at Applejack who almost immediately backed down from the staring contest and said, “Number one!” Nightmare Moon made her wave over to Applejack and stood over the bound pony, “I’ll let you know now that failure of this task will result in all of your deaths, along with all of your family's deaths, but if you insist like this…” Nightmare Moon shook her head at Applejack before yelling out, “Number one please!”

Applejack now wished she hadn’t burst out that comment as she realized she wouldn’t be eating another apple again and tensed up hoping it’d help with the pain from the sudden death that was about to happen to her.

The gunshot rang out, and for the entirety that it did Applejack was as hard as a rock. After the second though, Applejack opened her eyes to witness what the afterlife was like and was immediately prepared to start grieving at her mistake, or at least she was until she realized she wasn’t dead yet. She looked down at her body right away in great urgency looking for her blood and failed to find any, only to be hit by the thought of being shot and winced up onto the ground, unable to hold herself up. She now laid on the ground as the adrenaline ran through her body.

“NO NOO!” Twilight Sparkle yelled out.

Rarity didn’t even try to look and just slumped their head down and said, “Celestia.” to themselves once before crying quietly.

The other three Elements had been watching and were shocked themselves, having blank thoughts as they thought they watched Applejack die, only for Fluttershy to first realize what had happened.

Nightmare Moon kept a straight face and said, “I warned you back when I took power. Everypony you love can be killed if I need them to be.” Nightmare Moon then stepped away from the incapacitated Applejack and went back to her position she had before them all.

Fluttershy was trying to keep it together before her attention was brought to Nightmare Moon who had yelled out, “Eyes up!”

“Has the current situation been drilled into your minds now? You will be saving the entire world! A task I hope you are all thrilled to have as you will be made heroes to every creature that exists!”

The five ponies all answered, “Yes!” In some form or another, Applejack didn’t as they still were recovering on the ground.

“I know you have delt with many problems before so I will be sending you off now. Your brilliant minds will surely think of a solution when you learn of the details! Now off! Take them to the airport and send them off!” Nightmare Moon motioned for the guards to take the six away, which resulted in quick action by the guards, who re-bagged the heads of each pony.

The only pony who put up some resistance was Applejack who required another guard to come help take her away with the rest.

Once the six were gone, Nightmare Moon contemplated what just went down for a few moments before being interrupted by one of the guards in the hall who had been off to the side near the entrance.

“Queen. What do we do with the body?”

“Destroy it. Turn it to ash. That old baker didn’t have much life anyways, at least she was of use before then.”

“And the others?” The guard asked.

“Send them home, I have no need for them now. That’s all I needed to do today here as well so make sure the hall gets cleaned before the end of today. An easy task.” Nightmare Moon didn’t spend any more time on the matter and then quickly left, leaving the guards behind with the cleanup.

“Yes mam.” The guard said before Nightmare Moon left.

The guards sent off the five ponies they had secured, leaving the last one behind who was now dead. It took three guards to do a quick cleanup as they had body bags at the ready for such an incident, nothing for cleaning though so there was still a mess of blood.

It would be a few minutes later when two guards came back with the proper cleaning supplies. They would spend the rest of the day making sure everything was spotless in the hall, a normal side effect of being assigned cleaning duty for the rare occasion.