Jeff the Killer

-Ponyville

It was early evening, and the Apple family was having dinner as usual. Activity was always a constant when the Apple Family was together, and tonight was not an exception.

"Alrighty, whos hungry?" Grandma Smith asked, as she carried a large pan full of apple themed dishes.

   Many of the Apple Family's special recipe plates were made that night, including apple pies, apple dumplings, apple turnovers, even the Apple Family's famous cider to finish the job. The Apple family always kept barrels of apple cider for themselves each year before selling the rest to the townsfolk.

   Apple Bloom, naturally, was first to respond to the appearance of the fine apple delicacies.

"Me! Me!" Applebloom chirped happily, earning a glare from her stern big sister.

"Hold your horses, Apple Bloom." said the orange apple bucker. "Your gunna hafta be patient." Applejack said.

"Granny will get everypony their food, there is no need to act like its runnin' away."

"ughh.." Applebloom moans. "Can't we hurry a jiff? I want to go with the girls after dinner to get our cutie marks!"

  Upon hearing this, Applejack was stupified. The crusaders trying to get their cutie marks at all was risky, but at the dead of night? that would be outright dumb. Applejack's face quickly transformed from shock to anger.

"Apple Bloom!" Applejack scolded. "Are yah out of your dang filly mind? Its way too dark for any of you fillies to be crusading and what not."

"Buut Applejaaaack!" Apple Bloom whined. "We-"

"No buts, missy!" Applejack stubbornly inturrupted. "When ah say yah ain't going, yah ain't."

"...Big Mac?" Apple Bloom pleaded.

"Nope."

__________

-Canterlot

   Princess Celestia was caught between a rock and a hard place.

    After the discussion with  the Captain of the Royal Guard and her dear sister, Princess Luna, she has become more aware of the thin line of peace and war Equestria has become between the changelings.

    She doesn't even give  herself time to read the letter her personal student, Twilight Sparkle, has just recently sent to her. She normally enjoys reading her letters, but it is quite obvious that Equestria's safety is more important right now.

  Thinking about Twilight, With her being the Element of Magic, her death would be quite sought for by any enemy. Especially an enemy that could go from one place to another without being caught.

  In response, Celestia has decided next morning to set some of her specially trained royal guards into Ponyville, to protect her prodigy from the expected  assasinations on the hands of changelings.

  Still, She paces back and forth in her chamber, with a worried face that only shown when she was alone.

   She looks out of a window of the castle, looking down on the courtyard. She stares at her little ponies down at the ground, oblivious to her glance. Guard ponies working, nobleponies talking, colts and fillies playing. A particularly large pony with tiny wings screaming "Yeah!" every few minutes.

   She worries, isn't there anyway around this without bloodshed? Does what the changelings do as their nature warrant them for extermination? An entire species, in question for extinction because of how they were born?

   On the other hoof, Celestia ponders, the changelings have done more than enough to Equestria that past nations would have easily gone to war over long before.

   Since the start of the conflict, Equestria has been spied on, invaded, and even almost been overthrown by the changelings.

  Celestia grew in anger, forming an uncommon scowl on her face.

  'And now, to add to that list, changelings are now suspected to be murdering Equestrian ponies?!' Celestia thought angrily.

Celestia, now resolved of the internal conflict, calmed down, swallowing all her worry and replacing it with self-declared resolve.

  'Changelings have obviously proven themselves to be inherently evil.' Celestia decided bitterly, 'It is in their nature to feed off of the good, as  that is the nature of evil.

Luna is right.

Evil must be destroyed.'

   Princess Celestia, with a grim but adamant frown, calls up a guard.

   A large, stoic guard arrives within seconds, bowing and awaiting orders.

"Send a message to Captain Shining Armor." Celestia commanded to the guard.

"Equestria is now officially at war."

__________

-Ponyville

   Luna's moon was glistening as the two crusaders awaited their third member.

"Do you think she's gunna come?" Scootaloo asked.

"She has to!" Sweetie Belle claimed with urgency. "How can we be Cutie Mark Crusaders without her?!"

"Ahm' right over here!" The fillies hear.

The two turn their heads to see as Apple Bloom sprints over, nearly tripping herself as she gets to a stop in front of her fellow crusaders.

"Hey, we still goin' ta Zecoras or what?" Apple Bloom blurted. "Lets go! Gogogo!"

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo wear confused reactions as their friend latches onto them and prompts them to run.

"Come on, Zecoras waitin'!" Apple Bloom says, suppressing her yell.

With what felt like wasted seconds to Apple Bloom, they complied. All three sprinted into the Everfree, following the path to Zecora's home.

_________

 Back in the Apple farm, a sleeping Big Mac awakens, startled by the soft noise of the wood floor creeking and a rusty window opening.

  With suprisingly silent movements for a bulky frame, the red giant was able to sneak through the hallway without so much as a squeak.

    He goes down the hall, checking Applejack's room to see a sleeping lump underneath purple blankets.

  Satisfied, he continues down to Apple Bloom's room, but is forced to a stop.

He sees a bed with no Apple Bloom.

  He quickly, while still maintaining his code of silence, looks out of the window. He looks out just in time to see three fillies run off into the Everfree.

With an tired glare, he watched as they quickly disapeared into the dark trail of the cursed forest.

He silently sighs, and aggressively turns around.

 Big Mac moves, with a speed as fast as a pony's jog, out of the house, only uttering a faint noise from the twisting of the door handle.

   Once out, he breaks to a gallop towards the Everfree.

'Those fillies..' Big Mac thought miserably, 'They better not get a basilisk after them like last time!'

__________

The girls quickly get to Zecora's, only to be introduced to an eerie aura as they slow to a trot and hesitantly approached the hut. The hut was excruciatingly quiet, not giving any hint of activity or life. Instead, a wave of coldness seemed to radiate, causing Sweetie Belle to shiver.

"H-Hey, maybe this wasn't a good idea after all.." Sweetie Belle mumbles under her breath, not being loud enough for her two friends to acknowledge.

•Oh, when did you realize that?•  A sarcastic voice resonates.

Sweetie Belle jumps, latching onto Scootaloo.

The voice chuckles, its laughter echoing through the confines of the forest opening.

"Woah, did you guys hear that??" Sweetie Bellie fearfully asks her two aquaintances, whom of which stopped to stare at the white filly.

"Hear what, Belle?" Apple Bloom asked.

Sweetie Belle, shocked when seeing the calm reactions from her two friends, replies, "I think I am hearing things."

"Well", Scootaloo starts, rolling her eyes, "Maybe Zecora has something for that. Can we just go in already?"

The three quietly agree, and approach the door of the hut. Scootaloo knocks on the door, and waits.

Seconds pass, and Scootaloo knocks again, louder this time.

"Zecora said she was going to be awake tonight to help us," Scootaloo exclaimed, "She wouldn't leave us hanging."

Scootaloo starts to knock again, but stops as Sweetie Belle yells.

"Hey, girls!" Belle yelled,  starting to show signs of fear. "Zecora isn't here! Lets just go back!"

"No way!" Scootaloo feistily objected. "I had to stay up late and go into the creepy forest at night for a DOOR to stop me?"

Scootaloo turns around, buzzes her tiny wings for a second, and bucks the door as hard as she could.

The door easily slams open. It wasn't locked.

"Thats... creepy." Scootaloo hesitantly states. "Doesn't Zecora lock her doors when she isnt home?"

"Yeah..." Apple Bloom replies questionably. "Jus' whats goin' on here?"

The three fillies enter the dark hut, where all but one candle were burnt out.

    The one lit candle resided in the center of the room in the back of the hut.

Apple Bloom recognizes it as Zecora's bedroom. Apple Bloom yells into the bedroom,

"Hey, Zecora, me and mah friends are here!"

The fillies waited earnestly for a response, but as seconds passed they were only answered with a murky smell.

The fillies automatically figured the smell came from a potion Zecora was brewing. Curiousity made the three decide to enter the room, with Apple Bloom leading the way.

"Zecora!" Apple Bloom called out. "Zecora? Wher-"

The three freeze as they comprehend the scene.

A body, colored in blood and wounds, was spotted in the corner of the room, bearly visible by the bleak light the candle gave out.

The fillies' faces strung with horror. Sweetie Belle looked like she was about to scream, but nothing came out. Applebloom, with tears slowly forming in her eyes, gripped the lone candle with her mouth and approached the outline of the body. As the scene was fully revealed, the fillies couldn't believe their eyes.

The body of a zebra, with its front legs practically chopped off, laying with its back against the wall. Blood was leaking on the floor from its face. Apple Bloom shines the candlelight upward, and immediately regrets it.

   The eyes of the zebra were carved off, and a huge smile was carved onto the victim's mouth. The corpse seemed to stare at Apple Bloom, with its forced smile, and taunt her.

It was definitely the face of Zecora.

   Applebloom couldn't take it anymore. She screams, a wail loud enough that even some ponies back in Ponyville shuddered in their sleep from hearing it.

__________

-Everfree Forest

  Big Mac ran as fast as he could once he got a fair distance from the Apple household, getting anxious as he entered a foggy part of the forest, with no fillies in sight.

  Actually, Big Mac wouldn't be able to see anything more than ten feet through this fog. Just as chances of finding the fillies and dragging their doomed flanks back was becoming hopeless, Big Mac started to hear crying.

  He followed the noise through the fog. The source of the crying didn't seem to be from any of the fillies, it was slightly deeper, more resonated.

   He followed onward, presumably getting closer but at still least twenty feet away when the crying turned to scratchy wails.

Unearthed, Big Mac slowly approached the wailing, thinking something peculiar. He just couldn't put his hoove on it.

   He was now able to barely make out a white and black creature huddled on the floor.

    He presumed the shadowy figure was the source of the crying, and slowly approached it.

   Less than ten feet away, the figure still didnt respond to Big Mac's approach. It just continued to wail, with its back facing him. Big Mac stops and stares, being a little more than five feet away from the strange spectacle.

   Big Mac doesn't know what to do, as he has never been in a situation this bizarre, or maybe even somewhat frightening, in his life. The most frightening things he experienced in his life range from Apple Bloom falling in a well and almost losing the Apple Family farm to the Flim Flam brothers.

 A misty, lingering stink instinctively makes him turn his head. He sees, through squinted eyes, another large figure on the ground, unmoving. The new figure seems to be at least twice his size, making him nervous. The seemingly increasing wails from the smaller figure didn't help.

   He steps away from the unknown white and black creature, now throughly  convinced of something deathly strange. He instead approaches the larger figure,  blackened from the fog and just out of his vision.

 After a few steps, he recognizes a paw. A large paw with razor sharp claws.

Big Mac, shocked, takes a few more steps until he was less than five feet away from the larger creature, and many feet away from the crying one.

   It was a manticore. Actually, the corpse of a manticore, with bleeding wounds on its back and a slashed neck. 'What could ah killed a manticore?' Big Mac further worries, his stoic demeanor finally cracking to show tints of fear.

   The 'wailing' started to sound familiar to Big Mac.

  Hearing a misplaced chortle, he started to understand what was so strange about the creature's crying.

It was laughing. This entire time, it was laughing at him.

He turns around quickly, just to see a large figure zip by his peripheral vision.

  The laughing increased, as his fear followed. The laughing seemed to be coming from no where and everywhere at the same time.

   Big Mac, now terrified, discovered he was completely defenseless. He could not hear anything but the haunting laughter and his heavy breathing.

   He still could not see any end to the fog, which surrounded him and took away his vision. The fog just seemed to get thicker, the laughter louder.

   Suddenly, Big Mac hears a piercing scream from the distance. He turns his head towards the scream, to immediately discover the laughing creature from earlier behind him.

   Its two front "legs" were high above Big Mac's head and wielded sharp eyes that seemed to penetrate the fog like a knife, staring down at him. He could see black eyes,  filled with desire.

The terrified Big Mac panics, instinctively bucking the tall, foggy creature with all its might.

Big Mac heard a sickening crack and a howl, as the figure flies many yards away, past Big Mac's allowed sight of vision. The figure seemed to be engulfed by the fog, as he hears the thump of It crashing onto the forest floor.

  Adrenaline taking over, Big Mac runs the opposite direction, and doesn't stop even after escaping the fog.

Within seconds, he collapses at the edge of the forest, unwilling to move an inch.

   Time passes, and after several minutes, three evidently disheartened fillies come out of the forest and into Ponyville. Big Mac looks up just in time for them to make eye contact. Big Mac steadily gets up takes them into custody, without resistance.

   Both sides were wary and exhausted, Big Mac and the crusaders both wondering if they were still in bed and simply having a nightmare. The walk back to the Apple Home was quiet, with only the crunch of the grass underneath their hooves.

Apple Bloom didn't get any sleep at all that night.