Chapter 4- Next Number

Pinkie Pie bounded around her dungeon. She was just told the next number; Ms. Cheerile from the school was her next playmate. Pinkie couldn't be happier; she'd always adored Cheerile and was sure they'd have great fun together. There was also the matter of the FBI ponies. Pinkie knew she should be worried about them poking around, but couldn't help but look at their presences as a new kind of game. It would be fun to dodge around them and throw little tricks and clue their way.

"It's like chess, clue and hide & seek all in one." Pinkie giggled joyously. She plopped down on the floor next to Rainbow Dash.

"Those two agents I met enjoyed your cupcakes Dash." Pinkie happily told her friend, "I knew they would, you were absolutely scrumptious."

She waited a beat looking over at Rainbow Dash's expertly preserved form. Her cyan coat sleek, colourful mane soft, amethyst coloured eyes staring blankly ahead, eerily reflecting the light in the room. With that artificial shine in them one could almost believe Rainbow was still alive.

Pinkie sighed, "Not much of a talker mow-a-days eh Dash?" she then rolled onto her back giggling. A few moments of insane laughter and Pinkie leapt to her feet. Time to go see Ms. Cheerile.

X~X

JJ and Hotch had just finished setting up their murder boards in the Ponyville Library when the rest of the team walked in.

"Find anything useful at Dash's house?" Hotch addressed Reid and Rossi first.

"Nothing but a flying tortoise." Rossi said with a casual shrug earning him strange looks from the rest of the team, excluding Reid, "Dash's pet. We turned him over to Fluttershy."

"Oh I'd forgotten all about Tank." Twilight Sparkle face-hoofed, "It was a good idea letting Fluttershy take him. She'll take good care of him."

"We met her too. She was the only pony to give us anything useful." Morgan said.

"What did she tell you?" Hotch asked grabbing a marker in his muzzle and trotting to one of the boards.

"Apparently the last time she spoke to Dash she'd mentioned having a pranking date with Pinkie Pie."

Hotch turned to Reid, "Did Pinkie say anything about that?"

Reid answered immediately, having remember every word spoken in Sugarcube Corners, or at least every word that wasn't spoken at the speed of sound, "No she didn't. But she seems very..." Reid found himself not for the first time that day searching for the right word to associate with Pinkie Pie, "eccentric, she probably didn't even remember."

"Pinkie is kind of odd." Twilight confirmed, "And if Dash never showed up it may have slipped her mind entirely."

"Fluttershy said the same thing." Prentiss pointed out.

"Still," Hotch said, "somepony should go talk to her again; she may very well have been the last pony to see Rainbow Dash."

"I'll go." Rossi readily volunteered, "Maybe she'll give me another cupcake."

The team had collectively rolled their eyes, until Morgan seemed to clue into what Rossi had said, "She had cupcakes?" he asked hopefully.

X~X

"Awe don't cry Cheerile." Pinkie consoled the older mare. Cheerile was chained down her mane in disarray, her deep purple coat slathered in her own blood. A chunk of flesh was missing from her flank where Pinkie had carved out her cutie mark.

Tears streaked down the teacher pony's face, slowly etching lines through the gore that had splattered across her cheeks and muzzle as Pinkie had worked. She'd been overjoyed when Pinkie had offered to bake cupcakes for the class, and hurried right over to Sugarcube Corners to set everything up.

She'd only turned her back on Pinkie for a second when she felt a dull pain in the back of her head, a moment before the world swam around her descending into unaware darkness. She'd awoken confused, disoriented and unable to move. As her eyes adjusted to the grim lighting horrors the like of which Cheerile had never imagined surrounded her.

She'd struggled against her bonds, causing the chains to bite brutally into her flesh, and screamed out for help. The mutilated bodies of her own students, her friends and other innocent citizens of Ponyville hung around her. Like some macabre decor out of a demonic home sense magazine.

Her eyes darted desperately around the dungeon, searching for some way out of this nightmarish hell hole. They landed on what had at first appeared to be a live pony standing against the wall. She'd cried out to her, begging for help. Then as she began to make out who the pony was, Cheerile pales in disbelieving terror. Rainbow Dash? What was she doing down here, when all of Ponyville and the FBI were searching high and low for her? What was she a part of?

Then Pinkie entered the room. She smiled at Cheerile, "Oh you noticed Dashie huh?" she trotted towards the still stationary Pegasus, "didn't I do such a good job? I never considered myself a taxidermist but Rainbow turned out great right?"

It was then that Cheerile began to cry. She knew in that moment that she was going to die.

The shock of betrayal was almost more than the physical pain Cheerile was suffering. She whimpered hopelessly when Pinkie turned back towards her, the kitchen knife in her smiling mouth.

In a slash of silver the harsh steel came down on Cheerile's shoulder. Her scream bounced off the gore caked walls, reverberating in her own ears. She felt her muscles and tendons being torn apart by the unrelenting metal. Warm blood flowed down her foreleg. The pain reached unbearable heights as Pinkie hacked through the nerve endings.

Cheerile shrieked louder than she thought she was capable of. Then the world fell away into bleak blissfully numb darkness.

Pinkie finished her work on Cheerile's shoulder leaving the teacher's left foreleg hanging onto the rest of her body by a small scrap of dangling flesh. She sighed when she saw that the elder mare gad passed out. At least she held up better than Rainbow Dash. Pinkie knew it was time to end Cheerile's part of the game. She considered forcing her awake with an adrenaline shot, but decided to allow Cheerile her numb ignorance. Pinkie lowered head and bit into the purple pony's mane raising her head. Knife held in hoof she dragged the blade across Cheerile's throat and allowed her life to drain away.

X~X

"Hello?" Rossi called out as he and Morgan trotted into Sugarcube Corners. He could smell something baking in the kitchen. The always hungry Italian part of his mind hoped Pinkie would offer them some of the fresh Cupcakes, "Pinkie Pie?"

"Ooooh Agent Rossi!" Pinkie bounced out of the kitchen, spots of cake batter dotting her grinning face, "Need more help with the case? How can Auntie Pinkie Pie Assist today?" She bounded in circles while Rossi took a moment to wrap his mind around the fact that he was at least a decade older than her. "Oh, you're not Dr. Reid. I'm Pinkie Pie! Who're you?"

"Umm, Derek Morgan." He answered watching Pinkie bounce, he saw what Reid and Twilight meant by eccentric and odd. "Is that how she always walks?" he mused silently.

"Pinkie." Rossi said gently laying a hoof on her shoulder forcing her to stop bouncing, "We have to ask you a couple of questions, do you have a moment to talk with us?"

"Well sure I do." Pinkie said happily, "just let me get those cupcakes out of the over. Can't let them burn they're for the foals at the school."

Rossi felt his hope of food wither and die, only to be delightfully rekindled as Pinkie returned with the last of the rainbow sprinkled cupcakes from before.

"Here you go, have a cupcake." She said plopping into a chair across from the agents.

Rossi bit into his cupcake as Morgan began the interview, "Pinkie we were told that Rainbow Dash was on her way to see you the day she went missing. Is that true?"

Pinkie inwardly cringed, hoe did they know that? She hadn't told anypony she was seeing Dash that say. These profilers were better than she'd been giving them credit for, "Yeah, Dash was supposed to come by and we were gonna bake and go pulls some pranks. But she never showed up. I was so angry that I wasn't gonna let that mean old ditcher have any of the cupcakes I was making. Then after a while I wasn't angry anymore, and by the time we all realized Rainbow was really missing, I'd forgotten all about it."

"So you never say Dash?" Rossi said slowly, something was off, in the way Pinkie had responded. He noticed the slight tensing of her facial muscles, the way she no longer met their eyes, how she'd very subtly scooted back in her chair putting some extra distance between herself and the agents, and the small bead of sweat that had appeared just at her hairline. She was hiding something. Just what however the profiler wasn't sure.

"Nope." Pinkie said simply. Her mind began reeking, she wasn't a very good liar and she knew it. She couldn't keep this ruse up for long; she needed to think up something to throw the profilers off her scent.

Morgan had noticed something strange himself, "Pinkie? May I ask why you coloured the cupcakes this way?"

There was a little pony in Pinkie's head that was screaming and raving at this meddling stallion. Outwardly Pinkie merely looked politely confused.

Morgan saw the metaphorical question mark floating over her head elaborated, "Well they're coloured like Rainbow Dash." He held his cupcake up, "blue icing like her coat and rainbow sprinkles like her mane."

"Oh that." Pinkie said doing her best to seem casual, and keep the shrieking pony in her head locked up, "I made them when we realized Dash was gonna. It's kind of my own little tribute to her. She always loved eating my cupcakes so I made some Dashie-cakes for her."

Morgan fought to keep his eyebrows from rising, he hadn't missed the way Pinkie spoke like Dash was dead and gone, even though there had been no official statement made about believe dash was dead. But both agents nodded their understanding and the little pony in Pinkie calmed down. They seemed fooled for now, but Pinkie knew she'd have to come up with something to toss their investigation in a new direction soon.

X~X

"She knows more than she's letting on." Morgan stated simply as he and Rossi trotted out of Sugarcube Corners heading to their hotel for the night.

"I know, but is she intentionally lying or just..." Rossi once again found himself struggling to find the right word to match the party pony.

Morgan however understood what Rossi was getting at, "Hard to say, she's without a doubt one of the strangest ponies I've ever come across and she seems honest. But we both know that seeming honest and actually being honest are two completely different things."

Rossi nodded. Sometimes he hated his job, the life of a profiler left much to be desired. Constant jet lag, rarely getting to sleep in your own bed, and inconsistent hours making it nearly impossible to have a life outside the job. Three ex-wives had proven that to Rossi. Then there were the victims, the innocent lives stolen the empty shell of a lifeless pony left behind. The dead weren't the only victims, friends and family left to mourn were just as victimized. Their lives shattered by loss, wounds left behind that never truly heal. And finally of course the killers, rapist, kidnappers and terrorists themselves. Pony monsters trotting undetected through society hiding their desires and impulses in the shadows of death.

And the day comes for every profiler when they can no longer stand against the darkness and stare into the abyss of ponykinds most well hidden natures. The job eats at a pony slowly eroding at them, tearing away at their sensitivity making the callous and unfeeling. Rossi knew the day he could stand over the dead and feel nothing was the day he would leave the BAU and never look back. If he allowed himself to stop caring and stop truly fighting for those who were stolen from the world, he'd no longer be a pony, he'd be a pathetic shell of the stallion he once was. And that's a life not worth living.