New to Equestria

New to Equestria - Chapter Seven: Blood

~ Silver Tongue ~

It was half an hour later that found me barely sitting in the cramped hospital chair. We were lucky enough that the hospital had a skeleton crew on the week days, so Twilight had been admitted, and rather fast. Though that was to be expected with her status.

A light green-maned mare with a powder blue coat had come out to us as we approached, and the rest seemed readily available to do their jobs, unlike the night workers I've had the displeasure of meeting, so i'd been impressed. Though I didn't miss the cans labeled "ENERGY DRINK" on the reception desk, of course, I didn't blame them, either.

Finally I ended up sliding out of my chair and onto the floor before leaning my head against the seat and dozing off into the dark yet warm and welcoming abyss of sleep. My favorite angel of death was there to welcome me.

"Vampire fruit-bats." She told me.

I shook my head and tried not to be too surprised. "What?"

"The bats which infest the orchard, they specifically target fruit unless they're threatened."

"Okay." I said slowly. "So, how did I threaten them?"

"That is what confuses us." She shook her head. "It didn't necessarily seem like you provoked them.

I pulled at the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin for a bit, thinking. "Why tell me this?"

Monochrome shrugged. "You're here for diplomacy, yes?"

I nodded.

"If your race being accepted is what you want, you'll need to earn the hearts and minds of our people, of course Equestria is not a widely violent nature, such as what I've seen from yours. So you've got your work cut out for you, and I've decided to give you information that may make it easier on you."

I hummed thoughtfully and removed my hand from my face, pocketing them both. "And you want my job to be easier... Why?"

Monochrome shrugged. "Like I said when we first met, I have interests in you."

"Interests can go different ways."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're not still thinking I want you inside of m-"

"No!" I shouted before facepalming and shaking my head. "I mean you're unpredictable, i'd be more secure in the knowledge that you're going to put a knife in my back than not knowing anything at all, y'know?"

The mare hummed in thought, looking into the void of my dream. "I believe I understand. I will allow you this; if needless harm comes to Equestria, and you're the cause of it, I may not be so merciful as to make it quick."

I frowned. "Makes sense."

Her horn lit up after I spoke, it felt as if something poked my forehead and I was nearly overcome by a sense of vertigo, though it passed quickly.

I heard footsteps around me, and then my very of voice, causing my to look up sharply.

"Captain," My doppelganger said. "I'm not clear on something that happened in the briefing..."

I looked towards the captain, he was a scruffy-looking older man with the signature police cap and a buttoned-up dark blue coat that ran down just below his knees.

"We've got time, what's on 'yer mind?" The old man responded.

"The term 'vampires'. Are we talking about a group of people that all happen to be affected by clinical vampirism or..." I trailed off.

"Son, there's a reason your lead is made of silver."

I looked confused for a second, until I pulled up the scoped rifle by my side and pulled back the bolt. I ejected one of the cartridges and gave the bullet inside it a hard look before muttering a lewd question.

"Just'a precaution, of course." Captain spoke lightly.

The actual me looked at Monochrome, she was in her human form again, even though the characters in the dream didn't acknowledge us. Not that I was complaining, I could probably get used to it if she wasn't so nerve-racking.

"Out of all my living nightmares..." I started. "Why this one?"

"It carries relevance." She replied simply before looking at the events that were about to unfold.

The seconds ticked by agonizingly slow, I had never thought of it before, but sometimes knowing exactly what was supposed to happen is the worst thing in the world. I spared a look at Monochrome, she was maybe somewhere around 5,5. She wasn't wearing the same clothes as i'd last saw her, and I finally noticed some of her features.

Her eyes were the same, yellow at the bottom, developed into orange as it went up. Her ma- hair, however, was now black with several bright orange streaks running through it, giving her a electropunk sort of vibe. She wore a checkered overshirt, like what I wore under my stab vest, except mine had a blue and white theme, while hers was just black and grey, and worn very loosely, with what could be barely considered a dark undershirt beneath it, seeing how it exposed a lot of what it was supposed to cover.

I'm not going to lie and say I didn't look...

Worse; she saw me looking and grinned before half-closing her eyes, giving me a (agonizingly) seductive look.

At that point, i'm not sure which was worse, being embarrassed by a shapeshifting pony or the fact that enforcers were preparing to breach the building, instantly me and Monochrome shifted from sitting the middle of the rooftop to leaning off the wall on the edge. I wanted to close my eyes and ignore it, but I knew that wouldn't be happening.

The radio cracked. "We're ready down here, on your mark."

"Copy." The sniper replied.

There was a few moments of silence, I looked down the street to the target building, it was about one-hundred-fifty meters off, maybe. The windows of the building seemed to have been painted over with black, blocking the sunlight.

The brass had been very generous towards us on this operation, most of the units down there wielded lightweight general purpose machine guns, I couldn't remember whether they were hundred-round boxes or two-hundred-round boxes. but either way, if they were firing the same chunks of metal I had, then this was a extremely expensive operation.

The sniper exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.

There was a crack, and one of the blackened windows went out, the sniper pulled the bolt back, ejecting a spent cartridge, and chambered a new one. He fired again, repeated, and fired again. Three windows were busted, and the reaction was nearly instantaneous, the three could hear stomach-wrenching screams come from the building.

The screams belonged to the vampires within, the sunlight poured in, literally causing them to combust, the sunlight was burning them alive.

They were burning alive though, not quite dead yet.

With a shout of warning or maybe some sort of taunt, I saw one of the strike force pull out a metal cylinder, light the fuse on top of it, and throw it into the main entrance, there was a bright flash and flame erupted through the doorway, the screaming only intensified.

I wanted to look at something else. I nudged Monochrome and pointed to my double.

"This building I was positioned on was actually a public library," I explained. "Imagine the old woman's face when we told her she had vampires down the street."

The thought made me smile a little, it was amusing.

"I don't think it matched my confusion about my bullets though, not sure about your country but silver is kind of precious here, and there I was firing bullets made out of it." I used my fingers to imitate the size of a seven-point-six-two round, Monochrome merely tilted her head, so I explained. "That's about how big the bullets were, minus the casing, that was made from brass though."

Monochrome kept listening as I explained random things to her.

"... And that's the concept behind rifling." I finished.

The radio cracked. "Overwatch, you seeing these guys?"

"A-firm." I replied.

I looked down the street, three cloaked figures stood several yards from the rear guard, one of which approached them with his weapon raised, yelling and motioning to get on the ground.

They didn't, and that's when everything went to shit.

They moved with incredibly fast speed, the unfortunate enforcers didn't stand too much of a chance, I saw the closest enforcer get pounced by the leader of the three cloaked figures.

"What the fuck!" The sniper screamed. He pulled the trigger, but merely grazed his target. The other two vampires had long since murdered the other two enforcers as my doppleganger chambered another round, hands shaking with panic. The figure below turned around, the only exposed part was his mouth, and it was covered with the blood of his prey. Not wasting any time, he put another bullet inside of the monstrosity.

The two remaining cloaked vampires looked towards each other, a silent conversation passed before one nodded and went inside.

I was loading another magazine into my M24, so I didn't notice the remaining vampire pick up the light machine gun and literally fire the thing from the hip -- which should have been impossible -- until a bullet tore through the side of my left arm. This was the same size bullet fired from my own rifle, so needless to say I didn't cope incredible well.

I threw myself to the ground, foolishly landing on the wounded arm, and proceeded to roll on the ground trying to nurse my wound

"Ouch." Monochrome commented.

"Uh-huh," I replied. "The scar's still there."

Back then, I would've just stayed there, but I realized my cover was being ripped to shreds by the light machine gun. Rolling onto my stomach, I slung my rifle over my shoulder and began to crawl to the fire escape on the other side of the building. As soon as I was safe, I stood up and began running down the fire escape and onto the street level, not taking more than a second to recover from the last drop down to the sidewalk before I kicked into full-speed towards the target building.