Tales of the vampire hunter

Celestia. Great ruler of equestria, looked upon by many as a goddess, the more calm only saw her as kind and benevolent ruler. But like so many others who appeared perfect, she has a guilty pleasure.

Pastries.

For some reason she could not get enough of the creamy treats, be it doughnuts, with their delicious frosting and sweet taste. Or be it the cakes, with the soft whipped cream and the tasty fruit, freshly picked from the royal garden.

Too bad she couldn't eat any in public.

For some reason a lot of the nobles, and unfortunately her sister, looked upon her desire as childish and embarrassing. While she would have had no problem spending an afternoon at "donut Joe's," she cared for her sister. Not so much for the unicorn nobles, but she had make sure they remained true to her.

So that was why, that every third day of the week Celestia would go on a sneaky trip to the kitchen. If she was lucky then she was able to get herself quite a few pretzels, maybe even an eclair or two.

She was halfway to her room when she had a weird overpowering sensation, not of the physical kind, rather one of magical origin. But this was no enjoyable sensation, it was something she had never hoped to feel again.

An overpowering sensation of dark magic.

She dropped her precious loot as she hurried towards the royal bed chambers. Of which there was now three after a certain aspect of chaos had moved in. She checked his room first, seeing Discord sleep like a baby with no trace of his magic anywhere. She checked Luna's room next, finding her sleeping quietly as well. But rather than relaxing, Celestia was even more worried, this was nothing she had dealt with before, it was a whole new evil that had risen.

And if she was right, then the origin was located near ponyville.

The everfree forest.

Luckily, she had someone there she trusted more than anyone in the royal guard.

Twilight was looking up at the big cuckoo clock, wondering whether or not she should actually go to bed. As the clock hit 12'o clock she put the book down and wrapped the duvet tightly around her.

Only to feel a slight buzzing in her head.

She immediately sat up, the buzzing becoming a lot more painful. Once she sat up, the buzzing moved to her horn, and eventually it moved to the very tip.

The buzzing ceased as her trademark lavender beam shot out of her horn.

Showing a picture of a very worried Celestia.

"Twilight, I'm sorry to wake you at such a late hour," the princess said as fast as she could without sounding incoherent, "but this is a matter of the utmost importance."

Twilight yawned slightly, "it's alright princess, I had only just gone to bed."

Celestia frowned slightly, "you really ought to take better care of yourself twilight, I thought we talked about this."

Twilight rolled her eyes exasperatedly, "princess, urgent matter?"

Celestia blinked twice before going, "yes, yes of course," she cleared her throat quickly before breathing in to speak.

"A mere minute ago I registered a large amount of evil magic in the everfree forest, in the exact same spot where you first found the elements of harmony."

Twilights eyes widened slightly, before she turned to a look of confusion, "maybe it's just discord?"

Celestia shook her head slowly, "no twilight, I checked up on him once I detected it, he is not the source."

Twilight bit her lower lip slightly, fearing the answer to her next question, "is it nightmare moon or sombra?"

"I do not know whether or not sombra is involved, but luna is still here in the castle."

"What would you like us to do?" She knew that if sombra for some reason really was in the everfree forest, then she would need all of her friends and their respective elements.

"Just go and investigate," the princess said quickly, "if you deem it necessary to intervene with whomever is there, then you have permission to use the elements."

Twilight jumped from her bed, doing her best not to wake up spike. The purple dragon was snoring loudly and creating small puffs of smoke. She landed on the floor with an almost silent thud.

She grabbed her saddlebags off of the coat hanger. Levitated the elements out of their case, and she was off.

"Now would y'all kindly explain why were walking around in the everfree forest after midnight?"

Applejack, like the rest, was incredibly tired. But she hadn't wasted a second when twilight and the rest of her friends had come knocking on her door, they said it was urgent, so she complied.

But she still wanted to know why they were even there.

"I told you already Applejack, Celestia detected powerful dark magic inside the forest, so she wanted us to go and check it out."

"Pardon me sugar cube, but you didn't actually say that?" Aj said, smiling morosely.

Twilight looked down at the ground, her normally well organized facade having suffered a small crack just then.

"Oh don't worry darling, everyone makes mistakes."

Twilight smiled weakly at her friends, if she was going to find some new and unknown evil, then she'd rather do it with them than by herself.

"So where exactly did this evil magic mumbo jumbo happen?" Dash said, soaring down quickly to ask her question.

"Well, Celestia said that she had detected it exactly at the old castle." Twilight said, indicating a hoof towards the old ruin.

"Where we found the elements?" Fluttershy carefully asked.

Twilight nodded at the yellow pegasus, Fluttershy shivering slightly as she remembered the old ruined castle. That was were they first became friends, but other than that the ruins held no great meaning to anyone.

And it wasn't exactly the place you'd like to go on a holiday.

The place was the old castle of nightmare moons birth, no exactly a pleasant memory. But even then the ruin itself had some sort of ominous aura surrounding it, as if radiated fear and hopelessness.

"Girls, we've arrived," Pinkie said enthusiastically, pointing a hoof up at the giant archway where the doors had once been.

"Okay everyone, look around for anything that may seem out of place. Dash and Rarity, you go down to the library. Pinkie and Applejack, you'll be heading towards the kitchen. Me and fluttershy will investigate the throne room."

The groups headed off in their respective directions. Some of them small talking, others remaining completely silent out of concentration purposes.

As Fluttershy and Twilight entered the throne room they split up, desperately looking for anything that would indicate dark magic. Of course this went slightly better for twilight, with her being a unicorn and all.

But it was Fluttershy who made the first discovery, followed by an eardrum piercing scream.

"What's wrong Fluttershy?!" Twilight yelled. Running towards her friend watching her shaking in fear and pointing down at some rubble.

"W-what i-is that?" Fluttershy asked, sobbing loudly.

Twilight had no idea.

It most certainly wasn't a pony, the creature, be it a he or she, was incredibly large, probably rivaling Celestia in height. His features remained completely hidden under a trench coat, heavy leather boots, a scarf, a pair of goggles, and a wide and pretty torn hat. In his, twilight guessed it was like spikes claw, was a small knife with a cross for a handle.

"I don't know Fluttershy, but I think he might've been the one responsible for the dark magic." Twilight said, looking down at the creature with a searching eye.

And then it moved.

Fluttershy jumped backwards, letting go of yet another scream, almost instantly waking the weird being. It tried sitting up, but apparently he was either too tired, or damaged, twilight wasn't sure.

"What's wrong?" Applejack yelled as she and the rest of the six came running towards Fluttershy and Twilight.

"And what is that?" Rainbow said, pointing a hoof at the leather clad stranger with a disgusted face.

"Where is he?"

The creature had spoken, it was only three words, but the six mares still grew wide eyes as he said it. He looked over each of them searchingly, apparently not as shocked to see them as they were to see him.

"Where is he?" It repeated, now pushing itself up into a sitting position. Sort of, it's elbows were keeping it elevated slightly off the ground.

"W-what are you?" Twilight finally asked, stuttering heavily.

You could almost see the cold smile forming beneath the red bandana as she asked, "I have no time for questions, only answers. So I ask you again, where is he?"

"Who're you talking about?" Pinkie pie asked, "because I know lots of ponies. Is it caramel? Uuh uh, I got its, it's big Macintosh right? Or is it whooves?"

The things eyes now turning from a smile to thinly concealed rage, "I have no interest to know anything about your acquaintances. I need to find my prey, and if you aren't going to tell me where he is," he said, his hand slipping in under his trench coat, "then I'll take the information I need from your corpses." He pointed his revolver at them, loaded with silver bullets, it could take down just about anything.

"W-who are you looking for?" Rarity asked.

"Who do you think cretin?!" He bellowed angrily, "your master, where is he?"

This made Twilight frown slightly, "Celestia isn't a he, shes a princess."

"I have no interest in this Celestia," he said, spitting something onto the ground, "I'm here for Dracula."

"Who's that?" Rainbow asked, turning to her friends for answers.

"Wait," the thing said, "if you don't know Dracula, then you can't be his creations." His hand went up to his face, tearing away the bandana, "you aren't monsters. You're talking horses," his breathing now becoming heavy and quick.

"Hey," Pinkie said, "just because I'm friendly doesn't mean I like to be insulted."

"I have to find him," he said, pushing himself to his knees the best he could, although he failed and ended up back where he started.

"Look," twilight said, "I have no idea who this Dracula guy is, but you're in no condition to walk. We can get you to ponyville, by force or by your own will."

The creature sighed slightly, "I've never been one to decline a kind offer. What do you expect in return?"

Twilight smiled at him, her worry now slightly diminished, "we need to know your name, and what you are."

The thing nodded, "I'm a human."

Twilight nodded, "you do look similar to them."

The human obviously stiffened slightly as she said this, but it would appear as if the others hadn't noticed.

"And what's yer name?" Applejack asked.

"I'm," he started before pausing, "I'm Abraham, Abraham Van Helsing."