Castlevania: Portrait of Chaos

Chapter Seven: Full Moon Fever

Rainbow then asked “You said something about Legion earlier. What is that?”

“For the love of Christ Almighty, I am not talking. I won’t say it again.” Jonathan hissed, his eye twitching. The sun was setting outside, and he managed to catch a good glimpse of the grand and glorious sight.

Charlotte was busy eating a chocolate bar the size of a 2x4. Stella had the other half of this monstrosity. In short, both mares were pretty much occupied.

“I’ve never seen my sister go through that much chocolate in five minutes, let alone Charlotte.” Loretta commented, sitting on the couch to keep her distance. By the time she said this, both mares only had a small piece left, and said piece was about the size of a toy truck. The mares split it evenly in two and into the hatches both pieces went.

Both mares wiped their muzzles off with napkins, and then their hooves. They promptly trotted upstairs to get ready to go to sleep.

“This is why I had Discord get that monster-bar for them--to keep them occupied so nopony else winds up with a bruised jaw.” Jonathan replied with a sigh.

“On account of Rainbow Dash being kicked earlier today, I see the point.” Loretta admitted, also taking a moment to sigh.

“That overly cocky pegasus may as well have been in Dracula’s castle for a day simply to see how we feel.” Jonathan said and promptly nodded. “Just because she has a rainbow mane does not mean she has a free pass with us.”

“True,” Loretta agreed. She cast a glare on the aforementioned pegasus.

“Let’s just go to bed already. It was actually a good thing Applejack put us to work--I needed something to do other than argue.” Jonathan said, trotting upstairs. Loretta stifled a yawn with a hoof before following suit.

“That apple pie was good, and so was the cider.” Vincent mumbled as he followed the green unicorn.

Twilight gave Rainbow a quick glance. “Quit going overboard, Dash. I know they’re strange and you wanna know everything they have to offer and I understand that. Heck, even I am confused myself. But please avoid arguing with them again, I don’t want your wings ripped off.” She said before taking her turn on the stairway upstairs.

“Fine….” Rainbow sighed, taking her place on the couch. She curled up and preened her wings before nodding off into la-la land.

The Fleaponies were all curled into a larger basket simply for the hurt one to rest his leg on the rim. They were fast asleep. Hell, everyone was fast asleep, save for a unicorn mare who looked out the window as if longing for something.

Slowly, surely, it rose into the sky. The full moon was about to grace the land with its glorious night.

Charlotte felt a sharp pang of stabbing pain at the base of her neck. She grunted a bit and rubbed one side with a hoof. If one looked past her pelt, they would be able to see scars.

Scars from an attack that revolved around fangs.

Another sharp pang of pain occurred, and this time it hit the unicorn’s entire body. She looked at her reflection the window had to offer. Her pupils became slits and small fangs began protruding from her upper lip.

“I need to run…” Charlotte sighed, opening the window and putting her forelegs on the rims of where the pane was. She looked back at her fellow ponies, all of whom were still sound asleep. She sighed and looked down before making the leap, closing the window with her magic in the process.

Landing effortlessly onto her hooves without a single mishap, the mare began to gallop away from the library. She kept running, ignoring anything that wasn’t directly in her path. Something told her to find a woodland, and she followed that inner voice.

She entered a dense woodland known as the Everfree Forest. She ran past Fluttershy’s cottage and several trees before coming into a clearing and skidding into a halt before a moonlit pond.

The unicorn peered into the watery reflection. Her ears were tufted and her fur longer and wilder. Her nose became like that of a dog’s, and when she opened her mouth a snarl came out. All of her teeth were sharp and jagged like abused daggers, and her irises were now gold in color. The mare lowered her head and began drinking the water by lapping at it with her tongue.

After a few moments of drinking water, she rose and looked at herself again. Her tail and mane were wilder and unkempt, and her hooves became paw-like. Her cutie mark’s pentagram now detailed a full moon in its place.

A sound hit the mare’s ears, and she immediately zeroed in on the noise. Her nose sniffed the air a few times and it caught a foreign scent. She growled, bearing those deadly teeth. The bushes began to rustle vigorously, and soon came a challenger: a male pony with wolf-like paws for hooves, a canid nose, glinting fangs, and a feral gleam in its gold eyes. It had a brown pelt and there were wings on its back.

It too snarled back as it sniffed the air. It lowered its body and spread its wings, ready to pounce. Another growl escaped its muzzle.

The unicorn raised a brow and her horn began glowing. She too lowered herself in a position to pounce at her adversary. A spell began charging, but the deformed pegasus before her couldn’t tell what it was.

It growled again, seeing that the horn was a threat. It lunged forward with jaws wide and paws thrust forward.

The spell hit the pegasus, for it had waltzed right into its needed radius. A bright field marked by a circle of brilliant aurora appeared right before the pegasus would’ve ripped the horn clean off the unicorn. It convulsed and let off a howl of pain before becoming more pony-like. It was a stallion.

The stallion groaned and blinked a few times. He looked at the unicorn and gasped. He soon took flight shouting “WEREPONY! WEREPONY!” as if he’d joined a cult of some kind.

The mare brushed it off and fled deeper into the woodland, careful to sniff her way in the process. There were some scents she didn’t like, of course, and she stayed as far away as she could manage.

She heard more rustling bushes after five minutes. And another series after that. Her muscles tensed.

This didn’t mean anything good.

Jonathan woke up to the sounds of somepony shouting his head off like the zombie apocalypse led by Adolf Hitler was just happening. He rubbed his eyes lazily with a hoof and grumbled, “What time is it?”

The red stallion got out of the bed and quickly noticed that something was wrong. The first sign was that Charlotte wasn’t in bed, and he didn’t hear a toilet flushing or water running. The second was the shouting pony who was still going off about something.

Stella woke up, also hearing the commotion going on. “What in the hell is--” She started, but was cut short when the word ‘werepony’ hit her ears.

Jonathan’s eyes went wide. “Stella, get everypony else up! We have to find Charlotte!” He said, trying not to show his quickly-building panic. He quickly galloped downstairs and out of the library and saw a brown pegasus panicking way too much for his own good. His eyes were golden and his pupils were slits.

By sheer instinct the red pegasus tackled his fellow pony. “Just calm down and tell me what’s going on!” He demanded, putting a hoof on the stallion’s throat.

“I-I was in w-werepony form...and I...I saw this...blue mare...she cast a….a spell on me….and now I can’t change back. At least I won’t kill another innocent pony again…!” Choked out the brown pegasus, tears starting to trickle down his face.

“A blue mare? She was a unicorn, right?” Jonathan asked, entirely unable to believe what he was told. “If it is who I think she is, she must have cast Sanctuary on you…”

“Yeah...she was a unicorn….I didn’t get a glimpse of her cutie mark. I just...began freaking out…Please, don’t kill me now. I beg you…” Answered the stallion, coughing again. His golden eyes became magenta for some reason, and his pupils returned to normal.

“If you don’t hurt anypony else, I promise not to kill you.” Jonathan said, getting off of the stallion and helping him onto his hooves. “Go home, because you really need a nap.”

“T-thank you…” Said the brown pegasus as he took flight into the air right as all the other ponies in the library galloped out.

“I do hope you find peace.” Jonathan murmured to himself as he turned to the ponies looking at him.

“Is it true? He saw something?” Loretta asked, sounding very worried.

“He saw a blue unicorn that was also a werepony….who cast a spell on him. He was cured of his affliction.” Jonathan answered, spreading his own wings. “C’mon, we have somepony to find.”

“You can’t mean…!” Twilight started.

Jonathan nodded once. “Let’s get a move on.” He repeated.

At once, all the other ponies in all the other houses galloped out into the streets as a chilling howl carried to the ears of all through the very winds. Frightened murmurs began spreading through the growing crowd like wildfire.

Another chilling howl, this one distinctly clearer than the previous, seemed to freeze time itself. The crowd stopped, and the crowd listened.

“This is going to hell in a handbasket real fast.” Vincent commented, ears perked and eyes wide.

Stella nodded.

A third chilling howl, now sounding entirely like that of a wild animal. The crowd shouted “WEREPONY!” in response.

“Grab the silver!” Called a stallion.

“Craft the bullets!” Yelled a second.

“Eliminate the threat!” Hollered a third.

“I’ll calm this crowd down, just go and find Charlotte already!” Twilight commanded, taking flight.

Jonathan nodded and he led the group onwards, taking a detour around the crowd in the process. The group of ponies kept galloping until they reached Fluttershy’s cottage.

It was then that Loretta noticed tracks made in the grass quite a ways from said cottage. She put a hoof over one such mark simply to compare. The hoofprint made by her hoof and the one made prior didn’t match by a few millimeters at best--in other words, what made the earlier markings had slightly smaller hooves.

“Over here,” She said, beckoning the others with a hoof. They did as instructed and they too saw the strange markings.

The group began following the tracks, and as they did so, each marking changed. First, the entire hoof’s bottom would touch the ground and it wasn’t hollowed out. Then, a series of digits appeared. The ones on what was evidently the front hoof markings were a little larger than the ones made by the back hooves.

Claw marks arrived shortly soon after.

They followed the tracks past a clearing and stopped. There on the ground before them was the charred body of a male werepony who was clearly trying to confront a female before his life was cut short. His fur was singed and black, and he appeared to be entirely lifeless.

“Is this the source of our howls?” Vincent asked, bewildered.

“It might be. That other pegasus did mention ‘unicorn,’ but this sorry excuse of a horny bastard isn’t what we’re on the lookout for.” Jonathan answered, picking up a stick and poking the body with it. The body didn’t move, and he was now certain that it was quite dead alright.

Another howl sounded close by. Jonathan dropped the stick and ushered the group onwards, making sure to put the body under a tree beforehand. Along the way, they saw two more bodies who had met with the same fate in different ways: the second was crushed under a boulder and the third was stabbed in the face with an icicle.

“Is it just me, or are we being watched?” Vincent asked, now trembling a bit.

“I think it’s not just you…” Stella replied, also feeling at unease.

Upon coming across a fourth body that was tied to a tree by the tail, the group found themselves surrounded by glinting mouths and hungry eyes belonging to an entire werepony pack that was waiting in ambush.

One werepony howled and another growled at the group. A third took a step forward.

And found itself trapped in a green bubble and quickly suffocating. The other wereponies looked at the mishap and snarled at it.

A fourth werepony found itself turned to stone. And a fifth was turned to ash by a giant laser of white light.

“What the hell is going on?!” Loretta asked, ears flat as she quickly ducked for cover.

A sixth werepony was struck by lightning. It convulsed and howled in pain before dying, and the remaining members of the pack finally got the memo. They fled while whimpering like mere pups.

“Is it safe?” Loretta asked, standing up on all fours again.

“Not quite.” Jonathan answered, pointing to a seventh werepony looking at him. Its form was concealed by the darkness, but even so, everypony could make out the sharp point of a horn on its frame.

“Is it going to attack?” Stella asked, spreading her wings to make herself appear threatening to the werepony.

The werepony didn’t move. It blinked its glinting gold eyes.

The pegasus closed her wings, trying to comprehend what this werepony was doing.

The creature stepped out into the moonlight, revealing a light blue form and a dark brown mane. Its feminine form stopped as soon as its entire body came into light, so to speak. It blinked a few times, and it didn’t bare its fangs.

Jonathan raised a brow. The werepony proceeded to mimic him.

“It….it really….it can’t be true…” Jonathan started, ears flat and a frown on his face. He took a step towards the werepony. The beast sat on its haunches. “There’s no way…” He murmured, a sort of sadness in his eyes.

The werepony lowered its head and whimpered. Its ears fell flat as well.

Jonathan took another step forward, and the werepony was quick to flatten its body against the ground.

“This can’t be true…” He said, taking another step towards the werepony and flattening his own body against the ground so he could be at eye level with it. The werepony let off another whimper in response.

And then, much to the surprise of everypony present, it spoke words. “I was afraid you didn’t want me around like this…I was afraid you’d kill me…”

Jonathan tenderly put a hoof on the werepony’s furry cheek. “I….I can see why you’d say that.” He said, softly.

The werepony’s eyes widened and began producing tears. “B-but aren’t you…..?” It asked, about to break down into a sob.

“I won’t. Not until you become cursed.” Jonathan answered before the werepony could finish.

“You...won’t?” It asked, genuinely shocked.

Jonathan nodded.

Both he and the werepony stood up on all fours and embraced in a hug.

“It’s gonna be alright, I promise.” He said as the werepony sobbed into his shoulder.