It was a cloud-filled night on Sweet Apple Acres. All the Apple family rested from a long day's work of bucking apple trees. But one charcoal-coated earth colt was running for his life. He ran out of the Everfree Forest and looked up to the night sky. The clouds blocking the moon were starting to part. He had to get indoors, under some shade, somewhere-anywhere. He saw the Sweet Apple Acres barn. Its doors were open, just wide enough for him to squeeze through. He closed the barn doors and slammed the latch down, locking himself inside.
The sound of clanking steel against steel at random intervals filled the barn as farm tools swung slightly in the air from there hanging posts. The colt slow backed away from the barn doors, avoiding a patch of moonlight from an open window. His stomach rumbled loudly. He lifted his snout and sniffed the air. He could smell food nearby, not in the barn, in the barn house. Four meals waiting for him to devour. His eyes widened and he shook his head, releasing himself from the hunger-induced trance.
As the night slowly dragged on, his stomach growled louder and louder. He couldn't stand the empty feeling in his stomach and reached over to a crate of apples. He grabbed an apple and bit down, swallowing the entire apple in one bite. He easily ate more apples, but none could satiate his unnatural hunger. Worse, he could feel himself being drawn to the moonlight. It was beautiful, so compelling to just stand in the moonlight. If just for a while, that couldn't do any harm, right? The colt walked over and into the moonlight.
He reached out with his hoof. The moment the moonlight fell upon it, his hoof grew fur. It grew bigger, reshaping itself into a paw. Clouds blocked the moon, severing the moonlight from his body. The paw reverted into a normal hoof. The colt stepped forward and looked upward towards the moon. Slowly the clouds parted and his entire body was bathed in moonlight.
He hunched over, feelings his spine grow and reshape itself. He shouted out in pain and agony as his snout grew longer, his nostrils widened, and his teeth grew into sharp triangles. His ears became longer, with small tuffs of fur at the base of them. His entire body, save his the ends of his hooves, grew a silver layer of fur. The ends of his hooves each parted, forming canine paws in place of his natural equine hooves. Claws sprouted forth in each toe on his paws. His tail raised itself, his spine grew longer and into his tail and was quickly covered by more silver fur. The creature howled out to the night sky and promptly tore through the barn doors like it was wet paper. He raised his canine snout and sniffed the air. It could smell four ponies in a nearby building. But something urged him to avoid them, he instead followed another scent of a much easier prey. He howled to the moon again and took off toward a small hut near the Everfree Forest.
Applejack, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom all looked at the destroyed doors of their barn. The heavy doors laid in two pieces, with numerous smaller splinters spreading outward. That wasn't what confused them, what confused them were the claw marks over the doors and the edges of the door frame. "Now what in tarnation coulda caused this?" Applejack asked in disbelief.
"Maybe a timberwolf. The claws marks suggest it was one of 'em," Apple Bloom suggested to her older sister. "And there were those howls last night. Granny Smith did say they sounded like the howls of a timberwolf."
"Not a timberwolf. A lycan." The three Apples turned to see a tall tan unicorn. He was wearing enough clothing to keep him warm in Northern Equestria. Pockets and patches covered his brown clothing. Across his chest was a belt of bullets. Two revolvers were strapped across his chest as well. Three small bottles or jars of water were tied and hung from his right side. On his left side a mace made hung. He wore a cowl that obscured his face from the Apples.
"A what? And who are you?" Applejack asked the newcomer.
"Name's Van Helsing. And a lycan is a pony who has made a deal with the devil and have their bodies inhabited by demons. So they are, in essence, demons themselves. Incredibly skilled hunters and trackers but also vicious and dangerous beasts." Helsing took a closer look at the damaged barn doors and huffed. "You're all lucky this one was just a youngling. If it had been a full grown adult, it certainly would have killed you all."
"Wait, then why was it tryin' to get into our barn? All that's in there are a bunch of apples that we stored?" Applejack asked the unicorn.
"It wasn't trying to get in, it was trying to get out. And by the looks of it, it succeeded."
"So there's one of those lycan things loose in Ponyville?" Apple Bloom asked in utter disbelief.
"Unfortunately so," Van Helsing replied. Apple Bloom visibly shuddered. "Its not entirely dangerous though. Lycans only hunt after nightfall and tend to avoid contact with ponies. But they become much more active as in draws closer to a full moon."
Apple Bloom walked down Ponyvile. She was going to meet up with her friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle at Sweeties house. She stopped when she noticed one of her family apple carts in the market area. "Ugh, did Applejack really forget another apple cart?" Apple Bloom groaned. She walked over to the apple cart and was surprised to find a colt sleeping underneath it. "Umm. Hello," Apple Bloom said confused. The colt's head jumped up and nearly hit the bottom of the apple cart. H e turned his head to look at Apple Bloom. He had a charcoal color coat with silver mane and tail, both of which were very short and scraggily. He had two pointed teeth at the ends of his mouth and gold-colored eyes. He tilted his head slightly and sniffed the air. He seemed to back away a tiny bit after sniffing. "Ummm, what are ya doin' sleeping under my family's apple cart?"
The colts eyes widened at the question. "I-I um, couldn't find any place to sleep and, I cant remember." Apple Bloom was now more confused by his response then his presence. Most foals in Ponyville usually slept at either their parents, older sibling, or close relative's house overnight. And if one couldn't find any family to stay with overnight, then they would spend the night at their friend's house. She wanted to ask him, but didn't want to come off as a jerk for asking such a personal question like that.
"What's your name?" The colt's eyes widened at that question too.
"Ummm. You don't have to worry about who I am. I'm nopony in fact."
"Wha-" but before Apple Bloom could follow up with another question on what the colt had meant, the colt took off. Apple Bloom decided not to chase after him. Mostly because he was already way out of sight.
Charcoal slumped against a wall. He recognized that filly, or at least her scent. It was one of the scents he smelled the previous night, before he turned. He rubbed his head with both his fore hooves trying to remember the events of last night. What did he do? All he could remember was first, being in a darkened building, steel clanging against steel. He escaped, and then nothing. He remembered following a different scent, one of an easier prey to him. He licked his teeth... and tasted chicken. "Did I hunt chickens last night?" He scratched his head and a white chicken feather fell down from his mane. "Yep, definitely chickens. Sigh." His stomach growled. He was hungry. Thankfully, it was a normal hunger. However he had no money and didn't want to choose something to eat from his other diet. "Hmmm, there were those apples from last night." But, if he was caught he would be punished for stealing. He shook his head and looked back to where the farm was. Then he saw a sight that made his blood stop cold.
Van Helsing. Here. In the same town he was in. "Not good, not good, not good," Charcoal muttered to himself in fear. He needed to get out of town, fast. He turned to slink further away from the supernatural hunter.
Van Helsing looked around. If the lycan had done more in its rampage last night, the townsfolk would surely be talking of it. He caught a glimpse of a small colt. With visibly pointed teeth at the ends of his mouth and gold eyes. Could a demon hide themselves whilst inhabiting the body of a pony? He had never considered the thought before, mostly because he had never encountered a lycan smart enough to think of something. But still, was it possible? He rubbed the bottom of his chin. He continued his walk through the small, quiet rural town. "This place won't stay quiet much longer. Not with a lycan on the loose." He stopped walking at stood looking at the ground. A set of paw tracks. Lycan tracks. He wrapped the hilts of his revolvers in a magical grasp, having them at the ready.
Van Helsing followed the tracks for a few minutes. They lead to a small wooden shack at the edge of the town. They lead around the house and to its backyard. He could hear sobbing. "Not another victim, please anything but another dead pony,' he muttered under his breath. He looked up to see a yellow Pegasus with a pink mane, surrounded by chicken feathers. A few puddles of blood dotted the ground around her. Van released the grip on his revolvers. "Miss."
The Pegasus turned to face him, tears were streaming down her face, she was breathing in sharp breaths. In her hooves were the remains of several chickens. She tried to speak but could only produce uncontrollable sobs. The mare spent the next few minutes sobbing uncontrollably. Eventually, she stopped sobbing enough to speak. "I'm sorry you had to see that mister," she said, wiping a hoof against her teary eyes.
"Miss, can you tell me your name and what happened here?" Van Helsing asked softly. It didn't matter that the only creatures that died here were chickens, this mare obviously cared immensely for them, and their deaths pained her as much as a pony's death would. To Van Helsing those were merely chickens, but to this mare they were much more and that was all that mattered.
"O-okay. I'm Fluttershy. And it happened early in the morning. Before the sun had begun to rise, I was awoken by a sound I had never heard before. I heard the chickens in distress. I walked over to a window and peered outside. What I saw terrified me. A creature with silver fur covering almost all of its body was e-eating the chickens. I rushed down outside, but by that time the thing was gone. And so were the chickens.
Charcoal watched dozens of ponies enjoying a meal at some restaurant. His stomach growled at the sight. No money, no home to return to, and no friends nor family to be with. He raised his head and sniffed the air. No scents he recognized. Good. Now he just needed to find a way out of this town. He could always just walk out of the town, that's how he usually left a town, but he decided to try and find a different way first. The train was out of the question, no sane pony would let an unsupervised colt on a train set to leave town. Besides, he had no money to buy a ticket with. He sat thinking of some way to leave town. But all of them had some obstacle he couldn't get past.
A chipper laughter broke Charcoal out of his thinking. He looked around and found a filly to be the source of the sound. She was with her parents; he could tell from their similar scents. The filly looked happy and so did her parents. Charcoal's ears drooped, he remembered his parents. He remembered the town that betrayed them. Worst of all, he remembered what he did to the town the following blue moon. He shook his head. He had promised he'd never look back on that night. Charcoal smelled the air, there was a pleasant smell about. His tail swung in the air a bit and he stood up. He licked his teeth, it was a good smell. Mmmh, food. Charcoal followed the smell and found its source. A cart of apple delectable. His tail wagged even more at the sight of freshly backed, he didn't know what, but they smelled good. He walked closer to the cart and sniffed the air. The scents made him stop in his tracks. Another scent he recognized. He looked around the cart and saw an orange earth mare wearing a Stetson hat.
Charcoal's stomach growled. "Why do these things happen to me?" he muttered to himself. He quietly snuck up to the apple cart and once the mare wasn't looking, grabbed a small bag of what he hoped were apples. Sorry about stealing. Charcoal stealthily retreated to the alley way he had been hiding in. Once clear, Charcoal opened the bag and was delighted to find that it in fact was apples he grabbed. "Thank you."
Apple Bloom arrived at Sweetie Belle's house a little late. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were waiting for her in Sweetie Belle's room. "There you are Apple Bloom. What took you so long?" Scootaloo asked.
"Sorry, there was an incident at the barn and well Ah had to get one of our apple carts back to the farm. And then the weirdest thing happened when Ah saw the apple cart. Sleeping underneath it was a colt. He said he didn't remember what he was doin' under the cart and ran off before Ah could really ask him anything. And before we do anythin', does any of it involve goin' out after dark?" Apple Bloom asked her two friends.
"Um, no," Sweetie Belle responded. "Why'd you ask?"
"Have either of you heard of a lycan before?" Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo exchanged a quick glance.
"A what?" Apple Bloom sighed and told her friends all that had happened that day. The reason for the incident, the unicorn that told her about lycans, everything.
"Wow," Scootaloo said in awe. More of the fact that such a creature existed while the dangers it entailed flew right over her head. Sweetie Belle was shaking on her bed.
"M-Maybe we shouldn't go outside when it gets dark from now on," Sweetie Belle told the others. The others nodded in agreement. The clock in Sweetie's room rang twelve times. "Oh shoot! Its time for school!" The three fillies realized that they'd all be in serious trouble if they were late to school and rushed out of Sweetie's house and to the schoolhouse.
Charcoal rubbed his now-full stomach and dropped the empty bag. The apples he ate had sated his growling stomach, for now. He stood up and looked around. In the near distance he heard bells ringing. He focused his hearing, curious as to what the ringing was for; it hurt his ears. Shaking his head, his ears curled up and clogged themselves. His sensitive ears were still ringing long after the bells stopped. Charcoal squinted his eyes and saw three fillies running to somewhere. He recognized one of them. The one with a red bow in her mane. Charcoal tilted his head in wonder as to where they were running to. "Hey." Charcoal turned around to see a stallion looking at him.
"Umm.." Charcoal started but was quickly cut off by what the pony said next.
"Why aren't you going to class? The bells rang." The pony pointed towards a red building with around a dozen foals near it. Charcoal was about to respond that he didn't go to the school here when he saw Van Helsing again.
Seeing the most obvious way out of the area, "Right. Sorry, I forgot for a moment." Charcoal quickly took off to the school.
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo took their seats in Ms. Cherilees classroom. Ms. Cherilee was about to start the days lesson when one last colt practically ran into the building. "Sorry about being late to class," the colt said in an exhausted voice. Ms. Cherilee looked as startled as the students at the newcomer. But none were as stunned as Apple Bloom. She looked over to her friends, who only returned looks of confusion at her.
"That's the colt that was sleepin' under my apple cart," Apple Bloom told her friends in a hushed tone. The reason for Apple Blooms stunned look quickly dawned on them as well.
"Well, am I right in believing that your new here?" Ms. Cherilee asked the colt. The colt shook his head in response, he was too out of breath to verbally respond. "Can you tell me and the class what your name is?" The colts eyes widened the same way they did when Apple Bloom asked him what his name was. The colt, seeing there was no way out of the question, relented.
"My name is Charcoal."
"Well I'm glad you decided to join us today Charcoal." Ms. Cherilee looked around the room, trying to find a place for Charcoal to sit at. "You can take the desk between Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom." Charcoal looked over to the spot that Ms. Cherilee pointed to. He had no idea who was who, but he made the guess that Diamond Tiara was the filly with a, well, a diamond tiara on her mane and Apple Bloom was the filly with an empty seat between herself and DT. And Charcoal's eyes widened when he recognized Apple Bloom as the filly from earlier. Charcoal quietly took the seat and sat down.
Throughout the class Ms. Cherilee spoke of some subject that Apple Bloom didn't really care about at the current moment. No, she was more interested in Charcoal. Why had she run into this colt twice on the same day, and she didn't even know his name until a couple minutes ago. Plus, Charcoal kept doing odd things throughout the lesson. Every three minutes or so, he would raise his head and sniff the air, then he make some facial expression Apple Bloom couldn't quite make out. He also appeared to have an inch, at least from what AB could tell, but the way he scratched it was weird. He would raise one of his hind hooves and scratch the part of him that itched; especially odd looking when he scratched his neck. How his hind hooves could reach his neck, Apple Bloom couldn't understand. And every now and then his tail would waggle and his ears would flick to and fro.
The recess bell rang and Ms. Cherilee let the foals out to play. Charcoal thought that the bell meant that they could leave, but he was wrong. Instead all the other foals gathered together in the playground. Charcoal himself simple sat by the edge of the fence. Watching. He quickly started to think of how easily it would be to chase down the prey before him. He shook his head and the thoughts disappeared. He needed to keep his thoughts his own. It may not be dark and there may not be any moonlight, but he could still loose himself to his more animalistic instincts.
"Are you sure that's the same colt, Apple Bloom?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Yeah. Same coat color, silver mane and tail. Gold eyes and a habit of sniffin' the air. It's him," Apple Bloom replied.
"Okay, so why did you keep staring at him during class?" Scootaloo asked. Apple Bloom looked over at her. "Don't like we didn't notice. The whole time you kept looking over at him."
"So, did neither of ya notice the weird things he kept doin'? Sniffin' the air every other minute?"
"Maybe he just kept smelling something," Sweetie Belle countered.
"His tail would flick around and ears too."
"That's not weird either."
"Scratchin' his neck?" At that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both looked at Apple Bloom with 'you've-gotta-be-kidding-me' looks. "With his hind hooves. Who does that? Scootaloo, ya try scratchin' your neck with your hind hoof." Scootaloo looked surprised but attempted to do so. She ended up in a weird tangled mess of her own limbs, still unable to scratch her neck with her hind hoof.
"Okay, so maybe that's weird. But so what then? He's just different then," Scootaloo said.
"Sigh. Okay maybe your right, Scoots," Apple Bloom admitted. The school bell rang again, signaling the students to return to class. Everypony returned to their seats and Ms. Cherilee continued with the days lesson. But this time, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo made sure to take notice of anything that Charcoal did, and just like Apple Bloom had claimed, he did some weird things.
"A lycan? But I thought that was just an old mares tale," Princess Twilight said in surprise. Van Helsing merely nodded to confirm what Twilight had thought.
"And there's at least one prowling around Ponyville. It was Sweet Apple Acres last night and traveled to a Pegasus named Fluttershy's cottage. As far as I know it didn't attack anypony but still its too dangerous to keep the ponies here in the dark. It will get somepony hurt, or worse killed."
"We need to alert Mayor Mare. She'll have the authority to put a curfew in place. I'll need to send a letter to the princess about this..." Twilight delved off into a tangent on what needed to be done.
"Wait. You're a princess. Why can't you just impose a curfew here?" Van Helsing asked the purple alicorn.
"I may be a princess, but I don't have the official authority to do anything like that. And Princess Celestia will know what to do. She would never let anypony under her rule be harmed." Van Helsing rolled his eyes. At that time, Twilight's ever-loyal assistant walked in. He was shocked to see the tall tan unicorn. And more shocked to see all that Van Helsing was wearing. Twilight saw Spike's utterly confused look. "Spike, this Van Helsing. But first, I need you to send a message to the princess."
"Wait, what?" Spike asked, but he already had a quill and roll of paper ready to send.
Spike blew the green dragon fire on the message and sent it to the princess. "There its on its way. Now, what are you wearing?" Spike asked Van Helsing.
"Oh, these old things?" Van Helsing pulled out his tow revolvers and pointed to them.
"Yeah, those and everything else you're wearing."
"Well, these are the tools of my trade. Everything I have excels in killing the supernatural."
"Why do those excel, they just look like a pair of ordinary revolvers?" A small grin spread across Van Helsing face at that question.
"These revolvers-" Van Helsing started, pulling out each item as he described it "- are made from the metal of an old church bell. Wooden grips are from a holly tree. The jars hold pure Holy Water, good against vamponies. Mace made from cold iron, repeals the fair folk and works well when faced with anything else as per bludgeoning and all that. This sword, however is the penultimate of my anti-monster killing devices. You see the edges alternate between yellow and white? That's pure gold and pure silver. Both blessed by a priest. The silver was melted down from silver crucifixes handed down my family for generations. The sword's grip is also made of wood from a holly tree."
"Why so much silver?"
"Silver is the one thing that all supernatural monsters are vulnerable to. And I'm not even done yet. Now, if my normal bullets don't work, I pull out these babies." Van Helsing revealed another belt full of white bullets. "Custom made silver-jacketed hollow-point bullets. Inside each tip is a gel made from Holy Water, wolfsbane, garlic, and a single tiny crystal imbued with solar magic. The best in the business. If these babies can't kill it, nothing short of a world-ending explosion will.
"Now, the cloak has four layers. The first, outer, layer is made from the hardest material that'll still allow flexibility; dragon scales. Can withstand temperatures as hot as lava and cant be torn through. The second layer has crystals interwoven in it to allow enchantments. The third layer is just extremely thick fur. The four and final layer is just comfortable fabric, and holds dozens of internal pockets. Deep pockets." Spike stared in awe at Van Helsing's supernatural killing equipment.
