Lord of the Night

Turns out, if one of your travelling companions can create any drug, ever, out of thin air, it is really, really easy to get distracted, especially when you had a little theory that you would no longer be affected by drugs, which turned out to be very, very wrong. I realised this as I found myself flying through the air after leaping on Astros, now healed, back, yelling, “High, Ho, Silver, away”, kicking him in the sides, and being bucked off. As I neared the tree I saw the recent events of my life fly before my eyes, and realised, that everything was pretty good, right at that particular moment, and then, I hit, the tree.

I awoke later, to a splitting headache, and very sore sides, lying in a small clearing, covered in my robe, which was good, as I realised it was now daytime, but then it occurred to me that none of my travelling companions would have known to cover me. I realised that they were around me, as I heard Astro and Sam talking; their conversation mainly concerned with how long they thought it was going to take for me to become awake. I groaned loudly, alerting them to my consciousness, and stood up, or at least tried to, at which point I found myself, being introduced, rather forcibly, to the ground, as I was overcome, with nausea. Eventually I did make it to my feet, and found that I could smell something, like the pollution smell, that I now knew meant humans, only much weaker, as if arising from a smaller source, I looked around sniffing, but apart from my companions, Sam, who melt like a wino mixed with the sulphur, Astro, who smelt like a chicken and a cat, and Red, who smelt like burning pine and cinnamon, none of which was anything like what I was smelling now. Finally I Sam something else, a snail, I looked at it for a moment, before walking over to it, and picking it up, I sniffed, and my suspicions where confirmed, this was the cause of the smell. I inspected the snail, looking for the dragon mark, but found that apart from a smudge that could or could not have been it, I saw nothing. So I dropped the snail and walked over to my acquaintances, whom were looking at me strangely. “Former human” I said, to which Sam just nodded his skull sagely, while Astro just looked damn confused, “I need to get out of this sun, regardless of cover or not I can feel it sapping my strength”, I continued then walked of in the direction of some nearby caves, using all of my senses to check my surroundings for enemies. Not finding any, I retired into the cave laying down I took my leave of the world, all the while wondering why I felt so sick, I’d had hangovers before, but this was something else.

I awoke what felt like a few hours later, rolled over and retched all over the floor of the cave, then arose, of the floor, one thought blocking all others from my mind, hunger. I sniffed the air, and smelt only one nearby candidate to sate me, so I ran over and leapt, about to drive my fangs into Astro’s helpless body, but found myself stopped by Sam grabbing my robe, so surprised by this, I calmed and turned, seeing Sam passing me the gourd of dragons blood I had collected earlier, I drank deeply drinking all of it, before I relaxed. Sam looked at me and said “don’t worry man, I understand, you got urges, but you really got to learn how to control yourself, or you’ll find yourself all alone, without some pretty girl to call your own, I was expecting something like this to happen, you vampires are all the same, but I understand, however we have to get rid of Astro as soon as possible”, I nodded and replied, “soon as he teaches me how to fly”. I then went over and woke up Astro, who had somehow remained asleep throughout the whole ordeal, and we set of in the direction of Appleloosa.

After a short while I converted to a griffin, and walked over to Astro, and said “it is time for you to teach me to fly,” he nodded, and began flapping his wings and told me to copy his every move. I saw that he was flapping with the use of his whole body rather than just moving his wings, like comparing full on sprinting with moving your arms back and forth, I copied him and soon found myself rising above the ground, at which point Red started flying in circles around me, ecstatic in the knowledge that he could now share the skies with his master, I flew around master swoops dives flips, flying upside down and sideways, all the while laughing with the pure thrill that this allowed me. I changed to my Pegasus shape and found the body mechanics where much the same as that of griffins, but when I changed to a dragon I found that it was very different, this was really a case of the wings just flapping and giving me lift.

I returned to the ground, changing shape and landing in a crouch in my human form, earning a clap from Sam, who had watched the whole procedure with a look of mild amusement on his face. I walked over and said “you know you’re just jealous” which caused him to smile, and then just start floating above the ground, and said “no I don’t think I'm quite as much as a virgin to this as you are, or in any other action, I am an ancient voodoo loa after all”, I was, needless to say, dumbfounded, and endeavoured to ask Sam just what he was.

This caused him to smile, and I instantly found myself with a cigar in one hand and a whiskey in the other, with Sam mirroring this. “Well, my blood sucking man, I am a collector, much like death, I collect spirits, but I also stop the undead, which is why I am so familiar with your particular brand of friendliness”, at which point his cane became a sword, which reassured me as I had been wondering if, apart from entertainment, he would be any use at all.

We wandered into Appleloosa, I was in human form, mainly because I would feel pretty bad if Sam had to be the only human, once we entered the city, Astro ran off, grumbling something about “drinking till he can’t remember anything”. Meanwhile, Sam and I decided to hit up a bar, him to see if he could find any mares or female buffalo interested in improving interspecies relations, and me to look for information about the Dragon Badlands, towards which we were headed. I didn’t exactly plan for the reaction of those in the bar however, I walked in and found myself surrounded by smiling happy faces, I felt kind of bad, as I had fully expected a little fear, because of my appearance, but found somebody thrusting a newspaper into my hand, which front page announced “strange creature kills horny dragon”, which I guess made for good news here. I was soon invited to a friendly game of poker, where myself, Braeburn (who I recalled from Over A Barrel), and a few other cowponies, but noticeably no other species was anywhere in the bar, so I assumed there must be a griffin bar somewhere. I found myself wondering where Sam had gotten to, and when I asked I was directed to a side room, which I found containing a dozen mares, and Sam, who was regaling them with tales of earth, while they all looked on in enthralled, I decided to leave him to it, and wandered over to a sheriff’s office, which I had been told, would be my best effort for finding out information, when I smelt a human. I wandered in and saw a dog, a large Irish wolfhound, a dog that had no business being in a frontier town, barking madly at me, while the sheriff was shouting at it to shut up. I cleared my throat, which caused the sheriff too turn around and notice me, he grinned and said “you must be the strange one who saved my cousin from, as he put it, a fate far worse than death, I assume your hear about the bounty”, I replied “no that won’t be necessary, I was just doing that for myself, I will however allow you to have it, in exchange for any information you might have on a five headed dragon, or any strange events you have heard of recently”, he nodded his head happily, and then said “well I have heard myths of a five headed dragon before, but I always thought they were fake, but pertaining to strange events, I can think of none stranger than this dog here, apparently he appeared out of thin air, and then started scratching equestrian words in the sand, something along the lines of “help me” or so I'm told”. I looked at him and said “so why’s he in jail then”, “well,” he replied “when nopony seemed to react to what he was writing, he began attacking people and dragging them over to read what he had written”.

While we had been chatting the dog shut up until I said “do you think I could take him of your hooves”, at which point, much to the sheriffs surprise, the dog started nodding fervently, so the sheriff said “yeah sure why not, you may as well, and he seems to like you”. With this he went over to the cell and unlocked the door, then the dog bounded over to me, and much to my surprise bowed, before walking out the door, I nodded my goodbye to the sheriff and left, where I saw the dog scratching into the sand “oh thank god, I thought I was the only human, please tell me you know the way to new york”, I smiled, and said “sorry buddy, close, but know cigar, you see I'm a vampire, and we are in Equestria” he looked at me in askance, then wrote “Equestria?” , I face palmed at that, of course he wasn’t a brony, so I elaborated, explaining that we were in a different dimension, where myths were real. I then asked him how he had come to be in Appleloosa, to which he wrote, “I think I pissed of the wrong guy, I’m Hunter Robinson, by the way ”, I smiled laughed, and said, “well I'm your master now, the names Clash, come on we got to go get my friend, and then defeat a deity of evil”. I wandered off in the direction of the tavern, fully expecting to see what I saw, Sam lying on his ass outside of the joint, having been to forward with the females he so coveted, and forcibly removed by his partners. He smiled and got up, brushing dirt of his suit and said “damn virgins, always the same, no matter what the species, who’s the dog” looking at Hunter, who had fainted on seeing Sam. “He is Hunter, I found him in the jail, and he used to be a human” I explained. Only then did I realise the sun was rising, so I went to a nearby hotel, rented a room, told Sam and Hunter that I would see them in the evening and that they should look out for each other, and went to sleep.

I awoke to Red pecking at me, trying to wake me, once he succeeded he flew to the roof, fully expecting me to try to kill him, this I did for a minute before realising that there were others in the room. I saw the sheriff I had met the night before, looking angrily at me, I rolled over and got up, asking “what did I do”, “it’s not what you did, but what your companions did,” he replied “after you went to bed, they attended an illegal dog fight, where the dog I released into your custody last night beat the reigning champion, this caused a full scale riot, which I have just spent the last our cleaning up”, I looked around the rest of the room trying to clear my head, before realising that it would probably be a good idea to get the hell out of Appleloosa. “Were are they now” I asked, unsurprised with his answer of “jail”, “what do you want” knowing that I was probably looking at a bribe of some sort, and was quite happy when he said “for you to leave”, telling me to do exactly what I had been planning.

I retrieved my friends from the jail, where I saw Sam talking to Hunter, explaining how he had trounced his opponent too easily, while the dog just looked sheepishly at the floor. Red flew around Hunter’s head alerting them to my presence, “it’s time to go” I announced, feigning anger while really just wanting to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

We left Appleloosa, after getting supplies, which mainly considered of things for Hunter, such as some armour we had gotten made by a griffin smith, and food and water, the rest of us not requiring it, Red had his cupcakes, the origin of which I decided was probably somehow Pinkie Pie, I drank blood, and Sam, I was at this point fairly sure, was a complete skeleton under his clothes, and hence, would not require sustenance.

I had been looking at the map while Hunter was fitted, and began thinking that whatever sustenance changelings might get from me or Sam would probably be pretty bad. So I had decided that we should travel through Gem Fido, to get to the Dragon Badlands. I chose this rather than going along the river because, I figured that, as diamond dogs were subterranean creatures, I would be able to travel underground for a large part of the journey, through their tunnels, figuring I would be allowed passage, being that I was totally aware of the fact that I and my companions painted quite a scary picture to those that saw us. As in, the 6 foot 4 vampire, dressed in armour, a gentleman skeleton, of about 6, a huge dog, now in battle armour, and a phoenix, all of which were exceedingly rare, or one of a kind beings, I figured that, if diamond dogs were scared by Rarity, they would just let me do whatever the bloody hell I wanted. Oh how wrong I was.

As we walked along the outskirts of the Everfree forest, it occurred to me that I had no idea why Hunter was with us, he owed me know dues, and I assumed that he was mortal, I asked him to which he wrote “I am also aware of this, and I think, that when I was turned into a dog, I also earned the mannerisms of dog, like their loyalty and their want to pee on trees, and you, as my rescuer, appear to be what I have given my loyalty to, although as of yet I have managed to keep my urinary urges under control, the loyalty I feel is much stronger, and so I accompany you”. To say the least, I was surprised by the deepness of this, he noticed this and wrote “I was a psychiatrist on earth”, I nodded and then decided to ask him what he remembered of how he got to Equestria. He wrote, “the last thing I remember is a new patient I had, whom seemed to believe that she was a god, I was making good progress with her until someone entered the room, I shouted at them to get out, as I distinctly remember them to seem threatening to me, and then I woke up with four legs in this alternate dimension”.

We continued for the rest of the evening, with us stopping for dinner at about 1 am, I went hunting finding a wild boar, and draining its body of blood, after being changed to a hog and then turning back into a human again, I caught another, and then drained that boars blood into a large bottle I had brought with me, deciding that I would always have blood on me, lest what almost happened with Astro actually happen with Hunter. I found that their where many caves along the road we travelled, and so myself and my companions became nocturnal, travelling at night and sleeping during the day.

We walked for a week in this manner, rarely having to do anything, and so we swapped stories, Sam was by far the best story teller, telling us tails of others deities he had met, and adventures that he had with them, as well as numerous jokes, but myself and Hunter did manage to tell our life stories, as well as a significant chunk of what was in my case, a made up life story. I also convinced Sam to help me with learning to fight in many forms, but I soon found that I was by far best at being a human, however if the need to fly arose, I was best at being a dragon as, apart from the wings and tail, their physiology was very similar to a humans, at least, my dragon form was.

When we reached Gem Fido, it was almost immediately apparent, with the scenery darking perceptively and everything taking on a much more sinister appearance. I smelt for dogs, along with the help of Hunter whose nose, I found, was actually slightly better than mine, and in no time we found a large tunnel, guarded by two diamond dogs. I decide a direct approach was what was in order, so I walked up to them and said “good morning, I was just wondering if you could tell me where this tunnel leads, as I'm trying to reach the dragon badlands, and I needs to stay out of the sun” needless to say, they probably would have been less shocked if I had said something in Chinese, one of the other languages I know. I was somewhat miffed however when they took on an aggressive stance and the larger of the two said “you, whatever you are, come with us now, the alpha will know what to with you”, I nodded assuming that this alpha would point me on my way, and so I called my friends who walked up having decided to wait behind some large trees, the guards stepped back at this and ran off, scared I assumed, because of the afore mentioned appearance of my group.

We walked down the tunnel, hoping to run into this alpha that had been mentioned, when I realised that none of us really knew how Equestria worked, and I decided that we should have at least tried to convince Astro to join us, but, we didn’t and there was no point in lamenting now, so we ventured further into the tunnel, not expecting what we saw. We entered a large cavern, filled to the brim with ponies on chains, whom were being hounded, by the diamond dogs, (did I really just think that), but regardless, it appeared that, much to my chagrin, there was slavery occurring here, which I just could not stand, so I walked up to the nearest diamond dog, who had yet to notice us, so concentrated where they on the ponies they were watching.

“Hello” I said, and immediately found myself looking at a spear which was sticking through my body. I decided this was annoying, and so called my sword and chopped of the diamond dog’s head, I soon recalled that the other diamond dogs would take offense at this, and so ran back to my team, who had been watching the events, unfold before them. Truth be told, I was somewhat surprised to find Sam dressed in armour similar to mine, with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, seething with anger, but realised, that as a Haitian god, whose people had been enslaved, he would be very against what was occurring here. We gathered together in a group, 20 diamond dogs advancing towards us, their captives watching on, nervously.

Sam was the first to strike, leaping at the head diamond dog, before attacking the rest, who tried to perform a pile on, but soon found he was more than a match for them, striking them down without breaking a sweat, their movements creating a huge cloud. Once this cloud cleared it showed Sam, standing surrounded by the bodies of dead dogs, again dressed in his suit, as if nothing had happened, he then walked over and began unlocking the chained ponies and griffins, whom ran away from us in fear, scared of something that could defeat that many diamond dogs by himself. I walked over and said “wow, you really don’t like slavers do you”, “you could say that” he replied.

I then heard a shout, and found myself being hit with a tube, I then found Hunter falling to the ground beside me, while another group of diamond dogs looked on expectantly, and I assume wanting me to do the same. They were very annoyed when I did not, and instead began walking over to them, as I thought they had just poisoned, and possibly killed, Hunter, so was very angry, I walked up to the dog, who was seemingly less of a mongrel than those surrounding him, and looked more like an anthropomorphic pedigree Jack Russell. As I advanced he retreated, while his underlings, as I now realised, he was the alpha, watched on in mute fascination. I kept stepping towards him slowly, until he backed into a corner, and I hit him, hard, he hit the wall behind him and collapsed to the floor, unconscious, I turned around and found the rest of the diamond dogs had run off.

Sam, meanwhile, had finished unlocking the captives, who I now saw, consisted of mainly ponies, but also a few griffins, and was currently, slapping Hunter’s snout, trying to wake, his, as I now realised, sleeping body. I tuned to my backpack, and pulled out the bottle of blood, and drank it all, my spear wound healing instantly, I breathed in trying to relax, when something hit me, not physically, but mentally, I could not hear my heartbeat. I placed my hand on my chest, and pressed, feeling nothing.

Sam saw this, and said “I told you man, you’re dead, its why I know your kind so well, I used to be able to create a type of vampire, because I'm the Haitian Loa of the dead, your body is dead, your being animated by fresh intake of genetic material, it’s as simple as that”, I knew this, but I hadn’t really realised what it meant. The fact that I was basically a zombie was hard to take, but I thought, I would just have to get over it.

I advanced towards the freed captives, who cowered in fear, I was annoyed when I saw children among them, but decided those who were responsible had already suffered retribution, and said “good evening, ponies and griffins alike, I bring nothing but good tidings, and hope that you will allow me to point the way to Appleloosa, the nearest pony settlement, I would ask only that you could inform me of where I might find a map of these tunnels”, they pointed to a nearby alcove, which I saw was filled with gems, and had a large map, which somewhat reminded me of a map of the London underground I had once seen, placed upon the wall.

The map showed that, if we headed along a corridor, just up ahead, I would eventually find myself in the Dragon Badlands. I turned around to point this out to Sam, and saw that Hunter had awoken, and so I pointed it out to my companions, and we ventured of, with a goodbye to the animals we just freed, who stared after us as we walked off. Red flew ahead of us, lighting the way.

Alright, first time actually commenting at the end of a chapter, just wondering what you guys think, and if any of you are artists, do you reckon you can do better than me?