Screams and shouts. Gunfire and smoke.

Gradually the sounds and sky of Yharnam had shifted, the city once again cloaked in the ink of the hunt. Celestia had been tuning it out, so had Eustace, and Twilight had learned by now to ignore the sounds as much as they did.

But they couldn't ignore them completely.

They hadn't yet encountered a beast, but Eustace had assured them it wouldn't be anything short of a miracle if they hadn't by the time they arrived at the Great Bridge. So they all listened closely to the sounds around them as every breath, step and scrape could mean the presence of a beast.

So when they arrived back in the same plaza they'd left nearly three hours ago without an interruption, Eustace was all too happy to sue for a break, if only a short one. The mob that had been there before was nowhere to be seen, and all the windows looking over the monolith were dark.

"Gods, you can practically cut the tension with a knife," Eustace joked at Celestia, sitting with his back against the monolith. "I'm half expecting a beast to come screaming in here, just to put our luck to an end."

Celestia gave him a faux cross look from where she sat nearby. "Now you've guaranteed we'll have to kill something, well done."

"Ah, damn it, you're right."

All three of them sat in silence for a few moments longer before Eustace stood and stretched his back, signalling the other two to follow his lead.

-#-#-

Another narrow street in the endless maze of narrow streets, and she'd almost forgotten just how much she despised Yharnam's planners. Once again they'd found themselves in the claustrophobic hell of Yharnam's inner streets, and it's characteristic debris, disrepair and waste were on full display.

And Celestia hated every second of it.

In fact, she hated it so much she'd almost prefer the Upper Cathedral Ward. The smell of burning corpses and sulfur certainly didn't help her appraisal, either.

Eustace rounded a corner a dozen paces ahead into another street, but as Twilight made to follow ahead of her, Eustace suddenly backed out, the sounds of claws scraping on stone following him. Before she knew it, she'd been pushed back, and a massive blur of brown and red threw itself by where Eustace had just stood and into the building opposite the side of the corner.

It was then that Celestia got her first look at a real beast.

The massive canid pulled itself up from where it had slammed into the stone, it's ten-inch claws grasping at its snout as it hissed and growled lowly. Fur matted with some liquid, musculature unlike anything Celestia had ever seen and hooves that were anything but certainly showed Celestia that, indeed, Eustace was right.

These were absolutely not ponies anymore.

As quickly as it had appeared, it turned it's whole body towards them, releasing its snout and standing on all fours. It sniffed once and raised itself up on its hind legs, arms extended to either side of the street.

Eustace shoved Celestia and Twilight to the sides, saying only one word: "Dodge."

The beast threw itself at the three of them, clawed hands extended and snarling viciously. Celestia threw herself into the air with all the magic she could muster in that instant, taking Twilight with her. Below her she saw Eustace bolt beneath its left arm, and watched as the beast twisted itself like an acrobat as it tried to catch him.

It failed, and he emerged behind it standing up from a roll, but he didn't unsheathe his weapon. Instead he stood and waited, while the beast recollected itself and sniffed the air again.

Celestia set the two of them down behind the beast and spared a glance towards Twilight, who'd simply seized at the sight of the creature. She was breathing rapidly, pupils abnormally dilated, but otherwise normal. Perfectly fine for a normal pony who'd nearly died.

For her part, Celestia was unharmed as well, if a little put off by how much she actually need to push to get herself off the ground with the Kirkhammer attached to her.

"Twilight, stay here," she said, drawing the sword and slotting it into the Kirkhammer's handle. With one hoof on the blade handle and another on the ground, she hobbled her way closer to the beast, taking an equidistant position between it and Twilight.

It didn't even acknowledge her, and instead slowly moved closer to Eustace, sniffing the air and letting loose low growls and hisses. Eustace also ignored her, instead watching the beast's movements.

Almost faster than she could register, the beast surged forward again, swiping at Eustace who deftly dodged backwards, and again under its followup bite like he had its first charge.

This time, though, he didn't get under and behind it. He stopped when he had one side to the wall and his other side to the beast, and simply stood still as the beast stopped as well, sniffing the air and turning its head. Despite his unbelievably close proximity, the beast took a few seconds to figure out where it's prey had gone, but when it had, it growled low, and swung around to deliver a fatal strike.

Celestia hadn't been closing distance up until this point, believing instead in Eustace's capabilities while she stood close to Twilight. It was at that point she remembered what had been said earlier, about how only a single hunter would only make a particularly feisty snack for a beast. Her eyes went wide, and she an incineration spell as quickly as she could, but even she knew it wasn't quick enough.

Faster than she'd ever seen a pony move, Eustace raised his left forehoof and twisted it at the shoulder. A flash and crack issued from the barrel attached to his hoof, the noise ringing in Celestia's ears as she released her spell, watching it engulf the beast before fizling out, ineffective. The beast, quick as it was, was thrown back as Eustace's bullet hit it square in the shoulder and had its balance completely upended. It landed, fast, hard and spread-eagle against the opposite side of the street, head smashing into the opposite wall and dazing it for a few critical seconds.

Using the kick from the firearm, Eustace had thrown himself back and upright, using the wall as support. He drew the silver sword on his back, locked it into the Holy Sword, detached said sword, turned to face the beast and in one of the greatest displays of Earth Pony strength Celestia had ever seen, hoisted the entire blade, point up, over his head.

And then he smashed it straight down into the beast's body.

It screamed for only a few seconds amidst the echoing sound of steel rending stone, clawing uselessly at the blade that had nearly bisected it as blood poured from the wound, forming a veritable lake around Celestia's hooves. Then, it simply stopped, went limp, and it's head lolled to the side. For the first time, Celestia got a good look at it's eyes. They were yellow, like the old workshop pony's, but… exploded. Where normally there would be colour and pupil, there was leaking bursts of blackness from the pupil, almost as if it had expanded and destroyed the iris around it.

Eustace pulled the sword from the beast's corpse with a sickening shlick, struggling for a moment as the blade had also embedded itself into the street. He then took the sword, re-embedded it tip down into the street, and used it to support his weight as he detached the silver sword, sheathed it and then pressed his back to the sword, reattaching it to the rigging that supported it when not in use.

Dropping back on to all four hooves, he stepped back and examined the carnage, breathing shakily. He nodded once and then turned back to look at Celestia, who had simply been staring, wide-eyed, at the beast and Eustace in turn. At some point Twilight had joined her, staring at the beast with some mixture of disgust and pity, as well.

"Lovely," he said, apathetic, "one down, a couple thousand more to go." He walked back down the street and turned the corner again, calling out behind him for Celestia and Twilight, who, snapping out of their states, turned to follow him.

Author's Note

Another chapter written over the course of a single evening. Awesome. At least it didn't take a month like I said it might.

For reference as to deadliness of combat, one wrong move in that little maneuver Eustace pulled would've seen him dead. Lucky for everyone, he's been at this for years. Combat in Bloodborne is quick, probably the fastest in any FROMSOFT souls-like game, so when we combine 1-hit mechanics for both beasts and hunters, well... combat gets really, really quick. Remember that.

Also, that downward swing put him on all fours again. I wanted to put that in outside this A/n but it just didn't feel right. So yeah, for those of you that read this crap, don't worry. We're not having easily-bipedal ponies in this story. No-siree, that's just wrong.

As always, please leave any thoughts or comments you may have. I enjoy reading them. Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or suggestions please PM me. I take them very seriously.