Bleeding Nights

Spike looked at the top of the stairs too see Twilight and her friends standing at the top of the stairs.

"We prefer to be called 'Strigoi'" Twilight said.

Spike was at a loss for words. They didn't even try to deny the fact that they weren't humans. He started to stumble backwards from the creatures speaking to him and began to fall.

He landed on something soft and warm. He looked up to see Rainbow's upside down face looking down at him. She smiled at the startled boy.

"Whoa! Easy there, Spike. Don't want you getting a concussion on us" she said.

Spike pointed to the top of the stairs. "H-how did you..."

"I ran down here to catch you" she replied.

She's that fast?! I didn't even see her move!, he thought to himself.

Rainbow helped Spike get to his shaky legs and helped him to the sitting room he was in previously. Rainbow helped Spike down onto one of the couches and propped him up. The girls brought him the basket of his mother's cookies.

"Eat these. We won't be needing them. Besides, you need your strength after what you've experienced" Twilight said.

At the last sentence, the other girls seemed to glare at Twilight. Spike didn't know why, but he was too hungry to care. He grabbed the cookies and ate.

"Woooo-wee, partner! You sure are hungry!" Applejack noted.

Once Spike at all twelve of his mother's cookies, he started to feel more energized. Then, he looked to all the girls with a determined look on his face.

"Alright, what's going on here? And what are you?" he demanded.

"As I previously said, we are Strigoi. Your kind commonly call us 'vampires'" Twilight replied.

"If you're Strigoi, then that means that that dream wasn't a dream! That's why I feel so weak" Spike said.

The other girls glared at Twilight. She seemed to wilt under their glares.

"Sorry about that, Spike. I just couldn't help myself! I haven't fed from a live human in a while. You just smelled so good" Twilight said in response.

"Here's another question I have: why did I start to feel weird after you bit me?" he asked.

"Oh, that's because of our venom" Fluttershy said.

"Strigoi have venom?" Spike asked.

"Yeah. Our venom affects the brain to make it trigger the release of dopamine and endorphins. It also numbs the body to prevent prey from escaping" Twilight said matter-of-factly.

That certainly explains everything. Spike would be lying to himself if he said that he didn't enjoy the felling of Twilight's venom. However, a troubling thought entered Spike's mind.

"Wait! Since you bit me, am I going to turn into a Strigoi?!" Spike asked in a panic.

The other girls seemed to find that question amusing since they all burst out laughing.

"No, you're not going to turn into a Strigoi. Becoming a Strigoi isn't like that" Applejack replied.

"So, how does someone become a Strigoi?"

"You have to drink a Strigoi's blood in order to become one" Rarity said.

"Really?" Spike asked.

"Of course! Imagine someone having a baby every time they ate" Pinkie said.

Now that Spike thought about it, that made a lot of sense. If being bitten by a Strigoi, humanity would be replaced by the Strigoi.

"Do you feed strictly on human blood or can you feed on animals?" he asked them.

"We can feed on animals and humans. But human blood tastes better to us" Fluttershy said.

"Are Strigoi immortal?" he asked next.

"Yes, we are. In fact, I'm one thousand years old" Twilight said.

"I'm six hundred and fifty" Rarity said.

"Two hundred and thirteen" Fluttershy said.

"I myself am three hundred and twenty five" Rainbow said.

"I'm one hundred and seventeen!" Pinkie exclaimed

"I'm two hundred and seventy five" Applejack said.

Spike smiled with a blush. "Well, you all look good for your age"

The girls just giggled at that little statement.

"Well, that's certainly kind of you to say, darling" Rarity said.

"Yeah. Besides, you certainly seemed to think that I was good-looking for my age when you were gawking at me the first night we arrived" Twilight said.

That sentence confirmed what Spike had already suspected: that Twilight had seen him the first night! She had seen him.

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to stare!" Spike stammered.

"It's fine, Spike. Really. I know you're at the age where you'd start paying attention to females" Twilight said.

"Wait, how did you even know where I was? You turned around and looked at me like you knew where I was" Spike asked.

"Oh, I could hear your heartbeat speeding up" Twilight replied.

Spike did a double-take. "You could hear my heartbeat?"

"Of course, sugarcube. We could almost dance to your heartbeat when you first arrived" Applejack replied.

Spike's blush deepened at that.

"I didn't know my heartbeat was that loud"

The girls and Spike all shared a hearty bout of laughter. Despite being in the presence of vampiric predators, Spike started to feel at ease around these girls. As he calmed down, something dawned on Spike.

"Wait, why are you telling me all of this? Why are you revealing yourselves as Strigoi to me?" Spike asked.

The girls were all looking at Spike with serious looks on their faces. Even Pinkie's face was like solid stone.

"Well, you obviously deduced that what happened was no dream. An accident on my part" Twilight replied. "I only meant to take just enough to fill my stomach. But I took a bit too much"

"And since you now know about us being Strigoi, we'll have to kill you" Rainbow said flashing her fangs and claws.

Just as Spike was preparing to fight for his life, Rainbow started laughing.

"I'm just kidding! We're not going to kill you" Rainbow said, much to Spike's relief.

"No, but there is a reason why we're being so open with you about the existence of Strigoi" Rarity said.

"What is this reason?" Spike asked.

"Well, since you knew about us before we told you, we're going to have to keep an eye on you to make sure you don't tell anyone else about us" Fluttershy replied.

"What?" Spike asked.

"Yeah, so in order for us to do that, we'll need you here to help us" Rarity said.

"Help you how?" Spike asked.

"Well, we'd like to hire you. We'll need someone to watch over us during the day while we sleep" Applejack said.

"So you need me... to be like your bodyguard?" he asked.

"Yeah! Will you accept? We'll pay you!" Pinkie said.

As Spike was thinking it over, the girls all stood before Spike and pressed themselves together and looked at Spike with dramatic pleading faces.

"Won't you please defend us, dear Spike? We're defenseless in daylight without you!" they all said dramatically.

Spike looked at them and could only sigh in defeat. "Okay, I'll do it. I'll make sure you all sleep well and safe"

The girls all jumped at Spike and wrapped him in a soft group hug, wrapping his head in breasts. Spike had a feeling this job would be worth it.

He would guard these Strigoi and get paid for it. This should be easy.

In Australia

The creature cried out as the group of Hunters destroyed the last of its brethren. They would come for her next.

This particular creature was a Strigoi. In fact, she was the leader of this nest. She had created all of the Strigoi in the nest and nurtured them just like a mother. It was the duty of an alpha to care for its fledgelings.

On this particular night, the nest had found a sheep farm to feed from when they found themselves ambushed by members of the Orion Society, a human organization dedicated to hunting and killing Strigoi.

The Orion Society named themselves after the Greek mythological figure, Orion the Hunter. They had been eradicating Strigoi for centuries. Those they didn't kill were taken away for study and experimentation. The Society and Strigoi have been enemies since the Society first formed. They were armed with the knowledge and weapons needed to fight and kill her kind.

As the Hunters were busy finishing off the last of her brethren, she was forced to run and hide, but not before one Hunter struck her with a silver dart. The silver was slowing her down as it worked its way through her system. She had also received an injury from a Hunter's blade as she run through the bush.

She stopped to rest by a tree while she tried to think of a game plan. She was devastated and angry. She wanted nothing more than to go back and rip those Orion Hunters apart! She wanted to avenge her nest!

"Lovely night, isn't it?" a voice sounded from the female Strigoi's left.

She turned to see the apparent leader of the group of Hunters looking at her.

The lead Hunter was female by appearance and voice. She was wearing the usual black coats and hats the Hunters usually wore. An owl-shaped mask hid the Hunter's face from the Strigoi before her. Black gloves and boots covered her hands and feet. The broad hat she wore bore the insignia of the Orion Society, which was a male lion's roaring face with its mane in the shape of a flaring sun. This Hunter held a silver machete in her hand, dripping with the black blood of her nestmates.

The female Strigoi took a big step back, flashing her fangs and claws. The Hunter didn't take a single step towards her at all.

"Why are you doing this?! We don't even feed on humans!" she shouted.

"It doesn't matter" the Hunter said flatly. "A monster's still a monster"

In a flash of movement, the Hunter zoomed forward and sliced off the Strigoi's head with a single swipe of her silver machete. The creature's head rolled on the ground and her body followed suit.

After taking a moment to admire how quickly she was able to decapitate the Strigoi, the Hunter took out a silver dagger and plunged it through the creatures heart, which is the way to permanently kill a Strigoi: cut off the head and stab the heart with a silver blade, otherwise it would regenerate its heart or regrow its whole head. The order in which this was done didn't matter so long as it was done. There were other ways of killing Strigoi, too, but this was more efficient.

As soon as the heart was punctured, the body and head turned to black ash.

"Well, looks like another hunt well-done. Another nest destroyed means that everyone in this area can sleep safe tonight" the Hunter said.

The buzz of her mask's communicator sounded to life. A young girl's voice sounded from the radio.

"Have you taken care of the straggler?" the voice asked.

"Affirmative. Straggler taken care of" she replied.

"Good. We just got orders to rendezvous with the operation commander in Sydney" the voice said.

"Alright, I'll be there. Get the others ready to move out" she ordered over the radio.

"Roger that, Captain Luna" the voice responded.

"Please, call me by my codename while we're in the field. You never know who else may be listening" she said.

The voice over the radio chuckled. "Roger that, Captain Nightmare Moon"

And with that, the communicator went silent. The captain looked up at the night sky with a look of hope.

"I hope to present my son with a world where he doesn't have to walk at night without fear. I will kill the monsters for you, Spike. I love you, dear" Luna said.

She left the kill site to reunite with her squad and receive their next hunting assignment.