A History of Long Nights and Blood

Chapters

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 6 part two
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 1
Chapter 4
Things

Chapter 2

The morning sun streamed through the curtains, waking Octavia from her deep sleep. Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned and rolled over, looking at the sleeping form of the mare next to her, she smiled and closed her eyes again, only to have them snap to open. She threw the sheets off herself (and Vinyl) and screamed “Nononononono, I can’t be late, not today of all days!” as she took of at full gallop down the hall in the direction of the bathroom. The sudden flurry of activity startled Vinyl awake. She looked at the clock on the wall, it was 6:30, she scowled “Octy, it’s six thirty in the morning, you aren’t going for be late for your own concert, Fancy is expecting you at one.” But Octavia didn’t hear her, she was already in the shower, trying to brush her teeth, wash her hair and wash her coat, all at the same time and failing, Vinyl walked past the bathroom rolled her eyes and proceeded to make toast, “It’s going to be a long morning.” she sighed.

After Octavia had calmed down some what and apologised to Vinyl for getting her up so early, the couple sat down over a breakfast of toast, eggs and orange juice, “Octy I’m not going to be able to come with you to Fancy’s, I have some business I have to have take care off.” Vinyl said apologetically.

Octavia looked crestfallen, “What could be more important than this.” giving Vinyl a heart breaking puppy dog face.

Vinyl winced at the sight “Octavia you know I wouldn’t miss any of your concerts, let alone one this important to you, but this is something I have to do, and before you ask I can’t tell what it is.”

Octavia looked puzzled, “Why not?”

“Because I can’t, all I can tell you is that it’s out of town, so I won’t be back till tomorrow, ok.” Vinyl hoped Octavia would leave it at that, but from the look she was getting, she knew she wouldn’t.

“Not okay, but I know you wouldn’t want to miss the performance if you had any say in the matter, so I’m going to let you go but I am not happy about it so I want you tell me one thing does this have anything to do with Pebble?” since the incident at the restaurant three nights ago, Octavia had been worried that Vinyl would do something stupid, like go after him.

“That lowlife, nah it doesn’t have any thing even remotely connected with him.” a dark look quickly flitted across her face as she remembered the stallion.

Octavia looked at her for a moment before she accepted the statement, “Fine I believe you, when do you leave.”

Vinyl smiled, glad that Octavia was letting her go, “It’s a long trip so I’ll be going around nine-ish.”

“So soon?” Octavia raised an eyebrow as she took a sip from her cup.

“Yhea, so I guess it’s a good thing you got me up then.” Vinyl said with a smile.

Octavia gave her a smile in return, and the couple ate the rest of their meal and cleaned up the dishes, Octavia looked at the clock and sighed, “You had best be going then.”

Vinyl looked at the clock and gave Octavia a quick peck on the cheek “All right, I’ll be back some time in the morning tomorrow.”

“Travel safe, okay.” Octavia pecked Vinyl’s cheek in return.

“I always do.” Vinyl replied, a blush spreading on her cheeks as she walked out the door.

Pebble Shifter was walking down a dark alley way, his uniform long since discarded, he had finally gotten his life back together, he had been seeing a psychologist for his problems and had a good paying job, only for that mare to turn up and ruin it all again. She had abandoned her home and their dream, for some career playing music for ponies that didn’t care for her or love her like he had, and it had killed him inside, caused him to snap, and as a result lost five years of his life, five years of abuse and torturer. He thought that his time in prison would yield nothing good, and he had resolved himself to ignore any connections he had made in their, to try and live a good life, but she had once again ruined every thing and now she would pay. So here he was, going to see some old friends, members of a gang that had claimed that vamponies existed, and they offered protection to anyone who joined them, everyone in the prison had dismissed them as crazy but they were powerful, they had connections in the outside that had protected them, Pebble over the course of his incarceration had become close friends with members, they had protected him with out the obligation of joining, allowing him to survive, upon his release they gave him the location of a building and told him to go there if he should ever need help.

Now a year latter he was going to see them, he wondered how they would react, would they kill him on sight or would they welcome him with open arms….it didn’t matter, he was at the door of the building, “No going back now” he thought, and knocked on the door.

A burly stallion dressed in white robes answered “Welcome brother, please come inside.” and stood aside to let Pebble enter.

This was not what he was expecting, and it showed on his face, “You are not initiated are you.” the stallion asked.

Pebble looked sheepish, “umm no not really, I was told to come here by some friends if I was ever in trouble.”

“If one of our brothers thought you safe, then so do we, come inside.” the stallion gestured with his hoof for Pebble to follow him as he entered the building.

Pebble entered and was taken down the hall, his guided stopped at the doorway at the far end of the hall, he knocked on the door, “Through here your will find our current division leader for Canterlot, ask him for your help.” and with that he took off down the hall back to his post.

With his mind full of worst possible scenarios, Pebble opened the door, and found himself looking at a white office, files neatly stacked in a corner, a large writing desk in the centre, behind it was a orange earth pony stallion, his cutie mark was hidden behind the desk and he wore a white robe that had on each shoulder, a sun being encompassed by two white wings stitched in. He looked up at Pebble, “I don’t know you, you must be new.” He gestured at the seat in front of him “Please take a seat and tell me what your business here is.” his voice sounded like it belonged at a cocktail party, rather than in some back street office.
Taking the seat, Pebble looked around the room, his confusion evident on his face. “Not what you were expecting?” the stallion said with a smirk. Pebble just shook his head; the stallion smiled again “So mister…?”

“Pebble Shifter…sir.” Pebble replied nervously.

“Well Pebble, what brings you here?”

“I was told if I needed help to come here by some ponies in prison.” the stallion nodded his head, indicating that Pebble should continue, apparently this wasn‘t new to him. “I was recently fired from my job as a waiter at Le saveurs de Prance because I shouted at my ex who was dinning their.”

“And how do you think we can help you?”

“I want to kill my ex.”

“Mister Shifter” the stallions voice taking a sharp tone “this organization does not kill innocent ponies for no reason, if you want to kill your ex go after her yourself”, the stallion gestured to the door.

Pebble was disappointed, the gang members had a conscience, “Who knew?”, “I would but her marefriend has these red eyes that give me the shivers…” the stallion held up a hoof to silence him.

“Red eyes, ruby red?” Pebble nodded, unsure of where this was going “What did she look like?”

“Well she was a unicorn, white coat and light brown mane that had a kind of red tinge to it.” he looked at the stallion “Are you okay?” he asked, the other pony had sat up straight upon hearing the description.

“Are you absolutely sure of this.” the stallion asked in a small voice.

“One hundred percent sure.” Pebble was confused, what did the mare matter to them?

The stallion got up out of his chair, walked over to Pebble and held out his hoof, “Then I think we can help each other out, call me Mister Orange, and Pebble…welcome to the Angles of the Sun.”

It was night time in Manhattan and many ponies were out enjoying themselves at some of the city’s many nightclubs…and many ponies were stumbling home, drunk and alone. Vinyl was on top of a building looking down, she hated herself for what she was about to do, her target was a light blue stallion with a white mane and three notes as a cutie mark, he had stumbled down a back alley to throw up. Seeing her opportunity she stepped out in to open air and fell, before she hit the ground her horn glowed dimly, slowing her fall so that she landed with out a sound behind the oblivious stallion. The stallions wiped the vomit from his muzzle, turned slightly, noticed Vinyl and before he had time to even think of a greeting found he pinned to the wall behind him.

The impact sobered him up rather quickly, “Please take my money just don’t hurt me.”

Vinyl looked at him with a sad expression on her face, “I’m sorry about this.” and pushed his face upwards, exposing the neck and before her victim had time to scream, lunged at him, her two upper canines morphing into fangs.

The stallion felt a sharp pain pierce his throat, he kicked and tried to scream, but only a weak gurgling came out and his kicks quickly grew weak, within the space of a few seconds he was dead. Vinyl released her grip on the body, the corpse fell to the ground with a thud, she made a disgusted expression and thought “Ugh, di alcol ne sangue” (Ugh, to much alcohol in the blood) she quickly berated herself for the thought,“Ricordate facendo questo per tenere al sicuro, che non importa come il sangue I gusti finche non e sua amica Octy” (Remember your doing this to keep Octy safe, it doesn’t matter how the blood tastes as long as it’s not hers).

She focused her thoughts on a spell, her horn glowed white and she disappeared in a dark haze, on a hill outside Manehatten a dark haze appeared in the air and quickly formed into Vinyl without a sound “Abbastanza teletrasporto, scommetto crepuscolo piacerebbe impara che uno” (Quite teleportation, I bet twilight would love to learn that one”) she thought to herself with a smile that quickly turned to a frown at the thought that she couldn’t ever tell her friend about the spell because of the questions it would raise.

She didn’t move from her spot on the hill, just stood and breathed in the night air, watching the night sky and the lights of the city as she soaked up the peace while she could. The guards would find the body in the morning and would take note of the strange circumstances of his death, they would investigate for a week or two but wouldn’t get anywhere with it. They would then file it as another cold case and forget about it as other crime files were stacked their desks, this was Manehatten and ponies died every day, that was just how things worked.

She sighed as she looked at the city, so many lives just going from day to day with no purpose, any dreams long since killed by the harsh reality of the city, ponies that had cut ties with family and friends, perfect for her. No one was going to miss them. She didn’t have to kill, but if she feed without killing then she would have to feed on two instead of one, and the ponies would be left so drained that they would die within minutes without proper care, and even if they did survive a side effect of the feeding would leave them weak and prone to sickness for the rest of their life. No it was better to kill one pony, than to ruin the lives of two, it just the way things had to be.

She turned and started walking towards Ponyvill, she could just teleport but liked using the time the walk gave her to think. Her thoughts turned towards Octavia, bringing a smile to her lips “Come mai ha fatto arrivare cosi fortunate” (how did I ever get so lucky). As she thought about the grey mare and all they had gone through, she began to think about the future, in five years they would be mostly the same, in another five years age would start to work it’s magic, in another five Octavia might begin to wonder why she hadn’t changed a bit and in another five her lack of ageing would be impossible to hide. Twenty years, that’s all she had by her calculations, for Octavia it would seem like a long time, for her the blink of an eye, and the worst part, was that Octavia loved her just as much as Vinyl loved her, if she up and left, it would kill them both.

She cursed fate for giving her this impossible situation, she couldn’t leave Octavia, Octavia wouldn’t leave her, and she most certainly was not going to turn Octavia, seeing her become a killing machine would kill her inside. “Argh, perche fare questo a me” (Argh, why do you do this to me) after much internal debate, she decided to deal with each day as they came, buck the consequences. With a new resolve she quickened her pace, eager to see Octavia again and forget her troubles in the mare’s embrace.

Octavia was ecstatic as she walked home, her performance had been flawless and Fancy Pants had been overjoyed at the conclusion of her performance, she could still hear his exact words “Bravo my dear, bravo, that was magnificent” he was so impressed that he was going to recommend that she be given a regular spot in the Royal Orchestra, being the gentlecolt that he was, he had ordered her a carriage and paid the puller to take her back to Ponyvill town square.

Octavia reached her front door, she noticed that it was already open, thinking that Vinyl had gotten home early from where ever it was she had gone to, walked in. “Vinyl are you back?” she called out, she heard a shuffling noise and what sounded like shushing, remembering a certain pink dynamo that threw parties she concluded that Vinyl must havenused lied about going out of town to organize a party for her “Oh she’s good” she thought and walked in to the dinning room a grin on her face, and promptly exchanged it for a look of horror, in her lounge standing in front of her was Pebble Shifter.

“Hello Octavia, nice place you’ve got here.” He remarked as he looked around.

Octavia tried to turn and run, only to find her way blocked by two big stallions dressed in white robes, she turned back to Pebble, and with a tremor in her voice “ What do you want Pebble?”

Pebble looked at her a mock thoughtful expression on his face, “Me...why all want is my revenge on you, my associates” he gestured to the two stallions behind her and to another two that had walked out of the kitchen, both were dressed in white, the one on the left , a unicorn, had a sun with wings around it, emblazoned on his robe‘s front, “on the other hoof want your marefriend and for that they need you alive, but make no mistake once they are done with her, you and I are going to have much fun.”

Octavia looked around frantically, seeing no escape she opened her mouth to scream, the unicorns horn glowed green and she blacked out.

Vinyl had run home, all she wanted was to see Octavia again…and maybe a beer, but mostly Octavia, she trotted up to the door, noticed that it was already open, took a moment to catch her breath and opened the door. The lights were out and she could muffled voices, she closed her eyes and concentrated, she detected six different heartbeats and scents, one of which was Octavia’s, the other was that Pebble Stallion. Her eyes snapped open, if he was here Octavia was in danger, she walked down the hall, “Octavia are you in here?” she called out, knowing that she would alert the intruders.

Her vision was perfect despite the lack of light, she turned into the lounge and the quickly turned on the lights, her vision adjusted instantly, the intruders yelped in pain. She quickly looked around the room, old instincts quickly coming to the fore, there was five intruders and Octavia, they had tied Octavia’s legs together and gagged her, her eyes were wide open and darting around. She looked at the intruders four including Pebble were earth ponies, the other was a unicorn, Vinyl froze, looking at the symbol stitched on to the robes front, “No...impossibile” she thought.

The unicorn quickly regained his vision and noticed Vinyl staring at his symbol “So beast, you know who we are.”

Vinyl’s face contorted into a mask of rage and hate “Yes, I do, you’re the Angles of the Sun, hunters of vamponies, formed toprotect ponies from the dark, as your moto states.”

“Correct, you have good reason to fear us beast, my companions and I have put down eight of your kin, you will be the ninth, for all of Equestria we…” he was interrupted by Vinyl laughing “What is the meaning of this, why are you laughing?”, the unicorn took a step back, unsure of what was going on, by now most of the creatures he hunted would have gone berserk and attacked by now, yet this one was laughing at him.

Vinyl’s horn glowed and her mane fell around her shoulders changing colour, becoming light brown, her tail changing to match, her fangs sprouted, she raised her head, her laughing stoped and looked around the room, the other ponies were looking at each other nervously and Pebble had moved over to stand next to Octavia. She addressed the unicorn, her voice wasn’t like it was normally, it was cultured, refined, cold “The eight you killed we most likely neophytes, new blood, you should have researched who you were hunting.”

The unicorn was startled by her change in demeanour, “Who are you?” he asked, his face betraying his fear “What are you?”

“I am Vincenza Nightingale, you foals have broken into my home and attacked my partner, this is your one chance, leave now and never return to Ponyvill. I assume as initiates you know my reputation, thats if your order still teaches it's history ”

The unicorn nodded, going stock still with fear, recognizing the name, the other ponies were tense and looked ready fight or run at the drop of a hat, they had their eyes turned toward their leader ready to act on his signal.

The unicorn looked around nervously, he eyed his men giving each a long look, he gathered himself and faced down Vinyl. “Regardless of your reputation, I will be honoured to give my life if it means your end, ATTACK!” and he charged Vinyl head on, jumping over the coffee table to reach her, the other ponies charged also leaving Pebble standing over a fearful looking Octavia.

Vinyl smiled “And give it you shall.” her horn glowed and the table exploded upwards, riddling the unicorn shrapnel, killing him instantly, the other ponies barely had time to process their leaders violent death before Vinyl lunged at them, she collided with one, her horn impaling him through the chest, she teleported above the stallion next to him, landed on him and bit down on his neck severing his spine. The other two turned and tried to run, Vinyl leapt off the dead pony’s back, landed and faster than the ponies eyes could follow ran in front of one of the fleeing ponies, turned and bucked, a sicking crack was heard as the pony went flying backwards through the wall behind him into the kitchen, she turned to the last remaining white robed stallion, quickly ran in front of him, raised her front hoof and punched him square in the throat, the stallions head was flung forwards then backwards with a sickening snap. The stallions hadn’t even taken three steps, “Still got it.” she said to herself smugly.

Vinyl turned and looked at Pebble, he was shaking in terror, she looked down at Octavia, her heart stopped, Octavia was looking at her…in fear, she slowly looked back up at Pebble, her voice dripping with venom and fury “You caused this.”. She stepped forward and lunged, her horn glowed and she teleported underneath him, retaining her momentum, launching them both into the air. She clamped her jaws down on his neck, and with a violent jerk of her head ripped out his throat, the blood gushing out in a red mist, Vinyl gracefully spun in the air and landed, the body of Pebble landing behind her. Her horn glowed, the blood falling off her, her main and tail returned to their previous colour and style and her fangs retreated. She knelt down by Octavia and loosed her bindings and gag with magic, “Are you okay Octy?” she asked.

Octavia was sore from being tied up, but that didn’t stop her from bolting for the door screaming…she got two steps before Vinyls hoof connected with the back of her skull, knocking her out, as she fell Vinyl caught her with her magic and tried to hold the tears back…she failed. The tears streamed down her face as she cried, surrounded by the ruins of her life, her horn glowed as she teleported herself and Octavia away with out a sound.

Chapter 3

Vinyl materialised in a clearing in the Everfree forest, an unconscious Octavia beside her. The clearing was at the base of a small mountain with a cave entrance; it was here that Vinyl had created a sanctuary of sorts, protected by powerful wards to keep away Everfree’s more dangerous inhabitants. Vinyl sighed and levitated Octavia on to her back as she walked into the cave, the entrance extended into a tunnel that travelled upwards before emerging into a large cavern that had been carved out by Vinyl. She created it many years before hand, just in case she ever needed a place to flee to, or simply a quiet place to think, right now she needed both.

Vinyl took a moment to admire her handy work, the cavern had a hole at the top to let sun and fresh air in, the cavern itself had been built in a circle shape around the hole, the water streaming down creating an indoor waterfall that fell down onto a private pool, complete with table and chairs, at the base level. She had spent eighty years getting things just right, she had carved three levels, the base level housed the garden, training rooms and a music room. The second level housed the two bedrooms, the bathroom and a small kitchen. The top level housed only one room, a large study, filled with books, charts and various instruments. Vinyl was very proud of her collection because it was a repository of all the knowledge she had accumulated from her travels, it was rivaled only by the collection at the Canterlot royal library. Each room was built into the mountainside, arranged in a circular pattern, with guard rail on the second and third levels. The light would stream in through the hole during the day and the moon would illuminate the cavern on a clear night. When it rained, the water would flow into the pool and join the reservoir stored under the mountain.

The entrance emerged out on to the second level, Vinyl slowly trotted over to the bedroom; the room had a simple double bed with white sheets and two pillows on it in on left hoof wall and a chest of drawers on the far wall. There was a magic lantern hanging from a torch bracket on the right hoof wall and a painting depicting a wheat field ready to harvest, the wheat being gently blown in the wind. Vinyl placed Octavia on the bed, she was mentally tired, and the sight of Octavia running from her had been playing itself in her mind over and over. She eventually crawled on to the bed wrapped her fore legs around the mare she loved and cried herself to sleep.

The morning sun streamed down the hole, illuminating the cavern with its warm glow. Octavia woke first; she sleepily opened her eyes and saw Vinyl in front of her, embracing her. For a few seconds she closed her eyes, feeling safe and happy, and then the memories of the previous night crashed into her mind. Her eyes bolted open and she successfully resisted the urge to scream, she slowly rotated her body to see where she was. She was in some kind of stone room with no door, just an arch way; she could see sunlight coming through the arch… She slowly turned back to the slumbering pony next to her, examined her features, they were still the same ones she had been waking up to for a year, but every time she looked at the mare next to her she saw the bodies of the stallions she had killed. She gently lifted the arm that was on top of her, and taking care not to rustle the sheets she quietly walked out the door. She stopped, the cavern was unlike anything she had seen before, it was a work of art, she stared at the waterfall as it cascaded down into the pool below.

“I know its beautiful isn’t it.” Octavia spun around to find herself looking at Vinyl, her purple eyes meeting Vinyls red ones, she noticed that Vinyls eyes had red rings around them, like she had been crying. “Octy please let me explain.” Vinyl looked at her with a pleading expression.

Octavia’s fear turned to anger flaring at the use of her nickname “When were you planning on telling me, were you ever planning on telling me.”

Vinyl looked at the ground ashamed, “No, I wasn’t.”

“Then what was I to you, some kind of game.” tears were streaming down Octavia’s face at the thought that it everything she had felt had just been entertainment for Vinyl. “Were you planning on toying with me and when I no longer amused you, kill me, discarding me like a broken doll.”

Vinyl looked up, her face wet with tears “No, I would never do that to you Octy…” she was cut off by Octavia.

“Don’t call me that!” she shouted, “Tell me, are you Vinyl or Vincenza, who is real, and who was made up.”

“There is no difference, I am still me Octy.” Vinyl pleaded.

“I said to stop calling me that!” Octavia yelled. “Now give me a straight answer, who are you.” Octavia’s voice had gone hoarse from all the shouting.

Vinyl opened her mouth then closed it, struggling for words, “I guess….I guess that I have always been Vincenza…” she confessed, hating the words, but knowing they needed to be said.

Octavia looked down…”Then the mare I loved is dead.”

Vincenza looked hurt, “Octy…”

Octavia’s head snapped up “Stop it, just stop it!” She screamed, her voice horse, tears streaming down her face. “Stop messing with me, stop calling me that name. Only she could call me that, you are not her. Vinyl was a kind pony, she never lied, she never hurt any pony, she had a passion for her music that I loved, you are not her. You are a liar and a killer, every time I look at you I see her, you…you are a mockery of everything I thought I knew and loved.” She hung her head again “Just finish what you started, and kill me already, I don’t care anymore.”

“Please Octy…Octavia, please let me prove to you that I am still me, that Vinyl and Vincenza are just names. Let me show you that the names are just labels, that I have always, and still do, love you.

“There is nothing you can say or do that will change my mind Vincenza. I have seen you take a life, and yet you don’t regret it. I’m sorry, but nothing you can say will make me change how I feel about you Vincenza.” Octavia looked away trying to hold back tears. “Nothing you can say can bring Vinyl Scratch back.”

Vincenza hung her head and after what felt like an eternity “Then let me help you understand me.”

“Understand you?” Octavia tilted her head to the side “Why the hay would I ever want to do that?”

“Because Octavia, I am far more than a killer, what you saw when I was with you was part of me. While it’s true that I did hide many things about myself to become Vinyl, I always loved you; I don’t want to lose you. The good times we spent weren’t faked, they were real.” She looked Octavia in the eye “Because if I was still able, you would have been the mare I would have grown old with. So please give me a chance, there is so much about me that you don’t know, so much I have wanted to tell you but couldn’t.”

“Like what?” Octavia was looking uncertain, moved by the strength Vincenza’s emotions

“Well the biggest thing is that I have always wanted to play for you…”

“Play for me? But you’ve given me concerts before.”

Vincenza chuckled “As much as I love my turn tables, my true love has always been the violin, but I could never play for you with out raising questions, so I kept it hidden; now at least I can play for you.” Her eyes lit up “And cook, oh how I’ve missed cooking, you haven’t tried anything until you’ve tried my cooking. So what do you say, will you give me a chance, for old times sake?” she looked at Octavia, hoping against hope that she would say yes.

Octavia looked away, memories of all the good times she had spent with Vinyl surfacing, “Okay, I’ll give you your chance but on one condition.”

Vincenza nodded eagerly “Yes anything.

Octavia let out a breath of air, “If I’m going to do this, then I want you to use your real voice and wear your hair in its true form.”

Vincenza looked puzzled “Why.”

“Because, if I’m going to know the real you, I want to see and hear the real you.” Octavia stated her earlier anger and hurt set aside, for now.

“Well…okay then.” Vincenza’s horn glowed white, her mane and tail turned light brown, her mane going straight. “Beh Octavia. Cosa Pensi?” She laughed at the look on Octavia’s face “Qual e la questione. Ha chiesto per la mia voce reale.”

Octavia was stunned, “You speak Istallion?”

“Si, I wasn’t born or raised in Equestria so my native tongue is Istallion, over time I learnt to speak Equestrian and hide my accent. You have idea how buona it feels to speak it out loud again.”

“So…how old are you really Vincenza, I assume that you aren’t twenty eight.”

“I am three thousand seven hundred and fifty one years old.” Vincenza casually remarked like it was nothing.

Octavia gapped, she was older than the banishment of Luna, “I guess there is a lot I don’t know about this mare then.” she would of asked another question but her stomach grumbled loudly, she hadn't eaten any thing since the dinner at Fancy's last night, “Umm you wouldn't happen to have any food around here, would you?” she asked.

Vincenza chuckled, “Si I do, I’ll make us breakfast, after that I’ll give you the grand tour of Il mio piccolo pezzo di paradiso, my little piece of paradise.” She walked of towards the kitchen, “take the steps down to the base level, I’ll bring you your prima colazione.” seeing Octavia’s clueless expression she rolled her eyes “Breakfast.”

Octavia turned to walk away, remembered something and turned back to Vincenza, “Where are we Vincenza, we can’t have gotten far from Ponyvill since last night.”

“We are currently in the Everfree forest, roughly two days as the Pegasus flies from Ponyvill.”

Octavia looked up at the hole in the roof, half expecting a manticore to poke its head in, “The Everfree forest...aren’t we in danger to be in this deep?”

“Nope this whole place is warded to keep out intruders, that includes the inhabitants of the forest you can go outside if you want, just stay in the clearing…you know I’ve never understood why you ponies fear the forest.” Vincenza inclined her head in a thoughtful pose

“Because it’s unnatural that’s why.” Octavia stated in a matter of fact voice, only to have Vincenza start rolling on the floor laughing.

“That’s why?” She broke into another fit of laughter, “This unnatural, that’s just absurd, this IS nature.” She broke out into another laughing fit.

“What!” Octavia exclaimed looking at the laughing mare in front of her like she had gone mad “But the clouds move with pegasi and the plants and animals fend for themselves.” Octavia had a strange look on her face as she tried to process what Vincenza was telling her.

Vincenza stoped her laughing fits, though she still chuckled a bit “Exactly you silly pony, how do you think they got survived before we got here?”

Octavia’s mouth opened and closed, “I guess I didn’t think of that, I’m just so use to everything being so calm and nice that the thought that it’s not how things should work unnerves me.”

Vincenza smiled, “Whilst I do love a good philosophical discussion, I think it’s about time we put this one to the side for the moment and have breakfast. You should freshen up first though, the bathroom is the far door on the ring, past the kitchen.”

“Thanks.” Octavia started to walk towards the bathroom, when Vincenza came in for a kiss on the cheek. Octavia leaned out of the way, causing Vincenza to pull back in confusion.

“What’s wrong Octavia?” she asked a puzzled expression on her face.

“I’m sorry but if I’m going to learn about you all over again, you’re staring from square one.”

Vincenza face fell, “What, so cold turkey square one…that’s just vendicativo.”

Octavia scowled “And so is killing a pony with an exploding coffee table.”

Vincenza looked down “I guess that makes sense then.”

As Octavia walked past her she tilted her head and not unkindly said “Remember just because it’s hard for you don’t mean it’s not hard for me. We’ve been together for a year, but things have changed. Until I can be sure of who you are and until I can be sure of my feelings for you I have to say no. I’m sorry but it just has to be like this for the time being.” and with that she headed off to the bathroom.

Vincenza walked into the modest kitchen, disappointed that Octavia had effectively reset the relationship but was glad that she was willing to give it another chance. She levitated a bowl and various dressings for a light salad, whistling a tune she walked down to the garden and picked some lettuce and cherry tomatoes. She wished she had some feta cheese, but living in a cave in Everfree didn’t exactly allow for the best of trade with the goat tribes. Using her magic she quickly halved the tomatoes and shredded the lettuce. She then added the dressings and some salt. She smiled; the act of making the salad was comforting. She levitated the bowl and a pair of small plates with salad forks down the stairs on to the table. She served up the meal and waited for Octavia to finish up in the bathroom. She didn’t have to wait long, Octavia walked out of the bathroom soon after looking refreshed. She walked down the stairs and sat down to the table and looked at the salad, “This looks delicious, you made it?” she asked eyeing the food.

“Yip, whilst it’s nowhere near as saporito as Dandelion Pop-Tarts,” she levitated a forkful into her mouth, “I have to say it comes a close second.”

Octavia gripped the fork in her hoof and tried a small amount of salad, “Wow this is really good, I had no idea that you could cook like this.” Vincenza smiled at the compliment, “So if you don’t mind me asking, how did you know about this place?”

“Because I made it.” Vincenza replied with a smug grin.

“What you mean you carved this whole thing out of a mountain by yourself?” Octavia asked, a sceptical expression on her face.

“Si, I am far more powerful a unicorn than you give me credit for, not as powerful as Twilight of course but being a vampony means I’m not restricted to spells relating to my cutie mark.”

“So how long did it take you make…this.” Octavia gestures to the cavern around her taking in the view.

“Oh about…eighty years.”

Octavia blinked, “That’s a long time. How long have you been in Equestria any way?”

“Around five hundred years now.”

“Wow, so you were here for the founding of Ponyvill then.”

“No, I believe that I was some where in Briddleton around those years, I would have mostly been travelling around Equestria during that era.”

“Oh. “ She paused, thinking of another question, “Earlier you mentioned that Istallion was your native tongue, I can assume that you were born in Isatila then?” Octavia looked at Vincenza expectantly.

“Correggere, correct I was born in Istalia in a little port town called Palmareo, my father was a city guard and my mother was a net weaver at the docks. I was an only child, which would normally be an issue for families living in the city, but because my father was a guard our family had immunity.”

“Immunity?” Octavia questioned.

“From feeding.” seeing Octavia’s confused expression she face hoofed “Octavia how much do you know of pre fall Istalia?”

Octavia looked sheepish, “I didn’t even know there was a fall to begin with.”

“Okay, I’ll give you a brief history lesson then. Istalia used to be run by vampony families, these families would oversee the villages, protecting it from bandits, wild animals and other villages. Over time as the villages became cities, the vampony families became something akin to your noble class; they ruled the cities and made laws. Each city was a country in its own right; a city would have its own laws, boundaries and militia. The only times the cities would band together were if Istalia was under attack from an outside nation, or if one city tried to take over another and its allies became involved. Over time the vamponies needed a way to reward the loyalty of their citizens, so they collectively created the immunity law. The vamponies would give certain ponies they deemed worthy a necklace, and one for each member of their immediate family. The immunity law meant that any citizen that was wearing an immunity necklace was exempt from feeding. The best way to get immunity was to join the guard or militia, if you made the cut then your family got immunity, this ensured that lots of ponies would apply for the militia and guard. There were other ways though; the next fastest way was to win a competition. Some of the cities would hold competitions for sporting or musical talent, the prize, depending on the city, would either be immunity or immortality.”

“Wait so these families ruled all of Istalia, and used the ponies as a food supply, why did the ponies put up with it?”

“Well not all did, many a young filly or colt would run away into the forest to join a bandit gang. Preferring to chose when and where they were going to be killed than sit around in a city waiting for a vampony to kill them at any time. As for the rest of Istalia, not all the cities were ruled by the families, there were villages located in the alpine hills that had refused the offers of aid from the families. These villages were predominantly earth pony with very few unicorns or pegisia willing to make the trek up the mountains and the few that did would be turned away unless they were accompanied by somepony from the village who gave their permission for the pony to enter. Over time the families ignored the (what they called them) mountain tribes, with only a few of the smaller families willing to trade with them, this left them to their own devices and subsequently their freedom. The funny thing is, the mountain tribes also had some low land settlements by the ocean, this gave them trade with other countries as well. The tribes did not like or dislike vamponies, they didn’t care what happened to the rest of Istalia as long as they were unaffected. This made the mountains a constant neutral ground, perfect for peace talks or trade negotiations.”

“So why did the families not just take over the mountain tribes instead of leaving them where they were?”

“There was three main reasons, one the tribes were neutral, they didn’t care so long as they were unaffected so why make more enemies? Two, the tribes’ exposure to harsh temperatures had hardened them, making them strong, they were fearsome fighters with hay loads of endurance. Three, the tribes had nothing to give that they weren’t already trading.”

“Oh, so what was this fall you were on about earlier?”

“Just getting to that, as trade with Equestria grew, so did the tales brought back by explorers and merchants of a pair of beautiful living goddesses that raised and lowered the sun and moon. These princess goddesses ruled Equestria with grace and fairness and they actually cared for their subjects. Over time this lead to discontentment in the cities and vamponies enforcing their law, it was only a matter of time until the first civil war erupted. During the first war all vamponies helped to enforce their rule, whilst the rebels sent cries of help to the Princesses who sent aid but held back on troops, not wanting to get involved. The result was the vamponies won, but they had to commit terrible acts of violence to do it.”

“Were you involved in the war?” Octavia asked

“Yes, I was and before you ask yes I did do bad things, and you will hear about them shortly just let me finish this tale first. Well after the first civil war the vamponies were forced keep their subjects on a tight leash. They cut all trade agreements with Equestria and deported any pony that was Equestrian born, married to an Equestrian or born of an Equestrian. Even though they had lost the war, the rebels had shown the families that their control was not as thorough as they had hopped. The first century after was…tense, well for me at least.”

“Why?”

“Lets just say I earned a reputation that I’m not all to proud of. After another few centuries had passed and things quietened down, Istalia once again opened it’s borders to Equestria. Over the centuries however, not all of the rebels had been killed, some had survived the war and had planed for this day, they had passed the plan down the generations, waiting for the borders to Equestria to be opened. They sent messages to the princesses, envoys in the guises of merchants and whilst trade and tourism flourished between the two countries, the rebels and the princesses began to formulate plans to overthrow the vampony families. Only one century gone and Istalia found itself in the grips of another civil war, the people wanted the same freedom offered to the citizens of Equestria and this time they were supported not only by Equestria troops but by rebel vamponies. In order to counter act this influx of soldiers the families sent in agents to Equestria under the guise of refuges, these agents would settle down in towns and cities across Equestria and proceeded to cause mayhem. The attacks on their own people forced the princesses to withdraw a large number of their own troops in order to monitor the refuges. It was a stalemate, with neither side able to overpower each other.”

“So how did it end?” Octavia was sitting up; fascinated by the history she was hearing.

“At the time I was in the mountains and I was Lady of a small mountain town called Solis. I had declared myself neutral and many of the families were shocked, even more were outraged that I had turned my back on the country. Eventually one nobleman decided he would force me to fight; he arrived at the gate of my town and in no uncertain terms demanded that I come and fight for my country or be branded a traitor and be sentenced to death. When I didn’t reply he burnt my town to the ground, killing everyone. The worst part was the fool hadn’t even checked to see if I was in the town or not, at the time I was meeting with the mayors of the other mountain tribes to talk about the bloody conflict. So I came home to find my entire town ransacked and burnt, an Istaillion flag hanging from the walls of the castle. That night paid I a visit to Canterlot and told the princesses that I would join the war on their side. Not long after I joined the war it was over, my arrival had heralded the arrival of the mountain tribes, one of their own had been attacked and the neutrality that had lasted do long had been broken.”

“So what happened after that?”

“I decided that I had spent enough time in Istalia and took to wandering around Equestria. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only vampony to survive, a few of the rebels and noble had made it through and the also moved to Equestria. Some of them decided to blend in, some decided to take their revenge and wreck as much havoc as they could, in the end it was only a matter of time before hunters from Istalia migrated over here and tracked them down.”

“Hunters?”

Vincenza stood up and levitated the dishes “I’ll get into that latter, for now though I think we should put the past to one side and get you acquainted with your surroundings. We’ll talk more later, okay?”

Octavia would have replied if a purple portal hadn’t appeared underneath her, swallowing her. “Octavia!” Vincenza rushed forward and jumped into the portal after her.

Earlier that morning

The sun rose over Ponyvill and ushered in a new day, rousing ponies from their bed. One such pony lived in tree that doubled as a library and had stayed up all night reading, only going to bed a couple hours prior. The pony groggily opened one eye and looked out the window “Note to self, ask Princess Luna to extended night time.” the pony jammed the eye shut and rolled over trying to go back to sleep. She was Twilight Sparkle prized protégé of Princess Celestia herself and bearer of the element of magic. And despite her best efforts she could not get to sleep so she decided to get up, she attempted to rise from her bed only roll out onto the floor with a thud. Suddenly a wail broke through the air “AHHHHHHH SOMEPONY HELP PLEASE HELP!” Twilight bolted straight up, her earlier drowsiness dispelled, and galloped out the door. She looked around for the source of the cry and saw many other ponies running out their doors looking around as well. Twilight was walking down the street asking confused ponies what direction the cry came from, when Lyra burst round the corner at full gallop, colliding with Twilight.

Twilight shook her head and got up, she looked at Lyra “Lyra what’s wrong?” she said in her most comforting voice.

Lyra was a mess, her mane was uncombed and she looked like she had been crying, she looked up and recognized Twilight “Oh Twilight, it’s horrible, just horrible.” she burst into another round of tears.

Twilight put a comforting hoof on the distraught mares shoulder, “What’s horrible Lyra, does it have something to do with the cry I heard earlier, is somepony hurt?”

“No…not hurt…dead.” Lyra burst into tears.

Twilight went cold “Who?”

Lyra held down another sob, “I don’t know, Bon Bon and I went over to Octavia and Vinyl’s place to see if they wanted to get breakfast together and and and….” she broke down again.

Twilight had gone stiff at the mention of the couple “Surely nopony would want to hurt them, it could have been because they were both mares, but if that’s the case why would the criminals go after them not Lyra and Bon Bon?” her mind started going through all the possible scenarios “Lyra, I’m going to need some more information, what did you find?”

“The door was open so we went inside; we called their names and walked into the living room…that’s when we found them.”

“Found who Lyra.”

“The bodies, there was five of them, blood was every where I I I I’ve never seen so much blood.”

“Six bodies, interesting”

“Lyra, did you identify the any of the bodies as Octavia’s or Vinyl’s?”

“N no.” Lyra sniffed.

“Could be a chance they are still alive.” a thought occurred to her. “Lyra where’s Bon Bon?”

“She ran in the opposite direction to go get help.”

“Okay I want you to go find her, I’m going to go investigate the crime scene then I’m going to inform the Princesses all right?”

“Okay Twilight.” Lyra picked herself up and started walking towards the town square.

Twilight lit her horn and disappeared in a flash of light, she reappeared out side the residence of Octavia and Vinyl. The door was open, Twilight walked in and quickly made her way to the lounge, she stoped and resisted the urge to throw up. “No I have to do this, as Ponyvill's representative of the princesses it’s my duty to do this.” her mind slipped into analytical mode. The coffee table was destroyed a corpse riddled with wooden shards was lying in front of her, tattered remnants of what used to be a robed hanging of it’s body. To her left was another body, this one looked like it had been stabbed in the chest, it was also wearing robes. Moving on to the next body Twilight noticed that something had taken a bite out of it’s neck, severing the spine, she cast a spell to improve her eyesight and examined the wound “Bite mark indicates that the victim was killed by a being with long canine teeth, possibly fangs.” she ended the spell taking note that this body was wearing robes that matched the others. The next victim was slumped on the floor nothing appeared to be wrong but a quick diagnostic spell showed his neck had been broken by a blow from the front, possibly by some kind of blunt weapon or hoof, this one was also in a robe “Interesting.”. Twilight moved to examine the fifth body, she didn’t need to cast a spell to see his throat had been ripped out how ever; this one wasn’t wearing a robe. She walked over to examine the hole in the wall and discovered a sixth body inside, it was obvious that the pony had been killed when a blow sent it through the wall, what caught her attention was that the pony was wearing robes as well.

Twilight swept the room thoroughly, searching for evidence, a rope was found in the middle of the lounge, close the fifth victim, a quick spell revealed hair on it to be Octavia’s “So Octavia was here.” Twilight searched for evidence of Vinyls presence but could not find any “So were is she?”

“Okay lets see, we have six corpses, none belonging to Vinyl or Octavia, five are dressed in white robes, one is not. This concludes it was some sort of initiation ceremony for a gang or cult. Two were killed in a manner that is evident of beast attack, three were killed through use of strength (killed by blow to neck, killed by impalement, killed by being kicked or hit through wall), the other was killed through use of magic to cause a coffee table to explode. Evidence points to all victims being killed in a very short time span of each other as each is to far from the other. Suggests that at least two magically capable beings were involved, and at least four beasts. What raises questions is the locations of the residents, rope found in lounge has hairs that match Octavia’s yet no body is found. Also highly improbable those six creatures would be able to quietly kill of six ponies with out a struggle. First priority find Octavia, she was here so who/what ever killed these ponies will also have her.”
Twilight teleported back to her library, Spike was nervously pacing in the upstairs bedroom when he heard the tell tale crack of a teleport, he rushed down the stairs “Twilight what’s going on, I heard a scream earlier and you rushed out the door.”

Twilight held up a hoof, “Spike I needed you to take a letter to Princess Celestia, it’s urgent.”

Spike retrieved some paper and a quill, “Okay Twilight, ready.”

Twilight cleared her throat

Dear Princess Celestia

I am in urgent need of your help, six unknown ponies have been murdered and two mares are missing. I have examined the scene already and believe that finding the mares would be best. One of the mares (Octavia Philharmonica) is a friend of mine and was tied up at the crime scene, however she is no longer there and I believe that finding her first would be the most wise course of action. Please send what help you can.

Your most faithful student

Twilight Sparkle

Spike quickly rolled up the scroll, opened a window and sent the letter on its way. Twilight was nervously pacing around the room waiting for a reply. She didn’t have to wait long, Spike burped and a green flame quickly turned into two scrolls and a badge with the crown symbol on it. One with Celestia’s seal, the other with Luna‘s. Twilight opened it and read it, she then reread it to make sure she read it right the first time.

To my most faithful student Twilight Sparkle

This is indeed sad news, I am sorry hear that your friend is missing however I may have some thing to brighten your day, or rather Luna does. I have asked her for a spell that she created sometime ago to locate lost socks. She has agreed to modify the spell for your use, enclosed in this letter are the instructions. As my representative in Ponyvill I hope that you will do your best in solving this case so I have included a royal inquisitorial medallion. Should you require any materials or assistance, you need only to show the medallion and the will be granted. I will leave the case in your capable hooves, best of luck.

Your steadfast teacher

Princess Celestia

Twilight quickly levitated the other scroll over and read it.

Dear Twilight Sparkle

Tia has informed me of your plight, I understand that you need to find a pony. I can do one better, as a filly I was always losing my one of socks, so I created a spell to find and bring them to me. All it required was the other sock to work; I have modified the spell so that you may find any pony, so long as you have an item that they cherish in your possession. Due to the ramifications this spell could have, I request that you burn this paper after committing the spell to memory.

Good luck

Princess Luna

The rest of the letter was a complex diagram for a spell that Twilight was greedily devouring with her eyes; she was holding a spell crafted by the Princesses. She scanned the diagram, once she was certain it was committed to memory she lit her horn and destroyed the letter with a quick burst of flame. Twilight smiled “Spike I need to go and retrieve something I’ll be back soon.” She disappeared in a flash of light, she reappeared levitating Octavia’s prized cello.

“Twi what are you doing?” Spike asked as Twilight walked into the centre of the room and sat down.

“Spike I need absolute concentration for this spell, so why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” Twilight waved a hoof in the air.

“Hey are you saying that I distract you, cause I can be real quite if you want.” to elaborate on his point, the baby dragon comically drew in a bug gulp of air and puffed out his checks.

Twilight looked at him and raised an eyebrow, smiling a little “Well you can stay if you want but Rarity did mention that she wanted some assistance last time I saw Rarity, it’s awfully nice that you would rather stay here and watch me than spend the whole day with Rarity.” Twilight put emphasis on Rarity’s name every time she said it.

Spike released the he was hold breath and was already bounding to the door, as he passed Twilight he quickly hugged her and said “Hopeeverythinggoeswellwiththespellbye.” and he was gone.

Twilight smiled, looking at the open door the dragon had forgotten to close, she quickly shut it with her magic shacking her head a smile on her face. She focused her concentration on the spell, the cello glowed purple and began vibrating, the glow intensified until it suddenly vanished. Twilight looked up “That can’t be right I followed the instructions to the letter.” She began pacing reviewing the steps of the spell. Suddenly a purple portal opened in front of her, causing her to jump back in fright, and out fell Octavia. She was soon followed by a unicorn with light brown hair who leapt out of the portal as it closed.

The unicorn rounded on Twilight fangs out, Twilight stepped back in shock. The unicorn instantly recognized her and stepped back as well her fangs retreating. “Twilight?”

Twilight recognized the voice immediately “Vinyl, is that you?”

“Actually her name is Vincenza.” Octavia stood up brushing herself of as best as she could.

Twilight was confused, “Vinyl, Octavia, can someone please tell me what’s going on, the town woke up today to find you missing, six dead stallions in your lounge, Lyra is in hysterics and Bon Bon isn’t far behind.”

Octavia raised an eye brow and looked at Vincenza, “Ask her.”

“Well Vinyl, what the hay is going on?”

Vincenza sighed, “Okay Twilight for starters, my name isn’t really Vinyl Scratch, it’s Vincenza Nightingale. I am three thousand seven hundred and fifty one years old, I am a vampony and have been living as Vinyl Scratch for ten years now. I have lied to you all and those ponies in Octavia’s house were there to kill me then Octavia, one of them was Pebble Shifter an ex of Octavia’s. Also I’m not a native of Equestria, io sono originario di Istalia”

Twilight stood their with her mouth open, she blinked twice and looked at Octavia “And you knew about this.”

“No I only learnt about it last night.” Octavia scowls at Vincenza who looks away in shame. Octavia looks back at Twilight, “So Twilight, what now?”

Twilight looks at Vincenza “I assume it was you that killed those ponies.”

Vincenza looks directly at Twilight, “Yes I did.”

Twilight looks Octavia “You were tied up?”

Octavia looks Twilight in the eye “Yes and the were going to kill me after they had killed Vincenza.”

Twilight nodded her head “And I assume that Vinyl killed the ponies in defence of herself and you?”

Octavia looks at Vincenza then looks back at Twilight “Yes she did.”

“Vinyl you killed them in self defence and in defence of another, in accordance with Equestrian law you have committed no wrong and this case is formally closed. I will however be forced to give you a years worth of community service?”

Vincenza tilts her head, “Community service I thought you said that I had done no wrong?”

Twilight smiles, “You have been living under a false alias for ten years, every time you filled out a form or applied for a housing permit, you falsified official documents. So as punishment and are to come to the library every day for the next year to assist me and my assistant Spike in my studies.“

“I can live with that” Vincenza nodded her head.

Twilight chuckled “You aren’t getting of that easy however, you also must make a public announcement to the residents of Ponyvill revelling your true nature.”

Vincenza stepped back in shock “Like fieno I am!”

Twilight’s chuckle died down at Vincenza’s outburst “Why not?”

“Well for one it probably cause a mass panic, you know with me being a blood sucking vampiro and all.” Vincenza gave Twilight a glare.

Twilight flinched under Vincenza’s gaze “Your right, after the way the town went crazy over Zacora, the whole town would probably run all the way to Applelosa if you told them.” Twilight looked uneasily out the window, thoughts of a mass pony stamped flashing through her head.

Vincenza breathed out a sigh of relief “Thanks Twilight, so what now?”

“Well I am not all to happy that you kept something this big from us Vinyl, were your friends you should be able to trust us.” Twilight face showing genuine hurt at the thought that one of her friends didn’t trust her.

For not the first time that day Vincenza felt shame, “I am truly sorry if I hurt your feelings Twilight but I couldn’t risk you reacting badly, I would of hated to kill you.”

It was Twilight and Octavia’s turn to be shocked, “You would actually kill her?” Octavia was disgusted and scared at the same time “But she’s our friend.”

Vincenza nodded a grim expression on her face “Yes Octavia I would, my continued existence is of greater value to me than hers, the only pony who’s life I value greater than my own is yours.”

Twilight was disgusted “That’s horrible, how could you live with yourself afterwards?”

Vincenza narrowed her eye lids “You talk as though I have not done so before, and before you ask I live with it day by day but the matter of fact is that I am still alive to berate myself over it.”

Twilight was horrified “You’ve killed your friends before?”

“Killed, betrayed and lied to. I have done everything you can think of to ensure my own existence.” Vincenza looked directly into Twilights eyes her red meeting Twilight’s purple ones. “I have done evil deeds and my soul is so stained that I don’t know if I can ever redeem myself, I live with the knowledge of what I’ve done and I whilst I do grieve for them I do not regret it. But know that I would only ever harm you or my friends if you were to ever to try to harm me or Octavia.”

Octavia shuddered at the use of her name and Twilight calmed down a bit “Thank you for being honest with me, I suppose there is more to you than we all thought.”

Vincenza nodded “It’s quite alright Twilight, it’s been many years since I’ve made any true amici. If it’s any consolation, I would have probably spent decades in hyper depression over it.”

Twilight was slightly unnerved by this “Umm thanks I guess?”

Vincenza flashed her a big smile, “Don’t sweat it Twi.” Twilight couldn’t help but smile back with Octavia some where between a smile and frown at seeing Vincenza act so much like Vinyl. Twilight took notice of Octavia’s expression and how Vinyl…Vincenza hadn’t even touched her in the whole time the couple had been in the room “This can’t be good.”.
Vincenza had also noticed Octavias face and quickly jumped in front of her “Come on Octavia smile a bit.” and with that she pushed Octavia’s face into a smile. Before Octavia could help herself, her left forehoof was swinging towards Vincenza’s head, Twilight noticed the reaction “Maybe she’s coping better than I thought.” and prepared for the thud. Vincenza saw the incoming hoof in her peripheral vision like she always did, but this time she could do something about it. Her mind flicked through all the options before settling on one of the less violent and more funny ones. The hoof swung through the air…and kept going Vincenza had simply dogged it by lowering her head and snaping it back up, she leaned into Octavia’s ear “Your going to have to do better than that now Octavia.” Octavia simply smiled and brought her hoof back up in a vicious backhand…that kept on going back, causing her to lose balance and fall over. Vincenza had seen the incoming retaliation moments before it connected “Clever Octy clever…definitely going to get a laugh out of this.” and stepped backwards, the hoof missing her snout by millimetres. As Octavia got up she could hear Vincenza laughing on the other side of the room “Your definitely going to have to do better than that.”

Octavia huffed a strand of her mane out of her face and looked at Twilight only to find the lavender unicorn was giggling as well, she scowled at the pair of them muttering something about just waiting till they went to sleep. When the pair regained control of themselves Twilight looked at Vincenza then Octavia, “Okay I’ve decided on our next course of action girls, Vinyl I would like you to tell our friends about yourself. They deserve to know the truth, I think it would be best if we tell them as a group, that way you only have to explain it once.”

Vincenza simply nodded, her humorous mood quickly fading as she envisioned her friends reactions. Octavia looked at Twilight a thought had just occurred to her “What are we going to tell everypony else when they ask what happened?” a worried look on her face.

Twilight froze in place, her mind frantically trying to think of an answer. It was Vincenza that replied for her “Simple, we were attacked by a gang that had managed help from the griffions, when I desperately teleported myself and Octavia out of the house and into the countryside the griffions turned on the ponies and quickly overwhelmed them.”

Twilight looked at her with a confused expression on her face, “And when ponies ask why the didn’t hear any thing?”

“Muffle spell cast by they unicorn.” Vincenza rolled her eyes at Twilight.

“Okay that might just do it, I‘ll go and contact the newspapers immediately…wait how do I explain your arrival, I can‘t tell everypony about the spell I used.”

Vincenza frowned and looked at the floor, her head snapped back up “I’ll teleport Octavia and myself outside the town, we’ll walk in and let things run their course from there.”

“All right then I’ll be seeing you two soon.” Twilight smiled.

Vincenza smiled in return “Arrivederci” and with that she put a hoof on Octavia’s shoulder and the pair vanished in an implosion of darkness.

Chapter 5

“Vinyl? Vinyl!” Octavia shouted to get the unicorn’s attention, but she just ignored her as she walked along the path. Octavia galloped after her, quickly coming level with her. “Vinyl! Stop and talk to me!” She shouted as she grabbed the impassive mare by the shoulders.

The moment she touched her Vincenza froze, immediately tense as if she was preparing to strike. Slowly, she turned her head to face Octavia. “Later. I will tell you about it later.”

Octavia glared at her. “No. You tell me now.”

Vincenza started grinded her teeth together. “I’ll explain the rest later, what I can tell you now is that D is…was an old friend of mine, he’s a vampony and he’s powerful. Very powerful.” She shook Octavia’s hooves off her and resumed her walk to Town Hall. “The sooner we can get this business with the mayor sorted, the sooner I can get to explaining things.”

The pair made quick time to the Town Hall, mostly because everypony gave them a large berth. Although, this was probably due to the dark look Vincenza was wearing. As the couple walked through the doors, they were cheerily greeted by the receptionist. But as Vincenza turned her head to look at her, the pony’s smile quickly faded as she saw the look on the unicorn’s face. “Can I help you miss?”

“Si, I need to talk to Mayor Mare immediately.” The look on Vincenza’s face stilled any objections as the unicorn walked right past the desk, and up the stairs that lead to the mayor’s chambers. Octavia gave the mare at the desk an apologetic smile and trotted up the stairs after her.

Vincenza and Octavia walked down the hall, Octavia was admiring the portraits of past mayors as they made their way to the chambers at the far end. “These are quite nice don’t you think? I wonder how much they cost.”

Vincenza quickly examined the paintings, she sneered at them and continued walking.

Octavia gave the vampony a scowl. Vincenza simply huffed and quickened her pace, wanting to be out of the building as fast as she could.

The national seal of Equestria, two alicorns circling each other, was superimposed on the twin doors of the mayor’s chambers. The gold inlay made it shine in the light and the artwork was so well painted that if not for the door handles a pony could be forgiven for mistaking it for a wall.

“Let me do the talking Octy.” Without waiting for a reply, Vincenza knocked on the door three times and walked in, closely followed by a very embarrassed Octavia.

Mayor Sliver Ink, or Mayor Mare as she was known to the public had, been in office for years. And when you are mayor of a town like Ponyville with its uncanny ability to attract the unusual, the odd, and the downright impossible, you tend to become immune to surprises of all flavours. So when a unicorn walked into her office with a glare that could make an Ursa Major wet itself, followed by an embarrassed earth pony she recognized as Octavia, she took it in her stride, offering them a seat and preparing for the incoming shit storm.

“How can help I you today?” she said with practised cheeriness.

Vincenza took a moment to calm down marginally. “Good morning Mayor.”

“Good morning miss…?” Sliver was at a loss to the brunette unicorn’s name.

“Vinyl Scratch, I believe we’ve already met.”

With a grace only gained through years of political work Silver managed to keep her composure. “Oh sorry Vinyl I should have recognized you when you came in with Octavia. I presume that from the accent that you speak Istallion?”

“Si.” Vincenza replied with a curt nod.

Silver filed the information away and smiled at Vincenza then at Octavia. “So what can I do today for two of Ponyville’s more illustrious residents?”

Vincenza cleared her throat. “Well you can start by cleaning up the bodies in our house.”

It took all of the Mayor’s will power to resist jumping in to the air screaming ‘What!’ Instead she said in an even tone. “You had best explain this Miss Scratch.”

“Last night Octavia and I were woken up by sounds from the lounge. We went to go check them out, turns out that it was some sort of gang with some griffons they had brought along. They saw us and I teleported Octavia and myself to the Whitetail forest.”

“Then how do you know if there are bodies in your house?”

“Because we saw Lyra and Bon Bon, two friends of ours. They had gone over to invite us to breakfast this morning. When we didn’t come out, they went in and found the bodies. We meet them as we were coming back into town, and they told us.”
“Oh dear, I’ll alert the guard to clean your house and examine the crime scene.”

“That won’t be an issue Silver. Lyra said that Twilight was on the case so she probably already has tracked the criminals.”

“Twilight knows about this? Then why am I only finding out about this now.” The mayor was irritated that Twilight had not immediately informed her. She was definitely going to have some cross words with the lavender unicorn later, prized student of Celestia or not.

“I don’t know Silver, that’s something you’re going to have to ask Twilight when you next see her. If you will excuse me, Octavia and I have other plans we must attend to.”

“Of course. I shall get the guard to clean up your house and dispose of the bodies. It should be clean by this afternoon. I will also have to get Twilight to share any information she collected for the investigation, but that’s not your problem.” The mayor rises as she shows the couple to the door. “I hope you have pleasant day and don’t worry I will be sure to get this sorted out.”

Vincenza gave her a polite nod and walks out the door. Octavia follows not having said a word during the whole exchange. The pair walks out of the government building and Vincenza turns to Octavia, some of her earlier mood fades. “So what do want to do until one Octy? We’ve got plenty of time.”

“We could always go to the market. I need to pick up a few things anyway.”

Vincenza smiled slightly. “All ways practical, right Octy?”

“One of us has to be.” Octavia gave Vincenza a smile of her own. “Let’s go.” Octavia set off towards the markets, this time making Vincenza be the one to catch up to her.

The markets were lively, even during the morning as ponies rushed around to collect daily supplies and essentials. The next hour was spent running around to stall after stall purchasing food, washing powder and other house hold items. Normally most stalls would try to swindle their customers by jacking up prices but when it came to Octavia that day, they decided to play fair. Mostly due to the black looks the unicorn with her would shoot them.

“I can’t believe that the stall was having a sale on carrots, three for the price of one! The savings here have been amazing.” Vincenza tuned Octavia out as she ranted about the ‘deals’ and how nice the owners were to her. They were walking through the beauty care section when a loud voice roared out over the market.

“When some pony tries to block, show them that you rock!” Moments later a light blue pony with a green mane burst through a stall and rolled along the ground a bit before getting up and running away. Octavia, Vincenza and small crowd of ponies walked up to the newly created hole. On the other side was a big blue Minotaur a small white carry basket on one arm loaded with various produce. He walked up to the turnip stall, the line suddenly decided to reform behind him.

Octavia was outraged by his actions and marched right up to him. “What in the name of Celestia do you think you’re doing?! You can’t intimidate ponies like that! Who the hay do you think you are?!
”
The Minotaur raised an eye brow at the grey mare before clearing his voice and striking a pose. “Iron Will is my name, training ponies is my game.”

“Well I don’t care who you are, you can not intimidate ponies like that.” Octavia stamped a hoof into the ground emphasising her point.

“Listen here lady. No pony and I mean no pony cuts in front of Iron Will!” The Minotaur tensed his muscles and shouted, his voice pushing Octavia backwards.

Despite his theatrics Octavia was nonplussed. “That is no call for violence though. You try to act tough, but you are nothing but a hyped up thug with anger issues.”

The Minotaur’s pupils constricted “Insult me, and you pay a hospital fee!” He roared. Iron Will lunged forward, grabbing Octavia by her mane and tail. He then spun her around like a discus before letting her go, his basket spilling his produce at the same time. She was flung through a stall, the owner jumping out of the way in time to avoid the incoming mare. She stumbled up, fine apart from a few splinters and bruises.

Iron Will dusted his hands off and began picking up his spilled food. Vincenza trotted up to the rubble that used to be the stall, levitating Octavia’s purchases with her. She set them down in small pile. “Octavia, could you please watch these for a moment.” She didn’t wait for a reply as she turned to face the preoccupied Minotaur a thin smile playing its way on to her face.

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat to get his attention, Iron Will perked up and turned to face her. He eyed her suspiciously, as something about the way she was smiling was giving him the hebejebes.

“What do you want?”

“I saw your display there and I have to say, it was amazing!” She walked a bit closer to the Minotaur.

“You think so?” He replied his ego inflating at the complement.

“Oh yes, so strong so…assertive.” Vincenza fluttered her eyelids at the Minotaur in a way that Rarity would kill to learn. Iron Will blushed and adjusted his tie, Octavia, on th’ other hand, was confused as to what her marefreind was up to. “I’m terribly weak willed myself, and was wondering if a big, handsome, Minotaur like yourself would be willing to show a pushover like myself how to assert myself more.”

“Well, I would be will to give a few assertiveness training tips over dinner some time.” Iron Will gave his best grin and took a few steps forward, Vincenza was now standing directly in front of him.

She gave him her most seductive look. “I would love to Mr Will.” She said in a husky voice. “There is only one thing though.” She beckoned him to lean forward, and he eagerly complied. This time her voice was cold and serious “I’m into mares.”

Iron Will’s face was confused as he began to pull away. Vincenza turned sharply, and putting herself near vertical, bucked straight up, catching him in his windpipe. Iron Will grasped his throat, making weak gurgling sounds as he gasped for air like a fish out of water. Vincenza quickly followed up with a sharp buck to his knees, shattering his knee caps. The blue giant made a wet gurgling noise as he tried to scream, falling over on to his back. The crowd gasped and Octavia was shocked as Vincenza jumped up on to the Minotaur, pinned his hands to ground with her magic and began to rain blows onto his face. Blood spurted up as she fractured his jaw in multiple places and knocked out most of his teeth. She struck him across the face with enough force to crack an eye socket. The blood was freely flowing down his face as she mercilessly continued to rain blows down onto his broken face, her face twisted into a sadistic smile. She only ceased when it became obvious that the unfortunate creature had gone unconscious.

Vincenza stood over the unconscious body, her smile fell as she realised she may have gone too far with her retribution. She turned around to see the crowd looking at her with a mixture of shock and horror. She looked at Octavia and her heart wrenched, the mixed look of horror and disbelief she was receiving made her want to just sit down and cry. However, she crushed those emotions. Her face assumed a neutral expression as she forced her emotions into a mental safe and slammed the door shut tight.

“Somepony should call for an ambulance, he needs it.” She addressed the crowd, levitated the morning’s purchases and walked away. The crowd spilt apart for her, ponies backed away in fear, looking at her the same way one looks a wild animal.

Octavia was shocked, she had just witnessed Vincenza brutally beat another living creature, and judging from the smile she had been sporting moments before, she had enjoyed it. Once again the image she had built of her partner changed, this time taking on a darker tone. For the first time, she was afraid of what she would find if she continued to stay with Vincenza. She had said in the forest that there was so much more of her to discover, now she wondered exactly who she would find and whether or not she would like it. She hurried after Vincenza, not wanting to bear the looks the other ponies were giving her.

The pair walked in an uncomfortable silence until they were well and truly away from the market and walking down a quiet back street. At which point Octavia rounded on Vincenza fury evident in her features.

“What the buck was that?! Why in the name of Celestia did you do that?! What on Equis would, could, prompt you to beat him to pulp?!” Octavia was breathing heavily from her emotion fuelled rant.

Vincenza simply looked at her impassively. “You.” Her voice contained no emotion, like she was some sort of construct.

“Wahh?” Octavia said, with confusion evident in her voice.

“He threw you through a stall! Like hay I was going to let him go!” Emotions crept into her voice, notably rage, and surprisingly, sorrow. “I’m not going to let anypony or anything hurt you. Not as long I live.”

“But why did you have to hurt that poor Minotaur so badly? You could have stopped after you bucked him in the knees.” Octavia asked.

“I…got carried away. I’m sorry. It’s just that the letter we got earlier put me in a bad mood.” Her voice shook slightly with anger.

“About that, who is D? What did he do to you?”

“He…He…” Vincenza shook with rage and sorrow. Octavia nuzzled her, her concern once again beating her anger.

“Grazie Octy I’m sorry but…it’s not a nice memory and I would prefer to tell it only once, so could we talk about this with our friends later?”

“It’s okay, I understand.” Octavia hugged her marefriend as she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Grazie for understanding.” Vincenza returned the hug.

The couple dropped their purchases off at the house and rest of the day passed without incident as the two mares wandered Ponyville. Ponies would occasionally give Vincenza weird looks, but surprisingly, more than a few ponies walked up to them congratulating Vincenza for ‘giving that brute what he deserved’. That put a smile on Vincenza’s face for the rest of the day, but as the clock crept closer to one Octavia noticed that Vincenza was becoming more and more stressed.

Eventually the clock struck one and they made their way over to the square. Vincenza was hopping around nervously, scared of how her friends would react. The pair rounded the corner to see the group at a table. They were all there, with the exception of Twilight, and were deep in conversation. Octavia called out to them and waved, however they didn’t hear her so she moved closer. This time the group looked up and rushed over to them. Vincenza stopped in her tracks, their expressions weren’t particularly happy. In fact Applejack and Rainbow’s were simmering with rage and Rarity’s was particularly sad.

The pair approached the table, and as she got closer Vincenza could make out red rings under Rarity’s eyes, as if she had been crying. She was being comforted by Lyra, Bon Bon and Fluttershy. Applejack stood up and walked over to them, nodding at Vincenza “I know that’s you Vinyl, Rare said you got a new mane and such but we’re gonna have to talk latter. Right now we’ve got work to do.” She looked the two ponies in the eye. “Girls, we’ve got a situation; I could really use all the help I can get.”

Octavia looked worried “What’s wrong Applejack?” She asked with concern.

“It’s Applebloom and the girls, they’ve been foalnapped.”

Octavia took a step back in shock whilst Vincenza narrowed her eyes in a dark scowl.

“When.”

“I don’t know. Last time I saw them was this mornin’ when I sent Applebloom to school, same with Rare and RD.”

Rainbow looked at the pair. “If anypony hurt her…” she trailed off, unable to find the words to articulate how she felt, so she settled for bashing the table with her forehooves and glaring at the table top darkly.

Pinkie put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “Come on Dashie. We’ll find them. No need to get saddy waddy.” She gave the pegasus a trademark grin.

Rainbow simply continued looking at the table top before springing up into the air. “ARRGHHH.” She screamed in frustration. “We should be out looking for them, not sitting around here doing nothing!”

Applejack turned to look at her. “Trust me RD, nothing is going to keep me from my sister, but we need to everyone here and we’re missing Twilight. And if anypony can help us, it’s her.” RD scowled at the apple farmer before lowering herself into her seat, resuming her glaring contest with the table.

Vincenza stepped forward. “How do you know they’ve been foalnapped? They could just be hiding somewhere, trying to get their cutie marks in camouflage or something.”

“Because we got a note.” Applejack said bitterly, she reached into her saddlebags and withdrew a letter from it, she passed it to the waiting vampony. “Here, read for yourself.”

Vincenza scanned the letter and immediately tensed up.

I have your young. Tell the nightingale to find me or their blood will be on her hooves.
D
P.S I’ll be watching

Octavia noticed the change in her partner’s posture. “Are you okay?” She asked.

Vincenza slowly handed the letter to her partner. Octavia scanned through the letter, her face showing her outrage as she read through it. She rounded on Vincenza “Who is D?” She asked.

Applejack and Rainbow both looked at Vincenza. “What!” Vincenza took a step back.

“Everypony calm down.” She said in a soothing voice.

Rainbow shot forward and stopped inches from Vincenza’s face. “You know where Scootaloo is! Tell me where to find my daughter! She shouted, grabbing the unicorn by the shoulders.

Vincenza lit her horn and lifted Rainbow off her, depositing her a short distance away. “Listen I don’t know where your families are, but yes I do know who D is.”

Applejack took a step forward. “Then start explaining.”

“I order to do that I have to tell you something first. My name isn’t Vinyl Scratch, it’s Vincenza Nightingale.”

“Nightingale? As in the bird.” Lyra spoke up.

“Yes my mother had a thing for birds, anyway that’s not all. You see I’m not entirely pony.”

Rainbow cocked her head to one side. “What do you mean? You look ordinary enough.”

Vincenza cringed inwardly, this wasn’t going to go down well. “I only look ordinary, Rainbow how old do you think I am.”

Rainbow looked her over. “I would say…twenty five twenty eight.”

“Close. Try adding another three thousand four hundred years add you would be about right.”

Everypony stopped, their mouths hung open. Even Rarity was shocked enough to stop her moping.

Applejack was the first to respond. “But how…”

Vincenza flashed her fangs, causing everypony to backpedal away from her. Fluttershy and Rainbow shot up into the air, and Lyra and Bon Bon hugged each other tightly while Rarity and Applejack took multiple steps back.

Again Applejack was the first to recover. “What…what are you.”

“Me? I’m many things. A musician, a warrior, a general and a politician. I’m an immortal of the night, an elder vampony, but at this moment in time I’m what you need most.”

“And what’s that?”

“A friend. You wanted to know who D is? Well that is a long story, but putting it as simply as possible he is one of my oldest friends, my brother, and my most hated enemy.”

Octavia put a hoof on her shoulder. “What happened between you two?”

“A long time ago, over five hundred years, long before any of you were born I lived in Istalia. But not the Istalia you know. In my time it was ruled by Vamponies and I was one of them, however I grew disillusioned and sought solitude. I found it in a town called Solis. There I settled down and found a home.”

Vincenza smiled faintly “I even found love.” Octavia gasped.Vincenza took no notice as a tear rolled down her check. “His name was Dante Rubino, and we were happy together, so when he asked me to be his wife, I said yes. Then something happened that changed my world.”

“What?” It was Applejack who had asked.

“Motherhood.”

Everypony including Octavia gave a gasp of shock.

Vincenza smiled sadly. “I gave birth to beautiful filly. I named her Eva, after my grandmother. Dante chose her last name, Diamante. She was born with vampirism, slowing her aging process down to one year for every two that passed, stopping when she completed puberty….or it would of if she had made it that far.”

Vincenza stopped to gather herself and take a breath before continuing. “When the second civil war broke out and I refused to join the fight, my town was destroyed and my husband and daughter were both killed. Only two ponies knew where I was during that time, both of them I trusted with my life and one betrayed me. D gave up my location and as a result my daughter was killed….” Her words trailed away as she shut her eyes and held back the tears.

Surprisingly, it was Rainbow who reacted first; she lowered herself down and hugged the unicorn. “I understand.” She whispered into her ear, being surprisingly sympathetic. Seeing Rainbow hold Vincenza the others soon joined in the hug. They held it for a couple of seconds before breaking away.

Vincenza smiled at everypony, this had gone a million times better than she could have every hoped. “All right, now that’s out of the way, let’s go find Twilight so we can locate the girls.” She said chirpily. “Where should we start?”

Rarity spoke up “When I went to tell Twilight about our little meeting she wasn’t home so I left a note on the door.”

“Then we try her place first.”

The group nodded in agreement a set off towards Twilights library, and soon reached the massive tree house. Rarity and Applejack knocked on the door, but when they received no reply they went inside, only to find the place deserted except for a sleeping owl and a napping dragon. They quietly walked back out and reported their findings to the group. As the group began to walk away, Vincenza stayed behind, something didn’t feel right.

Almost as if they were being watched.

“Girls hold up, something weird is going on.”

The group stopped and turned around to face her. Suddenly Pinkie’s body went psycho. “Wwwwwoooooaaaahhhhhh wwwweeeee’vvvvveeeee ggggooootttttt aaaaaa dddoozzzeeee iinnnbbbbooouunnndddddd.” She was shaking up and down like a jack hammer and moving around the group.

Vincenza’s ears perked up and she turned her head to the left, her world slowing to a crawl as her brain kicked her reaction time into high gear. Approaching her at high speeds was a faintly purple glowing sword, headed right for her head. Not wasting a moment she surged forward at fantastic speeds, her body blurring to the rest of the world as she shot forward, only moving a step before the blade punctured her torso, ripping through her stomach, effectively skewering her. The force of the blow made her slide a couple of feet, but she retained her balance.

The group screamed and began to rush forward to help her. Vincenza pushed them away from her with a pulse of force. “Stay back I’ll be fine!” She shouted.

She looked up in the direction the sword came from, the sword its self was lodged all the way through her and although it was painful she had endured far worse she could easily restore herself. Perched atop a nearby building overlooking the area was a unicorn, one that she knew very well.

Vincenza scowled “Twilight.” She whispered under her breath.

Perched atop the building Twilight watched her friends nock on her door and walk inside, she waited as the talked and began to move away. Her target lingered behind. This was her shot. She withdrew one of her swords from the scabbards on her back and levitated it so that it was pointing directly at her targets head. She sent it on its way with a burst of force. But as she released it, Pinkie started shaking. Her target blurred the blade taking her in the torso, a non-lethal shot. She swore out loud, nopony was around to hear her.

“Bucking Pinkie sense.”

Chapter 6

Proofreader's Note: TacoTown here. th' reason this chapter is so late
is entirely my fault. i was th' one who procrastinated, took overlong
on it, spent a week away from a conputer, yadda yadda. i take full
responsibility for lateness and any remaining errors, and if anyone
blames Balancer i'm blacklisting them (sorry, but i take this stuff
seriously). and i'll be checking. now enjoy th' chapter.

Chapter 6

(So Far)

Twilight focused on a patch of ground a short distance from the
Vampony and teleported in a flash of light. As she appeared, her group
of friends whirled around to confront her, as Vincenza simply watched
her calmly. Suddenly, Rainbow began to speed towards her, as if to
tackle her.

“Nopony attacks my friends…Twilight?” She backpedaled in the air in
confusion, her wings frozen in shock as she fell onto the ground. The
rest of the group were all shocked by their friend.

*battle music*

Vincenza grabbed the sword in her side, and without any visible effort
or pain, pulled it out with her magic. The wound gushed blood before
rapidly closing up in mere moments, the skin healing and growing new
hair, leaving no scar tissue. She tossed the blade over to Twilight,
who easily caught it in her magic. With a smirk, she stepped back and
rose up onto her rear hooves, her horn briefly lighting, black smoke
forming and condensed into two blades on her forehooves. Each was
straight, no curves or other decorative pieces, and at three quarters
the length of a pony they dragged, almost imperceptibly, on the
ground. While there was a handle like on griffon swords, running
through the handle were three rings, which fit on her forehooves
loosely. With six clicking noises, they tightened and she rose one at
Twilight, who had taken advantage of the momentary distraction to draw
her other blade, rising up on her forelegs and activating the bindings
on her swords.

Twilight rushed Vincenza, sprinting forward and slashing with her
right blade, and raised her left as if to stab. Vincenza stepped into
her charge, turning the slash aside as she spun on her hooves like a
dancer. Twilight’s stab missing its mark, Vincenza brought her left
elbow into the purple unicorn’s face as she completed her spin.

Twilight stumbled backwards as blood sprayed from her broken snout.
Vincenza had her back to her as she spoke. “Do you want to know why
you should not have picked a fight with me Twilight?”

Twilight simply spat the blood from her mouth in response as she
healed her broken snout with her magic.

Vincenza looked over her shoulder as she slowly turned around, a
psyco-esque smile on her face.

“Because I don’t show mercy.” As she completed her turn,
Twilight charged again, only this time, she slashed forward with an
undercut from her left. Vincenza quick stepped backwards, parrying the
blow. Twilight stepped forward with a lunge at Vincenza’s midriff, and
was batted aside as the vampony quickly stepped out of range. As
Twilight regained her balance, Vincenza quickly stepped inside her
reach and thrust her leg forward like she was kicking down a door.

There was a cracking sound as her hoof connected with Twilight’s
chest, the unicorn being propelled backwards, tumbling head over tail as she was flung like ragdoll into the wall of a house behind her. She
quickly rose from the ground, and with a shake of her head charged the
vampony once more. She attempted a feint overhead before quickly
spinning on her rear hooves into a sweep at Vincenza’s knees. But she
was blocked as her foe intercepted the blades with a parry and swiftly
delivered a kick to her face that sent her sprawling.

Twilight got on to her side and braced herself to stand as she healed
herself, the pain in her ribs easing.

“Nice healing spell.” A voice said from above her. Twilight had enough
time to turn her head before a kick impacted with her ribs, sending
her into a collision with a nearby wall. She got up again; her horn
aglow as she rapidly healed the damage her ribs had sustained, glaring
at the vampony looking at her across the street. Vincenza was standing
there, watching her like a lion watches a wounded gazelle. Just
bidding it’s time, not out of fear but enjoyment. Twilight charged her
again, this time firing a volley of magic bullets as she closed the
distance.

Vincenza lit her horn in response; small white shields popping up in
front of each bullet, sending each one to the side. As Vincenza dodged
Twilight’s first swing, Twilight turned sharply, thrusting her blade
at Vincenza, who quickly parried it with a flick of her hoof. Twilight
then launched into a volley of slashes and magic bullets, but Vincenza
blocked every slash and bullet with ease. No matter how hard Twilight
tried, no matter the feints she attempted, she could not break through
the vampony’s defense.

Vincenza smiled at Twilight’s efforts, and in one movement dropped to
the ground, sweeping Twilight’s legs out from under her. As she fell
to the ground, Vincenza sprang upwards and jumped up, spinning into a
kick that sent the unicorn flying. As she hit the ground, her left
shoulder made a sickening crack as the foreleg dislocated. She came to
stop in front of her friends, who quickly rushed to her aid.

“Twilight! Stop this please! Why are you fighting?” Applejack asked as
she helped her friend stand. Twilight ignored her as she shrugged off
her friend’s hooves and rose up onto her hindlegs. She placed her
right hoof on her left shoulder, wary of the blade attached to it as
she pushed hard, clicking the shoulder back into place with a slight
wince. Dropping into a fighting stance, she approached the vampony
cautiously.

“Exercising caution now are we?” Vincenza taunted. Twilight didn’t
reply, and simply raised her guard. Seeing this, Vincenza prepared to
rush her, Twilight bracing for impact as she blurred and vanished.
Vincenza reappeared on her left, and before the unicorn could respond,
delivered a vicious roundhouse to her torso. The force of the blow
expelled the air from her lungs and shattered nearly every rib as it
connected, sending her flying across the street, directly into the
wall of the house behind her. Twilight staggered up, downright
laboring for breath as she healed her wounds with magic at a much
slower rate than before.

Vincenza slowly walked towards the unicorn, every step balanced and
poised like a dancer. “Stubborn little thing aren’t you?” She remarked
as Twilight readied for another charge. “Though not nearly as bright
as I thought.” She said with a grin.

Twilight smirked at her and lit her horn, but this time her body
started crackling with purple lightning, and she speed forward in a
flash. The world slowed around Vincenza as she was forced to kick her
speed into a higher gear to doge Twilight’s blade. She bent backwards
as the blade soared over her head where her neck had been located
moments ago. She watched as the blade crackled with purple energy,
leaving traces in the air.

[‘Things just got interesting.’] She thought to herself.

Twilight spun, stabbing down. Vincenza threw her legs out from under
herself, and spun to the left, forcing the stab to miss her. She
continued the roll on the ground, but quickly sprung to her feet a
short distance away. Vincenza took a fighting stance and charged
Twilight, purple sparks arcing into the air as the blades met.
Vincenza pressed her attack, swinging her blades at the unicorn in
front of her. Twilight parried the blows, although each blow contained
enough force to drive her back. Vincenza suddenly stepped back,
spinning clockwise as she swung her left blade, the right held close
to her body as a guard.

Twilight saw her opportunity.

She stepped forward and ducked under the arc of the swing, pushing
with her back hooves to push herself up in an uppercut swing with her
right blade. Vincenza blocked the swing, causing it to go up into the
air. Twilight used her momentum to thrust her other blade out in a
stab, but Vincenza deftly side stepped the stab. Twilight spun low on
her hooves and brought her failed uppercut around in a swing, Vincenza
blocking it and stabbing down at the unicorn, Twilight spun in the
opposite direction using both her blades to intercept the stab.

With both of her blades blocking the stab, Vincenza unleashed a
powerful kick, too fast for Twilight to block. The kick connected
underneath Twilight’s chin and sent her flying backwards headfirst
towards a wall. But before she hit, she rotated in the air and hit the
wall back hooves first. She hit it like she was getting into a crouch,
and all the glass on that side of the street shattered as a shock wave
of force passed over them. A moment later she snapped her head up, and
launched herself at the vampony with both blades swinging.

Vincenza blocked them both, pushing Twilight backwards with her blades.
Twilight landed, and crouching low she flung herself at the white
unicorn. Snarling, she unleashed a flurry of strikes, swinging hard
and fast, her form showing years of practice and a gracefulness that
belied natural skill, the energy traces left by her blades dazzling
her group of friends. Although, against the elder vampony she looked
like a flailing fool.

Vincenza moved like a dancer, each movement of her body nothing if not
precise and economical. She weaved around the swings, deftly parried
stabs, and countered feints. Not once did she follow up a counter or
take advantage of the openings in the defense. Instead, she moved
around the unicorn, staying just within striking range and just far
enough away that Twilight had to constantly move forward to strike
with any force. All the time with a slightly condescending smirk on
her face, taunting her opponent.

After a short while Twilight let out a frustrated cry and rushed
forward, scissoring her blades at her opponent’s torso. Vincenza,
however, raised her blades and deftly caught them both. Twilight
strained as she tried to break past the block. Purple energy cascaded
along her body as she pushed with all her strength.

Vincenza leaned in close. “That all you’ve got Twilight?”

Twilight glared at the unicorn. “Not even half.” She quickly retorted,
a smirk playing onto her features. Her horn flashed momentarily and
the purple energy surrounding her jumped to Vincenza, and with a
colossal boom and flash of purple light the energy connected.

Inside the Library, a reptilian eye slowly opened.

The air was filled with the stench of burning hair and charred flesh
as Vincenza shot backwards; moments before she caused yet another wall
in the square major harm, her blades disappeared in puffs of black
smoke. As she hit, the occupants rushed outside to the battle scene.
Twilight didn’t waste a moment and charged her horn. Within seconds,
the charge was bigger than when she calmed the Ursa Minor, the ground
cracking from the large concentration of energy. When it had reached
the desired amount, Twilight unleashed the spell, a massive beam of
purple energy rocketing out.

The beam raced towards the building, but before it struck it suddenly
shot directly upwards. All eyes tracked it as it rocketed up into the
air, where it split into smaller beams. These beams arced down and
showered onto the building that Vincenza had crashed into. The plaster
walls charred and smoldered as the purple bolts rained unto them. The
thatch roof ignited, the dry vegetation creating an inferno. The
building collapsed under the shower of magic, small chips of stone
shrapnel being flung in all directions only to be stopped by a purple
shield. As the shower finished and the dust and ash settled the extent
of damage to the building was revealed. The entire building had been
demolished.

The group looked at it with open mouths as Twilight turned her back on
it and began to walk away, breathing heavily. Octavia was stunned, as
she had just witnessed her partner and friend engage in the most
violent thing she had ever witnessed, and she had lost.
Everything in her went numb as reality faded to grey. “Nopony coulda
survived that.” Applejack mumbled to no one in particular.

A/N An here ends part one feel free to rage in the comments below

Chapter 6 part two

The rubble stirred, and Twilight froze and turned around, a look of
disbelief creeping onto her face. The top layers of rubble parted and
Vincenza drew herself from the still smoldering ruins. Everypony in
the group, with the exceptions of Rainbow Dash and Applejack,
screamed, but even they blanched at the sight. Nearly all of
Vincenza’s fur had been singed, the flesh underneath crushed and
blacked, pieces of broken bone jutting from various parts of her body.
Her chest was a mess where Twilight’s lightning bolt had struck
earlier, the entirety of her left shoulder muscle vaporized, leaving
nothing but blackened bone. Most of the ribs had been exposed, the
lungs blackened by the intense heat. Her face was severely burned, in
some cases to the bone. The left side of her face was burned to the
bone and blackened her eye gone, the right side not much better. By
all rights she should have been dead.

Twilight took a step backwards. “Holy Ayalin… protect us.”She prayed,
fear flickering across her face.

Vincenza took a shuffling step forward. Then another. And another.
Then the bones in her legs shattered; yet she still made her way
towards the bottom of the rubble heap. But as she descended, something
started happening. The bones jutting out from her flesh began to
retract, the exposed bones whitening and quickly covered with newly
grown flesh, new skin spreading across the pink flesh, which in turn
covered by white fur. Her face underwent the same process, a new mane
rolling down her shoulders as she took step after
increasingly-less-painful step. By the time she reached the bottom of
the pile, no trace of her previous injuries could be seen.

“Nice try.” She said with a smirk on her face. She spread her forelegs
wide, summoning her blades.

Twilight looked at her with fear. “H-How? How is that even remotely
possible!?” She said in low tones, too shocked for anything else.

Vincenza slowly smiled, revealing her fangs. “You’ll just have to die
not knowing I guess.” She said, mocking the purple unicorn’s
expression sardonically.

Twilight took a step back and braced herself, gathering her strength.
She lit her horn, the purple energy covering her body once more as she
launched herself into the air, stabbing downward at the vampony.

[Same trick? How boring.] Vincenza thought to herself as Twilight
streaked down towards at her. Before the blade even came close to
finding its mark she quickly stepped backwards, the blade impaling the
ground. Twilight pulled it out and rose once again to attack. [Bored
now, I’ll end this quick. The girls deserve that much.] Vincenza
thought as she stepped forward. And with a quick spin, hair fanning
out around her, she whipped her blade around. A red line streaked
across Twilight’s face, her eyes widening as Vincenza kicked her in
the chest, sending her flying across the courtyard. Twilight landed on
her back, rising she looked at Vincenza with shock written across her
features. Twilight looked down; her blood was spilling all down her
front. As she tried to light her horn, only a weak light sputtered
out. Blood continued to spurt down her chest. She slowly raised her
head to the sky and quietly gurgled. Vincenza faintly heard something
that resembled ‘forgive me’. She bowed her head in respect, and
snapped it up again when something happened that shouldn’t have. The
wound in Twilight’s neck slowly sewed itself shut. Vincenza raised an
eyebrow as the group behind her gasped in astonishment.

[How? She was too exhausted for healing spell… unless that was natural
regeneration. Impossible. Natural regeneration only occurs in Hydras,
Gorgons, Alicorns, and…Vamponies. Impossible! She’s a Vampony hunter!
She would be killed if she was… unless she kept it hidden. But even if
she was, she couldn’t be old enough to even think clearly. By rights
she should be a mindless killing machine… unless she was strong enough
to resist.] Vincenza’s mind raced as Twilight slowly brought her head
down, her fangs glistening in the sun.

The Pegasus looked at Twilight from her vantage point in the clouds.
As Twilight looked up, she stilled her movement and trusted that she
had crafted the cloud well enough to hide her from detection.
Twilight’s eyes were unfocused, and her lips moved, but from where she
was the Pegasus couldn’t hear what she said. As she looked intently
down on the unicorn, her eyes widened in shock. She stifled a cry
before it could escape her throat as the unicorn’s top two teeth
slowly turned into fangs. As Twilight lowered her head, she allowed
herself to breathe. Slowly, so as to not attract attention, she
slipped out of her cloud and flew away to report the news to her
superior. She would fly all night if she had to. She had a message,
and the message always got through.

Vincenza’s other eyebrow joined its sister as it too was raised.
Vincenza smiled. “[What do you know?]”. She said out loud to no one in
particular.

Twilight was tired as she slowly lowered her head and focused upon the
grinning unicorn. With a noticeable sag in her shoulders she hefted
her swords. Vincenza blurred and Twilight was knocked to the ground as
the elder vampony’s shoulder collided with her. A white hoof came down
twice in rapid succession on her forehooves, shattering the rings that
held her blades in place, as well as her bones. The blades were then
picked up and tossed away by Vincenza’s magic. Twilight cried out in
pain as Vincenza placed the tip of her blade on Twilight’s chest.

“[I have a few questions.]” As Vincenza spoke, she grinned. “[Mostly
how one of your… condition… can serve a group of fanatical idiots
hellbent on killing us one by one.]” She shook her head and looked at
Twilight with mild amusement. “[But I suppose I can live without
knowing.]” Vincenza raised her blade and prepared to run Twilight
through.

“Stooooop!” A voice cried out. Vincenza looked up, and for the second
time that day raised an eyebrow. Standing in the open doorway to the
library was Spike, a scroll clutched in his claw. He took a cautious
step forward, shaking with fear as the vampony looked at him with mild
interest. He held up the scroll. “Y-Y-You stop right there! Oe-one
more move and-and I’ll send this to Celestia!”

Vincenza chuckled and lit her horn briefly. The scroll disappeared in
a flash of light, reappearing in front of her. Spike repeatedly
clutched the air in his hand, and seemed to deflate as his plan
failed. The scroll was unrolled and Vincenza scanned the letter
quickly.

Twilight’s in danger please help we’re outside the library

She snorted and the scroll was immolated quickly. “Well intentioned,
but foalish.” She returned her gaze to Twilight and raised her blade
once more. “Now, where were we?” Spike’s eyes were filling with tears
and as he made a half chocking-sobbing noise, he threw himself at
Vincenza. “Nooooooo!” Vincenza swatted him out of the air without a
thought and he tumbled along the ground. Twilight let out a cry and
struggled under the hoof pressing down on her chest, hitting with her
broken forehooves regardless the pain. Vincenza looked down on her
like one examines a bug they have caught in their grasp, watching it
struggle with futility. She raised her blade and slowly drove it into
Twilights shoulder, pinning her to the ground. As Twilight screamed,
Vincenza smiled with sick glee and began to slowly work it around.

Spike slowly raised himself from the ground. With tears clouding his
view, he watched the white unicorn drive her blade into the mare that
had practically raised him. A feeling of total helplessness
overwhelmed him as the screams entered his ears. He closed his eyes,
and curled into a ball, and sobbed as memories leapt unbidden into his
mind. His first puff of flame, and a much younger Twilight jumping
around with joy. The first time Twilight came home crying because of
the mean foals at school and him giving her a hug. The numerous times
he had injured himself helping her and Twilight kissing his head,
telling him everything would be all right. He sobbed, but something
was happening to him, somewhere deep inside. As he thought about the
only creature he had called family, listened to her screaming in pain,
a fire ignited within him; consuming his sadness, turning his feelings
of helplessness and self-pity into rage, hate, and desire to protect
his maternal figure. His eyes snapped open and flashed green. He
roared, the noise weak at first, but slowly grew stronger as his body
grew.

Vincenza looked up from her work at the noise, very quickly realizing
that she had made a big mistake. If it was one thing she had learned
on her travels, it was that there wasn’t a single little boy on the
planet that wouldn’t tear the world apart to save his mummy. And in
front of her was one preparing to do just that.

The last time Spike had transformed it was out of greed, and the
gigantic, bulky monstrosity he became had reflected that. But this
time, it was out of rage.

His body grew lean and strong, his features sharpened, and wings seemed to unfold from his back. His spines
sharpened and narrowed, the end of his tail flattened out, sharpening
like a blade. His maw lengthened and his mouth filled with sharp
fangs. He was already thrice the size of a pony and continued to grow
until he towered over the ponies below, the buildings of the square
coming up to his shoulder. He fixed his huge eyes on Vincenza, and in
a deep rolling voice that shook the glass for miles aroun with unrestrained
anger evident in his voice. “No one hurts Twilight!”

He lunged with his razor-sharp claws, Vincenza jumping backwards as
Spike scooped up Twilight and deposited her behind himself.

Vincenza looked up at the now fully grown dragon, and smiled. ‘[This
will be fun.]’ She spun her blades around and took an attack stance.
Spike turned back to her and slashed at her with his claws. Vincenza
leapt clear of said claws as they crashed into the ground, gouging
deep groves into the stone. Spike roared and swung his other claw
around in an arc at Vincenza. She rolled under it, and rose to her
feet. She shot off towards the purple arm and leapt at it, but Spike
brought his arm up and swatted the unicorn up into the air. Vincenza
spun around in the air, positioning herself with her rear hooves
towards the ground, and as she reached the apex of her arc she lit her
horn and a white glow infused her body. She hung in the air looked
down at the dragon. Spike roared at her, the surrounding group of
ponies covering their ears at the loud noise. Opening his great maw,
Spike unleashed a torrent of flame, the heat alone setting light to
the surrounding thatch roofs. Vincenza swerved in the air as the
column of flame passed her by. Spike unfurled his new wings, and with
a mighty flap that struck up a small whirlwind (thankfully
extinguishing the flames), he rose up into the air.

As Spike took off in pursuit of Vincenza, the group rushed over to
Twilight. She was slowly recovering from her injuries, although much
faster than any normal pony would. Her shoulders and chest had deep
cuts along them, and her forehooves were shattered, slowly
regenerating. Unlike the elder, her wounds healed themselves
agonizingly slowly, the cuts knitting themselves together and the
bones in her forehooves resetting and healing with sickening clicking
sounds. Her cuts healed over with scar tissue as she lay on the ground
panting, it was clear to any that she was horribly inexperienced. She
raised her head and looked at the intense aerial fighting going on
above. “Spike.” She whispered.

Meanwhile, in the air above, Vincenza was shooting around Spike, her
smaller form allowing for greater maneuverability and her magic
cutting through the air faster, but Spike’s natural amour was too
tough for her blades to pierce. Not that she cared, having taken down
tougher dragons in the past she knew how to deal with him, and was
simply enjoying having a dragon to play with until she got bored.

Spike grasped at her with his claws, but Vincenza slipped through,
raking her blades along the joints in his scaled fingers, quickly
drawing blood. Spike twisted his head at her and unleashed a torrent
of flame, which was easily dodged. He sped forwards and snapped at her
with his jaws, but she slipped through and quickly inverted herself as
she flew under the great beast’s stomach, peppering it with white
energy from her horn. Spike howled and turned his great bulk in the
air, whipping his tail. Vincenza barrel rolled over it and unleashed a
salvo of magic missiles at him as she flew backwards. The missiles
detonated ineffectively against his hide, only enraging him further.
He banked sharply, and with a massive beat of his wings, sped after
her, with missiles detonating against the thick hide of his face with
no discernible effect. As he drew close he unleashed a gout of flame,
but at his high speed he flew into his own flame, the fire swirling
around him. The green fire rippled along his scales but did not burn
him, fireproof as he was. He continued to speed faster towards
Vincenza, bringing his now searing bulk against her, the heat rolling
off him in waves. Vincenza shot upwards and around him in a corkscrew,
dodging the burning jaws and laughing slightly manically. Her laughter
was, however, snatched away by the raging winds.

[This is fun!] She thought to herself elatedly, the adrenalin coursing through her veins
exciting her as she welcomed the rush of battle. In her joy, she
missed Spike’s tail whip through the air, hitting her and swatting her
down towards the ground. She spun in the air, quickly orientating
herself to the fast approaching ground.

She grinned and put on a burst of speed, the wind howling in her ears. Moments before impact she
pulled up, and sped along inches from the ground, weaving through the
streets of Ponyville. At her high speeds, her tailwind was enough to
uproot plants and mess up ponies’ hair. She pulled up, and shot into
the sky, her white aura leaving a glowing trail in the air. Somewhere
to her rear left she heard Spike roar, and quickly rolling to the
right she felt the searing heat of Spike’s fire for a brief moment,
before her upward climb carried her past the blaze. She continued
rocketing upwards into the sky with a maniac grin plastered on her
face. Quickly looking down, she noticed that Spike had given chase and
was following her. The air quickly began to grow cold with the
altitude. Vincenza inhaled as much of the thinning air as she could
and holding it, she continued her upward climb. When she felt her coat
begin to chill and frost start to form on her face she slowed and
looked down. Spike was close on her tail, and roaring loudly. She
smiled.

The frost formed heavily on Spike, the water in his breath rapidly
freezing. In his rage he let lose at roar and exhaled a wave of fire,
the frost on his scales instantly vaporized. Vincenza’s lungs were
throbbing dully, but she soon eased them by exhaling around half her
breath. As she dodged the fire and rose a few more meters into the
air, she smiled. Spike roared again and surged upwards, the melted
water refreezing lower down on his body and frost formed once more on
his face. He surged upwards, but when he went to inhale he found the
air very scarce. Almost immediately he began to black out from lack of
oxygen to his brain. His wing beats slowed and he fell to earth.
Vincenza exhaled the rest of her breath and shot down. She collided
with Spike, and proceeded to drive him towards the ground. As they
reached thicker air, Spike’s vision cleared and strength began to
return to his muscles. He opened his eyes and saw the ground fast
approaching.

Ponies on the ground scattered as Spike’s huge bulk plummeted out of
the sky. Spike strained his body upwards, trying to pull out of the
dive, but Vincenza let lose another burst of force and increased the
speed. Seconds before they hit the ground Vincenza lit her horn, and
they disappeared in a black haze. The ponies on the ground looked up
at the averted catastrophe as Twilight searched the sky franticly for
signs of them.

“Where did they go?! Where did she take him?! She shouted as she spun
around. There was a loud bang from the east and everypony turned,
searching for the source of the noise.

As Spike and Vincenza reappeared over a field outside of Ponyville,
Vincenza placed her rear legs on Spike’s back and gave him on last
shove. The push sent her clear upwards, while forcing Spike into the
hard earth. He rammed into it with a gargantuan boom, earth and stones
flying into the air as Vincenza lowered herself to the ground in front
of him.

“Now that we’re away from the others, let’s stop holding back.” She
lifted a blade in pointed it at Spike.

He raised himself from the crater, brushing dirt from his scales and
chuckling, the sound waves vibrating the loose dirt thrown up in his
landing. “Agreed.” He sprung forward, smashing his fist into the
ground, the shockwave of which creating a wave of dirt. Vincenza
jumped high, the wave passing underneath her as Spike unleashed a wave
of fire. Vincenza immediately formed a shield, the flames passing
around her harmlessly. Spike flapped his wings, propelling himself
backwards to dodge Vincenza’s stab to his head, the whirlwind
buffeting her backwards. She spun in the air landing on her rear
hooves, then back flipped to avoid being roasted, the green flame
warming her as it passed beneath her. Spike tilted forward, speeding
towards the unicorn while slashing his claws at her. She saw him
coming halfway through the flip and twisted so that she landed facing
away from him. She hit the ground running at a dead sprint, Spike’s
claws close on her tail. They passed millimeters from her exposed
back, catching a bit of her tail and slicing it off. Vincenza
disappeared in a puff of black smoke, reappearing behind Spike. She
jumped into the air, using her considerable strength to propel herself
onto Spike’s back. Spike responded by pulling up sharply, quickly
twisting into a corkscrew in an attempt to dislodge her. Vincenza’s
horn flashed white and her rear hooves glowed dimly, wind buffeting
her as the horizon spun. Yet her hooves refused to part from his back,
held in place by the spell she had cast. She sprinted up to one of his
wings, and as she approached she timed herself to jump, and launched
herself forward. She swung her blades in front of her in a scissoring
motion, bursting through the wing, and teleported back to the ground.
She skidded a short distance away as Spike roared in pain, his torn
wing causing him to drop out of the sky.

Spike landed with a dull thud, this time only scuffing the ground. He
turned his head towards Vincenza and let lose another roaring blast of
flame. Vincenza blurred and appeared to his left, much closer and
running swiftly. Spike adjusted his aim as he rose from the ground.
Vincenza blurred and reappeared on his far right, Spike closing his
jaws and lashing out with his claws instead. Vincenza gave a slight
jump and as his claws sailed underneath her, she landed on his hand
and ran up the connected arm. Spike opened his maw once more and
billowing fire spewed down his arm. Vincenza blurred a third time and
reappeared in the air in front of his face. She landed and stepped
forth, thrusting her blades into his eyes, and with a quick flash of
her horn an electric charge ran down her blades into his eyeballs.

She leapt clear, landing on the ground as Spike howled in pain, his
eyes exploding. Clasping his claws to his eyes, the blood flowed down
his face as he fell onto his back. Vincenza grinned.

“[Dragons.]” She mocked. “[You boast about how your scales are famous
for their toughness. But you forget that even you have your weak
spots.]” She examined the blood on her sword as she walked over to
where the gigantic reptile was curled up in a ball, screaming in pain.
The ground had cracked at the sheer volume of the noise. Vincenza
winced as her ear drums burst and the world fell quiet, but she didn’t
bother regenerating them. She walked up behind Spike’s head and turned
around, plunging her blades fully into the ground. She lined herself
up and unleashed a buck, Spike jerking from the blow and falling
silent. There was a low rumbling noise and Spike quickly shrunk back
to his normal size. Vincenza caught him in her magic, dismissing her
blades and teleporting them both back to Ponyville.

Twilight looked up as Octavia gasped and pointed. Vincenza strode
towards her with an unconscious Spike in her grip. Vincenza tossed him
towards them and he rolled along the ground. Everypony gasped at the
sight of the blood down his front. Fluttershy rushed over and
inspected him, and stopped breathing when she lifted an eye lid to
test his light reaction. The group rushed over to look at him, all
recoiling at the sight. It was gruesome, to say the least. Little was
left of the actual eye, and looking back at them was not the large
green eyes they knew, but empty black sockets.

A hoarse cry ripped out of Twilight’s throat, brushing past her
friends and ignoring her own fatigue she threw a vicious punch at the
elder vampony. Vincenza nimbly dodged and ripped into her side. The
blow connected and Twilight grunted, jabbing out with her other hoof.
Vincenza, however, blocked and lashed out with her own. Twilight
ducked out of the way and threw her right forehoof into Vincenza’s
stomach, Vincenza doubling over in surprise.

Twilight brought her left forehoof down on her head and savagely
brought her knee up into her face. Spinning around she brought her
right rear hoof down in a brutal stomp-kick. Vincenza threw herself
into Twilight, and as she connected she slipped her left hoof between
Twilight’s legs and her right under Twilight’s left foreleg, using her
momentum to lift her up and slam her into the ground. Twilight landed
and lashed with both her rear hooves. Vincenza blocked them and swung
down in a punch. Twilight rolled as Vincenza’s forehoof went past her
head and smashed into the ground.

Twilight rose as Vincenza wrenched her hoof free from the ground. They
looked at each other, Twilight panting heavily as Vincenza watched
her, a smirk on her face.

“[Why do you continue]?” Vincenza circled like a shark, Twilight
watching her closely. “[Look at you, tired to your bones, yet you
continue to struggle. It would be heroic if it were not so pathetic.]”
She blurred, and Twilight found herself hanging in the air, suspended
above the ground from the roof of a nearby house, Vincenza’s glowing
hoof on her throat. Her friends below called her name and Rainbow was
already ready to catch her if she dropped. She tried to break free,
hitting the leg holding her. The leg snapped under her blows but
healed just as fast as it broke, Twilight quickly exhausting herself.

“Twilight… why do you continue to fight? What could possibly give you
the strength to continue this pointless battle?” Vincenza studied her,
Twilight simply returning the look with a glare. “Tell me, of all the
fights you had to pick? Why me? Why start a fight you could never have
won?” Twilight only bared her fangs at her in a snarl.

“You want to know why?” Twilight hissed at her. “It’s because of a
reason you know very well. Revenge, Vincenza, revenge and hate. Your
kind stole my parents from me, took my brother’s childhood and
destroyed it, and tormented me in my dreams until I was unable to
sleep. Revenge, Vincenza. Revenge for life that I never got, revenge
for what my life has become. That’s why I didn’t kill myself when I
turned, that’s why I continue to live this… charade I call my life!
That’s why I haven’t given up so far and that is why I won’t give up
now!” Something in Twilight snapped, primal magic bursting up from
deep inside her. Her eyes glowed white and a slight pinging sounded as
she flung her head back and legs out, a wave of energy coursing out of
her horn. The wave of energy shattered the magical grip holding her
and caused Vincenza to flinch as the energy rolled over her. Twilight
floated backwards over the courtyard, her mouth hanging open as the
magic raged through her. The wind howled and magic discharged into the
air, scorching anything it touched. The last time she had even come
close to feeling like this was during the entrance exam.

Back then she had been unable to control it, being too young and
inexperienced. But this time she was in control, her mind clear as she
casually observed the power flowing through her.

She turned her head towards Vincenza. Vincenza immediately blurred and
shot forward. This time however, the world seemed to slow as Vincenza
blurred. Twilight noted how the magical discharge that crackled in the
air, the way it flowed from her into the surrounding atmosphere. She
turned back to Vincenza as she closed the distance between them. The
elder’s eyes were wide as she noticed that Twilight moved in
comparatively normal time. Twilight thrust out a hoof, a pulse of
force exploding under Vincenza, sending her into the air. Twilight
took a moment to watch her and then shot after her, a corona of
magical energy surrounding her as she tore through the air. Her
friends on the ground opened their mouths, awestruck.

Vicenza turned to face the ground as Twilight collided with her. As
Twilight hit the unicorn her body grew transparent, only a purple
outline dictating her position against the background. She passed
right through the vampony, electricity sparking as she made contact.
To Vincenza, it felt like the time she had been hit with a steam
train, but more intact. As Twilight passed through to the other side,
she exploded into six small orbs, the orbs zipping around Vincenza and
pulsing, purple magic being unleashed in a wave. Vincenza felt herself
suspended in the air, held in a magical grip. The orbs slowly rotated
around her, each opposite another. She started unraveling the spell
holding her in place when Twilight flashed out of an orb and passed
through her, and as she disappeared into the opposite orb she shot out
of another. Vincenza was helpless to defend herself, suspended as she
was. Twilight was speeding up, as soon as one copy hit, another was
already on its way. They smashed into her relentlessly, Vincenza being
obscured from the ground concealed by purple energy, until all of
Twilight shot back out of the orbs above Vincenza. She hung there for
a moment before shooting through her, and as she burst out the other
side she regained her normal form and the orbs exploded
simultaneously.

Twilight punched the ground as she landed, Vincenza falling to the
ground with a dull thud behind her, smoking slightly. Twilight’s
shoulders notably sagged from sheer exhaustion as the glow faded. She
was breathing heavily and turned around to see the other vampony’s
condition. Vincenza was standing up, smoking slightly but what little
damage visible was fast disappearing. She brushed some burnt hair off
her shoulder as she turned to Twilight. She was wearing a smirk that
practically shouted ‘Nice try’.

Twilight was spent; she didn’t have anything left in her to fight
with. She slumped on to her side weakly, propping herself up with her
forelegs. Vincenza sighed and took a step forward. “Time to die
Twilight, though before you go I do commend you for giving me a great
deal of amusement.”

Rainbow shot in front of her. “Vinyl, I can’t let you do this!”
Applejack and Rarity joined her. “Yeah!”

Vincenza tilted her head. “You do know I can just slip past you,
right?” Applejack nodded.

“You probably could, but you won’t.”

“I won’t? Why not?” Vincenza asked.

Applejack looked her directly in the eyes. “Because you could have
killed Twilight at any time during that fight and because you could
have slipped past us already, I reckon you don’t want to kill
Twilight. I reckon you want to help us get our families back and keep
our friend.”

“That’s what you reckon? Well…” Vincenza blurred behind them, facing
Twilight. She stopped to look over at Applejack. “You reckoned wrong.”
She flashed a smile and as she turned back to Twilight, she recoiled
in shock. Octavia was standing above Twilight on her rear hooves, her
forelegs spread wide on either side of her, tears in her eyes.

“No more Vincenza. Please stop, no more.” She implored, staring into
the hard eyes of the unicorn standing in front of her. Vincenza stared
back at her, and looked away, her teeth grinded as she fought down her
emotions. She paused for a second to focus her thoughts.

“Va bene.” She whispered quietly.

She snapped her head back up as Octavia screamed.

Twilight watched as her friends rushed to intervene, to try and stop
Vincenza. She lay on the ground as her body and fatigue slowly pulled
her into total blackout. She dimly felt a shadow fall over her, and
she turned her eyes to look at the owner of the shadow. She expected
to see Vincenza, and was startled to find Octavia holding her forelegs
wide as Vincenza talked to her friends. Twilight sighed and began to
black out, her vision fading when she felt something begin to slip in
her mind, something she had kept an iron leash on at all times,
something that she no longer had the strength to hold back. The blood
lust was rising. Twilight fought to suppress it, but was too weak to
do anything.

Twilight turned her head upwards, taking in her surroundings slowly.
Around her were six ponies, six sources of food, of sweet blood. And
she was parched. She looked up at the pony above her, so close she
could smell her sweat, hear the pounding of her heart. She agonizingly
propped herself up, and with flagging strength she flung herself at
the exposed flank, her teeth biting deep. The metallic taste of blood
filled her mouth and ran down her throat, her thirst flaring as she
felt strength return to her limbs. She was about to reposition her
fangs for a better bite when a hoof smashed into her face. The blow
sent her flying backwards, ripping her teeth out of her victim along
with a chunk of her victim’s flesh.

Vincenza snapped her head up and saw Twilight latched onto Octavia’s
flank. She surged forward, ramming her fist into Twilight’s face.
Twilight was sent flying backwards, a sizeable chunk of Octavia’s
flank in her mouth. Vincenza caught Octavia as she fell and cradled
her to the ground. Tenderly she placed her hoof on Octavia’s cheek.
Octavia was screaming, her eyes shut, and she was tossing about.
Vincenza held her tightly. She lit her horn and two white lights spun
around it, the lights jumping from her horn to Octavia’s head. The
lights spun in circle around her head before descending along her
body. As the lights passed her eyes Octavia ceased struggling and fell
asleep, the lights sweeping over her torso and continuing to the wound
in her flank. When they reached it, the lights dove into the wound. It
glowed brightly, and when the light faded the wound was gone. Vincenza
looked back up at Twilight who was busy finishing the chunk of flesh
she had in her mouth, and was looking around for more. They soon made
eye contact and Twilight snarled at her. Vincenza was unperturbed,
tears in her eyes.

“Do you know what you have done you stupid little cazzo?” She spat the
last word with vehemence. Twilight didn’t answer, but readied herself
to leap at Vincenza, or rather Octavia.

“Do you know what you have done?!” Vincenza roared. Twilight snarled
in reply and took a step forward in order to leap. Vincenza’s eyes
flashed red and Twilight fell to the ground writhing in pain. Vincenza
glared at the purple unicorn as she squirmed in agony. Her eyes
flashed red again and Twilight arched her back, her face contorted in
a silent scream.

Twilight felt her mind being ripped apart. She felt another presence
in her head, and it burned like a star. The pain overwhelmed all
things, the only thing she could see was white, and the only thing she
could hear was static. The pain washed away the bloodlust and she
became aware once more, and then that too was drowned in a sea of
pain. She had no control over her body whatsoever as her nerves fired
repeatedly in no order. It felt like she was being drowned, burned,
mutilated, tortured, raped, strangled, torn to pieces and dismembered,
all at the same time.

Vincenza watched coldly, as the unicorn writhed in pain, voiding her
bowels subconsciously. She was prepping another level of pain, one
that would burn all the nerves in the little cazzo’s brain, fusing
them into one defective bundle, when she felt a familiar, yet alien,
presence brush her mind.

‘[What do you want.]’ She thought, making no effort to mask her foul mood.

‘My my Vincenza, is that how ponies these days show respect? Tisk
tisk. I would never have thought you to be one to jump with the
crowd.'The voice chided her.

‘[Oh go buck yourself. I’m busy. Can for five minutes this not wait?]’

‘Slipping back to archaic tongue I see. You must be upset.
Relationship trouble? Your mare put you out to dry? Did you catch her
in bed with another? Please, do tell. I so love gossip.’

“[Fie Fie, what are doing here, aside from being a pain in the flank.]’

‘Funny story… I was strolling by when-’

‘[We both know you don’t stroll. You skip, like girl.]’Vincenza interrupted.

‘You know, sometimes I wonder why I put up with you.’

‘[Because you’d be bored without me. Tell, what do you want.]’

‘Twilight’

‘[…What]’

‘Purple unicorn ‘bout same size as you, roughly 27 years old, Element
of Magic-’ The voice listed, before being interrupted once again.

‘[I know who she is and no, you can’t have her.]’

‘…I’m going to pretended that I didn’t hear that and try again. Stop
torturing Twilight, I need her for something.’

‘[A second time, no. Find someone else, i.e. me, to fulfill whatever
schemes you’ve got running at the moment. Leave me to feed my
revenge.]’

‘Let’s be reasonable about this. Stop killing the unicorn and we won’t
have to get messy about this.’

‘[No! She is mine! You cannot have her!]’

‘…Buck this. This is your last chance. Cease and desist or I will make
you. You once swore an oath to me, or is your word no longer iron?’

‘[…]’

‘Well?’

‘[No.]’

‘I see, I forgive you and apologize for what needs must.’

Vincenza arched her back, and as she flung her forelegs out to either
side of her body, screamed in pain. The ponies around her that had
been begging her to stop jumped back in shock. She soon slumped
forward over Octavia, silent. As she did Twilight too fell still,
curling herself into a ball and starting to sob weakly.

After a long moment Twilight summoned the courage to look up from her
foaltal position. She searched her friends’ faces, imploring them, but
received shell-shocked stares as each had been pushed to and over the
limit of what they could handle. She turned her gaze slowly,
fearfully, to the elder vampony, a mortal fear unlike any she had ever
felt before raging inside her as she forced herself to look at the
white unicorn. She found herself looking at a slumped over,
defeated-looking figure of pony .Twilight was puzzled, and struggled
to rise when Vincenza slowly raised her head. They locked eyes and
Twilight’s blood froze, temperature dropping and the sun fading in the
sky. The black of Vincenza’s pupils was moving, seemingly flowing
endlessly, like an ocean. The black broke free of its constraints and
flowed throughout Vincenza’s eyes, dispersing like a drop of food
coloring in water until the entirety of her eyes were flowing pools of
darkness. Twilight worked her mouth silently, her voice frozen by
fear.

Vincenza opened her mouth to speak. “Peace vampony, Peace.” But the
voice that issued forth was undoubtedly male.

Vincenza smiled. “Do not be scared. I have, regrettably, exerted my
authority over my agent here and stayed her hand in your execution.”

Twilight worked up the courage to ask in a shaky voice. “Who… who are you?”

The thing using Vincenza smiled. “Be at peace, you have known me all
your life and will know me by the end of it.”

“What is your name?” Twilight asked, some of her courage returning.

“When you know my name, you will know me, as all do in the end.” The
voice answered.

Twilight blinked. “That’s not an answer.”

“I am not obliged to give you one.” Twilight opened her mouth to
retort, but was cut off. “Twilight, I have saved your life so that you
may serve a purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“I will tell you… in time. For now, sleep.” At the last word, Twilight
sagged and dropped to the ground, her world fading to black.

Twilight woke with a start, her dream fading fast as she resumed her
presence in the waking world. As she took in her surroundings she
realized that she was in a hospital room. Pushing herself off the bed
she looked around the room. There was a note on the bedside table. It
read:

Octavia and Spike, room 39, ward 16.

Twilight’s heart skipped a beat. Ward 16 was the critical condition
ward. Only ponies with major injuries were taken there. She looked
around the room and found the tattered remains of her cloak thrown
over a chair, bottom still stained brown, and after some inspection of
herself, revealed that neither she nor her cloak had been cleaned. She
was troubled by this; usually the staff would have cleaned her and
dressed her in hospital gown if she had been admitted unconscious. She
folded the cloak over her back, and pushed the unease of her dream to
back of her mind. As she stepped out into the hallway, the first thing
she noticed was how everypony stopped their activities to look at her.
Many were wearing scowls on their faces and whispering angrily to
their neighbor. Twilight knew that they were looking at her, and
quickened her speed to a brisk trot as she hastened her way to the
room that housed Octavia and Spike.

She weathered the silent way everypony she met stopped and silently
glared at her, though it still disturbed her greatly. She reached the
door to room 39 and walked into the room, not knowing what to expect.
There were two beds, close together. In the closest one was Octavia,
her friends huddled around her, quietly talking to her. In the other
was Spike, a bandage around his head at eye level, fast asleep.
Vincenza was sitting in the far corner, obviously deep in thought.
Sensing another presence in the room, her friends stopped talking and
turned around. They fell silent, Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity glared
at her, whilst Rainbow looked away uneasily and Fluttershy hid behind
the others. Vincenza looked up and regarded Twilight not with the
scorn she had expected, but with pity and sadness. Twilight felt her
throat constrict and forced herself to look at Octavia. Her heart
stopped as she received a clear look at the cellist, noticing with
immense shock that the formerly beautiful mare looked tired, wasted
even, as if she had been suffering under a debilitating disease for
the past year. She looked weak and sickly, but that didn’t stop her
from glaring at Twilight with the utmost vehemence capable of being
expressed. She weakly propped herself up and opened her mouth to
speak.

“You...What are you doing here?” She said in a rasping voice. What
made it the most sad was that she was probably shouting at her full
capacity.

“I-I-I-I” Twilight couldn’t even come close to forming a sentence, her
mind frozen by the sight in front of her. “What… what happened to
you?” She asked.

“You happened to me. You bit me, that’s what.”

“But how-“

“How did end up here? Well, as Vincenza puts it you’ve cursed me.
Because of you I’m doomed to waste away, because of you I can’t go
outside without catching a cold and dying.” Twilight stumbled
backwards in shock. “I thought you were my friend Twilight.” Octavia
slumped back into her pillow, utterly exhausted.

Twilight looked at her friends. Rarity immediately turned away with a
huff, Pinkie and Fluttershy joining her with a sniffling sound,
Pinkie’s her mane and tail flat. Looking to Applejack, the most
dependable pony, for support she was shocked to find her turning away
from her as well. “Applejack….”

Applejack stopped and turned her head slightly, most of her face
hidden by her hat. “We trusted you Twilight.”And she turned away.

Twilight looked to her only remaining friend. “Rainbow… Please.” She
begged. Rainbow was torn, her conflicting loyalties battling from
dominance, the strain showing on her face.

Rainbow gritted her teeth and turned away, her herculean effort
evident. “Just go Twilight.”

Twilight turned and fled out the door. She burst out of the room and
came face to face with a doctor. The doctor narrowed his eyes and with
evident venom in his voice rebuked Twilight.

“Coming to check up on your hoofiwork?”

Twilight flinched under his gaze, looking around the hall. All the
other doctors, nurses, and patients were giving her equally scathing
looks.

Unable to take the pressure, she teleported away in a flash of
light.

Chapter 7

Vincenza stumbled, the rain drenched her coat, and the wind howled around her. She screamed into unforgiving gale all her rage, her sorrow. With a heavy heart she came to the edge of the mountain, the icy rain lashed her face, the ravenous winds ripped through her as they screeched their anger and frustration to world. The forest around her shook and trembled with the unforgiving malice of the storm, trees uprooted, animals drowned in their burrows as the heavy rain pummelled the earth bellow. She lifted her head to the sky and joined her voice to their chorus. She screamed, rebelling against the unfairness and cruelty of fate. Lightning cracked, splitting the sky in the distance and the world shaking thunder drowned out her futile sounds.
Vincenza sank to her knees, sobbing, shaking with exposure, the cold uncaring rock offering no pity. Her vision blinded by tears and rain she looked up once more at the sky.
“[Why!]” She shouted through clenched teeth, her words snatched away by the wind. “[Of all the ponies why her.]” Her head sunk to the ground, her eyes tightly shut and in a voice that even in a quiet room would struggle to make itself heard she painfully whispered. “[Have I not suffered enough? Do you get pleasure from my pain?] She sobbed and threw her head back. [Have I not given you my all!? Have I not served you well!? Bleed for you!? Fought for you!? Sacrificed enough for you!?]” She searched the black skies above looking for an answer. “[Please…Just tell me why.]” She sunk down to the wet rock sobbing, praying and pleading to the sky above for answer.

And the rolling blackness only thundered in reply, a contemptuous god scorning the sinful world beneath as a purple unicorn watched solemnly from a distance, tears of her own streaking down her face.

The previous day
Twilight reappeared at her library, the silence was deafening as she stumbled through the empty building. Her world was crashing down around her, her heart breaking.
The afternoon light in the windows seamed dull, the dust motes floating in the light danced mournfully slow. Letting her training take over whilst she retreated into her own mind Twilight dumped the tattered remains of her cloak in her room and showered. The hot water washed over her, taking the filth of the battle with it, all the while Twilight stared blankly at the wall.
I thought you were my friend
Octavia’s voice cut through her blanket of numbness, Twilight curled into a ball eyes screwed shut.
Fluttershy turning away from her, a look of disgust on her features
Rainbow turning her back on her
Applejack’s voice ‘We trusted you’
The look of sorrow on Pinkie’s face
Rarity looking through her, no recognition
Twilight let out a chocking sob, the sound built with each repetition, until it overflowed in a flood of tears. She cried and cried and cried, her tears mixing with hot water from the shower.
As she lay on the ground, exhausted, the sound of breaking glass reached her ears through the mixed sounds of the shower and her own sobbing. She heaved herself off the ground and trudged out of the bathroom into the main library area.
She checked the clock, it had been an hour.
Looking around for the source of the noise she noticed that a brick had been tossed through her window, puzzled she picked it up and looked out the window. Twilight stepped outside, bewildered.
Amassed in front of her home was a very large, very angry crowd of ponies. The crowd seemed to bristle at the sight of her, many yelled something, but in the mass of voices the only thing she could hear with any clarity was murderer.
A rock sailed out from the crowd and struck her on the cheek, tearing it. The sight of her blood invigorated the crowd, many ponies picked up rocks and launched them at the hapless unicorn. Twilight raised a hoof to fend away the incoming chunks of rock, but they hit and drew blood regardless.
Twilight stumbled backwards to stunned to take action, after the events of the previous day her mind was just to overloaded to react. To stunned to regenerate from the wounds or even defend herself with magic Twilight fell to the ground her body pummelled by the barrage of rocks. Her death seemed imminent. She cracked open an eye to take one last look at the ponies who were soon to be her killers, and there in the fore front of the crowd saw the faces of her best friends, just standing there watching her.
Her spirit broke and Twilight slumped to the ground.
The rocks pelted her; the roar of the crowd grew with each hit, each drop of blood shed working them into frenzy. Then like the lull of a storm the sound faded away, replaced by a hushed murmuring.
Twilight raised her head slowly opening her eyes, wondering if she had died and this was the afterlife. Her eyes opened fully and she found herself staring up at the sky, where Princess Celestia hung the glow of her magic illuminating her like some sort of archangel.
Celestia swept her gaze over the crowd, a look of hurt and disappointment on her features. “My little ponies.” She said. “This is not how we in Equestria deal with crimes against our people.” The crowd fidgeted in shame.
“No matter the ponies crime it is not the duty of their common peer to judge them unworthy.” She fixed them with a particularly harsh glare.
“Nor is it the place of a pony’s lesser to pass judgement.” The crowd now backed away slowly as the princess alighted upon the ground.
“Twilight is my protégé and as such only I have the authority to judge her.” The princess turned around and looked down at the bleeding unicorn. “Twilight go into the library I will deal with you in due time.”
Twilight rose from the ground and stumbled her way into the empty library.
As she made her way through the home she winced from her injuries and slowly walked over to the bathroom, using the mirror to examine herself. Looking at all the cuts and bruises she had sustained she concluded that most of the lacerations her were shallow, nothing overly urgent, but a couple were deep and required medical attention.
Pulling a first aid kit from under the bathroom sink Twilight prepared to stich the wounds shut, preferring to let her body take its course than waste energy, when she tilted her head back in a realisation.
She didn’t need to stich her wounds.
Placing the needle and suture back into the first aid kit she concentrated on her face in the mirror. She focused her mind on her wounds and willed them to shut, to heal.
They stayed open. Twilight grunted and concentrated harder imagining the wounds stitching themselves shut. She held her breath and stared at her reflection, and slowly the wounds began to close shut.
When they had finished Twilight examined her body. It was covered in scars and bruises from her fight with Vincenza the previous day, checking her body in the mirror she saw an ugly line of scar tissue running across the throat where it had been split open by the vampony’s blade.
Moving her eyes up she came to rest on her face and her heart stopped. Running along left cheek was a scar but she had never been a vain pony and didn’t much mind the disfigurement, what caused her to catch her breath were two things. Her eyes and her teeth.
Looking back at her was not the face that she had long known, it was alien and yet in some ways familiar. Her eyes had become a rich blood red, and clearly visible were the tips of two fangs. She had become the thing she hunted.
She had once had suspicions, a long time ago. But when symptoms had failed to surface she assumed that she had been wrong.
But staring her in the face was absolute proof.
Twilight stepped back from the mirror, she had known since she had woken up from the hospital what she was but between the incident in the hospital room and her minor mental breakdown she hadn’t had been able to take the time to realize it.
‘What will I do now?’ she wondered. Would she have to drink blood now? At the thought of blood her mind skipped back to biting into Octavia’s thigh. Her mouth salivated at the memory and a hunger began to well up inside her. She quickly crushed it, with some difficulty.
She staggered forward at the consequences gripping the sides of the bathroom basin as a pain racked her inside, the hunger returning with a vengeance. Taking rapid deep breaths like she was going to vomit forced herself to look into the mirror. Concentrating intently on the mirror she willed the hunger back down, the sides of the basin snapped like balsa wood they gave way from the force she exerted on the.
Twilight slipped from the breakage, her fang catching the lip of the basin. The tooth seared sharply with pain and she tasted her own blood. That gave her an idea and she sank her fangs into her own fore leg, her mouth flooding with blood.
But it did nothing the phase the growing hunger.
“That won’t work.” A voice announced from the doorway.
Twilight turned her head to see the last pony she wanted to lay eyes on in the world at that moment, and by the looks of it she had been crying, heavily.
Pulling her leg from her mouth she began to think up a retort but was cut off as the pony turned and pulled a hospital blood bag from the pouch at her side and gave it a small toss towards her.
Twilight instantly pulled it over to her with her magic and greedily chomped hard down on it. The pack exploded, most of it covering the bathroom and the shield her benefactor had raised. Twilight swallowed what was in her mouth and proceeded to lick what she could from the floor and walls.
“Well you’re a hungry one aren’t you.” The mare commented.
Twilight glared at her “What the hell did you do to me?”
Vincenza smiled “Me? I did nothing, what I want to know is why a vamp is working for vamp hunters.”
Twilight would of spat but the spit had blood in it so she swallowed instead. “I’m not a vampony.” She said out of instinct.
“Not from where I’m standing, now listen up. That blood pack should keep you going for a few hours but unless you get a proper feed you’re going to crash.” Twilight continued licking what blood she could find. Vincenza reached forward and grabbing her face with her hooves turned her face to face hers.
“But that’s not your biggest problem, if you don’t come with me you will end up dead very shortly.”
Twilight shook her head and took a step back. “What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you?”
“Because if you don’t Celestia will kill you.” The elder vampony stated.
“Your lying she would never do that to me.” Twilight took a step forward and pressed her face close to the other unicorn. “You somehow turned my friends and town against me but you can never come between me and the princess---.” She was cut off as Vincenza violently picked her up and slammed into the far wall with her magic.
“Listen to me! Celestia is going to come and kill you. The whole town wants you dead. They all think you killed Octavia!”
Twilight sharply took a breath. “Octavia’s dead?”
Vincenza grinded her teeth. “Yes.”
“How?”
Vincenza was quiet for a moment, thinking about something. “…She’s dead, that’s all you need to know.” She released Twilight from her suspension. “The fact is they all think you did it. You need to come with me.”
Twilight opened her mouth to object but Vincenza bet her to the punch. Again. “Think about it you have no other choice.”
Twilight closed her mouth as the truth settled on her like a lead weight around her neck, she had nowhere to turn. She lowered her head.
She knew better than anypony what the Princess did to murderers and with the town baying for her corpse….. “Why would you help me?” she asked feebly.
The elder examined her. “Because once upon a time I made a promise, and now it’s being collected on.” She explained. “I don’t blame you for putting Octavia in the hospital.”
Twilight raised her head, surprise written all over her face. “What? Why?”
Vincenza smiled sadly. “Believe me I want to hate you so bad right now; every fibre of my body wants to rend you into a million pieces. I want to scream at you, hit you and curse you.”
She blinked away some tears. “But it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t know better. You lost control, and I know what that feels like all too well. I don’t….can’t blame you for her death.” She extended a hoof towards the purple neophyte.
“Come with me I can take you to safety.” Twilight looked away sceptic of the elder’s claims.
The sound of a door slamming rang through the house and the sounds of loud hoof steps reached the ears of the two vamponies.
“Twilight. Twilight where are you! I wish to talk with you!” The sound of Celestia’s voice reached their ears.
Acting on instinct Twilight called out to the Princess. “In the bathroom.” Vincenza closed her eyes and sighed as the hoof steps stopped.
Another voice called out to them from the foyer. “Twilight Sparkle we require to speak with you post haste. Bring thyself down here it is imperative that we speak to you!” Only Luna had a voice that loud.
Vincenza stepped aside as Twilight walked past her. As Twilight walked down the stairs to the foyer she couldn’t help but entertain the hope that she would be able to explain to the princess that she had been framed, after all this was Celestia, the kindest wisest pony in all of Equestria.
As Twilight cleared the stairs she saw Luna standing in by the door. The night Princess turned her head and faced her.
“Where’s Ce-Woh ohh!“ Twilight was cut off as she was lifted into the air by Luna’s magic.
“Sister we have found her.” Luna called out. Twilight was only able to move a little but couldn’t move her head far enough to see the source of the hoof steps behind her. She didn’t need to, she knew who they belonged to.
As the Princess came into Twilights vision her heart sank like a stone. Celestia looked completely emotionless, the kind of emotionless she got when she was absolutely livid. She would be as receptive to her appeals as rock.
Celestia breathed calm and steady. “Twilight Sparkle my most faithful student.” She put emphasis on the word faithful.
“Princess please I can explain.” Twilight tried to speak.
Celestia remained stoic as ever. “Explain? Explain what? That you killed one of my subjects? Or would you like to explain that for years that you have been part of one of the most heinous criminal organisations in Equestria.”
Twilight flinched. “I can…” She started to speak before she was cut off again.
“You can what, explain it all? How, with more lies? How long Twilight, how long have you been laughing behind my back.”
A crack in Celestia’s mask appeared. “I sheltered you when your parents passed on, I have practically raised you ever since that day. And this is how you repay me. What did I do to deserve your hate Twilight, I have been nothing but kind and caring to you.”
“Princess...” Twilight pleaded with her mentor.
Celestia’s face turned into a scowl. “No. No more lies from you, you have made a mockery of everything I stand for, you have killed my subject and shown your true colours. I suppose this is what I get for sheltering a snake under my wing.”
Twilight began to cry. “Princess please, you have everything wrong I’ve been framed. Please!”
But the Princess was as unassailable as sun; she ignored her and continued talking. “Twilight Sparkle for crimes against Equestria and me you would be executed without a moment’s notice, but Equestria owes you a un payable debt. So you will be spared.” Twilight dared to hope.
“Instead I exile you for all eternity.”
Twilight stopped breathing, a look of shock on her face.
“Should I or any guard ever lay eyes upon you in Equestria again, you will be executed without thought or trial.”
“But but but…”
Celestia was worked up now and she would not be stopped.
“Twilight Sparkle from this moment on I burn all bridges there were between us, I cut all ties and shatter all bonds! You are no longer my student!” As she turned to leave she said in a quiet voice that Twilight only just heard. “I don’t know if you ever were.”
As she watched the pony she loved like a mother just turn away Twilight felt something primal rise up in her, compelling her to speak. She gritted her teeth and hardened herself against the tears.
“It’s all your fault!” She shouted out.
Celestia stopped and turned around. “What.”
“It’s your fault, all of this!”
“How dare you. “
“It’s because of you I joined the angles!”
Celestia stepped back like she had been slapped.
“Seventeen years ago a filly came to your room with definite proof that vamponies had killed her parents.” Celestia’s eyes widened as she recalled the memory.
“She showed you all the evidence, she told you everything she had found and what did you do? You sent her back to bed with a kiss on the forehead saying that such monsters didn’t exist. That they were just stories told to scare little fillies with hyperactive imaginations.”
Now it was Twilight’s turn to get mad.
“But you know what, your guard heard everything, and as he escorted the filly to bed he told her a story about a group of ponies that fought monsters, he asked if the filly wanted to learn more about the group. She said yes and over the course of the next six years as the filly grew into a mare she would both study during the day and train with the guard during the night, sometimes even going on ‘patrol’ with him to hunt down monsters. And no one was none the wiser about what she was up to.”
Twilight blinked away tears.
“Three years later on a patrol the guard and the mare came across a powerful monster, the guard was killed, the mare beaten and the monster defeated. But before it died it gave the mare a gift, one that she wouldn’t realise that she had for seven years.”
Celestia walked over to where Twilight was being suspended by Luna. “Let her down.”
The field around Twilight disappeared and she dropped to the ground. Twilight looked up at Celestia her eyes filled with tears, only to be sent sprawling by Celestia’s back hoof.
“Never never blame me for what you have done.” Celestia turned and walked away. “We all have choices no matter the circumstance.” She walked out the door leaving Luna alone with her.
Twilight was curled into a ball sobbing , Luna gave her a long look filled with pity, and looked to the top of the stair case where Vincenza was standing watching her. They simply nodded to each other and Luna turned and left the library.
Vincenza walked down the stairs and over to the curled up unicorn. “Come on lets get you away from here.” She crooned softly extending a hoof.
Twilight looked up into the smiling, tear stained face of the elder………
And took the hoof.

They both vanished into thin air, wisps of black haze fading where they had once stood.

Earlier at the hospital
Vincenza looked at the door Twilight had rushed out of and turned to look at the mournful group of ponies in the room. Turning her head she took in the scene. Pinkie and Flutter shy were both sobbing quietly, Rarity looked steely at nothing at all a barely noticeable quivering in her shoulders, Rainbow looked tired and Applejack was shaking her head slowly. Glancing at Spike’s unconscious form she felt a tidal wave of guilt hit her over the baby dragon, she had blinded him, and because of his own resistance to magic no healing spells could ever restore his sight. He was permanently blind, because of her.
She stood up and slowly walked over to Octavia’s bedside she nuzzled the mare gently. “Hey.” She whispered.
Octavia tensed and Vincenza backed away. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Octavia looked into her eyes and looked away; she looked at the group of ponies around her and slowly looked back up to the unicorn above her. Weakly she placed her hoof onto the one Vincenza had placed on her cheek.
And gave it a soft push.
Vincenza’s eyes widened in shock as she withdrew the hoof. “Why?”
Octavia opened her mouth again. ‘Because you are a monster’ she thought to herself. “I’m sorry, but what you did to Spike, to Twilight…I’m sorry it’s over.” Her voice was like a whisper, soft and sad.
And that made it all the worse.
Vincenza took multiple steps backward; she looked at the ponies around her. They all watched her with a mixture of fear and uncertainty, unsure how she would react. She took a step forward and Applejack and Rainbow both stiffened, both ready to throw themselves at her if she went for Octavia.
She looked at them both. “Please, let me say my good byes.” The two ponies remained tense until Octavia gestured to them to relax.
Vincenza stepped over to Octavia’s bedside and reached down and gently embraced her. She cradled her and whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry to.”
Time slowed as she prepared herself for what she was about to do. Before Twilight came in she had been having a long, long conversation with her benefactor about what she was to do next. And she had received some very dissatisfactory orders. She was to take Twilight and train her, become her mentor, but Twilight need to be separated from her ties first.
Part of the vampony curse was the bite. If a bitten pony was not drained they didn’t turn into a vampony as per legend, they died. And they died slow.
First the immunity system failed, if they survived that they became weak, their non-vital organs shut down one by one, the blood stopped clotting, and bones became brittle.
Then if they survived all that, their cells would undergo a slow but steady necrosis until it the pony died in unimaginable pain.
It took a year at best at worst….many before the pony died, but either way they died in agony.
Vincenza thought about all of this, trying to put what she was about to do next in a favourable somehow merciful light. She placed her hooves on either side of Octavia’s head. She kissed her on her forehead, feeling her pulse, taking in her smell, committing it to memory for what would be the last time.
She pulled away and looked Octavia deep in the eyes, she saw a love mixed deep with fear. She took a deep breath, tears formed in her eyes as she realised it shakily. Octavia placed a hoof over hers, Vincenza turned away from her.
She quickly, violently, wrenched Octavia’s head to the limit and beyond of what a head should turn. She heard a sickening crack and pop, her breath caught in her throat.
It was clean and painless, Octavia deserved that and so much more but it was all she could do for her.
The ponies around her started to step back, their faces showing they were about to scream. Vincenza’s eyes glowed red as she quickly stood from the side of the bed and spun around sweeping her eyes across theirs. They stiffened, neck muscles bulging as they tried to scream making muffled chocking sounds, their eyes widened in absolute fear.
Looking deep into each of their eyes, she projected her mind into theirs. She could feel their panic as they all felt her inside their head, she heard them scream what they could not verbally articulate.
She ignored their cries and began doctor their memories, altering them.
When she was finished she flicked a ‘switch’ in their heads and they fell unconscious. Extracting herself from their minds she wiped away her metaphysical ‘finger prints’ they wouldn’t remember any of this when they woke up.
She walked over to Spike, summoning a scroll and quill she quickly wrote a note outlining that Octavia had been killed by Twilight and that the Princesses were needed soon. Leaning down to Spike’s ear she held the scroll in front of him. Clearing her throat quietly she spoke in a perfect imitation of Twilight’s voice. “Spike.” She whispered. “Could you send this pretty please?”
Spike mumbled something and blew, a small green flame ignited briefly. But that was all she needed and the scroll was sent on its way. Vincenza straightened up and grabbed one of the blood bags from the emergency cart in the room and teleported away.
She reappeared in her old room in her and Octavia’s house, the clean-up long since over down stairs. She looked around, mementos of Octavia were everywhere.
The indent she left in the bed, her hair scattered everywhere, her picture on the bed side table, a drawer filed with spare collars and pink bowties.

She walked over the big double bed they had shared and sunk to the ground, balling her eyes out.

The pair of vamponies appeared in the same clearing that Vincenza had taken Octavia to the previous night. Twilight examined her surroundings concluding that she was in the Ever Free, no other forest had the same….malice.
“Where are we?” She asked.
Vincenza ignored her and walked into the cave mouth, motioning to her new companion to follow her with a jerk of her head. Twilight hesitantly went after her after a short moment’s pause. She walked into the cave, the noon sun dimly illuminating it. Puzzled by the elder’s choice of location she opened her mouth to say something…..and promptly closed it when she came to the opening of the cave tunnel.
Twilight gazed at the cavern in wonder. “What is this place?” She asked.
“My sanctuary.” Vincenza turned to face Twilight. “And as of now…yours as well.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow inquisitive eye brow, Vincenza smiled at her. “You are young Twilight you need someone to teach you. Would you like to be my student?”
Twilight blinked a couple of times at her until the brain had registered what she had asked. “What.”
“Twilight, would you like me to teach you?” Vincenza asked for a second time.
Twilight looked around the cavern, thinking. She had just been disowned by the Princess, her friends hated her for something she didn’t do, she had turned into a creature she had dedicated most of her life to destroying and now one of the most infamous of their kind was offering to tutor her. She looked at Vincenza. “I don’t know…”
“Twilight…do you have many other options?”
“….fine.”
“Eccellente. We will begin your training in the morning, until then take a look around and make yourself at home I need to go complete a couple of..... errands, a presto.” With that the elder vanished in a puff of black smoke.
Twilight looked around her surroundings before giving a sigh and resigning herself to exploring the cavern.

Chapter 8

Darkness surrounded her and yet she could dimly see, taking no notice of this she ran and ran. She barely recalled who she was; she didn’t belong down here, where ever down here was. She searched desperately for a light, for some sign of an exit, desperate for a way out. But around her was only a never ending labyrinth of darkness, the walls filled with skulls. She recalled she was in some kind of catacombs, a tomb.

With ragged breath she turned a corner, only to find herself face to face with a…creature. She tried to turn around, forgetting she was galloping at full speed only to end up tripping as the thing launched itself at her, fangs bared fore-limbs stretched out towards her. Luckily her tumble meant the thing sailed right over top of her into the wall behind her. She quickly scrambled to her hooves and ran as fast as she could down the corridor, sounds of enraged snarls as the thing behind her quickly rose too and gave chase.

She ran down the corridor her legs given wings by fear; she bounded off walls as she rounded corners. All the while the sounds behind her kept pace with her, never diminishing never fading. Eventually she came to a large room, three more corridors branched off it, without thinking she turned to run down to nearest one but lost her footing and slipped. She struggled to hooves and made to run down the corridor but was tackled as one of the creatures rushed from the corridor and pinned her to ground. She screamed and struggled but the creature had her to well grappled, it screeched at her as it tried to bite her. The creature atop her was suddenly wrenched off her as it was tackled by the creature she had been running away from.

She got to her hooves as the two monsters rolled around the floor biting and hitting each other. She ran down one of the other corridors, panting heavily. Eventually she came to another cavern; this one had a spring flowing from the wall. She walked over to take a drink and recoiled instantly, one of the creatures was in the water. She waited for the creature to burst out and attack her, but nothing came, confused she went to the water’s edge again. And again she saw the creature; she made to recoil again but stopped when the creature did nothing.

She watched it and it watched her, she reached out to it and slowly the creature copied her. However when their hooves met, her hoof simply passed right through it into the water. She was shocked; she pulled her hoof out and looked at it looked back at the water creature and back to the hoof. Neurons sparked as a partial memory blinked across her mind, reflections, that…thing in the water was…her.

She looked back at the reflection, studying it; she had the same features as the creatures but she was different. What were they, why was she here….who was she?

Shaking her head she reached down and took a drink of water. Wiping her muzzle with her hoof she looked around in the darkness, it occurred to her that she could see as if she was in a low light area. She could see it was dark, there were no obvious light sources, and yet she could clearly make out the wall on the other side of the cavern. Puzzled but with no answer forth coming she pushed it to the back of her mind; she’d figure it out eventually.

Looking around she choose to go down the corridor furthest from her, this time she moved slowly keeping an ear out for more…creatures? No that wouldn’t do, she was one of them…Others? Yes that sounded better. As she came to the opening of another cavern, sounds of drinking reached her ears. Crouching down she crawled over to see what was making the noise, her breathing stopped. In the cavern was one of the Others, a scream rose in her throat but she forced it down instead huddling closer to the ground. The creature was resting its fore limbs on some sort of fountain that had been built into the wall and was drinking from it in large greedy gulps. A sound of fighting and screaming burst from one of the corridors; the Other perked up at the noise and ran off.

She waited till it had run from the room, slowly got up from the ground and cautiously made her way into the room. Looking around her for danger she approached the fountain and examined it. It was made of stone, the base was carved with what she could approximate to claws, and the outside of the bowl seemed to be a tangle of thorns the spines pointing inwards. She rested her fore limbs on the edge and leaned into examine the contents, it was some kind of dark liquid, the insides of the bowl were sticky with partly dried contents.

Not much of the liquid was left, however a small river of the liquid was pouring from a hole in the wall. Gingerly she reached in with her tongue and lapped up some of the liquid. As she swallowed her throat seemed to catch fire and a hunger she had been unaware of made itself known. She pushed her muzzle into the small pool of liquid and steadily drank it up. The hunger died down and she stepped away from the fountain, licking her lips she walked down a random corridor, and thinking about what had just happened.

Wondering why the smell of the liquid had seemed so familiar.

Vincenza walked into the bar with a heavy heart, she had told Twilight she needed to run some errands. That was mostly true; she did need to do some grocery shopping.

Looking around she put on a smile as she approached the bar, ordering a shot of whiskey she scooped out the patrons there were a few stallions and mares that held her gaze, some not at all bad looking.

None of them held a candle to Octavia though, she took her shot and her smile turned down at the edges.

She gestured for another shot and the bartender obliged, as he turned to walk away she asked if he could leave the bottle. The bartender raised an eyebrow but left the bottle as a bag bits appeared on the bar, he swept it into his apron and she got to work on the bottle.

She was half way through the bottle when a husky voice called out to her. “Trying to drown your sorrows hun?”

Vincenza turned to reply, the pony next to her was a mare, a unicorn and a good looking one at that. She put on her best smile and leaned on the bar. “Nothing a beautiful mare like you can’t fix.”

The mare smiled and took the stool next to her. “Oh I don’t know you seem to be doing fine by yourself.” She flicked at glance at the whisky bottle.

Vincenza grinned and pulled a second shot glass over with her magic. “Maybe you would care to join me?” She filled the glass and pushed over to the mare who accepted it with a smile as she downed it.

The mare breathed deeply as the fiery liquid made its way down her throat, she let out a ragged breath. “So what’s a fine mare like you doing in a place like this?”

Vincenza shot her a grin. “Oh you know, the usual story, found my two-timing mare-friend in bed with some pony else ect ect.”

The mare put on a frown. “Somepony cheated on a fine mare like you, I find that hard to believe.”

Vincenza shrugged and poured them out another shot. “Well it’s the truth and here we are.” They took their shots and Vincenza poured them another. “So who would I have the pleasure of sharing my company with tonight?”

The mare smiled. “Name’s Dove Tail, and you would be?”

“Vincenza Nightingale.” She smiled back.

Dove Tail raised an eye brow. “That’s an exotic name.”

“I’m a very exotic pony.” Vincenza retorted, she reached over and lightly brushed Dove’s fore limb with her hoof. The two ponies smiled at each other and in response to unseen signal the rose from the stools and walked out on to the dance floor.

She was roused from her slumber by the growls of an Other she emerging from the crack in the wall she had found and looked for the source of the noise. She could tell it coming from her left, so she decided to go right. Creeping along, careful to make as little noise as possible she rounded the corner…and found herself face to knee with a tall bipedal creature.
She blinked, it blinked, she screamed, it pounced at her.

She ran forward between its legs and galloped down the tunnel into a cavern. She turned to run down another corridor when an arm exploded from the ground and grabbed her. The creature pulled itself up from the ground shouting but all she could make out was some weird barking noises. Its claws dug into her shoulder as it shook her, she tried hitting it but it seemed to have no effect on the crazed creature. It raised its other arm to strike her when a voice cried out.

“Leave her alone!” The creature turned to see what had called out when it was sent flying by a tackle from an Other, making it stumble and lose its grip.

The other spun around and bucked the creature in the chest, the creature was sent flying into the wall and its head made a sickening crack as it collided with the cold stone. The other turned to face her, she tried to crawl backwards but the creature’s claws had injured her shoulder. The other noticed this and quickly went over to the creature, it tore the ragged cloth it was wearing into strips and flapped over to her.

It had wings! She was stunned, the rest of the others she had seen had just had horns on their heads like her, this one didn’t.

“You haven’t tried to bite my face off so I’m going to assume you’re friendly, okay?”

She nodded and it….he, it was a he, came closer and tied the rags around her shoulder.

“Can you talk? My name’s Lucas.”

She moved her mouth up and down, she could understand what he was saying and slowly she began to link syllables together to form something that resembled a reply. “I-I-Yes. Yes I can talk. Thank you.”

Lucas grinned. “Nothing to it, what’s your name?”

She frowned, searching her memory but came up blank. “I don’t know.”

The….Pegasus…yeah that sound about right, cracked her a grin. “Well we've got all the time in the world don’t worry about it.”

She gave a grin in return and got to her hooves, “Do you have any idea where we are?” she asked.

“Underground?” Lucas responded.

“I was hoping for something with a bit more detail.”

Lucas tapped his hoof on his chin as he furrowed his brows in thought. “Very far underground.” He declared with a totally straight face stamping his hoof for emphasis. She chuckled and shook her head.

“Fine then what do you propose we do now, oh master of the obvious?”

“Well I’ve been walking down random tunnels, want to keep doing that?”

“Why not, it’s not like I’ve got much else to do.”

The Pegasus gave another of his grins and chuckled. “Very well then.” He looked around the cavern, choosing a tunnel at random and looked at his new companion and with a slight nod to each other they set of together.

They had been walking (and sometimes hovering) along the tunnels for a long time and had gone through many rooms. They had talked and discovered that they both had gaps in their memory, he told her that after he woken up he had started walking around the tunnels, surviving on the water and the stuff in the fountains. Eventually he began to recall bits and pieces of his past, mostly his name and a few scattered memories, he told her not to worry about her memory loss it would probably come back on it’s on.

They would banter and just talk for the sake of talking, after spending so much time alone it was good to have some company for once.

Vincenza danced to beat feeling the pulse of her partner as they grinded against each other. She let the alcohol filter through her blood allowing a feeling of inebriation to overtake her, and judging by Dove Tail’s actions the alcohol was affecting her as well. Their dancing had gotten more intimate as the night had worn on. During the brief lulls in the music they had made small talk, mostly with their tongues, but Vincenza had been able to get some conversation in there. Turns out Dove Tail was an aspiring actor, had been for the past few years.

Perfect.

They had come to another one of the rooms with a fountain in the wall; it looked like none of the Others had found it yet as it was mostly full. Taking turns they drank all of the liquid in the fountains. They had discovered it was blood some time ago, the news hadn’t been as unsettling as she would of thought; Lucas though had taken it a bit more harshly but had quickly gotten over it. It was strange traveling with him, she grown close to him not in a romantic way but in a sort of friendly way. Somehow she knew that if they ever got out of here they would be friends for ever.

She gestured at the fountain. “Who do you suppose made these?” She asked her companion.

He looked the fountain over. “Don’t know, whoever put us here I guess.” He turned to face her. “How’s the memory coming along, got your name yet?”

She shook her head. “No, every time I try I can feel it somewhere in the back of my head, but it just slips out of reach when I try to grab it.” She sat down on her haunches. “I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever get it back.” She turns her head to look at her cutie mark. “Even this thing doesn’t help, I know what it is and what it means but I can’t remember how I got it.”

Lucas put a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey hey now, listen it was tough for me to, I know exactly how you feel but trust me you’ll get it eventually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and besides, I need to know who I’m buying a drink for when we get outa here.” Lucas playfully shoved her shoulder, referring to the first thing they had agreed on doing once they got out, finding the nearest inn and getting wasted.

She smiled and shoved him back with her magic, he chuckled. “At least you got your magic back.”

“Yeah thank the gods for small mercies I guess.” She got up from the ground. “Do you think we’re ever going to get out of here?”

Lucas shrugged and stretched his wings. “There has to be a way out, we couldn’t of just appeared down here, and I’m thinking who ever out us down here had to of made a way out, all we have to do is find it.”

“Yeah, but have you ever wondered why were down here. The only other ponies we’ve encountered are less intelligent than rabbits and have tried to kill us. Do you think it’s some kind of disease and we’ve been put down here to isolate us from the rest of the populace?”

Lucas shook his head and nodded towards the fountain. “No it doesn’t make sense; if they wanted to isolate us then they wouldn’t keep feeding us.”

She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a test or something, like who can find their way out or something.”

Lucas shook his head. “Yeah but if that’s the case then there would be signs or something…." the pegasus snapped his head up like he had an idea. "Or maybe there is and we’ve just been missing them all this time.”

“What do you mean?”

Lucas tapped the rim of the bowl. “Look at where the thorns touch the rim.”

She looked at the bowl. “I’m not seeing it.”

“They’re all pointing the same way.” Lucas nodded his head in the direction of the thorns, towards one of the tunnels.

She raised an eyebrow. “You think that they might be pointing to a way out?”

Lucas shrugged. “Better than anything else we’ve got to go on.”

She shrugged and they began to walk down the passage, every now and again she would hum or whistle a tune tapping out the rhythm with her hooves. They walked in the direction of the thorns; every cavern that they came to that didn’t have a fountain would have another corridor directly opposite.

Sometimes they would find a fountain that would point them in a new direction which they would walk down, after a countless amount of time, and a couple of scraps with Others later, they eventually came to a large cavern with no roof, a tiny pin prick of light shining up above. It was a perfect circle with three entrances, and unlike the walls in other places these were smooth brick. In the center of the room there was a large circle shaped whole only about a hoof deep.

Lucas flapped his wings and looked around the room. “This is new.”

She nodded in agreement as she helped to look around the room. “What do you suppose this is?” She asked as she indicated a wooden lever in the wall.

Lucas hovered his way over to her. “I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet it’s our way out.”

He placed his hooves on one side and she placed hers on the other, they looked at each other and flashed a manic grin before they threw their weight onto the lever. It creaked and groaned then suddenly it came crashing down with an all might boom followed by the sound of rattling chains.

They looked at each other and laughed.

Twilight looked at the space that Vincenza had occupied only a moment ago. Giving a sigh she decided to explore her new surroundings. On the first ring there was a kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms, one of the beds looked like it had recently been slept in.

Vincenza and Octavia

Twilight blinked away the tears that sprang up and walked out of the room and decided to look down stairs on the ground floor. There was a small pool being feed from a waterfall in the celling beside it was a table two plates on it on the ground beside it.

They must have been eating when I summoned them

Twilight felt her breath catch in her throat as her eyes fell on the broken shape of a double bass cello, the wood given a much deeper colour by the afternoon sun.

The summon spell must have been too much for the wood to handle

Twilight knelt by the broken wood, not touching it. Tears leaked from her eyes at the thought that she would never see one her friends again choking sounds filled the cavern as she began sobbing over the broken instrument, the realization hitting her like an apple cart.

Oh Gods, it's all my fault Octavia is dead because of me

Twilight turned to look at herself in the pond beside her, the red eyes looking back out at her filled her with revulsion. The red was the same colour as blood, the thought of blood kicked her memory back to that moment when she bit Octavia, the taste of her blood assaulted her senses and that same terrible hunger began to rise up in her.

Twilight screamed and curled into the foetal position trying to force down the rising red tide. Eventually the tide abated and Twilight opened her eyes, the broken haft of Octavia's cello filled her vision.

I’m a monster, just like the rest of them

She pulled herself up and picked up a sharp shard of the broken instrument.

I may have been disowned by my mentor, my friends may have abandoned me and my comrades will undoubtedly be out for my blood but I haven't given up on them

She stared at the shard, rotating it in the air as she studied it for weakness.

I may not be able to kill Vincenza, but at least I can stop another monster form being unleashed on the world

She closed her eyes and placed the shard against her chest.

Forgive me Octavia, i'm sorry

She pulsed her magic and the shard ripped through her chest like tissue paper.

Vincenza reappeared at the safe house, the unconscious form of Dove tail draped across her back.

"Twilight!" She called out, but there was no reply.

She was about to take a step when the smell of vamp blood hit her, her eyes widened and she rushed to the balcony, saw that twilight was lying on the ground a large hole through her chest and jumped over to her.

"Buck buck buck buck buck buck buck." She swore as she weaved healing spells to repair the damage, Vincenza thanked her lucky star that the mare hadn't destroyed her brain. Twilight gasped for air as she twitched and jerked.

Vincenza pinned her with her magic. "What the buck were you thinking you stupid little..." Twilight flinched as the elder burst into a flood of insults, most of which were in another language or other.

When she was done she released the mare, giving a death glare. "Get up, I’ve brought you some food." The elder mare however wasn't prepared when the mare at her hooves burst into tears.

"Why did you bring me back?! Do you have to take everything from me, can't I even decide when to die?" Twilight screamed at the brunet above her, her head snapped backwards as the elder struck her across the face and tackled her to the ground.

"No Twilight, no you can't. I have given up too much to just let you die."

"But why do you need a monster like me!"

"Monster?" Vincenza asked. "What in Equis makes you think that you are a monster."

"Because I killed one of my best friends, because I’m like you that’s why."

Vincenza flinched. "Like me? Like me! You are nothing like me!" She shouted.

"Then why do you need me?!" Twilight shouted back. "You're stronger than me, faster than me, wiser than me. What could you need me for?!"

Vincenza got off Twilight. "I don't, my master does."

Twilight looked up at the elder. "That black thing? What was that? What does it want with me?"

Vincenza looked at Twilight and turned away. "He just does."

"But but why me? "

"Because you're powerful Twilight that's why. He...asked me....to train you, to teach you how to control yourself."

The cavern was filled with an awkward silence.

"Twilight why do you think that you killed Octavia?"

Twilight hung her head. "Because I’m the reason she was in hospital because..." She stopped as Vincenza put her hoof on her shoulder.

"That wasn't you Twilight, it was your blood rage." She looked deep into Twilight's eyes. "You aren't to blame for anything, trust me when I say it wasn't your fault."

Twilight looked away. "But but-"

"Come on I brought you some food, you should eat before it gets cold."

Twilight nodded and watched as Vincenza jumped up over the balcony above them, shaking her head to banish the dark thoughts that were plaguing her she climbed the stairs.

She froze when she saw the 'meal' Vincenza had been talking about.

"What the buck, that’s a pony!" She yelled.

Vincenza gave her a stern look. "Calm down Twilight, you need to feed soon, that blood pack wont last forever."

"But you can just get me some more blood packs, I don't want to kill anypony."

"Twilight this is a part of being a vampony that you need to deal with." Vincenza levitated a knife she had gotten form the kitchen. "If you don't drink I will make you."

"But she's innocent, she hasn't done anything wrong. No I won’t do it, I refuse."

"Twilight don’t make me do this." Vincenza gauged the other mare. Seeing that she wasn't going to budge she sighed and pressed the blade of the knife to Dove tail's neck, a thin line of blood appeared and steadily leaked out of her. Vincenza released her and took a step back.

As soon as the blood appeared the thirst began to risen again in Twilight, she tried to stop it but the pain in her throat was too much and she threw herself at the poor mare, her fangs ripping into her neck.

The moment the tongue tasted the blood, the pulse of her prey thumping slowly beneath her teeth, all other thoughts were banished from her mind. A glorious feast was at hoof and Twilight sunk her fangs into it, greedily slurping the blood in loud gulps, blood flowing down her muzzle as it rushed out.

Soon the mare was dead and lying lifeless on the ground, Twilight wasted no time in lapping at the pools of blood around her, licking it from her muzzle and coat. Vincenza watched the whole ordeal with a look almost bordering on disgust.
Slowly the purple unicorn's face twisted from a look of joy and savage glee to one of muted shock then repulsion as she tried shake the blood of her. The panic in her eyes growing by the second.

Vincenza shook her head and wiped the disgust off her face. "Twilight." She called out as she grabbed the mare's head with her magic.

"Focus on me, look at me." Twilight's eyes were twitching rapidly, her mouth moving but no words coming out, tell tail signs of a panic attack, Vincenza teleported them to the bathroom.

She levitated the hyperventilating mare into the shower, turning on the warm water. "There there, let’s get you cleaned up." She cooed softly to the mare. "It's going to be okay, talk to me come on Twilight."

Vincenza softly massaged some soap into the worse areas of her coat, Twilight flinched but didn't otherwise react. The blood ran off the unicorn in thin strips into the water where they swirled down the drain.

She didn't look at the elder as she spoke. "W-What was that?"

Vincenza stopped momentarily before resuming. "Your blood rage."

"W-W-Will it happen every time I...." She tried to finish her sentence but couldn't get the words out. Vincenza understood.

"Were you turned willingly?"

Twilight tilted her head slightly. "What?"

"I need to know."

Twilight watched the blood swirl down the drain, a few minutes later she answered in a shaky voice. "N-no."

"How did it happen?" Vincenza asked keeping her voice low and comforting, know this was probably a very traumatic experience for the young mare.

"I-I don't know." Twilight paused momentarily before continuing. "T-There was this one mission when my squad got....killed, I was the only survivor....I guess....guess that would be it..."

Vincenza didn't press the issue, Twilight didn't offer any more information.

Eventually she just broke down, Vincenza wrapped her fore hooves around the crying mare comforting her as the warm water rained down on them. She knew all too well what it felt like to have your world crashing down around you.

Outside the boom of thunder heralded the beginnings of a storm.

The elevator slowly clinked down the shaft suspended from two thick chains, on it were three Others. She noticed that the one in the middle had a horn on his head like she did, whereas the two either side of him didn't, she also noticed that the other two were wearing full amour, whilst the one in the middle was wearing a richly decorated shirt.

The elevator trundled to a stop, the one in the middle looked Lucas and her over before smiling, showing a set of fangs like they had.

"Hello younglings, you have done well to find this place." He announced. "All that remains is one more step." The Other gave them a cold smile.

Lucas gulped. "What do you require from us?"

"Simple, to prove that you have come back to us you must tell us one thing, what is your name."

She felt her throat constrict, Lucas glanced at her with a worried expression. "What if we can't remember our names" She asked him.

He gave a chuckle. "Why then you don't get to come back to the surface my dear."

Lucas patted her on the back with his wing. "Don't worry it'll come to you." He then turned to the Other on the elevator. "My name is Lucas Vorticita."

The Other bowed his head. "Welcome back to us Lucas Vorticita." He then looked to her. "And what is your name darling."
She looked at the Lucas with a pleading look, Lucas only shrugged and gave her a sad look as he placed a hoof on her shoulder. "Come on, you can do it."

She nodded and furrowed her brow in concentration, the Other stood watching her.

"My name is....my name is..." She could feel it squirming around in her head, all it need it was a spark, but she couldn't get a hold on it. She cast her mind back through the murky fragments she could remember, the only thing that made any sense though was a tune going through her head, if only she could remember where it came from.

She sighed and sat down on her haunches, eyes closed as she breathed in and out to calm herself, Lucas and the Others watching expectantly.

Bird song...

Her eyes flicked open as her memory lit up like the sun, the Unicorn smiled. "What is your name?"

She smiled as she and Lucas walked onto the elevator. "My name is Vincenza Usingolo."

The Unicorn smiled in return. "Welcome back to us Vincenza Usingolo."

He lit up his horn, and the elevator began to rise up into the light above.

Chapter 1

Celestia’s sun was sinking into the horizon, bathing the sky red, ponies every where enjoyed the last warming rays of the sun as day slowly turned to night. Children played on swing sets, the elderly reminisced on sun sets gone by, and young lovers enjoyed the sight, creating new memories. On a hill just outside of Ponyvill, one such couple were enjoying the sunset of their first anniversary, not caring about the troubles of yesterday or the past, content to enjoy the moment of perfection they had created, hoping that the sun would freeze in the sky capturing this moment for ever….yet fate, as always, had other plans…

“Wow…you were right Vinyl, the sunset is beautiful from stargazer hill.” said the grey mare as she relaxed onto the blanket spread beneath her and her companion. “How did you find out about it?” she asked, turning her head to face the white unicorn mare beside her.

“Simple, just asked Twilight where any good places were to watch the sunset, this was the first place she suggested.” replied Vinyl, “Anyhoof because this is our special day I have one more surprise for you, two if you play your cards right.” she suggested with a wink.

“Really, what is it?”

“Dinner at Le saveurs de Prance…” she would have said more but was cut off by a sudden school girl squeal “whoa calm down Octy”

“Oh sorry Vinyl, it just that’s the single most prestigious restaurant in all of Canterlot, it’s rumoured that even the nobles have to make their reservations months in advance, how in Equestria did you get a table there?”

“The manager owed me a favour”

“You know Vinyl, one of these days you’re going to have to tell me why people in high places owe you favours”

“I don’t know what you’re on about Octavia”

“Really, how about the time you got the entire Equestrian concert hall booked for my quartet’s rehearsal, or the time you convinced the head of the Royal musical society to pick me for the Grand Galloping Gala”

“He he.” Vinyl chuckled “Maybe one day Octy, I’ll tell you, but I was thinking” she said as she embraced the gray mare next to her “the reservation is for tomorrow night, so I was wondering how you are going make it up to me”

“No worming out of it Vinyl, you have to tell me sometime.” Octavia glared as Vinyl embraced her.

“Fine. “ Vinyl sighed “How’s this, I tell you tomorrow night over dinner…that’s if you can convince me to let you tag along.”

“I suppose I can wait till tomorrow, and I might know of a way or two to, ‘convince’ you.” Octavia coyly suggested as she embraced the unicorn in return.

“Really, like?”

Octavia leaned over and whispered in her ear, Vinyl blushed and said with a grin “That’ll do it.”

Octavia was relentlessly pacing outside their house, a carriage had pulled up not long ago, the pullers looked slightly bored but didn’t overly care about what was going on, they had been rented out for the night and didn’t mind not walking for a change.

“VINYL HURRY UP, WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR OUR RESERVATION.” Octavia yelled from the doorway of their town house.

“Darling what’s all this yelling for, normally I wouldn‘t pry but I just put Sweetie Belle and her friends to sleep, and I would hate for them to wake up, it was hard enough to get them to stay in the bed” a voice asked from behind her.

Octavia turned around to identify the speaker; it was none other the Rarity, the local dressmaker and fashion expert. “Oh, hello Rarity, sorry about the noise, I know how energetic those three can be.” She shuddered at the memory of their latest crusade “I’m just waiting on Vinyl to finish getting ready in the bathroom” the last part of the sentence striking her as odd “wow never thought I’d ever say that” she thought to herself.

Rarity looked at her quizzically “Why what ever for?”

“Well you see, somehow Vinyl managed to get a table at Le saveurs de Prance and…” she was suddenly cut off by a squeal not dissimilar to the one she had given Vinyl last night.

“But that’s the single most prestigious restaurant in all of Canterlot, if I may ask, how did a mare of Vinyl’s….standing, ever get a table there of all places?”

“Well the manager owed her a favour or something; I’m not sure on the details.”

“Well my dear I’m sure you will have a wonderful time, but I have to wonder, is that what you’re wearing?

“What’s wrong with my dress?” Octavia asked looking down at her dress; it was a white evening dress and had cost her a substantial amount of bits.

“Oh nothing my dear it’s looks divine on you, it’s just not what I would have chosen, possibly something a bit more sparkly…with some diamonds” she mused “I just wish you would have come to me first for your dress, ah well nothing to be done about it now, but I digress you must tell me every thing when you come back”

“Of course Rarity”

“Octy, I’m coming out” yelled Vinyl from inside the house

“About time” Octavia replied “what took you so long in th….” her words (and 99% of her mental functions) abruptly coming to a halt as Vinyl walked out the door, somewhere behind her she could hear the sound of Rarity’s and the carriage ponies’ jaws hitting the ground along with her own. Vinyl was wearing a black figure hugging evening dress that had a slit along the left flank, not enough to revel but enough to get the imagination going, but the dress wasn’t the sole reason for the jaw dropping. Vinyl’s hair wasn’t blue or spiky; it was light brown with a red tinge and was flowing down her neck.

“Vinyl…your…hair?”

“Oh this, I’ll explain on the way, we had better get going if we want to make the reservation, and you may want to close your mouth Octy, your gona catch flies like that” said Vinyl with a smirk in her voice, her appearance obviously having the desired effect.
Octavia blinked, “Oh umm sure, let’s get going then, Goodnight Rarity, and sorry about the noise earlier…are you okay?”

“Oh I’m all right, it’s just…I didn’t expect Vinyl to…clean up so well” Rarity, through sheer force of will forced her gaze away from Vinyl, turned to walk away “I wont keep you from your engagement any longer, goodnight dears”

Vinyl climbed into the carriage “Hurry up Tavi we’re going to be late” As she climbed the foot step, the carriage ponies let out a breath they hadn’t known what they were holding and each thanked lucky stars they weren’t Pegasi, Octavia smiled and climbed into the carriage “Let’s go then”

As Luna’s moon crested the sky, the carriage carrying the couple was approaching the last stretch of road before Canterlot. “Vinyl, it’s time you told me what’s up with your hair, is this hair colour real, why did you never tell me your hair wasn‘t actually blue?”

“Octavia have I ever told you how much I love the night?” Vinyl replied softly as she looked out the window.

“Vinyl stop being silly and answer the question before I hurt you” Octavia playfully threatened

Vinyl turned to face Octavia “Well you see Octy, the blue is actually a magic dye, water proof, doesn’t fade or any thing so it’s great for my gigs, as for not telling you, my hair reminds me of my past, I‘d prefer to forget it but I decided that tonight was special, so you deserved to know”

“And the spikes?” Octavia asked

“Spikes are cool” Vinyl replied with a smirk

“Well Vinyl I can say that for once you actually look respectable, and the long hair suits you, makes look pretty”

“Wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard that” Vinyl whispered quietly so herself that Octavia barely heard her “Don’t get use to it, I do have an image to maintain after all.” Vinyl teased in a louder voice

Octavia pondered what she meant, but quickly dismissed her line of thought as the carriage pulled up along side of their destination. As Octavia got out of the carriage she was able to take in the full effect of the building, the entrance was lit up in a soft green glow by magic crystals arranged in an arch with rose bushes lining the path. But what took her breath away was the amount of famous people that were entering the building, she had already seen Lord Harmonious the stallion in charge of the Royal Equestrian Choir, Lilly Bouquet proprietor of Flower and Rose the single largest chain of flower distributors in Equestria, even Prince Blueblood himself.

“Why hello there, I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before, but I recognized you as Octavia from the royal Equestrian orchestra and being a fan of music, I just had to introduce myself.” a well refined Manehatten accent addressed her from her left, startling her.

Octavia let out a squeak and turned to face the pony who addressed her, only to find her facing the pony every pony must know, a stallion that had through charisma and hard work created from dirt poor beginnings a rather impressive fortune. “Sir Fancy Pants” Octavia gasped “I…ah…I…” She stumbled in her head trying to think of something, anything to say, but her brain had turned to mush in the presence of Equestria’s trend setting legend.

Fancy Pants chuckled warmly “Please call me Fancy, I’m a fan of your works I must say they help me relax after a long day, and I have all your albums. In fact I would be honoured if you would be willing to give me and my darling wife Fleur” Fancy gestures to the tall, slender, unicorn mare next to him “a private concert some time, we would be more than happy to reimburse you for your time of course.”

Octavia was stunned, the Fancy Pants was a fan of her music, AND was requesting a private concert…WITH pay, her mind slowed to crawl trying to process the information.

“She would love to” Vinyl said as she walked up to a still frozen Octavia “wouldn’t you Octy” Octavia was still frozen, so Vinyl grabbed her head and nodded for her “She agrees”.

Fancy Pants laughed softly whilst his wife hid a small grin with her hoof at the antics taking place in front off them.

“I don’t believe we have meet before, you are?” inquired Fancy Pants, a chuckle in his voice.

“Why I’m Octy’s other, sexier, half” Vinyl replied, shortly receiving a hoof to the back of her head, “watch it Octy, your gona give me a concussion one of these days.”

“Vinyl if I didn’t need you to get inside I would give you far worse than a concussion” Octavia’s tone was getting angrier with each word.

“So is that all I am to you, a ticket to a fancy restaurant” Vinyl turned to Fancy, a mischievous grin on her face “she how she treats me, this is what I go through every day.”

“Vinyl not here of all places, control your self” giving Vinyl a glare that would give Fluttershy a run for her money, her anger at Vinyl snapping her out of her star struck daze, she turns to Fancy Pants “Thank you I would love to give you and your wife a private concert”.

Fancy Pants was having a small laughing fit, and Fleur was having trouble concealing a rather large grin. “Are you two okay?” asked Octavia, mortified that she may of inadvertently humiliated her self in front of the elite of the elite …Vinyl if this is your fault somehow, and I know it is, I am going to end you… she thought, thinking of the various ways to bring about her revenge, chief in her mind was finding the nearest sharp object and proceed to ventilate Vinyl‘s chest cavity.

Fancy Pants quickly regained his composure but it was Fleur who answered first “Don’t worry we’re quite alright, it’s just that you two are such a cute couple” her grin was still her face, but it was mostly under control “I am very pleased that you are agreeing to give us a concert, I would love to stay and chat more but we must make our reservations”

“Ahh, yes quite right my dear” Fancy turned to address Octavia “I am sorry but we must cut this conversation short, please stop by my humble abode in Canterlot some time tomorrow to arrange times, I’ll tell the butler to be expecting you”

“Thank you Fancy, I will be there around half past twelve” Octavia replied still slightly giddy at the prospect of performing for the elite of Canterlot’s elite “Come Vinyl we should go get seated as well”

As the two couples approached the entrance a Unicorn stallion dressed in a suit standing behind a wooden podium addressed them “May I help you?” he asked in cultured tones.

“Yes my wife and I have reservations for two under the name Fancy” Fancy Pants replied.

The doorpony quickly glanced through the list with practised ease “Ahh yes, please come inside your table is waiting for you”

Fancy turned to the couple behind him “Be seeing you inside Octavia my dear and….I don’t believe I ever got your name Miss?” he said.

Vinyl blushed slightly “Oh how rude of me, I’m Vincenza, but my friends call me Vinyl Scratch, I also go by the stage name DJ-pon3 but there is plenty of time to discuss my vocation at a later date” she replied in not her normal voice but in well refined tones, causing Octavia’s brain to stall for a third time that night.

Fancy Pants simply smiled and raised an eyebrow “hmm interesting” he thought to himself and wished the couple goodnight before entering the restaurant followed by Fleur. The doorpony, during the brief conversation, had quickly flicked through the list “Yes we have your table ready inside mam, enjoy your evening.” Vinyl turned to look at Octy and with a mischievous look in her eye “Come on Tavi you don’t want to miss our reservation do you.” Vinyl turned and entered the restaurant, Octavia followed behind operating on auto-pilot, a shell shocked expression on her face.

The couple sat down in their private booth over looking the main stage, as they sat down Octavia nearly exploded as her brain finished processing the information “What the hay was that, Vinyl” Octavia was sitting to the left of her mare friend and gave her a point blank death glare “I have been trying to get you to talk properly for ages, with no luck, mostly because of you, then you go and talk like you were raised in a noble house all your life back there…start talking, starting with the name, who is Vincenza?”

Vinyl gave her an I’m-innocent-please-don’t-kill-me look “Fine, fine, just tone down the interrogation, by Celestia have I ever told you how glad I am you don’t have laser eyes.” She got another death glare from Octavia “Okay, okay, you see the thing with the name and fancy talk actually stems from my music career funnily enough” Octavia gave her a sceptical look “let me explain, you see I used to be a regular DJ, I had contracts and gigs just like every other DJ, but I didn’t want to just do night clubs and the occasional party, I wanted to have my own albums, I wanted to do huge concerts like Big Day Out, but every time I approached a recording studio they always gave me shity contracts that had me bucked six ways to Sunday and every time I tried to haggle with them they refused to sign, mostly because the ‘haggling’ would deteriorate into a shouting match”

“Now that I can believe” Octavia said smiling at Vinyl.

“Yip, turns out they thought I was stupid because of they way I talked and looked, so I decided that if the were going to treat Vinyl scratch like an idiot, I would do something different the next signing.” Vinyl chuckled to herself “ You should have seen the producers face when I walked through the door, ha priceless, after I had negotiated a settlement favourable to both parties I left, contract signed and me on the way to being the next biggest to hit Equestria, since then I always use the fancy accent to talk to the suites.”

“So when did you learn to speak like that, and where did you get that name?” Octavia asked, intrigued at learning about her marefriend’s history, yet annoyed that her question hadn’t been answered.

Vinyl took a little time before she answered; she looked down at the table “Along time ago and in a far away place.” Vinyl replied in a quite voice, a faraway look on her face, as if she was remembering something from her past.

Octavia took notice of this and remembered what Vinyl had said in the carriage reminds me of my past, I‘d prefer to forget it “Vinyl its okay, if you don’t want to talk about it you don’t have to.” her face sifting to a caring expression, though she made a mental to press Vinyl about it some time later in the week when they got back to the house

The sound of Octavia’s voice snapped Vinyl out of her reflection, “Thanks Octy” at that moment Octavia’s stomach rumbled, Vinyl smiled and raised an eye brow “Maybe we should order some food, what do you think?”

“I think some food would be delightful.” Octavia’s stomached rumbled again “Maybe we should order soon before I start eating the table cloth?”

Vinyl smiled “What’s this, did our Octavia make a joke, a real attempt at humour.”

“Yes Vinyl I do possess some capacity for comedy.” Octavia rolled her eyes as she said this “Now shut up and order so we can eat.”

Vinyl signalled a waiter over “My partner and I are ready to order, we will have the seafood plater with the Albarino, and the salad with the Riesling, thank you.” the waiter took down their order on a small note pad he was levitating in front of himself.

“Will you require anything else for your dinning pleasure?”

“Yes after we have finished the main course please send your dessert waiter to our table” Vinyl nodded slightly with her head dismissing the waiter, the waiter bowed slightly and briskly walked to the kitchen. Vinyl and Octavia continued to make light conversation, talking about each others music, about the prices at sugar cube corner and about the recent shenanigans of six certain mares. Their plater arrived, it was a collection of different seaweeds and sea urchins arranged in decorative pattern, Octavia was hesitant about trying the odd looking flora, but tried a small mouthful at Vinyl’s insistence, it tasted amazing, a bit salty but in a nice way, the rest of the platter was quickly devoured after that. The salad arrived and quickly went the way of the platter.

“So have you enjoyed your evening so far Tavi?” Vinyl asked from across the table, Octavia had a content look on her face.

“That food was amazing, I can see why this place has such high reviews, thank you Vinyl, this evening has been perfect nothing could ruin it for me.”

Vinyl looked over top of Octavia’s shoulder “Here comes our waiter, hope you left room for dessert Octy.”

Octavia turned around to look at the waiter, they meet eyes and both froze in place, “No it can’t be him” she thought to herself but it was, same light green coat, same grey mane cut shorter than last time she had seen him, same skinny build, same hazel brown eyes, “Pebble Shifter” she squeaked in a tight voice.

Pebble was frozen in place, “No it can’t be her, why her, why now when my life is just starting to come back together” here in front of him was the mare that had ruined his life, made him lose everything, dark memories surfaced on seeing her, “Octavia, good to see you again, how have the last six years been to you, good by the looks of things, looks like you got your dreams...living it up all fancy, and what’s this with a mare no less, I‘ve been great, who knew that a prison cell could be so comfortable... and by the way Bubbles was very gentle. You know I had a lot of time to do some thinking in that place and you know what I thought about, I thought about everything, and I decided that the next time I saw you I would tell you exactly what I thought of you... so here it is.You are the worst pony ever to exist ever... and I hope you drop DEAD” Pebble’s voice had gotten more and more hostile as the rant went on ending in a shout, the entire restaurant came to a hushed stillness all eyes turned to their booth.

Vinyl was opening her mouth to give this stallion a piece of her mind, when Octavia beat her to the punch, “I’m sorry Pebble, but you brought it upon yourself…” she never got the chance to finish.

“SHUT UP, YOU MADE MY LIFE A LIVING HELL FOR FIVE YEARS, FIVE YEARS OF LIVING IN FEAR AND ABUSE, YOU ABANDONDED ME AND HAD ME THROWN INTO A PRISION, IT’S YOUR FAULT…ALL…YOUR…FAULT” Pebbles face was a mask of rage.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS.” a small grey unicorn stallion with a neatly combed moustache had come out of the kitchens, his voice boomed across the dinning room “PEBBLE SHIFTER I WANT YOU OUT OF THAT UNIFORM AND OUT OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT NOW.”

Pebble turned to face the stallion “M-m-m-mister Vignoble, I-I-I-I….” he stammered.

“Get out of my Restaurant now and don’t ever come back.” Pebble turned and fled out the front door, Vignoble turned to face the guests, “I would like to extend my sincerest apologies to all of my esteemed guests, for having to witness that unfortunate display, the stallion no longer is in my employ.” the other guests turned back to their meals and company, and Vignoble turned to the two mares in the booth “Madams please accept my most humble apologies,” he looked at Octavia, then Vinyl, he recognized Vinyl instantly “Miss Vinyl, oh I am so sorry about, I have no idea what would make Pebble do such a thing, please allow me to wave the costs for the meal.”

Vinyl smiled “Thanks Viggy, how’s Precieux”

“She is well but goes by the stage name, Beauty Bass, as much as it pains me to say, it she very good, I can’t thank you enough for helping us out with her music, she has really put those tuition lessons to good work”

Octavia was by this point a little confused and very tired, the incident with Pebble had drained the good mood she had earlier, leaving her feeling washed out, “Excuse me for interrupting but how do you know Vinyl?” she asked.

“So this must be the mare you told me about Vinyl, I agree she is very cute though I do not think I wish to see her mad, not matter how much cuter she gets” Vignoble turned his gaze to Octavia “it’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person Octavia, well I know Vinyl because she has been the personal DJ tutor to my darling daughter Precieux, she has been amazing in helping my daughter with her craft, even going so far as to help her find her regular employment. She has been very good at bridging the gap between me and my daughter, why if not for her I would not have a tenth of the relationship I now share with my daughter.”

“Vinyl you never told me that you were giving tuition lessons” Octavia looked at Vinyl a raised eyebrow all the expression she needed.

Vinyl looked at Octavia, tilted her head to the side a puzzled look on her face “You never asked,” Vinyl turned to face Vignoble as Octavia facehoofed “Thank you for the meal but I think it is about time we should be leaving.” Vinyl got up, curtsied as Vignoble bowed in return, and with a little flick of her hair proceeded to leave the building.

Octavia quickly scrambled after her, as they approached their carriage Vinyl tilted her head in Octavia’s direction “So, who was he.” she asked in a quite voice that scared Octavia and sent shivers down her spine.

“It’s a long story Vinyl.” Octavia climbed into the carriage sitting down opposite Vinyl.

Vinyl looked out the window, “I have time.” she replied.

Octavia sighed “He was my coltfriend, we were inseparable, we thought we would get married and grow old together.”

Vinyl looked at her, “What changed?

Octavia looked at the floor in shame “I did, as my music career took off, I began to spend more and more time in Canterlot and less time back in Hoofington with him, you know the saying ‘you are who you surround yourself with‘,” Vinyl nodded “I began to act like the stuck up ponies I played for, eventually I broke up with him.”

Vinyl looked away “I understand Octavia, I truly do…so what happened next?”

Octavia took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds then calmly expelled it “Well, after I broke up with him he went of the rails, started staking me, when he broke into my old apartment in Canterlot I alerted the local guards and had a restraining notice filed against him. Every thing was fine for a time after that, I truly thought that he had given up, but I came home one night to find him standing in my lounge, a knife on the table, he said he loved me and if we couldn’t be together in life, we would be together in death, I managed to scream and make enough noise that the night janitor came running, he knocked out Pebble saving my life. After the courts found him guilty of attempted murder he was sent to prison for eight years, five on good behaviour, on the grounds that he would be given psychiatric help upon his release.” Octavia looked at Vinyl, mentally begging her to look at her.

Vinyl looked at Octavia, her ruby red eyes meeting Octavia’s purple one’s “I understand Octy, you did what you had to do, it’s not your fault he went off the rails, someponies just can’t let go.” Octavia smiled and they leaned across embrace each other content to hold each other, eventually they broke the hug, Octavia swapped sides sitting on the same side as Vinyl, and she snuggled into Vinyls arms, whilst Vinyl looked out the window and thought “Per favore per favore, fatemelo tenerla per un po piu a lungo, per favore Octy non odiarmi per quello che sono.”

A/N
Thanks for reading, for those of you who don’t know, the last bit is in Italian (Istallion) the translation (this was translated to Italian so those of you who read Italian, it probably reads weird) is please please let me keep her a while longer, please Octy don’t hate me for what I am, this will make sense later on and trust me, none of you are going to see it coming….
Also Vignoble is apparently french for vineyard

Chapter 4

Twilight watched as the last traces of Vincenza’s teleport faded away, her mind was racing as fast as it could, though her demeanour didn’t betray a hint of her thoughts. She quickly but calmly trotted over to the door to the basement, glad she had sent Spike on fool’s errand giving her the alone time she needed. She walked down the stairs and into the basement lab, ignoring the machinery Twilight walked to a bookcase and pulled out all the books and the shelves with her magic. The wall facing her was blank and unremarkable, normally. Twilight smiled at how ingenious she was sometimes.

She lit her horn and with a practised eye inscribed a sun with a pair of wings surrounding it in purple flame into the wall, the wall flashed white then disappeared revealing a room. As Twilight walked in to the room the wall behind her flashed back into existence and the books and shelves returned to their previous positions. The room itself was shaped like a rectangle, a larger version of the symbol she had inscribed into the wall was laid out in tiles on the floor, the walls and roof were covered in white tiles. The room contained a large mirror, a mannequin like the ones in Rarity’s store. The mannequin sat in the corner, but unlike the mannequins in Rarity’s boutique this one was not being used to hold a dress. Instead, hanging off the mannequin was a white robe; an armoured pauldron sat on the right shoulder, on it in contrasting black was the same insignia. Hanging on the wall behind the robe were two swords, each were as long as her legs and their blades glowed with a purple light.

She knew in that instance the identities of the ponies Vincenza had killed and she walked to the mirror, touching her horn to it. The reflection faded away, the image being replaced with an orange stallion at a desk. The stallion was facing away from her focused on the work in front of him. Twilight cleared her throat, prompting the stallion to raise his head.

“Sister Twilight, while it is a pleasure to receive a private message from you, I have my doubts that you are contacting me for an exchange of pleasantries.”

Twilight looked at him, “Correct Mr Orange, I have to things I wish to discuss, first being why is there a dead hit team in my sector without my knowledge.” Mr Orange raised an eyebrow at the last point.

“I assume that they failed their task?” he asked, raising his hooves in an arch in front of his muzzle.

“That brings me to my next point. Their target is friend of mine who happened to show up in my house this morning, and happens to be one of our main targets.” Twilight looked at Orange, traces of annoyance flittered across her features.

“I am aware of that already. Is there anything else you wish to discuss? I do have quite a lot of work I need to do here.” Orange said making a sweeping gesture with his hoof indicating the paperwork on his desk.

Twilight ignored his dismissal. “Why then, if you were aware of her, would you not tell me? Or at least send a more experienced team, as not one of the members had a pauldron.”

Frowning, Orange said “Because I worried that your friendship with it would have prevented you from properly doing your job. As for the team…let’s just say that I made a mistake about the quality of my men.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow “I find it extremely unlikely that even you are that dense not to send an elite team against a vamp of that strength, especially given this one’s history.”

Orange gritted his teeth at the insult, Twilight eyes widened “Unless those troops were the best you had.”

Orange gritted his teeth together. “Yes.” He spat. “Those were my best men. Frankly we haven’t had much action in these parts, only a few neophytes here and there but nothing on a major scale, I hadn’t had anypony skilled enough to warrant a pauldron in years.”

Twilight was shocked “Then why did you send them, surely you must have known that they would have been killed by a being of her calibre.”

Orange looked guiltily at his desk “Because I had hoped they would have been enough, that the legends about her weren’t true.”

“And now you have just gone and ruined the only advantage we may have had over her.” Twilight looked at him with something akin to disgust “A chance to bring her down and you threw it away on half flanked gamble.”

Orange slammed his hooves onto his desk “Do you think I don’t know that.” He gritted his teeth. “But none of that is important now.” He slumped back into his chair, a defeated look on his face. “What is important now is what we are going to do about her.”

Twilight closed her eyes and let out a breath, calming her thoughts “The best course of action that you can do is inform the other leaders in the region that we have found her, put them on alert in case I fail.”

“I will…wait. You can’t possibly be contemplating taking her on yourself? You’ll be torn to pieces!” Orange looked at Twilight like the mare had just declared she would fly to the moon.

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do, I am in a unique position, she trusts me. I can use this to strike her down when she isn’t looking.” Twilight looked Orange in the eyes, a serious expression on her face.

“Very well sister, I will inform the others of your sacrifice.” Orange bowed his head towards Twilight.

Twilight gave a chuckle devoid of mirth, “Don’t be so quick to count me out Orange, there is good reason for my pauldron.”

Orange smiled “I wish you luck then, please keep my niece safe during your fight. She can be very…hard-headed. And seeing you under attack would likely urge her to come to your aid.” Orange’s face darkened. “We both know what would happen should that occur.”

Twilight tilted her head in acknowledgement “I fully assure you Orange that I will not let anything happen to Applejack, I can only hope that should I fall you will take measures to keep her and my friends safe.”

“She is family Twilight, even though the Apples and Oranges have had their differences in the past, family looks out for family. As for your friends, I will make sure they are protected to the best of the Orders’ abilities.”

Twilight gave Orange a grateful look. “Thank you, I have to go now. I have preparations to make.” Orange simply returned his gaze to the paperwork in front of him as the mirror regained its reflection. Twilight took a step backwards and looked at the robe and the swords hanging behind it.

I hope I’m up to the task, for all our sakes.

Octavia and Vincenza appeared in a clearing of the Whitetail forest. Octavia blinked as her eyes adjusted to the change in light. The air was crisp and filled with the sound of bird song as the birds greeted the morning. Octavia took a look around her surroundings “Where are we?” she asked the mare at her side.

“The Whitetail forest, roughly an hour and a half from Ponyville, there’s a path about five minutes east of us that will take us back.” Vincenza replied, she looked up at the sky, and with a smile started walking “Venire Octavia, the morning is sereno. Let’s not waste it.” Octavia gave her a queer look and followed her.

The pair found the path and set a slow leisurely pace for home, Octavia walked along in silence whilst Vincenza hummed a melody, a grin set on her face. ‘What is it about jher, last night she was in a fight, this morning she was making heartfelt confessions now she’s humming along with that grin on her face like nothing’s wrong.’

“Something bugging you Octavia, you’ve got that faraway look.” Vincenza asked, stopping on the path as a mother duck lead her ducklings across.

Octavia shook her head, dispelling her thoughts “Hmmm, did you say something Vincenza?”

“You spaced out for bit back there, just wanting to know what was going on in that bello head of yours.” The last duckling crossed the path and the pair resumed their leisurely pace.

“Did you just say my head was a bell?” Octavia asked, slightly confused.

Vincenza let out a chuckle “Bello not bell, it translates to…” Vincenza said as she cocks her head to one side, a frown on her face. “It is kind of annoying to nail down, it sort of means attractive, good-looking, pretty, charming and lovely all at the same time.”

Octavia blushed “Oh…thanks, you aren’t too bad yourself.”

“What’s this, warming up to me already, knew you couldn’t resist me for long.” Vincenza had a smug grin on face as she walked along.

It was Octavia’s turn to chuckle as she playfully gave Vincenza a small shove, “Don’t think you’re out of the dog box just yet, I still have yet to hear you play remember?”

“Let me get this straight, you hear me play and I get some nookie?” Vincenza gave Octavia a mischievous grin.

“Maybe, do your performances come with pancakes and maple syrup?” Octavia retorted.

Vincenza raised an eyebrow “The best pancakes ever.”

“Well then….maybe.” Octavia winked.

“Oh, you tease.” Vincenza smiled. Octavia shrugged and gave the unicorn a smug grin of her own, causing Vincenza to breakout into a fit of laughter. Octavia watched on for a few seconds before she too succumbed. As the fits of laughter faded the pair resumed their walk in a comfortable silence, each being content to enjoy the company of the other.

“Vincenza?” Octavia asked hesitantly.

“Yes Octavia?”

“Can you tell me about yourself? We didn’t get to talk much about you before Twilight interrupted us.”

“Sure I would love to tell you my story. In fact I think that’s what I was originally going to do anyway…but about Twilight. I don’t think we can trust her.” Vincenza replied.

“Why not? She’s our friend, it’s not like she would do anything to harm us.” Octavia was confused by her partner’s lack of faith in her friends.

“It’s just that in my experience, when you revel to a pony that you are actually a three thousand year old vampony, conversation tends to suffer a catastrophic malfunction of the screaming kind.”

“Maybe she is just really accepting of her friends. After all she is friends with Pinkie Pie. If that doesn’t prepare you for random, I don’t what will.”

“Vero, but it’s just that something about her demeanour put me off. She took the revel a little too well.”

“I am sure she has her reasons, now stop with the evading and tell me about yourself.”

Vincenza smiles “Fine then, I was born in 7871DR (Dual Reign) in a medium sized fishing town called Palmareo. My Papa was Mario Uva, his family owned a vineyard outside of Palmareo but he joined the guard for a chance at immunity for his wife and new born daughter, me. Mamma was Aida Dove. She had the most amazing voice but never sung professionally, it wasn’t that she couldn’t it was she didn’t want to. So she made and maintained nets on the docks with her telekinesis. Mamma was a unicorn; my father was an earth pony.” Her eyes lose their focus as she is caught up in her memories.

“When Papa had leave he would take Mamma and I to visit Nonna. Nonno had passed before I was born, and Mamma’s parents had been killed in a bandit raid years before my parents had even met. Nonna always baked the best animelle and always made sure to have some ready for when we arrived.”

A little white filly excitedly runs down a dirt path, small legs work furiously as her light brown mane whipped behind her, racing into the waiting fore legs of an elderly looking chestnut brown mare. Behind her a brown stallion with a black mane and orange eyes and a white unicorn mare with a sky blue mane and violet eyes greeted the elderly mare and were ushered inside. “Nonna! Nonna!” The little filly’s hazel eyes sparkle with delight “Is that smell what I think it is?”

The father sniffs the air “Mama, is that the sweet scent of your animelle that my nose detects.” He looks down at the bundle of energy at his mother’s hooves, his mouth in big smile. “Come my little one; let us find the bread before the old one hides it away.” The two ran from the lounge into kitchen, leaving the two mares by themselves, sharing a smile.

“It is good to see you again Aida, Mario doesn’t bring you around nearly enough.” Sounds of crashing and a cry of victory can be heard from the kitchen, the pair moves to recline on some cushions around a prepared pot of coffee and plate of biscuits. “She is growing up so fast. How is her magic progressing?”

“Very well Eva. Grazie for asking.” The unicorn takes a sip of the coffee “Mmmm. This is an excellent brew Eva…” she is cut off by the entrance of two very full and sticky ponies.

“Mamma I have to say that was one of the best batches I have tasted. Don’t you agree little one?” he said, turning to the filly next to him, her mouth plastered with a yellow sticky substance.

“Si Papa, maybe the best ever!” The little filly squealed, jumping around on a sugar high.

Eva chuckled “It appears you have eaten my entire batch of sweetbread.” The filly stops her jumping as the thought of no more sweetbread enters her head “How you like to help make some more?”

The little filly’s eyes lit up and she shot straight up into the air. “Really!? Maybe I can get my cutie mark for baking.” The filly sprints off into the kitchen.

“I think that was a si.” The elderly mare walked into the kitchen, a smile on her face. The two adults give each other a look that says Here-we-go, as the filly’s father sat down.

“Some of my best memories were at Nonna’s. I loved being able to run around in the sun, eat fresh grapes, smell the baking bread, with the feeling of dirt in my coat, and the sunset, the way it lit up the sky red.” She closed her eyes and smiled.

“Even now I can feel the warmth of the sun baked dirt, the smell of her kitchen thyme, basil, tomato and mozzarella cheese, and I can hear the crickets playing their music for all to hear.” She opens her eyes. Octavia noticed that they were wet. “And now it’s gone, only in my memories. It’s been years since I last saw my Nonna’s farm, probably should go visit. Oh you would love it Octavia. The sunset, the people, the food. We would drink good wine, eat good food and dance away under the stars, the perfect getaway.”

Octavia looks at Vincenza, “A holiday does sound nice, we have been meaning to go on one for a while now anyway.”

Vincenza stamped her hoof, a look of determination in her face “Then it’s settled. As soon as this business in Ponyvill has been worked out, I’m going to take you on a trip round Istalia of good wine, good food and dancing.” Vincenza seemed excited to be returning home, evident by the skip in her step.

“Wow Vincenza you seem really excited to be going home.” Octavia remarked, trotting to keep up.

Vincenza noted the speed and slowed down to the slow pace they had going earlier. “Oh sorry, it’s just that I haven’t been home in five hundred years. I miss the sounds and smells sometimes. I’ll be walking through the market in Ponyvill and see ponies buying without bartering and market itself is very quiet. The only sounds are the sounds of coins changing hoof, or sitting in a café and noticing how quite it is. The waiters never want to talk, the customers are focused on getting their food down and getting back to work. And walking through the park and noticing a lack of music. The only ponies that play are Lyra and you.” Vincenza let out a sigh “I miss the crowds, the haggling, the friendly conversation, how you can be having a heated argument with a stall vendor one day and then be laughing at good joke at the same stall the next. I miss the sound of ponies playing their instruments in the parks because they can, and I miss the smell of food you get when you walk into a restaurant or the smell of spices in the market.”

Octavia was stunned “Wow Vincenza I had no idea that you missed your home that much. From what you have been describing it sounds like a nice place. I can’t wait to go. Though you should know something about me before we go.”

Vincenza raised an eye brow “What’s that?”

“I don’t know how to dance.” Octavia said sheepishly.

“That’s all? Trust me you will pick up the moves pretty quickly.” Vincenza grinned.

Octavia and Vincenza walked along the path side by side, the sun filtering down through the trees flickering around them. Octavia turned her head and looked at the mare next to her, the sun sometimes striking her, illuminating her mane. “You know what, I think I prefer you as a brunette Vincenza.” Octavia remarked.

“Why thank you Octavia. It is a very nice colour, I get it from my father’s side.” Vincenza responded proudly “My coat and original eyes were from my mother’s.” She added.

“Original eyes, you mean these aren’t yours?” Octavia gave her a weird look.

“Original eye colour. My eyes were originally hazel, when I became a vampony they turned red. If you want I could show you.”
“How? It’s not like you can stop being a vampony.”

Vincenza rolled her eyes, “No nothing that fancy, it’s simply an illusion to change my eye colour. It’s not hard.”

“Then why don’t you do that all the time?” Octavia asked.

“Because any unicorn would know that I have an illusion on my eyes unless I concealed it. Which would take constant renewing, and I really cannot be bothered when I can explain it away saying it’s a birth defect.”

“Wow that is…really lazy.”

“Do you want to see it or not?” Vincenza snapped, giving Octavia an annoyed look.

“Yes, sorry.”

Vincenza stopped walking and closed her eyes. Her horn flashed white, and she opened her eyes. Octavia drew in her breath; instead of the ruby red eyes she was used to she found she was looking into the most wonderful hazel eyes she had ever seen, their colour only being enhanced by the light brown mane framing them. Before she could help herself she leapt forward wrapped her forelegs around Vincenza and pulled her in for a kiss. Vincenza was shocked but didn’t fight back as she returned the kiss. They held it for what seemed like hours, but was truly only seconds before Octavia pulled herself away, a deep blush on her cheeks.

“I ahhh….like your eyes.” She said, sheepishly scuffing the ground with a hoof.

Vincenza had a content smile on her face “Grazie, you’re quite bello when you’re embarrassed yourself,” she decided to go out on a limb “Octy.” She braced herself for the tirade she had received earlier that morning and to her pleasant surprise, none came.

“Thanks Vincenza, you can change your eyes back now, if you want to that is.”

“I think I will. It would be weird if anypony saw me like this, they might think you were having an affair.” She joked as she lit her horn, restoring her eye colour “You know what I can’t fathom about you, it’s that this morning you were planning to go cold turkey on me but now your back to being frisky, not that I’m complaining.”

Octavia let out a sigh “We have been together for a year Vincenza. We love each other. I was being foalish when I thought I could ignore that just because you changed slightly. But I couldn’t. You are so much like you used to be that I can’t ignore it, you are so much more than what I thought you were. There is so much more to you for me to discover and that only means there is more for me to love.”

Vincenza’s heart gave a flutter, as those were the words she had been hoping to hear. She was so overwhelmed by emotion that she did the only thing she could think of, and kissed her. Octavia returned the kiss with full passion and when they broke it, no words were spoken, only a smile shared as they resumed their walk to Ponyville.

When the pair was ten minutes from Ponyville, Vincenza spoke up. “I think it’s about time I put my mane back to normal.”
“Actually I was hoping that you could leave it like it is. I prefer this colour on you. It suits better, and if anypony asks we could just say you are trying something new.”

“Really? Well I suppose we could do that. It wouldn’t be too hard.” Vincenza looked down the path “We’re coming to the end of the forest, so we shouldn’t be too far from Ponyville. What I think we should do is make our way to the town hall and give Mayor Mare our little version of events, from there we should go find our friends to let them know we’re okay.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Octavia nodded her head in agreement.

It wasn’t long before the pair was strolling through the streets of Ponyville, making a beeline for the town hall. As they made their way, ponies in the street would give them weird looks and talk with a hoof over their mouths in hushed tones to the pony next to them. Oddly enough, most of those looks were directed at Octavia. “Do you think that their talking about me being with you or that our house is a mess?” Octavia whispered into Vincenza’s ear.

Vincenza cocked an ear in the direction of the ponies giving them strange glances and concentrated “Their wondering if you’re having an affair. Seriously! Change the style and colour of your mane and tail and they think you’re a whole new pony.” She said rolling her eyes.

“Really how do you know?”

Vincenza waggled her ears. “My hearing is a lot better than the average pony. In fact one time I was standing next to Luna when she used the Royal Canterlot voice. Exploded my eardrums, deaf for month.” She winced and chuckled at the memory.

“You knew Luna before she you know…”

“Went all pazzo? Si, we were pretty good friends to.”

“What was she like before she lost it?”

“Hmmmm, very introverted and violent, she would always be at the frontline of every major conflict Equestria was in. She wanted ponies to respect her and love her like they her sister, so she tried to win it by protecting them. But she didn’t want friends because they would always end up dying of old age. So she never made the effort to connect with her subjects on a personal level. In the end this gave her a cold and aloof image in the eyes of her public, which when combined with her tendency to be out on the front lines gave her a very large social stigma to fight against. Ponies respected her, but they feared her. I just hope she can learn from her mistakes this time around.”

Octavia blinked “Wow you must have been pretty close to her to know all that.”

“Si, I was her only friend. I tried to comfort her, but in the end I wasn’t enough…” Vincenza trails of as her vision loses focus.

It was cold, but the night was clear and the moon shone brightly. Vincenza paced on the spot, worried about why Luna had called her. She floats up the scroll Luna had sent her to read it again.

Dearest friend

I need to meet you in our usual spot to discuss something of great importance.

It will change everything

Your eternal friend

Luna

With a loud bang, a cloud of blue-black smoke appeared and quickly coalesced into the form of Luna. She was as tall her sister, her dark blue coat shinning under the moonlight, her mane made of starlight blending so perfectly into the sky above so that Vincenza could barely tell where she ended and the sky began.

Vincenza started to step forward, and then stopped, something was wrong. Luna was wearing her amour. She never wore her amour unless there was an emergency.

“Is everything okay Luna?”

Luna beamed “I am fine Vincenza, my truest and only friend, just fine. Do you recall the topic of our last discussion?”

“Si, you were wondering how to get Ponies to appreciate your night and all the hard work you do for Equestria. As I recall we couldn’t think of anything and left it for another night.” Vincenza was becoming disturbed as Luna’s grin grew wider.

“Yes, I was wondering, “How do I get Ponies to love my precious night as much as they do the day?” Then it hit me. Ponies are sleeping during the night, so they don’t see it. How can I expect them to love something they can’t see?” Luna’s grin was now as wide as it could be. “So that’s how I came up with the perfect plan…make the night last forever.”

“What!” Vincenza was shocked. “That’s mad! You’ll kill everypony! The world cannot survive eternal night! Luna you do not have to do this!."

Luna’s grin turned to a mask of rage “What do I care if a few thousands die, the world will survive. Don’t be a drama queen. Anyway, as a creature of night I would have thought that you would have jumped at the opportunity for eternal night. I would have thought that as my friend, you would support me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or has my sister got to you to like she has the rest of my subjects.”

“What are you on about Luna?” Vincenza was tensing up getting ready to run; she knew that she was no match for the living goddess.

“Oh like you don’t know. How she encourages the rumours, how she makes our subjects fear me. I was hoping that you would be above her poisonous whispers, but even you are afraid of me.”

“I am not afraid of you Luna.”

“Ha! I can see it in your body language. If you aren’t afraid of me, then why are you getting ready to run? It’s funny, that even you, a blood thirsty monster, are afraid of me.” Vincenza winces at the insult coming from her best friend “Oh what’s this? Does the truth hurt? Well then let me tell you something, you are monster. You have to kill to stay alive, you integrate yourself into society perfectly, you look like them, you sound like them you even act like them. But you aren’t one of them. No, all you do is bring pain and suffering to those around you. Join me, help me bring in eternal night and together we will rule the world.”

Vincenza looked at her friend with a gaze somewhere between anger and sorrow. “You know I don’t want that Luna, and I know you don’t either. What would Celestia say.”

Luna’s anger flared at the mention of her sister. “My sister would want me to stop. My sister would want me to continue as I am, alone and feared so that she doesn’t have to share her subjects love with me. I was wrong about you. You’re weak, just like she is.” Luna turned away from Vincenza “Well if she wants her subjects to fear me then so be it. Too long have I been pushed aside by ponies, they see me as a nightmare then a nightmare I will be. From this night onwards I will no longer stand aside as my sister turns my people against me.” She takes off into the air, her outline framed by the moon. “From this point on wards I will be known as Night Mare Moon, AND THE NIGHT WILL LAST FOREVER.”

As soon as she finished, the darkness around her seemed to explode, being drawn into her. Her coat turned black, her starlight mane darkens and her eyes changed colour, becoming turquoise, as her pupils reformed into slits like a dragons.

Vincenza was horrified. She tried to move, but for the first time in her life since she became a vampony she feels something she thought she would never feel again, true fear. It rooted her to the spot and forces her to watch as what was once Luna lands in front of her and in a new voice, one that is deeper, stronger and more confident, said.

“Well? How do you like the new me? Hmmm? Do you think that my sister will try to fight back as I burn her kingdom to the ground? As crush her neck and usher in an age of eternal night? Do you think my subjects will run in fear as I declare myself Queen?” The alicorn stamped her right forehoof into the ground. “After all have I not done more for them than Celestia ever has? Was not I who protected them from Dragons, Griffins, Diamond dogs and things that go bump in the night? Was it not I who crafted their laws and gave them the concept of justice.” She smirked as Vincenza began to quake in fear and turned in the direction of the Everfree forest. “It is of no matter, when Celestia is dead and night eternal; they will have all the time in the world to learn love and respect.” With a beat of her wings she rises into the air and flies straight for the castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.

“And the rest, as they say, is history.” Vincenza hung her head.

“Oh Vincenza that must have been awful for you. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” Octavia nuzzles the unicorn, drawing more disapproving looks from ponies on the street.

Vincenza smiled and looked up, seeing the looks Octavia was getting and smiled mischievously. “Octy, what do you say about starting a rumour?”

Octavia raises an eyebrow as they emerge out into the town square “What did you have in m-“She was cut off as Vincenza kissed her. When Vincenza pulls away Octavia giggled “That’s defiantly going to spark some speculation. I can see the headlines now in E magazine: ‘Cheating cellist has affair with mystery brunette beauty.’ “

The pair started laughing as they strolled through the square when an angry voice shouted out from behind them “Octavia how dare you!”

“Huh?” Octavia turned around to find herself snout to snout with a very angry Lyra and Bon Bon.

“Bonny and I have been worried sick about you two all morning and it turns out that you’ve been spending time with another mare. How long has this been going on Octavia, a month, two?” Lyra was furious.

“Lyra, listen. I can explain everything, it’s not what it looks like.” Octavia began but she was cut off by an equally furious Bon Bon.

“You had better have a good excuse for making out with another mare in public Octavia, because I don’t think Vinyl’s going buy the excuse that you were cleaning her teeth.”

Octavia facehoofed “Could you sort this out please.” She turns to Vincenza a pleading look on her face.

Vincenza chuckles “Sicuro che nulla per te Octy.”

Octavia scowls “You couldn’t resist could you?” She mutters under her breath as Lyra explodes again, knowing full well that Vincenza can hear her.

“She’s a foreigner as well?! And she uses Vinyl’s nickname for you?! This is just great! Vinyl is going to be crushed when she find out about this Octavia.”

“Actually I think I’m quite okay with this.” Vincenza speaks with a slight accent and watches as Lyra and Bon Bon do a double take at her and laughs as their jaws hit the ground.

“Vinyl, is that you?” a very confused Lyra asks.

“Si, how many other mares do you know with red eyes?”

“But… but your hair… and your voice…” Bon Bon slowly recovered from the shock.

“Do you like it? I’m trying a new look, and si, I do speak Istallion. Seriously why is everypony so surprised that I speak two languages?”

“Umm it just that we didn’t peg you as the kind of pony to… you know… enjoy cultural pursuits, like learning another language. That’s all.”

“We do like your new look by the way, though what is up with the accent?”

“Well it would be weird if I didn’t speak with an accent language, since Equestrian is my second tongue. Though seriously, it’s probably because I’ve been slipping back into my native tongue”

Lyra and Bon Bon made bug eyes as Vincenza and Octavia both started giggling at their friends’ expressions. “Well that went down better than expected don’t you think Octy.”

“Well I don’t know about better, but I definitely wasn’t expecting this.”

The couple quickly regained their composure and Bon Bon coughed and nudged Lyra. Lyra stepped forward with a thoroughly embarrassed expression on her face “Octavia I would like apologise for suggesting that you were having an affair, as your friend I should have trusted you better. I’m sorry.”

Bon Bon steps forward with an equally embarrassed expression “Me too.”

Octavia opens her mouth to reply but I cut off when a familiar voice calls out to them. “Octavia? Vinyl? Is that you darlings?”

The group turns as Rarity followed by a very shy Pegasus that could be none other than Fluttershy, said “Octavia Vinyl, it’s good to see you! Fluttershy and I are going for our weekly spa for a day of pampering and luxury. You must join us and tell us about what happened to your house.”

Lyra snapped straight “Oh your house, Octavia I have no idea what happened. I went to go see if you wanted to have breakfast with Bonny and myself but when I got to the door, it was already open so I went inside… and that’s when I saw the bodies.” She gives a shudder as the memory resurfaced and Bon Bon nuzzled her, calming her down. “What happened last night?”

Octavia looks to Vincenza who responded, “We were going to tell Mayor Mare so that we wouldn’t have to repeat ourselves, but we can make an exception for you girls. Octy and I woke up last night to some noises downstairs, and we went down the hall to find that a group of ponies and griffons had broken in and were turning the place inside out. They saw us and I panicked. My magic lost control and teleported myself and Octy somewhere in the Whitetail forest, we’ve only just made it back.”

Rarity gave Vincenza a peculiar look. “Darling are you okay? Your voice sounds like those foreign ponies at the new coffee shop.”

“New coffee shop?” Vincenza returned Rarity’s look.

It was Fluttershy who spoke up. “Umm yes it’s quite nice, they umm make really good coffee….if you like coffee that is.” She ducked behind Rarity as Vincenza suddenly turned to Octavia.

“Octy change of plan, we are getting a coffee from this new place.” She turns back to Rarity “Where is this new place?”
Rarity points with her hoof at one of the buildings in the square “That one there-” Before she could continue, Vincenza shot off like a rocket leaving the five mares to watch as she ran towards the coffee shop.

Octavia gave the group an apologetic smile “Sorry she’s a little home sick at the moment, um if isn’t too much of a bother, Rarity could you gather the rest of your friends? There is something that you need to hear from Vinyl and would be best if she only needed to repeat it once.”

Lyra gives her a concerned look “Sounds serious. Are you okay?”

“It’s not for me to say, Vinyl needs to be the one to say it. All I can tell you is that it is very important.”

Rarity turns to Fluttershy “Well dearie, it looks we may have to postpone our spa day. I’ll go get Pinkie Pie and Twilight, would you be okay with getting Applejack and Rainbow Dash?” she turns back to Octavia, Lyra and Bon Bon “What do say we meet back here this afternoon around one.” The group nodded in agreement. Rarity headed off to Sugar cube corner whilst Fluttershy made her way out to Sweet Apple Acres.

Lyra and Bon Bon both gave their goodbyes and left, promising to meet back at the square at one to hear Vinyl’s announcement. Octavia turned to the building Rarity had pointed out. It had big windows at the front with a few tales outside. Above the doorframe was a big sign that, in gold and brown letters, read ‘House of Caffe’. Octavia walked over and froze, inside was Vincenza nose to nose with an elderly mare having a heated argument. And judging by the confused expressions on the customers faces, it wasn’t in Equestrian. She dashed inside just as the two took a step back and gave each other a long look staring at each other.

After what felt like an eternity the pair stated laughing, the elderly mare turned to the young mare behind the counter and shouted something in Istallion. When the mare didn’t move she frowned and repeated her sentence in Equestrian.
“I said put on a pot of coffee, the good stuff. Didn’t your mother teach you anything.” The elderly mare snapped as the younger mare hurried to the back of the store. “Youngsters.” She huffed “Don’t know anything about their history these days.” She noticed Octavia in the doorway “May I help you with anything dearie?”

Vincenza turned around “Oh Octavia good to see you how did your talk with Rarity go?”

The elderly mare turned to Vincenza “You know her?”

“Si, this is my marefriend Octavia.”

“Oh well then welcome, welcome. I take it you’re here to try some authentic Istallion style coffee then.”

“Ahhh yes?” Octavia was slightly overwhelmed, Vincenza gave her a slight shove as she directed her to a little booth.
Vincenza addressed the elderly mare “Si she’ll take an espresso, if it’s not too much trouble can we take them to go?”

“Certamente.”

“Grazie Bianca.”

As Vincenza sat down Octavia look around “What just happened?” she asked.

“You walked into a coffee shop and are now getting coffee, that’s what happened.”

“No, earlier you and that old mare were going at it, then all of a sudden your acting like your best of friends.”

“That? That was battering, no big deal.”

“Battering? You two were shouting at each other.”
Vincenza tilted her head to one side and gave Octavia an odd look “And?”

Octavia didn’t respond, but simply slammed her face into the table. Vincenza reached over and poked Octavia on the forehead. Octavia looked up into the beaming face her marefriend and slammed her head back onto the table. “Sooo, how did your talk with the girls go Octy?”

Octavia picked herself up off the table “Good we’re going to meet the whole gang at one for a little talk.”

Vincenza grimaced “This is going to be interesting.”

“Relax I am sure things will go fine, they’ll understand they are our friends after all.”

“You’re my marefriend of one year and you didn’t take the news to well.”

“Well in my defence you didn’t reveal it in the friendliest way possible.” Octavia said with a scowl.

Vincenza didn’t reply, instead suddenly finding something incredibly fascinating about the table top. Octavia grinned, it wasn’t often she had something over her marefriend but now that she did she was going to use it.

“You know there are things you could do to make to up to me.” The cellist said with a coy wink.

Something in her voice made the vampony perk up “Like what?”

Octavia leaned over and whispered in to her ear. “Really? Whipped cream, strawberries and a Prench maid outfit, do I have to?”

“Did you have to kick that pony through the wall?”

“Point taken.” Vincenza replied glumly.

Octavia reclined back into her seat with a smile on her face just as Bianca returned with the coffee.

“Here you go, would you like anything else?”

“No grazie.”

“Very well then six bits per favore.”

Vincenza smiled as Octavia reached for her bit pouch before realizing that she didn’t have it on her. “Relax I’ve got this one Octy.” Her horn glowed dimly as six bits appeared on the table, Bianca smiled and swept them into her apron and deposited the coffee on the table with a smile before walking over to service another customer.

The coffee was in Styrofoam cups, one of the cups had a large ring made out of some cardboard like material attached to it. The ring was manufactured with enchantments to constrict around whatever entered it, and to allow the cup to swivel, thus allowing non unicorns, or ones that were lazy, to hold their drinks whilst on the go.

Vincenza levitated her cup and Octavia slipped her hoof into the ring, the runes glowed dimly for brief moment as the ring readjusted its size to comfortably fit the earth pony’s hoof. The pair exited the coffee shop and stopped at a bench to drink their coffee before going into see the mayor. Vincenza quietly sipped on her coffee observing the town energetically thriving around them as various ponies went about their morning business. She cocked her ear to one side “Well this was a good coffee while it lasted.” She sighed.

Octavia was raising the cup to her lips when a grey blur came from nowhere and rammed her side on sending her and Vincenza sprawling, their coffee flying away. The three ponies were in a tangled heap on the ground Octavia’s eyes were spinning around as she tried to comprehend how she came to be on the ground.

Vincenza quickly untangled herself from the sprawl; she stood up brushing herself off “Hello Ditzy.” She addressed the wall eyed mail mare.

The pegasus recovered quickly from her crash. “Good morning…..umm do I know you?”

Vincenza simply rolled her eyes “It’s me Vinyl, I’m trying out a new look. By the way nice to hear your voice is back to normal.”

Ditzy blinked and fixed one eye ball on in Vincenza, the other was looking at the statue on the fountain. “Hmmm.” She looked her up and down before smiling “It’s nice makes you look like a whole new pony. I won’t ask about the accent you probably have your reasons just like Applejack. Thanks though, Dinky brought home some poison joke that she found, had to wait for Zecora to come through town for a resupply before I could get my voice back to normal…and Dinky to stop glowing blue.” She smiled as she thought about the little unicorn filly running around the house, her coat a very bright neon blue.

“Grazie Ditzy, did you have a particular reason to barrel into us or did you stop to say hi?” Vincenza asked not unkindly.

Ditzy stared into space for a few seconds whilst she remembered what she was doing, her left eye drifted before snapping back into more or less focus. “That’s right.” She reached into the mail bags she was wearing and pulled out a letter “This was meant to be delivered to your house but I saw you here and decided to personally deliver.”

Vincenza took the letter with her magic and gave the mail mare a smile. “Grazie have a good morning Ditzy.”

“You to Vinyl, hope Octavia recovers soon.” She flashed Vincenza a smile and shot off into the sky.

Vincenza looked over at her prostrate lover. “You okay there?” The mare in question was still lying on the ground, eyes spinning and mumbling something about treble clefs, double notes and metronomes. “Awww your cute when you don’t make sense, you know that Octy.” The unicorn examined the disorientated cellist.

Chuckling she leaned down, brought her face close to the mumbling mare…and slapped her across the face. Octavia’s eyes stopped spinning as she glared at the smug unicorn. Standing up, she rubbed her face with her hoof. “Owww… that hurt. What was that for?”

Vincenza simply smiled “Got you up didn’t it?”

Octavia glared at the mare some more before turning her attention to the letter. “Who’s that for?”

Vincenza turned it around in her magic, examining it from all angles. “It’s addressed to me…that’s odd there’s no return address.” She opened the letter and read it, her mouth quickly turned into a frown.

“What’s wrong?”

Vincenza didn’t reply but simply stared at the paper; Octavia leaned over and read the note.

I am coming for you Nightingale
Your immortal paramour
D

“Who’s D Vinyl…Vinyl?” Octavia was being careful to use her partner’s fake name in public as she waved her hoof in front her lovers face to no response.

Vincenza just stared at the letter. The edges suddenly started smoking, and soon the whole thing lit on fire, quickly being reduced to ash. Ponies around them backed away or made sure to put some distance between themselves and the unicorn as they made their way past. Vincenza didn’t even reply to Octavia but simply turned in the direction of town hall and started walking.

Things

Dear loyal followers and those of you still interested in this story.

I have come to a realisation, this story is terrible. Not terrabad but not great. For many reasons most glaring is that the story pacing and story itself were poorly conceived and even more poorly executed.

But why do I think this? You may ask.

Well the reason I think this is because of my new story Long Live the Queen, that story is much better in term of conception and delivery. And I owe it all to this story, without it I would have never have learnt about good story crafting or good narrative. Not that I'm great, I'm not, but I now know what constitutes good rather than bad. My grammar may not be the best but I have gotten dramatically better (just ask my editor) and my story delivery has improved all because I was able to have a trial run on this story first.

Alas it is because I feel I have improved that I can no longer continue this story, every time I sit down to write it I can not bring myself to continue a story line that honestly I have no idea what I was thinking when I started it.

And that is why I am going to melt the story down and reforge it into a shining jewel ten times brighter than the lump of coal it currently is. I honestly like many of the ideas I tacked onto the story and some of the original ideas so I'm going to salvage them and organise it into something more interesting. So what I will do is complete my other story which I feel is the by far superior at this point in time and when I have gained the experience from it I will tear down this shack and from its remains build a house.

This of course will be very far into the future given the speeds I write at so I will leave this story up in the mean time but I want you to know that I will not be continuing it, instead I will be restarting it instead. With a new name, mostly new plot (Twilight and Vinyl will still be vamps and badass) and all that.

So in the mean come over to my other story if you want to continue to read my works, even if your hesitant look at the prologue if that doesn't get you hooked then oh well.

Author's Note

I will post a chapter in this story a couple of days before I tear it down to let y'all know.