Vinyl Scratch is (not) a vampire

Chapters

The beginning
Tactical Retreat (It's not running away)
Answers? Uh, no.
Sifting
Manehatten
Demands
Striking out
The club can easily handle me right now
On the road to Canterlot
Tearing the gates down

The beginning

Vinyl slammed a hoof into her alarm clock, the annoying blare coming from the device more than her ears could bare.

"Rrrrrrr..." she groaned as she rubbed a her head with a hoof. After a few minutes of slow recovery from the pleasures of sleep, she finally managed to open an eyelid just enough to let in a crack of light.

Mistake.

"Agh!" She yelled, surprised at the sudden burst of pain. "I have really got to avoid the strong stuff before a workday..." Her eyes flew open, a startling revelation tearing through her brain and blocking all but the most minor of headaches in her system. "Oh, shit, work!"

Scrambling to wake up now, Vinyl Scratch--DJ by night and researcher by day--promptly fell out of her bed. Quickly recovering, the electric blue maned mare quickly grabbed her clock, checking the time. Five minutes.

Grabbing a few essentials on her way out (read: shades) Vinyl left her apartment, zipping through the streets of Canterlot as she homed in on her destination; Canterlot's local department of research, weaponry and experiments. The building was tall and imposing, built to house all but the most dangerous and secretive of Equestria's science. That's reserved for the ponyville library.

Vinyl all but fell through the front doors, much to the surprise of two mares at the front desk. As Vinyl recovered, she noticed one of the mares give the other a small pile of bits, along with a muttered, "Thought for sure she'd be late..."

Vinyl let the exchange slide, focusing more on checking the special enchantment she had on her shades. The black rimmed and purple lensed glasses shifted through their various degrees of opacity according to Vinyl's thought patterns, going from crystal clear to all but impossible to see through in a manner of seconds. The glasses also had various other versions of light they showed, allowing their user to see infrared, visible light and a special magic detector mode that revealed how much magical power was in an object or living being. Plus, they look cool as hell.

Pleased that the enchantment was still strong, Vinyl finally turned her attention to the desk mares. "Clock me in, will ya?"

"When you get that ridiculous cannon of yours working." The one on the left replied, the same one who had lost the bet. Notepad. Vinyl and Notepad were opposites: the blue maned, red coated mare the exact depiction of everything Vinyl disliked in other ponies. She had her mane done up in a bun, a style reserved exclusively for old mares and librarians, nopony else. Strike one. She sneered at almost everypony she met. Strike two. Never once did the stuck up ever stop to realize that she was the one stuck with a desk instead of actually doing something, acting like she was on the same tier as the princesses. And she's out.

"And what fine work have you done that involves getting out of your chair?" Vinyl retorted.

Notepad only grinned. "Nice to see you made it for once."

Vinyl returned the gesture. "Good to see ya again Notey. How've things been while I've been on vacay?"

"Three weeks, Vinyl." Notepad grimaced, picking up a coffee. "I've been stuck in here for three weeks without a single pony with an ounce of common sense." The second desk mare shot her a look, but Vinyl just smiled.

"Thanks, but I can't say the same."

"Oh, shut up. You know I don't mean a word of it."

For how much the two grated on each others nerves, the turbulent relationship of the two ponies was often described as a fierce 'rivalship', in spite of very little actual rivalry. Vinyl called Notepad's earlier bluff, quickly ducking to her own station several of the buildings large rooms down.

Weaponry.

At last, Vinyl would be able to once more tinker with her pride and joy: a large cube reminiscent of an amplifier, with a big red button on top.

Along the way, she ran into a stallion carrying a box. The two stumbled into one another, knocking the box to the ground. The stallion quickly scooped up the objects that had fallen out, which were...

"Light bulbs?" Vinyl asked, a bit of skepticism in her voice. "Why are you carrying these around?"

The stallion grinned at her, running a hoof through his rust colored mane. "Not just light bulbs, miss."

"Don't call me miss." Vinyl snapped.

"Er, right." The stallion returned, nervously. "Anyway, most light bulbs function via a small enchantment placed upon them, attached to a switch for turning the enchantment on or off, correct?"

"Uh, yeah, so?"

"These bulbs are designed to function with electricity." The stallion said giddily, scooping up the last of the bulbs and placing them in the box.

"Wait, you mean lightning and shit?" Vinyl hurriedly got out, wondering why such a thing would be useful.

"Well, if you want to be crude, yes." He replied, stepping around her. "It's part of a series of experiments that just came in from a trio of researchers who had been invited to the royal palace. A few whispers say that they met with the princesses, or rather, somepony the princesses found."

Vinyl opened her mouth to respond, but the stallion cut her off. "I'm sorry, but i need to get somewhere. Important." With that, he hurriedly continued on his way, putting as much space between him and Vinyl as fast as he could.

"Weird." Vinyl muttered to herself, continuing on her way as well.

Before too long, she had entered her personal lab, her creation sitting in the middle. Cracking her neck, Vinyl smiled to herself. Sitting behind a monitor connected to the machine via an large array of wires, she set to work, powering it up. She'll succeed this time. She could feel it in her gut.

The sliding doors that made up the front of the box whirred out of the way, revealing an inside matching the colors of Vinyl's mane. To the standard observer, it looked like an over sized stereo. To Vinyl however, that was her ticket to fortune. After all, literally blasting your enemies with your favorite tunes? Who wouldn't pay for that?

Several sparks of power surged in the machine as it came to life, the power core heating up. Vinyl swallowed as she pumped more energy into the machine, taking care not to break anything. Yet. But it would come soon enough, along with a pay raise.

Vinyl checked the power readings. Seventy-eight percent. Damn. She'd need to find a way to improve the charge times later, but couldn't do anything right now unless she wanted to replace a burnt out fuse. Again. Hovering her hoof over the activation button, Vinyl kept her eyes on all the energy readings of her cannon. Nothing in all of Equestria would distract her now. Not a single--

"VINYL SCRATCH!"

"Eh?" she muttered, poised in position. Her eyes glanced to the side, looking at the same stallion who had been carrying the light bulbs through the hall.

He was breathless and his eyes were wild, quivering with either fear or excitement, Vinyl couldn't tell. "We need to leave. Now."

"Sorry pal, I'm kinda doing something here." She switched her gaze back to her monitor, pressing the activation button.

The machine drew in several cones of energy, pulling all it could to the center of the visible insides of the machine. A spear flew straight at it, almost reaching the machine before it was disintegrated by a wide beam of energy, flying true towards the target Vinyl had set up on the far wall. A powerful 'wub' echoed from the cannon repeatedly, pumping out more energy.

Vinyl smirked at the rogue researcher, who was readying a second spear. "All righty then, take this!" She swung the machine around on its platform, bringing the beam to bear on the would be saboteur. Before the machine's blast reached its target, it died.

"What? Oh, come on!" Vinyl roared in a fury. "I just had you working and this!?"

The stallion threw his spear, striking the machine in its power cables. The resulting shock that went through the cannon caused a minor explosion in the core of it. Vinyl stared at the bass cannon in shock. "That... That'll cost me months of time to fix!" Vinyl fired a spell at the stallion, throwing him through a wall.

Staring at the hole in the wall, Vinyl couldn't help but find herself wondering. "Why didn't I just do that to begin with?"

Several explosions rocked the building, throwing off Vinyl's balance. "The hell?"

A fireball erupted from the doors to Vinyl's station, tossing her to the ground. Shaking her head clear, Vinyl could hear several other fights taking place on the other side of the flames. Rising to her hooves, she staggered when a sharp lance of pain shot through her leg. Looking down, she found a large shard of glass sticking out of her leg.

Another pony snuck up from behind, knocking her to the ground.

"AH!" Vinyl yelled in shock and pain as she collided with the floor, her head slamming hard into the tile.

A hoof closed her mouth. "Shut up, or I swear to Celestia, I will leave you for the Dawn's Light."

Vinyl looked up to see the face of the stallion who had destroyed her cannon, his brown coat splattered with blood. Somehow, he had survived his trip through a wall and came back for more. "What--"

She was cut off by the scream of pain that occurred when he yanked out the shard of glass. Taking a torn labcoat, he made an impromptu bandage for her leg. "Come on." He said through gritted teeth. "I swear, I always have to save the ones who attack the ponies trying to help them..."

"What are you doing?" Vinyl asked. "What do you want?"

"Relax." He whispered back, helping her up. "Just know that you're not alone."

"What are you talking about?" Vinyl said angrily, still pissed about her cannon. "Answers. Now."

"Look, I'll...Wait a minute..." He grabbed Vinyl by the jaw, checking her teeth. "But you're not..." Equal parts realization and confusion seemed to dawn in his eyes. "Why are they after you?"

"Who?" Vinyl yelled, smacking away his hoof. "I have no idea what's going on!"

Several ponies stormed through the opened and burned doors to the room.

The stallion tensed, anger flaring in his eyes. "Shit."

Tactical Retreat (It's not running away)

The stallion took a step back, putting himself between Vinyl and the group now blocking their exit.

Looking between the stallion and the other arrivals, Vinyl quickly ran a scenario of her trying to run past them in her head. The chances of her escape weren't very good, and that's before she took into account her injured leg. One of the ponies raised a spear of his own, giving Vinyl more than enough cause to limp several steps away, trying to keep her destroyed bass cannon between herself and everypony else in the room.

Taking a calming breath, Vinyl quickly made her way to her supply closet, a repository of her rejected experiments in weaponry, most of which was sonic or sound-wave involved in some manner. Hey, her talent was still music, this is just a day job.

Shutting the door behind her, she dug around for anything she could use and easily carry around, hoping for something she could use to fight her way out, if necessary. The welcome sight that greeted her when she stumbled across her quad-pack of flash-bangs was much appreciated, the grenades lack of lethal power far outweighed by their strategic usefulness. Of course, that didn't reduce the sting of the flash-bangs ultimate rejection. For even with their amazing ability to both blind and deafen those near the blast, they still failed in one aspect: They weren't idiot-proof.

Despite her best attempts at explaining how the shiny metal ball worked, the tester tried to activate the grenade, then ran up and bashed the target in the head (or whatever they thought was the head). The resulting blast ended with the stallion needing the immediate attention of a unicorn medic who had been on standby. No lasting damage, except for the flash-bangs being declared too dangerous.

Shaking her head as she returned to the present, Vinyl stuffed the grenades into several pockets of her lab coat, donning the garment as she made her way back to the door to the supply room. Cracking the door open, Vinyl saw the stallion from earlier grab the spear when its wielder jabbed at him, snatching the weapon out of the wielder's grip and bashing him with the butt of it. Two more ponies were closing in from flanking positions, while another was making his way to Vinyl's hiding place.

Shutting the door again, Vinyl scanned the small room again, looking for an easy way out that wouldn't involve the fight going on in her lab. Her eyes lingered on the ventilation grate, but she quickly discarded the thought. Ventilation ducts never held up in real life.

Several loud bangs erupted from the door, the stallion on the other side forgetting to check if the door was even locked, which was a safety feature that it didn't have. Vinyl made a mental note to scream at whoever made that blunder.

"Come on, come on..." She chanted under her breath, as if it would help her find a way out. She checked her injured leg again, before her eyes went back to the ventilation grate. "Oh man..." She muttered disappointingly.

Vinyl replaced the grate just as the dumbass on the other side managed to break the door down, still never realizing that it hadn't even been locked.

Vinyl sighed at the sheer stupidity.

She backed further into the shaft, keeping out of sight while watching the stallion's shadow. He took several tentative steps in, stopping when a large triangular point burst through the shadow's throat. The explanation came a second later when blood splattered onto the floor inside Vinyl's field of view.

Backing up and turning a corner in the shaft to remain hidden, Vinyl heard the stallion's amused grunt. "Into the vents, huh? Damn I love it when they're smart enough to run away. Saves me the trouble of an escort till later." After waiting a moment, he called down into the vent. "If you can hear me, get to the easternmost bar in town; The Gryphon's Aviary. Don't worry, It's just a name, there's always more ponies than gryphons there on any day."

Vinyl paused, straining her hears to see if she could make out any hoof falls as he left. She heard nothing, as if he had simply vanished into thin air. Rather than look around the turn in the duct to confirm this, Vinyl Scratch made the appropriate move and continued on her way, deciding that he might simply be waiting for her to peak out and give away her position.

Some minutes later, Vinyl peered through another grate--this one with an air filtration spell on it to siphon out anything that might be dangerous coming from the room--overlooking the chemical laboratory. Several noxious fumes wafted up from the lab after she removed the grate, bringing with them a severe longing for a gas mask.

Putting the sleeve of her lab coat over her muzzle, Vinyl slipped her shades on, aiming the magic detection capabilities beyond the evacuated room to the doors beyond. A pair of white hazy silhouettes appeared beyond, a pair of unicorn by any accounts. She couldn't tell if they had company or not, but it was a safe bet. She double checked with her infrared setting, but it was marred by the standard heat and fumes often created in this section of the building. It likely wouldn't have been able to see through the wall anyway, Vinyl reasoned.

Using her own magic, Vinyl silently lowered the ventilation grate to the floor and jumped down, softening her landing with a minor levitation spell but still wincing at the contact to her injured limb. Stalking over to the door, Vinyl placed her ear against it, hoping to listen beyond.

It was mostly static to Vinyl, but she managed to pick up Notepad's voice, saying that there might still be survivors in the attacked section of the facility. Recognizing the voice of her closest frenemy, Vinyl pounded against the door, readying a flash-bang in the event she was wrong.

The door opened to a pair of golden clad unicorns, both of them with surprised expressions on their faces.

"Ma'am, the room was evacuated shortly after the fighting started." One of the two said, explaining the empty chemical lab. "What were you doing in there?"

Vinyl smiled thankfully. "Came in through the A/C. From weapons research and development."

One guard eyed the other, neither seeming to believe her story. "You do understand that those things never hold in real life, correct?"

Vinyl shrugged, flashing her employee I.D. card.

"Well, the identification checks out." One guard muttered, turning to his companion. "Check with that mare who worked the front desk to be sure, though. We can't take any chances."

The second guard nodded, quickly going on his way.

With that obstacle cleared, Vinyl waited for the guard to return with Notepad. It didn't take long, the mare practically rushing ahead as soon as she heard another researcher had been found. Notepad sighed when she laid eyes on Vinyl, but the exact message of the sigh wasn't clear.

"Notey, what's going on?" Vinyl demanded, more than confused by the commotion.

Notepad shook her head. "I don't know. The facility was attacked, but we don't know why. All we can get are rescued researchers and staff who keep saying the same thing: they were captured, looked over and promptly released. No spells, no explanations, at most a dental check or two."

"Dental check?" Vinyl muttered, scrunching her nose. "Bit extreme for hygiene, don't cha think?"

Notepad sighed. "It's like their looking for somepony, but I couldn't think of who. They're not capturing any equipment or experiments, they're not harming anypony who doesn't struggle too hard and they're not destroying too much, beyond the obvious structural damage."

"Say that to my cannon!" Vinyl angrily muttered. "One of those idiots isn't with the others, but he came in and ruined everything! I actually had that son of a bitch working!"

"What do you mean, not with the others?"

Vinyl snorted. "He was fighting the rest of them, along with saying something about a light or something. Dawn's Light, I think. Ring any bells?"

Notepad laughed. "A legendary group of vampire hunters I read about as a foal. They're just as fake as their quarry. That stallion must've been insane."

Vinyl frowned, moving away from Notepad into the mixed group of researchers and guards, most of whom were making their way out of the building. Once outside, Vinyl used her glasses to block out the sun's blinding rays, per usual. It kept her from having to suffer the wait a regular pony goes through to see again when a sudden shift in light occurs.

She glanced around, taking stock of the crowd around her. She noted a group of mares on the edge that immediately turned away when she faced them, whispering and gesturing to each other. Ducking her head slightly, Vinyl moved into the crowd, hoping to lose any attention she might have accidentally drawn.

Out the corner of her eye, Vinyl saw the mares follow from a distance, keeping her in sight. Luckily, this left them in sight for her, as well, allowing Vinyl to also note how no matter where they were, they made a point to avoid a trio of guards standing next to a grey stallion with a brown mane, looking very much out of place with a black cloak and a pair of white glasses with green lenses.

Vinyl recognized the glasses as the work of another researcher; a prototype heads-up-display meant for field use. Knowing full well that anypony who wore those and could still stand around guards hadn't stolen them, she marked him as someone to stick near if things went bad.

The stallion also seemed to take note of the mares, prompting Vinyl to avoid his gaze unless it couldn't be helped. If he was with the guards, he might not be friendly with these Dawn's light characters, but that didn't make him a friend to Vinyl, either.

The trio of guards closed in on the mares, stopping them for questions. It all seemed to be going well, providing just the distraction Vinyl needed to find her way away and eventually to patch up her leg properly.

Oh, how the world loves to fall to pieces.

Four of the mares jumped the guards, while the last one made a beeline for Vinyl.

Somewhere along the line, a unicorn must have become involved. This assumption came in the form of a solid wall of stone that erupted from the ground in front of the mare, keeping her from getting anywhere.

Fighting on the other side could be heard, a metallic ringing sound that signaled metal on metal contact. Several more spells were fired before it all died down, but Vinyl was long gone.

<><><>

Closing her door behind her, Vinyl slumped to the floor of her home. She had stopped just long enough to get a doctor to cast a healing spell on her leg, then ran for her life to her home, seeking it out as a sanctuary against the storm fast approaching.

She had no clue what was going on, nor who she could fully trust. There was every possibility that whoever had attacked the lab could also infiltrate the guards, so they were out. There was no way Notepad could help.

Sighing, Vinyl realized that if she wanted answers, and possibly to stay alive, she had only one place to turn.

The Gryphon's Aviary.

Answers? Uh, no.

Moving with a light trot, Vinyl didn't take long to find her way to Canterlot's easternmost section.

Nicknamed 'Lowtown', this part of the city was known for being an extremely--like really, ultra--boring section of the city. Not possessive of any major clubs, the most this place had in terms of nightlife were a few modest bars. This was accompanied by an astounding sense of peace during the night, as Lowtown was also the least active area at that time.

A sign with a gryphon perched on a limb adorned the front of The Gryphon's Aviary. Vinyl adjusted her shades, making sure that she opened the door just the right amount. Too much to be very meek or nervous, so not here looking to avoid attention. Those ponies always earned the most attention. Not enough to appear overly self-confident or attention seeking, so she wasn't here to brawl, get overly drunk or go home with anypony.

Just a stranger looking to rest for a spell, then.

The bartender looked up from where he was getting drinks for a pair of stallions who had apparently just walked in. The gryphon seemed to approve of Vinyl's demeanor, quickly returning to his own duties.

Half-filled, tonight was the perfect night to be a regular at The Aviary. Plenty of warm conversation and a few card players, but not enough to create much in the way of noise or a delay in service. It perfectly matched the way Vinyl had chosen to walk in. Smirking to herself, she made a mental note to come back here again sometime, especially if every night was like this.

Taking a seat with some space to either side of her, Vinyl thought it more prudent to wait until the bartender came over.

"Here for poison, or just some downtime?"

Looking up, Vinyl was surprised to find the gryphon leaning on the bar just a few feet away. "Not feeling the heavy stuff tonight, chief. Some light draft'll do."

A voice piped up from behind Vinyl as a cloaked form slipped into the seat next to her. "What? Day not bad enough for you? I can always get those ponies to come back sometime." The brown coated and rust maned stallion from the research facility grinned at her. "Though I doubt they'd be so keen as to play nice."

Well, drat. Vinyl had been hoping to actually take a drink or two before having to meet him, if she met him at all.

The bartender didn't ask any questions, but frowned at the stranger. "You really need to work on making a good impression, Plow." Ah. Not a stranger, then.

"Brush your beak and get back to me. The smell of meat's making me gag."

The gryphon shook his head as he walked away. "Bloody herbivores..."

Somehow, nopony in the bar even noticed the brief exchange. Plow grinned again. "Don't mind Frank. He's always like that."

Vinyl bit back a laugh. "His name's actually Frank?"

A knife sailed by her head, clipping some hair tips off her mane as it traveled into the bulls-eye of a target board that had been set up on the wall. The resounding thud attracted a few glances, but if anyone minded, they didn't for long. Vinyl looked back to Frank, who was innocently putting up several similar knives.

Plow cocked an eyebrow. "He's also great at parties."

Shaking her head in barely contained disbelief, Vinyl looked back to Plow. "Is there a reason this is happening, or am I in one massive dream?"

"Seems more like a nightmare..." Plow muttered, immediately turning gloomy.

"What?" Vinyl asked, surprised by his sudden turn for the dark.

Plow leaned back, taking a deep breath. "You remember what I called those ponies who attacked the facility, correct?"

"Yeah." Vinyl responded. "I also remember being told that they were some sort of vampire hunters, but that doesn't have much credence to it, does it?"

"More than you'd believe."

"Oh, is that so?" Vinyl asked sarcastically, leaning her head on one hoof. "Please, enlighten me."

Frank walked back up. "You two might not want to have this conversation here." He motioned towards the door, where a minotaur was walking in. The bull had a fresh scar over his left cheek and nose, several small pieces of scab still clinging in some spots. A heavy sledgehammer strapped to his back did little to alleviate the look of danger he had about him.

Plow quickly motioned Vinyl further back, following Frank's instructions as they ducked into the back section of the bar without being seen.

Once out of dodge, Plow cleared his throat. "Well, that's odd. Haven't seen Grudge since... that one scrap we had in Las Pegasus. Thought he had given up."

Vinyl glanced around, nervously making note of her best viable method of getting out if necessary. "Grudge?"

"Nice guy, great with kids." Plow said, shrugging. "Only problem is being a major player in the Dawn's Light and, oh yeah, trying to murder all of us."

Vinyl twisted her head to the side. "Us?"

Plow thought for a moment. "Well, not you. He thinks you're one of us, but you're not, so it's complicated."

"Who--?" She was cut off by Frank coming into the room with a surprised expression on his face.

"Anything?" Plow asked hurriedly.

The gryphon shrugged. "Asked a few questions, but never even mentioned you two. He was more concerned with some lad who gave him trouble in Appleloosa."

Now Plow was surprised. "How long?"

"Few weeks since." Frank shrugged, picking up one of the nearby cider kegs and propping it on his shoulder. "Couldn't get much, but he's nervous about it."

Some questioning later, Vinyl learned that Frank served as the middle ground between The Dawn's Light and whoever Plow was with. When it came to Canterlot and it's neighbors, Frank was able to exchange information between the two sides. For a price of course. He never gave out what he had told the other side, but also served Plow with the same degree of half-loyalty.

Vinyl thought that Frank's position shouldn't even exist. In fact, when she expressed this thought, both Plow and Frank agreed with her, but it was the way it was. Nopony ever asked how exactly Frank came into the information he knew, though Plow certainly had a few ideas. But, he never shared them.

Plow gave Vinyl a small smile as they sat back down at their original seats. "I realize that this is all mind-boggling, but it could be worse. We could be dealing with a lot more than just us and the Dawn's Light."

Frank had to fight down his laughter at that statement, even as Plow began to whistle as if he had said nothing at all.

Vinyl, now very keen on learning more about whatever she had been dragged into, began digging for more information, Plow merely shook his head and told her to come back in a few days. Frank said nothing at all, but laughed at her persistence after an hour had gone by.

As she left the bar, Vinyl slammed he door shut behind her, trying to control her anger at being so loudly thrown out. As she left, she failed to notice the cold chill the air had, passing it off as just another trait native to midnight.

<><><>

Vinyl poured over the books she had in front of her. She was in Canterlot's library, a dusty place filled with books of varying size and practicality. Most of the volumes lined tall shelves, some laden to such an extent that they had begun to sag from the weight. The library was divided into two main sections: Fiction and non-fiction. These were further subdivided by sections such as fantasy, science, sci-fy, math, biographies, beastiaries, and several dozen other sub-classes of book.

What she had in front of her were fictional books. Specifically, ones regarding the cult of Dawn's Light. From there, things branched out into the cult's main prey: vampires. Most of the text was self contradictory. For instance, some said that the vampire grew more powerful in direct moonlight, but would turn to ash in the sun.

Snorting, Vinyl had to keep herself from shaking her head. Moonlight was just reflected sunlight, so how could that even be possible? The text of vampires sparkling in the sun was discarded as soon as Vinyl read that line. Ridiculous.

There were a few that rumored of a rivalry between werewolves and vampires, but Vinyl threw these out as well. Even if they had credence, Vinyl was already working with one mythological creature of death and had no need for another.

Sighing, she closed another book that spoke of a vampire's only weakness being a stake to the heart. That was a weakness for almost everything, fictional or not. Besides, the same text had just said that stakes to the heart were horribly impractical.

A voice startled her from her studies. A small voice, doing little else than to ask, "Hello?"

Turning in her seat Vinyl saw a pegasus foal standing next to her with an CD case in his grasp.

He seemed to shrink even as Vinyl looked at him. "A-are you DJ-pon3?"

Vinyl grinned. "In the flesh, kid. You need something?"

He held up his CD case. Vinyl recognized it as her last single. Flipping it open, she found the CD still there, but having obviously been played several times over.

Nodding, Vinyl quickly signed the case, handing it back to him as she returned to her own minor world. She heard the foal run off, followed a few seconds later by at least three other young ponies.

"Well, if this doesn't work out, I still have my music." Vinyl thought to herself. Looking around her to the shelves and books around her, Vinyl decided that she could afford a few minutes away from the madness she was being thrust into. Chances are she was just making it tougher on herself, bringing myth and legend into what was likely far less complicated than it seemed.

Nodding to herself, Vinyl replaced the books she could and left the rest on the table she had occupied. Exiting the building, she turned her path toward the remains of Canterlot's local department of research, weaponry and experiments. Maybe checking in where this all begin would give her a few hints she missed earlier, plus give her another chance to assess the damage to her own work area. Hey, maybe Notey would have a little gem of insight buried somewhere in her ridiculous manestyle.

Sifting

Vinyl picked up her lab coat and flashbangs on her way back to the laboratory. Now, she was standing in the burnt husk of the weaponry section. Somehow, most of the other sections of the building escaped intact, but several researchers had disappeared in the fray. Figuring that they had been either Dawn's Light or whoever the Light had been after, she didn't hold any hope that they would be seen again.

Trotting into the remains of her personal lab, she stared at her bass cannon. It hadn't suffered any exterior damage, but the overload caused by Plow had easily destroyed or disabled the machine's much more delicate inner workings. Sighing, Vinyl activated the monitor attached to the cannon, surprised that it, at least, still worked.

Distracting herself with a systems check, she made a mental list of what she had to fix in her machine. After that quickly became a repetitive affair, she resorted to thinking about the situation she was now in. Attacked, but why? Given hints as to the truth, but enough to figure it all out. What was Plow hiding? There was something she was missing. Something very important.

The sound of somepony approaching from the doorway to the lab was a welcome sound, provided it didn't mean a repeat of yesterday's theatrics. Turning her head just enough to see her guest from the corner of her eye, Vinyl let out a surprised grunt when she recognized Notepad.

"Come back, huh?" The mare asked, with none of her sarcastic bluster. "I'm still amazed at what happened as well."

Vinyl sat back. "All of this damage... Was it really necessary? I mean, even if they were after some sorta superpony, I think they could at least have some degree of control."

She heard Notepad shuffle on her hooves, but was still caught off guard by the mare's sigh. "The gaurds checked all the evidence.They found..." Her voice trailed off.

"What?" Vinyl asked, her ears perking with a sudden interest. "What'd they find that was so important?"

With a sigh, Notepad finished her sentence. "They found that whoever did this was after you. Not your work, but you specifically. This room is a focal point for the damage they caused."

Vinyl frowned. She had already known as much. Still, she put the thought out of her mind, thinking it wasn't useful to dwell on what she had already confirmed.

Tapping her hoof to her chin, Vinyl mulled over how she had gotten dragged into the spotlight all of a sudden. More important was what the Dawn's light really did. The thought of vampires sent a shiver down Vinyl's spine, doubly so since the acknowledgement of their existence overruled every piece of common sense she had.

Sure, vampire bats, leeches and insects could feed off blood, but those were small creatures who fed on larger creatures. Plus, their reliance on blood was an evolutionary trait, not something spread like a contagion. Perhaps subspecies could develop rather than be a result of infection, but that would either take millions of years or a heavy dose... of... mag--

Vinyl whirled around to face the only other pony in the room. "Notepad. Have any powerful unicorns ever experimented with hematophagy?"

Startled by Vinyl's energetic demeanor, Notepad couldn't speak for several moments, overcome by both her surprise and attempts to come up with a viable answer. "Well, I recall Starswirl the Bearded doing something about lycanthropy, but I've never heard of hematophagy. What are you getting at with this?"

Vinyl grinned. "I just found my missing link."

<><><>

Sitting on her bed with her haul of literary gold, Vinyl scoured the books for any mention of experiments in genetics. She was especially careful in reading books about Starswirl the Bearded or his student, Clover the Clever.

What she found was more than she could have hoped. All throughout history, researchers of all stripes had been experimenting with hematophagy, necromancy, demonology, lycanthropy (and by extension, therianthropy), and the process by which one could build and animate constructs that could contain a living soul, similar to timber wolves but not necessarily wood.

The sheer amount of data was overwhelming, and this was only what wasn't restricted! It was still more than enough to confirm her suspicions, proving that vampires and their ilk weren't natural, but aberrations produced by experiments that had either gone wrong... or gone right. The exact details escaped her, but it would seem that other than the use of blood as a food source, there was little else that differentiated the vampire from the pony, besides the obvious pair of canines for blood extraction, of course. She also couldn't determine if blood was necessary or if the vampire could still subsist on regular food.

But again, who's to say that it was just ponies? Starswirl himself had been testing all manner of volunteers, ranging from gryphon to minotaur, diamond dog to pony. That of course, led to questions about what else she had found. Werebeasts of various types, demons, undead, golems: most, if not all of the legends were possibly more than mere legends.

Some banging on her door broke Vinyl from her theory filled reverie. The memory of the ponies who had broken into her lab was still fresh on her mind, so she quietly slipped away from her front door, prepared to bolt for her back door at the slightest necessity.

"Vinyl, It's Plow! Open up!" Several more loud bangs erupted from her door, but none of them were forceful enough to cause any damage. Curious as to how Plow had known where she lived, Vinyl snuck back to her front door, cautious to not make a sound in the event it was a trap.

Placing her ear to the door, she could hear the conversation on the other side, even if it was hard to make out some of the words due to the whispering. She could make out Plow's voice, along with two others.

"--sure she's here, Plow? Could be a false lead."

"No, no. Frank isn't the kind of friend I'd give my life for, but ... good info. She lives here, even if she isn't home right now."

"Why are we doing this for her? She's not a vamp. Besides, ... real. We can't just bite ... friggin legends."

"Think I don't know that? By Celestia, you're an idiot. Look, the Light's ... can't let her die because of them having false intel. She's a good pony."

"You met her once."

"More than you."

"Shh! You hear that?"

Vinyl tensed when the sounds on the other side of her door stopped. For a moment, she thought about looking through the peephole, but she was more genre savvy than that. So, she left the front door alone, quickly going on her way to the back door. She knew that they were trying to help her, but let's face it, when has help like this ever gone well?

She jumped when her front door crashed open. Without the obstruction, she clearly heard heavy fighting outside. Sighing to herself, Vinyl took a peek back to her front door to see what was going on. Plow and another pony almost immediately rolled past her, wrestling in an attempt to pin their opponent. Outside her door, a mare and a stallion were taking turns attacking a second Dawn's Light crony. Gritting her teeth in frustration, Vinyl let her good morals shine through. At first, she reached for one of her flashbangs, but then decided that it would have caused more harm than good.

Grabbing an old lamp instead, she covered the distance between herself and Plow's opponent, smashing the lamp over the stallion's head. Tacky old thing anyway. With one enemy down, Vinyl spun on her back hooves, tossing the remains of the lamp at the second of the two Dawn's Light. Distracted by the oncoming lamp, he ducked right into an uppercut by the mare Plow had brought with him.

Stunned and reeling from the combined assault, the stallion practically fell into Plow's torrent of rapid blows. It didn't take long for him to cave to the assault.

Once all was said and done, Plow shot a grin at Vinyl. "Still think she's a waste of our time, Silver?"

The stallion snorted in response, but the mare shook her head. "Come on, Silver Spear, he's just messing with you."

Plow shook Vinyl's shoulder. "Sorry about that, guess we were followed. Anyway, we need to get you to safety. Hopefully, we can get the Light off your tail."

Looking around, Vinyl realized that even if the two out cold stallions on her floor didn't report back to their leaders, it wouldn't take much for another, larger group to track her down. Much as she hated to admit it, going under was her best shot.

Frowning to herself, Vinyl nodded her approval. "Just don't expect me to not ask questions."

"After all of this, wouldn't dream of it."

<><><>

"Where are you going?" Vinyl asked when Plow suddenly turned and started to leave, dropping her off next to the train with nothing more than what she brought with her and a ticket.

"Another train." Plow answered, still walking away. "You and Yellowjacket will take this train to Manehatten, while Silver Spear and I board another. It's tougher to track us like this."

Suppressing a sigh, Vinyl climbed aboard the train, Yellowjacket close behind.

"So, where'd you like to sit?" The sunny yellow (duh) mare asked in a chipper tone. "Window seat, I'd imagine."

"Aren't they all window seats?" Vinyl retorted.

Yellowjacket either didn't notice Vinyl's sharp tone or didn't care. "Maybe we'll have to sit with another passenger or two?"

Vinyl silently sat down on a bench, setting down her saddlebags and shuffling the contents around to make sure she had everything she had brought. When she felt the train lurch forward, she couldn't help but look back to her home of Canterlot. To think, she had never gone farther than Ponyville before.

"Relax. You'll see her again." It took a moment of thinking to realize that Yellowjacket meant Canterlot with the 'she'.

Vinyl sighed. "It's not that. It's just... I'd like a definitive answer. Who are you people?"

Yellowjacket smirked just enough to show a pair of canine teeth sitting in the top of her mouth. "An answer you have received."

Vinyl almost leapt from her seat, just as her heart leapt to her throat.

Failing to suppress her laughter, Yellowjacket waved her down. "Let me guess, it's the fact that I'm out in sunlight, isn't it? You wouldn't believe how many are surprised by that of all things."

"H-how?" Vinyl stammered, still shocked despite all her research into the matter. Her shock was partially due to the fact that she was literally right next to a vampire and partially because her theories on a vampire's true traits seemed to be right.

"It's gonna be a long ride."

Manehatten

Vinyl followed Yellowjacket off the train, continuing to scribble some notes down with a will and paper she had in a magical grip.

Swerving around a filly who was in quite a rush to board the train she had left, Vinyl almost crashed into the back of Yellowjacket. The yellow mare backed into her when a stallion rushed past the both of them.

"Wait, Babs! You forgot one of your bags!"

Shaking her head and taking a moment to straighten her glasses, Vinyl pushed Yellowjacket away from her.

"Hey! Don't be rude." Yellowjacket said indignantly. "You're in my town now."

Vinyl rolled her eyes, though it was difficult to see due to her glasses currently being near opaque to compensate for the bright sun. "Like that's going to be a problem."

Yellowjacket stuck out her tongue.

Sighing, Vinyl allowed herself to sag. "Let's just find Plow when he gets here, kay?"

Taking a moment to look around, as well as put up the notes she had taken on the train, Vinyl almost allowed her glasses to fall off her face when she saw the massive buildings around her. The towers of concrete, metal and glass seemed to have been risen defiantly against the sky, daring nature to try and bring them down. Or the architects were just really compensating for something.

Yellowjacket grinned. "Yeah, they had the same effect on me, too."

<><><>

"So, I never asked. Where did you actually come from?" Vinyl asked, following Yellowjacket into a cafe. "I mean, you don't have the accent for this town. None of you do."

The building they now found themselves in was small but well kept, with just a few customers scattered about. There would undoubtedly be more once rush hour hit, but that wasn't due for another hour and a half.

"Oh, some of us do, you just haven't met them yet." The mare took a glance at the menu. "That cappuccino with the whipped cream looks good. What do you think?"

Vinyl absently mumbled an agreement. "So, you. Where's your home?"

"Here, now." Yellowjacket shrugged. "Before, I lived over in Hoofington."

"Before?"

"The Dawn's Light, of course!" Yellowjacket smiled, placing her order. "What else?"

Vinyl swallowed, nervously ordering a latte. "You just talk like that in public?"

"And why not?" The cashier asked, winking.

Vinyl jumped while Yellowjacket let out a snicker. "Mocha, I told you to be more careful with the newbies."

Mocha, a light brown stallion with a light blue mane, nodded in response. He then gestured at a table in the corner of the cafe.

Vinyl and Yellowjacket sat down, the latter immediately looking comfortable while the former was still undoing the knot in her stomach. Taking a deep breath, Vinyl breathed in some of her latte, using it to clam her down. For a moment she contemplated pulling her headphones out of her saddlebags and listening to some music, but she still had a conversation to keep.

Just as Vinyl was about to open her mouth, Yellowjacket started talking for her. "It feels so far away, doesn't it?"

"What?"

"The danger. Look around, Vinyl. Ponies, just going about their days. Less than one in a thousand even know about the struggle we are in. Fewer if you just want us."

"So, it's everywhere?" Vinyl asked incredulously. "There's no way. The princesses--"

"Must not know." Yellowjacket finished, shooting down Vinyl's sentence. "We have no way of knowing how they'll react to us. They might protect us, they might see monsters and destroy us. The same logic keeps the Dawn's Light from giving themselves--and in turn, us--away to the rest of the world." Sighing, she frowned. "But no, it's not everywhere. Appleloosa, Cloudsdale, Ponyville and countless other towns don't have any of us. Vampires or otherwise."

Vinyl hooked onto her last words. "Or otherwise?" She thought to herself. "So, I was right?"

"Las pegasus is a warzone, though."

Vinyl furrowed her brow. "Las pegasus?"

"Yeah. Eastern sides where most of our fights against the Light take place. The western is overrun with ferals and the south... I don't even want to talk about it. Yet those gamblers are apparently too drunk or too high to notice."

Vinyl was about to ask what she meant by 'ferals', when a familiar pair of stallions plopped down in the seats on either side of her.

"Hey, Scratch? Make it without a scratch?" Plow asked, grinning.

Silver spear snorted with amusement. Vinyl leaned back in her chair, grinning herself as her legs wrapped around the stallion's shoulders, one for each.

"Yeah. Too bad about those bumps on your heads though, huh?"

Plow's smile immediately turned upside down. "Well, shit."

Silver Spear gave the two of them a questioning glance. "Wha--"

He was cut off when Vinyl slipped under the table, pulling the two stallions towards each other. Silver was shocked, Plow was resigned. The two of them crashed into each other headfirst and fell to the floor. Vinyl popped up on the other side of the table, laughing. Yellowjacket had her mouth held shut with a hoof.

Plow was the first to rise. "Thank you for the concussion and ensuing mental problems. Hopefully it won't turn into a genetic thing and get passed along to the kids."

Biting her tongue to prevent herself from pointing out the scientific impossibility of that scenario, Vinyl watched as Silver Spear slowly rose with a long and drawn out groan.

They all heard Mocha yell out from behind the counter. "Two bits off, for the next thirty minutes only. Get your coffee decked with an extra serving of your choice of cream, whipped or otherwise, sugar or--our house favorite--cherries!"

Vinyl glanced at Yellowjacket. "Cherries? In coffee?"

The yellow mare shrugged. "It's actually pretty popular around here. No idea why."

Several customers rose to accept the unexpected discount, one even throwing a "thanks!" to the quartet of ponies in the corner. Mocha shared a high hoof with another stallion, allowing Vinyl to glance his 'manager/proprietor' nametag. The other stallion had an 'assistant manager' tag.

"They have any other employees?" Vinyl asked.

Plow rubbed the back of his neck. "Two others. Probably in back or something."

Vinyl took a drink of her latte. "They...you know?"

Plow grimaced. "What? Oh, no. Jeez, I can't even imagine any of those three being a part of all this. Especially Bucky Star. Poor mare would probably have a fit if she ever found about this. I really wonder how Mocha does it."

"So, you just have normal lives?" Vinyl asked. "Like any other pony?"

"Vinyl, I told you this already, remember?" Yellowjacket said. "On the train?"

"Yeah, yeah, but to hear it from multiple sources..." Vinyl took another drink. "How'd I get involved?"

Plow, Silver Spear and Yellowjacket all shared glances. In the end, they all shrugged. Plow then left to place an order for himself, leaving Silver and Vinyl alone with Yellowjacket.

Vinyl had one more question to ask. "Is there a reason you're all earth ponies? Or do you just like not having any magic users or flyers in here?"

Silver Spear immediately cast a surprised glance at Yellowjacket, who also seemed to sit up just a bit straighter. Silver then sighed. "I thought you said you wanted that thing off as soon as possible?"

"I did!" The mare shot back.

"Then why not on the train?"

"I... You..." Try as she might, Yellowjacket couldn't come up with a good reason for her absentmindedness. In reality, it was Vinyl's questions that had driven the thought from her brain, but she wouldn't think that was a valid excuse in Silver Spear's eyes. So, she silently ran her hooves across her stomach until she stumbled across a zipper, located just below her chest. Pulling the zipper down, a portion of her coat fell away, allowing two wings to breathe in fresh air since their entombment in the disguising piece of cloth. Which now looked like a zip up corset.

"What?" Vinyl asked, lowering the opaqueness on her glasses to let more light in.

"Why did Crystal Shard have to make this thing for me?" Yellowjacket muttered, a disgusted look on her face as she held the obviously enchanted cloth in front of her. "What's the point of hiding wings?

Silver Spear shook his head, smiling. Plow returned, right on cue to ask "What'd I miss?" as he sat down.

Vinyl facehoofed. This group she was with was worse than some of her friends in Canterlot! Then again, some of her friends were worse than this, so it balanced out.

"So that's why you need to wear that thing outside of Manehatten. Got it?" Plow finished as Yellowjacket pouted. After a few seconds of thinking, Vinyl finally realized that in a few short moments, she had missed a chunk of conversation that might have been interesting. Or boring. It was hard to tell with reasons for another's behavior.

Licking her lips, Vinyl looked out a nearby window. There, one of the skyscrapers she had gaped at earlier stood on the other side of the street, several ponies walking and trotting along on their personal day to day routines. One pony ran by in a full sprint, followed closely by a pair of guards.

Vinyl raised her glasses to her forehead. Manehatten was just full of surprises when you stopped to take everything in.

"Equestria to Scratch!"

"Whoa, wha?" Vinyl asked, spinning around to face the trio of ponies sitting at the same table as her.

Plow raised an eyebrow. "Did you hear any of that?"

"What?"

Plow's shoulders sagged.

Demands

"I have a right to know." Vinyl grunted as she finished plugging in her turntable. It took serious deconstruction and reconstruction to get it to Manehatten and she wasn't about to let it just sit around and deteriorate. Neither was she allowing her 'companion' any breaks in questioning.

"If I knew, I'd tell you." Silver Spear sighed. "If only to get you to shut up."

"In the past three days, I've looked up everything I could." Vinyl growled out. "Everything that you, Plow and Yellowjacket have told me points to the Dawn's Light not being completely brain dead. With the exception of that one who broke down a door that wasn't locked."

"Yeah. They've got resources, tactics and smarts. So what?"

"So why are they after me? It's not like I'm one of you."

"Again, I don't know." Silver Spear was rubbing his head as if to alleviate a headache. "I've wondered that myself."

Before Vinyl could ignore his statement and ask the question again, the door to her apartment burst open.

"SIlver, problem!" Plow shouted. "Light, camping about a mile north of the city. Scouts."

Vinyl popped her head out from behind her turntables. "Why not just come inside? It's not like they're unwelcome by the vast majority in the city."

Plow ignored her. "You coming or what?"

Silver nodded. "Better than sticking around here, for sure." He cast a glance in Vinyl's general direction, but the mare was already heading for the door.

Plow, grabbing her, asked, "What are you doing?"

Vinyl impulsively punched Plow, sending the surprised stallion reeling. Now stuck with Plow standing dazed in the doorway and Silver Spear starting to bear down on her, Vinyl quickly calculated her chances of injury and jumped out--or rather, through--her window. Being three stories up, she got caught in the branches of a very convenient tree that was planted in a patch of ground in the middle of the sidewalk. Thanks to being slowed by the branches and leaves of the tree, Vinyl landed with nothing more than a few scratches from broken glass.

Adjusting her shades, she grimaced when she heard Plow and Silver Spear rushing through the building. "Not until I get my answers." She promised to both herself and anypony who was listening. "Maybe not even then."

<><><>

Switching her glasses to the increasingly useful of late infrared setting, Vinyl peered through a bush to the camp. Each of the six signatures she got were moving, with the exception of the largest which was, in fact, a campfire. So, five.

Switching to the magic detecting version of sight her glasses provided, Vinyl made note that only one reading was now visible. Nodding to herself, Vinyl whistled a short tune, attracting the attention of the entire camp but remaining behind her bush.

"Was that a bird?" The unicorn asked. A mare, by the voice.

"Wasn't a type I've ever heard before."

"Could've been one of those cocatrices. Or maybe cockatri?"

"No, those make chicken noises, if the chicken in question is rabid and half demon. Besides, they're only common round the Everfree."

As the gathered quintet moved closer from curiosity, Vinyl rolled one of the four flashbangs she had kept on hoof since leaving Canterlot.

Increasing the opacity of her glasses, Vinyl used her hooves to cover her ears.

<><><>

One of the Dawn's Light looked down at the small metallic object. "One of you please tell me this is some sort of rare egg."

The 'egg' let out a small ding.

"Son of a b--"

<><><>

Vinyl gripped one of the stunned ponies in a headlock, rolling across the back of the pegasus and using the momentum to drive the pony into the ground, face first. Running over and snatching a hefty looking stick from the campfire and double checking to make sure that yes, the end of it was on fire, she closed the distance between herself and the nearest pony. The unicorn, as luck would have it.

Bringing the flaming end around in an arc, she caught the unicorn by the ankles, bringing another pony to the ground even as the first was starting to rise again.

An earth pony charged at her, but he was several precious feet to the left, still suffering from the grenade. Even more preciously, he was wearing a vest with several pockets on it. Flammable pockets. Plus the rest of the vest.

Jabbing several times, Vinyl made sure he was good and ignited before making her way to the side of a tree opposite from the Dawn's Light.

Two of them recovered and helped put out their friend, who was slowly being roasted by his own traitorous clothing. The other two were busy following the glow from Vinyl's burning stick. Nodding to each other, they ran around opposite sides of the tree, hoping to ambush the ambusher.

Instead, they ran into each other with a sharp crack of skull slamming into skull. The glow they had seen was the stick jammed into the ground next to the tree. Vinyl leaned down from her spot on a tree branch, using her hind legs to hold her up while she dangled upside down. Grabbing each stallion by the backs of their heads, she couldn't resist grinning so widely that if she were a vampire, you'd be able to tell.

"Now, kiss!"

Pushing with all her might, Vinyl slammed their heads together again, a favorite tactic for her. To add to the fun, the two, in fact, did lock lips for a moment before they fell to the ground.

"I can put a scratch on anyone's heart." Vinyl whispered to herself before frowning disgustedly. "Plow, I hate you."

One of the three others rushed around the tree to find the source of the commotion. The other two were likely still recovering from third degree burns and helping their burned companion, respectively. As the pony tried to reawaken her companions--it was the unicorn again!--Vinyl used her levitation to raise the burning stick out of the ground.

The unicorn noticed the change of shadows caused by the rising source of light and turned abruptly to... get hit in the face. Repeatedly. With a stick. That was on fire. In the face.

Jumping down from her perch, Vinyl attacked the unicorn with hooves and stick, alternating between jabbing and several left hooks--her right wasn't as powerful for some reason--and using the levitating torch for both of its useful functions in a melee: Bashing and burning.

The mare relented not long after. The rapid attacks kept her from concentrating hard enough to cast any spells and came too quickly to parry in any way. With three confirmed down and one possible down, Vinyl skirted around the tree.

The one pony had several burn marks on his torso, but was far from finished. From the look in his eyes, he was now fighting with a heavy dose of anger on his mind. Likely for the vest.

"That thing cost me thirty bits!" He cried in anger, pointing at Vinyl.

So yeah, the vest.

Vinyl grabbed her torch with both hooves and slung it at him. It passed far to the side. The pony laughed derisively. "The buck was that? You can't even throw properly!"

Vinyl narrowed her eyes in concentration, the light blue glow around her horn flickering into existence. The stallion lowed his stance, preparing for a magical attack. Vinyl grinned as the torch came back around, homing in on its target.

When the stallions eyes widened and he went into a complete 'at attention' stance you'd likely see from an especially nervous royal guard recruit at bootcamp, Vinyl had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. While she had been aiming for his head--again, her favorite tactic--this was so many times better.

Pushing the torch in just a little farther, Vinyl watched the stallion fall to the ground, face completely expressionless and body stiff as a board.

The final pony put her hooves over head. "I give up."

Vinyl trotted over and gave the mare a couple pats on the cheek. "Good girl. Now," She grabbed the mare and slammed her against a tree. "Do you know who I am?"

"Vinyl Scratch." The mare struggled out. "Some sorta researcher. I just thought you were some hack DJ..." Vinyl put a hoof on the mare's throat. "A v-very good hack! Really t-talented! Yeah!" Forcing laughter and getting a bit of choking as a side effect, the mare tried to attempt a smile. "You're wanted by some of the bosses."

"Yeah. Kinda noticed that." Vinyl nodded. "Any idea why?"

"Vamp. If not that, you've been helping them. That's usually how this goes." The mare squirmed.

"Here's the thing about that..." Vinyl smiled, putting some extra pressure on the mare. "First, not a vamp." She opened her mouth and gave the mare a good view. "There's your proof. Second, I never knew about any of this before you jackflacks dove in and wrecked my lab. Frankly, if those other three hadn't come along, I'd only be pissed about my cannon. Took me nearly a year to get that thing to the point where it was at."

The mare exhaled sharply and inhaled just as much. "Don't know anything about a cannon. Please, I'm just a soldier. From the sound of things, you've got problems that need to be taken to someone higher in rank than me. Let me go and I'll vouch for you. Honest!"

"You think I'm stupid?" Vinyl snarled. "You'd kill me as soon as I gave you an opportunity!"

"Well, you're right about one thing, miss Scratch..."

"And what's that?" Vinyl asked with a derisive snort.

"I think you're stupid enough to be distracted."

Vinyl activated a second flashbang and tossed it behind her. It dinged as soon as it hit the ground.

"Son of a b--"

After recovering from the disorientation, the four Dawn's Light found that Vinyl Scratch had vanished from sight.

"Okay..." The unicorn muttered. "That was just slightly terrifying." She spared a sympathetic glance to her still down fifth compatriot. "Sorry, but I'm not the one who's going to help Photon over there with that stick problem he's got going on."

When a pony next to her cleared their throat, she turned towards them. "Something you'd like to--" She paused mid-sentence when she saw a yellow pegasus that was decidedly not a member of her squad.

Looking around, she found that they were surrounded by the pegasus and two earth ponies.

"Son of a b--" The stallion was cut off when the attack began.

Striking out

"Celestia damn it!" Vinyl muttered to herself, packing everything she could into a suitcase, before using a special shrinking spell she had learned to make it small enough to simply slide into her saddlebags. She hadn't used it before to conceal some of her tricks from the vampires (they hadn't known about the flashbangs, either) as she had decided she still couldn't trust them.

She had been rash, possibly turning the trio against her if they thought she had betrayed them. Still, she had needed answers. And thanks to a map she had taken from the Dawn's Light, she was going to get them. Grinning to herself, she hardened her resolve for this decision. They had turned her life upside down in less than twenty seconds, so she was either going to get answers from another group or begin to take the Dawn's Light apart, piece by piece.

Already thinking about how exactly she might gather resources, set up a safe house and allow herself to continue working in the research field to aid with the endeavor, she realized with startling clarity that she would need help from somepony, somewhere along the line.

Deciding to cross then subsequently burn that bridge when she came to it, Vinyl finished stuffing all of her shrunken items into her saddlebags. Turntables, headphones and the notes she had gotten from the questions she had given Yellowjacket, Vinyl sighed at how she had so quickly put up everything that had only just come out.

Assuring herself that her next hideout would be a more permanent establishment, Vinyl was heading for her door when she heard knocking come from the other side.

"Vinyl?" Plow's voice asked. "We know you're in there!"

"Shit!" ran through her mind as she immediately bounded for the broken window. Stopping to check outside, she saw Silver Spear waiting, likely in the event she did exactly what she was about to do. It was now that Vinyl kicked herself for never having bothered to learn teleportation.

Again running her mind through a scenario to see if she could convince them to not be extremely mad at her, Vinyl decided on a course of action. "Man, I really need to make more of these things..." She groaned as she pulled out her third flashbang. It was unnecessary, since Silver Spear was suddenly distracted by an unknown mare.

"Silver! When did you get back in town?" The mare asked, turning the stallion's eyes away from Vinyl's position.

While he was distracted, Vinyl leapt over to the tree, actually aiming for it this time. With a rustle of branches and leaves, she caught hold of a tree limb and kept still, so as not to attract attention. Continuing her good fortune, she hadn't caused a disturbance to the conversation some feet below her. Jumping over to land behind Silver Spear, Vinyl managed to soften her landed with minor telekinesis, Allowing her to land without a sound and dash off, sprinting to get as far away as possible in as little time as possible.

The mare he had been talking with looked over his shoulder. "Who was that?"

"Who was who?"

"That mare with the blue hair. She was a unicorn."

Silver Spear turned to face an empty street. "Plow is going to be pissed."

<><><>

Vinyl slowed her pace to a quick trot, looking around to try and get a sense of where she was at. Frowning, she realized that she might have to dig up some of her contacts from her DJ job, not all of whom were completely on the straight and narrow. It was now that she realized that even if it did come to that, she didn't have any contacts in Manehatten anyway. If she were in Fillydelphia, she could have dug up some friends that moved there, but as far as she knew, there was nopony she knew in the skyscraper city.

So the last thing she was expecting was to turn a corner and come face to face with a light brown stallion with a snow white mane.

"Vinyl?"

"Freddy?"

Frederic Horseshoepin. Fully capable with any keyboard instrument, from the ancient organ and harpsichord all the way up to a modern electronic keyboard. He was also one of few in Equestria who had a taste for both classical and electronic music, up to and including having a symphony from three hundred years ago and a dubstep song in the same playlist if he felt so inclined. Vinyl had nicknamed him Freddy because, well, Frederic.

They had played a few gigs together over the years, with Frederic trying to break into the more modern electronic music market in addition to the classical music he still played. He had eventually taken Freddy as his stage name when some fans heard Vinyl call him that and it ended up sticking. To see him in Manehatten was a surprise, to say the least.

"I thought you were still doing that thing where you were part of that quartet?"

"No, that took a break after a show went bad a few week ago." Frederic sighed. "Some noble who was even more stuck up than the rest complained that we'd repeat the Gala we played at once."

"I thought most of those punks had gotten over that?" Vinyl replied, walking down the street side by side with Frederic.

"They have. Just one hasn't." Frederic grimaced at the thought of the noble.

"Blueblood?"

Frederic glanced at her in surprise. "How'd you know?"

"Even I heard about the Gala, Freddy. I still don't know how he managed to keep his influence."

Frederic smiled. "Yeah. But what's worse, he used my electronic music career as proof that the group would bring the whole thing crashing down. Now I'm worried that the others might start thinking I'm the reason things went bad. Octavia I'm not worried about, but Beauty Brass is definitely something to worry about. Parish... I don't know. He's always been a mediator for the rest of us, but I just don't now..."

"You were still paid, right?"

"Yeah, in full. Plus a little extra for Blueblood, but I'd rather have gotten to play my set. Sure, they apologized for him, but if he can start getting even just a few other nobles thinking like him..." Frederic fell silent. "I may only have my fledgling electronic career."

Vinyl mock gasped. "They apologized? You and I must know two completely different sets of--"

"It was one of Fancypants' parties." Frederic interrupted.

"Ah."

"Anyway, what are you doing in Manehatten?" Frederic asked, changing the subject. "The furthest from Canterlot you've ever gone was that one fashion show in Ponyville, right?"

"Yeah." Vinyl said, smiling. "Still one of the easiest sets ever. And she paid me with a gem. A gem!"

"What was the first thing you did?" Frederic asked, genuinely curious.

"Chipped a piece off and bought an industrial strength hair dryer. Later on, I ended up selling it to a trio of fillies for a slightly larger piece of a gem."

"A... hair dryer?'

"Industrial strength." Vinyl corrected. "And those fillies turned it into a pet dryer."

"...Pet... Dryer?" Frederic winced at the thought.

"Only slightly less awesome than it sounds." Vinyl laughed. Frederic shook his head, laughing as well. "As for your earlier question, some personal problems brought me here."

"So I take it you caused that explosion at the research facility."

"What!? No! Frederic!" Vinyl glared daggers at her friend, though the effect of her squinting may have been diluted slightly by her glasses.

Frederic knew the moment she used his actual name that he had been wrong in his assumptions. "Shouldn't be surprised." He said calmly. "You always talked about how much you hated that place."

Vinyl sighed. "I... Look. I'm kinda trying to get away from a trio of ponies I may have gotten completely pissed at me. Think you can help?"

Frederic put a hoof over his heart. "Why, Vinyl! You got someone angry with you? I didn't know you had it in you!" At her disapproving frown, he shrugged. "I've got a ride back to Canterlot, but that's about it."

Giving the thought a once over, Vinyl nodded. "Sounds good. Doubling back'll throw them off for sure." "Though it might get them thinking I'm with the Light. At least there's that griffin guy I might be able to get some answers out of. But he charges a price..."

"Glad to hear it." Frederic nodded. "Just be careful what you get into Vinyl. Not everything is surface deep."

"Ain't that the truth..." She muttered, following Frederic.

The club can easily handle me right now

Vinyl trotted along, her saddlebags full of her shrunken belongings. After her meting with Frederic Horseshoepin, she was happy to know that she had a way back to Canterlot, as well as the majority of any resources she had access to.

Then she hit the crushing reality that she had nowhere to hide out until tomorrow, when her ride set out for Canterlot.

Sighing through gritted teeth ,she kept her head low as she entered the Manehatten downtown, looking for a hotel that was both inconspicuous and wasn't the sort of place you'd be nervous about even if you only planned to have a one night stand there. There were plenty of places that fit one of those descriptions, but nowhere seemed to fit both of them. Classy, expensive and way too attention gathering if you're trying to hide, or roach-filled, disease ridden, possibly-haunted-or-has-a-portal-to-tartarus-in-the-basement that you do not want to sleep at or even near. Ever. Nothing in the middle.

'Way to have options, you friggin high population density load of--' Vinyl's much-too-close-to-adult-language train of thought came to an abrupt and screeching halt as a familiar sound hit her hears. A deep pounding that represented one half of her life, as well as the half she had the most fun with, even though it earned less bits than the other, more respectable half.

A club.

Looking down the street, Vinyl saw something no club wanted to have anywhere near their vicinity.

Ponies.

Specifically, ponies that were leaving the club and looking none too happy as they walked away.

Curious as to what drew this sort of reaction, Vinyl managed to flag down one of the ponies leaving, hoping for answers.

"DJ got into an accident." The mare answered. "Broken leg or something. Ambulance left a while ago, but they said that a new DJ would come around in half an hour or so. Wouldn't be bad, except the new guy clubs like a Canterlot noble."

Vinyl winced. If that was the comparison, things were bad. This one night would ruin the place for a while if that's how things went. The fact that they had tried to stay open after an incident with their DJ stood as proof that it couldn't afford even a minor setback, let alone something like this. Come to think of it, if she listened hard enough, the rhythm was off and the pounding bass was just... wrong. There was no way to effectively describe it.

"Place been here long?" Vinyl asked, an idea already forming in her head.

"Close to eight years. Got a good rep, a bad name and I've been here before, but I won't be coming back for a few weeks."

Vinyl shook her head. "If you're thinking that, so is everypony else." She turned towards the scarlet mare. "But it only takes a few bad days to firmly run a business into the ground, much less weeks."

The mare frowned, then noticed the small smile touching at Vinyl's mouth. "You think you can save it or something?"

Vinyl's grin only grew wider. "I know I can.

<><><>

The mare had followed Vinyl back to the club, curious as to who this electric blue haired stranger was. The club's manager didn't have much of a choice but to let her set up and hope she was better than the stallion who was currently being chased out with an assortment of fruit, both rotten and otherwise.

It was when she got out her miniaturized turntables and cast a spell to return them to their normal size that something clicked in the brains of every living being still in the club, known as 'pLace'. Little p then capital L in a completely intentional format. At least it wasn't comic sans. Vinyl didn't know why, but the universe just seemed to hate comic sans. It's actually better to just leave things as times new roman.

Once her turntables were finished with general plugging in (a process that Vinyl had streamlined to perfection and therefore only took about thirty seconds) she reached over to the still active turntables left behind by her predecessor and abruptly stopped the record that was playing, creating a second long scratch that seemed to rival even her most bass heavy songs in the impact it had on the crowd. Vinyl then proceeded to push the turntables to a far corner of the room, using her telekinesis.

Standing behind her own setup, she grinned widely, putting on a pair of personalized white and blue headphones she kept with the turntables at all times. Twisting her head slightly, several audible pops erupted from her neck. A pegasus in the crowd recognized her at that moment in time.

In the next moment, two distinct things happened. First, the pegasus jumped into the air, screaming "It's Pon-3!" This was simultaneous with both the club manager and the mare Vinyl had come in with mouthing the word "What?" with surprised and disbelieving expression. At least they'd heard of her.

The second distinct thing was Vinyl putting on a song.

It started rather lightly, not very clubbish, but it gained power as time progressed. Soon, it began to build to a peak, then spilled over.

<><><>

Two hours in and the club was right back to full capacity. The manager even let her use the lighting rigs, allowing her songs to come packed with nothing less than an above appropriate amount of lasers and strobe lights.

In the middle of an exceptionally flashy song she had set up, Vinyl knew that the crowd was right in her hooves. Smiles, drinks and dancing that would make a mother faint. The only way this could be ruined is if one of those Dawn's Light cronies attacked her and that would probably just boost her already bad-ass reputation by a staggering amount.

Too late Vinyl remembered why exactly she had avoided thoughts like that up to this particular point.

A stallion dragged himself into the club, the knocked out form of the bouncer laying on the sidewalk outside, along with several shocked ponies. He was bleeding, but other than that looked as if he had ran a hundred miles without stopping. He was also incredibly familiar...

He pointed a hoof at her and said something, but the sound of the music and noise of the club blocked him out. Vinyl was no lip reader, but she could figure out the gist of what he was saying. Likely something around the lines of 'Hold it right there, vampire scum!'

Vinyl rolled her eyes behind her shades, pretending to have not seen him. His anger flared, forcing him to worm his way along a wall in an attempt to near her stage. The few ponies who noticed him gave him a curious look, but the ever shifting lighting in pLace -- oh dear sweet Celestia that name... -- kept them from seeing the blood trickling down his forehead or the scowl that had rooted itself in place of where a normal mouth would go.

He was at the corner of the stage before too long, but failed to notice the light Vinyl had discreetly moved to point at his eyes. When he placed a hoof on the stage in order to climb up, Vinyl blasted with the light.

The stallion screamed in surprise. "Gah! Son of a b--" His sentence ended prematurely when he slipped on some spilled cider that had decided to be in the exact spot his hoof landed when he tried to regain his balance. Because the spot that's most likely to cause collateral damage is the best possible place for it to be.

Vinyl raised an eyebrow. "Oh. That explains a lot actually..." she muttered to herself, stopping the music at a motion from the manager, who had turned in time to see the stallion's fall, but not Vinyl's blinding of said stallion.

It took a few minutes, but the stallion eventually rose to his own four hooves, right before a yellow blur shot in, located him at the same moment he saw her and proceeded to get into a hooffight in the pLace.

Scrunching her face in concentration, Vinyl actively wondered what Yellowjacket was doing following that pony. Her eyes widened in realization that at any given moment, she could be recognized. Ducking behind her turntables, she unplugged every wire she could, even preparing her shrinking spell and scanning for any emergency exits.

Two more familiar voices reached Vinyl's ears over the commotion that was occurring on the other side of her equipment.

"Where'd she go?"

"Silver, do you honestly not see the fight right in front of you!?"

"...Oh. Hey, wait a minute. Plow, check that out."

'Oh please no, oh please no, oh please no...' Vinyl prayed to anypony who might be listening still looking around for an easy escape.

"Silver..." Plow answered. "That looks just like Vinyl's equipment..."

Vinyl pointed a hoof at the sky, careful to not let the limb go beyond the shield of her turntables. She then pointed at the ground and slammed the hoof into her other one several times, expressing a clear desire for any Gods that may or may not exist to come down to Equestria so she may beat the ever-living tar out of them.

"O rly?"

Vinyl immediately stopped in her actions, acutely aware that she had just heard a crime against grammer. She slowly turned to find a mismatch of seemingly random animal parts sitting behind her, only barely hidden by her turntables.

Taking his eyes directly out of his skull, Discord -- the only possible thing this abomination could be -- rolled the two misshaped orbs in his lion paw before tossing them cross the meager space separating the two entities. They bounced off of Vinyl's shocked and incredibly scared form, stopping in between the two hidden beings in the form of a pair of yellow die studded with red dots. One had a four face up, the other a three.

Discord clapped. "You win the bet!"

Next thing she knew, Vinyl was outside the front of the pLace, her turntables miniaturized and stuffed into her saddlebags.

She glanced around. "What?" She asked to nopony in particular.

"I just asked you if you thought I should change the name." A voice beside her said. She slowly turned to find the deity of chaos standing before her. "Honestly, were you even listening?"

Vinyl's mouth dropped open, but Discord mistook the sign of brain.exe being shut off for an attempt at speech.

"No! Don't you dare! You haven't been the same since we got married." He said, tears in his eyes. He reached down to his eagle talon and took a diamond ring off the middle claw. "I'm sorry, but you're not even the same person I once knew..." Discord placed the ring in front of Vinyl, sniffing and holding back tears. "You'll receive the papers by tomorrow."

With that, he turned and left, walking down the street. Then he immediately ran back, shouting "Eureka!" at the top of his lungs. He was also covered in soap bubbles and water.

Snapping his talons, the sign of pLace was immediately replaced with one that said 'The Naughty Ottsel". Along with that, a large figure of what Vinyl guessed was an ottsel sprung from the building's roof, one hand holding a pitchfork, the other performing the devil's horns hand sign. Lastly, it had a pair of red demon horns on its head.

Looking around, Vinyl noticed that Discord was gone and it was daytime. By happy coincidence, Frederic Horseshoepin greeted her.

"Vinyl! There you are! I was actually just on my way back to our ride to Canterlot. Come on, don't want to be late." He paused to look at The Naughty Ottsel. "Hm, must be new. We'll have to check it out if we ever come back, right Vinyl?"

Vinyl had fallen to the sidewalk, out cold.

Frederic glanced around. "I'll never understand her..."

On the road to Canterlot

"No, no, no, no, no..." Vinyl muttered, quickly scanning and discarding one page of her notes after another. "There is no reasonable explanation for him to have anything to do with this, much less even be anywhere near Manehatten!" Her voice had constantly grown louder as she spoke that sentence, up to the point she was yelling in frustration.

Frederic Horseshoepin frowned, worried about Vinyl's mental health. "Will you please put the paper down Vinyl? It's all you've been doing since waking up. Besides, what's on them, anyway?"

"No." Vinyl adamantly snapped. "Not until I can find whatever linked him to Manehatten, that club or anything else that's been going on!"

Frederic picked up a loose paper Vinyl had dropped. "Well, can you at least bother to explain who this 'him'... is..." His voice trailed off when he saw exactly what the notes detailed. He read one of the words out loud. "Vampire?"

Vinyl used her telekinesis to rip the paper from Frederic's grasp, almost shredding the paper in the process. She shuffled the notes in her magical grip, restoring the order they were in just to repeat the process of looking over them.

The carriage they were in hit a bump in the road, jolting the two passengers and almost sending Vinyl's notes flying. She sighed, restoring the order the notes were in and stuffing them into her saddlebags. Leaning back in her seat, she finally admitted that tying a certain creature of chaos to all of this without more information was a lost cause. Heck, he might have only been around because he found it amusing.

Frederic chuckled as she scrambled to reorganize herself. "I don't suppose you've got anything on werewolves and will-o-the-wisps in there?"

She grunted in response, more an acknowledgement than an answer.

"You do know how absurd this is, don't you?"

Another grunt.

Frederic sighed. "So, now you've stopped talking to me, is that it?" When she gave no response, he leaned forward. "Vinyl? Hello?"

Her head rolled back, leaning on her seat. Her body had precariously perched itself in an upright position, though it was obviously ready to fall over at the slightest disturbance.

Frederic rolled his eyes, realizing that she had fallen asleep. Even considering the ten hours or so they've been in the carriage since leaving Manehatten--all of which Vinyl spent absorbed in her papers--she hadn't been awake for quite as long as she normally was. Stress was getting to her.

Frederic shook his head. "I told her she needs to stop worrying about that cannon so much." he sighed, sure that his friend's most eccentric design was her current undoing.

Notes on vampires, though. Now, that was disturbing.

Sneaking a peek while she was asleep couldn't hurt. Frederic smiled, taking Vinyl's notes out of her saddlebags. "Let's see what you've learned about our toothy friends, shall we?"

Of course, there's no way she actually knew anything about it. But even so, she may have stumbled onto something grand. Perhaps even something useful.

<><><>

Vinyl left Frederic with a wave, heading towards the eastern part of town. It was almost seven in the evening by the time they reached Canterlot once again, proving how inefficient land-based carriages were despite them still being so common in certain parts of Equestria.

That left her with plenty of light to see by, but the knowledge that it wouldn't last long. All the better.

She wanted to find her way to the Griffin's Aviary, but leaving was something she didn't want to be seen doing, especially considering how she had left behind her only pack of allies for a chance at getting to fight the Dawn's Light her way, with her rules. Retrospect once again declared that it hadn't been the smartest choice in tactics, but Vinyl knew she'd make it again if she had the option.

By the time her mental map had taken her to the bar, it was almost seven forty. For Vinyl, the timing was perfect. She just had to see if Frank was here and she'd be in the clear. The griffin wasn't to be trusted, but at least he was honest about it, as well as with any information he provides. At least, as far as Vinyl was convincing herself he was. She still had yet to actually deal with him.

As she had hoped, the bartender/information trader was cleaning a set of knives, eyeing a pair of drunks who's flushed faces and loud voices spoke volumes about how drunk they were. Other than them, there were just a few patrons, same as last time she visited here.

She took a seat at the end of the bar, waiting patiently so as to give herself time to think over how she would handle speaking to Frank.

"Same as last time, miss Scratch?"

Her eyebrows flung themselves up behind her mane, surprise covering her face at how quickly the griffin had made his way to her before she could contain it.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he raised a talon to silence her. "First, and this one's free, get a cloak or something. With a hood. You practically glow during the nighttime."

Vinyl, blushed, acutely remembering her white coat and electric blue mane. "I just--"

Again, he cut her off. "Information, no doubt."

Vinyl gave him a 'no, you think so?' sort of look, eliciting a chuckle from him. "Well, since you pretty much betrayed the vampires to the Light, I don't see why you wouldn't want--"

"Excuse me?"

Frank continued speaking, but this time was heading down a different track. "That move you pulled with that squad out side of Manehatten was good, but Plow's not stupid. They were fairly low rank, even for scouts. For the bounty of information you have in those bags--" He pointed at the saddlebags Vinyl currently held her notes in, as well as most of her belongings. "--the Light would pay a hefty sum for that kind of information. However, If you're here and not being protected by those cult-y freaks, there's still one more option." The griffin grinned. "You're with the ferals. I cut contact with them a long time ago, so I can't deal with any who work with them, either."

'What!?" Vinyl yelled, shocked. "I've never even--hmph!"

Frank had interrupted her by putting one set of talons over her mouth. "I never said anything about you, Vinyl." He tapped his head. "That's just the rumors, which are part and parcel. Excuse me while I handle a different sort of customer, then we can talk facts."

Vinyl's eyes followed as he went and attended to another mare, setting out a bottle for her and then moving over to kick out the two drunks, whose rowdiness had escalated. Knitting her brow, Vinyl scowled. He had played her, all but slapping her in the face with a declaration that he wouldn't help her, then retracing his steps right back to the beginning when she reacted at the news that she wouldn't get use out of this visit.

"You may have noticed that I began to speak before charging you." Frank said, settling back in his former position of leaning over the bar. "That won't happen again, I assure you."

Vinyl sighed, already suspecting as much. "I snagged this map off that group you mentioned earlier. I think it has the locations of safe-houses or bases on it. Can you confirm it?" She tossed the map and several bits onto the counter.

Frank slid two of the golden coins back to her. "Telling someone something new and confirming what they already have are two different things." He scanned over the map. "I can only accurately tell about two of them. This one in Fillydelphia was found out by ferals, which surprised me since they're usually stuck fighting the Blood Moons. It's been destroyed." Vinyl noted his mention of these 'Blood Moons', already preparing to hash out more bits if that's what it took. "This location here in Canterlot? Hotel by the name of Traveler's Gate. Head on over, I'm sure you'll be welcomed right in." He laughed heartily, with Vinyl not sharing in his good mood.

She slid several more bits onto the bar. "What about those Blood Moons?"

Frank took the bits. "Copy and paste everything you know about the Dawn's Light. Only their main targets differ."

"And the ferals?"

Frank raised an eyebrow.

Gritting her teeth, Vinyl slid one more hoofful of bits across the counter.

"When you think of a vampire, what's the next thing in your mind? Honestly, you already had knowledge of them."

Vinyl glanced at her saddlebags, reminding herself that it wasn't just vampires she had learned about. She turned back to the griffin. "Thank you for your time." She said evenly, already heading towards the door.

"I was being serious, by the way. Get a cloak."

Tearing the gates down

Vinyl Scratch stood patiently as the she and a guard waited for the guard's companion to return with Notepad.

She had briefly explained who she was and why she was at the Canterlot Department of research, weaponry and experiments. The two guards, likely part of a much beefier security team that was set up after the Dawn's Light attack, were dubious of her explanation at best.

Now, she stood waiting as Notepad excitedly galloped towards her, mouth firing of syllables faster than even Vinyl could keep up with.

"Slow down, Notey." Vinyl managed to get out in between some minor laughter. "It hasn't been that long."

Notepad gave her a thousand yard stare. "We thought those terrorists had gotten you. And you haven't been gone that long?"

Well... So that's what it looks like when someone instantly goes from shocked to angry. That was the first time Vinyl had seen the effect in real life.

"Okay, look." Vinyl said, pushing the conversation in another direction. "I need to get back into my lab. And a few other labs, too. Hey, how's that hoof mounted laser three doors over from me doing? It move from alpha to beta prototypes yet?"

Notepad blinked. "You disappear for almost a full week and you expect me to help you steal sensitive equipment!?" She yelled, giving both of the guards a good reason to scoot away from the two mares. It was a testament to their training that they didn't.

"Got'cha." Vinyl said with a point to Notepad's chest. "This not looking good would be an extreme understatement. But I need you to trust me. If I try to explain it, you'd think I'm insane. You probably already do. But I need answers, Notey, and those Dawn's Light have got 'em."

One of the guards perked his ears. "Dawn's Light?"

The second guard snorted, silencing the first. They dropped it after that, but Vinyl still felt it prudent to hurry the conversation along. She had no idea if the guards simply heard a rumor in the barracks, or something far worse. She mentally cursed herself at her slip.

Notepad sighed, slowly nodding. "Come with me."

The mare led Vinyl inside, out of earshot.

"I can't actually give anything to you, but a few keys being stolen should suffice."

<><><>

Vinyl approached the Traveler's Gate hotel, pretending to not be on a mission of destruction by skipping merrily and whistling.

The cylindrical object attached to her right forehoof probably decreased that effect, not to mention the wires and small amount of music equipment she was carrying on her back. Her saddlebags had been left with Notepad, who had promised to put them back inside Vinyl's home for later retrieval.

Her glasses were, of course, still perched on her snout, blocking her eyes from view. A fine array of gadgets and weapons were in Vinyl's possession, most prominently the cylindrical laser strapped onto her hoof, a pen sized object that spewed a cone of freezing cold for as long as its enchantment held out and a pair of faulty power cores Vinyl had retrieved.

Amazingly, none of it was particularly bulky, so it was mostly out of sight. The exception would be the hoof laser and music equipment, one of which could be waved off as a DJ thing.

She was nearing the hotel, a large three story building without any major markings. It just looked like a standard hotel.

Vinyl smirked, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to do.

Trash her lab, she trashes you tenfold.

She strolled into the hotel, pretending to not notice the three ponies sitting at a table in the lobby.

"Hey, dude name Plow told me the rooms here were pretty sweet." She proclaimed, laying on her DJ attitude. "Got any open?"

The mare behind the desk jumped in surprise, but smiled. "Why yes, I believe we do. Your friend has quiet the taste in hotels."

"Well, maybe you know him.' Vinyl said with a wave of her hoof. "Brown coat, mane looks like someone covered his head in metal and he let it rust over. Sound familiar?" Vinyl grinned slyly, pulling her glasses down a bit.

The mare began to noticeably sweat, meaning that Plow was as well known as Vinyl had hoped. Her intention had been to test the mare, see if she knew about the Dawn's Light. If she did, she'd likely know Plow, too.

She did, which made things very simple for Vinyl Scratch.

She just noticed the light click made by a button being pressed, only audible through the silence that had pervaded the area around her.

Vinyl spun, horn lighting up and firing a pair of energy blasts at two of the three ponies in the lobby. They took the full brunt of the attacks, out of the fight before they really entered it. For the third one, Vinyl raised the hoof mounted laser she had 'borrowed', quickly sending her last opponent to the ground, as well.

Turning back to the desk, Vinyl saw the incredibly pale face of the desk pony.

An anesthetic spell knocked her out without any harm.

Vinyl hopped over the desk, scanning the area for wherever room service calls might be taken in. A door led the way to an employee only room, complete with the central hardware for the building-wide fire alarm system.

"Jackpot."

With nothing more than a few well placed wires and a single press of a button, Vinyl had deafening power metal pumping through every speaker in the building. On constant repeat.

Electronic music was her personal favorite, but when you needed loud, rock n roll and its close associate heavy metal were very tough to beat.

Without needing to keep up a pretense of stealthy, Vinyl exited the employee area. Ducking behind the counter, she readied the small freeze ray, staying low until she was sure that the ponies she had seen leaving the stairwell were in range. They had come too quickly as a reaction to the music, so it was likely they had been summoned by the button the clerk had pressed earlier. Looking up, Vinyl could see the small red button sitting on the underside of the counter.

She popped out of her hiding spot, freezing the pair of ponies into a pair of goon-cicles. Looking around, Vinyl soon located the record-book. She frowned, seeing that the entire third floor was marked off as permanently occupied.

"Hey! What's going on down..." The voice trailed off as Vinyl picked up her head. She and the pegasus took a long moment to stare at one another, the latter soon snapping her wings open and dashing through the air towards Vinyl.

Vinyl fired several spells at her, causing the pegasus to veer off course. A well placed shot from the hoof laser ended the threat.

Taking a deep breath, Vinyl Scratch made her way over to the stairwell, which had another two ponies descending. Muttering a string of curses and questions regarding the parentage of these ponies, she pulled out one of the defunct power cells.

With a quick lightning spell, the cell was overcharged. A normal cell being overcharged was dangerous, but if anything was to rough with this one, it'd explode. So, Vinyl tossed it up the stairwell, only uncovering her ears when she heard the boom.

Sprinting past the hole in the wall and the charred everything in the stairwell, she made it all the way to the third floor without any further hiccups. Looking around a corner, Vinyl breathed a sigh of relief at the empty area around her. The only way to go was down the hall, to a lone door that no doubt entered the local Dawn's Light safe house.

Peeking through the door, Vinyl was amused at the sight of a unicorn mare playing an air guitar to the song, with a pegasus stallion singing beside her. another four ponies sat around them, laughing their flanks off.

Pulling out the freeze enchanted device, she took a few seconds to destabilize the spell, kicking the door open and using her magic to put the small device in the center of the group.

Closing the door with a slam, the sound of ice cracking as the room flash-froze reached her ears. Vinyl wiped her brow with a hoof and pushed against the door. When it didn't budge, she shoved harder, until she finally gave up and simply used a spell to blast the door off its hinges.

Scanning the room, Vinyl's eyes settled on a frosted piece of parchment. It was a map trying to pinpoint the vampire base. Scanning the room, Vinyl noticed how the entire room was dedicated to organizing and pinpointing vampire actions around Equestria.

She sighed, having hoped for something directly relating to the Dawn's light. A few more minutes of looking caused her to beam with happiness, having come across a book with the title 'Dawn's Light and Vampiric History: Pocket Edition'.

The book was perhaps fifty to seventy pages thick and was indeed small enough to fit into a pocket.

Making note to thoroughly read the book later, she turned back to the door, jumping at the sight of an exhausted yellow pegasus leaning on the frame and grinning at her.

"You..." Yellowjacket began, pointing a hoof. "Explaining to do... Thought... you betrayed..." The mare took a deep breath, steadying herself. "Do... you know how hard it is... to fly all the way from Manehatten... to Canterlot?" She ran a hoof through her mane. "It ain't easy."

Vinyl gaped at her, at a loss for words. She had thought they'd been left behind in Manehatten! How'd they catch up to her so quickly?

Yellowjacket jabbed a hoof into Vinyl's chest. "I wasn't even able to tell Plow or Silver what was going on. I had to book it just to keep up with you! At least you made it clear where you came." She glanced behind her, fondly remembering having just given up her chase when the sound of a large explosion ripped through the air. A hotel had just gotten a new hole straight into its stairwell.

Vinyl grinned nervously, just glad that she wasn't being strangled by the vampire pegasus.

The yellow mare frowned. "First, we're getting out of here. Don't even think about ditching me, cause I'll only come right back to you. Second, you and I are going to sit down and I'm going to hear just what was going through your head when you attacked Plow And Silver Spear."

"Uh, yeah. Must not've looked good from the outside."

Yellowjacket raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything in response.

Vinyl swallowed, pulling out her second broken power cell. "Cover your ears."

Yellowjacket sighed. "For hundreds of years, we've waged a shadow war. And then you come along with high explosives and the ability to attract every ounce of public attention in a hundred miles."

Vinyl shrugged, already overcharging the power cell.