Vinyl Scratch is (not) a vampire

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."