Apple Bloom arrived at Sweetie Belle's house a little late. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were waiting for her in Sweetie Belle's room. "There you are Apple Bloom. What took you so long?" Scootaloo asked.
"Sorry, there was an incident at the barn and well Ah had to get one of our apple carts back to the farm. And then the weirdest thing happened when Ah saw the apple cart. Sleeping underneath it was a colt. He said he didn't remember what he was doin' under the cart and ran off before Ah could really ask him anything. And before we do anythin', does any of it involve goin' out after dark?" Apple Bloom asked her two friends.
"Um, no," Sweetie Belle responded. "Why'd you ask?"
"Have either of you heard of a lycan before?" Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo exchanged a quick glance.
"A what?" Apple Bloom sighed and told her friends all that had happened that day. The reason for the incident, the unicorn that told her about lycans, everything.
"Wow," Scootaloo said in awe. More of the fact that such a creature existed while the dangers it entailed flew right over her head. Sweetie Belle was shaking on her bed.
"M-Maybe we shouldn't go outside when it gets dark from now on," Sweetie Belle told the others. The others nodded in agreement. The clock in Sweetie's room rang twelve times. "Oh shoot! Its time for school!" The three fillies realized that they'd all be in serious trouble if they were late to school and rushed out of Sweetie's house and to the schoolhouse.
Charcoal rubbed his now-full stomach and dropped the empty bag. The apples he ate had sated his growling stomach, for now. He stood up and looked around. In the near distance he heard bells ringing. He focused his hearing, curious as to what the ringing was for; it hurt his ears. Shaking his head, his ears curled up and clogged themselves. His sensitive ears were still ringing long after the bells stopped. Charcoal squinted his eyes and saw three fillies running to somewhere. He recognized one of them. The one with a red bow in her mane. Charcoal tilted his head in wonder as to where they were running to. "Hey." Charcoal turned around to see a stallion looking at him.
"Umm.." Charcoal started but was quickly cut off by what the pony said next.
"Why aren't you going to class? The bells rang." The pony pointed towards a red building with around a dozen foals near it. Charcoal was about to respond that he didn't go to the school here when he saw Van Helsing again.
Seeing the most obvious way out of the area, "Right. Sorry, I forgot for a moment." Charcoal quickly took off to the school.
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo took their seats in Ms. Cherilees classroom. Ms. Cherilee was about to start the days lesson when one last colt practically ran into the building. "Sorry about being late to class," the colt said in an exhausted voice. Ms. Cherilee looked as startled as the students at the newcomer. But none were as stunned as Apple Bloom. She looked over to her friends, who only returned looks of confusion at her.
"That's the colt that was sleepin' under my apple cart," Apple Bloom told her friends in a hushed tone. The reason for Apple Blooms stunned look quickly dawned on them as well.
"Well, am I right in believing that your new here?" Ms. Cherilee asked the colt. The colt shook his head in response, he was too out of breath to verbally respond. "Can you tell me and the class what your name is?" The colts eyes widened the same way they did when Apple Bloom asked him what his name was. The colt, seeing there was no way out of the question, relented.
"My name is Charcoal."
"Well I'm glad you decided to join us today Charcoal." Ms. Cherilee looked around the room, trying to find a place for Charcoal to sit at. "You can take the desk between Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom." Charcoal looked over to the spot that Ms. Cherilee pointed to. He had no idea who was who, but he made the guess that Diamond Tiara was the filly with a, well, a diamond tiara on her mane and Apple Bloom was the filly with an empty seat between herself and DT. And Charcoal's eyes widened when he recognized Apple Bloom as the filly from earlier. Charcoal quietly took the seat and sat down.
Throughout the class Ms. Cherilee spoke of some subject that Apple Bloom didn't really care about at the current moment. No, she was more interested in Charcoal. Why had she run into this colt twice on the same day, and she didn't even know his name until a couple minutes ago. Plus, Charcoal kept doing odd things throughout the lesson. Every three minutes or so, he would raise his head and sniff the air, then he make some facial expression Apple Bloom couldn't quite make out. He also appeared to have an inch, at least from what AB could tell, but the way he scratched it was weird. He would raise one of his hind hooves and scratch the part of him that itched; especially odd looking when he scratched his neck. How his hind hooves could reach his neck, Apple Bloom couldn't understand. And every now and then his tail would waggle and his ears would flick to and fro.
The recess bell rang and Ms. Cherilee let the foals out to play. Charcoal thought that the bell meant that they could leave, but he was wrong. Instead all the other foals gathered together in the playground. Charcoal himself simple sat by the edge of the fence. Watching. He quickly started to think of how easily it would be to chase down the prey before him. He shook his head and the thoughts disappeared. He needed to keep his thoughts his own. It may not be dark and there may not be any moonlight, but he could still loose himself to his more animalistic instincts.
"Are you sure that's the same colt, Apple Bloom?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Yeah. Same coat color, silver mane and tail. Gold eyes and a habit of sniffin' the air. It's him," Apple Bloom replied.
"Okay, so why did you keep staring at him during class?" Scootaloo asked. Apple Bloom looked over at her. "Don't like we didn't notice. The whole time you kept looking over at him."
"So, did neither of ya notice the weird things he kept doin'? Sniffin' the air every other minute?"
"Maybe he just kept smelling something," Sweetie Belle countered.
"His tail would flick around and ears too."
"That's not weird either."
"Scratchin' his neck?" At that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both looked at Apple Bloom with 'you've-gotta-be-kidding-me' looks. "With his hind hooves. Who does that? Scootaloo, ya try scratchin' your neck with your hind hoof." Scootaloo looked surprised but attempted to do so. She ended up in a weird tangled mess of her own limbs, still unable to scratch her neck with her hind hoof.
"Okay, so maybe that's weird. But so what then? He's just different then," Scootaloo said.
"Sigh. Okay maybe your right, Scoots," Apple Bloom admitted. The school bell rang again, signaling the students to return to class. Everypony returned to their seats and Ms. Cherilee continued with the days lesson. But this time, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo made sure to take notice of anything that Charcoal did, and just like Apple Bloom had claimed, he did some weird things.
"A lycan? But I thought that was just an old mares tale," Princess Twilight said in surprise. Van Helsing merely nodded to confirm what Twilight had thought.
"And there's at least one prowling around Ponyville. It was Sweet Apple Acres last night and traveled to a Pegasus named Fluttershy's cottage. As far as I know it didn't attack anypony but still its too dangerous to keep the ponies here in the dark. It will get somepony hurt, or worse killed."
"We need to alert Mayor Mare. She'll have the authority to put a curfew in place. I'll need to send a letter to the princess about this..." Twilight delved off into a tangent on what needed to be done.
"Wait. You're a princess. Why can't you just impose a curfew here?" Van Helsing asked the purple alicorn.
"I may be a princess, but I don't have the official authority to do anything like that. And Princess Celestia will know what to do. She would never let anypony under her rule be harmed." Van Helsing rolled his eyes. At that time, Twilight's ever-loyal assistant walked in. He was shocked to see the tall tan unicorn. And more shocked to see all that Van Helsing was wearing. Twilight saw Spike's utterly confused look. "Spike, this Van Helsing. But first, I need you to send a message to the princess."
"Wait, what?" Spike asked, but he already had a quill and roll of paper ready to send.
Spike blew the green dragon fire on the message and sent it to the princess. "There its on its way. Now, what are you wearing?" Spike asked Van Helsing.
"Oh, these old things?" Van Helsing pulled out his tow revolvers and pointed to them.
"Yeah, those and everything else you're wearing."
"Well, these are the tools of my trade. Everything I have excels in killing the supernatural."
"Why do those excel, they just look like a pair of ordinary revolvers?" A small grin spread across Van Helsing face at that question.
"These revolvers-" Van Helsing started, pulling out each item as he described it "- are made from the metal of an old church bell. Wooden grips are from a holly tree. The jars hold pure Holy Water, good against vamponies. Mace made from cold iron, repeals the fair folk and works well when faced with anything else as per bludgeoning and all that. This sword, however is the penultimate of my anti-monster killing devices. You see the edges alternate between yellow and white? That's pure gold and pure silver. Both blessed by a priest. The silver was melted down from silver crucifixes handed down my family for generations. The sword's grip is also made of wood from a holly tree."
"Why so much silver?"
"Silver is the one thing that all supernatural monsters are vulnerable to. And I'm not even done yet. Now, if my normal bullets don't work, I pull out these babies." Van Helsing revealed another belt full of white bullets. "Custom made silver-jacketed hollow-point bullets. Inside each tip is a gel made from Holy Water, wolfsbane, garlic, and a single tiny crystal imbued with solar magic. The best in the business. If these babies can't kill it, nothing short of a world-ending explosion will.
"Now, the cloak has four layers. The first, outer, layer is made from the hardest material that'll still allow flexibility; dragon scales. Can withstand temperatures as hot as lava and cant be torn through. The second layer has crystals interwoven in it to allow enchantments. The third layer is just extremely thick fur. The four and final layer is just comfortable fabric, and holds dozens of internal pockets. Deep pockets." Spike stared in awe at Van Helsing's supernatural killing equipment.