Slightly irritated the mane six make their way to the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle, just before the break of dawn. Rainbow Dash yawns flying through an opened window into the room already holding her friends and the two princesses. Princess Luna looking particularly distress.
"Sup, everypony." she greets utterly bored.
"Since you're now all here we can begin." Princess Celestia begins, "In light of a current predicament," she slightly glares at Luna gaining everypony's full attention, "A few associates of ours will be in Equestria for some period of time."
As soon as she finishes a door opens, and some alicorns enter the room.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance." Says a tall slender mare. Her height rivaling that of Princess Celestia. She is pink with silver and blonde hair and her pale green eyes saw no semblance of warmth. She spoke with a stotic tone and looked towards the far distance as is no one else was present.
The stallion which stood beside her looked away from the group and decided against making himself welcome. He was clearly the tallest pony there and wore a dark brown cape which covered most of his features, save his misty blue hair and blood red eyes.
The two ponies looked cold and unwelcoming.
"Ester Isle and Skye Brave, will be conducting a bit of investigate work in Ponyville before moving on elsewhere." Princess Celestia adds responding to the sudden coldness in the air.
"Pleased to meet you." Princess Twilight Sparkle says trying to break the tension as well.
"Oh, the new princess. I've heard much about you." Ester Isle says, her face still emotionless. "You elements of harmony are all so adorable, I don't know whether to cuddle you or give you a smile." They all wondered if this was sarcasm.
"Why don't we have a party to celebrate you're first visit to Ponyville?" Pinkie Pie says practically bouncing out of her seat.
At her voice however the stallion finally looked up at the group, and with a smirk he said "You never stop smiling do you Pinkamena?"
"Not really. What kind of element of laughter doesn't like smiling?" she responds.
"Got me there." he replies the smug look never leaving his face.
"Wait, how do you two know each other?" Princess Celestia asks utterly confused.
"Why she's my best student." he replies. Both Ester Isles and Princess Luna visibly shudder at this.
"What's so bad about being his student?" Twilight asks noticing their movements.
"He trains ponies with unheard of magical abilities." Luna says.
"He teaches them to kill and not feel, to hunt or die." Ester Isle adds.
"Hold on a minute. We're talking about Pinkie here. Ponyville's number one party planner?" Rainbow Dash interjects.
"Yeperoni, I'm Ponyville's premiere party planning extraordinaire." Pinkie says happily bouncing around the room making pretty much everypony smile.
"With the best killing rate I've ever seen." he adds.
"Considering what I know about you, Skye. I don't think we should add anything else." Ester Isle says, "I have brought along the leader of the vampires to aid in my side of the task," she adds. A white pegasus stallion enters into the room, his hair blonde and orange and his cold blue eyes burned their souls as he watched them all, but then his eyes stopped on Fluttershy.
"Bane Fury, has promised not to do any unnecessary harm to anyone while in your country." Ester adds.
"Yes quite." the vampiric pony says looking away. He turns back to the group and asks, "May I speak with Fluttershy alone for a moment?"
"Of course." Fluttershy flies towards the door from which he had entered, with him following close behind. Everyone was startled (to say the least) by this behaviour, but before anyone says anything they return.
"Sincerest apologies. I had simply remembered I promised to introduce Lady Ester Isle to my youngest daughter." Bane says, his voice sending a chill. Fluttershy gives a bow to Ester Isle and says, "Nice to meet you. I've heard so mush about you Lady Ester Isle."
"Quite." the alicorn replies coldly. "Being the youngest makes her your heir, correct?"
"Yes." Bane says bluntly.
"And she is the element of..?"
"Kindness." Fluttershy says in her quiet way.
Elder Isle rolls her eyes and says, "Does this bother anypony else?" Everypony in the room, save the vampires, all nod in agreement. "No further questions.
"I for one am up for a challenge." Skye says, his smile growing.
"I'm listening." Ester perks up for the first time.
"Hunters verses vampires. How 'bout it?"
"Deal." she finally smiles, though this sends a deathly chill down the spines of everypony present.
"And this is why guards will be keeping an eye on their travels." Celestia says openly. "This meeting is dismissed." as she says this all the alicorns teleport away (Twilight Sparkle not included).
With only the elements remaining in the room, Applejack asks the question on everyone's mind. "What tha hay just happened here?"
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It might have taken an hour but Twilight believed she'd asked enough questions and stopped asking the timid Fluttershy and overly-talkative Pinkie Pie any more questions. Her head still hurt, however, from deciding to ask questions to a pony who, without asking, can go on for hours at a time. Many more questions remained in her head, however but she decided to leave them be and retreat to her books. She chooses to research on hunters first because of her unfamiliarity, and now an hour in she finds herself flinching at every sound her ears detect and every movement which comes into her field of vision. She shakes it of and thinks out loud, "I wouldn't think anypony would be ok spending half their lives killing creatures that kill or eat other ponies. I can't believe Pinkie never told us about this." As fear overtook her body she decides that that was enough for the night and goes up to bed. Halfway up the stairs she gets a fright and turns to look back down the stairs, seeing no one she continues towards her bed.
Once the purple alicorn is out of sight Pinkie removes her cloak from her face. Letting her hood fall and pink hair flow out in the topknot which still threatened to trip her, she says, "Forty six. In the clear." she sighs and walks towards the open window. "Let's just make sure her knowledge stays limited. She'll find out what she needs soon enough." She rests on the window watching the night for movement. With another sigh she disappears under the cover of her midnight blue magic.
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Rainbow Dash sighs under the cover of darkness. She watches the moonlight dance on the waters nearby and is silently happy she had found this place. She is currently laying down in a small cavern. The hole she had made when she crashed found the cave let in a suitable amount of moonlight. She never understood it but her 20/20 vision never faultered, not even for the dark of night, but that was all that she thought was perfect. In darkness of the cave she had started writing and felt safe enough to write what she felt.
It's funny though she wrote That in the darkness which scares everypony the most, it's the one place that I recieve comfort.
At least here, I not the tough one or the sick one or the one who's too full of herself to see when a frend is hurting. She pauses swollowing the lump in her throat.
I'm just Rainbow Dash, the pony who, like everypony else, actually has feelings.
Why can't anypony see when I'm hurting, I'm so tired of hiding the pain.
Well I guess I can't change now. Bash and bold, yeah right, more like weak and pathetic.
I mean I can't even fly without feeling pain. Guess lying to the doctors for years kinda makes it a habit.
Change is pretty much out of the questions.
Well I did find out something useful today. Maybe I'll try my trick on Fluttershy, she'll do what I say, but I don't know if I can keep it going if I pass out.
Or maybe I can do it myself. As she finishes she gets up and looks into the pool of water infront of her. She looks around. She takes in a breath and releases it and jumps into the water only to be pulled out by the town DJ.
Coughing up the water she says in an annoyed voice. "Hey, why'd you do that!"
"I that you'd do something stupid." She sighs with her forelegs crossed.
"What are you talking about. Hey, where'd you come from anyways."
"That's not the problem. Why are you trying to kill yourself Dash?"
"I was... I was just..." She felt her chest tighten and she closed her eyes trying to prevent the tears from flowing, but it was no use. Vinyl holds her back as she cries and tries to go back into the pool.
Once she calms down Vinyl puts her on her back and carries her out of the cavern. She is slightly shocked when she sees the pegasus fast asleep on her back. She places her in a comfortable spot before walking away. "Never knew she was so tiny." she says with a smile before teleporting the rest of the way into town.