The war against Nightmare Moon ended a thousand years ago with Celestia sacrificing her life to banish her sister. The legacy of war remains, however. Most of natural pony magic was lost in the battles. History and landmarks were destroyed, and the decimated survivors had to build the pony society anew. And during the night, vamponies, wereponies and other monsters cursed by the Nightmare prey upon ponies under cover of dark, unknown and unseen.
Unknown, because the Apple clan retains the strength of the Earth ponies in a secret, deadly battle against the beasts.
Follow the story of one Applejack, as she starts her high school in the small town of Ponyville, and tries to balance her life as a Slayer with a life of a normal teenager. What will happen when her new friends start to uncover her secrets?
Will contain plot elements from BtVS the series, and has an alternate setting of Equestria. All the mane six will end up as the main players, but it will take some time. The main cast have lived different lives from their canon counterparts, and as such are slightly (or more) different from their canon personalities, but I'll try to keep them in character.
Cover image by itzCombatWombat
I don't intend to make the story gory.
No Twi, that reaction is perfectly natural for a young mare viewing a handsome stallion. Neither him nor his sisters are demons.
3717830 Well, to be fair to Twilight, it is an easy mistake to make. I remember the first time I had a crush on a girl, and ended up trying to bury her under crossroads at midnight, her mouth stuffed with garlic. Oh, how we laughed about it later!
*Sigh* Twi, no. Twi, water you doing. Diane, keep up the pinkieness. ~Your friendly neighborhood draconequus, Discord.
All right, one, or at most two, chapters to go before the introductory arc is over.
After that, I'll take some time to read my backlog of stories, before continuing with the main adventure arc.
I'll be writing other stories too in the spring, including an attempt to get a novel published, so my updates won't come as frequently as this started, but I'm sure you'll be fine.
So... There is no Elements of Harmony or they just never heard of them?
If the elements exist, then it's safe to assume that Celestia still live and that she'll show up sooner or later.
Wait a second, anypony thought about how the moon and sun still moved around if those in charge of that job were gone? Hmm...
Also, any chances of seeing Cadance? Either as a pegasus or Alicorn hiding her wings or horn to hide her true nature? That could make for a funny situation between Shinning, Applejack and her
3735905 Well, the world is both still being built, by me, and slowly revealed to you, the readers.
I can reveal, if you didn't guess, that Equestria as a whole works a lot more like Everfree now. The girls will find out reasons as to why later on in the fic.
There's just too much backdrop to give in one go without boring everybody to death.
On the elements: well, I'm subtly foreshadowing them already. However it will turn out, just wait and see
Cadance has poked me every now and then, but I really have no headcanon of her. There's quite a few characters already. And the romancing entanglements are just way too fun not to mess even more with! We'll see.
This is, after all, likely to be a longrunner. I have too much plot in my head already, and am having way too much fun with the characters.
3735964 Oh well. Wait, you know what would be hilarious? The changelings being goods guys protecting the ponies because darkness is much more natural to them.
3736081 Well, they are natural competitors to vamponies over ponies as a food source... should be interesting...
3736126 Hey, you know what, that actually make sense. Changeling actually need the ponies alive to feed, and they feed on love. That would make one heck of an Angel -like character if you needed one.
3736196 Okay, that's just too good not to use.
I'll add it to my plot notes and it'll show up when you least expect it!
3736219 *Pinkie with mustache rubbing hooves* Good
And it is revealed that Twi is being silly. Applejack continues to not be a succubus.
Needs more update.
4021476 I know, and I feel guilty about my lack of attention for this story!
The first chapters flowed so naturally, that I didn't even realize I had a huge lack of preplanning about this story until I hit it. At the same time, the huge demand for continuation in 'Twilight makes first contact' made me pay attention to that story, and the ideas didn't stop coming.
In short, I know what I want to do with this story, but I have little idea about the path there. But I expect to hit a planning lull in 'First Contact' after about two chapters there, and need to shift my gears for drama and adventure again.
So, my subconscious is at work. Just a bit longer, I promise!
Exposition, exposition! Yeah, sorry for the long gap, people!
I'll try not to make that happen again. And I'll try to get the plot rolling again in the next chapter. This one is a single scene that started bloating and bloating...
Hm, this was a pretty good read - I didn't quite know what to expect going in to this story (much of the vampire stories I find on this site tend to be pretty meh), but after sitting down and reading through it I find myself pleasantly surprised. Sure, in some ways its your standard vampire fare, but your writing style is solid and engaging that leads to a feeling of credibility to the whole ordeal, and I like the little bits of alternate history and worldbuilding you have going on here.
The cast, characterization and dialog is handled nicely as well, and I find it interesting to see how the "mane six" fare in this darker world, while still retaining their distinguishing character traits ... well, minus Diane, though Pinkamena is a common enough thing to still feel genuine. All the little relationship subplots should be fun to follow as well - AJ and Shining Armor? That's an unusual one, but I like their interactions so far.
Twilight thinking Big Mac was an Incubus simply because, as Shining put it, she found him "hot" was pretty hilarious - and quite Twilight-like to over-analyze the whole thing, heh. Though I imagine nothing will be coming from that, seeing as Rarity has her sights on Mac ... though who knows, he isn't exactly spoken for, and would make for a pretty humorous plotline (wallflower Twilight looking to get a foot in before the social queen Rarity, heh), seeing as the real Twilight isn't quite the timid little filly she is playing at school.
And you have certainly got me interested in the plot as well - thousands of ponies going missing in Ponyville each year? Wards beneath town being tampered with (looking towards the group exploring the catacombs and tunnels), the last general of Nightmare still being around and plotting something? Twilight's affinity for dark magic? I'm looking towards to seeing all those plot points explored.
And the implication, if the Chaplain's story is to be believed, that Luna could still be salvaged if she could draw enough strength from the populace. Granted, that seems like a pretty tall and unlikely order, but with some part of her still around spiritually, one can never know ...
Anyways, looking towards to seeing where this story goes from here, uncovering conspiracies tend to be all kinds of fun.
4047256 Thank you so much!
Reading that kind of thoughtful commentary really feels good!
Alas, I just realized what has been preventing my progress in this fic. To proceed naturally, I will have to be cruel to my favorite characters soon...and my brain is trying to do all that it can to prevent that.
But, it can't be helped. I could write a chapter after another just 'setting up' things, and there is some of that needs to be done, but more than the next chapter, I don't know. I fear I will hate myself for the suffering I must inflict to make the strength of their characters shine through.
Oh, well. I'll still probably end up being too kind. Actual emotional torment is so distasteful.
4049111
Heh, I'm certainly familiar with the feeling of wanting to see the heroes prevail as well ... doesn't really stop me from reading all sorts of grim stories, among other things, but then I imagine actually writing those bad things as they happen is somewhat different.
On the other hand, I most certainly don't believe that darker means better or more serious or whatever measure of quality you want to use. It's the overall quality of writing and ability to invoke a mental imagery (and you have top marks in both) that determines how much of an emotional impact something has, and the overall "weight" of the story.
Of course, make it as dark as the plot demands in your vision, but I don't think being "too kind", relatively speaking, is too much of an issue to be afraid of, so long as the quality never falters.
Now excuse me while I finish reading your first contact story, that one has been an absolutely amazing read as well ...
What are warlocks in this?
Constructive criticism incoming. You mentioned in one of the chapter that thousands of ponies are slaughtered in ponyville every year and many of them are stragglers. This is several times the populations
Shining Armour attracted to a female obviously she is a succubus in disguise. Obviously 
Have you ever seen a small town? They gossip a lot. I seriously have lived in them and heard rumours blown to far off places from wagging toungues, A single murder is talked about for a year and people draw their shutters tight at night, never would kids be allowed it if they ever comprehended. Maybe you mention that there are strict rules, be back by dark, don't go alone, carry weapons even. People are very protective of their kids
You could even mention travellers go missing by the secondary protagonists and teachers, since there's a few farms around. Perhaps "travelling ponies often go missing after a night or two, it's not safe to walk the streets at night. Even long term residents aren't safe" stuff like that, so they're not entirely ignorant of the danger.
I have no problems recognising they don't realise the FULL danger but in a small community even ten deaths a year would be heavily gossiped about and referenced all the time. Seriously, girls going to the bathroom
Boys wrestling, slamming into lockers and threats. It'd be everywhere
Aside from that, I love this. It's cool
Twilight is attracted to Big Mac? He's an incubus
This sounds more like Supernatural than Buffy the Vampire Slayer here.
It's official, Fluttershy is now a fluffy Angelus.
I found Gale's speech both hilarious and adorable. Is that wrong?
I am rather disappointed with theorizing demons in this story. I was hoping for the classic Buffyverse origin. And I am a bit annoyed by the constant portrayal of Celestia and Luna as gods. The only evidence of them possessing any real power is that when you add both their powers to Twilight's, and Cadence's, you can do some pretty awesome destruction spells.But that's all four of their powers combined. Before you mention them moving the sun and moon, remember that normal unicorns once did that too, it's probably an alert or a magical reaction rather than pure telekinetic force. Them being worshiped? Sure, why not. Creating some monsters while empowered by Aaron great darkness? I have no objections, even Twilight managed to do that, unintentional. Imagine someone with the Nightmare's help, purposely trying, with a cabal of cultists at their back. I can see it happening. Celestia ensuring that the Apples retained their pony magic? Could happen. But their very symbols harming demons? No, just no. The Sisters are dead now. Unless Celestia placed a curse on them all before that, a sun or moon should just be a fancy symbol without a warlock behind it. Unless there's a whole faith magic(like the Dresden Files!!) thing going on, but there isn't in BtVS, so I'm invoking Like Reality Unless Noted. But with BtVS instead. The cross and holy water? Sure, cause every god every existed in some form according to Buddy's WoG, which means that the God of Abraham basically has a personal dislike for vampires and burns then when they touch is stuff. Sure. But we have no reason to think he's dead. If he even can die. Holy shit. Think about Glory. Then Jesus.