The Darkness Walks Among Us

by DukeArbiter

Chapter 7 - Showdown

Lyra stood on a grassy hill overlooking the abandoned factory as the rain poured down around her. A soft but constant thumping noise emanated from the building, confirming that Vinyl was inside. The mint unicorn stared blankly at the decrepit building. It was extremely tall, far taller than most building in Ponyville. The factory had bland grey walls and many windows that had long since lost their glass lined the upper part of the exterior. Strangely, the building's roof was flat which lead Lyra to believe that perhaps the factory no longer had a roof.

The musician sighed heavily. It was about time she stopped standing around in the rain and had a chat with the DJ. As she approached the decrepit building, the music became louder and Lyra recognized it as the same song that was playing at the party as Berry was being thrown out. The unicorn now stood directly in front of the large metal door to the factory. She placed each of her fore-hooves on one of the doors and, with a little help from her horn, threw them open.

The factory's interior was in far worse shape than its exterior. The glass from the windows had all fallen inward and the entire room was littered with chunks of window. Catwalks snaked their way around the upper areas of the large room, some broken and hanging precariously. Pipes of all sizes lay scattered around the room, most not even close to their original places on the walls or ceiling. To Lyra's surprise, the building did have a ceiling and it was flat. There were obvious problems with it though. There were holes in several places, which the rain had formed large puddles under, and most of the roof appeared to be unstable and about to fall down.

The most noticeable feature of the whole room however was the large, pristine turn table towards the back. Sitting behind it, was a white unicorn with electric blue hair, purple sunglasses were pulled down over her eyes and she was vigorously nodding her head to the beat of the music. Lyra cleared her throat loudly, attempting to get the other unicorn's attention, but there was no response. The green mare decided to go for a more drastic plan to get Vinyl's attention. Lyra lifted one of the currently spinning records off of the DJ's turn table and threw it across the room. The record colided with the stone wall and shattered instantly.

The electric-maned pony whipped her head towards Lyra, a look of shock in her face. "What did you do that for?" Vinyl screamed at the soaking wet unicorn. Lyra walked slowly across the room, leaving a trail of water as she went. "Why did you have to kill them Vinyl?" The mint unicorn retorted. The DJ pony looked taken aback. "What do you mean Lyra? I didn't kill anypony!" Vinyl said. The musician scowled at the defending unicorn. She was still trying to pretend she was innocent. "Don't play dumb with me!" Lyra shouted causing Vinyl to cower, "I know you killed them. I went to your house. I found your empty journal. I know your trying to escape this but you just had to..." Lyra started to choke up. She continued, "You had to come and kill Bon Bon last night! You just couldn't leave us alone, could you?"

Vinyl looked entirely scared by Lyra's outburst. She stepped out from behind her turn table and started to walk towards the crying mare. "I didn't do anything like that Lyra. I'm so sorry that Bon Bon died and I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help. I've just been too scared of this killer to even be in Ponyville. That's why I'm out here, to get away from it all until this blows over," The DJ explained as she stopped right in front of Lyra. The sobbing unicorn raised her eyes too look into the reflective sunglasses of her friend. Mabee she had made a mistake. Perhaps Vinyl wasn't the vampire after all, but then, who was?

Suddenly, a cloaked figure appeared behind Vinyl. The creature pulled the DJ's head back by her mane and sunk its fangs into her neck. Vinyl's hooves raked in vain at the vampire's head, attempting to save herself. The unicorn's glasses fell from her face, revealing red eyes filled with fear. A fear that one can only know when they are not yet ready to die. The vampire released her and she fell limp to the floor, her body crumpling in a heap.

The vampire licked the DJ's blood from her lips and smiled. "That is always so satisfying," it said, throwing back its hood and revealing a familiar face.

Octavia stood before her, clothed in a black cloak that covered her entire body. Her White eyes looked like empty pits compared to the purple eyes Lyra was used to. Her smile revealed her long bloody fangs, still dripping with Vinyl's blood. The green unicorn stared in awe at the pony who not hours before was her friend. "What did you do?" Lyra screamed at the grey earth pony.

The cellist gave Lyra a gruesome smile, as if she was enjoying her horror. "I fed on her, was that not obvious?" Octavia said mockingly, "I thought you knew what I was all along. After all, you were the only one to take notice of Berry's wounds." Lyra was shocked. She knew the vampire knew she was looking for it, but the musician had never expected that it knew that Lyra knew what it truly was. "Why would you do it Octavia? Why would you kill all of our friends?" Lyra said pleadingly. The vampire seemed to take pleasure in the mint unicorn's misery. She turned around and began to walk across the room as she addressed Lyra's question. "Its been my plan all along really," She elaborated, "I made friends, played nice with everypony in town, all so that nopony would ever suspect that it was me who killed them. When you were all finally dead and gone, I would be left, the heartbroken musician with nothing left for her in Ponyville. Then I could move on to the next town and do it all over again."

The vampire stopped on the far side of the room. She looked at Vinyl's turn table and chuckled. The cloaked pony turned around and slammed her rear hooves into the turn table's side, sending it flying across the room. It smashed into the wall with such a force that it shattered just as the record had. The unicorn stared in disbelief at the vampire's feat of strength. It was impossible that such a small pony could ever have done anything close to that, but then again, she was not a pony.

"So what are you even here for Lyra?" Octavia inquired, turning her white, soulless eyes on the unicorn. "Did you come here to seek closure? That I think I already gave you, didn't I? Or did you come for revenge? What did you expect to kill me with, your bare hooves? Whatever it is, it doesn't matter now because you won't live long enough to have to care," The vampire mocked.

It began to laugh, just the same as it had earlier in the night after it had killed Bon Bon. The laugh resonated through Lyra's mind as immense pain shot through her entire being. The green mare dropped to the floor clutching her hooves to her ears in an attempt to blot out the horrid sound. "What is this?" the musician screamed through her pain. For a solitary moment, the unicorn felt relief from her pain as the egotistical boasted, "Its something all vampires can do. It messes with the mind and weakens prey so they can't fight back." The pain quickly resumed and Lyra felt as if her mind were being torn in two. If this was all to weaken her, that meant that Octavia would soon make the mint pony her next meal. The musician's mind spun as she attempted to block out the laughter enough to be able to focus, but the pain was far too immense for her to bear.

Suddenly, all the pain stopped and she was thrust to the ground. When Lyra opened her eyes, she found the vampire's face mere inches from her own. Its breath was as cold as ice and its eyes seemed to look directly into the mint mare's soul. She struggled to get out from under the creature's grip, but it was too strong. Octavia chuckled slightly at her attempt. "Oh that's sweet," she mused, "you're still trying to avoid it. Don't worry, this will only hurt a lot!"

The panic set in. She was about to become a meal for this vampire unless she found something to get the creature off her and fast. Lyra scanned the room searching for something to use as a weapon. There were shards of glass everywhere, but they were too small to do any real damage. There were the wooden shards of the turn table, but they were too far away for Lyra to reach, even with magic. Finally, the mint mare spotted something only a few feet off to her right. It was a length of metal pipe about a foot and a half long and a few inches wide. It would work perfectly.

Lyra struggled to concentrate. Her horn began to glow faintly and the pipe lifted off the ground. It seemed her plan was too late however, as the vampire began to lunge in, fangs bared, ready for he kill. She was out of time. In a last ditch effort, the musician concentrated as hard as she could, launched the pipe in her general direction, and hoped for the best.

Suddenly, there was a massive crack of metal on bone as the pipe slammed directly into the side of the monster's head, sending it flying across the room. The green unicorn rose shakily to her feet and began to stumble towards the limp for of Octavia. Half way to the body, Lyra retrieved the metal pipe and held it aloft beside her with her magic. Just as the musician was approaching the vampire, it stood up and Lyra saw the bloody wound that dominated the left side of its head. The cellist turned its head towards the unicorn and it glared at her before leaping up to the catwalks above.

Lyra quickly looked around for some way she could get up and peruse the murder. After a few moments, she realized there was only one way she was going to get up there, and she didn't like it one bit. The mint mare began to concentrate, her horn glowing an intense green. Her mind strained to cast the spell as it was still weak after the torment it had suffered at the hands of the vampire's laughter. Finally, Lyra managed to complete her spell and she immediately disappeared. After her brief period of nothingness, the musician felt her hooves hit the cold metal of the catwalks and heard her pipe clang to the floor next to her. The mint unicorn lifted her pipe and walked slowly and shakily along the unstable platform.

Her head throbbed and it was difficult to see. Lyra whipped around but found nothing behind her. She could have sworn she heard something. Perhaps it was just her strained mind playing tricks on her. As she turned back around, the green mare found herself face to face with the vampire, its fangs bared, ready to kill her just as it had done to so many others. Lyra instinctively swung the pipe at the creature's head, but it was ready for her this time. It quickly jumped backwards a few feet, just far enough away so that she couldn't take a second swing. She wasn't just going to play defensive forever though. The musician ran forward and swung again at Octavia's head and again it jumped backwards. The two continued this little dance for a few moments before Lyra realized it was just messing with her. It knew it could win so it was toying with her.

The unicorn would need a new strategy, something that was sure to kill it. She looked around quickly between swings as the cellist continued to leap backwards. She saw it, her solution. All she had to do was get the vampire to go to it. Lyra continued to swing at the vampire's head as it continued to back away and soon it found itself with its back to a wall. The earth pony smiled its fanged smile and just as Lyra swung at it, the vampire leaped over her and landed behind the attacking unicorn. Lyra was expecting this however and she quickly swung around and smacked the rusty chain that held the catwalk to the ceiling with her weapon. The chain shattered under her assault and the platform beneath them groaned and began to lean heavily.

Octavia began to panic. It looked for somewhere to go since it knew this platform wouldn't last much longer. It leaped across to a separate catwalk a few feet away in an attepemt to escape its fate but as soon as it landed on its new platform, a large crack echoed through the factory. The catwalk beneath the vampire fell as the creature's sudden arrival shattered the old, rusted, and fragile chains that held it. The creature entered into a free fall and its screams were heard in Ponyville. The entire building was flooded with noise as chunks of catwalk and broken chain slammed into the wet floor.

The calamity wasn't over yet however, as Lyra's platform now shifted as the chains struggled to hold it up. The musician feared she would meet a similar fate to her prey if she didn't do something quick. The catwalk fell just as the unicorn once again disappeared. she slammed face first into the ground a few feet away from the pile of metal that used to be attached to the ceiling. She struggled to stand up and was barely able to do so. She was exhausted, both body and mind, but still she had one thing left to do so she stumbled over to the rubble.

Laying under a particularly large chunk of platform was Octavia, severely wounded and dying. The vampire's head wound had started bleeding again and its white eyes were starting to glaze over. The creature looked up at her killer and growled, "You won't get away with this. The Alpha will find you and he will kill you for what you have done!" Lyra stared into the vampire's soulless pits of eyes and replied, "Let your Alpha come." With that, the musician drove the pipe straight through the cellists head to ensure she died.

Lyra stood on a hill overlooking the factory. That place had too much pain for her, but there was nothing better for her in Ponyville. Octavia had taken everything from her. Killing its kind was all that was left to the mint unicorn now. Before she could even start though, she would need to train, to get ready to be the protector of pony-kind from vampires. The mare turned around and slipped her pipe into her saddle bag next to her lyre. She threw the hood of her new black cloak up over her head and walked back into Ponyville.

Comments

[bahatumay]

Lyra! Y U NO STAKE HER THROUGH THE HEART?
inb4 she comes back.
Props on making Lyra take her cloak. It's closure, and also now an inescapable sense of purpose.
Nice little ending.

edit and now looking back through the chapters, I can see it... she was there all along... why couldn't I see it before...