//------------------------------// // Team Spooky // Story: Good Boy // by Tums Festival //------------------------------// “There are those who say Ponyville is totally safe…” Two shadows walked towards Town Hall in the dead of a full moon night. “That everything that goes bump in the night has been locked away…” In total silence, one blurred up the side of it, and the other swiftly climbed it. “Yeah, okay, sure, most of them have…” They stood upon the upper balcony, gazing over the rustic little town they called home. “But what about the things that fall through the cracks? Who’s gonna take care of that, huh?” One of the shadows made a dramatic pose. “Us, that’s who! Booya!”  The shadow grinned widely, basking in the presence of the night. With great flair, she removed the purple sunglasses covering her eyes, revealing two, fiery red orbs. Suddenly, while playing a metal air guitar, she began to sing: “Vinyl and Octavia!  Guardians of the night! We may seem scary, But we clean up the frights!  We’re Team Spooky! We’re here to stay! Go Team Spooky! Keep the creeps away! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” The second figure looked at her blankly, stepping up next to her. Despite looking like a fearsome wolf slash pony hybrid, her voice was in stark contrast to her partner’s: refined and dignified, though with a hint of a guttural growl. “You’re such a dork, Vinyl,” she sighed. “You know that, right?” “You know you love it,” the former said, giving a long-fanged grin. “So, how did you like our theme song, Tavi? Just needs some wubstep to back it up and some of your cello magic to add a little class, and I think it’ll be gold!” Octavia rolled her eyes. “Is that why we’re up here? You just wanted to sing me this? Why didn’t you just do that at home!?” “Cus it’s more dramatic up here, that’s why!” Vinyl said, reeling on her hind hooves and dealing two, almost lightning-fast punches into the air. “Wouldn’t have the same kick. Only thing that would have made it better is if I was wearing a cape!” She then smiled hopefully. “So…?” “So what?” “What’d you think?! Duh!”  “It’s um…” Octavia coughed. “Unique. That’s for sure.” She then raised a furry claw. “Though you do know that you won’t be able to sing it to anypony, right?” “At the moment,” Vinyl said. “At any moment,” Octavia sighed. “We’ve gone over this, what? A thousand times? If anypony found out about our… conditions, we’d be thrown into Tartarus at the blink of an eye. There hasn’t been one exception in Equestrian history where that hasn’t happened to… ponies like us.” “Pffft,” Vinyl said, waving a dismissive hoof. “Not if we can prove we’re chill. That we’re not like those other chuds in the underworld. Just gotta prove we can use our spooky powers for good and not douchebaggery!” “That’s another thing,” Octavia said, prodding her slightly. “Even if there aren’t any other werewolves or vampires living in Ponyville, what happens when one passes through? You know what happens to those who consort with ‘the enemy’.” “Bleh, screw that oldschool Goomer talk,” Vinyl laughed. “I don’t give two craps about some stupid ancient feud. And I’m definitely not gonna stop hanging with my BFF cus of it.” “Neither am I, don’t get me wrong,” Octavia reassured her. “But… why don’t we just spend the nights at home? Listening to radio shows, playing board games, writing songs, working on your music theory…” She put on a cute, almost irresistible ‘puppy face’. Something she knew would go straight to Vinyl’s non-beating heart. “And… not doing this? Please?” “B-But,” Vinyl whimpered. “But if we don’t keep an eye out for monsters, we won’t find one to fight. And if we don’t fight a monster, how will we prove that we’re chads, not chuds?”  Octavia gazed at her sympathetically. “I know how much you hate having to hide who you really are, my lovely little extrovert. It’s hard to keep secrets like this. And it isn’t exactly right that we have to. But we have to face reality: Twilight, the Elements, the Pillars, and the princesses, they’ve already taken care of all the monsters. Proving we’re still decent ponies that way might be impossible. When’s the last time you’ve seen a hydra? Or a manticore?” “Like… years,” Vinyl pouted. “Indeed,” Octavia said. “The only ones left are those smart enough not to show their faces.” “Vampires gotsta eat, and werewolves who don’t have those potions gotsta prowl,” Vinyl argued. “I kinda hope one does ‘pass through’. It’ll be a visit they’d never forget.” “Vinyl, think for a moment,” Octavia countered. “Even if we did encounter one - which we haven’t in months out in the wild, by the way - what would we do?”  “Beat em’ up, that’s what!” Vinyl grunted. “And send em’ packing, promising to never say it was us. We do this when there are ponies watching and they’ll pin medals on us!” Octavia looked at her with a ‘really?’ expression. Vinyl grunted in response. “Come on, Tavi, work with me here: even if we don’t make a show about it, do you really want one of those creeps messing with our friends? We know best what to look for, so we’re the best ponies for the job. Any blood junkies or wolves gone moonacy stupid enough to make Ponyville their playground will be in for a huge surprise!”  Octavia felt a little guilty at that. Vinyl did have a point. Most werewolves didn’t have the luxury of Zecora’s specially-crafted repression potions she did, and vampires were incredibly unpredictable. Most of the time they’d take a little blood from one of their victims and leave them be, but sometimes… they’d take too much. It would be terribly selfish to just let it happen when they did, indeed, have the capacity to do something about it, despite the risk to their own persons. “Well… alright,” Octavia sighed. “I suppose there’s no harm in keeping a lookout, yes?”  “That’s the spirit!” Vinyl beamed, slapping her friend on the back. “Kind of the second reason I brought us up here, by the way. Better and safer than creeping around town like we have been, right?” Octavia smiled. Vinyl wasn’t always the clearest thinker, but she didn’t lack the capacity. “Sounds good to me.” “Just wish I brought a pack of cards,” Vinyl said. “Gonna be a long night, ya’ know.” “Chilly, too,” Octavia said, sniffing the air. “Well, it would be. This dog fur comes in handy from time to time.” “Mmm, Nightmare Night’s only a week away, isn’t it?” Vinyl smiled. “My new favorite holiday.” She then smirked sarcastically at her partner. “Annnd one with a full moon. So, what do you want to go as?” “Oh haw haw,” Octavia said, rolling her eyes. “Why, a fairy princess, of course.” “You’d be cute in a tu-tu,” Vinyl grinned.  Octavia couldn’t help but blush at that. “Ahem. Seriously though, were you thinking of just going as… well, yourself. No costume needed?” “Na,” Vinyl shrugged. “As much as I’d love to show off my awesome vampireness, I can’t exactly use any powers without giving it away, and that’s where half the fun is. Plus, I already had another idea in mind: gonna be hard to pull off, though.” “Oh?” Vinyl grinned widely. “Thinking about going as Siren Head.” … Crickets chirped. “Siren Who?” Octavia asked. Whatever that was, she’d never heard of it before. “A ghost story among ghosts!” Vinyl said. “How awesome is that? Heard about him at Crypt Keeper’s - the lil tavern in the Canterlot Underground.” “Ugh, really?” Octavia said. “Why would you ever step hoof in such a rotten place? Nopony but dregs and ‘chuds’, as you call them, hang out there.”  “Cus Crypty’s cool, that’s why,” Vinyl said defensively. “Only other vampire I’ve run into who isn’t a complete ass. Anyway, so we were shootin’ the shizzle’ for a lizzle…” “‘Shizzle for a lizzle?’” Octavia said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m making another thing,” Vinyl huffed. “Don’t hate on the thing. Anyways, we were shooting the shizzle for a lizzle, when I heard one of the other ghouls talking about it. It was Prince Blueblood, actually. Prince Doucheblood, more like it.” “I’m still surprised nopony’s figured out he’s a Lich yet,” Octavia noted.  “Pffft, I hope they do one of these days,” Vinyl said. “And when they do, he’s sooooo getting a Solar Spell up his flank. But yeah, anyway, I didn’t feel like asking his sorry ass about it, so I asked Crypty instead. And they start telling me this creepy awesome story. Bout someone from another world who somehow found his way to this one.”  She attempted to put on a spookier and spookier voice as she went alone. “But it wasn’t an easy passage, they say. The void between worlds wasn’t kind to him. He made it here, alright, but he came out of the void wrong… a twisted monster. One fused with objects from the other side.” “I take it one of those objects was a siren?” Octavia said. “How’d you know?!” Vinyl gasped. Octavia gave a coy look. “Lucky guess.” “Anyway, yeah, that’s how he got the name: Siren Head.” Vinyl’s voice grew deeper and darker as she continued. “Ever since he came to be, he’s stalked the dark corners of Equestria, a twenty foot tall monster of bone and mummified flesh!” “Wait…” Octavia blinked. “He’s twenty feet tall?” “Yeah? So what?” “Wouldn’t he have a hard time, well, stalking?” Octavia asked. “I’m getting to that, yeesh!” Vinyl grumbled. “Stop interrupting already.” “Sorry,” Octavia giggled. “But yeah, he would have a hard time stalking if he couldn’t easily blend in with trees,” Vinyl explained. “And now, telephone and electrical polls, too! He could be hiding in any town, in any woods, just waiting to lure innocent ponies to their doom! Like, with jaunty tunes he plays through his siren or something.” “‘Jaunty tunes?’” Octavia mused. “Yeah, jaunty tunes! Everypony likes jaunty tunes! Hush, you!” Vinyl then cleared her throat. “The worst part is he’s so good at hiding nopony has ever been able to take him down. He could still be out there, waiting… watching. He could even be… RIGHT BEHIND YOU!” Vinyl gasped, pointing behind Octavia. Playing along, Octavia put on a look of mock fear, gazing at a newly installed double-warning siren sitting atop a nearby electrical poll.  “Le gasp!” Octavia said dramatically, letting herself fall over. “Hold me, Vinyl!”  Vinyl took the hint, smirking as she caught her. Despite the former’s fur being as cold as her undead skin, Octavia didn’t mind being in her arms. Nor did she mind snuggling up next to her as they sat down.  “So, what’d ya’ think of the story?” Vinyl asked. “Suitably creepy,” Octavia said.  “Ya’ didn’t look that creeped out.” “You know me,” Octavia said. “I’m not easily scared.” “Pffft,” Vinyl said. “So, you wouldn’t mind if I got a pet spider?” “Don’t push it.” “Hehe!” Vinyl grinned. “Still, I guess it does take the punch out of it.” “What does?” “Us being what we are,” Vinyl said. “I’m sure we could kick the living crap out of Siren Head if we ever ran into him. Kind of takes the spookiness out of him, don’t you--” She paused, and Octavia knew why. Both of their ears were perking, picking up sounds nopony else could. This included a strange, crackling noise coming from the edge of town. It almost sounded like thick twigs snapping, but with more fervor.  “Hey, you hear that?” Vinyl asked.  Octavia nodded. “It sounds like it’s coming from the forest. Maybe timberwolves?” “Doesn’t really sound like timberwolves,” Vinyl said.  “You’re right,” Octavia nodded. “Crackling’s deeper.” “Think we should go check it out?” Vinyl asked. “If it does turn out to be some, you can just tell em’ to vamos, right?” “I can’t talk with them,” Octavia groaned. “I’m a werewolf, not a weretimberwolf.” She tapped her chin. “Though you are right. Perhaps it’s worth a look.” “Sweeeeet!” Vinyl grinned. “Team Spooky, roll out!”  “We are not calling ourselves that.”  Silencing themselves, they made their way off of the town hall’s roof, following the sound of the crackling. As they moved, so did it, and fairly quickly, too. From the Everfree Forest towards none other than the School of Friendship. Octavia wasn’t sure why, but her gut was now telling her to pick up the pace. Something was feeling off about this.  As they neared a final row of houses before the fields in front of the school - one that blocked their line of sight - the crackling stopped. Instead, it was replaced by a rather odd smell. Octavia screeched to a halt, and so did Vinyl, blurring out of mist form into her normal appearance. “Do you… do you smell that?” Octavia said, sniffing the air.  “Wasn’t me,” Vinyl said quickly. “Ew, not that,” Octavia said, giving her a glare. “It smells like… it smells like cinnamon.” “Cinnamon?”  “Trust the nose that knows,” Octavia said, pointing at her wolf-like nostrils. “It’s definitely that.” Vinyl shrugged. “Maybe somepony’s baking something?” Octavia raised her eyebrows. “At three in the morning?” “Late night snack?”  “I don’t see any lights on,” Octavia reasoned. She held one of her paws into the air. “A light breeze is coming from the north, though. Hm…” Just then, more crackling came. It was much more audible than before, and Octavia could now say for certain it wasn’t wood. It was something much denser. Bone, even. And it was coming from the same direction as the smell. Slowly, they made their way past the final row of houses. The School of Friendship was now in plain sight…  Along with something else. “What the--!” Vinyl began to cry, before Octavia threw a paw over her mouth. Stretching nearly a quarter of a kilometer, from the edge of the Everfree Forest to one of the windows of the School of Friendship, was some form of thin, tube-like structure. Unfortunately, while Octavia did have heightened hearing and a nose that could beat any dog’s, her eyes weren’t much better than your average pony’s. Whatever it was, she couldn’t make it out too well.  Fortunately, Vinyl didn’t have the same problem. “Vinyl,” Octavia whispered, drawing closer to her friend and removing her paw. “Vinyl… what is that thing?”  Vinyl didn’t respond. Instead, she continued staring at it. The look on her face was that of half-wonder, half-shock.  “Vinyl?” “It’s like…” she started to whisper. “Like some sort of skeleton.” “A skeleton?” Octavia asked, confused.  “I dunno how else to describe it,” Vinyl said. “It’s like if you took a bunch of ponies’ neck bones and like… like stitched them together.” “Please tell me you’re joking,” Octavia gulped.  “No, for serial here,” Vinyl said. “Hey… I think I see something at the end of it. Maybe a head? It’s looking into one of the school windows. I think that’s one of the dorms.” “The dorms?!” Octavia yelped.  There was another series of crackles. There was slight movement at the end of it near the dorm, but Octavia still couldn’t see exactly what it was doing. “Yooooo!” Vinyl said with alarm. “That was freaky!” “What?”  “Didn’t you see it? The end of it just moved to another window. Gave me a better look at what’s at the end, too. It’s like some kind of skull!” “So… the whole thing is some sort of giant neck?” Octavia said, breathing slightly heavier, and with nerves creeping across her back. “And it’s undead?!”  More cracking. The end of it was moving again. “Okay, game time,” Vinyl said. “It just stuck its head inside the dorm!”  “What?!”  Vinyl narrowed her piercing red eyes. “Unless this whole thing is a huge prank, I think we got a monster to fight.”  Octavia gazed at her warily. “I-I’m not sure about this. I mean yes, we need to do something, but I’ve never even heard of this sort of thing!”  “Well, we can’t just stay here and let it eat the students or whatever!” Vinyl argued. “Come on, Tavi, don’t make me do this alone.” Octavia closed her eyes a moment and took a deep breath, before nodding firmly. “Alright… alright fine. But we don’t go through the school. We’ll go through one of the other dorm windows.” “Nice,” Vinyl said, nodding. “Good plan. If it hears us, at least we’ll be its focus and not the kids.” With that, she actually started bouncing slightly. “Honestly, I got a good feeling about this! This could be the moment we become heroes!”  Octavia swallowed hard. “That’s a very large could.” “Come on, be optimistic!” Vinyl said, smirking slightly. “Race ya’ to it!” She blurred into her mist form and cascaded towards the tall, tower-like building that made up the dorms.  “Vinyl!” Octavia called nervously. “Vinyl, wait! We should do this together!” Vinyl either couldn’t hear her or simply wasn’t listening. “Ugh, damnit!” Octavia hissed, pouncing forward and galloping across the open field. With the full moon giving her plenty of strength, she was able to rocket forward, growing nearly as fast as Vinyl. So fast she didn’t even need to leap too high to completely fly over the pond that surrounded the front of the school. All the while, the full moon was illuminating the strange creature and casting its shadow across the land. As Octavia drew closer, she was able to start making it out for herself. Like Vinyl said, it was indeed some sort of skeleton. Though one composed of multiple copies of the same bone, that being a horse’s neck bone. Each of them was about a foot long, and made up the length of the creature like finger joints. Terrifyingly, for it to stretch such a distance, it must have had hundreds, if not thousands of them.  Like Octavia had said, she really wasn’t easily frightened by things, but this… the more she looked upon it, the more she was beginning to feel out of her league. Whatever it was, it was no ordinary monster.  Still, she kept herself from panicking, and soon arrived at the base of the dorm. As Vinyl blurred up the side of it next to her, she gripped its stone structure with her near steel-like frontal claws. As quickly as a cat shooting up a tree, she scaled it, making it to one of the windows - one opposite the room of where the creature was entering - in less than a minute.  Finally, she found herself in a room full of young, sleeping students. Naturally, there were more than just ponies: there were many different creatures. This included a few famous faces she knew, everyone from the young changeling, Ocellus to Gallus the griffon to the dragon, Smolder. All were snug cozily in their beds. In any other circumstance, doing this would be unthinkably weird. But they did have a good reason for it. A reason that was currently creepily hovering over the bed of Silverstream, the hippogriff. It was the ‘head’ of the creature; a pony’s skull, long decayed, from what it seemed, with thin black hair draping from its scalp that swayed despite a lack of breeze. It was attached to the aforementioned ‘neck’, which twisted in a strange pattern before leading out the window. It almost resembled a snake to some degree, though it was certainly more frightening than any she had run into. Its close proximity came with a much stronger scent of cinnamon. If she was in her regular, pony form, it might have smelled pleasant, but in werewolf mode, it was assaulting her nostrils to the point where she felt the need to sneeze.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, Vinyl was about to distract her from it. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Vinyl roared loudly. “Get away from her!”  Octavia gazed at her, dumbfounded. She honestly thought about hitting her for this level of stupidity. Her yell would almost certainly wake up the students, and they would almost certainly see both them and the… the Long Horse. ‘This is it!’ Octavia panicked. ‘Our cover’s blown! They won’t understand - they might even think we’re working with the thing! Oh Faust, we’ll be locked up in Tartarus for the rest of our days and… and…’ She blinked. ‘...None of the students are waking up?’ Indeed, none of them stirred. For a split second, Octavia was worried that the Long Horse might have harmed them, but no, they seemed to be breathing fine, with one even snoring. In fact, they looked as peaceful as Vinyl did when she was napping soundly after a trip to the blood bank.  Momentarily distracted by their stroke of luck or whatever it was, Octavia had taken her eyes off the creature. And unfortunately, unlike the students, it was now distinctively aware of their presence.  “Yeah, that’s right!” Vinyl said, her voice filled with a mix of fear and testosterone. “Lookie at the cute vampire mare! Not them!”  Octavia was about to shout at her for this, but she stopped herself. This was the reason they were here, wasn’t it? Slowly, with even more snapping sounds, the creature turned its head towards them. And as if gliding along a breeze, it slowly swayed over to them, more of its neck joints seemingly growing out of thin air as it did.  When it got within two feet of the duo, Vinyl again barked at it: “A-Alright, that’s close enough!”  Whether it was out of fear or her somewhat pacifistic nature (despite what she liked Octavia to believe), Vinyl was showing a remarkable amount of restraint at the moment. While she was ‘young blood’ and didn’t know much in the way of vampire-specific magic, Octavia knew she still had her mist ability and enhanced strength at her disposal. With it, she could easily dash forward and attempt to break the creature’s neck. Being a unicorn, Vinyl also had her regular old spells to use, and given she had fed lately, a larger pool of mana than normally to work with. Still, to Octavia’s shock, and to Vinyl’s as well, given the look on her face, the creature didn’t give them a reason to attack. Instead, it simply hovered a few feet away from them, cocking its head slightly. Despite the odd feeling Octavia was getting that they had just broken this creature’s normal routine, she wasn’t getting the vibe that it was upset about it. In fact, it seemed more curious than anything. Not that this was helping her nerves much. They were still dealing with a complete unknown here.  “O-Okay, glad we have an understanding,” Vinyl said with a hint of false-bravado. “Now, we’re gonna need you to, uh…” “Get the heck out of here!” Octavia yelped. Vinyl nodded in agreement. “Yeah, make like a tree and leave, you freaky neck monster!”  The creature remained still. “Can’t you understand us?!” Vinyl yelled at it. “Go away or we’ll make you go away! In fact, that’d be preferable. See, we’ve kind of been waiting for a monster like you to come along so we could--” “Vinyl!” Octavia growled.   “What? It’s a monster!” Vinyl said, confused. “I’m not gonna hurt its feelings calling it that!” “That’s not what I meant!” Octavia said. “We should be lucky everyone’s still asleep…” She calmed herself slightly, gazing at the creature suspiciously. “... Somehow.” She narrowed her eyes. “Did you do that? Are you keeping them from waking up?”  The creature didn’t get a chance to respond. For at that moment, there was a commotion coming from somewhere else in the school. From the windows facing the courtyard, they could see several lights turning on. Though they hadn’t woken the students up with their yelling, it appeared they had woken up a few teachers.  “Vinyl!” Octavia squeaked. “Time to go!”  “No way!” Vinyl cried. “We can’t leave these kids alone with this thing!”  “Don’t you remember who runs this school now?” Octavia asked. “Princess Twilight’s student. Starlight Glim Glam or something. She’s supposed to be one of the most powerful unicorns out there next to Starswirl. She can handle this!” Vinyl shook her head. “Oh come on! Don’t you see? This is our chance! We can start beating this thing up as soon as Starlight comes in. And then-- oh, son of a bitch!”  Vinyl had turned her head back towards the creature. Well, where the creature once was.  While they were arguing, it apparently took the chance to run, and now it was nowhere to be seen. And with the sound of hoof-steps and shouts coming from outside the dorm, along with a few now-stirring students, the creature certainly had the right idea. “Okay, yeah, let’s scidaddle,” Vinyl simpered, a sweatdrop leaking from her forehead. “Team Spooky, away!”  She leapt out the window, Octavia following her, all the while angrily shouting: “We are NOT calling ourselves that!”  They made it to the base of the dorm and a bit into the field before lights were flicked on in the dorm, Octavia striking the ground with an ‘OOF!’, despite being unharmed. Gazing behind her, Octavia was relieved to see nopony peering out the windows, not that they’d have an easy time spotting the duo. While she was at it, Octavia also looked for the Long Horse, but other than some swaying trees in the Everfree Forest, there was no sign of it. A minute later, they had arrived back at their humble little home at the edge of town, both of them having independently made up their minds to give up ‘patrol’ for the night. Despite their enhanced physical strength and stamina, they were equally exhausted, panting heavily as they opened the front door and made their way into their living room. Both of them soon collapsed, Vinyl on a sofa and Octavia on her massage chair.  They sat for a moment, each regaining their composure, before Vinyl finally broke the silence. “Hey Tavi.” “Yes, Vinyl?” “Was it just me, or did that escalate really quickly?” Octavia gazed at her blankly for a minute, before actually managing to chuckle. “That really did escalate quickly.” She then put on a concerned look. “Though we’re going to have to talk about this tomorrow.” “Yeah, I know.” She yawned loudly. “Tomorrow.” And despite Vinyl rarely ever sleeping during the night, she was soon knocked out cold. It didn’t take Octavia long to follow. She could have sworn she smelled a hint of cinnamon before she did, though.