//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 // Story: Pegazo Vampir Equinae // by Gecko //------------------------------// A loud shout could be heard, “Rainbow Dash! Thou must wake!” The royal voice of Princess Luna sounded, which scared Rainbow Dash to such and extent that she fell out of her bed screaming. “Good, you are awake, you must come immediately, you have slept for far too long already!” Rainbow Dash had no idea how to react at the moment, so she simply blinked before uttering something, “What are you talking about? I haven’t slept for that long, it’s only six am for Celestia’s sake.” Rainbow stated as she slowly arose from the floor, looking at the Princess. Luna looked at her with a serious expression and calmly spoke again, “We know you didn’t intend to sleep for this long, and yes, while it may be six am, the day you woke up is too late. We are two days later from the moment you went to bed. You slept for a whole day and more. This was expected due to your body’s condition, you were not completely healed and the little adventure you had with Twilight Sparkle didn’t exactly help your cause.” The Princess explained, Rainbow blinked, she hadn’t expected to sleep for that long, but what the princess said did make sense. Her body was really out of energy at the time, but she felt a lot better after all that sleep it made her feel good. And then a realization came to Rainbow, “wait... Does that mean that he’s almost here?” Rainbow had to ask this, even if she probably knew the answer. The Princess nodded and Rainbow’s face filled with fear, this wasn’t what was planned, she had to get to Twilight. Rainbow rushed towards her door to fly away, but she was blocked by the magic of the Princess, “Rainbow Dash, before you go out there, know this, do not under any circumstances think you’re better than him. The chances of that are pretty small. The only things you have to your advantage are your speed and the ice. Use these abilities wisely and you might just come out victorious from this.” Rainbow could only nod, she knew that the Princess would say something like that, everypony always did. The Princess smiled and released her grip of the pegasus, who immediately flew off towards the library in the small town of Ponyville. “Good luck Rainbow Dash, and may the winds blow in your favor.” The Princess declared to herself as she became a cloud of black smoke and flew off. Rainbow felt a feeling of distress as she flew towards the library, it wasn’t exactly a good thing that she had slept for as long as she had, but it wasn’t her choice. It annoyed her to no end as she landed on the ground. She could hear bickering from inside the tree as she knocked on the door, she was answered by a happy faced Twilight. “Right, I’m sorry for being late, it wasn’t my meaning, my body was supposedly very tired. So there you have it, anyway, what is going on and what have I missed?” Rainbow knew that she was about to hear something about Marshall, it was pretty obvious. Rainbow then saw the ponies located in the library, it was a whole lot of ponies. She would have thought it would only be her friends, since he hadn’t come to the town just yet. Better be safe than sorry though. It was the Apple’s, as in Granny Smith, Apple Bloom and Big Mac. The mayor was also there, and of course, her friends. Sweetie Belle and her parents, a whole lot of ponies were there to take shelter she guessed. “Right, good, we are in need of your help. You see, I heard from Luna and Clover that he’s closing in on our location a lot faster than anticipated os we started to gather everypony as fast as possible. You see, we decided that my basement is probably one of the more safe locations, that is, when my machine’s aren’t present. Anyway, we have gathered a small force that can distract the main bulk of the force while the two of us deal with the big bad pony thing. We have the guys we just met, Colt Train, Caramel, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Noteworthy, Big Mac, Doctor Hooves, Derpy, Cloud Kicker, Cloudchaser, Flitter and last but not least, Princess Luna.” Twilight said as she motioned towards the Princess who just entered the library. Everypony started to kneel, except for the bearers of Elements of Harmony. They all stopped pretty quickly though since the Princess said to then that they should stand. Twilight used her magic to open the basement door and the ponies who weren’t staying to help all went down and as the last one went through. Twilight closed the door and put a spell on it. Twilight cleared her throat as she spoke clearly, “right, you have all chosen this yourselves and I hope you’re ready, because this won’t be easy, the ponies who are about to invade are crazy, but you don’t need to damage them in any way, I would prefer it if you didn’t. You see, these ponies are brainwashed by the big bad, and Rainbow and I are going to deal with him. And do not under any circumstances engage in combat with these ponies, they are dangerous and will try to kill you. I repeat, do not engage in combat, distractions are your main goal. If you see anypony out there being pinned down by one of the attackers you must immediately intercept. We cannot allow any causalities in this situation, we need to do this flawlessly or something bad will happen. Did you all get that?” Twilight said in a stern tone, everypony present nodded their heads in way that made you understand that they said yes. “Good, now, find a good lookout spot and let us know when you see the first sign of him arriving, there’s not much time left. Rainbow Dash, Princess Luna, I need the two of you to stay, I have tactics to discuss.” All the ponies present nodded and all of them left except for Rainbow, Luna and Twilight. Rainbow closed the door after they had all left, she knew that she would have to stay, it made sense, she and Twilight were the main force that were supposed to go after Marshall. Rainbow turned towards the other two ponies currently standing in the room and the discussions started. “Now, Rainbow and I will take him on as soon as he gets here, that’s the main point. Princess, we need you to support the other ponies in their tasks if they manage to fail at them, we cannot let anypony fall today. This is a very dangerous day and lots of bad things will happen. It’s better that we get hurt than other ponies dying, we don’t want that. Princess, if you see the two of us having trouble, you should intercept, remember though, you must not interject if there is even a slight chance that we will win, you can only help when there is no possible way for us to win anymore. You are a triumph card, I don’t want to put you at the front with the big bad, you would certainly help, since your abilities are better than the both of us combined, but I think we must do this ourselves, I want you to protect the other ponies, they are more important than us.” Rainbow smiled and nodded along with the Princess. Rainbow loved Twilight’s speeches, they always seemed to inspire confidence, which is a rare ability when it comes to ponies. Not a lot of ponies could inspire a load of confidence at the normal everyday pony, but Twilight Sparkle could, she had the determination and skills to accomplish it. “Good, they both of you now know the basics, I now need to go through our battle plan Dash, Princess, you may leave us, we have plans to discuss.” The Princess nodded and walked out the door, and then she felt it, there was less than an hour left till the storm. Marshall was coming and it wasn’t going to be pretty. The Princess decided that it would be a good idea to see if the ponies who had decided to help them with their tasks had found a good location to scout from. Luna looked to the sky and flapped her wings to gain altitude, she overlooked the city as she hovered. She could see some of the ponies carefully placing themselves on roofs all around the city, how they got there, she had no idea, but she didn’t delve on the fact. She could see some of the ponies still unable to find a good spot to hide so she decided to help some of them out, it would be better that way. She landed behind the pony in question and spoke, “are you having trouble finding a good lookout point?” She knew the answer, she still had to ask. You can’t expect somepony running around to have a perfect hiding spot, that was just silly. The pony turned around and looked at her, it was the colt, Colt Train... Luna twitched as she got the pun, it was bad, so very bad. “Yes, your majesty?” He said with a courtly bow. “Arise.” Luna said with a small snort. “We did not come here to get treated as a Princess, we just wanted to check if you had found a good lookout position.” Luna said with a small stare. She didn’t like this pony, he seemed off in a way. He was way too stereotypical and everyday to not be suspicious. At least in her eyes. He arose from his kneeling position and smiled in an apologetic manner. “I’m sorry that I offended you then, it was not my purpose to do so and thus, I am sorry for my misbehaviour. But yes, I do have a problem finding a good location, you see, I’ve been trying to get onto this here house and I need your help to get up, could you do that for me?” He asked with a tint of embarrassment. The Princess sighed to herself, of course, she would have to carry him, didn’t she? She nodded at the stallion and grabbed him and quickly flew him atop the nearby building. He thanked the Princess who simply nodded and flew off again. Luna hated to admit it, but that stallion did not bode good, or maybe, she just didn’t like him, that was also fully plausible. She shook her head in annoyance, she knew that it would be a bad idea to go the way she was. You should never distrust anypony unless they have proven themselves untrustable before. That is pretty much a fact of life. Even so, the Princess couldn’t help but feel off when she thought about that colt. It annoyed her to no end to distrust one of her little ponies, but what could she do? The guy seemed utterly untrustable in some odd way, but he had done nothing wrong. Maybe he had a bad past or something silly like that. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and looked for another pony in need, there was none. So she decide to place herself in a cloud overlooking the entire town to prepare for the assault that would soon come upon the town. Twilight turned away from her little whiteboard and spoke in a clear tone towards Rainbow Dash, “did you get everything? If we do everything this exact manner there is no way we would lose. Unless there’s a weird factor that I know nothing about, let’s hope that’s not the case. It would be bad if it was.” Rainbow was utterly bored, Twilight had just lectured her in battle. It was complete and utter nonsense, she didn’t understand a single thing Twilight had just said, it sounded like gibberish to Rainbow Dash, but she nodded and said yes to the fact that she had been listening, even if she hadn’t. She didn’t want anymore lectures, considering she had already gotten three, and those only existed because she wanted to be honest, but she couldn’t bother anymore, it was so boring. “You finally got it? Well good, I hope you’re not lying, but why would you? you didn’t do it the other times and I trust you to not lie about this. So yeah, we need to  place ourselves in a very tactical location to await the big bad. How about your home? That would be a useful location, I could simply cast the cloud walking spell on myself and we could do that. Is that okay with you?” Rainbow could only nod, she felt obligated to, she had just broken her friend’s trust in a way, so she felt the need to comply with the rest of her friend’s requests. Twilight flared her horn with magic and there was a flash and the spell had been cast. The two of them walked out through the door and closed it behind them. Rainbow took to the air and grabbed her friend around the waist and started to fly off towards her home. It didn’t take all that far until they had arrived, so Rainbow simply let go of Twilight when she was standing on the porch of Rainbow’s house and the two of them stood there, outside the house and overlooked the city from their slightly elevated position. The calm wasn’t there for long, a loud horn could be heard, making a loud boom, signaling the attack. Rainbow looked at Twilight who nodded and the two took to the sky. Rainbow could see the forces advancing on the town, there were a lot of vamponies, at least in the fifties. The opposition in the town would have a problem, she just hoped they could take it. Vamponies are not something to take lightly. Rainbow then spotted him, the biggest one of them all, a stallion standing atop a hill overlooking the town, he was laughing. Rainbow sped up and charged towards him, she had no idea what would happen next, she just hoped she wouldn’t screw up. As they closed in on him, he saw them and smirked. Rainbow let go of Twilight who used her magic to teleport to the ground. Rainbow charged at him with all her might. She reached a high speed as she closed in on him, he saw this and jumped out of the way, making Rainbow crash straight into the ground. She had been prepared for this so she could jump out of her daze really quickly. The stallion laughed, “oh yes, I haven’t been in a fight for a long time, it’s nice to meet another Alpha for once, I never get to do that, there are few really vamponies alive at the moment. This is going to be a very fun afternoon, I get to fight two very powerful ponies, doesn’t that mean I’m at a disadvantage? No, it doesn’t. I am a lot more powerful than the two of you combined.” And then, he disappeared in a matter of seconds, he suddenly just vanished into thin air, his laugh could be heard as a creepy whisper could be heard. “Yeah, I am fast, don’t you think? Yo have no chance against me, hahahahaha!” He laughed maniacally. Rainbow could feel vibrations coming from a nearby tree, she turned towards it and flew right for it, she was so fast that she crashed into whatever it was that made the vibrations. It was Marshall, he had been knocked from the tree and he screamed in frustration. Rainbow ducked away from his random swatting around as he rolled down the hill and hit multiple branches on his way down. Rainbow descended and landed besides Twilight who hadn’t done anything, she could keep up with the speed of the two ponies in front of her. They were incredibly fast, she hadn’t expected them to be THAT fast, but they were and that scared her. Laughter could be heard from the hill as the rolling sounds stopped, Marshall ascended into the air with a dangerous smirk. He continued to laugh even louder as he sped up towards Rainbow Dash, whom he had picked as the primary target. He smashed right into her, knocking her into a tree as he continues to laugh. Twilight decided that it was time to act, he had his back turned towards her and he was standing still. She charged her horn with the most powerful anti-vampony spell Celestia had taught her. As she ran towards him, she was silent, and he continued to laugh at Rainbow Dash. Twilight’s horn collided with the backside of the stallion who didn’t move an inch, he slowly turned his head towards the unicorn, whose head was firmly placed inside his flank. “Did you really think I’m that clumsy? This is a projection, I learned it froma weird hermit guy, no... I didn't learn it from him, I stole it. Don’t you think it would be very stupid of me to leave my flank open to an attack? Yes, it would be rather dumb of me, but, you see, it’s only a projection.” He said as his body disappeared and a shadow appeared from a nearby tree that kicked Twilight into a nearby tree. “You two are a lot more gullible than you make yourselves out to be, you know that? You’d expect two of the most powerful ponies in the entire land to at least have some sort of skill, but no, that doesn’t seem to be the case, now does it? You two are a disgrace, I expected a lot more from the personal student of Celestia, but my expectations were apparently placed too high, that’s a shame, isn’t it? Well, it’s time to finish you off then.” He said with a firm laugh. It annoyed Rainbow as she stood up from her tree daze. She could see Twilight trying to stand in the corner of her vision, she saw Twilight wink in her direction, she had no idea what it meant but she decided to do something foolhardy that could work, in theory of course. Rainbow swished up into the sky in such a way that it didn’t alert Marshall, at least, she hoped it didn’t. She flew even further into the sky and placed herself up there looking down at Marshall who was slowly walking towards the slowly standing Twilight Sparkle. Rainbow’s eye twitched and she started to fly straight down. She encased herself in ice but she could somehow still flap her wings, she did so and she quickly gained insane amounts of speed. A clear and loud boom could be heard as the sky was filled with a large and icy rainbow. This stopped Marshall in his tracks and he looked up. He didn’t have any time to react before darkness overtook him as Rainbow hit him, square in the back. Twilight yelled in victory as she saw his body fly away. Rainbow was slowly standing from her impact, it had hurt her more than she had anticipated. Twilight rushed over and helped her stand up. “I think it’s over.” Twilight said as the two of them laughed in their victory. And then it came. A loud explosion could be heard close to them as they saw a huge shadow that continued to grow as it came closer to them, a very angry bellow could be heard as they saw what it was. It was Marshall, eh had somehow grown into an oversized monster, the size of twenty ponies in one, he was huge. “Did you two really think I could be beaten that easily? I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve, and this isn’t even my final form, think about that for a moment.” The prospect of him getting even bigger scared the two ponies who were now standing next to each other, trying to stand. “And before the two of you decide to try and beat my, I must show you something that might just change your mind.” His hoof went towards his backside and he picked up something orange from one of his pockets. He brought it towards the two of them and they quickly saw what it was. “Yes, I have this, and if the two of you even move a muscle, she will die.” Rainbow’s eyes filled with tears as she yelled, “Scootaloo! I will save you, mark my words, I will save you and kill this motherbucker in the process!”