Twilight could feel the gentle warmth of the raging green inferno spiralling over her body, licking it clean of Neuron’s powdered silver. If Spike was right, and Twilight silently prayed to Celestia and Luna that he was, then the silver would be appearing in front of Rarity within minutes. As the pain and burning started to subside, Twilight opened her eyes to find Spike red in the face from the exertion of exhaling such a large quantity of magical fire. Her vision was still hazy and her eyes continued to water as she gave her friend a quick pat on the back.
“Uh… Twi, your eyes are still bleeding,” Spike told her and when Twilight lifted a hoof to investigate, she found the area slick with fluid.
“I must still have some in my eyes, can you help me over to the river so I can wash it off?” she asked, but as she took a step, her knees buckled beneath her weight, causing her to stumble. With much difficulty, Spike managed to catch Twilight before she went all the way over. “Wow… that fight took more out of me then I thought.”
“You know what this means right?” Spike asked in a slightly over excited tone. “You have to feed again.”
Twilight remained silent as she was led toward the river bed, the sound of underwater creatures thrashing around below the surface making it hard to concentrate on coming up with a plan. Spike sat her down near the edge of the water and pulled open her eyelids one at a time around Twilight flinching from the pain. After she had calmed down, Twilight used what little magic she had left to flush her eyes out with water.
“I suppose I’m going to have to go for a hunt aren’t I?” she asked dejectedly, slowly dripping water onto her eye, flinching with every cold touch.
“Why? We can just to the same thing we did in Maneflow Springs; I’ll take you to a hotel and then go out and get you somepony to snack on,’ replied the baby dragon casually. Twilight shook her head once, knowing that his plan wouldn’t work.
“I need something tonight. I’m barely able to walk and if I was to get into the city, I’m not sure I could control myself right now. My fangs aren’t even retracting all the way right now, see?” said Twilight, grinning to show Spike the dozens of white needles resting flush with her regular teeth.
“But then hunting comes with the risk of you finding a Pegasus, and we both know what happens if you do,” Spike retorted, moving around to face Twilight and checking for any last signs of silver.
“I know Spike, I know. But if we don’t come up with something soon I could go all animalistic like I did with Colgate and Nurse Redheart,” she snapped, as memories of losing control and the adrenaline rush that she felt during her hunt, and the sheer pleasure she had felt when she had caught her prey. Spike scratched his head for a moment, his face contorting into an expression Twilight had seen many times before; the familiar look of contemplation.
“Well… I may have a plan. What about Neuron back there? He’s fit for being drained,” he suggested and Twilight immediately looked away from his almost sardonic gaze.
“That seems like a bad idea, he’s a vampire hunter. So he probably has spells, or some kind of potion that makes his blood poisonous to us,” she responded quickly, telling him the same lie she was telling herself.
“I thought you weren’t a vampire,” Spike smirked.
“True, but the safe option would be to leave him alone and try to find somepony else.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, helping Twilight back to her hooves. “Well at least let me go back and destroy his stuff.”
“We don’t have the time. I really… Really need to get some blood into me,” Twilight pleaded, attempting to change the subject. Spike let out a deep sigh and leapt onto Twilight’s back, his scales resuming their former grating scrap against her fur that seemed to burrow through her ears and into the deep recesses of her brain. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the noise as Spike started leading her toward Remembrance city and her next feed.
***
Remembrance City was one of Twilight’s favourite places in Equestria, right along Canterlot. She loved Canterlot because of its grand architecture and history, as well as the fact that it was her home town. Remembrance city however, she loved because she considered it the most orderly place in the entire country. The city streets were laid out in a grid system, built in such a way that the roads followed the latitude and longitude lines on the map. Outside of the walls was multiple farms that ran around the city in a circle, with the farm houses being nearby the main gate in a sort of makeshift village.
When she saw the first few flickering lights of the farm houses, Twilight’s ears pricked up and her fangs dropped down to just below her normal teeth.
“Okay, I can see a cave up ahead. You go and hide in there and I’ll… Sort something out,” said Spike, letting out an exhausted sigh, but she had long since tuned out. Her heart was pounding in her chest, pumping adrenaline infused blood through her veins. Her pupils grew wide, almost encompassing all of her eyes, giving her the appearance of some kind of demon. She started walking toward the houses, breathing shallowly as her hunger began to overtake her rational mind.
“Twi-Twilight? You’re going the wrong way,” Spike told her, digging his heals into her sides. Her head snapped back to face him and she growled loudly, her fangs once again dropping to their full extent. With a flick of her back legs, he was launched off her back, his face being all but buried in the dirt behind her.
“Twilight! Wait… Don’t go!” he shouted after picking himself up. Twilight just growled at him again and then turned and started galloping toward the farm houses, only stumbling every now and then due to her weakness.
Spike dragged himself to his feet and sprinted after her, his short legs having difficulty keeping up with her as she half-galloped across the flat plains. His throat burned from the choking Neuron had given him, as well as the great plume of fire he had produced.
The deep feeling of panic that was gripping his heart spurred him forward, he had promised to keep Twilight safe and more importantly, keeping her from falling to Discord’s influence by feeding on Pegasus blood.
***
Twilight moved silently through the night, crouched low to take advantage of the darkness and the low shrubbery around the farms. A soft growl escaped her lips as her head whipped about in search for a moving sack of meat and blood. Her enlarged pupils pierced through the darkness like a Pegasus through a cloud, absorbing every tiny source of light and illuminating the area for herself.
Her ears twitched and moved with the faintest noise, scanning for the tell-tale signs of prey. They turned at the sound of a deep chuckle and Twilight instantly disappeared in a cloud of dust, the strength of the Earth-Prey providing her muscles with speed.
She soon came across her targets, a group of Unicorns and Earth ponies, standing around a bonfire, laughing and celebrating something unknown to the hunting Twilight. She gradually got closer, changing her posture to try and blend into the group. A tall unicorn stallion greeted her warmly, giving her a tight hug. Her nostrils filled with the smell of fermented apples and rotten hay fries. Another low growl showed her disgust at the stallion and he backed away from her, startled at the sound. Twilight then opened her mouth and presented her fully extended teeth. The stallion looked around him for a moment, his eyes darting around in search of somepony looking his way, only to be ignored by the partying ponies.
Finding no help from his friends, the stallion started galloping away from the fire, toward the city walls behind the houses. Twilight watched him for a moment, smirking at the futility of him trying to run from her. With another cloud of dust, she took off after him, catching up to him with no effort.
The stallion stumbled as Twilight shoved him in the side, colliding with a barrel of water and falling over. Twilight dashed up to him and covered his mouth with a hoof to stop him from crying for help. He started to struggle against her, but was stopped with a swift punch to the side of the head.
Running her tongue over her teeth, Twilight laid down next to the stallion. With a furious hunger on her face, she sank her fangs into the stallion’s neck, not caring about letting some be wasted as she ripped at the flesh of his neck. His hot, alcohol infused blood rushed across her palette, prompting her to bite down harder and focus the blood into her mouth. Slowly, she could feel the strength returning to her limbs and the fog in her mind starting to clear.
***
Her pupils contracted back to normal as she pulled her mouth away from the neck of the stallion. Underneath his tan coloured fur, his skin was a pale pink and his breathing had almost stopped. She wiped the blood off her chin and got back to her hooves, breathing heavily from the exertion of the hunt, as well as the euphoric feeling that had followed every single one of her previous feedings.
A cold shudder ran up her spine when Twilight looked down at her prey and at the unrecognisable mess that she had made of his neck.
“Oh Twilight…” said a quiet voice from behind her. Her fangs dropped as her head whipped around, ready to face the attacker. Upon seeing Spike standing at the corner of the house, staring at her and slowly shaking his head, she snapped back to reality.
“S-Spike? What happened? Wh-where am I?” she asked, looking around the area. “Oh… I lost control, didn’t I?”
Spike simply nodded once and pointed to the dying prey at Twilight’s hooves, and when she saw what she had done, a great wave of guilt over took her. She took a step away and hung her head low. The last time she had felt such a strong sense of guilt was when she had lost control when feeding on both Colgate and Nurse Redheart. The other times she had fed, it was simply to survive, a logical choice that didn’t seem that bad.
“Well? What are you waiting for? Heal him, before we get caught,” he said irritably, the scowl in his face burrowing into Twilight’s soul. She nodded quickly and bit into her arm, accidentally nicking a vein and causing a tall squirt of blood to shoot from her wound and splatter across the ground. Spike sighed again and Twilight rushed to spread her blood over all of the cuts and larger wounds on the stallion’s neck.
As her own cut healed over, Twilight stared intently at the tan stallion, finding herself praying to Luna and Celestia that her blood worked, even if she knew that it was going to.
‘I-I feel so sick. I hunted this guy, attacked him when he was having a great time celebrating with his friends, did… THIS to him,” she thought, cocking her head to the side instinctively to study the reconnecting meat. ‘I know I shouldn’t blame myself, that it was Neuron’s fault I gave in to my animal side. But even then, I’m a horrible pony.’
With a loud gasp, the tan Stallion sat upright, looking around him as though searching for danger. When he saw Twilight, he let out a deep, fearful scream until Spike strode over and hit him square in the jaw, his nigh-invulnerable dragon scales adding to the force of the punch. Spike looked over to Twilight with an angry expression and simply said;
“Run.”