The Chupacabras would need to displace, leaving him little time.
Raj shuffled to his woodpile and started tossing logs haphazardly into the fire. The timber caught quickly, spreading more illumination around the camp.
The fire flared into brilliance, giving Raj a second to notice the eyes watching him from the shadowed edge of the forest, less than ten feet from his position.
Reflex took over and he jumped back, the end of his staff coming up. It was unnecessary, the Chupacabras knew that they had been seen. The pair faded further back into the woods to get to another position.
Tension leaked out of Raj as he lost sight of the creatures and was quickly replaced with cold fear. Ten feet. The things managed to get within ten feet of him at full alertness on a forest floor. He saw one of them clear that distance in a jump and then some. If the fire hadn't flared at that exact moment, they would have killed him. Simple as that.
He needed protection, he realized. He couldn't count on detecting them.
Raj made his way to the back of his car and popped the trunk. He kept his attention on the area around him while he blindly probed the compartment. After a few seconds his hand settled on smooth leather and he yanked the article out.
He pulled on his heavy leather jacket and fumbled with the toggles for a few frightful seconds. It wasn't much, but Raj hoped that the extra protection from the beast's stubby claws would be worth the extra heat.
Banjo barked once, detecting something beyond the firelight. The purple-spike creature, the female unless he missed his guess, came out of the forest at a dead sprint, zooming past him in an instant and slashing at his legs. He danced back, barely evading.
Before he could respond she was already gone, fading into the underbrush. He looked after it, trying to track its path.
The other one hit him in the back hard enough to send him sprawling. He struck the ground solidly, his staff jarring from his fingers. Jaws clamped down on his shoulder and held the muscles, locking the joint. He felt short claws grip into the leather on his back.
Raj screamed and reached back, blindly palming at the Chupacabra's face. He grabbed an ear and twisted but got no result. He kicked at the ground and tried to roll, but the Chupacrabra's legs were planted, holding him in place. His gaze flickered around, searching for something, anything, to help him. All he saw was a pair of reflected eyes, the female Chupacabra circling back on him. Panic gave vigor to his struggles but he was unable to shake free.
The creature was close enough that Raj could count the whiskers on her cheeks when Banjo struck. A black blur darted in at her back half, locking jaws around the scaly rear leg and pulling with all his canine might.
She tripped, sprawling into the dirt and letting out a throaty growl. Banjo moved out of range and lowered himself, barking and snarling. The Chupacabra answered, its focus now on the dog.
Raj shifted his hand lower, finding his captor's eye. With a shout of effort he plunged his thumb into his skull all the way up to the second knuckle. The Chupacrabra's jaw opened as it screamed in pain and rage. His other arm free, he planted it on the ground and rolled the sputtering beast off of him.
By the time he'd risen to his feet the creatures had already retreated a few body-lengths back. They regarded him and Banjo for a second and drifted back into the darkness.
“Hey mister, are you okay?” asked Scootaloo from the busted window of the car.
He opened the door and pointed, ushering Banjo into the vehicle. He said “I'm fine. Get back in the car.” That was a lie, Raj was most definitely not fine. He still couldn't quite feel the arm that the Chupacabra clamped down on and his breathing had a wheeze to it that he found worrying. His back ached where the thing bowled into him and where it ripped at his coat. He didn't even want to think about what it would look like if he hadn't been wearing it.
It took him a minute to figure out how they did it. They were lying in wait together. One made a strike and fade out the other side of the camp while the second waited for him to follow after the first. The second pinned him to the ground so that the first could double-back and finish him off. Effectively, they executed a sneak attack from the front.
It was brutal and practical and beautifully applied, and the only reason it didn't kill him was luck. That fact cut into him like a cold knife.
Staying in the open was not an option. He needed some sort of bottleneck, some way of hemming in their mobility. He pressed himself against the fire-side wall of the car, reducing their avenues of attack. He kept his head on a swivel, avoiding looking directly at the fire to keep his vision from washing out.
He could feel the fillies in the car shuffling around nervously and making scared little noises. He offered a reassuring hush to them that did nothing to placate their fears.
He stood there long enough for the fire to ebb down and the sweat on his skin to go clammy. The aches from before settled onto his bones like a heavy cloak, dragging him down and making him slouch. He dared to hope the things had moved on to better prey since he injured one.
Raj was a moment away from moving to re-stoke the fire when the girls started screaming and he heard a snarl from the other side of the car.
Adrenaline burned through him and he leaped up, kicking off the base of the car window and twisting in midair. He sailed over the roof of the car and had a second to realize that the female Chupacabra had her head and foreleg shoved through the opposite side of the vehicle before he landed on its purple-spiked back.
The Ironoak Staff fell away and he grabbed handfuls of bristly fur, twisting the struggling creature into headlock from behind while it shrieked in pain and surprise. The Chubacabra bucked and writhed but she couldn't slide her chin past his arm. The scaled tail swept up, trying to lash at his back but it couldn't reach.
Grunting in effort, he pulled one arm back and punched her where he thought a kidney should be. Pain flared in his hand when he hit, the overlapping scales cutting into his knuckles.
He planted his feet and lifted himself and the writhing creature up. He planted his palm on its ear and swung his whole torso, bringing the thing's head down on the frame of the window with enough force to warp the metal.
Raj straightened, shouted, and brought it down again, and again, each time expanding a greasy smear that oozed down the side of the door. Quickly the entire side of her head was a stick mass of matted fur.
On the seventh hit he heard a snarl of rage come from the darkness and he turned, presenting his hostage to the charging, one-eyed Chupacabra. The beast was already in mid-pounce and crashed into its mate, crushing it against Raj and Raj against the body of the car.
He relinquished his hold and pushed, launching them away from him and into a tangled heap. By the time Raj has picked up his staff and turned back to them, they've already vanished back into the woods. Raj stomped and shouted after them wordlessly.
Both the creatures were hurt, one likely for the rest of its life. He'd made it abundantly clear that neither him or the fillies are easy prey. He was confident that the Chupacabras would back off.
That confidence shattered when he heard Sweetie Belle shout “Applebloom, come back!”
Terrible panic ripped through him and he looked in the car. The opposite door was hanging open and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were looking through the rear window at Applebloom as she sprinted away into the darkness.
“Stay in the middle!” He shouted at the two fillies as he broke into a stride. He shouted “Applebloom! Stop!” dipping into his soldier voice. He was loud enough to be heard for miles around, but it did nothing to cut through Applebloom's fear-addled mind. He cursed his carelessness and followed as she made for the only thing she could see, the Arch.
Applebloom galloped underneath it, limned in pale light. She ground to a halt, her chest almost bursting from the depth of her breath. Sweat clung to her coat as well as a thin trio of cuts along her side. She frantically whipped her head around, searching for something that could help her.
She didn't even see the Chupacabra as it loped at her. Raj could, by the light gleaming off its one remaining eye. He was bobbing in the shadows for a moment before it lifted up, taking to the air. If it landed on the unsuspecting filly she wouldn't even be alive long enough to be surprised.
His boots churned up dirt, but he knew he wasn't fast enough to get to her in time. He shifted the grip on his staff and hurled it with a scream of effort. The pole whirled forward and cracked the leaping Chupacabra squarely in the temple. It let out a startled yelp of pain and curled in midair, losing tension and purpose. The wounded beast flopped gracelessly onto the scared filly, who let out a pained whinny as she was suddenly smothered by a mass of dazed beast.
The thing was on top of her for barely a second before Raj dive-tackled it off and they both went rolling across the forest floor. Back in the car, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo cried out to Applebloom, trying to guide her back to safety.
Raj and the Chupacabra slid to a halt in an ungainly heap, Raj straddling the thing's chest. The creature was hissing and spitting, tail lashing at the ground and back legs trying to rake at him, all cunning and predatory nature gone in fearful attempts at escape. Raj hunched, avoiding the worst of the thing's flailing and pushed it's chin up, exposing its neck. He yelled and drove a fist down onto its exposed throat as hard as he could.
The swing threw him off-balance and he pitched to the side, off the creature. He scrabbled back to avoid any sort of counterattack. The Chupacabra was wracked by fits of coughing as it went into a manic frenzy, thrashing and tearing at the ground.
Raj scrambled to his feet, a wave of vertigo plaguing his senses. He ignored it as best he could and stumbled over to a prone Applebloom. She looked up at him, tears flowing from her eyes freely and her bow ripped off. “It scratched me, it got me 'n ah got scared, ah'm sorry, ah'm sorry.”
He scooped her up, saying “It's fine, shhhh.”
“Ah'm sorry, ah'm sorry, ah'm sorry...” She kept repeating the phrase over and over and clung to his tattered coat. He had to yank her free when he got to the car and practically tossed her through the window, much to the relief of the other two fillies as they immediately started to comfort and fuss over her.
Raj moved to the fireside of the car and leaned against the frame, clutching at his aching head. He shook it to try and clear the cobwebs but that only tightened the vice-like pressure in his skull. It was a concussion, no real question about it. Not a bad one, his thoughts were fairly clear and his vision had no blurring, but he wouldn't be having a good time for a few days.
“Mister, look!” Scootaloo shouted, pointing a hoof at the Arch.
The black-spike Chupacabra was still coughing and sputtering, bucking and writhing under the Arch. As he looked the thing slammed its back into the base of the one of the Arch's trees, gouging it with his back spikes.
“No!” Raj shouted, taking a step forward. The thing took no heed to his command and latched onto the tree, ripping curls of bark and luminous wood off it in its death rage. Raj watched with earnest terror as the whole tree drooped to the side as one of its bases was destroyed entirely. Its energy expended, the choking Chupacabra slumped down and was still, claws and face lit by glowing sap.
The creature lay silent for a few seconds before the other one padded into view. She stood for a while before stepping closer and sniffing at her mate's corpse. She smelled death on him, and that realization tore a brazen cry of rage from her throat that scared the Crusaders into shuddering balls huddled in the footwells of the car. She turned on Raj and made murderous eye contact, snarling and sputtering with raised hackles and bared, gleaming fangs.
This wasn't about food anymore, or territory, this thing wanted revenge. It wanted to kill him, kill his dog, kill the girls, and make them all suffer while she did it.
Raj slid his knife out, nervously turning it over in his hands. His staff would have been much better for this, but it'd been hopelessly lost in the dark. The only weapons he had were a broken knife and his hands.
“Mister,” Sweetie Belle squeaked “Apple Bloom's hurt!”
“How bad?”
“We don't know, we can't see.”
Light, that's what they needed, light. The fire had burned down low, enough to destroy his night vision but not enough to fight by. He warily moved over to the still open trunk and rooted around as he talked. “Alright, its going to get bright here in a second. Do you know what to do if she's bleeding?
Scootaloo answered “Yeah, pressure, right?”
“Smart girl. Do that, and stay low, and stay that way no matter what, got it?”
“Y-yes.” Scootaloo stuttered.
He blindly fumbled with the cap on the jug, failing to pry it off. Frustrated, he stabbed at the hard plastic and rent a hole in it. He was rewarded with a burning, chemical stink. Satisfied, he slowly stalked over to the low burning flame and flung a wave of gasoline onto it, creating a high pillar of flame.
Over the roar of heat he heard something. A growl of irritation, from just off his left. He snapped to it and saw the Chupacabra crouched a dozen or so yards from him, its eyes narrowed at the sudden brilliance. It startled and dropped into a sprint at him, moving a bit sluggishly he noticed.
He screamed something incoherent and flung the gas-can at her. It spun once and struck her just past the neck, dousing her in petrol. She didn't care and leaped, claws splayed and jaws wide.
Raj sprung to the side, barely evading a swiping paw. She landed in a pivot, fluid and graceful, and soared at him again. His footing was off so he dropped and rolled, going underneath her.
Some of the damage she had taken earlier made her land in a stumble, her leg giving out under her weight. Raj saw the chance and tried to lunge at her, but she darted back, growling and hissing. She bounced off her back-legs and swiped, scoring a hit on his shin. He shouted and stepped back, favoring his other leg. She pulled away and faded back into the woods, disappearing with barely a sound.
He couldn't engage on her; she was just too fast. That was a problem because time was not on his side. In a minute the gasoline would burn off and then he'd be fighting in darkness. The Chupacabra did not realize that, but she didn't need to. She was too canny to move on him when she didn't have the advantage, even through the rage at the loss of her mate. In fact, the loss of her partner and the injuries he's already inflicted only made her even more cautious.
She wouldn't act without an opportunity, so Raj would have to give her that opportunity.
His muscles slackened and he stood up straight, letting out a slow breath as he did so. He spun his knife, turning it into a forward grip. He stepped away from the car and slowly, ever so slowly, walked to the edge of the firelight.
Looking out he saw his own long shadow and beyond an unyielding wall of black. No starlight filtered down from above, leaving the entirety of the Everfree cloaked in void-dark shadows. Beyond this point of light, the rest of the world may as well not exist.
He closed his eyes, feeling out. A slight moisture clung to the air, a remnant of the day's short rain. He heard a slight ruffle from nearby and thought that it might be a bird but quickly realized it's Scootaloo, shuffling her wings nervously. He smelled fresh water, rotting vegetation, his own odor, and...
Gasoline.
His eyes snapped open and he stepped back, stabbing upward. He caught the Chupacabra mid-pounce, driving the blade underneath her jaw with the unsettling sound of metal shearing flesh. The blunted tip stopped against the roof of her mouth but he kept pushing, forcing her up and over his head. Raj planted his other hand on her belly, grabbing a flap of scales, and swung, throwing her behind him.
It didn't all go well. Her claws managed to sink into the flesh behind his shoulders, pricking muscle, and were then pulled out a second later by her own momentum and the force of Raj's throw. Curls of leather and skin peeled off of his back and trailed behind on the points of the Chupacabra's claws.
The knife slid out of her head and her whole form sailed behind him, crashing into the fire.
Her whole body went up in flames, the gasoline soaked into her hide sparking instantly. She bucked and writhed, rolling off of the fire-pit, little flames flinging off of her melting flesh. Blisters grew and popped on her scales and her fur curled into black ash. The whole clearing immediately reeked of charred meat and burned hair.
And the sound. The terrible sound she made. The agonized, fearful, bubbling scream she released the moment the flames ignited on her. A thousand nails on a chalkboard would not do it justice. The tortured groan of tearing steel wouldn't do it justice. It was, quite simply, the most gut-wrenching noise Rajrishi had heard in his twenty-eight years.
The Chupacabra rolled a few times and rose. She was frantic, confused. Her instincts told her to run so she did, sprinting away as fast as her burning muscles would allow. Raj watched her go, barreling down the hill in the vague direction of the river. She dropped behind some cover and he could vaguely hear a splash a long ways off.
The threat gone, he slumped down to one knee and then fell flat on his face. He gave himself the luxury of a minute of painful wallowing before soldiering back up, grunting and hissing when he flexed his back. He staggered over to the car and leaned in the window. “Hey, girls, you okay?”
Sweetie Belle poked her head out and crinkled her nose. “Something smells nasty.”
Raj smiled tiredly “I bet. Scootch back.” He opened the door and flopped down on the cushioned seat.
“Are ya okay mister? Ah saw that thing getcha.” Applebloom hopped up on the seat behind him.
“Yeah it did.” Scootaloo climbed up alongside her and craned her neck to inspect his injuries. “Ouch, that looks really bad. Maybe one of us should go for help.”
“No.” He said flatly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He tilted his head at the yellow pony “What about you Applebloom? Scoot said you took a hit.”
“Oh! Uh, yeah, darn critter got me when it came through the window.”
“Let me see.” She turned to show him the wound. It was small, but not insignificant. If untreated it would certainly scar over. “Hold on.” He retrieved some of Zecora's unguent and slapped it on her rump. The little pony hissed at the sting but didn't complain. After that, he took care of himself, gracelessly slathering the substance on his own back.
Raj slowly walked to the guttering flame, all the gasoline burnt off and most of the wood scattered. He gathered an assortment of logs from the pile and stoked it up to a merry blaze. He rolled a log in front of it and sat down, near enough that the heat tightened the skin on his face. He stared into its heart, showing no expression.
The four of them -five if one counts the dog- sat in awkward silence for several minutes. The fillies staring at his back frittered anxiously. They quietly debated amongst themselves for a few seconds before two of them shoved Applebloom forward. She turned and glared at her friends before gingerly trotting over.
“Uh, Mister?” she gently asked.
“What.” He said flatly, not even phrasing it as a question.
“Oh um, well, me and the girls were wondering if ya'll were alright? Um, are you alright?”
He answered honestly. “No.”
“Oh! Uh...” She looked back at her friends. They smiled and give an encouraging wave. “Okay, was there, uh, anythin' we can do to help?”
He repeated. “No.”
“Well, what should we do then?”
“Go to sleep, I'll take you home in the morning.”
“Well, what about you?”
“Go to sleep Applebloom.”
The filly frowned and stood plaintively. She turned back to her friends who just shrugged at her unhelpfully. Applebloom opened her mouth to say something but the words died in her throat. Instead she hoofed at the dirt and mumbled “G'night.” before turning around and hopping into the car.
The fire popped, a flurry of sparks twisting into the night air. Raj didn't notice, he was occupied watching the slowly fading glow of the Arch as it bled light and hope into the night air.