//------------------------------// // An Eventful Morning for Some // Story: Fangs // by Sapphic //------------------------------// *~~~*~~~*~~~*...Octavia...*~~~*~~~*~~~* I was still investigating the strange device, toying with one of the straps, until a shout, loud enough to scare me, shook me from my train of thought. I was quick to panic and place the device back into its rightful owner's bag before attempting to go outside. I was nearly at the tents entrance until another body ran into me, hitting me in the head and sending me onto the ground. After I clenched my eyes together from the sudden pain of the collision, I could hear the sound of multiple hushed voices talking feverishly outside. After rubbing my head a bit to sooth the pain, the sounds of voices, the fast paced hoof steps and the directions of both became more clear to me, but what caught my attention the most was the loudest voice; the voice in front of me. "Hey." I looked up to see it was the unicorn mare from before, a look of fear stuck to her face. "Huh?" Was all that could make it out of my mouth, a bit taken aback from her casual response. "You gotta get going." She said, her voice surprisingly calm and hush for the look of panic on her face. "Why? What's going on?" I asked, confused by her panicked behavior. She moved over to her saddlebags and took out the device from earlier, giving it a quick inspection before using her magic to strap it to her hoof. She levitated the saddle bags onto her back as well, then sticking the bolts upwards; ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. She took one of the bolts and loaded it into the device, placing its back onto the string and pulling it back as it made a clicking sound, signaling it was locked in place. It now occurred to me now what the device might be. Well, from what I can see it was a crossbow. 'I really need some coffee...' I thought to myself, a bit embarrassed by how slow it took me to figure out what the device was. "Well, we're under attack." She said casually as she checked the bolt to be sure it was locked in place. "Attack?" I said, panic beginning to grow in my mind. "From who?" I asked, praying to Celestia it wasn't Vampires. "Well...we don't know." She said, once more, in a casual tone. 'What.' "How do you not know that?" I said, slightly louder than normal. She swiftly moved and placed a hoof over my mouth, effectively silencing me, and left us in total silence. Not a sound came from outside as she looked towards the entrance of the tent. She bent down and sat next to me before whispering. "The reason we don't know who is attacking is because we haven't been able to see them yet." She said is a casual whisper as she took her hoof off my mouth. "So how do you know your under attack?" I asked. "Because two of our pals out there just had magic bolts shot at them, they're in the medical tent rig-" She cut herself short for some reason while her ears perked up. In the silence that settled over us, I could now hear what it was she was probably hearing; the sound of hoof steps outside. They were light and whoever it was was clearly trying to muffle their hoof steps, but the dirt and rock underneath their hooves was making it rather difficult to do so. We both looked towards the entrance of the tent at something that made my heart race. There was the shadow of a pony slowly walking around outside, the fire casting their shadow on the front of the tent and giving us a perfect silhouette of them and their movement. The shadow looked behind its back, stopping in its tracks before continuing its muffled walk. That's when something that seemed straight out of a horror movie happened; it turned its head and body straight towards our tent. I heard the mare, who's name I still didn't know, make a distinct gulp as she raised her hoof with the device towards the entrance of the tent, bolt ready to fire on a whim. I unconsciously sank lower to the ground in a sad attempt to hide from whatever it was that was coming. The shadow grew larger and larger as it grew closer and closer, until it was at the entrance of the tent. I felt my panic growing larger, up until I was on the edge of screaming. It raised a hoof slowly, not helping my current state of fear, before pushing in on the entrance rapidly. I couldn't take it anymore, I closed my eyes and let out a what was supposed to be a bloodcurdling scream. Well, it probably would have sounded like that if another hoof hadn't pressed into my mouth before I could do it. Slowly I opened my eyes and looked up to see the stallion that had caught me in the bushes from before. I looked beside me to see that the unicorn had tried to do the same thing as me, and had also gotten a hoof in front of her mouth. He let out a deep sigh. "Mares..." He said finally before taking his hoof off of both of our mouths. The mare beside me let out a huff, either from relief that it wasn't whatever it was that was attacking, or from annoyance that it was only the stallion that had scared her half to death. "Give some warning next time, you had me scared half to death...I could of had a heart attack." She whispered, somehow achieving the same effect of yelling at the same time, as she held her hooves to her chest. "Oh please." He deadpanned. "Sis, you say anything will give you a heart attack." 'Sis? Oh, now the bickering makes sense.' I thought. I have always heard brothers and sisters bicker a lot, though I've never had any, so I wouldn't know. "Anyways," The sister began, clearly reluctant in choosing to drop the subject. "did you find who it was that shot those magical bolts?" "No, we still have no clue who's shooting them. Though whoever it is, they got another shot in on one of the boys." He said, now in a more serious conversation with his sister. "Hmm, what should we do?" She asked. The tent went silent for a few minutes as they brainstormed ideas. "Honestly, I have no idea what to do." He admitted after a moment of thinking. "We could always retreat." He pointed out with a shrug. "Are you mad? Whoever it is just took out two of us before we even reacted, and one who was hiding; running would only get all of us killed." The sister responded. The room began to fall silent once more, but an idea seemed to pop into the brothers head. "You could try that magic barrier of yours." The brother said, earning a look out of the sister. "You know I can only keep those up for a few minutes, and if it were to cover the whole camp it would last even shorter." "We only need a few minutes, if the barrier is up and whoever it is that is attacking shoots, we'll get a lock on their location and can try to take them down." The brother said proudly, clearly admiring his idea. I honestly couldn't see a problem with the idea and neither could the unicorn. "Alright...fine, give me a minute and some space and I'll try it out." The sister huffed. Both me and the stallion backed away as far as the tent would allow us to, giving the sister at least a foot of room around her. She closed her eyes and her horn began to glow, just as strain began to grow on her face. *~~~*~~~*~~~*...Shakes...*~~~*~~~*~~~* My eyes fluttered as the sunlight that came from the broken windows pierced my eyes, causing me to recoil immediately. 'Morning already?' I asked myself as I sat up. I felt an uncomfortable crick in my neck, along with a sore lump in my back as I finished sitting up. I took a survey of the place around me, my bar, which happened to look like an absolute train wreck. The memories of the night before began to come back to me, starting with that bouncer Bigs and his goons trying to kill me, me killing the goons, and Bigs nearly killing me. It got black right around there, but I remembered Octavia getting a bit whiny about something, and in addition, me agreeing to meet her. Then I remembered something that made me grimace; Vinyl agreeing to go with that ghoul of a pony. I let out a deep sigh as I swiped that aside for now. I took a moment to revel in the soreness that was my body, but I knew I had gave her my word, and I had some standards I had to keep. "Guess I better get going then, she doesn't seem like the type that likes to wait." I said to myself and the room around me as I pulled myself up off the floor using the bar. As I hobbled my way towards the broken door of my trashed bar, I heard something that surprised me. It was the sound of ringing. I looked both ways and even behind me; it had been so long that I had ever heard the phone ring. I knew we had one, since it was a requirement to have one, but we never used it. Heck, I had even forgot the number, which made me wonder who it could be that was calling the number since we never gave it out. I heard the muffled sound that was the ringing come from down the hall, so I decided to follow it for curiosities sake. *~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* I came to the end of the hall, and the ringing was close. To my right was my office, which was now completely trashed thanks to the jerk of a vampire, and to my left was a storage closet that I had never once been in. I knew it wasn't in my office since, well, it was my office and I had personally organized it. Which left me with the storage closet. I had never gone into the closet for two reasons. The first was that I had never needed to, especially since I had no clue what was in there. Two, was that Vinyl had asked me not to the day I had started working for her, and even though I was confused as to why, I didn't question it since I was applying for a job. The ringing continued. 'Well, since she isn't here...' I lifted my hoof up to the closet and twisted. Though the doorknob did twist roughly with some effort, but when I pulled on the door it refused to budge. I pulled once more, this time much harder, only to receive the same result. Growing aggravated, I positioned myself on the door, griping it tightly with my front hooves as I propped my hind legs onto the wall, and gave a strong tug. With the combined force of my legs, the door swung open suddenly, achieving my goal, though it did manage to send me flat onto the floor. I groaned, my body still sore from the night before, as I used the hallway wall to pull myself back up. Rubbing my head, I looked up to the door to admire my handiwork. To my fortunate surprise, the door had opened, revealing a small closet outfitted with multiple tiny shelves. All of the contents of the closet were covered with sheets, but the phone was the only thing revealed, and it was still ringing. I quickly moved forwards and grabbed the phone, not wanting the call to be dropped, and slapped my face with it as I spoke out. "Hello?" I almost shouted to whoever was on the other end of the phone. "Hello?" A calm, masculine voice responded. I immediately registered the Canterlot accent present in his voice, it was very small and might as well been unnoticeable, though I still had no clue who it was. "Yeah, um, this is Shakes, who is this?" I asked, instinctively giving my name away thanks to my occupation of a barkeep and wanting to know everyone. "So this is where you're working now? I had been told that you were working in a bar, but I didn't believe it when I heard it was this one." He spoke in a friendly manner. '"Working now? Do I know this guy?' I thought to myself. I decided that I would stay silent on my end of the line. "Anyways, this isn't about your new line of work, I want to talk about your older 'job'." This brought me out of my silence. "How do you know about that?" I snapped at him. I only let a certain few know about my previous job as a hunter, and even those few knew damn well that they couldn't tell anyone about it. The face that an unknown voice was asking about it made me worry, the job isn't exactly a well-liked and respected job among the community of Canterlot, but that doesn't mean few apply for it. I heard a small laugh from the other end of line before its owner spoke up. "Calm down now, I haven't told another soul, though I would like to ask for a certain favor in return for keeping my big mouth shut." He spoke in a casual voice. I thought carefully about this; I was in a pretty tough situation. On one hoof, I could say no and chance that the stranger was just bluffing, or if he wasn't, let it go viral. On the other, I could accept his terms and stop a lot of trouble from happening, but possibly be drafted into something I wasn't exactly 'inclined' to do, or even something illegal. I took a few moments to play out a wide array of scenarios in my head, both the good and the bad, and even the ugly, before responding. "...What is it?" I had no choice but to accept the stranger's terms, I couldn't let my secret go public, there is no telling what could happen to me and a lot of others, and not to mention the bar would probably go under if the heard that someone who hunts others was the barkeep and owner. Though they wouldn't know who it was that I was hunting, they probably wouldn't let me tell them anyways, "Good. I've heard about my daughters recent activities at your bar, and they're quite hysterical if I say so myself. You should know who she is considering my accent that I'm sure you've noticed." My eyes started to grow as my head put the pieces together. The light Canterlot accent, the fact he has a phone, a daughter that had recently been coming, it all came together. "You mean you're-" He cut me off. "Yes, I'm Octavia's father." He said with a friendly tone, almost sounding proud of me putting all the pieces together. 'Oh boy' I thought to myself. "Not too long ago, as in just a few hours ago, my daughter stopped by my house and asked me for the location of another you might know; her name was Vinyl Scratch if memory serves right, which I'm sure it does." At that point, I didn't even know how to react. It was as if someone knew most of your life just as well as you did, knew all your secrets and things you tried to keep quiet, and was just now telling them to you. I could do no more than sit there in a stunned silence as I listened on. "I'm going to take that silence as a yes." He began. "Now, onto business. I'm calling because of my daughter's plan and, well...It's pretty much suicidal." "What's her plan?" I finally spoke up. "Well, she came to me and asked for directions to Miss Scratch, and I gave them to her. Now I know my daughter well, even if I don't visit her frequently, and I knew that she intends to go out into the Everfree in search of her." 'But Vinyl is with...' My eyes went wide. '...Bigs...' I began to panic at that point, there was no telling what he would do to Octavia, much less Vinyl. I mean he nearly killed me just to try and find out where Vinyl was at. "I also know that she was lying when she said that someone was accompanying her." "But she said she was going to wait for me at her place..." I said quietly. "Well she left a few hours ago in the exact opposite direction of her house, so I'm assuming she's heading towards the forest. All that aside, you can probably assume why I called you, but just in case, I'll ask you." He took a moment and inhaled before asking. "Will you go protect my daughter?" He sounded desperate, and since it was my plan anyways, I was more than willing to accept his offer, even though he tried to blackmail me into it. "Of course." I responded. "Maybe don't try and blackmail me next time." I added in a poor attempt to lighten the mood. I heard him exhale deeply from the other end of the line. "You have my thanks, and though I would take more time to express it, it would seem that you have another priority right now, so instead, I'll wish you the best of luck." He said calmly, expressing his thanks just in his tone of voice. "I'll get going right away." I said firmly as I hung up the phone, and planting my head onto the shelf with a loud thump. "Stupid Octavia..." I said to the closet. The bang from my head shook the shelves and, as a result, caused one of the sheets covering the shelves to fall and land over me.. The sheet surprised me and I started to flail, which only wrapped me up in the sheet. After a good minute of thrashing and punching at the sheet however, I managed to calm down and carefully unwrap myself from it. "Stupid sheet..." I mumbled to myself as I pick up the sheet with my mouth. As I went to put the sheet back in place, I noticed some of the contents underneath. Well, the edge of one of them caught my eye; a shiny triangle from the looks of it. Curious, I decided to put down the cover and investigate further. I walked up and looked at the metal closely, admiring its shine and shape. I picked it up slowly and pulled it out from its hiding place. As I pulled, I noticed that the metal part only seemed to be a portion of the object, and there was actually a long wooden piece connected to it. I looked at it closer. 'Strange...this looks like one of my bolts...' I gasped when it finally hit me. I dropped the object to the ground and quickly grabbed the edges of the other sheets and threw them off violently; my eagerness growing rapidly. Finally, all the covers were removed and a wide variety of familiar objects revealed themselves as the dust settled to the ground. I couldn't help but grin as I looked over the shelves, a wide arsenal of vampire hunting weapons covering them. I didn't think about why they were here, I was like a filly in a candy store. "Guess this is why Vinyl didn't want me in here..." I said, once again, to the closet. The shelves contents ranged from crossbows and bolts, to smoke pellets and blood vials. Smoke pellets were useful regardless, and so were the crossbows and bolts if you knew how to aim and shoot them. The blood vials to some might seem rather useless, but they are actually one of the most useful additions to the hunters arsenal; throwing a vial far away can save ones life on the field. Tipping crossbow bolts in the blood and shooting them at a vampire can even, on occasion, cause friendly fire, though it's very rare to do so. 'This might actually be fun...' I thought in my state of awe as I admired the arsenal before starting to go through the contents of my unexpected present that I planned on taking full advantage of for my new and unexpected task. *~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* I stepped out of my bar in a black cloak after taking a few minutes to clean myself up and wipe the blood away and tend to a couple of scratches and cuts and turned towards the forest.I would look pretty suspicious running down the street looking like this, so I wouldn't take my time and just try and get there as fast as possible, take as many back alleys that weren't out of the way and as many shortcuts as possible, and hope no one tells the guards. 'It'll take me an hour to get to the forest if I hurry, maybe half an hour if I can get a carriage to stop for me...' I thought to myself as I weighed my options. I would head out on going on hoof, and if I found a carriage that would stop for me, I would take that as far as it would take me. "Best get going..." I grumbled to myself, not exactly happy about my new task *~~~*~~~*~~~*...Bigs....*~~~*~~~*~~~* I hadn't even moved from my place in the bushes when she started taking pot shots at the camp. I knew what she was doing with them, she wasn't aiming to kill, if she was she would have shot them in the head and not graze their legs, I knew that from a personal experience that happened not too long ago. There are some things you just can't change about some ponies, and this was one of them. From the time that I had known Vinyl, I knew that she was a slacker, always wanting to have a good time, and she was still doing that. She was playing with the camp and its hunters. I wasn't sure if I was right, but I was confident in my assumption. She had shot a moving bolt out of the air beside me, so I was pretty sure she didn't miss when she shot at the ponies in the camp. All the hunters had retreated into their tents as soon as the first shots were fired, which was expected, but one of the tents drew my attention. It was the one that this stallion had crept over to, who wasn't shot at for some reason. The tent he had gone into was now glowing from the inside, the silhouettes of three ponies outlined from the horn of one its inhabitants. I began to wonder what they were planning, though I didn't have to wonder long. From inside the tent, the unicorn of the bunch, I could tell from the outline of her horn, tilted her horn up into the air and a bright orange ball was shot upwards from the top of the tent at a slow speed, which slowed to a halt a good twenty feet in the air. After a few seconds the bolt flickered and an orange shell began to spread over the camp. The second the barrier secured to the ground around the perimeter of the camp, the stallion from before emerged from the tent. "Alright, everyone outside now!" He shouted and, without hesitation, nearly fifteen others emerged from the other tents, armed with the standard crossbows that all hunters carried. "Wait for her to shoot! Lock onto her location!" He shouted as they all fanned to the edge of the shield. 'You'd figure that they might not want to shout their plan when their target is literally within twenty feet. ' I thought to myself as I snickered in amusement. 'At least this will make it interesting on Vinyl's half; How's she going to act now that she knows what their plan is?' I thought to myself as I leaned in a little closer to the action from my spot in the bush. A sudden clash was heard from one side of the barrier, attracting all of the hunters inside as they rushed to where a magical bolt had collided with the shield. As they all crowded around the one side of the barrier, I saw a dark blue flash on the exact opposite of where they were and, not to much later, a white figure walk casually into one of the tents. "Clever girl..." I spoke to myself as I admired her handy work. A few moments later, the hunters gave up on that side and figured they had been fooled. They returned to their spread out position across the camp, looking quite hard for the mare that had just slipped under their noses and behind their backs. The way they were looking around gave off the impression that they were acting with a short time limit on the shield I grinned once more as I waited on the edge of my bush for her next move. Her unpredictable nature really did make this whole experience interesting.