Fangs

by Sapphic

Blood and Beer

"Hunting me?" I asked Shakes, hoping that she had either misspoke or I had misheard, as we ran down the rough dirt trail leading out of the forest.

"Yeah." She responded, sounding horribly exhausted, but she kept running despite that.

"Like before, like at my home?" I asked, thinking that maybe it wouldn't be that bad if it was like before, like when she first tried to drink from me at my apartment.

"No, she was just hungry and bored then, she was literally playing with you for her own amusement. Now it's different, she isn't just hungry anymore." She said, shooting down my idea, but also raising a question.

"So what is she now if not only hungry?" I asked as I tried my best to cock a somewhat sweaty brow, the fatigue of running already catching up to me as I wondered how in Equestria Shakes had managed this far.

"Simple, she's hunting." She said with a rough voice and getting a roll of the eyes from me.

"But why?" I asked, clearing up the apparent confusion of what I meant.

"I don't know. Vinyl has never been the type to hunt, heck she wasn't the type to even feed, so I have no idea why she would do it now, and much less, why she would pick you of all ponies. She hadn't drank in a good while until you came along." She said as I fell silent with nothing more to say on that topic.

"So where are we going?" I asked, changing the subject to something a little more current.

"I told you,we're going back to the bar." She said in the best nonchalant voice she could manage.

"But is that really the best place to go at a time like this? If what you said is true, that Vinyl actually is hunting me, then wouldn't we want to go somewhere a bit more...protected?" I asked, concerned not only for me, but for her as well.

"The bar is probably the safest place we can go right now, and on the up side, I have a plan." She said as I caught a glimpse of a mischievous smile cross her lips. I was feeling the urge to ask about her 'plan', but I decided just to wait it out and see what she had in store; I had asked enough questions for now. Maybe I could ask her once we got to the bar.

I had been running for a good while now, taking good care to keep the hunters right behind me to give Vinyl the most time possible. Half of the hunters were already breathing heavy, and had also apparently missed the fact that I had led them in circles for most of our little 'chase', but everything must come to an end, and this needed to.

I took a sudden turn, heading back towards the camp, and if she was still there, to Vinyl so that taking care of these pests would be easier. That, and to finally get a good measure of how talented she actually was when it came to confrontation.

I heard the hunters behind me start shouting out a variety of orders to each other, things like "You go left!" and "You take right!" as they adjusted to my new course. I'll give them credit though; they had, for the most part, kept up with me and had even given me a few close calls every now and then.

I could hardly see the campfires light, but I managed to see small specks of light peek through the bushes as I started heading towards them.

"He's heading back to the camp! Fire at will!" The now familiar voice of the captain stallion shouted to his troops from behind me.

I had only registered what he said when the first bold was fired at me.

I felt a sudden searing pain surge through my back leg as I fell to the ground from both the force of the bolt, and the pain that it delivered, and let out a grunt.

I struggled to get myself back up, but felt a hoof come down on the back of my neck, effectively pinning me to the ground as my cheek pressed harshly into the ground.

"Thought you could get away did you?" I heard the voice of the lead hunter spit from above me as he applied more pressure to his hoof, nearly closing my windpipe and choking me. The fact that he was pinning me in a belly down position disabled me from pushing him off, though it didn't stop me from pushing the ground.

I heard the sound of something that I knew very well: The click of a crossbow bolt locking into place.

This served pretty well as a motive to stop me from moving. Even if I did push him off, and if he missed his practically point blank shot, he still had more than a dozen others to take the shot, each of which I was sure would be more than happy to do so.

"You're smarter than I thought...most of your kind would have pushed off the ground already." He said, apparently admiring my lack of courage to test my luck.

"It's okay though, sometimes the smartest moves are the most cowardly." He said with a dark chuckle as he pressed the cold metal of the crossbow into the back of my head.

"And I think I'm making the smartest move right now, even if you can't fight back." He said with a chuckle at the end.

"Bye." He said, and that's when I knew he was about to shoot.

It looked like the end for me, but the end hesitated for a second before speaking once more.

"Wait a second..." He said as he leaned in even further. I could tell because of how the weight increased even more and my windpipe became small enough for me to begin to grow light headed from my lack of breath and the cold metal of the crossbow lifted.

"You don't have a horn. Which means..." He trailed off as his eyes grew wider, filling with realization.

He quickly shoved the crossbow back into my head hard, apparently wanting me to die and quick.

But something else got my attention, something that brought my attention away from the fact I was about to die.

A blue flash of magic.

The weight was lifted from my neck in a near instant, and air quickly filled my lungs as I gasped inwards. Immediately after, I turned eyes quickly to look behind me. I turned just in time to see the camp leader fall back onto the ground, apparently he had gone airborne, as well as the startled looks that graced all of his followers.

The second thing that my eyes caught a glimpse of, was a white hoof. One that stomped down into the ground in front of me. I knew it was Vinyl, but I still looked up to be sure.

Sure enough, Vinyl stood above me in an intimidating posture with her head held low and horn alight with her new darkened blue aura. Her eyes however, seemed to be the opposite of her relaxed and menacing demeanor, they seemed to be glaring into the camp leader with a new-found rage, but it was only her eyes that showed that. Her eyes had all of the emotion that was normally expressed through one's body, and that made them all the more menacing. Her facial expressions were still as stoic as ever, but the burning hatred that was already in her eyes stole my attention from that detail.

"Ah," The captain said, spitting out a small amount of blood that must've come from the impact that Vinyl delivered as he lifted himself up off the ground..

"I see that you had a friend in these lonely woods." His tone, and his whole demeanor for that matter, had gone back to a calm and collected one as opposed to his panicky one from before.

"Well, the more the merrier I guess. Boys!" He shouted cockily, snapping all of the hunters behind him out of their trance of shock and immediately aimed their bolts at us.

Vinyl's body lowered even more, but what got my attention be force was her hoof that moved onto my body. Though I was sure it was only to ensure I was teleported out of harms way, it felt like more; a protective hoof. Once my gaze returned to her, I noticed that her horn was already charging up it's nearly invisible blue aura.

She apparently had a plan.

The captain looked at her with a blaze of determination and caution. He realized he only had one chance to kill us, and he also now knew that there was a unicorn that was capable of teleportation. The field stood still with tension, both it's participants ready to make their move, but wanted to the other to move first.

The stallion suddenly shouted out through the silence.

"Fire!" His shouts most certainly didn't go unheard, as the other hunters from behind him followed the order and a flurry of bolts were sent hurdling at us.

Vinyl was quick to react and quickly released a magical burst that made me closed my eyes in recoil, I knew that this was her teleportation and let out a sigh of relief once it ended.

This was the exact opposite of what I expected.

We weren't anywhere out of danger, we were pretty much in the dead center of it.

Apparently Vinyl had teleported us back to the camp that the hunters lived in. Was she crazy? We would die here!

Vinyl's hoof lifted off of me as she stepped forwards towards the edge of the camp. Her head scanned around the camp until it abruptly stopped on something, and when I traced it to where I thought it was, my eyes widened. Her eyes were on a large stack of fire wood about two feet high.

Her horn charged, head unmoved, and shot a quick bolt at the bottom most log, knocking it out of place and sending the others tumbling downwards, knocking against each other and causing quite the amount of noise.

I turned my head towards the sound of shouts from the distance, specifically, from the direction of where we had just teleported from.

I turned back to her, only to see her facing the sound of shouts with head held high, apparently intent on taking on all of them by herself.

'Is she crazy? She'll die if she tries to fight them alone. I don't care how many bolts she shoots out of the air, this is suicidal.' I thought to myself, and nearly protested it verbally, but the pain that still shot through my hind leg only let me let out pained grunts.

Soon enough the bushes began to part, and one by one, the hunters from before came piling in. Starting with the captain who, at first, had a look of surprise as his gaze became glued to Vinyl, but that quickly faded into that of a cocky smirk. His comrades however apparently weren't as cool headed as him and maintained a rather fear stricken look, though they held their ground.

"Not as cowardly as I thought, eh? Well, guess this means you really don't have an interest in living." He said with a grin.

Vinyl voiced no response, but instead, turned her head slowly to the crumpled form of a mare off to the side, not too far from the entrance of a tent in between the two of them.

The stallion, apparently annoyed by Vinyl not looking at him and responding, followed her eyes to find the same sight. His face, grin, demeanor, all of it, faded in an instant when his eyes landed upon the crumpled body.

He rushed over to her, kneeling by her side and putting his hoof up to check for a pulse. I assumed by the look of sweet relief in his eyes that she was still alive, and only unconscious. Soon after that, his eyes bolted back to Vinyl, a look of pure rage twisted onto his face as he gritted his teeth and raised up to trot slowly back to his group.

After facing Vinyl he exhaled deeply and closed his eyes.

"You're evil." He began, eyes still closed, with a new, more humbled and dark tone that sounded that of a wise and seasoned warrior. A tone that not many are capable of using rightfully.

"You and your kind are the cause of death for many innocents. How you live with such a burden I will never know, nor will I ever want to know. The matter of the fact is that it's sickening how you can take something as precious as life so quickly with no regret or remorse for it." His voice was sage, he was apparently not as cocky as I though.

It was clear his little speech was having an effect on the hunters behind him. Many of them straightened up, new found courage and reason to fight surging within them. Some of them even gritting their teeth at an apparent anger that had built within them from the short, unbiased, and almost true, summary of our kind.

"Though it appears that you have not done such an evil deed upon my sister, and for that you have my thanks." He said as he opened his eyes, a look of a controlled rage now present.

"So I will give you this one chance to leave this place with your friend unharmed." He spoke with his chest and head held high.

Vinyl, once again, voiced no response to him, but only stood her ground and stared him down. I had no idea if her look of rage was still present, but if it was, then this must be the staring contest of the century.

During this staring contest, I noticed that he kept taking nervous glances over at his sister, probably realizing that Vinyl would play dirty and how she was the dirt she would be playing with. He seemed to be thinking things over, thinking of his odds in this situation, and eventually softened his high and mighty stance.

"I told your friend "that sometimes the best moves are the most cowardly.", and that applies to me as well." He closed his eyes and began a trot to the body of his sister. When he arrived at her body, he bent down and squirmed his body under her, positioning her stomach on his back before turning back and walking towards the other hunters.

"Alright come on boys," He began, turning and giving one last wise and disdaining stare at Vinyl

"We're leaving." He finished, trotting out of the camp onto a trail, most of his hunters following behind. Some lingered there for awhile longer, giving plenty of sneers at me and Vinyl before reluctantly following their leader down the trail which most likely led to the exit of the forest.

As the last one left the camp I turned to Vinyl.

"Well, uh, thanks I guess." I said sheepishly as she knelt over and looked at the bolt.

"Oh, that?" I said, looking at the bolt stuck in my hind leg that was now covered in blood.

"Don't worry, it's nothing to get worried abou-" I screeched as I felt the searing pain in my hind leg return with no warning at all, though this one hurt a lot more than the one from before.

You see the hunters bolts were designed to be fired into a vampire, not pulled out of them. They designed the bolts so that the tip was still thin and was allowed to enter the target effectively, but they made the end jut outwards past the main shaft of the bolt. That way when it dug into the skin it would still go in smoothly, but if it were to be removed, it would rip skin out with it.

I snapped my gaze to my hind leg, where I saw Vinyl with a bloodied bolt in her mouth. I let out a scoff.

"You could have told me you were going to do that..." I mumbled as I hoisted myself up, my hind leg feeling weak, but a weak similar to the type that you get when a burden was lifted from you.

"So what were you doing while I was leading them in circles? You're welcome for that, by the way." I said, turning my attention to her again.

She didn't respond at first, but she did turn towards a random pile of brush that looked as if someone had run through it. I began to think that maybe I hadn't lured all the hunters out of the camp, and she had taken care of a few. That would explain the unconscious mare that the stallion had taken.

Soon enough, a small smile graced her face as she opened her mouth to respond.

"She ran." Her voice didn't express it all that well, but I could still tell that she was excited when she said it. Excited over the fact that someone had run from her, and given her something to chase after. She didn't need to say anymore, I got the point of it from just those words alone.

We had pulled out of the forest about thirty minutes ago to the sight of glorious sun, revealing that it was only about eleven in the morning when we first got out of that forsaken forest, if my guess was right. I never thought that I would ever be so happy to see Celestia's sweet embrace in my life, but once you get stuck in a dark forest with a bunch of homicidal ponies who can't handle the light, you really start to appreciate it.

We had stopped sprinting once we had gotten a good distance from the forest. Apparently Shakes doesn't take any kind of risks when it came to Vampires, which I was still confused on how she was related to them at all, but I wasn't going to push that question soon. I really didn't care how she was involved, she just saved me after all.

Most of our travels had gone by in mainly just silence, idle chatter here and there, but that all changed when we got back into the city of Canterlot.

"Alright Octavia." Shakes said as I raised my head from its downed state that it had gotten into along the travel from all the running.

"I'm going to head down to the bar and put my part of the plan into action, you can pretty much do what you want until then. Maybe take a shower get something to eat with a friend, you know, that kind of stuff." She said nonchalantly as she waved her hoof and started off to the bar, giving me no time to raise any questions or protest in anyway.

'Wait...she said 'her part' of the plan...does that mean that I have a part?' I thought to myself as I was left standing there, dumbstruck at what had just happened.

"Just be sure to get to the bar before the sun goes down, I think you know why. See ya later!" She said as she trotted off like nothing odd had happened.

I had decided, after standing dumbstruck in the middle of the street for nearly a whole minute, to go home and take a shower. Not only would it help clean some of dirt off of me and make me look more presentable, it would also be relaxing for me, something that I really wanted to be right about now.

I had gotten to the apartment building and into the lobby, casting a glance over to the mare who was sitting there reading a paper behind her desk. She looked up for a brief second and smiled to me. I smiled back and started towards the elevator, but she called for me before I made it over to them.

"Octavia?" She began. "Octavia Melody?"

"Yes, that's me." I replied as I cocked a brow and turned to face her. The desk mare never talked to me, and I mean never. She was sitting behind the desk at all time, a cup of coffee and a paper there at all times as well, giving all who entered the most friendly of smiles, but never any conversation.

She had put down her paper and looked at a notepad to her left before returning her attention back to me.

"Somebody came in looking for you not too long ago, pretty uptight mare with a laid back stallion tagging along. Told me that she "Insist that I contact you as soon as possible." or something like that. Her name was Snooty Brass or something, I really wasn't paying attention that well to her, sorry." She said casually with a sheepish look on her face near the end as she rubbed the back of her head.

I smiled.

"Oh, it's fine, I think I have a pretty good idea who it is your talking about from what you've told me." I said, earning a chuckle out of her.

"Alright, well, just thought I'd tell you, but I won't keep you any longer." She said, taking a sip from her mug.

I finished my walk to the elevator, pressing the button to call it to my floor, and stepped in just in time to see the mare return to her paper. I pressed the button of my floor and began my ride up.

I swung open the door to my house lazily and trotted over to the hallway. I didn't have an appearance to keep up anymore, so I decided to let myself loose while in the sanctity of my own home.

I reached the bathroom, practically shoving the door open as I put forth as little effort as possible into turning on the water. Once I had gotten the water running, and a towel set out as well, I shuffled back into the living room and over to the kitchen, a rumble in my stomach reminding me of a certain breakfast I had missed.

I opened up the pantry to find it nearly empty, scanning the shelves before closing the doors in a huff.

'I'll just get something to eat when I go meet up with Beauty. Hopefully Harpo will come along too so I don't have to put up with all of her at once.' I thought to myself as I trotted back to the bathroom.

'Speaking of which, why was she so insistent on meeting me anyways?' I wondered as I stuck my hoof in the shower to test the water. It was warming up, but still rather tepid.

I gave the shower a few minutes to warm before stepping into the water, back arching at the pleasant downpour of heat, as it relaxed my muscles almost instantly; not even the dirt sticking to my coat could hold out against the rush of water.

Most of my shower went by in a daze of inconsistent thoughts. Apparently fighting and running with vampires can really tire out the body fast. Who knew?

As I stepped out of the shower, my head now capable of full length thoughts, one thing did come to mind.