//------------------------------// // Mission recieved // Story: Fangs // by Sapphic //------------------------------// ...Octavia... Sweeps had only just begun to explain her plan and all of us were already doubting it from only hearing the first sentence. Shakes had especially been doubtful, and she made sure that the rest of us knew that she was. "Say again?" Shakes said, putting a hoof up and wedging into her ear' as if to make it look like she was getting something out of her ear and she had misheard. We all knew she heard full well. "I said," Sweeps said, playing along with her sisters game, "we sneak up and knock out those two guards, take there armor, and sneak two ponies into the castle to scout out the place." She finished. "We might even find a better entrance other than the front door." She added. "Are you crazy?!" Shakes said, sounding shell shocked, but not shocked enough to forget about the guards. She took a quick glance to the side to see if she had gotten the attention of the two guards. She hadn't, they were still talking to each other, giving off the occasional laugh. "What!?" Sweeps retorted. "I think it's better than the original plan of charging blindly into the castle!" She said defensively. "It's still practically suicidal." Shakes said, finally coming down from her shock. Or was it anger? A mix of the two? Maybe. "Pretty much any plan is suicidal." Sweeps said, turning and crossing her hooves. "Besides," She mumbled, "at least it is a plan." She did have a point. We probably, thanks to Vinyl, did have the magical and physical power to take out the two unsuspecting guards successfully. Not to mention that going in the castle with some form of disguise and the element of surprise on our side was enough to comfort whoever it was that would be going in. I turned back down towards the two guards. They were still sat down near their spears, facing each other. They seemed pretty laid back for a pair of guards; casually talking to each other and even letting out the occasional sound of laughter. Compared to the guards that I had seen inside Canterlot City, these guards actually were showing emotion rather than being a statue standing in front of a door or gate. Maybe they were new guards, or maybe this was how the guards around here actually were. I was drawn back to my group by the sound of a new argument between the sisters. "Who would we even send inside the castle anyways? You and Octavia don't have near enough experience to get out of a bad situation inside there. And Vinyl can't go because of obvious reasons." Shakes argued, this time rather than just claiming that the plan was suicide. "We would only need to send in one of us. With all the guards that are bound to be inside that castle, I doubt that they would notice two missing guards and one new one." Her sister protested, countering the argument with a fairly solid point. Shakes and Sweeps continued to bicker back and forth, but my attention drifted over to the other member of our group. Vinyl had been silent this whole time, even drifting out of the conversation between Sweeps after she herself asked about it. She seemed unfocused, though I could excuse it since she usually doesn't focus, but what really struck me was how quiet she was being throughout the trip. "Octavia!" Shakes snapped, getting my attention and driving it away from Vinyl. "Hm?" "Who are you gonna side with?" She turned and shot her sister a annoyed glance, but Sweeps only smiled smugly; showing that she had clearly won the argument with her sister. It was clear she wanted an opinion, so I gave her mine. "You sister has a point Shakes." "But-" She started, but I interrupted. "I mean, since you seem to be the only 'experienced' one that can go, other than Vinyl, you should probably be wanting some form of disguise and the element of surprise on your side instead of heading head first into that castle on your own with no idea what you're up against." I said sagely, Shakes's jaw nearly dropping at my statistics. She quickly shook it off and played it for more annoyance, but accepted my points none the less. "Fine, will do this plan; but if something goes wrong, it's on both of your hooves!" She said, begrudgingly going along with the plan and walking over to Vinyl. "Come on bloodsucker, we've got guards to knock out." She said, gently tapping Vinyl on the horn and making her recoil; her hooves launching up to cradle the appendage. "Wha?" She said, clueless to the conversation that had just happened and the plan in general. "You really don't listen to anything do you?" Shakes deadpanned. "Hey! I listen to some things!" Vinyl defended before lifting up off the ground and looking to me and Sweeps expectantly. Sweeps must have understood something I didn't, because she started re-explaining the plan. "The plan is to knock out those two guards," She lifted a hoof towards them again, "take their armor, and sneak Shakes inside the castle to try and find a good entrance for the rest of us to get in without being noticed." Sweeps finished quickly, leaving Vinyl with a confused look and a slow nod. "Uhg," Shakes groaned and grabbed Vinyl, pulling over to the hill and pointing down to the two guards. "See them?" She asked rhetorically. Vinyl nodded. "We're knocking them out." She said simply. This seemed to flow a lot more smoothly with Vinyl, considering that she was now nodding more confidently. "So which one do I get?" She asked, getting a bit of a smile out of Shakes. "Take your pick." Now it was Vinyl's turn to crack a toothy smile. "The one closest to the road can be yours, I'll take the other one." She said, pointing them out as she went and getting Shakes's nods of approval. "Any idea of how we should go about getting over there undetected. There isn't any real form of cover to sneak through." Shakes's pointed out. "Who said anything about sneaking?" Vinyl asked. "One of you could be a distraction, heck all of us could head down there and be one big distraction since Vinyl could just teleport behind them and take one out, then, when the other is surprised, you get them." Sweeps posed. "The more of us there are, the better the distraction. I'm sure that the odds of one pony getting lost is higher than a group, so that might throw them off." Shakes agreed. They seemed to be at an agreement for the most part, and started to go ahead with the plan. Shakes and the rest of us built up our nerves and started a slow and steady trot down the stone path on the slope of the hill and over to the guards. I turned my head up about halfway down the hill and saw Vinyl watching us intently; waiting for the first opportunity to strike without being noticed. I figured that would be fairly difficult considering the color and brightness of her magic when she used something like a teleportation spell. It blinds me and most others around her half the time. Now that I think of it, how was she planning on even pulling off the start of the teleport with it being so bright; the guards would be bound to notice that bright a flash out of the normal darkness. And if they were facing us, it would be even more likely for them to notice it. I put it behind me for now, Vinyl was resourceful, so I had trust that she would deliver. Of course, she was just as unpredictable, narrow minded, and simplistic that she might not even attempt to hide her teleportation and give herself, and consequentially us and our plan, away. Better yet, she might just teleport in front of the guards. Oh well, we'll just have to wait and see what's going on in that mind of hers. As we grew closer to both of the guards, one of their heads popped up and looked at us carefully. I guess he was taken aback by either the fact someone else was here, or that we would be coming up to them so calmly. He, as I discovered upon getting close enough, got the attention of the other guard; a mare. Once we grew within about twenty feet, they got up and started towards us themselves with a look of clear confusion on their face. Those faces quickly became aware of what we were, and twisted into a pair of devious smiles. "Are you all lost?" The stallion greeted us with a malicious tone and smile to match. Shakes decided to take the lead role in our little play. "Oh thank Celestia we found someone else! I was beginning to think we were all alone in this forest!" Note to self: get acting lessons from Shakes sometime; could help with many future situations. "Oh don't worry, you're safe with us." The mare added in, her tone similar to the stallions. "Come, come," The stallion began stepping forwards towards us. "let's get you somewhere safe; no telling who, or what, is out here just waiting to pounce on a group of travelers like yourselves." Oh how cute and ironic of him to say. As soon as he got within striking range of Shakes, she acted; sending a hoof straight at his face, and more specifically, his nose. He howled and wobbled backwards, hooves shooting up to cradle the small and tender appendage that had just been struck with enough force to make a cracking sound. Shakes moved forwards and sent another hoof into his belly, knocking the breath out of him and bringing him down into a crouch. Just as he began to get up, Shakes had already turned and brought her hind legs back into a curl. She cringed in pain a little before let them loose wildly fast, the hooves coming into full contact with the stallions head hard enough to send him onto his hind legs to stall for a bit before coming back down and landing belly up. The sound from that first hit alone was enough to make me cringe, but this hit was enough to make me wince. The mare that had been standing by in a shock was now catching onto what was happening, and rushed to grab her spear while Shakes had put in the final blow to the stallion. She held it rather oddly, holding it in her mouth near the end of the wooden part, but I suppose that was because of the fact she was only an earth pony and not a unicorn. But regardless of that, it had a large reach and could probably hit us from a more than safe distance away. Of course, Sweeps might be able to block it, but she could only do that a few times judge by how this mare stacked up. Sweeps must have had a similar idea since her horn had begun to charge. Shakes stuck out a hoof in front of Sweeps, causing her horn to cease charging. "it's not worth it, you couldn't block her too many times before you'd be out of breath." She said in dismay as her eyes narrowed in on the mare with the spear. Though she nearly doubled over after she let out a grunt of pain. "Where the hell is Vinyl?" I could hear Shakes whisper with anger and annoyance, letting out a pained cough. She pointed down to the ground, signaling that she wanted us to get down. I'm sure she would have said her directions, but they would have came out muffled thanks to her tight bite on the spear. I imagine that her fangs helped grip the wooden spear even tighter, and help swing it even faster with more control. We were all lowering ourselves to the ground slowly when the sound of whistling became heard, growing the slightest bit louder with every passing moment. The vampire seemed to be pick up on it first, looking all around and side to side with confusion. Her face was contorted into confusion, anger, and the slightest bit of panic and fear. The next thing that happened was that the mare in front of us dropped to the ground suddenly, going limp within seconds and falling to the ground just after a loud bump was heard. We all jumped at her sudden collapse, and jumped a bit more when something else landed beside her on the stone path with a heavy crack. All three of us were hesitant to move forward and investigate out of pure shock, but something told me that it was safe, it might have just been my curiosity. I took a few cautious steps forwards and looked down at the mare. She was out cold, breathing lightly as she lie there limp. "Did I get her?!" A sudden shout rang out from behind us. Every head swiveled to the familiar voice's source, only to find Vinyl trotting quickly down the hill. I couldn't help but laugh a bit, and apparently Shakes and Sweeps agreed as they started chuckling along with me. "Yeah, you got her Vinyl!" I shouted back, chuckling while saying it. Like I said. Unpredictable. *~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* "So what's the plan from here?" Vinyl asked, showing off her obliviousness to the situation. "Well, the plan was to sneak me inside the castle so I could find a better entrance for the rest of you guys." Shakes said. "Is there even another entrance into that castle?" Vinyl said, turning her head and staring into the distance at the large castle. "I don't know, you're supposed to be the one who knows the castle." Shakes said, flustered. "I only saw, like, three rooms. Maybe four." Vinyl replied innocently. Sweeps and I were over at the two doubled over bodies, trying to strip off their armors , but having a fair amount of trouble thanks to both of our lack of knowledge on how exactly the armor worked. There seemed to be no clear ways to remove it, but we did manage to find a few cleverly hidden clasps and buckles that were tucked in some of the crevices of the armor. Those weren't a problem to get undone thanks to Sweeps magic, but if magic weren't available, this could be literally impossible to do on your own. "So why are we taking off both of their armors in the first place?" I asked, looking closely at the near black armor in the dim light, trying my hardest to find one of the hidden buckles. Shakes was a bit hesitant to speak, but she eventually did speak up. "Well, did you notice how Shakes was in pain back there?" She said, her attention clearly more focused on holding up the stallions limp head. "I did." I replied. "Well, I think that is from her rumble with Vinyl. It left her roughed up pretty badly, and all this traveling didn't exactly help speed up the healing process." "So why did it only show up until now?" I asked, raising my attention from the mare's limp hoof. "Well, I don't think that it showed up just now. I think that it just now became painful enough to hurt her if she pushes herself," Sweeps said, her horn sparking up and her tongue sticking out in concentration as she carefully undid one of the buckles. "she's kind of stubborn like that." She added, pulling the neck guard off the stallion and adding it to her own pile of gear she had taken off. "So why are we taking off the others armor?" I asked, still not getting her reasoning. "Well, with Shakes state, she won't be fit to dig herself out of a bad situation. So, I figured we might send in some extra help." She finished, her eyes scanning all over the stallion's head in search of the clasp to his helmet. "Who?" I asked. She finally lifted her head up from the guard, staring at me with an almost reluctant look. "See the color of the mare?" I looked down to the mare in front of me, picking up one of her hooves and holding it close enough to see. Sweeps lit her horn once more and leaned in closer to me, lighting up the mare's coat more so. It was a grey color, slightly darker than my own. "Me?" She nodded slowly. I looked down at the mare and then back towards the castle. "Trust me, I would go myself, but I have to stick here to be sure Vinyl doesn't do something dumb and get us all killed." She said slowly. "It's not I don't think you could do it, it's that I think I have a better chance with my magic." She added. "I understand." I said, turning back and posing a small smile that seemed to surprise her. She did have a point, she could probably hold back Vinyl a bit more effectively with her magic as opposed to me, armed with a few words, some scolding, and my bare hooves. "Good, that's half of the challenge down." She said, sounding relieved. "Challenge?" I asked with a raised brow. "Well do you think Vinyl's gonna be all for you going into a castle where the one who nearly had her kill you, me, and Shakes is at without a protest?" She asked, the question being practically rhetorical. "True." I agreed, going back to trying to pry the clasp that held together the mare's main body armor together. "Here, let me get that." She said, wrapping her magic around the clasp and quickly undoing the clasp. Jeez magic is helpful. We were mainly silent for the rest of our time spent taking off the armor, though we did make an occasional conversation here and there. We were actually listening to Vinyl and Shakes talk to each other for most part. Vinyl, whether it was intentional or not, being oblivious to nearly all of the plan that we had argued about and Shakes getting more and more annoyed and flustered as she had to explain it. Eventually we finished and even compared the armors. As it turns out, the pieces were nearly identical; no obvious difference from the mare's set or the stallion's. It took me a bit off guard when I found that there was no difference in the armor when it came to gender, but further investigation that the inside of the armor was actually made of a rather malleable substance that was able to stretch the slightest. Shakes decided that now was the time to break the news to Vinyl. "Would you two mind coming over here for a second?" She called out to the still agitated Shakes and still innocent Vinyl. "What?" Shakes spat. "Hm?" Vinyl hummed, the exact opposite of Shakes's response. "Well, the plans had a bit of a... renovation." She said, choosing her words wisely. "And that is?" Shakes said, now in less of an agitated tone and more of an impatient one. Vinyl was looking off to the side, admiring the scenery. "Well sis, we saw how you were kinda pained back there with the guards..." She hesitated and looked to me, getting a quick nod out of me. "Well, I think that Octavia should go with you." "What?!" This time it was Vinyl who spoke, "No! No way is she going in there!" "Sis, I really don't think that's a good-" Shakes began, only to be interrupted by Vinyl's protests. "She could die! There is no way she's going in there!" "Vinyl please." I spoke softly, only to be drowned out. "There's got to be another way, she can't go in there. It's suicide." She was beginning to sound hostile, and that didn't bode well for any of us considering she could easily over power all three of us. Something about her was different ever since she got close to this castle. "Vinyl." I said, slightly louder, only to be drowned out once more by her babbling protests. "Vinyl!" I said, yelling at her. That seemed to be enough since her ears dropped and she visibly twitched. "It was my idea Vinyl. I'm going." I lied to her, but it seemed to take her by surprise and get the effect I wanted. "I asked Sweeps to say it in the hopes that you wouldn't react like this." Another lie, and another reaction of slight surprise from her. "T-tavi..." She stuttered quietly. "No, Vinyl. I'm going." "But...you could die..." She protested quietly, her voice no louder than I whisper. "So? We all could die, but I don't see you protesting over that." I said. Her shoulders slumped and her head fell, along with her body as she landed on her haunches as a sad frown formed on her face. I sighed and walked over to her, sitting down on my own haunches and placing my front hooves around her, and brought her into a comforting embrace. "I'll be fine, stop your worrying." I whispered into her ear just as she brought her own hooves up and completed the embrace. We sat there and held our hug, Shakes and Sweeps sitting there respectively in silence. But most good things come to an end, and I let go of our embrace. I could feel her grip on a little bit harder in protest as I began removing myself, but she let go after I set a hoof on her shoulder. "Ready Octavia?" Sweeps asked, holding up the pieces of black armor in her magical grasp. Shakes was already dressed, the black armor fit snugly on her so it covered up most of her body. She looked strikingly similar to the Stallion from before, maybe if you looked very closely at her curves in the armor you could pick up the difference. Other than that she was in a perfect disguise. "Ready." I replied, letting her magical grasp begin placing the pieces of armor all over me until it was fit snugly. Believe it or not but that armor was extremely comfortable, fitting snugly on nearly every curve but not gripping to hard to be uncomfortable. Not only that, but it was a lot lighter than what I thought it would be; nearly feeling like it wasn't even there. The only thing that kept reminding me it was there was the helmet, which was also nearly unnoticeable, that hung down into my vision the slightest. "Well, let's get moving then shall we?" Shakes asked, taking the lead. "Tavi." Vinyl's voice called out in a soft voice. "Hm?" I turned to see her looking sadly at me with her ears down, but the small smile on her face spoke against that sad expression. "Don't die okay? We still got stuff to do, you know." She said. I smiled. "I know." I went forward to her and gave her a quick kiss, turning away as I felt a blush start upon my cheek. 'Lots of stuff.' I thought as I began walking along beside Shakes, looking at the castle looming in the distance. *~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*