//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: The Night Shift 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	Delicate flesh tore under the pressure of Cheerilee’s teeth.  The orange earth pony struggled, but only for a moment.  She jerked her head and a chunk of his throat ripped away.  Her victim collapsed, gurgling his final breath through the gaping wound.
With her tongue, Cheerilee moved around the lump of flesh in her mouth, sampling the flavor.  It was the first time in quite a while that she’d had anything to chew.  Her face contorted in disgust, and she spit the piece of pony out.  Cheerilee still didn’t like drinking blood.  No matter how it tasted, eating meat was sure to set off a whole new wave of psychological trauma.
The lavender mare glanced at the limp body on the ground.  She was sure that it wasn’t actually Valiant.  Sad as it sounded, the pony she’d just killed had been too…polite.
She gazed down the road.  The mare she’d been pursing, Photo Finish, had disappeared into the distance.  Looking back down, Cheerilee’s eyes went wide as the corpse in front of her began to change.  The pony’s body morphed into that of a unicorn stallion, silver with a blue mane.  Was this the effect of some kind of transformation spell?  Cheerilee had never seen anything like it before.
“You found that bastard!” shouted a familiar voice from behind her.  “I’ve been looking for that imposter all over to give him some retribution for identity theft!”
Without looking, Cheerilee kicked out as hard as she could with her hind legs.  Her hooves connected solidly with somepony.
There was a grunt of pain and a thump.  Cheerilee turned.  Valiant was facedown in the dirt, having apparently been slammed against a nearby tree from the force of her kick.  He was breathing, but lay motionless, bleeding from the head.
And good riddance, thought Cheerilee.  She lifted the dead pony’s body and moved it to a patch of tall grass off the road.  She returned, brushing dirt over the spilled blood.
Belatedly, she realized that she’d just killed her first pony.  It was substantially different thing than taking the life of an animal.  Was there a moral difference between killing for sustenance and murder?  Did it matter if the creature had the ability to talk or had a citizenship?
Wait a moment, killed her first pony?  Was it good for her mental health to assume that she would murder again?  Cheerilee shook her head to clear her mind.  There was a job to do.  She set off at a gallop in the same direction Photo Finish had disappeared.

“Are you okay, Ms. Cheerilee?” asked Twist.
“Hmm?  Oh, I just didn’t sleep well,” answered Cheerilee.  She’d searched late into the night, returning to Ponyville just in time to get ready for school.  It seemed that the photographer she’d been pursing had simply vanished.  
A report of everything that she’d learned the previous night had already been sent.  Cheerilee hoped that Princess Luna could determine what in the hay was going on.  None of it made any sense.
“Here, some sugar will help you stay awake,” said Twist.  She placed yet another candy cane on Cheerilee’s desk.
The teacher smiled.  “Thank you.  I’ll eat it if I start to feel drowsy.”  She slid it into her desk drawer.
Class began.  The fillies and colts all seemed to be excited to discuss what they’d read from the fiction section the previous day.
“They didn’t have anything from the Moonlight Saga,” grumbled Diamond Tiara.
“I found a cool story about Royal Guards!” said Snips.  “They were saving Equestria and stuff.  It was awesome!”
Cheerilee managed to get the group of students focused more on the subject of fiction rather than the stories themselves.  They covered the whys and hows that made ponies want to read made-up stories.  The idea of the lesson was to get the little ponies to think a little more about their choice of reading material in an effort to improve their minds.
That afternoon, Cheerilee left the school and headed home.  A now-familiar plain envelope was waiting in the mailbox.  She took it inside and read it.

The information you’ve uncovered appears to implicate Photo Finish.  However, after discovering a pony with Changeling-like abilities, it’s possible that she has been replaced with a doppelganger.  Proceed with caution.
Tomorrow, Captain Shining Armor of the Royal Guard will come to Ponyville to have a meeting with you.  He believes that he knows something related to the mysterious shapeshifting pony.  To prevent a duplicate from taking his place, he will have a passphrase:
“The night is darkest just before the dawn.”

Cheerilee sighed.  Things kept getting more complicated, and her second job was taking up a significant fraction of each of her days.  As a small consolation, she had less time to feel depressed about being a vampire.
She shook her head and started in on the pile of homework to grade.  It was a short stack tonight, and she finished quickly.  Cheerilee put the papers back in her saddlebags and glanced at the letter from the Princess still lying on the table.  Putting the subject from her mind, she decided to take a walk, a real one this time.  After dealing with the shape-changing stallion the previous night, she wouldn’t need to feed for a while.
The sun was almost down, and the Ponyville streetlamps were lighting up.  The market was closed, but there were several ponies lounging around the town square.
A blue unicorn mare with a silver mane and a pointed purple hat was pinning flyers wherever they would stick.  Cheerilee thought she looked familiar, but couldn’t remember why.
She stopped and looked at one of the papers.  There was a picture of a silver and blue stallion and some text.  The Great and Powerful Trixie wishes to know the location of her brother, Glimmer Spark.  The reward will be great for anypony who locates him.
Although he wasn’t covered in blood in the picture, Cheerilee was reasonably sure that the stallion was the same one she’d attacked the day before.  A lump formed in her throat.  He’d been in disguise, but there could be other reasons for that.  What if…what if he was just an innocent passerby that she’d murdered?  She ran to find the pony who was putting up the flyers.
“What do you require from the Great and Powerful Trixie?” asked the unicorn when Cheerilee caught up with her.
“I think I may have seen your brother yesterday in Trottingham,” Cheerilee told her.
“Hmm, yes, that makes sense,” murmured the blue mare.  “Tell Trixie, did he have anypony with him?”
“No,” said Cheerilee.  “Why, should he have?”
Trixie’s standoffish attitude slipped.  “Well, he keeps questionable company.  Trixie…I…think he might be in trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?” asked Cheerilee.
“Crime, maybe?” said Trixie, sighing.  “I’m so worried about him.  Nopony has seen my brother in any of the other cities in the area.  Ponyville has never welcomed me, but I’ve been putting up flyers here, too.”
Cheerilee wondered how much more she could ask without raising the mare’s suspicions.  She decided to contact Princess Luna again and tell her that she’d discovered the identity of the shapeshifting pony.  Perhaps the Princess could provide guidance as to how to handle Trixie.
At least she didn’t feel like a murderer anymore.  Despite the touching scene of having family looking for him, it looked like Glimmer had been involved in something bad.  Trixie seemed hopeful that her brother might be found in Trottingham, and Cheerilee didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise.
The lavender earth pony headed back to her home, thinking about what she would write to the Princess.  They’d worked out a system of communication.  Cheerilee would put a note in a plain envelope and leave it in the mailbox exactly the same way that she received instruction letters from the Princess.
Walking into her kitchen, Cheerilee glanced at the bare table and then did a double-take.  Where was the letter she’d left there?