KoB's 2014 Nightmare Night Spooktacular

by King of Beggars

No Means Nosferatu

The sky above Ponyville was overcast.

This, in and of itself, wasn’t a wholly uncommon sight. What was uncommon was the fact that it had been overcast for the past several days in a row.

Sweetie Belle sighed as she stood in the kitchen doorway of the Carousel Boutique, alternating between looking up at the sky and checking the weather schedule pinned to the bulletin board on the wall. The pegasi usually kept the skies pretty clear, but for some odd reason they were keeping the skies cloudy for the foreseeable future.

The dainty clop of hooves on linoleum alerted her to Rarity’s approach.

“Sweetie,” her sister called with a cluck of her tongue. “Shouldn’t you be going? It’s the first day of school.”

“I’m wondering if I should bring an umbrella,” Sweetie Belle said, still staring at the gloomy skies. She unconsciously reached up to check her carefully curled mane at the thought of potential downpour.

Rarity came up from behind and gave Sweetie Belle a little push on the rump with her hoof. “That shouldn’t be necessary,” she said. “Rainbow Dash assured me that there wouldn’t be any rain any time soon.”

“But then why are there clouds if we’re not expecting rain?”

“Apparently Cloudsdale is sending us their cloud overflow, and we’re not allowed to pop them because Ponyville is now a designated cloud reservoir,” Rarity said with a gentle laugh. “Rainbow Dash said it was a paperwork snafu, but Twilight asked around and it seems that our new designation was because of a meeting of the weather managers in Cloudsdale. Rainbow Dash missed it due to some unscheduled napping, so we drew the short stick and are stuck with the extra clouds for a few months until Twilight can get it all sorted.”

“At least it’s in autumn,” Sweetie said optimistically.

“Yes, it is the season for this sort of weather. Now off to school. I don’t want word getting back to mom and dad that you were late to your first day while under my watch.”

Sweetie slipped on her school bags left for school, stopping a bit down the road to turn back and wave her sister back into the house that was now her permanent home. Their parents had recently moved to Las Pegasus so their father could begin his new career as a blackjack dealer, leaving Rarity to care for her sister on a more permanent basis. They’d wanted Sweetie Belle to make the move with them, but neither she nor Rarity had wanted to be separated, and Sweetie Belle wanted to finish school in Ponyville with her friends.

It wasn’t too great of an inconvenience, anyway, as Sweetie Belle already had a room in Rarity’s house, given their parents’ penchant for long vacation tours. The only difference was that Rarity was now being very… sisterly. Sweetie Belle rather suspected that Rarity wanted to prove herself as a ‘cool’ big sister, and was being a bit more laid back than she might have normally been. While it wasn’t exactly a bad thing, it was a little weird.

“Hey, Sweetie!”

Sweetie Belle flinched away as Scootaloo zipped by on her scooter close enough to nudge her saddlebag. The little orange pegasus turned sharply a few feet ahead, going into a power slide that kicked up dust in a billowing cloud.

“Hey, Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle said with a cough. She backed up a bit to avoid the cloud of dust as it slowly dispersed and settled. “You ready for the first day of school?”

“I guess,” Scootaloo said, sighing as she dug a hoof into her ear crudely. “I didn’t get any of my summer reading done, though.”

“That’s just like you to go forgettin’ the only thing that you had to do all summer,” Apple Bloom chided as she trotted up to them from an intersecting road. “You’re lazier than a dog in a corn field.”

“What the heck does a dog in a corn field have to do with laziness?” Scootaloo asked.

“It’s one of the books we had to read this summer,” Sweetie Belle answered as she stuck her head into her school bags. She removed a small novella, clinched between her teeth, and tapped at the title on the cover: The Curious Case of the Dog in the Corn Field.

Scootaloo groaned into her hooves with the despair of the unprepared. “I’m going to get an F today, aren’t I?”

The trio of friends walked to class, full of that strange mix of trepidation and excitement that accompanied every ‘first day’ since their first. Along the way their little group grew, picking up more foals as they went like a snowball rolling downhill. Some additions they said hello to and invited into the conversations, others had their own little groups among the crowd and kept to themselves.

“Has anypony seen Button Mash?” asked Snips of the crowd at large. “We just passed his house and he usually sits on the stoop waiting to walk with us to school.”

There was a general murmur as the foals conferred amongst themselves.

“He’s probably not back from vacation yet,” Featherweight offered helpfully. The skinny little pegasus colt rummaged in his bag and produced a small notepad. The other children watched as he flipped through until he found a specific page. “According to the interview he gave for the yearbook, he was spending the summer visiting his grandpa in buffalo country.”

Apple Bloom’s ear perked at the mention of buffalos. “He’s got kin in Appleloosa?” she asked, knowing that her extended family’s newest homestead was the only pony settlement that shared buffalo territory.

“Nope,” Featherweight answered as he slipped the notes back into his bag. “I think he really meant buffalo country.”

“Huh, never would’ve reckoned he’d be part buffalo,” Apple Bloom said with a shrug.

* * *

Miss Cheerilee had been waiting outside to greet the children as they entered the schoolhouse, and had directed them all to a seating chart she’d taped to the chalkboard. Sweetie Belle found her seat and settled herself in with a huff.

She’d been assigned the seat in the very back corner of the room, isolated from Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, who took opposing corners. It was annoying, but understandable, as she and the other two Crusaders tended to distract one another. What wasn’t understandable was why she had to get Twist’s old desk.

Sweetie Belle frowned and lifted the lid of the desk to get at the storage compartment. The wood separated with a sticky sort of tearing noise, and the sweet scent of stale candy blasted into her face. The odor was also mixed with the usual smell of wood and paste that all the desks had, along with a hint of lemon-scented furniture cleaner. The lemon-scent, she surmised, was probably from Miss Cheerilee’s fruitless attempts to clean away whatever mess the desk’s sticky candy addict of a previous owner had left behind.

She ran a hoof along the inside of the compartment. Despite the smell, her hoof came up unstickified, so she stowed her bag and shut the hatch.

As she looked around she noticed that to her right was an empty seat, directly in front of her was one of Diamond Tiara’s little followers, and on her left was the window overlooking the playground. She sighed as she realized that she would probably be spending the year without anypony to talk with for the remainder of the year, unless Cheerilee decided to rearrange the seating chart.

The bell rang, signaling the start of class, and a minute or two later Cheerilee trotted in, smiling brightly at all of her students.

“Good morning, everypony,” she greeted them cheerfully. “I know you’re all eager to jump right into the first day of learning, but before we get those brain cells firing again, we have a little bit of news.”

The collective buzz of the students trying to finish up conversations before the start of class ceased at the mention of some sort of news. All eyes were forward as Cheerilee waved at something outside the classroom, beckoning it inside.

A handsome earth pony colt entered at her summons. The colt had a ghostly-pale yellow coat, a jet black mane, and a Cutie Mark of a slice of plain white bread. The fillies in the room gasped in unison as he strode into the room with an unworldly grace, while all the colts scoffed and whispered contemptuously to one another.

“This is Fang Coven,” Cheerilee explained happily. “His family just moved to Ponyville and he’ll be joining us this year. Fang, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?”

The fillies were all on the edge of their seats, listening to him with rapt attention. All except Sweetie Belle, who flicked her ears in thought as she tried to put her hoof on what was giving her weird vibes about this boy. He was gorgeous, to be sure, but he was also… weird.

The colt stared straight ahead, unblinking, and cleared his throat. “My name is Fang Coven,” he said. “My family just moved to Ponyville and I’ll be joining you this year.”

Sweetie blinked. Even his voice was odd. He spoke in a slow, barely audible monotone like he was reading from a script, and reading from it badly. Or maybe he was trying to hide an accent? Either way, it was very unpleasant to listen to his voice.

Cheerilee chuckled uncomfortably. “Okay, so you’re a little shy, that’s understandable,” she said with a nod. She pointed to one of the only two empty seats in the room. “Why don’t you have a seat at the back next to Sweetie Bell?”

Diamond Tiara stood on her seat, waving her arm around frantically.

“Yes, Diamond Tiara?”

“He can sit next to me!” Diamond Tiara said, fluttering her eyelashes innocently.

“I’m sorry, but we only have two empty seats in the class, and I’ve already assigned Button Mash to that seat. His mother sent word that his trip was extended, but he should be joining us in a few days.”

“But-but-but…!”

“No buts!” Cheerilee said firmly. She reached up to the chalkboard and tapped the seating chart resolutely. “The chart is already made up and the chart is law.”

Fang ignored the exchange and trotted down the aisle to the seat he was assigned. He stowed away his bag and sat with his arms folded on the desk, staring blankly ahead as Cheerilee began taking attendance.

Sweetie Belle blushed a little. Unpleasant voice or no, he was nice eye candy, at least.

“Hi, my name’s Sweetie Belle,” she whispered to him.

“I know,” he said monotonically.

Sweetie frowned and tried again. “Do you… like school?”

He nodded broodingly.

She sighed and turned to the window, keeping one ear forward to listen for her name. It looked like her earlier assumption would prove correct: there wouldn’t be anypony to talk to all year.

* * *

The first day of school had been pretty uneventful. Cheerilee did her usual start-of-the-year thing, getting everypony on the same page and collecting summer homework, and Diamond Tiara had already begun circulating mean notes around class.

There had been a little excitement during lunch when all the fillies in class rushed to Fang’s desk to fawn over him while he slowly ate an apple. Sweetie Belle had been tossed aside by the wave of lovestruck fillies in their haste to get at the object of their affections. Surprisingly, even Apple Bloom and Scootaloo seemed smitten, so Sweetie Belle had eaten lunch alone.

They hadn’t even gotten any crusading done, since the only thing Scootaloo and Apple Bloom wanted to talk about was stupid boys. Puberty was a bitch riding into town on a pale horse, and that horse’s name was Fang Coven.

Sadly, it seemed that the second day of school wouldn‘t be any better than the first.

“Alright, my little ponies,” Cheerilee said cheerfully. “As I told you yesterday, Tuesdays this year are going to be our arts and crafts days.”

The children chattered excitedly at the prospect of a morning free of actual learning.

“For today’s project I want all of you to work in pairs,” Cheerilee explained as she went to her desk and grabbed a stack of papers. She placed them on her back and began walking up and down the aisles so the children could grab one as she passed. “Just go ahead and scoot your desks together with your neighbor and that’ll be your art-buddy for the rest of the year, okay?”

Sweetie Belle snagged one of the worksheets and groaned as she realized who her partner would be.

“I guess we’re partners,” Fang said to her as he pushed their desks together.

“Looks that way,” Sweetie Belle said, flashing him a forced smile. “Okay, so it looks like we need… macaroni, paste, glitter, some popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners… wow, we’re just using everything, aren’t we?”

She very suddenly was aware of something warm and slightly damp against her neck. She looked up from her desk and was startled to find Fang’s nose inches from her head. His eyes were closed and his nostrils flared as he breathed deeply.

“You smell wonderful…” he whispered with whitewashed seduction.

“Thank you, but personal space, please,” she told him nervously. “And I think you’re just smelling my desk... It smells like candy.”

He snorted and inhaled deeply again.

“Stop that,” she demanded. "Please, just stop sniffing me, I don't like it."

He shrunk away at the tone in her voice and quietly left his seat to find the materials listed on their worksheet.

The sound of snapping wood drew her attention to Diamond Tiara, who held the remnants of a broken pencil between her teeth as she glared daggers at Sweetie Belle. All around her were scowling fillies and snickering colts making kissy faces at her.

* * *

The day had gone about as bad Sweetie Belle had expected. After everypony in class had seen Fang putting the moves on her, she’d been on the receiving end of spitwads, catcalls, and stupid rhymes about sitting in trees for certain lip related activities.

Sweetie had decided that hiding in the classroom was the better part of valor, and stuck around for a while after the bell had rung so that the crowd of angry fillies outside could disperse. She wasn’t afraid of getting beaten up or anything, but she definitely didn’t want to walk the gauntlet of bitchy fillies coughing “Slut!” into their hooves.

Luckily, her friendship with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo transcended mundane trivialities like boys and jealousy. The other two crusaders were actually pretty happy that she was getting attention from such a cute boy. Never mind the fact that it was unwanted attention, but still, it was very sweet of them.

“I can’t believe that guy was sniffing you!” Scootaloo shouted excitedly as she bounced around, her tiny wings vibrating energetically as the trio walked home.

“You and me both,” Sweetie replied as she mimed gagging.

“Is he really so bad?” Apple Bloom asked with a chuckle. “He’s downright pretty. If you don’t want him I wouldn’t mind if you’d put a good word in my way.”

“He was sniffing me!” Sweetie exclaimed. “I can’t believe I have to explain why that’s creepy!”

“It’s not creepy if the guy is hot,” Scootaloo said sagely.

“Creepy is as creepy does, Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle scoffed.

“Oh, sure, you can say that,” Apple Bloom said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not like it’s the first time a boy has ever sniffed your mane. I reckon it must be getting’ so tirin’ to be gettin’ sniffed all the time.”

“And when Button did that everypony agreed it was creepy!” Sweetie Belle pointed out.

“But only because Button Mash isn’t hot,” Scootaloo countered. “He’s a dork. A Megadorkasaurus Rex. King of the Thunder Dorks.”

“Aw, come on, he’s not that bad looking,” Sweetie Belle said. “And he’s our friend. It’s not nice to talk about a friend like that.”

“He’s our friend but that doesn’t make him any less of a dork,” Scootaloo said.

Apple Bloom shrugged and kicked a pebble against an old tin can lying in the road. “I reckon he’d be okay if he’d put a little meat on that flank. Couple seasons of apple buckin’ would take that boy from giddy-nope to giddy-up.”

“Can we please stop talking about boys?” Sweetie Belle pleaded. “I really need to get my mind off creepy jerks, so can’t we do some crusading today?”

“I can’t,” Scootaloo mumbled sadly. “I got grounded because I got an F on the first day… I’m supposed to head straight home.”

“And I gotta help jar up some of Granny’s preserves for the winter,” Apple Bloom said with a sigh. “Plus, we had to move up Apple Buckin’ season because we ain’t goin’ to be gettin’ any sunshine between now and first snowfall, so there’s a lot of apples that need storin’.”

“Fiiiiiiiiiine!” Sweetie Belle groaned as she tossed her head back in exasperation. “When are you guys free?”

“Weekend?” Scootaloo asked Apple Bloom with an inquiring tilt of her head.

“Weekend,” Apple Bloom confirmed with eager cheer. “Sweetie?”

Sweetie Belle sighed and hung her head dejectedly. “Weekend, then.”

Her friends patted her on the back sympathetically and ran off in separate directions, leaving Sweetie Belle alone to walk the long, dreary path home. It was the middle of the day but it seemed that most ponies preferred to spend their time indoors, considering the inclement weather. Here and there she found a few ponies shoring up storm windows or cleaning gutters in anticipation of rain that never came, but for the most part the streets were empty.

She made it back to the boutique and walked around the long way to enter through the kitchen rather than the front entrance. It was still business hours and she didn’t want to disturb Rarity if she was working.

She dropped her bag by the kitchen door and went to the fridge, rummaging around for a snack. As she reached for an apple that had rolled to the back of the fridge, she nudged a precariously placed plastic bowl, dropping it to the ground with a clatter.

“Ah, shoot,” she cursed as she watched a few loose grapes scatter across the kitchen floor.

“Sweetie?” Rarity called from the showroom. “Is that you?”

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle called back. She began picking up her mess, dropping the grapes into the bowl one at a time. Not for the first time, she wished she had better control of her magic, if only for situations like this.

Rarity entered just as Sweetie Belle was emptying the bowl into the trash can.

“Ooopsie, made a mess, did we?” she teased.

“Yeah, sorry, I already got it cleaned,” Sweetie Belle said as she tossed the bowl into the sink and went back to the fridge to get that apple.

Rarity pulled a few glasses from the cupboards and retrieved a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge. “How was school?”

“It was fine,” Sweetie Belle answered sourly as she hopped onto a chair at the kitchen table.

“It doesn’t sound like it was fine.”

Sweetie Belle bit into her apple and chewed deliberately. “I guess… maybe it wasn’t that fine…”

Rarity poured their drinks and took a seat across from her. She gave her best, most sisterly smile, and asked, “Want to talk about it?”

“Remember that boy I said just moved to town?”

“That would be the one sitting next to you in class?”

“That’s him,” Sweetie Belle said with a nod. “Today was arts and crafts day, and Cheerilee made us partners.”

Rarity gasped and began fanning herself with a hoof. “Oh, my goodness, is this going where I think it is going? Do you really have your first crush?”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes went wide in panic and she almost choked on the bit of apple in her mouth. She swallowed roughly and washed it down with a harsh gulp of tea. “What!? No!”

Rarity’s giddiness deflated like a popped balloon. “Oh… well then… whatever could the problem be?”

“He’s weird!”

“But I thought you said he was very handsome.”

Sweetie Belle gaped at her sister’s glib response. “Just because he’s good looking doesn’t mean he’s not weird!”

“I suppose…” Rarity said as she sipped her tea. “How weird are we talking? I mean, a certain level of… shall we say ‘eccentricity’… is to be forgiven for beautiful ponies.”

“He was sniffing my mane!” Sweetie Belle shouted incredulously. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. She expected that sort of hoofwaving from hormonal teenaged fillies like her friends, but Rarity was a mature adult mare, worldly in the ways of love.

Rarity tittered girlishly. “Yes, they do that, don’t they?”

“W-what?”

Rarity leaned forward, smiling that condescending smile that adults smiled when they were about to talk down to children.

“Sweetie,” she said gently. “It may be time for you to learn the truth about boys... and that truth is that they are all idiots.”

Sweetie Belle blinked in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Idiots, dear,” Rarity repeated kindly, “especially when it comes to beautiful mares. That is doubly so for the mares in our family. The ladies of our bloodline have always had a certain hold over males. It is something a gift and a curse.”

Rarity sniffled and wiped away a stray tear of pride. “Oh, look at you. You are growing up so fast. You are becoming a mare right before my very eyes.”

“So… because I’m hot… I should expect boys to sniff my mane…?”

“Well, you should not be surprised by it, at the very least,” Rarity said with a wave of her hoof.

Sweetie Belle tossed her half-eaten apple into the garbage can with a deft flick of her hoof and climbed off her chair. “I need to lie down, I think. This day has been too stupid for my tastes.”

* * *

The third day of school came and went, and Sweetie Belle was glad to see the end of it. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had passed around some extra mean notes about her after lunch, and Fang kept casting sidelong glances at her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. He also seemed to keep trying to smell her from a distance, if the amount of huffing and puffing he was doing during class was any indication.

She had stayed after class again to let the Fang-groupies disperse, but unlike the previous day she’d been waiting alone, as Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had both trundled off home to their respective punishments and chores. They’d gotten in trouble the day before for staying behind so late, so she couldn’t really blame them, but it still would’ve been nice to have somepony to wait around with.

Cheerilee had asked why she was sticking around after class, so Sweetie just pulled out her homework and made up a story about Rarity being very noisy when she was in the throes of creative passion. The teacher merely shrugged and went about grading her papers.

Once the coast was clear, Sweetie Belle packed up her things and waved goodbye to Cheerilee. A quick peek out the door confirmed that it was safe to leave and she headed for home. Just as she was passing a small wooded area, she heard a voice.

“Hello, Sweetie Belle…”

The voice hit Sweetie Belle like a splash of cold water to the face. She turned to the trees and glared into the shadows as Fang emerged from his hiding spot. His bland, impassively handsome face was suddenly terrifying when she wasn’t within reach of an adult or one of her friends.

“Just so you know, I have a rape whistle in my bag, and if you try anything I will blow it so loud that… that you don’t even know how loud I’ll blow it,” she threatened shakily.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you,” he said as he stalked forward, a glimmer of something mad in his eye.

“That’s not something you should have to point out,” Sweetie Belle told him as she backed away slowly. “If somepony points out that they’re not here to hurt you, it probably means that hurting you has crossed their mind at some point.”

“W-what…?” Fang asked. He growled slightly and shook his head. “No, I’m just here because there’s something I want you to see.”

“…it’s not your wiener, is it…?”

Fang closed the distance between them before she could even blink. Sweetie Belle was swept up and tossed across Fang’s back like a sack of potatoes – helpless and wide-eyed, like a potato.

Fang carried her off into the woods, zooming between tree trunks and over fallen logs at breakneck speeds. Eventually, Sweetie Belle found enough of her wits to start screaming as they tore through Whitetail Woods.

They continued on like that for several minutes, until they finally came to a clearing in the woods and Fang set Sweetie Belle back down. Her legs buckled beneath the sudden load of her own weight, dropping her face first into the damp earth. She stood drunkenly and began digging in her bag for her whistle.

“Sweetie Belle, look at me,” Fang commanded sternly.

“Get bucked,” she replied, even more sternly.

“I mean it, look at me.”

She looked up from her bag and glared at him with every ounce of anger she could muster. Who did he think he was? Picking her up and carrying her into the woods… all alone… probably to try and do dirty stuff to her…

He met her glare with a soft, almost pitiable expression. His usual insipid mask of bland indifference was handsome, but something about the tiny bit of emotion bleeding through that mask pulled at her heartstrings. It was like seeing a bunny in a bear-trap. A handsome bunny, with a chiseled jawline and piercing gray eyes the color of a rainy sky…

The twinge of emotion was quickly crushed beneath the fact that Fang, though pleasant to look at, was a creepazoid of the highest degree and magnitude.

He took a step forward.

She took two backwards.

“Don’t be afraid,” he soothed. “I’d never hurt you.”

“Who’s afraid?” she snapped angrily. “I’m not afraid. I have connections – powerful, royal connections. If you tried anything with me they’d need a rocket ship to find the place your body was buried.”

He didn’t flinch at the threat, or maybe he didn’t understand it, but he continued speaking, heedless of her outburst.

“My family and I aren’t like other ponies…” he whispered sadly.

“Oh, are they freaky foalnapping mane-sniffers, too?” she asked sarcastically.

“We’re faster than other ponies…” he explained as he zoomed away almost too quickly to be seen, his body becoming a blurred outline zipping across the clearing to stand atop a huge fallen log.

“Rainbow Dash is faster,” Sweetie Belle scoffed. “Heck, even Scootaloo is faster if she’s on her scooter.”

“We’re stronger than other ponies!” he shouted as he reared up and brought his front hooves down on the log, splitting it in half with a crack like thunder.

“Pfffffffft, Apple Bloom’s sister Applejack could do that with one leg.”

At that moment, whether by coincidence or providence – probably coincidence – there was a break in the dense blanket of clouds that had hung overhead for over a week. Fang trotted over to the single shaft of bright sunlight breaking through the gloom. He stepped into the beam of pure light, standing on his hind legs with his arms spread wide as his coat glittered in the sun like a thousand twinkling lights. He stood proudly before her – his entire body a living prism refracting every color of the rainbow – and grinned triumphantly.

“So?”

He dropped back to his hooves and tilted his head in confusion. “I’m sorry? Did you not see me shimmering in the sunlight?”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle said with an unimpressed raise of her eyebrow. “Have you not met Pinkie Pie yet? Bubbly pink mare, probably threw you a welcome party, smells like cupcakes. She sparkles in the sunshine just like that. I’m not sure how it works, but I think she sweats glitter. Like, literally glitter from her pores.”

“I’m a vampire!” he barked in frustration.

“No, you’re not,” Sweetie Belle said. “If you’re a vampire then why isn’t the sunlight killing you? Sunlight sets vampires on fire.”

“That only happens in books,” Fang explained with a weary sigh, as though it was an old question that he’d fielded a thousand times before. “Real vampires only shy away from the sunlight because it causes our coats to sparkle, giving away our vampiric nature. As long as we stay out of the sunlight, we can pass for regular ponies, just like everypony else.”

“That’s stupid,” Sweetie Belle said, laughing. “That’s the lamest thing ever.”

Fang groaned and stepped out of the sunlight. He plopped on the ground and turned his head away bashfully. “Look, I just brought you out here to show you my secret... so that you know why our love can never be.”

“Yeah, that’s why our love can never be,” Sweetie Belle said with a roll of her eyes. “That’s the exact reason.”

“You’re going to have to forget about me,” Fang told her. “I’m a predator, and I’m not sure I can control myself around you. I’m too dangerous for us to be together.”

“You’re a lot of things, but I think dangerous is relatively at the bottom of the list as far as I'm concerned.”

Fang was so engrossed in his own maudlin monologue that he never even took notice of Sweetie Belle’s comments. “Forget about the feelings beating within your breast, the love within your breast so powerful that it threatens to burst through your breast. I have to stay away from you, and we can never see each other again.”

Sweetie Belle grimaced like she’d just bitten into a whole lemon. “Gah! Yes! Please! And stop talking about my breast while you’re at it!”

She quickly turned and ran as fast as she could in the direction they’d come from.

Fang sat in the clearing, the wind whipping through his mane, as tears fell down his face.

“I’ll never forget you, Sweetie Belle…”

* * *

Sweetie Belle sat up in bed with a yawn. It was still dark out, or at least she guessed it was. It wasn’t exactly easy to tell with how cloudy the skies had been lately.

She yawned again and scratched lazily at her side. For some unfathomable reason her night’s sleep had been somewhat restless. Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with the disturbing revelation that there was a blood sucking wraith prowling the streets – prowling the streets when it wasn’t Tuesdays, that is, since Tuesdays were the days that she and the Tartarus-spawn were making macaroni fire-engines.

She pushed those thoughts aside. That didn’t matter. The crazy idiot thought there was some kind of love connection between them – when there clearly wasn’t – but he said he was going to back off out of a truly misguided need to protect her from himself. That suited her just fine and was quite a load off her mind.

What was actually far more disturbing was the fact that Rarity had shrugged off the news that there was such a beast in Ponyville. Sweetie Belle had assumed that if anypony would hop-to and start rousing the rabble to get their pitchforks and torches, it’d be one of the Elements of Harmony – a group of mares that more or less had the royally appointed monopoly on protecting Equestria’s citizens from supernatural bugaboos.

But no, Rarity just tittered that infuriatingly patronizing little titter of hers and said she’d have a word with Twilight about it, all the while muttering under her breath something about fruit bats, Fluttershy, and relapses. Either way, Sweetie Belle had done exactly what Rarity had said to do if she saw something suspiciously evil, and told her about it straight away. Eventually a chicken would go missing or a pony’s mangled, desiccated corpse would be found dangling from a weather vane or something, and the situation would get handled. It wasn’t her problem anymore. Her conscience was clean.

Sweetie Belle was about to lie back down but noticed that her pillow was no longer behind her. She decided that if she was going to be getting to sleep, she’d probably need to locate it. She rubbed at her sensitive eyes as they attempted to readjust to the near pitch black darkness of the room and began searching for the errant cushion.

“Where did that stupid pillow go…?” she mumbled as she peered over the edge of the bed.

She felt something tap the top of her head and looked up to find her pillow being held out to her. Her sleep deprived mind didn’t register the queerness of the situation, so she grabbed the pillow, fluffed it a few times, and laid back down with a quick, “Thanks a bunch,” to the mysterious being that had offered the pillow to her.

“You’re welcome,” Fang told her.

Sweetie Belle pulled the blankets tight against her chin and yawned once more, settling herself back into Luna’s comfortable grasp.

Her eyes snapped open with a rush of adrenaline. She sat up in bed and slammed a hoof on the switch of the reading lamp next to her bed, bringing light back to the room. Sweetie Belle flinched at the sudden shift in brightness but quickly blinked away the colorful dots swimming in her vision to find Fang standing a few paces away, staring at her as blankly as ever.

“I wish I could quit you,” he said with a sigh.

Sweetie Belle breathed deeply, filling her lungs until her chest felt like it would burst, and shouted: “Rarity! There’s a monster in my room!”

The sound of a pony tumbling gracelessly out of bed and banging into furniture immediately filled the house. A door down the hall opened with a slam, and within moments Rarity burst into the room with a baseball bat held in the glow of her magic. In her haste to fly to her sister’s defense, Rarity had forgotten to remove her sleeping mask, but that didn’t stop her from flailing her bat about the room in search of the intruder.

The bat swung around in wide, desperate arcs, cracking against furniture and walls, knocking over lamps and picture frames, and generally hitting everything in the room except Sweetie Belle and Fang. Every swing was accompanied by a dainty little grunt or a “Hup!” of effort.

After a minute or so, Rarity stood in the middle of the destroyed room, panting breathlessly and wiping a sheen of sweat from her forehead. “D-did I… did I get him…?” she wheezed as she lifted her sleeping mask and blinked in the shine of the desk lamp that had somehow remained unscathed.

“Let’s just say that if the monster was a piñata, nopony would be eating any candy today,” Sweetie Belle informed her snarkily.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Rarity,” Fang said with a polite dip of his head. “My name is Fang Coven, and I’m in Sweetie Belle’s class.”

The bat fell to the carpet with a thud as Rarity giggled involuntarily. “Oh my, you are very good looking, aren’t you?” she said as she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “Oh my, did I say that out loud?”

Sweetie Belle clapped her hooves together loudly to get her sister’s attention. “Rarity, stop ogling the monster and focus,” she said commandingly.

“Oh, uhm… what are you doing here?” Rarity managed to ask after taking a moment to gather her wits about her.

“I just came to see Sweetie Belle,” Fang said lovingly as he turned to gaze at the object of his affection. “But she’s completely right. I am a monster – a vampire. I’m a dangerous predator that feeds on the blood of the living. I know I should stay away, but there’s something about her… She’s just so irresistibly beautiful. The sound of her voice is like the whisper of the winds through a field of wheat. Her eyes are fiercer than a thousand suns. And the gentle curve of her flank would make the classical sculptors of old throw down their chisels and weep at their inability to capture even an ounce of her beauty.”

Rarity’s entire body was flushed pink with the fierceness of her blush. She trotted out of the room without a word and shut the door gently, only to open it a second later and peek her head in for one last look at Fang before she ducked back out.

“Your poorly written, hackneyed flattery may have won over my sister’s romance-addled brain, creature, but I’m not buying it,” Sweetie Belle said with a scowl.

“Everything I said I said from the heart,” Fang explained emotionlessly. “In all my two-hundred years, I’ve never met somepony like you.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes went wide as that last sentence echoed disturbingly in her head.

In all my two-hundred years…

All my two-hundred years…

Two-hundred years…

Two-hundred years!

She shivered uncontrollably – and not from the cold. Bile rose in her throat, threatening to bring her dinner up with it, but she managed to choke it back down.

The door opened again, just a crack, allowing something small to float into the room before Rarity closed the door and locked it from the other side with a tweak of her magic. Fang and Sweetie Belle looked down at the strip of condoms that had been tossed into the locked room with them.

Fang’s mouth spread into a wide, predatory grin as he pointed a hoof at the strip of prophylactics. “Should I…?” he asked hopefully.

“Get out of my room, you creepy old foal-diddler!” she shrieked.

“Alright, alright,” Fang muttered in disappointment as he trudged to the window and climbed out, despite her room being on the second story. “I get it, not on the first date.”

“Get out!!!”

* * *

The next morning, after a restless night of sleeping with one eye open, Sweetie Belle leapt out of bed and stormed out of her room. She stomped angrily down the stairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen where she knew Rarity would be having her morning coffee.

“Good morning, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity greeted with a smirk. “I trust you had a pleasant evening?”

Sweetie Belle climbed onto a chair and slammed the unused roll of condoms on the table angrily. “Condoms? Really!?”

Rarity quirked an eyebrow curiously and ran her hoof around the edge of her coffee cup in thought. “Were they too small?” she asked with an odd sort of excitement in her voice.

“They’re dragon-sized,” Sweetie Belle snapped.

“Too big, then?” Rarity asked with a hint of disappointment.

“I know you’re trying to be all permissive or whatever, trying to be a ‘cool big sister’,” Sweetie Belle said as she glowered at her legal guardian pro tem, “but I tell you there’s a monster in my room and you bring us condoms?”

“Well, when I was your age…” Rarity mumbled the rest of whatever she said into her cup as she lifted it to her lips. Whatever she’d said must have been juicy, judging from the blush it brought to her cheeks.

“He’s a creepy monster.”

“A very handsome creepy monster,” Rarity corrected.

“He’s two-hundred years old!”

Rarity cooed with interest. “Oooooo, an older boy. I must say, he looks very good for his age. Maybe I should become a vampire. It would make certain… things… easier.”

“I continue to not believe what I’m hearing,” Sweetie Belle muttered into her hooves.

She jumped off the chair and headed back towards the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Rarity called after her. “Don’t you want breakfast?”

“I’m going to get my bag and I’m going to school early,” Sweetie Belle informed her. She paused at the doorway and turned to shoot one last frown at her sister. “Can I just say how disappointed I am that my sister – my fully grown adult sister – is taking such an interest in what would actually be an incredibly inappropriately sexualized relationship between two children?”

Rarity’s head snapped around to look at her sister with a look of confusion on her face. “Did you say something, Sweetie? I was busy thinking about the intensity of Fang’s eyes…”

“I said I’m going to school,” Sweetie Belle said with a sigh of defeat.

* * *

Sweetie Belle didn’t go to school.

She’d waited in the spot where Scootaloo and Apple Bloom usually met up with her, and upon their arrival immediately told them that they had to have an emergency Cutie Mark Crusaders meeting of Alpha-Orion-Epsilon priority. Such a meeting had never been called before, or even classified, but she figured it would at least sound important enough to convince the other two girls to ditch school with her.

Sadly, it hadn’t been enough to convince them to risk getting into further trouble this week. So she sat alone on a park bench, nursing a smoothie and wondering what she could do to solve her problem.

Everypony was convinced that Fang was harmless, but she knew better. She knew what he really was: a perverted old foal-touching creeper skeeving on sexy little fillies. What would somepony that old even be doing going to school? Was he keeping up the charade just because he looked like a foal her age? It couldn’t possibly be something that stupid. Did they not have home-schooling two-hundred years ago?

Her train of thought was interrupted as she felt something wet press against the back of her neck. The wetness was accompanied by the distinct and unmistakable sound of somepony inhaling deeply. The air being sucked into the pervert's nostrils tickled the back of her neck uncomfortably.

“Mmmm, smelled you from all the way across town…”

Sweetie Belle threw her smoothie to the ground and whirled around to glare furiously at the masher. “Dangit, Fang! I said to stop that!”

To her surprise, her attacker wasn’t the pale-coated vampire from school, it was a chocolate-brown colt with a propeller beanie sitting atop his head. The colt was standing up, leaning against the backrest of the bench, his neck still craned forward in sniffing position.

Button Mash blinked in confusion as Sweetie Belle yelled at him. “Who’s Fang?” he asked confusedly.

“Oh, it’s you,” Sweetie Belle said with a sad laugh. “It’s actually really nice to see you, Button. I thought you were the new colt in class.”

Button frowned at that. “And this new colt’s been sniffing you?” he asked jealously.

“Bleh, it’s a whole thing,” she answered with a wave of her hoof.

“Speaking of class, why aren’t you there? It’s a school day today.”

“Once again, it’s a whole thing. Long story. Why aren’t you in class?”

He shrugged. “I just got back from visiting my grandpa. Mom still needed to buy school supplies and stuff for me, so she said I could just relax today.”

“Miss Cheerilee did say you were going to be a few days late,” Sweetie Belle mused.

Button Mash’s mouth curved into a cocksure grin. He snickered coolly and brushed the loose bangs from his eyes. “Yeah, I needed a few extra days to pick up your presents.”

Sweetie Belle’s ears perked happily. “You got me presents?” she asked excitedly. Button Mash may have been mildly creepy, but he was a friend, and she was glad to see him, and presents were awesome.

“I sure did,” he said as he dropped behind the bench and slowly pranced out from behind cover.

Sweetie Belle gasped as he came into view. The Button she knew was a hopeless video game junkie that would rather waste away in his bedroom than ever set foot in a gym, but here he was, bulked up and muscled like Big Macintosh. He was a few inches taller now, and he was thicker… everywhere.

“I got you a couple of pythons,” he said proudly. He reared up and flexed every muscle in his body while hissing like a serpent. The pose brought definition to the thick, ropey muscles, making them stand out almost mesmerizingly.

Sweetie Belle wiped the small bit of drool from the side of her mouth and tried to think unsexy thoughts long enough to restart her brain. “What the hay happened to you?” she finally managed to spit out.

“I got swollen,” he said as he continued to flex, now cycling through a variety of bodybuilding poses designed to accentuate different muscle groups.

“But how?” she asked, not really understanding how he could go from a twenty pound weakling to somepony that looked like he could wrestle a hydra.

Button sat down and scratched his head in thought. “Truth be told I didn’t actually workout or anything… I’m not supposed to tell anypony, but I guess it’s okay to tell you. I’m a werewolf.”

Sweetie Belle stared, slack-jawed, absolutely dumbfounded. “Excuse?”

“Well I found out that my mom is half buffalo, so I went to go visit with my grandpa this summer,” he began to explain as he lovingly caressed his own bicep. “Turns out that I’m descended from a long line of werewolves. I was finally old enough to take hold of my lycanthropic heritage, so that’s what I did this summer. Apparently turning into a wolf is better than getting a gym membership.”

“You’re part buffalo.”

“Correct.”

“And a werewolf.”

“That is also correct.”

“You’re a buffawolf.”

“Ehhhh, more like a wereffalo,” he corrected with a shake of his head. “But I’m also a pony, so… werefallony…?”

Sweetie Belle trotted back to the bench and laid on her back, staring up at the sky and resisting the urge to curl into a ball until somepony came to take her home.

“This is just great,” she muttered to the dark, overcast sky. “First it was vampires, now Ponyville’s got werewolves. What’s next, sexy mummies?”

Button Mash’s ears went flat against his head and the hackles along his spine rose threateningly. “What was that about vampires?”

“Fang, the new guy,” Sweetie Belle explained, not yet noticing the shift in attitude. “He’s a vampire. He’s in love with me or something, but it’s super gross and he won’t take a hint.”

Button Mash began growling angrily, baring his sharper than normal teeth menacingly. “There’s a vampire here? And he’s been sniffing you!?”

Sweetie Belle sat up and tilted her head in confusion at Button’s reaction. “Yeah…?”

“Werewolves and vampires have been at war for centuries!” Button Mash declared with a stamp of his hoof. “We hate each other!”

Sweetie Belle smiled and tapped her hooves together as the gears in her mind began turning, formulating a cunning plan to end all cunning plans.

“You don’t say…?”

* * *

“Okay, when he comes out of class you’re going to beat him up.”

“I like this plan,” Button Mash said. “It’s cunning. It’s a cunning plan.”

A few minutes later the bell rang, signaling the end of class. Not long after, children began filing out of the small schoolhouse, only to stop as they found Sweetie Belle and Button Mash standing side by side at the far end of the playground. The children began gossiping about what could be going on, as everypony in class knew that Sweetie Belle had ditched, and Button Mash was supposed to still be on vacation. It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn towards Button’s new appearance. More than one filly in the crowd was heard to squeal in girlish appreciation of his physique.

Finally, as the last of the students exited the building, Fang came into view.

He almost managed a smile when he saw Sweetie Belle, but then he saw who was standing at her side. His nostrils flared as he caught the scent of wet dog, a sure sign that he was dealing with his kind’s oldest enemy: a werewolf.

He narrowed his eyes and stalked forward with feline grace that complimented his lithe body. He hissed as his teeth grew until the viciously sharp little points jutted out from between his thin, reedy lips.

Button Mash likewise strode towards his quarry. Every step was confident and sure, and every inch of him radiated with primal, barely restrained power. His own canines became more pronounced and his coat became longer – shaggy, like a wild animal’s.

The pair of supernatural predators came together, nose-to-nose, and each stared the other down with a glare as cold and deadly as steel.

“Vampire,” Button Mash snarled.

“Werewolf,” Fang hissed.

“Your days of bloodsucking are over, you filthy parasite.”

“That’s big talk coming from a flea-bitten, ass-sniffing little puppy like you.”

Button Mash gave a hard shove. “You must think you’re real tough, breaking into a filly’s room to watch her sleep, you disgusting coward!”

Fang shoved back. “That’s between me and Sweetie Belle, you over-muscled cretin!”

Shove. “Lilly-white sissy!”

Shove. “Steroid abusing crotch-licker!”

Shove! “Pompous, glorified zombie!”

Shove! “I’ve had enough of you!”

“Yeah, well do something about it, then!” Button Mash challenged.

The assembled crowd shrieked in panic as Fang leapt forward with his otherworldly speed and strength. The two monstrous combatants rolled along the grass, tussling and wrestling for dominance.

“Get him! Get him!” Sweetie Belle cheered.

“What’s going on here!?” Cheerilee demanded as she ran outside, summoned by the commotion and shouting. She watched in stunned silence with the rest of the crowd as two of her students rolled around on the ground, obviously in the midst of a fight, but also displaying such savagery and power that she dared not get between them.

Finally, it seemed that two-hundred years of experience won out over raw strength and willpower. Everypony gasped as Fang pinned Button Mash to the ground. Fang leaned in to issue a deadly bite to his opponent’s neck.

The screams of terror quickly began to die out as they all realized that Fang’s mouth wasn’t at Button’s neck – it was pressed firmly against Button’s mouth.

They were kissing.

Passionately.

With their tongues.

“I’m so turned on right now,” Fang said as he gasped for air.

“Sweetie Belle never said you were so damned gorgeous,” Button complimented as he reversed their positions, pressing himself down onto Fang to return the favor and renew their kissing.

The spectators had a variety of reactions. The colts, for the vast majority, simply shared a look of discomfort and excused themselves quickly. Half the fillies fainted dead away on the spot, their faces flushed bright red. The other half of the fillies, the remaining boys, and oddly enough Cheerilee, simply stared, squealing shrilly and biting their hooves as they watched the two beautiful colts go at it.

“I think I just discovered my fetish…” Scootaloo said as her wings twitched excitedly.

Apple Bloom nodded. “Now all them comic books under AJ’s bed suddenly make sense…”

“What comic books?” Scootaloo asked without taking her eyes off the action.

“She’s got a bunch of comics with funny squiggly writin’ and pretty fellas kissin’ on each other…”

“Dude! You gotta show me!”

“Not... just right now… later…”

Sweetie Belle sighed and began to walk home. “Oh well, guess that still solves the problem for me,” she said with a relieved grin.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Sweetie Belle froze as the tone of Cheerilee’s voice registered in her head. The older mare was glaring at her as intensely as she could without taking her eyes off the noisily sloppy make-out session playing out next to the jungle gym.

“Seems to me a naughty little filly skipped class today,” Cheerilee said sternly as she pointed a hoof in the direction of the classroom. “Detention. March.”

Sweetie Belle hung her head sadly. “Dangit… I should’ve moved to Las Pegasus…”

* * *

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I have never read the Twilight books, nor have I ever seen the movies. All parody in this story is based on second-hand accounts and any resemblance to the source material is purely coincidental.

Although I'm pretty sure I got the ending right. It's almost word-for-word how that series finished, isn't it?

I hope you enjoyed the Spooktacular and thanks for reading! I hope you have a safe and fun Halloween and that you'll join me for my next dumb story! Please be excited!

Comments

[Captain PonySeidon]

The colt had a ghostly-pale yellow coat, a jet black mane, and a Cutie Mark of a slice of plain white bread.

...

Puberty was a bitch riding into town on a pale horse, and that horse’s name was Fang Coven.

....

“I like this plan,” Button Mash said. “It’s cunning. It’s a cunning plan.”

....

I'm laughing so hard that I've fallen out of my chair! Combine that with how beautifully you showed that this infamous love story is actually a story of TERROR and I must say that you've done it again King of Beggars! Of course since this was a specific piece of parody you had to be a bit more heavy handed than usual but I still noted your trademark subtler references to other things which is quite appreciated. I'm glad that you took it in a different direction that the usual sort of parodies about this, and it's great that you turned it into a scary story for Halloween. I must admit that I was said when you weren't writing more shipfics as yours are always such a treat but this was so just so great, just so hilarious that I'm going to favorite it anyways even though I usually dislike this kind of thing! Thank you again for making my whole damn day! Have a bro-hoof too with my thanks! (\

[Blood Brandy]

You know, an easy way to solve this...Spike.

He wants to be with Rarity, right? So convince him to be the big brother in this situation and burn the sparkly little poser.

[Sharp Spark]

The other chapters were each charming, but the fourth was unreasonably sublime.

KoB, you don't get a fraction of the credit you rightfully deserve.

[Swan Song]

[Swan Song]

Rereading this, and all I have to say is: please post it as its own story. It deserves nothing less.