Fangs: The Order

by Sapphic

First Contact

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Octavia...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

A look in the mirror revealed my own face, baggy and bloodshot eyes went well with my hair that seemed to want to defy gravity. A splash of water helped wake me up despite the cries from my eyes.

My night had gone by at a snails pace, my eyes fixed on the window as I watched the moon slowly crawl across the sky. If I had to guess I had gotten maybe three to four hours of sleep at the most.

As expected, I had taken a new piece of information about Vinyl with practiced professionalism.

"Uhg." I grunted, prodding my hoof lower and pulling open a memorized drawer before pulling out a bleak looking comb. Running it though my mane shot streaks of pain through my head, making me immediately ease up and take it slowly. It was still painful to do, but I admittedly got through it with time.

A knock on the bathroom door got my attention.

"Vinyl?"

The door opened slowly and she poked her head in, her eyes glued to the floor, and stood there. Was wasn't smiling either, it was more of a tired frown this time.

'Was she waiting for permission?'

"You can come in as well Vinyl, there is plenty room." I murmured.

She took that as approval and trotted slowly into the room, standing next to me at the mirror. She soon enough went down to the running faucet. An odd slurping noise came next and I cocked my brow almost instinctively.

"Vinyl, we have drinks in the-" I caught my own tongue.

'Ah, yes. I'm jobless.' I thought internally, sighing.

Vinyl looked up from the faucet and stared at herself in the mirror for a brief moment.

Her eyes were bloodshot to the point that the blood vessels in them began to seamlessly integrate with her irises, giving them an almost 'cracked' look. It was an uncomfortable at say the least, but it was more concerning to me at the time.

"Vinyl, are you okay?" I had stopped combing my own mane and looked at her questioningly.

"Withdraw." She mumbled, rubbing her eyes. She blinked a few times once she moved her hooves, staring back into the mirror at her own bloodied eyes.

'Withdrawl? From feeding? So this was one of the side effects of refraining from lack of blood?' I thought, my brain making a connection between this and the other purpose her glasses might serve.

"O-oh."

I really had nothing else I could say about the subject; asking her if she needed help was redundant since that would simply involve her feeding, which was the entire point of fasting in the first place.

"Would resting help?" I asked. Maybe resting physically would aid her mentally? It seemed like mentality was the entire battle from the looks of it since her body was used by her mind to a certain extent.

"Yeah," Her frowning face smiled briefly.

"Wanted to be sure you were okay with me staying first."

"You ran away once Vinyl, do it again and I don't think I could forgive you." I said. It was a serious tone despite my attempts to make it joking as to not make our first exchange awkward.

I was still serious with my claim, her running away would almost be unforgivable.

"Thanks." She said simply, turning from the faucet and trotting out of the door.

Her word choice seemed to be on the curt side this morning. Another affect of the fasting? I myself had no clue what exactly the full extent of it other than what Shakes and Vinyl had told me.

I lingered on the door for a moment before returning to brushing my mane.

'I wonder what I'll do today?' I wondered.

'Maybe go to the market if I have any money. If not then I'll simply have to make it without today, hopefully Shakes will get back to Vinyl with that job offer.' I thought, looking myself over in the mirror.

I peaked my head out the door and peered into the living room, spotting Vinyl already passed out on the couch belly up. She was spread eagle with half of her limbs up in the air against the back rest while the others hung off the side of the couch, her legs giving off the occasional twitch.

I smirked a little.

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Maple...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

"So how'd it go?" Stone asked as I walked into the living room rubbing my eyes, the smell of an intense coffee already brewing. I could tell he was talking to Flint, most likely because she hadn't gotten back in time to tell us about her results meeting with "Shakes" until later last night.

Me and Stone had been up until three last night.

Whatever happened, the two had definitely exchanged something.

"Well." Flint said, the sound of her slurping on a mug following her curt reply.

It didn't sound like it did.

I finally caught glimpse of Flint and saw that her already burnt looking coat had a few more burn marks on it since I had last seen her. Stone seemed to see this as well and had the nerve that I lacked to make a comment about it.

"Seems ironic to see that you got burned." He said nonchalantly as always.

Flint choked a little on her drink.

"Alcohol and fire never went well together. Heh, now I remember why I stopped drinking." She said with an almost lifeless chuckle.

Her demeanor was a near perfect opposite of what it had been yesterday, making it clear what the answer was from her request to the apparent ex-captain. It also appeared that it had turned to physical confrontation, with the ex-captain showing that she still had a bit of bite left in her. I expected the general to crack a smile and say something awe inspiring like "Yeah, well you should see her." but that didn't happen, she just kind of sat there and looked into her coffee.

I saw Stone give her a long glare before shrugging and going back to his newspaper. Was that the same one from yesterday?

"So what about Vinyl? Thought of how we are going to get her yet?" I asked cautiously. Flint didn't seem like she felt like joking right now.

Flint's ears perked up just a little and Stone peered over his paper at the burnt general.

"Well, we still have the hunters I put on queue to track her down. I told them they were off my leash at lunchtime." Flint said reassuringly, though the statement seemed to be more directed at Stone than me.

"What time is it now?" I asked.

"'round 'leven right now." Stone answered.

"Hm, so they should be getting ready right about now. Hopefully they come up with something. I imagine if we had put all our time so far into getting the mare's descriptions we'd already know fully what she looks like and maybe have her address as well. Hopefully they aren't far behind that." Flint said, going to take another chug of coffee that visibly was smoking. The fact her mouth wasn't scalded yet amazed me.

Stone suddenly lifted from his place on the couch, the sound of the wooden frame creaking as he raised. It scared me unintentionally and even got the eye of the mopey looking Flint. He placed his paper back on the couch and stretched a little before wordlessly heading towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Flint asked.

"Breakfast, 'bout time I got something proper to eat 'round here. So far we've ate only what we had packed from HQ and you know how disgusting that slop back there is." Stone replied, not bothering to break his stride until he got to the door.

"Any takers?" He looked back at us.

I shook my head, not wanting to ask my higher up for food, even though his claim was all too true.

Flint seemed to notice my motives, raising a brow at me, then looking back to Stone.

"Yeah, we'll both take some of...whatever it is you end up getting." She said, some of her old voice coming back.

He nodded and left without another word, leaving me with the hopefully recovering Flint. She didn't seem all to moved about this fact, and immediately managed to strike up some conversation with me no more than a few seconds after Stone had left the room.

"Well, looks like he's going on his own search for info." She mumbled, moving up to her mug for another drink only to find it empty. She even turned the mug upside down and looked up into it, as if the drink was hiding from her.

"Not food?" I asked.

"Well, yeah, he's going for that. Just saying, it's like him to get a bit... off task when he has a mission that he can't get done quickly." She said, frowning as she realized there was, in fact, no coffee left.

"Hmm." I hummed approvingly. I didn't bother to hesitate with my next question.

"So did your bar mare actually turn you down?" I asked, expecting some reaction out of her.

I didn't get anything.

"Like I said, don't wanna talk about it." The tone wasn't threatening, but it was insisting. She also hid any facial confirmation to my questions expertly, her eyes not even so much as dulling in thought.

"Yes ma'am." I replied, respecting the senior officer's request. "But what about your 'leashed' hunters? Are you confident that they have gotten a lead?"

"Well, they were local so I have no idea how reliable they are from personal experience. But judging from all that boasting they did in front of me even after I shared my rank, it'd be a shame if they didn't find a single thing." She said, moving to the kitchen and putting her mug away.

"Why did you leash them anyways?" I asked.

It was a bit of a questionable decision to hold back someone who was apparently so eager to help.

"Oh I didn't. They've been free to attack ever since the get-go. I just gave the guess that it would've taken them up until now to get any solid leads."

"Wait what? So you lied about it?" I asked.

"Oh no no no...." She paused.

"Well, yeah. But not to hide it from you. Stone kind of gets a bit antsy if he doesn't think we have our resources under check so I kinda bent the truth a little - trust me, it's not worth the hassle."

She paused once more, peering up in thought before smiling devilishly and looking back down.

"In fact," She looked at her wrist as if a watch was on it. "If those hunters did any backing of that confidence, I'd say they'd be following through with one of their leads in..."

"...three..."

"...two..."

"...one..."

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Octavia...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

A knock at the door caught my attention from the couch, i had been sitting at the end where Vinyl's hind hooves were settles and reading a music book I had gotten from my room.

I set down the book and got up from the couch, making my way over to the door with a bit of wonder about who it could have been.

'Beauty? My parents? Harpo? Shakes? My list ends about there but it's still a bit of room for wonder.' I told myself.

My hoof extended outwards to the door knob, only to have a small interruption stop me.

It started with the sound of creaking wood, my apartment door groaning for some reason. I leaned in close to it to be sure it was the door. Once my ear got close enough, the door came off its hinges with a loud explosion of wood as the wood ripped from off the hinges, pushing inwards with a large amount of force and knocking into me with enough power behind it to send me about ten or so feet back into my apartment.

I fumbled over my own hooves and fell down, the door falling down onto me and managing to hit me square in the nose. The next thing I felt was the stinging pain that coursed through my head thanks to the door.

I did manage to remove the door from off of my body and tip it over where it landed beside me. I only had to use a single hood, the other was too busy comforting my nose. My eyes were also shut tightly, tears welling.

The next thing I felt were multiple pairs of hooves grabbing me and picking me up roughly. They proceeded to throw me into the wall, giving me just enough time to begin falling backwards from the impact before they were already on me, pinning me to the wall with their hooves.

I also felt a cold and sharp metal point press into my temple and I froze up.

"Stay still." Was all the voice told me. It was male and smooth, not horrible matured either.

I obliged, as I wasn't in any position to protest what with something akin to a spike against my head.

I finally managed to open my eyes, my head at just the right angle to see the two stallion behind me that had their hooves pressed into the back of my neck. One of them was doing the actual pinning while the other presumably held the spike, I couldn't quite tell since his hoof was out of view.

The spike raised off me suddenly, only to have his voice speak up again.

"Hooves behind your back, please." I was surprised by his courtesy considering our position.

I obliged and felt a coarse material wrap around my hooves before tightening. I assumed it was rope.

After this he apparently felt safe enough to ease up off of me.

"Bring her over here." This voice was feminine.

My eyes drifted over and I saw that there was indeed another along with them.

A unicorn mare with a black coat and green mane had walked progressively into my home, her eyes scanning the inside as she got closer and closer to the center of the room.

'And the couch...' I cried internally.

The stallion followed her order and began to march me over to where the mare was at.

She had walked in front of the couch, though her eyes kept locked with my own. I could also feel the two stallions staring hard at me as the dropped me down a few feet in front of the coffee table. The three then lined up with each other, all with their backs facing Vinyl and all their eyes looking hard at me.

'Did...Did they actually not see her? And how is she still asleep after that door busted in?' I asked myself, amazed at their apparent blindness.

"Hm." The mare grunted.

"So is this them?" The stallion who had tied my hooves asked. I noticed that he had a familiar looking crossbow strapped to his right hoof.

"It has to be, they're the only one in here." The other stallion said. He was unarmed.

What was this with calling me 'they'?

"You two stay here while I look around and make sure that there is only one in here." She said, giving me a highly condescending smirk as she turned around.

I didn't see it, but I could tell her eyes went wide at the sight of the somehow still sleeping Vinyl.

"Gah!" She yelped rather femininely, loosing her atmosphere of superiority.

The two others looked behind themselves instantly and practically leaped away from the couch and almost landed behind me. This movement of the two gave me a good look at how Vinyl was still sleeping, mouth wide open and hooves splayed in the air in a wacky fashion.

The mare looked closely at Vinyl, thinking that this had to be a joke or something. I knew that was what she was thinking, I had thought the same thing at many times.

She scoffed at Vinyl next and reached to grab her.

A twitch in Vinyls back hoof managed to slap her own hoof away, taking her by surprise once more. She then tried again and got the same result despite going in from a different angle.

"What the-" She started before stopping herself.

She looked back at the two stallions, who only gave a shrug in response. She looked thoroughly disappointed in their lack of an idea for a second or two, but then a look spread across her face that practically screamed 'idea'.

"I'll just wake her up." She said simply, happy at her idea, before looking back to Vinyl.

"I don't-" I began, only to have a crossbow pointed at my head.

I went silent.

The mare leaned in close to Vinyl's ear and took a deep inhale and then an exhale as sort of a practice round; her idea was apparently to just scream into Vinyl's ear until she woke up.

'This will go well.' I giggled internally.

She then took an even bigger inhale and opened her mouth to scream.

Only to have a white hoof quickly and accurately press against her lips.

"Shhhhh." Vinyl said soothingly, her eyes still shut and her legs still askew.

We all seemed surprised at the sudden movement from the sleeping mare, but what followed definitely shocked all of us.

Unconsciously taking advantage of the mare's state of shock, Vinyl used her two front hooves and some magic to levitate the mare into the air before laying her down in front of her while her hooves then snaked around and hugged the mare like a stuffed animal.

The mare was now blushing furiously, her own two front hooves folded up in what looked like a begging position on a dog. Her eyes were wide in what I couldn't decipher; I was torn between horrified or embarrassed. Emboriffied? Horrifarased? I'm sure their wasn't a word for what she looked like.

The two stallion also looked disarmed by the chosen move to take.

I however felt a bit angry at the mare. I had never seen Vinyl do anything like that with anyone unless she was feeding, but she had made it clear just an hour ago that she was in withdrawl - the exact opposite of feeding for her. I felt like that mare shouldn't be there, it wasn't her spot.

'Am I...jealous?' I asked myself, my eyes going wide at the thought of being jealous over something so little. Well, I guess it wasn't little to me if I was thinking on it so hard.

The mare was quick to recover from being cuddled, though when she began to struggle it seemed as though Vinyl's hooves were impossible to move. She gave her efforts about a half a minute as me and the two stallions watched on in both confusion and amusement, though out fun was quickly ended as she sighed and went limp.

"You know, we probably should have looked up more than just where the target lived. Seems like we have two possibilities and knowing which one was which could really save our ass right now." The unarmed stallion said to the other.

"You kidding? We were lucky that someone sent us the place that she was at, we could barely even find anything but her name before." The armed one replied.

"Yeah, I just assumed that she lived alone being what she is and all. But since there are two here we can't shoot anyone without getting ins serious trouble back at HQ or from the general."

"You kidding? We can totally shoot 'em both, the target would defend themselves. And if we hit the wrong one then we could just blame it on the target." The armed one said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah but that's mean though." The other replied.

'What an odd way to describe the act of murder.' I mused just before the mare shouted.

"Will you two get me out of this?!" She interrupted.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry captain." A stallion responded.

The armed one went up close to Vinyl's ear.

"Since she can't get me, now I can wake her up." He said, taking a deep breath.

"Wait! What if she's the targ-" The mare began, but it was too late as his chest compressed and she cringed for the results to come.

Silence.

The stallion, for some reason, had stopped short of yelling into the ear of Vinyl and I could tell both me and everyone but him was confused.

A closer look at him revealed the single, cracked open eye of Vinyl looking dead into his own eyes. He seemed paralyzed by the simple fact that she was looking at him and I thought I could see him shaking.

"I'm trying to sleep." She said, her tone lacking any amusement.

The stallion didn't respond but simply staggered backwards from her, still not breaking eye contact, and raised his crossbow hoof up and taking aim at Vinyl.

Vinyl seemed to disregard the gesture and looked down at the mare wrapped in her hooves, a look of confusion crossing her single open eye.

"You're not Tavi." She muttered, her hooves opening and the mare toppling off the couch with nothing left to hold her.

She fell with coordination however, and her hooves made a b-line to Vinyl's horn and knocked against it with enough behind the punch to make Vinyl's face twist in pain, both of her eyes clinching.

My brief moment of warmness for what Vinyl had said was quickly dashed by the sound of the stallion's crossbow going off. I hadn't even seen the bolt go through the air until I looked at where he had previously been aiming.

What the bolt had ran into was the raised hoof of Vinyl, piercing into the outer part of her hoof while blood had already began pulsing from the wound.

I felt my heart twist a little at the sight of Vinyl getting hurt and found myself trying to get my hooves out of the ropes, but they were apparently tied by the pony whom must have invented knots.

The stallion immediately began loading another bolt with the efficiency of an expert, intending to deliver another shot to Vinyl while she was stunned.

Vinyl's eye opened again, raising her hoof up to her eye and looking at it with a dead look in her eye that went along horrifyingly well with her deeply bloodshot eyes.

A blue glow wrapped around the bolt seemed to struggle for a moment before pushing the claw tipped arrow fully through her hoof and out the other side. She then dropped the bolt into her wounded hoof and examined it closely, tossing it up and down a little as if to test the weight.

The sound of another bolt going off resonated forcefully through my ears and I felt even more horror race through me.

Vinyl flicked the bolt in her hoof in the same direction of the stallion and a violent spark occurred in the space between the two before two bolts fell to the floor.

The fact that the bolts had collided in the dead middle between the two suggested that Vinyl had thrown the bolt even faster than the crossbow had shot it.

The stallion put on a cocky and smug look.

"Well, I think we've found the tar-" His voice was cut short by a sight that shocked him.

Vinyl had gotten up to his face to look him eye to eye with no more than an inch between the two. Her eyes were squinted in a way that suggested that she had just woken up, though the look in them was that of amusement, as if she had heard that plenty of times before.

Even I was shocked at the speed of her this time.

The stallion attempted to get some distance to most likely shoot another useless bolt.

Vinyl didn't bother to move.

He managed to get another bolt loaded in and shoot if off just in time to see the bolt wrap in blue, stopping short about an inch away from the crossbow.

Vinyl smirked.

She turned the bolt around and moved it slowly to the stallion, who backed up until he hit the wall and stared the arrow dead in the face.

It suddenly dropped low and began lightly poking him around his abdomen just enough to make him yelp every time it hit him. He began squirming to get away, but the bolt was relentless in its pursuit.

He let out a frustrated sound and snatched the bolt with his teeth, breaking Vinyl's magical hold and breaking her smirk just as well. He quickly loaded the bolt and aimed the crossbow down at me with a devilish look on his face.

Starring down the end of a crossbow was quite a new experience to me since I knew it would catch up to me faster than I could move to avoid it. Its travel time may as well have been instant in this situation.

I saw the mare from before lurch out at Vinyl and again go for her horn just as soon as I heard the clang of the bow.

I clinched my eyes in preparation for the pain. If Vinyl could take a hit for my sake then I would take one for her.

The only problem is that the pain never came.

I opened my eyes to see Vinyl standing in front of me.

She turned and looked back at me with a weak smile on her face and a bolt sticking out of her chest. She looked happy for my safety, scanning over my body to be sure that I wasn't harmed.

She then gave me a nod and turned to face the stallion once more.

I heard the click of another bolt loading, and then the sound of magic floating the bolts from the center of the floor most likely over to the stallion.

The room went still for a moment as I peaked around Vinyl's body to look at the stallion, also looking up to see Vinyl's now frowning face.

"Heh, I'll make you a deal, monster." The stallion said, his bow already aimed so that if Vinyl moved to avoid a shot it would hit me.

Vinyl didn't respond.

"Come with us and I'll be sure your little thrall behind you gets a quick and painless death." His voice was shaky, but not because of fear. It was like he was shaking from loving this too much, his adrenaline most likely pumping.

My cover placed her injured hoof onto the bolt sticking from her chest and ripped it out with not a single flinch. I knew it had to have hurt and Vinyl's ability to take the pain amazed me.

The stallion's face twisted into a grimace at Vinyl's refusal to back down.

"Fine by me, " He spat. "they didn't say I couldn't bring back a body. The general would understan-"

His voice was interrupted by a pair of white hooves grabbing his head from behind and pulling backwards so that he began to tilt up. He shot his bolt most likely out of reflex, which flew and stuck into the ceiling above.

Despite the successful disarm of the stallion, the hooves didn't stop there and actually started speeding up tremendously after the bolt was fired. The stallion went up onto his hind legs and was then slammed into the ground with enough force to knock my music book off the glass table. Judging from how the impact looked to have been mainly on the back of his head, he wouldn't be getting up any time soon.

Vinyl looked down on him with a sad look on her face while the two remaining looked at her with wide eyes.

The mare gulped a little before her horn ignited just as a pair of white hind legs crashed into her and sent her back into the couch with enough force to slide the piece of furniture to the doorway.

All eyes landed on the last standing stallion, who hadn't moved throughout the entire exchange. He shrunk at the sight of one of the pairs of eyes and quickly looked away.

Vinyl walked over to him slowly, horn sparking violently.

"V-Vinyl..." I whisper, my voice not cooperating with me as I saw the intent behind Vinyl's eyes. A murderous look coming from the weak looking eyes.

She didn't hear me and continued to walk towards him until stopping just a few feet as her horn began to become a pain to look at thanks to its brightness.

"Vinyl." My voice worked out this time just as she tipped her horn towards him and a bright flash went off.

The stallion who had been standing up was gone when I looked back,

Vinyl was already over at the couch where the mare was slumped against the cushions, giving me just enough time to look at her bright horn before another flash went off and forced me to look away.

She was gone this time.

I instinctively looked over to the first one to have fallen, seeing that Vinyl was knelt down and fiddling with the crossbow on his hoof. She ripped it off his arm with ease and tossed it backwards towards me. She stood back up and sent out one final flash as the stallion disappeared.

The room was eerily silent after that, the only sound being Vinyl's hooves as she lazily walked back over to the couch that was barring the doorway. She slowly climbed over it and into the hallway, using her head to begin pushing it back into the center of the living room.

After that she levitated the door off the floor and propped it up against the doorway. If someone were to knock it would simply fall inwards into the room.

That seemed to be the extent of her damage control as she trudged back over to the couch and fell down onto it. I felt worry arise.

"Vinyl, what about your..." I stopped myself as I spotted what should've been her wounded chest and hoof now perfectly fine, no sign that an arrow had even pierced and not to mention be ripped out.

"...wounds." I finished, my eyes drifting over to the crossbow Vinyl had ripped off.

I picked up the horribly twisted piece of machinery, glossing over the fact that the rope supposedly holding my hooves behind my back had been cut somehow.

The device was unmistakably familiar. I had seen them in the forest before, used by what I could only assume was The Order. The implication of seeing this was that they were after Vinyl - and maybe me by association. I wondered briefly if Vinyl had ripped it off the stallion to show this to me, or if she had done it just to rob him of his weapon.

A snore from the couch stole my attention, Vinyl had fallen back asleep already.

Comments

[Tomi]

Hope we find out soon what happened at the bar.

[Witchery]

Holy intense!

[Vendable Sheik]

Ok, aren't Maple and Flint living basically right next to Vinyl and Octavia? How did they not hear any of that fight?

[Backlash91]

I am Co fused by something....if flint, autumn, and stone all live in the apartment next door.....how did they not hear the commotion? Great chapters regardless, i'm just confused as to how none of that alerted them....

[Black diamond]

I apologize for the use of fowel language in my coment in the last chapter I have had a long day.