• Published 12th Sep 2015
  • 2,472 Views, 401 Comments

Fangs: The Order - Sapphic



Octavia finally got what she wanted, but it seems that a new struggle to keep it is arising.

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Damage Report

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

"What do you mean don't go?! It sounded like a bomb went off over there!" I all but screamed at Flint, her body firmly blocking the door.

She was oddly calm despite this, showing her experience with field work.

The first slam from across the hall had sent both me and Flint silent with both of our ears perked at attention, listening for the slightest follow up sound. I assumed that maybe someone had fallen hard or something, but when consecutive ones came afterwords was when I made a move for the door.

And right into Flint.

"I mean don't go across the hall into the neighbors apartment. I can't make it much simpler that that." She looked at me with daggers for eyes. I felt the impact of them, but a worry for the grey mare kept bothering me.

"You heard it too, something is happening over there."

Why exactly I was worried for her was beyond me, something just ticked in my head when the loud sounds started coming from the room across the hall. The sounds of course got my attention for the most part, but I also felt an odd feeling from across the hall - sort of like a tugging feeling coming from my horn just after the loud crashes had stopped. I'd heard about magic being able to detect magic, but I had never trained in that sort of magic as it seemed useless to me. My only guess was that a lot of magic went off at once - enough to make even an untrained magic user feel it. This got my attention, with the grey mare being an earth pony it spelt something odd.

She said did say she had a roommate. Was this her roommate?

She seemed to see the look of defiance in my eye and went over over her options.

"What is their business is theirs, not ours. We've already exposed ourselves to that Octavia mare, no need to keep on drawing attention to us." She said sagely.

A look in her eyes showed a critical side to her normally cocky attitude. It was clearly bugging her just as much as I was, but why wasn't she wanting to go investigate? I was sure that she too felt the tugging from across the hall.

"Cover shouldn't be a concern when the ponies across the hall could have just been killed for all we know." I said, calming down but still eager.

She seemed to be getting more and more convinced to go with me. She had been holding up against me for the past few minutes ever since the loud noises began and had also been holding me back from investigating. I had spent those minutes yelling at her.

"Just let me go knock on the door then. I don't have to barge in, if they don't answer then so be it." I said anxiously, watching as her eyes got softer as she finally caved in.

She sighed heavily.

"Fine, but that's it." She almost spat.

Her voice was a fleeting one, as I was half way out our own door when I had heard the beginning of the word "fine". I could tell she was following me at her own pace.

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

I all but slammed into the side of the hallway as I turned the corner from my door to look down the hall and at my neighbors door. It was bout five feet forwards from our own door. I gave it a look over to see if there was any signs of forced entry, but nothing showed up from the front of the door.

It had been silent for a while now.

I felt a bit more assurance at the sign of nothing wrong on the surface, but I still had to give it a knock or two to be sure.

"Well, go on then." Flint grumbled from behind me at our own doorway.

I gave her a nod and trotted forwards hastily, arriving at the door and giving it another close look. I was looking for anything at this point, scratches on the door, magical marks, anything on the surface that could show signs of struggle.

I sighed at the sigh of nothing and cleared my throat.

I raised my hoof up and gave the door a solid knock, the corners of my eyes seeing Flint approaching. I lingered a little bit and waited for her to get as close as she would, then knocked.

A single knock rang out, and even though I drew my hoof back for another, I found that I only hit air when I tried to knock again.

The door slowly leaned into the home, finally falling down with a loud bang.

Both my eyes and Flint's were wide and glued to the door as it fell.

I looked up and saw Octavia standing up, peering at me from behind the couch inside the room. She seemed just as surprised to see us as we did to see her, though I think one of us was a bit more justified in our shock. Unless she didn't know that her door lacked hinges.

I felt Flint stick her head in the doorway.

"Uhm-" I cleared my throat. "A-are you okay over here? We heard a lot of banging from over here and well..." I said, attempting to regain my composure while my eyes drifted down to the door again.

"Oh, uh - Yes, I'm fine. I just uh..." She cast a look down at the couch, her eyes lingering a moment before speaking again.

"...slipped." She said.

"Wow, musta' been quite a fall." Flint butted in, her head craning and looking around the interior of the apartment. I also heard her whisper something about their wall's paint color - despite it being hardly visible thanks to the room's lighting - but she was silent after that.

"Oh, don't know if you knew this, but it looks like your door is broken." Flint added, her head slipping out of the doorway and back into the hallway.

I turned back to Octavia just in time to see a small fidget coming from the couch, a hoof hovering behind and peaking just above the back of the couch.

"Oh, is that your roommate?" I asked, a bit anxious since I hadn't seen the pony before.

I began trotting in without consent, going towards the couch at an eager pace to get a look at whoever it was. I really just wanted to see if it was a unicorn, that maybe this was the reason behind the small 'hiccup' in my magic earlier. Well, that and I hadn't even had a look at her roommate.

A hoof landed on my shoulder and jerked me to a stop.

"I don't remember hearing her invite you in, unless I'm going deaf." Flint said with a forced smile.

"I, uh-"

"The words you're looking for are 'was just leaving'." She said dangerously, pulling me back from the room with surprising amounts of strength.

"Oh, it's nothing really, you're both welcome to come in if you-" Octavia began, only to have the other grey mare of the room interrupt her.

"Oh no, we don't mean to intrude, do we?" Flint asked, her grip tightening and beginning to make my shoulder burn with pain.

"N-No!" I stammered, just before the hoof jerked me back out of the room and into the hallway.

"I believe you opened the door didn't you?" Flint asked me rhetorically, gesturing to the downed piece of wood.

My horn lit up as I picked up the door with a bit of effort, beginning to feel like I was being treated like a foal, and placed it back into the door frame. 'Closing the door' in a different sense than the term was usually used in.

Flint sighed once the door was in place, her grip loosening and her hoof slumping off my shoulder. The pain continued to throb in the place where the hoof had been, despite this being only a disciplinary hold. I'd hate to see it if she actually had intended to hurt me.

"Man, you suck at spy work don't you?" She sighed, her hoof going up to her forehead.

"I was only going to look at her roommate. We haven't even seen her yet and it's starting to bug me." I replied.

"And you're never going to see her if it comes to it. We're operating on blending in here, not trying to invade the privacy of others dummy." She looked at me, scolding and serious yet somehow slightly playful.

I didn't really have much to say after that, she was right in how these types of missions work. And to add to that, I had never been on one of these to begin with.

She sighed a little, her face turning apologetic though never saying anything to directly apologize to me.

"Look, it's whatever. Just try and be more careful?"

I nodded.

"Good." She smiled.

"Lets head back, Stone should be back in a little while with breakfast." She offered, turning and heading back towards the apartment building.

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

The door creaked open as the sound of heavy hooves entered, signaling that Stone had finally made his return. I tossed my eyes over to see his bulking form coming through the door with his head bent down and a small plastic box gripped between his teeth and resting on his beard. It had been about fifteen minutes since me and Flint had come back inside from across the hall, making it about twenty five since he first left.

Flint seemed to see this.

"Back so early? I wasn't expecting you to be back for about an hour..." She sounded obviously curious, but also a bit worried as well. I guess it wasn't normal to see him come back so early from one of his 'expeditions'.

"Well, I was plannin' on snooping 'round for awhile-" He said through clenched teeth as he set the plastic bag down onto the counter near the kitchen.

"-but I ran into quite the sight on the way down."

I found the idea of Stone 'snooping' anywhere funny. It was like trying to sneak a boulder into town.

"Oh?" Flint raised a brow.

"Aye', quite the sight indeed." He said, trotting over to the couch and plopping down on the couch beside me. I was lucky I hardly took up half the cushion, because he took up almost all the rest of it.

"Well don't keep me waiting."

"Aye, aye." He grumbled, leaning back into the couch.

"Was walking down to the city, takin' a bit of a side road to get there according to one of the guards I talked to, and walked past an entry to an alleyway and I thought I saw something. Flash of some kind, bright blue I think."

Flint and I were silent and listening intently.

"Well, went back there to look 'round and found two lads and a lass flat on the ground, two of 'em out cold." He said sounding grave.

"Walked up to the lot of 'em and asked the conscious one if he was sittin' right. He apparently recognized me and turns out they were the little patrol working with you Flint." Stone's voice had gotten colder and more serious than ever despite his laid position.

Flint was visibly serious as well.

It was weird how they had, for the most part, joked about the vampire being beaten by the squad earlier.

"Any casualties?" She asked.

"Nah, luckily the conscious one was the medic of the bunch and was able to treat 'em. Said he chose not to fight by choice though you could see the fear in his eyes. Lass had some broken ribs and bruising at most, the other lad was messed much more. Some cuts on his body, but the worse part was the concussion that almost broke the lad's skull. Doc said that any more force and it woulda' been lights out for good."

The room was deathly silent after that, but Stone wasn't done.

"I asked him 'bout what happened, and you could see he was shaking 'bout it."

"Lad said the mare was faster than anything he'd seen, 'parently able to dodge arrows without teleportation - either that or her magic color is pure black and can turn bright blue on a whim. He also said she was rather unpredictable, she was playful for some of the fight and then turned grim and scary in an instant. Took a few bolts voluntarily and didn't even flinch ripping 'em out or pushing 'em all the way through. She apparently kicked the lass into a couch hard enough to launch the couch back into the wall with a single, effortless, buck; then slammed the lad's head into the ground hard enough to almost kill him."

This was, at the very least, disturbing. I had never quite come across something like this - a vampire who played with pray by shrugging off attacks and being playful with them just to show it was useless. Though if that was the case, why didn't she kill them? Stone said that she kicked the mare into the couch and back into a wall with an 'effortless' buck so killing them couldn't have be that much harder? Did she mean to let them live?

"He also said that she was the one who teleported 'em away."

"That's strange..." Flint murmured.

"She may have been protecting something if she didn't go for the kill." I suggested.

"Nah, she would've especially gone for the kill if she was protecting something." Flint mumbled, rubbing her chin in thought.

"Well, she sounds like something to live up to the legend of those contracts from the past. Shame she didn't go easy on the patrol though." Flint continued, sounding sad.

"Their alive. That's much more than going easy on them." Stone said, his tone reflecting his many years with The Order shining in just a few words.

"Did he say where the place was?" I butted in.

"No, said he had trouble remembering the location but could for some reason remember the events perfectly. Oddly enough, he also said he couldn't remember how the mare looked either, only that she was a mare."

"Well she's a unicorn then if she teleported them away. That also might be the reason they can't remember." I pointed out.

"Aye. That, or he was traumatized." Stone nodded.

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

"So, anything happen while I was gone?" Stone asked, his hulking form hunched over the table as he ate some of the food he had brought back.

Flint shot me a glare, so I decided to let her do the talking.

"Neighbor's were having some work done on their door, made a bit of noise, but that was about it." She said smoothly.

Why wouldn't she want Stone to know anyways?

"Hm." Stone grunted.

"So what's our next move to get the target?" I almost blurted.

Despite Stone's report I was more than ready to do some field work myself. This 'Vinyl Scratch', if she is the one the group ran into, must b quite the spectacle to see if she is so capable of beating squads within an inch of their life so easily.

They both turned to me, then to themselves, then Stone to his plate, then Flint to me.

"Well, sending another group after her is an idea. Not much else we can do as of now since we don't have much info to go off of." Flint explained.

"Wait, why can't you guys look for her as well?" I asked. It seemed like these two would be the best ponies to send out to sniff out a vampire.

"Well, we have ponies set out in towns for this specific reason. They are more familiar around these places than we are, and two random strangers looking around a town is bound to catch someone's eye."

"Well, I guess that makes since..." I mumbled.

When I had first found out that I was going on this mission I was expecting lots of action, not sitting around waiting for others to give us something that we had to piece together and then go in for one grab of the target. It seemed really dry compared to regular field work, but these two seemed to be really enjoying it. Wasn't I supposed to be doing something?

"Well, you were assigned on the mission since you were part of the most recent incident in the area prior to the contract of Vinyl Scratch being placed. Shockingly recent actually." Flint explained.

"We guessed that you would be the most relevant since you may or may not have been the last one to be in contact with Vinyl Scratch. You were also sent along to keep us two in line, that and regulation says you can't go back to your original squad just yet.." She answered with a hoof behind her head, rubbing it sheepishly.

"Aye, we tend to be a little bit... careless." Stone chuckled with a voice deep enough to shake my own chest.

That's about the exact opposite I was expecting the reasoning to be behind me coming with them. Well, the keeping them-in-line part at least.

"But to answer your first question, we will probably send in one more squad to test her - this time with priorities on getting information - before we finally get serious about this. If the second squad comes in with no info then one of us will be going with the next hunting party after her." Flint began again, gesturing to her and Stone who was finishing off his plate and slowly inching his hoof over to Flint's.

"Not quite sure how the first group found her and then weren't able to give us any information about her appearance or location, but if that happens again we'll make sure that's where it ends." Flint's eyes were back to having a look of fiery, orange, determination.

I wasn't quite sure what Flint thought of the troops below her, whether she saw them as expendable or as equals and would go to any extent to avenge them. She seemed to flip between the two on a whim.

"Send in some ponies with a bit more experience would ya? I was lucky to stumble upon those poor folks by chance but I fear next time we provoke whoever it was they ran into it'll be a bit more messy than some cuts, bruises and a concussion." Stone asked lazily.

"Sure, I'll see if I can't meet up with the local top squad." Flint said with a dangerous look in her eye.

"I want to see what she can really do."

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

Author's Note:

Came out a bit short, but I felt that if I went any further it would make chapter structure a bit awkward for the following chapter. Hope you enjoy it anyways.