Fangs: The Order

by Sapphic

The Journey Begins

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

"So, what brings you here anyways deary?" My mother asked, reclining on the couch while my father laid back in his chair. He popped an eyebrow to me at the question, showing he was also interested in what the answer was.

"Well, believe it or not, but Vinyl's gone missing again." I said solemnly.

They both had similar looks of their own when I said it.

"Pity."

"A shame indeed... I suppose you're off to go find her then?" Father asked.

I nodded.

"Ah, of course. I trust you'll be safe with your two friends then?" He followed up, quirking his brow to me.

I looked over to Vinyl's mother, who was sat next to my own mother. She couldn't seem to stop staring at Miss Scratch's face, admiring her complexion. I then looked to Sweeps, who was simply looking down at the ground trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

"Yes, I'll be fine." I said.

Both Sweeps and Vinyl's mother were unicorns, already making them more useful than myself. Not to mention one was a vampire with unnatural strength and speed who managed to somehow live without using her eyesight. Did she use echolocation or something? That still wouldn't explain how she could make out the mood and appearance of people, but it was all I could think of.

"Well, it's good you stopped by to tell us then." My mother said with a bit of relief, taking a break from burning her eyes into Vinyl mother only to return the second she had finished talking to me.

Suddenly, a maid stuck their head through the open door leading to the dining room.

"Dinner will be out in a few moments."

"Octavia, I don't mean to be rude in any regard, but could we get ours to-go? I'd like to get a good start on walking, you know how I am in the sun." Vinyl's mother said, though I'd be more inclined to think that she just wanted to get away from my mother who was now hovering a hoof near her face in an attempt to touch it.

"Soup might be pretty hard to make 'to go', but I'll see what we can do." My father said.

"Oh, and I'd also like to talk to you before we go father." I said.

It had been proven pretty consistently that my father knew a lot about where he lived, which he took pride in. He knew the geography of the mountain side of Canterlot and also knew most things surrounding the castle for a few miles in every direction. If anyone knew where some would be, it'd be him or the map makers he hired.

"Of course. Dear, please stop trying to touch our guests." My father said as he got up, not bothering to look at my mother who hid her previously hovering hoof sheepishly behind her back.

I noticed that Sweeps got up too to come with us, not that I minded.

As we walked back to an all too familiar study in the back of my family's home, I noticed how suppressed Vinyl's mother was being about my previous threat to tell her daughter on her. I suppose she realized that if she spoke too much about her daughter into my family that she would eventually slip up and accidentally expose Vinyl's secret.

And then I'd really tell Vinyl on her.

As my father held open the door to let the four of us into his now cramped looking office, he immediately got down to business.

"So, what is it you three are looking to find out." He said.

"The location of an order of-" Sweeps began, only to have a white hoof smack over her mouth hard enough to be worried for the sake of her teeth.

"A place." Vinyl's mother said calmly.

"Oh? Such as...?" He said, opening a drawer behind his desk and rifling through what sounded like paper.

"Well...we're not quite sure actually." I admitted.

In all honesty, we we're all clueless to where the place was we were looking for. Last time we needed to find a place, we were lucky enough to have Vinyl show us - and we only found her because she was hunting me at the time. For all we know, they could have taken her right back into the room across the way, though I'm sure we would have heard something by now.

"Hm. Well that already makes it difficult." He said, pulling up a map and sprawling it across the blank surface of his wooden desk, an overhead lamp lighting up the surface well enough to make out every detail.

"Do you know if it'd be out of town? That would narrow the search significantly." He asked, not bothering to look up from the map as he scanned it intently with furrowed brows.

"Ideally." Vinyl's mother said.

"Well, I know most of the places outside of the city until it becomes mostly farm land. These are all mills and this is a bakery that the mills supply to." He began, pointing out all of the surrounding areas and what they were so that we could tell if they were the right place or not.

I was partially impressed with what he was doing, what with not questioning anymore than he did and letting us do most of the asking. I guess he could tell that we didn't want much getting out thanks to Vinyl's mother's hoof slapping Sweeps when she began to mention a bit more than we should.

"And this one-"

"What's this one?" Sweeps asked suddenly, now at the table as opposed to near the door where VInyl's mother had been.

I looked back only to see her shrug as to how she got away.

"Hmm. One of the few I have no idea. I never got around to seeing what it was." My father admitted while Sweeps dug through her bag and pulled out her own map and held it up for comparison.

Oddly enough, the location wasn't present on her map like it was on my father's.

"Who made this map?" Sweeps asked, noting the distinct lack of the building on her map.

It wasn't a small building either, taking up a good size in comparison to something as large as a plot of farmland - being almost twice the size of the acres of land that took up the Canterlot farms.

"I hired an out of town map maker to take a balloon ride and make his own map for me. I can't stand the lack of detail in the city offered one, and all the map makers in town all belong to the city." He said.

"Interesting." Sweeps concluded, packing up her map and walking back to the door without another word. She even picked up Vinyl's mom's hoof and placed it back over her mouth, much to said mare's surprise.

"Well, as far as I know these three places are your best bet for now. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and send Wilfred and Hammer out to the other places tomorrow. Me and your mother will check around town tomorrow as well." My father said, indicating this was as much as he could help.

"Thank you daddy." I said, trotting up and giving him a warm hug.

It had been so long since I had hugged my dad like this, but it was also a long time since I had asked so much of him. I knew it wasn't easy to be him, especially with what he has to put up with every day and night, and it amazes me that he can keep a steady smile the whole time.

'Heh...kinda like Vinyl.' I thought, my eyes widening suddenly as I realized just how similar Vinyl and my father were.

"Well, Wilfred probably has your food packed up and ready. Best not to keep him waiting." My father said, backing away and looking down on me with the same heavy smile. Only now I looked at this smile with so much more awe. It was like I was seeing him in a different light entirely.

He looked concerned when I stared at him for so long.

"Is there something on my face? In my teeth?" He asked, patting his head in search of whatever it was that was making me stare.

"Nothing. Just thinking." I said with a smirk.

He looked a bit confused for a second, though it quickly faded back into a smile.

"Atta girl." He smirked.

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

It had been about an hour since we had left my parent's home, and we found ourselves walking along a gently curving, dirt road that served almost as a wall between two different worlds it seemed. On one side there were rolling hills with thick and healthy grass fields that flowed gently in the cool breeze of the night. The moon was in perfect view on this side, reflecting off of a large lake past the rolling fields.

On the other was a thick and tall forest with every leaf and limb outlined in the darkness of night. The sounds of life came from this side in the form of bugs and the occasional bird reminding us that we were not by ourselves.

The three of us walked so that neither of us were excluded from the conversations we periodically had. Myself being in the middle, Sweeps being on the side with the open fields, and Vinyl's mother hugging the curve of the road near the forest.

It was during one of these conversations that Vinyl's mom preformed something I would consider rare.

She admired me.

"Octavia dear, if there is one thing I can say for certain, it is that your parents are well versed in pony nature." She said.

Well, it wasn't me, it was my parents, but either way I felt a swell of pride when she mentioned it. I didn't even have to ask her to elaborate on what she meant this time, because I felt the same way about them too. They knew how people acted; that the broad nature of people couldn't be simply summed up in a sentence. There were far too many personalities out there to do that, and so they had reached a point of not letting bias always influence their thoughts.

"You have one that is similar in a way. You dating my daughter is enough proof of that." She said, extending a compliment my way.

"Thank you." I said, closing my eyes and just smiling at the thought.

I wasn't sure why, but I just suddenly felt as if everything was so realistic. Colors had been looking more vibrant, despite being dark ones thanks to it being night; the air smelled fresher and every movement was just so visibly to me. I wasn't sure if this was because of vampiric fluids or whatever, but whatever caused it wasn't a concern to me at the moment.

But the rustling in the bushes was.

When I opened my eyes, I noticed both Sweeps and Vinyl's mother were looking over at the bushes as well, most likely for the same reason I was.

The rustling from the bushes didn't sound natural or instinctual the way that the ones of wild animals were, they sounded accidental and ceased suddenly once any major sound was made.

It was suspicious to say the least.

Vinyl's mother leaned in a little, then let out a light chuckle.

"It was a fallen bird." She said, shaking her head and beginning to move again.

Trusting in the fact she was a vampire and hunting was her forte, me and Sweeps both let out nervous chuckles of our own and began to move as well.

We went on further down the road, to the point where the moon that was to the left of us was now behind us, before Vinyl's mother let out a girlish giggle. It was odd to hear it from her, but at this point I had learned to - much like Vinyl - expect anything from her. Though this chuckle somehow sounded... forced?

Though, this chuckle quickly ceased itself and her face twisted to a grimace.

I was beginning to wonder if she was insane.

"Disgraceful." She said simply.

Her hoof suddenly shot out to her right and directly into the thick brush of the forest fast enough for the plants to make a slapping sound with her fur.

Me and Sweeps were considering running at this point, though when she withdrew her hoof we could only go wide eyed and gasp.

She pulled her hoof out of the brush, and with it came a dark red pegasus who had a white hoof crushing into his neck with enough force to make him grit his teeth. Teeth that sported a noticeably large set of shining fangs.

"SImply disgraceful that you thought you could keep sneaking after that mess up. Did you think you could take three when you can't even sneak right, much less dodge?" She asked the pegasus as she began to raise him higher and higher off the ground until his legs no longer touched.

The stallion's only response was attempting to pry Vinyl's mother's hooves off of his neck, though it looked to be in vain as said hoof didn't even budge. I began to move forward to try and stop Miss Scratch from choking the poor stallion to death, but someone else beat me to it.

Well, technically lots of people beat me to it.

"Dammit." Sweeps deadpanned, just before the bushes exploded in a flurry of movement that looked like what one might expect a beehive to look like if they threw a rock at it.

One by one, figures shot out from the bushes and landed themselves in a circle around the three of us. Each of them had a dangerous glint in their eyes as they looked over the three of us over like nothing but food. After the last one hit the ground, from what I hope was the last one, they outnumbered us by exactly four to one with the one currently being strangled included.

Vinyl's mother had since turned her head from the still struggling vampire to the eleven behind her.

She scoffed before picking up the pegasus and throwing her over both me and Sweeps so that she landed with the semi-circle of vampires.

"Couldn't have made it through one good walk without getting jumped. Octavia, I think you might have some bad luck going against you." Sweeps said with a sigh, putting her massive backpack on the ground and opening up one of the zippers.

From her bag she pulled out a well used looking shovel, planting it firmly in the ground before zipping her bag back up and impressively managing to toss it off to the side. She picked up the shovel once more, giving it a practice swing before getting into a stance ready to fight.

Vinyl's mother moved forwards as well, putting a hoof across my chest and gently pushing me behind her in a protective fashion. Her horn sparked a devious red that was bigger and brighter than usual, lighting up the surroundings and making the crowd of vampires flinch in nervousness.

"You lot need to learn a few things about how sneaking works. For starters, don't blow your cover if one of you is caught unless you have the advantage in numbers." She said sagely.

"You really must be blind then lady, there's twelve of us and three of you." One of them snickered.

"As I said, unless you have the advantage in numbers." Vinyl's mother repeated.

A growl came from the same vampire, who jumped quickly at Vinyl's mother, only to be met by the ringing of metal and the face of a shovel. I was personally surprised how firmly Sweeps had stopped the vampire, apparently putting enough force into the shovel to completely cancel out the momentum of the vampire, whose hind legs had bunched up like you might expect in a cartoon when a character hit a wall a bit too hard.

"Looks like there's eleven of you now." Sweeps said, planting the shovel in the ground.

The remaining eleven turned to themselves and nodded, exploding in another flurry of movement as they all got into position.

The majority of them turned out to be pegasi, seven of them launching up to the sky and hovering right in front of the moon in a menacing way. The other four were composed of three earth ponies and one unicorn. As for which one was which, I still didn't know; they had crouched themselves down so that the moonlight didn't quite bathe them enough to see which one had the horn. It was clear that they had a tactic, which was to use confusing movement and bad visibility to throw the opponents off.

"Hmph," Vinyl's mother smirked. "I've been meaning to get in some target practice recently."

There was no response on the vampires part, they simply chose to begin their attack.

The pegasi quickly moved out of the moon light, and became almost invisible as our eyes had to adjust thanks to staring at the moon so long. As a result, two of the dive bombing pegasi managed to hit Sweeps on both sides, dragging her off a couple dozen feet away.

This must've been their plan, to use the blindness we'd suffer from the moon as a debilitation to separate us. Which, despite being an extremely clever plan, had a pretty big flaw in it.

One of the five pegasi heading for both me and Vinyl's mother was surprised to be met by a white hoof to the top of the head, a result of Vinyl's mother teleporting just above him and crashing down on him, and hit the ground hard. The other four quickly changed direction as they realized the stun hadn't worked on Vinyl's mother.

A perk of keeping her eyes closed constantly.

She pressed the advantage by shooting numerous bolts of magic randomly into the air, not aiming for any of them in particular, but more looking to just break their organization.

Vinyl's mom smirked as the barrage had an immediate and strong effect as the four of them scattered.

The sound of ringing iron came from behind me, causing me to turn and see Sweeps drawing back her shovel from the collapsed form of an earth pony.

"Might wanna watch yourself as much as you watch the battle." She said, no anger in her voice surprisingly.

She moved past me and towards the three grounded figures, laughing as they readied for her attack.

And attack she did, her casual walk turning to a full on sprint that did nothing to shock the three vampires who responded by charging her as well.

Though it seemed like this was what Sweeps had intended, as she instantly shoved the shovel into the ground with the face of it towards herself. This made her actually tumble over the shovel in an acrobatic sort of way, one of the hooves of her hind leg coming down on the surprised heads of the vampires and staggering them.

As another vampire rushed her downed form, her horn lit up and wrapped around the shaft of the shovel, helping her pulling it up and slapping a chunk of dirt into the face of the one charging her.

As the vampire spat out the dirt that had gotten into his mouth, Sweep's simply let her magic hover the shovel over to him and began to smack him on the head repeatedly.

It was around this time that a flash of dark purple came from behind the two, revealing the one unicorn of the bunch. Though when I looked towards where the flash had come from, I found no one there.

'Did she teleport?' I asked myself, looking both behind Sweeps and Vinyl's mother as they fended off the vampires.

"Don't move a muscle dear." A sultry mare's voice whispered into my ear around the same time that a pair of hooves wrapped around my waist and chest.

I had only enough time to open my mouth to gather the air needed for a scream before a flash of purple beat me.

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

The next thing I felt, surprisingly, was the feeling of heat - a great contrast from the chilled air of the night I was in not but a few seconds. Upon opening my eyes, I was met with the orange blaze of a large bonfire. Around the bonfire were a number of what looked like small huts, each of them expertly integrated with the surrounding brush of the forest.

It took my mind a second to process what exactly I was looking at. My mind was groggy, as if I was going through the beginning stages of a bad migraine. After a few blinks of my half lidded eyes, they suddenly shot open and I began looking around almost spastically as I realized what had happened.

At first I didn't see anything, but as I began to blink more and more, the view of a pair of eyes came into view.

And another set beside them.

And another.

And another...

I looked around as almost two dozen sets of eyes began to make themselves known, each of them looking at me from a distance away from the bonfire, letting only the reflection of the light make their eyes known to me.

One by one, I noticed that these sets of eyes took on a new feature that I could make out through the darkness.

Devious grins.

Comments

[Chibalt]

Time to start the countdown for all these vampire punks getting their asses kicked.

[Backlash91]

Octavia bout to lay a beat down for the record books.

[Dream Dusk]

Go kick their ass Octavia !

[71M073J]

"Pitty."

should be "pity"

Vinyl's mother who was say next to my mother

what

on the point of the story... THE CLIFFHANGERS
they are cruel