21st Century Vampire

by Peridork

Raining Blood

Zipp stared out the stained glass window of her secret castle hideaway spot, the old clock chiming midnight. Glory as nearby in a mass of pillows half asleep, the young pegasus turned batpony finally calmed down from the hectic day. Zipp yawned and realized that she was also exhausted from the stressful day.

She heard a faint buzzing nearby and picked up her phone to see who was calling her this time of night- she was more of a morning pony compared to her sister's night owl tendencies so most of her friends and confidants knew that she was usually indisposed after ten pm. Of course tonight was a bit odd.

"Hello?"

Zoom's voice came on the line. "Hey so, there's some rather weird stuff going on downstairs. Jazz texted something about a vampony frenzy and all that, kind of hard to parse, what was it Thunder? 'Bloody mess, oh my god, there's like a hundred of these things, oh and Pipp is doing her new album.' Which is cool and all but it doesn't fit with the whole emergency vibe."

Zipp rolled her eyes. Pipp's employees were rather odd. Though it made sense Jazz would focus on the new release for a bit, she was Pipp's number two, her cohost of the Pippcast at times, and often helped run like every one of Pipp's major events. Honestly, Zipp hoped the mare was paid well for her efforts cause Pipp was a hooffull and a half to even be around.

"Yeah, if Jazz spent time saying there's a problem, there's a problem. I mean she has a good head on her shoulders. Let's meet up and get ready for whatever mess this is. Oh, and Zoom, tell Thunder what the flip has been going on for the last day so he doesn't go down thinking its just a costume party and walks himself into a massacre."

***

Sunny Starscout stared at the swirling mass of confusion happening around her and she was horribly conflicted, on one hoof she could see for herself the habits of vamponies since there were mentions in the records that Twilight had a vampony problem once, but on the other hoof, she was currently in a cacophony of lights and sounds and fear.

While she enjoyed a fair bit of theatricality, she had spent weeks trying to get an accurate read on Nightmare Moon's armor and while she was decidedly happy that the red mist from the sky wasn't actual blood, it was still water and parts of her costume were made out of metallic objects.

She glanced over at Izzy, who was currently having the time of her life headbanging to the music Pipp was blasting on stage and while it was rather cute, she had to admit, there was a time and place and everypony needed a firm sense of direction. Though the weird idea of Pipp singing metal music did throw her off, the lyrics were odd.

"-give me cake or else I'll scream, cake is life and for that I'll bleed. . ." a surprisingly low pitched growl came from Pipp as she finished that sentence. It took a few ponies aback since it sounded like it didn't come from the bubbly pink mare.

For all the lyrics were almost nonsensically sweet since the mare was singing about her love of cake, she at least learned how to pull that off. Even if Sunny wasn't a big fan of the music- Zipp was the one that fanmared about bands like this- she could see the merit of it.

But the situation about horror vamponies being dangerous took precedence. "Okay, think Sunny, think. In the annals of Twilight Sparkle, collated by Dad, we have at least one major description of these things, with minor mentions of batpony guards so I presume they could be controlled or lured out of the whole feeding frenzy bit. Let's see Fluttershy did have a mention of being one at least once due to shenanigans but its never mentioned again. Though why mention it, its not like I'd mention a issue like chronic illness outside of a few passing references unless things got noticeably worse- so table that thought." Sunny stared at the crowd who was pushing closer to the stage to get away from the mass of vamponies who were currently demolishing the edible pastry displays like they were rabid dogs.

A worrying thought came to her as there was a high change a stampede could happen.

She tapped on Izzy's shoulder to get her marefriend's attention. She'd understand and Sunny would make up for slightly ruining her moment by making it up to her later. Even though she didn't prefer the music, seeing Izzy be carefree and happy about something did make her equally happy. Sunny was good at charades and quickly pointed at the stage and the food table. While it wasn't perfect, she hinted that they all should do something before it got way worse.

"-screw you mom, I do want I want. Give me back my internet connection. . ."

***

Misty was freaking out. She had expected things to go bad, sure, Opaline had mentioned that the act of setting off a batpony into a frenzy was rather dangerous, but that was a minor issue. She was quick on her hooves and prone to happy accidents that kept her relatively safe besides making her look clumsy and silly. That was manageable. It was the whole batpony feeding frenzy bit she completely disliked. They were demolishing the food displays and that was Misty's job.

"Oh no no no no. I was really hoping to try some of those things." Her stomach rumbled as she wiped off the red mist that came from the sky. She sniffed it and sighed. At least it wasn't blood- she had thought it was, that she had done something so bad that it had caused some ancient curse to rain blood on everything and ruin her night. Opaline ha mentioned weird curses like that, old tomes about a mare named Daring Do and Misty had taken them as factual past accounts. Well besides the whole excision of Opaline from being mentioned, but the alicorn had mentioned that she had been written out of the past.

Misty poked her head up from under the table she was hiding under. She glanced through the mayhem, seeing the batponies fight each other for morsels of the dessert tables, crawling over it like ravenous ants, their coats smeared with crumbs and morsels that had fallen to the side Terrible manners aside, this wasn't exactly to Opaline's plan, they were food obsessed, not 'attack the ponies and ruin Harmony' obsessed. She was going to be so miffed about this.

"Hey Misty, I can't believe I found you again."

Misty looked up and saw Izzy and Opaline's second least liked pony. Sunny Starscout, the heir to Twilight's stolen alicorn magic. Misty had never seen the pony in the flesh before, only seeing the orange sometimes alicorn in the scrying pool, her life of normalcy so odd to the blue unicorn. She was supposed to be some great rival and heir to Twilight's stolen magic, and every single day she worked at a smoothie stand. A regular job for a pony who in Opaline's eyes should be ruling over the reformed Equestria.

Sunny, to Misty, was very odd.

"Oh hello there. I wasn't doing anything evil at all. Not at all, just tried to get some food from over there and poof, batpony feeding frenzy. I hid under this table to totally not be doing evil stuff and you found me. Thanks Izzy."

Izzy nodded. "Cool. Well this is Sunny, you know the pony I was talking about? I mean bad timing to be saying hello, but tadah, special alicorn sometimes, normal earth pony sometimes, both awesome."

Sunny blushed slightly. "Izzy, we talked about this, you don't always have to go so hard in introducing me." Sunny cleared her throat to focus her emotions better. "Well hello there, Misty. . ."

Misty blanked for a moment trying to think of the name Izzy had given her. "Misty Brightdawn. At your service." She was killing it today. "I'm honored to meet an alicorn, I mean I think Izzy mentioned it, maybe not, but either way I thought alicorns were a dead breed of pony from ancient history."

Sunny brightened up at that. "You know ancient history? I rarely know ponies who know of the past, I mean once we fix this problem, I'd love to compare notes, you know, see what stays consistent, any differing accounts about the Guardians of Harmony times." Sunny bounced a little as she spoke, carefully monologuing her process of deciphering the past. She breathed out and collected her thoughts. "Sorry, sorry, I just kind of get in the zone sometimes."

Misty stared at the costumed alicorn and sighed. She was like Twilight in many ways. But now she understood Opaline's use of 'nerd' about Twilight Sparkle. Like Twilight, Sunny seemed to be a super nerd. She could use that to her advantage and mention Opaline's true history of events some time. The stealing of magic, sealing off of Equestria, all that stuff. "I'd love to. But yes, for later. Now is the batpony thing."

***

Zipp heard the muffled metal music from outside the ornate doors of the large hall and briefly smiled, sure she was going into a hive of furious ponies like her- those cursed with waking up confused and frightened in their new batty selves and whatever set them off right now.

"-anarchy is the best cause you can get stuff for free. . ."

Zipp grinned. Even if she didn't know what was going on in there, she'd have to lurk around Pipp's forums for a while. She had a burner account to check in on her sister's antics, but the memes and videos of her normally put together sister attempting to sing something outside of her wheelhouse? Now that's content that she'd actually pay for. She carefully nodded at the two pegasi guards who held as many repurposed anti unicorn devices- what Sunny called tennis balls- in bags. Sure it wasn't probably going to help at all, but it was Thunder's idea and Zipp didn't have the heart to say no. Plus Zoom humored her coltfriend's weirder ideas.

"Okay, how do we do this?" Thunder whispered, his legs visibly shaking as he spoke. "Like we just charge in or not? Cause I was thinking we just hide and wait until it blows over."

Zoom rolled her eyes. "Dude. We are literally royal guards. It's kind of our job to rush in and fix stuff like this. You know, the whole training for years, making sure the royals and every single pony around them stays as safe as possible, it's literally like rule one and two in the "Handy Guide For Royal Guarding."

Thunder breathed out slowly, attempting and failing to calm his nerves. "Yeah, I read that, but I was more into being one of Pipp's background dancers, not the main guards for Queen Haven and everypony else. . .really should have done worse on the written test for that. And the weapon test, and the. . .well everything else."

Zipp shrugged. "Well while you get your bearings, I'm going in. And as a royal, I'd say I probably need somepony to protect me, I mean there's like so many unknown and dangerous ponies. . ."

Thunder crossed his hooves and pouted for a moment. "Fine. Lead the way then."

Zipp trotted to the doors and pushed them open and immediately regretted her decision as a blast of smells overwhelmed her for what felt like an eternity. The heightened senses didn't help and she doubted that if she wasn't currently cursed with them the stench would be much better. A wall of conflicting perfumes that clashed and fought for her attention, the faint but lingering smell of fake blood- she knew the difference because of one too many hospital stays- fruity desserts that made her jaw ache for a quick taste, and the natural smell of an enclosed space and too many ponies within.

In short, her body was on fire and it was totally understandable why the mass of newly turned batponies freaked out because she was on the cusp of joining them. She breathed slowly through her nose, trying desperately not to let the mix of heady perfumes and everything else break her concentration. "O-okay, let's go team."

Thunder raised a hoof. "Hey, so like quick question, where should we go first?"

As Zipp was about to answer, one of the large chandeliers in the back of the room crashed loudly to the floor. A loud mix of screams and low roars were added to the massive headache that was building behind Zipp's eyes. "Over there. Rule one when my friends are anywhere: follow the destruction. You'll probably find Izzy that way."

***

Misty was in shock. She had spied on Sunny and her friends for a while, a good month or two before Opaline had decided that direct action was the preferred method of interaction. Especially with the Brighthouse blocking all efforts of secret gathering and quick subterfuge. Opaline had even created a slight ranking of who would be the easiest and safest in for Misty to interact with and influence. Pipp, Izzy, Hitch, Sunny, and then Zipp in that order. And Misty had quickly decided that it was a sacrosanct decision from the alicorn.

Now, with the remains of a massive chandelier strewn across the floor and Izzy tossing crazed and screaming batponies around like it was nothing- the unicorn laughing maniacally as she did so. . .Misty quickly rearranged Opaline's list of safest ponies to interact with and put Izzy near the top. Sure she was far too trusting, too easy to influence, too safe in most cases.

But in high stress and dangerous environments like this- a situation that months of spying had never shown much of since Maretime Bay was decidedly boring and safe- if Izzy acted like this when things went bad, then causing evil havoc might be a bad idea.

She quickly put that thought away since it was anathema to Opaline's stated plans and picked up a broken chair leg in her hooves. She didn't have any magic, not even a flicker so she had to improvise a weapon. "I knew things would be bad but this is nuts."

---

Sunny groaned as she tried to get her magic to do exactly what she wanted. Sure she was far better at magic than she was during the whole ancient mall incident a few months back, but even with focused magic training with Izzy, her magic was sometimes on the fritz. Especially during high stress situations.

"Glitter again. Why won't you work you stupid horn." She tapped on her hard light appendage and groaned. It was weird enough that sometimes she work up as a normal earth pony again. It was annoying that when she was an alicorn everypony treated her as some sort of celebrity or ancient magical god depending on the situation.

But Twilight Sparkle didn't have her magic freak out and turn a simple spell into instant glitter. That wasn't in any ancient book or scroll. No, her friends beat all manner of eldritch abominations and elder gods like it was the simplest thing ever.

So Sunny Starscout had a massive dilemma with only one solution. "Fine, fine, whatever. I'll do this the earth pony way." Sunny had grown up in Maretime Bay, without magic. She had learned how to defend herself with her hooves and while it wasn't her favorite- hoof fights were messy, bloody, and painful- she was at least competent in them. For once she thanked Mrs. Cloverleaf and Canterlogic for putting her and her dad as "Public enemy number one and two." She had years of training for a moment like this.

Though her dad would be slightly disappointed that she was resorting to outright violence yet again. She quietly shot a quick prayer of forgiveness to her father and looked for the nearest batpony and charged into the fray.

***

Pipp noticed the rather unsightly mess that was happening in the back of the venue, not like she could blot it out of her vision since Izzy was firing off magic like it was a fireworks show and, from what she could see of Sunny through the haze of broken glass, twisted metal, and batponies, the sometimes alicorn was piledriving any nearby creatures into the ground.

Pipp quickly noted that maybe getting the mare angry was a terrible idea.

She could see the glint and glare of phones in the crowd and she groaned inwardly as she sang, quietly imagining the mess of videos that would leak online and the amount of spin she'd have to do since those were her own friends causing a scene. She let the music die down for a moment, the song ending naturally as she hit the lowest note she could, and quickly threw up a hoofsign to pause the show.

She hated doing that stuff, mostly cause she had been raised by her parents to always let the show go on, no matter the mistake- barring she had to go to the hospital, but that was a rare occurrence. But with how the last hour had devolved into a tense mess and, beyond that, a fight- she would have to at least comment on it.

She quickly looked back to see how her own backup dancers were handling their batpony fiasco. She scanned the dancers for a moment and smiled briefly. Sure there were some dazed and confused dancers, but the changed ones were dealt with, scarlet ribbons wrapped around their muzzles like a decoration and not a safety precaution, bits of fabric loosely tying the wings so they couldn't fly away and cause more havoc and distress.

If she didn't know it wasn't part of her performance, she would think it was some deep message about. . .society caging ponies or something.

She breathed out and stepped up to the large mic stand, the spotlights trained fully on her for the moment. She was in her element and while she was terrible at lying, especially to her fans since she was like an open book to them, she could spin the truth into something that sounded good enough. She was a social media star and years of selling her everyday life as content made her ready for this.

"Hey everypony, how do you like the concert?"

A smattering of fans cheered and one particularly loud fan screamed out, "I love you, Pipp."

She smiled, careful about choosing her words since she knew the type. "Thank you, yeah. Well, as you can see there's some rather unruly ponies harshing the feel of this concert and. . .my friends are running security, yeah. So don't be alarmed, I mean this is a rock concert, so its to be expected. Now who wants to get in the mosh pit? Cause the first half of the album is done and the second half gets totally bonkers. So get in front but be courteous enough so we don't echo that bad example of a mosh pit back there. Now let's see if my Pippsqueaks know how to headbang. Let's %$#)ing go. Hit it."

Rocky hit the button for the music and a wall of sound screamed out of the amps.

***

"You hear that Thunder? Pipp just broke her "no swearing in public rule." Zoom couldn't hold in her laughter as she chucked a rather recognizable batpony out of her way. Though it wasn't hard since said batpony was having issues flying all that well. "Sorry about that Fifi, hopefully you forgive me once we figure out how to turn you guys back to normal." Zoom heard Thunder's high pitched wails as she ran through a group of ten batponies, carefully stuffing their mouths with tennis balls as she passed by. "How in the world is he having so much trouble with this? I mean these things are kind of stupid."

Zoom turned her head to look for her coworker- they were on the clock and therefore she didn't dare to call him anything more than that ever since the Queen herself sussed out that there may be something between the guard pair. Zoom shook her head and tried to focus through the cacophony to pinpoint her fellow guard. "If I was Thunder, I'd be right about. . .there." She pointed a hoof towards a medium sized mass of crazed bat ponies and grimaced as she noticed the green stallion almost crowdsurfing, his pained cries telling Zoom that there was something wrong.

"That's my cue to waltz in and save him yet again." Zoom tested out her wings, quickly checking if her last few fights with these creatures caused any damage. Finding none, she flapped her wings and felt the glorious rush of lift as she took briefly to the skies, her focus less on mindbending tricks and death defying stunts and more on quickly getting her bumbling sidekick out of harm's way. She gripped onto his green hoof that was waving in the air and pulled, grimacing as she yanked him out of the batpony mob.

"I thought I was a goner, truly, I had my life flash before my eyes and it sucked cause it showed my shoe collection and honestly it could have been way bigger. . ." Thunder gripped himself tightly as he rocked back and forth in Zoom's hooves. "Like I didn't even splurge and get Dulcet and Haybana pumps? Terrible."

"Not the time, Thunder, now you see where Zipp went off to?"

"Dunno, probably towards that mess." Thunder pointed a shaky green hoof at the largest mass of batponies in the back of the venue. "I mean it has her friends in there so I'd say that'd be a good first choice."

***

Zipp walked with purpose through the crowd of batponies, a smirk on her face since she could just imagine the fun Pipp's internet forums would devolve into once her little swear hit the net. She let that push her on since the other choice was pure nonsense. She could be one of the mob of confused batponies, her hearing acute enough to pick them out from the crowded mass, pinpoint where each were and how exactly to weave her way through them.

And all it took was a massive, soul crushing headache. Though Pipp's attempt at being the most hardcore pop princess ever didn't help. Her lyrics alone needed work though most of her pop music devolved into "I feel happy about stuff and am singing about it." Of course her attempt at metal would be the inverse- "I feel angst about something and it bugs me immensely."

Zipp ducked as a batpony soared through the air, their wings singed from Izzy's rampant use of magic. Zipp grimaced as the random pony smashed through a wall. Izzy meant business and while Zipp thought of the rather silly unicorn as more of a nuisance with how often some harebrained invention almost blew up in their faces, she had to admit Izzy knew magic like it was second nature.

"Hey, Zipp, this is definitely the second most fun I've had at a party." Izzy pirouetted through the chaos, smiling all the way. "Like the. . .oh so that's why Pipp was all 'you guys can't see Zipp right now' the whole spooky vampire angst makes way more sense than what I came up with. I thought you fell down a well or got set on fire. Something extra dramatic cause Pipp was really freaking out about it." Izzy shrugged and tossed a screaming batpony into the food displays. "Well stay away from Sunny right now. I think she'd put a world of hurt on you right now since she's in the zone. I mean its super hot and all, but yeah she's not having a great time."

Zipp wanted to ask what the unicorn meant until she saw Sunny in her peripheral vision pick up an entire table and break it over the nearest group of batponies and as the rather angry earth pony fixed her costume, she grabbed another batpony with one hoof and threw them like a missile as hard as she could. Zipp could hear, even through the din of the music, the pony bounce off the ceiling and fall loudly in a heap.

"Dude, are those ponies gonna be okay?" Zipp was actually kind of worried cause that batpony wasn't moving."

Izzy shrugged. "Probably, I mean I think so. I really haven't seen Sunny go like this often, though knock on wood, I've only really been with her as more than friends for like a few months and Sunny's pretty good at keeping 'mostly chill' as Pipp says. Doesn't mean that she doesn't get like this ever, I've seen it, but I usually have ways in controlling or stopping it. Cause she totally freaks out all the time. I mean you should have seen her when that weird banana meme happened and she thought her life was over. She went through like the whole range of emotions there. One of them was, well, extreme rage."

Zipp shook her head. She was usually fantastic on picking up cues about other ponies- she was Zephyr Heights' best and only self proclaimed detective, but she didn't think Sunny and Izzy were a pair. "Neat, now what do you need me to do? Cause I have a whole lot of tennis balls. . ." She waved the satchel of items that Thunder had passed her. "and I don't know what to do with them."

Izzy chuckled. "Good times, good times. But no I think those won't help at all. You could give them to Misty though, I think she needs something to put in their mouths."

Zipp cocked her eyebrow. "Who's Misty?"

***

Misty dragged yet another knocked out batpony to the pile that was building up from Izzy and Sunny's rampage through the creatures. Sure these were still all ponies, not like they weren't, but Opaline had made batponies sound like literal forces of nature and right now they looked like they were made of cardboard. She hummed to herself and patted her vial of perfume, nervously checking that in the scuffle with these things it hadn't shattered into a thousand pieces.

Though with how perfume heavy the room still was, it would have been nearly impossible to tell.

"Opaline is gonna kill me for ruining this, I just know it. But how should I have known that we misjudged them. I mean come on, Izzy was the creative one that knew magic, not whatever light show is going on over there. And the less said about Sunny the better." Misty grimaced as she heard Sunny's rage over the music. "Wonderful. What's next? Is Zipp going to come up and do something dangerous?"

"Ah, I'm guessing you're Misty. Blue unicorn, frizzy hair. I mean Izzy gave me a description and all."

Misty froze. She breathed in and out as fast as she could to stabilize her racing thoughts. How much had Zipp heard? Was her cover blown? Was she going to go to the jail that Izzy raved about? She felt her heart racing in her chest and tried to act casual. Or at least as casual you could be while you were evil monologuing/ complaining while dragging a body. A live one, thank goodness. She would have had multiple issues if she was just carrying around those things. "I am, I mean yes, its me. Misty. Misty Brightdawn. Completely trustworthy and lovable pony who could never do anything wrong ever."

Zipp cocked her head, her years of detective training firing off myriad red flags, from how this new pony talked and acted she was either up to something or a nervous wreck. Or somewhere in between. She quickly jotted a mental note to keep an eye on her, especially if she popped up again. One bad thing happening with a completely new and unknown pony that knew her name was chance, multiple bad things was a pattern and patterns were one step away from a mystery.

"Cool, so do you need help?"

Misty turned, completely ready to answer and froze as Zipp's batty features came into focus as the harsh lights of the stage swept over the pair for a brief moment. "Oh. Oh no. You're a batpony too?" That was definitely not part of the plan, it was a possibility, sure, but Pipp was up there totally not a terrible batpony disaster and her sister was here all batty. That was not something Misty had expected, though it wasn't like she knew what Opaline termed "genetics", the closest thing she knew was color theory and how color combining worked. She had painted things before until Opaline deemed them a bit too frivolous- maybe that's how these genetics worked, like blue and yellow made green so normal pony plus batpony made like half batpony weirdos. She blinked for a moment, cursing her inexperience, that sounded dumb.

Zipp ran a hoof through her mane and tried not to open her mouth too much- with how on edge Misty seemed to be she wanted to keep the unicorn from having an outright panic attack. "Yeah. Weird day. I'm surprised you didn't attack me or something, with how Izzy and Sunny are acting over there. . ." Zipp pointed back towards the pair. "I'd have thought you'd have broken a chair over my head or something."

Misty smiled briefly. She had dropped the broken chair leg somewhere in this mess and it had become misplaced once she started doing "triage" as Izzy termed it. "Oh I would have. I don't really like spooky stuff and this just overloaded my spooky meter." The unicorn tried to laugh, her chuckle sounding hollow to her ears as she had been dealing with a failed mess of a plan for what had to be hours and she was kind of exhausted. "After this I'm taking a long nap cause I signed up for a party and having batponies appear like out of an old tale just ruined it."

Misty was technically telling the truth- she had really looked forward to the party.

"You and me both. I mean I don't know what to do about all this." Zipp pointed a hoof back at her leathery wings, the rest of the extensive changes going unsaid as she grabbed a mostly intact chair and sat down. "Like is this our new normal- I mean I can handle it just fine- besides the fruit cravings, but there's at least one or more foals dealing with this and that's kind of. . .a lot. To think about, I mean. Some ancient curse just making us this and us not having a say in it."

Misty shrugged. She was having a real conundrum here- these were ponies that Opaline said were her mortal enemies, the heirs of magic that didn't belong to them and yet a small part of her wanted to just say that this whole mess was simple. "It's how ancient curses work. I mean not that I know how they work in practice, just from what I've read in unicorn magic books that briefly touch on the subject of curses." Smooth.

"So anything about batponies or is this permanent?"

Misty hesitated for a moment and relented. She knew that Opaline was probably watching, that the alicorn would take this moment or any moment where she took the side of her mortal enemies was a sign of weakness, but she'd also gone from random unknown participant to Izzy corralling her into whatever "Triage" was and possibly a new acquantance.

So she wouldn't technically be ruining any future plans of Opaline's if she thought of this as a trust building exercise, one that Future Misty could totally use an in. Plus wording it in that way to the moody alicorn might make dinner a possibility again. Not that she was lacking in food, just in comparison this place had so much that she was taken aback by it.

"Well, an ancient tome I used to carry mentioned that this particular curse was like tied to the moon by some ancient unicorn. You know cause they had all the magic back then and, uh, wanted to send a message to the pegasi or whatever. I am not really trained in old languages so the translation is bad and my teacher has the book now so I can't reference it." Another technical half truth. Opaline had plenty of old books and cursed tomes, of course there was something about this in her ancient collection. "So its kind of more an annoyance now cause its an ancient spell and time moved on. She said it was like a monthly occurrence. Could be wrong though, cause. . .uh, the word for permanent and monthly was interchangeable. So sun up you and all the rest should be okay. Probably. Maybe."

"Interesting. . ." Zipp flapped her leathery wings for a moment in thought. "So you just appeared out of nowhere, know generally what's going on and maybe have a nice solution for everypony? How lucky."

Misty knew she was boned. "Unicorn knowledge is very, uhm, ancient and knowledgeable. Especially where I'm from and how long its been since we had magic. I mean when you only know of magic through books and not like applied stuff, of course we all kind of went hard for ways to get magic back. But you and those weirdos over there did it and so I just have mostly useless knowledge about the past. I mean really only. . .uh, what was it? Sunny? She was interested in the past and how stuff was different back then. Yeah."

Zipp shrugged and pushed off the interrogation, not that she trusted the mare- far from from that- but she had better things to do than play bad cop, worse cop. Though she loved doing that cause most ponies broke at the slightest hint of an uncomfortable breeze. "Makes sense." It didn't, but she had learned that one massive mystery was good enough for one night and Misty would have to earn her trust. She attempted to solve multiple interconnected mysteries at once when she was little and she had become trapped in the freezer for a good ten minutes because she had wanted to figure out who kept stealing her ice cream. Turns out it was the simplest solution- if missing food was the mystery, nine times out of ten it was Pipp's doing.

So nine times out of ten, if a pony acted strangely and seemed a suspicious character, they were totally suspicious and up to something. She was just too good at sniffing out odd behavior- her psychologist called it being paranoid, but she called it being realistic. Though she did accidentally ruin all of her surprise parties like immediately.

"So do you want like some snacks? I mean the buffet table is kind of out of commission due to all that. . ." The pair looked over and sighed as the fight was still going on, and probably would for a time. "I mean I need some fresh air and like a sandwich. Or something and I could scrounge up food in the royal kitchens. I don't cook often, but compared to my sister, I'm a total chef."

Misty's stomach grumbled and she relented. Sure she was on edge because Zipp was smarter than the average pony and not adverse to smelling out lies, but she hadn't ate much all night- even with her attempts of pilfering the assorted sweets and pastries. "I mean if you're offering."

***

Pipp opened her eyes and yawned as she felt the soreness of last night wash over her. She loved performing, it was, as some rather smart influencers said on Feedbag, "the reason they got up in the morning and the core of their being." While she didn't always listen to others ideas, she did like the sentiment. She stretched her wings and blinked as she tried to remember exactly what happened last night in between the new album premiere and the whole batpony mess that, if she was a betting mare, would be all over the socials like a plague.

She opened up her phone, on silent of course, being a famous pony had some disadvantages and scrolled through her socials, careful to no read too many bad messages- she knew exactly who she was and no amount of poorly worded dislike disguised as criticism would make her change.

"Boring, nice, terrible grammar and bad advice, and some random link to my forum? Oh this will be interesting cause I love seeing what my Pippsqueaks say about me." She opened the link and her eyes scanned the dedicated forum and she started seeing a slightly not good trend.

"Oh no. No. No. No. I didn't think I said a bad word, like I know I was totally in the zone and Jazz tells me that I kind of do wacky stuff but this is totally not advertiser friendly." She fumbled through her phone contacts and looked for her second in command/ public relations manager/ confidant in all things. She pressed Jazz's phone number and she was thankful that she hadn't put on her makeup yet as the tears welling in her eyes would have made the whole iconic look run over her face and she didn't need that. "Jazz what do I do? Like I need all the help. Should I fire up an emergency stream of the Pippcast to assuage all my fans that the sky isn't falling? What about Ponyfans? Or my other socials? What about my advertisers I mean I just released another fragrance in Parfum Le Pipp like I need guidance."

Jazz's tired voice came through the phone speaker. "Gd back to bed and relax. I mean its nothing new. So you broke your rule. Your self-imposed "no swearing rule." I didn't make you do that and most advertisers don't care if somepony says one bad word like once. You aren't nearly as controversial as other pegasi heiresses and you focus entirely on content. Also you made ClipTrot's most searched clip of the morning, Fumble loves you and I could list out how much this little fumble made you more of a relatable character than your buttery sweet princess act."

Pipp narrowed her eyes at that last comment. "I'll have you know that this isn't an act."

Jazz grumbled. "Sure. I get that, but there's a subsection of Equestria that thought you were too perfect. And this has made the rounds. Also I'm totally exhausted since unlike you, I was focused more on dealing with the aftermath of the batpony situation since I was the one who made the event."

"Oh that's terrible." Pipp didn't exactly know what planning a major event involved, but Jazz always looked worried when they were planning one. She could just imagine the headache. "Sounds like you need a day off too."

"Yeah." Jazz hung up to prove her point.

***

Zipp stared at herself in the mirror and smiled. She had gone to bed tired and exhausted from the last twenty-four hours. She had gone to bed worried that she'd wake up and still be a batpony- a fate that she would have grown to live with and accept, but she rather liked being a pegasus. It had been all she knew for forever and no magic curse or weird ancient magic would change that. Misty's mention of it being a monthly occurrence nagged her, but it was just another thing she would come to terms with. She could learn how to juggle so many things- W.I.N.G.S training, detective work, her friends and their adventures- adding "turning into a bat" was simple when you knew what to expect.

Waking up as a batpony the first time was awful though. Absolute nightmare.

She picked up her phone and shot a text to her sister and Zoom telling them the good news.

"Okay, time to unwind after that." She scrolled through her phone and smiled as her feed showed the night before in so many angles. There was a healthy debate about if everything was a stunt tied to the Spooktacular or if it was real and she used her burner account to add into the discussion. Don't know about you but it sure looked fake #makeup #Pippnewalbum #yay Her burner account was a Pippsqueak through and through, she might not say it out loud, but she wanted to support her sister, even if she was a hooffull. Her phone buzzed lightly as the responses flooded in.

She scrolled down and grimaced as she noticed that somepony had gotten a good picture of her as a batpony and she sighed as she scrolled through the nice comments. Zipp was primarily offline for one reason and one reason only. Zephyr Heights loved her sister so much that it rubbed off on her as well. And Pipp's fans could be weird.

And that was from firsthoof experience.

"Great, now I'm going to have my sister explain in detail how much her fans love my costume. Hooray." She sighed. "Wait. Pipp didn't show off her flight skills last night. . ." She had spent weeks attempting to train Pipp and it all amounted to nothing, the night's events had overshadowed Pipp and her post about knowing how to fly. She shot a text to her sister mentioning it and sighed. "I need a drink after this."

***

Opaline stared at Misty and waited for the unicorn to explain exactly how, in no uncertain terms, the plan had failed. She had sent the unicorn to ruin the magic and destroy any hope of unity that the three races of ponies could achieve. I should have been easy- weasel herself into a party and cause discord and mistrust while batponies themselves came back into the world. It should have been the easiest job in the world, Spells from the past, especially ones cast by alicorns were self sustaining things that roared back to life in unexpected and sometimes horrifying ways. But no, somehow these ponies had fought off one hundred batponies, a feat they shouldn't have been able to do.

That was one thing, but Misty coming back wearing a t-shirt that was emblazoned with the pink one's face was another thing entirely. The writing on the shirt was tacky- "Everypony is a Star" Opaline breathed out and tried not freak out too much. It wasn't her evil assistant coming home with Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark emblazoned on her, but it was pretty close. "What pray tell are you doing with that, Misty?"

Misty looked down. "Oh yeah, forgot I had that on. I mean let's see I totally failed doing evil stuff this time but next time I'll totally do it. I mean I now have an in, Izzy thinks I'm a friend and, get this, I talked to Sunny and she's a complete nerd. Though we might have to put her up in the listings of dangerous ponies cause she get scary when she's mad. But like if she's not then that's fine. Didn't meet the stallion, I'm glad for that, he always seemed a bit too boring and safe. I mean he's a sheriff, he'd sniff me out doing evil stuff in a flash. But like Pipp was okay. Love her merch. Uh, I mean I totally do not love her merch, its bad. Warm but bad. Oh and I had a sandwich or four with Zipp. Can't believe that cause she totally seemed to know I was totally fake."

Opaline grimaced. "So. . .you had. . .fun with these ponies?"

Misty tapped her hooves together. "No, definitely not but I now have an in for later cause Misty, random unicorn from outside Equestria is suspicious, but Misty Brightdawn, unicorn scholar of the past from. . .I don't remember if I said. . .well, somewhere, anywhere really- she's far more trustworthy. I mean I even performed triage on the ponies Izzy and Sunny knocked out and I don't even know what that is."

Opaline stared, mentally wondering if raising Misty had been a good idea, even if she was more of a tool to an end than a real daughter to her. Even then, the chance of her ancient evil castle filling up with tales and stories of these five nuisances would be a major headache. She already had to spy on them and listen to their inane ramblings about friendship. Adding Misty rambling about it would ruin her peaceful evil life. If she had a hint of magic, she could deal with the torment, but since she was an all powerful alicorn built to rule Equestria with nary a hint of magic, she was seething as Misty kept talking. She muttered to herself quietly. "Great, she now has a last name, how exciting."

"Oh and sounds weird, but like if I do the whole spying again, can I bring some of your old tomes. You know the not super cursed and mega evil ones? I have to play the part and what's a unicorn scholar disguise if you don't have musty tomes? I have to be authentic to get an in with Sunny and tell her the true history of Equestria. . . "

Opaline sighed and nodded along. This was annoying but she could use this. "Fine, but stay in the safer sections of the library and never go into the restricted section. Ever. Those are made for ponies with magic and sense unlike yourself."

Comments

[TheGJ90]

"Bat Song intensifies"

[Budew]

Sorce for cover image?

[Peridork]

11432331

Hover over the cover pic and click the source link it links to Derpibooru

[DMDash71]

Nice shoutout to “Carrie” and “Blade.”

The ending seemed to feel a bit random and uncertain, as if you weren’t quite sure how to wrap things up. Overall it was a fun story, though.

[Peridork]

11432380

Honestly yeah, I'll admit that. The ending could have been cut down or edited again but I spent like the last week doing just that with the last third of chapter 3 and after a point it becomes- "Either I release this or I spend another month most likely tinkering away and probably making it worse"

And yeah I will say the whole Blade and Carrie homages were intentional.

[DMDash71]

11432394
I totally understand. If you’re going to keep writing you’ll get better at finding that closing note with practice.

Thanks again, this was fun!

[Yordna]

Very nice story. Interesting premise weaved into actual events of the shows while expanding on them and the related characters. Quite a joy to read.

[Peridork]

11432488

Oh an attempt was made. G5 is no G4, but there is promising ideas to use- trying to build something fun out of the movie, shorts, and the main show was kind of the plan.

Was difficult at points to find a good tonal balance because each separate piece of this gen veer so wildly in characterization and tone, but the creation process keeps being fun. And that’s the thing that keeps me going.

[lillytheomegawolf]

So this was a lot of fun.
I enjoyed Misty here. And both princesses were the stars of the show. Lol pipp doing metal and dropping one beeped out cuss word was a good laugh. The mix of crazy music while there’s a big fight in the background made me think of some yakuza brawl going on. Sunny and Izzy were great fun for their moments.
Some great ideas in this and the whole bat pony thing was well executed. Having this as a monthly event would sure spice up life quite a lot.
I’m a little disappointed there was no hitch as I think him getting dragged on stage to help out singing could have been a thing. As it is, he’s in for hearing some mad stories.

When I got to the end, I kinda wanted to read a chapter 4. The ending just left me feeling we were due a next episode where misty would be sent out again with more tricks and mush it up again in the background to the main bat pone plot.
In saying that, It kinda has that feeling like a short episode and although it wraps up fast, I’m okay with that.

[Peridork]

11434546

I don't think I will write a chapter 4- had ideas for it but it just never completely worked in planning. This was way more of a test to see if I could even write the two G5 princesses well at all cause I have the most issues with figuring out how they even sound like in my head. Especially Pipp cause Zipp is mostly there but Pipp and her interests and how she is written in the show, the movie, and the shorts all kind of make her a bit overbearing to write. Does that make her my least favorite G5 character? No, but she's a little harder to write than the others. And all because they made her a social media influencer lol.

Think of it as an episode of the show and it makes more sense. I wanted most of the story to kind of wrap up, probably better than it did to be honest, but the show itself sometimes uses episodes as ways to get to another story. And I never completely saw this as a one and done. Partially why it started as a one shot and by the time I finished chapter 1 I realized I definitely didn't have a one shot.

And not every episode in G5 has a definite ending or at least its a piece of a larger narrative (seriously like the cutaways to Misty and Opaline for much of the show episodes are building up to something) I mostly wanted a story to find my footing in this new G5 story set I have ideas for- cause I plan on coming back to this teen rated G5 stuff cause it is fun. Don't know when that will be but here's hoping it won't take another full year.