Applejack the Vampire Hunter

by ThePeer

Prologue

Years ago, during the time of the sun, Ponyville had been a peaceful town of happy ponies going about their daily lives. That all changed when their beloved Princess disappeared, slain by her sister Nightmare Moon, who bestowed upon the realm an eternal nightmare by releasing dark creatures of the night.

The Ponyville Applejack was searching through was no longer that peaceful town. The night sky hung wearily over the abandoned ruin, only broken up by the soft glow of Applejack’s gas lantern. Homes with boarded-up windows lined the street; the white finish on most of their walls was peeled and broken from years of neglect, revealing the cold and ugly brick underneath. Shop fronts were empty, having been looted long ago, but their open signs still hung over most of them in an almost mocking fashion. The bodies of the former residents littered the street, most reduced to skeletal remains, although occasionally she would pass a fresh body reeking with the stench of death and staring at her with cold, lifeless eyes, a warning to those who dare to search these ruins. Applejack considered them the lucky ones; at least they had the pleasure of dying rather than being forcefully reanimated into the vile monsters that caused this chaos.

But despite the rot and decay, Applejack still found it beautiful, just in a different way. Nature was allowed to grow and thrive; the grass that once got cut down was left to its own devices, growing up to be halfway the length of her boot. Families of rodents roamed the streets: rabits, raccons, mice, and sometimes rats. Occasionally she would spot a larger animal, such as a deer feeding on the grass, although most of the larger critters seemed to have shied away from the town. Probably for the very reason she was entering it.

Applejack turned the street corner and walked out into a large, open intersection. The intersection had multiple worn-down buildings all encircling a singular structure in the middle. A stocky hollowed-out tree house with a large carved and faded wood sign hanging over its doorway, ‘The Golden Oak Library’. The building looked surprisingly intact compared to the rest of the town; there was no rotted wood or broken branches. Besides the boarded-up windows it looked pretty much the same as it did when she was just a filly. Which made sense, considering somepony, or rather, something, has been living in it uninvited.

Applejack reached into her saddle bag and pulled out the reference picture she had been given. It was a black and white photograph of the building in front of her cut out from a pre-Lunar newspaper. The pony who gave it to her drew a large red circle around the building and a note beside it: ‘Vampire lives here’. There were only small bits of the original text that were not cut off, but Applejack was able to figure out from it that it was originally an employment advertisement, mostly from the faded help wanted on the left corner of the image. Applejack quietly wondered to herself if the job was ever taken; from her memory before moving to Manehattan, this library was eternally unstaffed.

Applejack concluded that It didn’t matter anyway. She folded the paper and stuffed it back into her saddle bag, which she hid under her black coat. She then fixed her hat and checked the area by her flank with a hoof; she felt something large and heavy hanging next to her Apple cutie mark. She let out a reassured breath and gave the thing a pat, before trotting slowly towards the building.

She stopped right in front of the red door. A small, polite part of her was tempted to knock, but she ignored it. She raised her hoof to the door handle and tried to twist, but it did not budge; the door was locked.

Applejack took a couple of steps back from the door and scanned around for any ground-floor window to sneak in through that was not boarded-up, but unfortunately, she found none. She sighed to herself "Guess I'll have to go in loud." She whispered to herself under her breath “Here’s hoping this vamp pony ain’t too feisty.” Applejack placed her lantern’s handle in her mouth and keeled slightly to give her body a running start. She took one last deep breath and made a silent prayer to Celestia before using her legs to spring forward and enter the sprint, bolting right at the doorway.

The weight of her body crashing into the door brought the whole thing down, slamming onto the interior floor and breaking in two. She was immediately hit with a wall of stench flooding out, piercing her nostrils, causing her to grimace. Her eyes quickly darted around, looking for any signs of sudden movement. It was hard to see anything, as the darkness of the room consumed most of the lantern’s light, but when she squinted hard enough, she could make out the library's interior. It was cluttered; books were spilled loosely across the floor, most turned over backward; the wooden floor was dotted with streaks of blood; and there were even a couple of blood-drained dead rats with sunken eyes laid casually about.

Her ears twitched when she heard a small squeak on the other side of the room. It sounded like a small animal, maybe a bunny or a rat. She looked to her left towards the source of the sound and used the lantern to guide herself towards it, keeping her ears high and focused for any sound of an attacker.

She stopped right around the place where she heard the sound and looked to her left and right. But found nothing. She heard the squeak again, this time right under her. She tilted her head downward, right towards the sound’s source. On the floor was a squirming rat bleeding from two large puncture holes on its side; next to it was an open book and a half-burnt candle, with a wavy cloud of smoke still rising from it.

Her ear twitched again when she heard a single drop fall to the floor. She turned to her left and right, looking for the source of the sound. Another drop hit the floor, this time right in front of her. Her eyes locked onto the source of the second drip; it was the book. A dark red droplet had landed on it from above and was spreading itself on the page. It could have only come from one place. Applejack rolled her head upwards towards the ceiling. A third drop fell, this time splattering on her face and slowly crawling down her fur. She swallowed a lump in her throat, "Hiya there fella" Just outside of her lantern’s glow, there was a pair of red bat-like eyes staring back at her.

Applejack dropped the lantern to the floor, and with one swift leg motion, she drew the metal from her black coat, a large six-shot revolver ordained with symbols of the sun and a name engraved on it ‘Big Mac.’ She aimed Big Mac at the ceiling, and pulled the trigger. The blast illuminated the entire room, and the gun violently kicked back in Applejack’s hoof. The vampire jumped out of the way at an unnatural speed, and instead of meeting its target, the shot punched a large hole in the wooden ceiling, turning it into a thousand small wooden splinters which showered the room.

Her lantern sitting on the floor suddenly went out, plunging the entire room into almost complete darkness, besides the moonlight flowing in from the open door.

Applejack turned her head widely around the room. The air shifted and thrashed around her; the vampire was flying around the room at extreme speeds, looking for the optimal time to strike. Applejack’s eyes locked onto a dark figure in the center of the room, and pressed on the trigger. The room was illuminated again, revealing the bullet smashing into a wooden horse head in the middle of the room, shattering it.

Her fight and flight senses were kicking in; her eyes were becoming watery, and the smell of gunpowder was overpowering her nostrils. In the corner of her eye, she saw its red eyes again. She swiveled her hoof towards it and pressed the trigger again. The bullet smashed a bookshelf, blowing the books on it into paper shreds.

Applejack froze, suppressing the panic trying to override her system. The entire room went silent. Her ears jumped back up to attention, looking for any slight disturbance in the atmosphere. When she found none, a part of her calmed down a little bit, thinking that the vampire might have just run away, possibly escaping through the doorway.

That thought disappeared when she heard a plank creak right behind her. Her heart almost leapt out of her chest. Before she could turn to face her foe, the vampire struck. It jumped onto her back and forced her to the floor with its weight, throwing the revolver out of her hoof. It opened its mouth wide and lurched its head towards her neck. A single bite would paralyze her, leaving her completely vulnerable to the vampire’s will. It would either kill her or corrupt her into the very monster she hunted. She was not going to let that happen.

Applejack threw her foreleg backward, intercepting the vampire’s path. The vampire's fangs bit into the hard keratin of her hooves, almost breaking them. It lurched its head back and let out an aggressive hiss, giving Applejack enough time to roll around and shove it off with both hooves. Her Earth Pony was enough to throw the vampire off her and onto the oak floor, disorienting it just long enough for Applejack to crawl to her revolver on the floor.

The vampire let out a beastly snarl. It jumped back to its feet and leapt for another attack. Unfortunately for it, Applejack had just enough time to grab her revolver with her hoof, lift it towards her attacker, and pull the trigger.

With one deafening bang, the room was illuminated again, briefly revealing the vampire's close-up form to Applejack. Her eyes widened; she didn’t know from where, but she recognized this vamp pony. The vampire was a former pegasus mare with cyan fur, a vibrant rainbow-colored mane, and a faded cutie mark of a rainbow-colored thunder striking out of a cloud.

"AGH!" It screamed out in pain and then collapsed to the floor, making a loud thud an hooves length in front of her.

Applejack dropped the weapon to the floor and collapsed onto her back. Adrenaline continued to pump freely in her veins as she panted on the floor. She raised her hoof to her neck, checking if there was any blood or bite mark while keeping her eyes locked on the familiar vamp pony. She let out a relieved sigh when she found none.

In the darkness, Applejack could see blood slowly pooling around the vampire as it squirmed on the floor, letting out groans of pain and anguish.

Applejack took a deep breath to calm her nerves and reached for her revolver. She should have just put a bullet in its head and forgotten about this incident; after all, that is what she was paid to do.

She didn’t do that.

Applejack used her free foreleg to grab the lantern and turn the dial up, relighting the room with its warm glow.

The vampire had fallen onto its back; a pool of blackish-red corrupted blood was flowing out of its right leg, causing it to grow pale from blood loss. It kept its head up, staring right at Applejack. Its once vicious red eyes have been reduced to pinpricks as it looked at her with an utterly terrified expression.

Applejack knew the pony in front of her; she just couldn’t remember where. It was the strangest feeling; there was a warmth when she saw her, the same warmth you would feel when reuniting with a close friend, yet she couldn’t pinpoint a singular memory with them. To her knowledge, this is the first time they've ever met. A name suddenly came to the forefront of her mind, a name that she had never spoken before but felt just right. "Rainbow Dash?"

The vampire’s face shifted into an expression of perplexity; the terror was flushed away into confusion. "That-... thats my name…"

Applejack stood up, grabbed the revolver from the floor, and approached Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash rolled over and tried to scramble away with her healthy hooves, but it was too late. Applejack raised the gun to her head, but instead of pulling the trigger, she thrusted the handle’s butt into the back of her head with all of her earth pony strength.

Rainbow Dash fell limp to the floor.

Applejack reached into her saddle bag and grabbed a tunicate and a rope. She is going to have a lot of questions for this vamp pony in the morning.

Author's Note:

Hey, I finally wrote something.

What inspired this fic? Another fic!

Shout out to Evernight: Link I recommend going to read it. I found it via the Lost Narrator's narration of it on her channel, which can be found here: Another Link

Anyhow, thank you for reading this till the end, I hope you enjoyed it :D. Hopefully, I will conjure enough motivation to turn this into a series.

Also, I am 100% open to criticism, so please let me know my mistakes, cause that's how I improve as a writer.

Comments

[WhispersInTheDark]

Nicely done! I love how you didn't make this a Van Helsing rip-off, or some other parody, but an original, edge-of-your-seat thriller!

However, I must take issue with her opening tactics. She entered a potentially hostile area with no prior recon, therefore having no intel on the number of assailants nor their location...plus she entered by crashing through the front door WITH a light source, thus immediately giving away her position. While it's true that "no plan survives its first contact with the enemy," it can be assumed the vampires have both superior strength and night vision, so given these opening tactics it's doubtful she would have survived this initial encounter had she been facing more than one opponent.

All that being said, I am nevertheless looking forward to further chapters!

[ThePeer]

11657649
Aw, thanks :)
Also thanks for the favorite

[TearingNose24]

Love it when people get a whiff of a concept and go their own way with it. nicely done, cant wait to see what next for this one.

[ThePeer]

11658673
Thank you :D

[Starswirl the Beardless]

This was pretty good! You have an interesting premise, and your execution was good, at least so far. The pacing is good, and you manage to strike a dark tone without being pointlessly edgy. You had a few mechanical errors here and there, but these didn't take me out of the story. I look forward to seeing where you take this.

[ThePeer]

11663059
Thanks a lot

Comments like these motivate me a lot.