> 21st Century Vampire
>  by Peridork
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Damn These Vampires
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey, there Pippsqueaks, it's just Pipp Petals here with the regularly scheduled reminder that Zephyr Heights' Spooktacular is tomorrow and check it, we'll have it open to everypony, not just the normal pegasi display of costume talent, so get your costumes finito and be the most iconica pony in all the town. Signing off, its ya mare, Pipp." Pipp blew a kiss at her phone as she closed down her app and grinned at her sister. "How was that?"

Zipp rolled her eyes. "Great. Maybe a tad bit overkill, but it'll probably be fine." Zipp had grown accustomed to her little sister's attachment to her phone, her online fandom and all her little foibles. "Now can we get some flight practice in, sis, I mean you did say in one of your posts that you were 'totes gonna fly' and you are on the cusp of actually doing it."

Pipp sheepishly grinned. "Yeah, maybe I overdid the boast. But how should I have known how difficult it would be to fly? I mean, Zipp, I was lifted by wires to fake fly everywhere for years- flight still feels a bit odd."

Zipp sighed. "Yeah, yeah, you and like three quarters of Zephyr Heights, but you almost got it last time. Sure, you haven't picked it up as fast as Zoom, but at least you are almost Thunder's level of competency." The two pegasi guards were almost quasi family to the royals, the pair of pegasi had been training to become royal guards since they were little- Zipp sometimes forgot the whole royal decorum thing and once called Zoom a sister- which the blue pegasus had never let that slip up go. It didn't help that the two pegasi were almost too similar to Zipp and Pipp, Thunder was maybe not as fashion conscious as Pipp, but close enough and Zoom was a newly minted speed demon when it came to flight.

Zipp cupped her hooves and stared at the Heights, the tall spires of the town scraping the sky, the myriad different ads for so many different items blotting out the airspace at times, pegasi weaving up and down in the air as they tried to figure out how air currents worked- some took to the old ways much easier than others.

"Wonderful, I'm as good as Thunder." Pipp winked. "I mean in comparison to you, that's nothing."

"You're still mad I made you get up at five in the morning, aren't you?" 

Pipp crossed her hooves together. "I told you to wake me up when you thought flying was the best, I didn't expect you to come barging in my room, pick me up and drag me outside at the crack of dawn. I mean that completely throws my beauty sleep out of whack and I'm trying to look my best here, not everypony can look as natural as you first thing in the morning." Pipp yawned and stretched out on the cloud that the pair had chosen as their flight spot. "So what now, I mean I know the ideas of flight, flap wings, blah, blah, blah. What's next?"

"This." Zipp lifted her sister, who had noticeably gained some weight since the last time she did this- though the last time she pranked her sister like this, they were eight. So, some years had passed, and time moved on enough to make this take more effort than she expected. Zipp kicked the cloud forcefully and the puffy cumulonimbus exploded in a fine mist. Zipp stayed in the air, simply flapping her wings like a natural.

Pipp dropped like a rock and let out a few unladylike screams and expletives that her older sister hadn't heard the pink princess say before. Zipp counted slowly to herself, timing out the freefall velocity, time it took to get to it, and height from sea level the pair had been at- the calculations running in tandem with the athletic mare stretching her flight muscles. 

She gave her sister enough time to intuitively get how to fly- or at least she thought she did. Maybe her variable set was rather limited, or her sister was a special case that froze up in a high stress environment- and falling to her eventual doom might been seen as that kind of thing.

Sighing, Zipp sped down to her sister, feeling the zero gravity forces buffet her as she felt her cone of air envelop her- with training she expected to maybe one day break the sound barrier, maybe. Even without that feat, she was still the fastest flyer in the Heights. Zipp scooped her sister into her hooves and aimed for the castle.

---


"Mother, she pushed me off a cloud. Like who does that?"

Queen Haven looked up from her phone and stopped texting as Pipp continued explaining in detail what had happened. "It's a flight thing, dear, and your father definitely had a sense of humor like that. I can imagine like it was yesterday, he was proposing to me, and one thing led to another and there we were staring at each other imagining what flight would feel like. He actually tried to basejump off a bridge once or twice just to see what an approximation of flight was. The papers had a field day with that one, "Consort to the Queen jumps off Feather Bridge"- they thought we had a falling out and he was trying to, well you know, show his love for me in the most dramatic way possible." 

Pipp was visibly conflicted, the slightly romantic tale of her parents would be such a nice moment to share with her fans, but the idea of her mother not exactly hearing what she was saying made her sigh and look away for a moment. "Yeah, that's nice. But Zipp dropped me off a cloud, it almost ruined my hair. Like look at it, it's going to take forever to fix and not be a fashion disaster." Pipp pointed at her purple mane, which was uncharacteristically messy, the careful drape of her manestyle ruined by it being blown every which way from the sudden rush of wind and near-death experience. "It's not very iconica of me to look like this."

Queen Haven sighed. She wasn't as tech savvy as Zephyrina, or as internet dependent as Pipp, but she definitely attempted to understand the new lingo of Zephyr Heights, at least functionally so as to not be a royal island in an ever-changing mix of words, but Pipp came up with so many odd turns of phrase that made her near impossible to make sense of. She had been trying to make this monstrosity of a word catch on. "Wonderful, now I've been running through the itinerary of tomorrow. Pipp, you have your little fan meeting followed by a concert, and Zephyrina, you have a trimmed down session of court. Can't have you slacking on your provisional future queen duties."

Zipp ran a hoof through her mane. She had tried and tried to have her mom call her by her nickname, everypony knew of Zipp Storm. She was a mainstay of Zephyr Heights- or at least notable with her mane. Zephyrina just sounded too formal and her friends in the lesser traveled sections of the Heights would ridicule her if they heard her actual name. "Yeah, I'll be there." She didn't really have a choice not to, she was often watched by one of the two pegasi guards that were currently standing silently in the corners of the room. She saw Zoom imperceptibly chuckle at Zipp. 

"Good, can't have a repeat of last year, I mean seriously I understand teenage angst but you are in your twenties now Zipp, you can't just no show a formal royal event. Especially not this year. Zoom, please be a dear and follow her everywhere until our little soiree- Thunder you get to do the same with Pipp here, though I doubt she's much of a flight risk."

Zoom bowed her head and winked at Zipp. "I'll do my best, Your Majesty."

***


"I wish I was a royal guard sometimes. Or restart the Wonderbolts." Zipp sighed and looked in her cup of alcohol. "I mean it'd be easier than dealing with daily reminders that I'm going to be the next queen of Zephyr Heights." Zipp looked up and sighed. She already had issues with Royal Picture Day and sitting still, she couldn't imagine actually replacing her mom. It'd be sad at first, but her luck with every single royal appointment or duty were abject failures. 

Zoom chuckled and sipped a glass of water- unlike Zipp, she was still on duty so she couldn't partake in a few beverages. Not that she was immune to alcohol's charms, just she had a few too many awkward moments when she did let loose. She didn't want to reenact the last time. She was still getting teasing comments from Thunder about her karaoke skills. "I mean you did make that Wonderbolt outfit for last year's Spooktacular." She shrugged. "Whatever. I mean deciding what you and your sister's first decrees would be: you'd make the Wonderbolts cool again, and she'd make her music into the royal procession march."

Zipp smiled, imagining an older Pipp totally doing something like that. "Nah, her first one would be making livestreams the only way she would do royal decrees. Cause she hates public speaking without her phone."

Zoom raised an eyebrow. "Really? I would never have guessed; she seems more natural than you."

Zipp's smile faltered for a moment. "Yeah, that's just because she has like five social media accounts. Let's see, ClipTrot, Fumble, Feedbag, Ponstagram, and Ponyfans. I don't even know what half of those are, but she's got them. She might even have dead or deactivated accounts I don't know about." Pipp would actually be so much better at being queen, it wasn't even funny. Zipp hated the spotlight and tried to ditch every possible duty she had to go flying or hide out in her room. Pipp loved attention, good, bad, really anything it seemed. Zipp bit her lip and grimaced, clenching her jaw in the process. 

Zoom cocked her head at Zipp's uncharacteristic silence. Usually, the princess was a bit more talkative than this. Maybe she was just in her cups or there was some kind of issue weighing heavily on her mind. Either way the mood in the room had soured and it was now sort of uncomfortable to sit here and swirl her water around. Zoom turned towards the sporty friend and froze. 

Zipp was completely staring off into space. Totally odd, but okay. Zoom was used to ponies doing that every once in a while- Thunder often zoned out thinking about the newest pair of shoes he could buy off his guard salary and the pegasus mare had to often corral his wants and needs into something less expensive. It was the other thing that unnerved her. Two lines of blood ran down her lips as the athletic pegasus bit into her lower lip deep enough to draw blood.

"Equestria to Zipp. Hello?" Zoom tried to play it cool and waved a hoof in front of the white pegasus. No response. She grimaced and carefully said a few words to herself, hoping that the next moment wouldn't cost her job. Zoom moved her hoof back and whacked Zipp on the muzzle, not hard enough to draw more blood, just enough to snap her out of whatever weird stuff this was. 

Zipp howled in pain as she came to, looking back and forth for a moment as she tried to figure out what had hit her. "Ow. Ow. Ow, What was that for?"

Zoom nervously smiled and tried to shrug. "You zoned out there for a few minutes." She gently picked up a napkin from the bar and passed it to Zipp. "And your mouth is bleeding. Though that wasn't my fault."

Zipp scowled and tasted the faint taste of iron on her tongue and grimaced as she blotted the napkin red with her blood. "Great. Now my mom is gonna kill me for not looking my best tomorrow. Must have bit my tongue or something. You got some ice?"

Zoom nodded and scrounged around the bar's fridge, carefully fishing out a few ice cubes and passing them to Zipp. 

Zipp graciously took them and popped them in her mouth, noticing that her teeth now felt odd to her as she ran her tongue over them. Maybe it was just her imagination. "Now where was I? Oh, I know. I'm at least better in one way to Pipp when it comes to Queenly Duties. I can actually do speeches and not have a mini freakout. Pipp without her phone is a complete disaster waiting to happen, and mom doesn't allow her to use it in public events. Something to do with the "royal image". Zipp shrugged. "Bummer either way. Pour me another drink and I might cheer up."

Zoom rolled her eyes- she was used to the moodiness that Zipp often devolved to while drunk. She was running a bet with Thunder based on when Zipp would finally snap and ask to be taken off the line of succession. He was thinking a few years, she was thinking a few more months. Sure, Zipp had played along so well, or well enough that Queen Haven could just write off Zipp's little truancy issue when it came towards royal events as a personality quirk, but Zoom was often Zipp's personal guard for events and she could read the mare like a worn-out book. "Yeah, you and every alcoholic say the same stuff. Just don't come crying to me when you wake up hungover for tomorrow's events."

Zipp flashed her a look and flashed her a few choice hoof movements.

***


Zipp groggily rolled out of bed, her movements slow and unfocused as she reacclimated to the morning light. She ran a hoof through her mouth, feeling a bit weird. Stupid alcohol, she shouldn't have drank so much, but she had and now she was hating herself. She heard Zoom's patronizing words and pushed them aside. "I just need to eat some carbs and drink some water cause I know mother would hate me rolling up with booze on my breath." Zipp trudged into the bathroom and turned on the light, the bright halogen bulbs blinding her for a moment. 

She grimaced and turned to the mirror and stopped, quickly waving a hoof in front of her face just to make sure what was in the mirror was accurate. A decidedly batty version of Zipp, with prominent fangs and yellowish eyes waved back. She tried not to panic, trying to come up with any weird explanation as to why she looked more like a bat than a pegasus. Maybe this was a dream or a nightmare, or maybe she drank a bit too much and now she had brain damage. Something far more explainable than she magically turned into a bat. Like who does that? 

She pinched herself and winced. Swearing, she rushed out to her bedroom and searched for her phone, quickly finding it by her nightstand. She bit her lip and tried collecting her thoughts. She had no recourse, she had to mention it to somepony, be it Zoom or Thunder or her sister. She couldn't just walk up to the Spootacular royal event like this, her mom would have a stroke. 

She breathed out and opened up her texts, quickly tapping away a message to her sister and Zoom. She would have included Thunder in the group chat, but the stallion had a terrible case of 'accidentally spilling the beans' whenever he was asked anything, so keeping it to her sister and Zoom was prudent.

At least Pipp could sometimes understand that some things were meant to be semi-private. 

***


Pipp carefully coiffed her mane and applied a bit of makeup with a few brushstrokes. She had her morning routine to a t, wake up, do a get ready with me stream on Ponyfans- while she would do it on Feedbag or ClipTrot, those platforms tended towards her younger demographic and Ponyfans let her do what she wanted, though she had to trawl through a lot of weird messages every day, she could be more real there. She was an adult, though her mother and Zipp sometimes saw that as not the case. Her rule of no swearing in public was a choice to 

She heard a ding on her phone and glanced over, careful not to smudge or smear her makeup. She was a professional influencer and she dared not give the internet another fail moment. Zipp. Huh, not like she never got messages from her sister at this time of day, just the all caps high stress text was new.

"Sorry everypony, give me a minute, looks like a princess' work is never done." She quickly picked up her phone, glad that she had a camera for moments like this, the streamers that used one phone for everything were unwatchable to her. Who didn't have at least one extra phone for emergencies like when a pony texted her in the middle of a live, that's bad content creation right there.

She silently read the message from Zipp and sighed. Wonderful, not the worst thing ever, even if Zipp screaming through text was kind of painful to read. Whatever it was though, it had to be bad if she added Zoom in, that was never a good sign. This had gone from a Tier 3 emergency of 'Zipp wanting to play hooky again and not be pampered, which was the dumbest thing, who didn't love being pampered, to a Tier 2 or even Tier 1 emergency. Which was saying something cause those were at most a yearly occurrence- Zipp needing medical attention for a stunt or scientific accident.

Pipp breathed out and smiled. "Seems like we have a royal moment, and while I would love to bring you behind the veil of royal stuff and everything, cause you are totes the best, I got the 'do not pass' signal it seems. Might update you lot and the other Pipsqueaks on Feedbag or Fumble, but for now this is your favorite princess of pop signing off. See you all later and remember to show up tonight for the Spooktacular. It's only my favorite holiday cause I love being spooked. Peace." She grinned at the camera and carefully hit the stop recording button.

She had done one too many 'oh the camera's on' moments and had that little button memorized. She wouldn't dare cross her stream audiences, that was influencer suicide, the idea of her being shadowbanished on the net one day was her personal nightmare.

She stretched her wings and hopped off her chair. "Whatever it is, Zipp is going to have to owe me big time. I hate shortchanging my fans."

***


Zipp rocked back and forth in her bed, the sheets wrapping her completely. her tongue nervously poking her newly very sharp and pointy teeth and grimacing as she prodded a little too hard. She heard a few knocks at the door and she almost got up, remembered that she was currently indisposed due to the blankets and sighed. "Come in you two."

Zoom poked her head in and slid into the very trashed room. Pipp gingerly followed, her steps carefully stepping over piles of clothes and dresses, her tongue clicking as she stared at her sister's humble abode. "I knew this was bad by the text, but come on sis, you can't be serious. . ." she bent down and picked up a bag. "Really you'd just throw a Goodie bag like this on the floor? It's only like 13,000 bits and a totally iconic item for Spring? Like have you no shame?"

Zoom fished out her phone and mentally blocked out Pipp's continuing rant about the necessities of fashion. "So, you texted and I quote, "oh my god, I'm a scary bat thing and I want to crawl in a hole and die. Mom's gonna murder me or imprison me and I woke up and I don't know what to do." Zoom raised an eyebrow. "Her Majesty isn't going to do any of that, first of all, she's maybe not as hip to social media stuff as our little podcast devil here, but drastic measures like that would be. . .problematic. Plus, you weren't a 'bat thing' when you went to bed, you were just a rather clingy drunk. So like normal drunk you."

Pipp stopped her fashion rant. "Zipp. Mom told you to stop drinking. I mean come on, I don't partake in it cause I'd hate breaking my self curated image, but you barely post to your socials. . .though my Pippsqueaks love you. Like there's a whole very loud fanbase for you, a verifiable hurricane your Stormers show you." Pipp tapped a hoof. "Wait a minute, I think I have something here. A crossover podcast episode starring everyone's favorite princess, me of course, and second best princess, and future queen, that is you."

Zoom shrugged, used to Pipp and Thunder's inane babbling about social media stuff. Though his were usually worried ramblings on if he would miss the next drop for the newest pair of Breezies, some silly shoe brand he saw as the gold standard in quality. Thunder was weird, cute but weird. "Whatever, just take off your stupid Wonderbolts blanket so I can actually see the mess we have to deal with. Personally I think you just broke your nose and freaked out. I mean its spooky season and all that."

Zipp halfheartedly grumbled in her blanket fort. "Nah, I'm going to sit here and die. Rather do that."

Zoom facehoofed. "Zipp, so help me, I get it. Something went wrong and you are moping and all that junk, but if you honestly think I'll let you sit in here and rot away, you have another thing coming. Mostly cause of the whole 'being tasked by the Queen herself to keep you in line' and secondly cause I know you are just being dramatic in your own way. Sure, you don't vaguepost your feelings and eat an ungodly amount of dessert like your sister here-"

Pipp blushed. "Yeah, that's what most ponies would call a flaw. I took an internet quiz and it said that I was a critical mess of feelings and needed to find a good pony to have foals with. Weird cause I was trying to order food, not take a quiz that bared my deepest darkest feelings of crushing failure towards an uncaring algorithm. . ."

"-yeah, I told you to go to therapy. But you, Zipp, bottle up your feelings and hide out in your room. Like you are doing now. So I'm taking this-" Zoom gripped the blanket in her hooves and gripped hard onto it. "and pulling you out if its the last thing I do. Cause if you think your mom would be disappointed in you. the ponies that have to do courtly garbage every day probably want to have their stupid lives spiced up by you appearing." Zoom tugged and the blanket slipped to the floor.

Pipp gasped in shock and awe. "Oh my glitter, you're not a monster, you're totes adorbs."

Zipp blushed and fanned out her wings and the pair of ponies marveled at the leathery bat wings that reflexively flapped as she wanted to go run away and hide.

"Zipp, I'm so jelly, like this is awful. I'd die of shock if I woke up as a. . .batpony, or whatever and didn't take like a thousand pics for my fans. Like why did you get the cool random transformation and not me? I watch like every horror movie that comes out- from the slasher films to the spooky ghost stories, and becoming a vampire is so iconica. Like that's the plot of Queen of the Vampire Hordes. I even had a completely movie accurate costume last year and all that."

Zoom grinned at the fluffy batpony that was Zipp and shook her head. "Well guess you weren't completely wrong about the whole bat thing."

Zipp felt like she was going to die of embarrassment.

***


"Thunder, where in the world is my daughter and Zoom? I've been sitting here languishing as my hooficure and all the niceties I have to do to get ready for court are slowly deteriorating in waiting for Zephyrina yet again. I told her that it would be nice and simple, and here I am delaying my court for. . ." Haven paused to look at her phone. "a few minutes. I have ponies to see and mingle with. I mean I have that meeting with Bridlewood's representative. We are getting on with good terms and all that."

Thunder smiled, the open secret that Haven and that unicorn were rather close was so blatant that he didn't even have to read any of Her Majesty's texts. Zoom and Thunder were consummate professionals when it came to the private lives of the royals- and they didn't prod, even when Haven had accidentally dewdropped them too much information. "If I know my other guard well, she's coming here as quick as she can. She hates being tardy."

Haven sighed and leaned on her throne. "Yes, well at least that's one pony I can usually depend on."

Zipp slunk into the room with Zoom and Pipp following her, her silver horseshoes noticeably clinking as she stepped in the room. She hated wearing the mess of an outfit, it fit her oddly, the silver chestpiece with a stylized moon feeling like it was made for a completely different pony and reused or melted down and reformed so long ago that its original owner was long, long dead.  Her mother had bequeathed it to her when she was little, and she had slowly grown accustomed to wearing it infrequently as a sign that she was the future queen. She just saw the small crown, chest piece, and horseshoes as a burden that she had to deal with. And unlike most years, she had the whole 'being a bat' thing to deal with.

"Sorry, mother, Pipp's idea for my costume took a rather long time."

Pipp had coached her sister rather well as they had walked from the royal apartments. As a master of makeup, social media, and fudging the truth, the pink princess had concocted a rather fun and interesting cover story. While they couldn't hide the whole vampire bat transformation, having a little white lie that it was Zipp's costume and not a whole existential crisis, it made her far better suited to showing up as a fluffy, sharp toothed menace.

Pipp curtseyed and smiled. "Well, I said the latex bat wings were going to take a while to mold and shape to your wings, but you got all defensive about your figure. Now be glad I used all day makeup and good contacts for the costume, so you don't have to worry as much about smearing and mess. Plus, then I don't have to bother with my crack team of makeup artistes." Pipp smirked as she saw Zipp roll her eyes."

"Quite nice costume, dear, rather fetching on you." Haven hummed to herself. Her daughters were not telling her everything and while she didn't want to cause a fuss about Zipp appearing as a batpony, for unlike Zipp's noticeably nervous self, Haven had heard tell of many, many stories of the Zephyr Heights royals having a lot of batpony relatives in the past. Her own grandmother had chalked it up to some old Equestrian match that had caused certain recessive traits like vampirism to be cast forward up the centuries and millennia, culminating in the current line.

Haven, as a young foal had been enthralled by the stories and had chalked them up to lost magic, her younger self incredibly sad that she could no longer see a batpony due to the loss of magic.

Due to decades of being the ruler of the Heights, she was rather used to hiding her true feelings on matters for the sake of decorum, but there was a small, very vocal part of her completely excited for this night's Spooktacular because this slight hitch was rather fun. And while certain parts of the social medias said that she was completely uncool, she was not going to ruin this excitement.

Because if Zipp had become one of these batponies, then a random number of her subjects would as well and that would make this coming Spooktacular the best one since her husband got locked in a haunted house and caused a raging inferno that the Heights still talked about in hushed tones. It did give her a reason to rebuild the business district though.

Haven smiled. She was going to have what the hip ponies might call 'a blast'. Or if she had to miss it for her prior egagement with Alphabittle, the social media fun would invariably bleed over to her and she would be tickled pink about it.

***


Zipp fidgeted as some random businesspony talked about how to connect Zephyr Heights' internet to the rest of Equestria. He had been warbling on about how to make it scalable and it was the most boring thing Zipp had ever heard. She glanced at Pipp, who was normally super into net stuff and even she looked glassy eyed and bored. 

Haven blinked and graciously smiled as the presentation wound down and clapped her hooves together, careful not to seem too forward. "Thank you, Fancy Flight. I'll have you put your ideas with the steward, and they'll figure out how best to connect all of Equestria together. Good presentation." Haven rather liked killing the worst presenters with kindness- while it tended for their presentations to be the absolute worst, she could sneakily slide in some earplugs and get some nice her time. "We do have a schedule to keep and. . .let's see, the next one is the Spooktacular caterers. Oh this is my favorite part." She waved a hoof and the doors opened.

A whole smorgasbord of desserts baked and otherwise hit the three royals and everypony swooned as the decadent desserts were wheeled in, the creative designs of large spiders, bats, and pumpkins meticulously created out of fruit and sweets.

Zipp's mouth watered as the smell of apples and other fruits hit her, the new bat senses heightening the already decadent desserts into the stratosphere. Her leg tapped ever so slowly as she tried not to look like she was staring daggers at the bakers for wheeling in the biggest temptation ever.

"Well that looks rather divine. I have to say, Berry Tart, you and the other castle bakers outdo yourselves each and every year." Haven smiled and noticed Zipp's drooling face out of the corner of her eye. "So what is this rather impressive display?" 

The baker bowed and turned, carefully pointing at the craftwork of the large spider centerpiece. "We have a fully edible piece here, like most of the other 'statues' here. This one is a spider made out of brioche dough and filled with raspberry jelly- a mix between a brioche flaky outside and a jelly filled donut. Don't ask how we made that work; it was a daunting task. But each eye of the spider is a chocolate truffle, and the webbing that it is surrounding it is spun sugar. This is but one of twenty large pastry sculptures, not to mention the normal output for candy-based treats, hoof pies, and candy apples for example. We had some rather stressful days of planning since you did invite visitors, but it was done and it was a learning experience for next time."

Haven nodded. "Well that's understandable, I mean it wasn't the plan for magic to return and us to reacclimate towards non-pegasi but it happened."

Berry Tart felt a chill down her spine as she looked up at the Queen. She noticed Zipp looking rather intently at the desserts, and she felt rather intimidated as she noticed the rather large fangs that protruded out of the princess's mouth. She wanted to leave and think it was just a prank but the whole costume that Zipp had looked way too convincing. "Y-yes, it did. Well I'll just leave you three be and get my team to fix the details for tonight." The pegasi baker gripped tightly onto the large cart, careful not to cause a pastry accident and booked it out of there as fast as she could.

Pipp nudged her sister. "Zipp, chill, like you just freaked out the baker. Calm your whole. . .all of that stuff." Pipp waved a hoof around her face to kind of give Zipp a major hint that she was looking far less fluffy and adorable and more 'rip out your throat and suck your blood' which Pipp was rather impressed by, but it wasn't the time or place to have a whole reenactment of Vampire's Kiss and Tell. Completely not the time. She was trying to have a nice Spooktacular, not a bloodbath. While that would be a fun time, she was trying to have the Spooktacular be generally family friendly even if she had plans to release some new music soon that skirted on the line of decency.

Zipp shook her head, her jaw cracking as she forced the large incisors back into place. It felt like she was shoving broken glass into her mouth. She grimaced in pain for a moment and 	sighed. "Sorry, just need something to eat. Fruit sounds good."

***	


Misty looked up and up at the skyline, the massive Zephyr Heights skyscrapers intimidating her as she had no frame of reference on such tall and majestic buildings. The only thing she had in her memory was Opaline's spooky castle, which was totally magnificent because it was a cool castle and all, but a part of her thought it was dwarfed by these things. 

Though she'd never tell Opaline that, that would cause so many issues. 

The blue unicorn ran a hoof through her frizzy mane and sighed. She had spent a few days trying to get here and she was mostly lost, the winding streets and large open spaces freaking her out. Totally not nervous that Opaline was rather insistent to have her ruin this random party. 

She fished out the flyer that a rather nice pegasus had given to her for free, no questions asked, no money required, and read through it. "Welcome to the new and improved Spooktacular, all ponies welcome. Bring your costume and have a blast as Zephyr Heights own popstar, Pipp Petals has a spooky concert." Misty raised an eyebrow at that. She had read Opaline's basic information about the five ponies she was supposed to destroy and all, but Pipp was written off as completely pointless and the total worst.

Misty didn't think Pipp was that bad if she had a whole singing career. Though maybe she was a bit jealous- Opaline said she had an annoying voice and all.

Her medallion shook, almost like the evil alicorn had felt Misty mention her in her thoughts. She opened the medallion and slid into the shadows. "Yes, Opaline, I'm here." She tried to bow, her heavy pack of things making her attempt fail, her hooves slightly stumbling on the cobblestones. "Sorry, sorry, I should have taken that off."

Opaline rolled her eyes, the mirrored medallion showing her disgust. "Whatever, Misty. Did you get to this Zephyr Heights?"

Misty nodded. "Oh yes, it's a totally wonderful place and I didn't want to call you, but I had this sweet called cotton candy and it was the best thing I ever had, all sweet and tasty. . ." Misty trailed off as she noticed Opaline's silence. "-oh oh yeah. Yeah, I did. Totally here."

"Good. Now ask around and ruin this party."

Misty cocked her head. "Yeah, I have one teensy tiny question, like just a simple one. Why? This has nothing to do with dragon fire, it's just a simple party."

Opaline facehoofed. "Because I don't just want dragon fire, Misty, I want to destroy this unity that has just given back all these ponies their magic. An alicorn such as I, should have all of the magic, not these plebeian dregs of ponies. It's my magic they stole from me."

Misty nodded. "Sure, but I thought Twilight Sparkle stole your magic."

Opaline narrowed her eyes. "Do your job and maybe after all this you can get your cutie mark." Opaline cut the connection to Misty's medallion and silence reigned for a moment.

"Score, now where is this castle I'm looking for. Says right here it's totally unmissable and yet I'm completely lost. Well, I could just ask around, I mean it's a party. How hard can it be, I'm a unicorn in a pegasi town, just act dumb and something is going to help me."
> Dance Dance
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you okay, Zipp?" Pipp looked back at her sister nervously. Not like she was now totally worried about her sister turning into a bat creature or anything, but Zipp had demolished an entire serving tray of fruit in minutes and, while impressive, that was a serving platter for eight ponies.

"Fine." Zipp slunk out of the shadows, her ears laid back on her head as she now had a major headache from all the lights and sounds that were going on, everything was just so much louder than the morning and it was getting hard to focus. "What time is it?"

Pipp glanced at her phone, sliding her hoof across its surface to open it, noticing a pop up on her weather app mentioning something about the full moon, and glancing at the time. "Like 8 pm? My phone is sometimes fast so I don't miss a pop star moment or a livestream or my podcast stuff. I mean it's dark outside now." Pipp carefully stepped into her dress, a replica of the scene from Prom Night, where the heroine gets a vat of blood dropped on her. A sheer light pink dress that accented well with her brighter pink coat and cloud like wings. 

A small part of her looked at her sister's prominent fangs and large yellow eyes with dark pupils and a small part of her doubted that reenacting that classic horror movie moment for the Spooktacular was a good idea. Then Pipp squashed it- she had been planning her musical set for a few months and she had the whole fake blood set piece planned out weeks and weeks before some cruel twist of fate turned her sister into a movie monster.

Pipp carefully waved at the others in the front row, Sunny and the others had arrived a few minutes before and Pipp had done her best attempt at influencer damage control by sending a nicely worded text to Sunny's phone that 'sorry Zipp and I are totes busy with all this Spooktacular business so like we'll see you after my set.' Pipp hated outright lying, but it was far easier to ask for forgiveness later than just outright come crying out that she had no silly idea how to turn Zipp back into her normal, not fruit addicted, self. 

The only thing Sunny could do in this situation was create the most Feedbag worthy smoothie and attempt to put Zipp into a sugar coma.

All in all, Pipp Petals was doing fan-freaking-tastic. And not having a panic attack and a whole mess of worried thoughts of Zipp stampeding through her party. She breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was pear shaped, but the show would go on.

She looked out at the crowd again and her heart sank. She noticed more batponies in the crowd, some grouped up in what almost seemed like packs, some loners, and a mass of them just congregating around the dessert table like a whole mass of sheer evil fluffy ponies.

She carefully counted to ten and composed herself. "This is totally bad."

***


"Ooh, Sunny look at that. This is really making me get those creative juices flowing." Izzy pointed at the pastry sculptures that dotted the entire hall. "I mean all of that is edible? I totally need some pointers from these bakers cause this is extremely creative." Izzy flitted around the large pastry displays, her dyed black mane and striped socks made her stand out more than usual. 

Sunny awkwardly stumbled around in her Nightmare Moon costume, the accurate depiction of the armor made out of bits of tin and spray painted to be as accurate as possible without finding some random cursed artifact. Her fake black wings were controlled by a few strings that she had meticulously tied to herself so they wouldn't flap around incessantly. She had debated to come as her alicorn self, but she had a ton of issues with her alicorn magic- sometimes it felt like it was a permanent part of her that she could reach out and touch, sometimes not at all. "Do you feel odd, I mean it's like everypony is staring at us."

Hitch sighed and carefully adjusted his black suit and dark glasses. "Speak for yourselves, I mean you two stick out like a sore hoof. And while I am slightly disappointed that you two somehow failed at a couples costume- who even told Izzy what being goth is like?"

Sunny took a fruit pie and awkwardly smiled as a rather excitable pegasus hissed at her and bared some rather impressive fake teeth. "That was Pipp, and rich coming from you, I mean you are just some pony in a suit. Pot meet kettle."

Hitch flexed a hoof as he carefully maneuvered around a few loud guests. "I told you this is me trying to do a secret agent thing. I mean it's better than my original idea that you shot down."

"-you said you were going to show up here in a dress. I think that's a bit much."

Hitch grumbled slightly. "No discerning for taste, I mean who doesn't like Gentlestallions Prefer Blondes. And at least I was going to be creative with it, not just do the iconic pink dress, but cut it down the middle and sew it together with the waiter outfits in the film. I decided not to because Pipp outright said she had a similar pink dress moment here, and I would have hated upstaging her."

"Dude, you are way too into musicals." Sunny glanced around the dance floor, unable to see where Izzy ran off to. "Wonderful, I just lost Izzy. I looked away for a moment and boom she's disappeared. I hope she doesn't set something on fire or summon unknowable ancient evils."

Hitch hummed softly to himself. "Sunny, she's a grown mare, she's probably fine. Though I do wonder how Sprout is doing with Sparky, I wanted to bring him here because I haven't left him out of my sight since he was hatched, but this spooky party isn't a place for a baby." Hitch poked a fake display of a row of skeletons and shook his head. "Yeah, he'd have nightmares for sure."

***


"Opaline, oh my goodness there's batponies all over this place. Like they look like ponies and yet also totally batty and it's like totally freaking me out." Misty carefully tried to pull off her white mask to look closer at her one and only- not very nice- friend. "You didn't tell me there was batponies."

Opaline hummed to herself in thought. "I should have seen this coming. I mean the Equestria from before was full of every kind of magical creature, and with how interbred these ponies would be after five thousand years, of course the one moment magic converges with the full moon, they'd have batponies. Luna was always one for the night."

Misty cocked her head. "You only mentioned Twilight before."

Opaline coughed and tried to change the subject for a moment. "Yes, well, she was Twilight's unicorn mage. Totally loved her batpony guards and all that. Totally. She'd have to be dead cause she's a unicorn, but she was powerful with magic, enough to cause a curse on the moon."

Misty nodded. "That's neat. Spooky, but kind of neat. But seriously, what do you want me to do cause I know you wanted me to sabotage the party but we have vamponies all over the place and I currently like where I'm hiding. Sure, it's a random bush in this ornate castle- not as ornate as yours of course- but nice enough, and I'd really like not moving.

Opaline facehoofed and mumbled something about needing to one day do things herself. "Yes, well batponies have one major flaw. All of their senses are heightened and with these untrained ponies turning into these monsters, shall we say, one strong smell and whoosh, one ruined party and the sense of unity falls apart yet again. But get this done before dawn, the moon's magic should be done by then, I think. It's been 5000 years since batponies really existed."

Misty nodded. She racked her brain for a solution for the whole "big smell" thing and came up with very few examples. It didn't help that she had spent years with Opaline planning out each and every step of world domination. She had no clue what these pegasi ads, for that's what ponies called these colorful product placement things, were about. They just looked neat and all that. Though one had a big bottle of perfume, whatever that was. It said it smelled like flowers. 

Misty grumbled to herself as she slid her medallion away. "That's all fine and dandy but where would I find perfume in a place like this? I mean I can barely find my way to the bathroom."

A purple unicorn who Misty had never seen before, though that wasn't hard since she had never seen another unicorn before coming to this part of Equestria, popped out of a nearby bush. "Another unicorn with a unicorn problem? Neat I haven't seen many unicorns here, I mean besides Alphabittle and like that's fine, but I haven't seen you in Bridlewood before and I know all the unicorns there." The unicorn facehoofed for a moment. "Oh, I'm sorry, Sunny keeps telling me that introducing yourself is a good idea first. Well that and that I'm a fantastic marefriend, but who's counting? My name is Izzy Moonbow, what's yours?"

Misty felt her hooves quaking as she tried to remain calm, her mind raced with the idea to run as far away from this new pony, fleeing into the safety of the night. But she stood there unmoving for a moment, her brain processing every plan of escape and failing to find a good alternative. "It's, uh, um, Misty."

Izzy cocked her head. "Yeah, and? Misty what? Cause everypony has a last name, I mean I don't think there's another Izzy Something-or-Other in Equestria but it's nice to know a pony's name I mean on the off chance I find another Misty that isn't you. Or an Izzy that isn't me."

Misty darted her eyes around trying to find something to lie and build a fake name from. She stood there for another few seconds, her mouth twitching as she bit her lip in thought. Opaline told her to get this mission done quickly because time was of the essence and here she was trying to come up with a fake last name. "Brightdawn. Misty Brightdawn." She cursed her terrible choice of name, the worry of finishing this evil mission before dawn had clouded her creativity and she came up with the fakest last name possible. . .

Izzy wrapped the smaller unicorn into a big hug and lifted her entirely off the ground. "Neato. That's not as nice as my best friend Sunny's name, but it's really pretty. Kind of suits you. Though I hope it does- I mean it's your name."

Misty awkwardly laughed. "Yeah, of course that's my name." She shook her head. "Oh right, I have an issue with something. Minor issue but I had a bottle of perfume that I thought was in my bag and nope. Nothing there. Which is a major disappointment since that perfume made my costume."

Izzy nodded, half listening. "Sure, sure. Ooh, idea. Pipp has so many perfumes in her room. I mean I don't know, but if her castle room is anything like her section of the Brighthouse, then yeah makeup and perfume city. Now I've never really been here so we can just ask around and we can get there. I mean how hard can it be to find a royal room?"

Izzy bounced off with Misty nervously following behind her.

***


Pipp was trying to play it totally chill as she eyed up the squads of batponies that totally weren't freaking her right out. She looked down at the teleprompter and smiled as she read off another line, some banal joke, a witty remark, a quick comment on a costume for the costume contest. Simple, easy work that put her name out there in the minds of the guests. "Wonderful, costume there girls. Should have known my Pippsqueaks had some creative talent, I mean with a role model like me its just impossible not to be creative." 

A small cheer from the crowd made the pop princess bring out her best camera worthy smile. "Thanks. Now I have to say everypony brought their A game today cause I see some of you unicorn creatives did something interesting, I have never seen ponies glue crystals to themselves before, but its surely something."

Pipp heard a few more ponies in the crowd murmur about all these vampires and she felt extremely exposed. "Oh, I just have some slight preparations to do before I bring down the house in the most rocking concert this side of Equestria." She blew a kiss out to the crowd and darted back behind the curtain. "Jazz, Rocky, I think we might need to move up my concert because it's getting rather unruly out there."

Jazz popped her head out and waved a manicured hoof. "Everything looks okay on the cameras; I mean we don't have a crowd issue so far. Nothing like when you tried to hold Bone-a-roo. That was a terrible solstice event."

Pipp grimaced, knowing full well that she couldn't just come out and say 'hey there's a whole lot of vampires' outside. That would be madness. Sure, Rocky and Jazz trusted her enough to believe most of what she said- though that was mostly because she was their boss. but they'd probably think she was pulling a Spooktacular prank for a bit or video. She lightly cursed her influencer proclivities and sighed. "Don't remind me. Just move up the fake blood dump moment by like an hour? Seems like ponies want to have some music to listen to." 

Jazz nodded. "Cool, Rocky, you're a go then, be the best DJ ever."

***


Thunder tapped a hoof on his phone and grinned. "Score, I am so close to getting these Breezies, I just need to be the last one stadning for this auction and boom, new sneakers for the collection." 

Zoom rolled her eyes. Her coltfriend and his sneakers. She didn't understand a bit of why he was so obsessed with shoes, but he had been fixated on them since he was little, and she had grown accustomed to his spending habits. Though she couldn't speak much- she had a plant collection that made the pair's shared lodgings look like a mix between a greenhouse and a shoe store. "Dude, I know we aren't assigned to the party, Thunder, but there's a time and place for everything. Put your phone away so we can keep the royal apartments safe. Queen Haven told us to do that. And she's our boss."

Thunder waved a hoof. "Got it, got it. But like the Queen's just chilling in her apartment with that unicorn stallion. And anyway, what's going to come over here. Some interested parties that we turn away and, maybe, just maybe, a fe ponies asking for treats. I mean come on."

Zoom cursed her luck. She could totally explain to Thunder that there was some spooky stuff happening with Zipp and he'd probably believe her, but Pipp had to pull the whole 'as a figurative sister to you, I have to pull sisterly secret privileges' and Zoom, being generally agreeable to be part of the dumbest ideas possible if a pony asked nicely, agreed. "True, so very true."

"-so if I was right and the random pony, I asked for directions knew what they were talking about. . .we're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the royal apartments." Two unicorns walked out of the stairwell and turned towards Zoom and Thunder. 

"Hey, you two, halt." Zoom puffed out her wings and tried to look as menacing as possible since Thunder was still lazing about like he wasn't guarding the most important part of the whole castle. 

The goth unicorn waved. "Oh hey, you two. Forgot your names, but I don't forget a stay in prison. I mean it helps Zephyr Heights has the best prison spa ever."

Zoom shook her head, trying to place the unicorn since Zephyr Heights hadn't used the jail system for unicorns since- oh. She remembered the chatty one, it was one of the princesses' friends. The name escaped her but take away the dyed mane and black eyeliner and the cheery personality shone right through. She reflexively bowed since while the unicorn wasn't royalty, per se, she was one of the five that brought back magic. And Zoom liked this new Flight Magic that the five brought back into the world. She had been a speed demon at heart, and she was able to take to the air like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Zoom shook her head for a moment since she remembered that while she liked flying, she did still have a job to do. And she didn't recognize the second unicorn. "Wait, why are you here. I mean this is the royal apartments and we kind of have to protect it."

Izzy nodded. "Totally fair, I mean you're actual guards. Though its cool that you two have a natural spooky costume. This is Misty Brightdawn and she needs some perfume for her costume. And I thought, well since Pipp is a perfume designer or whatever she called it. . .why not just grab a few and try them out. It's like free publicity for Pipp's pefumes and potions."

Misty awkwardly waved at the two pegasi. 

Zoom narrowed her eyes to stare at the suspicious unicorn. "Sounds fishy."

Thunder rolled his eyes. "Down, Zoom." He waved a green hoof and smiled. "Go on ahead, but please don't tell Pipp we let you two in her room, she gets a bit weird when ponies poke around her stuff. The perfume section is on the left. Can't miss it, I mean it takes up like an entire wall.

***


Zipp slunk around the party, a pair of sunglasses that she had found backstage covered her eyes from the strobing lights of the DJ booth that Rocky was controlling. She sucked on a smoothie that the bar had graciously made her, not a Sunny level of smoothie, but it was enough to stop what felt like the world's worst hangover from beating a drum in her brain. This sucked. She did enjoy a good Spooktacular because she could let loose and have fun, but with her new batty condition, it was a bit of a pain. 

"Princess, you got turned into this, too?" 

Zipp turned around to the voice, the booming stereo system playing some forgettable pop music making it hard to figure out to locate for a moment. Then she looked down and grimaced as she recognized one of the young ponies that ran around Maretime Bay. She didn't know the name of the pony since she rarely interacted with her or her young friends- they were more like Pipp's own cheer squad in the Bay- but she had compartmentalized this magical affliction as a small thing. Maybe a few pegasi that she vaguely recognized from her flight school teaching or her childhood, but she had forgot that magic was a zero sum game. The reintroduction of magic would affect everything in Equestria, refilling a vacuum with possibility. 

She just had thought it was her own problem. Or at least an adult one.

Zipp breathed out, thankfully used to high stress situations, and tried not to worry the young blue pegasus. "I mean I kind of woke up like this. And no, its not from me breaking some natural law cause of new magic, it just happened." She bent down to look into the young foal's eyes and sighed. "What is your name? I mean sounds rude but unlike my sister, I kind of forget."

The blue pegasus nodded. "Glory." She flexed her pink wings and squinted at the DJ booth. "Can we, um, go anywhere else? It's kind of loud."

Zipp nodded. "Follow me. You ever hear of the Wonderbolts?"

***


Misty was in heaven. She knew that modern living was probably a lot easier than her life in Opaline's castle but this collection of pleasantries and soaps made her rethink her whole life for a brief moment. She could look at some underutilized corner of the room and see technology that seemed like magic. Opaline had told her of the wonders of the past, but she hadn't prepared her for reality. Hopefully she wasn't nerding out too much, Opaline told her it was very annoying and unbecoming of a spy to have an emotional breakdown because you saw something new and exciting.

She was supposed to be a normal unicorn and this Izzy Moonbow wasn't freaking out over electrical sockets and computer screens. Izzy was balanced carefully on the bed, her hooves dangling and her magic floating random books off of nearby bookshelves for her to scan through. 

Misty was kind of jealous. Well, totally jealous. Izzy had things she desperately wanted- magic and a cutie mark- and she was skilled at magic it seemed. Opaline made magic sound difficult, arcane, dangerous, exciting, and here Izzy was using magic like it was nothing. No thought about power usage or creativity, just floating books over and not doing the smart thing. Getting up and climbing for a book.

Misty breathed out. She was trying to be cool, calm, and collected. She trotted over to the left side of the room, noticing the large mirror and carefully running a hopoof through her frizzy mane in a nervous tic as she scanned the myriad bottles of perfume. Each scent sounded like an ancient spell- rosewater with hint of bergamot, iris floral scent, pumpkin spice latte chai tea. That last one sounded particularly powerful. She looked over to Izzy, the purple unicorn's head buried in a book titled "Positive Thinking and You: How To Deal with Criticism and Self Doubt. Good, it would be far easier to grab as many perfumes as possible when the mare wasn't looking. 

She fumbled with her bag, careful not to damage the old burlap sack that she held rather close to her. It was one of her few possessions that she had and she had carefully mended each and every tear and burst seam with a new one. It may not look like much on the outside- just some random brown cloth bag, but the inside was a rainbow of colors and patterns that only she knew. It was special and hers and she didn't want to ruin it with a broken perfume bottle or ten smearing its contents all over. The smell would never come out. 

She carefully grabbed a couple perfumes, careful to stash them in her bag, and looked at Izzy. Nothing new, she was glued to the book. Misty breathed a sigh of relief and shoved in more perfumes. Opaline told her to get this mission done quickly and she knew first hoof not to disappoint the alicorn, she had far too many late nights without dinner to shirk her sabotage mission. She eyed the small perfume that had caught her eye- its mystical pumpkin spice latte chai tea smell intrigued her. It sounded unique. She touched a hoof to the spray bottle head and pushed down. 

She breathed in the smell and wanted to burst into tears. Not that it was bad, far from it, but it was the strongest smell she had ever, well, smelled before and the castle lye soaps with their acrid smelling freshness didn't hold a candle to this airy goodness that she had used.

She pushed the perfume into a side pocket and smiled to herself.

"There we go, sorry, sorry, it took me a while to choose what to use. Should we get back to the party? I mean everyone is probably super worried about us, right."

Izzy cocked her head. "You mean everypony, right?"

Misty cringed. "Right, right. Sorry, regional dialect. From, uh, outside where you're from. Everypony."

Izzy smiled. "Neat. So there's unicorns outside of Bridlewood. I mean before now cause with the magic back it's just kind of spread unicorns out. Though it does kind of cause some issues, I mean Alphabittle was telling me recently that there were new unicorn support groups to acclimatize everypony to the outside world just so we can walk around and not freak out about the four taboo phrases."

Misty gulped. That sounded ominous. "Which are? I mean as a unicorn from a different place I'm a little curious. . .for science reasons of course."

Izzy nodded. "Well they are magic, wing, feather, and mayonnaise. Don't ask me how that last one was added. It's a whole mess of a tale."

Misty awkwardly smiled. She had thought it would be some word of power. Opaline loved finding those in ancient books and ruins. But no, it was some silly thing. How could magic be a taboo word or phrase? It was one of the only things she wanted as a filly, magic and a cutie mark.

***


"Wow, you have all this stuff and I didn't even know you collected things." Glory flitted around Zipp's hoard of sports memorabilia, her worry about being a batpony forgotten for a brief moment. The small blue pegasus popped her head out of the hoard and cupped her hooves together. "I mean seriously. Pipp didn't mention it at all and she blogs the royal vacation because she doesn't want to have us fans worry about her. Not really my thing since I'm more a fan of her music, but the food of Bridlewood looked rather pretty."

Zipp smiled for a moment. the foalish wonder making her fruit cravings more bearable. She looked down at her smoothie that she had taken from the party and sighed, carefully sucking down the sugary mess without much complaint. She had to be careful though, the new large teeth still gave her issues. While she had to admit she looked cool in the mirror, the chance of biting your tongue off was a bit too much. She put the smoothie on a nearby side table she had refurbished and cupped her own hooves together. "I kind of tell my sister that I prefer privacy and all that. I'm already a princess, I kind of don't want to be an internet celebrity."

Glory shrugged. "I mean it makes sense. I kind of like my own privacy. But come on, you could totally do your own thing, like "Zipp's Totally Tubular Tricks" or "Sports Podcast" or I dunno, "Flight Stuff." Glory picked up some old Wonderbolts flyer that was old and faded, the blue and gold uniforms gone to teal and yellow with age. "I mean you have all this cool stuff and nopony even knows about it. I mean besides the few pics that Pipp posts every Spooktacular with you in your costume. Honestly kind of thought you made that one up. Guess I owe Peach Fizz some bits on that- she said it was probably an ancient pegasi thing and I said no. Cause I haven't heard of this sports team at all and I have these wings on my back." Glory flapped her pink and white bat wings to prove the point. 

Zipp sighed. "Yeah, well, I can get why. I mean the Wonderbolts kind of only exist in dusty tomes and the few old posters that haven't crumbled with age. Sad cause there's a whole section dedicated to them in the royal archives. Thought some of the stories were made up though when I was little- sending tornadoes filled with lakewater to a floating city made of clouds sounded completely fantastical. The return of magic kind of put a few of their more silly encounters in perspective."

Glory sat there quiet for a moment. "Yeah magic." She wrapped her leathery wings around her. "So you think we're going to turn back or is this a permanent thing? Cause I saw a lot of confused ponies out there in the party and while I kind of like the whole look, I really don't like the downsides." The young pony rubbed her ears. "I mean its cool to see in the dark and have scary teeth. but I kind of liked not having my friends me kind of scared of me. They don't say it, but they seem distant and all. It's only been like a day but they look at me funny. I mean I only did like one odd thing with a juice box and they probably think I'm going to attack them or something."

Zipp couldn't really say anything to that.

***


Pipp carefully breathed out, carefully smoothing out her dress as she did so. It was just like every other pop show performance, just with one tiny wrinkle of like a hundred batponies out there. But she could compartmentalize it, sure, that was simple. They may be possible bloodthirsty monsters, but like they were still here to party and she was Equestria's party princess, if the tabloids were to be believed. Though with how they shipped her with every well known stallion or mare that she looked at for more than a few minutes, they were completely off base. But sure, she at least knew how to party or to give ponies a mostly family friendly good time. No biggie about the batty ponies slinking about the Spooktacular. She loved spooky weird shit, magic was back, she saw enough episodes of Spookynatural to know the whole lore of multiple creatures of evil. All she had to do was perform and do the motions.

It was so easy, she could do it in her sleep.

She whispered into her mic to Jazz and Rocky and checked for a moment for her backup dancers. She saw a few of them in the corner of her eye that were also afflicted with this odd magical curse but she let that slip away. They at least seemed professional enough to put on a show, and partially that was because she hoofpicked them from the royal guards, they had a sense of duty to have the best show possible and keep things safe in bad situations.

She may be a pop star, but she was also royalty and being on stage with her backup dancers was probably safer than being in the crowd.

"Okay, Zephyr Heights, who's ready for the best concert ever?" A loud cheer washed over her and for a moment everything was right in the world, she was in her element and nothing could go wrong. "Cool, now anypony who knows this next song, sing along." The stereo system blasted out the backing track of her recent spooky hit, Monster Party.

How very ironic, Pipp thought, before she started singing.

***


Misty crept back into the party with Izzy bouncing behind her. The purple unicorn was a bit foolish and silly, and Opaline would despise her cheerfulness, but Misty kind of liked having another unicorn around. Or at least a part of her felt bad as she realized as she entered the party again, the loud and boisterous music that, she had to admit, was pretty catchy would have to stop immediately. It would be hard to sing some happy go lucky pop song as batponies started having a feeding frenzy.

She grimaced as she felt around in her bag, the pretty smelling perfumes more like an explosive primed to blow at any moment. She glanced over to Izzy, noticing that the mare had been probably blabbing her ear off for who knows how long and she snapped back to reality. "What?"

Izzy shrugged. "You remind me of Sunny. I mean not literally since she's an earth pony sometimes and sometimes an alicorn- thank goodness she learned how to kind of turn that on and off, though I would have accepted her winged and horny self cause well I do like her and all, but she sometimes tunes me out too. I mean I get it now, its hard to focus with Pipp up there singing." Izzy pointed at the small pink mare on stage, her light pink dress and fuzzy wings making her stand out, even if the spotlight was fully on her and Misty could swear the pegasus was glittering in the light.

Of course a pony like that knew how to make perfumes. 

"Oh, I wasn't staring. just listening to the music. Don't get to do that often. My town likes not singing and having fun." Not like Misty was outright lying there, Opaline was so focused upon her mission of reclaiming all the magic that Twilight Sparkle stole from her that any 'frivolity', Opaline's words, was seen as a waste of time.

Misty felt a twinge of guilt for a moment, Opaline's words that this odd magical happening would stop at dawn and right itself echoed in her head. If she did nothing, she could, for once, enjoy a night and live it up and have a nice memory that she could have for all time. If she went along with the plan, she'd cause so much chaos, discord and misfortune that she'd think about it for a while after. But if she didn't do it, Opaline would be angry and that was worse. She gulped and stared at Izzy for a brief moment, the idea that she was possibly ruining a chance at something. Opaline had eyes on these ponies, enough so Misty knew the word she was looking for, "friendship", she'd be ruining or tainting it with her action.

But Opaline's influence was right around her neck, the gold medallion, the only thing the alicorn had really given her since she had found her in the outer lands outside Equestria, it weighed heavy on her heart and mind. 

"I think you and Sunny would get along great. I mean you two are awkward and nerdy and it shows that even unicorns can be odd. Though its not like I'm the best case, I mean it took me a while to realize Bridlewood tried to run me out of town a few times. Sure, Sunny had to spell it out for me, but I got the message eventually. Not like I take it too hard, I mean they came around eventually. Else they wouldn't use my services for new sculptures and stuff."

Misty nodded, unsure of what the purple unicorn was even talking about. She felt the perfumes shift around her bag and listened to the music's tempo, entraining her ear to the rhythm as she grabbed a perfume and waited for the right time. "Sounds great, I mean I'd love to meet her, I mean you mention her a ton and she sounds wonderful." Misty cringed since Sunny did seem interesting, and the few snippets of Opaline's network of magic devices and things made the five of these ponies seem wonderful, though maybe they were secretly the worst. Opaline's magic wasn't infallible since she couldn't spy in the Brighthouse, the ancient magics of Equestria made it impossible to see within.

For all Misty knew, maybe Izzy and the others were secretly summoning demons or horrible creatures now because of the return of magic. She didn't know but Opaline's stories of the past seemed to make it highly possible that all these ponies were misusing magic.

"Hey, uh, Izzy, I just realized I haven't really eaten all that much, so I'm going to go get something to eat. I'll be back."

Izzy nodded and pointed. "Sure, sure, I'm going to check on Sunny and the others, see them right there, in the front? The one that looks like an alicorn, though like a black evil one? That one is Sunny. She doesn't always look like that, that's her costume. Though I guess I don't often look like this either, I mean I dyed my mane black to fit with what Pipp called 'the goth style.' I just did this cause I wanted to see how mane dye works and Pipp is great at it, I mean it totally makes sense why."

Misty blinked. Of course. Sure, whatever. She didn't know how to answer so she just nodded and mimed a 'hooves up' and slunk into the crowd. She wasn't lying, she was positively starving and while she had to cause a commotion, that didn't mean she wasn't going to stuff her face with food. She had smelled the wonderful spiced air for the last few hours and if she wasn't trying to blend in, she'd have camped out at the food tables and never left.

***


Pipp looked up at the fake blood in the rafters and smiled, the planning she had made for the best Spooktacular setlist had been months in advance, dance rehearsals, marketing, the works. She shut her eyes as she timed the button press that Rocky would do, she had done a trick like this a few years back and she'd rather not reenact that particular failure, while it was memorable enough to become an internet meme, being blinded and falling off the stage as your fans watched was kind of humiliating. The music died and she timed the bucket's slow tip down, counting down from ten as she waited for the fake blood to spill over herself and make a nice memorable moment for everypony.

The bucket tipped over and splashed its contents all over the stage, splattering some of the audience in the carefully delineated splash zone and as Pipp opened her eyes, she smelled not the iron smell of convincing fake blood, but the pungent smell of her very own perfumes.

Odd, very odd.

She didn't have time to think about that coincidence because the first batpony in the audience started howling in pain. A cacophony of howls erupted from the crowd.

Pipp stepped up the the microphone and tapped it with a hoof. "Uh, don't worry everypony this is, uh, totally a completely planned thing." She was terrible at outright lying. She saw the crowd shift and sway for a moment as they tried to figure out if it was real. 

The pink pop star moved away for a moment, not caring that she was completely soaked in fake blood, her pink coat smeared with red and whispered into her secondary mic. "Hit the button, Rocky, hit it. We'll play through this no problem. Pull out something from the upcoming album. The one Jazz said every critic would see as a complete genre shift." 

Pipp knew immediately that she had been heard even as the crowd started attempting to go for the doors as the sprinkler system they had carefully set up beforehoof started raining down a fine mist of food coloring and water. Rocky hit the button for the backing track and a loud wall of sound stopped everypony in their tracks, the panic and fear dissipating for a moment as phones were pulled out to record something that the Pippsqueak fan forums would go crazy for.

Pipp Petals, their internet queen was doing pegasi speed metal.
> 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."