The last remaining remnant of Ser Vincent’s humanity was his right hand; his left had become the three digited pony glove, gaining a fire-retardant property. He’d also gained a mop tail but that wasn’t important right now. Ser Vincent the Nopony had endured pretending to be a pony long enough to not be handicapped by this change. It made his mind race, but he managed wrestle his thoughts and focus on researching a way to undo what the poison joke had done to him.

He skimmed book after book, finding the collective knowledge of decades worth of research by others to amount to a deeply unsettling “Do not touch! No cure known. Pray to Discord or endure until new moon.” These were rather old texts, and even the newer ones reference previous scholars and their failed attempts at remedies.

He closed a thick tome, one that had once been a reliable source of botanical knowledge, and growled at the disturbing sensation of feeling the binding through the gloved hand. Or rather, with the gloved hand.

Was he trapped in his attire or had it become his very flesh? He felt the air as if it was kissing his bare skin and yet bits of him flexed and protruded in reminder that it wasn’t; the lapels of his coat were folded; the cloth around his neck thankfully didn't hang like a turkey’s wattle; the belt loops added strange new sensations along his waist. The worst part was how he was becoming aware of all the short, brown mop strands that made up his false tail with every unintentional swish. He was thankful that he was wearing a shirt at the time of exposure.

“Nothing?!” His thoughts often escaped him. Sure he was calm and composed, absorbing as much information as he could, remaining generally quite as he strolled about his bedroom and kept dire thoughts at bay, but the lack of information meant he had to vent. Steam engines had exhausts and chimneys for a reason, after all.

He didn’t know how he was breathing so deeply. The cool air rushing through his nose was only a vivid recollection for his mask lacked nostrils, and yet his lungs filled and pushed out his chest. Full body transformation, body fused to exterior coverings.’ His arms linked behind his back, masked gaze falling to his heavy pacing steps, accompanying his heavier thoughts.

‘Poison Joke obtains weaknesses from prey's psychology, then derives mental state and physical form. Attacks subconscious of predator and applies magic to render them harmless, typically. ‘Joke’ aspects perceived as such by ponies and beings of equal intelligence as ponies, after all, humour is subjective and not the plants main goal. Creatures such as ponies and myself have a far more developed psyche than that of lesser animals therefore the effects twists one’s own image due to confusion with the magic at work.’

He stopped before his body armour, the scaled piece protecting a mannequin for the time being. ‘Hence, why I would still be capable of taking more samples as opposed to taking serious harm. It has too much work with when irrational fears, bad habits, quirks, personalities, potential psychological trauma are at work-- to name a few-- and must have mistook my dependency for my guise as being what I would need to attack it. The plant’s magic identified my clothes as a vital part of my ability to travel and attempted to remove it.’

He sighed with a weary shake of the head, face palming, cringing as gloved hand felt mask. ‘Merging of body to clothing was supposed to link me to inflexible shell in order to hinder my movements. Evidently, a clear misunderstanding on its part. It wished to render me immobile as I perceive myself to be when I am without my mask and coat etc. etc. I’m now supposed to be ‘vulnerable’ to potential predators, or so it concluded in its confusion.’

“Dear Fates, what have I become?” He didn’t know what exactly he was asking and couldn’t think over feeling a hand against what felt like his muzzle. His tail twitched from time to time just to drive home how strange things had become. He had grown a tail and he wondered if he had a bone in there. That was when an errant thought crossed his mind.

Quickly, he opened his wardrobe, the one that housed numerous belts and identical coats of green, sand, and white. Every belt had a small hunting knife sheathed and attached to them – he’d reach around his back for it when hunting on long missions and it was always hidden by his long coat. He maintained them weekly, ensuring that they were dangerously sharp.

He took one and opened his coat as far as it would go, feeling a dull pinch as the fabric of his old fitness shirt stretched. He couldn’t cut through his coat but he could possibly slice the seam where it bonded with the shirt.

There was a moment of hesitation, a single flicker of doubt revealed by momentary withdrawal, before he took a deep breath and pressed the tip into the seam on his left side. The puncture was about an inch wide and felt little more than a playful bite one may get from a family pet. Alas the fact that he felt something made him pause on reflex before he slowly cut down the seam.

Coming to five inches, he stopped for a moment of inspection. He sheathed the knife back into its belt before easing in his human fingers into the hole. He hoped for more flesh, to chill the skin of his sides with his cold finger tips. Instead he felt something scratchy, and a lot of it.

He pinched a piece and withdrew his hand. Cotton. He’d pulled out cotton. Confused, he tried again, reaching in and far around the large body of cotton before wriggling his hand through like a stubborn eel. It was only when half his forearm was inside him that the momentary confusion vanished. Transformational alchemy was a field that would lead to several strange incidents in one’s life, transmogrification specifically being the attempt to enhance and gain unnatural abilities or features without regard to any form of grace or beauty. He didn't look particularly good with gills and with a second set of waterproof, transparent eyelids.

Becoming a walking plushie of how he wanted others to see him? Definitely new.

“I best clear my schedule…” He spoke to the cotton in hand, as if it would answer back, before quickly returning it to whence it came. His words came shaky, calm and disciplined, but he felt the chill within him, his mind still calming the storm of terrifying thoughts, “Fortunately my heart still works fine, wherever it is.”

With swift resolve he headed to the door, “But first, I need to inform the Apples of my predicament… and to get out of this house. Zecora may be of greater help than myself.”

The night before he had stuffed his right-handed pony glove into his inside breast pocket and through the night it had fused with it. Ser Vincent simply resorted to hiding his human hand in an outer pocket as his briskly made his way down the garden path.

He kept his gaze to the hoof-tread road, not registering the stones with his malachite eyes. He’d head to town before turning towards Sweet Apple Acres – the journey would be longer and give him more time to think over the matter, to raw up theories and soothe his mind. He was losing control of his runaway thoughts.

‘Another side effect?’

That was troubling. He was a master of his craft and yet he was still failing to concentrate. His coherent thought gave way to bursts of panic but were just as quickly corralled. Yes, this was a fairly bad turn of events, but by now he was overreacting.

This was terrifying; true his response was rather placated relative to what others my experience but this was not his first magical backfire. He’d studied potions for years and had developed his own method of coping: small distractions to drain his nervous energy, such as pacing. Above all, he was knight and a professional. He simply needed a few more seconds to recollect and control his emotions and thoughts. He needed the control… Control.

'I'm beginning to see why this plant is so despised.'

His main issue was that he’d be out of work for a month. That, now that he had collected his thoughts, seemed worse than being transformed. Another issue to gnaw upon his neurons. Never mind that he was capable of feeling bodily functions, such as a heartbeat and an empty stomach, occurring within a cotton stuffed shell, but he’d be rendered useless to Equestria for thirty days! What was he to do in his state for a whole month?!

He brought his train of thought back onto the tracks of solving his problem with an irate shake of his hooded head. Now that he could think, he was devising possible tests to solve this magic mishap, experiments for a cure.

“Knight, help!”

He looked up to find a teen mare racing towards him from above. The creamy pegasus skidded when her hooves touched down, her wings splaying as she tried to run after the shaky landing. Wide eyed and with ears at attention, her desperation came through her voice, “Please help! There are monsters in town and the Princess is still away!”

'Fan- flubbing-tastic! Hardly beyond the gate and my day has become worse!’ He lowered his head to her level as he rested the gloved hand on her shoulder, his shallow baritone voice honed to a well-practiced calm. “Okay, keep calm, and tell me what monster I’m dealing with in detail.”

She shuddered and tucked her tail at his touch, but managed an agreeing nod. “I-I thought it was purple mist at first but then I saw claws, just floating and swiping at ponies.”

She gulped and he removed his hand, studying her body language as he listened intently.

“But then I saw other bits and pieces of, I dunno, bone? Like a spine, but not a lot of other things.”

“Good, anything else?” he said in a warm placating manner.

“S-s-sorry but my friends are in trouble!” she cried, eyes watering as she held herself, looking past his house and towards town. “We were just in the field nearby when one of them floated out towards the rest of the ponies just enjoying the sun and—It teleports!”

She gripped him and he allowed it; she tried to shake him but he was unmovable, partially stunned because even though she pinched the coat in her grasp, it felt like she was pinching his skin. “It has this big face and seems to teleport everywhere! It tries to grab you with its arms, that kinda look more like rock than bone, and then it bites you!” Her pupils narrowed and her voice began to croak. “Oh Fates, my friends!”

A shrill scream stole both their attention as an equally young earth pony mare came racing around the corner, her dress in tatters. That’s when he heard a crackling fizz --Fzzz, kack!-- and but a second later, a strange creature burst from thin air in a cloud of amethyst smoke.

The ghostly body of purple magic was triangular, the broad shouldered monster ominously drifting towards the mare. It seemed to grow in size as she fell back in a desperate attempt avoid a vicious swipe of its black claw. The translucent body was adorned with bones, seemingly burrowing in rather than becoming exposed, clinging on and spanning random parts of its shape. A dark spine arched too far out and off, a shoulder blade extended out like poorly suited wings, a sharp elbow pointed out; nothing fit, especially when the claw stretched out at the tip of those ethereal arms.

“Run!” he commanded the pegasus a he pushed her away, charging towards the monster. His human hand slid along his – he hadn’t attached a belt, fearing that it too would meld to his form, the pockets remaining sealed. No potions... a troublesome problem.

“Oi!” he taunted, garnering both their attention. At the same moment, Ser Vincent unleashed a solid blow with his human hand to its face, sending the monster back with a dazed shake of the head. The knight felt the sting of impact, felt the cold against the scrapes and cuts on his knuckles, but he barrelled through as it reeled in shock.

He pulled the mare to her hooves and kept moving, dragging her startled mind as it failed to keep up for a moment.

“Get away, somewhere away from town!” Ser Vincent yelled when his hidden eyes met hers.

“Th-th-thank you,” she said, shook up and backing away. Her friend flew above, taking her by the hand and pulling her away from the scene. He didn’t watch them leave. Ser Vincent turned back to the beast and got a good look.

Above a rib-cage -- seemingly too big -- was a unicorn skull, eyes possessed by a deep purple gaze. Elongated fangs hung from the upper jaw, the rest of the teeth dull. The lower jaw was naught but black fragments and a barely visible tongue. He recognised it immediately: a lesser shade.

When a particularly ambitious unicorn dies amongst the wilds of Equestria, where harmony has less influence than competing forces of magic, a part of their soul will carry on. A small fragment, one willing to deal with Discord or sell itself to tartarus for a chance at greater power. It was parasitic by nature, feeding off the natural magic of others to strengthen itself. It was the vampire story told to reckless students of the arcane arts, a warning of what comes to those that will do anything for greater power, damn the consequences.

And he’d punched it in the face.

It also collapsed in on itself.

Its body was supported purely by magic, the physical aspects mere additions as milestones on its never ending quest to absorb magic. Without a sound its entire form shrunk to a pin prick and vanished, leaving the knight seemingly alone in the open.

He stepped forward, arms at the ready. He hated teleporters, made all parties involved tired by the end of the chase. He couldn’t guess where it would come from but he could listen to the dead silence that had settled.

Fzzz, kack!

He rolled forward, dodging the pair of claws that slammed together where his head would have been. The claws flexed as it reached out for him, a guttural growl escaping from within its dark, magical core. The eyes flared bright as it moved closer to the knight.

He needed to get inside the house, he needed to get to the metal cases he kept in his room and he needed to act fast. All that stood between him and them was this monstrosity.

It snatched at his side but he’d already stepped out of its reach. It swung its other claw low but he hopped over it, only to be clocked on the back of the head by the first claw that had tried to grab him. He fell before the monster and instinctively rolled away, narrowly avoiding a large, bony fist crushing where his chest had been.

Getting to his feet but keeping low, he charged forth again, feeling his heart race. He was close enough that it tried to grasp him with rocketing claws but he dove over both of them, rolling and coming to stand uncomfortable close to its ribcage. Quickly, he tried to simply duck through its intangible body, moving his head aside as he passed its spine, but his arms became snared when he exited the other side.

Due to its arms being intangible it could manoeuvre its claws to be anywhere within three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. It had thrown its own fists through itself to catch him.

He was yanked back with a grunt, back through the deathly scented magic and foul miasma that held the lesser shade together. Both of his wrists were caught in a vice like grip, tightly felt even through the effects of poison joke.

It lifted its upper jaw as it suspended him before it, the split lower jaw of magic and bone shard working up and down as it drew closer to his chest. It would feed around the heart, neck, or skull. He struggled in vain as it lowered its horn, primed to skewer its lively prey.

Ser Vincent then swung his boot into its cheek, earning a shocked yelp. The claws kept him in place as it self-righted its skull-face, sneering and snarling up to him. The knight did not take kindly to the display of disrespect and kicked it again. With a howl it tried to stretch Vincent’s arms further, discomforting him less than it certainly should have.

With flailing legs, he managed to hook the toe of his boot between its ribs and pulled himself closer. Given the obtuse nature in which the bones joined the mystical body of the monster, the shade couldn’t turn its head enough to bite at his ankles as a skewed collar bone blocked it. It tried, almost leaving Vincent struggling to maintain his anchorage as his leg wrestled with that phantom tongue.

At the same time, he stomped its skull. Hard. Bitter anger built as the fight had been going on and he was unleashing it every time the heel of his boot landed. Every crack of the cheek bone came with a snarl of his own, every splitting web of impact made the lesser shade recoil.

It gave a horrendous wail and released his right arm, leaving him precariously suspended from his left wrist and his lodged boot. Quickly he reached over with his human hand, ignoring his bleeding knuckles as it gripped the shade’s claws. He pulled and pulled and strained and strained until—

Snap!

Two bone-claws snapped and the beast howled once more. It dropped him to nurse the disfigured claw, him having tossed the digits upon landing. His foot came lose and so he rolled off his back and madly scrambled to his feet and raced away. It caught him again, by his ankle.

“Ahhh, flub!” he cursed as he was lifted into the air. He could see the garden gate before him and then he was looking directly to the dirt floor as he was suspended. He levelled his inverted gaze to the shade as it growled and twitched its jaws at him. “I am going to enjoy obliterating your pitiful existence.”

It merely slammed him into the earth. Once, twice, thrice, and again for good measure. Harsh phantom pains wracked his body, the blunt trauma confusing his mind, racked by the disorientating sensation of having a temporally none-existent skeleton beaten. Another slam, and another beatings, and yet despite the throbbing of his sides ached rather than felt destroyed. It was like being protected by his armour but the blows were nowhere near as softened.

Limp and dazed, he felt his body be dragged to the side before his entire weight was slung forth. Weightlessness then took him, and when he was quickly gaining distance between him and the shade, he realised what had happened at the moment of impact.

With a shatter of glass and a cacophony of torn down blinds and a collapsed coffee table, Ser Vincent landed in the living area of his abode. Shards skittered along the floor and between the knight and the crumpled blinds. His mask was buried in the rubble of the once fashionable piece of furniture and his entire body burned. His arms shifted through rubble, pale fingers sending spikes of sharp impulses whenever glass slit the flesh thinly.

He rolled over with a grunt, feeling his chest sting with every cool, ragged breath. Supporting himself on his elbows, he felt along the shirt that made his chest. His exposed human hand found several small, jagged pieces of glass embedded in his chest, the webbing of between a pair of flesh fingers sliced, along with a short gash over his appendix and liver. Tufts of cotton leaked out, fibres hanging off his fingers. Nothing but surface wounds but at the same time, he'd have to find someway of treating them as they couldn't be ignored.

‘Nothing a bit of embroidery couldn’t fix.’ He bled cotton, its scratchy texture weaving between his fingers as he stuffed himself with clumps that had flown out of him. Things were far from ideal he thought, his mind once again spinning out of control. Dark ideas and grisly foresights hit. Would he be shredded? Was this is it? Ser Vincent The Nopony, the brave, the proud, defeated due to being handicapped by a plant? It made his heart race in a manner he hadn’t felt since he was a squire. The fear was there but something else burned, a fury born fueled by grief and years, a hell-fire cleansed his mind.

And then he realised that his broken magic hadn’t awoken yet.

Why couldn’t he feel his magic stir? Why hadn’t it? It always had previously. He then had control, he could unleash it as required.

“Oh my,” was all he simply said, staring down to his cotton – stuffed wounds and then between his hands. One was almost human, as ever, the other pretending to belong to a stallion. “Nothing…” His heart sank. Never had this seemed remotely feasible to him. Magical nullifiers existed, he used them on plenty of unicorns, but they imprisoned the spark of magic. It was still there merely caged.

His magic felt dead – there was no familiar abnormal spark.

‘Magical nullifiers!’

A shadow consumed him as the monster approached the window. Damaged claws gripped the window frame and crushed residual shards of glass as it attempted to drift in. He wasted no time in getting to his feet and bolting up the stairs. It wouldn’t be long before it decided to teleport once more.

He barged into his room and almost took the door of its hinges. He spied the two chromatic steel cases at the foot of his armour stand. He pushed aside the longer of the two and opened the smaller, bulkier one.

Inside, upon a bed of red velvet, twin gauntlets rested with immaculate polish of bluish-silver. The tip of all four fingers were sharp, every segment framed by small runic symbols trailing about like connected roads of simple spells. At the wrist was a thick band of silver and what appeared to be a key hole from which all the runes travelled from. Surrounding these gauntlets were numerous prisms of various colours, each ended with a handle of wood.

He reached for the right gauntlet and promptly fitted the silvery-blue piece of armour. It was light, durable, and would help pack a punch. Alas, given that his left hand was still three-digited, the other human gauntlet would not fit.

‘I only need the one.’ He felt a determined frown sprout.

He took one of the keys, a pink one, and inserted it into the hole on the wrist, feeling the gauntlet vibrate as it awoke. He snapped off the handle and spun the band, watching the mystical symbols covering the entire gauntlet glow pink and bright. The band slid over the key hole, white runic words glowing into existence. He once did this before his parents and they described the runic patterns as ‘like circuitry on a motherboard’. He had no idea what one of those were despite their best explanation.

All he knew was how to fight magic with magic, without unicorn magic.

Rosy crystals exploded into existence and he held out his arm. They squeaked and cracked as siblings appeared, fighting for dominance as new arrivals sprouted and butted against previous residents. Every new shard was vicious and sharp, wicked and nasty as the magic spread up along his forearm and stopped at the top of the bicep. Finally it settled and he flexed his arm and digits, mechanically balling a fist and shedding mystical shards that dissolved into magic mid-air.

He now held a serrated claw of his own, one specifically designed with magical monsters in mind. His hand glowed from beneath the crystal. The gauntlet was the work of someone else, another associate skilled in crafting, and the rune scheme was something he worked out with the same stallion. The key however allowed him to produce elemental effects, depending on what type of key he used. He made these keys himself through alchemy.

As Ser Vincent left he attached a specific belt he felt a frown deepen beneath the mask that had become his face. Literally as the case was. He was, decidedly, in a bad mood.

He quickly made his way downstairs, mindful not to scratch the walls with his wrist, and past the shade that made to lunge at him over the dividing low wall between the kitchen and the living area. He felt the table debris beneath his boot try to press into the sole and fail. In one fluid motion he vaulted out the window. The glass couldn’t possible cut through his left gloved hand.

He took deep breathes and left the garden, feeling his heart race in his chest. By now he probably would have used his magic, in fact, a lot of his injuries would have been avoided any other day. As it stood, he had to make do with what he had, and he had a burning ambition for some payback. Potions, powders, and their locations upon his belt ran through the knight’s mind, his gloved hand sliding along his pockets.

Fzzz. Kack!

With a haunting growl, the lesser shade emerged from the ether with its arms and claws outstretched and dangerously close. Deftly he side stepped the charge before blocking a powerful blind swing with the crystal arm.

It recoiled instantly with a howl. Like a cancerous growth burning like fire on dry wood, rosy crystals erupted at the point of contact. It ate away at the forearm and consumed half before stopping, a mercy given that was when the monster fell silent once more.

The knight witnessed it channel more of the magic keeping the beast alive into its arm, a sign evident by further growth of the crystals. Ser Vincent wasted no time and threw another slash directly into the crystal growth, shattering it and cutting through the other half of the arm. The effect was immediate; from the forearm down, the shade's arm had crystallised.

The monster leapt back as fast as it could drift, growling as it lost the ability to control its claw. The growth took magic, effectively consuming the energy needed to sustain an arm. It desperately tried to reconnect feeling to its claw to regain control, but Ser Vincent had taken that from it, and kept it with every new micro-growth of solidified magic. The shade merely had a complex stump extending from its elbow, of pink crystal and dull, black claws.

It snarled and glared at Ser Vincent as he ran towards it.

He noted that it tried to shrink and teleport again and again, inciting the growth to enlarge a little more with every bit of magic wasted on the endeavor.

Ser Vincent worked with others to create a way to incapacitate magic wielders, be they beast or pony. This power came from his little pink prism.

And thus the gauntlets were forged.

He leapt over the shade’s vain attempt to lash at his his knees with its working claw and brought serrated claws down onto its shoulder. His arm passed through, though this time it was like dragging his entire arm through mud as fast as he could swing a blade.

The affect was immediate. A crystal cluster appeared and swallowed the shoulder whole. This cut off magic suspending the flailing claw and it promptly fell out the air and the bones disconnected and turned to dust.

Despite missing an arm and being unable to teleport, the shade swung at him with its paralysed stump of a claw. Ser Vincent blocked the solid stump with his left arm before driving the same gloved fist into the shade’s ghastly face. The impact was harsh on the shade, the pain increased when the crystal fist soon followed after, striking the rib cage, cracking the sternum and several ribs. Nimbly, the left hand reached around the ribs and gripped the spine right below the skull.

There was a gurgle as his arm past through the neck before another sneer came about. The ethereal tongue quickly wrapped around his left forearm and attempted to move it closer its snapping jaw and pointed fangs.

So Vincent beat it with his crystallised gauntlet. He aimed for the fractured cheek and delivered painful blow after blow. It tried to clobber him with its stumped arm but he simply gripped its gut, waited for a crystal clump to form, before tearing it out and tossing it away to dissipate.

Lesser shades may come from the haunted, dissatisfied shards of power hungry unicorns, but they have the same flaw: they cannot refill their magical supply naturally as unicorns can and therefore must feast to replenish their mana. Their vampirism kept them alive and restored lost or spent magic. The accumulated dark force at work was all that kept the ethereal husk together and Ser Vincent was ripping out pieces at a time.

When he felt the magic supporting the neck was weak enough, when he felt he had secured his grip with his left hand, and when he met its dark purple eyes with his own sharp malachite stare, he spoke.

“You got nothing on a monster like me.”

He then drove his sharp crystal fingers deep into its purple eyes. It wailed with a shrill cry as he tried to secure a tight enough grip. Its entire body lowered as its dark magic flared bright, its shape starting to spasm as he pulled. It roared and quaked, Ser Vincent’s unenhanced strength barely keeping it in place.

“Rest… in… peace…” He felt teeth he didn’t have grit as he gradually, seconds by wrestled seconds, steadily tore the decaying skull from its old black spine.

The popping noise that soon followed was wet like festering blood, and squelched with the stench of a bog. With a single arcane pulse that almost pushed back the knight, the decrepit magic of the lesser shade dissipated and the bones and skull in Vincent’s hands quickly turned to dust. Wisps of light drifted out and away from the scene, slivers of magic returning to prey feasted on within the last twenty four hours.

‘Many will recover but it will be a disorientating experience.’

For a moment he simply breathed, pouring off the sand of the dead from both of his hands. Looking down reminded him that he was leaking cotton and he began to grow concern over possible contamination of bone dust and glass getting lodge within him. He allowed himself a small chuckle at a passing thought.

‘Thankfully, my magic is not needed for me to do my work.’ He looked to the white glow on the back of the gauntlet, finding it not as bright as before. He curled the crystal claw into a fist, watching fallen flakes of crystal and purple necrotic magic dissolve into nothing. For a moment, he was thankful that he was never overly reliant on his adrenaline-infused magic – it did only serve to amplify the present abilities of the man wielding it, after all.

“You did it!”

He turned back to find the teen mare from before hovering near his roof. Her tail swished merrily as her body shook with unbridled joy and relief; her smile grew wide and thankful, her hands were held near her chest and her ears stood on end.

“That was amazing!” she added, swooping down and parting her long golden mane out of the way. “I knew you could do it!” Her ecstatic smile faltered when she lowered her gaze from his mask to the cuts in his chest. “Are you okay? You took quite a beating.”

“Tell me, are you feeling dizzy or weak in the heart and wings?” He watched her tilt her head, ears folding when he gave a well practice snap of his pony-gloved fingers. “Quickly, I need to get to town.”

“Um, no, it didn’t get me.”

He nodded and passed her, looking back over his shoulder. “Get ahead and tell everypony to hide indoors – it can’t teleport under doors nor can it teleport through glass or small spaces, so close the windows too.”

“Oh okay,” she said with a quick nod.

“Also, if it does try to break a door down, tell everypony to leave through the back, and go to somepony else’s house. Lesser shades hunt what they see and give up the chase easily enough.” He watched her take to the skies, wishing for a pace that matched Rainbow Dash’s. He then bolted along the dirt road into town to hunt another shade.

“Thanks, Ser Vincent!”

Between huffs of breath, Ser Vincent looked up to the mare that had thanked him as they both headed into town.