Hunger was all it knew. The mouth it once had was fused shut, leaving its head a mere vessel for its other senses, and entirely useless for what it truly needed. It reared on its hind legs and clawed at its chest, trying, in some vain attempt, to tear away the gaping slit it once called a chest. A great maw extended from its neck to it pelvis, lined with meaty tentacles that served as both tongues and hunting weapons.

It scurried through the town, sniffing the air in search of prey, but found them to be hiding behind their little walls, where it could not reach them. Until it became stronger, it would be unable to consume the morsels, but it was growing with every passing hour, and it knew it had time on its side. There was a large cluster in one structure that smelled of steam and flowers, their scents half-hidden behind the thick odors, but they were their nonetheless, and they were scared.

Fear, as it learned, had a particular smell to it, and left a trail that exposed its prey's location. There were two new scents that lingered, both female, one of which was pregnant. If they were friends, they would both be moving slower to compensate for the weaker's ailment. Sadly, they both disappeared into the aromatic haze of the stone steamy building.

It would wait and see if anything changed, but it was hungrier than it had been that morning, and it did not know how long it could contain itself.

@#@#@#@#@#@#

The vampiress had an easy time breaking into the castle, and reclined in Renoir's suite to pass the time. The room smelled of vampire blood and sported a numerous, odd stains. There were numerous things she could tell about the other vampire based upon how he kept his belongings, which were stowed neatly into various drawers or strewn about various tabletops. She knew he was older than her by a few decades, practically a day to an immortal, but given the few years she'd been a vampire, she knew better than to cross him.

She rifled through his pack, not really looking for anything, but was pleased when her nose bumped against a small, wooden instrument. It was a very old ocarina, and appeared to be of some sort of heavy, dark hardwood, and she was surprised to find it smelled of smoke. Thinking to the previous night, she realized it made sense, given his use of fiery magic, but it was something she hadn't expected. Pursing her lips, she blew into its mouthpiece, and heard what may well have qualified as the shrillest screech she had ever heard.

“I see you've found my old toy,” Renoir said, pushing the door open as silently as one could expect. Princess Celestia stood behind him, and studied the vampiress with a neutral expression, and she felt herself shying away from the older immortal, as though burned by her gaze as she was the sun. “Now, as luck would have it, we may yet solve this issue before the sun sets.”

“Yes; that would be best,” Celestia replied, stepping into the poorly-it suite without hesitation. “I assume you are aware of my previous actions regarding your kind?” she asked, looking to the unicorn, who nodded. “Then I must tell you that I took no joy in it. Looking back, my actions, while warranted due to the increase in attacks, were unreasonable, and I have made many mistakes in my time.” She sounded depressed as only one who had seen millennia of life could be, and for a moment, the vampiress had the urge to console her, but realized it may not be for the best. “Renoir claims that you said the attacks last night were the first in centuries, but you aren't even in your tenth year of unlife.”

“I wasn't attacked,” she answered, and was immediately aware of how closely Renoir was watching her. “My name is, well, was, Radio Waves, and I was a DJ for small radio station just outside Fillydelphia. About eight years ago, I met this mare who was simply amazing.” She recalled her first meeting fondly, and could practically hear the lounge music and smell the fancy cigars another mare was helping herself to. “We dated for a while, then, one night, the taxi we were taking slipped on a patch of ice.”

She took a deep breath before continuing, shivering at the memory of the cold ground. “We crashed into a ravine; the cabby was killed on impact, and I nearly broke my neck.” She scooted a hoof over the floor and looked around, only to see her audience were more living statures than flesh and blood beings. Whether it was her storytelling, or their feelings of pity, she did not know. “Jeweled Locket, my fillyfriend, bit me; she gave me every drop of her blood while help was on its way. She died so I could live.” The mare formerly known as Radio Waves chuckled nervously, unsure of what else to say. “I guess yours was like that, Renoir?”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” he replied, his tone even as it had been when he first walked in. Evidently, he was unfazed by her story, however true it was, and looked objectively at what she said rather than account for the emotional aspect. “But that is a story for another day. I have already given the princess the empirical data, now all that remains is for you to convince her that vampires are worth keeping around.”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Glade was the faster of the two remaining pegasi, so it fell to her to scout the town . From what the townsponies said, it had no wings, but its mouth contained a number of tentacles that could extend for several feet, though they didn't have exact measurements. Obviously, her first task was the most dangerous: seeing if Pinkie Pie and the Cakes were still alive, or if Equestria's greatest weapon was out of commission. On her hip was a small trumpet, which was more of a loud foal's toy than anything, which she was to sound if the monster was waiting around the spa.

She took to the skies and circled, not quite sure what she was looking for, but the locals had assured her she would know it when she saw it. Seeing nothing, she blew into the plastic toy, and filled the air with its annoying call. Ponies flooded the streets in an orderly fashion, filing into their respective homes with the efficiency Glade had come to expect only from her fellow guardsponies. Still, something in her gut said this was to lull them into a false sense of security, so she kept to the air, if only to give the ground-bounds a fair chance in case something went wrong.

When the last door slammed shut, Fluttershy made her way to her new friend, her eyes darting around in her usual paranoia. “I think we'll need weapons,” she said, in as sure a tone as Glade had ever heard her. “We'll head by the local guard station before we visit Sugarcube Corner, if that's alright with you, that is.” Glade almost laughed when she reverted back to her usual speech patterns, but kept a sober expression to avoid putting off the timid pony.

“Off we go then.”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

“Doctor Cat keeps us supplied with old blood packs, princess,” Radio Waves said, trying her best not to look too relieved at being given a fair chance. She was, of course, the smallest in the room, dwarfed by both Celestia's alicorn body and Renoir's bipedal stature, so she naturally felt a little threatened by them. She knew there were no guards in the hallway, but also that they weren't needed, given the ease with which either of the other could kill her. “We're not that big of a drain on society, since they're close to expiring anyway.”

“Living in the sewers can't be too good to your sense of smell,” Celestia said diplomatically, sipping her tea. “Luna and Renoir came back reeking of it, so I can only imagine how much it smells to you all.”

“Well, the part most of us live in isn't really the sewers; it's more of an undercity,” Radio said, smiling. The vampire population in Canterlot wasn't that large, but it was the only known gathering of the undead within Equestria's borders. “Necropolis is more of a big apartment block instead of a city, but it's what we have.”

“Necropolis?” Renoir asked, his mouth turning into a wry smirk. He'd heard a few inventive names for ruins and caverns used as nests by the vile monsters he'd purged alongside his family, and Necropolis had also been the name of a settlement in the Reach some seventy years ago, where vampires, their thralls, and normal humans lived in near-harmony. That didn't stop the Belmonts from marching into town and razing it to the ground. “Honestly, that's like werewolves calling their gathering places dens.”

“Tom-may-to, to-mah-to,” Radio Waves said, scratching a hoof over her cutie mark. The pair of eighth notes glared from her pale coat like scorch marks on snow, drawing the eye of most and making them forget about her crimson eyes.

@#@#@#@#@#@#

“We don't keep many weapons here,” Fluttershy said, looking at row upon row of well-maintained swords, axes, lances, and all manner of bows that lined the shelves; in the back were a dozen suits of armor. All in all, it was better protected than most frontier settlements. “The Legion base in Solitude was better, but this is all Ponyville has.” For a moment, Glade wondered why Fluttershy compared the Legion to the Guard branches, until she realized that they were indeed very similar. Still, the difference in scale was amazing, as she figured the Legion had a numerical advantage over the Guard.

“I think this will do just fine,” Glade said, hefting a lance. She couldn't wear the armor effectively, given that it was both steel and lacked slots for her wings. She supposed she could get in a decent first hit with the lance if she built up enough speed, then move in with a sword, but if the monster was as strong as it was supposed to be, she doubted it would do much good. Still, if she got to Sugarcube Corner, and it was inside, the lance would do about as much good as poking it with a sharp stick, which it honestly was. At least in the open it would have serious momentum behind it. “It's all we've got, but it should get us to Sugarcube Corner and back.”

With that, they broke into the skies once more, keeping high enough to get a good view around them, but low enough not to be seen all across town. The trip was a quick one, unburdened by anypony who couldn't fly, and they touched down on a rooftop across the street from the bakery. It looked clear, but there was still the off chance the monster was waiting just inside. The windows on the second floor were boarded from the inside, which lent credit to the possibility the Cakes were still alive, but left their only way into the building on the ground floor.

“I'll go in first to distract it if it's in there,” Glade said, unsheathing the sword she'd procured from the armory. Even from her perch, she could see the lights inside the store were off, shrouding the parlor in darkness despite the afternoon sun. she hopped from the rooftop and gently touched down on the dirt path, which was indented by claw prints and trail left by a long tail. Fluttershy decided not to argue, knowing that nothing she could say would sway the lycan from the task at hand, and silently wished her the best of luck.

Summer Glade stalked towards the shadowy storefront with all the determination she had, walking with a precision that combined her disciplined upbringing and animal nature in a way that hinted at hidden fury that was contained only by the ring hanging from her necklace. Something in the shadows moved, and Glade sheathed her sword in preparation. Hefting the lance off her back, she took to the air. “Oh, it's in there, alright.”

The beast burst from the darkness, more horrible than she had originally imagined it could be. A diminutive, vestigial head stared at here from atop a thick, muscular neck that extended into its trunk and tapered off to form its tail. All in all, she estimated it to be roughly eighty feet long from tip to tip, and as it reared onto its hind legs, she realized how something with such a tiny head could swallow multiple ponies whole. Its entire torso opened as it roared, calling its hunger to the heavens above, and shaking the earth to Tartarus below. As it returned to its crawling stance, Glade tucked the lance's handle under the crook of her foreleg, keeping bot hooves behind the guard to prevent herself from sliding up the shaft.

Aided by gravity, she flew at an angle, slanting downward into the point where the beast's neck met the beginning of its shoulder, where the ribs were open and the heart was vulnerable. A couched lance, properly wielded and carried by sufficient force, could penetrate the heaviest of armor, and Glade packed a lot of force in her wings. The pointed tip pierced the monster's armor hide with a gout of viscous, dark blood, and worked deeper and deeper until hitting something solid. Carried by the momentum, Glade's body snapped the shaft into two, and she slammed into its back, tumbling until she rolled off its tail.

She gripped her sword in preparation for what was to come just as Fluttershy sped up the stairs and into the Cakes' home.