Black hid the nicks and dents. Black hid him in the shadows, kept him out of the public eye. Black hid his face, kept him anonymous. He was just one more operative holding the line, and hold they would. The stallion steadied his aim and squeezed the trigger rune again, absorbing the shotgun's blowback with his shoulder. Another cultist dropped to the ground, missing her head. Three more rushed him, thinking that his weapon was too slow to catch all of them. They would have been right, if he had been carrying a common scattergun. He shifted his grip to hold the shotgun by the forend, and the trigger rune glowed a soft red. He pumped the action three times, the weapon roaring with each, and the three cultists fell dead. The stallion shifted his hooves back to the trigger, and the red hammer and sickle rune faded back to cold grey. This was not a battle. This was housekeeping.

He loaded shells into his shotgun while two other operatives moved up. Outside the abandoned warehouse, another squad was cutting down runners. This was a decrepit section of town with high unemployment. Ponies looked for something to fill the time, and something to fill the empty place in their bellies. The cults promised an easy life, sugar-coated with sensuality and spiked with chems. He walked past an empty syringe. Next to it was a stone stiff colt, dead for only a day or so. The cultists would have let him lay there until he started to smell. They had what they wanted from him, his money and his life. The operative felt a pang of sorrow, but it was dulled by fatigue. He had not slept in a week. Not for longer than two hours at a stretch, anyway. Everything felt dreary, mechanical, and all his reactions were just a touch slower than they should have been. He raised the shotgun and blasted another cultist, then rolled to his left and blew away another who had jumped one of his squadmates. For a moment, the earth pony forgot why he was even raiding this warehouse. All that mattered was the target, the trigger, the tink-chick of reloading.

There was one thing he remembered with perfect clarity. Her. Her pretty face. The way she had eaten that chocolate bar with careful bites, and the questions she had asked. He remembered walking her home, and wanting to take his helmet off to feel the cool night air against his face. The operative leaned down to help a squadmate back onto his hooves. Had she taken the red pill, or the blue one? Had she just shrugged, written it all off as a bad dream? He pondered for a moment longer, until another operative prodded him in the side and gestured toward a door. The earth pony took his place at one side, glanced at his comrades, then with three quick blasts obliterated the hinges. He kicked the door in, and two other operatives hosed everything inside with lasbolts.

Through a hole in the roof, he could see the moon. It was high and bright, just like last night. He had gotten there in time to save her, but not in time to protect her. He had been tired last night as well, and had not run as quickly as he could have. Now she knew what horrors lurked in the dark corners of the earth. That monster had not been sired, the autopsy team thought it had been created through some foul ritual. He rolled through the doorway and pumped a few rounds into an overturned table, winging one of the cultists behind it. Something smacked into his front with enough force to hurt, and he ducked back behind cover. The cultists were shooting low-caliber rounds. Cheap Vladof white-pattern knockoffs, from the look of it. His armor had stopped the bullet, but he saw another operative fall when a cultist up in the rafters emptied his clip into her back. The earth pony whipped up his shotgun and fired two shells at the coward. The buckshot's raw force hurled his body over the rail, then gravity took him ten meters straight down onto hard concrete.

Tonight's assault was to root out this cult and discover if they were the source of these vampires. There was a grander scheme, but he did not have the mental strength to care anymore. None of them did. They were worn out, wounded, and worried. Too many things had gone wrong of late, from a botched weapons trade with ARGUS to that renegade gang of Lycans who flaunted the Pack Pact. He still had a deep gash down his back left leg that was holding together with nothing more than medigel and grace from above. In the corner of his eye he saw a cultist with a wicked blade spring out of the shadows and cut deep into another operative. The fanatic was high as a kite, it took three blasts from the shotgun to put him all the way down. This was sloppy. They should not be here tonight, it was costing them too much. But this was their job, to speak for the lost, and regardless of what they discovered tonight, this cult had killed too many for the Bon Hadescream Organization to turn a blind eye.

Even so, there was mercy. He saw a young colt, huddled behind a crate, whimpering to himself. The operative heard a baamph as a stun grenade went off in another corner of the warehouse, and saw the colt shut his eyes in fright. He was a young unicorn with light caramel colored fur, scared out of his wits, and dressed too neatly to be a regular here. The operative clicked his communicator, confirmed that the situation was as well in hoof as could be expected, and moved toward the boy. He kept his eyes searching and his shotgun up, then nudged the colt with the barrel. The boy's eyes shot wide open, and he started to reach for a bloody switchblade that had been dropped by a dead cultist.

"Don't." The helmet amplified his voice, and the colt froze in terror.

"Muh... muh... monster!" he said softly, and pushed himself away until his back was against the box.

The operative kicked the switchblade into a corner, then checked over his shoulder. "Why are you here tonight?"

"G-girl. My girl," he blushed, his natural shyness enough to break through the horror of the moment. "Well, I'd like her to be my girl, but she... she's not. She comes here... and I wanted to..." he swallowed hard. "Be near her." The colt looked around, and gathered his courage. "But I... I didn't know this place was a dump. She made it sound like paradise-" He suddenly found the barrel of a shotgun pressed into his throat.

"Is she worth dying for?"

The boy shook his head quickly.

"No?" asked the operative. "You desired her company, but you would not give your life to protect her?" The earth pony was so very tired, but he felt a glimmer of hope for this boy. He had been young once too, and still was despite all he had seen since he joined the Organization. Perhaps tonight one life could be snatched from the jaws of death. "Then I don't think she's the girl for you. Certainly not if she ran off and left you alone like this."

The colt glanced from side to side, wondering if this was somehow a test, or some kind of initiation. No. There was too much blood all over the floor, too many bodies laying on the ground. He had seen how these black specters blew through the door. They were not the cops. The cops don't come around here anyway, not unless they're looking for bribes. Still, that girl was so bewitchingly beautiful that he could not agree. For a second, he could see her in his mind's eye... and then he saw her for real, a blade in the glow of her magic, sneaking up behind the black knight who held him at shotgun-point.

"We'll be together, you and me," she seemed to whisper into his mind. "Just keep his eyes on you, while I make him a sacrifice... my champion." Some green fire of unknown origin danced in the darks of her eyes, and she moved on impossibly quiet hooves. He felt a surge of joy, held back only by a curious little tidbit he had studied in school, for he was a very diligent student. He had learned much about the pony body, including a thing called the cadaveric spasm. It was the tendency of a body to stiffen on death. He glanced down at the shotgun muzzle pressed against his throat, and realized that he truly was being asked to trade his own life for the girl's.

Her smile was enchanting. Something exploded to the left, but he could not turn his gaze away from her. She held the blade low as she skulked behind some boxes. Nopony would see. "You came here for me, my sweet. Do not turn back, it's too late. We were meant to be together. Remember how you told me I knew you better than your parents ever could?" Her horn pulsed, and a sweet vision filled his senses.

All these things happened in the twinkling of an eye, before the operative could grow suspicious. The colt felt the warmth of her embrace, the power of being her champion. He would be accepted by the cult, welcomed into their secrets. He would belong. There would be no more yelling like at home, no more studies, only pleasure. What more was there to life but pleasure? How could he cheat himself of such an offer, when he had already come so far?

"Love..." the operative felt lightheaded, as though something was pushing his thoughts down. He could still remember her clearly, and little else. He had been saying something to the boy... "Love is about wanting the best for the one you care about, because you know she wants the best for you too."

"I love you," the cultist sang through the young colt's mind, but hurriedly.

"She sits there all day at her adding machine, calculating things that make your head spin, and you only see her when she comes to get the office's lunch from your deli." The operative knew he was rambling, but something fuzzy was clogging his mind. Was he really that tired? "And you smile, make small talk while you put the sandwiches together. You become the friend she never thinks about, but... it is still well with your soul." He shut his eyes for a second, then forced them open again. "Because you're strong enough to fight monsters, but not to ask her out, even though you know she would say yes." He knew, but he also knew she would never ask either. They were friends, and it was too risky. The fear of an awkward refusal, or worse, the relationship souring, kept them silent. Better just to see each other and smile than to risk it all and see it come apart. Not to mention the fact that every night he picked up his shotgun and held the line. "That's what love is..." he mumbled.

Something else exploded. The colt took a deep breath.

"Just a second more, my champion, and then my lips shall be upon yours."

He smiled to get the operative's attention, then shifted his gaze into the creeping mare's eyes. They were lovely, bewitching, and filled with the burning souls of so many who had fallen to her charms. The colt raised his hoof to point firmly at her. "Love. Not lust." I can't let her kill him. He has a special somepony. She doesn't want me. I'm just a disposable scalpel to her.

Two neurons sparked, and the operative's training kicked in. We speak for the lost. Three hundred and sixty five days at Camp Pendulum, every moment spent melting and reforging his body and mind. We cheer the innocent. He was here tonight not to take life, but to save it. This boy, and others like him, they were the reason they had come. We act for the victims. The dead colt with a needle next to his corpse, he never had a chance. Came here looking for something better, and all they had to offer was a false hope. We who have won life's lottery will answer, not in guilt but acceptance of our duty, for those too weak to cry out.

He had already rolled to the side, found the target, and brought his shotgun up. Her horn glowed, and the operative had to roll again to dodge the flying blade. He squeezed the trigger, and the ritual knife was blown apart by buckshot. The mare screamed in pain, as though the knife were part of her, and staggered back. He hauled himself upright to get a clear shot, then hissed in pain when one of the little shards from the knife was levitated into his side. "We find profit in Harmony," he muttered, taking strength from the mantra, "and liability in Discord."

"Pretty words," she whispered, and ripped down a catwalk above him with a brilliant pulse of her horn. He barely managed to get out of the way as the hunks of metal fell to the ground. "But not words of power."

He put two blasts of buckshot in the direction of her voice, and she ducked for cover. As another part of the warehouse exploded, for this little battle was but one of many, he yelled, "if the world will be shaped only by strength, it will be shaped with ours!"

"You cannot begin to comprehend the might of the True Powers!" she spat back, hurling a jagged hunk of wood at him. It nicked his armor and knocked him down, but otherwise he was unharmed. The stallion slung his shotgun and crawled around one of the crates, while she closed her eyes and summoned forth another mystic blade. "I'll make sacrifices of you all!" As she searched for the operative, the mare did not notice the shy pony creeping up behind her. A heavy wood beam smacked into her head, and knocked her flat. She rolled onto her belly, blade raised to cut out that traitorous whelp's heart, but suddenly felt something cold and metallic pressed against her forehead. The cultist blinked to clear the haze from her eyes, and saw the black-armored earth pony standing above her. Next to him was the colt, who had knocked her blade down and was pinning it beneath a sheet of metal that had fallen from the catwalk. Beads of sweat ran down his face, and he was shivering in fear, but he still kept his body weight on the sheet of metal.

"We are the Bon Hadescream Organization," the operative said calmly, his tired voice stabilized and amplified by the technomagic in his black helmet. "Witch."

Blam!

A second after he had pulled the trigger, he wondered if perhaps interrogation might have been the better route. The operative loaded another few shells into his shotgun, and heaved a weary sigh. He really needed to get some rest. They were here to find out if these cultists were molding vampires, and this one seemed powerful enough to have been their leader. On the bright side, if she was the leader, then her death should throw a wrench into their production.

"S-sir?" the colt asked nervously.

"Speak." That was a bit curt, but at the moment the earth pony was struggling to convince himself that he should not down another caffeine and ginseng supplement.

"Thank you." The boy smiled, then glanced over his shoulder. "I... I was studyin' to be a doctor." On his flank was a cutie mark of a heart monitor. "Do you... think I could help your friends any?"

The operative looked the boy up and down, then pulled a red kerchief from a pocket on his armor and tied it neatly around the colt's neck. "Do not take that off. Do not stray more than five meters from me." He nodded toward the remains of the witch. "The cultists do not take clean shots. Are you sure you have the stomach for this?"

With a slow nod, the colt replied, "yes sir. Anything to help some heroes."

"Heroes?" the earth pony shook his head. "We are but operatives. We hold the line." They trotted toward a fallen pegasus, who was struggling to bandage a bloody wing. "If you stick around though, I'm sure you'll see some real heroes." Under his breath, he muttered, "or we'll all wind up dead in a blood pit."

The cream-caramel colored colt nodded, mishearing the stallion's statement. "You're right, she's lost a lot of blood, but she'll pull through it." His horn glowed softly as he took the bandage and wrapped the mare's wing.

"Blood for my blood pit," the vampire cackled, "skulls for my skull throne!" Her tri-barreled shotgun roared as she hosed the room with buckshot.

"Vinyl, you do not have a blood pit." The grey mare at her back took a quick breath and dropped three ghouls with precise lasbolts. To her complete lack of surprise, they stood back up, their wounds healing almost as fast as their vampiric masters'. "And if you did, it would certainly be against regulations. Also, think of the smell!"

With another maniacal laugh, the pale mare switched to incendiary rounds. Tongues of fire ripped from the barrels of her Scatterspell, the bane of any vampire, even herself. Fire was a threat to almost any creature, except perhaps a dragon. "It would smell delicious, Octy." A dining table burst into flame, skewering the vampires behind it with burning stakes. "And I'd have you stirring it with one of those huge mixing spoon-a-ma-bobs they use for the chocolate vats!"

"You," the sniper fired, "most certainly," she fired again, this time taking the ghoul's head off completely, "would not. Now, chocolate, that smells wonderful. Blood smells like metals, because there is-"

"Copper an' iron in it," the vampire licked her lips. "You gotta keep it fresh, though, if it starts decayin' it-"

Across the room, a four-legged pillar of flame screamed as only a creature of the night can, and hurled itself through a window. The rush of air as it fell put out some of the fire, but the sudden stop forty floors down was quite fatal to the vampire's damaged body. Almost as soon as it hit, a black construction vehicle rolled up next to the sidewalk, and two operatives started cleaning up the mess. Some civilians looked on in horror and surprise, but the ponies were wearing custodial uniforms, and they did put up nice orange safety cones. Perhaps the city's street sweepers really were that efficient...

"-starts to stink." Vinyl yawned. "Frack, gonna be sunrise in a few hours." She slowly lowered her shotgun and looked around. The entire ballroom on the fortieth floor of the Bella Roux Building lay in ruin. Glass shards from the chandeliers covered the floor, disoriented fireflies buzzed about, and the ornate wood panelling would never be the same again. Bodies lay everywhere, and ashes were strewn liberally over the tables and chairs, all that remained of the "immortals" who had come to feast tonight. The pale mare trotted to one still-twitching pony, rolled her over, put on her most terrifying smile, and let the ghoul scream for a full minute before shaking her. "C'mon, grow a spine, ya wuss!"

Octavia reloaded her lasgun and glanced about the room for survivors, but the few who could still move were in no state to fight back. She took a deep breath, cleared her mind, and felt her stomach grumble. Unfortunately, all the buffet tables had been upset, and none of them had contained anything truly filling. She tugged open a covered tray to find a selection of soft rolls, and with a guilty glance over her shoulder picked up two or three to much on. Killing monsters was hard work!

"If you don't stop screaming, I can't interrogate you!" Vinyl insisted. "Don't you want to be interrogated?" The pale mare tilted down her glasses. "Don't you know who I am? Magazine columnists fight to be interrogated by me!"

"Mosh..." the grey mare chewed quickly, embarrassed that she had forgotten her manners. "Those are interviews, Vinyl." Octavia sighed, and swallowed a mouthful of bread. She reached out for another, but pulled her hoof back. Then again, it would be a waste to leave good food to rot...

"Same difference, it's all about me either way!" The vampire laughed. "C'mon filly, gimmie a smile!"

A look of confusion spread across the mare's face, and her scream lessened in intensity. She was a ghoul, a servant of a vampiric master, bound to him by his vitae. It made her stronger, faster, and until tonight, unstoppable. The only cost was that she became addicted to her master's blood, but that was a small price to pay for everlasting beauty. Besides, he loved her. He said so. He was now strewn across three separate tables, having caught a burst of explosive slugs from the pale mare's shotgun when the two Assets first stormed into the ballroom. The grey mare had popped her with two lasbolts to the barrel, but that had healed quickly enough while she lay numb on the floor. The greater shock had been losing her beloved master. Yes, he had been cruel sometimes, but he still loved her. He said so. Every time after he whipped her, made her beg for his blood to mend the hurt, he said he loved her. That made it true. A soft whimper escaped her lips.

"Okay, that's better-"

Master was gone! The realization hit her harder than any lasbolt ever could, and she began to scream again. I'll get old, and ugly!

Vinyl pulled her headphones over her ears and winced. "Sheesh, girl. You're not trying out for a hair-metal band, get a grip!"

Meanwhile, Octavia glanced down and wondered where all of the rolls had gone. Most of the other items on the buffet were blood-based or ruined, this was a vampire gathering after all. Food was only there for their servants, since some of them liked to watch mortals eat. Anything aside from blood and flesh tasted like mush to most vampires, but chaos was the only truly common trait. The cellist wondered, not for the first time, if she counted as Vinyl's ghoul. The earth pony was not a vampire, and certainly not a mortal. She had taken a few bullets from the guards, but most of those had been stopped by the armor plating in her tan uniform. Those that had penetrated were quickly pushed back out and healed by her body, she merely had to take cover for a few moments. More worrying to her was that her healing seemed to accelerate if she made a skillful shot while injured. Even after two years, the Organization's doctors were not sure what Vinyl had done to her.

The screaming ghoul had begun to grate on the vampire's nerves. "Okay, you asked for it. I'm going to have to read your mind." She raised her front hooves to her forehead, and hummed as though entering a trance. Then a savage smile crossed her muzzle, and she grabbed the ghoul before she could get away. "By drinking all your blood!"

She struggled, but could not stop Vinyl from leaning down and sinking those sharp fangs into her pulsing jugular. Warm blood gushed into the vampire's mouth, and she moaned softly as she feasted upon the mortal's life. As delicious as it was, it was still merely a conduit. She reached through the pony's blood and into her mind, rooting about for some delectable tidbit of knowledge that would make the Queen Ant happy.

It was for naught. The ghoul knew nothing of value. Only images of torment, luxury, cruelty, and "kindness"... wait...

"Master, I discovered something!"

Vinyl teased the memory out, ripping at the mare's soul to loosen her resistance.

"The Lessers, they are moving again. I heard it from one of the Countess' ghouls, he told me that his master was entertaining an offer from one of the Lessers."

The "Lessers" were vampires who did not dance to the Elderati Council's code of conduct. Some were rampaging savages, but they rarely survived long. Others were extreme recluses, unwilling to play the game of favor-currying and petty politics that was the very cornerstone of Elderati power. Vinyl had even been called a Lesser to her face. Once. Well, more than once, but almost never by the same pony.

"They plan to move against you, Master. He said they had many strong ones of blood at their command."

"Really?" Had been the stallion's response. "And why, praytell, did he impart these secrets to you?"

"He... he wanted-"

"You let him touch you, hmm? You let him touch my property."

"Master, I- I-"

Vinyl winced in pain. She had delved too deep into the memory, and was feeling the ghoul's "reward" play out through her own nerves. She hissed in pain and rode it out, then finished the mare off with an aethereal snip. The vampire stood and wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth.

"A Lesser, huh?" She looked around the room. "Frack, this is starting to feel like hunting down that one git in Manehattan." The pale mare straightened her hat. "Heh... but I got backup this time." She looked across the room and saw a vampire lying on his side, trying to pull himself toward a bleeding corpse in hope of a drink.

Octavia reached for her communicator, then stifled a belch. Her cheeks turned pink with shame. She knew that she should not have eaten all those rolls, but... she had been hungry. The mare glanced down at her body, certain that she must resemble a hot air balloon, but she was still trim and fit. Every day, she trained with other operatives, trying to forge herself into a more perfect weapon. Her ears twitched up as she heard a strange noise from the other end of the ballroom. A pony with a stark white coat and lifeless red eyes staggered in from the kitchen entrance. The sniper took a breath, then turned her head slightly as she noticed another pony, almost identical, trot in through a side door. Another staggered into the ballroom from the little stage meant for an orchestra, and two more shambled in through the double doors she and Vinyl had entered by.

Vinyl raised an eyebrow. "Evenin' gents. Y'all are late to the party, but there's still some life to it." She yawned again, feeling flush with blood. "My name's Vinyl Scratch, and I'll be serving you all the steamin' hot wubs your frozen hearts could desire!"

One of the bleached ponies turned to look at her. Octavia saw that he had some kind of metal box tied around his neck. "Vinyl... Scratch?" warbled from the box. "Here?"

The DJ raised an eyebrow. "That's an aether-frequency radio if I've ever heard one." She half-closed one eye, then added, "A Golikov-twelve, if I ain't mistaken."

"Indeed," said a cheerful voice through the speaker box. "Well, you must be who you claim if you recognized that tinny warble right off the bat. And if you are here, I gauge by the lack of other noises that you have already killed all the Elderati."

"Yep."

"In that case, I must apologize for what is about to happen," the voice sounded genuinely sorry. Vinyl went ahead and reloaded her shotgun. "But I have no control, no kill-switch, no failsafe of any kind. I could not risk such a method being compromised."

Octavia stepped closer to her friend and whispered softly into the vampire's ear, "these look rather like the creatures the Lady wished for us to investigate." Bon Hadescream branches all around Equestria were reporting sightings of "feral vampires" in numbers too great to be sired by the normal means.

"I will say this, I do hope to speak with you again. I am an avid fan of your work." Little sparks began to pop from the box, and the final words were distorted. "Good luuuuuuuuck!"

The box clanged to the floor and exploded in a flash of light. The five strange ponies growled, and their eyes turned a more lively shade of red as their bodies swelled and grew. Vinyl leveled her shotgun and emptied a clip of buckshot into one, but the slugs barely slowed it down. Octavia dove out of the way as the beast smashed into her friend, tackling the neon-maned mare to the ground. Vinyl yelped in surprise and fought back, her hooves morphing once more into chromium claws, but for every hunk of flesh she carved out, there seemed to be another right in its place.

With a glance around the room, Octavia came to a simple conclusion. Their mission was accomplished. They had a lead on these monsters. That meant they could move to the next phase of the operation. She tapped her earpiece, dove beneath a table, and said, "Leaf, this is Sledgehammer-Two. We need extraction." The table started to crumble above her, and the grey mare ducked out of the reach of a rampaging monster. It seemed to have more rage than intelligence, and long trails of drool fell from its sharp teeth. Vinyl screamed in fury as the one she had been battling threw her across the room. She slammed into another of the bleached beasts, but it just picked her up and threw her down. The pale mare yanked out her tri-barreled shotgun and loosed a burst right into its face, but though the monster was leaking blood, it only staggered backwards a few steps before charging again.

"Immediate extraction," the grey mare emphasized, yanking a white phosphorus grenade from inside her uniform and hurling it across the room. She leapt over a table and kicked it back into the face of the monster behind her, slowing it for a second, then bounded over the one that had rampaged in front of her. They seemed almost confused, as though expecting an entire army to be here, but finding only two little ponies.

"Copy," a gruff voice replied. If he had followed it with stand by, she would have threatened to curve a lasbolt just for him as her last act. "Can you make it to a window?"

The earth pony swallowed hard. She did not care for heights unless there was something solid under her hooves. Still, as she slid between one of the bleached beasts' legs and shot it a few times in the underbelly for luck, Octavia knew there were not very many options open. "North side, middle of the ballroom. Seven seconds."

"Leaf copies, north side, six seconds. I'll be there." As a down payment on the promise, a window shattered. Octavia threw a glance at Vinyl, who had switched to incendiary rounds and managed to down one of the beasts, then the grey mare focused on the opening and ran. Her heart pounded, and the world slowed. She leapt over a table, sidestepped a crawling vampire, and ignored the roar of anger from the beast at her heels. The mission was a success. All that mattered now was the window. A bleached-white shape slid in front of it.

Octavia narrowed her eyes, pulled out her lasgun, and fired with one front leg while running. She kept the gun braced against her shoulder, and the sling's strap tight. It was hard, yes, but she had trained hard. She did not aim for its body, but for the eyes, the one weak point on any creature. Sure enough, the pain of a lasbolt to the retina agonized the monster for a second, and it toppled forward. She slung her lasgun to her back, bounded up the monster's flailing form, and launched herself out the window.

Brawaaaawaaaaaaaargh!

Do not look, do not look, do not look- she looked. The vampire that had been chasing her had launched itself out the window and was snatching at her tail. She saw its dull red eyes, and its malformed front hooves swiping within inches of her body. The mare looked forward, saw a black strand of hope dangling in the night, and grabbed it with all her might. Training kicked in, and she wrapped the rope between her cannons while holding tight with her fetlocks, securing herself with two points. She clung tight, then glanced back. Gravity had seized the pale beast, and she watched it tumble down to the pavement far below.

"That was close," said the gryphon flapping above her as he reeled in the rope tied around his armor.

"What about Sledgehammer-One?" Vinyl really must learn to use her codename more.

In answer to her question, the pale mare came flying out of another windowpane, and into a pair of ropes held between two pegasi. She stuck out her tongue at the beasts as they roared in anger.

Octavia breathed a deep sigh, and felt the cold night air swirl around her. The gryphon above her looked down. "Wanna tell me what those things are?"

"I do not know," she replied honestly. "But they need to die."

"Yep," he smiled, then clicked his voxlink. "Leaf to Swarm, both Assets are clear." The comms officer savored the moment, then noticed another of the monsters about to risk a jump. "Light 'em up!"

Tongues of boiling plasma ripped through the building from the south and east sides, consuming everything within. The brilliant blue-purple light and incredible heat swept out through the northwest windows, buffeting Octavia, but she held tight to the rope. It was a brief but incredibly intense storm of energy, a brutal display of power from weapons that could rarely fire more than a few shots before overheating. On occasion, they would even explode. These flaws were tolerated because only plasma weapons could deliver this kind of awe-inspiring force. They were sometimes called sun-guns, for old legends spoke of a time in the Great Crusade when Celestia imbued the weapons of her faithful with the power of her sun. Nothing was left of the ballroom but char and vapor. Fires began to lick up the outside of the building, but the pegasi heavy weapon teams slung their plasma cannons and pulled out foam sprayers before things could get out of hoof.

"That's gonna be one heck of a repair bill," the gryphon chuckled. "Good thing we're framing ARGUS for tonight's festivities."

Octavia nodded slowly, the images still seared into her retinas even though she had closed her eyes. "Thank you, Rollins."

The gryphon glanced down at her, then over at the vampire. "You know me. The Lady Bon Hadescream points, and I obey." He sighed. "That's all gryphons are good for, anymore. Takin' orders from ponies."

She smiled and closed her eyes, still holding tight to the rope. "I dare say... I'm almost getting used to this."

He rolled his eyes, and began to circle down toward a waiting AFV. "Just another night, eh?"

Author's Notes:

I hope that was action as-you-like-it! I wanted to commemorate Bon Hadescream's one-year anniversary with a rousing bang, and I hope you enjoyed this extra-long chapter. It's twice over what I originally had scripted, but I felt you readers deserved it. As always, your feedback is what keeps me going. Have you enjoyed the ride so far, and if so, why?