"Now, I know what you're thinking. How did all this come about? How did a mare as classy and ravishing as Octavia wind up working with a terror of the night like me?"

The grey mare cleared her throat. "Actually, I was wondering how you managed to get a recording without anypony else noticing. Professionally-shot, no less." She leaned closer, nosing over the bin that had held the film reel. "Is this thirty-five millimeter?"

Vinyl kicked the projector, which had stalled on an image of her walking down one of Manehattan's more prestigious avenues during the middle of the night. Something inside it clunked, and a green diode lit on one side. "Yup. Even got sound too. I was filming my biography, Why I'm So Great, inspired by that egomaniacal dragon-duke of Kadath's similarly titled work."

Octavia blinked. "What in Celestia's name is Kadath?"

Her partner winced. "Oh. Yeah... ah... it's the city of dreams below the end of the world."

Octavia blinked again, and tilted her head to the side.

"Long time ago, and I mean back before Equestria was founded, dragons ruled pretty much everything. Y'know that, right?"

"Yes," the grey mare replied cautiously, "I think they still believe that they rule everything, since they tend to go where they please. There's some kind of migration coming up in a decade or so." The Organization kept tabs on things like that, but dragons were a curiosity, not a threat. Most of the time.

"Yeah, but I mean way back when, before us ponies were even three warring tribes, they had this world rigged up like a Derpy Punk concert." She spat out a sliver of bubblegum and pressed it into the guts of the projector. A spark of aethral energy fluttered out of the machine and traced a shimmering rune over the side of its polished brass casing. "Magic like you wouldn't believe, and they did it all with music. No natural magical ability at all." A grin flashed across her muzzle. "They called it the Metal Epoch. They'd still be rocking the world... except they got greedy. One'a their berserker-poets put it pretty well, 'A dragon's desire is an endless void, never to be filled. An eternal hunger that never dies, and never to be killed.'" A spark of magic jolted from the brass casing of the projector and sizzled into the vampire's fetlock. She hissed in pain.

Her partner nodded. "Hence the saying, 'Greedy as a dragon'?"

"Pretty much. Kadath is the land that does not exist, in the plane of reality found only by dreamers. Dragons believe that one day, once they truly know themselves, they'll be able to find their way to Kadath. It's part of why they sleep so much."

"Vinyl... you do realize that you're spouting nonsense, yes? None of what you are saying is supported by any credible source."

"Eh. It's a real city. After their society crumbled and the pony tribes started to rise, one of their big heroes founded a city and called it Kadath. It's below the end of the world." The vampire glanced to the side and saw her partner's disbelieving smile. "Hey, Mom got it straight from that dragon-duke during the Great Crusade. She used to read me bedtime stories out of the book he wrote that they based his movie on." The vampire glanced at her partner over the rims of her glasses and winked conspiratorially. "It's really cool, his signature on the inner cover glows with a wicked red aura. Mom never needed a nightlight, 'cause the words all conduct the sinewave resonance from that aura and backlight themselves." She slammed the cover shut on the projector, and dusted off her hooves. "I really need to introduce her to you."

A slow nod was all the answer that the sniper gave. Sometimes it was best to just let Vinyl talk, and not ask questions. The grey mare's mind was a peaceful island in the midst of a sea of eldrich knowledge, and it was not meant for her to voyage far. The film stuttered again as Octavia dimmed the room's lights and sat down next to her partner, but evened out after the unicorn shot the machine a hard look. The earth pony adjusted her uniform. It had sleeves that let her wield a rifle without restraining movement, the Organization's patch on her right shoulder, and enough small pockets for all the dainty bits that a sniper needed in the field. The hind part was a skirt, and the entire outfit was a light tan that actually looked quite good with her black mane and tail. The tan color was for visibility, mortals had trouble seeing one another while most creatures of the night did not. The uniforms were standard issue, each made of several materials with more syllables than a cellist should be asked to remember. Armor plating, moderately enchanted, was sandwiched in the cloth where it might be helpful, though it bent with her body enough that she rarely noticed the extra weight anymore. There were several other uniforms in differing camouflage patterns, but tonight was not for fighting. Her pink bowtie remained classy as always, though it also served as an emergency transponder. "Ah, Vinyl. I do not remember a film crew when we met on that night." A shiver ran down her spine at the memory.

The pale mare waved a dismissive hoof at the large screen. "Mom's really good at training 'em." Upon receiving a blank look, Vinyl sighed. "Right, I really need to introduce you two. She's freakin' awesome at training spies and the like. That, plus what she's best at in life, plus dad being himself, equals some of the best ninja-cameraponies in Equestria. You can see the boom mic if you look in a coupla' scenes, these are just trainees after all. This was their year-end project, and I kinda put 'em through the wringer." The vampire ran her tongue over her teeth and adjusted her glasses. "Good thing they trusted me. Either that, or they really wanted that grade."

Octavia cleared her throat. "Vinyl... you understand how traumatic that night was for me." She turned to look the pale mare full in the face. "Why do you want me to watch this?"

"Because..." The vampire shuffled her hooves uncomfortably. "Octy, I want you to see what I was like back then. Back when I had to hide everything I was from everypony. I was miserable."

A quiet laugh came from her partner. "I seem to recall DJ-P0N3 was the toast of the party scene, and made more bits in a month than a struggling cellist could hope to in a year."

Vinyl nodded. "Yeah. DJ-P0N3 was doin' just fine. She had all the friends, VIP at any club, and best of all she could party as hard as she wanted. Waking up dead wouldn't be a problem for her." The unicorn smiled, though her head was crooked oddly to one side. "But she was one-dimensional. DJ-P0N3 was never an artist, she was just the mare behind the turntables. You'd see her, you'd love her, but that was all. I thought I didn't care, as long as I was happy why did it matter, right? Well, it matters. Without a reason to party, without a reason to laugh, I was just going through the motions. Vinyl was cold and lonely inside, and she was the artist that made that DJ possible."

"You had everything you wanted." Octavia said quietly. "Everything I wanted as well... save that I longed to be on a stage of refinement, not under the blazing lights of a nightclub."

"If I was just a mortal, yeah, I'd'a been good with it. Loosen up, meet some ponies in the scene who actually cared about the mare under the mask, have a few buddies and live big. Problem is..." She smiled, revealing her pointed fangs nestled in a mouth of razor-sharp teeth. Octavia had seen her bite straight through steel plate armor. "I couldn't just put everything about myself out there, so I had to keep everypony at a distance. I sorta drifted apart from myself. DJ-P0N3 had all the fun, Vinyl walked the streets as a listless creature of the night, trying to get her kicks from killing those of her own kind who didn't manage to coexist with mortals." The remaining air in her lungs hissed out in a sigh, and she took in another breath. "A couple more months, and I'd have given up. I'd have just stopped, tried to forget Vinyl Scratch completely and just live as DJ-P0N3. Mom told me about how she'd go into torpor when ponykind bored her, and that'd be pretty much what I'd do. I'd just be walking, body moving on automatic and magic spinning the records, but mind barely working. I'd... I'd stop laughing because things were funny, but I'd still laugh when it seemed right." She looked at her partner. "Does any of that even make sense?"

Octavia nodded. "And that would kill DJ-P0N3, too. Without substance, you'd be the same as any other record abuser." A subtle jab, yes, but Vinyl usually laughed such off.

"Yeah." This time she accepted the label without even a smirk. "I'd be a poseur sellout trying to cling onto her glory days." She went to spit in disgust, but swallowed under Octavia's glare. "What I'm trying to say is... well, you saved me. You gave me a reason to laugh, a reason to... well, a reason to keep being Vinyl Scratch and not just fade away."

"I have never met your mother, but if she cares for you one eighth as much as you do for her, she would not have let you." It was a somewhat envy-laced thought for the earth pony, her own parents were significantly less cherishable memories.

"There's a difference between your mom slapping you on the head and asking if she's made a horrible mistake in rearing you, and your best friend giving you a reason not to melt into your masks. Octy, I want you to see what I was like. The stuff I kept hidden from everypony else because I had to." The pale mare contracted a little and looked over her glasses with sad red eyes. "Please."

"Vinyl, I never refused. I wanted to know why. You know..." She could not suppress a snort, for she had earned that much at least. "That was the greatest and yet the worst night of my life. Also," the mare tapped her chin with a hoof, "I am unsure if I want too deep of a glimpse into your mind. How should I... Ah. You are insane."

Those sad red eyes swirled with the remains of countless souls, and glowed softly with eldrich power drained from their lifeforce. It was an enchanting display, and rather pleasant to look at when the vampire was not angry, but made any expression of sorrow or innocence rather moot. "Still workin' on the certificate, but thanks." A moment of silence passed between them. "Octavia... we are friends, right?"

It was a very unexpected question, but the cellist's answer was swift. "Yes, Vinyl."

The vampire still seemed uncomfortable. "If you don't wanna watch this, I under-"

"Do you want me to storm out bemoaning your insensitivity?" She raised an eyebrow. Why was she acting this way? Vinyl was usually reckless and impulsive, but tonight the vampire was light-stepping over eggshells. It made the earth pony uncomfortable. "Usually you start trying to nibble when that is your game."

"No-"

"Then," The sniper settled into a comfortable sitting position, "play the darn reel, Vinyl Scratch. I am a big girl, I can handle it." Her face softened when she saw the unicorn crawl toward the projector, ears low against her head. A flash of comprehension shot through Octavia's mind. Was that it? Something so simple? She softened her tone, "And if I cannot... I have a friend who can."

The vampire's face lit up. Her ears twitched up as though she had heard a live band, her eyes glowed bright behind the deep purple glasses, and her smile returned. She looked back over her shoulder. "Thanks, Octy."

A silent nod was again her response. For such a robust undead monstrosity, Vinyl could be quite delicate. After all they had been through, she still had some niggling fear at the base of her immortal psyche about their friendship. She needed to be reminded sometimes that yes, they were on good terms, despite some appearances. Octavia was a reasonably perceptive mare, though she saw best from a distance. Perhaps tonight she might find out why that fear remained. It was certainly not abandonment, the unicorn's parents were anything but absent in her life. With a sigh, the earth pony rolled her shoulders and flicked her tail to one side, hating to sit on it even to play her cello. She was no psychologist, that was another in the Organization's job. She was a watcher, a patient mare who knew how to wait for just the right moment to ease back on the trigger. Hopefully it would be worth her time, for Vinyl could be petty on occasion.

Then again, petty was not fair. She simply freaked out over different things that seemed quite trivial to the cellist. But nopony had ever gotten in trouble for stressing out over minor things, right? Not yet, anyways. Reluctantly, Octavia realized that she could not let Vinyl be the first.

"Well, it all started one night when I was taking a stroll through Manehattan." Vinyl began. The projector purred softly as the movie played across the large screen.

"Why did you bring a camera crew with you?" Octavia asked with a suspicious look.

"Pssh. I always bring a camera crew when I take an enthusiastic walk." The vampire waved in the air with her two front hooves. "Everypony thinks I'm braggin' otherwise, and it's a good workout for the film jockeys."

The sniper groaned and buried her face in her fetlocks. "Did you have them record last night's mission as well?" She mumbled.

"Aww yeah! That's gonna get those two a gold star for sure. Breakin' into a house, shooting up some sack'a'chum thirty-six times-"

"Thirty-seven." Octavia grumbled. "I counted the blasts, and I was also the one who cleaned up your shell-casings."

The pale mare flopped atop the cellist and wrapped her front legs about Octavia's head and neck. "An' you blew away that other one like a total boss, Octy!" She waved a hoof in the air, while the Vinyl on screen stopped to admire the way the moon reflected in the mosaic-glass window of a club. "I was all like, 'You're gonna miss it!', and then you were all like 'nuh-uh, Vinyl, watch this!'"

The earth pony whimpered in dignified distress, but no one came to deliver the dame.

"An' then wha-bam! Takedown! Aww, she thought she could run, but she couldn't hide from these eyes! An' then you lower the boom like an artist."

"Then I give the target peace." She answered. "I give them a little piece of my soul, for a sniper knows her target when she pulls the trigger. Each one was a partner in a duet, though few knew their part. The performers may be separated by all space, but in the mind they are a hoof's length away. Each shot is different, the motions are never the same twice. It is a... a horrid concerto that can never be played quite the same way again. The whims of the environment do not allow it." The grey mare sighed. Her words were pearls before swine, but they were as much for herself as the vampire. "And so I give away a little piece of myself each time I finish such a song. I can never get it back. Such is the price of a deadly art, and those who do not pay it soon lose all their soul rather than little pieces of themselves." She was silent for a few long moments, watching the screen. The unicorn had told her that this was not the important part of the movie, but it still revealed many things she had long suspected.

On the screen, Vinyl ambled listlessly past an apartment complex, then through a dark alley. The camera crew followed behind, unnoticed by the other pedestrians. The vampire wandered aimlessly, insulated from the night by the same dashing red trenchcoat and hat that she now wore. She trotted by the same shop twice just because the owner was changing humorous quotes in the display sign on her first pass. Once she grumbled that there was too little crime in the city, a musing that earned her odd looks from a passing couple. The cameramare had managed quite a few impressive angles on her subject, on one occasion filming Vinyl's reflection in the hubcap of a vehicle across the street as the pale mare turned a corner. It was a compilation of artistic shots to be sure, but it was art Octavia could appreciate. She felt the weight of the vampire on her back and realized just how lonely the unicorn had been in those days. Purple shades hid her eyes for most of the movie, but on the one occasion Vinyl lifted them to look up at the moon her crimson irises were dull. She walked the streets in search of a cheap thrill, looking for anything to make her laugh. Once or twice she chuckled at an advertisement or a silly hat. At one point she stopped before a club, stared into the open doors and perked her ears up at the welcoming throb of bass, then walked away with her neck slumped. DJ-P0N3 was the princess of the club, ruler of Wubestria, but Vinyl could not find solace there on this night. Something nagged at her mind, keeping her from the lights and sounds that she craved. The thought never revealed itself, so she stalked the streets in search of herself as the evening wore onward.

Octavia was admiring a particularly spectacular view of the city, for the vampire had climbed a tower and perched atop it like a stone statue, when a question bubbled in her mind. "Vinyl... how often did you do this?"

"Every night I didn't have a gig." Her voice was flat. "Every morning after a club closed. Started walking just to get out, kept it up 'cause I would run into nasties and put 'em away, and couldn't stop because it became a habit. An' I didn't have anything else to do."

"I... I am so sorry, my friend." The cellist whispered. It seemed grand enough on the screen, a lone sentinel stalking the darkness, but the movie showed a mere ten minutes of skillfully edited footage. The moon was always low in the sky, this was all filmed in one early evening. To walk like this, to wander in search of a justification for your existence for even one night, frightened the grey mare. Mortals knew the world was theirs to claim, ponies all the more thanks to Celestia and cutie marks. A vampire could not live as a mortal, for they were Discord-spawned aberrations. They could only feign mortality to find acceptance, but where could a creature of the night find true friends? Where indeed. Octavia realized that she was not so different. Where could a mare too busy with performing, practicing, and struggling to make the rent find a use for those terrible skills taught by her father long ago? Fate had driven both of them into the embrace of the Organization.

"That's why I wanted you to see this." The vampire bit her lip, then rolled off her partner. The essential part of the movie was about to begin anyway. "Just... promise me one thing."

Immediately wary, Octavia raised an eyebrow. As if to prove her suspicions valid, the vampire on screen tried to zipline down a telegraph wire with a stocking. She fell twelve stories.

Vinyl was not looking at the movie, though. She stared straight at the earth pony. "Promise you won't get mad."

Ordinarily, she would make no such promise, and would start storing up quiet rage in a preemptive reserve. Ordinarily Vinyl did not have that look of vulnerability upon her face that even the red glow behind her glasses could not invalidate. Octavia nodded slowly. "I promise, Vinyl."

The vampire pushed her glasses back up on her face and smiled sweetly. Octy was the best. A little snooty sometimes, but still the best.

"Do not make me add a disclaimer to that promise."

Still the best.

A black object was visible for a few frames, just above Vinyl's red hat. "Bingo. Boom mic. 'course, he was startled, so can't knock too many points off."

The soundpony could only have been startled by the gut-wrenching scream that had warbled out of the speakers. The Vinyl on screen cupped a fetlock to her ear, then trotted curiously up the steps of the massive building from whence the scream had come. It looked suspiciously like the Blueblood Concertorium, though the cameramare did not swing the camera too high, most likely out of fear that the giant neon sign proclaiming the prince's name might blind viewers.

"For some strange reason, my hooves took me to this hall of music on this fateful night. Was I called by destiny, or did chance alone guide my numb wanderings?" Vinyl sighed, pressing a fetlock to her forehead as some of the ponies did in those theater productions Octy liked.

"Ah..." Octavia thought better of suggesting the real reason she had come to the concert hall.

"Anyway, the air was clear, the moon was full, and I was dying to sink my teeth into something." She giggled, then nudged Octavia. "Get it?" Vinyl elbowed the still-stoic mare. "Because I'm a vampire." This was comedy gold! The madmare broke down into a maniacal laugh sufficient to chill the blood of any mortal in a hundred-meter radius.

Except for one who already had iced water in her veins, to borrow the colloquialism. "Vinyl, can we please just watch this without too much commentary?" She wrapped a front leg about the unicorn's shoulders after they slumped in response. "Oh, and before you get any more troublesome thoughts, I am not open to mid-movie snacking."

The pale mare grumbled something about candy and getting here soon before slumping onto the earth pony. If she could not have blood, at least she would have warmth.

On the screen, the curious vampire had entered the Concertorium and trotted through the lobby while her future self had been talking. The pale unicorn hopped over a velvet rope, after all there was nopony in the ticket booth, and knocked the partially-open double doors leading to the concert hall out of the way with a good buck. The soundpony gasped as the crew followed their subject inside. Blueblood Concertorium was one single, giant concert hall that could seat countless ponies in a half-amphitheatre arrangement under a massive marble ceiling. Rumors abounded that the theater was an exercise in humility for the young prince, that he had been forbidden by Celestia herself from building any boxes or other exclusive arrangements for the elite. All who booked a seat at the Concertorium would be equal in comfort, though the closest seats still cost goodly sums. While unsubstantiated, the rumor went a long way toward explaining why the beautiful hall had been so oddly constructed. The sheer vastness of the room was often enough to take newcomers' breath away, but the cameramare was given the double shock of both the concert hall and how horribly it had been defiled. Bodies, intact and dismembered, were strewn everywhere. Blood dribbled from those who had been thrown high and caught on the various decorations. What once had been a sanctuary to music, to Order and culture, was now a charnel house of Chaos.

Vinyl trotted calmly down the central aisle, down the steps inlaid with the Prince's likeness, towards the stage below. Her head did not turn to the right or the left, even though the camera swiveled smoothly from side to side to show the remains of Manehattan mares and stallions slumped over their seats, struck down in flight. Many were stacked up at the exits. All ways in or out were jammed but the main doors, by which Vinyl had entered. It seemed nopony had been able to escape. There was little sound, other than the soft plodding of the vampire's hooves as she descended. The cameramare moved closer to the pale pony, letting only a meter separate them, and Octavia marveled at how loyal they must be to follow the vampire into what must have seemed the jaws of death. Or perhaps they were just as crazy as the madmare. After a moment, she was close enough to the stage to be noticed by the one pony on it who still stood on his own four hooves. He turned about, eyes an unnatural red and teeth clearly more intended for flesh than hay. The stallion laughed once, then roared in a voice amplified by the room's natural acoustics down at the unicorn. "So, you came!"

The mare on screen inspected one of her forehooves. She had investigated to find something interesting, something to draw her out of the night's boredom, and so far had not. The one next to the projector giggled, but Octavia gagged her with a hoof before anything more than "That's what s-" left her mouth.

Not privy to such future ridicule, the stallion continued his rant. "Too bad you're far too late!"

Vinyl looked up, casually rubbing a hoof against her front. The camera quickly showed her line of sight before swiveling back to the confused expression on the pale mare's face. "What?"

"Everypony here is already dead!" The stallion chortled as the camerapony finally got a good angle on him. He wore the remains of a professor's uniform. The emblems that had once marked him as a honorable member of the Educarchy hung in discordant shreds from his white-collared suit. He raised his front hooves, stood up on his hindlegs, and one by one the bodies in the entire concert hall began to groan. A soft curse was heard from the soundpony, and a boom mic tip dropped back into the picture as the camera spun slowly about the room. Every one of the corpses had begun to rise. Their eyes glowed with some fragment of their controller's evil light, and one who was only a set of forelegs and a head took a swipe at the mic operator. Another curse was heard as he danced out of the way, visible only as a blur for a moment as the camera turned upward to find that even those dead ponies decorating the walls had begun to writhe in parody of the living.

"Mhmm. Zombies." The pale mare sighed, then muttered quietly. "Block the doors, bite the fleeing, breeding more with each chomp." She looked about and waved a hoof. "Messy." Waste sometimes annoyed her. Things wasted could not be squandered on awesomeness. It was highly subjective, but she hardly needed more reasons to be annoyed with the stallion.

The worst of the creeping horrors were onstage. Every member of the orchestra seemed to have been turned into a servant of this wicked creature. They shambled forward, for the most part still with intact bodies, wielding their instruments as weapons. Blood oozed from twin gashes on each of their necks, quite unlike the ragged and random bites on the bodies of the many groaning ponies that had once been their audience, as they fanned out about him in a half-circle on the stage. Each of the former musical titans moaned in unthinking agony as they made a gruesome mockery of the proud tradition they once embodied, with the creature who had defiled their souls as a vile conductor.

"Except…" The stallion reached back and hauled a grey mare in front of him, forcing her onto her hindlegs as well. She screamed in pain again, for it had obviously been her scream that had attracted the pale mare to this charnel hall, as he forced her to stand. The mare's cry resonated through the room, for its architectural acoustics had been well crafted. The camera zoomed in to show the shard of bone that poked through her right hindleg. Bruises and cuts covered the rest of her body. Her grey coat was really more of a mottled black in many places from dried blood, much of which was not her own, and a soiled pink bow hung forlorn about her neck from a collar that had once been white. "For this little tart! She actually managed to hold me off for a moment or two, so I saved her for last!"

The mare in the red hat tilted her purple shades down and raised an eyebrow. The zombies' groaning bothered her slightly, but on the whole she was still bored. Her mind whispered something again, but once more she was unable to catch the thought before it slipped away.

"But trust me, I'm still going to kill her!" His tongue lolled out of his mouth, absurdly long as was the norm for his kind, and drool trickled down the grey mare's front. She whimpered softly, as much from terror as pain. The earth pony's head was still slumped down on her front, too low for the camera to get a good look at her face.

Vinyl retained her disinterested tone. "Mmm-hm." The pale mare still had not bothered to look too closely at the stage, and her mind was numb to most input at the moment anyway. At least muggers ran and screamed. Once there had been a bank robbery, such fun! Vinyl made a mental note to return some of the money the very next time she remembered. The very next.

"But first," The former teacher growled, drunk on power. "I'm going to rape her!"

"Neat." The unicorn told him with a trace of a scheming smile. A threat like that normally would have made her angry. As it was, he was already going to end up a gelding. She saw him flare his wings out in some showboating effort to intimidate her that only revealed weakness. Really, if you've got a room full of zombies the only thing that can make you more intimidating is revealing that you're more dangerous than all of them combined. Showing off your wings really did not cut it, but Pegasi were so prone to flashing their feathers that the vampire could not hold it too much against him. It did shift his center of weight though, which ground the grey mare's broken bone deeper into her flesh and caused her to scream once more before biting her lower lip. She seemed determined to die with at least some dignity.

"But before I can do any of that." The camerapony zoomed in closer to get the vampiric professor's face. It was hard since he hid behind his mortal shield, perhaps not on purpose but mere cowardly instinct, just as a mouse who has never seen a manticore before still feels a need to flee. "I'm going to kill you!"

"Oh?" The unicorn asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I know you, Eighth!" He hissed. "I know how you walk the shadows, preying on our race as we do upon mortals. You drink our vitae to grow stronger, but no more! Tonight I shall give you final death!" His eyes glowed faintly, a feeble imitation of the power contained behind Vinyl's glasses. "Go forth my army, my minions, my slaves!" His voice grew louder with each word, and he cackled wildly as the zombies lurched closer around the impassive mare. As the first rank of his orchestra shuffled towards the edge of the stage, he glowered down at her. "Fall to your knees and beg, Eighth!"

Vinyl chuckled, then smirked at the stage, leaning her head back so the shadow of her hat hid her face from view. All that could be seen by the camera was two glowing orbs of red, tinted deep purple in the center by her glasses, but pure crimson energy leaked around the edges. "Y'see, that would be intimidating… well…" She chuckled again. "If you were actually intimidating."

The professor's body stiffened, and the zombies lurched closer, groaning some ancient chant of chaos. "Are you mocking me?"

The mare in the red hat sighed. "Oh, no. No, no." Then she laughed, throwing back her head and lifting her hat to let her electric-blue mane spill free. "Pssh. Yeah!"

What happened next was a testament to the filming crew's skill, training, and most of all fanatic devotion. The camera jiggled slightly as the pony holding it slapped a button on the side, sending it into high-framerate mode. Vinyl galloped forward at an impossible speed, made all the more dramatic by how slow it seemed when played back. It stretched on the movie just long enough to bore the viewer, until the realization that she was the only thing truly moving clicked. The one sound recorded during the moment abruptly crushed the zombies' groaning, but was so drawn out over the course of thousands of individual frames that it could hardly be recognized as the scratching of a record. Everything else managed to twitch slightly on the screen while she ran forward, her fetlocks twisting into gleaming chromium claws, lept onto the stage, and drove her barbed left foreleg straight through the captive mare's underbelly. It tore out just to the side of her spinal column and ripped right through the disgraced professor's barrel, then out through his back as well. Due to forethought and some implausible trick of movie magic, the soundpony managed to be on stage as well. His mic could be seen arched over a discarded tuba, and so the sounds of a screaming stallion were perfectly preserved on the reel as well. Vinyl casually twisted her foreleg inside the teacher. The camerapony switched back to regular speed and for a frame a hint of hoof could be seen as she wiped her brow in relief at getting such a good take. A little wobble was all that betrayed the pounding of her heart, for few things could compare to the adrenal rush of being both witness and worthy recorder to such a feat.

"For the record, I stopped using that alias a long time ago." A small corner of her brain protested that was not entirely true. It was ignored as she wrenched her claw inside him, flexing the metal talons and wrapping them slowly around his spine. The pegasi vomited up blood as the pale mare destroyed him from within, ignoring the sobs of excruciating pain from the mortal slumped between them. Collateral damage had never affected her very much. Everypony was dead if she didn't show up, so no use crying over the ones who got in the way. Her future self grimaced slightly, for as awesome as it had been in the moment, the consequences still unnerved her. She glanced over at her partner, then at the floor, then wrapped her arms around the grey mare. Octavia shut one eye as the vampire nuzzled against her cheek, then with a sigh rested a hoof on her friend's shoulder and drew her close. Their eyes turned back to the movie.

Finally, the vampire's horn glowed. Magic surged through her claw and up the fallen Educarch's spine. Vinyl leaned forward, oblivious to the body between them, and forced her tongue into his mouth. Blood burbled down her throat and splattered all over the three ponies. She did not drink it, but merely used the vitae as a conduit for her power. For a brief second, she touched his very soul. It was a second that lasted forever on another plane of existence, but on the mortal one the colt had just enough time to scream "No!" before he was turned to ash.

The vampire pulled her foreleg back out of the mare and she collapsed atop the charred remains. Vinyl licked her claw, then spat and made a disgusted face. "Eww. Tastes like powdered milk." Which made sense, after all. He had just gorged on countless mortals, and then squandered all that power on raising a zombie horde. Still, Vinyl could not blame him. Zombie hordes were pretty cool, even when some punk poser used 'em. She adjusted her hat, then mused "Well, that about wraps everything up here." On the floor, bleeding internally and externally, her body broken from a doomed struggle, the grey mare could only whimper. Vinyl looked down at her. Something the vampire really should have noticed clicked in her mind, and she pressed her right front hoof to her face. "Oh, right! Zombies!"