Chapter Nine
Blood and Fang
We walk through the forest, following the magic trail left behind by the unicorn. Shining Armor and I are up front with Shantze, Sharla, and Flex behind. Shantze and Flex are playing with each other. Flex really seems to like the boy, and the boy likes Flex in return.
"You're certain?" Shining Armor finally asks me regarding about the whole vampire thing.
"I hope I'm not." I reply.
"But that doesn't make sense. They're only myths, fairy tales, fictional characters." He's obviously trying to deny this.
"It's the best I've got. Vampire or not, there are ponies in danger, so we need to find out what is happening."
He gives me a silent nod, knowing that I'm right, but trying to denying the part that doesn't make sense.
After more walking and silence I finally ask the question that was bugging me since he told me what happened in Canterlot. "You said Discord's influence is spreading. What do you mean by that?"
"Discord has the power to distort and change reality, making things chaotic. His power have grown intensely since he was last freed. Now slowly, Equestria is beginning to change in his image. That's why Sharla and Shatze had to leave their home, Discord's influence was aggravating the local animals. And why the forest was acting odd. If he's not stopped soon, then it will spread all across into the other Kingdoms."
"Hot damn." I say.
"Hey, what's that up there?" Sharla asks from behind us. She looks through the dark. Shining Armor and I squint to see what she was talking about. "Oh that's right, I forgot that your eyesight isn't as good as a griffins'."
"What? Why's your eyesight better than our?" I ask her.
"Because you don't have eagle eyes." She says matter-o-factly.
"Oh."
"Well what is it you do see?" Shining Armor asks her.
"I think it's a light. If it were day time I could tell what it is, but I'm sure that is a light. And I see a silhouette of something. The tracks go towards the light." She says.
"Well, I suppose we have no choice." Shining Armor says.
We continue walking, heading towards whatever it is in the distance. Then we begin hearing sounds. Scurrying sounds. We were being watched.
As we get closer to the light, we see that it was a torch, set up on a house. But it wasn't just one house, there were many. We were in a small town. We begin to be more cautious, we knew we were being watched, and we had a guess by who. The tracks continue on through the town. The noises are all around us. All... Around... Us.
"Uh-oh." I stop in my tracks.
"What?" Asks Shining Armor.
"We're not being followed." I slowly pull out Silver Fang.
"What? Of course we are, can't you hear them?"
"That's just it. If your'e following someone, you don't want to be heard. They're not trying to stay quiet, they're trying to surround us."
Everyone looks around frantically. It's too late, they've cornered us, we have no way of escaping.
"Alright, this is what's going to happen:" I whisper to everyone. "Flex, it's night so their eyes are probably accustomed to the dark. We need you to light the place, and I mean light it. Shining Armor, you and I are going to clear a path to the closest house and barricade ourselves inside. Sharla, if any of them get to close, hack them in half. And Shantze... Keep an eye on our backs, 'kay?" The other nod.
"Alright, on three. One..."
We tense up.
"Two..."
Flex and Shining Armor's horn are starting to glow dimly.
"Three!" Flex bursts the area in light. There were far more than we anticipated. All around us, and I mean all around us, were ponies, ponies turned by a vampire. We only waist a second as we stare at the great number, and a second is very vital. The whole town must have been turned.
I set my sword on fire, Shining Armor notices this and readies to fire. The two of us blast a mixture of fire and magic, creating a path to the closest house. "Run!"
We all book it to the house, slicing, shooting, hitting, doing anything we can to get inside.
Shining Armor is the first to get to it. And stops as he collides with the door. "It's locked!"
"Stand back!" Sharla come, quite literally, flying at the door and chops it down in one slice. We all pile in, Shining Armor puts up a bubble shield around the house. It keeps all the ghouls out and light in so we can see. The ponies bang against the shield, making a muffled *thud*.
"Crap man, we're stuck!" I shout.
"Sis, what are we going to do?" Shantze asks his older sister.
"Don't worry Shantze, everything will be fine." As she says those last few words, she looks at me with eyes asking 'will we?'
"Shining Armor, will you be alright holding the shield up?" I ask him.
"Don't worry about me. None of them are getting in." He gives us all a reassuring smile. I don't doubt how long it can stay up or how much it can block. But I am worried about how long we'll be here. He can't keep it up forever.
I sheathe my sword and I walk up to the side of a staircase. Everything inside is small compared to me, if I were to jump, I could probably touch the roof. But I don't feel like jumping. I'm pissed that I never noticed that it was a trap earlier and I feel like hitting. That's exactly what I do.
"God dammit!" I grab a chair and throw it at a wall. Everyone is shocked by my sudden outburst as I kick the table over. Shining Armor was about to stop me, but then we hear a whimper from underneath us.
I crouch down low, and put my ear to the carpet covering the wooden floorboards and listen. I hear a stifled cry. I motion Shining Armor to quietly come over. I lift the carpet over and see a hidden door. We all look at each other, not sure what to expect. A survivor? More turned ponies? A dog? I grab the handles and pull open the doors. The moment those doors flew open we saw something small ran behind some boxes to hide.
Shining Armor takes the lead. "Hey, hey, hey wait. We're here to help." He motions over to the spot where whatever it is was hiding behind. "Don't worry, we're not one of them. We're friends. My name is Shining Armor, I'm Captain of Canterlot's Roya Guard. What's your name?"
We see a small face poke around the corner. It was a filly, a unicorn filly. She had a bluey/greenish coat. Her eyes were filled with tears and fear. When she saw me she quickly darted back into her hiding spot.
"It's alright. I'm a friend too." I notice that I was the reason she hid. "My name is Jesse Ruesgen, I'm here to help too, along with a few others." I try to be gentle. This filly must have been through a lot, who knows how long she's been down here.
She slowly comes back out, her mane is a tangle of knots and is covered in dirt. Poor thing. "My... My name is Light Flicker." She sniffs. "Are you really here to help?"
Shining Armor nods his head and extends a hoof. She takes it and follows him up the stairs out of the basement. I follow behind the two.
Shantze runs up to her with a friendly smile. "Hi! I'm Shantze. What's your name?"
"Shantze! Don't do that. Look at her, she's terrified." His sister says.
"I'm... I'm Light Flicker." She says meekly. I can see her cutie mark now that we're in better light. It looks like three lights wavering on or off.
"So Light Flicker," Shining Armor helps her up a chair as I set the table back up. "What happend here?"
She looks at the table, tears are drying up in her eyes, but she must be going through all sorts of pain.
"It started five days ago. Somepony went missing one night and we never saw her again. The whole town went out looking for her, but nopony found anything. The next night more ponies went missing, everypony was beginning get worried. The following night all the ponies that went missing came back. But they were different, they turned into one of them." She gestures to all the creatures outside, trying to get in. "When we tried helping them, they just attacked everypony. Nopony was able to stop them, even if they wanted to.We're a small town, everypony know each other, we're like family.
"When my mom saw what was happening, she grabbed me and brought me home and put me in the cellar. She told me to stay quiet until help comes. That was the last I saw of her." She looks like she wants to cry, but I think she's done so much of that in the past few days that she has no more tears to shed.
"Do you know how this happened?" Asks Shining Arnor.
She shakes her head. "All I know is that they weren't like this before they were taken to the haunted castle."
"Haunted castle?" I ask as my curiosity gets the better of me.
"Mm-hm, I saw ponies being taken into the forest, towards the castle before they were like that. My mom told me to never go there. There's a story that says the old stallion that lived in that castle hundreds of years ago went mad after his family was killed. They say his ghost still walks those halls trying to find the family he lost."
"The haunted castle, eh?" I say with a shifty grin. "Well, I know where I'm going. Anybody else?"
"I'll back you up." Says Sharla. Flex gives a squawk of agreement.
"I'll stay with the young ones." Says Shining Armor.
"Sounds good." I say.
"Hey? Why is it so quiet?" Asks Shantze. We all notice it. The turned ponies aren't trying to break in any more. I walk up to a window, trying to see what is happening. It's hard to tell what was going on, but I think they were clearing away.
"Flex, come over here. I need a light." Flex comes up to the window and starts brightening up the place. I see what's happening outside. They turned ponies are backing away. Why?
"Hey what's that?" Shantze appears beside us pointing at an object in the sky, flying towards us.
"A pegasus maybe." We can only guess what it is from the moonlight. The figure gets closer to us and lands on the ground out of the light. He landed on two legs.
"Now what do we have here? My scout told me that there were five creatures in the area. And one of them resembled me. That is, he told me before I slit his throat when I noticed his hooves were enchanted." Whoever it was, I had a feeling that was our vampire.
"May you please come out so we can have a bit of a chat? It seems that I am unable to get in. I promise I won't kill you the moment you step out. Nor will my minions." He talks in a calm and soothing voice.
"What makes you think we can trust you?" I call out.
"I may have done some bad things here in this town, but I assure you, I am not down right evil. I do have standards you know. Once you step out of the shield I'll step into the light so we can have a face-to-face conversation."
"What do we do?" Shining Armor whispers to me. "Can we trust him?"
"I don't know. But I'm going out. If want to meet him, then I have to play by his rules. Stay here with the others." I walk to the boundary of the shield and stop in front of it, wondering if I'll die the moment I'll step outside. With a shaky foot I move out of the shield. "Alright, I'm out. Now you step into the light."
Much like me, he stops at the edge of the shadows before entering the light. But calmly steps steps in. Two black leather boots step out, a pair of black pants are followed, along with a long red overcoat. Son of a bitch I was right.
He has a human body with pale skin. But his nails and teeth are sharp, he has a bat's nose and ears, not to mention the big leather wings on his back. He has muscles, nothing huge. But big enough to snap a branch in half.
"So I was right." I say. "You are a vampire. And that body of yours means you're probably one of Her children. You were on of Mother's weren't you?"
"You know about Mother? Not to mention you look more like her than I do. You must be a human."
What? He knows my species? "How do you know I'm a human? And who are you?"
"Many of us were kept secret from Mother's true identity. Even me. Until I overheard a conversation between her and Princess Celestia. It was quite a shocker the things I heard. But how do you know about her?"
"I met your brother, Balto."
"Really? How is the old dog these days?"
"Dead. I kind of killed him." I say flatly.
"Ah. Oh well, can't say I feel sorry for him. The two of us hated each other." He barely takes notice. "Tell me, what's your name? You're quite the extraordinary person. You killed Balto, you know who Mother is, and you know what I am. But, I suppose I should introduce myself first." He takes a low bow. "I am Nosferatu, one of Mother's eldest children. Vampire.
"I am Jesse Ruesgen. Vagabond to Equestria. Human." I take my sword out. "And you have killed innocent ponies, it will be my job to kill you."
"Tell me boy, do you trully think you can kill me?" He looks surprised about my actions.
I rush forward, ready to slice him down the center. My sword comes down on his head, inches away. And goes through nothing. What? Where did he go? I feel a tap on my shoulder, I don't need to guess who it is. I spin around, sword swinging through the air. But no one's behind me.
"Over here." He calls out ten feet from me. How is he doing that? "You know that must have hurt."
"What are you-" Before I could finish asking him, I feel a pain shoot through me. He is in front of me and his fist dug into my stomach. He gut punched me in the blink of an eye. A painful blink. I go flying and crash into contact with the shield. I try catching my breath, but he's standing over me, a boot on my face.
"Oh, what was that about killing me?" He puts a hand to his bat ear. "Don't worry boy, I won't kil you. I'll just turn you into one of my minions. What do you think of that?"
"I think he'd rather swallow a coconut whole before that!" Sharla tackles Nosferatu off and helps me back up. "How you feeling?"
"Like I got my ass kicked." I gasp for air.
Shining Armor and Flex are with her while the kids are inside the shield. "That was reckless of you." Shining Armor says without look at me.
"What can I say? I see something, I go for it."
"Quite a curious bunch you are. I'm sure you will serve me well." He gestures a hand and all the turned ponies begin attacking. It's four against a hundred.
We all punch and kick and slash and cry. We fight with everything we've got. We kill one, but two more take its place. There are too many, we're being overtaken.
Sharla is the first to go down, she swings her axe wildly on a mountain of ponies, but it was futile. Next is Shining Armor, he couldn't focus on the battle when he was busy protecting the kids, they struck the back of his head. His shield goes down as his lights go out.
I'm covered in small cuts and bruises. "Flex! The kids!" The turned ponies begin advancing towards the house. Flex bursts into flame and creates a fire wall. Before he can complete it I jump inside and see the two holding each other for protection. They're afraid.
"What's going to happen to us? Are we going to end up like them?" Asks Light Flicker.
"I won't lie to either of you. Nothing good is about to happen. But we may still have a chance of winning." I take off my necklace and put it around Light Flicker. It was the whistle Fora gave me. "I need the both of you to run. Blow this whistle when you get to a safe distance. And don't stop until help comes, when you see her tell her that you're a friend of me. She'll help." I hand my knife to Shantze. He takes it with a small griffon claw. "I'm entrusting you to protect her. Flex go with them"
"Mirorr!" He protests.
"Look, they probably won't be able to get out of here on their own. They need someone to protect them. Now stop arguing and go with them!"
He falls silent then gives me a look that he doesn't agree that I should be left by myself. But I'm right, the kids won't be able to make it on their own.
"But how will we get out? The only door is blocked." Light Flicker points to the door.
I blast a hole on the other side of the house, towards the forest. "Run!"
As they run through the new door the fire begins to die out. I look back at the turned ponies. I hold my sword high and run at them. My voice sounding like a the horn of triumph. I hack and slash. I burn and punch. I yell and fight. I bleed and faint.