//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7: Blackblood 
// Story: The Lost Power 
// by helix412 
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Chapter #7 Blackblood

Joe’s POV

By the time Twilight and I found our way inside, we saw two stereotypical cat burglars dressed in all-black with their heads completely covered by what appeared to be ski-masks. However, they were both armed with odd jet-black daggers, with no resemblance to any metal I’d ever seen. They had already cornered everyone when we got there, except for James and Rainbow, who were both nowhere to be found. The assailants didn’t seem like they had noticed us, so Twilight and I started coming up with a plan.

“So, which one do we get first? Or, should we go for a more diplomatic approach?”

“I don’t care, as long as we get this done. Seeing them in all this detail is giving me a headache…”

Three things make me mad. Number one is threatening something or someone I hold dear. In this case, that rule was getting violated beyond belief. I decided I’d try nonviolence at first, and see where that got me. I told Twilight to back away a bit, just in case.

“Good sirs, I will give you one warning.” I noticed that Twilight was charging her horn as I gripped Azura. Upon hearing me, the intruders turned around, revealing next to nothing of their masked faces. However, I could see that each one had a glowing red light where an eye should be. “I’m pretty sure you have the wrong location. We have nothing of immediate value here. If you leave now, I won’t call the authorities or give chase. I would highly advise that you do so.” Twilight’s spell was quickly gaining power, and I started to pull Azura out a bit. Despite this, they didn’t seem deterred in the slightest.
In fact, they both started laughing madly. They began speaking in a cat-like accent, and in perfect unison. 

“No, my friends. We can assure you, we are in the right place. And we are not here to take any items. Your lives are our prize.”

I saw Twilight’s horn go dark and her jaw go agape. I was confused, but she was quick to explain.

“I… I’ve read about you two. Alecti and Alecta, a pair of twins who were banished to Tartarus and stripped of their form after…” She hesitated. “After assassinating the Griffon king two thousand years ago…” She paused yet again to turn to me, and the duo appeared worried at what she was saying.

“If anyone makes it to them, that individual can hire them to do whatever they wish, and acts as their form for the task. However, due to their natural formlessness, they can morph into whatever shape they like for short periods of time. But once they are sent on a mission, there is no known way to stop them. ”

The duo recoiled at this. They turned to each other and spoke in a rushed, shadowy manner. They then turned back to us, once again speaking in perfect unison.

“Well then, it appears that we have no need for these disguises. They are too constricting anyway.”

Their masks turned into clouds of smoke, revealing faces that were exact mirrors of each other. However, what really stood out were their black eyes, one for each of them. The whites of their eyes were entirely black, with glowing, blood-red irises. The black turtlenecks they were both wearing turned into a hybrid between a trench coat and bat wings, with arms that seemed to phase through. They both still held their daggers, which didn’t change in appearance.

“We ask that you hold still. We promise to make this quick.”

I unsheathed Azura and looked straight into the right one’s eyes. “Asking me to go down without a fight is like asking the Sun to take a day off.” Twilight shot a charged blast at him, and was perfectly on target until the other parried the shot the instant before it hit. Although, it looked like the part of the dagger that had been hit had disintegrated. I was notably shocked at how fast it all occurred. They must have felt the need to explain.

“Spending twenty hundred years in the depths of torture gave us plenty of time to hone our skills. Sharpened our reflexes. And perfected our strategies.”

As soon as they finished talking, they charged at Twilight from the front. She was able to teleport away about half of a second before they would have hit, leaving her out of harm’s way and leaving them vulnerable. I immediately took this opportunity to stab one in the back, which seemed to injure it. However, it wasn’t terribly fazed, and it turned around to strike me. I used Azura’s sheath to block it, and then pulled Azura itself out of its back. During this whole ordeal, I had forgotten about the other. It had crept up on me from behind, and had a clear shot at my spine.

“Don’t you dare!”

Everyone turned around, obviously shocked at what we had just heard. The statement came from James, who seemed more than just a little ticked off. However, his eyes seemed to be bluer than normal, with a slight blue light from his hands. Beside him was Rainbow Dash, who seemed just as angry.

“One more move, and it’ll be your last.”

The duo of gothic assassins once again looked worried, as if they were facing the unknown. They spoke in that same rushed manner in an odd language unlike anything I’d ever heard. I wasn’t about to let them form a plan, so I swung Azura’s sheath at the one behind me, which immediately ceased its speaking. Oddly, it flew back a surprising distance, as if it only weighed a few pounds. I used this window to get as far away as I could; knowing James, this wasn’t going to be pretty.

As soon as I was out of the way, James charged at the one that was still standing, catching it off-guard in its confusion. By then, though, the other was getting up. It noticed the danger that its brother was in, and ran to protect it. In turn, I moved as quickly as I could to stop the one who was rushing toward James. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough. James landed a solid kick on the one he was going for, but was immediately afterward stabbed twice in the chest by the one he neglected. 
He let out one of the most bloodcurdling screams I have ever heard.

For a moment, everything froze. James started collapsing. The duo both had the widest of grins. Dash was mortified. And I was infuriated.

The one who had stabbed him left his daggers in and let James fall forward, driving them even deeper. James was still breathing, but only barely. The stabber got up and plunged its hands into itself, pulling out two more daggers. It then looked at its brother, who was still standing in the same spot. Without saying anything, the brother threw a dagger at Rainbow Dash, hitting her in the shoulder. He threw his second, which looked as if it would hit dead-center in the chest. However, a blast of magical energy hit it in the air, turning it into a pile of ash.

I looked at Twilight, who was still in shock from the stabbing. I looked at Rarity, who was cowering in the center of the room like everyone else who wasn’t fighting. Then I looked at James, whose hand was raised slightly, with a distinctive blue aura emanating from it.

He looked straight at the thrower, and said in a very strained voice, “Nobody does that. Not to her.”

This caused the thrower to look exceedingly worried, and with good reason. While James was speaking, he began charging another shot, much more powerful than the last. As soon as James stopped speaking, he fired a huge burst of magic. It engulfed the assailant on impact, who, just like the dagger, became nothing more than a large pile of ashes. James promptly passed out, having used all of his remaining energy. I couldn’t tell if he was still breathing from where I was.

The remaining member of the duo appeared mortified. It stood there, jaw agape, motionless. After a moment of that, it cried out in the shadowy voice, but everyone around could understand it this time.

“ALECTA!”

It turned toward James, who he believed was dead, and then toward the group who had not been fighting. Its non-black eye had gone bloodshot, and its toothy grin had turned into the mother of all scowls. It looked like it was mouthing, “You will all pay for that, every last one of you,” but no sound came out of its mouth. After that odd sequence, it began rushing at the group, dagger-first.

“Oh no ya don’t, pardner!”

Applejack got up and blocked it. She continued doing so until Twilight was able to send off a blast of magic at it. It dodged the blast, allowing it to hit Derrick in the back, which didn’t help his effort to calm Fluttershy.

Seeing the severity of the situation, Twilight and I immediately decided to take more direct action. I went toward Alecti to try distracting it, and Twilight went to Derrick to see if he was OK. I vaguely heard him say that he was. Upon hearing this, I used Azura’s sheath to bonk Alecti’s head. To my surprise, however, it went straight through. The act did, however, draw its attention toward me. It swung its dagger at me, which I was able to block. In its distraction, everyone (except Fluttershy) got up and took a defensive stance, with Pinkie arming her Party Cannon and Derrick readying his sword. Twilight did something to his sword, causing it to glow slightly. I started to giggle when I saw all of that.

Alecti saw that I was giggling, and mouthed out, “What is so funny about your demise?”

“Look behind you.”

It did as I said. It stopped in his tracks when it saw what was going on. It was outnumbered six-to-one, and suddenly realized that that wasn’t working in its favor. It looked like a few beads of black sweat started dripping down its head.

Alecti was outclassed, and it knew it.

Upon realizing this, it decided to abort its mission by jumping through the nearest window. Derrick was quick enough to put his sword on his back and grab onto one of Alecti’s legs as it jumped. The rest of us rushed outside to see what was going on.

When we were got there, we saw Derrick and Alecti fighting as they flew into the sky. They were both reaching for Derrick’s sword, making it a race to determine who could neutralize the other first. Eventually, I could see Derrick had the sword in his hand, which he promptly used to stab Alecti. It became encased in a shell of energy, and then disintegrated immediately. It would have been a picture-perfect ending, if he wasn’t suspended 500 feet in the air without a way to get down other than falling.

At this point, everyone began to panic. Applejack cried out for Twilight to do something. Twilight tried to do that something, but she appeared exhausted. Seeing this, I went quickly (by my standards) to below where Derrick was, hoping to catch him before he landed. The others saw this, and gathered around in an effort to help.

It seemed that at that point that Derrick was going to hit the ground, with our catch being the only thing stopping him. But, about halfway down, an intense light started shining, which appeared to be coming from his back. As the light shone, it seemed to grow to form two wings, roughly 75% as tall as he was. We all heard Derrick yelling at the top of his lungs, but that was secondary at that point. Once the light was gone, a pair of white wings spread out, which started to slow him down. He landed in our catch group, but it still seemed as if he had sustained an injury of some type.

We decided that we should treat now ask later. We got Derrick inside where Rainbow and a now conscious James were struggling to get to each other. With one last painful push, they were in each other’s reach.  James grabbed Rainbow’s hoof, pulled her towards him, and removed the dagger that was still in Rainbow’s shoulder.  He took hold of her shoulder, and appeared to draw a black liquid from it which seemed to go into him, save for a few drops on the floor. He told her he was sorry, and then fainted once again. Dash followed suit shortly thereafter.

Twilight had just walked in, and upon seeing the exchange, took on a look of pure horror. After a few seconds of standing there, she finally spoke up.

“Oh no, this is bad! Very very bad! Well, good for Rainbow Dash, but terrible for him!”

I was curious as to what the issue was, so I asked her, “What’s wrong?”

“’What’s wrong?!’ What isn’t wrong!? If this is what I think it is… with three times the dose…”

“Slow down a bit, please. What even is that?”

“It’s Blackblood Venom! One of the most dangerous toxins in all of Equestria!”

My heart stopped for a few beats. In saving Rainbow Dash, he may have inadvertently killed himself. I realized he probably didn’t know, but I was still never going to let him hear the end of this.

“What does it do, exactly?”

“It takes anything psychologically negative that the victim experiences and amplifies it. Everything from sleep deprivation to emotional outbursts. The longer it goes untreated, the darker he becomes until… until…”

“…Until what, exactly?”

She pointed at the pile of ashes left by Alecta, while looking away and crying a bit. “He becomes one of them!” 

Now I was really worried. He hadn’t inadvertently killed himself; he’d done something infinitely worse. That said, she did say “untreated,” which led me to believe there was a way to stop it.

“Is there a way to fix it? Or to counteract it?”

She paused to gather herself back together. “There is… one way.”

“Go on…”

“If the one who got the venom in the first place dies, the venom itself ceases to exist. But, if the venom is still there after both of them were destroyed, then…”

“There’s someone else working this.”

“Does James have any enemies? Anything that would want him out of the way? That he may have wronged? That he made jealous? That he might have insulted? That he—“

“Not that I know of. Besides, it’s the most dangerous toxin in Equestria. We don’t have anything like that here. Whoever did this could only have come from the other side.”

“He’s only been there a few days. Who could have developed that much of a hatred since then?”

We thought for a few minutes, but didn’t come up with anything. We decided to make it a matter for later, when he could talk to us himself. Besides, we had three individuals on our hands who were dying; there wasn’t much time to think anyway.
Seeing as how Dash’s injuries were minor and the daggers were preventing James from bleeding too severely, we turned our attention to Derrick. Fluttershy took the liberty of maneuvering his short sword (which was no longer glowing) off of his person and around the new wings, while Applejack removed what was left of his shirt so that we could see what was underneath.

Once the obstructions had been removed, I could clearly see what was going on. The sight sent everyone but me into the next room. It appeared that the emergence of the wings split his skin open at their bases, revealing both muscles and bones I’d never seen before (which, under the circumstances, wasn’t much of a surprise). However, that appeared to be the extent of the damage.

I remembered that Twilight had used a healing spell on James before, making me wonder if it could be used for this as well. I called for her to come over, which she did after a moment.

“Think you can fix this?”

She examined the wound for a moment, which clearly nauseated her. “I suppose I could, but it’ll leave scars. Not to mention it takes a lot of energy, which we might need for James. The healing ponies at a hospital can do a lot better than I can.”

Seeing as how I’d always wanted to be a doctor, I figured this might make perfect suturing practice. Besides, bringing him to a hospital probably wasn’t a good idea given his new look. I figured the best course of action would be to treat what I could here, then bring him to the Ponyville hospital as soon as possible.

“In that case, I’m going to need nylon string, a sewing needle, and hydrogen peroxide. I’ll probably need gauze and bandages, too. James has everything you could ever need somewhere or another, so you should be able to find some of everything.”

Twilight immediately went looking while I looked over Rainbow Dash. She only appeared to have a small stab wound from the dagger. It didn’t seem to hit any arteries or break any bones; it was hardly bleeding by the time I got to her. I figured all I really needed to do was clean and cover it.

James, however, was a different story entirely. First of all, the daggers had dissolved for some reason, opening up any blood vessels they may have blocked. The wounds appeared to go deep, although it looked like the daggers had missed the heart and lungs. The bleeding seemed to indicate that something big was hit, though; given the nature of the bleeding, I’d guess one of the Vena Cavas. That made me glad that I’d held off on the healing spell. There was no way I would have been able to fully treat that.

While assessing the damage, I noticed something unsettling. His blood was noticeably darker than normal, as if someone had infused it with a black dye. I figured that was the venom at work, and decided I could do nothing about it.

After I’d performed all of my examinations, Twilight came back with the materials. I told her about James’ bleeding, which she fixed using her healing spell. By the time she was done, the wounds were only about as bad as Derrick’s. That left Derrick and James needing stitches and Dash simply needing a cleaning. 

As I sewed everyone back together with the help of Nurse Sparkle, I couldn’t help but remember one detail that I’d yet to put together: Why Derrick’s sword eliminated Alecti while mine only caused minor damage, if that. I decided to ask her just that.

“So, uh… wha’d you do to Derrick’s sword? To make it work on that thing, I mean?”

“Oh, I just magically enhanced it a bit. It seemed like the only thing that would work.”

“How’d you reach that conclusion?”

“Think about it. Every time a dagger got hit by magic, it dissolved. After one of them attacked James, it made new daggers out of itself. And when the first one disintegrated, it was after getting hit by a strong burst of magical energy.”

“So… they were weak to magic? Kind of a crippling weakness, don’cha think?”

“Not really. In any account I’ve ever read about them, they were only seen running away after they’d done their job. No one ever tried to counter-attack; no one ever noticed them that soon.”

“Stealth assassins, eh? I imagine that’d be there best option.” I looked over at Alecta’s pile of ash and laughed a bit. “I mean, that was their best option.”

With that confusion out of the way, I continued doing what I could about their wounds. Once I’d done all of that, we carried them all upstairs and laid them down.

We got them comfortable after a bit, causing us to learn the hard way about the complications of Derrick’s and James’ new physiology.  Derrick’s wings sat down straight from his shoulders, tucked in naturally. Fluttershy took the liberty of cleaning off the blood, leaving them nearly as clean as Celestia’s. James seemed to hold an electrical field of sorts, which occasionally shocked whoever touched him. Twilight mentioned something about an “MI device” which we would need when we went back to Equestria. Rainbow was still asleep and didn’t seem to be harmed in any significant way, unlike the two others. However, she kept rustling around and shaking. Eventually, she woke up with a start.

“Wha?! Oh, we’re still here… Thank Celestia…”

Pinkie, who had only recently come back inside, bounded over to her and started being Pinkie.
“Hey Dashie, you doing OK?  Sorry about James, but when he gets bett—” 

Rainbow bolted upright silencing the pink party animal.  “Where is he?” She seemed panicked, but visually relaxed when she saw him lying on the couch. “Sorry Pinkie, but I’m kind of tired and I feel…strange.” 

Everyone wanted to know what she was saying, but she just got up, walked over to the couch, and laid right back down next to James.

After that odd incident, it was decided that we’d wait until everyone woke up before we went back and sought more complete help for the injured. Their condition was stable, and we didn’t really want to risk injuring them any more than we had to. With that, I suggested that everyone get some sleep so we would be ready to go the next day.

Everyone nodded and went back to sleep. Applejack went beside Derrick to accompany him. Rarity went back to James’ bed, Fluttershy found a blanket and took a spot on in an open chair, and Pinkie found the nearest vacant couch to collapse on. Twilight and I took a pair of chairs that were right next to each other, where I thanked her for all the help. Within moments, everyone was back asleep and hoping for no further shenanigans.