//------------------------------// // Bad Blood // Story: Angelic Vampire // by kurusagi16 //------------------------------// Bad Blood The meeting place was at the center of a dark wood, in an old dilapidated mansion. It's Gothic architecture remained intact despite the years of being exposed to the elements. Several carriages were lined up around it, all of them having a dark grandeur about them, their windows draped in heavy curtains to block out too much sunlight. Many myths spoke of vampires crumbling in the sunlight, that was a ridiculous lie of course. But like bats, the vampires were very sensitive to bright light, and preferred darker surroundings instead. Alistair stepped out of and breathed in the wet, cool night air, which helped to calm his nerves. He looked to the coach stallion, and with a wave of his hoof, he disappeared and in his place was a bat (the vampires also have power to change the forms of their familiars, which are often bats, wolves, boars, etc.). "Alistair Alucard! How many moons has it been!" Alistair turned when he heard his full name, he found himself face to face with Selene, one of the sisters of one of his companions and also a pure blood. She had her dark mane cut into a bob, and had the form of a normal earth pony. "Hello Selene, good to see you. How are your siblings?" asked Alistair. Selene giggled. "Oh, they're fine, but it's you I'm more interested in. You've been so quiet these last few years, no pony has heard much word from you, except my older brother of course, but aside from that, you don't ever accept any of the invite to the Blood Moon Balls like you usual did." Selene fell into a dramatic swoon. "How I've longed for a chance to do the vampire waltz with you like when we were little. In fact, all the ladies have been simply dying to see you again." "My apologies, I've been having my hooves full." "No matter, I just hope you'll be able to come to this year's ball." Selene waved a hoof as if it were nothing. "Oh, and I've also heard a little tidbit from my brother." Selene leaned in close, a sly smile on her face. "I heard that you have an adorable daughter living with you." "Yes, my only daughter, Fluttershy. She's back home right now, I didn't want to drag her into any of these matters." "Lord Alucard, you're still as much of a gentlecolt as always. Though I'm awfully jealous of the lucky mare you chose to be your wife. Who is she any way?" "Sigh! I'm afraid, she died some years ago, I carry on though." "You poor dear." Selene wrapped her arms around Alistair's neck and gave him a hug. Somepony cleared their throat, drawing Alistair and Selene's attention. "Sister dear, if you're quite done pestering Lord Alucard, you may wait with the rest of the ladies in the lounge." Selene pouted. "You're no fun at all Slate." She said as she trotted up the stair into the mansion. She flashed another smile at Alistair that made Slate roll his eyes. "Forgive my sister." said Slate. "She can be a bit clingy around others, mostly handsome stallions." "I understand Slate, my own sister went through a similar phase, the difference being that my sister tortured the ponies she clung to." "Hardly sounds any different from Selene." The pure blood friends laughed and headed inside the mansion. The other pure bloods had gathered in the lounge, sipping blood from champagne glasses. Alistair shot a serious look at Slate and said in a hushed tone, "I was quite surprised to receive an urgent message by bat on my way to settle that little dispute. I was only considering calling a pure blood meeting, and yet I seem to find myself invited to one instead." "The situation is far worse than you or I had originally assumed. Scarlet and Phobos will explain more, they're the ones who called the meeting in the first place." Alistair sat down on a sofa and picked up a glass of blood. He moved the glass a little in his hoof to stir it before taking a sip. A few of the pure blood mares flocked around Alistair, giving him looks of dreamy admiration. It was something he'd long gotten used to. He'd always had a way of attracting mares, whether he wanted to or not (one of the reasons he loved Maia, considering he had to prove himself before Maia accepted his marriage proposal). "Lord Alucard, you're just as handsome as ever!" "More than handsome." "You should stop by my summer home by the sea, it's a relaxing little place to visit." "Will you be going to the Blood Moon Ball?" "Will you take me with you?" "He's going to take me!" "No, me!!" Alistair just took another sip of his blood, as the mares behind him broke out into a cat fight. Biting, and scratching at one another. He knew it would do good for him to step in. If anything, it might make things worse. There was a sharp, whistling sound. All heads turned, and the fight ended, to look at the vampires who'd called for attention. Scarlet, and her husband Phobos. Their bat wings, ears, and fangs were out, prompting everypony to relax into their natural forms. Phobos' voice spoke out clearly to the pure bloods. "Fellow pure bloods, I'm sure you're wondering why you're here. As you might've heard, there's been an outbreak of half breeds attacking ponies. Something we've decreed to be forbidden when coming to the New World in order to appease the ponies." There were light murmurs of agreement. Scarlet then spoke this time. "We have reason to believe that somepony, possibly a pure blood, is organizing them, turning them into an army of sorts." she said. "An army?" "Whatever for?" Scarlet called for silence. "We don't know yet, but we received an anonymous letter, warning us of this danger. My husband shall read it for all of us to hear." Phobos pulled out a piece of parchment, and read it aloud. Dear pure bloods, I write this letter to you as a warning of things to come. There is an army rising, an army of half breed vampires. They seek to attack the ponies and create a war between the two species. I can't say anymore, otherwise I shall be suspected by my superior. No ordinary vampire is behind this deed, and they wish to usurp you from your place of power, to take control of the vampire society and make vampires the dominant creatures of the New and Old World. Take heed of my words. There was a stark silence, as everypony took this news in. "And you have no idea who could've written this?" Alistair inquired. "If we knew, then we would've told all of you." said Phobos. "A war between ponies and vampires. Ugh! This is exactly the kind of thing we wanted to avoid when coming to the New World." "If it is a pure blood who is orchestrating this operation, then who are they?" "Probably one of the traditional stiffs who rode over from the Old World." "Do we have to leave?" "But I love the New World! There are so many interesting things here." "Silence." said Phobos. The lounge grew quiet to hear what he had to say. "We need to gather our power and prepare to defeat these half breeds. We must be ready to stop this army before it gets out of hoof." "We must wait unfortunately." said Scarlet. "Until we find more information on this uprising, we'll have to stay here." Alistair stood up, his expression that of concern. "What of our families? Should we just leave them, not knowing what's kept us away for so long?" he asked. "Worry not, Alistair Alucard, you are all aloud to inform your families of the situation." said Phobos. "They shall surely understand what's at stake. Not just for us vampires, but for the ponies as well." This seemed to calm Alistair down, and he sat back down. "If everypony has nothing more to say, this meeting is adjourned for now. Your rooms have been prepared." said Scarlet. Alistair furrowed his brow. Things were sure to get dangerous. Thank Celestia Fluttershy was safe at home, where this uprising will hopefully not trouble her. Drake opened the door to see who was standing in the inn's hallway, he was greeted by a taupe unicorn, who strode past him without. "I trust everything went well." said Drake. "It went swimmingly." said the unicorn, as he transformed into the spirit, Discord. "That little mare was fooled so easily." "No doubt she got it from her parents." said Eldra, who was filing her hooves. "Equally simple minded fools who have deluded the poor girl." "She hardly seemed like a vampire." said Discord. "And I've met a lot of vampires in my lifetime." A crooked smile crept its way onto Eldra's face, a smile she tried to hide, and showed she knew something he didn't. Which made Discord all the more curious. "My niece is a...special case." she said. "But don't let her give you the wrong impression. She's no different than any other vampire." "Yes, yes, I'm sure she is. Now, if you're down with my services-" "But we've only just begun. You still need to lure that poor dear into a false sense of security, lead her here, and we shall take care of it from there." Discord grumbled, but had no other choice, something that aggravated him to say the least. "Now, if you're still feeling up to it, there's still a couple of things I want you to do for me. Things that I hope you find a little more, engaging, so to speak." It was the dead of night, and two officers were on patrol in the village, sent over from the capital to ensure that all was right. Rumors of vampire attacks had popped everywhere, and with those rumors, many angry ponies who felt like they should take a stand against the creatures. But the officers had been paroling so far and had seen no signs of danger. "Sure is quiet tonight." one said. "Keep your guard up." said the other. "There's no telling if or when those vampires may strike." "I guess you're right. but honestly, there's to be scared-" There was a loud thud as four dead bodies, drained of blood suddenly popped in front of them. The officer who'd been enjoying the night let out a scream and jumped into his partner's arms. His partner was not amused. He dropped the fellow onto the ground and took better inspecting of the bodies. The first two bodies looked like dockworkers, who had their throats ripped out. The other two bodies, that of coach stallions, merely had two sets of puncture wounds. It was sickening. As the officers looked at the bodies, they started to feel, angry. And not the normal sort of angry either. True it did upset them, but it was like all the anger they were capable of having just came out of them. "Those demons! We allowed them to live among us and this is what they do?!" "Yeah! Those soulless beasts!" "We can't allow this to continue. We'll send word to the capital, convince them to take a stand and do something about these monsters!" A few ponies stepped out of their houses to see what the commotion was. There were gasps and screams of fear when they saw the bodies. Gliding unseen, Discord did to the onlookers the same thing he did to the officers. With just the touch of a paw or talon, or tail, he locked onto the ponies' negativity and increased it. Then, he added his own words mentally, giving them all the impression that their conception of vampires were right. That they were demons seeking to kill them all. This caused an outbreak among the onlookers, which caught the attention of more ponies, which Discord also affected with his magic. He kept at it until there was a mob of angry ponies who wanted to go out and punish the vampires. satisfied with his work being complete, Discord moved on to the next town Eldra had told him to visit. There, her faithful followers left their finished meals out in the open, brutally mutilated to further frighten the ponies. Eldra had 1,000 vampires on her side, each of them spread out and doing as they were instructed, with the promise of more blood to feast on. And going on to say that pony blood was much tastier than the animal blood they'd been drinking. By morning, there was nothing but panic. Bands of townsponies flocked together, intent on doing something to stop the vampires, believing that every last one of them needed to be destroyed. "Stop the vampires!" "KILL THOSE DEMONS!" All of this pleased Eldra. Now, all that was left to do was let the ponies do the rest on their own. Let them retaliate. Let them bring forward a war of blood to which the like of neither ponykind or vampirekind has ever seen before! Twilight had mailed to her brother, informing him of how the carriage broke down, and how she was staying with Fluttershy in Wisteria. At the same time, just as the road was opening up again, travelers passed through and with them they'd brought stories of how bad the vampires had become. It was certainly dis-concerning, all those bodies piling up, it just didn't seem right. So Twilight did what she did best in a crisis. She hit the books. In the villa's study, she poured over her books rereading every page just so she wouldn't miss something. Rainbow and Fluttershy entered to make sure if she was doing alright with her search. "Everything coming along Twi?" asked Rainbow. Twilight's brow furrowed in response. "Here, have some tea while you think." said Fluttershy, setting down a cup beside Twilight. Twilight closed her book and sighed in frustration. "No matter how many times I look at it, these attacks make less and less sense!" she said. "Oh yeah, like they didn't already." said Rainbow Dash sarcastically. "I'm serious Rainbow." "You're always serious." "I mean it, according to these books, vampire generally feed on occasion to satisfy their hunger, and go on for two weeks or even a month without feeding. But from what those travelers have described, it seems that this is more like binge eating than just quelling down an appetite." "Oh my." said Fluttershy. "Why would they want to do something so...so horrible?" "That's the problem I keep running into. I can't find a reason why." said Twilight. "The answer's so close, I swear it's right in front of me. But I can't seem to see it." "You've just been thinking too hard." said Rainbow Dash. "Give your brain a rest, and then you can get back at your research." Fluttershy was about to agree with Rainbow Dash when she caught a glimpse of something flapping in the window. "Um, if you two will excuse me for a moment, there's something I just remembered that I need to take care of." she said, and hurried out of the study. Fluttershy went into her bedroom and opened up the window. She let out a soft whistle and the bat who had been at the window flew in. The bat spoke in a series of clicks in its own bat language, though Fluttershy understood what he said perfectly. "A message form papa? What does he say?" she asked. The bat relayed the message. How there had been a sudden change in plans and that he was going to be gone longer than he'd anticipated. This both relieved and disappointed Fluttershy. She was relieved to have more time to spend with her new friends, though disappointed that her father was going to be gone for even longer. And with all the attacks, she wondered if he was doing alright and taking care of himself. "Thank you so much for delivering this message." said Fluttershy to the bat. "Would you be so kind as to deliver a reply to him?" The bat nodded, and Fluttershy whispered into the bat's ear. She wanted to let her father know that she'd be waiting for him and that she was alright. And also warned him not to do anything too rash. "Do you think you can remember all that?" she asked the bat kindly. The bat clicked and nodded its head before dashing back out the to widow, to send her message to her father. Fluttershy said a silent little prayer to herself, 'Mama, please look after papa. I can't help but worry that he's getting into some kind of trouble. Keep him safe, mama.' With her pray for her father said, Fluttershy closed the window, hopinh that things would right themselves out.