*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Maple...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*
Blood.
Lots of it.
We had rushed out of the carriage to see what had caused our drivers to scream so horribly, only to find the two in quite the pickle. One of them was out cold, still hooked inside of his spot on the carriage to pull it, with the form of a pegasus perched on top of him with their back turned to us; blood dripped down his body, suggesting the driver had put up some sort of resistance. Either that, or the vampire was a sloppy eater.
The other had fared a bit better, but at the same time much worse. The second puller of the carriage had managed to slip out of his harness and begin to run, though he had apparently only made it roughly ten or so feet before falling with two other figures perched on top of him. Blood was just as present on this one, though it had since mixed with the dirt and rain and nearly disappeared.
"Oh bloody hell, why not." Flint said, causing me to look back to see her throw her hooves to the air.
"It's raining. Vampires are attacking our drivers. Our legendary prisoner turns out to be nothing more than some coincidentally fast and strong dolt with the brain of a child who kicked our door off. What else could go wrong?" She complained.
"We could be politicians." Stone suggested, only getting a fiery sneer out of Flint.
"Should probably help the drivers. Before, you know, they finish and come for us." Shakes suggested, tossing me a few bolt that I barely managed to catch in the darkness. I was a bit shaky loading them into the crossbow.
"Oh please. Three of these are jokes." Flint said, turning angrily to the pegasus mounting the driver still in the harness.
The darkness of the night suddenly got a lot less dark as the back of the pegasus lit ablaze without warning, causing the vampire to stop drinking from the stallions neck and howl.
Flint smirked cockily at the reaction and let the flame die down. She wasn't aiming to immobilize or wound the pegasus, just to get their attention. Which, she did splendidly.
They whipped around, the reds of their eyes shining through the re-darkened night.
Flint was ecstatic now as the sound of their wings flapping came into ear shot through the rain, her smile finally reaching a genuine quality. I suppose this was how she got her joy, through combat. I guess that was one of the reasons she got the spot as general, because if she got joy out of fighting, she was bound to do it often.
The sound of whistling came into ear shot as the pegasus stallion suddenly charged, moving at a speed that only a vampire could achieve.
That didn't get very far though, as they soon found themselves engulfed in a ball of fire that Flint had effortlessly sent out at a speed faster than their own; an effortless act that sent the pegasus to the ground without any attempts at getting back up.
Flint's ears flattened at that.
"Aw man, I was really hoping for a little bit of a fight."
"Well, you got two more over there if you wanna mess with 'em." Stone suggested, pointing towards the two hunched over.
They seemed to pick up on the conversation, and turned towards us all. The two were both unicorns, something that didn't exactly bode well for us.
Out of all types of vampires, unicorns where the most inconvenient to deal with and it should be pretty obvious why. Conventionally, unicorns were a bit weaker physically thanks to themselves using magic to aid them in most tasks, but when vampirism is put into the equation and they become physically enhanced by regular standards, they become quite the nuisance. Even regular spells were annoying, and if they were a respectable mage then they along could handle themselves against quite a few troops of our own.
The two of them smiled devilishly at the sight of us all.
"This ought to be interesting." The first one hissed to the other.
"Indeed..."
"Oh piss off." Flint spat, hurdling a fire ball at the two of them.
Despite the speed of it, it was stopped a few feet in front of the two as it was encased in a ball of green magic. Though it was interesting to see the trade off, as the fire continued to burn inside the green sphere for a while before suddenly going out. I reckoned that a normal ball of flame would have died out slower than that, but I remembered that it wasn't a normal fire. It was somewhat interesting to think that the fires that Flint caused where almost an extension of herself, and that they could continue to burn without oxygen. Remarkable even.
"Sometimes I hate unicorns." Flint huffed.
"Bah, you're just not creative beyond your little fire balls, are yah?" Stone teased, getting another sneer out of the general beside him.
I decided to take a shot of my own while the two provided somewhat of a distraction, lining up my bow with what I assumed where the vampires and sending off a random shot.
I thought the blackness of the night might make it harder to trace the shot, and thus lend to a hit.
I was wrong, well kinda.
The bolt I had fired off suddenly set ablaze, which made it all to easy for the unicorns to form a small shield with their magic and block the flaming arrow.
I looked to Flint to see her smirking, either at managing to block me or for some other reason. I had assumed that she had tried to aid me in my efforts, though it looked like she had only set us back to square one. Though, I wasn't that annoyed with it. After all, it was still square one.
Though I was wrong again.
A quick look back at the bold showed me the reason Flint had decided to join in with my attack.
The unicorns hadn't made a bubble to block my arrow, as using something flat would eliminate more risk to the arrow making it to them, and as a result hadn't contained Flint's fire.
The fire from the arrow moved off of the arrow, going around the square plate of magic as if it were alive and reforming in small ball of flame on the other side of the magical shield.
The two unicorns were surprised by the act, just as I was. And that brief moment of shock was all the time Flint needed to command the flames to jump forwards at the vampires.
The world almost went in slow motion as the flames jumped, the eyes of the vampiric unicorns widening at the flames about to engulf them.
The sudden sound of something falling came from behind us, loud enough to make us all look back to see if there was another vampire sneaking up behind us in an attempt to get a cheap blow in.
Well, we were partially correct.
Vinyl had fallen out of the carriage and down into the mud face first. She was raising herself up off the ground and wiping her face off as we all stared at her, though she didn't seem to register all the sets of eyes that were on her. I managed to make out the form of a plastic wrapped sandwich.
'Is that my lunch?'
I managed to make out the face of Flint as she made a realization and swiveled her head back towards the unicorns just in time to see them charging up a bolt of magic in unison.
A bolt of faint green blurred towards us, particularly aimed at Flint.
She jumped left in an attempt to avoid, though the magical missile only adjusted its course accordingly.
It was around that time that I saw what she was jumping towards.
The bolt of magic collided with enough force to knock the wind from my lungs and send me a few meters - from what I could guess as I flew through the air - off to the side. It apparently had an explosive property to it, as there were chunks of earth that fell on my face as I began to open my eyes and take in the sight of smoke.
My ears were ringing a little as I squinted through the smoke, though something seemed to be moving in it.
The smoke shifted abruptly to my right, then once again to the left. It looked like someone was waving their hoof in an attempt to clear the smoke, but they only gave one wave.
Either way, the smoke cleared.
What I saw was General Stone standing tall with a grimace on his face and smoking spot on his chest. General Flint was behind him, still in a braced position.
"I'm beginning to question what kind of a relationship we have with each other, Flint." Stone mumbled, half complaining and half giving Flint the 'all clear'.
"If it makes you feel any better, I've always seen you as a blast shield." Flint replied, coming out from behind him.
Shakes and Vinyl had been lucky enough to have been behind Stone as well, and apparently only I had been harmed by the blast, as it was pretty clear that Stone was fine as well.
"You alright Vinyl? You're a bit farther away from me than before that blast." Shakes said, taking note that Vinyl was in a different spot from where she had fallen into the mud before.
What was odd was that there wasn't any dragging in the mud from her current spot and her previous, as if she had been picked up and put down. I considered that she had maybe moved backwards, but her second pair of shackles were still not broken - so that was out.
She was also missing my sandwich, though I didn't much care about that. Not to sound disrespectful but Flint was a pretty bad cook anyways.
"Well, might as well take care of these two jokes-" Flint began, but stopped herself as she spotted something.
I turned and saw it as well.
The two unicorns that had previously been standing in front of us were now gone.
"Must've gotten away when the bolt hit. Retreat ain't exactly vampire nature though." Stone said, stretching his legs.
"Whatever, lets get those drivers inside the carriage," Flint said, moving towards the driver still strapped in his harness. "Maple you get the one out there. Watch for any more of those vampires though, they might be in a little pack."
I nodded and trotted out to get the driver, taking a moment to feel his pulse when he got there. He was alive. Bleeding pretty badly, but alive nonetheless.
I got back to the group to see Flint standing with the other driver propped up against the carriage. I was still a bit winded from the whole 'getting hit with an explosive' thing, so I was still a bit out of it. Luckily, Flint seemed to notice.
"Shakes, take the driver from Maple and help load him in. Make sure to keep the prisoner away from the carriage while we load them in though. Maple, you can watch her."
Shakes nodded and came over to me, lowering her body beside my own while I sort of shook the driver off my back and onto her own.
"Vinyl, wait behind the carriage." Shakes said, moving towards the open door with the driver.
Vinyl nodded happily and practically pranced towards the back of the carriage with myself following along slowly, roughly six or so meters behind her.
As I was about to come around the corner, I heard her talking and decided to stop and do a little eavesdropping. She was the prisoner after all.
"Alright, you guys should get outta here pretty quick if you don't want any more fireworks." She said quietly.
It sounded like she was talking to others, so I decided to peak around the corner to see who.
What I saw was the two unicorns that had disappeared from earlier, each of them propped up against the back of the carriage with a half sandwich shoved in their mouths as a makeshift gag to keep them quiet.
They both looked horrified as she spoke softly to them.
"I don't wanna see you guys making another attempt on this carriage again. I've got some friends on it, and I don't wanna see them get hurt. Got it?" She said, firm yet sympathetic.
The both nodded quickly.
"Thanks. Tell your friends too if you see them. I don't wanna see you guys end up like your poor fly-y friend out there." She said, sounding genuinely sad for the pegasus from earlier who met Flint's fire first.
They both looked to each other before motioning to her chains.
"Heh, don't worry about it." She said as they got up from the ground, sandwich in mouth.
"You can keep the sandwich." She said with a faint smile as the two of them quietly trotted away.
They tossed a look back, and Vinyl tried to wave but the chains began to groan and she stopped herself. Instead, she just smiled sheepishly at them as they began walking away again.
She began to turn back to supposedly come back around the carriage, so I slunk back around the corner and waited for her to walk around.
Though when she did, she left me with a comment.
"Thanks for letting me borrow the lunch, hope you didn't mind me sharing." She said casually and gratefully, showing that she knew I was eavesdropping.
I had no comment for that as I shambled back to the now fully loaded group.
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*
Stone had tore the separating bar off of the carriage and decided to hitch himself into the driver position with a make shift harness that Shakes had scrounged together with the two regular sized pony harnesses. It was a pretty good idea since he was the only one among us with the strength to pull us along, and he would probably make better time as well.
Well, him and another pony. But she was in chains, though I doubted that they would stop her.
"Alright, everyone ready?" Flint asked, looking to me.
Me and Shakes nodded.
"Alright, load up." She said, motioning to the carriage.
We began piling in. Shakes climbing in first and taking her original seat, followed by Flint who took her place next to the two collapsed guards who were propped up against each other. I went in next and took the seat next to Flint, thankful for her taking the seat next to the two injured drivers. I'd rather not be getting blood on me with the cargo we were toting.
An alarm went off in my head at that thought.
"Flint are we honestly going to let the vampire ride in the car with two bleeding ponies?" I asked.
"Yeah, sadly. It's either that or letting her drive us, and I'm not letting that happen.
"Flint, I really don't think it's a good idea to do that." Shakes warned, looking a bit frightened herself.
"Well, like I said, we've got no other option." Flint replied, eyeballing Vinyl as she struggled into the carriage and sat next to Shakes.
"You got that? Try something and I'll catch you on fire." Flint warned, though Vinyl didn't respond.
She was too busy looking at me.
I was a bit uncomfortable by the oddly compassionate stare, though it was when she mouthed the words 'thank you' that I finally understood why she was staring.
It wasn't that I chose to not tell Flint, it had just slipped my mind somehow. Though I guess even if I had planned to, I doubt it would have done any more than get Flint more uppity about Vinyl anyways.
My thoughts were interrupted as the carriage suddenly started forwards, going just as steadily as the two drivers had been going. Though the sudden lurch forwards made the limp drivers jerk a little, causing a bit of blood to seep from their current wounds.
Me and Shakes turned to Vinyl, who was staring at the wounds with a blank look on her face.
"Vinyl..." Shakes said cautiously.
That seemed to snap her out of the haze, resulting in her shaking her head a little.
"Yeah...sorry..." She said, the affects of the blood already apparent on her consciousness.
Flint seemed completely at ease though, even slumping her head downwards and looking like she was in the process of taking a power nap despite the threat of the prisoner whom was clearly holding herself back going under the effects of blood lust. Even Shakes was getting a bit nervous now, and that was only serving to make me even more nervous.
Whatever was going to happen, I could only foresee something bad happening. And this time it would be coming from Vinyl, which was already a factor that whatever it was was going to be far worse than that rag tag group of three vampires.
Each bump in the road only served to make me more nervous, as it would gently send the incapacitated drives up a little and back down, causing the slightest amount of blood to pump out. They weren't going to die from blood loss at this rate, but we all might bite the dust from what that blood was going to provoke.
I could only hope Shakes had been right about Vinyl fasting.
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Octavia...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*
"So, she's gone again?" Harpo asked, propping himself forwards to show his concern.
I had decided to talk about the problem this time; Vinyl's mother suggested the idea, claiming that I was looking a bit pent up. I was a bit surprised that she would be okay with me talking about what happened, much less encouraging me to, but I decided to take her up on the offer and talk to Harpo.
He was about the only one that I could see as being level headed about the whole thing, since I knew Beauty wouldn't be all too interested in talking about it and Fredric would probably slap me if I even suggested it. He also seemed to take bad or surprising news better than anyone I knew, though that circle wasn't exactly an impressive one.
"Yes... though her mother is a lot more passive than I thought she would be. I half expected her to blow a hole in the wall." I admitted.
"You know, Beauty's been a bit more passive lately too whenever that mare of yours gets brought up. She used to go on rants, though now she just blushes or shudders at the mention of her." He said, obviously thinking about what could be causing it.
"Well, I suppose it's better than bickering." I said, still hopeful for Beauty and Vinyl getting along. They had shown some compatibility before, such as at dinner, though it'd most likely take more than just a dinner to bring them to terms.
"Anyways..." Harpo said, suddenly looking a bit more serious as he leaned in close to me.
"...I'm a bit worried about Fredric." He said grimly.
"Why? Did something happen?"
"Well, I'm not sure. He'd been really distant for a few months now and the only time I see him is at practice, but he leaves before I can even get a chance to talk to him. And not to put anything on you personally, but it all started around the time Vinyl came around. Kind of like Beauty was, but he kept it all bottled in whereas she let it out." He said, worry clearly present.
"I'm just scared that he might do something drastic, if he hasn't already." He said, looking down in thought with a sad frown on his face.
"I could talk to him." I offered, and he smiled a little at that.
"That'd be great."
We went on in silence for a good while, enjoying each others company, and staring out a window in the small coffee shop we had gone to. It was a different one that Harpo went to commonly, one that was up on the edge of a natural cliff with a splendid overview of the city. It was quite beautiful to look over the whole town in such a serene silence, though he decided to bring up the case of Vinyl again.
"So, you said her mother came to town recently?" He asked, giving me a look out of the corners of his eyes.
I nodded to him.
"Hm," He chuckled lightly. "wonder what she must be like, considering what a figure her daughter came out to be."
"You'd be surprised how different, yet similar, the two are." I said honestly.
In truth, they were very alike. Both were white, had a blue mane, a carefree nature to them and an astounding love for each other. Yet at the same time, they were so different. Vinyl's mother had a more calm and practiced aura to her, as well as being more conscious of using her manners while Vinyl was what you could call a "free spirit" through and through.
Gods I missed her.
"Really? Might have to meet her then. I'd be interesting to see how Beauty would go about it as well." He said, chuckling at the idea of Beauty meeting Vinyl's mother.
In all honesty, I wanted to see it as well. I had the distinct feeling that some drama might spark if the two met, and at this point I'd do just about anything to distract myself. Not to be rude but with Vinyl gone my home was almost dead, and definitely dry. Though I suppose it might have something to do without Vinyl's cuddling. Especially now in the colder months when using just a comforter didn't quite warm you enough.
'My lord, look at me. She was abducted and here I am complaining about the lack of cuddling I'm getting.' I thought, shaking my head.
"Well, at least you're missing her." Harpo said suddenly, getting a jump out of me.
"H-Huh?" I stammered.
He laughed a little.
"You might not notice it, but you kinda daze off when you start thinking. And you've been frowning a quite a bit during our little meeting here."
He adjusted himself, leaning in towards me with a kind smile on his face.
"I don't know where she is, but I'm sure she's going to be fine." Harpo said, taking on a tone vaguely resembling my father whenever he'd see me depressed.
Though the gesture did comfort me, the truth of the matter was very different for Vinyl.
I could only hope he was right.