Blood is Magic

by Crimson Rose

Act Four

The ponies ventured deep within the catacombs. Water leaked dripped from the ceilings and water splashed with each step they make.

"If Rarity was here, we'd never make progress." Dash said, wiping her forehead, clearing the water from her head.

"How far is it?" Twilight asked Dark Fire.

"Not far....stop, we got company." The stallion said, stopping.

The mares turned around. From Dark Fire's light, shadows moved towards them. Almost immediately, Dash recognized the shadow.

"Fluttershy?"

Sure enough, the Element of Kindness slowly walks in, blasts of fire came from the two baby dragons, one flame green and the other bright indigo, lighting the pegasus' way. "I'm so sorry...they really wanted to come." She whimpered.

"Hi mama!" Coral cooed, waving her claws at Crimson.

The crimson mare couldn't help but smile. "Baby girl, you are suppose to stay back."

"I know mama, but I wanted to see you." Coral smiled. "Plus you need my wings."

"Yeah, wings..." Spike muttered before meeting Twilight's death-defying glare. He spent a long time to know that when he's met with that glare, he's in trouble.

"Are we sure we need children to accompany us?" Luna asked, looking at the baby dragons who disobeyed their guardians direct order.

"It's too dangerous for both of them to be here, Fluttershy, why didn't you hold them back?" Twilight asked Fluttershy, who whimpered in fright.

"I'm so sorry," Fluttershy whispered. "I didn't mean to."

"They are fine. It's too late for either of them to turn back now." Crimson said as Coral climbed on her back, Spike did the same to Twilight, who felt tensed from having scales on her back once more.

Dark Fire simply moved forward, leading the mares towards an opening. They came across a bridge that inclined toward what appears to be a bookshelf.

"That's odd to have books in this place," Twilight said as the ponies who could fly flew uphill to the shelf. The two bat ponies walked towards the shelf and that's when Dark Fire frowned.

"I did have forgotten which book it is to pull." He said.

"We'll, let's just pull each book out and find that secret passage." Rainbow Dash said. When she touched the books, she was shocked and fell to the ground, her wings stiffened up so bad that she couldn't fly. "What the hay!?"

Twilight and Luna tried to touch the books, it did the same thing to them and their wings stiffened as well.

"It must be some sort of trap." Luna groans, her wings felt heavy, making it hard for her or her companions to move.

"It must be new." Dark Fire said, examining the accursed, enchanted shelf, trying to avert his gawking eyes at their wings. "Last time I used it, I just have to solve the puzzle and it'll open."

"Puzzle?" Coral cooed, hopping off of her mother's back and waddled her way to the shelf. "I love puzzles, can I solve it?"

"But it'll hurt you, Coral," Fluttershy said. "We'll find another way inside."

"I'm afraid, this is the only way in without being detected by the guards." Darkfire said. "Though they had updated their security."

"If this trap works on ponies...maybe it doesn't work on dragons." Twilight said, her legs buckled from the extra weight of her wings. "Try it."

Coral was happily oblige as she reached for the first book she saw. When she picked it up, it didn't harm her. She examined the book until she saw the spine. There was an imprint on it. Scanning at the others, the other books had some type of imprint, if putting them together, they form a picture and that can be the key. "Spike, can you help me."

"Um okay," Spike said, hopping off of Twilight's back.He walked over to the dragoness and helped her out.

"Okay, I think that goes here and here..." The two drakes began switching the books around.

"No I think those two need to switch." Coral said, taking the two already placed books and switching them around.

It took them a few minutes to finally complete puzzle: It was a mare with silver mane, white coat, red eyes, her horn was glowing brightly, leading the other bat ponies out of the darkness. Crimson grunted, looking at the picture before the mares under the trap's spell wore off and they furled their wings.

"Never again I would touch any bookshelf." Rainbow grunts, flexing her wings. "Unless it's a Daring Do Book of course."

"I've met that mare before." Crimson said. "Anywho, look." she points her hoof at the shelf as it swung open.

"Okay, every pony, lets go in, but tread lightly, we're in enemy territory." The princess of the night said.

Darkfire lead the mares in. The shelf door opened to a library. Twilight couldn't help but awed at the books. She goes near one of the shelves, pulling a book out of it's place and looked at the cover.

"Dareka's Fallen angel: A tale of Wandering Shadows. This sound interesting." She smiled, tempting to opening the hard black covered book.

"Please put that down," Fluttershy said. "You shouldn't be touching other ponies things before asking."

"I have the entire trilogy," Crimson said. "I can lend you them if you want. It's a love novel."

Twilight squealed in excitement before putting the book back in it's place. "I'll hold you to that."

Luna looked around before gasping, taking aback on seeing a white stallion's head mounted on the wall. Fluttershy covered her eyes, pretending not to see anything. Dash flew towards the head. "Whoa, dude, this is like, creepy."

"Who you callin' creepy?" the head suddenly spoke, opening his eyes...well..HE HAD NO EYES!

Rainbow Dash, Twilight and Fluttershy let out a scream, running back to the closed entrance, trying to find a way out.

Crimson, Coral and Dark Fire let out a chuckle, seeing that they were used to this sort of things. Dark Fire went towards it in a calm manner.

"Please don't inform the Count and countess that we are in here." he asked of the head.

"You here to kill em?" the head asked them, glaring at them.

"We are here to put an end to their reign of terror." Luna said, looking at the Stallion. She didn't know if she should laugh or feel sorry for the poor soul.

"You can try, ha! I tried that one and look at me! I'm a bucking head!"

"We can see that,." Dash commented as the three fillies backed off of the closed entrance.

"W-we'll make sure that doesn't happen to us." Spike chattered his teeth in fright, using Twilight's wing to hide himself.

"Soon, youses are gonna be just like me," The head called out before closing his eyelids, going back asleep.

"Can we please leave?" Fluttershy cried. "I don't want to do this anymore."

Twilight puts a hoof on her shoulder, still shaken up from the talking decapitated head. "T-the map told us that we have to come here, I-if it means dealing with these two ponies, saving an entire town, we have to do it. We've dealt with worse things before."

"But not when it involves k-killing."

"Look, we'll make sure we don't kill the Count and Countess, we'll just beat some sense into them." Crimson sooths the yellow pegasus. "I promise."

Fluttershy whimpered, shaken to death that she couldn't even move.

Dash sighed annoyance before taking off towards the door out of the library as the other ponies tried to calm her friend down. Coral noticed it and snuck out to follow her. Spreading her golden feathers and took to the air.

Dashie flew out of the library and came out to the Court Yard. It was fairly big, it had a dome over the place so Dash couldn't fly out into the skies. There was a fountain, the water stained red, dead wilting flowers. There was a tall building north of her and Rainbow was fired up. She was going to storm in, kick some serious butt, save the town, head back to the pub and have herself a nice tall glass of cider.

"Should you wait for everyone else?" Coral flew behind her.

"Should you go to your ma?" Dash glared at her. "I don't need some baby dragon slowing me down."

Coral criss-crossed her arms, giving the mare a "Ya serious?" look. "At least I didn't have an automatic wingboner in front of a stallion from a book shelf."

Dash blushed pure red, glaring at the baby. "That was a spell, not that I was-well he is-well-you know what, you need to leave." She went to grab the dragon and the dragoness easily side stepped her. "Look kid, I'm not playing any games here."

Coral tapped her arm where the wound RD caused her to have was there. "You owe me, daymare."

Dash grumbled cursed under her breath before sighing. "Just don't get in my way."

"Fire power here, Crashie, I think I'm in front." Coral smirked before flying towards the tall building. Dash follows her, despite having to babysit a sassy smart-mouth dragon.

When they got to the door, Coral reaches the knob with her fish tail and it opened. They went inside to see what appears to be a the main house. Dark and crimson roses bloomed inside and in the middle of the room. Dash heard a couple of batacorns trotting down the multiple hallways. Dash could easily take down the magic users, as long as she didn't get hit by their condensed magic.

"What are you guys doing?" The Princess of Friendship zooms towards them, the others were not that far behind them. "We're in enemy territory and you guys wandered off."

"Well I'm sorry if I want to get this friendship mission over with as fast as possible. This place, yes, I'll admit, is freaking me out." Dash exclaimed, flinging her arms in the air in exasperation.

"You're going to get us caught." Coral whispered, peeking over the roses to see a few shadows walking towards them.

"So am I, Dash, but flying off isn't going to solve it!" Twilight shouts back, not hearing the dragon's warning.

"Better than to stand there and tending to a tree!" Dash quickly covered her muzzle the second she made that comment about Fluttershy. "I-i did-"

"DUCK!!!!" Crimson's voice rang both of the mares as a dark purple and blue blast shot at them, clipping Rainbow in her arm but took Twilight by surprise as she was hit. She was flew to the wall and hit it with such force it knocked her out and slumped to the ground.

"Twilight!!!" Fluttershy, Rainbow and Spike shouted, they ran towards her but Dark Fire teleported the three away as the guards, and the Count himself approached the princess of friendship.

"Hmm, interesting specimen." The count said, using his magic to raise Twilight in the air. He tilted his head and licked his lips. "I bet she would taste delicious. I must experiment-"

"Sir, you have a ball tonight, you won't have time to conduct your experiments." One of the guards commented.

"Blast. Put her in my lab, make sure she doesn't escape. I'll tend to her later." He said, tossing her to one of the batacorns who caught her with their magic and whisked the princess away.

"No..." Crimson said, couldn't believe what was happening. She looked up the princess of the night and saw pure anger going through the majesty.

The count looked around, Coral was hiding in her shadows, thanking Luna that she had black scales and could make her spikes disappear. The count turns around and walked back to where he needed to go.