Blood Curse Hunters

by Rarity Belle

Chapter 14

“Sorry about the rain and that, well, are kinda stuck here,” Fluttershy said to Tree Hugger, who sat on the sofa across her. Though the earth pony didn’t seem to mind it that their evening had been gone to water. The pegasus didn’t mind it either, the moon would be young and everypony would have been safe in there. At least that was what she hoped.

Tree took a sip from her tea before she let out a giggle. “Don’t worry too much, Shy, you do worry too much, you know,” she said, “maybe I should give you a massage tomorrow, should do you just fine.”

The offer was tempting, she hadn’t been to the spa in such a long time. She was afraid that either Aloe or Lotus would have rubbed a spot that initiated her morph. If that happened, who knew how it could be solved? No, a massage from Tree seemed to have been the better alternative. Besides, her ways of doing things were always just a little bit more strange. Not that Fluttershy minded strange, she wasn’t particularly normal herself after all.

“I think, I think that that would be wonderful, yes,” replied the pegasus with a gentle tone. Those were the only words that Tree wanted to hear out of her.

The earth pony returned the smile to her and rose her cup of tea to toast to something. Fluttershy couldn’t have done anything else and just went with it. “To a very, very good friendship,” Tree said almost in a normal tone.

Fluttershy was caught by surprise for a moment before she smiled again and nodded. Their friendship had already lasted for so long, there was little that could have broken it in time. The chance was there that the pegasus was closer with Tree Hugger than that she was with any other of her friends. “Hey, you know a game that we can play? You know, something that could speed up the night?” It was a question to bring her mind away from the terror’s she went through.

Tree Hugger had to think about that for a moment, before she thought to have the right one. One that would be right up Fluttershy’s alley. “I think I do have one yes. Been a long time since we played our little role-playing game, right? Where were we again? Depths of Tartarus, fighting that hydra?” The earth pony recalled their game as if it was yesterday for the most part.

“Close, I believe. I’ll get it and then we’ll continue playing it,” answered Fluttershy before she left her chair. “It’s strange though, my other friends only want to play it when Twilight is around.”

~~~~

Galloping through both street and lane, Sweetie had kicked her hooves in the highest gear while she made way for one place. One place that she knew they would have showed up either way. The roads were clear and everything seemed to have been working with her. A little twinkle of madness continued to sparkle in her eyes while she closed the distance. The forges of imagination had been fired, that much was certain.

But there it then stood, Sweetie had come to a hold and she smiled to herself. The hood of her raincoat was shifted a little bit and she saw lights coming from the wooden building, not to forget two shadows that moved in it. At least they had gotten the message and she was late, two things that never seemed to have changed in time.

Her eyes stared to a treehouse that served as a clubhouse for them. Because they were the Cutie Mark Crusaders, trying to get their cutie marks by doing whatever they could have think of. And that, was the foundation of the new idea that was forged. The fires burned and raged, grief and sadness took her over countless times, suppressed deep in her thoughts. Sweetie was nothing more than a husk. A husk of her former, happy, cheerful self. The act of being happy, was one she upheld high. One she would never drop, not until she was truly alone.

“Never more,” she whispered to herself.

A deep inhale was taken by Sweetie before she would go up the ramp to meet the.. How the two shadows hadn’t noticed her yet was a question answered at another time. For the moment, all that the young unicorn wanted, was to get inside again. So with her hooves on the ramps, she would have reached the door and opened it, right as there was a flash of lightning that came down.

In the created opening she stood, clad in raingear and ready to speak while the roll of thunder took everything over. Sweetie made no time go to waste and just entered the clubhouse, closing the door behind her.

Her eyes caught the other two ponies, an earth pony and a pegasus, when her magic levitated the gear off to the side. “Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, I’m glad that you two are here,” said Sweetie before she gave each of them a hug.

The other two returned the hug tight, feeling the hold that was going through Sweetie’s body, but they didn’t knew just as to why they had been called out there. It was fortunate that Scootaloo slept over by Apple Bloom for the night, otherwise she wouldn’t have made it out there. Wonder filled their eyes, questions spoke in their minds, but a verbal response never came.

Sweetie dropped down in a beanbag before she grinned a bit. Just seeing the other two Crusaders like that, filled her with a genuine glee that couldn’t be taken away. Soon would she have to speak though. Soon would she have to come and say what was on her mind, why their meeting had been arranged in the middle of a thunderstorm, no less.

Apple Bloom was the first one to take the word. “Say Sweets, why did ya call us here?” she asked. A rightful question indeed, why had Sweetie called them both out there?

Sweetie stood up from the bag and began to wander without aim through the clubhouse. She would have told them her story. “I called you two here tonight, because some strange things are happening all over Ponyville. Not just Ponyville though, all of Equestria is suffering from it. Beings of unknown origin have begun to roam around, these, lycans and vamponies, are all but good news. Here, they don’t seem to come, but what if they do? What will we do?”

“We’ll beat them of course!” Scootaloo answered straight away. Her ignorance of the world had always been her biggest friend. If things were only that simple though.

Sweetie shook her head and she let out a deep exhale. “I wish we could, but we’re just three young mares, bright futures ahead of us. If we come to face even one, I don’t think it will end well for us.” A grim reality perhaps, but it wasn’t that far away from the truth altogether.

“So why did ya call us here than? All yar doing now is makin’ us scared!”

“And I was coming to that, thank you very much,” returned Sweetie straight away to Apple Bloom. If there was one thing that young Apple could, it was interrupting at the worst possible times. “Ideas have been flowing through my mind lately, some better than others but, I think we’ve all been looking in the wrong direction about this all.”

Apple Bloom got an idea as to where it all would have gone to and gestured to Scootaloo. “Sweets, stay here for a moment, Scoot and Ah need to speak ‘bout something.” Scootaloo had not even an idea of what Apple Bloom wanted, but together they went to the furthest corner away from Sweetie. The young earth pony began to whisper there, “Do ya think this might have som’thing to do with what happened two years ‘go? She seems changed, Scoot, and it ain’t for the better. Ya know she never been able to give Rare’s death a place, right? Whatever she says, it’s a stupid plan.”

In the past had been Apple Bloom that often turned to the voice of reason between them three. Out of them all, she would be the one that kept the peace between them. Normally Sweetie took that role on her, but with her mind brittle as it was, somepony else had to do it. Babs wouldn’t have visited them for a long time to come, meaning that it all fell down on her. A role she regretted but was glad for at the same time.

Scootaloo nodded to the words, but still had a couple of her own to speak. “Oh it is about all those years ago, trust me. I’ve seen that look in her eyes, that look she had just when her sister died. She’s lost it. Absolutely, lost it, I’m telling you. Whatever she’s going to say, I can assure you, she’s going to drag herself only further down, and us with it,” the pegasus returned with a quiet whisper.

The last thing that either of them wanted was that Sweetie would have heard their words. But in the end did they gave one another a nod. A nod that proved they were on the same wave. They went back to Sweetie who was still waiting there.

“So, I hope your little gossip went well. Because our future might be at stake and I doubt that Twilight and her friends are able to stop it,” Sweetie said to them with determination. Even though Ponyville was still relatively safe from all the madness, it had been the main hub of it just as many times. All thanks to Twilight and her friends, most of the time.

Which meant that they had to prepare for whatever trouble would be lying ahead and if Sweetie had to be believed, there was a lot of trouble lying ahead. But she also had to break the news to them, before she would have told her plan, Sweetie would have spoken her latest train of thought. Her body was dropped again on the beanbag while an exhale became audible.

“I, have been thinking, about everything, really. Everything that happened in the past two years. Times have changed and by Celestia, so did we. We changed for either better or worse, I can’t tell. But what I can tell, is that I don’t believe Rarity set fire to her own boutique, or that it was a problem with the gas. And none of you find it strange that Fleur was murdered, got her heart torn out of her body, no less, less than a week after it? I was blind, girls, I was blind to everything.”

“But what are ya trying to say here, Sweets?” Apple Bloom asked with a raised eyebrow. She didn’t have a clue as to what Sweetie wanted to achieve with her words. She didn’t have a clue, in which direction they could have gone.

“Compelling arguments, only a year too late,” mumbled Scootaloo just loud enough for them to hear it.

“Perhaps not,” countered Sweetie Belle, “it does mean that there’s still a murderer out there. One that slaughtered Fleur and burned my sister.”

“What do you want to do about it? Start your own investigation about it? That’s not going to happen, Sweets, they closed it months ago. No traces found of anything and the only witness dead,” added Apple Bloom, hoping to speak some sense into Sweetie. But that idea wouldn’t take flight anytime soon. The young unicorn had become too determined to deviate from her chosen path.

“What I want to do, is not to start my own investigation, Apple Bloom, what I want to do, is hunt down the bastard who did it and make sure the same pain is brought over,” said Sweetie then in an ice cold tone.

Both the earth pony and the pegasus were frozen from those words. They never expected that Sweetie Belle would have gone out there for blood. What on earth had changed her so much, that she wanted to set in a hunt? It must have happened recently though, the idea wasn’t there a week ago, the thought wasn’t even there a week ago.

“And how do you want to do that? You seriously want to make it your life’s mission to discover who murdered your sister and kill him? Answer me: what difference does it make whether or not he lives or dies?” asked Scootaloo, hoping to be the voice of the unicorn’s reason.

“Does it need a reason?!” Sweetie barked in return. “All I want is to know why she died, there’s nothing more to it. There’s nothing else to it. I lost somepony dear to me, I lost... my sister!”

“And Ah lost mah parents, but ya don’t hear me goin’ over to some vigilante mumbo-jumbo like Mare-Do-Well!” snapped Apple Bloom.

Tensions had been running high between the three of them and Sweetie still wasn’t done with her words, not by a long shot. “Apple Bloom, you never knew your parents, you can’t miss what you never had. I knew Rarity, you all knew her!”

An arrow had been shot straight through the earth pony’s heart with those words. Sweetie spoke them with such lethal precious, she knew where it would hurt the most. In that respect, she was exactly like her sister, a true weaver of words. “Take it back,” she growled under her breath.

Sweetie would have never taken them back though, as she justified them as the truth. “That is why, I called you two here, today. That is why, I want you to join me in this. This is why, I want to join the Night Guard, to be that watchful eye at night, to make sure everypony is safe.”

“Oh just cut the crap, would ya!” Apple Bloom snarled in return. She didn’t buy the last part at all, not after the first words spoken to her. “Ya really think they will let ya join the Guard?”

“It’s better than to sit here and do nothing, while horror roams the streets,” returned Sweetie Belle.

Scootaloo was just baffled by the arguments. She had agreed with the earth pony that whatever came out of the unicorn was pretty much manure, but at the other end did Sweetie have a solid point. A solid point which she used against the both of them. Not to mention, if neither had joined, she would have done it either way. Sweetie would have joined the Night Guard, with or without them.

“Girls, can’t we just remain calm and sort this out for a moment?” the pegasus asked with urgency. Something about the matter wasn’t right and they all had to calm down. “Just, sit down!”

The scream went through the entire clubhouse together with another rumble of thunder. Fear took over the other two young mares who did what was not asked, but commanded of them. They both sat down, held their mouths shut and waited for whatever words Scootaloo wanted to say to them. Madness had taken over, that much was certain. Order had to be restored, somehow.

Comments

[MasterC0re]

yay an update!

[HarmonyRapids]

I agree! Yay!