“What do you mean Changelings?” Dracula said in an irritated voice, slamming his hoof on the ground causing the ground to shake and crack. His eyes glowed bright red and struck fear into Twilight Sparkle. Dracula saw that fear and calmed down. Twilight adjusted herself and said,”Yes. These are Changelings not Children of the Night. I sense the same energies in them that I felt when they invaded Canterlot.”

Dracula rubbed his chin with his hoof and said,”That would explain why I didn’t feel the same energy in them that I have. But, if these are Changelings then...where are my brothers and sisters?”

Dracula stared up at the moon once again. Twilight was going to say something when Rarity put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. Rarity shook her head and said,”Let him think darling. He needs to be alone.”

Twilight thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. They walked away from Dracula for him to think. Rarity and Twilight set up a little camp for them to rest from the recent fight they endured. Nothing amazing, just a simple campfire and three spots to sit on. Rarity shifted uncomfortably after she sat down and said,”Um...Twilight can I ask you a question?”

“Sure Rarity. What is it?”Twilight said looking at her friend. Rarity still had blood stains on her horn and some more on her bright white coat. Rarity’s eyes were filled with sorrow when she asked,”Can you teach me some offensive magical spells?”

Twilight was not really surprised when she asked that question. After their previous fight it would not be a bad idea. Twilight says in a charismatic voice,”Of course Rarity, the more advantages we have against the Changelings the better.”

Rarity smiled and Twilight returned the gesture. Twilight said,”Come on, let teach you a simple one.”

Dracula stared long into the moon. He had never felt like this before, how felt was indescribable. His brothers and sisters could be dead for all he knows. Or worse.

Dracula tore his gaze away from the bright moon in the sky and went to his prisoners. They changed back into their regular Changeling forms, but something was unfamiliar about them. Their magical level raised and their forms were different. Yes they still were insectoids but there were patches of dark energy that occasionally rolled off of its body. Dracula assumed that they had different colored eyes but he had burned them to a crisp.

Dracula stepped closer to the two changelings that were bound to the ground by ropes that Rarity had supplied. Dracula activated his magic around his horn and the blood in the Changelings began to boil and burn their insides. The Changelings screamed in horrible pain and Dracula said continuing the spell,”I’ll stop the spell if you tell me where my brothers and sisters are.”

One yelled over top of his lungs that were filling up with his own blood,”Yes...just...please…stop.”

Dracula stopped and the unspoken Changeling threw up green blood, spilling out on the ground. It did not smell too pleasant but Dracula did not flinch or move. The Changeling said,”Chrysalis turned Shadow Garden into her new hive. The Children of the Night have recently awoken and have already started to torture them one by one.”

Dracula squinted his eyes at the Changeling that finished his last words. Dracula grinned as he activated the spell again and said before they burst in an explosion of blood and guts,”You Changelings truly are insects.”

Blood splattered all over Dracula. He wiped his muzzle with his hoof as he continued,”Insects waiting to be squished under my hoof.”

When Dracula spoke the last words his eyes flashed bright red, revealing his fury inside towards Changelings. Dracula loathed those creatures, they were weak and easy to kill. It disgusted him that they attempt to take on the forms of beings ten times more powerful than them.

Dracula lowered his head and again sprouted his large shadow wings. Flying up into the air he hovers over the gnarled tree tops. What he says echos across the wind and strikes fear into everything within a hundred mile radius. What he is about to do is absorb the energy from every dead thing within that radius,

When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.

A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.

My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.

When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground –

Death and I so bound.

When he finished bright red energy swirled around him and was absorbed in his coat and skin. He felt the wounds he had recently received heal and he felt rejuvenated. He felt his magical abilities strengthen and increase. It continued to mildly swirl around him as he lowered himself down from the sky.

When he landed he opened his eyes and red energy swirled in them. The amount of times he had done this was many and numerous. Everytime he did so he felt his mother watch him, this was his special ability as a Child of the Night. It was a burden and a curse, everytime he performed it every living thing in that radius feared him. If he even walked by them they trembled at his approach.

To make matters worse there were times he would go on a killing spree when he used it. Slaying and slaughtering everything in sight, he had been given the nickname the Master of Death because of this. Dracula talked to Luna and she told him that there was nothing that she could do about it. It was a part of him he never liked, he always tried to keep it a secret.

His eyes returned to normal and he headed to the campfire in the distance. He suspected that Rarity and Twilight set up camp. He would have to keep his “talent” a secret for now, they will find out about it but not now. He slowly walked through the forest with his head lowered.

“Now concentrate.”Twilight said as Rarity strained with all her might trying to cast a bolt spell. Finally she cast it but dissipated in thin air, same as the other times. She through her hoof in anger and said,”I’ll never get the hang of it.”

Twilight said,”You almost have the hang of it now. Just concentrate harder.”

Rarity sighs when they both hear the voice of Dracula.”You don’t need to concentrate to cast a spell as simple as a bolt spell.”

Twilight winced and said,”I beg to differ. For a beginner it is tough.”

Dracula grinned and said to Rarity,”It is very simple. Imagine yourself at the place of your dreams or what you love the most. And then just use the spell.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and crossed her hooves. Rarity closes her eyes and thought of what she loved most. Her horn glowed brightly in blue magical energy and shot a bolt at a tree and shot right through it. Rarity opens her eyes and sees the hole in the tree. Rarity stomps her hooves in excitement and looks at Dracula and says,”Oh thank you um...Dracula was it?”

Dracula grins and says,”Yes, and you’re welcome Rarity. Do you mind going out and collecting more firewood?”

Rarity bows at Dracula and runs off. Dracula turns his head towards Twilight whose muzzle was wide open. In a voice of astonishment she says,”But...how did...what?”

Dracula laughed and Twilight continued,”How did you learn to do that? She cast a more powerful bolt spell than me.”

Dracula keeps his devilish grin and says,”I told you. I learned everything I know from Mother and myself.”

Under normal circumstances Twilight would need them to be more specific about Mother, but she knew that it was Luna. Twilight looked back into Dracula’s eyes and said,”How are you not an Alicorn yet?”

“That is a very good question Twilight.”Dracula explained,”I am not an Alicorn yet because I have a direct magical connection to my Mother. That connection allows me to use Alicorn magic. Under normal circumstances, I would transcend into an Alicorn but again that connection keeps me tied to this mortal form. So, technically I am already an Alicorn."

Twilight asked,”What if that connection was severed?”

“Well,”Dracula continued,”Two things could happen. The only way to sever the connection is to kill dear Mother. I could transcend into an Alicorn and take over her place as Prince of the Night. Or I could spontaneously combust causing a catastrophic explosion that could destroy anything and everything within a fifty mile radius.”

Twilight was concerned. She only knew of three ways to ascend into an Alicorn. Natural ascension, which means your magical ability is too much to bear in a normal unicorn body. Another way is with the Alicorn Stone, although that way doesn’t make you an immortal alicorn. And the last way is for an Alicorn to force the ascension. But Dracula was already inches away from becoming an Alicorn, she could feel it. Finally, Rarity returns and places down plenty of firewood for the rest of the night.

She then looks at each of her companions and says,”Should we rest for the night? I know that you and the sun don’t necessarily get along.”

Dracula winced and said,”No I am fine with the sun. It’s just that when I am in sunlight it weakens my magical abilities by a great deal. But we should have no problem in the Everfree forest, sunlight rarely makes it past the canopy tree top.”

Everything he said was true. As he explained he looked around the Everfree forest. His eyes beard the emotion of sorrow. He knew these woods backwards and forwards, as did the rest of the Children of the Night. Twilight looks down and says,”So, you’ve been a Vampire for a long time. What were you before you were a Vampire?”

Dracula grinned for a brief moment and then he says,”I was a member of an order that killed dark creatures. We were known as the Brotherhood of Light. Monster Hunters. We would keep Wild Children of the Night that were controlled by Nightmare Moon in check. I rose through their ranks fast and was good at what I did. My full name was Silverdawn Belmont, a powerful family of Vampire Hunters. I had a brother named Carlisle Belmont who started a family of his own.

“For many years that was what I did. Carlisle and my parents died at a young age by the hooves of what Vampires were before. But that all changed one night when I was sleeping in an inn at Canterlot. I had heard a beautiful voice sing an enchanting song. It was the voice of dear Mother and from that night forward I was someone else. Mother never really told me why she had taken me in the first place.”

Rarity and Twilight listened with intrigue. After he finished explaining everything Twilight asked,”What do we have to do with all of this?”

Dracula stares up at the moon as he recites an ancient prophecy,

“When shadow and night fall upon the land,
The way is cleared for two unicorns together are band.
For they shall lead the way,
And for no one they can’t say.

Death is all that follows,
With a Child of the Night’s sorrows.
Broken and in despair,
“The night shall return” is his delcare.

But for many this is not bright,
For they shall surely feel death’s cold bite.
Where answers they will find,
A place where Harmony was once confined.

Yes indeed there shall be a fight,
For everyone shall return in the Night.
Death will surely await us all,
Only without a Queen’s fall.”

With the last spoken words shivers went through Rarity’s and Twilight’s spine. They both then had flashbacks to their earliest nightmares, ones they had long forgotten. They saw in their eyes Dracula fall and drown in a pool of his own blood in the main chamber of a familiar place. The place where they found the Elements of Harmony.

Dracula says looking at their faces,"What?"

Twilight responds,"We need to get to the castle in the Everfree forest."

Not only did Dracula feel it but Rarity's and Twilight's look of concern told Dracula that he had gained new friends in a his long existence. For his life all he cared about was his brothers and sisters of the Night.

Their vision returned to them and they looked at each other. And Twilight looked over at Dracula who was staring longingly into the moon. He did that often, Twilight was going to ask why but she was interrupted by the sound of buzzing.

Luna stared long into her source of mana. The moon was large and bright. Luna could now sense the location of Dracula. For some reason when she returned from her banishment her connection with her children was shortened. Now, in order to sense the magic within them once again the connection must be reestablished. Dracula was deep in the Everfree forest with Twilight and Rarity. She could sense them too because of their magical ability. Luna somehow knew that it would be those two. She stared long into the night when a voice in her head said,”How could you abandon your son when he needed you the most?”

Luna knew exactly who the voice was, it was her alter ego Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon was not killed just shoved in the back of Luna’s mind. Luna responded in her mind.”I did not abandon him. He needs to do this alone. He has traversed the Everfree forest many times Dracula will have no trouble finding the Garden.”

Luna thought she had got her point across when she heard the voice say back at her.”You are as blind as you once were. Can’t you see that there is an invasion being planned on Equestria right now?”

“Impossible.”Luna exclaimed,”All possible threats have been dealt with. There is no invasion.”

“Your ignorance does you no credit. You did not sense the great increase in power after King Sombra was destroyed.”

Luna would not lie she did not sense that, she doesn’t even think Celestia sensed it. They were all caught up in celebrating the death of King Sombra that they did not sense it. Nightmare Moon continued.”I may be confined in your mind but I have eyes and ears. They told me that Chrysalis has returned and even stronger now that King Sombra gave his powers to Chrysalis and her drones.”

Luna didn’t want to believe what Nightmare Moon was true. But the facts were clear, but her intents wasn’t. Luna asked,”Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,”Nightmare Moon answered,”If there is anypony on this planet to take it over in pure darkness it is going to be me and I am not in a position to escape at the moment. So, you will have to stop the invasion for me.”

Luna had to act quickly. She needed to tell Celestia but she could be too mad at Luna to see reason. She had to act against her sister once again, the fate of Equestria depended on it. So she jumped into the night and spread out her wings. She flew through the night towards the Everfree forest. If this invasion was to be stopped then Dracula would need all the help he could get. And Luna needed to know the fate of her Children of the Night.

Author's Notes:

Two chapters written in one day. Man I am good!