Coagulation

by Crow T R0bot

As Lloyd finds himself about to be made Vampire King, an unexpected party-crasher turns his grandmother's plans on their head. Alternate Ending to freakyanimegal's "Blood Is Thicker."

Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of Symphonia, that's the property of Namco, Hellsing is the property of Kouta Hirano, and Blood is Thicker is the property of freakyanimegal.

As a fan of Blood Is Thicker, I thought it was worthy enough to merit a spinoff fanfic of its own. In particular, Maetala's fate at the end of that story was way too good for her. And I was obsessed with the idea of her getting what she had coming to her. I immediately thought of a scenario like this, so after a year of rumination. I thought it was time to post.

So, with freaky's blessing, I've written this one-shot to fix that. It's amazing how little three characters can change so much, isn't it? Read the story below for your answer.

She watched her grandson writhe, pitiful against the rope bonds restraining him. The pain the sunlight had wrought on him earlier destroyed any worry they might not hold.

Funny, it was always when it would do him the least good that Lloyd struggled. His newly surfaced vampire nature ensured that. Every neck was an irresistible siren. Every drop of blood was heroin. She could tell once that this boy had an indomitable will.

All it took for her was to 'drown' him in the spring, a voluntary bite to the neck to ensure its effects could not be undone by her son, and at last, Lloyd Irving had been dominated.

Now, standing above him with her nails sharpened, her revenge was within reach. A few meters away, Kratos, the traitor she had regretted bringing into this world, stood restrained by two particularly monstrous bat familiars, only able to watch as the son he tried to protect lay helpless before her. She looked to where Lloyd's own eyes were drawn and saw the target of her grandson's love—and soon lust—a petrified, golden-haired maiden.

Once the ritual was complete, her ultimatum was simple: Turn her and breed some heirs or leave her to be devoured by his soon-to-be minions.

She held back the ecstasy. She wasted enough time imagining, now it was time to remove his worthless original heart and replace it with the one that currently beat in her own chest. The heart of countless kings and queens. The Divine Heart. She would replace it with her original heart of course, safely tucked away in the coffin she had sent him to fetch from the Temple of Darkness.

But first things first, she raised the flexed her fingers, its nails gleamed in the moonlight...

The reverent silence broke with a slow clap, clap, clap.

Her claws stopped in mid-movement.

What cur had deigned to interrupt her moment of triumph?

Lloyd Irving was many things. 'Vampire' and 'terrified' should not have been either of them. In the last week, all he thought of, all he could think of; was how to avoid eating anyone and succumbing to that temptation every single time. His willpower worthless in the face of the monstrous urges that had swallowed him since that...that...thing who called herself 'Maetala' had drowned him in that spring of blood.

So much had happened in so few days. Everything he knew was gone, and what wasn't gone was twisted.

No, not everything was gone, Kratos—his father, his father was here—and he knew all along. And Colette...

His stomach churned as his new fangs flexed.

Colette was going to be a vampire, and he was going to cooperate.

Goddess, he had hit rock bottom.

The last spark of hope in him had almost faded by the time the clapping hit his ears.

Clap, clap, clap.

"Excellent party you're throwing, goddess..." Hissed a familiar voice.

Oh no. Not Regal too! He thought.

Was there no end to the people he was dragging down with him? He wanted to open his mouth, scream for Regal to save himself, or at least take Colette and run. The taste of fangs in Lloyd's mouth was proof that he was beyond help.

"A rather lively one at that," interjected another voice, this one older and stuffier. Was that George? What was he doing here? "I believe the last time we saw this many vampires in one place was..." it trailed off for less than two seconds, contemplative, before it continued, "...Warsaw forty-four, wasn't it?"

"True," 'Regal' replied. "But look at them. Such an eclectic bunch, and yet so bland. It's just not the same when they're not wearing jackboots and swastika armbands."

Woorsah? Forty-four? Swa...his mind fumbled over that last word. Was there something he missed?

His attention rose up to Maetala, her hand at last falling limp to her side as she directed what should have been a neutral look to his left. Should have. Those eyes always held the promise of venom, with or without her sinister smiles.

"It seems we have some party crashers...I do hope you have the courage to come forward and explain yourselves."

Lloyd's heart raced when she punctuated that veiled order with one of those smiles.

"Of course my good madam," the stuffier of the two voices answered, "we'd be terrible guests otherwise."

Lloyd finally turned his head to the left, peaking through the upright bodies. They too looked into the woods beyond. Kratos had even forgotten his minders to search for the interlopers.

He was dimly aware that Colette's heart was beating faster than everyone else's.

...Then two shadows in the woods moved...and neither of them were Regal.

The first was an unremarkable man. A butler certainly, but not George. He wore a dark blue vest and darker pants over a white dress shirt, and a monocle rested comfortably in one of his wizened eyes. Surprisingly, there was not a single gray hair to be found on his dark head, nor was there any hint of fear. This man knew what these things were, didn't he?

Lloyd gulped when he saw why he was so composed.

The second man...

A towering, lanky individual ripped his attention away from everything else. He even had a similar, if fancier wardrobe to what Maetala had given Lloyd early in their time together, a red and black suit that looked like it belonged to some of the former Tethe'allan nobles among this vampiric gathering. A red fedora that stretched the length of his broad shoulders sat atop a mop of long, greasy black hair. And his face...

Even with his new vampiric vision, the shadows over the man's face were so thick, the only feature he could distinguish was a glint of orange-tinted moonlight from a small pair of sunglasses.

He couldn't see his eyes, but Lloyd shivered when he thought he felt someone...his gaze pass over him.

"It seems you lost my invitation, goddess..." The tall man said. Lloyd detected a sort of smugness he had only previously heard coming from the Grand Cardinals. "This many vampires in one place and you lose mine in the mail? I'm hurt."

Looking back up, Lloyd saw his tormentor's face continue to glare at the two intruders. Her grin shrank, but did not vanish. What could she—no, Lloyd did not want to know what went through that monster's head.

"I didn't invite you," she began her retort. "I don't know who you are, which means you aren't part of our clan, which means you're trespassing."

Lloyd flinched when the palm of her hand came to a rest over his heart.

"Lloyden here is...about to become a man," she purred. "I can't do that if you keep interrupting. And I hope you know what I do to disruptive little boys."

He felt her dig into her skin, suppressing a shriek into a lip-biting grunt as her nails cut through muscle. "Right, Lloyden?"

"You're one to talk, little bitch."

Lloyd's breath stopped again. He heard Maetala follow suit. Did he just call...her...that?

Maetala shared Lloyd's shock, but not his sentiment. Millennia as a virtual goddess and this, this...cur called her...Even Kratos at his most defiant did not possess the foolish haughtiness to say that to her face.

She did not shake, she just dug her nails further into Lloyd's chest, taking some measure of relaxation as a self-strangled cry squeezed out of his throat.

...and her smile returned.

"I hope for your sake that I misunderstood you," Maetala licked her lips, feeling Lloyd's blood pool around her fingers. "As it happens, this is as much a coronation..." her eyes drifted to the red-headed warrior being restrained by two of her minions. "...as it is a punishment for a lesser insolence. So unless you two care to be part of the feast, I strongly recommend you turn back...I'll give you a five minute head start."

"Oh dear," The elderly human exclaimed, looking between the two. "My sincerest apologies, milady. My partner here lacks people skills and dragged me along so things like that wouldn't happen."

He did not falter when Maetala's gaze switched towards him instead.

"What he means is that you've been very disruptive..."

"And," the tall man interjected in his deep, foreboding voice. "...We're the Neighborhood Watch Committee."

"Yes, yes," a hint of annoyance crept into the butler's otherwise friendly tone. "We're here because your little party has attracted, shall we say...a lot of complaints."

"Kidnapping, mind games, child abuse," the voiced under the fedora counted off the offenses on his fingers. "...and judging by that lovely blonde minx you have tied up, you're looking to make your precious 'Lloyden' add mutual rape to that grocery list." He flipped his gloved hand around and, to the gall of all watching, wagged an extended index finger at the vampire goddess. "Naughty, naughty little girl. It looks like this goddess is in need of a spanking."

Silence.

Lloyd thought his heart had stopped.

Kratos still wasn't moving.

Colette's terror began to drift away from her captors.

"Maybe you could stand to learn about age of consent laws..." he inhaled with a low, obscene hiss. "...you little whore."

The silence returned; same as before.

But Lloyd knew that had done it, whatever 'it' was.

Maetala's smile grew.

"So that's how it's going to be," her haughty voice did not falter. Instead, she gave a sideways glance elsewhere in the crowd, and nodded.

And with that, a green blur raced from the shadows and a woman who had once been a Mizuho kunoichi pressed an explosive seal in the tall man's gut. In the space of a second, he was swallowed in a cloud of smoke, fire, and gore.

It made Lloyd pull himself up the precious inches the ropes that bound him would allow. Terror he did not know why he felt gouging into the turmoil he had already long fallen into.

The man wavered, but he received no quarter. Former Papal Knights, their armor light as cotton against their vampiric strength, rushed forth with their halberds fixed and jammed them into the man's chest. Wet tearing and the sight of intestines spilling from their moorings turned the patch of grass into a sea of red, and even as his body hit the ground, the ninja that had begun the assault looked down upon their victim as her armored compatriots hacked away at him. Lloyd couldn't see her face with her back turned, but her crossed arms telegraphed an arrogant victory.

The older, shorter man, to his credit, took his partner's dismemberment quite well. Standing stiff and stoic just a few feet to the right of the massacre, he moved only to produce a handkerchief and remove his monocle to clean it once a stray splatter of blood found itself on the glass.

"Are you all quite finished?" He asked with thinning patience.

The half-dozen vampire knights halted their frenzy at once and turned their attention to the less than frightened gentleman.

"I should think so," Maetala purred from the makeshift altar. "It looks like your rude little friend was all talk anyway. I guess that means thanks to you, my kin won't go hungry tonight," She took that moment to stroke Lloyd's hair, delighting in the shiver she felt as her fingers brushed his spiky scalp. "...no matter whether little Lloyd decides to take his bride."

The old man frowned as he watched the sight unfold, and then turned his attention to the blonde girl across the gathering from the brunet. Such distasteful practices. It's no wonder they were called here, even if there wasn't a protestant on the face of this curious world.

He began to fiddle with his gloves when he felt the vampires standing over his companion hiss.

"Typical," the gentleman spat. "If any of your kind knew humility, none of you would have five seconds to live."

The female ninja—who had knelt to sample some of her victim's blood—looked up and stood, locking eyes with the old man.

"You are the last person to be making threats here..." she paused for emphasis. "...human."

The knights were content that the bloody mush at their feet could no longer feel pain, and turned to glare at the fragile looking survivor. He was now slowly circling away from them and towards the gathering. Surely he was aware that he'd be sandwiching himself between a host of hungry monsters.

And as they turned, Lloyd saw something stir against the ground behind them.

"...And just where do you think you're going?" The kunoichi flicked her hand and produced a trio of kunai.

"I'm going to distract you." Just before he turned his back to Lloyd, the boy could swear he saw something glinting against the butler's gloves.

"Distract us? Distract me? You give ninja too little credit, my prey. Do you thi—"

She stopped mid-syllable with a gasp. The knights jolted as well, wondering what could have interrupted her. Even Maetala was caught off guard by the her sudden silence.

Lloyd, of course, was just as distracted as everyone else. So he did not see a rare smile curl onto Kratos' face.

And the knights, they didn't have to look long. Maetala couldn't see what had their attention though, noticing that it was directed behind the undead ninja, who continued to shudder and gag.

Then an inkling of red appeared on her robes at the center of her chest.

Then that 'inkling' grew.

And with a wet snap and the tearing of bone, flesh, and cloth, something wide and metal, glistening under a gush of blood, erupted from the center of her chest.

...And then, two evil eyes peeked out from behind her as the kunoichi looked down at the metal barrel that had sprouted from her.

"My turn," the same haughty voice growled.

The knights raised their weapons, but it was too late. The kunoichi was helpless as the force of an earthquake radiated through her body, and a deafening explosion erupted from the end of the metal barrel.

It passed in a second. Maetala could feel something burning brush past her cheek, followed by the feeling of her hair whisked aside as if caught in a strong gust. She hadn't even registered those sensations by the time several wet explosions sounded behind her, some of them accompanied by screams and plaintive gurgling before the familiar sounds of bodies landing in grass met her ears.

The knights to the red-suited man's left instinctively pulled back their halberds for another swing at the creature they had just killed. For their troubles, they buried their axes not into his flesh, but into the body of their ninja companion as the interloper swung his gun…and by extension the woman impaled on it, to block them, her blood splattering against their once-immaculate armor.

And then they too exploded.

The knights on the right fared no better. Without skipping a beat, he used his free hand to produce another handcannon, this one black, and fire four shots in rapid succession, eviscerating his attackers in a heartbeat.

No longer surrounded, he slid the first gun out of the mutilated ninja's chest. Without skipping a beat, he brushed his tongue along the crimson-soaked length of his weapon, savoring the taste of his first victim's blood.

"I don't believe we've been properly introduced, goddess..." he hadn't even finished licking when he started that announcement, slurring the words as he went. "My name is Alucard, and tonight, I'm going to make you my bitch!"

Maetala raised a hand to her cheek, her fingers brushing blood...her blood from a burnt gash where whatever flew out of that handcannon brushed her. Then gave a backwards glance to the direction it traveled.

There was a bloody swatch in an otherwise packed crowd of vampires. Exploded bodies formed a path between the shocked mob, who themselves were coated in the blood and viscera of their peers.

She felt her teeth clench.

"You talk too much, insect," the words came out harsher than she wished. But this affront was greater than she was used to. "Everyone, show this uppity monster his place."

The last syllable hadn't left her lips before a wave of frenzied fangs trampled over each other to fulfill her command.

"I'd love to play," Alucard intoned as the horde rushed to meet him and his elderly companion. "But alas, I still have one bit of business to get down to first."

He raised a hand. "Police Girl, your cue."

His fingers snapped.

There was another thunderclap, louder than his own guns, and in the blink of an eye, the front of the horde had vanished into a cloud of fire, dirt, and red mist. Lloyd's eyes shut on reflex as a wave of dirt, mulched wood, and cool blood splattered him, then opened them again to see a crater surrounded by gore, some of it still airborne.

Several vampires at the outer fringes of the newly made hole writhed on the ground, minus a few limbs themselves, confusion and pain shifting on their faces as something burned where they once had body parts.

His attempts to look away brought him to his left hand.

...Where a small blade had narrowly missed his wrist and frayed one of the ropes restraining him.

Then he looked up again, a blood-splattered Maetala gazing ahead in disbelief. Something that wouldn't last long.

He knew what had to be done.

"Get up close and personal now, Police Girl. That little blonde princess and the other Angel of Death aren't going to rescue themselves." The lanky vampire commanded to an unseen ally.

"On it, master!" A youthful, feminine voice chirped from the woods.

Kratos had attempted to bite into the tail of one of the giant bats restraining him. For his efforts, he only felt that same tail tighten around his throat.

He wasn't worried though, not when Alucard and his aging companion, taking advantage of the surprise and confusion that had stalled Maetala's subjects, stepped forward and calmly sized up the former Seraph's captors.

"They're huge, Walter," Alucard smirked. "That must mean they have huge guts."

"Well," the man, 'Walter,' replied. "Let's test your hypothesis, shall we?" He looked to the left of the first beast. "Ms. Victoria, give a round to the one on the left."

No sooner had he worded that order than did Kratos feel a shower of blood on his face and the tail around his neck go limp. He jerked to the side as the other familiar looked up in primal confusion to see its companion's head now stopped from the lower jaw upward.

"And now to have my cut..." Walter intoned. Kratos looked up to see thin flickers of moonlight reflected off an otherwise invisible source.

The moonlight appeared to be wrapping around the beast's wings and muscular left arm.

Had he looked over to Walter, he would have seen just the barest flick of his wrist before an invisible force cleanly sliced each appendage off. The beast cried as an unexpected pain marked its dismemberment.

With no sword to finish the deed, Kratos improvised. Shaking the now limp arm off his own, Kratos seized the beast's throat, pulled it down to eye level and gave a sharp twist.

A satisfying crunch alerted him of the beast's end.

"Well then, scourge of Lord Yggdrasill," Alucard sneered. "It looks like the party's started for you."

Kratos frowned, but nodded.

Beggars can't be choosers.

In the time they had taken to free Kratos, another life was saved. A tan blur raced through the thinner part of the gathering. She left thunderous booms and a few more exploded vampires in her wake.

But those knights, damn them, were faster than she expected.

At last taking a chance to open her eyes, Colette saw a large-chested blonde woman in a tight fitting uniform weave around the other vampires. A trio of knights from some millennia-past war had tried to flank her. The first of whom found the butt of a freakishly large cannon jabbed into his diaphragm. A knight charging headlong to take advantage of the distraction his partner provided had done so only for muscle, bone, and ichors fly from his back in a deafening explosion. The third knight took a decapitating swing with his sword, but the woman merely ducked, kicked his legs out from under him, and shot the first knight once the latter landed on his face.

And before the last of the muzzle flash had faded, she brought her mini-cannon down and briefly disappeared behind a wall of smoke, blood, and flame as she finished the knight she had tripped.

Two of her captors stepped forward, former Desian archers, both drawing crossbows and firing at the silhouetted attacker's heart. They wasted no time letting loose and relaxed when they heard a satisfying splatter of metal impaling flesh hit their ears.

One dared to look over her shoulder at the Chosen.

"Sorry Chosen, it looks like you'll be staying with us a little lo-."

And then his head flew from his shoulders as thin tendrils of shadow flung through his neck. The other crossbowman looked to his partner's falling body in disbelief and followed the thin wispy shadows back to their source just in time to see both the arrows he and his colleague had fired fly out of the smokescreen and bullseye his heart.

Colette was the only one to find the source of their demise. The young woman who stepped out of the shadows was still alive, reloading her small cannon.

…With her shooting arm melting at the elbow point, where long, jagged...tentacles?...wove freely through the air around her. Ignoring her odd deformity, the grim-faced woman stepped forward. Colette flinched.

"Oh, sorry!"

Colette flinched again, for completely different reasons.

The woman had apologized to her. She looked to the odd mess her right elbow had become to erase any confusion on Colette's part on what she had apologized for.

"I was reloading and had to improvise," Colette saw a familiar, nervous smile replace the serious expression she once had. It reminded her a bit of herself every time she thought she had said or done something wrong. "I'll just get you out of there in tick."

The strange woman had barely saying her promise before she had fulfilled it. Seeing more of the shadow tendrils out of the corner of her eyes, Colette felt the raw rubbing of the ropes against her wrists loosen, then disappear completely...

...and then—true to form—her face met the ground.

"Oh, sorry again!" The voice chirped.

Is that what she sounded like to others?

She groaned and pulled herself to all fours, but by then the woman had come to her side and, all too easily, pulled her into a standing position.

"Are you hurt?"

Relieved, now certain she was safe, Colette allowed herself and her rescuer a fleeting smile.

"My wrists are a little sore," she looked up. "But it's nothing I can't-."

She saw the woman lick her fangs.

Fangs.

In her clumsiness, her arms windmilled and she fell back to the ground in shock. No, not again.

"Oh, gah! You saw them didn't you?" The vampire looked just as shocked as she was. "Sorry about that. Don't worry! I'm not here to hurt you, in fact..."

She reached behind her back and produced two familiar weapons.

"Take these and run. My friends and I will rescue Lloyd."

Colette looked up, fearful at the vampire at first, then at what dangled from her free hand.

It was her chakrams. What this woman was doing with them, she couldn't guess. But she quickly reached up for them. She wasn't going to look a gift-vampire in the mouth.

Not that she hadn't already.

"Thanks, but..." Colette brought her charkams close, looked down upon them, and frowned.

Then she grasped the handles and let loose her mana wings. The vampire jumped back a few steps, startled.

"...I don't want to leave without him."

The older blonde bore a concerned frown. That boy meant a lot to this girl. With that look in her eyes, she could see she really meant it.

Then there was the part of her mind that said, 'What the shite? Wings? Angels really are real? Seras Victoria you are not arguing with her!'

"I don't want you in harm's way," Seras protested feebly. "You do realize what you're getting into, right?"

Colette nodded, forcing a weak smile. No doubt trying to reassure the older girl.

"I've been in harm's way before. I wouldn't be a good friend if I ran off on Lloyd now."

"Hmm..." Seras bit her lip.

And then nodded.

"Just stay behind me, will you hun?"

"Sure, Miss...?" She hovered and held out her chakrams, but the effect died as soon as she hesitated.

"Victoria, Seras Victoria," her rescuer finished, returning a smile of her own.

And then they both looked ahead.

Vampires were rushing past Maetala, trying to overwhelm Kratos and the other two newcomers.

"Now..." Seras took aim. "Let's thin the herd."

...

Salvation was in reach.

Every thunderous explosion and every gush of blood happening off to his left rekindled something Lloyd never thought he would feel again.

Hope.

Hope alone wasn't going to save him of course, not with Maetala watching stupefied as her minions dropped like flies. Hope was enough, however, for Lloyd to tug at the now weakened ropes. Cautious optimism kept his eyes from leaving his captor to check his progress. He couldn't give up now, but he couldn't let her stop him either.

At last, the raw sensation against his wrists gave way to weakened threads. The rope went taught, and then a quiet snap hit his ears.

Lloyd did not think, did not feel, he just looked up and did.

...and then realized too late that Maetala had intercepted his fist. Only registering the move when her nails dug into the back of his hand.

"Lloyden, Lloyden, Lloyden..." she tsked. "Now's not the time to interrupt your elders..."

Her nails dug in and rivulets of blood trickled down the back of Lloyd's hand.

"But if you're so riled up...perhaps you can be a dear and help me out..."

...

One of the vampires had wisely run off to the side, trying to flank the three men with a naginata. For this stunt, Walter waved his right hand at the monster, too drunk on bloodlust to notice the flickering of light in the air as he closed the distance...

...and with a tug, found himself falling to the ground in three cleanly cut pieces.

A fellow swordsman, one Kratos recognized as a soldier slain in one of the Desians' campaigns in Tethe'alla when it had declined, charged full-tilt at the redhead.

Kratos then decided he needed a sword.

A thousand years to practice and this man had not taken a second to correct the mistakes that made him choose an unlife as one of Maetala's servants over death. It was just a trivial matter of ducking to the side, grabbing his attacker's wrist, flicking it, and catching the sword mid-fall before relieving the man of his legs. Satisfied that the blade wasn't dull, he lifted it and plunged it through the downed vampire's spine and into his heart.

Before Kratos could make use of his newly confiscated weapon, he looked up to see the twenty vampires that had followed his lead disintegrating under the withering fire of Alucard's handguns, The Casull and Jackal.

Another ninja looked down in disbelief at the melon-sized hole where his chest had been, falling just soon enough to reveal a haggard butler whose head now dangled from a strip of meat and muscle. He stumbled awkwardly, groping in a desperate attempt to keep his head on, but backing up over a projecting root sent him falling, and his head flying.

Alucard took aim at the now airborne head and fired the Casull, turning it into a bloody grenade before the bullet traveled through two more vampires. One lost an arm at the shoulder, the shock of the impact liquefying his heart just as the bullet burned through the skull of the unfortunate former hunter behind his newly made corpse.

Click. Click. Click.

The slides on both pistols locked.

The attackers did not waste their time.

Neither did the No Life King.

Clips slid from the butts of each gun, and the first to lose its empty magazine, the Casull got flipped into the air so the tall vampire could produce a clip for the Jackal and slid it home just as an undead woodsman charged with his hatchet trailing behind him. The Casull had just reached the apex of its arc when the Jackal followed it into the air, leaving the lanky vampire unarmed.

The ax pulled back as the woodsman approached for a swing, undeterred by the vampire's shark-like smile.

And to no one's surprise, just as he began to swing, the woodsman found he had ran into Alucard's outstretched arm. Another victim of 'The Impaler.'

He felt a slight tugging on the arm as the Casull landed in the outstretched hand behind him.

Seconds ticked by like minutes as Alucard produced a larger clip and placed it bullet-first into the woodsman's palm. The burning touch of silver from the tips of the top bullet seared his hand, but he did not even have time to scream before Alucard guided the woodsman's free hand at an impossible angle to the butt of his pistol.

With no resistance, burning and dissolving flesh left a hole in the latest victim's hand wide enough for the No Life King to slide his next clip through. Absent-mindedly reaching to grab the Jackal as it completed his arc, Alucard continued to fire, the recoil shaking the stunned victim hanging from his arm.

When half a dozen more of the ghoulish assailants fell, the rest at last overrode their goddess's command and the inhuman wave collapsed as they tried to make an about-face. When he paused to grab the Jackal out of the air and reload it with his fangs, each one thought for sure they were home free.

"Grave!"

And then a tower of jagged earthen spikes hoisted another dozen into the air, impaled, courtesy of Kratos Aurion.

"Hmph," the man in red huffed as he slid his latest victim free from his arm. "Trying to show me up, angel?"

Kratos redirected his glare at his erstwhile ally. Why did he have to be so flippant? He had half a mind to have Walter pass these disciplinary problems to the vampire's master, but—

"Demon Fang!"

Kratos raised an arm to block the barrage of dirt from the destroyed rocky pillars he had just created. Where did that attack-.

The newcomer walked through the dust cloud.

Lloyd was free, armed, and gripping his swords like they had been sewn into his hands. He heaved like he had just run a marathon, and now forcing himself not to take another step forward.

Kratos permitted a gasp to escape his throat.

"I almost forgot Kratos..." Maetala's voice echoed from behind the dual swordsman. "...That someone about to be made king should have a chance to prove himself."

Lloyd brought his gaze up to Kratos, eyes widened to their natural limits, unblinking in a thousand-yard stare.

"Don't worry, I won't suffer either of you to fight each other..." she cooed.

With his mind straining to interpret that as an order to stand down, Lloyd let the grips on his swords loosen the best he could...

"...So your son gets to discipline that insolent little cockroach instead."

A jolt ran down father and son's spines, one of terror, and another combining that with a slavish foreign will. Lloyd's swords rose and his feet soon shuffled off towards the monster that had lead the charge.

Lloyd, doing anything he could to delay the inevitable, took what little freedom he had left to stop and size up his opponent. Tall, lanky. Had it been him who saved them from Vidarr at Martel's Temple, he might have shown him some respect, if for no other reason that horrific rictus on his face never faded, and promised a horrible fate to anyone who underestimated it.

Lloyd banished the thought that it would be an improvement and crossed his blades.

"Please," he beseeched. "Take Colette and run...I don't want to hurt you."

All he got for his plea was an unnerving, rumbling laugh.

"Hurt me?" Alucard replied. "You, a meat puppet that can still resist the will of your grandmother enough to half-ass her orders?" He leaned forward, as if that would shrink the several yard distance between them to share a great secret.

"That's adorable!"

And at last the monster within found the bait to drag itself out of Lloyd.

He had been insulted too. A crime more grievous when it happened to oneself. So what if he hated Maetala? He wasn't going to let this rape-faced chump keep that shit-eating grin.

He was going to cleave it right off!

"Double Demon Fang!"

Two white arcs of energy carved a hot crack into the earth as they streaked towards their target. Lloyd was rewarded with the sight of them gouging deep into the tall man's flesh and knocking his gaunt form a few steps back.

His smile did not shrink.

"Ha!" He spat. "That tickles!"

The monster behind Lloyd's face growled at this taunt and forced Lloyd to charge full-tilt at his prey.

"Tiger Blade!"

The series of thrusts, already supersonic when he was still human, filleted the bespectacled creature in barely visible blurs, carving a hole in the monster's stomach in seconds.

"Beast!"

And, totally unprepared, the tall vampire was propelled over a dozen feat when raw energy in the shape of a lion's head rammed him. His glasses disintegrated from the force and his fedora flew from his head, dancing in the still air before settling down elsewhere.

It did not reach the ground before Lloyd closed the gap and stood over his fallen bully. One of his blades arched back for the kill, ready to swing when—

"Lloyd don't!"

He almost tripped when the interruption stuck his eardrums. Not missing a beat, he growled as he looked over his shoulder to Kratos, arm extended and sword down as he rushed to Lloyd's side.

Fucking deadbeat dad.

Why did he care now?

Why did Lloyd care if he cared?

That little glimmer of human thought found itself smothered as quickly as it had surfaced.

"Lloyd, stand down and get away from him." Kratos' voice rumbled with a renewed authority, yet with an undercurrent of pleading.

"Oh fuck off!" Lloyd didn't mean to say that, didn't care that he said that. The high of killing something was more arousing than he would have admitted a few days earlier, now he couldn't stand the one he hated most interrupting the euphoria. "You didn't give a shit when we did this to the Desians! Why start now?"

"Lloyd, you don't understand he's—."

"As good as dead, now get over it!" Lloyd turned away from Kratos, dropped one of his swords and wrapped his free hand around the other's hilt, ready to plunge it into his fallen foe.

Only to become fascinated by the extended gloved index finger pointing between his eyes.

"That just tickled me pink!" Growled Alucard, unalive as ever. Lloyd could make out his torso repairing itself from his peripheral vision, but his eyes focused singularly on that finger...and the hellish red eyes they lined up with.

"That's right, take a look. You're my slave now, trading one master for another..." the downed vampire purred.

"Alucard, goddessdammit!" Kratos spat. "This wasn't part of our deal!"

Lloyd said nothing, his focus now unshakably drawn to the dark pupils of this strange, menacing va—.

Lloyd snapped out of it when Alucard's boot rocketed into his crotch.

The sharp pain, then nausea brought the dual swordsman to his knees. That was Lloyd's first mistake. Vomit then sprayed everywhere when, just before Lloyd could heave, Alucard's knee cap hammered into his chin. The backward stumbling he took from this momentum gave Alucard the room he needed to hop back to his feet and grab both swords the boy had dropped.

"Alucard, damn you," Kratos roared, raising his blade again with a paternal fury. "That's enough!"

"Just a second, angel," Alucard hefted his newfound weapons like they were made of paper. "Your son needs to be put on time out."

Retching just a little more to clear his mouth of vomit, Lloyd winced and looked up at the mention of his name just in time to see the vampire upon him.

Before he could make sense of the rest of his surroundings, he was hoisted into the air and pressed against a tree.

And noted something amiss when, after the No Life King had backed up, Lloyd remained where he was.

Then he noticed the hilts jutting out of either side of his peripheral vision, following them to their sources.

Each hilt was just two inches away from his wrists, the blades burying themselves in his flesh and pinning him to a tree.

The strain of gravity against his arms would have left him a wailing wreck, but that barely crossed his mind. Lloyd understood immediately, he had been crucified. Now, looking down, he saw himself at the red-eyed beast's mercy.

And then Kratos punched him in the back.

Alucard spun in place, not prepared for the blow. It would have dislocated a man's shoulder, and all three inhabitants of that small space heard a painful crack before the tall vampire steadied himself and brought his gaze down on his redheaded partner.

"I told you...told your master that he was not to be harmed!" Kratos roared.

Lloyd couldn't see the vampire's face, but that palpable arrogance he had always spoke with still shined through.

"He isn't harmed. He can take a little boo-boo like that." He bent over and—

Lloyd would remember that moment for the rest of his life.

The No Life King patted Kratos Aurion on the head.

"I'm just putting him on time out."

Before Kratos could protest either the debauchery or indignity driving either of his objections.

"Master, I have her!"

Lloyd looked up and saw Colette and an older blonde rush towards him, Kratos, and Alucard through a field of dead vampires.

Colette.

To have her see him like this...

How would she even be able to look at him? He was a monster, would never be a human again. Never able to follow her into the sunlight they once ran through and played in their youth. Every time he looked at her, hunger—and other, more carnal desires—ate away at something that was once pure and innocent.

She could see her eyes widen and hear her breath freeze in her lungs, and her heart race when her eyes rested on his pinned form.

"Lloyd!"

Terror, sympathy, sorrow. She heard it all in his name.

He deserved none.

Chakrams rose, aimed at the No Life King as he lightly shoved Kratos aside.

"Leave him alone!"

Alucard paused; then looked down at the short blonde.

"I am leaving him alone," the vampire corrected. "You, however, are free to snuggle with him all you want, with Police Girl, Walter, and the Angel's supervision, of course."

Colette, to her credit, did not stand down.

'This girl has some serious balls,' Alucard pondered.

"Fine then, if you're not going to play nice..." his arm and index finger extended once more, and as soon as her eyes locked onto it, Colette found her eyes drooping.

"Just have a nap. This is all just a nightmare you had, worrying for your boy-toy's safety."

"Stop it!"

Alucard just barely turned his head a few degrees to his right. He didn't have to search for the source. He was pinned right to the tree where he left him.

"Leave her..." the plea transitioned to a guttural growl, taken to a truly inhuman level by the leftover vomit still oozing from Lloyd's mouth. "...Leave her alone!"

His focus on his most recent task went unbroken and the Chosen of Sylvarant fell forward. The vampire knelt and with deft precision, caught her in mid-fall.

This only made Lloyd angrier, if the thrashing and the sound of booted heels banging against bark were anything to go by.

"Oh stuff it, I'm just knocking her out...I'm sure you don't want her to remember seeing you in that sorry state."

Lloyd's struggles paused for a fleeting moment, confusion holding back his rage.

Alucard arose, and the tension surging for Lloyd dissipated a touch. There was no way he could have bitten her. Was he telling the truth?

"You shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch, interloper."

Lloyd craned his neck to the right and gasped.

Maetala had abandoned the altar. Her feet crunched against dirt and grass with casual, less than urgent strides. Seras, Walter, and Kratos tensed, but Alucard stood in place.

"Not another step, mother," Kratos warned as he raised his blade.

"Kratos, Kratos, Kratos," she waved her finger, still condescending as ever in the face of the last few minutes' carnage. "Is that any way to talk to your mother?"

"You're no longer in a position to patronize me. You were dead as soon as these..." he nodded to the newcomers "...people showed up."

"What's this? You've been keeping secrets from me too?" The pale woman's eyes narrowed. "You seem to put an awful lot of faith in strangers who hurt little Lloyd more than I do."

"I've been gone a long time," Kratos replied. "My experiences in Cruxis have hardly been static. Strange things happen..."

"...Mr. Aurion had a close encounter with us over half a century ago," Walter chimed in, weaving the monomolecular wires through his fingers as if that would somehow stop Maetala's advance. "He helped Alucard and I out of a...spot of bother in some land far, far away from here."

"Something not easily forgotten," Kratos seized the moment back from the old butler. "And this solution was the first thing that came to mind when I found out what you did to Lloyd..." his voice faltered, dropping an octave before halting. "...and when you sent us to hunt those Desians, that was my chance. All I had to do was sneak away from Lloyd, hypnotize one of the survivors to send a message to a friend of a friend, and have him call in some favors."

A crowd of vampires had gathered behind Maetala, most of them shaken from the massacre they had just fled. Even with two other bat familiars looming over them, they did not dare approach the holder of the Divine Heart, never mind her adversaries.

Maetala raised an arm and gestured them to stay put.

"So you can't fight your own battles, my son?" Her tranquil amusement returned. If rage had taken her in the wake of this botched—or delayed as she preferred to think—ritual, she did not show it. "Relying on other instead of your own strength isn't like you at all. You really have fallen far since you betrayed me."

"And I can see why too."

The heretofore silent Alucard at last drew Maetala's attention. The suddenness of his pronouncement even distracted his allies, something the vampire goddess was too taken aback to take advantage of.

Lloyd was pressing his head as far back as it could go into the tree. A gloved hand gently wiped the sticky dribbling mess that once filled his stomach off his chin. Its owner focused intently on Lloyd, not giving the woman he addressed even a passing glance.

"Languishing in these woods feeling sorry for yourself, ensnaring the occasional passerby instead of instigating the wars that made you great, and then pitting your own blood against each other to satisfy a petty grudge." Alucard pulled his sticky hand and brought his index finger to just a few inches from his eyes. He studied it, as if the gestalt of acid, mucus, and half-digested viscera would give him insight into the mysteries of the cosmos.

Maetala's eyes narrowed further. Her fists clenched.

"Rather pitiful for a goddess, don't you think?" He squeezed the finger against his thumb, rubbing each digit together; churning what had once been part of Lloyd's last meal.

"I don't think you should risk saying those words to one of your betters," her tone remained even. A tougher feat than usual. This level of disrespect was unprecedented.

Surely she was more interesting than puke.

"Betters?" The dandy's shoulders shook as a low laugh echoed from his throat. "I thought that insane little Major and his battalion of circus freaks were obsessed with the smell of their own farts. You, on the other hand, are just an attention seeking little asswipe who doesn't know when she's beaten."

At last, the No Life King turned and paced towards her.

His hands strayed to his holsters.

"Your move, little girl? What's it gonna be?"

Her lips parted as her tongue licked them in anticipation.

...

...

...

..."Draw!"

Maetala's hand rose just in time for Alucard to whip out and pull the trigger on each handgun.

A pulse of telekinetic energy curved each bullet's path, sending well-aimed slugs mere centimeters off course and into the bodies of Maetala's servants. One, two, three, three vampires landed as bloody heaps on the ground before the rest retreated.

No problem, they would just get in the way, thought Maetala.

The larger vampire charged forward and to the left, trying to flank her. Maetala would not let that happen.

So she ran up to him and swiped at his shooting arm. Nails sharpened to diamond hardness ripped gouges into his forearm, but Alucard retaliated with a backhand at the ancient bloodsucker. Unfortunately, she leapt back, keeping mere centimeters between herself and the arm until she passed out of range. So soon into the fight, and she already found cause to gloat.

Alucard's aim had shaken when he turned to face her.

"What's the matter dog? Feeling your age?" she taunted.

Alucard looked down and growled. His once healthy, if pale skin now had a more bruised and mottled pallor centered on the gouges he had just received.

She was rotting him.

He chuckled, "Yes...and it's very refreshing!"

Maetala tilted her head to the side as he punctuated that proclamation with another burst from one of his pistols. The recoil pushed his arm back further than the last blasts had and she heard the now gangrenous flesh on his arm strain and tear under the force.

He had not recovered by the time she leapt forward and clawed the withering limb clear from his elbow.

"Not so tough without an arm, are you?" She grabbed the bloody stump by a free piece of bone and felt it wither and dry under her touch. Soon the rest of him would decay and scatter to the wind.

"It's no big loss..."

Maetala made a fleeting pause when she felt hot metal press against her chin.

"...I've still got the other."

Arrogance was a vice Maetala indulged in. Stupidity was not. She pivoted on her heel just in time for a loud roar to hammer her eardrums and winced as the small fire launching the projectile from Alucard's other gun stripped skin from her lips and blackened muscle.

...It also blew away something else when her voice dropped an octave and rose a few decibels.

"You...dare?"

Her grip still firm on his arm bone, Maetala pulled her arm up and, with monstrous strength, sent the No Life King sailing over her head and to the onlookers behind her.

One of her bat familiars took the initiative and swooped into the air to catch the intruder in its powerful jaws. Its slimy fangs glistened for just a moment before they clamped down on Alucard's midsection, and at last a satisfying series of sinewy crunching echoed in the forests.

And yet now, he laughed harder.

"Hey big guy..." he whispered with a raspy, childish coo to the beast sinking its fangs into him. "You know you're supposed to be blind right?"

The bat replied by chewing, and Alucard shuddered in euphoria as the beast's fangs ground his flesh into a fine pulp. He lifted his shooting arm when he recovered.

"Then I suppose you won't need this."

The creature's maw opened again at last, blasting Alucard off of his fangs when the No Life King jammed a gun into its eye and pulled the trigger. It blindly swung its tail at any vampire who had dared to get too close in hopes of scrounging what parts of Alucard it hadn't ate, sending their broken forms flying as it clawed at the hot, bleeding socket.

Alucard avoided all of this when he flopped prone to the ground. But not to be slowed, he lifted the Casull off the ground and fired endlessly into the chaotic buzz of activity his move had caused. One, two, three more vampires dropped to Hell in blood messes...

...and then a pair of spears pinned it to the ground. A rain of halberds and swords soon followed, filleting the fallen vampire. It stopped at a crescendo when Maetala dropped after them and landed feet first in the bloody mush that had once been Alucard's torso.

With a wave of her hands, she bent them sideways.

"Let's see you try to get out of this, you rabid little dog." She cooed. Once again she had her cool, patronizing mask, and he was in no shape to break it again.

"I guess I don't see how I can," his shoulders moved as much as the blades would allow him to. It was the closest thing he could make to a shrug. "Have any gloating prepared?"

"Gloating?" Maetala elicited a small laugh through her nose. "I suppose I'm entitled to it, I know when I've won."

She knelt, examining her newest prey. So much power, yet now so helpless.

Just like Kratos.

Her nails traced their way up to his collar. Such a beautiful suit too. A shame she was going to ruin it.

"You're very brave, I'll give you that," she traced the nails down his chest, steadily slicing his shirt open. "But you did have the temerity to enter Hell and spite a demon. Forgiveness is not one of our virtues."

"Hell?" A deep chuckle rumbled from Alucard's mouth. "Just what do you know of Hell, besides what you've visited on others?"

She swept the newly parted fabric aside and rested a hand on his well-sculpted chest.

"I do know that's where you'll be going soon. You have been a very, very bad dog." She continued with her chiding parental tone. She used it to discipline Kratos, and Lloyden whenever he got uppity. This creature deserved no better.

She licked her lips as the blight of decay spread out from her hand and laid waste to his flesh.

"...and so, you have to be put to sleep."

Silence.

She could see his gaze still locked on her. Frozen, cold, dead.

She had wo—

"HehehehahahHAHAHAHAhaha!"

The laugh made Maetala tense. Even as her victim's skin wizened, cracked, and dried, he still defied her.

"You think this is over?" His voice was dryer now, raspy. It was spreading inward, and she felt her hand sink between his ribs as she reached what she was looking for. "You disappoint me, goddess. I thought for sure you would want to keep me as your toy. You're certainly spiteful enough for it."

"It's tempting..." She at last made her grip, seized it...

...And tore the heart clear from his chest.

"...But I just have no time for you." Her smile widened. "I'm afraid this is where we say goodbye."

Flesh crumbled away from his cheeks, creating a permanent rictus as tightly packed fangs glistened in her vision.

"...But the fun..." Came his hoarse, feeble protests. "...has just begun, Maetala...and I'm going to make you squeal like a p—."

His own blood sprayed him when she gave every chamber in his heart one squeeze.

"Sorry vermin..." She teased. "...But the only ones squealing tonight are your friends." She examined the crushed organ. "...Thanks for the free meal though."

She held the mess and examined the gore dripping from her hands. Her fangs flexed and her tongue reached out for the precious sustenance...

...and then retracted when a bitter, oily taste tainted it.

"Never mind," she hissed as she returned to a standing posture, tossing it aside. "I've had better grease than this."

At last the frenzy her unexpected enemy had caused had subsided, and she examined what remained. She couldn't be bothered to take an exact headcount, but the numbers of those still standing were small. Thirty, forty? The bat familiar that had tried to eat its assailant still nursed its lost eye but had at last calmed. Its 'brother' idled, wings folded until her will sic'd it on some other unfortunate soul.

Speaking of which...

"If that was your trump card, Kratos, it's been played..." her bare feet left prints of black blood, "and I had a better hand."

Kratos held his sword aloft, and his two allies raised their respective weapons, undeterred.

"Do you think I've come this far to give up on Lloyd now, mother?" He hissed. "He will not be your heir."

Maetala's pace did not falter, nor did the servants following her. Undeterred by their losses, malice in their eyes, they were ready to avenge the massacre they survived.

"Funny you should say that Kratos..." she purred. "After all the trouble you caused me tonight, I've had a change of heart."

Lloyd, who had been struggling nonstop to break his wrists free of his restraints, looked up at the only potentially good news he heard all night.

But then he gulped.

Nothing his gran—that thing ever said was good news.

"I arranged this party, this ceremony, partly to make you suffer. I was hoping to get back to it once your attack dog was taken out of the picture..." her smile shrank. "...but the price for that was higher than I was counting on."

"You can say that again, madam," Walter smirked. "I hope we left a wonderful impression on you."

"I wasn't talking to you human," she sneered. "You will get your own comeuppance in due time...but it will be nothing compared to the suffering I have in store for you Kratos...or your blood."

"If you think I'll just stand still and let you destroy me as Alu—."

"No, nothing like that Kratos...it's about Lloyden, just like it's always been."

At that, Lloyd redoubled his efforts to pull himself free of the tree trunk, but the hilts in his wrists would not budge.

"Unlike you, Lloyd has always been an obedient child..." she looked down to the collapsed blonde behind the trio. "...That obedience should be rewarded, should it not?"

"Leave her out of this," Seras hissed, lining her rifle sights up with her eyes. "What could she possibly have to do wi—"

"He shall indulge in his desires. I'll command him to do it myself, whether she likes it or not..." thoughtfully, she added, "...or she, for that matter."

Lloyd stopped and suddenly found his attention snapping to Colette, who hadn't stirred once since Alucard had...hypnotized her?

His fangs flexed again.

"He's a teenage boy Kratos, one with urges. She's the best outlet for them there is...I'll even make sure she's awake for it, look her in the eyes while he invades her...violates her..."

Lloyd heard everything she said...and yelled at himself not to struggle with the blades anymore.

Walter's already wrinkled face turned into a study of disgust and choking down bile.

Seras' was a study in abject horror.

Kratos was one of barely restrained rage.

"...and then, when he is at last allowed to feel the gravity of what he's done, I will permit him to—mercifully—choke the life out of her...watch the lights in her eyes go out...and in his despair, let him throw himself on his own sword."

Kratos was not aware the grip he kept on his blade was drawing blood from his palms.

"...You'll watch every second of it too, and only then will I permit you to join them in death."

Several vampires had taken the opportunity to discretely flank the odd allies, surrounding them.

"...Or you could just be men and kill yourselves."

Kratos said nothing.

Walter, on the other hand...

"Or we could just wait another moment and resolve this crisis a touch more favorably."

"Your overconfidence did not serve your friend well, old man..." she sneered, annoyed. "It won't help you here either."

She raised her hand for the charge.

They wouldn't be able to stop them all.

"Now, you will know my wra—"

"Releasing Control Art Restriction System, three...two...one..."

Maetala's hand went slack.

That voice...

Impossible...

"Situation A recognized, commencing with the Cromwell Invocation..."

Maetala pivoted on her heels, an initiative the rest of her followers had already taken.

There, jutting up from the crumbling remains were Alucard's arms. The white gloves radiated with power, the pentagrams on the back glowing a hellish red as the thumb and index finger on each hand made a box.

"...Allow full access to abilities for unrestricted use until the enemy has been rendered silent."

Lloyd was the first to feel it. Something powerful...something truly evil washed off of Alucard, polluting the forest with its presence, making it forget about his hunger, rage, and more...carnal desires.

The vampires closest to the fallen vampire's body felt it too. They were the first to see shadows crawl out of the suit, swallowing Alucard's skeletal remains. Slimy churning, slithering, and hissing sounds whispered out of every opening as a black, roiling mass stretched and oozed out of the Nosferatu's resting place.

"Now Maetala..." Alucard's guttural hiss roiled from the blob. "You will learn to understand your prey!"

For the moment, Maetala learned no such thing and waved for her front-most minions to jab into the mass and be done with it.

They made no move.

Defiance? She'd punish them when—

Something long and wavy scooped up two vampires by the centers of their chest. They were already dead, so the blob took the liberty of absorbing them like a hungry amoeba.

Then pinpricks of red light surfaced all along the mass's ever shifting surface. The shock of seeing them appear caused one clumsy vampire to stumble back to the ground when he and anyone else too close tried to back away.

A slit opened up in the shadows, marked by ivory fangs shining in the darkness. It stretched away, taking the vague shape of a dog as it eyed the fallen minion. He trembled, limbs locked in place, his mind struggling to make sense of the mess before him. The roaches and centipedes crawling out from under it, the innumerable gloved hands oozing out of it and reaching towards the sky like obscene fungi, all of it shaping a force of nature.

It was with this realization that he soiled himself.

The canine head that emerged from the darkness didn't mind though.

It swallowed him in three messy bites.

Adrenaline coursed through Maetala's veins. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. She felt it before witnessing the carnage she had perpetuated in the Kharlan War, the aftermath that she and her clan had fed upon. It had run especially fast tonight when she had started this ceremony.

But it was not this thick. It did never derived from shock and awe, as it did when she saw the shape of a man rise from the center of the mass. Alucard, his flesh restored, and his form now enveloped in a black, unbuttoned strait-jacket.

He rose fifteen feet above the thinning, stunned crowd, his eyes dashing hungrily across each and every one. Sinewy black slime branched out into jagged, bony wings.

Like Kratos, he too hovered as an angel of Judgment.

Maetala regained her bearings once again. This time her smile slipped away for good.

"You mean to frighten me? Frighten us?" She spat, unimpressed at the growing abomination. "You will not get the satisfaction! We will destroy you!"

It wasn't a command, but may as well have been. Spurred forth, the last of her minions filled with a renewed vigor and charged headlong at the creature that had once been Alucard.

It was brave.

It was stupid.

Four more 'dogs' wormed their way out of the shadows slithering towards the wave. They weaved across the ground and scooped up a vampire in each of their razor-lined maws, doing in seconds what the injured bat familiar barely did to Alucard in a minute.

The rest of the wave was showered in gore, but pressed their onslaught, jamming whatever weapon they could carry into the shadows.

They too vanished in showers of gore as more dogs, fangs, and Things That Should Not Be tore out of the abomination and lapped up anything they left behind.

Several former Desian mages stayed behind to throw as much magic as they could at Alucard. The first one managed to cast an Ice Tornado at her enemy's direction. Sub-Zero winds tore away at the shadow tendrils, severed arms and gouged eyes, a dog's head even froze as the cyclone subsided.

But after a moment's paused, the frozen over head retaliated by coming down like a hammer on the offending mage to set it free.

Maetala was the only one to take in the chaos. She stood stock still as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

Whump!

She had distantly noticed a blur swoop down from her vision and land in the dirt at her feet.

It was another knight, minus an arm and both legs. The fall and the injuries that preceded it had not winded him enough to prevent him from dragging himself towards his goddess.

"Goddess," servant mewled. "Please...your aid, we need your—"

Maetala had not even formulated a reply when half a dozen shadow arms grabbed onto the stumps where legs once were and dragged him back to the miasma in which they originated.

His screams knocked her out of her reverie.

...and seeing her forces decimated, Maetala, for the first time in four millennia, knew rage.

"You...dare?" It came out low, hissing, and sick.

If Alucard heard him, he didn't care. Watching these little morsels flee was too much fun.

A former bandit, realizing his twin daggers would do him no good against the titanic monstrosity making meals of his comrades, overrode his instinct for obedience and pumped his legs to dart away from the melee.

A dozen gloved arms whipped and snaked around him, twisting, coiling like snakes, and squeezing.

The pressure popped him like a bloody pimple.

Another mage tried to conjure a Lightning Blade to crush the juggernaut. Before she was even halfway through her chant, more arms hoisted her in the air. Several arms each hooked onto her limbs and head, and then pulled.

She fell back to the earth as a torso.

One more at last managed to conjure up the most powerful fire spell she knew. One that burned hotter than the blazes of Hell. She let loose, sending a jet stream of fire with all the mana she could bolster it with.

The No Life King, in all his Lovecraftian glory lit up like a giant candle. Shadows and flames danced among each other, flesh peeled off of Alucard's still smiling face.

A smile that never ceased as more canines rose from the blaze. Its source hadn't stopped pouring fire onto the No Life King, so it was trivial for them to intercept.

And with that, the mage was able to articulate one simple question in her last moments.

"...WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?"

Her only answer was a dog grabbing her by the stomach in its jaws and swinging her like a ragdoll.

Her staff did not stop spraying fire, something her fleeing comrades would pay dearly for.

As part of Alucard's ever-shifting form consumed a nearby dead tree, a dozen more vampires soon found themselves bathed in fire. Somehow, they still brought themselves to ignore it, just to put as much distance between themselves and Alucard before they could worry about their immolation. Leaves, grass, wood. Maetala had shield her face as the rush of heat blasted embers around her and licked at her robes. She had to intervene now, while there was still a family to protect.

She looked up at Alucard's towering form, seeing him come under attack from the remaining two familiars. They bit at his arms and wings. A dog head that tried to intercept them found its throat torn out.

Nonetheless he flapped them, blasting smoke in Maetala's face as she tried to rush to her clan's aid.

"You think I am blind?" She roared. "Do you think me afraid of fire? Afraid of the dark?" Her rage at last found freedom, found a focus. She would not deny this monster his punishment!

"I have seen six-thousand yearsof carnage and death!" She yelled into the smoke-blotted sky. "Do you think your upstart challenge scare me?"

Two harsh squeals thundered above the smokescreen, followed by a short-lived whizzing sound.

And then Maetala leapt out of the way as a rain of wooden spikes rained from the sky.

It only took one jump. They were few and large. Only a baker's dozen in all.

And each one had a familiar face on it. Every one impaled from anus to mouth on the fresh cut wood forcibly half-buried in the ground.

Some even still switched. One struggled and gagged, trying to climb off the pole in his state, only to sink down further.

The fire in Maetala's veins managed to burn hotter than the fires around her.

"I have had enough of you!" she screamed, issuing globules of spittle into the smoke."FACE ME YOU COWARD!"

As soon as a hiss passed through the smoke, Maetala raised an arm and used her mind to pull one of the stakes out of the ground. In the same motion, she took a femtosecond to aim before hurling it like a javelin at the Alucard-shaped shadow cutting through the fog. It did little to satisfy her as it fell.

Another growl. Was that first target an illusion?

That was as much as she allowed herself to hesitate. Telekinesis uprooted four more stakes as she hurled them to a bigger, more bestial shape that had manifested in the smoke eight yards behind her.

And the shape squealed a far too familiar squeal.

As if to insult her further, the smoke parted and she saw one of her bats, all four steaks with their victims flopping off the end after it buried itself in the familiar's flesh. It screamed, gurgled, but struggled half-heartedly against the snaking restraints of twisting arms and a pair of dogs holding its ribs to keep it steady.

One the ground, its brother, at one time only half-blinded by Alucard's antics, mewled in pathetic agony, reaching out pleadingly for Maetala as its guts, now spilled from a clean slit in its belly fed more hellhounds.

Both beasts found themselves dragged into the mass of eyes and darkness with only a token struggle.

Instead of anger, Maetala felt something new, something different, something foreign.

Seeing her familiars disappear into the gullet of that...miasma set it off. Reaching her senses out to find and summon any of her allies to her side escalated it.

There were no heartbeats left.

No breaths, no cries, no screams...

And then this foreign emotion locked her legs to the ground as she came to one impossible conclusion...

...She was alone.

...

...

...

...No...

...She heard one set of breathing...ragged, raspy, and wet with a perverse, animalistic focus.

...And suddenly, her neck felt warmer and wetter than the rest of the fire had heated the air around her.

Maetala hadn't even thought, she did an about-face, pulling her arm back to jam it into whatever she found.

And she did find something, Alucard just hovering inches over her with a savage, fang-lined smile.

She would wipe it from his face!

Her arm rocketed forward into his chest, forgetting just for a moment that destroying his heart hadn't worked the first time.

His chest parted...

...On its own...

...Her vision was just fast enough to see jagged teeth fill the lining of the hole before they clamped down on her right elbow.

Her attempts to pull it free got streaks of flesh and muscle stripped from her bone as terrible new emotion gnawed at her.

She looked up again to see his insane smile.

"I want to hear it pig..." He raised his right arm. "So..."

The once thin limb bulged and ballooned with new muscle...

...and then it streaked towards her.

"SQUEEEEAAAAALLLLLL!"

Allowing no more reply than a gasp, she thrusted her free left arm at him, pouring all her telekinetic might to ensure it would strike true.

She had to win.

She had to!

The sound of preternaturally augmented fingers impacting each other cracked like a thunder strike in the melee. At last, she had forced a stalemate, now to—

Then she saw a red streak bisect her arm, fire rushing up and down her nerves as it climbed.

...and at last it turned at her shoulder, entering her.

This foreign emotion then joined with a feeling she had been acquaintance to many times...but what happened next pushed it beyond her threshold as she felt a violent pressure build in her throat.

Once it had bypassed her shoulder bone, Alucard's arm split into thousands of hair-thin shadow whips. They blanketed every surface, zigzagging across bone, slithering across muscle, twisting though blood vessels, and invaded every crevice they could find.

The chaos inside her torso was nothing short of an exercise in mutilation. Maetala's liver stretched and erupted as the shadows dissected it with the finesse of fan blades. Kidneys tore loose from their anchors and turned to mush as they found themselves enveloped and squeezed beyond recognition, her pancreas was merely impaled, and at last her stomach was sliced free of the rest of her digestive tract squeezed of every last drop of juice settled in it. The acid ate away at the mess, turning it into a fine, burning soup to issue forth an agony its owner could never fathom...

Never mind thought she would experience.

Her lungs and ribs were spared this violation, and at last when the pressure became too great for her throat to bear, Alucard reaped the rewards of his restraints.

Outside, Lloyd froze when a voice he was used to hear lying to him, taunting him, and breaking him issued an ear-splitting scream.

Even Kratos felt a thin layer of cold sweat coat his skin when he heard it.

Their savage work done, the shadows groped their way up to the center of Maetala's chest and soon coalesced into gloved fingers. They wrapped around Maetala's heart as her lungs strained to pump every last breath of air out in the agony she felt.

Satisfied at the rush which the Divine Heart beat, Alucard pushed to Maetala's right.

Her endless scream deepened as her shoulder burst, the arm in Alucard's mouth falling into a limp dangle with nothing trying to pull it away.

A shadow arm rushed out of her chest with its prize, and at last Alucard knew her song had to end.

Maetala's eyes, wide with pain and terror locked open when the No Life King's hand clamped over her face and choked her screams.

"...That's right...shut up and take it, my little bitch."

Maetala felt the arm that had slid through her lift her up by her shoulders. She didn't look to check this though, not when her eyes were locked on her opponent's savage smile.

Satisfied she no longer had the breath to scream with, he pulled the palm from her face and delicately held her chin, like a lover about to initiate true love's kiss.

But even before his smile narrowed into a cold, perverted leer, she knew that no such thing would happen.

"To the victor goes the spoils, I'm afraid. I do intend to take you as yet another trophy, but I confess you've taken a lot out of me..."

...And then that snake of an arm slinked through the air to the side of his face.

"I've worked up quite an appetite."

Maetala said nothing as his jaws open, greedy for the power that still beat in his hands...

...and then he stopped, his fangs barely brushing the meat, not even scratching it before he brought his focus on Maetala again.

She shrank.

"...But of course, you would want such power to end up in the hands of such a worthy opponent, wouldn't you?"

Maetala could only choke.

For once, she couldn't think of anything to say. Nothing to taunt with, nothing to threaten with.

"If that's your last request, I can indu—"

Suddenly his hand whipped and carelessly tossed the heart behind him. It landed at the feet of Alucard's allies.

But out of some unspoken, silent agreement, none of them had moved to do anything with it.

"Oops," Alucard held his now empty hand up to his mouth in mock embarrassment. "What a butterfingers I've been, dropping such a great legacy on the dirty, filthy ground."

Maetala found herself swinging on the long black arm to see where her great-grandfather's heart had landed. Just as he said, it was lying there just like all the other meat this carnage had produced.

She also saw two shadowy arms slither along the ground past it, moving up to Lloyd. Kratos made no move to stop them. They reached up to the swords and, with only a brief scream from her grandson, pulled them free and sent the dual swordsman falling flat into the dirt, too dazed to even nurse his wounds.

"Lloyd, isn't it?" Alucard inquired.

Lloyd's head shot up as far as it could go. Thanks to the raised pain threshold, his forearms were merely sore from the punishment they had just been freed from, but he could only vaguely turn his head to see the monster.

The monster that now held his tormentor helpless, literally disarmed, and bleeding from two stumps that had once been shoulders, her halved left arm dangling in twain in the breeze.

He wasn't sure what to feel anymore.

"That heart," he extended a bony finger, drawing Lloyd's attention to it. "It is the legacy of your ancestors, six generations of Hell on Earth spanning millennia of war, bloodshed and murder. The power it commands is as horrific as it is mythic."

Yes, it was. Lloyd could feel it from here, enticing, delicious, tempting...

"It would be a terrible shame..." Alucard purred, lower this time. "...If some clumsy fool were to come by and...step on it."

Maetala gasped.

Lloyd paused.

Kratos said nothing.

Walter flexed his fingers.

Seras looked Lloyd in the eye and nodded.

Lloyd crawled forward.

"Lloyden..." Maetala coughed, straining to raise her voice. "Lloyden...Think of what you are doing!"

One arm stretched forward and Lloyd felt himself scrape across the dirt. The other arm went forth and the heart got closer.

"The power you're approaching, the legacy..." She hissed. "You must take it. You can know greatness!"

Yes, greatness. The power he felt whenever he stood over helpless life, when he sank his fangs into it, took its life into his won. To do what Maetala had done in the past...

No! came the emphatic roar through his mind.

The heart grew in Lloyd's vision. No, he couldn't take it! Not after the suffering he caused, not after what he left behind, not after the things she had planned for Colette!

His fingers brushed the heart as he used his other hand to prop himself to a kneeling position.

No, fuck them. Fuck them all! A part of him shouted back. You were weak; you could do nothing to stop the Desians as you were. Here, you can be a God!

Lloyd's teeth gritted. No, the monster couldn't win this time...not when his greatest decision rested in his hands.

The flash of readied monomolecular wires and the hesitant chambering of some heavy weapon round did nothing to influence it. It had to end here...

"Protect it Lloyd...don't let it end like this!"

Maetala's pleas fell on deaf ears as Lloyd froze in contemplation. The only thing she could hear was a heavy, monstrous panting from the monster behind her.

"So, tell me, little whore..." Alucard whispered in her ear. "...how does it feel...?"

Lloyd raised the heart, holding it at arm's length as his eyes burned into it. What they burned with, no one could yet say for certain, yet the passion boiled off him in waves.

"...To be rejected by your own grandson?"

The heart returned to the ground with the hand on top of it...

...Harder than it was meant to.

Maetala was unaware of the fingers keeping her eyelids peeled open, too focused on the pool of blood that splashed from under the heart.

Then it rose into the air, dropping again with the force of a hammer.

It was then Maetala saw bits of flesh fly from it.

Her lungs full again, she could only do one thing as each slam further and further destroyed one of the most powerful relics of an era gone by.

She screamed.

Slam! Slam! Slam!

He did it. At last he did it. He felt her reign over her disintegrate as the heart disintegrated into bloody ooze, splashing his face, clothes, and the ground underneath him.

He did it.

He did it.

He was free.

He had never felt so relieved to hear someone scream, so uncertain of what to do, he dropped the pulp, curled his hand into a fist, and smashed it even further.

He was free.

And then he stopped. It was finished. She was screaming. He was free.

Alucard laughed.

Laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed; Laughed a laugh that could only have risen from the smoke and fire of Niflheim itself.

And then something slammed into the ground beside him.

It was her.

Once, she stood over him, triumphant, haughty, and victorious. She had turned him that night.

Now, she was broken, bloodied, battered. Blood oozed from her every pore. She looked up to him, eyes silently pleading.

A pair of strong arms lifted him to a standing position and pulled him away from the prone woman.

"K...Kratos..." she mewled, pathetic.

"I think you have greater problems to worry about than us, Maetala," Kratos growled.

He did not need to point, the obscene breathing and growling had returned, and she flopped onto her side to look back.

All the blood spilled; every gallon and every drop raced towards the ever-coalescing abomination. Even the spring she had used to turn Lloyd was rapidly running dry as the walking blight churned and roiled against the moonlight.

"Hrrrraaaahhh...Smite me already!" He bellowed. "You've only lost your arms and heart!"

Her right arm, still dangling from the maw in his chest, dropped loose as he held it aloft in one of his lanky arms.

"You're a wrathful god, aren't you? Then smite me!"

Maetala's vision blurred, at mercy of the hundreds of red eyes staring back at her.

"Punish me!...Cast me into Niflheim!" He squeezed the elbow, drawing arousal from the sound of flesh tearing and the joint disintegrating.

"Visit upon me torment and agony that Man hasn't invented words for!"

Maetala's legs quaked, her breath came out erratically as she looked into his cruel eyes.

"Make me beg for forgiveness!"

Two Hellhounds leapt and grabbed either end of the severed limb.

"Beg for mercy!"

They tugged, parting the arm in a bloody mist before swallowing each half in one gulp.

"Beg for DEATH!"

It was impossible.

"MAKE MEEEEEEEE!"

Was this...was this emotion fear? Was this what rushed through her victims' blood before she drank it?

Whatever it was, it was horrible, and she could no longer contain it.

"No, no...No, no, no..."

A short, barely audible gasp escaped Alucard's throat.

"Please...no more" each word came out, halting, unfamiliar...wrong. "...I beg of you..."

Silence.

Her vision still hadn't cleared, but not enough to tell that the creature's seemingly permanent smile had at last faded.

What the frown that replaced it meant, she couldn't fathom.

Nor did she want to.

But she found out.

"So..." his voice growled...this time with venom instead of that buttery, smug, tone. "...my expectations are dashed again. Raised by a charlatan."

Only now, victorious, did he raise his voice. "I come here challenging a goddess and instead find a sick, rabid kitten!" He snarled, returning to a destructive roar. "Preying on the weak, settling petty grudges instead of laying waste to civilizations! You're just another parasite like all the others! You're pathetic!" His rage rose to a crescendo. "You're WORTHLESS!"

"Shut up!" She snapped, mustering what little dignity she had left. "You're still a worthless, aimless monster! A rabid dog who should have been put to sleep long ago! A tool of—."

"SILENCE!"

The roar sent a gust through Maetala's hair and nearly sent her tumbling onto her back.

"You keep calling me a dog..." at last that smile, that sickening, confidence destroying smile returned. "...I hope you realize you're dog food."

The Hellhounds, seeing the only possible morsel they hadn't devoured, turned their gluttonous gazes to the white-haired vampire.

Maetala saw their jaws snap, their throats rumble.

She new what was coming, and whimpered.

They lunged.

She let loose with a third scream, eyes shutting as jagged white blurs filled her vision.

And then nothing.

Nothing.

Why didn't she feel them feed?

Then she felt hot breath. Did they intend to play with their food?

She moaned as something wet and slimy slid across her left cheek.

And then she opened her eyes. The other canine heads hovered precious inches away from her.

The one in front of her had deigned to gag up Alucard's face, his own serpentine tongue retreating back into his mouth.

"You know..." he purred. "These taste so much better than your blood ever would have."

For a fleeting moment, Maetala's fear disappeared under a wave of confusion. These? What are 'these?' And why—

It was then she noticed her vision was still blurry. She wasn't lightheaded, but...

...Her right cheek—the one he hadn't licked—was wet too.

"Yes...let it all out...let yourself go...because I've had my fun, and you're all used up."

Maetala's eyes clenched shut as she felt pinpricks of moisture drip off her cheeks and onto her bloodstained gown.

"Nothing I could do would ever truly punish you, my bitch." His canines at last backed away. "It would always be too...impersonal."

The main body of the abomination began to contract and compress into something small, recognizable, more 'human.' And soon Alucard's head followed suit.

"Rest assured, you will be sucking the cock and pussy of every last demon, devil and imp in Niflheim by daybreak, but not by my hand..." He looked slightly over Maetala. "If you would do the honors Golden Boy..."

"Yes," Kratos' voice sounded off from behind her. "Even she deserves a proper goodbye from family."

Maetala flipped over as much as the pain would allow and saw Kratos approach her again, with the strange blonde woman in tow.

The latter carried Lloyd with an arm wrapped around his waist. His feet kicking frantically as he tried to put distance between himself and the monstrosity that had gotten too close to Maetala and, by extension, him.

"I hope you're proud mother," came his typical even tone. "I destroyed everything you cherished. A fitting retaliation for what you tried to do to us, is it not?"

Maetala spat at her son's feet.

"Destroyed it all? Yes...you did," trying to sound venomous in her sorry state. "But little Lloyden is still one of us. One of them. In time he will eventually take after us. This..." she summoned a weak laugh. "This changes nothing."

Kratos grimaced. She still won, she thought.

"Yes, the bite you used to make your pact. The one I needed your permission to break..." his voice lowered. "Needed, not need."

Maetala allowed bemusement to fill her mind again.

"It was a pact you made with the power of our ancestor's heart...The one you witnessed destroyed."

Kratos took a moment to seize Lloyd by his back collar. The confusion that hit Maetala hit him, while Maetala hit a revelation.

No, no...

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

She had to have that. He couldn't have that victory.

"Hold still Lloyd," he whispered to his son. "In a moment this nightmare will be over."

This was wrong.

Mothers should not be punished by their sons.

And yet Kratos punished her the moment his fangs sank into Lloyd's neck.

He froze, shuddered, and as soon as Kratos let go, he collapsed.

Maetala didn't see his mouth, or the subtle changes she had made to his body come undone. The mana, however, was soon aglow with light, chasing out the shadows and burning away the corruption in his blood.

He was human again.

She couldn't summon the effort to scream this time, to curse, to rave.

Not even as Kratos paced up to her and grabbed her by the soaking collar of her robes.

His gaze met hers. It was still stony, but it carried an undercurrent of something else. She thought she saw it four thousand years before, when those wretched Half-Elves had turned him against her.

No, that was mere defiance. Tranquil as it was, the look in his eyes were hotter, fiery, more personal.

"No mother, there is nothing you can salvage from this." He brought his eyes close, mere inches from hers. "Lloyd and The Chosen will be back in their friends' company before daybreak. You have no minions to stop them, or avenge you."

He shifted his grip on her, and she let out an undignified gurgle as his fingers wrapped around her bloody shoulders.

"...and as soon as Lloyd convalesces, Alucard will go to work wiping away the last of your legacy."

"You..." at last, something to cling to. "You fool. You're his father...you should know our thirst is a part of him, even if it remains dormant."

"I'm not talking of that mother..." Kratos replied, unmoved. "He is going to wipe away you."

"..."

"From the moment you met, the moment you turned him, every little mind game you played, every task you ordered..."

Only then did Kratos allow himself the barest twitch of a grin.

"...Every memory of it gone...It'll be like you never met."

"You...you wouldn't—"

"I am going to put this as bluntly as I can, Maetala..."

He squeezed the meat of her shoulders. She choked down a scream.

"...You. Lost."

And with that, she broke.

She still drew breath, but that was all that remained. That and only the view of her son staring back at her.

"I want you to think about that. About your defeat, about everything that provoked your downfall. Every murder, every rape, every broken life, everything you did to me, did to The Chosen, did to Lloyd...I want you to spend your last moments thinking of it. All of it..." His voiced spiked up a decibel.

Dread sank into her.

His hand wrapped around her throat.

"...Because it might be the only thing that will distract you from this!"

And then she felt the wind against her back, Kratos disappearing behind her bloodstained hair as he rushed to an unseen goal, his face twisting into a fanged sneer, his fury no long contained.

Savoring the last few moments she could, her reprieve came to an end when her back smashed into another tree, sending a blinding pain through her. Kratos at last let her go, and her head lolled to the side as she slumped into a sitting position, trying to focus on something, anything, through the agony.

It was not to be.

As soon as her head lowered gently to face the ground, Kratos' fist sent it flying back into the tree. No sooner had it connected than his other first switched her head's arc and, with a meaty impact, sent two fangs and a fountain of blood out of her mouth. Soon another hand, she couldn't tell which this time, seized her hair and pulled it towards Kratos' kneecap. It rocketed into her face, sending it flying back into the bark behind her.

Lloyd stirred.

Another punch and another gush of bloody spittle turned Kratos' face as red as his hair.

Lloyd licked the inside of his mouth.

After a single missed punch, Kratos seized his mother's neck again and sent another powerful impact between her eyes. A second proved powerful enough to force her free of his grip and send her sagging again.

Lloyd's teeth were blunt.

A powerful backhand forced Maetala's limp head to face Kratos, however, briefly, once again. Her eyes half-shut in a foggy haze.

Lloyd looked up too quickly to feel elation at his restored humanity.

Maetala found her chin in a vise-grip before Kratos threw his next three punches. His vision became clouded in red in red with each successive blow as Maetala spit forth more of her lifeblood.

The disbelief gave Lloyd the adrenaline rush he needed to stand. That wasn't Kratos, not at all.

A wet red haze bathed the world outside Kratos' eyes in blood, but he lifted his hands from his mother's chin to her cheeks.

She could see her eyes widen, and then reflexively shut. It did not matter. The eyelids were the thinnest layers of skin on the human body. His thumbs dug in with two sickening pops echoing off one another. Another banshee shriek escaped from her throat.

Lloyd cringed as surely as if Kratos had gouged his eyes out instead and flung his head from left to right. He had to find it, had to end this madness...

Kratos' knee rocketed into Maetala's jaw. It crunched and another spray blinded him completely. The slurred gurgling was enough to track her though...

Then Lloyd saw her coffin. He remembered what was in it. He raced towards it. Seras, uncertain of what she was seeing, moved to intercept him.

Walter stopped her with an outstretched hand and a shake of the head. "Let him go. It's almost over. Just keep watching."

The back of Maetala's head met the tree again.

Lloyd fumbled with the hooks on the lid. It should still be in here.

Maetala was thrown flat on her back. Still she tried to lift herself up, but she had no strength. Distantly, she felt Kratos' pin her between his knees.

Then the blows came faster than ever. Each a hammer striking down an outstanding nail, and felt her nose disintegrate.

The lid fell with an undignified crash on the dead grass. The only part of its occupant sat comfortably in the lining. Quickly Lloyd picked it up and looked at it.

He held a life in his hands.

Kratos continued to bring his fist down on a face he could no longer see.

Lloyd grimaced.

Maetala only knew agony.

Lloyd squeezed...

Kratos hit dirt as a puffy mist brushed him.

He tasted ash.

"Kratos..."

The monster lifted his head up, but it hung limply towards the dirt.

He blinked, and some of the blood slid free of his eyes. Where there had once been a vampire, a fine pile of ash stretched out from a tarnished and stained dress.

"Kratos, she's gone..."

Kratos blinked once more and that was it. He did not move, did not breathe. He was a statue.

The rapid steps of boots pounding the ground behind him rushed up to meet him.

"Da—Kratos..." Lloyd shook the former seraph, blood still dripping from his own hands. "It's over...she can't hurt us anymore."

Lloyd forced a smile. He meant it to lift his spirits, even if it was weak, but Kratos would not even look up.

Lloyd dared to kneel by the vampire's side.

"It's over...we did it." He shook him slightly. His voice faltered. "Please...Dad...snap out of it."

Lloyd looked down at the kneeling man for the longest time.

Then saw some blood drip to the ground.

No, it wasn't blood. It was too runny, as were the drops that followed it.

Squinting through the shadows left by the still blazing fires where a crowd had once gathered, Lloyd could see his father's bloodstained face.

He could also see a thin trail where blood ran off of it, faster and runnier than elsewhere on his face.

The trail started at his eyes.

"...What...what did you call me?"

It was only then Lloyd realized his slip of tongue.

"I..."

How did he answer that?

"You don't have to, you know. Not after all this..." At last, he lifted his head skyward, and saw the inferno rise into the sky, eating the woods around them. "...A real father would never let this happen to his son."

"Kratos...don't talk like that..." Lloyd tried to push away any disbelief that he was comforting his d—this traitor. "None of it was your fault."

"Hrmm..." Kratos let the sound escape through his nose.

"We're here now, right?" He laughed weakly. "Because of you, I'm human again, Colette's safe...and you don't have to let...her control your life anymore."

Kratos shivered. For what reason, Lloyd couldn't fathom.

What would snap him out of this?

The thought had barely passed through his head before he acted on it.

He wrapped his arms around his father. He flinched...but did nothing to throw him off.

His father.

It didn't sound right...but a part of him said otherwise. So did the weak smile on Kratos' face.

Clap, clap, clap...

"Father and son, together at last."

Lloyd and Kratos both opened their eyes.

Emerging from the flames, putting his hands together was Alucard. Smoke and embers flew off his cloak, which pieced itself back together as he walked free of the inferno. The shadows over his face turned his eyes into two pinpricks of laser light, promising death to anyone it desired.

"Encore for the big, happy family reunion..." he bellowed. Neither father nor son could tell if he was sincere.

But Lloyd nonetheless reached for his swords until Kratos seized one of his arms.

"Relax...despite appearances to the contrary, he's with me." Kratos assured Lloyd.

Lloyd was not assured.

"Is that any way to thank your rescuer, ungrateful brat?" He asked with a toothy smile.

"Well..." Lloyd thought it over. "...No...I guess not."

"I would hope not," he stopped a few feet short of the family. "I did this as a favor of your father. I should thank you for not making my task any harder than it had to be."

This man, this 'Alucard,' radiated with a darkness that had cowed even Maetala. Lloyd bleakly wondered if he had a point.

"I..." he couldn't believe he was saying this. "Thank you...for all this."

"Don't waste your thanks on me," the vampire chided, wagging his finger. "This was all just a dream. A terrible, horrible, awful dream."

Lloyd tensed, a dream? What did he mean? Was he still strapped to the altar, imagining all this? Was it some sort of trance Maetala locked him in to break him even more? What end was there too—?

Lloyd relaxed when he found himself looking into Alucard's eyes down his pointer finger.

"Now wake up...and forget this ever happened."

Lloyd collapsed.

Kratos frowned.

"Is it done?"

"Yessss..." the No Life King hissed. "All of the last four days have vanished from his mind. Just as you threatened, your mother is a non-entity in his memories now. Every bite he took, every meal he had, everything he learned from this ordeal. Damnatio Memoriae." He purred.

"He doesn't even remember that you're fifteen years behind on child support payments, daddy dearest."

Lloyd didn't remember who he really was. That should have relieved Kratos.

Instead, it made his fangs grind together.

But he remained composed.

"You can judge my choices well enough when you've made amends Adrian and D, monster."

Alucard let out a high wolf-whistle.

"Touché my friend, touché."

"Um...Master, pardon me..." Seras chimed in.

Kratos looked up to see the busty blonde vampire trot up to him, her impossibly large rifle held idle on her shoulder.

"...Shouldn't we escort Mr. Aurion back to his companions?"

Alucard opened his mouth to reply, but Kratos held up a hand.

"No, I can't risk either of them waking up and asking any questions..." he turned to Alucard. "I trust the fake memories you implanted them with were consistent?"

"Quite so." Alucard assured. "His pride might be in the hospital for a while, but it will live."

Kratos frowned and nodded.

Scooping up Lloyd, he slung the teen over his shoulder and moved for Colette. Walter stood watchful over her unconscious form, eyeing the former angel respectfully.

"I do hope things work out well for your family matters, Sir Aurion." He said as cheerful as he could sound.

"Walter..." he snuffed any reflexive attempt to remark on the man's age. The last time Kratos saw him, he was scarcely a few years Lloyd's junior. "It's not your concern."

As Kratos knelt to scoop up Colette, Walter frowned.

"I do think you should reconsider it. From what Mr. Ka-Fai told us, Lloyd is an impressive young man indeed. Perhaps you would do best to resolve your...issues while they're still salvageable."

Kratos glared as soon as he rose up with Colette slung over his other shoulder. It bored into Walter's eyes and—

"Don't bother sir, I've been inured to the evil eye ever since Sir Integra became the Lady of the House."

Kratos glared for only a few more seconds before relaxing.

"Became?" he asked. "What happened to Sir Arthur?"

"Passed away twelve years back. Sir Integra took the reigns when she was but twelve years old."

Kratos shrugged as much as he could, not at all caring why a woman would be addressed as 'sir.'

"You have my condolences...but I'm afraid I've had my fill of small talk. Thank you for going to all this trouble...for Lloyd I mean."

"It's no trouble at all," Walter held a hand to his stomach and bowed. "The Hellsing Organization does not forget its friends."

Kratos nodded and turned away. In time the glow of the blaze would fade and he would find himself back with Lloyd's party.

"...I hope things work out for you and your son Mr. Aurion!" Seras shouted as he retreated into the woods.

"Forget it Police Girl, a man with a stick up his ass that big isn't going to let his boy in on anything."

Alucard puffed out his chest and snorted a lungful of smoke. All the blood had been drank dry. From the corpses, from the beasts, from the little insects caught in the crossfire, even the blood spring had been lapped bone dry. Any passers by might mistake it for an abandoned ancient irrigation project.

Damnatio Memoriae indeed.

But even with his chiding, he wondered, however fleetingly, if Lloyd Irving would be the next Adrian Farenheits Tepes.

It intrigued him more than it should have.

XXX

Three Days Later

"So Zelos, what's cooking now?" Lloyd took a friendly seat by the Chosen of Tethe'alla's side.

"Oh this?" Zelos chimed as he stirred the contents of a pot hanging over their campfire. "It's spaghetti sauce, with all the spices and ground Sybak Sausages I could find." He took the wooden spoon and banged it against the rim, sending drips of sauce back into the pot.

"Spaghetti huh?" Lloyd smiled. "Haven't had that in a while."

Zelos mock-frowned.

"I dunno Lloyd," his eyes drifted away as he adopted a more sing-songy voice. "I don't think you'd like it...not enough 'shrooms in it, y'know?"

Lloyd's smile died right there.

"Goddess dammit Zelos, that wasn't funny the first time and it wasn't funny now!"

Zelos shrugged, his smile widening. "I'm just telling it like it is Lloyd. Now go talk to a pink elephant or something, this won't be ready for another twenty minutes."

Lloyd growled, but shook his head and left the pink-clad man's side in a huff.

Three days after that incident and he still wasn't living it down. He had grown up in the woods with Dirk. He knew better than to eat mushrooms he couldn't identify. But Raine had taken her turn to cook that night and he was desperate for an alternative.

Still, why mushrooms? Even then, what kind of mushrooms sent you running around the woods like a spazz for four days?

Lloyd had a headache just thinking of it. To rub salt in the wound, Kratos had brought him back, and Colette too after one of her trips sent her headfirst into a tree. Lloyd didn't want to complain about that, but then ran the problem through his head again...

Kratos had rescued him.

Sure, he had apparently flushed the poison out of his system, but Martel help him if he could figure out what he'd been up to. He only had the taste of vomit to go on when he came to, but that told him nothing. Instead he had to apologize to everyone for making them worry about him for half a week.

It hurt. Goddess damn it hurt to have hurt them like that.

Especially when they told him what he tried to do to Colette on the first day.

She was back to her chipper self within an hour of his return...but damn, he had tried to bite her? What kind of high made you do that? It gave him a headache just thinking about it.

Headache.

Lloyd rubbed the still receding bump on his head as his other hand reached for a Holy Bottle in his pocket. They made a trip to Sybak earlier that evening, and on their way out of a store, they bumped into a shaky looking girl with a bandage wrapped around her neck. As soon as she laid eyes on Lloyd, she let loose an ear piercing shriek and before Lloyd could ask what startled her, she beaned him with the same bottle he had pulled from his pocket.

He was just starting to wonder if he was better off knowing what he was doing under that mushroom's effect when a deep voice sounded from behind him.

"I brought back more firewood. Where can I—."

Something in Lloyd, a deep primal force let loose a wave of fear. Fear that seized control of his thumb to pop the lid off the Holy Bottle...

"—put it down? Professor Sage is using t—"

Lloyd screamed and waved the bottle as he turned to face his attacker...

...and as soon as the adrenaline passed, he saw a blank-faced Regal Bryant staring back at him.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...What was that for, Lloyd?"

"Uh..." Lloyd searched his brain for something, anything to explain why he did what he did.

He found none.

"Lingering hallucinations, I assume?" A little Holy Water did nothing to wipe away the older man's sympathy. "I can live with that Lloyd. Just try to be a little more focused so something like that doesn't happen again. You could ruin the firewood." He shifted the bundle of sticks resting in his awkwardly bent arms for emphasis.

"Right..." Lloyd sighed. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize." Regal shook his head. "Now just take a seat. You'll feel better when you've had a bite to drink."

Lloyd's ears shot up. "Whatdidyousay?"

"Sorry, eat," Regal corrected. "Mixed up some words, it's an honest mistake."

An honest mistake.

An honest mistake that sent a shiver down Lloyd's spine.

XXX

Well, as you can see...

A. I really, really, really hated Maetala, a testament to Freaky's great writing

B. Freaky isn't the only one with issues.

With that said, thanks for the review and give her sequel "Blood Is Too Thick" a good read. It's a nice followup to Blood Is Thicker nonetheless.