The Children of Destiny

Chapter 3

The Dark offer

After falling for a little bit, our heroines landed in some underground cavern.

"Do you have any idea where we're at?" Carrie asked.

"Some type of water channel as I can hear water," Sarah replied. They walked for a little bit and turned left and continued onward. After a few more seconds, they could feel the ground shifting; the path beneath them was beginning to grumble. They managed to leap to safety before the path completely collapsed. They looked back and could see they would have fallen into a bottomless pit if they didn't react fast enough.

"Something tells me we'll come across that a lot down here," Sarah commented. They then had to climb across a ledge in order to proceed. After they made it across, they found the water Sarah was hearing in an open area. Carrie stood at the edge and looked left and right, and after a few seconds, she could smell something odd, she then bent down by the water.

"I smell poison, this water is deadly." Sarah then looked at it. "I could tell something was wrong with it," she commented. With that they went to the right and soon began to cross a bridge. To their right they could see a huge flow of water blocking the path. They were just halfway across when they heard something; they looked around and saw some bubbles in the water to their left. After a few seconds a lizard head poke out. After a few more seconds another popped out behind it, and soon they realized they were lizard men when they stood up and began to walk towards them. Carrie and Sarah began to back up as the lizard men began to climb onto the edge in front of them, they had swords and shields, and Carrie looked back and saw another one come out. "They have us surrounded," she said. Sarah then unsheathed her sword. "Maybe, but I won't go down without a fight." But before she could do anything, one of the ones in front of them ran around the corner to their left. Sarah then smirked. "Two on two, not bad odds." And with that she went for the one ahead of them while Carrie took care of the one behind them. They were a little tough because of their shields, but they managed to knock them away to apply the final blow. They rounded the corner the other lizard took, and found him standing in front of something, he then shot out a fireball from his mouth, but the shot the went down and hit the ground just a few feet from Sarah.

"Not bad fire shooting, had you aimed a little higher you might have hit me," she then held up her sword and fire shot out from the hilt and nailed the lizard right in the chest and he hit the ground with a thud. Carrie stared blankly at the sword for a few seconds, until Sarah noticed.

"You've never seen a magic sword before?" she asked. Carrie then held out her hand.

"Can I look more closely at it?" Sarah then handed it over without hesitation. Carrie then felt a bit of a power surge when her fingers wrapped around the golden handle. She looked at it closely, and could see a blue gem was placed at the hilt of the sword, when she looked more closely at it, she could see some kind of energy flowing inside.

"Where did you find this sword?" Sarah then pondered. "Some sort of alternate realm I think. I remember going through a portal of some kind, and I wondered around for awhile, until a found an old temple, and inside was some sort of mural. It was worn out so I couldn't made heads or tails of it, but the statue that was holding the sword was interesting." Carrie blinked a few times. "In what way?"

"Well, it had the same face as another statue in the room, how that makes it interesting you may ask, is because the one that wasn't holding the sword was dressed like a warrior, while the one that was dressed like a goddess." Carrie's eyes widened as she handed over the sword. "Dressed like a goddess while the other one like a warrior? That does seem a bit strange." Sarah nodded. "I'm not so sure what to make of it myself, but my best guess was is that she was once a mortal like us, but what she did that was so great to become like that, I have no idea." Carrie shook her head. "We're getting off track here." Sarah then nodded. "You're right," she agreed. And with that they went over to what the lizard man was guarding.

"He was guarding a platform?" Carrie asked. It was square platform the stuck out of the ground a few inches. Sarah thought for a moment before she placed her foot on it and the platform sank, and things quieted down a bit. They went back and just as Sarah figured; it was a switch that controlled the flow of water. They wondered around the place for a good while, they came across two sets of flowing water, and had to jump from a few platforms to reach the one of the switches, and they had to search awhile to find the other one, and they came across a very scary trap, there were two holes in front of them, and huge spikes would drop down every few seconds into the holes.

"How are we supposed to get by that?" Carrie asked. Sarah gave her a quick glance. "I'll go first, you wait here unless something happens to me," she replied. Sarah then took a deep breath, and when her chance came, she made it across. She made her way down and turned right and ran out of sight. Carrie waited nervously, and after a few minutes she saw a blue skeleton come out of the ground where Sarah would have to come back to. She then remembered what it did, and just as soon as it was about to head where Sarah was, "Exploding skeleton!" Carrie yelled, and after the skeleton ran around the corner, Sarah screamed, and then there was a big boom, and all was silent. Carrie had no idea what to do, but then Sarah came around the corner unharmed.

"Thanks for the heads up," she called. She then made her way back and they went back to where the water was flowing. They where just about to enter a narrow passage, until Carrie fell over, and Sarah looked back and saw a lizard man had grabbed her ankle, it was still part way in the water, but Carrie shot right in the head and it fell back in. They made their way down the path while more and more came after them, and they soon came across a door with a sun symbol on it, and it wouldn't budge.

"Oh no! Not another time set door!" Carrie exclaimed. Sarah looked at her wrist which had a futuristic watch on it.

"The sun won't be up for another hour!" she said.

"We don't have an hour!" Carrie protested. But at that moment Sarah remembered something, she then reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a red card with a sun symbol on it.

"Where did you get that?" Carrie asked.

"I got it from an enemy, and I hope it does what I think it does," Sarah replied. She then held up the card and it glowed brightly, and after it faded, they heard the lock on the door release. They opened the door and ran in and it slammed shut behind them.

"Do you suppose that card was a key of some kind?" Carrie asked.

"No, I think it actually advanced time," Sarah replied.

"Advanced? You mean we skipped the hour to where the sun rose?" Carrie asked.

"It's the only way I can explain it," Sarah replied. Just a second later her eyes widened when she looked down, Carrie was about to ask her something but she held up her hand.

"Don't move," she said. Carrie glanced down and there was a snake slowly slithering a few feet from her legs, and it was going around in a circle around them, and slowly closing the gap. She then saw one claw slowly come out of Sarah gauntlet, and when it was fully out, the snake had already began to wrap around her legs slightly. When its head came back into view, Sarah slashed it off and it uncurled from Carrie's legs.

"That was scary, where did that snake come from?" she asked. Sarah looked around and soon pointed.

"Off hand I'd say her," she replied. Carrie looked over and there was snake hair woman, medusa.

"Her powers weakened when she joined Dracula, which is why we're not turning into stone when we look at her," Sarah commented. They then began to battle her, and it lasted for a good while as she would summon snakes, pull out a bow and shoot three stone snakes, and when she got close to one of them, she would do a tail whip attack. Sometimes she would pull out a shield to block their attacks, and after they hit her a few times she would try and petrify them. When they figured they almost had her, she began to turn invisible. If it wasn't for the dirt floor they were fighting on, they wouldn't have any idea where she was at. It took a few tries, but Carrie managed to apply the final blow and medusa thrashed around in pain and soon fell limp on the floor. They went over to the other sun marked door and it opened as the sun was still up. They made their way to a fairly large room, but there was nothing in it really, just a hole in the ceiling where the sun could come through in a fairly big beam. But then they noticed a woman in a black dress, with red trim, and a black hat with a feather sticking out of it. Her face looked young but pale. She was holding a rather peculiar-looking staff.

"Her power is strong, it's almost terrifying. Only a child, but a true Fernandez," she said.

"Who are you?" Carrie asked.

"My name is Actrise, people would call me a witch," Actrise replied.

"You look like a witch dressed like that," Sarah commented.

"You're fairly strong too, though we may not know what you are, the both of you could be a great help," Actrise said.

"Help?" Carrie asked.

"Why don't you join us? Your power could help us to restore Dracula to his full power. I'll give you time to consider your answer. Either help in the great works, or rot in the underworld for eternity," Actrise replied before fading into thin air. Carrie and Sarah ran over to where she was and pondered what she just said.

"To restore him to his full power?" Carrie asked.

"Maybe Dracula isn't as strong as he used to be," Sarah replied. They shrugged it off and pressed onward. When they entered the new area Sarah's ears twitched.

"What now?" Carrie asked.

"I hear motors. For motorcycles I think," she replied. The path ahead of them they could go straight, or to the right, but they could tell by the door a head of them that it was locked. When they turned the corner, there were three skeletons, one on one motorcycle, two on the other. The other one had a box on one side. Sarah went after the lone rider while Carrie took on the pair. The pair had a machine gun, but it didn't do them much good when she took out the diver, and the bike kept on going, and the one in the box screamed as it went for the wall before crashing. Sarah didn't have too much trouble with hers. After they were done, there was a door to their right, and if they went further on a door to the left. They went through the door to the left and were in a room that looked like a coliseum. They walked inwards and found the body of a huge behemoth, and it was still intact.

"This thing doesn't look like it's been dead for very long, it doesn't even look injured," Sarah commented. Carrie looked in the mouth and was disgusted.

"Oh gross!" she exclaimed.

"What?"

"It has a huge yellow eyeball in its mouth!" And with that Sarah took a look.

"That's not the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, but still that sure isn't pretty," she commented. They continued onward, and found a wall with a huge symbol on it, and it looked like it was ready to grumble.

"If we had some explosives, we could probably take out this wall, but we should take care of this seal first," Sarah said.

"This is a seal?" Carrie asked, and Sarah nodded.

"Just look at it, the seal isn't on the wall itself, or else the paint would be in the cracks," she replied. With that they went back into the other hall, and went through the door they passed before, and were surprised.

"Yipe! This must be the vampire training room!" Carrie exclaimed. There were quiet a few vampires in the room, and they were a little stronger then the ones before. But they managed to win the battle and press on, they walked up the stairs that were to the left of the room when they came in, and went through a gate at the top. They climbed some more stairs, and when they reached the top and turned around, there were three zombies in the room, naturally being slow and frail they went down with ease. Now there were two doors, one in front of them and one to the right. They took the right door and were in a fairly huge room, one thing that caught their attention was the indentation in the floor where two huge gears were. As they walked by them they noticed that there was a path that led out of the gears. They made there way to a bridge area and below were a bunch of lizard men. Carrie shot at them, but they blocked the shots with their shields and no matter how many times she shot, they didn't even flinch.

"These guys sure are tough," she commented, and when they began to ignore them, they shot out fireballs. Carrie stopped to try and distract them, but she then zipped down, as the small part she was standing on was a platform that would fall when stood on. But she managed to make it back up and they made it to some stairs and left the room. They traveled through a few rooms without anyone bothering them until they entered a bar area, and two vampire maids attacked them, they were much more powerful and faster them any of the rest they fought and to top it off they were insanely nimble as they flipped around all over the place. Sarah managed to flip the one that landed behind her, but the one behind Carrie grabbed her and sank her fangs into her neck. Sarah tried to get to her but the other one tried to do the same thing, but it didn't get to try and suck her blood, but detained her long enough for the one that got Carrie to get a decent drink, but then Carrie broke free and slashed at her neck multiple times until she died. After that she fell to her knees after Sarah finished off hers. When she looked over she saw Carrie was holding herself and quivering.

"Are you alright?" she asked as she walked over.

"I feel cold, faint, it hurts," Carrie replied. When Sarah got in front of her she saw she was pale.

"You're a vampire that fast?" Sarah asked in disbelief.

"No. Not yet anyway. It must be a slow process seeing as to how she didn't drain a whole lot of my blood, but enough to start the process, I don't think I can even use my energy balls," Carrie replied. She then held out her hands to try and focus some energy, but nothing was happening.

"How ironic, here I am, turning into what I was fighting against." Sarah then grabbed her.

"Get a grip! You're not beaten yet! I know there is a cure around here somewhere," she protested. "How can you be so certain that there is a cure for vampirism?" "Just trust me on this one. But until we find it, you've got to fight it!" And with that they pressed on, in the other room had some interesting contraptions, but in the next room were spikes that dropped from the ceiling.

"We're going to have to time this right," Sarah commented. It was tricky, but they made it through. They entered a hallway and entered another room. It was a storage room of some kind as there were some bottles lined up across the shelves to their right, and they could see another door past the shelves. They looked around and found a note next to the bottles. It read "Magical nitro, running with it will not cause an explosion, but one hit or jump with set it off," They then both gulped.

"Who is going to carry this stuff?" Sarah asked. Carrie's eyes widened.

"What would we do with it?" she asked.

"We could use this to blow up that one wall," she replied. Carrie figured it would then be best if she carried it she they made it back to the room with the interesting contraptions. They noticed it before, but Sarah then figured it would be best if she went ahead because she didn't trust the two suits of armor that were on either side of the door. She then held up her hand and made Carrie stop. When Sarah got close to one of them, it came to life, there was one with a spear, and one with a sword, the one with the spear came to life first and spun the spear around with great skill. After it was done showing off, it then began to stomp its way over. It was slow, but Sarah figured it would be tough when it got close; she managed to beat it, and then managed to take out the other one. They made their way back to the room with the lizards. Carrie walked along the bridge while Sarah kept them busy, they sure were tough, when Carrie made it across Sarah retreated as she didn't even harm any of them. Sarah had to jump to escape from the lizards and paused when she didn't see Carrie.

"Carrie? Where are you?" she called.

"Down here!" Carrie called. Sarah looked down a gap and there was Carrie. Sarah then realized that the path from the bridge led to the gears. She then reached her hand down.

"Hand me the nitro," she asked.

"And risk blowing us both to kingdom come?" Carrie asked. She then marched off before Sarah could say another word, it took her a few minutes, but the way the gears moved, Carrie made it through. They went back through the rooms they went through and placed the nitro at the bottom of the wall.

"Part one of the plan is done," Carrie said.

"Now what we should really look for is a cure for you," Sarah said.

"If one even exists," Carrie commented. They made their way back to door they didn't go through and faced many vampires until they came across a hall with stone faces that would spit out fire. They had to time it right to make it through unharmed. Sarah saw another wall that was ready to crumble, but at that moment Carrie fell over.

"Oh no!" Sarah exclaimed as she quickly bent down and lifted Carrie a little.

"Are you ok? Speak to me!" she called.

"I think I'm suffering from blood loss," Carrie managed to let out. Sarah knew she had to find the cure fast, so she entered a door that was in front of them, and it was a fairly big room, but a bit empty, except for the unarmed lizard man in the room. Sarah quickly set down Carrie and drew her sword as she ran for the lizard. But he saw her coming and quickly held up his hands and cried, "Wait! I'm a human!" Sarah stopped right as she held the blade over her head ready to let loose a mighty swing but blinked blankly as to how he spoke perfect English.

"I'm only this shape because of a curse," he added. Sarah then sheathed her sword.

"Good thing you spoke when you did, I might have killed you," she commented. He then noticed Carrie on the floor.

"She is turning into a vampire isn't she?" he asked. Sarah then ran to her and picked her up and brought her over.

"Is there something we can do?" she asked, Carrie almost dead.

"I found this in one of the rooms, it may cure her," he replied as he pulled out a round sphere object that was glowing. It glowed even brighter when it was close to Carrie, and it then broke and the light flowed into her, after the light faded the wounds on her neck vanished and color slowly returned to her skin. After a few seconds her eyes opened.

"A moment longer and we would have lost you," the lizard said.

"Thank you sir," Carrie said as she looked over, and screamed when she saw him.

"He's like this because of a curse," Sarah said. Carrie looked at him for a few seconds; he actually looked more pleasant then the others they saw. She then let out a sigh of relief, but then began to sway, she almost fell over but he caught her.

"I think you've lost quiet a bit of blood," he said. Sarah then held out her hand and a light formed, after the light faded Carrie felt much better.

"I didn't think it would replace lost blood," she commented.

"It fixes almost any wound," Sarah replied.

"You two must be adventurers, here take this key," he said as he held out a key.

"What room is this for?" Sarah asked as she took it.

"It's for the torture chamber. Inside you will find some mandragora, you will need this if you wish to set off the nitro safely," he replied. They figured it was the first door they saw when they first entered this area. There were two doors in the room; one was boarded up, the other still accessible. They went inside and were in the same room they were in before with the nitro. They walked over and found Malus on the other side.

"Malus? What re you still doing here? We thought you had escaped," Carrie said.

"This place? Escape?" Malus asked.

"Say, are you going to fight Dracula? Aren't you afraid?" he then asked. They were a bit speechless, but he continued.

"Are you here to avenge my family, to rescue my friends?" he then asked.

"You can count on us Malus!" Sarah replied.

"I swear we will defeat Dracula and avenge you parents!" Carrie added. Malus then began to laugh, and they were a little confused. But then his eyes changed color.

"Impossible! Want to know why? Because you are trapped! And you will die like wretches!" he said.

"Malus? What has gotten into…" Carrie didn't get to finish.

"Into the kingdom of darkness, where no wretched sunlight comes!" he said while running off.

"Malus, what has happened to you?" Sarah asked. This time Sarah took the nitro and they placed it at the wall they walked past. And made their way back and noticed that in one of the rooms, they walked by an elevator.

"I didn't even notice this here," Carrie commented. She then went over to the door and tried to open it.

"No luck." Sarah then noticed a switch and pressed it, nothing happened.

"It looks like this thing is out a juice," she commented. Carrie then noticed a statue in the room and went over to it. After looking at it she saw it had a number on it. But after a few seconds a red liquid came out of the eyes and went down onto the floor, it stopped a few feet from Carrie, and after a few seconds, it partly formed into a human. It only took a few hits to take it down, so they made their way to the torture chamber. When they unlocked the door and went inside, they found one whole zombie, two half zombies, and one hopper. They went down without to much of a fuss, and they took the mandragora and made it back to the second wall they placed nitro at. And found another statue with a number along the way.

"This is the one area we've been in the longest," Carrie commented.

"You're right, this place is driving me nuts," Sarah agreed. They soon reached the wall they placed the nitro in front of, and placed the mandragora next to it. They ran around the corner after placing it, and energy began to stir between the two bottles and it got stronger and stronger. After a few minutes there was a loud boom and the whole room shook. After the dust faded there was a huge hole in the wall. They entered another area and soon found another statue with another number. The room was a rather odd setup, but ghosts began to appear and the only way to progress was to climb some ledges. They reached the top and had no idea where to go as there were no doors or anything, just an odd pillar in the middle of the area. Carrie hopped onto it to try and get a better view of the area, and when she stood up part of the ceiling opened above her head. They climbed through and were in a small room with another pillar to stand on. Doing the same thing they entered a rather big room. It was a blue room with white stars connected with light lines to try and make constellations. In the middle of the room was a platform with many spots to place something and in the middle of the platform was a pedestal. And next to the platform was a pedestal with three small statues that looked like the big ones they found scattered around. Sarah looked at the base of the statues and at the spots on the platform; she figured they had to be placed in a particular order. She placed them in numerical order, 2, 4, and 8. After a few seconds the pedestal in the middle began to have light shine through, and it got brighter and brighter, so bright that they had to shield their eyes with their arms. After the light sort of dimmed down they looked and there was a ball of light rising. It kept on getting higher and higher, and after it paused for a little bit, it whizzed over their heads and went through the wall behind them. After a few seconds the place began to shake a little for a good few minutes.

"I think it's a safe bet that light broke that seal on the wall we saw," Sarah commented. They trekked all the way back to the torture chamber and got another bottle of mandragora and walked past the dead behemoth again and placed the bottle next to the nitro. They ran back a bit to avoid getting blown up and this time saw the explosion. After the smoke cleared there was a huge hole in the wall and through the hole was a huge white crystal floating over a huge pedestal. They went over to it and saw a small gold crystal at the base of the pedestal. Carrie gave it a light touch and the huge crystal made a loud hum and began to glow different colors.

"I think it is now giving power to the elevator," Sarah commented. They turned around and walked a few feet out of the small room and the place shook. Every few seconds the room shook and they could see some dust rising. They didn't even have to think hard about it, the behemoth was alive, and was heading right for them. It stopped when it was only about ten feet away, but on how huge he was he looked closer than that. They didn't have to talk to each other about the fact that range is the best thing to deal with this guy. They split up and ran to each side of the room and he ran after Sarah. The battle was a little tricky as he would stop and shoot out three different attacks, two beam attacks and some poison spit. After hammering on him for awhile it began to loose some flesh and Sarah had to stop attacking it as the poison was seeping out. After a few more hits it lost its legs and one more blow took it out. Though they were both tired they pressed on and entered the vampire training room again, but this time Actrise was waiting for them.

"Have you considered your answer?" she asked. "Ah, but the sight of your faces tells me everything," she added.

"We will destroy Dracula, oppose us and we must destroy you too!" Carrie said.

"You have spirit girl. But your opponent today is not me," Actrise said.

"If you're not going to fight us, then who is?" Sarah asked. Carrie then noticed someone floating in the right corner of the room, and she felt something in the air. Sarah could feel it too, and noticed that Carrie was holding herself and trembling.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"No…it can't be…what have you done?" Carrie asked. The figure was then floating closer.

"She was a Fernandez too, she came here to fight the Dark Lord," Actrise replied. Sarah then realized why Carrie was acting the way she was, this was her cousin that went missing.

"We took her alive, and made her into a vampire," Actrise continued. "She fought mightily against the curse, but now she is fully a vampire, hungry for blood. What joy this is, two cousins fighting to the death!" Actrise then faded away while laughing. At this point Carrie's cousin was in the middle of the room, and she was still trembling. Sarah then shook her violently.

"Snap out of it! You have to face facts; the cousin you once knew is gone. All that is left is that monster using her body!" she yelled. Carrie looked over and tears began to fill her eyes.

"Forgive me…" and the battle started. Her cousin was using a staff and her power was a bit stronger then hers, and the battle was tough. She was actually able to shoot out three energy balls, and whenever one of them was close, she would spin while a cold fog would form around her to try and freeze them. Carrie did get frozen once, but she broke free just as her cousin tried to smash her with the staff and she hit her with both her rings hard and fast. After she hit her one more time she just floated there, no emotion, no nothing, just floating there, until light began to shine from her body, and she soon faded away. Carrie walked over to where she once was, and fell to her knees and covered her face.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry I couldn't save you… forgive me…" she sobbed. Sarah then placed a hand on her shoulder.

"She has already forgiven you for freeing her from that body, now all that is left is to free her spirit from this castle by killing its owner," she said.

"You sort of understand what it is like to lose someone close to you, but not by losing them by killing them," Carrie cried. Sarah then let out a sigh.

"My mother would understand. She killed her sister," she spoke softly. They stayed there for a few minutes, and then went to the elevator and Sarah pressed the switch again, and this time there was a powering up noise. The door opened and they stepped inside and the elevator went up to the top. When it stopped there was a bridge they had to cross. They ran across and avoided the ghosts and went through the huge doorway and vanished into the darkness. However they didn't realize someone was watching them. He was wearing full body armor that covered his whole body and face, and on the sides of his head were long points that stuck straight up. and he took out the ghosts with one swing from his energy sword and an energy slash shot out and got them all.

"Such a powerful numan girl, I wonder who her mother and father were?" he asked. He then vanished into the shadows.

End Chapter 3