Just Once - Chapter Three

"Pay attention to humans and the lesser creatures. You never know when they will do something...interesting." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God

"Alucard!" she cried out, beating her wings as fast as she could to throw herself between her master and the black, evil thing speeding so fast toward his unprotected back. Though she had judged herself to be too far away, somehow she made it in time to get between Alucard and the arrow of vampire slaying to take the arrow herself.

It sliced into her bringing an agony the likes of which she had never borne before. She felt as every part of her, wings from sides, head from neck, legs from torso, even skin from muscle, sinew from bone and thought from form was violently ripped apart. The terrifying darkness she had passed through before, twice, rush forward to claim her. This time it wasn't a gentle slide from the arms of her master into a quiet sanctuary. It was not even the matter of fact re-ushering into life she'd experienced in her awakening as a vampire bat.

No, this time the darkness was like a ravening beast, slathering greedily for her body, her life, her very self. It leaped forward to claim her.

"Master Bat...Alucard...so glad...you didn't die... I love you...always..." Bat's final thoughts in life were of her Master Bat before her consciousness snuffed out.

********

She was nothing. No, she was in nothing. Nothing surrounded her, trying to overwhelm her. She summoned a memory of Alucard's eyes to set between herself and the nothing. His beautiful grey eyes, holding such a mild light, or his soft red ones with a fiercer glow. It didn't matter. She knew they were his and somehow, if she just believed in him enough, if she placed her trust in him, if she could only love him enough, the memory of his eyes would keep the terrifying darkness from ever touching her.

She might never be free of the darkness. She might exist forever in the nothing. But she would love him in that forever. Maybe, if her love were strong enough, it could reach out to where she could no longer go and somehow, in some way, still help her Master Bat. She hoped so.

The memory of his eyes when he asked her earlier if she was lonely flashed through her mind. She only thought she was lonely before. This, this nothing existence, cut off completely from him, from light, from form, from life was truly lonely.

"The memories will comfort me," she thought to herself. "I know he lives and that...that is enough."

The eyes turned toward her. Alucard's eyes! They were...they were looking at her! This was no memory, no conjuring of her mind, somehow, in some way, her wonderful, amazing Master Bat was seeing her! Even as she was now, trapped in a nothing place. She tried to comfort the stricken look in those beautiful eyes.

"BAT...!" he called, seemingly from the depths of his own soul. Did he yet care for her, now that she was gone from him?!

"Oh, really?! Proud Alucard of the unassailable heart brought to heel by the creature he himself made?! How Pygmalion of you!" The blackness surrounding and trying to devour her was strongest in the being now taunting her Master Bat. He held the darkness within his very self. Bat knew, one touch of that darkness and all that she was, even the pathetically reduced thing she had become now, all of her thoughts and emotions, all of her feelings for Fairy and her other friends, maybe even all of her love for Alucard would be gone. She shrank instinctively from the oblivion of Death.

He gestured arrogantly and she responded, unable to resist the commands of Death, now that she was in his dominion. She tried to somehow anchor herself in Alucard to no avail. The force of Death's power made her collapse in on herself, trying to protect those things most important to her in the core of what she had become. She found herself floating just above his skeletal hand. She knew, just one touch and she would be destroyed. Or worse. She didn't dare try to do anything, but somehow, though she had no eyes, watch Death and make certain she didn't displease him enough to snuff her out. If he should close his hand!

"Tease me all you want." Though she was formless, Bat winced somehow to hear how tortured Alucard's voice was. "But don't torment her. What purpose is there in claiming her soul?"

"'Torment'?" Death echoed. "Even after all this time, you don't understand my purpose. I don't torment, I merely usher souls to their final destination. Either unending punishment, for those who deserve it, or ultimate reward. As for purpose, I never ask. It is not my place to trouble the powers of the universe with such philosophical questions," Death told Alucard. 'Powers of the universe'? Bat wondered what her final destination was to be. How could it be ultimate reward if she couldn't be with Master Bat anymore?!

"Please..." Alucard's voice was ragged, "Leave her with me. Even as...just a soul. Surely the universe won't care what happens to the soul of one vampire bat."

He'd want her this way?! Even if she could do nothing to help him?! Maybe that would be her ultimate reward. She didn't care what happened to her, it didn't matter to her if she had form or not, if she could always be with him.

"Her soul? It cares more than you know! Sorry, ducky, no can do!"

Oh. It was the unending punishment for her after all.

"Please!" Alucard fell to his knees, pleading with Death. Death chuckled to see Alucard's unabashed supplication. If she weren't already dead, Bat felt as though part of her would have shriveled and died to see her Master Bat begging so hard on her behalf. She wasn't worth it that he should force himself to beg for her!

"Well, well, well!" Death floated all around Alucard looking down on him in satisfaction. "Who knew this could be so rewarding to me? Sometimes this job has its perks! To see you this way, what an unexpected treat!" Death crowed. The core of Bat's being cringed that her master was accepting such cruel teasing to try to save her.

"I'll tell you what. I'll give you a challenge: enter my castle, defeat the monsters in my keep, and find the chamber I place her in before her remains trickle through my hourglass," Death gestured. Bat's dust floated into the air and Death's Hourglass materialized around it. Bat was horrified to watch the dust that had been her body imprisoned in a cage of crystal and bone. Death turned his hourglass and pulled by gravity, the dust started to flow.

"Find and stop this before all of her dust runs through and I'll release her soul to you," Death promised. "If you are late, if all of her dust has trickled to the bottom chamber, the power interested in her claims her soul instead. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Alucard got to his feet. "But where...?"

Alucard, Fairy and the chamber they were in, disappeared.

A new chamber formed around her. Death floated over and placed the evil hourglass trapping part of her on the lid of the marble coffin in the center of the room. Bat watched at how the dust of her remains, along with the time Alucard had to rescue her, slid swiftly through the glass. Maybe she could slow it somehow, as it was really her, and buy Alucard some more time, if she concentrated enough...

"None of that now!" Death warned her, bringing his bony fingers closer to her vulnerable soul. She stopped, terrified of Death's ultimate power to destroy her.

"That's better. I've no idea if he will succeed or not. It's all a matter of Time now," Death told her. "Nothing says this waiting must be unpleasant though." Death set her soul to float about the hourglass and stepped back to admire the effect.

"Pretty!" he declared. "In the normal way of things you wouldn't even be aware of this last gamble to save you. I should have known you would be different! I could close your consciousness down again, but why should I expend the energy? Alucard might fail, sending you to your final accounting anyway. I know you fancy you love him, so I'll let you watch his efforts on your behalf instead."

Death airily waved his skeletal hand in the direction of Bat's soul globe as he sat down upon an ornate, but macabre throne of bone.

And there he was, an image of Master Bat, taking shape before her!

Bat longed to fly to him, to fly alongside him again, so she could protect him as he found himself at the beginning of a new castle. Where was Fairy?! Surely she hadn't abandoned Master Bat now!

Oh. Somehow Death had banished Fairy. Alucard was summoning her with the familiar card now...

WHAT was this?! WHO the hell was that bat and WHAT was it doing near HER Master Bat?! Bat saw red as fury filled her soul.

Death turned his head in surprise as blood-red light filled the crypt. It issued from Bat's soul globe.

"Heh, heh, heh! If this doesn't alleviate his boredom, nothing will!" Death laughed. He settled in to watch the double drama unfolding before him, the one in his spell showing Alucard's adventures in his castle and the one in his crypt as Bat witnessed and responded to those adventures too.

It had been years since Death had been so highly amused.

********

Bat couldn't sustain her upset. Slowly, her soul globe resumed it's normal soft black glow. Alucard was forced to have the new bat with him at all times. She'd been livid that Alucard had invited the interloper to sit on his shoulder before she realized that it was such an automatic action for Alucard that he didn't even know that he'd done it. Whenever he saw black bat wings nearby, Alucard's first reaction was to tap his shoulder. In a way, it was a compliment to her that Alucard didn't even realize he was doing it.

Not that the new bat responded as Bat did. It just flapped there in the air, staring at Alucard. Bat was relieved that the new bat didn't dash closer to Master Bat when Alucard finally assumed his own, true, bat form. Only then did she think to look and confirm that the new bat was male. Again, the thought comforted her. If she was to be replaced, if Alucard was to have a new bat familiar, she was glad her replacement wasn't female. She knew it was selfish, and that her wishes didn't matter. It was nice to know that at least the memory of how she'd been might exist in Master Bat's mind for a while. The new bat certainly didn't behave as she had!

She could tell that Master Bat noticed. His eyes held a softly confused look in them. She could tell that even though there was a bat hovering near him, Master Bat knew it wasn't her. He seemed a little lost, almost as if he missed her, as he made his way through the dangerous rooms of the castle.

Bat did have to feel gratitude for the interloper bat though. After only a few fights, the new bat caught on, even as she had so very long ago, that to protect the tall man was a good thing to do. Bat reluctantly admitted the new bat's attacks were powerfully effective too. She couldn't help but compare them to the attacks she had been able to use when she first became Master Bat's familiar. The new bat's attacks were much more effective than her first ones had been. She wondered if that was because Alucard himself was stronger now. A starter bat, such as what she had been, would be more of a hindrance than a help now to him she supposed. Look! The new bat already had Breath of Fire!

Oh! Wouldn't it be just awful if Master Bat fought his way to the chamber in time, won her soul back and decided he didn't want her after all, since his new bat familiar was so much better than she was?! Maybe that was why Death was letting her see this!

But there! The fight was over and the new bat returned to fly behind Master Bat again. Bat could see the look in his eyes, one of intense longing, when he unconsciously tapped his shoulder again and the new bat didn't respond.

********

"I really miss her," Master Bat said aloud.

"Then hurry up so you can rescue her!" Fairy snapped, floating down from her place of safety now that the fight was over.

"Why force me to have a new bat?" Alucard wondered for the tenth time. "Surely Death doesn't think he can change my mind about Bat!"

"Let's just save her and worry about that later!" Fairy urged.

"You're right!" Alucard agreed, before sprinting through the cleared chamber. At least the new bat kept up and didn't slow him down.

Bat watched Alucard's image and listened raptly to his words in Death's spell while Death watched Bat.

Reduced to only her essential being as she was, Bat found herself pondering only the most important things. She didn't like that a bat other than herself was helping her Master Bat. But, if the alternative was for him to have no help at all, she was relieved that he had that help. Alucard might never realize it, but Bat could see for herself that she had been important to him. It was in his mannerisms. It was in his tremendous effort to save her. It was in his beautiful eyes.

Her own love for him bloomed anew. She longed to fly under his wing again. She ached to sit on his shoulder. It had been a while since she 'accidentally' tangled herself in his hair. That was one of her favorite things to do, as Alucard always laughed, a sound she loved to hear, and it always took him a few minutes of gentle handling to get her out his hair again. Truth be told, the silky prison of his silver locks was one of her favorite places in the world. If not for how delightful it was to have Alucard free her, she'd resist him and stay tangled in his hair! She wished, she wished, that...just once...she could...she could be...

She refused to clarify her wish, pushing it abruptly away to deny any acknowledgment of it.

"Even if Master Bat saves me, such is not for me," she told herself severely. Death smiled.

Bat continued to watch, unwilling to let even the least of Alucard's actions escape her ardent attention.

********

Bat's feelings had never varied so much before! Her love for Master Bat, Alucard, was as strong as ever. She wondered if perhaps it had grown even stronger. She could see in numerous, tiny ways that he missed her. He actually missed her! He was pushing himself so hard to try to rescue her. Fairy warned him several times to be more careful, that she had used up many of the healing items already since Alucard was behaving so recklessly. The new bat had grown tremendously in skill, sometimes taking two attacks before Alucard even entered a new room. Bat was reluctantly impressed by that. She ached to see Master Bat striving so hard, taking chances he never would have taken to try to find the chamber she was in quicker, to find her and rescue her in time.

She wanted to be with him, but...she'd never want him to hurt himself for her. Ever!

"Quite a show, eh?" Death asked. "But such little sand remains." Death glanced at the hourglass the contents of which Bat could no longer see from her spot floating above it. "He's close, though. I'd say it's...fifty-fifty he gets here in time."

Alucard turned a corner and ran at full speed down the corridor.

"Oh? That's the corridor outside this chamber. It will be very close!"

Death rose up from the bone throne he reclined in to peer at the sand in the hourglass under Bat's soul. His sockets glowed as he watched the last of the sand trickle through the neck of the glass.

"Time," Death called it softly. "I'm sorry, Bat. Alucard failed."

The door to the crypt burst open. Alucard stood on the threshold, dragging great gasping breaths of air into his lungs.

"Bat...?!"

"You were close, Alucard. But you are too late," Death told him.

"NO!" Alucard dashed into the room, evidently seeking to take Bat's soul from Death bodily. Death caught him around the neck with one hand and effortlessly hefted him up until his feet left the floor.

"Do not try me in my own crypt, child." Death warned him softly. "Or do you forget I can claim your soul as well?"

"You've lost. Concede her now to me, to her destiny, as you agreed," Death demanded.

"Bat...! I'm so...sorry!" Alucard choked out against the force crushing against his windpipe.

"Do...you...concede?!" Death shook Alucard at each word for emphasis. Unable to speak, Alucard nodded tightly.

"Good," Death placed Alucard on his feet again. "I didn't want to have to take your soul also!"

"Good thing too. If you had manhandled him one minute more I would have stopped you," a new voice added. Alucard recognized the voice. He heard it every time he had to conquer Castlevania's master. He heard it taunting him in his dreams. It was the voice of his father.

Strange that he would not notice that his father was here! He turned, wondering where Dracula was hiding. Bat's soul floated above the hourglass containing the dust of her remains. Other than her, only Death, himself, Fairy and the bat Death had saddled him with met his eyes. Alucard winced. He hoped his father hadn't found a way to become invisible! It was hard enough to deal with Dracula in his mist form!

The strange bat who had appeared with Fairy, evidently taking Bat's place, the bat who had protected him by attacking monsters during his heedless, desperately headlong dash through Death's Castle to save Bat's soul, flapped its wings, growing first to the size of the biggest, indeed the king of all vampire bats, and finally into his father's vampire form.

"Alucard," Dracula stepped up and embraced him warmly before Alucard fully realized what was happening. "That was fun! I greatly enjoyed serving as your familiar!" Dracula smiled deeply, baring his fangs in his pleasure.

"Ah, Death! You know me so well! What a wonderful diversion this has been for me!" Death inclined his head acknowledging the compliment.

"And what a nice, unexpected present too!" Dracula stepped forward to pluck Bat's soul globe possessively from the air. "What a pretty little treasure for me!"

"WHAT?!" Alucard demanded.

"Don't you know? Dracula is the only power that would have an interest in Bat's soul," Death told him. "You lost, so now Bat's soul belongs to Lord Dracula!"

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