Chapter 15: Monster Mash
Vlad Tepes III stood over Fran, a cold, imperious glare on his face. "For your betrayal, the only penalty can be death," he declared, raising a hand. "However, for your service to my lands in stopping that heretic's advance, I shall at least make your death swift and painless."
Fran stared up at him, defiance in her golden eyes, as she struggled but could not rise.
The Prince of Wallachia shook his head, a faint look of disappointment on his face. "What a shame. You would have served Wallachia well." Then, he closed his hand into a fist.
At that very moment, a black blur slammed into Fran, bodily tackling her out of the way. A dark crimson spike transfixed it, halting it in its tracks and lifting it into the air to reveal the figure was, of course, Hyde, impaled through the gut by one of Vlad's stakes.
Even as the Lancer looked on, Hyde's side opened, allowing the stake to slide out even as the beast's flesh flowed over the wound, melding it shut as though it had never been opened in the first place. In the next instant, Hyde pounced, claws flashing at Vlad's neck.
A flurry of stakes poured from the skies, slamming into the Berserker's arms even as the Lancer of Black reared his arm back, spear at the ready. He stepped forward, driving his weapon forward as he tried to put the beast out of its misery, but Hyde was undeterred. Pierced flesh sloughed off, rapidly replaced by unblemished fur, and its very torso bent and warped hideously so the spear strike passed through empty air rather than its chest. Its arms, halted momentarily by the rain of spikes, abruptly stretched and savaged the Lancer's chest. Hyde's maw gaped wide as it let out a throaty snarl, covering Vlad in drool.
The Lancer scowled as he felt claws tear through his flesh, his eyes flashing as he jammed his spear into the beast's repositioned chest and launched it away. Feeling the wounds start to close, he let loose a carpet of stakes, intent on forcing the beast to at least stumble over the spike covered ground.
Instead, Hyde merely slammed its clawed feet through the spikes, wounds opening and closing in nearly the same instant. There was a sucking noise as the spear in its chest was dragged through it by roiling tides of flesh and ejected from its back, launching it several meters away from the battle. In the same motion, Hyde launched itself forward, crossing the distance between them in the span of half a second. A wall of blood-colored spears rose to meet the werewolf, piercing it through in half a dozen places, but Hyde forced itself forward all the same.
Hyde slammed into Vlad, sinking its teeth into his trapezius and ripping out, taking a large chunk of flesh out of where the Lancer's throat and shoulder met. At the same time, the flesh of the beast's guts ballooned out, the spikes of Kazikli Bey ramming into their master's chest.
Seconds later, the spikes dematerialized, but they were there long enough to have pierced deep into the Prince of Wallachia's chest.
"Foul beast!" Vlad snarled as he allowed stakes to bleed from the wounds opened in his front, attempting to win the war of attrition he'd entered into with Hyde. Try as he might, he just couldn't find a way to put it down for good.
At that very moment, the voice of his Master sounded in his head. The words Darnic spoke, though, filled him with burning rage.
"Lancer, by my Command Seal, activate your Noble Phantasm: Legend of Dracula."
Even as blood poured from his wounds, Vlad roared, "Darnic, you cur! You honourless scoundrel! I'll have your head for this! Have you forgotten!? I will never use that Noble Phantasm, even if I die here and crumble away, with death and regret my burial shroud! You dare to try to force me to become such an unsightly thing!? Never, never, NEVER! I'm not a vampire! I'm...not…!"
Emotion was utterly absent from Darnic's telepathic voice as he repeated, "Lancer, by my second Command Seal, activate your Noble Phantasm: Legend of Dracula."
Vlad could only scream as the force of two Command Seals overwhelmed his will. His scream quickly warped and twisted, becoming the unnatural, unholy call of the grave. Even as his voice was corrupted, so too did his flesh morph and bend. From regal king to ravening monster did the Prince of Wallachia fall, becoming the very thing he reviled above all else.
Vlad Tepes III was no more; in his place, only Dracula remained.
-x-x-x-x-x-
Meanwhile, within the confines of Castle Yggdmillennia, Johan had parted ways with Fiore, Caules, and the homunculus named Toole. He swiftly made his way to the upper levels of the castle, following the path marked by shredded Bounded Fields and destroyed traps that Mordred and Kairi had left in their wake.
It seemed that a Magic Resistance of B-rank and a professional mercenary's savvy made a powerful combination when assaulting the home of a magus.
After climbing a fourth flight of stairs, Johan was getting rather irritated by the size of Darnic's lair. Really, how much space could half a dozen people possibly need? Grumbling under his breath, Johan rounded a corner and came upon a long corridor. It stretched perhaps fifty meters before him, and at the very end stood a pair of towering wooden doors. A familiar pair of figures stood before the doors, one tall and wearing a black leather coat, the other short and clad in armor from head to toe.
Johan fished his grimoire out of his jacket and jogged up behind the duo. Kairi glanced towards him, his hand briefly going to the handle of the shotgun strapped to his back before relaxing. Mordred, on the other hand, looked back at him and barked, "C'mon, skinny! We got a job to do, especially if we're gonna rub your shithead friend's face in our progress!"
Johan snorted, and opened his Mystic Code to a particular page. "Ready whenever you are, Saber, Mr. Shishigou."
"Good!" Mordred replied before turning and booting the doors to reveal Darnic standing with his arm raised high, mouth open and the second Command Seal upon it burning away.
The blue haired man turned towards them and scowled, an ugly expression on his face as he took them in. Even as he opened his mouth, presumably to incant, Kairi's gun snapped up and fired, several rotting fingers rocketing towards his head at bullet speeds.
"Schild," Darnic snapped, a golden barrier snapping into being and stopping the finger-bullets millimeters in front of his face. "Miserable dogs of the Mage's Association; you have been a thorn in my sid—"
It was at that point that Clarent crashed through the barrier and stabbed through Darnic's chest, Mordred having thrown it at him. She charged forward and grabbed the hilt before he could so much as gasp, ripped it out and lopped his head off, letting loose a spray of blood.
Even as Darnic's mangled corpse collapsed to the ground, an indistinct silver-grey shape rose from it and shot towards Kairi. A distorted voice howled, "I'll not die so easily, you wretched pleb—"
Once more, Darnic's ranting was cut short, but this time by Johan. The tome that lay open in his left hand glowed with an unearthly light as the Master of Hyde cycled his prana through the book, through his body, and up his outstretched right arm. His fingers curled into claws as his magic took hold of the ectoplasm that made up Darnic's spiritual form, and then he snapped his fingers.
"Geistflame."
The faux-lich screamed as the fabric of his soul was converted into spiritual fire, only for it to be abruptly silenced as Clarent claimed the head of the same Nazi for the second time. In the next few seconds, the ectoplasm burned away into particles of stray mana, leaving behind a merrily burning Persian rug.
Johan snapped the grimoire shut, closed off his circuits, and exhaled shakily.
The Saber shouldered her blade as she looked about with a scowl, blood dripping down its length. "So, we done here? Can we go and make sure that I can make my wish?"
Kairi snorted, then pulled out a cigarette, considered the burning rug, then shrugged and lit it on the fire. After taking a long drag and stomping the embers to cinders, he replied, "Yeah, might as well." He glanced over to Johan, then offered, "Not bad, kid."
Johan let out a shaky laugh. "If you say so."
After taking another puff of his cigarette, Kairi nodded, and led the way out of Darnic's chamber. Mordred fell into step beside him, and Johan brought up the rear, still off-balance.
Someone burning to death wasn't a pleasant sound; who knew?
His attention was sharply torn from that lovely thought by his circuits beginning to burn. This was concerning, as it meant that Berserker had burned through both of the Spirit Cores he'd consumed. With a wince, Johan covered one eye with a hand and peered through the eye of his Servant with the other...
-x-x-x-x-x-
The fields had become a hellscape, the crossroads between a charnelhouse and a burned crater. Fran watched from afar as blood fountained from Hyde and Dracula alike, staining burned grass and charred soil a deep, unnatural crimson.
What was occuring could not be described as a duel or a battle; no, this was nothing more than an animalistic contest of mutilation, as the two ripped and tore at each other with primal abandon.
Pure, blind rage poured through Hyde's form as it rippled into a variety of monstrous implements, each more lethal than the last as it tried to flay its foe to pieces.
Dracula was a storm of regret and blood, batlike apparitions pouring off his body as tears of blood welled from his eyes. His mouth was set in a fanged grimace, while his clawed hands reached out to tear apart his foe, roaring, "Though Darnic forced this upon me, I shall rebel in my own way! I shall kill you, Berserker of Red! And though I might follow after you, Darnic shall not tarnish my honour any further!"
In the face of Dracula's rage, all Hyde replied with was a hideous howl. Its forearms split at the elbow, claws stretching and warping to dig deeper into Dracula's guts in four places. At the same time, three spines burst from the base of Hyde's neck and shot through its opponent's torso, bone spikes erupting from each of the vertebrae as the three tailbones encircled and pierced Dracula's throat in three spots like a collar from hell.
The Lancer let out a gurgle as his blood steamed in the air, phantasmal bats pulling from his flesh and tearing into Hyde even as stakes poured from their bodies. His hands plunged into Hyde's chest and he manifested yet more of his stakes within the beast. The gurgle surged into a howl as he tried to bring Hyde down.
The battle had long since changed from one between warriors, to two monsters trying to tear their prey apart. And with Hyde riding the fumes of Karna's Spirit Core and Dracula in the seat of his power, the macabre melee seemed nowhere near its conclusion.
Nowhere near, that is, until a figure appeared at the top of the hill overlooking Castle Yggdmillennia.
As Chiron crested the hill, his eyes fell upon the twin monsters. Realizing the situation in an instant, he drew back his bow, then took his fingers away from the string and pointed them to the stars.
"As long as there is a night sky, 'the star of the archer always aims at the scorpion.'"
A pillar of light descended from the stars, the very sky shaking as the heavenly centaur loosed his bolt, and the moon twinkled in pride for its student's choice.
In the next instant, the Antares Snipe met its mark without fail, scorching a hole through the Son of the Dragon's torso so wide that only bare scraps of skin and muscle remained to hold his head to his neck. Hyde's claws were incinerated as well, but they regenerated in short order as Dracula tumbled to the ground, everything between his sternum and his pelvis simply gone.
Despite his lack of lungs with which to speak, the Prince of Darkness managed to let out a dying wheeze. "Is this your pity, Archer? Is this the final stroke, to let me be given respite from this curse for just a while longer? If it is…then I cannot count the ways in which I hate you, the curses I would pile up at your feet! If only…if only…"
As his head started to fade away, he managed one final sentence.
"If only you'd loosed your arrow before Darnic's order had been completed…"
Despite the distance between them, Chiron heard every word that had passed the Lancer's lips, and bowed his head.
"A man should be given the dignity to die as a man, not a demon. I am sorry, Prince of Wallachia, that I did not arrive sooner."