Let the Symphony Last for Eternity

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta: Erin_Carde

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Clearly the castle had learned a few new tricks since his last foray into it. A trip through the oddest garden had produced nothing for Trevor to go on. So he had planned on returning to Juste's side to make sure his, as odd as it was to think of the term, future descendant was still well. Even if the garden was empty of violent monsters, only non hostile gardeners were present, he did feel a sense of duty to look after Juste. The man was currently unarmed and injured to boot, all because of Trevor activating that odd sort of switch.

So how could the door that brought him to that odd garden suddenly take him to this long hallway? Long arrow headed shaped windows paced themselves across to the other side, a long thick red carpet sprawled forward to a large door. A storm raging out side now, it's lightning flashes brightening the room more then the lit candles. Rain beat the windows like the tapping anger fingers of God wanting an explanation. Personally? Trevor wanted one as well, because none of this made the slightest bit of sense. The great doors behind him suddenly flung open upon it's own, he hoped, and a figure came walking out that got him to stop and stare. Then he grinned.

"Grant? Grant, old friend it's been a while!"

The lanky pirate stared at him in equal surprise before his lips curled into a smile of pleasure. "Trevor, how have you been mate?" Pirates had their own style, one of Grant's level of importance should have been wearing finer things. But this was a hands on type of pirate and Grant was not the type to dress up when there were things he needed to do.

"I was well until I woke up here, by any chance do you know what's going on?" Trevor asked, after all nothing got past a pirate. So maybe Grant had seen something?

But the pirate merely shook his head unable to give a proper answer. "Sorry my friend, but I am baffled by this place as you."

Grant

Above him rested the rotating gears of clock parts that gave him a moment of mental horror. Had it been naught but a dream? Had his freedom from Dracula's hands been only a mere illusion to play with his feelings more? Grant lifted his hands to his face, apprehension filling him as the muscles worked to lift up his appendages. What would he see? Would it be those big beefy hands of a monster? Would...

Only work gloves. The stiff, thick, leather gloves of a working man rose into his field of vision. With that he sat up, confirming visually that he was still human. Human and in some part of a clock tower, apparently. Grant pushed himself to his feet, examining the situation further around him, the floor before him began to crumble under his weight. Jumping back to where he had been, he realized that this place probably wasn't safe. A glance back up though, showed that the tower wasn't in total disrepair...

A sigh and a shrug later, he had pulled out his climbing gloves, before looking up and down at the place. Which way to go? Well logically the ground floor would hold the door, at least he hoped that was the case as he walked. Then again the tower had a chill that made him think perhaps it was based underground and went up. He was just grateful that he had woken up fully dressed, as he began his trip down the oddly placed metal stairs. As he landed deftly upon a small platform, he caught a sight of gold dashing across the distant ground, two soft white colored beings flying close behind.

But it was like a ghost or a gust of air, there and gone, but clearly a woman. Couldn't be Sypha, but at least it was a person and he could ask for directions. Quick nimble feet brought him to the ground floor before he followed the archway she had taken. But a glance into the next room gave him two things to consider, the first being the deadly spikes from the ground across from him on the other side of the room. The next was the sight of said lady leaping gracefully into the air like no human he had ever seen before.

Between the spikes and the inhumanly leaping lady, Grant came to a conclusion he seriously did not like. Rushing to the first wall, he began ascending the tower room in an effort to try and catch this woman. But even from a distance he could see her leaving through a set of doors and his call for her to stop went unanswered. Scaling the walls he noted the nesting Harpy across from him with a look of pure disbelief. It wasn't. There was no way that the Castle could have returned, true it 'did' return again after Dracula's defeat... but Trevor dealt with that event himself! If this was the castle of Dracula, was that woman a servant of the evil Count?

The Entryway.

"Another woman? Can you describe her better? I have seen a blond haired apparition, but she didn't seem the type to run," Trevor noted, a concerned look in his eyes. After all it was hard not to recall the aloof lady ghost who directed him... Though now that he thought further on it, he wondered if the reason she pointed down was for the purpose of finding Juste? Who was that lady? Refined and clearly of good breeding, why would such a woman exist inside the castle?

"Aye, she had long blond hair, seemed to be wearing green and had little in the way o' modesty, and seemed to have a pair of birds with her too small to be seagulls... But what o' it?" Grant scratched at the back of his neck as he tried to recall all of it. "She could be a shifter of sorts right?"

"That's true, but... the ghost was too cold, there was a resentment in her eyes as she looked at me. As though I had done some wrong to her, but she never spoke, and I didn't think to ask..." Trevor shook his head before looking down the long hallway. He recounted his tale of waking up in the castle, from meeting the ghost, to Juste even the oddness of the silent garden.

"A man claiming to be a Belmont from the future? You sure the man didn't hit his head hard on something? Or maybe a demon in human guise?" it was a rational concern from Grant, only Sypha and Alucard had any skill at detecting such deception. Trevor and Grant only had their gut instincts to tell them if something was evil, and that required being right in the presence of said being.

"No, I feel as though I should believe him. Through the gates of the cage he was at, the Vampire Killer rested there. Also... there was just something in the man's eyes, he was a skilled hunter, but he had that something... I want to believe his words."

But if that was the case, then what madness had taken the Castle? A potential, future Belmont currently in one part of the castle, doors that took a person to vastly different areas only to not allow a person back to where they had just been. Perhaps Sypha's elemental skills would be less useful in a situation like this, instead perhaps Alucard's aid would have been better. After all, he had been raised in this Castle, the in's and out's would possibly make more sense.

At the same time, there was a reluctance in Trevor's heart to bring Alucard back into the fray. There was a reason why the dhampir opted to leave and go into hiding after all, though perhaps Hector would have been able to provide some insight on the nature of the castle. Since he formally worked here, the retired Devil ForgeMaster had to have some idea of how the castle could possibly be acting like this.

"Odd huh? We be thinking the Castle like it's a person all it's own. Yet, what else can we do? Is Dracula even here? After all the monsters seem rather..." In the distance another archway reveled a darken path, and with no other idea, the pair made their way there. "Was the castle like this the last time you came?"

"No, that's also an odd aspect, when I returned to this place it was no different then the first time I came. While it was changed, drastically, from our journey through the castle there was still the same twisted logic as before. Now... Now the monsters that I see do not care to attack, either they ignore me or..." Even now, as his thoughtful gaze went down, he noted the clean dark red carpet under their feet. "It is as though the monsters of this castle are in the process setting up the building for the arrival of their master. But if that is the case, then the cleaning seems a bit odd... Look at the carpet below us, the blood stains are gone, the castle almost seems unable to decide what it wants out of itself."

"Aye, like it can't decide if it wants to horrify or be a normal castle," Grant agreed, nodding as he flipped a dagger in his hand. So far he had no use to even 'use' a weapon, so the pirate was left with an ever growing urge to keep his knife in his hands. There should have been zombies, there should have been forces of evil trying to kill them, the lack of it was beginning to dance on his nerves. When he fought Dracula alone, there had been a great deal of cruelty in the Vampire Lord. Playing with weak prey, Dracula had used his power to disfigure the weaker pirate into a large ungainly troll. Such a cruel punishment was fitting of a Vampire Lord, yet this new change in the castle defied that type of personality.

He felt completely out of his element, even the bedecked ballrooms of nobles wouldn't have as great an effect on him as this castle. Fighting the undead, or standing upon a traveling ship, those were things he had come to know. This? This was an unknown that he didn't know how to handle, and having Trevor be as uncertain of the current situation didn't make him feel any better either. Amid the flashes of lightning he found Trevor's attention riveted to the windows, gazing outside. "Trevor?"

"There were no storm clouds before, the moon shown upon an unclouded night sky where I had met Juste, yet here..." How was this even possible? The wind was howling, causing the barren branches of the distant trees to bend low. Rain lashed at the windows like millions of whips while lightning lanced the sky to the ground akin to the javelins of the gods. Thunder rattled the windows with enough force that occasionally a window would burst open. The fury of wind would keep it swaying wildly before banging shut again, a storm that was the only act of violence around the castle, it seemed. Yet ironically for all the noise this storm created, it was utterly peaceful on the other side of the self same castle.

Then there was the ghost and the leaping lady, were they the same person? Trevor didn't think so given the description, the lady at the window's hair was not as long as Grant described. Further more, she wasn't a solid being when he saw her. Though one could, understandably, argue that he saw her in natural light, and it could have dispelled any 'real' form she had. But until he saw Grant's Leaping Lady, or Grant saw his Lady Ghost there was no way to tell in the end.

"Well.. what do you think of this, mate?" Grant asked, as they stepped into a darken passage, bats sleeping peacefully from the ceiling. Across from them was a large cave... How was this possible when one considered the fact that they had not gone underground? A large rock hovered in mid air, stairs having been built into it leading downwards towards them. Below that was a slow moving river, dotted with islands of carved platforms that kept a person from falling into the water. Moss on the walls provided lighting, the normal candles that they were so used to was gone.

"I think, we adapt or die," Trevor remarked as he sighed, walking towards the large rock.

"Aye, that we do old friend, that we do," Grant agreed, as he walked to the wall and began scaling it.