Let the Symphony last for Eternity

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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"Alucard, are you sure you're going to be fine?" Trevor asked as he took in the stiff style of walk that Alucard was using. Sure he was used to the self contained, expressionless style of walk that Alucard used normally. However; this situation was different, as the time line change had affected the Dhampire. It was rather frustrating as well, since Trevor was a human with no real experience in any of this to be of help.

Vampire Hunting wasn't something he did as a living, he was merely a wood cutter who had been bequeathed the Vampire Killer after his prayers before a cross. Something that was done after Dracula had made his presence known with the arrival of the monsters. He really depended heavily on the Whip and Alucards' expertise on the matter of the monsters to know how to deal with things. Yet Alucard himself was a half blood, and apparently that mixing of blood was affecting him.

What in the altered history changed so drastically that Alucard was affected this way? More over he had met Draculas' new form and been given a weapon. Which sent Trevor's thoughts in a unique direction he probably wouldn't have thought of. If not for having spent time with the Dhampire and the influence that apparently Soma had on the Castle. For that matter, if time had changed so significantly that Soma disappeared, why not the sword at Alucards' side? How could something that was bequeathed prior to the change still here?

"I am well, you need not waste your worry on myself," Alucard remarked without looking at the Hunter. His thoughts churning away on the things that Huntress had said about a painting, a prisoner in a painting... So there was a future Belmont trapped in a portrait that has caused this situation to even take place? If his father knew of the painting then Alucard doubted that he would place it somewhere unguarded. Indeed it probably was sitting in the Master Chamber for his father and his court to look upon and laugh.

"Alucard?" Trevor broke into the Dhampires' thoughts with a concerned voice. When he saw the Dhampire turn to show his acknowledgment, Trevor continued, "I know Grant is here. There may 'not' be many but there still 'may' be hunters who were brought here, should we find them?" After all, Sophia was another hunter of their time. He also didn't know exactly how many generations it was until the Hunter that was now serving as the timelines' linchpin existed. Was it his son, grandson, great great great grandson? Trevor didn't know and it felt right to get as many together as they could.

"It probably would be for the best to find them," Alucard agreed. Without knowing much about this painting in question, it was possible that there would be a need for a defensive force. The more people who could hold off his fathers' forces the higher the chance of rescuing this captured Belmont.

And then what... All the Dark Children seemed rather calm, there was far less the aggressiveness that he expected from the Castle. Honestly he expected to be challenged as Death had done so, yet any Dark Child or Monster that saw him actively moved out of his way. Bows or curtsies were given making Alucard ponder if it was some hold over from when Soma was in the Castle, or if somehow this was his fathers' own actions?

Which was the better course?

How was Alucard going to face his father at this point even? With the new memories he could recall that his father was no longer actively trying to destroy the human race. However; he wasn't actively letting it be on its own either. With his presence the Dark Children were running wild, slaying as they wished and the humans were dying out as a result. If his father was still mandating a war, than he could bring himself more willingly into this horrible feeling that he was going to have to kill his father. But if not..

Did he not have his father's blessings to do whatever he so desired? Even if that version of his father was from some distant future and apparently didn't recognize his own son?

Something murky clung to his eye making Alucard reach up and lightly dab at his eye to see what it was. A dark stain glistened on the fingertip of his glove making him pull off the glove and touch his eye again. His fingertip now stained in blood and he really didn't want to think he was crying.

He was the Prince of Vampires, a Dhampire and Vampire Hunter! He shouldn't be crying! Clearly it was the pain in his head as he was forced to continue moving forward despite the history of the world getting twisted. He roughly yanked out his handkerchief and began cleaning his eye while trying to rein in his emotions once more.

Such human failings were uncouth in a prince.

Meanwhile; Trevor began scanning each room, not for the monsters that could lash out, but for his friends who could have been turned into something. His wife as a statue, or his friend as a giant troll, there was no telling what could have happened to them. He wanted to believe they were well and he would find them as lost in the Castle as he was. But he wasn't naive enough to think they were exactly the same as him all hail and hearty.

More over, the idea of traveling the whole castle and maybe only finding two other people was disheartening. Though...

"Alucard, do you think Leon would be here?" He asked growing thoughtful as they made their way over pits that blocked their way.

"Who?" Alucard asked as he tugged his black leather glove back into place.

"Leon, Leon Belmont, he was an ancestor of mine. Though..." Trevor took a deep breath and a slight rueful smile crossed his face. "He was a knight before giving up his title when his betrothed was killed by a vampire. So the story goes."

"And the reason he would be involved in this?" Alucard inquired as casting an unamused glance behind himself and to his fellow hunter.

"Well, if the Castle originally was pulling Vampire Hunters, explicitly from my bloodline, wouldn't it pull him? I mean, the old stories said he was a Hunter... Only..." Trevor left the line hanging a shrug of his powerful shoulders that was useless to convey meaning to Alucard. As the Dhampire was again looking forward towards where they were going.

"'Only what'?" Alucard was trying hard not to bite each word out. He really wasn't in the mood for bread crumb conversations.

"Well, no one believed he was a hunter, I'm the first to ever see a real Vampire or anything. I guess the monsters just never got active until..." And that was when Trevor realized he needed to shut up, for the 'reason' Dracula got active involved the death of Alucards' mother. Trevor, for his part, was not going to go there. "I 'did' get Vampire Hunter from the Poltergeist King, though Leon supposedly also used a whip."

Alucard found himself pondering that, at the idea that the Castle could reach into the past before his father had called for a war. "Did this Leon person ever face my father?" He inquired as they reached the door that would lead out of the Gallery they were in.

"No, I'm the first to ever face your father. Though your father's amassed power and forces would imply he has been around for quite. At least, when we first met in my time," Trevor vocalized his thoughts for the Dhampire as they entered another long hallway with a series of grandfather clocks spaced apart down the path.

"Father always had an army of sorts, they just stayed in the Castle due to the Castles' nature. It was less an 'army' and just a place to live," Alucard informed the Belmont as the sound of the Castles' main clock tower lightly reverberated through the room. At least to himself, for the Castle Clock tower reached high above, down here would be... well Alucard wasn't exactly sure. He faintly recalled it as just a pendulum room to balance the rest of the tower.

"Then your mother died," Trevor finished the thought. The death that turned the Castle into the fortress where a Vampire Lord began his war. Indeed until the war Trevor didn't even know anyone occupied the Castle. But he saw Alucard stiffen and decided it was for the best not to bring up anymore, instead he let the conversation dry up as they passed clocks that swung in time to a loud ticking ahead of them. "I ran into Juste when I woke up, we should check to see if he's here. If not, and if his Whip is not here, might as well assume that he was wiped away."

"A hunter... I came across no Hunter on the caliber of your clan here, or any human from the time I arrived. Though I do recall occasionally teaching a few would be hunters something about Dark Children."

"I want to believe he might have gotten his Whip back and merely left the area," Trevor thought aloud. "But the reality may in fact be that he's gone, when he and I spoke, his point in time was so far from mine. I would find it hard to believe that the change could have happened 'after' him." It was when he actually 'thought' of Juste, that it finally hit home what had happened to Trevor.

The sheer horror of reality came crashing down, causing him to misstep and nearly trip on on his own feet like a jester. Terrible was death, that someone you may have known was suddenly gone, the scope of loss that a person. 'Life' itself was gone and that this person was now a lifeless corpse in the ground, never to be heard from again. Death was a tragedy, well and true, even as these two hunters walked, there were people outside living their lives.

But this? This was actually worse.

Once upon a future time, Juste had a life, friends, family, he lived and breathed and now? Now he didn't exist anymore, the people who he knew, the impact he made on lives beyond just being a Belmont or a Vampire Hunter was now 'erased'. There was no one to mourn his absence, to think of him over a pint at the local tavern. There was nothing.

And this was Trevors' 'clan' he was thinking about, remove the fact that they were Vampire Hunters. Forget that apparently this infernal hunt for Dracula won't stop for seemingly ages, these were his own blood kin. 'Family'. How many sons, daughters, wives, brothers, sisters, his wife's clan, how many people were affected just in the clan alone? Then there was the rest of the world given...

"Is there a problem, Trevor?" Alucard finally inquired as the stumbled footstep was not followed up. He turned and gazed down at his fellow hunter and was struck by the visible sheer horror on the Belmonts' face.

Trevor thought about all those 'would be hunters' and found himself struck by the curious thought of what they would have been. Had the timelines not changed how would they have lived out their lives? As hunters, or just common folk? "What is the world like now? My kin, my blood no longer exists their whole existence was wiped out merely through the imprisoning of one member. But I can't help but think of how this affects everyone. Not just my future kin, but my wifes' clan, the whole world, how much has life been altered by just this?"

Alucard blinked, inwardly shrugging at this strange thought process that seemed to have consumed Trevor. "I suppose, having such a short life span that this 'is' traumatizing for one such as yourself. Though in hindsight it saves you from the crippling headache I currently have."

"And being erased from existence for the time being," Trevor noted, trying to remember that Alucard was, at this point, much older. Actually... "Alucard, how old 'are' you now? You were what when we first met? You were in your teens correct?"

"I was 29," Alucard corrected shrugging slightly. "It has been over two hundred years since we last met."

That bit of information made Trevor mentally start, so Alucard had already been a full adult for some time? Though, not knowing anything about Dhampires, was it possible that Alucard just matured slowly? It had to be though, there was no reason someone at Alucards' original age could have reacted so strongly towards the death of his mother. True her death was clearly traumatic given how Dracula and Alucard reacted. But Alucard wasn't a child at the time...

So how did his mother die?

When no further words came from Trevor, Alucard turned and continued walking until the sound of ticking was as loud as casual conversational tones. Alucards' head was about ready to burst he decided, for while his memories were sorting itself to the point where pain was no longer a point. This clock, was making up for it with its loud, pronounced, ticks that Alucard could never fathom. The Chapel? Yes, his mother was still an honest woman. The clock when a simple Grandfather clock should have sufficed?

He could only assume that the old man liked the idea of an eternal symbol that eventually everyone's 'time was up'. Yet he had a clear recollection about what the Castle looked like from the outside and the Clock Tower was always close to his Father's Chamber. Making the possibility that they were approaching the actual tower feel ridiculous.

So when the door opened and they found the giant face of a clock to the left Alucard mentally shook his head. It wasn't the clock tower, just a red herring and yet something occurred to him as he walked along. Something that made him begin to inspect the Castle walls even more closely. Something that had whispered in the back of his mind when the headache began, but was now an even bigger concern as his head was settling down.

That being the structure of the Castle itself.

It had taken this form at this particular point in the time line, but his Father had been defeated multiple times before. How could the Castle retain its current form if all the history that brought it into this shape was now erased? It couldn't have been sent away out of hand and chose a new form upon return. Not when it was already moored into the world's reality, so how was it maintaining 'this' form now?

People were removed and new people replaced them 'inside' the Castle itself. So what was sustaining 'this' Castle while everything else had changed?

"I know I woke up only mere hours ago, that was from the true timeline. However; I recall the other time, where I woke up after the time of the last Belmont who bested my Father." Alucard voiced aloud and as he did so the conflicts of memories began to make some semblance of sense. "The times before when I transverse the Castle it was much different, but it never changed each time I traveled through it. Yet now the structure is completely different, despite my Father never being banished since I've been awake."

Trevor stared at Alucard in surprise at that, having not bothered to even 'think' of the Castle during this whole fiasco. More consumed with the absence of his future family members than the state of the Castles' structure. But now that he brought it up, it made Trevor have to pay attention to the structure as well. After all, how could the Castle itself defy the stream of time and retain a form that existed only after multiple banishment's?

"The Castle is connected to Dracula, does he not choose its form? So if he felt like changing its form it would change?" Trevor asked, since magic was not his forte, for that matter he was pretty sure this was outside of even his wifes' knowledge.

"Yes and no, its connected to my Father yes, but it is also a being unto itself, and until this point I would have said a mindless one to boot. However; it was able to recognize a situation and brought the hunters into its walls as a defense mechanism. Bypassing my Father completely, should be impossible for it. Though to answer your question, no, once the castle materializes into the world it can't adjust itself again in such large manners. Walls, placement of rooms, size, all these things should have been set in stone until it was banished again." Alucard explained as they walked through yet another hallway full of grandfather clocks. Yet even as he spoke, his fingers brushed against the claymore he carried and a thought occurred to him. "Unless this was because of Soma."

"Soma? The Future Dracula?" Trevor asked beginning to feel like he needed to remind Alucard that he was talking to a simple woodcutter. That the arcane was best discussed with Sophia, rather than himself.

"If I but had a chance to speak with him properly," Alucard grumbled. "For I can not tell if he is truly a 'future' incarnation of my Father, or he 'is' some aspect 'of' my Father. If so than it would imply that he is still in the Castle with us. Just the means of his freedom has been removed and the Castle is the only thing he could keep stable, same as the claymore he bequeathed me."

Trevor didn't say anything after that, for one reason he didn't know enough to say anything helpful. On the other hand, the idea of a 'Good' Dracula aiding them was not only disturbing, but distressing as well. How would Alucard handle the notion of his father being redeemable? Would he betray Trevor to protect his father? That this was a sign that his father didn't deserve being slain and he would in turn protect Dracula?