Let the Symphony Last for Eternity

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta: By me...

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This was probably the sorriest group of servants for her Uncle that she had ever seen in her entire unlife. The Huntress, Necromancer, Dark Priestess and the Devil Forgemaster had no life in any of their movements and had been found here, despondently in a cave hidden behind the waterfall. Passing a large clear bottle around and seemingly well on their way to being intoxicated.

And as bad as that was, they had been taking turns explaining what had been happening since Lord Dracula had issued his orders to them to find the prince. So as Camilla stood between her two pets she couldn't really fault the humans for sitting here getting drunk. If human created alcohol could get her intoxicated like sex could she probably would want it as well.

Her esteemed Uncle was 'not' going to be pleased by any of this.

The liquor had made the group's lips way more loose and allowed her to know more than what they would probably have wanted her to know. After all they were all humans who could be slain by Lord Dracula the moment he received 'this' report. There was no way she could think of that would save them from his outrage should he decide to be angry.

Because that was the issue at hand, perhaps he would be angry and slay them all where they stood for wasting his time. Or he could just accept what had happened as some form of entertainment and let it slide. Who knew her Lord Uncle well enough to make that call? So finding them here getting drunk made a lot of sense, in its own disdainful way.

Of course it didn't help when they were making the, intentionally, slow climb up to her Lord Uncles' Master Chambers that they discovered the traitor Forgemaster's final ending. She could only imagine what went through the red heads' mind as he heard the death cries of the traitor and knowing it could have been 'him'. But they were not traitors, and 'had' attempted to perform their duty as ordered by their Lord and Master.

In theory their deaths would be quick and merciful.

In. Theory.

But there was that curious bit of information that had been voiced by the Devil Forgemaster, the white coated Dracula. The idea of a human version of her Lord Uncle roaming around the Castle. Showing such generosity and mercy to even those who presented themselves to him in disgraceful states of injury. If such a mercy could be extended by him, it was possible that maybe these pitiful humans would be able to survive.

But it was that there were a group of hunters still in the Castle that bothered her more. True that the others would have disappeared as time changed, but that didn't mean 'all' would have disappeared. Any of the hunters from before would still be in the Castle, still able to put up a fight and defy her Lord Uncle. In fact, her pets could have been products of such a change and she may have had another pair by her side before time was altered.

But destroying those hunters would assure her Lord Uncles' reign would be uncontested forever, and though it was not out of charity...

"You lot need to dry yourselves out, there may yet still be a way to save you from my Lord Uncle's disappointment." She announced, using her bewitching talents to carry her voice to their ears without having to give an unladylike shout over the waterfall behind her.

Four pairs of eyes turned to look at her while the Necromancer swirled the wine glass a bit before throwing back the last of it. She poured the next cup from an eternal clear bottle before passing the glass to the Devil Forgemaster to her left.

"There are still hunters in the Castle after all, if they are captured or slain perhaps my Lord Uncle will forgive this incident. After all, you're nothing but lowly humans, you can't really be responsible for the shifting of the timeline, but ending the remaining Belmonts lineage would go a long way to restore my Lord Uncles' faith in your abilities, if not your intel reports."

"Capture the Prince and destroy the other hunters? Well depending on how many are of the Belmonts direct line..." Tera thought aloud as she swayed a bit as she turned back around to face the other four she had been drinking with.

"Maybe we should spy on them first? We don't know how many were left after all," Isaac pointed out thoughtfully. "There's only four of us after all, six if Lady Camilla is willing to lend us the aid of her hounds..."

"Isaac has a point, we can't just go after them as we are, and we'd need a stronger force if we were to try and subdue the Prince. Lord Dracula would gut us all if we harmed the Prince," Maria agreed with a slight sway to her posture.

"Heeeeeyyyyyy Isaac, can't you forge something to do that for us?" Tera asked as the idea popped into her head.

"Once you're not drunk, I'm pretty sure that they'll notice anything that is swaying in the air as being out of the norm," Iris added, just in case his creations reflected his state of mind at the time of their birth. Would be a little obvious if there was, essentially, a force of drunk monsters stumbling about.

"Like what? I mean I can make bats, those are simple, but..." He shrugged as he got distracted by the cascading water behind Camilla and her hunters. "I think they could figure out a forged bat from a natural one rather quickly."

"oooh..." the other three girls blinked, since forging monsters wasn't something they knew a great deal about and now that their brains were sloshed...

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"Err, I know you won't be liking me asking this of you, Leon but..." Grant began with a reluctant tone of voice. The group was making their way up past the library in a slow labor intensive climb, each person now having been able to tell their tale. A compiled amount of information covering areas of the castle, people met and lost, monsters and their radical behaviors. All in all interesting as it was distracting from the inevitable situation they found themselves in. When the eldest of Belmonts turned his head to give Grant his full attention he continued. "You best be running if things go bleak for us."

"Run?" Leon repeated, as the word was echoed among the others in the group.

"I know, I know, knights don't run and all that, but I be serious about this," Grant waved a hand to deflect the unspoken questions like flies. "We've fought Dracula and put him down, we die and we still bought some time for humanity. But if 'you' bite the big one? Trevor goes poof, I'll be back to trolling the Clock tower and Sypha will be a garden decoration right fast." He pointed out, regretting that he even had to 'think' of this much less anything else.

"He... Grant has a point," Trevor acknowledged with a quiet nod of the head and looked among his companions. "In the end it would come down to both yourself and Alucard to reach the Master Chambers and somehow, either by slipping past Dracula or by reasoning with him, rescue who ever is missing."

Leon looked ready to protest the instruction, his back stiffened as he looked among them. Yet he did so while struggling to find a solid counter argument against their reason why the instructions. Only to fail, because there 'was' no further option they could take anymore. He was the founder of the clan, without him everything would be lost, and again, Trevor had already done his part. Alucard's safety was a given, Dracula would not be pleased to see his son dead.

"But you have no heir currently, as such your death would be just as fatal to the future as would be mine." Leon countered looking at the four with him wondering if they some how missed that. Not only that it was an order that conflicted with everything that Leon held to be important, even if he gave up the title of Knight. He still lived and breathed its tenets and one simply didn't abandon their allies for no reason. Yet sadly, there 'was' a reason, for Mathias would start his war against humanity during Trevor's time. The people would be fine from his point unto Trevor's time, but without Trevor?

He sighed and nodded quietly in resignation as he accepted this terrible plan and felt a thick work glove covered hand grip his arm above the elbow. Turning his gaze he saw Grant looking up at him with a sympathetic expression in his sea worn face. Turning from Grant to the others he saw Sophia's thin lipped nod as the look in her eye said that she too understood the weight of the situation and was accepting her possible death. Trevor's face was similar to his wife, stern and accepting the possible fate.

So far they were fortunate that those sent to escort Alucard had backed off when they had despite the greater numbers at the time. In fact, as Leon had pondered over all the stories he had heard there was no hope that they held the greater numbers. Not simply because they were all in this demon infested Castle. But also because Sophia had seen a Vampire with two thralls 'during' the change, and given those Trevor and Alucard had encountered. That alone brought the total of active forces moving about the Castle to seven. But this didn't cover everyone, Death for example, was a force that served Mathias directly.

In the end if there was a battle it was Leon and this group of hunters against a larger sized force, made larger if the Devil Forgemaster had been busy. Sure slaying the mindless was easy, but not all those who served Mathias were mindless. His only hope would be that Mathias wouldn't be making a direct effort to direct his army. Leon had yet to forget the shock and dismay from Trevor and the others when he suggested that maybe, Mathias was 'letting' the Belmonts win.

But it was a truth that had to be faced, Mathias was a master tactician, so the idea that he would be so sloppy with the placement of troops was beyond Leon. The only sound logical reason being that Mathias had taken up Walters' idea of 'fun' by letting the hunters in. Though that would have come after awhile, because the Mathias that Trevor would have known would have been lost to his rage. It was in Alucards' shifting memories that showed Mathias' rage had eventually dulled into a flicker of its original potency.

Leon bowed his head to their expectation, that he would have to find a way to reach Mathias and either reason with him or defeat him. While at the same time looking after Mathias' son, since it went without saying that Mathias would become enraged were something to happen to his only son. He felt the weight of Sara's soul bound whip at his hip and found himself taken by the twist that fate would give him.

Traveling this castle full of demonic chaos, with his beloveds' soul bound for eternity by his side. Knowing that many generations would also carry said whip into battle, while walking by his side with the son of the man who brought about this situation. Not just 'walk by the side of' either, but that the young man was actively seeking his fathers' downfall.

How would that ultimately look, when Leon walked into the Master Chambers with Alucard by his side to face Mathias?

And that he would be doing something that would break Lady Elizabetha's heart twisted his stomach. He had yet to figure out what they had done to earn lives that brought such grief upon those who had done nothing but live good, morally upright lives.

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"I find it strange that you would call for me, Garamoth," Orlox called from the doorway far below before approaching the large reptilian being before him. Garamoth knelt down in answer, extending one hand outward for Orlox to climb up. Which was never a good sign, the Lizard didn't have the worlds' greatest mouth for speaking, but that he would want Orlox away from the door also boded badly for them.

The large Reptilian carried Orlox to the platform that rested behind his head, letting the lavender clad vampire get himself situated before they even began discussing things. First World problems of trying to have private conversations when dealing with Vampires and any other servant that was loyal to Dracula in the Vampire Lords' own Castle.

But that was where they often found themselves when they were able to even 'hold' conversations given that very fact. It wasn't possible for Garamoth to leave the Castle proper anymore given his size. Well not without the half breed holding the leash, so might as well not even bother considering the outside world a possibility. Instead they were reduced to looking for those rare moments where the guard about the place was at its most lax.

"Time has been altered, and the head bat has the focal point that keeps time altered," Garamoth rumbled from deep in the back of his throat. It had taken far too long to get Orlox down to his area, what with the Castle now whole. But more than that because the time had shifted Orlox, ever the traitor, was unaware of the fact that they had a third member in their group. With Garamoth unable to really share his perspective of time itself it meant he was the one who would have to explain. Regretting as he did so that he couldn't just give a bauble or some sort to Orlox so the vampire could remember the original history.

"Safe to assume the shift is not in our favor," Orlox inquired as he shook his head.

"Now many flock to him, we have no forces," Garamoth confirmed with a rumbling hiss of displeasure that he even had to state that. Before the time shift there was those who 'were' actively displeased with Dracula's failures in destroying humanity. But now he was the victor and the world was slowly sinking into the darkness he created.

For while there were many who bowed their heads to Dracula, Garamoth still craved domination despite being still trapped in the Castle. The Lizard Lord 'did' have the resources of his minion reptiles, at least he 'had' before the time change. As Dracula often used bats as his message system when Death was busy, Garamoth had used the small lizards of the castle for the same purpose. Through them he had been granted access to those who also hungered for the Dark Throne that Dracula rested upon.

Now they were either dead, subdued, or shifted sides to Dracula, proving their ineffectual nature as a rebellion army. "Need to know what's going on outside of this room..." Garamoth grumbled his slitted eyes focused on Orlox, and waited to see if Orlox was quick witted enough to understand the meaning.

"Well of course, though unfortunately you're going to have to explain what happened. As I have also been consumed by that time change I would suspect," Orlox pointed out causing Garamoth to curse his luck. He had hoped that Orlox was just outside the point of change that the Belmonts involved came after him. But apparently that had not been the case and now Garamoth was going to have to 'try' and be chatty.

"Castle rebelled against us, called Hunters to protect it. Our ally seal Hunter in painting, all after that disappear. Time change, you and others change... But what happen outside of room?"

"Well I guess I need to find out," Orlox commented with a nod and despite his flippant answer they both knew the severity of the situation. Orlox had his own area in the Castle, the odds of him just 'wandering around' were highly unlikely. And while hiding from normal humans and lesser beings was never a problem, hunters and higher beings 'were'. If they were lesser hunters he 'might' be able to manipulate them into believing him to be benign vampire willing to lend aid. But if it was the Prince or any he had trained they would know that to be false. And while he could certainly 'turn' a novice hunter, that still left those who served Dracula.

Any who caught sight of him interacting with lesser hunters would report it back to Dracula, and even pretending to side with Dracula's own followers carried risks as well. After all Death was Dracula's loyal servant and confidant, a loyal soul could 'still' report the truth back to Dracula if something were to 'happen' to a loyal follower.

"I guess that means subterfuge is the word of the night," Orlox noted with a sigh, as Garamoth nodded. "Perhaps I will be able to casually observe the seal? Its possibly still with the Lord and he wouldn't besmirch a vampire from seeing a captured Hunter... Beyond that I will see what I can find. Hopefully we'll be able to find 'some' advantage to the current situation." Orlox noted, and perhaps to an outsider their allegiance to each other might seem 'odd' or out of place. However; as a Nosferatu, Orlox had ever been condemned to the shadows, viewed more 'beast' than 'vampire' simply because of his more animal like appearance... No matter how hard he worked to maintain the appearance of elegance that he enjoyed, once his helmet was removed and his twisted face was shown...