Castlevania: Let the Symphony Last for Eternity

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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"Richter! Please! Can you not recognize me?"

That was 'not' something Trevor welcomed hearing as he landed on broken stairway, before even being able to lend aid. It was Maria's voice in the distance amid the sharp cracks of the Vampire Killers at use. Unsure if Isaac was still alive, but it was enough noise to get him to rush up the stairs all the faster. Wind whipping against him as the vivid red carpet was framed by the cold moonlight washed gray stone stairway that guided him.

The normal thrill of battle was lost to the severity of the situation, as he strained his ears to hear anyone else's voice. Simon was silent but the whip cracks indicated that he was still fighting, so had they managed to wake Alucard up? Maria's voice carried concern and worry, but was Isaac being dispatched to wake up Alucard? 'Could' he wake Alucard or was he still incapacitated?

Trevor grabbed the whip at his hip, feeling the firm shape of the handle in his leather glove covered hand. The stairs came to an end quickly enough to show the long dining hall with the Master Chambers grand doors off in the distance. The way the structure worked to create a landing meant he couldn't see the ground itself, but he 'could' still see those who crossed the door or used brighter arcane arts. The room was wider than the doors leaving a wide empty space before his vision, but he knew they were there. Trevor reached the platform that revealed the dinning room and the violent battlefield that it had been torn into.

Simon was locked in battle with another warrior wielding a whip, which meant that 'this' was Richter. Maria was running into the dinning room from the Master Chambers, with no sight of Isaac though there was a clear trail of blood both smeared and flung in splotches along the ground. So Trevor could only assume that Isaac was still alive and awake though undoubtedly injured. The room was thankfully not a cluttered one, the dining table that had stretched out across the floor was now broken into large parts. Chairs were broken and scattered across the room with only one still standing off to the side. But there wasn't much beyond that to get into their way with only Richter as a threat.

Thankfully Simon wasn't using his whip as much as he could and was fighting to get into Richters' personal space. Subduing instead of outright trying to kill the man, a plus in Trevors' book, Simone 'could' learn. Though the fact that he was having 'trouble' doing that was a clear testament to Richters' strength, that he could hold 'Simon' back. "Richter! What has happened to make you turn against your duty?" Trevor called out as he jumped towards the warriors.

It was a distraction, or at least intended as one, yet Richter didn't take the invitation to communicate with his fellow hunters. Simon was trying to get to Richters' whip wielding hand, which was smart, save that Richter had knives on him. Dropping the slack on the whip he wielded, Trevor raced forward in a bid to get in range for his whip. If he could just get a hold of Richters' wrist, he could hopefully drag Richter between the two of them.

"Richter please! Don't you remember me? Have you forgotten Annette as well?" Maria demanded as she threw herself on the knife hand!

"Maria fall back!" Trevor ordered, no longer able to use his whip only to see her shake her head against it.

"He's family, he 'has' to hear me!" She argued before refocusing her attention on Richter, "please! What's wrong? What happened to you?!"

Trevor got his hand on Maria, yanking her away just as Richter had enough leverage to lash out with his dagger. Giving her the narrowest of space between the bite of the shape blade and her own throat.

Even then Richter flicked the handle to blade and flung it at Trevor to push him back before redoubling his strength against Simon. Trevor managed to side step the blade before charging in to help pin Richter down.

"ey! Who threw that?" Grant called out as he barely caught the blade that came at him. Though now that he could see the pile of people growing in the back, he figured it was the elusive 'blue clad Belmont'. A lone Belmont that was 'somehow' holding back two other Belmonts on his own. Giving testament to the notion that 'every' generation of the Belmont's got stronger than the previous one.

Maria was picking herself back up from the ground as Grant took off forward realizing how he was needed. Though in combat? Maybe not? Or maybe there 'was' as the floor closer to where he stood bloomed forth light which Grant took as a sign of portals being opened up.

"Maria! Come here lass! I think yer friend just got us some dance partners!" He called out as a Minotaur and Werewolf began to materialize in the bloom of light. He flipped the dagger that had been tossed at him, as he took to the side of the door. Scaling the wall as Maria turned and... how 'did' Maria fight actually? It was a question Grant found himself wondering considering she had no weapons or combat magic as far as he could tell.

"Grant look out!" Maria called out, alerting him to look over the other shoulder.

All Grant saw was the deep red of the werewolfs' furry mane spinning towards him like the sharp blade of a saw. Instinct made him decide dropping would be faster than scaling up the wall, as the force of impact was felt. Even as he dropped he could see the werewolf already dig its claws into the wall while glaring down at him.

"Ye know we're just trying to help yer boss aye?" Grant asked as he grabbed at the wall a short distance from where the werewolf stayed. "Don't ye?"

There was something wrong with the werewolf as far as Grant could see, a glazed hunger in the monsters' eyes. Was it doing this of its own will? Or was there something that tied into whoever kidnapped Fluffy? Not that Grant had time to think on it as the sound of galloping hooves caught his ears. Reminding him that there 'was' a bull in the room with them.

He wanted to straight drop to the ground, yet the werewolf above him seemed to share the type of mobility that Grant had on the wall. The beast snarled before lunging down at Grant while heat rose up behind him. Flames tossed his shadow ahead of him while the crackle of those flames brought him with the sound of Maria's taunting voice rising up.

"Aww come here little calf!"

Lady had looks and nerves...

Maria worked on pulling Minotaur away from the wall so that Grant would have more space to move. The huge beast was lost, she could see in the eyes of the beast that there was nothing 'Child' there. 'Richter doesn't recognize me, yet honestly, this Minotaur has the same type of stare. Its like its not here... So is someone else controlling these beasts? Makes sense giving that this would go against what Soma would want.'

Maria thought as she gracefully side stepped the Minotaurs' charge forward, while past the monster she could see Leon dropping down to the stairs. Another Belmont to help try to contain this fiasco of combat. There was an awkward stance to be in, she didn't want to lure the Minotaur into the Master Chambers. After all was Alucard awake yet? How was Isaac currently given his serious injuries and they 'were' serious.

She was no healer, but he had struggled to breath and held his chest in a way that made her worry that he possibly had broken ribs. But what happened to Richter? What happened to the cocky guy who had rescued her and the others from this castle before? Where was the humanity in his eyes? Something happened to him in the years since he had disappeared since she had last seen him clearly, something that had compelled him to take the Clan and go into hiding. As Charlotte had reported to Maria's dismay, as now she could no longer assure herself that it was merely because Charlotte was not directly bound by blood to the clan.

Now that she was here, facing him? Looking him in the eye? Maria had been so confident that if she could just 'find' him, she could clear this all up. All she needed was for him to see her, see 'family' and he would be his normal self again. Only he saw her as nothing more than another opponent, another threat to kill. There was a chill to be felt when he turned to look at her and not see 'her'. Indeed his eyes had the battle lust of a warrior who saw someone else to destroy, and as much as they teased about Simons' blood lust. He actually seemed more sedate in that aspect than Richter!

Leaving them with a conundrum, the one thing they did not know was the Belmont that Soma faced. They had a face, an image of that one who was able to kill Dracula and give rise to Soma. But was he directly related to Richter? Could they take the risk that Richter's death would affect nothing? That perhaps another in the family would inherit the whip not directly under Richter, after all the Whip stayed in the hands of the Morris clan for over a century. Yet it was a risk she didn't want to take, having to face Annette and telling her that Richter wasn't coming home. Especially when he originally did apparently, given what Charlotte had said.

"Leon, all of them, Richter and even these two! Something is controlling them and I fear it is not Dracula." Maria called out lunging to the side as the Minotaur came charging past into the Master Chambers.

Leon took off for the minotaur when instincts born from battle caused him side step the first step into the large room. Just in time to have a werewolf slam into the ground next to him, a feral gleam in its eyes as it rose up from its landing posture.

"Aye, sorry Leon!" Grant called out from above as he dropped to the ground after the werewolf.

In that instant Leon could easily see what Maria warned of, the eyes of the werewolf were glazed with a blood lust he had not seen during his travels through the Castle. When dealing with the beast men when there was more beast than man, there had been a reasonable stability in them. There would be no reasoning with these beasts, and if not them was all the Castle like this now?

Meanwhile; inside the Master Chambers, Isaac sat against the wall shared with the dinning room. Every breath was a mixture of heated flame and sharp jagged lightning that raced across his lungs. The warmth in his fingers and toes were sucked into his chest as his brain struggled to stay on track enough to summon a healing familiar. The pain resulted in his breaths being short, heated pants of agony as his eyes scanned the room through the tear filled gaze.

The young master was reclining in his chair, as undisturbed as the moment he settled back before the Master disappeared. An impossibility given his half vampire nature and the heightened senses it offered. How could he sleep when a battle took place right outside the door? Undisturbed as he was it 'had' to be magic and the only one with magic that he knew of in the Castle, was Shaft. But how could another of Lord Draculas' faithful followers turn against their lord?

More over how would Isaac explain 'this' blemish on his presence in the castle? How could he possibly explain that he was working alongside Shaft? Or rather 'had' been working along side Shaft. It was starting to feel like a curse that 'everyone' he chose to work alongside would end up betraying him at some point. Who would be next? Julia?

It was so pathetic that he was reduced to sitting on the floor, reliant on the very hunters who would see his Lord dead. Unable to fight or even try to awake the young master, who now would undoubtedly be angered at the foul abduction of his Lord Father. Helpless and surrounded by an encroaching darkness born from the beating Issac took from that Belmont in the next room. Death was preferable to this miserable existence, his every move to support his Lord was countered or turned against him...

His thoughts were disrupted by the sudden charged in presence of a minotaur its fist drawn, yet the flair of light from its uppercut provided some extra light for Isaac to see by. The large beastman landed from his punch, his heavy hoofed steps clomped out a rumble of thunder to Isaac's waning hearing. A sleek streak of gold with a tail of silver slashed across the vision of his eyes while his brain sluggishly tried to catch up. 'Is that the first Belmont? That Leon person?' he wondered passingly as the darkness finally consumed the last of his vision. Allowing him to finally sink into the sweet oblivion of painless slumber.

While Leon moved to put the enspelled and wounded behind him and the minotaur before him while entrusting Trevor and Simon to hold Richter back. Undoubtedly their holy powers would be a detriment to both Hector and Isaac, and Lady Elizabetha had expressed concern over Isaac. For that matter, if she had stayed with them would Richter have lashed out at her?

Yet even when he cracked the whip to keep the minotaur's focus on him, an eagle sized winged lizard... was that supposed to be a dragon? Flew by slamming into the minotaur as it passed by, its claws and fangs ripped into the Beastman... And while Maria was clearly very agile and clever, somehow he was having an increasing difficulty figuring out how she was a Vampire Hunter. The doves serving as his largest obstacle, since they were 'doves' and had all the natural born predatory attributes of an opinion. It was all he could do to refrain from pointing out that doves were less a threat than a pillow soaked in holy water.

Leon took the opening to check on the other possible occupants in the room, noting that Alucard 'still' slept. If ever there was a need for proof that he was being forced to sleep it was this. While off to the side was Isaac, the Devil Forgemaster was a horrid mess, even from this distance. There was a trail of blood from the doors of the chamber close to the wall. The Forgemasters' armor was in pieces, his torso was bruised and there was signs of open wounds.

Leon couldn't keep visually observing Isaac due to the Minotaur, yet his concern grew as he tried to imagine what the degree of damage was. There was blossoms of blood and he worried that he saw a peak of bone sticking out of the mans' chest. Granted he had no history or knowledge of these Forgemasters, but it was not as though he was blind to the man's situation. He was clearly devoted to Mathias, for better or worse, and was doing all he could to support his master.

Yet it was as though the universe would not permit him a moment to bask in any appreciation or acknowledgment for that devotion. Rather he spent more time being protected by his Master and made to appear ineffective, something that clearly bothered him. Given what Leon had picked up in the conversations, Isaac's sanity was preconceived to be off center and potentially dangerous. Only to see none of that created an interesting line of thought. If time was a straight line, and 'this' was the event that sent Isaac into his fall into madness, did that extend to the rest of the clan?

The minotaur produced a large battleaxe with a vivid green handle while sizing up Leon. Thus forcing Leon to step over to put the door behind him in the event that the minotaur charged again. Otherwise the beastman 'could' charge directly, or close enough, to either incapacitated occupants in the room, which wouldn't do at all. Behind him he could hear a series of rapid steps, telling him that someone was running up from behind. Yet the sound of the shoes coupled by the weighted steps told him it wasn't Maria.

"Leon!" Hector alerted the hunter of his presence, stopping to check on the situation in the Master Chambers. Which wasn't terrible, save the trail of blood from Isaac, which meant making the other Forgemaster his priority. "I will see to Isaac and check on Alucard! You need not worry about them!"

He didn't give Leon a chance to answer before he focused on dispelling the energies that kept Crimson here so that he could bring forth Comet Star. The rush of magical energy was unique among the various branches of Familiars that he had. That difference between summoning the powerful, dominating dragons when compared to the often mischievous, always playful Fairies. As the little spirit materialized, in its bright pinks and yellows, he walked quickly to check on Isaac.

The injuries were severe, there was vast bruising and signs of fractured ribs if one was not nearly protruding from the chest from what he dared to check. "Comet, are those injuries within the realm of what you can heal?" he asked quickly, as Comet served as his strongest healer among his fairies. If this was beyond his Fairy then he was at a loss in terms of healing options.

So seeing the wincing expression on Comet didn't reassure him, even as the Fairy gave a tentative nod. When near soulless constructs didn't look at least neutral, it was a reason to be alarmed in Hectors' book. "Work on healing him then, I will be over there checking on Alucard," he instructed before turning his steps to the aforementioned Dhampire. Yet Comet rushed him, arms spread out as though to say 'no'. "What?"

"I can not move him, to set those injuries though I need him at least laying down. So that when my spells push his ribs back into place it causes less injuries." The Fairy explained as it dipped down and flew towards Isaac on dragonfly like wings.

Nothing like having a familiar who was the healer while the master was just running roughshod over proper healing procedures.