„So... a priestess of Isis, huh?" Makoto asked while she, Naru, Rei and Minako were talking with each other in a quiet corner of the chapel, while Usagi had taken Luna in one of the back rooms to 'get some answers', as she put it.
"Um… that's right," Minako said, then they all had to cover their ears when they heard Usagi yelling: "I DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT THAT, LUNA!"
Minako used a finger to rub her ear… one of the body parts that was still quite intact. "Is she always like this?" she wondered.
"Not usually," Naru said, shaking her head. "But you've got to admit that it doesn't happen every day you find out you're Dracula's reincarnated daughter."
"Not more often than a girl finds herself transformed into a walking mummy, I guess," Minako replied.
"Hmm, good point," Naru said. "I admit I'm curious… how does that feel?"
"You don't want to find out," Artemis shuddered. He was sitting at Minako's feet. "Every second you're afraid that your tail might fall off…"
"Artemis…" Minako said with a sigh. "They don't have tails."
"Oops, that's right," the mummified cat said with a sheepish grin.
"But basically, he's right," Minako sighed. "On top of that, your sense of smell and taste is gone and you've got to deal with THESE!" She grimaced as she pulled a squirming maggot out of her hip.
Makoto made a face. "Okay… I'll never complain about my lycanthropy ever again." Then she got serious again and pulled out the Eye of Anubis. "So… you're saying that this will turn you back into a human?"
"That's what Isis told me," Minako nodded. "I need to perform a special ritual, and I'm back with the living."
"Well, I was told not to give this to strangers…" Makoto began.
"Oh, pleeeaaaasse!" Minako begged as she fell on her knees in front of the werewolf and gave her the puppy-dog eyes… a remarkable sight when it's done by a mummy.
"Okay, whatever, I don't mind, just stop the begging," Makoto sweatdropped.
"If there's one thing she's got at, it's whining," Artemis grumbled.
Mina just smirked while standing up. "Whining, begging and groveling are a priestess' main chores!" Artemis wasn't the only one to facepalm.
"Anyways, I think we should ask Usagi if she's okay with this," Makoto then said. "After all, she's the princess, isn't she?"
"I'm sure she won't mind helping someone in need," Rei said, smiling at Minako.
Makoto shrugged and gave the amulet to the young mummy. "Fine by me…"
Minako accepted it and cluthed it to her chest.
'To be human again…' she thought, closing her eyes. 'Only to be human again…'
After a moment, she opened her eyes again and looked down at herself. "What the… I'm still a mummy? Artemis! Why doesn't it work?"
"Hey, I'm just the advisor," he defended himself. "I'm not a specialist of ancient artifact magic. Why don't you just ask Isis?"
"You bet your whiskers I'm gonna do that!" Minako shouted. Closing her eyes again, she tried to make contact with her goddess.
She then opened them again and gasped. "What the crap?"
"Minako, a priestess of Isis does not swear. And what's wrong now?"
Minako was furious. She angrily cluthed the amulet in her hands and shook it. "She… she just told me this piece of junk only works in the presence of Akmodan's sarcophagus! AAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHH! Couldn't she have told me earlier?"
"Oh boy," Naru sighed. "I feel sorry for you, Minako."
"Wait, does that mean you have to go back all the way to Egypt?" Makoto wondered.
"Not exactly…" Minako sighed.
"I can't believe you, Luna," Usagi shouted with exasperation as she paced up and down Hino's office. The elderly priest had tactfully allowed them to use the room to discuss things in peace, as this was something between the neo-vampiress and her bat familiar. Even though, Luna believed it was a quite moot gesture, as probably everything the vampire princess shouted must be heard outside as well.
"I didn't want to keep it a secret, Usagi," Luna defended herself. "It was just not the right time."
"Not the right time? When is the right time? Who decides when the right time is? You? Luna, I trusted you and now you've tricked me like this."
"Well, I wouldn't call it tricking you," Luna said nervously while crouching on Hino's desk, using her wings to support her small frame in an upright position. "Just denying you information…"
"Denying information? Luna, this is about my past! I mean, I know that was just the past me, but still… daughter of DRACULA? I mean, THE Dracula? And you thought it was a good idea not to tell me?"
"What would you have done, had I told you earlier?" Luna asked back. "Face it, it was hard enough to convince you that you're a true vampire. And then, you had all the troubles of getting used to that fact. How can I know how you'd handle it?"
"So you decided to wait until I found out by myself?" Usagi replied with a deep frown. "Yeah, smooth move there, Luna."
"How was I supposed to know that Death's child would come here this night…" the bat mumbled. "How could I even know that he HAD a child? How did he do that, anyway? And how does she know you're…"
"Don't change the subject, Luna, I'm still pissed at you!"
Luna flinched under the angry glare of her princess. "Well, I can tell this experience changed you," she muttered. "I've never believed you would react like this."
"Being turned into a vampire without being asked and finding out that you're the daughter of Dracula does things to you," Usagi remarked. "Now, tell me everything!"
"Everything?" Luna blinked. "Everything what?"
"Everything there is to know. How come I'm Dracula's daughter? What happened in the past? Has my former self always been fighting against his minions? Or has she been one of his bloodthirsty little puppets?"
"It wasn't like that," Luna sighed. "All right, I guess you deserve to know the truth… Where do I begin? Okay, it happened some time before 1450… Count Dracula met a human woman called Lisa and fell in love with her. Don't give me that surprised looks, vampires do have feelings. Well, due to the union between the two, Lisa gave birth to a couple of twins, a boy and a girl. The boy they called Adrian, the girl they called Serena. The two children loved their mother very much and grew up under her care.
However, Lisa was also a healer and knew a lot about medicine and herbs. As you might know, knowledge of these things quickly made you suspicious to the other people in those days. Lisa was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to be burnt at the stake. Adrian and Serena tried to save her, but she asked them to flee, so they wouldn't share her fate. In the end, before she died, she asked them: 'Do not hate humans. If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm. For theirs is already a hard lot." Before she died, she also asked them to tell their father that she'd always love him.
Naturally, the children were not too fond of their father for what he did to humanity. They began to fight against everything the vampire lord stood for. Adrian never believed one moment that his father would ever change his mind, but Serena was different. She knew she and her brother were not like normal humans, since their father was not human, but she also wanted to believe that he was not beyond redemption. While Adrian openly fought Dracula's minions, Serena peacefully went to his castle to speak to him. As Dracula always had a soft spot for his daughter, he ordered his minions not to harm her as she made her way to his throne room.
Standing in front of him, she asked him why he did the things he did. He replied to her: "My daughter, humanity is greedy. Look at them… do they not just look at their own benefits in life? Are they not egoistical? Do they not hate everything that is different from them? Just look at what they did to your poor mother."
"Mother was human, too," Serena reminded him. "Did you hate her, too?"
Dracula's face grew solemn at that. "Your mother was different," he said. "As a whole, humanity has failed. They are a plague that taints this world. I want to rid the world of this plague. You can help me with this, sweet Serena… or you can help your brother who decided to defy me. What will it be?"
Unable to choose between her brother and her father, Serena left with teary eyes, never giving Dracula a response. Years later, in 1476, Adrian helped a group of adventurers who wanted to destroy Dracula in his castle. Serena didn't want her brother and father to fight, but she was unable to prevent it from happening.
Dracula came back to life several times after that. Every time, a member of the Belmont clan would take up the whip 'Vampire Killer' and confront the count in his castle. Due to their vampiric heritage, Adrian and Serena lived through all these decades and Adrian helped his father's foes on more than one occasion. Serena met her father several times again, but she never again asked him to change his mind.
In 1797, something unexpected happened upon Dracula's next return. There apparently was no Belmont available, so Adrian decided for himself that he had to travel to his father's castle to deal with him. Serena was determined to stop the battle between Dracula and humanity all and for once and she too, entered the castle. She met a young woman there, who was the decendent of one of the vampire hunters who once fought at her brother's side. Her name was Maria Renard. Maria was shocked to find out that Serena was Dracula's daughter, but when she learned that she only wanted for this war to end, Maria decided to help her. She had come to the castle to search for her friend, Richter Belmont, who had disappeared after he had defeated Dracula several years ago. They helped Adrian as he freed Richter, who had been controlled by dracula's evil servant Shaft, and then the siblings went to confront Dracula.
Serena tried one last time to make her father listen to reason. Dracula understood that she wished nothing more but for this conflict to end. Still, he told her that he was unable to change his mind. "Humanity is far too cruel for either of you to understand," he told his children. "Even though you defend them, I cannot forgive them for what they did." Adrian, seeing that his father would never change, drew his blade to attack Dracula. Serena, however, was desperate. She feared that her heart would break, would she be forced to see her father destroyed one more time. So in the last second, she threw herself in front of her father, only top be impaled by Adrian's sword. Before she died, her final words to her brother were: "I have no regrets…"
Luna closed her eyes as she finished the story. "That is the story of the life of Serena Fahrenheit Tepes, daughter of Dracula, your former self. I hope you are happy now."
Usagi wasn't happy. She had tears in her eyes. "That's so sad," she sniffled as she sat down on a chair. "Poor Serena…"
"There was a prophecy that Dracula's daughter will be reborn," Luna explained. "Carmilla believes that she might be able to turn you over to the side of evil. She wants you as a secret weapon against Alu… Adrian, should he decide to interfere. And against the Belmonts and everyone else who defies Dracula upon his return. Once I found out about this, I decided that the only way of making sure that never happens was to awaken your latent vampire blood."
Usagi looked at the bat. "Did you know her… Serena?" she softly asked.
Luna hesitated, but then she nodded. "Most of the powerful vampires have familiars… lesser beings that nevertheless have enough power to assist them. I am a bat familiar… in birth, I was a normal bat. Dracula himself granted me sentience and made me a present for his daughter…" She sighed. "I usually don't like talking about my past much…"
"I understand," Usagi nodded. "But Luna… you could have told me sooner. I would have understood…"
"Thank you, Usagi… but I was uncertain how to act. I made a mistake back when Serena was alive… I never should have allowed her to enter Dracula's room with her brother. I might have prevented… I… I didn't want to make the same mistake again…"
Usagi gently stroked her familiar's fur. "Well, if she's anything like me, there was no chance she would have listened to you anyway, right?" She smirked.
Shortly after that, they left the office and went back to their friends. "Sorry to keep you guys waiting," Usagi said.
Naru walked up to her friend. "Will you be okay?" she asked.
"I'll be fine," Usagi told her friend with a grateful smile. "And I think I've come to terms with who I am."
"I hope you're not too tired… Minako just told us something disconcerting," Makoto said. "According to her goddess, Akmodan II had two sarcophagi in his crypt… one to keep his body and another one… the one that transformed Minako."
"According to Isis, Akmodan's main sarcophagus has already been taken to Japan," Artemis added. "And now it's being kept in the museum."
"And that's not the worst part," Minako gulped. "She said that Akmodan… might rise from his coffin to serve Dracula again."
They all looked at the Eye of Anubis in Mina's bandaged hands.
"I guess now we know why they want the amulet," Luna sighed.
Author's Notes:
So now Usagi knows she had/has a brother and we know why her former self died. And we learn why Carmilla is after the Eye of Anubis.
Exciting, isn't it?
But there's more... who gave the amulet to Makoto in the first place? Who told Minako that the amulet is in Japan? Why was there a second sarcophagus? And what are Alucards plans with Mamoru and Ami? Will Hotaru ever find her father? And why am I asking all these questions?
Find out in the next thrilling episode of Dracula's Daughter.
(Or not.)
