Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Back down in the vault, the quiet was proving to be a comfort for Julius, no screams of the dying or cracks of the whip. Leon's rage had this quality of setting Julius on edge despite not being the target of said rage. Now that the man was gone... 'Wait, is Leon the 'only' plush toy storing the soul of my family? What about the others?'
The possibility of Yoko pulling off the impossible was tempered with the reality she 'could' manipulate souls. Having extracted them from Soma and transforming them into weapons. 'We need to have a talk...' he thought as his gaze sought something to distract his brain.
Dionysus was to the side of the room, pushing shelves back into place on his own. Julius watched as the man put the shelf up then went about to each item. There was a gentle touch to how he lifted them up, a visible flinch at the rattle or the visible crack in a box exterior.
"Has anyone spoken to you about the outside world since you imprisoned here?" Julius asked as he moved as carefully around the many items as he could.
"No one spoke to me," Dionysus recounted, his voice weighted and rough around the edges. "In fact I only received a visitor recently. A stuffed dog that, while unable to speak like Sir Belmont, was able to convey that he is another of your kin."
'Oh God, Yoko what did you do to my family?!'
"I bade him to find the journals I left explaining what had transpired, but I honestly did not expect to live to see you again. I figured that if a threat came to the Vatican the plan would be to have me exterminated. Indeed I didn't think you could refrain from killing a vampire on sight." Dionysus explained as he lifted a small wooden pipe and wept at the long crack that traced from the mouth to the tip.
"While I do have a compulsion, its only against Dracula," Julius explained as he joined the man in his work.
"The dog arrived having hidden under the cart that was brought that carried the supplies to look after me. I thought he was you at first, but he corrected me... A little husky looking puppy," Dionysus explained. "A vampire somehow figured out how to infiltrate the protections of the Vatican. He's posed as humans time and again, and... Well the reason those thralls exist is because of him. He went to each of them, preached about how the Dark Children needed our Lord." The popes' fingers curled into fists.
"From what I've learned recently, so long as a vampire does not kill when they feed they don't get the punishment we associated for ages." Julius agreed as he rested his hand on the man's shoulder in sympathy.
"So many Brothers and Sisters who thought they were doing our Lords' work... But that's not what they were doing. They would approach no differently only then a switch would go off in their minds... The Vampire did this, he has twisted the Church to seal we Popes' away. Creates circumstances so that we appeared to be in too great a danger if we left... All 'for the church' all for the sake of our followers..."
"I had no idea it was happening when you left, and when I started piecing things together after you defeated Dracula... That switch went off in the thralls. I was drugged and given my age no one probably thought anything of my behavior. They locked me down here and I have no idea if my predecessor has any clue about my continued existence."
"Do you know who that vampire is?" Julius asked, 'why is he playing a pronoun game? Is the Vampire his sire and forcing his silence? Oh God.' "Is he your sire?"
"No, I don't know the method they turned me, but I don't know who the vampire is in question either. He's been hiding himself, posing as a different person every time. He comes to us as a lowly preacher, and works his way to a high rank. What are we to do? Deny our earnest brothers because a vampires' machinations?" Dionysus asked looked over his shoulder at the hunter. "He doesn't enter the clergy as the same race or came from the same part of the world either. And he's got outside help, he's done something to the oils that the Belnades created... Julius...?"
"Yoko needs to hear this I think... Alucard as well... However, given the current situation I'm unwilling to leave you unattended. I've seen thralls across a spectrum of behavior and I'm not willing to risk possible sleeper agents."
"Sleeper..." Dionysus briefly wanted to joke about how this wasn't a James Bond movie only the joke wasn't enough to raise the pall off his soul. Even as the words formed the realization that Julius was right dragged it back into the murky depths of sadness. "Of course. Do you know which of your family members visited me? He was in the body of a plushy husky dog."
"I...no no." Julius answered, it wasn't just Leon whose shell was made by the castle... There were 'others'... "What about my ancestors that was relocated onto the grounds?" Julius asked in an effort to avoid the thought that Yoko stuffed the souls of his ancestors into her toys. 'If she passes that trait on... No. Just no I refuse to be denigrated to that level!'
"I am fairly confident that whoever is behind this was already active before I was made pope." Dionysus theorized, "even when I was a priest there were little things that felt off when compared to how they were done before. I suppose those not of the clergy would be unaware of them... But they were there... We were being instructed to deflect questions about why policies were starting to shift to isolating the pope to the Vatican exclusively."
"So whoever here may have developed an immunity. Soma can walk the grounds despite his trip through the Castle having awakened his own vampiric nature. But he hasn't actively drank the blood of innocent people... While you're doing quite well despite what you just were, subjected, to..." Julius noted patiently. But it was the truth, Dionysus had drank the blood of an innocent child but the shields his ancestors created had not...
'He's already here though... is it...' He frowned at the thought. "The shield... I was told it was meant to cleanse the area of evil... But if drinking the blood of innocent people is viewed as evil by God. Yet the shields are doing nothing..." Julius asked as another shelf went back up.
"No, it was meant to keep them out, but there is no punishment in place if someone commits evil once they're already on the ground. Also God does not punish for..." The hands shook as Dionysus slumped against the shelf.
The mans' sobbing was enough to silence Julius as the recent past played again in the man's mind. He looked about the room only to lose the battle against instinct and his gaze went back to the poor boys who had been killed. "You didn't want them dead, or killed them yourself..." Beyond that Julius could find no words. 'Don't blame yourself', was such an ice cold phrase. These children died, platitudes meant nothing on the heels of such senseless slaughter.
A few more relics were placed on shelves though Julius couldn't stop flinching at all the noise it made. Were they broken? Just naturally in pieces?
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Meanwhile; Leon's return to the castle with the thrall still in tow had been uninterrupted. The maids nearly fainted as they saw all the blood on him. Several began rushing about and were soon stalking Leon with a stack of large fluffy towels and two were carrying a massive bowl of clean water. It was quiet for Leon's part, outside of the soft clatter of the maids shoes or the slosh of water everything else was just background noise.
Of course the portal wouldn't take him directly to Mathias or Alucard, yet perhaps that was for the best... As he finally stopped and looked behind himself... 'I'm a mess.' was the only real thought he had on the red stained wet fur he now wore. His tail appeared as a wet paintbrush of the deepest hues of red, and flicked a few drops away that caused the maids to flinch.
"My apologies..." he finally paused and the thrall had the sense to do so too as the maids caught up.
"Thank you!" Thus they set upon the poor lion and began wiping and washing the blood off his fur.
Despite their flurry of activity he could see the Thrall standing behind him. The Thrall was looking around with a degree of seemingly earnest curiosity. Yet his features were blooming into an increasingly red hue... From there the thrall began rubbing his head as though struck by a headache until his veins began to bulge.
Alarmed Leon pulled away from the maids, ignoring their dismay before they tried to chase him down. Yet one, one with the towel, seemed aware of his mounting alarm and turned to see what he was looking at.
"Well fuck..." she groaned as her arms fell to her sides.
Hearing a maid use such language was enough to make Leon pause and turn to look up at her for a split second. In the back the Thralls' increasingly plight swiftly recaptured his attention as the blood began to swell into the man's head.
"What... What is going on..." The thralls voice became thick as he turned to look at the quartet as though someone could explain things to him.
"Alucard! Someone!" Leon roared out, the fact that this was a Thrall was momentarily lost on the man. The Thralls eyes, red hued though they were, was confused and frightened, as human as any other that Leon could ever met.
Fingers ballooned out and before Leon could try to elaborate his plight the thrall's head exploded. The eyes popped out with force and was sent flying with bloody nerves trailing behind it. Leon, who was extremely limited in his knowledge of the human anatomy, was struck silent as the skull fired out, the sound of bone striking stone scraped the air as the brain matter rained down.
"Why..." Leon asked while in the distance behind him, he could hear the quick but measured clips of a pair of well crafted shoes on carpet.
The maids were in various states of annoyance, muttering among each other about having more to clean. When suddenly they went ram rod straight before they turned on a dime and began to curtsy, each giving a demure, "Young Master."
"I see you have been busy," Alucard noted as he took in the smell of fresh blood in the air, and the mess of a corpse with newly exploded head. More over Leon was an absolute mess, he reeked of fresh dark child blood! So much so that Alucard couldn't tell if he had been in 'that' violent a battle, or if he fell in a vat of blood by accident.
"The Vatican has been compromised..." Leon answered as he turned back to the thrall. "The church was filled with such people. Yet you have been to the Vatican... Did you not know about this?" He asked before glancing back up over his shoulder to look at Alucard. Only for a towel to get dropped on his head!
"When I aided sealing my father away, I sacrificed a great deal of my power in doing so. Only here does my powers awaken in their fullness. Also I have not visited the Vatican in any great amount until after my father's reincarnation started approaching age. Yoko was more prone to leaving the church and visiting me on my estate." Alucard explained simply before he walked around the maids and studied the corpse.
No different than any other, the body began to rapidly decompose. The robes were that of the ground level priests of the Vatican, a belt that held a cross that damaged not the body or the robes worn...
'So not one who had sinned...' It brought to mind the priest who haunted the little confessional room that occasionally appeared.
"Why did you bring him here?" Alucard inquired as he stood there turning back to Leon as the maids continued working on cleaning the former knight up. It was clearly a losing battle, the water they were using was already a strong pink tone and Leon was just heaving sigh after sigh.
"I found him on my way to the vault, he was probably the only truly normal acting Thrall I encountered. With an interesting story to tell. Apparently there is a movement within the church to install a 'Vampire Pope' to serve as a Dark Child equal to the current Pope."
Such a comment was met with silence as Alucard mentally attacked the logic of such a thought or desire. Humans didn't have any true education on what being a 'Dark Child' was. It was reasonable for them to desire simplicity. Making a Dark Childs' life the same as a human. Save that Alucard, who already had an extensive life span, was perfectly aware of human failing. Humans couldn't even like each other as a unified front, and they supposedly wanted to... Pushing the ridiculousness of such a thought aside he refocused to more likely possibility.
"Were such an act taken by a sincere human I could understand. For they do not understand how our world functions. However; I would more likely suspect it is our current enemy, preying upon that very weakness that mankind has in your ignorance of our lives."
Leon nodded when a pair of maids started rising up with a large tub between them... was those wheels at the bottom?
"How fares Mathias? I haven't seen him since he cast the spell that allowed this to happen..." Leon asked as he swished his tail, while trying to ignore the weighted rolling of the tub. Somehow being given a bath felt mortifying despite being a lion and no longer in his human body.
Alucard didn't say anything as the maids began trying to hoist Leon into the bathtub. He took a step back though as the undead worked, though the size of Leon's body caused the tub to spill water over the sides and onto the carpet. Angry and annoyed voices rose up from the maids as they complained about the extra work. Instead he coolly stepped further back until the thin pool of water finally gave up chasing his shoes.
"He still lives and is resting as before." Alucard replied while Leon's muzzled mouth appeared amid a growing mountain of suds.
"His Holiness asked to see him, and while this may be bold of me. Given the state of the city and the Vatican in general. I would speculate that he may wish to remove the seal on the Dark Lord."
Amid the twin walls of the hallway the landscape paintings of the outside suddenly had a guest. As Soma appeared in a day light painting of the lake, with only blur lines chasing him to indicate how he got there.
Allowing Soma to die was a thought that danced in the back of Alucards' mind. Were he to do so Alucard wouldn't have to bother with all this complexity. If the situation in the Vatican city was 'that' dire he could freely leave the castle. As it was, leaving the castle would reduce his strength back down to what it normally was. Staying and he could command the forces of Darkness to start intervening on whatever catastrophe was taking place at the moment.
"I will visit first to ascertain if that is the truth. Should it be, I will bring him to the Pope so that he may remove the ring." Alucard announced, "be that as it may, LeCarde is currently with my father, as well as the younger of Brauners daughters."
"The elder?" Leon asked as zombie fingers scrubbed his chin.
"Chose death over submitting to the LeCarde, the younger is," Alucards' head tilted slightly as he weighed the better option of labels. "As close to an innocent civilian as I can discern, even under my will she confesses no level of duplicity. I suppose this is just more modern naivety," he noted before he turned on his heel.
"Am... am I seriously receiving a bath in the middle of a hallway?" Leon finally asked as he looked among the maids.
"We can't have you smearing blood everywhere..." one maid pointed out as she worked on his mane.
"Yes, however;" Leon hesitated when he heard a low, under the breath low woman's voice.
"We really shouldn't leave temptations such as blood lying around. The master has never complained about the scent. Yet the young master isn't exactly one to enjoy temptation just lying around soaked into rugs and such. Hunger and all..."
"Oh... I... Forgive me," Leon sat down in the tub and resigned himself to the scrubbing he received as the world became a rainbow of colors amid a mountain of bubbles.