Vlad was anxious to return home. It had been a year and a half since he left Lisa to go on his travels, and he missed her dearly. There were many changes in the world as she said, and Vlad desired to share his experiences with her. During this, however, he also saw the same old cruel acts that humans were quite adept at. In some ways, it seemed nothing had changed as a result.
Still, Vlad knew Lisa would tell him it was not representative of humanity as a whole and it would take time to see the goodness they had to offer. He had a letter sent not too long ago to give her notice of his arrival back before spring, and Vlad could only hope it made it through by the trust of complete strangers.
He finally set foot in Lupu on a mid-winter night and strolled through the village and its people to Lisa's cottage. As Vlad walked, he eyed his nicely fitted wedding band sitting snug on his finger. They had been together for nearly twenty years, and he remembered Lisa had promised to be there waiting for him in her home. A whiff of smoke prickled his nose as the wind shifted, moving towards his direction. Vlad thought little of it until he saw drops of dried blood on the path and stopped.
The blood was of his wife. He was certain of it by the scent it bore.
Feeling dread creeping up his spine, he cut through the broken fence before him and hastened to her cottage. Vlad pushed past the bushes as he did, disturbing a flock of crows all the while. He finally came into the open to see the smouldering ruins of the cottage, dropping the sack he carried over his shoulder in shock at the sight. As Vlad stood there, an elderly woman slowly came up to him. "Are you Mr. Țepeș? She talked about you."
Vlad turned to face the woman, demanding an answer. "What happened? Where is my wife?"
The woman looked down sadly, holding tears in her eyes as she told of Lisa's tragic fate. She tightly clutched a bundle of Madonna lilies, causing some of the petals to fall. The old woman strode by him and knelt to lay the bundle in the ruins. Lisa had been good to Mrs. Djuvara and others in Lupu with the care she provided them with as a doctor. What had happened to her was not right at all.
The old woman was getting up when Vlad asked where the Church was holding Lisa, narrowing his eyes before he looked at her from the corners. The woman's look saddened, her voice almost too soft. "Oh. Oh, no, sir," she turned her face away. "Sh-she'll be dead by now."
Vlad balled up his fists, unable to comprehend what he was hearing as the elderly woman continued on.
Mrs. Djuvara had refused to partake in the journey to Târgoviște to witness Lisa's execution. She could care less about what the Church or other fellow villagers said about the doctor. There was no joy in killing a woman who just wanted to help her people. Instead, Mrs. Djuvara was here remembering Lisa and her dedication to medicine.
Gone. Lisa was gone. Just like that, the inevitable had happened, and it was all too soon. Vlad had not been ready for this before he left, and he was not ready for it now. Lisa meant everything to him as a human, and it was ripped away as if he was undeserving to challenge his perceptions of humanity. Tears of blood streaked down his face, casting his head to face the ground as he recited some of her words from before his travels. "She said to me, if you love me as a man, then live as a man," he brought his hands close to him. "Travel as a man."
"She said you were travelling."
"I was. The way men do," Vlad opened his hands a little more before closing them again. "Slowly… no more…"
The woman gasped in horror as he turned to face her, his scleras the colour of blood and eyes glowing gold. Vlad steadily walked towards her, as she froze in fear. There was no point now in hiding who he truly was, bearing his fangs.
Vlad was going to do one last act of kindness in Lisa's name for the old woman. For her empathy and understanding of Lisa, Vlad ordered her to leave and take her family along too. She was to pack and go, never to look back at Transylvania or Wallachia. For no longer did Vlad travel as a man now.
The old woman backed away slowly as flames began to engulf Vlad before completely bursting into flames, sending the woman against a ruined wall as she grasped the cross she carried on her. With another burst, he left Lupu behind in a pillar of fire to return to his castle back in Wallachia.
Not long after, the announcement of his arrival back in the castle came with a loud whoosh of fire that shook the entire structure. Vlad hurried to a part of the castle where his studies of magic were conducted, clothed once again in his familiar tunic and cloak. Footsteps came up from behind him with eagerness.
"Father!" Adrian was trying to catch up to him but was quickly falling back. The young man had been on travels of his own before coming home again to the castle. Right before this, he had been slouching on his father's old throne reading a book when he got knocked off from the force of the welcome home. "Wait!" he cried out.
Vlad kept on going, deaf to his son's pleas to slow down. Adrian eventually flew ahead to stop him. "Father, what's going on? Where's mother?"
Vlad simply went by him without a word. Adrian still followed close, nevertheless, demanding answers. Finally, Vlad spun to tell him, exasperated from his pestering. "Your mother's dead!"
Adrian's face fell as the words reverberated throughout the castle. Too stunned to move, Vlad continued onwards without Adrian to his library. Within the centre of it were floating mirror-like shards that would assemble and disassemble in a constant cycle. Vlad waved a hand, and they ceased movement, forming as one. "Show me where she is," he commanded. The mirror flickered as it produced the image of the cathedral courtyard in Târgoviște. A crowd was cheering as a charred corpse was consumed by fire. Through the mirror, Vlad projected himself within the flames with a great explosion, causing the platform that held the burning to collapse. "What have you done?" he roared as a ghastly apparition of a skull.
There were cries of Satan from the crowd as the flames slowly morphed to resemble Vlad's likeness. The bishop who had taken Lisa shook before him, raising his cross and praying vehemently in Latin.
Vlad continued, undaunted. "I am Vlad Dracula Țepeș, and you will tell me why this thing has happened to my wife."
Next to the bishop was the mayor of Târgoviște, who stepped back in disbelief at the utterance of the name, having believed that Vlad was a myth made up by heretics.
"She… she's a witch." the bishop defended.
"Lisa Țepeș was a woman of science, and the one thing that justified humanity's stench upon this planet."
The bishop angrily denounced him as a fiction that justified the practice of black magic.
The flames grew brighter and larger at the response, appearing ghostly once again. "A fiction!" Vlad fumed. "You take my wife and deny I exist!"
He then imparted a grave ultimatum upon the crowd: they were to have one year to make their peace and leave Wallachia. Afterwards, he would return to wipe any remaining human life left.
Humans had taken what he loved so now he was to take everything they had and ever had been. "One year," he warned before vanishing. The fire was snuffed out with an unearthly howl that shattered glass windows and brought down a small rain of fireballs upon the screaming crowd.
The image of the chaos faded from the mirror, reflecting Vlad's glowered look until it cracked. The shards returned to their former position as Vlad went to an open text of his on a lectern. He gripped it for a second before tearing out its pages in a furious cry. He carried his rage over to the nearby flasks, smashing them to bits and breaking the table they stood on. Panting, he lifted a hand to the shards as electricity flowed through them, coming together again. One year was more than enough time to summon an army from the guts of Hell itself.
The door to the library opened. "No," Adrian objected, standing in the doorway. He had quickly recovered from the shock and caught up to Vlad after he had bluntly told him of his mother's fate.
Vlad spoke quietly, tilting his head. "What do you mean, no?" he turned slowly to Adrian, gradually raising his voice. "That woman was the only reason on earth for me to tolerate human life!"
"Then find out who did this," Adrian suggested. "If you release a night army on Wallachia, it can't be undone, and many thousands like mother will suffer and die horribly."
Vlad screamed about how there was no human left that was like Lisa anymore. Anyone within Lupu or in the crowd could have stood up for her at any point but no one did and worst of all, they cheered for her death like animals. He sunk his claws into fists, drawing blood.
"I won't let you do it," his son asserted. "I grieve with you, but I won't let you commit genocide."
Vlad growled, no longer wanting to hear anymore. Releasing a frustrated cry, he charged with his claws at Adrian. His son tried to fend him off with his longsword but was no match for Vlad's speed. The young man fell to his knees, dropping the weapon and clutching his chest. Blood pooled from beneath his shirt, and he weakly called out to his father before losing consciousness. Vlad caught him before his head hit the floor. It was a serious wound Vlad had inflicted upon his son, but it was not too late to save him.
Deep underground near the city of Gresit, he interned Adrian in a coffin with a large, stored supply of blood for the healing process. However, his son could not leave the coffin on his own once he awoke. To prevent easy access to Adrian, a stone-eyed cyclops was placed to guard the depths within. It would only be a matter of time before his son emerged from there, and Vlad held the faintest of hope that he would make the right decision when the time came.
Afterwards, Vlad sought two human forgemasters for assistance in building his night army: one east of Rhodes and one in the Sahel. Like him, they both harboured a dislike for humanity and wielded considerable magic as well. With the strike of their tools, they could bind corpses with the souls from Hell to create ghoulish creatures. The views the two forgemasters had on their disdain differed, however.
It took no effort for Vlad to get Isaac, the one from the Sahel, to join him; for he had saved the man from merciless brigand magicians during his travels. Hector, on the other hand, needed some convincing as he preferred a different approach to the scourge that was humanity. Vlad worded his intent to him a little differently, promising a controlled culling and corralling of humans instead. It was enough for Hector, and he went along with Vlad back to the castle to undertake the work ahead with Isaac.
The year flew by, and the numbers of the night army amassed greatly, ready for a moment's notice. True to his word, Vlad heralded his arrival back to Târgoviște with red skies that bore a downpour of blood that crushed rooftops and sickly foetal-looking demons. The cathedral erupted into a pillar of fire which took out the archbishop from the falling glass. To Vlad's dismay, he had found the people of Târgoviște commemorating the anniversary of Lisa's death with a fair in the very same place she was killed.
"One year. I gave you one year to make peace with your God," Vlad's apparition projected through the smoke up in the sky. He was unamused and even incensed at this display of celebration for having killed Lisa; but now Vlad was here with his armies assembled to correct their mistakes off the map. "And now I bring your death," his image disappeared, echoing his last words. "You had your chance."
The castle rose out suddenly from the remains of the cathedral and its many shutters swung open with such a force. Out came the night creatures, shrieking as they descended upon the people to slaughter them all. They attacked viciously, crushing anyone unfortunate to be caught by one. When the streets were devoid of life, they began to incinerate the homes and buildings to make sure no one could get out alive in Târgoviște.
Once the streets flowed with blood amidst all the devastation, bats and crows congregated in a visage of Vlad. He ordered the night creatures to kill everything in sight and go forth into the country once Târgoviște had been made into a graveyard in Lisa's name.
The night creatures scattered in all directions as Vlad urged them all to go into the great cities of Wallachia and kill. His voice then began to quaver with a deep and growing sorrow as he kept on ordering them to kill for the only true love he ever knew and the endless lifetime of hate that he could only feel from now on.
The bats and crows were dispensed in a flurry after the orders were carried out. Soon the towns and villages around Târgoviște became overwhelmed with the demonic night hordes as they plucked humans out of living each night one by one. In just a few days, panic spread across Wallachia and even to Transylvania of Vlad's impending vengeance upon humanity.The castle constantly changed locations to keep from being found by humans who would take up arms against him as the war raged on. As the most powerful of vampires, Vlad called upon fellow prominent vampires from all parts of the world to participate. They had gathered now in his throne room, awaiting him.
In the weeks since the assault on Târgoviște, Vlad had become rather withdrawn, spending most of it in his study sitting and staring at the fire in the hearth. He made his way from there to the throne room, standing before them on the platform that held the throne. "My generals," he addressed, holding his hand up and making a fist. "We prosecute a good war."
Vlad turned his head away as the thought of Lisa crossed his mind. To him, humanity had proven themselves that they did not deserve Wallachia for unjustly executing her. He moved to the other side of the platform as his voice grew impassioned about how they would drive off humans from the land with the night hordes—creatures of terror that humanity drove away long ago. Vlad's tone then became uncertain and somewhat disinterested, talking of maybe giving Wallachia to the night hordes as the best thing to do afterwards perhaps.
The generals looked with confusion at this as Vlad spoke to the forgemasters below him. "Hector, Isaac, present me with plans for our next steps today," he began to walk out when a vampiric Northman shouted from across the room.
"The only two humans in your inner court, and they are the ones who will plan our next attack?"
Vlad stopped and looked back. It was true that the forgemasters were not vampires, but Vlad trusted them more as they were not driven by thirst. They were bound by loyalty and intellect to serve Vlad and carry out the mission of eradicating humanity. He turned to face the court again after his explanation. "And still, they stand with me."
He finally left them there as he returned to his study, his footsteps echoing. Hector and Isaac approached Vlad in his study shortly after for clarification on how to serve him best with his new instructions to them. Neither one could understand why Vlad chose them to plan out the war since they were given no respect by the vampire generals. Vlad further explained how as humans they understood how other humans worked and why they all needed to die. With this, he sent them away, ensuring they would be respected without question as the vampire generals had no choice but to obey.
It quickly became obvious however that Hector and Isaac would not be easily accepted by the vampire generals. They still referred to Vlad with their concerns of the war as he was one of them. Things came to a boil one night when the generals clashed with Isaac and Hector over the decision-making.
"No, no, no! Dracula will decide, not you. Threaten me all you like, I will die for him, if I don't kill you first," Isaac rebuked angrily at one.
Hector chimed along. "You do not question my loyalty. All I'm saying is that our goals can be met without gleefully paddling in the blood of children."
Vlad was entering the throne room as the chaos was unfolding before him. He hissed at the court to obey Hector and Isaac and to cease the infantile squabbling. The court continued to bicker with the forgemasters and themselves, too involved with their affairs. Vlad tried again to bring control but still, the court argued on, and Vlad had reached his breaking point, his voice booming. "I said cease!"
At that moment, the doors to the room opened and brought the room to silence. A slender white-haired vampiress sauntered in as all eyes followed her. She stopped a little way before Vlad and bowed, introducing herself as Carmilla from the far Styria to join the war council.
Vlad took his seat on the throne, noting that her presence had been requested some time ago.
Carmilla stood up, confirming her knowledge of the request. She initially did not see how Vlad could have a use for a mere regional ruler like herself given the war council already had significant members and it had cost her a lot of time to find the castle. However, there had been recent news that a night horde had been repelled from Gresit, and Carmilla had now seen the disarray of the vampire generals. She felt it best now to offer some insights for this great cause.
Vlad narrowed his eyes. "And what insights have you, Carmilla?"
Carmilla stared directly at him. "Why was this new wife of yours never turned?"
The court immediately looked upon their lord as the question was one that had often hung in the air for the vampire generals. Vlad's scleras became red, angered at the audacity Carmilla was exhibiting. "What did you say?"
She pressed on with curious amusement about how Vlad had married and started a family without ever making Lisa a vampire. "Why was that? Were you simply keeping a human pet?"
Vlad's hands shook, digging his claws into the armrests of the throne. At his movements, Hector and Isaac exchanged looks with each other while Carmilla put down her final question.
"And if so, why is vampire society going to war with the world over it?"
Vlad rose from his throne, with venom in his tone and animosity in his eyes. "I will speak with you alone. Attend me," he departed for his study, leaving Carmilla and the court behind.
As Vlad calmed down from his outburst, Carmilla arrived at his study. He probed her about the dramatic entrance, with Carmilla simply stating she had meant no disrespect to him and wanted to appear with as many advantages as she could.
With the reveal of communications between her and Godbrand, the vampiric Northman, Vlad then questioned where her allegiance truly lay since she believed the reason for their contact was him trying to bed her. Carmilla gave a rather comical answer to showcase where it lay in response, which satisfied Vlad.
Finally, he delved into her denouncement of Lisa in front of the court and what advantage she could gain from his anger. There was no advantage to be gained from it, she admitted, only an opportunity to address it. Vlad once again asked Carmilla why she had not arrived sooner, which she attributed to local politics in her kingdom. With the air now cleared, he let her go afterwards to rejoin the court and help the forgemasters with the next steps.
The war council found themselves quickly reconvening with the belief that a party of night creatures sent to Argeș had fallen. They debated on whether to reattempt taking the city or focus instead on the river port town of Brăila as was suggested by Carmilla. Both held significance to Wallachia and could demoralise the human population, but capturing Brăila could prevent Wallachians from escaping the country by water. Yet, there was a slight problem with this plan in that many vampires were cautious about running water.
It was assumed that vampires could not cross running water, but no one knew for certain. And so, the discussion veered off into this, to Vlad's growing irritation. He barked a warning to the council, who begrudgingly returned to the subject at hand. The forgemasters soon came to an impasse, with Hector siding with Carmilla to take Brăila and Isaac staying firm on Argeș. Isaac then disclosed he had revived a night creature he received the night before who was from the Argeș party, telling of an attack that occurred to them on the road by unknown assailants. Given the city's proximity to Gresit and the word that a member of the Belmont was spotted there, Isaac concluded that it was the work of the Belmont and Alucard.
Alucard.
It was a name Vlad knew Lisa never liked for their son. The village of Arefu had been aware of its dark reputation of having a strange, mythical man named Dracula in a castle nearby, and it did not take them long to figure out Vlad was their man once he appeared with Lisa. When Adrian came along, the villagers would refer to him as Alucard, the son of Dracula. That was all he was to them: an extension of his father's legacy with a name no more unique than a backwards spelling. Lisa had wanted them to be more than that, but it seemed Vlad and Adrian had made their choices in the wake of her death. Having embraced their given names by humans, they now stood opposite one another with those choices: Adrian as Alucard of Wallachia, the defender of humanity and him as Lord Dracula, bent to erase all humans.
Carmilla was starting to get agitated about the possibility of a Belmont still existing; for they were once a family of legendary hunters with a trove of weapons and magic capable of wiping vampires out. It was thought they had gone extinct due to the Church, but it seemed one had remained. Carmilla called out for a reason why no surveillance was being conducted on the Belmont ancestral home and the state of the council, directing it to Vlad. With that, the council meeting was subsequently adjourned with no resolution in sight, vexing Carmilla as she stormed off in Hector's direction.
Godbrand, on the other hand, went to think about the goal of the war and what it entailed for vampires. Growing concerned about the impact the war would have on their sustenance of humans, he paid a personal visit to Vlad. This came with the swift result of him getting forced out of the study humiliatingly once he voiced his disapproval of the other options for getting blood. The following night, Godbrand rallied most of the vampire generals to raid a town twenty miles away, fed up with the rationing of canned and pig blood Vlad imposed on them.
In the meanwhile, Vlad worked his way through the largely empty castle. He passed by two soldiers, who seemed to make great strides to let him pass unhindered but felt the glares of daggers behind his back as he did. By Hector's forge, Vlad went, who hammered away at his work. He paused for a moment right as Vlad stopped at the entrance, only to continue without acknowledgement. More soldiers stepped out of the way for Vlad as he climbed down a staircase to Isaac's forge.
He was sitting on some steps, carefully studying a scroll of his when Vlad came up to him in his forge. "Isaac," Vlad said quietly. He could feel that the atmosphere of the war council was beginning to turn against him with Hector even growing distant from Vlad.
Isaac looked up straight ahead from his scroll. He had respect for his fellow forgemaster's work but thought the man was too naïve and gentle for his own good. Like he was still the little boy who could not understand why he got beaten for keeping pets.
Vlad chuckled at this, moving to sit down next to the forgemaster. Those aforementioned pets that Hector would collect were dead animals he found and brought back to life with his forgemaster skills. It was understandable that many people would be unsettled by this eccentric habit.
Isaac further explained how Hector only wanted pets because he understands them best. It was how he viewed Vlad's war on humanity—a cull and control of humans in pens.
A look of regret unsettled Vlad's features. "That is partly my fault. He's a child in a man's body. That does make him easy to lie to."
Isaac eyed Vlad from the side, telling him no one was entitled to his true intentions as Lord Dracula. Not even Isaac himself. Vlad had given the forgemaster a purpose and treated him with respect. No lie was going to change that.
Vlad stared hard at the grates beneath him that contained the core machinery of the castle. Isaac was the only one who knew the truth about his manipulation of Hector, and it was to stay this way as he believed the forgemaster understood the necessity of their mission.
Curiosity then took the best of Isaac, wondering if he could be of service to Vlad since this was a rare visit to his forge.
Vlad looked at him with the eyes of something lost long ago as he asked if Isaac was still his friend.
Isaac narrowed his eyes. "Always," he solemnly swore.
"Then know that you may be alone," Vlad warned, leaving Isaac alone while he retreated to his study once more.
In the study, Vlad manipulated some mirror shards of a different nature, inscribing runes to change location and throwing objects to test their transmission. Amid this, Isaac arrived, marvelling and expressing interest in the mirror. Vlad cryptically told the forgemaster he would learn soon how it worked when the world had fallen silent with only Hector and Isaac remaining. Unnerved by this revelation, Isaac changed the subject to the reason why he was here: to inform Vlad that Hector was coming to request approval to move the castle to Brăila.
Suspicious of this, Vlad questioned Isaac if Hector was still loyal given Brăila was Carmilla's idea, and she had been unsettling the council since she first came. Isaac reassured him that no plot of betrayal was occurring from either Hector or the vampire generals. The request to move was simply to placate and unify the court. Vlad relented, wistfully fixated on the hearth as he recounted to Isaac a time when he used to enjoy killing humans himself.
Long ago, Vlad had been disrespected by a guild of forty merchants from Kronstadt, brutally murdering them and setting fire to their homes in retaliation. However, he spared the women and children as he had no reason to do them harm. As he wrapped up his tale, Hector and Carmilla arrived as Isaac had said they would.
With a further bit of questioning, Vlad approved of the move, uncaring about the consequences of the war as long as all humans died. His mind was growing tired, and he could feel parts of it were sapping away with every passing day. Without realising it, Vlad had been a dead man walking since Lisa's untimely demise, not having fed for the past year. A husk of himself wasting away, holding on until his vengeance was complete so he could join her in death.
When Vlad had mustered up the strength, he travelled to a central room within the castle that housed a great floating icosahedron on a pedestal. Vlad muttered to himself about having to move the castle to Brăila to keep all these loathsome vampires happy. But it would not matter in the end as they would be dead as well once humans were gone. The world would be silent without all of them, except for the forgemasters.
Vlad went around the pedestal to face the shape and closed his eyes in focus, flicking his wrist in a circular motion. The icosahedron spun rapidly as it came apart and enveloped the castle in a blue light before making it vanish in a flash. It appeared suddenly in the centre of Brăila like a bolt of lightning, destroying much of the square in the aftermath of its arrival.
The vampire generals emerged from the castle with an assembly of soldiers, ready to take over the town—only to be met with Carmilla's forces. Armed with catapults, her army cut off access to the bridge and sent a good number of soldiers to their deaths in the river she had blessed beforehand. The generals fell back into the castle where they broke out into conflict once the army breached the castle doors.
As the scene unravelled before him, Isaac rushed urgently to the study to deliver the news of the betrayal to Vlad, who slowly pried his tired eyes away from the hearth. Vlad had sensed Carmilla was making her move to usurp his position to tide the war over from being one of eradicating humans to conquering them instead.
The castle shook without warning, causing Isaac and Vlad to look up. Neither one knew why it did so but there were more pressing matters at hand. They needed to know who was still loyal to them and defend the castle from the invaders.
Isaac pointed to the hallway, indicating there were a dozen so or more of Carmilla's army engaging with the rest of the vampire generals in the main hall.
"Then we'll go downstairs, Isaac," Vlad ordered. "Nobody takes my castle from me."
They made their way down to the main hall as the rumbling continued and electricity surged throughout the place. As they did, the castle began to flicker to different locations in Brăila, at one point ending in the river and inundating the main hall. The outside force that was driving the castle eventually overwhelmed the transportation system, melting the core machinery with the heat it generated. The castle ended up landing altogether in a different country near the ruins of a mansion: Transylvania.
Vlad opened the doors to drain out the trapped water in the main hall as he fought personally for the first time in centuries. Despite being weakened, he still possessed immense strength and cut down the Styrian soldiers there effortlessly. As his anger rose, his scleras reddened and transformed the rising full moon into a blood one, reflecting his power.
When the chaos had died down, Vlad climbed upwards a flight of stairs into a hall while Isaac fell behind to guard him. He viscously ripped out the heart of the last Styrian soldier and crushed it in his hand as the forgemaster caught up, having caught sight of Vlad's son and his companions. As the words of their arrival reached his ears, Vlad found himself being guided to the study by Isaac. Intent on protecting Vlad for his vast knowledge and wisdom of ages, Isaac shielded him from the entrance.
But Vlad had already decided long ago that it was not meant to be. While Isaac saw himself as nothing more than a forgemaster, Vlad saw that he held something more valuable than dusty books and apparatus: a soul. In other words, he deserved a far better fate than sacrificing himself for an immortal creature like him.
As they spoke at length, Vlad summoned the transmission mirror and pushed Isaac through it, who screamed in despair as he was sent back home to the Sahel. The mirror fell apart as Adrian now Alucard appeared at the entrance with his longsword drawn.
Father and son stared at each other for a while as the time had come for Alucard to make the rightful choice. The wound Vlad had given him a year ago peeked from his shirt collar as a scar. "Father," he greeted solemnly.
"Son," Vlad greeted back.
Alucard had decided that the war was over now in the name of his mother. Vlad countered this, saying it was still enduring in her name. His son reminded him of their previous conflict about their shared grief for Lisa and not letting him massacre the entire planet. Vlad boasted that Alucard had already failed to stop him before. There was no denying that, but his son was no longer alone anymore in his cause. Alucard's companions emerged from the hallway then, standing side-by-side with him: a man armed with a whip and a robed woman.
Raising his longsword, Alucard charged his father against the hearth, cracking it. Books and a portrait of Lisa fell as he tried to push the sword through Vlad, who delicately held the tip with his claws. Vlad moved towards his son while doing so, delivering a punch to the head when he got close. Alucard's head hit the inside of the hearth, struggling to get up as his companions took on Vlad.
Vlad punched the man into the hallway as the woman cast fire on him. It was a distinctive human magic that was borne of nomadic tribes that spread oral histories and prophecies with their mystical abilities. He sent the woman flying who landed down hard some distance away.
"Sypha!" the man cried out to her. In vain, he punched Vlad with all he could, who remained unaffected.
Vlad turned his attention to him, as he recognised the man as a Belmont, the last one of his notable bloodline. Like a viper, he delivered a quick blow to the gut before grabbing the Belmont, lifting him by the throat.
Adrian's longsword pierced through Vlad's arms to restrain him as Sypha popped up to dispense more fire at his head. He violently shook them away, as all three tried over and over to do him in. The Belmont whipped Vlad, creating an explosion, and bringing him to his knees. It was a formidable weapon of the Belmont lineage known as the Morningstar whip that could end vampires with one crack.
However, Vlad was never an ordinary vampire to begin with. Fed up with these pathetic attempts on his life, he stepped backwards.
"I am Vlad Dracula Țepeș, and I have had enough!"
His cloak fluttered open as he cast a giant dark fireball towards Alucard and his companions, which they pushed back at him with their combined strength. The force of the fireball brought Alucard and Vlad through several rooms into the library.
Vlad hissed as the two flew in the air, colliding like atoms until Alucard was thrown through the ceiling. On the next floor up, Alucard crawled to grab a nearby sharp wooden piece when Vlad appeared behind him, mocking his intention to stake.
Alucard flipped himself over on the floor to face his father. He was confident Vlad wanted all this to end as much as he did. He had failed to kill him before, and he was going to fail again.
In response, Vlad swung down at Alucard as he dodged away, staggering to his feet. He called out what Vlad had been denying to himself since the day Lisa died and how this entire disaster was just the longest suicide note in history.
Alucard ran to Vlad, stake in hand and stabbed him in the chest. "Not quite close enough," Vlad said, tossing his son through the door of a nearby room. Removing the stake, he gave chase to Alucard.
Through many halls and chambers, their battle took them until they were where the melted core machinery was. His impatience building, Vlad picked his son by the head and slammed him to the ground multiple times on a metal support beam. The beam split and sent Alucard down through several floors with Vlad following. After they landed and the dust had cleared, Alucard coughed up some blood as Vlad growled. He pushed his son back into another closed-off room, whose body hit the footboard of a bed, stunning him. Vlad scrapped his claws along the stone walls as he entered. There was no going back to this time. He was going to make sure his son stayed out of the way in his quest for vengeance.
For good.
Vlad drew to a halt as a wailing sound pierced his ears.
An infant's cry.
A flaxen-haired child was bawling out his eyes before Vlad. As he continued to sob, a warm and soothing voice from behind called out to reassure him. Vlad gasped, eyes widening as he took notice of the surroundings: the walls covered in scribbled drawings and a banner of letters, the nearby chest stuffed with toys and the painted night sky above him.
"It's your home," Vlad spoke softly as the image of the child morphed into the young man slumped against the cracked footboard. Vlad's raised hand lowered halfway before turning toward his chest, gazing upwards at the night sky he painted many years ago—just as it looked like the night he and Lisa found out she was with child. The red in his scleras and in the moon outside faded away as he came back to his senses.
"My boy," Vlad's voice broke, looking downward as he held himself. It painfully dawned on him that he was trying to kill his son for the sake of attaining retribution for the woman they both loved so much.
A portrait of the family hung on a wall nearby. Vlad and Lisa were beaming in it as they proudly held their infant son. Vlad went over to it, lamenting deeply as he addressed the portrait of Lisa of what he was doing to their son. She had given Vlad many experiences in her life that had transformed him in their time together but her greatest gift of all to him was giving him a child. And now he was doing the unthinkable to their child. For this, Vlad figured he must have been already dead for quite some time.
Vlad turned to Alucard, who had gotten up and snapped a wooden post off the footboard, approaching him. Alucard's eyes wobbled as resignation set upon Vlad's face. He had been defeated. Not by strength or magic, but by love. Even the part of the footboard Alucard held in his hand had been handcrafted by Vlad for him. Vlad had poured out his feelings in a way a vampire could never do, exposing him for all that he was.
Alucard stepped closer, slowly driving the wooden post into his father's heart. Vlad gurgled, hunching over in pain as bloodied tears fell from his face. "Son."
"Father," Alucard acknowledged back sadly. He continued to slowly push the stake all the way through and backed up in horror as his father began to disintegrate into a wheezing, desiccated corpse before him.
Vlad knew his time was running out, trying to reach out blindly to embrace Alucard who could only freeze at what he had done to him.
Vlad felt and saw nothing afterwards. Only once his sense of consciousness had returned, did he know right then and there where he was.
The grittiness of the hot sand stung his cheeks as he slowly opened his eyes to the sight of the dark, barren wasteland. The memories of his previous actions then came all at once, making him dig his heels in the sand from the weight of it.
Vlad was willing to accept being buried or sunk below the sands forever here as punishment, but not until he found Lisa. The night creatures he had summoned told him so when he asked about her whereabouts in the afterlife. Though it was no guarantee to be true given the typical deceitful nature of a demon, Vlad felt it to be the rare but brutal truth that a demon could offer. He would tell of what he had done if he found her—and if she was willing to listen. Of course, Vlad anticipated being cast away for eternity from his wife rather than embraced in a joyous reunion, but he had to. He needed to explain himself.
With the winds whipping up his cloak, he went to the rising wall of swirling sand ahead of him, beginning the arduous journey across the netherworld.
Simooms were no stranger to Vlad during his time on Earth, but he soon found himself at the mercy of this infernal one. Being a shade left him getting nearly tossed in all directions, no different than a human—a stark reminder that all are equal in death. At some point, the simoom dissipated, and Vlad resumed his search for any sign of Lisa. Evidence of any other existence other than his own was scarce given the vast expanse of land and constant simooms bearing down.
Eventually, the dunes that dotted the landscape started to flatten, and the surface became ragged with layered sediment. The black sky above suddenly opened up, raining fire and pelting Vlad relentlessly as he pressed on. There had been plenty of time for him to think he was on a fool's errand, but he also had all the time possible to do this. He was not backing down until he found her. Distorted structures with varying degrees of familiarity scattered along his path, and he could not tell if they were from here or the destruction he wrought when he was alive.
Regardless of their origins, Vlad became increasingly aware of their presence with the grisly images they portrayed. He moved faster to ease his uneasiness while the buildings closed on him, chasing him down. He stumbled, falling to his knees and palms spread out in the gravel. Vlad shut his eyes tightly. "I know, I know..." he said aloud.
Covering his ears to the deafening scream of silence, he bent himself to the ground. With a roar, he cried out his wife's name and drowned out the absence of sound. When the last echo subsided, he looked up to find the buildings gone and a trail of footprints in the direction he was heading. Vlad quickly grasped at them as he brought himself up again, renewed with hope.
Running now, he took off to catch up to the source before they could disappear in the next tempest. He stopped in his tracks when he caught sight of a ruined cottage in the far distance, not unlike the one Lisa owned. And on the broken stairs sat a woman with fair hair.
Lisa.
She was hunched over, looking down at the ground with her hands propping up her head. A resigned expression wore down her features, the brightness in her eyes now dulled by her circumstances. There was never a moment before where Vlad desperately wanted to use whatever powers he could to see his wife happy again and out of this wretched place. But this was not his realm, and he was a mere shadow now.
Slowly, he stepped towards her until he saw her shift her posture, finally taking notice of him. She stilled in disbelief, as Vlad then continued approaching closer. With only a few feet left, Lisa seemed to snap out of her shock and stood up to face him. Moments passed without a word spoken by either one, gazing carefully at one another's faces.
"Lisa... I—" Vlad's voice cracked, breaking the silence before being interrupted abruptly.
"—You look awful," Lisa stated in a slightly teasing but soft tone. "Is this really all from my unfortunate end?"
Her unexpectedly candid response put Vlad at a loss for words. Holding back his emotions, he tried again to say the words he believed she needed to hear. "I've failed you, Lisa. I've rendered such destruction and devastation in your name for vengeance. I had gone so mad, our boy, Adrian..." he paused to collect himself, agonising over what he had done to their son. "...What kind of father hurts his boy?" his voice barely above a whisper. Unable to look anymore at Lisa's face, Vlad turned his head to the side, hiding the tears that streaked down. "You don't deserve this."
He felt her hand gently cup his face, resisting the urge to bring himself to her touch. "There's nothing that can be done or undone, but..." Lisa said breathlessly. "You're here."
Vlad slowly faced his wife to see a glimmer return to her eyes. She brought her hand down to intertwine with one of his, guiding him past the destroyed staircase and onto the foundation of the wall-less cottage. There, Lisa wrapped her arms around Vlad, whose cloak draped their bodies as they lowered to the ground on their knees. He completed their embrace by doing the same and tucked her head under his.
The winds began to pick up suddenly, bringing dust into the stagnant air. Vlad and Lisa closed their eyes and clutched each other firmly, bracing for the first of many storms in their new eternity.