Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
A/N: ugh, its hard to beta anything with a headache...
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Light struggled to fill the room against a rise of dust and smoke that had started to overtake the underground space.
Lumbering mindlessly after Sam then Max, the transformed cultist came to a sudden halt. As those tendrils of nerves snaked towards the fallen demon arm with bloodhound keen awareness.
'Not good,' Sam thought as he continued to attack the monster. If the presence of the castle was enough to finalize anyone and turn them into 'that'. Letting them feast upon the blood and flesh of an actual demon was... well. As his whip streaked outward, he coiled it around the right arm of the monster. Striving to keep its focus on them and not the free meal and possible power up.
Max on the other hand was resentfully casting an earth spell. The smoke and dust was starting to choke her as she chanted her spells. But she couldn't 'not' cast when ice was not subduing the fire as it normally should. Forcing her to literally use a problematic dusty element to deal with a problematic smoky element.
The cultists' blood had ignited into self sustaining pillars of flames. A perversion of the Holy Water that the Hunters often made use of. Flames from where the blood had splattered about were being sustained just on the dirt on a debris free ground. Expanding in size slowly and only by smothering them was snuffing them out. But with the multitude of flames from its wounds and veins, it was taking longer than Max would have liked.
So no to all the fun she had dreamed of having if she ever got into the Castle.
While Alex also charged in, despite leaving Alexis up with the civilians, the importance of dealing with this monster far outweighed returning to the cages. Ice spikes forming in the air to be shot at the monster before it could make itself worse. His ice was proving effective on dealing with the fire, but if the room caught alight... They were far underground, the passages upwards were narrow and air would be more clearly in short supply.
On the civilian side, it would cause panic if they couldn't get a stead supply of air, and was crammed into small rough hallways going upwards. Raising the odds of the civilians breaking whatever control they had going up. Causing a very possible, very unwelcome rush and leaving people possibly getting injured unnecessarily. While on the hunters' side, the ice would melt and turn the ground into mud. Not an ideal combat zone all in all to go with all the other issues being generated.
Despite both Sam and Alex pulling and pushing against the cultist, the veins from the Cultists' left arm was able to dig into the demons' limb and seemingly drank. Veins began to swell as demonic blood began to flow down the channels that once only carried human blood.
While spikes of ice pierced its flesh, the blood that 'should' have been produced from the wounds, continued to ignite. Vivid red flames began to waver into a lavender color as the body began replacing the human blood with demonic blood. While the veins that were still connected to the demon arm began to peel and pop open. Fire splattered outward from the veins as they began to burst open, the flesh that served as skin began to bubble up.
Glowing with a multicolored light as the boils began to rot into rupturing.
"Isn't it killing itself by doing this?" Max asked between coughs as her spell continued to grind more of the flames out.
"No," was Sam's only reply, grunted out through clenched teeth as he continued trying to pull the monster away. Alex's own attacks were doing some good, the monster had taken a step back in response. But they needed it to disengage completely, even as the boils popped and the flames began to burn the flesh of the Cultist.
Smoke was starting the fill the room more rapidly. The sickeningly alluring smell of steak or pork cooking on a fire, accompanied by the sizzle of fat melting into a flavor. It teased the mind by saying 'hey food' while the rest of the mind screamed 'are you fucking nuts?!' While in the growing light Sam could see that the demon's fingers were still twitching. They were slowing down as the muscles died by lack of whatever it required to sustain itself.
But it still had blood to feed the monster.
"The spear feeds off of the dark powers, but the cultists haven't been exposed for very long really. I would have thought that by now the influence of the spear would bring the monster at least marginal back to its senses." Alex commented as he tried to freeze the demon's arm to cut the cultist off from their 'food' source.
Unholy flames burned through his ice, the water seemingly evaporated before it even reached the ground. Though now having done so made Alex a new target as the cultist turned towards Alex. Reaching out with its free hand towards him...
While hanging above them, the prisoners had tilted their prisons to the side. Having rushed to the same side to see the view down below. Limbs dangled as feet slipped between bars, horrifying Alexis.
'I need to get them out of here...' "Guys! I'm going to form a stair case, they need to leave 'now'!" She called out urgently, before she backed off from the door to the cage.
Heat disappeared as the temperature dropped about her hands as she began pulling in the moisture for her ice. The fire was working against her, but her brothers' own ice spells would be a boon. Stairs began materializing under her hands. First as a large slide, then as the layers started forming, the steps began to show themselves. All the while she put up a wall on her left giving only a rail on her right. "Hurry we need to get you out of here!"
'This is bad, the corruptible nature of the castle is well known, but this... this is too fast.' she thought as the flames revealed 'excitement'. Some of these people weren't scared prisoners anymore, they were 'spectators to a sport'.
"Why are you rushing them? Let the other hunters get the ground cleared off first," Stella instructed, only to watch as Alexis refuse with a shake of her head.
"No, there's not enough time," she answered before one of the still sensible people, an elderly man dressed jeans and a button on, struggled over to her. She extended her hand to him, giving him a stable hold as he worked over to her. Followed by a woman, then several more people whose eyes showed clarity to the severity of their situation. "Its safe, I'll help you, just take them step by step."
The front lawn of the castle would be the safest, the least of the influence the castle would have on a person. But it wasn't a long term solution, they would still become corrupted and there was still the outside world.
Stella blinked in confusion before studying the remaining prisoners and slowly her ghostly heart sank. They weren't afraid. Somehow the remaining people were watching the violence below with all the rapt attention of a movie. As though a single chain keeping them from crashing to the ground and being monster food didn't register. 'Don't they understand that their lives are in serious danger?'
Maybe if they had some common thread, but no, various ages, genders, races, either they were locked into the fight. Or they were following Alexis down to the ground, and the extreme in differences was disconcerting. 'Is this what the others are going through...?' she thought as something from the corner of her eye caught her attention.
"Incoming towards the cages!" she cried out as a plume of white hot flames rocketed out of a perpendicular to the ground portal. The flames rushed straight and began melting the metal with its intensity. Instantly the people still remaining were burned alive, allowing Stella to see first hand as flesh, fat and blood melted and evaporated. Horrified, she flung herself backwards a hold over instincts from when she was alive, while Loretta flew to her side in concern.
For a brief moment the room was the heart of an explosion of senses. Those in the cages never saw their deaths arriving, those on the stairs gave cries of alarm and terror as they were flung forward by the sheer force of the flames. Burning winds with the force to send the few survivors on the stairs slipping and tumbling into Alexis.
While the light exposed the size of the room, the monster on the ground, and the living hunters. As she watched the cages melt into metallic tears and blobs as they dripped to the floor. While the intense heat cracked the ice stairs that Alexis had created.
With Alexis resolutely keeping her place in the air to help the few remaining survivors of this horrible situation. She just stoically hovered to block the others from tumble sliding all the way to the ground. The height alone was enough to kill several of them if they fell wrong so even if it meant revealing she 'could' hover. She did it regardless.
Aiding the six people who willingly followed her out of that one cage. If there were others in the other cage, they didn't get the chance to escape. Even as the flames inflicted cracks into the stairs. Chunks falling to the ground from the top of Alexis' ice stairs, Stella shook herself of the image and put herself between the cages and the people. "Go, follow her to safety!"
"They can't see us sister," Loretta pointed out softly as she floated to her sisters' side. She kept her gaze low, on the stairs more than the people. Noting the breaks in the stairs and mentally trying to decide the amount of time that Alexis had left to get these people down.
While against the distant wall, where the spirits had opted to congregate to not distract their living kin.
"The hell did I miss?" John demanded as he finished floating into the room in time to see the sudden firestorm's aftermath.
Alexander had erected an ice shield that protected himself and the others, but it was a poor defense when surrounded by so much heat. The cages and most of the prisoners were gone, just a pair of lone chains swinging from the ceiling. What was left of the bottom of one cage had struck and gouged a deep scar on the ice shield. What remained of the people inside dragged along the ice shield, bits of melted skin or muscle that stuck to the cold.
"Looks like our little Summoner got a clue," Jonathan answered, as the warm glow of the fire illuminated a distorted eye upon a hovering orbs' glassy surface. Bobbing in the opposite corner from the spirits, it brought to mind the stories about Shaft from Richters' time.
"Looks like we need to check the other areas, our living kin can handle this. Loathe as I am to admit this, Dracula needs to know this is going on in the Castle." Eric noted, his voice low with worry, "its appearing more that he's the 'humane' monster in the castle now."
"Fine, Eric, go find Alucard, let him know. Your daughters can stay here as support, we'll check the others," John finally replied.
"I'm off to the front of the castle then. I need to start fortifying safe spaces for the civilians. Or at least see if the Castle is ok to me trying." Charlotte announced as she started floating upwards towards the front gates of the castle. She cast one last look of concern for the living before going into the wall.
"Summoner is back, did she open a portal to the sun?" Max noted, as the heat began to stifle her. Between the monster and the human sized portal that was shooting out flame, and dust from trying to smother demonic flames. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult.
"I'm fairly confident that if she had, that the heat from that alone would have already killed all of us," Alexander noted distracted.
"So less 'portal' more 'the means of how she manifests her magics'? Like Max with her spell books?" Sam theorized out loud as he recalled Undead Killer. The monsters' flesh was melting off the body, revealing the bone work under that weightlifter gone roid out freak build.
"You actually 'listened'! I'm impressed! Max cheered, before coughing from the smoke and heat. "Blah, good job Sam, also on the kill..."
"This isn't a kill," Sam answered with a shake of his head, his instincts not letting him let go of this fight. Feeling eyes of someone staring out of nowhere made him cast his own gaze up. Towards the corner, where he saw the orb. Thus the other two joined him in looking up.
"Shouldn't you be doing some evil villain speech?" Alex called up to the glass orb hovering in the air.
"Yeah! Shaft called he wants his balls back!" Max called out then began to snicker. "Ok that... that was both good and bad..."
In answer black holes began to pepper the air around them set to spring open. Even as the eye of each portal began twisting open revealing a white light and the hint of more heat.
"I hope you two didn't forget leg day..." Sam muttered before he began moving forward to get out of the direct line of sight of as many portals as he could.
"Well shit..." Max muttered as she followed suit along with Alex, there was no time to count the number of portals at the moment.
All they could do really was dodge a multitude of flames and try to stay close to the ground. Now that the heat was literally sucking away all the air they could breath. But so long as the summoner didn't notice Alexis and the small group of survivors with her it was worth it.
'Maybe she's a fire and demon summoner?' Max pondered as she shut her eyes against the intense eye drying heat. 'But if she needs the orbs to see...' She thought to herself as she wove her way along the ground past the pillars of flames. Training was probably the only reason she wasn't gasping from the oxygen stealing flames consuming the air.
The walls were starting to melt from the heat, while deep gouges were being carved into the ground. Blasts of white flame tracked them across the room, joining with as they hunted their targets. 'Not good...' She realized as she caught sight of their only way out of the room. That small sliver of a wall crack that gave them entry and could be smothered shut with the melting stone.
'Can Soma even get the castle to open another door for us?' Sam pondered at the same time as he flung a knife at the orb closest to him. Thankful for the size of the room not being one of the smaller arenas. 'What do we do though? Is it safe enough for Alexis to get the civilians through the door?' The gouges in the floor didn't fill him with hope that they would be safe if they went in.
Meanwhile in one of the fire created trenches, the remains of the cultist, the demon's arm, and the metal from the cages churned together. A skeletal hand emerged from the vat and reached up towards the white hot flames, as the stone began layering upwards coating the bone with a new flesh. Primal dark energy from within the castle stirred the miasma, spinning upwards and outwards as the monster began climbing back out of this primordial soup.
Everything felt new, the way the skin moved over muscle, even the trembling in the ground was felt instantly. Sound filled his ears with loud clarity that he hadn't heard in a long time. Finally he was able to pull his head up from the strange liquid he had been floating in. Allowed to breach the surface fully, as the smell hit him of smoky cooked meats.
He looked down at himself and found himself embedded up to his armpits into the ground itself. Yet panic didn't consume him, 'how did I get buried in the dirt like this?' he thought before taking note of how his hands moved in the liquefied earth. For a moment he was caught in fascination as the ground moved in the way sand did.
'Heh, Graham was right...' he thought in mounting excitement. Bracing himself with his hands he began pulling up his body from the soup. Unaware as he did so, that the ground was forming his body as it moved. He marveled at the sight of his muscles, how they flexed and showed themselves where before they had been scrawny.
"Fine, breaks over," he commented just to hear his own voice as he cracked his knuckles in anticipation. Privately thrilled that he could. Even that felt so satisfying as he took off running, dashing through the warm pillar of light for the guy with the whip. A feral grin on his face as he charged forward.
"Guys, the Bane reject got an upgrade!" Max choked out as she flipped through her spell book in an effort to find something to help them get more air. 'Realistically he looks like he got his mind back. Which means we now have a ranged caster opening portals to a hot place and a melee...'
'Finally I can play!' she thought as she swapped out her spell books. Putting away the established books that Charlotte had written with her own book with spells she had created. She flipped to the targeting spells she had created.
Liberated from the uncertainty of dealing with what amounted little more to a newly awaken werewolf. A mentally stabilized target was much more appealing, less chance of being a beast one minute and a man the next. Now, she could have fun in the Castle of Dracula.