Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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The city was old, and there were deep shadows where the older parts of the town wasn't immersed in night life induced light. It bordered the night clubs and it was natural for students to stumble into such darken alleys. The buildings were laid out almost mostly straight at the heart of the city, but as it spread out into the outlining areas where hills were more prevalent they began to lightly sway side to side.
But looks could be deceiving and the Dark Children had several such alley's that served as their own for when they needed to let their hair down. Alleys that were currently empty and the reason had brought Alex here. His students were present and accounted for but what he learned though his students had been anything else save reassuring. The current absentee status was due to the Dark Children having trouble dealing with humans.
The human friends of the current Dark students had retreated into the wilds with their friends to help settle down a strange occurrence that was taking place. Willow had cited a strange taste in the air, recycled 'like an air conditioner in a building'. So the parents of the student Dark Children were becoming anxious and growing dangerously close to lashing out. The students were trying to keep them settled down and the human student friends had gone to help them. All of it confirming Valencia's warning, that Europe was cut off from the natural order.
Now Alex walked the street alone, having comforted the little sister of a student from the art department.
"They tried to take my big sister away!" She had yowled, curled up in terror at the back of a cell in the local police station. The small Werecat had effected a near full transformation after the cult came for her older sister. Her dark brown fur was spiky as fear consumed her, while the rest of the station looked upon her like a monster.
The big sister was a normal human, the Were had been turned when playing with a fully transformed werecat that had bitten her for being too rough. It had taken work to sooth the child back into her human form and out from under the thin sheet blanket she had hidden herself under. Thankfully it had been dark, and the cops were eventually dissuaded into believing that they mistook her as a cat monster. Wild brown hair, and baggy clothes had helped in their 'mistake' coupled with their focus being also divided by concern for the older sister.
"Oh this is good, we won't be coming back empty handed after all."
And while Alex would liked to have said that he would have heard the guy behind him if not for the music. Well, he wasn't a Dark Child with heightened senses. In the end he was merely a Dark Child Vampire Hunter. A hunter who was fortunate enough to find possibly the group that had started the earlier mess.
'Odd given that they've been hunting a certain age bracket. There's not enough light for them to mistake my age given how I move..' Alex thought as several more men began stepping out before him.
"Good thing we're not on age restriction anymore," a voice from behind him on his left commented.
'Can't use a gun, people would hear and guns are outlawed... So how do you plan on forcing me to do as you wish...' Alex thought as the men began to converge on his location in a triangle formation. "Now now, isn't this a little rude?" he asked as he stood there. Light was sparse, just tired yellow bulbs that hung over various doors down the alley of the buildings doors. Not every door held such a light, just enough to fill the back alley with enough shadows as to help any literature student with their assignments with a spooky looking setting.
It would be easy to write the approaching strangers off as the garden variety of vagrant, aimless criminals. Save he could sense the holy relics on their person in how it danced along his senses. They were loosely prepared to deal with the Dark Children, implying they knew there was more to this alley than the others. Or perhaps the reaction of their last attempt at kidnapping had awaken them to the nature of this place.
Something that Alexander couldn't suffer them to learn and escape with the knowledge of. Granted he didn't know if they had called in to home base yet, mentioning 'empty handed' made him want to believe they hadn't. That they would hold off on reporting failure until the last possible moment, giving him a chance to deal with the issue himself.
Alex couldn't suffer to let these guys either leave or survive. They knew of the alley, they knew Dark Children were active and here. There really wasn't a reason to let any of them to live, and while he 'wanted' to capture them for information. Alexis had already shared the system of information in the group. If this was the same cult, they would know nothing because only the lowest level of the groups took part in the kidnappings. But while they were saying 'not on age restriction anymore' it would imply there was usually age requirements.
If this was merely a human trafficking group that handled the more Dark Child aspect of the trade... well either way they needed to die. But were 'they' all just human?
"So what's the occasion boys?" Alex drawled out casually as his phone vibrated and he pulled it out to see a fellow teachers' name and number on the screen. "You'll excuse me right? Won't be more than a moment..."
So of course this group of rough thugs would react violently, the pair behind him rushing him. Alex shoved the phone back into his coats' inner pocket while side stepping the sharp downward slash from a lead pipe aiming for his head. Yet in the whistling of the air from the pipes' passing he felt something as thin and light as spiders' silk. Something that came onto his radar more strongly than this physically present group of would be kidnappers.
The sixth sense that developed through generations of family that lived in life or death situations was not ever quieted. Even when being a professor. Someone was watching them, from a vantage point that would not be readily accessible by humans. With local Dark Children knowing about Alex to a degree it raised the question of who this observer was.
But first things were first, even if it was trash.
"You know guys, this isn't how you introduce yourself," Alex pointed out casually as the guy behind him on his left tackled him. It wasn't much, an attempt to drag Alex into a headlock and break Alex's center of gravity. Which was a smart ploy, and undoubtedly worked on many targets, save Alex was trained to fight. So it wasn't much effort to roll with the move and send the man flying forward into his oncoming associates.
Though now he had potential bigger fish to fry... 'So now do I spend my time tormenting this group of idiots or do I wait for our new little 'friend'?' Alex pondered as he dropped the temperature of the pipe. Steam started rising from it as the temperature was plunged so hard and fast downward that the man yelped in pain and dropped the pipe. A smart move and one that showed the level of awareness he had, some people would be so startled they'd just hold on to the thing. Leaving it in their hands long enough for the metal to freeze to the flesh. Instead he got to watch as it shattered when it hit the ground, chunks of thick metal now in pieces. While at the same time he dropped the temperature to the shoes turning the rubber soles into brittle chunks that broke as the men tried to take a step.
Trash was trash though, and this group would only move on to another area, another person stolen from their lives. Tormenting would certainly be fun, a brief bit of torture to put them in their places about the forces they were so ambivalent about. Regretfully he realized that he didn't really have time to play with this group of would be kidnappers. Willows words, which had confirmed Valencia's warning came back to him even as he fought.
'Recycled' wasn't a new word, but that she likened it to a human made air conditioner had a level of context that wasn't lost on him. Dryads didn't use the term to describe what they did naturally, since the world was an open space. In fact he didn't ever recall them using the word at all beyond using it as part of their concern regarding pollution or to sound more human. So using the words and connecting it to a building made him uneasy.
In fact anything that made the Dark Children break out of their normal routines made him uneasy. With Lord Alucard missing there was a concern about the mutual absence of both King and Prince that had yet to be addressed. After all, no matter how the LeCarde clan tried to play it off, they weren't 'technically' human either. He could walk and talk and appear as human like any other human or Belmont. But the clan was like the Belnades clan, Dark Children masquerading as humans and just as likely to be subjected to the same rules and expectations as any other Dark Child.
Their loyalty to the Prince notwithstanding.
"What the hell? Hey use the Cross..."
"Vamps don't use cold!" The men fell back, their feet moving about with all the graceful light steps of an awkward newly born foal. The soles of their shoes were now beyond frost bitten and the ground was in an dirty old alley.
"Shhh, you'll alarm the residents of this little town," Alex chided gently as he began dropping the temperature further around the faces of the men. 'Those video games have the right of it on dealing with noise...' he thought as he raised an ice barrier behind him and one behind the men before him. Flesh piercing shards of ice materialized and rained down upon the men as they pawed at the masks of ice. Air cut off, vision distorted, they just as quickly ran into walls out of misdirection as fell to their knees in desperation.
They never had to deal with a fully trained ice wizard.
They never would have the chance again either...
Because once enough of the body was frozen to the right temperature, shattering them left nothing for anyone to notice in the morning. Sure the Children would smell the blood once they returned to the alley, and while rare it wasn't unheard of. It would also re-enforce the fact that they had a teacher looking in on them from time to time. So the cold spread down these would be kidnappers necks necks and into their shoulders... down and further. Ensuring that by morning they would eternally be looked for and never found.
Yet this wasn't the 'threat', this group was harmless as far as he could feel. Their movements and placement was clunky and unoriginal. Just hired thugs that had been kidnapping kids for some sick trafficking scheme. He could handle these types by the boat load and not miss a beat. But that sense of being watched.
Now 'that' was worth his notice.
Depending on what the stranger was, Alex was either out or totally in his element. Vampires, fish folk, undead, those who were already touched by the chill touch of death were stronger against his type of magic. Warm blooded living Children were weaker unless it was a fire based Child which it was a matter of age thus power.
He pulled out his phone while he stood bracketed by ice sculptures of dead men frozen mid collapse to the ground. From there he pulled up the text function.
Call the police if you don't hear from me in the morning.
He tucked the phone back into his coat pocket with one hand while the statues about him began exploding from the conflict of comparably warmer air about the statues and the increasing cold within. "Hmm, Sub Zero had the right of it.." He noted he start to run further down the alleyway and away from the more active part of the town.
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The end of the alleys stretched out into the current construction areas of the town, buildings that had started to crumble didn't have the necessary yellow lights. The trash and litter that had been mostly cleaned up for the rest of the alley was more prevalent here, causing Alex to slow down. Better to slow it than to twist or break an ankle. The stench from the occasional trash was gone leaving only the night air, and a construction site on both sides of the alley.
There was only moonlight for him to go by as he looked about. Neatly piled to the side were a series of metal beams, along with stacks of stone, the usual assortment that was used to put up buildings. While out ahead he could feel the vampires' presence just outside the city limits, beyond the city there was a rolling field. Further ahead was a wall of trees, that served as a wall for other werekin who needed time outside of the city.
Alex stopped at the edge of the city, breathing hard, he thought about where he would have the best chance of seeing this person. Nothing moved out of place in the area, as still as a graveyard this place. While shadows stretched out all around him.
One moment he stood staring off into the distance, the next a shadow was pulling him into the ground. Trained responses kicked in, causing him to immediately try to pull back from the shadow around him, only how did one free something that lacked any mass? It was an irritating weakness, but no one, even the Belmonts were 100% fool proof. At least when taken unawares, it was another thing when one 'knew' they were going into a hot bed of undead activity.
Instead he sank into the ground unable to give voice and his hands unable to grapple anything that could help him free himself. He was consumed into an airless darkness, which wouldn't bother a vampire. His lungs were just beginning to ache for air, more quickly than normal given his run through the town's alley when he was suddenly flung.
"Well, look at this... the 'Vanguard'. Supposedly one of the protectors of our prince, and yet you're living the comfortable life of a professor." The voice hissed into his ear, though the darkness continued to hide where the speaker was physically.
Alex couldn't breath...
"We could understand the King, he's dangerous as only is right and proper of such the Lord. But the Prince was our leader, the one who spoke to his father and by his fathers' leave commanded us!"
Alex lashed out with his ice, desperately trying to figure out if he was in a pocket dimension, or if he was just surrounded by a bubble. Only his powers never reached anything, for all his desperate awareness this vast empty space was just that. Vast, empty, space.
His lungs ached as it struggled to find something to inflate it. He couldn't even tell if his vision was all darkness from lack of air or the shadows. All he could see was endless darkness with false stars that came from lack of air. The words beat themselves around inside his skull telling him how much danger he was in. 'Our' also warned him that it wasn't just one, there were more angry Dark Children around. But where could these Children have come from? He couldn't place in his desperation a single one with shadow powers. The local Dark Children were supposedly still retaining some calm...
The tips of his fingers began to grow numb, the strength to even hold up his arms waning with the starbursts that illuminated nothing blurred. When suddenly he could feel the cool night air brush against his face. His throat was released enough allowing him to grab a much needed gulp of air. Pinpricks of tears sprung up in response even as the stars in the actual sky slowly came into focus.
"What do you have to say for yourself you traitor?" The voice was deceptively young due to the long life spans that several of the Dark Children were blessed with.
"Not a traitor..." Alex gasped out. "Doing as bade," he choked out as he struggled to find the speaker.
"'Bade'? You expect us to believe that the prince bade you to sit on the sidelines here? Its' not for the sake of the King, he's in Japan. Your failure to protect the prince shows you can't handle such a lofty detail as protecting the king. Hence why you're here, clearly the Prince knew that he couldn't trust you with a serious responsibility." A new voice, female to the other's male retorted sharply.
Alex hung suspended in the air as he continued to struggle, his vision was back, but the shadows were now pinning his arms down. 'They blame me, would they go to Japan if they could? I can't afford to tell them what they want to know though. How do I calm them down?'
"The duties entrusted unto me by Lord Alucard are to ensure the safety of the Dark Children. He has been serving his father, protecting him from cults who wish to disturb the Kings' rest. But I won't lie, he's missing yes, those who conspired against the King have captured the Prince. My allies are working to find him though. So please, be patient Lord Alucard will be returned to us. You must believe me." It hurt to talk, as the shadows began to tighten once more around his throat.
"Your allies are the very same hunters who have slain our King! You expect us to believe the hunters would protect one of ours? You sold us out and think we will blindly trust you?!"
