Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
"My you all look and smell rather nice, I guess that random run was worth it..." Kazu noted as he stood at the edge of the shrines' pond staring down at the group of Belmonts before him. Because it was true, there was this soft aromatic scent that was carried on the chill night air that never existed before. More importantly, the glow that he had seen only once and quite recently was now back. No one was doing any intense spiritual work, yet they glowed. A comforting light that he was left wondering if they were going to now be comparable to nightlights when they were together.
At least for him.
At the moment, however; the group were clearly deliberating on something among each other, though they did look at him as he approached. Sitting next to the small pond, with dawns' false light starting to creep into the air. It wasn't enough to defy the city lights even from here, while the chill air carried also the scent of smoke from the earlier fire. Somehow that wood smoke only added to the fragrance of whatever herbs the Belmonts were exposed to.
"We have no idea what happened. Soma managed to summon Richter to him and we were all captured," Trevor explained. "He did something to us, but even Juste can't figure it out. Do you see anything unique from your perspective? I don't see anything," Trevor asked from where he sat on one large smooth stone that followed the outline of the pond.
All six plush Belmonts sat there, quiet observing Kazu with an amazing amount of patience given what Trevor just told him.
"Well, you appear to glow the same way you did when you began helping the priests earlier tonight. I don't really know what that is... Maybe a projection of some aspect of your Aura's since I normally don't see those. Did Soma explain what he did?" Kazu asked as he moved closer and knelt down so they didn't have to stare so high up to see him.
"No, his condition is deteriorating, he was resting on a couch and couldn't even sit up. Whatever magics he used drained him, and his hand looked pretty dark now." Juste reported his voice slightly distracted as he continued to try and go through all the spells he knew. "He used words older than I know, and because I can't breath, I can only guess what the herbs were he used on us. Even if we borrowed your nose I don't think you can detect 'all' of them. Given that he had them grounded down into a powder."
"Been shaking it out still... I can't tell if its still on me, but I better not see dust rising off me when I get to some proper lighting..." Simon growled.
"I'm sorry, I thought that I was free of Dracula's control given that I'm 'dead' and all..." Richter apologized again as he splashed at the water with his paw. Within the darkness he couldn't see his own reflection, and he found himself pondering that perhaps he deserved to be a dog plush toy.
"Well its not your fault Richter, none of us knew what to expect. Even Leon and his shell was created 'in' the Castle. Its just a shame we can't help anyone given our... forms... But I'm curious as to 'why' Soma wanted this spell cast on us. Dracula was about turning us into undead or servants, but what would Soma want? With any such spell...?"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ The Castle make shift study \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Alucard could have been sculpted from alabaster the way he sat while Jonathan recounted the garden and alchemy lab. It was interesting to learn that the a soul that Soma commanded had manifested outside in the gardens. Was she able to give Alucard some form of a diagnoses into Soma's current health? While the Alchemy labs' resolution was appreciated, learning about the dinning hall and the kitchen was also interesting.
This Michael person undoubtedly left multiple members of the groups sealed in areas with his abilities. Yet there was something about this one girl, this 'Reba', that he was willing to undo the seals for. It was far beneath Alucard to use the girl to find out information, though his father would be far more willing... Were he still an evil vampire lord...
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ The path to the Master Chambers \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Through all the journals written by the Belmonts, there was always a feeling of urgency that was conveyed. After all save Simon and John, everyone else had a single night to travel through a castle full of monsters in the service of Dracula. Of course it wasn't as though any of the prior Hunters were aspiring writers either so.
Even Julius remembered the day he arrived at this very castle to face Dracula and the hordes that stood before him. Urgency was an ever present weight that bore down on him, now there wasn't anyone really pursuing him. The halls and rooms were clean and if there were monsters they were generally passive. Transformed cult members somehow recognized the pair and changed mindlessly themselves to their deaths. Those that retained their human forms though, signaled their presences with the quiet clicks of doors leaving the pair free on their travels.
Until they arrived in this massive room that sported an interesting pair of beings. Further into the massive space, the same type of seal that had been erected through out the castle was hanging in the air. Right before the entry way to a hallway that appeared to lead straight up to the Master Chambers. A taunting signal that they were too late to get any further or stronger help from the Castle. While at the same time the room in question bore a pair of 'guardians'.
"I mean its a first time for anything," Yoko noted quietly as she observed the room that stretched out before them.
Graham wasn't Shaft who came to the castle with a desire to serve Dracula. "Hard to consider Graham as a mini version of Garamoth huh?" Yoko noted thoughtfully as she looked at the man that had at one time stabbed her in the gut. Her stomach even remembered that particular pain, clenching just enough to say 'yeah, that's the bastard that tried to use me as a knife block.'
Thus it was strange to see the man in the castle again. He was slumped over the intestines of the demonic form he took when he gave himself to the castle. The blood from the intestines were staining slowly into his clothes, turning the white to a bright pink. Graham kind of looked like a towel that had been left over the massive intestines to dry.
Was he alive? It was hard to tell with the way the intestines pulsed with a heartbeat. Below the skin of those massive 'women' the ticks and ripples of muscles came with the flex of a finger or hand. The breasts rose and fell with the act of breathing, so clearly 'they' were alive... But could Graham be alive as well? Or would he be able to be killed off?
Yoko was right after all, Dracula 'had' imprisoned would be usurpers and made them his slaves.
While Julius was already calling out when he saw something flicker into the very corner of his sight off to the side. Celia was fading in and out of view the way the dancing ghosts were noted as doing from the times they would appear. Her long red hair that been painstakingly brushed into obedient curls were frayed at the edges, twisted until they hung down. Even as he watched, and Yoko catching sight as well, they could see her grabbing and pulling on them. An act borne of anxiety as she pulled and twisted and pulled again while observing the room around her.
The hunters exchanged concerned looks between each other at the presence of both former, and now very much dead, leaders of the two cults. The demon half of Graham appeared to be awake, Graham could very much also have been alive and sleeping or dead given how he hung. While Celia was clearly dead and now a ghost.
No servants to ask questions of, and would either Graham or Celia be able or willing to answer questions?
Better question; since now the pair were in the service of Dracula, was this another fight the pair wouldn't be expected to fight? The easiest tour of the castle ever if that was the case.
"Celia? Graham? Are either of you..." Julius wasn't really confident on the choice of words that would suit the situation. "Capable of chatting with us for a moment?"
Truly they had arrived at a new era of hunters.
Well the Morris and LeCardes were already established with this 'new era' and Julius was left feeling a step or two behind. All the more for the irony that he brought about this change.
Celia's panicked gaze snapped towards the pair as she turned around. She fidgeted as she hovered there, her hands nervously moving akin to a small bed of worms. Anxious and alarmed her once cool and detached demeanor crushed by things she must have seen.
"You're back... I remember you." Celia's voice sounded distant, it had this echoing quality that strangely muted her emotions. Fear and anxiety was in every aspect her presence, but her voice was echoed. A strange quality controlled her voice and it stripped away parts of her emotions making it painfully hollow of the very feelings she was quite visibly expressing.
An odd thing certainly, given this was not found in any of the spirits that Julius and Yoko had encountered in the castle. Yoko never got this description for a voice when Kazu described Trevor or the others. Even Leon's own problematic attempts at talking still conveyed his emotions.
"Fortner," Julius began his tone a little wary given her anxiety. "Do you remember how you got here?" He asked, occasionally casting a small glance over to the sleeping demon that was Graham.
"I was betrayed, my death used to subdue the Agents' power." It was recited on command, and Julius couldn't be sure she was a 'ghost' when she was like this. Something felt off and wrong, but this had happened right after they had barely gotten Soma back under control. He had been so dangerously close to going back to the Dark Lord at the time.
And Soma had been a beast to fight.
It was the battle that signaled time for Julius to stop his hunts. Needing support to deal with Soma had been the worrisome tell. Soma was still growing in his strengths, Julius was both in decline and without an heir to take up Vampire Killer. When Soma first awoke to his power, he could only absorb one demon soul and that was all there was. The year from that day to when they fought in Fortners' castle saw Soma absorbing multiples of the same soul and his power 'growing' with each one.
Now all this...
"Do you know how you ended up as 'this' though? Ghosts don't... you, well forgive me for my bluntness, but you look like you've seen things." Julius pointed out as one of the fingers of the demon women flexed slightly. The sleepy twitch of a limb.
"I'm here to protect the Master Chambers..." Celia recited, while she eyed the pair of hunters that were still at the archway that lead into the room. "A ghost to eternally watch the living, watch..." She shut her eyes and could see the ring of her loyal followers. Swords upheld crossed over and over to shield her body from the sky above.
Invert.
Thrust down.
Impaled.
She screamed as she woke up but was already awake.
Deaths came different after a time, drowned, burned, her followers trying to find the 'right' way to do the Black Mass. Because she told them that if Soma wouldn't 'be' Dracula. They could get someone else. So wouldn't the Black Mass bring a suitable candidate to replace him? Or maybe Soma wasn't Dracula at all, given his lack of interest in returning to being the Lord of Darkness. Maybe that one Dark Priest had only caught lightning in a bottle in his attempt and they needed their 'own' style of sacrifice. She'd been poisoned, bled to death, drawn and quartered, and the list went on and on.
She became each victim.
She watched as she was brought before Soma for the first time. The girl had been angry, cried for vengeance from Soma. Judus betrayed Jesus three times, Celia now could say she had seen three sides to Soma. The seemingly naive personality that she encountered on the city street and through out her imitation castle. The ruthless restoration of the Dark Lord who cared no longer for even his benefactors or would be servants. Then, in that one room she was brought before him. There she saw his true self, the Dark Lord, tired, indifferent yet still willing to listen to his subjects if they only practiced humility.
The girl didn't realize who she stood in the presence of, the ages he had seen, the centuries he lived and died through.
Celia knew though...
Now that it was far too late.
"Watch them die... experience death over and over again, my penitence for what I did against Dracula." She finished, slowly rocking herself, back and forth as a child would. "Its not so bad really... Before that all I was doing was being stared at... and grabbed and scratched... so many eyes..."
"Maybe its what she experienced while inside the seal?" Yoko hesitantly whispered to Julius as her gaze kept getting towed over to Graham.
"Celia, is Graham ok?" Julius asked tilting his head slightly towards Graham, while the two monster women slept on.
Celia followed his direction towards where Graham laid and shrugged. "He'll wake up again, his replacement killed him... Not that death means anything to what he is now..." she answered before she began plucking at the ends of her hair.
"Why? Why kill Graham?" Julius asked as he turned to look at the dead man.
Celia answered by humming a nursery rhyme, well she 'heard' the sound, but it was lost in the echo to the pair who only heard a long single note. Her gaze drifted along the walls and corners of the room, tracing up the demon's pale white arm up to a shoulder... So far there were no floating eyes, or ears, nothing she didn't recognize. Everything in its place, while her gaze swept down across the collarbone of the opposite demon woman. Before sliding across the floor where she saw the pair of hunters staring at Graham.
"He suggested killing my subordinate and taking full control over our organizations," Celia explained. "It seems he's quite taken with Francine, didn't like the suggestion. Never met him before, but I heard about him... Why are you looking for him?" 'They work with the Master, if I help maybe the Master will forgive me?'
"Yes, we are," Julius readily answered. 'I think I need to grill Yoko for a little more intel on these cults.'
"His name appears to be 'Michael' that's what Graham called him, and he took over after Graham was proven false."
"Must be awkward, I mean Graham built that group with the notion 'he' was Dracula. How did Michael keep it going when it was proven that Graham was a fake?" Yoko asked, but it was more for Julius and herself than Celia. "She already said she didn't ever meet Michael and he should have been in charge by the time she made her move. So I can't see her paying them much attention while working on her own plans..."
"True..." Celia answered her gaze drifting over to Yoko briefly, "they were dying out. I had originally thought 'if Graham was the real Dracula I don't have to do anything'. But he was false and I had my hands full trying to find the one who beat him."
'And Graham was so full of himself it would take a certain type of person to get to a rank that this Michael must have. But if that's the case, apparently Michael had his limits that Graham crossed. Interesting though that his limit concerned someone in an opposing cult... Why not just swap over instead? Why retain the cult and then attempt a merger?' Julius found himself pondering as the demon women began to move slowly. 'Well if I won the pronoun game. Fortner didn't exactly give details about which 'him' was who.'
Muscles under smooth skin rippling slightly as the limbs began to stretch. Heads trying to stretch out the neck without doing too much damage given the ring planted through their eyes. But even so blood trickled down a bit in answer to the movement, staining the marble pale skin with external veins of blood. Their sharp nails scraping along the stone floors as part of their 'morning stretches' as it appeared...