Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"Its not been good. I feel, now more than ever, that I have failed my flock." Alexander recounted days with that one lone statement.
'You're only a man, you can't hold yourself responsible for this...' was hanging on the tip of Alexis' tongue as she saw the grief consuming the man. Yet who was she to speak? It would just be the placating remarks of a woman who never had the masses stare at her in expectation. Look to her for guidance in their darkest hours.
"How do I tend to my flock who have been sheered of their faith?" Alexander could feel the chilling wetness from numerous tears still staining his robes. Parts of the robes would need to see a tailor for he had heard the seams pop several times amid the desperation outside.
"You sent Elmo away. Intentionally ordering his departure, from what I have been told." Alucard pointed out, the Popes' heart rate was still elevated despite sitting in a chair. Desire to see the ring off his fathers' hand was one thing, yet the human had been pushed to his limits. Not just rest, Alexander would clearly need actual undisturbed sleep before he was pushed into a break down of his own.
"The dear boy had come to bring me tea..."
"Are you sure you can handle that Elmo?" Jacques asked from the other side of the door, his voice as muffled as it was amused.
"Yes, sir! The sisters have been baking! Here these are for you!"
"Really? Oh I hope they made those jam cookies again!" That was Fredrick, the eternal sweet tooth, but both sounded thoroughly delighted. "Your Holin-oops..."
The door to the suite opened with Fredrick already loaded with those cookies, one half way sticking out of his mouth. That broke it half and began to fall before he made a mad grab for it, looking up at Alexander in apology as he pushed the door open further with his shoulder.
Elmo wasn't even visible, just the rolling cart with all the plates of baked goods the Sisters had been whipping up all day. Suddenly the boy's head popped up as he pushed the tray along into the room , "I managed to find you!" he beamed, his voice carrying over the rattling of the plates. The warm, heady scent of freshly baked goods and freshly prepared mint tea was a delight to the man as he moved to make room for the snacks.
"I'm proud of you, Elmo. How have you been today?" he asked as Elmo brought out the tea cup and saucer. There was a full loaf of bread, sliced with a tray of butter, muffins and cinnamon rolls, cake slices of various types, strudels and so much more. It felt almost insane at the amount the Sisters had created.
"Oh its been good! I made a new friend yesterday and he gave me a gift! It was really weird though..." Elmo noted as he presented the cup and saucer before going to retrieve the tea pot. "I've never left the Vatican while walking down a hallway before." He commented before he put the pot before the man. Which was odd. Elmo had been extra careful as he brought the teapot, the boy could have been holding a bomb with the care he was moving.
"You... left the Vatican... how?" Alexander asked, the interest he had in the pot disappearing. Even the alluring scent of sugar cookies, Fredrick got all the jam ones, lost as Alexander fixed his gaze more on the child.
"I don't know sir! I was lost... again, and saw one of the Cardinals so I didn't want to be scolded and followed him. I thought I would find my way back if I did that. But then I ended up outside the Vatican in front of a very old castle," Elmo recounted as he began pulling out a plate for Alexander.
"I was scared, I mean if I had wandered out of the Vatican, I should be in the gardens or the city right? I've walked outside before, but this was a forest!" the boy continued as his eyes widen at the memory, "I couldn't figure out where the Cardinal went to, and so I sat on this really big rock to wait. I mean if he came the same way to get to the forest he would have to come the same way to get back right? I didn't really care about getting in trouble at that point." Elmo was trying, Alexander could see the boy was not just relieving an odd event but was recounting something scary. The conflict was in the way he began trying to force his lips to stay straight. Fidgeting and struggling to stand still and work.
"At the time I questioned if he had fallen asleep on the grounds. How many times has any of us found Elmo tucked comfortably under a bit of furniture and sleeping? I tried to comfort the dear child, suggesting it was only a dream and he probably just fell asleep while worrying."
Elmo frowned into the cart for a moment before he reached down under the robes he wore. A comical affair of forgetting the collar of it wasn't designed for particular sized objects. So Alexander settled back with his tea and cookies to the show of Elmo determinedly trying to get something... In a huff the child just opted to toss off the robe, showing his slacks and button on shirt. Yet it was the rather modest looking mask hanging around his neck that got Alexanders' attention. Nothing more than an eyebrow raise as he wondered if one of the boys put it on him.
'But why would they do something like that to the child?' Alexander mused to himself as Elmo finally pulled off the mask and put it on the cart. Then as he stuffed himself back into his robe and fussed it into place again; Alexander studied the mask from his seat.
Dusting off his fingers of cookie crumbs on the plate he placed on his lap, Alexander waited as the boy got back to the mask and then dutifully placed it in his hand. "A mask... Elmo why do you think this is connected to going out of the Vatican?" As Elmo fussed Alexander noted that there was nothing exceptional about it. A simple half mask that anyone could buy really.
"Yes sir, because its not mine. I met a boy at the castle and he got me the mask from a brick in the castle wall." Elmo paused, his eyes growing big as the memory played again in his mind, awe and excitement etching itself into his youthful face.
"My stomach dropped when he said the mask came 'from a brick'. We have a long time understanding regarding how the castle presents items that both aid and hinder hunters pursuing Dracula." Alexander recounted, his expression, weighted with fatigue roused enough to note that even now Alucard appeared nonchalant about this, while the young lady seemed pretty fascinated by it. "You don't seem surprised at the thought of Elmo at the castle?"
"I remember his visit," Alucard answered causing a whipping sound to his ears as Alexis turned to stare at him in shock. "You presume to think I just randomly take walks along Italian streets?" he inquired though he didn't bother to turn to observe the shock on Alexis' face.
"You knew he was wait..." Alexis sputtered, a relief to the Pope who didn't have to find the energy to express his own disbelief. "The Vatican had illusions, that was what I was told, but you're talking about a portal that leads to the 'castle'. Sure there's a portal that permits Yoko travel... but directly to the castle here in the Vatican?"
"No. Elmo didn't arrive in the present, I was younger when he arrived, I just remembered his visit is all. While the stopwatches in the castle were the first, to my knowledge, that could affect the flow of time. More recently a few select souls have manifested in the castle who have power to manipulate time. "I was young back then, yet the scents he presented were unique. Such that I recalled them for their oddities until this modern age."
"You were waiting for Elmos' arrival..." Alexander reiterated in quiet awe before an amused smile crept back onto his face. "I do hope the boy behaved himself."
"He was fine, until he encountered the servants, Death donned a human guise as to not scare the child." Alucard admitted, "but that has nothing to do with why you sent him away."
"The mask," Alexis pointed out, "you, or the castle at that time gave him the mask was it?"
Alexander nodded, "Elmo, in explaining it was a 'magic mask' likened the halls of the Vatican to a fun house of mirrors, and asked that I try the mask on myself. I thought to humor the boy and went to the door with only the intent of teasing Fredricks' fondness for jam cookies..."
When the door opened, there was no 'mirror' that Elmo recounted, the walls, floor, rug, lights everything appeared normal. On either side, just beside the door frame was Jacques on the left and Fredrick on the right.
"Gentlemen," Alexander began, formality for Elmo's sake. Both young men turned to face him with the same 'Gentlemen? Are you well your holiness?' being uttered.
Only Fredricks eyes were slitted ruby red, the lips were curled back revealing fangs though his voice was as cheerful and friendly as he had ever known it to be... if a bit hollow.
"A mask? What's that for Your Holiness?" Fredrick asked, the face contorting the way facial expressions were done on claymation. Alexander couldn't shake the feeling that someone was pushing those features into making those expressions.
"Oh this?" Panic seized Alexanders' heart as he tried to think. Elmo said he had found it on him, but saying one of the other choir boys did it... "A mask that was made in school it would seem, but I meant to ask. Did you 'really' have to eat 'all' the jam cookies today Fredrick?"
Jacques broke into chuckling, "well you can't deny how good they are," he noted. His eye were a mingling of brown and red, whatever affliction Fredrick had only still getting its hold on the other...
"Sorry your holiness," Fredrick apologized with a sheepish grin as Alexander removed the mask to the falseness of the world.
"No, no its fine my sons. I'll finish my tea, forget that I even know that I never got to have a jam cookie." Alexander replied before quickly backing up and shutting the door. His heart racing as he felt sweat begin to prick his skin while at the cart Elmo was quiet crying. "Elmo, sweet son why do you cry?" Alexander asked, a part of him started to piece together the boys' nerves.
"You don't believe me." The boy's voice barely escaped the folds of his robes' sleeves as he began rubbing his eyes harder.
That made Alexanders' heart break. The church had done all they could to help him process what he had gone through. Striving to give him the stability and warmth that he had lost after that terrible night. Despite the fact that they all recognized that they could never really replace his family. Alucard was an excellent guardian, but he had been very clear about Elmo not being adopted. Alexander thought to get on his knees, but the fangs behind him and those horrible red eyes scared that option out of his head.
"Elmo." Alexander placed his hands on the boy's shoulders, and perhaps it was the urgency to which he spoke that got the boy to stop crying for a moment and look up at him. "I believe you, tell me have you seen anything else besides those 'mirrors'?" He instructed as he sat down trying so hard not to alarm the boy even as he struggled with that self same alarm.
"Yes sir. Some of the clergy, they don't act any different but their eyes are scary and they have those fangs that look super real." Another sniffle escaped the child. "I tried walking in the hallway with the mask on and avoided those mirrors and I didn't get lost to the kitchen..."
"I'm going to write a letter, and as I do that I need you to hide the fact that you've been crying as best as you can ok? Can you do that for me?" Alexander asked before handing the mask back to the child as Elmo began to nod. There was this fear in the pit of his stomach, with Yoko and Arikado both unavailable there was no one close enough for him to question. Yoko and Arikado both had put the portal into the Vatican. 'Dear God, given how the Cardinals reacted to Soma, how would they react to the knowledge that there 'has' been an active portal in the Vatican for Yoko's use. Then all these 'mirrors' that Elmo described?'
As Elmo strove to stop crying, Alexander went to his desk and grabbed the first blank sheet of paper he could find. That's when it truly sank into him. Demons in the Vatican? The internal war over if Arikado, if 'Alucard' was truly on their side. How many of them would insist on putting the seal on Alucard despite the number of seals already on the man? Doxxing was a thing and if someone doxxed Alucard? The man didn't live really in the human world from what Alexander figured from his conversations with Yoko. But for the world to find out that some 1980's tv monster character was 'real'...
"So I wrote the letter and ordered him to find the other boys, as many of the children as he could and escape." Alexander explained his tone slipping into reaching a conclusion, "From that point I prayed that they would make it out."
"You saved many of the boys, they went to steal the Stuffy Patrol from Yoko's room. Had they not they would have died at the Conti household for the Thralls went there as well. Juste knows and guided the family in the methods to safeguard their home from them." Alucard explained, "though their bodies are interred here on the grounds of the Vatican. The souls of the Belmont hunters and their powers travel with them in those toys that Yoko felt fit to put them in."
"Accidentally."
Alucard barely turned his gaze towards Alexis, his cold expression unmoved even as she repeated the same word.
Die hard loyal yet these occasions of cheek.
"But not all..." Alexander pointed out as he pushed himself from his seat. Swaying momentarily before he got himself collected. He moved to the couch and where Soma kept sleeping, "I need to get that ring off. I'm exhausted, its all I can do to deal with my human flock and we need Dracula."
'I have fallen into the Twilight Zone,' Alexis thought to herself in complete disbelief. Staying quiet wasn't hard, the information was vital given the 'mirrors' were probably all portals meant to confuse or disorientate others. But to hear the 'Pope' state that Dracula was 'needed'! How far was the world falling that Dracula was...
'But that's what Shaft and others who turn to Dracula would say back then wouldn't they? The world was corrupt and needed to be cleansed.' It left her confused and pondering how much truth 'was' in those words or if they had unknowingly made a prediction. "No." She shook her head. "They always say that Dracula is needed, but we know back then everyone was loyal to Dracula. What would the enemy gain by restoring Dracula to power 'now'? The cults are one thing, but they're just catpaws to another force regardless."
"Calling for the Belmonts would be meaningless, Dracula has once more the soul of a human, if he was inclined. He could easily just dominate the human will and be done with this farce once and for all." Alucard pointed out as Alexander's hands shook while they fumbled for the young man's arm.
"Here allow me," Alexis inserted herself in concern for the elderly man. She lift Soma's arm, the blackened hand so unnaturally thin compared to the other, the finer points of its bone structure was clear to her naked eye. It was strange to even see the ring was still on his hand, tilted as it had so much space around his finger. 'His coat sleeve weighs more than his hand,' she mused in quiet concern.
Yet there were no grand prayers, or pipe organs, Alexander merely reached down and slipped the ring from Soma's hand before sitting down. He just held the broken ring in his hand observing the shattered gems.
"That's 'it'?" Alexis asked finally, flabbergasted.
"Once the gems were broken it lost a great deal of its power, but it could keep his souls from returning to him. Though I suppose being in the castle they were already there and ready to render their aide at a moments' notice." Alexander explained, causing Alexis to have a startled expression as it hit. His ability to travel through the paintings, the familiars...
"As they now return," Alucard stated calmly as the shadows began to waver in the room. One dimensional shapes began expanding into the second and third dimension. Eyes, claws, fur, feathers, scales a low murmuring of excitement as they rose up into the air. Darkness slipping away as they returned to orbs of light that began to rush into Soma.
"Slow down," Alucard ordered with a barely restrained hiss of annoyance. The last time multiple souls tried to spiritual expressway themselves into Soma it had nearly tilted him fully back into his past life's identity. Just stifling it enough so Soma could hold on, which he only barely managed to do, had been difficult. With Alucard 'in' the castle and regaining a great deal of his own power.
