Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Father Agosti began to pity those plush toys.
The four, while amazing mature in behavior, were disruptive by presence, but the Cherubs were just boys. Unless Elmo saw the dogs then all hell had been unleashed by the boy's panic. While, to the toy's credit, they did try to help him settle the boys down. Still rehearsals were always delayed to a degree as the boys needed to be settled down. Again.
Now those same toys were a distraction he desperately needed.
For the sake of the children, and his mind, now that the adult choir had been pretty much sent to sing before the Lord... it was decided to run rehearsals for the sake of normality. It wasn't the right time for rehearsals truth be told. But the kids needed to be here and not out in the hallways where there was still damage and stains as reminders of that horrible day.
"Church services will only have the Cherubs for the foreseeable future..." the sentence had crumbled into a choke as the Mikaels' calm voice lost its war against grief.
'And somehow Lord I am to round up these kids...' the Priest thought as he looked out over the crowd. Evening was going to be coming soon, and the children would be expected to go home. Only the tales the girls told roused tears from the man. He was basically going to be a baby sitter until the parents could come back. Since those parents were busy trying to reach loved ones, confirm corpses. 'Well I should be thankful they had any faith to bring their children here in the first place.'
Out of the four stuffed toys, Snuggy had taken lead and seemed to be trying to silently organize a receiving line. A line for four stuffed toys was a humor not lost on the old priest. He watched as the many children moved along to introduce their family members or neighbors. Sloppy rows of black or blond haired children with the occasional red or brown hair mixed in.
A receiving line that ended at the lost children, boys and girls who were staring aimlessly at random targets. Some stared at the chairs in front of them, others the room in general. He went to grab some more tissues in case the children started another crying fit. Yet when he reached the podium and checked, the box was already empty. 'I must of not realized it,' he thought his mind going back to the moment little Sophia arrived. She had been one of the arrivals that had lost her parents and were just there until 'someone came for her'. Just 'she might never leave she has no one left' hung so heavy Agosti wondered how just knowing this could make him buckle. While Lord Jesus carry the worlds' sins?
'There is the guest building, the kids could stay there, if we have enough priests to help clean it out properly.' He ruminated as he went to the closet where he normally kept the psalms and other choir books.
"Oh! Mr. Richter knows a neat trick!"
Agosti suddenly froze and braced for the inevitable panic that was Elmo.
'Maybe... maybe panic won't be so bad...' he thought as he heard this nails on chalkboard variations of affirmative answers. The boys that went with Elmo to Xaviers' home were handling things much better. Some of the more forward boys were helping, move chairs and trying to hype their fellows up.
No one was interested.
Something that broke the old priests' heart, longing to hear exuberance, joy, excitement or curiosity for some form of distraction. There was the same level of excitement as what he often saw when one went to get their license renewed. That broken spirited dead eyed stare... 'Oh Lord I will dance with joy to renew my license if you would just touch these children's hearts with your grace. Give them back their hope, their lives!' It sent his skin crawling at the fear that the children were now so scared they would turn to unsavory methods to deal with this horror.
Yet a loud knock at the door shattered the gloomy silence followed by a girls' high pitched scream that rocketed in response! Agosti watched in mortification as the children that had escaped to the Conti household, turned towards the scream in alarm. Only for the door to fly open as it was violently kicked and several officers burst in with guns drawn!
Howling terror became the new sound as the girls ran screaming mindless in their desperation! While the boys stopped and stared in disbelief. Some joined the screaming, others just gaped in confusion while Agnosti tried to deal with the girls.
Recoiling in alarm, the cops drew up their guns, but it was meaningless by then, the girls were plastered to the walls. Some were clawing into the walls trying to dig their way out, others just curled up as though waiting for death. Juste, Richter and Christopher rushed to the children, trying to protect them from falling and getting trampled or hurt. Juste managed to wiggle up into the arms of a sobbing six year old girl who had hidden under the chairs.
"Lord above what did we 'miss'?!" He asked as the girl continued screaming, rocking back and forth with no seeming awareness that she now had a stuffed dog in her arms.
"If we were human, this wouldn't have happened." Simon snarled, before hauling back and punching the kneecap of the nearest officer. If they had been human they could have fought back! Between the four of them they could easily divided up the city into quarters and tore through the thralls. "Stupid fucking cops! Did not a single one of you think a 'CHERUB' choir room had 'children' inside? Is it now some standard procedure to storm 'any' room with guns drawn?"
'Yes, he is understandably furious,' Christopher thought as he climbed up the back of one girl and inserted himself between the frantic girl and the wall she was determined to claw through.
The cops in question stood still for a moment as they tried to process the madness going on. Something that no one needed to see. Police officers with faces drawn and pale their eyes flighty and kept re targeting whatever new moved. Sparking fear that they could just open fire on the room as a knee jerk reaction. A night that started with 'priests of the Vatican' attacking people, only to then be regular civilians going after their fellows... The report, rushed as it was, stated that there were no children who had been transformed into these monsters. Normally happy beat cops were suddenly expected to have the training and nerves of the military.
Not happening.
Only they began to look down and saw this toy bear staring up at them. Repeatedly punching them in the knees and that was just the limit.
Simon stopped punching when the cops began laughing. Anger evaporated with the tears that fell from the mens' faces. There was enough documentaries that he had watched while Yoko was growing up. Shows that discussed trauma, mental health. Things that were absurd concepts to him back when he was alive. Just weak people unable to deal with reality.
He pointed as sternly as someone with stitched on features could. They needed to leave the choir room. The cops needed some of that coco Yoko used to drink, and... and... 'who the hell is there for anyone to talk to? It was 'priests' doing the rampage, even if they're willing to give the still human ones a chance. The ones here are broken piles right now they can't comfort each other successfully much less their parish.' Simon realized, as that churning outrage that this was happening roused up in him again.
No therapist was equipped to deal with this type of episode, there was no safety in going to one of the distant churches. 'Its going to be understandable to have people broken by this abandon the Cloth. But if they were already infected, they'll be harder to locate,' Simon seriously missed Vampire Killer.
"Its a bear... A bear moving like its alive!"
The trio of Belmonts all had their ears flatten in concern at the cackling laughter of grown men. Some distant part waited for Simon to go into a tirade only they would hear, any second...
"They're having a mental break down. These cops hit their limits. Are all the stations out of fresh officers?!"
"A what?" Richter inquired as he finally got a pair of girls to stop screaming and instead hug him and each other for comfort.
"Its... 'Not all people are made the same, what breaks one is fine for another.' Basically people have a limit of stuff they can accept or process. Once they go over that limit they start to shut down, retreating from the world as a defense." Simon explained, his rage snuffed out by a young woman's lifetime of education.
"But they're 'cops', they're supposed to protect people. How can the thralls be breaking them?" Juste asked in disbelief."
"Zombies don't come out at night, that's one thing," Richter noted flatly. "I... I understand. They signed up for a normal series of expectations and this went far beyond what they were trained to handle." Memories as dark as an evil priest fluttered from the darker recesses of his mind. The Undead and monsters he knew were never the problem. It was those long years under Shaft's control, what he did... what he made Richter see that got to the man.
While Agnosti paled at the laughter and made his way to the cops, the children were developing concerned looks as the laughter continued.
"Father! Oh move..." Xavier and some of the other cherubs began moving and made a path for the priest before helplessness settled in again. The girls weren't calming down and no one knew what to do.. Several boys turned to look at Tony for their cue, only the boy was still sitting there.
"Tony? Hey you ok?"
"Tony what should we do?" Xavier asked as he began to nervously look back to Father Agnosti.
But the Father was with Mr. Simon and guiding the police out of the room... Elmo walked in front of Tony and waved his hand in front of the kids' face.
"Tony? Its ok if you want to come out now. The Stuffy Patrol are here and will protect us like at Xavier's house!"
Christopher felt a bit of sadness as he heard Elmo trying to be encouraging. 'Its ok to come out now' sounded too mature. The boy seemed to be echoing something he heard before, and given what the werewolves did to his family. He probably had been in a similar state as Tony was in right now. 'But if that's the case, does that mean the child is going to go into hysterics when confronted by another Dark Child?' Simon clearly had some idea of the modern world and how people acted and reacted. Knowledge that would be terribly useful for the other three.
'We're all fathers, but we're from times when this soft style of upbringing was unthinkable. This would literally be considered womans' work. While we would be out beating to death whatever caused the problem.' Now they were stuck as these useless toys, the most any of them could do readily was allow themselves to be hugged and cried into.
'People have limits, Simon said. Fair enough, but all the boys who were with us are as fine and lively as though nothing happened. What happened afterwards that got to Tony?' Christopher pondered as he ended up on a girls' lap as she sobbed into the back of his head. Whispers for her mommy kept him from trying to escape to check on Tony.
"Maybe a nice song... The boys who went to Xaviers' would certainly have enough of their wits about them to sing something gentle for the girls." Juste suggested from somewhere no one could see though he sounded close.
"So long as its not Maria. Nails on chalkboard are the sweetest of angels voices when compared to her," Richter remarked as he was being baby carried by another girl.
"... is she honestly 'that' bad?" Juste asked.
The genuine curiosity felt oddly soothing to Christopher. Enough so for a regret that the children couldn't hear it.
"She could kill with it. And I'm not talking about those opera singers who can bring their voices up to a pitch that shatters glass." Richter answered as though he was recalling something. "She wanted to sing at my wedding to Annette. I wasn't there the day she gave Annette a 'sample' of the song she was going to sing. But when 'Annette' decides you need to be too drunk to stand? I take her word for it that this wasn't going to be good."
"She was drunk at your 'wedding'?!" Christopher repeated in amazement.
"Drunk enough to be holding on to the grass to keep from falling off the face of the Earth. With all four Celestial Beasts confused about why they were summoned."
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"I beg your pardon?" Agnosti choked, his voice cracking as the world shifted.
"Oh God damn it we're going to lose you, too, aren't we?" Simon uselessly asked the man as he looked up. The other three Belmonts were still in the room, so Simon stood beside the old priest and the gaggle of cackling cops.
"At rough estimate there's about 200 murdered children in what we were told is a type of storage slash guest building here on the grounds!"
An old urge to be disgusted at the sobbing men was wiggling under this feeling of being an old man. The youngest who was reporting in was the only one able to speak and was outright sobbing so hard he looked like he was laughing. It was a dissonance that Simon couldn't deny was unsettling. 'Now we know where that Pope was getting blood all this time...' Simon thought as said young man began sliding down the wall. He folded up on himself as he sank down his head resting limply against the wall while the vest kept him from collapsing on himself. The other two cops, older and now broken were just crying quietly.
'Does it say something that Dracula never used babies in my time? Or turned kids?' Simon mused quietly.
"They appear to have had their blood drained by getting their throats slashed, and we can't figure out yet which orphanage they came from. A little backed up at the station you know?"
Simon began trying to figure out how this could have happened until his brain melted, he wasn't a thinker. 'Fuck it I can write it out,' he decided and turned to push the priest back into the choir room. The cops could sit on the floor they were young enough, Agnosti looked to need a seat and the chairs were in the room. So he guided the priest into the room and found the words not willing to really want to leave.
It was just the finality of the statement.
There was a desperate need for a Hunt and there was no one to do it. Julius was too old his kids not trained. Giving the Whip back to the Morris clan would be another death sentence. 'It would be safer with the Morris I think. They lack the curse of blood lust to hunt that we have. I don't know, if I could be trusted if I was human again. If the hunting urge would reawaken and would I hunt 'any' thrall sleeping or aware?'
It wasn't a good thought. But a realistic one, the Belmonts tended to get a single minded focus when it came to hunting. The idea of maybe one of Julius' kids and he was pretty sure one was a doctor or something. Just busting into the waiting room to murder some unsuspecting thrall who hadn't been awakened. The image stopped as he realized what he was pondering, played again, and again...
And again...
"God above we are... That guest building?" Simon called out as he pushed the priest to a chair, ignoring the gratitude. "Dead kids drained."
"What?" Three different voices.
"I don't know the details, other than about 200 at current estimate and they're not sure where the kids came from..."
Simon wasn't going to get upset.
Simon refused to get upset.
He was just going to forget Yoko dragging him along to meet Elmo after that night. He was just going to forget seeing what orphanages looked like, and all those kids faces. Which weren't as bad as the kids in here, but...
"Dracula started turning me into a Zombie and obviously can turn people into vampires. I wonder what he can do with our corpses..."
"Simon no... We don't know what the thralls would cause us to do. We could go on a killing spree..." Juste warned and somehow his awareness felt like a blessing.
