Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Flame hued skies taunted the lowly earth below as gnarled gray smokey fingers reached up to it on the horizon while a sleeve of flame gold wavered towards the heavens. People screamed in the distance and ran about, fire trucks were screaming in the distance while streams of water were spewed out from hoses as the present fire fighters set to desperate work. Police were rushing about organizing the frantic people into groups and worked to move them away from their homes as they burned.
Rome was burning.
Flames surrounded the Vatican and was beginning to consume the rest of the city outward away from the church. Red and black robed priests were moving about the masses herding the masses into the safety of the Vatican walls as the air became increasingly choked with smoke and the cries of peoples' panic and machines.
The fountains around the Vatican had been shut down as water was redirected to the immediate fires. People were rushing with buckets, cans whatever could hold water when a thick plop was lost to the noise. It was the only sound the herald the arrival of Julius, Yoko, Joachim with Leon in his living lion form striding forward to look about.
"Vatican city..." Yoko blinked in disbelief as she looked about. "It brings to mind the stories that Richter wrote about the time when Dracula went to kidnap Annette."
"Almost, just needs the undead servants reeking havoc," Joachim amended.
"Demonic flames, if the water was holy it would accomplish more," Julius grumbled for a moment. He stroked his beard as he eyed the priests when a scent caught his nose... "Soma didn't do anything stupid to the fountain behind us did he?"
A brief pause before Yoko gave a small 'snerk' sound and asked, "well its a bloody nice color."
Julius whipped around to see blood pouring out of the fountain. Granted the 'blood' was flowing with the speed of the water without the thickness normally associated with it. But make no mistakes Fontana delle Tiare was producing blood.
"Quite smart actually," Joachim chimed in as the alluring scent swirled into the air. "Any vampires in the Vatican would undoubtedly desire to come for a drink. Sending, if not themselves, their thralls for a sip."
"Alucard, I must speak with you on a matter most urgent," the voice came out from an empty bit of space in the room near the fireplace. Though it 'was' possible that it was the Dark Lord, the voice was wrong. Said voice came from what sounded to be a young man, a young man that he knew though only briefly.
"Speak, what has happened at the shrine," Alucard turned towards the same area of the room as Joachim. The spirits that had stayed in the room lowered closer to the ground, while Julius rested quietly in the corner near the fireplace. His arms folded across his chest, and both his breathing and heart beats revealed the man had fallen asleep. Fair given that he was being asked a lot of a human his age. Though humans had such life spans now, this brief 'power nap' would be fine if things went further south.
"Its not the shrine, its the whole Vatican."
And lo the geese and ducks as they migrated south for the winter of this discontentment.
"What?" Yoko sat more stiffly in her chair, before just getting up and looking for the voice.
"There's no real time, I have a message from Simon through Trevor and Kazu. He said that you need to send Julius to the Vatican, the Pope has evacuated the children's choir. Simon and the rest of my kin are with the choir. There are thralls in the Vatican, possible vampires as well and His Holiness is trapped there. I need to be with you, so whatever portal you create first must bring you here so I can be with you. One of you must notify the other members of the clans, but for Kazu's safety it must be relayed that I contacted you and that I 'am' Leon Belmont. Granted Alucard never met me when I was alive, however, his father is more than capable of validating my identity to the rest of our kin."
"Kazu... Yeah I understand," Yoko answered with a nod. 'Mom must be terrified...'
Alucard was silent for a moment, eerily so before there was a knock at the door and a quiet click as it opened. A zombie made stepped into the room with a silver ornate chalice resting calmly on an equally ornate tray balanced on one hand as she pushed the door open. The scent was strong and instant, something that got the living members of the room to gape. The maid in question made no effort to communicate with the others and approached Alucard directly with a curtsy.
She offered it as the iron scent of blood suffused itself with the warm, comforting scent of wood smoke as it burned in the fireplace.
Alucard didn't even speak, he merely lifted up the chalice and began drinking without pause or acknowledgment of the others in the room.
"And here I had started to think you made yourself allergic, what with that one spell of yours... 'Dark Metamorphosis' I believe?" Joachim noted with a smug little smirk playing on his lips, revealing his own fangs in the moment. A smirk that grew at the annoyed gold eye stare he got from over the lip of the chalice.
"I was also informed that Lady Belnades, the mother, would be contacting the rest of the clans to move towards Rome. Claiming her daughter contacted her from here. So while we shall be the vanguard of the counter assault, there will be support arriving behind us." Leon continued into the silence, "though may I inquire why young Kazuaki is excluded from this? She made it sound as though the young man's very life is in danger should he be made more directly involved."
"Family issues... grandma tried to kill him when he was a baby," Yoko explained her voice soft and tense.
There was this feline growl, a low rumble that could never be confused with the loving purr of a domestic house cat. "My apologizes that something was allowed to escalate to the point that an innocent baby's life would be at risk," Leon answered though the growl was still there.
"You couldn't do anything about it, I mean you've been dead for how long?" Yoko pointed out with a sad smile on her face. "Mother did what she could and he's alive so its ok!"
It was a lie, if there was ever one and everyone in the room, even the ambivalent vampire with swords floating behind him, recognized that.
"Once Alexander returns I shall send him to you, he may wish to contact his sister and Maxine, but I will leave that up to him. As for the Children in the area..." Alucard cast a cool glance at his fathers' slumbering form. "I am unsure if I can manage them from this distance outside of merely allowing them to run wild. So do not expect much help from me beyond getting you to the Vatican."
"That's all we can hope for," Julius answered as he slowly began pushing himself from the chair. The soft crinkle of well worn and treated leather, the soft hiss of fabric as the older man peeled himself from the chair. "But where ever you put us, clearly we can't be 'in' the Vatican. Otherwise we could use the other methods. Methods they 'must' know about, so even if they can't use it, they undoubtedly have guarded for our arrival."
"We could be near one of the fountains outside the city. Running water and all that," Yoko pointed out.
"You will be attending them Joachim. I will not subject you to going onto the grounds themselves, I have no use of your corpse. However; for Simon to make contact and reach Kazuaki and not Yoko implies that it was not by her phone that this began. Find those members of the clan and see them to the Vatican, they'll be able to go about helping the humans. Then you may return here and resume your book reading."
Yoko could only close her eyes in a prayer of gratitude that she couldn't hear Simon, the language that man must have been using.
That was all there was before the group, now with marching orders, prepared for the portals that Alucard would be opening. The chalice he drank from had been returned to the maid and she discreetly left the room.
Joachim merely studied the sky before he floated off, whatever hours he had left before morning accounted for. Yoko took off at a light jog towards the entrance of the city, Julius on her heels while taking in the chaos around them. Leon had taken the position between the wall and the two humans and kept himself roughly between the pair.
Rome was more organized than the blind running that Richter wrote about in his journals about his time dealing with Dracula.
'There should be Dark Children or others here, yet they are in the Vatican?' The stories spoke of how skeletons would leap from buildings only no such action took place here. 'Given my ancestors corpses are on the grounds... Hmm could that be it?'
There were no signs of rampaging Dark Children out in the city, merely the priests trying to evacuate people 'into' the holy city. From what Leon had mentioned upon arrival at that castle, Juste had stated there were thralls and a vampire 'in' the Vatican...
No, not 'a' vampire.
His Holiness, Dionysus.
Leons' report about the man left a gut punched pain in the core of Julius' stomach. Now the hunter had this nagging cramp in his core that such a thing had happened. Leon didn't know 'when' it happened, but it was on Julius' watch regardless. Once Dracula was defeated, it was true that the Belmonts' power would start to go into decline. 'I may have defeated Dracula but protecting the world was still my responsibility. If I hadn't lost my memory...'
No one really knew 'why' he lost his memory. But given that Soma reincarnated with no memory of being Dracula. Perhaps it had been an equal exchange?
'Focus Julius, a man of the cloth was turned into a vampire. That's nothing serious it can happen. But surviving on sanctified, holy ground? That is alarming, more over because my ancestors' corpses are here. The excessive energy 'should' have reempowered the holy power invested in this land. Dionysus should have gotten a true death the second the bodies arrived. Yet he survives along with thralls?'
Turning the corner they could see people making their way into the city with hurried steps. Perhaps the priests were just that, perhaps they were thralls, but if vampires were safe in the Vatican...
Leon paused in his run. They could hear a small grumbling sound from the first Belmont before he gave a very strong roar. It rang out, rebounding off the wall on their right and out into the city. Powerful and commanding, not the attempt of a human trying to sound like a lion. Leon sounded truly as he appeared in person, with a voice strong enough to rattle windows.
Several priests in the distance began to crouch down covering their ears while the citizens turned in response to Leon's roar.
A little girl looked up at her mother, hand held firmly in the parents' hand. The big kitty was loud but... The nice priest in black robes was standing just off to the side of her mama. He was a tall, thin man, but there was smoke rising from his cross and he was clutching his head as though he was in pain.
"Mama?"
"Sweetie be still, there's a lion over there! Oh dear God, what is a 'lion' doing loose in the city?!"
The priest looked like he was in a great amount of pain so she began to creep a little closer. She crossed her arm trying to touch the man. "Are you ok?" She began when he opened his eyes to look down at her.
Those weren't normal.
All red with those black things in the center.
"Mama!" the child retracted her hand in mounting alarm and began yanking on her mothers' hand in growing terror.
"What?" Mama looked down at her then followed her gaze.
Then the screaming began.
A small child had looked up at the priest, her small hand grabbed her mom's hand and began pulling urgently. One person broke away, then another, soon everyone was scattering from the gates of the Holy City and back into Rome. The words 'monster' and 'demon' were shrieked as people once, rushing 'into' the Vatican began rushing 'away' from the Vatican.
The priests who didn't react negatively to Leon's roar were left alarmed and confused. Panicked locals, or tourists, shoved them out of the way with mindless fear, while even more people spilled out back into the city. Leon could 'just' pick up on the edge of his hearing the cries of monsters and demons and his whiskers were trembling with the vibrations of such panic.
"That is a very special form you have there Leon" Julius acknowledged out loud, but it was the unspoken subtext that got his hand grabbing his whip in case.
"I can't believe they thralled some of the priests..." Yoko bemoaned, "I live here... How could this have happened?"
"If vampires are involved, you wouldn't know if it had been like this." Leon pointed out, his voice low. "I didn't realize Mathias had changed until it was too late. Because he had always been more invested in books and reading. I didn't realize there was a danger or change because it was how he 'always is'."
"You're right Leon... But that applies easier for you because you were the first. We're centuries later, we're used to being able to just 'sense' when things were wrong..."
Leon's tail twitched, "even in the Vatican where all resonates with holy power?"
Julius was on the cusp of pointing out that such strength should drive 'out' the vampires before it got this far... Only to remember that several key members of his own line had been relocated onto the holy grounds. While Julius 'himself' had not been to the Vatican again after the Demon Castle Wars had concluded as he had taken to living in Japan.
The 'priests' saw them approaching and their eyes became fixated on Leon, in a very human reaction to the sight a lion, way. They wanted to run, but either they couldn't because they were thralls or their remembered faith Julius didn't know. But age, smoke, and darkness couldn't hide the rings of red in the eyes of these men of the cloth. They glowed and perhaps the child only saw the red, but Julius could just see the beastly shapes of the pupils.
"Brother Stephano?"
People kept tumbling over each other to escape, it was actually pretty comical to Joachim. So much so he decided to fully land on the ground and tuck away his swords. Watching as the humans ran scared from their precious Vatican, motivated by the clear sign of possession from the priests. Only to then be confronted on the other side of the door with the imposing sight of the lion in an accelerated trot.
He could hear the mounting hysteria in the distance as word began to spread.
"The Vatican has fallen! Demons are in the church!"
"God has forsaken us!"
It reeked of the same ignorance that spawned the burning times, the spread of AIDs and other such calamities across the world. Not a calm head among them, their autonomy sacrificed to being a blindly lead. So a single snag among the chain and they go toppling into a sea of chaos.
'Well its not my problem, the little prince wants me to find those stuffed toys.' Joachim thought to himself as he turned his steps away. They were faint yes, distant by foot. But the old vampire could sense the presence of those four souls in the city. Thankfully clumped together as their holy aura's radiated as a beacon to one as old as he. So he turned his steps there, with the scent of blood from the fountain mixing with the ashes of a fire, the sky as bright as day.
'I do wonder what the little prince would think these souls can do? Sealed in toys they're...' suddenly the idea of a childs' teddy bear replacing a crucifix as a holy talisman worked a chuckle out of him. Maybe toss them as the Belmonts tossed bottles of holy water? Though they probably wouldn't ignite into flame.
A pity if they did but were unscathed in the act.