Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Reality was a blur.
Unformed into a smear of deepest purples and black. Wind whipped by her ears keening into a wail that couldn't block out the softest of hisses.
"Run."
One word.
The only word that the Prince could say through the pain he must have been enduring.
The road was gone.
Alexis rushed along amid a crowd of panicked plants, as they tore and strained to pull their roots from the ground and run. From the greatest trees to the humblest bush the plants strained to obey that one instruction. Dark as the sky was, the stars splattered in pink, a cast off of the moon that was pulsing red. Nailed to the sky, its comforting white and gray melted into a seething red as an ominous spot of black came into view.
And she remembered.
The fabric falling forgotten to the floor.
In the distance, amid the darkness she could see a pink stain topped in yellow. Alexis could barely registered Yoko's presence before she ripped the woman off her feet. Snagging the witch without a pause as Yoko gave an unladylike squawk of surprise.
Alucard was awake. His eyes were lost, dazed in a way that she nor her brother ever saw before.
"Alexis!" Yoko cried out as she dangled, half trying to hold on to the LeCarde, half tried to get her feet back on the ground. The woman had been hurtling forward with the grim determination of a javelin. Weighed down now by Yoko, the pair 'were' closer to the ground, enough so that Yoko's toes could barely scrape the moving grass below her. But as for any potential swats of branches Yoko 'really' needed Alexis to calm down. Or at least spit out what got a trained agent to react like a civilian facing Godzilla.
Alexis was gliding like a woman possessed, she wasn't even looking 'at' Yoko. But it left Yoko with the unnatural sight of what Alexis appeared to be fleeing from. Looming as an angry red eye was the unnatural red moon. The 'face' of the moon had a black beauty mark under its eye. Elevated on the cliff where the Castle would normally appear was a ball of black flame. If not for the red moon, the core of the flame would be invisible with only its deep blue flame a hovering ring. Demonic Megido.
Black flames reached out, consuming everything in its path. Left as she was Yoko was free to watch as the plant life unable to move out of the way was consumed. They were ripped upwards and gone to the wall of flame that drowned out the blood red moon and devoured the land. Even the wind was attempting to escape the fire. Pushing forward with the type of force that made Alexis go even 'faster' than her normal top solo speed.
A dome of pure black flame, a power that Soma did not tap into be it because he didn't know he 'could'. Or because, as a human, he couldn't reach that levels of power anymore. After all he never used the power when he regressed back in Fortners' knock off castle, or even the second time at the Vatican. It was a reality that broke Yoko's heart. Because it 'was' Soma, no matter how the spell was cast, only Soma could do this. Only his anger and power that could turn the moon from waxing to full and from white to red in a night. Even now the widening crack of the seal that kept the Castle away was crumbling around it, revealing more and more of the structure.
"Alexis! What did the cults do?" She demanded as she sent an electric shock through her hands into Alexis. So what did she see that had her literally break character to rush off? Whatever it was, was enough to get Soma's full undivided attention all the way back in Japan. There was a weighted stone in the pit of her stomach as Yoko realized who it had to be. Alex was safe at home even after his adventure. Those clues were enough to give Yoko a fear in her heart for Alucard.
Hands and arms numbed by sudden electricity was enough to reach Alexis' panic fried brain. With the wind at her back pushing her forward, she had been able to rush a solid distance than she normally would have. But the extra weight of grabbing Yoko tired her out and sent her closer and closer to the ground. Glancing behind her, at the raging fire that came hurtling towards them, she felt spurned to continue trying to outrace it. Her rational thoughts, that were drowned out by terror up until now, finally found purchase.
"I'm sorry Yoko, I can't. You see what's behind me, we'll be killed if I stop!" Alexis gasped out in exhaustion. She could see the ruins ahead of her, with some impulse inside of her pulling her like a dousing rod towards the Princes' mausoleum. Desperation and the push from the wind had her fling the two of them into the ancient stone structure. Her strength finally giving out and sending her sprawling onto the dirty ground in a heap of lace and gown.
Her sudden traveling companion fared only slightly better on the landing. Her toes had managed enough purchase that Yoko barely pinwheeled her way forward to keep from landing on her ass. The walls and ceiling held firm. Or perhaps they just weren't being affected by the flames given who cast that power forth. Instead Yoko was left with a front row seat to the Demonic Megidos' effect on the living.
The air was filled with shattering glass as a wall of pure black slammed down over the door leaving the room in absolute darkness. Science had taught her the intense heat from a bolt of lightning could turn sand into glass. Given what the road was made of, it brought to question if holy fire was considered normal fire enough to cause the same thing. But given how it sounded outside, the answer was probably 'yes'. The world shattering noise made it impossible to even hear her own thoughts much less speak to Alexis. Yet they needed to talk. So despite the insanity going on outside, Yoko turned and fumbled along the ground until she found Alexis.
"What happened?!" She shouted over the din. Wondering if being purely Dark Children meant that Alexis was more susceptible to Soma's 'power of dominance'.
Yoko cast a fireball the size of a head above her hand before letting it simply hover. Watching as Alexix covered her face with her tired hands before taking a deep breath.
Yoko needed to know, there was no point in trying to hide the truth. In truth it was bad, not terrible or horrific. But it was the result 'of' the act that was the problem, a problem manifesting as a churning hell storm outside.
Thankfully for the lone small miracle, the flames that had been unleashed were finally gone. The noise that had near deafened them was receding thus giving Alexis a growing spot of peace to try and give her report. "Its the Prince... The Cult used this very mausoleum to seal the Prince away, possibly asleep. While I was in the near by town, they apparently transferred him from here to the church."
The son of Count Dracula, crucified in a church on the grounds of his father. Thick metal nails had been driven through his hands, knees and ankles, with thick fabric bound around the violated limbs. The pale moonlight became veiled in a screen of soft pink, that gave no life to Alucards' pale features. His gaze drifted across the floor, observing the extinguished candles before drifting across the bottom of Alexis' gown. His gaze kept wandering, before some sudden faint moment of inspiration or revelation seemed to cross his mind. Sending him back to her gown and following the path to her face.
"The oils keep him sedate, but he was able to tell me to run. I guess he felt..." Alexis wearily gestured towards the unobstructed doorway. Even as Yoko turned on her heel and made a run for it in alarm. She didn't wait either, the blond was out the door the second she reached it. Only the broken glass breaking further under her footsteps answered Alexis as Yoko left.
Alexis was left looking outside at the world, the trees were gone, as were the brush and grass, all she could see was a pale pink field. Nothing stood, even piles of ash would have been 'something' but this was merely a long flat field of emptiness. The sky was still black, the stars twinkling in their soft silver, with the land reminding her that the moon was still a deep red.
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The witch hit the ground running, wishing that she had one of those nifty brooms that everyone always went on about witches having. The ground was cracking and wobbling under her feet where the fire had turned the sand into glass. Melted it down into uneven dangerous terrain that she was now breaking as she ran. With Alucards' mausoleum the only thing remaining, sticking out as a lone bastion of protection from the nuclear detonation of raw power that Soma had unleashed.
If there was ever a sign of how protected Alucard was from his father's more, overt, displays of aggression. The mausoleum was it.
While hanging above the horizon was the still angry red moon, with the castle fully in view between it and the earth. The Castle didn't remateralize on the earth again, yet the fact that it was hovering in space was worrisome on its own. No one needed the Castle of Dracula to be, essentially, a mobile home of epic proportions.
But Yoko wasn't focused on the Castle, or the moon, or the miles of flattened earth that no longer bore trees or any sign of nature. Even the path up to where the castle normally manifested was gone along with the lake below it. Now it appeared no different than a crater on the moon, sunken down, smeared and spotted.
It was the word 'crucified' that hung in her mind, nipping at her heels and driving her further to run. She couldn't even bring herself to imagine such a sight, not of the man who had been so much for her. A steady rock of reassurance and confidence, his aloof demeanor still allowed for tolerance for her childhood antics.
Not to mention Soma. This was all his doing, and it was effects that indicated that he remembered who Alucard was. But the question was for how long? Did he merely humor everyone while long ago regaining that knowledge? Or was it recent? 'Please don't let it be recent. Soma is only in his twenties he's nothing compared to the 900 years of life he's lived as a vampire. He may end up too confused to understand the surge of emotions and drown.'
A clear fools hope if ever there was one, because there was a clear red moon in the sky, with a hovering castle just waiting to return. No matter how Soma came here, he came here angry. Enraged enough to use his powers, regardless of the ring he bore. 'Oh Soma please calm down...' Yoko pleaded in her thoughts as she ran, forcing herself to pace so she wouldn't pass out when she got to the epicenter of this nightmare.
'We made a promise..'
But Dracula circumvented it regardless. True his body had been destroyed but he merely reincarnated. Be it intentionally, or because he simply could not be ejected from life. Maybe in the end, that was the reason 'why' Soma asked to be killed. Because on some level, maybe knew he would just come back. Even now, 'Soma' the identity could be killed off and Dracula would just come back later with a new identity. That offended Yoko as well, the idea that Soma was just a mask that could be discarded with a new incarnation.
In the distance she could see a small shadow that stood out amid the flattened crater that Soma had created. With nothing still standing save that, Yoko set her destination as that, placing her bets that it was Alucard. The way the crater sat, it appeared as though whatever mashed the earth down the way it had came down over the foundation of the Castle.
'You know, if Soma 'did' come here, he's going to be with Alucard...' she thought to herself as her brain decided to help out by pointing out parts of the shadow. A crucified Alucard, who probably wouldn't have healed enough to hide the injuries... 'Wonder if Soma will let me have a crack at the cults before he does. Since last time someone messed with him emotionally he didn't leave anything after the fact.'
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"Yes, I suppose in an abstract way you did the right thing," he noted into the empty air.
The suit was ruined, the knees had been pierced open when the nails were driven though the kneecaps. The shoes were useless revealing shattered bones that were piecing themselves back together. Flesh brutally stabbed and parted were quietly knitting themselves back together with everything happening in layers. Stupid human blood made this so slow... if the child had been a proper vampire the wounds would already have been healed.
"I suppose I could ask why you didn't just go for something simple, a post it note or something... selective memory restoration is so... selective you know..."
The church doors were the warning.
The Child in black fleeing into the night was the flare.
He should have stopped.
His hand was throbbing from the cursed ring, but it wasn't all his own doing that brought him here.. He'd been called here by something... something that wanted to offer him something...
It was so strong.
Mathias stepped inside the church where, bathed in the light of the red moon, was himself? No. No, no that was wrong... the man looked it, there was an uncanny resemblance, but he knew it wasn't him. 'The humans are at it again...' the thought occurred to him, distant at first. 'They want your attention and pick the... who is he?'
It nagged at him, the memory. Just out of range and now that Mathias remembered what he looked like back when he was a young Vampire. He walked as though in a dream, the weight of his steps crushing the fallen candles that didn't have the sense to roll away. Well it wasn't another doppelganger which was a plus... Then he remembered, this was Arikado, his guardian.
Only Mathias didn't 'have' a guardian, he had been Leon's tactician yes, but he didn't need a body guard. Not anymore at least. It was the next spot of memories that changed things slightly, the memories of a blond woman, bound but not nailed, to a cross. His beautiful wife... Oh Elizabetha, and still waiting for him back in the Castle.
'I'm glad you're not here my love... look at what these horrible humans did to our son...'
The world stopped in that second. As Soma clawed his awareness back into focus that he was 'Soma' not 'Mathias' or Dracula or anyone else only to remember he had a son. Suddenly the measly years lived as Soma were washed utterly away. Drowned in a tidal wave of shock, grief and pure outrage. It wasn't like with Mina, the death of a romantic interest.
This was personal.
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Yoko arrived into a slow staggered stop. Close enough to see Soma holding Alucard close, trails of bloody tears visible on Soma's face. He was rocking Alucard gently, the soft whimpering sounds more of an animal in distress or pain than a human. Yet the moment those piercing red eyes snapped to to focus onto her. When his first act of acknowledging her presence was a vampires' hiss of hate... A primal parental reaction..
"Soma its me, Yoko! You know me! You know I won't hurt Arikado," she answered confidently despite her sadness. She was alone, with no fresh backup, Soma wasn't in his right mind and Alucard was literally in his condition due to humans. Enthusiastic to see the end of the world humans. If ever there was a reason to feel small and helpless, now was that time. Even if Julius was near by, that would just result in a fight as his instinct as a Belmont with trigger. Besides she didn't know where he was and he was also getting on in years. Dracula had been reasonably tolerant of accepting defeat the last time...
But now?
Those two would start fighting, and Alucard needed help. He was probably the only person who could break up the fight. But wouldn't.