Castlevaina

Chapter 3

   Alucard pulled himself up, using ledges and his supernatural balance to keep him steady. Finally getting to the top, he had to cross a thin bridge that ran above Death's courtyard. A falling apart bridge, Alucard huffed to himself. Jumping over the rather large hole in the quaking bridge of marble, Alucard sighed.

   Trudging on, Alucard came to a set of stairs. As he walked up them, he noticed how the stairs didn't continue up, but broken ledges helped him fling himself up. He jumped on a bigger ledge, finding himself face-to-face with a skeleton. Obviously, the man it used to be was a soldier. A blue helmet scraped on it skull, an evenly blue breastplate lay broken and rattling along it's ribcage. A short sword was clutched in its grip, surely the thing it had used when it was alive and tried to siege the castle before it's demise.

   With a bout of quick thinking and supernatural reflexes, Alucard dodged the sword that was aimed in a jab to his midsection. He grabbed the sword and used the monster's arm to lift himself up and kick the skeleton's head clean off it's shoulder blades. As the rest of it crumbled into dusk as it should have, Alucard skillfully twisted the sword around in wide arks. The balance was off, but it will have to do until he found where Death had hidden his own.

   Climbing higher and running into another skeleton, Alucard reached the top. As he caught his breath, he observed where he was. It was only a short hall, a door one way and a stone wall on the other. It was what before the wall that had Alucard's attention. Hovering over an alter was a rather colorful cube against the cool tones of gray brick. 

   Mesmerized by the cube, he walked cautiously to it. As he approached, it started to glow rather brightly, lighting the hall and scaring the shadows into their hiding place. He cupped it, easily fitting the cube into his hands. To his surprise, it melted in his palm. The liquid was thick, swishing with his movement. Simply on instincts, he raised his hands to his lips. It burned his throat like matured wine, pleasant as he gulped. Not a drop remained on his hands, the liquid seemingly staying together like an ooze. He felt warm, a power surging through his veins that ignited his cold blood.

   Though he knew not the extent in which he had regained his magic, he tested a few things. Nothing seemed to happen to him physically. Thinking it was a passive ability, he turned his back to the alter in which read "Cube of Zoe," heading forward on his journey. Reaching the door, he cringed.

   Angelic figures sat on their thrones on high as they judged him. There were many meaningless rooms such as this that simply connected rooms together. Alucard will tell you freely that he hated these rooms. The pillars supported stone angels, the heavenly figures looking down to the Earth. They were looking down on him, judging his worth. Being a half-breed, he never thought he was judged positively. Because of his blood, God had forsaken him and he will be cast into the pits of Hades along with his father. Sighing heavily. he walked on, trying not to shiver as stone eyes seemed to follow him on his way.

   As he passed judgmental eyes, his were assaulted by white marble, dim lighting doing nothing to shield his eyes. He had to blink a few times to get accustomed to all the white, but on he trod. Slaying another knighted skeleton, he had to jump back as a bone dropped from the ceiling, shattering on the ground with age as it missed it's target. Looking up, it was a shelf big and sturdy enough to stand on. Grabbing the bottom one and swinging himself on, he came face-to-skull with a boned figure that seemed to rip off it's rib bones and throw them at the young vampire. Growling lowly, he took his newly acquired short sword and separated it's head from it's spine. Watching it crumble, something red roared in his face. Alucard backed away, only a bit startled, but what caused him to raise his brow was that the skeleton, as he saw when he backed away, simply stayed there for a minute, realized he had backed away, and turned and stumbled off.

   Shaking his head, he backed away from the red skeleton, which with a sniff found it was blood soaked into the bone that caused the color, then turned to explore the room more. Now that he finally looked, he recognized where he was. His mother's Alchemy Laboratory. Jumping down and looking about, he found a square of silver spikes. Slowly walking up to it, he froze when one of his feet sunk into the floor. Knowing it was a trigger, he waited. The turning of gears rang in his ears as he tried to find the source of the noise. The spikes sunk into the floor, revealing what it was guarding.

   Alucard shifted closer, the threatening spikes now gone, and picked up a leather plate of armor. Thinking it was better than the simple cloth on his frame, he snapped his fingers and the chest-piece appeared under his clothes to guard a beating heart. The one his human mother gave to him. He found a phantom of a younger version of himself walking around invisible tables and asking his mother what the weird substance was that was boiling over a strange contraption that produced flame. His answer was only a sweet smile only his mother could make.

   "Always so full of questions, Alucard."

   Putting a hand over the hurting organ, Alucard moved on. He cut down the blood skeleton, though it only turned into a pile of bones instead of turning to dust. Before he could find out what that meant, Alucard jumped up to another level of the lab.

   Finding himself against another armored pile of bones, he quickly decapitated it, grimacing at the short reach of the sword. Vaguely wishing he had his own sword back, he pelted over another square of silver and sharp objects, the half-breed continued. Leaning against a old, wooden table, was a leather shield. Deciding to use it until he had dependable armor, Alucard picked it up and strapped it to his arm.

   For this journey, he would need all the help and defense he could get.