cryptsleeper | 20s AU Post

20s AU Post

Current Carmilla plot outline
--Post-fire, Carmilla and Mr. Peanut team up mostly to use each other. Carmilla's spent the past several months (since November, it is now February 1925) networking, and it's clear to her that Alucard's not suited for the position and that the other two are the obvious weakness. Mr Peanut needs something back, so this is perfect on her end. Mr Peanut can only imagine the joys of vampire blood in his work, and he'd like an army of vampires for his own ends.
--Shit stirring from Mr Peanut (all of March?)
--Mr Peanut also begins to sell mis Miracle Serum, which has vampire blood in it.
--Gang is very much trying to murder Mr Peanut during this.
--Start of April, vampire gets a call from one of the blood bank contacts that 3 patients have come in and are displaying some bizarre signs. Investigation yields the fact that they're in process of turning, and they've all taken the same serum.
--Additional investigation reveals O FUCK IT MR PEANUT
--Meanwhile Carmilla's been made aware of a familiar she didn't sire, so she knows something's up. Big fight with Mr. Peanut and thus Mr. Peanut is left depowered
--Gang commits a murder
--Carmilla's well sured up on her contacts now, and it's time for open rebellion (mid-April)
--In a more subtle attempt to let Alucard just step aside, she cuts the breaks on demon car and shows up to gloat/suggest he not pull a dad and go to deal with his grief quietly while she runs the city. The how he wants to do it is up to him (black widow joke goes here.) Treffy and Sypha walk in.
--1 week of straight up rebellion; feedings, no help from allies, need to do damage control instead of fight carmilla, every dracula rule is
--MEANWHILE IN GRAVITY FALLS, triangle shows Vlad what's up to try and psyche him out, somehow this finalyl snaps Vlad out of his depression and he heads home
--Just in time for Alucard and Carmilla to be tearing each other to bits in one of the bayous, it's not going well
--Vlad coming in means the king of vampires is accosted by a belmont with a pair of blessed knitting needles and a speaker with a fucking gun and he's just like what the shit happened to the world while i was gone
--Wards around the fight means that only demon car can break the wards, everyone has to pile in.
--Carmilla gets her ass kicked AND SENT TO THE JUSTICE DIMENSION

THEN THERE WERE FAERIES.
--Prior to all of this the vampire and Sypha have done a shit ton of research on how to get their Belmont back
--Sypha has also been practicing debating with dad, which leaves everyone Very Tired.
--When Trevor is actually snatched up (1 year after marriage, it takes fae effort. Taking Arn's shape fails, so it's a lot more kidnapping by force), Sypha and Alucard go into Faerie
--But they're playing this as politics, not as heroes rescuing their damsel, so that means the faeries are just "wait what now excuse u?"
--There are 3 gates and 3 trials (the particulars we're still bullshitting.) Each is asked to sacrifice 3 things. (Alucard: voice, his titles as bestowed upon by his father and his people, i forget the third; Sypha: her human form (she's a birb), fuck what were the other two)
--They enter the court at the end of the third trial. After LITERALLY ALL THE TITLES Sypha declares she Speaks for Trevor Belmont
--Claim debate over Trevor, turns out that the rules are in Sypha's favor.
--But that means debating to leave Fae without giving up what they've chosen.
--Sypha lawyers it all out, Alucard is a safety deposit and hangs out with Fae!Trevor
--In the end, safe passage out of Faerie consists of Sypha giving up her memory of the necromancer (billed as a great mage she studied under), the vampire gives up his immortality, and Trevor is replaced with Carmilla (dad was aware of this option and OK with it), but Trevor has his ability to swear taken. He now soundslike a rubber ducky when he tries
--Everyone gets home okay, except for the AU of this AU where the gang fails, but Trevor's on their doorstep like a bat out of Hell because time doesn't work right and he's been in Hell for a WHILE.

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A week. It's been a week since....

[He trails off. The tug in the connection between himself and Trevor is felt, and it means that all the information they must communicate has to be put on hold. There is, from where Trevor sits, a line from the sigil that connects to elsewhere, and Alucard is made to walk along some invisible line. It leads to a series of jars placed upon a table, the same drawings etched onto the glass. Within the jars are low levels of a deep orange glow (embers of a fire), and the revelation is simultaneous.

The energy gets fed into the jars. Stockpiling. So to break the line between the jars and the circle around Sypha is step one. Alucard's hand hovers over the table, he's happy to smash the whole of it. His claws scratch into the wood around it, but that is not his own doing.

Alucard looks over to Sypha as his hand moves without himself being in control.]

When this is done, we're getting that thing off of you and then will need to ride out the defenses. If you are on my back, can you hang on?

[That gets a slow, tired nod out of her. It's less confidence in her own arm strength and more just that she's ready to do whatever it takes to make their escape from this, regardless of how capable her body is of keeping up with her will.]

What is...

[She frowns, watching the way that he moves, brow furrowed and face slightly pale.]

Why are you moving like that?

When we're home.

[He will explain they're home. It is a statement of purpose, a reminder of why they're here to begin with, and now everything is ready to be put into place. Alucard directs his sword to hover at the circle's edge, and then two things happen at once.

The first thing is that the destruction of the circle's connection to the glass batteries is finally severed, claws scratching the last piece of the counterspell into the wood and then dragging across the invisible tether that forms the connecting line.

Second is the sword. It falls into the circle, aimed squarely for the terrible chain on Sypha. The cut it makes is not clean, but it cleaves through through Alucard's sheer force of will. It is the first time any of his emotion has felt well and truly useful in this situation, and what better way to let it all manifest than this first act of freedom?

[It's a testament to her willpower that the instant she's free, she's moving — fingers digging into the floorboards as best she can, pulling herself along in a desperate attempt to get herself moved off of the sigil in the floor. It hurts to move, of course; everything hurts, at this point, and her vision is still swimming somewhat from the untreated hit to the head she'd incurred a week ago. But Alucard is right — when we're home. Not now. Now is for escaping. There will be time, later.

There's always time, later. There has been, since the day they met.]

Hurry...

[There is no time to waste. That has also been true since they met, the situation no less dire than before. A year ago, it meant Alucard's life. Now it means hers, theirs, and going home to Trevor. A life well lived in, a life to be fought for in order to keep living.

Alucard dives for her swiftly in that moment, makes sure he is low to the ground so she can scramble up onto him. The room has not reacted yet, it is a matter of time, they must do this before anything else.]

[It's hard, to say the least, but she manages to push herself up far enough that she can get her arms around his shoulders, levering herself up the rest of the way until she's draped across his back, linking her arms around each other to better help hold on.

He's so much warmer to lie on than the unforgiving floor. He's soft, and smells of home and magic instead of the thick and cloying aromas of the workshop, and she's quick to bury her face against his neck and breathe him in.]

You have to...

[She's so tired, she's not thinking straight. But this is important and she needs him to know it, needs to collect herself enough that she can tell him.]

There's a letter. I don't know what it says.

[She clings a little harder, more determined.]

He talked about a letter.

[The moment that Sypha is secure against his back is the moment that Alucard's feet leave the ground. His own skills are powers, not magic, and in theory should not be impacted by the horrible things within this room.

It is in lifting off the ground that it registers how light Sypha is. She always has been, she is the smallest of the three, but now that lightness is for all of the wrong and terrible and horrifying reasons and Alucard wants to snarl in anger for that fact alone.

(There will be so many other reasons for that noise in due time, but it is easiest to focus on small things first.)]

Okay.

[He hears her. He begins to drift towards what looks like a desk.]

If it is down here, we will destroy it. If not, then we must abandon it. We're here to rescue you first. Trevor and I are in agreement that to destroy him is not as important in this moment as getting you out of here.

[He manages to say it all with calm and reassurance in his voice. It takes Alucard himself by surprise.]

[She makes a soft noise, halfway between a whimper and a gurgle, and settles back down against his back; her efforts complete for the moment, she's ready to settle back and entrust herself to Alucard for a little while, reassured by the soothing tone of his voice.

She's right about there being a letter; Alucard is right about it being located on or near the desk in question. The roll of tracing paper can be found spread atop the surface, still with the shape of a human body traced on it, with lines drawn through the component limbs at each of the joints, and the head scribbled out.

Near it sits the letter in question, typed on a typewriter to disguise any telltale signs of handwriting, and containing what appears to be a purchase order. A request for two product, with height and weight specifications attached; one M, one F, familial resemblance.

Near the specifications for the M, there's penciled handwriting scribbled in, reading "Ear / Eye"; near the F, "Hand".]

[What it is, in the end, is an order form of sorts, isn't it? Like a butcher's diagram of meat cuts, except human shaped and with specific requests already made of it. Alucard's entire face pales (as if that was already possible), and Trevor's moving his hand without any say so.

The thing is then bathed in light, and then it crumples up into nothing at all before Alucard can make more sense of it. This...it's as cursed an object as the three of them have ever encountered, and made all the worse for what it meant. What might have happened if they didn't interfere.

But it sets off a new panic, and Alucard's voice is low.]

Trevor. [He's looking down at the space where the paper was.] For an escape, might there be invisible lines to make those cuts just in case....

[He thinks of piano wire, pulled tight, slicing through, through, through, and Alucard hates his own mind for thinking of it.]]

[Doubtful, comes the ultimate verdict, though there is decidedly doubt to it, and not certainty. The logic stands, however; something like that would've had to stick to Sypha directly in order to be effective, and that in turn would mean coming up with a spell that would stick despite the magic-sucking sigil she'd been put on. Not impossible, perhaps, but probably a great deal more effort than return, with plenty of other defenses already in place.

Maximizing efficiency. It's not much hope to hang a hat on, but it's better than nothing.]

Lines...?

[Sypha mumbles, still dangling from his neck.]

[Doubtful is....not great. But they have to take it, and the next step is easy. Breaking every single glass battery that holds Sypha's energy, happy to let that into the air. God willing, it might restore Sypha some, and if not, it will ensure that the necromancer has less of her to work with. So Alucard does so, aware that this could set a fire. So be it. Right now he'll take fire and all the fears that go with it so long as Sypha is free.

He shifts just a little when all the glass is free.]

We know that leaving this place is going to be harder than entering. You'll need to hold on harder in a few moments. Can you do that?

[Fortunately for everyone concerned, perhaps, the magic in jars consists of flame with no fuel; because Sypha's not actively feeding them, they burn out reasonably quickly once they're freed from their stasis in their jars. Most burn out quickly; a few land on the floor and test the wood before leaving scorch marks behind as they die. And for just one, hot glass skitters across the desk and starts to smolder, still carrying enough heat that it might just fan itself back into a flame if left alone long enough.]

M'not letting you go.

[Not when he's her lifeline right now; not when there's still some part of her that knows he needs her too. That's how it's always been, isn't it — even in her worst moments, Sypha will still do everything she can to put her loved ones first.]

Ngh...what can I do...?

[She can help. They'll need her help. She's sure she can help, or so she decides amidst her disorientation.]

[Alucard throws into the still existing flame the scrap of cloth he used to open the door. It catches, and soon it is ash. Then there is a decision he makes is only a second, and it is not to even try and put that flame out. This place, this place ought to burn. Let the necromancer be forced to start anew. Let him demand vengeance, for the three of them will and they shall be all too delighted to dole it out.

The door then. The door. Alucard floats towards it, both feeling Sypha's words as much as he hears them. It is agony for that voice to be as weak as t is. It shouldn't be, it's not her, not really. To see her down to embers was expected, but painful to witness.

He shifts for just a moment, so she can see his face again. It is cold and set and determined, and for a moment there is a flicker of the warmth she has always been capable of dragging out of him.]

Remain alert. Survive.

[One of these things is much easier than the other to accomplish. Survival is fine; it's staying focused that keeps proving more difficult than not, and she whimpers a little as she clings tighter, trying to pull herself up enough to at least see over his shoulder and try to keep her eyes forward.]

Hurry. S'never gone for long.

[Also she just hates it in this place. The reek. The feel of the magic twisted into everything. The way the necromancer talked to her about Speakers.]

We're working on it. There's too much magic on the stairs that will activate on the way up that we can well and truly rush through it.

[He uses we, and he means all three of them. Alucard's hand goes to the door knob, and he flings it open. Now is when the real work begins, because everything else? That has been easy so far. Too easy by far, and Alucard doesn't like that fact.

There's a low hiss as he floats over the threshold, back into the corridor.]

Start already.

[Get it over with.]

[And almost as if on cue, it does.

Much like a lobster trap, the basement is easy enough to get into; it's getting back out again that makes everything difficult. It helps that Alucard's floating instead of putting weight on the steps; the runes there are glowing an eerie green hue, but they don't appear to be activating, just primed and ready.

The shadows on the walls, on the other hand, sense movement, and have begun to lift away from the paint, ink-black like tentacles in an already dark corridor.]

[Floating was the right choice. That is scant comfort, but Alucard is satisfied that he has at least fought off one problem before it could take hold. His eyes flick to the terrible walls though, and he growls out Trevor's name but once.

It is permission. It is handing over the reins of the vampire over to the Belmont entirely, and for that Alucard can only sit inside of himself and watch.

They can't be certain the light that Alucard is bathed in will work, and so the first thing that happens is Alucard's sword is sent out to meet the shadows on the walls. To carve into them a counter spell, praying that the extension of the light spell on Alucard will continue to extend to the sword and keep those terrible shadows at bay. The steel screeches as it cuts through the wood, and that is not a natural sound.]

[What unfolds in the stairwell is perhaps somewhat comparable to a fish attempting to swim through a forest of underwater seaweed; the shadows are alive now, though not precisely purposeful. Rather than reaching immediately for the intruder, they hover in a network of tendrils, testing the air and waiting for something to disturb them.

It is, perhaps, only inevitable that Alucard would brush up against one, even as his sword seeks to neutralize another on the wall. And the instant one finds him, the whole mess on that side seems to come alert, lashing out to grasp him and trying to throw him down onto the steps, where those glowing runes are still waiting, crackling with soft green energy.

It's an effective enough trap; the shadows to snare, the steps to lock in place. For a necromancer always on the hunt for available resources, it's always better to snare something alive than to kill it outright, if he can help it.]

[Alucard swears. Or Trevor. Maybe both, and there's a moment where it seems as if there are two voices coming out of Alucard's mouth instead of the one. In that moment, Alucard's feet are forced onto the ground, and there is a fresh panic. Alucard feels it, but he can't articulate it. Trevor's own will is far greater than his in the moment, and that's just fine.

It means that for once, Alucard is not relying on his own instinct in a fight like this. If he was, he'd be straining and struggling against the things wrapping around him, forcing him down, down to activate the runes on the stairs. In that is a curious effect. The less he moves, the less tight the shadow's grip. So that'll have to be a part of this strategem on Trevor's behalf.

There is, however, a burst of light from Alucard's left palm. It is angled down, down towards the steps, and it may be trying to work against the shadows, but more likely it is trying to break the step. Dangerous since it's the one right after the one Alucard and Sypha have been forced on, and with that blast there is a strange smell. Ozone, just. Ozone and naught else.

It mixes with the air, fighting the necromancer's preferred perfumes of choice. It does not chase the whole of it away, but there is a transformation all the same, the scent trying to weaken the shadows as much as the magic is. It makes sense after that horrible thing of incense that was tossed towards Alucard in the circus tent, how it made him terribly docile. Smell is a weapon as much as anything else now.]

[Magic. That's magic, out of Alucard, and gradually Sypha starts to comprehend what's happening. That's where Trevor is, he's here even if he's...not altogether here, and she's fighting to keep her focus as the network of grasping tendrils and locking steps make it seem as though the very house itself is trying to keep them in.

One of the shadows brushes against her, clinging to Alucard's back; sensing something to latch onto, it grasps her around the middle, making her yelp with a shock of startled hurt as it tries to pull her off and throw her down onto the steps, as well.

She's not strong enough to stay hanging on forever. Her magic is sapped, siphoned away, and it's hard to focus long enough to draw up a spell, anyway.

And yet Trevor is close at hand. Trevor, with his own magic. Trevor with his spells that they talked about once, that someone can take and grasp and turn around and make their own, and that's why it's dangerous.]

Trevor...help me...

[She clings as hard as she can, kicking at the shadows no matter how ineffectual she knows it will be, trying to stay connected to Alucard until she can muster the strength to act herself.]

[Alucard can feel Sypha slipping away before Trevor comprehends it. There's enough of his own will to whip around, bound down one or two of the steps, and his heels slam into the sigils. He can see where the things are coming from, and he means to tear them out at their roots. Beyond slamming into the markings on the staircase, the weight of Alucard pushing down, all vampire strength and fury, means that they crack under the tread of his boots. That's no Trevor magic, that is only the vampire in him, the selfishness that drives blood suckers forward in their worst moments. That they, apex predators of what is thought to be the top of the food chain, ought to be denied anything at all.

When Alucard reaches for them, it is with his claws extended, and those now glow with a light that burns too hot. He tears through them, and for a moment, it seems as if the thing has worked. There is the sound of paper tearing, and the things die.

But he has moved too much in too fast a space of time, and that has invited more shadows forward. So Alucard mutters something to Trevor, and there is a moment where his face screws up as they debate between themselves.

It is a risk, what he does next. Claws press to the walls, the white hot light trailing along the grooves Alucard forces into the paint and beyond, deep, deep into the wood.

Trevor is the one who takes care of making sure Sypha stays safe. Another band of light, this time around the two of them, holding one fast to the other. The shadows will either be repelled, or they shall have to take their time in finding the right way to deal with the makeshift tether.]

[ The room (‘one with a window. ‘ He’d said. ‘One you won’t miss using for a long time. It won’t be safe to go in there for months.’) stinks of death.

The construct is just meat now, and while they’ve kept it frozen while they can the sad truth is that it’s needed to be out in the open for far too long for him to study it. For him to prepare. It’s rotting, and fast. The plants, potted ones (‘that’s why I need a window. They move toward the sun. That’s intent. I can use it.’), are rotted now too, the will to survive stripped out of them and used as fuel for this ridiculous shit he’s trying to pull. And then there’s the blood, what seems like everyone’s but his own.

They have Sypha’s still, largely unused, a jar containing a cotton ball soaked with it amoung all of the other horrible things. (The room he’s in is disturbingly similar to the forgemaster’s workshop, all upsetting little things in jars and sheets and sheets of writing in ink and charcoal and ash mixed with saltwater and grave dirt and Alucard’s blood). It’s time to make use of it. ]

Alucard, you’re on your own. Don’t fuck it up.

[ And with that and one last spell, that tether, the vampire is released. And it’s time to do something stupid. It’s time to do at least three of the things, in fact, that he’s meant to never do.

Don’t mess with forgemastery.

Don’t use blood for spells.

Don’t do evil shit, like controlling people’s bodies. (He’s already broken that one a lot today.)

He has Sypha’s blood as the medium, the rotting remains of the construct as a focus, and a spell that he could never summon the intent to use. (He’s used a lot of spells that he could never summon the intent to use, today. Alucard’s determination to save Sypha is a force that could move mountains.)

And he has a fuck of a lot of faith in Sypha.

He translates his thoughts into runes, dampening the cotton ball with saltwater to write them in Sypha’s blood. Using the hands of Sypha Belnades, I will take control of the spells drawn by the man who made this puppet..

It shouldn’t work. He can’t form any intention to do that, even seeing it written. He knows too well that it’s impossible. He can’t imagine himself achieving such a thing, and so he never can achieve it. It’s a fucking annoying irony - his fey nature should make him a font of magic, but he can’t do shit with it.

But Sypha can. Sypha can steal the spell from him. Sypha can see herself controlling the place’s defenses, surely. And she probably can’t hear him, but he speaks anyway. ]

All yours.

[ All of it. All of it. Hers. ]

[Alucard's claws are buried deep in the walls. Magic, both inert and active, is everywhere in this corridor, and if it weren't for the fact that she's absolutely certain this building is warded to high heaven against magical spillage, they'd certainly be casting a mile-high beacon with all the different spellcraft ricocheting around at once. Tendrils are grasping at her, tongues of magical paralysis are licking at their shoes, and now with Alucard's band of light, she's caught in the midst of a tug-of-war of spells trying to throw her down and ones trying to keep her up.

But then comes something new, something different than anything she's felt before. This one feels like someone pounding at a door inside her mind with the pommel of a knife, something that leaves just enough of a headache behind to be noticed before washing down over her shoulders and heading toward her hands.

No — not over her shoulders. Through them. Through her blood, a spell running through her blood from her neck down to the tips of her fingers.

Before, when she'd caught hold of a wisp of magic and tried to pull it, the sigil in the floor had rendered it too weak to hold onto, and it had dissipated like fairy floss in water. But this — this is magic, this is strong and alive and there —

And it offers absolutely no resistance as she musters the wherewithal to think mine, this is mine, it's mine.

She couldn't possibly have hoped to structure this spell with the condition she's in. But it's no different than one of the written spells she'd shown Trevor all that time ago, the kind where she doesn't have to know the spell to use it, because the form is already there; the use is something completely different.

Mine!

And yet it takes something out of her, grasping this wild not-hers magic and making it her own, changing it in accordance with her intent. It burns and she aches but now it's the shadows on the walls that she's fighting, forcing her snare around them, a magical chain reaction that leaps from tendril to tendril as Alucard holds them back until she can arc the command to them all, and when it completes she has the brief sensation of being a puppeteer holding the strings of a thousand marionettes all tied up in a cat's cradle in her fingers, and she hadn't realized that she'd been screaming until she hears the last of one dying in the back of her ragged throat, but it dies and they don't, and the shadows are licking at the walls but they're not reaching for them anymore.]

[All the magic drops from Alucard at once. He understands the plan, but he did not expect to feel the effects of Trevor's presence leaving his system so keenly. It is like being knocked over by a great wave, and he almost stumbles for it. Claws screech, going down, down, down the walls, almost hitting the wainscotting.

Sypha is still behind him, but he cannot turn in this moment. That's not the plan, the plan is to have him be still so Sypha can exert her intent. Neither of them could know how badly worn she'd be by the time they got to her (if she was alive at all), but this requires time. To understand the magic of the house they are trapped in, to know the necromancer's magic in a way that is far too intimate for any mage. (Alucard imagines that it is how Belmont blood can master his father's defenses.)

His eyes are keen in the dark of the shadows, watching the fight of shadows against their own insides. The things that force them to act as they do, and there's such satisfaction in seeing each and every one fall to Sypha's intent. Trevor had spoken of small victories every time, it was as close to comfort as he could give but this? This is real victory. Real success. Triumph in all the ways that really matter, even as Sypha's raw screams go right into his ears.

(They're ringing. They're ringing with the sound of her and even if it is screams it is her voice so what else matters?)

When Sypha stops, when the shadows are held at bay, Alucard does not ask if all is safe. If all is well. If they can take the final risk here. He moves by his own intent now, and that is with swift feet up the stairs. They will not be attacked now, not so long as this horrible place is bound to Sypha's will instead of it's master's, and the duration need only endure till they get out of the door. To the car if possible, as to better obscure themselves.

(This man cannot find the castle.)

He cannot tap the connection to Trevor anymore to let him know that this worked. He has shut down the line, and Alucard regrets that he is now so very in the dark about success.

To the door then. The door. The door and there is a silent prayer that the master of the house will not be returning home.]

[Her control over them remains complete — almost. Once she's got the mass of figurative strings in her hands, it's easier to keep hold of them than it was to collect them, but she's still exhausted and dizzy and being jostled around by their sprint up the stairs, and she's so scattered in her composure that she doesn't really realize what's happening as a result of her focus. She's not just controlling these spells; on some level she's stealing them, grasping the whole of the house and taking command of it, and as she does all of the secrets woven into the spellwork come pouring into her, all of the magic stolen it's all different it's stolen he did this with the magic he stole from his victims and that's why it's so chaotic, so different —

It's only inevitable, perhaps, that one of the threads would slip from her grasp. Shaken free, and back to its former design, it whips at Alucard as he flees up the stairs, aiming to catch him across the chest.]

20s AU Post

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