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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...the incense. You recall it? From before.

[ He sighs. He would hate this so, so much, if he could only feel anything. As it is, his tone is perfectly even. ]

That’s Belmont shit. Unless someone else created the same thing without Dracula taking notice.

Yes. It dulled my senses, made me want to...[He gestures with his hand, searching for words.] Docile. It made me docile.

[He hadn't had the time to really digest that fact before. But now...oh. Oh fuck.]

My sources were wrong. Or worse, lied to.

Which means the other books could be out there, and we know that he has a source for at least one.

[ It’s possible that their nevromancer doesn’t know. There was a whole lot of Belmont bloodup for grabs when they fought the tiger, after all. But maybe he does, and that maybe is just enough. ]

We wouldn’t need to fail to lose, if I were there. We’d be lost the second I suffered so much as a paper cut. With my blood, he may be able to control the castle.

Later. When...[when this is over. When this is over and Sypha is back, because if this ends without her then so does the vampire, so does the city's stability, so does everything.] when we have the time, we need to make a rough catalog of what I need to begin to look for on the markets.

[A Tepes, collecting all the remains of House Belmont. It's terrible, isn't it?

As Trevor explained, Alucard's face goes white. He understands. He understands and there's a low murmured oh god before silence falls over him.]

I understand.

[ He should apologise. He’ll be sending Alucard in alone. Alucard, who isn’t trained for this the way he is. Hardened by only a single year of tragedy and not by a lifetime of training and preparation for this. Coddled by himself and the speaker. Alucard, soft and suffering and already broken into something more monster than human now.

He doesn’t care. ]

I’ll support from the outside as best I can. Can I trust that you generally make a point of not touching the blade of your sword?

Belmont, all of the magic....

[He knows he can't counter all the magic of a mage's workshop. There's not defeat in his voice, not exactly, but the concern is impossible to ignore. He isn't scared, not yet, but he wavers.]

But yes, you can assume that freely.

I’m going to do Belmont Shit to the blade of your sword. As long as you don’t touch the blade itself, the demon hide gloves should be enough to keep it from harming you. That should- help, at least.

Everything else-

[ He breathes in and out through his teeth. ]

I’ll find a way. Your father must have had a way.

I intended to have it hovering the entire time. It will help with the issue of range, since if there is to be a return of the house's owner, we will need to keep space between us maximized.

[He cannot be a snarling monster, as much as he wishes to. As much as there would be satisfaction in sinking claws into heart and just pulling it out.

(Alucard knows he is capable of that action now.)

(Alucard knows this is the only time he'd ever do it so happily.)

A way, Trevor says, and Alucard closes his eyes to try and think.]

What kind of magic would it fall under? His library is organized by topic.

Channeling, perhaps. Or- I could study that puppet. It managed to cast spells remotely. We’re not low on options, only on time.

[ Only on time. Only. ]

Three days. Give me three days. If we don’t have a solution by then, we discuss desperate measures.

I can find the correct section.

[Alucard can't know what he's really looking for. Just where it ought to be, and then Trevor says time. He hisses at the word, furious at the concept rather than at Trevor for the reminder.]

And I will help. The research cannot be your work alone, not right now.

Anything that you can find, to do with channeling magic from a person or an object. After that-

[ After that comes desperate measures. ]

Anything you can find on speeding the turning process.

I'll stray into familiars, the concept might at least provide inroads to some solution and--

[He stops. The only thing that moves are Alucard's eyes, their gold glinting and not in a way that they ever should. They're keen. Wary.]

No.

I can just get the books myself, you realise.

[ Not that getting the books is what Alucard was objecting to, but- ]

It’ll render my blood useless. It’ll ensure success. It’ll mean I don’t fuck up like that again. It has to be an option.

No vampirism is conducted between the three of us, Belmont.

[His hands look for something to dig into. They settle for the palms of his own hand, and Alucard barely registers that he's doing it.]

That is not something I will compromise on. Not as Adrian and not as Alucard.

[He has never, not once, actually parlayed politics into a fight like this. It's the only time he ever will.]

The only fucking thing.

[ That comes out before he can think. He remembers the monster that Alucard was, just a few days ago. He doesn’t know that he’ll ever forget. His tone is still calm. ]

Go get the books and hope that there’s another solution, then. Because you can’t fucking stop me.

I will stop you, because if you even attempt that stupid idea this city falls, the Belmont line is ended, and I become the thing you hoped I was when I first found you on the doorstep.

[Alucard's voice is low. The anger that he's been sitting on wants to come out now, now when it isn't needed.]

Do you understand?

But she lives. So I understand, I just don’t care.

[ But the thought stays with him. Stays as he pours over the books. Stays as he studies his grandmothers’ list of vampires in the area for likely candidates if the worst does happen.

And then it comes to him, a combination of that thought, of the mechanics behind the necromancers’s construct and of Dracula’s work on familiars.

They’ve not spoken in a full day. He’s not sure they’ve eaten or slept, either. ]

I’ll turn you.

[He's been useless. Of course he has, he's managed to pull books, skim them, and put little scraps of paper in pages to point out useful passages. The synthesis, the understanding, that has to be Trevor because Trevor's head is in the right space for this kind of thing.

He's going through another one, familiars this time, about to put the book back on the shelf because it's useless then....

...wait.]

Beg pardon?

[His head turns. Tilts slightly, and it looks far more natural on him when he is a wolf expressing confusion.]

[ He doesn’t know whose skin binds this book. It was penned after Dracula’s exodus from Europe, so probably not a Belmont. ]

It’s a spell your father developed. It‘s- technically a form of turning. Instead of the victim becoming a vampire, they become an extension of the caster. In order to control an unwilling target, it requires unique properties of vampire blood. But for a willing one- a human probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

But a fairy might.

[Alucard walks over to where Trevor is slowly. He does not know how much of a welcome presence he is, if at all. There's no sitting down, there is only looking over Trevor's shoulder.

He considers it slowly.]

A play on the concept of a fami-- [Blood again.]

Does it allow magic to be cast by the familiar?

It does. That was the purpose it was made for, so that he, in all his power, could be everywhere in the city at once using the bodies of people no vampire would consider for more thana few seconds. It wasn’t needed once he became more respected.

[ and the awkward part- ]

You’ll need to take my blood. Given. And taken willingly and knowing the consequences.

[The logic is solid. It...it is not a bad solution, all things considered. Alucard considers it, because it allows for the need to have someone who can do magic be involved here.

But the rest...]

Is there a note regarding method? Transfusion is not safe. Our bloodtypes are not compatible and I am still half-human.

None. I doubt that the safety of familiars was ever a concern.

[ He doesn’t sigh. He doesn’t do much of anything, just stares over the book. ]

Consumption ought to work. It works for turning.

More importantly, it would pass the digestive system. I cannot begin to imagine what would become of any of us if this...

[If any other vampire found out. He knows the damage. Belmont puppet. Dracula's son, betraying his own kind in a way that none of them could have predicted but would be far worse than simply following after his mother's humanity.]

If we're discovered, we both die and the city is lost. If I turn, we are both monsters and the city is lost. If you go alone, the two of you may not return and the city is lost.

No matter what, this way ends with her alive. I don't give a shit about the rest.

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