Encore

Soul

Sypha manages to keep quiet for all of several blissful minutes of watching the it's not a church and it isn't real anyway fuck off God and let Trevor enjoy something for just once burn. But then, being Sypha, she pipes up again for, "But the new vampires you were talking about. Is it because they don't have souls that-"

"Sypha," Trevor wails, because isn't he suffering enough without having to get between Alucard and an angry mob. That's just embarrassing, and Alucard will probably be an ungrateful dick about it the whole time. But then the entire side of the church comes off, and it does not fall inward like it's supposed to but outward, and Sypha has something she actually has to do instead of interrogating people for fun.

She just -

He knows how she'd have done it. Only it took her a while to get the hang of forming ice in midair, and longer for the size and strength of something that could take the impact of a falling wall for even an instant, so of course she's still making it grow out of the ground and of course she's still slow at that and of course it's cracking -

He closes his eyes. It's fine. It's totally fucking fine, it would only matter how completely unable to keep Sypha's abilities straight he is if Sypha or Alucard or anybody else were real and there were actual consequences for misjudging things at the wrong time and why is he so fucking stupid about this it doesn't mean anything there's nothing wrong with her she just hasn't practiced yet he knows this there's nothing wrong she's fine she's fine she's fine she's fine she's fine -

"Belmont?" He half opens one eye to squint at Sypha staring up at him.

Well, there's really only one thing to say at this point: "You're shit at that and I don't want to see it."

Instead of getting mad at him, "Huh," Sypha says thoughtfully, which was the opposite of what he wanted to happen. "And you remember me as - no, all right, I won't say anything more, I think I can guess."

She hasn't. Not the part that matters.

If she had she wouldn't still be talking to him. She'd -

The rest of the church crashes down, and then keeps crashing, deafeningly loud, as the very ground it's on gives way. There's now a burning pit.

There's some screaming at this, which Trevor thinks is pretty unreasonable given how much directly and unambiguously horrific stuff has happened in Gresit. You don't need to get worked up over possible omens and portents of future doom when there are already actual demons eating you.

He looks at Alucard, who scowls defensively. "I didn't build any of this part," Alucard says.

"Is it over the ice ghosts? Did it crush them?"

Alucard's silent a long moment, then, "Yes," Alucard lies from underneath his hair.

"How the fuck are you such a bad liar," Trevor demands. "How. How have you ever made people think you're not a vampire when you're so fucking bad at this."

"By keeping my mouth shut," Alucard mutters sourly.

"More importantly," Sypha says, "do we need to worry about this? Should we be backing up?"

Alucard considers it. "I don't think so... It might sink a bit deeper itself, but most of this area is solid ground."

Which, of course, she hears as... "Let's get a closer look, then!" Sypha says.

"We could just leave now," Trevor suggests. "There's places with actual doors for whatever sacrilegious questions are burning your tongue off not saying."