Castlevania Nocturne: Blood Moon of Immortality

Chapter 1

Richard Belmont stood outside on one of the patios of Castle Dracula staring into the rising sun. After being saved by Alucard, Richter and his companions took refuge at the castle that once was owned by Count Vlad Dracula Tepes which he was able to use to teleport using magic and Alucard managed to harness the power to do so. Richter let out a sigh when he felt the presence of someone walking behind him. He turns to see a tall, pale white haired man standing before him with a bowl in his hand. "Shouldn't you be turning into dust by now?" Richter asks the vampire. "Being the son of Dracula has its advantages." He stands before him and looks out at the sun and then hands the bowl out to him. "Here." Richter stares a bit cautiously at the bowl of stew. "Relax, it's not tainted with blood or poison. I may be the son of Dracula, but I resent him for what he did three hundred years ago." Richter takes the bowl starts to eat it. "Not bad." Richter mumbles softly. "Annette is with Maria, I heard she just lost her mother. I'm sorry." Richter stopped eating and winced a little. "Tera was like a mother to me too. After I lost mine, she was there for me and so was Maria. But now Báthory turned her into a vampire like her sister many years ago." He places the bowl on the flat railing of the patio. "I used to believe Belmonts were unkillable." Richter looks at the pale vampire. "You knew a Belmont?" "Yes. His name was Trevor Belmont." Richter stirs the bowl. "My mother told me all there was about him, apparently he's the one who literally fought death and came back to tell the tale." Alucard nods. "That's him. He was stubborn, foul mouthed and loved his drinks. But I saw him as a great ally and friend." Alucard gently nostalgically grinned. "His son Frederick helped bring back the legacy of the name Belmont. Took most of his life to do so." Richter added finishing the stew. "He slew countless of powerful vampires." A thought came to Richter's mind, how much information does the old vampire know? "What do you know about Erzebet Báthory?" Alucard looked back at the sky. "She was born over two hundred years ago, she was a noblewoman from Hungary. There are legends and stories that say she would bathe in the blood of young women to keep her youthful appearance long before she became a vampire, most were true." "That's...something." Richter commented before Alucard continued. "She brought fear in her town and kidnapped young virgin women to work for her or worse. She was a vile and cruel noblewoman and was caught in a vicious act of love making with women while bathing in virgin blood by royal guards, high ranked officers and a few priests. During her arrest they found chained victims in her dungeon. Most of them were dead while a few were clinging on by a thread. The women that worked for her were executed and burned. Their ashes spread the land in hoping of undoing the land of sin and horror. Báthory was put on trial but was saved from execution by her family and was locked away at her family estate until she one night turned into a vampire and slew her family. At some point 50 years or so after turning, she wanted to bond with my father. Not in a loving way, but in a way to make a strong powerful army of vampires and night creatures. But he refused and she felt betrayed when she learned of his love for my mother. He wanted to live a peaceful life and learn to tolerate humans with my mother." Richter looked confused. "Why betrayal?" "Because Dracula was the one who turned her." Richter was shocked but stayed quiet. "Letting her jealousy behind, she went to live a long life and became stronger each night. I know not of HOW she became this strong but she isn't immortal." Richter looks down at his whip on the left side of his belt. "But I couldn't even touch Báthory with my mother's whip." Richter pulled out the whip and examined the golden Belmont crest on the handle. Alucard's eyes looked down at the whip. "Because it's made by man made magic, but if you had a weapon made by both man and vampire it would do far greater damage." Richter looked back at Alucard with curiosity. "Can you make one?" He nods at Richter. "In a moment. But for now, you should check in on your companions." Alucard quietly walks back inside taking Richter's empty bowl with him. A few minutes later Richter wondered the halls searching for Annette and Maria when he saw Annetta closing a door behind her and makes eye contact with Richter. "How is she?" He asks approaching her. "She's asleep and she'll need some time." Richter looks at the door with a grim expression. "She's strong but we'll all be there for her." Richter says with Annette nodding in agreement. "Have you spoken with our host?" Annette asks. "Yes, outside the fact he has no intention of killing us he's surprisingly calm and approachable for the son of Dracula." "I asked before but still never got an answer, who's Dracula?" Richter was a little surprised to hear she never knew who Dracula was. "Over three hundred years ago, Count Vlad Dracula Tepes tried to cause a genocide for both humans and vampires because his wife was accused of witchcraft and was burned for it." A slight chill ran down her spine. "It was until my ancestor Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades and Alucard stormed this castle and fought the vampire army with in and killed Dracula." Annette leaned her back against the wall. "A part of me can understand to urge to kill after losing a loved one. But complete extermination of humans and vampires is an unthinkable act." She looks over at Richter who leaned against the wall as well. "How are you feeling?" She asks softly. "I'll be fine, it's Maria I'm worried about." Annette's eyes look over at the door and then at the ground. "I've always hated vampires for they stood for. But when I lost my mother, I hated them even more. Now we lost all our mothers to vampires. Poor child." Richter pushes himself off the wall and stands to her side then places a hand on her shoulder. "She'll push through. We just have to be there for her and wait." She looks over at Richter with a very slight blush under her cheeks and she nods. "Richter." She turns around to see the son of Dracula standing with a smithing hammer in his left hand. "Are you ready?" Richter nods and smiles at Annette before making his way to the vampire. They walked down the spiral stairwell till they reached a large smithing room filled with dusted swords, shields, daggers, spears, axes, and maces completely unused. The room was deprived of windows so no amount of sun could reach for whoever worked down here long ago. There were four separate furnaces with ventilations above them and seven anvils. Alucard points to one of the furnaces ready to be used by a cleaned off anvil. "This will take a long time to make this so it's better to get started now." Meanwhile in the chapel that took place of Tera's turning, Abbot Emmanuel sat at the steps of the altar clenching his hair tightly. Tera, the love of his life and mother to his daughter Maira was turned into a vampire before his very eyes. He knew if he could sacrifice Maria, he could have another chance at having another child with Tera or live a life with her alone. But she was gone, her soul tarnished by Erzebet Báthory and now a blood sucking vampire. His puffy red eyes stared at the stone floor until he heard footsteps approaching him. He looked up to see Olrox, the vampire who killed Richter's mother. "Are you still crying?" The Aztec vampire asks, but Emmanuel stays silent as he looks back down. "You should've known that Countess Báthory would spill blood of the ones you hold in your heart." He walks closer to the Abbot. "Hopefully this wouldn't have changed anything for you helping out the vampire messiah, would it?" The Abbot clears his throat. "Of course not." Olrox's nails scratches each bench he walks by. "But how did the Belmont know of what was going on below?" Emmanuel asks. "How should I know?" Olrox lies calmly. "He's probably a lot smarter than you thought. Probably smarter that your beliefs in that this will improve your religion." Emmanuel jumps to his feet and pulls out a metal crucifix aimed at the vampire. "How do I not know if YOU were the one who told him!?" Olrox stops at his tracks. "You can't be fucking serious with that piece of shit." "You shall respect and fear the might of—" Olrox grabs the Abbot by the throat and rips the crucifix from his hand. He stares into his eyes with intensity and malice. Then drops the abbot. "You are such a naive fool if you think your god will save you. Welcome you to your vision of heaven." He clenches the cross as it turns a bright orange and begins to melt in his hands. "After what you did, you don't deserve to even be judged by him. And I shall never fear your god because I have nothing to fear or nothing to fucking die for. You are a fool." The Abbot runs his throat as he looks down at the puddle of metal then at the vampire. "Why are you really here?" Olrox grabs a nearby bible and wipes his hand with the cover, covering it with wet metal. "Our lord wants you to start creating more night creatures immediately." The Abbot stands up adjusting his robe. "And what? You're going to be her watch dog?" Olrox frowns. "I HAVE to prove my usefulness to her if I want to stand by her side as her right hand man." The Abbot was confused at the statement. "What of Ms Drolta?" Olrox grins. "Have you not heard? She was slain, most likely because of Richter Belmont." The Abbot was shocked, Drolta was a strong and seemingly invisible. To be slain only by the young Belmont though neither of them really knew that she was slain by Alucard. "I see, then I must do my part as well." Emmanuel says as he makes his way to the basement with Olrox following behind. 8 Hours later Richter walked outside to nearby river to take a breath. Tired and exhausted sighed and removed his sweat covered jacket. Bits of scratches and cuts covered his muscular back and forearms. He lazily sinks his jacket into the river for a moment then takes it out and hangs it on a nearby branch. He splashes his face then his arms when he heard a rustling behind him to see Annette picking herbs. She turned to see him as he appeared from behind a tree. "Collecting herbs?" He asks her and she nods. "Maria is resting so I decided to pick some herbs and anything that can be edible. I'm grabbing whatever there is around. You can be amazed on how much food you can make with what you can find outside." Richter lifts a brow. "You know Alucard has a garden you can pick from in the back right?" Her eyes widen a bit and then looks back at the castle. "Seriously?" Richter grins and nods. "Yeah." She looks into the barely empty basket in her hand and then sighs while tossing out a few wild mushrooms. "Would've been nice to know a while ago and how often do you hear a vampire owning a vegetable garden?" He chuckles. "Not that often I suppose." Annette smiles and realizes his jacket and whip aren't on him. "Where's your jacket and whip?" He turns around and points to the branch with the dripping jacket on it. While his back was turned she saw the scars that covered his back. "It got pretty hot in the armory so I'm washing it. My whip is still downstairs in the armory." He says turning back to her. "Armory? Are you making some sort of weapon?" He smiles. "Yep something inbound with all kinds of Belmont and vampire magic." Annette's attention was definitely peeked. "Something to kill Báthory with?" "Hopefully, at the moment Alucard is adding his vampiric magic to the mix of whatever I could conjure." Alucard appears once again. "But it is not enough I'm afraid." Annette turns around surprisingly to see the vampire walking in daylight. "I wasn't aware you could walk in daylight, most vampires burn to a crisp by the sun." Alucard smirks. "I'm not most vampires remember?" Richter smirked a bit as he grabs his jacket and flaps the water off and puts it on though still a bit wet. "I'll need some of your magic to mix in with the weapon too Annette." Alucard says and turns to walk back to the castle. Once inside the dining room, the circled around the table where the weapon laid in a wooden box on top of red velvet fabric.

"Not bad." Annette states looking at the weapon. "I call it, The Vampire Killer." She smiles at Richter. "Original, I like it. Alright, let's get started." Annette states as she conjures the ancient power of the gods. She closes her eyes and a soft sparkling golden light filled the room as she places her hand over the weapon. It began to hum and glow. After a moment the light faded and the Vampire Killer stopped glowing. She grabs on to the near by chair and sits down in exhaustion. "There, I inbounded a lot of my magic inside. It should be enough." She looks over at Alucard who nods. Richter grabbed the Vampire Killer by the handle and looked at the Belmont crest branded on to the weapon. "I will ensure that Erzebet Báthory will die by my hands." Richter promises. "Yes, but not just yet. For now we rest, then tomorrow I will help you get the hang of the Vampire Killer." Alucard turns around and walks out of the room. Richter looks over at an exhausted Annette and places the Vampire Killer back in the box. "Can you make it up stairs?" Annette grips the head of the chair and wobbly stands. "I think so." Richter looks up and down then lifts a brow. "Is that so? Cuz it's a long flight of steps." The thought of all those stairs made Annette sick to her stomach. "Here." He turns around and kneels down. "Are you sure?" He turns his head and gives a gentle smile assuring her. "Very well." She says climbing on as he stands up and makes his way to the stairs. As he  marched up the stairs she found herself at peace and calm being carried like this. Then she remembered the scars on his back. "Can I ask you something? If it's not too personal." "Of course. What's on your mind?" He asks reaching the level of their rooms. "I couldn't help but notice...the scars on your back." Richter felt a small ache in his heart. "I've had a rough life as an orphan. Before being found by Tera as a young teen, I had sometimes had to steal for my food and sometimes I got caught." The memories of the beatings in alleyways came back. The nights where he would cry missing the gentle soothing embrace of his mother were the worst. He sighs. "But most of the scars were from nights I got sloppy fighting local vampires." An image of a vampire clawing his back and a dagger in the shoulder came to his mind. He stops once reaching the door and kneels down for her to stand on her own feet. "Thanks." She says before realizing how close he was to her. She found herself looking into his blue eyes and was looking at hers. She snaps back to the real world and quickly looks at the door blushing. "Anyways we should get some sleep." He looked away as well. "Of course. Goodnight." "Goodnight Richter." She walks in shutting the door behind her and used the last of her strength to make her way to her bed. She lets out a sigh as her blushes fade. Meanwhile Richter found himself blushing while staring at the roof of his room and sighs as well. "Get a grip Belmont." He says to himself placing his hand on his face and then stared back at the ceiling. Eventually his eyelids begin to feel heavy as he found himself falling asleep.