Reborn

Chapter 1 - First Meeting

"Ahoy there! Welcome aboard! Bienvenido! Hello!"

Ericka went on to greet every newcomer on the ship in the same mechanical fashion. As the captain of the all-monster cruise that The Legacy was hosting, she had to build her trust with the beasts by behaving cordially. In truth, none of them deserved to be treated kindly. They were all disgusting beings capable of horrific acts. The brutish hands of Frankenstein could strangle anybody. The huge foot of Bigfoot could crush anyone underneath it. The sharp teeth of the werewolves could tear out anybody's throat...

And then she saw him. The monster her great-grandfather wanted her go after specifically. The one for whom this cruise was being conducted for.

Count Dracula.

He was easily recognizable with his sleek black hair and dark outfit. His pale completion stood out amongst all the other colorful monsters on board. She got closer to him, walking toward him with confident strides.

"So," she said, "you must be the one and only Count Dracula..."

She smiled falsely at him and then paused when she got a better look at him. The contours of his face were so perfectly carved, annunciating the sharp jaw line that defined his features. There wasn't even an imperfection on his skin - no scratches, no wrinkles - flawless. And those deep blue eyes, like obsidian orbs, staring at her with - could it be? - adoration? Whatever it was, it made her completely forget what she was going to say to him. Instead, it came out as "Woo-bee doo ba dee?"

Dracula's eyes furrowed in confusion. "Dula-day, shoola-koobie day?" he responded.

Attempting to recover from her momentary lapse in composure, she chuckled. "Oh! You're speaking Transylvanian!" she said, knowing full well that it was not a real language. Then she repeated what he said as best as she could. "Doobie-day shula koobie day."

Dracula kept garbling nonsensical gibberish. "Koobieday!"

"Koobieday?"

"Koobieday!"

"Dooladay shu la koobie day," he breathed, drooling a little.

Ericka continued to repeat. "Dooladay shula koobieday." She giggled and tucked an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear. "It's such a romantic language. There's just something about an accent that makes a man sound so intelligent..." A part of her nearly believed it herself - the way he rolled his syllables in his mouth as he enunciated the words was so captivating. But she shook off the thought and prevented herself from blushing.

Dracula couldn't hold back his blush, however, as he responded with a "Aliboo-boo!"

Frankenstein stepped in and grabbed the man by his shoulders, drawing him away. "That's Transylvanian right there. He's saying, 'It was nice to meet you.'" The monster dragged the vampire away before he could embarrass himself even more. She was grateful too, since she didn't wish to risk embarrassing herself either.

"Aliboo-boo to you as well!" she called out politely. As soon as Frank and Drac rounded the corner, she quickly walked away from her spot on the deck, scattering welcomes to passers by and making sure none of them saw her blushing face.

Ericka gathered her thoughts as she snuck into a secret passage in the wall of the cruise ship. She did not understand what had happened. The internal defenses she had up against Dracula had seemed to crash down in an instant. Why had the vampire seemed so... delightful? She would have thought that meeting him would have only sparked her anger against him even more. But this wasn't so. Before she knew it, she had slid down the firepole deeper inside the ship, opened the heavy door of the chamber, and was back in her great-grandfather's lair.

"Ericka!" he called. "Did you see him?"

She nodded. "Yes, face-to-face! Pale-faced. Fanged. Adorable."

Van Helsing spun around. "What?" he barked.

"I mean, deplorable is what I said," Ericka quickly covered up.

"Indeed..." he agreed. "I remember the day, that fateful night that I learned that a human could never defeat that foul beast. But I would not let our family legacy die!"

Ericka rolled her eyes and kept her arms firmly crossed as he spoke. She'd heard this little speech plenty of times before, and was forced to listen again about how he had searched endlessly for an answer to his problem, and came across the image of a powerful instrument of destruction that was lost at sea in Atlantis. Given that he was a half cy-borg now - his living organs needing to be replaced with technology in order to keep him alive for so much longer than would have been his lifespan - it was up to her to assist him in the plan that would destroy all monsters.

".... and after a hundred and twenty years," he continued, concluding, "I have finally found Atlantis..."

"Forget about all this!" she exclaimed, interrupting him before he could go any further. "Let me get rid of Dracula right now! I was so close, I could have just - "

"NO, NO, NO, NO!" he cried. "We have to stick to the plan! Lure the monsters to Atlantis, retrieve the instrument of destruction, and then trap them there to wipe them out." He looked at her sternly after that. "Now, promise me that you won't try and kill Dracula."

She scoffed. "Fine. I promise."

He raised an eyebrow. "Promise what?"

She scowled further and spoke in a sarcastic tone. "I promise I won't 'try and kill Dracula,' okay?"

But he did not respond. She peered down at him and found that he had fallen fast asleep, the gauge on his mechanical body turned to the NAP TIME reading. She smiled and spoke sweetly to his sleeping figure. "Don't worry great-grandfather... I won't try and kill Dracula... I will kill him."