genessia | [Action]

The weather report had predicted a partly cloudy and mild day in Everglade. However, somehow the predictions seemed to be wrong as thick storm clouds began covering the city mid-morning. By noon, it would be difficult to tell it was even day, as thick as the clouds that hung over the city were. At about 12:30, it would begin to rain. But this would not be a normal rain. Thick drops hit the ground, filling the air with a vaguely metallic smell, and anyone who had any sort of light source nearby would quickly identify why.

It was raining blood.

Meanwhile, in Everglade's abandoned church, music could be heard. A piano could be heard playing a rather haunting tune as the blood storm raged outside. Within, several small floating candles lit the place as what appeared to be an old man hunched over the restored piano, fingers dancing over the ivory. He wore a cape that spread over the floor behind him disappearing into the shadows and a few shapes could be seen moving through just beyond the reaches of the candle light.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well congratulations, he's just managed to stun Remilia into silence for a few moments. Even if she's a Flandre from another world, the bond is still there. Thanks for dredging up painful memories of how she feels she failed Flandre, Vlad

"...I would... I would avenge her. As much as it took. And if someone... made a copy, I would make them suffer for even daring. I very nearly lost her to fearful humans once already...

Have you wondered why her wings were different from mine?"

"The roar was my reaction to finding out that hypothetical had happened to my wife. Burned at the stake for being a witch when all she was guilty of was improving the lives of the villagers around her. And now a homunculus wears her face in my castle."

He goes quiet for a long moment, the volume of the piano seeming to fade slightly.

"I had wondered, but thought such information would make itself known to me should it ever be relevant. Otherwise, it was not my place to ask."

"Ignorant rabble..."

It is still painful for her to recount... Imagine how Dracula must feel?

"Hunters attacked when I was away... I saved her, but not before they had... removed her wings with silver knives and tortured her. I was too late to save her from been maimed, but Had I been any later..." There is a cold fury that may be quite familiar...

"They died. And so did their wretched town. Had Flandre not convinced me to stop, I would have wiped out the entire country."

"I gave Targoviste - the seat of the church in Wallachia - a year to remove themselves from my land and repent for what they had done while I raised an army."

As he talked, the tempo of the song slowed, each note hanging and echoing within the chamber, conveying a vast pain beneath the rage that Vlad simply couldn't put into words.

"A year to the day, I turned my gaze back to Targoviste and what did I see? The grand bishop in all his swollen pompousness expounding that I was nothing more than a myth that spewed empty threats. They had marked the day they burned my wife at the stake as cause for celebration. They were the first to die, and I made sure that the world could not deny my existence as simple myth as the castle bore its way through the grand cathedral. My war has gone on for four hundred years, and now someone seeks to use me by perverting the image of the only human that has ever been worthy of walking on the earth into something less than human. A puppet that wears her face."

He pauses for a moment, as a single crimson tear hits the ivory keys he leans over. "I am sorry to put you in this position, Remilia, but I will not allow this perversion to go on any longer."

"I will not argue against Targoviste's fate..." How could she not? If this had happened to Flandre, if they had celebrated her death... She couldn't say she wouldn't do the same.

"Though I ask... What makes you so certain that she is a mere puppet, as you say?" She fully intends on finding the culprit. Or culprits.

"Death is my closest confidant. The one true friend that has stood beside me throughout the centuries. When she died, Death confirmed that she was beyond the reach of any power in this or any reality."

Of course, Genessia wasn't in any reality itself and rules worked differently, however that was his reasoning.

"The only way she could exist is if someone had profaned her memory with a homunculus."

"This is unlike any reality I've known... I've met a woman who tells me she suffered fatal injuries only to find herself here."

She thought that needed to be pointed out. This place was just... unnatural sometimes.

"If you are right... then surely they can be found and brought before you."

"Unless you are volunteering to track them down yourself, the quicker option is to simply burn everything to the ground."

Never let it be said that Dracula does anything by halves.

Well, it doesn't look like she has much choice? Unlike him, she has mellowed out over the centuries to the point she will not harm the very young and the infirm, old or otherwise. And of course the humans she's befriended.

"If that is what I must do... then so be it."

"Targoviste had a year as I mustered my army. Genessia has no such luxury. If the party responsible is not at my feet within a month, I will burn this place to ashes."

He paused for a moment, before erupting into a pillar of flame. "Make good use of your time, Remilia. This place's fate is in your hands."

In an instant the flames vanished, as did the creatures lurking in the shadows. The floating candles all extinguished and fell to the floor. All traces of his presence gone with the exception of the still falling blood outside.

She watches as he vanishes into flame, leaving both herself and the old church in darkness.

"I will... Dracula."

With one last look at the profaned church, she then transforms into a flock of bats and leaves. She may as well make a start.

[Action]

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