This one was inspired by some insane coincidences that make Castlevania and Resident Evil fit quite well together, although some are based on the rumors of what's going to happen in future Resident Evils. Spoiler warning goes for both series of games in general.

A character from Chrono Cross makes a guest appearnece; do not be confused if you spot her, it's just a cameo. And I freely admit to ripping off a line from Vampire Hunter D, a scene from the Matrix, and comic relief from the Mummy, just not in this part. See if you can catch 'em all later on.

Wouldn't you know I plan out the whole plot, and then the next day I find out that the RE: CV-Complete version {and yes, it's confirmed now} might destroy my continuity? Ah, well.

Special thanks go to Kreliana, Princess Artemis, Red XIII, Aren and Juu.

---

Resident Evil: Demon Rising, part 1

Nocturne in the Moonlight

---

What am I doing... was all Maria Renard could think at the moment. Physically, it was obvious what she was doing. She was chasing after Dracula's son, a half vampire who wanted to sleep forever. And for some reason, she wanted to stop him.

Okay, so Richter at least didn't think there was some ulterior motive driving him. From the Belmont's records, Alucard had apparently turned sides long ago and his disloyalty to Dracula was absolute.

Maria had found Alucard rather attractive, but that wasn't her concern right now. She had to find him; he had helped her beyond belief at Castlevania, and at the very least he was a friend. He could have simply killed Richter if he wanted to. But he didn't. And right now, he was going to fall asleep for as long as possible again, and she just wasn't going to let that happen.

---

Late 1998

"It was a dark and stormy night…"

The tall suited man that whispered those words followed them with a laugh. He knew of their literary infamy, one of the many things he'd learned, one of the many trivial things.

Dark and stormy it was. He looked out the huge window from his office in the highest tower on the modernized castle, at the rain both pouring down the structure and onto the land and lake below.

He turned.

"Did you get it?"

"Of course," replied the room's other occupant. The other man's clothes attire looked war torn, but he himself was without a scratch. He pulled a small vial of purple liquid from a pocket in his vest and tossed it through the air.

The tall man caught it perfectly, and studied it for a few seconds. The purple was almost the same shade of his tie, but oh so much more valuable, and deadly, then the simple apparel.

"I should have thought of this 'double agent' thing years ago," the tall man said, a think European accent now noticeable in his voice. "Well done, Death, very well done indeed. Of course, it's not like a city of the dead would stop you, would it?"

"Of course not," was the reply. "In fact I rather enjoyed the environment. Frankly it's this appearance and name that annoys me more then anything, but… what's that human saying? You can't have an egg without breaking a few omelets?"

"Reverse it."

"It shows you how much I care," the shorter man chuckled. "I'll still need to give Umbrella a sample, though."

"A necessary sacrifice," the tall man replied, using what seemed like a simple slight of hand trick to make the vial vanish from sight. And then it reappeared, but now there were two of them, one in each hand. He tossed one back.

"Indeed, Death. And, if you are still keen on being patient for my plans, I have another task for you after you deliver that."

"Oh? Need Hunk to spy a little more?"

"No, no my friend. This is quite different, and at the same time familiar. You notice a certain someone hasn't been bothering us?"

"I know the Belmonts are finally gone," Hunk replied. "You mean… him?"

"Yes, yes him. I've been able to keep our presence from waking him all these years while we set up, but I think the time is right. I want you to find him, bring him to me. Maybe he'll side with us this time. If not… well, I will deal with him. And don't try this alone."

"Very well," answered Hunk. He promptly turned around and left, leaving Count Dracula to ponder the view once more.

"You know I always come back… but this time… I won't need to."

---

January 8, 1999

"Not rain… please, not rain…"

Claire Redfield prayed. She really did NOT want it to rain right now, in the middle of the night, when it was already cold. Damn, it was raining.

Europe was not making a good impression with her. All she wanted to do was walk to where her brother was waiting, it was not a long distance, maybe half a mile through thin woods outside of the city… she had a gun in case of trouble, too bad she hadn't thought of an umbrella. There was some irony, a helping umbrella.

A dog howled in the distance. This was ridiculous! It had gone from light shower to torrential downpour in about six seconds flat, and Claire was already soaked to the bone. Great.

Well, she certainly wasn't going to walk in this until it let down a little; at least, that's what she wanted. But to have this, she needed shelter.

C'mon, there's always a cave or something in the woods... why can't there be one here? There'd BETTER be something around here...

She looked around, shivering. Not good. Cold led to better chances of sickness, and sickness reminded her of nothing but Umbrella's screw-ups, the creatures they fondly made, and above all, those wretched zombies.

As luck would have it, the ground rolled into a hillside not thirty feet away, and sure enough, there was a small cave in the side. Claire broke into a run as that dog howled again. Funny, it seemed closer.

Be that as it may, a comforting sense of dryness welcomed her in the small cavern, which turned out to be not so small after all. A door was embedded into the back, thick and metal, like it was sealing off a mausoleum. Curious, Claire tested the door and, finding it unlocked, pulled it open.

Maybe this was a bad idea. For all she knew it was another one of Umbrella's hidden labs. Not very well hidden, though. Logic would dictate that she brave the rain and bring Chris back here, since the lab idea wasn't so farfetched, really. The thought of the rain pushed her further through the door.

The passageway was simple stone, with unlit torches lining the walls. So far so good, anyway. She searched her pockets for her lighter and, thankful that she'd remembered to buy a waterproof one, lit a torch. It illuminated the area around her perfectly, and she continued on with it in hand.

The sound of the rain outside was constant, it seemed that the hill wasn't very high to begin with. In fact, the only thing that had stayed in Claire's mind was the oddness of this weird, seemingly manmade tunnel.

She lit a torch every once and awhile to keep the whole place lighted, in case hers went out. The passageway was over soon, with another, larger door. This one opened too, this time into a chamber that stretched about twenty feet or so in length and width, with half of that for height. Similar torches lined the stone walls that she could see, as hers wasn't bright enough to illuminate the entire room at once. The middle seemed to have some kind of centerpiece, but Claire couldn't make it out in the dim light.

The rain was still pouring on the outside, so, having nothing better to do for a few minutes, Claire walked around and lit a few of the torches. The orange flames brought plenty of light to the chamber, enough to see that the 'centerpiece' was not one but two of what looked like coffins. Old, stone coffins, one of them with elaborate markings on it.

"Huh, guess it IS a tomb," Claire said to herself. How odd… it was good shelter, anyway.

Click... click...

Claire whirled around to face the door she had come through. She was fairly near it again, having lit the torches in a circle, but she opted to have some semblance of cover and positioned herself between the two coffins, since they were perpendicular to the door. Her mind placed the sound to two possibilities immediately. You just didn't hear that sound in nature, it was mostly unmistakable, but on the stone, her first guess might be wrong.

Click... click...

Claws… claws on the ground, with the wielder walking slowly. She'd never forget that, and she'd certainly never forget the distinctive variation of the sound that two of Umbrella's perversions shared.

Click... click...

Claire raised her gun; it was getting closer… closer… she tensed. It was right outside the door, and she knew very well what it was… but relief washed over her as the snout, and slowly after, the head and body of a near skinless dog crept around the curve just outside the doorway.

It wasn't a Licker; that was the important thing. She could kill it with her handgun, no sweat. Waiting for the dog to spot her, Claire aimed carefully and pulled the trigger. Her shot went wide and hit the thing in it's back rather then head, but it was still hurt.

It snarled and prepared to pounce. Hell with it.

Tossing careful aim to the wind, Claire opened fire and sent bullet after bullet into the thing, each one knocking it back a little more, until finally it fell over and lay still, blood pouring from it's rotted flesh.

Lowering her gun, Claire let out a sigh. She should have aimed better on the first shot; it would've saved a lot of ammo. But at least she'd managed to slaughter the thing before it could touch her. The important thing was that it hadn't done so.

Click... click...

Not again.

Not moving from her 'cover,' Claire raised her gun again and prepared to catch the apparent second dog with a bullet, like the first.

But that wasn't going to happen. A loud BANG resonated throughout the tunnel and chamber, and Claire placed it as a heavier weapon then hers, maybe a shotgun. The second animal, indeed a dog, was knocked onto the body of the first by the blow. One side of it's head had been obliterated, and the clicking was replaced with a new sound; human footsteps.

And it was a normal human, at least not a shambling zombie. Of course, there wasn't any outbreak around here, as far as Claire knew. It made the dogs seem a little out of place. Be that as it may, she held her gun high in case her 'savior' turned out to be someone hostile. She half expected another William Birkin, while hoping it was Chris coming to her rescue.

But it was just a human, as was apparent when he stepped around the corner, a human wearing a helmet with infrared goggles, and armor with Umbrella's logo on it, exactly like the ones the dead Umbrella soldiers had been wearing in the Raccoon City sewers. On the side of his breastplate was the simple word "HUNK."

"Hmmm… you weren't supposed to be part of this, I've been looking for this place for weeks and one of you just HAS to spoil it," he casually said to Claire, his tone full of confidence. A Desert Eagle like the one Leon had found was in his hand, and a pump shotgun was strapped to his back.

"I bet I wasn't supposed to be part of Raccoon either," she said, her gun still trained. "I'm probably going to kill you, you know, but out of curiosity, were you there? Did Birkin miss you somehow? Or do you have no idea what I'm talking about?"

"Oh, I was there, alright," he answered. "You might say I'm good at avoiding death. Claire Redfield, I presume? Yes, we know who all of you are, and Claire Redfield would be the only logical one that I'd run into here. Quite an escape from Rockfort and the Antarctic, I couldn't have done it better myself."

Not letting her hands shake in the slightest, Claire prepared to put an end to one more of Umbrella's obstacles. She had the gun trained right on his eye, the helmet might or might not have been bullet proof, but the goggles wouldn't be. And she had no intention of missing like she had the dog.

She stared through the sight of the gun, her voice unwavering in the face of this man, who'd work for those bastards called Umbrella.

"I'm flattered. Goodbye."

She squeezed the trigger and… click.

The click was getting worse then the rain. In her rush of thoughts, it never occurred to her that she might need to reload her gun. She tried it again. Click. Curse that damn sound, she never even noticed the slide was all the way back; no wonder the guy was so calm.

The man smiled underneath his mask, and raised his gun. Claire was quick to dive to the side, and the powerful round he fired took a chunk of rock from the wall instead of destroying her flesh and bone.

She rolled as his arm recovered from the pistol's recoil and he fired again. The room wasn't all that big in terms of being able to maneuver, and Claire was quickly wishing she'd just plain ducked behind the coffin. On top of which, the torches were starting to burn out, and Hunk's goggles would provide him with a large advantage when the lights grew dim enough to impair normal sight. Be that as it may, she sprung to her feet, fainted to one side, and then dived again the other way, throwing the man's aim off.

He had been a little careless. Claire ran straight for him before he could recover from the recoil, punched him in the face as hard as she could below the helmet, and dived past the door before he could react. She pulled it shut in case he tried to fire again.

Panting, Claire fumbled for her extra clip, jumping in shock when the man, not yet realizing that she'd closed the door, fired behind himself from the other side. The bullet put a huge dent into the metal, at least three inches in Claire's direction.

Hunk heard Claire reloading her gun through the door, and quickly decided that strategic retreat was the best course of action. He turned and leaped over the first coffin to where Claire had been hiding, just as she kicked the door back in and fired a shot. If she had been a second faster, the bullet would have caught him in the head.

Claire stood, waiting for him to make a move. Hunk tried to quickly peek over the stone coffin and take a shot, but Claire beat him to it and fired at him. He quickly ducked back down, and Claire hit nothing but stone. Hunk tried again, this time catching Claire while she started to consider a course of action. Again, she dodged to the side, and returned fire this time.

But the torches were almost totally out. There was enough light to see outlines of objects, and even that wouldn't last for a long time. But Hunk's advantage suddenly turned against him. Claire knew where he was hiding, and when he came out… she could see his goggles with their red glow.

She fired. Two shots… and 'click,' she ran out of bullets again. Why did this always have to happen at the worst possible time?

She could hear a laugh come from Hunk. He raised his Eagle once more. If Claire's guess about it's own ammo capacity was right, he was probably almost out himself. Almost. She couldn't get away this time, his advantage was too great, and he'd probably be able to easily outrun her anyway. That had been the reasoning behind her decision to stand and fight, anyway. Looking back, it didn't seem to be a very good decision.

She prepared to dive again, he had a good bead on her, but if she could anticipate his pulling the trigger she might have some slim chance of dodging again, if a miracle happened to be passing by.

In fact, one was. To Claire's astonishment, the top of the coffin behind Hunk, the decorative one, seemed to quietly slide off in the fading light. She blinked, making sure she wasn't seeing things. Her change of expression seemed to get Hunk's attention, who, keeping the gun on her, briefly turned around to see what was so fascinating. He was too close to the coffin to notice the top's absence without looking down, and he didn't.

He turned back. Almost immediately after, a form of some kind rose from the coffin, it looked vaguely human in shape, but Claire couldn't see it all that well. Her jaw dropped and Hunk, seeing this, went to look behind himself quickly again.

Whatever the thing was, it seemed to backhand the Umbrella soldier before he could fully look. Hunk went flying towards Claire and smashed against the wall next to her, his Helmut tumbling off his head in the process. Shocked, she just stared at Hunk running out the door and the dark figure following him. She opted to do the same as the light would be totally gone in a few seconds, and it fact, the torches in the passageway were already out. Claire had to feel her way out, step by step, stumbling every now and then until the light from outside was visible.

The rain had died down a little, but it was still coming down. Hunk, now revealed to be a man with blond hair somewhere in his thirties, stood several feet away from the entrance. The form, now revealed to be a man, had his back to Claire and was quite closer. She decided that for the moment, it'd be a better idea to watch.

"You weren't supposed to wake up yet," Hunk blandly stated.

"I have not the luxury of the eternal sleep I desire, Death. Perhaps I would if Father ever gave up."

Claire shook her head to clear herself from the aftermath of the adrenaline high she had just been on. This just kept getting weirder and weirder. As if getting attacked by a guy named 'Hunk' wasn't enough, there was a guy dressed in a cape with a Victorian accent, who had come from an old coffin, nonetheless.

"Oh come on, Alucard," Hunk answered. "I'm sure you know why I'm here. You don't even know the circumstances. I don't suppose, just this once, you'd come back?"

"Think you I would?"

"Not at all," laughed Hunk "Fortunately, your father just wants you alive. I'm quite free to forcefully subdue you, if need be."

With that, Hunk pulled the shotgun off of his back with one hand, and reached behind his back with the other. From there, he pulled a small weapon from seemingly nowhere. It was a small scythe, made for throwing. And he did just that, hurling the blade at Alucard with all his might. Alucard dashed to the side, and the scythe embedded itself in the ground near Claire.

Hunk now tried the shotgun. The primitive guns that a few monsters in Castlevania had were similar enough to this one for Alucard to know not to stop moving. In a blur, the dhampire cleared several feet and landed behind Hunk with his sword drawn. Hunk turned around just in time to be slashed by Alucard's family sword. Blue energy crackled from the blade, and blood poured from Hunk as it tore through his armor, but he wasn't dieing. That just wasn't going to happen. Alucard stabbed the sword through his gut and kicked him off, sending Hunk several feet towards Claire.

But the damage was only minor, and he stood easily.

"Return to my father, Death. Be assured, I will put an end to him again."

"I'm afraid I just can't do that, Alucard," was the response. Hunk pulled his scythe trick again, but was caught quite off guard by Claire before he could throw it. She had grabbed the one that had missed Alucard earlier and leapt onto Hunk's back, intent on slitting his throat. He managed to grab her arm with his free hand at the last second and start pushing her away, but she settled for turning the blade downward and giving in to his pushing.

Unable to stop himself, Hunk aided Claire in lopping his hand off at the wrist. Screaming in pain and anger, he flung her off of him with his arm, sans hand, and turned toward her. Claire was just looking up as Hunk raised his new scythe to cut her head in two, and Alucard was too far…

Click, "Drop it."

All three of them stopped dead and looked to the side. Claire, for the first time, appreciated the click as she saw her brother Chris, soaking wet, but pointing a gun at Hunk.

Hunk simply grinned, and turned to attack the newcomer. Chris fired before he even got close, putting a bullet into Hunk's head with ease. The man was dead before he fell.

Chris un-tensed himself and leaned over, joined by Claire, to search Hunk for anything revealing. The idea made them forget Alucard for the moment.

The dhampire shouted and started to run over; "Wait, do not…"

But he was too late. Hunk's arms suddenly came up and backhanded Chris and Claire, with Claire receiving a trail of blood on her face from his missing hand. They both fell backward, and hunk dissolved into a cloud of black mist.

The mist was only a method of teleportation for Death, unlike Alucard's form. Hunk reformed about ten feet away, his hand in place and no bullet hole in his head.

"What the hell," was Chris' reaction as he stood, gun raised. Claire was facing the other way when she stood, and noticed something else. There was a man leaning against a tree, watching the whole thing, and smiling. He was dressed all in black, it seemed, complete with dark sunglasses, but topped with blond hair. As Claire spotted him, he stood upright and grinned.

"Chris," she started, but like Alucard earlier, she was too late. The man broke into an inhumanly fast run, shoving her down and slamming Chris' head with his arm as he ran by. He kept running while Chris went down hard, and stopped when he reached Hunk.

"That's… really getting old, Wesker," Chris weakly said as he stood, checking his head for blood. It wouldn't be a surprise if he had a concussion.

"Yes Chris, yes it is," Wesker answered. "Maybe I'll just kill you this time."

Wesker leaned forward, about to break into another run as Chris stood. But Chris was starting to get used to the attack, and Wesker was letting himself get overconfident. When Wesker charged, Chris grabbed a long branch that had fallen from a tree in the storm, threw himself to the side, and replaced his body with the object.

Wesker ran right into it and, caught by surprise, promptly went flying. The wood itself snapped in two and was torn from Chris' hand, but it had served it's purpose.

Wesker picked himself up and casually dusted himself off. Considering the mud he had rolled through, it didn't help. His glasses were gone once more, and his yellow cat-like eyes glittered in the night.

"Funny, Redfield," Wesker commented as he snatched his glasses from the ground. One of the lenses was destroyed. "And do you have ANY idea how much these things cost?"

Chris raised his gun and fired, the bullet going through the other lens and into Wesker's chest right behind it. Wesker was either unaffected, or he was wearing a bulletproof vest. "My guess is that pair wouldn't cost all that much anymore…"

Wesker simply tossed the item aside and chuckled, as if he wouldn't mind being shot at all day.

"This is ridiculous, Alucard," Hunk pleaded, parrying and striking at the dhampire with a pair of his scythes.

"Indeed," was the reply. Alucard tore through his defense, once again getting through Hunk's armor easily and wounding him. "Your skills lack as a human, Death."

The wounded man vainly tried to strike, but Alucard's swordsmanship was more then enough to stop it from happening. The dhampire backhanded Hunk in the face, knocking him back.

Hunk hung back when Alucard started to do something else. He couldn't tell what was going on at first, but Alucard hunched over a bit and full on growled. His cloak pulled around his body and turned into a coat of dark fur, his arms and legs grew more joints, his face stretched into a canine's, and Alucard, in his wolf form, pounced on the surprised Hunk.

Wesker, on the other hand, was fairing much better against his physically inferior opponents. He was wearing Chris and Claire down, avoiding whatever they tried and getting in his own shots in the process.

Deciding to end it, Wesker grabbed Chris' arm as he tried to throw a right hook, pulled, and dislocated his shoulder. Chris bit his lip to stop from screaming, but Wesker had him. Still hanging on to Chris, Wesker kicked Claire in the stomach and grabbed her by the hair with his free hand before she could fall. He gripped onto the back of both their heads and, without another thought, slammed them together.

Alucard, gnawing on Hunk, saw the Redfields fall. He pushed himself up a little and bit into his fur like he had an itch, but came out with a Tarot card in his mouth. He tossed it up, and the card disappeared, but Hunk took advantage of the distraction and kicked the dhampire wolf off of him. Alucard was sent sprawling, but he quickly stood and shifted back to his normal form.

Meanwhile, Wesker picked up Chris' gun and checked the clip. As much as he wanted to break Chris' bones one by one, this had a better guarantee of distractions not allowing them to survive. Before he could use it, however, he heard a noise, some sort of squawk, and spun around. A large, red vampire bat was right in front of him, and it promptly spit a fireball into Wesker's face.

Wesker grabbed at his eyes with one hand and smacked the bat away with his other before he lost track of where it was. His eyes weren't quite as strong as the rest of his body. But the bat, like Wesker himself, was rather immune to injury. With remarkable speed, the bat righted it's flying and charged, barreling into Wesker literally like a bat out of hell. The ex-Captain fell to the side, and the bat continued on and did the same to Hunk.

Hunk wobbled to his feet, his form fading into the black-cloaked grim reaper as his strength faded. Grunting in frustration, Death motioned to Wesker and vanished.

Wesker was suddenly annoyed himself. The Redfields were out and couldn't do much anyway, but one on one, Alucard could easily match him and possibly win.

"He who fights and runs away," he commented, mock-waving to the dhampire, before he turned into the forest and dashed away.

Sheathing his sword, Alucard let his bat familiar land on his wrist. The bat formed back into the Tarot card, which in turn disappeared from Alucard's hand and back into the magical pocket in which he stored some excess items. He had wanted the sword card, but the pocket tended to act like a jumbled sack if something was pulled out hastily.

Alucard really noticed the rain for the first time, and was suddenly thankful that he'd kept the item that protected him from water. Be that as it may, the two humans who had been around were not so well off as he was.

---

Death hovered outside the door, his black cape fluttering in a surreal indoor breeze. Alucard hadn't quite bested him to the point where he would 'die,' but he wasn't able to assume human form again at the moment. Hunk would have to disappear for a few days.

Wesker had gone in to report because Death was having trouble keeping himself manifest after his beating, so now he was just waiting. He didn't have to wait very long; the sounds of heavy objects hitting walls in the next room told Death that Wesker was probably finished relating the recent events.

The door opened, and Wesker almost jumped out before slamming it behind him and leaning on it.

"I didn't know he got that angry," Wesker mused. "You've known him longer, does he always get like that?"

Shrugging, Death answered with, "There's a reason he was called Vlad the Impaler, you know."

Wesker opted to leave the door behind when something crashed into it's other side. He and Death started down the corridor.

"This will be a problem," surmised Death, his human voice replaced by an ethereal tone. "If our Sire has one weakness, it's that wretched Alucard…"

"Tell me about this son of his," Wesker asked, putting on a new pair of sunglasses. "I'd never heard of an Alucard until we went looking for him, not even in the myths."

"Alucard is a natural dhampire, his mother was a human named Lisa," explained Death as the two entered an elevator. His long scythe appeared in his hands, which he held up to produce a magical picture of Count Dracula and a beautiful woman in wedding clothes. "When she tried to help her kind with medicinal plants, the human villagers burned her at the stake for being a witch."

A shift of the scythe, and the picture changed to the grisly scene. "Alucard was obviously born before then, as Adrian Farenheights. He stood with us in the beginning, but that mother of his, her last wish was that he not despise humans, and so, he joined the Belmonts, defeated his father, then awoke centuries later and did it again. He thinks the world will be purged of the Dracula bloodline if he sleeps for all eternity, but his magic is flawed and he wakes up if there is a large shift of power or some other strange event that differs from the norm. In this case, because the spell isn't perfect, Lord Dracula managed to prevent our appearance from waking him up. Apparently my being right there was enough to set him off."

The elevator stopped on the castle's only small flat roof, where a helicopter sat on a pad. Wesker stepped out with Death close behind.

"Where are you going anyway?"

Wesker chuckled. "To make Umbrella's life miserable, so to speak. But after that little story, maybe I should phone Oprah."

"Who? Never mind, I don't want to know," answered Death.

"You'll have your hands full when I'm done, I'll tell you about it later."

"Very well, very well my friend," Death chuckled. "Don't let death take you too soon, heh heh."

With that, Death floated away and disappeared into thin air, and Wesker boarded his chopper.

---

"Alive," Alucard muttered to himself, having checked the two humans for their pulse. Neither was awake, and they obviously weren't in the healthiest of conditions, but Alucard had no idea how to fix that. All he had was a single, solitary Potion, and his magical methods of healing would only work on himself. The Mournblade sword restored physical health at the expense of what was being attacked, but that didn't help since neither of them was conscious to slash the sword at something.

A sound reached Alucard's ears, a low, soggy stepping. Someone was sneaking around nearby, and his dhampiric senses were just enough to hear it. Whoever or whatever it was seemed to be trying to keep quiet, but the wet ground made it impossible. Still leaning over the Redfields, Alucard reached into his magical pocket and pulled out another Tarot card, and this time it was the right one.

When the card disappeared, the dhampire moved his hand to his sword, but didn't stand. He waited, almost a minute passed…

And the semi-quiet watcher suddenly wasn't so quiet anymore. Alucard's familiar had done it's job, and a few seconds later, a man draped in a black overcoat leaped out from behind the tree and rolled when he hit the ground to avoid the floating sword that was chasing him. The sword half-heartedly followed through with it's phony slash that the man was going down to avoid, more so it could take position near Alucard.

"I've found him, master," the Familiar gleefully said as the man stood.

"So you have," Alucard responded, drawing his sword. At first glance, the newcomer looked like Wesker, right down to the sunglasses. But his hair was red, and he was younger, not to mention that Wesker hadn't actually been wearing a coat. "And as for you, sir, what are your intentions?"

"I'm looking for them," he motioned to Chris and Claire. "And for your sake, I hope you aren't the one responsible for their condition."

"I am not," Alucard sheathed his sword in a gesture of good will. "A man in black, like yourself, did this while I was… preoccupied. I have no means of treating them, nor do I even know who they are. And who might you be?"

"Name's Leon Kennedy. And you are?"

"…Alucard."

The sword familiar fidgeted, flying around it's owner before Alucard finally grabbed onto the handle. The sword turned back into the Tarot card, and Alucard tucked it away.

"That's a neat trick," commented Leon. "I know where they're staying, I was heading there myself. You'll understand if I ask you to come along?"

"Indeed," Alucard answered, feeling it in his best interest.

"Great, you can tell me what happened on the way."

---

Later…

"How are they?"

"Well," Leon started, leaning back against the counter and keeping Alucard in front of him. Neither of them fully trusted the other quite yet. "Claire's sleeping, she came out better then her brother, which is why I just put her in a bedroom. Chris' shoulder was dislocated, which I fixed, and I think he's got a mild concussion. Whatever was in that vile you gave me seemed to work, though."

Alucard nodded. Leon crossed his arms.

"So what's your story?"

"Pardon?"

Alucard simply didn't understand the question fully, having been asleep while language structure changed considerably. Leon misunderstood his response.

"Well let's see, you're dressed and you talk like you're from the Victorian age, you carry a sword and own a floating, talking one besides that, when you told me what happened in the forest you conveniently left out how you actually got there, and I get this feeling that you just aren't totally human, no offense."

"I could say the same of you. Tell me first, what's the year?"

Leon blinked behind his glasses. This was certainly getting odd. "1999."

Alucard's posture shifted suddenly, like he'd been hit in the head.

"It's the wrong year," muttered the dhampire. Death had asked him to side with his father again, which meant his father had most likely risen. But he had defeated him in 1792, so Dracula would have risen 7 years ago. Someone must have resurrected him early at some point and changed the one-hundredth year again.

"Hey, you listening?"

Leon's voice snapped Alucard from his thoughts. The dhampire started talking again before Leon could start asking questions himself.

"Is there a… castle of sorts near here? Perhaps bordering a village?"

Leon chuckled. "You'd be hard pressed to find a village around here in this day and age. Castles too, actually. In fact, the only castle I know of, specifically, is the headquarters for Castlevania Pharmaceuticals in the states."

Leon had unintentionally succeeded in getting Alucard's attention.

"Castlevania WHAT?"

"You're kidding me, right? I can't believe you've never heard of 'em," Leon replied, astonished. "CP is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in existence, they're Umbrella Corporation's only competitor, in legal and illegal dealings, I might add."

Alucard arched an eyebrow, "How do you mean?"

"I thought you would've known, the man you told me about, Hunk, is an Umbrella agent."

Alucard shook his head, puzzled. The notion of Death working for some human organization made no sense. But then, this "Castlevania Pharmaceuticals" had to have something to do with Dracula, and if Umbrella was a competitor, then maybe Death was simply planning to get rid of his father's enemies in a discreet way. Still, the big picture didn't add up.

Leon waited for a reply. If he didn't get one, he was fully intent on starting to ask his own questions. Alucard started to think again, so Leon broke in.

"So, are you gonna' tell me who you are?"

"I told you already. I find it odd you wouldn't recognize the name," answered Alucard.

"It spells 'Dracula' backwards, I noticed."

"He's my father."

Leon stared for a second. And then he burst into laughter.

"What is so amusing?"

"You. Come on, already, I've faced zombies, things with exposed brains, giant spiders, and god knows what else, but I refuse to believe that you're Count Dracula's son."

A realization came over Alucard, one that explained a few things. He slowly opened his mouth to talk.

"You've forgotten, haven't you? The human race has forgotten him, is he nothing more then a fairy tale in this age? The Belmonts wouldn't have forgotten, I don't understand how…"

Leon suddenly stopped laughing and became serious. "Belmonts? What about the Belmonts?"

"So you remember them, at least? How is it that you not know of Castlevania? How long has this… industry been around?"

"Seven or eight years. And, coincidently, seven years ago was the last I heard of the Belmonts. Their son was a childhood friend of mine, but seven years ago the whole family… their house caught on fire one night, they all died."

Alucard's face was expressionless. He pulled a chair out from the table and sat on it, appearing totally calm. Then he slammed his fist on the cheap table, splintering the wood.

"DAMN you, father," he yelled, anger saturating his voice. "It was his doing, it was HIM, a Belmont would never be bested by something so utterly trivial!"

"Heh, well, they had the absolute longest family line I've ever seen, the name stuck for hundreds of years, they told me once, with some small break in the 1800's before one of them had it legally changed back to Belmont."

Leon kept quiet after that, defining Alucard as a little eccentric, if not totally crazy. He figured it best to let him ramble as much as he wanted.

"You're lucky that thing was cheap. At least I think it was."

Leon turned to the doorway, where Chris was now away and standing, holding his head with one hand.

"Leon?"

Leon extended his hand in response. "I am."

"Chris Redfield, nice to meet you in person," replied Chris, shaking his hand. He looked at Alucard as he sat down, and turned to Leon when he realized the stranger was staring off into space. "Who's that?"

"I've been trying to figure it out myself."

Chris, still a little fuzzy, blinked at Leon. "And why the hell are you dressed like Albert Wesker?"

"Coincidence?" Leon answered.

"You look like his evil twin."

"And you look like hell, Chris," interjected Claire, who was now standing in the doorway where Chris had been. A red-stained sterile pad was taped over a cut on her forehead that she'd received from Wesker. Chris opted to put his head in his arms on the table while Claire went on. "Do you people have any idea how loud you are?"

"Hello, Claire," Leon greeted her with trepidation.

"Leon," she nodded. "How's Sherry?"

"She's fine."

"That doesn't tell me much!"

"There ISN'T much," answered an agitated Leon. "She's in government custody, and she's okay. That's it."

"Government," Chris repeated, raising his head from the table. "As in US government? What do they have to do with this?"

"They currently employ me," Leon said, sitting down. "It's a long story."

"We have plenty of time." Claire responded, sitting down. Even Alucard seemed to break out of his thoughts, if for no other reason then to stay informed as Leon launched into his story.

---

"Leave Sherry out of this!"

"She knows too much. It's you or her. Make it you, and I'll see to it she's kept far away from any of this."

Leon put his face in his hands, having no idea what to do. He didn't have much of a choice, really. Whether or not this guy was telling the truth, Sherry was definitely screwed if he said no, but might not be if he said yes.

The man pressed on, "Well, Mr. Kennedy? Yes, or no?"

What else could he do?

"Thank you," smiled the man, after Leon nodded sharply. The ex-rookie cop simply couldn't find his voice.

The man stood, saying, "The guard outside will show you to a room, I suggest you get some sleep. You'll need it for tomorrow."

But Leon didn't sleep that night. Even if it wasn't for the stress of his situation at the moment, nightmares of Raccoon City had been plaguing him off and on and sleep was something he'd given up on at the moment.

The remaining hours of the night passed away as Leon simply sat on the cot in his 'room' and thought. Thought about Raccoon City, Claire, Ada, Sherry, he prayed that Sherry would be all right. Telling Claire off suddenly seemed like it had been a very bad idea.

Eventually, the door opened, and the same suited man entered.

"Ready?"

Leon didn't answer; he just stood, and followed him. Down the corridor, past several doors, the place looked like a normal building with normal people going about their business, the one exception being the uniformed guards and officers present in the mix. Leon actually looked out of place with his rumpled clothes and exhausted posture.

The man finally stopped in front of a door, opened it, and motioned Leon in. Leon obeyed, noting that his guide opted not to enter and instead simply shut the door, leaving the ex-cop to contemplate his surroundings.

The normality of the building came to a dead halt as Leon realized he was standing in an operating room. A surgical table was set into the middle of the floor, and at present it had an angle to it. Various pieces of medical equipment was lining the counters, although it was the set of bloody scalpels and other like cutting tools on a cart next to the table that gave Leon the chills.

It suddenly hit him that the man had offered no explanation as to what they were going to have him do, or for that matter, what they were going to do to him, but he didn't have time to contemplate the thought further as the door opened and a woman wearing glasses and a lab coat over a t-shirt and jeans walked through.

"Vell vell, you must be zee new patient," she said as she walked by him, her voice drowned in a German accent. As if this weren't bad enough, Leon suddenly feared he was going to get sliced up by a Nazi war criminal.

"So vat's your name," she asked, making a face at something.

"Leon," he answered.

She turned to him and nodded, "Dr. Luccianna, at your service."

She turned back to whatever she had been frowning at before.

"Vhy can't anyone pick up after demselves! Wretched leftover mess! It's not MY fault dere are so few bio-chemists that ve have to use dere crap operating rooms!"

With that, she grabbed the cart with the bloody tools on it and flung it to the far end of the room. Luckily it had wheels, so all it did was roll and bang into the wall.

Dr. Luccianna calmed down and sighed. "I ask for a simple set of syringes prepped and a monitor ready, and I get bloody butcher knives instead. Harrumph. Oh vell, I'll just be a minute setting up I guess, you can take off your shirt and lie down zere."

He did as he was told. He didn't have the worry of getting cut up any more, but he certainly wasn't going to piss this woman off after that little display.

A few minutes later, Dr. Luccianna was satisfied enough to proceed. Leon had sensors stuck to his chest and temples, and an IV going through the back of his hand. "Let's see… heartbeat's fine, temperature iz normal, hmmm, vhat's dat scar from?"

"Got shot a month ago," Leon answered. "There's a scar from the exit wound, too."

"Hmm, I see. I'd look at zem again vhen I'm done wit you. Okay zen, I might as vell tell you, dis is going to hurt."

"I've been through worse," he replied, chuckling. "I'll live."

"You vill, sort of," she commented, fastening Leon's head, waist, ankles and wrists to the table with straps he hadn't noticed before. "You're also going to convulse a lot, but you should black out before it gets really bad. After dat, you'll enter a normal sleep for a bit and ve'll take you to your room to vait the whole ting out, it'll take a few hours, and it's going to be a bit unpleasant."

He wasn't quite sure how to respond to all of that, and opted not to as she gave him a mouthpiece to bite on. Leon watched as she retrieved a vial from a pocket in her coat, and his eyes went wide in terror as he realized it was the exact same vial the G-virus sample had been in.

But he calmed down when he noticed that the liquid inside wasn't purple, it was actually a dark blue. She pulled a thin syringe from a rack on the counter and filled it with the stuff from the vile. He was expecting the needle to go into his arm, but she put it through the needle-hole in the IV.

"Here ve go," she said, pressing the pump down.

Leon quickly discovered that she hadn't been kidding. He could actually feel the stuff entering his blood stream, and it HURT. It spread from his hand in seconds, and it felt like a metal was forming itself to fill his veins as it went through his arm and into his chest. He wanted desperately to grab at it, and he tried, but the straps held firm, holding him down as every nerve in his body felt like it'd been cut, one by one.

He instinctively tried to scream, tried to break lose and do something to make it stop, he'd strangle the doctor if it would encourage her to make it stop. But at most he could only grunt through the mouthpiece and pull at the straps. In the space of only a few seconds, the vial's liquid had reduced Leon Kennedy to a silent, twitching form, the agony demonstrating irrevocably the worth of his existence.

---

The room was dimmer then before when Leon awoke, though by no means dark. He tried to remember what was going on, his memory was a blur at first. It all came back. The man, his offer, Dr. Luccianna's injection, and the pain, he certainly remembered the pain.

Leon bolted up at that thought, realizing something was wrong. Mercifully, the pain was gone, but he still didn't feel right, like that wretched liquid was crawling under his skin. He paced, trying to rub at it through his skin like he was trying to keep warm, but he was trying to make it stop. It was maddening.

He also realized he was back in his room, and looked at himself in the mirror. His skin seemed a little paler, but other then that, he looked perfectly normal. A little too perfect. The scar near his shoulder that he'd gotten from being shot by Annette Birkin was gone, like it had never been there in the first place. The door swung open before he could contemplate it any more. Dr. Luccianna had let herself in.

"What... what did you do to me," he stuttered, not moving his gaze from the mirror.

"It vill be a little difficult to explain, I just came to check on you. Trust me, you von't vant to try to make any sense of dis until you can think clearly."

---

"Well, the rest is kind of boring," Leon finished. "You might just say I came away from the experience a little changed, and… enhanced."

"Leon, take off your glasses," asked Chris, before anyone else could say anything. Everyone else, in fact, regarded him with a look of confusion.

"No," the ex-cop flatly refused.

Chris pulled his hand gun from it's holster and casually chambered a round, like he would need one more shot for something. Replacing his gun, he said, "Yes."

"No, I don't think so," was Leon's answer as he stood.

"Fine," Chris sighed, leaning back in his chair. No one expected it when he snatched his gun again and, in a flash, pointed it at Leon and pulled the trigger. No one expected Leon to run faster then any normal human, dodging the sudden threat as fast as Wesker could.

"Never know when a blank round'll come in handy," Chris commented. Indeed, the wall showed no signs of damage, and neither did Leon, for that matter. Leon made a face, mentally kicking himself for giving it away as everyone looked at him expectantly.

"Alright Leon," Claire jumped in. "Explain."

"Fine," he said, reaching up to pull off his glasses.

Claire was visibly shocked, Chris had the look of someone whose suspicions were confirmed, and Alucard, oddly, became confused.

Leon now saw with fire-colored feline eyes. Just like Wesker.

---