The trio's incantation held true, and
Dracula was indeed reborn into this world. Unbeknownst to them, he grew up and
lived among the people, who were given nary a clue that they were imbuing in
the presence of ultimate evil. His power was growing, as was evil in the world,
and soon, people began to return to the path of wickedness. Heathens gathered
with the belief that the Dark Lord would finally raise from his slumber and
lead them to victory. Death and Actrise, too, continued to plan for his return.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Wallachia,
a young man named Reinhardt Schneider was coming of age. Reinhardt was the son
of Michael Gelhardt Schneider, elder of the Schneider faction related the Belmonts
by blood, who came into possession of the Vampire Killer whip and the mystic
weapons after Nathan Graves had played well his role to vanquish Count Dracula
as the world continued to wait the Belmonts' return. Thus, Reinhardt, heir to
the Belmont clan of legend, was faced with a dilemma: Since it was difficult
to prove that such links still remained to the famed family, as they had not
been seen for many years, Reinhardt always felt that he had to prove to himself,
and to all of Wallachia, that he could live up to his ancestral legacy. Trained
by his father to be a fierce warrior and a man of God, he grabbed the Vampire
Killer whip and the mystic weapons and vowed to hunt down the forces of evil.
He would not be alone: Carrie Fernandez, a magically gifted young woman descended
from Belnades family, would do her best to deal with side-matters concurrent
to his journey.
Reinhardt
followed a trail through the Forest of Silence that led him to the ancient Castlevania.
From there, he searched the castle and its outland high and low looking for
answers. He met a few friends along the way, too: First, there was Charlie Vincent,
a master vampire hunter who insisted that it was his destiny to destroy
Count Dracula; the foolhardy hunter made no bones about his mission to reach
the Dark Lord first. Renon, the demon salesman from Hell, proved to be an unlikely
ally despite his questionable intention. And then he made the acquaintance of
the enigmatic Malus, a young boy whose family was supposedly killed by Dracula
years before. Reinhardt rescued the boy from the castle's monster-inhabited
Villa; while for this act Malus was gracious, the boy continued to lurk about,
his actions thereafter becoming more and more suspicious.
Finally, he met a beautiful
woman named Rosa in the Villa's indoor rose garden. What he discovered is that
all who lived in the Villa were under the influence of Dracula's curse, Rosa
especially. While consumed deeply by the curse that threatened to make her an
eternal slave to the Count, she had not yet been overcome--still, an inescapable
conflict existed within, and, though she took a liking to him, she did her best
to distance herself from Reinhardt. Though Reinhardt insisted on trying to
save her from an undead fate, she warned him over and over again
that there was no hope of saving her soul. Much later, in the heart of
the castle, he again encountered Rosa, whose pain had boiled over so much that
she tried to destroy herself by exposing her flesh to a beam of sunlight; Reinhardt
stopped the event, to her dismay, and tried to ease her pain through even religion.
"God forbids suicide," he lectured. His efforts proved to be for naught
when in the castle center Death intervened to force a confrontation between
the two; Rosa could not resist the vampiric urge anymore, and a saddened Reinhardt
was forced to unleash his wrath. Though justified, he promised to extract revenge
for her soul by destroying the Count and his followers.
Reinhardt arrived at the top
of the clock tower. Before he could even gather his bearings, the unseen Death
attempted a surprise attack. The scythe sped toward the now-sensing Reinhardt,
who could muster no defense. Suddenly, Rosa appeared and threw herself in front
of Reinhardt, shielding him from the attack by instead taking the fatal blow.
As she lay in his arms, Reinhardt wondered why she would come to his protection
after the preceding events. "Because you are pure and have the power to
defeat Dracula," she admitted. When Rosa confessed a fear that her soul
could know no forgiveness, Reinhardt placed in her hand a cross and assured
her that God forgives all. As she fade away, the enraged Reinhardt stood up
to deal with her tormentor. "I will never forgive you!" he
shouted at the all-too-pleased Death. An encounter was theirs.
After tangling with and vanquishing
Death, Reinhardt arrived at the castle keep. While Reinhardt investigated his
empty casket, Dracula appeared from behind and began to attack in his usual
method. The vampire menace fell briefly to Reinhardt's onslaught; it was "too
easy," Reinhardt thought. However, there was no time to reflect: The castle
started to crumble and shake, and Reinhardt struggled to escape. He climbed
to the top of one of the castle's steady towers, where he was met, conspicuously,
by a unicorn-riding Malus. Much to Reinhardt's disbelief, the seemingly innocent
boy turned around and claimed to be Vlad Tepes Dracula incarnate, bragging that
the "Dracula" Reinhardt defeated was merely his servant. This looked
to be reality when Malus revealed his true self by transforming into a rather
youthful-looking Count Dracula.
The
two battled atop the tower, the struggle between good and evil in their hands.
Reinhardt unleashed his fury and brought Dracula to knees, from where he evaporated
into nothing; just then, Malus appeared from out of the mist, "free from
possession," Reinhardt thought. "Is it over?" Malus asked. "Is
Dracula dead?" As Reinhardt went over to console the child, a vial of holy
water exploded in front of him, knocking him back and engulfing Malus' flesh.
"Don't be fooled," an arriving Charlie Vincent boasted. "That
boy is Dracula." His plan thwarted again, the Count used his remaining
power to magically usher both he and Reinhardt into a desert realm and to transform
himself into the behemoth-like Drago! Though the battle that followed was increasingly
violent, even in this, his most powerful form, Dracula still was not able to
negate the cruel hand that fate had dealt him; he was defeated yet again, and
his plot to fool all of Wallachia had failed.
Reinhardt escaped from
the desert realm and watched from seaside as the castle collapsed into the ocean.
Exhausted, he looked toward the heavens; a lone rose fell from the sky, its
meaning eluding him. To his surprise, this divine contact signaled the sudden
re-materializing of Rosa, whose soul had been saved by the defeat of Count Dracula
and her will to be forgiven; finally, she was free of his curse. Sharing a hug,
the pair pondered the events past. They knew that the battle was eternal, that
Dracula would continue to return to this world. "That is the fate of humanity,"
Rosa considered. Reinhardt, as he always had, proclaimed his faith in people.
"As long as we have hope, evil can never defeat us!"
Page 16: World
Domination | Back to Page 14
