The Seeds of Armageddon Begins ([The Road to Eric's Revenge])

"Would you try to keep your head together…?"

Alucard muttered among the darkness, his voice reverberating as he saw the appearance of yet another being, a sigh leaving his lips as his gaze acquired his new opponent. "You'll understand, it is very hard to understand much about my opponent when he spends so much time throwing fodder at me."

These cruel words left the battle-hardened Iramasha's mouth as Alucard's presence continued to shift and move about the ground. It is not simple darkness… you fool… it is my presence… my very soul in which I dwell now… Alucard thought with a slight smirk as he felt the manipulation of shadows peeling throughout the 'form' he had lain upon the ground.

As Joshua began his obscene hopscotch game, Alucard's guns emerged from the shadows. With each new word that left his mouth, another shot was fired, alternating between Cassul and the Jackal with each shot and each word. These bullets would end up firing with enough speed to make Joshua likely feel like swiss cheese before the oncoming swarm of bullets.

The shadowy beasts which emerged, however, did not phase Alucard in the slightest. Instead, he slowly emerged from his own shadowy substance, his hair billowing out in the wind as he held out his arms as if to embrace the oncoming beasts. However, even as he did this, a series of gigantic black dogs emerged from the ground below them, their jaws stretched wide as Chaos Energy ran along each tooth, biting down hard into the oncoming assault as Alucard felt the strange influence that was trying to keep him from moving…

And was frankly failing, as his body vanished, reappearing behind Joshua's own form by a good ten feet. Meanwhile, the crusniks were being consumed as more and more shadow jaws emerged from the ground, covering around their bodies with violent chomping noises as Alucard laughed. It was true, in this space his body could not move well. However, that did nothing to stop his Omnipresence. That required no movement at all on his part, and allowed him to ignore the majority of the effect of Eric's demon magic.

"I don't care what the council has done… none of them even reaches up to my feet. Do you really think your life to be so valuable? Stubborn Iramasha. Hmm? I told him to try fighting his own battles for once instead of sending me sniveling lumps of meat!"

With that declaration, Alucard's entire body began to change as the magic circle down below had massive amounts of chaos energy injected into it from every direction, causing it to go haywire. Alcuard's right arm was replaced by the mouth of a dog, while in his other hand the Cassul had taken up its place. In the center of his chest was a great eyeball, opened wide and staring accusingly at Joshua as Alucard's mouth closed in a frowning snarl, looking at the emerging adversary as he threw his left arm forwards, the great beast contained within howling as the Hound of the Baskervilles extended rapidly, its jaws opened wide as it attempted to bite and shred Joshua's now larger body into pieces.

Meanwhile, Alucard's body had vanished, reemerging around the false buildings as the constructs of Chaos Energy began glowing and blinking white, his telekinesis controlling them as he began to throw them forcibly on top of the Iramasha. At last, his own body leaped out of the shadowy mess down below, his red cloak billowing in the wind as he held one of his pistols in each hand, his right eye closing as he held the weapons before him, pulling their triggers over and over again as the shots poured down into the eyes of the beast below, attempting to tear and rip through bone and skin, gaining strength and velocity from the composition of the fixtures that had been hurtled at the vampire's enemy.

At last, Alucard's feet pushed forwards and downwards as his right arm began to shift and change once more, several hundreds of spears sticking outwards as blood dripped along them, each infused with chaos energy as Alucard stabbed the limb forwards, stabbing the horrifying construct towards Joshua's body as the sheer amount of large spears overwhelmed even his new form, before each of them began to glow and blink as well…

At last, a single ringing noise rang out as Alucard's body vanished into a chaos warp, the power exploding violently as it shot even through Alucard's battlefield below, creating an absolutely massive crater. His form appeared before Eric, a gun held in each hand as he slowly walked forwards, his mouth curved upwards in a smile as he grimly laughed. "Come now, Mad Demon… Anger me with these trivialities again… and I shall show you a true monster!"

At that final declaration, Alucard stopped, both hands pointing forwards as he awaited Eric's response, his posture poised so that the black and red substance rose around their bodies, creating a kind of 'arena' for the two of them, great spears firing out along every side as centipedes and cockroaches, snakes and more jaws of creatures dripped off and down, obviously discouraging the approach of any other interferences.

"LET US FIGHT!"

"You think I care if I hurt his little feelings?"

The being known as Alucard demanded, his crimson eyes wide as he looked right at Joshua's eyes, looking down at the Iramasha. "And if someone is to destroy a monster, they had best be those which the monster hunts. You are not prey; you are a hunter. This is a fight between beasts. I will never allow myself to be destroyed by something I have not taken the life of!"

With that proclamation, Alucard observed the strange shadowy beast vanishing, leaving only him and the Mad Demon. "Maybe you should try to prevent my shells from piercing your demonic hide…" The vampire taunted, watching Eric assume his fighting stance as he began to laugh. "Ahaha… Yes… that's it… finally… Finally, we can begin!"

Watching Eric leap forwards, Alucard's body moved rapidly, throwing his arms out to either side as the punches slammed through his body, going right through him with tremendous force as with each blow one of Alucard's guns fired at the Mad Demon's skull, his body constantly reforming after each strike as the Death Energy simply vanished from around his body, his guns ending up on either side of Eric's head as they both fired simultaneously, his body being smashed up into the air and beaten against as he was reduced to a bloody pulp, his body flying back as Eric stopped his onslaught, his body flying into the false building as it crashed through the shadowy illusion, leaving his battered corpse laying there as the shadows that compromised the false laboratory began to twitch and move.

Slowly, his body began to get up once more, his blood-red eye glinting through the dark back-drop of his hair as he gave a wide smile, looking at the oncoming dragon. "That's adorable…" Alucard expressed as the dragon slammed into his body, a great amount of the shadowy presence down below flowing behind him as it created a solid wall, causing him to slam firmly into that great wall as the dragon continued to bite at him, before finally exploding.

As the smoke began to spread outwards it was tinged with darkness. Within the mist, a shadowy outline of Alucard appeared, his hands closed around his right eye as he stared outwards at Eric, obtaining the target once more. "Releasing Control Art Restriction Systems to Level One: three… two… one… Approval of Situation B recognized. Ability restrictions lifted for unlimited use until the enemy has been rendered silent…" As those words spread outwards, Alucard's body began to shift, as more of Alucard emerged. Not even Eric's demon eye could make out correctly which was the real Alucard; they were all identical in every aspect, with the exception of only one of them being the true Alucard.

Finally, after these copies moved around Eric's body, a piece of the shadow below Eric's body had a black Gun appear in one hand, followed by the outline of his head and one of his eyes. Pulling back the trigger, he fired a single round of the extremely piercing bullets directly into Eric's leg, attempting to blow the limb off as the copies all suddenly vanished…

And with them, Alucard reemerged, his right fist striking straight outwards at Eric's face. The muscle mass of that arm had been greatly increased, causing it to look absolutely bloated. His red cloak was gone, replaced with a black outfit that covered around his body, his mouth open wide in a smile as his fist crashed towards Eric's head.

From there, his hand would explode, becoming nothing but shadow as two smaller hands emerged from it, each one holding one of his guns as they fired six rounds apiece at the Mad Demon. Finally, his left arm changed, turning into a great dark-red blade as he cleaved across Eric's body, attempting to bisect him as Alucard turned his back to his enemy, his head rising up to the sky as the dust surrounding them dispersed in an instant.

His head slowly turned up to the sky, a wide smile on his face as his hands wrapped around his skull, his mouth opening wide as he proclaimed his happiness to the world.

"Yes… Yes… This is what I was looking for! Ahaha, AHAHA, AHAHAHAHAH!!"

[color=White]

This combat was truly beyond what Alucard had expected. He was thoroughly satisfied, something which simply did not happen very often to the man known as Alucard Iramasha. He honestly wanted this fight to never end, at least until he felt bored, and he felt that he would not end up becoming bored for quite a long time. After all, Alucard was the one on defense; so long as he kept Eric in a combat blow for blow, eventually reinforcements would arrive and they would overwhelm the cursed demon. Not to mention… this was the Iramasha Island, home to the Chaos Gems. That was the request that Alucard had sent in by bat; by now the Shrine Guardians would be on their way with the tools to seal this horrific demon away forever. But until then, Alucard would fight him himself, making him glad beyond measure that he could enjoy the thrills of combat.

"Sorry, Eric Zarathos, but you cannot simply 'defeat' me." Alucard explained directly, a pereverse smile on his face as he loaded another round into the Jackal, his body dashing about in the shadows. "Like I said, it won't be that easy!" Alucard declared as he felt the little 'reiatsu' that he maintained being drained away, leaving him only with the intense reverberations of pure Chaos energy from within his soul. He watched Eric gathering the energy into the shadows on his hand, deciding to rest his feet down on the ground as he waited to see wht would happen. He was not dissapointed as a massive wave of force shot out from every direction, pushing away his influences as they were dispersed and blown away, Alucard's own body being destroyed as he rapidly reformed, the hat on top of his head reforming as he reappeared within his original appearance, though he was plainly still released. Alucard could choose his appearance at any time, and considering that he had just made Eric think he had gotten an edge, Alucard would reduce his presence by a small amount to throw the male off of his guard.

"You've got that right, demon child."[/color ]Alucard stated, deciding to make his presence more dominating once again as the area around them began to darken, bats flying out from his cloak in every direction as it rapidly turned black, the smile on his face growing wider as he looked down at Eric, before beginning to run straight out, a colossal amount of chaos energy appearing around each of his arms. "VERY WELL THEN! COME ON, DEMON LOOOOOORD!"

Alucard's roar echoed around Eric's body, shaking the very ground he stood on as the Vampire Iramasha charged forwards, his cloak diminishing into shadows behind him as his pale white gloves were the only light thing left on his body, inscribed with the red of blood. These were not visible for very long, however, as the gloves were completely subsumed by darkness, vanishing from view as gauntlets of pure darkness appeared on both of Alucard's arms, forming a kind of cloak of armor as his body seemed to sail across the ground, and yet he was rapidly accelerating.

He approached his destination with force, bringing his right arm back as his muscles rapidly expanded, showing the true level of his strength as it matched that very blow with which Eric had struck the ground. At last, Alucard pushed the arm forwards, laughing maniacally as a string of saliva slid out of his mouth as he laughed. His mouth was modeled within a large smile. His guns were both at his sides, and the only thing that was currently weaponized was the attack he was readying. At last, he crashed his arm forwards, his black hair flowing out behind him in great cycles as he released the full force of the Chaos Blow, a massive nexus of pure energy appearing before him and around his body as he released the full force of the attack, enough to punch a hole straight through a building-thick block of Seki Seki stone without leaving a single scratch on Alucard's hand.

The purpose of this attack was to overwhelm Eric, attempting to break him to a point beyond fixing with pure force. The nexus of energy rapidly surged around Alucard's body as it gave his blow a drill-like quality, shredding and tearing as it contributed to the overall force of the attack, causing the ground before Alucard's body to surge and crack, waves of devastation expanding both in front of him and behind him according to which way the force went.

Alucard had devised this attack as a way to end this conflict; with any luck, it would greatly incapacitate Eric to the point where Alucard would be able to put his fight down for good, making it possible to seal the Mad Demon. For now, however, all he could do was wait and see the results of his terrifying assault...