Castlevania: Portrait of Chaos

Chapter 1: Oddity

It was the dead of night. A black, serpentine silhouette raced in the platinum moonlight throughout the sleepy, humble town. Following close behind it were precisely two figures, both panting as their legs demanded for them to stop running. The matter was too great of importance for either figure to ignore.

One figure had broader shoulders, a jacket’s tails billowing out behind him as he kept pressing onwards. The other had long hair and a sort of mini-cape barely flared out past its arms. Under one arm, it appeared to be carrying something.

The serpentine thing took a sharp turn, its pursuers barely keeping up behind inches of its lengthy tail.

“Damnit! If only you’d stay still!” Complained the first figure, its voice like that of a young man.

“Jonathan, I’m getting the feeling that this wasn’t such a good idea after all.” Said the second figure, its voice like that of a young woman.

Both figures stopped in their tracks, their legs aching in pain from abused adrenalin and oxygen levels. The first figure put its hands on its knees.

“For the love of all things in God’s holy name,” Started the first figure, its voice sounding rather scornful, “you worry about too much of everything, Charlotte.”

“Wouldn’t you do the same, considering that World War Two ended weeks ago? Wouldn't a World War Three start sometime now?” Retorted the second figure, standing upright and crossing its arms. In a hand was a simple book with a red cover.

“On second thought, I see your point.” Replied the first figure, moving its hands off of its knees and standing up full height. It was only inches taller than its companion.

“Besides, Jonathan, I could sense that thing has a large amount of chaotic magic. We have no idea what that thing is; however, I can tell it’s worse than Brauner was.” Said the second figure.

“Please, don’t bring him up.” Replied the first figure, running alongside the second into the halo of a street light. The first figure had blond hair and bangs that covered the right side of his face if you happen to be looking straight at him. A red and battered coat was on his body, the tails of which having seen far better days. He wore a simple black shirt and jeans with brown boots.

“Well, ex-cuse me for reminiscing!” Scorned the second figure. She had long and straight brown hair which reached the length of her back. She wore a bright blue minicape that was held onto her shoulders with a simple red cloth tying the ends together. A white shirt with very faint grey stripes going vertically downwards was on her torso, and it reached to the waist which was adorned with a simple belt. A matching skirt reached to mid-thigh, and a little bit past that were long, blue socks. There were red high-heels on her feet.

“Charlotte, quit your griping. We have a….” The man, Jonathan, trailed off. He was at a loss for words to finish his sentence, especially after he heard the distant sound of something groaning in pain.

“Problem to deal with?” Charlotte finished for him, also noticing the sound in the distance. She glanced around in all directions, her blue eyes narrowing a bit from a feeling of unease.

“Just where is that sound coming from…?” Jonathan murmured under his breath, also darting his head about every which-way he could manage.

Both stopped with their backs against each other’s. The sound drew closer still, and neither had any idea just where it was coming from. North of the town? South? They didn’t know.

It drew closer, and Charlotte could barely make out another silhouette in the moonlit distance. “Follow me.” She whispered to Jonathan as she began to walk to the silhouette so as to avoid scaring its owner. The young man followed, his pace also slowed to a simple walk.

As they walked away from the halo of artificial light, their forms darkened until barely discernable under the soft light of the current celestial body above.

The sounds of groaning drew closer. The silhouette seemed to have taken notice of the rather unusual duo out and about in the street. It stopped entirely.

Charlotte slowed her pace a little bit, occasionally stopping to see if anything else was following behind her heels. She could still sense that chaotic magic lingering about, and she didn’t like it one bit.

Jonathan grabbed the woman by the wrist and tugged gently. She took notice and resumed walking to the groaning silhouette in the distance.

Soon, they met with a woman leaning on a wooden stick for support. Her hair was greyed and hung sloppily in front of her shoulders, and she seemed shaken a good bit.

“Confound this back pain I’ve had for the past fifty years!” She complained, her eyes scrunching shut in strain.

“Um, miss?” Jonathan asked, tapping the elder on her shoulder to get her attention. “Have you seen a….black thing around town lately?”

The woman looked at him and shook her head. “No, I can’t say that I have. ” She replied. “But unless you mean my cat, she is black with two white stripes.”

Jonathan’s hand connected with his face, and he groaned as if annoyed. “No, we aren’t looking for a cat. We’re looking for this….” He lost words again.

“Serpentine monster with high amounts of chaotic energy, figuratively and literally speaking, of course.” Charlotte said, putting the book she held all this time to her chest.

“I….haven’t even seen such a creature. Could you describe it in more detail, please?” Asked the elder, raising a wrinkly brow.

“It was jet-black and I think at least fifteen feet in length. That’s really all I can say.” Charlotte answered with a sigh.

“What she said.” Jonathan quickly added, shaking his head. The elderly lady replied, “Your boyfriend is a half-wit, right?”

Charlotte’s eyes quickly widened, and a faint blush was on her face. “H-hey! H-he isn’t my boyfriend! W-what evidence do you have to support that outrageous claim?!” She retorted, shaking her head frantically as if in utter denial.

Jonathan’s eyes also went wide. “I’m not dumb! And no, we aren’t dating, she’s like my kid sister!” He added, his hand quickly connecting with his face once more.

Charlotte swiftly snapped a scornful glare filled to the brim with murderous daggers at the red-coated man. “For the last time, Jonathan, I am NOT a child!”

“Yeah, right.” Jonathan retorted, casting his own glare at the woman. He poked an index on the top of her head. “You sure act like one.”

The two looked as if they’d engage in a ferociously heated debate over whether or not the girl carrying a book was acting like a child. That is, if the elder didn’t speak up.

“My, my, that is an interesting book you have there.”

Charlotte pushed Jonathan’s hand away and turned to the woman. “T-thank you, I guess. I study a lot.”

“Mind if I take a peek in it? I’ll make it quick to avoid wasting your time.” Said the elderly woman, a faint smile on her face.

Charlotte complied, and the woman quickly sifted through the pages before looking at something that caught her eye. She looked at it for a moment or two, and then swiftly returned the book to its rightful owner.

“It was more interesting than I thought. I’ll be on my merry way.” She said, hobbling past the duo whilst grunting in pain.

“I hope your back gets better.” Jonathan said to the woman as she faded away into the distance.

“We’ve wasted enough time as is. Let’s just get this damn show on the road, catch the whatever-it-is, slay it if need be, go home, and take a nap.” Charlotte hissed, sounding particularly cranky now.

Jonathan nodded in agreement, and they once more took off running. Only this time, considering that the whatever-it-was had ditched them at this point, they were left practically guessing where its current location would be. Charlotte began relying on her ability to sense magical energies a bit too much now, and was as a result the leader in this scenario.

After an hour of mindless walking about and sensing magical energies, the duo came to a stop at an abandoned house. There were no lights and the thing was boarded up to boot.

“It’s the strongest here,” Charlotte said, her voice filled with subtle hints of worry.

Jonathan walked up the stairs to the sealed front door and he inspected it thoroughly. “Charlotte, you might want to see this.”

The young woman quickly ascended the stairs and sighed. Jonathan’s shadow had darkened the door too much for comfort. “Bring out the flashlight.” She groaned. The young man complied, shining the light at exactly what it was he wanted his supposed “girlfriend” to see.

Claw marks. Claw marks that had spanned the length of the door and its wooden bonds.

“Just what the hell happened here?” Jonathan asked, turning his gaze to Charlotte.

“From the looks of it,” Charlotte paused, putting a hand on her chin, “It seems that the owner was a quadruped hybrid.” She also saw similar markings on the porch itself, and even some on the margins of the sealed windows.

“English? Do you speak it?” Jonathan asked, shaking his head disapprovingly.

Charlotte’s torso hunched over and she sighed in annoyance. “For crying out loud, you know of the Glasya Labolas? Or how about the manticores? Or the Vapula? Those are all quadruped hybrids--put two creatures together and what do you get?” She answered, quickly righting her stature.

“Oh. Right. So, a freak of nature then?” Jonathan asked again, raising a brow.

“...More or less.” Charlotte replied, finally noticing a marking that simply didn’t belong with the others: a hoofprint. She knelt down to inspect the anomaly more closely. She soon darted around the porch, scanning for anything else that didn’t belong in the picture. More hoofprints and there were some strange feathers to boot.

“Just what the hell are we after again, Miss Know-it-All?” Jonathan sighed, very confused now.

“Not just a freak of nature. A very strange freak of nature.” Charlotte said, now returning to the boarded up door.

Jonathan put the flashlight away and charged shoulder-first at the door. It didn’t budge an inch. He did this again, and it still held firm.

“A little help would be nice.” Jonathan said at last, glancing at Charlotte.

“Right.” Charlotte replied with a nod. Both readied their shoulders and counted to three. After that, they charged at the same time and the door finally fell down, breaking its bonds and dragging them with it into the dark depths of the house.

The young man pulled out the flashlight again and stepped inside. Charlotte soon followed. The house was beyond dusty and the air inside was horribly stale. It reeked with rot as if a dead body was left within for four years straight. The duo nearly found themselves gagging but pulled themselves together.

At once, the door slammed shut. Both turned around with haste.

“Just great. We’re stuck here.” Charlotte complained.

“It was your bright idea.” Jonathan commented, rolling his eyes in a rude manner. He had accidentally shone the flashlight toward the eastern side of the room, where the house had a horrible surprise for the duo. There in the corner of the room were two dead bodies; one was that of an old man who was missing an arm, and the other, though disfigured, was the old lady from before...but her neck was gnarly, as if it had been broken horrendously, and there was a worm crawling out her eyehole.

Their eyes widened and they found themselves suddenly recoiling from shock with a severe aftertaste of confusion. They looked at each other and took a deep breath.

“W-w-w-what the hell did we just walk into?” Jonathan asked, shaking a bit.

Charlotte gulped hard. “Posthumous bodies. They’ve been dead for some time. When we get out of this, we’re reporting this to the police.” She said, very clearly trying her best not to scream bloody murder.

Jonathan turned the flashlight towards another wall on the south end of the room, only to meet yet another door that was boarded up as if to flat-out mock him. “This probably wasn’t such a good idea…” He whispered, hearing something going on upstairs. He wasn’t quite sure what the sounds were, but he knew that he was bound to find out sooner or later.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious…” Charlotte whispered in a menacing hiss, also hearing the strange sounds going on above her head. She too turned to the door, which had for some reason removed its binds and opened by itself. The duo exchanged glances, and then walked through the second door of the house that was creeping them out more and more by the very minute.

Now, the young man shone the flashlight everywhere, seeing that he and Charlotte had just entered a kitchen that had clearly suffered years of abuse. The walls were peeling and broken glass, most likely from dishes, lay scattered about on the splintering floor. Pieces of a broken table and some chairs also appeared to have been flung around the whole damn room at some point in time.

Amidst all of this fine hellhole of a mess, they saw a flight of stairs. Again, its wooden steps were rotted like the rest of the desolate place.

“And already I hate this.” Jonathan complained, carefully moving to the stairs and avoiding all of the bits of table and chair. Charlotte followed not too close behind.

Jonathan took hold of the rusted, metal railing and slowly climbed the stairs, cursing his luck because each step squeaked under his feet in the process. Then, all of a sudden, Jonathan lost his balance and accidentally broke a hidden wall that was disguised as part of the stairs.

Charlotte nearly jumped out of both her clothes and skin. She blinked a few times. “Be more careful next time.” She scorned, keeping her voice as low as she could manage.

Jonathan regained his footing and rolled his eyes. “You check upstairs, and I’ll see what’s in here.”

Charlotte complied and ascended the rest of the stairs, making sure not to lose her footing the way her companion did. The young woman was met with a hallway, and she saw a bright light...with that damned silhouette she’d been chasing all this time in front of it.

It turned its disfigured head and saw her. Quick as a whip it fled into the light...no, not a light. A glowing portal that took the shape of a painting. A painting depicting a strange landscape with floating buildings, brown rain coming from pink clouds, and other sorts of pure, abstract nonsense in all its wacky glory.

Jonathan ascended the stairs and stopped, also seeing the strange phenomenon before him. Again, they exchanged glances. “I found nothing except a high tonic and spell scroll.”

“What’s a spell scroll doing here in this….” Charlotte lost words, taking the spell scroll and looking at it. She was unable to read it because it was written in a language best described as swirls and other strange figures. In other words, gibberish. She put it in her book--which was an encyclopedia--nonetheless.

Jonathan turned to the painting again. He put the flashlight away, seeing that the damn anomaly radiated a bright enough light to provide decent sight.

They drew closer to this painting. At once, it began warping and the faint image of a skull swirled about freely in the distortion.

“This is...unlike any magic I’ve sensed before. It’s….” Again, Charlotte lost words.

“And the painting itself. If Brauner somehow did this, I’m going to assume that he had way too much to drink and way too much time on his hands.” Jonathan commented, trying to make sense of the mess the painting depicted.

“He couldn’t have done this. And even if he did, it no longer contains his magical essence.” Charlotte replied, rubbing her eye with a hand. “And Jonathan, another reason why I know it’s not Brauner is the magic signature of the painting is nowhere near what his was--and who’s to say another being couldn’t do the same kind of magic?”

Slowly, they drew closer to the painting. The distortion grew more violent as they approached its very presence.

“Okay. This is getting stranger by the minute. How the hell do I make sense of this mess? Think about it: monster, old lady, dead bodies….and now this painting is mocking us. Seriously, how the hell do I know exactly what is going on around here?! Dracula was bad enough as is!” Jonathan complained, holding out his hands before him and waving them in the air in confusion.

“And it was you who told me to quit whining, right?” Charlotte asked, looking at Jonathan with a look of unamusement.

Jonathan groaned.

They drew even closer to the painting. The distortion grew even worse, and now the skull was blood red. Charlotte slowly, cautiously, raised a hand to the painting and began to recite a spell in ancient tongue. Her hand drew closer and closer until the very tips of her fingers touched the fine tempora paint.

The painting, as if in response, emitted a white-hot light and cast it into the hallway. It grew brighter and brighter until it suddenly dissipated. And when it vanished, neither Jonathan nor Charlotte stood in front of it.