Darkness reigned in Dracula's castle as the Dark Lord's spirit slowly recuperated from his utter defeat at the hands of Richter Belmont and Maria Renard. By this point, the man who had once been Matthias Cronqvist, and had adopted Vlad The Impaler's surname long enough that Bram Stoker had made his name as immortal as his body and soul ,had long grown tired of the endless cycle of death and rebirth. Dracula was truly tired, but he had to press on. Even after 7 long centuries, Elizabetha's death was fresh in his mind, the unfairness of it all.

With the knowledge of modern science Shaft and his many followers had found ways to transmit to him, he knew that disease was not random or a punishment from God, but usually just receiving an infection from being around the sick or the dead. With the endless time he had between his rebirths and his understanding of blood and life, he had come to understand that the prevailing miasma theory of infection was incorrect, and that disease traveled through air, water, food,the bites of animals, and a few other ways, though he was not entirely sure how that worked as the Dark Lord had little interest and even less equipment to understand the mechanics of disease beyond idle pondering to escape the endless darkness of the afterlife he had been consigned to.

He knew God was not responsible for Elizabetha's death, and had even begun to doubt God's existence, but he could not let go of his pain, anger, and sorrow, and so Matthias Cronqvist remained Dracula, eternally raging at the Heavens and out to conquer the world, with the challenge of his eternal battle with the Belmont clan being the closest he experienced to joy since he had become the twisted,demonic shadow of the man he'd once been. His current plan was fairly devious, it involved Shaft possessing the current Belmont, a young man named Richter, and making him gather the pieces of his body to allow the Dark Lord's resurrection, thus shutting down the threat the Belmonts posed and allowing Dracula to reign unopposed by anyone who could harm him. As well, he had never heard the last words of Lisa, and he carried a hatred for the humans who had killed her that was no less than the one he felt for God.

Besides that, even if wanted to give up, he was bound to his dark contract with Chaos through the Crimson stone, and could never give up his fate as the Dark Lord. Though he would give everything to see his Elizabetha again, to simply be Mathias Cronqvist, soldier and alchemist, it was not his fate. After all, even one as powerful as himself was bound by the constraints of fate. As Dracula pondered, a bald spirit with a repulsive face and demeanor dressed in a mockery of a catholic priest's raiments ,appeared before him.

"Master, Master, I have news! The spirits of the dead have told me that there is a man, Victor Frankenstein, who can create true , natural life from its base materials,like a Devil Forger, but better! You can return to life, and with a stronger body than your original human form as a base, your dark powers will be even stronger!" the repulsive-looking priest babbled.

The stunning news woke what was left of Mathias Cronqvist, causing the Dark Lord's soul to resemble his original self, His gray skin became pale peach, his white hair brown, and his eyes a pale brown, his facial features softening into the handsome man he'd been in life before Dracula regained control, and the changes left as if they had never been. His thought whirled chaotically. His lost Elizabetha and his second love, Lisa, could be regained. If he could master the process of creating life and combining it with his own alchemy and magic, he might be able to call their souls to the bodies he would make. For this, though, he would require help, as he was currently naught but a soul.He knew just where to acquire it, however. This was going to be something resembling fun, he thought, and he figured he was unlikely to be wrong.

"Shaft, gather dark beings of great power and bring them here, so that I may empower them to capture this Frankenstein and his creations and bring them here.Do well, and I'll even have Frankenstein make you a nice, new body. How does that sound, my servant?" Dracula grinned fiendishly, baring his fangs.

Shaft left, the ghostly priest grinning like a ghoul. His master would await the news and the visitors that would surely be coming. He knew where he should go. First,Egypt, then England and Wales, then Brazil, and perhaps France? Some of these beings weren't monsters, but they possessed either the abilities, the mindset, or both to exceed as such, especially once empowered by the greatest vampire the world has ever known.

***

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, a creature that appeared like a strange combination of fish, reptile, and human was swimming along the river that the forest took its name from. This was the being who was known to generations of horror movie fans as Gill-man, but he himself had no true name. When he was but a child, his people, the Yacuruna, had been systematically hunted down by men with guns. These men,superstitious fools who had heard the local legends of the dangerous, seductive fish-men, saw the truth of the legends: fish-men with a rather terrifying appearance, who they found monstrous, and, while no more violent innately than humans, were incredibly ferocious fighters when provoked. The men had purged the Yacuruna down to a scattered few who didn't even know the others were alive, destroying their language and culture with them, and decimating the indigenous human tribes who, while they occasionally warred with the Yacuruna, did not commit genocide on them.

After seeing his tribe die, Gill-man was left with a fear of weapons,especially guns, and an intense loneliness in his heart. All he wanted was a family like the one he'd lost, and someone special to love, like the indigenous human tribes he would occasionally watch going about their daily lives. He was a person too, yeah? He wasn't a mindless, savage monster, just a lonely guy who'd grown up on his own, as anyone else who had survived the attempt to wipe out his people had. He couldn't search too hard for what might be left of his people, as even though he was stronger, faster, and more durable than a human, there were all sorts of terrifying animals he had to hide from in the river and the rainforest. Still, he wandered the river endlessly, hoping to find signs of others of his kind.

It was while he was roaming that the strange, ghostly human approached him. Gill-man had no word for a ghost, as he hadn't learned much of the language of his people or any of those of the many human tribes in the area, but he could instinctively tell that this strange, untouchable thing was dead, and yet somehow still talked and moved and thought.Well, the shadow talked, but Gill-man couldn't understand.He knew that the words were words, and could somewhat read the human's expression and verbal tone, but he had no idea what the human was saying.

Growing impatient, Shaft used his power of possession to read through Gill-man's thoughts and pour a simple message into his head, comprised of image and intent. "IT was a heady flood of sensation and image, ideas linking together in Gill-man's head in a way he had never before experienced, but it translated to something like this: You are strong. My master will make you stronger and give you whatever you want if you will serve him." As the message was transferred, it gave Gill-man an understanding of the concepts within, and he decided that he should. If he was lucky, maybe this mysterious Master could help revive Gill-man's people.Shaft sensed Gill-man's eager agreement, and stopped the possession, grinning as he used a portion of his magical might to make Gill-man invisible and fly alongside him as they headed to Egypt. Gill-man just grinned and enjoyed the sensation, excited for what lay ahead.

***

Imhotep's corpse lay still in his tomb, with his soul suffering in the Duat, the afterlife Egyptians believed in. Due to the spells on his coffin being broken and his having been buried alive, Imhotep had not been able to find his way to the trials all souls underwent in the Egyptian afterlife, and wandered along the same river that Ra's boat went along daily, harassed by demons and lost souls. He longed to return to life, find his beloved Anck-su-namun , and make them both immortal. He would defy heaven and commit evil for his love, as he was sure she would do the same for him. Blasphemy was nothing when you could have eternal love, after all. As Imhotep lived out his hellish afterlife in the Duat, Gill-Man and Shaft approached his tomb.

When they entered, Shaft floated over to the casket the Scroll Of Thoth was in, channeled his master's power to break the curse, and took it out. Hmm, this thing was useful. It could restore life, but only if the corpse was mummified or otherwise well-preserved. Without a corpse to call back the soul, it was essentially useless! Still, Shaft could use this to restore his own life after he raised the man in the tomb, and raise his master from the dead if necessary, though Dracula would likely prefer to be raised right into a new,stronger body than reform his old one, if the situation wasn't dire.

He read the mystic words off the scroll and then hid it within the center of his ghostly body, which was a wise choice, as Imhotep's casket broke opened, and the man stepped out himself, regenerated.

"What do you ask of I, Imhotep, High Priest of Ra? Why have a priestly ghost whose power rivals my own and a fish-man who looks like a demon woke me from my eternal slumber?" Somehow, as many spirits did, he spoke the same language Shaft did. His master spoke Romanian, German, Hungarian, Magyar, Turkish, English, and many other languages due to having been born an educated man and spending centuries alive, and had taught Shaft many, but hearing an Egyptian man who had been dead for nearly 3000 years speak the Transylvanian dialect of Romanian as well as if it had been his first language was rather jarring. Fortunately, Shaft's master had forced him to learn Egyptian, of both the archaic and modern varieties, so he could reply in kind.

"Imhotep, is it? I am a priest of the Dark Lord , Dracula. He has sent me to gain your help in a great venture, to capture a man with the power to create new, stronger life from the basic stuff of it, and his creations.After all, if we tweak the process, it may be able to revive the dead into new, stronger forms." Shaft grinned.

"And if I accede to his wishes and help him? What do I stand to gain?" Imhotep stared Shaft down. If he could snatch the scroll that had reanimated him from that spirit, he could resurrect his beloved, and not become involved in what could be a foolish venture that would likely anger opponents even he would fear.

"Power greater than you now possess, and master will resurrect your loved one in a body stronger and more beautiful than she originally had. The legends did say you wanted to raise your beloved from the dead, yes?" Shaft grinned ghoulishly.

"She died unjustly, and when I tried to raise her from the dead, that idiotic pharaoh buried me alive. I died in pain and sorrow,as the air within the coffin ran out and I asphyxiated. I spent millenia in the underworld, struggling to not be obliterated or become a demon. And you, a priest of evil, dare to dangle my one hope in front of me like i'm a dog, begging at your feet?" Imhotep's voice gradually rose as he spoke, and the sand on the floor of the tomb whipped itself into a frenzy, gathering around Shaft and attempting to crush him. Shaft merely floated through the sand, laughing.

"That might work if I still had my body, fool, but your magic has weakened after this long. It cannot affect me. However...I can destroy you. " He laughed maniacally as fireballs appeared and poised themselves to rocket towards Imhotep. "So what will it be, Priest Of Ra? Obeisance to a master who makes us both look like children, or a foolish, pointless death and return to your endless journey through that hellish afterlife?"

Imhotep's body collapsed into sand, and when it did, Shaft's fireballs turned to ice and gathered around Imhotep, preparing to freeze him. Imhotep's sandy form coalesced back into flesh, and he sighed. "Ugh, fine. I will serve your master, but there will be a reckoning between you and I, dark one. For I am the High Priest, and I serve no one whose glory is not greater than mine."

"Enough talking, let us go. We have two more allies to gather and bring to the Master, and little time to do it in."

Gill-Man, not knowing either of their languages, had stood and watched as the two men's aggressive attitudes had risen, as they'd confronted each other, and as they reached resolution. This was smart, as either man could destroy him with their strong magical powers. Seeing shaft prepare to leave, he walked after him, and the three disappeared into the night.

***

At the Lion's Head Inn in Sussex,England, late at night, an Invisible Man was retrieving his notebooks from his room. Three odd strangers confronted him as he left. A tall Egyptian man, now dressed in clothing contemporary to his current era stared at the space where he was, as did a semi-transparent man in the garb of a priest. From the transparency and the aura of death and fear emanating from the priest, he was likely a ghost. The third figure was wrapped in loose-fitting hooded robes, with gloves and boots, and no inch of his skin could be seen. The invisible man stared back at the three strangers, and the stare-down continued for a minute before the priest spoke.

"Dr Jack Griffin, I presume? The spirits and demons under my control told me you've developed quite a novel method of invisibility. How would you like true invisibility, that you could toggle at will, and great strength as well? All you would have to do is serve my master, Dracula, willingly." Shaft smirked.

"You can see me, huh?The Dracula? Like, Vlad The Impaler who was rumored to be a vampire? I'm not stupid enough to turn that down. " Griffin smirked, his smirk unseen by all but Shaft and Imhotep.

"Then let us go. We have much to do, and little time in which to do so." Shaft said, turning to leave.

Griffin followed , as did the others. As Griffin examined his new allies, he wondered what exactly he'd gotten himself into. He'd just have to go where the wind took him and hope he hadn't made a foolish decision. Even if he had, the power this freaky ghost priest had proposed just seemed too tempting to pass up.

***

In Llanwelly, Wales, there was a werewolf. This werewolf, unlike the one who would become famous when Lon Chaney played him on the big screen, was a Roma man named Bela, the great-grandfather of the same Bela who bit Lon Chaney's character, Larry Talbot. On the night of the new moon, Bela sat outside the caravan he traveled with, staring up at the empty space where his lunar nemesis usually was. He hated this curse. When the moon was out, he turned into a beast and lost control of himself, and he knew from the chaotic flashes of memory that the beast inside him had killed more than just livestock. He wanted freedom, or at least control of the thing he became under the light of the full moon. He'd managed to prevent much human death over the ten years of his curse by either hiding in the woods when the full moon came around or locking himself in his wagon and pretending to be ill.

Enough of the elders of his caravan knew the truth to help him fake a disease, as did the woman he'd married. Their children were blissfully unaware that their father was a monster, and he hoped they'd never have to know. Even in this world where the Roma people, also known as the Romani, possessed great magical powers that they used to their own benefit and the benefit of those they traded with, they had no method to break a curse as powerful as lycanthropy, one that could only be broken with the death of the cursed person. Bela had once been fond of silver, with its associations with purity and the moon, but he could no longer stand to be too close to silver, much less bear the touch of silver objects.

While he was sitting alone, mourning his own horrible fate, 4 strangers approached him. Bela saw a man in modern clothing who looked like a an egyptian, a semi-transparent priest, a hooded, robed figure with gloves and boots that covered all exposed skin, and a man wrapped in extensive bandages underneath his clothing.

The priest spoke to him in Romani. "Ah, a scion of the traveling people has become a lycanthrope? It must be hard to keep yourself isolated and not kill when your caravan is so constantly roaming and meeting new people."

Bela jumped, pulling a knife from his belt. "How do you know what I am? If you let that slip publicly, i'd be killed!" Bela said, pointing his knife at the ghostly priest.

"First thing, that knife isn't enchanted or silver, so it can't do anything to a ghost like me. Second, it is the interest of a priest of the Dark Lord,Dracula, to know such things. " Shaft smirked. Threatening an obvious ghost with a normal weapon? Foolish.

"So, you serve that vampire lord, huh? My people have heard of him, through others of our people who have visited the lands he roams during the times he fight that brave clan who dares to defeat him every time he returns. So what can you do for me, dark priest?" Bela slowly put away the knife, his expression wary.

"Simple. Serve my master, and he will give you control of the beast inside, as well as giving you strength that truly befits the nature of your curse." Shaft grinned. Humans were greedy creatures, and even the most altruistic would bend and break when you gave them solutions to the things that haunted or burdened them. At least, that was what Shaft had seen during his life. Even he himself had once worshipped God before he came to see the truth of Dracula's endless darkness.

"Fine. I will serve your master. I have no interest in strength, but I must gain control of this beast inside or die trying." Bela begrudgingly agreed.

Shaft smirked, Imhotep shrugged, Gill-man made no obvious expression,and Griffin just nodded. The five set off into the night. It would take some time to return to Castlevania, even with the magic of Shaft and Imhotep helping. Best to be quick, so that their master's plan could go forward and they could capture Frankenstein and his creation as soon as possible.