"Impossible. We left no trail to be followed." Alucard informed Hecubus. Hecubus shrugged and pointed at young Amano as the fledgling artist sat at a sketch table. "That doesn't matter, for in the name of the Black Priest Shaft, master of Funk *Handjive* and Evil, and to an even greater degree, Brother Drac, I will destroy that manga-ka!" As Alucard and his crew prepared to do battle once more in, a team of threatening looking men shielded by the most expensive suits money could buy, and armed with black briefcases, scurried out of nowhere and surrounded the young artist. "Man Servant Hecubus," the tallest and most threatening announced, "We represent Konami's legal department. Our client has taken interest in the talents of one Yoshitaka Amano, and thus we have issued a restraining order against you and all other minions of one Count Dracula. If you do not vacate the premises, we have legal authority to remove you by force." Hecubus stood with his mouth open in awe. "Evil!" was all he could manage as he was admittedly impressed with the supreme evil that was Konami's legal council. "I am humbled by this display of evil before me, man. Evil, Evil!" Alucard brushed his hair aside in a bishounen manner, causing all the female gamers within a ten-mile radius (and Plaz) to sigh all at once. "It would seem that my plan to have Yoshitaka Amano noticed by Konami was successful, and that yet another vile scheme of my father's has been crushed by the forces of righteousness. As you can tell, my young allies, perseverance will pay off and eventually thwart anything my father or his minions can muster up. Whipping things and falling out of random portals can only get you so far when it comes to taking on the devious followers of darkness. However, with the goal in your heart to face insurmountable evil at all costs, you will always be triumphant, and will receive unlimited continues even if you are not. Indeed, young Belmont, It was your very ancestor who taught me." "What was that again?" Bob asked as he and Plaz peered up from the intensive card game that they had started sometime during Alucard's speech. "Things were getting kind of dull." Alucard grabbed onto the nearest stationary object with all of his vampire strength and resisted with all that was bishounen in him to sweat drop. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Improfanfic is probably regretting right now that it ever presented: Castlevania 1970: Disco of Evil Chapter 6: Stayin' Undead This Chapter By: Adam Pace (May God have mercy on my soul) This whole thing is the fault of: Gaijin Dan Mastriani -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hecubus groaned groggily as he crawled into Shaft's office. The disco beat coming from outside, combined with the three bottles of vodka he'd just drank, pounded in his head as he made his way into the chair and collapsed in it. "My main man!" Shaft said as he casually discarded the nubile young girl in his arms and turned to face his follower. "I trust that since you're back from Japan, you've successfully iced that freaky little artist. Allow me to treat you to a selection of the finest hoes on this side of the Mississippi." "Forgive me, Most Funkadellic Dark Priest, but it has proven far to evil of a task for even for a guy that has trained in the arts of Funk *Handjive* and Evil under you." Hecubus began to shake. "You see, those cats had lawyers all over the place, and there ain't nothin' that could compare to the evil of Brother Drac but the chilling gaze of an entire legal team!" Shaft got up from his desk and looked down at his servant from behind his dark glasses. "Lawyers?" he asked, "That may be evil, but it can't possibly compare to MY Funk *Handjive* and Evil!" Shaft casually walked around his desk, the funky flow in his feet, the beat snapping in his fingers, until he reached Hecubus. Then with a sudden jerk, Shaft grabbed Hecubus and tossed him onto the ground. "What's my name!?" He screamed into the face of his follower. "What?" Hecubus asked excitedly. "WHAT'S MY NAME!?" Shaft repeated, this time about fifteen times louder, so that his voice could over the incessant disco beat. He followed it up with a few pimp-slaps in the face for good measure. "SHAFT!" Hecubus managed. Shaft nodded as he booted Hecubus in the side and replied, "You damn right, and you best not forget that. Now get your ass back to Japan, and don't come back without that little artist's head! I don't care if you have to go face to face with Johnny Cochran himself! You got that?" Hecubus nodded nervously as a red portal opened up behind him. "Good, now don't be interrupting me when I'm pimpin' hoes again!" Shaft replied as he promptly tossed Hecubus into the portal. *---Feel the Disco Beat---* "What are you doing?" Bob asked, as Alucard was stuffing his pockets with endless supplies of shiitake mushrooms and Japanese box lunches at the local market across from Konami headquarters. Alucard replied in his typical monotone, "When battling the forces of my father, one can never be too prepared, or store as much food as possible in their pockets. You never know when a particularly nasty floor trap or lightning bolt will sap your health away. Eating traditional Japanese food is one way to avoid certain death, as it will refill your life automatically. Though for those of the Belmont line, it might be preferable to eat meat that you've found by breaking blocks with your whip." "Is that so?" Bob asked as he pulled out his whip and promptly cracked it on the nearest brick he could find. As expected, the block broke, revealing a tasty looking drumstick. "Whoa," he uttered in a Keanu-like manner as he stored it in one of his pockets. It strangely vanished inside as if his pocket were an endless void in which items could be stored and at will. "Uh, Mr. Alucard," Plaz managed in a very timid voice as he/she/whatever pulled on Alucard's cape, "What is that red portal doing over Konami headquarters?" Alucard looked out the window and saw Hecubus and exactly 7126.4 undead minions fall out of the portal onto the street. "It seems, young Belnades, that my father's right hand man, the Dark Priest Shaft, is not content with the resolution of our previous encounter and thus has sent his minions back to finish the job." "That's Fernandez," Plaz corrected meekly. "Whatever," Alucard replied as he dashed towards the undead army, cape flowing in a cool vampire fashion that could only be artistically represented by Yoshitaka Amano's style, which was the very reason Alucard was dashing in such a manner in the first place. "I guess that means we should help." Plaz said timidly to Bob. Bob nodded and reached for his whip. With an insane grin he laughed and said, "That means I get to whip things! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" *---Feel the Disco Beat---* Yoshitaka Amano sighed. For some reason he couldn't get vampires and other such gothic things out of his head, thanks to having had the most whacked out experience imaginable with the forces of darkness, and a half vampire hero who stove to do good in the face of overwhelming evil. "Come to think about it, this would make a good plot for an anime or something. A gothic hero fighting an evil vampire lord is a great idea. I bet I could make a lot of money on a series like this," Amano thought to himself. The possibilities filled Amano's head, and he hardly noticed when a zombie came crashing through the window as a result of the fight between Alucard and Hecubus and their respective forces ensued in the streets outside. *---Feel the Disco Beat---* "Evil! Evil!" Hecubus screamed at the top of his lungs as he commanded his undead forces. Who, while incredibly evil, were still incompetent, and tended to move at very slow speeds in only one direction. Additionally, they were not very good at dodging or parrying, or anything else for that matter when it came to avoiding Alucard's blade, or even the most recent heir to the Belmont line's whipping abilities now that he was getting the hang of it. Even so, the undead army had the advantage in sheer numbers, due to the fact that recent advances in video game technology allowed programmers to draw more and more enemies on screen. And it seemed to Alucard and Bob that their new mage companion was not really doing anything helpful except screaming "iiiiyaaaa" once or twice a minute as a zombie approached, or something like that. "Belnades!" Alucard exclaimed, "Your great ancestor was able to conjure the forces of fire, ice, and lightning, and these elements struck fear into the hearts of my father's minions! Surely, you have inherited these elemental skills and can use them to smite our foes! Unleash the magical wrath of your powers!!!" "It's Fernandez!" the mage replied, "And actually, over the past few decades, my family's skills have somewhat reduced to cheap parlor tricks and stunts involving live animals in order to make money. I think I can manage one spell my grandfather showed me." Plaz quickly produced a top hat out of thin air, and proceeded to pull a white rabbit out if it. Once again, Alucard would have produced a sweat drop had it been against the code of all things bishounen. "Young Belnades, I implore you to take this seriously. We are about to be overwhelmed by an army of foul undead creatures bent on our destruction. I can assure you that they are quite nasty." "What do you mean?" Plaz exclaimed defensively, "Look at this thing! It's a killer, I tell you!" "It's just a rabbit," Bob sighed. Suddenly an entire squad of Improfanfic veteran writers appeared out of nowhere and bashed the author over the head multiple times with giant hammers for brining yet another lame Monty Python reference into a story where it does not belong. Unfortunately, they were unable to stop the onslaught that ensued as Plaz released the rabbit, letting it go to town on Hecubus and his forces in a bloody battle that the budget of this production will not allow us to show in proper detail. However, I can assure you that it was quite bloody, and that Dracula's forces endured a lot of pain. "EVIL!" Hecubus gasped as he collapsed onto the ground after taking many wounds from the white rabbit's -Pointy teeth of Death-. "EVIL! EVIL!" He managed to blink a few times then sink into the ground. A flashing orb appeared in his place. Bob hesitated for a few moments, then picked it up. Suddenly an eight-bit graphic box appeared above his head reading, "CHAIN WHIP AQUIRED." Alucard blinked a couple of times in disbelief at the blood-paved streets. "Well, I must say that I underestimated you, Bel." "Fernandez," Plaz corrected, but then blushed and brushed against Alucard and said, "But anything's okay from you, cutie." Alucard quickly distanced himself from his androgynous companion and regained his composure. "Well then, now that Hecubus has been defeated for a third time, which is the limit given to him by Shaft, it would appear that Yoshitaka Amano is safe to draw my father and myself in a bishounen style." "How do you know Shaft only gave Hecubus three chances?" asked Bob suddenly. "I was reading the story on the web while the author was not looking," Alucard explained, "I also was able to buy the novel adaptation of the movie, Shaft, at Amazon.com for less than competing book stores, as well as this Isaac Hayes CD featuring the Shaft theme. So I am now an authority on the fact that the Black Priest Shaft is one bad mutha, as they say in the hood. The fight against my father's forces has only begun, and we must return to the United States to stop him from taking over America with the help of his new political ally, Richard M. Nixon." *---Feel the Disco Beat---* "Well, you've certainly impressed us," the Konami Company President said as he flipped through Yoshitaka Amano's sketchbook. "I will be willing to hire even a young lad of your age to work in our art department for the modest salary of $15,000 (translated from the yen to dollar exchange rate in 1970, whatever that might have been) a year." "Screw you!" Amano laughed as he got up from the table. With an insane grin, and yen signs in his eyes, he cackled, "I just got an idea for a gothic- styled anime that will live to become a classic, and even if it takes me until the eighties to get it done! I'll one day become a famous artist in my own respect, then you will have to offer me MILLIONS just to get me to draw a stick figure for you guys!" With that Amano took his sketchbook and left the building. "Oh well," The Konami President sighed, "Not like his character designs would look good on Atari anyway." *---Feel the Disco Beat---* "Shaft!" Brother Drac yelled in a drunken stupor as he sat on his throne. Around him were a good number of young women, or at least the corpses of young women, as they had been recently drained of blood. "What is it, my most groovy master of evil?" Shaft asked as he appeared before Dracula. "Yoshitaka Amano is now on the path to becoming a great manga artist," Dracula announced, "And it is all because of my meddling!" "What would you have me do, my most supremely evil disco master?" Shaft began. "It is clear that as long as my son lives and rejects the notion of experimenting with mind altering substances and dancing the night away while drunk on the blood of young hookers, we will never be able to kill Yoshitaka Amano. Our minions are too drunk and stupid. So, as soon as he returns to the United States, I want you to eliminate my son, that incompetent excuse for a Belmont, and that girly looking mage!" "Of course, my master," Shaft replied. Drac remained silent for a few moments then added, "And also, do you think you could adjust the intensity of the strobe lights in the Disco Infernal? It seems that some of the succubae are prone to epileptic seizures, and I find it most difficult to get freaky with them when they are shaking like a one of those stupid massage beds." "Consider it a done deal," Shaft acknowledged in his usual tone, "Now in the time we wait for the next part to arrive, let us party the night away! DJ, the music if you please!" *---Feel the Disco Beat---* Now you can tell when I turn into a bat I'm a vampire No time to chat. When I want blood, just one sip, a Belmont comes with a chain whip. And now it's all right, It's OK, The Belmont line will surely pay! And Alucard, May hate my guts, `Cuz he thinks disco really sucks! Whether you're a zombie or a whether you're a banshee You're stayin' undead, stayin' undead! Feel the castle creaking and all the minions creeping And we're stayin' undead, stayin' undead! Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' undead, stayin' undead! Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' undeeeaaa-eeeaaa-eeeaaa-eeeaaad! *---Thank God it's Over---* My apologies to the Bee Gees. This part is a little short, but that's okay, because I'd probably have all of Improfanfic on me for continuing this insanity for longer than it has to go. Adam Pace (ruri@ucsd.edu)