All In The Family

Ch 9

A Genuine Imitation

Disclaimer: Orlox is Konamis. Jacob Belmont is mine. This is just for fun.

Jacob landed hard against the marble wall of the throne room. "What's the matter Belmont? All out of tricks? No more false relics to throw at me? The fake gauntlet cracked? Tell me Second Rate Belmont, I do want to know what's wrong."

"Burn in Hell." Jacob said wiping the blood away from his mouth. He tried to get up but Orlox was there, pressing his boot against his chest.

"You amaze me Belmont." He said as he pressed his foot down harder. "I've had a chance to look at the Belmont family since I returned. Would you like to know what I saw? Complacency. Disbelief. The Belmonts don't believe in the stories any more. The find the Renards and Belnades strange and out of touch with reality. They would rather sit on their laurels and live off of all the treasure your ancestors won. They auction off your past to the highest bidder. Have you seen that cartoon likeness of the great Simon? It makes me sick, and this is coming from someone who enjoys seeing your family humiliated. The Belmonts are no longer a true family of heroes. Just has beens and never wills." Orlox punctuated his point by cracking one of Jacobs ribs.

"Thats not true! Uuugghh!" Jacob gasped as the wind was forced out of his lungs. "The Grants and Morris branches still fight." Jacob said scrambling for a way to get out from under his foe's heel.

Orlox laughed as he stared in to cracking a second rib. "I suppose you're right. But Julius is no longer around is he, along with the fabled whip of your ancestors. And as for the Grants, by way of Harris, by way of Price, by way of Schneider, you are nothing. The only thing you have is a desperate need to prove yourselves and a fury equal to Richter. Other than that you truly are second rate." The third rib had started to give a little. "You were right earlier though, I was a second rate vampire. So I do know your position." He twisted his foot into a kick and Jacob went sliding across the room.

"You start out with that great need," Orlox used his power to place Jacob in his chair as he began to lecture him like an old schoolmaster. "A need to prove yourself. Then soon after that you make a concession. Just a small one, maybe a new weapon, maybe a new power or a bend in the ethics. But then when the edge you have wears out you get another, and another and another, until…" He stroked his face and the faint sign of scales that were beneath his skin. "Until you can't make any more concessions. By then you have gotten to that level you wanted, but its hollow. You know it's those concessions that have given you your power, but what you truly had, what had started that fury and drive inside of you, is dead. And with that you start to die inside until you are just a shell." Orlox was about to continue on his philosophic debate when the rock nailed him in the back of the skull.

"Finally!" Jacob jumped out of the throne and grabbed the still ricocheting stone out of mid air. "I thought my math was off." Jacob backhanded Orlox and sent him to his knees. "That's the funny thing about being second rate, you get all the hand me downs and unwanted items that the others don't want. Like this little beauty called the rebound stone. Another unwanted item I would like to re-introduce you to, the Bibuti." Jacob threw what looked like a burlap hackey-sack at Orlox. It impacted and let loose a white cloud of dust. Orlox screamed as the holy ashes bit into his skin and burned.

"I am Jacob Grant Belmont! By way of Harris, by way of Price, by way of Schneider to the great Belmont lineage itself! The blood of a thousand years of heroes course through my veins! I am not Julius nor do I want to be, but I am a Belmont and it is my destiny to fight and kill demons like you!" Jacob spat out some blood and cracked his whip. "Lets finish this and see who is Second Rate, and who is just trash."

Orlox, skin still bubbling from the touch of the holy ashes, screamed in rage as his skin finally split apart showing the foul creature within. As the reptilian beast rose to its full height Jacob could hear Orlox's voice inside his skull.

"Insolent whelp! You think you can face me? I am supreme! I am the ultimate vamp-"

"You are an overgrown Gila monster. Is this supposed to be it? Is this supposed to be the ultimate form of evil? Jacob dodged between the legs as the thing that was Orlox let loose a gout of flame. God you are pathetic." Jacob started to talk in a mock childish voice as his whip lashed across the giant reptiles back. "I make concessions, I turn myself into a freak, I become a horrid monster and a destroyer of good. But I'm now a pathetic husk of the glory that I was. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!"

"You always make concessions. You have that lizard thing; I have the modifications to the unwanted relics. There is a large difference between you and I, you gave up being a true monster, and now you are a pathetic freak. I haven't given up yet so I will be able to wipe the floor with your ass."

"I WILL DESTROY YOU SECOND RATE BELMONT!!" The massive tail slammed into Jacob's chest but Jacob grabbed onto the tail. Madly he scrambled up the spine of the rampaging monster leaping off into a somersault when he reached mid way up. He hurled a small dagger into the right shoulder blade. It impacted and sunk in to the hilt but it was as harmful as a pinprick.

"You know," Jacob said laughing. "I'm really starting to like that nickname."

Orlox laughed as he gestured to the dagger sticking out of his shoulder. "This? This is your great victory? The dagger is the least wanted relic of the Belmonts, even I know that. You think this can hurt me?"

"No not really, besides that's not the real dagger. You know how I said I made changes to some of the relics? Well I slipped a small crystal into the handle," Jacob raised his hand, a sapphire ring glowing on his hand. "I think you may have heard of this rarely used relic. The Arnea." Orlox's face went into a display of horror as Jacob snapped his fingers and a blast of holy lightning leapt from his fingers into the crystal in the dagger. The electricity going directly into Orlox's body, the dagger serving as a lightning rod.

Orlox could only screamed as he was cooked from the inside out. His body began to burst into flames. He could feel himself turning to dust; the only thing worse than the pain was the knowledge that he had been beaten by the Second Rate Belmont. A nobody, a nothing…a Belmont.

Jacob scoffed as the pile of ash spread out over the floor of the room. "If you want to succeed when you have a difficult role to fill," Jacob picked up the dagger and slid it back into its sheath. "You don't get lazy or desperate. You have to become creative."

A few minutes of searching later he found the trapdoor under Orlox's throne, the name Belmont carved into the lid. He slid it off and jumped down into the darkness.

Authors Notes: Comment, flame, whatever. Next up fun and games as Seras and Joachim square off!