Scootaloo awoke from the save point and immediately started racking her brain for a memory and it didn't take long for it to arrive.
The fight had been going well, Alucard's weapon he found had helped out greatly against the double doppelgangers, but it wasn't enough...
In a matter of moments, Alucard's doppleganger turned into a bat and rammed Alucard into a wall, damaging him greatly. Scootaloo's doppleganger used its rapier in a way she had never considered... a dash attack, catching her off guard and hurting her greatly, now both were on their last legs... having used their food earlier and not having any potions...
Alucard's scream is heard before she saw a rapier pierce her head and the blackness of the void...
Scootaloo looked at that memory... in fear... she and Alucard would have to fight two monsters at once... and the monsters look like them! The first chance when Scootaloo could, she would tell Alucard about the last death that happened!
Scootaloo walked out of the room, watching as Alucard killed a Sword Armor which dropped a stronger sword(different from the one in the memory) which was called "Damascus Sword" by Alucard, supposedly it's stronger than the nearby weapons because of its rarity. Before they moved forward, Scootaloo had to say what she had to... "Alucard, we'll be fighting our own dopplegangers together, that damascus sword will help as you seemed to have had a different weapon in my memory of that fight and we had managed to do good in the fight.
But we need to try and find more items around the castle... also, if it's alright, how do items in the castle heal our injuries?" Scootaloo asked that last question out of curiousity. Alucard racked his brain for a solid answer but he soon gave one, "Because Chaos hates things being unfair so it leaves potions and food around for explorers to heal themselves."
And that got the conversation to shut up... at least... about food.
Twilight's eye was twitching, "The food in that castle heals them..."
She definitely wasn't taking the new discovery well... probably on the verge of a meltdown.
Scootaloo used Fatal Wind against another armor enemy, this one wielding bombs... Bomber Armor? Scootaloo didn't know, but she did get lucky enough for a copper chestplate from it. Yeah. She equipped it and it didn't even show up on her but... well... she didn't care about it, she's had enough chaos this adventure.
When Scootaloo and Alucard came to a crossroad, they split up, Scootaloo being a bit ready to deal with enemies on her own.
Down Scootaloo's path, she had to fight a number of enemies ranging from Skeletons to Bomber Armors to some new enemies that looked like a giant flower that shot stone-like skulls... yeah, no. She attacked all the enemies in her path, making sure to get rid of the flower-like creature fast, but she didn't expect the flower to open up after getting hit where it shot some form of spore or seed.
None of the enemies Scootaloo had to fight if you just knew how to dodge the attacks with ease. Shame it'll be getting harder with many eneries in the same room.
At the end of the expedition, Scootaloo found a relic! He went and grabbed it, gaining a Dash Attack. She tried it out upon walking back into the previous room(Chaos respawns the enemies if she remembers Alucard saying) and tried it, moving an incredible distance and hurting the targetted monster a lot. Well... more than she usually does.
She went back and started down the path Alucard had gone down, finding plenty of monsters regardless. As she pierced and killed monsters in a rush to find Alucard... she kept feeling as if she was getting stronger... like... it felt like her attacks were doing more damage and she was taking less damage... she remembered Alucard mentioned something like this before the last time she tried to fight the dopplegangers.
Alucard swung his sword at another enemy, killing it and getting nothing. "Why do we fight these monsters if we don't get anything from some of them?" Scootaloo asked looking through a book she found at some point and nothing came up for some of the killed monsters. Alucard thought for a moment, "Well, sometimes when I kill a monster I feel stronger, as if I'm gaining a sort of 'experience point' from every kill," he said as he prepared to walk into the next room.
Scootaloo sat dumbfounded for a moment, "Sounds like a video game," she said before she went into the next room as well.
While she was reflecting, she had killed many enemies in her path and was still searching for Alucard... she did get a little distracted by some hidden rooms which had some Life ups and another object, one that looked like a heart, which she stored for now.
Soon enough, Scootaloo found Alucard... breaking a candle and somehow getting a stopwatch from it... what? Scootaloo just assumed that the stopwatch is one of the "subweapons" Alucard mentioned last run... Celestia, all the deaths are causing her to sound insane... when she gets home, she'll have to partake in therapy because she'll really need it.
Alucard put the stopwatch in his pocket as he looked back at Scootaloo, "The stopwatch might be helpful against the dopplegangers, now I need to collect hearts from the candles to make using it a bit more possible," he said as he started breaking all the candles, the lights not changing in brightness... this doesn't even surprise Scootaloo anymore...
Scootaloo waited as Alucard went and got heart after heart before she finally entered the room, Alucard entering just as the door closes behind them. Portraits line the walls except for a big metal gate which opens, layer after layer... until it opens, revealing an interdimensional portal where the dopplegangers of Scootaloo and Alucard appear and fall to the ground. Luckily Alucard has the stopwatch, making this "fight" not even much of a fight. They took care of the Alucard doppleganger first, not having much issue and as the stopwatch's effect faded, all that was left was the Scootaloo doppleganger... and guesses if this is a hard fight? ... Well it ain't. Another stopwatch and that fight took less effort than the Giant Bat... because of course it would.
Or so they'd think... no... after Scootaloo's doppleganger fell, both dopplegangers were merged together and now have full health... again... removing Alucard's subweapon and tossing it to the ground... Scootaloo rushes to pick it up and... something new occurs when she uses it... time is stopped, yes, but it doesn't last as long while dealing a sort of constant damage to all frozen enemies, albeit... she did end up slightly winded afterwards.
Scootaloo used Hellfire to strike the mega dopple as Alucard swung his sword several times at it. Repeat this with the occusional stopwatch from Scootaloo and this fight was actually difficult.
Another Life up(that they share) and Scootaloo presents the heart shaped object from before, which Alucard explained is a "Heart up" increasing the limit on the number of hearts you can hold.
Good to know. They walked through the rest of this area and even found two more secret rooms on the way which held better armor(A new helmet for Scootaloo that doesn't terrify her soul), and a better weapon for Alucard(Makes sense they'd hide this after the dopplegangers).
The eventually find a room with a very garden-like appearence, which Scootaloo calls The Ever Garden. They find more of the flower-like enemies(Called Stone Rose as Alucard cleared up) and some Manticores... off to a fun start already! They find many rooms with plants and even a flying suit of armor called "Flying Armor"(Real creative.) Its sword flies around it and sometimes charges towards the nearest hero. It didn't take long after that to find the save room and save again... ready for the challenges ahead.