Sir Integra Hellsing
Well, today I had gone through a real hell. I had not expected things to go the way they did, but at least events were turning in our favor. Walter and I had just slayed the majority of ghouls, my former soldiers who had once guarded this institute with pride but were now being used as shock troops for an undead lunatic.
Seras had managed to pummel the front line of shield troops into non-existence.
This left only one threat — the whiny vampire who couldn't go ten seconds without making sexual innuendos, trying to break some sort of record. He was the second most annoying vampire I had ever had to deal with. Thankfully, I doubted he would manage to pull anything off. The one time he had gotten close to the door, we few in this room had our guns ready and unleashed a hail of pistol fire, driving him back. The fighting going on out there, however, indicated that he was at least giving them a bit of a challenge or had called in enough reinforcements to be problematic.
Peering around the side of the door, I saw that Seras seemed to be on the edge of having a breakdown. She was probably still in shock from seeing her former comrades rise from the dead and march against us. It was completely understandable; she was new to this situation and completely untested in dealing with comrades who got up from the dead to fight against her.
Walter was preparing himself, taking the enemy's approach with a stoic expression, ready to kill all the ghouls and take the trash out. It sure looked like a lot of them were coming down the hallway, making this second wave problematic. Where was Alucard when you needed him? He better be fighting something else; otherwise, I would give him a piece of my mind when I saw him next.
Above the moans of the undead, there was a ding of an elevator which threw everyone's eyes back, except for the zombies who were approaching at a slow pace. I couldn't see much, only that the doors opened, and I didn't see Alucard step out, which told me he wasn't here yet. Instead, I saw the back row of ghouls fall as someone unleashed fire into their backs.
"What the hell is that?" The whiny vampire said, turning to look back. The back row exploded into gore, tossing ghouls around and opening a path along the hallway.
Standing over the heap of bodies was a young girl, blonde hair and blue-eyed, holding a P90. She had a demonic smile on her face, something I hadn't seen unless Alucard was in a good mood.
"Who the hell are you?" Mr Whiny asked, but the girl flew forward slowly and methodically, bringing her gun to bear on any zombie that was still somewhat mobile and firing directly into their heads, killing them.
"Hey, are you listening? This is my..." She brought the gun around and kneecapped him mid-speech, causing him to fall to his knees. She then continued her path, killing off the remaining ghouls with passion and without a care whatsoever.
She dropped the gun to her side and grabbed the vampire by his face, shoving him into the wall with enough force that it left an indentation. Confused, I lowered my gun, pointing it at her. Walter seemed to prepare his own attacks, while Seras looked on, confused but ready in case a fight broke out.
"Who am I?" she questioned, "A salarywoman angry with how her cushy career was just turned upside down by an idiotic pervert!" She raised the vampire up by his chin, though she couldn't fully bring him to his feet.
"You're going to have to be a lot more clear on that, kid. I have no idea. Did I kill one of your dad's moms or something? Was it bring your daughter to work day?" She looked at me as if I had the answer.
"What was it you called me? Oh yes, the hot chick, the one you were going to turn into an undead stripper after your ravenous horde broke me." The pervert tilted his head and said, "Yeah, yeah, I remember that girl, great tits. So obviously that must have been what, you're her kid's sister. Child hiding under her desk, sorry about the trauma. Not my problem though. Get out of my way, and I'll get mine with my mission, squirt."
"That was me, you imbecile," she said, smashing his head into the wall again before letting him fall and kicking him in the side. "I try to stay out of paranormal bullshit in this lifetime, and what happens? I get freaking murdered by zombies." She kicked him again before grabbing him with both hands and smashing him down over her knee. "The only good thing about this is I came back strong enough to kill you."
"I'm confused," said the whiny idiot. "If you're the same woman with the great tits, that is a loss to the world."
"Vladimir!" came a voice from down the hallway. We all looked to see Alucard looking at some of the corpses and shaking his head. "Dammit, Donnie, you were supposed to be out today." He glanced at one of the security guards.
Whiner asked,"What? You mean you are a virgin? But that would also mean you come back as you, like the big titty police girl over there," Pointing toward Seras. "If you were that woman, why aren't you the same as an undead? And that's on top, that ghouls can't create vampires. I can't even create vampires. The only one here who could is that guy over there," he pointed towards someone who was starting to turn and walk in our direction.
"Oh, I didn't bring her back," Alucard said, bowing to me, "Sir Integra, may I present our newest agent of the undead and former agent of the living, Tanya D." He looked towards her.
"Logistics," she said, ready to rip the vampire at her feet apart but holding back by some force of will.
"What do you mean, 'agent of the undead' Alucard? Explain," I asked, keeping my gun pointed toward the whiny vampire, at the very least.
"She's a vampire, a natural vampire, not one of these freaks," Alucard pointed toward the enemy. "She's got a very interesting story. We're going to have a good debrief with her, but I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. After all, you don't intend to go out there to eat humans for fun and sport, right Tanya?"
"I don't intend to eat another living human being at all, thank you very much," she replied matter-of-factly.
"Oh, that's cute," Alucard said with a shake of his head, smiling as if this was the greatest joke in the world.
I was unamused but kept my composure. "We will discuss this later." For now, I pointed the gun towards Shit For Brains and fired a few times into him, "You're going to spill every single thing you know. Who the hell are you people? What did you hope to accomplish here? Who's responsible for this? Start talking or I'm going to have Walter here peel your dick like a banana!""
The vampire just laughed, "Come on bitch you know. The ones who put the fucking chip in me. The chips that's sending information and letting them know we fucked up. They can hear us talking every last goddamn word. If they know im standing here all fucked up and dying about to tell you everything; you think theyre going to let me fucking live?"
Suddenly green flames engulfed him and he groaned in pain as he began to disintegrate
"See I so fucking told you!"
"Well since im fucked, how about i piss a little wisdom on you dipshits?You can take this clue and shove it up your ass, bitch! Beware the Millennium."
I looked at Walter, who shrugged. I looked to Seras, who had no idea, then to Alucard.
"Millennium. 1,000. A thousand could mean anything," Alucard said matter-of-factly.
"It could be a code for when their next attack is planned," Tanya suggested. Her remark drew the attention of everyone in the room.
"Hmm, three is useful," Alucard said, playfully ruffling Tanya's hair, much to her annoyance.
"Alucard, Seras, please take Miss Tanya D to the interrogation cells beneath the Manor. Just because she seems to be on our side doesn't mean we aren't going to take precautions. Walter and I will continue with the investors' meeting to see how much they're willing to contribute to the defense of the island against supernatural threats." I turned towards them, noting that a few were already reaching into their pockets, probably to pull out their wallets to write checks, instead of just giving approval for governmental infrastructure funds.
That was good, quite good. I mean, it was better than where we started earlier today when they were asking questions about everything. Now we would have enough money to repair the losses and hopefully expand our operations. If things were about to become interesting, this 'Millennium,' we would need as many funds as we could get. If only they had been less stingy with their money in the past, we probably could have avoided this attack from being as bad as it was. Well, something was better than nothing.
As I expected, as soon as I stepped into the room, the council of knights and ministers that oversaw the money we received were more than willing to increase Hellsing's funding, three to four times what we had before. As well as good donations in exchange for external security operations. Of course, I noted who knows what the next threat would be.
Sir Shelby M. Penwood spoke up, saying, "That girl, the one in the red flight uniform, she said something about the end of the millennium festivals being a threat."
I cleared my voice, saying, "She suspected it. There's no proof of that, just that it's the code word we were given, 'Millennium.' We'll do more investigating and try to contact other organizations to deal with this supernatural threat, see if we can't find out who's responsible for this. If it is a threat to the millennium, we should prepare ourselves, just in case. Perhaps more funding for security during the millennium festivities. We don't know what could be on the plans for these monsters."
"Hmm, true. We better just increase our security funding in general. If you are looking into them, they may move their operation up if it was planned for the millennium. Could be sooner. Good luck, Sir Integra. You have the full support of the British government behind you. We will not let whatever monsters are planning to be successful."
"Of course, sirs. I will do my job and make sure the British Isles are safe from the threat. We will not allow whatever plan this 'Millennium' has to come to fruition without us being there to respond and kind of prevent it if possible."
That seemed to put them at ease. The question remained: what were they planning, and I would require more research.
Tanya
Taking a deep breath, I sat back in my chair, my fingers tapping repeatedly on the table in front of me as I waited. Obviously, I knew that this was going to happen the moment I heard I got 'vampired'. I knew that my career was thrown into the trash, and things were about to get complicated. Hopefully, not so complicated that I would be staked in the heart, but I didn't put that past my potential outcomes in this situation.
But at the moment, I simply waited for Sir Integra to make her way down here and make her judgment on my continued existence. Although I did consider possibly running, I had seen the reports of what Alucard could do and knew that it would not end well for me.
Alucard was leaning against the wall to the left of the door, just chuckling in a corner, while Seras was in another corner, seeming unsure of what she was doing there. She would look at Alucard, then at me, then at the door, and then just shrug, unsure every few minutes.
No one really spoke. We were all pretty much waiting for Sir Integra to get here so we didn't have to go over the same conversation over and over again.
We didn't have to wait long as the door opened, and Sir Integra stepped in, Walter behind her, looking at me with annoyance or contemplation. I wasn't sure which.
It didn't matter as Sir Integra took the seat in front of me, brushing the table clean, as she said, "So how should we begin this interrogation? What foul sorcery did you engage in on your off time that allowed you to become a vampire? That is still true, right? You didn't have any hand in her creation like you did the last one?" She looked at Alucard.
Alucard simply shook his head, saying, "My good dear master, I would never create another child of the night while I still have to train the last one."
"Well, obviously, then the fault for the creation of this vampire must have resided with you. Has anyone offered you any experimental surgery lately in the last few months?"
Alucard sniffed before clearly saying, "As I said, she's a natural vampire. I can smell that from here. Her hands were always covered in blood even before death. The real question is why was she? That's a very interesting question that I've been pondering for several weeks, ever since I started smelling the blood on her. I suspected that she might have had more marshal experience than she put on her resume. But she tells a more interesting story, though it is very interesting and hard to explain."
Sir Integra looked at me and said, "Well, go on, explain the story, Miss D. Why have you become a vampire?"
Side by side, I began, "I have no idea," I said matter-of-factly, "at least, I have no idea why it might have happened because of actions I took in this life. I might have some idea if Alucard's statement about blood on my hands was true." The smile he was giving me was disconcerting as I continued, "I'm intimately familiar with the concept of reincarnation. To be more clear, I am on my third reincarnation. My first life was as a Japanese businessman in Tokyo in 2013. It was a simple life, and I was on my way to a very happy and healthy career until a human failure, a drug addict, pushed me in front of a train."
Alucard responded, "This is a bit more than I was expecting. I was expecting a lot more blood and guts, not just, you know, a businessman. Wait, businessman? Does that mean you used to be male?"
"Yes," I said, giving him an annoyed look.
He then continued, "Wait, if you were male in your first life, female in your third life, and now you're a child from the looks of it, huh. In your second life, you weren't a young girl, were you?"
"Correct," I said matter-of-factly, though there were a lot of things to go through to get to that point. "May I speak?"
"Sure, let's find out where this goes," Integra said, looking to Alucard, "Please reserve your questions until after we get her full story."
Letting out a sigh, I continued, "I guess we'll skip to the important parts here. I died a pitiful death. A parasite that called itself God appeared to me, to rant about his failures at keeping faith alive in the world, and I gave him my opinion on that matter. He disliked it and sent me to a life where I would end up on the front lines of a military conflict. It was a very horrible and long-lasting military conflict that lasted seven years. It started about when I was nine and ended when I was 16 or 17, with an American nuclear bomb blowing up a port in France in order to stop the American amphibious landings and bring all parties to the peace table. So we could have a damn conversation instead of just trying to kill each other. It worked. I had to go into hiding for the rest of my life, but hey, that's better than Nuremberg trials, especially with all the things I've heard in the 2000s about how certain actions were taken to get admissions of guilt. I don't know if any of that was true, but I'm glad to have never found out for myself if it was."
Walter raised his hand, saying, "There are many questions I have after that. You said an American bomb to stop an American advance. Explain."
I explained, "The Americans were going to use a bomb to blow up a city of the Empire, but I intercepted it and redirected it."
Alucard chimed in, "But that would imply you are not American, and if we're going with a nuclear bomb, that would mean you were Japanese." He said, holding his hands out as if trying to piece his way through that thought.
I clarified, "I was Imperial German."
"You were a fucking Nazi," Alucard accused with a laugh, which got me to raise an eyebrow.
I responded, "No, I did not say that. The war ended in 1928. Do you remember World War I happening in 1928?" I received a confused look from Alucard.
"Wait, 1928? That's a good one, ten years before World War II. How did you have the bomb?" Alucard asked, seeming to have grown interested.
I shrugged and said, "You'd have to ask the Americans how they invented the bomb. Probably some use of magecraft, much more common in that Universe. Which, yes, I guess I should explain, alternative Universes. These are always alternate Universes. My first life was in an alternate Universe ahead of this timeline, my second in an alternate Universe before this timeline, and my third just ended here. But apparently, I'm not fully dead because of Undead bullshittery and the asshole behavior of Being X."
"Who is Being X?" Integra asked.
I shrugged before explaining, "The parasite that thinks itself God. It forced me to pray to it to gain more power to fight in the last war."
Alucard chimed in, "In order to become a vampire, you need to meet certain conditions. One of the main conditions is to have killed a lot of people in the name of God, but then to finally reject him when your inevitable outcome comes for you. I don't know about this being, but I would assume that they are close enough to the God of this universe that confusion may have reigned, and you got turned into a vampire."
"Wonderful," I said, shaking my head before continuing, "At least I can guarantee I'll have a long life this time, assuming that you don't decide to have me executed for unfortunate new dietary needs." I raised an eyebrow as Integra sat back in her seat, contemplating.
She finally said, "Well, I'm not happy to have another vampire under my employ, but at least, as far as I can see, you are civil about it." She looked over her shoulder at Alucard. "I don't believe you will be as problematic as he tends to be." She said, looking at Alucard with annoyance before continuing. "Very well, we will allow you to continue to work for us, but we will need to look into the old books and make sure we have you properly restrained so you don't use powers beyond our control. Understand?" I nodded in agreement, which seemed to satisfy her as she pushed away from the table and stood up.
I turned to Alucard , asking, "Do you mind training another vampire?"
Alucard shook his head, saying, "No, I do not mind at all." He leaned forward, showing great interest from where he was standing, trying to be very intimidating. "So, I do have questions, quite a few indeed. For instance, how many people did you kill directly or indirectly, Tanya?"
"I don't know," I said, before continuing, "I never cared to count my kills, though quite a few military officials did. They kept track of that information for political purposes. Aces apparently make great propaganda. You know how it is. I do know that in the nations that were my enemies during that conflict, there was a substantial drop in potential new mages in the coming years. They often claimed that the 'Devil of the Rhine,' as they liked to call me in France, had substantially reduced the population of mages to the point where it couldn't recover. Many other countries faced a similar situation. Although I do know that the Empire's population grew substantially during that era. It says a lot about how many survived while working with me."
Alucard seemed curious and asked, "Ace?" He tilted his head before adding, "How can you be an ace pilot if you're a mage? Aren't they usually ground-based? I know magic isn't very used in our world and time nowadays, but I've come across a few mages in my days."
I explained, "I don't know how magic works here. I just know how it worked in my last world. In my last world, we had a style of mages called Aerial Mages. They were used for scouting and aerial support. It's not too dissimilar to gunships used in the modern era."
Integra seemed unimpressed, rolling her eyes before saying, "All right, well, if that's the end of this conversation, I think we can now all go back to figuring out what to do with our new recruit here. Walter, you're going to have to find a coffin that fits her size. Wait, that reminds me, you were an adult woman. Why is she now a young child?" She looked to Alucard for an answer.
Alucard smiled and explained, "A great loss for mankind, if you ask me. But I can answer that quite easily. The majority of her killing happened when she was 14. That looks about the age she is now. We can make an assumption that's why she looks like that. When you become a vampire, you come to the age at which you were killing the most. Well, she was killing a lot at 14, or at least directing the death of a lot of people at that age."
I shrugged and said, "I was in command of my own independent army by that point. We were invading communist Russia, and there's a lot of people who are going to die during that period."
Alucard asked, "You're sure you weren't a Nazi because you were invading communist Russia?"
I let out an annoyed sigh before explaining, "The Nazis were still kicked out in the 1900s. They were kicked out early, even before World War I. Early enough that it affected the timeline a bit. In my opinion, it was about to be fair. The timeline was affected by a lot of things. Napoleon was more successful, Austria managed to pull off a Greater German Solution, England lost the War of 1812, and America kept Cuba. There were a lot of differences between realities. I'm kind of glad that the similarities between this reality and my first one are more on point. But no, as far as I am aware, there was never anything about vampires being real in my last realities, so that's new."
Alucard shook his head before saying, "This is confusing, but we'll get you a coffin with earth from your home." he blinked a few moments before saying, "Walter, do you think we should use German soil, British soil, or Japanese soil for the coffin?" There was a pause for a few moments.
Walter said, "I don't know, Sir Integra. We're going to have to order soil from all three sources and compare which one allows her to sleep correctly. Did you acquire enough funding for that, or will we have an issue with that?"
Integra sighed before saying, "We have the funding. It'll take time, but we can do it. Just get her ready for a new career and find her some clothes that don't look like they belong on a corpse. Why is that clothing so blood-stained, anyway?"
I shrugged, but Alucard spoke up, saying, "Oh, that's probably because it's not actually clothing, just blood. I'm assuming that's when her body was converted to her last life's body, her clothing was lost in the transformation, and she just sort of put on the thing that she last remembered being in. It's a common thing amongst vampires. Your clothing takes on a red-black hue when it's formed from the blood of those you've killed. It's technically a continuation of your body."
I shivered and said, "Yeah, let's get me some new clothing that doesn't have its nature being blood. That doesn't sound proper or right."
Walter chimed in, "Excellent, we'll get to work on that immediately. It's been a long night. Let's get you all to your coffins so you can rest properly. The security staff from the secondary base are here, and we will most likely have to hire some new support, but this will all be settled in the morning."
There was a general nod, and I was taken to an underground room for rest. I wondered what I was going to do next, thinking, 'Guess I'll just stand in a corner and see if I fall asleep.'
The major
"Isn't that interesting," the Major said, looking over the last few sights of Luke Valentine's life. He observed the strange blonde girl who had defeated him in a matter of seconds and beat him mercilessly to the point where he was only worth burning. The said girl was wearing a German aerial uniform, which piqued his interest. Something was off, something new had been added to the board, and he wanted to know more.
But how was he going to do that? He glanced to his right and saw one of his comrades already working on trying to establish contact with their source within the Hellsing Manor. They needed as much information as possible about what was going on, to learn as much as they could and find out what they were dealing with. Because their perfect plan was already being threatened by the arrival of the police girl. Someone he hadn't expected to be a factor. Those pawns were supposed to cause mayhem in the British Isles, not make Alucard turn a seemingly unlucky police girl into a child of the night. Yet here it was, and it had happened again.
Well, you had to tip your hat to the blondes if you had a proper understanding of their intentions. But why? Why was Alucard doing this now? Could he sense their efforts to prepare for the Millennium, their final operation to continue the old war and finish what they had started so long ago? Or was he just doing it because he thought it was interesting? An opponent like Alucard was hard to judge. He had hundreds of years of history behind him, and just because you understood what he did a hundred years ago didn't mean you understood what he was doing now. His mentality was ever-shifting chaos.
Could he be doing this because he sensed that he needed troops for something that was coming? If so, then that would make the glorious fight to come so very interesting. Something about the girl was odd. She had a slight German accent, particularly from the Berlin area. The tone sounded familiar. Could she be someone he turned into a vampire back then, a survivor of the fall of Berlin? It seemed impossible, but she had a uniform that matched the era, and they hadn't cleared everything they knew about him. Perhaps they had kept some secrets hidden until he felt he needed them.
The Major found it all interesting. He anticipated that this war would be spectacular and a pure joy to watch. He couldn't wait to find out what part this German girl would play in it. Could he convince her to switch sides? She was probably a subordinate of Alucard, but maybe there was a chance she wasn't. Maybe he could persuade her to join their cause, or at the very least, observe how it all played out over the coming months. This would all be unraveled, and the world would enter a new war, if he could manage it. With any luck, Alucard would be destroyed.
Tanya
I opened my eyes to blackness, confusion, and an earthly smell. What the heck? I thought, looking into the darkness. Raising my hands, I found a wooden layer on top of me. I pushed at it but found it hard to move as if something heavy was lying on top of whatever was sealing me inside.
With mounting confusion and panic, I attempted to shove the wooden lid open, trying to find some way out of the container I seemed to be in. Moving my legs and hands quickly confirmed that I was trapped in a box. I began to cough, panicking as I felt the air becoming scarce, the fear of suffocating underground consuming me. Then, memories of what had happened the night before started to surface, and I remembered dying.
Taking a calming breath, I banged on the roof of my coffin several times before saying, "Alucard, open this goddamn lid!"
"Hmm... oh, is someone there?" came a voice from above me. "I thought you were just a replacement for my new TV stand."
Annoyed, I heard something start to pull off the coffin's top before the lid popped open, revealing Alucard smiling down at me. I folded my hands across my chest.
"Very funny, blood drinker," I said, trying to insult him, only for the vampire to look down at me and say, "I don't think you can use that as an insult when you are, in fact, a blood drinker yourself. I think that's now just common slang for 'my dear friend' or something of that nature."
Shaking my head, I sat up and looked around, seeing I was in some underground resting area. To the left was a TV on an actual stand against the wall. To the right was a doorway leading out of the room. The rest of the room was sparsely decorated and painted nicely enough, and it was underground or deep within the mansion due to the lack of windows. Having had fun, Alucard walked over and sat in a large chair. I noted that beside him was Seras, sitting on a couch and meticulously cleaning her anti-materiel rifle.
I pulled myself out of the coffin and landed on my feet, annoyed that I had been returned to a shorter stature by my death.
Shaking my head, I looked at the two before asking, "So, what exactly do we vampires do?"
Seras snorted before Alucard said, "We wait for the master to tell us to go for a walk." He paused before adding, "And kill a whole bunch of ghouls and fake vampires trying to cause problems."
"Besides that, we have cable," he said, nodding towards the TV. I shook my head and moved to the couch, sitting beside Seras.
"Why do I have to sleep in a coffin?" I asked.
"It's the best way to restore your powers while you sleep and provides some safety. You never know what can happen while you're asleep. Also, we have these special design coffins that have a bit of earth from where you were born underneath, allowing you to restore to a full 100%," Alucard mused as he watched the TV. "Plus, it's just generally funny to play simple tricks on new vampires who aren't used to being in a coffin."
"Sounds like being alive for too long has driven you insane," I said out loud, which got a smile from Alucard.
"Says the person who is on their third reincarnation. If I'm insane, you're an absolute nutter."
I shook my head, disagreeing, before Seras said, "You'll get used to his behavior. I mean, I hope you will. I've kind of gotten used to it."
I would have commented on that, but I had researched the vampires that occupied this institution and knew that Seras was Alucard's direct protégé. This probably meant he could control her with his mental capabilities or at least smooth out her annoyances with him if he wanted to—she was not a reliable source of information.
Frankly, I just hoped that whatever abilities this master vampire had didn't affect those not directly in his bloodline, like myself. Apparently, I had turned into a vampire through some misunderstanding of reincarnation and a curse from Being X. That was my best guess, at the very least.
I did wonder if there was a way to reverse this, but it seemed unlikely. If one could reverse vampirism, I think a 700-year-old vampire—give or take a couple of hundred years—would have figured it out by now. But then again, maybe he was so vamp-brained that he couldn't think of life as a human anymore.
Shaking my head, I tried to come up with something else to discuss before Alucard asked me a question.
"So, Tanya, did you enjoy killing all your opponents in the war you fought?"
I raised an eyebrow before shaking my head. "No, I'm not some sort of psychopath. I don't enjoy wasting human lives or resources."
"Hmm, and yet you went into the military. From your statements, I'd suggest you weren't a very nationalistic type."
"I am not, no. I'm not very nationalistic. I mainly joined the military because it was a safe way to secure a retirement for an orphan in the early 1900s."
"Hmm, had to have been easier ways than that," Alucard mused. I gave him a side-eye before saying, "Oh, I could have just gone with the flow, ended up with a crap lifestyle, a crap life, with no real control over the outcomes of my future. But something tells me that even you would disagree with that, Vlad."
I told him I was familiar with some aspects of his story. Not everything—no one can know everything—but the connection between Alucard and Dracula was not hard to see, nor with Vlad the Impaler. I wonder if he had taken the name Alucard to try and show something to his master, perhaps trying to imply that he was turning over a new leaf. Hard to say; I didn't have enough intel about the inner workings of this vampire's mind.
Alucard smiled in my general direction before saying, "We're going to have so much fun sniping at each other. I can already tell. I just wish you hadn't fallen into becoming a monster; it would have been ten times better if you were still human."
"That I can agree with," I said, looking over my nails and wondering if I would be forced to cut them or if death meant they wouldn't grow anymore. The same thought applied to my hair—as I now perpetually stuck in this form, that of a child, or was there a way to change my appearance? I'd prefer to return to my adult body and never have to be this midget again.
"Vlad?" Seras asked, apparently not sure what we were talking about.
Alucard smiled but didn't respond, and I felt that if I tried to explain the situation, he would be rather annoyed with me. A demonic vampire deciding you were annoying was not something I wanted to experience.
I wasn't entirely sure, but that was probably a bad thing to have happened.
Before I could ask any more questions, the door next to the coffin I had emerged from opened, and Sir Walter entered the room carrying a box. He smiled, saying, "Oh good, everyone's here and awake."
"Yes, Walter, we're awake. How's everything upstairs? It's been 24 hours, give or take. Have they got the place cleaned up?" Alucard asked.
"It's as clean as it can be. There are still a few bloodstains here and there, but I'm sure the cleaning crews will get them out, or you will in time."
"Ha! Nice shot," Alucard mused as Walter put the box on the table before me. "We've prepared a uniform for you. There's a room where you can change when you're ready to switch out of those blood-stained clothes."
"Thank you, Walter," I said, looking at the box. I was happy to have a change of clothing.
Turning back to Alucard, Walter said, "By the way, you are directed not to go upstairs for the next few hours. Lady Integra is meeting with a mercenary group to replace the losses we took during the assault by the Valentine brothers, and she would prefer not to overwhelm them with your presence."
"Ah, but that's no fun, Walter. They're going to have to get used to my presence eventually. You might as well do it from the start. Better for us to see if they're willing to deal with the supernatural from the outset than to hide it from them and have them be surprised when it shows up."
"By Being X, he actually has a point," I said with a laugh. I hadn't expected him to have a solid argument. After all, if your human resources couldn't handle one undead entity wandering the grounds, how would they handle multiple? They should receive some shock therapy from a non-threat rather than get the shock from a real threat. At least they'd be prepared later on.
Walter shook his head before saying, "Sir Integra was quite adamant. You are not to go upstairs, so please follow the directions." He smiled before heading towards the door. "Now, if you're good, I'll get some blood for the three of you."
"Was it an order?" Alucard asked, causing Walter to stop mid-step. He pondered momentarily before saying, "It was, in fact, not an order—just a direction."
Alucard grinned from ear to ear as he said, "Of course, of course. A direction."
Walter raised an eyebrow before turning and leaving the room, Alucard laughing as he did. "A direction is just her covering her own ass when I do what she wants."
"You don't mean…" Seras asked.
"Oh, It is exactly what you think it means," Alucard said. "She wants me to give them a little spook, but she also wants to enter the room then and order me around for giving such a spook. That way, she establishes that I'm a paranormal entity—powerful and unknowable—and that she has control over me. This way, the mercenaries she's hiring will show her respect."
"Genius," I said with a nod.
"Of course, it's genius. She's got the mind necessary to run this organization," Alucard said proudly. I noted to myself that those two had some sort of weird relationship. The fact that they seemed to understand what each other meant when speaking between the lines was a good sign that they had an employer-employee relationship for a long time. How long? Well, I had some ideas, but not a complete one. I had been working for this company for a while before this whole death became an issue, but I didn't know much about its early history, the transfer of power, or how long Alucard had been employed. I knew he was a bit of a rapscallion, and she seemed to put up with it because he had valuable powers and control over them. Beyond that, my information was limited, except for what little research I could find.
With a deep breath, I picked up the box and said, "Well, while you figure all that out, I'm going to get dressed into something more appropriate than this blood-stained Imperial Air Mage uniform."
"Don't take too long. I'm sure Integra will want to introduce you as well," Alucard said with a wave. I nodded, heading towards the door, opening it, and stepping inside. Quickly, I secured the locks on the door and got to work stripping out of the blood-stained clothing and throwing it in a pile before pulling on the new clothes.
Feels good not to be constantly covered in bile, I thought, noting that though I had been wearing blood-stained clothing, there wasn't a single drop of blood on my skin. Perhaps vampires just naturally absorb blood, I mused as I pulled on the shorts that had been provided. Looking at myself in the mirror, I had to chuckle. The tan coloration of the uniform and its design reminded me of the desert uniforms we had been given in North Africa. It's a nice uniform for the heat down there, though not so great for England.
Then again, considering I was a vampire and wouldn't die from freezing, it didn't matter. It made me look more like a kid than an actual monster, which was a bonus. I smiled at the mirror, noticing my fangs, and used my thumb to pull back my lip a bit to get a better look at them. They were fangs, much sharper than any canines I'd ever had.
Shaking my head, I opened the bottom of the box to find a holster meant for what appeared to be a machine pistol, though there was no weapon in the box. I raised an eyebrow before shrugging and tying the holster to my side. I figured they were still deciding which weapon to give me, or perhaps they wouldn't arm me until they were sure I could be trusted. After all, I was a new variable they had to keep an eye on. It could be a problem, one that they might need to remove.
Handing a potential problem a weapon was always a risky situation.
Shaking my head, I ensured the uniform looked good on me before stepping back into the main hangout area. I immediately noticed that I was the only one here. The door was open, the gun had been fully assembled but left on the table, and the TV was playing some comedy sketch show.
I looked left and right before sighing, concluding that they had probably gone to introduce themselves to the mercenaries and had left me to decide if I wanted to follow.
Thinking on it, though Alucard suggested that I should introduce myself now, it wasn't necessary. It was against the rules that Sir Integra had set. Yes, she wanted to introduce her vampire to the mercenaries to establish control over them, whether through fear or awe. There was no need for more than one vampire to be present, and she already had two.
Besides, what would she do, get angry at me for following her orders and staying out of sight? Perhaps, but that seemed very unlikely. Sighing, I took Alucard's chair, flipped the TV remote into the air, caught it, and started changing the channel until I found the History Channel. I thought that Relaxing and watching documentaries about World War II should calm my mind, and I was happy to have a moment to myself.