Characters: Morishima, Bridget
Summary: Morishima introduces Bridget to the wonders of the Internet. AKA how Bridget took over the world with a little help from Morishima. AU.
Pairings: slight Morishima x Bridget
Author's Note: Because Bridget really could take over the world if she had half a mind to. And keep in mind, this takes place before Bridget finds out the truth concerning Strauss, Adelheid and the circumstances of Stella's death. Also, this is a parody; I'm sorry if the humor offends you at points
Disclaimer: I don't own Record of a Fallen Vampire.

Most of the people who knew who was to blame for all this wished beyond wishing that one Merrill Morishima, mercenary and crony of GM Gozen, had not introduced Bridget Irving, leader of the dhampire community commonly and better known as Bridget Frostheart, to the wonders of the Internet. Or maybe they were glad he had and just weren't willing to show it.

Either way, at the time no one could have known what such a simple thing as teaching Bridget how to use the Internet would do.

"Miss Bridget, you amaze me." Morishima resisted the urge to laugh as he typed "Weather Prague" into the search engine, Bridget hovering over his shoulder. Being seen to laugh at this woman in the presence of this woman was likely a one-way ticket to brutal death. He had no basis for this; Bridget just struck him as the sort of woman who wouldn't at all appreciate being laughed at.

Pity the most beautiful women are always the touchiest as well.

Bridget's pale eyes narrowed and she ran a hand through her long hair; Morishima had by now learned that this was either a nervous tic, a sign of danger or both. "What do you mean by that, Morishima?" Her voice was dangerously calm.

When he wasn't lying, stealing, and being all-around dishonest, there was one thing, without fail, that Morishima was known for: brutal honesty, to the point that one might have considered unwise or even reckless. Morishima could guess, though, that Bridget would take exception to being lied to, so truth seemed just as reasonable as anything. "You, Miss Bridget, are possibly the best-connected woman in the world. Your intelligence network is immense and all-encompassing; better than that, they're deadly efficient. You've got the dirt on more world leaders than I can name and the sheer amount of clout at the ready of those manicured little fingertips of yours is, in a word, terrifying."

Morishima's eyes narrowed as the search engine came up with an answer. "78°F and sunny, with only 10% humidity; sounds nice." He turned his attention back to the dhampire, who was sporting a small frown. "You have all this going for you, and yet you haven't the slightest clue of how to navigate the Internet."

"Forgive me my ignorance, Major—" A bite entered her voice and Morishima smiled to hide his wince; Oh boy; she only calls me 'Major' when she's pissed "—but I've not had a great deal of time on my hands with which to explore the wondrous creations of the Information Age. I've been a bit busy, you understand." Bridget's tone was absolutely scathing.

"Fair," Morishima allowed, praying this would placate her. "Chasing Akabara's been a full-time job, plus overtime."

Bridget relaxed a little and went to sit on the couch in Morishima's quarters—there was a computer in the rooms on the ship set aside for the dhampire, but, perhaps out of pride, she'd insisted on using this one. "I do have a fair number of computer technicians and experts at my disposal. They are the ones who usually handle the technical matters; I have to delegate sometimes."

Hmm… I smell opportunity; I can hear it knocking. Morishima wheeled his chair round to face Bridget, who was now seated on the couch, her elbow on the windowsill and her slim, long-fingered hand cupping her forehead and disrupting her golden fringe as she stared out moodily on the dark waters. Plainly the act of working to free the half-sister who had essentially ruined her life wasn't exactly a palatable one to her.

"Say, Miss Bridget…" A single ice blue eye turned on him to signify that she had heard. "I've got a proposition for you."

Bridget let out a weary sigh as if to say that any proposition of Morishima's would be more trouble than it was worth. "I'm listening."

"We've got a bit of spare time on our hands between now and Prague. What do you say I show you the ropes of using the Internet? It would keep the boredom away, at the very least."

In truth, Morishima didn't expect Bridget to take him up on his offer. Bridget, proud woman that she was—and she certainly had reason to have pride—would likely dismiss Morishima's request as a veiled insult. But then, Bridget Irving Frostheart was just full of surprises.

Instead of refusing Morishima out of hand, Bridget twister her neck so that she could look at him directly, gaze utterly piercing. Bridget's brow furrowed, another frown appearing on her thin pink mouth. Then, a strange gleam sparked in her eyes, and she nodded slowly. "Alright."

Morishima grinned brightly, which was only natural and perfectly understandable considering he had no conception of the enormity of what he had just done. "Great! Let's get started."

-0-0-0-

Bridget proved to be an apt pupil, learning with remarkable ease what took most adults months to master. No one should have been all that surprised; as a child Bridget had been lauded as a prodigy, a virtual genius, and she continued to live up to the praise long after her childhood was over and done. Morishima wondered if she had only been faking ignorance until the moment came and Bridget plainly had absolutely no idea how to properly type out an e-mail message. Well that was soon rectified.

Within three days, she was an old pro at this, searching the Internet for any and every topic she could think of. Renka, Fuuhaku and Ethel all had to raise an eyebrow at this; they'd never known their mistress to be very fond of computers. Laeti, who didn't know Bridget nearly as well as the others, didn't know this was unusual for her and only scoffed and called the older dhampire a computer nerd. Bridget couldn't be bothered to comment.

Prague came and went, another seal smashed came and went, and Morishima was happy to note that he was making headway in another area as well. With every comment he made that was meant to amuse her Bridget was now visibly having to fight the urge to smile instead of simply rolling her eyes or remaining expressionless and telling Morishima to go get her something to drink. Well, she still told him to go get her something to drink on a regular basis, but still.

Morishima was starting to notice an odd pattern in Bridget's searches, though.

First, it was studying the geography of certain countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America; specifically, just how heavily the borders were guarded. Then, she was looking up weapons, namely the black market on weapons, and how much it would cost to acquire certain, ahem, items that were less than legal in civilized strata. Then, Bridget was making inquiries into the economies of the world powers.

What finally convinced Morishima that he couldn't ignore this anymore was when Bridget came to him one evening and asked him to help her hack into several governmental information databases ("Because I know you know how."). Given what he knew of Bridget's personality, given her position of leadership among the dhampires and given "all the things going for her" that he had mentioned earlier, Morishima could guess where all this was going.

"Miss Bridget, I think we need to talk." They were halfway through the deepest, darkest, most restricted archives of the Pentagon—what could he say? Morishima had a thing for blondes and older women—when Morishima decided that the subject had to be broached. Bridget was taking entirely too much interest in the state secrets they had unearthed for this to be just another "innocent search", as she was choosing to term them.

Her calm eyes—remarkably calm, in fact, even for her, which set off even more alarm bells in Morishima's mind—turned on him without skipping a beat. Bridget was sipping iced tea and examining, at length, the documents that their combined hacking had turned up, her hair pinned high and away from her face. "Do you think so?" she asked, almost without interest. "That makes two of us." Her casual gaze became considerably more veiled. "Well, you first."

Morishima was sitting in the chair at the computer and suddenly, he really wished he was standing for this. At least standing would mean he wouldn't have to change stance to run out of the room. "Miss Bridget, I am neither stupid nor particularly easily led. I'm not about to believe you when you attempt to convince me that there's no particular reason you've been making these recent searches."

Bridget nodded. "Good. There may be hope for you, at that."

"Anyway…" Morishima raised an eyebrow at her "…What I really want to know, Miss Bridget, is where exactly is all of this going?" He already had a good idea, of course, but Morishima decided to be polite and ask before making accusations.

For a moment, Bridget said nothing. Then, a small sound that was likely meant to be a derisive laugh emerged from her mouth. Bridget laid the glass of ice tea back on its coaster and left water beads of condensation to pool in the iron coaster. She smirked. "Morishima, you ask as if you don't already know."

Oh, boy. Instead of feeling the dread that someone else might have felt, Morishima was restraining the urge to grin. "Hoo-hoo, so you've already gotten to that, huh?"

Bridget's smirk widened and was almost a smile now. "Yes, I have."

"Well, ma'am…" Morishima laughed and stretched his arms over his head "…never knew you had global ambitions in mind." He grinned in Bridget's direction and couldn't suppress a swell of delight to see her smiling, however slightly, back. "Though I suppose I should have, all things considered. Gozen's been terrified of what you might do with that network of yours for years."

The dhampire leader nodded stiffly, then narrowed her eyes as she stared Morishima down. "That leads me to something that I think we need to be talking about." That poker face of hers was formidable, Morishima had to admit; he couldn't even begin to fathom what she was thinking. "If I pursue my "global ambitions", as you feel they should be called, you will also feel obliged to inform your employer, am I right?"

Morishima shrugged; The only thing I've gotta lose here is my life, after all, and that hasn't been worth much for the last few years. "Probably. He's an old scoundrel but I havebeen working for him for a while. It wouldn't feel right to leave him hanging in the lurch like that."

Bridget nodded again, eyes drifting downward pensively. Then she looked up, and Morishima got the impression that the faintly pleading look on Bridget's pale face was completely intentional. Damn it; woman knows my weakness. "Morishima, I'm not asking you to be dishonest with your employer. But… Could you possibly hold off on telling Gozen about all this until it's too far along for him to stop?"

"Oh?"

"Morishima."

He leaned forward and shot her a half-smile, half-scowl. "Miss Bridget, I am far enough in to know what you plan on doing. I'm your enabler, for God's sake. Don't you think I deserve a bit more of an explanation than the half-baked one you just gave me?"

Bridget sighed and spread her hands over her lap. Reluctantly, she said, "True enough." She swallowed down her pride and launched into the real explanation. "This world is entirely too inefficient for my tastes. You've still got food crises, wars by the dozens and disputes over borders and resources. I've been around a lot longer than any and every politician on this earth. Make no mistake: the dhampire community is not a cohesive nation. It is a network of scattered, isolated communities across that often find themselves at odds with each other. But I am still its ruler, and I have a decent grasp of how to rule nations. A better grasp—" Bridget snorted indelicately and disdainfully "—than the idiots who currently find themselves in power. The point of this, Morishima, is that I need your help. You have connections that even I don't; and if you're not aware of just how significant an accomplishment that is, then I should tell you that you should be proud." Bridget stared, almost belligerently, at the human man. "Will you help me?"

Here was the moment of truth, and Morishima was ready for it. He grinned easily. "Gladly. On one condition."

"And what, pray tell, would that be?" Bridget asked dangerously, and Morishima bit back a laugh.

"Simple Miss Bridget, and if you accept I promise you won't be disappointed." Morishima leaned back in his chair, long hair falling over the back, and sliced the air with his hand. "When you're Supreme Overlord, err, Overlady of Everything and Sundry, I wanna still have a job."

Some of the ice melted from Bridget's now-speculative face. The wind from the open window rustled her hair slightly. "You have my attention, Major."

Great, she's mad at me again. I think. Lately, Bridget had taken to calling Morishima 'Major' without first getting mad at him. "The dhampires you've got with you are good, I'll admit. Scratch that, they're scary. But when you're Supreme Overlady of Everything and Sundry, you're still going to need an enforcer. Preferably, a military-minded enforcer who can move freely in sunlight."

In that moment, Morishima could tell exactly what Bridget was thinking from looking at her face: I didn't think of that.

His own thoughts were pretty obvious too: Wow, I actually caught her off-guard for once.

"So what d'you say, Miss Bridget?" Morishima fixed his most winning—and roguish—grin to his face. "You got room in your crew for another crony?"

Bridget stared at him as though she'd never seen anything quite like him before. "You don't give up, do you?" Her tone was incredulous—and slightly impressed, though she was visibly trying to hide it.

"Nope," Morishima admitted cheerfully.

Her smirk showed teeth. "Alright, you're in. I've been needing a human contact anyway. Now how to take care of Strauss?" Bridget mused, tapping her forefinger against her lips. "I suppose I could always try that…"

Morishima perked up, and moved to cut off her train of thought before it reached its destination before she could do any dangerous thinking. "No nuclear weapons," he said firmly. Bridget's indignant expression was entirely too innocent. "If you can nuke him without actually nuking him, then more power to you, but I will do everything in my power to make sure you can't get your hands on any nuclear weapons. A man's gotta have standards, and a man's gotta draw the line somewhere. Besides, couldn't you just push Akabara out into sunlight or something? That should do the trick, shouldn't it?"

For the first time, Bridget looked uncomfortable, sinking into her chair a little. "No, it wouldn't." Her voice was barely audible.

The major-turned-mercenary frowned sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's immune to sunlight," Bridget muttered, not looking at him. "Strauss is immune to sunlight."

"What?" Morishima exploded. "What do you mean "He's immune to sunlight"? What does that mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Bridget retorted coldly, her entire demeanor changing, and Morishima remembered that for all that this was a beautiful woman, this was also an extremely dangerous woman. "Sunlight does not affect Strauss. At all. Nor, I suspect, does it affect his queen, my hapless—" she spat out the word "—half sister."

Morishima slumped in his chair. "My God," he muttered, slapping a hand over his eyes. "Well, we're screwed. Akabara is the biggest threat to your plans—and that's including Gozen, mind you—and all we can do is throw Kayuki at him."

"No."

"No?"

"The current Black Swan is too unstable," the dhampire explained clinically. "She's too impulsive, too prone to fits of temper. The previous host might have been able to kill Strauss, but Hirasaka Kayuki isn't Komatsubara Yuki and I'm not willing to take the chance that we might have to wait who knows how long for the fifty-first Black Swan to come along."

"So what do we do?" Morishima demanded, all politeness forgotten. "You said Saverhagen crafted the Black Swan curse specifically to take down Akabara. Without sunlight or the Black Swan to kill him, Akabara's invincible."

Bridget smirked darkly. "Not necessarily." To Morishima's blank expression, she sighed and smoothed her silk skirt. "The Black Swan was the only weapon capable of killing Strauss or even injuring him in Saverhagen's day. Since the days of the Infinite Cross, human technology and weaponry has advanced considerably, wouldn't you agree, Major?"

Morishima took a moment for Bridget's words to sink in. Then, a smirk every bit as dark as Bridget's spread across his face. "Brilliant."

They basked in the glory of this realization (their thoughts on how to do Strauss in were completely in-sync) for maybe half a minute before another thought occurred to Morishima and the foolish grin evaporated from his face. "What about Adelheid?"

Bridget shrugged. "I'll free her and kill her." Her face hardened. "It's as simple as that and nothing more than she deserves."

No… That's not right. That's not the way she needs to go around doing this, anyway. Morishima shook his head. "Hold your horses, Miss Bridget."

Her face darkened immediately. "What did you just say to me?"

Morishima didn't bother wincing. "That's not the way you want to get rid of the Queen, trust me ma'am."

A single, well-kept golden eyebrow disappeared into a curtain of golden bangs. "Oh?"

"Yes. There's still Big Moura to deal with, right?"

Bridget frowned, and her hand stopped mid-hair stroke.

"Given what you've told me of the magnitude of her power, I think know of a way to kill two birds with one stone. The only thing I ask is that we have Strauss killed before you free Adelheid." Morishima found himself smiling once again; he was doing that quite a lot lately. "After all, if you want to take over the world, you can't have the threat of an alien invasion hanging over your head, can you Miss Bridget?"

Slowly, very slowly, a smile started to spread over Bridget's pale face.

-0-0-0-

Bridget's plans went off without a hitch, which was surprising, all things considered; usually, when someone tried to take over the world every unexpected circumstance imaginable would arise to throw a wrench in the plan.

Strauss was lured to a remote, uninhabited island in the Pacific. Once informed of his arrival, Bridget promptly unleashed several appropriated missiles on him. Strauss was good, but he wasn't quite good enough to avoid half a dozen ballistic missiles trained on his blue head. What neither Bridget nor Morishima could understand was why on Earth Strauss had agreed to go to the island when it was so obviously a trap.

Laeti protested, but she was the only one. Bridget, who had no stomach for killing another dhampire, told her she could either get with the program or go back to her mountain; Laeti chose the latter, swearing revenge as she did so. Bridget only rolled her eyes.

When the dhampire community learned that the long-hated vampire king was dead, they, of course, exploded. But Bridget, Morishima and the rest of Bridget's crew weren't quite ready to celebrate just yet. They still had work to do.

The final cross was broken and Adelheid was freed from her millennia-long prison. Bridget took her sister in hand and told her that Strauss had been killed by the invaders in the sky, patting the queen's shoulder sympathetically as she sobbed—she still wasn't sure why Adelheid wasn't relieved that Strauss was no longer around to do her in, but ah well; it served her plans perfectly. Then, she took her sister and set her loose on Big Moura. The rest was history and as an added plus, Adelheid died defeating Big Moura.

The dhampire community was in ecstasy to learn that the reviled vampire queen was also dead and that the vampire line was at long last extinct. The celebrations were orgasmic and lasted a solid week and, to be perfectly honest, neither Bridget, Morishima, Renka, Fuuhaku nor even Ethel could remember any of it after all was said and done.

With the last of the vampires dead, the Black Swan parasite disappeared from Hirasaka Kayuki's body, never to be seen again, and the girl went back to living a somewhat normal life with her grandfather.

Then, Bridget got down to the business of world domination in earnest.

It started with the small countries. She sent Morishima forth to the small, impoverished, war-torn countries throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. Said countries happened to be rich in oil and other resources that made them prime targets for exploitation by the world powers. There were promises made if they agreed to unite under the call of one Bridget Irving and the promises were titillating enough that they agreed. When all was said and done, Bridget fulfilled her agreements; if she promised these people extra food or resources, then by God they were going to get what they had been promised.

Then, Bridget set her sights on bigger fish.

Japan fell quickly. Gozen grumbled and Morishima could tell he was scowling at him behind that mask, but he was surprisingly graceful about it and even thanked Morishima for at least choosing to inform him of what was going on and breaking ties with him evenly. He was surprised, at the very least, that Gozen didn't take him up on his offer to kill him.

("Why on Earth did you offer to let Gozen kill you in the first place!" Bridget wasn't pleased with what Morishima had thought was an honorable gesture anyway.)

At the very last, Bridget had the United States of America to contend with. The leader of the free world eyed the coalition with distinct suspicion, promising one Hell of a fight if it came to that and Morishima believed them; America had a reputation. But in the end, the treaties were signed without bloodshed. All Bridget had to do was hint to the president that it wouldn't go over very well with the constituents if lives were lost fighting a war that could only end one way. The president, being a reasonable woman, decided to save lives and capitulated on the condition that America could maintain autonomy. In response, Bridget granted the nation dominion status.

And she managed it all in less than a year. With Morishima's help, of course.

As for Morishima? He had a very comfortable job, sniffing out dissent and the hints of rebellion wherever he thought it might crop up; the Balkans had been especially bad, which was ironic considering that was where Bridget had started from.

What made him even happier was that Bridget was openly smiling at some of his more witty remarks; even if she was one of those women who looked good no matter what her facial expression, Morishima was of the firm opinion that she looked at her best when she smiled. And Bridget was certainly smiling now; the two banes of her existence were dead and she could finally move on and start anew, as the Supreme Overlady of Everything and Sundry, with her faithful human crony by her side.

Mission accomplished, Morishima thought contentedly, as he munched on pocky and cheerfully took yet another glass of iced tea to the busy Overlady.

He was still the only one Bridget would let bring her something to drink.

And to think that all this had started with a search for the weather in Prague.