Legacy of Hellsing
Summary: Integra believes she is the last Hellsing and the line will die with her, but when a Vatican representative shows up with an impossible proposal, she learns that she may have an heir after all.
OC alert: I do have an original character in this story. Yes, she's female. No, she won't make Alucard fall madly in love with her and boink like rabbits with him. She's only ten years old for crying out loud.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing, Integra, Seras OR Alucard (although, if he was up for sale on Ebay, I might sell myself into servitude to bid on him).
Note: You won't see it in this chapter, but this story will contain the obligatory blood and guts that follow Alucard wherever he goes. Please be aware that I can be rather graphic on these scenes. There will also be moderate to severe child abuse. If anything else comes up as I write this, I'll put a warning in the chapter containing it.
This fic is based on the manga cannon and takes place after the end. There will be no AxI action. Integra is in her fifties and that just makes me shudder, even if Alucard is technically in his…five hundreds… Also, I may deviate from some people's interpretation of the end of the manga. I'm going to place an explanation of what I'm working off of at the end of this chapter for anyone interested.
Please enjoy, and review. I live for reviews.
Chapter 1: A Proposal from the Vatican
Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing leaned back in her cushioned leather office chair and inhaled a lungful of fragrant smoke. The man sitting on the other side of her mahogany desk shifted, nose wrinkling in distaste as she exhaled a stream of white fumes at him. His austere black cassock with the rectangle of white at the throat set her hackles up, but she schooled her features to mild interest. To reveal her distaste for a man of the cloth would grant him a certain power over her in their discussion. She couldn't have that.
"What, exactly, does the Vatican want with Hellsing, this time?" Her voice ground out through a throat grown stiff with smoking and age. She fought back the urge to cough, which had become more prevalent in recent years. Damn her frail, human body. Its insistence in failing with age infuriated her, but alas, such was the human condition.
The man sitting across from her coughed with a pointed look at the cigar in her hand. Integra quirked the corner of her mouth in a small smirk and dragged another lungful from the offending object. The priest's eyes narrowed and his back straightened. The dim lighting in her office reflected off the shiny pate of his receding hair line. She'd never met this particular representative of her age old enemy before.
"My name is Father Whelkins and I've come to…negotiate."
Integra's eyes narrowed as she breathed out a stream of smoke. Since when did the Vatican negotiate with her family? Even during the destruction of London, when it would have behooved them to work alongside Hellsing to destroy the vampire army that Millennium had launched upon England, they had instead taken advantage of the situation to try to destroy her organization. The very thought of working with the Catholic Church to any end turned her stomach.
"What could you possibly have that I might want?"
Father Whelkins quirked a knowing smile and reached down to open the leather bag at his feet. Integra fought the urge to crush the cigar in her hand in frustration. She hated surprises. Absolutely loathed them.
The priest pulled out a folder and opened it. He glanced over the top of the manila paper as he plucked an item from among its contents and tossed it onto her desk.
It was a photo of a young girl. She stared out at the camera with a wary, hunted look on her face that belied the crisp blue dress and carefully curled blond hair. She couldn't be more than ten years old and her piercing blue eyes reminded Integra of the one she saw in the mirror every day.
"In short, Sir Integra, we have a Hellsing."
V^^^V
"It's not possible!"
Integra clenched her fist, glaring at the top of her desk. A polyglot of emotions roiled in her chest: disbelief, worry, betrayal…hope. The only one she dared give vent to was anger. How dare the Vatican claim to have a member of the Hellsing family in their possession, and then try to use her as a bargaining chip?
"I am the last Hellsing. The line dies with me!" Seras touched the picture on the desk, peering at it from her seat, but hesitant to pick it up. Integra could be somewhat unpredictable in such a volatile mood.
"She does look a bit like you," the young vampire offered up, flinching a little in anticipation of Integra's response.
"I know that! Don't you think I noticed?"
"Y…yes, master."
"There's one way to know for certain." The deep voice rumbled out of the shadowy corner where Alucard watched the proceedings with a bemused smirk on his face.
"A paternity test, I suppose. But how many generations removed is she? Even if she is a Hellsing, it might not show up in the test. We only have my own DNA to compare against." Integra felt the worst of her emotional storm seep away as she turned her formidable mind to solving the problem the Vatican representative had dropped in her lap.
"That's not what I meant." Alucard leaned forward into the light, his orange spectacles glinting. "I would know the taste of Hellsing blood anywhere, no matter how diluted."
Integra narrowed her eyes at him, hands clenching into fists. His smile widened into a grin as feral as it was maniacal.
"You swine! You ask me to offer up the blood of a young girl to your diabolical appetite?"
Alucard's grin widened, baring stark white fangs. He ducked his head to peer at her over the rim of his spectacles. Those livid red eyes glistened with humor.
"I only ask for a taste, my master."
"Silence! You'll not ask again."
"As you command, my master."
The grin on his face faded into a knowing smirk as he leaned back into the shadows, resting his gloved hands on the arms of the chair. He looked like a broken marionette, slouched bonelessly in the seat. Integra shivered at the reminder of the monster she kept on a leash, but she knew he would follow her orders, and he'd do it with a smile.
"Regardless of whether she is truly a Hellsing or not, I cannot…will not meet their demands."
"What do they want?" Seras ventured to ask. Integra cut a glance at Alucard.
"They want me to hand mastership of Alucard over to Monsignor Heinkel."
"You can't!" Seras cried. Integra didn't even glance at her, instead keeping her eyes on Alucard to catch his reaction.
"I could never serve the Vatican. I am bound to Hellsing." From the tone of his voice, he could be giving a report on the weather. He betrayed neither fear nor interest. As usual, she had no idea what he really thought.
"I doubt that they want you to serve them. More likely, they plan to destroy you."
"No doubt." Alucard's smirk widened into that grin that held a touch of insanity in the corners of his mouth. He looked predatory and eager, like he wanted to see them try. A person of lesser confidence might think he wished to be free of his servitude to her, but Integra knew that look. He relished the idea of such a challenge.
"It's a moot point anyway. I don't know that the spell can be transferred at all, much less without your cooperation."
"No, but should you order me to submit myself to their schemes, I would, of course, obey."
"Idiot! Don't be daft. I'll do nothing of the sort!" Integra slammed her palm on the desk, emphasizing her vehemence. The very thought of ordering Alucard to submit himself to the whims of her enemy twisted her gut into sick knots. Monster he might be, but he was her monster. Alucard just flashed his grin at her, a smug look on his face that made her think he had known what her reaction would be all along.
Silence settled over them as Integra glared at her vampire servant and he grinned back.
"So…what are we going to do?" Seras asked, hesitant to break the silence but desperate to ease the tension between her masters. Integra didn't take her eyes off of Alucard.
"We're going to find out where the girl is and Alucard is going to take her away. Hellsing or not, I'll not leave an innocent child in their hands. Not when they're convinced that they can use her as leverage against us."
"Excellent," said Alucard, supreme satisfaction quirking the corners of his mouth.
End notes:
Okay, so, it's not obvious yet but Alucard is back to his old self, just not quite as strong. After doing some additional research on parts of the end of the manga that confused me (such as why he'd need to destroy all his lives…somehow, I completely missed the major's explanation for why Alucard disappeared the first time around), I found that the explanation that made the most sense was that he killed all the lives in him except Shrodinger so that Shrodinger would recognize himself again. That being the case, Alucard would not be able to take in any souls anymore and his power would be virtually non-existent except for being incredibly good at fleeing. (This is my take on it.)
The problem I have with this explanation is that, unless Alucard destroyed the original Vlad as well, leaving only Shrodinger, Shrodinger *still* wouldn't recognize himself. *If* that is what he did, then it wouldn't have been Alucard coming back to Integra. It would have been Shrodinger. So, for the purposes of this fanfic, I am assuming that Alucard destroyed Shrodinger as well, or at least found a way to oust him, so that the 'one' that Alucard left was himself. Yes, this is going to completely ignore his statement at the end that he is nowhere and everywhere, but as I said, unless the original Alucard is gone, it couldn't work anyway, to my mind.
I will apologize, now, to those who like being true to cannon. I like that too and *thought* I was following cannon when I first started this fic.
Now that I have a new take on it, I suddenly have a prequel fic percolating in my head for how Alucard gets his first few lives again and Integra re-sealing him because of the power he would be gaining. Hmm…might be fun.