(Warning(s]: None]
It was a beautifully haunting storm. Of nightmares, of dreams. A chaotic muse that inspired packs of wolves and apocalyptic floods within the mind and would only cease when there was no air left to be drawn in the lungs of man. In his ailing age, his joints ached and creaked, and he could not sleep. The peals of thunder accompanied the ricochets of lightning as they arced across the sky, the deep midnight swallowing light and providing a dark silhouette to the forests that encompassed the Hellsing estate. Before a yawning window too large for its fitting, for the wall it had been recessed within, a lone silhouette stood in the aghast silence of his own lavishly appointed room, everything embraced in shadow except where illuminated by the scatterings of brisk lightning and a lone candle providing him lonely, warm company at such a terribly early hour. He was known for his statuesque and alarming frequency of thoughtful raptures, and this was no different. At least, ever since the capture of the monster that had built the foundation of the Hellsing Estate, Abraham van Helsing had been known for such reveries that seemed impossible to interrupt.
"Would you like to know why artists, and poets, and bards all alike find such muse in the storm, friend John? It is because the storm is a predator of man, one of his only. The storm roils the seas and drowns ships. It ignites fires and strikes him down in the places he means to stand too high. It is darkness, enveloping the senses and stuffing them into cacophony and bewilderment. There is no man who can see through a storm; no man whom can cut through its madness and delirium and noise. It is as God intended, as it shall always be." The Professor had always been a witty and keen man, Dr. John Seward mused to himself after the spiel, having only just walked in barely a minute ago. In the reflection of the window pane, Abraham's ghostly reflection revealed an unblinking countenance and the merest sussurus of mouth. He swallowed, bringing himself closer and away from the shrewdness of distance.
"Professor, yes—the storms. However—" the man paused, his own phantasmal reflection joining alongside Abraham's, the man still so avidly fixated upon the storm. "This morning, we received summons from the Queen. Word reached us of an urgent mission we are asked to consider carefully, you see. And it concerns some distant madness in a town—or city—known as Yharnam." John gazed quizzically upon the shief of papers that contained all the detailing, something of confusion still apparent in his eyes.
Yet, Abraham seemed to completely overlook and ignore it, his gaze lost into the oblivion of tossed treetops and the jump and pitch of the wind that whisked them, thunderous applause joining their dance. "Not all storm are lightning and dark clouds and tempests, friend John. Sometimes, they are built upon the foundation of man's own arrogance and folly, brick by brick, until God strikes upon their Tower of Babel. Or is it Babylon?" A smirk quickened upon Abraham's face before disappearing again. "And when God abandons them, man turns to Old Ones and Elder Things."
"You know of Yharnam, then, don't you? You know of their blood ministration and their dealings with..." Jack's brows furrowed oddly, squinting at the paper ignited by the underside by the candle, the black ink more pronounced, but the font still somewhat illegible, "...these pagan...gods and their adherents. On the Isle of Great Britain, no less. But, I've never heard of this Yharnam. I didn't even know it existed until now."
"Godless cities that do not exist by the Word of God are not part of His Kingdom, John. For they do not worship our earthbound God. They looked too far into the abyss, and the abyss always looks back." In that one moment, lucidity and reality found Abraham as he snatched the papers from John's bewildered hands, scanning them with an eye so fast it seemed inhuman in lieu of his still. "We will need him, for this. He will go in my place, my Monster of monsters, my Abyss General. Son of the Most Low in a place where the Most High has been completely abandoned."
"It's been years since—do you truly intend to utilize him again? How do you know he won't betray us like last time?"
Abraham smiled darkly, chuckling in a low and ominous timbre. "We don't. But what makes you believe my Servant will not enjoy such a godless place and making its pantheon his bitch? Alucard would not even have to do it on orders, my pupil. He will do it with his godless smile and glee, for none partakes best in blasphemy than the son of the first of sinners."
Yet, perhaps that was the most odious things Abraham could say on the matter.
Ragged breaths panted in the swallowing and consuming darkness, a chest heaving, a low and weak snarl sounding at the obnoxious and callous intrusion of candlelight, weak attempts at moving back readily apparent in their scuffle and scrape along coarse stone. Alucard was bound at the feet and hands, two of the Nails of Helena, those of Christ, impaled through both cusps and feet. A holy torture that weakened Alucard so dramatically that he had barely the strength of a haggard man. A monster simply humbled by God. Ebony mane and long bangs framed a beautiful countenance tiredly held in weak anger, blinking heavily and blankly.
"What do you want of me?" came Alucard's weak and gnarled rasp, scooting back as much as he could, only a sack upon his body in the manner of a prisoner and offering the only modesty to such a thoroughly humiliated monster. Considering his English carefully, sometimes lost in the deluge of the mind, he added, "It's too early for experimentation, and you still require rest." His placating smile was wolfish and yet terribly robbed of its menace.
Abraham laughed dryly in his throat, striding towards Alucard, looming over the now pitiful excuse of a monster. "We are not here for an experiment, my Servant. Instead, I have come to tell you that you shall be sent upon a mission, Alucard. One best suited to you, and not an old man who cannot engage in an old hunter's folly." Alucard looked minutely hopeful, nostrils flaring as he breathed harder, eyes desperate and parched for some kind of freedom from this torture.
It would be eye to eye that equals met, and they were the farthest from that. Alucard watched balefully from below, observant, waiting. And Abraham maintained that steady gaze, the vampire bated. "There is a city known as Yharnam, kept secret, upon the British Isles. Of blood ministration, where humans consume monstrous quantities of blood for the sake of healing, built upon the worship of pagan gods. However, in their godlessness did God seek to strike them down, and a Scourge fell upon them to transform those with this plague into hideous beasts. Once, when I was still a professor in Amsterdam, I journeyed to Yharnam at what I believe was the epoch of its power, before the Plague of Beasts. I saw for myself what its healing could do, and glimpsed, on accident, the transformation of those whom fall ill to it. I was banished by the Healing Church for it, but I see now that Yharnam will not completely fade."
Alucard couldn't help but straighten, eyes rapt with attention. Humans...who could consume blood? Abraham caught sight of the hungry promise becoming instilled in Alucard, in the interest he needed to generate for this mission. Of course, he would need to continue in order for the bait and hook to be irreparably swallowed.
"She's doomed, isn't she? This Yharnam," Alucard remarked quietly, emphasizing the city's name malevolently, tilting his head back with a lackadaisical grin, head lolling to the side as his eyes hooded lazily. So emblematic of such a morose sloth that had taken to the creature years after his capture. Breaking spirits wasn't always so impossible, after all. The professor saw the foul light in his eyes, denied by tiredness but would be assuredly restored to machinations once the beast was set upon his course.
Exactly what Abraham wanted.
"She is. A dead horse bloated with death and plague and maggots spewing from her belly; puss-filled spores housing those larvae swelling upon every inch of her skin. Her limbs are broken and rotting, her mane and tail and forelock devoured by flies and beetles, and noxious gases built within are waiting to burst. However, with such disease at risk to the herd, the Master must send his greatest and largest hound to devour the beast, as his stomach is strong and famished from years of hunger."
Alucard's head canted to the side, a mad and wicked glee beginning to awaken upon it. "And I understand...the beast will be able to keep the bones to gnaw upon, and as trophies?" came his leering rejoinder, leaning forth with those jagged fangs pronounced in cruel and fain grin. It was enough so that Jack Seward quietly excused himself, overwhelmed with terror and bleak nausea clawing at his insides, all white-cold. Abraham was as damnably fearless as ever.
"He will still serve his master, and faithfully, but yes—perhaps he will have the bones to chew upon." Yharnam was given a death sentence. Its time was waning, and it was known that what little remained of its inhabitants would have to likely be put down. They couldn't be allowed to remain with disease pecking away their lives, even if they hadn't been afflicted with it yet. Cold as it was, if not the disease, then it would irreparably be other factors that could contribute to contamination of another sort. Such madness of the mind and soul could not be loosed upon the rest of the world, and the monster before him was the only one who could staunch and expunge it. And do so eagerly.
For Alucard was given a city to reign upon his own projection when denied that years ago. A city overtaken, hollowed of humanity and deigned to with what was left of them whatever he willed. To rule where his preemptive kingdom had been stolen, given all manner of monsters to master or destroy as he saw fit, all within the name of the Kingdom of England.
To them, a city forsaken by God and His Word was a city condemned to Hell.
And no better one to mete out it's fate than the Son of the Devil.
Last Thoughts: I'm highly certain that this is a crossover some people might have expected, yet at the same time, probably not. This fixation and interest began as early as March when I really began to be interested in Bloodborne and tumblr a small RP community began to form. I and a friend, hunter-of-hunters, were and are quite heavily involved. Of course, as these things often go between close friends, we ended shipping my Alucard and her Eileen. And what a ship was sailed! I'll admit, I'm not someone who thought I'd ever see the day that I'd write crossover fanfiction quite like this, let alone a pairing. But here I am, and there's no looking back.
So, we have our premise. I'm playing around with the concept of Yharnam not being in a disconnected world, but part of Great Britain's mainland. Or, maybe part of the archipelago on some distant and disconnected island. But not too distant, of course. As these things go, the Queen isn't too happy with what's become of Yharnam, so of course she's going to send Britain's resident supernatural exterminators to expunge the city and neutralize its threat. And a freshly post-book Alucard will be very unlikely to have ant sort of pure and altruistic motive, so-let's start things off an an eerie and ominous note! :D
~Peace, G.
