The Bird of Hermes

Summary: When Alucard returns to Integra after being missing for thirty years, he's not quite the same. To recover his powers, he must kill, but the master he adores is sworn to protect human lives.

SPOILER ALERT:

This fanfic is placed after the end of the manga and directly addresses events from the end of the manga. For the purposes of this fic, when Alucard stated he killed all his lives except one, the one he is referring to is himself, not Shrodinger. As far as this fic is concerned, Shrodinger is gone, either killed or kicked out. Take your pick. I'll include my reasoning for this at the end of the chapter for anyone who cares.

Note: This is a prequel for my fanfic Legacy of Hellsing which can be found here: s/8652087/1/Legacy-of-Hellsing. However, this fic can also stand on its own. I hope everyone enjoys this. There is a little bit of AxI, but in a purely platonic sense. No lemons and Integra IS in her fifties here, just like at the end of the manga.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing or its characters, but they are fun to play with. Especially angsty Alucard. Yes. He can be angsty. Leave me alone to dream. :p

Ch. 1: Failure

The body of a boy in his late teens sprawled across the gravel of the cabin's driveway. His spiked blond hair clung to his scalp along three deep, bloody furrows. The fourth claw had caught him in the eye, popping the squishy orb out of the socket so it dripped blood and clear fluid down the boy's pale cheek

Alucard paused and sniffed. A fresh kill. The blood scent tickled the back of his throat, waking the gnawing hunger that blood packets could never completely satisfy.

He passed the body by. Integra frowned on him eating the victims.

The cabin's front door hung from a single hinge, the wood reduced to jagged splinters. Seras had been dispatched to search the woods for the creature responsible for the death here, but the door had caved in from the outside. She wouldn't find the thing among the trees.

The vampire crunched his way across the porch and stepped through the doorway. The house was silent but for a faint snuffling sound from the back. Alucard headed in that direction, hearing wet squelching noises, loud chewing and the sudden crack of breaking bone. A smile curled the corner of his mouth.

He found the creature in a back bedroom, hunched over a body lying prone on the bed, its chest cavity and abdomen cracked open like a split lobster. The great, humanoid creature had massive bat wings sprouting from its shoulders and pale, pasty gray skin. It buried its snout in the body's chest cavity, rooting around for the tastiest bits.

Alucard scowled at the creature…a greater demon. He hadn't seen one of those since the 1700s. It had been one of the few creatures to give him a real fight before Van Helsing defeated him.

Reaching into the folds of his red duster, he pulled the Casull from its holster. The demon paused to listen at the sound of leather sliding over metal. Alucard leveled the gun at the demon's head and the creature started chuckling low in its throat. The vampire's grin split his face as he pulled the trigger.

The creature dodged away, moving in a blur of motion. The bullet hit the corpse, sending bits of flesh and bone flying.

"Blessed silver bullets. I could smell them when you entered the building."

"Good. I would hate for you to be unprepared." Alucard turned to aim again. The demon leaped to the side with that blinding speed. Twitching his hand so only the gun moved, Alucard pulled the trigger. The bullet caught the creature in the shoulder, spinning it around.

With a guttural snarl, the demon launched itself across the room, talons bared. Alucard jumped to the side, dodging the attack. The creature whirled, arresting its momentum in the blink of an eye. It dived at the vampire, huge gaping maw closing on Alucard's leg and crunching through the flesh and bone like a kid with a tootsie pop.

Alucard snarled and reached for his ethereal form, the smoke and shadows that would dissolve his broken body into mist and reform it whole and pristine. The demon tightened its jaw on his very solid leg and shook its head, worrying at the flesh and bone like a dog. Alucard could feel the change begin, but it moved sluggishly through his veins, a pale shadow of the power that had once struck fear in the enemies of Hellsing.

The demon dropped him and, grinning down at him, slammed a clawed foot into his other leg, shattering the knee and surrounding bones with claws ripping into his flesh.

Alucard grit his teeth against the flaring agony. He raised the hand holding the Casull, but the demon batted it aside, sending it flying across the room along with most of the vampire's fingers.

The ritual words to release his control restrictions floated through Alucard's mind, but they were useless. He had no control restrictions anymore. His power no longer required restriction.

The creature towered over him, flexing those sharp black talons. Blood and saliva dribbled from the massive jaws full of sharp, serrated teeth. Glaring at the demon, Alucard pushed himself up, fangs bared and snarling at the thing. The demon threw its head back and laughed.

"Pathetic vampire! Bring forth your familiars. Heal yourself. Stand and fight!"

Alucard glared at his legs, shattered and seeping blood. He could feel them healing, but slowly. Too slowly. His body felt empty and hollow, every familiar he had collected over five hundred years destroyed, down to the last, the cursed Shrodinger. All of them annihilated so he could return to his master.

"Alucard! Alucard! Report!"

Integra's voice erupted from the ear bud in his right ear. The demon snarled and slammed a punch into the vampire's chest that shattered his rib cage and sent splinters of bone through his lungs. He groaned and coughed up a mouthful of blood. What could he say to his master? Good-bye? Again?

"Alucard! Report! Immediately!"

"Send in back up, my master." His voice rasped over the humiliating words. Darkness began eating the edges of his vision.

"Alucaaaard!"

V^^^V

Blood. Blood is life. It is the coin of the soul and all things good and wholesome…for a vampire.

Alucard came to himself, guzzling the liquid in great draughts. It poured down his chin and neck from the wrist trapped in his jaws. His red eyes flickered open, following the line of an arm…up to the police girl's face.

Seras looked down at her master as he gnawed at her wrist. His broken body knitted itself together as she watched. Integra stood over both of them, a glowing cross in her right hand. The demon was nowhere to be found.

As soon as full awareness returned to him, Alucard released the wrist trapped in his mouth. He blinked up at the human and infantile vampire that had saved him.

His face betrayed nothing, no fear, no joy, no surprise or anger. With eyes half closed as though to sleep, he turned his head to stare at the wall so he wouldn't have to look at his master and servant, the women he was supposed to protect. And couldn't.

End note:

So, about Shrodinger. The concept in the manga was that so long as Shrodinger recognized himself, he was everywhere and nowhere. When he killed himself and dropped himself into the river of blood that Alucard was consuming, he joined with Alucard and all of his lives. When that happened, Shrodinger no longer recognized himself among the millions of lives, so he ceased to be, taking Alucard with him.

At the end of the manga, Alucard says that he was able to come back because he killed all of his lives…presumably so that Shrodinger would recognize himself again. This is nifty in theory, but Alucard also suggests that Shrodinger is still there when he says "Now I'm nowhere, yet I can be anywhere. Therefore, I'm here." The problem I have with this is, if Alucard is still in there alongside Shrodinger, then technically, Shrodinger still wouldn't recognize himself. Therefore, to my mind, Alucard would have had to kill all of his lives, including Shrodinger. Since the bulk of his power came from the sheer number of lives he had consumed, then that would leave him severely weakened.

I think I may put waaaay too much thought and analysis into this. That's what I get for being so analytical, I guess.

Please review. I'd love to see what people think of this.