Kana: :D (Kana-kun is very happy with the response this story has. However, Kana-kun is still very sad because some people read, but don't review. But Kana-kun is happy, and thanks many people. Now Kana-kun must stop talking in third person and go break in her new Assassin's Creed video game. Kana-kun is sad now because she is too much like a boy.) D:
Disclaimer: I own Hellsing like I own Jesus. Everybody wants a piece of it, but in reality, only one person does. In this case, it's Hirano, my God.
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Fidelity
Chapter One: Catholicism
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When Alucard opened his eyes, he was surrounded by girls.
I've finally been sent to hell, he moaned mentally, looking around blearily. Or maybe it's a twisted version of Paradise…but then again…The girls were in matching white uniforms, and there were maybe three of them tending to machines around him. Maybe I'm in a theme whore house…
It took his fogged mind ten minutes to figure out that he was in a hospital. But that was impossible. Vampires rarely needed medical care, and when they did, they could never go to a hospital. When you were injured, the best thing you could do was take an easy victim to speed the healing along. If it was a holy injury, you would be lucky to die swiftly.
Finally one of the girls – obviously nurses – noticed him, and began making babbling, jittery noises and pointing at his face. The other two soon joined in, squealing about his alertness and his open eyes. His head began to ache from all the noise, but at least he would get some answers.
Alucard tried to speak, but all that came out was a choked gurgle. He scowled, feeling weak, and tried again. This time he made a tiny peep sound, but it only frustrated him further.
"Someone get Neil," a girl said, motioning with her hands, as if she was shooing away something. Alucard watched with little interest as they began to scurry again. After months in the recesses of his own mind, it felt good to be around the narcotic humans again.
But…considering his predicament and where he was, he doubted he was where he thought he was. Say that three times fast, Alucard thought. He sighed, blinking a few more times to get the world to go back into focus. That's good, keep the humor up. Keep it up and maybe you'll save yourself a few more days of sanity.
While Alucard contemplated how long his limited sanity would last, this Neil person obviously got the 'big message' and came running in like he was something important (he better be). He was slack, disheveled, and smelled faintly of gin, but none of those characteristics sent Alucard over the deep end.
It was the fact that he looked like a certain little traitorous bastard.
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Neil had survived holding down a Class-B vampire during a surgery to remove silver barbed wire from its stomach. During which time, he had focused on how the vampire had gotten the wire inside it instead of on the pain of being bitten over and over. That had been two years ago, during his internship, and he had never thought he would be facing anything other than emotional pain again.
He had been wrong, and that is what he thought today, as his favorite patient slugged him. Neil had been leaning over him for a moment to check his IV when it happened. He was sure it had been a weak punch by vampire standards, but it sent him staggering, wondering who had just run him over with that semi and if anyone got the plate number.
"Jesus!" Neil rubbed his swelling cheek and slowly stood, weary of the groggy vampire that twisted and turned in the tightly tucked sheets of his bed. Alucard's eyes were wild as he snarled, but gave up in favor of gnawing on the IV like a coyote to a trapped limb.
The Nosferatu was calculating his chances of escaping from this 'hospital', which he now thought of as a Nazi hospital. Of course that's why there were facilities for vampires, only that twisted little Major would have ever thought of that. He was probably trapped here, which meant that they had lost…and…and…
Was his Master dead?
A gentle hand clapped itself on his forearm. It was Neil, doing his best to restrain his first ever hostile vampire. And when Alucard hissed in his face, he found himself in awe at the odd teeth he had. Instead of having the neat canines of a normal vampire, every single one was serrated and sharp. His favorite patient was either a very low level vampire, or very high.
"No!" Alucard was rabid. "No, let me go, let me out!" He thrashed, causing more nurses to go into blithering shock and terror. The IV was nothing more than a needle attached to an inch of chewed tube in his left hand. He sought a way out, and he would find one, even if it meant flying out.
So he did. Neil staggered back as Alucard began to fizz, becoming nothing more than a large puddle of blackness that moved with the viscosity of water. And though it didn't seem to seep into the cloth of the bed, it did flow off the bed and onto the floor, settling there. Neil could have sworn it looked exhausted.
"Out!" A sharp, commanding voice echoed through the room, and soon the doctor in charge of Neil's section was bustling to and fro, shooing away terrified nurses and looking generally pissed.
Neil twitched. He must have screwed up in the worst way for Laurence to get off his high horse and come down. The stuffy doctor was staring down at the emotional puddle of goo in obvious haughtiness. "See? This is what happens when you overestimate your powers."
The puddle growled.
Laurence's right eyebrow quirked. "I don't care how high you see yourself; even vampires are affected by the laws of energy. You've been in a coma for half a year, you're running on empty. Now, back in the bed!" He pointed towards the still pristine sheets. The goo made another noise that Neil couldn't understand. "Get in the damn bed before I stake you."
Like an amoeba, the puddle crawled up the bed and settled into the sheets, slowly solidifying back into Alucard, whose hair now flopped around limply. He panted as if he had just run the circumference of the world…twice. "Where am I?" He ground out the words as if they pained him. He now knew he could not be in a Nazi hospital. He knew he couldn't even be in the same reality.
While Neil looked like a younger Walter, Laurence looked like someone he knew was dead. He looked exactly like Maxwell, right down to the empty threats. And the last time he checked, Maxwell was twenty feet above the ground in London, suspended by a lance.
"London," Neil said, confused.
Alucard's jaw tightened. "That's impossible."
"How so?" Laurence eyed the mangled IV that now dripped blood onto the floor. He began to remove the useless stub and needle that was still inside Alucard before calling for a new one. He mumbled something about blood going to waste.
"It just is," Alucard snapped. He disliked needles, so when Laurence tried to stick him again, he moved his hand away and hissed. "Touch me and die."
Laurence gave him an 'I am not amused' look. "I don't expect you to keep anything down. Shall I get some fresh? Perhaps that'll calm you."
"I don't want to be calm, I want to get out of here," Alucard narrowed his eyes.
"What are you going to do? Slide out of here like a puddle of mobile ink? You won't get past security," Laurence said jarringly.
"What security?" Alucard looked around. He couldn't feel anyone of power nearby, and nothing short of an armed tank would stop him.
"This security," Neil hesitantly pulled back the shades on the one window in the room. Nailed to the sill and border was a smattering of bible pages. A barrier. Without the shades to cover them, Alucard suddenly felt nauseous. "We usually keep them blocked by special curtains so that patients don't feel the effects unless they're too close. I'd prefer it if we didn't have to have them at all, but vampires tend to be irate when they're ill."
"Irate doesn't even cover it," Laurence rubbed his left forearm. "A twitchy one bit me right to the bone the other day."
Alucard hadn't gasped in a while, so he treated himself to one at that moment. Laurence should have been a ghoul – or a vampire if fortune didn't shine on him. And even if he didn't turn, he should have lost the use of his left hand at the very least and still be bed-ridden. At yet the Maxwell-clone/imposter/reincarnating thing had the strength to prick his hand with the IV again, despite his feeble attempts to protest. Both of them were right – he was running on empty. He might be the mighty Nosferatu, but everyone needed energy, and he hadn't had anything fresh in months.
And as Laurence stuck a needle-full of something in the IV pouch, Alucard made up his mind to stay with these odd doctors and learn about this strange reality and this vampire-efficient hospital. When the world began to pinwheel, Alucard found it amusing that the last time he went under, he was staring at Walter. This time he was doing the same thing, only this time he was almost certain he would wake again.
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It was enjoyable to learn about things again. Alucard could ask questions that he truly did not know the answers of, and get angry or sad or happy at things that were alien to him. He learned from Neil that it was still 1997, but there was no such thing as Hellsing.
But Iscariot was another matter.
"The Vatican was the one that informed the rest of the world about vampires in 1974 and then created a vaccine for the side effects of the bites eight years later. Now everyone gets them when they turn ten – it's the law," Neil informed him as he changed his blood pouch, happy to be actually chatting with his favorite patient. "No one has seen a ghoul in years."
Alucard tapped against his mouth with his fingers. "So now the only people that can be turned are virgins."
"Yeah," Neil looked a little melancholy all of a sudden. "Every once in a while we get a child that was turned. Since most people are immune to vampirism, it's nearly impossible for vampires to make fledglings – unless they stumble upon those disturbing vampire cults. So sometimes a dying one in need of a fix will steal a child and turn them, then leave them in front of a medical center. We keep volunteers to teach them, but usually they end up insane little monsters."
This enthralled Alucard very much, though he didn't let Neil know his joy. Even with the Vatican watching closely, vampires were still the bane of their existence. So he hid his smile with his hand and sat back on the thin pillows of the hospital, glad to relax. As far as he knew, there were no Nazi's for him to worry about. And although he couldn't get the image of Integra dead out of his mind, he stored it away until later, when he had more resources.
Today was a day of relaxation. Tomorrow was the day he would begin plotting to slaughter the doctors and escape. Right after he learned everything there was to know about this world and its Iscariot.
Then came the kicker question.
"How did the Vatican learn about vampires?" he asked.
Neil shrugged. "The pope of course," – Of course – "when he came into power he told the world what he was, and offered proof naturally, so they just accepted it. Strongest damn vampire I've ever seen, and as devoted to God as Jesus himself." He shivered. "He's as good as they come, but he's more than a little freaky." His favorite patient obviously had amnesia issues.
"Who is he?" Alucard held the breath he didn't need. Don't let it be, don't let it be, don't let it be –
"History majors love meeting him," Neil grinned. "Vlad Dracula, of course."
Four doors down, Laurence looked up. He swore he had just heard someone scream.
"HOLY -!!"
Yup, he had heard someone scream. Sighing, Laurence filled a syringe with enough tranquilizers to kill a horse and tested it.
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Kana: Well, everyone had an 'alternate' in this world, so I decided to give Alucard one too. Too bad his alternate is still a Catholic, albeit a Catholic vampire. And I know that medicine shouldn't work on vampires with them being dead and all, but this is a society that I had used for original stories a lot, so they have perfected medicine to work on the dead.
Review Responses:
Chedder: (like the village?) A lot of my popular stories have been done before, but I don't think enough people have hacked manga scan sites to read ahead, so yeah :D I am full of win. Thanks so much.
mase88: (Le GASP) Canon? What is this canon you speak of? Me hates canon! Too boring! Anyway, now that that is out of my system, thank you. I didn't realize it would be actually canon.
MegFallow: No! You fail! I kid, I kid (hugs) that is a very good answer, but no. All of my fics are manga or OVA based, since the other anime freaked me out a little (the fact that I watched it when I was ten/eleven also comes into play). Iscariot was feeling little love in my fics, so I decided to involve them. In the worst way possible, but yeah.
ThroughtheShadows: Don't die yet! I have so few fans and I can't spare any of them. When people say 'can you spare me a few fans for the bus?' I say 'No! I can't spare my fans! Get your own!' Anyway, yeah don't die -.-
Cannot fathom a PenName: As much as I love you hun, Neil is not you. Neil is Jesus in a ponytail. Anyway, you're so excited you have CAPS.
mint leafs: Sup Minty. A thriller novel? You make me feel like James Patterson :D
Candra de Innocentia: Thriller! Let us listen to Michel Jackson and so the moonwalk!
LadyRaylen: All of my idea are a little off. Now, if I could only write a little better…:
End Responses
Another chapter is out, lets celebrate my reviewing!
