Captain Nathans was just piloting the plane into Los Angeles' airspace when he noticed Alucard's presence behind him in the cabin. He couldn't hear the vampire over the roar of the engines, but the tell-tale shiver of freezing terror that ran down his spine in the vampire's presence was a clear indicator of his visitor.
"Alucard, we're almost to the airport," Nathans said, glancing back to see the red-coated monster watching the passing city through the windshield. Nathans' co-pilot did everything he could to pretend the powerful vampire was not smiling just a foot behind him. The captain was the only person, aside from Sir Integra and Walter, who could ignore the instinctual terror Alucard's very presence stirred up and act almost normal around him.
"Yes. And I don't plan on waiting anymore," Alucard said, his voice strained with the last vestiges of control he'd learned over his long afterlife.
Nathans looked back in time to see the vampire put on his red wide-brimmed hat and caught the intense look of concentration and excitement on the old vampire's face.
The captain immediately caught on. "You've got three hours, Alucard."
"Then I will see you then, Captain." The vampire actually winked at the captain before disappearing into the body of the plane.
"Make sure your seat belt is buckled!" Nathans advised, and the co-pilot nodded vigorously. His fingers were stiffened with fear from the vampire and the dread of what Alucard was up to and he had a hard time getting the belt to buckle.
Just as the latch finally clicked into place around his chest, there was a thunderous noise around them and an alarm started blaring at them.
"What the hell did he do?!" The co-pilot roared over the noise.
"Alucard's not one for patience. He took the express shuttle down," Nathans yelled back as he took the plane's joysticks in his hands. "Now, you need to get that door closed, and I suggest you do it quickly."
As the other man worked to get the opened emergency door closed before they landed, Nathans shook his head. "Just a little hop across the pond, Walter said. Nothing out of the ordinary, he said…."
The air violently whipped Alucard's red coat around and battered his body as he plummeted towards the city scape underneath him. His mad grin grew wider as he fell towards the ground at an increasing speed, and Alucard took in his initial sights of the City of Angels.
So, this is the City of Angels? Devils would fit in the décor better. I can smell the brimstone from here.
Even with the air whipping past him, he was able to take in the scents of the city that was rushing towards him (brimstone not really included). Blood, oil, death, smog, and various rotten, fleshy scents seemed to make up the entire city. The powerful odors of death and evil sent long dormant chills racing through his old spine. The lights of the city reminded him of the torches of enemy camps from his younger days.
He looked up and saw the private jet making its final descent towards the airport, and grinned.
"Captain Nathans, you didn't blink under pressure as usual," Alucard said to himself, sounding almost annoyed. "I can't decide whether I find such steadfastness admirable or boring."
Alucard landed on a tall skyscraper as gently as a leaf fell to the ground, and found himself buffeted by the city. Sirens blared across the city, obnoxiously loud to the vampire's ears. There was a constant loud hum of people talking, screaming, laughing, and crying. The myriad of intense smells and the still, humid heat that had enclosed Los Angeles all attacked him at once. It only took a few seconds for Alucard to feel right at home in earthly version of Hell.
A sudden scent caught the vampire's attention, and his interest in the city was forgotten as he zeroed in on the new scent. It was a strange smell, nothing like Alucard had every smelled before. It was…exotic, dangerous. The metal smell of blood in this scent was so powerful it made Alucard lick his lips hungrily. Unless there were multiple serial killers on the loose, Alucard knew it was the scent of his prey, was nearby since it was strong.
Which meant the strange killer was close.
The old vampire agent was looking for to this case with renewed vigor. Most cases he was sent on were simply clean-up missions, and so something different was an exciting idea. This killer was strong, fast, and brutal; it promised a great fight, something that Alucard would enjoy. It might even have been the one.
"Come out, Demon!" Alucard called out, remembering the city's newspaper's name for the mysterious serial killer. His right hand went under his coat and wrapped his long fingers around the handle of his silver pistol (which had the power and weight of a small cannon). Me, calling something else a demon? How hypocritical, he chastised himself cheerfully. "I'm looking forward to our meeting, and I don't like to be kept waiting!"
A slight breeze stirred, gently billowing out his coat in its smooth, playful fingers. Alucard knew that his prey was watching him. He could feel unfamiliar eyes watching his every move intently. This only made him smirk, his fangs poking out between his lips. He grabbed his gun and pulled it free from his coat, fingers itching around its familiar weight. He lifted up his gun and held it aloft. Spinning in a slow circle and watching the tops of the buildings surrounding his position, Alucard narrowed his eyes, waiting for any sign of his adversary to show it.
The wait was not long.
One second, the vampire was standing alone; the next, three dots of red light in the shape of a triangle appeared over his heart. He recognized the dots as a laser sight (though seeing three was strange). He managed to dodge aside just in time to be missed by the blinding flash of light that came from nowhere and shot past him. Part of a metal fire ladder behind him melted when the light hit it.
Alucard glanced at the dripping metal of the ladder, then looked around, but saw nothing to explain the light, or where it could have come from. The burning metal overpowered the killer's scent, and even his sharp eyes did not any evidence of where or how the Demon had attacked him.
Another flash of light, and this time Alucard noted the place it was shot from—a skyscraper a few buildings away and a few stories taller than the one he currently stood upon. He easily dodged the second shot, and took off running towards its source.
An invisible enemy using highly advanced weaponry? This wasn't going to be the usual clean up mission he was assigned, where he would be fighting dozens of human-turned-ghoulish monsters (zombies with fangs).
Alucard didn't even bother to stop the delighted laugh that escaped him as he jumped across rough tops that no human could have managed. He jumped from roof-to-roof and grinned in excitement.
The Predator was already curious, having watched the human jump from the low-flying airship and land on a building without hurting itself or dying. Even one of his species might have injured himself after such a long fall. Now, the young Yautja's curiosity was becoming wariness as the human stood on the building several hundred yards away and a peculiar thing happened.
There was no heat signature for the Predator to zero in on. Amid the heat of the city (from the warm steam and leftover heat from the day) the human hunter was not made up of the usual yellow, red, orange, and black in his thermal vision. Instead, this one was black.
A humanoid shape that was solid ebony. Strange, considering that only dead things were black…
The human pulled out a standard weapon, an over-sized pistol, and the Predator took the movement as a challenge towards him. He whole-heartedly answered the call with a shot from his plasma canon. When the human dodged the first and second shots from his plasma cannon with exceptional ease and grace, he became intrigued. The human actually started racing towards his location and jumping over spaces between the buildings that were impossible for a human to make.
It was when this dead-like human started running up the side of the skyscraper he was atop of, the Predator was momentarily stunned. Having never seen a human move like that before (even Yautja could not blatantly ignore gravity so easily), he decided it was time to find another stage to battle on. Tapping a few keys on his wrist computer, the Predator disabled his cannon and took off at a sprint across the apartment roof he was on. His long strides and heavy weight actually left dents in the thin-metal roofing.
Within seconds, Alucard was on the roof and following closely behind the invisible Demon. His footsteps sounded tinny compared to the thunderous sounds the other creature made as it ran on the metal roof ahead of him. He laughed aloud.
"I love a good hunt!" Alucard shouted in glee as he whipped his gun forward and fired off several rounds. The blasts echoed off the surrounding buildings, making tremendous noise.
The Predator leapt off the tall building and the silver bullets with the Hellsing cross imprinted on them whizzed by harmlessly. He grabbed onto the gutter pipe attached to the wall and held onto it as he landed on the lower roof of another building.
Alucard was right behind him as he jumped off and fired at the roof below his falling body. His eyes were wide and insane with elation. He landed on the bullet-ridden roof, the last blast of the gun still resounding around him. He straightened up slowly, almost warily, looking around at the storage buildings on the roof.
The small storage sheds could offer cover to whatever he was hunting, and he found the sudden silence around him deafening. His grin grew as he emptied his gun's clips, the empty magazines bouncing off the metal roof loudly.
"Whatever you are, you're certainly good at running," Alucard called out, reaching into his belt for extra clips. He slowly walked forward as he spoke loudly, his tone one of challenge. "However, I came here to find out how good you are at fighting!" The gun clips slide into the guns with a satisfied click. "Come out and face me!" he roared.
There was a sudden whistle as something sliced through the air behind him, and Alucard whipped around, gun up, just in time to see a 9 foot long spear whizz by harmlessly. It would have gone straight through his chest if he hadn't moved.
The archaic looking spear buried itself halfway up the shaft in the wall of one of the storage sheds. Alucard began firing at the direction that the spear had come from, but the Predator had already relocated. Unsure where his prey was, the vampire began firing in all directions, the bullets made music as they ricocheted off the metal around. He was having too much fun trying to fund his prey; he didn't see the spear wrench itself out of the wall by an invisible hand.
Sudden movement behind him caused Alucard to whip around, bringing the Casull into his sights. His red eyes opened in slight surprise as the spear (wielded by an invisible foe) thrust itself through his body. Blood poured onto the ground under the vampire. Alucard, completely impaled, was lifted off the ground and flung across the roof with inhuman strength. He crashed through a storage shed and fell into a crumpled heap on the roof, momentarily stunned.
Alucard hadn't been taken surprise of in a long time, and nobody got the best of him. Usually.
Yet, there he was, lying on the ground like a pile of noodles; all limp and unable to move. After another minute and with a slight grunt, the vampire was able to right himself. Now in a sitting position, he looked up and saw…something…come forward from the shadows. Alucard could see the movement, and was able to make out the outline of the basic humanoid shape, but there was no detail. Thought its scent was overpowering, it was easy to see how the killer snuck up on its human victims—it was completely invisible when not moving, and even moving it simply looked like a heat mirage.
Interesting camouflage, the vampire thought. He looked at the wound in his stomach (a gaping hole the size of his fist), studying the morbid visage intensely. A hand encased in a while glove swiped up some of the blood and brought it to his lips. His long tongue lapped at the blood and his eyes became alive.
"I haven't tasted my own blood in years!" he laughed loudly, and this in itself caught off the approaching hunter off-guard.
Any creature would be shrieking and screaming in fear and pain and dying from shock. Yet this human is…laughing? Before the Predator could ponder the matter further, he was standing over Alucard. He raised his combi-stick over his head to bring down on the strange, cold human, but Alucard moved at an impossible speed. He kicked the Predator in the chest with surprising strength, making the alien stumble backwards several steps.
The Predator straightened himself and let out a mighty roar as Alucard started to get back to his feet, laughing the entire time. The roar was loud and seemed to shake his very core, like an earthquake. Had he been a normal human, Alucard probably would have been pissing himself in terror at the awful sound.
In his heat vision, the alien could see a spot of white in the chest area of the ebony human shape. The spear that went right through him wasn't even slowing the human down, and that would have made an older hunter pause in curiosity.
Instead, the Predator marched forward towards the laughing Alucard and back-handed him across the face with enough force to remove his head from his body, sending him flying several feet away. Alucard had only just hit the roof and slid about a foot over the hot metal when the Predator's strong hands unclosed around his ankle. The Predator dragged Alucard a few feet away (the vampire squirming the entire time) and with superhuman strength lifted the vampire off the ground by his leg. He swung the vampire's body around until it smashed through a small shed, the building collapsing on the vampire-turned-rag-doll.
After several seconds of silence, the Predator was satisfied his prey was dead. He turned around towards the cityscape and sent out another loud, bellowing roar, a triumphant call announcing his newest kill.
There was a click and movement within the pile of metal and the Predator whipped around to see Alucard leering out from the pile, blood dripping down his face from a gaping wound in his forehead. Instead of being dead (like a normal human) the vampire smiled and raised his gun at the Predator's chest.
The Predator's outline belayed his size, but not his speed; the shape was already dodging to the side, but Alucard tracked the movement and squeezed off several roads that hit home. One in the arm, and one in the calf of the thing. Fluorescently glowing green blood began to flow freely, making the alien's invisibility no longer valid.
Needing time to think of a new strategy, the Predator took off as fast as his injuries allowed. The blood dripped onto the rooftop as he jogged towards the edge and jumped, disappearing into the night.
"You can only run so far!" Alucard called into the night as he emerged from the rubble. He dusted his coat off and the wounds in his body healed instantly. "Well, this is certainly become an interesting hunt. I'm actually starting to enjoy myself," the old vampire said with a chuckle. His glanced at the trail of bright green blood drops and his fangs flashed.
"I think I'm actually starting to have fun."