Abel Nightroad and the Wicked Wrath of Bradley:
Chapter Three: Abel's last hunt
Disclaimer: I do not own Trinity Blood or Fullmetal Alchemist. I make no profit from this. And just as a side note I do hope that all the characters are in-character for this one. Also I'd like to warn you of dark, graphic content ahead and some urine. I hope you don't mind. If you do please turn back and spare yourself.
Lastly, enjoy ;)
Cardinal Caterina Sforza was not a woman that many would dare to fuck with. From her hard, cold stare to the way that the corners of her mouth perpetually seemed to turn downwards she was a formidable picture of Vatican power.
Ages and ages ago it seemed, she had met with Abel Nightroad. The crusnik had saved her life and he'd vowed to protect humans. It was as simple as that.
Once upon a time the young Caterina had a crush on Abel, but she soon grew out of it. Her feelings for him merely changed, they never went away. There was nobody that she trusted more than Abel, there was no one else she would confide in like Abel and there was no one she respected like Abel.
She sat at her desk in the Vatican at AX headquarters. As the leader of the Vatican's special police task force, her work was never done and her praise was scant. Unlike her brother, she did not believe in forcing praise from others at the point of a gun or the edge of a knife.
The Contra Mundi was dead thanks to her dear Abel and Caterina knew that there was no way that anyone could ever repay Abel for what he'd done. Not everyone looked at killing family and kin as necessary, or even normal.
Though the old threat was dead and the New Human Empire and Vatican were actually pursuing diplomatic relationships; there was still much work to be done and much evil afoot.
As of late, the last members of the Rosenkruz had been found . . . all dead. Evidently, someone had brutally slaughtered the last of the Contra Mundi's old terrorist organization.
Hitting her keyboard, she scrolled through various holographic recreations of the savage killings. Blood was everywhere in the holograms; organs had been shredded and flesh ripped.
Whoever had done this was a ghost; there wasn't a hair, fibre of cloth or fingerprint that didn't belong to the victims. If Caterina didn't know any better she would have said that Cain Knightlord had returned from the dead and finished them all off.
Caterina was interrupted from her investigation by a knocking at her door. "Come in," she ordered, putting a hand on the gun she'd hidden under her desk. This deep in AX, security should have dealt with any traitors or spies but one can never be certain. At any rate, the woman had reflexes like a panther and could shoot with the best of them.
To her great surprise, none other than Abel Nightroad walked into the room. Almost instantly the hard woman's eyes softened imperceptibly; her monocle glinted in the late night illumination.
"Computer," she ordered to the device built into the wood matrix of the desk, "deactivate files and go into sleep mode."
Without a word, the holographic displays and keyboard vanishes; leaving nothing but a polished desk of armour oak wood from the forests of Kiev Principality.
"Abel," she breathed as she saw her oldest and dearest friend enter. The brightly robed cardinal stood up. Something was dreadfully wrong with the crusnik, very wrong. "What's the matter?" she asked, feeling fear and uncertainty grab her heart like an icy hand.
Abel slowly walked into the room, possessing none of the normal cheer and goofiness that strangers came to expect of him. The crusnik had seen worse injuries; but these were mental injuries he was nursing.
Nightroad walked in, wearing nothing but a plain black shirt and slacks with worn shoes and a second hand belt. His long hair hung back freely and there was about a day's worth of stubble on his face. His eyes were slightly red; either he'd been crying for a while or couldn't get to sleep.
This was alarming; Caterina knew Abel better than anybody. She knew his life story and what happened to his sister Lilith but she'd never seen him this way.
Abel looked like a mess; like he just got up out of bed. His face was twitching as well, making small little facial expressions which were gone just as you saw them. She wasn't sure if he was going to hold it together or lose it completely. "My God," she breathed, "are you alright?"
The normally calm and collected Duchess of Milan couldn't fully keep the worry and panic out of her voice.
Getting up out of her chair, she ran towards Abel. In a disturbing move, Abel actually fell towards her and hugged her. He didn't walk up to her and embrace her, he fell into his arms as if he had no more strength left to stand.
"Caterina," came Abel's dry, inflectionless tone. He held onto her like he was afraid she would vanish; his head rested in the crook of her neck.
Though she was almost the opposite of motherly or warm, Caterina recognized that she needed to do something for Abel; it didn't matter what.
Carrying the man over to her table, Caterina set Abel down in her chair like a sack of potatoes. The crusnik slumped back into the chair, though he looked anything but comfortable.
Face full of concern, Caterina knelt down before Abel and put her hands on his knee. "Abel," she spoke gently. When he didn't respond, she put a bit more steel into her voice, "Abel!"
This seemed to snap him out of his neurotic funk. Momentarily, Abel looked over himself as if seeing his slovenly attire for the first time.
In a most embarrassed fashion, Abel groaned quietly and began to rub the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, Duchess," he said flatly and sadly, "I don't mean to drag you down with me."
"Don't say that," she hissed, irritated by this depression of his, "Don't you dare to deprecate yourself like common trash. You're nothing like that, Abel."
Abel said nothing. Filled with nervous energy, he began to rub up his thumbs against his middle fingers. He always did this when he was at a loss for words or was uncertain; it had seemed like years since he'd done his funny little finger rub.
Reluctantly, almost embarrassed, Abel asked Caterina, "Duchess, is it alright if you hear my confession? I would have gone to another priest or nun but," he swallowed as the words lodged in his throat, "it would have felt dishonest to confess to anyone but you."
Caterina blinked and schooled her features into a more professional cast. "Of course, Father Nightroad," she noticed that Abel cringed when she called him "Father."
Undiscouraged, Caterina continued. Clearing her throat she began, "How long has it been since your last confession, Abel."
Abel sighed. "I have never been to confession, my lady." He paused as if expecting a reprimand then went on. "I have gone into the confessional booth multiple times and admitted nothing but bald faced lies to the priests."
Abel began to speak with more assertion as he let his sins out for the first time. "I never once believed in any god or religion; no matter how much pain I or others felt and nothing I've seen has made me change my mind."
He breathed in deeply, a kind of rattling breath as if he were supressing tears. "Not to mention the fact that your brother uses the confessional booths as a trap for spies to set. So no, I have never confessed my sins until now; until now I thought I could handle it on my own."
He ran a hand through his silver hair and continued. "I merely pretend to believe in god in order to fit in with AX and the Vatican at large; I've been blessed to know many kind and righteous individuals here with AX."
"I am over a thousand years old and to date I have personally murdered more than seven millions humans by my own two hands as well as numerous Methuselah, though there are no exact statistics regarding vampire fatalities," he spoke the words with such dryness as if they were always rattling around in his head, making noise all the time and driving him fucking nuts.
"My sibling and I were test tube babies created by the United Nations to lead the Red Mars Colonization project. We had no parents and if we failed to perform there was always a very real risk of being injected with sodium pentathol and replaced with a new batch."
Abel leaned forward in his chair, his manner and storytelling becoming crisper and more intense. Caterina knew most of this story, but mostly through bits and pieces of what Abel had dropped over the years; this was the first time he'd told his story in its entirety.
"During Armageddon, I, Seth and my brother Cane sided with the colonists while Lilith; the original crusnik sided with the terrans." He paused to lick his lips, "Lilith truly cared for all people; during her life she never even killed a vampire. She thought about more than just her own tribe but all tribes." His voice became soaked in regret and bitterness; for Caterina had first found Abel in mourning for his beloved Lilith.
"I won't bore you, your eminence," Abel continued, resuming his finger rubbing, "I saw something recently which shook me."
Caterina was starting to understand what had Abel rattled, "The incident with the homunculus in Venice."
Abel nodded, a trace of emotion crept into his voice; Caterina almost thought it was fear.
"Yes, it was the homunculus. You know that he was never found; the anti-homunculus police unit arrived but all they found were the impaled bodies of the infants."
Abel sucked in a deep breath and continued. "I know it was all over the news; a tea room posing as a cover for a baby selling ring and all the babies were found impaled on sharpened wooden spears from anus to mouth."
Abel's finger rubbing was becoming faster and more consistent even as he fought to even his voice. "The difference is that I was there; I saw him murder one of the infants and when the police asked me to show up at the scene of the crime for official reasons I saw the babies all in a row on the poles."
His right hand was compulsively finger rubbing, while his left angrily clenched the armrest of the Duchess's chair. "I want to hunt," he hissed, "I don't want justice, I want revenge; I need to kill."
The crusnik's breathing started to become heavy, as if wrestling with a massive amount of anger. "All my life I've been the violent one; Cane was as gentle as a lamb before the crusnik nanomachines. I want to hurt people; I truly like it."
Caterina watched with measured gaze, knowing better than to interrupt Abel.
"I want to hunt, but every time I let lose the monster it never ends well," he bit down on his lower lip. "Every time I try it, it's better than sex and the price is the turning of my hopes and dreams to ash."
He gazed soulfully at his dearest friend. "Nothing is better than the high that comes from the crusnik killing spree and nothing is worse than the low where I realize that I'm not in control of my actions; the drug takes command of me and I'm just a puppet."
"More than anything," he seethed, "I want to find that fucking animal Bradley and feet his living eyeballs to the fucking rats!"
Abel then deflated in defeat, "And more than anything, I'm terrified that there is no moral difference between myself and Bradley."
Caterina nodded. She paused to weigh her words before speaking to Abel. "Do you honestly hold yourself as being the same as a child killer," sounded incredulous instead of sympathetic.
She laughed just a little bit, "Abel, wake the fuck up."
The sound of a swear word from the Duchess of Milan's mouth startled Abel even though her laugh caused him to feel anger towards his confidant.
"Abel, you have problems. If this has burned you out, I understand; the magnitude of this evil is monstrous but you are not the only one," her voice took a hard tone, like a mother telling her child to stop pitying himself.
"I can personally attest to having done things I'm not proud of myself, Abel," Caterina continued, "Unfortunately none of us can forget our sins and perhaps it is too much to hope for forgiveness."
Caterina stood up and looked down at Abel, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Abel, you can be whatever you want to be and nothing I or anyone else can do a thing to stop you."
"Just stop pitying yourself!" she hissed at Abel. "You know that I will be there to help you until the day one of us is dead."
"What you saw was monstrous, Abel," Caterina continued, "That such things actually happen is proof that devils walk among us even if you do not believe in god."
She spoke, and as she spoke she was at her most vulnerable, "Abel," she spoke barely above a whisper, a single tear fell down her cheek, "Let us help you Abel, please; I cannot imagine what you are going through but please, just let me help. Don't do this to yourself."
Abel stared up into Caterina's face, his finger rubbing finally stopped. Immediately, Abel felt heat rise to his face and an uncomfortable sweat came over him.
At last he could help it no longer; Abel lunged forward and hugged Caterina like she was going to vanish before his eyes. She would die, they would all die; Esther, Caterina, the Professor. Even Tres Inques the android would fall to pieces and rust before Abel would die.
Immortality was a curse; it was also the ultimate form of revenge. Abel went through life, everything he saw dying before his eyes like mayflies. Though he loved fiercely, the burn of loss never listened.
To others though, like his twisted late brother; immortality was the ideal form of revenge. Cane never cared about the changing world, for he had no earthly attachment to anyone or thing. It gave him pleasure to know that the humans he tortured would die, their children would die, his grandchildren would die and their great grandchildren would die but he'd always be there to turn their laughter into squeals of pain.
Abel was a drug addict and violence was his drug; he couldn't stop being an addict. All he could do was stop being violent, become the happy, luckless clown who took ridiculous amounts of sugar in his tea. He really, honestly wished that he could be that person but he wasn't.
Abel stood in the shower, lathering and rinsing himself. The hot water helped calm him down and the act of cleaning his body made him feel as if his crimes were falling away.
As the scalding water fell on him, Abel knew that he was at a crossroads. He did not want to be a violent man, despite his promise to defend humanity; yet how could he not resort to violence when animals like Bradley were on the loose.
Before the crusnik there was nothing but pain and uncertainty. Yet for all his depression, Abel felt a small bit of hope; the choice really was his. The problem was confessed, he could stop it. Twelve steps and all that entailed; if you believed that crap.
It was true for terrans and methuselah, no growth could come without some kind of pain and uncertainty and for the first time in a while, Abel felt like there was really something he could grow into.
Abel was interrupted from his musings by the sound of the bathroom door opening. The sudden influx of cold air made the crusnik slightly uncomfortable. "Who's there?" Abel asked hesitantly.
"Is it Sister Sofia?" he asked, after the name of the new nun. "Is that you Caterina?" The intruder made no verbal answer. "I'm warning you, I'm naked."
In reply, a gunshot went off and Abel took a shotgun blast to the chest.
The impact was so great that Abel thought he'd been hit by a meteorite. The world became a blur and a great light shone before Abel's eyes. He fell backwards, grabbing the shower curtain as he did.
Abel struck the bottom of the bathtub hard; shower curtain clenched tightly in his hand.
He tried to suck in a breath but he felt like he was drowning and unable to die. Able glanced down with his eyes since his whole body seemed to be paralyzed. There in his chest where his heart should be was a large, gory hole from which blood was pouring down the drain.
Abel twitched, like a stroke victim suffering from paralysis. Only his old, tired, expressive eyes were capable of any kind of motion.
The shooter looked dispassionately at the giant bloodstain on the wall right behind where Abel had been standing; then he remembered his manners and tucked his shotgun back into his belt.
The scalding hot water stopped as the shooter turned off the faucet; steam began to pour out of the room and on top of everything Abel was feeling cold.
Most maddening of all, Abel couldn't see who had shot him through the heart; any other human or vampire would be dead by now. Without the nanomachines activated Abel would be helpless; the shock to his system would put the nanomachines to work healing the wound and as such their combat abilities would be locked from him for a short period.
Had his nanomachines been activated to even forty percent, nothing short of losing his head would make Abel even blink.
The world was tilted sideways from the angle he fell, the shower curtain falling over his body. Suddenly, a hand cold and hard as Iron grabbed Abel's arm and hoisted him into a rough sitting position. Already the bleeding had stopped and the wound was starting to heal.
His lungs however were too badly damaged to breathe so Abel still had that water board feeling of drowning. Yet none of that compared when Abel saw the stone face of Bradley.
The rogue homunculus had left his eye patch behind, proudly showing off his ultimate eye like some hideous badge of evil and power. Nothing else had changed about Bradley; from hid tunic of furs, hide boots and flowing crimson cape he was a nightmare on two legs. It was no mean feat that he managed to sneak past multiple layers of Vatican security without being detected.
It was nearly impossible to tell that he was just the same as the smiling, fatherly man from the tea room. His friendly features were now cold and hard as granite; life and biology had hardened Bradley to all forms of pain and companionship. He lived alone when he was completely surrounded.
"You're alive," said Bradley dispassionately, "that's good."
In an attempt to make himself more comfortable, Bradley took off his cape of unknown fabric and folded it up. Then, he took the folded cape and placed it down so he could kneel in front of the shower; this way he was eye to eye with the prone priest.
Never before in his life had Abel been so terrified. For nearly ten minutes he would be helpless and though he had been shot, stabbed, electrocuted, tortured and beaten through the course of his long life Abel was truly terrified at what the insane homunculus might do.
Bradley sighed, though he was an unreadable wall with that disapproving scowl of his. "When you first came into my shop, I spied on you briefly with my ultimate eye and right away I saw the crusnik nanomachines in your body. Even now they are assisting your natural healing which is quite impressive."
Bradley licked his lips, his face devoid of any of the subtle facial twitches found in a human. It was like looking into the face of the combat doll, Father Inques—if Father Inques was a psychopathic cannibal driven by a bottomless well of rage.
The ultimate eye stood out brightly compared to Bradley's green ordinary eye. "I'm not going to kill you, father," he admitted. Abel could only twitch and lay naked, covered in his own blood. Abel's already pale skin was sallow and blue from oxygen deprivation and his tongue poked out like he was thirsty.
It was when Bradley reached out and gently caressed Abel's throat like a lover, did the crusnik lose his bladder control for the first time in his life.
Bradley took no notice of the smell of urine; if anything he was flattered to know that he caused someone else so much pain and misery. He continued to gently caress Abel's neck in a sensual manner. "I won't kill you because I'm not capable of that level of decency."
In a more casual and friendly manner, he told Abel, "The woman you spoke to, Caterina; she's alive if the sedative I gave her didn't cause her to stop breathing."
At the mere mention of his beloved Caterina, Abel began to shake like an insect in its death throes. His paralyzed vocal cords started to make noise but his jaw wouldn't cooperate; so all that came out was mumbling.
Bradley eyed Abel's wound, he added idly, "The solid slug in my gun was laced with potent poison; I couldn't take the chance you would utilize the crusnik nanomachines against me. So we have a bit more time now."
In a condescending manner, Bradley patted Abel on the cheek lightly. His cold features switched briefly to his friendly façade. "I know you're a busy man, so I'll try to keep this brief."
Bradley dropped the façade but did not take up the granite wall face. Instead, his features took on a cast of passion and fascination; here was his big moment. "Do you have friends, Abel; people that you love?" The way he used the name "Abel" was like it was a swear word.
"Surely you have someone dear to you—I'm going to get them." Bradley seethed, saliva flooding his mouth and on the verge of foaming at the mouth. "Do you hear me? I will break their necks, I will make them suffer!"
Bradley leaned in until his and Abel's faces were nearly touching; the ultimate eye burned into Abel's brain.
"Be afraid," Bradley hissed, "you've got every bloody reason to be afraid of me." With that he began to laugh; the chuckling from Bradley was frightening because he wasn't just laughing, this was from the heart and one hundred percent sincere. It was the threatening laughter of one who's in control and makes all the life and death decisions.
At that, Bradley began to stand up and pick up his cloak off the bathroom floor. "Before I go," he said in that sterile, stone voice, "I need to compliment you on your disguise."
Bradley gave Abel a sly smirk, "You've successfully fooled everyone you meet into thinking that you're a jolly, happy duck; I couldn't have done better myself."
With a laugh, Bradley was gone and Abel was left alone, naked . . . vulnerable.
Minutes passed, then some more and then.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" it was a cry of rage that nearly tore apart the Vatican; the sheer force of it made walls shake, plaster fall from the ceiling. Glass shattered and in her sedated sleep, even Caterina stirred.
A being flew from Abel Nightroad's little bathroom, smashing through walls and doors they were nothing. Whatever it was, it moved faster than anything outside of mythology.
The wall of Caterina's room was knocked down as if by a wrecking ball.
There stood Abel with his eighty percent crusnik activation form; utterly nude but now instead of being vulnerable his nudity was a mark of a feral and animalistic nature. His claws and red eyes attested to a fire unrestrained and a need to rip flesh like paper.
His lips had turned black, as if stained by all the blood he'd drank from terran and Methuselah. Out of his back two giant black wings sprouted. He was no longer a priest of the Catholic Church—he'd become the devil himself!
There on her bed lay Caterina, breathing shallow; evidently Bradley's sedative wasn't too strong.
A large clawed hand reached; a hand that if he so wanted could slice Caterina into a parts meant small enough to be cooked in a tasty stew.
Yet those clawed hands which were literally sharper than scalpels, adjusted the bed sheets, tucking in the woman as if she were a little girl.
A loving, fiercely protective look came over the crusnik's face. He may be monstrous and a monster without peer, but he had standards. He loved with loyalty and justice.
Gritting his massive teeth, Abel growled as his nostrils caught a scent; not human, but sterile-human.
"Bradley," came Abel's distorted voice. A long black tongue flicked out like a snake and tasted the air. He had Bradley's scent. He had Bradley's face memorized.
If Bradley wanted to live, then he had better grow a beard, move to Africa and learn to speak Swahili. Nah, that would only delay the inevitable. His end was coming.
Security was rushing towards them and Abel knew that they wouldn't recognize him in this state, naked and demonic. Anyway, he would hate to hurt someone who didn't deserve it.
Raising his twenty foot wide wings, Abel bunched his legs and took off, flying straight through the roof and into the night sky.
He rose up like a rocket and soared like a bat outta hell. Abel's vision could see everything of the city below; the citizens in the Vatican's busy streets were as plain to him as if they stood only feet in front of him.
Abel would find Bradley; it would be his greatest hunt to date. This time though, he's wipe Bradley's face clean off his head. There would be no escape.
For once, Abel thought gleefully, here was an enemy which he would have absolutely no problem hurting. Quite the opposite really; the worse he would hurt the homunculus the better he would feel.
Bradley might try the coward's way and use hostages and human shields; Abel would count on it. The homunculus would take no hostages and the crusnik would take no prisoners.
Abel's last hunt was about to begin; a battle between monsters—a family feud between demons of hell.
Let the games begin.
And that wraps up this chapter :D I hope you all enjoyed it very much ;) Lately my work has grown so much darker but trust me that very soon I'll be doing some more comical work. Next I'll get to work on an episode of the Big Hellsing and a very special Halloween story which I'll reveal the details of in a while.
There is one more chapter in this story and it's Bradley centric. I do hope that you enjoy it :D I do it all for you!
Oh, and here's me promoting a few of my favorite authors. Be sure to check out Blacksand1's new story Hostilites; it's witty, funny and at times powerful and intense. It would be worth your time. Also be sure to check out the Gallery of Captain Lycan, who writes X-men and Hellsing crossovers like nobody's busines.
Ta
Master of the Boot