Alucard and Seras repaired to the roof when Integra called them, informing them that airships had been spotted approaching the London airspace. It would be where Seras would watch for anyone foolish enough to attempt invading the mansion. Where she would shoot them down from. Alucard, on the other hand, basked in the moonlight a moment, and drew in the night air.
"I smell nostalgia," he said, his face turned up to the moonlight. "Of men being impaled, of women being disembowelled, of children being burned alive and the elderly being riddled with shot. It is the smell of war, my Seras," he said. "This smell of death."
Seras nodded, and they stood together in silence a moment. "I can smell a Catholic," she replied at last, and pointed out across the Channel. "That greasy fellow who represented Iscariot and insulted Sir Integra."
"Oh?" Alucard asked, amused.
Seras nodded. "Anderson has memories of meeting Maxwell when he was a child, a nobody son of a whore, and already with ambitions of greatness," she said. "I'm prepared to wager he's as mad as the major," she added with a slight, smirking smile.
Alucard laughed. "I will count myself very fortunate this day indeed, if the Catholic also brings an army against me!" he crowed with delight.
Seras shook her head fondly, a smile on her face, and stepped up to her master and straightened his tie. "Go on Master," she said softly. "Go have fun, make war, stain all of London red and then drink every drop of blood that you spill. Find Sir Integra. I'll kill whoever comes here, and then come join you," she promised.
Alucard grinned and wrapped one steel-strong arm around Seras' waist, pulling her body flush against his own. "I look forward to it," he informed her lowly, his red eyes burning darkly as he studied her face for a moment. Then, ever so slowly, Alucard bent and, ever-so-gently, he laid his lips over hers. "My Seras Victoria, my No-Life-Queen," he said softly when he drew back.
Seras blinked and flickered in her master's arms. She did have to keep at least a little bit focused on who she was, or the Schrödinger's powers threatened to undo her, just as they had been intended to undo her master. She looked up at Alucard, her red eyes as large and innocent then as they had ever been when they were still blue. Then her gaze hardened.
"Master," she said, and her tone was warning. "If you do that again, this will be a short war, because I will not have the patience for a long one."
Alucard grinned roguishly, and kissed Seras a second time, more passionately than before. Before, it had been a tender pressing of lips, a gentle caressing. This kiss was hungry, and had Seras gasping for air that she didn't really need when Alucard released his hold on her lips.
"A very short war," Seras promised, her eyes dark and a blush staining her cheeks.
Alucard laughed that deep, insane, delighted laugh of his, and removed his arm from around her waist. He was still laughing when he exploded into a great swarm of bats, and their chirping sounded like his laughter as they flew to London.
~oOo~
Seras had to move between the interior of the mansion and the roof a couple of times, collecting up her artillery that, if a man had been using them, would have definitely required jokes be made about whether or not he was compensating for something. She was ready when the first airship came into range of her weaponry, and didn't waste a shot.
The first shots she fired from her new Harkonen Mk 2 (semi-automatic, 30mm canon weighing in at three-hundred and forty-five kilos, with a maximum range of four kilometres) had to stop the V-1 missiles that were being fired at them in a curtain barrage from the airship. Once the airspace over Hellsing was clear again though, Seras put her next round – an explosive steel incendiary round – straight through the centre of the balloon.
Seras had two 'Vladimir' wide-area saturation, high-explosive grenade launchers on hand as well as her Harkonen Mk 2. She quite liked the name, even if they did have enough kick to them to send even her sliding back a little on the roof where she stood. She also liked what they did to the gondola and the balloon of the airship when she fired them, before quickly switching back to the Harkonen Mk 2 so that she could keep firing upon the enemy.
The four shots immediately following the 'Vladimirs' went to each of the engines, and she watched grimly as the thing went down in a mess of flames.
It wasn't over though, for all the captain's compliments to her marksmanship and the cheering of his 'Wild Geese' mercenaries.
The enemy were like cockroaches, they were so persistent and hard to kill. But really, that was alright.
Picadilly, Soho, Covent Garden... they were nothing but ash by that time already, and London was synonymous with Hell itself, a comparison not helped by the fact that Alucard was fighting there, for all that he was efficiently killing the vampires and ghouls, giving at least some people a chance to run, to live a little longer. But what was Hell without the Devil?
"I don't like London," the captain said over the comms as the enemy, those that had survived the crash picked themselves up.
"But the normal people there, good people, they didn't have anything to do with this war. The war and the vampires didn't have anything to do with them either. That crazy major, Section Thirteen, the Last Battalion, Hellsing... it all meant nothing to the normal people... and now they're all dead. I can't forgive that," Pip said solemnly. "So, let's avenge London. It's practically our duty, at this point, to slaughter them all without mercy."
The enemy was either heedless or senseless, as they only waited long enough to count their numbers and munitions before they were charging the mansion on foot.
The mercenaries, concious of their inability to stand up against the vampiric enemy in a close-quarters battle, had peppered the grounds with landmines and claymores loaded with ball-bearings, perfect for bringing down large numbers of the enemy from a distance, and while the bombs blew up the enemy from below, Seras picked her shots from above, still firing her incendiary rounds from her Harkonen Mk 2.
The mercenaries opened fire not long after, and the surviving vampires took shelter in a ditch left by some of the earlier explosions. Normal humans would have retreated. Vampires with a thirst for blood simply waited for the bullets and bombs to run out, or for their leader to make a way for them.
Their leader certainly tried.
But Seras was on the roof, armed, and experienced with using her third eye. When the one leading the enemy attempted to make a way for her men by capturing the mercenaries in an illusion, Seras started to fire upon her, and Seras had excellent aim.
With the terrifying illusion dispelled, and the entire torso of the vampire in charge spread out over a five-square-metre area, Seras returned to picking off the other vampires. That filthy thing, she would bag the head of. Her master might enjoy the snack. She'd already had two Nazi creations, she had no desire to devour a third, but her master wasn't as picky an eater as she was.
Seras took a deep breath, tasting the night air rather than because she needed to fill her lungs, and ejected the last spent shell onto the roof.
The invading force was dead. Not one of them had made it to within a hundred yards of the front door. The mansion was intact, the mercenaries alive, and... the windows were all blown out.
Seras sighed as she looked from the busted glazing to the captain. "How did that happen?" she asked.
"You may not have noticed, Mignionette, but the enemy did return fire once they'd taken cover," the man answered her with an amused smirk.
Seras nodded in resigned acceptance. "I don't know if more will come here," she admitted, "but I think they're busy choking on London. I'll keep my comms up," Seras said with a gesture to her ear-piece, "but I'm heading to the main war. You all hold, and let me know if any more airships appear in the airspace here."
"Aye!" the men agreed, and saluted her.
Seras nodded, checked her weapons and, rather than simply vanishing as the Schrödinger's would have, as she had before, she took to the skies and flew to London. The aerial view would let her see where she needed to be.
~oOo~
"We have come for you! We are the righteous soldiers of the Angel of Death!" declared Maxwell from within his glass case as he hung beneath a helicopter, on the back of a jeep and surrounded by microphones. "Tonight, the world below shall know justice!"
Seras frowned from where she flew, above him, and then smirked as a wicked idea took her fancy. It was an idea that Integra would almost certainly approve of, and one that her master most definitely would, if he were only there to hear it. She swooped in around the rotor-blades of the choppers and then below. It was a mere nothing to cut the cables that Maxwell's jeep hung from, to flip it over so that when it landed, the chances were very good that the glass would hit the ground first and shatter. Maxwell would be trapped at the very least, but the only good murderous psychopath with delusions of adequacy and intoxicated with his own power was a dead one.
His screams were amplified by the microphones in the glass box with him until he crashed, and then those screams were abruptly cut off. Whether that was because he was dead, or because his amplification equipment had broken, Seras didn't care to check. The 'holy' army still continued on in battle formation, even without their insane commander.
Not long after, Seras found one of the people she was looking for.
"Are you alright Sir Integra?" she asked as she repulsed the Iscariot agents that had surrounded the Hellsing commander – and they were agents, not the soldiers that had come in and descended from the helicopters. "Any injuries?"
"I'm adequate," Integra answered. "How's headquarters?"
"Secure," Seras answered. "One airship attempted to attack. Their forces were repulsed completely. No losses on our side, though you will need a glazier and a landscaper from a few of the explosions."
"Very good," Integra praised.
Seras looked around at the Iscariot dogs present, and recognised two in particular. She hadn't ever met them herself, but Father Anderson had raised them, just as he'd raised Maxwell.
"Heinkel, Yumie," Seras greeted. "You're looking well for a couple of girls in a war-zone," she commented. "But then, Father Anderson trained you both, so I suppose that is to be expected."
The two flinched back, as though slapped by the greeting and the following comments.
Then Seras twitched, and a grin lit up her features as she turned to look the other way down the street. "Master," she cooed.
A figure formed out of the shadows there, a familiar figure in a great red coat.
"Seras," he returned lowly.
"I brought you a present," Seras said, and held out the bag with the head of the vampire that had led the charge against Hellsing.
Alucard grinned, opened his jaws wide, and swallowed the head down whole.
"Alucard," Integra started, her voice flat and unimpressed. "You seem to have gathered both the Vatican's army and the Last Battalion to this place," she noted, and glanced from the Vatican's army in ranks at one end of the street, past the Iscariot agents in their grey cassocks, and to the Last Battalion gathered at the other end of the street.
"I come for my orders, my lord and master, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing," Alucard answered eagerly. "Seras is perfectly capable of keeping you safe, even in the middle of the battlefield."
Seras chuckled. "Or I can take you to higher ground if you prefer," she offered with quiet simplicity and a commiserating smile.
Integra nodded slightly to the blonde vampire before turning to the No-Life-King. "Servant," she said. "Take heed. Here are your orders: with your silver gun, you will stain the white army crimson. Your iron gun shall stain the black army scarlet. I would know my foes by the stains of red you leave upon their chests, now: Search and Destroy!" she commanded. "Run them down! Do not let any of them leave the island alive!"
"My master," Alucard answered happily. "It shall be done as you command."
"Release Control Art Restriction: Zero. Announce your return, say the words and release your full power!" Integra commanded. "Now!"
"Take my master to higher ground, Seras," Alucard advised with a smile. "I want you to watch this."
Seras nodded, but gathered Yumie and Heinkel as well as Integra before she flashed up to the roof of one of the still-standing buildings nearby.
"Hey!" they both objected.
Seras hushed them absently and lay down along the edge of the roof to watch her master.
Alucard breathed out, calm and unperturbed as the armies advanced upon him from either side.
"Release Control Art Restriction Zero," he repeated. "Here standeth the Bird of Hermes, eating my own wings-!"
Both armies then opened fire upon him as they felt his power surge and grow.
"- to keep myself tame," Alucard finished, despite being barely held together by his own shadow, he was so filled with bullet holes.
Miles away in the Hellsing mansion, Alucard's coffin-lid peeled itself open, but it was not there that the effects were felt. Rather, from the shadowy mass that was Alucard, there erupted the truth of what he was, how long he had lived, all that he had consumed in his vast lifetime.
Soldiers in plate armour and still riding on their horses appeared. Priests of ages past – Catholic and Muslim alike – shambled out among them. A more incredible cross-section of the warriors of history had never existed, for there were soldiers that had once served Alucard when he had been human, and more soldiers from every army that he had faced since then. Even the recently consumed vampire Seras had given him was there, more whole now than she had been presented, and more deadly than before as she wielded her scythe in tandem with Tubalcain as he sent his impossible cards flying everywhere.
"You two would make no difference down there," Seras said as she turned slightly, just enough to look over her shoulder at Yumie and Heinkel. "You would be worthy foes elsewhere, but not in this time and place. All the same, I will not keep you if you truly wish to fight."
"What is it?" Heinkel asked, eyes wide with something akin to panic.
"How can something like that even exist?" Yumie added, her question a horrified whisper.
"This is the true face of the vampire Alucard," Integra answered, "for blood is the currency of the soul, the vehicle of life. It is the medium by which life can be transferred. To drink blood is to take the essence of a soul into oneself."
"No matter what you do," Seras said with a wistful sigh, "you will never be able to kill my Master. The Nazis came up with a good plan, but," she paused to giggle, "but I'm afraid I put a halt to that already."
Seras looked back down to the streets, and sighed at the sight of her Master, calling upon his consumed souls, his soldiers of centuries past. In rank and file behind him they appeared, ready to be commanded by their king once more, and once more he looked like the king he truly was. He wore elaborate plate armour, a great cape hung from his shoulders, and his hair flowed long and curled as his army charged past him, through the streets of a bloodied London in both directions. Both the white and the black armies were steadily overwhelmed by his own army of blood red.
The sun, when it rose, was blocked out from the streets of greater London by the corpses of two armies, raised high on pikes.
Yumie and Heinkel chose not to retreat to the Vatican with the few other remaining paladins of Iscariot that had not been overwhelmed by the initial release of the red tide. Rather, they regrouped and charged in, full speed. With some great searching, it was possible to see Yumie and Heinkel carving a path through Alucard's consumed souls.
They were nowhere near Alucard himself though. It was quite possible that they had no idea where the great enemy stood, but simply killed all they saw who did not wear the uniform of Iscariot.
Seras and Integra descended to the bloody street where they could greet Alucard properly, as they had not before when he came to Integra for orders. The street there was empty, save for the raised corpses above.
"My Count," Integra greeted solemnly. "You have returned."
Alucard knelt. "At your pleasure, my lady," he answered. His voice was different. The echo of all the souls was gone, since he had expelled them from his person for this most devastating of attacks, and there was a slight accent to his voice. Behind him, his cloak still billowed in a wind unfelt by any other, and orange shadows danced there.
"Master," Seras greeted softly, and knelt in front of him as he had knelt before Integra.
Alucard stood once more, a great and mighty figure in his armour.
"I couldn't tell from so far away, but I see now that you have grown a moustache," Seras commented as she looked up at him. "A beard too."
Alucard chuckled softly. "Yes, Seras," he said, and lay a large but gentle hand on her head. "My Seras," he said, and gently pulled her to her feet. "My Seras Victoria."
"My Master," Seras answered, and caressed his facial hair tenderly, not because it was facial hair, but because it was on his face, and it belonged there. This was his truest face. It was the face he had died with. At that moment, there was only her Master, not her master and all of his other souls as well, but just him.
Seras stretched up and lightly caressed Alucard's lips with her own. She felt him smile at the touch, lean in... and she bit down. His blood tantalised her taste-buds as her fangs cut into his lip, purer now than it had been when she drank it before. Untainted by the other millions of souls that, at that moment, continued to flood London's streets, seeking out the enemy and killing them, raising them up on pikes wherever they were found.
"I was right," she said when she pulled back.
"Oh?" Alucard asked softly, the heated look in his eyes matching her tender gaze.
Seras smiled up at him. "Your blood tastes different right now," she explained. "Less rich, but so much purer for not carrying all of those," she said with a gesture to where the red army could still be seen.
Alucard smiled again. "My Seras," he said again, fondly.
Seras smiled back. "My Master," she answered him.
Integra raised an eyebrow at the two vampires' antics, practically flirting in the middle of the battlefield, but kept her peace. They had time to flirt right now, and it seemed fitting that they should, somehow. Integra remembered her father telling her, long ago now, that he saw these great, terrible, immortal monsters, with their thirsts for battle, as pitiable children. They were pitiable children who were crying, begging, desperately seeking that one thing that eluded them – their own deaths.
Now here were two such monsters – the ancient Alucard, and the young Seras – surrounded by battle and simply standing there, staring into each others eyes as if they had finally found that one thing that all humans sought: the unconditional love of another. It was, in a way, poetic.
~oOo~
The armies in the streets were gone, save for Alucard's, and the armies in the skies had shot each other down very efficiently. Only one airship remained in the sky, and only three people remained in the streets.
No. There were four.
"Walter?" Integra called out when she saw the figure silhouetted there, eyes wide. "Walter, is that you?"
"It was Walter," Alucard corrected lowly, a frown on his face.
"Walter, what happened to you?" Seras asked sadly.
"What happened? I was captured, brainwashed, and turned into a vampire before being sent out on a suicide mission against my former master," Walter answered. "Is that what you want to hear?" he asked. "It is a lie. I am here on no one's orders but my own."
"Why?" Integra asked.
"No one can stop me," Walter said, declining to answer. "No one can stop my rebellion."
"Then you are as foolish and deluded as the garbage that attempted to invade Hellsing," Seras informed him, "and you are not Walter C. Dolnez, because that man was not a fool."
"Hello Reaper," Alucard said. "It's been said that an Englishman's hobby is growing old. They hide their minds and refuse glory. I suppose you are no longer an Englishman though. You were more beautiful with greying hair and covered in wrinkles than you are now. You were exemplary. Now... You disappoint me. So, you have become a more true Reaper."
"Yes," Walter agreed. "This world is but a blood-soaked, fleeting dream. With the rise of the sun, I am a Reaper. Fight me, Alucard!"
"We are nothing but dogs," Alucard said. "And dogs hunt for their master, not their own pleasure."
Alucard turned away from his old friend to his master.
Integra stood there still, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of the once-man who had been her butler, her tutor, her right hand, the one who had been her most trusted man. The shock had faded from her blue eyes now though, leaving hurt and betrayal to linger there behind a mask of apathy. A mask to hide the pain she was feeling. To hide the child within who cried and wailed and begged to know why.
"Master, what are your orders?" Alucard asked softly. "I can kill him, I can slaughter him without the slightest hesitation or remorse, because I am a monster," he said, and except for the way he said it, it sounded like the beginning of a familiar speech, one he had given before. "I am the one who holds the gun, the one who aims it. The one who loads the magazine and cocks the slide. I am the one who chambers the round and releases the safety, but..."
The last time Alucard had said these things to Integra, it had been over the phone before he went to slaughter the police of Rio, who were being manipulated by Millennium. The last time he had spoken these words, he had been eager and grinning and hungering for battle.
This time, the words were said quietly, gently. Walter had been a friend, a comrade, and a part of their family, unorthodox as it was.
"It is my will," Integra finished, her own words soft. "It is my will that kills them. It is my will... that this day kills Walter," she said sadly. "The will of Hellsing that orders all who oppose us be removed from this earth. My unchanging order, Alucard," she said, and her voice became hard as the blade she had used to defend herself when she was alone in the ghoul-infested London streets. "Search and Destroy! No matter what, or who, they are! Enemies of Hellsing will be ground to dust!"
Alucard whipped around, the manic grin he always wore into battle taking up residence on his face once more, and as his armour, and his beard, vanished away, he was ready to face his new enemy. His appearance just as it had been when he claimed Tubalcain's life.
"Well spoken, Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing!" a voice proclaimed over a speaker system, and the last airship in the sky descended to them. It was the major. "I'll never call you an amateur again! You've finally become a worthy foe! My wonderful, fearsome, fated rival!"
Integra sneered up at the airship as it approached, as it landed in the street with a crash. It would not take off again, even if the major somehow won this day, that airship would not fly again.
"The cards of destiny have been dealt," the major said as the airship finally came to a halt. A great door opened up in the bay of the gondola, ramps extended down. "Now, I call! The Third Reich cordially welcomes you!"
"Go," Alucard bid his master. "Go and kill. Go and finish this."
"Oh, I will," Integra promised, and turned her back on Walter, on Alucard, and the place where they would fight. She had her destination – it was the landed monstrosity that had come down behind them.
"Seras, you as well. Our lord needs a retinue. End that man's fifty-five-year-long dream," Alucard bid her softly. "While I end this man's long night," he added, turning back to Walter.
"Yes Master," Seras agreed, and began to turn, to follow Sir Integra. She stopped though, and looked at Walter. "This may not be the best time to say this," she allowed, "but there will be no other time, so... Walter? You were always very kind and helpful, so I thank you for that, and despite this, I will remember you fondly."
Walter stiffened where he stood, and his eyes went wide for a moment. He steeled himself, sighed, and smiled at her. "You too," he answered fondly.
Seras nodded, gave one last smile, quickly kissed her master on the cheek, and turned to hurry after Sir Integra.
"Farewell, Walter. Farewell, and die," Integra bid him, but did not turn from her path to look back at him. "Seras, let's end this."
"Yes Sir, Sir Integra," Seras agreed.
~oOo~
As they made their way through the airship, Integra and Seras killed every vampire that tried to block their way – and every vampire was smiling as they died. Some were even laughing.
"Seras," Integra said as they continued on. "Do you suppose everyone smiles when they die?" she asked. "Or is it just that these men smile because they all came here to die?"
"Now, don't say that Fraulein," the major said over the PA system. "We didn't come here to die, we just don't care if we die or not. To achieve this, we must work hard, and because of this war, every human in the world will know of us. We do not want to simply die in ignominy. We have to die for something more!" he explained. "For that, we came here. But what more is there? There must be something, there must still be a place to fight your enemy! Some place in the world, there has to be a battlefield we can call our own. For us to die, there has to be something more, otherwise, we must continue eternally, for the sake of death. You, Hellsing, make our deaths worth it because you yourselves are worth killing!"
"Oh do shut up!" Seras snapped. She glared at the nearest PA speaker a moment before she brought up her Glock and shot it out.
"Thank you, Seras," Integra said calmly. "But it seems we have more company."
This was true. A figure that was as tall as Anderson had been, as tall as Alucard, stood before them at the end of the hall.
"Please go on ahead, Sir Integra," Seras said as she narrowed her eyes at the imposing figure in his shrouding coat. "And shut that insufferable major up permanently."
Integra smiled. "Don't die, Seras," she instructed. "I won't forgive you if you do. I don't think Alucard would either."
Seras chuckled. "If I need to be saved, I'll not forgive myself in a hurry," she answered.
The large man at the end of the hall raised a hand, but not against them. He simply pointed to a small sign that indicated the direction of the 'Hauptquartier', no doubt where the major waited for them.
"Hn," Integra hummed, amused, as she set a fresh cigar between her teeth. "Such an honest lapdog," she noted, and lit the cigar. "Don't take too long," she instructed Seras, and without fear walked up to the enemy that stood there. Without a word to him, she turned and headed down the hall he had indicated.
"You're different to the others," Seras noted, even as she pulled out her guns. "You're not actually a vampire, are you? You're something else."
The man brought up his guns and opened fire, not giving her an answer.
Accepting his silence, Seras returned fire and charged at him as she shot.
An explosion created a barrier of dust, smoke and debris for a moment, and then the man's coat came flying at Seras, covering her head so that she could not see out at her opponent. If she had been human, that would have worked. If she had been human, the shots fired into her by her opponent would have done true damage. She was not human any more. She ripped carelessly through the heavy coat and continued to fire upon her enemy.
Her bullets tore into his bare chest, the explosion ripped up one side of his face, and more than simply healing, white fur appeared where the damage had been. The man transformed in the small hallway into a large beast with many teeth.
"A werewolf," Seras said, eyes wide as she stared up at it, then she had to dodge as it sped at her, teeth bared.
It slammed her through a wall, through the floor, and they landed in the bowels of the airship. The werewolf with his human skin on once more as he touched down, and simply stood there a moment, as though he were assessing her.
Seras had transformed herself without even thinking. She was no hound of the Baskervilles like her master, and no wolf like her foe, but rather a large, sleek, black feline. A black panther, and she'd twisted in the air as she fell, like any cat would. She landed on her feet without suffering further injury, and then stood, her own usual self once more.
The werewolf broke open the crates in the room they had fallen into as he charged at her again, and gold, banknotes, watches, even cuff-links and gold fillings were scattered.
Seras aimed a kick at his head. He bent backwards beneath it. She used her own shadows to pierce his body, but he survived, darting off them and coming to land, balanced perfectly on a raised point of her darkness.
Seras checked her ammunition while he simply stood there and watched her. "Damn," she said absently, "I seem to be out of silver bullets."
The werewolf leapt down and spun a kick at something Seras didn't quite see as he fell, the treasures stolen by the SS falling around him still. She caught it without trouble, and looked down at what it was. A silver tooth.
"Thank you," Seras said with a polite smile. "I will kill you with this then," she promised, and held the tooth delicately between her first and second finger.
He charged.
Seras waited for him. She was out of silver bullets, but she still had explosive rounds. When he was close enough that he leapt at her to launch a kick, she shot off both his arms. When his foot came, she let it pass her face and then sank her teeth into his thigh, holding him in place. Then she brought back her hand, the silver tooth glinting in the vague light of her fiery shadows, and plunged it into the wolf-man's heart.
The tag that hung from his neck fell, and snapped in two when it hit the ground.
Seras pulled her hand from his chest, released her hold on his thigh, and licked his blood off her lips.
He fell to the floor, bleeding out and with a gaping, fist-sized hole in his chest. He smiled, just a little at first, then widely, and finally caught fire, just as other defeated monsters of Millennium had done before him.
It was time for her to catch up with Sir Integra.
~oOo~
"Seras," Integra greeted when the draculina arrived at the main deck. "There's a glass between myself and the major that prevents me from killing him. Be a dear and take it down?" she requested. "Then go and find this 'Doc' that the major mentioned, I do believe he might be important."
"Yes Sir, Sir Integra," Seras answered, and drove her shadows down into the bowled of the airship, to the place she had just left, and brought back up an eighty-eight millimetre weapon. She braced and fired.
The glass, the screens, shattered.
"It seems that I have lost again," the major said as the glass fell. "My excellent plot to destroy Alucard has failed. I don't know how, but then, I don't know where Schrödinger disappeared to either. It is most vexing."
"Sir Integra," Seras said, and bowed slightly as Walter had once done. "The major is yours to kill."
Integra nodded. "Go," she dismissed. "I will dispose of this..." she looked over at what remained of the major.
Gears, cogs, wires, all could be seen, exposed down his left side where the explosion from the eighty-eight millimetre round had caught him. He was a machine.
"This monster."
"I'm not a monster," the major said with a sneer. "I am human. There is one thing that makes us human – one's own will. Don't associate me with a monster like Alucard who must take in the wills of others as he takes their blood, so that he may keep on living. Do not lump me in together with a feeble creature like Alucard. I will always be human. Humans are beings of the soul, of mind, of will. Even if Alucard smiles in the guise of a young girl or kneels, full of sentiment, in the form of a veteran warrior, he is still a monster. Therefore do I hate him. From the bottom of my heart I don't approve of Alucard the vampire!"
"My Master," Seras said, "is more a human than you are."
"He is a human-like monster, and I am a monster-like human," the major said with a sneer. "But I am me."
"Seras, go," Integra repeated, and whipped off her coat, revealing that she still had another weapon strapped to her person, even though she had already broken her sword on the glass that had required the eighty-eight millimetre to break.
Seras nodded and vanished, seeking out the 'Doc' that Integra had bid her find. The Schrödinger knew where his lab was.
"It's not over!" the doctor was babbling to himself when Seras appeared in his lab. He was bundling books off his tables and into a bag. "It can't be over!"
"Oh, but it is," she assured him. "The war is over, the vampires are all dead but my Master and myself."
"I haven't reached my goal yet!" the doctor objected. "What's wrong? What's missing?"
"Let it be," Seras advised. "It's not worth it, and you are the very last of the Nazis."
"It is worth it!" the doctor objected. "It would be a miracle brought about by science! My research will yet change the face of the world!"
"It has already," Seras said with an uncaring shrug.
"Someday, I will surpass Alucard!" he insisted. "Someday, we'll catch that!" he said with a gesture to a great shrouded thing on the wall behind him.
Seras smiled, brought up her gun, and fired. The bullet was perfectly centred in his brow when it pierced, and made a nice big splatter out the back of his head when it exited. "No, you won't," she informed him as he twitched, dying. "No one will ever surpass my Master."
Seras looked up at the room and shook her head at his pathetic research. To fabricate a vampire... no. It wasn't possible. Not really. Dispassionately, Seras lit the room on fire, and stayed only long enough to be sure that the object the doctor had been chasing fell into the flames as well.
It wouldn't do for Sir Integra to be trapped in a burning airship, after all. It was time they returned to her master.
~oOo~
"So, London is nothing but a great, ugly headstone now," Alucard said when his master and servant returned to him. "The war is over."
"It is," Integra agreed. "Walter?"
Alucard stepped aside to reveal the head of the butler, young again, separated by four feet from his body.
Seras knelt down by the head and raised it. Raised it high above her own, and let Walter's blood, tainted though it was now, fall into her open mouth.
Alucard smiled sadly at her. "You are a vampire now, Seras," he said. "We kill our enemies, we kill our friends, our country, our people... our own selves..."
Seras lowered Walter's head and looked up at her master. "And we preserve those who were worthy foes within our minds. We never forget them," she finished. "My Master."
He nodded.
"Home," Integra requested. "Alucard, Seras, let's go home."
Alucard recalled all of his lives, all his souls, all the blood that had soaked into the streets of London, and Seras stood before Sir Integra so that the tide would pass around them as they walked. There was no danger now. Only the long walk remaining.
"The sun is up," Integra noted to her two vampires.
"Yes, Sir Integra," Seras agreed, and wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders. With the powers she understood now from the Schrödinger, she transported herself and the Lady Hellsing back to the Hellsing mansion with no more than a thought.
"It's not going to be difficult for you, is it? With the Schrödinger in you, causing you troubles?" asked Integra. "We discussed the difficulties he would have caused Alucard, briefly."
Seras shook her head. "It is possible to kill the souls within," she said. "I have done this. I took in the Schrödinger, I understood his life, his memories, his power, and then I killed him. I know who I am, and though I have other souls within me, as long as I do not forget who I am, then I will never disappear as the major intended for my Master."
"Besides," Alucard added as he joined them, "Seras does not indiscriminately gorge as I do, but rather chooses with care who she will consume."
Seras nodded in agreement.
"Alright," Integra allowed. "I need to report the situation to Sir Irons. You are both dismissed for the day. Hopefully there will be no more vampires to kill when night comes again."
The two vampires bowed to Sir Hellsing, and faded from the room. Their destination: the basement. It was daylight out, and time for all good vampires to be asleep. Time for all the naughty ones to be asleep as well, for that matter.
~oOo~
Seras stretched leisurely as she woke the following evening. She arched her back and yawned with lazy delight. Then the lid of her coffin was lifted, and she smiled at the face that looked down at her.
"Good evening, Master," she greeted with a lazy smile.
"Good evening, Seras Victoria," he answered with a smile of his own. "The war was short," he noted.
"Only one night long," she agreed. "I think that will go down in the history books as a 'mess', 'incident' or 'catastrophe' rather than a 'war'," she said, and reached up. She caressed his face tenderly, then slid her fingers deeply into his thick black hair. With her hand on the back of his head, Seras pulled herself up into a sitting position, stopping with her lips mere breath below those of her master.
With a hiss of sucked-in air, Alucard pulled her to him forcefully, closing that minor distance between them and latching onto her mouth. It was to him a delicacy to be indulged in, a fortification to be plundered, and he did so with relish.
"My beloved, my No-Life-Queen, my Seras Victoria," Alucard murmured lowly when they separated. "Untouched and all mine."
"Hm," Seras hummed shortly and smiled up at her master as a thought struck her. She leant up to his ear and whispered, lips lightly brushing the shell of his ear, "Catch me first, Master," she bid, and transformed into the first of her familiars that she had discovered – the great black panther.
She twisted beneath him and, taking advantage of the bare second he was still with surprise, sprung out from beneath him, landing on her paws a good three yards from where he still hovered over her coffin.
Seras looked over her shoulder at him and smirked as only a cat could, then stretched in that typical feline way, showing off all the rippling muscles beneath her dark fur, enticing her master to transform himself and hunt her like the apex predator he was.
But he remained frozen as he stared at her.
Seras smiled and stepped up to him. She arched her back against his thigh and twined around his legs. She swiped the tip of her tail beneath his nose, which finally snapped him out of his surprise.
He laughed, deeply, and grinned so that he showed off his teeth.
"Oh my Seras," he said, and knelt down to stroke her head. "I cannot without releasing the Control Art Restrictions, and that is not something I may do frivolously."
Seras sighed, but understood. She picked herself up and padded over to the bed – her bed, which Walter had removed when he brought her coffin, and which he had returned upon her request – before she reverted.
"You must still catch me," she teased, "but I have no plans to run. Untouched, and all yours, Master," Seras reminded him with a hooded gaze as she settled against the pillows. "My Master."
Alucard grinned at her hungrily, and stalked up to where she sat on the coverlet. "Yes," he hissed as he knelt there, one leg on either side of hers.
"My Master," Seras repeated as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "All mine."
"My Seras," Alucard answered, and happily leant into the embrace, running his nose along her clavicle. "I have caught you. Next, I will conquer you. You are mine and no one else's."
~oOo~
Oh~ the Black Cat yawns, opens up her jaws,
Stretches her legs and shows her claws.
Then she gets up on her delicate toes,
Arches her back as far as it goes.
She lets herself down with partic'lar care,
And pads away with her tail in the air.
~The End~