I republished this chapter because I just had too many things wrong going on. Enjoy!
Time to shift to my least favorite PoV: omniscient third person!
The high ceilings and vast corridors of the Hellsing House were enough to intimidate any normal adult, never mind a child a little over a year old. But young Amelia Hellsing was only intrigued and fascinated as she toddled down the hallways on her own with a sense of pride and confidence that she seemed to be born with. The walls of the mansion were the only ones she had ever known, yet they never seemed to bore her. In fact, wandering through her immense home was the child's very favorite pastime, much to her mother's dismay.
After living a short lifetime behind the mansion walls, Amelia had not gone without her share of mishaps. Only a few months ago, after she had nearly mastered walking on her own, the girl was chasing her favorite a rubber ball that had strayed away from her down a hallway. The ball rolled and rolled until it came to the edge of a stair case leading to the first floor before disappearing from sight. Confused, Amelia teetered towards offending the top step and leaned over to investigate. Being as young as she was, she naturally lost her balance and went tumbling down the tall structure.
Although there were plenty of guards and other Hellsing personnel stationed on the first floor, the second floor had been rather empty that day. In fact, no one was aware of the baby's presence until her soft body had come rolling down the steps. Everything happened so fast that those witnessing the occurrence assumed that someone had thrown a sack of supplies or a maid had thrown a heavy sack of laundry down the stairs out of some strange humor. However, quick thinking soldiers soon noticed that the object was much smaller than a sack of supplies and much heavier than a bag of laundry. But even to them, the true identity of the mass didn't even become clear until it had come to rest the bottom of the staircase, and the response caused more horror and chaos than the worst freak attack ever could.
Hysterical screams crowded the room. "My God!" "It's a baby!" "Is it breathing!" "Is it dead!" "Quick! Someone call a medic!" "Call Mr. Walter!" "Call Sir Hellsing!" Everyone around had dropped what they were doing and were rushing to what appeared to be a grisly scene. The baby was lying flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling, not making a sound. Though her eyes were open, she appeared to be unconscious and most had immediately feared the worst. One of them, grown men in prime form, would at the very least had broken their necks from taking a fall down a flight of stairs such as these without protection. There's no way an infant could survive. Naturally the first to arrive was Seras Victoria as she frantically dashed across the room with speeds no human could dream to reach.
She scooped the baby up into her arms and cradled her body. Though everyone in the room had by then, probably reached the conclusion that the baby was the rarely seen, young heir to the Hellsing Organization, none of them had any real relationship to Amelia like the young vampire did. She had seen the child grown from birth, her love for the baby growing along with her. She would readily lay down her life for the youngest master of the Hellsing family, and the thought of watching the life drain from behind the child's bright, young eyes had shut down any rational thought Seras could be having. It took something very peculiar to bring Seras, and everyone around her back to earth: the baby starting laughing. The child looked up at Seras, her friend second to only one, and started giggling like the staircase she had come tumbling down had been a soft field of grass.
The confusion had been enough to calm Seras down and she began to examine the baby's body. She ran her hand along the child's mass black hair, feeling for bumps and looking for bruising along the baby's fair skin. There were none to be found. She then moved wandering hand down to one of the baby's fat arms, feeling for broken bones. Her bones stood intact. The child's seemingly fragile body harbored no apparent injuries.
"She- She's fine", she reported to her worried comrades.
"How can that be?" A faceless soldier inquired. "I heard it myself. She took a pretty hard fall. And she can't be more than a year old! There's no way she's completely fine!"
Seras didn't reply as she stared in wonder down at the cooing child in her arms. She would have been just has perplexed as the soldiers were, had she not known one key fact about Amelia's background that everyone else didn't. Sir Integra had never told her this information, but it was painfully obvious. Since the baby was born, Seras saw her master shine through more and more every time she'd look at her. Being what she was, Seras knew it would take more than a flight of stairs to lay a scratch on the baby.
That didn't stop Integra from keeping a very close eye on the adventurous child, however. After the incident with the stairs she was as diligent as ever. The leader had hardly ever let her child out of her sight. Forget being the only heir to the Hellsing family, Amelia was the only family Integra had. She would be damned if she let some accident do away with her.
But try as she might, Integra was never able to contain her child. No matter what she used to try to hold the baby in, the toddler would always find some way to escape beyond her mother's comprehension. Her bedroom couldn't contain her, her playpen couldn't contain her, Hell, onetime she even managed to escape her highchair when Integra had turned her back. The best she could do was to just keep a close on the child, and hope she didn't get into any trouble.
But that day, Integra had meeting with the Knights of Round on short notice and Walter had gone into town to do some shopping. Her runner-up babysitter, Seras, was also out on a mission, leaving her completely alone. Integra briefly considered bringing the baby to the meeting with her before quickly dismissing this idea. There's no way any of those old degenerates would take her seriously if she came to such a meeting with a baby in tow. Besides, Amelia was far from quiet and patient and would hardly tolerate going so long without her mother's full attention.
So she'd decided to leave the baby alone in her nursery. After all, the baby's room contained nothing that could hurt her and everything that could keep her entertained. Well almost everything.
The baby as she sat in the middle of her large, but cozy nursery, innocently sticking plastic balls into the mouth of a plastic, cartoon lion, only to have them returned to her through its tail. For a toddler, this was an entertaining game, but it soon grew boring. Amelia knew that outside of her room, lay something much better. She could tell he was around. She could sense him moving around depths of the mansion, she just had to find him. This was her most favorite game.
The child came to her feet and toddled over to a tall, wooden door; the only barrier separating her from a world just itching to be explored. She stretched a hand up towards the door knob, in an attempt to open the door by conventional means, but alas, she was too small to reach it. This did not hinder Amelia's resolve in the least. Even at her young age, she had noticed that nothing ever seemed to stop her. She braced both her hands against the door, and merely thought about being on the other side. The next thing she knew, she was falling against the tile of the floor on the other side.
She crawled back up into a standing position, not in the least bit concerned about the change in her surroundings. The game was now on.
That's how she reached her present state. Although, she was able to tell whenever her friend was in the vicinity for as long as she could remember, she was not yet able to locate precisely where he was.
The baby stopped to look around and ponder her surroundings. She could see that he wasn't at the end of the stretched hallway she was standing in. She could see that he was nowhere to be found down the extensive hallway, her ears could not pick up the sound of his incredibly light footsteps, and her nose could not detect the presence of his strangely pleasant, yet foreign scent. His presence was felt, but it was like he wasn't there. It didn't take long before the frustration began to mix with a dash of loneliness and the toddler began to whine.
Before this whine could evolve into a full on cry, suddenly, to her surprise, the girl's friend appeared. He entered the hallway from one of the walls. He didn't look her way. He just walked out of the wall, slowly strode across the hallway, and, made his exit through the other wall. The only thing acknowledging her was the smirk on his face.
Amelia ran after him as fast as her short legs could carry her, having quickly abandoned her whining for gleeful laughter. She made it to the wall just as he had vanished through it. She reached her arms up to the spot where he had disappeared and banged her hands on the wall, commanding her friend to come back. He didn't return, and she almost gave up again, when she sensed a familiar sensation behind her.
The baby cocked her head back and tilted it up as far as it could go to see the figure towering above her. Alucard stood over six feet, but to the baby, it might as well had been six stories. He stood taller than Walter and even her mother. But like always, Amelia had no fear of this person. She quickly spun around and tightly wrapped her arms around his leg, as if to make sure her prey couldn't escape her again, as she giggled maniacally.
Alucard crouched down to her level. "A proper vampire never gives up on a hunt", he said to the child whose eyes met his in wonder. She gave him a guilty sort of look, almost as if she understood what he was saying. He then smiled warmly at her and reached a hand to her face to rub away a scuff mark on her cheek that she had received from her fall earlier. She recoiled from his touch but only in a playful way. To her, his touch was cold, but warm at the same time. His fingers then made their way to the top of her head to run through the coarse black hair that they both shared, and she only gripped his leg tighter.
Sorry for such a long chapter! I didn't realize how long this was getting. And remember! More reviews= faster updates!