Luke Valentine descended down the steps that led to his destiny. If he still had a pulse, it would have been racing. The stones around him were old and cold and reeked of immense evil, but the shiver he suppressed was more from excitement than fear. He was ready, he knew it. His powers were at their peak. After all his training, all his planning, he was prepared. He would be the one to finally kill the great vampire Alucard.

Luke came to the foot of the stairs, deep beneath the Hellsing Mansion. He immediately felt the sheer presence of this dungeon's inhabitant, and was aware that he stood before history. What he was about to do had been attempted before, by the Turks, by the original Hellsing, by all the enemies of the No-Life King throughout his ancient career. But Luke was different. Luke was going to succeed.

He stood with his legs spread, his guns hanging down by his side, one in each hand. Specially-modified M1 Garand rifles, antique enough for class, unique enough to leave his own special mark. He spoke aloud into the darkness. "I've come a long way to meet you. Aren't you going to come welcome your guest?"

Low, mocking, echoing laughter was his only response. Luke strained to pinpoint its source with his advanced ears, but it sounded as though it was coming from all around him. He raised a rifle, forced his voice to stay cool. "I'm disappointed. Kings are supposed to have better manners than this."

"Manners are for men." The voice boomed all around him. Luke could almost feel its power, vibrating in his body. "Hospitality is for guests. Stray dogs just get put down."

"D-dog?" Luke gritted his teeth. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Luke had it all planned out in his head. He would bow and tell Alucard what an honour it was to meet him, share with him what an impact he had been on his life. They would exchange pleasantries like gentlemen, each of them full of respect for a worthy opponent. Perhaps Alucard would even praise Luke's skill and style. Then there would be a grand duel, and Luke Valentine would go down in history as the one to kill the greatest of all monsters.

More laughter, then booming gunfire. Luke recognized the sound of the Casull as he jumped into the air and somersaulted backwards away from the bullets. He'd been briefed on Alucard's weapon, the heavy automatic pistol with its blessed Macedonian silver rounds. He could tell where the shots were coming from, and opened fire with both rifles the moment he landed, blasting five silver bullets into the darkness.

Why can't I see him? He thought. My vampire eyes should be at home in the blackest of night! Why is this dungeon's darkness so different? Everything felt wrong- the echoes, the shadows, the unfeeling stones beneath his feet. Even the air whispered against his skin with a contemptuous feel. This was no grand arena. He felt like a rabbit in a bear's cave.

The next shot came from behind him, and Luke twisted aside just in time for the round to zip past him. Impossible! He was on the other side of the room a second ago! He shot back, but was rewarded with nothing but a dark chuckle that seemed to come from above him. His head snapped upwards, expecting to see Alucard clinging to the ceiling and about to pounce, but there was nothing there. His nerve snapped.

"Show yourself!"

"Are you lost, little dog? Are you looking for the door yet?"

Luke growled at the suggestion of retreat. He backed away from the stairs he'd come down, advancing deeper into the dungeon with a gun pointed in each direction. He turned his head right and left, looking and sniffing. "I wouldn't have expected the great Alucard to be afraid to face me!"

"Afraid? Of a powerless weakling like you?" This time the laughter was louder. It boomed around him like bestial thunder. "You really don't get it. Someone like you is just too... boring to really fight. So I have to entertain myself by playing with my food."

Where the hell was he? All Luke could see was darkness. All he could smell was death. "Boring?" His teeth ground against one another. "Come on out, and we'll really play!"

"If you insist."

This time, there was no doubt at all about where that voice was coming from. It was coming from directly behind him.

Luke screamed shrilly and turned around, bringing his guns up. White-gloved hands closed around his arms and pinned them to his sides. There was no question of struggle. Luke could only whimper as he looked at the man- at the thing- holding him. Even in the darkness of the dungeon, Alucard's coat was so crimson it almost glowed. His eyes were the same colour, and there was no 'almost' about their glow. They shone like hellfire as his hungry gaze bore into Luke. Below them, his grin also shone, a gleaming carnivorous Chesire cat smile hanging in the blackness. There was no humanity in the grin or the eyes. Nor was there mercy.

The hands tightened around his arms, squeezing and squeezing. Luke began to cry out in pain as well as fear. One of his fingers squeezed frantically at the trigger of his gun, blasting useless bullets into the floor.

"Guess what I just caught?" Somehow Alucard was still speaking even as his jaw was opening, wider and wider. Luke stared into that maw. It seemed as though his teeth went all the way down his throat.

"I just caught... a cute... little... DOG!" His voice boomed inside Luke's head and his hands cracked Luke's bones with a single twitch and his mouth leapt towards Luke's face and-

"Time out!" Schrodinger called. Alucard suddenly froze like a paused video, his teeth barely a centimetre away from Luke's eyes.

"You can't be serious." Zorin's voice came out of nowhere like the voice of God. In this place, that was what she was. "It's just getting to the good part!"

"Sorry, Zorin." Schrodinger did not sound sorry. "But Dok says there's no point in letting this go on. I think it's pretty clear how it's going to end by now, don't you?"

Luke made little squealing sounds and nodded his head. Alucard's hands were still crushing his bones, and the effort to keep himself from screaming was extreme.

Schrodinger appeared in his peripheral vision, looking disgustingly perky. "Sorry for interrupting your glorious victory, Herr Valentine," he said. "Dok thinks you ought to see how your brother is doing."

"That... won't be a problem." Luke managed to speak through gritted teeth without letting his voice break too much from the pain.

Zorin's mind rumbled around them, and the 'dungeon' dissolved into nothingness, along with 'Alucard.' Luke sighed quietly as his illusionary injuries vanished. Nothing was left except blackness. "One of these days, brat, I am going to figure out how to keep you out of my damn mind," Zorin growled.

"You're going to be waiting a very long time, First Lieutenant." Schrodinger's voice took on an infuriating sing-song edge. "A mind like yours is like a kingdom of nightmares, a very real place. And I'm everywhere and nowhere, after all."

"You've said that before, you little runt!" Zorin snapped. "I was fed up with it during the sixties and I'm fed up with it now. Maybe I'll break into your mind for a change sometime, little kitten. Maybe we'll see what cats are afraid of. What makes you piss yourself at night."

"I don't think your superiors would approve of that, don't you Zorin?" Luke could practically hear Schrodinger's smirk. "Hey look, it's Jan!"

A hallway on the second floor of the Hellsing mansion swam into existence around them. The grim eyes of the original Abraham Van Hellsing glared down from a portrait at Jan Valentine's bleeding body. He was huddled against a wall, and a very angry tall blond woman in a suit was hitting him with a sword many, many times. And yelling.

"You dare to break into this ancient home, defile my estate with your presence, kill my guards, attack me and my guests, cast aspersions on my family honour with your filthy mouth, and track your footprints on my carpet?" Integra Hellsing was every bit as much the presence that Millennium's files on her would indicate.

"There isn't a pit in Hell deep enough or fiery enough for me to send you!" Jan appeared to be attempting to form a retort, but it just wasn't happening on account of his throat being shredded all over the opposite wall. Integra raised her sword high over her head. "In the name of God, impure souls of the living dead will be banished to eternal damnation. Amen!"

And that was the end of the Valentine Brothers' third assassination mission against the Hellsing Mansion.

"Now then, what did we learn today?" Schrodinger had a clipboard in hand when Zorin released them from the illusion and returned them to reality. The entire exercise had taken place in what Zorin called 'the pain room' and what everyone else in Millennium called 'the holodeck,' although never within Zorin's earshot unless they wanted to send her into a rage. It was large, it was plain, and it was sturdy, with steel and concrete walls built to withstand any mishaps that might result from Zorin's illusionary training exercises.

"That shit was fucked, okay?" Jan yelled as he got up from the floor. "There's no way that bitch is that hardcore! She's just a stuck-up rich slut who inherited her Dad's job!"

"That's what I keep saying," Zorin said, leaning on her scythe. "But the Major's convinced she's a fucking Valkyrie or something, so I just have to give him what he wants."

"I have a question," Luke said. He wanted to avoid the topic of Alucard tearing him apart yet again before Jan or Zorin could get on it. "I thought that Hellsing was supposed to have a butler. A former field agent, their most trusted servant. How come he never shows up in these scenarios? He could be a major factor."

"Please do not concern yourself with that one, Herr Valentine." Luke jumped a little at the sound of the Major's voice behind him. The maniac's words were unpleasant to hear at the best of times, an endless stream of high-pitched nasal madness, and right now he sounded especially amused. "He is no one for you to pay any attention to whatsoever."

Turning, Luke saw the Major and the Doktor standing in the doorway to the 'holodeck.' Dok was frowning, which was a bad sign, and the Major was grinning, which was a much worse sign. "Warrant Officer Schrodinger, First Lieutenant Blitz. How are our fine pupils faring with today's lessons? What has been learned?"

Zorin straightened up and put her scythe on her shoulders, but didn't salute. "We learned they're useless idiots." She smiled. "So, nothing new. I could do a better job of wrecking that fucking mansion myself."

"Sorry, Major! But it's another failing grade." Schrodinger wrote something on his clipboard, then turned it around and held it up. In red marker it read: "LUKE: F. JAN: F-"

"Hey!" Jan was not pleased. "C'mon, Luke totally got his ass kicked worse than me."

"Sorry Jan, but the grading scheme is quite clear." Schro held up his hands and closed his eyes. "There's far less shame in falling to the mighty Alucard than there is in being defeated by a 'stuck up rich slut.'"

"It's simply no good, you boys," the Major said. Beside him, Dok stayed silent and let his boss do the talking, but his multi-lensed glasses were definitely glaring at the Valentines. "Dunce students will never graduate. The organization requires soldiers for this mission, not failures. These auditions will not last forever, you know. We expect results." He turned around, Dok right behind him. "Come with us. You are about to receive a bit of added motivation."

Luke was nervous as they walked down the hall behind the Millennium officers, and not just because he had just experienced Alucard making prey of him. "Tell me, is that the mission?" He asked. "Attacking the Hellsing Mansion, I mean. Is that the job we're auditioning for? Or is it just a scenario you-"

"Silence! No further questions," Dok snapped. "That information is classified. And you should be paying more attention to what you are about to see." His tone was one that would tolerate no argument.

They entered a room on the left-hand side, the door open and flanked by Nazi guards who saluted smartly as their Sturmbahnfuhrer passed. Within was a large electronic screen, a control panel, and a few seats. Henderson and Sangfreud were already there, with Henderson standing near a wall.

It was a small, sparse affair, and Luke wondered why Dok seemed as tense as he did as he began fiddling with the controls. The Major sat down and crossed his legs, but everyone else remained standing, and Luke followed their lead. Jan found himself a wall to lean against.

The screen blurred with static for a moment, then showed a moving image of a forest. Luke wondered for a moment why the view was so shaky and blurred, before realizing that whoever had the camera was running very fast. He could hear soft panting, light footfalls, rustling vegetation. It was dark, with barely enough moonlight to see by. Someone was running. Beside Luke, Dok was taking out a large, sophisticated remote.

"Meet Jose Guerro, my friends. He accepted the gift of immortality from us some time ago. When he did, it was with the understanding that his life would become ours, dedicated to our service," the Major said. "We would reward him when he served well, and punish him when he served poorly." The Doktor had his finger on a large red button on the remote.

"He was asked to perform a very simple but important task, dealing with someone who could inconvenience the entire organization. He performed it poorly, and messed up a perfectly fine hotel room in the process. Now as was promised he will be punished." The Major raised a hand. "Doktor, execute."

Dok pushed the button. Luke began to hear screams from the screen. The running stopped, but the view stayed jerky and quivering. They could hear gasps. Luke understood now that there was no camera, just the data being fed through the FREAK chip inside Jose via his own eyes. The shaking they were seeing was not that of the screen, but of the doomed and terrified flesh the chip was embedded in. The view was obscured first by smoke, then by blue flame. Jose screamed and screamed. The screen became hissing static. There was one final scream, and then the audio cut out as well.

Dok lowered the remote. "The subject has been terminated, Major."

The Major swivelled in his chair to look at the audition's participants. "Is the point taken, my friends? Perform or be punished. It is that simple."

Sangfreud showed no visible reaction. The other three were less stoic. Luke was gritting his teeth, Henderson's mouth was open, and Jan was grinning.

The Major seemed pleased. He waved them away. "Very well then. This concludes the lesson. Off you go, trainees. You still have a lot of work to do."

The next few days and nights passed for the Valentines in a flurry of hellish experiences. The tests and training kept interchanging, one after another, with only the briefest of pauses for anything other than the audition. The Doktor was always first in line.

His 'studies' took place in a dark, paper-strewn lab that seemed positively enthusiastic in its blatant flaunting of every safety and hygiene guideline known to medical science. There was blood on the walls, blood on the furniture, and blood on the torn and dirtied papers, and from what Luke could make out the papers themselves were from medical articles about blood. The only things that were clean were the exotic array of unsettlingly gleaming instruments Dok busied himself with.

Luke watched him, humming softly as he puttered over his rows of scalpels and speculums. Luke was seated on a cold metal bench with his shirt off, feeling like a child again. On the other side of the room, Jan was in his underwear. He was running flat-out on an ugly rattling steel treadmill that looked like it had come out of a 1940s munitions factory, surrounded by beeping screens and monitoring equipment, suction cups and wires trailing from his body. The machine was moving so fast that Jan's legs were a stumbling blur as he tried to stay on it.

"Doktor, is this really necessary?" Luke wanted a cigarette, but the Doktor had made it very clear that flame was not permitted in the laboratory. Considering how many flammable gases and liquids were lying about, this was probably for the best. "You already have all our vital information from the chips."

"Yeah, that's a good question!" Jan managed to yell as he barely kept up with the treadmill. "You already got the crazy science shit in our heads, why do you-"

"Silence!" The Doktor snapped, and turned away from his tools with his remote in hand. "Schnell! Schnell!"

He pressed a button, and Jan yelped as the treadmill somehow managed to actually go faster, shaking and rumbling as though it was about to fly apart. Then he turned to Luke, and pulled a rubber glove onto his hand, stretching it very far up his wrist before letting it snap into place. "Herr Valentine, prepare for your physical."

"Sucks to be you, Luke!" Jan somehow found time to mock him even as he slipped and stumbled on the treadmill.

"Your own exam will follow immediately after your exercise, Jan." Dok did not turn to look at him. His gleaming multi-lensed eyepieces remained fixed on Luke. "It will be most thorough."

"Fuck me sidew-" There was one last slip as Jan's feet left the treadmill along with the rest of his body, hurling him across the room and into a wall.

"I'm assuming this lesson isn't going to be a lecture," Luke said dryly as he faced the Captain.

The Captain made no motion of reply, his expression unreadable behind his coat's high collar. He stood straight and stiff in the middle of the scarred, cracked 'fight ring' in the base's exercise facility. The room and its equipment had been built to service the physical activity needs of a thousand sociopathic superhumans obsessed with combat, and it showed in every dented inch of its walls, floors, and even ceiling. The ring was a case in point: its 'ropes' were high-strength steel cables. Slowly, the Captain's hands curled into fists at his sides. Luke fancied he could hear knuckles cracking.

"I think he wants to rumble, Luke!" Jan laughed and leapt into the ring, elbowing Luke aside. "One side, bro. If anybody's gonna throw down with this mute motherfucker it's gonna be me!"

"Oh, you can't be serious." Luke covered his face in a hand, but moved aside as Jan advanced on the Captain.

"You ready to get fucked big guy?" Jan cracked his knuckles, grinning wide. "I'm gonna rearrange your fucking face."

The Captain punched him. Jan tumbled through the air until he reached the cables. They caught him, stretched under his momentum, then bounced him back into the middle of the ring. He landed on his hands and knees, gasping at the Captain's feet.

"What... what... what the fuck do they feed you, man?" Jan actually managed to laugh even as his cheekbone began putting itself back together. He lunged back at the Captain and started swinging. His fists made a noise like drumming on wood as they beat in a blur against the Captain's torso. The Captain stared for a second, then kicked him in the chest.

Jan hit the cables again. This time they slung him straight into the floor, where he skipped and rolled a few feet past the Captain. The Captain watched him go by.

Jan took a few seconds getting back up. He was panting. "Holy fuck! Luke, this guy's like the fucking Terminator or some shit! Did you see that?"

"I saw. One of these days you really ought to think these things through." Luke looked at his brother, than at the Captain. "Is the point of this exercise to actually teach us something about hand-to-hand? Or just to smack us around?"

This time the Captain did answer. He answered by pointing at Luke and beckoning him forward.

"Me? But... I..."

Jan dusted himself off, walked over, and clapped his brother on the back. "Have fun dude!"

"This is marksmanship testing." Rip van Winkle braced her musket across her shoulders and cracked her neck. "You can impress me with your shooting, or you can be targets yourselves." She doubtfully eyed the Valentines over her spectacles. "I really don't care either way. Are you ready to begin?"

Luke couldn't tell whether she was bored or enjoying herself. He rather hoped it was the second. Lieutenant van Winkle was wearing a dark blue suit instead of a uniform, and her impossibly-long black hair glinted under the moonlight. It was relatively early in the evening, and Luke could see the little freckles on her pale skin.

The outdoor range was mundane by Jaburo standards. There were targets, there were firing positions, and there were weapons with which to destroy the targets. The main deviation from what human soldiers would have practiced on was the extraordinary ranges and angles the targets were set at: impossible for a human, a challenge for a vampire.

"I'm ready." Luke stepped up with an antique Kar98k bolt-action rifle held in front of him, barrel pointing upward. Naturally, Millennium had an ample stockpile of World War Two-era firearms, and Luke had a feeling his hosts would appreciate someone who proved skillful with their weaponry. Especially van Winkle, with that musket looking like it was from the nineteenth century or earlier.

He brought the rifle to his shoulder and began to fire, shots cracking in the night air. Luke emptied the rifle's clip in a neat, efficient manner, firing, racking the bolt, aiming, firing again. Holes appeared in targets far away. The silhouette of a Hellsing soldier gained a third eye in its forehead. A cardboard child disintegrated. Luke noted that Milennium targeting procedures didn't exactly distinguish between soldiers and noncombatants.

Five shots, four hits. Luke tried to get fancy with the last one. He angled the shot upward so that it would arc down and strike the shadow of the farthest target, so far off that even a vampire's sight could make out no details except its wide-brimmed hat. He could just barely see the puff of dirt from the bullet missing. Cursing on the inside, he turned to face van Winkle with a stoic face and the rifle presented in front of him.

His reward was insincere applause. "Oh, congratulations!" The Lieutenant had her musket across her elbows, leaving her gloved hands free for slow clapping. "You only managed to waste twenty percent of our classic bullets that no one is making anymore. Well done!"

Luke gritted his teeth and tried to keep his mouth shut. Rip turned to Jan. "What about you, jongen? Think you can do better than your brother?" Her mouth had a way of getting unnaturally large when she wanted to show off her teeth, which seemed to be often. "Somehow I doubt it."

"Hey, it's apples and oranges, Rip." Jan shrugged. "There's no comparison, y'know? Luke's all fancy and perfectionist and crap. Me, I've got my own style for shooting shit up: quantity over quality!" He hefted his weapons up off the ground. Rip's grin vanished. She began to ask what maniac had let Jan get two heavy machine guns, but was immediately drowned out.

"KONAMI CODE MOTHERFUCKERS!" The weapons blazed in his hands, firing so quickly it sounded more like ripping fabric than anything like individual gunshots. "UP UP!" A row of farther targets were obscured in flying dirt and disintegrating wood.

"DOWN DOWN!" The barrage of bullets drew in, subjecting the nearer targets to the same treatment. Spent cartridges rolled at Jan's feet.

"LEFT! RIGHT! LEFT! RIGHT!" Jan fanned out the stream of fire, spreading his arms to strafe targets on either side of him, walking the bullets back and forth, oblivious to the punishing recoil of the heavy weaponry he was firing one-handed. Finally the MG42s clicked dry. Steam rose from overheated barrels, mixing with the smoke from their barrels.

Jan flung the guns aside and grinned at Rip, posing with hands on hips. "That's how we do it Nintendo style, bitch!"

Any calculation of Jan's accuracy percentage would have involved a decimal point and a great many zeroes, but every single target on the range had at least one bullet in it or had been utterly destroyed. Every target, except the far one Luke had missed. The one with the wide hat.

Rip's mouth was open. For the moment at least, she was speechless.

"Hello, Valentines! I'm still waiting for you!" Schrodinger's voice seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere. Luke looked around and around, and saw only dark jungle around him and Jan. "I didn't think you were going to take this long."

This challenge was simple. All they had to do was catch Schrodinger. The catboy had made a children's game out of it, making them close their eyes and count to twenty, right down to yelling 'ready or not, here we come.' That had been almost an hour ago, and both Valentines were getting fairly fed up. Not only was Schrodinger eluding them despite constantly taunting them, but Luke wasn't sure he knew how to get back to the base even when they did find the kid. That's all we need, he thought. Getting lost in the jungle until the sun rises and fries us.

"Yo, bro, how long are we gonna put up with this bullshit?" Jan said, kicking his way through the ferns. "I'm going to get poison ivy or some shit if we keep stomping around all these weird plants. I mean, fuck. We really gonna do this all night, or what?"

"Jan, have you considered that the reason we can't find the brat is because you won't shut your mouth?" Luke wasn't looking at him, rubbing at a green stain on his white sleeve. Wearing the white suit into the jungle might not have been a good idea, he had to admit. It certainly stood out among all the foliage. But Luke always insisted on looking his best, especially when he was trying to impress someone.

"Oh sure, blame me for everything. Hey, here's another idea: maybe we can't sneak up on this fucking kid because he can smell the pussy on you! He keeps getting away from us because he smells you coming, man. It's all the perfume and hairspray you're wearing, blowing our position."

"I'm not wearing perfume, you idiot." Luke gave up on the stain. There were many more like it around his pants. "And I don't think the Warrant Officer even has an advanced sense of smell. He's not an actual cat, he just has ears." He didn't like thinking about what kind of freakish science had led to that creature's creation, or what the Nazis had been thinking adding a quantum catboy to their invincible army of darkness.

"Hold on, I'll check." Jan raised his hands to his mouth and bellowed into the jungle. "YO, SCHRODINGER! GOT A QUESTION FOR YOU! CAN YOU SMELL LUKE'S PUSSY-ASS HAIRSPRAY?"

Childish laughter from the shadows was the only response. Luke groaned. Then he had an idea.

"Jan. Keep yelling."

"What, now you don't want me to shut up? You're the one always telling me-" Jan broke off as Luke bounded upward, jumping in between tree trunks until he was at canopy level. "Ohhh. Heh, okay, I got you bro."

Perched on top of a branch, Luke made his way between leaves and sticks as quietly as he could. Below, Jan continued to do what he did. "LUKE DOESN'T THINK HIS FUCKING PERFUME IS GIVING US AWAY! IS HE FULL OF SHIT OR WHAT? HELP ME OUT HERE, SCHRO!"

Luke listened. He knew Schrodinger wouldn't be able to resist this bait. The response came immediately, and this time Luke could tell where it was coming from. He's behind Jan. About a hundred metres.

"It's hard to tell, Herr Valentine!" The brat was obviously having a grand time. "There's so much you two are doing wrong right now. I just don't think I can narrow it down!" Luke delicately hopped from tree to tree, making sure his weight barely disturbed the branches, making his way closer. "I'll be honest with you two. I didn't think you were going to fail so badly. I'm so disappointed."

There. Looking straight down, Luke could catch a glimpse of blond hair and furry ears on a lower branch, directly below him. Schrodinger was sitting in the same tree, apparently oblivious. Luke readied himself. "Of course, the Major is going to be even more disappointed when I tell him about-"

Luke dropped. Branches broke and cracked as he fell feet-first. Schrodinger looked upward at the noise, then yowled as Luke landed on him. The branch they were on broke, and they fell the rest of the way down to the rain forest floor, both yelling.

When they landed, Schrodinger was caught firmly in Luke's grip.

A/N: I apologize for how long this story has been inactive, and am grateful to the readers who've still supported it despite its long neglect!