And so, another chapter goes up, slightly edited from writings I made before my long break. The puntuation and spelling have been, to the best of my current abbilities, cleaned up. Other than that, I mostly left it alone. There is one more chapter written from before my...small volley of trageties. Afterwords...well, we can only hope I can make this story work in the long run.

Disclamer: This one comes from lycanine, who put it in his review: "All authorised copyrights belongs to the nippon man who doodles horrible sidelines graphics of Hellsing. Its true, he is a horrible artist."

Chapter seven: the fun begins

The shy smile wavered as the half skeleton noticed the look on the paladins face. I was thinking of a tact full way to ask what was wrong. Encaitare thought of a way, though it was far from tact full.

"What is wrong? Priestling! You mope, you scowl. You are making my head hurt from your un-happy-ness!" The 'priestling' stood up.

"Jus' having a hard time believing I share a name with a creature like tha'." The necromancer winced. There was no other word for what he did. He took a step back and cast his sad gaze to the ground. I suddenly found myself feeling sorry for the zombie. After all, was it his fault he looked that way? Was it even his fault he was a necromancer? We didn't know his story, it could be some tragic tale of loss and heartbreak and betrayal! But here Andersong was being so cruel. I once again had my glory taken away, for when I went to say something to the one-hundred percent living Alex, Seras beat me too it.

"How dare you! He just tried to save her life! And all you do is put him down. In all fairness, can he help what his name is? Or do you just hate everything that your closed minded view has deemed 'unnatural'? You, Alexander Andersong, are specist!" she huffed at him, then turned her back. He blinked.

"I'm…what now, lass?" he inquired. She turned back to him with fire in her eyes.

"Specist. Any species that's not absolutely alive, you hate. Before you even get to know anybody from that species, you automatically hate them." I tried to hold in a giggle, but Seras heard it.

"And you think its funny? Or maybe you just think my lecturing him when I'm not entirely comfortable with the concept of un-dead myself is hilarious. Well, what is it?" she glared disapprovingly at me. I was laughing to hard to even breath, but I tried to answer anyway.

"I-I…he he he he..Ser…as…you…ha ha ha!" my initial attempts failed, but after a few moments, I got myself under control enough to answer her.

"Seras, it was nothing to do with the topic, or the choice of words. Its just…you made a corpse joke." The whole group stared at me as if I was nuts. Witch I guess I was.

"A joke about vampires? Black humor at its finest? You people need to live a little. You're so in the dark." No one understood what I was saying, until a slow grin appeared on Encaitare's face.

"I get it! Vampires, dark? Ha! That's a good one!" she rolled around laughing, as the others slowly realized what I was talking about. Even Alucard grinned, although it might have just been his usual sadistic smile. The dwarf even tried one of his own.

"Ya'd think they un-lived under a stone slab. They really need to get out of the funeral home more often." Seras grinned, finally getting it.

"Oh, give me a break, it's been a killer of a weekend. I've been bored to death with everything lately." I cackled my signature cackle.

"Oh put a socket in it, Seras." She whirled to me and bared her fangs.

"How about yours?" she suggested. To which I replied:

"Bite me."

"That what I was attempting to get across." She pouted.

"Master, they're singling me out for the execution of their jokes!" Alucard's hat slipped an inch.

"My heart beats for you, Police Girl." Seras and I stared, shocked for a moment. Had Alucard honestly just made a joke? It certainly seemed that way. No one else seemed to notice though, as the maelstrom of jokes continued. But it didn't seem fair that only the vampires were getting made fun of…

"Hey Encaitare? Knock it off with the jokes, you're all washed up." She stopped for a full ten seconds before bursting out in yet more laughter.

"Funny, funny! You are hilarious!" I smiled. Finally, someone liked my jokes! I figured the best way to stop the priest from glaring, would be to get him directly involved in the joking. I searched my imagination for the perfect joke. Nothing came to me though. Until Alucard cut in. Having trouble including the Judas priest? He asked. I sighed inwardly. I want the perfect thing to bring him in. Do you have any ideas? He chuckled. Surely someone with your creativity can come up with something. I racked my brain for a moment more, until it hit me. It was so simple. But I would need some one to set it up for me. I could sense Alucard still hanging on the edge of my consciousness. Hey, master? I thought wickedly. He drew nearer. Master? He questioned. I answered him. Well you are. Or at least, you will be soon. Anyway, I need someone to help me with the set up for this joke. Can you do it? I registered amusement. Anything that insults that so-called priest is worthy of my attention. I told him what to say, and he agreed. I rubbed my hands together. Hopefully this would get that scowl off Andersong's face. Alucard looked to the moon.

"Priest, with that grimace, one would almost think you were trying to out do me." I giggled.

"Aww, give him a break. After all, he has to put up a tough façade. He's the one who puts the 'scare' in I-scare-iot." I grinned impishly at the holy man. He glared at me, but I saw his lips flexing. He lost the battle, and ended up laughing. It wasn't my best joke ever, but it had worked. The tense moment was completely over. Alucard shook his head and telepathically told Seras and I that training was a lost cause while we were giggling this much, and that we would resume in an hour. He then departed, leaving us to relay his message. Gecko walked in just as we finished, and said;

"What did I miss?" which elicited more laughter from every one. Eventually, we all got settled down into groups. Encaitare and Andersong went off to talk about God, Seras and Gecko found a quiet place to reflect on life and immortality, and the dwarf was eavesdropping on everyone. That left me to talk with 'Alex'. I sat on the grass and offered him the seat next to me. He shyly sat down, staring up at the sky. I noticed something different about him. His skin looked a little more alive, and his eye had changed color. As a matter of fact, he now had two eyes. The one in the living side of his face was green, and normal looking. But the one in the skull side was the exact invert of its brother. The white part was black, the pupil was white, and the iris, or colored part, was bright red. He looked a lot less frightening now. We sat in companionable silence for a while, then he spoke up.

"I was never properly introduced. What is your name?" he said it softly, as if afraid to frighten me away. He was nightmarish, in some respects, but in truth I found him fascinating.

"Oh, sorry. My name is Scott. Or at least, that's what I'd like to be called." I offered my hand to shake. He looked at it for a while, then gently placed his right hand in mine. It felt strange, to be shaking hands with a skeleton, but not entirely gross. I blushed when I discovered I was staring at him.

"Um…can I, ask you something?" I looked at my lap.

"Yes, I suppose so." His voice was so whispery.

"Why do you look different now? I mean, you looked a lot more…dead, when you were threatening Alucard." Alex looked up at the moon. He seemed uneasy about this topic. So I tried to switch to some other subject.

"Uh, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. We could talk about me instead. How 'bout it? Anything you wanna know?" he turned his head and looked very steadily at me.

"You are trying to make me feel more comfortable. I attempted to kill your friend and nearly you in the process. Why do you feel the need to be polite?" I sat still for a moment, then flopped back onto the grass.

"You only did that stuff to try and save me. So technically, it would be terribly uncouth of me to be impolite." He looked away. There was a long pause.

"I looked as I did because I was calling on my power." I propped myself up on my elbows to look at him again. He met my gaze, and held it steadily. Then I blinked and the moment was lost.

"Oh." Was all I could say. We returned to watching the moon. I closed my eyes and sighed. Then something occurred to me, and I sat bolt upright, staring at Alex. His posture gave away that he knew I was looking, and he eventually turned his head to look at me.

"What's wrong?" his voice was just a breath above the level of wind, and yet I could hear each word perfectly. I grinned.

"Being a necromancer, one would think that you would fit in with a bunch of mythical beings, but it seems to me, that you have a very big difference setting you apart from the rest of us." I explained. He blinked, more or less.

"And that would be? If I may ask." I threw back my head and laughed.

"There's no way you'll fit in with us. You're just too bloody polite!"

A/N: Onward and forward eh? Each time I read the name of the character who's creator hurt me, my heart twinges, but for the sake of finishing this project, I must go on. I refuse to state which character/characters they are responsible for, for I beleive that may result in some hatred directed towards them, and that would just ruin the story. I only mentioned the whole catastrophe to explain why it took so very, very long to get back on track. Till next chapter!