xx
12
xx
"Oh my God, Pip, do you think he's...dead?"
"He sure fucking looks like it."
"Language!"
Loud.
And rude.
"Unbelievable. There's a pulse. It's...real slow, though."
"Oh God, Pip...his eyes!"
Ruined.
"Merde. How the fuck are you alive, man?"
That's right. I should be dead. Ah, when did this body of mine become a mere clumsy shell?
It was sundown, and the shadows were in an uproar. They twisted and rippled as a reflection of his mental and physical state, angry, vengeful, sanguineous. They mapped out his surroundings. The trees. The man and the woman. The hellhound. Aware of the curdling darkness, it whined in submission.
"Let's move him inside."
"Do we have to?" A pause. A resigned sigh. "Fine. Poor bastard deserves someone at his deathbed."
Deathbed. He had had a foot in it for a long, long while.
"Okay, take his feet...up we go...wait, wait, wait, hold up! Not you too, shitty chien! Stay!"
Life.
Death.
Now, it matters not.
xx
xx
Her smoke coiling in the air, Integra strode through the castle, stepping over bodies without a care in the world. Dillon had ran ahead to prepare the horses. Walter was flanking her.
She had been informed that a portion of the royal army was holding the right wing of the castle along with the Queen. The rest were engaged outside. The hall was in shambles. Her eyes ran over the gouge marks in the upholstery, the chandelier that had exploded and spewed its crystals all over the marble floor, the dust shimmering in the slant of twilight. She stopped and took it in. She felt that this confusion, this disorder, was what it always had been.
"My lady?"
She paid attention to the portrait over the dais. Large and gilded, a glorified likeness of the royals.
And yet, in its golden frame, no prince.
"In the end it was worth..."
She removed the cigar and tapped its ashes to the floor.
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
Walter was concerned. "Are you alright, Integra?"
Integra blinked. She turned to him and smiled, and if it was a sad little smile, the butler was wise enough not to say anything. "Why wouldn't I be?" And with that, the spell was broken. She shuttered her face. "Walter, stay here and aid the other knights."
"My lady, with all due respect, it is nightfall. That boy is not going to be any use against the beasts in the forest. I must insist on accompanying you."
"Sir Hellsing!" someone called urgently then, running toward them from one of the side chambers. It was Sir Islands, his top hat askew and Sir Penwood, harrowed and dabbing at his forehead with his handkerchief. "And Walter! Thank God! Thank God!"
"Sirs. Is there a problem?" Other than the one they were having right now? Honestly, at this point the universe could have imploded and Integra would not have batted an eyelash.
"The outside! It's—"
"Sir Hellsing," Islands said, "this is bedlam. Even with Walter, we were outnumbered from the beginning. I cannot afford to lose any more men. Where is His Highness? In this battle with the usurpers, the only thing that will break their morale is his presence."
"He's—he's not truly dead, is he?" Penwood stammered.
"He is not," she said. Her tone was final. "I will find him. In the meantime, I won't hold it against you if you choose to act on your best interests." She continued on. "I'm going."
"That's the problem! The outside, it's—well, you'll have to see for yourself."
Integra stood in front of the grand doors, her hands on the handles. In a deceptively calm voice she asked, "The outside, Sir Penwood?"
(And in another story, Pandora asked, should I or should I not open this box?)
Penwood and Islands took a step back as Walter took a step up, his wires tense between his fingers.
Biting her lip, Integra pushed the doors open.
PANDEMONIUM
1. the capital of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost
2. the infernal regions : hell
3. a wild uproar : tumult
Pandemonium.
Integra gaped. "Holy fucking—"
"—shit," Walter finished.
"God Almighty!" Sir Penwood yelled, just as a gargoyle swooped down. It was decapitated before it reached them, and its head landed at their feet with a splat.
"Sirs, I'll take care of this. Please, go back inside," Integra said, shoving the ashen men into the building and closing the doors shut. Then slowly, she faced the grounds.
"Well, Walter. It seems you don't need to worry about me going off in the forest." She flung her cigar at a nearby wraith, whereupon it disappeared down the creature's hood and burst into flames. "Because its entire fucking population is no longer there!"
The forest must have had flipped itself upside down and emptied its inhabitants into the castle grounds, for the entire surface of the once-immaculate front was overrun by all manner of nocturnal beasts. Their orbs, varying in shades of red and orange and yellow, zeroed in on the hunters. Around them, soldiers had abandoned sides and were collectively fending off the creatures. Screams, human and inhuman, filled the air.
Integra fired her pistol in rapid succession at the motley and felled a supernatural target each time. That was the least of her concerns, though. "When did this happen?"
"The sun was setting when we arrived." Walter released a wave of wires. "They must have come out as soon as it went under."
"But why?"
He grimaced. "It's because he isn't here. The proverbial sum, the counterweight, the zenith of monstrosity."
Integra's lips thinned. She commenced walking. "Cover me."
"There is a balance," the old man said, as he followed with his wires forming a dome over them, "to everything. Light and dark. Life and death. Boon and bane. The purge so many years ago—it was a counterbalance to the convergence of monstrosity in the very heart of the kingdom. As he matured, they came crawling back—for what better place for monsters to thrive than a realm ruled by one?"
"Stop talking about him like that," Integra snapped.
Walter gave her a pitying glance. "Integra, I too, am fond of the young man you have named 'Alucard.' But don't tell me you're in denial of his true nature. Before 'Alucard,' there is the nameless prince, the one they call 'Dracula.'"
Son of the dragon, son of the Devil.
"When you find him, what will you do?"
Integra did not answer. Her platinum curls swayed in the clammy breeze. Clouds with dark linings, the vestiges of the day's snowstorm, floated past the blood red horizon.
Sunsets had always reminded her of his eyes.
She regarded the creatures swarming all over the place. The ones closest to them were watching her every move and doing nothing else. "They aren't attacking us."
Walter catered to her avoidance. "I rather believe they aren't attacking you, my lady."
The implication was a headache.
Upon reaching the gates, she was surprised to see Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum still at their posts, looking ill but alive. They snapped up straight at her approach. "Sir Hellsing!"
"I see you two are in one piece."
"Er, yes," one said, appearing unsure about that fact himself. "We've no idea why, Sir. They don't attack us. But they don't let us go anywhere else, either."
"I'm going to be sick," the other complained.
The sound of hooves announced Dillon's arrival. He was frazzled yet also unscathed. He held up two lanterns. "R-ready, Sir."
"Good." Integra paused, and rounded on Walter. "I'm going to answer your question."
He inclined his head.
"What will I do?" She glared at him. "Counterbalance? Nameless prince? Dracula? What utter shite," she spat. "He's Alucard. My Alucard. And if he is those things that you blathered about, then I'm going to make him fix this. I'm going to kick his sorry ass, and I'm going to bring him home." She closed her eyes briefly. "Home, Walter."
Walter could not help but smile. "I only await your return, my lady."
Integra replicated the smile wearily. No promises.
She took her lantern and swung herself on a horse. "Kill as many as you can, but focus on getting the others to safety, first. We don't need a larger mess than the one we already have."
"Understood."
"As for you two," she said to the gatekeepers, "you are relieved from duty. Follow Walter back to the castle and replenish yourselves." Integra raised a brow at their brightening expressions. "I confess myself curious. Why are you so amenable to my orders? I have no hold over you, and His Highness is absent."
"Yes, but," Tweedle-dee or dum hesitated. "You're going to find him, aren't you? He's coming back. And when he does…these things will go away."
"Or that's what the rumors say," Tweedle-dum or dee added earnestly.
Integra rubbed a temple. "And these rumors, they don't bother you?"
They shrugged. "Better one scary prince than thousands of these monsters, Sir."
The corners of her mouth twitched. She took the reins and led her horse to the direction of the forest entrance.
"Let's go."
The valorous knight and the hapless valet set a brisk pace into the woods, seen off by a loyal butler and two witless gatekeepers. Had the knight been paying attention, she would have noticed a fourth person under a tree she had just ran past; his face sporting a wide grin, his bespectacled gaze appraising, a cross bouncing on his chest. Yet she was distracted by the stars that were flecking the sky. She tilted her head toward the zenith.
"Just as you will fall after me, I will fall after you."
"Straight into hell."
Dillon looked behind him nervously. "Did you say something, Sir?"
"We'll run them out of their thrones. We'll make ourselves a paradox."
She was starting to wonder if the powers that be had taken her words four years ago a bit too literally.
"Damn it all to hell if that is the case," Integra growled.
Back at the gates, Tweedle-dee or dum sighed. "Besides, the prince isn't so bad when you think about Sir Hellsing."
Walter snorted.
xx
xx
The blue hue of twilight quickly bled into black.
An uninhabited forest, Integra discovered, was in a way more intimidating than an inhabited one. Its emptiness conveyed the irrevocable condemnation that life could not be sustained in its depths. She almost preferred an onslaught of damned beasts to this. The sole reprieve from the cage of nothingness the trees comprised was the light from their lanterns.
She brushed aside a low-hanging branch. Ahead of her, Dillon was describing the events leading up to his separation from the prince.
"It was a man's voice, Sir, though I couldn't hear it clearly. I think he may have been reciting something...such as a Bible verse..."
"A priest." Integra ground her teeth. "The thirteenth. I knew it was too quiet."
"Sir," Dillon ventured, "if...if there had been a fight, then shouldn't..." He gulped. "Wouldn't this mean..."
"Don't finish that sentence."
Silence fell. Integra refused to entertain any uncertainties.
The riders walked further into the woods, where the trail became laden with snow. Nearly an hour into the search, Dillon cried out. "I think we're nearly there, Sir! There must be a clearing up there. I'll go and see if—"
The valet did not have a chance to finish.
His horse had taken a few steps into the outskirts of the clearing when it gave a great neigh of terror and reared, pitching Dillon from its back.
Integra, clinging to her reins and attempting to control her own affected horse, could only watch helplessly as Dillon shouted in pain and his horse turned tail and galloped away. "Easy, easy! Dillon! Are you hurt?"
"L-leg's b-broken...something up there's s-scared her badly..."
As soon as she settled her horse, Integra jumped down and knelt beside him. "How bad is it?"
"I'll m-manage, Sir." The boy gave her a brave smile. "I can take care of this. Please, go to the clearing and—and see if—"
In what was the worst day of her life, Integra felt as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders as she stood, without argument, and trudged into the clearing. She did not know what she was expecting. Alucard sitting in the snow, unable to move due to an injury of his own? Looking up at her with that stupid smirk of his as she entered? An offhand remark on her punctuality? A lewd one or two?
Not this.
Not this.
Integra slid a hand down her face. "Not fucking this."
"Sir Hellsing! Is everything alright?"
She circled the dead stallion, unflinching at the monument of death, and made her way to the opposite side where a glint of metal had caught her eye.
His sword.
She lifted it up and stabbed it into the ground.
"Sir Hellsing?"
The small pool of light from her lantern illuminated the site of battle and reflected off another discarded weapon, a bayonet. She picked it up and studied it. Silver. She threw it down.
She moved to the large puddle of blood that had soaked through the snow and sank next to it. She grabbed a fistful of the red slush and squeezed.
Then she noticed the line of blood leading from the puddle.
Integra leapt up.
Dillon was clumsily setting his leg with sticks and his scarf when she returned. His face fell at her expression. "He's not—"
"Dillon," Integra said quietly, "I want you to take my horse, turn back and get your leg fixed."
The valet stared at her in horror. "I cannot, Sir Hellsing! It was one thing to leave His Highness behind, but now you as well? You can't expect me to leave you alone in a forest at night. On foot. In winter! I'm timid but not stupid or even a coward, Sir!"
"And yet you have a broken leg, which will slow us down in whichever way, and you will have to contend with my wrath if you don't comply with my orders," Integra said coolly. "I assure you, Dillon, that the consequences will be dire should that come to pass." After a meaningful pause, she smiled reassuringly. "I promised I would find him and I will. I never break my promises."
The boy's shoulders were stiff with mutiny, yet in the prolonged silence they slumped, defeated, and Integra wordlessly helped him to his feet and on horseback. Dillon bowed his head. "No wonder my lord loves you so, Sir," he said. "You are truly an empress among queens."
Integra scowled. "None of that. Off you go."
With his departure, the forest was very dark and very still.
The knight began to follow the trail of blood.
She did not feel the cold. She was numb.
xx
xx
The woman was named after a Roman goddess. Her surname meant "victory." More than once people had remarked it was too grandiose an appellation for her, and they might have been right. Her hair was a sunny yellow, her eyes a cornflower blue, and her cheeks dimpled. She simply looked too wholesome to be anything other than a blushing bride in a charming little cottage.
Looks can be deceiving.
But that was a story for another time.
She had a penchant for mustering up compassion in the most inopportune circumstances. Like when she had fed the hellhound dinner scraps the other day. "No, Mignonette, you do not feed a hellhound scraps. They eat souls for a living, remember?" her husband had said. Unfortunately, he had married one of the most stubborn women in the realm, second only to a certain knight, and she had merely scratched the dog on its many-eyed head and said, "But Pip, why would the poor thing be here if he isn't starving?"
"To devour our unsuspecting souls?" Pip had pointed out. She had gone on feeding it anyway.
Which had developed into their current predicament.
"Right. So. This is supposed to be our cozy honeymoon cottage," her husband said.
"Uh-huh," she said cheerfully.
"Our retreat from le monde and all its complications."
"Yep."
"A place for just the two of us. Alone," he stressed.
"Mmm."
"Tell me again, then, how," Pip Bernadotte waved at the unconscious man on their spare bed and the sheep-sized dog on the floor, "this came to be?"
"For goodness' sake, Pip, you helped me carry them in here." Seras Victoria rolled her eyes.
"Correction. I helped carry Blanche Neige here. Not the mongrel, too."
Said mongrel opened three orbs and thumped its tail.
"Blanche Neige? Is that what you're calling him?" Seras peered closely at their patient. "Hmm. He really is rather pale, isn't he?"
"Or la belle au bois dormant, I'm not picky." Pip was disgruntled that their little life was interrupted, and that his wife was studying another man's body, but he was not that shallow. He dragged a stool and sat beside Seras. "I still can't believe he isn't dead. I mean, who still breathes looking like that? It's a bloody miracle."
"Exactly why we need to help him," Seras said determinedly. "The salve's cooled. Help me bandage him up."
Pip adjusted the man as Seras plastered healing salve on his sternum and dressed it in gauze, crossing her fingers that her meager medical skills would suffice. She was even less confident about his optical injury and decided to let it be for the time being. When she tried next to remove the red cravat around his hand however, the body, which had been completely immobile until then, reacted. The hand curled into a fist and spasmed as shadows elongated and streaked up the walls.
"Eek! Okay." Seras held up her hands in surrender. "I won't touch it."
"Mon Dieu." Pip stared. "What the fuck was that?"
"He might not—" She bit her lip. "Not be entirely normal, I think."
"You think? What gave it away, the shadows that shot across our ceiling a few seconds ago?"
"Other than that." Seras pointed at an inconsequential cut on the man's arm. Before their eyes it shrunk, and then closed.
"Merde." Pip stuck a cigarette in his mouth. He did not light it, because she hated when he smoked indoors, but it was better than nothing. "What have we gotten ourselves into, ma chère?"
They always did seem to have the worst luck.
xx
xx
xx
xx
NOTES
Chien - Dog
Le monde - The world
Blanche Neige - Snow White
La belle au bois dormant - Sleeping Beauty
Mon Dieu - My God
"Pandemonium" is defined by Merriam-Webster.
Filler-y chapter with a distinct lack of Alucard, I should admit, but bear with me. My muse has been peculiarly canon-compliant these days and has, against my better judgment, been brainstorming a new, canon-complaint AxI fic. It's very frustrating, since I don't plan to start a new story until SW is finished. Hmm. Let's see how it goes.
I've always had this headcanon of Pip being a potty mouth and I think it's because he has the same voice actor as Sanji in One Piece and Sanji is a potty mouth, not to mention their characters are quite similar, so...
When I write Integra, I listen to "Valor - In Courage and Gallantry," from the Bayonetta 2 Original Soundtrack. Only the best for our queen!
If I'm rambling, it's because I had coffee. It's a terrible influence on me.
Thank you, thank you everyone. Your responses are lovelier than cherry blossoms in spring. Don't think I take them lightly, because I take them to heart. It's just that I become very self-conscious and fret a lot if I attempt to reply to anything other than direct questions. I always await you.