Wow, it's been one whole year already since I started this fic. 0.0 I never expected it to last so long, never mind get so popular. I'm somewhat in shock. Of course, I've had fics (especially series) that have lasted longer, but I guess this one is special because I started it on a date that's so easily kept track of, the starting of a new year. Huh. New Year's is actually a rather important time of year for me, now that I think about it. So much stuff always happens on this day. I got my ears pierced on New Year's, and I published this story, the first one on my new laptop, on New Year's, and with my luck I'll probably get married or have kids on New Year's. (*Note to self, if the impossible ever happens and I do get married, set the date for January 1st.) Jokes aside, it's nice to set out on another epic year of writing. Here's to hoping I get even better!

January 1, 2015

Scrap's POV:

I watched Seras hustle out of her room, carrying her gigantic Harkonnen cannon on one shoulder. "Scrap, you sure you don't want to hide in the basement?" she asked as we ran side by side, heading up to the main floor. I shook my head rapidly. "Even though there's going to be lots of guns?" she asked worriedly, and I gulped. "I'm sure. I want to help." Seras bit her lower lip, catching the tender flesh under one of her razor-sharp fangs. "That's what I'm worried about." I glanced about as we dashed across the hallway, seeing the Wild Geese setting up barricades everywhere, aiming guns out the windows and generally preparing for conflict upon the manor grounds itself. I gulped and ran faster, watching Seras slam open the door to the control room. "Captain Bernadotte! Seras Victoria and Scrap reporting for duty!" she said with a salute, and I copied her. Captain Pip spun the chair around, a cigarette dangling from his lips. "Good. Ma chère, I'm told you have some guns up on the roof?"

Seras blinked twice. "Y-you mean the Harkonnen II? I thought that was only for emergencies-" Pip cut her off with a raised hand. "Trust me, ma chère, zis qualifies as an emergency. According to Sir Integra's report, since your master was sent to zat big boat out in ze ocean, we're sitting ducks out here, and those kraut bastards could attack at any time. We don't want a repeat of the Valentine incident, do we?" Both me and Seras shook our heads rapidly in the negative. Pip cracked his neck with one hand. "So, our orders are to dig in here and prepare for battle, which is exactly what we're doing." He looked down at me with his one remaining eye. "Scrap, you stay in here with me. Knife fighting is all very well and good, but we're going to be fighting from a distance, and wiz guns." I scowled a little, but crawled under his desk and curled around myself, waiting with one eye open. Seras sent me one last worried look before saluting Captain Pip again and scurrying out.

3rd Person POV:

"The noble deer, as he roveth, the eagle bold, as he moveth, our rifles shall give us prey! Away, let your horns then be sounded! Our horns thro' the wood shall be sounded!" Smoke drifted upward from the ocean, shards of metal quickly sinking into the dark cerulean depths. The figure on the deck of the HMS Eagle twirled her musket, raven hair flying about her as she opened her mouth and sang, the words lilting across the ship. One of the men scavenging the control room looked up at her voice. "Vat song ist that?" Another soldier with a scar slashing across his cheek in a way eerily similar to a certain paladin glanced up briefly, then looked back down to the control box he was tinkering with. "Scene 2, "Oh Day of Terror". Carl Maria von Weber. Der Freischütz!" He clicked the last switch and stood up as the control tower lit up like a Christmas tree with the once more appropriately functioning apparatus.

Just in time too. "Victory! Victory! Tonight our revenge is realized!" Rip van Winkle suddenly choked to a halt, her eyes wide. The soldiers all perked up as her incessant singing stopped, rushing to the control consol. "Vat…vat ist…vat ist this?! AH! IT'S HIM! IT'S HIM! HE IST COMING!" she wailed, coming to her knees. The soldiers hurriedly checked the instruments. "Ve have a radar blip! It's inbound!" one shouted, and another snorted. "Again? The fools come to be made scraps of seaweed once more." The other shook his head, panic showing on his features. "Nein! This one…ah! Speed, Mach 2.8! Altitude…85,000?!" The other blinked. "Vat!? Impossible! 85,00 you said?!" The soldier with a scar scratched his cheek. "It's a reconnaissance plan. Un SR-71." He frowned at the others when they stared at him. "You don't know? They've been in the magazine many times. It vas born during the Cold Var, un artistically styled reconnaissance plane. But this ist the first I've heard of Britain having any." The soldier who had scoffed before grinned. "Haha! Vy don't we knock it out of the sky?"

"Ve can't."

The scarred soldier sighed in acceptance as the others gasped around him. "It's a monster which flies through the stratosphere faster than Mach 3. This ship's antiaircraft missiles would do nothing." Rip van Winkle's panicked voice broke through the uneasy murmurings, heightening the mood of fear. "HE IST COMING!" she shrieked through the intercom, and the soldier on duty pressed the headphones against his ear. "Lieutenant! Vat ist?! Vat's happening?! Exactly who ist coming!? Lieutenant!" he called into the mouthpiece, and she shrieked again. "Its him! He ist coming! Its him, its him! The mad mouthpiece ist coming!" Back on death, Rip van Winkle had finished frantically loading her gun and aimed it at the pitch-black sky, her fingers, and in fact, her whole body shaking. "With the smell of death kicked up und in his grasp…trailing behind him a black steel horse, he comes straight for us!" she whimpered, and back in the control tower, one of the machines went haywire. "THE ENEMY PLANE IST NOSE-DIVING!"

The scarred soldier stiffened. "It, it couldn't be…he can't mean to crash into this ship!" He gestured wildly at the pilots. "Engines! All start immediately! Evade him! CIWs! Fire a barrage! Schnell! Schnell!" The guns began wildly firing as Rip van Winkle leaned back, aiming her rifle. Vat is this thing? This dread, the valley of fear? There ist a devilish hunter there, und he ist on the hunt. The plane began to reach the pinnacle of its dive, a fiery orange streak in the night sky. As a hunter, vat is there to fear? Does fear exist within the heart of the hunter? But those who test God do so in sin. Rip van Winkle went almost flat on her back, aiming her rifle straight for the oncoming dot of fire. I appear within the depths of the night. I give no heed to any fears. Even ven the evergreen oak ist shaken by the storm. Even ven the birds cry out.

She fired once. I am vorried. I am vorried I am vorried. I am vorried. There ist no need to hurry so. Don't go. Don't go. The bullet, guided by the magic of the gun or Rip van Winkle herself, sliced through the plane again and again, strafing the sky with shards of metal and gouts of fire. The moonbeams are still sure. The moonlight makes it yet like twilight. Before long that light will too fade. The entire plane exploded in a shower of red fire, and the soldiers onboard cheered. Rip grinned, but then it faded. A v-voice ist c-c-coming from th-there. A-a v-v-voice th-that ist c-c-calling t-to m-me. An unholy swarm of shadows burst outwards from the plane, along with a rasping baritone voice. "Control art restriction system; Level 3, Level 2, Level 1, released."

Awed, terrified silence descended upon the ship. Before long, I guess the light of the sun shall be lost too. Fate has driven you. Rip's teeth were chattering. A-auf W-wieder…A-auf Wiedersehen. Vampire as she was, it still felt like her heart was pounding right out of her chest. Ahh, s-s-such a s-s-sad th-thing, a h-hunter's l-l-life. M-m, m-my-my-my h-h-heart i-i-ist sh-sh-shaking. The plane crashed onto the ship in a plume of fire, bringing with it Samiel, the demon hunter, aboard.


New Years