Particle 01: A Monk and a Vampire
There are several locations around the globe as we know it -- "Earth" -- that have been determined as points of activity.
One is probably well familiar with this concept. If something of a magical or fantastic nature is to happen to a perfectly normal-and-not-so-well-adjusted adolescent, said adolescent must be a resident of one of these places. Should the adolescent be born in another location, that adolescent will be drawn to an activity spot, be it by job change, the tragic death of parents to live with a relative, or the raw and pure draw of fate. Not to say that all of these are not fate in themselves, but the raw draw of fate is known to those who say "I must return to Tokyo, for there, my destiny awaits."[1]
As is known, however, the future is not yet decided, and at the same time, though there is no such thing as 'fate', those who try to alter it often end up very dead. [2] It is only those who do not acknowledge its presence that save the day and stay alive. It is as if fate has a selective existence, or takes days off every now and then.
There are many arguments for this. A popular theory is that fate chooses its bitches carefully and makes their lives hell while leaving the fated heroes alone to be free from its bonds. The paradoxes and oxymorons get rather thick in this area, and logic does not like to stick around for very long to direct traffic. It prefers hanging out with the Laws of Explosions and Noise in the Vacuum of Space.
But the point that is trying to manifest itself through the prose elbows through all of the irrelevant information. Each nation has its activity spots. In the United States, they are California and New York City. Every single popular teenager movie takes place in California, for it is assumed that only in California can there be a high school with such a diverse student body as valley girls, stoners, jocks, goths, skaters, punks, ghetto homies, and a faculty heavily populated by the droids of teacher stereotype, none of whom are too bright. [3]
And to be a hero, one has to live in New York. For, surely, one fated to be a hero cannot manifest powers in, say, Amarillo, Texas [4], for example. The energies and setting aesthetics are merely not in place.
In Japan, the place is Tokyo. In the CLAMP universe, the place must include Tokyo Tower.
Now, let us assume that one is a vampire. One has no better place to go other than London, England. The wandering adventurer is guaranteed at least a peripheral or background role as a character in a movie, novel, or fanfiction. The proverbial lens that allows reality to look upon fiction is focused on two areas for vampire viewing pleasure: London and Romania. [5]
And where there are vampires, vampire hunters follow in order to keep a status as 'employed'.
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[1] Technically, the individual using this quote was told by his mother to get his little uke ass back to Tokyo to fulfill his destiny. It is close enough.
[2] Very poetically, ironically, and tragically dead, with great abundances of black feathers and blood. Equal and opposite reaction.
[3] Actually, all of these teachers have a social IQ of less than 50 and are proven to be either anal-retentive robots or dweebs that just need the help of their cool students to get phat and break out of their shells [I], man.
[I] And not in the Utena sense. That would break the rule regarding the limit on mental function induction of a teenage movie being of a fourth grade picture book comprehension level or lower.
[4] A.K.A the center of absolute mental and cultural stagnation, or "hell on earth", as ex residents lovingly call it. Ironically the capitol of the Southern Baptist Biblebelt. Living there is painful.
[5] London has become the more popular location as of late, due to the fact that there are sex, drugs, neon lights, clubs, and indoor plumbing.
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Alucard sat down on the front steps of the Hellsing Manor and ripped the tab off of a blood packet with his jaws. He spat the plastic tab onto the grass and began to suck on the strawlike appendage of the bag. The blood was warm from keeping it in his breast pocket. It was not bodily heat that did this, for vampires have none, but the mere sandwich of heavy fabric.
The heat radiating from Sir Integral's rage probably did a good job in helping the blood reach temperatures almost tolerable for the vampire. Alucard grunted and pressed the bag to push the blood at the bottom of the bag into the straw. He hated cold, stagnated blood, but at the moment there was nothing else. All of the Hellsing soldiers had long since left after the fiasco involving the Judas in the Round Table, Walter was out of town, Seras needed blood as he did, and he did not fancy pinning Master to the ground at the time to suck on her neck. He would probably find it uncomfortable to walk for a week.
Ennui is known to be a calm before the storm in the NeXus, or at least a chance for the Creators to rewind and think of new ideas or study for their final exams. Like Akio, Alucard was bored. Unlike Akio, Alucard found it much more difficult to contain his ennui without doing something such as going down to the dungeons to shoot rats. Harassing Sir Integral was getting dangerous and somewhat old.
Alucard finished his blood and crumpled the bag in his fist.
Something was rustling in the bushes.
Alucard grinned, shoved the empty bag into his coat pocket, and walked over to the bush. He plunged his fist into the foliage and gripped.
Somebody screamed in pain and gripped at Alucard's wrist. He had clutched hair, tightly pulled into a low tail, but with loose tendrils sprouting from the forehead. It was familiar antigravity hair, as was the scream familiar. It was a voice belonging to no less than seven people whom Alucard knew.
"I-I-I-ITAIIII NA NO DAAAAAAA!! AAAACAAAADO!!"
"Well, greetings, Monk Man." Alucard hauled Chichiri out of the bushes and brought the unfortunate monk nose-to-nose with himself. "And what the hell are you doing here?"
"LET ME DOWN NO DA! OW!"
Alucard dropped Chichiri into an undignified heap onto the grass. Chichiri took a few deep breaths, pushed himself up with his staff, and dusted himself off.
"That really hurt, you know, no da."
"My heart bleeds. What the hell are you doing here?"
"I really don't know no da." Chichiri continued to brush his shorts off, though they were already clean. He straightened his sash. "I hit a snarl somewhere back in Tortuga no da. I thought that you might be around no da."
Alucard sat down on the steps. "What did you think? There hasn't been any activity in this damn city lately. I've been sitting on my ass drinking packaged blood like a lap dog."
"Why haven't you left no da?"
"Master wants me to stick around on emergency watch."
"Emergency watch no da…" Chichiri sat down next to Alucard and nodded sagely. "You really are Integral's bitch no da. NO! IT'S A TERM OF ENDEARMENT NO DA!"
Alucard lowered the Jackal from Chichiri's forehead. He rested his wrist on his knee and allowed the gun to dangle loosely from his hand. There was no point to this. Integral would have his guts for garters if he shot the damn monk, and as much as he hated to admit it, the monk had his uses.
For example, right now.
"Let's get out of here."
"Huh?" Chichiri blinked. "To go where no da?"
"I don't give a fuck. Just get me out of this damn city."
"I don't think Sir Integral would like that very much, no da…"
"I think she would be happier not to see my face for a while." Alucard grinned to himself and stood up. "Let's go."
"…where no da?"
"Anywhere."
"Um… well…" Chichiri thought for a moment. "…have a fight?"
Alucard cocked the Jackal. Chichiri began to unfasten the clasp holding his cloak together busily. Alucard was not a good person to cross when he was bored, underfed, and defensive. And probably undersexed no da, Chichiri added to himself.
"Right no da." Chichiri flicked his cloak like a banner and spread it on the ground. "We'll just go wherever the wind takes us no da."
It was at this point that Chichiri remembered that he was a human, Alucard was a vampire, Alucard was cross, and Alucard had been drinking out of a blood packet, the latter of which was probably tepid and sub par to the Nosferatu.
He suddenly became aware of just how warm his own blood was.
"…on second thought, I think I had an appo--EE!"
Alucard marched Chichiri onto the spread mantle with a gloved hand on the nape of the monk's neck and stood directly behind him. "Let's go, Monk Man," he half-hissed, half-growled. The growling half of things was guttural and impatient.
Chichiri swallowed, pulled his conical hat onto his head, and tapped the mantle three times with the butt of his staff. The rings hanging on the symmetrical heart design at the head of his staff jangled.
The mantle glowed. Alucard and Chichiri began to sink into interspace.
I am so, so fucked no da…
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"You're crazy."
"Crazy, brilliant. The line between the two is so very vague and undefined, don't you agree?"
"But this is utterly stupid. There is no other way to put it."
"What if I said that I could pull it off well?"
Guru (or Master Mage, or Madoushi) Clef pulled his half-moon spectacles off of his nose and glared at Mana. He had been peacefully studying out of his venerable tomes of magic in Cephiro's library when this flat-eyed joker in a lab coat had shown up, smashed his palms into the table, and asked for the musicals section of the library before Clef had a chance to recover from the initial shock following the violent attack on the silence.
The stranger did not listen to the fact that Cephiro had no Earth musicals, for one…
"I would say that you are either an amazingly talented young man, or another delusional fanfiction writer with no idea as to what creates quality comedy." He narrowed his eyes. "Out-of-character outbursts, transvestitism, and fast automobiles in the hands of the wrong people do not make anything of any substance. They are cheap tricks to hide a lack of talent."
"I never said a thing about automobiles."
"Such as it is,"--Clef tapped his fingers on the table to punctuate his words--"you are doing something foolish and unoriginal."
"But I will make it original. Don't you see?" Mana grabbed the front of Clef's robes and dragged the mage close to him. "I will put a fresh edge on the idea! I will be the genius that pulls it off so well and flawlessly--"
Clef bashed Mana in the head with his staff. Mana dropped the mage and held his head in surprise. The old man had some bite.
"Do not ever touch me again without my permission, young man." Clef straightened out his robes, sat down, and replaced his glasses. He returned to his book. "You will receive no help from me, Mr. Scienziato," he said loftily. "Now please leave."
Mana continued rubbing his head gently and watched Clef for a moment. The mage turned a page in his book.
"You want to talk about extraneous and image creating? All right, old man."
Mana snatched Clef's glasses. Clef blinked in shock, then looked up Mana.
"HEY!"
"Glasses, indeed," Mana said, looking through the lenses and twisting the glasses around in his hands. "These lenses are just pure glass. You have perfect vision, old man. Are you not fulfilling the image stereotype of an arcane old mage in a library? Oh, forgive me." Mana turned the glasses so that he was staring at the semi-convex faces of the lenses. "You are a CLAMP character, after all."
Clef snatched his glasses and set them on the table. "And did you not notice that my robes are not my usual attire? It's artbook fanservice day."
"Oh, forgive me." Mana straightened and looked around the library. Books upon books lined every square inch of wall and shelf available, which constituted quite a bit of space. The room domed beyond three stories of floor.
Clef tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. Mana continued to look for around a minute from where he stood, neck craning in all directions.
"…does something interest you?" Clef finally snapped through his teeth.
Mana had walked off toward a distant bookshelf. Clef sighed loudly and returned to his book. He faintly heard the rasp of rough library binding-against-binding across the room, the crackle of pages, and finally the muffled closing of a book. Footsteps followed.
Clef sighed loudly and shook his head, still staring at the pages of The Practicality and Theories of Wiccan Magic. He almost had a second heart attack when Mana slammed his hands into the desk once again and leaned over nose-to-nose with him.
"No Earth musicals, did you say?" Mana held up a blue, rough-textured book and shook it as if the binding was a reproaching finger. "How well do you know your own library?"
Clef was still recovering from the shock of hearing Mana walk out the door, then having him slam his palms right under his nose. His breath finally unbound itself from his throat and released soundlessly. He collected himself.
"Sound projection manipulation; very impressive, young man. A lovely party trick," he said vaguely.
"No, it is the warping of magical energy in the library. But yes, I can do that." Mana cocked his head and smiled. "And do remember that in this nexus nothing is considered pure anymore. This Cephiran library is not purely Cephiran in content, by definition."
"…you don't say," Clef said blankly. "I must have missed something."
Mana pushed the book into one of his already-bulging coat pockets. "I will return it, old man. And I require the CD as well."
"CD," Clef repeated blankly.
"Why, look at this." Mana fished around underneath Clef's spread of notes and pulled a jewel case out from under the mess. He waved it in front of Clef's eyes. Clef blinked.
"Thank you for saving me the trouble," Mana continued. Clef finally blinked and returned to his senses, which themselves were returning to earth and regaining the flow of proverbial blood to relive numbness.
"Now, see here, young man…"
Clef opened his mouth and tried to think of something to say. The young man was supposed to have swept out dramatically or cut in to gloat on his wondrous and ingenious plan that no old coot could appreciate at this point, but the said young man merely stood patiently with his arms crossed. Clef waved his finger soundlessly, mouth open.
Mana made small motions to encourage Clef to speak. "…see here?" he said with raised eyebrows.
Clef snapped.
"Get out of my sight, you insolent little twat, and don't return!"
"Are you going to want your book back?"
"OUT! OUT!"
Clef stood up so suddenly that his rolling chair coasted into the wall and smashed his small hands into the table. He jabbed his finger toward the open door.
"LEAVE, YOU SORRY EXCUSE FOR A CREATOR! OUT! OR I WILL HAVE YOU A FROG IN A JAR BEFORE YOU CAN EVEN BLINK!"
"Frog in a jar. What were you saying about being unoriginal?"
Clef hurled a paperweight of the cosmos. Mana dodged and scrambled out the door.
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"Hey, Monk."
"Um… yeah no da?"
"Where the hell are we?"
Chichiri looked around. He had chosen to merely allow interspace to pull them toward an area of high energy and impending doom and chaos, and they had emerged on the thatched roof of a mud house. The land all around the house was tilled.
It was also bloody cold. The roof was covered in ice and show, as was most of the land. The clouds had recently decided to dump liberal amounts of snow everywhere.
"…Alaska no da?" he said hopefully, trying to control his chattering teeth.
"Wrong." Alucard crossed his arms and stared at the fields. He was fortunate enough not to feel cold. He could sense changes in temperature, but his body did not register them as favorable or unfavorable.
Chichiri pulled his mantle more tightly around him and hugged his knees, sitting back on his heels to avoid sitting on the ice. His staff lay on the roof beside him.
"…um…"
"We're in RUSSIA," Alucard hissed. "Czarist Russia."
"…how do you know no da?"
Alucard pointed across the field to a group of black-clad, red-sashed soldiers in knee-high leather boots and fur caps. "Do you see those soldiers over there?"
"Yeah no da."
"Don't they look just a little bit like soldiers from the Czar's army to you?"
Chichiri thought for a moment. "In theater setting and costume sense, yeah no da…"
Silence settled over the roof. Chichiri huddled closer into his mantle.
"And we can't leave?"
Chichiri slowly turned to look at Alucard and shook his head. His eyelashes were encrusted with frozen perspiration. "The interspace ways are jammed no da. Traffic has been called to a halt no da."
"Can't we just break a few little rules?" Alucard growled quietly.
Chichiri shook his head stiffly. "One more infraction and I get called to the Court. Might get my license revoked no da."
"Well, without a license you can still travel."
"If I get caught without a license and with a record…" Chichiri tried to think of exactly what would happen. "…daaa."
Alucard curled his lip. "You have no spine, Monk."
"Well, forgive me. Mr. No-Life-King. Unlike you, who was bestowed with power overriding all enemies, I was bestowed with the powerful and helpful abilities of a peripheral character. I'm not designed to save the world no da."
"Nobody's asking you to save the world. I'm just asking you to slip past some rent-a-mages to get the hell out of this godforsaken hellhole."
"It's not godforsaken no da." Chichiri nodded over his shoulder at a wooden Star of David on the chimney. "It's Jewish no da."
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Mana slipped a package of joints to the warden in charge of the Historical Musicals and Dramas sector and patted her on the shoulder. "The other half if nobody leaves or enters without my permission for the next twenty-four hours."
The warden, who appeared about seventeen, pulled a joint out of the Ziploc bag and lit it with her Guns and Roses lighter. The dusty robe of her office was covered in band pins and safety pins, her nails were painted black, and her lip and eyebrow were pierced. She dragged on the joint and exhaled slowly.
"Thanks, man. I've needed this hit."
"And please, try not to get fired while on the job."
"Don't worry about it." The warden pulled her Mage Academy student ID out of her purse and pulled a roach clip off of the side. It made an effective way to keep the little buggers from getting lost. "Nobody ever patrols this sector. Don't care much about it."
"Yes, I can see that they don't," Mana said vaguely.
The girl ignored him and pulled her headphones over her ears. She pressed a button on her CD player, and phenomenal, eardrum-bursting levels of Orgy filled the vacuum of interspace, which, unlike outer space, has been filtered and pumped with air for easy travel.
Mana rolled his eyes and faced the glowing Road behind the girl's plastic lawn chair.
"Right." He moved his hands in an arcing, square-like shape. Corresponding lines of white-hot light glowed brighter than the softly glowing white Road behind it and carved themselves into a door.
Tell me, how does it feel
When your heart grows cold?
"Wonderful." Mana clambered into the road. "Mazeltov."
