Disclaimer: Do I own X-men and Hellsing? Am I the bloody Queen of England?
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'Putting through your paces' was revealed to be one of the easiest training lessons that Nightcrawler had ever endured. These were, in comparison to Logan's training sessions, like sleep walking. And compared to learning the routines for the trapeze? Ha, it was laughable.
Then came the weapons. Kurt was surprised that they trusted him enough to hold the gun then he realised that they probably had Arucard watching him. The mutant spent a long moment admiring the craft of the gun, noting its engraving with a wry smile and then he passed it back to Integra.
"It's a nice gun." He told her.
"You're supposed to shoot the target." She frowned and couldn't help but wince as her hand was caught suddenly.
"I vont hurt you." Kurt positioned his hand against hers, noting that she seemed surprised at the lack of digits. He matched up her two fingers to each one of his then paused, indicating the gun. "You fire."
Puzzled, she watched as she was made to hold the gun in one hand and then, still keeping her shooting one in a mock version of his, was gently forced into attempting to fire. The guard got in the way. Realisation dawned and she looked at the breadth and length of his fingers.
"You can't shoot; you can't get your finger on the trigger." Slightly dazed, she turned and walked off, pausing only to add to Ferguson, the troop leader, "Get him on a program to build up his muscle."
"Yes Sir Integra."
"Good." She continued off and the mutant cringed at the look he was given from the commander.
"So, what are you precisely?"
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No one was there. Kurt looked left, and then looked right before moving into the middle of the room, marvelling at the set up. The room looked like a giant gymnasium crossed between his precious trapeze! With barely held glee, the mutant investigated the place thoroughly.
After a complete loop, Kurt was ecstatic. Finally! Somewhere were he could do what he wanted, no having to lift weights, no having to run about like an idiot and better than that, no vampires! Chuckling to himself, the mutant started to pick what to test first.
It was the closest to flying that he could manage and he felt free. The trapeze was under his complete will, being thrown away and discarded so that he could catch the next one. Why on earth this place had a trapeze was beyond him, team building perhaps? Or to practice those little stunts from those dire Bond movies?
"You should have a safety net up."
Kurt lost his concentration and missed the catch. With cat like ease, he controlled his fall so that he landed on his feet, barely causing the dust to stir. He growled at the smirking Arucard.
"You've got some tension in there." He poked the mutant square on his bare torso, the t-shirt having been abandoned as it was too hot with his permanent fur coat on. "You fancy a fight?"
"I'm fine, danke." Kurt shook his head and glanced back up at the trapeze as it swung slowly back and forth. "I'm going to go now." He slowly attempted to retreat but was caught by the vampire.
"Come on, you've got anger. I want to see it."
"Get off me!" The mutant kicked Arucard right in the chest, causing the vampire to stagger away before regaining his composure. Kurt attempted to bolt away, hoping for some space so that he could safely teleport. His tail was caught and he was dragged back towards the grinning Arucard.
"That's better." He smirked and easily pinned the panicking mutant, images from horror films running across his mind as the vampire tapped into them. "I'm not going to bite you...yet, but I do want that fight."
"Then go pester someone else." Kurt growled, hoping that he sounded braver than he felt. His tail was suddenly crushed and the blue mutant howled before going ballistic, slashing blindly and kicking as hard as he could.
"Come on, Kurt. Surely you can fight better than that. I heard your thoughts earlier, you trained to fight. I want to see how much you know."
"Go to hell!"
"I don't plan on it, demon." Arucard let the mutant get away a few feet before dragging him back over. "Or didn't you ever cover the lesson on how to deal with vampires? Hungry ones at that, I can hear your heart racing away." He licked one of his fangs and laughed at the look of sheer terror.
"You call me a demon, you're the demon Arucard. You chose your life-"
"And you didn't choose yours. Must you be so depressing? I don't care if your parents tried to drown you-"
"Zey did. Gypsies fished me out of ze river." Why was he giving details again? Kurt wanted to hit something really bad, he wanted to just vent his anger on something.
"I'm right here and awaiting the role of a punch bag. Come on." Arucard taunted and laughed. "Come on, just one punch."
In desperation, Kurt teleported.
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The vampire blinked away the sulphurous smoke and growled, annoyed that he had been cheated out of his fun. Oh well, he decided as he blended with the shadows, the mutant couldn't have gone that far.
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Panting heavily, Kurt decided to keep moving, knowing that that would make him a harder target to find. Glancing behind as he ran full pelt on fours, he collided with something and very slowly looked up. After glancing past masses of red material, he finally made eye contact with the bright red ones of the vampire.
"Guten tag?" The blue mutant smiled and scrambled backwards, trying to assess were they were. After a moment, he recognised the dining room.
"And hello to you too." Swaggering forward, Arucard smirked and picked up the trembling teleporter. "Do you still want to hit me?"
Gritting his teeth against the pain of the tight hold, Kurt growled and shook his head, trying to keep his mind clear. His head was hit off the wall and that idea was out of the window. Images of death raced across his jumbled mind and he winced as the vampire laughed.
"No, not tonight." He put his face right up to the mutants. "But maybe tomorrow if I get hungry." The vampire laughed as he received a sharp slash across the face, the wound healing instantly as Kurt tried to find something useful against the vampire.
Surprisingly, for an organisation that hunted and killed vampires, there wasn't much lying around in the way of protection. The mutant gulped thickly as pressure was put on his tail, a familiar boot resting on it. "Bitte, don't."
Arucard put all his weight on the tail and laughed as the mutant nearly hit the ceiling before bolting across the table. Kurt barrelled into some of the ornaments on the massive piece of furniture and groaned as everything came back into focus. The vampire dramatically sniffed the air then licked his fangs.
Realisation dawning on him, Kurt looked at his throbbing tail and noticed the large gash across its surface. As quickly as he could, he grabbed the limb and cradled it protectively from the vampire, the pain messing up with his instincts to teleport. He yelped as he was pinned down and Arucard took a long moment to study the limb.
The vampire smiled, making a show of licking his fangs and then sniffing at the blood. Finally, he licked it and purred at the exotic taste. There was a thud and he glanced over to the now unconscious Kurt, fear proving to have a knock out affect on him. Then the door opened.
"Mercy." Walter frowned, having come up because of all the banging about. The sight was a conspicuous one, a vampire pinning a now unconscious mutant, tail in hand with bloodied fangs. "Explain."
"We were playing about, I got carried away." Arucard smirked, moving off the mutant and licking his fangs again. "I should persuade him to donate."
"Arucard, if you have a single decent bone in your body, you will assist in returning him to his quarters, now. He has a hard time sleeping without you terrorising his sleep."
"Someone beat me to that pleasure." The vampire froze then smirked casually, hoping that it wasn't noticed.
It was. "Explain."
"Mob dreams and the like, last night he was in a freak show." He shrugged, scooping up the limp form. "Nothing fascinating."
"Were these dreams based on fact or fiction?"
Arucard paused on his way to the shadows. "I wish that it was fiction." That said, he moved through the wall with ease, leaving the butler alone to clean up the mess.
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Kurt slowly opened his eyes, his swimming vision unwilling to focus on anything in front of him. Something cold and damp was sitting on his head and it started to irk his fur to the point that he decided to get his tail to swipe it. It failed miserably as some heavy weight kept it back.
"Kurt?"
Was he back at the institute? Was he finally away from all that insanity – just a fevered dream? Certainly no one called him by his name in that nightmare.
"Come on Kurt, you may look really cute but I like you better awake."
Awake? Cute? Oh no. Oh god no. He shifted his yellow eyes slightly to the left and finally they focused on Seras who smiled and squealed at him.
"You're all right! Master told me to look after you but I wasn't too sure how but your alright now at least!" She gave him a rib crunching hug.
"Vhat time is it?"
"Err, seven."
He smiled. "So I can get some sleep now, ja?"
The vampire cringed. "Its seven in the morning and Sir Integra wants to see you training today."
Kurt groaned and dropped his head back against the pillow, staring instead at the ceiling.
"I could always tell her that you're unwell – she'll probably let me look after -"
"Righty ho, time to go!" He teleported.
"Men! Even cute blue fuzzy ones!"
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Integra felt her jaw drop. She had followed the mutant as he avoided his lunch break to go to the hall. There had been a few brief comments about blowing up the weight training area and numb arms. Curious, she waited for a full ten minutes before entering.
Kurt was on the trapeze.
She stood for a full thirty minutes watching the mutant flip from one bar to the next, using his hands, feet and tail. He would summersault, defying gravity with cartwheels. He easily slipped through hoops so small that Integra doubted she'd have managed to get through them on the ground. His teleporting had become part of the act, teleporting just as he was about to smash into the ground, or the walls, or the ceilings he flipped so high. Finally, the act was finished with a freefall.
The boss blushed as she was given an odd look from Kurt. He was crouched on the ground, stunned to the spot like a rabbit in the headlights. Then a part of him seemed to automatically take over as he grinned, stood up and bowed deeply to his audience, the fear never leaving those golden eyes.
Clapping resounded and slowly, Integra turned to look at the gathering. Half the squad were gawking, Seras was giggling to Walter who nodded as he politely ignored her, Ferguson stood there, his back rigid from fear that the youth was about to become a messy bundle on the ground. Arucard smirked from the shadows, his red eyes burning them away.
It seemed the mutant had found a place, maybe an entire new line of approach – the possibilities started to run through the woman's mind as she turned and started to leave.
Ferguson stopped her. "I thought you wished to see him training, Sir Integra." He seemed nervous.
The woman smiled coldly. "I just did. Get him off the weights and keep him doing what he's good at. An acrobat could come in hand, not another gorilla."
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The end of the first month of Kurt's stay was marked with an interesting development. The mutant had wriggled his way into the charming good books of Integra, had slipped under the wing of Walter and had batted away Seras with as much energy as he could. There was only one person he still felt isolated from. Arucard.
It was not that he hadn't tried, but he still refused to fight the vampire. Arucard had already tasted his blood, he wasn't about to offer more. Humour wasn't working on him either. Kurt paused as he saw said vampire talking to someone in the reception room. Closer inspection revealed quite the surprise.
The man was a priest; at least, he wore the garb of a priest. He was excessively tall and had short blonde hair, a deep scar on his left cheek. A little bit of eavesdropping confirmed that the man went by the name Paladin Alexander Anderson.
"An' what's that yer keepin' back there?" Anderson pointed to the hiding mutant and he scowled. "You're protectin' th' de'il himself." He raised a gun and shot Arucard, the bullet smashing straight through the vampires head.
"Arucard!" Kurt jumped fully into view and froze a few feet away from the vampire's remains. "You shot him."
"And yer next, demon." Another shot was fired and the blue mutant vanished with a puff of smoke before reappearing on the fireplace, his anger finally winning.
"Forgive me, father." Bamf. He was behind the priest. "For I have sinned." He booted the priest in the crook of the knee, causing the giant to fall forward. Bamf. Kurt was now inches away from his face. "It has been," Bamf and he landed on the mans head, "six weeks since my last confession."
Anderson roared and shoved the mutant off him as he staggered to his feet. "You'll pay for that, demon." Bible pages flowed out from him, pinning themselves against the walls. "You can do no more of your cheap black magic tricks now."
Grinning, Kurt winked then teleported before reappearing to examine a sheet, mock horror on his face. "Bible pages? A priest tearing the bible up? Blaspheme!" He teleported again, vanishing too quickly for the bullet to hit.
"Face me, demon." Anderson screamed and reeled back when the mutant suddenly appeared on his chest, noses practically touching. Laughing, Kurt looked for some sort of a weapon.
"Damn you, Errol Flynn." Kurt teleported over to the sword display over the fire and picked up all three swords, looping the scabbards over his back in a way that he was accustomed to. The third scabbard was settled on his hip.
"Three now? Aren't you bein' a wee bit o'er zealous?"
"Eine." Kurt held one in his left hand. "Zwei." He held one in his right hand. "Drei." The final one was flicked in his tail. "Viel Glueck."
"Good luck? I don't need it." The priest charged forward and was met with three flashing blades. Kurt flipped over the man and kicked his feet out from under him. It was time to show off just what he was capable off.
Using a fancy array of summersaults; flips, spins, break dance manoeuvres, teleporting, leaping, bounding, bouncing, defying all physical laws of gravity as he used the ceiling, walls and floors as launch pads, Kurt battled. Even when down, he rolled and twisted; spinning and turning. In fact, Anderson's next cry summed it up perfectly.
"How am I meant tah hit yae if you don't stop moving?"
"But, good friend, zats ze point." Kurt had stalled on the mans shoulders wrapping his tail tightly around the neck, hoping that the man would pass out soon. Something sharp hit him in the face as they both fell to the ground, Anderson kicking and lashing for air. The mutant was aware of the blood spilling down the left side of his face but ignored it, waiting for the man to pass out.
"Kurt!" Integra stalled at the sight. The place was a mess, everything overturned and scattered with bible pages. The mutant was bleeding and crouched over the now unconscious Anderson. Kurt backed away sharply.
"I didn't mean...he vas here and he..." Kurt tailed off at the familiar chuckle. "I thought you vere dead!"
"Nope." Arucard smirked. "Good show."
"How long have you been up?"
"Forgive me father for I have sinned." The vampire taunted and laughed at the dark look.
"I'll kill you, Arucard. You made me hit a priest – Christ, I hit a priest. Zat isn't going to go down well at mass." His eyes rolled back and he dropped down, blood loss finally winning.
The vampire laughed and crouched down next to Kurt. Cigar smoke had filled the air, a sure sign of some emotion going through his master. Carefully, he removed one glove and ran it through the blood before licking it.
"Hmm." He smirked and repeated the move.
"Now is not the time for games, Arucard. Get him down to the medical wing to see about that cut and then report to my office immediately." Integra glanced down at the priest. "I'll talk to him later if he dares show his face."
"Yes master." Arucard scooped up the young mutant and paused for another taste of the delightfully sweet blood.
"Arucard!"
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