Chapter 6: Of Mists and Ice Buckets.
"What in the HELL did you think you were doing?! Our operations are supposed to be DISCREET!! WHAT was discreet about what you did last night?!"
There were very few things that were able to intimidate Alucard. In fact, he hadn't been intimidated in the last three hundred years, perhaps longer. But the sight of his master nearly foaming at the mouth, veins popping out on her head and neck, screaming herself hoarse, was rather...well, scary. Good thing her fury wasn't aimed at him. It might put a black mark on his record of not being intimidated. Instead, it just added another moment of amusement for him. He didn't often get to see Integra lose her composure so completely, and he loved seeing others scolded. He hated being scolded himself, but he loved seeing others get scolded.
Seras didn't share Alucard's feelings of amusement. In fact, she was thinking rather wistfully of her coffin right then...and the prospect of hiding in it till Sir Integra calmed down. At the moment, Seras was doing the next best thing. She was slouching. A lot. Shrinking into herself. And it seemed to be working. The room seemed to be getting larger. (Wait a second...The room IS getting bigger...)
For a moment, Seras tuned out Sir Integra's reprimand and concentrated on the fact that everything suddenly seemed much larger. Matt and Doug stood on either side of her, and they seemed much taller, maybe a few inches. Doug was focused on Sir Integra, or possibly the spot just over her right shoulder. Matt, though, was slouching as he always did, and was eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, his face unreadable. For a moment their eyes met, and then Matt broke the eye contact.
He waited until Integra drew breath, then he cleared his throat and started to speak.
"I don't see what you're getting angry about. We wiped out the undead, and the official word is that it was an unregistered ship smuggling illegal arms and ammunition, and that there was an accident."
Integra blinked twice, her mouth opened to continue, before sinking back into her chair with a sigh. She grabbed a cigar and lit it.
"True. But that doesn't excuse the fact that you blew apart a ship, rather flamboyantly, in the middle of the river. Find a better way next time."
Doug, Seras, and Matt nodded, receiving a nod from Integra in return. The three turned and left and closed the door behind them.
Doug walked off without a word, lost in thought. Seras was also about to walk off, but Matt's hand fell onto her shoulder, and he started steering her toward the gym. Seras tried to protest.
"Hey, I've got things to do. Besides, we don't have training tonight."
Matt nodded.
"You're right, we don't. I'm not going to teach you martial arts tonight."
Matt looked at her rather pointedly and Seras blinked.
"I'm going to teach you to control your powers."
"What do you mean control my powers?"
Her voice had a little more snap in it than Seras intended. But then, for some reason, Matt's hand on her shoulder felt...rather odd. Matt simply walked along for a moment, his hand still on Seras' shoulder. After a moment, he spoke.
"Take a very close look to the area just around your body, maybe within a centimeter or two."
Seras held up her right hand, and looked to the space within a few centimeters of it. She blinked in surprise, then brought her hand a bit closer to her face.
"What...?"
Her hand was surrounded by...mist? Seras blinked again, and her mouth fell open slightly in surprise. That couldn't be right...she must be imagining it. How could she be surrounded by mist?
"Good. You noticed. Now, watch my hand very carefully."
She turned her head to look at his left hand as it rested on her right shoulder. He suddenly pulled his hand up and away, and Seras felt her mouth fall completely open, and her eyes widen to their maximum as she saw what was undoubtedly mist shoot away from her shoulder, following Matt's hand. She suddenly felt something...odd, like a piece of her body had been pulled away, and she shivered. For a moment she couldn't figure out why. But as she watched the mist slowly settle back to around her shoulder, and the strange feeling of being incomplete, she realized that she felt the mist.
Matt grinned at her as he swept his hand just behind her, barely a centimeter between his gloved hand and her back. She shivered as she felt part of the mist get pulled away by the air movement.
"Yes, that mist is part of your body. You must have wanted to get away from Integra rather badly if you started to turn into mist unconsciously."
Seras suddenly felt a small pang of fear.
"It can be reversed right? I can...reabsorb it, right?"
"Yes, you can 'reabsorb' it. Vampires are meta-morphs, mist being one of the forms. It wouldn't make sense to be able to turn into something and not be able to turn back." Matt placed his hands in his pockets and looked thoughtful. "Beats me how you unconsciously figured out the most difficult form..."
Seras blinked in surprise.
"The most difficult form? Wouldn't that be...oh what are the other two...?" Her brow knit in concentration as she tried to recall the other two forms a vampire has. Matt filled in the blanks for her.
"Dog and bat are the other two main forms. Most vamps have a form or two only they can turn into, but everyone can turn into the three main forms of mist, dog, and bat. And mist IS the most difficult change to make and maintain."
For demonstration, he waved his hand in front of her face, and Seras gasped as the mist was pulled away. Matt continued once the mist had returned.
"As you can see, when you're in mist form even the slightest touch can pull some mist away, which ruins your concentration, and causes a lot of discomfort. But simply becoming the mist is rather difficult. Most vampires can't get the hang of it. It's...as if you're willingly losing yourself." He shivered slightly. "I got the hang of it a while ago, and it still gives me the creeps."
Matt started walking again, hands in his pockets, a slouch to his shoulders, and Seras fell into step beside him. After a moment, they reached the gym. Matt frowned when he saw that the gym was occupied by several of the Hellsing and Dark's Bane members. Without a thought, he turned away from the gym and started walking again. Seras blinked in surprise before falling into step beside him again.
"Um...why aren't we going into the gym? There are only a few people in there..."
Matt didn't remove his eyes from the direction he was heading.
"I don't like training around other people. First, it makes me uncomfortable. Second, it makes them nervous."
Seras blinked at him, her mouth open a little in surprise. He noticed her expression and one of his eyebrows rose in inquiry. She smiled as she replied.
"It's just a little surprising, hearing you say that you're uncomfortable about training with others."
He shrugged.
"Nothing really major, I've always been like that. I'm a bit of a loner."
Seras laughed softly and Matt grinned slightly.
"So I've noticed."
Matt and Seras continued to walk through the manor, and Seras considered the vampire next to her. He really was a mystery. On the missions, he worked well with others when he had too, but he often went off on his own. And off the missions...Very few people could find Matt. They'd get back to the manor, and he'd simply vanish. Often before they got back to the manor, Matt was gone. There was an occasional sighting of Matt in the gym or hanging around with Doug and his family. But if he was spotted in the gym he'd stop and leave if the person entered, and if he was with Doug's family, he didn't stay very long if other people were around.
Seras shook herself out of her reverie when she started to walk down the stairs leading to the lower levels of the Hellsing Mansion. Soon they were surrounded by the dark stone walls of the lower levels, and had passed the door to Seras' room.
"Where are we going?"
Matt glanced at Seras before replying. "My room. I've got some materials there that will help."
Seras blinked but didn't protest, and soon they had arrived at a door. Matt reached out and opened it with his right hand, and ushered Seras in before him. He closed the door behind him and took off his jacket, walking over to the only chair in the rather plain room and placing it across the back. Seras looked around with interest. While the room shared an uncanny resemblance to her own, enough for her to expect that the only furniture that had been here at the start were the table, chair, wardrobe, and coffin, it appeared that Matt had added some changes in the room's general layout.
The table had been moved to one corner of the room farthest from the bed, as had the chair, leaving the center of the room free. On the table was a laptop computer, as well as several books, placed in a makeshift bookshelf, and various vials and jars filled with odd liquids. Seras glanced at the book titles and found them all, with only one exception, to be simple novels that one would read to pass the time. The sole exception was a handsome book of black leather, with silver bindings, that was without a title.
Matt grabbed the book that Seras was scrutinizing, as well a vial of viscous black liquid, and directed her to stand in the center of the room. After she did so, he uncorked the vial and poured the liquid onto the floor, right in front of her feet, and quickly stepped back. Seras glanced at the vial to see no residue left of the liquid, before looking down at the floor. She involuntarily gasped at the sight of the black liquid moving about on the floor with a mind of its own, forming two circles, one within the other, with her standing inside the inner most circle. After forming the two circles, the liquid stared to form odd runic shapes in the space between the two circles. Soon the runes were completely formed, and there was a slight blast of black steam from the floor.
Seras glanced down at the floor, where it seemed that the liquid had instantly dried onto the floor, with a worried expression on her face. Matt spoke, his voice reassuring. "Don't worry, it won't hurt you. It's a binding spell Black makes for me. You won't be able to go past the outer circle, no matter what form you take."
"And why would you need something like that?"
Matt looked at Seras for a moment before answering her question, his voice even.
"To make sure you don't spread out over too much area. While it's true that you can change back and forth from mist to your normal body, that doesn't mean there aren't complications." He opened the book in his hands and started to flip through it. "Like I said, turning to mist is like totally losing yourself, not just your physical form, but your mental form as well." He found the page he was looking for, and grabbed a piece of paper from the table and slipped it between the pages, marking the spot, before closing the book again. "Some vampires don't take the necessary precautions when they turn to mist. Before their minds return to any part of awareness, their mist is spread out over a wide area, and they can't change back very well. It's touch and go, trying to pull the mist back into one area, before coming back to a physical form is possible." He smiled slightly in grim humor, tossing her the book. "I remember hearing about one vampire stupid enough to make his first transformation to mist on a very windy day. He was never seen again."
Seras nodded nervously, then glanced down at the floor where the black liquid had dried, drawing some reassurance that that couldn't happen to her. She opened the book to the page that Matt had bookmarked. The handwriting on the page, simple printing in an odd, red ink, wasn't the best she had seen, but the print was legible. She glanced at Matt.
"What's this?"
Matt shrugged before replying. "My diary. Well, kind of..."
Seras returned her attention to the book and read the passage on the page, creatively labeled Mist Transformation.
The transformation to mist is easily the one I hate the most, even more than the bat. I can't explain it any better than a total loss of self, both physical and mental. It took me forever to finally get into the right mindset. The mind has to be totally blank, and slightly detached from the body. The best I can think of to compare it to is meditation, or being on a drug induced high, neither of which I have experienced.
Once the mind is blank, after a while it starts to...well, lose itself. The boundaries that the mind usually stays in totally disappear. The body soon follows suit, and the transformation to mist is made. I shudder if I even think about it now.
Once the body has turned to mist, the mind and body no longer communicate very well. I'm not sure, but I think it took my mind over three hours to establish any kind of sensory connection with my body. I still don't know what sense it was, but soon I was using all of my senses. I wish I wasn't.
Sight was unsettling. My whole body acted as one big eye, and I could see everywhere at once, up, down, to the left and right, in front of me and behind me...I could even see inside my body, though it was only mist. It took me over an hour to figure out what was the ceiling and what was the floor.
However, even worse than sight was the rest of my senses. Taste, smell, hearing, and touch are all one and the same when you're mist. You taste sounds, and smell textures.
At that point, the writing became a little sloppy, and there were two blotches of ink.
I'm going to stop writing about that now, before I throw up. I'll move on to controlling the mist and returning to my normal body.
I'm not sure how to really explain controlling the mist. The best I can think of is that you push and pull it. It takes a while, with a lot of trial and error, but it's possible.
The process of returning to my normal body took longer than I thought and was incredibly uncomfortable. You'd think that the mind and body would want to return to their natural form, but that isn't the case. Apparently, to vampires, the form they're in currently is their natural form, be it dog, bat, or mist.
The best I can explain it is you pull the mist in, and keep pulling it in until it starts to return to a solid shape. Every part of your body is automatically formed correctly, arms, legs, and organs are where their supposed to be. The same can't be said for any items you change to mist with you though. At least at first. After a while, items you turn into mist also return to their original state automatically.
In fact, I've been thinking about turning items into mist while leaving my body whole and intact. I'll give it a try once I become more experienced with the mist form. Who knows, maybe I'll come up with something useful, like the speed power that I experimented with after turning into a dog.
Seras shut the book and tossed it back to Matt, who caught it and returned it to its place on the table. She had mixed feelings after reading that entry. She was glad that she now knew some of the basic ideas, but having the sensations described hadn't helped her. Now she very much wanted to stay solid.
Seras looked at Matt with a slightly panicked look in her eyes, and her voice shook slightly. "Um...Do you think you could simply show me how to pull the mist I've let out back into my body, and we could go through the rest later?"
Matt shook his head while he answered. "'Fraid not. If I knew how, I'd tell you that in a heartbeat. The mist form isn't what you should go through first, it should be the last. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make a partial transformation yet, so I can't tell you how to reverse it. The best I can do is have you go to a complete mist form, learn how to control it there, then return to normal. Hell, I'm not even sure you can control the mist like this. Your mind is still thinking in the solid realm and you won't be able to control the mist like that. Maybe once you're more experienced, made the transformation a few times, you'll be able to make a partial transformation like you have, and control it then. But not now. Might as well get it over with."
Seras nodded and closed her eyes, putting forth an effort to empty her mind. That was the easy part. Keeping it empty was much more difficult. Thoughts like (I really don't want to do this) kept popping up. Eventually, she was able to keep her head clear and empty.
Matt had long since settled in to wait, pulling out the chair quietly, and sitting down in it, watching Seras. He checked his watch periodically. Nearly an hour had passed since Seras had first closed her eyes. Matt thought back to his first successful mist transformation, and shuddered as he remembered the feeling of his body and mind suddenly...melting, dissolving into a gas.
Matt blinked in surprise and his mouth fell open as Seras suddenly turned to mist.
For a while, there was...nothing. Thought, feeling, they didn't exist. There was nothing, not even time. They just...didn't exist. Then there was...something. It wasn't anything in the physical sense. More of a...realization. She was a...she. It wasn't the word. It was the meaning behind the word, the sense of being...female, different from a male. As quickly as the realization came, of what the meaning of being female was, it left, and she returned to nothingness for a while.
Eventually, another realization came. This was the realization of...time. She didn't know about seconds, minutes, or hours, but she knew that time was passing.
The realization of time didn't leave her, and it was accompanied by the sense of being a...person, her sense of self reappeared. Soon afterwards, memories, feelings, even words were realized, and she felt a sense of relief. Her mind was back. But what about her body? What had happened to it?
Oh yes...she had been in Matt's room...
Her thoughts came and went, disjointed. For a moment, she remembered being in Matt's room, then her mind was taken years into the past, back to when her father was still alive. She was sitting on his shoulder, and there was a man, one of her father's friends, pointing a camera at them. He pressed the button on the camera, there was a click, and she was taken several years into the future, to the training camp for the police.
She was running, at the back of the class and out of breath, but she pushed on, not wanting to give up. She knew the general opinion of her, that she shouldn't be there, that she wasn't cut out for the life of a police officer. But she was determined to prove them all wrong. Her mouth set into a grim line, and she continued to run, when the person right in front of her tripped and went down. She couldn't dodge in time, and tripped over them. The sight of the ground rushing up to meet her was the last thing she saw before being pulled away, to another memory.
For a long time, she traveled down memory lane, her mind moving form one memory to another randomly, sometimes triggered by a thought she had. Slowly, ever so slowly, she got used to it, and was able to keep her thoughts and memories close to the present.
Meeting Integra for the first time, wrapped in a blanket, and being carried by Alucard, then going forward a few days to her first successful kill. Incognito, then back to first meeting Alex, and being stabbed in the throat, and the burning pain in her neck that wouldn't go away till after she had taken the sword out. The scar that had lingered for a few months.
She had a memory of walking through a door being held open for her by Matt, and before it could change, she forced herself to concentrate on that memory with every ounce of her will. Soon she came to the present, being mist floating inside the sealing art, the memories vanished, and her mind came completely back to itself. Then came her body.
She really wished it hadn't.
Sensory information came at her in an unstoppable flood, and her sense of self was washed away once again. Soon, her mind had recovered, and she began the unsettling task of shifting through her new senses.
First and foremost was sight. It was just like Matt's diary described, seeing everywhere at once. But Matt's diary didn't go into detail about how she saw everything in an unbroken image that wrapped around her. When the mist, which was just floating around at random, parted for a moment, she found herself seeing...well, herself. The mist was looking at the mist...A very unsettling experience. She didn't even want to consider the fact that she could see inside herself as well.
Next was everything else. Her senses of hearing, taste, touch, and smell were all combined into one. Every little sound vibrated through her body, throwing off her concentration, and she could smell...everything. She could even feel everything. The floor, the ceiling, the very air...
The flood of information was too much, and Seras started to panic. She wanted to be back into her normal body, back into a solid body. The book had said something about pulling the mist inward, until it took on a solid shape. She didn't see how you could possibly 'pull' mist, but she was desperate. In her desperation, she tried numerous ways to get the mist to move. When none of them worked, she went into full blown panic, and found the key.
Matt had been sitting in the chair, watching the mist that was Seras moved about at random inside the sealing art, for over seven hours. He had occasionally picked up a book in an attempt to help pass the time, but his worry over Seras kept him from ever truly getting into the books. Eventually he had just given up, and settled in to wait, hardly moving a muscle.
Matt frowned as the mist once again became agitated as it had several times, roiling about in the sealing art, before suddenly condensing. His mouth dropped open in shock as the mist was suddenly sucked inward, forming into a solid shape and Seras reappeared in the exact same place as she had been before, in almost the exact same position and condition, with one very large exception; she was nude.
For a moment, she stood there, her arms down at her sides. Then she collapsed, falling to the floor where she moved about in an uncoordinated way, much like a newborn animal, not yet used to how its muscles worked.
Matt stared at her, his mouth open, eyes wide, in unflattering appreciation for nearly a minute before coming back to himself. He shook his head and gave himself a mental slap before standing up. He reached behind him with his right hand, grabbed his jacket, and tossed it into the air so that it settled onto Seras, who was just starting to move in a coordinated way. Matt walked over to the wardrobe, opened it, and withdrew a pair of white sweatpants, as well as a short sleeved blue shirt. He turned around and walked back to the desk, tossing the clothes toward Seras who had good enough control to grab them.
Once at his desk, Matt grabbed what appeared to be an ordinary white coin, turned, and tossed it toward the seal. There was a flash, and the black markings on the floor suddenly vanished. Matt then politely turned the chair so it faced the desk, and sat in it, his back to Seras.
Seras, for her part, was more than a little dazed, and had caught the clothes Matt had tossed her on instinct. Soon after catching them, however, her brain awoke fully, and she realized her state of undress. She gasped, and hugged the jacket tighter to her, eyeing Matt, sitting in the chair with his back to her, with a mixture of nervousness and suspicion.
Matt, feeling Seras' gaze on his back, couldn't help but grin. His voice was also rather smug sounding. "Don't worry, Seras, I won't look. I've already gotten an eyeful."
Seras felt her left eyebrow begin to twitch as she pulled the sweat pants on, and tied the strings rather tight, since Matt's waist was much larger than her own. She grabbed the shirt and pulled it over her head, frowning at the awkward fit. Matt's shoulders were quite a bit broader than her own, but since she had breasts, it balanced out. Sort of. The neck of the shirt plunged a little more than she liked.
Seras gasped as she remembered her uniform, and turned around to look for it. She spotted her uniform almost at once, as it was lying on the ground less than three feet away. It was, however, rather...different.
The left sleeve and breast pocket were now attached just under the right sleeve, and which was now upside down, one of her black leggings was now attached to the back of the skirt, while the other was attached to the neck of the uniform, and the Hellsing crest was shocking cut neatly in half, one half each appearing on the left and right sides of the skirt. Seras reached over and picked her uniform up and looked at it in amazement before turning to Matt as he turned his chair around, assuming she had clothed herself. Matt blinked in surprise at the state of her uniform.
He opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the intercom, ordering one of the remaining Hellsing units into action, as well as Matt, Seras, and Doug. Matt sighed as he stood up and retrieved his jacket, swinging it about his shoulders while slipping his arms into the sleeves. He frowned as Seras struggled to her feet.
She stumbled and Matt caught her before she fell while her uniform fell from her weak fingers to land once again on the floor. His voice was rather forceful. "You're not going Seras. You aren't fully recovered from the mist transformation."
Seras threw an angry glare at him before standing again and shoving his arm away. "I'll go where I please, thank you very much. I've recovered just fine."
Seras proceeded to walk toward the door, and Matt noticed that she was moving rather stiffly. She opened the door and walked out, and Matt grinned as he counted off in his head. (3...2...1...0.)
CRASH, "Aaagh!" THUD, "Oof!"
Matt walked to the door and into the hallway to see Seras lying on the floor, her rump stuck up into the air slightly with a formal ice bucket sitting on it, ice littering the ground around her, and a blood packet sitting on the back of her head.
Seras sounded rather resigned when she spoke. "I always wondered how those things always got around. Now I know. They float."
Matt grinned as he stepped forward, grabbing the blood packet and popping the top off before sticking the tube in his mouth like a straw. He glanced down at Seras for a moment before squatting down in front of her, his back to her. His arms were placed in a carrying position as he looked at her over his shoulder.
"Well, you going to get on, or do I leave you lying there?"
With a little difficulty, Seras pulled herself onto his back. Matt stood up, supporting her legs with his hands while her arms wrapped around his neck, and carried her piggy back to her room. He opened the door with his foot and carried her to the bed, sitting on it and letting her off. Seras saw a bucket of ice sitting in the middle of the table.
He stood up and walked toward the door, talking as he went, this time his voice brooking no argument. "You're not going on this mission, you're too uncoordinated right now. Just stay in bed for a few hours, and you'll be fine." As he passed the table, he picked up the blood packet that was in the ice bucket and tossed it to her, dropping the blood packet he had drained while carrying her piggy back into the trash. He opened the door and was gone.
Seras gave a slight huff of indignity, but popped off the top of the blood packet and started to drink while she settled herself onto the bed comfortably.
:Author's Note:
Sorry for the long wait for an update, but my internet's been down for some reason.