Freedom Chapter 2

By J.L. Pitard

Standard disclaimer: All characters belong to Kohta Hirano and his publishers. I have no stake in them...

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Wind whipped Seras' hair as she waited on her perch. Ghoul attacks had been reported in the area, but the night was calm so far. She licked her lips. Her troops were arranged below the building in a wide perimeter of the suspected infestation. In the newly reorganized Hellsing, she was rewarded with a troop of mercenaries, The Wild Geese. Her master had a smaller group of more traditional Hellsing soldiers. The mercenaries were less disciplined and their captain was a bit of a loon, but she liked them well enough. Integra must have some faith in her after all to give her a command of her own.

Seras Victoria liked to think of herself as a soldier, not a servant, of the Hellsing Organization. She was a servant, just not theirs. Her allegiance was to her master, Alucard. That made her servant to a monster, who was servant to the head of Hellsing. Come to think of it, she wasn't sure that was any better.

She swallowed away the thought. "Concentrate, Seras", she thought. Men's lives depended on her. She took a deep breath and tried to sense any undead activity. There!

"Squad B, the Grace of God and Her Majesty the Queen be with you, Amen" she called on the radio, "Ghouls to the right." Her troops turned in time to begin firing.

Ghouls are both the tools of and the residue from vampires. They were what her police unit had become after the vampire priest of Cheddar had attacked them. The night she'd died. Seras shared her master's disdain for newly turned vampires who killed for fun and for FREAKS, humans who were infected, not by vampires, but by human created microchips that spread in the blood. The microchip seemed to be able to emulate the vampire state, but without the full powers. She wondered which they were dealing with tonight.

Only one way to find out, she thought as she leaped down from the rooftop. The ghouls had been disposed of by neat headshots and she complimented her men on that. She tossed her 30mm Anti-Midian cannon, Harkonnen, onto her shoulder as she led them down the alley where the ghouls had come from.

Killing ghouls was relatively easy with a gun, if you knew the target zones, but they were stronger than humans and felt no pain. Serious trouble in hand-to-hand combat. They also tended to travel in packs. Seras expected more along any time. What she didn't expect was an intelligent ambush. A gunshot rang out as a sharp eyed mercenary saw the first ghoul move out from a darkened doorway. Soon they were all engaged as nine ghouls rushed them from all directions.

The alleyway wasn't that wide and they were all going for clean kills to avoid friendly fire. Seras was unable to use her mortar rounds on them, so she went with her handgun, the modified .454 Casull. All of the troops were supplied with silver rounds and she had some of the custom blessed ones that her master favored. Ghouls were easy to kill with such bullets, but they were still messy. As the heads and chests exploded around them, Seras and the troops were smeared with blood, flesh and brain matter. Muttered complaints began as the ghoul threat died away. Seras held up her right hand and they silenced. I see the puppets, she thought, but where is the vamp? On their own, ghouls could not have thought of an alley ambush, or of using a gang to lead the troops into it. I should have been trying to sense more, she thought and she concentrated again. Her newly developing powers were still a bit shaky, but she felt some undead movement on the rooftop as well as in an old building up a head. The feeling was stronger for the rooftop, but a little voice told her that there were fewer there. Maybe that meant that the vamp or vamps were there?

"All right," she radioed, "I want a force of twelve taking out the undead in that building ahead. Put a few guards outside the doors and be careful. The rest of us..." She pointed to the fire ladders on the building to her left.

Seras hoped she was right as she leaned down for a flying leap to the top of the three-story building. She smiled as she enjoyed her new strength. Seras had traded her humanity for these new abilities; she might as well get some enjoyment from them.

There was a strange tightening in her thoughts as she landed.

"Master?" She asked mentally, as she looked around.

Laughter greeted her instead of an answer. The tightening released and she shook her head as she continued to look for the source of the laughter.

"You might well call me that, girl..." a male voice called out. She strained her eyes and caught a glimmer near one of the pipes that vented on the roof. She shot at it without thinking.

"Hey, that stings!"

Good, she'd guessed correctly.

A shape began to form and she took cover behind a small satellite dish.

Seras wanted to take him out quickly so that he would release control of the ghouls that she knew her troops would be about to encounter.

Her backup men were silently moving up the fire escapes and would be just a minute or so away. If there was nothing for them to do, so much the better. Truth was, she really hated putting them in jeopardy. Master Alucard hated that weakness in her, but then again, he hated all of her weaknesses.

She shrugged and took aim again at the figure striding towards her. Head or heart wounds worked well with these lesser vampires. Of course, they would do nothing but slow down a nosferatu. He slowed down when two more of her blessed bullets hit him.

"This is not a good way to start off!" He taunted. He took a few steps back and two new vampires came up on either side of him. They moved to support him, but he waved them away.

Seras tried to switch from her pistol to the Harkonnen as quietly as she could. The first of the Hellsing mercenaries was low crawling across the tarpaper roof to the nearest chimney. Usually, she didn't like running with the cannon loaded, but now she was glad it had an armor piercing incendiary round ready.

The main vampire moved forward into a pool of moonlight. Blond hair, medium height and almost pudgy in his casual attire, he just didn't look that threatening to Seras. Still looks can be deceiving, she thought as she sighted him down the Harkonnen. As she fired, a look came over his face and he seemed to disappear. The two vampires she had seen earlier really did disappear, but not due to any magic, they caught the full force of the special cannon rounds. Clothing and internal organs flew out, and then just dust remained where they had been.

Anger flashed through her, but it wasn't hers. Pudgy, her nickname for the head vamp, was either intentionally flashing his feelings at her or was so angry he was leaking mental energy. She couldn't see him, but she could feel that he was still close. Her troops were now in place and they looked to her for a signal, but what could she tell them? The enemy had flown the coop.

Gunshots now rang out from the building at the end of the alley. From the sound of it, the ghouls were getting torn up. She radioed for info and Captain Bernadette responded that they had lost one man, but he was confident they would cleanse the building. She sighed and looked down. She hated losing anyone.

Suddenly her hands were torn away from the cannon and pinned behind her back. Pudgy had materialized directly behind. He put his back to the nearest standpipe and shouted for her troops to throw down their weapons.

Seras hoped they wouldn't without her direct order.

"Come on boys, you don't want to see her die do you?" He laughed at his joke and twisted her arms up higher, causing her to wince. He had lifted her off the ground and the full weight of her body was resting on her pinned arms.

"Hold your fire, but keep positions." She commanded. Having seen how easily he transformed, even with silver bullets in his chest, she knew he must be pretty powerful. She could feel his strength and knew she was couldn't match it.

"I came to talk," he hissed into her ear, "but you had to go and kill my children."

She said nothing but she concentrated on the people he had turned into ghouls and sent after other innocent victims. Did they die just to get Hellsing's attention? She thought about how best to hit Pudgy and make it hurt.

"You'd better hope your master is being more reasonable." He reached around to pull her Casull from her shoulder holster. Since he'd moved her arms over to one hand to do it, she lurched around, losing the gun, but at least freeing her arms. She backed away from him, looking down the barrel of her own gun. Thank God it's not the cannon, she thought. Not that I can survive one of our rounds at close range anyway. What a waste of an undead life.

One of her men took the initiative and emptied a clip into the nosferatu. He wailed, dropped her gun and disappeared into the night.

Seras nodded her thanks to the soldier. They all did area sweeps as they approached her.

"Status report" she radioed.

"All clear" the troops from inside reported.

"Form up and let's get the hell out of here" she kneeled down to holster her gun and pick up the cannon. One soldier bent down to help her lift it. She laughed at the gesture, but was surprised to find that she really did need some help. Her knees were weak and she leaned up against the cool metal standpipe. Seras made a mental note to thank the whole unit tomorrow with a case of beer.

One of the soldiers looked over the ledge and signaled that they should go down. She nodded and took a deep breath. She didn't want to risk jumping with her legs feeling weak, so she went down the ladders with them. A stretch of her mind revealed no other undead in the vicinity.

Once on the ground a thought occurred to her..."Master?"