Order 6:

Chains

Time Stamp: Present

Location: Nathan's unconscious mind, dream state

Nathan walked alone a darkened field, as far as the eye could see there was nothing but wheat. Lightning flashed over the field and was shortly followed by thunder and yet no rain fell. Nathan continued to walk in the field; suddenly a person came into view. An elderly woman, in her early forties at most, late thirties at least, as he approached she turned and gave a warm smile that only a mother could give their child.

"Mother¼ Mother!" Nathan shouted as he ran towards her. God, it had been so long sense he had seen her. As he came closer he noticed things about her that started to send up mental red flags in his mind. He looked at her smiling open mouth; her canines were abnormally long, far to long to fit in the mouth of a human. Her eyes glowed a soft red.

Nathan slowed down; the warnings screaming in his head activated a long dormant alarm of signaling a predator was nearby. He finally stopped, and started to back away. The woman that appeared to be his mother slowly approached him, the same smile on her face, but that only served to unsettle Nathan even more. Finally he broke out into a run.

He looked back; the woman kept pace and slowly was over taking him. The warm smile of a mother was replaced by that of a predator smile as it was running down its prey. Up ahead of him was a church; it simply appeared out of nowhere. Quickly he entered the holy structure and slammed the door behind him. Nathan Looked around the room, it was empty. As he headed towards the alter he noticed something on it. A pair of katana lying on the alter, almost as if they were waiting for him.

Slowly he picked up the weapons; they seemed so natural to him. Holy writing had been made part of the silver blade as he looked over the weapons sharp edges. Suddenly the doors opened and the woman walked in. Nathan brought the swords together, forming a cross in front of him as he prepared for battle.

Time Stamp: Present

Location: London, Hellsing Mansion, Infirmary

The doctors worked carefully as they tried to study the sleeping form of the regenerator, Nathan. They were all a little jumpy; they knew that the restraints were woefully inadequate to restrain the regenerator if the combination of blood loss and drugs were to suddenly wear off. And then there was the fact that the woman vampire was watching, half imbedded in the ceiling, their every move. She had personally promised none of them would know the meaning of the word sleep for a good month should they fail to find out what was making this man a regenerator.

One of the nurses looked over a recently developed X-ray of the regenerator's skull and brought it over to doctor. Seras noticed the doctor seemed to blink several times before coming to terms with what he was seeing.

"You have found something doctor?" Seras asked from behind him. The sudden question made the man jump. Quickly recomposing himself he showed her the X-ray images.

"If you look at the base of the brain stem you will notice a rectangular object." The doctor said as he pointed towards the item that he was talking about.

"What is it?"

The doctor sighed, still struggling to believe it. "It's a micro chip, but nothing like the freak chip's that we pull out of the NHB'S. Further more look at these strands across the brain, they appear to be connected to the chip."

"What does this all mean doctor, your trying to tell me." Seras said, trying to invoke some fear into the doctor to get him to cut to the chase.

"We, we don't know. It might have something to do with the blood work we completed on him whi…"

"You took blood from him?!" Seras said outraged. It may have been her feelings of protection over him, possibly she knew exactly how dangerous it was to remove even the slightest bit of blood from him with all the blood she had taken, he needed every drop.

"Yes sir, but not enough to put him in any danger. His blood work revealed that there are countless numbers of chemicals in his system, several that we can't identify, others that we are only starting to understand the full affects on a human."

Seras sighed; all these things that the doctors were telling her seemed pointless. She brought Nathan back to Hellsing and quickly convinced Sir Integra that this was the ideal way for them to learn the secrets of the Iscariot regenerator's. She did, however, leave out the part about Nathan being her fiancee and that she refused to allow the bastard's to get their claws into him again. "Fine, send your findings up to Sir Integra. How's, how's the regenerator?"

The doctor looked back up at her, he had some suspicions that officer Victoria might have had some form of connection to the man based on the fact that she was sticking around. However, he decided wisely and only nodded as he walked away after giving her his report on the mans health.

Seras looked back on at Nathan; she had been watching his dreams ever sense they returned to the mansion. The images, thoughts, emotions, and fears all seemed to focus on his mother and herself. She had looked into some other people's dreams before, mainly as training from her master and found them to be chaotic, broken and abstract in the meaning. But Nathan's, they were focused to the point of being driven. As if they weren't dreams but rather a horror movie and he had a first person view of all the carnage around him.

"Caring for your pet, Seras?" Alucard said as he faded into the room beside and slightly behind her.

"Is it really that strange Alucard? Most of us care for humans enough that we make them one of us, is it any different when you turned me? Or the way you feel for Sir Integra?"

Alucard snorted "He isn't human; he's a regenerator, a failed science experiment created by the Vatican dogs in a vain attempt to rid the world of our kind."

Seras didn't want to deal with Alucard at the moment and his poking at her care of Nathan so she decided to change the subject. "How's... Mickey was it?"

"He's taking care of the rat problem the building seems to always have. Walter spotted him turning a rat into a ghoul, needless to say ill have to command Mickey to only turn the other rats or just kill them." Alucard chuckled, he remembered Walter warning him if Integra spotted a decomposing rat walking around that Integra would use the new information retrieval techniques on him.

Alucard sighed; he wasn't going to be able to get a rise out of Seras. As he faded he said one last thing to her. "Be careful Seras; remember he tried to kill you."

Seras didn't care, something was wrong with Nathan and she was determined to help him. 'I know I can reach him, I just know I can…'

Time Stamp: Present

Location: Vatican City, Iscariot HQ

Maxwell sat at his desk, boiling over the report over Paladin Nathan West. Their most promising regenerator had been captured by the Hellsing trash. Pressing the intercom on his desk he called his aid. "Father Renaldo, please come into my office." A moment later the elderly Father appeared in the doorway.

"Yes Director Maxwell?"

"Take a look at this." Maxwell said as he handed the report over. Father Renaldo read over the paper for a moment.

"Oh my, shall I send Heinkel and Yumiko out to retrieve him?"

"No, I have a better idea. Was the chip installed into his brain before the mission?"

"Yes sir."

"Good, will be heading to London in the hour." Maxwell said as he retrieved a small remote control from his desk.

"Yes sir. What of Heinkel and Yumiko?"

"Send them on a mission, I don't care what, just them on something, they need to get back to the front lines." Maxwell replied, getting up and heading out of his office to the maker preparations to head to London.

Time Stamp: Present

Location: London, Hellsing Mansion, Infirmary, Secured recovery room

Nathan awoke with a pounding headache to greet him. When he awoke it was by reflex that he opened his eyes so quickly that he ended up looking straight into an intense beam of light. Instantly he closed them again but the damage was done, the headache had intensified. "Who would put such a bright light over someone's head?" Nathan mumbled.

"Oh, sorry about that Nathan." A woman's voice came.

The light went out and Nathan's eyes shot open once again. He must have been hallucinating; he could have sworn that was Seras. He Looked around franticly but couldn't make out any shapes. On a whim he called out her name and held his breath.

"I'm right here, right next to your bed." Seras replied, quickly understanding he couldn't fully see.

Nathan looked to his right. There, he could make out a vague shape and a few colors. "What's going on, I can't, I can't focus my sight. Wait, Seras your dead, am I in heaven?"

"You lost a lot of blood and the doctors basically overhauled on you. No your not in heaven Nathan, your still very much alive." Seras replied. 'Well at least he hoped I went to heaven that night.'

"My guardian angel then?" Nathan said as he reached out trying to find her hand, he needed to feel her warm reassuring touch. Seras smiled and fought back a small tear, how was she going to explain to him what she was now? How would he react, why was he acting normal now and not like the crazed paladin that he was hours ago.

"Nathan, what was the last thing that you remember?" Seras asked, moving slightly back to avoid Nathan's hand from finding hers, she wasn't sure how he would react to finding her deathly cold.

Nathan thought for a moment, frankly he could only remember things from a few months ago. The last thing he remembered was killing some vampire as he fell out of the hotel. The next thing he remembered was laying in this strange, supposed medical bed. He was about to tell Seras when he felt something behind his head. Like a dull pressure one might feel if a poll was pushing against your head. Suddenly he cried out at the sudden pressure of pain.

"Nathan what's wrong?!" Seras shouted, trying to hold Nathan down, she didn't have to worry about restraining herself to prevent herself from harming Nathan, his regenerator abilities and strength were still in place. She looked into his face and paled even further than a vampire could. Nathan's eyes were flashing from ice blue to green and back again, as if the two colors were battling for control.

"Doctor!" Seras shouted. Almost before she could finish her call, several doctors and nurses ran into the room, pushing Seras aside as they tried to stabilize their patient.

Slowly Nathan calmed down before he drifted off to sleep. Seras turned to the doctor for answers. The doctor looked at her and sighed, he knew she wanted an answer, but he wasn't sure she would like what he had to say.

SW-O5-C/

"We think that we know what the chip is for, and this recent event confirms it. We believe that the chip is what controls his regenerator abilities and personality." The doctor said for the second time. He was in Sir Integra's office with his collogues as he explained their theory. Seras, Alucard and Walter were also in the office listening to the doctor's report; Seras was by herself in a darkened corner of the room as she listened.

"Is there anyway to remove the chip from his brain doctor?" Sir Integra asked.

The physician only shook his head before explaining. "The way the chip is laid out threw his brain, it would be impossible to safely remove it without killing him. Frankly I can't for the love of me figure out how they managed to insert the chip in the first place."

"Could he fight the chip?"

Everyone turned to Seras who, until that point, had remained silent. "When I bit him, I formed a link, I can see his thoughts and dreams. Is there a way I could possibly help him fight the chips influence over him?"

A grin formed on Alucard's face at the idea. He could just imagine the look on the Vatican dogs face seeing one of their own warriors fighting along side Hellsing. "You could simply turn him, Seras."

The room fell instantly silent as the idea of yet another vampire, a former paladin no less, would join Hellsing. All eyes were on Seras as if to watch if she would honestly consider the idea and propose it to the Iscariot regenerator in the cells below.

SW-O5-C/

"What…" that was all Nathan could say to what Seras proposed. He was restrained in his bed, tubes leading out of him that carried away a constant stream of blood, the tube was small enough to keep the newly formed blood cells in check, effectively keeping the chip dormant.

"Keeping you hooked up like this, your body can't take the strain of creating new blood cells only for them to be taken away by that machine." Seras explained to Nathan, she had just proposed the few options that the doctors had come up with. The first one was to attempt to induce coma until they could figure a way to remove the chip without killing him, another was Seras helping him control the chip instead of the chip controlling him. And finally the last one was turning him, effectively rendering the chip deactivated sense the doctors were sure it wouldn't be able to interact with an undead body.

"Look on the bright side, we would be together." Seras said, trying to cheer up her fiancée.

"These past three years have been confusing as hell Seras." Nathan said as he rubbed his temples remembering the past events, or the events he could remember. "First some doctor tells me your dead, then I see a guy in red with his head cut off in a train later on he's fighting father Anderson. Then he tells me about all this undead stuff, I end up hunting vampires and terrorists for the Catholic Church… and now here we are, and you're proposing to turn ME into a vampire. If I told this to a shrink they would lock away the keys…"

Seras chuckled. 'Well at least he hasn't lost his sense of humor…'

"Seras, don't take it the wrong way, but id rather you help me control this brain chip instead of turning me into, into one of you."

Seras couldn't help but feel a little hurt, though she didn't show it. She gave a reassuring smile as they began to work mentally to block the chips control over Nathan's mind.

Time Stamp: Present, two days after Nathan;s capture

Location: London, abandoned section of town, during vampire hunting mission

A pair of blades cut threw the darkness, an inhuman scream stabbed in the night a moment later as a ghoul's undead cells in its body released their connection to each other. When the blessed silver cut threw the critical part of the body and killed the other undead cells, the rest just simply lost the will to continue on even though their new master demanded that they remain. They just surrendered to the fact they were on barrowed time and fell to the ground, piling into ash, as they should have when the vampire bit their former masters neck, transferring ownership to itself. "Rest in peace." Nathan said as he continued on.

It had been nearly two days sense his capture by Hellsing. No, not capture, more like rescued him from the Iscariot and their lies. The leader of the organization, Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing herself had briefed him on the truth of the Iscariot's as he lay in bed, Seras by his side as he recuperated and fought the will of the chip in his brain.

When Sir Integra had left the hospital room Nathan asked Seras if she was always like that, so cold and at the same time understanding. He was surprised to learn that normally she was cold and rarely revealed anything else about herself. It may have had something to do with the fact of what Iscariot had done to him.

Nathan moved incredibly fast as he dived, twisted, turned and dodged threw a gauntlet of vampires threw the street, decapitating all of them in a fraction of a second. He may have not been a Iscariot paladin anymore but that didn't mean that he couldn't use his skills that he had learned from his mentors.

That was another thing, he was certain that Iscariot would come after him now. He had learned the truth even when it was clear that they had gone to great pains to ensure his loyalty to them. He suspected that the nightmarish dreams that came every time he went to sleep was the chips doing as well. But now he had Seras by his side again, even if she wasn't human anymore could he honestly say he was as well? How many humans could regenerate a severed limb or take a bullet to the head and stand back up and grin.

He could feel her presence in his mind, like a calming affect it was all that he needed to keep the chip at bay. Things may have not been the way he planned it, but they were together again and he wouldn't give that up again for anything. Within a few more minutes all the ghouls and vampires were silenced and the trio of slayers stood together in the square, two of them vampires themselves.

"You fight good for an X Vatican dog." Alucard commented with a straw to a blood packet in his mouth.

"Same to you, Emedos Exairon ." Nathan replied. A grin formed on Alucard's face in response to the name that Nathan had called him; Seras gave a strange look at both of them.

"It means killer of his own kind." A voice came from the darkness. The trio looked frantically in the darkness to spot the source of the words. Alucard was the first to spot the pair of men dressed in priest clothing.

"Section thirteen, Iscariot organization." Alucard smirked as he prepared his Jackal once again and took aim for the lead man.

"I wouldn't do that, Nosfarutu Alucard." Maxwell replied after seeing the gun leveled at him.

"Why not? My master isn't here to say otherwise. I think she would rather enjoy the fact that I sent you to see your maker."

Maxwell chuckled and then turned his attention to Nathan, Seras had come up beside him, Redeemer drawn and at the ready. "So, young Nathan, you have fallen for the demons tricks, I'm sure you believe that it is indeed the woman you fell in love with that is beside you right now."

"I know the truth Maxwell…" Nathan spat. "I know that you implanted a chip in my brain, you filled my head with lies to suit your twisted means. Tell me, are the nightmares from your chip as well?!"

Maxwell chuckled before breaking out into a laugh. "I guess we could be blamed for that, but we're here to have you to return to us. We can forgive you for your weakness young Nathan."

"What makes you think that I will come with you now that I know the truth." Nathan said as he brought his Katana to the ready.

"My dear boy," Maxwell half laughed as he retrieved a small box like object from his pocket. "What makes you think that you ever had a choice?"

Maxwell pressed a button on the device, moments latter Nathan dropped his weapons and grabbed at his hear before dropping to his knees. The pain was intense, it felt like someone was taking an electric drill to his temple and pushing deliberately slowly into his head. Finally he screamed out in pain as he pounded at his skull, trying on some primal level, to dull the pain with another, but to no avail.

"What are you doing to him?!" Seras shouted, leveling the Redeemer squarely at Maxwell's head.

"No! Don't! Maxwell, please… Seras… make it stop!" Nathan screamed in agony as the chip sent electrical impulses threw his brain. Suddenly, just as quickly as the pain had come, it had vanished and Nathan dropped to his side, his pale blue eyes closed.

Seras fired her weapon at the leader of the Iscariot's, only to have it miss as something sliced threw her leg, throwing her aim off. As she fell she saw the cause of the poor aim, her lower leg was missing. "What…"

Standing over her was Nathan, his eyes glowed a deep emerald green as a smirk formed on his face. "Demon, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, die!" Nathan said as he brought his katana down upon Seras, his fiancée.