The streets were in flames. Everything that made up this neighborhood was getting scorched, and there was no living thing that existed within this mile-wide inferno.

Except 3 people.

One was the most powerful vampire to ever have lived. His name is Alucard, and he is believed to be a true immortal. No one to this day has been able to stand up to him and live. It's a good thing he's fighting for the good side.

The second was former policewoman Ceras Victoria. She is a servant to the almighty Alucard, after her life was saved by him. She is also one of the only remaining true vampires. She has had the honor of fighting by his side.

The third person in the trio was the one who had created the fire in the first place. He was a hunter that went by the name of Raven, and he had his sights on making Alucard his next trophy. The scary part was that so far, he's shown that he might have the power to do so.

Alucard and Raven were standing, facing each other about four car lengths away from each other. Ceras was across the street (probably for the better), with the privilege of watching what was going to happen next. The two men were going to duke it out. Both of them seemed to be waiting for the other to make the first move.

Both men had a tremendous amount of self-discipline, but, being a hunter for countless years, Raven had more.

Therefore, Alucard ended up being the one to make the first move. He was holding both of his guns at his side, his 13mm Jackal in his right hand, and his .454 Casull in his left. He brought up his Casull, and dove to his right into a dark alley (out of the sight of his opponent), firing off two shots at the hunter while doing so. Raven rolled out of the way to his right, dodging the bullets with ease, and after doing exactly 2 full turns, he stopped.

In the next fraction of a second, Raven sensed Alucard way above him. Probably teleported onto the roof, he thought.

Sure enough, when he pinpointed his senses, he saw in his minds eye that Alucard was on the roof of the three-story building to his left.

Half a second after he stopped spinning, Raven brought up the gun that was in his left had, and fired directly at Alucard. "You're going to have to do better than that, vampire. Oh, by the way, all of my weapons are specialized in the same way that my blade was. So I would try not to get hit, if I were you."

Alucard caught that comment just in time to quickly sidestep to his right to dodge the bullet. Good thing too, because he was going to let it hit him, since normal bullets are usually not even worthy for him to laugh off.

Despite how dangerous the situation was (even for himself), Alucard was enjoying this. He had not had a good challenging fight in a long time.

Raven fired off several more rounds from his gun, directly at Alucard. Alucard turned to his right, and ran across the edge of the rooftop. The bullets all went whizzing right behind him, and a couple of them even put holes in his trench coat, which was fluttering behind him as he ran. When he got to the end of the rooftop, he turned to his opponent's direction, and leapt high into the air, across the street, and landed on a rooftop behind and to the right of where raven was standing. When he landed, he spun, and squeezed a few shots off from his Casull at Ravens direction. With lightning fast reflexes, Raven dropped the gun in his right hand, pulled his sword out of the sheathe on his back, and deflected the bullets, returning the sword to his holding place and grabbing his gun back before it hit the ground after it was all said and done.

"This is the most fun I've had in decades, hunter," Alucard shouted. He jumped off the rooftop he was standing on, and landed on the street right across the road from where the hunter was standing.

"Yes, and you've been a most worthy opponent, vampire Alucard. But this has to end now." Raven pulled both of his guns out of their holsters, and held them at his sides.

"I agree." Alucard put his Casull away, took off his hat, and threw it over to where Ceras was standing. After this he pulled out his gun again, and by that time Raven was already on the move. He moved as fast as he did when him and Alucard first met. Fast enough so that only a black blur was seen in his place.

Alucard stood still. Guns at his side, he didn't move a single muscle, except for his eyes, which were following the black blur that was flying all over the place around him. When he felt the time was right (which was always accurate for Alucards case), he aimed his Jackal up and to the right of him, and fired. He didn't exactly hit Raven himself, but loud grunt was heard, and one of his guns fell to the street in several pieces.

It was then that the black blur stopped moving. He stopped near where his gun landed, about two car lengths from it.

Alucard quickly looked at Raven's left hand. That was the hand with the missing gun, and where Alucard had aimed. Good, Alucard thought, I'm not getting sloppy after all.

The next thing that happened actually surprised Alucard, which was really something miraculous, because Alucard did not get surprised often. Raven held out his left hand in a position as if he were still holding his gun, and the gun came back to him in all the pieces. They all just…put themselves back together in his hand. It was like the gun was fixing itself. But Alucard knew it was all Ravens doing. When the gun was put back together the way it was, he did not move his arm at all. It was already aiming directly at Alucard.

"Impressive trick, human. With every passing second, you continue to amaze me."

"I told you before, I'm not a simple human." At saying the last word in his sentence, Raven fired from his gun directly at Alucards heart, if he had a heart, that is.

Of course, Alucard was more than quick enough to respond to this. He shifted his Jackal over, and fired directly at the bullet coming toward him. His bullet hit head-on with Ravens, and they both went flying off in different directions. One of them almost hit Ceras (Ravens bullet), but she was quick enough to get out of the way in time.

"Then what are you?" Alucard fired off his Jackal. "A dog?" The bullet went whizzing by Ravens ear as Alucard fired another shot at him. "A human?" This bullet was close, as Raven had to slip out of the way to dodge this bullet. Alucard fired again. "A monster?" His third bullet destroyed the gun in Ravens right hand this time. Alucard enjoyed that moment on so many levels. He had given that speech to Alexander Anderson once, as he blew off both of the priests' arms and left him to do nothing but retreat for the day.

"I am all and none of those. Not that it's any of your business anyway, vampire." Raven did the same thing as before. He reformed his gun, but this time, it happened with blinding speed this time, and before Alucard could react properly, a bullet was fired from that gun. Alucard did catch it, but not quite fast enough to get completely out of the way. He ducked away and leapt to the side, but the bullet caught him in the left shoulder, where the hunter's blade had caught him earlier. Alucard let out a loud growl of pain at this wound.

"You bastard!" For once in a very long time, Alucard was serious, and was really angered by the hunter.

"Ha! That wound with be with you for a while, vampire. Now you can experience the pain mortals are forced to go through when receiving wounds like that!" Raven kept his arms at his sides now, letting Alucards pain drag out a little longer.

Alucards thoughts raced through his mind in a panic. I…can't feel my arm! Damn, that hurts! The hunter will pay for this with more than his life! This had been the first time since he could remember that he had to endure such physical pain. He did not want to be here anymore. He was ashamed for his current thoughts. He wanted to retreat for now, and rest until he was better, instead of finishing his opponent off. He was actually worried that he might lose this battle if he were to stay around for any longer. So Alucard had to swallow his pride, and do the only thing he could do to survive.

"Policewoman! Come over here now!"

Ceras was a little confused at first as to her masters' actions. This was an intense fight; exactly the way Alucard had liked it. He wasn't thinking of bailing out, was he?

"What the hell are you waiting for? Get over here!"

Ceras didn't think twice about it this time. She ran over to her master as fast as she could, dodging a small blade that had been thrown at her halfway. As soon as she came within range of physical contact, Alucard opened his trench coat, created a pitch-blackness within himself, and pulled Ceras into it. After this was done, he closed the trench coat, ran to the nearest dark alley (which was difficult at first due to the fire lighting everything up), and used the darkness to teleport himself far away from where he was.

The hunter knew this was going to happen even before Alucard thought of it, but he let them go. He had already proven to himself that he was able to best Alucard in battle, so there was no worry. Half the fun in his job was the hunt itself. He gathered up all of his weapons on the site, put them away, and was about to leave, when he spotted a blade sticking out of the ground. It was the one thrown at Ceras when she was running to her master. It looked different. But familiar. It wasn't one of his, but he had seen it recently. Must be a weapon of that priest, Raven thought. He picked up the blade, stuffed it in a spare sheathe in his coat, and walked away into the darkness.

As fire trucks and firemen were scattered about the neighborhood cleaning up the mess that Raven had made to get Alucards attention, and as ambulances and medical workers were running about looking for possible survivors, there was one man up high on a roof looking down upon the chaos. He had seen the entire fight from that spot, and even tried to help the hunter by getting rid of Alucards "underling". He stood there and chuckled to himself at these past events. Raven, eh? Perhaps I could get to know him a little better. I have a feeling that we could be good friends.