Title: Family Matters
Author: DhampyrX2
Genre: X-over
Series: Impure Souls
Rating: PG-13, just to be safe
Summary: Xander has hidden family. Xander discovers them. Xander's life gets turned upside down in a way that will hopefully help everyone evolve a bit.
Timeframe: After Graduation, but before the College crap starts.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Don't sue me, I'm poor.
Xander tried to keep the cheshire cat grin on his face in check as he was escorted to Integra's cell. His threat to release the No Life King had been a total bluff, but it had worked perfectly. Thankfully nobody outside of Alucard and the Hellsing family knew the specifics of his seals. In truth, only the rightful family head, Integra, who had fed Alucard with her blood to release and revive him, could control the seals.
Even if she were to die somehow, Xander's own vampiric blood made him incapable of controlling the seals. It was a common sense safety measure to insure that nobody tuned a Hellsing, and then killed the current family head in an attempt to free the vampire. But, again, nobody outside of the Organization had any clue about that, and they couldn't take the chance.
"This is it, sir. I'll come round and knock in an hour to check on you if you're ready to be escorted out then." the guard, armed with an MP-5, said before he knocked hard on the cell door. "Visitor for you, Sir Helsing." the guard announced formally, before he unlocked and opened the door to let Xander in.
"Thanks." Xander said with a smarmy grin as he walked in proudly.
Integra waited until the door was closed and the guard had walked away before she spoke. "Welcome, cousin. I can see Alucard's training in negotiation tactics is still worth its weight in gold." she said formally as she stood from her table and offered Xander her hand.
"Yeah, Gramps knew just what to coach me on." Xander responded, suddenly nervous, as he shook her hand.
"Please take a seat." Integra offered as she gestured to her second chair in the room. "Would you care for some tea or wine? The provide me with both regularly, and the tea was brought fresh less than five minutes before your entrance."
"Um, I'm good. But feel free to have some yourself." Xander said. He was feeling completely self-conscious in the powerful presence of the Hellsing head.
Integra nodded gratefully as she poured herself a cup of tea before she settled into her seat across from Xander. "Thank you. You seem a bit nervous. Surely Alucard hasn't been filling your head with horror stories about me?" she asked dryly.
"Nah. With Gramps horror would probably be a compliment, anyway. I just feel a little out of place still, is all. I mean, here I am, wearing a pin and identifying myself as your temp replacement and stuff. I don't want to offend you or anything. I mean, for the last couple of weeks all I've heard is either Seras, or Drac...I mean Alucard, or Walter raving about how great you are. I just don't want to seem too stupid. I guess." Xander admitted through self-conscious babble.
"No need to worry, Xander. You're exploits do precede you as well. And Alucard has been beaming with his praise of /you/ to me. We in the Hellsing group are all quite proud of your accomplishments." Integra soothed in her typical monotone. "And I have to admit that with Alucard, horror stories might be his form of compliments, or at least wishful thinking. But I must ask, why are you referring to him as 'Gramps'?" she inquired after a sip of her tea.
"Oh, well, I feel wrong calling him Alucard. You know, because I've read all the family diaries mom had. I just think of Adrian Tepes as 'Alucard' in my head, not Vlad. So he said I could call him some kind of form of grandpa to keep it straight since I already did once before. Gramps as kind of stuck as the usual for him now." Xander explained, his face going red in embarrassment.
"I sure he loved that." Integra commented archly.
Xander laughed nervously in reply as he said, "Yeah, he said something about a Hellsing being born with his sense of humor, and how much you'd love it, or something."
"I'm certain he did." Integra responded as she held in the urge to roll her eyes.
After a pause to take another sip of her tea, she asked, "So, how did you convince the fools here to let you in to visit your poor jailbird of a cousin?"
Xander finally started to relax at the memories that question evoked as he replied, "Oh, I just politely told them who I was, who I wanted to see, and that I'd release the Control Arts fully and let Gramps deal with them if they didn't let me in. It took like six repetitions for the staff guy at the gate to relay it to someone smart enough to wet himself at that thought. After that, they were much more polite."
Integra's grin was as feral as her cousin's as she said, "I would love to see the looks on the faces of those pompous old men of the Round Table when that gets back to them."
Xander chuckled darkly as he added, "Yeah. Gramps gives them a week, tops, before they either let you out, or the Queen intercedes directly now. They know enough to know that /I'm/ the only Belmont around to protect them from him, I have no loyalty to any Round Table member but you, and that there's a reason people who know vamps still fear the No Life King."
"Quite. Although I can't say I totally agree with your threat. They might go to the Iscariot for protection, now. And this will have repercussions for you among groups like the Watcher's Council and the Iscariot." Integra warned sternly.
"I knew it was dangerous before I shot my mouth off. If it gets them to let you out of this political prisoner crap, it's worth it. After all, a Belmont with blood tied loyalty to Dracula shouldn't be running the Hellsing group. Richard took off because he realized who mom was related to. His heir wouldn't stand up to your claim in equal standing even if he had succeeded in his coup because I was tainted." Xander replied with a disinterested shrug.
"You figured that part out, did you?" Integra asked mildly.
"That he got mom pregnant so he could have a more desirable heir to out your dad by having one with ties to the famous Belmonts? Yeah. Then he dropped her like yesterday's garbage when he realized she was descended from Adrian, even if that is considered the stronger line. Richard Hellsing was scum. I'm not crying over his loss, or not having him around to twist me. I got enough of that on the Hellmouth without his help." Xander answered evenly.
"For what it's worth, as head of the Hellsing family, I apologize for his actions toward you and your mother." Integra said formally.
"Not of the big." Xander assured her. "I mean, hey, you're family. Besides if anyone should apologize for that idiot, it's me. Gramps gave me the full recount of what he tried to pull eleven years ago. He got what he deserved, and I'm sure it's warm where he's rotting. I'm more interested in getting to meet my new relatives that don't think I'm too common to associate with them."
"We'll just call it even, then, and say Richard was a louse worthy of being forgotten." Integra responded with a small smile. Xander was already growing on her, despite his atrocious butchering of the English language. He had a personality that drew people to him with an air of good cheer. Rather like Seras Victoria did, as a matter of fact. She could see how they had hit it off so well. One of his last comments did bear comment, however. "The Belmonts think you're too /common/ to treat well?" she asked in as close as she got to incredulous surprise.
"Yeah. Funny, huh? Mom was originally sealed, then tossed after they grew five seconds worth of pity and let her out, because she was too /different/. Now the new generations, who don't even believe in vampires and demons, avoid me because I'm too blue collar and common for them. I guess god does have sense of humor after all. Well, I knew he did. I mean, look at the platypus." Xander responded.
"Dogma." Integra replied automatically.
Xander raised his right brow in pleased shock as he stared at his cousin after her outburst.
"Well, it may have been a blasphemous film in general, but anything that chews into the Catholics like that couldn't be all bad. I recall Alucard laughing so hard he neared tears at the executions in the Mooby corporate boardroom scene." she defended mildly, with a tiny grin on her lips.
"My dear cousin, there is more to you than meets the eye." Xander said with a sly smile.
"And you as well. Which brings up the point of your school marks and how Walter can help you bring them up to snuff..." Integra replied with a shark's grin of her own.
"Uhrn." Was Xander's only reply to that little segue.
As Xander and Integra got down to business about his education, well Integra got down to business (Xander just whimpered allot); a secret emergency meeting was taking place in England.
"This is intolerable! He's threatening to release the Vampire totally. We should have him eliminated! This bastard child of Hellsing is tainted loose cannon with no loyalty whatsoever to Queen or country!" one of the Knights of the Round Table shouted.
This brought a round a grumbles of agreement for a time before another spoke. "Are you daft? We kill him and we're all dead!" another shouted.
"What foolishness are you spouting, Sir Reginald?" the first knight shouted back derisively. "He's just some foolish American boy. He's no threat to us. After all the vampire will remain leashed as long as we leave that stuck up little bint alive in her cell where she belongs."
Sir Reginald held in his own irritation with a visible effort as he countered, "Have you forgotten your history so easily, Sir Curray? The betrayal and execution of a family member /created/ the No Life King. What do you think a similar act would do when he's already angry with us for leaving Sir Integra locked away? For God's sake man, there are office pools among those with high enough clearance about /when/ she'll accept being turned. Not /if/, /when/. Do you really think that she'd stand with us after we murder the last blood relative she has? She'll be mideon before his blood grown cold, and the pair of them would decimate us in /seconds/. And then there's the fact that Ripper Giles sees the lad as a son. If by some miracle Integra stayed loyal and kept the vampire subdued for a time, are you ready to have /him/ come after us? Or worse yet, all of them together, which is the most likely scenario? The whole Table's life span would consist of how long they torture us before they decide it's no longer fun to watch us scream!"
"Then just what would you suggest, Sir Reginald?" asked a much grayer and more subdued Sir Curray.
"We bring the full matter to her Majesty's attention, say our final investigations are complete, and let Sir Integra go." Reginald suggested coolly.
"Let her go? Her pet vampire's actions..." Curray began.
"...Stopped a vampire that would have released a major demon sacrificing Sir Hellsing. A demon that would have wiped out all of London, and possible most of Europe, I might add. Which would have allowed the Millennium group to raise their thousand year Reich in the ashes of the continent and conquer the Earth." Reginald interrupted. After a pause to let that sink in, he continued, "Of course, that ignore the fact that she is best suited to her job, is totally loyal to the crown, and that she currently keeps a tighter reign on agent Alucard than any Hellsing since Abraham himself. Quite frankly, we are safer with her at the head of her house."
"And what of the Belmont whelp?" another knight asked.
"What of him? All he did was use heavy-handed tactics to gain what was already his right in visiting Sir Hellsing. If the proper head of Hellsing is restored, he is a bit player at best. One most likely to return to the Colonies to face his own problems there. Let him bark, so long as we still have the means to hold the No Life King's leash." Sir Reginald counseled.
"Let's put it to a vote then." Sir Curray suggested. "All in favor of taking executive action with Richard Hellsing's son? All opposed?" After taking the counts, he announced, "Executive action is denied. Now, all in favor of releasing Sir Integra Fairbrook Windgates Hellsing...?"
From his chambers in the Hellsing manor, Alucard sneered in anger. Nobody it the 'secret' meeting location noticed the small black and red cockroach in the shadows of the room with a pattern that looked suspiciously like a red pupilled eye on its back. "Hold my leash indeed. I look forward to holding your rotting traitorous hearts one day." he commented darkly.
Already, he was planning to arrange an 'accident' for Sir Curray. After all, just because he was sealed from taking personal action in such a matter without Integra's approval, it didn't mean he couldn't involve some outside 'contractors'. "I'd prefer to have your foul mouthed head on my desk after tearing it off personally and impaling your still living torso on a pike, but I'll settle for making certain you never live to gain the support to threaten Integra or Xander. Enjoy your next days, Curray. They will be your last," the vampire said with his typical manic grin, as his chilling laughter echoed throughout the house.
END PART 11