By: Lazeralk
Dragon Ball Z/Nightwalker/Vampire Hunter D/Vampire Princess Miyu/Hellsing
Standard Disclaimers apply.
Part 2
OoOoOoOoOoOoOLuke Valentine, in a slightly wrinkled suit, glared down at the form of his sleeping brother. He rested one gnarled and twisted hand on the edge of the coffin and cracked his back loudly. His skin was dry and brown, withered and sunken from his centuries of sleeping starvation.
"Yan." He croaked.
"Yan." He said, his voice more clear this time.
"Get up."
His brother, a wizened corpse in his own right, rolled over and mumbled.
"What?" asked Luke, already growing agitated with his brother.
"Go 'way…wanna sleep." Moaned Yan, putting his bony hands over his shriveled ears.
"No. Let's go get blood." Answered Luke, knowing that the offer would tempt his brother to rise.
"Blood?" asked Yan, turning to regard his brother with hopeful eyes. Several golden rings hung from his face, looking stark against his decaying flesh.
"Yes Yan, blood. You want that don't you?"
"Fuck yes, let's go." He said as he crawled out of the coffin and cracked his own stiff limbs. The brothers turned and walked down the darkened corridor, kicking up dust as they went.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
Trunks sighed as he dug through the pile of rubble that had once been a hardware store. He had a several rolls of rope thrown over each shoulder and stood when he found what he was looking for. He pulled his prize, a few thick plastic tarps, out of the wreckage and flew back to the office building that Bulma had named their new home. Once she'd gotten over her initial grief, she risen to the role of leader, just as he'd known she would. His mother was a strong woman.
The large office building, only a few stories high, was still relatively intact. A big chunk was missing from the roof, but they could fix it temporarily. A wayward mass of rock had smashed into the roof when it had rolled down the side of a mountain. They'd hauled the boulder out and it was lying beside the building looking not so out of place.
Bulma had sent Vegeta and Goku to collect survivors from where ever they could find them. Already a group of orphaned children were cleaning up the spilled supplies and equipment inside. Bulma herself was digging through what she suspected to be a clothing boutique, and seeing what she could salvage. Gohan, under Trunks' instructions was driving pieces of scrap metal into the roof around the hole. They'd use the rope to tie the tarps together and then cover the hole in case of rain.
Goku flew in, carrying a ruined bus full of people. Vegeta returned in a similar fashion, the destroyed passenger car of a train suspended above him. The two Saiyajin warriors gently laid their burdens down and started directing people to go inside the building. People of all ages, looking battered but thankful to be alive, trudged into their safe place and stood around.
Trunks landed on the roof beside Gohan and helped him put the patchwork tarp together so that it would cover the hole completely. They tied it down and then Trunks took over the renovations, having already been through this once before.
"Start hauling the desks and stuff out of the cubicles. They'll serve as rooms until we can start rebuilding. Have everyone pick a cube and then find a pen or something to write your name on the outside. Keep all your stuff inside your cube. If something's to heavy for you to move, ask me, Goku, Vegeta or Gohan. Everyone got that?" he said the gathered people.
They nodded and then set off to do as asked, pushing or carrying useless computers and office chairs out broken windows or through the doors. Complete strangers helped each other drag desks towards the front doors, where the Saiyajin easily piled them up. A permanent marker was passed around as people scrawled their names on the cubicle walls, set down their meager belongings and then went to ask Trunks how they could help.
Trunks began breaking up the people into groups, each one with a specific task. Some were sent to find what ever food was salvageable, some to find clothes, some to find blankets or flashlights or cookware.
The night dragged on, people coming and going until Bulma told Trunks to call it a night. They people wearily collapsed inside their cubicles, hugging what family they had left and slept.
Trunks moved a desk over the broken door and turned to go inside where his mother and father had already picked out a cube for themselves. As he passed the rows of office spaces a woman grabbed at his sleeve.
"My son! Please, have you seen my son? I can't find him anywhere, he was just here, I saw him. Have you seen him?" she asked desperately.
"No, I don't think I have. What does he look like?" asked Trunks.
"He has blonde hair, and blue eyes; he's just a little shorter than you. He was wearing a white shirt and a silver chain with a cross on it." She explained frantically, her face scrunched with worry.
"Let's go look." Said Trunks kindly, pushing the desk aside again and helping the woman over the piles of rubble. They searched for a long time, but found nothing.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Hey cut it out. If you drop him one more time, you get to carry him the rest of the way back alone."
"What? That's not fair. It's your turn anyway."
"It's not, you still have twenty minutes to go by my watch."
"Your watch sucks. I've been lugging this dead weight for two fuckin' hours now."
"One hour forty minutes."
"Will you shut the fuck up and take it already?"
"No."
"Oh c'mon let me have a turn with the bitch. You've had her all night."
"As is my right seeing as how she's my kill. You just want to defile her."
"Hell yes. Ah, home sweet home. Let's take the carriage."
"Fine."
Yan and Luke Valentine, a body slung over each shoulder, climbed into the black coach waiting for them at the gates of Noxsang Castle. The chariot raced up the sweep and through the many portcullises before coming to a stop in front of the towering front doors. The two brothers entered the castle; their burdens slung over their shoulders once more and walked the dusty halls towards the coffin room. They found D, a dunpeal, awake and waiting for them atop his coffin.
"Here ya go man." Said Yan, throwing the man at the half-breeds feet. D grasped the mans shoulders and murmured an apology before sinking his elongated fangs into the man's neck and feeding. When he was done, he snapped the silver chain on the neacklace his victim wore and hung it on his sword until he had time to burry the body.
Luke opened the largest and most ornate coffin, a quote carved into the lid, and held the body of the woman over the husk inside. He drew a knife from his coat and slit the woman's throat, spilling blood into the coffin until it overflowed.
(Two Years Later)
"Here mom." Said Trunks, handing his mother, the leader of Hope, a stack of papers. The building they had used since the beginning had been completely renovated, built larger and with more stories. Hundreds of families had flocked to them when they'd heard of Bulma's kindness. The Sayajins protected them from monsters and wild animals, and they slowly rebuilt their economy. A new monetary system had been enforced, an ancient gold standard reenacted.
There were six major "Centers" worldwide, Hope, Peace, Faith, Compassion, Charity, and Love, with new leaders heading each. People were gathering together to make cities and farms again. They were forced to go back to the old ways of life in order to survive. In Bulma's Center, Hope, the people lived under her rule as Queen. Things were far too chaotic to instate a successful democracy.
"Thanks Trunks." Said Bulma, taking the papers.
"Oh, this isnt good."
"What?" asked Trunks, sitting beside her and pulling his own stack of forms towards him.
"We've had ten more missing persons reports."
"Ten? Where is everyone going? I mean, at first we figured that all the missing people were those killed in the apocalypse. But, if people who were already registered with us are disappearing, then…"
"Then what? Where are they all going?"
"Beats me. Pass me the requisitions form will you?"
She handed him a sheet of paper which he filled out and put in a small stack in a metal box. He reached for the next form. Bulma set the missing persons reports aside and picked up another list of grievances. Looks like there'd be another food shortage this year.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
"You're being greedy."
"So what? They're just humans, why should I spare them?"
"Because if you don't, all the humans will die and we won't have anything to eat. Kill another one without my permission and I'll lock you back in your coffin."
"You can't do that."
"Watch me."
The vampiress Carmilla snarled and walked away in a huff, her long red skirts swishing as she went. Arucard rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. That woman was insufferable. A shadow entered the room, and he smiled.
"Hello Larva, you and firefly going out tonight?" he asked. A cloaked figure appeared before the nosferatu and nodded its masked head once. A small girl in a white and purple kimono joined him, nodded to Arucard and turned to leave.
Arucard sighed as he sat heavily on the 'Throne', rubbing his temples. It really wasn't fair, once you're dead, you shouldn't have to put up with headaches anymore.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Uh, mom…you might want to come look at this." Said Trunks, his eyes never leaving the spot directly in front of him.
"What is it?" asked Bulma, coming around the corner with Vegeta. An eleven-year-old Gohan followed them, his face grim.
"More of them huh?" he asked.
Trunks nodded, sighing heavily. In front of their door was a pile of medium sized boxes, all labeled "MISSING PERSONS".
"We really need to deal with this." Said Gohan, stacking the boxes up and lifting them as if they weighed nothing.
Bulma sighed, running a hand tiredly through her growing hair. She'd been so busy that she'd forgotten to get it cut. Not that she could anyway, with most of the major cities around the world totally destroyed. There weren't any salons left standing for her to go to.
On the bright side, people were coming together and helping one another, they were reaching out and slowly learning how to live with compassion again. She turned and followed the boys back inside. She'd just sat down when a dusty Goku wandered in, tossing a hard hat on the battered couch beside the door. He'd been doing most of the heavy labor on the new construction sites. Bulma had set a plan to build fifty new houses by the end of the season, giving places for families to move into and making room for more refugees to set up a home in one of the public shelters.
"Man, I'm hungry." He said, sliding into a seat at the old scratched up coffee table they had in the "War Room".
"We'll eat after we review a few of these Goku, take a look." Said Bulma, pushing a stack of papers towards him and digging into one of the opened boxes for more. Trunks was already flipping through his own pile.
"I'll go get some snacks or something." Said Gohan, muttering to himself.
Ever since the 'Catastrophe' struck, his surrogate family had been overly protective of him. They often left him out of all the important discussions and never let him do any of the heavy work. He only got to sit in on the War Council, when the last remnants of the Z Gang met to make political decisions, because he was family and they usually had dinner in the middle of the meetings.
He pulled open the mini refrigerator that Trunks use to keep his soda supply in and pulled out a few veggie sandwiches. Livestock was almost non-existent and with only the few wells that Bulma had commissioned, vegetables and grain were considered almost sacred. Goku was locating underground water reservoirs and setting up markers in-between house building, but the new wells weren't coming fast enough and two had already dried up. There weren't enough resources to go around.
Vegeta handled all foreign affairs, drawing on the rusted memories of his past as a prince. He'd had limited diplomatic interaction on the behalf of his planet but most of the so-called negotiations were just an excuse to land and start conquering. Freeza had set up a policy that entailed him going to different planets and seeing if he liked the people there or not and sometimes Vegeta went along to 'learn the ropes'.
Trunks was an administrator like Bulma, they both ran the home front, though Trunks was more in charge of agriculture. Bulma directed all the social aspects of Hope. Goku was in charge of public relations, namely going out among the people and actually helping them get back on their feet. Gohan did whatever small things he could to help out, but was mostly left at home.
"Hey mom?"
"Yes honey?"
"Do we have a map?" Trunks was flipping through pages as quickly as his fingers could turn them, his eyebrows drawn together.
"I think so, why? Did you find something?"
"I might have. Take a look at the locations of all these disappearances. I mean, our population is just short of three thousand. We have two hundred missing person's reports. Under past circumstances that would be a little much but not cause for panic. If you compare the area of most of these so-called kidnappings, they all come from the North. Look, Juniper Street, Willow, Duckpool, and North Clearwater. Those are all streets on the north side of town." Explained Trunks.
"Yeah, but what's up there? After Clearwater, the town just ends. There's a big wall there, facing the mountains. It can't be wild animals or even monsters coming from that direction. We might have a person on the inside doing it. Like a murderer or something."
"No bodies. Two hundred corpses do not hide well." Added Bulma.
"If the bodies weren't hidden in the city?" asked Gohan. "What if they were taken out of the city without anyone seeing?"
"You mean like dumped out in the wastelands?"
"Well, maybe."
"No, the nomads would have reported something, the bounties would be everywhere and we'd be flooded with mercenaries. So no bodies laying around in the wastelands."
"Hidden in the wastelands?"
"Where?" Asked Trunks incredulously.
"I don't know, the mountains? What about the Dead Lake?" countered Gohan.
"No big enough, even if the acid instantly eats up sixty percent of the crap thrown in it. The mountains have possibilities."
"I can go take a look at the north wall." Offered Goku.
"Yeah, that'd be good. Thanks."
"Alright, here's what's going to happen." Said Bulma as she stood up. "Goku, check out the wall. Trunks, issue a general warning to the public, advise people to stay inside and with other people at all times. Vegeta, fly over to Faith and Compassion City and see if they have any similar problems. See if you can get copies of their reports for comparison."
The three men stood and left to carry out their respective tasks, nodding to Bulma as they went. Gohan frowned at her, hands on his hips.
"What about me? I want to help too, I sick of being left behind all the time." He whined.
"Oh! Sorry Gohan. Um…you know what? I have an idea for you. It's a big responsibility, but if you think you can handle it, then here's what I want you to do."
"I can handle it."
"You don't even know what it is yet silly." Said Bulma affectionately as she patted his head.
"I can still handle it." Insisted Gohan.
"Alright, I want you to organize a nightly patrol of the streets on the north side. Five men to a patrol and see if you can get some volunteers. You can ask Thompson to help you out with supplies and stuff okay? Sound good?"
"Yeah Bulma! It's great! I wont let you down I promise!" said an overly excited Gohan as he jumped for joy. He wasn't being left out again. In fact, he was going out into the city and actually helping the people. More importantly however, was the fact that he actually had an important role to play this time around.
Plans running through his head, he rushed down the hall to find Thompson, an ex-military officer in charge of the supply depot and the weapons cache.
End part 2