1Chapter Twelve: Retreat and Regroup
"What? You've got to be kidding!"
"There's nothing left we can do for them. If we don't go now, we won't go at all."
"But..."
Lui, Johnny, Kyle... They had seen all of those movies that end or contain things like 'the living dead' and other creative titles. Most of them made them laugh.
They weren't laughing now.
It had been a near thing that they had got out at all. Ghouls...FREAKs...
So many people...
Because this time it was different than London. In London there had been and untold number of casualties. But... here they were more than that.
They were ghouls.
They were now many miles away, but they could still hear the screams of helpless people being ripped apart and eaten alive... And there was nothing they could do but run with their tails between their legs.
...There were 14 of them left, out of 40. So many friends, gone...
Finally, Seras couldn't take it anymore. She began to sob, despite her efforts not to. Lui embraced her tightly, whispering something into her ear so low that not even vampiric hearing could pick it up.
Oh, at the beginning it was fine. The FREAKs never stood a chance as long as they were fighting vampires. But then they turned on the population...and then things went sour. Tens turned into dozens, dozens into hundreds, hundreds into thousands, thousands into...
Millions...
Well, if there wasn't there certainly was now.
"How can there be so many? We nearly wiped them out in London. How could so many be left after..."
"Two years... We weren't the only ones preparing."
"But why would they wait until we were back? Why did they pick then of all times to attack?" Johnny asked.
Kyle smiled bitterly, "They are trying to exterminate us. And they can't do it any other way."
Silence again.
They had all managed to cram into two armored personnel carriers, and brake out of the city. And so far they weren't being followed...
So far.
Finally, a vampire summed it all up with a simple gesture. He raised an imaginary glass into the air, "Well, here's to you guys... So long... Hope wherever you are is better than here... God have mercy on your souls..."
There was a general murmur of 'Amen'. And the mood seemed, lighter. Not happy, definitely not. But, some of the weight was gone. Not a lot, but enough to make it a bit easier to breath.
"So then, what now?"
Sara answered cold and evenly from the driver's seat, "Now we fight."
"...How pray tell?"
"We meet up with the vampires from the other areas of the country, they've probably been attacked to, and then we decide on a course of action."
"What about the council?" asked Johnny, trying to piece things together in his head.
"Pfft... Half of them were probably in on it."
"Bad as that sounds, it's probably true. Which ones I'm not sure, but..." Kyle shrugged, the rest not needing to be said.
"I think we should contact Nate first." Sara told them, as if they had a say in it.
"...I don't know honestly. Let's see who's still alive first..."
LATER
"Hold on...where are we?" Lui asked as Kyle announced they had almost arrived.
"Home base."
Which, oddly enough, turned out to be an underground fortress, built into a mountain. Much like NORAD, but with vampires.
"Hold on...since when do we have a home base?" Lui asked, not liking how Kyle had said that. It sounded...
Normal.
"Well... We started construction after the whole London incident."
"And..."
"Well we couldn't very well build this place without funding could we? So..."
"Kyle, what did you do."
"For the record, never tell anyone your bank account numbers. It's not a smart idea."
It took several seconds for this to sink into Lui's mind. Then his fangs began to grow, his muscles to tighten, "Alright Kyle, how much of MY money did you take?"
"Oh not much. Just thirty, forty, billion dollars..."
"...Kyle, you have three seconds to start running. 1. 2. 3- YOU BACKSTABBING THIEF! GET BACK HERE!"
Something about this was troubling Seras as she watched the two Americans run into the base, one laughing and one cursing in several languages. More than half of them had just been killed, and yet they were back to normal in only a few hours.
Drowning in guilt is no way for true undead to die, Police Girl-
The sudden voice in her head made her jump, and scan the room quickly. Then she remembered, it had been so very long since he had done that...
Alucard?-
Are you and the others alright?-
I'm fine, but...-
I know, many have died. I could sense the bloodbath from here, and it's on every television channel. These FREAKs are learning quickly-
Where are you? Is your daughter...-
I'm fine, and so is Luna, and I'm very far away-
...You always liked talking in riddles-
Police Girl, you know how to reach me if you ever need help. But do not do so unless you absolutely have to, they may be tracking me and you as we speak. I have to go now, good bye-
Good bye Alucard-
But the conversation was already over. Seras blinked, coming out of the trance that she had been in. That had been slightly strange. It was almost as if she was somewhere else entirely, with Alucard actually standing in front of her...
"Miss Seras?"
"Hello, you awake? Well, she is blond, maybe she tried adding two plus two and her brain fried-OW!"
"Shut up Johnny. Seras, come on what's wrong?"
She blinked several more times, her vision finally clearing. She was laying on the ground of a garage-like area, with Walter, Lui, and Johnny hovering around her, "Um... What happened?"
"You spaced out..." Lui began, cutting off Johnny before he could add a stupid remark, then Walter finished for him.
"...And then I found you seemingly unconscious. Are you quite alright?"
"I'm fine. Alucard contacted me, I guess I went into a trance..."
"He contacted you? What did he say?" Lui asked, suddenly very serious.
"He was checking if we were ok. He's... somewhere far from here, where he wouldn't say. And if we ever need help, that we know how to reach him..."
"Is Miss Luna alright?" Walter asked. He was still and always would remain the retainer of the Hellsing family, living or otherwise.
"She's fine Walter." Seras assured him.
Then Lui, smirking, decided to add, "Honestly, if Alucard is the same as I remember him, and I doubt he's changed much, nothing short of God is going to get within ten feet of her."
"Quite true, quite true..."
"Well come on Seras, we're shorthanded enough as it is, can't have you napping on the floor all night."
Meanwhile, Kyle and Sara were standing in front of a massive monitor. On it was the face of a man in his late teens/early twenties, with unruly brownish black hair. Behind his red eyes hid a ferocity of which was legendary.
Nathan Slayn. He was to the Japanese what Kyle was to the Germans during WWII.
Death.
"We'll be there as soon as we can. However, Los Angeles is going up in flames, and San Francisco isn't much better. I'm not sure how long it'll take us."
"How many do you think there are?"
"Nowhere near enough if they're trying to stop me." Nathan replied, an evil glint in his eyes, "It's been far too long since Thunder and Lightning drew their swords together."
"Yes it has. Just stay alive until then."
"That's a joke right?"
And with that, he cut the transmission. Kyle sighed heavily, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "He puts on a good show, but he's worried. That's a lot of ground to cover..."
"You know him better than I do, can he do it?"
"Of course he can. I'm just saying... They really got us this time. Wait, hey you, start checking for news from outside the country. Anywhere else been hit?"
A vampire hastily began typing away at his consol, then nodded grimly, "Ya. Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Berlin, Moscow... They're everywhere. However, I don't know if we can contact their respective vampire communitiesfrom here, most don't even know these frequencies exist. Unless any of you happen to be related to any of them?"
Ah yes... You may be asking, why don't they just talk telepathically. Well that's the thing, that only works within a certain distance. The only reason that Alucard and Seras could converse as they could was Alucard was her master, as well as the single most powerful vampire on the face of the planet.
None of them happened to have been sired by a vampire outside of the United States (That was still living that is), and they were definitely not on Alucard's level of power.
Course, that wasn't surprising really... There werefourteen of them...
Versus...
No, the odds are too bleak, can't say them.
"So, what's the news?" Lui asked as he walked into the main command center, Walter and Seras right behind.
"Slayn is coming, but is unsure how long it will take. We haven't been able to reach Matthews or Gray, we're assuming the worst case scenario." Sara told him grimly, switching the display to a world map, with red dots covering the areas of many major cities, "These are the places we know are under attack. We weren't the only ones hit. Details are sketchy, but I doubt that anywhere is much better than here."
"Hold on, have you tried contacting Vincent?"
"No we haven't! You, get on it. Come on, he told you the number to call right?"
"Just a sec... Alright, the transmission is on it's way. Waiting for response."
There was a solemn silence. Because if Vincent was gone... Bad. Very, very bad.
"Start talking, now."
The was a general sigh of releif, then Sara began, "It's good to hear you're voice."
"Uh huh, look this has just exploded in our faces. I have a horde of these... FREAK vampires marching on my base. My men are moving to engage as we speak. We will win, but... How are things on that side of the ocean?"
"...Over half of our force is dead. We are trying to rally the other vampire cells from around the country, but we are fearing the worst. So far we've only heard back from one, and it's going to take them a while to meet up with us, if they make it all."
"Hmmm... Alright. Have you heard from Vladimir?"
"Um, yes. He just spoke with me actually."
All eyes were on her, "Well? What did he say?"
"Not much. If we truly need help I can contact him, but I don't think he wants me to do that unless it's truly an emergency."
"I see... I have to go now, we will formulate a strategy later. But I promise you, by the immortal blood in my veins I'm going to hang the skins of every one of those lying dogs on the council from the walls of my fortress. Vincent, out."
Another period of silence.
Until Lui decided to comment, "Remind me again, stay on his good side."
"You? Pfft, he loves you, it's the rest of us that have to worry." Kyle informed him, running a hand through his curly hair.
"So then, what do we do now?"
"We wait. There isn't much else we can do."
"...Well, you've spent almost all the money I have-"
"Like you were ever going to use it..."
"So, what did you spend it on? Come on, this place is impressive, but surely there is more than just this. 50 billion dollars? If this is all we got for that, I'm going to hurt you."
"...We have a facility further below which is working on a way to cause red blood cells to divide and copy themselves for one..."
"And that means?"
"We're working on a process to synthesize blood, just in case we're cut off without supplies. It's more technical, but for now think of it as cloning the blood cells, even though that's not really it..."
"Wow... that's a new one..." Lui mumbled to himself, rubbing his chin in thought.
"Also, about thirty billion dollars was used to create the internal power source for the base. Congratulations to us, with that little money boost we've managed to make the first working, efficient fusion reactor." Kyle told him, checking the news from a computer terminal.
"...And lets not forget the armory. Enough silver bullets to choke a demon to death, as well as enough rockets, grenades, C4 and other explosives to blow us all from Hell to Heaven and back. We also have several jets that take off from an underground runway on an upper level, and several other transports. This entire base was built to withstand any sort of bomb, missile, or other kind of projectile in existence, up to a bunker busting thermo-nuclear warhead. Oh, and Kyle, be a dear and show them our newest toy."
The curly haired man grinned, and typed in a command quickly. The lights flickered, and a faint humming noise began, to soft for human ears, almost too soft for vampiric ears...
"What is that Kyle?"
"Ah, allow me to explain sir. With the help of several others, and using the work already done by scientist hired by the late Hellsing organization, we have located a very unique attribute about the FREAK chip. It operates on a very unique frequency. Through rigorous trial and error testing, we have discovered a way to produce and electro-magnetic pulse field that will disrupt the FREAK chip, and leave most other electronics unaffected."
Seras raised a hand shyly, "Um, Walter I'm not sure if you remember, but after a person has been turned into a FREAK destroying or taking out the chip doesn't do anything."
"That's quite true. However, this doesn't destroy the FREAK chip. It causes it to, for lack of a better phrase, go haywire. It begins to malfunction in ways that are... painful and deadly for the host."
"Alright, so we have an indefinite supply of blood, power, enough ammo to fight WWII three times over, and a force field that stops FREAKs dead in their tracks."
"Oh, and we convinced Anderson to send in a Section XIII operative to place wards against phasing around the perimeter of the base."
"Hold on, Anderson?"
"Ya, didn't you know? He's been promoted. He's the leader of the Iscariot."
Seras shrugged, motioning to the scar on her neck, "We still aren't quite on friendly terms. I haven't heard from him since..."
"...I forced him to do our wedding? Ah, that was classic..."
Lui was lost in a peaceful, blissful flashback as he remembered the look of utter revulsion on Anderson's face at doing the ceremony. Those were the days...
"Alright, you know what we have to work with now. Anyone have a bright idea about what to do?"
For some reason, Lui kicked into high gear suddenly, "Well, first you should try and contact the major governments, try to explain to them what's going on. Perhaps we can gather an army of our own out of it. Also, we all know there isn't a snowball's chance in Hell that any vampire is going to set foot inside of Rome, but call Anderson and see how things are there. We'll be needing that lunatic's help. I say we send out scouting squads, one or two people to go and check out enemy movement, see if there is anyone just wandering around."
"Lui,fourteenpeople."
"I know, I know... But we need more than that. Tell you what, I'll go. You guys can handle things here without me right?"
"...Things would work better without you here..." Kyle muttered, but with a smile. He motioned to a door, "Armory is that way, take the elevator down two levels. Just punch in what you take and what you bring back."
"Right."
When he was done and ready to go, Lui found Seras waiting for him by the exit.
"I wish I could go with you."
"I know, but you can't. It would only endanger us both."
"Ya, but... I guess it just hasn't hit me yet, but I've lost so many friends already, and I don't want to lose you..."
"No, it's not that it hasn't hit you yet. We vampires are undead, we're closer to whatever next life there is than almost any other creature. Just because they aren't here, doesn't mean you've lost them. That's why you don't feel sad, or guilty... Anger, that's what you, well I have to deal with mostly."
"Sorry Lui, but you couldn't stay angry if you're life depended on it." She told him, shaking her head slightly.
"Yes I could."
The cold tone he said that in made a shiver go down her spine. That was a tone she had heard him use only once or twice, and she didn't like it, "Just... Come back alright?"
"Don't you mean, come back, to you?" Lui asked with a smirk, causing her pale skin to redden slightly, "Ah don't worry. Besides, if they do find me, we all know how I fast I can run away. I'll be back soon... And hopefully with more people. I don't know about you, but I don't think this place can run with 12..."
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Alright, another chapter. Now things can start to pick up, cause I'm to the point I have almost everything planned out from. Next chapter will feature the appearance of the first of the original characters, as well as my solution to the popular demand of giving Johnny more screen time. I do admit, he is a character that I somewhat neglect compared to the others, but all that's about to change.
Oh, and whoever asked, yes you can use 'Death Lotus' in you're story. Sorry, but I'm not looking at the review page right now, so...
God Bless,
-Professor Curly-