READ ME!

It's me again. As I promised, here is a longer chapter. Once again, constructive criticism is accepted, and please do not flame.

...And before I forget, this story contains some shounen-ai, and possibly yaoi in later chapters, but nothing too explicit. If you are not comfortable with such things, I suggest that you stop reading now.

Disclaimer: Hellsing and its characters belong to Hirano Kouta. Some lines of poetry that may be quoted by my original characters does not belong to me, usually to Edgar Allen Poe. However, Eternity and Wataru do belong to me, so please do not steal.

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Chapter 2: Ashes to Ashes

Alucard and Seras arrived at Warehouse 4 in a Hellsing van. No one else came with them but the driver, for Integra seemed reluctant to waste any more soldiers on minor vampire attacks. Alucard and Seras were one vampire fledgling more than enough for a mission like this, anyhow.

Warehouse 4 itself was as bleak and dreary as the neighboring Warehouses 3 and 5. A concrete building in the shape of a rectangular prism, it had no other decoration on the exterior save for a door with the number 4 painted on it in a faded white. The inside, Seras had to admit, was only a little better. The interior was very spacious, much bigger than one might have imagined, and the crates upon crates stacked in zigzagging rows made the place seem like a maze. Oh, and it was very dark. So dark , in fact, that if Alucard and Seras did not both possess the vampiric ability of night vision, they would have been stumbling all over the place until they ran into a particularly large stack and got knocked out by falling crates.

Seras had no idea where the power switches were. She assumed they may have been removed by the vampire somewhere in the warehouse, so as to have the advantage over human investigators.

"Oh?" Alucard murmured beside her. "How...unexpected...No ghouls..."

And he was right. Not a single ghoul had tried to jump them, yet.

"In, Master?" Seras asked, readying her rifle.

"In it is."

The two of them were eight minutes into the warehouse and counting. No ghouls or vampire to be found.

"Master, I'm beginning to think this was a false alarm," Seras muttered.

"That, or someone got here before us..." Alucard replied, walking ahead of her.

Almost immediately, the thought of Father Alexander Anderson came to mind. Seras shuddered, remembering the first time she and her Master met the Paladin. She suddenly found herself begging that it would please be anyone but him.

Lost in her thoughts, Seras barely perceived her Master turn sharply to look at something behind her.

"Police girl--" he had started, when she spun around to see five gray, bony and obviously dead bodies lurching at her.

Seras yelped and tried to raise her rifle, but one of the ghouls had gotten close enough to knock it out of her hands.

"...Ashes to ashes," said a new voice.

Suddenly, all five ghouls fell to the ground.

"Wha…what? Who just...what the hell happened?" Seras stuttered, stepping close and examining the inanimate forms of the ghouls curiously. She yelped again when Alucard pulled her away by the back of her Hellsing uniform collar. Instantly, the corpse burst into flame, the tendrils of fire reaching where Seras' face had just been half a second ago.

"Holy shi...!" Seras managed to squeak. "I...You saved me, Master!"

Alucard narrowed his eyes at the slowly dying flame. He had seen this before...years, no...Decades ago...

'Ashes to ashes'?

...No way in hell...

The Nosferatu's ever-present smile grew into a shark-like grin.

"...The Scourge of Eternity..." he whispered.

Seras jumped when her Master's quiet call was answered by a childish laughter.

"Ooh, you remember me, Master Alucard..." The foreign voice stated delightedly.

The vampire fledgling stared as her apparent savior approached them in the darkness.

It was difficult to spot him out, even with Seras' vampiric vision--he had black hair, and wore a black business suit, black tie, and black boots. The only white thing on him was the shirt he wore under all the black--but glowing red eyes quickly caught her attention.

"How could I ever forget you?" said Alucard. "Besides, it has only been have a century since we last met..."

"Has it? For me, it has felt like…an eternity…" The Scourge of Eternity replied, his set of fangs shining as he smiled.

As the two friends laughed, Seras stood to the side and watched them, confused.

That vampire--he was obviously a vampire--had saved her from the ghouls...so evidently he wasn't the head vampire they were here to exterminate. But if he wasn't, then...
"So, Eternity, Did you silence the FREAK yet?" Alucard asked. Seras swore he was reading her mind.
"No, my Master. He is still hiding somewhere in here. I think he may be trying to mess with me," was the answer.
For reasons unknown to herself, Seras was feeling slightly angry, and jealous, at the fact that another vampire was calling her Master 'Master'. Had Alucard turned another person, and not told her about it? She made a mental note to find out later.
"...And I suppose the bastard is going to die slowly and painfully for daring to be so irritating?" Alucard was still conversing with his friend.
"Of course, Master. It is in my nature, after all...I cause slow and painful murders for amusement."

"Good. You can amuse me a bit, while you're at it."
The black-clad vampire giggled.
"I take it your Countess does not let you out too often?" he said. "Poor Master. You deserve to be let loose every now and then."
He turned on his heel and began to walk in the direction of the exit, motioning with his hand for the other two vampires to follow.
"Ah...Wait!" Seras called, following the newcomer and her master. "What about the FREAK? We have to kill it!"
The former didn't stop or look back.
"You must be Master Alucard's fledgling, yes?" he asked. "Miss Seras Victoria?"
"Yes..."
"It is a pleasure to meet you."
"Erm...Yeah, nice to meet you, too. But we should really get the FREAK."
"Oh, that...ja, no need to worry. He will try to ambush us before we leave."

As if on cue, said FREAK could be seen jumping at Eternity from atop a pile of crates.

As Walter had mentioned, the FREAK was a Class C vampire. He took the form of a well-built blonde in his early twenties, and wore a black leather jacket, no shirt, and tattered jeans. There was a swastika carved into his bare chest. He appeared to have mastered his vampiric strength to a certain extent, for the momentum of his leap, when Eternity sidestepped him, caused him to fly through and destroy any crates in his way, also making a decent-sized dent in the ground at his landing.

Cursing in German, the FREAK made another tackle towards Eternity, this time catching him around the waist and throwing him against a wall of crates. He grinned wickedly, pinning his victim to the wall by the wrists.

"Let's see you do zat trick viz ze ash now, fraulein!" he said triumphantly.

Eternity was smiling patiently. Honestly, Seras had no idea how in hell some people managed to be so nonchalant about these situations. If what Alucard had told her—through telepathy, of course—was accurate, Eternity's "Ash" power affected everyone in direct contact with the intended victim of the attack. With the FREAK pressing against the smaller vampire like that, there was no way for him to retaliate without getting incinerated himself.

"Ah...Fraulein, am I? I think that was supposed to be an insult," Eternity replied coolly.

Seras shuddered involuntarily. She would have moved to help him by now, but there was something about the edginess of his tone that warned her to stay the hell back. Besides, it seemed Master was leaving things in his friend's hands.

"Vhat are you going to do about it, fraulein?" the FREAK jeered. He seemed not to notice Alucard and Seras' presence, only concentrating on the pretty little vampire before him.

"I dare you to call me that one more time," Eternity challenged, smiling.

The FREAK leaned in so that their faces were barely an inch apart.

"Viz pleasure, fraule—!"

The FREAK stopped and fell writhing in pain as Eternity's knee enthusiastically met his groin.

"AAARGH! You little bitch!" the FREAK screeched.

"Did it hurt that much, FREAK?" Eternity asked sweetly. He placed a foot on the FREAK's head, and, ignoring his screams of agony, crushed his skull.

Unfortunately for the FREAK, it had developed enough in its vampirism to withstand most assaults to his head, but not enough to heal such critical damage.

"I see…You cannot heal yourself," Eternity giggled. "…Piece of vampiric trash…"

The FREAK stared up at him with eyes overflowing with blood.

"Vh…Vhy?" he rasped. "Vhy…do you not side viz…Millennium? Vhy von't you rage var viz us…in ze name of Satan?"

At this, Eternity stiffened. Then, his smile grew into a Cheshire Cat grin not unlike Alucard's own, his red eyes glowing eerily in the darkness.

"…Wage war in the name of Satan?" he breathed coldly. "…Me…You…Really….Is that so…?"

He chuckled darkly. Beside Seras, Alucard lowered the wide brim of his hat over his eyes and grinned.

"…Well, well, FREAK," the little vampire giggled. Grabbing the FREAK with one hand by his blood-soaked brown hair, Eternity lifted him to eye-level. Without warning, he thrust his black-gloved hand into the FREAK's chest.

Even when the hand was removed, the victim screeched in pain, his voice jarring, as if Eternity had just poured acid into his lung.

Eternity only stood and laughed in sick amusement.

"Now you can go burn in hell with your Satan," he sneered. "And the rest of Millennium will follow…"

He turned to leave.

"…Oh…Before I forget," he said, stopping, but not turning. "When you see the Devil, tell him I said 'Go fuck yourself, The Scourge of Eternity no longer works for him.'"

And with that, he walked out the door, with the Nosferatu Alucard and Seras Victoria following suit.

Seras looked back at the FREAK before stepping out. He was still screaming in agony and delirium, its body very slowly burning away into black oblivion. She turned away.

The FREAK would be gone long before daybreak.

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Was that a little better? It was certainly longer, wasn't it?

How did you like Eternity? He sounds girly, but he's really a nice guy, and like any good Anime character, he's more than meets the eye.

There will be more information about Eternity and his "Ashes to Ashes" ability on later chapters, but yes, I did get the idea from the Nursery Rhyme "Ring Around the Rosy".

I apologize for making Seras sound so pathetic, but this fiction is set before she turned into a true Nosferatu, so it can't be helped. I hope to make her a little better as the story goes on.

Alucard isn't doing much right now…he will later. It's just that he's extremely difficult to keep in character, as other writers would agree. I'm still straightening out his part in the story.

If you haven't read my message on the top of the page, I suggest you read it before you decide to review. Many thanks.

Holiday