Song of the Day: Sufjan Stevens - I Want to be Well
Last chapter was a bit of an info dump at the end - on to more action now. This chapter was probably the longest one to write so far. Took quite a lot of rewriting, but I think it's turned out okay. Gonna keep moving nonetheless!
Having arrived at the hotel Alucard had booked, Ranma was impatiently fiddling with her pigtail in the lobby as she waited for the hired logistics team to move all of their luggage to the location. One of the pieces of luggage they were having the greatest trouble with was Seras' in particular, including her Harkonnen cannon and her coffin, both of which were extremely heavy and large - at least for humans. She was worried about appearing scary to humans as she was now, but according to Seras, the redhead's irises had taken on a less intimidating amber hue now that she was fully sealed, meaning she could blend in better with the public like Alucard, who was currently going by the alias of J. H. Blenner. That said, not much could be done about Alucard's giant six foot six stature or domineering aura, which drew looks from every direction no matter where he appeared.
Finally seeing some men bringing their luggage in on their shoulders entering the building, Ranma jumped up, excited that they didn't have to wait much longer. Her excitement was muted slightly when she overheard the receptionist who was receiving them beginning to raise issue with the size of the shipment. She was about to rush over and start arguing before she saw the giant disguised vampire extend his gloved index finger towards his face, freezing him in place. It seemed like Alucard had done something to him, as he took on a similar dazed, carefree air as when he wiped Ranma's family's memories. Now that that was taken care of, the pair of draculinas joined him as he began to walk away to find his room. Facing towards them as they approached behind him, he dropped a key into Ranma's hand. "For your room. It is on the floor below the penthouse suite."
Seras blinked a couple of times in confusion, seeing that she had not been provided with a key of her own. "Do I not get a room, master?"
"Quiet. You have a coffin. You will sleep in the penthouse suite if you must." Alucard chided her, making her pout in protest.
Bernadotte who followed alongside them seemed peeved by how expensive and fancy the hotel was looking to be. "Hey! At least you get to live in luxury, you bourgeoisie, you. They gave me a cheap $30 room in another hotel!"
Alucard chuckled. "Such is the way of the mercenary. Even so, there is a charm to humble living."
"Is that so..? Easy for you to say." He quipped back.
They all boarded the lift, Ranma pressing the top-most button on the selection with the letter 'P' for penthouse in the selection of 20 or so floors. When the doors slid open after a minute or so of ascending through the building, she immediately felt something was off. The corridor ahead of them was a large open plan marbled floor with pillars on each side, and Ranma swore she could sense someone shuffling around behind one of them, in an awfully suspicious way. She heard Alucard make a carefree 'hmph' sound, while facing in the direction of the person hiding, but reacted no further, so she decided to let it slide for now.
When the group reached the end of corridor and opened the grandiose hardwood doors of the penthouse suite, most of them bar Alucard found themselves open-mouthed in awe at the lavish interior décor and furnishing. The ceilings had to be over 5 metres tall, held up by neo-classical styled pillars, which outlined the many open spaces the suite provided - a dining room, a living room, and even a second lounging salon-type area fit with a grand piano. "Hellsing has a nice budget, eh?" Ranma commented, earning a weary look from Bernadotte.
The captain of the Geese sighed for the umpteenth time, deciding to leave. "Well, you lot get comfortable. I'll come back tomorrow evening to start the investigation." He lit a cigarette and left through the wide double doors. Just as the door closed, Ranma overheard something suspicious once again, from behind the same pillar outside.
Quietly someone whispered, "Repeat, the guest has entered the building. Over."
The keen eared draculina flicked her gaze to meet Alucard's. "You heard that guy, right? He's totally spyin' on us."
The nosferatu smirked, "Indeed. It appears our enemies have already begun to engage." He closed his grin into a pursed smile. "I'm looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us. For now, go to your room and act like you know nothing. It will be more interesting to see what they do."
"Fine. If ya say so." Ranma put her hands up in resignation and waltzed out of the suite and down the marbled corridor once again. She listened for the spook behind the pillars, hearing the edges of his footsteps around the corner. She found herself almost jumping to pursue them, but stopped herself and calmly jogged up behind Bernadotte and joined him in the lift. "Ya know there's a guy followin' us right?" She spoke quietly, making sure only to say it when the lift doors had fully closed.
"You probably caught more of a whiff of 'im than I did, mon petit renard roux." Bernadotte replied, taking a drag of his cigarette, the smoke of which ironically started to irritate Ranma's sensitive nose. "But yes, I did notice. Barely."
"I think we're just gonna see what they do. I have a bad feelin' though." She said as the doors opened to the floor below the penthouse level. Getting out at her stop, she turned to watch the doors close on Bernadotte. "Take care 'a yaself."
He smiled cheekily at her. "You underestimate me, mignonne."
As the lift shut, she spun around to find her room with her hands in her pocket. Hers was number 2007, so it thankfully wasn't too far from the stair or the lift on the first corridor to the left. Fetching her key out of her pocket, she opened the door to find that her room was actually pretty nice - nothing like Alucard's palace of a penthouse suite - but it was still quite luxurious. The bed was a massive king-size, so it wasn't a massive change there considering her bed at Hellsing, but it did have incredibly soft sheets. At the foot of the bed was a wall mounted TV, which was something she'd never seen before, the year being 1999. It was some seriously expensive stuff. All of her belongings had been brought to the room beforehand too, which relieved her.
Suddenly the phone in the room began to ring, catching her by surprise. Quickly diving across the room to pick it up at the bedside, she was even further surprised by who answered the phone.
"Ranma. Is that you?" It was Integra.
"Oh- Uhhh yup. How can I help ya sir?" She answered after a second of deliberation.
"You've had no problems checking in to the hotel?"
"Nope, none so far. There's a guy followin' us though, Alucard's just waitin' for them to make a move."
Integra pulled away from the phone, saying something that the phone signal muffled beyond intelligibility. She was probably talking to Walter. Returning to the speaker, she spoke again. "We've already had intelligence confirm that the local police force has been infiltrated. Agents working for Hellsing in Brazil have also been disappearing over the past 24 hours. Make sure you're ready for combat, that is all."
"Alright, got it. Want me to pass on anything to Alucard?"
"No, that won't be necessary. He will contact me should anything happen. I will keep up to date on the situation, so only report directly to me if it's important." She hung up.
That was odd. It sounded like something really was about to happen soon. Looking out the window, she saw that the sun had completely set, leaving only a residual honey orange glow waning on the horizon. If they were going to attack they would've caught them off guard and done it during the day right? No. Maybe not. This enemy wasn't simple like that. They were continually prodding Hellsing with no clear pattern, the only consistency being that they were gauging their own strength and coming back even more powerful each time. That would make tonight even worse than the incident that wiped out Hellsing HQ, if that was the case.
Taking Integra's advice, she used her shadow matter to manifest holsters to hide under her blazer, and loaded them up with her twin pistols. The naginata would have to sit on standby, since it wasn't something she could simply conceal, so she left the massive suitcase containing it open by the side of her bed. The twinspears, she couldn't easily conceal either, but decided to try to hide them under the blazer anyway, to no avail. That was annoying. At least it would've been had she not learned something new. Shadowy, amorphous shapes spewed forth from her hands as she tried to fit holsters for the twinspears, but they seemed to sink inside, disappearing into a... somewhere that existed outside of regular space. Realising what this might mean, she tried to push them further into the shadow, finding that she could completely immerse them. Now to test whether she could bring them back out. Opening her palms and bringing forth the shadows once again, she tried to will the shafts of each to spring out of the shadow space. To her satisfaction, the shadows acted like portals directly to the space where she had sent them, and the twinspears fired out and back into her hands.
"Oh fuck yeah." She grinned at her newest revelation. Alucard did say she would keep surprising herself.
Did this mean she could carry the Chthonia around that easily too? Snatching it out of its case, she tried the same process, this time forming a larger window with both palms into which she sent the naginata for storage. Once everything had cleanly disappeared, she put out her hands once again, filling the space between her hands with a lone, pole shaped shadow formation, which peeled away to reveal the same naginata she had just concealed. This was going to be easy as cake.
After putting all her weapons into the newly discovered shadow storage, she was now fully prepared. "Now what?" The draculina breathily asked herself. Splaying herself out on the massive bed's duvet, she kicked off her shoes and closed her eyes. In her meditative state, something strange filled the outer reaches of her hearing. It was hard to grab hold of, but it came to her attention nonetheless. It was... cars. Lots of them. They were all heading directly towards the hotel too. A coincidence?
The sounds became louder and more pronounced with every moment she thought about it. Bursting up and off the bed, she checked the window once again, looking down towards the faraway ground below. There were dozens upon dozens of police cars - SWAT vehicles included - piling up right at the entrance of the hotel they were in. Okay, that wasn't normal.
Her ears suddenly picked up something even closer. There was someone, no- a bunch of people, running hurriedly up the stairs towards them. More specifically directly towards her floor and the penthouse suite's floor. They were police too. She overheard them talking into microphones, reporting their progress as they drew closer. When Integra said they'd infiltrated the police, she didn't quite expect it to this level. These men weren't evil, they were just doing their job, right? There was no way the enemy had managed to completely corrupt the whole police force - they must've been pulling strings at the management level or something. They were certainly at least human. She could hear their heartbeats as they finally emerged from the stairs onto her floor. If she had to defend herself, she would manifest the twinspears, since they could be used as batons to safely disarm or incapacitate humans. She was not in the business of slaughtering them simply because they'd been told to raid the building.
A squad of ten or so SWAT police stopped outside her door. One of them called called out, "Agora!" confusing Ranma since she didn't know a single word of Portuguese, but it was quickly clear what the nature of his callout was when they busted down the door to her room. They all filed into the room rapidly and surrounded her, at which she decided the best course of action would be to try and avoid violence if possible. She tried to show a sign of peaceful demeanour by putting her palms out in front of her to show that she had no weapon out, but the men in front of her still looked positively twitchy and terrified.
"I'm not a bad guy. If you just stop pointin' the weapons at me, I'll happily follow you outta here." She told them calmly.
One of the men started to reply, putting his rifle down, but was promptly stopped by an elbow nudge from one of his colleagues, who gestured towards her. The man put his rifle back up towards her. What had they told these guys? That they were psycho killers out to eat babies or something? She started to move, keeping her hands up, but immediately discovered that to be a bad move, as one of the men shot her right in the chest with a panicked scream. The bullet, of course lacking blessed metal or silver, didn't do much but stun her, as she looked down at her chest with ire as the wound healed slowly - slower than it would've otherwise if she was unrestricted. She looked back up at the guy who had shot with an irritated face. "Hey! Why'd you have to do tha-" He screamed again and shot her again, spurring on the rest of the men to start shooting too.
She wasn't just going to let them keep shooting at her, so as soon as the guy started screaming again, she dashed up into the air over top of them and out of the room at breakneck speed. She sprinted around the corner and threw herself behind the wall next to the crossroads of corridors next to the lift. They had hit her quite a few times in her flight - twice in both legs, three times in the chest and once in her shoulder. The bullet holes weren't healing very fast either. It didn't seem like they were going to stop shooting, considering they'd seen her take bullets with ease it was pretty clear to them that she was some kind of monster. Well, at this rate, she was going to have to show them a real monster to get out of there unscathed. Ranma released her Control Art Restriction to level one, allowing her body to knit itself back together and gravitationally reincorporate her lost blood. Right away, she felt it come over her. Rage, bloodthirst and frustration flooded her mind. Perhaps a higher level of restriction would've been a better idea. It was too late now.
Shaking with arousal for blood, Ranma held herself hiding behind the corner as the squad flooded back out of her room and began to run after her in pursuit. They smelled so good. Their blood was practically oozing out of their skin to the excited draculina's nose. They would taste so delicious, wouldn't they? No. Stop. All she had to do was knock them out or break a few bones and get the hell out of there. Just as they were about to make the turn and discover her, she rushed out faster than they could perceive and rapidly cracked them all in the head with the twinspears she had just brought forth, bouncing off the walls in quick succession.
Okay. That was it, they were dealt with. She had probably used slightly too much force, however, a fact she came to realise as the fresh smell of some small blood streams leaking out of some of their heads filled her nostrils, intoxicating her. She shook in place and dropped the spears, eyes open wide, her fangs itching for what seemed an eternity. It was just too much.
Ultimately, before she knew it, her mouth was locked around one of their necks, a pumping stream of blood flooding down her throat that her body was endlessly able to consume. Finishing off the first meal, the excited draculina hastily hopped from neck to neck, one by one, drinking up all of their delicious blood. It was orgasmic. The taste, the power, and the feeling were all indescribable. It would've probably been easier to resist had she killed them rather than incapacitated them. The allure of still pumping blood under the surface of living skin was just too tempting. Lapping up the last remnants of the last man's life essence from his body, she ripped herself away, licked her lips and then fell back, sitting on her ankles while staring up at the ceiling.
Crimson tears of blood rolled down Ranma's rosy cheeks.
She felt so warm, so much pleasure was swarming inside her body, but in her mind all that took hold was a deep, deep sadness. She knew this would happen eventually, it was just a matter of when - so why did it have to feel so terrible? It felt terrible, but with each sob that escaped her mouth and each bloody teardrop that fell from her eyes, she felt some of the part of her that could still have sympathy for them die. Even now the draculina was still relishing the taste of their leftover blood flowing down her tongue, but she was crying for having slaughtered them. It made no sense.
It only made matters worse when groaning sounds started emanating from the corpses of the drained men, whose bodies started to twitch and move. They were turning into ghouls. Letting out another pained sob, the bawling draculina rose from her knees and manifested her naginata from the shadow space. With a flat face, crimson streaming down her cheeks still, she swiped through all of them in a graceful flourish, putting them out of their misery. All that was left on the carpet was charred dust and small smudges of spilled blood.
Ranma wiped her face. Her shirt and blazer were all stained dark shades of red. In a moment, Ranma transformed her clothes back to her regular Chinese attire, discarding the new getup. It was time to find whoever did this. They had sent innocent men to attack them. They were to blame for the blood on her hands. They were to blame. The souls of the men that now swirled inside her, filling her mind with information. Along with Portuguese she picked up on what they had been ordered, the same brown hat wearing man appearing in each of their memories. Rage began to kindle at the back of her mind.
As the wrath of the newly empowered draculina grew ever stronger, a dark, abyssal aura collected around the draculina, materialising as shadowy tendrils that began to seep out of her back. Ranma lost her sense of self as her consciousness was engulfed in the darkness.
- - - Meanwhile Upstairs - - -
Hiding in a closet space, Seras had avoided most of the initial conflict as the SWAT team rushed into the penthouse suite. She heard the sounds of storming bullets ripping Alucard apart with intricate detail, then the sounds of his body recombining itself, then the sounds of screams coming from the men as the nosferatu ripped them apart. Silence taking over as the last man fired his last shot, Seras hopped out of her hiding spot to find the room littered with corpses and stained with blood. It was just like the time with Integra's men after she had killed all the ghouls, but these weren't ghouls, they were humans. "Master..." The blonde trailed off, in shock at the sight before her.
"Seras, prepare for combat." Alucard commanded.
"B-But, master... these men..." She trailed off again, struggling to put her concerns into words that would get through to her ruthless vampire master.
"What's the matter? Get going." He interrupted, commanding her more forcefully.
"...they were humans." She finished, her eyes filled with horror as she stared at their bodies.
"And, so what?" The irritated vampire challenged.
Raising her voice in her shocked state, she repeated, "They were humans!"
Alucard grabbed her by the collar, bringing her close to his face. "And, so what? Draculina! If someone attacks you, you fight back. They came here with the resolve to fight, so should they die, be sent to their graves, be reduced to rot, so what?! There is no avoiding this truth. None can deny it, and neither can you!" He barked at her furiously.
"But... It... They..." Seras murmured, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
Finding himself pacified by the blonde's sorrowfully afraid reaction to his wrathful state, he dropped her to the floor. "That's... just the way it is..." He breathily worded. Regaining his composure, Alucard spoke again. "Come, Seras. It's time you followed me into the dark, you scared, little one."
Following his lead, the spooked draculina pulled herself together and rose to her feet. "Yes... master. Okay!
The giant, who had once again taken on his regular crimson attire, strolled smilingly to the phone in the corner of the room. Pressing a series of buttons he picked up the handheld receiver and raised it to his ear.
"Who is this?" Integra asked, from the other end of the line.
"It's your servant Integra." He hissed delightfully into the phone.
Pausing for a moment, Integra knew the stakes already had to be bad from the intel she had already received. "What's the situation, is Ranma with you?"
"I am here still, with the police girl. Ranma has just obtained the strength to fight by herself." He chuckled, already having sensed what was happening downstairs.
"And what of the SWAT team they sent after you?"
"I wiped them out. They're all dead. The police management is under their control, correct? They came here simply carrying out orders, but I can kill them without remorse. My magazines are full, my gun is loaded, I've pulled the slide, and switched the safety. All I need is for you to give me the order and I can reduce them to dust - but you must be the one to pull the trigger! Give me the order, Director of Hellsing, Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing..." He began to look excited at the prospect of her response.
After a pregnant pause, inflated by Integra taking a thoughtful drag on her cigar, she finally broke the silence. "DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ME, FOOT SOLDIER! I GAVE YOU AN ORDER! Nothing's changed! The order is still the same... SEARCH AND DESTROY!" She screamed, working herself up to the point of panting, breathless, on the other end as she stood in front the phone at her desk. "Any force that blocks the way is to be destroyed! Crush them all! Blow them to smithereens!"
"Hahahah! Roger that, my master. That's exactly what I needed, you're seriously turning me on. If that's how you want it, I'll come out guns blasting. Watch carefully, Sir Hellsing. It'll be a show you won't want to miss." He put the phone down, an ecstatic look of crazed joy flooding his face. Pulling out both of his handguns, he made way for the double doors, knowing there were multiple squads of men waiting for him on the other side.
The crimson cloaked figure emerged from the penthouse suite, marching past the shocked second wave of SWAT team men with his casual dismissal of their presence. Snapping out of their confounded state, they began to open fire. Alucard replied in kind, consecutively blasting holes in the foreheads of each one he fired upon with his twin pistols. No matter how much each of them shot at him, he just shrugged it off and killed another, and another. Squads in the back of the hallway began to panic, having realised they were far beyond their depth in terms of the monstrous capabilities of their enemy. They reported back to their higher-ups, barely managing to convey their situation just as their lives too, were snuffed out by the bullets of the nosferatu.
More men from the SWAT team almost started to swarm the corridor once again, but were stopped by something. Screams echoed from the stairs next to the lift, screams of the reinforcements being ripped apart. "Ah... here she comes." Alucard mused, knowing exactly who was ahead of him.
A barely recognisable Ranma smashed down the fire exit door to the stairs, and slid out into the penthouse floor, carried by four spider-like, clawed shadow limbs that had lifted her body off of the ground smoothly in the flight up the stairs. Landing at the end of the pillared, marble corridor, she faced her maker with not two, but four bedazzling vermillion eyes. The two extra eyes had appeared above her cheeks to the side of her original pair, below which now also streamed a stripe of red skin, that trailed down to her chin. Her facial bone structure seemed to have been rearranged, becoming more angular and indescribably... spidery. She ferally licked her lips of freshly spilled blood with a demonic forked tongue, that worked around a set of fearsome spiked teeth that filled her enlarged jaw. The draculina's hair had changed too, becoming a ropey, braided whip that trailed along behind her, which also sported stripes of white which sprang forth in a single patch from her roots.
Seras recovered from her crouched position behind a pillar, where she had been hiding while Alucard took out the SWAT men, to find the animalistic, altered Ranma standing blank-faced ahead of her, meeting the gaze of Alucard with unwavering concentration. "R-Ranma, is that you?" She called out, frightened by her arachnid-like features.
"She has succumbed to emotion. Don't approach her." He put out his arm, holding the blonde back from going ahead of him.
Grabbing on to Alucard's coat, and peeking around the side of him, Seras got another look at Ranma from closer up. She was hyperventilating, like she was both having a panic-attack and psyching herself up for the kill at the same time. "Is Ranma going to be okay..?"
"The only thing that's saving her from a fully depraved state is her restriction, which is already starting to falter. I should have seen this coming. My restriction is a contract to which I agreed with full commitment, but hers is a mere copy, so it is failing to hold her back completely. I may have to use force to get through to her." Alucard explained calmly, most of his excitement draining away. Framing his hands in front of him, he lowered his Control Art Restriction to level one. The unhinged draculina facing him was still fixed in place, her eyes switching rapidly between pleading and deranged.
"Ranma." He spoke quietly. "If you are still conscious, remember what we practised in the jet. Your emotional state has led to your own mind attacking itself. You must use your ego to balance yourself." Her eyelids flickered, and her left hand clenched by her side as if in response.
Alucard reached out with his mind, psionically attempting to detect the surface of her consciousness floating inside of her, but found himself struggling to penetrate her erratic thoughts. It was like weathering through a category five hurricane of anger and sadness, all mixed together with a confused, spasmodic reaction from her instincts going haywire. Using the extra force allowed by his lowered restriction, he jabbed at her mind, poking a hole. She jumped, her body recoiling from the psionic prodding. Her clenched hand began to draw blood, as she pressed so hard with her fingers that she pierced her own palm. Her eyes regained some glint of intelligence, and her mouth began to purse. "Th-thah...thaghnkss... fogh thah... heeehlp..." She groaned, somewhat regaining her autonomy. Then she fell to the ground, the shadowy tendrils dematerialising as her face hit the marble floor.
Seras rushed past Alucard after she collapsed, running over and sliding onto her knees. She rested the woozy Ranma's head on her thighs as she came to. It was notable that the exhausted draculina's hair had retracted its length, but still sported a white stripe. Her face still had scarlet stripes of indented skin streaming down from her eyelids, which were now surrounded by a misty sort of rose coloured eyeshadow, but other than that she had returned to normal. No more spider features. "That... was a close one, huh?" The stained redhead slurred, blinking a few times as her eyes focused.
Shedding a few concerned tears, Seras embraced her as she sat up. "You worried me! I'm so glad you're okay."
"I'll be fine, Serrie. Just needed ta get my head right is all." She breathily told her.
Pulling her head away and smilingly raising her eyebrow, Seras questioned Ranma's choice of words. "Serrie? Since when did you call me that?"
"Since now. Ya don't like it?" She chuckled, giving her a cheeky grin.
"It's... okay I guess. Don't wear it out." The blonde replied with sceptically narrowed eyes.
"Well I have to now that ya said that!" Ranma playfully slapped her on the shoulder.
Alucard stalked up behind the bantering draculina pair. "You two. We have an enemy to destroy. Ranma, we will talk about this later, now that you are under control."
Ranma rose to her feet, helped up by Seras from her seated position. "The guy behind this, he's a guy called Tubalcain Alhambra - wears full brown suit with a fedora. We need ta find him. I'm sure he's workin' for Millennium."
The elder vampire smiled. "We'll have to give them a show they can't ignore. If we do that they'll surely appear." His smile began to return, the prospect of demolishing the rest of the police with his protégé being too exciting to hide it.
"I don't like killin' for fun, but I ain't the same person I was after that whole thing. I feel like I can do anythin' now. If they're gonna fight us... I'll fight back, even if it means innocent guys get caught up in it. I don't care anymore. I just wanna find 'em and make 'em pay for fuckin' with us, no matter what." She stated decisively, a similar dark grin to Alucard creeping on to her face. Seras found herself questioning whether Ranma's first statement was being contradicted by her seemingly growing anticipation for the violence to come.
The inhuman trio made way for the lift, of course, finding it out of order. "Was worth a try." Ranma quipped, after spamming the call button for about five seconds. Around five minutes later they had made their way to the ground floor, surprisingly facing no resistance from any SWAT personnel. The natural conclusion was that they must've been waiting outside for them to emerge, holding the building under siege. The striped redhead kicked open the ground floor stairwell door, finding a small squad of six holding down the reception area. The men all trained their rifles towards her, but by the time they had gone to aim, it was already too late.
A crimson streak flew about the room, impossible to focus on or make out in detail. In rapid succession, she sliced at them all with a shadowy extra limb that she had formed out of her back, the end of which she had shaped into a razor sharp singular claw. Each of their heads rolled off of their necks simultaneously. Ranma had decided while she might have become less adverse to murder, she at least could afford her enemies a quick, painless death if possible. Despite that consideration, she wasted no time in gravitating all of their leaking blood towards her, and having it absorb into her body by permeating into her skin. This was no occasion to relish their taste. She needed power.
Alucard and Seras walked out of the stairwell to find that Ranma had already dealt with the men. Outside the front doors, at the top and bottom of the long staircase up to the hotel, was what could only be described as an army of shielded SWAT team personnel, awaiting their arrival. Alucard met and pushed past Ranma. "Allow me to make an entrance." He removed his hat, allowing his flowing black hair to trail down his shoulders. With blinding speed, he smashed through the glass at the hotel entrance, grabbing each of the leading SWAT squad just outside by their necks, throwing them up into the air. They arced, screaming as their flew, each of them landing to be impaled on the flagpoles lining the stairs with a disgusting squelch.
The light beams being shone up the stairs by the police force gave Alucard a domineering shadow against the wall of the hotel, as he stood alone atop the staircase with his coat flapping in the evening breeze whipped up by the surrounding helicopters. Out from the broken glass flew a swarm of bats, conjured by him, along with a thick, heavy, grey aura manifesting in the air.
The armoured SWAT force did not fire upon him, but began to move aside, as members of the general public being held back by policemen began to scream at the horrific display the nosferatu had put on for them. From among the SWAT squad formation emerged a tall individual, wearing a brown suit and distinctive fedora. The man Ranma had described. "Oh my, what a performance. You certainly live up to your reputation, Alucard." The man called out with a vaguely Latin American accent. He began to bow, with one of his gloved hands across his chest. "My name is-"
Ranma slipped out into view from behind, interrupting his monologue. "Tubalcain Alhambra, we know. Let's get on with this."
"A young draculina following her master, eh? You may know my given name, but you may not know that my friends call me the Dandy Man. Now, we are properly acquainted."
Alucard stepped forwards, leaving Ranma by his side. "Are you the one who sent those poor souls to die?"
Tipping his hat with his index finger as he glanced up towards the bloody flagpoles, he replied. "Ah, that pathetic lot? Their superiors were idiots, blinded by promises of becoming immortal, so they are the ones to blame for their ill met fate."
"Hopeless. Those idiots should know there is no such thing as immortality." Alucard mused.
"They did assist me somewhat in absorbing some of your ammunition, however. How many shells of yours remain, now that you have finally arrived?" He asked sinisterly, raising a set of playing cards between his right hand's index and middle finger in front of his gleaming lime green eyes.
Ranma stepped forwards once again. "Not too many, since I prolly killed 'bout half of 'em. I've had enough 'a this bullshit. Can we just try ta kill each other now?"
Alhambra replied, raising his hands which filled the air with a flurry of cards floating in a circular pattern. "You can try, but we, Millennium, will be the ones to kill you." He thrust his palms forwards, sending the magically levitating cards towards the two of them in a flash. They appeared to strike their targets directly, throwing up a dust cloud as they impacted the concrete of the stairs. As the dust cleared, it became clear that the two of them had managed to dodge the attack, having leapt backwards up the steps. Alucard had however, received a scratch to his cheek, whilst Ranma had had one of the cards slice her calf. Both of them recovered instantly, leaping out of the way of another of his attacks, surrounding him in a pincer. Meanwhile Seras took aim with her canon from the top of the steps, firing a shell directly at the Dandy Man.
It appeared like they had already outdone him, with Ranma and Alucard distracting him while Seras had fired a devastating blow, but from the debris, flew not the Alhambra, but another flurry of cards, that seemed to dematerialise into the air. He had made a decoy! Both of the upfront vampires turned in surprise, as they were assaulted by blasts of explosively powerful cards from behind, having been caught off guard by the card illusion. Seras could only watch in terror as they fell to the ground and their attacker resurfaced from the crowd to go for the kill.