Chapter two…Here we go.

"What did you just say?" Arucard asked, eyes widening slightly. "I said you're my new playmate." The small girl replied, a perfect smile on her little cherub face.

Arucard stared at her and shrugged off the idea of what he thought he'd heard. "So what are we going to do, Mr. Arucard?" She asked, tugging at his coat.

He hadn't thought of this. What did human girls her age like to do?

"What do you want to do?" He asked, trying not to look too menacing. "Umm…" She thought for a moment. I want to play dress up!" With strength he would never have imagined possible, she yanked off his coat, wrapped it around herself, and ran off.

"What the-?" Arucard stared after her, dumbstruck. "Give that back!" He shouted, regaining his thought processing skills and running after her.

Her shrieks of laughter echoed off the halls as Arucard chased her. Goddammit! He thought. Why the Hell did Integra have order me not to use my vampiric powers! Otherwise I would already have caught up with this little nose-picker!

He stopped suddenly as he heard a gunshot. Oh, shit!

He raced toward the direction of the sound. He found himself at Integra's office, looking through a large whole in the door. He pushed the door open and saw Marie sitting on the floor, looking at the door with wide eyes. On the floor in front of her was Joshua, his Cassull, smoking steadily. "Did you fire that?" He asked, feeling his anger mounting.

"That was awesome!" She said, a large grin splitting her face. Any other time, he might have found this funny. Especially if Integra could see the damage. And mostly because it was something he was likely to do. But now, after this little troublemaker had already stolen his coat, he found absolutely no humor in it at all.

"No, it most definitely was not awesome!" He exclaimed. "You could have killed yourself, which in turn would have resulted in my death! That was completely irresponsible. Do you have any idea how powerful a weapon that is?" He ended his rant with a harsh glare. Thinking about it, this rant sounded oddly familiar. Except that HE was usually on the receiving end of it.

"I didn't know it would do that! My father doesn't carry around huge guns like that! I just wanted to see what it did." She said, folding her arms across her chest and glaring back at him. "W-what the hell-? That does not justify what you did!" He stammered, reaching down to pick up Joshua. "Well excuse me." She huffed.

"Wha- You little- Just give me back my coat!" Arucard ordered. "Nuh-uh!" She shook her head and continued to glare at him.

Arucard gritted his teeth.

"Give it back!"

"No!"

"NOW!"

"I don't WANNA!"

"THAT"S IT!" Arucard roared. "I didn't want to have to do this, but you give me no choice."

Marie screamed as the coat melted around her in dark, twisted shadows, forming back around Arucard. He straightened his collar and brushed his coat off. "Now." He said, focusing back on her. "You are going to listen to me from now on. Understood?"

In response, Marie burst into tears. "I'm so sorry!" She wailed. "I just wanted to play with you! You didn't want to play with me before, so I took you coat to get you to chase me! Then I found your gun, and thought you would stay with me if I shot it. Daddy never has time for me, so I was hoping you would. Please don't be mad at me, Mr. Arucard. I just wanna play with you. I don't care if you are a scary monster."

Arucard stared at her. For the love of... "It's alright." He sighed. "Just, don't do it again." He found himself suddenly drained of energy. "Thank you, Mr. Arucard." She wrapped her little arms around his leg and hugged him.

A few minutes later they were walking down the hall, Marie following him like a little puppy. "Now what is it you want to do? And it will not include anything destructive. Understand?" He asked, eyeing her dangerously. She nodded happily. "I'm hungry!" She said.

Arucard felt a sick twisting in his guts. "Food, right." He had no idea what to feed her. He hadn't had human food for a long time. And it had been even longer since he had given food to a kid her age. "You do have food here, right?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. He nodded and led her to the kitchen.

"What exactly would you like to eat?" He asked. "Sugar!" Was her immediate reply. "Sugar? Alright." Something in the back of his mind objected, but he pushed the thought away.

After digging around in the cupboards, he pulled out a bag of pure cane sugar. No sooner had he placed it in front of her, she was practically inside of it, flinging sugar everywhere. "Try to actually get it in your mouth." He said in a disgusted tone.

30 minutes later

Cautiously, Arucard peered out from behind his make-shift table barricade. He had never seen anything like what he had just witnessed . It was more frightening than any freak, ghoul, or vampire. He would even go as far as to say it was scarier than when Integra was deprived of cigars for a few days. In fact, he would rather have her here emptying a clip into his brain than come out from under that table.

A few minutes after she had devoured the 5 pound bag of sugar, Marie had sat staring at the ceiling for about twenty minutes. Then she started to shake. Slowly at first, then more violently, until it could have been mistaken for a seizure. What happened next was like a nuclear bomb. She had practically rocketed out of the chair and three feet into the air. Then she seemed to be propelled by an invisible force across the room, over the counters, and around his head, annihilating everything in her path. He was slowly realizing that that warning in his head could have been important.

Slowly he crept out from behind his hiding place. Looking around, he thought it better to go look for the girl than to dwell on the horrible mess she had created.

He left the kitchen and followed the trail of destruction. This trail led to no other place but the shooting range. From the shooting range screams and curses in French could be heard. Arucard ran to the range just in time to see Marie on Pip's head, hitting him with his braid and yelling, "Go, Horsy, Go!"

"Monsieur Arucard! Thank 'eaven! Get this petite terror off of my 'ead!" Pip shouted, waving his hands around in an attempt to get the girl off of him. Arucard held in the large laugh that threatened to burst open his gut. Marie yanked at his hair harder. "Bad Horsy! You're too slow!"

"Marie! Stop." Arucard commanded. "Whoa, Horsy." Marie tugged Pip's hair again, and he stop moving. "But Mr. Arucard, Mr. Bernadette and I were playing." She said sweetly. "Load a' bullocks!" Pip shouted. I was 'aving a little target practice, when this little rocket came flying through 'ere! Next thing I know, she's on my bloody 'ead!"

Arucard gave the girl a disapproving glance, and she slid off of the angry mercenary, using his braid as a climbing assistant.

He yelped in pain as she got off, and glared at her as she stood behind Arucard. "'Oo is she?" Pip asked. "She's one of the round table knights granddaughter. My master has instructed me to watch her for the day." Arucard sighed. Pip let out a laugh like no other. "You're baby sitting?" He said as he choked for air. "'Oo in their right mind would trust you with a child?"

His fists shaking in anger, he replied, "Is something wrong with that?" "N-no. Sorry." Pip apologized, wiping a tear from his eye as he sobered. "But um…why did you give her sugar?" "Because she wanted it." Arucard responded, finding no problem with the situation. "Come on! You don't give a kid sugar! They get wired." Pip explainded, gesturing to Marie, who was vibrating in place.

"I understand now. How do you make her stop, though?" Arucard asked desperately. Pip shook his head. "You can't just make them stop once they've consumed this much sugar. You've made 'er a 'uman motor. No, you just have to wait it out. Eventually they just-" Marie collapsed to the floor.

"-wind down."

Arucard carried Marie from the firing range and onto a couch in the sitting room. Then he collapsed from exhaustion on a nearby chair.

Some Time Later

Arucard's eyes opened and he attempted to stretch. Except his arms and legs were bound. "What the hell?" He mumbled, easily freeing himself. He looked over at the couch.

It was empty.

To Be Continued…again…

Second and most important chapter done. One more left. Tune in next time to find out Just where Marie has gone…and done.