Order: Initial
By Type 35
Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing or any of its trademarks, which are property of their respective parties. No profit was made from this work, it was strictly for fun.
Cold. Hard. Simplistic. Clean Cut. Words that well described the room, a small chapel like apartment inside a larger complex. But still, there was something refreshing, even comforting in its hard edge, in the high gothic style, in the beauty of the worked, yet unfinished granite and tile floor, in the roughly hewn wooden benches that formed two rows stretching the length of the room, an aisle between them. It limited possibilities, gave reassurance, and put a defined order to the world. There was no doubt to its construction, nor any air of wonder. There was only one path to be traversed. Solid. Unshakable. Real. Imperial.
A single figure stood in quite comptemplation at the head of the room, eyes resting upon a simple, worn banner that hung on the wall. The numerals for 13 were embossed gold on the tattered purple fabric.
The double doors creaked open at the back of the hall, and quite footsteps echoed throughout the empty space.
"Where is he?" the thinker asked, voice at once commanding and yet still conveying a tone of bemusement, or anticipated triumph.
"The Paladin is arriving soon. His last contact was from Estonia, and that was a day ago. He said he would be here as soon as possible. He also wishes to inform you that the issue has been . . . taken care of." The grey haired man replied, adjusting his glasses with two white gloved fingers as he came to rest beside his commander.
"I want them underway as soon as he arrives. Is the taskforce ready?"
"Yes."
"Who have you assembled?"
"As you know, the head will be the Hanging Judge. The force includes three other members. Novice Christopher 'Bullet Gauge' Eklesia, Novice Joshua 'Sword Dancer' Ethens, and Initiate Lucrecia 'Purgator' Terrik."
"An Initiate?" the thinker spoke, his frown audible.
"She is one of the most promising recruits the Order has had since we took in Christopher. A virtuoso with demolitions."
"Ah yes, I seem to remember. She triggered the collapse of that heretical sect's building, correct?"
"Yes sir." The words hung in the air, as if attached to the warm mist created by the speaker's hot breath amid the cold of the chamber.
Enrico Maxwell smiled. "Good. I have a good feeling, Buffonard. This time, we will reclaim what is rightfully ours. The protestant swine will never know what hit her."
For the first time in almost 50 years, he found the song tiresome. He found the walls confining. He found the darkness . . . quiet.
He really had no idea why. Since his capture at the hand of Van Hellsing so many generations before he had spent a great deal of time on his own, haunting his few rooms in the basement of the manor. The experiments that had strengthened him, the operations he participated in . . . they had really only been brief windows into the outside world. He would be yanked from his cell, turned loose upon the enemy, only to be caged upon its completion. An enraged Bull Elephant lashed and goaded till it stampeded in the wanted direction, only to be put down once the enemy had been crushed. He had never made, nor sought any sort of bond with his masters, nor had he been allowed the time to perhaps form one. He was a tool, and nothing more. That was, until Integra had stumbled upon him, freed him, and made him a permanent fixture of the Hellsing battle line.
But he had never found the isolation to be alone. The concept was something that intrigued him, his ancient mind flitting from one possibility to the next discarding those that failed to suffice and examining those ideas that presented merit.
And after about two months of soul searching (or, searching whatever passed for a soul when your an ancient undead vampire lord), he had finally reached a conclusion that was almost satisfactory.
He had, to his surprise, become accustomed to life, as he so lived it in the world above the Hellsing Dungeons. He had come to look forward to his verbal sparing with Walter, his tormenting of Integra, his . . . well, since he never really trained her, his leading of Ceras. It was something more than just the brutal slaughters he had been invoked for in the past, something that he hadn't felt even prior to his capture.
A sense of purpose, perhaps, a duty, but even more so, an interaction with a unit. A sense of, if not comradeship, at least a mutual understanding borne of respect.
'And after all,' Alucard mused, 'Freeks are fun to slaughter.'
But he would wait. He had patience. Empires had risen and fallen in his life; it was only a matter of time before the warded doors opened once more. If nothing else, Ceras would still be alive, he knew. Till then . . .
A hundred feet above, the MI6 agents lounging in the billiards room could swear they heard the sounds of an old phonograph, its melancholy tune echoing up from the ether below.
Ceras sighed, head down on the maps, blood red eyes looking even more bloodshot than usual. Dawn was fast approaching, and she still hadn't managed to find any rhyme or reason to the recent freek outbreaks. For all she knew, there was no pattern and everything was completely random. But this little procedure had to be done. And only she, as an Ex-police officer, had any idea how to do it.
'Even if it is completely worthless.' she thought, as she lifted her head from a topographical map of the Greater London area, and tucking a few stray strands of strawberry blond hair behind her ear.
Since Stasi and the rest of the squad had signed up a week ago, there had been only two real incidents of note. The first was simple. A teenage freek, holed up in a run down, two bit bar. When Ceras had started in the front, tearing a path through the ghouls, the freek had bolted out the back. A single bullet from Lackmay's L96A1 ended his flight. The "Arctic Warfare" sniper rifle, a massive weapon originally designed for the Swedish Army, had dispensed silver justice from a cell tower about a block away.
The second wasn't much tougher. Apparently, a freek had gotten involved as an enforcer for some sort of drug deal. It went bad, and he and his gang holed up when the police arrived. Their fortress was a condemned housing block, a poured concrete and rebar type, slated for destruction. It would have been hard to get into; the windows were manned, and the doors and walls would be difficult for even Ceras' vamperic strength to break down. Had the police taken it as they were supposed to, on the numbers and by the book, it would have cost countless lives as the gangers fought back from their fortified positions.
Hellsing agents, however, had never been forced to obey protocol. There didn't have to limit collateral damage. They didn't have to worry that there might be innocents in the building. And Ex-Hellsing operatives worried even less. Bonner, a cheerful brunette formerly of the US Army Core of Engineers used the dynamite and blasting caps Reuters had 'found' to collapse the sewer system beneath the building, and subsequently the building itself. Even a freek would have had no chance of surviving being squashed flat by 15 tons of concrete and steel.
Still, despite the ease of encounters, and the fact that her new unit seemed to be pulling together well, doubts clawed at the young vampire's mind.
Ceras had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Stasi to take control of the group. He had laughed, saying that she was doing a fine job of leading "Ceras' Strikers", and wouldn't think of removing her from her position. When she had frowned, though, he had taken a more serious bent almost immediately.
"You're worried, aren't you?" he had asked, staring at her from across the table, a coke in his right hand, a half eaten sandwich grasped in his left. "That you'll mess up?"
"Blunt as always. Yes." Was her reply.
Stasi shrugged. "Works most of the time, sir; unlike you immortals, I don't have half a millennia to say I need to take a piss politely. Regardless, but in keeping, here's my blunt answer. Told it to more greenhorns than Hellsing has secrets, I'm sure. When we fight, shit happens, and sometimes we catch more of it than we give, sir. But you do your best, and you remember each death. Each name. And you make sure they didn't die in vain. Because in the end, that's all any of us can do; as a merc, I've lost more men than Hellsing lost in the last battle with Incognito. We aren't ordered to trust you Ceras. We choose to follow you, because we, well, at least most of us, Rueters is probably just in it for the money, but we have faith in you and your abilities. So don't sell yourself short, and don't shoulder all the weight. We're a hierarchy, but we're a team. Sir."
Following that enlightening speech, Stasi finished the last bite of his sandwich, knocked back the last of his soda, and let out a truly magnificent belch, completely shattering the image he had just created. Apparently, his sense of decorum only partially extended to late night shifts.
His words, however, extended far beyond that pre dawn conversation.
The second problem, while not nearly as important, was perhaps more disturbing to Ceras, and in the grey of pre-dawn over the highlighted and marked maps, came to the fore of her mind.
Going over the incidents of the past couple weeks, she had found herself loathing the freeks. Because they killed the innocent, certainly, but also because they were . . . pathetic, almost pitiful. Gang bangers, terrorists, criminals . . . artificial creations, power mad dreamers, giving no thought to what they did, or the results of their actions. They had no dignity, no sense of purpose, no nothing. They were neither human nor vampire, nor anything in between, just a misplaced entity, a bit of occult, technological slime.
They gained power without effort, skill without understanding. Lord Macaulay, a lawyer turned literati, once noted, "The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it." It was a note that Ceras found herself wholeheartedly agreeing with. She, like her Master, had power. But it was tempered by knowledge, by will, and would eventually be reigned in by time. It was not an instantaneous process, nor was it one she jumped at. She had never chased power, never reveled in it simply because she could. In D-11, it had been a way to serve, a way to protect. Her Master could crush platoons of armed soldiers flat, or level entire city blocks. He did neither, but not because he couldn't.
"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power." Spoken by Seneca, two millennia before.
A memory dredged from her mind, a school hood lesson now remembered. Freeks were slaves to their power, to their lusts. She would not be. She would not mistake power for wisdom, or ability for justification. To the Freeks, it was little more than a handout, a charity, a gift one could not possibly comprehend. She was not them. Acting without comprehension or control. It was repulsive. And to make matters worse, there was what they did with said boons. And it sickened her to her very core.
'This,' she reflected, 'must be why Master hates freeks so much, with such passion. While I may be . . . abnormal . . . I am not . . . unnatural'
Her thoughts were cut short by the faint ringing of an alarm clock. Stasi would be waking up, and that meant it was time for the day shift to take over. Grateful for an excuse to discontinue her rather disturbing mental examination, she shelved her current line of though, though she vowing to return to it later out of necessity. Now was not the time, however. She needed a shower, and then a good long day's rest. Reuter's had managed to acquire a coffin from somewhere, and after Ceras had examined it to make sure it hadn't had a . . . prior . . . occupant . . . she had thanked him graciously.
'A good day's rest. That's all I need. Freeks need to sleep sometime, too, right?' she thought, as she trundled towards her shower, her unconventional bed, and unconsciousness.
The difference between the current incarnation of Hellsing, and the current state of the Freek underground, was that there were enough freeks that they couldn't all be asleep at the same time. This despite the best efforts of the red eyed woman and her fellow combatants.
Even as Ceras Victoria pulled the lid of her coffin shut, inhaled deeply the sent of fresh, plain pine boards, rested her head on her pillow, and closed her eyes, about a hundred miles away a group of Freeks was showing just how awake they were, despite the sun looming on the horizon.
Initially, it had simply been a drug deal gone bad. A buyer tried to rip off a supplier; the cash had been counterfeited, and it wasn't even that good of a job. A common enough occurrence, just proving that the 'Honor amongst thieves' ideal was about as true as the 'vampires don't exist' fairytale. Regardless, it isn't smart to try and rip off a supplier. They tend to have ties to a larger criminal underworld. This supplier, however, had contacts to a different sort of underworld entirely.
To his credit, the buyer, who was set to pick up several kilos of the stuff, wasn't stoned when he tried his little stunt. He had brought back up. A half dozen gangers, each carrying semi auto handguns of various makes and models, a few having been converted to full auto weapons. You could tell by the ridiculously extended magazines, stretching far out of the grip. Though they looked ridiculous, they served there purpose.
Or would have. When the fakes were discovered, the gangers opened up. 9mm rounds filled the air as the harsh crack of gunfire rattled off corrugated tin walls, the musty scent of the warehouse enriched by the smell of gunpowder and smoke. The majority of the shots managed to find their targets, smashing into the two bodyguards of the supplier, a white suited, clean cut man, who had stepped behind his two companions and was completely shielded from the initial volley.
Neither of the bodyguards went down, despite being filled full of holes. No bullets ever creased the white garbed suppliers outfit. No second volley ever came. Just the cries of the doomed as their flesh was ripped from their bodies, and the snapping of bone.
The man in white pulled out a cell phone, and hit a button. Speed dialed, the call went through.
"Yeah. We'll need to find a new dealer for this area. Vasquez decided it would be fun to try and rip us off." The voice was casual, controlled, even as blood spurted from cooling bodies just a few feet away.
"And the enhanced, they work great. Tell our contact we want more of those chips."
The phone clicked shut.
When the police arrived, all they found were bloody puddles, fake money, and a message written on the ground in red.
"WE ARE THE UNDERWORLD."
And the worst thing about it, was that the police expected to find the writings. The same scrawl had been found at four other similar disturbances.
Integra Wingates Hellsing was many things. Patient was not one of them, particularly when she was out of the loop. And it was hard to get more out of the loop than being stuck in the Tower of London. Deprived of the stress her job normally provided, the Hellsing head was practically going stir crazy. Her ensemble, normally spotless, was even tighter than a Marine reporting for a uniform expectation. Her normal outfit was creased and crisp, not a spot of lint or a wrinkle to be seen. Her hands alternated between fiddling with her cufflinks, a habit she had picked up since her imprisonment, and her longer running (and less healthy) habit of reaching into her coat pocket in hopes of finding a Cigarillo. Unfortunately for her the Tower forbid smoking, and she kept coming up empty.
All in all, it led to a woman who was on the verge of a breakdown. Her face was drawn, muscles taunt, and eyes sunken and almost hollow. Her condition had been noted by her gaolers, which is exactly why the current one on one conference was being held. Integra Wingates Hellsing was of no use to the British Empire as twitching, hair triggered mess.
". . . so only another week or so, and you and Hellsing will be reinstated."
Integra nodded, idly stirring her coffee and not bothering to look up. Despite being imprisoned, her conditions were far from Spartan. She had seen four star hotels with less pomp and in part, it made her imprisonment even worse. While she was forcibly . . . pampered . . . at the political prison, people were dying. Undead were roaming free. Hellsing was being disgraced. And it showed in her voice, an icy, hard edge to her words, that seemed to lower the temperature of the room, despite the cheeriness of the roaring fire. Her gaunt features only added to the impression of barely contained, desperate energy.
Still, if she couldn't be out there doing her duty, then Integra figured she might as well be informed so when she was released, she could make up for lost time.
"How is London holding up?" she asked, head rising up to fix her informer with a hard stare.
Her conversation partner was the secretary consul of the Round Table, a gray suited, bespectacled man. Middle aged, and soft spoken in a gruff sort of way, she idly reflected that he bore a passing resemblance to Walter.
'Minus a pony tail. And the ability to kill dozens with the flick of a wrist.' she mentally added.
"Not as bad as you might thing, Lady Hellsing."
Integra raised an eyebrow; she had been expecting the underworld to have a ball with Hellsing put away. She had not dared to hope that they would courteously wait for Hellsing to be reinstated.
She voiced her thoughts, a slight crack of curiosity in its coldness. "Have the Freaks gone into hiding?"
The man shook his head. "Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. But they don't seem to be as . . . free as they used to be. The freeks seem to be more controlled, less bent on wonton destruction. Most of the time we've seen them involved as enforcers for a gang or in some similar capacity, and typically only raise hell on other scum. And . . ." he paused, and pulled a manila folder out of his attaché case, and slid it across the white linen table cloth, deftly dodging the silver service. "You've trained your agents remarkably well."
Integra opened the folder and was confronted with a blurry, pixilated image. A still taken from a security camera, the quality made worse by the countless recycling of the tape. Still, the strawberry blond hair was rather distinctive, even if nothing else could really be identified.
To say she was shocked would have been an understatement. Integra new that Ceras had been alive, but hadn't given much thought to what the younger vampire would do in her absence. Idly, in the back of her head, she knew Ceras would have to get blood somehow, and would probably hole up until she was released, but she hadn't paid the thoughts any attention, focusing instead on her own plight. She never thought the hesitant Sergeant would operate in her absence. She would have gone so far as to say the young lady would have been incapable of such an action.
"She seems to be the leader of whatever soldiers you have left." The man continued, not noticing her shocked look. "We've caught glimpses of her at 10 separate incidents, but this is the only picture we've really managed to get of her. About two weeks ago, she dressed up as a D-11 agent and managed to get past a police blockade to a charge a holed up freek. While she was running in the front door, he ran out the back. Silver tipped sniper fire made sure he didn't get far, so you've got at least a few more men working. Any idea which agent this is?"
Integra smiled, the weight lifting ever so slightly from her shoulders. Hellsing wasn't quite as dead as she thought it had been.
"One of my best."
Author's notes:
Well, Singularity should be the last title change. Impermanence was the original, but that changed when I added a second chapter, as the working title became the chapter title. Orders changed when I realized there was another fic of the same name. Sorry about all that.
Next Chapter the Iscariot steps onto the London scene, so be ready for some rather serious carnage, one way or another. I promise, next chapter is where the real plot, and not just the development, begins. Oh. And Action. Expect a lot of blade wielding, gun toting, bone breaking action. Partly because I want to do a more action oriented chapter after all this development, and partially just because I like action . Till next time. And before I forget, why not check out an excellent fic known as The Afterlife Chronicles? It's a AxS continuing story, which starts off fairly light hearted and makes its way to a darker tone fairly quick.
Type 35 Recommends:
Meruru's The Afterlife Chronicles. A nice long piece about the development of Hellsing post Incognito. AxS, it starts off pretty light hearted but gets dark reasonably quickly. Nice humor, too. Hasn't been updated in awhile, but maybe if enough people review . . .
Reviewer Response:
Eternal Sorrow: You flatter me. Especially since I'm a fan of your story; always nice to get a review from someone you respect. Only hope I can get as many people interested in this piece as you've got fans for yours . Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy and review.
Senpai-san: A belated thanks for the review. I thought it was from the first chapter post. Sorry! Hope the continuing story meets with your approval.
Lady Blackmour: Well, thanks again for a long, constructive review! I need more of those (though more reviews in general are always nice). I agree with you, Ceras seems to me to be holding back. The trouble I'm having is getting her to use more power without triggering a sort of Deus Ex Machina esq. situation. That, and getting her to deal with the fact that she's a vampire. I will say that by the Order after next, she will hopefully have completely come to terms with that bit of mental anguish; I think I did part of that development in this chapter, never the less.
Oh, and my overall goal for this fic is to break 50 reviews by chapter 10. here's hoping, yo. Preferably constructive reviews, but I'll take what I can get.
By Type 35
Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing or any of its trademarks, which are property of their respective parties. No profit was made from this work, it was strictly for fun.
Cold. Hard. Simplistic. Clean Cut. Words that well described the room, a small chapel like apartment inside a larger complex. But still, there was something refreshing, even comforting in its hard edge, in the high gothic style, in the beauty of the worked, yet unfinished granite and tile floor, in the roughly hewn wooden benches that formed two rows stretching the length of the room, an aisle between them. It limited possibilities, gave reassurance, and put a defined order to the world. There was no doubt to its construction, nor any air of wonder. There was only one path to be traversed. Solid. Unshakable. Real. Imperial.
A single figure stood in quite comptemplation at the head of the room, eyes resting upon a simple, worn banner that hung on the wall. The numerals for 13 were embossed gold on the tattered purple fabric.
The double doors creaked open at the back of the hall, and quite footsteps echoed throughout the empty space.
"Where is he?" the thinker asked, voice at once commanding and yet still conveying a tone of bemusement, or anticipated triumph.
"The Paladin is arriving soon. His last contact was from Estonia, and that was a day ago. He said he would be here as soon as possible. He also wishes to inform you that the issue has been . . . taken care of." The grey haired man replied, adjusting his glasses with two white gloved fingers as he came to rest beside his commander.
"I want them underway as soon as he arrives. Is the taskforce ready?"
"Yes."
"Who have you assembled?"
"As you know, the head will be the Hanging Judge. The force includes three other members. Novice Christopher 'Bullet Gauge' Eklesia, Novice Joshua 'Sword Dancer' Ethens, and Initiate Lucrecia 'Purgator' Terrik."
"An Initiate?" the thinker spoke, his frown audible.
"She is one of the most promising recruits the Order has had since we took in Christopher. A virtuoso with demolitions."
"Ah yes, I seem to remember. She triggered the collapse of that heretical sect's building, correct?"
"Yes sir." The words hung in the air, as if attached to the warm mist created by the speaker's hot breath amid the cold of the chamber.
Enrico Maxwell smiled. "Good. I have a good feeling, Buffonard. This time, we will reclaim what is rightfully ours. The protestant swine will never know what hit her."
For the first time in almost 50 years, he found the song tiresome. He found the walls confining. He found the darkness . . . quiet.
He really had no idea why. Since his capture at the hand of Van Hellsing so many generations before he had spent a great deal of time on his own, haunting his few rooms in the basement of the manor. The experiments that had strengthened him, the operations he participated in . . . they had really only been brief windows into the outside world. He would be yanked from his cell, turned loose upon the enemy, only to be caged upon its completion. An enraged Bull Elephant lashed and goaded till it stampeded in the wanted direction, only to be put down once the enemy had been crushed. He had never made, nor sought any sort of bond with his masters, nor had he been allowed the time to perhaps form one. He was a tool, and nothing more. That was, until Integra had stumbled upon him, freed him, and made him a permanent fixture of the Hellsing battle line.
But he had never found the isolation to be alone. The concept was something that intrigued him, his ancient mind flitting from one possibility to the next discarding those that failed to suffice and examining those ideas that presented merit.
And after about two months of soul searching (or, searching whatever passed for a soul when your an ancient undead vampire lord), he had finally reached a conclusion that was almost satisfactory.
He had, to his surprise, become accustomed to life, as he so lived it in the world above the Hellsing Dungeons. He had come to look forward to his verbal sparing with Walter, his tormenting of Integra, his . . . well, since he never really trained her, his leading of Ceras. It was something more than just the brutal slaughters he had been invoked for in the past, something that he hadn't felt even prior to his capture.
A sense of purpose, perhaps, a duty, but even more so, an interaction with a unit. A sense of, if not comradeship, at least a mutual understanding borne of respect.
'And after all,' Alucard mused, 'Freeks are fun to slaughter.'
But he would wait. He had patience. Empires had risen and fallen in his life; it was only a matter of time before the warded doors opened once more. If nothing else, Ceras would still be alive, he knew. Till then . . .
A hundred feet above, the MI6 agents lounging in the billiards room could swear they heard the sounds of an old phonograph, its melancholy tune echoing up from the ether below.
Ceras sighed, head down on the maps, blood red eyes looking even more bloodshot than usual. Dawn was fast approaching, and she still hadn't managed to find any rhyme or reason to the recent freek outbreaks. For all she knew, there was no pattern and everything was completely random. But this little procedure had to be done. And only she, as an Ex-police officer, had any idea how to do it.
'Even if it is completely worthless.' she thought, as she lifted her head from a topographical map of the Greater London area, and tucking a few stray strands of strawberry blond hair behind her ear.
Since Stasi and the rest of the squad had signed up a week ago, there had been only two real incidents of note. The first was simple. A teenage freek, holed up in a run down, two bit bar. When Ceras had started in the front, tearing a path through the ghouls, the freek had bolted out the back. A single bullet from Lackmay's L96A1 ended his flight. The "Arctic Warfare" sniper rifle, a massive weapon originally designed for the Swedish Army, had dispensed silver justice from a cell tower about a block away.
The second wasn't much tougher. Apparently, a freek had gotten involved as an enforcer for some sort of drug deal. It went bad, and he and his gang holed up when the police arrived. Their fortress was a condemned housing block, a poured concrete and rebar type, slated for destruction. It would have been hard to get into; the windows were manned, and the doors and walls would be difficult for even Ceras' vamperic strength to break down. Had the police taken it as they were supposed to, on the numbers and by the book, it would have cost countless lives as the gangers fought back from their fortified positions.
Hellsing agents, however, had never been forced to obey protocol. There didn't have to limit collateral damage. They didn't have to worry that there might be innocents in the building. And Ex-Hellsing operatives worried even less. Bonner, a cheerful brunette formerly of the US Army Core of Engineers used the dynamite and blasting caps Reuters had 'found' to collapse the sewer system beneath the building, and subsequently the building itself. Even a freek would have had no chance of surviving being squashed flat by 15 tons of concrete and steel.
Still, despite the ease of encounters, and the fact that her new unit seemed to be pulling together well, doubts clawed at the young vampire's mind.
Ceras had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Stasi to take control of the group. He had laughed, saying that she was doing a fine job of leading "Ceras' Strikers", and wouldn't think of removing her from her position. When she had frowned, though, he had taken a more serious bent almost immediately.
"You're worried, aren't you?" he had asked, staring at her from across the table, a coke in his right hand, a half eaten sandwich grasped in his left. "That you'll mess up?"
"Blunt as always. Yes." Was her reply.
Stasi shrugged. "Works most of the time, sir; unlike you immortals, I don't have half a millennia to say I need to take a piss politely. Regardless, but in keeping, here's my blunt answer. Told it to more greenhorns than Hellsing has secrets, I'm sure. When we fight, shit happens, and sometimes we catch more of it than we give, sir. But you do your best, and you remember each death. Each name. And you make sure they didn't die in vain. Because in the end, that's all any of us can do; as a merc, I've lost more men than Hellsing lost in the last battle with Incognito. We aren't ordered to trust you Ceras. We choose to follow you, because we, well, at least most of us, Rueters is probably just in it for the money, but we have faith in you and your abilities. So don't sell yourself short, and don't shoulder all the weight. We're a hierarchy, but we're a team. Sir."
Following that enlightening speech, Stasi finished the last bite of his sandwich, knocked back the last of his soda, and let out a truly magnificent belch, completely shattering the image he had just created. Apparently, his sense of decorum only partially extended to late night shifts.
His words, however, extended far beyond that pre dawn conversation.
The second problem, while not nearly as important, was perhaps more disturbing to Ceras, and in the grey of pre-dawn over the highlighted and marked maps, came to the fore of her mind.
Going over the incidents of the past couple weeks, she had found herself loathing the freeks. Because they killed the innocent, certainly, but also because they were . . . pathetic, almost pitiful. Gang bangers, terrorists, criminals . . . artificial creations, power mad dreamers, giving no thought to what they did, or the results of their actions. They had no dignity, no sense of purpose, no nothing. They were neither human nor vampire, nor anything in between, just a misplaced entity, a bit of occult, technological slime.
They gained power without effort, skill without understanding. Lord Macaulay, a lawyer turned literati, once noted, "The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it." It was a note that Ceras found herself wholeheartedly agreeing with. She, like her Master, had power. But it was tempered by knowledge, by will, and would eventually be reigned in by time. It was not an instantaneous process, nor was it one she jumped at. She had never chased power, never reveled in it simply because she could. In D-11, it had been a way to serve, a way to protect. Her Master could crush platoons of armed soldiers flat, or level entire city blocks. He did neither, but not because he couldn't.
"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power." Spoken by Seneca, two millennia before.
A memory dredged from her mind, a school hood lesson now remembered. Freeks were slaves to their power, to their lusts. She would not be. She would not mistake power for wisdom, or ability for justification. To the Freeks, it was little more than a handout, a charity, a gift one could not possibly comprehend. She was not them. Acting without comprehension or control. It was repulsive. And to make matters worse, there was what they did with said boons. And it sickened her to her very core.
'This,' she reflected, 'must be why Master hates freeks so much, with such passion. While I may be . . . abnormal . . . I am not . . . unnatural'
Her thoughts were cut short by the faint ringing of an alarm clock. Stasi would be waking up, and that meant it was time for the day shift to take over. Grateful for an excuse to discontinue her rather disturbing mental examination, she shelved her current line of though, though she vowing to return to it later out of necessity. Now was not the time, however. She needed a shower, and then a good long day's rest. Reuter's had managed to acquire a coffin from somewhere, and after Ceras had examined it to make sure it hadn't had a . . . prior . . . occupant . . . she had thanked him graciously.
'A good day's rest. That's all I need. Freeks need to sleep sometime, too, right?' she thought, as she trundled towards her shower, her unconventional bed, and unconsciousness.
The difference between the current incarnation of Hellsing, and the current state of the Freek underground, was that there were enough freeks that they couldn't all be asleep at the same time. This despite the best efforts of the red eyed woman and her fellow combatants.
Even as Ceras Victoria pulled the lid of her coffin shut, inhaled deeply the sent of fresh, plain pine boards, rested her head on her pillow, and closed her eyes, about a hundred miles away a group of Freeks was showing just how awake they were, despite the sun looming on the horizon.
Initially, it had simply been a drug deal gone bad. A buyer tried to rip off a supplier; the cash had been counterfeited, and it wasn't even that good of a job. A common enough occurrence, just proving that the 'Honor amongst thieves' ideal was about as true as the 'vampires don't exist' fairytale. Regardless, it isn't smart to try and rip off a supplier. They tend to have ties to a larger criminal underworld. This supplier, however, had contacts to a different sort of underworld entirely.
To his credit, the buyer, who was set to pick up several kilos of the stuff, wasn't stoned when he tried his little stunt. He had brought back up. A half dozen gangers, each carrying semi auto handguns of various makes and models, a few having been converted to full auto weapons. You could tell by the ridiculously extended magazines, stretching far out of the grip. Though they looked ridiculous, they served there purpose.
Or would have. When the fakes were discovered, the gangers opened up. 9mm rounds filled the air as the harsh crack of gunfire rattled off corrugated tin walls, the musty scent of the warehouse enriched by the smell of gunpowder and smoke. The majority of the shots managed to find their targets, smashing into the two bodyguards of the supplier, a white suited, clean cut man, who had stepped behind his two companions and was completely shielded from the initial volley.
Neither of the bodyguards went down, despite being filled full of holes. No bullets ever creased the white garbed suppliers outfit. No second volley ever came. Just the cries of the doomed as their flesh was ripped from their bodies, and the snapping of bone.
The man in white pulled out a cell phone, and hit a button. Speed dialed, the call went through.
"Yeah. We'll need to find a new dealer for this area. Vasquez decided it would be fun to try and rip us off." The voice was casual, controlled, even as blood spurted from cooling bodies just a few feet away.
"And the enhanced, they work great. Tell our contact we want more of those chips."
The phone clicked shut.
When the police arrived, all they found were bloody puddles, fake money, and a message written on the ground in red.
"WE ARE THE UNDERWORLD."
And the worst thing about it, was that the police expected to find the writings. The same scrawl had been found at four other similar disturbances.
Integra Wingates Hellsing was many things. Patient was not one of them, particularly when she was out of the loop. And it was hard to get more out of the loop than being stuck in the Tower of London. Deprived of the stress her job normally provided, the Hellsing head was practically going stir crazy. Her ensemble, normally spotless, was even tighter than a Marine reporting for a uniform expectation. Her normal outfit was creased and crisp, not a spot of lint or a wrinkle to be seen. Her hands alternated between fiddling with her cufflinks, a habit she had picked up since her imprisonment, and her longer running (and less healthy) habit of reaching into her coat pocket in hopes of finding a Cigarillo. Unfortunately for her the Tower forbid smoking, and she kept coming up empty.
All in all, it led to a woman who was on the verge of a breakdown. Her face was drawn, muscles taunt, and eyes sunken and almost hollow. Her condition had been noted by her gaolers, which is exactly why the current one on one conference was being held. Integra Wingates Hellsing was of no use to the British Empire as twitching, hair triggered mess.
". . . so only another week or so, and you and Hellsing will be reinstated."
Integra nodded, idly stirring her coffee and not bothering to look up. Despite being imprisoned, her conditions were far from Spartan. She had seen four star hotels with less pomp and in part, it made her imprisonment even worse. While she was forcibly . . . pampered . . . at the political prison, people were dying. Undead were roaming free. Hellsing was being disgraced. And it showed in her voice, an icy, hard edge to her words, that seemed to lower the temperature of the room, despite the cheeriness of the roaring fire. Her gaunt features only added to the impression of barely contained, desperate energy.
Still, if she couldn't be out there doing her duty, then Integra figured she might as well be informed so when she was released, she could make up for lost time.
"How is London holding up?" she asked, head rising up to fix her informer with a hard stare.
Her conversation partner was the secretary consul of the Round Table, a gray suited, bespectacled man. Middle aged, and soft spoken in a gruff sort of way, she idly reflected that he bore a passing resemblance to Walter.
'Minus a pony tail. And the ability to kill dozens with the flick of a wrist.' she mentally added.
"Not as bad as you might thing, Lady Hellsing."
Integra raised an eyebrow; she had been expecting the underworld to have a ball with Hellsing put away. She had not dared to hope that they would courteously wait for Hellsing to be reinstated.
She voiced her thoughts, a slight crack of curiosity in its coldness. "Have the Freaks gone into hiding?"
The man shook his head. "Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. But they don't seem to be as . . . free as they used to be. The freeks seem to be more controlled, less bent on wonton destruction. Most of the time we've seen them involved as enforcers for a gang or in some similar capacity, and typically only raise hell on other scum. And . . ." he paused, and pulled a manila folder out of his attaché case, and slid it across the white linen table cloth, deftly dodging the silver service. "You've trained your agents remarkably well."
Integra opened the folder and was confronted with a blurry, pixilated image. A still taken from a security camera, the quality made worse by the countless recycling of the tape. Still, the strawberry blond hair was rather distinctive, even if nothing else could really be identified.
To say she was shocked would have been an understatement. Integra new that Ceras had been alive, but hadn't given much thought to what the younger vampire would do in her absence. Idly, in the back of her head, she knew Ceras would have to get blood somehow, and would probably hole up until she was released, but she hadn't paid the thoughts any attention, focusing instead on her own plight. She never thought the hesitant Sergeant would operate in her absence. She would have gone so far as to say the young lady would have been incapable of such an action.
"She seems to be the leader of whatever soldiers you have left." The man continued, not noticing her shocked look. "We've caught glimpses of her at 10 separate incidents, but this is the only picture we've really managed to get of her. About two weeks ago, she dressed up as a D-11 agent and managed to get past a police blockade to a charge a holed up freek. While she was running in the front door, he ran out the back. Silver tipped sniper fire made sure he didn't get far, so you've got at least a few more men working. Any idea which agent this is?"
Integra smiled, the weight lifting ever so slightly from her shoulders. Hellsing wasn't quite as dead as she thought it had been.
"One of my best."
Author's notes:
Well, Singularity should be the last title change. Impermanence was the original, but that changed when I added a second chapter, as the working title became the chapter title. Orders changed when I realized there was another fic of the same name. Sorry about all that.
Next Chapter the Iscariot steps onto the London scene, so be ready for some rather serious carnage, one way or another. I promise, next chapter is where the real plot, and not just the development, begins. Oh. And Action. Expect a lot of blade wielding, gun toting, bone breaking action. Partly because I want to do a more action oriented chapter after all this development, and partially just because I like action . Till next time. And before I forget, why not check out an excellent fic known as The Afterlife Chronicles? It's a AxS continuing story, which starts off fairly light hearted and makes its way to a darker tone fairly quick.
Type 35 Recommends:
Meruru's The Afterlife Chronicles. A nice long piece about the development of Hellsing post Incognito. AxS, it starts off pretty light hearted but gets dark reasonably quickly. Nice humor, too. Hasn't been updated in awhile, but maybe if enough people review . . .
Reviewer Response:
Eternal Sorrow: You flatter me. Especially since I'm a fan of your story; always nice to get a review from someone you respect. Only hope I can get as many people interested in this piece as you've got fans for yours . Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy and review.
Senpai-san: A belated thanks for the review. I thought it was from the first chapter post. Sorry! Hope the continuing story meets with your approval.
Lady Blackmour: Well, thanks again for a long, constructive review! I need more of those (though more reviews in general are always nice). I agree with you, Ceras seems to me to be holding back. The trouble I'm having is getting her to use more power without triggering a sort of Deus Ex Machina esq. situation. That, and getting her to deal with the fact that she's a vampire. I will say that by the Order after next, she will hopefully have completely come to terms with that bit of mental anguish; I think I did part of that development in this chapter, never the less.
Oh, and my overall goal for this fic is to break 50 reviews by chapter 10. here's hoping, yo. Preferably constructive reviews, but I'll take what I can get.
