AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sooooooooooo, I completely forgot about this story in light of school and kids and work and a billion other real-world things that have occurred since the last time I updated. I hate to make promises, but I do intend to finish cranking this one out (I've even got the entire plot written up, I just need to smooth it out) I also went back and made some edits to the previous two chapters, they don't necessarily change the progression of the story, but they do point out some plot points that you may otherwise miss.
Reviews still make my millennium!
"I see they've given you my name this time," came a feminine voice, cool and clear as a dawning spring.
It was late, or early, and the voices had woken her again with razor blades wrapped in raw cotton, filling her skull until her eyes strained with the pressure. And wasn't it just her rotten luck that the Lady herself barged in right as the drum's steady heartbeat to Helvegen began to play over the sound system. This visit was going to ruin her whole day.
"I'm in absolutely no mood for this, so you can just take your mercy and fuck right off."
The feminine specter brought a delicate hand to the porcelain skin of her bosom, "Now is that any way to greet a friend?"
Emerald eyes narrowed speculatively in the dark, small hours just before the dawn of a new day. "We are not friends," she accused. "We're so far from friendship I wouldn't even call us enemies."
Her namesake smirked, "And yet you allowed them to call you by my name, is this because we are so unfamiliar?"
"You're making connections and drawing comparisons where none exist. It's a name, one I did not choose for myself."
A chiming laugh rang from where the specter hovered nearby as the smile on her face reached her golden, iridescent eyes. "It that why you cursed them when they renamed you this time? Because it is just-"
"Make up your fucking mind already. Either we're such gracious friends that I'm honored to bear your name or I wanted to kill them all and drink the glory of my victory from their skulls after they called me by your name," the woman demanded harshly. "Now tell me just what the hell you want or quit wasting my time."
"I wish only for that which all of us want."
"Do excuse me if I have more than enough of my own problems and am less than inclined to give a shit about yours."
"My, how you remain unchanged in all this time. They have only tasked you to do that which you were meant to do. It is in your nature, after all."
A sneer glinted at the specter from the emerald-eyed woman's face, "It's my nature to do things on my own terms. Shall I break your tithe and leave you to wade through the misery of this place? Let's see how you fare after countless centuries in this place without choices of your own, hell I'm sure they could find a use for even your 'gifts.'"
The specter's shifting, flowing golden hair swayed in a phantom breeze as she seemed to consider the woman's position. "I grant that no other would have made it as far as you have under such duress and circumstance. There are those of us that would yet avenge you, though Fea fled after her betrayal, and she has not yet fallen into our gaze despite our searching." Those shining, golden eyes remained assessing, glowing in the darkness, "If you had simply let the mortal prince die, if you had not given him your favor, you would not have been quite so weak-"
"Then you're exactly fucking useless to me right now," the woman growled, hands clenching sweat-drenched sheets into fists. "Since you are so inclined to dole out warnings after the fact, then take your damned mercy and let me have some fucking peace and quiet."
"Do you not feel it?" came the lilting voice over the woman's frustration. "You are so close now and everyone is waiting, anticipating, even the humans. They gather for the rituals, preparing their sacrifices, and chanting our prayers. It will all come to a head soon… sooner than you think."
Glowing eyes and luminous, porcelain skin heralded the specter as she drew near the woman with outstretched arms. "Just as it is in your nature to thrive in chaos, conflict and death, it is within my nature to bestow mercy and healing. This is my gift to you for the glorious age of supplication you will herald unto us all."
With just the faintest touch of the specter's fingertips to the woman's chest, a glow bloomed like embers of a fire beneath her skin. The light illuminated the black lines scarred into the skin of her chest, casting shadows from beneath the cage of her ribs where her heart should lie. "None save you would survive carrying a broken heart in your own hands to wield as a weapon against your enemies." Then, after only a moment, the god was gone, vanished as smoke in the wind leaving only an echoing whisper in her absence.
"You stand now upon the precipice, a place where the danger is greatest to us all; it is time to hide your heart once more and bring them back to us."
In the dark of the Hellsing manor's sub-basement, Walter and Alucard watched Eir and Seras through the security monitors. Over the last two nights, the American operative had established a training regimen with the fledgling, and in spite of the master vampire's reservations at the laughable situation, it seemed to be working. Eir gathered the young vampire as soon as the sun had set each night and headed to the roof with her, teaching her control and precision through a series of balanced movements that Walter had later told him was known as "yoga." After two hours of positions and poses that should have broken a normal body in half, they made their way down to the gymnasium and the American proceeded to instruct Seras in hand-to-hand combat. In the short time since she had arrived, his fledgling was finally beginning to show promise…if only she would drink.
"What do you make of Special Agent McWilliams?" Walter inquired, watching closely as Eir instructed the blonde vampire through a particularly advanced balancing act at the edge of the roof. The handstand, though not difficult, was perfectly balanced as she held the whole of her weight upon her hands, fingers gripping the ledge and arms steady. "Sir Integra seems fond of her and Seras has certainly progressed in the short time that she's been here, but she barely interacts with any of the other staff with the exception of myself."
The No-Life King scoffed, "That one walks through a world of ghosts. To her, all of out master's men are just corpses that haven't figured out they're dead yet." It was a familiar sentiment, one that he shared having survived the long centuries alone, outliving every human he had ever met. They were all abstractions, temporary and fleeting in the bright, brief sparks that served as their time upon the earth; they weren't to be loved, they weren't to be known, they were all just waiting to die anyway. Whether tomorrow or years from tomorrow, he would survive them all.
Walter, having watched Alucard briefly observe the two women on the screens, glanced back just as Seras kicked her legs up over her head. "It could be a form of survivor's guilt, according to her records she's the only person alive out of all the teams she has operated aside." As he took a moment to consider further, Eir's face crinkled and she let out a laugh alongside the Police Girl, her whole frame shaking with mirth. "Perhaps she's begun to associate ordinary humans with fragility in light of what she's experienced, easily discarded in her line of work, and to save herself from the guilt of surviving while they die she simply does away with the association altogether."
"What an absurd human notion," Alucard sneered, "guilt for living." The light from the screens played across his face, the Police Girl emoting with her hands and waving her arms excitedly as she and the American made their way to the roof access door. "No, I don't think she's felt guilt a single day for something so simple as living," he said to himself.
The Master Vampire narrowed his eyes as the two figures disappeared from the roof, his crimson gaze glowing against the greyscale display.
"Alucard? What are you thinking?" Walter asked lowly, carefully considering as the vampire beside him grew more agitated.
Gaze still narrowed and sneer growing across his features, Alucard turned from the monitors and strode toward the stairs leading from the sub-basement. "A simple human girl won't make a difference, no matter how long she's survived she'll eventually just die just like the rest of them."
Alucard was met with peals of laughter ringing throughout the gym of the first floor basement, his progeny's eyes tearing with mirth. The American methodically wrapping her hands with grappling tape as she spoke, "-and he just fell, BOOM, right onto his ass like he'd never seen sheep before." He had steered clear of Eir since their initial standoff in his Master's office, content to observer the woman through the manor's security feeds, but now, with her scent wreaking havoc on his senses, his hunger bloomed. Mountain forests overlaid with fog met his nose first, thick and lush and breathing in the pre-dawn air; the iron of ancient weapons followed after, heavily forged with fire and battle and the deaths of the fallen. Finally, a new facet to her scent drifted to him, something so fine and well hidden beneath gunpowder and memory that he very nearly missed it. Ozone and wind, heat and fury, the cacophony of tumultuous contradiction that brewed a coming storm, one that promised lightning and primal, uncontainable destruction.
Beneath the colors scarred into her skin, veins of temptation lit a match to the napalm promise that if he could taste but a single drop of her, he would never be bored again. What a deliciously interesting mystery this seemingly simple American woman was turning out to be. Despite himself, he couldn't help but be impressed at her prowess, her fluid movements in the early evenings as she manipulated her body into contortionist positions, her strength and precision as she sparred with the Police Girl. Then there was the way she had stood toe-to-toe with him, chin jutted out, her emerald gaze clashing with his own crimson glare unflinchingly. Eir had been as haughty as he, head tilted, lips curled into a grin even as she sneered at him, eyes almost ablaze in the failing light. If she had been of his time, if he had but known her in his human life…she would have brought him to his knees, even before his own throne.
For now, he looked on as Eir and his fledgling made their way to the mats in the center of the overlarge gym, the American adjusting her tight black t-shirt over the waist of her grey leggings, the white lettering of "Evolution" and a series of weapon silhouettes stretching actoss her breasts. The No-Life King was enraptured even as her words to the blonde murmured nonsensically to his ears, eyes affixed to the battlefields etched into her flesh once he properly recognized the black silhouettes of men and weapons against the riotous watercolor. It was a history, he deduced as she turned and motioned and corrected his fledgling; this woman, who walked in a world of ghosts, had written battlefields and death into herself.
How interesting.
"Okay, so you've got a pretty good foundation at this point for punches, kicks, and holds," Eir observed as she had Seras go through the movements from their sessions over the last two nights. "Now you're going to put that into practice."
The young vampire's sapphire eyes went wide as her stance abruptly fell, "What?"
Eir's long auburn braid swayed as the woman herself moved into position directly before her, locks of dark reddish brown hair framed the woman's face as she fell into a fighting stance. "I want you to hit me; your opponents out in the world won't quietly stand still for you, you shouldn't grow into that expectation as you train."
Adjusting herself into the stance Eir had instructed, Seras spluttered, "But, but what if I hurt you?"
A grin split the American's face, straight white teeth gleaming, "You've got to hit me first. Now come on, I know you've seen 'The Matrix'," her voice lowered, imitating Morpheus, "'hit me, if you can.'"
Self-consciously, Seras threw a right-handed punch at the other woman, aiming at her chest. Eir's left forearm came up, swiping her fist out and away as the flat of her right elbow sailed up and into Seras' neck, not a true hit but impacting her with just enough force to let the young vampire know it could hurt if she was out to truly do her injury. A cough forced itself from Seras's throat at the abrasive impact and she couldn't help the hurt expression that entered her eyes.
Eir raised her eyebrows, almost as if to make sure she wasn't going to just surrender and it was enough to make the vampire drop back into the fighting stance with a renewed resolve. This time she stepped into her body shot, throwing her weight into the strike. But the American trapped her arm against her ribs after taking the hit without blinking, stepping around her forward momentum and lashing out with a kick to the back of her right knee. Once Seras was firmly off balance, she felt a hand at the center of her back thrust her further forward until she was stumbling to keep from falling on her face.
"Remember your balance in a fight," came the American's voice, not taunting her, but advising as she had over the last nights. "Don't give an enemy your back and don't use the same moves from one hit to the next. If I were your enemy I'd know by now that you favor your right side, I'd expect it since you've tried the same hit twice now. So what will you do?"
Steady on her feet and facing the green-eyed woman once more, the young vampire huffed a breath of contrition, "You're better than I am, you're too fast."
"You're stronger and faster than any human. You've seen me throw a punch, you've seen me block a hit, if you concentrate hard enough you'll hear my body tell you what I'm going to do before I can make a move again."
When Seras didn't move to get back into a stance, the other woman rushed her, left arm drawing back high for a strike, but as the vampire made to block it Eir twisted at the last moment and landed a kick with her right leg to her side. "That thing you're so afraid of," she said, rounding out of the kick smoothly before striking out at the back of Seras's knee again, dropping her to the ground. The younger woman scrambled to get away, to get back on her feet but the American advanced, kicking her feet out from under her as easily as knocking a stone out of her path, "it's not a monster," and she knocked Seras flat on her back with a quick hit to the chest before she straddled her waist.
The dark-haired woman pulled her upper body off the ground by her own shirt at the neck and as she grabbed her wrists to keep from falling flat on her back the American continued, "it's an instinct. That instinct wants you to survive and you've been starving it, that's why it's volatile, irrational, dangerous. But it's learning, it knows everything I've shown you even if you can't do it yourself. When you need it, even if you don't want it, it's the only thing that will be able to save you."
Eir shook her once, firmly before releasing her shirt and Seras's grip fell slack on the delicate bones of her wrists. The woman stood seamlessly, flowing up on her feet like a plume of smoke before extending a hand to help the young fledgling to her feet. Once Seras regained her balance she looked once more at Eir, expecting disappointment but finding none, only a small smile and an expression she couldn't place. The older woman let loose a sigh, breath steady even though she'd soundly beaten the fledgling thrice in the span of as many minutes; in her heart, she knew she should have performed better and she was ashamed. Had she done nothing but wasted Eir's time? Was she just sparing her feelings? Was she completely hopeless?
"As much as I hate to endorse it," the American began, turning away from the fledgling vampire, "you should drink; starving yourself won't do you any favors and anyone who's going to rely on your for anything in a combat situation suffer because you won't be able to help them."
Slow applause sounded from a shadowed corner, drawing the attention of both woman to a pair of burning red eyes over a maniac's grin. "I see my Master's new pet has displayed the full range of her worth," Alucard taunted, emerging fully from the darkness. "You can beat an idiot too stupid to drink, half-starved and weak. Well done, Ghost Walker."
Eir's gaze narrowed as the master vampire clad in red approached, hearing none of Seras's protests until a bare moment later, they stood toe-to-toe once more; neither averting their eyes or backing down. "At least I'm not the flaming asshole who turned a terrified girl then refused to teach her anything about her nature."
Seras gasped audibly but the other woman's remark hardly phased the elder vampire. "Let's really test your worth, Ghost Walker, and not with my Master's toys or the Police Girl."
"You want me to fight you?" and an expression of genuine confusion passed over the green-eyed woman's face.
"I'll even give you a fair chance, no weapons, just you against me," Alucard cajoled, "or are you too afraid to face a true nosferatu?"
For a long moment Eir seemingly considering his challenge, weighing her chances even as she stood her ground against the nightmare before her. Then something seemed to settle and she tilted her chin up imperiously, "I accept. No weapons, no minions, just you against me, Minotaur," and she own smirk set along her lips.
"Excellent," the vampire king hissed through his mad smile and the two separated, taking their respective places as Seras scrambled away as quickly as she could.
Neither combatant entered a fighting stance, they simply stood expectantly across from each other, Eir assessing and Alucard with naught but a grin firmly in place, listening to her veins and muscles. All at once they rushed at each other, the master vampire's arm raised as though to impale Eir as he had with so many, many other opponents. But before his fingers so much as brushed against her chest, she caught it with her own hands, using his outstretched arm to vault herself off the ground, her legs kicking out and around to collide violently with his head. The shock of the impact knocked Alucard back a few scant paces and then Eir was upon him again, her right fist connecting solidly with his temple before she launched her left knee into his chin, forcing his teeth into his tongue.
As he spat a mouthful of his own blood to the ground a laugh burst forth from deep in his chest, "You're full of surprises, Ghost Walker, but now it's my turn."
In a flash of movement, he was behind her, fangs bared, and before she could move he had ahold of her by the back of her neck. He flung her around behind him and she sailed for a few meters before she gained her bearings, fighting the pure momentum to force her legs out, sliding to a stop on the mats with one hand on the ground braced for balance. She rushed at him before the back slide had stopped. This time he was prepared for her dexterity, reading her muscles and preparing for her strike just as he had instructed his fledgling scant moment ago.
But it was a misdirection.
Instead of the right hook he veins heralded, she slid down low and between his spread legs, beneath his reach. Before he could turn to strike out at her, her weight was on his back, one arm around his neck and the opposing hand forcing his neck forward into the blood choke, her heels dug into the femoral nerve clusters of his inner thighs.
"You're accustomed to fighting like a tank, Minotaur," came her voice like a sweet poison, her lips brushing the shell of his ear and her hair grazing the skin of his neck as her scent shot into his brain like a surge of adrenaline. "You'll take damage to the point of defeat to gauge your enemy's strength, but without all those lives inside of you, you'd be as vulnerable as a human and just as easy to kill."
A wave of black rage swelled within the No-Life King as she spoke. The audacity of this human, he had fought countless battles, wages wars without end before the birth of her ancestors. How dare she presume to lecture him! With a growl that shook the room itself, he reached up and grabbed ahold of the woman by her shoulders before flinging her to the ground before him. Her back collided with the mats and the pained cry forced from her lungs was music just as the desperate gasp for air that followed. And as his mad grin widened, eyes glowing brighter and an arm raised to finish her off, his Master arrived.
"Alucard, I order you to stop immediately."
Eir had caught her breath and rolled from within his reach by the time his gaze settled back to her after Integra's intervention, her own violently green eyes watching him carefully. Though he could smell the pain in her flesh, hear how her lungs hitched in a continued effort to recover, he detected not a single trace of fear. This woman was either suicidal, extremely foolish, or a very singular adversary, and as he withdrew into the shadows to allow his failure of a fledgling to worry over her, he secretly couldn't wait to face her again.
"Oh, my God!" Seras exclaimed, pulling Eir to her feet and searching the woman for injuries, "Are you okay? That was amazing! How did you do that? I've never, ever seen anything like that before!"
Once Eir was back on her feet, lungs safely full of oxygen once more, shreds of her shirt fell to the floor, leaving the woman in her black sports bra. A hysterical giggle burst forth from her lips before she could stop it, Integra and Seras watching in concern and confusion as she tilted her head back and simply let it develop into a full out laugh. Only once it had died down did Seras really look at the American, or, to be more precise, the grayscale tattoo outlined in thick black ink ranging from just beneath her left collarbone, down her ribs and stomach, and into her waistline.
"Wow," the blonde vampire remarked, suddenly at a loss for words. It was a sword, full scale and inked into her skin as though to make it a part of herself always.
"That was so fucking stupid," Eir gasped finally, bent at the waist and her hands braced on her knees. "Oh, I can't believe it, what a rush."
Seras herself could only blink at the incredible, unbelievable, insane human.
"I'm okay, having the breath knocked out of you like that absolutely kills, but I'll be all right," Eir reassured the blonde. "I am insanely hungry though, want to go raid the kitchens with me?"
"Are you sure you're okay?" the blonde fussed, helping the American to retrieve the shredded fabric that had been her shirt. "You hit the ground really, really hard."
The two made their way out of the gymnasium, Integra granting the American a nod of acknowledgement at their passing, presumable waiting until they were out of earshot before interrogating Alucard and his instigation of the fight against a simple human. Eir herself paid no mind to the young vampire's concerns, touched at her words, but ultimately confident that she would endure.
"I can't believe he threw you that hard," Seras kept on even once they had arrived in the kitchens, Eir rummaging through the pantries for a quick meal. "It was like everything just stopped when you hit the ground."
"Seras," the green-eyed woman commanded firmly, her patience finally at an end, "I've been thrown before, from higher vantages and further distances." Deep emerald met glittering sapphire, beseeching the vampire to simply calm down. "Yes, it hurt. Yes, it was incredibly ill-conceived to take your Master up on a fight, even without weapons or powers. But I'll survive, I'm insanely lucky that having the breath knocked out of me was the worst of it."
The moments of blessed silence to follow allowed the American to assemble a sandwich and procure a large bottle of water, and as she perched herself atop the kitchen island to tuck in to her quick meal she couldn't help but notice the vampire's gaze affixed to her chest. Still, she took a hearty bite out of the sandwich, hoping the girl would leave it alone.
"But…" Seras drifted off, as though unable to focus. The silence stretched between them, Eir finishing her meal before Seras spoke again. "I heard your heart. Once you were on the ground and…I though Master was killing you, but your heart still sound…it sounds wrong."
Eir let out a self-depreciating huff of a laugh. "If it makes you feel better, my heart isn't the result of anything he did to me," she rebutted, assuaging the fledgling's concerns as well as she was able. "What happened…what happened was my fault, it was my decisions long before I ever came here that lead to that injury."
"Can it be fixed?" Seras prodded, "I'm sure Sir Integra can find all kind of heart surgeons; someone can fix it, I know they can."
A slight smile flit across the dark-haired woman's face, sad and agonizing as her gaze settled somewhere into the middle space between them, as though watching a memory or a passing dream. "No," she affirmed. "I appreciate your concerns, and I'm flattered that you want to help, I really am. But it's miles better than it was and … I'd honestly prefer not to burden Integra with this."
The silence between them this time was almost companionable, Seras herself knowing how it felt to not want to burden others with her problems, but now…not a new aspect to her nature had suddenly and firmly affixed itself into her psyche. She finally understood. Even as she admired Eir, even as she looked up to her and stood in awe of the things she could do, Seras herself would never be afflicted as Eir. Her heart could be pierced with silver, her head could be cur from her neck and she would likely never recover, but her heart would never simply give out. Her body would never fail her after years or decades of injuries that never quite healed.
As a subconscious need for confirmation overcame her, the question spilled from her mouth before she could think to stop it. "Will it kill you?"
Neither could look at the other, they both knew this was the most important and lasting lesson Eir could teach her: humans, for all their qualities, were fragile and brief, never to linger long. Love them at your own risk. That understanding answered even before Eir's words slipped between them like a shadow.
"It'll kill me long before anything else does."
Nothing else broke the quiet they shared for a long while after.
The next evening found Walter in the sub-basement with Seras and a promise to send the young vampire up to the roof to practice with Eir once he had finished. Eir just smiled, told him to take all the time he needed and that she'd be at the ledge near the helipad once Seras was free. The blonde vampire herself could be hears screeching even up to the main floor as the American retreated to the roof.
"WAALLLTERRRRR!" she screamed, and Eir's chuckles followed her all the way up the stairs.
"If it helps," the butler implored, "the orders were confirmed by Alucard as well."
Instantly, the state of Seras's bed was forgotten and the phantom memory of Eir's heartbeat as she lit breathless on the gym floor echoed brokenly in the young girl's ears. "Master…" she acknowledged soberly.
"Since you're still refusing to drink blood like a proper vampire you will most certainly become weaker," Walter clarified. "You will sleep in a coffin with the soil of your birthplace, this smallest of concessions is the only way to keep up your strength."
That was the crux of the whole issue, wasn't it then? Seras and Eir, both of them liabilities; Eir because she couldn't overcome her humanity, Seras because she could let her humanity go. The situation would almost be laughable if it weren't so bloody sad.
"I take it you're still feeling…uncomfortable, with the situation?" the retainer inquired, the words "even with the American's recommendation yesterday evening" going unspoken.
She couldn't find the proper words to answer with. How could she hope to explain the fear and apprehension swirling riotiously within herself? How could she tell him that she would rather be doomed to die of a failing, broken heart than to live forever as a soulless monster?
"You're an idiot," came the deep tenor of her Master's voice as he entered her room.
"M-Master?" she stammered, shocked from her morose train of though at his dark silhouette against the doorway, the red lenses of his glasses glowing in stark relief.
"You chose the night. Once you turned your back on the light of day, all the sunlight should ever mean to you is smoldering pain and a slow death.."
He was right, she acknowledged with a small sigh, it was her decision, her choice to become what she was now rather than die on a hill in Cheddar. Then he grinned, fangs on full display as he advanced into her room. His very presence was oppressive, weighing down on her as though gravity had been dialed up all around her.
"Good evening, Alucard," Walter greeted, having strode over to a dais near the stone wall of the sub-basement as her Master drew ever nearer. "I have something very special I was hoping to show you," he cajoled, one hand set upon a dark briefcase Seras had not noticed to that point.
Her Master, moving to stand before the dais, opened the case and peered within to find a large gleaming black pistol and magazine within. "Oh," he remarked almost whimsically, "What's this?"
"The Jackal," Walter declared as Alucard drew the weapon from the case. "A custom, 13mm anti-freak combat pistol; it fires custom made rounds, far more powerful than the 454 Casull rounds you're used to. Thirty-nine centimeters long, sixteen kilograms in weight, six rounds per magazine. The Jackal has more stopping power than any human could be expected to handle."
"The rounds?" her Master inquired, examining the shells within the loaded magazine.
"13mm explosive shells."
"Casings?"
"Pure Macedonian silver."
"And the tips, explosive or mercury?"
"Mercury tips, and they've already been blessed."
The master vampire slid the magazine home with his maniac's grin, "It's perfection, Walter!"
"I'm pleased that you're pleased, sir," Walter confirmed with a smile and a small bow.
"I bet this beauty could even stop Father Anderson in his tracks," he wagered.
"Oh, my God," Seras admired, in awe of the weapon Walter had crafted as she leaned around her Master to get a better look at the weapon. "That's amazing!"
"Miss Victoria," Walter called for her attention, monocle gleaming. "I believe I have something special for you as well."
As she turned her attention away from her Master's dark, gleaming work of genius, her jaw nearly hit the floor at the sight that greeted her. Walter had a bloody cannon standing upright beside him. Surely to God that monstrosity wasn't meant for her!
"The Harkonen, a 30mm anti-freak cannon. Designed to be used with both depleted uranium shells and incendiary shells, this weapon will destroy all but the most heavily-armored of targets."
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" she all but screamed as loudly as possible, completely horrified at the prospect of firing the monstrosity presented to her.
Then, a series of explosions went off on the roof, shaking the foundations beneath all the way into the sub-basement.