I was motionless, in the warm embrace of the werewolf, just thinking. I hated when that happened to me. For no reason, i just felt all the weight of the world on my shoulders, i felt apathetic yet emotional. I didn't want to move a muscle, letting my brain face all the bad things i could think of. Hans was still holding me in his arms, it felt like... safety, and meanwhile danger. He was... like... asking me something. He was asking me what was wrong, and he was offering his consolation. I just didn't want it...

"Please, i want to stay alone for a bit. I don't feel very well."

he looked at me, offended, maybe, or simply confused. I had never asked him to go away. Never.

But i was really feeling so bad... i felt an urge to speak of this with Zorin. She surely would've pulled my leg and told i was just an emotional baby, and she'd have been right... but i felt a need for it. I can't say why.

Hans walked out with a hangwolf look, i felt so guilty. What was i thinking about when i threw him away like that? What was i thinking about him? He was just trying to help me, because he knew i was in a bad moment... i considered running again in the corridor and calling him back, but i just stayed, immobile, there. I crouched, in a foetal position on the bed, feeling more tears coming up to my eyes. I was adding trouble to trouble.

From the porthole, saw the city below us letting space to the country, a wide and overcrowded road delimited it. Ghouls were rampaging among the cars, people seemed not to even try escaping, most of them just closed the windows and pretended to be safe.

It didn't provoke me any emotion.

I took out the glasses, saw i was all covered in blood... i didn't care. I didn't even feel thirsty. I just felt empty.

Why did i let this happen to me? I tried to repeat me i am the Huntress, i am not supposed to let me go like that... maybe i was just trying to do something beyond me... I had followed Millennium ideals for so long that i felt unnatural to separate from them... but somewhere in my chest, buried beneath the pain and the grief, i felt a need for peace.

I returned on the bed, with no intention to sleep. I just wanted to stay there and let myself down.

I thought to the Dragon, i though to myself, i thought to Hans. At least about him, i knew it was my fault. A painful fault, it made me feel better in some way. It was... plain. Simple.

What did i have to do? I knew i had to prepare new bullets, to help Hans, to tend to the injured soldiers, but everything i wanted to do was to stay there.

Everything had been torn apart. Just everything. Speaking with him... i had said a lot of things i just discovered i believed in. maybe i had always known that.... but i had been leaving aside a lot of things about myself in all of those years.

I closed my eyes, pretending to breathe. I'd have found time to pull myself together, it was such a long way home.

Did i have a home? Was it with Millennium? Or with my old family? They were all dead now. Was there anyone left? Anyone but me? For a second, i felt sure that opening the door i'd have found a world littered only of corpses, where i was the only living thing... only that i wasn't alive any more.

"Rise und shine, Obersturmführer. Not zhat i vish to imply any laziness of yours... but ve have a tight schedule."

Doc had entered the room. I was sure i locked the door.... but he probably had a skeleton key.

"What is it? Must i... prepare for some mission?"

"Nein. You are to be considered unavailable for missions, until ve have restored your control device."

"You mean my FREAK chip?"

"Exactly. I will test on you zhe newest version. More precise, quicker to react, and above all, lighting proof."

"So you will be monitoring me again?"

"Of course. Ve cannot leave one of our best agents vithout control, can ve?"

"...of course."

"So, in consideration of all of your efforts on zhe battlefield, i vill do it in anaesthesia."

"Very... kind."

I fell in darkness, a long, dreamless sleep. When i woke up, i was in Doc's lab, lying on a metal bed covered with a white blanket. It looked more suitable for dead than living people... but after all that's what i was. Dead.

There was no one else in the laboratory; many empty beds were lined on it's sides, in the centre various weird machineries, everything was bloodstained and threatening. I touched my nape, feeling the sewed cut, not yet regenerated.

Why did it suddenly feel so wrong? So.... unnatural? I had a chip in my neck for fifty years, why now it seemed so different? I had to deal with it anyway... like i always did. There was no... reason to be worried. They just couldn't risk to lose me. That was all.

Bud did i really want not to be lost?

I rose up and stretched. I felt numb, like i had slept for many hours- which was strange, since Doc never took too long on a single patient. Maybe he wanted me to rest? But why? He should've seen i had no need to. And even if he thought i needed, he'd have woken me up anyway.

My suit had very likely been thrown away, but i didn't care much- after all that had happened, there were more holes than tissues. I suddenly remembered the things i had in my pockets.... i wondered if Doc had taken those.

I saw a note on a wheelchair nearby. Doc's writing, he said he had taken the piece of strange material and he didn't know what to do with the other thing. He had left it there, and it was good because i still wanted to show it to Dragon. I stood up and looked down to my body, realizing i was paler than usual- and this means really pale. There was no visible injury, so either Doc had cured me or i had regenerated- both things required a lot of time.... too long for me. What was happening in the world? Where was i? Where were Dragon and Alucard?

"Doc? Are you here?"

No answer. At least he could've left me some clothes.... was he expecting me to go around the blimp naked? I walked around the room a bit to see if there was anything,. I finally found on a rack an uniform. My own uniform, the one with the tabs of the first lieutenant. It was brand new.... how long ago had been the last time i had worn an uniform? Fifty years, maybe. I was no longer used to it, although the sensation of a new, clean dress made me feel better, after days in that same suit.

"Is there anyone here? Anyone who can hear me?"

I was again overcome by that same vision, a world full of corpses where i was the last one standing....

"Obersturmführer! Finally! We were starting to worry!" a low-rank soldier had appeared from a corridor.

"What? Why?"

"We're suffering heavy losses, the city is filled with enemy forces!"

"What city? What enemy?"

"London! I mean, don't you even know where are we..."

"No, und she vas supposed not to learn." Doc was behind me, i didn't hear him approaching.

"Doc? Why not? Why...."

"Zhe reason is strictly confidential und i cannot say anything else. For now, you vill reamin in your kuartiers until furzher notice."

"Why?!"

"As i've said, it's confidenzial. And you vill be denied the use of your veapon until i and zhe Major have figured out the problem."

"What problem? What the Hell is happening?"

"Soldier, escort Obersturmführer Van Winkle to her kuartiers."

"Why must you pull me around? What have i done?"
Doc turned his back on me, as the solider pushed me in a cabin. The windows were obscured, couldn't see anything outside, nor feel some fresh air.

When you're trapped and you don't know what to do, you start asking yourself things lie 'why me?' and 'what if?' but there was no other in my place, no other chance to take. It had been what it had been. I didn't know yet why was i detained, nor why had Doc kept me unconscious so long, but i was sure it was related to what happened in the Vatican.

Did it matter now? Did anything matter any more? I, once again, felt hopeless. I just wanted my mom to be there and cheer me up.... i remembered little of my old family. my father was a theatre director, my mother a housewife.... we weren't poor, but not rich either. My father used to speak a lot of his time in the war, as a simple soldier. He always said he didn't like being in the army. my mother instead always told me tales of heros and brave men, saying there was always some knight ready to save me, if only i decided to believe in him,

Maybe that was it. I just had to wait. Wait until someone came to.... help me.

No. No waiting. No whining. It was time to save myself.

"I am not a child." i said, aloud, trying to convince myself. "I am the Huntress! My warhead punishes all without distinction!"

I bashed open the door. The soldier was still stationing there, guarding me. I grabbed his neck and kept him immobilized as i took his gun.

He shook, unable to speak or to free himself.

"No distinction!" i shot in both his eyes and let his lifeless body fall on the floor. Finally there were really no distinctions, no orders. It was up to me, not to Millennium, to decide who were the victims. Now i only needed to find my musket and deliver Doc to his doom.

This chapter is really short and messy.... but hopefully comprehendable.

Ah, and i've more or less decided how and when is this fiction going to end, after very likely five more chapters. No aticipations, i can only say to prepare for unforseen consequences.