Deadly and Blond

Chapter 13: Interlude

When Tamsen and Seras arrived at the meeting room, everyone was already there and the pair quickly apologized before taking their seats. Integra stood, then walked to the back of the room and locked the doors before moving to the head of the table. "Now, before we begin the meeting, Seras, I'd like to ask you something."

"Yes Sir Integra?"

"I was under the impression from Alucard that a person could only be turned by someone of the opposite gender from themselves…"

"Ah, right. Well, as you know, vampires are creatures of passion; bloodlust, violence, sex, and so forth. Apparently among real vampires, especially more powerful ones, if one is intent enough or passionate enough, some of the usual rules can be bent. I'm not actually sure what the rules are regarding gender if there are any, so I'm not sure if that was the case here. I believe the assumption that vampires can only turn members of the opposite gender stems from most vampires' heterosexuality, coupled with the stronger sex drives we have.

"Ah, I see," said Integra who, for the first time Seras could recall since meeting her, seemed a bit off balance for a moment. The woman of steel façade returned almost instantly however, and Seras wondered if any of the others at the table had even noticed. "Seras, are you gay?"

Startled by the directness of the question, Seras almost fell out of her seat. "I…umm…how should I say…It's like…umm…" Pausing a moment to compose herself, Seras could feel the heat of the blush building on her face. "I…I think so. I'm not really completely sure though…" she trailed off, suddenly taking up a great interest in examining the grain in the wood making up the floor.

Tamsen nudged Seras lightly with her elbow, "Hey, look around; it's not that big of a deal."

Seras apprehensively looked around the table. Tamsen and Walter looked completely comfortable with her admission, while Aya just seemed a bit amused at her reaction. Jodie flashed her a little smile and a thumbs up when she looked at her, as if to say, "way to go!" Integra looked slightly uncomfortable and had a bit of color in her cheeks, but that was it. Wait a minute…why's Integra blushing? Seras thought to herself, It couldn't be that she's…nah… she cut the thought short.

"Seras," started Integra, waiting for the vampiress to finish her observing, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to keep your ahem relationship with Miss Tamsen a secret for the time being."

Seras nodded in understanding, "I'd expected that would be the case, what with the political and religious ties our organization has."

"Actually, the Queen and al of the members of the round table, well, the ones that matter anyway are worldly enough not to really care, especially since this organization doesn't technically exist so there's no worry about PR."

"Then why can't…"

"Troop morale actually. You know men, one of their primary driving forces is the desire to impress you. You are after all rather…attractive I suppose would be the word."

The room fell completely silent, it was a moment or two before the dams broke and Tamsen started laughing uncontrollably. Aya and Jodie followed suit almost immediately, and even Integra allowed herself a little laugh. Seras in the meantime proceeded to smack her head against the table a number of times. After a minute or two, Integra cleared her throat and the room quieted again. "Seras, since the only ones permitted in the dungeons besides this group are Alucard, Walter, and some of the scientists I have no problems if you two decide you'd like to share a room. Just speak to Walter and he will make the necessary arrangements."

"Oh, umm…Thank you sir!" Was the only thing Seras could think of to say.

"Well, now that that's settled," began Integra, relieving Seras of having to go on and gesturing towards a screen in the center of the table. "The raid on the facility that you three secured was a very successful intelligence strike. Though we don't know where it is, we do know for a fact that whomever was organizing this has a facility set up somewhere in the Kalahari similar to the Neo Ark facility that Miss Brea experienced a few years ago. This facility is however, according to our intelligence network and some creative forensic accounting, about eight to nine times as large as the facility in Mojave.

All eyes turned to Aya, who seemed a bit shocked, but held her silence. "We're presently working on tracking down a possible survivor from the facility you found. This man, a Mister Yoshida, seems to have foreseen what was going to befall their more recent project and fled. We believe he may also have been involved with the development of the facility in the Mojave."

Aya raised her hand, "I can confirm that. I found some of his personal effects when I was there. It seems he managed to skip town just before I got involved."

"Well, it seems then that it is almost certainly Mr. Yoshida that we're after. We have our intelligence people working on finding him now. Word has it that he's gone underground somewhere in Paris. When we find out where he is, it's likely that we'll be racing his former colleagues to get to him. As of now, the three of you are on constant stand-by and will deploy the moment we find him. Until then I want all of you to work on getting Tamsen used to her new abilities."

Integra stood and switched off the screen, "Our last order of business concerns the two children that we have here. I know that neither is as young as she appears, and they probably won't get into any trouble unsupervised, but I would still like to be able to provide them with something to do. Are there any suggestions?"

"Do you have a shooting range?" piped up Jodie almost instantly.

Aya shook her head, "You are such a gun bunny…" she murmured.

"Are you suggesting they learn to shoot?"

"Well, Eve already knows how," Aya glared at her, "What did you expect me to do with her when I'm chained to the shooting range all day? I can't really take her for a walk in the park while Pierce blows his foot off with a twelve gauge." She received a resigned shake of the head from Aya. "Anyway, I figure it might be a useful thing for them to know, considering what their guardians are getting involved with. Eve's already alright with a PPK, and I'm sure that with her abilities, Shielle should have no trouble handling a pistol as long as it fits in her hands. I'm not going to be deploying with the rest of them, so I'll be around to teach them what they need to know."

"A valid point; I'll speak to the master at arms about that. Any other more…conventional ideas?"

"Is there a TV somewhere they could use?" asked Aya.

"No actually, I'd forgotten about that. I'll have one sent down to their room."

"Is there a gym or something?"

"Yes, but it's in the barracks, so it probably would not be a good idea to let them go there."

"But isn't the shooting range…"

"Yes, it is in the barracks, but there's a smaller range in the basement of this building. It was built for Seras and Alucard to practice originally, so the walls are armor grade steel backed with a foot and a half of rebar concrete. If you like Ms. Brea, that range should be sturdy enough for you to practice with your…special abilities. There are enough stalls there for all of you, so you might want to get in some practice before your mission."

"Thanks, we'll be sure to do that."

"Are there any more questions or suggestions? No? Very well, we are adjourned. Be prepared to deploy in an hour."

It took all of about ten minutes for the group to get together everything they'd need and load it into the UH-60 sitting on the helipad designated for their use. Neither Aya nor Tamsen had really gotten around to unpacking all of their gear, so they just threw their packs in the back of the chopper. Seras just tucked some extra magazines into her coat.

Ten minutes later, they found themselves in the firing range, watching Jodie show Shielle how to properly grip her pistol. Shielle had chosen to use a Beretta 92FS, which looked far too large for her, but she seemed to be more comfortable holding than the smaller weapons which she'd complained felt too fragile.

Seras had suggested the more bulky weapon figuring that Shielle would feel more comfortable, as she and Alucard did, with something disproportionately large for her. Aya meanwhile was hefting Seras' gun and attempted to aim it without much luck. "If you think that one's heavy, you should see my big gun," Said Seras, gesturing at the Harkonnen standing in one of the gun lockers.

"You can actually lift that thing?"

"Oh yes, there's actually a second one in the armory and I've dual wielded them before. Lost a bit in control, but with a pair of 30mm cannons on full auto, need for precision drops somewhat."

Aya walked around Seras once, examining, then reached out and squeezed her bicep. "Where do you get that kind of strength from?"

"Maaaagic!" said Seras, grinning and wiggling her fingers at Aya. Receiving an eye roll in response, Seras dropped the smile and took a breath before explaining. "I'm told that the artificial vampires like Shielle there get much of their abilities through mutations to their mitochondria. As for myself and Tamsen, we're not really sure since much of our power really does stem from what I could really only term, 'magic'. Our research people could probably give you a much better description than I could, I had one of them try to explain it t me once and only ended up more confused and with a headache."

Aya looked pensive, "From your mitochondria huh? That's an interesting turn of events, but I think I'm beginning to figure out some of what we saw underground the other day…" she trailed off and began to pace. "We noticed that some of the bodies appeared to have been drained of blood, but none had turned into…what was it you called them?"

"Ghouls."

"Right, ghouls. Do you think that whomever is behind this might be trying to develop a creature incorporating a combination of the other mutations I've seen before and your vampiric abilities?"

Seras nodded slowly as Aya explained her theory, "It would make sense based on what we've seen. If they're using the FREAK chips to create these creatures, it would also make it much easier for them to transform and control these things."

"What's a FREAK chip?"

"It's a sort of bio-mechanical computer chip that when inserted into a person mutates their body giving them strength and abilities akin to ours. These artificial vampires aren't as powerful as we are, and they don't have the more…mystical abilities that we do, but they can still be very powerful. It all depends on the generation of the chip and the number of chips implanted."

"That would make creating them much easier than it's been in the past. I'd hate to think of the sorts of things they could create by combining the two technologies. Even stronger and harder to kill than ever before, plus more power to put behind some of their energy attacks…"

"Energy attacks?"

"Like this," said Aya pointing her hand down the range and firing off a series of fireballs.

"That's pretty neat. I wonder if I could do that…" wondered Seras.

"Ah, I've been wondering, what kind of powers do you have anyway?"

"Well, I can stick to walls like Spider Man, or walk through them like Gumby. I can get blown into tiny pieces and regenerate without too much of a problem. I can fly, with or without turning into a cloud of bats, travel through shadow, create illusions, hypnotize people, talk into your mind, and summon familiars. I'm probably forgetting some things… How about you?"

"Hmm, I can heal myself, though I'm doubtful I can do it as well as you can, but I've never had occasion to be blown into little bits. I can attack using fire or electricity, and I can make a sort of protective shield around myself. I also don't really age, I'm thirty now and I look like I did when I was eighteen."

"Wow, you were a wrinkly eighteen year old," interjected Tamsen, earning herself a death glare from Aya and a laugh from everyone else in the room. "I hate to interrupt this little party of yours, but I figured you might like to know that the rest of us are going to go get something to eat. You can continue comparing your super powers up there. Besides, I'm sure the kids would love to hear about them.

"I'm not a kid!" said Shielle and Eve in unison, before looking at each other and giggling.

"Of course not. Now lets get going children, food's getting cold."

Hey, well it's been a while I know, but some crazy stuff has been going on in real life that I've been working through. I thank everyone who reads this and I hope you'll R&R. Look forward to the next chapter hopefully sometime in the next few weeks. I've finally gotten back into the writing spirit and I hope it stays that way.

Thanks again for reading my story.