Author's Notes: Anyone who can help me come up with a possible title for this story within the next couple of chapters wins a free smut fic, starring Alucard and one other person!! Any takers? ... I kid, I joke. Seriously, though. A title? ANYONE? Oh! And I'd love to thank all the reviewers that just shocked the hell outta me this morning, seeing so many happy comments! I know I'll fix the first chapter at some point. Somehow some paragraphs got fuddled. I knew I was smart to list this fic under "Hellsing" this time. I hope I don't disappoint with this following chapter (As yet actionless - which includes guns and swords and other things.)
UNTITLED VAMPIRE HUNTER D / HELLSING CROSSOVER
TAKE 2 : Savage Wonders
The perfume of life, pure and unhampered, assaulted his senses. It made his muscles ache, his tongue melt to taste the air like a serpent. But years of life had taught him to resist this evil, this temptation. It was the unnatural thirst for blood, and even though it was near enough to make him swoon, he let the scent of it make him cold. He had to tell himself of his hatred. He convinced his body that it was poison. But his body was telling him, Ah, but how can it be poison when it is yet flowing into his body through other means?
His eyes snapped open at this notion. He sensed it, a strange warm prickling at his elbow joint of his left arm. He was gazing into a light, stabbing rainbows into his eyes until he blinked them away. What was this new evil? Memories that were once firmly erected in his mind tumbled apart; he saw himself standing before the coffin he must have been laying in before. He felt the familiarity of the scenery, of the woman he spoke with, who gently propelled him into the coffin and stroked his brow as he closed his eyes for the centuries to come. But where this was on the Frontier, how he got there, all of that was lost to the coma.
An ocean of blank emptiness lie between that particular moment and where he stood upon the distant shore of the present. It was then he felt a presence. The voice of that presence soon followed. "Awake, and so soon..."
He blinked past the lights, which were slowly dimmed to a bearable level, at the figure swaying beyond his weakened vision. It was unthinkable that what he was looking at could possibly be...
"Nobility," he hissed. His left hand convulsed in response to the strong desire to cut him down where he stood, but it was just as feeble as the voice he spoke with.
"That's an interesting term. I hope the respect was intended." A disquieting, malevolent laughter bounced from the four walls. D found himself drowning in it, his head throbbing in time. He desperately wanted to know where he was.
The answer: "Hellsing Organization, London Headquarters. To be more specific, you're in our modest hospital wing, being fed properly through a tube since you apparently refuse anything living." At this, the stranger sounded puzzled, if not downright annoyed. "But you must have your rest."
"Who are you?" D demanded, fixing his cold blue gaze at the figure. The broad, crimson hat and dark straight hair kept much of the man's face out of view. A pair of orange shades covered his eyes, which stood little to shield his eyes from revealing their tell-tale redness.
"I am Alucard. My, how your strength returns! Hmm!" Thus named, Alucard gave a little tremor of excitement and approached the other man, reaching for his throat. D tensed for action, but Alucard had already grabbed the blue jewel around his throat and stared into it. He dropped it back to his chest with a chuckle. "I'm getting excited already. I should leave before I do something regrettable." He fixed his hot, sultry crimson gaze on the other man's face and simply sneered, fangs protruding against his lower lip. "Rest, handsome brother, for when you rise again, you will die a proper warrior's death. I pray you won't be a disappointment. You won't even feed yourself; what sort of hope should I hold that you'll prove a threat against the No-Life King?"
In the next few seconds, the Noble disappeared, leaving the room drastically empty and D calmly considering the terrible weight of this new situation.
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A few hours earlier, Alucard knelt prostrate on the floor, smiling at the ground with his hat in his hand. Integra had come as promised, and her righteous wrath poured over him deliciously in the form of silence and a gaze that rendered grown politicians to nearly wetting themselves. What a human woman she was, his master; her power over him seemed complete in its totality. She feared nothing, no one. Her eyes made his soul weep. As a vampire, she would have been utterly unstoppable... But she would rather cut her own throat and die of blood loss than let her body become tainted by the blessing of his kind.
Seras Victoria was livid before, but she too was silent. Her bright blonde hair and intelligent eyes were filled with mixed fear and disappointment. He could almost hear her deepening concern that she was no longer Alucard's favorite.
You misunderstand me, Police Girl, he thought quietly, awaiting his master's judgment. I will duel that man, and what glory will befall such a sight! I can taste the power inside of him, like nothing I've ever felt before... Oh, Master... forgive me! This is like the most vain and petulant puppy love!
Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, though she died for a cigar, sighed a breath she hadn't known she was holding. "I don't understand you, Alucard," she groaned. "Even after so many years of hunting vampires and the like, you have a mystery that eludes me."
So much the same about you that I feel. Oh, this is far too much! Alucard let his thoughts stay snugly trapped inside his mind. Seras Victoria's first blooding was years behind them. She could as easily poke her mind into his thoughts if he wasn't careful. He looked up slowly. "I'm not honest enough for you?"
"Hmph. You're too honest!" Integra suddenly smiled. "But this has gone far beyond the usual eccentricities. What has brought you to this kind of madness? Just tell me what the hell you've brought him here for!"
"To duel him," Alucard said simply. "To taste battle as I've never tasted it in years, to feel such excitement that has been denied me since the war with those Nazi punks. I can't tell you how long I've awaited the arrival of such a foe!"
"Do you know how many innocent lives will be at stake? At the expense of those who are innocent, you will duel a monster that could possibly destroy you?" Integra's pupils focused intently. With all pretenses aside, she was still considering for Alucard a proper punishment. His disobedience could not simply go ignored.
"Is there no greater passion?" Alucard smiled. "Master... I will not seek to harm those who would cower from the fight. This battle will take place in a place of your choosing."
"Far from it am I to allow such a proposterous--" Integra snapped, but then her eyes glistened with emotion. "I've seen him, Alucard. He... is not from our world. I don't know how or why. Surely you can sense it. While I am tempted to say I will not allow you to kill him because it's damned mad, I cannot allow such a creature to live simply because he is a vampire."
Alucard waited, smile fading as he looked to the floor again. "Command me, Master, and this time I will obey."
The Hellsing Organization's crowned leader gave a small, bitter laugh. "Truly, Alucard? I am doubtful, under the circumstances."
"How is your hand?" Alucard said suddenly, taking the opportunity to get under her skin, if only to watch her squirm.
"It's none of your concern. I shouldn't have tried to hit you." She rubbed her knuckles. They were red, not bruised. Her gaze softened as she surveyed Alucard. "Oh, get up, you bloody moron. You are permitted one visitation to your imposed guest when he wakes. But you are not to see him again, lest either of you provoke some sort of confrontation in my corridors."
She is too kind. She knows that I can speak mind-to-mind at any time, even under my art restrictions and the restrictions imposed by this building. He gave a quiet chuckle. "As you see fit," he simpered, giving the impression that he was subservient, which he was. He was excited about the visit, although he was not looking forward to viewing his adversary in his weakened, pathetic state.
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Meanwhile, the laboratory reserved for the process of analyzing foreign materials and their origins gave Walter some time to think during the lonely hours when he was not busy attending to Sir Integra.
To be honest with himself, he admitted that he looked forward to the lab when labwork usually bored him. He was better than that. But for all his expertise in deadly combat situations, the quiet exploration of this mysterious sword filled him with giddiness.
He could tell straight away that this was no ordinary sword. It seemed too arcane and primitive a weapon for a vampire coming to call from distant shores in a coffin that seemed altogether alien in technology. Somehow the sword fitted the stranger more than the coffin.
A delicately etched "D" on the blade chilled him slightly. The skull, the curved hand guards that looked more like demon horns. It was some kind of katana, but long enough to be a nodachi. It was approximately 95.2 centimeters in length, made of solid steel, with very minute signs of heavy use. It was finely polished and, after recieving date from the carbon dating unit, was apparently centuries old. The sheath was old and worn, showing signs of either multiple repairs or replacement.
"Lord help us," Walter choked, glancing at the sword. "If the sword should be so old... then how old is the swordsman?"
It was tradition for swords to be handed down from father to son. This character's sword must have been handed down countless times. It was the easiest explanation to believe. Highly doubtful that the swordsman could have been in possession of it for most of its life.
Alucard's voice hardly scared him. The ancient came and went as he pleased. "How is the testing coming?"
Walter lifted the sword. He swung it experimentally and found himself struggling to pull it out of the solid metal table in front of him. Alucard provided appropriate assistance; holding the blade close to his eye, he turned the cutting edge upward and gazed down the length, turning it at different angles.
"Lucky you, to spend so much time with a marvel like this." He was not a swordsman himself - or maybe he just hadn't been in centuries. Yet the Midian could appreciate the effort put through to create this weapon.
"You aren't going to break it, are you?" Walter was anxious. In the time spent to study this extraordinary piece of weaponry, he had grown quite attached to it.
Alucard snorted. "Fool, of course not." He shaved a piece of metal from the table with the sword, eyes widening from the ease with which it slid through. "Though I can assume you will value the in-put of a vampire. That this was crafted by immortal hands, there is no doubt. We are masters of such savage wonders."
"I was thinking so. It's thousands of years old."
The sword was once again on the table in its sheath. Alucard's eyes followed the curve of it, unreadable emotions flickering over his face. In a whisper, he sneered, "He probably stole it from someone while they were taking a piss."
"I wouldn't say that. I heard you visited your new friend already." Walter smiled. "What did you think of him? With every observation, he..."
"...is less likely to be the one."
"The one?" Walter quirked an eyebrow, folding his lean arms over his chest. At such an age, he was still looking well, even with artificial life extension medications.
Alucard fixed the fedora back on his head, turning to leave. "To destroy me."
Because, don't you know... while you all strive to live, it is the business of vampire's to attain death. In every form. Alucard laughed as he sauntered down the hallway, a taunting laughter that reached the ears of only one: the enemy who recovered slowly in the medical wing. His greatest adversary who might just be another low-life. The anxiety wasn't exactly killing him, but it was uncomfortable for him to be wrong about anyone.
Seras Victoria was at the firing range, as expected. "Seras," he said, taking her by the shoulders. "I want you to keep an eye on my guest for me. Master says I mustn't pester him."
"You mean I've got to baby-sit Mr. Geriatric?" Disbelief and horror filled her adorable blue eyes. Normally they were red. Feeding was not a problem for her anymore, but she would ever be his little fledgling, the one who he taunted persistently for the sheer purpose of ruffling her feathers.
"Not geriatric anymore. Who knows. Maybe you can strike up conversation with him." He pushed her in the right direction. "Go away, run along now. You shoot like a drunk twelve-year-old."
"HEY!" She snarled, glaring at his back as he walked away, fading into the shadows. She put her gun down and whimpered sadly, "Why are you so mean to me...?"
"Far beneath me would it be to deny my new friend a bit of familiar company." Alucard dumped himself bodily into his 'throne', opened the cooler beside him, and drained a pint of blood. Specially ordered, harvested, cultivated from willing, anonymous doners, Alucard began to doze and while away his boredom in the darkness. The next hunt always caught him by surprise, a speck of action in an existence ordained by fate. Van Hellsing had made him into this tool. So he would remain.
He found himself cursing that he neglected to ask his guest his name. But, that scrawled "D" seemed to suit him perfectly. How simplistic. It must be horrible trying to introduce himself. Whoever he was, Alucard wished his Master hadn't taken away his right to see his guest. At least he had ways of keeping an eye on him. His licked his upper lip, closing his eyes as he recollected the sight of that beautiful creature. The pulsing power in his veins, the promise of a sweetness too great to conquer. No, he was not wrong. Couldn't be wrong!
"D," he sighed, crossing one leg over the other as he mused. "D... D..."