Ah, the mountains of Carpathia, where I made my home for so long.

It was actually a very nice place, sheltered against so many things, so many forces. I had hordes of wolves acting as a guard in the forests surrounding my castle, and gypsies acted as my servants in the daylight, when my powers were weakened. I had a nice setup, a very Gothic castle, three brides, and slaves to my will. What more could I want?

A challenge.

I suppose that is why I left the land where I reigned supreme. The villagers no longer gave me a challenge after the Belmont's had left. Without Trevor's annoying lineage to give me a chase every few decades, life quickly became dull.

Oh, I turned a few gypsies into Midians, the most notable of all being Rip Van Winkle.

My but she was a feisty one. I had invited several of her band into my castle late one night, ostensibly for a welcome feast.

They didn't know it was my hunger that would be sated.

She took the longest to awake after the turning, and always slept longer than any other fledgling I've turned before or since. I took to calling her by the name of the Dutch man who slept away a hundred years. She was the perfect vampire! Bloodlust, power, sensuality, it all ran in her veins as it did in my own. But she never developed into her full powers, her bloodlust drowned out learning control. She lusted for the hunt, the kill, the sensation of the fear mingling in the blood of her victim. If there was anything I couldn't stand, it was the killing and feeding on someone for the sport. It was a waste, and if allowed to continue unchecked it would raise the villagers against us, something I had worked for centuries to avoid.

Sadly, it was Rip that brought Trevor Belmont after me, forcing me to expose myself as my 'son', setting the stage for what would be a long line of façades, the mental projections of what came to be called 'Castlevania' and the whole 'Every hundred years Dracula rises and a Belmont must face him' bullshit. But I understand why it happened; Rip and I did bear a chilling resemblance, save that her pale flesh was spotted all over with freckles whereas mine was smooth as cream. After faking my death for the second time with his descendant Simon, I finally confronted Rip, railing at her.

"You must not kill for the sport, only to sate your thirst! Remember, you are a child of Dracula! Behave with the dignity that your blood contains! This is three times now that some fool Belmont has come after me, and I will not have a fourth time. You will reign in your thirst, or you will be locked away for a century!"

She obeyed, but after thirty years passed, she was at it again, bringing Richter Belmont after my ass. I finally cut loose, sealing Richter away for a time after he 'killed' me. I went on as 'Alucard' for the last time and confronted Rip, sealing her away in a chamber in the lowermost reaches of my castle, and then sealing that portion with masonry. I would not have her destroy what was my line, my pride.

Vampires of my blood should have control and discretion above all else, dammit!

Ah, I must admit that I forgot about her, in the press of centuries and the subsequent capture by Van Helsing and the others. That was probably a mistake that I should not have made.

However, the fear that she held for me served me well when I faced her in Brazil, sensing her cowering in fear, screaming 'He's here! He's here!' at the top of her terrified lungs, collapsing into a shivering whelp, muttering 'Samiel' while I destroyed her comrades and approached her.

Pathetic, the Hunter was now the Hunted. Had I known this, how weak she would have been, I would not have turned her. But she was sixteen at the time, and any teenage girl will cling to any hope of life offered to her when the alternative is death.

But that is not the sole purpose of this story, as I also have to clarify the differences between what happened in Bram Stoker's Dracula and reality. They did indeed stake me as they had Lucy and my brides, but being a No-Life King, I recovered quickly and wandered the world, seeing the chaos wrought in my name and the name of various other demons and devils.

And then I made the piss poor mistake of being on hand when the Children of Judas killed Van Helsing's wife.

I swear that sometimes I'm such an idiot that I shouldn't have been sired myself. Was I destined to be hunted by that man for all eternity? Why wouldn't he succumb to age like other humans did?

I'm glad now that he hadn't, for reasons that you've probably read by now.

So he caught up with me in Transylvania, a destined place for our showdowns and we faced each other in a battle of wits, which neither of us gained the upper hand. After several days, I remarked to him about his fortitude, his tenacity.

"For a human, you are remarkably strong of will, HerrVanHelsing. What courage in the face of danger, of certain death!"

It was one of the few times taunting my enemy failed, as did both his attacks and mine. We finally sat back, and I asked him why he hunted me with such determination.

His response was chilling in its simplicity.

"Because your kind deserves to roast in the depths of Hell, where they belong, the bloodthirsty demons."

"Ah, dummer Doktor!" I cried. "Is your hatred so all-consuming that you fail to realize that I did not set upon London as you believe I had? Nicht alles ist nien während es scheint!"

He looked upon me with confusion, and I lead him into the vast libraries of my castle, the volumes that had been collected on my kind throughout the millennia by the masters of the occult, Master Vampires and others. Listing of our powers, our weaknesses. He shuddered at the sight of the vast repository of knowledge, this mountain of wealth as he viewed it. I knelt before him, and offered him a trade: my service to him and his line for the time it would take to rid the world of those that fouled the name of vampire. I would gladly clean the filth that made me out to be more of a monster than I was.

I wanted to be hated and hunted for shit I did, not stuff people thought I had.

My reputation is very important to me. I have dignity that I have worked hard to culture.

The binding was rather simple. I would limit my power releases, my mind would be linked to the master of the Helsing line, but they would not control me. I was a force of nature, as uncontrollable as a thunderstorm.

I was truly saddened when Abraham died, as I had when Lionel had. He turned the mastery of his family, now called Hellsing, to his son Jacob. I will never forget his last words, words spoken to his son, words that embodied Hellsing for the time it would exist.

"Beim Gehen hinunter den Weg, der weniger getreten wird, shy nicht vom Verwenden der Waffen, die Ihnen gegeben werden."

How ironic that his Great-Granddaughter was now my consort, and that she was a member of the Undead.

However loosely she might be included, of course.

A/N: Van Helsing's last words are, for those of you that don't speak German, 'When walking down the path less trodden, do not shy from using the weapons given to you.' Of course, my German is a bit rusty, so if I'm off, corrections are welcome to any of the German in this chapter.