Alucard stopped his assault for the moment, his eyes, already slitted, seemed to contract more so, if that was even possible. Tian, noting the vampires' sudden onset of rigid calm, retracted his blade back together and stuck the tip into the ground, one hand still laid across the hilt in preparation.
"Gonard...Gonard is greeting me?" Alucard growled lowly, his eyes cast down and hidden by his black hair, as the rest of his hellhound form sloughed off like black satin and blended smoothly back into himself as he stood up on his two human feet, perhaps only a quarter of a head taller than Tian.
"You heard me, vampire," Tian said matter-of-factedly, leaning on his sword as he eyed the vampire with an air of casual indifference.
The night breeze passed through the some seven feet gap between them, one not of this world, but so casual that he could blend with anyone of the denizens of this world. The other, a corrupted one of this world, clad in the scarlet of blood.
And these two figures stood eerily motionless, still in the still night, until the scarlet one broke their twin vigil.
Alucard suddenly threw back his head, his gloved right hand clasped over his face as his fanged jaws opened wide in a toothed laugh. The laugh shook him from within, his tall body shook with each sound. His eyes were hidden by his fingers and mirth, and then his face disappeared from view as he arched his back in an impossible arc, his mouth pulled apart wider and his deep laugh went on without pause from his lack of need for breath.
Tian looked up in slight surprise, his right eyebrow raised itself in query.
"Feng ah..." he murmured at the strange scene.
Alucard continued to laugh, his back arced so far that his hair fell and touched the ground in a small space of five centimetres of less. His legs stretched and bent awkwardly with the whole process, making one curious as to how the vampire kept himself from falling completely backwards.
However, his laughter slowly became lower and drawled, gritting itself into a feral growl. Aluard's eyes opened wide and glinted with a vicious light, peeking through his fingers.
"So...I was right..." he growled as his body flung itself back upright, moving almost like a strange spring of a demented jack-in-a-box.
"That wrinkled old lizard is here afterall, right here in London heh ha ha! And I almost thought that you," Alucard pointed the barrel of his 454 Casull in his left hand at Tian, who looked on in mild amusement, "You, somehow managed to duplicate his fire, maybe even killed him to get the necessary 'materials' for all I know,"
Alucard continued his insane guffawing, though it was quietened, Tian cocked his eyebrow again.
Very disturbing man... and similar thoughts ran through his mind as he sighed outwardly, pulled his sword of its embedded position in the ground. He shouldered it, and looked prepared to walk away.
"Okay, so you got my message, mission done, now I go," he said tiredly and turned around and started walking away.
Alucard's grin widened, his hair seemed to flop about in an unusual looseness as he flipped his head up to leer at the retreating back of the silver-headed man. His Jackal flew from the confines of his coat and sprang into his right hand.
"Oh no, please, don't go," he laughed as he raised both guns in a second and fired both simultaneously.
The large bullets flew at their lightning speed, too fast for the unsuspecting Tian to react, not enough time for him to turn or to swing his sword to dodge or deflect. The bullets dug into his back, severed through smooth skin and muscle easily, tearing through deeply into the flesh, blasting the front of his chest open in a bloom of meat.
"Aarch!" he gasped as the sheer force of the bullets pushed him of his feet, flinging him to the ground on his knees and flat on his wounded chest.
He housed the glimmering bullets, embedded deep enough in the ribs to not fall out, and to gleam in the front and back in the moonlight as it streamed into his exposed flesh. The flesh was scarred, chared, burned and torn in teacup sized craters from the exploding power of the bullets, sickening and horrifying even beneath the tattered cover of Tian's robes. His robes were besieged by a torrid wave of thick red as his blood flowed outwards through the fabric, soaking it through and through.
Tian's nerves were not paralysed by the pain. He felt it, all of it, this great pain as he lay twitching slightly on the ground, his sword a feet away from his hand as he dropped it. He felt the pavement vibrate slight and heard the grit shift as the vampire walked towards, the laughter light in his voice.
"Amazing. You're still alive?" Alucard jeered as his riding boots stopped inches before Tian's face.
"Hurts doesn't it..." he laughed as he picked Tian up by the scruff of his coat. A mix of mumble, growl and groan escaped his throat as he felt what remaing muscle he had in his chest pulled and some tear.
"But still breathing. Good, now tell me, what is it that Gonard wants this time? Mass destruction was never really his style, though he is excellent in it," Alucard gave a sideways glance to the cindering church, "I know he hates God but he can do so much better than this; sending a pathetic lackey out to cause a little mischief," he shook Tian and smirked at his pain.
"Knowing him, he'd be liable to go on a bloody rampage on London. This is simply too quiet, for him," Alucard concentrated his gaze on the still pained face of the Chinese man he held in his grasp.
"What are his plans, dying fool, what his doing here? Those nuns you took away, little 'snacks', I know. But he can get nuns as easily as he can destroy London, and that's plain elementary,"
He tightened his grip on Tian's neck, leering more so as he started gasping for precious breath.
"Talk, will you, and can you not?" he started to lighten his grip instead, letting Tian get breaths of air.
Alucard was too preoccupied to note though, how could a man with his chest blasted wide open, have functional lungs to breathe with. Nor to similarly note, that the man was not becoming pale from his massive loss of blood.
"...not..." Tian gasped and croaked, "...not orders...wouldn't say even if I could..." he half-snarled.
Alucard's smile grew wider, if that were even possible.
"That's what I want to hear," he slurred as he started to switch his position in holding Tian.
He held onto the front of Tian's robes with his left hand. Tian was about as tall as he was, and so when Alucard lifted him up slightly so that they were face to face, Tian's toes brushed the sidewalk.
With his right hand, Alucard pulled Tian's face to the side, exposing his neck. Alucard grinned, "I don't think you're anymore human than I am, I can smell it, I can see it. But you're not a vampire either and that makes me wonder..."
He opend his mouth wide, his fangs gleamed pearl white in the moonshine, but he continued to speak, "I haven't fed on anything living for quite some time, I'm not picky either. I'll take your life, and you will tell me just what that old lizard is planning,"
He started to lower himself on Tian's neck, eagerly anticipating the taste of fresh blood. Tian's eyes widened, and then creased in anger as he growled fiercely. His sword sprang into his hand from the ground in a flash, and with unprecedented strength he yelled in his native tongue.
"KE WU!"" he swung the sword diagonally upwards through the vampire in front of him, searing through the body as easily as he had done with the church walls.
Alucard could hardly react as most of his upper body, head, and right arm fell away from everything else. This would have been bad enough, but Tian was furious and continued his assault the moment his toes had a firm stand on the ground.
"Aaaaaargh!" he yelled and snarled as he kept swinging his sword in front of him, cutting Alucard from two, to four, to eight and more.
His slashes were blurs, and he did not stop till what was Alucard fell on the ground in a black, satin-like pool of dark matter and vampiric essence in general.
"What..." the voice of Alucard filted from the mass, as many many eyes opened wide to peer the solidly standing Tian, he himself glaring back down with silver eyes alight with a furious white-hot fire.
Tian made a slightly hacking motion, arching his back and chest. His cheeks were pressed outwards by the objects in his mouth, and he spat them out. They clattered on the sidewalk; Alucard's silver bullets.
"Ni zhe ge ke wu de mo gui..." Tian snarled as he rubbed his neck subconciously.
"You were right, I'm not human," he switched to English once he was sure his neck was untouched, "Neither am I a vampire, at least you figured that out. But you are so stupid not to find out exactly what I am before you decided I was dinner, you moronic idiot," he growled, staring at the mass before him.
Alucard was trying in vain to pull himself together, at least to strike out at the obstinate face before him. But was shocked to find he was very much, almost paralysed, and though it had never bothered him before, a throbbing pain.
"Ah...what have you done to me?" Alucard almost declined to ask, at the price of his pride to be looking up at such a man.
Tian lifted up his blade, and traced the tip in the nearest section of the black mass. Immediately, Alucard felt the throbbing pain increase to become a searing, burning one that stretched into all his being.
"Yaarrrg..." he tried to control his own scream, and Tian was gracious enough to stop after a second or two.
Tian was smirking, literally looking down on the vampire as he explained with a mock bored tone, "This blade here, is made out that dragon's bone. Very strong stuff that not even a vampire could break. And this here," he pointed to the curved tip, "Is a talon from that 'old lizard', a talon that's still edged by a supernatural toxin that destroys just about anything, including vampires."
"But you are different of course. If you had been a normal vampire, you would pretty much be done for. Be thankful you share Gonard's blood, vampire. Well, actually, you should be thankful he shared his blood with you," Tian grinned.
Alucard felt his anger rising. He owed the wrinkled lizard nothing! Not after what he had taken from him!
"His blood makes you only suffer a stint of paralysis and some pain, but that's about it. Nothing more than a snake bite if you ask me,"
Tian leaned over to peer closer at the mass, and saw it quiver menancingly as Alucard tried to push against the effects of the toxin.
"Well then, I'm still curious, who are you? I dare ask some renegade regenerator who has decided he hates God instead and now wants to work in the ever so ironic position of the anti-Christ?" Alucard's voice motioned, as he silently gave up on his attempts.
"Heh, your God, is not MY God. Understand?" Tian said as he stood up straight again.
"Goodbye, junior. You'll see me soon, I'm sure of it," Tian finally ended, walking away.
Junior! Alucard was shocked at the remark. Junior! What the bloody hell did he mean 'junior'?
"Oh, and if you are wondering about Gonard's plans, well, I can't really say of course but," Tian turned back and smiled with a twist of the mouth.
"I'd watch over that xiao dian zi, that little bit of yours, a bit more,"
Alucard had plenty more questions and 'remarks' to cross with the bastard, but he felt once more, the frustration of having a puddle for a body.
Tian switched into his white dog body even admist the stares of the awoken people that were peering from their windows in great shock, grief and amazement. They had probably seen the vampire and him fight as well, but that was not Tian's concern.
He lopped away, at the breackneck speed of blurred brown that noone could identify, and disappeared from that street of London and a destroyed church.
And one pissed off puddle.
Chinese translations:
Feng ah: In this case, Tian's calling Alucard 'crazy'.
KE WU!: Hard to explain. Literally and usually means disgusting/horrifying/criminal that sort of thing. Here, Tian is leaning on the 'disgusting' more.
Ni zhe ge ke wu de mo gui: The literal meaning in English is pretty lame "YOu bloody disgusting/criminal/ monster!" but Tian is really saying in the spirit of 'YOU GODDAMN BASTARD!"
xiao dian zi: Tian already translated it literally, meaing 'little bit'. It is a diminuitive term and can also be considered a term of affection when used with younger persons, like little brothers/sisters/cousins, or from a old man referring to a young child.