High school has officially started for me, and I'm Freshmeat.

Great. Needless to say, (yet I'll say it, anyway) updates may decline and quite possibly begin to suck more.

-- Holy Toilet Papers, Batman! We've been wiped! --

"I'm back!" Luca shouted to the house, listening for some noise of conformation over the soft pitter-patter of rare rain.

"Hey," Sora gave a vague wave and a quick eyebrow flash from the stairwell. "How was it?"

"Good," the tired teen trotted toward her bedroom, completely unaware of the perpetual doom looming neigh but a few minutes away.

Opening her bedroom door, she was greeted with the familiar sight of Alucard, lounging on her bed, despite having completed his 'room,' over a week ago.

"What?"

"Oh nothing, Master," Alucard's smug grin said otherwise, though. Luca closed her door and leaned against it.

"Do you find a gay relationship funny, Alucard?" If possible, his grin widened.

"Of course not, Master; I just marvel at how far the world has advanced since my own upbringing." For some reason, her gut told her not to tease him about his past.

"I see," instead, she simply raised an eyebrow and walked to the mirror, examining her slightly damp self.

"Out in the rain, were we?"

Luca examined herself further in the mirror, "Of course not, I just decided to walk through the sprinklers." She gestured vaguely with empty hands to emphasize her sarcastic point.

Alucard let out a deep chuckle at his master's sarcastic wit. She was such a cute little thing. For a Hellsing, anyway.

He looked her over quietly. White slacks, black button up shirt, red tie, rather clunky combat boots, and counter-balancing girly accessories. He lingered on her hair, which had a distinctly messed-up look to it that hadn't been there when she left. Alucard smiled, letting himself drift off, unashamed of thinking what his master and her girlfriend might have done all by their lonesome.

The sudden appearance of an erratic heart beat outside of the room made him blink, causing him to silently rise from the bed and all but waltz into the closet as his master finished taking off the jingling bangles on her right wrist.

The loud sound of something hitting her window made Luca jump and spin toward the questioned area, only to crease her eyebrow upon seeing the wet form of Yonna, her German girlfriend standing in the cold outside with large, shocked eyes. Luca reached the window quickly, opening it without hesitation.

"What are you doing out here in the rain? You'll get sick," Luca reached out to touch her shoulder, but stopped an inch short upon further examination of her girlfriend's physical state of health. She pulled her hand back slightly, observing the red smears that covered her face, hair, and clothes, as the rain slowly distorted it. "Yonna," Luca touched her cheek gently and rubbed the somewhat diluted liquid between her fingers. "This is blood…" Luca locked eyes with her still girlfriend, who had yet to blink, and took her hand gently, pulling her inside.

Yonna numbly clambered inside the room, her footprints a mixture of blood, mud, and soggy grass. Her wide eyes starred at Luca's as she lead her to the center of the room. Luca rested her right hand on Yonna's shoulder while wiping some of the blood off her face. "What happened?"

The shaken blonde swallowed hard as tears began to flow down her face in rivers, flinging herself into Luca's not-so-expecting arms. Luca barely caught the German girl, her knees buckling slightly at the sudden weight. Regaining her balance, she began to comfort the traumatized girl; eventually sinking to the floor when she felt Yonna's knees give out, rather than try to fight the heavy weight.

She listened quietly as Yonna's sobs slowly became sensible words, telling a tale of vamperic horror inflicted upon her family. She shushed Yonna soothingly, stroking her bloody hair as her eyes trailed on Alucard's form upon its emergence from the closet. Luca looked down to the dirty mess of her girlfriend, before meeting Alucard's eyes, which were filled with anxious glee, newly-acquired weapons already in hand.

"Kill them all."

He gave only a deranged grin as he turned around, walking through her bedroom wall. Yonna sniffed, attempting to get a hold of her emotions, and looked up at her, "W-what did you say?" Luca met her eyes and smiled gently, lowering Yonna's head back down to rest on her collar bone with one hand, her other arm wrapped securely around her ribcage.

"Nothing, love."

Emerging from the wall, Alucard quickly picked up on the vanishing scent of blood. His deranged grin widened, if possible, as his human form melted into a mass of bats, taking off toward ground zero.

-- Great googley-moogley! --

Well, I decided to scroll through all my reviews (all thirty-eight of them) sometime yesterday, and I have come to a conclusion. You guys rock my world.

There I was, giggling like a schoolgirl (which, actually, come to think of it, I am) at the funny reviews, stupidly grinning at the fan-girl reviews (OMG I LUV LUCA!! Kind of review), feeling intellectual and yet slightly humbled upon reading the constructive criticism reviews, and angrily swearing at the partial-flame reviews I got, before realizing that they actually had a pretty good point (and then feeling stupid).

So, yeah. Have I mentions that I love you guys?

Oh, one last thing:

I've recently gotten my second (and more nicely-worded) review about Luca's and Sora's names. Upon receiving the first one, I didn't really think much of it, and sent a reply, and forgot about it. But, once I checked the second one, I realized it might actually be a problem in which I should explain.

So, about Luca's full name, it has been brought to my attention that anyone who has played Final Fantasy VII (or was it IIX?) will realize the two share identical names. (As well as in Devil May Cry 2, I would believe). Anyway, the point is that I haven't actually played any of these (only having played DMC one and three, FF X, and sadly, FF X-2), and didn't know that this would be the case. So, for that, I apologize, but I'm not going to change her name. The same applies to Sora.

…Except that I knew about Kingdom Hearts. (Sora happens to be a unisex name, by the way)

At the end of this story, I plan to post a credits and reasons page, so you can read up on my reasons for what I did and the people and things that helped shape my ideas. As well as any info that answers unanswered questions that I was never able to appropriately fit into the plot line. So, hold on a few more chapters, for this story will likely end around fifteen chapters.

In other news! California is on fire!!

… Again. Yes, seriously. I might be evacuated sometime this night (10/13) from my quaint little town of I DON'T THINK SO, CRAZY INTERNET STALKER! Well, not that you are a crazy internet stalker, just you, person standing behind my faithful reader.

By the way, what do you guys think of the change in narration style?