Three of a Kind
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, anyone, or any concept here-in
Chapter Two:
The square was crowded, even at night it was well lit. Seras wandered through the tourists admiring the fountains, the tourists admiring the monument, and in some cases tourists admiring her. She had been wandering around partly on the off chance that she'd see her as yet unnamed assailant of two nights ago and partly because she hadn't been on a visit to the grand gallery in years.
Currently she was standing facing the column and its flanking fountains when a camera flashed and two red eyes were highlighted out of the darkness, a vampire was out looking for a meal no doubt. She started towards where the flash of eyes was. By the time she reached were they had been and had looked for a fair time, she decided that they must have gotten away or hidden or something. Then came another flash, looking at the source she saw the vampire taking a picture for a group of Japanese women in front of the fountain. She waded over to him while he took the pictures. She had almost reached him when he handed the camera back to the tourists, turned around, and saw her. She saw recognition in his face then he turned and ran bumping into people with loud 'excuse me's'.
Seras followed him as fast as she could. She almost lost him when he got to the street and started to sprint west, but where he could sprint so could she. As she passed a pair of tourists she heard them clapping and speaking German to each other while she ran, ignoring them Seras withdrew her cell phone from its pocket and started to dial.
"Hello Seras, what seems to be the emergency?" Answered Walter's voice from the phone's speaker.
"Walter, I'm in pursuit of a vampire heading north on Regent away from Trafalgar. Request backup."
"On its way Miss Victoria, keep the phone connected to track any changes in course."
"Got it, later," and she put the phone back into her pocket. Just then the vampire turned left down an empty street. He was fast but not fast enough. She caught him in Hyde Park. She gave him a bruising tackle that took them both to the ground. She had her backup pistol in hand and ready when she heard the dull click of a much larger gun.
"If you kill my friend, vampire, I'll kill you." Seras looked up into a pair of brown eyes, human eyes, in a familiar face.
"But he's a vampire," she said, as if it explained everything.
"And so are you, now get off him put your hands behind your head and let us leave. We have done nothing wrong, besides," and he broke off into an impish smile "another friend of mine said to say hello." The male vampire got up and ran behind the boy as if for cover.
"Go back to the hotel and stay there until I get back," ordered the boy. The vampire took off like the proverbial bat out of hell.
"Now, how did you like the portrait?" Lying face down on the ground at gunpoint and being asked about such a thing has got to have an adverse effect on someone's nerves. This was no different with Seras. For a second she didn't say anything then she answered.
"I like it, I guess."
"And how did the blond lady like hers?" Seras almost laughed.
"Either it was unflattering or embarrassing because she ripped it up."
All he said was, "That's too bad, Greeney said he'd spent the better part of an hour with a telescope making that one," he stopped, walked forward, said "sorry," and reached into her pocket pulling out her cell phone.
"Hello, how much of that did you hear?" Seras heard Walters's angry voice answer,
"Now listen here you vampiric hooligan-"
"I'm not a vampire good sir nor do I mean any direct harm to your agent, but she was attacking my friend and I had to stop it, goodbye," and he disconnected the phone. While all of this had transpired his pistol hadn't wavered more than a centimeter. He put the cell phone down and reached into his pocket Seras felt him put something on her back.
"This dish is full of holy water and if you move too much it will spill on you, I know that the phone has a tracker in it and that a team is probably on the way just wait there for them. In the mean time I must be off, have a nice evening," and with that he holstered his pistol and ran, faster than Seras could have managed in the opposite direction of the vampire. She tried moving once to reach the little glass dish on her back but it wobbled dangerously when she did. So she waited, thinking about all the nasty things she would do to the little brat until the APC arrived.
By the time Seras was standing in front of Integra's desk she was even more upset at the kid who, it seemed, enjoyed fooling with people.
"So," began Integra, "when the APC arrived, they found you lying face down on the ground with this thing," she gestured to the still wobbling 'dish' the boy had left on Seras It wasn't a dish so much as convex glass plate with a counterweight sticking out of it to give the impression of being filled with fluid, what's more, engraved on the weight were the words 'got you, sucker!' "On your back, and you told them to be careful that it was full of holy water." Seras had never seen Sir Integra smile, much less laugh, she saw both. Seras was about to join in when the laughter abruptly cut off.
"If the result of this is another javelin, a piece of gardening equipment, or drawing of me in the privacy of my own chambers, I will have you demoted and taking orders from your second in command. Now leave, I won't bother reporting this to the table like the last anomaly."
Knowing she was now dismissed, Seras left the room imagining the things Integra would have liked to do to the so called Artist.
As Seras was walking down the hallway she heard a sudden burst of laughter come from the Rec-room and so she walked in to see her troops gathered around one of the computers all of them were laughing and slapping each other's backs. Seras decided that whatever they were looking at would also cheer her up. She walked up silently just as someone yelled, "play it again!" Everyone quieted down and looked at the screen she stood up on a table to see what it could be.
Just as she did she heard an all too familiar voice say, "Hello soldiers of what I assume is the Hellsing Organization. As you might or might not be aware your vampire lady has been having some trouble," someone moved and she saw the screen, it appeared to have a crudely animated face speaking the words but then the image switched to a rather rude sketch she hadn't seen before, that is to say, until she realized it was her, in a string bikini. There was a sound of a person clearing their throat.
"Now then," it was the boy's voice. "This may differ from the last time you watched this recording but," at this point all of the soldiers were somewhat confused at this apparent aberration none the less the tape continued. "Look behind you." As a whole, all of the soldiers turned to look behind them, and up into Seras' blush reddened face. The recording continued.
"Now that that is out of the way, I have hacked into all of your personal files and erased them, with the sole exception of all of your pornographic material which will begin looping through all the computer screens with a name tag of who had what, in Three," the room was filled with panic as the soldiers started running to their personal computers and started the disconnection and shutting them down.
"Two, shutting down the power to your laptops won't stop it," said the voice calmly, this caused an anguished grown from the assembled troops who had all stopped to stare at the video which had changed back to the face.
"One," said the video before the remaining computer screens went black, flashed white then started to scroll the words, 'ha, you fell for it didn't you,' after the soldiers started breathing again, stopped praying, and the outbursts of rage died down the message stopped scrolling and disappeared, replaced now by the words, 'this only happened on one computer'...
...Integra had just finished, saved, and backed up the financial reports for those earnings the Hellsing family earned not involving vampires, when a voice came from her monitor speakers.
"Sir Hellsing, you really didn't like the sketch? That hurt my friend's feelings; he put a good hour into it. That and all of your troops now know about it, if not what it looks like. This is a recording saying 'enjoy your wiped files' bye." the screen flashed to a sketch of a grinning face
In the barracks Seras only faintly heard the screaming from the other end of the house, she didn't notice because she was too busy browbeating her soldiers whose only response was that they had all gotten a message that popped up on their screen saying that a particular computer had a special video for them.
"Hey," said one of the other soldiers, "my computer still has everything."
"Mine too," said another. Eventually all of the soldiers checked and confirmed that their personal files had in fact not been deleted. Then the announcement came over the intercom.
"Attention active duty Hellsing members. We have an emergency infestation north of London. All assigned troops report to briefing room for specifics." The active troops all left the room with Seras along with all the troops who were 'On call' for the evening and headed to the armory to load up and then to the group briefing room for the particulars.
When Seras arrived the standard floor plan was displayed of their target, joy of joys it was a four story building underneath and in front of the projected image stood Integra, Alucard, and Walter who was addressing the crowd of troops.
"...large scale infestation containing no less than five vampires, use all precautions no groups smaller than three. Report every fifteen minutes over the radio to your base vehicle. There are an estimated two hundred ghouls in the area wandering the forest. Expect heavy resistance. It is also suspected that at least three of the vampires are FREAKS so stay on your guard even after the targets have been terminated. Furthermore, as a secondary objective if any of you see this man," the picture shifted to the sketch of the boy. "Detain him. Any questions?" One hand raised and asked the inevitable question.
"What was the building before?" Integra stepped forward to answer "It was an orphanage." That answer seemed to silence the entire room, no one liked orphanage work, it had the highest level of post mission suicides.
Seras was even less thrilled to learn that Alucard wouldn't be accompanying them on the mission but he had to remain in the manor in case of attack. But then not all of her mano-a-vampire missions could be embarrassments, surely not.
When she returned to her office Integra Looked at the grinning face on her screen, the emergency call had stopped Walter from removing it yet. On the screen were the words
'That was funny you turned red, then blue then purple in less than a minute. For that entertainment I have returned all saved data. But that report on my friend and I is gone.'
Integra turned and gave her offices window a renaissance era English hand gesture.
With a light click from the speakers the message changed 'Well that's mature.'
TBC…