What Should Have Been
Ketti: Oh look, chapter two! I'm glad you all are liking this rewrite so far! It means a lot to me. And if you don't know about it, there's a poll up on my page in regards to what I'll be posting when I finish rewriting this story.
"You're an idiot."
She gulped, "Master…"
"You choose the night. Once you've turned your back on the light of day, all the sunlight should ever mean to you is smoldering pain and a slow death."
Shoulders and lips slumped in a frown as she looked away from the red clad figure in the doorway, uncomfortable.
…
"Put the veteran and the rookie together and you may as well have one normal soldier." Walter chuckled, and her Master added his mirth as well.
…
"It's here, Miss Victoria." Walter spoke as they stopped at a square indent in the surprisingly roomy air ducts. She nodded and hooked her gloved fingers into the edge of the metal to pull the covering free, revealing another panel. Turning to put the first, and rather unwieldy, square out of the way, she lost her balance, dropped the sheet of what she suspected to be iron, and fell bum first on the loosely moored wooden barrier. Which then proceeded to fall out from under her and leave her trapped awkwardly mid fall. A bit of wiggling in an attempt to crawl back up onto the secure platform of the duct led to her falling… falling… falling and landing on something rather hard and bony. "Wooah!"
She fell backwards and realized in a flush of embarrassment that her landing pad was actually a member of the Round Table's face. "Are you alright Miss Victoria?" Walter asked as he landed in the room in a far more graceful manner. Lifting a hand to the back of her head awkwardly, she closed her eyes to block out the disapproving stares, "Hiii…"
Sir Penwood's mutterings of her to get off tickled.
…
"Ow! DIE!" The vulgar loud mouth yelled as he spit blood onto the floor and raised his gun to shoot Walter. She ran at him and slapped it from his hand, grabbing his arm to twist behind his back as she tackled him to the floor. "I got him Walter, are you alright?"
…
The younger Valentine brother elbowed her in the gut, sending her flying back into the wall to crack her head and temporarily stun her. He leapt back behind his newly risen forces of ghouls… Ghouls that used to be Hellsing's soldiers.
"My God, what have you done?" Walter asked, horrified as she slumped to the floor, her legs refusing to respond just yet.
The younger Valentine snapped his fingers and the ghouls advanced in a shuffling wave of rotting flesh. Walter began dismembering them before he was distracted by defending himself as the FREAK grabbed a discarded gun and opened fire upon the glimmering shield of razor floss. Seras was caught, still in the grips of her temporary paralysis, as the mindless husks grabbed her limbs and pulled her into the center of their mass. Hands… touching her everywhere… Oh God.
"Time to get this party started!" The FREAK taunted as he flipped over the ghouls and past Walter to run down the hall towards the Round Table conference room. Walter's wires caught his arm and it ripped cleanly off as he laughed and burst through the room, pulling out a hidden hand gun and shooting point blank into Sir Integra's chest before a volley of bullets sent him flying back to the floor in a splatter of crimson. "Boom, baby." He gasped in a gush of blood, a manic grin splitting his face even as another rain of bullets tore chunks from his broken body.
Seras watched, horrified, between the gaps of the crowding ghouls before everything went red. Her last thought echoed painfully in her rage filled mind; 'I failed...'
…
Seras jerked awake with a wordless shout, so that was what happened… The night Sir Integra died and her Master was freed. The night they left London.
She glanced around the small train cabin room to see her Master sitting on the other bench with his glasses twirled by the nose piece around his index finger. "That's right, Police Girl. You were weak, and failed your mission to protect Sir Integra. Now we are free of human enslavement and I shall see you strong. For a war is still coming, have no delusions of that."
Lifting herself into a sitting position the blonde frowned at her dark haired Sire.
"What if I only drink the blood bags?"
He scoffed, "Do you think Hellsing will send them to you now, wherever and whenever? No. You will feed like a proper creature of the night."
"But I don't want to take human life selfishly, needlessly. I was a police officer, an upholder of the law, and peace, and protector of those who could not defend themselves!"
"And now you are a vampire." Alucard countered smoothly, almost lovingly, but there was still a vicious bite in those few simple words, and it stung.
Seras' fists clenched painfully, nails digging into her palms to the point of threatening to draw blood. "If I refuse?"
"You can't, your fate is sealed, Police Girl. You're a Midian, a creature of the night, you prey on the creatures of day. That's just the way it is, this is what has to be done, and no one has the power to change that. Not God, the Devi, or you." He sneered at her, a nasty mocking light in his eyes.
"Then I'll choose my prey! If I must take life, it will be from the criminals who have evaded the law." She tensed her shoulders and squared her jaw, a hard glint in her blue eyes turning them cold as ice. She would not lose herself the way her Master had, she would still be herself! Even if that self was a vampire, a murderer.
He clapped his hands together and laughed, "Marvelous! Yes, that's just what I expected from you, fledgling. Very good, Seras." The use of her name shocked her and sent warmth thrilling through her veins. She'd pleased him somehow, with her defiance. It confused her, but the warmth of his praise made it all worth it.
"Master?"
"Yes, childe?"
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see." He grinned at her, baring his rows of sharpened teeth in a savage parody of a human's smile. She shivered, and flicked her gaze away, crossing her arms protectively across her chest and curling her fingers around her elbows.
"Yes, Master."
As the sun set, Seras stirred and brought a hand up to rub at her eyelids, only to pause midway through the gesture when she realized a few things; A – they were still on a train,, no big surprise there. B – she didn't see her Master in the cramped little room. C – her pillow felt suspiciously shaped and unyielding. Tilting her head back she stared up into the face of her Sire, upon whose lap she had been sleeping. A shiver worked its way down her spine and her hair fluffed out in wider spikes like a cat puffing itself up to appear bigger.
"Master…" Leaning up and away from him she used the excuse of stretching to move to the unoccupied bench-bed opposite her Sire. Really now, why was he all touchy feely all of the sudden? For the first few months - was it truly so short a time? Being a vampire was really starting to mess with her head - she'd known him under Hellsing employ he'd been nothing short of a cold bastard. Not that he's not still a bastard, she considered, using her hand to hide the twinges of a derisive smirk from his sight. Ever since… since that night and she'd woken up on the train, he'd been invading her personal space and touching her; petting her head, letting her use him as a pillow, and lord only knows what else when she was unconscious.
"Feeling violated, Police Girl?" He mocked, a lecherous twist to his lips as he leered at the sleepy blonde across from him.
"Well, maybe I am!" She huffed, fidgeting and scooting closer to the door, "And for another thing, I wake up in different clothes I don't remember changing into, Master." She accused flatly. He laughed.
Seras' eyes narrowed to blue slits and she growled in frustration at the infuriating creature she was bound to.
Alucard stopped his laughter in an instant, and whipped his head back towards her to bare his fangs in a snarl, his blood teeth elongating even as she watched in fascinated horror. "Do you challenge me, chit?"
She whimpered and hunched in on herself, seeming even smaller as she edged nearer still to the door leading out into the rest of the train. He growled and stood, looming over her with a mad look in his eyes, and she cringed.
His hand caressed her cheek for the barest moment before he backhanded the same spot and sent her flying like a ragdoll out the suddenly opened door to crumble in a heap against the far wall while the barrier slammed shut in her face, locking her out. Without thinking twice, she skittered off in an awkward crouch low to the floor for a few feet before she straightened up like a normal person, though she continued to jog away from the malicious presence looming in the back of the hall.
"He's impossible." She muttered, rubbing the backs of her arms as though to warm herself as she settled herself in the far corner table of the dining car, staring out the dark window moodily.
The thought of jumping through the window and escaping the train teased at her brain, and she considered it. Master would never kn-… FUCK! A vice clamped around her skull and squeezed. Bringing her hands up to bat away the attacker, she felt nothing but air, and the throbbing in her head increased ten fold. Moaning under her breath in agony, she slumped against the table and covered her head with her arms in a futile attempt to protect herself. Master would, and did know, and he was punishing her for even thinking of leaving him. That much was obvious from the agonizingly real phantom pain.
"The wicked king doesn't share, pretty one." A voice crooned into her ear, and she jerked upright in alarm to stare at the silver haired woman from before. "You! How.. what… Are you following us?" Seras demanded, feeling on the verge of mental exhaustion suddenly.
Sharp teeth were bared in a facsimile of her Master's shark grin, and those disconcerting eyes of fire and ice bored into her very soul. "Pretty little fledglings should obey their masters." She continued in that purring tone, reaching out her hand as though to caress Seras' cheek.
"Who are you?" Seras asked, leaning away from the touch, and noticing that the female smelled … fresher, she supposed, no longer of rotting meat and grave dirt, but still that rather nauseating combination of old pennies, mint, and what she thought was the tang of cloves and roses. Though the last scent seemed to come more from the lavender button up she wore like a dress.
"Who…hm, who indeed? I have a name I suppose." The creature mused, tapping her pointer finger to her lips in thought and crossing her bare legs, reminding Seras that she was barefoot. "Ah, that will do! You, the wicked king's pretty thing, may call me Nekette."
"Are you following us?" She asked flatly, unimpressed with the theatrics.
"What is to follow? Oh but the wicked king's power… Ahhh." Shivering, her eyes glazed, and Seras felt rather disturbed, "No, pretty thing. Only here and there."
"Why do I not believe you?" Seras asked, mostly to herself as she drummed her fingers on the tabletop.
"Because I am mad!" Nekette crowed, laughing and throwing her head back in an explosion of mirth to send her gleaming hair flying. "Oh the pretty thing is so clever to not trust the Nekette. No, no, the mad little lady…" Baring her teeth, eyes widening to inhuman proportions, she looked about ready to pounce and tear someone's throat out.
Nekette calmed so abruptly that Seras nearly leaped to her feet to bolt back the way she'd come, feeling tense and hyper aware of the elder vampire's every move. "But the pretty thing had questions, hm? Oh, the mad one knows some…" Purring, she ran the back of her hand up and over her forehead in a distinctly feline gesture. "The wicked king will guide the pretty thing, but the pretty thing should know. Vampires are animals, social creatures driven by pack order and dominance. Weaklings should be seen and not heard, and keep their teeth to themselves." Leering at the buxom blonde, the more powerful vampire vanished to appear behind the girl with arms wrapped around Seras' chest rather provocatively. "Such a pretty, pretty, weak thing…." Nuzzling the side of the girl's neck, the mad one groped her palmfuls of virgin breast and vanished with a shriek of laughter that rang painfully in her sensitive ears.
"Holy…" Seras blinked.
"Wait a sec… WHAT!" She shrieked as she realized what had just happened. She felt violated and disturbed, Storming from the table and making her way back to the room she fumed inwardly about the perverse visitation. Most of what the other said made no sense, but she tucked it away to analyze later.
"Why is she following me?" Seras grumbled as she reached the room she was thrown from but minutes prior.
"Because she is a meddlesome thing, fledgling. Come inside, before you draw more attention." Alucard's voice answered as the door swung open to allow admittance.
Hyped up on nerves as she was, she sighed, and stared down at the floor. "Yes, Master."
It was best to get along with him for now at least. After all, he held all the cards, and it wasn't yet her turn to shuffle the deck.
"This is all so confusing."