The dunpeal opened the door to the rocketship; inside was lined in red silk, now torn in some places and benches that were covered in dark leather circled around the main space inside. Pressed into the inside wall of the craft was a screen that was dark.
He touched the screen. It glowed suddenly as the monitor turned on.
'Initiate startup sequence?' a distinctly robotic female voiced the line as it appeared on the screen.
His throat was suddenly dry. He could leave right now and be gone. No one would miss him, or even notice he was gone. D had no lovers, no friends, no acquaintances; no one alive even knew his name. His initial.
All it took was a gamble. A risk.
Before he had too much time to think, he slammed shut the doors to the ship and hit the enter button on an ancient keyboard thick with dust underneath the bright white screen.
'Startup sequencing, all engines engaged. Destination targeted,' the female voice scripted out the words as they appeared on the screen.
The engines whined loudly and let off a high-pitched shriek. Was that supposed to happen? Either way the ship had slowly lifted off the ground and seemed to slowly drag itself into the air. His heart was pounding; it felt like any second now the machine would stop and he would be plummeted back to the ground.
But it didn't stop, and the higher they got, the faster the ship went until it was hurtling through space.
'We have reached an altitude of 50 km. The ship is now moving towards the set destination,' the voice called out. Maybe this was a horrible idea, but it was a magnificent view up here even through the one small, fogged window the ship possessed.
Time passed slowly in the capsule of a ship. Outside the window was dark with strange starlight pricking the sky but there didn't appear to be any distant planets, just stars.
'We are now descending.' Descending to where? D could not see anything but stars out the ship's tiny window.
He could feel the ship tilting now, plummeting at high speeds towards the destination. The window of the ship was rendered useless as it was tilted away from wherever the ship was preset to go. He could only wait.
The ship lurched to the side; the first uncomfortable movement in what had been so far a rather smooth journey. After the first lurch, more followed getting progressively more violent until D was being thrown around like he was a toy in the hands of an angry toddler.
The constant high-pitched shriek from the engines grew louder, almost unbearable loud. At least it wasn't going silent; the noise as horrible as it was reassured him that the engines were functioning somewhat.
He tried to brace himself inside a small alcove of the ship, but it was in vain as his muscles were useless against the force of gravity, and once again was sent flying around the small cabin. His head hit wall hard and suddenly he was knocked immediately unconscious.
'We have now arrived at the terminating destination,' a broken female voice proclaimed eerily from what was left of the ship. Pieces of metal and technology scattered the ground, and a slightly larger chunk than the others was where D was waking.
The sky was dark and full of bright stars and a luminous moon, not unlike his own planet, but the constellations were different. He sat up and looked at his surroundings ignoring the sharp pain that was coursing through his whole body. His head felt like someone was repeatedly hitting it with a blunt hammer; definitely it was the pain left over from the blow to his head.
Around him was dark grass with wild plants and to his left in the distance he could see what appeared to be a forest.
He struggled to stand; no matter how dire his physical condition was, he didn't want to meet the local population until he knew he could protect himself incase of attack. And crashing into the earth in a rocketship was too conspicuous and people were bound to investigate. So once he got his footing he limped towards the shelter of the forest, desperate to be somewhere he could quickly recover.
"Sir Integra Fairbook Windgates Hellsing," said a male voice through the phone, "a unknown object has landed in the middle of the Forest of Dean. We think it came from out of our galaxy."
Pulling a tired hand through her long blonde hair, Integra sat in her office puffing on a fag listening to some important government official.
"We've already sent out Special Ops and MI's but we are unsure of whether our men will be able to handle it. We'd like you to send an agent down there immediately in case we aren't dealing with something human," the male voice dragged on.
Taking one last, long, relaxing puff of good quality tobacco, the blonde barked,
"I'll send my best agent." Damn these government officials, they would never get anything done without Hellsing coddling them. If any investigation even slightly pointed to the occult, Hellsing was called. But they never could refuse and take the chance that there were inhuman forces at work no matter how small the chance was.
"Great," said the male voice with obvious relief, "I'll fax you the coordinates."
Integra hung up the phone with a sigh and called Walter, "Find Alucard and tell him to come see me. Immediately."
The night was beautiful; the moon glowed brightly and the stars shone in the sky like pricks of light. The crash sight was already swarming with government agents when he got there, men in suits were picking at the scraps of metal lying on the ground, taking samples of the soil, or talking on their ear pieces.
A nervous looking man in the uniform suit approached him a folder, obviously unnerved by his smile.
"It's a beautiful night, don't you think?" Alucard said more than asked, still smiling at the uncomfortable man, who shifted on his feet.
"I'm here to debrief you about the situation," squeaked the official, nervously grabbing at the folder.
"The head of operations wants you to see if there's any evidence of anything occult or inhuman." Alucard would have been more offended by the fact the head of this operation didn't speak with him directly but he would also have more freedom this way. Like the freedom of not listening to his debriefing because the nervous agent would not reprimand him.
Right now the agent was rattling about something or another, only pausing with wide eyes when Alucard's smile got increasingly predatory.
Once the man had quieted, Alucard took his leave and strolled towards the biggest chunk of metal scattered across the field. He wasn't expecting to find anything special, but as he came closer an unidentified scent. It smelled similar to a vampire with a few differences.
The scent was sweeter than the bitter smell of a vampire, but too dark to be human. On one of the pieces of metal was a small amount of darkening blood. Alucard smeared some on his finger and brought it closer to his nose, resisting the pull to lick it.
The scent left a trail across the grassy area and into a dark forest on his left. Whatever the blood belonged to would be found shortly.
D stumbled through the forest without knowing where he was going. Panting, he stopped for a second, running a hand through his long loosely curled hair and finding a bit of drying blood along the edge of his scalp. When he hit his head, his scalp must have gotten cut.
His body was aching; he didn't know how much longer he could keep walking before he collapsed. But there were no caves around and he could not collapse somewhere the sun would shine. Normally D could stand sunlight, but right now he could not afford to be any weaker than he was. He didn't know where he was and he needed a quick recovery.
After awhile, the dunpeal noticed slight noises and small cracklings of leaves and bramble behind him. He could not be sure, but there was a chance someone was following him.
The noises continued as he pushed his body harder; D had not energy to turn and fight whatever was gaining on him, fleeing was his only option. And someone was following him, he was sure now. For a few moments the wind had blew the scent of a male vampire from behind him, only to continue blowing his scent toward the other.
If the person was indeed a vampire, hiding was no option because they could just follow his scent.
The forest was dark because the large trees had grown too close and the moon could not shine though the canopy. Soft grey mosses coated the tree bark and leafy ferns covered the forest floor where there were no trees; somewhere in the background he could hear the bubbling of a small stream. If he weren't running from his pursuer, he would like to enjoy the sights of this forest.
From behind he could hear the kind of laughter that comes from a mad man, and as soon as he tried to run even faster, something pinned him to tree, his left check bled slightly as it was scratched on the hard bark.
And just as suddenly D was hoisted up by the vampire and turned around so his back was to the tree and his wrists were held together over his head by a cool hand covered in white gloves. His pursuer had whitish skin and red eyes that glowed from behind strands of raven black hair. The man also had a predatory smile stretched across the planes of his handsome face and a mouthful of long, jagged teeth.
"Look what we have here," the man said, smile growing larger and the man wrapped his extra hand around the dunpeal's throat, threateningly massaging the underside of his chin with his thumb.
D was livid; what was this man's purpose? If he wasn't as injured as he was, there was no way this stranger would be getting away with threatening him. D's long sword clanked against uselessly against the bark of the tree he was pinned too.
Red eyes glowed down at him from between dark lashes, trying to make sense of this not-vampire not-human type being.
"I can't decide whether to kill you or not, but I'm going to take you to my master," said the threatening vampire in the red coat. Before D could react, the red stranger brought up that gloved fist and slammed it into his temple.
He was knocked out immediately.