Finally!
I think those of you who have been reading this for awhile now knows that I am an unreliable updater. I say I will update soon and then wouldn't you know, it's already been two-three months since last update. I suck, I know. However, I am also stubborn updater. I refuse to give up on this fic since I've worked on it this far and I will finish it no matter what!
So please, no more sass about me being a horrible updater. I know it already.
I was actually doing pretty well making this chapter so I thought I'd get it posted couple weeks ago then already but as usual life interferes. I think it might have affected the writing in this chapter as well but hopefully not too noticeably.
Thanks for the reviews: Hartanna, sdfs, 0whiteassnow0, ZOMBIEAC, Soul93, Mortimer S, Kars, Tsuki no Rekuen, JIN-HayTeR, hellsingfan101, Black Diamond07, Pyrahus (someone recommend my fic? Wow), Irena and Lupine Eclipse.
Disclaimers: nothing's mine.
CHAPTER 33: WWII
Hellsing manor, 1944
In 1939 Germany attacked Poland. Before anyone could even blink an eye, the second Great War had begun.
Sir Arthur Hellsing stood by the window in his office, watching outside as Sir Island and Sir Penwood left his household. Arthur had to admit that they had guts to stay in London when the town was being bombed.
He stretched his arms and lighted himself a new smoke, before turning around. His butler, Walter C. Dornez, now 14 years old, was standing in front of his desk, waiting for him to speak. Alucard was also in the room, leaning against the wall.
"I'm sure that both of you have been expecting this to happen for a while now. You will leave to continent tomorrow for a special mission" Arthur started.
"We're going to kill Hitler?" Alucard said with a shameless hope in his voice.
"Sadly no. Hitler himself is not our concern, let us leave him for Churchill. However, this man is our concern" Arthur said and took a photograph from his pocket and placed to the desk.
In the photograph was a man of perhaps his early to mid twenties. He was small, plump and had thick spectacles and wide grin. Really there would not have been any way of telling he was a Nazi, if not the black SS uniform he was wearing.
"They call him Sturmbannführer; the Major. We do not know his name, age or origin. Only thing we do know is that he is one of Hitler's most trusted officers. The Round Table has kept me informed of the increasing vampire activity both in Germany and the areas it has taken over. But only recently did we get evidence to back our suspicions: the Third Reich is manufacturing vampires".
Walter's face turned to astonished one while Alucard picked his ear. "I suppose it was inevitable that my hearing would suffer after five centuries" the vampire in the room said.
"Unfortunately, Alucard, I am quite serious here. None of is exactly sure how they're doing it, but our spies have learned that this Major is producing vampires with a fast pace. It would seem the Third Reich wants an immortal vampire army. It cost the life of five men to get us this information but we now know that their main facility is in Poland. An American military plane will fly both of you there tomorrow at dawn. Once there you will destroy everything and everyone you find".
Walter saluted. "Yes, sir".
Alucard bowed his head and grinned. "Order received, Master".
The two left the office and walked the stairs down.
"Something on your mind, Alucard, or has simply vanishing in thin air become too tiresome for you?" Walter asked.
"Just wondering how our little Angel of Death can handle this mission. Facing a group of vampires in their own nest is quite different than attacking random lonely ones" Alucard said.
Walter turned around to look the vampire straight in the eyes, being the only one aside of Arthur in the entire estate who dared to do that. He was taller than most 14 years old and had eyes that would, and had, shut up a veteran soldier. Yet he had a playful smirk on his lips.
"Are you worried about me, Alucard? That's quite touching. But don't worry. Even a little Angel of Death like me can look after an old vampire like you" Walter answered smoothly.
In five years Walter had grown very accustomed to Hellsing household. He worked and educated himself day and night, determined to never be seen as an orphan boy from working house again, but as a butler of important people. There wasn't a room or a corner in the house he wasn't aware of, or a person working there he didn't know. On the outside Walter was all about manners and protocols but inside, Alucard knew, he was still the hot-blooded boy who had bitten his hand.
As for his training Walter had surpassed everyone's expectations. He could move and act faster than average men could. Some said he moved fast enough to dodge a bullet. He was also physically strong, though it was hard to say with his thin body. He had also taken special interest in weaponry. Walter had quickly learned that he didn't prefer guns or knives. Instead he chose to make a weapon only for himself that would be unique: specially made silver wires that were made to his gloves and that he used with acrobatic skill and precise. With them he could cut through vampire's limps like knife through butter.
"Don't be so cocky yet, boy. It just might be that this old dog has to save the pup" Alucard said.
"Perhaps, but old dogs sooner or later have to make way to the pups" Walter answered and walked away.
Alucard was impressed how easily the boy talked back to him. He had long since overcome any fear he felt to the vampire and they conversed like ordinary friends. Still if Alucard enjoyed something it was messing with the boy but scaring him wasn't easy anymore. But he would wipe that smirk from boy's face soon.
###
It was a cloudy morning when Walter approached the field where the plane was waiting. He saw some of the Hellsing soldiers carefully carrying Alucard's massive coffin to the plane, much to the wonder of the American soldiers. Arthur was standing a bit further ahead, observing the people.
Walter quickly made sure he had everything he needed in the small bag he was carrying. Change of clothes as he didn't fancy returning home covered in blood. His gloves, the most important tools he had. Some food, just in case. A small bottle of blood for Alucard, also just in case, though Walter was sure his vampire partner would have a feast once they'd get to their target. His smokes...
Walter let out a small annoyed sigh. He had forgotten to get a new package of cigarettes. Well, maybe he didn't really need them on this trip. He could go on without them for a while.
Walter was about to make his way towards Sir Arthur when he noticed another person, standing the other side of the plane, observing as the men laid the coffin to the plain. It was a girl, Walter realised, small and young, couldn't be older than he was. She was dressed all in white, not in usual clothing he had seen girls wearing, but she wore a suit with pants and small jacket and a big white coat with a white fluffy hat on top of her head. The suit looked tailored and expensive. She had long black hair that went past her shoulders and her face...
Walter had to swallow suddenly. Good God, she is cute!
Then the girl turned and looked at him with a pair of red eyes. A pair of very familiar red eyes.
"Hey, Walter!" the girl shouted and waved her hand.
Walter felt every colour fading from his face. "A-Alucard? Is that you?"
Alucard giggled – giggled! – and then twirled around. "What do you think of my new looks, Walter? I thought it was about time that I tried something different" he/she said.
"But... but why a girl?" Walter stammered, having hard time believing what he was seeing.
"Oh, this is not the first time I've changed my gender. When you get as old as I am, Walter, the physical appearance starts to have less and less importance. I just go what feels nice for the time being" Alucard said.
The vampire then got a wicked grin on her face and in a blink of an eye was very, very, close to Walter. "My appearance is not bothering you, is it?" she whispered and batted her eye lashes.
Walter felt heath on his face and was sure he looked like a tomato. He quickly turned around and started walking towards the plane. "No! Of course not! Let's just get going!" he shouted as every hormone in his body came alive.
This is going to be a long flight without those cigarettes...
###
Poland
The arrival to their destination had gone as expected. Their plane had flown right over the secret facility, a huge building not far from an abandoned town. Walter had calmed down little during their plane flight, which Alucard spent in her coffin, especially after getting some cigarettes from one of the American soldiers. He had then, much to Alucard's annoyance, simply pushed her coffin out of the plane and jumped after, using his incredible wires to help him land.
The two of them crashed through the roof right into the facility, in dining room no less, where the Major himself was enjoying his meal of sausages. The sudden arrival of the two of them didn't seem to upset him much, as Alucard observed from her coffin. She let Walter to deal with the first soldiers who came shooting at them. They didn't stand a chance.
However, after the Major and his closest men had managed to get away, leaving the young butler boy fighting an overgrown werewolf Nazi, that Alucard stepped out of her coffin and, much Walter's annoyance, left him as well deciding to pursue the Major.
Alucard couldn't deny it, she was having fun. She moved from hallway to hallway not really bothering on the find the big enemy thing and concentrating more on shooting everything that moves with her Tommy Gun, that she had "burrowed" from a Hellsing officer. With every shot another enemy vampire hit the ground. The smell of gunpowder and blood was strong in the air. Yep, she was having a blast.
The vampires attacking her were a joke at the best. Alucard knew they were, as Arthur had said it, made artificially and she could feel it too. They weren't like other undeads she had met during so many centuries. They weren't even made well, she could tell, they were much weaker with only superhuman strength and nothing more. No ability to transform or regenerate. Admittedly they would make a fearsome army against humans but against a real vampire? Please.
Yet, in the back of her mind, she did wonder how they were made. Surely the scientists responsible for this would have had to have a real vampire to examine, right? And not just some weak petty vampire from whom they'd get nothing out, but a powerful one.
Like me, she realised.
She entered to a room which by the looks of it had worked as an operating theatre of sorts. The fumes of blood and rotting flesh told her that this had been where these so-called vampires were made. And there was something else here. Something familiar to her...
Mina.
It hits her like a sledgehammer to face. Her smell. Her presence. She had been in this room, lying on one of these blood soaked tables. Alucard could now imagine it clearly. They had caught her, imprisoned her and experimented on her. Because Dracula had not been destroyed Mina still carried some of his blood in her.
Alucard felt her small hands clench with a power that destroyed the Tommy Gun. My blood... They used MY blood to make these artificial creatures...
She heard an explosion somewhere behind her and footsteps leaving the facility outside. She smiled. She was hungry.
###
Walter dusted his waistcoat and stood up from all the rubble that surrounded him. He had been in the middle of fighting a werewolf, first time he'd seen those, when a sudden explosion had interrupted them. As he looked around himself, where the walls and the roof used to be, he realised that this town was under attack. The Allied planes flew over, dropping their bombs.
Remembering that the werewolf wasn't easy to kill Walter jumped around, expecting to find his opponent attacking any second. Instead he came face to face with a young boy, younger than him, dressed in a Hitler Youth uniform and having a pair of... cat ears on his head?
"If you're looking for the Captain, butler boy, he's already gone" the weird cat boy said with a good, even if heavily accented, English.
Walter prepared his wires. "Where did he go?"
"Oh, you won't find him anymore, silly boy. He and the Major need to leave. This place is lost. The Allies are bombing this place and your girlfriend is doing something wacky outside. Just thought you'd like to know" the cat boy smirked.
Walter didn't know if he could take his eyes off this strange boy, even when he showed no intentions of attacking, but he knew he needed to get out see what Alucard was doing. If for nothing else to make sure vampire wasn't declaring war between England and USA.
He jumped over the piles of rubble and stood over watching the scenery before him. It was night but the full moon made everything clear to see. The ones peaceful looking Polish town had been turned to a battlefield. He saw that the German tanks were lying around useless. Corpses of soldiers were all around, their blood covering the ground. Artificially created vampires stood with gleaming eyes.
And then there was Alucard in the middle of it all, her white suit making her easy to spot. And she was...
Walter knew that Alucard was not like other vampires. He knew her to be old and powerful and having being changed even further by the Hellsing occultism. Yet nothing could have prepared him for this. Alucard was absorbing blood from all around her. The blood that covered the ground was moving towards her and disappearing into her. And with the blood she also took everything that moved in it. The soldiers, the vampires, everything.
She was literally sucking the life around her.
"My God..." the young butler whispered.
"Now that's really something" the cat boy agreed next to him. He turned his purple eyes to Walter. "Are you afraid?"
The boy barely nodded his head as he watched the waves of blood disappearing inside a little girl who was laughing maniacally.
###
On the other side of the town, two pairs of eyes were watching from distance this spectacle.
"Amazing, Herr Sturmbannführer, truly amazing" said a tall thin man.
"Yes, Doc, our enemy is even more magnificent than I could have imagined. Just look how much fun she is having" said the man only known as The Major. "But she has made a mistake today. She has revealed a crack in her armour. I now know how to defeat her".
"Shall we head back to Berlin then, sir?"
"No, there's nothing there for us. This war has already been lost. Führer himself will not last long anymore. No, we shall head to Vatican. I have already made travel arrangements for us. A new war will come in time, Doc. And how glorious it will be..."
To be continued...
Refering Alucard as "she" is hard. XP
Okay, again I have few things to address here.
Firstly, I didn't bother to look too much into the World War II facts, so if Allies didn't bomb Poland in 1944, so be it. This is fiction anyway.
Secondly, I know Hirano-sensei published few chapters of Hellsing prequel "The Dawn" some years back, but I've only skimmed them once. If he's published more I don't know about them so what I wrote here might be horribly against his works. The who scene in Poland is loosely based on those few chapters of "The Dawn" I read as well as short flashback scenes in volumes 8 and 9 of Hellsing manga.
And finally, you probably noticed how I skipped them actually landing to the facility scene completely. That's because I'm going to be a prick and ASSUME that you know Hellsing manga already. You get a taste what future chapters will be like. When we get to part where the manga actually begins, I will not recreate the scenes from manga, but will instead concentrate on the scenes we did not see in manga and/or anime. Just to let you know already.
Okay, that should be all for now. Reviews are highly appreciated.