Hey.

So I noticed sometime ago that it's been a while again since my last update. I suppose those of you who have been following this story for longer have already gotten used to it. Well, just know that while updating may take time, I will not quit with this fic. Certainly not now.

This chapter is a bit rushed but I hope you'll like it anyway.

Thank you for all who reviewed the previous chapter: VladLover, Eruwaedhier Telemnar, Black Diamond07, Mortimer S, Irena, Hartanna, RoyStealer and Mikro. Thanks!

Disclaimers: see previous chapters.

CHAPTER 34: YEARS OF BOREDOM

Somewhere in Romania

"You lie".

Two women, or at least two creatures that once had been women, spoke in a dark, long ago then forgotten crypt. The both had unnatural beauty and two blazing red eyes.

"I don't believe. I will not believe you!" said first of the women, who was dressed in an expensive and beautiful dress.

"I honestly do not care if you believe me or not, Elizabeth, but after all these years we've known each others you should know when I lie and when I don't" said the other woman, who was just as beautiful as the first, but dressed in far simpler dress.

"I just... I just cannot understand it. Are you sure you're not mistaken, Asa?" Elizabeth asked.

"I would never make a mistake like that. Due to my powers of witchcraft the connection of my mind to Master's is stronger than yours. And may I remind you, Elizabeth, that it was you who asked me to try to contact him? It's not my fault if the answer doesn't please you" Asa replied calmly.

Elizabeth walked back and forth the crypt for a moment before nodding her head. "Yes, yes, I know I asked it. But I was worried. When our Master was taken and our castle blessed, we all feared the worst. But we knew he was still amongst us, because we would have felt if he'd died. But I had to know if he was safe! I couldn't bare this uncertainty anymore!"

Asa said nothing as she watched her fellow vampire rave.

"And now you tell me that our Master, our lord Dracula, has willingly become a servant of man, and is killing our kind?"

"That is exactly what I am telling" Asa said.

Elizabeth was now shaking. "Has he... abandoned us?"

Now Asa stood up and walked to Elizabeth. "No, he has not, otherwise he would have led Van Helsing or his son to us. You have failed to realise something".

"What?"

"That we have centuries while humans only years. His servitude will not be forever. We should think of it as a... as a phase in his long life".

Elizabeth pondered this for a moment. "What should we do then?"

"Continue his plans and wait for his return. Trust me on this, Dracula will rise again".

###

Outside of the Round Table Conference room, England, 1945

"I still can't believe you came with us".

Alucard, still in her girl form, was leaning against the wall, in the hallway outside of Round Table Conference room. Walter was standing across from her.

Alucard smiled. "What? Jealous that you're not the only war hero Arthur wanted to present to the King?"

"Hardly" Walter scoffed. "But taking a vampire, even you, to meet his highness... just seems a bit unbritish".

"Well you forget that I am of royal birth as well, and it has been few centuries since I mingled with others" the vampire said.

The World War II, as it was now called, had ended just days earlier with the Japan's surrender, after Americans bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When Alucard was told what these nuclear bombs had done, she had been stunned.

Humans have a potential that surpasses all the other monsters, she had thought.

Now Arthur had brought both her and Walter to meet the King and the Round Table Council. The actual meeting had been very brief after which they had to leave the room. Alucard had been very pleased by the looks on everyone faces when they saw "the children" who had saved them from vampire invasion.

"There has been rumours that some of the Nazis, those behind the vampire project, would have escaped to South-America" Walter said. "Why won't Sir Arthur send us to find them?"

"Because we are the best and he won't dare to send us away from England unless he is certain of danger. Also did you see his face when you reported what I did in Poland? I'm certain that Arthur has never truly stopped fearing my power".

Walter raised an eyebrow. "Yet you continue to serve him?"

"Only a fool would not fear me" she said simply. Then suddenly a grin formed to her face and in a flash she was next to Walter, extremely close to him.

"Of course, you don't have to be afraid of me" she whispered in his ear while rubbing her small body to his side.

Walter's face flashed red and he instantly took a step away from her. "Stop being so weird" he hissed.

Alucard only grinned. Teasing the poor hormonal butler boy hadn't yet lost its appeal. Suddenly though something caught her attention. She focused her red eyes to the long dark hallway.

"Don't be alarmed now, but we're being watched" Alucard said.

Walter, who was just recovering from the sneak attack, also looked in the hallway. Though he could not see in the dark as well as his undead partner, his senses were still very keen. Soon he also noticed a young lady, close to 20, standing in the shadows and watching them. When she noticed that they had discovered her she stepped forward.

Walter, though he had never seen her before, knew instantly who she was.

"Your Highness" he said and bowed.

It was indeed the King's eldest daughter, Princess, who had been watching them. While her posture and expression showed nothing but dignity, her eyes held a spark of mischievousness in them.

"I'm certain her Highness shouldn't be here" Alucard said easily with a carefree tone that nearly gave Walter a stroke.

What surprised both of them was how calmly Princess responded. "There are many places were I'm not supposed to be and yet I somehow find my way there. I came here because I wanted to see what a vampire looks like".

"My existence is no surprise to you?" Alucard asked.

"I have a tendency to keep myself updated of everything that happens around. Though the first time I heard Round Table talking about vampires I was sure I misheard".

Alucard grinned and then bowed. "I hope we shall meet again, Princess" she said.

"I'm certain we shall" Princess said, then walked away.

Alucard turned to Walter and noticed the boy's face was white of shock. Alucard quickly moved behind him and groped his bottom. This caused the boy's face to instantly turn from white to bright red.

"Stop being so weird!"

###

The following years passed slowly for Alucard. The problem of being an immortal killing machine is that if you don't have anything to kill, it gets boring. Vampires had soon started to learn that England was not healthy place for them and only occasional lonely vampires anymore tried to take it over. And usually they offered no challenge for her.

Toying with Walter was fun for a while, but after the butler of Hellsing had started to get friendlier with some of the local town girls, he slowly but surely became immune to vampire's games. Ultimately Alucard discarded the form of a little girl and resumed the form of a 30 something man.

Aside of one little hunt incident in 1954, which had led Alucard to Harlem in New York, his first time ever in America, the two decades after the end of the war brought nothing new to the No-Life King. He was getting bored, agitated, unpredictable. And frankly, quite a pain in the arse.

For Arthur Hellsing, Alucard's need for action was only one of his three main concerns. Second was his adopted little brother Richard. Richard had stayed in various boarding schools most of his young life and with distant relatives during the war. So the two brothers had never become truly close and Arthur continued to keep Richard at arms length, not even trusting him the secrets of Hellsing. For all Richard knew, the organisation was a secret military unit, nothing more.

Alucard could see that Arthur's attitude towards Richard, and that he probably had never heard the end of being adopted, had made the youngest Hellsing bitter towards his elder brother. Still, Richard did keep his tongue and appeared to settle what he was given, but there was something about him that the vampire didn't like. It brought Radu to his mind too much.

Arthur's third and most pressing problem of all was however this: he was getting old. He was over 50 years old, though he could pass ten years younger, and he had no children. No heir to continue his work and, most importantly, to control Alucard. While Arthur had certainly not lived like a monk, having enjoyed something of a playboy reputation, he had managed to avoid any "accidents".

The Round Table kept pressuring him to have children, even going so far as sending him information of candidate mothers. But Arthur waved them off, saying he was in no hurry, while in truth he was beginning to worry what would happen. That all changed in 1968, when something happened that Arthur had never experienced before.

He fell in love.

Alucard never met the woman and Arthur was very careful to keep her name secret. All Alucard had managed to pry was that she was in her mid twenties, daughter of an English officer and an Indian woman. And while Arthur had learned to keep his emotions hidden from Alucard, it was obvious he worshipped the ground she walked on.

It became painfully obvious the following year, when Arthur decided to bring her to manor.

"There are some plants that can survive long periods of time without water by going into hibernation or, shall we say, slumber. They can stay in that state long time until they get water again. Same will happen to you. You can survive long time without blood by slumbering" Arthur explained.

Really, it hadn't become as a surprise to Alucard. When Van Helsing had invited Miss Mina to live in Hellsing manor, he had ordered Alucard to keep his distance from her. Knowing Arthur's fear of Alucard's powers, it only made sense he would take things a bit further. There was however one thing that annoyed the vampire.

"Why can't I slumber in my coffin?"

"Because you'd still be mentally aware of your surroundings and I won't have you harass her in her dreams" Arthur said, looking Alucard straight in the eyes.

Alucard was impressed.

So he returned to his most basic form, revealing the black straightjacket that Van Helsing had tied him into years earlier, and allowed himself to be tied into the floor of an empty dungeon room, deep beneath the Hellsing manor. Walter, who had become closest thing to a friend Alucard had, had been against this, but Alucard talked him approving it, saying it was a great way for him to deal with boredom.

And so the doors of dungeon were closed in 1969, leaving Alucard in the darkness, to starve and wither until he rotted and was nothing more than bones. Then he fell into silence, somewhere between dreams and awareness, waiting his time.

It became twenty years later, in the form of a gunshot.

To be continued...

And couple explanations:

Yes, those were Elizabeth Bathory and Asa Vajda in the beginning. I originally didn't plan to have scene with them but I thought it would be nice to remind you that they're still around, as unlike in Stoker's book, brides were not destroyed in my story.

The second part of this chapter was solely because I needed a scene with the Princess. You probably noticed that I didn't call her Elizabeth even once. Since the Queen in the manga was never addressed by name, making her appear more fictional character than based on real life, I left Princess nameless as well.

The last part of the story is really rushed but I don't care because next time...

...Integra.

Till then!