ORDER 3
JACK IN THE BOX
It was the full moon of October, they had waited a month for this moon. Whether it was a work of superstition on Van Helsing's part or fact, in the notes that Integra so carefully inspected she was to wake Seward up on this moon. Marching through the halls of the cold basement were a battalion of Hellsing men and the Vatican agents of Iscariot XIII, Sir Integra leading them with Seras Victoria and Chief M'Quve of the 13th Division. Integra barked orders, seemingly to be in high spirits as her men unstrapped Alucard's tomb, "What are we doing here, if you don't mind me asking?" spoke M'Quve.
Chief M'Quve was a tall and lonesome-looking sort. He had a large scar down the right side of his face and his droopy, relaxing eyes were the color of the back on a classically gray wolf. His hair was a light gray despite looking to be in his thirties and he was adorned in the cloths of a bishop. Integra grinned as the men pushed the door wide open and swooped in, "In the notes I read our dear Mr. Jack is not only the first werewolf to have truly existed, but one of two Bastard Children of God… and also one of the Four Horseman of the End Times". The Chief's drooping, sad-like, dark-grey eyes opened a little, Heinkel Wolfe hissed behind him through her bandages "'His is hlasohmy!"
"Oh? Is that so? What evidence do you have that he isn't?" Integra queried, her troops pushing aside the No-Life King's abandoned case. M'Quve stepped to the Head of Hellsing's side with a question of his own for her, "By 'one of two', am I to assume there is another?"
"The other one is dead," replied Integra stepping around for something hidden in the cleared space, "Killed by her own sibling and twin. Such is the story that is told of our dear Mr. Jack. Our first true werewolf". Another agent stepped forward, this one with swept to the side pale-blonde hair and small round glasses "And the legend of Romulus and Remus." Heinkel growled out and stomped forward pushing pass the nameless man, "Hlasohmy! Hlasohmy! Hlasohmy! No 'onster 'is hay 'hild o' Gohd!"
Integra glared at M'Quve and he in turn turned to Wolfe, "if you can't behave and act human, you can wait here." At the very moment in time as Heinkel stepped back and hissed again, Integra stepped on a dust covered misshapen stone in the earthen floor. A few feet from where the coffin was once at, the ground quaked and an opened passage shrouded with pitch-blackness. At the disturbance of the ground, the sharpshooter of Iscariot drew two gleaming- silver semi-automatic pistols aiming into the depth, "I h'wear h'if that fiend o' hay 'erewolf comes h'rawling out— !" The nameless agent rested a hand on the loaded Vatican assassin, "Easy now, we must not act like animals in the face of such or else we will be the prey."
M'Quve showed a small hint of amusement as he musingly said facing the descending darkness, "In to the depths of Hell we go." Heinkel again growled and hid away her weapons. Integra took charge of direction and, with the aid of Seras' sight and a few flashlights attached to the guns of her men, they walked through the deepening hall. The lightless air was choking and malign, 'So asphyxiating of a sweet stench…' thought Integra as she touched her tie. She wanted to loosen it but didn't; doing so would show weakness. During the whole trip down Seras had the smallest of her canon-like rifles drawn (Harkonnen), lowered but with an anticipation of the unknown and sealed away "terror". Closer and closer they marched to the center of this dreading feeling in the shadows… and within was waiting the entombed werewolf. They had arrived to the earthed Under-crypt, a vault door in the way.
The scent clearly was getting to the Draculina, "This odor, it smells of dewed strawberries and summer roses but… i-it… It reeks of a scent so much STRONGER than that of a human's blood. Oh God, it's so unearthly hot!" For a vampire to show signs of discomfort in heat was incredibly unnatural (as if a vampire wasn't already unnatural lest we forget). The climate of the damp underground tunnel was indeed unruly and exotic. This only served tomake the smell more pungent, a scent seemingly tempting to vampires.
Seras was shivering in front of the door, shivering in an unreasonable sense of fear. She hadn't felt a sense of uselessness in so long, memories of so much blood and pain a-washing up in her mind. She could've sworn she would never feel afraid again. This was no mystical works of illusions, no manipulation of the mind—this was pure and utter hatred for the undead she felt directed at her. 'No… it's not for just me.' The Adam's apple of Chief M'Quve moved up and down in silence, however not betraying any other signs of discomfort or fear. This could not be said for the nameless priest as he stood buckling behind Heinkel, "Th-this raw p-power… Th-this wrathful energy." His eyes were bulging and wider than his own glasses as he trembled in place, Heinkel turning to him her guns in the air "HET HAY HOLD OF H'ORSELF!"
The man could not obey this command, his sanity broke and he nearly collapsed. "This HATRED isn't possible! I-it shouldn't exist to a point of manifestation out of the body! I-I can't be here! Oh Holy Spirit… FORGIVE ME!" He rushed forward to Heinkel and took her gun in her hand, pulling the trigger for her as he had aimed it to his head. The piously devoted Catholic woman's hand quivered as silence fell. The blood of the deceased agent splattered on Heinkel's face and the ground behind.
Everyone stared at the disheveled and headless body, eyes all wide except for M'Quve, "He is damned for all eternity." Seras was leaning on her rifles, keeping her knees off the ground as she shook in the silence of the abrupt death. Integra, fearful as she may have been, took control of her own fear and turned to the vaulted door. She entered a combination of turning numbers and at the last digit it slowly crept open, "It looks like I won't need wasting of my men, Seras pick the corpse up." Seras did as she was told and the armed Hellsing men and the remaining forces of the Thirteenth Division gradually turned to the now open door, staring in and through the final passage and into the chamber.
The suave and middle-aged Bureau Director followed behind the older Integra with intention on getting an answer for the desecration of his agent's body, "What are you planning to use my subordinate's body for?" He kept his tone easy but not flat as he walked to the older woman's side. She scoffed lightly and stopped at the dim sight of four levitating blue flames surrounding and giving a gauzy appearance to one large, cubic, silver, animal crate. Each face of the hollow cube had it, the Cromwell seal. It was engraved in to the silver and around the top edges were locks, three on each edge. Integra squinted her eye and got closer, the feeling of abhorrence for all that walk this world had dissipated to her. She could hear it, the sounds of faint and raspy breaths. "We're going to feed your agent to the Ripper."
M'Quve's old-looking eyes finally went all wide and his handsome features twisted in disgust, "YOU WOULD HAVE US WATCH THIS ACT AGAI—!" Integra turned on her heel and faced the Chief, confidence written all over her face "He is damned, is he not? He committed a grave sin against God. What better place for his corpse if not the pits of Hell that is our dear friend Jack's supposed stomach. If you don't like it, you can wait outside the door."
The male's left eye twitched some as he calmed his opposition and vile look and heaved a deep breath. He combed his gloved fingers through his hair and again the peacefulness that was once in his features returned. Seras came over, her rifles slung under her arms as she carried the fresh and dripping corpse, with one of the soldiers right behind her. The man handed Integra a ring of yellowish-white keys, hand shaking a small ounce of a bit. She, M'Quve, Wolfe, and Seras may not have felt this fear anymore but it was still in the air to those that were not them. Integra gestured for the man still holding the keys to the crate, "Open it."
"Hellsing—Master Integra Fairbrook… Wingates… Hellsing."
M'Quve quirked a bit in surprise, stepping away to the door with amusement on his face "It recognizes you as its Master!" Heinkel followed for him with a wide-mouthed grin that stretched ear-to-ear. They and the other agents were the only ones out of the faint-blue lit room. Integra chuckled and looked away to the Section Thirteen Division of Iscariot and the Bureau Director of the entire Iscariot Organization, "It is bound to my fam—You can't watch?"
M'Quve smiled some as the remnants of Section XIII had already left, "I'm afraid not. Have fun training your new dog." With that said, the Bishop left for above ground, disappearing into the darkness of the hall. The Hellsing guard opened each lock one by one with Seras behind him ready. As he approached the last lock, a deep snarl came from within. Above and in the distance from whence they came could be heard shaking, the man panicked and stumbled away from the crate "THE PASSAGE WAY!" He fell to the ground and as he attempted to scramble for the now closing door to this haunting sepulcher, the lid to the crate blasted off its hinges, a cloud of blackness and sparking embers emerging from out of it. Seras threw the priest's corpse to the cloud, a ghastly boney body reaching forth with long and tenacious black claws. It's jaws snapped open and tore it's dry raw-hide-like flesh, clamping it's jagged canine-like teeth into the flesh of the still warm dead man.
Everything was happening so very, very fast. Screams and barking of all manner came from the Hellsing soldiers as they disregarded their boss' order to not fire. Integra was backed against the vault door, the age wrinkles of her face skewed into disgust and horror as she watched her men be torn apart. Seras had ran to her side and held her superior in her arms, watching the terribleness that is Jack the Ripper. This ravenous fiend was tearing, shredding, pulling, gnawing, and above all else ripping. Ripping into the flesh and hearts of the humans with its vulgar claws and voracious teeth, silver bullets and mercury did little to nothing to it as it healed from the ash that surrounded it. To Integra, it was like she was a little girl again—watching as Alucard had ripped apart opponent after opponent when she had awaken him. The difference this time around was that it was her own forces being completely decimated and given vivisections, entrails spread about in mopped up blood and earth.
"SERAAAS~!"
Hearing the howling screams of her master, Seras Victoria lifted her guns up and opened fired on Jack. Each round rocketed forward into the wolf-person, meaning to put a halt to this beast it hadn't mattered though. The werewolf took absolutely no damage from the blasts, each shot having seemingly missed despite the vampirina's deadly lethal accuracy. Seras stared for a long moment, red eyes wide open with a puzzling expression 'I didn't miss. I can't miss. H-how…?'
As if it had any meaning if Seras had shot at it, Jack had stopped killing upon hearing Integra's cries. The Ripper approached the two blondes and it was then that Seras saw it. Her aiming was spot on, the bullets, though, had collided with the wall right behind Jack. Seras' breath shivered at the sight, 'My third eye… didn't see her move'. The form before them in its nakedness was anything but a man—for it was the same gender as Integra and Seras. A very young woman with a strong, muscular yet vixen-like body frame. Her muscles giving the look of stone hardness. This woman stood tall before them, long and slender. She was six-feet-and-two-inches tall, a warm yet pale tan was of her skin, her hair was wild and vivaciously long. Each strand of her untamable locks were blacker than the midnight sky with no stars and the moon to light the earth.
Her eyes were dull and red, evanescently glowing like a wolf's refracting light. They were peering down to Integra, lavender hues in the centers of the glowing red orbs. She stretched out a welcoming hand to the recovering old woman, speaking surprisingly gracefully with a soft however raspy voice "My condolences if my appalling nature took you by a mere fright, My Lady. I am Jack Seward, John preferably if you call me Seward." Integra took the hand of the taller, younger looking woman, staring blankly in to the lavender pupils as she continued speaking "With this new age and era, though, call me… Jacqueline Van Ripper."
TO BE CONTINUED