Hi guys! OMG, I GOT A REVIEW FROM MAROONGRAD! (A very good author that I read sometimes) Yay! And thanks for the really awesome comment too Moontan, it made me happy. But…um…keep in mind that even though I'm a smart little sucker, I'm only fourteen…what's Anglicized? *sheepish* You guys both mentioned it in your reviews, but it hasn't come up in any of the stuff I've read so far in my experience, so…yeah. Help please? And if anybody else knows what it is, a little explanation would be nice too. I'm not omnipotent. (Much as I'd like to be. And I don't trust the Internet either; it said Autism is a side branch of schizophrenia…which it most certainly ISN'T.) Anyway, I do support Pip and Seras, because they kissed. Can you get any more proof-ful than that? Well…besides doing you-know-what. (Blech) Funny story, a couple days ago I (finally, according to mom) watched The Scorpion King, and do ya know what I found? Anderson's (English, obviously) voice actor plays the main bad guy. How cool is that! I didn't recognize him by voice (he was probably a lot younger at the time), but I was looking over the back cover and I happened to notice that his name sounded familiar, typed it in, and found out he was Alexander Anderson from Hellsing. Cool huh? I sure thought it was. This chapter leans a bit towards M for Pip's foul language, so you've been warned.
Prompt: Don't worry...
"And zat's how I lost my eye."
"Captain Bernadette, I find that highly unbelievable."
He waved a casual hand in the air.
"Oui, and I find it highly unbelievable zat a vampire's walking around in broad daylight."
"Master's a very strong vampire, and I had to put sunscreen and this hood on anyways."
He grinned.
"Oh really? Zen what's that I see?"
He pointed to her nose.
"You're getting red mignonette!"
She waved him away with a grin.
"Oh come off it, of course I'm going to get at least a little singed."
They both laughed, and he peered down at her face in concern.
"Seriously though mignonette, I see a little crispy on the tip right there."
He tapped her nose as she yeeped and covered it, rubbing it on concern to feel a bit of a sting.
"Oh blimey."
He laughed as she growled and elbowed him, jostling the food he had gotten at McDonalds.
"It's not funny!"
"Apologies ma chère, you just look so adorable when you do that."
She looked down, thanking her vampiric body and its inability to blush.
"Anyway, what's that old vamp got in store for us eh?"
She elbowed him gently.
"You shouldn't call master that, and I think he's got something planned. He always does."
He rolled his eye, and she saw the room they had rented dead ahead.
"Hey, you aren't worried about it or anything, are you?"
She blinked and looked up at the taller man as he grinned at her.
"Captain Bernadette, I can take care of myself you know."
Her cool response only provoked another rolling of his eye, and he slung an arm around her shoulders before she could protest, giving her a friendly squeeze.
"Oui, but I'll stick close just in case you get scared, eh?"
She knew vampires couldn't blush, but she could've sworn her cheeks felt hot as she quickly pulled away from his arm.
Prompt: Like I promised.
"Hey, are you serious? This isn't like you at all."
Her shock rippled through me.
"Get up! The girl I know doesn't give up so easily."
She lanced out of the way, and inside her, I breathed a sigh of relief.
That had been way too close for comfort.
"Well, now that you're awake, let's go mignonette! Let's take him down together!"
She grinned, letting the shadows connected to her living body flow out onto the air, lengthening my world.
She shot towards him at high velocity, but he moved his head to the side and her strike passed harmlessly by.
"No not a point! Strike on a plane! A plane!"
The shadows exploded everywhere as the dark, fluid world I now inhabited wavered slightly, and the points of the limbs passed through his body.
Got him!
"Not yet!"
I raised an eyebrow as the man somehow dissolved, a glowing mist flowing through the bars of shadows and reforming on the tallest, balancing on the point as casually and calmly as if it were a stump.
"Now that's a genuine monster. An honest-to-God wolfman."
"A werewolf?!"
Suddenly she snatched at something glinting on the ground, opening her fist to see a gold tooth.
"All of this-?!"
"Probably. This is the loot they stole when they ransacked Europe fifty years ago. Even that tooth was probably ripped from some poor soul's mouth in a concentration camp somewhere."
Her disgust corresponded with mine, and the corner of my lips twitched up.
"That's what these guys are all about. They're not even a real army. They're nothing better than a gang of hit men! I think these asshole SS aren't even worth shit. An invincible army? Knights of steel? Don't make me laugh!"
The werewolf suddenly kicked something at her, and it smoked as it hit her hand.
I frowned, switching the cigarette to the other side of my mouth.
Feels like silver.
She blinked at it, and I grinned.
"What a nice little doggy. He wants us to do it with that."
"T-then he brought us down here on purpose?!"
I snickered.
"Hmph! Looks like he's a war dog too. Wants to die. Let's give him what he wants then."
"You're one to talk Mr. Bernadette. And can you please stop smoking cigarettes inside me?"
I laughed, but before we could banter further I sensed something in the air shift.
"He's coming!"
The wolf-man shifted into mist form, and I felt her tense.
"Don't run! Take it head-on!"
"Right!"
The wolf-man's boot hit her right in the chest, her arms crossed over it protectively as we were sent flying back to rest against the shattered remnants of a tank.
"Now go! Go! Take him down! He needs to take physical form to attack!"
She dragged a missile from the ruins, throwing it end over end to the werewolf as he easily caught it with his foot and kicked it in half.
Seras shot in from above, hoping the smoke would cover her, but his head was tilted up and his body clearly ready.
He read our moves!
"It doesn't matter! Get him!"
She slugged his left arm off then turned and met his own punch, decimating her remaining arm –and his as well.
He didn't seem deterred at all, instantly lashing out with his foot, but she caught it in her fanged mouth.
"I got you!"
I flicked the silver tooth up, emerging from her fluid arm and feeling the heat of the real world once again as I caught it.
"Hey Monsieur Werewolf. Here's payback from someone, somewhere, fifty years ago. Keep the change."
I slammed my fist into his body, letting my fingers go as the silver entered his heart.
I pulled my hand back as blood gushed over his bare chest, flipping him the bird.
"That's what you get for playing with my woman. Your collar's gone too. Adieu, War Dog!"
He collapsed back, and I saw his bloody mouth open in a silent laugh.
The blue fire erupted and started to consume his body, and the shade of a large wolf rose from it with a mournful howl.
Mignonette stared in horror.
It's as if he was a child awakening from a wonderful dream…then again, I suppose, for them, this is the night where their dreams come true.
"Right Mr. Bernadette?"
"Yeah, maybe. Go and put an end to it. No dream can last forever. Go!"
She turned and began to run further into the depths of the zeppelin as I lit another cigarette from the stub of my old one.
Go and put an end to their dreams Seras. I'll be there to help you, like I promised.
Prompt: I came for you.
"You'll be the offense."
"We'll be the defense."
You know, that sounded a lot simpler –and safer– when I said that earlier.
Big scary vampires stay on the outside of the nice big barricade, hot vampiress slaughters the bastards, and we cheer her on while contributing cover fire.
Or big scary vampires massacre most of my group, blow the nice safe barricade to shards with a panzerfaust round, and, as the tattooed he-male said, "launch the next one straight up our mercenary asses".
And the hot vampiress gets her arm sliced off as we lay there and bleed out like the gutless pussies we are.
You know, my grandpapa said that mercenaries were the scum of the earth.
We kill for pocket change, no, for the fun of it.
For all sorts of reasons, I've found someone else on the wrong end of my gun.
Bringing down a government or propping one up.
For homeland, or someone else's.
For family.
For a woman.
Maybe just food and drink.
So many damn reasons.
Some good, some bad.
A mercenary doesn't ask questions.
It's enough to know the other man's dying for something.
But that reason of his, whatever it was, wasn't really worth fighting for, maybe.
That's what my grandpapa said.
We march onto the chessboards of the world for mere pennies.
Kill for 'em.
Die for 'em.
But in the end, it ain't about the damn pennies.
He would've gone on, but right now, the pennies weren't what made me stay.
Eight generations of killers.
Eight generators of murders.
Grandpapa said that too.
Well, if I'm the last son in a line of murderer's, I might as well end with a bang.
I might be a bit of a thickheaded grunt sometimes, but even I know that I'm not walking out of here alive, even if I stay low and quiet until whatever's going on is all over.
Mignonette, no, Seras isn't going to make it either, not without help.
The scythe's going down…
I'm moving as fast as I can without alerting her to my presence…
"You first bitch!"
I slammed the stock of my rifle against her face, feeling the bones shatter.
That's for all my men you hag!
Scythe swing gun block duck down!
I skidded backwards, drawing my Colt out as I did so.
Last of the silver bullets. Hope you like the taste bitch!
"Leave her alone!"
Six shots.
It feels really good, looking down at her body, crumpled and bleeding.
"That's enough of your shit. Stay down."
Now, to pick up mignonette and head for the hills.
I grunted as I draped her over my shoulders, biting down harder on the fag in my mouth.
Damn…either she's heavier than she looks or I'm weaker than I'd like…
How many damn times had I walked down this same hallway to report to the Ice Queen and her English bourgeois?
But now it seemed so long and far away.
Not good.
Struggle step, by step, by step, by step.
It was taking far too long for that damn door to get closer.
Then everything started to blur.
Scythe in body.
Body not responding.
Warmth in lap.
Mouth on mine.
Blood in mouth.
World going black.
Darkness.
So this is death?
Damn you mignonette…I told you to drink me in-
His eye suddenly opened.
The world around him was a swirling vortex of red and black, whispers echoing all around him.
Fragments of memory glimmered in the darkness, and his mouth twitched up as he lit another cigarette.
Good job ma chère. Now let's go kill those bastards, like you killed the ones coming after us.