The following has disturbing imagery and writing. You have been warned!
Walter, now a vision of youthful potency, brought his heel down upon Anderson's crumbling remains. He locked eyes with Integra.
"This is trash," he said brutishly. "When people die, they become trash. And trash has no need to be mourned. Isn't that right, Integra?"
Seras was completely taken aback by Walter's words and actions. It did not fit into the cast she'd formed Walter into. "Walter," she called out to him. "What have they done to you?"
"What have they done?" Walter mimicked. "They captured me, made me a vampire, brainwashed me, and sadly enough, forced me to fight against my former master." He paused, and for the slimmest second Seras almost believed it. "If that were my answer, would it satisfy you, Seras?
"I stand here without having been given orders by anyone. I stand here as myself. I stand here as Walter C. Dornez. I am planning to cut you up here, at daybreak, with full intent to kill."
"Walter…" Integra's fist tightened. "Why, Walter?!"
"Do not call me by name!"
What specifically triggered Yumie wasn't quite clear: it could have been Walter's attitude, or the constant shouting, or even just the steep building of tension in only a few short minutes. Whatever it was, Seras felt a surge of motion as the Japanese woman dashed forward, her hand on her weapon.
"No, don't!" Seras shouted, but her warning fell on ears deafened by rage. Yumie drew her blade and charged straight ahead toward Walter, yelling.
"Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! I don't give a damn about your master-servant business!" She shifted her blade up to her shoulder, and a strange blue light enveloped her body. "Makes no difference to me!" Yumie disappeared into the blue light as it seemed to carry her through the air at an inhuman speed. It passed through Walter and spat Yumie back out, and in one graceful movement she cleaved through the air that Walter occupied.
"Shimabara Sword Style, 'Shoki!'" she pronounced. "I got you!"
Walter stood unfaltering. "You got nothing," he stated, bored. "I got you." The wires, almost imperceptible, sliced through steel and flesh all at once. The Japanese nun fell into bloody chunks, her life snuffed out instants before she even realized it.
The other, whom Seras decided to refer to as a man until proved wrong, screamed.
"Yumie!" he cried, pulling out his gun. In an instant the barrel of another gun pressed against his cheek. At the end of the barrel, which was longer than most swords, was the shady Nazi man Seras recognized from earlier that night. He fired, blowing through the other's mouth and knocking him off his feet. No one had even noticed the Nazi's approach.
"No one can stand in my way," Walter said. "I will allow no one to interfere with my revolt." Alucard didn't seem to notice any of it, not Walter or Iscariot or anything. He knelt on the ground, watching the scraps of Alexander Anderson float away on the breeze.
"Get up!" Walter challenged him. "Get up and fight, Hellsing! Alucard!"
At first it seemed like silence would answer Walter's challenge, but suddenly Alucard could be heard chuckling under his breath.
"Hey there, Reaper!" he said. "You once said Englishmen looked forward to growing old, didn't you? You said that you declined any glory that was easily won, didn't you? In your aged form, you were billions, even trillions of times more attractive. What an ugly form that is. Have you become a reaper, both body and soul?"
"That's right," Walter answered unfaltering. "This world is but a single night's dream within a much larger battleground. At the moment of daybreak, I have at last become its Reaper! Get up and fight, Alucard!"
"You and I are both just dogs now," Alucard responed. "Running dogs. Dogs which do not bark for themselves." He pressed his face into the cold ground, bowing to Integra.
"Orders!" Alucard said. "Give me orders, my lord. I can kill. Without the slightest hesitation, and without the least regret, I can strike someone dead." He raised his head up to see Integra's expression. She appeared stoic, without feeling. "That is because I am a monster. And you are... Integra. I will stand with guns readied. I will take aim with them. I will load ammo in their magazines, pull back their slides, and I will release their safeties. However, any killing will be done at your will. Now, what will it be? Your orders, Director of Hellsing, Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing?!"
Integra gave no answer, but simply stood in her place solid as a stone wall.
"Speak," Walter said, seemingly getting on edge. "Say it!" Integra ignored him, pulled out a cigar and slowly lit it in her mouth. She took a long draw, letting the aroma waver. "Start talking! Tell him, my lady!" She pulled the cigar out of her mouth and stood, taking everything in. Her hand began to shake, and the cigar snapped between her fingers.
"Search and destroy!" she ordered. "Search and destroy! My servant, I have given you an order! Nothing has changed! Lay waste to all forces that oppose us! Keep pressing forward and smash through any obstacle in your way! No matter who that may be! No matter what that may be! No matter... who... that may be..." Despair began to creep into her voice, but she shut it out. Integra would not entertain grief.
Alucard's familiars flared around him, dancing in their own demonic light, as he pushed himself off the ground with his fist. His smile was twisted in its satisfaction.
"Yes, my Master."
"Outstanding!" Walter cried, elated. "You truly were a master worthy of my service."
Integra hardened herself against his words. "I am no longer going to ask 'Why?' or 'What happened?' You have now become my enemy. You have become an enemy of Hellsing. You have become an enemy of Britain! That's what you've done! You must be defeated! You must be destroyed!"
A high pitched, absolutely giddy German voice projected through the air. "Well said, Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing!" They looked up at the last standing Nazi zeppelin as it descended onto the city street, crashing through the wreckage. "I was wrong to call you an amateur. I won't do it again. You have now at last become my enemy. You have become a powerful force worth beating, and my great and wonderful archenemy." The airship touched down and screamed into the dawn as its door began to open up. "Destiny has shuffled the cards. Come to me! I call!"
The ramp hit the bloody concrete, and inside they could see Schrodinger standing at the top. "Das Dritte Reich. Seien Sie herzlich willkommen," he said, happily gesturing for their approach.
Integra took no time to regard the cat boy, instead setting off immediately toward the ramp. Alucard spoke to her from behind. "Go on. Go ahead. Go and kill them. Go, conquer, and put an end to this." She stopped and half-turned to her servant.
"Yes," she said. "Off I go to conquer."
Seras, stunned by all the events happening in such short sequence, approached Alucard. "M-Master..."
"Go on, Seras. Our master needs a retinue. Go and bring an end to the man's long dream. It has been fifty five years. Morning has now come. I will bring an end to my long night with this man."
Seras stopped, collecting her thoughts. Of course this was the correct action, if she had taken a moment to steady herself she would have realized this. But if she was to move on unfettered, Seras was going to make sure that she left nothing unsaid.
"Walter..." she started, feeling infinitely awkward. "Um, this may be strange for me to say, but... um... thanks for all you've done up to now. Take care."
Seras had known Walter would not have expected those words, and she felt odd saying them to the man who had betrayed them all. He flinched, his face contorted into something almost like remorse. Had Seras been a little more naive she might have believed that he would fall over and come back to their side right then and there, but by now she knew better.
He simply closed his eyes, steadied his resolve, and smiled.
"You too."
At that moment Seras wished that her drinking blood had muted her emotions, because she almost started to cry.
Integra's voice called her back to reality. "Hurry!"
"Right!" she called back, running to the parallel infantry ramp. Integra stopped for a moment to pull out her rapier, testing its weight in her hand.
"Walter, farewell!" she called without turning to look at him. "Farewell. Farewell and die." Integra and Seras began to stride up the zeppelin's ramps. Seras stretched out her blood tendrils to reach behind Integra's back, covering her.
The child Nazi Schrodinger stood waiting for them. "Welcome, madam." Without a word Integra brandished her pistol and shot him through the head.
"I'm holding all jokers," Integra declared. "I'm putting an end to this. I call."
It wasn't very long before small groups of vampire soldiers started harassing them inside the corridors of the dark warship. Their assaults came in waves, largley disorganized and poorly equipped compared to the shock troops that had invaded Hellsing Manor. Their bullets were worthless against Seras, so slow that she was able to protect Integra and kill them at the same time. Some of the soldiers didn't even have ammo, they charged at her with broken rifles and steel pipes. They couldn't so much as touch Seras, and Integra wasn't in enough danger to bother firing her sidearm.
A vampire came up to them strapped with pinless grenades, charging. Seras knocked him to the side with a sweep of a tendril and let the explosion buffet harmlessly against the steel wallls she pulled to the side. The fire expanded enough to enshroud Seras and Integra for a moment, but it didn't do any real damage. A hail of bullets blocked their progress, and Seras covered Integra before dashing forward and beating their enemies into the walls. One managed to get past her, and Integra cut him down with a swipe of her blade.
One wounded Nazi leaned against the wall, watching Seras approach.
"It's been a long time!" he said joyously. He pulled off his mask and revealed an insane grin. "Are you my death? Are you our deaths?" Seras swept her tendrils along the corridor, slicing the soldiers to bits. They all shared the same blood-crazed smile.
"Everyone is dying with a smile," Integra noticed. "Yes. They came her to die, after all."
"If they want to die so badly..." Seras began. "If they want to die so badly, then just hang yourselves! You could have hanged yourselves, fifty years ago!"
The intercom crackled to life. "I'm afraid we could not have had that, Fraulein," the Major's voice chided. Evidently there was a two-way frequency that he was listening to. "There is no way we could settle for simply dying. That is just how incorrigible we are. There is nobody in the whole world that has need for us. Everybody in the whole world is trying to forget us. But even so, we are still needed by ourselves. We are not about to just 'simply' die. We need more than that. Our deaths require that there be something more than that. Something more, something more! Such is how we have come this far. And now we are here!"
Seras started: she spotted a shadowed form standing in wait a little ways down the corridor. A single irridescent eye stared back at her. It was the man from before, the one who met Alucard and Anderson. The one who was with Walter.
"Something more! There must be something else," the Major continued. "Some other place where we can fight, some other enemy somewhere for us to fight! The world is vast. It is filled with menace and marvel! It is rich to overflowing with conflict and gunfire! There is no doubt that somewhere in this world, there lies a battlefield fertile enough to support us! Our deaths require something - something even more." Suddenly explosions began to sound, possibly a delayed chain reaction from the suicide bomber's end. "Otherwise, we would be compelled to march on endlessly. Just for us to die. That is why you are precious to us! Such is your value to us! You are magnificent! The Order of the Royal Imperial Church, Hellsing! You are what makes it worth it for us to die, and you are what makes it worth it for us to kill."
Seras leaned forward, locking eyes with the silent Nazi. "Miss Integra, please go on ahead."
"Seras..."
"Quickly! Go find the Major! We must not let him... we must not let men like him say another word!"
Integra closed her eyes and nodded minutely. "Don't get killed. I won't permit that, Seras." She put another cigar in her mouth. "I absolutely won't permit that."
The Nazi raised his hand to the side, indicating something. His finger landed on a small sign with the word 'Hauptquartier' and an arrow pointing to the right.
"Hmph, such a faithful dog," Integra remarks, throwing away her cigar before even lighting it. She walked up and regarded the Nazi. "Well done." Integra turned to the right and followed the sign.
Seras and the Nazi Captain were left alone, each waiting to see what the other might do. The walls to their sides splintered open and burst into flames, casting dancing shadows across the two creatures' bodies. Neither took special notice, it was just another battlefield burning to cinders around them. Seras stomped her foot and flipped two automatic rifles up into her hands. She saw the Captain's hand flex at the hilt of his absurdly long gun.
Well, Seras thought, at a time and place like this, I might as well shoot somebody. It would seem like a waste otherwise.
The air shook as gunfire erupted from the two sides, and every bullet fired succeeded in doing nothing to their target. Something got caught in the crossfire and exploded, coughing up a heavy bout of smoke. Seras took the opportunity to leap into the cover and attack the Captain up close.
Just as she emerged from the concealing haze she felt something wrap around her, blinding and immobilizing her. Two gunshots went off at point blank range, tearing into her flesh and dealing some momentary pain. However, wounds or not, Seras had managed to get up close. She quickly ripped her way out of the Captain's jacket with her blood tendrils and drove him off. Seras gave chase with a victorious grin, confident that she'd already won. Her tendrils dogged the Captain's path, close to impaling him at every angle. He forced them away for a moment with a sweeping kick, but they were hot on his tail.
Then suddenly, to Seras' shock and confusion, her tendrils wavered. A strange white wisp trailed out of the Captain's skin. He looked up at her, fangs bared and eyes hellishly incandescant, as his body began to morph into a blazing ivory shadow. His features became both illusory and solid, hard to pin down exactly what was him and what was mere smoke, but the impression left was strikingly formidabble.
Seras stepped back, taken aback by the vision. It's a FUCKING werewolf.
The werewolf reared its head with a snarl, moving so fast in so many different directions that Seras couldn't follow his movements before it slammed its maw into her. She shot down the hall like a pinball, smashing the metal wall behind her as well as her rib cage. The air got knocked out of her, as well as a large amount of her blood. The werewolf turned around and appeared to jog down the hallway, evaporating into the air, and then reappeared above Seras and slammed both its feet into her. Seras was blown down two floors and crashed with an avalanche of steel. Every part of her body felt like it was bleeding. She seemed to be paralyzed with shock.
It's no use, she thinks to herself, watching the wolf man approach. He knocked away a steel gurder casually. He's too strong... It's no use... No use... The wolfman brought up his hands, ready to continue the assault.
"Hey, now, are you serious?" Seras smelt the burning of a cigarette. "This ain't like you." Her eyes widened at the familiar voice she heard within her veins. "Get up. The woman I know didn't know when to quit." A crate launched toward Seras' head as she felt her Familar arm zip herself into the air. She landed a distance away, unsure of what was going on.
"You're such a hopeless bitch. Snap out of it, you bloody fool." Of course, it was him, Seras realized with a wide smile. Who else could it be after all. Her veins warmed like a loving embrace, invigorating her and bringing her back to reality. "Okay, now that your eyes are opened, let's go, young lady!" Pip Bernadotte called out. "Let 'em have it! Let's get this guy together!" Seras pushed herself to her feet, ringing her blood tendril around herself. She could feel Bernadotte's blood coursing around her, filling her up and pushing her forward.
Seras shot into the air like a bullet feet first into a flying kick. The wolfman deftly dodged it with minimal movement. Bernadotte corrected Seras' momentum to stop her from flying into a wall, and she skid along the floor on all fours.
"Not just a point!" Bernadotte instructed. "A surface! Take out the whole surface!"
She lifted up her Familiar hand and drove it into the floor, and she and Bernadotte spread it across the room. The encircled the wolf man, impaling him from the back.
Got him!
"No you haven't!"
The wolfman shimmered into a white mist and slipped through Seras' tendrils, reaching out and destroying all the boxes around it. Paper bills and shimmering gold rained through the air, and he touched down on one of Seras' tendrils, balancing on one foot.
"This is too much," Bernadotte noted, baffled. "He's a monster. He's as good as a real-life wolfman, ain't he?"
"A werewolf!" Seras remarked. Just then she felt something pressing against her palm on the ground. She picked it up. "A gold tooth... Tooth fillings...?" She looked around at the glittering yellow washing out the air around her. "Then, all of this is..."
"It sure is. The stuff they stole turning Europe upside down fifty years ago. Everything from gold bullion to wads of money to watches, all scattered about. That filling you've got was probably pulled out of the mouth of some poor fellow in a concentration camp somewhere. Which is to say, that's the kind of people these are. They aren't even so much as a military force. At best, how are they any different than a band of killers? I wouldn't even rate this bunch as high as shit. An invincible force? Knights of steel? Ha! Don't make me laugh!"
Suddenly the wolfman kicked a glittering item out of the air, and it shot at Seras as fast as a missile. She caught it, a touch awkwardly, and looked at what it might be.
"A silver tooth?" she asked, puzzled. "Y-you mean..."
"What a kindhearted mutt. He's asking you to kill him with that?"
"S-so then, he intentionally led us here?" The wolfman put up his arms in a fighting pose, and Seras couldn't help but grin. She felt completely idiotic to have given up so easily before, considering she was fighting a suicidal opponent.
"I get it. He's a war dog that wants to die. What do you say we put him out of his misery?"
"If he's a war dog, Mr. Bernadotte, then you've got no room to talk."
Bernadotte giggled boyishly at Seras' renewed sass. "Without a doubt."
"Also," Seras added. "Please don't go smoking inside of me." He chuckled guiltily, but she could still smell the nicotine inside her body. It was a strange feeling.
"Here he comes!" The wolfman's body began to transform into a wisp. "Don't run. Take him head-on."
"Right!"
It reappeared and Seras crossed her arms to block him. Her remaining arm burst open in a spout of blood as she flew back into the wall with a crunch. Dust and filth shrouded her. The pain might as well have been nothing.
"Go!" Bernadotte yelled into her veins. "Conquer him! Let him have it!" The Frenchman's bravado made Seras smile. "When he attacks, he is also flesh and blood."
"Not yet!" Seras replied, reaching out and ripping the steel panelling off the wall. She stretched her tendrils over the bomb she had landed against, filled with the devilish desire to kill. "Not yet!"
Yelling with the exertion Seras hurled the bomb into the air. It spun in a collision course with the wolfman, but it was slow. He punted it back at her, and the area lit up with fire. Of course, Bernadotte had assumed this would be the case. Seras used the concealing flame to get up high, per his influence. She pushed off feet first and fired at the wolfman. He put up his hand, locking his gaze at her approach.
"He's predicting our moves!" Seras noticed.
"It doesn't matter."
"Mm-hmm," Seras agreed. "Let's go!"
"Yeah! Get him!"
Seras contorted her body midair to move her foot back and lead with her Familiar fist instead. The wolfman punched back, and their knuckles met and broke through each other in a shower of bone and gore. The two recoiled for a moment, then they lashed out with their remaining arms. Those collided as well, exploding on impact. Both fighters paused, waiting to see how their opponent would attack next now that they were mutually disarmed.
The wolfman struck first, sweeping his leg up directly at Seras' head. She quickly opened her vampire jaw and dug deep into the flesh of his shin. Familiar tendrils began to spread up his leg.
"I've got you this time for sure!" Seras growled through his muscle. The tendrils spread farther and farther, flickering and dancing like flame.
A gloved hand reached out from the black flame, flicked the silver tooth through the air, and caught it nimbly between two fingers. Bernadotte smiled vengefully.
"Wolfman, sir, this is payback from a certain someone fifty years ago." He tightend his fist around the tooth. "Take it." With the borrowed strength of a vampire Bernadotte drove it into the wolfman's chest. The wolfman's dogtag flew off and broke against the floor. He pulled his hand back out, covered in blood, and flipped him off. "That's what you get for messing with another man's woman. Your collar has been sent flying." The wolfman fell to his knees, blood spouting out of his wound like a fountain. He reared back, struggled against his own escaping blood, and collapsed onto his back. "Farewell, war dog!"
The strange transition upon the fallen beasts face was difficult for Seras to internalize. It seemed to visibly soften, as though he'd been containing all his muscles and only now finally let them go. And when his muscles had freedom, they smiled. The wolfman opened his mouth in a gaping smile of complete joy, and blue flames erupted from his skin and ate his body. Seras simply watched.
It's almost like... It's almost like a child having an enjoyable dream. That's right. I'm sure this evening has been a whole nights dream come true for them. Mr. Bernadotte...
She could feel his essence closing up wounds in her chest. Tendrils waved outside her left breast pocket.
"Yeah, you're right. Let's go and finish this. All dreams must come to an end." Seras stared down at the immolated corpse of the wolfman one last time, offering the tiniest bit of admiration to the creature that offered her first real challenge as a full vampire, and a slight feeling of gratitude for drawing Bernadotte out into her consciousness. "Go!"
Seras turned and walked away. Her next goal would be to find Integra, and she had a good idea of where she was. I should pick up a new gun on the way...
Butch thought he was a good Conductor. He acted as the in-between for the Composer and all his Reapers, and he would sometimes take the role of Day Seven's mission and fight whatever Players had lived that long. Most of them died. Some of them lived since the Composer would not let him go all-out. Annabelle had been one of those survivors, and Butch thought she was a fine addition to the Reapers. Yes, Butch thought he was a good Conductor. So when the Composer called him to the throne room in the middle of a Game, he had been confused. The Game was going swimmingly, all the Reapers performed at their peak, every piece was going to the part of the board that Ol' Georgie ordained. So why the sudden summons?
The hallways turned around Butch rather than he turn around them. Eventually the hilt of his blade would knock against wood, and he knew it was the door into the throne room because that is what he wanted. He struck his knuckles against the brass door handle. The door opened for him.
"My Blind Butcher! Lovely to see you again. Come come, we have much to discuss." The voice of the Composer was smooth as silk and carried the pitch of a child. Every so often his words would crack under his own excitement, and Butch frequently heard him whistling tunes and putting on some performance as though he carried an audience everywhere he went. Ol' Georgie had been Composer for as long as Butch had been dead.
Butch stepped forward, dragging his modified cleaver behind him. He clicked his tongue a few times, let out a high chirp to get an image of where the throne was, and stopped where he thought would be most appropriate. The Composer tweeted back at him.
"I'm glad you could make the time in your busy schedule to meet with me today, little bird."
"Of course, Composer. What is it you needed from me?"
"Ahp ahp!" the Composer shouted. "You know the rules birdy. We engage in business only after a riddle and a snack."
Butch let out a sigh. "My mistake. Give me your riddle."
"Heehee, I've been working on this one for a while! What eats through eyes and looks through legs?"
Butch thought about this for a moment. "A pervert?"
"Correct! Here, have this sandwich." Butch heard the scuffling of tiny feet and smelled a Noise approaching him. It nuzzled his hand and he reached out to grasp the promised sandwich. Its aroma was heavy with mustard, and the bread felt fresh. He could not identify the meat inside, but it tasted like sweet pork.
"Now, on to business," Ol' Georgie said as Butch took a large bite from his gift. "Butch, dear boy, the Higher Ups have contacted me recently. I am to ascend with them at the end of the week." Butch stopped chewing, reflected on this, and swallowed his unfinished meat. His blood heated up a few degrees.
"Congratulations sir."
"Hmph, quite," Ol' Georgie said with some bitterness. "Mr. Nayake said the same thing. I suppose it is a great honor, being accepted into godhood. I can't imagine it will be very easy to continue my experiments, but no matter."
"Experiments?" Butch repeated, swallowing another bite of his sandwich. The muscles in his neck were starting to tingle. It was a strangely pleasant feeling, almost like an adrenaline shot.
"Oh yes. How I would test the Players, experiment with how far I could stretch them. You remember your Game, how the Noise would hunt you and the other Players only in your sleep. And of course you must remember the kerfuffle that was Miss King's Reaper Game." Butch didn't reply, he was too busy finishing his sandwich. "Like the new recipe do you? Here, have another." Another Noise approached Butch, and he snatched the sandwich off of its back.
"In any case, I suppose Annabelle will be one of the Reapers that They consider for my replacement. Richard won't do it, he's been turning down promotions for centuries… Then again, I will be a Higher Up by that time, so I will have some influence on that decision won't I? Hmm…"
Butch spoke through his bites. "Mm… Won't I be your replacement?"
"That's what I summoned you to discuss, my little birdie." Butch heard that old spark of inspiration on Ol' Georgie's tongue. "This ascension presents a unique opportunity for one last great experiment, and you play a key role in it." Butch finished the second sandwich. "Here, have some more."
More Noise flanked Butch, and he reached out to them. They were holding bowls, and inside those bowls was some kind of warm meat. It tasted like sweet pork, but was completely raw. He bit a chunk off of one, testing the taste without any garnishing, and his entire body shivered at the flavor. It was delicious. He snapped a bone from the main body of the buffet and gnawed at its tender flesh.
munch munch* "What sort of experiment?" *slurp*
"It's rather simple actually. You see Butch, in my time I've seen many strange things. I've watched humanity evolve in its own ingenious ways, turning horses into carriages, carriages into cars, and cars into airplanes. I've seen Reece's various dubious inventions, and I think that the rest of the world will catch up with even the bizarre things he makes. But one thing has always held some intrigue for me. Not too long ago, hardly more than a century, we had a little vampire problem. You remember?"
Butch nodded. "You had Richard and Nayake deal with it." He emptied one of the bowls and tossed the Noise aside. It seemed as though the more he ate, the hungrier he got.
"The lesser ones, yes. But never the master, that creature escaped London. I must admit, I was enraptured by the beast known as a vampire. A human that had transformed into something so monstrous, so alien to life, that its very species changed. Through the relatively simple act of drinking blood it is given access to a nearly immeasurable amount of power! We Reapers have to undergo an entire trial in order to gain our power, but they only have to eat. Eat people, specifically.
"How's the meat, by the way? To your liking?"
Butch suddenly became aware that the Composer was standing at his side, watching him. He paused and lowered his hands from his mouth.
"So I began to wonder," Ol' Georgie continued. "If a human could become so strong just by eating a human, what might happen to a Reaper? Now obviously a vampire can't suck our blood, we have none that they can taste, so I thought I might just skip the middle man. See what happens."
Butch felt himself begin to shake. Juices were dripping from his face, and only now that his reverie had been interrupted that he realized its iron scent was distinctly not like any animal. He laid his hands on the contents of the bowl in front of him, and as he ran them along it he began to put together its shape, mangled as it was now.
"This…" he muttered waveringly. "This is a child."
"A Player, one that lost. I had some special Noise cooked up so they could paralyze them and bring them back here. I thought a living specimen would provide the best results. The first one was still alive from the RG, I thought a control would be necessary. How did they compare? A difference in texture perhaps, maybe more gamey?"
Butch stumbled backwards, horror enveloping him. He tried to wretch but his throat had completely closed up. His skin was crawling over his body, slithering like a mass of caterpillars.
"So," Ol' Georgie said, sounding amused by Butch's writhing. "How does it feel to have two other souls inside your body?"
"I feel…" Disgusted. Betrayed. Enraged. "I feel…" Wretched. Nauseated. Abominable.
"I feel strong." Butch began to flex, and he was surprised by the energy he felt pop back at him. His bones felt harder, his flesh felt more solid. Even his senses seemed heightened somehow.
"Heh," the Composer chuckled. "I had a feeling. We are only souls after all, mere ghosts. If a ghost eats a ghost, do they gain the power of two ghosts? And what if they eat a human, do they become more solid? It would seem…" He poked at Butch's abdomen. "Both hypothesis were true. Oh my!" A bit of drool slipped out of Butch's mouth. He could still smell the meat, the human flesh. It smelled good, and he was starving. "It seems you've taken on the gluttony of a vampire as well. Interesting. Well, I shan't let my loyal Conductor go hungry!" He snapped his fingers and Butch heard a door open.
"Let me go you stupid monsters! I'm going to get you for this!" It was a girl's voice. She sounded distinctly adolescent, and smelled lean. "Who are these tossers huh? More Reapers? What's this supposed to be than huh, some twisted mission?"
The desire to eat scratched at Butch, but he hesitated. His mouth hung open, watering onto the floor at the smell of the Player. He told himself this was wrong, that he couldn't do it. But then Ol' Georgie gave the order.
"Eat her, Butch." And Butch never disobeyed the Composer. He was a good Conductor.
He leapt toward the girl and sliced her belly open with his cleaver. She screamed for a second or two before he cut off her windpipe between his jaws and tore her throat out, swallowing it hole.
The Composer's voice rose above the sounds of Butch's feasting. "I want you to leave London, Butch. I want you to travel all of Eurasia, maybe even the world if you can, and eat your way through the Games. Gain strength; eat people, Players, and Reapers alike. And one day, when you think you are strong enough, I want you to find your way back to London. And I want you to eat my successor, whomever it may be."
And Butch obeyed. He escaped the London Reaper Game the same night that Ol' Georgie ascended, and he made his way onto the mainland of Europe. For years he would eat Players and people alike, regaining solidity until he was eventually a permanent aspect of both the Real Ground and the Under Ground. After a few years, having devoured a little over a thousand Players, he decided to eat a Reaper. It was delicious, so he decided to eat more. He worked his way through France, Germany, India, China, Russia, and everything in between until over a decade later he found a new smell.
It was like the stench of a corpse, but it moved. He followed it onto a ship, and before Butch knew it he was in the air. He ate a few corpses, found them unsatisfying, and decided to wait. Wait until he smelled something familiar.
Richard was always proud of Butch. He was skilled with a blade, even if it was an unconventional one, and that was largely thanks to Richard's training. When Butch had been chosen as the next Conductor he had come straight to him with probably the biggest smile of satisfaction Richard had seen him make. Even after that the two would spar to keep their skills honed for the Games, and after decades the two were so evenly matched that they would fall to the ground in exhaustion before either landed a critical hit on the other. Sometimes Richard would laugh at the absurdity of it all, his frail body and old longsword against a veritable giant with a cleaver the size of a small person. On occasion Butch would chuckle as well, despite his serious demeanor.
Now nobody was laughing.
The carpet of bodies interfered with Richard's footwork, constantly threatening to trip him up as the Butcher assailed him relentlessly. Richard had to use both his hands just to keep his blade steady against the blows that Butch's iron slab delivered. Years ago Butch had to two hand his blade in order to bear its incredible weight, but now he'd somehow become strong enough to swing it with one hand as though it were a stick. This gave Butch the advantage in flexibility, allowing him to swing at angles much more comfortably than Richard could block.
Richard's main advantage came from something fairly simple: his sword had a point, and Butch's did not. A cleaver could not stab Richard's flesh, it would only be a blunt force, but Richard was able to keep some distance between them with a succession of stabs.
No words were shared between the duelists.
"We need to get in there!" Amy insisted. "He can't take that thing on his own, it's a fucking beast!"
"I agree with tie-dye," Oni added. "Us standing around like this is stupid."
"No," Rocky said. "Richard gets to go first. He was the most effected by the Butcher's betrayal, he deserves to try and kill him first."
"They are both from the Middle Ages," Megan said. "I'm pretty sure them going one-on-one is part of the whole chivalry thing."
Amy slapped herself in the head. "Oh God, this is a Darth Vader-Obi Wan Kenobi thing isn't it? Neku, what—" Neku was already dashing toward the fight.
"Screw chivalry, there are people here!" The civilians were watching from the church windows, cowering behind pews and returning to their desperate prayers. A bombardment of fireballs exploded on Butch's back, burning away large chunks of his hair and scorching his coat. Neku got up close to slash at him, but he caught his wrist and crushed it. Neku cried out and dropped the Pins that were in that hand, including his healing Pin. Butch turned his head to Neku for a second, snapping his jaw open as though he would swallow him whole. The flesh and bone seemed to split like a snake's and Neku could see bits of skin and hair caught between his teeth.
Richard took the second that Butch's attention was off of him to slide beside his giant cleaver and slit across his arm pit up to the shoulder bone. It was enough to make Butch wince, but he didn't drop his weapon. Suddenly Richard felt an arm wrap around him and he was crushed into Butch's torso. He felt his spine groan under the pressure, and he couldn't move his sword enough to make an attack.
A bolt of energy struck against Butch's face and Amy knocked his legs out from under him with her yoyo. "Alright, Rich had his chance to kill him. Now we fight!"
"Brad, music!" Brad turned the boom box on to full blast, spiking everyone's adrenaline.
Neku escaped Butch's grasp in the fall and scrambled away, abandoning his dropped Pins and tuning out the screaming pain in his hand. His mind ran at fifty miles an hour as he tried to analyze the situation: half his Pins were out of his reach, currently underneath a Reaper and an old freaky ex-Conductor with a snake mouth and a cleaver that could have come from an anime. He still had Frantic Mall, Egg Bomb, Meteor Spike, and Local Fire, Distant Sea. That wasn't much, but he could make it work. He just had to stay at a distance.
"Rock, Tie-Dye, get in there and get Butch off of Richard! Keep the pressure on," Oni was yelling. "Megan, Neku, we gotta blast the shit out of him while he's occupied! Boom Box, I hope you have some REALLY good fight music. Make it as loud as possible, I want Butch blind and deaf!"
Brad switched out tapes and started blasting the most indistinguishable screamo metal Neku had ever heard. His ears started to ache, so he could only imagine what the guy with heightened hearing was feeling. He ran to the collapsed pile of cars and started touching all of them with various Pins. Meanwhile Oni and Megan were shooting at Butch as rapidly as their energy could permit.
Under the barrage of fire Butch wasn't able to react as quickly as usual, allowing Rocky to grapple him from behind and toss him off of Richard, who was heavily bruised but not quite paralyzed. Amy skated around the length of the courtyard, kicking up gore and guts from under her as she sped around Butch's flank while Richard and Rocky charged him head on. With Brad's music pounding against his sensitive ears he was only able to hear Amy coming up from behind him, making him turn his back and swing to block her yoyo. He barely perceived the air moving behind him fast enough to block Richard's blade, but not Rocky's fists. He took a blow to the side of the head, further damaging his ear, and another to the throat. He held his ground and kicked out where he believed Rocky was, knocking the wind out of the Reaper and giving him a moment's peace.
Richard continued to stab at Butch, managing to pierce his flesh enough to draw real blood. Except Butch didn't seem to be bleeding regularly: his wounds oozed with greyish-brown sludge, like the fluids in his body had been stagnating for years and congealed into one repugnant humor. Rocky got up, forcing himself to breathe, and saw the wounds oozing. He squinted, imagining that he saw thick, bone-like worms squirming just beneath the wound. He pushed the thought from his mind, convinced that he'd seen wrong, and continued the assault.
Neku yelled out from the pile of cars, trying to project his voice above the obscenely loud metal. "Keep him still for a second!" He stretched out the palm of his good hand, and the entire pile-up of vehicles lurched forward toward Butch. Neku flicked at a Pin and sudden bursts of air through the hunks of steel into the air, arching over the fight. He touched another Pin, and boulders appeared in the air above the cars, slamming them down at terminal velocity.
The others saw what Neku was doing and made one full effort to immobilize Butch. Rocky planted his knee into Butch's back and felt something snap under it before retreating. Amy wrapped her yoyo string around his body and pulled it taught, barely managing to dig in her heals enough to keep from being thrown across the block. Seeing an opportunity, Richard made one last swipe at Butch and plunged his blade straight through his belly. He twisted the hilt and swept it to the side, carving straight through his abdomen and spewing ooze over the ground. Richard leapt away from him, landing on his back.
The Butcher did not move, but the things inside him did. In the instant before the vehicles landed on him, a mass of flesh and bone burst out of his gaping wound. A hundred pairs of eyes looked out at the world, a hundred mouths drank in the air, and limbs writhed in an orgy of humanity.
They all only saw this for a moment, hardly long enough to even register what it was, before Neku's barrage landed on Butch and exploded in a plume of fire and metal.
Brad turned down the music and switched to a CD that refreshed everyone. Amy skated around the burning stack of twisted metal and picked up Neku's Pins. She returned them to him, and with a tap Neku reset the bones in his wrist.
"Dude," she said, a little awestruck. "That was fuckin' baller."
"Yeah," he said, winded from the effort. "Honestly wasn't sure if it would work. I've never tried to use that many Pins at the same time."
Megan helped Richard off the ground, wiping the grime from his clothes. "You okay?"
"No," Richard said. "No I am not." She wrapped her arms around Richard's neck. Both of them were trembling. Oni sat down on the acrid dirt and pulled a flask out of his coat. He took an unhealthy swig from it, choking a bit and coughing from the burning in his throat. Rocky rubbed his bleeding knuckles.
"Hey guys…" Brad said watching the smoldering rubbage. At the very bottom, in a small crevice between two folded cars, a charred arm was scraping at the dirt. A face, burnt so deeply that it looked more like a black skull, inched out of the hole. One of its eyes was oozing out of the socket, but the other appeared undamaged. It was brown, and was looking at Neku.
The body whimpered cringingly. "H-heeelp… M-m-meeee." It was a girl's voice. "H-h-help-p-p-p me," she pleaded. Her blackened boney fingers grasped at the ground, desperate to pull herself out, but completely devoid of strength.
"God help her," Brad gasped. "She's still alive!"
Amy covered her mouth. "Where did she come from?"
"She must have come out of the church…"
"No, that doesn't make sense," Neku said. "Why would anyone come out during that fight? That's insane. This isn't right, I don't trust this." The Reapers watched the small girl struggle under the weight of several tons of metal, calling out for help. It was difficult to tell, but she looked about the size of a preteen. Richard thought her voice almost sounded the slightest bit familiar.
"Who is she looking at?" Megan asked.
"The Living Player," Rocky answered. "I think."
Megan walked toward Neku, watching the girl. She waved her arms, trying to get the girl's attention, but she didn't seem to notice. "Heeeey!" Megan screamed. The girl made no sign that she heard her.
Megan turned to the others. "I think she really is alive." Oni put his flask back in his jacket pocket. He stretched out his wings and drew them back inside himself, moving into the RG.
"Oi," he called, and the girl turned her eye to him. She reached out to Oni, pleading weakly. Oni looked at Megan and shrugged. "I didn't see anybody else. Unless she was in one of those cars, or was hiding under the bodies. I suppose the corpses could have cushioned the impact."
"That's unlikely," Rocky said skeptically. "This smells like a trap to me."
"What do you think, Butch turned into a little girl and magically got his eyesight back?" Megan countered. She drew in her Reaper wings and entered the RG. The girl immediately noticed her, and started pleading to her instead.
"H-heee… Heeellp meee."
"Shhh," Megan cooed soothingly. "It's alright sweetie. You're safe now, we can help you."
"I-it huuuurts," the girl sobbed.
Megan grimaced. "I can make the pain go away. The pain can go away, and you and I can meet again in a few days. It'll be really nice, I promise." She walked forward to the girl, hands clenched and shaking.
"Oh God," Brad said, turning away. "I can't watch."
Neku watched as the Reaper approached the dying girl, intent to pull her into the Reaper Game. She seemed alive, acted like someone in the RG would, but how did she get there? It didn't make any sense. And then Neku remembered the Player Pin he kept under his collar. He'd completely forgotten it was there because he never used it, but now at the last possible second he realized it was right there, collecting the thoughts of the living. He focused on the girl as Megan knelt down and placed her hands on her charred skull.
"Get away from her!" Neku shouted. "I can't read her, she's not alive!"
It was too late though. As Megan readied herself to snap the girl's neck, her back exploded. Bodies reached out, some looking almost healthy while others were completely skeletal, and sunk their teeth into Megan's flesh. A blood-curdling scream escaped her throat before the bodies tore her apart and swallowed her in chunks.
"NOOO!" Richard screamed.
"MEGAN!" Oni jumped to his feet.
Rocky's voice was caught in his throat. Veins pulsed against his skin, and the tapewyrm began to wriggle to life in response. The three flew toward her as fast as they could, beating into the bodies that devoured Megan in the vain hope that they might find her. As they did the mound of flaming vehicles pulsated outward, and something pushed itself into the open air, knocking the Reapers away with the bat of a paw made entirely of human bodies.
Amy vomited at the sight of the meshed abomination, a terrible amalgamation of living and dead tissue. Hair of all colors draped the beast in patches, some of it long and wavy, some short and straight. The skin on its tainted collation of flesh was like a quilt of many colors, some natural and some unnatural. Arms and legs twitched at the air like antennae all over its body. It lifted itself on its haunches and let out a ghastly roar with a thousand voices, and its jaw opened wide enough to swallow a bus. Inside were layers upon layers of human teeth, jagged and misshapen in an order they were not designed for.
There were more eyes covering the creature that was Butch than one could count, and they were all looking at Brad while he stumbled to reach his pockets in shock. As Amy forced herself to get up and stop vomiting, she saw it pounce toward her. Out of instinct she skated out of its way, but when she spun around to fight she realized it had not meant to land on her.
One of the mouths had bitten straight through Brad's stereo, leaving it to rust under the shower of blood as he was consumed by the people that made up Butch's flesh. Amy's world froze on that moment as she watched her closest friend be eaten alive. His body shuddered and eventually went completely limp, until all of it had been slurped up. Her legs weakened and she fell on her knees. Her entire body was shaking violently as she denied the universe itself. A silent cry strained her tongue, but she found no voice to carry it. Tears blinded her completely, and she was too dumbfounded to even blink. All of a sudden Amy's voice flooded back and rushed out.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHH!"
After the adrenaline wore out Annabelle collapsed out of the sky. She bounced off some smoking rubble and landed on a light post. She began to slide off, snagged one of her rib bones on the pole, and hung there for a moment half-conscious.
Her Noise floated toward her and unhooked her from the pole, gently lowering her to the ground. It investigated Annabelle's charred and broken body, checked for bleeding wounds, and picked her back up.
Annabelle's eye fluttered. Her Tamed Noise was a blur of color, a vague outline of a human body enveloped in dancing light. Reality was ebbing in and out.
"... Jacky," she struggled to gasp with air from a single functioning lung. "Baths..." The Noise made no visible acknowledgement of the Composer's words, but trailed off toward Reaper HQ. It ducked around the rubble and ascended into the labrynthine interior, guiding itself through the hallways. Eventually it reached a large open room with pools of fluid layed out in a grid. Annabelle was dropped into one of these pools, and she slowly sank as the clearish liquid surged into her flesh.
The feeling was like acid burning through you, except backwards. That was the way Oni had always described it, and Annabelle could never think of a better way to describe the sensation of a healing bath. The charred flesh covering her body softened and turned more pinkish. Blood began pouring from the wounds again, reddening Annabelle's vision. Her missing eyelid began to crawl its way back to life across her cornia.
Once Annabelle felt her collapsed lung reinflate she decided it was safe to resurface. It was always a little difficult to breach the surface because the healing fluid made a thin gelatinous film just over the top. Reece said it was the blood and dead meat that your body cast off in the pool, and Annabelle was inclined to believe him given the smell these things gave off. It took all the steam and incense they could get their hands on to make this place bearable to sit in for hours on end. The idea of sitting in a bath for hours made Annabelle cringe.
The idea for the healing baths themselves had been Annabelle's. After years of watching Reapers die from lasting wounds, and then dealing with Seras baby the Reapers and keep them from getting injured altogether, she thought up the idea to have a permanent way to recover from even the most grievous wounds.
She tested blinking her regrown eyelid; it didn't quite close all the way, but the muscles moved correctly. She brought up her hand, still missing skin, fingernails, and small chunks of flesh, and touched her face. There was the distinct sting of an open wound everywhere Annabelle prodded. At least her skull wasn't in open air anymore.
Her other arm was still just that: an arm. Annabelle didn't know if the hand would even grow back now that she thought about it, no one had ever tested the baths that far. Normally even Rocky would keep his body in one piece. Mangled, but connected.
"Kiryu," she hissed as though the name were a curse. "How dare he force me to-" Annabelle started coughing in the middle of her sentence. She dipped her head back into the pool and gulped down some of the fluid. It had no discernable taste, but it always left a microbe-thin layer on whatever it touched. The stuff stuck with you until you were completely healed, that was its purpose.
The Tamed Noise had not left the pool side. It wavered there, hunched on the tile floor, watching Annabelle. She smiled and reached out to it, stroking its flaming hair. The Noise made no sound, but Annabelle perceived a shifting of its weight into her palm.
"Thank you," she said softly, leaning her head towards it.
A burning cord reached out and placed something in Annabelle's hand. It was her other hand.
"Oh good, you picked this up! Let's see now..." She slid the exposed bone down into her hand's wrist and submerged it. The slipping tingle worked its way up Annabelle's arm very slowly, rebuilding and connecting an entire network of tissue and nerve fibers.
"It'll take a little while for that to work," Annabelle explained to the Noise. "If it works at all." The Noise shuffled quietly on the edge, poking the gelatin surface. Its features were expressionless.
"Heh, there's no need to worry," Annabelle said. "Even if it doesn't work, it'll be alright." Suddenly Annabelle shot up like a rod and bit down to block her yelp. She grabbed her leg and pushed the bone back inside. "I... hah, I forgot about that."
After a few moments letting the pain subside Annabelle let herself lean back and rest her head. She cupped her hand and splashed fluid onto her head a few times. The Noise's core manifested and lay down next to Annabelle's head.
Annabelle looked into the Noise's burning girlish face. It smiled at her, the orange spots on its cheeks flexing away. Its hair hung loose and draped over its neck like a curtain of embers over a log.
"Heh," Annabelle laughed nostalgically. "There you are Jacky."
"Hey Anny," Jacky said with her goofy grin.
"You still look so young," Annabelle commented, tracing the smoothness of the fire. "Still a child. I must look so old to you now."
"Oh hush honey, you look great," Jacky retorted. Annabelle splashed more fluid on her face.
"I certainly feel old," she sighed. "The Higher Ups Themselves... ordered me dead. Me! What did I ever do? I've only done my job."
Jacky's smile simmered away. She scratched her ear awkwardly. "You did do that awful thing to that girl Seras Victoria."
"Why would that matter? Ol' Georgie did far worse things. He forced Bob into being a Reaper, sent us to assassinate Players, even... well. You know."
Jacky looked away. "... Uh huh."
Annabelle immediately regret bringing it up. "I know, I'm sorry. But still, you see my point. Ol' Georgie did all that and now he's one of Them. At least what I did to Seras was justified! Besides, if that was the problem why would they wait until now? No, it couldn't be that."
"I s'pose whatever you did ain't too 'portant now, is it?"
"I suppose you're right. What should we do? Assuming Reece beats Kiryu, surely they'd just send another assassin. There are stronger Composers in the world."
"But Keerioo ain't alone, is he?" Jacky pointed out. "There's that other boy came with him."
"Hmm, true. The Living Player is unique, I doubt many other Composers have one of those. Its hard to say what his limits are. The kid isn't even in any of the Game records. None that I've seen anyway. The timing might have something to do with it. All these vampires can't just be mere coincidence. It must be related."
"Could've been timed to split yer focus. Attack you with them vampires and them Japs."
"But that would mean the Higher Ups knew the vampires were coming in advance. Then again, they are gods. I suppose their knowledge of the future wouldn't be limited."Annabelle stirred the pool with her hand and rubbed it on her head. The muscle was smoothing out at least.
"Wow, I forgot how good that stuff is," Jacky marvelled.
"Yeah, it's designed to work fast." Annabelle mindlessly pulled off her necklace and examined it. The gold was still pristine, as always, and the black and white wings reflected her burned and beaten face.
"Why do you keep that thing around your neck Anny?"
Annabelle frowned at the trinket. "You know why Jacky. It belongs to me. It always has. Everyone else just got confused about that fact for a while."
"It don't even work for you though..." Annabelle tied it around her neck again, feeling the cold metal against her naked breast.
"It will. One day, it will."
She lifted her other arm out to see if it was healing. The hand was completely gone, dissolved into the gelatin, and the bone was silver now rather than black. The flesh had only gone up a little over an inch.
"Oh no..." Jacky lamented.
Annabelle took a deep breath and forced herself to smile. "It'll be fine," she reassured her friend. "I need a sword right now more than a fist anyway." Jacky remained unconvinced. She touched the exposed bones, looking dejected.
"If I hadn't burnt this off, maybe you'd heal properly."
"Hey, this isn't your fault," Annabelle chastised. "I told you to, it was my decision. All that dead weight could have been disastrous in the fight. You didn't do anything wrong." She brought the bones up to her face and looked over them. Not exactly strong as steel, but they were pointed.
"What are you planning on doing with those anyway?" Jacky sounded concerned. Annabelle glanced sideways at her.
"I'm going to kill with them. Kiryu, the Living Player, Seras, everyone who would get in my way." She paused, rubbing her finger along the bone. "Everyone."
The Noise burned in silence.