Apologies for the delay. Remmeber what the guys in the
Army say: "Never _ever_ volunteer".
Anyway, as the C&C, which I all love, I'll try and respond
to them tommorrow.
Some bad news though. The new release schedule is now
weekly. Christmas is peeking its hoary head around the
corner and am going to be busy.
As always, this is set in the "Pulp Hellsing" timeline _not_ in the
"Dances Set To The Music Of Time" timeline.
*************************************************
DANCES SET TO THE MUSIC OF TIME
An Epic History of Humanity
From The Age of Silver
To The Age of Crystal
And Beyond
http://rakhal.com/florestica/elsa-bibat/index.html
Other fanfiction by the same author:
http://rakhal.com/florestica/elsa-bibat/index.html
Kindly archived by Larry F and
The Lost Library of Florestica:
http://rakhal.com/florestica/
*************************************************
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: hellsing.txt
**********************************************************************
Disclaimer:
Hellsing is owned by Hirano Kouta. All licenses belong to the proper
people. This is used without permission.
The Shadow was created by Walter Gibson. All licenses and rights
belong to the proper people. This is used without permission.
This disclaimer also applies to several intellectual properties
referred to in the text. Please be guided accordingly.
This file can be freely distributed so long as it appears in its
complete form and proper credit given. No part may be reproduced for
monetary gain without permission from the author.
**********************************************************************
Chapter 9 Sparring
Sinister laughter filled the room.
This was why Integra hated these early evening sparring sessions and
why they had been discontinued for so long until her return from the
military prison where she was incarcerated.
They always started with Alucard and herself going to the manor's
hothouse where the vampire picked a blooming red rose, whereupon he
would pin it to the breast of his coat, on the upper left where his
aorta was located. When she was younger she had asked the red-coated
nosferatu what was the reason for that and Alucard smirked and told her
a long involved story about an undead prince, the prince's mild-mannered
witch-sister and about duels involving roses. Of course, it ended with
Alucard slaughtering them both, but that was how Alucard's stories
always ended: blood, gore and total destruction of everyone else except
for him. In Integra's opinion, now that she had grown older and wiser in
the vampire's ways, the story, like most of the oathbound vampire's
stories, was another total fabrication. Upside down castles in the sky,
miraculous duels, a wall of swords, a platform in midair, all cribbed
from some fairy tale or the other and sewed into a seemingly factual
account of an adventure by a centuries-old psychotic and told with the
matter-of-fact tone that gave it a veener of truth. Baron Munchhausen
would be a no-account liar compared against the Hellsing vampire and his
talent for untruth.
A pathological liar he may be, but Alucard did have a few honest
bones in his body. Which was the reason why the monster and the
monster's mistress, dressed in a light leather sparring outfit that made
her sweat profusely, where in a private sparring room inside the
mansion.
Another stinging laugh and Integra felt a rush of wind across her
face. Alucard's enruned white glove pinched her cheek in the manner that
she had always hated since she was little and her mother's rose-red
tulwar flashed a scarlet arc. Too late. The gloved hand was away and the
vampire was skipping backwards with an amused fanged smile.
Integra ground her teeth together and held Bhiima, shortened from
the tulwar's proper full name of Bhiima Rakta Paatalaam the nomenclature
owing to the strange red metal that was used in its forging, in her
right hand, parallel to the ground while her left hand held another one
of her mother's weapons, a vajrakali with the auspicious name of
Saudaaminii, with an overhead grip.
When she was younger, and before her mother's illness, Integra had
learned the basics of her mother's own personal martial art: a mix of
various combat styles found in the Indian subcontinent melded into a
wholly unique dance of death. One of the few things that the current
leader of Hellsing regretted was that she never got beyond the basics
that were taught to her. Of the arsenal of weapons that her mother
wielded, she could only wield six with reasonable skill: the tulwar, the
vajrakali, the khanda, the katar, the kirpan and the chakram. When her
mother died, the development of her skills stalled at the level she had
been taught, roughly one-fourth of her mother's ability. The only thing
she was able to do was to refine her skills to the point they were now,
with the occassional help of Walter and, when she was younger, the
regular sessions with Alucard.
Alucard laughed mockingly another time and Integra lunged in with a
sweeping slash which the vampire only danced away from. A pinch on her
buttocks elicited an incensed screech from the blonde to which her
vampiric charge only laughed.
Integra gritted her teeth and reminded herself of why she was doing
this. Alucard had insisted on similar sparring sessions like this when
she was younger but had relented when after one particularly intense
workout, his young charge broke down and cried, afterwards locking
herself in her room until Walter had convinced her to reenter society
with the bribe of a plate of his chocolate chip cookies and the
assurance that Alucard wouldn't force her to participate in such
exercises again.
Now, here she was, a decade later, being teased and harassed in the
same awful manner by her vampiric servant, all in the hope of releasing
the most potent weapon in the arsenal of the Helsing family: the Fury.
The Fury, as Alucard had explained to her when she was little, was
part of the strange heritage that the Helsing family shared with the Van
Helsings, the original clan of vampire hunters from which the Helsings
of old came from. This legacy of the Van Helsing stock gave them the
capability to stand toe-to-toe against many supernatural threats that
plagued the world of men: giving them the speed, strength and the
reflexes to combat on those evils that would prey upon mankind.
The vampire related all of this to young wide-eyed Integra, painting
alongside it the vast, labyrinthine story of the House of Van Helsing, a
tale told with what the his mistress assumed was the closest thing that
the insouciant vampire could muster to actual respect. He told of how
the first of the Van Helsings came to be, a royal decree by a long
forgotten king of the Hyborian Age by the name of Conan and a gifted
from an undead sage by the name of Epimetrius, giving the Eolsing tribe
of the Vanir great powers to match a coming evil and to combat the
secret forces that preyed on mankind.
In time, they were called the Vanir Eolsing, the distinctive azure
blue eyes and the wild blond eyes becoming synonymous with the never
ending fight against the forces of Darkness, their name changing through
the ages into what it was now: Van Helsing.
Alucard spoke to Integra of many things on that strange long-ago
afternoon in her youth. Of battles and manipulations, of romance and
tragedy, of betrayal and loyalty, of the thousand myriad things that
made the Van Helsings both the perfect representation of humanity and
its perfect defenders. Never had Integra trusted her vampiric charge
more than on that afternoon, knowing in some peculiar way that the No-
life King was telling the whole truth.
That was why she was here, with her below-par weapon skills and her
oh-so-mortal frame trying to catch a vampire with the the reflexes of
greased lightning: tore capture the sense that she was who she was, the
last of the Helsings and, in some sense, the last of the Van Helsings
also, those distant strange heroic figures of Alucard's tale. Her recent
failures were still fresh on her mind and she needed something to prove
to herself that she was deserving of such a heritage that Alucard
described.
If she couldn't call it up, if she couldn't unleash that part of her
blood, she had no right calling herself by the name.
Alucard grinned broadly and Integra could swear that the nosferatu
was reading her mind, if she hadn't known that the binds set over her
charge limited their ability to affect any of her family. She dervish-
twirled, thrusting the vajrakali in a sideway sweep which turned into a
feint, revealing Bhiima's upward slash as the true attack. Fading away
like a ghost, Alucard laughed again.
Then he smiled and Integra recognized that smile.
She steeled herself for what was to come.
"You really have to work on the sword work, Mistress." The sly
serpentine tone of the was enough to insult any woman, but Integra had
taken worse ridicule before. But she knew that the vampire was only
building up steam and more was to come.
Integra was quite right in her assumption as Alucard began a long
winding tirade of her all her failings as a Helsing, a woman, and as
head of the Hellsing organization. The vampire had obviously long years
of practice as he dissected his mistress' character and rubbed into her
face her many perceived flaws.
It was nothing new to Integra, she had heard it often enough in the
whispers behind her back, but it was always hard to hear it from Alucard
even if she knew that he didn't mean it. He and Walter had become sort
of surrogate parental figures to her since the death of her father.
Their high opinion had become a sort of a goal for her ever since the
two had become her erstwhile guardians.
A barb about her frigidness disturbed her line of thought and
Integra lunged with a atypical thrust of the tulwar. Alucard danced
backward with a flowing gracefulness reminiscent of a snake.
Integra smiled when she noticed that had managed to back her undead
charge to the rough stone wall. She twirled again, a bladed cyclone of
arms and legs seeking to claim the rose as a prize.
Alucard only laughed and launched himself upwards in the air,
twirling in a mid-air somersault. He landed with catlike deftness,
swiftly turning around to put a finger at the back of his mistress'
neck. Integra stiffened, knowing that, if this had been a serious battle
against a vampire, one finger's preternatural strength was often enough
to kill a mortal.
That was whe, she felt something rising up in the back of her mind.
The rage was building up, climbing the mountain of her consciousness
like a train cresting a hill.
All it needed was a litle push.
"Really, mistress, your mother should have died a lot earlier if
this was all she could teach you."
Integra could literally feel Alucard's smile as the remark caught
her unprepared. This was new. Alucard always insulted her alone, never
the family. Then, she felt the emotional response to the remark hit her
like a bullet.
That did it.
Integra felt it fall over her like a metaphysical waterfall, a
momentary realization of rightness that was inappropriate with the
emotion that followed.
Ice cold rage.
The world shifted into that new-familiar tinge of cerulean blue,
rage and anger consuming her mind like an avalanche.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she turned with painful
slowness to face Alucard. His razor-blade smile was positively gloating
as he shifted his stance into something remotely resembling a ready
position in contrast to his earlier lackadaisical form.
Integra charged forward with a slash, a stroke which the vampire
only narrowly avoided with a well-timed dodge. This, however, left him
slightly unbalanced, an advantage that Integra exploited. Saudaminii
slammed into Alucard's side with the all the force she could muster, the
vajrakali quickly withdrawn in the style of a cobra strike. Blood
erupted from the wound for a few moments before vampiric regenerative
powers sealed the hole in his side.
The No-Life king just grinned as he moved close into Integra's
reach. The blonde only leaped backwards, the wall becoming no obstacle
as it was turned into a spring board for Integra's acrobatic leap, a
twin to Alucard's earlier feat. The bluish tinge to her sight gave
everything an ethereal quality as she floated in the air.
Sending her weight forward, she twisted and landed on both feet, the
jarring sensation galvanizing her as her body went into action.
She twisted into a backward roll, coming out of it with a slash
aimed at the red rose at Alucard's chest. However he slapped the blade
away before it could even touch the petals of the blossom. The vajrakali
swept in from above.
This time the vampire caught and grasped her elbow and Integra felt
a spasm that ran up her arm, forcing her hand to convulse, dropping the
ancient blade to the ground. She responded with a rising crescent kick
that smashed into Alucard's chin, that surprising enough, forced him to
let go. Her vampiric charge usually shrugged away physical blows like
they were nothing but it seemed this time he was actually feeling them.
Integra kept up her assault, the blue-tinged slow-motion panorama
that was her vision making it easy to match Alucard's moves. A hand
reaching for her face was knocked away with a slap of her free hand. A
dodge was curtailed with a sudden change of direction. An attampt at an
aerial escape was forestalled when the last scion of the Helsing family
caught the vampire's leg in mid-air and slammed him to the solid stone
floor with a resounding thud.
Alucard was silent now, but the incongruous smile on his face
combined with the look of pride, strange to receive such regard from her
charge, that he bestowed on her was enough to tell Integra of the
vampire's feelings. Still, the rage persisted. Now it was under her
control, the icy feel of it a coldness in the back of her mind.
The battle continued, Alucard successfully eluding Integra's attacks
on the rose while the blonde did her best to destroy the red blossom.
It ended when Integra twirled again, a cyclone of force, feinted
with the crimson-rose blade of Bhiima and suddenly swept Alucard's legs
out from under him. Her leg felt like it had crashed into a rod of iron,
but the force behind the sweep was strong enough to send the vampire
sprawling.
Integra came out of the swirl and lunged downward, only to stare
down the barrel of a gun and two blazing red eyes. She halted and the
two of them presented a strange tableau: Alucard's red coated form on
the floor, one elbow propping him up and the other hand aiming his
Jackal at her; she, sweaty and bedraggled, her long blonde hair wild and
free, holding the scarlet-edged Bhiima in a downward thrusting pose at
Alucard's chest with one hand on the round pommel.
Then, after moments of tense silence, and Alucard broke the silence
with an amused chuckle. Until then, Integra hadn't noticed that her
vision has returned to normal. Her vampiric charge lowered his gun to
show to her the reason for his mirth.
The only thing that was left of the rose on Alucard's chest was the
central bud. All of the other petals had been shorn off in the course of
their struggle. Integra could only blink in surprise. Her vampiric
charge only laughed harder, which was suddenly accompanied by polite
clapping from the side of the chamber.
The last Helsing turned to see Walter, who was smiling proudly at
her, and Ceres, an expression of awe on her face, clapping in
admiration. She glanced around and saw that all around the herself and
Alucard were the missing rose petals.
Her vampiric charge had by then stood up and picked one of the
fallen pieces of the flower and presented her one of them, his smile
telling her to look at her handiwork.
Integra gazed at the sliced petal that Alucard presented to her, so
like a drop of blood on the white-gloved hand. The cut was clean, so
clean and strangely familiar. Then it hit her where she had seen a
similar slice, going back to an afternoon of her childhood when Alucard
had deigned to show her one of his vampiric talents.
"A wind slice?" Integra picked the petal out of Alucard's hand,
looking closely at the near invisible results of air slicing through
plant matter.
"Wind slice. I couldn't have done better." Alucard's voice had a
strangely father-like tone to it that Integra found as surprising as the
result of the evening's efforts. She could only gaze in wonder at the
petal she held in her fingers.
"Congratulations, milady." Walter broke in and Integra turned to see
that he and Ceres had walked up to them in the intervening silence.
"That was great, Integra! I didn't think anyone could move that
fast." Ceres gushed, to which Alucard just shrugged with a slightly
offended air. Ceres noticed and blushed. "Well, anyone _human_..."
Ignoring the byplay between her two vampiric charges, Integra turned
to the cadaverous butler. "How long have you two been watching? And
what, in Heaven's name, are you two doing here?"
Walter smiled thinly and gestured to the Ceres, who Integra finally
noticed was wearing what looked like a heavy metal gauntlets with heavy
steel chains that emanated from the tips of the chrome fingers. She also
noticed that the young vampire was wearing a rather tight leather
sparring outfit similar to her own, though the undead blonde filled out
the costume in rather distracting ways. Quickly squelching that line of
thought she turned to the butler who was explaining himself.
"Mistress Victoria and myself have been sparring for several weeks
now. She's strong, fast and has developed the killer instinct that makes
her worthy of teaching her my skills. It makes my task easier in finding
a successor quite easier and I would also have not to worry about her
loyalty. Besides, she's managed to figure out the basics quite easily
and is very good with fingers."
Finding out Ceres was very good with her fingers while the latter
was dressed in an ill-fitting low-cut costume similar to a dominatrix's
was not exactly helping Integra's concentration, concentration which was
slightly failing as her eyes seemed to drift of their own volition to
look at the blonde vampire, who was posed in a rather disturbingly
erotic manner, one hand on her hip and her rather buxom bossom
threatening to spill out. The undead woman was also not helping by
smiling that way.
"Couldn't you have found her a more ... couldn't you have found her
an outfit that fits her better? Look at her, Walter, she looks like ...
like ..." Integra was saved from mentioning synonyms to the words
'slut', 'whore' and 'a meal good enough to eat' by Walter interrupting.
"I've already contacted the clothiers and they are already creating
something more suited to Mistress Victoria's proportions. I must
apologize for her, of course, in using your old sparring outfit. No
worries, milady, her sparring costume should be ready by next week."
Integra vowed to herself not to spar with Alucard until next week
was safely over and allowed herself to look at Ceres with a smile. The
expression 'too cute for words' flashed through her mind as the young
vampire flashed her a smile.
"Now, excuse us milady, but Alucard and myself have something to
discuss privately. Would you mind waiting for awhile with Mistress
Victoria?"
The only reason that Integra did not scream 'What!?' was her
excellent self-control and the fact that Ceres would probably
misinterpret her out burst.
"Of course. Though I think you two should stay, I'll have to go to
the changing room. Ceres can accompany me." Integra's inner self was
pummeling its head against an imaginary wall as the words left her
mouth. Did I just say that Ceres could join me in the changing room,
with me getting undressed? Am I insane?
"Great!" Ceres chirped. "I had something to ask Integra anyway."
Integra was conscious of Walter and Alucard sharing her strange look
at the chipper young undead woman, a look which the blonde vampire was
oblivious to. She shook her head. Better go now and get it over with.
The warm thought of Ceres watching her undress was squelched under her
iron will.
She turned to look at her two erstwhile guardians with a jaundiced
eye. Walter treated Alucard differently than herself. Where she treated
the No-Life King with a half-trust, half-wariness that which one would
reserve to your favorite crazy old uncle, who you hid when company was
coming, the butler considered the vampire as a respected part of the
family. Maybe it stemmed from their shared experiences in the world war,
Integra never could digure it out.
No matter. She could trust the both of them to do what was best for
her and for Hellsing.
"Well, come on, Ceres. My sweat's drying on the leather and I find
that it usually ruins the leather if you leave it on for too long."
Integra, with Ceres in tow, left the room proceeding to the changing
room. They had closed the door to the sparring chamber when Integra
brought up Ceres' question.
"So what did you want to ask me about?"
The two were now walking down the corridor that led to the
shower/changing room that had been installed there for the use of those
who practiced in the chamber.
"Well, I was going to suggest going shopping again."
Integra congratulated herself on not tripping up from surprise as
she furiously tried to concoct an excuse to avoid the threatened
shopping trip. Not that the last time was bad, but because it made her a
bit uncomfortable to be close to her underling in various states of
undress, like the upcoming changing room.
Ceres, thankfully, was ignorant of her state of mind and continued
with her spiel.
"It's been pretty quiet lately and I thought we could go again. I
mean, what's the worst could happen while we're away?"
That was when they heard the explosion.
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