Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Dancing with Devils ❯ Bad Luck ( Chapter 1 )

Dancing with Devils

Disclaimer: In the one titled "Legal Junk".

"Meh." - speech

`Meh.' - thought

(OOO) - scene change

Chapter 1 - Bad Luck

The evening was tranquil; crickets chirping, hidden in the unbroken night. A figure walked down the stone path that cut through the park grounds, androgynous in attire with a giant bag on one shoulder and what appeared to be a massive, bent cloth-wrapped staff on the other. "What a great night." The melodious lilt of a female voice silenced the crickets for a moment. The chirping resumed, quieter though. She shifted, trying to adjust the enormous rucksack slung over her left shoulder.

She continued meandering down the path and came across quite a few romantic couples taking walks or picnicking on the grass. A breeze began to pick up, changing direction several times before settling on blowing toward her. Faintly, the scent of rot and old blood could be detected for a moment before vanishing. It sent a prickling feeling of foreboding down her spine; something was going to happen.

Screams and bursts of gunfire sliced through the air, breaking the peace of the evening. She spun around, dropping her bag to one side of the path and scanned the area. She dropped into a crouch; the massive wrapped staff was clutched tighter in her grip. Shapes came out of the surrounding trees; shambling, rotting forms and more lively-looking ones, all toting what looked like machine guns.

"Look what I've got Michael!" The muzzle of the gun was pressed into the temple of a young woman, lying prone and huddled against the broken form of her companion. "She's so pretty!" The owner of the gun was a mere scrap of a girl, no more than nineteen at best. She leered down at the woman and reached out with one hand to roughly stroke the woman's cheek. "Can I keep her?"

Her male compatriot sneered down at the prone woman. "I don't think she's worthy, Katy." He nudged the woman with the toe of his boot. "Look at how she's sniveling."

"Pity." Another burst of gunfire ended the woman's life. Katy stretched out her long tongue to catch the blood that splattered on her cheek, still smiling broadly. The other couples that had frozen to watch the outcome came to life. They started screaming and made a run for it, some not even making sure their respective others were with them. "What about the rest?"

"We feast Katy. We feast." He signaled the rest to open fire. Guns rattled as they began to methodically mow down people as if they were no more than grass.

`Run.' Her instincts breathed. `Leave them; they've got guns, you can't help.' One couple, a mere three feet away, didn't hit the ground in time and took the full brunt of the fire, their bodies convulsing as the bullets made their impact. Blood sprayed all over the one crouching in the grass, one bullet coming closer enough to her ear for her to feel the wind in its wake. `Oh, that tears it!' Her fingers quickly unraveled the cloth around the staff in her hands, revealing it to be not a staff but a Japanese no-daichi, a greatsword, a massive katana that normally required two hands to wield properly. She slid the sword from its sheath with a ring of metal and charged the nearest ghoul.

(OOO)

Integra Hellsing sat at her desk, leaning back in her chair and enjoying the first night of freedom after a month of imprisonment in the infamous Tower of London. It wasn't that she was deprived of basic amenities but more of the fact that she was restricted to that one room for a month straight. And then that damned vampire coming in every night to annoy her after FREAK hunting. A mock investigation proved that the Hellsing Agency hadn't been responsible for the attack that involved Incognito and a full pardon was made live on television for the public eyes. Much of London was still in the process of being rebuilt; Hellsing Manor was going under the last repairs itself.

She shook her head; there was still some paperwork that needed to be caught up on; the first few being of major importance, concerning Iscariot running wild through the streets and large numbers of rampaging FREAK vampires. Not to mention having to deal with some mercenaries leading platoons of fresh-faced troops.

Her phone rang. Irritated, she smacked the speaker button. "Sir Integra!"

"Yes, Walter?" Amazing enough, Walter had suffered only minor injuries in the helicopter crash and had been running the scene while Integra was indisposed while making a full recovery.

"There have been emergency calls made within the last ten minutes concerning a large disturbance in Hyde Park. It's suspected it to be FREAKs; they've been terrorizing that area lately."

Integra smiled a tight, grim smile. She had a lot of pent-up frustration; what was a better release than watching FREAKs fall to the blessed bullets of her soldiers. "Dispatch only Alucard and Officer Victoria. And ready some of my equipment and a car; I'm going too."

"Right away!"

"You're coming too, Master?" Alucard stepped out from the shadows in her office, a mad grin plastered on his face. "This is going to be fun."

(OOO)

"Come on, vampire!" The girl held her blade loosely, ready to either launch an attack or defend. Michael hefted the large tree branch and the pair circled each other warily. `Unbelievable! All this power and this miserable human can still stand up to me?!' Most of the ghouls had already fallen to her blade; his companion had an arm and leg lopped off and was rendered useless. He was sporting several deep gashes in his abdomen and on his left shoulder. Their dinner had fled, all those that could walk or get help moving that is; the more wounded ones were left behind, moaning and bleeding away their lives on the grass.

She was tiring, her stamina was wearing down as they continued their dance. "Aww, are you getting tired, little human? You should rest!" He launched into another set of ferocious swings that she halfheartedly fended off. She never saw the gut punch that sent her staggering backwards, all her wind knocked out of her. Her sole consolation was that the vampire was weakening as well; his punches didn't pack the power it did earlier.

"Is that the best you got?" She coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. With a roar, he started swinging wildly again in renewed earnest to kill the girl. In a sudden burst of speed, she dodged most of his blows and swung hard when his makeshift club was at the lowest point, taking off his head with one clean chop. "Guess so." She spat on the pile of dust that had formerly been a head. "Punk."

Someone started clapping. "Bravo! Bravo!"

She turned slowly at the sound of applause. "Wha?"

The man in red clapped his hands in slow applause, smirking at the wearied girl. The tall platinum-blonde had a gun calmly leveled at her, and the shorter strawberry-blonde girl was looking at her with interest. She noticed the wide fanged grin and groaned. "Oh God." She brought her sword across her and held it in a defensive position. "Look, I just killed two of your vampire buddies; if you're the bad guys, well, come on. I bet I can take the big one down with me." She took careful note of her new opponents. `If this comes down to fighting, I'm dead.' She wiped her mouth again. "Hey, if I die, my id's in my bag."

Nobody moved. If possible, the smile on the man's face got even wider.

She was getting a little nervous with the gun trained on her. "Okay…. if you're the good guys then, well, I didn't get all the ghouls; they chased after the people who could run."

"Officer Victoria, go and eliminate the rest of the targets." The voice gave away the fact that the tall blonde was a woman dressed in men's clothes. Either that or it was a hermaphrodite. She was willing to bet on the former.

"Yes sir!" Seras drew her pistol from her holster and took off into the surrounding trees.

Tired of the standoff, she lowered her blade. Black blood gleamed wetly on the steel and her jeans, no cleaning her sword on her pant leg then. She dug around her pockets and pulled out a packet of tissues. Slowly, she tore the little plastic packet open with her teeth as she cast her eyes around for her scabbard. It was lying in the grass, not a foot away from the man in red. He picked up the sheath and read the inscription in the black wood aloud. "In the absence of light, darkness prevails." Chuckling lightly, he held it out for her.

Quickly, she wiped her sword off and shoved the offending trash into a pocket; it didn't really matter, more blood couldn't possibly make her dirtier than she already was. She hurried over to the man and retrieved it from his hands. "Thank you." She mumbled and slid her blade home.

"No thanks needed; you did my job for me." He grinned darkly down at her. His tone gave her the shivers and she backed away; suddenly feeling much too close. Eyes followed her carefully behind orange-tinted sunglasses. Sparing a glance, she didn't feel safe turning her back on him; she noticed that the blonde woman was standing right beside her bag; were these people attracted to her stuff or something? The gun was tucked back into a holster, instead she had her sword drawn and hanging loosely at her side.

She pulled the knit beanie lower over her ears and slung the weight of her sheathed blade to rest across her shoulders, her right hand wrapped firmly around the grip. Not two feet from the woman, there was a crack of gunfire and two shots of hot fury slammed solidly into her left shoulder. She lurched forward and stumbled into the arms of the blonde who caught her out of instinct, her drawn weapon dropping to the ground.

"You missed one." The man's voice called out cheerfully behind her. Her head swam with the unexpected pain and she tightened her grip on her sword, her left arm hung uselessly, much too painful to move. Two arms were wrapped around her upper body under her arms and holding her up easily. She was pressed up against the blonde, her face pressed into the cloth as she tried to pull away and get to her feet properly.

"Stop. You're going to cause more damage that way." She stopped struggling so at the woman's order; it was good that she was taller than her; she managed to put more weight onto her legs although she was still leaning heavily onto her.

"It's so nice to see Master making friends."

She ignored the comment. "Alucard, eliminate the target quickly." She ordered coldly. "We need to get back to base; she's bleeding profusely."

Alucard nodded, his mad grin in place once more. "Pathetic FREAK vampires." He rested his boot on her chest, drew his Jackal and took aim at her head.

Katy was lying on the ground, looking up into his eyes. "No! You're one of us! Help me!" She flailed under his boot and lost the gun she was holding in her ruined left hand, her shock that a fellow vampire would kill her got the best of her.

"Wrong. I'm better than you." And he pulled the trigger.

The girl in Integra's arms jerked at the shot. "Hold still."

She mumbled something into her jacket.

"What?" Integra shook the girl. "I didn't catch that."

She turned her face up to look the platinum-blonde in the eye. "I said I'm sorry. I'm bleeding all over your clothes." She murmured, her eyes slipping shut against her will as the blackness overtook her.

(OOO)

A/N: Well, what do you think? Second fanfic ever. It's been lurking in my head for a few days now, I had to get it out.

-MindKore