CHOICES MILADY
~ A fanfiction by Kit ~
Part I –
Realization
<"It was a dark
and stormy night. She ran into his arms, her long hair flying behind her. Her
bosom heaved as she breathed in the welcomed scent of her beloved ...">
"Boring."
Integra closed the book with a look of disgust. She looked at the frilly,
flowery cover of the novel and grimaced. Lady Catherine had all but forced the
book on her. "Ladies need their little reads you know," she had
smiled, pushing the book into Integra's hand despite her protests.
Integra mentally berated
herself. What had possessed her to flip through the novel? Helpless maidens and
their brawny knights always irritated her. Lady Catherine had tried to impress
on Integra the importance of being a "lady" at the last Queen's
dinner. "Always flaunt your assets but keep them guessing," she had
nagged. Pah, foolish thoughts of a lady of leisure. Integra neither had the
intention nor the time to be a damsel in distress. Not as long as she remained
a Hellsing, sworn to the defence of England.
Just then, the phone rang.
"Hello? Intergra
speaking. ... What? He did what? I will be there."
Integra put down the
receiver irritably. Sir Lennox was missing. He was the Queen's cousin but that
did not excuse his stupidity of trying to take down ghouls on his own. The man
was not trained for it.
She remembered his unhappy
sourish look at her last attendance before the Queen. The Queen had been happy
with the Hellsing destruction of the ghouls infesting the ancient hunting
grounds of Nottingham and had commended Integra lavishly at the last royal
dinner. Sir Lennox, Duke of Nottingham, whose honor the party should have been
in for his 27th birthday, was seething in envy as the Queen had restored
Integra in the seat of honor, calling her "my beloved knight".
"So now he's gone to
hunt ghouls for glory and get himself killed," she mused wistfully.
"If I could have a choice between my family's honor and a quiet life, all
the crown jewels in the world would not tempt me to choose the former. But I am
a Hellsing and am sworn to protect England against all undead, even silly royal
dukes."
She rang for Walter.
Minutes later, her faithful servant appeared, fully armed.
"Where to my
mistress?"
---------------------------------
Seras sighed as she sat at
the back of the pickup. If only Walter was around for her to confide in. Seras
had learnt to respect the old butler almost as if as he was her father. She was
still rather confused in her new role as an undead guardian of the Hellsing
family and Alucard was hardly a role model. Walter had been there to guide her
along.
She glanced at Pip in the
far corner of the pickup from the corner of her eye. He had been so cold
recently. Hadn't they been good friends since her "demonstration"
before his troops to prove her "undeadness"? He had seen the funny
side of the whole incident after the event and they had been good friends and
battlemates ever since.
"But he has hardly
spoken to me the whole of this week and he avoids me like the plague,"
thought Seras miserably. "Did I do anything to irritate him?"
She looked up to see Pip
staring at her. Their eyes met. She tried to smile but her spirit was crushed
as he looked away immediately.
Seras felt absolutely
miserable. Maybe she would speak to him later, after the mission was over.
---------------------------------
"Is Alucard here
yet?" Integra stamped her foot impatiently.
"Yes, master has
already gone in." Seras nodded. "I can feel his presence." Just
then, as if to affirm the point, the screams of a few ghouls were heard.
"Idiot." Integra
grabbed her gun. "Seras, you take the left path, Walter, you wait here and
secure the area with group A. Pip must seal off the other exit with group B. We
must not let any ghouls escape. The town of Lancaster is barely half a mile from
here. I will take the right path. Everyone move."
"But Lord Integra
..." the faithful butler protested.
"I'll be fine Walter.
I really need to ensure that none of the ghouls get out. With Alucard in there,
they will be scrambling to escape. It would be a catastrophe if they did and
got to Lancaster. Therefore I need you here to ensure that it does not
happen."
"Yes my lord."
---------------------------------
Seras tried to concentrate
as she chased the retreating horde that she had discovered barely minutes after
parting ways with Integra.
"Why did he treat me
like this?"
"Does he despise me
for being an undead?" voices ran through her mind as she tried in vain to
shut them out.
"Why do I mind so
much?"
Her thoughts were
interrupted as she noticed that the horde had gotten progressively larger than
that she had discovered initially. "They must have joined up with the main
group. They hope to win by numbers," she thought as she instinctively
begun shooting them.
The horde continued their
retreat. She chased relentlessly.
"What am I doing? Was
the taking up of master's offer the right thing to do? Is this life I've chosen
or a fate worsen than death? To be despised by all? To be despised by
him?"
Cornered, the ghouls made
a last ditch effort to overpower the young vampire. Ducking their deadly
swipes, she dispatched them efficiently with her firearms until she had put the
last one out of their misery.
Why were there so many
ghouls? Hadn't the report provided that about only 10 ghouls had been sighted?
Making a quick mental calculation, Seras noted that she had probably fought 10
ghouls and a small army of ghouls instead.
Her relief that the battle
had been so easy was interrupted by the knowledge that the ground under her
feet was incredibly soft. She struggled to harder ground but stopped quickly as
she discovered every movement merely hastened the inevitable.
Seras realized too late
that it was a trap. She had been too distracted during the fight to realize
that the ghouls had intentionally led her into the middle of a mire. It was
almost as if they were determined to destroy their enemy even if they would die
in the process.
No good. She had not
attained the skill of transforming herself into mist. Alucard's words rang
through her head, "you will never improve as a vampire until you learn to
accept who you are and drink blood like your body requires." The sticky
mud closed over her head, threatening to swallow her for all eternity when a
hand reached in, grabbed her collar and pulled her roughly back out.
Pip had spotted the odd
pattern in which the ghouls were retreating and figured that the ghouls were
deliberately luring their pursuers into the mire. He had instructed his men to
take a defensive maneuver but realized with horror that Seras had not discovered
that she was being led into a trap.
"Don't you die on me
or I ..." he was positively hysterical as he hugged her.
His words sent her into
absolute turmoil. "Come on let's go. There are ghouls to kill." Pip
lifted her to her feet, his barely somber tone jolting them both back into reality.
---------------------------------
Integra sighed as she undertook
the gruesome job of blasting the heads off the defeated undead that used to be part
of the private army of the Duke of Nottingham. What a waste of human lives. "They
were soldiers but untrained to deal with the dead." She returned to her task
of searching for the pompous lord who had started the mess with a snort of anger
and disgust.
"Sir Arthur Lennox? Sir
Arthur Lennox?"
"Here. Up here."
She looked up. Perched in the
oak tree, amongst the lower branches was a extremely frightened Sir Lennox.
"Do come down. The ghouls
are gone now."
"I can't. I can't move.
I think my legs have gone numb."
Integra sighed. He was scarred
witless but obviously not so witless since he had the presence of mind to have climbed
the oak to escape the horde.
She lighted a flare. She pulled
out her walkie-talkie, "Walter? He's here. You've seen the flare? Good. Get
some men to come pick him up and oh, do bring a ladder."
Just then, she saw something
move behind the bushes. More ghouls? Integra reached for her gun, her nerves tensed.
"Where are you going?
Hey? You can't leave me here alone."
"Yes I can and I will.
Hush, there's something there."
"BUT I'M THE QUEEN'S COUSIN,
I'M A DUKE!!!"
"Shhh ..." would
this man's stupidity never cease? Integra trod softly as she tried to make out the
direction in which the creature had fled. Ghouls had to be eradicated to prevent
them from attacking locals and spawning more abominations.
Suddenly, without warning,
Integra felt something slam into her. So intent she had been on chasing down the
last ghoul, she had neither realized that she had wandered to the edge of a chasm
nor that her prey had been hunting her until it was too late.
They tumbled roughly down the
chasm. As she struggled with the ghoul, Integra squeezed the trigger with the hope
the bullet found its way through the monster's head. "This is the end"
was her last thought before she blacked out.
---------------------------------
She opened her eyes. The world
was still spinning. The sky above her looked gray and jagged. "Am I in heaven
or hell?" she thought aloud.
"Neither." A familiar
voice said.
"Alucard?"
"Don't move. You just
had a very very bad fall and your bones are broken but it's a good thing you Hellsings
are more sturdy than most of your kind."
"The ghoul?"
"Dead. My my, work before
all as usual."
"Where are we?"
"In a cave. It is nearly
dawn and I cannot travel until night falls again. You will just have to wait until
then master."
She shivered. Alucard had torn
up most of what had been left of her clothes after her ungraceful fall to make splints
for her broken limbs. Beside her were berries and water that the vampire had gathered.
She tried to move her arm but winced at the sharp pain that shot through.
"Don't do that. What you
need to do now is to sleep." Alucard admonished as he lifted her onto his coat
outlayed on the cold cavern floor (its warmth a comfort to Integra).
"The walkie-takie?"
"Broken. Sleep. It is
almost dawn, we talk tonite.".
---------------------------------
"Why can't we go now?"
"I'm no human doctor but
I know if I tried to move you, the bones in your body will break."
"But. Couldn't you go
and get Walter. He must be hunting for us know."
"Master, this chasm is
about 20 feet deep. And who would protect you until I return?"
"But ..."
"We will not leave until
you are able to move without danger to your life. My duty is to protect the Hellsings
and I will not return your broken body to your butler. He would stake me through
the heart immediately for one."
"But ..."
"The rest will be fine.
Worry never killed anyone."
"But I'm fine. Look, you
will need blood yourself."
"I told you. I cannot
leave you to hunt. Look outside."
Integra strained but caught
sight of a pack of wolves in the distance. Their eyes were menacing but they also
looked fearful at the same time. Although greedy for fresh noble meat, they were
unwilling to risk her dark knight, for now.
"I cannot risk fighting
them at this stage. The fire keeps them wary." Alucard smirked as he fed more
wood to the blazing furnace he had lit at the cave entrance.
"You're enjoying this
aren't you?"
"You aren't exactly in
a position to complain," came his amused reply.
---------------------------------
"Where are they?"
"Pip. Did you see them
on your patrol?"
"No."
"They are alive. If Alucard
is not back, he must be with her."
"Then why have they not
returned? We should explore this place at night. Maybe Seras can pick up his presence."
"No, it is too dangerous
to hunt at night."
It was then Walter saw it.
"Look Integra's saber." A feet away, caught by a vine was her shoe. "They
must have fallen down there," he pointed solemnly at the dark crevice below.
CHOICES
“Everything
I touched was golden,
Everything I loved got broken
On the road to Mandalay
Every mistake I’ve ever made
Has been rehashed and replayed
As I got lost along the way.
All the kisses
we’ve ever stolen
Have been lost returned or broken
No more ghouls left to slay
Every mistake I’ve ever made
Has been rehashed and replayed
As I got lost along the way”.
Excerpts from
The Road to Mandalay taken off
Robbie William’s album “Sing When You’re Winning”
Part II
Walter was hopeful that by
some miracle of God Sir Integra had survived.
The chasm was steep and the damage to the foliage suggested that she had
fallen down in a violent struggle.
Nevertheless since Alucard had neither returned alone, nor had he had
turned up at the Hellsing manor with her body, this must have meant that all
was not lost.
Completing their
precarious descent, Pip motioned the old man towards a sinister looking
cave. “Look, if there is anywhere they
can be holed up, it’s there.” The
sentinel wolves growled menacingly as the two men approached but were quickly
dispersed by a bullet from Pip’s shotgun.
Peering into the cave, the
faithful butler prayed. “Oh let her be
alive and well.”
As his eyes adjusted to
the darkness of the cave, he saw them.
Integra, covered with Alucard’s white shirt was alive. Walter breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey they actually look
cute together.”
“None of your
disrespectful jokes now Pip. Go and
contact the medics and don’t forget to ask them to bring a coffin too.”
Walter smiled, an
expression that had not appeared on his face since Integra’s failure to return
that night. He noticed with amusement
that as she slumbered in Alucard’s embrace, she had firmly grasped a lock of
his dark raven hair in her fist. The
butler softened at the nostalgic sight.
“Why they look almost the way they did the night after I returned to
Hellsing manor to realize that Lord Integra had summoned Alucard against Mister
Richard.”
Pip returned and mumbled,
“They are coming. Walter, should we
leave them like this?”
---------------------------------
Walter praised God in
relief as he saw the doctor out of the main hallway. It was a miracle but she had only sustained a greenstick fracture
in two rib bones, her wrist and her ankle in the fall. In fact, according to Doctor Trevor, Integra
should be up and about in about a week’s time.
There was no stopping the woman’s work-holism though. Minutes after Doctor Trevor had completed
her X-ray examination, Integra had asked about the state of her in-tray. Walter winced as he recalled her temper when
she realized that Alucard’s diagnosis of her condition in the cave was hardly
accurate.
“She is the exact mirror
image of her father, bless his soul,” mused Walter. The horrendous cigar-smoking appeared also to be a habit
inherited from her father. Integra had
all but threatened war on the country when Doctor Trevor had instructed Walter
to ensure that Integra did not touch a cigar for a week.
Pending completion of some
minor paperwork that Integra was already working on, broken bones or not, the
mission was officially over. The
Queen’s pansy cousin had also been rescued, and save for the casualty of the
duke’s army, no other lives had been lost in the Lancaster exercise. There was however one last issue to resolve
on Walter’s mind now that he was sufficiently satisfied that Integra was in no
immediate danger. Judging from the look
on the butler’s face, he too was not pleased with a certain vampire.
---------------------------------
“Alucard …”
“Yes Walter?”
“There are two questions
I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“I can’t hide anything from
you can I, God of Death?” the vampire laughed.
“Oh well, if you must know, I did it on purpose.”
“I expected as much. It seems hardly possible a vampire that took
out a serpent demon and a master vampire would have problems with a mere pack
of wolves or to move an only slightly injured Lord Hellsing home,” the butler
frowned as he rebuked the vampire.
“You do realize you have
quite a bit of explaining to do to her …”
Alucard said nothing but
as he turned to leave, Walter swore he got sight of something suspiciously akin
to a satisfied grin on Alucard’s face.
~ To be continued