So I'd say that the Halloween chapter when over pretty well, how bout you guys? Very little to say up here, as in the only things I have to say are that I have a singular guest review to answer the questions of (because the others don't seem to be asking any questions...) and that this is all I have to say.… Well that and sorry for the long… long delay. Life happens. And, before I forget, Happy New Years people!

Anyway Guest review!:

MindIIBody: I would reply with hello again as well, but seeing as its a rather one sided conversation I don't think that would work all that well. Anyway Joshua is the same age Seras was when she was turned, so he's 19, and Joshua is the about same size Seras is now; in canon Seras was like... 5'4? In this story she's about 5'7, so I'd put Joshua at 5'6-5'7, though not quite 5'7, at the moment.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Hellsing or Hellsing Ultimate as they are owned by Kota Hirano, and Studio Madhouse, and licensed by Geneon, Madman Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, and Funimation.

"At once my Mistress" Speech

'Blood... blood... BLOOD!' Thoughts

"Restriction Seal released until enemies eliminated" Demonic/Dramatic sounding Speech

"Show them no mercy; they have sided with darkness and only those who walk the night can hope to vanquish them" Telepathy

'It can't be... is he... Flashback

Abraham van Hellsing became one of the most powerful men in the world through one single event; Count Dracula, the No-Life King's, death at his hands. Years later, when another Hellsing holds the reigns of Vampire Slayer, another Vampire stands at the pinnacle of Vampirism because of Dracula's dying command. What King is without a Queen? Sort of role swap. AlucardxSeras! Massive AU

Joshua didn't answer and simply reached for his assault rifle, only to stop when Rick shot the space next to his hand, moving his aim back to Joshua's head when he turned to look at the doctor. "Answer the question dammit. What. Are you?!"

Joshua sighed, bringing his arm back to its normal place next to his body and standing, Rick's gun perpetually aimed at his head. "Do you really want to know?" at Rick's nod Joshua sighed once more before grinning widely, revealing his sharpened teeth. At Rick's horrified look Joshua spoke once more. "I am a vampire, the fledgling to the No Life Queen, queen of the vampires, and a being that hunts his own kind"

"Wha... what does that even mean?!" Rock demanded, completely confused and barely managing to shove his fear down into the darkest parts of his being and not drop his gun, though the confusion was causing him to lower it slightly, unaware that he was. It took him a few seconds to get the gun aimed back at Joshua's head, though Joshua did nothing during this time.

"Honestly? I have no idea; it was something that my mouth said before my brain caught up. Other than that I only know that she's a powerful vampire and that what I said sounds like something that would intimidate most people." Joshua shrugged, leaning back slightly against the stairs.

"Not that part, I don't care about whoever made you the thing that you are! I meant the last part!" Rick snapped, all but yelling. His aim steadied on Joshua's left eye, and his finger quivered just above the trigger, almost as if he were trying to prevent himself from firing. "Where you said you are 'a being that hunts his own kind'"

"Oh that? I woke up earlier today as a vampire, was given a gun, and told to kill the vampire that was here, nothing much to say really," Joshua replied casually, not really seeing a problem with saying this at all, "I don't even think I could be considered an actual vampire; haven't actually had anything to drink..." he muttered to himself, tapping his chin in thought. "Whatever" he then shrugged standing and dusting himself off.

"Stop moving," Rick said, sounding oddly calm, even to him, given that one of the best predators in the world was being threatened by him. "I'll shoot you, I swear. By God above, I'll shoot you"

"Rick if you had the balls to shoot me, you probably wouldn't have been hiding in that room now would yo-" Joshua began reaching down for his assault rifle, picking it up, and looking it over before his head snapped back, a bullet to his forehead causing it and cutting him off. Rick's eyes widened considerably, both at the fact that he had actually shot the man, if he could be called that, and the fact that it had been several seconds since he shot him and the body was still standing. "You know... if you had done that about ten minutes ago you would have killed me just then." Joshua stated, his head snapping up, the gaps in his hair revealing that there was no wound where he had been shot. "I don't really want to kill you, honestly; I don't know how my boss would react to that, so I'll ask you to not shoot me again, okay?" what Rick didn't realize was that Joshua was referring more to Integra than Seras, though the short conversation that he had heard before he and Joshua left her presence had left him with more questions than the world likely had answers to.

"How... how did you..." the doctor stuttered, looking from his gun to Joshua's forehead or, more specifically, the hole that was leaking darkness in small wisps that was in the middle of said forehead. 'This is to much... I can't...' wherever his train of thought was heading, likely a rather quick descent into gibbering madness, it was interrupted by Joshua's next words.

"I don't know what its called, but I'm apparently made entirely of shadows. Useful when you're being shot at, don't you think?" he commented with a small grin, before tilting his head, "I don't really know just how reliable it is, honestly. Not going to test it yet though." he then shrugged, ears twitching slightly at the fact that he could still hear gunshots, and they seemed to be getting farther away. He reaffirmed his grip on his gun, replacing the slightly used magazine with a full one and putting the used one where he got the new one, before turning on his heel at starting up the stairs.

"Where do you think you're going?" Rick demanded, leveling the gun on Joshua's head once more, glad that his voice had only a slight waver in the beginning which Joshua easily noticed. "We aren't done here"

"I'd say we are, Mr. O'Leary," Joshua stated, not turning from his position on the stairs, having paused mid stride. "I don't want to kill you, and I'm letting you go without a fuss. Given what a vampire that had even less experience than I do did to this place once it woke up for the first time, which, by the way, is called a Blood Rage and is where we kill anything and everything around us, I don't really think you want me to try to kill you because you wouldn't stop attacking me." Joshua paused in his speech, looking over his shoulder at Rick, whose face went pale as his blood ran cold; there was something about his eyes that spoke of a killer, a being that would have no problems ending anything and everything in front of him and needed only a single push to be started on his path of destruction. It hadn't been there before, and Rick didn't know what scared him more about the look; that it had just appeared or that it had always been there, and he had only now managed to have it aimed at him. "With the vampire that caused this I'm sure you would be safe behind that wall," it didn't take a genius to realize which wall he was referring to, "But me? Something tells me that a few pieces of paper tacked to a door frame won't stop a bullet" and with that he continued climbing the stairs with slow meticulous steps.

It took him about thirty seconds for him to finish climbing, and another ten for his footsteps, having grown more hurried once he climbed to the second floor, to fade from earshot. Rick glanced down at the gun in his hand and back at the open door. "What have I gotten myself into?" he asked himself, sighing in slight depression before tightening his grip and launching himself up the stairs after the fledgling. Honestly? He had no idea what he was getting himself into, and would regret his decision for weeks to come.

(Insert line break here)

"So, now that they have left... shall we get down to business?" Anderson asked with a slightly crazed look on his face, the handles of his bayonets audibly groaning under the pressure he was putting them under. He was just barely holding back from attacking at this point; it wasn't often the members of Iscariot got to fight a vampire even half as strong as Seras, and at the moment only he was strong enough to fight the No Life Queen herself and make it out alive.

"And here I thought you would want to talk first; we haven't seen each other since the fall of the Ottomans" Seras replied, flexing her right hand in anticipation for the fight that would happen.

"And now why would I want to do that?!" he demanded sprinting forward faster than any human should rightfully be able to, his speed easily on par with the speed Joshua had seen Seras use two days ago. Seras' hand splayed suddenly, shadows leaking from her fingertips before coalescing into the shape of a bayonet, the shadows quickly dispersing to reveal one that looked exactly like those Anderson was currently holding, which she used to deflect one of Anderson's, sidestepping the other. "I see you still have that; I would think that holding something that holy would cause most vampires to drop it, lest their hand burst into flame. Even one as powerful as you"

"It is one of the few weapons I have found that is capable of harming you, why would I relinquish it?" she countered, Anderson's hand twitching toward his scar slightly as his willpower fought to prevent him from feeling the scar tissue over his neck. Aside from the hand motion he merely growled in annoyance; he took pride in his weapons, one of his few vices, and to see his holy instrument twisted by the mere touch of a monster such as the one standing across from him, and it was a testament to her power that her hand was only smoking from the contact.

After this it became a dance, a waltz of death: attack, dodge, assess. Over and over, up and down the corridor, off the walls, and occasionally up them and onto the ceiling they fought. To call it a fight would be and understatement to any watching, but compared to those they had at earlier encounters it was tame: Anderson was sluggish from his fight earlier, having only recently been allowed to return to active duty he slightly underestimated his abilities and the Rogue Vampire injured him before its death. While it healed quickly enough, it wasn't without a price; the energy to knit skin, bone, and sinew back together had to come from somewhere, and though being a Regenerator all but nullified the amount of energy required, Seras was fast enough that her glancing blows, none enough for the blessings within the bayonet to prevent it from truly healing as Anderson's body should, were slowly wearing down on his stamina.

And as for Seras, the act of mentally breaking through the instinct fueled mind of a fledgling in a Blood Frenzy as well as the increased missions she was sent on as more and more new vampires cropped up was starting to show. Sure it was a slow poison; as a Draculina she required a mere fraction of the rest that a human needed to function properly, only about two or so hours a day, but given how many times she had to flex her powers to end her foes without the deaths of any bystanders, as she didn't need to hear Integra complaining about the paperwork their deaths created, even a machine as efficient as her would stop preforming at peak efficiency. And when you add into the fact that she was a being of the night, an unholy mistress that preyed on the weak, wielding a holy blade, and trapped in a building by scripture, it made all the more sense that she would be weakened. Even if none of this were the case, she would be only a fraction of her total power; the seals on her gloves having weakened her to the point that Van Hellsing was capable of binding her, and the fact that she could no longer truly hunt and drain her victims of their blood meant that she was already weakened from the lack of blood. All in all, neither were one hundred percent, and Seras even less so than Anderson.

So while to the average observer this would be a battle the likes of which are rarely seen due to the participants' destructiveness, for them it was a mere skirmish, a play, a dance, and something that both would get out of without much in the lines of injuries, or at least none that would take more than a few hours of rest to fix. At least that's what would have happened, had Seras suddenly found herself thrown into wall, having allowed herself to go with the strike to mitigate any damage she would have normally received from being hit by the flat of a blessed blade. Normally this would only be a minor inconvenience; she'd go through the wall and get right back up, except she didn't. What did happen was that she impacted the wall and her body became alight with pain, stemming from the few parts that were actually touching the wall. Soon she was thrown to the ground, her side noticeably burned and bayonet melting into shadows and returning to where it was kept while not in use.

The Paladin sneered as he loomed over her, honestly surprised that she managed to fall for such a trick, shocked even, though he didn't show it. No, the emotion most prevalent on his face was disgust, pure, unadulterated disgust. It was obvious in his eyes, and how his sneer was deeper than it normally would be, as if he was personally insulted. He casually flicked both his blades into her, not caring whether they hit her in the stomach, arms, or heart, just so long as they entered her body. Any cry of pain that might have come from her mouth at the actions, and at this point Anderson wouldn't have been all that surprised if one did, was cut off as he reached down and grabbed her by the throat, hauling her up and slamming her against the wall like a dumb drunk, and not the inhumanely powerful draculina she was. He didn't care that it was one of the walls he had sealed off with scripture, or that her back was sizzling and burning. He didn't care that the way he was holding her made it hard to stab her, or that at any moment she could shrug off his hand and the holy barrier behind her and rend him limb from limb, if anything he wanted her to.

"Who are you?" he asked, deadly quiet, his voice a cold dagger. "Because you are not Seras Victoria, No-Life Queen, Mistress of the Night. To call you that is a disgrace, to you, to me, to our battles, and to every person YOU HAVE EVER KILLED!" he roared, slamming his other fist into her stomach, oddly satisfied at her lack of reaction. "I am humble enough to admit my weakness; I haven't been hunting the unholy since we last fought, all those years ago. I'm rusty, slow….." he paused, his grip tightening as a bayonet appeared in his other hand. "So why am I faster than you!?" the weapon entered her shoulder, pinning her to the wall and causing the wound to bubble and hiss. "What is your explanation? I can't avenge the dead when you are weak, the pride of those you killed would never allow it. I am the strongest, and to prove that man is greater than you monsters I need to end you at your strongest" another blade entered her flesh, and then another, and another. By the time he released her neck and pulled a final bayonet from his robes, she was held against the wall by thirteen blessed blades, her back all but caught ablaze and the wounds around the weapons a glob of melted flesh and blood.

If one listened closely, at this point, the sound of footsteps began to draw near, and Anderson's reaction was to simply grin, before turning back to his opponent. "But that doesn't mean that I can't return the favor and kill your comrades. I'm sure that man will make a fine start" with that said he turned away from her, his arm moving in a single smooth motion as he did, the bayonet he was holding cutting through her flesh like a hot knife through butter. As he began to walk away a soft thud was heard, and Anderson's grin became maniacal as he walked away from the now headless body behind him. Oh he was aware that decapitation, even with the condition her body was in, wouldn't kill her, but it should slow her down enough that he could end the man that had been with her.

As he walked, he didn't notice the small grin on her face, or her mouth moving to form words, though no sound left her lips. These words, while to most were unimportant, would have sent Anderson running back to the Vatican, had he realized they had been uttered. These simple, simple words "Restriction Seal, level 3. Released"

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It took on a few seconds for Joshua to reach the floor they had encountered Anderson on, his singleminded intent to get back to Seras propelling him faster than he'd ever moved before. He only idly acknowledged the occasional piece of paper, signifying the existence of a barrier that would keep him trapped here. It was while he was going over the gun to make sure he had enough ammo that he noticed something was wrong; up until this point he had been following the sounds fighting and speaking, now he wasn't hearing anything other than footsteps, each step growing quickly louder. He skid to a stop, gun pointed at the doorway in front of him. His rational mind said they were too loud to be Seras' and that if the priest had in fact killed her it would make sense that he was walking as slowly as he was. The majority of his mind, however, ruthlessly crushed that part, due to the fact that he didn't believe that a mere human could best his Mistress in battle, a possibility that he would continue to laugh at until he actually saw her dead body, and the feeling of her within his mind left him for good. As neither had yet to occur, he didn't believe it could happen, but would gladly finish off the priest. So when the door opened to an uninjured Alexander Anderson, the man grinning madly and raising a bloody weapon, Joshua did the only thing he could think of: Open fire.

Shot after shot, Anderson merely stood there with a grin, his body bucking and moving with each round that entered his skin. Joshua didn't bother switching the gun to full auto, and he kept pulling the trigger for a few seconds after he'd run out of ammo in his magazine, apparently having less ammo than he expected. He exhaled heavily through his nose, ejecting the magazine and replacing it with efficiency born of years of practice with guns, his eyes never once leaving the man's form.

"Is that all you got?" Anderson asked, once Joshua was done reloading his gun. "I admit that would do fine against the unholy, but against myself you'd be better off trying to beat me to death with a stick" he shrugged, not really thinking much of the human before him. "I get what you're trying to do, end the forces of the devil, save the faithful, all that. I really do. Its quite commendable, but sadly mistaken. I'll give you one chance to end this farce and leave with your life, maybe if you join the Vatican you might stand a chance against the monsters that hunt the night" Ever human deserved a chance, and doing this had actually gained the Vatican some powerful allies from wannabe heroes, people thinking they could take on the monsters of the night. Were it not for the standing order to allow all humans, save for the most fanatical of Hellsing agents, the chance to leave, the human death toll would be incredibly larger.

"Where is she?" Joshua asked simply, ignoring the man in favor of determining why he was here, unharmed.

"You mean the vampire you were with? Pinned to a wall….. least most of her is. The rest is laying on the floor, unseeing eyes probably staring at this door behind me" the Iscariot agent replied, "Now, if yo-" he was cut off by a gunshot, the bullet entering his head right between his eyes. "I take it, then, that you intend to fight and die" Anderson sighed, not even moving as his regeneration pushed the bullet from his skull to land on the floor with a clink. "I'll pray for your misguided soul" with that he simply threw a bayonet at the man, walking forward as he knew the blade could not be dodged by a human. It was when he didn't hear the telltale sound of blade entering flesh and the thump of a dead body that he paused, and his eyes widened at the sudden appearance of a bullet in his throat. Another soon followed into his chest, two to the head, and another in the gut. Joshua had, while Anderson was talking, flipped the safety to automatic and, after dodging the projectile sent his way, unloaded a quick burst.

"Please, don't" Joshua replied with a sneer, his lip curling up enough to reveal a lengthened canine. "Something tells me that God would frown upon that, just a little"

"I see no seals on you…. She turned you, didn't she" it was more a statement than a question, and as such Joshua didn't answer. Not that he'd answer to begin with. "I didn't think it would be possible, for a vampire that kills other vampires to turn another. Was it an accident?" the next thing Joshua knew, Anderson was towering above him, and it took all he had to avoid the sudden onslaught of of blades, each nick and scratch feeling like someone had lit the area on fire. It took less than twenty seconds for his gun to be knocked from his hands, a miracle in and of itself that it wasn't damaged beyond repair. "Or perhaps it was for a more….. basic reason" It took a few seconds of the implications of that statement to register in Joshua's mind, his response being to color slightly before growling gutturally and attempting to punch through the stomach of the man in front of him. While it didn't go through him, his anger mad him move faster than Anderson had anticipated, the result being that the man was thrown back about four feet, landing easily.

"Shut your mouth, before I rip it off your face" Joshua growled, more angry than he probably should have been. Anderson chuckled, straightening up, completely unharmed.

"Gonna have to hit harder than that if you want to actually hurt me" Anderson merely brushed a bit of nonexistent dirt from his coat, that infernal grin never once leaving his face. "Oh its been a while since a blood sucker has had the nerve to try to fight me without a weapon. Let's see how you fare. I'll even let you get the first shot, and I won't use my bayonets" that said he took the two blades in his hands and stowed them in his coat, hidden from sight with the multiple other blades on his person. "You know, to give you a fighting chance" His statement only served to anger the fledgling before him, and his response was a simple, and expected, one: he ran forward, faster than most humans could see, and lashed out, his fist planting itself firmly into Anderson's throat. The larger man chuckled, completely unfazed by a punch that would have crushed his trachea and ruptured all the blood vessels in this neck had he been a normal human. "Good attempt, now its my turn" and it was at that moment that Joshua realized just what kind of human monster he was up against.

For the next five minutes he had the shit beaten out of him. The man before him moving faster than he could even attempt to dodge, the most aggravating part being that he could see the strikes coming, but was too slow to move out of the way. Punch after punch, strike after strike, the only upside being that he never used his feet to do anything more than move closer. It was only his vampiric durability, and his shadows healing him that allowed him to look even remotely similar to his actual appearance. That, however, didn't mean he wasn't bleeding. There was enough of his blood on the floor to paint the strip of hallway they were in crimson, his shadows being the only reason there wasn't more. As a fledgling, a vampire that had never once ingested the blood of a living thing, each ounce of blood is precious, not as precious as a human perhaps, but enough that his body making this much to replace what was lost is weakening him extensively, something that Anderson was taking great pleasure in exploiting.

Every punch, blow, and strike that Joshua landed on the Paladin, he received easily five more, and unlike his Anderson's weren't weakening in the slightest. It wasn't until a blow to the neck sent him across the hallway that Anderson finally stopped advancing and merely stared at him pitifully, his mere gaze angering the fledgling enough to see nothing but red and the man standing before him. "I've fought on par with yer Mistress, monster. Do you really think you can actually stand before me as an equal?" he asked, tilting his head and causing his glasses to glint in the moonlight. "To be honest it would be a favor for me to rid her of you, you know? The No Life Queen shouldn't need to have a fledgling this pathetic and weak" he grinned malevolently, pulling a bayonet from his coat as the light dimmed. He passed it off as a cloud covering the moon without a second of thought, slowly advancing on the prone vampire before him, laughing as he tried to stand but couldn't gather the energy to hold himself up despite his expression of pure, unadulterated hatred.

"Its been fun, it really has. Maybe next time she'll put up a better fight, provided she finds your corpse that is!" Anderson cackled as he towered over Joshua, bayonet raised and about to fall when the entire floor turned pitch black. Anderson froze, a feeling of dread washing over his body as his instincts, and better judgment, screamed at him to run. He listened, throwing himself over Joshua and barely avoiding a spear of pure darkness impaling the air he had just been occupying.

Where Anderson had felt dread, Joshua felt nothing but warmth. The shadows caressing his body like an excited puppy seeing its master after a long day. That's when he looked up and saw her: Her dress was torn in multiple places, blood covering it and her shoulders, her red eyes gleaming wickedly beneath her bloodstained hair. Tendrils of shadow surrounded her, obscuring her face save her eyes and a gleaming white, evil smile, canines pronounced more than normal. She looked like the devil and in that instant Joshua could swear his heart began to beat within his chest again. For all the malevolence coming off her in waves, all the blood and shadows surrounding her and covering her, he had never seen her so beautiful in the short time that he had known her. Before him stood Seras Victoria, No Life Queen, Mistress of the Night, a being that Iscariot feared above none else save the few remaining alphas of the Werewolf packs, a being that had long ago eclipsed the legendary Dracula, her own Master, in power, a being that, if the world at large knew of her existence, they wouldn't think twice about nuking the very continent upon which she stood, regardless of who was there or which one it was. And it was in that moment that he realized something: He'd fallen in love with her. His inner being screamed in approval: Only the strongest for the strongest. If he was to be the strongest he must have the strongest. And deep within the recesses of his mind an old deep voice chuckled, soon breaking into full blown laughter, pleased with the turn of events.

"Mistress" he breathed, eyes wide with both her appearance and his inner revelation, completely unaware of the laughter within his head, watching as she strode forth, the shadows parting before her like the Red Sea. Seras glanced down at him when she reached his position, the longer she looked at him the more angry she appeared to become. "Anderson….." she muttered, barely loud enough for said man to hear, though when he did he froze. This wasn't the same vampire that he had been fighting earlier, who was nothing more than a stronger than normal draculina. This was a Nosferatu, a being of the dark, and a member of the strongest vampires to ever exist, and the only thing he could do at this point was retreat and pray that she didn't decide to end him while he did. "You have six seconds to leave. After that I will end you for what you've done to my fledgling" her voice held a possessiveness that only Joshua caught, though he didn't know if he was imagining it or not.

Anderson sneered, slowly backing up and pulling a book from his coat. "Until next time then" he commented, opening it and mentally sighing at the fact that he would have to explain to his superiors that she was back in action, and that she had turned someone. Less than a second later the scripture was ripped form the walls by an invisible force and surrounded him, obscuring him from view. When they finally dropped to the floor he was gone, and Seras's shadows began to recede. Neither of the two powerhouses noticed the fact that Rick had thrown himself into a room and was shaking more than he ever had, the mere presence of that small amount of her power shaking him to his core.

Seras watched the spot Anderson had been in for a few more seconds before sighing, the shadows retreating within her body, and taking all the blood with them. She pulled a phone from somewhere on her person, merely flipping it open and dialing it. "Milady, the vampire is dead, but we have more to talk about. No, not now, phone lines can't be trusted. Please have transport ready. Thank you" she then hung up the phone and turned to her fledgling.

"Can you stand?" she asked, leaning over slightly and offering her hand to him. He merely stared at her hand in shock for a few moments, something that she attributed to her display of power, before he shook his head slightly and nodded. "I'll be fine" he assured her slowly rising to his feet. Of course Rick finally decided to leave the room he had jumped into, knowing that Anderson was gone so the only people left where the two vampires still in the hall. He sighed, swearing to himself for being an idiot before wordlessly walking up to them, hands held up placatingly. "I come in peace" he joked, more to himself to keep his nerves under control than anything else.

"You're still here? I thought you would have left already" Joshua commented, taking a step forward and throwing his hand to the wall to catch himself as he suddenly began to fall. Rick rolled his eyes, walking over and throwing the man's arm over his shoulder, "I couldn't just leave the people who saved my life to die or something" he replied, shrugging slightly as he gave Seras a wary glance out of the corner of his eye. She saw it but didn't comment, merely beginning to stride forward toward the entrance to the hospital. The doctor sighed, helping Joshua follow behind, once again asking himself what the hell he was getting himself into.

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Just as the helicopter picked up the agents of Hellsing, plus one, an exhausted Alexander Anderson dragged himself slowly onto the plane that had brought him to Ireland in the first place. The attendant merely blinked at his current state, having seen many Paladins return much the same after a successful hunt. She wasn't old enough to have seen Saint Guillotine return from any mission before this, so she didn't react when he merely dropped into the seat and sighed. "Get me a phone, please" he asked, sounding just as tired as he felt. The attendant nodded, pulling a phone from the bag on the seat across the aisle and handing it to him without a thought.

"Thank you miss" he stated with a smile, dialing one of the few numbers he had memorized. The line rang twice before it was picked up, a rich Italian voice responding. "Anderson, how was the hunt?" the man asked pleasantly. "The vampire and its ghouls are dead. I ran into Hellsing there, didn't kill any of them" he paused, taking a deep breath at the bombshell he was about to drop, cutting off a question from the man on the other side of the phone. "She was there, barely got past her the first time, took off her head… she wasn't alone. There was one other operative with her, I couldn't kill him in time before she got back up. After she showed back up I couldn't, not without her killing me. He was her fledgling Maxwell. I repeat Seras Victoria has turned a human into a vampire" there wasn't a noise made on either side of the call save for the humming of the jet's engines starting up.

Not even the sound of Maxwell breathing, because the moment he heard the word 'fledgling' he stopped. The only way he could describe this situation was calamity. "Are you certain?" the leader of Vactican's Section XIII Iscariot asked, swallowing dryly. "Yes"

"Are we looking at the second coming of Dracula, or is he as weak as she was when she was first turned?" Every powerful supernatural being was under the scrutiny of the Church since the institutions founding. They had spies in every aspect of life, trading the lives of several supernatural beings for a consistent flow of information, so when they had heard that Dracula had turned a young girl almost two hundred years ago they watched and waited for their opportunity to kill her. They couldn't best Dracula, not at the time, but she was weak, something that her master understood and thus never let her out of his sight, even after she stopped resisting her new life.

Sadly that chance was taken away when the original Hellsing killed her master and bound her to his family. Now they had a second chance at weakening the most powerful being in the world; every time a vampire turned a human, they give them a hint of their blood and power, weakening themselves to create an heir that would one day absorb their full power and do the same as they did. Its how the species continued to stay strong as they were despite the loss of their King. The master still had access to the power they gave their fledgling, but if the fledgling died they would lose that power forever. And the Church was banking on the fact that she had given him a significant amount of power when she turned him, something Maxwell thought she had if Anderson managed to remove her head after so many years of being off duty.

"At the moment he is weak, just strong enough to survive. But if I know her, then he'll be to strong for me to fight both of them alone before long. I'm reentering active duty, and retaking my place as the Leader of the Paladins. Let everyone know she has a fledgling, and that we're stepping up training for everyone" Anderson stated before simply hanging up, nodding at the attendant to inform the pilot they could launch. She nodded, having only listened to the conversation once she heard that the being at the top of Iscariot's target list had turned a human.

Anderson sighed once again; life had just become more complicated than he had ever imagined it could in a single night.

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The return trip back to London and Hellsing Manor was quiet, and rather awkward, at least that's how Rick felt it was. Of course he was lucky, given the nature of the other two people in the back of the helicopter with him, that he was even alive, especially given that Joshua had lost quite a bit of blood in his brawl with Anderson, and wasn't really thinking straight at the moment. Of course Seras was preventing anything from actually happening, for the same reason she had given when he'd gone into a Blood Frenzy, but the doctor with them didn't know that, and thus was on edge the entire ride. Joshua was more or less sleeping off the injuries he had sustained, while Seras merely sat there, retreating into the depths of her mind and wishing that the soul of her master still resided there, if for no other reason than for comforts sake alone.

When they finally arrived back at the manor they were met with a few members of Hellsing's Vampire Extermination Corps, or VEC as some uncreative member once called it, and the family butler himself. The 'name', if it could be called that, VEC stuck with the members, as they couldn't come up with anything better, and they lived up to their full name, being the most well trained group of humans outside Iscariot to be formed with the intention of hunting vampires. And, given her condition, they were the members of Hellsing that Seras interacted with the most outside of Walter and Integra, so she wasn't surprised by their appearance at their return, though Rick was a tad surprised to hop out of a helicopter and see five men with rather large guns pointed in his general direction. The fact that there was an older gentleman standing in their midst didn't seem to register, nor the fact that he was chuckling.

"And who might this young man be?" Walter asked, turning as Seras strode through the VEC members as if they hadn't just been pointing weapons at her. "He's a survivor, a doctor, that we found. He wanted to help, so we brought him along" Seras replied as the butler followed. "Joshua is a tad low on blood at the moment, I suggest being careful around him" she called to the soldiers behind her, more as an afterthought than anything else.

"Is that so? Well I'll see if Lady Integra would be able to find work for him; there weren't any recorded survivors of the shooting at the hospital, after all, and after the shooter killed everyone he burnt it to the ground" Seras nodded at the response, it was one they'd used before, back before the war and all the complications that came with it. Now all that was left was to inform Integra of what they'd dealt with, and Joshua's new sleeping conditions for the time being; he wouldn't survive unless he drank blood or slept within a coffin filled with the dirt of his birthplace, and the former wasn't ready to be done at the moment.

The rest of the walk was in relative silence, the only thing breaking it was a staff member informing Walter that Joshua had been safely returned to his room for the time being, and they were keeping Rick under lock and key in a guest room. Not that it was hard; the moment he'd seen a bed he'd collapsed and fallen asleep.

The only thing of import that would occur this day would be the talk with Integra, and her reactions were kept to minimum; she had an organization to run, after all, and it wouldn't do to see the leader of monster slayers angry at the reappearance of a human after all, especially when they knew he was still alive. For the time being she had decided that there wasn't anything to do, other than question their spy within Iscariot's ranks as to why they hadn't been informed that Anderson was being sent on a mission.

No. What would occur that was important wouldn't happen for another week or so, and it was something that none would see coming. For now though, Integra focused on finding a coffin to match Joshua's size, and obtaining a sufficient amount of dirt from his place of birth, and how to explain why people were digging up dirt there. No rest for the weary it seemed. No rest.

And in the coming months, Integra Fairbrooks Windgates Hellsing would come to hate that saying with every fiber of her being.

AAAAAAND we're done. That….. actually was mostly written in the past three or so days with a burst of inspiration I got….. well from no where really. For questions, comments, or concerns turn to the review button or send me a PM, whichever is more convenient at the time. See ya next time peeps, and once again: HAPPY NEW YEARS!