I do not own Hellsing
Author's note: Since it will be a while before I can play Resident Evil 5, and thus steal the plot, I've decided to bring some movie elements into this. This story is completely outside the Resident Hellsing series and is not intended to be the end. If and when I play RE5 and if and when I write a fic based on it, this story will effectively never have happened.
It's also a complete bastardization of the games, movies, manga, and previous Resident Hellsing stories. Good luck.
Prologue.
Even after the world had ended, Dover was a beautiful place at night. During the day, the black clouds over the mainland horizon and the smell of rot being blown over the wind ruined things a bit.
Seras Victoria had taken up residence in a lighthouse, the top of which she used to look at the cliffs in the evenings. The days she spent sleeping under a heap of blankets down in the lighthouse cellar, far from the sunlight which, while not harmful, made her feel out of place and irritable as well as weak and squinty.
Her one companion, Sir Integra Hellsing, spent her nights asleep in the lighthouse's living quarters, the windows boarded up and the door barricaded, just in case something or someone should try to get in. It wasn't likely, considering their location on a rock accessible on foot only by going over some more rocks when the tide was low, but it was possible considering the nature of the threat.
Sitting a little desk complete with a stool she had dragged up from bellow, she opened a five-subject green spiral notebook, the cheap sort, and wrote what she thought the day's date might be.
I think I know what's missing. she wrote with a red pen. No one came and told us we'd lost. There was no debriefing. No one called us failures, no one said it was time to pack it up and go home.
She put the pen in her mouth and pondered a moment, looking out over the cliffs and watching the sea lap against the shore. The thought in the back of her mind was that someone would read her little diary someday. It wasn't as though there weren't other diaries out there explaining what had happened, but she had some insight as to what had ended the world that she didn't think others who knew would be honest enough to give.
Many pages in her diary already detailed what she was, who she worked for, and what had caused the world to go to pot. That had all been easy, but what she wanted to write now wasn't.
Millennium didn't plan on surviving. I think that's why we lost. You can't beat an enemy that's set out to lose. I suppose their big plan was to kill Master she scribbled out Master and wrote Alucard instead. which they did, but I suppose they just wanted to fight. I guess they were more like suicide bombers than proper soldiers.
She let out a sigh and wondered if even with Alucard's help, Umbrella might have been stopped. She supposed that the supposedly defunct pharmaceutical corporation had been not unlike Millennium in its invincibleness. Like a boy who played with matches, it didn't matter how much his parents kept an eye on him or scolded him, he was bound to burn the house down eventually. Seras wrote as much in her dairy.
Crumpling the last few pages came into mind when she thought of Integra possibly reading it. Excuses and explanations for failure were all things Integra would hate, although judging by how she had been lately, Sir Hellsing might be a little more forgiving of angst.
Seras closed the diary and decided that perhaps not letting Integra see it would suffice.
An orange light at the top of the cliff caught Sera's attention. Squinting into the darkness, she saw that it was a small campfire, recently lit. She imagined haggard travelers finally finding a place they thought was safe for a night and making a late fire. It was a stupid, and likely fatal error on their part, as nothing called a swarm of zombies faster these days than a nighttime campfire.
Getting up from her desk, she left the top of the lighthouse and descended the spiraling stairs where at the bottom a wooden door led her into the lighthouse's living room. It had been stocked with enough supplies to last Integra two years, and despite their collective attempts to arrange things, the room still looked trashed.
A machete, its blade covered in black spray paint and its handle wrapped in grip tape, rested on a wooden crate next to its nylon sheath. Seras sheathed it and hooked it to her belt. The outfit she wore was one from her Hellsing days, only black in color. The skirt a little too short to be considered modest and the top a little tight in the chest. It was complete with black stocking and boots, and Seras thought she might never get around to demanding an explanation for it. It reminded her of better times though, so she wore it.
With her weapon in hand, she climbed back up the stairs to the top of the lighthouse and walked outside into the little balcony that encircled the top. Closing her eyes, she imagined herself being condensed with all of her molecules coming together, including her clothes and machete, to take up less space. All matter was mostly empty space, she had once read; that bit of info made the trick she was performing all the easier.
Shrinking, she imagined herself taking the shape of a black bird. A raven to be precise. She thought of her face as the beak, her legs talons, and her arms wings. Once her new sense of self was cemented in her mind, she opened her eyes and leapt into the air, flapping in order to gain enough altitude and catch a thermal updraft.
Being a vampire, she would need as much height as she could get. Even though the water between the lighthouse and the shore was relatively shallow, it was the ocean after all and going over it in any way other than in a dirt-filled coffin wasn't pleasant.
She came to rest in a dead tree, fifty meters or so from the campsite. A dark blue van with its hood up was being examined with a small flashlight by a portly man in a dirty white t-shirt, while two teenagers tended the fire. They had gathered a substantial amount of wood, along with an old couch and were quickly turning their cooking flame into a bonfire.
Tilting her head, she saw the figure of a man standing off in the darkness looking down the field towards the road. She figured he was their lookout, although where they thought they would run to if zombies came, Seras didn't know. Between the fire and their position near the cliff, it seemed as though they were eager to commit suicide.
"It's shot," the man with his head in the guts of the car said. "The damned thing's shot to hell." His voice was gentler than Seras imagined it would be. She wondered if he was the father of the two boys by the fire, neither of whom said anything about the proclamation of the van's death.
The other man came back. He was older than the two teens but not older than the man with the van. He was wearing a black leather jacket and looked like a bit of a hardcase. "Looks clear," he said. "Shot eh? Let me look." He took the flashlight from the older man and began examining the engine. The two boys also came over.
Seras shuffled her feet on the branch and wondered what it was about men that made them think gathering around a broken vehicle would make it start up again. She watched them for a while, wondering when the first zombies would show up. Perhaps it might be a pack of zombie dogs that found them.
"So what now?" the portly man asked.
"We wait 'till morning," the man in leather said. "Nothing else to do."
"We should keep a watch," one of the boys, who was wearing a red hoodie, said.
"I've got it," the leather man said, putting his foot on the top of a wheel and climbing atop the closed hood, then the roof. "You all get some shuteye. I'll wake one of you up in a few hours."
The remaining three piled into the back of the van, leaving the fire to burn. Seras couldn't believe their foolishness. It was possible they'd been living in a survivor camp for a long time and had recently been forced out. All of the current nomads knew better than this.
Ruffling her feathers, she got ready for a long wait. It wasn't necessary, as not more than an hour and a half after the man on the roof had begun to snore, did she hear the first clumsy footsteps trudging up through the dying grass towards the campfire.
Flitting over to another branch, she saw that about fifteen, maybe even twenty, zombies had come from the road up the hill, having sighted the flames. Their low moans had yet to become hungry howls, and Seras let them close some distance before screeching loudly to wake the snoozing lookout.
He jerked in his sleep, but didn't awaken. Flying to the ground, letting her form expand to take her original shape, she drew the machete from its sheath and enjoyed the heat from the bonfire against her back. As the zombies came closer, they began moaning louder, causing the leather clad lookout to awaken and nearly fall off the roof in surprise. "Jesus!" he shouted. "Wake up!" He banged on the roof of the van, yelling as he did and making the zombies more agitated.
Seras went to the back of the van, putting herself between it and the zombies. When the first one was close enough, she swung, shearing its head in half. Her strength, combined with sharp blade made it her favorite weapon for dispatching human zombies.
She calmly cut down zombies as they came at her, making sure to cleave the skull and not leave a snarling head that could bite and pass the infection to a human. She could hear the commotion behind her, the doors opening and slamming, their weapons being drawn, their shouts of confusion.
When she downed all of the zombies, she wiped the machete off in the grass and sheathed it. Turning, she saw four stunned humans by a van, their faces hidden by the fire behind them. "Put that fire out. That's what attracted them," she said.
The two teenagers quickly did as they were told as she walked between the two men. "Next time, keep away from places like this where you're trapped if you break down." She faced the man in the leather jacket. "And you, don't fall sleep on your watch. Tin cans on a string have done better guard duty."
"Who are you?" the portly father said. "Where'd you come from?"
"Nowhere," Seras said, looking at the two men, wondering which was stronger. The one in the leather seemed more fit, so she picked him. "You, me, down by that tree, now."
She grabbed him by the arm and led him over to the tree she had been perched on. While he was confused, he didn't fight her or ask more questions. His companions didn't follow either.
"You need to get smart, or you're not going to make it," Seras said, fiddling with the collar on his jacket. He smelled of sweat, but the blood pumping beneath his skin smelled sweet.
"We just got on the road," he said. "After the camp was turned out…"
She moved her head in as if to kiss him, all the better to keep his guard down, and sank her fangs into his neck. She let three or mouthfuls down her throat before licking the wound, stemming the bleeding. Knees weak, she let him sink to the ground. He would be lightheaded and tired for a while, but he would be fine. At least until the inevitable occurred.
Leaving the scene at a light jog, she went down a knoll out of sight and turned herself into a raven once more then flew back to the top of the lighthouse where she resumed her human form and went down into the living room, not wanting to be tempted to keep an eye on the four people she had just saved.
Integra was brewing tea, using the fireplace. She sat on a crate in her green officers trousers, but wore a black tank top. "What have you been on about all evening?" she asked, looking at the fire.
"Some commotion out on the mainland. Not much, really," Seras said, sitting down on a worn couch that had been in the lighthouse.
"You look fed."
"I gave some blokes a few survival tips and a free pass to tomorrow. I thought it was a small price."
"There was a time when you wouldn't even drink it from medical bags," Integra said as the tea kettle began to screech. She removed it using a fire poker and used a towel to pour the water.
"There was a time when I would've done more to help," Seras said.
Integra said nothing and made her tea. "I couldn't sleep. There's nothing that needs to be done tomorrow, so I may as well sleep in. I guess life's not all bad. Fancy a game of chess?"
Seras shrugged and got their chessboard. It was missing a few pieces, but bits of foil and some knickknacks substituted. Both played a distracted game, but in the end, Seras lost. "We need a new game," Seras said.
To be continued…