A/N: Well, hello everyone! I wasn't bluffing when I said I planned to rewrite this little story of mine. Think of this as the Child of Seras 2.0. Better in every way I could make it (I hope), and now that I took the time and gave a little more thought, with more potential than ever before. I hope you all will bear with my impulsiveness in this decision, and enjoy the new work and as always, read and review
The Child of Seras
Chapter 1: Penance
Jake clutched his guitar like a teddy bear. From backstage, he could hear the crowd just forty feet from him roared like a hungry beast. It was nothing he hadn't heard before, nor was this a show of any particularly great significance. In fact, it was a venue so obscure it might as well have been underground. Jake hadn't lived in London for very long, but still, he was not surprised that places like this existed overseas as well. Frank, the front man for Post Mortem, had only taken this show because he hoped to gain publicity, and obtain the unusually large check offered in their ad in the paper. It was strange that such little-known club would pay just any band for that amount. Jake thought he should feel lucky that Frank got on the horn as quickly as he did, or someone else was sure to grab hold of it.
But none of this made Jake feel any more at ease. In fact, it just made him more nervous. Something just didn't feel right. Why just one band? Sure, Post Mortem had begun to make a name for itself in the underground scene, but still, every other club they had performed at had never given them the show all to themselves. It was protection; if a crappy band showed up, a venue could always cycle through to the next one. Jake had an edgy feeling that it wasn't the owner's confidence in them that made them set it up like this.
"We're on in five, Jake—'ay, you alright?"
Jake looked up to see a rugged, piercing-laden face. "Yeah, I'm ok. I've just got this weird feeling."
Frank raised a curious brow. "Good or bad?"
"I don't know," he said, looking away thoughtfully, "I'm just sure that after tonight, something's going to change."
Frank smiled in that sly way of his. "Our big break, you thinkin'? We do have the show to ourselves, after all."
"Maybe..." he said, uncertain.
"Well let's just play and see what happens then. This could be just the chance we've been waiting for. We're gonna need all the demons you can conjure, eh?" Frank winked.
That got a well-needed chuckle out of him. It was an old joke between them.
"We're on, kids," called a sarcastically smiling Belle, the drummer.
Jake decided it was best not to worry about it for the time being. Doing a show wasn't hard for him by now, so why make it?
Just play and see what happens, he thought.
Seras scratched the back of her head for tenth time that night. She had no idea what she was so uneasy about. Was it the full moon? Something in the air? No, it was none of those things. She just couldn't escape this odd feeling that something was going to happen this night, something big. Her instincts were rarely wrong, least of all in regards to missions, like the one she was on now. But it wasn't the "I might die today" feeling, or the "Alucard's going to accost me" feeling. She just couldn't place it.
Seras walked the streets in her civilian clothes, paying extra attention to her nonhuman senses. The mission wasn't even that hard: there had been reported vampire activity in a sector of east London, and she was to patrol the area in hopes of picking up on something. A mobile stake-out, essentially. Hellsing soldiers were ready and waiting in nondescript vans on every block. All Seras had to do was give the order, and they would come pouring into whatever structure the fiends roosted in.
And as for Alucard, he was on the other side of the country, handling a ghoul infestation. It felt strange not having him around, but she didn't exactly mind it. It was actually a little nice to work alone for once, even if the mission severity—at least for the moment—was much lower.
It hit her like a riptide. Vampires. At least three of them. "Squads A and B, move in, three to four targets to the west, roughly 100 meters from my current position."
Both gave their confirmation, and Seras dashed over to where the creatures brooded.
Their first two songs, The Seasons of Hell and Canniballet, were finished. The crowd was practically eating out of their hand. For the first time since he got to this place, Jake was beginning to think Frank was right. If they kept this up, everyone here would surely spread the word, making it much easier to get into shows. Hell, if they were lucky enough, there might actually be a journalist in the audience.
Just as Frank was pumping up the crowd for the next song, the lights went out. Surprised gasps and groans erupted. Frank, and the rest of the band, cursed loudly.
But Jake didn't. Because that feeling he had before had come back a hundred fold.
A strobe-light stabbed into his eyes like a tattoo artist's needle. Panicked screams filled the air. The crowd parted suddenly, isolating two people in an open circle. At first, Jake thought they were making out.
Until the man dropped the woman's bloodied corpse onto the floor and roared.
Another joyful scream behind him. Jake whipped around to see Belle's throat being chewed through by what looked like a frenzied dope-fiend. Frank shouted in fury, took the microphone stand, and charged, but the creature just laughed, knocked the stand out of his grasp, and ripped his arm off as if it were pulling a weed.
Jake could do no more than sit there, wide mouthed and bug-eyed at the scene unfolding before him. The monster finished drinking the contents of his best friend's arm and looked to him with a bloody grin and narrow eyes.
"Got good news for you." it rasped confidently. "I'm your new band manager. In fact, your friends have already signed the contract." It gestured over to his butchered band, who, to Jake's consummate horror, were standing back up.
They all looked at Jake with blank, sunken-in eyes. Their pupils grayed, their mouths slack and drooling as they hissed and groaned at him.
"Ya see? If you're still not sure about it, I'll let them warm you up to the idea."
They meandered toward him with a shuffling gait. Their mouths opened and closed, rehearsing the movies that would strip the flesh from his bones. Their arms reached out to him, yearning to taste him, to share the curse they had been given. He backed away, blinking his eyes in disbelief.
"Stevie...Hans...Belle...Frank..."
He lost his footing on the edge of the stage. He heard an explosion just as his skull met the floor, and the world went black.
Seras and a number of troops made their way through the hole in the wall the Harkonen was happy to provide. Inside was just the disaster Seras had expected: the vampires had locked the doors, trapping in all of the people and turning them into ghouls. There were probably no survivors. She began loading the next incendiary shell as she shouted above the chaotic noise:
"Impure souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation. Amen!"
She fired the round at the first vampire, in the midst of a dozen ghouls. Burning body parts flew in all directions. The second leapt at the wall, and then toward her. At a range of a mere two meters, she drew her sidearm pistol and pushed its brains out the back its skull. Machine pistols rattled and cut down the advancing horde as Hellsing's finest put the London tax pounds to work, but still they pushed on.
"Where the hell's our support?" cursed Mick, the second in-command.
He was answered by the opposite wall being blown apart. Squad B moved in and let fly a spray of delicately-angled crossfire. The ghouls were in a blender now, with no chance that any would escape to make more. Now to find the other two vampires...
The first one realized there was no hope of victory, and attempted to flee backstage. Mick caught it with a well-placed spray of his bull-pup rifle.
"Nice one." Said Seras quickly.
"Can't let you do all the work, right?" quipped Mick, loading in a fresh magazine.
Three vampires gone, that just left...
"Fire another shot and I'll kill him!"
...the last one.
He had narrow eyes and a smooth face, contorted with frantic rage. He held under his arm an unconscious boy, about sixteen years old as Seras judged it. She leveled the pistol at him, and he backed away suddenly, tightening his grip on the boy's neck.
"I swear, you follow me and I pluck his head off like fucking dandelion!"
Hostage in tow, he leapt through the black, painted-over windows above the main entrance, raining glass upon the soldier and ghoul alike. Seras dropped the Harkonen and followed him. She landed on the street and chased the vampire down the block, weaving through any passersby with inhuman speed. This was bad, not only did he have a hostage, but he was in the view of the public, she had to chase him somewhere less exposed before she could dispatch him. If he knew this, then that made him a very clever vampire. If he didn't, then it only showed how desperate he was.
The vampire turned into an alleyway and Seras followed. They came into what looked like a gated vacant lot. Her pursuant leapt over the gate, exposing his face while the boy was out of the way. With no one in sight, she took the shot—
--and regretted it from the moment the bullet left the chamber.
It connected with the vampire's head, reducing him to ash in an instant, and while Seras was careful not to hit the boy in doing so, there was on thing that, in her haste, she hadn't accounted for.
The fence.
The boy fell upon it, three of its long, sharp tips stabbing through his gut. The boy gasped in agony, eyes ripping open.
"My God," she uttered, "what have I done?"
She ran to the boy, who's face hovered a few inches above her own. He looked at her; confused, desperate, and afraid. The moon shone in his green eyes and glistened off of his short, whitish blonde hair.
"I need a medic on the Lanchester street vacant lot, right now! I have a wounded civilian, he doesn't have much time, hurry!"
Her hands gripped the fence tightly as she looked at him. He gagged and coughed up blood, as he tried to say something.
"Don't talk, ok? A medic is coming, just hang on!"
Seras felt a familiar, warm liquid spill onto her hands. His blood was running down the rails, soaking her once-white gloves, leaking through to her skin. The boy breathed in ragged rasps, hunched over the fence, tears flowing down his cheeks in unsung pain.
It was no use. He'd be dead in less than a minute at his rate, if not from blood loss, then from the poisons of his ruptured organs. His eyes were beginning to dull, his face paled.
He's going to die, thought Seras in a panic, he's going to die, and it's all my fault.
The boy was lethargically trying to pull himself off, but the blood made the rails too slick. Seras caught his shoulders from slipping any further, stepping onto the cross bar to get at eye level with him.
She leaned in and whispered in his ear. "Listen to me, there is...a way...to survive this," she pulled back the collar of his shirt and swallowed hard, "but you're going to have to come with me. It won't be like it was before, but you'll survive, do you understand?"
The boy tried to give a weak response. That was all Seras needed.
"I'll take care of you, I promise."
She leaned closer, practically feeling him close his eyes, and slid in her fangs gently into his neck. His blood was warm, fresh, delicious, but she would not allow herself to enjoy this, for this was not pleasure.
It was penance.
A/N well guys, what do you think: better, or worse. I can't know if you don't review, now, so keep em coming!