Because of the overwhelming response to the first part, I decided to keep writing this. 🙂 I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
(Please note, the timeline of this fic will be different than canon. I’m trying to keep characters as in character as possible but events may change.)
A priest corrupted. A village in Somerset. Confused townsfolk, scared for their children. The children. Disappearing in the night. Police respond. An evil grin, an army, shambling in the dark. Gunshots. A woman, chased, grabbed. The same red-coated hound, a vicious smile, a taunt. More gunfire, blood. Death. Death.
Claude had fainted in the middle of night training. The thunderous boom of gunshots around him had ceased, his squadmates forming a circle around him in surprise. One had lifted him to a sitting position, trying to coax him awake.
He awoke to the concerned faces of his comrades-in-arms. A tall, lanky brunette had crouched next to him.
“Claude? It happened again?”
He nodded, utterly out of breath. Visions took everything out of them when they occurred at random as this one had. He struggled to his feet, suddenly out of energy and weighed down by his gear.
“I have to find Sir Integra.”
Shedding the thirty kilograms of gear plus gun, Claude rushed back into the manor, leaving his befuddled squadmates behind.
Integra, at this hour, could only be found in her office. Claude knew this, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to report to her in the middle of the night for a vision. Upstairs, second story, middle of the front façade.
He had picked a bad time.
Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing was conversing with her loyal bodyguard, the vampire Alucard.
Claude was quietly unnerved by Alucard, had been ever since the day they met. His unease these days was a far cry from the abject terror he felt around the vampire three years ago. The sense of unease was exacerbated by the fact that, mid-conversation, Claude’s benefactor and her bodyguard ceased talking to stare at the door.
However, the initial look of disgust on Integra’s face from the interruption softened as she saw who stood in the doorway to her office.
“Oh? Something the matter, Mr. Grey?” She spoke, beckoning him to the desk. Claude trudged closer, keeping his composure even as the nearly two-meter vampire stared at him, arms crossed.
“I fainted, Sir Integra. I had another vision.” At these words, she sat more upright, quickly grabbing a pen and paper.
“Claude, I want you to tell me everything you remember, as clearly as you can.”
He relayed the dream to her, omitting no details. He hoped it was worthwhile this time.
Claude’s visions always portrayed events from the past, from the present, and from the future. But visions of the present and the future had a nasty habit of not happening, which caused no small amount of grief for the Hellsing organization back when they investigated every dream he had. Nowadays, they erred on the side of caution and maintained a state of readiness whenever he had a vision whose contents had yet to occur.
As her pen finished dancing across the paper, Integra huffed quietly, thinking. She knew the risks of pursuing a vision that wasn’t going to occur. She did NOT need a repeat of what happened in Hawick. On the other hand, it could be as big as the Belgium Incident. She still shuddered at the amount of paperwork she had to fill out for that one.
“You said it was Cheddar, correct? That’s the village in Somerset?”
“That’s right, yes ma’am.”
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Claude.” Integra nodded at him. “We’ll keep apprised of the situation. Now, do get some sleep.” Her voice was uncharacteristically soft, almost motherly. “Lord only knows you’ve had a long day.”
She was right. It had been less than twelve hours since submitting his report on last night’s dream. “You and the rest of Squad 17 will be dismissed for the night. I want all of you at the ready in case anything comes of this.”
“I appreciate that, Sir Integra, thank you. Good night.” He paused, giving a curt nod to the vampire, whose eyes never left Claude’s figure throughout the conversation. “Good night to you, too, Mr. Alucard.”
Alucard let out a soft chuckle at the honorific. “Just Alucard.”
Claude made a noise to the effect of “mmhmm,” before turning on his heel and departing the room.
Eight days later, Claude’s vision would come to fruition. There was a police crisis in the village of Cheddar. Shots were fired, numerous individuals reported dead. Local police had almost half of the village cordoned off, and nearly three thousand people had been evacuated.
Reports circulated among the news agencies that a religious extremist group called the Church of the Highest Divine had laid siege to the town, and that a special government task force was being called in to resolve the situation and free any possible hostages.
In reality, there was no “Church of the Highest Divine.” The “special government task force” was the Hellsing Organization. And, knowing their line of work, there sure as hell wouldn’t be any hostages to free.
Claude sat, his weapon clamped between his legs. He was cramped in the back of a Saxon armoured personnel carrier with the rest of Squad 17, en route to Cheddar. There were five similar vehicles behind theirs, carrying Squads 3, 8, 9, 12, and 15. A total of sixty individuals in the convoy, trailing behind a Rolls-Royce which carried Sir Integra Hellsing and Alucard. On the outskirts of the village, the convoy slowed, never stopping, as Alucard exited the car and entered the village proper.
The rest of them deployed along the police cordon, relieving the official forces and expanding the perimeter, getting any civilians as far away as possible. As the other squads began their work, Squad 17 was to deploy into Cheddar and do their damnedest to find any survivors while Alucard searched for the head vampire.
Claude knew this show of force bordered on excessive, but Integra had decided to make an impression. Besides, they knew it could take hours to comb the village and find the bastard responsible for ghoulifying several hundred people.
The eight members of Squad 17 marched in an arrowhead formation. Their unofficial name was “Thunder Children,” named for the HMS Thunder Child from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. They were the best-armed and best-trained that Hellsing had to offer, and they got sent in when Alucard was needed elsewhere. They were the last human line of defense when things got rough.
As they marched, Claude shouldered his weapon. Every member of the Thunder Children was issued the same gun. A custom-built affair, designed and produced by Walter and the Hellsing Arms gunsmiths. Called the “Karmina,” they were guns that were barely suitable for human usage. Each was 10 kilograms fully loaded, designed to fire the largest shotgun shells Claude had seen in his life. Silver-coated iron balls of shot, designed for dealing with groups of ghouls, or proper vampires. Since humans couldn’t aim as well as Alucard could, the ability to fire a whole lot at once could more than compensate for this.
The shotguns certainly came in handy as they waded through dozens of ghouls, heading door-to-door to check for survivors.
So far, it was just ghouls, ghouls, and more ghouls. Cliff Street in particular was brimming with them. Claude shouldered his gun and fired at a ghoul that came too close, the colossal gun kicking into his shoulder hard enough to hurt.
He was trying not to think very hard about how this ghoul was a traffic cop, or how that ghoul looked to be in her sixties. He hated to think about how close he had come to being one in the past, on more than one occasion. He especially hated to think about how every ghoul they killed was one more family member who wouldn’t be coming to dinner the next day.
They had rounded off of Cliff Street onto Birch Hill when they heard gunshots, far distant, in the woods at the border of the village. The rest of Squad 17 stopped as they heard the telltale BANG of Alucard’s gun once again, and the remaining ghouls in the village were no more.
The squad leader, a chap named Belmont, radioed in to Integra that Alucard completed his mission, that the head vampire had been dealt with, and there were no further survivors to be found. She ordered Squad 17 back, and sent in the remaining five squads to perform cleanup duties.
Claude sighed, relieved. He handled the fighting better than a lot of people, but it took a toll on his mind. Every fight did. But he knew it was something he had to do, to keep from thinking about the human cost.
As they returned to the edge of the police cordon, he saw the tall vampire emerge from the woods, carrying a wounded, blonde woman in a police uniform. She was the one he saw in his visions. Integra turned, eyes burning a hole into Belmont.
“I thought you said there were no survivors.” She said.
Alucard smirked, piping up. “Technically, there weren’t.”
That’s when Claude saw her teeth. Her fangs.
He hadn’t foreseen that.
The Rose-Clad Demon Doctor 