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Chapter 11: Flashpoint
Captain Pip Bernadette was an open-minded sort of mercenary. He and his team had taken on some pretty crazy s**t in their time, stuff that they would rather never speak of again. That sort of thing was filed under a special folder in their document cabinets and, true to the description, were never spoken of again. Previously to this, he had been pretty sure he would be willing to believe anything.

But when Sir Integra Hellsing, leader of the Hellsing Organization, pointed at the smallish blonde girl next to her and declared—quite solemnly, in fact—that she was a vampire, Bernadette’s initial thought was that they would be able to laugh, close the invoice, and then stick it in that special folder. His second, trailing a moment or two behind the first because he was too busy cracking up, was how a nutter like this would a: get knighted, b: get convinced that the small blonde, one Seras Victoria by name, was a blood-sucking creature of the night. Pip would be more willing to believe his mum was a vampire than this pretty girl.

And then she had flicked him. He probably wouldn’t have been able to dodge it even if he had seen it coming. The seemingly small impact of her forefinger against his cheek hit with the force of a punch from a grown man approximately twice Pip’s size. Two more flicks—one to his forehead, one to his chest—and he was sprawled on the floor with a nosebleed, chagrined and shamed in front of his men.

“You’re a freak!” he announced as soon as he had gathered himself enough to sit up and point accusingly at the young woman.

Now officially branded a freak, Seras Victoria sighed heavily, attempting to move on. “Yes, well, I’m a vampire, so…” She cleared her throat.

Pip frowned, standing, searching for any explanation that didn’t involve vampires that would satisfactorily rationalize her super-strength. Steroids were the first thing that sprang to mind, but then she’d have creepy muscles and a deep voice. Then he wondered if the Hellsing Organization was doing sinister experiments on its people, but dismissed the thought almost immediately because it was too sci-fi.

“It’s true,” said a dark voice all around them. “She is a vampire.” And then a man stepped through the wall right before Pip’s eyes. His arm was wrapped around an even younger, surprised-looking blonde girl in a school uniform clutching a huge stuffed panda almost as big as her torso, and he moved as if escorting her through the previously solid structure. “A rather poor example,” he said with a sneer, showing off his fangs, “but a vampire nonetheless.”

Sir Hellsing looked as if she was about to hang the first person she got her hands on from the first tree she saw. “What are you two doing here?”

Mia smiled grimly and opened her mouth to explain, but the aging butler, Walter, stepped through the door. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I couldn’t stop them.”

“Mia was bored of shopping,” said Alucard, glancing at the Wild Geese, who were all shouting among themselves and generally looking terrified. “I wanted to meet the men you hired to guard my bed.” He gave a disdainful sort of sniff. “Looks like they are lacking in the ‘guts’ department. Are you sure these are the right people?”

“Oy!” Pip shouted.

Alucard gave him a look that Pip understood to mean ‘no one cares what you think, idiot’ and turned his attention back to Integra.

“Is what he says true?” Integra asked Mia with a stern look.

Holding the panda aloft as evidence, Mia said defensively, “I did buy something! All the clothes I saw weren’t really sensible for someone saving the world in. Honestly, who wants jeans with waists so low they show your butt when you sit down?”

Pip started to laugh, but shut his mouth when Alucard shot him a glance of death. Whoever that guy was, he was a bona fide, bona fide freak. The kind of freak that made the Seras freak look pretty bloody normal in comparison.

Integra sighed heavily. “Fine,” she groaned, massaging the bridge of her nose, “Fine… do what you want…”

“I’m sorry, Sir Integra, but if I might interrupt and change the topic slightly,” Walter ventured, “but this was discovered on the gate.” He held out an unmarked envelope. The seal was broken. “I took the liberty of reading it myself before I delivered it to you, madam.”

Sir Integra pulled out the paper in the envelope and scanned it quickly. “Right then,” she sighed heavily as if she had seen its kind ten million times before. She handed the note to Alucard to look at and announced, “We have a hostage situation.”

Mia’s phone rang cheerily, interrupting Sir Integra. The teenager hastily apologized and answered it in an undertone. “What, Cid?”

“Wow, somebody’s cranky,” Cid responded as Sir Integra continued to speak to the mercenary team.

“Get on with it; I’m kind of busy right now!”

“Fine, fine. I just wanted to tell ya, I’ve found the newbies.”

“You did? Where?”

“A warehouse in Cheswick,” said Sir Integra and Cid in unison, both answering Mia’s question.

She bit her lip. “Cid. I better go.”

“I assume the worst?” said Sir Integra, arching her eyebrow.

“If you consider ‘the fact these vampire’s hostages are the people I’m looking for’ the worst… yeah, it’s the worst.” Mia put her cell phone back in her pocket. “I’m going with you guys.”

“No,” said Sir Integra coldly. “It’s too dangerous.”

The mercenaries’ heads turned to each person talking as if watching a tennis match.

Alucard cleared his throat. “With all due respect, ma’am… she has to come with us. It says here that they will let the hostages go if they get to speak with the ‘Hellsing vampire’… which, I fear, would be me. Unless you plan to send an inexperienced evening walker into a nest with two or more hostages?”

“Oy, they taught ‘ostage negotiation in basic!” said Seras defensively. “I know what I’m doing!”

"The point is,” said Alucard loudly, “you can’t stop me if I want to come and you know it… Miss Hellsing.”

She sighed heavily. “Fine. I suppose I can’t stop either of you. But you’re a last resort, Alucard…” She turned and stormed out. “Remember that!”

He smiled, a mix of scorn and anger in it. “Yes ma’am.”

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If Mia hadn’t known otherwise while watching the Hellsing Organization set up a perimeter and keep civilians back, she would have thought it was just another branch of the police force. Their modus operandi and brusque manner of dealing with passersby were the same as the cops she had seen on TV. The way they had set up their perimeter would prevent anyone from coming out without being seen.

Unfortunately the same perimeter, along with her bodyguard Alucard keeping a close eye on her every move, would also make it very hard for her to get in without being seen.

She had determined as soon as she had figured out the key-bearers were the hostages that were involved that the best way to deal with this would be to go in and deal with it herself. Though Miss Hellsing no doubt knew what she was doing when it came to hostages and vampires, if the Organization showed up, things would turn really sour really fast. Though Mia hadn’t exactly won a fight against anything more powerful than a Shadow, if vampires who took hostages were really as scary as Alucard made them out to be, she wouldn’t have much of an issue.

The issue, of course, would be getting inside. Her strategy had two parts: one, get past the mercenary guards; two, get past Alucard. It was easy only in theory and she knew it.

Getting past the mercenaries would probably be the easiest part. Mercenaries thought in money, and the best way to get past them would be to bribe them. Of course, it would be if she had a substantial amount money. The only thing she had was the credit card Sir Hellsing gave her and people didn’t take credit cards as bribes.

Alucard though, would be more difficult to give the slip. Although he seemed to hold a great disdain for being assigned to her as a handler, he did a great job of it, only taking his eyes off her for a few seconds at a time to take a quick look around. Whatever she did to get away from him, it would have to be fast, and it would be preferable to have a distraction to keep both his eyes and his mind away from her.

But she couldn’t pull distractions or cash out of her back pocket. She didn’t have the time or the resources to do anything substantial.

“There are two guys staring at you,” said Alucard. “They’re strange.”

Mia made to turn around, but Alucard grabbed her arm. “Don’t look ‘round, the don’t know you know about them. They’re wearing black cloaks. And they feel all wrong… They’re not vampires, but I don’t sense their hearts beating.”

“Organization XIII,” Mia breathed. “They know about the other two, I’m just a bonus. But why aren’t they attacking?”

“Pardon?”

“Organization XIII is after the keyblade bearers,” she hissed. “And whatever they want us for, it’s not good. They could wipe us out in a second, so why aren’t they going for it?”

“Perhaps they know better,” Alucard replied, sneering evilly.

Mia rolled her eyes. He was cute, but he had an ego bigger than most buildings. “Please.” She frowned. “No, there’s something else going on here.”

He looked back up at the two men—one was a redhead, the other had hair dyed blue and had a scar like an X over his face.

The redhead glanced up at Alucard, noticing. He nudged his companion and pointed out Alucard. The second man looked up and met Alucard’s gaze in a threatening way. There was something in the man with the blue hair, something that made Alucard’s own inner beast want to come out and play…

The man muttered something to the redhead who gave an evil smile that rivaled any of Alucard’s best. Darkness welled up at the fiery-haired man’s feet and consumed him before dissipating, leaving no trace of the man but his friend. The remaining cloaked man snarled in a way that dared Alucard to follow him before turning and walking away through the crowd, who had seen nothing.

Well, Alucard never turned down a dare. The vampire made to take a step to follow the man when he remembered—he was supposed to be guarding Mia. He growled. He was a No-Life King! What was he doing chained to a girl who clearly did not desire the attention?

And speaking of the girl, where had she gone?

He looked about in time to see the tail end of a skirt vanish into the back door of the warehouse.

Well, she was clever at the very least, he thought grudgingly. He took another quick glance around. Well, nobody would notice if he nipped off for a bit to retrieve his charge. Sir Hellsing couldn’t blame him if orders had become contradictory. She couldn’t blame him if he decided following the most recent order fell under the category of ‘allowing her to be harmed by lack of action’.

He chuckled softly as his body became an amorphous blob of shadows, which then coagulated into thousands of insects. The insects quietly passed by the perimeter undetected at about the same time their collective mind sensed that his fledgling was also entering the warehouse.

Police girl, he called to her. Do me a favor…

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Mia tiptoed through the building, thanking God that she had elected to wear her soft leather flats rather than something more sturdy. They probably would only hold up for a few more days, but at least they were quiet. Every sound she did make made her heart jump into her throat, preventing her from making a move at all for the next thirty seconds. Then she would cautiously move on again.

She had been in the warehouse five minutes when she found them. Two bodies, drained completely of blood, lying inside of an open storage container.

Even though she felt like screaming, like running away, but there were vampires in here. A single sound would bring them on her like bats out of hell. She swallowed hard and inched forward as close as her trembling body would allow her to get a closer look.

They looked like teenagers.

Mia covered her mouth. What happened now? If they were the keyblade bearers...

“Boo.”

Mia screamed at the unexpected voice and whipped around to come face-to-face with another girl who was undoubtedly one of the vampires.

She was a little bit taller than Mia, and looked like she was a year older—when she became a vampire, at least. She had black hair and red eyes, and wore a black sleeveless leather jacket with red designs all across it.

The other girl cocked her head, staring at Mia. “You’re not the Hellsing vampire,” she said. “You’re not even with Hellsing, are you? Who are you?”

“S-s-s-student journalist?” she fibbed. Oh, she was not a good liar.

The vampire-girl raised an eyebrow. “Never mind. Forget it. It probably doesn’t even matter.”

Mia pointed back at the bodies. “You killed the hostages?”

“Not really,” she said, frowning as if wondering what Mia was talking about. “Those two were dinner.”

“So you never actually had hostages.”

The girl looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and then back at Mia, beaming. “Well… now I do.”

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A/N: I just wanted to get this chapter over and done with, so I rushed the ending through. Revisions will probably come along sooner or later. dramallama dramallama