-Zero Hour-

Chapter 16

Seras could barely understand Integra as she was almost screaming at her through the line.
All she got was that she had to get out of London as quickly as possible, but not why... It had to be important, Integra had never been like this before.
And it was hard to work against the time when you don`t know what is up.
Quickly, Seras grabbed her little bag she had packed for herself yesterday, then she was about to head out...
...but something strange caught her.
A deep thought to check the window struck her... just to see if something´s wrong.
So she did, walking over to the big window in the livingroom, she checked the outside.
London looked normal... still half trashed, but normal.
The workers tried to rebuild the ruins, some people assisted them, some just minded their own buisness.
But then, her eyes fixed on the sky.
Her vampireic eyes zoomed into the picture of a small dot on the horizon that came in near...
...and she gasped as she got that this was not a plane, neither an animal.
She tried to recognize what it could be... it was definitely a projectile, a big one, but what kind of warhead it was were beyond her.
Then, she was reminded of Integra`s phone call. If it were THAT serious, it was probably...
..no way.. it couldn`t..!
Seras gasped loudly, then ran out of the building as quick as she could, not even locking the door.
Running down to the street, she ignored the looks these workers gave her, and more cared about getting away faster.
Her sensitive ears tracked the noise of the sonic boom that the projectile made, even while running down the street with all this other noises around her.
But suddenly, the boom faded, and her surroundings blurred.
A blinding white flash.. Seras turned.
And looked at exactly the thing she had feared.

An gigantic, burning plasma cloud raiseing into the sky.

The heat around her exceeded everything a human could take... her clothes, and even her hair burned off instantly.
The leather of her bag began to melt, quickly turning into a black goo of some sort because of the intense waves of heat and radiation.
Her eyes, which fighted hard not to be blinded permenantly, fixed on the center of the detonation... it seemed blue to her, althrough it had to be bright white, brighter than anything imaginable.
Her tough vampire skin shreddered off her body along with the asphalt that liquefied on sight.
Finally, after almost a minute, the shockwave came.
The trees, which already had turned to coal, were knocked over, the houses turned to ashes on the push that reminded Seras of the hits Hauptmann Günsche had given her when they fought.
This struck her so hard that she was basically thrown across the street, the rest of the plasmatic heat followed on her tracks...
As she`d hit the ground, an observer from above could`ve only see a black skelleton with strange black flames around her.

Pip looked out the window, wondering about all this noise.
“..thunder... the sound of.. thunder..?” he muttered to himself.
Wasn`t this a bit long to be thunder?
He remembered the lesson Seras told him... the third eye.
Concentrateing for a moment, he looked towards the noise with this technique..
...and saw right into the pits of hell.
He immidiantly broke off watching, shuddering multiple times..
“....” He had seen this weapon before, but... somehow, he knew that she had to be there.
She had to. And it was his fault.
Directly after realizeing he began to run towards the office.. Integra had to let him go see her. NOW.

“Sir Integra. I demand to see Seras now, she might be in serious danger!” He shouted after bursting into the office.
“I know, Captain. Permission granted. Check the east of London and bring back Seras Victoria no matter what.” Integra was supriseingly calm about him, afterall, he didn´t even knock the door.
“Yes, Sir. I will.” Remembering his manners, he decided to call her by title at least as he left the office again, and closed the door behind him.
Pip quickly ran down to the lobby, then outside, towards the garage of the headquarters.
The only cars stored there were Integra`s Bently and serval oldtimers.. he`d expected much fancier cars, like Ferrari`s and racecars. But on a second thought, that`d lack style, and style was something Integra praised even more than manners.
Obviously, the Bently was the fastest of these, so Pip choosed this one when he rushed over to the wall, grabbing the key´s and starting the car right after he opened the door.

It didn`t even take him an hour to arrive in London, but searching for Seras certainly did. Most of the buildings were gone, and dust was everywhere he went, so it wasn`t exactly easy to do.
After arriveing in the general direction of her appartment, he abandoned the car and searched her on foot.. it would probably be more efficient than looking out of the car`s front window.
His skin itched all over and he felt it was hard to breath... vampires were immune to radiation by nature, but the dust and its scratchy surface weren`t much better than that.
Due the missing buildings, the wind was much stronger than before, so it started to clear up slowly... althrough the sky was still covered in pitch black clouds.

Seras slowly came to her senses.
She felt that she was wearing her uniform again, the bloody, torn outfit she had turned Pip in. Seems like that would be what she`d regenerate when necessary, like Alucard`s bondage-like outfit.
Trying to get up, it required huge ammounts of strength to even sit without falling over.
This whole thing took the lot out of her.. she must be nearing the state of emptyness, concerning the blood inside her.
Slowly bringing an hand up, she ran through her blonde hair, just to see if its still there... it was, again, but it was wide open, due her missing hairclip that held her ponytail in place.
She grumbled, not being able to part her lips quite right... she hated her hair like this.
It hung loosely onto her shoulders, making her look more like an adult woman than her childish short pony.
She couldn`t see clearly... althrough she wasn´t blinded, her eyelids refused to stay open completely.
She coughed at the dust surrounding her, serval times even, but then loosed concentration and fell over to the side.
Trying to yelp in pain, she couldn`t.. it came out more like a stuffed moan.
She closed her eyes back, then tried to relax and sleep for a while, but was immidiantly torn out of her thoughts.
“How do you always end up being half-dead, girlie.” she heard a familiar voice calling.
Seras turned around to him with all her strength and opened her eyes back again..
Pip stared at her, comeing down to his knees.... she managed a smile.
“Don`t you dare to die here. Integra will rip my goddamn balls off if you do.” he cursed, takeing her hand to check her pulse.
“..mm... I.... won..t...” it took much more effort to talk, but Seras also managed that.
“Seems like you`re still alive, in our kind of way. After you bullied me `round like this, it should be good to see you clinging on the edge, but even i`m not that mean.” rolling up his sleeve, Pip guessed the most logical thing to do in this case.
Seras got what he was up to, and tried to open her mouth... but that was beyond her.
Parting lips to talk was something she still could do, but she´d need to open wide to feed.
“Ugh... don`t tell me you.... geez...” Pip sighed deeply, slowly getting it... he`d be having to feed her.
“P...ple...eas..” she squirmed, trying to plead him, but not aware that he already decided.
Biteing his own arm, he sucked out a bit of his blood, keeping it in his mouth, then brought it up to Seras`s.
She widened her eyes at first, being kissed by him again, but then remembered that it was emergancy, and tried to not enjoy it... failing to do so, she drank the blood, slowly moveing around a bit while closeing her eyes again.
In this case, it would look like she wants to relax the muscles of her eyelids, but Pip knew better as she started to kiss him back, gently, almost shy.
Seras brought her arms around his neck, as soon as she recovered, holding him like this for a moment.
Pip, on the other hand, suddenly noticed that he loosed control over her actions again, and, well, all he could to to regain so was to part from her again... that worked, since she was too proud to kiss him again and show that she actually wanted that.
“Pip.. that just never happened. No matter what you say now, this was just erased from existance. Its beyond this sphere. Or, as you`d say, its “in my ass”.”
He blinked for a second, then started to grin. “Oh, i`d love to check if it is.”
The whole conversation was cut short by her frustrated scream, and his hysteric laughter.

Chapter seventeen


Seras slowly started to walk, after getting up from the grey dust that covered the entire ground.
“Lets go back quickly.” Pip said, heading for the car, hopeing it was intact enough.
What he didn´t quite see.. she was covered in dust all over. Only as she shuddered all of the sudden, it caught the attention of his eye.
„Hm?“
„I gotta take a shower after comeing home... i feel like i bathed in a flood of dirt today.“ she sighed, trying to get some of the fallout snow off.
Pip grinned, and tried to raise her mood with a joke. „I could join you, if it`ll make you feel better.“
Seras turned to him, and only someone who knew her for long could see the naughty expression behind her smile. „Maybe. If you behave now, maybe you can.“
Pip was caught off guard by that, he didn`t expect a shy girl like her to say that. „Really?“
„Yeah... i´ve been thinking it over for a while now, actually. But don´t get scared over the lot of scars on my skin.“ She grinned a bit, trailing little lines over her body with her finger to indicate where some of the scars were.
„Oh, i won´t, i promise.“ He suddenly went serious, getting a rather blank face now.
„...what is it?“ she asked him then.
„... nothing. Its just.. unususal for you to be so forwarded. I don´t know how to judge that, is all.“

After a long, silent ride in the car, the huge manor creeped up before them.
They got out, then headed towards it, still being silent.
Finally, Pip couldn`t stand the silence anymore.
“What is it with you this whole time?” he asked, looking at her.
“Nothing.. It just feels like my memories had been vaporized just now. And they literally did. I just need some rest to get over that.” She looked straight ahead, not at him. Her glace was blank, and her red shaded eyes made no motion.
Pip shrugged, just walking side by. “Just hope you do get over it. I don´t think I could stand an overemotional master.”
Seras made a weak smile, and looked at him, finally. “No, I don´t think i`ll break at this.”

They entered the mansion, and Integra rushed towards them. Immidiantly, Seras`s tough shell reappeared.
“Where had you been so long?! Are you alright?! Answer me, Seras!” She shouted, worriedly, but mostly angry.
“Better not glomp me too tightly, I feel like I could glow in the dark right now. If you please excuse me, I need to take a shower first.. radioactive dust tickles as crap.” With these words, Seras walked past her, heading to the bathroom.
Pip looked at his superior and shook his head. “She got a nuke dead on, and her hometown was destroyed.. I guess she just wanted to pick up memories from her old house when that strike happened.”
Integra grumbled, then handed him a parcel. “Give her that when she comes back. And don`t drop it.”

Seras quickly stripped herself meanwhile, takeing tons of dust and radiation off her body like flith.
Stareing at the mirror, she felt better being naked than dressed in that uniform.
Her red uniform resembled her former life, and that life had just been terminated.
She gritted her teeth so her fangs were shown in her mirror image. If she had to go this way, then she would start a different life, alright.
Soon after, she stepped into the shower, letting out a quiet moan over the hot sprays of water. Under them, her tensed muscles could relax again, and she felt good.
It seemed funny that the water that ran down her body was muddy and brown, but she payed it no mind, her total concentration was to finish this shower quickly and get dressed.
As most of her plans, things didn`t go this way as two warm arms wrapped around her waist.
Seras gasped loudly in suprise, spinning around quickly to see no one else but Pip, her oh so useful flegling.
He, on the other hand, grinned, keeping his eyes at an eye-level. “I behaved myself back then, so I can get my prize.”
Seras sighed deeply in frustration, nodding. “Yes, I suppose you did, althrough it doesn`t fit much into my stuff right now.” She blinked as her eyes fixed onto his chest.
Scars, small ones, bigger ones, some pale, some visible, covered it.
Pip did the same thing, fixing on her upper body. She didn´t have half as much scars as he did, but some immensely big ones.
Her body was incrediblely attractive, but these pale, thin lines and circles told him she didn`t lead an easy life.
Now he was curious, and instead of Seras, who just stared at him, he raised her hand up to her neck and guided his fingertips across it, searching.
She`d let out a sigh as he found what he searched for... serval little dot like scars in two fine rows, definitely a bite mark.
He stoked across it slightly. “That must`ve hurt.”
Seras closed her eyes, embraceing him. “Not at all. I had fainted before I even felt his mouth.”
Pip looked at her pretty face. “Fainted?”
She nodded this time, then pointed over to a large, quite pale scar surrounding her left breast. “He shot me before he bit me. That was that hurt.”
He blinked at first, but then grinned slightly. “Then I should make it better.”
Gently, he stoked and massaged her left breast, being in facination of it. It was soft and warm, but kept in shape quite good.
Seras let out a quiet moan, but shoved him off gently. “Not yet.. Just wait a little longer with that.”
Pip sweatdropped. “I just wanted to comfort you.”
“Oh. Sorry bout that.”

Soon, they both had finished cleaning themselves off, and Pip returned to his quarters for a moment.
That gave Seras enough time to dress up.
Takeing the belt off the uniform, she stuffed the rest of the torn clothing into a box, then shoved it into the deepest corner of her closet.
Afterwards, she picked out somethings she had bought long ago, but yet didn`t have the courage to wear it.
As Pip came into the room shortly after, he was given a quite facinateing view.
Seras was dressed in a black leather outfit that obviously resembled Alucard`s bondage gear.
Serval leather belts were spread across it, over her chest, over the skirt part and around her neck.
Her stomatch was uncovered, and two long handgloves covered her arms.
On the end of these, as well as on the highest part of the stockings she wore to that, were also leather straps. Her shoulders were freely covered, and finally, steel reinforced, high boots were the tip of the iceberg.
Her weapon belt fitted entirely into the whole thing, and Alucard`s ribbon had been overpainted into black.
Overall, she looked slightly gothic, but Pip`s blissful expression showed that it would definitely distact her enemies.
Seras used this oppotuinity to test out one of her newer abilitys, mind reading, as she stared directly into his eyes and concentrated.
Feeling caught by that, Pip swallowed hard, looking at her. “What?”
“Nothing, just testing something. And I don´t think I could shove a Halconnen shell in there, perv”.
Making a mental note to keep armor pierceing rounds from her intimate parts, she walked over to him, looking at the parcel he brought with.
“Whats that?” she asked, looking closer.
Pip finally got back to his senses, blinking. “Integra gave that to me. I have no idea what it is.”
Seras took the package from him, placeing it on the table before her, then started to unpack it.
“By the way, how do ya like my new costume?” she grinned smugly, something she thought she could never do before.
“I bet these straps could be useful to carry ammo around, if you don`t like it inside you.” he said sarcastically, then went back to normal. “Naw, really, looks good on you.”
He looked over her shoulder as Seras gasped at the sight in the package.
An huge, deeply black revolver with brass hammer and trigger looked back at them, five rounds of ammo beside it.
The grips were made of solid ivory, the symbol of the Hellsings engraved into it.
Slowly and gently, Seras took out the gigantic, but beautiful weapon, and grasped it with her hand, adjusting the grip serval times.
“Pretty heavy. But I could`ve expected that. What do you think, Pip?`” she asked, looking over to him.
He was in a slight bliss, responding after a second. “Seems cool enough. But could be slow to load with this huge bullets.”
She nodded, takeing the bullets out as well. “We`ll see.”
One after another, the bullets were loaded into the massive drum of the gun. It took about fifteen seconds, but then it was done, and a bit of weight was added to the weapon again.
Under the satin layer that held the weapon in the case was a strong holster, fitted especially for this gun. Seras took it as well, placeing it on the back of her belt so the grip of the revolver would be to the left, and slipped the gun in.
Now her outfit was complete.
Pip smirked as he looked over her. “Nice.”
Seras nodded. “Yeah, but only for you at the moment. This whole stuff weights quite a lot.”

Eighteen

It was a calm, quiet day in the Hellsing mansion... Seras was relaxing in her room, changed into casual clothes, a white shirt and jeans, and read a book meanwhile.
Some creepy vampire novel, nothing of her taste but you couldn´t find anything else interesting in the Hellsing liberary.
At first, she didn`t hear the steps incomeing to her room.. but then they slowly got louder, louder.
Someone quite heavy was approaching her door.
Her left eye twitched. It couldn`t be Anderson. He was dead, dissolved by himself. Alucard was pretty much impossible either.. but what if?
He had been an amazeing creature, capable of doing things she couldn`t be dreaming off with ease.
A slight knock on her door was heard.
Slowly, she stood up, onto her bare feet, going towards the door... listening.
Another knock.
She got to the door, unlocking it slowly and gently... and a wierd sounding, suppressed sound was heard.
A bleeding hole was on her hip, and before she realized it, the door was kicked open, sending her flying backwards a bit.
Rolling onto her side with pain, she looked up to the person.. a pretty, short haired girl with brown hair that had a slight tone of red.
Her eyes were blue, so it couldn`t be a vampire. However, she was packed full of silenced guns, a smokeing silenced pistol in her hand.
Before Seras could get up and reach for her gun, another shot struck her shoulder, and she groaned in pain.
„Silver...“ she hissed, looking up to the girl again.
„Thats what kills you, isn`t it?“ She spoke in a soft, but hateful voice, and pulled an silenced MP5K from her waist.
Seras raised up her left arm, but only to let it be splattered across the floor as the thirty shots of the high-cap magazine were emptyed into her arm and chest.
„Doesn`t look well. You should call an ambulance.“ the girl said sarcastically, throwing the empty gun away.
„Who..who are you...“ Seras groaned, looking up again, chokeing up a bit of blood.
„The very head of Phoenix. But Rein for my friends.“ She grinned evily, rechambering the silenced pistol.
That gave Seras an oppotunity to stand up and ram her against a wall, but it was no good, as she was shoved off by a bullet in the stomatch.
„Rebellious about your death, are you? Seems like my nuke wasn`t enough for you.“ Rein said, rechargeing again.
„By that time you`re out of bullets, you`re dead meat...“ Seras hissed, yet hesitateing to reform her left arm. The bloody stump with the bone sticking out was not good for combat, but it looked like Rein had the upper hand. Save your trump cards for last, Pip said once.
„Don`t worry sweet, i have enough for ya.“ Rein smirked, takeing an silenced Assault pistol next.
Seras rushed forward, aiming to knock the gun out of her hand and break her arm, but all she recieved was a hard kick into the spine, causeing her to crash into a wall. Thirty bullets into the back followed.
Seras choked up more blood, her face now had some cuts and bruises.. pulling herself together, she turned and kicked at Rein, who catched the kick but still stumbled backwards from the force of impact.
Her silencer gun dropped to the floor, ready to be fired.
Rein reached for it quickly, but Seras kicked it away, into the opposite corner of the room.
„Bitch...“ Rein hissed, but Seras finally took her time to regenerate her left arm. „No such bad words in my room, Lady.“
„I`ll show you who`s the boss here...!“ The assassin growled, finally takeing her last gun, an M4 Carbine rifle with silencer and 100 shot double drum magazine.
„Lets make this fight even!“ Seras pressed out, gripping her knife from her bedside drawer to block the bullets.
„Stupid idiot. You think you can avoid my bullets?“ Rein replied angryly, shooting at the metal lines of her coffin.
Seras gasped at the flaw in her plan, falling over from a bullet in the leg.
Ninetynine shots entered her body finally, and then silence followed.
The room was full of ashes, burned gunpowder, and the everconstant smell of fresh blood.
Seras craved for it, but she knew it won´t help, it was her own.
She was now lieing beside her coffin bed, bleeding like she were before... Rein threw off her M4 and finally grasped the Katana that was slung across her back.
„Given yourself up? Good girl. Makes my job easier.“
Like Hell.. Seras thought. I`ll just keep regenerateing and..
Something struck her mind. Something she had forgotten about in purpose.
Walter`s present!
The old, perverted man once gave her a present... with painfully low amounts of strength Seras reached under the coffin... there...
She pulled out a big, pink dildo.
Rein`s face broke apart. „What? What are you gonna do with THAT?!“ She bursted out in laughter, but immidiantly stopped as a loud, metal click sounded.
The dildo was split open on the front, revealing a metal barrel, big enough for a fifty caliber.
„See you later....“ Seras groaned finally, pressing the trigger.
The force of the bullet that shot into Rein´s armor covered chest shot her out of the room, and Seras finally collapsed from exaustion.
Confused and with a broken rib, Rein retreated quickly, without even bothering to pick up her gun.
Soon after, Pip, stirred up by the loud boom, got to Seras`s room and stared in a shock.

„Seras?!“ He shouted, breathlessly.
She barely looked at him as she stood in her room.. not quite standing at all, more like waveing from side to side, being about to fall over or to pass out again.
„...get... away...“ she moaned in pain,stumbleing towards the door were he stood.
„W...what?“
„..get...away...fr..from.. me...“
Seras look was horrible. The bullet wounds merely stopped to bleed, but they didn`t heal.
The Blood Arm had disappeared again, leaveing her bloody stump of an arm hanging on her body uselessly.
Pip came up to support her, but she wanted to shove them off.
„Get.. away... i`m... going to.. eat...you...“ she pressed out, wanting to run away, but her body needed blood no matter from where.
„.... Seras... don`t be stupid now..“
No other words followed from him, she bit down deeply and drank his blood.
Pips Mind was a blurr, images and emotions passing by fast, he couldn`t see but mental images passed over his actual eye.
The blood that surrounded Seras all over the room, hers, Reins, everything, entered her body at once, soaking the torn rest of her clothes.
Pip could barely feel it, but he noticed that Seras wounds healed rapidly. Her arm got back into its normal shape, her breasts got back into her soft, bouncey state as they were more than a layer of squishy blood before, and the endless holes inside her body passed away.
Finally, Seras pulled off him, shocked.
„I.. i told you to get away..!“she stuttered, still sick about that she`d bit him again.
„I know.. i heard you.“ Pip gasped, still struggleing with his consiousness.
„But.. why didn`t you obey me?“ Seras was freaked and worried at once.
„Because you needed me. Me and my blood. And if there`s anything i can do for you, i`m doing it.“
Pip´s words broke some sort of barrier inside Seras as she rushed forward to him again and hugged him with all her might.
„You fool... you brainless fool... would you sacrifice it all just for an idiot like me? Your humanity, your life, your blood, your soul...! All just for someone idiotic and worthless like me?!“ Seras broke out in tears, soaking Pip`s shoulder with her sobs.
„Yes. I did and i would ever do it again for you.“
Seras stared up at him with her wet eyes, in a hopelessly misunderstanding matter. But she did understand what he meant to say with it.
Pulling off his shoulder, she pressed her lips against his, opening her mouth, slipping her tongue towards his, french kissing him with passion.
Pip didn`t know what was happening, but he instantly kissed back.
It felt like back then.. the taste of blood in her mouth, the rough feeling of her immensely long tongue, and her sweetly soft lips. It all feeled like back then.
With one difference.
They were both very alive.


This chapter is dedicated to the real Rein, who has birthday on the 31th of July.
Happy birthday, Reiny.