London, 1944, Hellsing manor
Walter got out of the chauffeured car and stood staring up at the front façade of Hellsing manor. Six months was far too long to come home for only a brief visit, but Arthur’s whims were at times impossible to contradict.
His bags would be deposited in his room. Walter let the car go to the motor pool and walked up the steps and into the manor.
His footsteps echoed in the great hall and he noted the flower arrangement in the vase there with approval. Either they’d been keeping things properly in shape during his absence, or someone had at least had the sense to put up a good front for his visit.
Oddly, he was rather hoping for the latter. No one likes to consider themselves dispensable.
No, Angel. No one likes that.
Walter stiffened as the words blew through his mind, leaving a calculated chill behind. I did not give you my permission to snoop.
But you did. Before you left me here.
Then I rescind it. “Stay out of my mind,” he said brusquely to the shadows that teemed away from the light streaming through the windows flanking the front door.
“As you wish,” replied the shadows before they faded away, leaving more wholesome shades in their stead.
The young butler grimaced. This was going to be fun, or something entirely unlike it.
Sir Arthur Hellsing's personal study was a disaster. Empty scotch bottles, used dishes, cigar butts, and various articles of clothing littered nearly every surface. Memos from the front and various heads of state were mixed up with blue magazines and and anthologies of poems that mostly began "There once was a man from Nantucket." If there was a system of organization, it was one that only Arthur understood.
And, that was the point, really.
He sat at his desk, now, his feet propped up on a stack of Islands' and Penwood's latest reports. He was using his fountain pen to add lipstick, a mustache, and devil horns on a picture of Winston Churchill.
Walter made a face at the mess and started picking things up as he picked his way toward Arthur's desk. Bloody typical. No wonder the man had sent him a letter saying he couldn't find anything, and things had clearly gone downhill from there.
Regardless, there was protocol. He dumped some of the garbage in the wastebasket, or rather, on top of the overflowing heap atop the wastebasket and presented himself to Arthur.
"Sir Hellsing."
"Walter!"
Arthur looked up from the photograph and tossed it and the fountain pen down upon his desk.
"Come in, come in! Delightful to see you, my boy. I trust your trip home was comfortable?"
"Yes, sir. It was smoother than one would expect for the fact that I did not cross an ocean, but did cross sixty-two years." Walter looked at the photograph and did not roll his eyes, despite strong desires to the contrary.
Arthur nodded.
"Excellent, excellent...And, I trust your school work goes well? I know I'm pulling you out of your summer courses, but the last academic transcript they mailed to me was superb. Well done, indeed."
Walter still stood at a sort of attention in front of Arthur's desk. "Yes, sir. Although I would appreciate it if you'd let me choose my next session of summer courses. It is supposed to be a vacation of sorts, after all."
Arthur waved his hand.
"Of course. And, I want you to enjoy yourself, Walter. So, you just leave all those pesky administrative duties to me, and go off and frolic with your chums," he said, giving Walter a hearty wink, "These are the best years of your life, my boy. Why I remember once at Eton..." he began and launched into a story that involved Lord Penwood, a chicken, two ladies of negotiable virtue, and a bag of liquorice all sorts.
About halfway through the story, which he'd heard before, Walter gave up and started cleaning up the mess in Arthur's study. Eventually his employer would get to the point. He might as well be productive while he waited.
"...and you know, Penwood never did find that watch," Arthur finished with a chuckle.
He cleared his throat.
"Now, as you've probably guessed, Walter, I've called you home towards a specific purpose. But, before I get into it, I realise that there was an...incident at your school earlier last month. Correct?"
An incident... yes, Walter supposed that was one way to put it. "Yes, sir, there was."
Arthur nodded, and his expression became serious. He took his feet of the desk and sat forward, folding his hands before him on top of his ink blotter.
"I would appreciate your enlightening me as to the details, Walter."
"Yes, sir." Walter added another stack of trash to the teetering pile atop Arthur's wastebasket and returning to stand in front of his employer's desk.
"During a mission of sorts to find information to save another Fandom student, I acquired a pair of statues. I was unaware that the statues were cursed. When I gave one to a friend of mine at school and put the other near my bed, she and I were subject to the curse. She was possessed by a fairy she had encountered once before during an incident in which the fairy court came to the school during a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream."
He drew a breath and went on. "I was possessed by a vampire who claimed to be me from my future."
"Possessed in what sense?"
Walter clenched his jaw and answered in a detached voice, "He took control of my body almost entirely, to the point that it was, in fact, that of a vampire - no heartbeat, no need to breathe, fangs, thirst for blood, sensitivity to silver and all. My body was also stronger and even faster."
Arthur noted the tension in the young man's jaw, but made no comment.
"A harrowing experience to say the least," he commented, "And yet, Walter, you are one of the few men to ever come to know exactly what it is to be your own enemy. I trust you have been trained well enough to know how to use this to your advantage."
"It was instructive in better understanding a vampire's senses, if not his sensibilities, sir. The vampire claimed to be me, but he did not know everything that I knew. He was unfamiliar with Fandom entirely. He also made careless mistakes that I would not make."
"So you do not give much credence to the creature's claim that he is your future?"
"He isn't my future, sir. He might be the future of a version of myself, though. He could use the wires as well as I. He knew who Alucard was. More worrisome to me is that he recognized two of my classmates, and they are from our future, lending some potential truth to his claim to being from the future."
Arthur sat up.
"I see. And, you are certain these two classmates are from our future?"
"Both seem to be from approximately the same time frame. One is French, from a mercenary family. The vampire implied that he hired Bernadette in a professional capacity. The other is English."
Walter paused before pressing on, "The vampire implied very strongly that Alucard made her a vampire."
Arthur paused a moment, considering.
"The vampire told her this?"
"He did not directly tell either of us these things, but she and I both inferred the same thing." Walter realized that sometime during the narrative, he had clenched his hands into fists. He slowly relaxed his fingers before continuing.
"There was an incident recently in which a student at school cast a truth spell that affected the school. While none of us remember the truths exchanged under its influence, I have reason to believe that I told her what I knew about Alucard during that period. I made the decision to tell her what I knew to avoid that happening again."
Arthur regarded Walter for a moment with no readable expression on his face, save that of his usual calculated...eccentricity.
"Have a seat, my boy," he said gesturing to the chair near his desk.
Walter took the proffered seat, perching stiffly on its edge, and waited for Arthur to go on.
"I have two questions for you, Walter. Firstly, exactly what have you told your classmate about Alucard and about Hellsing? And, secondly, what is it that makes you so certain that this vampire is, in fact, not you. Apart from the personality differences you mentioned earlier. Those, after all, may simply be wishful thinking."
"I told her that Hellsing is an organization that hunts and destroys vampires and that Alucard serves it. I also showed her some photos I have of him," Walter answered evenly.
"And there are a number of reasons I do not believe the vampire to be me. Firstly, he does not share my memories. He did not remember Fandom and had to use my journal to find information about my friends. He claimed not to serve Hellsing, which would be understandable if he were a vampire, I suppose. And..." Oh, this was a delight to share with Arthur, "I am no virgin."
Arthur was torn. He did take a certain perverse delight in baiting his butler and having the boy think him an absolute tit. Walter's reactions were nearly as amusing as Sir Islands'.
On the other hand, this was a bad business, but it affected Hellsing. Right at its very core, if this other Walter's story was to be believed.
"How did this girl take the news?" he asked.
In the modern vernacular, it freaked her out. However, Walter answered, "She was disturbed, as one might expect. She very much does not wish for it to happen."
Arthur nodded.
"You've given me a great deal to think over, Walter," he said, "Especially in light of these."
He held up two files.
Walter looked at the two files for some clue of their contents. "Sir?"
"This," he said, holding out one folder,"Is the information I required in order to send you and Alucard out on your mission. I took so long in calling you because our agents failed to report back to me."
He regarded Walter a moment and then passed over the other file.
"This is what was left of them."
Walter looked impassively at the gory images inside the folder. Black and white muted the carnage, but his imagination filled in the details more than adequately.
"How do you feel these have bearing on what I've told you?"
"A new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science..." said Arthur, quoting Churchill's speech to the House of Commons, "Winston was more right than ever he knew."
Arthur paused and then went on.
"It seems that the Axis has created and agency for the artificial production of vampires. Their progress is slow, thus far having only produced ghouls. However...I, above all, should know what effects can be achieved when one is determined enough."
He regarded the boy in front of him.
"Should these men succeed, the ancient virginity clause will more than likely be rendered null and void, Walter."
The majority of Walter's reaction could be divined in the way the color drained from his face.
"Then we can't let them succeed, can we?" was his only response. "How soon do I leave?"
"You and Alucard leave at the end of the week. You'll be smuggled across the Channel and into France. An American aircraft will take you the rest of the way into Poland, just outside Warsaw where you will Search and Destroy all targets."
"I knew the Yanks would get in it eventually," Walter said, shaking his head. "Until then I can see about wading through this mire you've made your study."
Arthur chuckled.
"Just as you like, my boy."
He stood up from his desk and made his way over to Walter.
"Alucard has recently gone through another series of experiments. His condition is still...not entirely stable, and he will remain in his coffin for the entire journey. We anticipate his full recovery by the time you reach Warsaw, however."
Walter rose when Arthur did, not comfortable staying seated when his employer was standing.
He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about Arthur's statement about Alucard. On the one hand, he didn't have to worry about bumping into Alucard while he waited. On the other... he knew the experiments weren't easy on the vampire, and he couldn't stifle his concern.
"Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?"
"Only this. I realise that you've been gone from us for six months. I don't know the details of what has passed in all that time, Walter. I only know the one thing that has not changed. You are Hellsing's Angel of Death, the best vampire hunter of your generation and the only man I would dream of sending on this mission."
Arthur made his way over to Walter and gazed down at him.
"I'm sending you into Hell, my boy. But, you will not give up and despair. You are on a mission from God."
Those last were perhaps the only words that Sir Arthur Hellsing still held sacred.
"Yes, sir." It wasn't possible for Walter to stand any straighter, but even his ego benefited from an occasional unsolicited boost. "I won't let you down, sir."
Arthur nodded.
"I know. May God and His Majesty be with you."
[ooc: NFB due to distance. Preplayed with union_jane, whose Arthur rocks. No interaction, clearly, but the peanut gallery is right this way.]
His bags would be deposited in his room. Walter let the car go to the motor pool and walked up the steps and into the manor.
His footsteps echoed in the great hall and he noted the flower arrangement in the vase there with approval. Either they’d been keeping things properly in shape during his absence, or someone had at least had the sense to put up a good front for his visit.
Oddly, he was rather hoping for the latter. No one likes to consider themselves dispensable.
No, Angel. No one likes that.
Walter stiffened as the words blew through his mind, leaving a calculated chill behind. I did not give you my permission to snoop.
But you did. Before you left me here.
Then I rescind it. “Stay out of my mind,” he said brusquely to the shadows that teemed away from the light streaming through the windows flanking the front door.
“As you wish,” replied the shadows before they faded away, leaving more wholesome shades in their stead.
The young butler grimaced. This was going to be fun, or something entirely unlike it.
Sir Arthur Hellsing's personal study was a disaster. Empty scotch bottles, used dishes, cigar butts, and various articles of clothing littered nearly every surface. Memos from the front and various heads of state were mixed up with blue magazines and and anthologies of poems that mostly began "There once was a man from Nantucket." If there was a system of organization, it was one that only Arthur understood.
And, that was the point, really.
He sat at his desk, now, his feet propped up on a stack of Islands' and Penwood's latest reports. He was using his fountain pen to add lipstick, a mustache, and devil horns on a picture of Winston Churchill.
Walter made a face at the mess and started picking things up as he picked his way toward Arthur's desk. Bloody typical. No wonder the man had sent him a letter saying he couldn't find anything, and things had clearly gone downhill from there.
Regardless, there was protocol. He dumped some of the garbage in the wastebasket, or rather, on top of the overflowing heap atop the wastebasket and presented himself to Arthur.
"Sir Hellsing."
"Walter!"
Arthur looked up from the photograph and tossed it and the fountain pen down upon his desk.
"Come in, come in! Delightful to see you, my boy. I trust your trip home was comfortable?"
"Yes, sir. It was smoother than one would expect for the fact that I did not cross an ocean, but did cross sixty-two years." Walter looked at the photograph and did not roll his eyes, despite strong desires to the contrary.
Arthur nodded.
"Excellent, excellent...And, I trust your school work goes well? I know I'm pulling you out of your summer courses, but the last academic transcript they mailed to me was superb. Well done, indeed."
Walter still stood at a sort of attention in front of Arthur's desk. "Yes, sir. Although I would appreciate it if you'd let me choose my next session of summer courses. It is supposed to be a vacation of sorts, after all."
Arthur waved his hand.
"Of course. And, I want you to enjoy yourself, Walter. So, you just leave all those pesky administrative duties to me, and go off and frolic with your chums," he said, giving Walter a hearty wink, "These are the best years of your life, my boy. Why I remember once at Eton..." he began and launched into a story that involved Lord Penwood, a chicken, two ladies of negotiable virtue, and a bag of liquorice all sorts.
About halfway through the story, which he'd heard before, Walter gave up and started cleaning up the mess in Arthur's study. Eventually his employer would get to the point. He might as well be productive while he waited.
"...and you know, Penwood never did find that watch," Arthur finished with a chuckle.
He cleared his throat.
"Now, as you've probably guessed, Walter, I've called you home towards a specific purpose. But, before I get into it, I realise that there was an...incident at your school earlier last month. Correct?"
An incident... yes, Walter supposed that was one way to put it. "Yes, sir, there was."
Arthur nodded, and his expression became serious. He took his feet of the desk and sat forward, folding his hands before him on top of his ink blotter.
"I would appreciate your enlightening me as to the details, Walter."
"Yes, sir." Walter added another stack of trash to the teetering pile atop Arthur's wastebasket and returning to stand in front of his employer's desk.
"During a mission of sorts to find information to save another Fandom student, I acquired a pair of statues. I was unaware that the statues were cursed. When I gave one to a friend of mine at school and put the other near my bed, she and I were subject to the curse. She was possessed by a fairy she had encountered once before during an incident in which the fairy court came to the school during a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream."
He drew a breath and went on. "I was possessed by a vampire who claimed to be me from my future."
"Possessed in what sense?"
Walter clenched his jaw and answered in a detached voice, "He took control of my body almost entirely, to the point that it was, in fact, that of a vampire - no heartbeat, no need to breathe, fangs, thirst for blood, sensitivity to silver and all. My body was also stronger and even faster."
Arthur noted the tension in the young man's jaw, but made no comment.
"A harrowing experience to say the least," he commented, "And yet, Walter, you are one of the few men to ever come to know exactly what it is to be your own enemy. I trust you have been trained well enough to know how to use this to your advantage."
"It was instructive in better understanding a vampire's senses, if not his sensibilities, sir. The vampire claimed to be me, but he did not know everything that I knew. He was unfamiliar with Fandom entirely. He also made careless mistakes that I would not make."
"So you do not give much credence to the creature's claim that he is your future?"
"He isn't my future, sir. He might be the future of a version of myself, though. He could use the wires as well as I. He knew who Alucard was. More worrisome to me is that he recognized two of my classmates, and they are from our future, lending some potential truth to his claim to being from the future."
Arthur sat up.
"I see. And, you are certain these two classmates are from our future?"
"Both seem to be from approximately the same time frame. One is French, from a mercenary family. The vampire implied that he hired Bernadette in a professional capacity. The other is English."
Walter paused before pressing on, "The vampire implied very strongly that Alucard made her a vampire."
Arthur paused a moment, considering.
"The vampire told her this?"
"He did not directly tell either of us these things, but she and I both inferred the same thing." Walter realized that sometime during the narrative, he had clenched his hands into fists. He slowly relaxed his fingers before continuing.
"There was an incident recently in which a student at school cast a truth spell that affected the school. While none of us remember the truths exchanged under its influence, I have reason to believe that I told her what I knew about Alucard during that period. I made the decision to tell her what I knew to avoid that happening again."
Arthur regarded Walter for a moment with no readable expression on his face, save that of his usual calculated...eccentricity.
"Have a seat, my boy," he said gesturing to the chair near his desk.
Walter took the proffered seat, perching stiffly on its edge, and waited for Arthur to go on.
"I have two questions for you, Walter. Firstly, exactly what have you told your classmate about Alucard and about Hellsing? And, secondly, what is it that makes you so certain that this vampire is, in fact, not you. Apart from the personality differences you mentioned earlier. Those, after all, may simply be wishful thinking."
"I told her that Hellsing is an organization that hunts and destroys vampires and that Alucard serves it. I also showed her some photos I have of him," Walter answered evenly.
"And there are a number of reasons I do not believe the vampire to be me. Firstly, he does not share my memories. He did not remember Fandom and had to use my journal to find information about my friends. He claimed not to serve Hellsing, which would be understandable if he were a vampire, I suppose. And..." Oh, this was a delight to share with Arthur, "I am no virgin."
Arthur was torn. He did take a certain perverse delight in baiting his butler and having the boy think him an absolute tit. Walter's reactions were nearly as amusing as Sir Islands'.
On the other hand, this was a bad business, but it affected Hellsing. Right at its very core, if this other Walter's story was to be believed.
"How did this girl take the news?" he asked.
In the modern vernacular, it freaked her out. However, Walter answered, "She was disturbed, as one might expect. She very much does not wish for it to happen."
Arthur nodded.
"You've given me a great deal to think over, Walter," he said, "Especially in light of these."
He held up two files.
Walter looked at the two files for some clue of their contents. "Sir?"
"This," he said, holding out one folder,"Is the information I required in order to send you and Alucard out on your mission. I took so long in calling you because our agents failed to report back to me."
He regarded Walter a moment and then passed over the other file.
"This is what was left of them."
Walter looked impassively at the gory images inside the folder. Black and white muted the carnage, but his imagination filled in the details more than adequately.
"How do you feel these have bearing on what I've told you?"
"A new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science..." said Arthur, quoting Churchill's speech to the House of Commons, "Winston was more right than ever he knew."
Arthur paused and then went on.
"It seems that the Axis has created and agency for the artificial production of vampires. Their progress is slow, thus far having only produced ghouls. However...I, above all, should know what effects can be achieved when one is determined enough."
He regarded the boy in front of him.
"Should these men succeed, the ancient virginity clause will more than likely be rendered null and void, Walter."
The majority of Walter's reaction could be divined in the way the color drained from his face.
"Then we can't let them succeed, can we?" was his only response. "How soon do I leave?"
"You and Alucard leave at the end of the week. You'll be smuggled across the Channel and into France. An American aircraft will take you the rest of the way into Poland, just outside Warsaw where you will Search and Destroy all targets."
"I knew the Yanks would get in it eventually," Walter said, shaking his head. "Until then I can see about wading through this mire you've made your study."
Arthur chuckled.
"Just as you like, my boy."
He stood up from his desk and made his way over to Walter.
"Alucard has recently gone through another series of experiments. His condition is still...not entirely stable, and he will remain in his coffin for the entire journey. We anticipate his full recovery by the time you reach Warsaw, however."
Walter rose when Arthur did, not comfortable staying seated when his employer was standing.
He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about Arthur's statement about Alucard. On the one hand, he didn't have to worry about bumping into Alucard while he waited. On the other... he knew the experiments weren't easy on the vampire, and he couldn't stifle his concern.
"Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?"
"Only this. I realise that you've been gone from us for six months. I don't know the details of what has passed in all that time, Walter. I only know the one thing that has not changed. You are Hellsing's Angel of Death, the best vampire hunter of your generation and the only man I would dream of sending on this mission."
Arthur made his way over to Walter and gazed down at him.
"I'm sending you into Hell, my boy. But, you will not give up and despair. You are on a mission from God."
Those last were perhaps the only words that Sir Arthur Hellsing still held sacred.
"Yes, sir." It wasn't possible for Walter to stand any straighter, but even his ego benefited from an occasional unsolicited boost. "I won't let you down, sir."
Arthur nodded.
"I know. May God and His Majesty be with you."
[ooc: NFB due to distance. Preplayed with union_jane, whose Arthur rocks. No interaction, clearly, but the peanut gallery is right this way.]