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A/N: HELLO EVERYBODY!! I'm aware I haven't been on in a few days, thanks to my brand spankin' new copy of 358/2 days. I am currently on day 77! Kindly do not spoil anything for me! Anyhoo, our stay in London is OVAH! No more! We're done! On to the next world! And that means it's your last chance to PM or comment me to tell me that you subscribe or read or fan or watch or even somewhat like! Hooray! My End-of-World special will be released on Sunday! W00T! Check out my co-author at her deviantart or at (shiny new linkage) her YouTube channel! Please remember to comment and DRINK HEALTH DRINK!! Yaaaay!!!

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Chapter 18: In Memoriam

Mia didn’t cry for a change.

It was strange, looking down at the poor dog that had been brutally stabbed through the stomach, at the blood that soaked the ground and its still body, feeling sadness, but not bursting into tears. The three vampires stared at her quietly, seeming to anticipate another bout of crying.

None came. No tears.

She felt like crying, but didn’t. She looked back at them, eyes free of tears, but grim-faced. Neko stood there, awkwardly holding the giant stuffed panda Mia had bought--she must have stopped by the Hellsing manor on Alucard’s request to get it. Alucard’s face was emotionless. Halo eyed the ground uncomfortably.

“What do you want to do?” Alucard asked.

“We can’t bury him… No shovels,” Mia sighed. “And I doubt there’s enough dry wood to burn him.”

He approached and patted her shoulder. “Then we’ll just have to let him rest here for now. I will return with the police girl tomorrow night to give him a funeral, befitting a faithful servant who died for his master.”

“…Promise?”

“I swear.”

Mia looked past Alucard’s yellow-tinted glasses and smiled a little. His crimson eyes were earnest.

Neko approached, looking somewhat uncomfortable. “S… Sorry I bit you,” she clearly lied, holding out the panda and looking away.

The blond girl shook her head. “It’s okay,” she sighed, taking the panda and squeezing it tightly.

Halo looked around, shifting from foot to foot, fiddling with the keyblade she still held. “Can we please leave? I… All respect to your dog, but that thing might be back. This will be the first place he’ll check. There’s another Keyblade Master here, right? We need to find them before he and that other guy Neko mentioned do.”

“You’re right about quitting this place,” Alucard said with a slight smirk, “But I doubt finding the other Keyblade master will be much of an issue. Isn’t that right, Nicole?”

Neko blinked at Alucard and then held out her hand. There was a sound like a sword being unsheathed and a burst of black sparkles that shot out in all directions, and a little beam of light that slowly took form into a giant pair of scissors.

There was a dead silence.

“Um… that depends,” Neko said, blinking. “Is this a keyblade?”

Well, it was a big pair of scissors… And there was another pair of scissors affixed to the end, open and perpendicular to the main blade that, with a bit of imagining, could be considered teeth… But really…?

“I suppose so,” Mia decided with a shrug.

“It’s…” Neko began, staring at the shine the moon made on the cold metal.

“Interesting?” Alucard offered. “Unexpected? …Ridiculous?”

“Awesome,” she finished, looking as if someone had just given her cake.

Alucard and Halo just shook their heads. Mia giggled a little. “I’ll try Cid again,” she said. “Have him pick us up.”

“Cid?” Neko asked.

“Her chauffer, apparently,” Alucard sighed. “Now listen closely,” he added as Mia stepped aside, pulling her cell phone out. “I have orders for you.”

Neko jumped and brandished the giant scissors threateningly. “Hold up! I still have a bone to pick with you!!”

Her father looked at her silently for a moment, removed his glasses, and roared.

“Listening,” Neko said meekly.

Halo slapped her forehead.

“I have orders for you,” he repeated, putting his glasses back on as if nothing had occurred. “Firstly: You will travel alongside Mia. You will go where she goes, and you will keep her safe. Second: You may not eat Mia, or Cid, or any non-threatening human you meet on your journey, nor may you harm any non-threatening humanoids. Third: you cannot drink the blood of humans--”

“WHAT?!” Neko shrieked.

“You’ll survive.”

“Then what CAN we drink?!”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Anything else you’d like to tell me to torture me?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Damn it!”

“You cannot do anything to hinder Mia or the other keyblade masters, nor may you allow harm to come to her by lack of action, nor may you hire third parties to hurt or hinder Mia or the other key blade masters…”

The list went on, but Mia stopped listening. Cid had picked up. “Thank Jesus!” he shouted. “Damned Organization jammed up all our transmissions. Managed to shake the damned thing, but Lord knows how long ‘til they put out a new one. Tell me you got the kids.”

“I do.”

“…You okay, sunshine?”

“Talk to you about it later. Just… beam us up or whatever.”

“Check that. Getting your coordinates now. Oh, and, uh, kinda hug or get close together or something, this thing doesn’t have a very big radius. See ya in two.” There was a beep and the line went dead.

Mia turned back to the vampires. Alucard was still detailing orders, and Neko was growing steadily more distressed. “Hate to interrupt you, Alucard, sir,” Mia said in an undertone, approaching from behind the newbies, “but we have to get going.”

“Oh. Of course.” He extended his hand for Mia’s. She gave it to him and, just like when they first met, he bowed, lightly kissing her knuckles. “Farewell, woman-child. It was truly a pleasure not taking orders from you.”

Mia smiled. Her heart fluttered, but not in the same way it had when he had first done it. “And it was a pleasure not ordering you!”

“Except for that once,” he said, straightening, “when you told me to go bail out Neko.”

“Wait, she had to order you to do that?! You little b***h!” Neko shouted.

Halo laughed. “So, uh, what do we do now?”

Mia smiled and wrapped her arms around the other girls’ shoulders. “We hug!”

There was a blue flash, and the keyblade masters were gone, and Alucard was alone.

Alucard smiled a little to himself and at the air. The concern he had felt before was, for the most part, gone. Mia may not have been exactly as strong as the hero the universe needed, but she had the heart. Neko may not have had the heart of the hero the universe needed, but she had the strength. And Halo… well, she could keep them working together as a team.

His face fell and he looked at the fallen dog. He shook his head sadly. Arthur, huh? Well, he had the spirit and the loyalty of the king he had been unknowingly named after.

Alucard had taken an oath. He would return to bury the dog.

But for now, he turned and disappeared into the night.

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“YOU b***h!!” Axel roared, slamming Saïx into the wall of the club, his hands making fists in the blue-haired Nobody’s coat. “You ordered me to get that vampire’s Nobody! You said it would be no problem!! HE ALMOST KILLED ME, YOU JACKASS!!!”

Saïx sighed as if dealing with a child throwing a tantrum and pushed Axel away, dusting his cloak off with a single calm motion with the hand that had not been mangled. “Obviously the intelligence I had was incomplete.”

“Obviously you have no intelligence WHATSOEVER!!” Axel practically screamed in retort, the concrete at his feet beginning to glow yellow and bubble. “I’m a traitor! You don’t trust me! I get that! But I’m not going to take being thrown around as a distraction for a frickin’ immortal VAMPIRE!!!! Got it MEMORIZED?! Who did the damned recon?!”

“Larxene.”

“Why the hell was Larxene on a recon mission?! Why wasn’t Vexen--?!”

“Vexen apparently feels above taking orders from Number VII and is working on a ‘project for Zexion’.”

“What about Xigbar?”

“Doing recon elsewhere.”

“Zexion?!”

“I don’t know--top secret, apparently.”

“BUT WHY LARXENE?!! Roxas is better at recon than Larxene! DEMYX is better at it, for crying out loud!!!” He took a deep breath to calm himself and shuddered. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t even--God, I don’t care!!” He turned away. “I need to let off some steam. My boots are gonna be ruined if they’re in this boiling street any longer.” He looked up and down the street, spotted an incredibly shiny, incredibly expensive-looking purple sports car, and smirked.

He set off the tiniest spark within the gas tank.

There was a mighty boom and the entire, beautiful thing went up in smoke.

Saïx watched passively, then shook his head. “Do you feel better now?”

“Yes, actually!” Axel responded, stepping briskly out of the pool of molten lava he had created.

“Pity. That was a nice car.”

Axel shrugged. “So… what happened to you? What did you do with this thoroughly horrible night?”

Saïx looked away and put his hand over the bite wound. “I killed a dog.”

“You monster!”

Saïx glared. Axel chuckled. “I’m just kidding, Saïx--got it memorized? I’m sure it deserved it.” He sat down on the curb and examined his own wound. “Damn it! I can’t afford this. Superior’s gonna turn me into a Dusk for this for sure…”

“You have an excuse,” Saïx said, sitting down next to the redhead. “I’ll cover for you, anyhow.”

“You’d do that for me?” Axel said as if surprised.

Saïx nodded. “We were friends… Right, Lea?”

Axel looked away, frowning. “I told you not to call me that.”

“The fact remains.”

“I thought you didn’t think Nobodies could be friends.”

“Then you should have noticed that I said ‘were’.”

The fire master and the berserker sat in silence for a moment. “So what are you going to say to Superior?” Axel asked, looking at Saïx quizzically.

“I’m going to tell him Vexen turned down his mission, and therefore I was forced to assign a less suitable member.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He crossed his arms over his knees and rested his chin on them. “What do we do now?”

“Return to the castle,” Saïx answered. “There’s not a lot we can do.” He summoned a portal of darkness and vanished.

Axel sat there silently for a moment, his first instinct being to meet Roxas at the usual spot for some ice cream before checking back in.

But then he remembered. The usual spot was gone.

He gave a listless sigh and he too abandoned London.