Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing (evening_epitaph) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-02-21 12:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, integra hellsing, stephen strange (mcu) |
Who: Sir Integra Hellsing and Dr.Stephen Strange
When: Backdated to way before the boat
Where: Sanctum Sanctorum
What: Clearing up some details about Alucards unwilling familiar
Rating: PG-13 (mentions of blood)
Status: Complete g-doc
Trust wasn’t something Integra had a lot of. She’d spend her life surrounded by people who hadn’t liked the idea of her, which was possibly putting it lightly, and she had tasted betrayal from an early age. It hadn’t much gotten better over the later years when the only people she had been able to trust were two vampires and then Walter.
Given how that had ended, she now only had her vampires. And only one of them now. But Alucard had high standards, and while he had certain ideas, she always felt she could trust his judgement on others. So she’d come to like Stephen, and go as far as offer some trust.
She wondered if she’d ever stop worrying over hidden knives, or intentions, but the doctor had asked to speak to her privately so she’d accepted. She was also curious about what he exactly did. Even she could admit to enjoying the idea of magic.
When she came near his home she put out the cigar she’d been smoking before knocking.
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The door opened before Integra’s knuckles had a chance to rap, and Stephen was standing there, a solemn expression upon his face. “Hello Integra,” he greeted her, offering a brief smile. “So glad you could meet with me at such a short notice. Won’t you come in?”
Stephen stood aside and with a sweeping gesture of his arm, showed her inside the Sanctum Sanctorum. “I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you much? May I take your coat?”
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For anyone else, it might be an odd thing, but considering her experiences she’d have been almost disappointed if the door opening almost on it’s own hadn’t happened. She was less pleased with the familiarity, but Americans had their own view on things. There was a time for battles like that. “Thank you, doctor.” She stepped inside and let her good eye glance over things. So far, her expectations hadn’t really measured up to the reality. It was rare when the latter was actually better.
“I’m far less busy these days then I’d like.” She had occupation but it wasn’t the same as the duty she’d fulfilled with Hellsing. And she liked the busy moments she’d had before. “It sounded important.” She removed her coat and offered it to Stephen. She was still armed, although she left her sword at home, because even in this place she refused to be taken off guard. “I’m impressed,” she offered honestly. “Your home is remarkable”
Out of long habit she crossed her arms, and offered Stephen an even look. “What is it you needed to ask me about that you don’t want Alucard to know about?”
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“The Sanctum Sanctorum isn’t exactly mine to call my own,” Stephen confessed. He took Integra’s cloak, but as soon as it came into his hands, it disappeared, having been sent directly the the cloakroom. “In my home world, the house belongs to my order, the Masters of the Mystic Arts. It is one of three locations placed around the globe from which the person assigned as its protector may monitor the planet for dangerous magical activity. I happen to be the said guardian.”
No nonsense and straight to the point, just like Alucard had been when he came to visit. Stephen was pleased. There was a time and place for small talk and niceties, but this necessarily wasn’t one of them. “Actually, Alucard does know, because he was the one who approached me with the problem, but I wanted your opinion, since you are his master, and I didn’t want him to try to influence your thoughts on the matter, either way. Would you care to take a seat?”
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There were plenty of people who would claim it to themselves, and there was a difference between that and living in a building as a guardian. Not many would know the difference. That Stephen did, and acknowledged it, raised him a few bars in her estimation. “Might I ask then, what it means for it to be here? Does it serve the same purpose?” She asked this with a perfect understanding that if he told her he couldn’t answer the question, then she’d accept that too.
She understood secrets.
She nodded at the offer and took a seat. She could make a guess what the problem was, but assumptions had led to worse things than being wrong. So she folded her hands in her lap. “Very well then, what is it that you need my opinion of?” Later she’d probably need to offer a bit of advice. Alucard had odd ways, and if he was trusting Stephen enough to come to him with problems it probably meant he liked the sorcerer. And that always came with headaches.
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Stephen took the seat opposite hers, and with elbows propped upon the arms of the chair, he steepled his gloved hands together and held them up at his mouth in a thoughtful pose. He then cast his eyes upward and around the room they were in, gazing at the Sactum and considering all that it represented. “Your guess is as good as mine, for the portal has brought a great deal of people together. Whether it’s by accident or design, I can’t say for sure, but I do find it interesting that a majority of us have experience fighting against danger and or protecting others with our unique abilities. Whatever the case may be, and however the Sanctum was used before my arrival makes no difference, for now that I’m here, I intend to continue my duty as guardian, the best I am able. This is one of the main reasons why I’m interested in forming a coalition of magic-users among the Displaced. To use our collective knowledge about magic to fight against anything that might also come through the portal.” He’d made no secret about it, and had even told Integra and Alucard about his idea, before.
In a blink of an eye, Stephen was holding a cup of steaming hot tea, as if he’d always had it in his hands, and upon a table that hadn’t been there moments before, beside Integra’s chair, was a matching cup for her to accept, if she was thirsty. “Alucard came to me with a problem, asking my advice for a solution. He said you were quite aware of it. An enemy tricked him into consuming an entity which, to put it lightly, is causing him some problems. Alucard came to me asking if I might be able to remove it from his body.”
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Now that was interesting to know. It seemed sometimes buildings came through. She had to wonder if it was tied to anything. If anything, the sudden differences were providing her with plenty of things to examine and get to the bottom of. She'd always liked knowing, even if she had to extend her base to other things. "I am still interested in this. My knowledge is specialized, but I can see when it needs to be expanded. Like you I have a duty. One I cannot accomplish if I lack." She'd always been the type to acknowledge a weakness, but then to grow from it.
The display made her tilt her head, but she was hardly going to complain. And it was actual tea, for which she was grateful enough of. So she took it and sipped from it. She'd trust it for what it was. "Ah," she gave and then set the cup down. "Yes. That.” Her failing and thus her responsibility to seek a solution to. “How much has he told you about what he is doctor? And about what he can do?” She liked Stephen, but she would keep some things to herself. “Because without that, the problem is going to be complicated to explain. Beyond the other one, that even I know very little about the entity. He took his secrets with him, and his masters died with them.” She couldn’t, exactly, regret that. Nor would she. She’d just make sure she got the information before she killed them, next time.
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“He told me an enemy, Millennium tricked him into consuming an entity that exists everywhere and nowhere, and upon doing so, his very existence is compromised, that he is not what he used to be. That this entity may tear him apart at any time. He wants the entity expelled so he can serve you better.” Stephen’s right eyebrow rose briefly. “Alucard hasn’t given me any information about himself. He’s a vampire, and while I know there are many varieties of vampires out there, Alucard is powerful, presumably much more so without the entity, and very destructive.” He punctuated his sentence with a sip of tea.
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Well, that wasn't untrue. She sipped from her own tea to try to put it to words. How wasn't something she planned on sharing, she'd take those secrets to her grave, but what was a different question. "Who he is and what he is have always been parts of him." She offered and set the cup down again. "Alucard has been serving Hellsing since my great grandfather's time. It was Abraham who figured out there was more to it, and who set about unlocking the secrets that Alucard held. He is, to us, probably the very first of his kind and therefore the strongest. And in the face of darkness and other monsters, Hellsing would craft a monster in return."
She was very calm as she explained, fully accepting the burden of what it had meant. and still meant. "Blood, you see, is the key to it all. It is the seat of many things, and in part I think the soul. Giving Alucard a little bit wouldn't do the trick he has to devour someone. Completely. By doing so he takes them in, has them become part of his being. He can then use them, if he wishes to. However there is proof of a theory that these can have some thought to them, or keep part of their personality. Or at least be a very good copy." Seras had shown her that one. Or Seras was just different. She could find out, she supposed if she was like Abraham more. But she wasn't. She would do things her own way, and she had no intentions of repeating the cruelties of her ancestors. There were better ways.
“Which is, in part, why I don’t agree with his worry but I’ll come to that. Before the entity, Alucard had lived a very active life before and after Hellsing. After the entity was consumed he disappeared. I think both me and his masters ran on the assumption it would be an eternal thing. From what I was told the entity has the capability of living up to its name. Both existing and not. He was aware as long as he lived, but when he died he wasn’t. Which is why when that mixed with the souls within Alucard it cancelled itself out. But to his worry of disappearing, normally Alucard can control his familiars but on the same hand it isn’t like the worry is without cause. The entity was my enemies final way of removing Alucard from the battlefield. But if it could tear him apart it would have done so.”
She crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair. “But it is a danger, and it needs to go. It is a Trojan Horse, and I won’t have it.” Of that, she was very sure. “The lack of power is manageable, but it is my duty to ensure that Alucard is alright.” More than that but that was a bit hard to explain. “If you’re worried about the after I can’t truly blame you. He is destructive but he won’t go against my orders even if he could.” Something she had proof of, but again something hard to explain. “But then that all comes down to if you’re willing to offer me your trust, which if you do not I can hardly blame you for. I won’t hold it against you if you decide not to aid.” She might, back home but there people knew her and the things Hellsing was capable of. Here she was an unknown and while that was irritating at times it wasn’t like she was going out there and trusting all the others. “But to facilitate trust ask what you like. I will answer as best I can.”
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