//------------------------------//
// Chapter Two -  The Vampony You Are Calling Is Currently Eviscerated. Please Try Again Later 
// Story: Pony Hellsing 
// by UniqueSKD 
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"Luna damn him to the pits of Tartarus! Why hasn't he answered already?"

Lady 'Integra' Redheart tapped the polished mahogany surface of her desk impatiently with her hoof, a scowl on her face. She held the phone in her other hoof, listening to the sound of the dial tone repeating itself over and over. Outside of the window behind her, the moon rested high above in the night sky, casting a luminous pale-white light into her office, illuminating the room with a mix of shadows and light at once. Outside, the Hellsing estate bathed in the magnificent pale glow of the moon.

No pony would ever have thought that, of all ponies, the mare everypony knew as Nurse Redheart, a hard-working member of the staff at Ponyville Hospital, was also the head of a top secret organization dedicated to hunting down the monsters that thrived in the darkness, and keeping the kingdom of Equestria safe from the evil they thought existed only in the realms of fairy-tales and campfire stories. Even the princesses knew not of the existence of Hellsing.

If everypony knew the truth, they'd understand why she was often so aggressive as well. Being the head of an organization whose existence was kept hidden from the world was an incredibly active job. There were some nights when she never got more than an hour's worth of rest, before she had to continue her masquerade as a nurse back at the hospital during the day, before resuming her role as Lady Redheart once more when night came.

Then there was the night job itself. Every night, there was always another freak of nature that suddenly thought to itself, 'Hey, I feel like slaughtering some innocent ponies tonight, and maybe even try to conquer all of Equestria! Yes, I think I'l do just that!', and every night, it was Lady Redheart who had to sit at her desk and listen to reports regarding where the villain was last seen, what kind of resistance to expect, this, that, and the rest of the crap that followed. And as they talked, she'd be handed photographs taken from their orbiting satellite networks, showing all sorts of nasty, gruesome shit. 

Redheart was thankful she worked in a hospital. The experience she had with assisting doctors with surgery procedures helped make her less squeamish when presented with images of ponies with half their body organs hanging messily from their guts, with maggots and flies spread all over their corpses to lay eggs or feed off of the decomposing flesh. 

Just once, it would be nice if the pony giving the report didn't sound so depressing all the time. Granted, she didn't expect there to be party cannons and dance music when discussing bloody massacres and murderous monsters, but the reporting ponies always sounded so cardboard, as though their marefriend had refused to help them lose their virginity or something, and they had taken it as a sign that it was the end of all things as they knew it.

And from the way most of them dressed, Redheart would have been very surprised if they ever even got as far as second-base. What kind of pony wore a green tie with a grey suit?

The clicking sound of a door handle being turned made Redheart look up. Her door opened, and into her office stepped a stallion, his coat a dark grey color, his eyes amber, and his mane blue-silver. He had an insignia on his chest, which displayed the Hellsing symbol, a custom emblem worn by all members of the organization. As he stepped into the room, he gave a small polite bow to the mare, before straightening himself and closing the door behind him. He approached the desk and stood to attention.

"Good evening, ma'am," the stallion greeted. "How are you on this lovely night of Luna's making?"

Of all the ponies who served the Hellsing organization, Thunderlane was one of Redheart's few favorites. He had joined the organization some couple of years ago, when Unique, along with Redheart herself, saved him and his little brother, Rumble, from a horde of vamponies. Though it took quite a few weeks worth of visits to a professional psychologist to get Rumble through his trauma, after Unique incidentally splattered the poor foal with blood as he killed the vamponies, Thunderlane was nevertheless grateful. It was Redheart personally who saved his flank, and he felt indebted to her for it. 

Since then, he had served as her personal assistant, whom she turned to often for advice when he wasn't busy preparing her drink of tea, gathering and sorting out documents, or having to summon the janitor to clean up the trail of blood left behind by Unique's bleeding wounds when he returned from a mission. He had been terrified of the things that went on within the organization at first, especially with the horrendous creatures that Unique would sometimes bring back from his missions, but over time he began to toughen up and see the gruesome sights as though they were an everyday thing. Or rather, an everynight thing.

Which in this line of work, it usually was.

Redheart sighed, closing her eyes as she rubbed the side of her head soothingly. "I'll be fine once Unique decides to answer my call, Thunderlane," she answered. "Why do I put up with him, Thunderlane?". She turned her eyes towards the stallion. "Did I dope myself on something at the time when I recruited him, and forget about it?"

Thunderlane stifled a chuckle. "No ma'am, I don't think so. I believe it was more about his abilities than his -" he paused for a moment as he pondered over what word he wanted to use, "- 'interesting' character," he finished.

Redheart deadpanned. "You consider somepony who hanged a banner on the statue of Celestia last week, which said 'Molestia Approves Pot!', to be an 'interesting character', Thunderlane?"

Thunderlane shifted his gaze away awkwardly. "Well, maybe 'interesting' isn't the exact word to describe him, ma'am," he replied. Wanting to change the subject quickly, he cleared his throat and said to Redheart, "So, er, ma'am, where has Unique been deployed this time, if I might ask?" 

Redheart put her hooves together as she leaned forward in her seat. "We recently received reports of unusual activity occurring within the Everfree Forest," she explained, her eyes fixed firmly upon the stallion. "Areas within the forest that we've known to be hot-spots for predators have become strangely quieter, less occupied. Furthermore, several adults and foals have been reported missing from Ponyville."

Thunderlane's jaw fell wide open, his eyes expressed panic and worry. "None of the children were -"

"No, Thunderlane," Redheart interrupted, raising a hoof. "Nopony that your brother knows of or has heard of was taken. You have my word."

Thunderlane sighed in relief. He didn't want to have to explain to Rumble why Applebloom or Snips or any of the other children were no longer attending class had it been any of them, should the little fellow bring up the subject.

Redheart leaned down to her side, opening one of her desk drawers and took out a large cigar, which she placed one end of in her mouth. Closing the drawer, she sat back up, and waited for Thunderlane to light the other end of the cigar before she continued. "As it stands for now, the victims were Earth and Unicorn breeds, so we don't think the target has flying capabilities." She took a drag of her cigar, and removed it from her mouth as she exhaled a puff of smoke. "This means the target is grounded, so it shouldn't be difficult for Unique and Cobalt to track the bastard down."

Thunderlane was just putting his lighter away. He dropped it upon hearing that name. "Cobalt? You sent him with Unique? But they hate each other!"

Redheart smiled wickedly. "Which is why I sent him."

The phone, which Redheart had placed back in its holder, began to ring, And she grabbed it before the pegasus could begin to reach for it. Her cruel smile was replaced a furious intimidating look, which made Thunderlane back away a few steps. "About fucking time, Unique!", she roared as she slammed her hoof on to her desk, nearly causing some stacked books to fall off. "I've called you seven times and now you decide to answer me, you piece of -"

"I'm afraid the piece of shit you and I call 'Unique' isn't able to take your call right now," spoke a familiar voice through the phone."And right now, I'd say he's more like 'pieces of shit'." Redheart paused and double-blinked. "Cobalt?", she said, a quizzical look replacing her rage, "Why are you answering Unique's phone? Where is he?"

"Oh, he's right here," Cobalt casually responded, "and he's also over there, and some of him's up in the tree, guts are on the floor. Yeah, he's everywhere."

"What is that supposed to mean?", demanded Redheart. "What's happened? Have you taken care of the target yet?"

Redheart then heard another familiar voice faintly in the background. "Hey, Cobalt! Is that Redheart? Tell her I'm not here! Tell her I'm taking a toilet break!""

"Shut the fuck up, Unique! Or I'll rip that loud mouth from your face!", Redheart heard Cobalt shout back. Given the muffled tone of his voice when he answered the insane vampony back, Redheart figured he was covering the phone, though she heard their conversation well enough. "Er, no, ma'am Redheart. We've not neutralized the target yet, but we are close to it's position right now."

Redheart slammed her hoof down upon the desk again, shaking all of the contents placed upon it. "What do you mean 'you haven't neutralized the target yet'? It's just the one vampony, according to our sources! What have you both been up to the whole time?"

A long silent pause. "You don't want to know, ma'am," Cobalt eventually answered.

"Yes, I do! Otherwise I would not have -"

"I pissed for eight minutes and farted on Cobalt!", yelled Unique. The sound of laughing echoed in the background. Cobalt's agitated groan hinted at his irritation. Redheart face-hoofed. Why did it still surprise her at all Unique did something like that?

A sound came over the phone, followed by an "Erk!", which was followed by the sound of something fleshy being torn. Redheart only needed one guess what happened. At least Unique would be quiet now. At least for a few minutes, before he regenerated his lower jaw. 

"Can I be permitted to kill him, please?", Cobalt pleaded. "I'l even make it look like an accident!"

As much as she would have wanted the same thing, it took every ounce of willpower for the mare to not ignore her better judgement. "Request denied," ordered Redheart. "Put the thick twat back together, and get the mission done ASAP! And tell him if he continues to fuck about, I'll personally burn every last one of his lesbian mare movies, and have Thunderlane piss on the ashes."

Thunderlane, who still was in the room, having been standing nearby the desk the entire time, listening and watching the mare's facial expressions and trying to guess what was transpiring over the phone, flashed Redheart a shocked look at the mentioning of his name. He threw his hooves up and frantically shook his head. "No way! Don't get me involved in this!", he mouthed to Redheart, who ignored him.

"Alright, hold on one moment," replied Cobalt. The next few minutes were filled with silence, before Redheart heard what sounded like a raspy gurgling noise. Cobalt's voice came back on. "Well, it's hard to tell what he said, what with his tongue just flailing around, and the fact he's got no jaw, but I think he gets the message."

"Good," replied Redheart. "Now get the mission done so I have one less thing to worry about." And with that, she called off, and slammed the phone back onto the holder, before letting a weary sigh escape her lips.

Redheart began to massage her temples as she felt the mother of all headaches begin to surface. Of all the crap she had to put up with as head of the Equestrian Hellsing organization, there was nothing - NOTHING - that she couldn't stand any more than the nuisance that went by the name of Unique. 

Though he was, without a doubt, one of the organization's most deadliest agents, he was unfortunately a complete wanker. She and Unique had many disagreements over a myriad of subjects, especially over how to execute an operation in the field. Unique would rather decimate everything in his way than take a logical or methodical approach to the situation.

Whereas most of her agents would assess the situation at hoof before charging in, weapons blazing and all over the place, Unique did exactly that. He caused a great deal of collateral damage, and on one occasion even harmed several bystanders, which he tried to dismiss by claiming that they 'got in the way of my misfired bullets'. He showed complete disregard for procedures so many times that Redheart often wondered why she even let him loose at all.

But despite his setbacks, oftentimes, and very much to her absolute annoyance, Unique's way of handling things ACTUALLY proved effective, and got the job done. Though Redheart would sooner take a whole bottle of cyanide pills and swallow the lot, and have anthrax injected into her bloodstream, along with the deadly plague and whatever horrid diseases that existed, than admit to Unique that he was somewhat right in the use of his methods.

"Will you be needing anything, ma'am?", Thunderlane asked the mare. 

She shook her head slowly. "No, Thunderlane. You may be excused. I'm sure you've other things to see to."

Thunderlane gave a polite bow, and turned away from the mare and the desk, heading to the door to leave the room. He was nearly at the door, before Redheart spoke up.

"On second thoughts, Thunderlane?", Redheart said, closing her eyes while still rubbing the sides of her head. Thunderlane stopped where he was, and turned to face her. "Yes, ma'am?", he asked.

"Have somepony deliver a six-pack of AppleJack Daniels to me right now," the disgruntled mare asked, as her head slipped from her hooves, hitting the desk with a loud thud. "And an aspirin, too. I think this is going to be a really fucking long night..."