Siege the Hive part 3

"Ow, fuck! Get your heavy ass off my back!"

Alucard said nothing about their position on whatever ground they were on. Sloth didn't seem to care about it anyway. Instead, he decided to tease her as he was lifting his body off hers by saying, "I thought you had better reflexes than this, vampire hunter."

"Shut the hell up!" Sloth retorted, blushing slightly from her own fumble. "You almost fucked up my spine! Where the fuck did that tank even come from?"

Alucard stood up straight and tilted his head upward before responded, "Up there, I suppose. They were weak for us regardless."

"You're awfully confident tonight," Sloth said, rubbing her back and butt now that Alucard was off both of them. She stretched one good time to loosen up and felt a crack or two before returning to her militant nature. Observing her surroundings, she pulled out her silencer handgun again and the small flashlight to run a scan of the area slowly. She took a couple of steps forward then pointed her beam only a bit above her. She then said, "Even if they are weak to you, they could pose a problem if given the right numbers to back them up. This structure of catacombs is concerning. Four levels at the count. The veins of the hive stretch a decent couple of meters. That means the leader has been living here for approximately 80 to 90 years after he was transformed. His power is dangerous but not lethal."

"Dangerous to who, vampire hunter?" Alucard questioned, narrowing his eyes.

"A human," Sloth replied, moving forward.

Alucard was slow to follow, but he did regardless mainly out of curiosity to see what Sloth would find. He never built a hive of catacombs when he was younger as a vampire. This was really organized for a young master vampire if that's what his target was calling himself. This new generation was very interesting. As they walked down a corridor, they both caught sight of large and long wires leading to a mechanical room. It was getting warmer as they made their way forward. Hearing fan blades turning, Sloth stepped across the wires and pressed her body against the wall to listen for any guards. None seemed to be audibly present, and Alucard didn't jump ahead of her to attack. The mechanical room had to be empty then. Entering the room quietly and cautiously, she came face to face with a floor covered with... eggs? They were fairly tall (about 3 to 3 1/2 feet in height), veiny, looked moist, and were pulsating. Sloth counted about twenty of the eggs on the ground floor. When she looked up at the ceiling, she saw about two more hanging from it. They just started adding more young up there from the looks of it.

"Hey," Sloth called to Alucard, gaining his attention. He turned to her in acknowledgement while she asked, "Ever came across one of these before?"

"'Fraid not, hunter," Alucard replied, returning his sights to the eggs. They were easy enough to crush barefoot, but he continued in his response, "This is new... and a very large order of breakfast."

Sloth chuckled quickly before killing her beam and putting away her gun for a moment. She walked up to some of the eggs and touched their surfaces to test something. Some of them were hardening and only appeared shiny because of the lighting in the room. Others had a mucous lining that clung to her gloved hand when touched them. It wasn't acidic and didn't smell poisonous. She then said, "You have an interesting sense of humor. There's about 20 or so eggs here on surface level. Five of them are still wet. They must be newly birthed. The others are drying up. Something is coming out of them soon."

"If they are vampire children, they would be born dead. How do you propose they come alive?" Alucard asked, watching Sloth take out a sample kit from a pocket on her utility belt.

"I don't know," she answered honestly, shaking her head for emphasis. She dragged her hand across a vial's opening to fill the small bottle with the mucous lining, shook her hand, and closed the vial by twisting the small cap until a click sounded. She then removed a small blade and another vial from her kit and walked over to a hard egg, a soft egg, and a wet egg placed in descending order in a column. She then said, "I would have to bring a sample with me. At least a cutting from the outer sac for study. I would think you'd need a lot of power to resuscitate a baby when it's dead. So, only vampires of reasonable strength could successfully birth young. I have a million questions for that kind of process, though. A mother's blood can't mix with a baby's blood. She has toxins from the hormones that would instantly kill it. Not to mention her white blood cells would kick into overdrive trying to protect her from a parasite when it's just a baby. You could possibly still feed the baby with blood, but if the mother lays the eggs, then there's no need to feed it. She would just have to keep it warm until hatching time. The food would be gathered when the child is ready. In order to keep these big things warm, you'd need tropical weather or a consistently running heater. I wouldn't even know where to start in guessing the right temperature to keep these babies warm. Would it be the classic 37 degrees Celsius or something higher? Would it be colder since the mother is of the dead?"

"You're just full of information, aren't you?" Alucard questioned, walking over to her as she was filling up her vials with cuttings from the egg sacs. He then said, "The body drops an astounding 20 degrees when dead, so the mother would have to be a maximum 25 degrees internally. This temperature might be possible during the summer or spring months. Seeing as though an entire city is outside of this hive, food was already thought of and waiting for the children's first hunt. Now, how long does an egg take to hatch?"

"Depends," Sloth replied, complete with her sample collection. She walked further into the room to see an open door behind a buzzing machine. She couldn't tell what it was for, but it might have been what was keeping the nursing room warm. Maybe it was the heater she was looking for? If that's the case, the mechanical room was serving as an incubator of sorts. Replacing her gun and flashlight back into her hands, she pointed her gun and beam into the darker hallway. It was a set of metal stairs going forward and upwards. She walked forward cautiously then continued, "I'll keep that question in mind when the time comes. Come on."

"Oh? Are we on a team now?" Alucard purred, eyes widening with some surprise.

"You've been following me up to this point," Sloth practically whispered, hearing some noise in the distance. She then joked, "You're worse than my men on these kinds of missions."

"You're an effective leader, vampire hunter Sloth," Alucard complimented, watching her enter the hallway to scan the area. He chose then to grin mischievously and thought back to when he landed on top of her earlier. He then remarked, "Your body could be another reason, though. You are curvy."

"A trait of the Latina. I take it you like ass," Sloth responded quickly. She didn't blush or blink at Alucard's words, but he found that he liked that about his rival. Sex jokes just roll off her like water droplets on a tropical plant's leaves. He wondered how she came across having her vampire strength. If Spanish and Portugese were her native languages, was she from Brazil? That would mean she was a child or perhaps just a young girl when he visited Brazil for the first time and learned about the Millenium vampires. Maybe that dandy man had taken her or someone had only partially transformed her? It was a possibility. Sloth then said, "Entering the lower level: mainstay of ghoul and vanguard vampire. Structure of catacombs increased to five levels at the count. If you're done ass-gazing, let's go, Al."