"Hellsing has other enemies besides vampires and ghouls," Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing said as she paced before the assembled Wild Geese. The mercenaries had recently received their rude initiation into the world of the supernatural, courtesy of Seras and Alucard. Integra was now providing the soldiers with a crash course in the dangers they were likely to face, in what little time was available before Captain Bernadotte and the vampires departed for Brazil. "You may encounter other beasts of legend such as werewolves. Ordinary humans - those who have been brainwashed, coerced, or tempted into serving monsters - they too could be among your foes."

She took a moment to light a cigar, pleased to see that the normally rowdy mercenaries were watching with rapt attention. Beneath their rough and undisciplined exteriors, they really are top-notch soldiers, she mused. Walter chose well. "You should also be aware that we are not the only monster slayers in this world. Your missions may bring you into contact and possibly conflict with the Catholic Church, particularly Vatican Section 13: the Iscariot Organization!" Integra clicked a remote, and a photograph of a hulking, scarred man dressed as a priest was projected on to the screen behind her. "This is their top agent, Paladin Alexander-"

"-Anderson!" Pip interrupted as cries of surprise and recognition ran through the ranks of his men. "Hey, it's zat crazy bayonet guy!" He was echoed by the rest of the Geese:

"Oh yeah! The Priest!"

"Bayonet guy!"

"Holy crap, I still have nightmares…"

"Remember how that one chick had a samurai sword?"

"Psycho priest! The guy with the crazy nun pals!"

"A-hem." The mercenaries immediately fell silent upon seeing the look in Sir Integra's eyes.

"Captain Bernadotte." Integra addressed Pip with uncomfortable calm. "I was under the distinct impression that you and your men had no previous experience with the world of the supernatural."

"Well… yeah." Pip adjusted his hat. "You don't have to be a vampire to be a knife-crazy priest though, right? We thought that's just what he and the others were. Hell, we thought they hunted terrorists and drug dealers!" He paused. "Wait, is he a vampire?"

"No." Puff. Puff. "Perhaps you should explain, Captain." Integra's tone made it clear that the 'perhaps' in that sentence was not very 'perhaps' at all.

"Okay, sure!" Pip loved war stories, and this was a great one. "It all started in Brazil, a few years ago…"

The story that came out of his mouth was the wrong one. Pip Bernadotte was wrong about many things in his life. He had clearly been very wrong about this job being mundane and cushy. He was wrong about thinking himself an amoral, dishonourable mercenary. He had been very memorably wrong (although no one in the Wild Geese would ever, ever mention it if they knew what was good for them) about the number of bullets left in a particular assault rifle in Thailand. He was wrong about having no prior experience with the supernatural- although to be fair, his memories had been altered at the end of it. And for the same reason, he was wrong about the story starting in Brazil.

It started, in fact, in Ireland.


The church was ancient, secluded, silent and peaceful, a small outpost of sacred contemplation in the Irish countryside. At least it was usually silent and peaceful. Jan Valentine had a talent for removing the sacredness from any situation.

"Listen, bro, it's all fucking bullshit," he said. He was talking a mile a minute as he and his brother Luke strode towards the church under a crescent moon. "Like, I knew this one bitch once, right? She swore up and down that Jesus was real because she'd once seen a statue of Mary bleed or some shit. I tell her 'fuck, bitch, Mary was probably just on her period, it doesn't have anything to do with her son!' She didn't listen, though. Fucking bitch. Gave amazing head, though!" Jan broke off suddenly, blinking. Mentions of sex had a very reliable way of sending his train of thought off the tracks and hurtling towards the nearest cliff. "Anyway, what was I talking about?"

"You were babbling like an idiot and making us both look like fools," Luke said dryly, cigarette hanging from his lips as they neared the door of the church. "Try to keep it under control for once, will you? This is an important test. They are watching closely, and somehow I doubt that they're going to be impressed with your antics."

"Aw, c'mon Luke, stop being such a fucking brown-noser." Jan rolled his eyes. "Don't worry about it! This fucking job's beneath us. If there's one thing on this planet I fucking know how to do, it's fucking bitches. But if there's two, it's fucking bitches along with eliminating and desecrating!"

"That's three things," Luke muttered to himself. But he did have to admit that his younger brother had a remarkable talent for defiling just about anything on the face of the Earth.

"Whatever. Let's get this massacre started!" And with that Jan kicked in the heavy wooden door of the church.

There were only two people inside; a shy-looking nun with glasses reading a Bible in the pews near the front, and someone in priestly robes near her, back turned as he lit a row of candles before a statue of Saint George. The nun looked up in surprise as the door crashed open. "Ah… hello?"

"Heeeyyyy there, sister," Jan leered as he advanced on her, hands in his pockets. "Wassup? Me and my brother were just in the neighbourhood and saw this fine church you got here, and we thought 'hey, since our souls are in such bad shape maybe a visit would get us in good with Jesus.' Whaddaya think, sister?"

The nun sighed, took off her glasses, folded them, and put them in a pocket before lifting up something beside her. "I fear your soul may be beyond even our Lord and Savior's mercy."

"Huh?" Jan cocked his head. "Hey, what you got there? Is that- is that a fucking sword? The fuck's a nun going around with a sword for?"

"For smiting heathen vampire filth like you, monster!" Yumie screamed as she whipped her katana from its sheath, slashing and slicing with furious speed. Vampire reflexes only barely saved Jan from dismemberment. He yelped and fell backwards, bleeding from the chest.

"Wh- what the fuck!"

"Hm." Luke frowned, drew a silver pistol from inside his white coat, and aimed at the nun's head. Before he could fire, the sound of safeties clicking off prompted him to turn and see the priest aiming twin handguns at him. Luke backflipped high into the air as he (she?) fired, bullets splintering the pews he'd been standing in front of moments ago. Landing lightly on his feet, he dashed behind a pillar before Heinkel could fire again.

Still on the floor, Jan quickly rolled away from Yumie as she brought her sword down to decapitate him. The katana bit into the stone floor of the church instead of Jan's neck, and he sprang to his feet and kicked her in the gut with enough force to bring the Vatican's elite berserker to her knees.

"Fucking bitch," he yelled. "You fucked up my clothes and shit! That actually hurt!" He drew his own pistol, a black one. "You got any idea what I'm gonna do to your corpse once I kill you?" He would have said more, but then Heinkel shot him in the back, sending him back to the floor.

"You talk a lot, don't you?" Heinkel noted coolly, pistols aimed at his prone body.

"You have no idea," Luke sighed, popping out from the ancient, elegantly-carved pillar to fire at Heinkel, who dove for cover behind the church's pulpit as Luke's bullets smashed the candles and statues Heinkel had been tending to. "Jan, these Vatican assassins were waiting for us. This job's over. Let's go."

"What, are you crazy bro?" Jan laughed as he hauled his bleeding but rapidly healing body onto a pew with one hand, still clutching his gun in the other. "These assholes are fun! Let's stick around and play for a while. I'm sure as hell not running away from any Catholic dipshits."

"There's no escape, vampire bastards!" Yumie yelled as she got back to her feet. "You'll both burn in hell for daring to defile a house of God!"

"Suit yourself, then," Luke said to Jan, ignoring Yumie as he dashed for the Church door, Heinkel's pistols blasting a trail of bullet holes into the wall behind him, trying to nail the sprinting vampire. Luke was at the threshold in seconds, felt the cool night air on his skin-

Suddenly, Luke's vision disappeared as he was enveloped in a roaring windstorm of paper, paper fluttering all around him and blowing into the church, paper that felt vaguely uncomfortable against his skin. He snatched away the page covering his glasses and looked at it. It was a page from the Bible. Luke was able to read 'Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you. You will make them as a blazing oven when you appear. The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath; and fire will consume them,' before the wind tore it away from him.

Raising up his eyes, Luke saw that his escape route was now blocked. A hulking shape now stood in the doorway, grinning widely, the glasses on its face and the cross on its neck shining with moonlight.

"Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and bringeth forth an instrument for his work, and I have created the killer to destroy," Alexander Anderson said. He advanced on Luke, paper swirling around his feet. "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that resisteth thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the inheritance of the servants of the LORD, and their justice with me! So saith the LORD!" Gleaming bayonets slid out of his sleeves and into his hands. He raised them over his head as Luke began to quiver in terror before one of the greatest vampire hunters in the world. "AMEN!"

"Luke, move your fucking ass!" Jan yelled. He shot Anderson in the forehead. The priest's head snapped back and he toppled to the floor, allowing Luke a moment to regain his senses and bolt away from the door. Heinkel opened up on Jan, but he rolled off the pew and crawled out of sight as bullets slammed into the wood.

"Now are you ready to leave?" Luke said as he ran. Yumie dashed to intercept him, sword aimed at his neck, but Luke simply jumped over her, tossing in a needless but stylish somersault before he hit the floor running.

"Fuck yes, let's get outta here!" Jan leapt up and ran to join his brother, both of them shooting at Heinkel to make the Iscariot gunslinger duck behind the pulpit again. Yumie and Anderson's blades were right behind them.

"It's useless to run, you miserable filth," Anderson snarled, back on his feet as Jan's bullet was slowly squeezed out of his skull. "Just try to meet your fate with whatever dignity your kind can muster!"

"Yeah, fuck you too asshole!" Jan yelled over his shoulder. "We out, bitches!" The Valentine brothers leapt straight through the beautiful stained-glass windows of the church, shattering the antique craftsmanship into hundreds of pieces as they flew through the air and touched down on the grass behind the church.

"Sacrilegious bastards!" Yumie swore as the vampires sprinted away, too fast for any human to run down, Heinkel's bullets kicking up dirt at their heels.

"I said it was useless to run, and I meant it," Anderson said, an especially long bayonet sliding out of his sleeve. "Now perish in hellfire, and go to your eternal torment, you vile monsters!" He hurled the blade with perfect accuracy and incredible speed at the back of Luke's head.

The bayonet whined through the air as it flew to its target, then stopped dead in the air. Luke plucked it out of its flight without even turning his head. He stopped running for a moment to turn and smirk at the Catholics, holding the blade by its handle. "Another time, Section 13," he said before sending the bayonet sailing back into the church with a casual flick of his arm.

Anderson's eyes widened as his bayonet thunked into the wood of the pulpit, and the explosives in the hilt began to glow. "Move!" He roared, grabbing Heinkel and Yumie by their clothes and hurling them both out of the broken windows before leaping himself. Behind him, the bayonet detonated spectacularly, the shockwave boosting the three Iscariots through the air as well as shattering every remaining window in the church, fire and shrapnel devastating the building's interior.

The Iscariots landed heavily together on the grass. Jan's laughter drifted back to them as the Valentines made good their escape. Heinkel got up and sighed, gazing inside the ruined church. "We blew up the place we were supposed to protect." Heinkel lit a cigarette. "The Chief's going to be upset."

"H-hey!" Yumie yelled. "That was the vampires! We can't be blamed for this! It was all them!"

"Quiet, both of you." Frowning, Anderson climbed back into the church through the window, shattered glass crunching beneath his feet. He'd noticed something.

"You two weren't planning on recording this, were you?" He asked. He was looking upward at a small glass gleam on one of the ceiling beams, staring at the small video camera peering down at him.

"Of course not." Heinkel glared at it. "Someone was watching us. That camera had to have been planted before we took our positions, too. Someone knew what was going to happen here." Heinkel breathed in deeply, blew out smoke. "It was probably whoever sent those vampires to desecrate this holy place."

"Is that so." Anderson advanced towards the camera, scowling, ignoring the smoke still drifting through the church. "Well in that case I hope that they are still watching. So that they can know that we the Iscariots will hunt them and their wicked spawn to the very ends of the Earth, to visit divine punishment on them for this blasphemy." He pointed a bayonet at the camera and roared out. "Do you hear me? You Heretics?"

The camera's only response was to explode in a contemptuous puff of smoke. Anderson sneered. "So be it, then. Come on, you two. Let's report to Maxwell."


The Major laughed long and hard as the picture from the camera winked out of existence. "Oh, my! He's certainly a spirited one, isn't he? Truly worthy of the title 'Executioner Anderson!' His laugh trailed off into a disturbed, high-pitched snicker. "What a splendidly terrifying declaration. And what do we think of our prospective operatives, my friends?"

Millennium's top officers were gathered in the film theatre of their secret base, Jaburo. Ordinarily this room was used for screening war movies (and almost only war movies) for the Last Battalion. Now it was serving another purpose: viewing the footage of the church fight for the evaluation of Luke and Jan Valentine, to see whether they were worthy of being used in a more important capacity than the average FREAK Millennium produced.

"What a silly pair of amateurs," Rip van Winkle scoffed, sitting with her long legs crossed, musket on her shoulder. "They're not even worthy to shine our boots. I don't think we should have anything to do with such trash."

"I'm with the Lieutenant on this one," Schrodinger said. For reasons known only to feline logic, he was sitting in the aisle instead of a chair. "We can't have riff-raff like that in the ranks. I really don't know what you and Dok were thinking, mein Major."

"Watch your tongue, Warrant Officer!" Dok snapped from his seat to the Major's left. "Mein Major, I have put some of my finest techniques into transforming these imbeciles into top-notch assassins. They had an impressive record as hitmen even when they were human, despite their… obvious deficiencies. I stand by my research!"

"As do I." Tubalcain Alhambra was the picture of relaxation, slouched in his seat with his hands behind his head, hat pulled down low so that the only part of his face showing was his confident smile. Looking at him, one might never have guessed that his position within Millennium could very well be riding on the Valentines' acceptance. "Trust me, Major. I recruited the Valentine brothers into our ranks personally, after the most careful scrutiny. I have watched over them like a mother hen and groomed them for this next stage. I give you my word that they are the ones we seek."

"We just need them to kill a shitload of people and then die," Zorin Blitz noted, standing with her scythe across her shoulders. "They fit the bill for that well enough."

"Mm-hmmmmmm. Interesting, interesting. And what do you think, Captain?" The Major asked.

The Captain was looming in the aisle behind Schrodinger. He stood motionless for a few moments, staring at the blank screen, before giving a small, short nod.

"Very well then!" The Major smiled and clasped his hands in front of him. "This is what we shall do..."