The vampire Alucard got his first electric guitar from Walter and it was the most awesome thing to behold. Balanced perfectly and as red as the moon the guitar boasted glittering strings and tuners, and a flashy fingerboard and tremolo arm. Slung around his shoulder the instrument hummed beneath his eager hands – a beast awaiting the birth of a new guitar hero.
"It's perfect, Walter," he said.
The Hellsing family butler smiled though he secretly thought What have I done? as he saw Alucard hook his new toy up to the amplifier.
Alucard tuned the guitar and turned on the amp, the metallic hiss filling the room. He stomped on the distortion pedal as he lifted his arm up and brought it down with an almost sadistic grin...
...and the sudden blast from the amplifier shook the headquarters down to its foundation and blew out all of the windows. Seeing Walter enter her office with a broken monocle and an afro made Sir Integra laugh until she heaved. Yet no one knew of what lay ahead – the precise moment when Alucard would emerge from his lair with the guitar in one hand, ready to rock. Ready to both take on the vampires and ghouls and to blow minds and socks off.
He just had to learn how to actually play the damn thing.
Alone in the dark after the grueling task of silencing targets Alucard learned the ways of his guitar as well as the ways of the musician. He learned to trust in basic chord formations and scales, and how to strut and be believed. He learned how to play harmonies that made his feisty little police girl shiver and his riffs caused the Valentine Brothers to wet themselves.
His stage moves made those who watched him dizzy. Those who mocked him had their senses knocked out at the sounds of his rhythms while his mid-air splits would make Pete Townshend wish like crazy that he was young again. Alucard's octave riffs could summon the spirit of Jimi Hendrix back from the dead and make him join in. Bands like Black Sabbath and Korn would rush to the Hellsing family to seek him out. Yngwie Malmsteen and Led Zeppelin would later weep. Alice Cooper's jaw dropped.
He wrapped lengths of chain around his boots and his sneers gave children nightmares. Strings broke and were replaced; the tubes inside his amp shattered and were repaired. He put memories into his music: recollections of brutal violence and deeds done for his master. In doing this his music became stronger and sharper, more intense and refined...
By the next full moon he was ready.
Standing atop the Hellsing Organization's lair with his coat billowing behind him and the full red moon as his background Alucard checked the volume of his amp and guitar, it was all good. The guitar purred, ready to scream out its master's rage and to do his will. He let the guitar burst out a high note that he held so it shrieked. This was it. The Big Moment.
"London," he called out, "are you ready to rock?!" The he let loose with a white-hot solo that would certainly raise the living, the dead, and the not-so dead.
London was ready to rock. The air shimmered and steamed with electric strumming patterns and arpeggios and from the pubs to even the villages teenagers heard the call of the Hellsing vampire's guitar – of the sweet metal that caused them to run outside and wonder just where the hell was that music coming from.
And they came running, a stampede of adolescent rage and sensuality and awkwardness...each one searching for the person who could coax such music out of a guitar.
Hellsing employees were both stunned and terrified at the sight of thousands of teens racing toward the gates of the headquarters. For a moment they stared in awe at the wild-haired vampire/guitarist in command of his guitar who stood on top of the mansion twisting out songs...and they began to pump their fists wanting, needing to hear more.
Vampires stopped creating ghouls to dance just before Alucard's metallic licks and tremolo-bar dives disintegrated them into oblivion, while the ghouls writhed in agony before they were blasted into the lowest pits of hell. The Iscariot Organization gazed in wild wonder as Alucard bared his teeth and swaggered and leered at his audience – it made Father Rinaldo hit the sauce and Father Anderson sat back and pouted. Seras Victoria joined thousands of weeping girls in waving their arms and flinging their disrobed shirts around. Walter dropped the butler routine and had a dance-off with a couple of punks as Alucard played a scorching-hot song full of furious cascades. Sir Integra formed a mosh pit to go along with her servant's music and later found herself being carried by the army of drunk employees and keyed-up teenagers.
Alucard, on the other hand, was enjoying himself. He took critiques from the shouts and screams of the excited masses and played on, pouring his whole being through his amp. Everyone lifted their arms and screamed his name in fits of rapture. "London, do you want more?" he shouted after popping off a blistering harmonic that was so hot it set Father Rinaldo's beer on fire. The masses roared. "I'VE GOT MORE!"
He leapt into the air, flashing out a mass of upper octaves and a wicked polyphony that set tongues wagging and melted asphalt. He chopped out chords and bad-ass repeat licks. His hands ached deliciously with the power he held and his fingers bled through his gloves as he let the energy course through his body, into his guitar and then screaming through his amplifier...
Teeth bared with the power of his music Alucard threw the master controls to maximum level as he gave one last jam – one last stomp on his distortion pedal – and the feedback blew his amp all to hell, the pieces flying on ribbons of sound and elation.
His audience became one voice as they cheered and continued singing his name. He lifted both fists into the air and smiled at the memory of Sir Integra letting her hair down, and of Police Girl swinging her shirt around regardless of the fact that he had a reeally good view of her boobs...and as every one of those satisfied teens stumbled home with warm violent glows in their souls he looked up at the moon and grinned.
"Yes!" he sighed and passed out.