Virgin blood is nothing to this.
Alucard was intoxicated with mayhem. Every person he had ever drained unto death was contained within him. He had been constrained by the Hellsing seals and could not use the souls as he chose, that was no longer the case. Not only were the seals released, but his Master had ordered him to kill every one of their enemies, to leave none alive.
How tasty.
As the sun rose over London, Alucard sent a tide of enslaved souls against his enemies. Those soul slaves had no choice but to fight to their utmost, but they were eager to do so. Dying in this battle would be a final release from Alucard's cold embrace. No army was more eager for combat. They weren't fighting for their lives, they were fighting for their final deaths.
The sheer volume and variety of souls to spring from Alucard's body was staggering. Stunned Nazis fell at the hands of old friends. Iscariots were struck down by ancient European warriors and tidy Victorian gentlemen.
And erupting out of the darkest part of the mass were two familiar forms - an adrogynous shadow-haired vampire wielding a musket longer than she was tall and a dapper man in an immaculate suit.
Rip Van Winkle and the Dandy began to widen the swathe of destruction around the seething mass that was Alucard. The Dandy Man's cards beheaded old companions and papal warriors with equal ease. Rip's telltale laugh rang out as she shot down the riffraff in Iscariot helicopters.
Alucard's glee was boundless at using the two Nazi vampires against their former compatriots. This gets more and more delicious by the moment.
He was distracted from his rapture by a familiar scent. With no effort, he located his favorite papal regenerator in the melee. The familiar form of Alucard coalesced from the seething shadows and began to thrust through the chaos toward his old...friend.
•••
Wolfe Heinkel and Yumiko Takagi
Heinkel fired again and again. No shot was wasted, but it seemed as though there was no end to the enemies coming at her. She shot what looked to be a Mongolian man clad in furs as he ran toward her. Mongol hordes? Is there no end to this nightmare? She glanced over her shoulder to her partner.
Yumie was in a killing trance. If it wasn't in an Iscariot robe, it was a target. Alucard would have recognized the expression of murderous rapture on her face. He would approve. She slashed and spun like a dervish. If she lived through today, tomorrow her face would hurt from the smile plastered across her face.
The killer nuns couldn't think about tomorrow. Tomorrow was a lifetime away. There was only the now, only the battle.
Heinkel dropped a clip from her weapon and jammed a fresh one home. Her voice rose as a clarion above the screams and sounds of battle: "Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." She fought on as she heard other Iscariots join her in the verses.
•••
Enrico Maxwell
Archbishop Maxwell surveyed the carnage from his position well behind the battle lines. He was surrounded by elite Section XIII bodyguards. He wanted to see this victory, but he didn't want to get too close.
"Saint Enrico, yes, I like that." Maxwell was entertaining himself with thoughts of the adoration he would earn for destroying this vampire menace and reclaiming England for Catholicism. He felt almost light-headed with delight. He would reclaim England and he would see that Hellsing sow dead or in chains. He was hoping for the latter because the thought of her humiliation and degradation was sweeter than honey.
His sweet fantasies fled as the hovering Vatican helicopters started to explode out of the air. "What the hell is happening?"
The techs who were helping to guide the Iscariot troops couldn't find a source of anti-aircraft fire. Maxwell felt a first clench of fear. Those helicopters were his emergency escape route, dammit!
Another helicopter went down. "There!" shouted a tech. The tech was pointing to a location right in the thick of the melee. Maxwell could just make out a slim figure pointing something irrationally long toward the sky.
"Take out that gunner! Get troops over there and take that gunner down! Move damn you!" For the first time Enrico Maxwell realized that success was not guaranteed.
Maxwell remembered to pray.
•••
Alexander Anderson
His blades mowed down his enemies like wheat under the scythe. He dispatched Germans and Alucard's revenants almost casually as he stalked toward his true prey.
Heinkel's voice cut through Paladin Anderson's blood lust. The familiar words of 2 Corinthians, "...that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble..." he paused in his prayer, feeling as though God had just reprimanded him, "...by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."
What comfort was he bringing to the Hellsings? What comfort had God given to him? What were they really doing here? Were they just there to serve Maxwell's craving for power and vengeance against Integra Hellsing?
He found himself wishing for the blood lust to drown his thoughts as he turned and thrust, impaling a man who was formed of shadow and looked as though he'd stepped out of extras casting for Highlander.
Strangely absorbed in his thoughts, he was killing on autopilot. The paladin's unstoppable force met up with an immovable object. He lashed out with his blades and instead of his target crumpling under the force, the man in front of him caught a blade in either hand. Blood dripped from the man's hands, but he gave no indication that he felt the pain of the wounds or the blessed silver on his undead flesh.
Captain Hans Günsche looked at his opponent and began to twist Anderson's blades out of his grasp. His strength was frightening. A violent jerk flung one of the blessed blades away to Anderson's right and the Captain's inhuman speed and strength won him the other blade out of the paladin's left hand.
Alexander was just reaching into the n-space of his coat for more weaponry when the Captain impaled him on his own blade and pushed. He pushed through Anderson's stomach and gave the blessed blade a vicious twist that severed his spinal cord. Anderson dropped to the ground as though a puppet whose strings had been cut with the blade still protruding from his midsection.
He knew he could heal it if the blade weren't there, but he also knew the Captain wasn't going to give him the chance. Not like this, dear God. Not like this, was Anderson's panicked thought as the Captain pulled a knife of his own from his uniform.
The Captain's knife fell, but instead of severing Anderson's head, there was a blur of red. The knife fell and lodged itself in Alucard's shoulder. Alucard had interposed himself between the Captain and his intended victim. "Now, now. I can't have you breaking one of my favorite toys," he chided. "Do you know how hard it is to find good regenerators these days?"
•••
IntegraFrom their vantage, Integra watched the battle. She had been following the progress of the Iscariot regenerator as he fought his way across the open square toward what? Ah, of course, toward Alucard.
She saw the giant man go down before his Nazi opponent. She grabbed Seras' good arm and pointed, "There! The regenerator! Do you see him?"
Anderson had shown some honor and the willingness to think beyond the insane orders of the Iscariot archbishop. Integra thought he was a crazed son of a bitch who would probably benefit from hospitalization for a decade or two, but she couldn't stand to see such a powerful foe of the dark go down before her eyes.
"Take me there!" she commanded Seras.
"Sir Integra..."
"Shut up and take me there now! That's an order!" shouted Integra.
Seras caught her with her good arm and with a muttered, "I don't think this is a good idea," flew over the battle to the space where they had last seen the paladin.
Anderson was on the ground where they had last seen him, unable to move with the blade still lodged in his spine and preventing regeneration. Alucard was standing over his body shooting his Casull into the Captain round after round. When the Captain did not even stagger under the assault, Alucard smiled broadly enough to show more teeth than a shark and crowed, "This will be fun!" He launched himself at the Captain and they tumbled farther away from the body of the paralyzed paladin.
Integra crouched over Anderson. He stared up at her. "Sir Integra, you have good timing."
"You may not think so in a moment," she replied and quickly jerked the blade out of Anderson's stomach. He screamed but could do nothing more.
"Don't move, Hellsing." Integra froze when a gun muzzle touched her temple. She flicked her eyes to the right and saw a woman in priest's vestments on the other end of the gun barrel. A quick glance to the left showed her Seras fending off an enraged Japanese nun.
"No! Heinkel, call Yumie off. Sir Hellsing and her pets just saved me," gasped Anderson from the ground.
The Iscariot nun didn't take time to think, she ran and tackled Yumie before she drove her katana into Seras' throat. She remembered what Anderson had said a few hours ago about not being able to kill Seras Victoria. She didn't want Yumie to incur the Draculina's wrath. She repeated over and over to Yumie that she couldn't kill Seras or Sir Hellsing. Yumie growled but shifted her blade away from the vampire.
"Right," said Integra. "You two Iscariots can guard your man until his spine regenerates, I have other business. Seras, get me off the ground and I'll tell you where we're going next." She glanced over to where Alucard seemed to be toying with the Captain and shook her head.
Seras lofted them above the fray and out of earshot of the Iscariots, then Integra told her, "We're going to kill that pig Maxwell now. We'll need to come in behind his defenses if you think you can do that. It seems that Alucard has eliminated his air support in some manner, which should make it easier for us."
Seras drew shadow around herself and Integra and flew with the speed that had brought her to Integra's side earlier.They came in behind Maxwell's platform. Seras moved to quickly incapacitate his guards while Integra stepped up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Was it wrong to enjoy this moment? She didn't care.
"What is it?" he shouted as he turned. Integra hit him in the jaw with all her strength and he staggered back against the podium he'd been leaning on.
"Enrico Maxwell, I find you guilty of crimes against Her Majesty the Queen and order your execution to be carried out immediately." Maxwell flinched back, but he wasn't a field operative and he did not have Integra's training, strength or rage. Integra severed his head from his shoulders with Anderson's blessed blade. It rolled off the platform onto the ground below.
"Pig."
"That was lovely, Sir Integra, well done," said a pleased voice behind her as two strong arms wrapped around her waist and she was gone.
•••
Seras
"Nooo!"
Seras was trying to knock out one of Maxwell's guards without knocking his head off when she heard the unique feline whine of the German "envoy's" voice, "That was lovely, Sir Integra, well done." She thought she saw a quick movement from the corner of her eye, but faster than she could whip around, Integra and the speaker were gone.
She wheeled around frantically searching for her commander. There was no sign of Integra. Where was she?
She could feel herself starting to panic as thoughts of failure and all its consequences rushed through her head.
Seras, that's not going to do us any good, Pip's calm voice cut through the anarchy her thoughts were starting to dissolve into.
"I can't find her Pip! I lost her! I lost her from right under my nose!" Seras wailed aloud.
Seras. Police Girl! Snap out of it. You've learned a lot about being a vampire tonight, can you talk to her the way Alucard does?
"Don't call me Police Girl," but Pip's presence calmed her and his idea was a good one. Seras fought to quell her panic and control her mind.
She knew the feel of her Master's mind in her mind. She now knew the feel of Pip. She summoned an image of what she thought of as the essence of Integra and reached out to the Master of Hellsing.
Learning a new mental discipline in the midst of the end of the world is perhaps not the best time, but Seras refused to fail. She reached out farther and farther, her questing thoughts like ripples of water away from a tossed pebble.
Alucard paused for a moment in his fight with the Captain as his fledgling's mind passed over his like a cool breeze. He raised an eyebrow. Her thoughts had always been warm before.
His distraction earned him a savage attack from the Captain. He had to turn his concentration back to rejoining his torso with his legs.
Anderson grunted as a chill passed over him. Why would he think of the female Hellsing vampire now? She had always seemed so human, but tonight? It was almost as though she had only truly died tonight.
He pushed thoughts of her away. At least he was regaining motor control. He thought that if Heinkel and Yumie could buy him a few more minutes, he could return to the battle. He didn't know whose battle he was fighting anymore.
Seras knew that Integra was not on the ground. She shifted her attention upward to the zeppelin floating above the wreckage that had been London.
She dropped to the ground with a scream. Seras Victoria writhed on the ground seizing like an epileptic. She screamed and screamed again.
When the pain of what she had touched started to recede, she realized that Pip had been speaking to her the entire time. She could almost feel his arms around her, keeping her from harming herself.
"She's up there, but oh God! Oh God! There's something else up there and it's horrible! Oh God, Pip!" Seras thrashed some more, but started to feel control of her body returning to her. She was weeping blood tears from her good eye. She could feel her face wet with them, but couldn't stop crying.
"I have to go up there, Pip. I'm so scared."
You're not going alone, Seras. You know I'll always be here. She could clearly picture Pip's devilish smirk, You know, never in my wildest dreams of being inside you did it work out like this.
Seras shrieked, but it was a laugh of shock at his out of bounds comment. Pip had said exactly the right thing at the right time to get her out of her panic and clear her thoughts.
Seras Victoria picked herself up off the ground and launched into the air.