A/N: This is an AU story because much as I wish it would, I doubt this will be happening in the true Hellsing universe. This is essentially a fic about the beginnings of Hellsing/Iscariot cooperation, if it fits with the storyline I will probably be including E+I in later chapters though it is a pairing that I do not normally ship.
Chapter 1: Sweet Assassinations
Enrico Maxwell had a headache, and it was not the sort of pain to be cured with a cold flannel and a couple of paracetamol either, this was verging on migraine territory. This coupled with the fact that he would soon be meeting with that ever-annoying heathen Integra Hellsing conspired to put him in an extremely foul mood. The meeting he was heading towards was the fifth of a series of talks that had been taking place for the past year.
The aim of the talks was to broker a peace treaty between Hellsing and Section 13; they had been progressing with the speed of a small mollusc. Admittedly; Enrico mused, his demands had been a tad high at first, he doubted that Integra would ever under any circumstances get rid of her pet nosferatu, change the official Hellsing religion to Catholic and agree to work under his command. But after all, he rationalised, was that not the point of diplomatic talks? To start high and gradually reduce your expectations until you reached a point of agreement, however there was one point on which he stood firm, he would not have friendly relations with a group that employed vampires, least of all ones such as Alucard. He smirked to himself as he savoured the frustration his obstinacy had caused, and would still cause. Sir Integra's one failure as a diplomat was her temper, and oh how he loved provoking that.
Enrico was jolted out of his pleasant daydreams by the car coming to an abrupt halt, he heard Father Renaldo mutter, "oh not the tyres again." Enrico groaned and lazily raised his head a little but decided that he was in too much pain to sit up, that decision probably saved his life for it was at that point that the first bullet came through the windscreen.
Enrico quickly rolled of the seat on to the car floor, fighting his instincts, which were screaming at him to get out of the car, his rational mind told him that the instant he left the car he would be even more at risk. He quickly followed Father Renaldo's example and drew his gun. Father Renaldo gestured to him to keep quiet and stay down, through his adrenaline, Enrico grinned, his attackers were about to make a fatal mistake. Sure enough, Enrico's sharpened senses soon heard footfalls approaching, he listened harder, it seemed as though there were only three of them, so much the better for him. He heard muffled voices and one set of footsteps separated and went over to the driver's side where Father Renaldo waited for them. Enrico fixed his full attention on his door, instinctively knowing that it would be the one they would go for, so far it had been a notably unprofessional attempt on his life, but at least they knew where he would be seated.
The whole process seemed agonisingly slow to Enrico but in reality it was as fast as lightning. The first assassin got a bullet in the face and fell on top of his companion who had just taken a shot at Enrico, this deflection caused the bullet to merely graze Enrico's arm and in the meantime the second assassin had breathed his last. Enrico glanced over to Father Renaldo who had killed his opponent without incident, and ignoring his wound, got out of the car. He stood there a few minutes gulping the fresh air and fighting the familiar nausea, he had always had this problem and until he learnt to control it he had always thrown up after having killed, he had never felt any particular remorse for his slain enemies, he was an Iscariot after all, he just had this annoying physical reaction. Ah well, he mentally shrugged it off, it did not really matter as it only happened after the battle.
When he turned to face Father Renaldo his face was impassive," well," he drawled "I expect we had better contact our hosts, that is, if this wasn't arranged by them." Father Renaldo frowned, "do you think they were responsible?" "No," sneered Maxwell, "I have enough respect for that Protestant sow, to know that if she planned something of this manner she would have come a lot closer to succeeding." He frowned at the corpses on the road, "of course that conclusion immediately begs the question, whom?"
Integra took a deep drag of her cigar, her icy glare unabated, why the hell did Maxwell always have to be late? It's not as though it's the slightest bit impressive, it merely served to annoy her. One thing was for sure, he was an appalling diplomat, she smiled coldly, mind you, she wasn't too brilliant either. She was currently seated in The Cabinet War Rooms with an extremely bored, Captain Bernadette whom it was obvious was perusing a dirty magazine behind his newspaper, the least observant person would have noticed that said newspaper hadn't had a page turned in ages. Integra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, she'd originally had Seras accompany her on these talks but Maxwell had flatly refused to talk with a vampire in attendance. Of course this had done nothing for the Police Girl's emotional state, Integra had of course defended he officer, but had secretly felt exasperated, it would help if she wasn't so dammed sensitive. She would probably have continued to bring Seras along merely to spite Maxwell but she'd had pity on the distraught Seras; who was now almost as terrified of Maxwell as she was of Andersong. So now she was stuck with the obnoxious Frenchman, wasting precious time she could be using to run her organisation.
Just then a man entered the room bearing two cups of tea, Integra didn't normally pay much attention to peasants, but eager for a distraction she scrutinised the newcomer, he swept his hair back from his handsome face and smiled at Integra in a way that, had he been a little less menacing, might have made her blush. As it was, she was on her guard and this made her notice, under the thin material of his jacket, the unmistakeable shape of a shoulder holster. Seeing in her eyes that he'd been rumbled, he quickly drew the contents of the shoulder holster, but not quickly enough, a bullet from Integra's gun soon shattered that pretty face. Pip jumped up cursing, hoping against hope that Sir Integra was not harmed, he didn't fancy explaining to Alucard that his master had been hurt because he's been too engrossed in Brigitte from Paris. Pip, seeing that Integra was unharmed quickly followed her example and drew his gun, positioning himself in front of her, hoping that his willingness to place himself in danger would make up for his sluggish reactions. He was just in time, two of the assassins compatriots; hearing gunshots rushed to the scene. Pip easily dispatched them and waited for more.
No more came, after a few minutes Pip glanced over at Integra, "do you think that was it, boss?" he queried, a little incredulous. Integra frowned, "it certainly seems so," she examined the bodies, "and by the looks of it they were human, someone has sent human assassins to kill me!" She paused, a slight smile flickering across her lips, "that's actually quite sweet…"
Pip didn't bat an eyelid, he would have done, before he'd joined Hellsing but now he just accepted that sort of reaction as normal, however, it didn't pay to be complacent so he kept his gun trained on the entrance while Integra contacted Walter. She was on the phone much longer than normal and when she hung up Pip noticed she was frowning. Pip gave her a curious look and for once she decided to enlighten him. "It seems this wasn't the only botched assassination carried out today," she explained, "Maxwell's car was attacked on the way here, the attackers were; of course, destroyed. Anyway we've been ordered to go to the palace, straightaway." Pip whistled, the palace, this was serious then.
Integra was silent on the short drive to Buckingham Palace, attempting to figure out why such a pathetic attempt on her life was being taken so seriously, she hadn't even had to summon Alucard, for goodness sake! Was this all because of Maxwell, had that dammned smarmy priest kicked up a fuss? Whatever the cause, she was soon to find out as the car swept through the back-gates of the palace.
Upon arriving Integra was immediately bustled into a sitting room, where she found; to her disgust, Maxwell, lounging quite at ease on a chair by the window, a bandage round his forearm the only sign of the morning's events. Integra found herself surprised that he obviously hadn't just cowered in the car and allowed his underling; who was now hovering over him, to deal with the assassins and she half wished she'd sustained an injury of her own, to show that she could fight too, she immediately berated herself for the childishness of that thought.
Maxwell rose with his normal ironic politeness though Integra noticed that his annoyance was more thinly veiled than normal. "Sir Integra," he sneered, "I'm glad you're here, tell me, does this sort of thing normally occur in England?" Integra smiled thinly, "why Maxwell, is someone in you're position surprised? Does this 'sort of thing' never happen in Rome?" Her smile grew, she knew full well that assassination was a standard means to gain promotion within the Church, a he knew, she knew. "Well it's just generally done with more subtlety where I come from," retorted Maxwell. Integra was prevented from replying by the door opening and a senior member of The Round Table being announced. He greeted Integra and Enrico with varying degrees of warmth and after seating himself began to speak, "Following the events of this morning Her Majesty has spoken with His Holiness, they have come to the conclusion that, as both your lives are in considerable danger you will have to go into hiding and govern your organisations from afar."
A stunned silence greeted his words and almost simultaneously Enrico and Integra began to protest, "this is ridiculous Sir Thornwell," cried Integra, "we can't really be expected to go into hiding because of such a pathetic mater as this?" "I agree," protested Enrico, "This was a totally unprofessional assassination attempt." "But it may well be repeated," replied Sir Thornwell, "it has come to our attention that the way you handled the FREAK chip incident has made you plenty of enemies." (AN: For the purposes of this fanfic, Millennium doesn't exist, its AU remember.) Seeing that this statement had temporarily silenced Sir Hellsing and Father Maxwell, Sir Thornwell continued, "certain corporations, generally based in America found the FREAK chip to be a nice little investment, you're activities put a stop to their business venture. As you're predecessor," he nodded to Enrico and turned to Integra, "and you're unfortunate Uncle were prepared to be more flexible, to the extent of turning a bind eye to their activities, they assume that by removing you as individuals they remove he problem. We haven't been able to gain any more information as the American authorities are being difficult, which is why you must hide until we can."
Enrico and Integra were silent for a minute, both knowing that they couldn't refuse such a direct order from such high authority. Enrico sighed, this really wasn't a good day, "very well," he addressed Sir Thornwell, "where exactly am I supposed to go?" Seeing that Sir Hellsing was resigned to the situation Sir Thornwell smiled, "we already have a car waiting to transport you to your destination."
Enrico would later blame the combined effect of his fatigue and his migraine on the fact that he and Sir Integra were ushered out of the palace together, transported to their destination together and ended up standing together outside the safe house where they would be staying
Back in Buckingham Palace Her Majesty the Queen of England sat back in her chair and smiled, whilst conversing with His Holiness she had found that they shared the view that the peace talks between two of their vital organisations were progressing entirely too slowly. They also agreed that the main reason for this was the lack of communication between the two leaders, and what better for building communication than each others company for a few weeks? She chuckled, His Holiness was really a rather nice old man when you got to know him, perhaps when Hellsing and Section 13 cooperated she would make a state visit to the Vatican, but for now her dear Sir Integra was about to provide some first rate entertainment, this was going to be very amusing indeed.