PART THREE
The Headquarters of the Hellsing Organisation
London, England
"Master? Master, where are you?"
Seras Victoria, a monster employed by Hellsing, searched the grounds outside the initial compound. There was a private ground filled with trees and shrubs: a forest in miniature often used as a training ground for the soldiers. Though tonight something else stalked the darkness. No, not stalked: strolled. She could hear her master's joyful humming in the back of her mind with ears not of this mortal plane.
"Master?"
"Such a pleasant night," came a deep voice. Seras looked and there he was, standing in the clearing when before there was nothing, the moonlight playing off of his glasses, coat and hat, all red as fresh young blood. Clearly he seemed pleased. "Can you hear them, Police Girl?"
"Hear who, Master?" She had often had difficulty fully compensating between her old and new selves. Though she slowly began to accept her instincts as a nosferatu they did not come natural to her as of yet: there were a lot of nasty human habits in her yet to be broken.
"Listen." She did as he commanded and closed her eyes. Each time she unleashed this new power was like opening a heavy door. It was not easy but when she did so the power was overwhelming like an ocean torrent.
Millions of heartbeats raced as they sat and waited. Every one was overcome with fear knowing that the end of the world was upon them. The airports were overbooked, the highways packed and the streets lined with those who could do nothing else but run. Others sat quietly in their homes and awaited death while others still chose to die on their own terms.
"I can," she gasped. They were miles away and yet she could feel them all breathing heavily and shifting listlessly in time like a concerto of raw, animalistic fear.
"Such greed making way to such terror," Alucard mused. "Is it not delicious, Police Girl?"
Seras salivated, sharing his eager anticipation of the bloodshed to come. Every night her master would reveal to her another even more alluring side of the nosferatu as beautiful as it was horrific. "Yes, Master."
Alucard looked up, hypnotised by the moon. He wanted to howl, to laugh, to cry out with the thousands of souls he had consumed in hate and hunger and forbidden glory. Instead he smiled humbly and continued his stroll.
"What an extraordinary time, the last days of men." In his immortal life he knew one day he might live to see it: never did he dream it would come so soon. To the fates he made a trifle, selfish wish. "I should only pray that it does not end with Alexander Anderson."
The Spanish Coast
Colonel America drew the holy blade from his temple with black blood dripping from it. The blessed metal didn't burn him, nor did it the others, just as the wards scribed with holy scriptures did not bind them. Father Anderson was clearly not amused.
"Ye nae be the Devil's beasts then," he muttered. "But ye still be cursed. Ye still be the undead walking a damned existence. Ye still be the sins of mankind made manifest..."
"I don't know what made you think a few bits of paper would beat us," Hawkeye growled.
"Magic." A concussive blast shot from Iron Man's palm, propelling the warrior paladin across the ground and shattering his ribcage. He lay on the ground writhing and twitching, still smiling as he struggled to find breath. Iron Man looked over him with both pity and hunger. "I hate magic."
"Then we end this now." Giant Man's foot came crashing down, covering the warrior paladin with one foul step and pressing down with all of his weight. Anderson was crushed like a bug.
Luke Cage scowled at the sixty foot zombie. "Damn it, Hank! That was going to be our next meal! You know they only taste good when they're still alive!"
"Couldn't risk it," he replied. "I wasn't going to let us get halted by another magician. Remember the trouble we had with Doctor Strange? Besides, if you still want some what's left on the bottom of my boot will still be good."
Suddenly Giant Man seemed to lose his balance. He lifted his foot to offer the priest's remains to his fellow beasts when it suddenly came crashing down again. His knee trembled as the rotten flesh beneath the tight red costume began to crawl. Shards of metal began to prod outward then exploded, leaving the behemoth to tumble backwards with it's right foot missing.
From where his foot was only moments ago a pile of obliterated human flesh drew itself back together complete with it's priestly robes and eye glasses. Alexander Anderson once more took a comprehensible human form and stared the monsters down with a glare of disgust.
"Ye've nae got any idea what ye're dealin' with," he seethed. "Ah'm no' just a man. That alone would have'a no hope. Nae, ah'm an instrument of God almighty, an' ah nae just 'ave superstitious trinkets tae stop ye."
Colonel America stood ahead of the pack, trying his best to formulate a battle plan. He called back to the zombies. "Does anyone have any idea what the hell he just said?"
"Yeah," said Wolverine, his adamantium claws shining like silver from his thinning boney fingers. "He thinks even though his magic's no good he still has a snowball's chance of burying us."
Anderson grinned cruelly. "Ye'll nae be buried, beast. Ye'll be staked an' burned like ye deserve."
This was a personal challenge. The undead X-Man gritted his blackened teeth and snarled. "Hey, guys. How hungry are you?"
Colonel America scoffed. "You want him all to yourself, don't you?"
It was the knives, mostly. Back in the day Wolverine was the best there was at what he did, even if what he didn't wasn't very nice. The truth was what he did now was worse, but he couldn't stand to see a challenger gloating so blatantly. "You let me carve, I promise a piece each for the rest of ya."
"One on one in yere make do demon pit," the paladin chuckled. "Ah'll glady take on the lot of ye!"
They cleared the way as Logan ventured forward to the brave holy man. Metal almost sung as it scraped against metal as Wolverine cleaned and sharpened his claws. This time he wouldn't hold back: in fact he might even be tested. "You're gonna look real funny trying as we're pickin' bits of ya out of my teeth."
Anderson took a deep breath and drew two more blades, holding them against each other in the form of the holy cross. He spoke the Apostle's creed as he had countless times before. "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord..."
Wolverine charged, his claws glistening in front of him. He leapt into the air and dived at the warrior priest threatening to slice him into shishkhebab. Though Anderson was ready and turned, his knives forcing Wolverine's away to either side. The zombie lunged: he still had his teeth, he could take a good bite out of him. The priest didn't hesitate a moment as he pressed his head forward, smashing the former mutants nose back in his skull.
For a moment he winced and doubled back, now unable to breath through his nose. Anderson smiled in satisfaction. "Got tae admit, it hurts bashin' them tin bones o' yers. 'Twas a good guess though that yer nose wasn't metal. What ye're feelin' is the cartilage shootin' inte yer brain. It won't hurt ye, but I bet it doesn' nae feel too good, either."
There was no response save the bloody roar of his next attack. One arm was caught by Anderson and the other narrowly avoided capture. Wolverine dealt what would usually be a fatal blow to the vital organs, each claw sliding in between the ribs and into the heart and lungs. When Anderson tried to push back Wolverine was in motion again and with one simple movement managed to slice off the arm he was going to be stabbed with.
With a low kick Anderson forced himself away. Wolverine couldn't help but laugh as he watched him squirm. "Think a shot to the jewels is gonna do much now I'm on the other side, bub?"
In mere seconds the wound had healed and a new arm shot out from the socket like a bullet complete with a knife to be projected through the bottom of Wolverine's jaw and into his brain. Were he still alive he might have been able to narrowly avoid it but being dead certainly slowed him down.
"Some... healing factor... ya got there..."
Anderson stepped back and drew yet another pair of blades. His expression turned deadly serious, almost serene. "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord..."
"Cut the superstitious religious crap!" Wolverine pounced as the priest continued to pray.
"Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried." Once more their metal crashed, both trying to force the other man back and prove that their strength was the greatest. Anderson was confident: he had God on his side. Wolverine was confident: he could no longer die.
Suddenly something gave way. Wolverine's necrotic muscles tore away from his adamantium bones as he forced them too hard. His arms went limp, flesh and bone separated. With one foul strike to each arm the pieces of metal fell to the ground: his ligaments weren't made of indestructible metal, either.
"What the hell have you done to me?" Wolverine bellowed. His fury overwhelmed him in a way it never had before. Being a zombie he had no healing factor and his greatest weapons had been stripped from him.
Anderson's composition hadn't changed. If anything he was more focused than ever. "He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead."
"God damn you," he scoffed as the blades tore into his legs and shattered the rotten ligaments connecting him to his pelvis. Wolverine was left writhing on the ground without even so much leverage as to throw himself forward and bite him.
"He ascended into Heaven," he continued, only taking a short moment to study the movements of the rest. "And sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead."
Logan stared back to his fellow undead and pleaded. "One of you get your butt in here and take this bastard down!"
Iron Man looked on with his visor raised. "This was your call, Wolverine. Pride has no place in our survival. This way, we've got one less mouth to feed."
"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting..."
"Son of a..."
"Amen." Anderson delivered the final blow, prying the X-Man's head from his shoulders, removing his knife and pulling the brain out by hand. It fell to the ground with a wet squick and was then crushed under Anderson's boot. The priest looked around, disgusted that even such fowl creatures could let this fate happen to one of their own.
"Are you quite finished there, Father?" Tony Stark had never been a religious man, even when he was alive. The magic and the mythology of it all was too fantastic for someone as rational as he could believe.
"I'd walk ye through the sinner's prayer, even read ye yer last rights, but I doubt any a' ye would be interested," he mused slyly. "With all the power ye'll be pushin' 'round I dinnae think any a' ye'd ever really had the time for God."
Anderson's words, while profound, had absolutely no impact on the zombies who failed to understand perfectly clear Scottish. Hawkeye scratched his head. "Well that doesn't make a lick of sense."
Spider-Man choked out a rough translation. "Something something power something pushing ground something treaty that time forgot?"
The Colonel huffed and signaled the others to arms. "Who cares? Let's just storm him and eat."
"No!" Iron Man, Hawkeye and Luke Cage were bowled out of the way by a thick green arm. A very hungry jade undead giant began a heavy path careering into the warrior paladin. "Hulk hungriest! Hulk eat first!"
Nick Fury took point as his 'unit' scrambled behind him. Criminals, assassins and vigilantes: his new platoon of Howling Commandos were a far cry from the first, but they were all he had. A part of him was reluctant to bring more metahumans into the mix. After all every one of them lost usually spelled another added to the other side.
He sat, and waited, and watched. Whoever this Alexander Anderson character was seemed to be holding his own against them, or at least against Wolverine. Right now the odds seemed stacked against him. Still, if what he'd been told by Sir Hellsing was accurate their help wouldn't be appreciated anyway.
"Divide and conquer," he muttered under his breath.
"What was that, Colonel?" Castle was the only one to have picked it up. They had a history with each other: knew the other a little too well.
"That's what we'll do," he lied. He was actually talking about them. Once one of them, any of them were bitten there was no going back. A single blow taken instantly meant death. "We wait until they go on the trail. They'll be hungry and stupid, selfish. One by one we'll draw them away, take them out as quietly as we can."
"Not a very clever plan," sneered Domino. "Superheroes are always loud. We don't have the luxury of being quiet."
"Yeah and with one bite we switch teams, and I'm not talking about moving to San Fransisco," Deadpool quipped. "Going from Deadpool to Undeadpool isn't exactly high on my priorities list."
"That's why we've taken precautions," Fury told them.
Taskmaster didn't take his eyes off of the monsters. "What precautions?"
"The nanites you put in our food," Cable growled knowingly. The others looked to them in shock, then anger. "They contain miniature explosives. Our heads will be blown up before we have a chance to turn."
"God damn you, Fury," Bullseye seethed as he drew a throwing knife.
"Just... as a precaution," said Fury calmly. "We're not leaving anything to chance. Besides, if you do get bitten do you really want to walk around as one of those... things?"
The knives lowered and Bullseye lay in wait with the rest. "That doesn't illustrate the rest of your cunning plan."
"We follow the Punisher's lead." Castle looked to Fury questioningly. What was he talking about? "You've been doing your homework, Frank. Really think you could read up on every single hero on the streets without SHIELD knowing? You've had a plan on how to kill them for years and now we'll be needing it."
"This is information I could have used yesterday, Fury." The Punisher clearly wasn't happy.
Nick fought the temptation to light a cigar. He'd never been this scared, not even back in the war. He then smiled to his men as if it weren't a suicide run they were about to enter into. "Since when do you need prep time? All the Punisher has ever needed in the past was courage, perseverance... and an extra clip."
"I don't believe it," gasped the Taskmaster.
Looking over they saw the mad priest standing over Wolverine's dessicated corpse to tear his head off. He then reached inside and brained him while the other zombies just stood and watched. They looked on in disbelief as the empty adamantium skull dropped to the ground.
"Remind me if we get out of this alive," muttered Fury, "I have to do some checking up on Chapter XIII, Iscariot. Thank Christ this guy's on our side."
The Hulk charged with the force of an entire army, his mouth hanging open wide enough to bite a man's head clean off his shoulders. Anderson waited those crucial seconds to dive from his path at the last moment. He couldn't brace himself, not for such an impact: his blades wouldn't be able to shield him from a thing that could shift mountains.
"Sit still so Hulk can eat you!" it commanded. The warrior paladin had little chance to find stable footing. Each time the Hulk smashed at Anderson he struck the Earth, making everything within the immediate area tremble.
It was only a matter of time before he lost his ground and fell to the beast's mercy. Hulk grinned, his hunger overcoming him. "Hulk love when they squirm."
"Oh, ah'll do more'n that!" Another round of blades flew up from Anderson's arsenal, embedding themselves in the Hulk's neck, shoulders and stomach.
The only response was rage, an avalanche of fists and tiny screams muted by the blade piercing the monster's larynx. As blades flew and flew into him the Hulk pressed on, ignoring the attacks, single-mindedly closing in on his prey. "Puny human! Hulk make you paté or Hulk eat you whole!"
A large foot smashed Alexander Anderson onto the face of a nearby house and stayed on him, pinning him to the solid brick. With a single brush of his hand the blade handles shattered off of the weapons still embedded within the green behemoth's body. Picking at the hole in his neck he pulled another metal shard free.
On the sideline Hawkeye and Luke Cage watched and talked amongst themselves as the battle continued. "He's eating our food!"
"Do you want to go in there and stop him?" Cage scoffed.
"Only if he were the last man on Earth."
Hulk's thick appendage pulled away and let Anderson fall to the ground. He picked up the battered and weakened paladin and studied it. He hung like a ragdoll. Proud of his work he smiled. "God man soft. Hulk smash good."
"Ye're no' quite there yet, beastie." Anderson jumped to life, his maniacal grin dripping with his own blood. Two knives fell from with sleeves and with incredible skill he flipped and embedded them on the sides of Hulk's jaw. Gripping to them for dear life he pressed his feet against the giant's chest and pulled for all of his worth.
There was a muted cry when the jaw was pried away. It fell to the ground in the monster's horror, causing for him to drop the priest in panic. Anderson used the chance to move away and let his healing factor get to work.
He laughed as only a mad zealot would. "Ah'd like tae see ye eat me now!"
The Hulk tried desperately to push the bone back into place but to no avail. The priest's taunts only succeeded in infuriating him further, coaxing him to charge while wielding the jaw as a weapon. Anderson still laughed as he was beaten into mush, the disembodied bone grinding his flesh into a fine past.
"Hu' hun'huhy!" he wailed to the confusion of the others. Scooping up what remained of his enemy he allowed the fresh remains to slide down the hole in his face. What didn't go down so easily he forced down with the paladin's arm.
"That's disgusting," remarked the Colonel. "Look at him. He eats human flesh like a five year old."
"I was hoping for another loss," Iron Man lamented. "Of all of us the Hulk is by far the most difficult to feed. He's becoming a liability."
Suddenly there came a familiar feeling alerting Spider-Man to danger. His spider-sense tingled in the direction behind them. Had something been trailing them? He choked out to the others. "Guys... I think we're being followed."
"Food," Hawkeye hissed, almost happily.
From their hiding spot Nick Fury cursed himself and cursed Spider-Man's goddamn spider-sense. He gave the signal and they cocked their weapons. Like it or not they were about to march right into hostile territory, guns blazing.
"Here goes nothing."
TO BE CONTINUED...