PART FIVE
12 Hours Ago
Tokyo, Japan
"Please... no..."
Yuriko Oyama begged as she trembled, pinned by the combined strength of She-Hulk and Miss Marvel. Before this moment she hadn't feared death or cowered from an assassin's blade, but old superstitions crept into her mind when the fallen heroes came not only to eat her body, but her soul as well.
"You tried to hurt us," seethed the jade giantess as she leaned closer to Lady Deathstrike. She licked her cheek then took a soft bite, tearing away a strip of flesh with her teeth. It was a tasty entree for what was to come.
"Father, forgive me," she murmured. It shamed her that she should be reduced to this, a blubbering mess before the minions of Hell. In her mind she deserved the tragic end that was to come of her: that was to be her penance for being weak.
Miss Marvel growled, the familiar hunger beginning to take hold. She was growing impatient with these games. "For god's sake, Jen. Just eat her and move on."
"Let me play with my food," she argued softly. "Let her know just what's coming to her. It's the least we can do..."
"They would have taken their own lives with or without my help," Yuriko spat, summoning her familiar anger. "They would have rather sacrificed themselves and be at peace than to become your food!"
"But that's the thing, Deathstrike. You did help," She-Hulk laughed, forcing a sharp fingernail into an open wound. She scraped at the flesh and pulled away, then tasting the little piece of Yuriko she'd taken. "Because of what you did countless more will have to die so that we might eat..."
The assassin steeled herself, trying her best to remain strong as she marched into Hell's gates. "What kind of a fool do you take me for? You will not stop until you have picked the bones of the entire world and when that day comes you will starve and you too will die!"
"Enough!" Miss Marvel dived jowls first for the neck, tearing through the skin and drinking deeply as a rush of blood poured from her bite. She-Hulk hadn't even time to protest lest she miss another crucial feeding.
Their meal finished the two former heroines took to their feet and looked over the floor of dead bodies before them: a sad mass of former humanity lost to a suicide ritual. The bodies were already rank and the air was thick with the stench of death. To most it would be a tragic sight, but to Miss Marvel and She-Hulk it was only food gone to waste.
"I was having fun," she pouted.
Miss Marvel huffed. "We're not here to have fun. We eat because that's all we can do anymore. There's no time to stop and enjoy ourselves, especially not with an army of super-zombies spread around the world thinning our already low food supply."
"People are like cockroaches. They never die out, not completely. If they could survive against all that we've faced they can survive us as well."
"Say that again when we're fighting over the contents of your stomach." Suddenly there came a sharp buzz from a device on Miss Marvel's side: a device she'd completely forgotten about. She picked up her Avengers emergency communicator and opened it curiously. "Hello?"
"Hello, Carol," came Iron Man's faint reply.
"Tony Stark," she hissed. "I thought I told you that I never wanted to hear from you again: not after you bit me and turned me into this... this thing!"
"Skip it, Carol. From what I hear you've moved past your self-hatred and made the most of your... current condition."
She-Hulk looked confused. "Tony Stark is one of us?"
"Tony Stark is Iron Man," she said to her disbelief. Secret identities didn't really mean much anymore. "I still stand by what I said, Tony. I want nothing more to do with you and that's that."
"Will you put your pride aside for just one minute? This is Avengers business." Her silence indicated that she was listening. "There are forces out there conspiring to destroy us, Carol. You and I both know that we can't let that happen, even if it means the end of humanity. Right now we need you or else we're all dead."
They two heroines stood and stared, quietly dwelling on the thought. Miss Marvel spoke into the communicator. "I'll assemble my team. What are your coordinates?"
"Spain, en route to Great Britain," he informed her. "We need everyone we can get when we march on London. They're going to be expecting us."
Now
London, England
"The blood... the blood..."
Captain Britain knelt on his home soil, the battlefield laid out before him. Once the zombies strolled ashore they pushed through the barriers in minutes, completely annihilating the military, the navy, the air force, even UNIT. It was only then that they would allow for Excalibur to be deployed and try their hardiest to defeat the heroes at their own game. It was just as Hellsing had warned them: they were waiting and they were hungry.
"The blood..." Captain Britain gasped. "It tastes... so... good..."
With the zombie forces replenished it wasn't long before Excalibur were completely overwhelmed and starving for flesh. Like the others consuming a human being was so fraught with guilt, conflict and personal hatred, but all of this was quickly pushed aside by the intense satisfaction that came with a hearty meal. In no time at all the blood and the bones became as meaningless as the human lives they once protected: now they were just cattle.
Nightcrawler leapt from body to body, disappearing and reappearing in puffs of smoke as he picked at several bodies almost simultaneously. Kitty Pride phased through the soldiers, solidifying inside and eating her way from within. Meggan seemed to lose all shape and simply landed on her prey, covering them like a blanket and swallowing them whole. Meanwhile Quicksilver raced about like a wild animal, his hypermetabolism breaking down what he consumed far too quickly and leaving him in perpetual hunger: even moreso than the others.
Miss Marvel clawed at the soldier's organs when Iron Man snapped his ribcage open. A smorgasboard was presented before them as the meal struggled through it's last few breaths.
"I take back what I said, Tony," she said to the iron avenger with a mad grin. "This is the greatest thing that could have ever happened to us."
Integra pushed her long blonde hair away from her face and began to clean her glasses. The way she conducted herself in the war room one could possibly mistake her for being oblivious to the carnage unfolding outside. It didn't concern her: at least not until her hands were untied and she could clean up the whole bloody mess her way.
"Any word from Sir Lethbridge-Stewart?"
"The UNIT base was taken a few minutes ago with everyone trapped inside," the leftenant reported. "There was no possible way anyone in that facility could have made it out alive."
"What about our ships?" roared the commander. "Our subs! Our aircraft! Is there anything left at all?"
The leftenant bowed his head heavily. "A few, sir, as well as our reserve and volunteer forces. Though I don't think they'll do much good. The enemy have torn through the rest like tissue paper."
Sir Tristan held a delicate white handkerchief to his lips to save himself embarrassment should he gag. He was defeated, humiliated, his organisation now a mere husk of what it once boasted to be. "This is impossible. Her majesty's assembled forces taken apart like... like children's toys!"
"If only someone had warned us that this might happen," the Hellsing director interjected dryly.
"Does this satisfy you?" he spat, his lips foaming like those of a rabid dog. "Does it placate your ego to see Britain torn asunder? Does it make you feel as high and mighty as you paint yourself to be? Well? What say you, Integra Wingates Hellsing?"
Inhaling on her cigarette she rose to her feet and gazed into Tristan's furious soul with placid eyes. He was of no concern to her: he was merely a spoiled child. "It only serves me to curse the fates for her majesty's temporary lapse in judgement. Otherwise I can see no reason why you would have been offered a seat on this round table."
The thin knight lunged at her, his hands threatening to throttle her neck until it snapped. Several of her bodyguards held him back, forcing him to recompose. "A part of me hopes you fail, Hellsing. It hopes that they eat your smug face and choke on it for all the good you will do."
Integra smiled. "Then I take it to mean, Sir Tristan, that command has finally been passed onto me."
He didn't look back as he marched from the room. Below them was an underground railway system where a car awaited his arrival. From there he would travel to the countryside and take his rightful place beside the Queen, protecting her with his life.
"Battle stations!" she cried mercilessly. "I want every man on the field, lined up and forming a blockade! They will march and push the enemy back into the ocean! Every man with a gun from the remaining forces can stand behind them, and I want my top agent there on the front line giving them Hell!"
Thump, thump. She could hear it in the building, from behind the black brick. Thump, thump. It was nowhere and everywhere, as if they were inside of it. Thump, thump. But inside what? Thump, thump. Inside the heart. Inside the heart of the Hellsing Organisation. Thump, thump. It beat violently as blood pumped onto the sidewalk. Thump, thump. It pumped into homes. Thump, thump. It painted the walls and gave the young ones nightmares. Thump, thump.
Seras Victoria sat and waited. The witching hour was growing near. She could not say for certain if what she felt was fear: perhaps that was something only mere mortals were afflicted with. Needless to say the future hung precariously and even immortals grew mad with impatience. There was the job her master had created her to do, but small minded bureaucrats would have them kept on a tight leash.
Her own heart did not beat anymore. It had died with her former life as did it's symbolism, it's sentiment and the needs that came with it. In it's steed came a new sense of desire unexplainable by a human tongue. Perhaps it was a brand new sensation concocted in the imagination of Lucifer himself. Either way, with all of it's unique pains, she liked it.
The heartbeat of the Hellsing Organisation quickened, perhaps readying itself to join the rest of humanity. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
Suddenly there was silence. Was it silence? No. Suddenly there came the moment of realisation when a gradual fate was manifest. Finally, their time was at hand.
Her heavy chamber door swung open violently to reveal her master waiting expectantly at the threshold. His eyes were wide, insane with waiting as he moment of release came to hand. Alucard's smile was so wide as to reveal every one of his smooth, sharp, white teeth eager to tear into it's destined target.
"Our moment has come, Police Girl," he laughed with sadistic glee. "Are you ready for it?"
"Yes, Master," she said with the youthful enthusiasm only a fresh familiar could portray.
He nodded agreeably, understanding more than her mere words. "I can sense that you are. I have grown restless with anticipation. Let us now step into the battlefield and boldly play our parts!"
"Yes, Master!" Her cry was like that of a powerful orgasm, only infinitely more potent. She would follow him to the ends of the Earth and on this very night she may yet have that opportunity. No, there was no fear left in her: only unspeakable hunger.
Colonel America surveyed their work as he gnawed on what remained of a man's fingers. At this point they couldn't afford a single shred of meat to go to waste, not if they wanted to stave off further hunger.
Now that the European power base had been dismantled they could afford to plan for the future. Human meat would never again exist in such abundance, not unless extreme measures were taken. Once upon a time the idea of forming breeding camps would have horrified him but now it seemed the most rational solution.
"And lo he didst looketh upon his works and yay, they were good," Thor roared happily as he balanced a fresh carcass over his head. The full moon shone upon his back forming a picture of ultimate conquest and destruction.
Spider-Man choked out a hoarse laughter. "That was too easy! Hard to imagine there was a time these guys got on without us, eh Colonel? ... Colonel?"
From the distance came a noise that drew away the attention of the former war hero. Thousands of footsteps came marching in time ever closer, every man in chorus singing a passionate song of death, glory and immortality. It was a sound that he never imagined he'd ever hear again, not in all of his days: the familiar song of another of God's self proclaimed armies.
"Colonel?" Spider-Man saw him staring into the distance and he too listened, picking up what the others were too occupied to notice. "Hey, guys. Does anyone else hear that?"
"I never thought... never thought I'd see it again," he stammered in awe.
"What is it, Colonel?" Iron Man said shaking him. "Damn it, Steve! What is it?"
Spider-Man groaned. "It's not Nazis, is it? I freakin' hate Nazis."
"No, Spider-Man. Not Nazis. Huh, I wish it were." The Earth almost seemed to tremble on their advance as the night air made itself still. The Colonel remembered: there was a great power approaching.
"Colonel, who the hell are these bastards?" Iron Man bellowed.
"The Hellsing Organisation."
The almighty chorus ceased and was quickly replaced by the clicks of heavy personal artillery being cocked and primed. The crusaders under Hellsing aimed their rifles through metal shields and were each adorned with the same sandy golden armour covering every inch of their body.
"Squad!" the commander called to them,
The zombies hissed at them and readied themselves for battle. They paused, waiting to react before tearing this new round of victims apart.
The squad commander called out from behind his men. "Open... fire!"
As the first reign of explosive shells showered down on them, Thor, Miss Marvel and Iron Man took to the sky, followed by Spider-Man swinging closely behind, all ready to deliver death from above. Quicksilver ducked and weaved at unimaginable speed with chunks of his necrotic body flying off his body from the strain of g-forces. They closed in, poised to make the same short work of this army than they had many others.
Suddenly Quicksilver's head exploded, his body then tumbling aimlessly to the dirt. Spider-Man sensed danger at the very last moment, just as it was too late to avoid the heavy bullet smashing through his skull and leaving him to the same fate as his teammate.
The three fliers looked to the young girl on the ground wielding cannons a good deal larger than her body with the greatest of ease. Her eyes glowed a supernatural tint of red, filled with horrors they could barely comprehend.
"Take her down!" Iron Man ordered, but as they converged they were greeted halfway by three very precise shots exploding in their faces.
Seras Victoria smiled viciously as she watched them plummet to the Earth. Foolish monsters, she thought with a giggle. She viewed them with a sight beyond this plane: she could see them move before they even knew it themselves.
Deadpool, ever the skillful assassin, appeared from behind her and moved in slowly. Were she not so joyfully engaged in the battle before her there might have been a chance she heard him coming before he thrust his katanna through her heart. In an instant her arms grew heavy, tired and the twin Harkonnen cannons fell to the ground beside her.
"Sorry it had to come to this, babe," the merc apologised flatly. "We could have really had something, you know? Sure, you're a far cry from being one of the Golden Girls, but given a few centuries... hey, who knows? Things'd sure be lookin' up for the two of us! But no, you had to play traitor to your own kind and I had to kill you... again..."
Though she couldn't hear him: Seras Victoria's head began to swim as she faced her second death. It was certainly a lot colder than the first time, and darker. With her mind she reached out, calling to her Master. "Master..."
"I hear you, Seras Victoria," came his voice, deep as the darkness she was falling into. "Do me proud now as you have always done."
"Yes, Master..."
Suddenly she came to hear Deadpool's rant. "...gone for a chick with big, phallic guns. Then again I'm a swords kinda guy. What can I say?"
With her last ounce of strength Seras Victoria reached for her weapon and gripped it in hand, impaling the undead fool on the end of it's barrel. "I... am not... your plaything..."
"Can't we just kiss and make up?" he said as he tried to fight his way off. With a pull of the trigger the heavy bullet fired point blank inside him, shooting upwards and exploding his head like an overripe melon.
Seras Victoria collapsed backwards, spent, dying. Her heart had been pierced and even her Master's magic could not keep her together for much longer. She simply lay on the ground and wondered what the next world would be like.
"Good work, Seras Victoria," Alucard congratulated her from beyond the void. She wanted to thank him, to praise him for all that he had done for her but she could not even summon a whimper.
Seras Victoria fell back into death's embrace while her body broke down, now nothing more than a pile of dust to be lost in the wind.
It was very sudden when the wind began to pick up. When a moment ago the sky was clear heavy, black clouds began to gather around the full moonlight, swirling like a vortex. Colonel America listened to the distant noises: what sounded like insects, wolves, crows and bats. Of course that was impossible. They'd killed all of the animals along with the people. There should have only been the foolish soldiers who'd practically offered themselves as food.
A chill ran up his rigid spine with a terror he'd thought long since buried. He reasoned with himself: he was dead. There was nothing more hidden in the dark that he could possibly be afraid of. When once he fought monsters he was now one of them and ran with an unstoppable force the entire world couldn't halt.
Though as proud as Colonel America was nor was he irrational. There was nothing on Earth that would give him such pause for thought, but of Heaven or Hell there was no doubt many. What he was about to face he was certain was of the latter.
"He's here," he muttered, still frozen in his steps.
Atop a fourth story tower among the ruins Alucard stood, a master of all that he saw as the once great Avengers battled for supremacy against his captors. The great vampire began to chuckle, gradually letting it grow into a maniacal laughter booming throughout the emptied streets of the city. Below him the battle stopped, every eye captivated by his aura, his power and his amusement.
"Who the hell is that?" whispered Hawkeye sharply.
"These are the monsters after which I have been sent?" he wailed. "I see no monsters before me! I only see the weak! The infected! The plighted! I only see the conquered icons of mankind's heresy made slaves to their own hunger!"
"Come down here and say that!" She-Hulk taunted.
"Freaks! All of you, freaks!" Alucard, Hellsing's ultimate weapon, peered directly into Colonel America's eyes. What was once the United States' ultimate super-soldier stood like a deer in the headlights. "You go where the need takes you, even pretend to be monsters because you're left with no other option! You're pathetic! All I see before me are spoiled victims who cannot control their appetites... and do nothing more than waste good food!"
Iron Man shook the star-spangled avenger from the hypnotic gaze. "Colonel, who the hell is that?"
Colonel America stared back up, locked in the path of the eyes he could never forget. "His name... is Alucard."
"Alucard?" The assembled Avengers looked around in confusion, as if the name was supposed to have some significance.
The proud vampire raised his arms and slid his wide-brimmed hat from his head. Long black hair flowed as a chilling wind began to blow. "Oh, accursed damnation," he howled. "What feeble offering do you lay at my feet? Master! What would you have me do, oh Master?"
All was silent bar the wind as Alucard searched the oncoming squall for an answer to his torment. Again he cried out, "Master! What would you have me do, oh Master? Give me orders! Master! Orders! Master! What would you have me do, Integra! Wingates! Hellsing!"
The soldiers of the Hellsing Organisation stood at attention before the zombies who themselves were in a state of cautious pause. Colonel America wasn't talking and something epic was obviously unfolding before them.
"What's the bet we have another Doctor Strange on our hands?" Miss Marvel hissed to whichever Avenger stood beside her.
Throughout the city were littered speakers, a remainder from the Great War: loud speakers through which the air raid sirens were sounded, though tonight they broadcast a very clear voice. It was the voice of Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing.
"Do not toy with me, vampire king," she scolded as her voice raised. "You have your orders! Exterminate! Annihilate! Cleanse the filth from the Earth! Leave nothing standing!"
As suddenly as it started the hard wind ceased and Alucard began to laugh hysterically. For the first time the zombies realised exactly why Colonel America was afraid.
Captain Britain was dumbstruck. "Did she say... 'vampire king'?"
"Think about it," Iron Man sneered. "Alucard backwards..."
"... Is Dracula," Nightcrawler finished breathlessly.
The freak-hunter reached into his coat pocket and drew a long heavy weapon: the Hellsing ARMS 13mm Auto Anti-Freak Cannon, 'Jackal', a weapon too powerful, too potent for a mere mortal to wield. His demonic glare smiled as he pointed it to the prey below. "I hear you, Master! I hear you and I obey!"
TO BE CONTINUED...