"Captain, I've spotted a zeppelin and a wave of explosives heading our way," Seras announced into her headset. Bernadotte leaned back in his chair, causing a mild crinkling feedback in the microphone.

"Knock them out of the sky, mon chère." He swung his cigarette through the air with his tongue. "Give them the hell that they came for!"

"Yes sir!" Seras raised two cannons, both longer than she was tall, and unloaded a barrage of anti-air fire. The recoil alone felt capable of crumbling concrete, but Seras took it all with little more than a grunt and a wide stance. The missiles detonated flaccidly in the smoky sky, torn apart like grasshoppers in a lawn mower. In an instant the skies were clear, save the single blemish lurching toward them. Lights broke out from the sides of the ship, and Seras lowered her cannons to relax her arms. She cradled them as the spotlights converged on her impressive form.

"You've shot them all down, mon chère. That new equipment is in top form, huh, mon chère?"

Seras took the cannons back in hand and crouched to a knee, keeping her eye on the enemy ship. Bernadotte was still talking, practically to himself. She began to wonder if he did this during every major battle.

"The Hallconnen II 30mm semi-auto cannon," Pip drolled. "Maximum range of 4000 meters; gross weight, 345 kilograms. We're pulling out all the stops against these jokers, mon chère."

"Mr. Bernadotte," Seras began, momentarily turning her attention away from the piñata of death that she was about ready to pop. "Would you mind not calling me 'mon chère?' I do have an actual name – Seras."

"Hahaha, sorry about that, young lady." Seras suspected linguistic foul-play on the captain's part, but said nothing. There was a small metal flick on the headset, a lighter most likely, and Bernadotte was silent for a few ticks. "Tell me… Can you see London, young lady?"

Even with the many kilometers between them and the hills camouflaging the distant city, it would be hard not to see London on this night. The horizon glowed as though it cratered a deadly volcano on the verge of erupting. The stars had been swallowed up by billowing smoke, blinding all of heaven to their plight. The only angel left to safeguard them from the demons had run off with a threat to murder her eternal soul.

"Yes, I can."

A slight deviation in the static, a puff of smoke. "Piccadilly Circus, SoHo, and Covent Garden have turned to ashes. Our London is now synonymous with Hell."

For a moment, just a brief moment, Seras tuned Pip out and thought about that: Hell. Seras had come to believe many things about Hell throughout her life, learned from nuns and priests and vampires. She'd come to believe that Hell was the ultimate end, a violent burning within infinite darkness surrounded by monsters that saw you as a simple thing used to satiate their gluttony. This was the Hell of London, the Hell that Bernadotte believed in and that creatures such as Alucard and the Major thrived within. But what was Hell if a few bombs and three bundles of undead soldiers could rival it? What was Hell if it could be imitated, manufactured, sold out to the highest bidder? Is that what the Reaper Games were, just another production of Hell with its own brand of demon? Was Joshua simply another Satan, and Neku another Sisyphus rolling Joshua's stones? Is that what Seras had been, in a life she couldn't remember? Had she cared? Questions flooded her mind, but through years of training and discipline were flushed away. One way or another, Seras stood on the battlefield. Now was no time to ask questions that couldn't keep her and her men alive.

"I couldn't stand London," Pip continued, unaware that Seras wasn't listening. "I thought it was a stuffy old city. I didn't think it was the city for me at all. Even so, when we would go out and party at this cabaret on the weekends, the beer was cold, and tasty, and the bartender was this idiot who liked the most ridiculous dirty jokes. The hookers in the whorehouses were money-grubbers, and there were a lot who were hard on the eyes." Seras became aware of Bernadotte's speech when he said "whorehouse." She wondered what she had missed, but didn't interrupt. "But you know, they were all nice to us, and had this pitiful look in their eyes.

"The lady at this restaurant on Versailles Road would always serve me their fish and chips when I went there, without me ordering it. She said it was because I was a foreigner, and that it was the local delicacy, time and time again. I told her it was too greasy, and I couldn't eat it, but since I didn't want to offend her, I gagged it down, each time, hard though it was." Seras knew the place and silently pitied the captain. They served the worst fish and chips.

"I couldn't stand London. But still, those people—the bartender, the hookers, the old lady—had nothing to do with this conflict, or whatever it is. They had nothing to do with this war, or the Nazis, or the vampires. That major guy, and Section XIII, and the Final Battalion, and those of us in Hellsing were none of their concern. But now, there they are, dead bodies eating dead bodies. That's something I just can't accept. Seras, let's avenge them."

Seras returned to her feet, an old emotion welling up in her bosom. The old feeling of loss, of a lust for vengeance. She hadn't known many people in her life, and in fact anyone she might have considered a friend had died before she'd become a vampire. But now… everyone was dead. This wasn't personal, there was no aim in this. Humanity itself was being murdered. Everyone had been wronged. Everyone had to be avenged.

"Let 'em have it," Bernadotte finished. Seras rose back to her feet, trigger fingers positively bristling. "Let those guys have it."

"Mm-hmm, alright," Seras confirmed. The red burn in her eyes bore backward into her brain, scorching her synapses. It was a bizarre sensation.

"Alright, Chief." It wasn't her bloodlust. It wasn't a blood rage. It was colder, more controlled. More… Alucard.

"All right!" It was a taste of true Vampiric power.

The Hallconnen II felt Seras' bloody will and gave itself to the battle; the dual cannons dug into her fingers and became them, mere extensions of her strength. The balancing struts dug firmly into the hard stone behind her, metallic tails made to support her in this glorious moment. Now was when the Hallconnen II would realize its purpose. Now it would taste blood, and incite death. It pitied whatever feeble clay bird that would face its wrath on this night.

"Target the enemy flying dreadnought, and prepare to open fire!" Yeah, target the biggest thing in the sky, Seras thought with one last quick sense of levity.

"Fire!"

Seras let the Hallconnen do its thing. At first it seemed ineffective, the zeppelin wasn't responding to the horrible beating that it was taking. Then, before long, fires started to erupt from spots on the surface. One on the side, another one closer to the front, then another and another until the ship grew a tail of oily smoke. The wiring began to pop off the sides and engines detached in a shower of flames and shrapnel. Pip was yelling something. Seras wasn't listening.

The dying war machine was yelling something. Seras listened.

"Hit her! Hit Seras Victoria!"

The Hallconnen II answered it.

"Fucking try!"

Seras pressed a hidden switch, and something else joined the conversation. With a robotic pop and hissing, this new entity of destruction was finally permitted to see the battleground. It was not impressed.

"The wide-area suppression incendiary burst grenade launcher," Bernadotte recited from his briefing pamphlet. "Vladimir…?"

Few words passed between Hallconnen and Vladimir. A simple "hello" and "goodbye" before they separated again with a torrential recoil. Vladimir crashed into the enemy ship and let itself be embraced by the crumpling carnage of steel and flesh.

Seras' piñata had popped in a most spectacular fashion, bursting with rancid treats. She could hear the Wild Geese begin to celebrate, all but leaping out the door to go and collect the spoils. The flames of the wreckage moved suspiciously, Seras noted. Some danced and flew regularly enough, while others… crawled. There shadows too were strange; they didn't curl and swing as they should, but rather oozed and writhed. The fire had limbs, the shadows had eyes. And the eyes pointed to her.

"They're not through yet!" Seras announced to the Manor.

"That's right," Pip continued with his eye on the ground's monitors. "They're not through yet, ladies. Keep your eyes peeled. They're coming."

The shadows began to pick themselves from the ground, and peeled away to reveal vampires. Disoriented, but otherwise completely healthy, vampires.

"They escaped just before they crashed," a Goose cried in horror at the sight of them. "That's impossible! They're not even scratched!"

"That's right," Bernadotte said. "They aren't human. They're monsters."

Seras watched the enemy take back their feet and enter formation. She could demented eyes crawling up her skin, trying to dig into her brain. "Captain…"

"Young lady," Bernadotte said, turning his attention back to her. "You stand down and rearm."

The Halconnen II had been spent. The ammo pack was empty, no more than dead weight now. Seras abandoned it, only holding on to the guns. They could keep a fair amount of ammunition on their own, and were effective rifles. "Yeah!" She hopped from the roof and made her way into the mansion.

"Just you watch, mon chère," Bernadotte said wistfully, forgetting that Seras could still hear his rambling. "Let us show you how geese fight."

As Seras sped through the halls to the ammo dump left for her nearby, she noticed the Wild Geese. They wore confident expressions, smiling and joking with one another. It seemed like they were unaware of the difference between this and a regular training session.

Bernadotte's voice came piping over the manor intercom. "All right, the foreplay is over. Here they come, geese. It's time to go to work. Rock n' roll!"

Meanwhile, in the four-star hellscape that was London, Neku and Joshua were still arguing by killing ghouls and throwing portals. Ghouls at the very least didn't have guns or a functional frontal lobe, so Neku didn't need much help fighting them. Neku had fought Noise that were smarter than these things.

"You know Neku," Joshua said nonchalantly from the air, "you'd think that you didn't care that these all used to be people. Too many bad American horror movies?" He threw a couple portals in Neku's direction, a new tactic he'd come up with to keep things exciting. They had the added bonus of gobbling up any matter they passed through and leaving the rest to suffer and die horribly. Joshua appreciated that.

"Shut up Joshua," Neku said for the fiftieth time in the past thirty minutes. "Trying to focus."

"But what if one of these poor zombies actually has a secret heart of gold? That one could have a sweet girlfriend back home waiting for him to bring home the dinner he caught and is currently being held by his makeshift pike."

"Shut up Joshua."

"Maybe they're just misunderstood! They could be as afraid of you as you are of them. I remember hearing somewhere that zombies are actually voodoo slaves made from the bodies of people that were buried alive. Now does it seem fair to you that you should take the lives that they could be getting back?"

"Shut up Joshua."

Joshua put his hand to his forehead and mocked a damsel's cry. "They're people! Have you no heart?"

"Not listening to you anymore!" Neku pushed aside a burning ghoul and let it fall. That one would die on its own.

Joshua smirked. "That's what you said when I mentioned werewolves. I'm telling you Neku, it's all one big conspiracy! They're all working for the lizard men!"

"Hating you."

"You know I'm adorable." He looked down the road, swarming with fetid ghouls like ants over a used wad of gum. There were some scant explosions and bursts of elemental attacks in the distance, gracefully arching over the stained glass of a tiny church. "There are some Players over there. Probably guarding survivors in that church."

"I noticed, thanks."

"Still hate me?"

"Yes. But I'm sure I'll get over it."

"Heheh, you always do sweetheart."

"Don't push it."

Seras was busy cleaning and reloading her trusty rifle, but she kept the window just behind her so she had a clear view of the enemy. The view was similar to watching a train jump off its tracks to come straight at you.

"Young lady," Bernadotte's voice crackled over her headset. "Vampires are what they are, right? Folks with inhuman reflexes and physical capabilities, possessing a beastlike thirst for blood and terrible strength. They can sense a human's bloodlust, read their moves, escape their notice, and move sharp-footedly. They can avoid firearm and sword attacks easily, attack their opponent, and feast upon their blood, right?"

Well gee, when you put it like that it sounds like we're all going to die, Seras thought. Nice pep talk.

"Well, how does this sound?"

A noise like cannon fire shook Seras' window, singular and echoing. Six more followed in quick succession. Then they erupted into a cacophony of explosions popping off like twisted bubble wrap. Seras turned back to the window to see the bursts of fire rise from their lawn and toss bodies like feathers in a breeze.

"Bingo," Bernadotte said with a quiet smugness. "That's what happens when you look down on humans."

Seras approached the window, mouth agape at the spectacle. "Th-they set those traps?"

"Traps?" Bernadotte repeated as though she'd called a dog a tomato. "It's the fools' own fault for charging in here, head-on. They're mindless, motionless, emotionless devices. And they aren't single points, they're a full-scale frontal attack. 60 claymore mines with blessed ball bearings, all detonated at the same time. Go ahead and dodge that, if you can. We're not all that great at fighting, you see. It's a messy affair, so we don't come out and fight in the open, not like you soldiers.

"Third floor," he continued, switching to intercoms. "Grenade volley. Rapid-fire shots! Lay down a line of fire! Don't let them raise their heads up!" Seras gripped her clean and loaded rifle to her chest, and ran from the room. Time to rejoin the fight.

"A whole sheet of it!" The French voice of God carried through the halls over the assault. The grounds beyond had transformed into a dark lunar void, nothing but craters and fire. And still the attack kept coming. "Put down a full-scale attack! Rifle squads, concentrate all of your fire into a hail of bullets in one place at a time!"

The captains orders stopped, and for a while the monotony of explosions was all there was to hear. Seras was heading to the rifle squads so she could assist and snipe down any lingering targets that they couldn't hit. The plan was sound, it would work. There was no gun or war strategy that could break through a barrage that Pip Bernadotte's battle-torn mind concocted.

Hang on, a thought scratched at the back of Seras' mind. Didn't that one guy from Rio have magic cards or something? Wouldn't these guys have some kind of –

Before the thought could even finish nagging her subconscious, the infinitesimal void of evil spat on the Hellsing lawn and all of Seras' attention was drawn toward a malnourished Shoggoth forcing in on itself and crawling into the night sky. It boiled and contorted, a thing like out of a child's nightmares. It grew color like crops upon its filmy surface, and eventually could be identified as something less open to the imagination. It was a man… wait no, those are breasts. That's a giant woman.

Holy shit, that's a giant woman with a scythe.

In a past life Seras had taken pride in being two things: badass, and not terrifying to look at. She paid attention to her looks, and felt satisfied with the various aspects of her appearance while also being able to put criminals in a head lock and choke them out.

The giant woman was evidently more of a "choking out" kind of gal. The blanketing of body tattoos, the incredibly toned ab muscles, the shaved red hair. That one dead eye. It even had fish lips if you looked at it from the right angle.

Of course, Seras wasn't one to judge. She was too occupied with scared out of her mind and being totally helpless as the Manor and the Wild Geese literally fell apart around her.

"Save me! My leg! My leg!"

"It's a monster!"

"My arm! My… My arm!"

At some point Bernadotte came in. Seras hadn't noticed, but for just an instant the sight of him brought some calm to her mind.

Wait… that's a giant woman with a scythe. That doesn't make sense. That makes less sense than Reapers.

"It can't be…" Doubts began to bubble up from her mind. Something was calling to her, trying to get her attention. The giant woman looked down at her with a bloody smile. "This isn't happening… I don't know what this is, but, there's something inside me that's telling me that…"

The world melted away, which was new for Seras. New didn't have as much of an impact on her as it used to, but she felt a little better now that the threat of death wasn't grinning at her with giant fish lips.

"I told you about the other eye inside your forehead, right?" A voice called out of the murky nothing. It was familiar, yet felt so distant. It had felt like years since Seras last heard his voice: Alucard. She tried to call out to him, but her mouth wouldn't move. Her voice was nowhere. "That's your third eye."

She could sense him now. He was close, just in front of her face. If only she could move, she could bring him back. Alucard could kill the monster. Alucard would make everything better.

"Let go of your human eyes. They are a matter for humans. But you are no longer a human. You are not human."

Third eye… Yeah, yeah a third eye. Psychic eye, super power, see everything. She needed to bring Alucard back. Alucard could win the war without even trying. Alucard could solve the problem.

Alucard.

Alucard.

Reece.

Wait, who's Reece?

Seras' eyes snapped open, and reality bent around her. The air reverberated and whispered to her in an alien tongue. Colors waved around her, flexing and showing off to appeal to her eyes. But those colors weren't there; those alien tongues were nothing but the breeze.

"An illusion…?" She looked at her surroundings. The Manor was fine, there were no holes or cave-ins. "It's an illusion!" The Wild Geese were completely unscathed as well, physically anyway. They were sprawled across the floor, crying in terror at a beast that wasn't there and lost limbs that were still connected. "Snap to!" Seras tried to penetrate their hysteria. "Please, snap to! It's just a vision! It's a vision! An illusion!" She grabbed a soldier and shook him, but he was completely oblivious to her presence.

"Impossible!" Bernadotte backpedaled past Seras, panic imprinted upon his face. "This can't be happening! There's no way this can be!"

She grabbed his shoulders and tried to push him back into reality. "Captain, it's an illusion! This is an illusion! Captain!"

Nothing. The men were all scared out of their minds, wetting themselves and praying to whatever God might feel appropriate to them. They still see a colossus with a scythe baring down on their small, fleshy bodies to tear out their souls. They saw only a monster about to kill them.

Fuck it, Seras thought. Just fuck it! I'm a monster too, you David Copperfield bitch! She let go of Bernadotte and grabbed her gun. The red was simmering her brain again; it was listening to Seras more now. She propped herself against the window and let herself be influenced by the third eye, and unloaded in a general direction. It was crude sure, but she could feel her hands be led more and more towards a pinpoint spot. She spent nearly her entire payload, but finally something reacted: a burst of blood came from the colossi's cheekbone, and slowly it disintegrated into the air like a burning sheet.

The giant was gone, and Seras assumed that would break the spell over everyone else. Sure enough they calmed down, if cautiously. She strode back to the still-shell shocked Bernadotte.

"Please, snap out of it!" she yelled at him again. "It was an illusion! It was witchcraft or something!"

Finally Pip noticed her presence. He looked down at her, which was slightly more than she expected. "Witchcraft?" he muttered. "You say it's an illusion? That thing?!"

"Yes!"

Before the discussion could move any further things started busting through the windows. Two vampires had made it past the minefield and into the Manor. In the chaos before a counter could be made, the first chopped a man's neck killing him instantaneously and the second carved out another's torso. Seras grabbed her rifle and began a charge while another soldier's jugular was torn out. She fired at the former vampire and blew out his brains, but the second slipped by her shots and leapt into the air above a fourth Goose and split his jaw like a python. Seras took the opportunity to shove the barrel of her gun down his throat and pop his head like a melon from the inside.

The blood hadn't so much as hit the ground before the Manor rattled with detonations from the front. Seras got a brief glimpse of Nazis dashing over the grounds on the hilts of knives and firing RPGs at the front doors.

"This ain't good," Pip groaned. "We've lost the front quarter." He leaned in slightly to his headset, likely received a report from the front. The gunfire was an endless cascade out the window, followed by more RPG fire and the sound of fragmenting wood. They were in.

"Gather our forces together," Bernadotte addressed his company. "Those who have split off, take it slow, and pull back while fighting. All remaining soldiers, assemble here! Bring as much explosive and as many grenades as you can carry." There was a slight shift in his mood; he bowed forward very slightly, as though it were an involuntary tick.

"Young lady…"

Seras perked back to attention. "Y-yes?"

"We're going to barricade ourselves into this part of the building. We'll take up defense, and young lady, you're on offense. We will defend this place. While we do, young lady, you will dispose of them."

This is weird, Seras thought. He's omitting something here. "Y-yeah!"

Bernadotte smiled his same cocky smile. "You're our ace in the hole, young lady. Take care of them. Before those guys cut us to ribbons."

He wants me to kill the entire enemy force? And leave them alone here? That's not a – something's touching my butt!

She squealed and turned back with a heavy blush. A Goose was waving at her with the same hand he'd touched her with.

"We're counting on you." He spoke cheerfully, dismissive and oblivious to his own action. The other men laughed, again as though this was the most casual situation in the world. Seras couldn't help but smile and be happy with them; their demeanor was so lax and comforting, it infected her. This wasn't a problem, it would be easy. These guys know what they're doing, and they trust her to keep them alive.

"R-right!"

"Oh. There's one important thing I forgot!" Seras turned back to Bernadotte.

"SERAS!"

She jumped back. "Yes?!"

"CLOSE YOUR EYES!"

She shut her eyes in an instant and grit her teeth, unsure what to expect. It had caught her off guard and gave her no time to think. Then a second went by. Then two. She opened her eyes again, only to encounter Pip inches away from her face with puckered lips.

Surprise and disgust overcame Seras, and she recoiled with a light scream. "W-w-what are you doing?!"

A soldier approached Pip. "Captain, no fair!"

"Yeah, no fair!"

Pip turned away with a sizable blush. "All right, let's go guys! Hurry!"

They wouldn't let him escape that easily. "That's abuse of power!"

An idea struck on of them. "Sweet! In that case…"

Suddenly Geese began to surround Seras, puckering their lips and demanding kisses. Her body lunged away from them in revulsion, and she screamed.

"Nitwits!" The soldiers immediately backed down with mischievous grins and cloying eyes.

Away from her murderous gaze, Bernadotte chuckled to himself. "Young lady Seras…" She turned back to him, cautious of another play on her innocence. "Don't go dying, now. Don't you die."

Seras' mind calmed as it heard the sincerity in his voice. It really sounded to her like he valued her life over anyone else's. "Captain, and the rest of you…" The words escaped her. She could feel the Wild Geese's entire force of love and respect at her back. It was nearly too much for her.

Bernadotte grinned, and her resolve strengthened tenfold. "All right, go on!"

She stood at attention. "Off I go!" The Geese parted before her as Seras ran down the passage toward the entrance, ready to kill anyone who would dare harm them. No bloody Nazi was going to hurt any more of her boys. She would kill all of them. Joshua wouldn't be hunting her soul tonight, because she wasn't about to die anytime soon.

She could smell smoke down the passage. There was the barrier to the entrance, where the first guard had made their stand. The scene beyond that was… gore. Unrecognizable bodies, most barely even still connected. The reflection of light on the seeping blood cast the room red. Seras could hear the distant battle chant of the enemy.

"Sturm! Sturm! Sturm!"

Her teeth grit as that old rage burst from her chest. Before now Seras was set on avenging everyone. Now though… now it was personal.

"Damn them!"

It was grueling work, but finally Neku forced his way through the hoard and joined the Players at the church. He could hear the panicked whimpering of civilians inside, and he wondered if they could see their protectors. Maybe they really thought that God himself was fighting off the unholy legion. But those were trains of thought for later, right now Neku would take to the rear and play healer for the exhausted London Players.

"Oh my God," a boy said. "You're the kid from the Eye! Hey guys, this is the one who fought two Reapers by himself and won!" Some of the Players turned to pay their respects, and morale boosted high enough for them to push back against the tides of corpses.

"We need to block them out!" a girl cried. "Does anyone have a rope pin or something?! We need defenses!" Neku turned to Joshua and glared. He rolled his eyes and tapped a few keys into his phone. Portals spread open above the roads and trucks rained down on the paths, crushing ghouls and barring any entrance. A cheer rose from the company and they began wiping out the stragglers.

"Better?" Joshua asked Neku with a frown. His eyes wandered passively over the bodies blanketing his surroundings. It was a bleak image to be sure, but after a while he settled on one particular spot. Neku traced his stare to a ghoul, weakly crawling over the corpses. It used to be a girl. Her skirt was stained brown and her blouse unruly, but he supposed she could have been pretty before. Joshua was still watching her.

Just then a spiraling ball of energy vaporized the ghoul's head and spattered its guts over the complimentary bodies below it. The energy was pulled back by a string and landed in the hands of a very bright American girl.

"Yooo, Joshua! I thought I recognized that wicked hole trick!" Amy skated around the pile of gore and skid to a stop below him. He gave the dead girl one last glance and turned his attention to her, all smiles. "Man it is stellar to see you again!"

"Yeah," Joshua responded. "It's nice to see a familiar face."