This is the end, but still your need is driven on

[liebe_krieg]

WHO: The Major, the Doctor, and their game pieces. I.e. EVERYONE.
WHERE: Throughout the City.
WHEN: The nights of Friday the 6th to Sunday the 8th.
WARNINGS: Violence and death galore.
SUMMARY: The Major and Doctor Einsturzen go to war for fun, and drag the entire City along for the ride.
FORMAT: Whatever works!

Nightfall was marked by fire. The subway station at East 42nd Street and Park Avenue rocked as a series of explosives ripped through the tunnels, setting everything ablaze, lighting up the evening and filling it with the terrified screams of civilians. That was the first. It was starting.

Across the City, there was movement from the underground. Vampires in trenchcoats and gas masks emerged onto the streets, bloodthirsty and vicious. Hounds the size of bears or larger, barely recognizable as what they once were, prowled from the alleys, saliva dripping from their jowls. Children in canine masks darted across the rooftops. All the while, more explosions tore across the City subway systems, as if keeping time for the two monstrous armies marching towards each other.

Anything that stood between them would be consumed-- natives, ImPorts, businesses, homes. Nothing was safe. This war would be winner take all, a prize of bloodshed and destruction to the psychopath left standing. The nights to follow would be long and full of terrors.

Comments

[excruciate]

"You insignificant little man," the No-Life King breathes, stepping through the remains of the Major's minions as though the offal were nothing but fog -- and, for the most part, it may as well be. "So wrapped up in your little wargames, so ravenous for death and destruction..."

He purrs the words, almost as though he knows that his voice will be the last thing the Major will hear, as if he almost realizes that this final moment will be their last reckoning. "So much death, and for what purpose? For what cause? Your master is bone, and this world robs you of every victory you may grasp with its mere threat of relocation -- what have you, but fleeting, temporary destruction!"

The shadows snap and claw, tearing away at the floor as Alucard advances. "Tell me, Pig! Tell me, enemy mine! Give reason for your madness lest you go into the next world craving the attention you so deserve! TELL ME!"

Jackal's last bullet only misses the Major by a fraction, carving out an entire section of wall behind him instead.

[liebe_krieg]

The Major shows no fear of his imminent annihilation. Like all monsters from his world, he craves a bloody and final end, and now here it is, looming over him like a thundercloud. "For the sheer joy of it, of course!" He fires back, more for punctuation than anything else, the bullet missing every one of Alucard's shadows by a wide margin. "For the joy you know so well- the joy of rending, tearing, burning destruction! The joy of seeing whole cities laid waste, of seeing enemies driven before you, of hearing the lamenting of their women and children!"

He fires again and again, just to slow the onslaught for a few more seconds. Just time enough to finish one last insane speech. "Everything in all worlds is about conflict. It is the nature of all life to fight and struggle and die. That is why I have brought forth war after war to exult in. It is a celebration of life itself! It is the sublime joy that you and I share, Alucard."

Suddenly his hand plunges into his pocket and takes out a little remote- a far more potent weapon than the old pistol. "No-Life King! Your existence mocks my celebration even as you contribute to it. Monster that looks like a human being! Undying and unceasing! Wonderful and detestable! There is no such thing as an indestructible creature! There can be nothing indestructible in a world defined by conflict! It is to prove that point that I dedicated so much to your defeat. Both back home and here, now!"

He presses a button and concealed demolition charges blink to life around them, warning lights showing from the walls, floor, ceiling. "That is why this building was selected three years ago. I knew that one day you might come for me. That is why this command post was selected, high over the Hudson River- over a waiting grave of running water!"

The charges have been carefully placed for precision demolition. This room and the rooms around it will be blasted straight into the river. Just as the Major once tried to strand Alucard on the surface of the sea, so now will he attempt to trap him in a great body of running water, the bottom of which is said to be like the pit of hell to vampires. Of all the legendary vampire weaknesses Alucard has proven immune to, this one has been tested the least. The Major backs away toward the hole Alucard just blasted in the wall, arms wide open, embracing what's coming.

"One more thing Alucard- you ought to be aware! The last time I saw you back home, you were nothing more than a string of imaginary numbers." He smiles wide one last time, daring him to do it as the charges count down their final seconds. "And the last time I saw pretty Sir Integra Hellsing... I shot her in the head."

[excruciate]

His face changes within a matter of moments. First, he is all but certain of what outcome of the battle, and then...then the Nosferatu smiles, wide and feral, his fangs glinting in the dull light of the room like daggers. This pig -- this man, he corrects himself, for only a man could stand and face his doom with such pomp; this man has truly evolved. Has scraped and torn himself away from the petty games and labyrinthine plots that constrict so many would-be conquerors, this becoming something infinitely more dangerous.

And yet -- there is a part of Alucard, a small, insignificant, utterly human part of the Count that detest what he must do. That he must rob the world of such passion, of such a nefarious mind. They have fought for so long, him and the Major; have battled on countless fields and soaked themselves in the blood of thousands. It is out of duty, and the love he so has for a battle well though, that the Vampire stalks forward with a chill, ghastly gleam in his crimson eyes.

"Plans within plans. Chess pieces moved with the willing abandon of a man never stooped in the blood of his enemies. Even now, enemy mine, you surround yourself with false promise and a unwillingness to face me!"

He laughs, and the sound is a high, maddened one. And in the darkness, jackals and ravens are screaming; dogs are snarling, and insects skitter and crawl in an undulating tide. There are human moans and pleas of forgiveness, are the sounds of blades and guns and fire, fire everywhere, and still, Alucard laughs.

Very softly, someone sings.

"Should I be put to rest within the confines of this icy river, I take the knowledge that you go with me as comfort to the grave."

The fact that the Weapon of Hellsing tries to sever the Major's arm at the elbow when he's done speaking is the highest of honors that Alucard can give him.

[liebe_krieg]

The Major cries out as his arm is torn away in a spray of blood and oil. He falls backward while the arm falls to the floor, leaving a ragged, sparking cybernetic stump, wires sticking into the air like broken tree branches. Then the room explodes.

The detonation is fiery, annihilating. Bits and pieces are spat out of the building like half-chewed food. The Major falls through the air along with his maps and desks and screens and files, all the paraphernalia of his warmongering. He falls on fire, bleeding from a dozen mortal shrapnel wounds, with Dracula still upon him. Above, the top of the building catches fire, the pyre of the Major's dreams. Below, the Hudson rushes up to catch them both.

The Major can't talk anymore- his throat has been destroyed by his own bombs- but he holds Alucard's eyes from behind his shattered glasses and thinks his last thoughts as his wicked, diseased mind starts to shut down once more. Stronger- yes, stronger than you. I refused the blood. The same choice you had, and I turned it aside.

He splashes down into the river and sinks like a stone in a cloud of blood and oil, debris drifting down around him. 'Sieg Heil'... hah, no. 'Hail victory,' it was never about victory, not even when we were winning. Heil... Krieg!

The pillar of smoke from the Major's headquarter's rises into the night. Gray and looming, like a tombstone.