Chapter 15

A/N:Just wanted to say that I mention some soul limitations in this chapter, and if they're not completely accurate, I apologize. I'm basing this fic off what I remember and can research from the anime, so if I get some technical things wrong, I apologize!

It was mid-day when the Hellsing butler was sent to retrieve the DWMA associates. The adults looked haggard and tired, and the kids were all yawning and groaning. Apparently the small plane had not been particularly comfortable, but it beat sleeping in a crumbling building with two vampires hiding inside.

Sparks and his weapons also followed the conga line of students into the Hellsing Mansion (what was left of it anyways) as they navigated piles of debris and hardened mercenaries eyeing them carefully. The Wild Geese were just as curious about the kids as the kids were about them, but there was no time for introductions.

Something had happened while they had slept.

They came into Sir Integra's office. Integra was looking at them as they entered with her hands steepled in front of her. There was weariness, a dread in her eyes, and it most likely had nothing to do with the fact that the mad scientist was standing in her home once again.

Walter was bristling at Stein's return to the Hellsing Manor but said nothing. "Would anyone care for tea?" he asked simply. He held a tray of biscuits.

"FOOD!" Black Star said. Walter was immediately drowning in a sea of hungry teenagers. Once the feeding frenzy subsided, he was left with a few crumbs on the sterling silver platter.

"Oh, my," was all the butler said. The teenagers looked worse than before.

"Kid! I'm hungry!" Patty whined.

"Yeah, Maka, when can we eat?" Soul asked. "And I mean real food, not this…uh…snack stuff."

"Seriously, we haven't eaten in days!" Liz complained.

Sir Integra raised an eyebrow at Stein. He pulled out a cigarette with his lips, lit it, and let it hang from his mouth.

"We hate to overstep our boundaries, but do you have any actual food here?" Spirit asked.

"Walter?" she asked, without breaking eye contact with the scientist.

"I'll go speak with the Captain and see what can be whipped up," Walter promised, disappearing across the room with barely a noise.

"So, what's going on? Walter said something happened," Maka said loudly. She looked around, probably waiting for Alucard to appear, but the noonday sun soon quelled her fears.

"Not completely sure," Sir Integra responded. "All we know is that a warship, the HMS Eagle, has gone silent in the Atlantic. No word of any sort. I'm taking Walter to London with me and speaking to Sir Penwood at the National Security office.

"You think this is Millennium at work?" Kid asked.

Integra nodded. Unlike the others, the boy in the tuxedo carried himself differently, and acted much more mature. She liked his directness.

Stein and Spirit shared a look. "I think it might be wise for us to accompany you," Stein said.

"Don't think I can handle myself?"

"On the contrary. But as representatives of the DWMA, if there's any intelligence we can use or offer, it's our job to do so. Especially now."

"I can't take a gaggle of teenagers," Sir Integra said.

"They can stay here. We'll be back shortly."

Integra looked them over. These kids that acted so…normal, childish. "What if things turn sour while we're gone?" she asked.

Stein let a little smirk pass his face. "You've been fighting vampires for a few hundred years, but the DWMA has been doing its work for centuries. These kids are more than a match for any wayward vampires."

Integra stood up. "Seras will stay here with Captain Bernadette. Walter, go fetch Alucard. Dr. Stein and Mr. Alban will accompany us to London."

"What can we do to help?" Maka asked.

Integra's eyes flashed at the girl. For a moment her eyes softened. She remembered a time, long ago it once was, when she was a young headstrong woman the same age.

"Help the men secure the mansion," she ordered the students. She looked at Stein and Spirit. "We'll be leaving shortly. Is your pilot available?"

Captain Sparks was a man who got bored easily. He hadn't minded playing taxi and bringing the Hellsing woman, Spirit, and Stein to London, but now it was mid-afternoon and he was getting antsy. He had been left behind at the London airport, on a private landing strip, while the three had gone to their appointment via waiting car.

Instead of waiting inside the plane for the mysterious Hellsing head to finish her business, he was tinkering with the airplane's engine. Truthfully, there was nothing more that could be done to the old bird. He had taken meticulous care of the plane, and not a screw was loose nor a speck of rust could be found anywhere under the hood.

Stepping away, Shorty patted the faded logo under the plane's cockpit, a bodacious blonde pin-up girl whose polka dot dress was being blow up by a playful breeze. Winking, she managed to look both flirtatious and dangerous. A pair of angel's wings grew from her shoulders. 'Angelica' was scrawled in cursive under her feet.

He loved the old bird; he'd been her pilot for many years, and she was a hand-me-down from his Grandfather, Captain William Sparks. In WWII this plane had flown missions at his grandfather's careful hands, and had saved a lot of Ally lives while taking out many Axis fighters. What a strange twist of fate, for his grandson to have to face the same enemy seventy years later.

Course, Grandad would've loved the fact that it was his old bird that was going to give it to those bastards one more time.

"Angelica was always happiest in a dog fight," Grandad had said, and Shorty had to agree. The plane was a relic, but she was as much a part of his life as his weapons. The four of them were a match made in Heaven—or Hell, if you happened to be on the receiving end of the Soul Miniguns.

Mina and Jackson were arguing with each other over something with the wings. Their hands gestured angrily and they were glowering at each other. Shorty watched for a second, and saw the problem. Ah, Jackson through it would be better if they materialized farther out on the wings, to allow a wider targeting area. Mina was stalwart in her opinion that the middle of the wing was the sweet spot, so Angelica's balance wouldn't be affected.

He was about to offer his own opinion on the matter when his cell phone rang.

"Captain Sparks, flying ace extraordinaire," he answered distractedly. He perked up. "Stein? Ready for me to come pick you up? No? Okay, well, what do you—"

Shorty listened for a moment, nodding once in a while. His weapons noticed his subdued monosyllabic answer to whatever Stein was asking him. They shared a look and stepped closer.

"Yeah, that's definitely a problem. And here's my answer: OH. HELL. NO." Shorty snapped into the phone. "I'm here to watch your backs, and I can't very well do that if I get shot down and drown in the damned Atlantic! Find someone else to be your errand boy!"

He hung up the phone and gave his weapons a look of complete disbelief, followed by indignation. "He wanted me to drop that crazy vampire off on a compromised aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean!"

Mina arched an eyebrow at him.

"I know the Doc is a mad scientist and all, but that's just insane."

An few hours later, there was still no word from Stein, and Shorty was now sitting in the plane with his two weapons. He looked at Jackson with a calculating glare.

"Do you have…an ace?" He asked seriously.

Triumphantly, Jackson made a motion of casting out a fishing line.

"Ah, dammit, seriously?" Shorty swore before grabbing another card to add to his hand. The siblings silently snickered and high-fived each other.

"Yeah, yeah, I don't why I even play this game with you two," he mumbled. "Cheaters! Although how you two manage to cheat at 'Go Fish' I'll never—"

His stomach let out an enormous rumble. Shorty rolled his eyes. "Oh, for the love of GOD, Stein, what is the big hold up here?" Ignoring his weapons, he laid his cards face down on the makeshift milk-crate table and opened the side door. He walked down to the asphalt of the runway and looked around, stretching his legs and back. His weapons followed, and Shorty watched the big jumbo jets taxi back and forth on the main runways. The noise was horrendous as planes landed and took off—the ground shook underneath him.

"Don't wander too far," Shorty told his partners. "I'm not scraping you guys off the runway if another plane squishes you into a pancake."

Jackson rolled his eyes.

He looked up at the sky and sighed. Dusk was spreading over the western sky now. The dark purple night was overtaking the faded sunset quickly, and a cool breeze whipped past the pilot. His stomach growled again, and he felt angry. If he was hungry, his partners definitely were, and had he known the Hellsing princess was going to take her sweet ass time they could've headed into town and gotten a bite to eat—

There were three black spots on the horizon that caught Shorty's attention. He narrowed his eyes and lifted his hand to try and block the last rays of the setting sun. His hair stood at attention.

"What the hell?" He asked.

Mina stood next to him and watched the approaching aircraft herself, frowning in confusion.

"Just more planes," Shorty said dismissively, seeing the blinking lights on the wingtips. "Sorry, guess my paranoia got the better of me."

The airplane silhouette changed, and became three separate shapes. Long, cylindrical, enormous zeppelins from a bygone era. A familiar flag of hate flew on the tail of the blimps, visible even a few miles away.

The color drained from the pilot's face. "Oh, holy hell," he swore. "Come on. Come on!" He grabbed his weapons' hands and dragged them back onto the plane and slammed the door behind them.

"Nazis…holy crap on a cracker, ACTUAL NAZIS!" He hissed. The three of them crowded forward into the tiny cockpit to see the zeppelins slowly approach the outskirts of London.

Shorty slipped into his seat and shoved the headset over his wild red hair. "Tower Control, this is Double S 341….Tower Control, anyone home?"

There was silence on the line.

"Hey, where the hell is everyone?! We've got an incoming bogey, anyone there!" Shorty snapped into the mike, but there was still no answer.

"They've got to be watching those on radar…they've got to be calling for help…" He looked, but nothing seemed to be happening. No flashing police sirens, no fighter jets, nothing out of the ordinary.

He changed channels. "This is Captain Sparks. We've got incoming at the airport, heading your way!"

There was no response from anyone at the National Security office, where Integra had her appointment. That only made the sweat on his brow run cold. Something had happened; something bad had happened.

The zeppelins turned a few degrees and passed harmlessly by the airport, but they were obviously heading straight for the heart of London. He could see the famous clock tower in the distance, along with the rest of the cityscape.

"It'll be the Blitz all over again," Shorty said in horror.

Jackson's hand fell hard on his shoulder, and he looked to see his weapons glowering at the blimps. Jackson's one blue eye shined at him in excitement, and he jerked his thumb at the wings of the plane.

Sparks nodded. "Outside, now!"

The weapons disappeared outside and with a flash of light two immaculate miniguns were hanging from the wings of the plane once more. Sparks spent several minutes getting the plane ready for takeoff. He watched the retreating aircraft with a sense of dreadful foreboding that made his hands shake and his breathe labored.

The engine roared to life, and he pulled his goggles down onto his face. The world was suddenly awash in red and blue.

"Hope you two are ready for a little WWII re-enactment," Shorty muttered to himself.

I'm telling you, Mina, we shoulda stayed farther out on the wings, a male voice suddenly growled in his head.

And I'm telling you that the wider spray area wouldn't have been worth the loss of agility due to the changed weight distribution, Mina's sing-song professor's voice piped up.

"Hey, kids, we're working now," Shorty said, shutting down the sibling's argument. Then again, Mina and Jackson were almost always arguing over something. That was the reason Shorty left his goggles off most of the time: he couldn't handle the constant bickering.

"How're the eyes?" Shorty asked, flipping on the finals instruments and buckling himself into his seat. His weapons replied in the affirmative.

Shorty took a few precious seconds to allow his spirit to flow into the steering handles, which synched him up with his weapons on the wings of the plane. Though the red and blue goggles were a little disorienting at first, the colors of the world around him returned to their normal hues. He could feel the guns on the wings follow his eye movements. Up, down, left, right.

Everything's fine on my side, Mina said.

Same here, Jackson replied.

Are you sure those are the Nazis Sir Integra mentioned? Mina asked.

Do you see any other World War II flying aircraft around? Jackson responded.

"Kids, don't make me turn this plane around!" Shorty snapped, feeling another argument waiting in the wings. His weapons were silenced, and he began the run down the runway a bit more recklessly than normal.

"That's them. We gotta make sure these Third Reich bastards don't start World War III!" Shorty growled. The plane lifted, the ground fell out from under them, and they quickly began to follow the large blimps over crowded areas of Britain's largest city.

"We gotta get Stein, Spirit, and Integra!" Shorty said, flying higher and higher until the blimps were far below his plane.

Shorty's knuckles turned white from the death grip he had on the steering column. For a moment, the whole world froze. Time stopped, gravity was turned off. The plane hung far up in the air like a hovering hawk eyeing some small rodent on the ground. His prey were the three remnant aircraft below him. His weapons were armed and ready. There was just enough time for the meister pilot to take a steady breath before the plane began its controlled dive straight towards the ground.

"It's time to send these bastards back to the history books!" Shorty yelled enthusiastically. The city of London raced up towards them at a sickening pace, but it was the blimps he was aiming towards. To the civilians looking up in shocked curiosity, it appeared that the tiny plane was going to punch right through a zeppelin or crash headfirst into the ground!

Black shapes suddenly began to pour from the zeppelin's underslung carriages. They fell to the ground en masse; Shorty wasn't really surprised when none of the soldiers let loose a single parachute to slow their descent.

Paratroopers without the para, Mina commented.

What're the chances they'll all die on impact? Jackson asked sarcastically.

"FIRE!" Shorty yelled. He guided the plane under the blimps as Mina and Jackson opened fire. Soul bullets screamed through the air, ripping apart the falling vampires. Undead Nazi soldiers became little more than stripes of flesh and fabric within seconds.

"Hell yeah!" Shorty shouted. Bullets suddenly pinged off the sides of the plane. Some of the vamps were shooting at them while freefalling!

"Hey, you owe me a new paint job!" Shorty yelled as he wove in and out of falling vampires.

The plane's needed one for a while now, Jackson quipped.

"They didn't know that! And are you calling my Angelica ugly?" Shorty snapped.

Boys, incoming! Mina yelled.

Short had gotten a little close to the jumping vampires as he passed under the ships. The plane dipped violently as a vampire, complete with machine gun and Nazi military garb, landed on the windshield of the plane. Shorty gritted his teeth as he tied the level the plane out. Damn! My weapons can't shoot him!

The vampire pressed his face to the windshield and leered madly at the DWMA pilot. "Ve are invincible! We are Millennium! Hehe, I can smell your fear from here!"

"Oh, please, I've seen scarier cereal mascots than you!" Shorty yelled through the glass. With a smug grin, Shorty sent the plane into a spiral, sending the Nazi flying through the air. His weapons made quick work of the monster. "Hope you get the meet Count Chocula in Hell!"

Everything became a blur of action—Shorty didn't even have time to think about his actions, he could only fly and maneuver the plane on instinct. He was surrounded by a cacophony of sound from the engines, his guns, and his weapons shouting in his head. He cut down dozens of vampires, trying to kill them before they hit the ground. Despite the trio's best efforts, some managed to land. People tried to run but were shot or ripped apart. Cars crashed, fires began to burn, blood began to run in the streets. It was now dark, and the vampires were in their element in the shadows of the night.

No other fighter jets or helicopters, from the police or the army or anything appeared in the sky to fight off the invasion. Flashes of blue and red lights on the ground meant the local cops were trying to fight back, but they were unprepared and overwhelmed. The German bastards had been thorough. If no orders were coming from the National Security Office to attack or defend, did that mean that Stein, Death Scythe, and the Hellsing woman were all now dead?

Didn't matter. He flew through a cloud of blood; he had to use the windshield wiper to make a clean patch to see through.

Just how many are there?! Mina asked. Thousands of soul rounds later and they were still coming.

Enough, apparently, was Jackson's sardonic reply.

Why don't we just hit the blimps? Mina asked her Meister.

"We can't!" Shorty growled. "Remember the Hindenburg disaster? Imagine how much more of a disaster it would've been if London had been under it instead of an open field! Eventually they'll run out of soldiers and leave."

Yeah, well, we don't have eventually, Jackson said.

And you can't keep up this fighting forever! These forms are for intense, short-term combat. You can't keep this up long term. Mina warned him.

They're words washed over him, but he ignored them. So what that there was sweat on his forehead; his hands were shaking; his breath quick and shallow?

"We will take down as many of these bastards as possible. Until they hit the ground, they're in our territory, and we're the sharks in this particular ocean."

Shorty's hot-headedness was showing once again, but he could see the twins share a look of friendly determination in his head.

His confidence was shaken as he passed under the biggest blimp of all and another vampire successfully landed on the nose of the plane. But then, more weight dropped onto the small craft. More vampires, on the wings, the tail, clawing at the plane's metal skin; they were trying to knock the plane out of the sky by weighing it down. Or they were going to tear it apart mid-air.

Shorty roared his anger as he struggled to keep the plane in the air. "I don't like stowaways!" He yelled at the vampire trying to smash its way into the cockpit. The glass cracked under a super-powered fist, but held.

There's too many! Jackson yelled.

Shorty? Shorty! Mina cried.

He wouldn't be able to keep Angelica up much longer. The extra weight of the vampires meant he was fighting against gravity, and the soul rounds his weapons were letting loose were draining his soul's reserves. He was getting tired. Mina and Jackson tried to shoot the vampires off; they'd never been in such an intense dogfight before. Then again, the fate of a million people had never weighed him down before, either.

Shorty, I'm almost out! Mina warned.

Don't stop, Sis! Keep firing!

The lone captain of the resistance let a sad smile place over his face. The vampires leered and gnashed their teeth. Shorty closed his eyes for a precious second and concentrated. The darkness in his mind's eye changed to a view of vampire's climbing all over the plane like ants and a city beginning to be engulfed in flames.

"Can't believe this is how we go out," Shorty spat.

Overcome by a bunch of parasites, Jackson said.

Disgusting cowards! Mina agreed with rare venom in her voice. What's the plan, boss? They asked in tandem in his head.

Shorty roared and pulled the steering column back, sending the plane arcing up and shooting towards the sky. "Get off my plane!" he yelled.

How do you plan on choking dead guys? Jackson asked.

"Not choking. I'll freeze their asses! Turn them into Nazi-sicles!" Shorty said. The G-forces dragged at his body; it was getting hard to think the farther he flew into the atmosphere. The weapons had stopped firing for a moment. That allowed him to hear the vampire's claw tearing at the metal, especially around the door windows. They were going to claw their way in and rip him apart right in his Granddad's baby.

"I can't lose this plane. I can't lose my weapons!" Shorty said angrily. "I'll go down with this ship, and I'll take all of you down with me!"

The edges of his vision started to go black, but he had to keep going. His fingers were numb as they went higher and higher into the air. The needles were all red, there was an oxygen alarm screeching at him, and it was really hard to keep his eyes open—

It was Orientation Day. Kids were laughing and talking. There were flashes of light as Weapons transformed in the hands of their new Meisters. It was a good day for making friends and the whole event felt like a grand party.

Shorty, young and full of confidence and mischief, had yet to find a partner. No one he'd tried felt right. While holding a gun or a blade he always felt…unbalanced. What was he supposed to do with his free hand? Make rude gestures at his enemy? Maybe that's how everyone felt when they were holding the wrong weapon, but he had nothing to compare it too. All he could do was keep searching.

He was so busy acting unconcerned about his lack of partner that he stumbled right into a pair of siblings. Twins, a brother and sister, only discernable by their blue and red eyes. The brother jumped in front of his sister, to protect her from Shorty, apparently. He raised a fist at Shorty in irritation.

"Chill, kiddo! I didn't mean it," Shorty said cheerfully.

Neither sibling spoke, though the sister put a hand on her brother's shoulder to calm him.

"Look, I said I was sorry, now it's your turn to say 'No problemo!'" Shorty huffed. "What, cat got both your tongues?"

The boy flipped the middle finger at the meister hopeful. Shorty's eyes lit up in realization.

"Wait, can you guys talk at all?"

The sister shook her head, and boy glowered at her for responding.

Shorty snickered, then laughed out loud. He reached forward and flung his arms around their shoulders like he'd known them for years. "Can't talk? That's fine! I'll talk enough for all three of us. We'll make a great team. I'm going to be the world's best pilot, and you two will be my co-pilots, and we'll destroy any evil we come across! Deal?"

The siblings looked at his outstretched hand, then at each other. They only conferred with each other for a silent moment before they shook his hand.

Shorty felt like the world had dropped out from under his feet. "Wha…what are you talking about? What do you mean, I can't be a pilot?!"

"I'm sorry, Sparks," Lord Death said. He was turned away from the broken-hearted look on the student's face. His cartoonish hands were clasped behind his back. "That's the way it must be."

"Bullshit!" Sparks snapped. Jackson and Mina stood on either side of him, eyes downcast.

"Sparks," Spirit Alban warned.

"Such foul language!" Death said. There was a smack, and Shorty was on the ground, cradling his head and moaning in pain. The Reaper massaged his giant hand. "You get a Reaper Chop if you speak like that again. Although with a head that hard, it might just hurt me more than you…"

"As I was saying, being a Meister is a great and terrible destiny, Sparks," Spirit explained to the ungrateful kid.

"I grew up only wanting to fly!" the meister said. "My grandfather taught me everything he knew before he died, and my mother flew as well. You can't ask me to give this up!"

"Sparks, be reasonable," Spirit said. "Anyone with good eyesight can become a pilot. But a meister is born one in a million."

"I don't care about statistics," he said.

"In order to be a Meister, you have to physically touch your weapons during combat. Your weapons have to be able to channel your energy, and you have to channel theirs. How do you plan to have this Soul Resonance if you're trying to fly an airplane? Hm?"

The worst part wasn't the words, it was the gentle, fatherly way the Reaper said them.

"You have to choose one or the other. You can't be both," Spirit said.

A moment of silence hung over them. The boy's fists shook—it was just taking a him moment to speak, when he finally got his thoughts together he was going to give Death a real piece of his mind—

Mina appeared by the Reaper's side and tugged on his robe. "Yes, Mina?"

The mute girl's hands started stiffly, but her excitement at some idea made her fingers fly. Death didn't seem to have any trouble understanding her signs.

"Joe, eh? Yes, I suppose you could talk options with him. But Mina, what if there is no third option?"

The look of determination on her face said it all. Then we'll make one, that look said.

Death turned to his teenager charges. "Sparks, I truly hope you appreciate the brains you're weapon possesses. Mina just offered a most curious proposal. There may be a way after all. You must go speak to Joe Buttataki downstairs in the basement, in the Technology and Research Office. You might just get your wish, Sparks."

Mina simple looked at her Meister and winked at him. It was hard for Sparks to believe that he'd met the Kirbys only a few days ago. Their devotion to his cause made him all warm and fuzzy inside.

He became conscious to shouting in his head. Wake up Shorty! Jackson roared.

Shorty! We're freefalling from 30,000 feet, you've got to wake up! Mina pleaded.

Ah, now the falling sensation made sense. He had blacked out at the top of the stratosphere, and must've passed out for a few precious seconds, allowing the plane to start falling.

Shorty grabbed the steering column and wrestled to get the old bird back under control. He stopped the out-of-control falling and aimed his nose straight down. Unfortunately, the vampires were worse than leeches. A few might've tumbled off someone several thousand feet in the air, but most were still clinging on. That only pissed him off more. At least the one on the nose of the plane was gone, but the cracked windshield still obstructed his view.

Nice timing for a nap! Jackson said.

Sparks, you've got to pull out of this dive! You won't be able to pull up in a matter of seconds.

He was drained, and his arms burned trying to keep the bird in some semblance of control. Meisters were super-powered humans, but they had limits, and he had hit his.

The ground, the city, raced up to meet them. The three carriers flew over the city, dispelled of their cargo, now nothing more than silent observers to the carnage and chaos below.

What do we do? You're exhausted and these bloodsuckers aren't going to off themselves, Jackson said.

We're out of ammo, Mina agreed. So what do we hit them with?

Despite frayed nerves and exhaustion, he managed to lift a hand to his goggles. One red lens, one blue. They didn't have to do it—they could've waited and hoped another Meister they were compatible with would show up a few years after him. Instead, each had given up one of their own eyes so Shorty could have his dream of being a pilot.

Seemed like the airplane was a small price to pay to save his friend's asses.

He looked at the gas gauge. "Think half a tank of jet fuel hitting the around at a few hundred miles an hour will suffice?"

There was a shocked silence from his weapons. You wanna kill Angelica?! They said in tandem.

"An airplane can be rebuilt," Shorty said, meaning it. He had always treated the plane like his child, but in the end, it was a machine. She could be rebuilt. His friends could not.

He pulled a hand off the steering column to touch a picture tapped there. It was a black and white photo of baby Shorty, sitting on the lap of his cigar-smoking, eyepatch-wearing Granddad. Shorty was laughing and reaching for a toy airplane his grandfather held just out of his reach. Behind them was the familiar metal nose of the very plane he was piloting.

I'm sure he'll forgive us, Mina offered calmly.

As long as we take a shitload of 'em with us! Jackson agreed.

An ear-piercing screech came from behind him, and he turned back to see a vampire had finally managed to rip the door off its hinges. The creature was laughing madly, and getting ready to tear him apart.

"NOW!" He smacked the red button on his dash before the vampire could get its claws around his neck. The windshield blew away and his seat was shot into the air, a few hundred feet above the skyscrapers of London. His bones almost melted into Jell-o at the force of the ejection, but he gritted his teeth and held on for dear life. He was gaining speed and heading right towards the roof of a skyscraper. With a final burst of energy he managed to leap off the chair and land on the roof without breaking anything.

He thought it was his blood rushed to his head from his sudden descent that made his violently wobble, but he realized it was in fact an explosion that had rocked him. He stumbled to the edge of the roof and looked at the plume of fire leaping into the sky from the wreckage of his…his…

"Mina? Jackson! Where are you?" He yelled out in a panicked voice. Oh, crap, they managed to get off the plane, right?!

Two beams of light suddenly encircled his wrists and materialized as a pair of Uzi sub-machine guns. The faces of his partners appeared in his head.

Looks like we got our wish, Mina comforted. Shorty saw the dozens of corpses scattered around the plane's remains. A building had collapsed when the plane crashed into it. The air was filled with terrified screams of pain. Shot echoed through the city, as did soot and smoke. The horizon was red with firelight. London was burning, despite his cavalier efforts.

He should've felt a little victorious; instead he just felt numb at the scene below him.

"Damn it all!" he snarled, looking up at the darkening sky. The firelight from his burning family heirloom illuminated the bellies of the two airships hovering overhead, flying flags with that damned swastika—

Wait, two?

"Where's the third one?" He demanded.

Up there! He looked up to see the other smaller blimp heading west, away from the city. Why was it doing that? What the hell was west…?

"The kids!" All three of them said in horrified tandem.

"And Spirit and Stein are probably dead in this mess," Shorty motioned towards the city being destroyed a few stories under them. "We gotta knock that ship out of the sky!"

That's a noble thought and all, but don't you think we should deal with those guys first? Jackson suggested. Shorty looked in front of him. A dozen vampires were leering at him, hunger on their gaunt faces. Many were sporting bloody fangs and insane smiles.

"Vell, it's not often our food is polite enough to deliver itself onto our doorstep!" A vampire joked. Others laughed; it sounded like a convention of German snakes hissing at once. The Nazis leveled either claws or guns at the pilot.

"That's my job. Delivery. Just because I don't have my plane doesn't mean I'm completely useless. Just watch me deliver these bullets into your fugly faces!"

He couldn't summon up the soul power to power two mini-guns, but small caliber arms took less of him to deal their damage. He was going to kill all these Nazi bastards, or die trying.

The vampires turned angry at his insolent words and frowned. They lunged forward. Shorty, surpassingly, wasn't terrified. He was simply pissed.

Soul bullets clashed with undead flesh as the blimp was swallowed up by the night.