An Exchange of Bullets

Smell of blood, smoke and burning embers filled his nostrils as the Zeppelin shred, crashing to the ground and erupt in flames. Erupting around the two left on it's stage.

A wet, raspy hackle reverberated through the shell of the Millennium vessel. "I finally hit something..." The Major slid to the ground, smoking revolver still in hand as blood spurt from the newly fledged wounds in his forehead and chest. A slow smile nearly split his features as he wheezed ragged and slumped to the floor. "Ah... The show is over, creature... the curtain's falling... we've taken our bows and now it's time we make our exit from the stage.... What a performance... This is... exactly what I hoped my war to be..."

"A war? No... You are wrong... no one will think of this as a war..." Benson managed through a grunt then collapsed in the pool of blood forming at his feet, his smoking pistol clacking loudly as it hit the floor in front of him. "This was a mockery of battle. A bloodshed where too many died only to appease the farce reasoning of a psychopath far past his prime..." Benson's voice was raspy and withered with fatigue yet he still managed to curve a smile and chuckle. "This was simply... an exchange of bullets..."

The Major hackled again, this time coughing up a spray of blood. His eyes wild with the green centers small as pinpricks. "You thing..." He hissed madly. "You think you have valor yet I have something you could never gain, humanity. A driven human will!... You are nothing more than an abomination... A genetic cesspool so poorly designed you were falling apart long before I shot you.... A failed science project..."

Benson smiled, his teeth and eye igniting against the engulfing flames as he sneered. "That may be, but my machinery aside, I have more humanity than you could ever hope for... I hardly thought of you as a proper opponent but merely a rabid dog that needed to be put down..."

Not longer talking to a receptive being but a shell of where one once was or possibly had it ever been? Taking quite a bit of effort, Benson rolled onto his side to stare into the flames dancing or was he merely seeing things? Clutching at his chest, he could feel his lifeforce slipping away like the blood between his fingers.

"For all your talk of humanity, there wasn't a shred of it left in you as if it was eaten away by a virus or perhaps there never was any there to begin with... Fact is, you died as you lived. A coward... " Benson coughed, closing his eyes a moment to rest and breathe. "You thought you were the victor annihilating your enemy yet your foe was already dying... you simply hastened it... Where I would have passed in a hospital bed being fed through a tube and withering away, where is the dignity in that?...This is dignity... and for that I thank you..." His breathing much more shallow now he versed softly. "Mankind is a slave to duty... and to die in battle for this duty is an honor... And there is no greater duty then to purge one's enemy from the earth... The human facade that you were, it was still a great duty..."

A shadowy figure reached through the flames with beating wings and covered the ground like a black ooze as the flames come in contact with gasoline an explode the tattered ship into a burning inferno. Hot and carnal.

"Count?..." Benson blinked, vision failing in his one good eye as the red-eyed figure approached him. He smiled. "I am sorry but I must say goodbye..."

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A screengrab like shot from the crossover Hellsing Hellbent and scene in the series.

Inspired while listening to the song by Hayato Matsuo 'Marching Overture' and 'To the Night of War' from Hellsing OVA OST

Crossover Here. Comments are appreciated as always!