Fanfic / Anderson Quest: Killing Vampires and Werewolves and Leprechauns

Crazy blood heathen werewolves? There's, like, zero moral ambiguity about aggressively shanking them. This might be Heaven after all.

What happens when you get an Irish, Catholic zealot killing machine and throw him into one of the bloodiest and most violent video games ever made? You get The Anderson Quest.

A crossover quest between Hellsing Ultimate Abridged and Bloodborne where the infamous Alexander Anderson is dropped into the Hunter's Dream. Seeing a world under attack from beasts obsessed with blood, Anderson decides to spread the good word of Jesus Christ to the poor suffering denizens of Yharnam. That it involves killing blood-crazy heathens and false gods is simply a bonus.

The quest was run by Tricia on the Sufficient Velocity forums and can be found here. It is now complete.

---

This quest provides examples of:

• Adaptational Heroism: Bloodborne implies that Ebrietas was an Unwitting Pawn for the Healing Church, whose members misused her eldritch knowledge and created the werewolf scourge affecting Yharnam, but it's left ambiguous. Here, Ebrietas is depicted as an innocent being who was manipulated by the Healing Church into causing so much misery under the pretense of wanting friends. Once Anderson shows her the error of her ways and converts her to Christianity, she pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
• Almighty Idiot: Rom, befitting the "Vacuous Spider" moniker. Yurie's slightly miffed that between her and Rom, the mindless pillbug is doing more to safeguard what's left of Yharnam than her.
• Anomalous Art: When Anderson finds a bust of Bloody Stupid Johnson at Byrgenwerth, he tries to deface it, only to find that no matter how he moves it, it always keeps facing him, and when he puts a finger on its nose and asks Simon where he's touching, Simon says it's the cheek. Ebrietas gets the cosmic horror equivalent of a headache when she sees it, and it reacts violently when Anderson tries to shove it into his personal Hammerspace. Most surprisingly, according to Yurie, Johnson managed to make it with only normal marble, a hammer and a chisel, fascinated after seeing portraits that seemed to stare at the viewer.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Defied. When he's told about the Old Hunter's Bone, Anderson is tempted to ask how that works but stops himself by noting that it's no crazier than everything else he's seen thus far.
• Arrow Catch: Lady Maria does this to Simon when holding a sword to Anderson's neck. It noticeably causes both Anderson and Simon to have Oh, Crap! moments.
• Badass Boast: Anderson delivers several.
• Berserk Button: Gehrman is quietly furious at the means used to create the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst.
• Badass Preacher: Anderson, naturally, especially since he now has an audience who has never heard the Good News before. He gets Ebrietas interested in the Holy Word!
• BFG: The Powder Kegs have a man-portable cannon, as well as a mortar. They later pick a Church Cannon from the Hunter's Nightmare.
• Bizarrchitecture: The convoluted routes of the game live on, and the saner citizens spare no breath lampshading them to Hell and back. Makes a lot more sense when considering the genius/idiot responsible.
• Black Comedy: Considering this is a cross with Hellsing Ultimate Abridged, this is to be expected.
• Blind Jump: The ultimate fate of Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, who barged in as a couple of researchers were working on a way to project themselves into the Great Ones' dimension, claimed they were doing it all wrong, hit their prototype with a hammer, and vanished from reality. Micolash is slightly horrified by the idea that Bloody Stupid Johnson will ultimately be the last of humanity as he drifts across dimensions.
• Blunt "Yes": The Moon Presence, when Anderson asks if it's heard the word of Jesus Christ. For once, Anderson is at a complete loss. That is until the Presence explains it read the Bible Anderson left in the dream via Gehrman.
• Book Ends: Anderson has a brief conversation with Alucard as he dies. A very long night later, they meet again.
• Bored with Insanity: Micolash. At the very least he's capable of having a decent conversation and actually crave tea and cigarettes.
• Brick Joke: Anderson promised Eileen, Ebrietas and the others he'd show them how his sleeves work "in the morning". When, after the Moon Presence's death, time begins flowing normally again and the sun finally rises over Yharnam, Eileen again demands the explanation.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Some of the ones unfortunate enough to cross Anderson's path.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: The Hunter's Nightmare is filled with ancient hunters using outdated weaponry that has long since fallen out of favour by the time the main story takes place. Anderson takes a discarded Boom Hammer, Djura takes Kurt's Gatling Gun after they slay him and Steffon picks the Church Cannon from a dead giant.
• Bungling Inventor: The much-decried main Yharnam architect and the reason for the pressure plates, the stairs to nowhere and the guardless bridges, Bergholt Stuttley "Bloody Stupid" Johnson.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: What happens to Vicar Rosemary. The people she's wronged decide not to kill her, but to instead creatively humiliate her for the duration of Anderson's mission. It involves well-aimed vegetables and a sign saying 'I Am a Massive Knobhead'.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Anderson regularly does this to the majority of the enemies in Yharnam, such that most combat is automatic.
• Crossover:
  • Between Bloodborne and Hellsing Ultimate Abridged.
  • A non-canon omake has Anderson visit a certain red-headed magical girl who's been dumped in another FromSoftware game.
• Defiant to the End: The Bloody Crow still keeps trying to put up a fight even after it becomes clear that he's in no condition to do so.
• Demoted to Dragon: Micolash was the controlling mind behind the School of Mensis' Mental World, but when Mergo's Wet Nurse arrived, she "demoted" him, leaving him with only low-level admin access, basically to keep him occupied and out of her hair. Annoyed anyway, Micolash fully collaborated with Anderson upon meeting him.
• De-power: When Anderson grabs the Moonlight Greatsword, it reacts with the remnants of the Nail's power within him, dispelling its magical properties.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: While Anderson and Eileen came in expecting to kill Ebrietas, they end up spending a long time talking with her. It turns out she was just a victim in all of this, with the Healing Church keeping her in the dark about what they were truly doing under the pretence that they'll help her make friends.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Anderson kills a Lesser Amygdala early on in the quest.
• Dirty Coward: Patches. Anderson doesn't put up with this.
• Do with Him as You Will: Anderson does this to Vicar Rosemary.
• The Dreaded: Bloody Stupid Johnson's reputation is so bad that, of all people, Lady Maria flinches at the mere mention of his name.
• Dual Wield: During their fight against Ludwig, Anderson uses the Club of Righteousness and his newly acquired Amygdala Arm.
• Due to the Dead:
  • After Anderson executes the false Iosefka (real name Lumnia), he and the real Iosefka dig a grave for her.
  • Later on, Anderson and Eileen do the same for Father Gascoigne and his wife.
  • Later still, Anderson digs graves for all of the Celestial Mobs. He insists on doing it alone.
  • With the permission of Gehrman, Anderson buries Ludwig's monstrous head in the Hunter's Dream.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Against all odds, Anderson succeeds in ending the Scourge, destroying the Moon Presence and saving Yharnam.
• Energy Weapon: The alt mode for the Club of Righteousness shoots lasers.
• Experienced Protagonist: Anderson already has years of monster-slaying under his belt, and is mostly unbothered by Yharnam's various horrors.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Anderson experiences this when, distracted by his train of thought, catches too late how Eileen has worked out the transfusion is the infection vector for the plague.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • The Amygdala refuses to give Anderson the satisfaction of a futile rant as it faces its end.
  • Lumnia merely requests to see the moon one last time before Anderson executes her, and keeps some dignity to the end.
  • While it doesn't end in her death, Eileen takes the revelation that the Church blood transfusion is the source of the plague with remarkable stoicism. It helps she had already known and accepted the risk of losing herself as a Hunter, just making sure Anderson was capable of putting her down for good if it came to that.
  • Lady Maria refuses Anderson's offer to leave the Nightmare before he destroys the Orphan of Kos and perishes with it.
  • Micolash understands he's going to die when the School of Mensis ceases to exist, and only requests Anderson to take a copy of his research to share with Yurie and ensure some of his legacy survives.
• Fastball Special: With the help of Ebrietas, Anderson gets the drop on some School of Mensis goons.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Simon, due to having been trapped within the Hunter's Nightmare. He takes this fairly well.
• Fighting from the Inside: Vicar Amelia is well known for being a deeply devoted zealot, yet this absolute devotion to her faith is what allowed her to resist her beasthood after she transformed into a beast. She stays silently praying at the Grand Cathedral for a good portion of the story.
• Fighting Your Friend: During their visit to the Hunter's Nightmare, Djura and Steffon are forced to fight against their former Powder Kegs allies, Ulrich and Kurt. Both of which had long since gone mad from the bloodlust.
• Foreshadowing: As he dies in London, Anderson vaguely hears the chime of a bell. Gehrman is mentioned several times to have more than one bell at the Workshop.
• Friend to All Children: Anderson runs an orphanage back in his world, so he quickly endears himself to Gascoigne's daughters.
• Gatling Good: The Powder Kegs have one. Anderson approves. Kurt has created a man-portable version for his personal use, being two-and-a-half meters tall allowed him to carry and control the recoil with ease.
• Gender-Blender Name: The Chapel Dweller's name is given as Agatha, despite him being male.
• Gentle Giant: Anderson is a tall man, but he has his gentle moments, especially around children.
• A God Am I: The second major boss of the quest, a Lesser Amygdala, believed gods don't die. Anderson proves it wrong.
• Good Shepherd: Anderson tries his best to be this, which is part of the reason he's so pissed at Yharnam's Corrupt Church.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Anderson takes quite a bit of damage against some of Yharnam's tougher denizens. Fortunately, his status as a Regenerator allows him to ignore most of it.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: In addition to the regular examples, Anderson gets Gehrman to make a weapon out of the Lesser Amygdala's body parts called the Club of Righteousness. He is later given a still-living Amygdala Arm during the Hunter's Nightmare.
• Hammerspace: Anderson has one on each of his sleeves. Everyone who sees it is left gaping. Even Ebrietas.
• Heel–Face Turn: A group of the Healing Churchmen and some of their Hunters join Anderson's posse after they learn the real cause of the beast plague.
• Holy Burns Evil: Anderson tosses a crucifix at Annalise to test if she is a vampire and this happens. Strangely, the burning only seems to happen with moral evil as Ebrietas was unaffected despite being an ancient star-god. And she's not evil to begin with. The wards Anderson creates around Oedon Chapel also have this effect.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Anderson & Iosefka and Anderson & Eileen.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Hope is one of the few characters whom Anderson doesn't tower over. This means that Lady Maria counts as well. And Ebrietas towers over everyone, so she counts as well.
• Interface Screw:
  • The Lesser Amygdala spoke in invisible text up until it was on its death throes.
  • Occasionally Tricia inserts some invisible text that comments on the current situation. It's implied that the Alucard is the one making these, though sometimes it's clearly a Great One talking, as seen when Anderson's wards manage to hurt one.
• Karma Houdini: The ringleaders within the Healing Church, who were responsible for both the Orphanage and its experiments, all committed suicide before Anderson could exact judgement. When Anderson learns of it, he is furious.
• Killed Off for Real: Lumnia is killed before she can turn the real Iosefka into a Celestial Emissary. Father Gascoigne is also mercy killed by Eileen the Crow when it's clear he's close to turning into a beast.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Shortly after arriving at Yharnam and confronting victims of the Plague for the first time, a door opens in Anderson's path and a kindly old woman invites him inside... only to slam the door in his face as he's preparing to cross the threshold; everyone inside cackles and insults Anderson. Seriously ticked, he grabs a (dead) infectee and tosses him inside the house via a window.
  • Patches the Spider led the Amygdala assault against Anderson and Oedon Chapel, and then tried to squirm out of trouble by offering Anderson a discount on his wares. Anderson, just as annoyed, pretends to bargain with him for a bit, then kills his hopes (and him).
• Meaningful Name: The Plain Doll, after some encouraging by Anderson, names herself Hope.
  Hope: "This way, you can never say there is no hope so long as I am here."
• Mental World: Yurie theorizes, and Micolash confirms, that the different dimensions overlapping Yharnam are actually dreams made manifest by the will of a single key mind, like the Orphan of Kos or the role Micolash himself had until being supplanted by Mergo and the Wet Nurse. The time flow over Yharnam is so distorted because it's part of the Moon Presence's own colossal dream. Upon destroying the mind, the dream collapses into nothingness.
• Mercy Kill: Anderson delivers this on behalf of Yurie to Master Willem, and Eileen delivers a quick kill to Father Gascoigne.
• Mind Rape: Due to Ebrietas' inexperience with the human mind, her efforts at communication are rendered as this until she meets Anderson, whose inhuman resilience allows her to stay in contact for long enough to fine tune the technique into mere telepathy.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Anderson uses Ludwig's Holy Blade as a shovel to dig the graves of the children in the Orphanage.
  • Ebrietas flies Anderson and company over the Forbidden Woods.
• Never Trust a Title: Averted, though it took quite a while for leprechauns AKA Mergo's Attendants to actually come up.
• Noodle Incident: Anderson has a lot.
  You don't talk about the Nashville Incident. And you thought Andrew Jackson was a bastard before he died...
• Named by the Adaptation: The false Iosefka had no name in Bloodborne. Here, her real name is Lumnia.
• No OSHA Compliance: At one point, the narration comments that OSHA would have problems with one particular narrow, guardrail-less walkway. Makes sense, considering that Bloody Stupid Johnson designed the city.
• Off with His Head!: Anderson tries to dispose of Annalise this way. Emphasis on tries due to her Complete Immortality.
• Oh, Crap!: Several of Anderson's enemies have this just before they die.
  • Vicar Rosemary also has one when she realizes Anderson has killed the Bloody Crow and she already told him where Ebrietas was.
  Anderson: "No take backs."
• Person as Verb: According to Micolash, this happened to Bloody Stupid Johnson, in that the School of Mensis declared him, basically, the opposite of enlightenment.
• Pretender Diss: Ebrietas has a less than favorable opinion of the Lesser Amygdala.
• Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: At the start, Micolash had full control over the School of Mensis, and was fully insane. Upon being Demoted to Dragon by Mergo's Wet Nurse, he kept a small portion of his Reality Warper powers; shocked back into sanity, he mostly used said powers to feed himself and keep himself entertained. However, it has its problems; he comments that at the start, he could make perfectly common cigarettes, but as time went on, he started forgetting the exact taste and errors began piling up until every time he tried to do it the cigarettes came out awful.
• Replacement Goldfish: The real reason Gehrman built the Doll and why he absolutely can't stand her. He wanted a Maria he could keep at his side forever, and kept working tirelessly for several weeks getting every inch absolutely right, only to end up with a meek copy that only has some passing resemblance in her mannerisms, so he's been kept in a horrible limbo between recognizing the Maria he so wanted and loathing everything else.
• Resist the Beast: Father Gascoigne, with the death of his wife, is stuck at the very brink of becoming the beast... but hasn't. Eileen manages to get close enough and gets him to drop his guard long enough to give him a quick, dignified Mercy Kill rather than allow him the indignity of becoming a monster.
• Resurrective Immortality: At one point, Anderson asks Gehrman why the Contract fell out of favor despite all the advantages it offers. Agreeing it's a valid question, Gehrman answers that despite the inability to die and having the Dream as a source of repose, Hunters eventually succumbed to the bloodlust or were driven to insanity because of the pain.
• Running Gag:
  • Characters wondering just what the hell is up with Anderson's sleeves. Even Ebrietas is confused about how it works.
  • Anderson and the more sane denizens of Yharnam making fun of the city's Bizarrchitecture. Especially the levers.
  • Anderson's monologues being interrupted.
  • The details of the parting between Djura and Eileen, and how "he was shooting at her with that gun".
  • The incompetence of Yharnam's chief architect.
  • Steps Two Through Ten.
  • Anderson asking an enemy if they have heard of "Our Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ".
• Shout-Out: In general Anderson makes numerous references to the world he departed.
  • Anderson is really glad he can quote The Boondock Saints without someone calling him out on it.
    • He also names two recurring crows Connor and Murphy.
  • Anderson quotes The Dark Knight Rises as he defeats the Bloody Crow.
  Anderson: "Victory... has defeated ye."
• Sequence Breaking: All over the place. Father Anderson can teleport, is strong enough to break down doors, and is able talk certain opponents down instead of fighting them, resulting in even more sequence breaking.
  • Usually, you need to reach the Forbidden Woods to unlock the back entrance to Iosefka's Clinic and confront her impostor. Here, Anderson is able to teleport in as soon as he gets suspicious, saving Iosefka.
  • Anderson avoids the following boss fights: Father Gascoigne (killed by Eileen instead) Ebrietas (was able to communicate with her and realize she was Not Evil, Just Misunderstood), Retired Hunter Djura (talked into helping storm the Healing Church), Vicar Amelia (held in a ward once her transformation kicked in), Maria (talked down), the Shadows of Yharnam (killed by Yurie), Yurie herself (was more interested in learning why Ebrietas had ferried Anderson to Byrgenwerth), The One Reborn (never summoned), and Micolash (turns out he was Bored with Insanity). Averted with Rom; because she's completely mindless, there is no way to avoid having to kill her. Anderson, Ebrietas, and Yurie all tried.
  • Having Ebrietas on his side allows Anderson to skip the Forbidden Woods entirely as she flies over to Byrgenwerth with him.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Because Anderson doesn't suffer from Silent Protagonist Syndrome, he is capable of talking down people who would otherwise be enemies in canon and allows him to save many people and guide them to the safety of Oedon Chapel. This includes Yurie of Byrgenwerth, Iosefka, Gilbert, Gascoigne's daughters, Simon the Harrowed, the surviving Powder Kegs, most of the remaining sane Yharnamites, a couple of repentant Church Hunters, and, surprisingly enough, Ebrietas. Even more astonishingly, Amelia's also implied to have survived, if still remaining in her beast form. Annalise also survived as a disembodied head.
• Storming the Castle: Anderson, Eileen, and the Powder Kegs launch an assault on the Healing Church after they learn about the true nature of the blood ministrations.
• Super-Soldier: The Bloody Crow was an attempt by the Choir to create this, via a treacherous Cainhurst servant who delivered himself for experimentation in exchange for the strength to never to be bossed around. It worked, at the cost of the fool's mind. The Choir used most of the Hunters of Hunters as fodder to strengthen the monster, leading Eileen to declare war.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Anderson manages to avoid the fight with Lady Maria. Micolash manages to do the same with Anderson.
• Tempting Fate: Anderson and co. have just broken The Siege by the School of Mensis and Anderson thinks about celebrating the victory... Cue the Amygdala showing up as a boss fight, while three Lesser Amygdalae go after the others.
• Time Crash: Yurie points out neither Yharnam's timeline nor the flow of time within make any sense - Old Yharnam was burned enough time ago for an entirely new city to be built, yet there are still surviving Powder Kegs and the beasts are still alive despite having no other food than each other. Enough time has passed since Anderson's arrival that it should be morning already - Ebrietas can keep perfect time and she should know. Nobody knows when or how the original epidemic spread and details are contradictory at best. This is what helps her realize all of the city is trapped in a massive dream.
• Those Two Guys: Anderson befriends two carrion crows who're attracted to all the corpses that tend to accumulate in his wake. He eventually names them Connor and Murphy.
• Throw the Book at Them: Iosefka uses the Bible to smack Lumnia, her impersonator.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Bloody Stupid Johnson's reality-defying bust gives Ebrietas migraines just by looking at it. It also reacts...violently to being put in Anderson's sleeves.
• Tranquil Fury: Anderson after he learns about the Orphanage. Needless to say, the Healing Church didn't exactly have the children's best interests in mind. Anderson also doesn't take it well when he finds out the ringleaders had committed suicide before he could exact judgement.
  Anderson: "Don't fuck with me. This isn't how it's supposed ta go. This isn't fuckin' fair."
• The Unfought: For all his bloodthirsty nature, Anderson skips a lot of the game's boss and mini-boss fights.
  • Anderson not being a Silent Protagonist means that he talks down multiple bosses, such as Djura, Yurie, and Ebrietas.
  • Anderson doesn't have to beat the Blood-Starved Beast to befriend Djura, so he never bothers. The Powder Kegs do use the creature as a weapon against the Healing Church, though.
  • Vicar Amelia gets trapped in a ward just as she turns into her beast form.
  • Since Anderson doesn't pick Laurence's skull, he doesn't fight the Vicar's beast form in the Nightmare.
  • Because Father Gascoigne recognized Eileen before the two could get into a fight, she mercy kill him before he could turn into a beast.
  • Micolash is also not fought, instead having a conversation with Anderson over tea and smokes before sending him to deal with Mergo's Wet Nurse.
  • In the Fishing Hamlet, Anderson and his posse stumble upon the well where Maria dumped the Rakuyo in, but they only ascertain there's Sharkmen down there, and since he'd promised to make haste and not to grandstand, they don't go down it.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Anderson notes this about the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst. The Bloody Crow has been so used to being the top dog that he never bothered to learn how to properly fight. This proves to be his undoing against Anderson. This later turns out to have been invoked; the lack of training was supposed to be an insurance policy in the hope that the previous strongest and most experienced Church Hunter could use skill to close the gap if things went wrong. It wasn't enough.
  • Averted with the Amygdala. Though even more powerful than its Lesser kin, it also actually knew how to use its power, making it a nightmare to deal with.
• Wham Line:
  You didn't think you could just pull a piece of God out of your chest and everything would go back to normal, did you?
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: In Anderson's words, "I'll stop usin' rampant violence ta solve my problems when it stops workin'."
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Part of the reason Micolash manages to avoid getting killed by Anderson is that he points out he can't die - he's tried, but he's no longer the controlling mind of the School of Mensis and just comes back. Between that and his failing Reality Warper powers, he's very happy to share everything he knows and point Anderson in the direction he needs to go.
• Wrong Context Magic: Anderson's God-given Healing Factor and ward creating are complete unknowns in Yharnam, allowing him to take several opponents by surprise. In a more Played for Laughs example, his Inexplicably Awesome sleeves baffle everybody, including the Great Ones.
• Worthy Opponent: Alucard—of all people—acknowledges Anderson as one, even apologizing for all of the pedophile jokes he made before he died.
• Wowing Cthulhu: Ebrietas is impressed by Anderson killing a Lesser Amygdala. She's also baffled by Anderson's sleeves.

---