"Ron, what are you doing?"
Kim let out a sigh as she stepped into the darkened basement. Ron Stoppable, her best friend since childhood had always been prone to questionably strange ideas. So much so that she had lost count of the number of conversations that had begun with that line. Slowly, she took one careful step after another down the basement stairs, as she squinted her eyes and tried to get use to the darkness of Ron's basement.
"Ron…" Kim called out again. "Your mom said that you moved all your things down to the basement and that you would be sleeping here. I know your mom doesn't normally question you when you do strange things, and you'd have thought that I'd be used to it by now, but seriously Ron? Honestly, this time I really have to ask: what are you doing down here? And where is that light switch?"
Fumbling around in the dark, Kim's fingers finally touched the light switch and flicked the basement light on. The entire basement was flooded with a pale yellow light.
"No!" Ron hissed from the corner. "Turn the light off!"
Kim put her hands on her hips, a deadpan expression on her face. "Just what are you doing skulking around in the dark like a super villain?"
Ron stepped forward from his corner, using a long black cloak to cover his face. "I'm not a super-villain," Ron spoke in a low raspy voice.
"Really, now," Kim tilted her head and gave him the look. "And why are you wearing that dusty old bedsheet?"
"I…" Ron started sheepishly, before he dropped the cloak, rather, bedsheet, to his side and walked out of the shadows to face Kim. "It's just my thing," Ron added with a shrug.
The first thing Kim noticed was the hair. Unlike his last pompadour, this look was modern and stylish. His infamous cowlick had been tamed and his hair swept forward and slightly to the right, hanging slightly into his eyes, before dropping down to cover his right ear and cheek. He was dressed completely in black, tight fitting black t-shirt, with long black jeans. Glancing back up to his face, she assessed him entirely. The look complimented the body he tended to keep hidden.
"Your thing?" Kim raised a curious eyebrow after her brief perusal of Ron's new look, the rest of her expression lying somewhere between approval and disproval. "What do you mean?" As her gaze again swept down and back up his body, her eyes narrowed sharply as she came to his face. Even as Ron opened his mouth to answer her prior questions, Kim's threw another, far more shocked question out at him, "Ron… Are you… Wearing fangs?"
"Uh…" Ron reached into his mouth and pulled out a pair of fake plastic fangs. "Huh, what do you know? How'd that get there?"
"Seriously Ron, you're on a whole new level of weird here. Halloween was more than a month ago, and you're playing dress-up as a vampire in your basement?"
"I'm not playing dress-up…" Ron mumbled. "It's just who I am."
"And just who are you exactly?" Kim asked bluntly while crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"I am that which has no soul," Ron announced as he raised his cloak with both hands. "I am that which stalks the night, and feasts on the living…"
"Yes, yes, you got the whole vampire persona down pretty well," Kim remarked with an eye-roll and a desert dry tone, "So do you mind telling me why you're into this whole vampire thing?"
"I am not into this whole vampire thing!" Ron shot back. "You won't understand my pain, my suffering. Cursed to walk the earth only at night, unable to feel the gentle caress of the sun's rays on my face. I am alone… All by my lonesome self…"
"Okay…" Kim was starting to sound a bit worried. "You sound weird… Well… Weirder than normal…"
"Just leave me, Kim… Leave me to my brooding…"
"Ron…"
"Darkness is my only friend…"
"Ron!"
"I'm the world's most dangerous predator. Everything about me invites you in. My face, my voice, even my smell. As if I need any of that. As if you could outrun me. As if you could fight me off. I'm designed to kill…"
"Whu-…" Kim looked at him in puzzlement, with her jaw hung open wide. "What are you talking about?" Then, as if a baseball right between the eyes, the familiarity of that line struck her. She knew she had heard it somewhere before, and the realization made her wince. "Oh, come on, Ron!" Kim raised her voice in exasperation. "Does this have something to do with that Twilight movie premier? Have you been reading those trashy vampire novels by Stephanie Meyer again?"
"They're not trashy!" Ron shot back defensively. "And Kim, the movie is 'New Moon', the sequel to 'Twilight'!"
"So what?" Kim scoffed as she walked over to the shelf in the basement and pulled out a tattered copy of Twilight and quickly flipped to a dog-eared page. Scanning through the page, she scoffed and slammed the book shut. "Let me get this straight, Ron… You've been reading the Twilight series and suddenly you want to be a vampire?"
"Hey! I'll have you know that being a vampire is now in vogue," Ron replied, sounding hurt.
"Sure, let me guess, it's in fashion to want to live in your parents' basement, skulk around in the dark and act so depressingly… Emo…" Kim shot back with a smirk.
"Vampires aren't emo… They're just misunderstood…"
"And how is anyone suppose to understand them if all they do is spend their time in their parents' basement?" Kim remarked.
"They… Umm…"
"Seriously, Ron…" Kim walked up to the basement windows and tore away the dark curtains covering the light. "Why on earth would you want to be a vampire anyway?"
Ron cringed as the sunlight touched his skin. Shuffling his feet, Ron muttered something incoherent.
"Excuse me? I don't have super hearing like you vampires, you know."
"Girls…"
"You want to be a vampire so that you can pick up girls?" Kim exclaimed incredulously.
"Girls dig vampires," Ron replied with a shrug. "What can I say?"
"You have got to be kidding me, why on earth would a girl fall for a vampire?"
"Because they're cool, dark and mysterious!" Ron replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, slapping his forehead for emphasis. "C'mon… Tall, dark, handsome stranger? That's what vampires are all about!"
"Oh really…" Kim rolled her eyes again. "I don't think I could date a guy whose idea of a dinner date is chowing down on a girl's neck."
"But these vampires are vegetarians!" Ron grabbed his copy of Twilight and stabbed his finger on the cover. "They choose not to drink blood!"
"Vegetarian vampires?" Kim raised an eyebrow. "Do they drive hybrids too?"
"What? No, Edward drives a…" Ron stopped short for a moment. "Hey, Kim, are you mocking me…"
Kim barely stifled a giggle. "Sorry, Ron, I just couldn't help it. That was just too easy…"
"I'll let you know that peer mockery is the number one cause of super-villainy…" Ron declared with a sniff, crossing his arms.
"Okay, Ron, I'm sorry," Kim apologized. "But c'mon, for one, vampires aren't real..." Kim paused for a moment as she recalled many of the stranger things they had witnessed in over two years of world saving, before continuing in a slightly contrite tone, "As far as we know, anyway… Besides, even if they are real, they definitely wouldn't be vegetarians. Twilight is just an embodiment of the trope 'Our Vampires Are Different'."
"Wha-…?" Ron said with wide eyes, "'Our vampires are different', Kim?"
"You know, just it's a trope, just like phlebotinum or unobtanium…" At Ron's continued, obvious confusion, Kim sighed, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, "Magic pixie dust to make the plot go?" Kim pressed on in a questioning manner.
"Oh, y'mean like warp drives and sonic screwdrivers and stuff." Ron concluded, drawing a slight smile to Kim's features.
"Yes, exactly, like warp drives and sonic screwdrivers and stuff. An authorial tool to make the plot go. Otherwise, if vampires really needed to drink blood every other day, then it'll completely demonize them, which would make it impossible to spin a romantic tale about them."
"What about 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'?" Ron asked with a smile, his tone indicating he thought this line of thought was a sure way around Kim's continued reluctance to his newfound fandom.
"Ron, that was a dark tale of unrequited love and ended up with Dracula dying? And he was the bad guy on top of it?" Kim answered in an annoyed fashion. "Look, Ron, the dark and romantic aspects of 'normal' vampires draws people in, but it makes it very difficult for the audience to accept the fact that the hero of the story has to kill people every fortnight to survive. That would be just downright villainy no matter how you look at it."
"But it doesn't change the fact that girls are hot for the vampires!" Ron almost screeched. "Look at the weekend box office collections for Twilight: New Moon! That's like the biggest thing ever, since… Since… Titanic…"
"You know the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage…"
"I was meaning the movie!"
"I know… But Twilight isn't even a good movie! The sequel borders on soft porn, with the way Robert Pattinson strutted onscreen without his shirt for half the movie," Kim rolled her eyes. "If I wanted to stare at a naked guy's body that way, I'd join Bonnie in peeping into the guy's locker room."
"See? You even admit it, that's exactly what girls want!"
"By girls, I hope you mean screaming hysterical die-hard tweens who are just on the verge of puberty, right?" Kim asked sarcastically. "They want Robert Pattinson! Not some guy who crawls around in a dark basement pretending to be a vampire. I'm sorry, Ron, but it just doesn't work that way."
"But he sparkles! Bishie sparkles!"
"Computer-generated effects."
"He kicks ass so easily!"
"Stunt man."
"Bella would do anything for him!"
"She's an actress! She gets paid to act!"
"Millions of fan girls!"
"Who are pre-teen, and probably would still be jailbait after you graduate from college."
Ron had a crestfallen look on his face. "You mean… I've been sleeping in that for the past couple of nights for nothing?" He pointed at a box in the corner.
Kim's jaw dropped again. "You were sleeping in a coffin?"
Ron coughed nervously. "Err… Made from a refrigerator box."
Kim almost burst out in laughter, the nearly defeated look on Ron's face the only thing keeping her from roaring her amusement. Wiping the tears out of her eyes with a dry, barely restrained chuckle as she could manage, she patted Ron on the back. "Ron, you just crack me up…"
"Uh huh… You're welcome… I guess…"
"Anyway, Ron, let me make it up to you," Kim tried to control her laughter. "Let's go for pizza, okay? With extra cheese and garlic… Unless you still want to be a vampire, of course."
"Now, Kim, you're speaking my language…" Ron's mood picked up considerably. "Man, those vampires don't know what they're missing."
"Don't forget your Social Studies homework," Kim cautioned as she began walking up the stairs to the Stoppable's living room, "Big test in Recent U.S. History tomorrow…"
"Aw, man!" Ron protested, before taking a look around the basement. With a sigh, he concluded under his breath as Kim left the basement. As he watched her go, a small sinister smile curled on his lips. "I'm sorry, but you're wrong, Kim… If vampires can be vegetarian, then they can definitely eat garlic too…" He quickly scooped up his plastic fake fangs on the floor and stuffed it into his pockets before hurrying after his best friend.
"You'll come around, Kim… I'll make sure of it… One way or another."
Author's note
Yes, I hate Twilight. Trust me, I find the writings on this site a lot better than the junk she writes.
And kgs-wy has more Twilight-bashing ideas, but I had to keep him from attacking all those tween-fans like a rabid werewolf by deciding to end it here. And no, he doesn't belong to Team Jacob either.