Uh… so yeah, this is actually been something about two or so years in the works. The original version is posted on deviantArt, and I'm probably gonna put this edit in. It's been a long time since I've done this, so go easy on me.
I know this doesn't seem like a sequel to Twilight besides the scene, but it'll reveal itself to be as we get further in. Just stick with me, I promise it'll get there.
I guess I should say I don't like Twilight so much… that probably wasn't the right thing to say in a Twilight fanfic. I've always complained about it, so I told myself if I thought I could do it better, I should. So, here we are: a sequel, done my way.
Anyway, Twilight's not mine. It's Meyer's. Enjoy, I guess… and don't flame just because I said I don't like Twilight. I did read all four books in order to get an honest opinion…
Fangology 101: Get them before they get you.
It was a dark night in Forks, Washington, with heavy, overcast skies blocking out any natural moonlight or the glimmer from the stars to reach the ground and offer some comfort of light. It had rained earlier in the day, and there was still a feeling of moisture in the air that could have been a sign of another oncoming storm just beyond their reach. This was pretty much normal for the area: it rained more than it ever had in the last decade or so.
A small business under the dim light of street lamps had just gotten off for the day, and one of its workers, a woman in her early 20's, was beginning the short walk home. The darkness was nothing new to her: she had been raised in Forks all her life. It was just part of the background at this point.
What she was not used to was something beyond even her scope of reasoning. The woman had no clue she was not alone: there was something, watching her from the gloom of the midnight black surroundings. While she knew nothing of it, it knew much of her, watching her movements as closely as a cat watches a mouse before the pounce.
'If only they paid attention, maybe some of them would get by. Then again, I wouldn't have a meal, so what do I care?' the creature thought to itself, licking his lips in anticipation. The motion revealed a pair of abnormally sharp canids, sharper than most and seemed perfect for biting something.
The phantom of the night continued to watch the woman until she was away from any place or person that could hear her cry for help. Slowly he began to follow her with whisper-thin footsteps, lighter than perhaps the air itself. If he did this correctly, his target would not know she was there until…
He paused, feeling the saliva rise in his mouth at the thought of piercing her jugular vein with his canids and draining her lifeblood dry. It wasn't that he was hungry: no, he had filled up two days before. What excited him so was not the meal, but the chase. Stalking his victim, and then the kill, was what enticed him as much as the blood he was after.
The creature could hear it now, the beating of the blood within her veins, a maddening tempo that drove his senses to a super-sensitive frenzy. Now was his time to act. Quickly, even more so than before, he sped up until he was nearly in striking range.
In some stretch of ironic happenings, a stray cat happened to be nearby; at the smell of the coppery blood the creature preferred so, it hissed angrily at the unfamiliar aroma. This drew the woman's attention. Slowly, she turned around, and with dread pounding a war drum within her heart, she prepared for the worst.
Standing beside her was a tall man with the palest skin she had ever seen, whiter than even the light in a halogen bulb. His piercing eyes were a mixed shade of the darkest onyx and the crimson color of drying blood. As terrifying as that was, what was worse was the dried blood covering his shirt, and the sharp teeth he was displaying that were also tinged crimson.
The woman had, at last, come face to face with her vampire stalker.
With a scream, she turned and began to run at a frenetic pace, heart beating as adrenaline poured through her veins in her body's attempt to keep up her flight response. The vampire smirked, fangs brushing against his lip as he did. He then began to pursue, the heavy boots on his feet making no noise even as he splashed through the puddles of water left by the earlier downpour.
The woman ran as fast as she could, but her quickened pace made her blind to the obstacles in front of her. Her foot caught on an abandoned, broken trash can, and she stumbled and fell into the alleyway. When she attempted to get up, the throbbing pain that greeted her alerted the fact that her ankle was sprained; she was trapped
.
'It looks like luck is on my side tonight.' The vampire thought gleefully upon seeing his prey stretched out before him, like a lamb on the sacrificial altar. He smirked, and slowed his pace down to a steady walk. Fear was the best spice for blood, in the end, and he liked his food as flavorful as possible.
As he approached, his target felt her heart beat faster, until she was certain it might just beat out of her chest. She had heard stories about these vampires: they drained their victims dry and left their withered, pierced corpses for the morning trash men to find. Her boss had warned her to be careful before leaving, and yet, here she was, about to be eaten for dinner, like so many other people in the last few years.
That very problem was becoming a danger across the nation. These creatures seemed to do whatever they wanted, and the government seemed powerless to do anything, especially not stopping them. And now, here she was, about to become a victim, only able to watch as the blood-stained man crept closer and closer towards her.
"My dear," the vampire remarked, an accent suggesting somewhere in New England, played on his lips, "it seems that tonight was just not your day to decide to work late, but never fear. It only hurts with the first bite."
His pale lips drew into a smirk as he lowered himself to her level, his mouth to her neck. Just as he saw her eyes fill with fear, he drew out his fangs, beginning to scrape them against her neck. However, he found himself unable to move past that. With widened eyes, he looked back.
"Sorry fang-boy, but this one's off the menu."
The woman, eyes still widened with fear, looked up to see why the vampire had stopped. In surprise, she saw a large silver stake puncturing his chest from where his heart would be. There was a slow drip; there was a sticky black liquid dripping down from the puncture hole. He seemed unable to continue the attack, or even able to move.
Her attacker fell, the stake still in him. However, the look on his face said he was anything but down for the count. He swore loudly at the voice of whoever had thrown the stake and stopped him from dinner. Wanting to see her savior, the woman looked over from where it seemed to have originated.
To her surprise, standing there was a teenage girl who could not have been more than 17 years old. Her mussed, short hair was a reddish-brown color that contrasted with her dark clothing, and the eyes narrowed in a glare were brown with flecks of what seemed to be gold.
"Stay out of this sparrow... I can hunt her if I want! Get this damn stake out of me, or you'll have the Volturi to deal with!" the vampire snarled, trying to grasp at the device himself. This was a mistake: the metal burned his hands, permeating the alleyway's aroma of rotting trash with burned flesh. The girl rolled her eyes at his antics.
The stupid ones always did try to take it out themselves.
"Yeah, yeah, I hear that at every staking. If you were so high up, you wouldn't be stalking around in Forks. And if you want that out, you can do it yourself." She paused, a smirk on her face. "Oh wait, you can't. Just stay there, fanger."
"Damn you!"
"I'll let you know when it happens." The girl walked over to his target in order to check on her condition. "Are you all right?"
"Y-yes..." the woman stuttered, eyes still on the vampire, unable to move, "b-but... how did you know I was here? Or that he was following me?"
The teen let out a harsh bark of laughter, so at odds with her appearance, before answering, "Lady, it's my job to know." She paused, unable to resist one more barb at the vampire. "Besides, this one pretty much sucked at hiding himself, I saw him a mile away."
"Oh… I see." the older female tried to get up, but winced. She had forgotten her ankle was sprained in the height of the chase. Seeing her reaction, the hunter sighed and shook her head. She had expected this.
"Hang on; I'm going to try to fix your ankle up. I'm not gonna lie, this is probably gonna hurt a little bit."
Reaching into the pocket of her jacket, the girl drew out clean bandages, their paleness at odds with their dark surroundings. Checking around her surroundings, she saw a broken broom handle, and snapped it in half to make it small enough. Returning to the woman's side, she used it to make a quick splint, which she bound to the flesh with the bandages. Easily, she tugged t he woman up in order to make sure she was able to walk.
"Never walk alone without something silver again, you hear? The church down the road has something that'll help you, go to them in the morning." The girl chided as she watched the once-target begin to walk away.'
"I-I will… thank you." With that, the woman was gone, leaving the hunter to turn her attention back to her target. The blank look on her face was replaced with a smirk. It was about time for her favorite part of the job.
"I'm going to enjoy this... it's so therapeutic, you know." She remarked, cracking her knuckles. "Trust me, fanger, this is going to hurt."
A few minute later, the girl left the alleyway alone. Behind her, the sound of harsh screams of agony and the sight of rising plumes of smoke alerted as to why no one was following her. There was a satisfied smirk on her gunk-flecked face: she had just bagged another one.
'Well, that gives me an even 16.' she thought, smirking to herself as she walked eastward. Her hands were in her pockets: she was hiding her stained silver stake and gunk-covered hands. 'Like to see Johnny-boy or the runt pull that.'
She continued walking eastward, the direction that would take her back to town, but then took a sudden left into an old-looking building. She knocked three times, and waited for what seemed like an eternity.
'Somebody better be there… or else I'm gonna be stuck here all night.' She griped to herself, staring back at the door. The idea of being out there until the morning was as unpleasant to her as any of the modern vampires: nobody liked it
"What's the password?" at last, a voice drawled from behind the door, sounding obviously bored at the task. The girl rolled her brown eyes, and gave the door a blank look, wondering if she could just kick it in instead of answering. Then she wrote it off as a bad idea.
She was bad at fixing the door, after all. So, sighing, she shook her head and glared at the door once more before answering.
"The descent into hell is paved with the bodies of the damned. Now let me in, John, before I stake you like a fanger."
"Correct as always, dear Mina. However, the fact you were late kind of makes me want to leave you out there until the next watch gets here." the voice answered. However, the sound of a few locks unhitching and door opening meant he had not gone through with his plan.
Sitting there on the stool of door-guard was the boy identified as John. A smaller teen, his blonde hair was sticking up in the back where it had escaped his poor attempt at a ponytail; and the gray eyes staring blankly at Mina told he was none too pleased.
Well, that, or that he couldn't see her. It looked like he had 'forgotten' to put his glasses on again.
"Hello to you too, sunshine." his partner remarked, walking past him, rolling her eyes. "Wear your damn glasses; you're blind as a bat without them."
"I don't want to, they give me a headache." The blonde folded his arms over his chest, as if that settled the argument. He really did need them, but he hated having to keep adjusting them; they were forever slipping down his nose.
"I don't care, you missing kills because you can't see the fanger gives ME one." Mina retorted, glaring back at her partner. Whenever he missed, she had to go bat cleanup, which was always a messy and unwanted job, usually with more dead victims than anyone liked.
Thus, his stool duty; his ears were better than his eyes any day. He never wore his glasses, and that was why he always missed the kill. She often had to pull cleanup for his poor aim, and that usually meant more dead victims.
The two continued to glare at each other for a few seconds, neither one backing down. However, a green and black blur suddenly launched out of nowhere, its path straight for Mina. Having had no time to prepare, she was unable to brace for the impact, and found herself suddenly on the floor.
"MINA! How come you didn't take either of us! That sucker could've gotten you, and then I would've had to break in a new partner!" The culprit, a preteen girl, stared down at her target with large, golden eyes.
"Lucy, you are a sucker, remember? And it was a simple fanger, I could handle it. Now get off me before John starts enjoying it." Mina remarked, unable to get up from the vampire's weight being pressed onto her stomach. For a little thing, she certainly wasn't a light-weight.
The vampire in question, seeing that her target would behave now, climbed off the older teen and brushed her green sweatshirt off. It was obvious she had been on cleaning duty, and had probably snuck out without permission in order to have come see them.
That was about as normal as John not wearing his glasses… some team they were.
"It's always a simple fanger with you Mina... and I was not enjoying that. I don't enjoy watching necrophilia, especially when the other party is pedophile-bait. Whatever you do in your private life is your choice, though." The blonde in question remarked boredly, leaning against his stool in hopes his shift was over soon.
"Sure you don't, you pervert." growled the taller teen, giving him one of her darkest glares in order to set him straight. However, his glasses were off in the end, and he did not get the full effect of the stare. Instead, he shrugged it off and gave her a blank stare before going back to the stool.
"He's just grumpy 'cause he got stuck on guard-duty… cause you know, he sucks and all." The vampire joked cheerfully, easily tugging her partner up from the floor with her undead strength. Mina snickered at the remark, while her male partner's cheeks heated with what looked to be one of his famous furious blushes.
"I am just as capable at bagging fangers as she is!" he barked, face making it to scarlet by now, " and need I remind you, the only one out of us who sucks is you, Lucy!"
The two females groaned at the extremely bad joke. Vampire sucking jokes were as bad as the ones about the vampire and the werewolf who went into a bar…
"Wow… how long did you sit there and think that one up?" questioned the human female as she gave him a blank, all-knowing look. He blushed even redder, and turned back to his post while the vampire chuckled slightly at his reaction.
"I'm guessing it's all he's been doing since he sat on the stool, no one's come back yet. I didn't smell them, at least, so maybe only the luckless ones returned." Lucy placed her arms behind her head and turned on her heel, "I gotta finish cleaning up the library, later Mina, Johnny."
With that, the vampire was gone, off to her cleaning duty, leaving the two humans of the group alone. Since the boy didn't seem to want to talk yet, more focused in stroking his bruised ego, the girl decided to go clean off her equipment.
"See you later, hopefully your head shrinks a little." she remarked, turning around as well and walking away, leaving John alone to watch the door. He sighed, and glared at the door, mentally cursing his bad luck.
'One: stuck with the poster child for an attitude problem and the girl who runs on sugar and animal blood. Two: blessed with myopia… and three: stuck guarding this door. Today's just full of fun…' he drawled in his head, slumping into a more comfortable position to keep guard on the entrance. He was going to be stuck there for a while.
At another side of the building, Mina was currently scrubbing dried vampire liquid, for lack of a better term, off her stake. She growled under her breath due to it being caked on, and therefore, harder to get off. With a muffled swear, she dropped it into the sink in order to let it soak.
'Damn fanger and it's disgusting blood or whatever the hell it is… why does it have to be so damn annoying to get off!' she slumped against the wall, settling in for the wait. It was probably going to take a while at this point.
The brunette could almost hear the high-pitched Southern drawl of her vampire partner lecturing her about how it was best to get the liquid off right away. Mina hated it, especially considering her 'authority' was stuck in the mindset of a 12 year old, but the girl was right.
Looking around the equipment room, she could see dried vampire liquid as the main decorator in the room: it was spattered on the walls, dripped on the floor from weapons, and even pooled in large stains from the undead trying to launch an attack on the hideout. As eerie and morbid as it was, the girl was used to it.
'Heh, it sticks to everything, doesn't it…' she joked caustically in her head, trying to ignore the gag reflex in her head. One of those large puddles was by her hand: she had been the one to find the vampire who had gotten in. She could still hear its screams for mercy as she ripped it limb from limb.
Trying to banish the thought from her head, Mina checked on her stake in the sink. With a sigh of relief, she saw the last of the black liquid had finally come off. Taking it out, she dried it off and returned it to its previous shine. It was ready to be shoved through another vampire some other night.
Carefully, she hung it up on the wall in the area where her team kept their gear, marked by the tiny sign scrawled with the words "Squad 3." Mina noted with a wry grin that her younger partner had gotten to it, crossing it out and writing "BS Squad. You touch, I bite you." With the stakes of her partners, she saw their own personal weapons: John's silver-tipped spear was as pristine as usually, and the silver of Lucy's strange chakram was clean as well.
'Bet they came in here earlier to clean them up." She noted, seeing how clean the weapons were. "John's practically got OCD when it comes to his staff, and Lucy was probably just bored from cleaning and wanted to come down here." Besides the chakram, she placed a wrapped up package: she hadn't needed it, so it had stayed wrapped. She never needed it…
With her cleaning task complete, Mina began to exit the room, thoughts on sleep and her bed a few floors above in the room everyone used when it was time to sleep for a few hours. However, she would never reach it: at the entrance to the storage room stood her two partners, the blonde with a red piece of paper clenched in his hand.
"Damn it, what did we do this time?" began the living female, groaning slightly at the paper. From the look on John's now extremely pale face, the complete opposite of the color of the paper in his outstretched hand, their team had just received a summons from their boss. They were in trouble… again.
"Yep, we got called in… come on, time to face the head guy to get our ears yelled off. Boy, I love that guy.'" the vampire remarked sarcastically, a grin still on her face as she led the team out of the room, her living partners behind her. As she walked, she hummed something under her breath, something about being off to see the Wizard.
"Ok… whatever vitamins you're putting in her blood… cut the dosage." John commented, shaking his head as he caught what the girl was singing under her breath. His partner nodded, following behind him as they tried to catch up with the undead preteen. While the musical number had been out of place, the vampire was right: they were off to see the Wizard, or rather, their boss.
And most likely, he wasn't going to be in a good mood. He never was, especially with their team involved. They could already feel their ears becoming sore from the chewing out they were about to receive.
End Chapter One