Hello, readers! I am MissVoltKitty, and this fanfiction is being co-written with two of my classmates. They do not have accounts as of yet, but if they do, I will edit and link to them. Because this is being co-written, There may be changes to names, the title, and of course, I will always be revising the chapters. I hope to update at least every other day, but forgive me if I don't, I have a really bbad memory for someone my age. :$ Anyways, enjoy, and please review! **ALSO, this chapter is not just the explanation or intro. It is important, as you will understand as much as Erika does in chapter 2 if you do not read this.** .:~I don't own VA, Richelle Mead does.~:.


Chapter 1
Ana POV

The tree came alive to me, it's breaking, ancient limbs whispering their secrets to me through my pencil. I gently sketched the elegant, swooping, complex lines onto the white page of my sketchbook, connected with the tree through my pencil. Breaking my concentration, something in the back of my mind was compelling me to look to the fence below the arching plantlife. Crimson eyes, tousled hair, the outlines of a well-muscled, lithe, sprinting body in the moonlight stole my breath and brought me to my feet.
Strigoi.
The gruesome result of a moroi turned evil. Moroi were vampires with special powers - the good ones, which strigoi were bent on destroying. That's why dhampirs were created: The crossbreed of a moroi vampire and a human that served the moroi as their guardians. That's what I am. I'm a guardian in training, a novice, and I plan to protect the moroi from monsters like strigoi.
I pelted from my dorm and down the hallway to Darien's room.
"What, Ana?" She said as she opened up the door, her deep blue eyes identical to mine.
Darien was my step-sister, we share the same mother, her father is dead. Our mother is still alive, but she is a blood-whore, a dhampir woman who lets moroi men to drink from her whenever the like- a lot like a prostitute.
Darien's weary gaze went from sarcastic to alert and listening the second she saw the look on my face.
"Strigoi." One word was all it took for her to grab her purple bench jacket, pull it on her white tank top and streak down the hallway with me to Erika's dorm - sponge bob pajama pants and all.
"Erika! Get out, we have to go- now!" Darien spoke rather loudly through the moroi princess's door. Because it was so early (Late in the nighttime, morning for vampires), Erika was probably still asleep, so I didn't chastise Darien when her trucker-mouth awoke and she screamed into the deep cherry-oak door.
"Wake the hell up, Erika, or I will bust this door down and hold your pixie-sticks hostage until you do!" Did I not mention Erika loved pixie sticks (plastic tubes filled with sugar)? The girl's addicted to the things even though all she really needs to consume is human blood.
Erika threw open the door and scowled at Darien, her gaze traveling to me and questioned me with a growly: "What do you guys want?" I shook my head and grabbed her wrist, pulling her out of the doorway.
"No time to explain. Just come on!"

When we arrived outside the school, I felt everything begin falling apart - Just that feeling of imminent chaos and being watched by malevolent eyes. There were more than one strigoi, and they had surrounded the school. I knew now that that strigoi didn't mean to be seen: it hadn't realized there would be early-risers ready to flee at any unguarded movement.
"Darien, take Erika and get her someplace safe." She nodded, not questioning my order, then took off with our moroi. I stayed behind, then knelt, studying everything around me to try to get a lead on how the strigoi army broke our wards.
's academy has protective wards that block out anything past death from entering school grounds. The strigoi, whom this was targeted at because they are technically dead, cannot touch these wards or anything concealed behind them. How could they manage to cast the spell to break it?
When I knelt, in the moonlight, a substance on the ground caught my eye. I ran a finger over it and felt it warm, liquid and fresh. I looked at it: It had stained my fingers a deep crimson. The smell was over-whelming: filling my nose with sticky fumes. I nearly puked. Somehow, the strigoi had broken the wards with human blood.
I had no longer to ponder on the malicious suject, as I was bowled over and pinned to the ground like butterfly on a specimen board. I looked up and the glowing red eyes of a strigoi met me. Something inside my chest shook and woke.
"Anastasia Sarah Pless-Castille."
A voice, gruff and graty, sounded behind me. I swallowed past the lump in my throat that had formed and tilted my head away so the strigoi pinning me couldn't see me blink away my tears that stung my eyes. My father, the one who'd laughed with me, shared my exact same sense of humour, cradled me when I got scared, soothed me when I cried: Here he was, a strigoi, laughing and taunting me with cold insults.
"Michael."
He laughed, a sound like the tolling of a bell frozen deep in winter.
"You refuse to call me 'Daddy'?"
I forced myself to make my voice strong and unafraid.
"Why should I? You are no longer the man who raised me."
"You know that isn't true, Annie. Join me and all can be forgiven and forgotten."
But I didn't want to forget. The anger and emotions that welled up with the memories were fuel for me to start my engine and kick some serious butt. I no longer answered him: Just stared into the eyes of my captor, challenging him to try something - anything that would cause a break in his seemingly smoothed, steeled armor. Nothing.
Michael rambled on like a super villain in one of those movies that spilled his whole plan to the hero when he was captured. I just tuned him out and continued my stare-down with the strigoi holding me to the blood-stained grass. So when I heard Michael cry out and my opponent swiveled his head in alarm, I took the advantage, brought my knee to his groin, rolled away and assessed the situation. Darien had Michael pinned under her knees while she bent to sock him in the face. My strigoi was recoiled in pain on the ground, so I rushed to assist my half-sister. She saw me and punched him before scooting away and I grabbed him by the shoulders to slam his head to the ground hard. A tad barbaric, but the best we could do with no silver stakes (Strigoi's only weakness, next to sunlight).
Darien and I both looked back towards our academy. Strigoi were swarming in by the thousands and screams could be heard. My lips pulled into a tight grim line. I had to convince myself that there had been no time to warn the school and assemble the guardians. I looked to Darien. "Erika?" She jerked her head to the forest beyond and we dashed off into the night.