Remember when I mentioned there being an alternate ending to this fic? Right, well, the "first ending" officially starts in this chapter. Yes, they're both multiple chapters. I could understand if you wouldn't want to read both, so if it pleases you, you could always just consider these next few chapters the last ones. Or maybe the other ending is more up your alley.

So to help you choose your conclusion based on your personal tastes, I'd like to remind you that the ending starting now is the more optimistic one that possibly sacrifices total closure. The one that will be posted after this one will be quite the melancholy one but I think it offers more closure.

I'll let you know when this ending is done and the other will be posted afterwards. To help you distinguish the endings from each other, the endings (as sets) themselves will have different names, but the individual chapters within will be called parts.

I'mprobably confusing the hell out of you. When the time comes for the second ending, don't worry, I'll try to clarify more.

Dead On Arrival: Part One

"Do you want to make the first move or should I?" Amy asked the others, ignoring the looks of pure shock. "It feels so much like chess! 'White or black?' Oh, what fun!"

The other four just stare at either her or the ashes of the Dark Priest, mostly shock with a few other emotions blended in.

"Oh, come on. Someone has to do something! I do not want to get bored. You wouldn't like me when I'm bored."

"If you don't mind my asking…" Pete began, rising and subtly stepping in front of his precious cure, began. "Why did you do that?"

She stared with a blank, white face and icy blue eyes. "Do I need a reason?

"YES!" He ran towards her.

"WAIT, what's that?" she asked, creating a little shield of her black energy just where his head was arriving. His skull met it with a CLONK (he didn't know how he expected the energy to feel, but cold, slick and very hard probably wasn't it). As he crouched and clutched his cranium with a groan as she walked diagonally to him and Patrick, Joe, and Andy. She tilted her head to the side and put her hands on her fitted black lace-covered hips and watched as a sleek, black van pulled up.

The doors of the van slid open and the four men inside stepped out, one by one.

"OH no!" Patrick blurted.

"What are the odds of this?" Jared scanned the four vigilantes with his eyes, their icy blue color similar to Amy's.

"Oh! Let me figure this one out!" Tomo whipped out a little notepad, pen and calculator. "I haven't had a good one in five weeks, three days."

Pete bit his thumbnail and resisted the urge to curl up into the fetal position and shout his head off, and then run with the cure into the van and drive off until he was five hundred miles away and shout some more. Because this was so not going according to plan. But wait, what did he expect anyway? I expected, tonight, to just take the cure and awaken in the morning as a fresh mortal. If he pondered it, he had to ask himself… was that realistic? He always had the worst luck. Oh SHIT. What am I thinking? What was I ever thinking?! When does this kind of good thing happen to me anyway? That's right. It doesn't. Dammit, did I seriously expect this to go off without a hitch? What's wrong with me?

"Are you having an episode or are you going to do something?" Tim asked them.

Andy looked at the others. Seeing no responses, he took out his two rapiers, which he had obviously kept on his person for a situation like this (or maybe Patrick had advised him to do so). "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm doing something." This was, of course, a decent plan because Andy knew fully well that the others would not let him launch himself alone into a fight with five other vampires.

"Wait… do you want to kill them?" Amy asked Jared.

"We most certainly do." He kept his face emotionless. He didn't want her to pick up on what he was thinking because he was unable to do so to her right now. And he most certainly didn't want her to find out that they were, in fact, only supposed to capture Pete and the others, and bring them back alive.

"You can't do that. I'm doing that."

Shannon faced her. "You are not killing them. We are killing them. We're being paid to do so; it's our job."

"I don't give a tea cake if that's your job!"

Tim turned to Tomo. "'Tea cake'?"

"Tea cake. I don't like tea cakes." She explained, putting her hands on her hips again. "It may be your job, but I'm out for revenge, sort of, so… um… I'm going to kill them and that's final!" Now she stomped her foot.

"Would you like us to give you a cut of our pay?" Jared tried negotiating.

"Have you forgotten about us?" Joe asked.

"Shut up a minute!" Amy ordered him. "I don't want money! I have money! I want to kill Peter! Look, I'll just settle for Peter. You can have the others."

"My name's not Peter!" Pete stepped closer to their face-off.

"Pete's the one we really need!" Jared ran a hand through his ink black hair. It was unnaturally shiny. He must have been quite the deep conditioner. "I'll make a deal with you."

"I DON'T WANT A DEAL!" Unlike her brother, who would frown at the notion of an outburst, Amy didn't mind resorting to screaming to get her way. This was probably due to the fact that because of her clout in the vampire world, she had gotten used to getting things without negotiating or asking more than once.

"How about we kill them for you, and you just sit back and watch? You don't have to get your hands dirty, and you can even tell us how you want it to be done."

Now she narrowed her eyes in thought. This was actually considerable. Getting her hands dirty was half the fun, but oh, how she loved people doing work for her! "Fine."

"Thanks. We'll put on a show." Jared turned to Pete. "Trust me, it's nothing personal. You want to make the first move?"

"Screw you!"

"I think it's about time to take this off the boil now," Andy said, taking the pot off the fire and placing it carefully on a small, flat boulder that the Dark Priest may have been using as a seat.

"Very well then." Jared tossed his katana into the air in a high, lazy arc that looked to Pete like it was passing through the moon as it headed toward him. Pete jumped back a few feet, avoiding the spot where the sword would land, and looked down to see Jared approaching fast and low in a sprint. Jared jumped, caught the sword in midair just before it hit the ground, and sliced at Pete's neck level. Pete ducked under the wide slash, and threw his elbow forward, bouncing Jared backward thru the air. Jared did most of a flip, landing on his toes and his empty hand, and pounced back forward. Pete didn't expect him to recover so fast, and could only dodge a few vertical sword slashes.

Finally, Jared stabbed the sword at Pete's chest, and Pete dodged around to Jared's side. He kicked the sword from Jared's hand, and slammed his fist into Jared's jaw, causing it to give a loud crack and knocking him back. Pete reared back for another strong right, but Jared opened his mouth wide (causing a few drops of blood to pour out and exposing four pearly white fangs) and shrieked. The sound was like nothing Pete had ever heard before; it was like the blackboard had been shattered and the fingernails were digging holes in his brain so the pieces could be buried there. Pete shuddered in place and flopped to the ground like a prize trout, right down to the gasping for breath and the wet face (he had broken out in a cold sweat).

"What the hell was that?" Patrick asked. He hadn't taken it head on like Pete had, but definitely noticed it (kind of hard not to).

"Do you like it?" Jared asked.

"No, why the hell would I like-"

"It's my own special ability. It's a sonic scream thing. It took a total of eighteen hours, fifteen minutes, and nine seconds to master."

Patrick just stared at him.

"It's a very good technique."

"Aaaahhh…" Pete was on his knees with his hands over his ears.

"Help, help, help, help…" Andy shouted as he hopped along one leg. Through some fluke he ended up with his left foot in a tangle, caught above his two rapiers, which were being held above his head by Tomo. Tomo was trying to push him forward and off his feet (foot), leaving Andy constantly hopping backwards.

Patrick reached in his pocket for a stake, but just as he pulled it back, Shannon came up from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. The crossbow dropped to the ground. "Oh CRAP! Bad day!" Patrick didn't bother hiding his emotions, considering that it was already painfully obvious that they didn't come that day prepared for the worst case scenario.

But that exact moment was not even the worst case scenario.

A distant roar of motorcycles, lost on the ears that were too busy fighting, was now close enough that even Pete (with his now slightly damaged ears) could hear it. "W-what's that?" He shakily pulled himself to his feet, hands on his throbbing head. "That can't possibly be what I-…"

Pete trailed off when the worst case scenario, followed closely by Mikey and Gerard, pulled up on his chopper. "What… the hell is this?"

Jared just stared at him. For once, he did not factor this into the equation.

Joe and Tim stood off to the side, both standing still in shock, mouths agape. Joe was pulling Tim's hair and Tim was pulling Joe's ear. Joe's eyes jumped from Sorel, to Gerard, to Mikey, to Sorel. "Uh, when did that get there?"

Jared hid his shock. "I was not expecting you this soon, sir."

Sorel snorted. "Obviously not! Look at this! You haven't done a freaking thing besides play kiddy games!"

"These are hardly kiddy games!" Pete said. "My equilibrium hurts."

Amy jumped up from where she was sitting about twenty away, cross-legged on the dusty ground. "Hey! What are you doing here? This is my show." She paused to brush off her skirt. "You weren't invited."

"What am I doing here?" Sorel asked her in disbelief of both her attitude and presence in the first place.

"Your show?" Gerard added.

"If this is anyone's show, it's mine! I'm paying for it!" Sorel gestured to the bounty hunters. "Those idiots are my hired help, and they're doing a shitty job!"

"But they said they were going to kill Peter and those other annoying guys for me!"

"My name's not Peter!"

"My arms hurt!" Patrick complained.

"My scalp hurts!" Tim said.

"My ear hurts!" Joe said.

"My feelings hurt!" Amy stomped her boot. She faced Jared. "You lied to me? You little cockroach!"

"You planned to kill them after all?!" Sorel did the same and stepped closer to Jared. "Cockroach doesn't begin to describe you!"

"We had a deal!" Amy continued.

"We had one first!" Sorel shouted.

"One customer at a time, please…" Jared looked at them blankly.

"I'm not your customer!" Amy argued.

"But I still am!!" Sorel had had enough. Too angry to use his telekinetic powers, he stomped over to his motorcycle and took out his sword. Without another word, he angrily tossed it at Shannon.

Shannon wasn't quick enough to even turn his body around. The sword went through the side of his chest with a sound that was a sickening combination of the shunk of the piercing and the crunch of the sword going through ribs.

"Uh…" Patrick slipped away from Shannon's now limp arms. He turned around and stared at his now dying opponent.

Shannon's arms evaporated. "Slim to none… guess that was good enough…" On that last note, his upper body had faded away, and soon there was nothing.

Gerard was the first to react. He ran up to Sorel's side. "Why did you do that?! I'm sorry, sir, but what the hell was the reason for that?!"

"To hurry them up…" Sorel trailed off, as if he realized there was something wrong here with his own logic, just as his words left his mouth.

"HOW IS THAT GOING TO HURRY THEM UP?!"

"I've tried this method before! It's not like it's the first time! In fact, I've done it twice before today!"
Jared was silent as he swallowed.

"Did it work the other two times?" Gerard demanded.

Pete shrugged at Patrick.

Sorel cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his head. "Well, they didn't, um, work per se…"

"WHY DID YOU THINK IT WOULD WORK NOW?!"

"Practice makes perfect!" Sorel weakly defended himself. "Screw it, I need beer. I haven't had a drink since we burned Purity to the ground."

Gerard let out a strangled cry of frustration.

Mikey had a little Gameboy that he was playing with the entire time this conversation went on. "Gerard killed what now? Gimme a sec, guys, I've almost beaten the Elite Four."

Tim stepped away from Joe and now looked to Jared for a cue of what to do next. He caught Tomo's eye, who then did the same.

Jared stood with his head bowed, his glossy dark locks shielding his face. "That was my brother."

Gerard swallowed nervously.

Now Mikey lowered his video game and looked from Jared to Sorel.

Sorel nodded. "It was also his paycheck. You're not getting his pay even if you do what you were supposed to. Your pay has been docked greatly even if you disregard this. I suggest you get to work."

Jared looked up at Sorel. Tears were glistening in his eyes. Mikey looked away out of embarrassment for Jared, who finally spoke. "Our next course of action will be mutiny."

Sorel gave a little laugh and look of amusement and disbelief. "Excuse me?"

"We will now be attacking you," Tomo clarified. "Count down-"

"You mean T-minus?" Mikey asked, smirking.

Sorel waved his hand to silence Mikey and hissed to him, "No more clever dialogue!"

"-Three seconds."

Pete sneered at the situation at hand, unsure of what primary emotion he felt about it.

Patrick crossed his arms and looked at the ground, looking somewhat sad for Jared.

Joe rubbed his ear and looked at Andy.

Andy looked at Joe and cleared his throat.

Sorel laughed hysterically.

Mikey looked nervous as he put his Gameboy away.

Gerard cracked his knuckles and rolled his eyes with a here-we-go-again look on his face.

Just as Jared, Tomo, and Tim all took their first step toward Sorel in perfect time, Amy turned to Pete, Patrick, Joe and Andy. "Hellooo!"