Oh Snap.: TWILIGHT--The beginning
by slayerfest
Blaise stumbles and catches her bearings. Three people standing in front of her immediately catch her attention. She knows them all. Queui turns and smiles at her briefly before joining the other two in intense concentration. Three figures in formal clothing and with screwed-up faces immediately engage the three of them in combat. All the good-fighters hold their own very effectively, each with a different combat method. Richelle whirls her head around and shouts, “We’ve got another,” before delivering a sharp kick to the face of her opponent.
Blaise steps further aside, unable to do anything but watch. The fourth figure runs into the battlefield with a vindictive smile on his face. Blaise watches as Eric gets pinned against the wall, and the spare evil one goes for the weakest link in a hurry.
She steps into action. She finds herself tackling the final demon and rolling out of the dive. Without thinking about a single thing she’s doing, she shoves the creature off her and goes to rescue Eric, still struggling. In a few minutes, all four of them are unconscious. Shady comes in and nods his approval at Blaise, looking more battered than usual from taking a beating from four figures at once.
“There’s half a dozen more coming. You’d best run.”
Eric breathes heavily but nods at Shady. “Whatever you say, Big Cheese.” He and Richelle turn and begin to jog down the hall. Blaise stays for a second and is very taken aback to see Shady fighting off six of the things at once with little to no effort but with speed and precision she’d never imagine he’d be capable of.
Queui was pulling on her arm. “We have to go. No time to watch.”
They turn and jog down the hall, constantly aware of their surroundings.
“How long have you been fighting and why haven’t I known about it?”
“Because I couldn’t tell you. Velvet’s here too; Eugene, obviously Eric and Richelle.”
“Zero?”
Queui’s face falls. “Wrong side. Got taken a few months back. Hence my not wishing to be in his vicinity anymore.”
Hesitation. “Any others I should know about?”
Velvet rounds the corner, closely followed by a bleeding Eugene. “He’s been connected with. I’m taking him to Shady.”
“Don’t. He’s fighting six,” Eric explains. He’s pulling a spare tie out of his pocket and tying it around his head, looking completely sincere about it.
“Shit.”
“Does he always do that?” Blaise asks Queui.
She nods. “Usually before we start. I guess he didn’t have time this time.”
“More coming?” Eric asks.
“A couple. But the wild west needs some tending to; they’re lying there soaking in the sun.”
“I thought they couldn’t be in the sun,” Blaise says.
Velvet smiles. “It’s just excessive fluorescent lighting.” A noise from the bottom of the staircase. “We’ve got to go. Take care.”
“I can take the wild west,” Blaise decides after a short spell.
“Are you sure?” Richelle asks.
“Yes. I just am.”
“Just run through. You’re the one, Shady was right. Just pass through and they’ll all follow you. You know what to do,” Eric says. Slight growling from below.
Blaise sighs, and pushes her way through a door to the outdoors. She runs as quickly as possible through a hallway with multiple saloons—not buildings, just saloons full of toxic alcohol and violent games of pool—with a dozen creatures en tow. She laughs. She can run faster than them, and they hate it. She crashes her way through a window and ends up in the basement of the establishment.
Turning, she delivers a blow to each as they come, and shortly there are twelve unconscious forms in a pile. She stands over them, admiring her work, and picking out faces she used to know; Matt, Kathleen, Nadine, a few others, all full of darkness, all lacking faces but still decipherable from anyone else.
Two noises: one from above, and one from behind. Blaise looks up and gets taken from behind. Cramped space. Door closes. A gent with a tie around his head holds a finger to his lips and she doesn’t say a word. Time passes. Innocent scratching at the door. Finally a growl, and all noise stops.
“That’s Zero. I’m told you knew him,” Eric begins softly.
“That was Zero? Are you kidding?”
“Yes, it’s all a big joke. Surprise, you’re asleep.”
“No need to get grumpy.”
“Perfect need to get grumpy. What do you know about Shady and The Peej?”
“Little. Shady’s some sort of superhero and The Peej is some sort of anti-hero.”
“Shady’s the guardian of the superhero. The superhero’s you, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
“But The Peej… pretty awesome in real life. Not so much here. We had a hero before. Shady wasn’t anything more than one of us, because The Peej was the hero’s guardian. But he got taken. And then he took her, a couple nights ago. But she was a hero; she couldn’t take the impurity, and she died instead of becoming a vampire. Shady was updated to guardian.”
“What about The Peej?”
“He became an anti-hero, just as you said. He’s the guardian of the vampires, now. And he’s powerful. If you see him, either bow down or pretend to be dead, or he’ll strike you down. It’s not cool. I’ve seen it done too many times.”
“So what’s Zero? He’s different from the rest.”
“He’s the next Peej. The Peej can be defeated only by a hero. The last hero defeated the shadowman—that’s what we call an anti-hero for the sake of non-redundancy—but in that battle the shadowman chose The Peej as the next of kin. Should The Peej get dusted, Zero would become the next shadowman. For now, Zero is just feral. He’ll talk only to tell you exactly what he’ll do to you before you’re turned.”
“Lovely.”
Eric listens for a second, then opens the door to the closet. “I left Queui and Richelle deep in battle. Let’s go help.”
He creeps back up and emerges in what appears to be a residential garage. He climbs out a window. Blaise follows and shortly finds herself in a room amongst musical instruments.
“The Peej’s lair,” she whispers. Eric shoots her a look and they stay silent. He gives the finger to a camera hidden in the wall as the pair of them sneak out and find themselves in a small theatre. Richelle and Queui are in a corner fighting off three vamps total, while Shady is not far off, facing three of his own.
“Help Shady,” Eric tells her quietly, and then dives to tackle the third of the vampires that the girls are facing. Blaise steps forward and two of Shady’s vampires abandon him for her. She knocks them both unconscious promptly, blocking their moves easily. Still she gets pushed down. Shady appears, smiling for the first time she’d ever noticed. He helps her up.
All five have finished their vampires off. Eric strides toward Shady. “Zero made an appearance.”
“Shit. That must mean it’s almost time,” the guardian muttered. “We’ve got another sweep to do, in the wastelands.”
Queui groans. “I hate it there.”
“We all do. The Peej is supposed to make an appearance, same time, same place. I want to beat him there.”
“Remember the last time, Shady?” Richelle murmured, slightly pained expression on her face.
“Don’t bring it up and I won’t have to. We’ve got a hero. We’ll manage. Let’s go.”
They strode out.

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