[NSW Mature] Sighter Test Chapter

[True_Avery]

This is a quick test chapter of a fic I'm working on. It is one of the longest things I have written so far, so don't be suprised if it looked written by someone who has no idea what they are doing.

 

Be warned, this is for mature audiences.

 

Test Chapter 1

 

Queens Of Death

 

"Now, I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds."

-J. Robert Oppenheimer

 

 

Location: /// Somewhere in London, England.

Date: /// February 10th, 2010

Time: /// 11:45 AM

 

Down a dark, empty street on a cold night, sometime in the past, present, or future, nothing stirs. All windows are dark. No sound but the distant hum of cars and machines in the distance. No sound but the soft patter of cold rain. The ground and buildings all shine as the faint light of the moon hits the wet streets and brick. All life here is still, but there are those that are still awake, unseen and ever watching.

 

Out of the darkness, two figures emerged walking noiselessly along the wet path. They were two young looking women, looking about 19 to 21, and both were tall, about six feet (1.8 meters), and both looked slim. But, what they wore was what made them all the more noticeable if someone could have seen them.

 

The woman on the right had on somewhat baggy, black and white camo pants, tucked into her multi-strapped, custom fit black boots that went all the way up to her knees. Her pants were held up by a hefty black belt, which had straps that wrapped around her thighs tightly, holding two highly customized 1911 style .45 semi-automatic pistols. Along the back of the belt was a few clips full of .45 hollow point rounds, and around her front was a few circular and cylindrical devices that held unknown purposes.

 

Her chest was covered by a dark blue long sleeved shirt, and over that was tight, form fitting leather like body armor, compressing her B cup down and smoothing out her upper body. It had sleeves that covered her shoulders to upper arms and went up to her mid neck, deep blue along the sides and around her shoulders with the middle of the armor being white with dark blue ribs on the top of her shoulders. The armor looked to go further down than her belly, but her pants covered up the rest of it. Her hands, including fingers, had on tight, form fitting deep blue gloves with rubber soles along the pads of her fingers. Over that was a pair of fingerless white gloves that went from her hand to her elbow, ribs of silver metal along it to cover the top of her forearm. On the top of her hand, connected to the metal ribbed glove, was a metal heart shape, pointing to her fingers and painted blue with a silver outline, but some of the paint had flaked off, giving it a worn look.

 

In her right hand she held what looked like a katana blade, but the sheath was made out of a dark gray metal. The handle, which had no hand-guard, had a rubber grip custom shaped to her hand for easy use, the end of the handle made of metal with a large purple jewel fitted in.

 

Her hair was straight, brown, and went down to her mid neck, her bangs framed around her thin, pale white face. Her face looked young, but the most notable thing about it was her eyes, which were a vivid emerald green. She wore no makeup at all, yet her face seemed to be free of impurities by itself. She walked beside her partner, her boots making little to no noise at all on the wet ground, the small patter of rain from the almost cloudless sky hitting her softly. A drop of water ran down her shoulder, onto a large white, circular emblem sown onto each shoulder of her armor. Under that, a rectangular tag of the same material with the words “Blue Queen” embroidered in blue thread. She looked intimidating, yet still held a strong feminine appearance at the same time. Her partner, however, looked like she had tried to avoid this.

 

To the “Blue Queen’s” left walked her partner. This woman was not dressed the same, but from the looks of her they had both come from the same place. She wore baggy camo cargo pants of different shades of white and light gray. Her pants were not tucked into her boots, which were steel toed, black custom fits with rubber soles. The pants were held up by the same hefty black belt, .45 hollow point clips along it, with straps that went around her thighs. The same highly customized 1911 style .45 semi-automatic pistols in their holsters, both made of light shaded steel. Hanging on off of her shoulder by a black nylon strap was a medium sized assault rifle with F2300 Variant 5.56 x 45mm Semi-Automatic Assault Rifle* labeled across the side.

 

She wore a custom long sleeved, tight, pure white button-less shirt made of what looked like 70 denier spandex, so it fit her perfectly. She wore no body armor over her somewhat thick shirt, but it looked as if she had thin armor underneath it, as her B cup breasts were somewhat flattened. On her hands she had white, form fitting, fingered gloves. Over that, she wore what looked like fingerless padded leather martial arms hand/forearm guards, but these were made of black leather, with an ejection port on top of her hand, parallel to her hand which holds an unknown purpose. On top of the ejection ports on her gloves she had a pair of metal hearts, just like her partners, except these were painted white with a silver outline.

 

Her clothes gave her a boyish look, but it was her face and hair that finished it. Her skin had more color to it than her partners, a soft pinkish peach color. Her snow white hair, which shone in the moonlight, was cut short up to her mid ears, but some length remained at the top, done up to look fairly boyish. Her somewhat hard, feminine face and cut, boyish hair gave her a somewhat handsome appeal, different than someone who was young and pretty. Her eyes, however, were strikingly yellow/gold and shined in the darkness. On her shirt’s shoulders was the same circular emblem sown on, with a rectangular tag that had “White Queen” embroidered in black.

 

The two figures continued to walk silently for a good ten minutes, when suddenly a small beeping could be heard coming from their belts. They both reached down and plucked a device from their belt, round at the top with a small microphone extending out. The first woman’s was dark blue, the others a light gray. They placed them on their right ears and pressed a small gray button at the receiver’s end, stopping the beeping and giving silence for the voice that came through the receiver.

 

“Red Queen to Alice, and Edge.” Stated a woman’s voice. It was a calm, yet calculating voice that held a sort of unknown power to it. It also seemed to hold no real accent to it at all.

 

“Here.” Replied Alice, moving her brown hair out of he way to better fit her communicator.

 

“Here.” Replied Edge, still walking and scanning the buildings on either side with her yellow eyes.

 

“Are you at the target area yet?” The Red Queen asked.

 

Both of them stopped walking and stopped, turning left to look at a large, four-story building. The reddish brown bricks were all wet with the light rainfall. The door, which stood at the top of a few short stairs, looked harmless enough, but the windows were all boarded up or blacked out from the inside.

 

“I’d say we are here.” Edge answered. Her voice sounded young, but the tone of it was of someone who could care less of what people saw of her. Her accent was a cross between an American accent and a European accent.

 

“How does the place look?” The Red Queen’s voice asked again.

 

“I’d say the place looked very dilapidated, but all the boarding and blacking out has been done from the inside. None of the windows are broken either.” Alice said, her green eyes scanning up and down the buildings many windows, fixing on the door. Her voice was similar to the Red Queen’s, but it did not seem to hold as much power, but more calm and collective.

 

“Sounds like your spot. Clean this up and meet with Rayne at one AM.” Said the voice.

 

“Gotcha.” Both answered back, then the line went silent. Alice walked up the small set of stairs to the door and wiggled the handle, Edge standing back and speaking into her mic again.

 

“Hey Rayne, having fun out there.” Edge asked, a slight amusement to her tone.

 

“Sure,” Replied a voice, nearly identical to Edge’s, but with a more playful tone. “If you like running around accomplishing absolutely ****ing nothing. I mean, come on!”

 

“Well, me and Alice found a nice little hideout and have permission to run in guns blazing.” Edge added, chuckling lightly. “And from the looks of it, this might actually be worth it.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Lets see who’s amused when you pull the short end of the stick next time.” Replied Rayne.

 

“Shut up and get back to your scouting trip.” Alice’s voice said over he mic. “And if you find something, please be kind enough to let us know.”

 

“Screw off. Hope you both get shot.” Rayne replied, then a small laugh could be heard before the line went dead again.

 

Edge began walking up the stairs when Alice kicked the door in. She broke the handle, and it swung open. Putrid, humid air came through the doorway into the night as Alice walked into the dark room, followed by Edge. The only light in the building came from the moon, through the doorway. They looked around, then directly up at the ceiling.

 

“Well well, now isn’t that interesting.” Alice mused, walking forward, her boots landing with a distinct sound on the wood floor. She turned her head to see Edge reaching down to pick up a small shiny object from the wood floor. From the light of the doorway, she noted that the floor had patches of dark spots all over it.

 

Edge stood up, a dirty coin resting between two of her fingers. “So... shall we see who gets clean up duty?”

 

“Alright then, number side up.” Alice replied, turning around to watch as Edge flicked the coin into the air. It hit the ground spun for a second or two, then lay still. The moonlight illuminated a ‘50 Euro Cent’ on the coin, facing up. “Dammit...”

 

“Heh heh heh, too bad for you.” Said Edge, smirking and walking past Alice down the hallway. Alice pushed the door ‘closed’ before following her.

 

The two walked down the deserted hallway, which had much of its wallpaper rotted off, broken lights, and a distinct smell of dead animals. Not a sound could be heard in the building, which was so dark and so dilapidated, that it was difficult to determine what kind of building this had been. Maybe an office. Maybe a hotel. But the complete lack of furniture gave the place an abandoned, old, and empty look. They rounded a corner at the end of the hallway, which was about fifty feet long (15.2 meters), and found themselves looking at a wood stairway that went to the next floor. They continued walking, up the stairs, to the second floor, which looked equally abandoned.

 

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat. How I wonder what you're at.” Alice mused to herself, looking at the new abandoned hallway, the windows on the right side of the wall all boarded up, so only slivers of white-blue moonlight could pass through.

 

“Third story it is then.” Edge said, turning to her right at a staircase right next to the one they had just come up, leading up to the third floor.

 

They climbed the stairs, only to look again at another abandoned, boarded up hallway. Up here, one of the windows looked like it had been ripped of its boarding, because moon light flooded in from outside. The doors on the left side of the hallway were either closed, or broken down. The smell, however, was much more potent at this level.

 

“Curious that this place is so old, but doesn’t look dusty at all.” Edge said, looking at the hallway with Alice.

 

There was a pause as the two listened. “I’d say this is the floor we get off on.” Alice said. A sound could now be heard in front of them, coming from the rooms on the other side of the doorways. A scuffling sound of things moving, things that could not be heard before. Whatever it was, it now knew they were here.

 

Edge was the first to move, walking down the hallway to the opposite end. When she was about halfway, something moved in a doorway three fourths of the way down. What looked like woman in a dirty white nightgown peaked out of the darkness, just out of the light of the window. Edge continued to move, and as she got closer to the door, the woman reached her arm out to touch her. Edge replied with a hard side kick to her chest, sending her flying back into the dark room.

 

“Have fun.” Edge yelled back, raising a hand and giving a small wave as she turned the corner, not bothering to look back.

 

“Heh.” Alice walked took a few steps, stopped, and side kicked in the first door to her left. It flew off its hinges into the room. She walked in and stopped to look. It was nearly pitch black, all of the walls looked to have been ripped down, so she could see doors in other rooms, destroyed furniture in other rooms, and most clearly off all... people, in all of the rooms. And all of their eyes were now on her. They turned, and slowly approached her, then a few screamed in rage and charged. Alice lifted her katana and held it, then gripped each side and looked at the charging people and to her sword. It had a shining polish to the gray metal, ending in the dull rubber of the handle. The purple jewel at the end glisened in the limited light of the room, her target's faces reflected upon the smooth surface.

 

“I'm not afraid of you. Why, you're nothing but a pack of cards.” She mused, then pulled the silvery blade and swung it gracefully at her first target, spraying blood all over the stained and rotten floor.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Edge heard the crash of a door behind her, followed by sounds of rage, bodies hitting the ground, drowned out by the groans and moans of the building’s occupants. She continued down the hallway unnoticed, reaching the end and meeting other flight of stairs. A small sign hung by one thread near the stairs, reading “Employees only” in faded red lettering. She looked at the wood stairs, noting the large amounts of dark spots on it. Dried blood. And from the looks of it, bodies had been dragged up the stairs a number of times. She looked back, hearing more crashes in the rooms behind her, then began walking up the stairs.

 

At the top she met a door, but it was missing a handle and had a number of dark splotches coating it. She pushed it open, creaking loudly in the new silence of the fourth floor. As she closed it behind her, the sounds from below died almost completely. This floor did not open up into a hallway full of doors and windows, but instead to large empty room that looked like it could have once been a small office, the few windows it had boarded up and blocked by pieces of broken down furniture. A door at the far end of the room caught her eyes, old, with moonlight peeking through the bottom of the door. She looked down at her F2300 Assault Rifle for a second, then moved to the door.

 

When she was less than a few feet from the door, she already knew there were two people inside it. She knew because that was who she was. She knew because it was her job to know. She grabbed the door handle. It was locked. So she gripped it harder, and twisted, breaking the gears inside of the handle and pushing the door open. As she did, she reached her hand down and gripped one of her 1911 custom .45 pistols and was able to see an old, stained bed and a window before they were on her.

 

She had barely made it two feet into the room when something had hit her and knocked her down, pinning her to the floor. She felt a had grabbed and pull at her shirt, and another go down between her legs and thighs, grabbing at her belt. She heard two males speak in English accents.

 

“Ooo, look at what we got here. A little babe comes to the slaughter” Yelled the man on top of her happily.

 

“Heh heh heh, what a pretty little thing, eh?” A second voice came close by.

 

She felt him grab her by the neck and turn her head. “Hey, do we have a little Sapphic on our hands?”

 

“Dunno, rub’er off and see what happens!”

 

Edge didn’t resist, yell, or even cry. She lay still, waiting for the line that would make her night.

 

The man holding her laughed wildly, “I wonder if she’s a vir-” But he stopped. Stopped ripping at her and stopped talking, and paused for a good few seconds. “Wait a minute... is that a gun?”

 

Edge could not help but smile. That just made my night, she thought to herself. She turned her head and looked the man straight in the eyes. Her yellow eyes met his red eyes, but only she had a smirk on her face.

 

“Why yes,” She slammed her head forward directly into his face, “It is.” And then she pushed him up, pulled her feet in, and used her feet to kicked him directly up. He hit the ceiling and fell right back onto her boots, knocking him against the left wall were he fell onto the bed. The second man was so surprised by this that he stood still as she put her weight on the side of her body and spun up onto her feet, kicking him in the face as she went. She reached down with her left arm and grabbed her pistol, lifting it out of its holster.

 

The pistol was a light gray color, polished, and looked quite unique. It was long, a good 10 inches (25.4 centimeters), with the first two inches (5 centimeters) of the gun as one piece. The slide looked like that of a 1911 .45acp pistol until a little past the ejection port, where it curved down, revealing the silvery barrel all the way to the solid front of the gun. It had no safeties on it at all except for the grooved grip safety on the back of the black grip.

 

She took a step forward and hit the man hard on the face with her right hand, and hit him heavily in the chest with the front of her gun, firing a round into his heart. The shot was loud and hard, knocking the man back just enough for her to spin and back kick him hard into the wall. As she spun around to kick him, she had grabbed her F2300 Assault Rifle with her empty right hand, her finger on the trigger, and when her foot hit the ground she had it raised to fire. She pressed, and two seconds later, three 45mm rounds had gone into his chest and another three into his head, spraying blood all over the walls and floor, his motionless body oozing darkness onto the wood. The rifle made so much noise in that two seconds that she barely heard the crash of the window. She looked to the left of the mans body and saw the hole in the glass.

 

Edge shouldered her rifle and placed the pistol back into it’s holster as she ran to the window, looking down to see the man climbing down a fire escape ladder into a dark alleyway below. She lifted a leg, placed it on the windowsill, and jumped out of the building into the darkness below, four stories down. In the distance, a bell could be heard.

 

Too easy, she thought to herself. Too easy.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

A good few miles away from the old building, Rayne walked silently down dark alley ways, taking shortcuts and side passages on her mission to accomplish nothing, she thought. She had been given the short and boring job. Scout out the surrounding area for any possible activity, report in every now and then, and pretty much get nothing done in the process. The rain, she noted, had stopped now completely and now the air was simply left cold and moist, leaving puddles of water in the uneven alley ways of London, getting her boots wet as she walked. She stopped in one mildly lit alleyway, the sound of cars going by could be heard on the opposite side of the buildings she was between. She lifted her arms and stretched, looking up at the moon directly above her. A fast beeping sound emanated from her belt, as well as the distant sound of a bell, singing in midnight.

 

“Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting.” She said blandly to herself, grabbing the communicator from her belt and placing it over her ear. The beeping stopped as she pressed a button on the receiving end, a woman’s voice speaking into her ear.

 

“Anything?” The Red Queen asked.

 

“Absolutely, positively ****ing nothing.” She replied back. “Ya know, I bet there are a lot of more useful things I could be doing right now.”

 

“Yeah, like you actually scouting and finding something for a change. If you want something to do, don’t complain to me. Go -find- something to do, you lazy prat.” The voice replied back in a bored, sort of annoyed tone.

 

“If you are so all knowing, why don’t you come on out here and do something other than be a difficult voice in my head?” Rayne asked, moving her head from side to side until she head a few pops of vertebrae.

 

“Anything else you would like to add?”

 

“Yes, why is a raven like a writing desk?” Rayne mused.

 

The line went dead. Rayne laughed to herself, looking down the dark alleyway, then to a window to her left. She looked at her reflection in the dirty glass.

 

Rayne was wearing similar clothes as the other two queens. She had on the same custom boots that Edge had on, with similar camo cargo pants, but hers were dark shades of gray and black. They were also somewhat tighter, looking more fitting for a woman than Edge’s did. She had on the same belt that wrapped around her thighs, and two of the custom 1911 .45 pistols, except hers were gunmetal black. Also connected to her right leg by more straps was a black 10 inch, sawn-off, break-action, double-barreled, single handed 12 Gauge Shotgun with a rubber grip. For ammo, she had a few clips of .45 hollow points, but also a second belt with a variety of shotgun shells.

 

She had on the same type of chest armor as Alice, but hers was dark gray around the sides and somewhat shiny and reflective, with black down the middle. Instead of the armor going all the way up her neck, it stopped a little below it, being replaced by a small black leather collar with a shiny black metal heart hanging off of the front by a silver ring.

 

Over her upper body and covering her arms was a jacket. Made out of what looked like a cross between black denim and leather, it was long sleeved, but the body of the jacket only went down a little lower than her B cup chest, which was currently being somewhat smoothed out by her armor. A large part of the forearm and upper arm of the jacket had been colored blood red and stripped, for no other reason than to look good.

 

Under her jacket, she had long gloves similar to Alice and Edge’s. Dark gray, fingered gloves with two different gloves over that: On her left hand she had plain, black, fingerless over gloves like Alice, and on her right she had a glove with the same ejection port on the top as Edge. On both of them was a black metal heart, outlined in silver, pointing towards her fingers.

 

She looked directly at her own face. Her skin had more color to it than Alice‘s, a soft pinkish peach color, free of impurities without the use of any makeup. Her hair was cut about the same length as Edge’s, but unlike Edge, who simply let her hair go freely, Rayne had gelled up her pitch black hair to give herself a boyish punk look. Along with her yellow/gold eyes, which stood out quite vividly in the darkness, she looked quite intimidating with her F2300 Assault Rifle over her jacket shoulder.

 

On the back of the jacket there was a large stained white circular emblem sown on, and under that the words “Black Queen” had been embroidered in white directly onto the jacket. All of it gave her a very “I don’t give a ****” attitude, which was exactly what she was going for.

 

She looked away from her reflection and began down the alley again, her boots making small splashes in the puddles of rain water spread throughout the bricks and concrete. Find something to do..., she thought, find something to do... There was something to do. For months now they had been tracking a rogue that was going through the city, killing mainly men and married couples. When they had found the corpses, they all had shown sign of little to no struggle, calm faces or terrified faces. Oh, and the fact they were usually in pieces. Their estimate was that they took place around this time... maybe she would get lucky.

 

Rayne picked up her pace into a run, going through alleyways and alleyways, thinking of where to start first.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[True_Avery]

Alice kicked one of the figures in the stomach, and as he bent over she rolled over his back to kick another figure in the jaw, spinning on the same axis to the figure she had kicked, slicing him in the back, one down, then another up, removing his arm. On her up ward swing, she spun again and caught another in the face, then kicking it out of the way to slam her sword through the open mouth of a figure to her right.

 

But they kept coming. Not caring who got cut down in the way.

 

With a spin kick, three slices, and a jump, she cleared a group of four and landed into one of the other wall-less rooms, the doorway of this room pouring in moonlight from a broken window. She stood back, out of the light and watched as one of the figures moved forward into the light.

 

The man, if you could call it a man, looked to be dead. He had no color to his skin but a dull shade of gray-green. His clothes, which looked like a business suit, was covered in dried blood, his neck looking to have been ripped open. The man’s eyes looked milky and white, except for the fact that they were glowing a dull blood red in the darkness of the room. He opened his mouth do let out a horrible, gurgling moan, blood and rotten flesh oozed out of it over his rotted teeth. Behind him, more red eyes looked at her in the darkness. Some moving slow, others charging her as fast as their rotted bodies could take them.

 

Ghouls.

 

The rotted man received a kick to the jaw directly into another ghoul charging her, his jaw crunching up into his skull. For a moment he lay motionless, but then began to move again. Alice reached up and pressed the button on her ear piece.

 

“Report.” Came the Red Queens voice.

 

“Ghouls. And a lot of them.” She replied.

 

“How many?”

 

“I take a round guess of twenty on this level, another ten or more on the floor below me... Tell me, why didn’t we know about this before?” She asked, pulling her pistol out with her free hand and firing four rounds into the oncoming Ghouls, four hitting the ground, but only two staying down. “I mean, thirty people do not just disappear out of nowhere and a disappearance of this height would have gotten our attention weeks ago.”

 

“Hmmm... How old do they look?”

 

Alice move forward, placing her pistol back at her side and kicked two Ghouls running at her out of the way, grabbing a third by the neck and forcing its face into the light. She looked putrid and old, one of her eyes rotted out and her lips almost completely gone. Alice lifted her sword and shoved it into her gaping mouth, through the top of her head, before pulling it out and letting her drop to the floor. The Ghoul lay there, motionless. Then, quite suddenly, her flesh looked like it was rapidly rotting, turning grayer and grayer. Within seconds, the dead woman‘s flesh and bones turned to a fragile thick dust. Alice lifted her foot and crushed her skull in, the Ghoul disappearing into a cloud of gray dust. She spun around and caught another Ghoul charging her in the head, slicing it clean in half. It fell to the floor, turning to dust as well.

 

“Some are a few days to a week old, a few are as old as a month. This building and the cold must be preserving them well to be that old.” Alice answered, throwing a punch at another Ghoul’s head, crushing in its skull and sending it reeling across the room.

 

“Alright, clean them up and report back when you are done. I’m going to look and see why thirty people have disappeared without a trace under my nose.” The Red Queen said, then the line once again went dead.

 

Alice gripped her sword, swinging it gracefully from one Ghoul to the other. They fell, many of them staying down and falling apart into dust. In one swift move she cut a ghoul clean in half down the center, returned her sword to it’s sheath, and pulled both of her .45 pistols and emptying both clips into the ghouls she could see in the other rooms, the slides locking open as the last smoking casing hit the ground.

 

Ten ghouls dropped and stayed down. The last three remaining Ghouls stood close together in a middle room, moving at her at a hardly threatening rate. She ejected both empty clips from the pistols onto the ground, grabbing two more from her belt. Each clip had seven custom, .45, silver coated steel rounds capable of knocking just about anything off its feet in a single shot. After loading both pistols, their slides shot back to their starting point as she placed both back into their holsters. She walked towards the remaining Ghouls, grabbing a small gray cylinder from her belt. She twisted the top of the cylinder, stopped and tossed the now beeping device between their legs.

 

A huge bang, followed by flying debris came from the location of the small cylinder. The Ghouls were heard growling menacing for a split second before falling through a hole in the floor, down into the room below. Alice walked up to the smoking hole she had created, looked down, then hopped down into the dark room below. She landed, and pulled her sword from its sheath, looking around at the pairs of glowing red eyes looking upon her.

 

“Curiouser and curiouser.” She mused.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Rayne continued to from alleyway to alleyway, the cold air biting her face and the old smell of the alley making her nose itch. She kept running until she saw herself out of alleyway, so she looked at the top of a building in front of her and jumped. She soared through the cold, wet night air, her jacket catching air and billowing, landing on the edge of the brick building... fifty feet from the ground (15.24 meters). She stood up straight, looking around London from her view. Lights were everywhere, the sound of cars were all around her, and the smell of food, trash, and gasoline filled the air. Even this late at night, the world did not sleep.

 

She walked along the roof, looking from side to side. Then, on the middle of the roof, she stopped and closed her eyes, concentrating. She could feel pressure in her eyes... pressure as blood was pumped into them. Then, she opened them, and the world was different. It was the same rooftop, the same London, but now she saw it in a way that few could.

 

Dark was now relative, as she could now see in the darkest of the shadows. Her reflexes and sense of awareness, her perception was now far greater than any human. She could focus on objects almost a mile away, hear the lowest of sounds, and slow down her senses to make it appear that time was slowing down. But most of all, she could now see nearly everybody for a mile. But it was not sight of the material world, but of themselves. The auras of people were glowing all around her, some pristine white... many more others a dull dark gray. But what she was looking for was not... human...

 

She scanned the city 360 degrees, trying to find the aura she was looking for. After about twenty seconds of looking her eyes began to hurt. This was a fine tool for many cases, but the problem was the city had a lot of lights, and when seeing the world this way, any bright light was painful. Dammit, she thought to herself, guess I’ll have to actually search.

 

Rayne closed her eyes and allowed some of her blood to drain from her eyes, then opened them. There was only a small amount of blood in her eyes now, but it was enough to make out vague auras and eliminate the problem of dark shadows. She began walking along the roof again, reaching the end and jumping off to the building next door. She appeared to be a stretch of shops and mildly high buildings, cars going by on the roads below.

 

“I wonder if I've been changed in the night...“ She mused to herself, landing on the roof of the next building, ten feet below, “Let me think...” The auras around her moved calmly, people going about their nightly lives as she jumped onto the next roof, “Was I the same when I got up this morning?“ She picked up speed and jumped again, another twenty feet up to the top of a beautifully crafty, brick building. “I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.“ She continued her pace, onto the next roof, then the next, then the next. “I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?'“ She made it to the top of another large building, flooded her eyes with blood for a few seconds and laughed, “Ah, that's the great puzzle!”

 

Her eyes were glued to a series of buildings in the distance, a small black and purple dot burning like a light. “I found you,” She hummed to herself, “I found you.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Edge jumped from the window of the fourth floor of the building, landing on her feet on the cold, wet ground of the alleyway. The man had just made it to the bottom of the ladder when he turned to look at her, his red eyes wide. He looked to be in his mid to early twenties, had on dark blue jeans, a dirty old brown shirt, and a fairly new looking, thick brown silk jacket. His brown hair was uneven and messy, and overall it did not look like he had taken a proper bath in some time. Edge began walking towards him when a sound came over her ear piece.

 

“Hey, you three.” Rayne’s voice said.

 

“What?” Said Edge, followed by Alice and Red Queen.

 

“I found our little mystery woman.” Rayne said cooly.

 

“Which one?” Alice asked, what sounded like a slash followed by a gurgled yell in her background.

 

“The little flower who has been leaving behind all those dismembered couples. She is about a mile from my current position.” Rayne replied.

 

“You serious?” Edge asked, a little surprised by the news that Rayne had managed to find anything at all. “Well, then wait for us to clean this up and we’ll be right over.”

 

“Sorry, but I can’t wait that long for you slowpokes.” Rayne added, a sense of haste to her tone now. “I’m going after her now.”

 

“No.” Said the Red Queen’s voice quickly, “You will stay put and wait for back-up on this one.”

 

“I just can’t do that for you. We have been after her for weeks, and every time we wait even a second she disappears.” Rayne insisted, “I think I can actually catch up to her this time.”

 

“You do not have permission to engage her. Stay back and wait for back up. That is a direct order.” Red Queen said, her voice rising.

 

“Since when do I take direct orders from you?” Rayne asked, chuckling through the mic. “I‘ve taken out plenty of big fish. How bad can she be?”

 

“You’re just p*ssy because you had nothing to do tonight.” Alice commented.

 

“Pfft, If you want to join the real party, finish up there and get the hell over here.” Rayne added.

 

“You keep yourself in one place or I’ll shove my gun up your-” Edge began, but then stopped. Rayne had turned off her communicator. “Son of a- What do we do now?”

 

“Your orders are the same: clean up and meet with Black Queen. If she wants to go chasing rabbits, let her.”

 

“Fine, Blue Queen out.” Alice said, the sound of something being crushed playing in her background before her line went dead as well.

 

“White Queen out” Edge said, her eyes never leaving the man in front of her, who had been standing completely still, eyeing her guns. But, as she finished speaking his eyes went wide and terror gripped his features.

 

“Y-you... you are... are...” His eyes fixed on the circular emblem on her shoulders, “You’re from Sighter?!” He began to back away wildly, reaching in his coat and pulling out a black 9mm pistol. “Get the **** away from me!”

 

Edge smirked and reached down with her right hand, grabbing her silvery pistol from it’s holster and holding it up. “Mines bigger than yours.”

 

The man turned and ran, trying to escape the alleyway for dear life. He made it to one end and turned left into an alleyway that lead to the street. He was met, not by a street, but by a large boot that hit him hard in the chest, sending him flying back into a brick wall. He frantically yelled, lifting his gun and firing. Edge stopped dead in her tracks, a bullet hole about an inch above her left eye. The impact had made her head pull back, but her body simply stood still, frozen in time. The man slowly got to his feet, looking from his gun, to the woman he had just shot. Then someone spoke.

 

“So, you run in fear of the hunter when you become the hunted.” Edge bent her head back, a crushed piece of lead hitting the ground, the hole in her forehead gone. She looked him dead in the eyes, her eyes now glowing a bright yellow-gold. ”Considering the amount of Ghouls you have up there, I don’t think you really have the right to run right now.”

 

“Y-you... you aren’t human!” The man yelled, lifting his gun again.

 

“Good eyes, you dumbass. And incase you are wondering, neither are... you!” She swiped her leg, knocking the gun out of his hand, then throws a hard left punch to his face. It connects, and she feels his jaw break under her hit, sending him reeling over. “You looked so much tougher when you were trying to rape me. What’s wrong? Fighting on equal footing a problem for you?”

 

The man roared, jumping to his feet and throwing a punch. Edge dodged and moved around him, but he kept charging. He swiped with all his might at her, but she was faster. In moments the two were back in the middle of the alley, and Edge jumped out of the way of another punch. His fist hit the metal ladder and bent the bars inward, seemingly having no effect upon his hand.

 

He charged again, missing her again but this time hitting the brick wall. It looked, and sounded like a sledgehammer had hit the wall. A few of the bricks cracked, and he yelled in pain as his crushed hand repaired itself, the blood on his knuckles returning to his body. He swiped again, but Edge caught his arm and squeezed with her hand. She could feel the pressure building on his bone, and knew it would not hold for long.

 

“Pathetic.” Edge said simply, bending his arm in a way it should not, causing the man to yell in pain, ”Simply... pathetic. You all must have been pretty damn green to do something this stupid.” He struggled again, but before he could move more than a muscle, what was hidden in the ejector on the top of her glove was revealed: a retractable blade.

 

A quick sound of metal could be heard as the white heart on her left glove spun 180 degrees, a 3 inch (7.6cm) blade popping out. He saw it for only a split second before she slammed it into the arm she was currently bending back. He screamed in pain, screaming like she was holding an open flame to his arm. She pulled the knife out, grabbed him by the jacket, and threw him back a good ten feet where he hit the ground hard, still yelling in pain.

 

“What did you do to me?! What did you do to me you bitch?! Ahhh!!!” He yelled madly, trying to get to his feet, holding the wound created by the knife. The wound was bleeding profusely, the wound itself turning a grayish green color. Slowly, the skin and flesh around the wound began to dissolve into dust. His teeth were bared in anger and pain, two distinct fangs could be seen in his rows of teeth.

 

“That, you sad sad little man, is what happens when you shove silver into a vampire’s arm. Because, you see, this blade is coated in silver. My bullets are coated in silver. Which means, boyo, that you are about to become dust.” Edge explained, a look of deep amusement on her face as she calmly walked towards him, like a predator cornering her prey.

 

The man jumped to his feet and ran to the end of the alleyway, jumping straight into the air about forty feet (12.1 meters) up to try and desperately escape on the roof of a building. He hit the wall, and with his good hand grabbed the ledge, hanging on for dear life.

 

Edge looked on with amusement as she lifted her F2300 Assault Rifle and pulled the trigger, not bothering to aim. Aiming... was for humans.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Rayne jumped from one building to another, her eyes never leaving the black-purple spot in her vision, which was quickly becoming bigger. From building to building, over streets and trees, she moved as fast as she dared to move. Within a minute of jumping she was closing in on her target. Then, suddenly, the liquid like, purple-black aura of the vampire she was tracking disappeared. She jumped the last building, hitting the roof of her target and rolling, landing on her feet and sliding a couple of feet before coming to a full stop. She looked around and saw a man against a wall, next to a door that went from the roof to the floors below. His neck had been ripped open, and his organs spills over the ground due to his lack of upper body skin as well as the fact his ribs had be ripped wide open.

 

“Dude, you got f’ed up.” Rayne shook her head and let blood flood her eyes once again. She spun around on the spot and saw her target. It was a barely visible glow, but it was close... “Oh no, you aren’t getting away this time.”

 

She felt her blood quicken, her blood grow colder, her blood rushing to all parts of her body. She stepped back, and then ran and jumped. This time, her body was being pushed to it’s limits and far beyond. She felt the cold night air bite her harder as she sailed through the air, landing a good hundred feet (30 meters) from where she started, running and jumping onto the nearest building, then jumping again, and again, picking up speed as she went until she was merely a blur passing through the air. She was going as fast as she could push herself, going between buildings, running along the walls and jumping from the roofs of the London streets. She didn’t know how long she chased her target, but however long it did not look as though she was catching up.

 

“Damn this b**** is fast!”

 

She no longer knew where in London she was, but she could a couple of warehouses in the distance, closing in fast. What she did know, was that was catching up, which was good because her body was beginning to burn from use. So close... so close... Rayne could see her physically now, jumping from roof to roof as well. She made one final long jump into the air to the warehouses, when suddenly the purple-black aura disappeared completely.

 

“What the hell?” She exclaimed as she fell down. She looked wildly around, and then directly down. Directly below Rayne, her target was standing silently in the middle of a large clearing outside a warehouse, the ground paved with concrete, boxes spread out around the cleared lot. She landed hard on the concrete, a short distance away from the woman watching her. Getting to her feet, she allowed the blood in her body to calm, grabbing the front of her jacket and tugging on it, adjusting it to fit right again.

 

The woman watching her looked interesting. She had on simple black shoes, woman’s sized blue jeans, a sleeveless black top, and a black beanie over her head, long black hair flowing down her back, looking to be a little shorter than Rayne. Her pale, peach colored face was somewhat long, with small lips which had been colored deep violet, matching her equally deep violet eyes, lined skillfully with black eyeliner. The two woman looked distinctly different, yet oddly the similar. They simply stared at each other, both unmoving, both looking directly into the other’s eyes.

 

“I don’t believe we have ever met.” Rayne stated, breaking the silence.

 

“We have not, but I believe we both have a fair idea of who we are.” The woman replied calmly. Her voice was possibly the strongest, most feminine voice that Rayne had ever heard. But at the same time, her voice made some of the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, an effect that she rarely felt. It held no accent what so ever, a voice of simple strength of will.

 

“You are the vampire that we have been tracking for some time. It seems that you tend to leave your food lying in ruins on the floor.” Rayne said, her hand fall resting at her sides, ready to grab her guns at any sign of a threat. “If we must have formalities, I am-”

 

“A vampire hunter working for an organization with a strange fixation for a child’s storybook, unofficially controlling the world through the pen and sword. You are the Black Queen, one of the four Queens Of Death. One of the most feared unliving beings to walk this cold earth... Am I correct?” She said calmly.

 

The hair on Rayne’s neck stood on end again, but she still smirked lightly. “Yes, that’s right. But, I was simply going to say that my name is Rayne.” She looked her up and down, “Wasn’t expecting you to know that much, however.”

 

“Well, you pointed out the obvious so I felt I should do the same. Seeing as this is an informal occasion, you may call me Violet, Rayne... Queen of Death.” She said the last part with a sort of amused tone, as if even saying it was below her. She crossed her arms and watched Rayne.

 

“Violet? Very creative. I can see that you find my informal title as funny, so I am eager to wipe that look off your face.” Rayne replied, using the same tone of distaste as Violet.

 

“Wipe the look from my face? Dear child, you couldn’t touch me if you tried, and believe me... many have tried. If anything, you are a child playing with weapons you have no idea of.”

 

“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.” Rayne mused.

 

“Why don’t you turn around and walk home before you get hurt.” Violet stated.

 

“It was much pleasanter at home, when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits.” Rayne laugh, pulling her black 1911 custom from it’s holster in the blink of an eye, firing a silver bullet at Violet’s head. The bullet sailed through the air, and then sailed clear through Violet’s head, hitting the brick wall some yards behind her. The spot on violet’s head that the bullet would have hit looked to be of pitch black gas, or airy liquid, like dye being dropped into water. The spot reformed, and her forehead was untouched and perfect once again. “Oh... that’s damn cool.”

 

“Now, I give you fair warning, either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time. Take your choice!” Violet mused, and then smiled. “I’ve read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as well.”

 

Rayne could not help but laugh out loud, grabbing her other pistol and firing. Violet became barely a blur through the air, dodging the silver bullets and charging Rayne, who spun avoiding her and firing a few more rounds at the blur of blackness. Rayne plunged her pistols back into her sides and spun around, raising her hand in time to catch Violet’s arm in mid swing. Violet’s surprised deep violet eyes met Rain’s now brightly glowing yellow eyes for a second, before Rain spun again, twisting Violet’s arm then kicking her in the chest, letting go of her arm in order to do throw her leg out to kick her in the neck. Violet blurred a few yards way just in time, Rayne’s boot resting in the air exactly where she would have been a split second before hand.

 

“Told you I’d wipe that look off your face.” Rayne said, lowing her leg, walking slowly forward over her spent shells.

 

Violet smiled, “And so you did. You got good senses kid, I’ll give you that. Not many can see anything moving that fast, not even vampires.”

 

“And not many can phase a silver bullet through their head. Impressive.” Rayne commented. She felt confident, but there was now a growing voice in the back of her mind telling her that this may have been a bad idea.

 

“You’re an interesting one all right. But, I am going to send a very clear message to Sighter tonight, starting with you.” Violet said, her voice become colder by the second.

 

“And how do you plan to do that?” Rayne asked.

 

Rayne saw her coming, but knew instantly that she did not have the reflexes to catch her. She dodged best she could, Violet’s hand exactly where her chest was a moment ago, but, in the blink of an eye, she was on her. She didn’t know exactly when it happened, or how fast, but Violet had taken one of her 1911 customs and had the barrel pressed against her forehead.

 

“With your death.” Violet stated simply. The gun fired, a silver bullet smashing through Rayne’s skull. Violet stood still, the gun in the same spot, Rayne’s body still standing, her body bent back from the force of the bullet. Is she dead? She must be... that was a silver bullet...

 

There was silence, and then Violet sighed and began to lower the gun. Suddenly, a low chuckle filled the air, Violet’s body freezing, raising the gun again to fire. In a blur of motion, Rayne sweeping kicked Violet’s arm, the gun spinning from her hand. Rayne spun on her feet, grabbing the spinning gun out of the air and aiming it at Violet’s head and firing. Violet jumped out of the way just in time, her eyes widening as she saw Rayne, who’s eye were now a glowing blood red, grab her assault rifle in a flash of motion. The only thing she could do to dodge the 45mm bullets was jump straight up. Rayne chuckled lightly to herself as she fired fifteen bullets at Violet, following her in the air, then dropping both her arms to watch Violet land on top of the warehouse.

 

Violet stood at the edge of the roof, on top of the warehouse looking down at someone who she now knew she had completely underestimated. From her back, Violet had two long, black wings flowing out into the darkness. They looked like bat wings, but held a creepy beauty to them. Rayne walked silently to the middle of the lot and looked up, her eyes once again yellow, replacing the clips in her pistols.

 

“Wings. Well that’s new.” Rayne said, ejecting the old clips from her pistols. There was no trace of a wound on her forehead at all.

 

“You can see my movements... You can sense where I am... You healed a silver wound like it was nothing... And, you can keep up with me in speed when you try... This is indeed rare. You, my dear, are not a Vampire, are you?”

 

The metallic sound of two gun slides snapping back into place could be heard in the darkness.

 

“Good Eyes,” Rayne said.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[True_Avery]

Three 45mm silver coated bullets smashed through the man’s chest, straight through him into the brick wall he was holding onto. From below, Edge watched him hang on a final second, before falling fifty feet (15 meters), hitting the cold alleyway concrete on his back. He tried to get up slowly, his wounds trying to heal as he gasped in pain. Edge walked over to him slowly, shouldering her F2300 assault rifle and grabbing one of her pistols, firing three rounds into his chest as he stood, but purposely missing his heart. The silver hollow points hit him hard, and all he could feel was pain. Agony. The only thing he could think to compare it to was fires being lit in his chest. He tried desperately to pull the bullets out of the wounds, by they were deep and fixed.

 

“Try to remove hollow points all you like, but they are banned against humans for a reason. They expand and sometimes fragment when they hit a hard target, like flesh, almost never passing through a body but instead getting stuck half way in.” Edge explained, pulling the empty clip out of the gun and replacing it with a fresh one, putting the pistol back into her holster.

 

“K-kill m-m-meee.... p-please!” He begged from the ground, blood oozing freely from all his wounds.

 

“You don’t get it, do you? You’re already dead. You don’t get the privilege of a merciful death.” She replied, stopping about two yard away from his bleeding body. “Besides, you are pretty useless to me dead right now. Buuuut, I do need to be somewhere else right now so I’ll try and make this end as quickly as possible.”

 

Edge moved to take another step, but Alice’s voice came over her communicator.

 

“Incoming!” Alice yelled into her mic.

 

“Danny!”

 

“Michelle!” Replied the bleeding vampire. “Run away!”

 

The second Edge heard the woman’s voice she spun around in time to see Michelle. She had brown hair and was in a white sleeveless top and blue jeans, running like a blur towards Edge, her mouth open, exposing her fangs.

 

She was fast, but Edge was faster. With another metallic click, the white heart on her right hand spun 180 degrees and another knife shot out of the top of her glove, held out 3 inches from her knuckles. With one quick punch, Michelle hit the brick wall of the right building hard. She turned around to meet Edge, but Edge was already on her. She slammed her right fist directly into Michelle’s heart, lifting her up the brick wall and holding her there. Edge then opened her mouth and bit down hard on Michelle’s neck. Fresh Vamperic blood flowed into Edge’s mouth, swallowing mouthfuls at a time as Michelle tried desperately to even scream.

 

The taste was beyond the scale of the human mind to comprehend. As the blood rushed down her throat, she was temporarily lost to her hunger. It was the greatest ecstasy she could imagine. The greatest ecstasy that thought could ever be felt. Her whole body felt warm, relaxed, at an eerie peace as she swallowed more and more of the blood. Her willpower once again took over, and the hardest thing to do was to let go of Michelle and let her body hit the ground, where it slowly fell away to dust.

 

She was once again in reality. In the cold, dark alleyway in the middle of the night. Edge looked down at her feet, at the pile of clothes and dust that was once a Vampire. She turn to her left to look down at her original prey, looking up at her, horrified as the blood around her mouth seeped into her skin. Blood trickled down her waterproof white shirt, blood coated her hands. Blood coated the brick wall and floor.

 

“Vampires... don’t d-drink other V-v-vampire’s b-bblood... wh-who... what are y-you?” Dan asked Edge.

 

“At least you know that much.” She sighed, looking from the dust, back to Dan. “Vampires drink the blood of humans for their power. Sometimes it is just a nibble... sometimes a Vampire drains the human of all blood. When a Vampire find a virgin of the opposite sex, they can embrace them and turn them into a new Vampire, a fledgling Vampire. I take it Michelle was you, and that poor sob up there’s sire, correct?”

 

Dan nodded feebly.

 

“And then you began to feed on human blood. The problem is, you have to take small amounts and only small amounts, because taking too much can result in them dying. And, if you bite and kill a non-virgin, they become Ghouls under the control of the Vampire. It looks like you abducted a good thirty people, and either raped them or killed them as non-virgins... resulting in your rather large flock of Ghouls.” Edge explained this all to him in a tone of distaste and disgust, disgust that he did all of this not knowing anything about what he was. “That is the Vampire. An undead, blood drinking being who falls to dust if confronted with sunlight. Silver is one of the few things that cause them true pain, and a direct hit to the head or heart with a silver bullet can kill most in one shot. A simpler way is to simply remove the head or destroy the heart.”

 

“B-but y-you...” Dan began.

 

“Me?” Edge laughed coldly, “ I am a Vampire huntress, and I kill trash like you that get out of line. People that need to disappear for good. But, I am not a Vampire.” She smiled, and Dan could see that she had not a single fang in her mouth. “What I am is a little more complicated... When a human drinks Vamperic blood, they become super human. They live much longer, stay youthful, and have heightened senses and strengths as well as the ability to heal most wounds, diseases, and so on. But, they must constantly drink Vamperic blood to stop from losing all of it and returning back to being normal humans. Sounds easy enough, but Vamperic blood is the most addicted ‘substance’ that can ever be ingested. So powerful, in fact, that the second you drink it you basically become a complete and loyal slave to the Vampire you drank from. Do you know what these people are called?”

 

“F-Familiars” Dan answered, coughing up some blood.

 

“Exactly. Familiars. But, here is when things get interesting. If a Familiar gains the willpower to break from it’s master, or it’s master is killed, then the Familiar usually goes to find new blood. But, once a Familiar has the blood of multiple Vampires, the Vamperic blood in them becomes diluted... the Familiar bends it to their own will and turns it into their own blood. In nearly all respects, a Familiar at that point has become a Vampire. But, they go under a different name... Vamp-Pyres, spelled with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i.’ They are human enough to be immune to the effects of silver and sunlight, yet hold all the powers and abilities of the Vampires that thy drink from. This comes at a price though, as instead of running on human blood, which is much easier to come by... they run on pure Vampire blood, which is very hard to get, considering not many Vampires will allow you to drink from them. Years ago they had a more common name in Vamperic society... ‘Sighters.’ Above all else, Vampires feared Sighters, for Sighters did not feed off of humans but were in essence... vampires feeding on vampires...”

 

“And that,” Edge squatted down to look at Dan closer, “is what I am... a vampire that feeds off of other vampires. And as a vampire huntress, I get all the blood I will ever need with the bonus of being immune to everything that kills you quick. So, all in all, I am full tonight and really don’t need you at all.” She lifted her gun and pressed it against Dan’s head, “Oh, and no hard feelings about the whole you trying to rape me thing.” She pulled the trigger before he could sputter another word, and then all was silent. She stood up and looked at Dan, who was now merely a pile of dust.

 

“Maybe if you had known all of that before hand, you wouldn’t have been such an idiot. Then again, maybe you shouldn’t have tried to rape me either.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Alice stood in the dark building on the third floor, the last Ghoul laying on the ground, the bottom half of his body missing. She walked over to him, pressed her foot against his chest and unloaded the last of the silver bullets into his head and heart. Under her foot, the Ghoul melted away into dust, the last piece of this little nightmare laid to rest. She returned her empty pistol to its holster, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small metal case. She opens it, and pulls out a small brown cigar, no label. She put it into her mouth and placed the case back into her pocket. She walked away from the piles of dust, up the stairs to the fourth floor. She walked into a room with a pile of dust at and a broken window at one end of the room. She walked over to the window and looked out at the Alley below. The English are odd, she thought to herself, why make a window that exits out into an alley...

 

Alice saw Edge sitting in a corner of the alley, so she stepped out of the window and jumped down, landing on her feet and walking over to Edge, who had a lit cigar in her mouth and was staring at a bundle of clothing and dust.

 

“I take it that they are all dusted?” Alice asked.

 

“Yeah, they’re gone.” She reached up and removed the small cigar from her mouth, blowing smoke out of her nose and mouth. “Looks like we saved the world yet again.”

 

“Not the world,” Alice sat down next to Edge, “just a small part of town from a few idiots on a power trip.”

 

Edge sighed, “It is getting harder to see the line between humans and vampires... becomes more of a blur by the day.”

 

“You mean how they act? Heh... the only real difference I see between the two is that I kill one for a living and let the other side do what it wants. Vampires used to be humans, still are if they’re green enough. Same human mind, just a different outlook on life. But unlike humans, most Vampires at least have the decency to kill you instead of playing with your life.” Alice took the cigar from her mouth and held it out, “Got a light?”

 

Edge pulled a small white lighter from her pocket and lit Alice’s cigar, who placed it back into her mouth and puffed on the smoke thoughtfully. At the end of every assignment, once they were done with clean up, they smoked one cigar. One cigar to honor the dead, human or vampire. One cigar to honor the fact they had to kill to keep balance in a world that didn’t even know they existed.

 

Edge let out another breath of smoke, then lifted her hand and pushed the button on her earpiece.

 

“Report.” The Red Queen’s voice said.

 

“Cleaned up.”

 

“Best news I’ve heard all night.” Red Queen said, sighing over the line a little. “I haven’t been able to contact Rayne, as she has been keeping her earpiece off since our last conversation, but I do know where she is. I’m giving you the coordinates now.”

 

A small beeping could be heard from their belts, and they both reached down to grab what looked like a long cell phone. They opened it up and a 3d map of London was laid out in front of them with a dot indicating where they were, and a dot indicating where Rayne was currently. About five miles (8 kilometers) north of their current position.

 

“When you find her, kick her in the face for me” Red queen added, then the line went dead.

 

Edge pushed her cigar into a small puddle of water beside her and stood up. Alice did the same. “Well, we better get moving then. Who knows what she has gotten herself into this time...” Edge sighed, “What is going through her mind most of the time...”

 

“She’s your sister, you tell me.” Alice replied as both of them jumped onto the roof of the nearest building, heading to meet Rayne.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[True_Avery]

Rayne focused all her senses on the single purpose of catching up to Violet, who was moving faster than anything she had ever seen. When they had begun to fight again, it started to become a no contest. If she got close, Violet fluttered into the air out of her reach... that is if she could even get close at all. She had unloaded another clip of bullets into the blur but to no avail, as they either passed right through her or she simply dodged them. Hand-to-hand was her only option, but Rayne was currently spinning on the spin as Violet blurred around her in a circle.

 

“What’s wrong? Can’t catch me?” Said her voice from all sides of Rayne.

 

“What’s wrong? Can’t do anything but run?” Rayne asked, still spinning on the spot to try and catch where she was. Her eyes were flooded with blood, but all she could see was a blur... even with all her senses to their near maximum, all she could see was a blur.

 

“I bet you would love to take a bite of me right now. To have what I have” The surrounding voice said again.

 

“It would be nice, but that is currently on my list of near impossible things to do.”

 

“Oh, but It’s very simple...” A sultry voice said behind her. Rayne froze. She wanted to move, wanted to turn around and pull her gun... but there was something about the arm hugging her belly... something about the hand brushing against her cheek, a finger running over her lips... Something about the breath running along her ear... Violet was right behind her, and Rayne was paralyzed by fear. “Such a nice looking girl you are... if you grew out your hair... but I like this... makes you look strong... even a little handsome...” Violet’s hand ran down her neck, and a shiver ran through Rayne’s spine, her hair standing on end. Nothing... nothing had made her this afraid before. To be this helpless.

 

“You, huntress. Sightress. You hunt Vampires and collect their blood as a reward, as a trophy... using that blood to hunt other Vampires. Vampires that threaten the balance... Would you like some of my blood?” Violet’s sultry voice continued. Rayne felt her kiss her neck, nibble at the skin. In a last attempt at willpower, Rayne reached down and grabbed the handle of her shotgun. But, at that same moment, Violet bit down on her neck.

 

The true strength of a Vampire does not lie in their power. Does not lie in their speed or strength. It lies in their appearance. Their voice. Their touch. Their bite. If the ‘ugliest’ man or woman were to become a Vampire, they would change physically and emotionally, become hauntingly ‘beautiful‘. Become fit. Become, in some senses of the word, perfection. It kept you young, kept you looking fit and healthy, kept you looking and feeling at your peak of life. The voice of a Vampire was equally as powerful, the powers of persuasion... seduction... absolute terror and intimidation. But, most of all, was their touch... their bite. A Vampire did not need to tie you up to bite you. Did not need to knock you out. All they had to do was bite you and one of two things would happen: You were paralyzed by the purest of ecstasies... or paralyzed by the most terrible of pain. On humans this worked wonders, as Vamperic saliva would instantly heal the bite, and the feelings it passed on were sometimes so intense that they would pass out, or gain temporary memory loss. Their greatest and most deadly weapon.

 

But what Rayne felt, she could not describe. She had been bitten by many Vampires... but nothing compared to this. Her nerves, her body screamed. Every inch of her body screamed. But she did not know if it was pain or pleasure that took her over... it had to be both and neither, and her senses were being overloaded. But what she could feel was the bite, and there was no blood leaving her body... but instead, blood being pumped into it.

 

The moment seemed to last forever, until she stumbled forward and her final thought took her over as she spun around and pulled the trigger of her 12 Gauge, which fired two silver buckshot rounds at the spot Violet had been moments before. Her vision was blurry and rapidly filling with little white stars. Her body was overloading, her mind crashing in on itself. She felt her thoughts drift away from her grasp slowly, a figure appearing in her vision.

 

“I know you have so much more in you. So much ability... maybe even enough ability to end me if you were to try hard enough. But now... now you are a helpless slave. My blood will slowly cause you to fall apart not physically, but mentally. It is only a matter of time before it collapses in on itself in a desperate attempt to save itself.” Rayne saw the figure move closer, now only a yard away. “It is over, little Queen... little Princess. I leave you now to disappear, and be my final message to Sighter to never bother me again. Good bye.” And Rayne watched as the figure turned and began to walk away.

 

Darkness took her eyes. She was swimming in her own mind, desperately trying to think. This is nothing... you’ve seen worse... you’ve been through worse... this blood is nothing to you... nothing. Take it... take it and use it... you can do this...Rayne thought desperately to herself. She gathered all her willpower together, and slowly her vision returned. But this time her vision of the world was one of blood, everything was red, and all she could see in front of her was the glowing purple-black aura of Violet. Her blood began to rush, and her senses returned to her, now fuller than ever. She stood up. And in the blink of an eyes she was on Violet once again.

 

Violet turned around just in time to see Rayne charge her. As Rayne through a punch, she fell apart into black, liquid like smoke, floating through the air to materialize yards away as a solid person. What had just happened? How could she be moving? But then it hit her. The sad truth of what she was up against.

 

She through another punch, and another kick, but every single blow that would have connected passed through the black mist. Her thoughts were scrambled as animalistic instincts took her over, but she had enough control over herself know what was happening. She could not hit her with sheer force and speed alone, so she charged again. But this time, the black heart on her right hand spun 180 degrees and a three inch, silver coated knife sprung out of it. She swiped at the blackness moving away from her and knew she had done something, turning around and looking with her crazed, blood red glowing eyes upon Violet. She was yards away and had reformed again into her human form, but this time she had a long gash running from her neck down to her thigh. The silver could still cut her.

 

“I see now. With a human or Vampire, you would be long gone by now... but you are neither. You have such an insane variety of Vamperic blood inside you that any other blood that joins it becomes diluted, and then you slowly tame it to your own needs. But, out of a self defense for you mind... you Frenzied, and let your hunger take over to protect your mind... quite brilliant actually.” Violet said, the wound along her body slowly healing back over.

 

“Just wait until you see my next trick.” Rayne said, her voice reverberating upon itself as she spoke. She charged again, but this time Violet was ready. Rayne charged again and again, but Violet simply dodged each hit, melting away into smoke and bending around her

 

“You cannot touch me again. You may have gotten lucky a few times, but now I see the pattern to your attacks. I know what you are going to do before you do.” Violet said, landing on the ground, her wings folding at her sides.

 

Rayne’s eyes instantly turned back to yellow as she reached down, grabbed her shotgun, ejected the empty shells and grabbed an abnormally long shell from her belt, jamming them into the barrel with a normal shell. “Then allow me to teach you a little something about chemistry...” Rayne locked the barrels, then charged again. Violet shook her head and smiled, turning to smoke and bending around Rayne... but that’s exactly what she wanted her to do.

 

Rayne spun around on the spot, lifted the shotgun, and pulled the trigger in the direction of the black smoke behind her. A jet of bright white flame blasted out of the shotgun, nearly five yards long, hitting the black smoke. The effect was blinding for a second, but then Rayne saw the a human shape of Violet two yards from her in flames. Rayne clicked a metal piece on top of the handle and fired again, then time the normal shotgun shell firing silver buckshot into Violet, sending her reeling back a few more yards. Rayne then grabbed her F2300 assault rifle with her empty left hand and held down the trigger. Fifteen 45mm bullets flew through the air and hit her in the chest and head, ripping through her with ease. As the assault rifle clicked empty, Rayne knelt down in silence, watching her burn silently.

 

“Fire plus Vampires equals extremely flammable. And it just so happens, I have just the right shells for the job.’ Rayne stood up, throwing her assault rifle over her shoulder and the shotgun back into its holster on her leg. She couldn’t remember feeling more relieved. She managed to kill a Vampire that was causing havoc, and even got some blood out of it.

 

Rayne reached into her pocket and pulled out a lighter and a small box. She opened it and pulled out a small cigar. She placed it into her mouth, closed her eyes and lit it the lighter. Just as she was about to light it, however, she opened her eyes. She looked upon the spot where Violet was... or had been a moment ago. There was no dust, no ash, no nothing. Rayne cursed and shoved them back into her pocket, looking at the warehouse, having a distinct feeling that this was not over. She knelt low, then jumped, high, and through the top window of the warehouse. She crashed through and landed.

 

She was standing in the middle of the warehouse, boxes upon boxes lining the walls. Moonlight crept in through the windows, lighting on the center of the warehouse mildly. The corners and ceiling were all pitch black. She already know Violet was in here, pulling her pistols from her sides and holding them ready.

 

“That was a nice trick you pulled out there. Most would be dead by now... you impress me more by the second.” Came Violet’s voice from all corners of the room.

 

“And you piss me off more by the second.” Rayne said coldly, aiming her guns at the corners of the room one at a time.

 

“Why? Because I kill people that don’t deserve life?” Violet’s voice came from the far right corner. Rayne fired a round into the corner, but to no effect.

 

“That’s a good question. Why exactly are you running around slaughtering people?” Rayne asked, firing another round into a corner, the bullet hitting metal and ricocheting a few times. “I notice you have an curious interest in couples.”

 

“I have a ‘curious interest’ in people that waste the very oxygen they breath.”

 

Rayne slowly lowered her guns, standing still in the room and scanning it with her yellow eyes. “How so?”

 

“Lets say, for instance, you come cross a dysfunctional couple.” In front of Rayne, on top of some boxes she saw a humanoid shadow with long, elegant wings standing, watching her. She could of fired a bullet at her, but decided to listen instead. “The man has a god complex, like most men do, and decides he is head of the house. Chances are good that he is also cheating on her. Now, the majority of the time the woman knows exactly what is going on, but lets it all happen. Most allow themselves to be abused, pushed around, and generally treated like material objects. It is pathetic. So...”

 

“You come along, and decide kill them. But tell me, why do you tend to kill both of them?”

 

“Because they are both at equal fault.” Violet said in disgust. “Sure, the woman may be abused by that is no damned excuse. She has the power to fight back. She has the power to get help. She has the power to kill. But no... she plays the victim. They all play the damn victim.”

 

“By definition, they are victims.” Rayne stated, but her tone said that she was merely throwing a fact out for the sake of argument.

 

“The definition of victim in that category is a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency. By his or her emotions or ignorance. A true victim is someone who is shot by a stray bullet. Someone who is hit by a car they could not get out of the way of. Someone who is turned into a Ghoul by an fool Vampire. Someone who had no control over a situation and gets hurt.” There was a pause, then Violet continued again. “An abused man or woman, an abused person who has full power to change the situation has absolutely no right to call or even play a victim. They deserve the pain and torment that they put -themselves- through, but even then that solves nothing. So I kill both of them. The man for being an idiot with a god complex, and the woman for making a stereotype that has been in motion for over ten thousand years.”

 

“All well and good, but we find more than couples in your little killing sprees.”

 

“You find other useless members of society as well. Couple, abusive men, and idiot women are a small fraction of the people I kill for sport.”

 

“Hmmm...” A small smile cross Rayne’s lips, now interested in this conversation. “Alright, who is your favorite type of person to kill?”

 

“Rape ‘victims‘.” Violet said simply.

 

“Ah, so that’s what all those random woman had in common. What do you do, just stalk people all night until you decide you don’t like them anymore?”

 

“Rape victims are by far the weakest, most pathetic excuses for human beings this society has yet to push out. If anything, they are as bad as the excuses for men that rape them.”

 

“Traumatic experience to most.” Rayne added.

 

“No, people choose what is traumatic and what is not. People walk away from car accidents with changed lives. People become paralyzed and meet their limitations. But all that most rape victims do is sit there and beg for attention. Beg for someone to hold them as they cry. So incredibly fragile that the simplest things destroy them. All spoiled, worthless little crybabies who focus their entire life off who they were stuck in a room with for a few days. I think we both know that isn’t even on the top one hundred most traumatic things that can be done to a person. Life is about surviving and moving on, not drowning in the past.”

 

“So, all in all, you focus on killing women who you deem as weak and pathetic?” Rayne asked.

 

“I kill humans that are holding everybody else back. I remove people and do my part in trying to balance out the population and gene pool. You have to trim the rose bush now and then of impurities to save the whole bush.”

 

“You have to pull a few weeds to save a rose garden.” Rayne said simply, scratching her spiked black hair.

 

“Then do you understand why I do what I do then?” Violet asked.

 

“You kill the weak because nobody else will.” Rayne said. “Yes, I understand. I understand maybe even more than you do.” She looked at her black gun in the moonlight, turning it to different angles, “Me, and the other three Queens are caged weapons. We are caged underground for days and nights on end, then unleashed upon Vampires to feed. We are caged, because we have the bad habit of doing exactly what you do. We have quite the track record for killing most humans we come in contact with, even though it is our job to protect the balance that keeps them from becoming cattle.” She takes her eyes off her gun and aims it at Violet. “We have a lot in common, which is, you understand, why I am still going to have to kill you.”

 

“Understandable. But again, I cannot and will not let you kill me.”

 

“Says you.” Rayne opened fire again, lifting her other pistol into the air and firing at the blur of blackness moving through the air. Her guns both clicked, the slides locked back. she ejected her clips and reached to the back of her belt. One clip left. Seven bullets. She placed her right pistol back into its holster, loaded her remaining pistol, then lifted up her shotgun. She was, as she was now noticing, extremely under-geared for something of this magnitude. She had prepped for a scout mission, not killing a Vampire that she was beginning to doubt she could even kill. Well... too late to run away now.

 

Rayne jumped into the rafters at the top of the warehouse, running along them and finding her target, a shotgun round into it. I attempted to dodge most of the scatter shot, but from the looks of it she had still hit her. She jumped across the rafters, firing another shotgun round, missing and the face of a box. She clicked open her shotgun and reached for her bullets when something hit her from behind, causing her fall but land on her feet. She looked up to see what it was but couldn’t see anything. She managed to get one shell in before she was hit again, rolling across the room. She used to momentum to roll fast flipping up onto her legs and firing her pistol, missing the black smoke which retreated back into the blackness. She backed up close to a wall, trying to find an aura to track, but she could see nothing. Suddenly to her right she saw a figure and fired her shotgun round, a gout of flame erupting out of the end. When the light ceased she could see she had hit nothing. She reached down to grab another two shells from her belt, but saw that it was gone.

 

She was now completely out of ammo. All ammo, except for one last silver bullet in her black pistol.

 

“You’re shaking.” Said the disembodied voice of Violet.

 

Indeed she was. Her hand holding the pistol was shaking quite violently, her blood racing. She shoved the shotgun back at her side and tried to calm herself. Then Rayne felt it. Her body went rigid, Violet now standing right behind her, a hand running down Rayne’s belly and an arm wrapping around her chest, Violet speaking softly into her ear. “You have guts, and you’re damn stubborn. You know you cannot win, yet you still fight with all your ability. I like that in a woman... it is an honor to be hunted by someone like you for a cha-” But she was cut short.

 

Rayne spun on the spot, ramming her bladed fist directly into Violet’s heart and shoving the pistol to her neck, firing her last silver round into her skull. Blood oozed from both wounds as Rayne backed off, Violets slumping down onto the floor. Rayne looked at her, then her gun, then turned on her feet and ran. ****, **** **** ****, ****! All she could do was curse to herself as she ran. She already knew that Violet was standing up behind her. Already knew that this game was over. She jumped up, through the window she came in to the lot outside.

 

But Violet was already standing there, waiting for her. Rayne hit the ground and took a few steps back. Violet pulled off her black beanie, which disappeared into black smoke, and Rayne looked her in the eyes. Her violet eyes that seemed to pierce her clothing. Rayne could barely remember a time feeling more naked, more helpless than she did now. She was out of ammo, she wasn’t fast or strong enough to compete with her anymore, and she didn’t have any backup.

 

A creeping blackness came from violet, moving through the air like liquid fire. Moving along the ground around her feet, around her body. This was the end. Violet slowly walked towards her then disappeared. Rayne’s senses were numbing slowly, the blood in her veins slowing down... an unnatural sense of relaxation taking her over. She turned around to see Violet once again standing behind her, but now Violet had Rayne’s jacket on, trying it on for size. Rayne didn’t even feel her remove it. She tried to back away, but she was lost in a world of blackness.

 

Suddenly she was standing in an endless field of flowers. Rolling green hills covered in brightly colored flowers as far as the eyes could see, the sun shining brightly down upon the dew covered leaves. Multicolored butterflies fluttered by her face from flower to flower. The smell of earth and life was all around her. Rayne didn’t know what to do. She turned here and there, looking upon a world that looked like a living painting. Then stopped, seeing Violet walking over to her in a long white dress, wearing Rayne’s black jacket over it. Rayne wanted to say something, wanted to yell, but her voice was gone.

 

“You stick out like a sore thumb here... I personally find it quite relaxing, to be in my own little world.” Rayne tried to mouth out something, her voice still gone. “Where are you? This is my world. My blood. My mind. It can be whatever I want it to be, however far I can stretch my imagination... But... maybe this suits you more...”

 

The scene of beauty and love burned away, and chaos ensued. Images and sounds flied through her mind, Rayne desperately closing her eyes, the sounds burning into her mind. Screams, yells, cries, sounds of horrors of ages long past crawling into her head. She cupped her hands over her ears and fell to her knees, screaming soundlessly into nothingness. Then all she could hear was fire and yelling, smell blood and earth. She opened her eyes and looked up to see Violet standing in front of her, wearing tattered clothing with Rayne’s jacket over it. They were in the middle of a courtyard in a castle that was burning, people running as men ran them down, stabbing and beating them to death. Rayne looked Violet in the eyes, trying to find meaning in all of this.

 

She managed to create sound. “Wh-who are you? What are you?” Rayne asked. “H-how... old are you...

 

“That,” The world melted away back to blackness, Violet once again in her street clothes, “is a far more complicated question that you know. Like you, I am a Vampire... yet I am not a Vampire. I am the near pinnacle of what a true Vampire can have with age and experience, but even so I am merely a servant. In modern culture, I believe members of my bloodline have been named... ‘Succubi’. Making me, a ‘Succubus.’ But that is a label I despise, as it has been dirtied through culture and time.” She ran her hand through her black hair, “As for how old I am... Not even I am completely sure. Time is irrelevant to me.”

 

“You and I have a lot in common... We both have impossible goals... I cannot single handed save the human race, and you cannot single handedly keep a balance that can never exist. Yet, we both still fight for what we believe in. We both chase our goals, hoping that they can one day become less than dreams...”

 

Rayne looked up at her and managed to get another sentence out. “We have been keeping a balance for a good sixty years... what have you done? You kill people not even worth the time to kill...”

 

Violet walked forward, looking down at Rayne. “I guess you are wondering if I am going to kill you or not... No, I’m not going to kill you. But a message must still be sent.” Violet disappeared again, the world around Rayne turning back to the field of flowers, but now all the flowers were blood red and black, the moon shining down on her instead of the sun. She couldn’t think straight any longer, and felt herself slowly slipping away. Then felt a hand push her flat on her back and looked up into two shining deep violet eyes. Rayne could feel her skin hit cold air as her clothing disappeared into the world of imagination. The last thing she remembered was cold lips pressing against her neck before everything went white.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Edge and Alice jumped from rooftop to rooftop, following the roads to the direction of Rayne. As they ran along the roof of another building, Edge’s body felt like it had suddenly lit of fire. She tripped and fell to her knees, gripping her head and screaming. She had no idea where it was coming from, or what it was, but it felt like all her senses were overloading. Her vision become blurry and white as she desperately tried to find the source. A distinct presence could be felt within her as her body screamed. It was Rayne. She concentrated hard with all her remaining will power and blocked their connection, then she was suddenly back in reality, on top of the roof with Alice kneeling down, holding her shoulders. The cold wind bit at her fresh nerves, her short white hair askew.

 

“What happened?” Alice asked, her voice shaky. “You suddenly fell and started screaming to all hell.”

 

“Rayne... she is in a lot of trouble.” Edge said, getting to her feet quickly and wobbling on the spot, then looking dead ahead at a warehouse in the distance. An aura of deep, flowing purple-black surrounded it. She ran to the end of the building and jumped, moving faster than ever. Damn... what the hell did you get yourself into...

 

The two Queens sped up double time, trying to make it to the warehouse as fast as possible. Within two minutes they had reached it, jumping over the last building onto an empty lot beside the warehouse. They hit the ground and stood up, looking around. The source of the aura was gone, as it had disappeared without a trace seconds before they had arrived.

 

Edge walked across the concrete then stop and looked down. At her feet was a jacket. Rayne’s black jacket, ‘Black Queen’ embroidered in white upon the back under a dirty white circular emblem. She picked it up and looked it over. It contrasted greatly against her pure white shirt. Then she looked a little further along the ground and saw Rayne, laying on her side on the cold concrete. Edge hurried over to her and grabbed her shoulder, moving Rayne onto her back.

 

Edge looked down at her identical twins face, so much like her own. They had the same eyes, the same nose, the same lips. The only real difference between them was their hair. Rayne’s eyes, which looked dead and milky white, looked up at her. The pale yellow of her eyes barely visible. The leather collar on Rayne’s neck was ripped off, a series of bleeding bites across her skin. Edge looked down at Rayne’s armor, which looked to have been ripped open forcefully. Her chest armor, was open and her pants and belt looked like they had been torn apart with a knife. Her pale, naked skin was coated in blood which was slowly forming a puddle on the ground.

 

Edge looked up at a dark corner of the lot as Alice walked up behind her. She pulled her pistol from her belt and aimed it, but whatever she thought she saw was gone. She replace her pistol and looked back down at Rayne.

 

“What the **** happened to her.” Alice asked Edge.

 

“What does it look like? She got a ahead of herself and got her ass handed to her by someone bigger than her.” Edge ran her gloves hand along Rayne’s cheek. “You damn fool, maybe this will teach you to show some control.” Then Edge lifted her hand and pushed the small button on her earpiece.

 

“Did you find her?” The Red Queen’s voice asked.

 

“Yeah.” Edge answered.

 

“How is she?”

 

“Out cold, and it looks like she is going to stay that way for while.” Edge answered again.

 

“It appears we may have underestimated this one by far... I’ll have to think of this. In the meantime, your assignment is done so head back here with the unconscious idiot.” The Red Queen said, then the line once again went dead.

 

Edge looked at Rayne, then to the jacket she had in her hand. The circular emblem on the back read “SIGHTER” across the top, with the quote “Now, I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds" around a picture of a globe with a intricate “S” in the middle.

 

An organization that held power over all law and order across the humans and Vampire world. And they enforced the balance... by any means necessary.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Emblem of Sighter

 

Violet

 

FN F2300 Assault Rifle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_F2000