No Life Kid 10B

The vampire launched himself forward; a blur of muscle, mass and a near century of combat experience compressed into a single superhuman charge as he aimed to tackle Zander under the dirt.

Feet moved before the rest of him, Zander sidestepping like a matador. “Olé!”

As Emmett flew past, Zander grabbed the meathead’s massive arm and pivoted, swinging the large bear-hunter around like a wrecking ball with all his own momentum.

Emmett Cullen knew nothing but sky for all of a second.

A second.

He crashed into a large oak tree with a sound like a thunderclap. Wood splintered, branches rained down, and the entire thing toppled over, taking out two saplings on its way down with a groan that shook the ground.

“See what I mean?” Zander dusted his hands off, one eyebrow raised. “Perfect control. Just look at that landscap-”

Jasper was faster than Emmett. He had to be, given that he didn’t have as much bulk to slow him down. Darting forward at a speed that would leave a Ferrari in the dust, a clawed hand aimed itself right for Zander’s throat.

Zander sighed. Boring.

He caught Jasper’s wrist inches from his windpipe, stopping all the force of a falling engine block dead. “Oh, for real? That’s your master strategy?”

He didn’t budge as he held Jasper’s arm in place, staring into the vampire’s wide eyes. “Let me see if I’ve got this right — you saw me drool a little and thought, ‘Clearly this calls for immediate violence.’ Did you guys graduate from the Shonen School of Problem Solving?”

Zander turned to a circling Edward looking for an opening, still holding Jasper’s wrist like a naughty child. “And you, Eddy. My man. What exactly did you think you saw back there?”

“I saw you losing control with Jessica in immediate dange-”

“Nah,” Zander cut him off, grip tightening until Jasper grimaced. “What you saw was me needing to feed and handling it like a fucking adult. See, unlike y’all, I don’t lose my goddamn mind just because I’m hungry. I have discipline. I have snacks.”

Zander’s left hand swung out the instant he let Jasper drop, a simple backhand.

Simple as it was, it didn’t stop Jasper from crashing through three Douglas firs, each one snapping like toothpicks.

“But hey, thanks for the workout. Really got my blood pumping.” Zander tilted his head, grinning wider than human anatomy should allow. “Heh, get it? Cause we’re vampires?”

Emmett pulled himself out of the debris, looking less amused now. Jasper was already back on his feet, dusting off pine needles. Edward looked like he was trying to solve a calculus equation that kept changing variables.

Zander rolled his eyes. “Look, boys, this has been fun and all, but I’ve got an English paper to finish and a girlfriend to call. So here’s what’s gonna happen.”

His blue eyes began to glow. “You’re gonna go home. You’re gonna tell Daddy Dearest that his sons tried to start shit with the wrong vampire. And you’re gonna stay the fuck out of my business unless I’m actually threatening innocent people.”

“And if we don’t?” Edward challenged. His voice was steady, but the conviction was thinning.

Zander’s grin widened with too many teeth, all of them as sharp as his fangs. “Then you’ll find out why I like to hunt vampires instead of humans.”

Jasper shook the rest of the pine needles from his hair, the circle closing as he fell into formation with Emmett and Edward both. “Enough talk.”

Zander sighed. “You keep saying that, but we both keep talk-.”

A pressure in the back of his head forced a cough from him as he choked on his tongue, the feeling like someone trying to push a thumb into his brain.

At the same time, Edward’s head reeled back, the bronze-haired vampire gasping for unneeded air as his hands flew to his temples. “I can’t… there’s nothing but hunger… hunger and screaming in there. What are you?”

“Bored of this already,” Zander remarked, tilting his head. Screaming, huh… makes sense. The souls have to go somewhere.

With a growl, Edward rushed him.

Not his full speed, but fast enough that most opponents would be watching the afterimage while his fist connected. He burst forward, a blur of bronze and pale skin, fist thrown back in a strike aimed at the jaw.

Zander’s eyes narrowed, the telegraph helping him more than the speed. “Fast!” A leg snapped out as he danced back, Edward’s eyes going wide as he skipped across the ground like a stone launched across a lake. “But you really make it obvious you don’t know how to fight somebody you can’t read!”

Emmett charged from the left as Jasper circled right.

Smart.

Despite being a tank, Emmett moved surprisingly fast, making it hard to dodge him when he was already trying to avoid Jasper going for his eyes. Blood flew from his mouth, eyes going wide as a heavy Cullen fist impacted his torso and shook apart more than a few ribs. Oh, f-

The shockwave knocked birds out of the trees, Zander launched backwards and sent a good thirty feet through the air. Fuck! He threw his body further back, flipping twice in the air to bleed off momentum before finally landing in a crouch that was far less graceful than it looked. Alright, Emmett hits like a motherfucker. You knew that, you knew that.

He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, bone grating on bone as his ribs began knitting back together. “My turn.”

The sound barrier threatened to shatter as he burst forward just a bit faster than Edward could match.

Emmett’s eyes went wide as Zander blinked from thirty feet away to immediately inside his guard, a grin as big as any on his face.

A backfist, all pure brute force and nothing else, paid the vampire back in equal measure. It was a kinetic event, Emmett launched back like he’d been hit by a semi-truck. The air protested as the Cullen flew nearly fifty yards, crashing into a rocky outcropping with enough force to scatter a cloud of dust.

Jasper lunged from the left with Zander’s back turned, blue eyes going wide as he heard the run-up. Dickhead!

He twisted in a blur, arm raised to block the blow – SNAP – only to immediately regret it. His mouth hung open, the squeak that spilled out unheard over the sound of his forearm shattering like a gunshot. Fucker! That actually hurt!

He spun, ignoring the limb dangling at a wrong angle as he tried for a kick that Jasper immediately darted back from.

“HERE’S EMMY!”

FUCK!

Emmett was back, the burly brawler charging from the right with one arm drawn back. Another fist crashed into his ribs again, the impact driving a wide-eyed Zander sideways before he could get his guard up even.

Edward was there.

Nails raked down Zander’s exposed back, opening up four wide gashes. white bone visible for a second before blood flooded the wounds.

“Ch-cheap shot,” Zander grunted, spinning to face Edward.

But Edward was gone, Jasper the one there as he lunged out with another slash.

Shi- Zander ducked, the blow glancing off his shoulder and nearly taking off his still-healing arm, bef-.

“DASH UPPERCUT!” Emmett – the bastard – didn’t give him time to breathe as a massive hit caught Zander under the jaw.

The world went dark for a second as his head snapped back, blood spraying free as his jaw threatened to go with it. Zander felt the world under his feet shudder, knees wobbling as he stumbled back… directly into Edward’s waiting hands.

Edward’s strike punched through Zander’s lower ribs from behind. He gasped — more surprise than pain — as the hand emerged from his chest, holding… nothing. 

Just wet, torn tissue.

Edward tried to withdraw but the wound was already healing and sealing around his wrist, slowing him down. Gotcha. Zander grinned, blood coating his teeth as he grabbed Edward’s arm and threw him.

Edward flew into a pine tree, the trunk exploding in a shower of splinters.

Jasper didn’t hesitate, the Texan lashing out again with Zander’s back turned; a precise knife-hand blow to the spine.

Zander’s knees buckled but he didn’t fall. Jasper darted back as Zander straightened up just as Emmett came in for a grapple.

This time, Zander was ready.

He caught Emmett’s wrists as the former bear-hunter strained against him, crystalline muscles groaning while the ground beneath their feet cracked under the pressure.

“You’re strong.” The admittance slipped out, words nearly slurred as his brain tried to reboot from the mega-concussion he’d just gotten. Did he just say ‘Dash Uppercut?’

Emmet grinned back through gritted teeth. “I try.”

“No, really strong.” The frown on his face wasn’t just from effort, Zander honestly confused if Emmett was supposed to be this strong all the time. His own muscles were struggling against him, the Cullen kid almost twice as strong as the average vampire. Really really strong 

Edward didn’t give him a chance to think any more as the mind-reader’s nails raked open Zander’s jugular, a fountain of blood pouring down from his throat.

He didn’t let go of Emmett, still groaning as Edward kept his distance; the surprise on the other vampire’s face visible as he saw Zander’s flesh sealing over again in real-time.

Jasper took the opening Edward didn’t, a knife-hand strike to the kidney piercing skin and pulverizing the organ as Zander grunted and fell back.

Emmett broke free and rushed forward. Heavy arms locked around Zander’s torso from behind in a bear hug worth the title. “Got him!”

“Hold him tight!” 

Zander twisted, mouth opening wide in pain as Edward’s fist struck through his chest-

“Ha!” The vampire in blue coughed blood and grinned back, the Cullen stumbling away with nothing but wet and torn lung tissue in his hand, rather than the heart he was after. “Close.” His voice was a wheeze, his breathing organs already visibly bubbling back together. “But you’ll have to do better tha-”

Feelings hit him like a physical blow, all of them at one; crushing doubt, overwhelming fatigue and a desperate, clawing fear.

Zander’s legs gave out from under him; weakness both physical, mental and emotional spiking through him.

All three chose that moment to strike.

Emmett’s arms locked tight, superhuman squeeze pinning his arms, as Jasper’s hand punched through the back and tore out the heart and Edward’s knifed hand sliced clean through the neck and spine both.

Zander’s head separated from his body. It rolled across the forest floor, coming to rest against a mossy root, the sunglasses somehow still in place.

His body went limp in Emmett’s grip and silence fell over the clearing.

“It’s finished,” Edward walked over and picked up the severed head by the dreadlocks, revulsion and relief both on his face. “We managed it.”

“Clean execution,” Jasper confirmed, tossing the heart aside into the bushes.

“Like tag-teaming a freight train,” Emmett laughed as he finally let the headless body drop to the ground. “Guy was tough.”

Edward shook his head, looking at the face in his hands. “I just… I just don’t understand how he was so strong but so soft. What was he?”

Emmett let out a grunt, rolling his shoulder. “You’re telling m-”

The headless body on the ground twitched, and in a fraction of a second, burst back to its feet.

Before anyone could scream, a single hard blow to the chest sent Emmett Cullen flying again and the body grabbed Jasper’s shoulder before the vampire had time to react; grip harder than iron.

The body pulled with strength enough to match any newborn.

A wet, sickening sound of tearing meat and snapping bone echoed through the clearing as Jasper screamed in symphony; a sound of pure, unadulterated agony.

Dropping the rest of the still-screaming vampire, Zander’s headless body held Jasper’s severed arm like a club and swung it backwards into the shocked face of Edward Cullen.

The mind-reader flew forty feet, smashing into a boulder with a stone-shattering impact enough to force Zander’s head free.

The body dropped the arm and staggered over to the head. In a single rough lunge, it picked it up from the ground, just to place it firmly back on the still-bleeding neck hole. With a loud squelching of flesh and a grinding of bone, skin knit itself back together until — in a matter of seconds — it had fully sealed over..

Zander Cray rolled his neck with an audible crack.

“Hooooly shit,” he wheezed out, testing his vocal cords. “I honestly didn’t know I could survive that. That was… new. Educational, too.”

Edward lunged again, pure panic and desperation clear on his face as he blurred forward in a superhuman leap.

Unfortunately for him, Zander had good reflexes. A palm lashed out and Edward found himself kicking uselessly in the air as he was lifted off the ground by his throat.

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Zander said conversationally, ignoring Jasper’s screams and Emmett’s shock. “You guys seem like decent people. You’ve got your little vegetarian thing going. You’re not hurting humans. You’re even dating one of them. So why are you so determined to make enemies with someone who’s following the same rulebook?”

“We tore your head off!” Edward choked out, eyes wide with terror.

“Yeah, that’s step one,” Zander explained calmly. “Now what about steps two through ten? Burn the body? Scatter the ashes? Holy water? Come on, Eddy, do the reading.”

He dropped Edward.

He advanced on Jasper, who was writhing on the ground, clutching the stump of his shoulder.

“Now,” Zander growled as the fangs extended fully, blue fire roaring bright in his eyes. “Let me show you what it means to be a REAL FUCKING VAM-”

“STOP!”

The shout cut through the bloodlust, sounding out loud from the edge of the clearing.

Alice Cullen stood there. Her face was streaked with tears; tracks of her own venom drying up as she looked at the wounded Jasper.

Behind her stood Carlisle, Esme, and Rosalie.

“Please,” Carlisle stepped forward, hands raised, palms open as he stood there as the perfect peacekeeper. “This doesn’t have to escalate further.”

Zander paused, hand inches from Jasper’s throat as he looked at the vegetarian leader. “Your boys started this, Doc. I was perfectly content to coexist. Even had bumper stickers printed, even.”

“They acted without my knowledge or permission,” Carlisle’s voice was firm as it could be, though it wavered slightly as he looked at Jasper’s severed arm lying in the dirt. “This is my family’s fault, and I take full responsibility. But please… don’t kill him.”

For a long moment, the forest was silent, nothing but the sound of wind in the trees as all the animals had long fled the slaughterhouse the clearing had become.

That and Jasper’s labored, hitching breaths.

Zander looked down at the vampire. 

Then at the severed arm on the grass. 

Then at the terrified family.

He straightened up, glow fading from his eyes and fangs retracting back to their normal straight state. “You know what?” Zander hummed, his voice returning to that casual, bored drawl. “You’re right. Killing him would just create more problems.”

He looked down at Jasper, the Texan hissing in pain through gritted teeth. “Besides, I think he’s learned his lesson. Don’t start fights you can’t finish, Jazzy.”

With casual precision, Zander picked up the severed arm and walked over to Jasper. Sighing, he crouched down, pressing the limb against the stump as it weeped venom.

“Here, you know what to do with this better than I do,” Zander clicked his tongue at a shocked-looking Jasper. “Should reattach just fine. No pieces missing or nothing.”

The Cullens stared with mouths open as Zander stood up, the blood-drenched vampire brushing a speck of dust off his red-splattered coat.

“Dr. Cullen,” he said, flashing a blood-stained grin. “I think it’s time we had a proper conversation. My place or yours?”