Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 05:05:31 -0800 (PST) From: Author James Subject: Judgments of a Real Dark Knight 42 Disclaimer: This story, though maybe not in this chapter but in subsequent chapters, will have celebrities in it. I have no knowledge of their sexuality and this is not intended to imply their sexuality. This is all from my own mind. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Angel and all related characters created by Joss Whedon. Copyright 20th Century Fox. Batman, and all related characters created by Bob Kane. Copyright DC Comics and Warner Bros. X-MEN, and all related characters created by Stan Lee. Copyright Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox. The Vampire Chronicles and all related characters created by Anne Rice. Copyright Anne O'Brien Rice. Star Wars and all related concepts created by or based on the universe created by George Lucas. Copyright 20th Century Fox, LucasFilms Ltd. and Lucas Books/Ballantine Books. I don't know for sure if I will use all the above elements, but just in case, I have myself covered. I have received many emails from people who have enjoyed it and some from those who do not. I would enjoy hearing from you. Any emails you send, please tell me what chapter and story you are commenting on. Thanks. authorjames2002@yahoo.com I also have several online messenger services. If you want to chat with me in real time, email me and tell me the services you use and I will tell you my screen name. Other stories in this universe written by other authors: "Tales of a Superhero Band" "Tales of the New Phoenix" "Tales of a Young Mutant" Chapter 42 Weekend with the In-Laws (Pt. 2) I heard some rustling in one of the portable toilets and became concerned. 'What if a vampire is attacking someone?' I thought. 'Better to be a little embarrassed than to find someone dead.' Making my way to the portable toilet, I heard some grunting and groaning. The toilet shook as well. My nose crinkled up at the idea that someone was actually just using the toilet. 'Okay, that would be just gross.' Two voices moaning came from the toilet and I stopped in my tracks. "Why does this happen to me? I'm sure it is two people screwing in the damn thing. Why do I always find people fucking instead of getting killed or something? I'm really getting tired of this." The door burst open and a woman came running out grasping her neck. A vampire came out looking for her. "Oh, I guess I was wrong." I ran to the girl to see if she was okay. "He...he...he bit me!" she exclaimed. "Are you okay?" I asked her. "I just said he bit me! Are you deaf or something?" 'God, what a bitch!' I thought. "Let me see," I said out loud. The woman pulled her hand away. I ripped part of my shirt and put it on her neck. "Hold this tightly and run to a nearby booth." The vampire ran toward us as the girl slipped away. I stood up and grabbed the vampire as it ran past. Using the demon's momentum, I tossed it to the ground. It rolled and got to its feet, turning to face me. It snarled and then attacked. I side-stepped and it passed me. Then it turned toward me again. It ran at me a third time. This time, however, I grabbed it, planted my foot in its stomach, and rolled backwards, flipping the creature into a nearby tree. I rolled and grabbed a stick. Crawling over, I got on top of the vampire before it could get up and I rammed the stick into its heart. It turned to dust. I got up and went looking around the area. If there was a vampire here, chances are the nest could be nearby. There were a lot of trees around. Of course, I didn't want to leave the people unprotected. Lance could help. I had taught him several moves that Garrett had taught me. But he didn't have the strength to deal with these creatures. Deciding it was better to deal with the vampires near the people, as night time would be ideal for them to feed, I headed back around looking for booths and checking on people. I walked back toward where I came from and found several booths. The young woman who was bitten sat on a stool while someone looked after her. "How is she?" I asked. "We called an ambulance. They will be here soon. She's lost a lot of blood." "Keep an eye out for anything weird. Do you have any religious objects?" One person nodded. "Good. Hang them up. If you see anyone shying away from your booth after looking at the objects, you will know to stay away from them." "Who is doing this?" "I think it is some religious cult," I lied. "It would be best to stay away from them. Don't confront any of them." The exhibitors nodded and I went on my way. After a half hour of looking around, I went back to Lance's parents' booth where I found everyone safe and sound. "Did anyone come by here?" I asked him. "No. Everyone on the grounds is on alert." "Good. I ran into someone a short while ago. I wasn't able to get any information out of him, but I'm hoping to stop this before it gets too crazy." "Do you want me to help?" "It would be better if you stayed and protected your family. They don't know what's going on and I'd prefer they didn't know any more weirdness about my life than they already do." "Are you worried they won't like you if they find out you fight vampires?" "That would be the point, yes," I replied sarcastically. Lance smiled and hit me in the arm. "Don't be a smartass. They like you a lot. They wouldn't think anything of you fighting vampires." "Do you hear yourself?" I asked. "They wouldn't think I was a little, oh, say, crazy?!" Lance chuckled. "Don't worry, I won't say anything. You have nothing to fear." A scream rang out catching everyone's attention. "Oh my God," Diane exclaimed. "I'll check on it," I replied. "Lance, go with him," Diane told her son. Lance and I broke into a run toward the source of the scream. "What is it with screams?" Lance asked. "Everyone seems to scream," I replied. "It gets my attention." "Do you really want to respond to screaming all your life, though?" "Not really," I replied. "We'll have to come up with a new way for people to let you know they are in trouble." "That would be good. Responding to screaming gets annoying after the umpteenth time." We closed in where there was a woman crouching over her son. He must have been no older than ten years of age. His skin was pale and there were two puncture wounds on his neck left over from where the vampire drained his blood. I took in a quick breath in shock. Lance placed his hand on my back in support. Others gathered around as well. "Did you see who or what did this?" someone asked the woman. "They ran up into the woods. I didn't get a good look at him, or it." "Does he have a pulse?" Lance asked. He knelt down and took the pulse of the young man. "Barely. We need to get him out of here now." The people agreed. "I've got a cell phone. Let me call 9-1-1." Lance picked up the boy and they group headed off toward the entrance. I stood and watched my husband tending to a child in need. It warmed my heart greatly. 'He will definitely make a good dad,' I thought. I heard footsteps and looked around to see people coming toward me, though after closer look, I realized they weren't people at all, but vampires. No doubt they were members of the group nesting on the grounds somewhere. It was easily noticeable due to the look of confidence on their faces. "We were told you were the one to slay our brother. Now we come after you." "Yay?" I replied. "You don't come after us and expect us to yield to some pathetic mortal, do you?" "Pathetic?" I replied with a slight grin. "Do you know how tired I am of vampiric condescension on anyone not a creature of the night?" I turned as the vampires surrounded me. "Let's get this over with, shall we?" A vampire charged me and I tossed my leg around kicking it in the face, knocking it into its friends. I turned and punched another one. Another came up and I blocked a punch, then responded with a punch. I did a snap kick and kicked a fourth in the face. A vampire tried to grab me from behind, but I grabbed the demon's head and bent over, tossing the vampire over my shoulder. A vampire dove at me and I dove to the side, rolling into the woods. I grabbed a thick stick that lay on the ground and turned in time as a vampire dove at me. I pointed the stick toward the vampire and it penetrated its chest, piercing the heart. It turned to dust and the other vampires became enraged. "Sticks and stones," I replied as I stood up. Before any of the vampires could react, I staked two flanking me. Then I ran forward, staking a third. Two vampires punched me and I fell down. I wipe my nose and see my hand with blood on it. The vampires that punched me tackled me and pinned me down while yet another comes over and straddles me. "We all get a taste," the vampire says. I notice out of the corner of my eye Lance sneaking up behind a vampire. Without warning, the vampire turned to dust and Lance moved on to another and another. Slowly, he was thinning the ranks without any of the ones on me noticing. "You can't win this," I said to the vampire on top of me. "Oh? And why not?" the demon asked. "I know several Vampire Slayers who would not hesitate to hunt your asses down." The vampires chuckled. "No Slayer would come after us. Not after we make you into one of us." The vampire on my left turned to dust and the two other vampires turned to see Lance smiling at them. I brought my left fist up and connected with the jaw of the vampire straddling me. He tumbled to my right and knocked the vampire holding me down off of me. I hopped to my feet and Lance and I readied our stakes. The two vampires got to their feet and looked us over. "How in the hell..." "Never underestimate the power of love," I replied to the vampire. Lance smiled. The vampires attacked. Lance ducked as one took a swing at him. One ran at me and I used the demon's momentum to knock it off balance. Lance ducked as the vampire punched again and it spun around punching my vampire in the face and knocked it down. Lance took the opportunity and staked his vampire. I jumped onto the one on the ground and staked it as well. The two turned to dust and Lance came over, offering me his hand. I grabbed it and he helped me up. We headed back to the booth, told them all was well. Just to be sure, we stayed until sunrise and then we headed back to Lance's parents' home. "This is getting worse," Lance said as he pulled off his shirt. "What's getting worse?" I asked as I sat and took my shoes off. "The number of vampires. I never expected them to show up here. The first time I saw them, I was with Jessica in London. We were out on our third date. As we walked through Hyde Park, two guys came out of the shadows asking for our money. I wanted to be the knight in shining armor for Jessica, so I refused and told them to leave us alone. The vampires just smiled at us and their faces contorted into their demonic forms. I was scared out of my wits. I had never seen anything like that before. Jessica, however, had, and she stepped in between me and the vampires. I asked her what she was doing but she ignored me. "The vampires weren't amused by this. They grabbed her by the arms and one tried to bite her. She head-butt one and then grabbed the arm of the other. She twisted it and then kicked him in the head. The one she head-butt readied to grab her again, but she kicked him in the face. "I tried to be brave and save face so I went after him and tackled him. Big mistake on my part. I didn't know they were vampires and much stronger than normal men. I punched the vampire in the face but it didn't really have an effect except for hurting my hand. He laughed at me, rolled over on top of me and got ready to bite me when I saw a pointed piece of wood come out of his chest. He immediately turned to dust and the wooden stake fell onto my stomach. Jessica stood above me and reached out her hand. The other one was gone. I only assumed she did the same to him. "I took Jessica's hand and she helped me up. We went to the hotel me and the guys were staying in and sat in the café drinking coffee. She told me what she could about vampires and her being the Vampire Slayer. I was dumbfounded by it all. I mean, vampires couldn't be real, or so I thought. After a few more months of dating, NSYNC headed to the United States. I kept in contact with Jessica until we realized that dating would work between us, so our relationship dissolved." "Is that when you came out to her?" "No, not really. I had noticed as the guys and I went on tour that I was becoming more and more attracted to guys. I mean, I had always thought guys were more attractive, sort of, but I never thought about it. When I saw Justin acting like the horn-dog he is, I realized that the feelings I had were for guys. That's when I called Jessica and told her I thought I was gay. She took the next flight available and came to Dallas, Texas where we sat and talked all night at a local café. It was very surreal. It seemed as if I had woken up from a dream and entered another one. I was scared at first, but grateful I had Jessica as a friend. She told me that it would be a good idea to come out to my family and that, whenever I was ready, she would come with me. "She did and I did, and to make a long story short, they were supportive. A little freaked at first, but they didn't hate me or ridicule me or anything. At first they thought it was a phase that singers go through. But as time went on and we had conversations about stuff, like my past dating record, they realized that it wasn't a phase. They've been completely fine with it ever since." "That's a nice story." "Yeah. Sort of off topic of the vampires but sort of not. I mean the number of vampires that I saw in all my years of touring were nothing compared to what I've seen since Jessica revealed that she is the Huntress and we found out your mutant powers back in Los Angeles. That was a big city where lots of crazy stuff happens. Places like L.A., San Francisco, New York, even in Orlando, that's where vampires were in the United States, not in Mississippi." "They have been growing in numbers. Or it could be that we are so used to seeing them, looking for the signs and all, that we see them easier than before. We can't forget the Vampire War, either. Think of how much destruction they've caused, how much they made themselves known. For those of us who accept vampires exist, those who didn't know before but have been impacted personally by the war, their lives won't be the same either. Vampires thrive on secrecy. Knowing there are more people that recognize them will make the vampires head to places more secluded. That could be why there were some here." Lance nodded as he unbuckled his pants and sat on the bed to pull them off. I took off my clothes and crawled into bed, as did he. We curled up next to each other and went to sleep under the warmth of the covers and each other's body. The rest of the weekend was fun. We helped out at the booth for a while on Saturday. Most of the town's teenage girls would come to the booth or sit at tables near the booth so they could say they saw Lance Bass. We thought it was cute at first, but then it became annoying as so many kept showing up. "Will it ever cease?" I asked him. "Probably not," he replied. I chuckled, pinched his butt as I walked past him to the back to help with preparing anything. Saturday night, we went out with some of his high school friends who still lived in the area. We went to a bowling alley which was the hangout place of choice of most of the teens. We had a nice time, headed back to Lance's parents' home, and slept. Sunday we had a cookout with his family and then, after saying our goodbyes and Diane inviting us back soon, we returned home. Like Dorothy says in "The Wizard of Oz," there's no place like home. To Be Continued...