It was a quiet sunny day on the streets of New York. Several cars drove by, but that was about it. This was obviously wrong, since this was supposed to be the convention center. And there was supposed to be an event starting at the convention center. An anime event for an anime convention, which SHOULD have attracted crazy screaming otakus from all over the world.

"HELLO?!?!?!?" Serina crazily screamed.

Juni sighed as the two police officers Serina screamed at covered their ears in annoyance. While her fluffy haired companion saw fit to harass the officers with pointlessness asking why the anime convention didn't start yet, the blonde took the time to survey the scene.

The domed buildings were standing just fine and from the heightened windows Juni was able to see there were big screens inside. The anime convention center was decorated and the billboards with all your favorite anime characters like YoYo of "YoYo's Insane Tomfooleries" or Grandmother A Yoshi from "Oh My God Is" were up so the convention was obviously still planned. Then she spotted the big sign which explained everything. The anime convention was being delayed for
a bit. Though absolutely no explanation or other words were given beyond the mandatory "We apologize for the inconvenience."

"We can't let you into the convention! It's CLOSED!"  The smaller skinnier police officer snapped while his rotund companion simply sighed.

"But... but... it is my tiiiiiiiiicket!!!!! Oh, Janet won't like it when she finds out I wasted some of her money on an extra day not stayed cause that's a waste and one should waste not want not because otherwise one wastes when one wants resulting in one not getting what one wanted in the first place!"

"Argh! What do I have to do to get rid of these crybabies?!?" The skinny cop sighed then turned to the larger one, who appeared to be his superior. As well as someone Juni recognized, but hopefully didn't recognize her since she was wearing some sorta kooky anime costume that Serina cooked up for her. "Sergeant Edi. E, permission to expel these girls from the premises!"

Course, no one could recognize who the heck Juni was supposed to be cosplaying as, either. She wore some sorta freaky metallic bandana which could poke someone's eyes out with its big triangles at the end of its tails, and had some sorta weird camo green top and a ridiculously big metal arm guard and a weird fishnet wire for one of her legs. What also annoyed Juni was that the tan shorts of the costume Serina gave her didn't come with a zipper or button or anything, but fortunately Juni was able to sew one on during the plane trip.

Do all otakus dress like this? She'd probably catch less attention if she wore her black full body Shadaloo agent uniform, for crying out loud. Ah well, at least she wasn't dressed in that sailor outfit that Serina was wearing. She would have preferred the gray Japanese formal school uniform and dress that Marzche had on, though.  Sans the "My Little Unicorn" button on Marzche's front pocket.  Edi. E. was apparently arguing to his little henchman about how he LIKED having cute young little girls pout to him or something stupid like that.  Not that it mattered.  Obviously no one was getting anywhere at this rate.

In the background, barely noticeable due to her grey uniform despite her blue hair, Marzche simply popped another piece of bubble gum into her mouth as a disappointed Serina ran up to Juni.

"They won't tell me what's going on :("  Serina sighed.  "No convention and evil vampires running rampant metamorphisizing poor lil' lobsters and all the not-so-nice officers can do is sit here blockading the anime from all its cuddly friends and whatnot and I actually don't know what's going on for once which isn't good because Janet is always telling me that knowledge is power and the more you know, whatever that means but it sounds really good."

"Look, there's nothing to see here, ma’am."  The skinnier officer continued to be persistent about getting rid of the girls.  "The convention will be starting once we get some things straightened out.  Safety precautions.  Now why don't you just go run off
and enjoy some coffee or something?"

"But... but I don't waaaanna drink the coffee!!!!"  Serina cried back.

As the officer continued to fruitlessly argue with Serina's babbling, Marzche finally began blowing a big bubble from her bubble gum.  It grew to about the size of her head before it popped.  Serina argued onwards and the skinny officer didn't notice, but Edi. E. must have heard something because he glared at Marzche and let out an annoyed "Hey!"

Juni, however, was distracted by a fourth girl who happened to be in the area.  She frowned as the red haired agent wearing the same thing she was wearing and carrying Juni's pet orange white furred tabby kitty cat decided to speak up.

"You're... going to an anime convention to get your information on this vampire lord?"  Avelle glanced downwards at her rather unique attire as the kitty leapt into Juni's arms.  "Sheesh, I look terrible wearing this!"

The blonde girl quickly angrily turned away to focus on Serina's argument instead.  Avelle didn't seem to
notice, though.  "Why not just use your hunter ID and log onto the Baxter hunter site and get your info there?"

"I don't want to talk to you!"  Juni snapped, not noticing her pet kitty's worried look. "Not after what you did to Dr. Yamoto."

"Oh please, not like that was my fault."  The red-haired agent sighed.  "Dear, I actually went and did a search for those Sailor Moon sillies a while back and..."

"Quiet!"  Juni's interruption would have caught the attention of the two officers had the skinny one not been too busy putting up with Serina and Edi. E blowing his own bubble from bubble gum as an unimpressed Marzche watched.

"Well, I downloaded a huge information sheet."  Avelle continued.  "If you would just listen and..."

Juni was fast to cover her ears.  "I'm not listening to you!!!!"

"Well I..."

"No!"

"But..."

"NO!!!!"

"Hey look, there's..."

"NO!!!!!!!!!"

Edi. E's bubble popped.

"Dammit!"  The police sergeant scowled.  "No fair! I was distracted!"

"Um..."  The skinny cop broke in as Marzche calmly bowed down her head and began to blow another bubble, her eyes looking upwards with suspicion at the large man.  "Your friend like.... going through that time of month or something?"

"You'd better watch it!"  Serina happily piped. "Because she's Juni, the successor to the great Avelle, vampire hunter extraordinaire! With wonderful heavenly powers of light and JUSTICE, she smites the vampires and other supernatural evildoers of the world and makes lots and lots of shiny dollar signs while she's at it... which I guess wouldn't be very justice like since there's an ulterior motive but the end result is always good so I suppose the means suits the end and the end is good which hopefully makes the means good too."

Skinny cop was confused once again.  He must have finally conceded or something with his reply.

"So.... you're.... vampire hunting, huh....?"  He stuttered, probably not completely understanding the gist of what Serina just said.  "Well, if I told you that the convention was closed down due to lots of blood drained victims being found within New York, would that make you go away?"

"OOoooooo, really?" Serina stared in surprise. "Telling is good!"

Had he not been angrily fixated on Marzche's really really really big bubble gum bubble which was half the size of his belly, Edi E. probably would have chided the officer for giving out confidential information.  As it was, when Marzche's bubble finally popped, Edi E slammed his nightstick to the ground with a residing "God dammit!"

Not knowing what the heck that meant but deciding to leave the scene now that the new information was known, Juni quickly tapped Serina on the shoulder as her cat made a short leap to the ground.  "Well, that's it. I think we found our vampires.  I'm going off to take care of them then.  And... um... since I don't have to go to the convention, I don't have to wear this ridiculous costume, right?"

"But... but the costume has mad ninja skills!"  Serina protested.  She sighed then stared back at the convention and a look of determination slowly came across her face.  "I'm coming with you! I'm tired of letting these mean mean vampires get away with everything!  I'm not going to just stand around and do nothing anymore while they run around transforming all the poor poor birds and cats of the world into horrible horrible white things which are only remote shadows of that which once was something that once was! Marzche! Come on!"

With that, Serina grabbed a surprised and confused Juni by the arm and dragged her off. Marzche shrugged then simply followed along with Juni's kitty cat, but not before turning around and quickly flashing a grin with her eyes happily closed to Edi. E, then turning back towards Serina and Juni to leave. For some reason, the large policeman looked really pissed, though Juni couldn't figure out what had just gone on between the two.

Y’know, after all that excitement during the night, it was a bit hard getting used to the daytime again.  You can laugh about how you hear New York being as bright as day during the night, thanks to all the streetlights and cars running around, but there really
is a difference.  A difference that my poor, maladjusted pupils were bearing the toll of.  Normally this city doesn’t live until nightfall, and I, quite frankly, was glad it had died for the time being.  These sentiments weren’t just mine, mind you.  Anna and Jack were right along behind me, both as bleak-eyed and bone-tailed as I was.  Well, maybe not bone-tailed as they lacked certain body parts, but that’s just the way you humans coin phrases, I guess.

Can you guess what I’m about to say?  That’s right, “we didn’t expect what was coming next”.  Never thought that ‘expect the unexpected’ rule would be so hard to obtain, but what can ya do, right folks?

It was pretty early in the morning, and as per Jacks earlier request, we said good bye to Calloway for the time being and went to check out our home.  On a side note, its rather nice having your own home, isn’t it?  But that’s something I suppose I need to save till later. It was pretty early in the morning, couldn’t have been more than a couple hours after dawn, really.  Jack stopped walking, and his eyes closed as Anna and I turned back, wondering what was wrong.

“You know...I think we’re being tailed...” he said.

“What?” asked Anna.

“Keep walking.” answered Jack, and continued at the pace he had gone on before.  Anna and I naturally started walking, though I kept looking back and forth to see if anyone was following. Just as we passed a large building, I though I saw something whiz by in the shade.  I looked back more carefully, but it didn’t reappear.  I must have looked pretty odd, I guess.  If I remember right, I must have been walking totally backwards.

“Iggi, straighten yourself out! Look natural!” Jack hissed.  Not one to argue, I did a quick about-face and acted like nothing was wrong. Jack started to slow down.  Anna and I followed suit, waiting for him to make a move.  In the very blurriest corner of my vision, I thought I saw something poke around the side of the building.  We passed an alley, and then...

“NOW!” screamed Jack. whipped around, and I caught a brief flash of blue and heard stone crack.  Circling around to get a better look, I saw that a shining blue clawed hand had come out of Jack’s own hand and had buried itself in the wall.  Mere inches from that claw, was none other than one of Dio’s henchman.  Almost six feet tall, I’d of said.  Although from my vantage point heights are really hard to guess.  Or did I mention that earlier?  Well, no matter.  Seeing the sharp claws of my compatriot might have caused the vampire to do something freudian like wet his pants, assuming vamps still have the capacity for such.  Of course, this particular one seemed content to just look really really scared.  Natural enough reaction to nearly being decapitated, I guess.

“Uh....” began the vamp.  For a moment both he and my own little posse were at a loss for what to do.  He came to a decision quicker than we did and socked Jack in the gut.  Damn cheap move in my opinion, not that I got much of a say, though.  At which point the vamp in question took off running as fast as a cat would run from Yancy.  And that’s pretty damn fast.

Naturally we gave chase.  It was...a bit of an odd chase, to say the least.  The vamp stayed in the shady areas of the city, and at one point actually tried to scale a wall to get away from us.  Jack had the agility advantage with Wolfman backing him up, and knocked the poor sucker (blood sucker, I’m assuming.  Unless this was some sort of homosexual vampire which really isn’t a subject I feel like getting into) right onto his face.  Vissi had apparently decided to enter the fray, and seemed nearly about to crush the stupid vamp with one gigantic stomp, when a gunshot rang out and a bullet whizzed by Vissi’s foot.  Shocked by the initial confusion, Anna and Vissi basically stood around like idiots and Jack jumped from the wall he was hanging on, landing between Anna and some new arrivals to the game.  Using the distraction, the vampire tore off out of the alley and disappeared.  That was when I got a better look at the new arrivals.  Three girls, to be exact.

.....And I thought Dio had been a bad dresser.

"If you fired again, you would have got him."

Still holding and pointing the gun, Juni's arm shook a little.

"I thought I told you to hesitate. You didn't want to shoot the bystanders, didn't you? If you were a competent shot, that wouldn't have happened anyway."

"Juni?"  Serina verbally poked with a whisper without turning her head as everyone remained frozen in place.

The vampire tracker 2000 was an interesting device. It basically managed to search out and detect vampires with the best of them.  Or at least that was what Juni had hoped.  Actually, it was more or less a silly gadget that she managed to borrow from Desire which was supposed to detect if something lacked a soul or whatnot, but Juni figured that since vampires were supposed to be soulless, it would get the job done.  Sure, maybe she could have dug through Avelle's things and found something magical which would have better suited the situation, but she was definitely not going to rely on Avelle for once.

"Dear, you really look like you could use some help there. All of you have been staring at each other for more than a minute now."

Good thing there weren't any watches or clocks in the vicinity to add a ticking to the silence.

She was not going to get any more of Avelle's "help."  No more of her advice, no more of her artifacts, no more of her hunter
friends...  the fact that that vampire had just gotten away and Juni met these freaks and their evil evil vile pet dog (Juni really didn't like dogs very much) with their wavy puppets or personas or whatever the heck they controlled was just a mere temporary set back.

"Um... Juni?"  Serina quietly piped again.

"You're really not handling this very gracefully, you know."

An annoyed Juni muttered to the voice in response.  "Shut up..."

"Ooooo, but I didn't even begin to talk yet!"  Serina piped somehow managing to cut through the tense silence.  Everyone else remained frozen though.  "You know you're still pointing your gun at those nice people, right?  Do you think they helped the vampire?  Because that wouldn't be good and they look scary and whatnot but I think they were fighting the vampire or maybe they're in league with a vampire because I'm getting very bad vibes here and bad vibes are never good because they're bad."

Everyone but Marzche stared at Serina in surprise as Juni got quite frustrated with the ludicrousness of everything.

"You're still using my gun at least, you know."

"I DON'T NEED THE STUPID GUN EITHER!" Juni snapped as she threw it across the alley.

And right into that other girl's head.

Without a doubt, it’s really, really weird when someone decides to throw a gun at you instead of shooting it.  I doubted Anna would complain, but I was proven wrong when she, in the most verbal manner possible, proved that HELL YES she was from New York City.

“You god-damned...”  Sorry folks, I’m not reprinting all of what she said.  There may be innocent young children reading this, y’know?  “...on the gun twirling horse you rode in on!”

We all kind of... stared, for a minute.  To me and Jack, this was kind, sweet, slightly-obsessive-compulsive Anna speaking strongly enough to turn a cabbie into a giggling schoolgirl.  To the um... fearsome threesome before us, they probably just hadn’t expected something like that from a native.  In other words, we were probably facing down with a trio of complete dumbasses.  Of all the luck....

“Hey hey HEY!”  began the wierdo in a suit that reminded me of a hooker I’d always seen hanging around one of the docks near the ocean, “Saying all those mean things is really really bad and cruel to do to happy people like us who have a purpose which is fighting vampires though that seems really really odd to do in the daytime don’t you think?  I mean everyone knows vampires only come out in the night and hunt virgins I wonder why they want them all the time though, is it because they’re mean mean people who like to dominate little girls?  Eeewwww that’s not a good thought at all is it though Professor Irvine always told me domination was part of zee way and zat zee authority figure with the pointy fingernails should always be dominant, so that means YOU guys are in league with the vampires, I knew it!”

So, after taking five or so minutes to actually dissect what in the hell that girl said, and another five minutes mentally debating what the hell her mom was drinking during those nine months, everyone more or less came to the same conclusions.

“They’re helping the vampires!?” asked the blonde who’d thrown her gun at Anna.

“They think we’re vampires!?” blurted Jack.

“See!?  See!?  They are vampires because he admitted to it and admitting the problem is the first step to recovery though it won’t do much good because now we have to kill them which may be bad but its part of the greater good and not so bad because they’re already dead in a way even though its odd they should be in the daytime then and vampires are still evil and when we kill them the convention can begin!  Yay!” Go on folks, guess who said that mouthful.

“And another thing, your fucking ninja suit is so...” continued Anna.

A bubble popped, and we were momentarily distracted once again as the girl in the grey version of Sailor Hooker peeled some bright pink goo from her face.  In our moment (alright, moments ) of distraction, the red head launched herself at Anna with what looked to be a vicious flying kick, yelling something along the lines of “What did you say about her costume!?”

In an instant, Jack was up and about with Wolfman coming up around his arms trying to block.  The red head, surprisingly, dropped out of the jump right next to him and threw something to his side.  As odd as this sounds....I think it was a cookie. Chocolate chip, to be exact.  Although it didn’t smell totally like a normal cookie.  I found out why a second later.

BOOM!  And Jack went flying straight for Sailor Hooker's evil twin, who had since pulled out one of those little laptop computers those damn collage kids are always treating like children.  As Jack accidently crashed into her, the computer fell to the ground and everyone was stock still as a voice came out of it.

“Error.  Error.  Shock has caused all Minesweeper high scores held by Agent: Marzche to be erased.  Have a nice day.”  It said.  For a brief moment, I could have sworn that dark suited girl’s eyes turned bright red.

BOOM CRASH!!!!!!!!

And there Jack was, laying in a very painful position atop what had been the wall of a very sturdy-looking building. Anna and I were shocked for a moment, and even Sailor Hooker and the blonde girl looked a tad scared. While Sailor Hooker and Blondy stared at their pissed off friend, Vissi came screaming out of Anna and kneed Sailor in the gut, knocking her into Blondy and taking them both out into the street. A quick spin kick later, Sailor’s evil BOOMing twin was following them.

Anna went to tend to Jack, so naturally I rushed into the fray. Since The Fool might have been taking a nap somewhere, I had little else to rely upon except for my jaws.  In other words, I was royally screwed if Boom Girl came after me. Blondy had gotten to her feet first, and had apparently gotten ahold of a second gun, aiming it over me.  Well I sure as hell couldn’t let her shoot Anna, so I jumped and bit her hand.  Instead of the usual “ARGH!” that accompanied my bitings, she instead yelled out one of the weirdest pain cries I’d ever heard.

“CUDDLES!!!!” she yelled. Folks, the arrival of this person marks one of the most miserable parts of my life I can remember.  And to think, it all began with one little sound.

“Mew.” it said. That monster, that creature from the foulest bowel movement of Hell, and all it said was “Mew” of all damn things.  My vision was suddenly erupted in colors of white and red, and seconds later I was on the ground exploding in pain from a million scratches. As I staggered weakly to my feet, I heard the demon speak again.

<You big meanie!>  It began, <you aren’t supposed to hurt mommie because....ooo, yarn!>  The orange and white demon calmly trotted up to me while my vision kept doubling up on me, and began pawing my head.

“Cuddles will get rid of that evil mutt!” called Blondy proudly.

 <Your head reminds me of yarn! Let’s be good friends!> Said Cuddles the Demon Cat.

<Hold it! Quite pawing my damn head you mangy feline!>  I argued.

<Aw, but it’s so cuuuute...>  She whined.  And you humans wonder why we damn hate cats so much, don’t you?  As Cuddles was busy batting my brain back and forth, I heard a new voice from around the corner.

“This is Sergeant Edi E.  I need backup!”  It spoke in a quiet whisper.  Cops aren’t that bad for me, it’s the dog catchers that are pains in the ass.  But I’ll get into that later.

“You know...I looks like they might like each other!” came Anna’s voice. She had apparently healed Jack and they were looking really oddly at me.  Anna was smiling in her semi-ditz way, and Jack looked to be trying to hold in vast amounts of laughter despite the many bruises on him.  Well, I certainly wasn’t going to stand for this!

<Get off me NOW!>  I yelled, and knocked Cuddles off.

<Hehehe, Yarn Head wants to plaaay!>  giggled Cuddles as I chased her all over the street barking various obscenities at her.

“Cuddles! You're supposed to disembowel him, not play with him!” yelled Blondy,  “Awww, that’s what I get when Lord Bison gives me such a sweet little kitten.”

“Like hell your going to disembowel my dog!” yelled Anna, and next thing I knew the whole group was fighting again.  And since I can never get into a fight that isn’t interrupted, everyone was stopped again by a very loud voice screaming above everyone else’s jabbering.

PATROL CRASH!!!!

Cuddles and I decided to hang back when the police car fell on everyone.  I think I was a bit paranoid a giant fire hydrant would fall from the sky and knock me unconscious like the cruiser had my friends.  As we continued watching (well, watching what I could as Cuddles still wouldn’t get off my damn head), we saw an unbelievably fat cop, y’know, the type of cop that keeps Dunkin’ Doughnuts in business on graveyard shifts, get out of the car and radio his buddies about arresting some gang members.

<Heeey where are they taking mommie?>  asked Cuddles, <I wanna go with them!  It looks like fun!>

<You dope, this isn’t good....>  I warned.

"Oooooooow.  What hit me?"

"Reality?"

"Avelle, SHUT UP."

"Drat."

Juni slowly opened her eyes and looked around.  She was in a small-time prison cell in a police station.  That... was not good.  Panic set in for a really brief second as she suddenly realized that they'd probably execute her for all the things she did as a member of Shadowlaw, until she remembered what was going on before she ended up there.   Fortunately, she wasn't wearing any incriminating Shadaloo objects.

Breathing a sigh of relief and also glad that the fact that this happened while she was off-duty wouldn't cause it to hurt her efficiency rating, Juni tried to figure out who she should call to get bail.  She didn't want to call any of Avelle's hunters though, since she promised to herself that she would do this without Avelle's help.

Though... after she fully gained consciousness of her surroundings, she began to be aware that due to her fluffy-pink haired companion, she really really wanted to get out of this prison ASAP.

"Nooooobo-dy knows.... the TROUBLE I've seeeeeen!"  Serina sang throughout the station.  "Nooooobo-dy knows... the SORROW...."

A male voice, belonging to that guy who was with that girl they fought, shouted from the next door cell.  "GOD DAMMIT, will you SHUT UP?"

Serina looked off to the side where the voice came from, then giggled a "heehee!" before singing again.  "Noooooobo-dy KNOWS...."

"ARGH!"

"Take that, you evil evil mean mean vampire!"  Serina snapped.  "No more vampiricizing poor sailor scouts who just want to serve cookies and have fun WAFFy cousinships of family friendliessness for YOU."

"Jack, stop."  The other girl from the neighboring cell, apparently calmed down a lot finally, decided to intercede into the conversation.  "Look, how many times do we have to tell you that we're not vampires?"

"Seven times seventy!"  Serina snapped back.

She apparently decided to take Serina up on that challenge.  "We are not vampires."

"That's three!"

"We are not vampires."

"That's four!"

"We are not..."

Juni could have sworn she heard Jack breaking into tears.  Fortunately, the blonde saw Marzche happily listening to music with headphones connected to her laptop, and figured that whatever music Marzche was listening to had to be better than listening to that girl saying "We are not vampires." over and over again.

She put her hands behind her back and looked at Marzche with a "May I?" pleading look.  The blue haired girl shrugged and handed the headphones over to her and she quickly put them on.

Hmm.  No music at all.  Guess Marzche was just smart enough to use them to block out Serina's sound.  She sure looked like she was listening to music though since she was humming some some sort of ballad music.

That other girl must have finally given up because Serina was knocking at the wall apparently looking for a response.  It also indicated it was safe to take off the headphones.  Oddly enough, the instant Juni removed them, Marzche snatched them and put them back on.  Juni responded to that by glaring at her rather awkwardly.

"Helloooooooshi?  Give up?  Ah ha!  I knew you were vampires!"  Serina triumphantly proclaimed.  "You couldn't even get past twenty-five!"

Twenty-five?!  Wow, time passes fast when you're listening to nothing.

"I'm out of breath!"  The girl shouted back.  "I need a glass of water."

"Anna, GIVE IT UP."  Jack's voice sounded again.  "All you're doing is making me want to rip off my ears!"

A fast correction by Serina followed.  "Your long secretly elfish pointy VAMPIRE ears!"

"Gee, Serina..."  Juni remarked.  "You really feel strong about this thing, huh?"

"Strong is the estimated statement down under, Juni!!!"  Her look of determination back, Serina clenched her fist.  "I'm never ever EVER letting these mean mean evil evil vampires get away with anything else!!  They've always had the entire world to themselves and they think they can always muddy it with yucky yuck dirt and bad bad photography narrowed down to the most explicit of instances, and I'm not going to let that happen anymore!"

Juni was too busy boggling at trying to figure out what the heck Serina was talking about to respond, but Anna was smart enough to choose one of the few things Serina said in English in that statement.

"You think all vampires are evil?"

"It's not just all vampires that are evil!"  Serina snapped back.  "Vampire is the definition of evil which is all encompassing that I see to do lots of meanful things such as spreading darkness and taking over stuff which people did not want to be taken over even if they did manage to adapt!"

"So..."  Anna paused for a bit while she tried to sort that out.  "You think all vampires are evil?"

"Pretty much."  Serina beamed, before angrily glaring at the wall again.  "Evil vampire."

"Not all vampires are evil."  Anna was apparently going for the sincere approach.  Whether it was a mask or not, Juni wasn't sure.  She always tried to be sincere about things herself, though it was sometimes hard for her to figure out what she really felt about things.

"Huh?  Whatcha mean?"  Serina piped.  "I said muchly so that vampires were evil evil evil very much my def..."

"Some vampires are good guys."  The other girl interrupted, smart enough to know that if she let Serina complete her sentence, she probably wouldn't have been able to understand any of it.

"Vampires are good guys!!!"  Serina screamed, using a wierd tone of sarcasm which was extra wierd because Juni normally didn't see Serina as sarcastic.  "Ha!  Next thing you'll tell me is that Astrogoth isn't evil!"

Jack's turn to intercede.  And with a rather snidely tone and grin, too.  "Astrogoth isn't ev..."

"JACK!"  There was a light slapping noise following Anna's snap in the neighboring cell, before Anna continued.  "We know a vampire who's on the good guy's side."

Juni blinked.  On the good guy's side?  Shadaloo had a vampire working for it?

Serina put her hands halfway up and rolled her eyes.  "You see, that's impossible since it goes against what a vampire stands for because the very word screams evil to the core of the evillest evil stuff in the evil realm of such evilness!"

Juni almost pictured Anna blinking when Anna replied.  "Realm of evilness?"

"Oh, I think she means Makai."  Juni remarked.  "That's where vampires generally come from.  So do lots of super natural beings.  Pretty hard place to get to I imagine.  Hunters are still looking for the entryway and we're not sure whether it's a hidden land, new dimension... don't I just have the bestest hunter knowledge?"

She proudly beamed.

"Got most of it from reading Avelle's journal tapes."  The blonde happily proclaimed.

"It is not from Makaaaaai!!!"  Serina whined, surprising Juni for a brief second.  "That's a realm of evilness supposedly too but I mean a whole realm realm thing which the birds enjoy flying to and the vampires hail from and calling it a realm of evil evilness made pure.  Pure evil!"

"I can assure you that our friend isn't evil."  Anna calmly stated.

"I'll see it when I believe it."  Snapping more times than she usually snapped, Serina crossed her arms.  "That still doesn't get rid of the fact that you're evil vampires."

Sighing, Anna attempted to explain again.  "Look, we are not vampires."

"That's twenty-six!"

"We are not vampires."

"Twenty-seven!"

"We are not..."

Jack's statement echoed Juni's thoughts perfectly.

"NOT AGAIN!!"

I woke up just as the sun had finished setting into the horizon.  As I figured out that the darkness around me was nightfall instead of the alley walls, I immediately bolted to the back into the cardboard box I had woken up in. My travel to the opposite was cut short, however, but the same orange demon that had plagued me earlier.

<Wheee! Yarn Head's awake!> It said.

<Quit calling me Yarn Head!> I complained as Cuddles started groping my defenseless cranium again. <What happened?>

<Mommie and your owner made some new friends and went for a long drive.  Isn’t that NICE?> asked the perpetual idiot.  She seemed to sadden up a little bit at the end, though.  <That was a long long time ago, though....>

Had I the capacity, I would have groaned in that exasperated way humans do.  <Look, first of the all, those two aren’t my owners.  No one owns me, you got it?  Second, those ‘friends’ you mentioned are bad guys who took your Mommie to the slammer.>

<But...Mommie would never leave with bad guys!  And what’s a slammer?> asked the demon cat.

Another groan would have been perfect for right then.  <It’s jail, okay?  A scary place with lots of cages and mean people inside.  Trust me.  And it those people were your Mommies friends, they wouldn’t have hit her upside the head with a police cruiser, you know?>

<But I... I want Mommie!> said Cuddles.  I can’t totally explain everything about the animal kingdom to you humans.  Dogs and cats can’t cry, but we can sort of... let emotions get the best of us.  Cuddles was doing that by committing the very dangerous act of getting close to me again.  <Bring Mommie back, Yarn Head!>

<For the last time, quit calling me Yarn Head!> I snapped, regretting it the moment it came out.  Cuddles backed off, surprisingly.  Cats also have the amazing ability to reduce their size by fifty percent when their hurt.  I suddenly found myself wondering how old this cat was.  Whatever the age, I’d of bet right then she was a few years my junior.  I walked over and tried to paw her out of the corner, at least.  <Quit bawling and come on. We’ll get her back.> I said, and I turned and walked out of the box, into the alley, and headed up the street to get my bearings.  It wasn’t long before I heard Cuddles running to catch up with me.

<How’re we going to get her back?>

<Not a problem for Super Iggi!> I declared.

<Yay!  Super Yarn Head!> cheered Cuddles.  I still really hate cats, by the way.  There was a street sign up ahead.  The corner of Hudson and Brookshire Avenue.  That meant the police station was all the way across town.  I had a real bad feeling something would happen to Anna and the others if we didn’t get there soon.

<Alright, we have to go this way to get to the station.> I told Cuddles, and ran off across the street. As I ran between a restaurant and a dry cleaners, Cuddles suddenly zoomed by me yelling something about saving Mommie. <Cuddles, slow down!>  Lucky for the kid, she had good brakes.  If she had kept running into the street on the other side of the alley, she would have been run over by that taxi.

A taxi with a crapload of dirt on it.

A taxi with a pair of bull horns sticking out of the roof like piercing battering rams.

<CALLOWAY!  Cuddles, get that driver's attention!> I ordered.  The cab was stopped at a red light, so we had only a few seconds to get him before he drove off.  Cuddles nodded and jumped through an open window.  A few seconds later, I heard a lot of scratching noises and several delightful southern obscenities being screamed on the other side of the door.  The door flew open and Cuddles came zooming out, while Calloway, covered in scratches and holding a six-shooter, was climbing over the passengers seat to get revenge.  He was cut short inside the cab when I jumped in and tried to push him back.

“Iggi!?” he exclaimed, “Well if’n this ain’t a coincidence! Where’s Anna?” I didn’t have time to explain, or really the means considering I’m not the master of the human tongue.  So all I was able to do was pull a Lassie impression by jumping on the dash and barking like a madman.  Cuddles jumped over Calloway and joined me, yowling like hell to get Calloway’s ass in gear.  “That li’l devil’s your compadre, Iggi? Dang, now I can’t shoot’im.” He groaned as he climbed back into the drivers seat.  “Y’all need to take you somewhere?” I nodded and continued barking. “Fine then, and I won’t even charge y’all a fare.” he said as he put the cab back into gear. Several cars honked behind us as the light had turned green some time ago.  Calloway tore off, delivering unto the people behind us the universal gesture of the almighty middle.

And so, with Calloway’s insane style of driving aiding us, it took only a fraction of the time needed to get to the jail.  We instructed Calloway, who was surprisingly smart for a vampire, to pull around to the side as Cuddles and I jumped out and began sniffing around.

<Mommie!>  Cuddles yelled, and began trying to scale the brick wall to the barred window above. Cats' claws can climb a lot of things, but brick sure as hell ain’t one of them. I sniffed the air, Anna and Jack were there too!  Calloway, with a slight hop, was able to grab the bars and peer inside.

“Anna?” he asked.

“Billy?” came Anna’s reply.

“Don’t y’all worry, Billy Calloway’s to the rescue!”  Calloway put his shoulder against the side of the window, and used his arm to push at one of the bars.  Inch by inch, it bent until it hit the other side of the window wall.  He seemed to feed on some encouraging praise coming from Anna as he turned around and repeated the process on the other bar.  I’m surprised he wasn’t like one of those late-night vamp flicks where they bust through walls with the bat of an eyelash.  Or maybe people only did that in those Jap cartoons.  Whatever.  At any rate, the hole in the bars was probably just enough to squeeze through.  Anna’s head popped up inside, and she began to climb out.

“Anna, we gotta be careful,” Calloway said.  “I think there’s another of that Dio bastard's henchmen come a gunnin’ for us.  I ran ‘im out last night but I couldn’t find ‘im before the sun came up.  Stupid polecat musta clung to the bottom of my ride....”  Anna, in between the grunts of forcing herself through the bars explained that we had met such a vampire that morning.

“We lost *grunt* him too, and found *oof * someone else to give us trouble.” she said, before popping out of the bars and into the arms of our resident vampire.  She got back on her feet as Jack began to squeeze through himself.  His escape seemed a lot more fluid than Anna’s had.  I think Wolfman probably helped him with that somehow.

“Um...hello? Can we get out too?” it was the voice of that blond girl from before. I heard Cuddles yell <Mommie!> and just barely had the time to move before I got run over by the crazy feline.  Calloway was leaning up against the wall, panting like I would on a hot day.

“Am I gonna have to let them out too?” he asked Anna.

“....I don’t know. I mean, if they attack us again....” Anna wasn’t sure what to do.  So naturally, I had the misfortune of needing to make the decision for her.  I put my paws up on the wall, and began to bark along with the yowling Cuddles.

Calloway seemed to get the message.  I think I said before that he was smart, for a vampire.  He handed his hat to Anna, and slid inside.  A few minutes later, Blondy, Boom Girl, and Sailor Hooker came out in front of him, after which he made very sure to get his hat back as quickly as possible.

“Why...are you helping us, anyway?” asked Blondy as Cuddles rushed into her arms.

“Well y’all can partly thank my boy Iggi here.” said Calloway, “O’ course, I don’t mind bein’ thanked either.  After all, a southern gentleman like m’self can’t help but rescue pretty ladies in distress like y’allselves.”  As he finished what I believe was a compliment, he grinned again with his fangs displaying themselves rather prominently in the moonlight.

What did you know?  They were right.  They did have a good guy vampire that worked for Shadaloo.  Well, or at least he was helping Juni out at the moment, which was sort of the same thing.  Juni was glad.  She wanted to shake his hand.  She wanted to say "Thanks a lot, Mr. Vampire man named Billy!  We really appreciate it!"

Before she could do anything of the sort, Serina acted first by pointing directly at Billy's face and screaming.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"

Everyone quickly covered their ears because Serina's shout could probably be heard from anywhere within an entire mile radius.  Of course, the police in charge of that station were a lot closer to the group than that.  Somewhere in the main lounge Edi. E choked on a donut while his skinny companion spilled coffee all over himself at the sudden noise.

All the police in the station (all two of them, which basically was only Edi. E and his skinny companion since the others just happened to be coincidentally tied up with the convention and the vampire rumours) quickly ran into the cell hall and pointed their guns at the group as Edi E shouted with a resounding "FREEZE!"

Of course, by then, the group was long gone.

"Sir," The skinnier policeman asked.  "What do we do now that the peace-disturbers escaped?"

"Dammit!"  Slamming his gun to the ground, Edi E. cursed.  "Who cares about them?  They made me choke on my last donut and now I need to get some new ones!"

Looking into the station through the window, Juni quickly ducked down again and dashed away.  From a nearby alley, everyone watched the police car exit the station parkway and head for the nearest donut shop.  When it was gone, they finally talked again.  Or at least started off interactions again with lots of glares pointed at Serina's general direction.

Serina simply stared back with a few blinks before beaming and waving.  "Hi!  Is something wrong?"

While everyone probably did a whole bunch of facefaults, forehead slaps, or whatever, Anna simply annoyedly crossed her arms and shook her head, before commenting to Serina, "See?  Not all vampires are bad."

Serina stared in confusion for a bit before looking at Billy then remarking, "OOoooooh, you mean THAT kind of vampire!"

Everyone (except Marzche of course) quickly glared back at her again, even more annoyed than before.  "WHAT OTHER KIND OF VAMPIRE IS THERE?!?"

"What?  I toooold you!!"  Rolling her eyes, Serina began to explain again.  "Vampire is the very muchos factos mia definition of evil that goes to..."

"Nevermind."  Juni quickly interupted to spare everyone from Serina's babble.  "If that's not the type of vampire that pisses you off, then why did you scream like that when he bared his fangs at you?"

The fluffy pink haired girl shrugged.  "He has bad breath."

"Ah, good point."  It was strange but, Juni had to agree with that.  Billy was quick to get on the defensive.

"Well, uh... considerin' my diet, um...."

"No excuse!"  A scold quickly flew at the vamp from Anna's direction .  "You're marching home and brushing your fangs this instant, young man!"

A low whining bark came from the dog.  It was obviously embarassed, if it was possible to be embarassed.  Juni still didn't like dogs very much.  Even her cat continued to keep bapping the thing's head.

The blonde slowly smiled and shook Anna's hand.  "Hey, thanks.  Sorry about that whole smack up upside the head with the gun thing."

"Oh, that's okay!"  Anna beamed back, before quickly grabbing Juni by the collar and glaring at her.  "Just don't do it again.  Okay?"

She quickly let go and Juni stumbled back a bit.  The young teen quickly regained her composure, stood up, and saluted.  "Erm, right.  Of course.  I guess I'll see you later then.  If we somehow bump into each other again due to some insane coincidence.  Um... hey, Cuddles, stop that!"

"Meeew!!"  Cuddles whined as Juni picked her off the floor away from Iggi's slightly pawed head.

Juni... just wanted to curl up and die.  This whole fiasco was really embarassing to one who was supposed to be as great vampire hunter as Avelle.  She was quick to say goodbye, but she didn't know what else to do to the nice people.  She had her own job that was still unfinished after all.  With that, Juni watched and waved as Anna's group walked off in the sunset.  Well, Serina decided to give her own good bye, too.

"Goodbye, vampires!!!"  The fluffy pink-haired girl piped.  This immediately caused Anna to freeze, and slowly walk back up to her.

Well, so much for a quick goodbye on good terms.

"We are not vampires!"

"You still didn't prove that, you know!"  Mischievously turned away from Anna a little with her arm by her side, but looking back at her, Serina grinned. "Oh, and that's... um... what count were we at again?"

"That was the seventh timed the seventieth one!"  Anna snapped back.  "I told you the rest while you weren't listening."

"You did?"  Blinking, Serina paused for a bit before finally shrugging.  "Wow, that was fast.  Well, okay!  Bye bye people who aren't vampires!"

Everyone simply sighed before Anna turned to leave again.  As they left, Juni slowly wondered if they met the most annoying girl in their life.  She didn't notice her kitty cat waving its paw at those other people's doggy, as they walked away in the distance.

<Bye bye, Super Yarn Head Iggi!>  The kitty cat mewed.  <I'll miss you!>

The dog turned his head around to look back and gave a shrugful gruff, before he joined his friends to leave.