Leo groaned and cracked his neck, blinking in the harsh late morning sunlight. Last night's debacle meant he got to bed around two in the morning, and while Scott was used to such hours, the blonde football captain definitely wasn't.

"I can see that you had a very busy late night last night." Mielios said disapprovingly, drawing water from the river. Leo squinted at him.

"Yeah. Uh, this is your...residence, while you're in town?" There was a cardboard box underneath the bridge, a grey blanket visible on the bottom. Mielios smiled wanly.

"Indeed, though my true quarters are locationed elsewhere. This is sufficient for now. I have been to many worlds, and have slept in much worse conditions than this. You too shall, if you live long enough. Factually, this is more than what we have on my home world Kartg. We cling to the ceilings of caverns and rocky crevices to sleep."

"Uh-huh." Leo said noncommittedly. Mielios snorted and threw the bucket of water into Leo's face, making him cough and sputter. "Hey! What gives? That's freezing!"

"To wake you up." Mielios said simply, handing him a towel. "I have heard that you and the y'shhk-gorrah went after the vampire last night. What were you thinking, boy? Three human pupates against a vampire is asking for death. You're very lucky that you're alive right now." Mielios chastised. Leo dried his face and stood up straight.

"With all due respect sir, I knew it could go badly. But I have been given a chance to help. I can't refuse. The alternative would be to do nothing, and that would not be right." he said evenly.

"Hrmph." the alien huffed, unable to do more. He’d planned to give him a tongue-lashing, but Leo had a point, and Mielios remembered his early days too well to avoid being called a hypocrite. While 'stay out of it' was usually the best advice for normal citizens, both he and Leo had a duty. He stared at the sky. Such a strange planet. The clouds could be light or heavy, and the sun shone for a mere twelve hours a day. The temperature changed up and down with the seasons. He wondered if it was such harsh conditions that made men like Leo strong here.

"Very well," he said at last. "You argue your point irrefutably."

"I was on the debate team in junior high." Leo smiled gently.

"Hmmm. But still, no matter how much steel you have, that cannot replace knowledge. What do you know of vampires?" Mielios asked.

"From firsthand evidence, they're strong. Very strong." Leo said, frowning. "He seemed indefatigable as well. We chased him halfway across town and he still had the energy to run into an apartment complex that was on fire."

"Oh? How desperate and unusual. Is that how the foul beast got away, I'm guessing." the alien said, tilting his head at an angle that was just slightly too far to be natural for a human.

"Err, yeah." Leo grunted, not clarifying. Best to let sleeping dogs lie. "Anyway, he was also fast, I could barely see him move. Although now that I think about it, it was nighttime and he was wearing dark clothes, so that might've had something to do with it too." he admitted. Mielios nodded.

"Correct. Now then, vampires can arise from any species on any world. They are not a natural life existence. It is believed they sprang forth millions of yearly cycles ago, as a result of an unknown pact with an ancient, sinister, otherworldly deity. Though specific details are differing, all vampires have unnatural power and strength, all do not age, and all suck the bloodlife of others to fuel their stomachs. They are dead come back, soulless reapers meant to take life for their own. And as they drink more, their weird grows as well. A truly strong vampire has many, many resources to call toward."

"I see. And what of weaknesses? Are there any special things we can take advantage of?" Leo asked. Mielios chuckled.

"To be sure. There are many vampire types, and as many weaknesses. However, some are abundant like sunlight, some are incredibly specific like compulsion of obsessiveness, while others have no true weaknesses at all. I best find that it's better to focus on what works unfailingly-all vampires have to drink bloodlife, and this instinct can be used to draw them into dangerous traps. Over ninety out of one hundred percent of species cannot enter home residences uninvited. And at last, excluding the ones made of fire, they all burn the same.”

"Made of fire?" Leo blinked, but Mielios paid no heed.

"Remember, if you meet a vampire, it should be destroyed as soon as possible, though that can happen when you first meet it rarely. Killing them is not only our duty, but a service to them as well, releasing them into the cycle of life again, though they not know it. So you should kill them all and burn the remains. It's the only way to be in safety." Mielios explained.

"Okay..." Leo trialed off, unsure of how casually his teacher was in favor of genocide. But, he supposed, was it really genocide if the targets weren't alive in the first place? "Anyway, that's the goal. So how do we get there? You're my combat instructor, let's get down to some combat." Mielios nodded.

"Hah!" His whip appeared in his hand and struck without warning, and Leo was forced to drop to the ground to avoid it. His eyes widened and he rolled as the whip was brought down again, rending the air. "While we will go over important combat administrations, such as footwork, my species' methods of fighting and yours are almost completely different, biologically speaking. Not to mention, many of the normal martial ways are normally ineffective on opponents we can face. Have you ever wrestled with an entity of malice that could phase in and out of reality at will? I have. You must attain a pure combat instinct, which is honed enough that will carry you to victory. The sword can't do all the work, you know. You must gain combat experience to be in readiness for combat. So, we fight until you do well. Now get up!" the alien screeched, flailing his whip and stomping at his head. Leo gulped and materialized his sword.

"This is going to be painful." he muttered.

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Amber sighed as she pulled up to her father's warehouse, now Scott's secret necromancy lab, and parked her bike next to the large pine tree. She knocked on the door with trepidation, trying to steel herself for yet another appearance by Scott's skeletal servant. She was pleasantly astonished when Scott himself opened the door.

"Yo."

"Oh Scott, glad to see yYYYYYEEEAAAAHHHHHH!" She screamed when she saw he was carrying the corpse of a half-rotted cat by the tail, swinging it absentmindedly, and that he was wearing a leather apron covered in dark stains that smelled like blood. "What the hell, Scott!?"

"Oh, this guy?" he said, holding up the feline corpse. "Just need to harvest a few things from-" He was cut off by a mad, unearthly howl behind him. He quickly turned around. "'Scuse me a sec." It was then she noticed the bloody hammer in his other hand as he dashed off. She nervously followed, as white as the vampire they'd pursued, and she found Bones holding down a fuzzy, misshapen, amalgamated thing with more heads and limbs than any creature should have. Scott raised the hammer and brought it down, again and again. "Bad test subject! Die!" he scolded, whacking each of the mutated heads until it fell still. He breathed a sigh at a job well done and wiped his forehead. "There. Stubborn thing, just got it out of cold storage too. So what brings you here, Amber?" he asked pleasantly.

"I think I'm going to throw up." she said, turning green.

"Impossible. You haven't eaten any solid food in nearly two weeks." Scott said while pulling out, she shuddered to see, a scalpel and bone saw.

"What...what are you doing?" she squeaked. "And why did you have to kill that poor thing!?"

"Oh, that wasn't alive in the first place." he dismissed, getting to work. "It's part of a...whole other project of mine I've been working on. That one turned out to be a failure, but I had to dig it out 'cause I needed some of his parts for my next piece de resistance. I've got something to track down that idiot, revealing proof of the supernatural on live-no, no." he said, trying to calm down. "No, that's okay, the cameras didn’t pick him up, it'll be okay. Right? Right." he nodded to Amber.

"And-and the hammer?" she asked weakly, trying to fight down the nausea.

"Mindless undead are better, but they can't act on their own. I was trying to see whether I could infuse a substitute soul into an undead and have it obey me like a regular zombie, but alas. Oh well, failure is the mother of all scientific success." he said brightly. She stared at the horrible, mutated, stitched-together...creature.

"A-And what in God's name possessed you to sew cat, dog, mice and bird corpses together for this?"

"Nothing in God's name, I assure you." he chuckled. "It's actually part of another experiment I'm running concurrently. Fresh corpses are hard to come by, you know. Waste not, want not!" He hummed and got to work with the scalpel, to Amber’s discomfort and slight terror. "Oh, don’t look at me like that. You should have seen the ones I had to experiment and practice on before I learned how to resurrect you. Hoo boy, that was...yeah."

Not sure of what else to do, Amber took a nice, deep calming breath before she lost it, forcing down her bile.

"A-Anyway, I came to check and see what you were doing, see about any plans you'd made,"

"See about a free lunch." Scott smirked.

"You know me too well." Amber said smiling, sticking her tongue out. As the necromancer filled her with the energy of death, her eyes slid back to the mangled corpse of the conglomeration. Her dark thoughts resurfaced, but this time she wasn't going to back down. "Scott...something's been bugging me for awhile. Mind hearing me out?"

"Sure." he said, eyebrow raised.

"How do you see me?"

"Huh?"

"I mean it. What do you think of me? I know you're giving me refills, but that's like watering a plant. 'Cause, with everything that's been going on, especially last night, I just...I don't know, I just feel like one of your creations." Amber's eyes were drawn back to the corpse, her cheeks red but resolute. "I just feel like another monster you made to be a minion, no different from that thing." She had to know, and she knew he was a terrible liar. "So answer me. What am I to you?"

Scott took his hand off her shoulder and stared at her dumbly.

"A-Amber...uh..." Of course she wasn't a minion, but even with his limited contact and understanding of girls, his instincts were telling him he should choose his next words very carefully. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, unable to come up with anything under her azure stare. He sighed, and started pacing.

"Okay, let's take a step back for a sec."

"Why?' she asked, a warning tone in her voice.

"Just trust me on this, I gotta work the words through my brain right so you can understand, okay?" he placated. "Okay, so, let's-let’s look at me. Sure I'm smart, and devilishly handsome, a veritable genius-" She rolled her eyes, smirking "-but I'm a necromancer. I crawl around graveyards and perform...unique experiments that some people, who are wrong, would say are unethical at the least. I'm not very social, and quite frankly don't care to be. Ever since I found the Necronomicon and began to pursue my passion, I've loved nothing else. There is nothing I'd rather do, that I love more than raising the dead and being a monster-maker."

"Th-Then what-" Amber started, fearing her concerns were true. Scott cut her off.

"Most people would be creeped out by that, by me. And you are too, I can see it. But you wanna stick around me anyway. Since I met you-your ghost-I, I dunno, it's..." He swallowed, hard. Once he’d begun to speak, it seemed like he couldn't stop. And the more he said, the more he realized what he said was true. "It's like I...have a place to belong, I guess. I'm happy as a pig in mud performing profane rituals and calling forth undead. I thought that was all I needed. But ever since you came along...uh, I-I've k-kinda enjoyed sharing what I do with someone else. It...It's not so lonely, know what I mean?" He stopped pacing and folded his arms in a show of annoyance. His back was to her, because his face was red as a beet. "Amber, you wanted to be my friend. And you are. I think maybe you're the first one I've ever really had." he said quietly. "So don't ever think that you're just an experiment or a monster, alright? Because no matter what your body is, you're not. You're...good to hang out with. It's nice."

"Scott..."Amber said, nearly overcome.

"A-And I'd appreciate it if you didn't have me say stuff like this again, okay? Jeez, talk about sappy..." He busied himself with cutting apart the monstrous corpse, and was trying to focus on it so much he missed her arms snake around him in a bone-crushing hug.

"I’m sorry, Scott. I-I guess I'm just having a hard time dealing with the situation sometimes." she said, wiping away a tear.

"Y-Yeah. It's my fault for turning you into a ghoul anyway, so sorry. And the only reason I throw you at difficult stuff is 'cause I know you can handle it. Honestly, you've got a body that can keep up with your spirit now, I think. Hold on." He ripped the feline skull from a cat's head mounted to the shoulder of the abomination. "Don't worry, I'll turn you back no matter what. I promise."

"That’s good and all, buuuut...maybe next time, try to be reassuring without mutilating unnatural aberrations at the same time, 'kay?" she asked, worriedly, mildly horrified. He looked down at what he was holding.

"I can see where you're coming from. No promises.”

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The bell rang, signaling to the students they had one minute left to get to homeroom. Kevin groggily crept through the door, taking his seat next to Will.

“Morn’n.” he slurred.

“Jeez, what happened to you?” Will asked, concerned. He’d never seen Kevin this pale and tired. He’d assured him he was fine over the phone last night, what had happened? Kevin slumped on his desk.

“Mmm, it’s nothing, really. I’ve been like this during the day ever since, you know. I think it’s cause I’m nocturnal, I always feel more energetic when the sun goes down.”

“Yeah, I get it. So. Uh. What happened yesterday? I didn’t see you at all, what’s up?”

“Oh. Yeah, I took it easy. I had a hell of a time scrubbing my clothes to get rid of the smell of smoke. And I spent like an hour in the shower trying to get cleaned up. I ache in places I didn’t even know I had.” Kevin’s forehead thudded onto the desk, where he wished he could keep going down into the basement. “On top of that, my costume’s ruined. I spent most of the day sewing. Again. Ugh. How does Batman do it?”

“He has a butler.” Will replied smartly. “So, what’d you do about…food?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“I hunted down some squirrels.” Kevin said, making a face. “Tastes like a gas station hamburger, and about as healthy, but it really takes the edge off.”

“What about normal food? Can you still eat that?”

“I’ve learned something this weekend. Vampires can eat normal food, they just can’t digest it. And it moves fast through your system. Do not ask how I know this. Especially before lunch.” He said flatly.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Will said, sticking out his tongue. “But hey, at least something cool came out of it. You see the news?”

“No, I was busy sewing and recovering. Why?” Kevin asked, genuinely confused. Will looked at him like he’d just stripped naked and started dancing the lambada on roller skates.

“What? Seriously? Dude, you’re-Nightwing’s famous!” He got out his phone and pulled up a news article. The headline read: Triumph From Tragedy! Wide eyed, he began to read.

Spirits are still high from the wee hours of Sunday morning, where an as yet unidentified individual giving the name ‘Nightfang’ astounded Craven Falls with his daring rescue of the infant Jelena Rodriguez form a burning apartment complex. Though it seems too incredible to believe, the local hero leapt over the heads of the crowd to rush into the blaze, too intense even for firefighters to enter. While authorities feared the worst, the amazing young man recovered the girl with minimal injuries, apparently heaving a support beam through a window to escape.

“I didn’t even see him run in at first,” says the baby’s mother Cynthia Rodriguez, 32, “I was trying to get back in, I’d gone out to check what was happening and gotten swept away in the rush to get out. Then they were all holding me back, I couldn’t move. I thought-I thought I’d lost her. I’d never get to see her grow up, and I was just crying, and my husband was crying too…it was all just so terrible. But then I heard this loud smashing sound, boom. I thought like a water heater or something exploded, and I thought to myself that this was it. Then that huge beam fell, and there he was, holding my precious little baby. We rushed to the hospital so I never got to meet him, but I’ll always be grateful to him. He must have been an angel sent by the lord. Mr. Nightfang, thank you. Wherever you are, thank you.”

The rest of the article speculated on who he was and how he was, how he could have such tremendous strength, and how he wasn’t visible when recorded. However, Kevin barely skimmed it, reeling from the interview with the mother. He passed the phone back, feeling…he didn’t know what he was feeling. Shocked, certainly. Happy, embarrassed, definitely nervous. He looked around the room and noticed for the first time Nightfang was all anyone seemed to be talking about.

“Well man? How’s it feel to be the hero of the hour?” Will asked, beaming. Kevin slumped further in his seat.

“Man. I…didn’t expect it to be this big. I just wanted to help out while I searched for the head vamp.” he said, slightly muffled. “I always wanted to be a superhero, not a celebrity.”

“Should ‘a thought of that before the baby left the building with the whole town watching.” Will said.

“Was kinda hell of a debut.” Kevin nodded absently, as the teacher entered the room.

“Alright everybody.” she announced, holding up a sheet of paper. “I have a couple announcements regarding the town’s newest celebrity. One, a reminder that vigilantism is still against the law, and so is harboring a vigilante.” Kevin and Will shared a smirk. “So if any of you has any information regarding this matter, please come forward. Two, there shall be no attempting to imitate the actions of this Nightfang, wow that name is trying too hard, as we value the safety of our students. And three, there shall be no Nightfang paraphernalia displayed within the school grounds. That includes you too, Avery.” she said, staring at a teen who had a black shirt on with a white crescent on it, emblazoned with ‘Nightfang’ in block letters above. “Sorry, but go to the nurse and ask for an extra shirt. If you’re seen with one of those again, there’ll be trouble, understood?” The guy stood up and pumped his fist in the air.

“Nightfang rules!” he declared to the cheers and howls of the rest of the class, and the teacher sighed as he walked proudly past. Kevin glanced and smiled at Will, who grinned back.

“I’m on a t-shirt?” he whispered.

“You’re on a t-shirt.” Will confirmed.

And that would have been that, they would have attended class and no one would have been wiser, the day would have proceeded normally. Boring even, despite the buzz from the new hero. However, a certain teenaged ghoul had volunteered to fetch some printouts from the office, and she was passing by as the door opened and Avery exited. Her eyes were drawn by the movement, and she caught Will out of the corner of her eye. Startled, expecting to begin the search at lunch, she saw who he was chatting with. Though she didn’t recognize the kid, there was something about him, almost like a scent, which was very familiar. After all, that was the smell that came from her, marking her as different. Plus, the unnatural paleness was kind of hard to miss. He turned in her direction. She yelped and ducked out of sight, to the confusion of Avery, walking to the nurse’s office.

“Everything’s fine. No need to be alarmed.” Amber said calmly from the floor. He gave her a funny look and went on his way. Red-faced, she got up and furiously typed a text in her phone.

Scott felt his pocket vibrate. Surreptitiously pulling it out, he glanced at it below his desk, concealed in his lap. His eyes went wide, and he started grinning from ear to ear.

“Heh…heh heh heh…heh heh ha ha ha ha ha! Yes! At last!” he cackled manically, throwing his head back and arms raised in triumph.

“Is there something you’d like to share with us, Mr. Havenbrook?” the teacher said sternly. The entire class was staring at him like he’d, well, just became a supervillain in the middle of class.

“No, nothing, continue Mrs. Heller.” the necromancer said quickly, sitting down.