“You want to fang me? You’re going to have to get through my fang first!”

Gwen Thompson wheeled back and embedded her stake in the vampire vixen Brood Mother’s chest. The Brood Mother looked down and started flailing in a performance that had been lampooned many times by people on the Internet having some fun with the movie.

Hell, it’d also made its way into several videogames as dances, and a few mainstream Hollywood movies where directors wanted to let their audience know they were in on the joke.

Liam had even been to a screening in Chicago once where they had a booth dedicated to allowing people to reenact the performance in front of a green screen. The performance was free, but the price of having a DVD burned or a file sent as a download had been extortionate.

For fifty bucks Liam figured he didn’t need that particular memory to last forever.

Gwen looked amazing as she turned to her cheerleader friend and the Galactic Enforcer they’d met through the course of their adventures. Their “boyfriends,” actually men who looked like they were in their forties or fifties wearing letterman jackets that were bursting at the seams, had been killed off as soon as they’d served their usefulness in sub-Cinemax sex scenes.

The cheerleader uniform looked like someone had raided a Halloween costume store. Like the kind of Halloween costume stores that could be found in LA back in the ‘80s, and not the good stuff these days.

The Enforcer wasn’t much better. She looked like someone had gone dumpster diving behind a high school drama department that had just finished their run of a musical version of Lost in Space.

Liam reached up and dabbed a tear from his eye. There was always something about seeing those three women working together to overcome the vampire menace that got him a little choked up. Even if he knew he was getting choked up watching the ending of a cheesy movie featuring two women who were supposed to be in high school despite clearly being in their thirties, and one woman who was supposed to be a timeless and ageless Galactic Enforcer even though the makeup department didn’t do a great job of hiding the wrinkles.

Liam had always figured a willingness to get out of that Galactic Enforcer outfit in front of the cameras had counted for a lot more than acting ability or looking the part.

Liam stood and turned for the exit once the end credits rolled. This being a movie from the ‘80s, there wasn’t an after credits scene. Not even a hopeful teaser for a sequel that would never come, which had been a staple of ‘80s science fiction and fantasy movies that were overconfident about how well they’d be received.

As he turned he found himself staring at his own Galactic Enforcer. He’d been distracted thinking about her the entire movie, and he figured now that the movie was over it was cool to approach her and see if she’d enjoyed the show as much as he had.

Though no sooner had he started towards her than a dude with a pair of thick glasses and a gut that was straining his My Little Pony T-shirt stepped in and put his hands on his hips. He stared between Liam and the Galactic Enforcer like he was surprised to see people in the room.

“Huh, so we had a crowd after all?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. “Sorry about that, Ron. I figured this would be a perfect opportunity for you to have a break and get in some game time.”

Liam’s eyes narrowed, and he immediately didn’t like this new dude. Especially when the new dude was acting like such a dick about paying customers showing up to use the room for its intended purpose.

“What is game time?” the Galactic Enforcer asked.

The new guy turned and got a good look at her, his eyes roaming up and down with the sort of look that said he liked what he saw. Which only annoyed Liam even more.

“He was trying to get in some quality time with Skyrim on the big screen,” the guy said.

The Galactic Enforcer frowned. “What is a Skyrim? Are you one of the people on this world who still believes your world is flat?”

“As a matter of fact it is if you bother to not be a sheeple who doesn’t think for yourself, but I’m not here to talk about that,” the dude said. “Y’all need to clear out of here ASAP, because we have a Sparklefang documentary coming up next, and the paying customers are going to want to see their movie.”

“Paying customers wanted to see this movie without your friend Ron getting pissy about it,” Liam growled, stepping up to the dude.

The guy stared at Liam blankly. It took him a moment to realize Liam was insulting his buddy, and maybe even low-key threatening him.

“Okay then,” the guy said. “I mean you were interrupting Ron’s game and everything, but he showed you the movie, didn’t he? Now you need to clear out because you’re going to be interrupting the Sparklefang crowd, and we don’t want that.”

“Yeah, because a bunch of noobs coming to the con for the first time are way more important than people who’ve been coming to this show for years,” Liam said.

“I don’t have time for your gatekeeping bullshit, dude,” the guy said, landing a hit since that was exactly the kind of asshole Liam tried very hard not to be. “Those people are paying customers, and there are a lot more of them then there are fans of this stupid 1980s science fiction titty flick. Now get out.”

Liam opened his mouth to tell the dude he wasn’t gatekeeping. That he didn’t have a problem with people coming to a convention for the first time. That he was happy to have them, and the problem he had was with the level of customer service.

He didn’t get any of that out, though. No, this guy was clearly the kind of asshole who was going to think what he thought, and nothing Liam said was going to change it. It wasn’t worth arguing with the prick.

So he followed the Galactic Enforcer out. Besides, following her was pretty fun. Her costume clung to her in all the right ways, and he still couldn’t see how she’d managed to get the lights that ran along her suit in long glowing lines to work. It looked way more intricate than any LED lighting he’d ever seen, and that was saying something considering the small quiet revolution cheap LED lights had brought to the cosplaying community.

When they were out of the room she turned and smiled at him with a look that said she’d caught him looking. Though that smile also seemed to say she didn’t mind that she’d caught him looking.

“So did you like the movie?” he asked, figuring if he’d been caught then he might as well make lemonade from lemons.

Though it felt like a stupid question as soon as it left his mouth. Of course she liked the movie. It’s not like someone would come to see Vampire Vixens from Planet X! if they weren’t already a fan.

“I enjoyed it. It’s certainly a better depiction of vampires than that other entertainment everyone has been talking about at this gathering,” she said.

“Tell me about it,” Liam muttered. “Sparklefang has a whole generation of women thinking vampires are hunky sparkling boyfriend material and not dangerous undead creatures of the night out to kill them.”

The Enforcer cocked her head to the side as she looked Liam up and down with a considering look that was very similar to the ones those two guys had been giving her back in the screening room.

Which had Liam intrigued. This was definitely going better than he could’ve hoped when he first saw her walking into that tiny screening room.

“I’m surprised to find someone on this world who cares about the intricacies of vampire lore,” she said. “It’s usually difficult to find someone like that on a primitive world like this.”

She looked at him again. In particular she seemed to be looking at something just over his shoulder, though when he looked he didn’t see anything there.

“Then again, I suppose anyone on a primitive world bearing a Torvalian marker must know a thing or two about the vampires,” she continued, almost to herself. “Curious finding that here, of all places.”

Liam stared at her, wondering if he should play along with whatever delusion she was entertaining. Then he decided “what the hell?” He figured if a girl this hot was going to do the whole cosplaying act then he’d play along.

“It is a primitive world, but we know how to deal with vampires,” Liam said.

Loud screeching from down the hall pulled him away from the enforcer and thoughts of how to handle vampires. He turned to see a wave of humanity surging towards the screening room. Most were women, and almost all of them were on the younger side which placed them in the prime Sparklefang demographic.

Then Liam turned to the dude who’d just kicked them out. The guy stared at that wave of screaming humanity with a look of dawning horror. He was a man who’d just realized he’d made a terrible mistake putting a documentary a large chunk of the convention was going to want to see in a tiny room that couldn’t hope to accommodate all of them.

Liam hit the guy with a grin he hoped communicated just how happy he was that this dude was about to be overrun by a screaming horde of fangirls. Though from the way the dude was looking at some of those fans, even the ones who looked a little too young for him to be legally into, maybe he wasn’t as terrified as he should be.

Liam was terrified enough to get out of the way. He’d seen what happened when rampaging hordes of fans didn’t get what they wanted, and it was never pretty.

Instead he turned to the Enforcer and offered his arm. She looked at the crowd and then down to the offered arm. She stared like she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it.

This girl really was taking the whole Galactic Enforcer cosplay thing way too seriously, but she was hot. And in the grand tradition of a guy trying to impress a pretty girl, Liam was willing to ignore the weirdness as long as it meant he got to spend time with said pretty girl.

“Would you want to maybe go somewhere we can chat and avoid the Sparklefang crowd?” he asked.

“Sparklefang,” she said, as though she was trying the word out for the first time. “That is one of your entertainments that’s been popular with the young on your world in recent years, correct?”

Liam smiled. What else could he do? He looked around again, wondering if he might catch a glimpse of the reality show cameras he was convinced had to be following him, but he didn’t see anything.

Of course if ever there was a time when he’d run into two girls who took their cosplaying too seriously, he figured a convention like this was the place.

“It was huge about a decade back,” he said. “Now all those fans have grown up and they have money, which the convention is capitalizing on by inviting the main star in for an appearance.”

“So curious that this society values the transfer of wealth so highly,” the enforcer said. “I don’t know how you deal with living on a primitive world like this.”

“Yeah, a primitive world,” Liam said, not really wanting to get into the whole Star Trek ripoff concept of a society that had evolved beyond money when humanity was clearly still living in a society where money was number one. “We might not have evolved past the primitive concept of money on our world, but I’d be willing to use some of my money to buy you a drink and we can talk about how much better Vampire Vixens is than Sparklefang.”

The enforcer got such an offended look that he worried he might’ve insulted Sparklefang in front of a fan. It was entirely possible for someone to enjoy Vampire Vixens and Sparklefang, for all that it wasn’t his jam. After all, Sparklefang was a special brand of cheese all unto itself. Just of a more recent vintage with better special effects and far fewer tits on display.

“I’m not supposed to get involved with the locals, but I suppose in this case it could be fun. Especially with that Torvalian marker,” she said, looking over his shoulder again.

Right. Of course it was more weird cosplay stuff. Not that he’d insulted her by insulting Sparklefang.

“Especially when a local primitive looks as pleasant as you do and is wrapped up in such an intriguing mystery. I haven’t heard of Torvalian technology being seen in this sector in… Well, that’s not important.”

It took Liam a moment to parse what she’d just said and realize there was a good chance she’d just been hitting on him, for all that it’d been buried in layers of sci-fi technobabble and cosplay crazy. Which had him grinning from ear to ear as he winked at her.

“You’re not so bad looking yourself,” he said. “And that Galactic Enforcer costume you’re rocking is pretty amazing.”

She looked down at her outfit, and that confused alien come to earth routine was back. Like this woman must’ve spent some time doing a master class watching Nimoy do his thing to have that eyebrow raise down the way she did.

“Yes. Costume,” she said. “Attire you put on to make you look like something you’re not for fun. We have similar traditions on my world.”

Liam almost missed a step. If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost think this woman really was an alien from another planet come down to earth to mingle with the primitives. It would be just his luck to find an alien come to earth who’d decided a convention was the best place to mingle with the humans.

Though if ever there was a place where there’d be a receptive audience to a space alien, not to mention a place where people weren’t likely to try and vivisect her to see what made her green blooded body tick, then a pop culture convention with a heavy emphasis on science fiction, fantasy, and horror would be that place.

He pushed through those thoughts, though. She had to be a cosplayer who was taking things a little too far. That’s all. A hot cosplayer who was taking things a little too far, to be sure, and that went a long way towards forgiving any weirdness in Liam’s book.

Plus there was always the chance she was working for that hypothetical reality show that may or may not be filming at the convention this weekend.

“Yeah, you’ve got that right,” Liam said. “Attire you put on for fun.”

He maneuvered them around the crowd of Sparklefang fans getting ready to flood that impossibly tiny room for the documentary. Though he did turn around long enough to get a good look at that lazy fatass getting swarmed by the angry crowd.

The dude had probably dreamed of a situation like that for most of his life, but he should’ve been a lot more specific about how he wanted to be overrun by a bunch of horny young women. The scene looked more like something out of a Romero movie than late night Cinemax.

“Do you think we should assist that man?” the enforcer asked.

Liam realized she’d been following his gaze, and there was concern there as she watched the dude being overwhelmed.

“Nah,” he said. “The guy was a huge dick. He deserves what he gets. Besides, he’s probably loving been overrun by women like that.”

“Why would a grown man enjoy being surrounded and trampled by a bunch of women who haven’t yet reached full sexual maturity by the standards of your world?” the enforcer asked, cocking her head to the side as she watched the scene play out.

Liam snorted at the way she’d just accurately described a good chunk of neckbeard culture. It was so clinical and analytical, and yet she was right on the money.

“You’d be surprised what some people are into,” he said, not wanting to get into it too much and ruin the mood.

They headed away from the screening room, and the Galactic Enforcer kept her arm entwined with Liam’s. Which felt nice. It’s not like he came to the convention expecting to hook up, for all that there were a lot of people who came to these conventions hoping for just that, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to welcome it if something happened.

In his experience something like that happened at most conventions, even if it was unexpected. Unless he was at a convention when he had a girlfriend, but the stars hadn’t aligned like that in a while because he’d been so busy building up his VR streaming channel.

“So what did you think of the movie’s accuracy?” he asked, trying his best to play along with the whole realistic cosplay thing.

“The movie?” she asked, looking confused. Then she shook her head and smiled. “Right. The entertainment. I believe it was an inaccurate depiction of how vampires act, but that’s what I would expect from someone creating an entertainment on a world that has yet to deal with them doing more than picking around the edges of your civilization.”

“Yeah, I guess they didn’t hold to the whole stakes through the heart thing since they shot a couple of the vampires,” he said. “And they definitely don’t have the whole fear of Christianity thing going for them like you’d expect from watching some Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee stuff, but it still has a cheesy charm.”

She hit him with one of those confused looks. “What does the solidified liquid mass from food creatures on your world have to do with anything?”

“Oh come on,” Liam said. “Cheesy. You know. Over the top. Something that’s so ridiculous it goes from being bad to being awesome instead?”

“Ah. I think I understand,” she said in a tone that said she didn’t understand at all.

“What I’m getting at is it’s not like the vampires in Vampire Vixens are all that different from vampires in other old movies,” Liam said. “They still use the sexy to lure in their victims. That’s the oldest form of mind control in the world, even if they also use literal mind control too.”

“What is the oldest form of mind control?” the enforcer asked.

“Seduction,” Liam said. “That’s been part of vampire lore for centuries, for all that the Sparklefang fangirls try to pretend that wasn’t the main draw. Honestly it was kind of creepy seeing a bunch of grown women obsessing over the stars in that movie back when they were really popular.”

“Primitive world,” she said with a shake of her head. “You have the legends which prove you’ve been in touch with the vampires at some point in your history, but you don’t understand how truly dangerous they can be if they set their sights on a world. Or if a brood were to get loose and try to establish themselves on your world. We still occasionally find the remnants of primitive civilizations at similar levels of development to your own who were ravaged by the vampires before we even realized those civilizations existed to defend them.”

He was about to respond when someone called out his name. Liam wheeled around to see Rick, Anna, and Michael coming towards him waving. He smiled and waved back, then turned to the Enforcer, but she was gone.

So much for having some weekend fun with the crazy cosplay girl. He was getting really tired of that whole sudden disappearing act the pretty cosplay babes had been pulling on him.