Sandabury Academy

A Lesson on Manners

"Hi," a newbie vampire girl says to me with a small wave. I can tell she's nervous and can feel the dominating power emanating from me... or maybe it's just obvious that I don't want to be here.

"Hello and welcome to Sandabury Academy," I say in a somewhat cheery tone (cheery for me anyway). I hand her a pair of sunglasses off the table. She gives me a questioning look.

"Just try them on," I prompt and then watch as she slowly puts them on her face.

"Holy shit!" She exclaims. See these aren't your typical sunglasses. These are the first class V15 special edition glasses, with built in 100% UV protection making it a lot easier for vamps to see during the day time.

"Thanks!" She says. The girl signs up for her classes quickly and skips off, no doubt to find some friends. Huh, I guess newbies aren't so bad after all.

I watch as a newbie group of guys approach the table. The guy who is walking at the front of the group, no doubt their ringleader, has a cigarette in his mouth, sagging pants and a very cocky attitude judging by the way he walks. "Hey babe," ringleader says.

I narrow my eyes at him and reply in my dangerously calm tone, "Excuse me?"

"You must be hard of hearing because there's no way a vampire couldn't hear that." I take it back, newbies suck.

I look at Jaheara to see her reaction to this punk but she's engrossed in a fashion magazine. Humph, typical. I roll my eyes as I look back at the ringleader.

"I think you need a lesson on manners, runt," I say venomously.

"Hah! Like you could beat me. I'm 88 years old and could easily whoop your 20-something year old ass. Everyone knows the older the vampire, the stronger they are." The ringleader boasts, getting grins and laughs from his group.

"Well it's a good thing I'm older than you now isn't it?"

The group pauses for a second before they continue to laugh hysterically.

That's it.

With the blink of an eye I lunge over the top of the table without knocking anything over, gracefully rolling and landing in a crouch right in front of the ringleader. I look up and grin at him wickedly. He has no time to react as I launch myself into a standing position, bringing my fist up with me, upper cutting his jaw.

The ringleader goes flying up and backwards through the courtyard, smacking into the trunk of a great oak tree some 10 yards away. He would have slid down if it weren't for the fact that the impact created an indent in the tree. The group of newbies looks at me with stunned looks on all their faces, then look at their leader. When they turn back at me, their expressions have changed from surprise to anger. At this point a crowd has gathered in a small circle around us chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

I look around at the crowd and when my eyes fall back upon the group of angry newbie vamps, I can't help but smirk. I drop down into a crouch again right as one group member yells, "Get her!"

They all charge at me at the same time. Even with their vampiric speed, they move way to slow for me and I can easily anticipate their every move. Two vamps run up to me and right as they reached out to grab me I jump up into the air, doing a summersault, grabbing their heads and smashing them together as I land lightly on my feet behind them.

They slump to the ground as I run up to the next vamp with his fist back ready to strike. I easily side step him as he swings and I grab his arm, yanking it behind him. Using the arm behind his back as a lever, I use my other arm to grab his cash and prizes to hoist him into the air and chuck him at another groupie. When I finish with him, I notice the rest of the group has formed a circle around me.

Not surprisingly, they all charge at once. I rush towards the guy closest to me, dodging his kick, and then grabbing his leg that was in the air and his arm. I swing him around once and let him go so that he smacks into two of the guys that are charging at me. There are three guys left at this point, still surrounding me.

One of them tries to mimic my move and rolls forward to try and catch me off guard. I just wait until he's right in front of me and kick my foot out, smacking his face and snapping his head back. He falls backward leaving the two groupies left, one in front of me and one directly behind me. I chuckle to myself as I anticipate exactly what they are about to do: charge straight for me.

I wait until the last second before I do a backflip, landing a few feet away. The two groupies run straight into each other with a satisfying thud. And just like that a group of ten vampires falls in a matter of seconds. I brush my hands off and am about to turn around when I feel a slight pinch in my lower back.

"Looks like someone made a mistake," whispers the ringleader. Damn, where the hell did he come from?

"I'm surprised you managed to dislodge yourself from that tree," I reply cooly as I wrack my brain for ideas on what to do next. I'm not exactly in the mood to get stabbed, even though it'll heal.

"Careful now," ringleader says as he prods me with something sharp. "I'm the one with the dagger here and I'd love to use it."

"Are you sure you know how?" I taunted, growing tired of this game. I'm a vampire for crying out loud! One cut isn't going to kill me so what was he waiting for? I didn't get the chance to find out because the next thing I know there's this flash and I feel the sharp point of the dagger go away.

I can hear the sound of a body crashing to the ground a few yards away and I could only assume it was the ringleader. The light from the flash still blinds my eyes so I have no idea who is causing it but judging from the gasps of the gathered crowd, it is someone important.

Once the light blinding my eyes starts to fade, I can slowly start making out the outline of a man standing not 10 feet from me with his arms crossed. Finally my vision returns to normal but when I see who is standing before me, I wish it hadn't because its the President himself and he looks royally pissed.