A Hunt and The Pending Activation

Adjusting the scope, I leaned in and closed the eye I wasn't using. My eyes quickly adjusted to the sight I saw when I looked through the scope and I steadied the rifle as I looked at the blond-haired man a few hundred meters away.

He wasn't very tall or very intimidating. He was somewhat short - about 5'5" - and he had a diminutive build. You could call him a classic 'pretty boy' who didn't look like he could hurt a fly.

But, to me and others like me, we knew not to underestimate someone based off of appearances.

This man, after all, was a Vampire. A strong one, at that. Around 300-years-old, if my intel is right and it usually is. I took in the man laughing as I walked with two girls on either side of him, thinking about how those two had been swindled into being his dinner for tonight.

Well luckily enough for them, I wasn't gonna let that happen.

The blond Vampire, Marc Boucher, was a leader of a local coven in Marseille. He was a real piece of work. Just like his last name 'Boucher'* hints at he was an animal. Butchered victims, torn apart corpses--innocents dead left, right and center. Which goes against the rules my family had placed upon Europe as a whole.

(*A/N - 'Boucher' means 'Butcher'.)

So, I was sent out to deal with it.

Speaking of my family, well, I knew I'd be in an odd ball family...but even if I didn't wish for it, I'd have known instantly what type of family I was a part of as soon as I could crawl around.

For starters, we lived in a big ass castle that was spooky as hell. Then there's the fact there are functioning weapons on the walls of nearly every room alongside the heads of things like Stags and Bears and Wolves. There's also the fact that as soon as I turned 4, my dad sat me down and told me the family business. Monster Hunting.

Around the late 11th century, my ancestor lost his wife and children to a Vampire. He then dedicated himself to hunting Vampires down starting with the one who killed and took his family away from him. A very cliche beginning, right? I agree. But he wasn't the type of half-assed hunter most people turned out to be in these types of shows. Despite being a normal Human, he was able to gain the skills necessary to travel the world and hunt Vampires.

He learnt all sorts of martial arts and all sorts of skills and techniques from all over the world in his pursuit of the Vampire who killed his family.

But he succeeded. A normal, albeit very well-trained, Human took down a Vampire.

The first of his kind; a Hunter. Not able to drop his hatred, it spread to the rest of Vampire kind and he went on his way to hunt them down. He traversed the Earth, killing Vampires. But, in his travels, he found that Vampires weren't the only supernatural creatures on Earth.

He discovered Werewolves, Witches, Demons, Ghouls, Wendigos...he discovered just about every supernatural creature that actually exists, and he killed the ones who were causing trouble. Well, he trained himself to do so, anyway. He added to his skillset with each discovery and each successful take-down.

Then, when he was nearing his late 40's, he decided to get all this information down into a book. A book I've seen and learned from. Yet he also realized that he was limited by his mortality and he refused to be altered by magic to live longer. He was a Human. He would rather die a human and join his wife and children in the afterlife than live an eternal life like the Vampires who took everything from him.

So, with the goal of making other hunters like him, he found multiple women of genetic purity (or strength, as he wrote in the book) and he bred children with them.

How he got those women to go along with this, I have no idea. I'd rather not think about it.

Anyway, he trained those children once they turned 5-year-old and taught them for a decade before giving them near impossible tasks to complete. Many of them died but those who didn't...came back different. Baptized in supernatural blood and fire. They were the ones who continued his work.

Such a practice was kept from them, til now. Well, minus the polygamy part. You just find the best partner instead of going for quantity. You know, quality over quantity and all that.

What I mean is that once I turned 4, I was told about the existence of monsters and what our family does and once I turned 5, I began my training. Once I was 10, I was sent out on my first mission with an older member of the family. To kill a Werewolf who'd been terrorizing a small village.

It'd be safe to say that I survived seeing as I'm right now on a mission to take out a Vampire, right?

Something else that had changed over the years was that my family didn't take out every supernatural creature we met without discrimination. Instead, we set rules. Rules for each species to follow when it came to engaging with humans and how they got their food.

Vampires wouldn't kill when they fed and would heal the human with their blood and use compulsion to make them forget after the feeding is done.

Werewolves would exercise the necessary caution around the time of a full-moon otherwise they'd be taken out.

Ghouls and Wendigos would eat corpses that had naturally died or had died prior to their involvement. E.g they can eat someone who died of natural causes or from soldiers who'd died on the battlefield. Their main supply was indeed the latter during some of the more war heavy time periods. Nowadays, however, they usually get their food from morgues and known suicide spots.

Hey, it ain't nice but it's better that they eat those people then going out to hunt for live prey, right?

Which brings me to why I'm hunting this Vampire, Marc Boucher, down.

Like I said, he butchered his victims. He treated humans like livestock. My family couldn't have that. Not without looking weak which would incite other supernatural creatures to break the rules. It'd end in a blood bath, basically. Indiscriminate killing on all sides.

Which is why I was sent out to take him down.

Why me? Well, unlike in my last life, I was actually pretty talented. Having both a Hunter's and a Slayer's affinity for combat and fighting was a real godsend. Or should I say goddess-send?...Nah. Doesn't have the same ring to it. Sorry Goddess~

Well anyway, it meant I was quite the Monster Hunter which meant I was a viable option when it came to the question of who to send to take down the big bad supernatural creature.

Smiling to myself, I followed Boucher's movement as he slipped into an alleyway. He slowly came to a stop and I slowed my breathing.

My training in the Royal Marines, and the training under my new family, kicked in and I felt my heartbeat slow down while my breathing became impossibly steady. I blocked out everything else. The sounds of Marseille. The smells. The blinding lights of the port on this lovely Friday night. Everything was blocked out.

I only focused on the Vampire, the sniper in my hands and my finger on the trigger.

In and out I breathed, my aim becoming more and more steady as I waited for the moment Boucher would let his guard down the most.

I had 3 years and 11-ish months of hunting experience under my belt and because of my talent, I'd quickly began to figure out the weakpoints of each of the creatures I've had to hunt. Vampires, for instance, always let their guards down just as they go in for the kill. Always. Especially if they're arrogant bastards like Boucher.

Quicker than my eyes could follow, Boucher slammed one of the women's head against the wall, swiftly knocking them out. Just as the other woman went to scream, Boucher's hand clamped around her mouth while his other hand jerked her head to the side.

She was powerless to fight back against his Vampiric strength and she flailed and thrashed about in a panic.

But I waited. I couldn't rush this.

Boucher seemed to say something to the woman before leaning in and licking her neck. His body twined and twisted as he seemed to rejoice in the taste of her skin, and I had to repress a shiver as I watched him. This Vampire had a nickname because of his peculiar feeding habits.

'The Chef'. Mainly because he thoroughly tasted his prey before sinking his teeth into them. He only ever went for healthy women as well. I'd been shadowing him for a few weeks now and I'd seen him use Compulsion on multiple doctors to gain people's medical records. He wouldn't drink from an unhealthy person.

Though I guess it's the same as when a Human won't eat from an unhealthy cow or pig.

But I cast such thoughts aside, taking a step deeper into this focused state I was in. It was taught to everyone in the family who had the talent to learn it. A mixture of breathing techniques, mental discipline and physical discipline. It was called the Zone. Kinda like that thing from that basketball anime. Just instead of being sports/basketball-related, it's to do with entering a state where you can use everything you have to get the job done. It lets you use your full physical abilities and improves your perception of time a great deal.

Helps a bunch when dealing with speed-type creatures like Vampires. Their superhuman strength is easy enough to avoid - just don't get grabbed by them, dumbass. It's their superhuman speed that makes them such a hassle to deal with.

They can use their speed and strength to rip your heart out before you even know they're trying something. Without their speed they'd be easier to deal with, is what I'm getting at.

But with my current perception of time and my natural reflexes and dynamic vision, I should be able to react somewhat to a Vampire's speed as long as they're not right next to me. So, if they're hundreds of meters away? Easy. And with a sniper, I hold the advantage over distance~~

I felt my pupil constrict to the maximum as my blood vessels in my eye went bloodshot, delivering as much blood and oxygen as possible to support my heightened perception.

I watched as Boucher went in for the woman's neck and I moved my sight ever so slightly down to where it was hovering in the right position for what I was targeting.

I felt and calculated the wind and instantly knew what it's effect on the bullet would be. I adjusted the sight knowing the caliber of the bullet I was using and how air resistance would affect it's travel. I worked out how much gravity would effect a bullet with that weight and size. I knew the distance and worked out exactly how the bullet would drop. And most of all I knew this sniper like the back of my hand and I knew how it's power and the velocity of it's bullets would overpower things like gravity and air resistance at this range.

But still, I worked it all out and I knew before I even pulled the trigger that Boucher wouldn't even touch that woman's neck with his fangs.

With that all done...

*BANG!*

A colossal bang went off as I pulled the trigger. The rifle bucked backward against my shoulder and even with my intense workout regimen, the recoil hurt immensely. But I ignored the pain and held the gun down as I continued looking through the scope.

The bang was loud for me but Boucher hadn't heard a thing. Not before it was too late, anyway. After all, no matter how good a Vampire's hearing is, it's still limited by the speed at which sound can travel. Sound can travel at 343 m/s while a bullet from a high-powered sniper can easily surpass that.

So, by the time Boucher heard the bang of the sniper...well, the bullet had already hit him.

Where had it hit him exactly? The base of his neck. I didn't want to kill him and even with the gory hole in the back of his neck, he was still alive. Why was he still alive? Because I wasn't done with him just yet. The rules needed to be followed but when they were broke, an example had to be made. That's how the Jäger Family operates, and it's worked out pretty well for us so far.

Oh, and don't worry about him getting back up after that. That was a special vampire 'tranquilizer'.

I say 'tranquilizer' because it doesn't really knock them out. It just puts them out of commission for a while. It's a special wood and vervain mixture that explodes into shrapnel when it hits it's target. So, not only does it weaken the Vampire with vervain, it stops their annoying healing factor from kicking in and getting them back up on their feet because of the wood shrapnel buried deep in their bodies.

It's the perfect bullet to make Vampires docile without outright killing them.

Seeing he was down, I also saw the woman he was about to sink his teeth into scream before she ran off, leaving both the downed Boucher and who seemed to be her friend. Damn...that's pretty cold. Well, fight or flight instincts, I guess? They can be a real bitch when you don't know how to control them like us Hunters of the Jäger Family can.

Taking my eye away from the scope and my cheek off of the cheek pad for the sniper, I quickly began to disassemble the gun. Once I'd done that, I packed it away and picked up the now full case before running on my way to where Boucher was down.

I still had to make a message out of him.

. . .

It didn't take long to traverse the few hundred meters to the alleyway where Boucher was currently paralyzed. I made it in under a minute which was good but not exactly good for the circumstances right now.

Marseille wasn't some backwards village. It was a very big city in the South of France. The police were already prowling the streets looking for where the mysterious sniper was.

Luckily for me, they were looking where I'd just been not where Boucher was.

Though there's no doubt that that woman who ran off will be back here with police sometime soon. On the clock message-making then?

Chuckling at my own little joke, I took the wrapper off of a lollipop and put it in my mouth.

This. This is the only problem with the Zone or the state of focus I was just in when I took that shot. That state effects everyone differently but most of all, it makes the person who uses it aggressively voracious for a certain type of food. Some people need to eat a ton of protein after using it, others need to eat a lot of carbohydrates after using it.

I, on the other hand, need to eat sugary stuff.

This is because my state of focus mainly effects my brain, my reflexes and my perception. Family members who need protein have a bigger strength boost when they enter that state while people who need carbohydrates have a bigger boost to their stamina and endurance.

Anyway, as I crunched through the lollipop and swallowed the sugary goodness while putting the stick in my pocket and pulling out another lollipop, I looked down at Boucher, "Hello, Boucher," I said with a somewhat wry smile, "Why didn't you just listen to the warnings, man?" I asked somewhat aggrieved.

I wasn't overly fond of what I had to do to Boucher, honestly. It was gory, it gets my clothes messy as hell and most of all, it doesn't feel very pleasant to do.

Boucher, who was paralyzed from the neck down, glared at me from the corner of his eyes and he spit on the ground in front of his face, "Piss off! You fucking hunters think you know what's best!" he screamed in gurgled French, "Vampires are better than humans--Humans are just livestock for us--" I cut him off by slamming my boot into his mouth.

He was being to loud.

Reaching into my tactical vest, I pulled out a special gag that even a Vampire couldn't bit through. Especially a Vampire weakened by vervain.

Fitting the gag into Boucher's mouth, I bent down and heaved the short man onto my shoulder. With that down, I got to jogging away. I took alleyways and a predetermined route to avoid attention before I came across the place where I'd be leaving Boucher; a warehouse.

Walking in through the side door, I noticed that the bribes went well and all the workers were out.

Walking through the somewhat dark and dank warehouse, I quickly picked up the smell of fish. It wasn't exactly that unpleasant but it was definitely a very striking scent. Even then, I continued my journey to where I needed to go and before long, I made my way to where I was going to leave the 'message'.

Opening the metal door, I was instantly hit by freezing air but I was unperturbed by it and just entered. I put the gun case inbetween the door and the door frame to avoid getting stuck in here before I threw Boucher onto the floor.

Pulling out a specialized knife from behind my back, I looked down at Boucher, "By order of the Jäger Family, I hereby sentence you to death for your violation of the laws placed by my family, Marc Boucher. I wish you a safe trip to the Other Side," with this said, I kneeled down and took the wooden, and very serrated, knife to Boucher's throat.

And I began cutting.

All the while the Vampire was looking at me with fear in his eyes. But no matter my personal dislike of this, I still did what I had to do. He'd broken the rules and killed innocents in brutal and inhuman ways.

He had to face the consequences of his actions.

. . .

Slamming Boucher's torso onto one of the many meat hooks inside, I looked at my handy work before shaking my head and looking down at my watch.

[11:52 PM]

...It was nearly time. I could already feel it. The electrical tingling running up and down my arms. My heart was beginning to thrum in my ears, louder and louder. I could already feel the activation of my Hunter and Slayer powers.

After all, it was eight minutes away from my birthday. My 14th birthday.

...It was definitely gonna be a rough birthday.

Sighing, I turned around and placed the wooden knife back into my scabbard I had for it. Turning away from the multiple limbs and organs I'd placed on the hooks, I walked away from the now permanently dead Marc Boucher. He'd be found in here tomorrow morning and the information would spread throughout Marseille to Boucher's subordinates and his rivals. It'd maybe even spread across most of Southern France and keep the gangs and Covens here in order.

My family's connections will take the blood, the body and all of the evidence, acting as the police or they might very well be the police depending on who my family has on the payroll.

This is to keep people from finding out the truth about the supernatural.

The world at large simply can't handle such news, honestly. What would you do if you knew you were on the bottom rung of the food chain? Nearly every supernatural creature is stronger than a Human. The only thing Human's have at their advantage is numbers and even them, the Vampire population could easily take out most human armies.

...It's just not something that needs to happen. Humans finding out about the supernatural, I mean. Maybe in the future. But not now.

Opening the door to the freezer, I picked up the gun case before closing the door behind me.

I had five minutes to get to my hotel and prepare for the activation of my powers, so I quickly picked up into a jog which quickly became a sprint. Though all the while I didn't forget about being stealthy and avoiding the obvious police presence in Marseille right now.

In the end, I made it to my hotel room with four minutes to spare. So I began to set up protective measures to protect myself while I underwent the activation of my supernatural powers.

I didn't have magic like some of my more lucky siblings and family members.

But even then, I didn't need it when things like protective runes could be drawn with salt, holy water, vervain and wolfsbane. Such a combination would keep out pretty much every creature that could ever try to get in.

And as I was ready, I lay down on the bed in my hotel room...waiting for it to become midnight.