Disclaimer: I don't own Blade or any of its characters. I do Max, Xavier, Rev, and Cam, so no stealing!

Philosophy of Desire

Between birth and death there is only one thing – desire. Desire for life. Desire for love. Desire for everything good, the quintessential happy ending. And this is the source of all suffering.

My desire was to just get through the day. After all, what is life but the same shit on a different day? Exactly. Life's a bitch, and then you die…well, some people anyway.

I thought my life ended when my brother and I were taken. Unfortunately, for me, it was just the beginning. That was the day I started to live. You'll see what I mean…

Chapter 1: Two of a Kind

Blade just watched as the vampire growled and lunged at the young woman. She ducked his grab, punched him in the face and kicked his leg. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground. Blade still watched, interested to see what she would do.

The vampire surged up, grabbed her and threw her against the wall. He grabbed her again but she pushed his arms away, punched him in the face, kneed him, then went around behind him and kicked him into the wall. He landed against a dumpster, turned and backhanded the woman, who stumbled forward. The vampire punched her again, picked her up and slammed her down on top of another dumpster. Blade growled, shaking his head at how the vampire was getting the upper hand. This woman tended to leave herself open, blind spots and the like.

'Another rookie,' he thought with disgust. But with the way she fought, even with the blind spot, that wasn't likely.

The woman reacted though, kicking the vampire and cart wheeled off the dumpster to kick him again, then again, and then yet again. On the final kick, he landed on his back among a pile of wooden boxes, which shattered. The woman reached behind her and pulled out a kitana, standing ready. As the vampire lunged up out of the boxes, she spun quickly, swinging her sword and decapitated him. The vampire burned into a familiar ash and she simply sheathed her sword.

"Couldn't just answer the question, could you," she muttered, staring at the pile of ash. "No, you had to fight. Stupid fucking suck head."

Someone suddenly appeared from behind a trash can and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her down to the ground. Blade still watched, wondering what she would do as both rose to their feet. It was another vampire; she'd forgotten that they tended to run in packs. He backhanded her, making her spin around and fly into a pile of garbage. As she straightened up, two more vampires appeared; the first one had a sword, and the other two had metal staves (staffs). As they began to circle her, twirling their weapons, she nodded off-handedly.

The vampire with the sword swung, but she ducked easily and spun. She punched him and ducked a staff thrust, kicking the other staff, ducked again and kicked the first staff-holder in the stomach. Ducking yet another swing, she kicked the second staff-holder twice, then ducked a swing from sword-holder. She blocked his punch before punching him in the face while holding his sword arm. Kicking him back, she grabbed one of the staves and pushed him away then deflected the other staff-holder.

"Well, this is fun," she commented, then performed a back flip that carried her over to the two staves.

Grabbing one staff, she thrust it into the closest vampire's stomach, deflected a sword thrust with it and kicked the sword-holder in the stomach. Blade still looked on, not even bothering to interrupt, as she jabbed the staff into the disarmed vampire's stomach again, ducking a thrust from the other staff, and kicked that vampire so he went spinning away.

She and the disarmed vampire grappled for his staff, making Blade want to laugh.

Finally, she got tired of tug-of-war and hit him in the face with the end of the staff, sending him down. She realized the staff had a silver tip and drove it through the down vampire's heart, turning him to ash. She dropped the staff and blocked an overhand sword thrust, punching the sword-holder and went down. She kicked the other staff-holder away, and picked up the staff again to face off with the sword-holder. She knocked the sword out of the knight's hand and pushed him to the ground. Jumping on top of him, she discarded the staff and held her sword to his throat.

"Now, you're gonna tell me everything what I want to know," she demanded, pressing the blade to it's throat. "Where's the Talos family hide out?"

"I'm not telling you anything," he spat at her, laughing a bit as he looked behind her. Before she even had time to react, she was pulled off the vampire and her sword fell from her hand. Blade decided now would be a good time to jump in, so he did just that.

He jumped from the roof and ran the vampire on the ground through his unbeating heart. Walking through the ash towards the other vampire, he noticed that he already had his fangs sunk into her. Her eyes were already glazing over as the vampire tossed her to the ground and ran at Blade. It was over quickly as the enemy was decapitated and burst into flame.

Walking over to the girl, he knelt down and checked her over. The vampire got her good; she'd turn within a day or two. Sighing heavily, she picked her up and walked out of the alleyway and towards the Charger. As he set her down in the passenger's seat, she looked at him a moment before passing out.

"Whistler's gonna kill me," he muttered, driving off towards the docks.

P.S.: Three pages total.