Vampire (Twilight)

**Vampires** (also known as **The Cold Ones** in Quileute legends) are the primary supernatural creatures of the *Twilight* universe. They are a pseudo-species of crystalized immortal beings who must feed on the blood of humans or animals to survive.

Vampires are one of the four known supernatural species in the *Twilight* series, with the others being vampire-human hybrids, true werewolves (also called Children of the Moon), and shapeshifters. Though humans are generally not considered supernatural vampires and Children of the Moon are transformed humans (by venom and infection, respectively); shapeshifters are a human population with special gifts, and even "ordinary" humans are gifted.

## Powers and Abilities

A vampire's physical and mental abilities far exceed those of a human being. These traits vary between different vampires depending on what they were more capable of as humans. Certain vampires also develop one extra supernatural power manifested from their strongest trait as a human.

* **Speed**: One of the most amazing among their abilities is their speed. They are able to run in excess of a hundred miles per hour, substantially faster than the human eye can see. When vampires run, they become "all but invisible". The Quileute wolves are noted to be one of the few things that can keep up with them. This suggests that vampires are meant to move to a new location every so often. We see the speed of all the Cullen's again during the baseball game. Emmett is described as "a blur around the bases", and Edward can move so quickly that he is able to intercept a ball that has been hit "like a meteor." They can lay down and sit up within the same fraction of a second, almost without having to even think about going through the motions. After being turned into a vampire, Bella describes her movements as being instantaneous. As a result of this, that they are also able to survive accelerations of at least ~100g, where any normal human subjected to the same would immediately die.
* **Strength**: Another enhanced trait is their unstoppable physical strength. A vampire is said to be thousands of times stronger than any human, able to lift objects several hundreds of times their own weight. They can crush granite boulders, subdue any prey, throw cars, crush metal, and uproot trees with their bare hands. Edward feared his strength when first meeting Bella, and explained that there was barely a difference between caressing her head and knocking it off. A good example of their strength is seen when Bella decides to arm wrestle Emmett after becoming a vampire. She describes the power in his one arm to be about the same as a cement truck moving down a sharp decline at over 60 miles per hour. She beats him, however, because she is a newborn at the time. Newborn vampires are always stronger than older ones, since their strength derives from the lingering human blood left in their body from their human life. A vampire's strength also enables them to leap incredible distances. Edward was able to leap over a 50 yard wide river with ease during Bella's first hunt, while Bella was able to leap over twice his distance, while still only using a small amount of her force. Diet does not have a massive impact on strength, since it always depends on the individual vampire. Although, a diet of human blood makes a vampire stronger than animal blood, albeit only fractionally. Vampires who feed on animal blood (vegetarian vampires) find that "big game"—predators like bears or wildcats - not only smell more appealing to them, but also make them stronger than the "weaker" blood of herd animals such as deer or cattle. Strength, of course, is not always physical. If a vampire possessed great mental strength and willpower as a human, he will find it easier to control his wild, animalistic instincts. Even so, if a vampire has not fed for a long time, he will be less likely to think clearly and more likely to give in to his thirst, attacking the first living thing he detects and draining it of blood within seconds, all without a single thought (human or animal). If, however, an unlucky human were to be near their vicinity, they will preferably attack him/her rather than the animal.
* **Senses**: A vampire's senses are also greatly enhanced, which enables them to see, hear, smell, feel, and taste things imperceptible to humans.
	+ **Sight**: While running, a vampire can see and sense everything that is around them, allowing them to keep tabs of their surroundings and avoid hitting anything unnecessarily. A vampire's vision is incomparable. Everything is much sharper, and more defined as a vampire, and their vision is unhindered by darkness. As a vampire, colors are much more vibrant. Humans are considered *blind* or *mud-eyed* in comparison. Bella described looking back at her human life as like looking through a thick, dark veil because of her new incredible vision. Their sense of sight exceeds by far that of a hawk: They can see objects in microscopic detail, and can see into the invisible spectrum of light. Bella describes her sight as being better than an eagle's. Vampires find wearing glasses or contact lenses to be uncomfortable or irritating because they see the smallest imperfections such as very small scratches and optical aberrations imperceptible to humans. Vampires also have much better depth perception than humans.
	+ **Smell**: When a vampire hunts, he uses his sense of smell to find prey and hearing to track its movements. Vampires can smell objects several miles away in a good breeze. Smell is most intense to vampires, because one can smell the blood of his prey. By not breathing, they feel uncomfortable due to the lack of smell, though they can survive without it. As they grow older and more disciplined, vampires can learn to smell differences between the scents of various humans' blood, as well as scents of other things (like fabrics - the unique scent of denim). The range of their senses can be increased (though only fractionally) through concentration. Vampires mostly rely on smell to find their prey and take in the environment, which is partly why they find the lack of breathing uncomfortable.
	+ **Hearing**: Vampires can hear the most muted sounds. When Bella completed her transformation into a vampire, she listened to the sound of rap music until it slowly faded away. She then realized that it was coming from a car with its window rolled down on a freeway, miles away from where she was. When she went on her first hunt, Bella could hear the fluttering wings and heartbeats of small birds flying through the forest. She could also hear the scurrying noises of animals that were beneath the ground, as well as an army of ants on the ground. They also have an instinctive reaction to danger, usually from ill-willed vampires. They can hear sounds coming from several miles away, and even with their eyes closed, they can be sure that there are multiple people in a room thanks to their varied breathing patterns. They can hear the sound of a heartbeat, a pulse thudding in a vein, and words spoken too quietly or too fast for humans to detect.
	+ **Touch**: Despite being indestructible and hard-skinned, vampires can feel the things they touch, no matter the softness; such as fur, the coolness of wind, etc. They can feel the slightest changes of temperature around them, though they are not bothered by it. They can feel the heat radiating from a human several meters away. When their skins meet sunlight, they can also feel its warmth. Physical pain is implied when their bodies are being ripped apart by something with similar supernatural strength.
	+ **Taste**: Vampires have a similarly enhanced sense of taste allowing them to taste flavors with much more depth and precision. They can taste the differences of particles in their atmosphere. They can also detect minute differences between similar flavors. Even as a newborn, vampires are able to taste if the human they are feeding on has recently ingested drugs or alcohol.
	+ **Sixth Sense**: Vampires also have a keen sense to danger, usually from something strong enough to harm them. Sometimes, they may even detect danger before they know it consciously.
* **Indestructibility**: Another impressive feature about vampires is their virtual indestructibility. During the transformation process, a vampire's cells become extremely hard, durable, and refractive, rendering their bodies nearly impenetrable. Vampires are noted to be exponentially more durable than "soft" humans. The strength of a vampire's skin is described as harder than granite, and even diamond-hard. Their bodies are so hard that they are unable to be harmed by standard human weapons (except for possibly incendary, high explosive, high velocity, AP, nuclear, et al.), and the only creatures capable of killing them are werewolves and other vampires. Their teeth are also noted to be one of the few things strong enough to be able to cut through their skin, as are werewolf teeth. Because of this indestructibility, it is virtually impossible for a vampire to kill himself. As a newborn, Carlisle attempted this in many ways including jumping from atmospheric heights, drowning himself, and starving himself, after all of which he was unharmed.
* **Regenerative Healing**: Vampires are capable of regenerating from various injuries and harm even wounds that are normally fatal to humans. Hair cannot be healed. Also if a limb is torn off they must reattach it and the torn limb will heal. If a vampire is torn to pieces and the pieces are not burned in the fire, the vampire can reconstruct themselves as if no damage occurred, with no sign of harm. Vampires can also use their saliva which is also venom to accelerate the healing of their injuries. They apply venom to the wound, causing them to heal quicker.
* **Flexibility**: A vampire's body movements are uncannily flexible. Their agility is more advanced than humans, which allows them to rapidly respond to change by adapting to its initial stable configuration; They can make numerous gymnastic, or martial arts implements with little effort using a combination of strength, balance, reflexes and speed. They can even swing, flip, bend and twist themselves without failure due to their enhanced sense of balance and flexibility. Using their physical senses as allies, they can find motions at human speed too slow for them to miss.
* **Perfect Recall**: A vampire can instantly remember and recall everything that they have ever experienced, encountered or learned since their transformation, something they can perform for all their existence.
* **Venom**: When a vampire catches their prey, they bites into its neck and injects their venom into its bloodstream while feeding. This serves as a way to immobilize their prey while also initiating the conversion from human to vampire, allowing the predator to feed on their prey without it trying to resist, even though it would not have done any good. While the venom is transformative to humans, it is deadly to animals and shape-shifters. Children of the Moon, however, are completely immune to its effects.
* **Special Abilities**: Few vampires do develop additional abilities that go beyond the natural. These extra abilities are due to psychic gifts in the original human that are intensified in the resulting vampire. For example, a human who was very sensitive to other people's moods might develop the vampire ability to read thoughts or influence emotions. A human who had some limited precognition might develop into a vampire with a strong ability to see the future. A human with a good instinct for hunting might become a powerful vampire tracker. If a human already possessed a certain supernatural gift, this talent will be amplified many times after he is transformed into a vampire.

## Weaknesses

In the *Twilight* universe, vampires are not known to be killed by human effort, are unharmed by sunlight, garlic, holy water, silver, any kind of stake or cross, and can enter homes without permission. Also, any kind of standard human weapon, including bullets, bounces off of them without any pain or harm done. The only known way to kill a vampire is to dismember his or her body and burn the remains before it can reconstruct itself. Thus their weakness is the strength of their own kind or something as strong, which cannot be copied by humans, and fire that consumes them. If a human were to succeed in lighting a vampire on fire, the vampire could simply take a quick high-speed bound to put it out. This is why it is necessary to rip a vampire's body to pieces before incinerating them into ashes, to prevent them from putting out the fire before it can do serious damage. In Alice's vision in *Breaking Dawn - Part 2*, it appeared that vampires could be destroyed by molten lava. A number of vampires fell into the deep fissure made by Benjamin and never came out of it; they were likely consumed by magma. During the final battle scene Aro says that humans possess weapons with enough capabilities to destroy their kind. This suggests that a vampire could be vaporized in a nuclear blast. Otherwise vampires are virtually indestructible.