Continued....
Just when we started to relax a little, the other four vampires arrived. Their posture was tense, and their message was clear. They, at least, were not going to stand down.
We watched them approach us and they stared at us like we were their mortal enemies.
"Long time no see." Carlisle smiled, "I just bought that boat."
This time the other male vampire spoke: "You come here and lie to my clan about powers! Your powers are few and won't help you much here."
I could tell he was right. He was searching our minds for lies. His power worked very similar to mine, only instead of reading people's thoughts, he was very much like a lie detector. He could read when people were lying. I tried to search his thoughts to see exactly how much he knew: if he knew what we had lied about specifically- or if we had simply stretched the truth about our powers. To him, that would have come across as a lie, which could work in our favor. His mind wasn't giving away much, however. I was lost.
"You have a gift of your own, I see?" Carlisle asked, still smiling. His thoughts shifted to Aro, and I could tell Carlisle was trying hard to portray to these people that he was very similar to Aro in manner and style. If anyone could copy the Volturi's style, it would be their old friend, Carlisle. He was doing a good job so far.
"Does it matter? You do not have the gifts you say you do, and we outnumber you here. Surrender to us and we will let you survive. Or- face your destruction now." The leader from before spoke up this time, stepping in front of the first one before he could answer.
"I see." was Carlisle's answer. I could tell they were serious. This was their goal. Gain and conquer, or destroy all who get in the way.
These vampires didn't know one thing, however. We had one thing they did not. Despite powers, despite numbers, we had Jasper. Jasper quickly took control of the situation. I heard his thoughts clearly- as they were thought directly so that I could hear them- as if he spoke them to me aloud.
"Edward- I know you hear me- Emmett, Carlisle, Alice and you need to cover the oldest four. I will handle the newborns. I will send Alice a vision of this, and you get Carlisle on the same page. I'll whisper the plan to Emmett, he is closer to me."
The thought was quick, but the plan was simple. Jasper had extensive training in newborn armies- creating them, training them, and destroying them. This was his territory. We just had to handle the older ones.
"Got it." I head Alice confirm. She saw Jasper's plan.
We quickly conveyed our plans to Carlisle and Emmett as the other vampires circled closer. I heard someone shout, "What are we waiting for? Attack them!" and we were quickly ambushed.
I had a vampire in my grasp quickly. He was the leader. Carlisle was circling a woman vampire nearby, and Emmett and Alice were zeroing in on one of the female vampires as well.
"What are we supposed to do?" I heard Rosalie shout to Emmett as he told her to leave the newborns to Jasper.
"You and Esme can block that lady over there and rip her head off!" He pointed to the other female vampire, who had been sneaking along the far wall, trying to avoid the fighting.
"Oh dear!" Esme replied.
"Got it." Rosalie cracked her knuckles like a mechanic getting to work, grabbed Esme by the wrist and the two started cornering the vampire. She had nowhere to go. Esme looked less nervous the more the got the vampire trapped into the far wall, but Rosalie did the honors of tearing her head from her body. One down, six to go.
Jasper had destroyed two newborns before we got any of the other three leaders down. The lie detector was next to go. He grabbed Carlisle and twisted him into a quick body press against a parked car. It used to be a very nice, blue Jeep Cherokee Laredo, but now had a very deep dent in the entire right side. Thinking he had won, and preparing to tear Carlisle limb from limb, Carlisle took advantage of the situation and swing out from underneath the vampire's right arm, flattening the guy even further into the car with his knee and tearing his head off his body before the man could even yell for help. After that the activity was a flurry. Emmett was wrestling on the ground with his lady vampire, and Rosalie was running to help. Jasper was in the process of destroying another newborn, which had lost two arms but was still stumbling towards him with a fury.
My vampire seemed scared to fight, but didn't want to back down either, so he stood there in a defensive pose, waiting for me to attack. I used the time wisely, waiting to see what his fighting style was. He planned moves out in his head, which I cataloged for further use, remembering to use them against him later. He was the leader, and I didn't want to attack him on my own and make a mistake.
After what seemed like forever, he came towards me, and I swung my legs out in a high kick to his chest. He fell to the ground but was up much more quickly than I expected. He was much younger than I thought. This could be a problem. I saw a flurry of movement behind me and realized Carlisle was behind me. The other vampire started panicking, realizing he was outnumbered. By this time it was looking positive.
Then, we were ambushed. A newborn did something completely unexpected. She didn't even see it coming herself. The leader of the newborns, the woman who had already decided she wouldn't attack us, stood up from her hiding place behind the half-smashed Jeep, and threw her hands up.
"Stop! I cant take all this fighting anymore!" She yelled.
We all froze in place. Not because we wanted to, but because we had no choice. We were stuck. She had frozen us somehow, and she didn't even seem aware that she had done it. I caught on right away, and so did Carlisle, Jasper and the leader we were trying to destroy. No-one else seemed to understand for a moment. Then, one by one, the remainder of us Cullens and the last newborn understood as well.
"You froze us!" Shouted the leader vampire. "Unfreeze me and lets destroy them all!"
"No!" Carlisle shouted.
She didn't respond. She didn't unfreeze us. She stood there, staring in shock at all our frozen bodies, all nine of us, plus her. She started to understand that she, indeed, had frozen us. She didn't know whether to unfreeze us or not. She didn't want any one else to get hurt. Her thoughts were confused and panicky.
"What's your name?" Carlisle asked.
"What?" She was taken aback.
"What's your name?" He repeated.
"Julia." She said.
"Well, Julia, we don't like hurting vampires. In fact, we don't even hunt people. That is the real reason our eyes are not red. We don't want this. Let us go and the only one who needs to be destroyed here is this one-" I motioned towards the leader- "who is planning to destroy everything that crosses his path anyway. He is a liability. The mere fact that he created you is dangerous." Carlisle told her. Her thoughts bounced over my words. She believed him. She even danced around the idea of not hunting people anymore, but enjoys it too much to stop.
"There are other things to have fun with other than hunting people. These people have families. Did you ever think you could find people to love too?" I told her. My words left a bitter taste in my mouth, as I was being ironic, talking about love when I had no love of my own. I did have a family, however.
She contemplated that, then looked at the leader of her clan.
"Don't." He begged. Then he unfroze and the shock of his rapid unfreezing left him falling to the ground.
"Shoot." She said. She frooze him again and the rest of us unfroze, falling to the ground as he had seconds before. Standing up, Jasper walked over to the frozen vampire.
"Liar liar pants on fire. Guess your leading skills didnt get you far today." He told him, smiling. Then he grabbed his head and tore it off cleanly.
We gathered all the heads and bodies of the destroyed vampires and burned them in a large pile. After a few shared apologies and promises to Julia that vampire life is much better than what she has known, we acquired a small sailboat and headed home to Chicago. We were eager to set foot back in the Mason home and settle down around the fireplace and relax. We knew we would always have a friend here, but weren't sure if we would ever return.
Labels:
Alice Cullen
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Before Twilight
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Carlisle Cullen
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Edward Cullen
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Emmett Cullen
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Esme Cullen
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Jasper Hale
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Rosalie Hale
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Vampires
