Powerless

by amng

Emmett's adolescence. The strongest of the Cullen's at his very weakest. We watch as he grows stronger. A full account of Emmett's life, mortal and vampire. Rosalie and not. Enjoy. My best work; give it a chance.

Extended Summery:

Name the guy you'd like to cheer you up when you're feeling blue. For most of us it's Emmett. But what if he needed someone to cheer him up once. A few years when he wasn't so huge… Could you imagine it?

This is my version of Emmett before he was so big and strong. Then when he was strong. When he had Rose. Emmett's life story. I present to you: Powerless.

A/N: It is 1933 in high East Tennessee. Emmett McCarthy is eighteen. Fourteen in the beginning. If anything is confusing to you, you are free to ask me, I will try my best to explain in future chapters or in a reply.

Thanks and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. Or its characters. I do own the poem though…

PROLOUGE:

FRIGID WATER

I let myself waste away,

Over things that others say,

What they do can't hurt me, no,

But I can't lie to you so.

What they do does nothing to me,

It's what they say that makes me see,

I'm not supposed to listen now,

You've told me right, don't have a cow.

It's what they say to me that smarts,

Burns a tough man with gentle heart.

Crushes my spirit to dust,

Laughs like that's just not enough,

I'm not supposed to hear a word,

But come on mommy, that's absurd.

-amng

Once upon a time in a little town is East Tennessee…

The school day was done. Just like any other day it was practically uneventful. I got to school in time to have my lunch box raided. I sat in front of Herald Miller who continually pounded at my back with his muddy boots. As usual, I spent a majority of the class time staring at Virginia May Wharton. I ate lunch as I normally did under the mangled tree in the school ground. Well not so much eat lunch as scavenge the things that the worms hadn't infected. Just part of a typical day for me.

I walked home feeling good. Not for any set reason, but because the shining sun often helped me warm to my surroundings, accept all that life offered me, and expect nothing more. On days like this, when not a single cloud marred the sky, I felt my best. The fair weather almost erased the words they spoke to me. Not completely, but it covered them up for a while.

It was nearly spring and a thin layer of frost sparkled its last goodbyes in the warm rays of the sun. I walked slowly down the dirt road to my home, tarnishing my boots as I mucked through the layers of damp soil.

It did not matter all that much though. Ma would scold me and I would just go on having not a care in the world until the rooster crowed and I went to the fields at dawn. I stopped and admired Mrs. Carlton's daffodils. To be blooming even a few weeks before spring she surely had to have the green finger. My mother had been trying to coax her flowers up for days.

When I noticed a black and yellow striped insect I quickly released the stem I had been bending towards me, examining the sharp color. I continued my walk. My tin lunch pail swayed slightly as I made my way home. Mother would expect my help in the garden and with the cows, I should hurry.

She couldn't well take care of the chores herself. Not with my little sister taking up so much time. Demanding attention and running into trouble. At eight, Frances was a magnet for accidents. Just last weak she had fallen from a tree and broken her leg. Ma had warned her against such nonsense, but she had a determined soul. Mother now nursed her during the day and I was left with all her farm work. I didn't mind milking though, or hoeing about the garden much either.

I had a pleasant stroll to the house. Before I walked in the door I dumped the remains of my lunch in the garbage container. I wanted to conceal my status at school from my mother as long as possible. I didn't want her to suffer; knowing she had a bullied son would only make her baby me all the more.

I opened the latch and propped open the door. I called to my mother and sister a hearty hello and left my tin on the kitchen table. Not a trace of the offending worms or dirt on an inch of the shiny interior.

I heard distinctly a cry from the next room over, "Bye-bye Emmett!" It was Frances in all her spirited glory. I swear there would never come a day when she became weak.

"Goodbye, Emmett. Did you have a nice day at school?" My mother approached me from where she had been in my sister's room. I was halfway out the door.

"It was fine, Ma." I smiled and kissed her check, excepting the hug she offered me. "I'll see you when the sun sets," and I hurried out the door, scampering up the hill.

When I was a quarter way to the end of the outer pasture I heard the faint sound of feet behind me. More than one pair for sure. I turned around and saw nothing but the rustling of branches. I was being followed.

I decided there was nothing to do. If they wanted to follow me, I would let them. If they came to hurt me, well, fine. It was more than likely the nine boys in my school most well known for their constant pursuing of my discomfort and unhappiness. Herald, Joseph, Raymond, Frank, Robert, George, Charles, Thomas and of course their leader, the unstoppable John Kale.

I was certain I was right when out of the trees ahead of me there came a boy, he jumped out and shouted, "Hey, Wuss!" and shoved me back down the hill. Frank was huge, much, much bigger than I was. Even bigger than my Pa, who was well known hereabouts for his lumberjack appearance.

I was falling back hard. As I waited for an impact and the rolling that would sure follow I was caught from behind. "You gonna go milk those sorry excuses for livestock, Sissy?" It was Harold. He was a grade ahead of me, but not any smarter. His brain may have been made of straw, but his arms must have been of iron because when I slammed into them it hurt as much as a ton load of bricks over my head would have.

I bet he was the only guy there who could throw me up hill. I landed on my knees in front of Frank and John. My head was a heavy weight and it bent towards the ground. My lip was split from where it had collided with Harold's shoulder. Blood dripped from me like water from a leaky faucet.

"Well, well, well." Chanted John as he looked down on me. His hand came to lift up my chin so that I was staring right into his soulless eyes. They held secrets, fury and a general and unprecedented distaste for me. "If it isn't Pipsqueak. You gonna rat on us to your Ma, boy? Are ya?"

I shook my head; it was the only thing I could do at this point. I was outnumbered and not a tenth as strong as any one of them.

John grinned at me; he was obviously just starting to have fun. "You are plenty tall, I'll give you that, you grub. But how are you ever gonna do anything with your brain alone. No brawn, no strength. Only weakness. You can't fight us. Maybe this'll convince you to stiffen-up and be a man."

He let my head droop once more and he straightened before calling to his friends. "The stream'll show him. He'll be one of us before too long." And then I heard their agreement. They hooted and hollered and all I could do was listen as they wore down my confidence with harsh words and the continuous 'You'll be one of us'.

As they continued to throw me about between them until they got to the stream, I knew I would never be one of them. I'd never tell a soul how much their words hurt me. As they dunked my head into the icy water over and over again until well into the night, I began to realize that I couldn't live like this, beaten and weak. Never again would they be able to torture me.

I sputtered and shivered all the way to the house that night; glad they had left me, only to have my mother cry herself to sleep at my bedside. I doubted it was because my chores never got done, or because she had to make me oatmeal at one in the morning. My father stood in the doorway, looking grim.

They will not be able to torture me again. I finished, because I'll be ready for them.

Break

I stood in the light of the moon, letting it wash over my exposed skin. I was enticed by the competition in the crisp autumn air. It was a cold night, one of many this year. In Tennessee it was only to be expected, come the arrival of the early winter months. The hairs on my arms prickled into gooseflesh with the frigid wind. I wondered what would happen when they told me I should join them, my buddies, in the water. Wearing nothing but my fleeting dignity.

I loved competition more than anything, but it didn't start that way. No, I didn't always tower above the boys in my classes, making them feel weak. Didn't always laugh at danger. I laughed at lighter subjects once upon a time. I still do, I laugh at my sister Frances as she prances around the countryside. I laugh at myself now and again, too. But even a few years ago I wouldn't have ever imagined the way I looked today. Or the way I acted.

To say that someday I would strip down to nothing in the middle of the peaks and jump into the spring water hatched from the slowly melting beginnings of glacial snow I would have told you how mean it was to pull pranks on me. I would have known there was no way in the world I would ever be that stupid. To think I would care what they said to me. But I did, oh, how I did.

They tease me for being thin, for having not a muscle to my name. Well I showed them. And they were intimidated by what they saw. For what they saw scared the wits out of even me. I had been quite lanky. Thin, but tall. Now the word thin did not even come into association with my name. I was no longer that 'thin McCarty boy'. I was no longer myself on the outside. On the inside I had changed only slightly, but more than I liked. Hanging with a different group and challenging and accepting the challenges, all because I knew I could win.

I was still Emmett McCarty. I just wished I could be the new Emmett McCarty with my old friends. But of course men with the ability to make a woman faint with a single flex and smile did not belong in the same crowd as the gangly boys who never took chances. Because you couldn't be a coward when you had arms as wide as trees. At least that is what they told me.

And reminded me constantly. "Still pinning over those losers!" Raymond called out to me from where he sat in the water. You could see he was trying to be brave but his body was shivering so fast that a jackrabbit would have been shocked by the intensity of it. "Come on, Emmett! You have us now! We must be much better company for you, you'll thank us someday!"

"He is right, Emmett. You have us now, if only you would come into the water. I'm freezing here, and I, for one, would enjoy it if I did not look like a numbskull just because you won't join us. Come on. It's just a swim!" This was Joseph. Perhaps my favorite of the group, there were nine of them in all, if you counted me, and out of them Joseph was undoubtedly the most intelligent. He had outstanding works in all his studies and still maintained a muscular body due to the farm work he helped his father with. We all did. How else would I have gotten to be so huge?

I rid myself of underwear and launched myself into the stream. Shocked by the chill it sent up my spine, I sputtered out water and grabbed hold of a tree root protruding out into the water. I shook the water from my hair and wiped my face with one hand. It never ceased to amaze me, all the crazy things the lot of us did. From cow wrangling and shooting to feeding the ducks in Herald's pond we always found a new thing to do every Saturday night.

"You h-happy now, J-Joseph?" I stammered, still adjusting to the change in temperature.

"Heck yeah!" The scream coming from his blue lips sounded low. "Now we can race! To the McCarty house!"

Racing had not been something I'd been aware of. "A race?" I still clutched the bank, wondering how this was logical as they lined up. The eight of them could hardly fit in a line across the stream; even at it's widest. So they broke into pairs of two. Best swimmers got the back because they could dive and get ahead. Frank and Charles took the lead. And with a "Three, two, one, go!" From George at the back the race began.

My home was situated right alongside the mountain stream. It was almost as wide as a river and we drew water for the garden from a wheel on the side of the house. It was this wheel they were determined to reach.

Oh please, God. I prayed as I swam after them. Let Frances be indoors, with shut curtains. Don't let her see the disgrace from her bedroom window.

Because my sweet, innocent sister would undoubtedly be sullied forever were she to so much as peak from her bedroom window. Please, she's only twelve.

I rushed down the stream, frantic to catch up to them before they reached my home. I had been an exceptionally good swimmer before I obtained so much mass. The new me was too large to be very efficient in the water. I had to try though, for Frances's sake.

I did not get to the house before Robert started roaring about his victory. He pumped his arms and shook out his hair, like a dog after a bath, water dripped down his face and chest.

"Robert!" I whispered. "This is my home. My sister lives here!"

"What about it?" He asked stretching his hands far above his head.

"We are not wearing clothes." I hissed. "Do you know what would happen if she saw us out here? She'd be ruined! My sister, Robert! We have to go back." And I pulled on his arm. Trying to drag him upstream. I hadn't noticed that the others had come. Even Charles and Frank had managed to get to my house.

I threw another desperate glance at my sister's thick pink curtains, praying she would not open the window.

"We have to go back." I whispered into the black night. I could barely see their faces. I rippled my chest, trying my absolute hardest to appear threatening as they continued to splash and tease about their placing.

"Now!" I glared as I snarled at them. I had always been the one who was unaware of his own strength. The physically strongest of the group, most certainly, but I had always been slightly surprised with every new victory. Now I knew my strength, and I would use it against them, my so-called friends.

They looked up at me, some fairly frightened and some looking bored.

Then I heard one little word that sent me right over the edge, "Why?" Coming from Thomas's lips this was the worst of words.

"Arggg!" I threw up my hands and forgot for a moment to be quiet. "We have to go because," and here I remembered what an imbecile I was being and checked the curtains once again, secure. Good. I lowered my voice, "because if my sister sees us…" I shook my head back and forth. "Her whole life is ruined." I was trying my hardest to combine a mixture of fear and pity into the hearts of my comrades.

It obviously wasn't working. "And we care… why?"

Oh, Raymond was so dead. I lunged at him. I put my hands on his neck and head and dipped his head into the water between the words I spoke so severely. "I," dunk, "will," splash, "tell," gasp, "your," heave, "father" cough, "you," drip, "killed," wheeze, "Mrs." choke, "Jenk's," dip, "cat." Which

admittedly wasn't the best threat... but nevertheless I pushed him away from me, like a pariah. He choked for a straight three minutes. I could her the whistling of air finding the smallest passageways.

I wondered why none of them had stopped me. I did not think the threat meant all that much to them. I'd over heard them talking about the murder last year. I was never there to see it. Personally, I'm glad, but I had no doubt that was not why they left me alone. And then I remembered a night, four years ago…

The stream'll show him. He'll be one of us before too long.

And I had remembered thinking of that impossibility. That it was all too true, I saw now. It was back in the day when John had reigned over the tough guys in town. Even my current brawn would have been no match to John's impossible strength. I had experienced it first hand. When they had dunked me in this exact same stream, only four years ago.

Break

"Emmy," I felt a nudge on my shoulder. "Emmett, sweetie. Wake up, Emmett." It was my mother. "Darling, it's time to wake."

I faced her, then I opened my eyes to the new day. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I looked up to see my grinning mother. "Good mornin', Ma."

She messed up my hair. "You and I, mister, have to talk. Meet me in the kitchen when you're ready."

I yawned, nodding as I sat up. "Uh huh… I'll be there, Ma."

"Good." And she waltzed right out the door.

I wonder what that was all about. Ma normally let me know what I had done to displease her the moment she had found out. Yet again, she could always mention that she thought I should find a "pretty young girl", which was not unexpected when you considered that it was my Ma we were talking

about.

I shuffled into the kitchen, still drowsy.

"Emmett," my mother scolded. "Why did Raymond Cleavers mother just call to say that you threatened him yesterday?"

"Well Ma," I bit the inside of my cheek. Looking for an excuse. "I went out with the guys last night."

She nodded, "I'm listening."

I ran a hand through my curly hair, "We went swimming…"

"In the river?" Gasping she grabbed my forearm. "You might have caught cold?"

"I didn't, Ma." I smiled; worry was welcome while trying to spill your guts. "I thought we would just, hang, you know?"

"In the freezing cold?"

I nodded. "Then they wanted to race… and their goal was our house Ma. Outside Frances window."

"Yes." She said, "I still find nothing to constitute a threat."

How to put this… "Well, Ma." I scrambled, trying to accomplish the difficult task of finding the right words. "We were in the woods and the trees and…"

"You weren't wearing clothes!"

My mother was a great many things, but never could she be called and idiot.

I sighed; relieved I did not have to confess it. I nodded.

"How could you? So close to the house! You knew Frances was here." She out her hands on her hips and glared at me. Not exactly the response I had wanted.

"Ma," I said hugging her close despite her protests. "That's why I had to threaten him. When I told him to get away from my sister's window he refused. "Besides," I chuckled, "I threatened that I would tell his mother of something naughty he did." I let her go, looking down at her face, "Not a death threat."

"Oh." She looked thankful that she did not have to punish me, and that her son wasn't a murderous delinquent. "It was all in your sisters best interest?"

"Yes, Ma." I grinned. "I couldn't let her be ruined that way."

She still scowled at me, but her lip twitched upwards. She was messing with me. "Well it is the weekend." She mused… "So I guess it wouldn't kill you to do a few chores around the house."

I smiled, playing along. "No, I don't think it would."

"You could scrub out the barn, top to bottom. I want it spick and span when I milk the cows next. You have until Frances's cast comes off, sir, but only until then." She grinned. "And there are a few boulders in the south field I want moved…"

She knew how much my muscle mass meant to me, so she kindly played around with labor inducing chores. "Where to?"

"I always thought a few in the northernmost field would be nice. Maybe stacked along the fence..."

"Okay, I will." I sat for breakfast and then headed out the door.

"And Emmett?" My Ma called.

"You shouldn't spend so much time with those boys. You're too good for them."

That would not be much of a problem anymore. "That's alright, I don't think they want my company anyway."

I ran to the barn, ready to catch up on my chores, anything to take what they had said to me last night out of my head.

So I don't have any friends anymore, I muttered. I always have the old ones. And as I sweated and over-worked my muscles all I could think about was the next day, and what was to come.

Break

Miss Dopp rang the bell on the front of the school building. It clanged and was generally annoying as I tried to speak with Henry, one of my old friends.

"Hi, Henry." I said as I quickly fell in step beside him. Wow, he looked so much smaller now.

"Hi." He continued to look forward, heading to the building, books clutched to his chest.

"So…" I grinned, trying to get him to look at me. I was hopping alongside him. "What have you been doing lately, anything fun?"

His voice was the perfect monotone. Flat and cold, not a single emotion spoke from his words. "I have been doing chores, I had some fun tossing a ball around with Marcus. That is about all I did this weekend. I went to church, too."

"Cool!" I just about screamed in his ear. I must have looked ridiculous. "So do you think Marcus and you could come over on Wednesday? We could have some fun, go hunting or something." I hoped he would say yes. I needed my friends back.

He finally looked at me as he crossed the threshold to the school building. "I heard about what happened Saturday, Emmett." His voice was still blank, as were his eyes. "You just want to have someone to hag out with. You dumped us losers for those guys; we have managed to live without you. Now the tough guys will, too. Go find yourself a new friend." And he did the only semi-nice thing he had all through our conversation. He put his hand on my shoulder. "Good luck in a town so small." His voice was still dull, but I realized the gesture was not meant to be nice at all.

I thanked heaven that only one of the tough men I used to hang with was still in school.

I had to face Robert, I thought. I can do that.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it, if you did don't hesitate to tell me. And if you did not don't pause either. I had so much fun writing this chapter.

-amng