A/N: Please review. This was a character exercise for me, and I'm anxious to know what you think! Remember "Pass it forward". Review for me, I'll review for you! Good things come to those who do good!

~Alpha


"Run, Peter! Run!" I called after my friend. This way Maria wouldn't kill him. She wouldn't have me kill him, actually. I'd take the heat from her, but it is not like that ever mattered since I just got as angry as she did and spat back at her. Sooner or later I might learn to take care of that.

I put my hands in my pockets and walked from the alleyway I had taken Peter into over to where we kept our training area. Little Maria was busy instructing a few newborns when I walked up. She liked pitting them against each other to make them stronger. Honestly, she never trained them much, only enough so they won't be slaughtered too bad when fighting any of the other clans. After a year and a half she just had me kill them anyways.

"I trust everything is taken care of." She piped. Her voice was musical, and though I've never fancied it, it had a jingle sound that tingles up your back when you hear it.

"I handled everything. Yes, ma'am." No need for her to truely know what had happened.

"Now, you know after over fifty years of this you don't have to call me 'ma'am'." She never peeled her eyes away from the newborns.

"It's habit." I said. I also watched the newborns, becuase by now, people of ultimate business have learned to not be offended when the other doesn't look at them. Besides, i knew her eyes were painted with disappointment and the mediocre job the soldiers were doing.

She grunted some sort of acknowledgment while she watched the newborns. "Get in there. Show them how it's done."

"Yes, ma'am." I threw myself into the middle of the fight that the newborns had tried. Even though I was surrounded, they fought amongst each other, not thinking of the common enemy. I swung at them each, using my superior battle skill. The confederacy trained me well, but I've always had a knack for this. Even as I cut through most of their skins and there was some blood – hardly at all since none of their hearts beat, it was all left over from when they were human a short time ago – which many of them went after.

"Stop it!" Maria stamped her foot and they all went still. One, Amelia, had her teeth around another's, Tom's, arm. "You swine! The whole of you!"

"You need to learn that we have an enemy, and to attack the enemy, not each other." I added.

They all looked between one another, upset at being yelled at. It only fueled me. "You will all be killed if you attack as you are. No good, filthy, leeches. You are Vampires. You all have more power than you know what to do with and you can't even focus it!" The fact that I couldn't at their age meant nothing now. "All of you will be punished if you can't learn to do this at least half way properly!" Anger was lost and they replaced their emotions with fear. In order not to end up the same way, I keyed into Maria's feelings. Glee, pride, and some semblance of anger.

They looked at each other, into each other's blood-red eyes. The fear dissipated. They felt pride now, too. May as well cut that down, those stupid newborns. I was about to say something when Maria, behind me, pushed on my back, knocking me into the throng of newborns. They all began to attack me, and just me. Maybe they've learned something after all. Many tried to bite me, knowing that worked on the others. Idiots, I had no blood to give. I fought many of them off easily, there was only about half a dozen or so. It hurt, their razor sharp teeth and nails, but it wasn't anything I haven't be pushed into before. I knocked the last one off of me and he – Charles – went flying into a tree.

Dammit Maria, she'd left me with these children. I wiped the dirt of my shoulder as I stored the anger I had towards her. "Hooray. You've finally learned something. At this rate, you'll be battle ready after the turn of the century. I think that's enough for now. Travel as a pack and you might come home tonight. You're free to go."

Recently, I'd been thinking something wasn't right. Could this really be what I had for the rest of my unnatural life? All the anger and fighting and living day-by-day. I've been thinking it's not for me. There has to be another fate awaiting me, if fate qualified for what I am.

It was exactly that that awaited me. Three days later, well after another 6-10 dozen humans were killed again Maria caught wind of the worst sort of rumors.

"Jasper, we have a problem. I think the Volturi are coming." She had on a straight face, strong and stern. As did I. "They're probably going to kill all of us. We have enough of our army to perhaps take out one, maybe two of the guard, but I know we will die if we fight."

"So we avoid battle." It was simple enough. The Volturi weren't simple to face, but why did escape need to be terribly difficult?

"Precisely." She said, as matter-of-fact as I.

"What of the newborns?" With any luck, I wouldn't have to kill them.

"We were going to kill most of them, anyways. Why not let them stay, see how many of the other side can be killed before the Volturi arrive? You and I, however, are leaving." She was cold, heartless. She had acquired the slightest smile to her lips as if her plans weren't working the way she wanted, but it still got the job done.

"Very well, ma'am." We could run from each other. I had no leash.

"Then we'll be gone by dawn. Don't tell anyone about this. I'm thinking it's about time we return to America."

"You suppose that the quarreling has died down yet? America should be pretty well off since it only just started in The Great European War." I looked to the north, wondering if after almost sixty or so years it would be weird returning home.

"I'm sure everything is fine. If it weren't for the Volturi being in Europe, we'd go there to share in the bloodshed, but for obvious reasons, claiming territory would be a mistake."

"Of course, ma'am."

"Good. We leave at midnight. Until then, feast, my friend." Friend. Ha. I've never been her friend. Second in command, guinea pig, commander to her armies, but never her friend. She had a hatred of me that I fed off of. It was probably fake, since I knew she respected me, but it was there nonetheless.

We excused ourselves and each went to find something to sedate our thirst. I've always been partial to young girls, children. There isn't enough blood in them, but it's always the freshest. The boy's blood is often tainted with dirt or rocks from harsh playing, so the purest, the sweetest it their female counterpart. To regular humans, this thought would be sick, but after so long of bloodletting, you do find preferences.

By the time Maria and I met up again, I had ripped apart three of children - two boys and a girl - and their mother. It was delicious. I never cared much for the screaming, but the squirming of the body underneath my teeth, the thrill of the chase and catch. It was like hunting an animal from when I was human. The exciting part isn't eating. You eat because you must. The exciting part is catching them even though with a musket the hunter is far more superior to the elk.

"Let's go." She whispered.

She began to run and I followed her. We ran fast and hard with our blood-given strength. By dawn we had found a home just on the border between Mexico and Texas. Maria slaughtered the family inside and we waited in there for the day.

The next night we went through Texas and when she wasn't paying enough attention, she turned north and I continued east. By morning I was in Louisiana. The house I choose here had only one occupant, which lowers the screaming considerably in such a small town.

The following night I went to Mississippi and waited out the night there.