Esme smoothed down her impeccible brown dress, getting rid of non-existant wrinkles. Ever since Aro had declared his plans, she had been incredibly excited. They would train the newborns in a school envirnment, as they were all children and teens, and it would be the most suitable envirnment for them. She and Carlisle had volunteered to help 'teach' the newborns about their vampire abilities, their bloodlust, and training them to fight. They decided to use the Vulturi castle to house and train the newborns, which there would be over two-hundred of. Esme had always loved children, and she hoped the newborns would become like her children. Carlisle had told her not to expect too much, and remember that anyone she became attatched to would eventially have to fight. She kept his words in mind, but that still couldn't contain her joy. It would be like she was finally becoming a mother. Esme just tried not to think of the pain the two hundred children would be feeling, or what they would be trained to do. She knew that Carlisle had not forgotten these factors, but he had always been more sensible then her.

She heard the smallest of noises coming from behind the door. It was probably Carlisle, coming to inform her that it was time to meet all the students. Aro said that the newborns would have already been told what they had become, but he wanted a formal introduction when the newborns first arrived.

"Esme, dear." Carlisle said quietly, smiling at her, "It is time to go." he took her hand and they ran to the foyer where everyone was waiting. As they slipped in the room, all two hundred pairs of scared, timid eyes took in Esme and Carlisle. Esme smiled reassuringly at them all, and they went back to listening to James, who was at the front of the room with Victoria, Laurent, and the Volturi brothers.

"Welcome to the home of the eternally damned," James announced, as theatrical as always, "Where you shall remain until the Volturi decides otherwise. Try not to get too comfortable in your surroundings," the Esme scowled at him; he was scaring the new vampires, "You might not last long. In fact, you won't last at all unless you pay attention to everything that older and wiser vampires will tell you. These older and wiser vampires include myself, Laurent, Victoria, Aro, Marcus, Caius, Esme, and Carlisle." he guestered to them as he spoke, "We aren't here to comfort you," he paused, "Well, maybe Esme is, but the rest of us just want a vampire army. Don't kill each other, don't cause trouble, do what we say, and it is possible that you will last for all of eternity. But don't get your hopes up." James grinned.

He left the room, Victoria and Laurent at his heels. Aro took one last look at the newborns, nodded at Carlisle, and then left as well, his brothers right behind him. Then Esme and Carlisle were left with an enormous number of frightened newborns.

Carlisle cleared his throat, "Try not to let James scare you," he informed them, "No matter what he says. The life of a vampire is not qite what it is made out to be. You will all realize that in sufficient time. But for now, lease talk amongst yourselves and try to make yourselves at home." it didn't look like any of the young vampires were inclinde to do so, so Esme felt compelled to try and talk to some.

She walked up to a tall blonde boy who looked slightly less nervous then the rest of the newborns, "Hello there," she said with a smile, "And who might you be?"

He smiled back, "I'm Jasper Whitlock, ma'am."

A voice came from behind Esme, that she took to be Henry, a Volturi member whose power was being able to tell what other's powers were, "Jasper can control emotions." Henry stated.

"How lovely. Perhaps you could help me make sure everyone feels more comfortable here." Esme suggested, "But anyway, can you tell me what you know of vampires, Jasper?"

Everyone was silent around them, waiting for his answer, "Well, I think vampires need blood," he tried, "And are really strong and fast..." he trailed off, thinking.

"And really beautiful." a girl said, who was standing a couple feet away.

Esme took in her long blonde hair, perfect propotions, and gorgeous features, pretty even to vampire standards, "True. And who might you be?" Esme asked.

The girl smirked, "Rosalie."

Henry didn't speak, so Esme took it that the girl didn't have any special powers, "Well, Rosalie, it is very nice to meet you. You certainly are a beautiful vampire, if I do say so myself." from the looks that the girl was getting, all the boys agreed with her.

"But beauty isn't everything." said a bronze haired boy, who stood glaring at Rosalie, "And to answer your question, I am Edward." Esme hadn't spoken, but she had been wondering.

"I take it you can read minds," she said with a chuckle, "A very useful talent. But you know, all talents are wonderful." she glanced at Rosalie, who was glaring back at Edward.

"I bet mine is better then everyone's." another girl spoke up. She was tiny, and smiled angelicly, "I'm Jane, just so you know. And this is my brother Alec." the boy beside her scowled in embarrassment.

Henry laughed, "Jane can torture people by putting them in great pain." Everyone around her moved to the side, not daring to meet her eyes.

"So, let me try to recap," Carlisle spoke up, mostly for Esme's sake, "There is Jasper, Rosalie, Edward, Jane, and Alec?" he waited for them to nod, "Nice to meet you all. I am Carlisle Cullen, and this is my wife Esme. We hope to learn everyone's names in due time."

A short pixie-like girl with pointy black hair laughed, "You will get to know everyone's names. I know because I'm psychic. My name is Alice." she seemed the most cheerful of all the children.

Esme found herself beeming back, "Well, hello, Alice! Thank you for that prediction, I'm sure it will help put everyone at ease." they both smiled at each other, and Esme knew she had found a newborn that would become like a child to her, "And can you tell me, Alice, will everybody be happy here and ready to make friends with everyone else?" she prayed that it would be so, or that at least Alice would lie for her.

The girl closed her eyes for a minute, and then opened them with a slight grimace, "Eventually they will. Eventually we will all be best buds!" she squealed and clapped her tiny hands together.

Edward smirked, "I doubt it." he was still looking disdainfully at Rosalie.

That was when Esme noticed that some of the kids had stopped paying attention to her introductions, and were finally talking amongst themselves. She was glad that they hadn't heard Edward's rude comment and decide to make discriminations based on what they heard. Besides, Alice had said they would be friends eventually.

"Well now," Carlisle looked at Edward, "You will just have to change that doubt. It was nice meeting you all." he turned to Esme, "I have to talk to the Volturi, but you can stay and chat with the newborns. Don't leave them without protection or they will start killing each other." he ran out and Esme spotted Henry walking through the students towards her. She waved to him but decided to also walk through the students looking for someone who wasn't talking to anybody else.

A lone girl stood at the side of the room, so Esme wandered up to her, "Hello, dear, whats your name?"

The girl answered in a small voice, "Bree."

Esme smiled, "A lovely name. Bree, how about we join this group of young ladies." she turned to a group of four girls, one with strawberry blond hair, one with blond hair, one with lots of curly dark hair, and one with brown hair, "Hello, ladies, this is Bree. You don't mind if she joins you?"

The strawberry blond haired girl turned and smirked, "Of course not. We we would love to talk to Bree. I'm Tanya, the blond is Lauren, the black haired girl is Jessica, and the brown haired girl is Angela." they all raised a hand when she said their name.

Esme stayed to make sure they talked to Bree for a scond, and then continued on. She glanced over her shoulder as she walked, and saw Angela and Bree tearing away from the group to talk seperately. They both seemed shy, so she supposed it was more natural for them. Esme couldn't see anybody else standing by themselves, but she did see a group of six boys, and a nervous looking girl. She wondered why the girl was talking with all those boys.

"Hello, children." Esme said in her warmest voice, and saw them all look at her, "What are your names?"

A huge boy with curly brown hair answered, "Oh, you're Esme right? Well, I'm Emmet. This is Felix," a boy with short black hair, "Demetri," his hair was wavy, and reached his shoulders, "Mike," he had spiked blond hair, "Erik," he had black hair, "Tyler and Bella." Bella had long brown hair, a heartshaped face, and wide brown eyes.

"Bella has most unusual talents." Henry said, as he finally caught up with Esme.

Esme raised an eyebrow, "Talents? As in plural? As in she has more then one gift?"

The girl looked incredibly scared, but Henry went on, "Yes, dual abilities. The Volturi brothers were talking about it earlier, after I had explained her gifts. It is not something we have come across before, having more then one talent. Bella here has been gifted with the ability to become completely invisible, from all the senses. That means when she turns invisible you can't see her, smell her, hear her, or anything. You can't even use your powers against her. Of course, that is the other talent. She can control someone else's powers if they try to use it against her. For example, if Jane tried to torture her mind, Jane would be in for a nasty, painful surprise." he chuckled.

Emmet let out a booming laugh, "Bella, you are so lucky! You have some kick butt powers!" All the boys agreed, but Bella didn't say anything.

Everyone suddenly looked up as Carlisle came back into the room with James, Victoria, and Laurent. Carlisle addressed all the students, "We are ready to begin the day. On the back wall, you will notice that we posted everyone's classes and common rooms. There are also maps of where everything is on the wall. We do not need to sleep, so you won't have bedrooms, but everyone will have common rooms where they will spend extra time, and leave any personal belongings. There are closets in each common room for each person's things, and you will find your name on the closet door, as well as all your stuff that we took the liberty of delivering. You can go to your classes now." there was a huge rush of newborns figuring out where to go, while Carlisle approached Esme, "You will be teaching in the classroom down the hall and to the right, my dear. Aro has thoughtfully supplied us all with notes on what to tell the students." he chuckled, "Try to keep them from killing each other. I will see you later."

They seperated and Esme found her 'classroom'. There were twenty five chairs facing a large desk. She wandered over to the desk and saw that Aro had indeed supplied her with notes. She read over the first page and chuckled as she realized he had left her a note.

Dear Esme,

Thank you for helping us with this project. Here is a list of things to go over during your first class. And I must ask you to refrain from telling the newborns about your 'vegetarian' diet. It simply isn't natural. Have fun.

Aro

She chuckled once more, and then realized that the desks were filling up with students. It wasn't long before every desk was filled and she decided to start with names. A vast majority of the newborns she knew, but there were a couple she didn't.

"Welcome everybody. I think we should get to know each other. As I'm sure you can all recall, I am Esme. I'm going to try to remember those of you whose names I already know, and you all can fill me in on your names if I haven't gotten to know you yet. So, your names are Emmet, Felix, Mike, Jasper, Alec, Erik, Edward, Demetri, Tyler, Rosalie, Tanya, Lauren, Alice, Jane, Jessica, Bella, Bree, and Angela. Now, the rest of you." she pointed at each newborn she didn't know and they supplied their names, "Excellent. Now we should get onto all these notes that Aro has given me." She went over the basics of being vampires, but decided to ignore Aro's advice, "Now, all vampires require blood. And most of us take human blood to survive. Some of us, however, have decided that we don't want to drink human blood. We call ourselves vegitarians, because we actually drink animal blood instead of human blood." she noticed some of the students smirking at her, and Felix raised his hand, "Yes, Felix?"

"Isn't it the vampire way to drink human blood?" he asked with a smirk.

Esme sighed, "Some of us think it is. Others believe that we shouldn't be killing the humans. Now, you don't have to think about this yet, because Aro will supply you all with humans while you are here." she went on with the lesson.

When she reached the end of the notes, she let them all go to their common rooms. They were all buzzing with excitement at everything they had learned, and Esme couldn't blame them. It was a lot to take in. She soon became aware that the only person who wasn't skipping off to the common rooms was Bella, who had remained behind to talk.

"Yes, Bella?" Esme asked, as she stacked her notes evenly.

The girl blushed, "Um, Esme? You know how you were talking about an alternative to killing humans?" Esme nodded, "Well, I was wondering if, um..." she trailed off, biting her lip.

Esme smiled, "Do you want to try the alternative to killing humans, Bella? It really isn't anything to be ashamed of. Carlisle and I use the alternative."

Bella looked down, "Its just that I don't want to kill humans. I know you said that we would be given human blood here, but I it just seems," she paused, "Weird."

Even though Aro would be furious at her, Esme decided to offer Bella the alternative, "I'll ask the Volturi to give you permission to hunt with Carlisle and I the next time we go out."

The girl smiled, "Thank you, Esme." then she followed her fellow newborns to the common room.

Carlisle came in and sat down, "How did your lesson go?" he asked.

"It was very good. I, um, sort of mentioned the alternative of getting blood to the class, and one of the students was interested." she beamed.

"You know that your not supposed to. But I suppose if it is only one newborn interested it should be okay. Who was it?" Carlisle asked.

"Oh, a girl named Bella." Esme told him.

Carlisle frowned, thinking, "Bella? That was the one the Volturi were talking about. She has more then one talent, and they think she is going to become a very powerful asset to their project. I'm not sure if Aro is going to like this."

"Like what?" Aro asked, coming in, "What have you two done now?"

Esme decided to explain herself, "Well, Aro, one of the newborns came to talk to me after the lesson about alternatives to drinking blood, and I told her about our alternative."

Aro sighed, "I told you not to say anything, Esme. Who was the student?"

She grimaced because she hoped he wouldn't ask, "Oh, um, Bella."

He groaned, "Oh great. You know human blood makes us stronger then animal blood. I really don't think that one of our most gifted newborns should be less powerful then the rest."

"Well, I already told her that she would be able to hunt with Carlisle and I. And if all the newborns were taught that they shouldn't drink human blood, we wouldn't be having the problem that we are having right now. I mean, imagine what will happen after they defeat the trouble makers. Then we are stuck with two hundred crazy newborns thirsting for blood."

They glared at each other for a second before Aro shrugged in defeat, "Fine, you can take Bella hunting with you next time. But try not to convert all the newborns."

He left and Esme exchanged a suffering look with Carlisle. Sometimes, she just couldn't stand Aro. At least he was better then his brothers, though, who just stood silently behind him with furious expressions on their face. The Volturi certainly weren't warm vampires.

She decided to ignore Aro's behaviour and visit some of the newborns. They were all very interesting, and Esme had already realized who her favourites were. Sweet little Alice, polite Jasper, rowdy Emmet, and shy Bella. The ones she wasn't sure about were Jane, Edward, and Rosalie. Jane seemed to find her power funny, and Edward and Rosalie had been shooting daggers with their eyes at each other the entire time.

Esme arrived at the first common room, and quietly snuck in, trying not to attract attention. She wanted to observe them as they would behave without supervision. In a corner of the room, Alice was flanked by Jane and Jessica, and they were all gossiping away, she heard the word 'shopping' mentioned a couple of times. Standing in the middle of the room was Rosalie, Tanya, Lauren, and a red-head that Esme didn't know. A couple of other girls stood around talking, and she finally noticed Bella, Bree, and Angela huddled in a corner, talking quietly. Esme smiled as she noticed that nobody was by themselves, and moved on to a boy common room. Once again she noticed groups; Emmet, Felix, Mike, and two boys she didn't know in a group, Jasper, Alec, Erik, and a boy named Ben talking, and finally, Edward, Demetri, Tyler, and a huge group of boys standing close to them, trying to be included in the group. While in the girl's room, Esme had noticed that there were leaders of the group that everyone circled around. The girls had been Rosalie, Alice, and Bella. Meanwhile, the boy leaders seemed to be Emmet, Jasper, and Edward. Even among vampires there was a social heirarchy. Esme smiled to herself as she pondered the possibilities that the Volturi's project would bring.