A/N: It feels like I haven't done this for ten years! ... Holy crap! I have a beard! o.O Anyway, I know it has been a LONG time since I've posted. Life has been interesting for the year I've been gone and I just recently started writing again. I still can't guarantee that the updates will come with any regularity. Sorry. I still hope you enjoy reading this. I also hope I've done a good job portraying characters not my own and developing characters spawned from my own mind. I really enjoy writing this story. It is a lot of fun for me. Read and review!=D (Chapters 10 and 11 have the same A/N because I uploaded them at the same time.)

Research and Development

We were standing at the edge of a cliff. A huge valley stretched out before us. Another Magus—yes, there were two of him now—stood at the very edge looking out over the valley.

All eight of us moved up to get a better look at what was in the valley. At the bottom of the valley, approximately 10,000 of Magus' troops waited for Vanderis' forces. How I knew that particular little fact was beyond me. My guess would be it had something to do with the fact that Magus was hosting this mental congregation.

"Where is this?" Caius demanded.

"This is Druidawn, our home planet. And before you ask, no. We are still on Earth. I have simply prepared this memory as proof of what Vanderis is capable of. We, in fact, have not left the table." Magus explained. Not the one looking over the valley… the one with us. This was going to get confusing.

Estus clapped me on the back. Despite the force I'm sure he used, I didn't stagger, stumble or even budge an inch though I certainly felt it.

"Just so you don't get confused, you can call him Pete." Estus stated oh so helpfully while pointing to the Magus looking into the valley and grinning widely.

I glanced at the real Magus to find him glaring daggers at Estus, which told me he had absolutely no say in, nor notification of, this decision.

Mason interrupted. "What are we supposed to see here?"

We all slowly began levitating off the ground. I could still feel something completely solid beneath my feet, but all I could see was air. It was weird and I didn't feel entirely comfortable. Mason seemed to have the same agitation though he was controlling it a bit better. Aro, Marcus, and Caius didn't appear to be bothered at all and neither did Estus. Keyes didn't like the whole flying thing all though he was making a valiant effort at hiding it. We sailed far up and above the valley where we could see the entire battle.

Several hundred yards away, at the mouth of the valley, we could see a second, larger army moving through the trees. I couldn't accurately count their numbers but the entire floor of the forest was constantly covered. I could never see through to the floor. Whenever one stepped forward and was hidden by the canopy, another stepped up to take his place. Countless soldiers moved through the foliage towards Magus' troops.

Magus #2 made a slight sweeping motion with his arm. Slowly all 15,000 of his troops moved further into the valley, clearing an area for the other forces to congregate. Several minutes later, the first soldiers emerged from the trees. As soon as they did, they immediately fell into formation. As more and more came out of the trees, large organized ranks of foot soldiers formed.

This was going to turn ugly really fast. I tried to move closer to Mason and was surprised to find I could move as if I was standing on top of a solid surface even though I could see nothing below me. This didn't hold my attention for long though.

"I apologize, Danica. I will return your mind to your body if you wish." Magus offered. I seriously considered that for a half of a second. Which seemed like quite a while even though it was no time at all.

I decided I wasn't going to leave. The situation we were in involved me just as much as it did everybody else. I wanted to know what we were up against…. even if I wasn't going to like watching it… and I was sure I wasn't going to like watching it. But I resolved to stay.

"Very well. Gentlemen and lady, if you will turn your attention towards the ground, your proof is at hand. For future reference, you will be able to hear my thoughts. Or, more specifically, that me." Magus provided, pointing towards himself standing on the ledge. "My generals report to me through telepathy and I give orders through telepathy. You will also be able to hear the reports my generals send me."

Everyone gave his or her attention to the ground.

"Magus, the Elementals are in place." A voice I did not recognize reported.

"Good. Bring the archers up to the ledges. As soon as they are in place, trigger the rock slide." Magus ordered.

From our vantage point, I could see soldiers, lining the ledges overlooking the valley all with bows and quivers. A few seconds later, there was a loud, massive rumbling that seemed to make the very air vibrate. Humungous clouds of dust and dirt were thrown into the air as rock and earth tumbled down into the valley from the walls of it. One rockslide occurred behind Vanderis' forces and another occurred in front of them. The slides would trap his forces between them and crush whatever soldiers were unlucky enough to be in the way.

Three humanoids leapt thirty feet into the air and over a dozen ranks of soldiers to position themselves right in the path of the rockslide.

"Move the elementals back into the main body. Have the second squad brace the front line. " Magus ordered.

Half a dozen men jumped over the other soldiers and took up evenly spaced positions in front of Magus' foremost soldiers. They quickly and precisely in unison, thrust their arms down and brought them up in a sweeping motion while taking a step forward. The earth a few feet in front of them undulated and came up, forming a tidal wave like shape towards the enemy.

Not a moment too soon, because the three men that jumped into the path of the rockslide, made a few motions and the slide, redirected and slammed into the newly erected earthen structure. A raucous crash erupted from the impact and shook everything violently. A good portion of the valley was veiled in a dust cloud. I couldn't see as clearly as I could before, but I could still see shadows jumping from Vanderis' side up onto the wall and then over to attack Magus' soldiers.

A few seconds after the impact, the dust cleared; a strong gust of wind carried it away. Soldier after countless soldier jumped over the wall. I could see that even though the rockslide had failed to do any real damage to Vanderis' ranks, the resulting wall prevented his troops from attacking en masse. As a result, Magus' soldiers were slaughtering the piecemeal soldiers with no losses.

The soldiers stopped jumping over the wall and the army as a whole stepped back from the wall several feet. Magus' troops looked around, wondering what was next. The ground shook and trembled as the wall came to life and began to move. Magus' soldiers stumbled backwards and fell over each other as a massive rock humanoid structure came to life and stood up in front of them.

"For those of you who don't know, that is a rock golem and a large one at that." Magus commented.

General Keyes stared wide-eyed at it. His imagination couldn't conceive of something that size that could walk and fight on its own and was made out of earth no less. Magus' soldiers tripped over themselves to get away.

"Tear it apart." Magus ordered.

As the soldiers scrambled backwards, a handful of figures did not flee in the face of this new threat. They formed a semi-circle around the construct and reached up into the air as one, closed their fists as if grabbing onto something and yanked down violently. Rock and earth was torn from the construct in great mounds. An unseen force strained to reattach the pieces as the figures raised their fists again and yanked down again. The construct fell apart, splayed across the valley floor. Magus' soldiers were already formed back into organized ranks, having seen the threat amply dealt with.

The figures, their task completed, melded back into the bulk of the force. With a hundred feet between the earthen wall and the foremost ranks of Magus' soldiers, the earthen wall swung open like double doors as if on hinges. Dust and dirt was thrown into the air again and Vanderis' forces surged forward through the now open path, eager to shed blood.

In response to the charge, the foremost line linked shields forming a wall straight out of Spartan myth. With this wall blocking Vanderis' view of the ranks farther back, Magus' forces rearranged. Four to five ranks of melee infantryman clustered up front to brace for the charge. About half as many archers condensed behind these linemen and readied bows. While this was going on, more archers had already organized in the rear most lines and nocked and sighted arrows for a ballistic arc.

Magus waved his hand and the archers on the ridges as well as the few thousand in the back released their ammunition. A cloud of arrows that enveloped the valley in shade sailed through the air. The arrows fired from the ridges, trimmed the stragglers on the outside and seemed to make the mass of soldiers shrink as soldiers moved closer to the center to avoid getting hit. When the main mass of arrows made contact, the charge Vanderis had ordered was decimated. The force that was a few thousand strong when it broke off from the main force now contained a mere fraction of that number.

The remaining soldiers charged on. The shield wall did not waver against this on rushing force. As if rehearsed, at the last second, the wall crouched in unison revealing the horror of the charging soldiers the ranks of concealed archers. The archers let fly as soon as their vector was clear of allied soldiers. Their arrows zipped the short hundred foot distance to their targets and pounded into the remains of the rushing mass, stopping the charge cold.

As soon as every archer had let his shot fly, the wall stood back up to receive the paltry remaining force of a hundred enemy soldiers. These poor souls were butchered mercilessly by the pikemen standing two ranks behind the wall.

I heard the order in my head, though I knew through some other sense that it was not a telepathic command. It was a spoken one.

"Company! Forward!"

With a bellow of a salute, the shield wall along with the pikemen and the lines in between took a synchronized step forward and the pikemen thrust again. The remaining few were skewered and the organized mass stepped back and remerged with the rest of the defenders.

With the floor of the valley now stained with fresh blood and the stink of death hanging thick in the air, the two forces squared off, waiting for the other to make a move first. I wasn't sure what Magus' next move would be. I had salivated a little as this movement of the battle went on. As I stared at the red fluid on the floor of the forest, my mouth was turning up the faucet. I couldn't smell anything and my conscious mind knew it wasn't real, but my instincts were still hungry for blood.

I forced myself to swallow and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to try and clear my head. It didn't work. A dozen different scents filled my head. The unprovocative scents of the Volturi, my supposed kings. They were the weakest. On top of them, were the scents of Magus and Estus though I wasn't absolutely sure which was which. They smelled appetizing. I knew their blood would satisfy me even if it did taste like some kind of ill prepared dinner.

But overpowering all of them and making my head swim, clouding my mind to the point where I could not think was the smell of General Keyes. With that one breath, my mouth flooded with venom, my breath caught in my throat along with the scent of him. It burned down my throat with an intensity I had never felt before towards anything. It was like a fire through my body and I knew what would cool it. I knew what would extinguish the fire. Getting it would be as easy as plucking an apple from a tree branch. Effortless… yet the reward was infinitely more sweet than a wretched fruit.

My mind, having processed this information in a fraction of a second, now tensed my muscles to whip around and spring on Keyes. I could see the motion as plain as day in my mind. The execution would be just as easy. I could see and perfectly execute every part faster than any of them could react. I could taste his sweet ambrosia on my lips and I would have it.

Just as the potential energy stored in my tensed muscles was about to be released, a burning hand came to rest on my shoulder. The hand could only belong to Estus. The heat was a fire on my skin, a different kind of fire. While the one in my body spoke of pleasure and hunger. This one spoke of death and the end.

My mind snapped to the issue of defense. An invading presence pushed into my mind. It enveloped all the thoughts of sweet ambrosia and blood, it gathered them up and bound them together. They were forcibly pushed back to whence they came. My subconscious was sealed off from my conscious mind by a barrier I couldn't identify. I was literally separated from my instincts, they were silent.

I started to breathe again since I had stopped. My mind instantly cleared as if I were now breathing fresh air, untainted by the smell of Keyes. My head stopped swimming and I eagerly took another. Mason looked at me. His eyes flicked from my face to Estus' hand to his face. He beset Estus with a glare to stop a charging rhino cold. The elemental gave him a disarming grin, which Mason was having none of, and removed his hand from my shoulder.

I tried to smile, to assure Mason I was ok, but I was shaken to my core by what I had almost done. I… I-I would never have believed I would ever be capable of something like that. The changes that occurred in my as a result of this transformation are far more extreme than I thought. The changes are not only physical. As a result of the vampire venom, my entire mindset and philosophy on life has changed dramatically. The regard for life that I held onto so fervently as a human has completely fled from me. The shadow of it lives on only in my memories of being human.

We can finish up here, Danica, if you would like to be returned to your body. Magus offered telepathically.

I silently thought my acknowledgement and thanks. The world around me faded to black. When my senses came back, I was sitting at the table in front of Mason's house. I effortlessly pushed the chair back, hearing the grating sound the shifting gravel made as crystal clear as if my ear was a few centimeters from the source.

The scenery blurred by as I reached the front door at vampire speed. My hand reached the handle and gripped it.

"Danica, wait…" Mason called after me. He must have made Magus send him back like me.

I cranked the handle, trying not to break it and pulled the door open, stepping through before Mason could stop me.

"Danica!" He called again.

He caught my wrist and tried to pull me to a stop. Before I knew what I was doing, my fist clenched and I spun on him. My hand tore free of his and whipped across at head level. I should have felt my fist connect with his head… solidly. I should have sent him flying. But he wasn't there. My momentum carried me around 180 degrees. He was gone.

A fraction of a second later, I was on my back, he was on top of me with a knee on my solar plexus and a hand around my throat and his other hand, gripping my still clenched fist at the wrist. His hand was tightening.

Now, as a vampire, the only thing this pin accomplished was neutralizing my ability to draw in breath and therefore smell. If I were still human then I would be unable to breath, in extreme pain from the pressure he was putting on his knee and he could snap my neck with a flick from his thumb.

His eyes seemed to have almost glazed over, like he wasn't thinking anymore, merely reacting. I knew there was no way he could have seen my emotion driven response coming, and yet he was long out of the way before I ever came close to scoring a hit on him.

Without warning, I broke down in sobs; except, with his tightening grip on my throat, they came out strangled and broken. Mason woke up from his faux adrenaline state with a start. He looked at me, at his hands then let go immediately. Grabbing my arm, he pulled me to my feet. I collapsed into him, my legs unable to find the strength to support me. I buried my face in his chest as the dry sobs continued.

We stood in this embrace for several minutes. Eventually, my sobs finally started to subside. I stood under my own power and dropped my arms from around him. He continued to hold me.

"I almost killed him… I was ready to… It was gonna happen." I murmured. "I couldn't have stopped it…" I choked and his arms twitched. "…even if I wanted to."

"I know. It's something that you'll have to live with. It won't go away. The hunger will always haunt you." Mason explained.

I sobbed again and squeezed my fist, afraid they would start uncontrollably again. I choked back the rest, refusing to give in.

Mason grabbed my arms and pushed me back to arms length. "That determination, Danica! I can help you control it. I can teach you! That determination is what will allow you to be free of the fear!" Mason was speaking fervently, desperately; his eyes boring into mine, straight through mine.

I was stunned to see such intensity from me. I couldn't respond for several seconds. The intensity of his gaze did not let up. Something inside me—something similar to what cracked when Magus attacked me mentally—cracked and my determination grew instantly. I knew one thing beyond a doubt. I never wanted to feel out of control like that again. I would learn to control the thirst. End of story.

"I did not wish this life for you, Danica. But it has been made clear to me that I am to follow you through it. No matter what, I will stay by your side. So long as I breathe, not even the Volturi will touch you." The same intensity was still firmly seated in Mason's eyes. I got the feeling that this was one of those inbred traits that some people had. It stayed in them until they died. No matter what.

"I want to learn. I want you to teach me." The words ran out of my mouth before I could stop them. I hadn't really intended to say them, but they seemed to fit, so I let them go. I did want Mason to teach me. I wanted him and no one else. The same loyalty he seemed to have towards me, I was now beginning to mimic towards him.

His eyes caught the slight tension I had put on the pronoun. He knew exactly what I had said. He kissed me suddenly and urgently. Something he had stuffed down inside himself was welling to the surface and exploding from him. He couldn't contain it anymore. He didn't want to. I wrapped my arms around his neck tightly and stood up straight, effortlessly pulling me off my feet. Dangling a few inches off the ground in a kiss, I realized I had wanted since the moment I met him, I realized I had inexplicably and inextricably fallen in love with Mason.