12.
"Laurent, do you know if there is any way to get around Victoria's talent?" Jasper asked, the look on his face told everyone that he had an idea.
"In the years that I spent with her and James, I had never noticed a way around it. She always seemed to know when we were in danger; it saved our skins many times." Laurent said. "It seems like you might have a plan working in that strategical mind of yours. Why don't you share with the rest of the class?"
"I was thinking, what if, like Ali's gift, Victoria's was subjective? What if we went to find her with good intentions?" Jasper asked.
Emmett looked and felt a little pissed off at the idea of the others not going to kill the bitch, and he voiced his concerns. "Jasper! What the fuck man? The bitch must die. Why would you even think of going and talking to her? We all know that she is hell bent on killing Bella and anyone who gets in her way. SHE MUST DIE!"
"Emmett calm down. I'm not saying that we won't kill her, but I think that we should make it seem like we are going to go to her just to talk. Then we can take her by surprise and destroy her and any of her minions that will defend her." Jasper said, trying to get Emmett to see what his plan was.
Emmett looked a little confused at first but then as he ran Jasper's words through his mind, it started became clear. "Oh I get it. If you don't pose a threat to her, she won't feel like she is in danger and therefore won't get the urge to run. I get it now! Smart thinking, Major."
"You know it might just work." Laurent said. "We would all have to be in the mindset that we intend no harm. There is only one problem I can see with this plan. Can the wolves stay far enough back to allow us Vampires to get close enough to lure her into a false sense of security?"
Carlisle spoke next, "I think that we should have both Jake and Sam here so they can weigh in on this discussion. Rose will you please call Jake and ask him to bring Sam?"
Rose was already on the phone with Jake before Carlisle could finish his question and replied, "Jake said they will be here in ten minutes."
Not ten minutes later Jake and Sam were knocking on the front door, and Rose let them in.
"So what is this idea that Rosie was telling me about?" Jake said, going instantly to Rose's side.
Jasper looked to Sam and Jake and said, "We have an idea, but it will only work if you are in agreement, we hope. We are going to try and fool Victoria into thinking that all we want to do is talk to her. This means that we will need your packs to hang back a ways, until we can give you a signal. She mustn't think that we are there to harm her in anyway, if she gets any inkling that she is in danger, she will more than likely tuck tail and run. Can we count on you and your packs to follow this plan of action?"
Jake and Sam looked at each other and nodded. "You don't have to worry about our packs. If they are given an order they must follow them." Jake said. "We will order them to hang back and not think about destroying Red until you give us a signal. Just for clarification, what is the signal going to be?"
Alice chose to speak at this point and said, "I think that a subtle whistle, like a bird call should do." She proceeded to imitate a bird and everyone agreed that the noise should arise any suspicion in Victoria.
"Alright, so when you hear the bird call that will mean that you guys can come in and the fight is on. There is one other thing that we need to discuss, the newborns. I think that any newborn who doesn't want to fight we will give them the choice to be destroyed or we will find alternate living situations for them." Carlisle said. He wanted to have as few deaths as possible.
Jake and Sam looked like they were going to argue, but both agreed that if a newborn showed that they truly didn't want to fight they would round them up and stand guard until the fight was over. Sam who was just a little less enthused about the idea said, "If they make one move that I deem threatening, they will die."
"Heard and understood Sam. We have to keep in mind that these newborns more than likely did not choose this lifestyle for themselves, and were once people who had mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Victoria has torn their lives away from them, so until they make the wrong move we need to treat them as victims." Carlisle said.
Jasper stood and spoke again, "Alright if we are all in agreement I think that it is time to get ready to leave. Jake and Sam, would you please go and get your packs and meet back here in one hour. I will be giving all of you lighters so that as soon as you tear a newborn apart you can set it on fire."
Sam and Jake nodded and left quickly to round up their troops. The Cullens and the Denali family went to work preparing the house and themselves for the fight ahead. Eleazar made sure that Carlisle knew that he and his family would take any newborn that chose to live instead of fight, and teach them the vegetarian way of life.
"That is very gracious of you Eleazar. I would have never asked you to do that, but now that you brought it up it is a great idea. We won't have to involve the Volturi at all. I had originally planned on sending them to Voltura, but I would have been very hesitant. I didn't know if Aro would kill them or not." Carlisle said, relief lacing his voice.
Within the hour both packs had returned to the Cullen house and everyone got into the groups that they had been previously assigned. The group that would be staying in Forks, were still given lighters, just in case. Jasper gave a brief lesson on how to fight newborns and we everyone seemed ready they took off.
Laurent lead the way until they reached an area close to the cave system that he knew about. Victoria's scent was all over the place and it was quite fresh. There also seemed to be around twenty other scents with her. This told the group that they were pretty well even numbered, and they may even outnumber the newborns should some choose not to fight. This looked to be an easy fight!
Jasper told Sam and Jake to give their orders, and then led the eight other Vampires to the mouth of the cave. "VICTORIA COME OUT, COME OUT WHERE EVER YOU ARE." Jasper yelled. Growling could be heard from inside the cave as well as some whimpering. "WE JUST WANT TO TALK TO YOU. SEE IF WE CAN'T COME TO AN agreement." Jasper stopped shouting because Victoria, sensing no danger, appeared in front of the group.
"The only agreement that we could come to is you giving me that pathetic little human that you so desperately like to protect." Victoria spat, she turned to Laurent. "How dare you bring these poor excuse of Vampires to this cave, you have betrayed me and James' memory. You will die for this, Laurent."
"Now, now we didn't come looking for a fight," Jasper said, and Carman gave the signal to the wolves to approach and attack. "We just want you to stop what you are doing and see that Edward is no longer with us. He never did have feelings for Bella, just give up, your vengeance would be fruitless."
Victoria just laughed, but it was cut short when the wolves appeared snarling and ready to tear her limb-from-limb. "Oh I see how it is, NEWBORNS ATTACK!"
Twenty newborns sprang from the mouth of the cave. Carlisle managed to say, "If you truly don't want to fight us, we will spare you. Go to that white wolf over by the tree line and wait until the fight is all over. If you make one false move you will die." Only two of the newborns, a male and female went to stand by the wolf. They eyed the wolf with doubtful eyes but sat down and placed their hands on their heads to show that they weren't going to put up a fight.
Victoria saw these two and said, "Bree and Riley, you will die after I have finished with these pests here." Neither Bree nor Riley bothered to look in her direction, they knew that Victoria was in over her head and her pig-headedness would only get her killed.
Jasper, Carlisle and Eleazar all focused on taking out Victoria, while letting the rest tear the other newborns apart. Purple smoke soon filled the air as one-by-one the newborns fell. Victoria's talent was screaming at her to run, but her insane an irrational mind was too far into the fight to care. She really thought that she could win. Jasper and Eleazar quickly rushed forward and grabbed her by both arms. Carlisle stalked forward, looking more menacing than anyone had ever seen him. "You really thought that you could win against me and my friends? You truly are a stupid, insane bitch and you are going to die. I hate violence but this morning I will make an exception. You will feel every bit of pain that I will inflict upon you." He took off her left leg first. Victoria screamed in pain, but Carlisle wouldn't let up. He set the left leg on fire, and watched as Victoria's eyes widened in shock. When the leg was nothing but ash he did the same with the right leg, then each of the arms. He ripped her head from what was left of her body and set the body on fire. Victoria was still screaming and trying to bite Carlisle as he held her head up by her hair. He brought the head to his face and said, "Burn in hell you stupid bitch!" He then lit her hair on fire and watched as it burned towards the screaming head. As soon as the fire was gone and nothing but ash was left of Victoria, Carlisle turned and went to check on everybody. Only one wolf, Jake, had gotten injured but it was only a broken arm.
Carlisle asked Jake to phase back so that he could set his arm properly. Jake did as he was asked and his arm was set and would be healed by the time they made it home. Then all attention turned to the two Vampires that had chosen not to fight.
Eleazar told them to please stand and said, "My name is Eleazar, and if you wish to live you will listen to me very carefully. You will get to live if you chose to take on our lifestyle. As you can tell the Cullens and my family are different than most Vampires. We do not, under any circumstances, feed from humans. We feed strictly from animals. If you wish, my family and I will take you to our home in Denali, Alaska and teach you how to control your blood lust, and your talents. I have a talent and can see when others have talents. You both have one and they seem to work together. Are you True Mates?" The newborns both nodded and everyone noticed for the first time that they were holding hands.
Riley spoke, "We are willing to go with you Eleazar, and you should know that we both have only tasted human blood once. The idea is so disgusting to us, that we have willingly feed off of animals since the first time we tasted humans. In fact human blood makes us both sick, and as far as our talents. We are interconnected we can talk to each other telepathically and we can also plant ideas and thoughts in others heads, although we abhor the idea of doing that."
Everyone was surprised that these two seemed to have pure souls and never wanted to feed off of humans. Victoria had really underestimated these two. Eleazar and his family said their good-byes and took the two newborns home with them. Jasper, Carlisle and the packs stayed in the area to make sure that there was no stragglers and that all the fires had burned out. When they were sure everything was safe they made their way home.
They arrived back to the Cullen house just as Charlie and Bella were waking up. Esme was in the kitchen making them breakfast when they heard the Tungsten shields being raised. "Oh thank God! Is it over, Carlisle?"
Jasper and Carlisle made their way into the kitchen to tell Esme and the rest of the family about the fight. Rose noticed that Jake was favoring one arm and rushed to his side to tend to him. He reassured her that he would be right in a few minutes and Rose relaxed. Bella and Charlie had made their way down to the kitchen for breakfast and arrived just in time to hear the story of the fight. Everybody was surprised when Jasper told of how Carlisle took care of Victoria. Never in their years as a family had they ever seen Carlisle act like anything but a polite individual. It scared them to think that Carlisle could act like that, but in Carlisle's mind nobody messed with his family.
