Chapter 11: First Lessons

Almost one hour after my initial meeting with Faith and what she called my army, I was sitting in Alice's and Jasper's room with Alice, Rose and about ten of those thirty or so girls. Those were the ones that were brave enough to stay in this house and while we were upstairs, the others were either outside or on the way to La Push to get settled – build their tents and so on. The only Slayer who was still downstairs in the living room was Faith, hashing out details of the coming threat with the Scoobies and the rest of the Cullens.

I wanted to be down there too, after all, the Volturi were coming to Forks because of me, but my family had made it abundantly clear that I should just relax and get to know the girls. I had tried to appeal to the Scoobies, but they had also told me in no uncertain terms that I should talk to them, seeing as I would also learn about being the Slayer by the stories they could tell me. My last hope, Faith, and asking her to teach me to fight, met deaf ears. We would start later today, she had told me and had ushered me away.

Now, after I had spent some time with the other Slayers, I didn't know who was scarier – Faith, one of the original two Slayers, or all the girls that Willow had Called with the help of the Scythe. While Faith was absolutely intimidating, with her bad girl attitude (and not to forget her history with killing humans), and the fact that everything about her just screamed sexy – the way she looked, the way she moved and how she shamelessly flirted with almost every male downstairs (she was as sexy as I would never and could never hope to be) - the other girls were almost worse. Despite their calling, most of them acted like typical teenagers, giggling and chattering until my ears threatened to fall off. Under normal circumstances I would try to avoid girls who acted like this, but now I had no other choice but to spend time with them and get to know them.

And Alice and Rosalie were right in the middle of them. That Alice would feel comfortable around those girls wasn't a big surprise, but that Rosalie also joined us, was. I had looked at her in astonishment as she had come into the room five minutes after Alice had dragged us upstairs, and at first Rosalie just sat quietly by the side. But then she began asking questions – questions about the girls' lives, how they felt about being the Slayer, what it would mean for their future, and so on. Her questions were direct and straight to the point and the answers were interesting to say the least.

I could clearly see that those girls had been on the Hellmouth even before they had been Called. While most agreed that it was pretty nifty (their words, not mine) that they now had those superpowers, some of them admitted that it was also scary. One thing that they were afraid of – and I wasn't surprised by this at all – was dying. They all had seen their fellow Potentials and Slayers die on and in the Hellmouth and knew that there was often just them and their abilities between death or life. Once you met a vampire or demon that was stronger, faster, simply better than you were, or an opponent that simply got a lucky hit, it was over. You were dead.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I looked around. Most of those girls were younger than me, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, but their eyes were much older.

I had been wrong in my first assumption that they were just like other typical teenage girls. They all had seen and experienced so much.

Sure, they had all saved the world, but at what cost?

"How can you still be so carefree?" I suddenly heard myself ask without realizing it. Heat crept into my cheeks, as I felt all their eyes on me. "I mean… just half an hour ago, you were acting like normal teenagers. Like you've never seen all those terrors. How do you do it?"

There was silence for a moment, before one girl – I think her name was Rona – said, "We just do. I mean, I don't think we have another choice. If we just keep dwelling on the bad things, we will get lost."

"Yeah," another girl, Vi, agreed. "Spike once told us in a lesson that every Slayer has a death wish. How big this wish is depends on your view on life. As long as we continue to enjoy life, despite everything that's happened, we keep this wish small. But as soon as we let those bad things overwhelm us, it's over. We're dead."

In a weird way, what they said made sense and I fell silent once again. If you really had nothing else to live for than the life as a Slayer, facing death every night, I understood how so many girls died so shortly after they had been called. Dawn had told me already that her sister had been different than most other girls, because she had continued going to school and having friends and that it was those bonds that had kept her alive for so long.

For a moment, my thoughts drifted off, as I imagined how my life could have turned out if I had been called when I was younger, maybe before I moved to Forks and met the Cullens, or maybe even, if the Council had found me as a small girl and had taken me from my family. Suppressing a shudder, I quickly pushed those thoughts of a terrible life away, and just came back to Alice's room to hear one of the girl's say,

"And how the First could just take on the form of any dead person it wanted to be was so terrible… I mean, with the exception of the one time it pretended to be a Potential that the Bringers had already killed without us knowing, we knew that it wasn't real, that it wasn't really that person. But seeing it wearing the face of my dead watcher, hearing his voice telling me all those horrible things…"

The girl trailed off, and I was happy for that, as a terrifying thought suddenly hit me. "What do you mean?" I gasped, balling my fists tightly in my lap. Dawn and the other Scoobies hadn't told me much about the First Evil, but from what I had understood it could only use others to hurt and kill people. "How could the First talk to you?"

"You don't know?" Rona asked confused. When I shook my head, she went on, "The First could take the form of a dead person, any dead person, even if it still existed as a vampire. It couldn't touch you and you couldn't touch it, but it looked real and it sounded real. Too real. It had visited most of us at one time or another, pretending to be a person that was close to us and talking to us. It even got one of the girls to hang herself. It was terrible. You should be really glad that the First didn't know you existed."

My breath caught in my throat, as I listened to her. Was this just a coincidence? If it wasn't, it would at least prove that I wasn't crazy. "When… when did that start? I mean, when was the first time the First appeared to someone like this?"

Rona shrugged. "It happened all over last year. I think the first potentials were killed last summer, but the First really got started around September."

September… I couldn't really remember much in the time between September and February, but was it really a coincidence that it started just as I finally made an effort to live again?

"Bella?" I could hear Alice's concerned voice ask. I looked up at her and what she saw in my face must have scared her, as she asked, "Do you want me to get Edward?"

I shook my head. "No…" He should see me like this. Had I ever told him that I had heard his voice whenever I did something stupid, something… dangerous. Something that could have killed me? I couldn't remember at this moment. But I had only ever heard his voice, not seen him, so I looked at Rona again. "Do you think that the First could just take on the form or that it might also be possible to just hear its voice?"

She shrugged. "I don't see why not. Why do you ask?"

"Because…" I hesitated for a moment, fearing that if I said it out loud, it would become true. After all, hadn't I heard his voice again in my head just a few days ago, when I met Willow and Xander for the first time? But that was it, wasn't it? There had been a difference. I had heard his voice inside my head a few days ago. I recalled now that, all those other times, it had sounded as if Edward had been standing right next to me. "Because I think the First visited me, too."

"What do you mean, Bella?" Alice wanted to know.

I grimaced, as I remembered her reaction to my new hobby. "While you… were gone… I heard Edward's voice whenever I did something stupid or dangerous. And to hear his voice again, the things I did became increasingly dangerous."

"The cliff-diving!" Alice exclaimed.

Nodding, I added, "And the motorcycles and going off to find the meadow on my own, despite the threat of the killer bear… I might be wrong, of course, but I think that it was the First talking to me. That it tried to get me to kill myself by doing those things. And it almost succeeded. If Jake hadn't been there, I would have drowned after all."

"Oh, Bella…" Alice's cold arms were suddenly around me, hugging me to her chest. "I'm so sorry that you had to go through this…"

"It's okay, Alice… At least I know now that I'm not crazy."

"That's always good to know," she agreed with a small smile, as she let go off me. I returned her smile, which, however, immediately disappeared again, as her eyes became distant for a second. "Oh…"

"Alice? What did you see?" Rose asked immediately.

Alice rose from the ground, ignoring Rosalie's question, and said, "Come on downstairs, girls… I'm sure you're hungry. Rose, you come, too, please. I need your help to prepare something for them."

The girls all looked at Alice in confusion, but all of them got up. Just as I wanted to follow their example, Alice said, "No, Bella… please stay here for a moment. Jasper wants to talk to you. And you Edward, please stay downstairs," she added, almost forcefully, this request directed at my fiancé, who obviously wanted to come upstairs.

"Jasper?" I asked dumbfounded, but Alice and most of the girls were already gone and when the last girl walked through the door, I saw Jasper standing in the corridor. He hesitated a second before he came into the room and sat down on the chair farthest from me. I couldn't blame him. He still had a hard time being near me and I guess all those humans in their house didn't help him.

None of us said anything at first – I only watched him, my curiosity growing with each passing second. Why would Jasper want to talk to me? What could he have to say to me about the First? A shudder ran through me again, as I thought of how easily it had deceived me. There had been moments when I had really believed that it was Edward and not just a figment of my imagination. And even when I had decided that I had just imagined hearing his voice, rationally knowing that it couldn't have been him, I had been okay with that. However, knowing that it was the very First Evil that had done this scared me a lot. And I felt guilty for ever believing that it could have been Edward.

"Don't feel guilty, Bella," Jasper's quiet and calm voice interrupted my musings. "It's okay to be scared, but you really don't need to feel guilty that this First Evil managed to trick you."

There was a something about the tone in his voice when he said the last part that made me wonder. It almost sounded as if he knew what he was talking about, what it was like to be deceived by the First. My eyes suddenly widened in realization. "It got you, too?" He nodded slowly, his eyes not moving from my face, though he looked a bit troubled. "When?"

"Towards the end of last summer," he told me. "I was having… visions… of Maria… and others who have been with me during the first hundred years of my life. But mainly of Maria. She always appeared out of nowhere, especially when I was around humans. She… It taunted me, reminding me of how delicious human blood was. There were a couple of times, when I almost slipped, but Alice always stopped me, of course. However, I remained close to the edge and then the night of your birthday came."

I could only stare at him, although I also felt the strong urge to go over to him and wrap my arms around him in comfort. His eyes were showing so much pain, when he mentioned my last birthday, and I knew that he still hadn't forgiven himself for what he had done and for what it had caused, even though I had already told him that I had forgiven him, that it hadn't been his fault.

And as it appeared, this was truer than I had previously thought.

"I kept wondering, why Edward never noticed anything strange about me and my thoughts back then, but now I realized that the First must have blocked this."

"What did it do on my birthday?" I asked in a whisper, not daring to speak any louder than this.

Jasper took a deep breath, clasping his hands in front of him tightly and lowering his head, as if he didn't dare to look at me anymore. "Maria appeared again early in the morning and she didn't leave all day. All the time she was whispering in my ear, walking around you in school, tracing the veins that were visible through your skin. She tempted me and I had a hard time to hold onto whatever sanity was still left. Fortunately Alice was too busy with the preparations for your birthday party, so for once she didn't have visions of me attacking you or other humans."

Another deep breath and the way his clenched hands began shaking told me what was going to come now. The urge to comfort him only grew, but I knew that I needed to keep my distance, especially now.

"And then you got that paper cut. It was such a small drop of blood, but I snapped. I can still hear Maria laugh in delight, when I finally attacked you after her taunting all day." He laughed quietly, a laugh that sounded hollow in my ears, without any humor. "Come to think of it… Almost every day someone at school is bleeding in one way or another, but then you cut yourself and I attack."

I couldn't take seeing the pain on his face and hearing it in his voice anymore. Finally giving into the urge, I took slow and careful steps towards him. When I had reached him, his eyes rose to meet mine and I knelt down directly in front of him, enfolding his cold, large hands in my small and warm ones. The look on his face was a startled one, but I just smiled at him, glad that he didn't pull away.

"It wasn't your fault," I told him. "The First tricked you, just as it tricked me. And I've got to say that I'm proud of how strong you have been…" He wanted to say something, but I just shook my head. "I know that out of all the family, you think you're the weak link – and I believe that's why the First has chosen you – but to have resisted its taunts and the temptation for so long, it makes you stronger than you think you are. So… you tell me that I shouldn't feel guilty? Then let me tell you that you have no right to feel guilty yourself. I have forgiven you for what happened on my birthday a long time ago and I'm going to tell you that until you start believing me."

Jasper cracked a wry smile. "That might be a long time."

Returning his smile, I replied, "Soon I'll have more than enough time. So you better take my threat seriously."

This time, he even chuckled, as he gently pulled his hands away, though it didn't seem as if my presence caused him any physical pain at the moment. However, I understood his need to be careful and was more than glad that soon, I wouldn't just have all the time in the world to convince him that it hadn't been his fault and that I had forgiven him, but that he also wouldn't need to be careful around me anymore.

"I think, I will, Bella. I'm beginning to learn that you are truly a stubborn human girl."

"Oh, that she truly is."

My head whipped around upon hearing Edward's voice and a huge smile broke out over my face, as I saw him leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and my favorite crooked grin on his face. "Edward!"

"I hope I'm not disturbing you," he said.

"No, not at all," Jasper answered, as he rose to his feet. "I think Bella and I are done here."

"That's good," Edward replied, though his voice and his face betrayed that in his opinion, it wasn't that good. "Because Faith wants to start your training now."

"Really?" I squeaked, immediately feeling my heartbeat speed up and my palms were getting sweaty. I didn't understand why I was suddenly so nervous, after all, it had been me who couldn't wait to start training. I looked out of the window – the sun had almost set already and it was slowly getting dark. I had almost thought that we would first start tomorrow, as the time had passed.

Edward clearly wasn't happy with me starting to train – though I strongly suspected that it wasn't about the time, but about me learning how to fight in general. The grin had completely disappeared from his face, as he nodded. "She's waiting downstairs and asked me to give you this." First now, as he held it out, I saw the dark bundle he was holding in his hand. It looked like clothes. "She said it'd be better to train in those clothes than in jeans."

"O-okay…" I stood up and grabbed the black bundle. As I was doing this, Jasper's fingers brushed my elbow and I immediately felt a lot calmer about this. I gave him a grateful smile, as he left. However, as he walked past Edward, my fiancé put a hand on his brother's shoulder and gave him a meaningful look. In just a short second it seemed as if a whole conversation passed between them with this one look and in the end, both smiled, and Jasper left. I suddenly realized that all the vampires in this house had heard my conversation between Jasper and me, and I hoped that this was Edward's way of telling Jasper that he had also forgiven him.

"I'll leave you to change," Edward told me, and after a soft peck on my forehead, he was gone, too. Stupid, super-fast vampires.

Muttering under my breath, I unfolded the clothes and laid them out on Alice's and Jasper's bed. My muttering stopped instantly, as I got a good look at the clothes. I stared at them for a moment, before my eyes narrowed to a glare. I would never wear this!

"Oh yes, you will!" A tinkling voice called from downstairs.

I glowered at the floor, cursing Alice in my thoughts, and then, eventually, sighed and got dressed. Once I had put on the clothes, I tried to avoid looking into a mirror, but seeing as I needed a human minute and using Alice's bathroom for that, my attempts were futile. As I was washing my hands, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. Immediately, a deep blush rose in my cheeks as I caught my mirror image. Tight, black, sweatpants and a simple black sports bra with a top that was only covering about an inch of more skin than the bra, was everything I was supposed to wear.

"Bella? Are you coming?" I heard Edward's voice outside the door.

"No!" I announced, completely mortified. I couldn't go downstairs like this. "I won't."

"Are you alright?" Just at this moment, the knob of the door turned and I realized to my horror that I hadn't locked the door. But before I could do anything, Edward was already in the bathroom and staring at me in what I assumed was shock.

"It's terrible, isn't it? Can you please get me a wide T-shirt or something like that?" Edward didn't answer. He just kept staring at me as if I had grown horns. "Edward?"

A split second later, I felt his strong arms around my body and I had to crane my neck to look into his eyes. They were black again, looking down at me in what I now began to recognize as lust.

"You, Isabella Marie Swan, are at this very moment the most delicious creature on this whole planet." He leaned down, so that his mouth was next to my ear, and what he said next in almost a low growl sent goose bumps all over my skin. "And I'm happy to call you mine."

My knees buckled and I was glad that Edward was holding me so tightly, or else I would be sitting on the floor now. I blushed again, my cheeks feeling incredibly hot against his cool skin, and he wasn't even kissing me!

"I should better go," I breathed. "Faith is waiting."

Another low growl escaped Edward's throat, only this time it was certainly a growl of disapproval. "I assume you still won't listen when I tell you that there's no need for you to do this? That I would protect you forever?"

Sighing, I gently pulled away and looked directly into Edward's eyes, as I said, "You can't protect me forever. And I swore to myself that, the next time we had to fight, I'd be right in the middle of it. That I would fight by your side. Of course, I thought this would first happen, when I was like you, but now… fate has dealt us other cards and we have to deal with it. But you have to understand that I will fight and that, to not get myself killed, I have to learn how to do this."

"I still don't like it."

"I don't expect you to, but I expect you to accept my decision. Can you do that?"

Eventually, after what seemed like endlessly long seconds, Edward's lips were pressed in a firm line, and he nodded. My gaze softened towards him and I touched his cheek softly, giving him a short kiss on his still lips. "Thank you…"

Faith was already waiting downstairs with the other girls, when I came down the stairs with Edward right behind me. For a moment, as their eyes rested on me, I felt a bit self-conscious, but then I remembered what Edward had told me. Locking my eyes with Faith's, I stood tall and announced, "Here I am. We can start."

"That's good to hear," Faith smirked at me. "It's too cold and too wet to go outside, so we should go down into the basement."

"The basement?" My eyes first turned to the window, and Faith was right, it had started to rain. But why should we go into the basement? Until now I didn't even know that the Cullens' house had a basement, but then again, why shouldn't it?

"Yep, the basement. Our new gym."

I followed her and the other girls down the stairs behind a door that I had never paid much attention to. Looking back over my shoulder to see if Edward was still behind me, I was surprised to see that he was about to join Emmett and Xander on the couch, who were watching some baseball game. Our gazes met and he only shook his head slightly with a pained look on his face.

He wouldn't come to watch me. Not because he didn't want to, but because he wouldn't be able to restrain himself, when Faith or one of the other girl's attacked me. I'm sorry, I thought, though I knew that he wouldn't hear me. But this is something that I just have to do.

Before I turned back to follow the other girls, I thought I saw a strange look flash over Edward's face, but seeing as it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, I put it off as my overactive imagination. However, this thought was quickly pushed off my mind, when my eyes landed onto what just had to be a newly renovated basement, or else I couldn't explain why the Cullens needed a large mat in the middle of the floor or all this other gym equipment placed around it.

"This is amazing!" Vi breathed next to me. "And the Cullens installed all of this just for us?"

So I was right. This was new and it was meant to be for the Slayers, and me, to train there. I shook my head slightly, not even beginning to wonder how my family had once again pulled something like this off. I used to wonder about those things, but not anymore.

Even Faith whistled appreciatively. "Not bad. Really not bad." Then she turned around to face us, her hand stemmed on her hips. "Okay, girls, you know the drill. Pair off and begin with some warming-up. Meanwhile, I'll take care of little B."

This time, I didn't correct her to tell her that my name was Bella. Faith seemed like the kind of person who stuck to the nicknames she had given others.

The other girls quickly paired off and spread out throughout the room. Some began jogging on the spot, others began with jumping jacks, while others took skipping ropes for warming up. I swallowed, wondering what Faith had in store for me. "Okay, little B. I know you're eager to fight, but before we do that, you need some theory."

Theory? I raised an eyebrow. Couldn't she have told me about the theoretical parts upstairs?

She could obviously see my doubts, as she chuckled. "Don't worry, I leave the talking-part to the Watcher. But before you start fighting, you need to know the right stances, how to hold you arms, how far apart so spread you feet, and so on. And this is what I'm gonna do with you now. And after that, I'll let you watch some of the other girls get at it, so that you get an impression of what it's supposed to look like. Any questions?"

I shook my head and then she led me off to a quiet corner and began talking me through the motions. She started with my fists (I had again made the mistake of putting my thumbs into my balled fists), then my arms, pushed my legs a bit further apart and taught me how to find the center of my body. Once we were through this, she moved with me through some easy jabs and upper cuts.

I didn't know how long we were at this, but I was starting to feel tired, when she told me to sit down at one wall to watch two of the girls – Vi and Rona – fight against each other. They started slowly, but the more they got into the sparring match, the wider my eyes got. It was amazing, almost like a dance, how they weaved around each other, blocking, evading and even taking hits that probably would have knocked normal humans out cold.

While they were fighting, Faith called out pointers to the girl (Vi dropped her shoulder once, while Rona once got a hit directly in the face, as she let her guard down), and gave me some tips based on their match. It was truly fascinating and I couldn't wait until I was good enough to do this.

I just hoped that it would be in time for the battle.

Faith seemed to read my thoughts, as she turned to look at me with the – I now knew – typical smirk on her face, "In just a few days, I'll let you spar against one of them."

I nodded, now feeling more determined than ever to learn quickly.

When the fight came, I wouldn't be a liability.


Later that night, Edward and I lay curled up in my bed. My body was dead tired – it had once again been a long and exhausting day – but my mind was still wide awake, too many thoughts running through my head. Edward noticed this of course, as he placed a soft kiss on my forehead and asked, "What are you thinking of, love?"

"Nothing," I mumbled, playing with the hem of his T-shirt. "And everything..." I fell silent for a moment, and Edward didn't say anything to push, but eventually I said, "Faith's a bit scary, isn't she?"

Edward chuckled lightly, his hand running through my hair. It was slightly distracting. "On the outside, yes. But in her thoughts I can see that she is mostly just acting. On the inside, she is just as insecure as you are, maybe even more. She has gone through a lot and this wall is protecting her. So, you shouldn't be so hard on her."

"I won't," I promised, and I could see where Edward was coming from. Wasn't it often so, that the apparently cocky and overly confident people were just hiding their insecurities? And I had to admit, Faith was a good teacher. I had already learned a lot today and I was glad for it.

We were again silent for a long moment, my breathing having become deep and regular, so I probably startled Edward, when I suddenly asked, "You're not angry at Jasper, are you?"

"Jasper? Why should I be angry at him?"

"Because he's never told anyone of you about what he has seen, about why he attacked me."

"No. No, I'm not angry with him. It would by hypocritical of me… and the others."

This got my attention and I sat up. "Why?"

Edward lowered his eyes for a moment, before he looked at me again. "While you were training," he still grimaced, when he said this, "my family and I talked. It seems as if the First visited all of us, some the night of your birthday, when I brought you home, and others… after we were gone…"

One look at his face told me that he was the one he referred to as 'others'. "Who did you see?"

He looked at me, his eyes full of pain. "Can't you guess?"

"It was me, wasn't it?" I didn't even need to ask. "How often did it appear?"

He swallowed hard. It was clear that it wasn't easy for him to talk about this. "At first, almost every night. It was… torture, even though it was always just for a short moment. You… it was sitting there wherever I was, looking more terrible with each passing day. And every time it told me… 'You killed me.'… Until…"

"Until what?" I gently pushed him, taking his hands in my own. I knew what he had seen at first, what the First had shown him. It was me, slowly deteriorating. In the first few months after Edward had left me.

"Until suddenly, one day in February, you appeared again. But you looked better, a bit happier. And then you began to talk, about Jacob. About how happy he made you. Each time you appeared, it killed me a bit more, but it just proved that I had been right."

"It wasn't me, Edward!" I whispered forcefully, feeling tears in my eyes. "It was the first, it was torturing you! It wanted to make you feel this way, it wanted to kill you from the inside and it wanted to keep you away from me."

"But it didn't work," he added quietly. "I've already told you that I was about to return. In hindsight I realize that it wasn't just that I couldn't continue to live without you, but also that I didn't want you to be with Jacob Black. By trying to keep me away, the First managed to fuel the jealousy that in the end was part of the reason why I wanted to come back."

"But how could it be me? I mean, I didn't die… I'm still alive…" I wondered quietly, as I suddenly remembered that the First could only take on the forms of people that had died.

Edward lowered his gaze again, as he seemed to contemplate something. In the end, he decided to tell me, "You did die… for a few seconds. In Phoenix. On the way from the ballet studio to the hospital. It was really just ten seconds – the worst ten seconds of my life until then – but it seemed to have been enough."

I was shocked. No one had ever told me about this, but I guess that they hadn't wanted to worry me after all the trauma I had already experienced over those few days I had been running from James. I shuddered, murmuring, "It truly got all of us."

Edward nodded, holding me tightly against his cool, hard body. "But we may not forget that despite all its attempts it never succeeded."