Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.

We are getting near the end, I won't keep you long but I have to thank my bestie Lorraine Bubbleybear for keeping me on track, and JenRar for her awsome beta skills.

Let's go and flatten Aro.

Chapter 21 Time to Hang the True Laundry out to Dry.

EPOV

At long last, the day I could stop impersonating laundry was near. I was pretty tired of hanging around, not being able to move. I had almost completely lived in my mind—even when I was projected, my physical body wasn't involved. It was, of course, fantastic that I could roam around with my glorious mate, but come on… Living in my mind had had its time, and I wanted to run to Amsterdam and back to stretch my legs, maybe throw in a swim and make it to London instead.

Ah well. I had to soldier on for a little bit. The week since Bella's letter arrived had been the best entertainment yet. The whole castle was buzzing with anticipation. From the highest to the lowest person, everybody was in on the letter, and every single person had read it multiple times. Vampire memory be damned, they had to read it again to believe the gall my mate had shown in that piece of prose.

Aro had gotten into a snit fit. He was affronted to say the least. From his point of view, the law was beneath him. Laws were made to keep his underlings in their place, not to follow himself. His self-doubts were shoved out of the way, and he started to strategize. He hoped that Bella would show up alone, an easy target. He just couldn't wait it out, though. Thinking it a good idea to split up the, in his mind, traitors guarding his door, he sent Alec to find my wife and catch her unaware. He ordered him to subdue her to bring her in. A quick discussion with Jasper and Marcus later, and a game plan was devised.

Alec roamed in ever bigger circles around the castle, dismissing Marcus's scent as the trails of his walks. Bella had been careful and only used the garage entrance to the cave. Her tracks were few and all old. The last few weeks, she never went out at all. To put the plan into action, she used Afton to get out undetected. He'd been loyal to Marcus from day one. Aro never even knew he had a spy. Nobody could sense him if he didn't want them to. He didn't know about my power, and I had made use of his open mind on many occasions. When Marcus asked him to escort Bella to Pisa without being detected, he snorted and told Marcus that his power was personal and that he couldn't cover other people. His mouth had been catching flies for five full minutes when Marcus explained about her power, that she would borrow his, without rendering him unable to cloak.

The third night they were out, Bella was hit by Alec's thoughts on the outer border of her periphery. She dropped Afton's cloak and started walking in his direction like she had no worry in the world. In her mind, she looked like Dr. Octopus from the comics, stretching out her tentacles to catch Alec as soon as he was in her range. She wanted him snared before he could lay eyes on her. Unlike his execution of his power, her tentacles gave her an immediate response. She would incapacitate him the moment his devious mist appeared in between them. Of course it went off without a hitch, and he was brought stiff as a board to the cave, where he was dismembered and became the second head case in Bella's cabinet. The rest of him disappeared into the incinerator.

Problem number one turned into advantage one. Bella was over-the-top happy with her new head case—tranquilizer, said the tag—until she realized she couldn't walk in with the cabinet in tow. And because she needed me there in both mind and body, she wouldn't have a conduit to work through. That is, until Afton sat down on a chair, forgetting he was cloaked, and the chair disappeared as well. They found out that he could cloak objects he was in contact with, but the personal aura, as it were, of a person resisted cloaking. The head did have an aura, but the boxes were enough of a barrier to shield those, and the head cases became objects, disappearing when he touched them.

It was time. Bella wandered into the funeral-home-like lobby of the castle, looking around as if she was lost. She seemed to be alone, but Afton walked behind her carrying the two head cases, cloaked. The moment Bella noticed Heidi sitting behind the desk, her face lit up and she almost skipped toward her. Heidi stiffened.

"Good afternoon. Could you tell me if I'm in the right place? I'm searching for a coffin to place in my bedroom."

After a comical double take, Heidi scoffed at her and began to dismiss her. Bella let out a very girlish giggle.

"I'm sorry, I always wanted to, just once, be like a vampire of legend. Where better to try and do that than here at the heart of the vampire realm.

"Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Bella Masen, and I believe I have an appointment with the baboons that think they are leaders of our world. Dictators is what they are, thinking they're above the law! You look appropriately subservient to announce my presence. Now, chop, chop. Show me in."

Her stance went from being like the teenager she still was to the confident coven leader she had become. Heidi saw the change, and her mind went into overdrive. She didn't understand why Bella would walk all alone into the biggest coven in the world, still looking confident. Her certainty in her leaders was broken down even more. It made her scramble to follow Bella's command. She ran toward the elevator and had to stiffen her spine not to bow Bella onto it. They arrived at the grand double doors that opened before them when they walked toward them. Heidi shuffled into the cavernous room and announced that Bella Masen had arrived for her audience. After her words, she moved backward and almost hid behind the guards lining the room.

Bella showed me the layout of the room. Opposite the door was the dais holding the three thrones seating the three leaders. Marcus and Caius sported red contacts over their green eyes. A slow look around the room, as much as she could without turning her back on the dais, showed the entire guard lining the room, all with the telltale lines of contacts in their eyes. The rest of the room I'd already caught from Marcus, who was more than obliging to show me our arena.

I prepared myself to do my part of Aro's downfall. The doomed dictator rose to his feet and took one step forward. He wanted to establish height over Bella, still convinced she was a temporary threat. His over-self-assured mind already saw us both being shoved into the incinerator for defying his might. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and started.

"There's the little newborn. You're delusional if you think you, all on your own, can do what you laid out in your letter. You're not that smart, are you? You really think I would give you your mate back, just like that? Stupid, stupid little girl. Your blatant walk into this room was suicide, but I am curious as to why you would even try such a thing."

Even though he disparaged Bella with every word he spat out, her stance and air remained confident. She looked like a patient mother waiting out her toddler's tantrum. The loyalties swirled around the room, some detaching themselves entirely from the Volturi and aligning themselves with my incomparable mate. She hadn't even spoken a word. That was about to change.

Before she spoke, she angled her body toward Marcus and bowed her head, acknowledging her leader. Her ice-cold stare then landed on a fuming Aro, his mind seething over her undisguised contempt for him. "To satisfy your curiosity, I am here by myself but not alone at all. You've gotten sloppy, Aro! You misjudged a lot of vampires in the last year alone. You've misjudged some for over a thousand years..."

If it had been possible, Aro would have been tomato red or even eggplant purple, and smoke would have been rising from his ears. As it was, he stood still like a statue in an earthquake. His vampire nature warred with his human one as he shook in place. His mind was in complete chaos—everything he was in conflict with, everything we fed him to break that persona down. The last shit won, making him lash out in self-defense. Gone was the self-assured leader of the vampire world. In his stead stood the young boy that lost his big sister not once, but twice, even if he created the second time himself in his selfish pursuit of greatness.

"You are alone, and don't think you'll be leaving here in one piece. I'll make sure of that, right now!" he shouted, sounding panicked and enraged at the same time.

That was my cue.

At the same time Bella said, "So I'm alone, am I?" I projected myself next to her.

"Excuse me. I think that you're way out of line. My mate hardly said anything to you, but you're willing to rip her apart, to blatantly disregard every rule you yourself have crafted. I'd like an explanation for your erratic behavior. Right now!" I said, grabbing Bella's hand.

That, of course, threw ample fuel on Aro's fire. I monitored his mind and knew he would try to unleash Jane on us. His memory of how successful she was the last time we were here was in front of his mental eye. His left hand twitched in some kind of forward motion, and anticipation lay like a thick blanket on his brain, but absolutely nothing happened. He made the move again, this time less covert. It wasn't a twitch. It was four fingers swaying from back to front. Everybody was waiting on his response to my inflammatory remark. Nothing happened again, but inside my mind, the girlish giggles rang through our mental home. Bella was enjoying herself, thwarting his attempts by sedating Jane with her brother's power, just enough to keep her standing but unresponsive. Jane's mind was blank. She seemed frozen in time. Her eyes showed no emotions. It was clear to almost everyone that she was being held in Alec's power. I said almost, because Aro thought he knew the reason for her unwillingness to follow orders.

Aro turned on Jane, giving her the full force of his ire. "Do as you're told!"

Nothing.

"I said do as you are told! What in the blazes is wrong with you? Do not defy me!"

Of course, no reaction in any way was forthcoming.

"Listen, if you don't comply, I'm going to make you into an example for them all!"

He waited for two seconds for her to comply, and then he turned and ripped her apart in less than ten seconds. Dropping the pieces to the ground, he ordered Demetri to get rid of them. Demetri was quick to respond—wise move, because Aro wouldn't have hesitated to progress his lesson onto him as well. He gathered all the pieces and moved to the incinerator behind the thrones, while Aro glared around the room to spot any other guard showing signs of betrayal.

Demetri threw the torso and limbs into the furnace, and then with a wink our way, he stashed the head behind the contraption. Another power saved for future use.

"Now, back to the pathetic coven leaders. You, mister… How the hell did you get out?"

I just shrugged my shoulders, riling Aro up as much as possible. He looked more and more like a manic-depressed person off his meds. He had to be pushed to act so deranged that the guard would follow our lead. Most would already but some still couldn't see past Aro and see Marcus leading them. That was, of course, Marcus's own fault; most of the guards never knew him outside the morose persona he projected in the castle. The opinion of those guards was paramount to the success of our mission. Aro had to show consistent deranged behavior for them to be Marcus's guards for sure. My disrespectful silence after a direct question had Aro, once again, at steam level.

"Answer me!" he screamed at me.

"Why should I? Everything we're saying will just anger you more. I'll tell you this, though. You're now not only sloppy but downright negligent."

And three, two, one... Bingo! Aro snapped and came running at me, screaming incoherent sentences, at top vampire speed. When I peeked into his mind with caution, his mental landscape showed the degradation of the clarity of his mind. It was total chaos. Unrelated subjects influenced each other. One thing, though, dominated his entire being: destroying me, preferably by flattening me into a pulp. His acceleration was impressive. His only problem became obvious on impact: I was less than solid. His Superman-like dive to flatten me to the floor, even if it was several floors lower, ended in him flat on his face while I stepped out of him, never releasing Bella's hand.

Aro flew to his feet and tried to slap me in the face several times, each time with more force, as if I would become solid if he hit harder. The last time, he exerted so much force, he spun around three times before gearing up for another try. Marcus and Caius each grabbed one of his arms, however, and dragged him back to the dais. Now convinced that everybody was against him, he stood there like a statue for at least ten minutes. His mind was in such chaos that I fled it after just a few seconds. At the same moment, I went back to my body to prepare for being "set free." I had stayed in my cell, but Marcus and Demetri had let me down and given me clean clothes and two bowls of water, towels, and soap for body and hair. I snorted at the clothes Bella had sent: my power suit I'd worn the last time we were there.

Aro didn't even notice my disappearance, he was so deep in thought. About nine minutes into his meditation, Bella dragged me into our control room and showed me the vision she had just received through the future-seeing head case. Completely disconnected from reality, Aro decided that if everybody was against him, he would burn them all. Beside the cushion on his throne, he had stashed one of the nastiest devices he'd come up with. It was a staff-like device with a gas canister and lighting mechanism. A jumbo lighter, if you please. He was all but ready to implement his crazy idea to burn us all, guard included. That was not what Bella had in mind. She immobilized him enough, with Alec's power, that he could move his head and talk but nothing more.

The moment he realized he was incapacitated, Aro descended into a tantrum of epic proportions. The thing was, though, that his body language was contradictory to what came out of his mouth. His body radiated determination, but his childish name-calling wasn't worthy of a four-year- old with adult word approval. He cursed Alec to high hell and back, trying to crane his neck to find him in the crowd. That wish was granted by Bella, who took case number two from a now visible Afton and slid it open. Aro's face was hilarious, looking at the bodiless head encased in a box.

"Now, Aro, I stopped you," Bella spoke with flair and determination, "because you acted like the typical dictator up against too many with the truth on their side. Destroy it all to keep myself safe. Such a feeble defense. Such a panic move. What did you try to say? If you add that many curses, Aro, you'll never be understood... Oh, hold your breath. I got it, you sad excuse for a vampire. Yes, I stopped you, with the help of what is left of one of your twins.

"You see, everybody knows of your fear of mental pain, especially the pain left from the change. If you apply mental discipline, it becomes child's play to rearrange your mind and put everything you don't want to be known by you behind the pain. That's what our whole coven did. We hid the sensitive information we weren't inclined to divulge to your greedy mind.

"Oh! Afton, Demetri, do me a favor and collect my mate from the dungeon that weasel over there threw him in. Edward is ready to join us. I'll wait until we're reunited before giving everyone the information needed for the trial of Aro Volturi."

Less than a minute later, the door to the stinking hole I'd spent almost four months in swung open and a pair of vampires with grins as big as the distance to the sun on their faces walked in. Their smiles, if it was possible, grew even more when they saw my suit. Demetri casually dropped a gallon of heaven in my hands. I couldn't call it Monster, as the replacement blood was called, because every sip brought me into my own personal heaven.

Demetri was still gleeful but urged me on. He knew Bella would wait on her reinforcements and the evidence screens that were readied and that could be used to project things from her mind. We left the dungeons at a light jog—well, a full-on sprint for a human, I suppose—to the lobby six floors above. Nobody told me, but I realized that I had been held in the deepest layer of the castle. Due to my mind reading, I hadn't seen that yet. I had been in the minds of others so much, I hadn't noticed the lack of daylight. I also disassociated from the dungeon as much as possible, existing in our bright and welcoming mental abode.

In the lobby, we were welcomed by a sight I had been missing. My entire coven, except Bella, stood waiting for me, an anxious Didyme being held between Rosalie and Emmett. Didyme's eyes widened at me in my suit. I pulled out my most charming smile to reassure her, thankful when it seemed to work. I greeted everybody, ending it with her.

"I'm so glad to meet you. I never thought that my great-aunt would turn out to be my wife's sister."

Her giggles rang across the hall.

'Edward, I can hear you. Please hurry. My audience is getting antsy. They don't understand your remark. It makes the loyalties waver again.' Bella's voice came through the link with some impatience.

I led the group into the throne room. The view was almost the same as I'd constructed while still in the dungeon. The only thing that had changed was Aro. They'd turned him to face the room instead of his throne.

"There they are. I was alone, was I, Aro? I need to explain some things to the public assembled here. Aro dismissed us in November, believing I was the only one in the coven with a fairly weak power. What he didn't know was that we all made sure our minds were organized with a place he would avoid at all cost. As I said before, there's more to us than we show at first hand. I will only tell you my power. The others will show or tell their own. I'm what's called a mimic. I can borrow any power or ability from anyone near me. That's how I stopped you, by using the number-two power.

"I need to get a little more info out there. Aro, until about a year ago, you knew the most about vampire royalty, except maybe the ancients that were left. You heard it all, but you never even had the idea to tell it to a soul. You buried it deep into a file in your mind. I found it all, using your own power on you the way it was meant to be used. I waded through the mess that is your brain. What were you doing? Creating a new kind of royalty? Going against everything you learned? What are you? A teenager stuck in his I'm-against-authority craze? I think you did it all because you're one jealous little runt that couldn't stand being little and you were bullied into becoming one. Well, look at you now. It worked, until the anti-bullying squad caught you."

While Bella stated her case, Afton busied himself with setting up two of the biggest flat screens I'd ever seen, each of them mounted on a sturdy stand in between the thrones on the dais.

"First we hoodwinked you into believing we were all powerless. That day, the moment you were done testing me, I raided your mind with your own power. Your mind, not the moving boxes, with the stolen content of other's thoughts. I worked you hard. I had to get most of it before your rant then was over. And I did! I stored everything for later perusal.

"Let me just say that that perusal took us three days. It gave us the list of infractions on vampire law you have committed. No maybe about it. You either did it yourself—and that is this list."

Bella pointed to the left screen, where the crimes he had his hands on appeared scrolling over it.

"Or you thought it up and made others do your bidding."

The same thing happened on the right screen, just another list. Muffled cries could be heard when members of the guard saw the crimes that inducted them into it. The covens destroyed on trumped-up charges just to save the powerful member. To bind that vampire to the Volturi using Chelsea.

Bella went on explaining Vampire royalty to everybody in the room, explaining difficult bits with simple examples, until she was sure everybody understood the rules we knew of at that moment. She then stepped aside and turned the room over to me. I jumped in without introduction.

"You undermined your own home-grown empire, Aro. I read minds without having to make contact. My range on an average day is anything between three and ten miles. To make you even more jealous, I'm the descendant in direct line of Marcus, as Bella is to Didyme. We are mated just like our ancestors, a true Royal mating. That gives the pair a very special bond. So you not only had me listening in but my Bella as well. She used my power to locate those people she wanted to use her power on—mainly you. I also used her power to show you your future, or at least the one I imagined.

"You asked yourself how it was possible that my Bella took so long before she came for me. Well, it's simple. We were never apart. We could talk and live inside our mental home. It's the most incredible place. You can't even imagine the possibilities there."

Bella snorted in our mind, throwing her side of the dancing on the ceiling bit and my impersonation of the Nanny on our flat screen. Outwardly she stayed composed, cool as a cucumber. I proceeded with laying down my case.

"One of the first rules the creators of vampires lay on them was that they had to keep the secret and abstain from the best-smelling food. They ordered the entire race to feed from animals until they had the technology to create a substitute. You changed that. They wanted us to be strong and show that by abstinence. You took the weak way and made it law. You failed your upstanding vampire 101 test, memory collector. That's your designation from now on, that or number-four power."

I shrugged, showing how little I cared for him. In his mind, the outraged thoughts exploded once more. He got stuck on a detail in my speech. He recalled Bella calling Alec the number-two power. The fact that I now called him number-four power had him raging once again. He should be number one! Just to prove my power, I addressed him.

"What, do you still think you're above everyone? You're pathetic! You'll be number-four power for eternity, because that's exactly the place you belong. As the fourth addition, done out of pity by your magnificent sister. You should have been honored to kiss the floor she walked on. But no, Mister I Know It All, even if you don't, you found it necessary to have her murdered."

Gasps rang through the room. Bella made sure to call up the pages we had sent to Marcus with Aro's meticulous planning for the event. There was no way the murder had been an accident. Demetri chose that moment to whisper to Bella that he needed to prepare Jane's head before all venom dripped out. Bella made a gesture, and Kate presented a box with a three written on top to Demetri, who accepted it with big smile, and while he walked to the stage exit at the back of the dais, he fished the head from behind the incinerator.

Aro exploded. "Demetri, how dare you!"

His voice shot through five octaves. Impressive.

Demetri looked at him. Aro could only see him from the corners of his eyes, because he was turned away from him.

Demetri's face turned angry. "Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist, you ancient goat, and do the smart thing. Shut up. You are powerless. You have been since Bella blocked it in the off mode."

After that remark, he disappeared through the door. The other guards didn't like that much. They were curious how a head would be prepared for a box. The only one who had seen Alec's head in its box was Aro, and he was glad he didn't need to see that. Probably because we all but promised him he'd be in one.

"So, the interruption is over. I would like to give the floor to the person hurt the most by your misguided ideas of world domination. He will be your prosecutor, and the guard will be the jury. We already showed you the indictment straight from your own memory. You won't need a judge. The evidence is undeniably true. So I will join my coven and listen to our true leader: Marcus."

I did not just do that... Yes, I did. *Hiding behind the couch* If I hadn't cut it off here the chapter would have grown too long. If you do so feel inclined I accept ranting reviews but the Cliffie stays put. Please review.

My recommendations this week are:

The Role of a Lifetime by letzigprincess. Fighting for a divorce, Edward struggles to care for his two year old daughter. Enter Bella Swan, college student and new neighbor. Will Edward fall back into the arms of his ex or into the heart of his daughter's babysitter? ffn 6993525

Figure Eight by tufano79. Bella Swan is a nationally ranked paired skater with Jacob Black. Edward Masen is a beautiful British skater paired with Tanya. However, both of their partners fall into hard times. These two try to navigate their way through life, both on and off the ice. ffn7336102

Enjoy reading,

Pien