Chapter 25

The two weeks flew by in a blur, and I couldn't tell if that was because I spent my hours watching Anthony and Elizabeth grow up, literally before my very eyes. By the time Alice was packing our bags for Italy, the twins now held the appearance of seventeen year olds.

The curls that once laid atop Elizabeth's head now fell and her hair was naturally bone straight. Her steely blue eyes looked as if they could see right through a person.

Anthony liked wearing his hair like Edward. It was almost comical seeing him imitate the one he once called father. He even tried copying Edward's crooked yet perfect smile, and was almost successful. Maybe I was a bit biased though. His hair was darker than mine, very near black, he also possessed the very same eye qualities of his sister.

I was very pleased that their skin didn't sparkle like ours do in the sun, there was more of a glisten that was attributed to direct contact with the sun. Their gifts had grown as well, though they no longer needed contact with each other for their gifts to manifest, that was when they were the strongest. Elizabeth was only able to bring her shield in short bursts, throwing them as if they were balls of energy. Watching her demonstrate her gift only reminded me of Jordan and Hilary. It would have been nice to see Elizabeth practicing her gift with someone who shared similar abilities. She could also form her shield around others, though it was quite a strain for her to shield more than one other person. However, when she was holding Anthony's hand, her shield was limitless.

Anthony on the other hand, was able to bring images from the minds of others into reality though for only a short period of time. I was really disappointed that the blue Hayabusa motorcycle that he conjured up for me, disappeared after a few days. Edward was mad at first because he thought I was taking advantage of Anthony's power. But he couldn't have been too mad because he came home the next day with the real thing.

One thing that they were definitely pleased with was that fact that they could communicate with each other mentally. Though Anthony could read the thoughts of anyone he chose, Elizabeth could only hear Anthony's thoughts. Carlisle had a field day with experiments once we discovered this.

"Mom? So what can we expect with the Volturi tomorrow?" I looked around in shock, but there weren't any humans around. Carlisle smartly booked an evening flight out of Seattle to New York, so that we could catch the red eye to Italy. The airport was somewhat empty but there were still a few bystanders nearby. Thankfully none of them registered any acknowledgement of hearing Anthony's slip.

"I don't know honey, but remember in public--"

"I'm Bella." Anthony completed my statement with typical teenage angst. He normally wasn't like that so I chalked it up to him being anxious about the meeting in Volturi. It couldn't be easy knowing that after a few weeks of existence, there was a possibility that your fate was no longer yours. Nevertheless, I gave him a stern look anyway. "Sorry mo--I mean Bella."

We finished checking our bags and waited until finally the attendant called for the first class for our flight. This was Anthony and Elizabeth's first time on an airplane so they insisted on sitting by each other, but I dismissed that quickly.

"And what happens when you two fall asleep and you happen to be touching. You two are never in control of your powers while sleeping." They tried arguing that they would be too excited to sleep, but they understood, and looked at the silver lining. They both got window seats, Anthony was sitting behind me and Elizabeth with Edward.

Flying first class allowed us to be spaced out more, especially since Carlisle bought up all of the seats in first class. My family just had way too much money for no reason.

Keeping true to their word, the twins didn't fall asleep on the trip to New York. The sat motionless, staring out of the window, causing me and Edward to poke them every once in a while to remind them to breathe and act restless.

Esme and Carlisle acted as though they were sleeping while Rose and Emmett were in the bathroom doing God knows what. One look at Edward and I could guess. Alice and Jasper stared at each other, while Jacob, and the other wolves stayed in the back of the section eating all of the first class meals that came with the seats that Carlisle bought. The flight attendants looked shocked that so much food could be eaten by such a small group of people, minus the ones that were sat in front of my family. On the sneak we took turns trading our full trays for empty ones that the wolves already polished off. I still wasn't happy that they were coming, but Alice seemed to think that it couldn't hurt, as long as we kept them out of sight from the Volturi.

We practically had to run from one terminal to the next in order to catch our second flight to Italy. Once that plane took off, I was too anxious. My feet were tapping non-stop. Like most of my family this would be the first time I'd encountered the entire Volturi at once, and now as it were, they may have us killed for reasons unknown. I had to whisper to Jasper to give me as much fuzzy feelings as he dared to calm me down. Immediately, my dead heart was warmed and I was relaxed.

"I know you guys are excited, but please try to get some rest. There's no telling what we will encounter in a few hours." Sitting on opposite sides of the plane now, Elizabeth and Anthony nodded in my direction and laid their seats back with their eyes closed. I closed my eyes as well, knowing that rest would never come. With Edward rubbing soothing circles on my hand, it also helped considerably.

The trip to Italy seemed shorter than the trip from Seattle to New York. The captain informed us there were some heavy tailwinds that pushed us along faster than expected. The change in arrival times, however, did not deter the members of the Volturi from meeting us at the airport with transportation.

A vampire whom I did not recognize, but seemed to know Carlisle stood lonely with a placard that stated our last name. "Carlisle. It has been a while, hasn't been?"

"Marcus, it has." Carlisle spoke about Marcus' power once before and I had no idea if my mental shield was protecting my family from him or not. The airport was much to populated to use Elizabeth's shield, though she was instructed not to protect us until the time was right. We didn't want to tip our hand to the Volturi that they had any powers at all. "I am surprised to find you here and not one of the members of the guard."

"And I see we have quite a few additions." I noticed that Marcus glossed over Carlisle's observation without a second thought. This meeting was going to be for the worse. "You must be Bella, I've heard a lot about you."

He held out his hand to me and I noticed how frail his skin seemed. I shook his hand lightly as I saw how bored he seemed with the pleasantries. Without even looking at me his eyes wandered over to the twins.

"You've brought your human I see." I was confused why he said 'your human' and my face must have shown it because Edward shook his head fast, indicating not to show my emotions. I looked back at the plane and saw the wolves de-boarding the plane. Edward thought it best that we separated before leaving the plane, that way they could follow us to the castle, without the Volturi knowing of their presence.

"Would you mind explaining the reason why my entire family needed to be called upon?" Carlisle interrupted Marcus' internal investigation of which of the twins was human.

"You will find out soon enough. Come, there are cars waiting to transport us back."

"What about our bags?" Carlisle inquired.

"Where do you think the guard was?" And with that we followed Marcus to a row of three town cars, with heavily tinted windows, though they weren't needed since it was raining in Italy this morning.

I didn't want to be separated from my family but there was no other way. I was led to the first car with Edward and Elizabeth. I couldn't see which car Anthony was in or even who he was riding with. I closed my eyes and prayed to God that my family would be okay in this ordeal. When the car started moving, Edward poked me in the ribs and I opened my eyes, only to find Edward holding his finger up in front of his lips.

The partition was up but he was sure that the vampires in the front seat would still be able to hear us. It was also evident that Elizabeth was under the same conclusion because she was staring back at me impatiently, holding a pen and notebook.

Very fluidly, she wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me and Edward:

'Me and Anthony think it's best that he's the human. His gift is less dormant than mine and I can protect him openly should it come down to it.'

I held my hand out for the pen and when she gave it to me, I wrote my questions to her:

'Which car is he in? What about everyone else?'

Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment and I knew she was 'speaking' with Anthony.

'He's in the car behind us, with Carlisle, Esme and Rosalie. Alice, Emmett, and Jasper are following them.'

I double checked my shield to make sure it was around my family. I had never tried protecting them in a moving vehicle before and I was pleased that my shield was holding around my loved ones. It took us thirty minutes of passing through the Italian countryside before we started to slow down. I was a tad worried that the wolves wouldn't have any way to follow us since they were supposed to change into wolves and run. Asking this of Edward, he advised them to rent a car so they were back there somewhere. When we slowed down even more, I looked out of the window and saw a huge castle of sorts before us.

"Are we here?" I spoke aloud mostly for the benefit of the vampires in the front. I was beginning to get worried about our plan. Everyone knew what about the wolves, and Aro would see that with one touch, was I supposed to block everyone from Aro's power?

I decided to err on the side of caution and continued to block everyone. "Ahhhh, the rest of my guests have arrived." A powerful voice called from behind two large doors that were opening. Once they were wide enough I saw three thrones sitting in a larger antechamber, surrounded by several vampires. I immediately recognized Jane, and the two vampires that accompanied her the first time to Forks, after the battle with Victoria. Standing to the side facing Aro were two other vampires, Jordan and Hilary. I saw Marcus walking past us to take his place at his throne.

'Edward? Is this a courtroom?' I thought to him. He looked up at the ceiling and down to the floor as if he was taking in the room. Only I knew that he was answering yes.

"I'm so glad you could make it all the way out to Italy. Two of your comrades have only just arrived as well." He pointed out to Jordan and Hilary and I wanted to run over and hug them. Two weeks seemed like an especially long time without them. They smiled back and out of the corner of my eye I saw Edward shaking his head, much like in the same way that he nodded his head to me earlier. Hilary looked upset. "Carlisle, you have been missed my friend. But I see you've been busy, you're coven has grown quite large, especially with the addition of these two." Again he looked over to Hilary and Jordan.

I opened my mind to Edward, "What did Hilary ask you?"

Edward scooped up closer to me and held on to me tight, and started whispering so fast I had a hard time listening. "She asked me a riddle: 'When four beat as one the rain will fall, and one will stand.' I didn't know what that meant."

"Young Edward, I presume. Is there something that you would like to share?" Aro's overly polite tone was really starting to irritate me.

"No sir. My wife was just a bit worried, that's all." Edward looked intently at Aro who thought it best to proceed.

"Which is the human? The heartbeat is calling to me." Anthony was about to raise his hand while I was discerning the riddle that Hilary gave to my husband, when a thought came to me. I only hoped that everyone could follow my lead. I opened my mind to Edward and told him my plan.

"Would you promise not to hurt her? We are aware of the rules and it wasn't us who leaked the existence of vampires." I stepped closer to Elizabeth and moved her next to her brother as if I was protecting her. I was glad they were close to where Hilary and Jordan were, it would make the next step a lot easier.

"No? What happened?"

"A vampire killed her mother in front of her. She was a witness to the murder, my family rescued her from the tragedy."

"Is that so? Well why don't I just have a look?" Aro made his way off of his throne and seemingly floated to where we were.

I made a quick thought to Anthony to look away. We couldn't risk Aro noticing his eyes were blue. Aro grabbed Elizabeth's hand from mine and tried peering into the future. When he couldn't see anything he dropped her hand.

"Now Bella, I know you are a shield, you wouldn't happened to be blocking her now would you?" He asked me.

"No sir. We think she's a shield somewhat like me, but we were hoping to wait till she graduated high school before we changed her." The lies kept coming and I kept praying that this would work.

And as luck would have it, it paid off.

"Bella, Bella, Bella. I know you are lying to me. I've already seen thoughts of these two. There are two humans with what sounds like two heartbeats."

"Hilary hold Elizabeth's hand now!" I heard Edward yell out. As her hand reached for Elizabeth's, I grabbed Elizabeth's and forced her hand into her brother's. Seeing what I was doing, Elizabeth nodded and blew her shield forward, sending Aro and several other vampires back against the walls of the room.

I could see some of Elizabeth's power draining from her and pouring into Hilary, who was now throwing miniature shield balls at the Volturi guards that were scrambling themselves in position to fight back. Jordan was throwing some energy balls, concentrating on Jane at first before Alice ran over and started ripping Jane to shreds. Anthony produced a fire and she started throwing the pieces in the flames. Several other vampires also were perishing at the hands of my family.

After a few minutes I heard someone calling, "Wait! Stop!" Marcus called from behind his throne. He held up both hands in surrender. Marcus stepped out from behind his chair.

"I've been in dormant compared to my brothers for far too long. They sought the power that your family has Carlisle and have conspired in ways I've deemed treacherous to get it. Do what you will with them and any who fight or stand with them, but leave me. I will return the Volturi to the royalty that it once was. Not a shell used in order to store up the best power."

I saw that Carlisle nodded and the majority of the vampires that were left alive left Aro and Caius' side and came to stand with us. There were still a few vampires that stayed with Aro and Caius, but they were quickly dealt with.

It was the end of the Volturi.