I don't own anything in the Twilight universe, only my OCs and drunk ideas. Please don't repost any of my works. Enjoy!
I lay unable to push Aro from me, knowing at any moment, he could bite my head off and that would be it. Everyone I cared for and all the years of extra life I'd been allowed would no longer matter. The love that I'd managed to find after so many years. The idealistic future I envisioned where we all got to live happily ever after. No more.
With the energy that Jojo had afforded me, I tried shifting into the physically strongest members of the coven to push Aro off me, but his determination and Renata's remaining shield kept me useless. I couldn't risk shifting into any small animal just in case Aro squashed me, it would just make me an easier target if I failed to escape his clutches. Besides, he'd see my decision even before I had time to act.
"Marcus, get up, you need to finish Caius off. We'll put an end to these traitorous rats. I want Luíseach to see what her revenge gets her," Aro growled.
"Aro, are you sure? I don't think I can-"
"JUST KILL THE BASTARD, I SHOULD HAVE FINISHED HIM OFF YEARS AGO!"
"Caius! Fight back, please!" I screamed. Aro punched me in the mouth, knocking out some teeth and leaving me unable to say anything but scream wordlessly.
Catching Renata's eye over Aro's shoulder, I tried to bargain with her. Her face was twisted in concentration, but there was something else there too. It looked as though she was fighting something. Could Pandora be having an affect on her at last?
If I could use any moment of weakness to push Aro off, I'd have to be quick. I took the form of Constantinus, being more familiar with his strength than that of Felix. I had to wait for the right moment to move.
Marcus was trudging towards Caius. Despite his loyalty to Aro, I could tell that he didn't want to kill Caius, but he would as long as Aro was still in command of the helm. Kneeling down at a weakened Caius's side, he brushed some of the rubble out of my mate's silver hair. It was by my hand he was unable to fight back. Cracks had formed all the way around his face and down his neck from the impact site of my punch.
"Caius, do you have any final words?" Marcus spoke, his tone returning to the depths of despair that he had been in just months before.
"Think of Didyme," Caius whispered, looking weakly up at Marcus. Was he just trying to buy time so he could regain his composure and heal his wound? As he said this though, Aro's head snapped in their direction. She was his sister after all.
Using all my strength, I was able to push Aro off me, using Constantinus's brawn to roll over.
"Caius, don't you dare," Aro growled, seemingly more interested in the conversation that was going on between Marcus and Caius. He had barely even reacted when I'd freed myself from underneath him.
"Renata, if you let me do this, you can be free to return to your family, I know you miss them," I begged. Her petite face looked at me in despair. It seemed as though she was having some sort of mental breakdown.
"ARO I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU DIRTY TRAITOR!" Marcus roared, charging towards us both.
Seeing Marcus in such a state was enough to make Renata roll out of the way of her master, her choice deciding the fate of the battle.
Aro tried to dodge Marcus's punch, but I charged from behind, grabbing both of his arms and holding them behind his back. In a flash, Marcus ripped Aro's head from his body and I took the opportunity to bite his arms off, leaving him no way to counterattack. Renata sat in a corner, sobbing dry tears at her disobedience.
From what I could see, Aro's expression was that of horrified acceptance.
"Your own sister, Aro! How could you?" Marcus whispered, pacing towards the fireplace. Caius crawled over to me, helping to dismember the rest of Aro's body.
"I'm not going to say I didn't deserve that punch, but could you give me a warning next time, you nearly put me out of action for good," he smirked as we gathered each piece to burn. The cracks had almost completely receded now, dousing my guilt with reassurance. But at the moment, I was just relieved to be able to touch him.
"You killed your own sister so we wouldn't leave the coven. But why did you never consider even talking to us? If you wanted us to stay, we would have done. She was your sister and you gave her the gift of immortality. She would have done that for you - to make you happy. Even I would have done that for you!" Marcus cried, throwing the head of his former comrade into the flames that had been meant for me.
We stood and watched for a while, Caius holding me close to him, watching as Aro was reduced to a pile of ashes. I held him as tight as my strength would allow. We'd both come so close to losing one-another, to losing everything. If it hadn't been for his trump card.
I failed to notice my daughters approaching my side. Athanasia's warm hand found itself entwined in mine and a few tears fell from my eyes.
Jojo and Erendu were with Marcus, trying to calm him down from his sudden, but understandable onset of hysterics.
Pandora and Theodotis stood further back, slightly hesitant of approaching the flames. Theodotis looked somewhat at peace, but Pandora was distraught. Her face was covered in tears, but her eyes harboured no hatred for now, only mourning.
I don't know how long it had been since she'd stopped making everyone believe that we were under attack, but this was not the end of the battle by any means. There was still a horde of very gifted and very angry vampires who were all loyal to Aro to deal with. Santiago could attest to that. Oktai, realising it was safe to come in, finally let go of the vampire, who made a break for his detached arms.
"Athy, please say Chelsea's still alive…" Caius asked, clearly having the same thoughts as me.
"Yeah, she's still kicking, I'll bring her here and ask Jojo to revive her," she replied, zooming off.
I could hear the first few members of the guard returning, their confused ramblings already audible from the throne room. Marcus, after hearing the entirety of our plan from Caius and the children, had managed to quell Santiago's vengeful fury, telling him the truth about his wife that he had learnt from what Caius had confessed:
"Think of Didyme. She was killed for no reason other than to force you to stay here. Aro heard that you both planned on leaving and gave his blessing to keep things amicable and then staged her death, killing her himself. He never intended you to go into such a deep depression and that's why he forced Sulpicia and Athenodora into that tower, to protect himself from the same fate."
Calming one vampire was difficult enough, let alone one with a gift so destructive as the twins'. The guard's loyalty to Caius and Marcus should have been enough to buy enough time to at least explain the situation, but ideally, we could free everyone of their obligation to serve Aro. We formed a line in front of the thrones, hopefully appearing as a large enough force to deter any attacks.
A dozen cloaked vampires filtered into the throne room, each of them eager to inform us of new developments. Some stated that the enemies appeared to have retreated. Others believed there were no enemies at all and that we had been tricked. Some claimed that there were still soldiers engaged in battle with the enemy.
Those who had been in the hall during Florin's, or my, short trial caught sight of the crackling fire and seemed to assume at first that this was him.
Though it did not take long for them all to start questioning Aro's whereabouts. We stood firm, waiting for the ruckus and speculation to quieten down. But really, we were trying to buy Athanasia some time to get Chelsea back to us.
More and more members of the guard returned, now stating that they couldn't even find any trails of scent to pursue.
I looked up to Caius worriedly. Confusion was just as dangerous as blind rage in large quantities. We had to quell the guard before they got frustrated enough to stop caring about the consequences of their actions.
It was neither Caius, nor I who stepped up. Not even Athanasia or Chelsea. Marcus cleared his throat loudly, bringing hush over the attendees.
"Thank you. It appears the reports we received were false alarms," he began.
"No they weren't, I chased five of them nearly all the way to San Marino!" one voice shouted.
"Yeah, everyone to the west started fleeing towards the ocean when we approached them!"
"My family, I trust that every single one of you smelt the presence of our enemies, but did any of you see any of them?" Marcus asked calmly.
"Well, yeah, I nearly had Stefan and Vladimir before Alec turned up!" another shouted.
"It is my belief that there were only a few enemies truly here today. We were all kept in the dark about the true intentions of this coup," Marcus continued. As if on cue, Athy returned to the hall, a very unconscious Chelsea in her arms. Rushing to our end of the room, she placed Chelsea gently on the floor next to Jojo and the two set about reviving her.
Simultaneously, panic erupted in the guard upon hearing the word 'coup'. Spying the black smoke creeping towards us, my eyes focused on the twins. Jane stood open-mouthed in disbelief, while Alec had decided to ready himself to incapacitate us all.
"Undo everyone's loyalties to Aro, quickly," Athy whispered to Chelsea as soon as she opened her eyes. Whether it was because she'd just awoken from a Corin-induced slumber, or whether Chelsea herself had no true loyalty to Aro, she seemed to obey Athy's wish.
"A few brave members of the coven, knowing the truth about Aro, made a deal with some of our former enemies - the only ones who would dare to oppose him - to depose him," Marcus said, his voice somehow amplified. "His crimes include: false witness to the execution of a number of covens and unnecessary persecution of the Romanians following the prior administration of justice; conspiracy of producing more hybrids than the four we already house, for no justifiable reason, despite the one-hybrid rule, and murder of one of the Volturi queens as well as attempted murder of another.
"For his crimes, Aro and his mate Sulpicia were sentenced to death and dispatched accordingly by me as an act of mercy and personal revenge - no one should be forced to live without their mate. If any of you have a problem with this judgement, Caius is willing to provide witness to the murder of Didyme and I can provide witness to his plans to make more hybrids. But as I was the one who made the decision to kill him, it is only fitting that you have my head should you collectively disagree."
A range of reactions swept the guard. Most seemed shocked, whether positively or negatively. Those who were still loyal to Aro protested loudly, trying to drum up enough outrage to fight back, but others seemed conflicted; knowing that he'd had this coming for a while, but not knowing what to do with themselves.
We all knew that Marcus had a death wish, but this was pure recklessness. His own son stood mere metres from him and he was willing to let him see him die. But I thought of his hope for Erendu to grow up with a positive role model for a father; someone who had the strength to stand up to the unjust and accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
There were many inconsistencies with these statements, but if they are what saved our asses, that is what really counted. Caius squeezed my hand, we were nearly there. If we could hold off the rebellion for a minute longer, Chelsea would have time to completely undo everyone's loyalties.
"What Marcus is trying to say is that now Aro is gone, you are all free to choose what you want to do. If you wish to leave the coven, you may. If you wish to serve the coven, you may. The Volturi will continue to act as the governing body of the vampire world and we will need a willing and motivated guard to serve us still," Caius interrupted.
"Though we do not wish for any of you to serve against your will," Marcus added.
"All that we ask is that you accept Marcus and I as the new leaders of the Volturi."
There was a stunned silence throughout the throne room. Keeping my eye on the twins, neither one of them made a further attempt to fight.
"Is anyone willing to join us?" I asked, stepping forwards.
"I would like to return to my family," Renata spoke timidly from the corner she'd been cowering in.
"Me too," Grzegorz said.
"I'd prefer to get off this sinking ship sooner rather than later," said another.
The turnout wasn't looking great so far. We'd need to maintain more power than this if we were able to hold onto our prestige.
"I don't have anywhere else to go, so I want to stay," Jane muttered, looking at the floor nervously.
"Welcome back, Jane," I smiled, opening my arms to her. She ran over to me, followed by Alec and Oharu who walked over after her.
The decisions of the twins and Oharu seemed to be enough to encourage a few others to stay. Among them were Felix, Santiago, Heidi, even Chelsea said she and Afton would like to still serve as long as they could take a long trip across the world first.
Many of the guard who had no special gift and had joined by their own free will in the first place also came over to our side, but still about half wished to leave, having grown tired with the same old duties.
But no one dared to start a war, not with the gifts now in our arsenal.
"Thank you for your service," Marcus said, dismissing those who had decided to leave.
Was this it? Was this what freedom felt like?
Sinking to my knees, still in disbelief that Athy and Oktai's plan actually worked, I embraced all of my children; Athanasia, Oktai, Pandora, Theodotis, even Jane, Alec and Oharu. My body was filled with not only an overflowing love for life, but a growing sensation of elation; knowing that we had the liberty to do whatever we wanted.
What an exquisite world we lived in.
Change my dear, and not a moment too soon. With just one chapter left, I didn't expect to feel this emotional. Thank you everyone who's read this far and I hope you all enjoyed. Tune in next weekend for the epilogue.