I'm glad you all liked the last chapter. I was nervous about how it'd be received. This one's continuing in the same direction, kind of.

MillieBelle: Yup, I was inspired by Catherine Hardwicke's original idea to make Alice Japanese.

overlordred: hehe, yup I'm glad you caught that detail, that Alia wasn't in any physical danger. She was just in danger of being emotionally scarred.

marlastiano: lots of love for you and your constant support :3

FriendlyNeighborhoodHufflepuff: Thank you!

makayla. : oof, that's true. Honestly, I feel like it's inevitable for me to reduce some characters to their tropes because this is a fanfiction focusing on what I want to, but I'm trying my best.

MysticEm: That's the thing about Twilight, ain't it? Everyone is more interesting than Bella, which makes the series so much wasted potential. And boy... do I have stuff in store.

Enjoy, everyone!

...

"Alia, we need to talk."

"What's up?"

Edward looked at her at the entry to 'their' treehouse, trying to think of the best way to put it that would have his stubborn human actually listen to him. "Have you heard about the recent bear attacks?"

Alia glanced up from her book. "Kind of. Why?"

Edward sat down next to her. "Carlisle was called to examine the body. It was bad. Really bad."

"Poor guy." Alia remarked, still not getting at what he was trying to say.

"Alia. Could you stay indoors for a little while, until it all blows over?"

"But it's April! The weather's just starting to get nice, and the wildflowers I planted by the mountain bench we made must be starting to grow."

"Alia…" Edward had grabbed her hand, silencing her. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. Please, can we avoid the woods just until they catch whatever it is."

Alia's head whirred with thoughts as she considered his request, looking to their connected hands. "If it's that important to you, okay." I mean, maybe I could help the park rangers. I know the woods pretty well and I have bear spray… Actually, maybe not. Edward would probably have a heart attack.

Edward couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Of course, he couldn't tell her the true culprit behind these attacks, others of his kind that were not so friendly to humans. He would not risk her falling into the path of these nomadic vampires.

For insurance, while the Cullens waited for the nomads to show themselves so they could ask them to leave, Edward played his best cards to keep Alia indoors.

"You got a Wii?!" she gasped, to see the set up in his room. "And you got the new Zelda and Mario games too?"

"You got me intrigued." Edward grinned, watching her fawn over the system. "Want to borrow it?"

Alia was tempted, but she frowned at Edward. "But you just got it!"

"I've already made a dent in the Zelda." he said, honestly, having played through it the previous night for credibility. "I actually wanted to play the handheld version first and was hoping we could trade."

Alia looked from him to the system, then back to him. "Deal!"

It was a roundabout way to do it, but he knew that Alia would not accept the gift of a game system outright since it wasn't a special occasion. Truly, he wasn't very invested in games, but made a show of it in this case so that she would have an excuse to want to stay indoors for a few weeks.

It worked incredibly. Alia, though occasionally tempted, chose to remain indoors whenever she and Edward weren't hanging out to play through the new games. This left Edward at peace, when he had to leave for a hunt or on a sunny day.

The issue with the nomads came to a head one day, during a thunderstorm.

His family, as they did on the rare occasion of thunderstorms, ventured out into a clearing to play baseball, using the noise of the thunder to disguise the thunderous sound of when they clashed with each other during the usually friendly games.

Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie were arguing with Esme's verdict on the last run while Alice and Edward were gloating. In the middle of laughing at Jasper, Alice froze. It wasn't her reaction that stopped everyone in their tracks, but Edward's, who rushed to her side and glared at the distance. "The nomads, they're coming." Alice said in a rush. "They heard us playing and changed their course."

"It's alright." Carlisle said, putting a hand on the small of Esme's back. "Let's hear what they have to say."

"How far away are they?"

"Five minutes. They're running." Edward answered with a grimace.

"It's about time we told them off." Rosalie huffed, her mood soured by the interruption to their game. "They've been drawing too much attention."

"Guess that means we win?" Emmett tried.

"You wish." Alice pushed at his chest playfully.

As the thunder cracked above their heads, the three nomads emerged from the trees, their states wild from months on the road. Carlisle stepped forth to greet their leader, with Emmett and Jasper flanking him to assert his authority. Edward lingered behind, with Esme, to read every slight shift in their thoughts.

Carlisle was diplomatic as usual. Their leader, Laurent, returned his polite tone, expressing a few of the many questions that ran in his head about these strange domestic looking vampires. While they talked, Edward found his attention drawn to the most dangerous of the three, the other man, James, who was growing restless by the pause.

Everything was well and good, with Jasper radiating a calming presence, Carlisle expertly explaining their family's diet, and Laurent promising that his coven was moving on, when the wind shifted. James crouched forward with a feral grin directed at Edward. "If you don't hunt humans, why do you have that scent on you?"

They all realised it that the same time that Edward did, that the scent they had all grown used to lingering around them and their house, warm and honeyed, was plastered all over Edward. He was wearing the coat when she hugged him, he realised with horror, only the other day.

Carlisle smiled placatingly. "We live amongst humans, working and going to school with them. It's only natural that the scent lingers."

They accepted that answer. James closed his eyes, taking in the scent. "I'll have to hunt that one down. I haven't smelled prey that good in years."

Edward, don't! Carlisle and Esme thought futilely.

He ignored them and growled, shifting his posture to a more threatening one, feeling nothing but fury at the words and thoughts of the vampire threatening the one dear to him.

"We mean no harm." Laurent said, raising his hands, looking from James to Edward, who both looked ready to pounce. "We promised not to hunt here." He reminded James. Is it worth it, fool?

It was Jasper that saved the day, prompting Edward into a state of calm that had him reassess what he had just done and implied with his behavior. Edward forced himself to back off. "We've worked too hard to establish ourselves here." he spat out in a deadpan voice, as if that was all James was threatening with his interest. "All we ask is that you hunt somewhere else."

"Let's just go." the woman, Victoria said, bored with the tension in the air. "We shouldn't have stopped."

It snapped James out of his brief frenzy, and he blinked, as if awoken. And he was bored again. "Fine."

If Edward had not deflected in time, then the vampire, the tracker, he realised with horror as he reviewed how his mind had worked, would have latched onto the scent and pursued it, with only death stopping him. Edward would have made this the most exciting hunt of his life.

He hardly listened as Carlisle and Laurent exchanged more pleasantries. As soon as the nomads were running off, back on their original trajectory, Edward was off in a furious sprint. Fool. Moron. Imbecile. He kept throwing insults at himself as he ran.

Before he knew it, he was in front of a house hidden by hedges. Alia's house. He stood by the hedge, still as the statue he was, until he heard her thoughts. He felt his nonexistent heartbeat slow down as he heard her safe, playing the game he'd leant her. Ah, Link is so cute. Damn it, the controls on this level are so bad. Ooh, I didn't expect that. Hehe, oh, Link, you're so dreamy. Ah fuck, I died?! This shit is rigged!... Whoo, I did it!

An hour into his vigil, Alia decided to go to sleep, falling into her bed with sweet dreams of rainy forests and adventures in the skies. Edward stood there for hours, still, until someone stepped beside him in the dawn light. "They're gone, Edward."

Edward didn't turn to look at his father. "I almost killed her."

If it were anyone else, they would have denied it. They would have said, 'No. It wasn't that bad. We could have totally killed that tracker and his friends, and then gone back to normal!' If it were Rosalie, she would have said, 'Yeah idiot. I told you so.'

Carlisle instead, put his hand on Edward's shoulder. It's alright, son. I'm here.

If Edward could cry, he would have at that moment. Instead, he let Carlisle convince him to come home after sparing one last glance back at the silhouette of Alia's house.

I am nothing but trouble for her.

...

So I condensed the entire plot of Twilight in about 4500 words with the last chapter and this one, lol. I thought about dragging this out, by making Alia an actual target and making it super dramatic and angsty, but then I realised that my version of the characters have some braincells, and wouldn't act in the way they did in the original text.