A MINOR WAR PART I


Ariel bites at the bottom of her lip as she glances toward her family. An unfamiliar sense of worry settles deep in her chest the longer that she looks at the coven's faces. Each of them have a sense of determination on their faces, mixed with understandable caution. Rosalie and Edward look the most concerned, but when Rosalie's eyes meet hers, there's no malice toward her for bringing the coven into this mess. Carlisle, however, has a tight grip on her hand that refuses to let go, his eyebrows furrowed with more concern than anything else and she can only imagine what must be going through his mind, the turmoil in his chest. When she looks closely, she can see the dark shadows crawling in the corner of his eyes, threatening to spill over.

Please, Father. Let them be safe.

Ariel looks briefly to the sky, for the first time in centuries, she reaches out to Him. During her stay in heaven while healing, she never had a chance to run in with him; she brushed it off as her father simply being too busy and ignored the way Michael seemed to linger around their father. But now more than ever, she actually hopes that her father is paying attention, listening, watching. She hopes for the first time in a while that he may actually care. Just enough to protect her new family.

Deep in the back of her mind, she wonders if he will care more since it's not just his own children at state, but some of his own creations. After all, vampires they may be, the Cullens were at some point human - the pinnacle of her father's passion and love.

With the angels, she never had to worry much about their safety before; a contributor to why Uriel's death shook her to her core so badly. The idea of seeing someone she cared about being hurt has been foreign for such a long time.

With Chloe, she still didn't understand it. Yes, she protected Chloe as much as she could, but that had been for her brother's sake more than hers - at least at first. But she remembers watching her younger brother give hell as he tore through anything that dared to threaten her, the look in his eyes, the heartbreak in his voice. She couldn't name that expression on his face or even be emphatic to what he was feeling at the time. She remembers some part of her wondering what it meant to care about someone so deeply to feel that unnamable emotion.

She wishes now that she didn't have to know. This heavy rock that settles deep in her gut, dragging her heart down with it. She knows that she couldn't stop any of them from joining if she tried, but that doesn't change the fact that she does wish that she could.

"That one."

Mazikeen nods off to a warehouse off to the left. Even with their spot on the roof of the nearby building, they can barely make it out through the heavy rain that has started to pour down. It makes it near impossible to count how many demons are really waiting inside; at the very least, with Lucifer's help, they don't have to worry about Yana joining the fight.

"I can smell the corpses." Jasper whispers, his eyes settled on the building in a harsh gaze. Ariel wonders if his voice has always had that southern twang to it. The same dark shadows that linger in Carlisle's eyes are more present in his. Alice clings tight to Jasper's side, looking up at him with mild concern as he continues. "I can't name any numbers with the rain, but I can feel them. Frustration. Hatred. Anxious. Some of them must be nervous since Yana hasn't returned."

Ariel looks closer at the warehouse, trying to think of the best and safest way to go about this. It's no doubt something that they have to put an end to - to close out this chapter, to put what Yana and Father Briar started to rest. She can see the silhouettes of patrolling demons wandering outside the building, spread out enough that it won't be hard to take them out before anyone has a chance to realize what's happening.

"Rain makes it hard to hear them too," Rosalie mutters off-handedly. "But I can catch a few words here and there. Enough to know that Jasper's right - they're on edge since Yana's gone and it doesn't seem like she left anyone in charge in her absence. They're unorganized, uncontrolled."

Mazikeen grins wildly, her teeth seeming sharper and more defined, "Then this will be easier than expected."

Before anyone can stop her, Mazikeen jumps down from the roof with a graceful ease. The thud of her landing on the ground is too muffled by the rain for anyone to hear or notice, but Ariel can see her blurry silhouette run, heading straight for one of the demons patrolling. Lucifer's grin is absolutely gleeful as he jumps, following right after Mazikeen with no hesitation. Amenadiel lets out a deep sigh, briefly glancing toward Ariel and the coven.

"We'll clear the outside then go in together. The less demons the Cullens have to deal with the better and we need to be a united front when we head in. We still don't know how many have weapons."

We still don't know how many could really hurt the Cullens. The weapons may hurt her, her brothers, even Mazikeen, but they can all come back. Death is supposed to be temporary and not something they really experience. Instead, it's something that wears down their earthly vessel before they go home, always welcome to come back to Earth if they want. Hurt as they may possibly get, it poses no real threat.

The Cullens, however… She knows that the weapons can at least cut their diamond hard skin, break what is supposed to be unbreakable; something she is sure that they are not used to. But she doesn't know the weapons are actually capable of killing them. Vampires die by fire, torn apart to never come back again. The weapons may scar them in silver lines, the demons may break apart their limbs, but unless there's a pillar of fire inside that warehouse, she has to hold onto the small hope that the Cullens will get out of this alive - hurt, hopefully not, but alive.

She ignores the thought in the back of her mind of what would happen if the demons used the weapons to cut off their limbs instead of just tearing them off. If the weapon can scar them, if their arm is cut off with it, would it reattach like it is meant to?

Ariel gives a solid nod before Amenadiel follows after her brother to take out the lingering demons in the rain. If this was years ago, if Carlisle's hand wasn't a tight grip on hers, grounding her to reality, she would have been the first on the scene. She would have beat Mazikeen to the ground, tore through them in shreds.

But she glances toward Carlisle. His hand tightening around hers dangerously, the only wavering thing to give away just how he feels as he stares down at the warehouse with a dark look in his eyes. She stays on the roof with them because she knows that when she moves, the moment that is given that it is okay to fight, whatever hold Carlisle has on the inner beast inside of him will break. And that is something that she can't risk just yet, not until it's time.

She squeezes him back, hoping her expression just doesn't give away how worried she is about him and their family. When she looks toward the others, they all have similar, yet varying grim expressions on their face, unfazed by the rain pelting down against them. Emmett looks the least bothered as he bounces on his feet, eyes flickering across each figure he can spot around the warehouse, just itching to move.

"We can take them." He reassures, almost hyping himself up, "We should just go in now."

Ariel's lips thin, "They're almost done. Thankfully, there aren't too many on patrol. Just a bit longer and we can -"

She doesn't get a chance to finish her sentence before Emmett jumps down, heading straight for the warehouse doors.

"Emmett!"