Hi all!
Another chapter for your consumption!
Apologies for the slight hitch with the posting of last chapter, hopefully this one will be smoother.
Thanks as always to JaneyGWF for her editing efforts, trust me when I say what you guys read is much improved for her input.
Enjoy!
As with the last time Aro had tried to take over her mind, Maura felt an overwhelming pressure bearing down on her. However, this time it was inside her mind, rather than pressing on her shield. She could feel tendrils of foreign thought pressing into her, trying to push her personality aside, plundering its secrets while leaving her body open for Aro's will. She could feel her sense of self starting to give under the strain, and wondered why she was still trying to fight after surrendering.
But somewhere under the barrage of invading thoughts, Maura remembered herself. She had felt her mind being assaulted before, both by her own memories sweeping over her consciousness and by Jane the Volturi's painful powers. She had been helpless on those occasions, but this time she could still think. She determinedly tried to find an anchor within herself, a way to control the flow of information and make sense of it somehow. Even though she had bent to Aro's demands by dropping her shield and taking his hand, she had never agreed to freely give over her mind. He would have to work for it, and Maura was determined to make it the fight of his life.
Control was the key. She needed a way to organise her thoughts and find balance, so she could focus on keeping Aro out. In her mind's eye, Maura focused on a place she had always felt in control, where the flow of information and knowledge had been at her say so.
With a burst of awareness, Maura suddenly found herself sitting on a cold floor. She opened her eyes and realised she was back in the morgue at BPD. Her old domain, where despite the cold and clinical nature of the room she had always felt at home.
As she stood up, Maura understood that she was still in her own mind. The morgue had been utterly destroyed when BPD was attacked by Alec. She had accepted that she could never return there, but she still remembered it with great fondness. She had always been comfortable here, and apparently always would. Somehow, her mind had recreated a perfect replica, down to the instrument trays and climate controlled air. Maura took a deep breath, enjoying the familiar atmosphere.
Her breath caught in her throat as she felt her lungs fill greedily, and her hands trembled when she realised she was actually cold. Her fingers flew to her throat, and a gasping sob burst from her lips when she felt a pulse. She stumbled to the nearest table, the reflective surface revealing her stunned expression, complete with pink cheeks and hazel eyes. Human eyes. Maura could only laugh in amazement as she felt and saw a tear roll down her cheek.
She had thought about being human again so many times since her transformation into a vampire. At times when she was at her most low, she would find herself frozen, unable to move or speak, simply pleading within her own mind to any higher power that might exist to let her return to her previous life. But then, eventually, she would pull herself together and accept it would never happen.
After a few long moments, Maura took a deep breath and stepped back from the table. She knew that her appearance, like the morgue that she was standing in, was an illusion. She had accepted that she would be a vampire forever, and this brief tantalising experience didn't change that. Taking another deep, fulfilling breath, Maura enjoyed the sensations she remembered from being human; the feel of her silky blouse against her skin, the chill of the morgue air on her face, the press of her high heels against her feet. With a wistful sigh, she opened her eyes to refocus on the situation at hand, choosing not to dwell on the illusion she had accepted to be a fantasy. As much as she looked back fondly on her simple human existence, it wasn't her reality any more.
Her reality was the insane vampire trying to invade her mind and turn her into an automaton. As if summoned by her thoughts, Maura heard movement in the room. Turning towards the source of the noise, she realised that what she was perceiving as the morgue was only half of an utterly impossible room.
A few short steps away, the clean floor of the morgue abruptly transitioned into cold stone, ancient and well worn. Some sort of medieval dungeon was laid out next to her pristine examination tables, with torture tools taking pride of place around the room. Everything was old, rusted and covered in grime, speaking to a long history of dreadful use. There were no victims strapped to the tables and racks, but the torturer himself was present, and leering at her with no shortage of superiority and derision.
He stepped forward casually, extending his hands to invite inspection of his horror house. "Welcome to my mind, Maura Isles. So many have passed through here, please come and join them. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to tell me."
Maura scoffed in disgust and disbelief. "I'm not letting you in Aro. I let my shield down, that was the agreement. If you want anything else you're going to have to work for it."
Aro grinned wider as if this was an appreciated offer. "If you insist! I hoped we could understand each other better. You enjoy understanding things, don't you? Ever since you were a little girl, you've only ever wanted to understand why people act the way they do. I can help you understand everyone."
Maura stepped back from the maniac, realising she was in no immediate danger. If Aro could force his way into her mind, they wouldn't be talking. He obviously knew some basic information about her, either from the few moments before she regained control after they touched or simply from background research, but he didn't know everything yet. For whatever reason, the illusion of the morgue she had created was symbolising the internal defences she had somehow erected within her mind, and it seemed like she had to voluntarily surrender control. That would not be happening if Maura could help it.
Walking away from Aro, Maura wondered why her mind could resist his influence, when the rest of the world had been overcome in mere seconds. She could only guess it was some kind of side effect of either the mind wipe and reconstruction Jane had helped her through, or because she had obtained so many different mental powers. Thinking back on the battle and her experiences leading up to it, she realised that the various powers had already started working together, so that might explain things. She had been able to shield herself and her companions while still talking to Edward mentally, so maybe she could somehow shield her inner mind while letting go of her outer shield. She hadn't consciously intended this result, but her powers had activated unconsciously to protect her before. In fact, her natural knowledge copying powers were still completely unconscious.
As she mused, Maura felt the atmosphere in the room shift, and looked up to realise the architecture had changed. The wall which had originally held the sinks and cleaning supplies had changed to a seemingly endless wall of morgue refrigerators, the kind used to store bodies prior to autopsy. This wall used to exist in the morgue, but a lot smaller and in a different room. She looked at the rest of the room, which was somehow the same size, and back to the infinite wall, frowning in confusion before choosing to ignore the questionable physics of such a construction. She was in her mind, so why would her imagination be limited by the rules of what is possible in the real world?
The new wall was one that melded into Aro's nightmare room, and interestingly a new feature had also appeared on the wall of the torture chamber. Where there were shiny morgue refrigerators on Maura's side, there were stone coffins on Aro's. His wall also seemed infinite, with coffins stretching off in the distance until the line disappeared into murky darkness.
As she walked over to the chambers, Aro started calling out anxiously. "Maura, please don't touch those. You of all people should know to respect the dead."
Maura frowned at the idea of Aro respecting anyone, dead or otherwise, and kept walking, which elicited a more desperate sounding plea. "Please trust me, I only want the best for all my family, including you. All of you are my dearest friends. Please, come back and talk with me."
His protests only made her more determined to investigate, especially when he started walking towards her, though he stayed carefully on his side of the line separating their mindscapes. Maura smiled at the thought that Aro was desperate to stop her from doing something, and felt the first spark of hope that she might get out of this situation yet.
The doors were all helpfully labelled, as they would have been if she were really in her own morgue. The doors further away were difficult to read, especially with her weak human vision that had returned along with her heartbeat. The doors closest to her were clear however, and were all names she knew from recent events. She recognised the names as people she had copied information from at the masque ball, as well as Jane, the Cullens, her mothers, and a few other random people she had touched since becoming a vampire. There were two names she didn't recognise, Margaret and William Smith. She didn't know the names, and there had been no siblings she could remember meeting, let alone using her powers on. Her curiosity piqued, Maura carefully grasped the handle and pulled open the door labelled William.
Maura was abruptly swept up in someone's life. She felt like she was being drowned in information, images and words and sensations flying through her mind faster than she could grasp. Memories, sensations, opinions, musings, theories, resolutions, they all blasted through her consciousness and were immediately brushed aside as the torrent of mental impressions continued. After several long moments, Maura started to find the pattern to the images, and found the start of the life she was being immersed in.
He was born in a small town in England in the late 1400's. He didn't know what year, calendars and dates weren't kept accurately enough for common people in insignificant villages. He and his twin sister, Margaret, were the only children of a widowed blacksmith's wife. She managed to keep their run down house situated far from town somehow, never telling her children what she did when she left the house before dark and returned after dawn. She was a bitter woman, who spoke sparingly to the siblings on the rare occasions she was home. The twins held no hope for their lives to improve, they simply tried to stay out of her way, thus avoiding her wrath, and ensure they had enough to eat.
She fell ill to the plague when they were ten, which left them to fend for themselves in a town where everyone shunned plague survivors out of fear. The twins had been into town on a few occasions, but they had never socialised with any of the people who lived there. They had some concept that there was such a thing as a God-fearing community, but they had never felt part of it. They had never been in the church, or the store, or the tiny tavern, instructed to keep to themselves and talk to no one whenever their mother had begrudgingly brought them with her. Once she died, there was nobody to protect them from the townspeople's prejudice and scapegoating.
The frightened villagers tried to capture them and kill them several times in the week following their mother's death. They were run out of their house, enduring several beatings and narrow escapes before the siblings found a haven in a nearby stretch of forest. William was particularly adept and finding hiding places and keeping them out of sight. Margaret was skilled at somehow creating unease and distress in their pursuers, seemingly by magic, dissuading them from lingering after the twins were out of sight. Their skills convinced the ignorant villagers that they must be witches, demons or worse, but they remained safe and free. Eventually the villagers assumed they had died and stopped looking.
After a few years of scraping by stealing scraps and foraging in the wilderness, the twins were separated for the first time in their lives. A traveller was hunting in their forest, and somehow managed to find them despite William's best efforts to hide. He took a liking to Margaret and stole her away from William, striking him over the head and leaving him for dead. He woke up to find her missing, and immediately set off to find her.
After several days of following false trails, he found her in a nearby village. It was a place they had stolen supplies from in the past, so he knew the best ways to stay hidden. There was a path into the village down a small embankment and through the river that let them stay out of sight, whereas every other way into town was through flat valleys where they would be easily spotted. Knowing his sister needed him, William rushed along his special route quickly, following her trail through the town with his hope fading rapidly.
He finally found his sister at the local mill, covered in blood and surrounded by bodies. The faces of the men were twisted into visages of terror and pain, obviously not leaving the world gently or quickly. William didn't dwell on how they had died, only glancing past the carnage as he focused on his sister.
Margaret had calmly gotten to her feet when William arrived, stepping over the corpses on the ground as she made her way to the nearby river to wash off. When William saw the bruises and tears in her clothing, any dismay he might have felt for the murders disappeared, and he helped his sister clean up with no reservations.
Before they could leave the town, a party of townspeople came to the mill and found the murder scene. The twins were seen leaving, as Margaret was limping badly and William had needed to carry her, leaving them unable to use the usual path. Before they could run, the local militia had captured them.
They were both sentenced to death by hanging without a trial. William tried to say that he had killed the men at the mill, to save his sister from further harm, but she would not let him, describing the method of her vengeful murders in enough detail to convince the townspeople of her guilt. As an assumed accomplice, William was thrown in a holding cell next to Margaret, and soundly beaten overnight. He tried to stifle his cries of agony, but when he heard his sister's screams he could not hold his own back.
The morning found the siblings bloodied and exhausted, ready for their ordeal to be over. William could feel that he was dying from his newly inflicted injuries, the noose would only hasten the inevitable.
When they were carried to the town square and positioned on the small podium, both too weak to walk unaided, the crowd was jeering and calling for their deaths. It was nothing William hadn't heard their whole lives, and he was glad it would finally be over. He felt that both his and Margaret's souls were clean of guilt, since they had always tried their best with the life they had been given. Neither of them had ever heard a kind word from anyone, only hatred, ignorance or indifference. He glanced at his sister's cold face, any emotion long since sucked out of her spirit and replaced with hatred. He only wished he could have hidden them better, had kept her safe.
Before the hangman could move to wrap the noose around his neck, William saw a strange figure in the crowd. A man shrouded in a black cloak, his face completely hidden from the sun. William frowned in puzzlement, wondering what a man who could afford material that luxurious would be doing in a town like this one. He glanced at his sister, finding that she had also seen the man, and was staring fiercely at him, almost daring him to take action. Despite her bruised and battered body, her spirit was still somehow defiant and proud.
The next thing William knew, the man disappeared in a blur, and the crowd started to scream. People were being thrown into the air, into the podium, or simply falling to the ground in pain. Margaret started to smile, a vindictive smirk that celebrated the deaths of their tormentors.
After a few short moments, the square fell silent. Everyone except the twins was lying dead on the ground, many with their throats mangled and bloodied. The man they had seen in the crowd was standing at the stairs to the podium, holding the hangman at an awkward angle while he bit into his exposed neck.
As the hangman dropped to the ground, William shuffled in front of his sister, hoping he could defend her against whatever this man was even though he was swaying on his feet and his vision was starting to blur from his injuries. The man flipped back his cloak, revealing skin that shimmered in the sun and blood red eyes.
He smiled through the blood that coated his chin in a welcoming manner. "Do not fear, dear ones. I have been waiting to meet you for a long time. I have seen your true natures, and I would like you to be a part of my family. No one will ever hurt you again. You will be the ones to hurt them. Will you swear fealty to me?"
Margaret pushed past William's shoulder, still smirking with glee. "I will."
William stepped back in front of her, turning his back on the widely grinning man. "Margaret, we don't know what he will do to us. He doesn't look like a mortal. He could be a demon. He could hurt you."
Margaret sneered at the idea. "William, we've been at the mercy of the pathetic people that surround us our whole lives. What more could he do to us?"
Suddenly the man flashed to Margaret's side, and broke off the ropes binding her limbs. "I will never lie to you, starting now. In order to become like me, there will be pain. But it will be the most purifying pain you shall ever experience. And once it is done, there will be none that can stand against you."
He gently grabbed her hands, closing his eyes for a few moments before smiling gleefully. "I see you have a talent for justice. You were able to enact your own justice on those who had wronged you at the mill, but your limitations prevented you from spreading your gift further. I can help you. You could be my right arm, ensuring righteousness is given to all who deserve it. Does that sound like a life you shall embrace?"
A cruel smile spread across Margaret's face. "Tell me what I must do, master."
With a flash of movement, the man grabbed her hand, kissed it gently, then turned it over and carefully bit into her palm. She looked at the bite mark for a few moments in fascination, before a pained look rippled across her face and she crumpled to the ground with a scream.
William cried out and tried to reach for her, but his limbs were still tied and he fell to his knees. He looked up into the face of the man who was either their saviour or their executioner with a plea. "Let her go, please. I just want to protect her. I couldn't keep her hidden anymore."
The shining face before him smiled adoringly. "And you will be able to protect her forever after this. Your loyalty to your family will be eternal."
In another blur, William found his bindings gone and his palm being bitten into. As the pain overtook him, he could barely make out a few final words from the man who would prove either his salvation or damnation.
"She is magnificent, God's gracious gift, so she will be reborn as Jane. You are a great defender, so you shall now be called Alec. We will all be family now."
Maura pulled away from the alien memories in shock as she realised whose life she had been reliving. As Maura's awareness returned, she found herself back in the morgue, still standing in front of William Smith's drawer grasping the handle. She backed away from the door, reeling at the revelations about Jane and Alec's horrific early life. The only human life they had known.
As her back hit an examination table, Maura could only gasp at the illusion of air around her, trying to regain her mental footing after the inexorable rush of foreign thoughts and memories. She had felt everything Alec had, down to the punches of the villagers and the cold wetness of the cell floor. She had felt the loneliness, the isolation, the rejection of a life lived apart, and couldn't help but empathise given her own childhood. She had felt the fierce protectiveness Alec had felt towards Jane, and likened it to how she felt about her own Jane.
A shudder rippled through her as Maura realised there was nothing in those memories that she didn't completely understand and sympathise with. Alec hadn't been a monster from birth, he was simply a boy born into difficult circumstances that had reacted exactly as expected when his life was destroyed. He tried to protect the only family he'd ever known, fought for her when confronted, and taken the only way out available. Although she hadn't seen any of his later life, Maura knew that William the human was someone she didn't hate the way she had hated Alec the vampire.
On the other hand, young Margaret, or Jane as she would become, had shown clear signs of low empathy and violent tendencies. Maura resolved never to look into her memories. She feared the consequences of understanding those sort of thoughts intimately.
Aro's mocking voice broke through the revulsion over the memories she'd just experienced like a bucket of ice water. "See anything curious?"
Maura spun to face the condescending voice, realising with horror that his dungeon had started to spread into her morgue, and that Aro was standing several paces closer to her, almost within reach. As she backed away a few paces, she noticed the grey stone continued to seep over her clean floors pervasively. She had no idea what the representation meant in real terms, but knew the invasion of Aro's world into her own couldn't be a good thing.
Aro laughed cruelly at her retreat, before speaking condescendingly. "I did try to warn you, my dearest. Using my power comes with consequences. You don't just get a glimpse into people's memories and hand pick the information you can use. No, it's much more than that."
With a sweeping gesture at the endless wall of coffins, Aro continued in a grandiose tone. "I am the only true world citizen. I understand perspective from thousands of people. Vampires, women, children, warriors, poets, politicians, saints, I've sampled them all. I AM all of them."
Maura nodded slowly, her mind finally settling as the new information started to become integrated into her understanding of the world. "So if you know what everyone wants, what they feel, how can you be like this? How can you kill people, and ruin lives, for your own pleasure, when you fully know their fear at seeing what you are about to do to them? You must see everything right up to the moment you end their lives, your power is involuntary."
Aro waved his hand dismissively. "Of course I see it all. I see the victims, but I also see the hunters. I feel the rush of victory and power as they exert their ability to end another life, because they are stronger. But neither of those lives truly accomplish anything by their meeting. The victim ends, any potential they might have had lost forever. The hunter continues on, finding more victims, cutting more potential off, never satisfied until they become the hunted and find their own potential ended."
Aro brought his hands towards Maura, getting within a pace of the line and reaching out pleadingly. "I have lived with the burden of total knowledge for hundreds of years. I have known what was needed to correct the world, but the fears of lesser minds have always prevented me from taking action. The network has existed for longer than I have, but it has only been used to hide the truth rather than to change the course of events. The coven has been content to let humanity continue on blindly, with no regard for the direction of their progression or the futility of their lives."
Bringing his hands clasped to his chest, Aro smiled charmingly. "I can change all of that, Maura. I have the power to stop humans from fighting. There will be no more wars. There will be no more murders. The brilliant minds of the world can work together in perfect harmony, creating new innovations and discovering new science to propel this world in a unified direction. I will be the perfect shepherd for this new communion, as I am already an amalgamation of the world's thoughts. I can steer us all into the future we deserve. Please, Maura, join me. Join us. Your mind would be an exquisite addition."
With his pitch finished, Aro nodded and smiled, his grin overly sweet and condescending, before turning and strolling back into his part of the room, seemingly to give Maura time to consider his request, or demand as it really was.
Maura had tried not to react to Aro's impassioned speech, but as soon as Aro's back was turned her revulsion started to show through. As much as Aro was trying to sound sincere, his whole demeanour came off as creepy and dangerous, and Maura had to force herself to calmly consider all the new information rather than immediately reacting and potentially making a fatal mistake.
Everything about Aro's proposed new world went against everything she believed in. Maura was very clear on that fact. She loved the fact that everyone had their own unique thoughts, it was what made the world progress. Diversity of opinions was what made her own intelligence engage and expand, finding new ideas and connections to explore. If everyone thought the same way, new innovations would be impossible, no matter how many brilliant minds were thrown at a problem.
Maura considered the claim that Aro was truly a world citizen, but rejected the idea immediately. When she had been inside Alec's memories, she had indeed felt like she was living his life, but as soon as she was out, there had been no confusion of his memories and thoughts with her own ideals and opinions. She had a greater understanding of Alec, and certainly felt more compassionately towards him, but she did not suddenly regret the part she played in his or his sister's deaths, and she did not start thinking about the world differently. This meant that although Aro had access to a vast multitude of information, he was still interpreting that information through his own world view. The plan to rule the mental landscape of the entire planet was fundamentally flawed, as that action would erase all other viewpoints except his own, and superimpose his desires and goals onto everyone else. The world would stagnate instantly.
Her resolutions clear in her mind, Maura turned back to Aro, but stopped when she realised the line had moved again, but this time away from her and towards the dungeon. Aro hadn't noticed, apparently too busy conveying his superiority by turning his back on Maura to notice he'd lost ground.
Although there was no basis for comparison or specific evidence, Maura suspected that the line represented the shield between her mind and Aro's intrusion. As much as they were in a mental landscape that did not necessarily need to comply with any physical rules, her mind had been a part of its creation, which meant that everything she saw should have a logical and meaningful reason for existence. The morgue was her safe place. The freezers represented the people she could access the memories of using Aro's power, giving her information the way the bodies would have in the real world. The fact that the bodies were carefully labelled gave weight to her reasoning, yet another example of structure superimposed by her own experiences over a chaotically overwhelming amount of information.
The appearance of Aro's mental safe space was another argument against his claims of being representative of the world view. Not many people alive today would find comfort and stability in a representation of a torture chamber, and yet this was Aro's mind. It was clearly an indication that his values were still based in his original self, back in ancient times of subjugation and power being the source of strength rather than intelligence and logic. A world made in his image would certainly be a dark and backwards place, not a utopia desired by any modern humans or vampires.
Before her eyes, the line retreated further as her certainty increased. It appeared that her conviction in her own beliefs, and her disbelief of Aro's lies, strengthened her position. Aro's reaction after she had viewed Alec's memories indicated that he was aware of this, and had been actively trying to undermine her self-belief. A month ago, this approach might have worked. Now, however, Maura understood herself in a lot more detail. She knew her weaknesses, she knew her strengths, and she knew that her beliefs were grounded in researched, well founded life experience rather than ignorant blind faith in her own rightness. Everything she had learned in school, college, her time in Doctors Without Borders, her stint as a medical examiner, and most recently as a vigilante protector of the innocent, meant she knew that one of the most important things she could do was ensure that everyone had the ability to choose for themselves. Everyone saw the world differently, due to a combination of genetics and experience, and there would never be one world view that could possibly be right for everyone.
Aro finally turned around, a welcoming and triumphant grin fading immediately when he saw the determined look on Maura's face and the line which was now rapidly approaching him. But this was a man who had lived for centuries and was poised to take over the world. He certainly wasn't going to back down at the first sign of resistance.
He straightened, losing any pretence of comradery as he stalked towards the line and snarled at Maura. "Do you think you can resist me, girl? You are nothing. I control this world, I control everyone in it, and a simple woman afraid of her power is not going to stop me."
Maura couldn't help flinching as he stepped right up to the line, reaching out a hand towards her very human-seeming neck. Fortunately she was too far away to reach, and she jumped back out of range, not stopping until she had a slab between them.
Aro grinned wider at her retreat, both of them watching the line advance into the morgue once again. "Look at you. Your ideal safe world is one where you are a mere human, cleaning up the mess after a predator has made his mark on the world. You take such comfort in ridiculous things like soft skin and precious breath. You don't think you're important. You aren't important. You want to be a meek little nobody, with your human food and your human companionship and your unremarkable life. You couldn't possibly comprehend the destiny I have created for myself. Just stop resisting, let this happen. I won't harm you, or your loved ones. I won't need to. I won't need to harm anyone. Just stop resisting."
Maura glanced around doubtfully at her morgue, as Aro's words found their mark. She did wish she was still human, she'd never denied it. Her world made sense then, and she'd liked who she was. She missed her friends, she missed hugging people, food, breathing, her clothes, sleeping, her house, her life. She had been forced to give them all up with no warning, no way to understand what was happening, and no recourse, and it had impacted everything in her life. Since becoming a vampire, she knew she had changed in ways that she wouldn't have chosen under normal, human, circumstances.
Aro saw the glance and smiled evilly. "Don't be afraid, it will be over quickly. I can even give you one last human experience. Come here, and you can feel what it is like to meet your end under the teeth of a vampire. I know you have had that pleasure from the side of the predator. If you are so guilty about your enjoyment of that act, why not embrace your wishes and become the prey instead. No more guilt, no more pain, just finally belonging to the world. Deep down, you know you've always wanted to feel like you belong. Let me help. Surrender."
As always, Maura felt a sharp pang of guilt at the reminder of Angela's passing at her hand. She had wished fervently for death, to be human again, any way out after that horrible event. But again, that was before she'd seen herself fully. She now accepted the weaknesses and strengths that made up her personality. She understood where they'd come from, and she knew she could choose to work on them. She accepted that there was the potential for darkness inside of her, and it was her supposed weakness in the form of compassion that kept the darkness in check. It was now her conscious choice to protect others, not just a programmed impulse that she'd clung to her whole life and not truly understood. And despite knowing that she would never be as strong or ruthless as Aro, she still believed with all her being that she could be stronger than him in this arena.
She realised that Aro was trying to undermine her belief in herself, that by listening to him she was allowing him to win. He had no power to attack her in this battle, only the ability to make her willingly surrender. She knew it was no longer in her being to surrender, especially when everyone she loved, everyone she had ever met or would meet, depended on her standing up to this bully right now.
Instead of succumbing to the temptation of further debate, she decided to answer simply. "No."
As her resolve hardened, so did the representation of her skin. Her acceptance of her power manifested in a return to her true self, the vampire that she had become rather than the human she had once been. Her clothes shifted into the black vigilante wear she had come to favour, her heels melting into sensible black sneakers. Glancing at the mirrored surface of a nearby slab, she saw her amber eyes looking back at her, and smiled thinly as her mental image matched her real physical self. She let out a breath and revelled in the feel of unimaginable strength in her limbs, the last vestiges of humanity leaving her as she readied herself for the task ahead.
Aro flinched back at the sight of her vampiric visage returning, and Maura was determined not to let him back on the offensive. Flexing her mental muscles, Maura reached out and found the line, feeling the edge of the shield between them respond to her command easily. With her eyes firmly on Aro, she took control of the shield, forcing it rapidly into his space, the clean floor of her morgue overtaking his grimy dungeon rapidly. As the line raced over the wall of coffins, they morphed into shiny refrigerator doors with carefully typed labels. Maura could feel the new connection to her mind as they were established, but there was no rush of new memories as she had not moved to touch any of the doors. Aro roared in rage as the wall was converted, rushing forward to grab them but falling back when he brushed against the line.
When his hand made contact with the now impenetrable shield, Maura felt and heard his shock and fear. He had not expected their encounter to go this way. He had expected to win immediately, thinking there would be no more obstacles between him and total domination over the entire world. The thought of this vile excuse for a man having unopposed control over her mind angered Maura immeasurably, and she pushed her attack, pushing her shield across the rest of the room and encircling him in an inescapable barrier.
He snarled in rage, lunging at the shield in desperation. As his hands made contact, she caught an errant memory, of Aro planning out the takeover of the network. He had clearly been planning this for years, doing his best to track and contain every possible source of resistance. He had accounted for every variable, including her, using his access to the network and the view of the future generated within the network.
The last future prediction he had seen before the coven took down the network showed Maura copying Bella's power, and he had extrapolated their actions from there as best he could. He thought Maura and Jane would be captured at the house with Alice, Jasper, Bella, Edward and Carlisle. He wanted to take them both, as he knew Jane would have energy wielding capabilities beyond anything he had seen.
But Aro had miscalculated. He hadn't known that Alec would capture Frankie and lead them all to Boston, all in an attempt to find or avenge his sister. Aro underestimated the power of the bond between Alec and Jane, thinking the emotional tie between the Volturi to be stronger. But without the network, that tie had apparently weakened, enough to change the expected actions of Alec.
Aro hadn't anticipated any of the following events. He thought Jane would still be human when he took over the network, and planned to change her as soon as he gained control to use her powers for himself. Instead, the delay caused by Maura's need for healing had prevented them from being captured with the Cullens. Jane's ability had been able to counter Catalina's power, saving the werewolf pack from huge casualties during the battle at the airfield. Maura's additional abilities had also saved lives during the battle, and increased the Volturi losses.
And now, Aro had drastically underestimated Maura's powers. He had thought that she only had an external shield over her mind, copied from Bella, which would disappear once he threatened her family. He hadn't anticipated this mental battle any more than Maura had. But thanks to Jane's ability to repair her energy and inability to give up on her, Maura had a lot more power than he could handle.
This must have been the possibility the coven had pinned all their hopes on. They had disabled the network as soon as Alice, and therefore Aro, had seen that last vision. They had hoped that Aro's miscalculation of Maura's power would be enough to put a stop to his insane plan. As far as Maura could see, they had been right.
Maura could feel the control she had over her mental powers dominating this encounter. Her various powers had melded together, becoming less distinct abilities and more an overarching ability to read and control both her own thoughts and the minds of others. She had noticed the process at various times over the last few harried days, but when she fully accepted herself the process had completed, leaving her with an unassailable array of mental ability.
Edward's power gave her the ability to touch minds at range and hear everything those around her were thinking. Alice's power gave her the ability to interact with the network and draw from the unconscious knowledge of the entire world. Jasper's power gave her the ability to feel and influence the emotional centres of the brain as well as the mental. Bella's power gave her the ability to partition her mind and protect it from outside influences.
And Alec, Jane, Afton and Aro himself had given her the power to influence minds. Their abilities were all slightly different, but the end result was that she had unrestricted access to Aro's mind. He may have accessed the thoughts and memories of thousands of people, but he had never had the ability to affect those minds until the newborn triplets he had found supplemented his abilities. They were the reason he had been able to take over the network. Aro had instructed Chelsea to affect them even as they were in transition, twisting their emotional attachments so they were slaved to Aro's will as soon as they woke up as vampires.
But Aro had overreached. Maura could see the beginning symptoms of the same energy sickness that had almost killed her. By making the triplets change his abilities to control the network, he had doomed himself. He was dying, and didn't even realise it yet. This mental battle was almost irrelevant, as Aro would lose either way.
However, Maura realised it was still critical that she win control of the network before Aro self-destructed, in order to protect the network from his mental death throes. If left unchecked, his unstable powers in direct contact with the network could cause untold casualties.
She completely encased Aro in her shield, immobilising him immediately. He was frozen in impotent rage, his expression almost comically vengeful as Maura realised just how powerless he was. The mental room went eerily silent as Maura expanded her influence across the entire mindscape, all traces of Aro gone from her now pristine morgue. She had won, so completely and effortlessly that she almost felt sorry for Aro.
As Maura relaxed, knowing the immediate danger was over, she realised she could feel tendrils of thought still linking Aro to other minds. Finding and touching the cluster of thoughts carefully, she realised that she had found his active connection to the network. Since he had transformed that connection from an unconscious one to a controlling conscious link, severing Aro suddenly from the population could have devastating consequences. Everyone's mind could be wiped, or they could all die, or people's memories could become scattered across the wrong minds.
No, this required a gentle extraction, not a violent disconnection, as much as her anger at Aro made her want to destroy him right now. She knew the ability was there. She could reach out and extinguish his mind, leaving him an empty shell. But for the sake of everyone else, she restrained the urge, and instead turned her attention to the network link.
She could see where it was connected to Aro's higher brain functions. All the billions of voices were being filtered down to one point of contact with his mind, taking information from him but not forcing information back. The one way connection was the only thing keeping Aro's mind from being smothered under the thoughts of billions of people at once, and was allowing him to send commands at will. This type of connection was completely against everything the original coven had intended when they first created the network, and Maura knew it would need to be repaired after she got Aro out of the way.
Gently, Maura grasped the connection and pulled it away from Aro. As she touched it, she could feel the link gravitating to her more powerful mind, and before she could react it had connected to her mind instead of Aro's. It was connected to her conscious mind, which immediately sent a shock of fear through Maura at the thought of the immense responsibility she now held. The mind of every being on the planet was literally hers to command with a whim. Trying not to dwell on the circumstances, she turned her thoughts to the task ahead.
Wanting to check the status of the network before she made any sudden moves, Maura opened up her mind to the connection, allowing thoughts to start to filter in at what she hoped was a controllable flow. She felt a few orders that Aro had given to specific people still lingering through the link, and countermanded them quickly, replacing them with a suggestion to make themselves safe.
Before she could consider what to do next, a flash of light overtook the mental landscape. Maura gasped as the vision of the morgue and Aro disappeared, replaced by searing flame and deafening noise.
She realised with a jolt that her awareness had returned to the real world. She was on her back, lying on the ground, covered in ashes and surrounded by heat and smoke. There were Volturi and Cullens scattered across the airfield, all in various states of awareness and health. Close to her, she could see several piles of crumbling ash that had only seconds ago been Volturi. Her own skin was blackened and covered in debris, but she didn't seem to be burned or injured.
Completely dazed, Maura tried to figure out what had happened, where the fire had come from that apparently washed over the opposing forces with no discretion. Spinning around, she realised the plane had exploded, the full fuel tanks propelling the flames and concussive force several hundred metres in all directions. The fire was still burning, a pillar of flame centred on the plane radiating massive heat onto the survivors.
With a feeling of dread, Maura desperately reached out for Jane. She had no idea how long she had been locked in mental battle with Aro, so it was possible that Jane wasn't still in the plane. She could have been moved by Aro when Maura's shield had been dropped. She could have gotten out by herself, if Aro hadn't thought to take over her mind. She could have been thrown free. There were plenty of options that meant Jane wasn't in the middle of that explosion.
With increasing dismay, Maura widened her search, not finding Jane anywhere on the airfield. The heat of the burning plane was almost overwhelming, but Maura couldn't help crawling closer to it, straining every mental sense she had for any sign of her dearest friend. She could hear voices coming through her connection to the network, which was fragmented but intact. There was a lot of mental static, with the whole world stunned and disoriented by what Aro had done, but she knew if Jane was still there, she could find her mind. Jane always stood out in a crowd, even one as big as the cacophony in Maura's head.
Nothing.
Maura couldn't hear her.
Maura couldn't feel her.
Her mind brushed against nothing but fire.
Jane was gone.