AN: Hello, I have come back. I have to be the slowest update, I swear. I'm annoyed at myself. Well, here this is.

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, not even the new MP3 and Kindle I so desire.

Nia POV

Since I returned from Italy, this is what we'd been getting ready for. It took me a week to get back to Forks, and now, three weeks later, I was standing at the edge of a battlefield. I look around carefully.

Artemis stepped out of the trees. She was pretty, but very dangerous. We have some more company, I thought, imagining her and the vampires she came out with for the benefit of Edward and Angel, they should be reading my mind if they weren't in pitched combat. That was my job for this fight, to spy. And maybe to kill anyone who is hanging back or away from everyone else for some reason. Max's assassin, it was the first time I'd ever really acted the part. But my serpent DNA made me the best sneak short of the vampires, and we really couldn't spare any of them from the fight. Even though I was missing the fight.

Artemis walked across the battlefield, and I noticed that she had picked up a more graceful way of walking with the Volturi. But I had trained her myself, and I knew she would have practiced. I'd bet she would be a good match for any of us now. But it was Adrian she sauntered up to. "You're mine." Adrian just nodded, setting himself up for the fight mentally. I stood back in the trees, watching my boyfriend get ready to tear my kid sister to pieces. Just as Adrian seemingly broke Artemis's jaw, I felt a searing pain down my back, right between my wings. My lurch forward became a spin as I twisted my body, muttering a profanity as I moved. An Eraser stood behind me, fully morphed. One claw was covered in blood. I saw red. That was, right up until I attacked.

I knew I looked like a demon. I relished it as I threw the first punch. I think it might have broken one of his ribs. I smiled. I lost track of the rest of the battle, and for once concentrated on my job. I felt blood on the knuckles of my right hand. Joy, he had somehow caught the back of my hand with a claw. "Damn." The cut went deep, almost to my knuckles. I pulled a knife out of the sheath on my leg. This was my best weapon, the one that I only used occasionally. Once I had that out the fight went faster.

My hands knew what to do with the weapon. All I had to think about was what my opponent was doing. He tried an uppercut. I blocked. With the blade. It cut down, hard. This time I laughed, way into my battle high. While he tried to figure out how to fight me one handed, I hit him in the head with hilt of my toy. No use in killing him, he wouldn't be able to move for quite a few hours. I moved on as I remembered that I was supposed to be watching the perimeter. I walked a few hundred feet so that I could see the open space where everyone else was fighting. Carlisle and Esme were both hanging back, they didn't want to have to hurt people, even people so cruel as these. But even without their help, my friends were holding their own. They didn't need my help.

I looked in particular over at Adrian. He wasn't fighting Artemis now, he had moved on to someone else. She was laying out on the grass, and looked at the least knocked out. I decided I didn't care, and slipped off. And by off, I meant away from the field of battle.

Max and Jasper had decided that I should be patrolling, but Edward had other plans.

"Hey, once you think that everyone who is going to be fighting is down there, go check on Alice and Bella, please. I know Jasper won't mind." And so I was heading over to the Cullens.



I flew, no harm ever came from using a bit of speed. "Bella, you alright?"

"Alice had to beat off two guys, I don't know who they were."

"Are you alright?" Alice could take care of herself, even with mutants and other vampires running around.

"Yeah, I guess." I walked into the house. Alive came bouncing up to me, "Hey, both Erasers."

"Well, thanks for the info." She must have seen that I was going to ask. "Also, I've seen that we would be having a vampire visitor in about a minute and a half." I rubbed my bloody knife against a handy towel, not at all concerned with ruining the cloth. "All right, check this out."

I showed Alice where the Eraser I fought had caught me on the back, and again on my hand.
"You're still in for Victoria." It didn't have to be a question, even if Alice didn't have the visions.

"Heck yeah. This will be fun."

I heard footsteps.

"Hey Vicky, I thought you were supposed to go fight with the army."

"I had other plans."

I laughed, and Alice danced out. I hung back this time, my blade would do very little against not granite. I went in with Bella, sizing her up.

"Let's go." She looked at me like I was insane. I could see some crap about Alice getting ready to leave her mouth.

"Don't even start that. Up." My sizing up had told me that she would be to heavy to carry on a flight. With a mental curse at myself for not teaching Bella some hand signs, I steered Bella towards the garage. I didn't even notice what the maker was until I was behind the wheel. I had chosen Edward's Ashton Martin. Good, it should have some speed. Alice was distracting Victoria, but even she would realize when the car tore off into the night. Which meant she had to be taken care of first, but that was okay, I wanted Bella in here for a double reason.

"Get into the back and change clothes. All the way down to the underwear."

"What do I change into?"

"My stuff. You'll smell terrible to them." She stripped down and switched. Then I slipped out of the car with a whispered, "Stay here."

I sat of the roof of the garage, smelling tauntingly of Bella. She must have fallen earlier today, because they were covered in her blood. More importantly, I could see both the only entrance to the building 

with Bella, and the yard where Victoria and Alice were fighting. My small friend was fine for now, so I settled into guard duty.

Thank God for hawk vision, I could actually see where the vampires were going. Alice was literally just dancing around Victoria, obviously using instant visions to tell where the attacks would be coming from. She was handling the job.

I heard a snap, and couldn't help but let out a small hiss of suppressed laughter when I saw that Alice had taken off one of Victoria's feet. Three minutes later, a swipe of Alice's hand sent her hand following it. Another small laugh. This one was heard, but only Victoria was distracted.

"I thought you had flown away little bird." I had cut holes in Bella's shirt before I had even put it on, so I was able to extend my wings. I glided down to meet a certain red headed idiot.

"I considered it, but this was turning into such a nice little show." I picked up her foot, lighting it with the match I had switched into Bella's pocket as part of changing clothes. "Missing something?"

I had to be scaring Alice. I was more animal then anyone here, even the Flock. I was normally in good control of this part of myself, but I was having too much fun to worry about it.

"Do you know how rare it is for me to do this? I guess you're special." Even as I spoke, Alice silently moved up behind her. In way less then a second, Alice was tearing Victoria to pieces, and I was just catching the bits of her that flew at me on fire. I'd never seen Alice this furious. It was fun to help her, even though I was missing out of the best part of the fight.

Eventually we got it all handled. I went to the car with Bella inside. Alice followed, already knowing my plans. "Sorry for making you wait, Bella. We just needed to take care of the problem outside first." Of course Bella knew what the problem was, but she didn't mention it. I looked over at Alice, who invited her to the backseat. "I'm going to try and get some visions. You drive." Edward, Alice and I are taking Bella somewhere safe. Not sure where yet, but we'll get to that. No Edward won't think we've been kidnapped, and we could get out of here.

No matter what danger was around me, it was always nice to drive a nice, fast car. I gunned the engine a bit more then was strictly necessary to pull up some speed, but that didn't matter.

"Where are we going?" Bella questioned me from the passenger seat.

"Not sure yet," I laughed. I glanced back at Alice. La Push, I decided silently.

"No, that won't work." I nodded, and then thought for maybe half an hour, thoughtlessly sending the car towards Seattle at 100 miles an hour. Then I shot off another silent thought. Seattle would be a nice place to spend the night.

"That one is good." Man, Alice's visions were awesome. I made my choice, and she told me whether or not it would work. Just then I noticed that Bella was breaking down. I wondered vaguely how long this 

had been going on for as I pulled the car over. Alice didn't object, so I brought Edward's precious car to a standstill.

"What's up, Bella?"

"Edward's back there, we have to go back. There's a whole army—"

"Bella, Edward can take care of himself." I remembered where the members of the Flock that had been forced away from the fight were staying. "Right now, we are going to meet with the rest of the Flock, where everyone will know where to find us."

"Edward. I can't just leave him, this is all my fault." Okay, I loved Bella better then my own flesh and blood (way better actually, considering recent events), but this could get very annoying.

"Bella, first of all this is probably my fault more then yours. Second, he's fine. Last I saw, they were basically just cleaning up. The only problem is that could take awhile, and some could slip through their net. And so we're getting out of there until everything is finished."

"Then why didn't Edward send me away in the first place?"

"He knew you wouldn't come. You only came with me because you were halfway into shock." I pulled back out into the road. Explain the shock to me, please."

"You left parts out of your story about the School." I grimaced, Alice had mentioned that she fought some Erasers, I guess one of them opened their fat mouths.

"Yeah. Sorry, I didn't really think it was that important. Who let it slip?"

"One named Harrison. He…he spoke as he fought."

"And of course you watched to make sure Alice was taking care of it, and you heard."

Inside I was grinning in conceited pleasure. This wouldn't last for any time at all, but for a moment Bella was distracted from Edward's non-existent danger by the horrors of the School.

It lasted longer then I thought, giving us another ten minutes before Bella even started to worry clearly again. I knew that she would have been unconsciously worrying since we all left this morning, but at least we had toned it down. Soon Alice's phone started ringing madly. I looked back at her, and the visions seemed to be calming down, but I knew that at the moment she wanted those glimpses of the future, she wanted to make sure that all the danger had been eliminated before we returned. I grabbed the phone.

"Hey, this is Alice's phone, but you can jabber to me instead."

"Is Alice alright?" It was Jasper, and of course he would have a mild freak attack if someone else answered Alice's phone, especially now.



"Yeah, just trying to get a vision. I'm playing secretary slash driver at the moment. Before Bella implodes, is everyone still breathing over there? I know they don't need to, but it gets the point across."

"Everyone is fine. Edward and Adrian are freaking out as much as Bella is though."

"I bet Adrian's quieter about it though. You still cleaning up?"

"Yes. Keep Bella up there for a little while please."

"I can manage that. Is that all you needed, to tell us that everyone was fine and to keep away while you finished up?"

"That was basically it." I laughed, even Jasper sounded a bit disconcerted with the way that I handled the conversation.

"Hey, you mind me talking to the others, namely Adrian and Edward? I'll bet Bells wouldn't mind speaking to the latter."

"One second."

The next voice I heard was Adrian's, even though I thought that I heard Edward's worried tones in the background.

"Hey you doing okay?"

"Yes," I repeated. Again. "All I got were two little love nips from an Eraser. Nothing worth even think about. You?"

"Not a single scratch on me."

"Sweet, save the rest of that discussion though." He knew that the discussion would be our separate views on the battle. "We need to let our two love-struck friends talk before the human one has a panic attack." Bella did look like she was on the verge of a panic attack, and a bad one too.

"We just don't fit the definition of love struck, do we? I'm not sure if vampires can have panic attacks, but if it's possible one is inevitable over here. Bye."

"Bye."

I handed the phone to Bella, and let Edward try to find non-existent injuries on her from the sound of her voice. I halfway listened to their conversation, making sure neither of them totally freaked out. Though, as we pulled into Seattle, I had to stop. I knew the way to where the Flock was staying, but I'd never been there. Alice had finished off her visions now, and I looked back at her.

"You know the way better then I do?" I was careful to whisper quietly enough not to disturb the others conversation.



"Yeah, and to help, I actually have a license." I laughed silently. I was going fast enough that being pulled over was a possibility, and I really didn't have a driver's license. How the heck was I supposed to prove my citizenship for one of those things? I stopped again, this time at a run down looking gas station to switch seats. I know Bella noticed, but she didn't take her attention off the phone long enough to notice. Alice looked back at me. "It's across the city." I nodded, I did know the way from what Max had told me. The only problem was the those directions had assumed that I would be flying. So I knew the way, it would just be hard to dive there.

"Half an hour across the city?" I asked Alice. I looked at the time, six in the evening on a Saturday. Half an hour would be breaking quite a few speed laws.

"About." I settled in for a bit more of a drive.