Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I'm going to give credit where credit is due. IdreamofEddy owns all reference to the God of War. Her brilliant mind came up with the darker, more animalistic side of Jasper. Hello…hotness! Anyhow, as my beta said there is way more stories out there that reference the God of War or the Major and they weren't even created in the books. I tend to find myself drawn to the darker side of things anyways.
Heavy…I think you know my brain and where I want to go with things a little too well sometimes. When I can't find the right words or find myself repeating words, you always seem to make it better! Thanks so much. You're awesome!
Char's POV
I listened as Jasper laid into Alice down stairs; he wasn't letting her get a word in edge wise and I imagined she was cowering in his presence. Chuckling at that image, I watched the clock as the second's ticked by. Night turned into day and he still kept going. I honestly didn't know if he was ever going to stop; fifty plus years of rage had all come to a head in one night. Jesus, does he ever take a breath? I thought to myself before chuckling again at the lapse in my vampire mind.
I was standing at the window, watching my skin shimmer in the glow of the early morning light. It had been nearly two days since I was asked to watch Bella. Earlier that night, Jasper had finally determined that he wasn't going to get anything out of Alice, since she just kept making excuses for her actions. While Jasper and the rest of the Cullens were hunting, Peter was with our guests from the Volturi planning out the battle with Victoria. I heard Jasper and the Cullens quietly talking as they returned.
I glanced over at Bella and noticed that her eyes were open and moving rapidly back and forth, as though she were dreaming about something. Her pupils dilated and she inhaled sharply, before closing her eyes again. I had never seen this happen before in someone's change.
"Jas," I said sternly, trying to get his attention. "Jasper, you need to come up here and bring Carlisle with you!"
A moment later, Jasper and Carlisle came into the room, followed by the rest of the family, except for Edward.
"What happened to her Char? Is she okay?" Jasper pleaded, looking panicked.
"I think she is okay…" I said. "She has been the same for two days, but I looked over at her just now, and her eyes were open. They were rapidly moving back and forth like she was dreaming, then she sharply took in some air before she closed her eyes again," I finished, looking towards Carlisle for some sort of answer.
"Well…" He hesitated, clearly searching for an explanation. "I've never heard of that happening before, but I've also never seen someone go through the change so quietly," he said, looking thoughtful.
"She has always been unique, even with Edward…" Jasper trailed off, looking around for him. "Where is Edward?" he asked.
"Now is not the time, Jas. You need to focus on Bella. We need to get to the bottom of why Bella's change is happening the way it is," I replied.
Everyone's eyes went wide as Bella's body began to shudder and shake. It looked like she was having a seizure. Her eyes shot open again, the irises a deep beautiful shade of crimson. Her change was happening way more rapidly than I had ever seen before. With my perfect vision, I saw a strange shimmering shape stretching out surrounding her.
"Bella, can ya hear me, darlin'?" Jasper's face was a mask of shock.
"Jasper, get over to her NOW! It looks like her shield is beginning to go up," Carlisle yelled. "You need to get in there with her!"
In the blink of an eye, Jasper was practically breathing down her neck. I watched as Bella encased herself and Jasper in her shield.
"Use your gift, Jasper!" I screamed. "Ya have to calm her down, and get her to retract her shield!" I ordered.
As I watched, she began chanting Charlie's name over and over again and it was heart-breaking. In all the chaos we had forgotten about her father, then it dawned on me that she was using the change as an escape from grieving.
"Jasper, something is not right!" Alice screamed, flitting around the outside of Bella's shield. "She is progressing too quickly. It's supposed to be at least another day before she wakes up," she said frantically.
"Alice, what do you mean she is progressing too quickly?" Carlisle asked.
"What I mean is we are going to have a newborn on our hands in less than 24 hours. That's what I mean," Alice shrieked.
Jasper's head snapped quickly in Alice's direction, his teeth bared and a growl progressing from his throat.
"I'm going to call Eleazar to see if he has ever heard of anything like this," Carlisle stated, leaving the room quickly.
I picked up the phone and called Peter.
"She will be fine," he answered abruptly. "I told pretty boy there that she was goin' to be hell. Nobody said it was going to be easy, doll face," he said, a smirk evident in his voice.
"Peter, get ya ass back here now! I don't care about the damn Volturi there, we need you here," I said as I hung up the phone.
I had to get to the bottom of what was going on, but I would need to use the one person who I hated most in the world. Alice.
"Alice, did ya see anything earlier, before we had arrived?" I asked her, quirking my eyebrow at her.
"No, nothing. The last thing I saw was Edward leaving out his bedroom window. Before that, I didn't see anything but Jasper's choice to change Bella," she said quietly. "Nobody had made any concrete decisions, including Victoria."
I retraced my steps throughout the last two nights in my head. We met up with The Cullens, and then Bella went on a rant about how Victoria and The Volturi wanted her dead or changed. The blood that covered Bella's hands before her change…it wasn't Bella's but Charlie's. Shit! Bella had said that she had seen the aftermath of what happened with Charlie's murder, but she hadn't said anything about touching him.
"Emmett, I need ya to go to Bella's truck and see if you can find anything there," I ordered politely. He nodded, quickly heading out the door.
"Jasper, I need ya to get Bella calmed down as quickly as possible," I barked out to him.
"Alice, search your visions for the future. See if you can see what Bella is plannin'," I requested.
I quickly dialed Peter again.
"Sweets, ya need to go to Bella's house and see if ya can figure out what happened there," I said quickly. He hung up the phone before I could get any more words out.
I was snapping out orders as fast as possible. I had to figure out exactly what Bella was planning on besides being part of the fight. I watched in fascination as Bella's shield began to retract but suddenly, it stopped. Fuckin' hell, this is crazy! Bella interpreting the chaos as a threat and; she was protecting herself and Jasper.
BPOV
My mind was screaming with the pain as the venom flowed through me. Each pulse licked a fiery path towards the center of my body, straight for my heart. I wanted to scream. I pleaded mentally that this hell would be over with soon. I wanted desperately to tell Jasper that I was okay, but my mouth clearly wasn't moving. I grimaced internally as my heart quickened then, slowed back down.
I could feel a pull in the back of my mind, as though something was trying to force its way to the surface. It pushed and pulled as though it was the expansion of a bubble. I wanted nothing more than for it to go away. I wanted to welcome death as I passed into my eternal life.
I listened to Jasper and Char talking quietly about how I would no longer be human, how I would no longer have to breathe. I ached inside as I listened to Jasper tell her that he could have told me no, but I found profound relief that he didn't regret his decision.
As I drifted away from their conversation, I thought of Charlie. Above all the awkwardness in our conversations about Edward, I knew that deep down he would have been happy for the life I had chosen. I silently wept for the sudden loss of his life, and then rage swept through me. Victoria, that stupid fucking bitch; she was going to die by my hands and my hands alone.
The image of what I found the last time I had been home swept through my mind, playing itself like an instant replay from one of Charlie's football games.
*Flashback*
As I walked into the house, the smell of iron and copper hit my nose, making me instantly nauseated. I knew something was wrong and my instincts were telling me to run. For a moment, I stood there, frozen, torn between moving any further into the house and getting the hell out of there. The sound of the television blaring finally snapped me out of it, and I cautiously walked through the hallway to the kitchen.
I stepped into the room, and stood there horrified, screaming at the sight before me.
Charlie was sitting at the table, naked from the waist up. His badge, pinned to his bare skin as precisely as though it was on his uniform, gleamed in the moonlight coming through the window next to the table. I could hear the wheezing in the room as he struggled to breathe.
"B…" he tried to speak, but the blood gurgling from his throat making it impossible.
In that moment he was no longer Charlie, he was my dad.
"Dad…" I whispered, raking my eyes over his bloody form.
I rushed over, placing my hand over the gaping hole in my father's throat, trying not to gag at the smell of the blood. If I was going to save him, I needed to apply pressure to the wound, as I had been taught basic medical care in the class I took. My eyes darted back and forth across the room, as I searched for the phone that usually hung on the wall. My mind screamed as I couldn't find the object that I was looking for.
"Let…me…go," he struggled once more to speak; making eye contact with the revolver that was placed in the middle of the table.
I struggled within myself, as I realized what he was saying. He wanted me to end his life because he knew there was no hope. I begged silently with my eyes, telling him that I couldn't do what he asked.
"Please…I…love…you," he answered, his body becoming limp with exhaustion.
I slowly lifted my left hand off of his wound, the blood trickling down my hand and leaving a trail across the table to the revolver. My hand shook violently, as my mind processed what I was about to do. I picked up the revolver and removed my right hand from my father's throat, now gripping the gun with both hands.
I moved directly behind Charlie, pointing the gun at the back of his head. I listened to the sound of his labored breathing, as I took my shooting stance, placing my feet shoulder-width apart. I whispered an 'I love you' as the tears ran down my cheeks, and pulled the trigger. As much as I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and slip away from the horror, I couldn't.
I watched as the flash of the gun lit up the kitchen, and heard the resounding bang echoed through the house. As Charlie's lifeless body slumped over the table, I shoved the gun into my jacket pocket. Panic began to set in, and I fled as fast as I could out the front door without taking a backwards glance.
*End of Flashback*
I laid there for what seemed like hours, days, and months, the burn constantly licking at my veins. Images of Charlie continued flashing through my mind, and my rage was building.
Char's POV
Emmett came back into the room with Bella's jacket in hand, his expression disturbed. The smell of blood wafted through the air. It was Charlie's blood, not Bella's. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Oh, holy hell…Bella what has happened to you?
Suddenly, Alice shrieked in frustration.
"I can't see any of you. Not a single person, you just disappear," she exclaimed.
My phone began playing 'Paradise City' and I quickly picked it up. I set it on speakerphone to make sure that everyone heard the conversation that I knew was about to happen.
"Doll face, it's not lookin' good over here," he sighed. "Charlie is slumped over the table with one bullet wound to the head…" he trailed off. "If I don't get outta here, there is goin' to be trouble. It's been two days and Chief hasn't made a peep, people are goin' to start questionin' shit. Besides, it really fuckin' stinks in here…" he said, trailing off. "I'm goin' to light this son of a bitch up and scramble," he said sadly.
"Peter, grab Charlie…" I said, closing my eyes to gather my composure. "I want Bella to at least have a proper burial for him." I opened my eyes to see the family staring at me.
"Char, please…" Peter sighed. I could only imagine the grimace that graced his features.
"Just do it, and stop actin' like a petulant three-year old," I scolded him. "Ya know what it felt like to lose your Daddy. Ya watched silently in the shadows as they buried him," I said, regretting that I had to bring up that heartbreak to Peter. "Then, light it up all you want." I closed the phone, ending the call.
"Fuck! Bella, what the hell is goin' on?" I whispered, looking Jasper in the eye.
"What are we going to do with the body?" Emmett asked.
"We will go further north and bury him. When Bella is ready, we will take her there to pay her final respects," I stated.
I was putting a plan into action, hoping to give Bella some closure after her newborn phase.
"Okay. What I don't get is who the hell shot Charlie?" Rosalie asked, sounding irritated.
As the realization of the situation began to sink into every vampires mind, most of them looked horrified that Bella might have done so brutal, especially to her own father.
"Before anyone jumps to any conclusions we need to get the story from Bella. We need to understand what had happened a couple of days ago," I said cautiously.
"What happens if she doesn't retain her human memories?" Emmett asked.
I sighed, knowing that was a possibility.
"That's a chance we are going to have to take then. Look at Rosalie," I said, giving her an apologetic look for bringing up her past. "She retained some of her human memories and became vengeful after that. I believe that is what is goin' to happen to Bella," I stated, looking at Carlisle who had just walked back into the room.
"It's a possibility that will happen. I sure do hope not…Rosalie was a handful," he said, looking contritely at his daughter. She just rolled her eyes in response.
JPOV
My eyes scanned the faces of my family members as they registered the horrific significance of the jacket in Emmett's hands. I watched as Char fumbled through the pockets, eventually removing the large object. The early morning light reflected off the blood-stained revolver. After Peter's phone call with Char and the revolver in Bella's pocket, I knew there would have been trouble if we wouldn't have done anything to cover up Charlie's murder.
I looked back down at Bella. Her crimson eyes were staring back into mine, and there was a blank look on her face.
"Darlin', you need to listen to me…" I whispered. "I know what you are doin', that you are tryin' to protect me. I need you to focus and lower your shield. No one in the room is going to hurt us. They are our family," I paused, hoping to get a reaction out of her.
I watched as her shield began to retract. Suddenly, it stopped, making the physical space much smaller to where I could barely even move around her. I had promised her that I would never again manipulate her emotions, but I was forced to do it again. I whispered "I'm sorry" before pushing enough calm into her to allow her shield to retract fully.
I was worried about her, but I had to push that worry to the back of my mind because the next 24 hours were critical. I watched her pupils dilate, realizing her vision was changing, before they returned back to normal.
A sudden movement caught my attention, and I watched as Alice became lost in another vision.
"Jasper, we have a problem," she said, as she came out of it. She was silent for a moment while she scanned the room. "It's Bella," she paused, looking right in my eyes. "When you helped her with her shield, she made a decision…" she trailed off.
"What decision, Alice?" I asked, growling at her.
She hesitated, looking over at Carlisle and Esme.
"Alice? What did you see?" Carlisle asked.
"She's going after Edward. I didn't see anything beyond that though, everything goes blank again," she finished, sending me sympathy.
My life was contained in those four words. I didn't know what Bella was thinking, one minute she was trying to protect me from our family, and the next she was going back to Edward.
"Get out," I growled.
I could feel my demeanor change. The lock on the cage had just completely broken with Bella's decision, and there was no turning back now. Destruction was in my wake, and I had no pity whoever was in my path.
"Char," I nodded to her.
"Yes, Major, I'll stay…" she replied, immediately taking a submissive stance.
I watched protectively over Bella as our family made their way out of the room. As soon as the lock clicked on the door, I made my way to the window. I paused for a moment, turning to glance back over my shoulder at Bella. My life lay there on the bed, and I would do whatever it took to protect her, regardless of her decision to go back to Edward. I smirked at Char with an evil glint in my eye and, I leapt out the window, landing in a crouched position. My head snapped up at the scent of an elk that had wandered onto the property. The fire in my throat flared and I could no longer control my thirst.
I pushed myself as I ran, and found myself wandering around the streets of Seattle, just after nightfall. Regrettably, after two hours of wandering, I found my prey. I stalked the group of men, keeping to the shadows, as every once in a while one of them felt compelled to look over their shoulder.
Do it, Major…
This is what Bella was talking about. I would never be Jasper, if I didn't accept the part of me who I had long repressed-The Major, The God of War.
You're wasting time, Major…
"Be patient…" I whispered to no one in particular.
I watched as the group disbanded. There were now just two of them stumbling down the street. They turned onto the pathway that headed towards Discovery Park, not once thinking about the dangers that would stalk them in a public place.
"Hey Steve, I got to take a piss…" one of the men had slurred.
I watched as he made his was over to the tree line, stumbling in the process. Silently I made my way through the trees until I was a couple of feet in front of him. I yearned to feel his emotions as I took his life. I took a few steps towards him, the moonlight highlighting my features, and giving my skin an unearthly glow. I growled and his head snapped to meet my piercing gaze. His eyes widened at my sudden appearance as a muffled sound escaped his lips.
Ahh, Major, there they are, my inner demon screamed.
I felt his surprise, and the fear creeping its way to the surface. He took a step back, threatening to run. Within a second I had my hand clamped around his throat, baring my teeth. I pulled him behind the tree line and struck quickly. I drank greedily from him, relishing the feel of human blood running down my throat. I felt no remorse as the burn became sated in my greed.
My inner demon roared in acceptance as I finished off my meal.
I watched again at a distance as the man named Steve made his way over to where he had last seen his friend.
You can't leave him behind…
I waited and watched, casually leaning against a tree, as the other man approached his death.
Make it quick, Major, you have to get back to your mate…
I struck from behind this time, again feeling the fear as death knocked on the man's door. I basked in his emotions, much like I did when Bella was human.
As quickly as I had started, it was over. I hastily disposed of the bodies at the end of the pier, watching as they sunk to the bottom, I thought about the lives I had just taken.
Regret? No.
Remorse? No.
Self-loathing? No.
As I made my way back to Forks, I could feel the vibration of my cell phone going off. I stopped as I took the call.
"Major, I hope you're on your way…" Char trailed off.
I growled, telling her that she had better finish that sentence.
"Bella just awoke pissed off, and hell bent on revenge for Charlie. Peter has her subdued, but she has both of them under her shield and she won't let it down," she finished.
"I'll be there soon," I said, slamming my phone shut.
Twenty minutes later, I walked into our room. I surveyed the scene before me quickly and found Peter straddling Bella, pinning her face down with and her arms behind her back. She was struggling, snapping wildly trying to break free.
"Bella, drop your shield," I commanded.
Her head snapped in my direction, and she immediately stopped struggling against Peter.
"Drop your shield," I commanded again.
I watched in amazement as the shimmer began to disappear from around them. She had enough control already to manipulate her shield, and she wasn't but an hour old newborn. Bella defied everything that a newborn was supposed to be.
"Leave," I spoke sternly to the other two vampires in the room.
I watched as Peter got off of Bella, and she immediately went into a defensive crouch, hissing at him as he walked away. Quietly, they left the room, leaving Bella and me alone.
"Bella, you will listen to me. Do you understand?" I asked her in an authoritative tone.
Again, she hissed, watching my movements carefully as I crossed the room.
I watched as she cautiously made her way to a standing position. Her head snapped towards the door and she bolted straight through the door. I could see that her instincts were telling her to feed, but her emotions were telling me that she was still pissed off. For thirty seconds I waited, knowing that her sudden movements would put everyone on alert.
I followed her scent, to Edward's room.
She stood in the middle of the room, breathing deeply, inhaling his scent as though she was trying to remember him more clearly than the faded memories that I hoped she would have.
Slowly, she looked at me through her lashes, a menacing smirk plastered on her face; I could tell that she was up to no good. She went to bolt again, but I lunged and gripped her tightly as we went tumbling to the ground. I held her close as she struggled against me. I forced her up to a standing position, noticing that we were directly in front of Edward's mirror.
I let my grip slacken as I felt her relax under my embrace. Her eyes were still closed, and I felt the fear of the unknown creep into her.
"Open your eyes, Bella," I commanded softly, gripping her chin tightly. I forced her to hold still so she could see the beauty I saw.
She expelled the last of her breath as her eyes fluttered open.
Two sets of crimson eyes stared back at us from the mirror.
She was breath taking, beautiful, and tantalizingly fuckable.
Peter came barging through the door, causing Bella to lose focus again. As quickly as I had her in my grip before, she was gone.
I zipped over to the window and saw her heading for the forest. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's not what you think, Major…" Peter stated. "She's tracking Edward," he finished.
"She's what?" I asked, not even waiting to hear him answer before I leapt out the open window.
I heard a couple of soft thuds behind me, and picked up Peter and Char's scents.
"She's tracking Edward," Char restated.
"Fuck! Pick it up you two slow asses," I commanded. "We have to get to her before she finds him."
A/N: I know, I know…whose coming at me with the pitchforks and torches right now? I did take so many liberties in this chapter. While I find that most people focus on Bella's shield as her one and only gift (straight from the book); I wanted her to have something different. Yes, she is a tracker and her shield comes second to that. And one more thing…while I wouldn't want to be stalked by some lunatic vampire, I do find it quite enjoyable to be stalked by the Major! Hope you all enjoyed it!