A/N: Here you go peoples [= enjoy it... and tell me in a review if you did.

Chapter 11- Fire Dance

Alice POV

"Gas!" I hissed, "If we're even a second late then it will be too late. They'll be dead." I could see Volterra looming up ahead of us, a dark shadow over the beautiful Italian landscape. Sure, it looks nice enough, until you find out who lives there. Then it isn't so nice anymore.

Everyone was pushing their cars as fast as they would go, terror can be the cause of many emotions, love, hate. Right now it was causing a deep, mind numbing anger.

We shot through the gates into Volterra; people threw themselves out of our way, shouting curses at us. We didn't slow going down the narrow twisting streets, we all had our destination in mind and we were totally focused on getting there as fast as we could.

"They're in the turret guys; we're going to have to climb up the wall very quietly. Whoever goes first has to get Caius before he sets Ari on fire." The cars skidded into place in an alley beside the castle. Everyone hopped out; we began climbing up the walls. We didn't really care if a human saw us, we can deal with that problem, if the children die then we won't be able to fix that.

Emmett was the first one up. He leaped through the window; snarls erupted from inside the castle.

I really hope we live through this one.

Arianna POV

Caius continued to walk towards me, fire spilling from the object in his hand. Time slowed, each second felt like an hour. Death continued towards me, unstoppable and irrevocable. It was over, there would be no escape from this one.

Well damn, that was morbid. Think happy thoughts Ari, happy thoughts.

Caius was about to take that final step, I could feel the heat coming off of the fire blasting against my face. I began to accept death- not that I wasn't terrified, it's impossible not to be- I figured that pretty soon I would be dead, so I might as well try to enjoy my last milliseconds.

I started thinking about my past, first with little human memories, people are right, your life does flash before your eyes before you die. Not because of something mystical, simply because when you don't know about your future the past is all you have to fall back on.

Flash...

I was running down a road, I was five years old. I had a frog in my hand and I was chasing my sister with it. She tripped and fell right into a mud puddle. I let the frog go and went to go help my sister up, offering my hand to her. She reached up and grabbed my hand, pulling me into the mud with her.

Flash...

It was first grade, I was playing with play dough and Sam came and asked me if he could play. I said he could. We were best friends ever since.

Flash...

Felix lunging from out behind a tree, grabbing me.

Flash...

Alec and I surrounded by darkness, talking.

Flash...

The Cullens hugging Alec and I, laughing.

Flash

Emmett jumping through a window, landing on the unsuspecting Caius's shoulders, ripping his head off and coolly dismembering his body.

Wait... What? I looked around and saw the faces of my family, the suicidal idiots, there is no way all of them are going to make it out alive. Emmett picked up the flame thrower and set Caius on fire. A dark purple smoke started filling the room; it smelled funny- like incense.

In a macabre sense of way I had enjoyed watching Emmett kill Caius, Caius had been about to kill Alec after all. People were flowing into the room, our family and friends through the window and guard members through the doors.

People were fighting all around us, a strange twisting dance of death. Time seemed to slow as guard members fell- most of them were newborns. The older, more experienced guards were starting to come into the room though; it would only be second before we're outnumbered.

The killing dances continued in the room. I saw Edward and Jasper tag teaming Santiago, destroying him. Felix jumped on Maggie, taking her out. Siobhan gave a scream of anguish and lunged for Felix, Liam joined in and Felix was forced to retreat. He backed up and two newborns took his place. Zafrina and her sisters were trying to get at Jane and Sylvia, while others tried to get at Bella.

There was so much fighting, so much misery. Why would we do this to ourselves? Why couldn't we all just get along? The anger and death rolled over me, building up in my limbs; waves of power began to wash over me. It was literally like waves, on person would die and another wave would hit.

What's happening? I felt the cool burning sensation of healing. I shouldn't be healing... I turned to look at Alec; he still looked the same as before.

The fighting continued and the power built up, I felt like I was about to explode, like I would spontaneously combust. I squinted my eyes in pain and clutched at the floor. Alec was looking at me, I tried to get over to him, but my legs and shoulders were still destroyed.

I gave out a chocked sob, it hurt, it was almost worse than Jane torturing me, it was almost like I was going through a second change, the power made me feel like I was on fire. I could see everything, hear everything, and feel everything. I tried to get over to Alec.

One of the newborn guards that had survived so far saw me move, until then the Volturi had considered us helpless, just something to wipe off the floor after the fight. But now that I was moving we became a threat again.

She pulled out a match. I tried to go faster, to help Alec. The power continued to build, thrashing around inside of me like a living flame. The power felt like fire now, burning, consuming. And it was consuming me. The newborn continued to walk towards Alec, the power boomed to and overwhelming summit.

The newborn dropped the match.

And that was when all hell broke loose- literally. I screamed, and the power burst out of me, burning up my body and tearing through the air, the power felt like the hottest fire and the coldest ice- inhuman and unstoppable, the snarls of fury echoing around the room turned into shouts of confusion. I kept on screaming.

"No, No, NO!" on the last one the scream changed, it wasn't a scream anymore, it was like a thousand wolves howling, like nails dragging against a chalkboard, it was every sound combined into one, pummelling against the world. The power tore up my throat, pouring out of every pore in my body- burning, changing. I felt like I was going to explode, there was too much death, too much power.

Like a monster it just refused to stop, it built up until I didn't even know how I was alive anymore, it wouldn't stop, and it just kept going. I had no idea what could be the source of this power, and I didn't care. All I could think was 'he's dead, he's dead.'

And then all the power left my body, I didn't even have enough energy to move anymore. The world shattered around me, it sunk into darkness and I collapsed.

And then I was walking down a path again, it was like I was having a flashback again. Except this time I knew it wasn't a flashback, I'd never been here before. I tuned around the bend in the path and came into a clearing, there was a fork in the path, and I looked down each one, trying to figure out what way to go.

I saw someone coming down one of the other paths, I jumped behind a tree and looked around, wondering who it was, this land was eerily quiet and inhumanly beautiful the woods were filled with flowers and perfectly green, like the faerie worlds you see on T.V., there was no noise except for the sound of my breathing and the crunch of gravel underneath the persons feet.

I peeked around the tree and almost collapsed. It was Alec. "ALEC!" I shouted, he looked over so quickly you'd have expected him to grab his neck and wince.

"Ari? Where are we?"

I jumped on him and wrapped my arms around him, "I don't know... I think we might be dead, but if this is death then I'll take it." I mumbled.

He looked around grabbing my hand, I let go of him and clutched his hand, "I'll take it too, as long as you're here. When we were in Volterra, I thought I'd lost you." His voice held a horror to it, I'm sure I would have sounded pretty much the same way.

"Well, you didn't. I'm still here, and I'll never, ever, ever let go." I held his hand tighter and felt his clutch mine in return.

We continued walking down the path, the forest just got more and more beautiful. I saw flowers that I'd never seen before, and colours that I didn't even know existed.

We came to yet another clearing, there were two women sitting in the center of it. One was petit with long brown hair and huge black ebony wings. Her eyes were a deep emerald green. The other was taller; she had long blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes. She had no wings.

"It's about time you got to this point, my children." The woman with brown hair said.

My mouth fell open and I said the first thing that came to mind, "Sorry, we were a bit delayed, what with the whole dying thing. We'll try to be on time for these completely unscheduled appointments next time. Who are you anyway?" Alec sighed and put his arm around me protectively, ready to push me out of the way if the two strange women attacked us.

The blonde haired woman started laughing and the brunette just sighed, saying, "Don't worry Alec; Arianna's temper won't get her in trouble here. It's my fault anyway for making it so the child of fire has to be as close to flame as possible."

"Thanks," he paused for a second before rethinking the comment, "wait... what?"

"You know the story, you told it to Ari on two different occasions, the one about the creation of vampires... although, you're not vampires anymore, no one is- this is just the beginning of a new type of change. Eventually you will free yourselves. But you'll have to see for yourselves. Go home, talk to your family, they're worried about you." This woman is even worse than Alice- seriously, if she has the nerve to drag me here, the least she can do is tell me something instead of giving me little cryptic scentences.

The blonde made a gesture with her hand and I felt the power building, "What are you-."I started to say.

The world began to shimmer and I tried to hold on to Alec's hand, but whatever reality we were in vanished and my hand closed around nothing.

I felt my hand close around air and began keening, I just want Alec. Really, is that too much to ask? I kept my eyes closed tightly; I didn't want to wake up. "Shit." I heard someone swear, "Carlisle! She's awake, but she's loosing it." No surprise there, go away!

"I don't wanna be here- I don't wanna wake up!" I sobbed, still keening.

"Ari it's Carlisle. Everything is fine."

I screeched, and tried to roll away from him, but something behind me stopped my movement. It felt like my arm must be behind me, except it wasn't."It is not fine!" I screamed, my throat feeling raw. "Alec is dead and you have the nerve to tell me that everything is fine!"

"Ari- Alec is over there. He is not dead, you saved him. Open your eyes and look." I trusted Carlisle- he never did anything to me. He wouldn't lie about anything as important as this.

I opened my eyes, hope flaring up. I sat up really quickly. Alec was on the other side of the room, leaning up against the stone wall of the room. He was wrapped up in a blanket like I was. The blanket was shaped kind of funny, and there were black feathers pointing out one end.

"Carlisle? Why is there a bird in Alec's blank- what the fuck?" I was staring at Carlisle, Carlisle with huge black wings. "Carlisle," I said weakly, "you have wings..."

He nodded, "I noticed that myself. Everyone else has them too. When the newborn dropped the match on Alec power started flowing out of you. You sucked all the life force out of the Volturi, and then shoved it into us. It was too much for us to contain, so we changed again. I'd have to say, out of all the possible outcomes I've thought about for this war, this definitely wasn't one of them. I have no idea how you did that."

"Don't be silly... there's no way I could have done that."

He nodded, "You did Ari."

"Can you be sure that Aro didn't put some kind of chemical in the vents that would cause us to all have a mass hallucination and think that this was happening?" He nodded again. "Well damn, I don't remember how I did it either."

I tried to stand up to walk to Alec, but the blanket was all tangled up in my wings. This will take some getting used to. Carlisle gave me a hand and helped me stand up. I looked around, the throne room was totally destroyed and there was a thin film of purple smoke filling the air, vampires were sitting all around the room, talking quietly to one and other. "Do you know what could have caused you to explode like that?"

"I thought Alec was dead." My voice was flat, totally unemotional.

He winced, "that would do it. You saved everyone, although the police are outside right now trying to break the doors down because of all the noise, and it's sunny outside so we can't really go anywhere."

I stopped breathing, thinking I would lose control and go for the police when I realized something.

I wasn't thirsty anymore, my throat was raw feeling (no surprise there) but it wasn't thirsty. I took a deep breath, my senses were still just as sharp, and I still felt just as strong as before, but it didn't feel like I had a third degree burn in my throat anymore, awesome..

"Ari?" Carlisle asked looking at me when I didn't say anything.

"I'm not thirsty anymore."

Carlisle stopped, "Neither am I... I never thought about it." He lifted his voice. "Is anyone thirsty?"

There was a heartbeat of dead silence where everyone checked, and then the cheering started, it was a pretty pathetic cheer, but it was something. I felt the same way; I didn't quite want to cheer yet since Alec hadn't woken up. But the loss of the thirst, the monster that plagued every vampire, was something that made everyone want to cheer. We just weren't quite in the mood for it- it's okay though. We'll cheer later.

I heard a police officer shout through the door, "We know you're in there, open up! Is everyone okay? We heard screaming." We all pointedly ignored them, I think the humans are smart enough to open up a door on their own.

Alec shifted slightly, like a human about to wake up. I launched over to him, almost knocking several former vampires over in the process. There were several good natured chuckles at that.

I grabbed onto Alec with all my strength, absolutely refusing to let go and burying my head into his shoulder and inhaling his scent. "Ari?" he said, opening his eyes, I let out a sigh of relief and snuggled closer- something that I wouldn't have imagined possible.

"Right here. Don't ever almost die again," I muttered into his arm, "I don't think I could take the pressure."

"I can do that, I don't ever want to leave." He kissed me then, first on the forehead, then on the lips. I felt a burst of shock mingled with joy.

I'd like to state that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, so I kissed him again... and again. What can I say, I'm making up for lost time. After a while there was a bit of whistling and pointed comments going around the room- no matter how much we changed, some things will just never change. Alec and I pointedly ignored them too, nothing is going to ruin this moment.

We did stop after a while. Once Carlisle was sure we were done he looked at Alec, and asked, "Do you have a theory about what happened?"

Alec nodded, "of course. You remember the story of the creation of vampires."

Everyone else in the room had formed a big circle around us; I realized that Alec's wings were a few shades lighter than everyone else's in the room, kind of like smoke gray. Alec started talking again when the whispers stopped. "The one with Sephrenia in it and the prophecy thing. I think that's what happened, it you remember the end it says at the end, about the children of smoke and fire. Of course, it also says stuff about them in the middle too, but the entire thing is just weird. It does fit though."

I could see the others thinking about it, "that makes a lot of sense," whispered Edward, "and it explains a lot."

We all stood silently for a few minutes, thinking things through, and the banging on the door got louder; the police were still trying to get in. "I'm shocked they haven't taken a chainsaw to it yet," muttered Kate, "the entire world heard your scream Ari, and I'm betting that we're the only vampires left on the planet."

I shrugged and just held on to Alec, given the recent experiences I wasn't planning to let go of him any time soon.

I heard human footsteps coming down the hall. The little sneaks, they slunk in through the back door. Alice grinned, "Since secrecy isn't an issue anymore we have two choices, we can jump out the window and scare the villagers, or we could wait here and scare the police."

"What if we went through the dungeon into the garage and took some of the cars?" suggested Alec.

"Oooh! Grand theft auto, good thinking Alec." said Alice happily. The police were almost through the door, we ran down the stairs behind the thrones.

I could hear one of the officer's start swearing, "What happened in here? It looks like an earthquake hit..." at least there are no dismembered limbs crawling around. Maggie was laughing, I shuddered, remembering when Felix jumped her, I had managed to bring her back to life, but it had been close.

Rosalie hotwired a few cars and we started driving, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Humans were walking up and down the streets, totally unaware of the change that had shaken this planet.

There were news reporters all over Volterra, so no one noticed us driving down the streets, the windows of the cars were so darkly tinted that you couldn't see inside. Which was a very good thing since every vampire in the car sported huge dark wings.

We drove slowly, enjoying the landscape. Italy wasn't a place many of us had visited before, the Volturi made it kind of hard to go sightseeing. By the time we reached the shore the sun was just setting over the horizon. This was the shore I had stood on with Alec a few weeks ago, it seemed like ages ago.

And now we would be leaving Italy and getting to Canada in a way that was once again impossible for humans. There was one big difference though, we wouldn't be swimming, we would be flying.

As vampires we were the nightmares that plagued a human, the things that go bump in the night. But that had changed, we just weren't monsters anymore. We weren't thirsty, so we wouldn't have to drink blood. We aren't bloodsucking fiends anymore- we're simply darkened angels

We jumped up and started flying, headed towards our home.