"This is bull" Emmett laughed without humor. "Bella is human. Hu-man" he enunciated each syllable.
"She had a vision. She would not make something up like this." Esme half-scolded Emmett.
"She head wound healed faster than a human would." Carlisle passively sided with his wife.
Emmett laughed this time in slight amusement. "You're saying that you honestly believe that Bella is a witch with magical powers?"
Upon reaching the last step I spoke. "You're a vampire, Emmett. Do you really think you should question anything mythological?"
"It's not in your best interest to test her. The last being that did that wound up getting both of his eyes cut out."
That is the exact reason Catya has never made any of the big decisions in our coven.
I laughed with a hint of amusement when I seen a few shocked faces. "There's a context for everything."
I walked to the opposite side of the room that the Cullen and Denali Coven were standing to which my coven followed.
"Since there are member or members of this amalgamated group which believe this is a prank we will demonstrate the use of our powers. Benjamin you are up first."
Benjamin walked forward a few steps and began to prove he had a gift. Inside his hand there materialized six streams of fire. Five that created a circle and one that was inside the circle.
"Benjamin can control the elements: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. He can either choose to materialize it out of nothing or draw on nearby foundations made up of a certain element to draw from."
"Such bull. Any magician could do that." Emmett rolled his eyes.
"Oh really?" Benjamin became enraged. "could any magician do this" Benjamin through the fire at the adjacent table. The table immediately erupted in flames. I could tell at this point that Esme was both shocked and concerned for her table. Obviously there was an emotional attachment to this table. "Or could a magician do this?" Benjamin waved his hand at the table, which sent immediate waves of water on the table effectively distinguishing the fire.
The table was charred and smoke was filling the air. If I saw Emmett's face I imagined his mouth would be open in amazement. I inwardly smiled at the thought. I was brought back to reality by the thought of Esme's table being damaged.
"Not exactly what I was looking for Benjamin, but it'll do."
I honestly meant to tell Esme I was going to fix the table, but I figured it was going to slow things down so I didn't.
"Catya you're up next."
Catya stepped forward. To some she may have looked like she was hesitating, but I knew she was trying to come up with something big that could out do Benjamin. An arrogant smirk crossed Catya's features. I had no idea what she would do. She had the power to create illusions. I knew she couldn't create an illusion that would affect the group, for too much energy was used during the ritual to recover my memory. Still she had enough energy to do something that could be potentially dangerous.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of whimpering. I looked up to discover it was Emmett. I looked around to see if there was anything that traumatizing which would cause this and could find nothing until I could see what Catya had done. For some it may have been a leap for me to think she was doing anything to Emmett, but I knew Catya and this is something she would do. I could see Catya's eyes looked deep into Emmett's almost as if she were trying to penetrate them.
Meanwhile I could hear the concerns of Emmett's relatives and some of those of the Denali coven. It was enough. Catya knew the strict rule I put on her not using her power to harm people outside of battle.
"Catya" I warned.
She did nothing and the whimpering continued.
"Catya!"
The increase in my voice did nothing to curb her behavior. Shit. I was going to have to stop her before she caused any more damage. I dropped to the floor and kicked her ankle with a moderate amount of force. The force of the kick caused her to trip and fall flat on her back. The effect of this caused a disconnect in the psychic connection that she had enforced on Emmett.
"What the hell" Catya growled.
"You know damn well you aren't allowed to use your powers in such a way."
"Oh right, but you can use yours anytime you please?"
"Catya, this is not the time or place. If you want to discuss this I suggest you save it for later."
"I think this is the exact place. Let's talk about how you think you can dictate when and where I can use my power. Or how I seem to do everything and only you get the credit. I created this illusion where you are a superstar and I have to do all the hard work and you lay on your ass."
By now Catya had risen from the floor and was looking upon me with anger and what seemed to be disdain.
"Catya, enough!"
"You're right it is enough." She grabbed her bag and walked out of the mansion followed by Morgan and Ariana.
–
I had taken a few minutes to regroup. Having to deal with Catya's little meltdown was annoying enough, but the departure of Morgan and Ariana was enough to piss me off. I wasn't going to quit. The Cullen and Denali coven wanted answers I was going to give them answers. I told Benjamin that I would need a board to write on preferably a dry erase board.
"Got it. Carlisle had one in his study." Benjamin grinned.
Benjamin hauled the dry erase board to the center of the room. It came with a stand and was of considerate size that I wouldn't have to erase constantly.
"Thanks."
"About Catya." Benjamin began.
"I'm not talking about her." I interrupted.
"Do you really think this is a time to be stubborn?"
"No, it's not, but talking about it isn't going to help. Besides I really just wanted to get this thing over with." I pointed to the board referring to the make-shift lesson.
This was the last thing that was said before I started the lesson.
–
"Ok" I pointed to the dry erase board which had the pyramid of power drawn on it. "This is the pyramid of power. Its arranged like the food pyramid, but has the weakest on top and the strongest on top and others somewhere in the middle."
I pointed to the third level of the pyramid. "On this level we have Witches, Valkyries, Vampires and others. While witches tend to have the same amount of power as vampires they are stronger and harder to kill for witches where as it is easier for a vampire to kill a witch. This has to do with the granite like texture of a vampires skin and the disparity of speed between vampires and witches."
"What are on the upper levels?" Carlisle inquired.
"Good question. On the fourth level there are demons, trolls, giants, and various lower-level demigods. On the last level are the Gods."
"Demons? Are those what you said you fought in your vision?" Esme asked.
I smirked. "I said entities, but they were demons."
"So it's possible for someone on a third level to kill one on a fourth level." Tanya interjected.
"Yes, but it takes longer." I erased the pyramid to write the following points I was going to cover. "There are many myths of how witches came to be. Some say humans drank sap from a golden tree which the gods sent forth and became gods ;others say that they are an invention of the devil; and some believe that they were created to deal with demons. Theory one and three hold some amount of truth, but there are missing parts to both. The truth that we know thus far is the God Ali created witches by feeding humans his essence to deal with the demons who were wreaking havoc over Northern India. The demons eventually spread across the globe until demons were in every corner of the world. As a result Ali created five families of witches in every territory to deal with these demons. Ali didn't expect that the demons would be so powerful and as a result the demons enslaved the witches for centuries. The demons had been created by an evil god who also supplied them power."
"But if Ali was a God why didn't he know this would happen?" Emmett asked.
I could tell Emmett was still slightly skeptical about this whole thing. I'm not sure if it was his unwillingness to think of me as more than a human or if he never thought this could happen.
"It's not that simple. In the beginning, before there was a universe, there was a single god, but with the creation of the universe this god separated into many different entities some good some evil some in the middle. Each god is a god of something: Creation, food, marriage, lust, divination. Many times a God can be more than the god of one thing it tends to be a myriad of things. Ali is not a god of divination, therefore he could not see the fruits of his actions."
"Eventually the witches managed to pool enough power to enable that a few of them could escape. There were 150 of them out of 10,000 being held In Nepal and these soon after migrated to different areas and went in hiding. Similar escapes occurred throughout many different territories. Many escapes proved successful, but some didn't. Of those escapes that were unsuccessful it meant dire consequences for the escapees and the others plotting the escape. The offspring of the witches in slavery were mostly demon, as the demons would rape the female witches and kill the male ones, and the witch DNA that still remained was corrupted and used to carry out the agenda of the evil god."
"Are these demons still in existence?" Carlisle asked.
"Unfortunately yes. There are limited number of them since Ali joined forces with the goddess of divination,Dyuisus to kill the evil god,Darionis. The remaining demons have enacted many genocides on witches to the point where only five remaining covens exist today." I erased the board after that. "That's a basic run through of witches. Any questions?"
"Are all the gods of equal power?" Eleazar asked?
"No. Originally they were of equal power, but with the travesties that Darionis and the other evil gods caused there needing to be a ruler god over the other gods. Also power really isn't everything as a god of divination can kill a god of war easily by knowing everything he or she would do."
"What is your power?" Kate asked.
I smiled lightly. I figured someone would eventually want to know. "I can manipulate astral energy. This means that I can clone myself in a non-corporeal form, send souls to the astral plane, travel to the astral plane myself, use lower-level intermediate astral attacks, and construct small astral weapons. An astral manipulator has the potential, if they train hard enough, to infuse others with astral energy, keep a soul in the astral plane forever, and even inhabit the body of a soulless creature."
"Oh, please!" Emmett's disbelief persisted. "You can't honestly believe she has these powers."
I was really getting sick of him. I might have to get rid of him. If I sent his ass to the astral plane he probably would think twice before opening his mouth. No, I won't do that it would cause too much conflict and I need somewhere that I can battle Gahjidi where I would have the home-court advantage.
"Emmett may I remind you that an antique table has been on fire and you were whimpering like a baby when Catya put you in that illusion it's not in your best interest to keep on testing me. For a living entity that can grow so will his or her powers. The reason why you, a vampire, can only grow a limited level with you power is because you are in a stagnant form; something that cannot grow, which is why it is abnormal for vampires to have powers in the first place."
After that I had to endure Esme trying to tell me to be nicer to Emmett. I understood the reasoning, but still she had to know her "child" couldn't be disrespectful to others like he was.
"Emmett." Rosalie spoke softly, which was a disguise, because two seconds later she cracked him against the skull. She must have used an excessive amount of force, for the result of her smack was a cracking sound. Kind of like you would hear when one cracks their knuckles. "Shut up" Rosalie finished. Obviously I wasn't the only one getting annoyed by Emmett's constant skepticism.
I got a few more questions about how I trained, how long I knew I was a witch, who I trained with, and what was the goal out of all the training. A few of them seemed to get a kick out of my training with an indigenous tribe in South America. They also seemed to have trouble understand the concept of the astral plane. It was a place where people entered when they died. A living person could not travel to the astral plane, with the exception of an astral manipulator or someone infused with astral energy, without dying. Therefore, if someone sends a soul to the astral plane its trapped and only has one way out; death.
The part they could not grasp is that a non-physical realm held things like "astral merchandise." I blame hippy-dippy astral manipulators for such terms. It's not like a store where there are astral key-chains and such things. The "astral merchandise" are actually weapons and objects made using astral energy via an astral manipulator. Astral Energy is most potent on the astral plane, therefore it is easier and less time-consuming to make something out of astral energy on the astral plane. I had to show them how an astral object is created to get them to somehow understand it, which took almost an hour. One thing it did help was Emmett's stupidity. He now stopped trying to interrupt me or accuse me of lying.
–
"It's cool!" Emmett beamed.
I rolled my eyes. He really is an annoying little twit. "What's cool?"
"All this. You being in a coven. Fighting demons. It's like watching an episode of Charmed."
I stopped stirring the solvent that would fix Esme's antique table. "Cool? I have no idea where most of my coven is; and I have a demon coming after me who I don't know how to kill. In what world is this cool? As for this being like Charmed do you ever remember a sister having to inject a potion into a demon to kill it? Or elaborate rituals just to recover memories?"
"Well can't you just send his soul to the astral plane?"
"That takes a lot of energy; besides I already did that." I sighed.
"Well if the demon has no soul shouldn't he be dead?"
"No, a demon doesn't have a soul."
"Then how can you send his soul to the astral plane if her doesn't have one?
I am really getting tired of these questions. "Because the demon infected a human."
"If it's in a human body then can't you just kill the body?"
"No, the body transforms into a demons when the human soul is expelled."
"If-" Emmett began, but I cut him off.
"No more questions!" I yelled. "I don't have time to give you an introduction course on the mechanics of demons and how you kill one!"
I threw the wooden spoon into the large bowl of mixture that would regenerate Esme's table. I walked away from the table not in the mood to finish.
"Where are you going?"
He will not stop asking questions, will he?
"Out! Have Benjamin finish the solvent."
–
End of Chapter. I have already begun the next chapter so it shouldn't be long until I update again. Just to give a little extra I will inform on some things that will be tied in on future chapters: The part of Bella's vision where she was engulfed in flames, Reconciliation with Catya and the others, The confrontation with Gahjidi, Explanation on why Benjamin and Bella aren't fully human, Benjamin+Bella content, and introduction of the real antagonist of this story. (All of these things should happen within the next 4-6 chapters.)
PS... I will be writing a brief document (no more than 6000 words) on the mechanics and mythology of witches that are used in this story. As you have seen my witches are pretty different than the ones in popular culture as I wanted to do something that is somewhat original. If any of you want me to post this document or send it to you, when its finished, just PM me or leave it as a PS in a review or what not. Another thing: I kind of tortured Emmett in this chapter, but he provided needed conflict so it wasn't in vain.