-Chapter 24: The Silver-Eyed Vampire-

"Emily?" Ryan gaped at me, frozen in place.

"You're getting pretty good at that," I waved my hand at the slices in the tree bark. "I just might have to forge another one of these." I flipped the knife in the air, bathing in the sea of emotion my brother was churning out.

I only had time to take a step back before Ryan was barreling into me. He wrapped his arms around my torso and bear-hugged me, sniffing my hair as he kept me immobile. I shifted my weight awkwardly and angled my knife away from us as I returned the hug as best I could.

"Is this real? Are you really here?" he took a half step back but kept his hold on my shoulders as he looked down at me. I nodded.

"Where else would I be?" I smirked. Ryan frowned and winced before a blank look crossed his face. His thoughts revealed he was finally noticing the differences in me only after crushing me with a vampire-strength hug.

"You're a vampire?" he questioned, as if he wasn't sure if he was interpreting what he was seeing correctly. "But I saw…you were dead, Em! We buried you."

"And I cannot think you enough for not cremating me," I jested halfheartedly.

"You're alive," he said. I nodded condescendingly.

With blinding speed and a split-second decision, Ryan's fist hammered into my face. My head snapped back with a dense pinging sound, lifting my body off the ground and tossing me backward into an evergreen, which snapped and groaned as it fell.

"A very strange way to say hello," I huffed as I stood, catching my brother rubbing his cracked fist with his left hand. Anger and a fleeting stream of expletives passed over me as he shook his head.

"Just how long have you been back?" Ryan snarled, his golden eyes darkening. "Or were you ever even gone?"

"I was in the ground for a little over two weeks," I explained, dusting off my t-shirt. "I couldn't let you know I was alive – I had a plan I needed to see through."

"The hell you couldn't," Ryan shouted, telekinetically grappling me and squeezing. The air whooshed out of my lungs from the pressure as I dangled above the forest floor, but thanks to my metallic biology, I was left unharmed.

"If Aro knew I was still alive after I started killing his minions, who do you think he would target," I wheezed out. I sent a jolt of Jane's power at Ryan and he gasped as he dropped to the ground instantly, releasing me from his hold. "And we both know Aro and the Volturi deserve it."

But the Volturi have been taken over, Ryan's thoughts ran through what the Cullens had discovered about Nadia and her hybrid daughter.

"Yes, I know," I trilled. "Which is why I decided to come out of hiding." Ryan opened his mouth to ask what I had been doing in my time away, but I waved off his questions. "Don't you think this would be a discussion better had with everyone?"

"Yeah," Ryan said, a smile growing on his face. The smile faltered and faded as he looked at me. "Emily…your eyes." I popped them open as wide as they would go, watching through Ryan's thoughts as he took in their dark silver hue.

"What about them?" I smirked.

"You're the silver-eyed vampire?" he asked, recalling Peter and Charlotte's tale of the vampire and her newborn hybrid who had encountered me. I nodded.

"I'm flattered you've heard so much about me," I batted my eyelashes and snickered. "All good things I hope?" He sighed and shook his head.

"I really think we need to get back, now," Ryan said. "They're going to want to hear about this – Jasper's been paranoid that you've been working for the Volturi."

"By all means, lead the way," I smirked. He nodded and turned before hesitating, turning his head and giving me a serious stare.

"But seriously, Emily; if you ever let me think you're dead again I will find a way to kick your ass," Ryan's mind drifted to the knife I still had in my hand before it shifted to him smashing a boulder over my head with telekinesis. "Superpower collection or not."

"I can agree to that," I shrugged. "But I hope you know it makes you a bit of a hypocrite – I spent weeks tracking you down after you suddenly forgot how to use a cell phone."

He began to argue back that he was a newborn at the time and didn't want to risk hurting me, but I had already blurred into the treetops and started flying the short distance to my adopted vamily. Ryan's grumbling followed me as I heard him take off into the air behind me.

As we began to cross over into Edward's mind reading range, I threw my mental shield over the both of us and drifted closer to Ryan. His flight trajectory skewed as he looked back at my hand that was clamped around his bicep.

We're going incognito, I thought to him through Renesmee's gift. Play along and keep close to me.

Ryan's eyebrows crushed together as he opened his mouth to ask what I was talking about, and I was able to activate Angela's gift of invisibility before he uttered a word. A gasp left his mouth instead as he felt his senses dull along with me and I had to drag him across the sky as his concentration cut out and he began to fall.

"What the hell did you just do?" he looked down at his arm where I held tightly as we landed on the lush grass of the front yard. "Emily?"

"We're invisible," I smirked up at him. "No one can see, hear, or smell us – and I have us under Bella's shield, so Edward won't know we're here, either."

He opened his mouth, his thoughts wondering why and how I was doing this. But my brother knew my childishness well, and after a moment he huffed and rolled his golden eyes. "New power?" he mumbled.

"Mhmm," I hummed, dragging him to the front door. "I really want to scare the shit out of Emmett." Ryan chuckled, emanating humor, when, suddenly, Jasper appeared in the frame of the wide window of the second floor. I cursed under my breath. "Damn it, I forgot Jasper would be able to feel you."

"And you," Ryan snarked. "I'm surprised he didn't feel your twisted mirth coming from a mile away."

"There's nothing malevolent about a harmless prank," I countered. "And he couldn't feel me anyway – I found a nifty trick to block abilities." His thoughts flitted to Alice's visions and how she was unable to find my future.

As we climbed the steps to the front porch, I could hear the faint breathing of several people somewhere on the first floor. The nearly-inaudible shuffling of feet from higher up could also be heard, but all other sensory data was muted by Angela's ability. I snickered to myself as I knocked on the door, pulling Ryan several steps back so we had room to move.

All movement stopped in the house for a few moments, and I could tell from their collective thoughts that everyone was listening and scenting for whoever was at the door. Slowly, the steady rhythm of footsteps moved closer to where we were standing and the door creaked open, revealing Esme standing inside the doorway.

Ryan hissed as I yanked us forward, narrowly passing by the family matriarch and huddling close together near the staircase. Kate, Tanya, and Edward blurred over to him as well, followed swiftly with Alice. Esme took a step outside and quickly gave the yard a once-over before stepping back inside and closing the door.

"Alice, did you see anyone coming?" Esme asked. The psychic shook her head even as she continued to focus her gift, searching the immediate future to try to catch something she would never detect so long as I had Ryan close to me to block our futures.

"The wolves said the newborns were taken care of," Ryan whispered, not quite understanding the concept of being inaudible.

"Yes," I answered in a normal voice. "Where are Carlisle, Edward, and Bella?" I asked.

"They went down to the reservation," Ryan answered. "Was the fight…bad?" He imagined newborns like the army he had been a part of slaughtering a generic town in his head.

"People died," I replied, shrugging. "Two wolves as well – Jared and Brady. It would have been a complete disaster if I hadn't intervened." Ryan nodded.

"There's someone here," Jasper hissed, eyes darting about the room. Rosalie came into the room holding Renesmee, followed by the rest of the Denali coven.

"What do you want to do?" Ryan grinned, his glee and excitement causing Jasper's eyes to narrow in our direction. He growled and pulled Alice into his arms tightly, his thoughts spinning on how to defend against an invisible opponent.

Instead of answering, I stepped away from Ryan and removed both the mental shield and aura of invisibility from him. I laughed loudly as I moved toward Emmett, who mirrored the others in their crouching stances, surprised at the sudden appearance of my brother.

"Ryan?" Alice asked.

"Uhh," Ryan stuttered, unsure what to do as everyone gaped at him. He glanced around, mentally cursing me as he tried to locate my un-seeable form. I forced down my laughter and took in a deep breath as I stepped up to Emmett's face.

With gusto, I screamed as loudly as I dared as I dropped my invisibility. The effect was immediate. Emmett half-gasped, half-hissed as he propelled himself backward and went right through the large window, taking out chunks of the wall with it as well. Loud, bee-like hisses followed from all around, but I could not contain my hysterics enough to react.

I was laughing even as Jasper tackled me and we created another hole in the wall, my knife flying out of my hands as we hit the soft ground and dug a shallow trench. I could feel his strong grapple on my arms as they were pulled back and pinned – his hands snapped up to secure my head in a vice and I could feel my neck start to twist.

If I could have cried, I would have been bawling my eyes out.

"Jasper, no!" Ryan shouted from somewhere behind me, his panic almost palpable.

"Y-your face!" I sputtered as my diaphragm contracted. I jerked my body in a frail imitation of Emmett's reaction and laughed louder. "Oh my god!"

"Ambrose?" Emmett uttered in awe as he approached. Jasper's hold loosened, but he still held my head in a would-be-dangerous grapple. As in, it would have been lethal had I not been the special sort of vampire.

"Impossible," I heard Eleazar murmur from where Ryan was standing.

"Inevitable," I countered, the word bubbling out of my throat as my giggles turned to shallow quakes.

Abruptly, Jasper released his hold on me and blurred away; his thoughts were muddled and he wasn't sure if he needed to protect Alice from me or not. Newborn, he had dubbed me – and though chronologically it would be an apt description, physically and mentally I was fully developed and mostly cognizant. I didn't even have the legendary newborn strength; the same quirk that caused my eyes to glow silver was responsible for making the lingering human blood in my tissues impotent.

I stood and brushed the larger clumps of muddy earth off my already-ruined outfit, grimacing as I realized how rugged I looked. My black shirt was stretched and frayed on the collar and right sleeve and the knees of my jeans were nearly obliterated. I was saturated with venom and wolf blood as well, which was accentuated by the rolling aroma of burned vampire and charred wood.

But at least my shoes were in one piece – more or less.

Spotting the dull-gleam of my knife embedded in the soil a few meters away, I extended my hand and willed it to me. The handle clanked into my palm and I gave it a quick spin in my hand to rid it of the clinging debris before resting it at my side and turning around to face the large gathering of vampires – and hybrid. I could hear Renesmee's hummingbird heartbeat pounding away and my mouth started to fill with venom.

I really needed to hunt soon; animals just didn't cut it.

The expressions on their faces and the emotions that were attached varied, though shock and disbelief were common. Confusion, wariness, and bubbles of joy were also present. Esme was wringing her hands while she debated whether it was safe or not for her to run and hug me and Renesmee was peeking out from behind the motherly vampire's back, staring at me like I was a present on Christmas morning.

The Denali clan was silent-yet-contemplative. Eleazar was thinking of all the questions he wanted to ask me, since he was well aware I had died. The last members of the mismatched group were the most interesting, though.

Peter and Charlotte were wary and ready to spring as always as they watched Jasper and me like hawks. Standing beside them were four more red-eyed vampires. I recognized Heidi and Renata from the Volturi incident, but I only vaguely recognized the other two.

The tall, blond-haired male was completely unfamiliar to me. He had shoulders nearly as wide as Emmett's, but lacked the golden-eyed vampires intimidating muscles and bold smile. Beside him, almost hiding, was a petite brown-haired vampire who was somewhere in-between Alice and Bella's height. She looked…familiar to me, somehow, though I could not place her face.

Both of the vampires regarded me with caution, though the male was confident where the female was afraid. I filed the information away for later and returned the majority of my focus to my brother and the rest of the Cullens.

"Tada," I spread my arms, smirking at the group.

I closed my eyes as I turned my face into the hot stream of water, letting the gore slide off my body and swirl down the drain. My body was thrumming with warmth from the scalding shower temperature. Even through the running water, I was able to keep track of the conversation taking place below.

"Are you positive it was Emily?" Edward asked, having just arrived with Carlisle, Bella, Jacob, the Amazons, Demetri, and the hybrid. Seth, who had followed the family to Denali, opted to stay behind with the tribe in La Push for the time being.

Like Renesmee, Zafrina had taken a liking to the hybrid that had been with the army of newborns. The tiny half-vampire revealed her name was Hannah and she had been born three weeks ago in a compound like the one I found Angela in. The reminder of the HLV-infected girl had me wondering where she was; a quick check of her mental signature revealed she was a few miles away in Forks – probably visiting her parents.

I checked in on Henry as well, who was a quarter-mile away from the hotel we had dropped him off in – he was ordering food at the diner, according to Alice's ability. None of the vampires that knew about my newly-created 'friends' were currently thinking about them, and apparently the pack hadn't told Carlisle either, so the Cullens had no idea about either one of them.

"What, you think it was someone pretending to be my sister?" Ryan scoffed. "It's her; anyone can tell."

"It's a fair question," Carlisle mused, his thoughts flashing back to the burial they had given my body. "In all my time on this Earth, I've never seen someone come back from death – at least not after such long a time. She had no heartbeat when we buried her." His steady words were coupled with a strong feeling of joy and elation that was shared with most of the others on some level.

She doesn't have one now, either, Emmett mentally chuckled.

"Yeah, well, the doctors said my dad would never walk again and look what she was able to do for him," Jacob defended. "And – wait," he hesitated as Renesmee's thoughts echoed in his head as she showed him images of me standing up after being knocked through the wall by Jasper. "She's the silver-eyed vampire we've been so worried about?"

"What?" Bella gasped. "Edward?" I watched the bronze-haired mind reader nod through the eyes of everyone in the room.

"Truly?" Carlisle asked Edward, imagining what could have caused the discoloration. I snickered under my breath as Edward confirmed that I was indeed the infamous silver-eyed vampire. "Fascinating."

"Why don't we wait until she comes back down," Esme suggested. "She was quite the sight when she arrived."

"I couldn't fucking see her," Emmett muttered under his breath, earning a slap of chastisement from his mother.

"Yes, from Sam's thoughts the battle was quite brutal," Edward added, ignoring Emmett. "There were more than a few casualties, including two of the wolves."

I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, drying myself rapidly and wrapping the towel around myself. I padded into my room and pulled out some tan cargo pants and a dark blue t-shirt, dressing quickly and wrapping one of my belts around my waist. I clipped the knife holster to it and slid the Divinium blade that had been resting on my night stand inside it, sighing in satisfaction.

It felt wonderful to finally have the weight of my knife on my hip where it belonged.

I decided to have some more fun with the large gathering below before the inevitable discussion and plan of attack for the Volturi. I cloaked myself with Angela's invisibility power, pulling on my socks and shoes in the murky, dampened atmosphere the ability caused, and blurred down the stairs.

It was still so odd to move about in such close proximity to everyone without being seen. I was sure at any moment someone would notice my footsteps or my breathing or would just know I was there, but they never did. I smirked as I circled around the scarred Major Whitlock, who held Alice snuggly at his side.

I walked around behind the two of them and abruptly poked Jasper in the side, laughing as he hissed and turned in a whirl of motion, searching for the perpetrator. I skipped over to Rosalie and flicked her nose as well, causing another round of hissing and growling from a different part of the room. While everyone's attention was turned, I blurred over to Ryan – who was situated next to Jacob and Garrett – and dropped the veil.

"Shit!" Jacob swore, jerking away from me as my arm brushed up against his. Ryan flinched as well and Garrett growled, but their reactions were miniscule compared to Emmett's fit when I scared him.

"You!" Rosalie hissed at me, baring her teeth and crouching down an inch.

"Who, me?" I asked with false innocence, pointing to myself. "Couldn't be."

"Then who?" Ryan whispered, his chest rumbling with a low laugh. I stuck out my fist and he bumped it with his own.

Our jesting went unappreciated by the majority – especially the blonde-haired, bitchy kind – and after a few seconds the house was filled with an awkward silence, leaving only Jacob's , Hannah's, and Renesmee's heartbeats and their shallow breathing. I rolled my eyes and glanced over to Carlisle, who was standing next to Esme, Carmen, and Eleazar. His curiosity was nearly bubbling.

"You can ask," I shrugged.

"How did you come back?" Carlisle blurted out, taking a step closer and pulling Esme along with him. "You were very much dead for nearly a day before we buried you, Emily. I am sure of that."

"I was…mostly dead," I answered, preparing to tell my tale of survival for what felt like the eleventh time. "Thanks to my genius, I was able to keep my brain alive and charged while the rest of my body was clinically dead for the duration of my change."

"How?" Bella asked. "Why?" I shrugged.

"I had the procedure done after the newborn battle, at my lab in Seattle. The inner workings of the implants are inconsequential now, but they weren't overly complicated," I paused. "As for the why, well, I'm not one to gamble. I needed a Plan B that no one knew about in case the Volturi were able to get to me – or really, in case I died at all."

"But you had no heartbeat, Emily," Carlisle frowned. "And the venom cannot circulate without one."

"Mechanical pump," I tapped my chest where the device would still remain. "Designed to run as silently as possible."

Carlisle hummed to himself, putting together a scenario in his head that somewhat matched the reality. He was still missing the bigger picture, though.

"But why did you stay away from us after your change?" he asked. "Why let us believe you were dead for months?"

"The Volturi," Jasper answered before I could, his voice sounding surprised. "You were going to go after the Volturi, weren't you?" I smiled and nodded.

"As far as everyone was concerned – even you – I was dead and gone. I had planned to pick them apart one at a time – guard by guard – but then I learned about the Volturi takeover and my revenge was scrapped."

"You were sown south," Peter stated, understanding falling over his face and his red eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Why? The Volturi don't often linger there."

"Actually they were there," I corrected. "But I originally traveled there to…shop, as it were, for some new abilities. It was also a good place to release some stress. So imagine my surprise in running into a few Volturi guards working over some sick sort of hybrid breeding facility."

"What?" Rosalie growled. I nodded, looking over to the fair-haired hybrid girl that was nestled in Zafrina's arms.

"Aro knew Alice couldn't see around hybrids or wolves," I explained. "Wolves would have been a bit more difficult to attain and control than hybrids, so he set about making a small army of them." I scoffed and shook my head. "The stuff they were doing…it makes Joham look like a complete amateur. I'm talking dozens of human women strapped down and forcefully impregnated." The growls that rumbled out made the mansion vibrate.

"That's…" Carlisle trailed off.

"Sick," Emmett supplied. I nodded.

"I got to the facility too late; all of the hybrids were gone and all but one of the humans they were using to feed the hybrids and their mothers were dead."

"They were changing the mothers into vampires?" Edward asked, bewildered.

"When they could, yeah," I shrugged, remembering the newborns and their paired hybrids I had encountered before discovering the facility. "A very efficient strategy, really – they get a psychic block and a foot soldier for the price of one."

"One of them must have been the newborn and the hybrid we ran into," Charlotte said to Peter, who nodded. She looked to me. "I'll admit I didn't believe it when she told us about the silver-eyed vampire who had ripped her to pieces."

"How are your eyes silver, anyway?" Tanya asked, locking eyes with me as she studied the metallic hue of them. "I've never heard of anything other than red or gold and you aren't wearing contacts." I hummed in thought.

"That's another involved story, with a lot of chemistry jargon," I waved my hand dismissively. "Would you like me to tell you about that, or about the human girl who survived the breeding facility? Believe it or not, she was from Forks." I smirked to myself as they took the bait.

"She was from Forks?" Bella's voice came out strained, despite her being a vampire. I nodded, knowing full-well she had heard me the first time. "Who was it?"

"Angela Weber," I supplied. Her reaction was the most dramatic, though all the Cullens seemed to be affected by the news. Most completely froze in place, pulling up whatever mental images of the too-tall, glasses-ridden girl that came to them.

"Why didn't I…see this?" Alice clutched her head. From her emotions, I could tell she cared about my newest friend.

"Because you're not omniscient," I rolled my eyes. "And it happened down in Mexico – she and Ben were taken to sustain the new hybrids. Ben was killed some time ago, but Angela is completely fine – better than fine, really." I chuckled.

"She's alive?" Bella asked. I nodded. "And she…knows?" I nodded again. Of course she would know; she was held captive by vampires and had to watch her boyfriend taken for a snack. I didn't say any of that, though; I understood it was a delicate topic.

"What do you mean better than fine?" Ryan narrowed his eyes at me. I grinned.

"What?" I scoffed playfully. "Did you think I picked up this amazing invisibility power from a run-of-the-mill talented vampire?"

"Wait…" Emmett interjected. "What exactly are you saying?"

"Angela is a meta-human," I wagged my eyebrows.

"That's impossible," Edward shook his head. "She couldn't have hidden it from me."

"You didn't…eat her brain, or whatever, did you?" Jacob asked seriously. I pursed my lips to keep from laughing at him.

"I just told you she was fine," I deadpanned. "And I really cannot believe you think I take powers by eating brains. No. I took her power the less fun way."

"I can confirm Angela's ability as well as her state of health," Zafrina said, her voice stirring Hannah, who squirmed and worked her way to the ground but stayed near the Amazon. "Whatever Emily did to her made her strong, as well."

"What she did to her?" Carlisle parroted, confused.

"Oh boy," Ryan pinched his nose and ducked his head, understanding what I had done to the meta-human girl.

"You didn't…" Edward trailed off, appalled that I would do something so horrible as make someone faster, stronger, and smarter.

"Oh, come on," I made a face at the mind reader. "It's not like I held her down and injected her against her will – she was there with me when I was cooking it and she asked me to infect her too. Personally, I think she took to the effects extremely well – she was more of a help at La Push than Bella's dad at any rate. Speaking of which, who was the idiot who told him something was going to happen? The guy showed up minutes before the fight and nearly got himself killed."

The entirety of the gathered supernatural creatures seemed to explode with interweaving voices as everyone tried to talk at once. Ryan was mildly upset, but he was the least confused and most supportive of my decision to inject Angela with HLV2. Edward had read what Ryan had guessed, and he was conflicted – Angela had asked for the injection of her own free will, according to me, but he still thought I should have spared her and allowed her a more normal life.

Rosalie, Emmett, and many others who weren't in the 'know' about how amazingly smart I was, thought I had changed her into a vampire.

Underneath all the pandemonium I didn't notice the pattering of small feet on the hard wood floor until a tiny, hot hand wrapped itself around my right one, which was at my side. The hybrid girl looked up at me with a mixture of anxiety, fear, and helplessness, and I held back the cringe that wanted to form on my face at the sense of security the girl felt once she was nestled up next to me.

I opened my mouth to either shoo her away or ask someone to take the small demon from me, but it closed as the sound of a car's engine began to grow closer. Edward's copied mind-reading power went to work automatically, identifying the driver through their thoughts. As the muddled workings of the familiar mind came closer, I smirked toward the driveway.

"Speaking of unfortunate timing."

End notes: So, it's been a while. How have you been?

Emily's met up with everyone now, so the next chapter should get the two separate storylines back on track and working together. Which is nice.

I am considering (strongly considering) merging this story with the first (Immovable Object) after I am finished with this one. I would clean up the first, of course, and add in a few deleted scenes and different POV's to make it worth everyone's while. On the plus side, this'll be a massive story if it happens (over 100,000 words). I can't really think of a down side. Happy face.

This is me typing random shit to get the word count up to 5000 words for this chapter. I won't settle for merely four-thousand nine-hundred ninety. And... we're... there!