Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga is owned by Stephanie Meyer. I don't happen to be her; therefore, I cannot possibly own it.
Rating: Rated 'T' for 'Teen'. May change later.
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Family, Fluff, Friendship, First Time, General, High School, Horror, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Supernatural, Vampires
Warnings: Adult Content, Blood, Discriminatory Language, Violence
Pairings: Jasper/Bella, Emmett/Rosalie, Carlisle/Esme, Peter/Charlotte
Summary: Your typical story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. A baby is quickly made. What happens when the boy's a vampire? What happens when said vampire is killed before the baby's born? Renée doesn't know what's going to happen to her baby, but Nahuel promises to keep it safe from his father. Jasper/ Bella
Author's Notes: Still don't have a chapter from Bella's POV. She's just difficult to write it seems. Besides, this summation works better in third person.
06. Gifts
1954
Narrator's P. O. V.
Ever since Nahuel came to 'save' Bella from Emmett and Rosalie, she hadn't been allowed to leave the property. It wasn't due to their distrust of him and his aunt; it was because they found out why he was originally so against the couple having little Bella.
His father.
Joham wanted to use Bella as Nahuel's breeding mate. Or to use her to make a different kind of hybrid, a higher percentage of vampire. Neither of the new McCarty friends were sure of what he wanted to do with the girl anymore. Still, the man wouldn't get her. Every time Nahuel's father was brought up the hissing and growls began, expressing their sheer anger at the man for what he was doing to such young human women, to his mother, and what he wanted to do to Bella.
The five of them stuck together, at least one vampire with each hybrid at all times. They didn't need Serena, Joham's loyal daughter and servant, finding where they were. Typically Huilen stuck by Nahuel's side while either Emmett or Rosalie spent their time around Bella. Even when she hunted, it was with her parents or someone brought food to her; the latter occurred much more often. Rarely did they let her go outdoors, and, when they did, she had to stick close to them. Preferably to be carried by Em until she had gotten too big for that to be a reasonable request.
Everyone knew she didn't enjoy it like she once did, spending so much time around them. Before, she was allowed to play as she desired. Now, she had to have both of her parents' approvals to just slide around in the snow outside. Sure, as soon as she was able to read, it's all she did. The adults had to make routine trips to town to get more books and could never supply her with enough to last her until the next time they left to get them. She'd been taught everything they could think to teach her, from every language they knew to car maintenance.
Bella was an ever curious little girl and not in the fashion that most children were. There were no "But why?" questions from her. She wanted to know the reason behind everything. Why were the seasons the way they were? What was the use of oil in a car? Were there better alternatives to paint? Why was milk so important to the body when growing? Anything and everything she could get her hands on.
Occasionally, they would go to different lesser colleges at the start of the new quarter and the four of them would mention the different classes they were going into and hadn't known identification would be needed to get their supplies. They'd always get their way, as vampires could 'dazzle' humans into whatever they wanted. Usually, this was used with human drinking ones to lure away their potential victims from crowds. They would still pay for the books, of course, but Bella would go through them at lightning speed and politely plead for more. Medicine? She's studied what they could get for her. Mechanics? Rosalie and Bella had their 'Mother-Daughter Bonding Time' together going over those books. English, Mathematics, History? She'd read everything they could think of to get her.
The only thing she refused to do was learn how to play an instrument. She didn't want anything to do with the piano or guitar; she didn't want to learn to sing either. There had been too much she had overheard come from Edward's mouth and she knew that he was a music enthusiast. Strangely enough though, she wanted to learn ballet and classical dancing. No one informed her about the Tango or Salsa because they knew Emmett would vehemently refuse that request.
Then, there were her desires to have Huilen teach her to fight. Oh, Emmett just about had a conniption when she agreed. She was just a child, even if she could understand everything the vampires could. Hell, they were all pretty sure she was smarter than them as well. Still, Bella got her way and convinced her mother to do the same. Since Emmett refused to fight against the hybrids or his mate, Huilen and he had a grand ol' time refining skills against one another and learning a great deal while they were at it.
It was needless to say that the couple weren't missing their family as much as they thought they would when they first left to live on their own. After that initial phone call from Esme when she had been so worried about the two, they agreed to make some form of contact once a week. Typically, it was Rosalie, as Emmett couldn't stand to listen to Edward, who was the one who answered the most.
The first time the bear of a man called up the family, the mind reader had been the first to get it. That was a fun adventure. Within ten minutes they were shouting at each other, over what, no one was sure, but Rosalie had a good guess. Raising newborn vampires. Edward still thought he would be a much better fit to guide someone into the Vegetarian Diet. According to the Golden Boy, Emmett would lead the girl into the ways of a harlot. A new phone had been put on their list of necessary items, just under Bella's books and clothes, after that and they refused to take any calls for the next month. Even when Rosalie explained the situation to Carlisle and Esme, she knew whatever punishment they would dish out to him wouldn't be half of what he deserved. Their soft spoken 'mother' was too lenient towards him and their sire never believed that it was as bad as anyone stated. He thought the couple were exaggerating his statements and using his words out of context. As Emmett would say, "That's some dang bull-honky."
In all the times that Huilen had spent time around Rosalie while she spoke to the family, her respect for them had lessened greatly each time she overheard their conversations. Everyone knew that if the Cullens ever decided to visit, she and Nahuel would be taking Bella to explore other places. Eventually, the mates would catch up to them and travel as a coven as soon as they could get the 'family' off of their asses.
Still, one day they would need the help that the Cullens could offer. Or, well, their cousin's help. Kate would be the best one to go to for assistance since her gift seemed so similar to Bella's. It was one they worked on as frequently as someone could tolerate the pain. Both Rosalie and Emmett had been shocked by Katrina Denali before and it was never as painful as what Bella could do. With Kate, you felt like you had stuck a wet finger in an electrical socket. With Bella, it felt like you were swimming in a pool and a bolt of lightning hit the giant metal rod that was in the center of it. Kate could put someone out of commission for a few seconds and you could get used to it in time. The more often you were hit by Bella's shocks, the more painful they got. No one was sure if it was because it was the same people being attacked by it or if it was strengthening from use. Over the past ten years, it had quickly gone from able to drop someone within instant's use to begging for death and everyone refusing to do anything to work with it.
But, that wasn't the only aspect to it. The electricity surrounded her in a dome, completely impenetrable. No matter how the vampires tried to break past, it never cracked. Within a year, Bella had managed to get it to work similar to telekinesis. She could wrap it around an object and cart it to whatever destination she pleased as long as it was within her range, which had been tested to find out was about six miles and becoming even further as the experiments went on. However, as Bella explained it, the dome wasn't its natural state. Normally, it was form fitting, like a second skin more durable than vampire flesh. It only expanded when it felt she was threatened or she focused on it.
Apparently, it had been around her when she had been within Renée's, her mother's, womb. It strengthened the normal vampire strong placenta internally to protect the both of them from Bella's kicks and squirming. Unfortunately for Renée, it was too strong for her human body to handle and as the contractions began, her gift, which everyone assumed was a shield, retaliated. It spilt open the placenta much like a knife slicing through the edible portion of an avocado, and then Renée's flesh. She was dead within seconds of labor beginning.
Even though they thought the shield was only physical, they knew she had to have a different gift for the last aspect. Mimicry.
When Emmett informed the trio of the Child Trafficker that he drained, something they all commended him for instead of shaming him like the Cullen family would have done, they were baffled as to why Bella would have felt such a strong dislike of the man. The explanation was simple. "I didn't like his colors." At first they were confused. Then, upon her detailing the ghost-mist that everyone had, Rosalie knew Bella had her gift. They spent months going over all the different variations the vampire had come across and their own as neither of them could see their own auras. What every color meant, what their combinations could mean.
However, the way she viewed it was a bit different than how Rosalie saw others. When someone was in love, Rosalie saw the pink they wore around the area of their heart. When Bella saw someone who was in love, like her parents, was in the direction of that person, but still lingering in the same height as the heart, and it intensified as the person was closer. It also judges others' emotions in a secondary layer outside of the character summation that the woman had. These colors weren't as 'ghost-like' as Rosalie's gift but still held that fog. Occasionally, she could touch them with her mind and manipulate them to turn into a different color, a different emotion. It could make someone more obliging to whatever she wanted or infuriate someone at the drop of a hat.
Lucky for this band of people, Bella wasn't the type to use this against others, but they still worked on it as best they could. The more she played around with her gift, the quicker and more subtle she could get it to work. Since emotions were entirely different than a persona, they took a lot more work to understand. Also, emotions flickered in and out. Everyone felt a variety of things all at once, but they had one or two main emotions that could change within a second as their thoughts changed. The difficulty was changing them, directing them, at the same speed as if it were a natural occurrence.
This gift deepened further to where if she lingered on 'touching' that particular emotion, she could hear the whispers as to why they might feel that particular way. One day Huilen was especially depressed and she grabbed the dark grey that surrounded him like a rain cloud, and found out how saddened she was by the loss of her sister. There were days that she could focus on nothing else but the loss she felt because of Joham impregnating Pire. That aspect was something she only did to happy emotions as the longer she tried to understand why someone felt that emotion, the better chance it had for it taint her emotions.
The last aspect of her gifts was the 'tasting'. Her mind was permanently extended, sending out invisible threads to shove their way into the psyche of others. Everyone's mind had their own signature to them, a 'flavor' all their own. No one was any the wiser when she did it since it wasn't a painful talent like the electric shield. It informed her of where another was and if anyone who had a gift came into her range, it copied it and adapted to where Bella would always have the upper hand. Nahuel assumed that it improved itself because, physically, she would never be able win in a fight against a vampire, so it had to ensure her existence through the talents she came across.
None of these gifts were too much for her to handle, although it could be a bother when she tried working with them to increase their capabilities. Normally vampires would only have one gift, and since she had multiple, she had to learn how to use them side by side. In the beginning, it had been fairly difficult. Since she had been so young, she had been easily distracted and the abilities might snap back to her, which was painful for her when working with the electric barrier.
However, with the five of them living the past decade in the same house Nahuel hid Bella near plus making semi-regular appearances in the town, they knew they would need to move on soon. It wasn't like with the Denalis where they could live in one location for five hundred years because their visits to town were widely spaced apart by different vampires to locations about a three or four hour drive away.
No, with how quickly Bella was growing and all the things she required, they had to make a visit once every other week at the minimum. Even now, being full grown for three years, the rest of the group still had to make semi-weekly trips into town to buy all the items she requested.
Although, no matter how grown Bella seemed to get, Rosalie was still 'Mama' and Emmett would always be 'Daddy'.
Ending Author's Notes: Shoot me some questions, I'll be happy to answer them, but I won't be giving away any spoilers.
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