Writer in the Dark - J. HALE

49 - ʙᴀᴛᴛʟᴇ

A DAY of tense muscles and constant snapping to the forest sounds passed slowly. She and the Cullen's that were fighting, all stayed in the woods where Alice had seen the battle happening. The only time anyone would leave their tight group would be Athena's hourly messages to Billy. They were on edge constantly, even though the battle would not occur for hours, the tense atmosphere that swallowed any ability to breathe surrounded them constantly. She found relief in the text messages and searched for signals a little too often, needing a quick break to help her get through the stress and dread of it all.

As morning came over the horizon, Alice made the decision that it would be best for them to all get ready for the battle since she hadn't seen a certain starting time. So they all congregated at the bottom of a small hill, facing out towards the only entrance to the cleared out area in the woodland. Athena and Jasper stood together, hands vaguely touching and brushing together as it wouldn't be wise to hold them. With the looming threat probably making its way through some lake or field, they had to be ready to move at any moment. Hand holding, or any reassuring sort of act like that, would hinder the reaction speed that is of such great value to them when in battle.

The looming threat, the thudding footsteps and the sound of vacant blood desperately trying to pump a dead organ full-body echoed through each of their ears and suddenly the tense atmosphere dissipated. Instead one ready and willing to fight for the safety of the surrounding people overtook. Athena tugged once on her necklace then put it underneath her shirt, not wanting to get hit with it during the battle. At the first sight of a newborn, a single-arm, the Clan ran. She inhaled sharply as her fist came into contact with a newborn, their face shattering and body falling with the adrenaline of the first kill. All around her hundreds of newborns scrambled to be the ones who survived the attack, dodging and attacking in various different ways. Right now, if looking at numbers, the newborn army had the up.

As the wolves made their appearance, flying over one of the bigger rocks that had concealed their hiding place, the number of newborns still conscious dropped dramatically. Jasper tried to be everywhere at once to protect Athena in all the ways he could but he found himself smiling at the fact that it was not necessary. She was a machine, not missing a single hit or springing newborn. She leapt, flipped, spun, ducked and kicked off heads or limbs. The training the Volturi had given her sometimes worked to her advantage.

When she wasn't physically fighting, she was mental. Athena had sort of hidden herself on the sidelines, not cowering away from the battle in any sort of way. Instead, she watched for newborn attackers while her family fought off the ones closest to them. She would squeeze their minds and render their entire bodies unfunctional with a single and not that difficult though. The minds of newborns were even easier to mold, she found that they carried some of the ease that came with mortal minds. Each newborn dropped to the ground like thrown bricks, unable to move a muscle or even hear anything. They would just shut off, like death yet in some ways they were still conscious. It worked in a weird way but she didn't question it, instead choosing to be eternally grateful for her gift.

She worked through ten members of that army before a figure finally spotted her, stamping in her direction while her back was turned. The snarling attacker angered that all their friends had been slaughtered, ran at her and attempted to grab onto her jumper. Just as they got close enough, Athena leapt off the little edge from the rock she had been standing on, flipped backwards over the attackers head then landed just as they ran full pelt into a rock. It didn't take her long to pull off its limbs, forming a pile of mutilated cold ones in the palace where her feet had been.

She focused back on the overview of the battle, noticing a certain brown furred wolf that hadn't been there before. Confusion swept through her body as she watched Jacob attack a newborn, biting their body clean in half with little effort. That confusion lasted mere moments as she snapped into protective mode, running straight towards Jacob through the entire battlefield. She dodged attackers, leaving them to someone else who currently wasn't trying to protect a wolf by the order of her best friend. She grabbed onto the attacker's shoulder and pulled them off of Jacob's back, shoving them into the ground before she twisted their head off with an ever so satisfying shattering sound.

As she threw the head to the ground, one of the vampires that she had dodged before jumped onto her back and started to get a grip on her head. She worked quickly, worming her way through their mind before they could get a good grip on her neck. She made it impossible for them to kill her then came out of their mind, finding the wright on her shoulders yanked away. She turned and saw Jasper standing behind her, pulling the attacker's arms straight from the sockets without a single sign of remorse. She smiled softly at him, thanking her with her eyes, then ran off again to help dwindle down the numbers even more.

And with the final killing by Emmett, a rather theatrical killing she must say, the battle was over. Now came clean up. They went around and quickly picked up every limb, every torso and snapped off the head and pilled it into a great hill before setting it alight. The soft crackling of the fire soothed something within her soul, the part that felt some sort of remorse for these creatures who didn't have a choice in becoming what they were yet they had been slaughtered. They hadn't deserved it but then again, Bella didn't deserve to be attacked. Fate working its wonders once again, she thought. Edward and Bella arrived soon after the fire really blossomed, irradicating any sign that the carnage had ever happened here. She was rather relieved to hear that Victoria, the red-haired glimpse, was now fully dead.

Alice stilled as they started at the bodies, falling into a vision that lasted a few moments. "The Volturi are coming," she spoke loudly, so the few people (Carlilise, Jasper and Rosalie) over the other side of the field could hear her easily over their conversation.

Jasper turned, eyes wide before he ran as quick as his body would let him, stopping where Athena stood. He took her hand and started tracing reassuring circles on the top of it with his thumb. It released the tensing in her shoulders but did not settle the thickening dread that enveloped her soul. He looked to Alice, keeping one eye trained on Athena as she gradually and absentmindedly moved closer to him, "How soon?"

"Ten minutes, at the most," Alice replied, raising a brow at his reaction to the news.

"Get the pack to leave," Carlisleinstructed hurriedly. "The truce won't be honoured."

Athena turned to go and find Sam when she stopped dead, a missed newborn clad in a grim red hoodie, attacked Leah (the wolf) and initiated a tussle that it looked like she would lose. Athena ran forward, dropping Jasper's hand as she got to the very edge of her mind-bending range and started to work on the vampire's mind. It was tricky business with this particular one, it must have been older than all the others because their mind was like treacle she could barely wade through. The incentive to get full control when Jacob dove into the line of attack, tumbling around with the mind that she was trying to delve into.

She got all control and faded back to reality, finding the lone attacker floating in the air above a very confused and unharmed wolf. She floated him over to the group, dropping his slack feet against the ground just meters away from the fire. Before throwing him into the fire, she snapped his neck with her hands and flopped the now limp body on top of the burning vampires.

Emmett chuckled, staring at her in amazement, "Badass."