Disclaimer: i do not own Twilight, nor any of the characters or locations mentioned in this chapter. however, the very imaginative city of Olympus that sits in the middle of the Pacific Ocean i doown. i also own this nifty giant red silicone cake pan that is used to make rather large cupcakes. it's awesome.

Summary: Isabella never blended in but maybe it's because she is something far greater than human. Edward had trouble controlling his temper but maybe a girl with a frightening gift can tame him. Maybe they can save each other. OCC. Possible lemons.

Rating: M

Categories: Supernatural and Romance

Characters: Bella and Edward

Language: English

preface

I have often found that astoundingly bright colors are aggravating to my eyes. When I am painting, I find myself replacing lemon yellow with a golden ocher, brilliant red with its muted crimson partner. I've always preferred a duller reality.

I've always craved, though, a twist in the monotone norm.

Growing up, I knew I was different from my family. As a small child, it was obtuse things, like how their eyes were much darker than mine, a different hue of hair. As I learned and developed, I noticed more acute things; hairline, eye shape, stature, sickness.

There were times in my younger life when rather strange things happened. Times when my hands felt ice cold, frozen from bones to skin. Times when those cold hands were warmed by withered plants. Times when I stared in horror at the faint silvery glow of my nails as a wilted and blackened flower lay in my numbed hands. Times when I knew without a shadow of doubt that I was very different from my classmates, my family.

Physically, I'd always been on the petite side, slender with full curves, delicate hands and small feet, wide eyes and snow pale skin. Even in pictures of my childhood, I remained with the same features, my eyes perhaps a bit larger on my smaller self.

Other children had changing features, a certain development in them to make their faces and bodies show age. I was horrifyingly flawless, too unchanging. It seemed as if I aged slower when I hit puberty, even though I came to that late as well.

What had always been with me, as I wandered through the years, was a faint emptiness - a hollow portion in my chest, a void left unfilled. The place where my heart beat too slow seemed to be missing, as if the components that made my person were missing a gear, a bolt.

The twist in the monotone, the filler of the void was mind blowing - something I'd have never suspected or imagined.

And it was the gift of Zeus that eternally changed me.

chapter one

"Look down on me, you will see a fool. Look up at me, you will see your Lord. Look straight at me, you will see yourself."

Charles Manson

Isabella

I find it hard to care about much these days. In fact, the only thing I care about is why I don't care about anything. I sit in a crowded classroom of chattering teenagers, ignoring their senseless words. Boys curse and girls giggle while my ever-present headache pulses.

The first time I realized I wasn't exactly normal was in seventh grade. Most other girls wasted their time crushing on cute boys, painting their nails bubble gum pink - a sickening color, might I add - and reading magazines three years too old for them. I sat in quiet corners with a sketchbook and permanently charcoal stained fingers.

There were boys who would stare at me when I was that age - boys who now knew to ignore me and my blank stare.

But it wasn't the differences between myself and those I now deemed "normal" that convinced me of my own strangeness. No, it was, at first, the strange dreams; dreams that grew stranger every year I aged. Foggy dreams in which three cloaked women spun silver threads of my life and a boy with a fiery halo of hair made the strands gold. The dreams morphed to times and places with the boy and strange creatures and worlds in places humans simply wouldn't be able to survive.

The dreams sparked some hidden part of my mind - a part where a full and focused history of beings I'd previously thought mythical were live and true. It was frightening, waking to fading vague images of Greek tales and feeling a pull in the very core of my being to…be in those dreams.

I almost constantly felt as if I was walking a border between fantasy and reality, wondering which one would draw me into its grasp.

"You don't belong here,"

My head snapped up, startled by the unique water-smooth feminine voice to my right. The girl leaning on the wall next to my desk was the embodiment of water - of ocean and deep lakes. Chic short jet black hair cut to just under her ears, held away from the other side by a delicate coin-dollar sized silver web-spun seashell, silvery earrings dangling with tiny aquamarine stones. Creamy, just barely sun-kissed skin swathed in a chic navy blue knit scarf, tailored white suede winter coat, grey skinny jeans and blue patent leather ankle boots. My eyes were drawn to the silver chain sternum-length amulet holding a quarter sized aquamarine.

It was her eyes though, that truly made her different from the graceless children around her, though she couldn't have been more than two years older than them, us. At first glance, they appeared to be an intense cobalt blue - but as my eyes came back to them, the color swelled, grew deeper to almost blueberry then back again, swimming past cobalt and fading into a icy blue.

Her eyes flicked across the room, sometimes settling on children, other times seeming to pass over their forms, as if they were invisible. "No, you're much different from them."

My brows furrowed, my own eyes darting from faces, and I immediately wondered why I appeared to be the only one who heard her. She spoke fluently and loud enough to be heard. And her mere presence was enough to draw attention - but all heads were turned the other direction.

Like her being there made both of us invisible.

"Why can't they-"

"Mortals," she said dryly. "They're so…blind."

The register in her voice was bored, almost empathetic to a point that my mind picked up on the words lying under her speech.

They were mortals, she was not. And apparently, neither was I.

Her name was Alice - she offered no last name, as if she didn't have one or didn't care to remember it. Like it was a name she abandoned quite a while ago.

My following her was unusual for me, the curiosity shocking. I'd been happy enough to muddle through whatever life I was living, with the dreams and strange hands and jaded social life. I was content enough.

So my almost eager acceptance of Alice was abnormal to say in the least. She lead us through the high school, paying no mind to the crowded hallway. In fact, the students - who still did not look at her or me, for that matter - parted down the middle in avoidance, in unconscious submission.

It was strange - almost too strange - and it coincided with my vivid dreams too well. Their kind - our kind - were avoided.

I had always assumed the avoidance was due to some danger we posed but it was abundantly clear, now, that the nervous glances were the product of class superiority. Bluntly, we were exuding a power that was intimidating.

The new awareness of this made me particularly nervous, my hands growing colder as I stuffed them in my pockets.

Alice glanced back at me, her eyes on my hidden hands. "They did say something about that…" she mumbled to herself.

I blanched, my eyes widening slightly in utter disbelief. "Who are they?"

She shrugged and nonchalantly said "The Fates, of course."

My dreams slammed back into my mind, fragments of mythology falling into place. This was real.

Too real for me.

By now, Alice had lead me to the tiny shed behind the gymnasium of my Forks, Washington high school - and as I paused, stunned by the sudden gush of information flooding through me, she continued on into the thick trees, designer boots crushing the undergrowth. It wasn't until the weight of my body leaning against the battered and spray painted shack caused the metal creak did she look back.

"Your afraid," she stated. I began to notice a pattern in Alice; she mostly spoke in statements. She had no questions…and reminded me of someone I don't remember. Someone no quite tangible but so palpable in my mind that he existed.

Not able to find my voice, I nod.

"That's to be expected. But you don't belong here. You're a daughter of…well, you'll find out soon." A mysterious smile streaked across her face, secrets dancing behind her pulsing blue eyes. Alice took a step towards me and reached out her hand, beckoning me forward much like a mother would to a small child.

Soon I found myself walking slightly behind her through the dense forest; she followed an invisible trail, our footsteps twisting and turning in circles I didn't understand. I was almost certain we were lost several times, and each time Alice shook her head and sped up, ducking under one branch or another without pause.

And though Alice seemed comfortable enough in this forest I had no idea existed, there was a subtle uncertainty in her movements and breathing - something I had vaguely noticed while still inside the school. She seemed like a fish out of water. Or a water nymph stuck in a forest full of wood nymphs - even a mermaid on new legs.

I realized belatedly that I was most likely dead on in my observations. It was a sobering thought.

Out of the blue, Alice stepped forward and disappeared behind a huge sprawling tree. After a few too-quiet seconds, her head popped out of the trunk of the tree. "Hurry up," she said before disappearing again.

The rough exterior of the tree shimmered slightly, easily missed if one didn't know what they were looking for. Tentatively, I reached my hand out, my cold fingertips brushing against…nothing.

My eyes widened as I stepped forward. It was like passing through air. I paused in between the portal, the forest behind me and a sprawling chrome and steel city ahead of me. I thought briefly of my family beyond the forest; the only family I'd ever known that, unbelievably, isn't truly my family. The mother who tried to force me into pinks, the father who glanced at me with indifference. I'd always known subconsciously that parents were supposed to care about the child, not what they wished about the child.

Taking another step through the portal, the air shimmering behind me, I don't think again of the family that was never mine.

Alice is a maze leader. Like in the forest, she winds us through thin alleys and bustling streets. The people here are gorgeous - every single one of them could top a model in a fashion magazine.

There were several different types of areas too, and I hadn't even seen most of what I assume to be the largest city of this land. The spotless glass of the shining buildings gleam in the high sun, a star that seemed so much closer to the one I was used to seeing.

As Alice lead me through the urban maze, never once looking back, I noticed four very distinct districts. It reminded me of European cities I learned about in school - how the cities were divided into sections, like the Red Light districts of Tokyo and Copenhagen.

The first one, the one we entered through - via portal hidden in a grey brick alley - reminded me of Alice. Along the sidewalks, tiny streams of silver-blue water ran inside the cement, in the shops, little oceans were stored in the walls. The workers mostly had blue eyes, dark hair, silver accents on their clothes.

The next flowed seamlessly from the first, little rivets of electricity weaving through concrete and steel buildings. Here, the people seemed almost arrogant, their eyes varying widely in color.

Alice walked faster through the third district, her hand reaching behind to grasp mine. The non-living parts of this section had no one character - rather it seemed to be a mix of several backgrounds. It was reminiscent of the melting pots of each large city, somehow like China Town meeting Little Italy and so forth. The people, too, varied - here they also seemed more…human.

My companion relaxed again when we entered the last district. My heart hammered wildly in my chest, my eyes greedily drinking in the foggy sidewalk, the supernova lantern lights, the ancient coins infused in the cement and chrome and steel. I felt, for the first time in my life, at home. It was astonishing, to say the least.

"Where are we?" I murmured, not truly searching for the answer.

Alice, though, looked at me with a raised brow. "The Death district, the district of Pluto, Underworld's Gates," she paused, seemingly arguing with herself before continuing in a quiet, wise voice. "The district of Hades."

She had anticipated my dumbfounded silence, leading me again to what appeared to be the outskirts of Hades' district. It was too large to wrap my mind fully around, though I knew that I would have to get used to it.

This was who I was now.

The building she stopped at was a bit run down for the fantastical city - non descript, not distinctive save for the very fact that it could be overlooked.

"I won't be going in," Alice states with a hint of distress in her voice. "But I will see you soon, cousin."

And with that, she's gone, seemingly evaporated into the air. I stand in front of the building blankly until I hear the low screech of the metal door being forced open.

The boy looking at me needs a shower, greasy hair hanging in his face. He gives me the creeps - the way his eyes roam over me makes me shudder in revulsion. "Well, come on in, little girl."

I feel my face tense in an expression not new to me; anger, annoyance, numb acceptance. I follow him without a word, speechless to my new surroundings.

What have I gotten into?

Edward

"Again," Jasper shouts from the side of the dull black mat. His smug encouraging face is irritating me, fueling my swelling rage - I react just as he wants me to.

"You're one sadistic son of a bitch," I spit out at him, my words dripping with annoyance. I wipe the back of my hand across my forehead, feeling my hair sticking to my skin. The tape stretches tightly across my knuckles as I flex my hands, forming loose fists again, my arms and torso burning from the intense warm-up. I lunge towards the immobile sack of sand suspended from the steel supports in the ceiling; the feel of my hand sinking into the leather is strangely satisfying.

Jasper moves behind the punching bag, bracing it so it doesn't move when I work from simple rhythm punches to kick and step patterns. My feet are constantly moving, the tape wrapped around the soles wearing thin and needing to be replenished. I breath out with every movement of my body, remaining in control.

That is, until Jasper loses his focus, his eyes widening in shock, brows furrowed in confusion.

"The fuck, man?"

Wordless, he tips his chin to something behind me, green eyes darting between me and something else. I turn my head, scowl in place and glare fixed on my face.

Mike, a sleazy son of Hermes, is leading a girl towards the back office - a large conference room where the big players typically meet up. His expression is victorious, sneering and making my mind rage. He is in no place to hold that kind of arrogance.

I know instantly she doesn't belong here of all places - no, she looks like she'd be content in a dark, quiet room not an underground gym filled with hulking males, their eyes following her with preying observance.

She's incredibly thin, dressed in skin-tight dark jeans, a tiny black shirt that leaves a sliver of her pale stomach showing and leather motorcycle boots. Even though she can't weigh more than a hundred pounds, her hips are curvy, her chest full - a perfect figure of milky skin, tiny bones. My eyes roam up from her body to her face and I swear my heart stops beating for a second.

As she turns her head, nodding to Mike, I become distracted by her perfect profile, her sloping nose and pouting pink lips. From this distance, I can't get a good glimpse of her eyes and I am immediately jealous of anybody who can see them.

Without thinking, I make a move, a slight shift it my weight, to approach her and am rebuffed by Jasper, who grabs a rough hold on my shoulder. He says something low in my ear that I don't understand, as I am too distracted by the enticing creature who is now leaving the room.

Slowly, the others in the room resume their work outs. I am only now catching my breath - clearly she only affected me this deeply, even though she distracted anybody with a Y chromosome. I have the sense that she doesn't perceive her presence as anything special.

"Who was that?" I demand in a whisper. Something inside me, something that had always been an empty void, tugs in her direction, trying to prompt my feet to move. I am frozen though, my thoughts swimming.

I want her.

It's a singular phrase repeating over and over again and the truth of it rings even in my mind.

Jasper's grip on my shoulder tightens as he speaks. "She's a new-"

"Who's?"

"I'm not sure."

"How do you know about her?" I demand. I'm craving information like an addict.

"It's her time."

Jasper doesn't have to say anymore. We all know what the "time" is; when our true powers and lives begin. It's typically a stressful time as, every fucking century, if there is a stronger child born than the last heir, the youngest takes over. It was a vicious cycle that fueled competition between siblings.

I feel my jaw flex as I fight off the tug in chest and instead turn my back to the hallway she disappeared to, pushing all my energy into breaking in the leather of the punching bag. The second punch I throw is too hard and I feel my tendons tense painfully.

"Shit," I hiss, shaking my arm out.

Jasper stares at me blankly, silently watching as I begin a desperate tangent of sputtering curses.

The underground gym was my outlet, a necessity to hash out the chaos in flowing through my veins. The physical exhaustion was enough to ground me to the earth, save me from storming to my fathers Olympus throne. He was a demanding bastard that I was unfortunately a spawn of.

The pain receded to a level I was comfortable with, my immortal body healing rapidly to accommodate my need, my anger. My annoyance at not knowing who she was is at the forefront of my mind.

I want her.

Immediately, before Jasper can stop me, I am moving towards her hallway, rushing in the poor lighting. Caged lamps hang from the ceiling in precise measurements apart; they swing as I quickly make my way to the back office.

The chipped metal door is partially open, giving me a clear view of her pale profile as she listens to the grumbling voices, their cadence deep and too harsh for her presence.

I'm shocked when I hear my fathers voice, arguing loudly at something someone has unwisely said.

"She's a mere female!"

"And a daughter of Ha-"

"That's of no consequence, Hermes!"

My brows furrow in confusion, my eyes again seeking her face. The pale skin is slowly becoming a flushed pink, from anger or embarrassment I'm not sure.

I knew, though, what they were arguing about. It was exceedingly rare for a female to be born in these modern centuries. Too many mortal affairs had led to a small community of immortals, our genes weakening from reuse though we were still the more powerful race. The primary disagreement here was a doubt of her authenticity - was she a true God or a half mortal, a Demi-God?

Her lips pressed together tightly, her hands clenching into tiny fists. I was momentarily distracted by her docile bone structure. No, she didn't belong here.

Poseidon leaned forward, his icy blue eyes flashing dangerously. "If I recall, we've had this argument before over my own daughter, Alice." There is a subtle power in his voice, so different from my own father who wore his strength on his sleeve. "Why don't we test her?"

"There is nothing we can test with! If her supposed powers are true, she could kill anyone of us."

Involuntarily, a shiver raced down my spine. What gift did this small girl have that put that fucking amount of fear in a God the caliber of Apollo?

I watched fascinated as the girl stood up sharply to her full height, hands slapping down on the table. Her voice, while extremely quiet and toneless, was soft and feminine.

"What good would it do me to kill any one of you?"

Nobody had an answer to her rhetoric question - intense silence filled the dirty office, except for the shuffling of nervous feet.

Again, the thought went through my head. I want her.

The men around her were speechless; it became very apparent to me that they had not clued her in on the discussion. Instead, she'd figured it out on her own.

Finally, Zeus spoke from his chair at the head of a black shined table. "Enroll her in the Academy," he said with a wave of his hand. Excitement shot through me and faded when I saw the malicious glint in his eye. "Set her up for the Arena, too."

My stomach dropped and my fists clenched at my sides, the revolving thought in my head replaced by a new one.

What was Zeus planning?

"I don't…fucking understand!"

I was frustrated, in more ways than one, though I could control one frustration enough to concentrate on the other. Even though my parents, hell my family, were immortal, we still had more physical frustrations.

What I was most irritated by was the unanswered question of what the hell was going on in the meeting I overheard today. I understood their concerns - they always said the same shit every time a female was proposed for heir - but assigning her to the Arena was unheard of.

Fucking literally unheard of.

The Arena was originally built to train and tame young males and eventually grew to be the Olympus version of ring fighting, although more intense. A fight could virtually never end for our people because we continued to heal at a rapid rate.

Personally, I had…slight anger issues. Between the two of us, Jasper was the laid back one and I was the more violate one. The proof was fucking obvious as I was the reigning champion of the ring.

At the moment, though, I was pacing quickly across the locker room while Jasper leaned lazily against the chipped metal.

"What's to understand?" he questioned. I rolled my eyes at him, throwing a glare in his general direction. "They're just testing her."

I threw my hands in the air. "That's just it! Why? They didn't test Alice like that, or any of the other females!"

On cue, his face lit up like a fucking human Christmas tree at the mere mention of Alice's name - it was no secret between us that he was sweet on the daughter of Poseidon.

Quickly, he cleared his throat. "You said they said something about her powers?"

I nodded yet again. We'd spent the last three hours going over every fucking detail of the angry conversation between some of the most powerful Olympian Gods. The fact that she had to sit in there, not knowing what was really going on and listen to them speak about her boiled by blood.

"Maybe that's why then," Jasper offered. I paused in my furious gait - it would explain at least something about what I heard. But she was so tiny, at least a foot shorter than me; her head probably came up a few inches below my shoulder.

Still, the explanation was enough for me to calm down. My energy had been messing with the poor lighting of the Arena, anyway.

As my heartbeat slowed, I sat down heavily on the ground, leaning against a metal bench in the center of the room.

My mind flashed to the image of her again - her face was burned into my brain. I never saw her eyes and there was an intense need that I couldn't get over.

A/N: so...first fanfiction. or, i should say, first story of mine converted into a fanfiction for someone - anyone - to read. needless to say, be brutally honest. i can take it.

~cupcakeriot