A/N: Let's get this show on the road again... er, kinda, anyway. Pet your dog, pet your wolf, buckle up.

Welcome, dear reader, back to Spectrum. Or a preview of what's to come, anyway. I'd like to give an apology that the break has been substantially longer than last time. It has been seven long months since the last update. Drafting really didn't pick up for a long time, and deciding where to take this story was much, much harder than I anticipated, and I can only hope that the product is worthwhile. The story isn't done yet, and this will be the last update until the third compendium is ready. However, the break has been so long that you all deserve a confirmation that the story isn't dead. This chapter was finished in December and I haven't read it since, so try to go easy on it for me.

As the saying goes, I don't own Twilight. Unfortunately for us all, Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight, and she has no idea what she's doing.

『••✎••』『••✎••』『••✎••』

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life."
Jean-Luc Picard

『••✎••』

olympic coven

That's four in two weeks, Carlisle thought to himself, sighing.

Never before had the Cullen family met with the Quileute werewolves more frequently than they had in the last two weeks. Four confrontations, and only three of them ended somewhat peacefully, to Carlisle's count. He wasn't sure how much longer they could keep meeting with the wolves when they were rather aggressive and hostile by nature, and none of them seemed to listen to what the Cullens had to say. It's only a matter of time, now, Carlisle thought, slightly afraid of what would happen in the coming weeks. Bella's pregnancy was up in the air, the wolves were growing more agitated by the day, and a coven of Volturi haters were scoping them out hoping to recruit them. Carlisle knew that the Volturi would take personal issue with all three, and their methods of solving them wouldn't be very agreeable.

The four-century-old vampire climbed the steps that would take him into his house. One problem at a time.

"I need to write down some notes from Sam," Carlisle announced to the family members behind him, absentmindedly. "That'll make our research a lot easier, though I have my suspicions to who the coven is already," he continued. Alice nodded slightly, even though Carlisle couldn't see it. Emmett quietly muttered something that sounded like "alright". Carlisle opened the door, walking in and moving around it, holding it open for the rest of his family to walk in.

"Thank you," Esme whispered affectionately as she passed.

"If anyone has anything to add, I'll pass the notepad around afterward," Carlisle decided. Alice nodded again, with Carlisle noticing this time. "Any important notes are fair."

"Bold of you to assume he was saying something important," Emmett quipped. Carlisle ignored his side comment.

"Now if I could only find a notepad," he commented to himself, looking around the room for the first time in search of one. Instead, he found an agitated vampire, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms. He looked at his adoptive father expectantly. Carlisle sighed, remembering their sour interaction several minutes before. "I'll get to you in a moment, Jasper," he promised.

"All due respect, I deserve an explanation sooner rather than later," Jasper opinionated. "And it better be a good one."

"You have my word," Carlisle nodded, "but I really should write some things down first." Jasper nodded slowly, as if giving Carlisle permission he didn't need. Esme handed Carlisle a notepad she found on the table, followed by a brief kiss. Carlisle accepted both gladly. He took a pen out of his pocket under the watchful eyes of his entire family, with Jasper's eyes piercing the most. Carlisle jotted down a few highlights he remembered from Sam's explanation.

Female, traveled in a nomad trio. Pathokinesis. Anti-Volturi.

"Are you done?" Jasper asked impatiently. Carlisle sighed again, passing the notepad to Alice.

"I hope so," he answered quietly, preparing for the worst. Whatever speech Jasper had surely spent the last five minutes rehearsing in his head couldn't have been good news for Carlisle from any angle. He didn't regret casting Jasper away, but he didn't exactly want to deal with the fallout, either.

"Why was I sent inside?" Jasper asked in a troublingly calm voice. The evenness in Jasper's tone made Carlisle's fear much worse rather than better. He would have preferred a clean cut outburst. The lines would be a lot clearer that way. The remaining Cullens held their breath for what would happen next, with Rosalie watching from the safety of the hallway.

"Sam didn't want you there," Carlisle answered, trying to match Jasper's tone. "I couldn't exactly tell him no."

"Why couldn't you tell him no?" Jasper asked, the calmness in his tone gradually fading. "I could have told him no if you wanted me to. It would've taken five words."

"Granted, but -"

"Hell, we could have coordinated it silently if you really wanna save face this much," Jasper argued.

"I know we could have," Carlisle managed. "I thought it would be best if we gave Sam what he asked for."

"Why should we bother?" Jasper asked harshly. "Why on Earth should we respect what the dog at the top wants when he's the one asking us favors, on our property, on our time?"

"I didn't want fighting," Carlisle explained. "You remember last time, don't you? They're very easily set off. I wasn't sure if your presence alone would start a riot, so I erred on the side of caution. I'm sorry I had to exclude you, but I was keeping us as safe as I could have."

"Jasper didn't really do anything, though," Emmett brought up. Carlisle nodded.

"While that's true, Sam didn't want him there anyway," Carlisle offered, tired of answering the same question worded in different ways. "He had his reasons, I'm sure."

"What reasons?" Jasper deadpanned, doubtful that Sam's reasons were anything but racism against vampires. Carlisle sighed a third time, exasperated.

"I'm not Sam," Carlisle said, giving up. If he couldn't convince his adoptive son with what he said already, he was doubtful that anything else would work. It was Esme who would defend the Quileute Alpha, gifted with the talent of compassion, even towards people her own family considered their enemies.

"Sam recently had a bad experience with an empath," Esme explained, her voice full of care and gentleness. "He might associate it with you without meaning to. He sees that your powers are similar and fears that the same thing might happen. You might do the same in his position, Jasp."

"That's not a good enough reason," Jasper argued stubbornly. Esme frowned.

"What's done is done," Carlisle announced, facing Jasper but aimed at the entire family.

"You made our coven look weak," Jasper growled, not finished on the subject. Emmett nodded.

"You've given him the impression that he can make any demand of us and you'll do it," Emmett added. "He'll use that to his advantage the second he has the opportunity."

"What's done is done," Carlisle repeated, firmer the second time around. "I trust Sam to be reasonable. Much more reasonable than Aro would have been in the same scenario, in any case."

"Nobody's arguing that he was worse than Aro," Jasper grumbled. "We're saying he was a demanding jackass nonetheless."

"We're both trying our best to keep our families safe and out of chaos," Carlisle said. "I'm sure I've made demands they saw as unfair before. That's just how it is."

"You like them, don't you?" Jasper accused. "You're always siding with them. Defending them. They're our enemies."

"I don't hate them," Carlisle offered. "I certainly don't have a crucible against them like most vampires do. They're not too different from us."

"The Alpha dog says 'jump', you say 'how high'," Jasper whispered, just quiet enough to be heard by Carlisle, who rolled his eyes in response.

"I'll hear no more on the subject," Carlisle announced. "If you make Sam uncomfortable, Jasper, than I have to comply, or else we can't meet with the wolves at all. That's all there is to say."

"What's the downside of not meeting with the wolves, exactly?" Emmett asked.

"There's still a lot of conflict between our two groups. Meeting regularly will help move towards a stabler peace between us," Carlisle answered. "Besides, we have to work together to deal with this new coven, anyway. If the wolves are our field detectives finding out about the coven, and we're analyzing it behind the scenes while declaring neutrality to the Volturi, then we can defuse the threat without a problem."

"What's the deal with the coven, anyway?" Emmett asked. "We can let them kill the wolves and tell 'em to fuck off if they try to get us to join them. This seems like a very simple problem to me that you're thinking about too hard."

"This new coven affects us all, Emmett," Carlisle explained, remembering the notepad he passed around. "Who has the notepad?"

"Here," Esme said, handing the notepad to her mate, keeping the pen for safekeeping. Carlisle looked over what his family had written carefully.

Female, traveled in a nomad trio. Pathokinesis. Anti-Volturi.
American Revolution era Volturi crest thingy
Wanted us to fight Volturi
This is stupid.

"This'll be enough," Carlisle summarized. "I know precisely who it is."

"How can you be sure?" Alice asked. "There are a lot of vampires in the world, and all of them know the Volturi. Nobody likes them. It only takes one hotheaded moron to start a coven trying to take them out. It could be anyone, and we don't have a lot of info here."

"I've met them before," Carlisle revealed. "I was still part of the Volturi when I last saw her."

"Why didn't you tell the wolf when he was interrogating us?" Jasper asked, suppressed optimism in his voice to see Carlisle hiding things from the wolves.

"I had to be sure," Carlisle admitted. "I don't know if Sam would appreciate getting maybes. I can say with certainty now. Follow me."

『••✎••』

It had been many moons since he had opened it.

The binder stuffed behind his bookshelf in the library was just as dusty as he remembered it being. The once black binder of every vampire he had met from his days as a Volturi member managed to fade into a dark grey over time. Carlisle hadn't thought to open it after the first few visits from the wolves because the sheer volume of vampires cataloged in it would make searching an impossibly difficult waste of time without a lead, but finally Carlisle had gotten one. With a power and a vague backstory pinned down to the leader of the coven, all he would have to do was find her laminated page on an alphabetical basis.

"What is this old thing, again?" Rosalie asked as Carlisle flipped through page after page of distantly familiar vampires.

"Every vampire I've met from the Volturi," Carlisle answered quietly, the majority of his focus on finding the leader. "The Volturi don't know I have it," he added sheepishly. "I made it as more of a side project. I wrote down what I remembered in a small notebook and compiled it over time. I don't know what they'd do if they know I have this."

"You think you can find the leader among all this based on a couple of vague things a werewolf told us?" Emmett asked incredulously. "Consider me doubtful."

"All things are possible," Carlisle assured, about halfway through the binder. "Who else can accurately say that they got a visit from a pack of werewolves fifteen minutes ago? Our world is amazing, Emmett. And if everything else we've ever encountered can exist, I'm confident that I can locate her in the binder."

"Whatever you say," Emmett answered, watching his adoptive father lose hope in real time as he neared the end. After ten or twenty more pages, he noticed Carlisle do a double take, and he ceased flipping pages afterwards. Everybody took this as a sign of him finding the leader, and the family of vampires crowded around to look at her.

"Avis Peyton?" Jasper asked for confirmation. Carlisle nodded slowly.

"Avis Peyton," he repeated. "She's pathokinetic, just like you, Jasper. There's no mention of any.. mind controlling abilities, like Sam described, so one of the two traveling with her must have been able to influence the thoughts of others. I can't tell for sure who the other two were, but Avis was certainly pathokinetic."

"Why would she be after the Volturi?" Esme asked, scanning the brief biography Carlisle supplied.

"I don't remember," Carlisle admitted. "I didn't think she would be that important in the long run, so I only took minimal notes on her. I believe the Volturi had her mate killed for revealing himself to a small group of humans, but there's no way for me to check now. I've burned most of my bridges with Aro."

"Vampires mate for life," Alice brought up. "The male in her group couldn't have been her mate. Just someone she met. Right?"

"Right," Carlisle nodded. Alice felt proud for finally having contributed something. "I can't be sure who her direct companions were."

"If you're right, and one of the two in her direct group was hypnotic," Emmett theorized, pacing slowly in a circle. "Then even after the wolves took her out, she could still have an entire coven out there loyal to her cause," he said. Carlisle nodded slowly, apprehensive. "They would still be willing to fight the Volturi no matter who was in charge, assuming that's how the power worked."

"Avis is dead, though," Carlisle said, hardly believing the words he was saying were true. "Without a leader, the newborns would fight and kill each other. It's their nature."

"Maybe," Jasper said, stepping up as the newborn expert, "but there's still no way for us to know how the power works. We don't even know who it is. If it's strong enough, their cause could unite them whether or not Avis is still alive. How many people do you think she could have turned?"

"I'm assuming she was inspired by Victoria," Alice brought up. "It's only been a couple of months since it happened."

"With Avis's power, though, combined with the mysterious companion, their method could have easily gathered an army of a hundred by now, if they were diligent."

"Newborns fight each other, no matter how devoted they are," Jasper voiced. "Avis is gone. If nothing else, I trust the dog on that much. But as for her coven?"

The group was rendered silent, quietly pondering different outcomes for what was to come. The wolves killed Avis Peyton and her two companions; that much was written in stone. A coven of newborns would see that as treason. A coven of newborns wouldn't stop to ask questions. They knew that Avis was on a trip to recruit the Cullens, and she never came back. They might not be aware of the existence of werewolves, and assume the Cullens were to blame. How would we stop another army if they came at us all at once?

A ringing phone distracted the family. Alice fished her cellphone out of her pocket, reading the caller ID, and facing her family again.

"It's Bella," she announced nervously. The family shot up and crowded around the psychic, with Rosalie picking up slight interest and gathering as well. Alice answered her phone and put it on speaker for the whole family. Hopefully she isn't looking for a private conversation, Alice thought resignedly. "Hello, Bella?"

"Hey, Alice," Bella spoke in a rushed voice. "Is it just you?"

"Not exactly," Alice said, looking around at her family, though she knew Bella couldn't physically see them. "The whole squad is here. You're on speaker."

"Good," Bella replied quickly, surprising Alice. She almost sounded sick and nauseous. "Edward's here too. We're coming home."

"Already?" Carlisle asked. "You're not due to leave for another few days, if not a week. Is there something wrong?"

"Bella's definitely pregnant," Edward answered. "She missed her period. Is this even possible?"

"I don't know," Carlisle admitted. "I've never seen anything quite like this before."

"Well what do we do?" Edward asked, the desperateness contrasting his usual mellow character.

"Come home as soon as you can," Esme voiced. "We'll figure this out. I promise."

"What are we gonna do?" Bella whispered, quietly, seemingly talking to nobody. "How are things back home?"

"They're pretty tense," Alice answered. "I don't know how much more stress our state of affairs can handle without adding a vampire pregnancy."

"Why? What's going on?" Bella asked. "Did the Volturi visit?"

"The Volturi didn't visit," Carlisle assured. "Someone else did," he added. Edward connected the dots.

"What did they say? Anything good?" Edward asked.

"They found out about the paperclip coven," Alice said, more excited than her family expected. "They hate the Volturi. They wanted us to fight them."

"Wanted?" Bella asked for clarification, noticing the use of past tense. Alice nodded, forgetting that it couldn't be seen through the phone.

"They're dead now. The leader of the coven and two others," Alice told. Bella sighed in relief. "Turns out the wolves are good for something."

"There could be more," Jasper reminded both Alice and Bella. "The coven could still be alive and well, leader or no leader. We may not be safe here."

"What are you suggesting?" Edward asked nervously. "We can't move away from Forks."

"Why not?" Emmett posed. "We move all the time. We were gonna move anyway, now that the whole thing with Bella is in motion."

"We're not ready yet," Edward argued. "We need more time to sort the story out. Charlie, university, Renée? It needs more time to play out."

"I'm not suggesting we move away," Carlisle interrupted. "Not yet. The Volturi might already know about this coven, and if we suddenly move, that'll make us look super suspicious. In any case, they'd find us eventually. They always do. And then we'd have even more to answer for. We can't abandon ship, not now."

"We're not deserting the wolves, either," Bella said, her voice unwavering, showing how nonnegotiable her stance was. "We need them. I need them."

"We won't abandon them," Esme promised. "We'll figure this out. Just come home, please? You might not be safe so far away from us."

"We'll be back soon. Tonight. Tomorrow. I don't know, just soon," Edward vowed. "We'll figure this out," he said to everyone, including his wife beside him.

"I know we will," Carlisle assured. "We'll be okay. We always are. Trust me."

"We'll be in touch soon," Bella promised. "Bye for now."

"Bye for now," most of the Cullens repeated, bar for Rosalie. The dial tone signaled the end of the call as Alice closed the flip-phone and put it back into her pocket. The Cullen family looked around apprehensively. None of them knew what was coming, and their only portal into the future in the form of Alice couldn't see anything. Jasper did his best to suppress the fear in his coven members.

"The ball is in our court," Emmett said quietly. "What's our play?"

For that, none of the Cullens could supply a response.

『••✎••』『••✎••』『••✎••』

A/N: And it only took me thirty years to write.

Also, Happy Arbor Day! One year of Spectrum! You all made this possible. This is all you! Also, hug a tree, it's Arbor Day.

A personal apology to everyone who has been anticipating this story for a while and only got one short chapter in seven months as payoff. Writing a story is a lot harder than I anticipated it to be, and I have a bad tendency of getting discouraged by stories that I think are a lot better than mine. "This person's story makes Spectrum look like trash so why should I bother" and all that jazz. I sincerely hope the wait will be worth it for you. If it isn't, thank you so much for reading, and if it is, I'll see you at the finish line. Good luck and stay safe in these crazy times.

Deuces -
Zojak