Chapter 15

Bella's POV

Only when I was completely surrounded by dense forest, did I slow down and grind to an eventual stop. Despite the haste spell, I was still exhausted from running such a long distance at such speeds. Refusing to think about what just happened, I resumed with the actual reason why I was here; the mission.

I wandered through the forest for a few minutes, sensing nothing out of the ordinary- it looked, smelled and sounded like a typical forest. It didn't even awaken any memories from the past, except the fact that I know been out here before. The only thing that felt weird about the memories it brought back was that my Somebody didn't often come here alone... When I tried to think about the mystery person's face, I always come away blank. I was locked out. It was rather frustrating.

It was only about 5 seconds later did I notice I wasn't alone. Well, kind of not alone- I could just about hear some thoughts in front of me. With further dissection of said thought, I found that he too, was aware of my presence. Damn. There goes the no "being detected" rule. I thought. What I found odd though was how he detected me so quickly and easily. He must have been about 80 metres away, and there is no way he could see me though the dense green foliage. Then as if he could read my thoughts, his mind supplied me with the answer.

Scent.

He can... smell me, Apparently Zexioin isn't the only one who has an acute sense of smell.

Suddenly, the monotony of the forest fell way, and I burst into a decent sized clearing. But I didn't have time to look at it, because at the exact same time, the man walked through the clearing, directly opposite from me. He froze rock solid when his eyes locked onto mine.

We stood there for a tense minute, neither moving, neither saying a word. However, I was thankful for it, since a fountain of memories and feelings long forgotten surged, almost physically forcing me to my knees with the mental weight it possessed. Never, has so many memories returned to me at once. The minute gave me time to sort through them.

This man, with his dark skin and crimson eyes... Yes, I knew him in my other life. Laurent, my memories provided me; the once locked part of my mind now happily supplied me with the information I needed.

Then, two more names emerged, like pieces of driftwood in the sea. Victoria and James. The latter struck a much deeper chord, and I instinctively wanted to look at the crescent shaped scar on my right hand I knew wasn't there. The name brought back phantom pain in my hand. A searing sensation, venom burning though my veins like acid...

James had bitten me, I remembered. He was a vampire- and the man in front of me was also a vampire. I got bitten, but did not turn. I was saved by...!

Abruptly, I hit a metaphorical wall hard; the final resistance before all the blockages were destroyed. But I could sense that despite it being the last, it was by far the strongest.

I could tell that there was a good reason for this. My Somebody didn't want to remember this. By now, the minute was over and someone needed to say something.

"La-Laurent." He barely moved to acknowledge his name, just a slight movement of the an eyebrow to show his astonishment.
"Bella." That's good; he must have not noticed any difference, or at least, not enough to comment on it right now. I tried giving him what I considered a friendly smile, but I could tell though his thoughts that it didn't look quite right.
"So you remembered." His eyes fell down to my black organization, the astonishment on his smooth face shifting to polite curiosity.
"What unique attire."
"Yeah" I lied, not skipping a beat. "It's the new fashion nowadays." Laurent nodded, looking satisfied by my answer, albeit still rather suspicious. According to his thoughts, it was my smell that gave me away. There isn't much I can do about that now. Or ever.

"What are you doing here? Arent you supposed to be Alaska with Tanya?" I queried. He nodded.
"Yes," he agreed. "But I came to see the Cullens. It seemed that they moved on." I wracked my brains for where I had heard the name 'Cullen' before. I could remember it being a last name; a significant one at that. I think they were also vampires. But I could not figure out why it was so important to me.

But according to Laurent, they had left me, so I decided it was best to agree with him to avoid arousing any more suspicion.
"They did," I said simply.
"And they didn't take you with the? Weren't you sort of a pet of theirs?" I didn't betray the confusion I was feeling on my face. A pet? Was I like a slave to this family of vampires? I had no idea. Yet again, I decided to agree with him.
"Something like that."
He moved closer to him, eating away at the distance between us. Not wanting to look as anxious as I felt, I mirrored his actions, until we were about 10 metres away, an adequate distance to react if he chose to run at me for any reason.

All of a sudden, his thoughts took a completely different turn, and only then, did I notice the significance of his dark red eyes. Oh crap.

Laurent sighed, shaking his head. "She's not going to be very happy about this."
"Who?" I asked, even though I already knew. His thoughts about his intentions sounded loud and clear. But obviously, he didn't know this, and proceeded to explain.
"Victoria. She won't be happy about me killing you. She wanted to do it herself- mate for mate. I'm here as a favour to her, to get the lay of the land. But you caught me at a bad time; I was hunting. And you smell..." He took a deep breath, to emphasize his point. "...Even better than I remember. It's like there is another deeper level, I would say, to your scent, so tempting, almost... dark. I've never smelled anything quite like it. It's simply mouthwatering."

It made sense, I guess. I remember Zexion once explaining it to me when I asked about the importance of light and dark:
"We smell of darkness," He had said. "The darkness is very tempting in every sense of the term, and it manifests in different forms in different people depending on what their darkest desire is. For some, it might be the promise of power. In others, it might be the chance of fulfilling another dark desire, and that's where the darkness gains its power. And that's why so many people fall to the side of darkness.

He had explained it further, but I figured that now isn't the time to be thinking about that.

I took a step back, getting ready to summon my staff. "I wouldn't do that if I was you." I warned. He grinned, obviously not taking me seriously. I'll make him regret that.
"It's nothing personal," He stated. "Just thirst." He continued walking insultingly slow towards me.

Summoning my staff in one hand, I gestured to his feet with me empty hand.
Seemingly out of no-where, translparent, high density crystal burst from the ground underneath him, quickly growing around his feet and calves. This was a nifty trick I had perfected when I found out I could literally stop anything or anyone (especially those damned heartless that have a habit run away) in their tracks after what I did to Marluxia. So far, it had worked on Lexeaus, the strongest member physically, and I couldn't help but be curious to see if it would work with a vampire with unnatural strength.

Seeing how Laurent seemed to be struggling and the way how the crystal seemed to be holding, I would consider it a success.

His beautiful face was warped in anger , a deep growl emitting from him. "What did you do?" I gave him an almost cruel smirk.
"I told you I wouldn't do that if I was you." And with that, I allowed the crystal to climb his slender frame, until it completely covered him in a rough outline, freezing the furious expression on his face. The meadow fell deathly quiet.

My mind worked quickly, scanning through the newly unlocked memories, trying to remember the way to kill vampires as I soon heard a barely audible crack coming from Laurent. The crystal was slowly but surely weakening, and even though nothing had changed on the outside, I could intimately sense the its crystalline structure breaking; if I didn't think quickly, he would break though in no time.

"Hey Bella!" A familiar voice called not to far away. I turned to see Axel sauntering over to me.
"Hi Axel, I'm kind of in the middle of something here," I said, pointing to the Laurent.
"Is that-"
"Yes, It's a vampire- a vampire that will be incredibly pissed off when he breaks out if I don't kill him soon." Axel made a face.
"Do you happen to remember how to kill a vampire?"
"I'm just trying to remember it now... Yes, I think you have to cut it into pieces and set it on fire" I barely remembered the hazy memories of James being destroyed. "But I don't think I have anything strong enough to cut through vampires, if I remember correctly, only vampires can tear through other vampires."

Axel grinned at the mention of fire and general idea of slicing vampires to pieces. "Leave it to me, my chakrams should be sharp enough to cut thorough," He said, summoning said weapons. With a muttered word under his breath, flickering tongues of flame ignited, licking each sharp metal spike.

With a quick spin of the chakrams to gain momentum, he threw them at the crystal figure, aiming at the vampire's arms with deadly precision.

However, instead of slicing though, as Axel expected, the weapons bounced back, barely leaving a chip on the rugged surface. The redhead caught the rebounded chakrams, frowning.
"Usually I can cut through your crystal with enough force behind it..."
"This is much stronger than my usual crystal you like to use as target practice," I said, recalling the times he, Roxas and I trained together. "Vampires have monstrous strength, after all. Here, try this."

I took one of the sharp weapons, casting a short spell, aiming at each of the eight spikes, and at my command, dark crystal, denser and stronger than the one that encased Laurent, formed on the sides of the spikes. Unlike the other clear crystal, which had crude jagged edges, this crystal was smoother, tapering off to a very sharp edge that had the potential of cutting through the other, lighter crystal. After doing the same to the other chakram, I gave them back to Axel, who grinned.
"Sweet."
He once again, shrouded them in fire (I made sure the crystal was fire resistant) and threw them at the dark skinned vampire. This time, they sliced through with ease. Once the flaming weapons met vampire flesh, it instantly caught fire as his arms fell onto the grass with a heavy thud. Even though his expression was still frozen in anger, I could almost feel the agonizing pain he must have been going through.

Axel kept on going, resummoning and throwing his weapons with such grace, I couldn't help but believe that he deserved his title of 'The flurry of dancing flames'

Soon, all that was left was about 10 large shards of crystal on the ground, each with a piece of what used to be vampire inside. Instead, all there was was fire, which combined with my crystal, threw various hues of oranges and reds everywhere, which I found rather pretty.

Before Axel and I could bask in the pride of killing our first vampire, I sensed something approaching us at speeds that I knew only vampires could achieve. I tensed at the thought of another vampire that we might be forced to fight. (Maybe it could be Victoria, who had followed Laurent?) Many scenarios raced though my head, but they were all blown out the water when I saw the face that ran though the trees. I froze in horror as her name came to mind.

"A-Alice?!"

A/N : And that's another chapter done! And another cliff-hanger, of course! Over 2000 words, which is my longest chapter ever! It's 1:30 am, but I really wanted to finish this chapter so badly... Well, there are only two more chapters and an epilogue left; Cake is almost at an end! :(