Pancrazio

We spent the day we arrived at Volterra making plans. There was a message at ten o'clock the day after Allesandra was taken.

'There will be another message at twenty one hundred hours, be prepared to fight for her oh mighty leader.'

There was no signature but Matthew was convinced he knew who was doing this. He thought it was Lucien. I knew he blamed himself for letting him free and allowing him to do this.
"Bella, Eddie and Esther will go straight for Alexandra. Anelie and Lidiya remain out of the room until Alexandra is safely in their shield and she will be handed to her mother as soon as possible. Benjamin will remain in the castle with Zac, Ezra and Ariella. Ariella will boost as many of us as possible before we enter the throne room." I announced the plan to the room.
At the mention of Ariella, I looked over to her direction. I had never hated anyone as much as I hated her, even over my own father who raped my mother and wanted to use me to breed him a hybrid army. Ariella had manipulated Matthew into leaving us as a child, I spent years seeing my wife in pain, knowing something was drastically wrong with her but not knowing what it was, I then went through months of not believing her when she told us we had a son. Chantelle and I had never had marriage problems before but the three years of not knowing Matthew had taken an immense toll on our marriage, we had moved past it and came out even stronger in the end but I will forever remember them years of seeing Chantelle so confused. I can still see her waking up screaming from nightmares of this mysterious child she so desperately needed to protect and couldn't. That was Ariella's fault and whenever I saw her face I remember her lies and the pain she caused my wife and the childhood my son never had. I only tolerated her presence because I knew she meant something to Matthew. Matthew told me she was the only friend he had for a while and comforted him when there was no one else around, he insisted she kept him alive and so I agreed to tolerate her presence.
"Why don't we just freeze them all in place and run in and get Alexandra?" Bella asked looking to Esther, "We have both Esther and Ezra, they have the same ability."
"We can try that but it doesn't hold long," Esther explained.
"Lucien knows the abilities we have, if he is declaring war, telling me I have to fight for my daughter, he has something up his sleeve we don't know about. Ezra's ability isn't going to stop them, Lucien wouldn't dare face us without a guarantee he would stand a chance." Matthew said.
"What does he have that we don't?" Zac asked looking to Esther proudly. "We have literally every ability you can think of."
"Esther is powerful but she can be caught off guard, she isn't indestructible," Eddie told him, Zac didn't like that; he glared slightly as if to tell Eddie to back off. "You shouldn't just expect Esther to be able to save the day all the time, you're so ignorant, and she isn't God. I get she's powerful but think of the bigger picture. She can't be everywhere at once and I actually care about her coming out of this alive," Eddie told Zac. It was no doubt Esther was powerful but Eddie had a very good point. We couldn't rely on her to win this. We had to be tactical.
"Don't you dare tell me about what I care about! I've loved her since I was a teenager, far more than you ever loved her." Zac said. I saw Esther roll her eyes, her hand reaching out to Zac to calm him down.
"Calm down," Chloe glared at her best friend and her husband. "He didn't say you didn't care about Esther."
"Now is not the time for this!" Chantelle yelled at her friends bickering. "My granddaughter has been abducted, I don't give a damn who cares about Esther the most, Zac grow up and get over your on-going pathetic hatred of Eddie. It's been forty years!" She glared at Zac. Everyone was silent, all watching Chantelle. "I want to hug my granddaughter and tell her how much I love her, I'm sure many of you want to do the same, so let's get her back!" She demanded and threw her hands on the table. She kicked her chair back and stormed out the room, leaving us all in complete silence.
"For the record, I don't still hate Eddie," Zac said quietly after a few moments.
"Shut up Zac," I mumbled. He did and looked down to his hands. I saw Rosalie start to stand up to go after her daughter but I shook my head and stood up from my seat. I left the room to find my wife in the bedroom we were using whilst we were here. She was sobbing on the bed.
"Chanti," I sighed as I reached her, I pulled her from the bed and onto my lap, she cried into me.
"We'll get her back," I promised her.
In reality I had no idea if we'd get her back but seeing my family like this, seeing my son and my daughter-in-law so sad, I had to believe it would get better.

By the time nine pm came, the entire guard was on alert, we didn't know what was going to happen, where was the message? Were we supposed to go out and find it? Were they coming to us to fight?
The clock in the throne room struck nine and the doors bounced open and hit the walls with a slam. Someone walked into the room.
"Follow me," they announced and turned back to the door. I looked to Matthew and he nodded. The entire guard and our family followed the vampire out of the throne room and the castle, across the grounds and towards the outskirts of Volterra, the closer I got to this city the worse I felt. This was where I was born; I had too many memories of this place. They didn't lead us to the old Volturi lair though they led us to an abandoned building made entirely of wood. We entered the building into a large room, it was clear all the walls had been knocked down to make the building one big room, there was wood was piled in the centre of the room in the style of a bonfire, it was clear they expected there to be deaths. The room had a strong smell of petrol as well. It wouldn't take long for that bonfire to burn.
Matthew and I remained at the front of the guard, everyone else lined behind us. Lidiya and Anelie to the right of Matthew with Tony in wolf form and Chantelle to the left of me. They would all step back the moment the fight broke out but until then they remained at our side. I scanned the room immediately. There were fifteen people including the one that brought us here. In the far corner of the room I saw a limp body of a child, of Allesandra. I heard Chantelle gasp when she followed my gaze.
"She's not dead," Lidiya said strongly, I don't know what Matthew had done to make her stop crying but she was standing, hand in hand with her sister and she wasn't sad, she was emotionless, she was strong and she was Death, only she knew if Allesandra was dead or not. She was too far to hear a heartbeat; the room was huge.
It was then that Lucien walked in with a huge grin on his face. Matthew had been right.
"I knew you'd bring them," was the first thing Lucien said. "When everything goes bad you always want your mommy and daddy," he teased Matthew, Matthew remained emotionless. "Like the look of your daughter?" Lucien asked, I looked back at Allesandra to see she was tied to a wooden pillar and her head hanged forward with her long brown hair covering her face. I quickly looked around the room assessing the building, everything was wood. Everything. When that fire is set alight it wouldn't take long before the entire room was on fire, including the post Allesandra was tied to. It was a trap. The child groaned and as she woke, she lifted her head, she tried to pull on the restraints but she couldn't move. She looked to us across the room and her eyes widened.

"Mama! Papa!" She screamed. I watched as both Matthew and Lidiya barely reacted. "Papa," she cried again, her call was tugging at my heart strings. "Papa!" She screamed a heart wrenching scream. I knew it must have taken all the strength in the world for Matthew and Lidiya not to react to the cries of their child but they knew if they reacted it would give Lucien what he wanted. Proof that Matthew couldn't put on a mask, couldn't be the leader he needed to be.
"I think Allesandra wants you," Lucien teased Matthew.
"Don't you dare say her name!" Matthew sneered. He turned to our family behind him.
"Eddie, Esther, Bella," Matthew declared. I watched as Anelie and Lidiya took a step back towards the door, hidden behind the guard. Eddie, Bella and Esther took a step forward.
"Ah yes, the shields," Lucien grinned, "go ahead, see if you can get to her before she burns alive, your precious life and death twins can't save her if there's nothing left to save," he grinned and tossed something into the middle of the room, the wood set alight. I realised then that Lucien knew he didn't stand a chance, not with Anelie and Lidiya but he was making time, the fighters were to distract us whilst he burnt Allesandra alive.
"Now!" Matthew called. We all started running towards Allesandra before the flames engulfed her, she was screaming out for Matthew and it ran through my body as adrenaline, we needed to get to her, and fast. The entire place would be in flames in minutes, if not less. Bella, Eddie and Esther took a step forward, they weren't able to run to her, their concentration would break and the shields would drop so they had a minute to make it across the room whilst we fought off anyone that got in their way, the people stopping us knew that they just had to hold us off long enough for the fire to reach the girl, I wondered how Lucien had brought together so many people to die and were willing to let a child die in the process.
"Esther!" I yelled. "Freeze them" I told her. She tried to freeze our attackers but shook her head.
"They have something stopping it. I can't." She answered. It didn't matter anyway, people were dropping dead left right and centre, some without even being torn apart, I looked back to see Lidiya hand in hand with Anelie at her side, she was looking from enemy to enemy, killing them in a single thought, she left Lucien alone though, I assumed she was leaving Matthew to deal with him.
"Concentrate on getting Allesandra!" Matthew told Esther as he collided with Lucien, Lucien laughed manically.
"Your loyalties are in the wrong place. You're attacking me when your daughter is dying," he told him.
"I don't understand your test," Matthew yelled at him over the fighting and sound of flames.
"Your test was whether you called your family, and you did. You failed. You are no Volturi." He told him sneering the word 'family'. "We took you too late. You were already too emotionally invested. I should have come for you sooner."
"You came just at the right time, you made me relentless when it comes to family," Matthew declared and reached to touch him just once, probably forcing him to forget who any of us were. "You can thank Ariella for this," he chimed.
"Wha- what just happened?" Lucien asked.
"You died," Matthew told him and grabbed him by the arm and threw him into the growing fire.

"PAPA!" I heard Allesandra scream, my head whipped around from where I was watching Matthew to Allesandra, my heart stopped at the sight. The wood around her was on fire. Bella, Eddie and Esther were drastically climbing over the falling building towards her but it was too late. I watched as the wood around her set alight and she screamed out. I couldn't watch and my mind filled with only one thought.
Stop Lidiya from seeing this.
I ran to my daughter-in-law who was only a few feet from me and pulled her away from her sister and into my chest and faced her away.
She was in shock as she leant against my chest, I wouldn't let her go, I wouldn't let her witness this. After a few seconds she started to struggle, as if she realised what I was doing.
"No Lidy, you don't need to see this," I told her, my voice cracking with emotion, I knew what was happening behind me and I couldn't bring myself to watch. I was less human than her, she wasn't as strong as me and I would do everything in my power to stop her seeing this.
"No! My baby! Allesandra!" She cried, she was speaking Bulgarian as she collapsed into my chest and sobbed. I looked over my shoulder to see Esther, Eddie and Bella had stopped and Esther was on the floor on her knees, Eddie had his arms around her in comfort. Allesandra had stopped screaming and I dropped my grasp on Lidiya.
"No," she cried hysterically, I felt my own tears flood from my eyes as I slumped in defeat.

I wanted to scream in rage.
I was boiling in anger, I needed to kill something, destroy something, murder someone. But I didn't, I sat there slumped over, utterly defeated.
"Alexandra!" Matthew screamed, I turned and watched as he and Lidiya ran through the room, the fire was wild and spreading, it wouldn't be long before the building fell down.
"Matthew!" Chantelle called out to our son, he was running straight to the fire, where his daughter had been burnt alive right in front of us.
"Alexandra," both he and Lidiya were sobbing.
"Bring her back! Bring her back why did you let her die?" he yelled at his wife.
"She didn't let her die Matthew!" Esther defending her daughter standing up from Eddie's embrace. "She can't turn ashes and bone to flesh. No one can."
Lidiya was sobbing where the fire was still burning Allesandra's remains.
"Anelie," he sobbed, still trying to find an answer. Everyone had stopped now. The fight was over, we won the fight but so had Lucien. We stood there as we watched Matthew and Lidiya cry for their daughter. Chantelle walked over to me and I held her securely to my chest, she was sobbing too.
"I can't Matthew. There's no body. She's gone," Anelie cried, she fell to her knees next to Lidiya and in perfect synchronisation they sobbed. Each other's pain would be magnifying the other.
The life and death twins, they were the most powerful two people on this planet and they had been beaten by fire. They could bring back almost anything and anyone. But not this.

"Put the fire out!" I demanded the nearest guard member; "find extinguishers, there must be buildings near here!" I commanded them, they nodded, ran out the building and it wasn't long before they returned with fire extinguishers. It was starting to get really smoky in this room and the part human of us wouldn't be able to breathe much longer, Chantelle was already coughing into my chest.
"Lidy no!" Esther grabbed her daughter when she tried to run to where Alexandra had been, she was all but a pile of bones now. The worst part was if she was pure human, she'd be dead but the fire wouldn't have burnt away her flesh this quick, she would be badly burnt but her body would still be there and Anelie would have been able to bring her back to life and Lidiya would be able to heal her. Her vampire part made her incredibly flammable, just like everyone in this room, it had burnt her to ash and bone far too fast for us to stop it.
"The moon pool! It will save her right?" Lidiya asked her mother.
"There's nothing left Lidy," Esther told her daughter, tears falling from her own eyes. Lidiya broke down for a second time, and she cried hysterically in her mother's arms. Everyone was watching in silence as Esther tried desperately to comfort her broken daughter in the smoke.
My heart was heavy and hung painfully in my chest. The entire room was silent except for Lidiya's distraught sobs, she wasn't the only one crying but she was the loudest. The guard had managed to put the flames out where Allesandra had been but the building was still on fire, the flames had spread so much faster than I anticipated and it was only seconds before the building was going to fall.
"We have to get out of here," I said, my voice weak and I felt like my grief was coming off me in uncontrollable waves. "The building is about to fall," I announced and pulled my wife back towards the door. Others started to follow me, Matthew lifted Lidiya into his arms as if he was cradling a child and he was the last to walk out, tears streaming down his angelic face as the building collapsed behind him.

6 months later.

The sun shone brightly through my chamber window, I dressed in my dark red robe and walked over to open the only window in the room, it was a warm spring morning and as I opened the latch something caught my eye, the white marble angel statue that stood over where Allesandra's bones lay was sparkling in the sun, the light danced off the angels wings and the flowers that surrounded Allesandra's memorial seemed to stretch in the morning sun as if they were waking for the day, they blossomed and swayed in the gentle breeze and I was momentarily awestruck at the beauty of the picture.
I was briefly aware of someone knocking and Chantelle letting them into our chambers.
"Master Pancrazio, the court is starting," I heard Ezra call softly behind me; I pulled my eyes from the sight outside my window and turned to my guard member, nodding my head and leaving the room hastily.
I entered the throne room to see guests had already been let in.
This was a regular occurrence now, I would sit and address visitors and guests every morning from nine to twelve. Listening their problems or requests and try and think of the most diplomatic way to solve the situation. This was a young vampire, clearly a newborn the way he fidgeted with control issues.
"I have come to ask for your help," the vampire announced. I walked over and sat on my throne. I drilled my fingers absent mindedly against the arm rest; this was how each and every boring day started and I ached for the clock to tick midday when I could go hunting or be with my wife.
"With what?" I asked. Not even looking at the vampire, I was aware Matthew sitting next to me, he was watching the vampire but there was no life in his eyes. After Alexandra's death he had turned into the most brutal leader I had ever seen, he ordered kill orders on anyone that he deemed fit to die; he showed no forgiveness and no compassion to anyone. Only a month after Allesandra's death I pulled him aside and told him to snap out of it, in response to that he went catatonic. I knew I had to take over, I had to take his place, I needed to save his sanity, he needed to grieve and he needed to move on but he couldn't do that when he was in charge of the Volturi. He had been so strong during the time Alexandra was missing that he didn't let one second of his time be wasted crying over her, he had to get her back. The day she died it turned him positively relentless. He needed to blame someone; he needed to kill everything that stood in his way, this was sending him insane, not grieving was the worst thing he could do as a parent. I had watched my daughter grieve the loss of her first child and although it killed me to watch, she got better and Matthew needed to do the same. I had taken his robe from him and told him to take his wife away from here, I would take care of his son but he and Lidiya needed to leave, they needed to grieve together and find each other again. They had, and later came back different people. Matthew now sat at my side, only a shell of who he used to be but he was slowly gaining himself back again, I knew one day he would be the Matthew he was before Alexandra's death but we were vampires and we loved intensely and he had loved his daughter deeply, it would take him years, decades and maybe centuries to be able to speak about her without getting angry or upset. I knew Lidiya was the same but they would get better. I believed it. I had to. In the mean time I would do everything in my power to save my sons sanity and to keep him alive, even if it was only just. Esther moved permanently into the castle to be with her daughters and support Lidiya. Chantelle and I moved to Italy, and Jasper, Alice, Rose and Emmett followed us. They helped out with Benjamin, he was angry a lot since his sister's death, all he wanted to do was kill anyone that he didn't know personally and he blamed everyone for losing his sister. It was tragic, watching my grandson grow up in such a sad household. He was surrounded by so many people that loved him but everywhere you looked you saw the absence of his sister and it was going to drive him crazy. No child should have to grow up like that. I hoped the love we could give him would be enough but nothing would replace his little sister he adored so much. The only thing I could do now was help my son the best that I could.

I was born to lead the Volturi and that was what I would do, for as long as I had to, because I knew I would not desert my son now. Eventually we would go back to America and probably rule the vampire world from there but for now half the Cullen's were uprooted to Italy. I knew our family didn't mind, they just wanted to be near us. To be honest having Jasper here was everything to me. He reminded me who I was, I was not Volturi, I was a Cullen and I would lead the guard and this world as a Cullen and not as Aro's son, Jasper had trained me, he had taught me, he had loved me and he had helped me as a child see who I could be; who I wanted to be. I didn't have to be like my father, I didn't have to be a cruel leader. As a child I always knew I'd come back here, come back to lead and rule the vampire world but when I grew older and I married and had children I thought maybe that day may never come but it had, I was here, but not as Aro's son.

As Jasper Hale's son and I would lead the Volturi in a way that would make him proud.

The End.