Hey Guys! Long time no see! Dreadfully sorry about that, but I was having a total block when it came to this story. Not to fear, I'm officially back! This chapter is a little shorter than I planned, and Thor was supposed to arrive, but it just seemed to end naturally here. He'll be in the next chapter. It also won't take me another 2 years to update again, promise.

Queen of the Skies

Book One: A Flash of Lightning

Chapter Five: Phenomenon

When I opened my eyes in the morning, something was different.

It was the light. It was still the gray-green light of a cloudy day in the forest, but it was clearer somehow. I realized there was no fog veiling my window. I jumped up to look outside, and then groaned in horror. A fine layer of snow covered the yard, dusted the top of my truck, and whitened the road. But that wasn't the worst part. All the rain from yesterday had frozen solid — coating the needles on the trees in fantastic, gorgeous patterns, and making the driveway a deadly ice slick. It might be better for me to go back to bed now. It was too bad, I was almost excited at the day laid before me. Having an ally, maybe even a friend that was truly outside this whole SHIELD business, and knew who I was was a relief that I didn't know I could even experience. I dressed simply in the same black long sleeve shirt that I had worn last night, just slipping an oversized flannel shirt over the top, and jeans. Bella Swan really needed help when it came to her clothes. Great, now I'm referring to myself in the third person. Forks was gonna drive me crazy in no time at all. Not to mention the damn ice. Clumsy Bella Swan would die out there today

I bounded down the stairs, not even letting my pending insanity and possible death by fake clumsy get me down. Charlie was already at work at the police station, aka SHIELD's Forks HQ, and Clint was sitting at the Kitchen table, munching on a piece of toast.

"There's coffee in the pot ." He informed me, quietly drinking from his own mug.

"Thanks." I grinned, taking my favorite mug that had somehow made it all the way from Malibu to here and filling it with the life giving nectar that was coffee. Clint raised a brow at me, suspicions rising.

"You're awfully chipper this morning." He noticed, and I shrugged, munching on some cereal and drinking some orange juice straight from the carton.

"Made a new friend yesterday." Clint turned to me, immediately becoming more official.

"Who?" He asked seriously, obviously wanting to be able to know who he might have to end up protecting me from.

"One of the Cullens." I said, watching Clint carefully. The beginnings of my suspicions were confirmed when Clint immediately choked back on his coffee at the sound of that last name. There was something fishy going on here, and I wanted to know what. Why would SHIELD have such a strong presence in this tiny little town, and how on earth could Rosalie have known that they were here? Yes, something definitely stank about this whole ordeal. On a normal day, I would have just used JARVIS to hack SHIELD, and then I would have known every single dirty secret they had, but I had been forced to leave my precious laptop behind when I came here, so I had no access to JARVIS. Not to mention SHIELD probably is monitoring the run down desktop they had provided me. Really? A desktop, that runs on dialup? Just kill me now, it would be less painful.

"Really, which one?" Clint asked carefully, like he was trying to remain calm but was internally freaking out.

"Rosalie." I said nonchalantly, watching Clint closely out of the corner of my eye. Clint grimaced, downing the remainder of his coffee in one fell swoop.

"Come on, we're gonna be late." He said, standing and grabbing his bag.

I received a pleasant surprise when we got to school that morning. A cherry red BMW was parked in the student parking lot, and a familiar set of glowing golden curls was coming out of the main office. Clint caught sight of her too, and frowned.

"Great." He muttered darkly. He immediately got out of his car and stalked towards the gym, leaving me to greet the blonde coming towards me.

"Rosalie." I greeted as I got out of the car. "What are you doing here?" Rosalie smiled, handing me a large coffee with extra cream and sugar.

"Oh, just fixing a few things up at the office. It seems that several student's schedules have been in serious need of rearranging, and I came down early to make sure everything went smoothly." Rosalie gave me a coy, mischievous smile, which I returned.

"So if I were to, say, not run into any of your siblings all day?" I asked.

"It would seem that you made the list of schedules that needed revising." Rosalie responded airily, before laughing. "Edward and Alice are gonna freak." I joined her, both of us laughing hard at the thought of Alice and Edweird's reactions.

"Do I have any classes with them still?" I asked, and Rosalie shook her head, handing me my new schedule.

"None at all." Rosalie replied smugly. " I arranged it so you'd share classes with your friends though, Jessica and Angela." I smiled at that. Things were definitely looking up for me.

"I swear, Jess isn't even human most days." I said conversationally, and Rosalie briefly froze. It was only for a fraction of a second, but I noticed. She continued on almost at once, and laughed along with me. Her laugh seemed kind of strange, and there was an air of slight discomfort coming from her now.

"That girl sure is something." Rosalie agreed, still rather uncomfortable. "Anyways, I should be getting to class. See you later Bella." And with that, Rosalie gracefully sped away, leaving me with a case of utter confusion and utter whiplash. Why had Rosalie become so uncomfortable all of a sudden? She was acting like Edward had the other day when he lied to me about why his eye color had gone from black to gold. Shaking my head, I started to walk across the parking lot towards my new first class. I had just managed to land a spectacular fake fall which scattered the contents of my bag, and had started to gather everything up again when I heard an odd sound. It was a high-pitched screech, and it was fast becoming painfully loud. I looked up,

startled.

I saw several things simultaneously. Nothing was moving in slow motion, the way it does in the movies. Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster, and I was able to absorb in clear detail several things at once.

Edward Cullen was standing four cars down from me, staring at me in horror. His face stood out from a sea of faces, all frozen in the same mask of shock. But of more immediate importance was the dark blue van that was skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning wildly across the ice of the parking lot. It was going right for me. I didn't even have time to close my eyes, thinking instead in a second how shattered Dad would be when he got the news. At least he'd refuse to work with SHIELD and Fury ever was a plus.

Just before I heard the shattering crunch of my bones giving way as the van careened into me,

something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I was lying on the pavement behind the tan car I'd been next to. But I didn't have a chance to notice anything else, because the van was still coming. It had curled gratingly around the end of the truck and, still spinning and sliding, was about to collide with me again. A low, ground out curse made me aware that someone was with me, and the voice was impossible not to recognize. Two long, white hands shot out protectively in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face, the large hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the van's body. Huh, I guess the weirdo coppertop had some balls after all.

Then his hands moved so fast they blurred. One was suddenly gripping under the body of the van, and something was dragging me, swinging my legs around like a ragdoll's, till they hit the tire of a tan car. A groaning metallic thud hurt my ears, and the van settled, glass popping, onto the asphalt — exactly where, a second ago, my legs had been. It was absolutely silent for one long second before the screaming began. In the abrupt bedlam, I could hear more than one person shouting my name. But more clearly than all

the yelling, I could hear Edward Cullen's low, frantic voice in my ear.

"Bella? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." My voice sounded strange. I tried to sit up, and realized he was holding me

against the side of his body in an iron grasp. Jeez, cold much?

"Be careful," he warned as I struggled to get away from him. "I think you hit your head pretty hard."

"I'm fine, I brushed him off, staring at him intently. "How did you get over here so fast?" I turned to sit up, and this time he let me, releasing his hold around my waist and sliding as far from me as he could in the limited space.I turned to him again as he slid away, my very best Bitch, please look firmly in place. That was how they found us. a crowd of people with tears streaming down their faces,

shouting at each other, shouting at us.

"Don't move," someone instructed.

"Get Tyler out of the van!" someone else shouted. There was a flurry of activity around us. I tried to get up, but Edward's cold hand pushed my shoulder down.

"Just stay put for now." He instructed, and my death glare increased tenfold.

"You were halfway across the lot." I insisted. "How the hell did you get to me so fast?"

His expression turned hard. "No, I wasn't."

"I saw you." I insisted. All around us was chaos. I could hear the gruffer voices of adults arriving on the scene. But I obstinately held on to our argument; I was right, and he was going to

admit it.

"Bella, I was standing with you, and I pulled you out of the way." He unleashed an all out puppy dog pout on me, and I set my jaw. The gold in his eyes blazed. "Please, Bella."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Trust me," he pleaded, his soft voice overwhelming.

"Why the hell would I do that?" I demanded. "I don't know you. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go Charlie."

"I did just save your life." Edward pointed out.

"Ehh, try again." I said, mimicking an alarm buzzer. Edward's eyes turned flinty, and his shoulders set into place like marble. The van started to shift then, and I immediately shut up as Clint dated in, immediately dragging me onto my feet and placing himself in between Edward and me.

"Bella, are you ok?" Clint questioned urgently, eyes not leaving Edward. I shrugged, knowing he could see me out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm fine Clint, Edward pulled me out of the way before the van hit me." I told him.

"She hit her head pretty bed." Edward informed Clint, mouth firm and eyes concentrated on Clint, like something about him was super frustrating. "She might have a concussion." Clint grimaced, and turned to look at another teacher who just made his way in.

"Tell the office that I'm going to take a personal day. I'll take Ms. Swan home and look after her." The teacher nodded, but Edward stepped forward, obviously displeased.

"She needs a hospital, her head…"

"Looks ok to me kid. No need to get her checked out just yet. I'll bring her in myself if she starts showing any symptoms."

"My father." Edward began again.

"Isn't even her primary physician, nor are you for that matter. Good day, Mr. Cullen." Clint said with finality, steering me back towards the teacher's lot and his own car. I glanced back as we walked away, and was shocked to see that there was a deep dent in the tan car that had been at our backs. a very distinct dent that fit the contours of Edward's shoulders… as if he had braced himself against the car

with enough force to damage the metal frame…

I spent a hellish evening under the strict observation of Clint and Charlie. There was no way I would be able to sneak out tonight, no way at all. It was too bad, because I was anxious to see Rosalie again to demand some answers from her. Charlie cleared his throat over the beer he was drinking, and I looked up at him, pulled immediately out of my head and into the present moment.

"So." He began nonchalantly, taking another sip of his beer." Clint tells me that you've been making friends with the Cullens."

"Just Rosalie." I clarified, sipping my own can of coke that Clint had provided for me last time he went to the kitchen. "The rest of them are sorta annoying." Charlie nodded, looking slightly relieved, and yet still majorly concerned.

"Good, I don't think it's a good idea for you to really be hanging around them too much." He told me seriously, and I frowned.

"Why? You and Clint both get super dodgy whenever the Cullens come up." I demanded. "Is this a SHIELD thing or something?"

"If you must know, yes." Clint said, coming in from the kitchen yet again with another loaded plate of food. "The Cullens are potential threats that we've been sent to analyze. We're not supposed to interfere unless they turn out to be hostile. We've sent some of our younger agents to try and get close to them, but with no luck."

"Then why don't you use me?" I offered. "Those weirdos have been all over me since day one. Wanting to hang out, trying to dress me up like some kind of Bella Barbie. It's sorta sickening."

"Absolutely not." Charlie said at once, while Clint looked thoughtful. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a frantic pounding at the door. Clint and Charlie automatically reached for whatever weapons they had hidden around them, and I got up to open the door. The moment I had unlocked everything, Rosalie burst in, looking more flustered and panicked than I had seen anyone look in a long time.

"Bella, quick, you've got to run." She said urgently. Immediately Charlie and Clint sprung into action, respectively pointing a gun and compound bow right at Rose as she frantically looked out at the stormy night behind her.

"What do you want, Cullen?" Clint demanded, bow pointing directly at Rosalie's frantic face. Rosalie rolled her eyes.

"I don't have time for this." She muttered. Suddenly Clint and Charlie were both sitting in their chairs again, and their weapons were in Rosalie's hands.

"There's no time for an explanation, agents. You just need to know that Bella's in danger." She snapped.

"Rose, what's happening?" I asked, rapidly becoming more and more worried the more I saw just how agitated Rosalie was.

"No time Bella, we have to go." She demanded, suddenly holding my coat. "My family wants to kill you."