We must let that alone forever

[secondcity_mods]

Characters: Everyone - if you were in the false Chicago, this affects you.
Time: Night
Location: Demonreach and all around the city
Content: It all ends here.
Warnings: None
Format: Poster's choice

Comments

[wantsaporsche]

The night sky would have been glorious, Alice thought, if the dark clouds that covered the luminous stars didn't so plainly foretell that this night might very well be her last.

It was almost like she was in a dream now, even though she knew she was sitting against one of the massive neoclassical pillars outside of the Field Museum. The air was filled with a strange, unfamiliar electric current that Alice had never been able to sense before. It clouded her precognitive abilities, casting the future into a bleak shadow of possibilities. She couldn’t see past this night - even after fighting for so long, it seemed so futile to continue. This was a battle beyond her understanding.

What she wanted, more than anything, was to be with the rest of her family before the last nightmare fell. She had those scant few days with Jasper, but now it seemed as if the curtain would fall before she had the chance to say anything. Closing her eyes, she let the dream continue to pass her by - at least she knew that he knew, however many worlds away he was.

It hurt to think about it, being here, very much alone.

Use that pain.

When she opened her eyes, she was abruptly somewhere unfamiliar, surrounded completely by strange flashing lights. It made her skin tingle and burn and the first thought that echoed through her mind was, this is magic. It was different from the magic that the others in the city had used - it was both a fiery light and an oppressing darkness, agitated and fierce. She cringed at the thought of comprehending it - decades upon decades of weaving among human life, and even these past few months, had not equipped her to deal with something of this magnitude.

She was about to break away when she saw it - a pair of green eyes, blazing with a fury hot enough to scorch a person’s soul. Alice thought she recognized the face - no, she knew who this person was. It was the same woman who had destroyed the Chicago Cultural Center, the one who had stolen all those artifacts. Hurt so many people. This was the reason why she was torn away from her family, from Jasper - because of her ridiculous game.

Who cared about prophecy or destiny?

Alice wasn’t a fighter. She wasn’t brawny like Emmett or as fast as Edward or as battle-savvy as Jasper, but she was a vampire and that meant things. She saw the attacks before they came spiraling towards her heart and she was always one step ahead of them, dodging with a grace and agility that none of her family had. It felt like the darkness was trying to coil around her limbs, to hold her down, but Alice only narrowed her eyes and kept moving, slipping silently through each pillar of black magic. It burned her skin when it touched, glittering faintly in the mists of the night, but she ignored that, as each attack only fed her anger at being brought into this fight.

Futures bright and gleaming passed in her mind’s eye, even as magic that she knew she could never cast, fled from her fingertips. Each moment she evaded the perverse darkness, another strand of possibilities exploded, as real as the sand and dirt beneath her feet and the cold lake air. She felt them entangle around her fingers, grasped them firmly and pulled them away from the witch. No, she wouldn’t have these futures. These were their lives, untouched by her plans or her unraveling.

It felt like a summons - something pulling her mind from her body, and it was starting to hurt. But Alice continued predicting each blow, each vicious snarl of magic that was flung her way, and she moved the body she was in with inhuman speed. It was exhausting, as if she were using nearly all of her energy to possess the strong but still very mortal body she was in. But she wouldn't stop - she couldn't.

She wanted to be back home in Forks. With Carlisle and Esme and Emmett and Rosalie and Edward.

But especially Jasper.

She needed Jasper. Without him...

This was what Alice fought for - these beautiful, mysterious futures that belonged to all of them. She held them tight even as the attacks came faster, more fiercely. But they couldn’t touch her.

In these futures, the witch would never come close.