CHAPTER FIVE:
COMMON ENEMY

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TO DEFEAT YOUR ENEMY, you must know their greatest weakness. Through observation, searching for a pattern, poking and prodding at chinks in their armour until you finally find a bruise to irritate. Then, you strike, over and over until they're on their knees begging for mercy and you're shaking from the victory.

Emmett Cullen's weakness, as it so happened, was overconfidence. He put up a good fight, that Ofelia acknowledged, but where someone like Jasper would hold back and watch, Emmett rushed in with tunnel vision. He didn't think to protect his weak spots; rather, he added an extra layer of defence to the places he already knew were strong. And that was how Ofelia always defeated him. Where he aimed for her head and her torso with carelessly swung arms, she knocked his feet out from beneath him. When he decided to switch it up and focus on her legs, she went for the side of his jaw, the soft place where bone met the flesh of his neck. Countless times, the brawny Emmett Cullen ended up on his knees before Ofelia, the Torres girl grinning with triumph.

And to say Emmett was getting frustrated with her would be one massive understatement.

"Again!" he roared for the seventh time in a row, his thick brows furrowed into a scowl as he pushed himself back up. His previously white muscle tee was stained with splotches of dirt and grass, a sight that would send Alice crazy if she was there to see it. If anything, this only served to amuse Ofelia, who cackled as he huffed and puffed angrily.

"You're trying awfully hard to embarrass yourself, Cullen," she muttered. Her smirk widened as Jasper and a few onlookers chuckled at her words. They'd been training for an hour now, and while they were originally annoyed that Emmett was taking up so much of Ofelia's time when they were supposed to get their own turns against her, the muscled boy's reactions were proving to be a nice distraction for why they were training in the first place.

"Again," Emmett repeated like it was the only word he knew.

And before Ofelia could so much as protest, he charged at her in a way that reminded her of a bull chasing a red flag. With a roll of her eyes, she stepped to the left, unable to hold back her roar of laughter as she swung out her right leg and hooked her shoe around his ankle. Emmett's face met the dirt quite comically and he laid there for a moment, finally beginning to realise that Ofelia Torres was someone he would never be able to beat.

What a long way she had come.

"Give up yet?" she murmured as she kneeled beside him.

He sat up, brushing dirt out of his curls. While the stubborn part of him told him to get back up and go again, the logical part told him to cut his losses with the little dignity he had left. "Fine."

"About time," Kate spoke up from where she was sitting on a tree log a few feet away. On one side of her was Edward, who grinned at whatever Emmett happened to be thinking, and on the other was Bella, her red eyes wide as she stared at Ofelia in a new light. "That was getting hard to watch."

Ofelia winked at her before turning to acknowledge everyone else. "Let's take a quick break before we get back into it. We might not be tired but I have a feeling Emmett's going to need some time to nurse his ego back to health."

There were no complaints there -- at least, from everyone but Emmett. With one last nod at Ofelia -- she had a feeling that was the most he'd acknowledge her win -- he wandered over to where Rosalie sat with a pout on his face, though she offered him no sympathy as she smiled at him teasingly. Ofelia watched them for a moment, envious in a way that no one noticed. Emmett softly tucked a strand of perfect hair behind Rosalie's ear, his lips tracing her hairline as she leant into his side. When she realised that she was staring, Ofelia quickly looked away, only to come face-to-face with Bella who had somehow crept up on her without her hearing.

"Oh, hey," she muttered, hoping Bella would not question the way her face had paled. "Do you need something?"

"How'd you learn to fight like that?" Bella asked, to the point but timid nonetheless. "Sorry, that sounds really bad--"

"It's fine, don't worry about it," Ofelia cut her off gently. She knew the girl was curious, there was no harm in that. "The same way Jasper knows how to fight; Maria."

Bella winced. "Oh."

"Yeah." An instant of silence passed; one second, two. "Why?"

Bella, despite her newfound confidence as a vampire, still seemed like the same nervous human girl Edward described with such fondness. She nervously played with her fingers, eyes refusing to meet Ofelia's. "I was hoping you could teach me."

Ofelia sighed. It didn't take a mind-reader or an empath to know that Isabella Cullen was scared. People who she viewed as family and, by extension of Edward, friends were risking their lives to protect her and her daughter. While they were called to Forks as witnesses and witnesses only, they were training for the what if. What if the Volturi didn't listen to them? What if they tried to fight? Bella, like a lot of them, was hoping to find a way to keep her loved ones safe. Ofelia couldn't blame her for that, and she wished there was time for her to make a huge difference, but reality barely allowed them to train the experienced vampires. Bella wouldn't get very far as a newborn with mere days before the Volturi arrived.

"Bella," she said. "You and I both know that I don't have enough time to teach you anything worthwhile."

"I know that," Bella nodded in acknowledgment. "But I have to try. This is my daughter's life, Ofelia, a life she hasn't even gotten to experience yet. I can't stand by while everyone trains when it's my job as a mother to keep her safe, I won't."

As a mother. Ofelia, for a second, allowed her thoughts to drift to her own mother, Adelina Torres. Her face was nothing but a blurry figment in the back of Ofelia's mind, and yet Ofelia loved her with her entire heart and then some. Adelina Torres, if given the opportunity, would've done anything to keep her little girl, her youngest baby, away from Maria's wicked clutches. Ofelia, if she had a daughter, would too. Bella was just a mother, a desperate woman with hope. Ofelia refused to be the one who let her down.

"I'm not promising anything," she mumbled, jaw clenching at the way Bella's face lit up. "But we can go over the basics, at least."

"I'll take it," she said, flashing Ofelia a blinding smile. "Thank you, Ofelia, you don't know how much this means to me."

Ofelia waved her off. "Don't thank me just yet."

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PART OF BELLA'S TRAINING revolved around the new revelation of her gift; a shield. The reason Edward couldn't hear her thoughts even when she was human, the reason Jane and Alec's gifts, even Ofelia's, didn't work on her -- there was a shield stronger than any other defending her brain from invasion.

When Eleazar figured this out not long after Ofelia's conversation with the girl, she immediately set to work with Kate on how they could teach Bella basic defence while also expanding her shield as a way to protect the other witnesses who weren't as immune to the control of the Volturi. Kate was doubtful at first, but Ofelia had hope. If Bella was as desperate to protect the ones she loved as Ofelia thought she was, then she'd find a way to make it work.

"You need to visualise it," she said as Bella heaved a sigh of frustration. She'd been trying for the past twenty minutes and nothing. "Imagine how it moves, what colour it is, how it feels. Now picture it expanding. Allow it to extend beyond you, beyond us, beyond your control."

The newborn didn't look convinced but nodded anyways. There was nothing but silence, anticipation, before a sheer type of shimmering mist seeped out of Bella's skin. It was barely visible and lingered for a mere second before it snapped back to her like a rubber band, but it was enough to show Ofelia that it was possible if Bella had the right intent.

Kate seemed to agree with her. "I think she needs something to motivate her."

A moment passed before Edward nodded at whatever she was thinking, stepping up in front of Bella despite her sudden protests. "I can take it."

"He says that now," Garrett snickered in amusement. Ofelia didn't even want to know how he knew, but judging by the look he shared with Kate, there was something happening between the two.

"Focus, Bella," Emmett taunted. Now that it wasn't him on the firing line, he was back to his usual amused self. "Or he's gonna be hurting."

Bella's panic increased tenfold. She shook her head frantically, stepping towards Edward as he reached for Kate's outstretched hand. "Edward, I'm not ready to do this yet--"

She was cut off by his pained cries as he fell to his knees with visible bolts of electricity shooting up his arm. Ofelia winced in sympathy, instinctively turning to look at Jasper as he appeared beside her. He seemed uncomfortable as he watched Edward shake from the shock, prompting Ofelia to think back to every time Maria forced him to take out the newborns she deemed dead weight. It haunted him. She knew this couldn't be easy to watch, no matter how far away they were from her. So without thinking, she reached out to take his hand. He tensed at the sudden touch but quickly relaxed when he spotted her fingers intertwined with his.

Ofelia Torres was the only person who could even remotely understand the guilt he felt.

"I'm sorry, I did say that I wasn't ready," Bella stuttered as she reached out to help Edward up.

"Dude, you're not motivating her," Emmett cackled, pouting when Rosalie smacked his arm in a faint warning.

"Do you wanna try?"

When he didn't respond, Edward nodded in a very 'I thought so' way before turning back to Kate with a sigh. Bella's shield began to expand like last time, though it didn't reach far enough to stop her from shocking him again. He let out another cry but managed to stay on his feet this time. Ofelia gave a sigh of her own, sharing a look with Kate as the blonde hummed in amusement.

"You seem to lack incentive," she said. "Shall I go see if Renesmee's awake?"

"Are you crazy?"

Kate raised her hands in surrender at Bella's threat, before gesturing for Edward to come forward again. "This one's on full power, alright?"

The bronze-haired boy hesitated, sending his wife a desperate glance as Kate waved her fingers at him mockingly. That one look was all it took. Edward squeezed his eyes shut so he couldn't see the wonder that was Bella's shield enveloping around his body, but Ofelia and everyone else was there to witness it. Like a forcefield, translucent, it seemed to repel Kate's electric shocks from Edward's skin. He opened his eyes as Ofelia began to clap.

"It's painful but it's bearable," he announced, awed like he couldn't quite believe it.

"A good start," Ofelia said. She smiled proudly at Bella who grinned back with light in her eyes that wasn't there before. It really was possible if she put her mind to it, she could help them. "Let's go again, you need as much practice as you can get."

Bella nodded, eager this time, but was interrupted by a sudden howl coming from the woods. Ofelia froze mid-step as several unfamiliar scents invaded her senses. Most smelled like wet dogs, but there were two that stood out among the rest that had her losing all sense of reason. They were sour, bitter, reeking of revenge and they had their sights set on the Cullen residence.

With a hiss, she took off into the woods without so much as a look back.