Emmett Cullen vs. The (Immortal) World
By Jedi Tess of Gryffindor and Anastasia the Writer
Summary: Emmett and Alice are bored – bored with an eternal existence that never changes and isn't challenging. But when they discover Bratwurst Heights College for the Gifted, all five Cullen and Hale siblings are off on the adventure of an (immortal) lifetime; demi-gods who can smite with a look, fairies immune to Edward and Alice's powers, half-giants who can wrestle Emmett with their arms tied behind their backs... Suddenly, the Cullens aren't the top of the evolutionary chain and will have to prove their as … immortal as they claim to be. A pre-Bella fic …
A/N: The Cullens and Hales are such boring characters without any challenges they haven't faced or any chance of mortality - they're monotonous. Now, Anastasiathewriter and I, J.T. of Gryffindor, have decided to challenge their mortality and superiority and experiment a bit with the most unshakeable immortals ever created. This is a co-venture: my first fic outside Harry Potter and Annie's first venture into fan fiction. Hope you enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed beginning this journey together!
)BRATWURST(
Prologue
"Please say you'll come."
"I absolutely won't."
"Pul-eese?"
"Emm, I swear I'm going to leave you," Rosalie Hale said, wrenching at some loose wiring.
"Oh, you are not," Emmett Cullen said cheerfully. "Ed," he called toward the house, "is Rosie gonna leave me?"
"Not in this lifetime." Edward Cullen's voice drifted in from the music room. Emmett rolled his eyes. Edward was playing Beethoven again. Alice had obviously been right about the moody fits getting worse. All the more reason for them to leave, and soon.
"Whatever." Rosalie slid out from under her Z4 and glared at Emmett some more.
"Oh, come on," he pleaded. "This might be fun. Give it a chance"
"Fun." Rosalie's delicate eyebrows disappeared under her hair as she stood and brushed off her tee shirt.
"Fun!" Emmett lowered the Z4, for which his arm had been the jack, to the garage floor and jumped to his feet. "You need a little fun, Rose," he added, putting an arm around her.
"Fun is you remembering our anniversary," she retorted, shrugging him off. "You ran out of excuses for forgetting when we hit our 30th, by the way. Fun is shopping in Milan. Fun is swimming the English Channel naked and making boats crash." She snickered, probably remembering their last visit to Europe.
"You upset Carlisle," Edward's voice drifted in again.
"Whatever," Rosalie said sulkily. "He saved all the fisherman from drowning afterward."
"And most of them are still receiving extensive psycho-therapy," Edward retorted. "You're not funny, Rose."
"Just because you're the most bad-tempered twit alive," she snapped. Then she rounded on Emmett. "I'm not going."
"Please?" Emmett batted his eyelashes and stuck out his lip. Rosalie turned quickly away from him.
"I'm going hunting," she called, vanishing through the garage door. "Stay away from me, and keep your eyes to yourself." Emmett heard her jump the river and head north toward the Canadian border.
He trudged into the house. Edward was staring moodily out the back window of the house. "You pissed her off," Emmett told him, shoving his brother a little.
"Doesn't take much," Edward muttered. "She really doesn't want to go."
"I want to," Emmett whined. "No one loves me," he added grouchily.
"I do and we're all going." Alice appeared and gave Emmett's arm a little cuddle.
"I don't love you and I refuse to go," Jasper added from Alice's other side. "Just on principal," he added, grinning.
"It would be a nice family activity for you guys," Esme said, drifting down the stairs. She smiled at her "children," arrayed against the window with the setting sun at their backs. "Alice told me," she explained when Emmett raised his eyebrows. "Of course, I'll miss you all terribly."
"Make yourself some more kids," Emmett suggested. Esme looked upset and Edward and Alice elbowed Emmett. "I thought it was a good idea," he muttered, rubbing his ribs.
"Five is quite enough for our family, I think," Carlisle said, coming downstairs from his study and putting his arm around Esme, who looked less upset with him there. "Where are you all going?"
"School," Alice said brightly.
Carlisle smiled, amused and curious. "You already go to school."
"Yeah, the epitome of academic excellence," Jasper said with a straight face.
"What's wrong with Forks High School?" Esme asked.
"Kids are picking on Jazz," Emmett snickered, nudging Jasper over Alice's head.
"Emmett's bullying me," Jasper corrected, shoving back.
"This school is different," Alice cut in. "It's not for normal kids."
"Didn't you hear me? I'm not going!" Rosalie bellowed, bursting into the room. She licked a thin trickle of blood from her lip and rubbing absently at a stain on her shirt. She must have been angry, Emmett thought, if she was slopping her meal all over the place.
"Why don't you want to go, Rosie?" Esme asked. "It sounds like a wonderful adventure."
"Not you, too!" Rosalie growled, stomping passed her adoptive parents and heading for the room she shared with Emmett. Esme looked worried and followed her, catching the door before Rosalie could slam it.
"Tell me about this school," Carlisle suggested, seating himself on one of the couches in the center of the family room. Alice, Jasper, and Emmett joined him. Edward even moved away from his broody staring contest with the window and sat on the arm of Emmett's chair.
"Al?" Emmett said to his sister. "It was your idea."
"Well," Alice said, looking pleased. "I had a vision of it. We were all there together. I didn't say anything to anyone about it, but the next day, Emmett was messing around on the Internet and found the school's website by accident. It's called Bratwurst Heights College for the Gifted."
"College for the gifted?" Carlisle asked, his lip twitching. "Edward's already been to Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. Rosalie has honors at twice as many universities and Emm, you have your Ph.D three times over."
"Oh, but they don't mean academically gifted," Alice said, grinning. "They mean supernaturally gifted."
There was a second's silence. "Supernaturally," Carlisle said slowly.
"Yeah!" Emmett grinned, too. "Like us, Carlisle. People with powers. We're totally qualified."
"Yeah, by having the power of stupid ideas!" Rosalie shouted from her room. They could hear Esme trying to calm her down. Emmett would've bet money, if he'd been a betting man, that she wouldn't succeed. He also suspected Rosalie would be locking him out for the foreseeable future. It was a shame but Emmett loved the idea of Bratwurst Heights College for the Gifted more than he minded banishment from his bedroom. Anyway, Alice said they were all going, which meant Rosalie would come around.
"Anyway, we could do with a change," Alice told Carlisle. She went a bit cross-eyed. "Edward's about to start another downward spiral, Emmett's bored (never a safe time for anyone), and Jasper almost ate our homeroom teacher for lunch on Friday." Her eyes turned normal again. "Separation from the human world wouldn't hurt any of us right now."
"I did not almost eat our homeroom teacher!" Jasper said, his Texan drawl more pronounced when he was embarrassed.
"You did, sweetie," Alice said kindly. "That's why I carried you out."
"Off to a cracking start at normalcy," Edward grumbled.
"We need to get away," Emmett added, ignoring his moody, moody brother. "We're bored and mopey and violent because we're pretending to be human all the time. At Bratwurst, we wouldn't have to pretend to be human because no one there is."
"What sorts of 'gifted' beings go there?" Carlisle asked.
"The fairy folk, dwarves, elves, gremlins, mermaids, ogres, giants, trolls, magical princesses, demi-gods, ghosts …" Alice shrugged. "Some of them have lived in the human world and some haven't. Some are seriously outdated and some could be as human as us."
"And what do I tell Forks High when my children fail to turn up any time in the foreseeable future?" Carlisle asked her.
"That we're spending a year on exchange, obviously," Emmett said, shrugging. "Pick your country. We all speak at least twenty languages."
"Hmm." Carlisle pursed his lips. "I think I need to speak to your mother."
"Our mother is dealing with a crisis," Alice murmured. They heard shrieking from Rosalie and several ominous crashes that meant the volatile Hale had thrown her armoire through the window again. Esme had hand-carved and painted the stained glass of the window herself after Rosalie had destroyed the original window in an unrelated fit of rage.
"Ah," Carlisle said, glancing worriedly toward the stairs. "I suppose we'd better ask her later."
)BRATWURST(
Bratwurst Heights College for the Gifted was somewhere in Wales.
"I don't speak Welsh; they're sure to ostracize me," Emmett said, staring down at a map of the United Kingdom he'd already memorized.
"They don't speak Welsh anymore, that I know of," Edward said. He was lying flat on the floor of Carlisle's study, staring at the ceiling.
"It's not like speaking other languages will help you fit in, Emm," Alice said from somewhere upstairs. Emmett cocked his head, picking up the rustle of clothing. Ah – she was in her closet. "You make a spectacle of yourself wherever we take you."
Emmett blew a raspberry toward Alice and Jasper's room and heard Alice giggle.
"You could just buy new clothes in London, Alice," Edward pointed out. He scowled at the ceiling. "Carlisle should paint this room again – it's been fifty years."
"Shopping trip, Rosie!" Alice danced down the hall to Rosalie and Emmett's room. Rosalie was, Emmett knew, still bent over the stain glass window she was piecing back together. Emmett was "sleeping on the couch" until Rosalie was done fixing the window. Esme was allowed into the room but she didn't want to see the window until it was whole again. She'd cried a lot when Rosalie broke it.
"Traitor," Rosalie snapped at Alice. "I refuse."
"I'd like to see you try," Alice retorted, wandering downstairs into Carlisle's study. "Edward," she added, throwing herself down beside him on the floor and staring up at the ceiling.
"What?" he muttered.
"Jasper thinks that if you beat the crap out of him before we leave tomorrow morning, it would brighten your general outlook on life," Alice told him.
"Hey now!" Jasper protested from somewhere in the backyard. He might, Emmett thought, be gardening again. Why he bothered was anyone's guess, but Emmett suspected it was to please Alice and Esme, who loved lilies.
"Ah, thanks, Al." Edward threw a dark grin at her. "No, I'm not going to cheer up any time soon and no, I'm not buying you another Porsche if I'm wrong."
"You're no fun anymore," Alice whined. "Carlisle!" she said suddenly. "Will you miss us when we're gone?"
"Like you need to ask," he said, smiling down at her as he stepped over her and Edward to get to his desk. "Emm," he added, noticing the map, "I have maps of the British Isles more current than 1240 A.D."
"I know," Emmett said absently. "But I want to be able to explore, so I'm comparing this map and the new maps and hoping to find places that have mysteriously disappeared."
"I'm glad you're all making plans outside of school," Esme said, poking her head in and throwing Edward one of the anxious looks she saved just for him. "But you really should focus on school. In this case, on Bratwurst."
"I used to love bratwurst," Jasper said, leaning against the door frame with a crooked Texan grin.
"Me too," Emmett said, who didn't have a crooked Texan grin but often wished he did. "Liked it with lots of mustard."
"You're sick," Rosalie said, appearing beside Jasper with a smudge of blue paint on her cheek. "Esme, the window's done," she added, biting her lip.
"Let's have a look," Esme said, putting a forgiving arm around Rosalie's shoulders and leading her away.
)BRATWURST(
They left the following morning with nothing but sturdy clothes on their backs and wads of handy cash stuffed into their pockets.
"Have a nice time," Esme said tearfully as they walked toward the woods. "Emmett, be good. Don't beat anyone up your first day."
Emmett rolled his eyes. "Esme," he said. "I'm not five."
Esme smiled, patting his cheek. "You are to me. Rosie," she said, turning to Emmett's wife.
"I know, I know," Rosalie muttered. "Don't provoke people, don't throw things, and try to be nice."
"You might even make some friends," Carlisle added kindly, kissing her forehead. "Alice," he said slowly. "You already know what I'm going to say."
"I'll keep it in mind," she said, grinning and giving him one of her rib-cracking hugs.
"Jazz," Esme continued, "try to meet people. It doesn't sound like you'll feel the urge to attack anyone at Bratwurst so try reaching out a bit."
"Yes, ma'am," he said in his best Texan drawl because it always made Esme smile.
"And Edward," Esme said, smiling at Jasper and frowning at his brother, her eyebrows pulling together anxiously.
"Don't worry, Esme," he said, giving her a big hug and looking less moody than usual. "I didn't, I won't even think about it, I'll try, I hope it doesn't, and don't worry about the ham sandwiches."
Esme smiled. Everyone else looked confused, except Alice, who rolled her eyes.
"Have a safe trip," Carlisle said. "Call us when you get there."
"Emmett will write every day," Jasper said, smirking at his brother. Emmett scowled at him.
"Oh, would you, Emm?" Esme asked.
"Sure," he said, sighing. "The first letter will start, 'Dear Esme, Today we found Jasper's body mysteriously dismembered in the woods.'"
"Not funny," Carlisle said with a stern look at Emmett. He smiled at the others. "Bye, everyone."
"Race you to the Atlantic!" Alice shouted, darting through the tree line. They laughed, even Rosalie, and followed their sister east.
)BRATWURST(
TBC