(A/N): Funny story, this chapter was supposed to be a two-parter. It's turned out to be a little longer. At least three parts. This will be the first installment. Also, I had intended for this to feature a passage from Jade's POV, but... couldn't quite fit that in.

Next part will pick up with a scene from Jade and more Chris POV! Hope you guys are liking his side of the story. I have always been curious about what he got up to in his younger years as part of the hunters, hopefully you guys enjoy it too.

If he's slightly OOC it's for a few reasons. One, he's younger than we saw in the main series. Two, he's newly married and I chose the route of placing he and Victoria in an arranged marriage, which I think is fair to say would give his current perspective a different... spin than we might see otherwise. But this arc is intended to get him closer to the Chris we see in canon, so bear with me.

Finally, I don't have a beta. Excuse any mistakes.

Chris's POV

If someone had told Chris, on the night that he forged his silver bullet and pledged his life to his family's legacy, that this is how he would end up… he might have given it a second thought.

Eighteen years old was a tumultuous age in anyone's life. He had sincerely considered going into the military, specifically the Air Force. Had even planned on it, prepared all the necessary paperwork and mapped out the road trip he'd take to the recruitment center of his choice. He'd always known he wanted to be a part of something… bigger than himself. And being raised in the Argents meant he had a pretty intimate knowledge of weaponry from a young age. It seemed fitting.

But then he impressed his father with how easily he overcame the hunters 'graduation test'—also known as abduction—with surprising determination and unexpected capability. He'd broken out of his restraints through sheer willpower and strength alone, choosing to use brute force to break the chair holding him. It only took him thirty-two point six-seven seconds. He'd also unknowingly broken their long standing record that was touted as the time-to-beat, set by none other than Gerard's own brother, his Uncle Alexander.

His father had even called it competent, which is the closest he's probably ever gotten to saying he was proud.

Actually, he can't remember Gerard ever saying that he was proud of him, at any point. It used to be all that drove him. He absorbed his father's opinions of the world like a sponge, adopting them as his own—doing whatever he could to mold himself into what he thought might actually make Gerard proud.

Though, to be fair, Gerard had always encouraged critical thinking in his children and never gave a straight answer to a question like 'what do you think?', instead turning the question back on them. It was oftentimes almost impossible to truly tell what the man thought about a matter, be it political or otherwise, but Chris spent his life studying him, his reactions, the way he would respond to situations, and he thought that by now he was pretty good at reading him. And the more he observed, the more he learned, the more he found that he agreed with Gerard's opinions. The more he strove to think like him. He was the voice in his head, the guiding hand in his life.

Then the day of his 'graduation' came, and he was finally… competent.

It might sound like a letdown to most people, maybe even condescending, but you have to understand that all his life, all he ever wanted was to be strong like Gerard. To have respect like Gerard. And, if he was really honest with himself, to earn Gerard's respect, since that seemed like such an impossible achievement. So, in that moment, hearing those words come out of his mouth directed at him—Chris had never felt such a rush of pride in himself. He was determined to work hard enough, smart enough, good enough to finally earn that long awaited three word sentence: Well done, son.

Suffice to say, Gerard has always been and will continue to be his harshest critic. Not out of malice, but out of necessity. Gerard doesn't want to see him fail, and in their line of work, failure is tantamount to death. It's what makes it so easy to accept the strict criticisms he receives whenever Gerard deems it appropriate to dole it out. But lately, he's been having… doubts.

It's threatening to effect his quality of work, and only a lifetime spent honing his self-control until it was as sharp as any blade prevented it from outwardly showing. It's more important than ever to keep ahold of that, now that Victoria was pregnant. There was no other alternative.

Chris hoisted the black bag full of crossbow bolts and arrows into the back of the pickup truck, the moonlight glinting off the silver buckle on the strap. It was cooler out tonight than usual, which left a damp layer of dew coating the black metal of the vehicle.

He felt the lines of distaste showing on his face as he wiped his hand off on his shirt, though whether it was from that or from the sound of Mac's voice, he wasn't entirely sure.

"Alright, boss," Mac borderline mocked with a grunt as he flung another black bag into the cab from the opposite side of the truck. "That's three duffel bags of ammo alone. You got something you want to share with the rest of us?"

Henry shot him a weird look from where he stood near his own car. "What are you complaining about now, Mac?"

Mac turned to gesture widely as he responded. "I'm just saying, I thought this was supposed to be a simple clean-up job?"

"It is." Chris caught the loading strap that Mac tossed over to him easily and hooked it into the bed of the truck, making sure that everything was secure enough that it wouldn't go flying into the road with the first pothole or rock he drove over. "This is the job, guys. Sometimes that means being sent out to do the grunt work. We're just trying to tie up some loose ends before we cross this area off the grid."

Henry didn't look appreciative to have been added into that mini-lecture, shooting a glare at Chris that held no real heat. Mac scoffed and shrugged at him. "Right. You make it sound so easy."

Chris simply raised an eyebrow. Your point?

"So then what's with all this?" Mac pointed at the small cache of weapons. "Because it seems like you're expecting a little more than a loose end."

"Come on, Mac," Henry interjected. "What's with all the whining? You're worse than my four month old puppy. You know the rules. It's better to be overprepared and underwhelmed than it is to be—"

"To be underprepared and overwhelmed," Mac finished in an exasperated tone. "Yeah, I get it. But there's overprepared and then there's overprepared." He glared pointedly at the scuba gear. "I mean, what's that about?"

Henry barked out a laugh. "This isn't going to be like that disaster down in Florida, Mac—no need to have flashbacks now. There's no alligators out here."

Chris felt his mood lift marginally at the reminder of that incident. Months ago, a different lead took them down the Everglades and involved the three of them getting certified in diving. The truth is, he had stowed the scuba gear in the back of his truck on the last dive he ever went on—ever planned to go on—and never spared it a second thought. But now, he was privately glad he hadn't gotten around to packing it up in the garage. Disturbing Mac was worth it.

"Cockroaches and alligators, Enrique," Mac drawled, using Henry's birthname. "What do they have in common?"

"Do we win a special prize for guessing correctly?" Chris dryly quipped, and while Mac snorted derisively, Henry decided to join in and tag team him.

"Let's see, Malcom. You scream like a little girl at the sight of 'em both?" Henry shot back without missing a beat. This time Chris did allow a smirk to cross his face.

Mac swiped out and cuffed the back of Henry's head. "They both survived the fucking asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs! Actually, I'm pretty sure alligators are technically the only dinosaurs still alive!"

"Meteorite," Chris corrected.

"What?" Mac wheeled around to shoot him a bewildered look.

"Asteroids never enter the earth's atmosphere," Chris explained slowly, like he was talking to a particularly dense child. "If something fell out of space to obliterate the dinosaurs, it was a meteorite. Not an asteroid."

"Whatever. Tomato, potato."

"Also," Henry said, holding his finger up. "You're more likely to get attacked by a crocodile than an alligator."

"Same fuckin' thing," Mac said without missing a beat, and Henry continued on like he hadn't spoken at all.

"Also, only reason you were attacked at all was because your dumb ass decided to take a trip through a gator den! Its little home underwater! No wonder it tried to chew your leg off."

"Don't joke about that! I have a permanent limp now! Don't you know how rude it is to laugh at a cripple?"

"Crippled by his own idiocy," Henry mockingly lamented. "A real tragedy."

"It was supposed to be a strategic retreat," Mac grumbled. "I may be a lot of things, but suicidal ain't one of them, and at that moment in my life a crocodile seemed like the lesser threat to the rabid Alpha."

"Alligator."

"Whatever!"

"Point is, it was kind of your fault."

"Not kind of. Definitely. It was definitely your fault," Chris informed him, to which Mac scowled.

"Oh yeah? That's pretty easy to say, standing in your shoes. But fine, I'll bite. Let's hear it. Pray tell—would you have done, boss?"

"I would have tried my luck with the Alpha."

Mac snorted and groaned loudly, turning in a circle as if there was a crowd standing around to overhear and laugh along with him. "Right. Tell you what, next time it comes up, we can trade places and you can give that a shot. Let me know how it goes for ya." He grinned fakely at him. "I'll even let you borrow my bow and arrow, prove to you its superiority to the crossbow once and for all."

Chris finished loading up the truck without comment, letting their banter run as background noise in the process. As soon as he was finished he patted the top of the cab to grab their attention. "Let's head out. I want to get this over with before daybreak, got an appointment to be at in San Francisco by ten AM. I'd like to catch at least an hour of rest beforehand."

It was an ultrasound for Victoria, not that they needed to know all the details.

But they didn't ask, anyway. Mac gave a mock salute and climbed into the passenger seat of Henry's car. Chris settled into the truck and let it rumble to life. Moments later, they were on the road with Henry's car following after him.

Not too long after that, they had parked outside a seedy bar just off the highway. Mac tossed back a shot of clear alcohol and Chris slid a generous amount of cash over to the bartender. "That'll close his tab for the evening."

The bartender, better known as Kaiser, accepted the money with a glint in his eye. "Sure thing."

There was a choking sound that might have been intended has a derisive scoff that came from Mac, but Chris ignored it. They'd met up here after an hour or so scouting the area, and Chris was the last to arrive. There was no telling how much Mac had indulged in by the time he showed up, but if the disapproving glower on Henry's face was anything to go by, it had been enough.

"Whatever," Mac grumbled. "Not like I got a designated driver, or anything."

Henry shot him a dirty look. "That's not the point. Moron."

Mac's face was flushed with alcohol, and he waved a hand and shot back too loudly, "Who are you callin' a moron, you wet—"

"Malcom!" Chris snapped, cutting off the racist insult before it could finish and drawing the gaze of several other men in the joint. "I won't tell you this twice. Go outside and wait in the car."

Mac glared stubbornly back and didn't move a muscle, save for the minute swaying in his seat.

"Now," Chris growled, his eyes flashing with warning.

One last choking scoff, and Mac flung himself off his stool hard enough for it to topple over. He let out a string of curses and insults that blurred together too much to be considered English, and Henry himself swore under his breath in Spanish as he righted Mac's upturned stool.

They murmured apologies to the bartender that were just waved away. "At least it didn't escalate into an all-out-brawl. Anyway, I hear congratulations are in order." He nodded down at the silver wedding band on Chris's finger. "How's married life treating you?"

The corner of his mouth pulled up. "It's something."

"Heard you up and moved to San Francisco as well. Been meaning to take a trip there myself. They've got great fishing."

"Let me know if you decide to go," Chris offered. "Haven't checked it out yet."

Henry snorted. "His wife is a little scary." Chris shot him a dirty look, and Henry raised his hands in surrender. "Excuse me, intimidating."

Kaiser wolfishly grinned. "All the best ones are."

Chris sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, so let's get straight to the point. What did you guys find?"

It wasn't a problem to discuss their business affairs relatively openly, being that this bar was somewhat exclusively used as a meeting point for different hunter clans. In fact, the bartender himself was a retired hunter—not from the Argents, but he had proven reliable in the past. He had also chosen to abscond from the lifestyle. That didn't mean he didn't have useful connections and insights, and he was in a rare position to serve as an informant in this case, due to its remote location.

It helped that he respected Gerard so much.

"We just found a few traps that were set off by wildlife not too far off the highway," Henry reported. "Could've been a herd of deer for all we know."

"Any blood?" Chris frowned.

"A particularly fast herd of deer," Henry allowed. "Nope, no blood. Reckon whatever it was didn't actually get caught in any of the traps. We stopped there and came straight here. Didn't want to go too far out in the woods without a good reason. Besides, we didn't see anything to really indicate actual activity."

"So, basically nothing," the bartender—Kaiser—surmised. Henry shrugged in agreement.

"Fine." Chris's lip curled despite his words, indicating his frustration at their lack of progress. "Well, good news is, I had a little more luck," Chris revealed. "Turns out there might be a lead, after all. The guys I spoke to were able to pretty much narrow it down to about six acres of land."

"That precise?" Henry frowned.

Chris tilted his head as he considered it. "Well, these guys were former military. They have experience with conducting a proper search."

"So why did they stop?" Kaiser wondered aloud. "You get that close to finding the answer, kinda seems like you'd want to finish the job."

"Unless something stopped you." Chris leaned against the bar and lowered his voice. "Park rangers got involved. Told them that there was a wildlife survey being conducted, and that there would be no visitors allowed until next month at best. Even got a police escort to follow them down the highway all the way to city limits to make sure."

Kaiser snorted derisively and Henry frowned down at the bar top. "So do we buy that? Or is it a cover?"

"It would be far from the first time authorities worked with a pack. They have far reaching connections of their own, you know. It can be tricky to outmaneuver them," Kaiser said.

"Hmm," Henry hummed in agreement. "Especially these guys. Slippery bastards. Had us all the way down in Florida not too long ago. Now there's a story for another time."

Kaiser smirked at that and Chris merely raised an eyebrow and shrugged a shoulder. "At this point, I don't know what to think—but I'm not waiting a month to find out. They could easily be cleared out by then, even if they might be injured. Truthfully, they might already be gone."

"What about the rangers?" Henry shook his head. "They station them out there for months. No way they wouldn't see us coming. It's kind of their job."

Kaiser crossed his arms over his chest, looking between them in consideration for a moment. "Well… might be something I can do to help you out, there."

"Oh?" Chris tilted his head interestedly, casting a furtive glance around. A few guys near the end of the bar—one with a long white beard and the other with a beer gut—straightened up as Kaiser motioned to them.

"This is Jasper and the one with the beard down there is Tiny."

Henry and Chris exchanged long looks and Chris nodded at them once. Tiny finished off his frosty mug of beer as Kaiser went on.

"I helped them out recently," he explained.

Jasper came forward to pull up his sleeve and show off a wicked looking scar, his grin almost as fierce looking as Mac's on a bad day. Henry whistled lowly. "That looks like a... scratch mark? Or possibly a really messy bite. Healed. Poorly."

Jasper made a show of flexing his muscles before he pulled the sleeve back down, and his eyes flashed golden for a split second. "Almost didn't heal at all."

Chris's back straightened and he glared over at Kaiser. "Sure you want to help us after all, Kaiser? Seems like you've been out of the business long enough you might have gotten a little confused on the rules."

"Watch your mouth, boy." Kaiser pointed his finger right in Chris's face. "You might be Gerard's little prodigy, that don't equate to impunity."

"Besides," Jasper added in a gravelly voice that matched the scars on his face and the glimmer in his eye. "Not everyone lives by that dusty old, outdated Argent Code of yours."

Kaiser was quick to interject before Chris's hackles could rise fully, though that ship had long since sailed. "What he's trying to say is that the group they run with don't see getting the bite as a death sentence."

"We'd never hurt an innocent," Tiny spoke for the first time, with enough bass in his voice to practically rattle the glasses behind the counter. He had his gaze fixed meaningfully on Chris, almost in a challenge—a look that Chris has often been on the receiving end of. Almost like they were looking at him but seeing Gerard in his place. Daring him to speak out against them, to make the first move. "Ever. And we value all life. Especially our own. S'pose that's the difference between us."

It didn't sit well with Chris, what they had just insinuated. But he didn't exactly have a great argument against it, and that settled even worse, an alien feeling of quiet uncertainty souring the already foul mood he was in.

"That's one difference," Henry mumbled.

"Look," Kaiser said, pulling their attention back to him, and Chris took an unconscious step away from Tiny, drawing in a steadying breath to try and clear his head. "Do you want their help or not? You'd better decide quick because this is a one-time offer and it has a very short expiration date."

"What did you have in mind?" Chris finally asked.

"That's our concern," Jasper lowly warned.

"The less you know, the better. Plausible deniability and all that," Tiny elaborated.

"Just rest assured that the rangers will be thoroughly distracted," Kaiser added. "And that's all you need to worry your pretty little head about."

Chris felt Henry's gaze on the side of his head, knew what he was expecting him to say. Didn't react or turn his head to look when he jolted in surprise at what he heard come from Chris's mouth instead. "Fine. What's the timeframe?"

"Wait about twenty minutes," Tiny told him with a nod. "Then you'll probably have about half an hour at most."

"Gonna have to make it quick," Jasper agreed. "Sorry we can't offer you more."

"It'll have to be enough." Chris slid away from the bar and motioned for Henry to follow as they silently headed towards the door, the tension between them dogging their every step of the way.

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