Well, this one came a lot quicker than the previous ones. On that note, I think I'm going to stick with Tuesday for updating. I'm on break and it's working well so far. I'm expecting to be able to build Backup into my schedule once school starts back up.

Many thanks to Cara for continuing to battle the commas, and fix my "I'm a dumbass, I've been awake way too many hours to be writing fic" mistakes. She's a lifesaver! Just as many to Shae for reassuring me it wasn't shit, and for helping to keep me on task and coherent when writing about these monsters.

Disclaimer: still like my Emmett better than SM's

"Oh my God, they're coming over here," Rose said out of nowhere, her eyes getting huge.

"What? Who are?" Bella asked, having not noticed the guys heading in their direction as she was studiously looking anywhere but where they had previously been standing.

"I believe the distraught blond is referring to the Prince and his friends," Alice said, watching Rose trying to surreptitiously fluff her hair a bit.

"Oh, fantastic. I really don't want to have to pry her off the one her ovaries are doing their mating dance for later," Bella said, sounding disgusted, and still doing her level best to not look in the direction the guys were coming from.

"Whatever, bitch. He's fucking hot, and I'm telling you, right now, completely fucking sober, if he tries to take me home with him, let him." Rose said, eyes still glued to the guy in question, while stressing the last two words. "Do you think he'll try? I mean, I look good and everything right?" she added with the barest hint of insecurity.

"Ok, first of all, you're hot. You know that. Stop looking for ego stroking, you don't need it," Bella told Rose, with a slight roll of her eyes. "Second, based on what Alice has already said, I'm pretty sure that due to your having a vagina he'll be interested and try and get you to go home with him. Also, if you want to be Sluterella for the evening, that's on you, but do not expect me to play your fairy godmother and come rescue your ass in the morning. If you're getting yourself into this, then you can damned well get yourself out of it too."

"Oh, my God, shut up! They're close enough to hear your mouth," Rose hissed at her, finally looking away long enough to give Bella a dirty look.

"I maintain, you have a vagina. He won't care. In fact, seeing as we all do, I doubt they're going to even hear what I'm saying while they're staring at our boobs," Bella informed Rose, sharing a look with Alice.

"Hi, there," said one of the guys as they had finally reached where the girls were standing. He had dirty blond hair with a slight wave to it and stormy grey eyes. The girls all smiled at him and said hi back.

Alice, after saying hi, started to look away, before quickly snapping her eyes back on him. After a beat of silence, she said, "My name's Alice, I'm not sure I know who you are, but I would love the chance to find out," with a coy smile on her face.

His smile growing a bit, the blond said, "Well, my name's Jasper. How about you and I go find ourselves some fresh drinks and do a little getting to know each other?"

Shooting a quick smile back to Bella and Rosalie, she quickly agreed, and taking the arm Jasper held out to her headed off to do exactly that.

"Wow, she's a bit easier than I thought," Bella said under her breath.

Having heard her, the other two guys chuckled. The bigger one, with the curly brown hair and deep blue eyes, said, "Well, Jasper has always been good at getting what he wants with women. Don't judge your friend too harshly."

Then turning his eyes to Rosalie, his lips quirked slightly at one side into a half smile, he said, "My name's Emmett, by the way. Sorry for Jasper's poor manners in not introducing himself to you ladies. This is Edward, and we seem to find ourselves quite enchanted with you lovely ladies."

Although he said this to both girls, his eyes had remained on Rosalie the whole time, prompting her to say, "I'm Rosalie, and this is Bella. I think we'll be able to find it somewhere deep down in our hearts to forgive your friend for his behavior," giving him a smile in return.

Awesome, Sluterella's a twin. Didn't think Alice was really Tinker Hoe. The shortness should have clued me in probably, Bella thought derisively. Trying to keep the grimace off her face, she said to the boys, "Yes, well I suppose even the best of us will fall for a pretty boy with a good bit of charm every now and again, right?"

"Indeed," Emmett replied, still not having succeeded in looking anywhere other than directly at Rose. "We can't fault her being human."

"I certainly hope Jasper is the only one of you three with poor manners," Rose began, smiling up at Emmett from under her lashes. "You seem quite the charmer yourself, and I would hate to find that rude is a supporting character trait to charming."

"Oh, no. You'll find my mother raised me right. When it comes to lovely ladies such as yourself, you'll find I am the perfect gentleman," Emmett assured her with a wink.

"Only when the occasion calls for it though, right?" Rose said, her smile widening. "I can think of more than a few instances where one need not be a gentleman."

"Well, I think you'll find it comes and goes in such a way as to never leave you disappointed," he was quick to assure her, his smile holding a slight predatory hint. "What say you give me the opportunity to show you just how much of gentleman I can and cannot be?"

Her smile growing even larger at this overt display of his attraction for her, Rose responded, "I would love nothing more," before winking at Bella and heading off with Emmett.

"Well, looks like we're two for two tonight," Bella said mostly to herself, not expecting the third, Edward, to be able to hear her over the music playing.

Unfortunately, Bella had failed to realize just how close to her he was. "Hmm, that we are. Bella, was it?" She gave him a short nod, trying not to let her excessive dislike of the man before her show. "A beautiful name, for a beautiful woman." Hearing this her disgust just grew. "My name's Edward," he added, a poorly hidden smirk on his face.

"Yes, your friend said that," she responded shortly. Looking around them, she then asked "So, what do your friends' success rates look like? Because from where I'm standing, they're going to be hitting homers tonight."

"Homers?" Edward asked in confusion. "I'm not sure I'm familiar with that particular euphemism, but suffice it to say, we'll likely not be seeing our friends again tonight."

Looking the woman in front of him up and down, his smile grew. Finally looking at her face, on which he failed to notice the faintest signs of disgust, he said, "So, you new here? I've never seen you before, and I'd definitely remember a gorgeous woman like yourself," his smile turning suave at the end.

"Oh, my God, what?" Bella said, disbelief strong in her voice, and her eyebrows rapidly rising on her forehead.

"Well, a girl as lovely as you isn't something any man could forget easily. And I never forget a beautiful face, meaning you must have just moved into the area as I seem to be unfortunate enough to not have made your acquaintance before now." As he said this last bit he reached for her hand and raised it towards his lips, intending to kiss the back of it.

Realizing his intent, Bella ripped her hand out of his grasp saying, "Seriously? Does that crap actually work for you?" The disgust was now evident in her voice and on her face. Without waiting for a reply, she continued, "Yes, to answer your innuendo laden question, I am new here. However, I find it hard to believe you know every single, and possibly not so single, girl in this room. There's at least a hundred girls at this party. It's not possible."

"I didn't say I knew every girl here, just the beautiful ones," he said, the smugness still high on his face. "Besides, what you seem to not be aware of is that I'm the prince. Consequently, I know all the important people, and gorgeous girls like yourself rank pretty high on my list of important people," again reaching for her hand, in a renewed attempt to kiss it.

Shoving both her hands in her pockets quickly, she gave him a derisive look, before informing him, "If you attempt to touch me one more time, I'm going to rip your hand off. Got it?"

The startled look on his face at this pronouncement made it quite clear her reaction was not the one he had been expecting. The fact was the response he usually received from women was more along the lines of melting into a puddle of gushing, giggling love-struck woman who was hoping quite desperately he would take her home with him.

Further throwing him off balance, Bella merely glared at Edward as she told him, "And, actually, I know who you are, I just don't care. So what, you're the prince. That doesn't say anything about the kind of person you are, which is far more important. You're just some spoiled rich kid, who gets everything and everyone he wants because of nothing more consequential than who his parents are. So you won the genetic lottery. What good does that do anyone? I know you're used to women throwing themselves at you or whatever, so this might come as a shock to you, but that's not going to happen this time. Hate to be the one to burst your bubble and all, but I'm not interested. I'm not going to be another of your many one night stands. I have no interest in being another notch on your bed post. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go be anywhere else doing any possible thing other than talking to you."

Throwing one last contemptuous look at him, Bella then turned on her heel and with her hair swinging behind her, proceeded to stalk across the room in an effort to put as much room between herself and Edward as possible.

Across the room, Emmett burst out laughing, having seen what just happened. At Rose's curious look, he explained, "I think your friend just shot Backup down cold."

Looking in the direction Emmett indicated, Rose started laughing herself upon seeing the shocked look and dropped jaw Edward was currently wearing, though a bit less hysterically than Emmett had. "Oh, God, he tried laying the charm on her didn't he? Too bad for him, my dear best friend has no tolerance for playboys. All his usual ploys would have blown up in his pretty face."

"Hmm, really?" Emmett asked her starting to smirk in his friends direction. At Rose's nod, he told her, "This is about to get very interesting then. Backup's not going to give up on her now that she's turned him down, and I expect that as long as he keeps using his standard tricks she's not going to give him the time of day."

"No, you're completely right. She's not going to," Rose told him, still laughing softly.

Excellent. I'm so glad someone's finally going to be putting him in his place, Emmett thought, his smile growing.

YNK

Having reached the bar, Bella ordered a shot and another beer. After throwing the shot back, she turned to survey the room so as to ensure the man she had just insulted was not following her. Instead, she found a blond man looking at him calculatingly. Recognizing him as the same person she had previously named spaz attack, she gave him a slight smile of acknowledgment, before looking at the room at large.

Taking her smile as permission to approach her, the blond came over and introduced himself. "Hi, my name's Mike. I couldn't help noticing your interlude with the self-proclaimed bronze-haired god over there." At the scowl she threw at him, he quickly continued, "I must say, I'm rather impressed. I don't think I've ever seen him get shot down in all the time he's been coming to my parties. It was refreshing."

Looking back at him, with a less annoyed expression on her face, Bella said, "Well, in that case, my name's Bella. I didn't know this was your party, thanks for letting us gatecrash. I was having a lot of fun before I got interrupted just now."

"Oh, no problem, honey. The more the merrier," he told her with a smile. "You do know that that was one of our princes you shot down, right?" he then asked her.

"Oh, I do. I might be American, but I know who your princes are. I suspect the fact that I acknowledged knowing who he was, and informed him I didn't give the slightest fuck is what has his mouth gaping like that."

Eyes growing wide, and his respect for the woman before him growing, Mike said, "Oh honey, I wish I had been there to hear it. It would have been positively hilarious. As much as I like the guy, he's a pompous ass, and hearing him get put in his place is the only thing I could possibly enjoy more than getting to watch it."

Bella gave a small chuckle, then took a quick sip of her drink before informing him, "Well, I'm willing to bet a guy like him is going to keep trying, at least for a little while, so I'm pretty sure you'll get a chance to hear it."

"I am quite looking forward to it," Mike assured her, placing extra emphasis on quite.

Looking at him from the corner of her eye, Bella felt one corner of her mouth starting to kick up as she informed him, "Ya know, I think I'm going to like you."

With a short laugh at her forthrightness, Mike smiled back at her saying, "Yeah, I can be pretty likable when it suits me. So," he continued after a beat, "You said you're American? What brings you all the way to our humble little country?"

Quirking an eyebrow, Bella said "Nice transition there. I liked the complete lack of trying to hide it," getting nothing but a small smirk in reaction, she continued, "To make a long story short though, I've always wanted to travel a bit, studying abroad seemed like the best way to do it, and there's no time like the present, right?"

Mike gave her another of his calculating looks, before saying, "So, the breakup was mutual, although I'm thinking you instigated it. It was probably really easy, and you're also probably still best friends or whatever. And, since nothing's tying you to where you were you figured you'd do it now, before you chickened out. Did I miss anything?"

Eyes going a bit wide, Bella barely managed to keep her jaw from dropping as she stared at Mike, slightly in shock. The fact that he had just so easily summed up the reality of her decision to study abroad, when she had made no mention of anything to do with Embry, left her feeling slightly in left field. As far as she knew, she didn't give off any kind of fresh-from-a-breakup vibe, and while his reasons were the real ones she was in his country, the ones she gave were no less true because of it.

"Well," she finally managed to sputter after another moment of shocked staring, and a quick drink of her beer to rewet her suddenly as dry as the Sahara mouth, "No, I think you hit most of the key points. You forgot the actual best friend who loves me enough to come with me, when I never asked or even told her what I was thinking. Although, she's headed this way with the large piece of man meat she's found for herself, so I'll introduce you."

"The female best friend is always iffy for me," Mike said while glancing in the direction of the incoming blond and her aforementioned man meat. "Sometimes they're gung-ho, totally willing to go along for the adventure, or at least behind you going a hundred percent, and then other times they're evil and resentful that you're leaving them for a few months to do something important to you. Obviously she went the former route with it." Then looking at Rose more critically, he added, "She's pretty. Definitely Emmett's type too. I can see why he likes her. Intriguingly, she looks like she might have just enough fire to actually put his ass in line and keep it there."

"I take it that's a good thing and you approve?" Bella asked him, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, yes, definitely," Mike was quick to reassure her. "I must say, all in all, I think you Americans are going to shake things up around here quite nicely."

"Hey bitch, grab me a beer since you're closer?" Rose asked Bella as soon as she was close enough to be heard.

"Wow, you sure know how to charm someone Rose, " Bella said, handing her the beer she had already ordered, expecting such behavior from Rose."This is Mike, he's been talking me down from the incident you two leaving me with this one's friend incurred."

Handing a second beer to Emmett, she said, "I hope you know how to protect yourself from charming blonds who think too highly of themselves, by the way, because you've certainly found yourself a winner tonight," shooting a smirk at Rose at the end.

Before Rose could make a suitable retort, Emmett said "Oh, I don't know, I think if she wanted to she could be fairly sweet," wrapping an arm around her waist and smiling down at Rose.

"Oh, dear God. We've finally hit the day where Emmett likes a girl enough to spew such saccharine bullshit?" a voice said from behind them. Turning towards the sound, the group discovered Jasper, sporting a tragically disgusted look, with Alice standing beside him, arm still linked in his.

"Whatever, asshole. You know you love it," Emmett informed him, not even bothering to actually look in the direction Jasper's voice was coming from.

"Yeah, that's it," Jasper said, rolling his eyes, disgust still thick in his voice for everyone to hear. Looking towards Bella, he noted Mike standing next to her, and the obvious lack of his other friend. "Where's Backup?" he asked, now slightly confused, as Edward logically should have been all over the girl he'd decided he wanted for the evening but was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm sorry, who?" Bella asked, eyebrows scrunching slightly in confusion. "If you mean your idiot friend, I imagine he's off finding some easy whore to stroke his ego, what with the way I abused it after you four ditched me like the assholes I knew my friends were, but didn't think you two alleged gentlemen would prove to be."

The four the statement was directed at immediately took offense to Bella's words, and above the din of their voices and Mike's laughter the only thing that could be clearly heard was Emmett's "I am most certainly not an asshole!"

As the four continued to attempt to make themselves heard over the other three, Bella felt a hand curve around one hip as a soft voice said in her ear, "What if I decided none of those easy whores you referred to were worth noticing in comparison to you?"

Whipping around so fast her hair flew out behind her, brushing the arm of the man behind her, Bella took a step away from Edward while a sneer blossomed on her face. "Are you kidding me with this shit?" she said, not bothering to even try and keep the contempt from her voice. "Was I not clear enough before? Well let me spell it out for you: I'm not interested. Go find one of the many willing skanks floating around just hoping you'll so much as glance in her direction and make all her wildest dreams come true, ok?"

Smirk still inconceivably in place, Edward took a step closer to her, regaining his proximity from before she stepped away, and said, "Mmm, I have always loved a girl who plays hard to get. None of those other girls hold a candle to you, you know. Why would you think I would be interested in them when you're here?"

"Ok, are you stupid, or are you just seriously not listening to me when I speak? Fuck. Off. I'm not interested in sleeping with you because you're the prince. I have no desire to be another notch on your bed post. I'm not going to take my pants off for you because you spout garbage lines that are so unoriginal it's sad. And, I swear to God, if you don't keep your hands to yourself you will lose them. Also, see this area in front of me you seem so keen on being in? It's my personal bubble. Stay the fuck out of it."

Giving Edward one last dirty look, she turned to Mike saying, "Thanks again for letting us crash your party. Get my number from Rose, we'll do coffee or something soon ok?" Then continuing to turn she addressed her friends and their newly discovered men said, "I'll see you girls back at the house, alright? It was really nice meeting you Emmett. Jasper, my name's Bella, since you never got past introducing yourself to Alice. Both of you, don't fuck with them. Bye all," and then left before anyone could say anything back.

Rose, Alice, and Mike simply smirked at each other, having expected such a reaction, based on previous experience on Rose's part, and the tone of their conversations with her on Alice and Mike's. Emmett, had a huge smile on his face, and looked as if all of his dreams had just come true at once.

Jasper, however, having never spoken to the girl before, and having not witnessed the previous scene between her and his friend, simply stood there in a euphoric type of shock.

"What the fuck just happened?" Edward said incredulously.

"Only the greatest thing ever," Emmett said, smile still in place.