xxx
"Really, come on Seth you're going to send your stupid little monks onto my land and try to convert MY minions. Dude it's not going to happen!" I exclaimed into the headset as Seth's red monks waltzed through my gate and made a beeline right for my peasants who were mining gold.
"Should've locked your gate!" Seth replied. "Serves you right for being too trusting, you're like a hundred years older than me you should know better."
"First of all I am not a hundred so there's no way I can be a hundred years older than you, and secondly we're allies, which means we're supposed to work together for a common goal!" I shot back and I could hear him snickering over the headset.
We'd been at this game for two hours, it's a computer game I found last year, and normally it's a fun one player game against the computer. But I discovered that you could do a two player VS on it, hence what Seth and I were doing.
It takes place in the middle ages sort of, actually you can utilize different environments and conditions to play with. For example, Seth and I were on opposite ends of the 'Black Forest' we were allies trying to defeat the computer player, but it would seem Seth decided to take what's mine.
Seth was the French, I was the Celts, and we were originally trying to kick Edward the Longshanks of England's butt, before Benedict Wolf changed his mind.
"Hey! Who said you could kill off my peasants!" Seth exclaimed "why are they dropping dead no one touched them!"
"Your peasants?" I replied "they're mine and I upgraded my monastery just in case you decided to pull something like this."
"To what, self-destruct, where the heck is that button?"
"It's an upgrade you goof, in your monastery, haven't you been upgrading that?"
"No, I was upgrading my castle and my army. The only upgrade I did on the church thingy was 'convert enemy units.'
"well you should've kept upgrading it, then you might have realized that with certain upgrades, converted units kicks the bucket!" I shot back and laughed evilly
"Dude, that was just pathetic."
"So is going turncoat."
"Darwinism at its finest Chris, survival of the fittest."
I was about to answer him when my bedroom door burst open and Alice stood there, arms over her chest, looking scary.
"Er, hold that thought Seth, my sister is glaring at me for some odd reason."
"What did you do now?"
"Shuddup," I shot back "what's up Alice?"
"Forget something Christian?" she asked tapping her foot
"Er, not recently why?"
"You, Emmett, Jasper, wedding?"
Quickly I glanced at my calendar making sure I hadn't lost a few days and missed the wedding, I didn't see how that was possible, Jasper and I were supposed to be going to the airport the morning of to pick up Bella's mum and step-dad.
"Alice I just got invaded by the French when we're supposed to be working together, please no cryptic messages …"
She rolled her eyes at me
"You are supposed to be downstairs helping Emmett and Jasper set up for the ceremony. The tables and chairs just arrived, the alter is coming in an hour, and you are sitting up here playing computer games."
"It's a really important battle, it'll go down in history as a famous battle that never occurred."
"because the Celts chickened out and waved the white flag to go play wedding!" Seth said over the headset I rolled my eyes at him even though he couldn't see me.
"Shuddup," I shot back before turning to my sister "fine let me just kick his French butt and I'll be down,"
Alice shook her head and glared even more
"No Chris, now!"
"But,"
"No buts!" Alice shot back "don't make me call Esme," I winced, Esme was out with Rosalie picking up the flowers for the wedding, disturbing her for something like this would not end well for me.
"Fine, fine," I grumbled "Seth, you win this time only by default. Next time you won't be so lucky."
"VICTORY!" My friend exclaimed clearly not winning gracefully "who's the man, I da man,"
"You the dead man if you keep it up," I growled, trying not to laugh as I hit the 'surrender' key. I heard scuffling over the headset and Alice raised an eyebrow silently asking me what the noise was. I shrugged, I had no idea what wolf boy was up too, until I heard the scratchy noise of a radio being turned on…there was a clicking noise, followed quickly by the song 'we are the champions' by Queen. Really!? Now he was pushing it. "You are seriously a horrible winner. Bloody hell."
"Whoa," Seth exclaimed turning the music down and pulling the headset back on.
"Whoa what?" I groaned, Alice tapped her wrist trying to get me to move along, I shrugged and nodded at the headset.
"You Brits really do say bloody?" he asked, clearly dumbfounded by this, I rolled my eyes yet again.
"Yeah we do, now seriously Seth, if I don't go with my sister right this moment she's going to kill me, you're not seeing this look of death."
"Right, right, use your sister as an excuse. I'll talk to you later, you gonna be on?"
"Can't tonight, it's Edward's bachelor party," I grinned
"Dude seriously? How is that going to work? Don't you need to" I could practically hear him smirking over the headset "to be a grown up to go to one of those places? I know you can get away with driving and stuff, but how the hell are you going to a strip club?"
"Yeah, well see, us Cullens have our own version of a bachelor party, it involves a few mountain lions, some bear, hopefully some moose"
"Oh," Seth replied "oh okay I get it.
"What'll happen is, it'll start as a typical hunt, and will as it always does turn into one big wrestling match." I paused "anyways, gotta go, later," before he had the chance to respond I disconnected the headset. Alice's eyes narrowed "what, I'm off, sorry it took so long."
"When you four get back from hunting tonight."
"Tomorrow," I corrected grinning
"Tomorrow morning, you guys better be ready to go for the ceremony and if I find any mud or anything out of place…" Alice stopped and I grinned as if leaving that threat unfinished was really going to work against me. I remember Jasper's party, it started out as just a hunt, but then Emmett, er…tripped into a mud puddle, completely by accident of course, which in turn led to him retaliating. Some reason he thought I was responsible for his clumsiness so he tackled me or tried to and failed, landing back in the puddle.
By the time we returned home with an hour to spare before the ceremony, Emmett, Edward, and me, and even Jasper were all covered in mud, literally walking mud men.
"Don't worry, it'll be fine, we're going to have fun, brothers' night out and we'll get Edward back to the house in plenty of time for the ceremony." I paused "come on sis don't you trust me? I mean, we got Jasper back in plenty of time didn't we?"
"You guys came home covered in mud! It was like you went for a mud bath at a spa or something," Alice reminding
"Oh, right, forgot about that, well, in all fairness it had rained the night before so the mud was kinda unavoidable."
Alice shook her head
"Esme brought your suit up, we had it dry cleaned and pressed so you have no excuse little brother."
I wandered over to my wardrobe and groaned when I looked inside, yep, there was the suit.
"Oh goody," I replied
"The only thing you have to do is wear it tomorrow Chris and yes it has to stay on all day. No changing into jeans and a tee shirt after the ceremony."
"Would I do that?" I asked and Alice just gave me a look and pointed outside. "Right, of course I would."
I was really not looking forward to dressing up, I hate it to begin with, and unfortunately I couldn't just blend in with this wedding. When Alice and Jasper got married, it was pretty simple, I mean tradition wise, Jasper chose Emmett to be his best man, Edward was an usher and thanks to Alice I was the ring bearer (trust me I was not happy about that one). Rose was Alice's maid of honour of course.
Emmett and Rosalie's first wedding I wasn't with the family yet, but the pickings were slim so Emmett went with Edward of course and Esme was Rose's matron of honour.
Since that wedding though, Rose and Em rotate through us siblings as far as the roles. I've been Emmett's best man twice now. Edward had spent a long time deliberating on who he was going to pick, when it came down to it though, we all knew what his decision would be and it made perfect sense. Edward had picked Carlisle to be his best man, with Jasper, Emmett, and I as ushers.
Carlisle was actually stunned when Edward had asked him and it was amusing. Emmett and Rose renew their vows with massive ceremonies every decade or so, but Alice and Jasper stuck with one ceremony and Edward and Bella planned to do the same, hence why Alice was going all out on the wedding. It would be a onetime thing, and at this rate, probably the last 'first time' wedding of the family.
Alice gave me a look as if she could read my mind and heard that last statement. I shrugged, it was a fact that was pretty much set in stone, nothing I could do about it.
"Christian," she growled
I grinned, rolled my eyes, and headed out to the little balcony on my window and jumped gracefully out, landing on my feet. I looked back up at the house and Alice was leaning out of my window shaking her head.
I shrugged and gave her a wave, before darting off to find my brothers.
Neither were hard to find and they were doing about as much work as I had expected them to be doing, IE nothing. Instead, I found my brothers out of sight of the house looking over a map.
"This has got some great mountain lions for Edward and according to the web there's been some mooses" Emmett paused thinking that over "is it mooses? Or Moosi?" he asked and Jasper shrugged "what do you call a herd of mooses? Anyways, a bunch were spotted so Dr. Doolittle will be happy."
"Wow, and here I thought I was being a prat for not helping you guys and making you do all the work when in reality you're ordering off the menu." I spoke up, leaning against a tree behind Emmett. He turned and grinned
"Ah there's the Brit I wanted to see," Emmett exclaimed, he reached over and grabbed my shirt, pulling me down on the rock he was sitting on.
"And Em, I think it's just moose, so a herd of moose, no extra S in there."
"Yeah, whatever,
"So what I do?"
"We're discussing Edward's last night as a free man party."
"Right, Alice threatened life and limb if I didn't come out here and help you guys set up for the wedding." I looked around "so exactly what have you been doing?"
"Absolutely nothing," Emmett replied grinning "and doing it well."
"So what was Alice talking about?"
"She wants us to set up because she thinks we'll know better where things go then any of the guys bringing the stuff." Jasper explained "but they've already set most of it up and there isn't anything left for us to do,"
"Except sit here and literally do nothing," Emmett added
"You mean I accepted defeat against wolf boy and had no reason to?!" I exclaimed
Emmett and Jasper both raised an eyebrow and exchanged a look
"Accepted defeat?" Emmett asked
"We were playing a computer game with Alice came up and said you guys needed me out here to set up. She had the look of 'I'm going to kill you if you don't obey me' so I complied. I had to surrender right when he was invading me. I'm never going to hear the end of it."
"Well kid, you win some you lose some," Jasper reminded and I shrugged
"He was trying to cheat anyways." I paused "anyways, we going up north?"
Emmett nodded his grin getting wide
"I was just on the web, they're closing one of the areas because of an influx in mountain lions,"
"Excellent and what did I hear about moose?"
"Well, there was supposedly a migration moving through that same spot, at least according to a hunter's blog. I know it's not a moose, but I figured you'd be happy with an elk at least."
Jasper and I exchanged a look
"A hunter's blogging site?" I asked "since when do you blog Em?"
"I don't blog," Emmett argued "I was surfing the net and it led me to a blog for avid big game hunters."
"Sure you were," Jasper replied elbowing me in the ribs, the pair of us chuckling as Emmett growled at us.
"Anyways, when are we heading out?" I asked changing the subject, Emmett had this look in his eyes that was making me nervous, like he was going to throw me or something, all in good fun of course, but seriously something I didn't want to deal with at the moment.
"As soon as we get Eddy boy out of Bella's house."
I looked around at the setup, everything was seriously done, the chairs were in place for both the reception and the ceremony, the archway for the ceremony, everything was ready for wedding, there wasn't anything left for us to do except show up.
"Is Carlisle coming?" I asked hopeful, he had a shift at the hospital but had promised he would try and be out in time to run up north with us.
"He's going to meet us back here, we'll grab Edward and swing back here," Jasper replied. I looked at my watch and grinned at my brothers
"Should we go spring Ed?" I asked, Jasper and Emmett exchanged a look and nodded, Emmett gave me a shove and took off running
"See ya squirt!" he shouted I grinned at Jasper who shrugged, returning the grin. I don't know why Emmett thinks he can outrun me, I may be smaller than him, but I'm seriously faster
Xxx
I beat Emmett to Bella's by a good two minutes and he nearly tackled me into a tree when he came whipping around the corner, but I was laughing to hard to care. We could hear Edward groaning up in Bella's room as he realized we were there.
"oh for the love of all that's holy!" he muttered and I burst out laughing
"What's wrong?" Bella asked
"You don't have to call my brothers. Apparently Emmett, Chris, and Jasper are not going to let me bow out tonight."
I looked at Emmett and Jasper and the three of us snickered
"Who the hell does he think he's talking about here?" Emmett asked "let him get out of tonight is he nuts?"
"This is Edward we're talking about here," I replied "I've been dying for him to undergo psychiatric evaluation for a while now."
"Shut up Chris!" Edward hissed
"Have fun," I heard Bella say reluctantly. Emmett grinned and nudged my ribs before he climbed up the tree next to Bella's house, the one that led right to her bedroom window. He winked at Jasper and I and ran his nails across her glass window
"If you don't send Edward out," he called, his voice was malicious, but the goofy grin on his face wasn't helping his argument, at least not from our point of view, "we're coming in after him!"
I jumped into the tree and made my way up the branches, settling in on the other side of Emmett.
"Yeah," I called, Bella's face appeared near the window and she rolled her eyes at me "I know all the weak points of your house I've studied the foundations and I've studied the blueprints, I know which brick to kick to bring it down."
Bella started laughing,
"go" she said "before they break my house!"
Edward shot Emmett and me a glare as appeared in the window. Emmett and I groaned and pretended to fall out of the tree in shock
"Dude put on a shirt no one wants to see that!" Emmett called, Edward rolled his eyes and shook his head at us
"Get to sleep." He whispered to Bella, trying to ignore us. "You've got a big day tomorrow."
"So do you lover boy!" I said, clearly he was trying to ignore Emmett and I and failing miserably, because he kept glaring at us.
"Thanks!" Bella groaned "That's sure to help me wind down."
"I'll meet you at the alter." Edward replied
"I'll be the one in white." Bella said, now Emmett and I gagged, Emmett decided to escape all the sappy banter that was going back and forth, he jumped out of the tree landing next to Jasper. I stayed though, just to make sure Edward was coming.
Still ignoring me, Edward chuckled at Bella's reply
"very convincing," he said vaulting out of her room past me. When he hit the ground he slammed into Emmett with a thud.
"Damn it!" Emmett exclaimed loudly and I burst out laughing, preparing to lower myself to the ground with my brothers.
"You'd better not make him late," Bella murmured giving me a look. Jasper scaled the tree and took Emmett's spot, looking into Bella's window carefully. He really has come a long way with Bella, his will has gotten stronger and I'm really proud of my brother
"Don't worry, Bella. We'll get him home in plenty of time." He reassured our future sister. She didn't look convinced, but slowly her face and body language relaxed as Jasper used his ability to calm her.
She looked at both of us quickly, as if she was confused by something.
"Jasper? What do vampires do for bachelor parties? You're not taking him to a strip club, are you?" She looked right at me "I mean how would you, er, you guys look old enough, but what about Chris?"
I rolled my eyes
"I am older than I look," I reminded her grinning but before Jasper or I could elaborate, even if it was to freak Bella out, Emmett spoke up
"Don't tell her anything!" he growled from below followed by another thud as Edward hit him again
"Oops," Edward said "sorry Em, didn't see you standing there."
"Relax," Jasper explained "we Cullens have our own version. Just a few mountain lions, a couple of grizzly bears, a moose or two for Chris. Pretty much an ordinary night out."
"The club comes later!" I added grinning
"Chris!" Bella exclaimed, her voice shocked,
"Kidding Bella, kidding." I replied "get some rest, see you tomorrow!" I added dropping down next to my brothers, Jasper joined me and we all gave Bella a wave and took off for home.
Carlisle was waiting for us in the driveway. Clearly looking forward to the night out as much as we were. It isn't very often, especially lately that Carlisle gets all four of us together for a Cullen boys' night out.
"So, bets?" I asked as we bid the girls good bye for the night "I'm listening for wagers here,"
"Well it's Edward's party so I think its only fair he gets the first critter," Carlisle reminded us and we nodded.
"so no bets?" I asked looking at my father with a pleading look. Edward chuckled and raised a hand
"I've got one, first one to the hunting spot gets the keys to the Martin while Bella and I are on our honeymoon and first one to take down a mountain lion is allowed to drive it."
Now I grinned, it was a ridiculous bet in all reality, but it was still going to be a lot of fun, anytime I get to annoy and instigate, and just have fun with my brothers and father is fun.
Xxx
A/N: Okay people I know this chapter may seem kind of short, but as I said this fic was not complete in fact of all the parts of this series, the Breaking Dawn version was more just in my mind than on paper then any of the others.
I'm going to try my hardest to update this fic on a timely basis, once a week, possibly every other week.
I did want to mention this particular thing, the other day I received a review for another fic I'm working on, it wasnt really a review it was more like a guest telling me that I should be updating this fic more than the other one because that fic has four chapters now and this one only has two now three and it wasn't fair for readers and I should be more organized considering this fic was uploaded first. I did delete that review because it had no bearing on either fic. Normally I am very happy to reply to questions or comments that are left by reviewers, but again this was someone who was a guest and I could not reply, so under a normal circumstance I would have just explained myself privately. But I would like to iterate, especially here that the other fic in question my second Castle fic was co-written with a friend, the reason that fic is being updated quickly is because that fic has most of its chapters complete and ready to be updated, not to mention many of the chapters of that fic are much shorter than the chapters, three pages sometimes five.
I will try as hard as I can to update this fic much more quickly, but please be patient with me. I think I've earned some liberties here considering my past fics have been updated quickly and most are complete. The few that are not complete are because I was hit with massive writer's block on them and havent been able to get around that.
Anyways, enough out of me. Thank you so much for all the reviewers, I'm so happy to see a lot of you guys coming back to give me a chance with the Breaking Dawn version, I'm still unsure how well this fic will go or even how it's going, so the support gives me a boost of confidence and I owe you guys so much!
Till next time!