In Which I Tolerate Eclipse: Chapter 18 -- Instruction · 3:35pm May 29th, 2018
Come the end of the party, Bella’s still panicking about the wolves joining in. She thinks they’re “just oversized, over-muscled children”, completely forgetting that they can turn into bear-size wolves and have already killed at least one vampire. She insists on Edward taking her to the werewolf-vampire meeting to try to calm her nerves.
Late that night, with Charlie deep asleep, Edward runs Bella into the forest, to the clearing where she’d watched the Cullens play baseball. While waiting for the others to show up, Bella ponders all the trouble that’s happened to her since Edward came back and finally proposes that Victoria’s behind the newborn army. Edward says it’s definitely possible, and if it’s true, then he wants to rip her apart with his bare hands.
I shuddered at the ferocious longing in his voice, and clenched his fingers more tightly with mine, wishing I was strong enough to lock our hands together permanently.
CM + 1
The Cullens arrive, the werewolves shortly after. There’s more wolves than anyone was expecting; the pack has ten individuals, not six. The wolves still don’t trust the Cullens all that much, so they don’t turn back into humans, leaving Edward to translate for them. Carlisle lays out the situation: there are twenty newborns and they’ll be coming over the mountains in four days. Jasper and Emmett tell the wolves the best way to fight newborns and give them demonstrations of the typical ways newborns attack.
In spite of beginning at 3 AM, the meeting lasts until morning, and as the sun rises, Bella recognizes Jacob from among the wolves. Once the meeting gets wrapped up, the other wolves depart, but Jacob stays behind to talk to Bella. Edward and Jacob begin discussing what to do with Bella; they don’t want to leave her in Forks in case one of the newborns gets by them (Billy’s coming up with an excuse to have Charlie over for the day, so he’s also safe). Jacob wants Bella to stay in La Push, but Edward points out that whoever’s creating the newborns is experienced in hunting Bella and will most likely know she goes to La Push a lot. Jacob then proposes hiding Bella in the mountains, but Edward says her scent is too strong and would be picked up quickly.
Then Jacob, remembering that vampires find werewolves’ scents repulsive, hits on the idea of using his own scent trail to hide Bella’s. Edward thinks this is a good idea, and a quick test confirms it. Edward also says Bella should leave a false trail, to excite and distract the newborns even more. One of Alice’s visions confirms that this will work (I guess her visions run on plot convenience, considering how reliable they are or aren’t frequently changes). Jasper thinks of maybe putting Bella in the clearing, to drive the newborns crazy with the urge to get to her, but Edward puts the kibosh on that immediately. It’s habit, Jasper says, from his military training.
With that plan set, Edward tells Jacob to bring her to the clearing the day before the newborns arrive, so they have plenty of time to get her to a secret location. Jacob says that one of the werewolves should stay with her as a “cell phone” of sorts — as long as that wolf stays in wolf form, they can communicate instantly with the rest of the pack. He picks Seth Clearwater for this job, as he’s still young but insists on coming along. So if Seth became a werewolf at fifteen years old, how come none of the other werewolves changed before then? I know that the presence of vampires is the catalyst for the change, but the Cullens have been living in Forks for I’m guessing four or five years, now. Oh, well. This is Twilight. Edward enthusiastically agrees to leaving Seth with Bella. Both Edward and Jacob are shocked, even a little disgusted, that they’re working with their mortal enemies.
Clinginess Meter: 22
Finally, a chapter that doesn’t have ungodly amounts of padding. Most of the stuff in here is important in some way. It’s a bit longer than the other chapters, but it’s more easily summarizable.
Every time I see the word "newborns" in these blogs, ot gets harder to take seriously. I can't get rid of the mental image of werewolves vs. evil babies. There's a reason Magic went with "neonate" for when they represented the freshly turned.
Of course, if this were Innistrad, Bella would've been sucking blood (or possibly sprouting tentacles) long before now, but we can't have everything.
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Just wait until Breaking Dawn, where the plot actually does involve evil babies! No, really. And not in a "I twisted the writing to support my views" sort of way; evil babies are the original intent.
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I would be okay with a tentacled Bella. It would certainly be more interesting.
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That would just make her more clingy.
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She gets to stop aging and we don't have to deal witth her personality once she's subsumed into Emrakul. Everybody wins!
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...Wait, there's one more? D: