New Game Chapter 6 /16

Sequel to Afterglow and third installment in Dive into Destiny Series

Author: T.Claybourne

Rated PG-13 to NC-17. Sex Violence and language

Pairings involve Spike /Original ( as set up in last story) Angel/ ? Wesley/? Faith /?

Thanks to my Beta, Hawera and my muses, Kurt Cobain, John Lyndon (AKA Johnny Rotten) and Joe Strummer.

[Just a reminder: You die hard Spuffy fans you will finally feel some validation in the next story following this one. ( I promise there is a definite and secure Spike /Buffy pairing in Part Four and final story of the series)]

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Spike and Mia strode right into Giles’s living room like they belonged.

Mia looked at Willow. “You don’t remember even one of your spells right now, Willow. You are pulling a total blank in the magic area.” Mia smiled, “Giles, before you make big plans, you should ask Faith if she wants to fly commercial.”

No one moved; they just stared.

Spike cleared his throat. “Oi, Watcher, ask her now unless you want to see what your team looks like with one less.”

Spike grabbed Fred and held her in position, ready to break her neck.

Xander shifted on the couch.

Mia rolled her eyes. “Xander, if I let you even get as far as removing that stake from your jacket pocket, it would result in another prosthetic device for your body.”

Giles swallowed and asked into the phone. “Faith, would you be flying commercial?” There was a pause as he listened to her response. “Oh, I see. Thank you.” He hung up.

Spike laughed. “Tell ‘em.”

Gunn stood up. Mia grabbed Fred’s forearm in both hands. “Want to hear what it sounds like breaking through the skin, Gunn? It’s no effort for me at all. Why is it that the strongest one, Buffy, is the smartest so far? I can feel how much she wants to move, thrust a stake, but she’s not doing it for fear that someone will get hurt. Slayers can be so thoughtful sometimes.” Mia turned to Spike, “Did you know that, honey?”

“Not all slayers, just ones with friends to lose, love.”

“Oh. Wonder what would happen if I actually did hurt Fred’s little arm?”

Buffy spoke up. “I’d get pissed off, might forget myself.” She stared into Mia’s eyes.

“Why don’t we skip the broken arm and you come on now, Buffy. Oh wait, I’m getting a flash here: you are picturing what will happen to them if you don’t survive. Smart girl. Keep picturing that.”

Buffy glanced away.

“ Of course, I could cheat. I could stop everything right now and just make you watch. I would simply look into your eyes and ask you nicely, then you’d sit down and watch as Spike killed each and everyone of your friends: game over for Team Scoobie. I’m a demon, we cheat sometimes.” Mia shrugged.

Spike chuckled, “Not you, love, not when it comes to killing slayers. You don’t use the thrall except with Faith when you wanted to save the furniture and the house. Interesting point, watcher. Mia didn’t use it once after we got in one of your Council places. In the training center no-one, not one, was under a thrall. No, they just…..” Spike bit his bottom lip and stretched it a bit, then he laughed. He looked down his nose at Giles. “No, we just killed them, one by one. They fell like ….”

“Don’t you dare say toy soldiers.” Mia laughed. “Because soldiers actually know how to fight.”

“ No, I was going to say dominos. But the point I was making was that you wouldn’t cheat with a thrall, not against a slayer, especially Buffy. Not when you want this fight and we have gone to all this trouble to set it up.”

“I could make an exception. I mean, it would mean the end of her friends. Might be fun to watch her cry and mourn. Would make Angel happy.”

“Yeah, like I care about him. Let’s not make her mourn now, let’s have some fun. The fun we’ve been planning. There’s the game, the game you wanted to play , pet. But now I think of it, maybe you should let her come at you and then you can knock her out, that might be funny. And if she won’t let us have our fun and cooperate, maybe you could thrall her into attacking.” He laughed, the tip of his tongue touching his top lip.

“Stop this, and I’ll bring you up to date on Faith. Seems Faith won’t be joining us as she is part of another team. Mia sired her six days ago.”

Mia dropped Fred’s arm and Spike picked Fred up and pushed her away, knocking her into the others sitting on the couch.

“I’ve set the teams up but if you don’t want to play for now, that’s fine. We’ll have fun without you. You may have noticed that I left Dawn out of play completely.” Mia made a gesture towards the room. “I guess she’s lucky because it looks like so did you. But don’t worry about her; we’ll let her stay in minor leagues. We’ll bring her up to play with the big dogs when you bring in the rest of the next generation.” Mia stared straight at Xander and Buffy. “We all know who they are and why they will want to play.”

Spike gave a short laugh. “For you slow types, Harris, they will want to avenge their parents’ deaths.”

Mia sauntered over to Giles and stood inches from his face. “Just think about this while you run from one hiding place to the other. Was that eight apocalypses you averted? That’s a lot of people you saved. The forces of evil seem to be in the red. I can’t wait to get to work to even things out. I’m a woman of means when it comes to evil: who knows just how that balancing will happen. What I’m saying is, you should remember that every time we kill, and another innocent person dies, it cancels out all those you saved in the first place. Of course, Rupert, maybe at this stage of your life that just doesn’t matter.” She whipped around and headed to the door.

“You lot have a good evening. We’d stay for a cuppa, but we have to catch a flight back to the Hellmouth. Fun place that Hellmouth: death, destruction, demons and all sort of vices and devices of evil to be had. You should come see what fun we’re having.” Spike followed her.

Mia stopped, turned and looked at Buffy. “Oh and Buffy, Angel, he gets seriously violent if I call you his wife. I think he actually hates it. Me, I like it: the violence, it feels oh so good.” Mia cocked her head putting her tongue to her top teeth, running it across them. Then she gave Buffy a small half-smile. “But even at your age you must still remember how good it feels, how the pain is more than worth it and you don’t want it to stop.” Mia took Spike’s hand and kissed it. “I heard how it was for you then. I’ve been shown.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Angel paced in the small private aircraft terminal at the Pittsburgh Airport.

“This was risky, Wes. We are messing with Wolfram and Hart.”

Wes laughed. “Oh yes, we might anger them so much that they might ask us all to come operate a branch of their firm.”

Angel stopped and looked at him. He chuckled. “Good one, Wes. I was actually thinking that if they get wind that we are up to something they will interfere or…”

“…..try and get in on it.” grinned Faith. “They might hire us to take out the whole Council. I remember being offered a job by them, had to do with a single champion, some soulful vamp. They would probably go for eliminating all the slayers and their headquarters.”

Angel crossed his arms over his chest and gave them a small smile. He said sarcastically. “Ok, you are right. We needn’t worry that a law firm that controls the Evil of several dimensions will start messing with ours. They are just so busy in other places; or, like you said, they will pay us to do the evil we already have planned.”

Wes shrugged. “I’m not worried about them. Mia will have come up with a contingency plan in case they decide to place themselves on our playing board.”

“Angel, you gotta relax and let Mia do her thing. We get that you are used to being in charge, but it was hundreds of years ago that you were the world’s deadliest. Times have changed in a major way: we have fire now. Give up, big guy, it’s Mia who is the deadliest now and we all know it, even Spike, Just ask him and he’ll tell you she scares him at times too.”

Angel scowled for a moment, then smiled. “I wish I could have seen their faces.”

“I wish we could see them when they find out that those vamps back at the Hellmouth are just look-a-likes,” added Faith.

The Wolfram and Hart jet taxied in front of the building and stopped. The stairs were thrown out and Spike and Mia came down them and across the tarmac to the terminal.

“So?” asked Wes.

Mia smiled. “I think it really upset Buffy when I told her that Angel hates us to call her his wife.”

Wes looked expectant, “And the others?”

“You’d have been thrilled to hear how Spike used Fred to threaten the group: he threatened to break her neck and I threatened to break her arm.”

Wes grinned, “What about Gunn?”

“Just made him watch.”

“So, do you think it worked?” asked Faith.

“I’ve decided that we don’t care. We concentrate on what we do best now. We just kill to our non-beating hearts’ content. The higher the body counts, the better. I want it high profile. I have ways around surveillance and security. Shit, I’ve stolen a Wolfram and Hart jet three times. Anyone want to know what an Admiral or a Four-star General tastes like? I was thinking we’d get all dressed up and visit the Pentagon, then maybe Capitol Hill.”

Spike laughed, a deep-in-the-chest laugh. “That’s my girl.”

“She’ll get the government after us.” Angel glared at Mia.

“Angel, you are so cautious in your old age. What’s the worst that could happen?” asked Mia.

Angel looked at Spike. “We could end up chip-heads.”

“Oi!”

Mia shrugged her shoulders. “So we live on pigs’ blood, and kill demons. Sounds better then getting cursed with a soul and living like and eating vermin for a hundred years.”

Faith snorted.

Wes shook his head.

“Angel, mate, don’t even try. When it comes to the word sparring I’ve bested you for years and this woman beats me every time.”

Mia turned to Spike. “Oh, I am so not letting you forget you said that.”

“Did I say ‘every’? I meant ‘almost every’.”

Faith put her arm around Mia’s shoulders and led her to the door. “Come on.,Mia, I want you to tell me everything. I want to know how Giles looked when he heard me tell him the deal.”

Wes looked at Spike as they walked to the car. “Did they put up resistance of any kind?”

“They just stared at us. Xander tried for a stake in his pocket and Gunn stood up but Mia just threatened then and they sodding folded. Of course, she put Willow in a thrall.”

Wes looked sideways at Angel. “I rather wish I’d gotten that power.”

Angel glanced at him. “Don’t look at me. Faith didn’t get it either and Mia sired her.”

“That isn’t actually correct,” Wes stated

Spike’s eyebrow went up. “You’re saying she let us believe she sired Faith, but it was really you all along?”

Wes gave them a crooked half smile. “Yes.”

Spike’s jaw tightened.

Wes shrugged. “I thought it showed rather brilliant leadership on her part. She hasn’t sired anyone, so she hasn’t risked anyone else getting the same powers as her.”

His jaw still tight, Spike replied, “That’s Mia for you, brilliant as usual.”

Spike headed off to the SUV in front of them.

Angel grinned, “Oh no, Wes. You’ve done it now, trouble in paradise.”

“Good,” replied Wes.

Angel looked at him and chuckled. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“What just happened?” asked Willow “I couldn’t think of anything to stop them. I have spells that could have ….”

“It’s the thrall thing.” Xander said. “We forgot about it. When she first walked in she told Willow that she wouldn’t remember one spell and that she’d pull a total blank.”

“Oh dear lord,” Giles shook his head. “How could we forget? That’s how they were able to breach all the security.”

Fred spoke up. “If Mia felt she had to use thrall on Willow there’s a reason.”

“She told Willow that she was the last real gun when she nearly drained her,” volunteered Xander.

“Well then, Mia thinks it is Willow who has the power,” announced Fred.

Buffy stood up, “Power, the power.” She squared her shoulders and stood taller “We have power and we have the Scythe. We have Willow and the Scythe. We have all the power now.”

Willow smiled. “And we know that scythe thing slices and dices too.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The five vampires drove in silence.

Faith broke it. “I was wondering, you mentioned getting cursed, as in Angel’s curse. What’s stopping them from using it now?”

Angel in the front passenger seat looked back quickly at Mia.

“Relax, we stole all the copies of it,” Mia said.

Angel looked forward again.

Faith started again. “Did you steal anything else? Like maybe the Scythe? That thing had enough power to turn every potential into a Slayer: it could….”

“It’s taken care of.”

“Yes, Miss Brilliance has a plan for that,” Spike said snidely.

“Yes, I do and I will tell you it involves them being forced to use it differently than they plan. I can’t tell you any of it until we make our way to San Antonio. Let’s concentrate on more important things now, like blood and killing, blood and death, blood and destruction.”

“Yeah, howdy. How much further, Wes?”

“Well, Faith we are only a few exits to I395 then it’s eleven or twelve exits from there.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Wes used his credit card to check them all into a motel. He smiled, thinking of Fred getting the bill. It was a small thing but it would cut her to the quick. Pain, he liked to inflict it. That’s why they were staying in a place like this, not killing someone for a house. He got three separate rooms. He knew Faith would share either his or Angel’s.

He handed Spike the key for him and Mia, and watched as he strode off. Mia followed. Spike opened the door, turned to her and asked sarcastically, “Want me to carry you over the threshold, love?”

Mia walked past him. “No, I want to know what the fuck is wrong with you.”

Spike closed the door behind him. “Me? Well you are so gifted with that intelligence of yours why you don’t just figure it out.”

Mia punched him and he went flying across the room, hitting his head on the vanity sink. ”Fucking tell me what you are talking about… now !”

“I’m on about you letting me think you sired Faith when it was really Wes.” Spike stood and glared at her.

“I did sire Faith.”

“She doesn’t have your psychic shite, and as Wes tells it, that was because you wanted to make sure no vamp in the group got it. Now, it seems a little suspicious how you sent both Angel and me to move the SUV around the block just after Faith had invited us in and just before someone sired her.”

Mia stared at him for a few moments, then she turned and walked out.

Wes heard the knock at his door and answered. Mia stood there.” Invite me in.”

“Come in.” He motioned her in.

“I’m staying here tonight,” announced Mia as she walked in.

“What?” Wes smiled.

“You have two beds.” She gestured to them. “You didn’t really think that lie you told get me in to yours, did you?”

He continued to smile. “It got you closer than I hoped.”

Mia smiled back, “I’m not even angry at you: it’s him.”

Wes grinned, “Well that’s a relief, because inviting you in was a real dilemma for me for several reasons, one of them being the possibility of being beaten to a pulp.”

Laughing, Mia shook her head. “That ‘invite’ thing was just a courtesy. If a vampire occupies the room there’s no barrier. Besides, public residence so no need for invitations at all. A beating might be what you actually had in mind. We both know you like pain.”

Wes’s brows went up, “Like I said, it was a predicament.”

Mia gave another short laugh, “I wonder how much damage he’ll do to the room?”

Wes chuckled,“ Doesn’t matter. The bill goes to Mrs. Wyndam-Pryce now."

“You should know, Wes, I won’t step in when it comes to a showdown between the two of you over this.”

“Please don’t.”

Mia shrugged out of her jeans, keeping on her underwear and tank top, and crawled into the bed on the right side of the room. Wes got into the other bed. Mia stared up at the ceiling.

“If you knew the lie wouldn’t get me into bed then why do it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because Spike irritates me, and he is so damn cocky all the time, thinks he knows you so well. Some of us have known you almost as long as him. Mostly it’s just that he irritates me.”

Mia turned over on her side and looked at Wes. “Wes, baby, that’s what he’s supposed to do. He’s Spike.”

Wes turned and faced her, “So we are only two feet away but…”

“Nope.”

“And if we wake while the sun is still out?”

“Did you bring anything to do?”

“Still no, on the other thing?”

“Wes.”

“I brought in the Cleveland Watcher’s books to go through.”

“Now you are turning me on.”

Wes chuckled, “So I assume that at sunset Faith, Angel and I will be searching for military uniforms while you sort this out with Spike.”

“Yes and then later I think you just may be doing the same.”

~ ~ ~

Two hours later, as Wes and Mia slept, the door to Wes’s room burst opened. Wes instinctively jumped to a defensive stand. Mia catching the scent merely sat up. Spike punched Wes, who hit the headboard wall and slumped to the bed. He looked at Mia and then Wes.

“Separate beds, that’s something.”

He yanked her out of bed and to her feet, then holding her fast around the waist he marched back out of the room. He took her to their room, threw her on the bed and looked at her.

Mia’s eyes were narrowed. She began “Sp….”

“Shut it, woman. That will never happen again. You will not bleeding walk out on me. You will not sodding join other team members in their rooms, and don’t go getting Uber- vamp on me because I’ll bloody well fight you until you have to stake me, and then where will you be.”

“Very pissed off at you,” smiled Mia.

Spike put his hands on his hips and looked at her. “Balls, Em. How many times do I have to confess that I am an idiot, especially when you are involved. It was that wanker who lied, not you.”

Mia’s brow came up. “Took you long enough.”

“So what the hell do we do now?”

“Right now I want you to tell me some more of your rules and get real stern. Later we need to find a stake.”

Spike tilted his head. “I wasn’t really serious about the ‘you staking me’ part.”

“I know. It’s for Wes. He found my weakness and then used the devil’s favorite tool, a wedge. It won’t happen again, and he’ll be made an example of to the rest of the team.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The five vampires exited Quantico Marine base and headed north on I95.

Faith was antsy. “Damn Mia, all those hot men in uniform and you wouldn’t let me eat even one.”

“Why did you want to go to Quantico for the uniforms, Mia? There are other places without as much risk closer to our motel?” asked Angel.

Mia shrugged. “We can’t get all the ribbons and decorations we need at a normal thrift shop and, well frankly, I think the Marines have the best uniforms. Pull into that weigh station, Wes.”

“It says the scales are closed, Mia.” he responded.

“It’ll be deserted. Besides, there’s a rest area connected.”

Wes pulled in and parked.

“Come on.” Mia got out and Spike followed. She walked across the gravel parking area toward the grassy incline leading to the woods. The others caught up. Suddenly Wes was in the air and crashing backside onto the incline. Mia sunk the stake into his chest.

“Shit!” yelled Faith.

Angel just laughed.

Wes laid there, a hole in his chest right through his heart.

“It was plastic,” smirked Spike.

“This stake represents one lie for another. Just know the next one won’t be false, Wes.” Mia pulled him up by his neck. “You ever try what you did yesterday in any manner and I’ll put a wooden one right through you. We both know that was about more than irritating Spike.”

Wes looked at the stake still in her hand. “Point taken.”

Mia grinned and dropped him. “Don’t be too smart for your own good and try to exploit something you know nothing of.” She threw the stake into the woods. “Let’s go. Wes, I’d prefer you to drive.”

Faith fell to the back pulling Angel with her. “Please tell me what the hell just happened?”

Angel laughed. “Wes was punished: he overstepped his bounds somehow.” Angel stopped mid-step. “Oh, Wes, you idiot.”

“What?”

“He found one of her few weaknesses and lied to him.”

“Well how stupid is that! I knew better than to mess with that relationship the day I rose.”

“Faith, it takes longer for some people, sometimes even really intelligent ones, to learn than others.”

“Sheesh, here am I, Miss Never-Finished-High-School, and I’m the only one smart enough not to piss her off yet. I wonder if I can get something out of this if I point it out. I’m thinking there will be a good-looking guard or two at that Pentagon place. ‘Cause you know, those Generals and Admirals she’s talking about are old and mostly grey. I’m going to ask if I can take out the guards, the good-looking ones.” She grinned at Angel. “I’m getting the pretty ones, you can have the old and grey because you are part of the plastic-stake-through-the-heart club.”

Angel chuckled. She was right. He, Wes and even Spike had all had a plastic stake through their heart.

Angel and Faith got into the SUV.

Angel spoke, “Hey Spike, Wes, what you say that since we are all now official members of the plastic-stake-in-the-heart club we go for a drink tonight? Spike, I’m inviting you even though it was Finn that put it through yours, not Mia. Wes and I are privileged.”

Mia laughed. “Wes is privileged. You, Angel, had yours pierced by Emma, and she got the idea from Spike’s experience. I’m wondering why I don’t warrant an invitation. Faith put me in the club.

Faith cleared her throat, “That’s true, the alive-me did do that.”

Angel looked back at her from the front passenger seat. “That doesn’t count, Mia. You took that one willingly, and for Spike of all people.”

“Yeah, bloody stupid. Little slayer Faith sank that one. It probably had no strength behind it at all.”

Mia held up her hand to stop Faith from saying anything. She smiled, “Alright, you’re right, Riley Finn’s stake must have hurt worse. What was it you said, ‘Hurt like hell’. You’d know because you almost went there once.”

Spike ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “There you go with that memory again and I never suggested that it didn’t hurt when you were staked: I remember you telling me that it did, right before you pulled the thing out. If you want to join us, you’ve earned club status same as we did.”

“Oh, for crying out loud. I was thinking us men could use a few hours on our own but just like when we were at this before, Spike, you always want to bring your…..”

“Angel!” Spike stared at him. “Don’t even make a comparison or we will….”

“Knock it off, you three should go. Faith and I will go hunting, have a bottle of wine, bitch about men.”

Spike looked from Mia to Angel. “Now I don’t know, love. That’s a scary thought, coming home to you after I’ve been drinking and you been bitching about men.”

Mia smirked at him, “It might be even scarier if you don’t come home. Who knows what kind of mood I’ll be in talking about men all night… I mean talking about men all night with Faith.”

Faith snorted. “Better come home early rather than later, lover boy, because you will be hurting in all the right places tomorrow.”

Wes started the car. “This talk hurts worse than the stake in my chest. I can’t drive fast enough to that drink, Angel.”

Angel chuckled, “I hear you, Wes. That visual image of Spike, it’ll take a few drinks to blur it.”

“It’ll take me a few not to want to bloody start it right away.”

Faith laughed.

Mia grinned, “Sure, Spike is picturing himself in the image with me but just which one of you is picturing yourself with Faith and who will actually end up there tonight? Hmmmm. I wonder. I’ll lay my bet down but with her. We’ll tell you tomorrow if I win.”

Spike chuckled, “That’s my girl. You just made my evening out with the boys much more interesting; what with the competition for Faith’s bed now an issue.”

Mia leaned into him and whispered so only he could hear. “I learned that kind of thing from the best.”

He kissed her. “Did you now. I think perhaps I’ll stay in tonight,” he said into her in her ear, “Teach you other things.”

Mia grinned as she stared into his eyes, “Yes, please.”

Faith shook her head, “Well, boys, this will be fun for all of us then. Seeing as I just lost my hunting and drinking partner, I’ll be accompanying the plastic-stake-club out and about, and then we will see who will take me to bed. Sound fun to you?”

Angel glanced at Spike and Mia. “Not as fun as their night, but alright.”

Faith burst into laughter and the others followed.

Angel glanced at Mia. The plastic stake to the heart had been inspired. In his day, for a betrayal like that it would have been a wooden one and then there would have been no Wes. But Mia, she had a plan that involved Wes, and possibly a soft spot for the vampire as well. He was thinking he might benefit from all this in some way: just how he wasn’t sure, but he’d figure it out.

Of course that would all wait because tonight Angel had to figure out just how to make sure he was the one Faith took to her bed. Even as a souled vampire, if you had told him that he would ever have to compete with Wes for a woman he would have laughed in your face but here he was doing just that. Darla would be thoroughly disgusted with him if she could see him now. Of course, if Darla said a word against him Mia would kill her where she stood. Angel smiled, thinking of Darla’s shock at Mia besting her because there was no doubt Mia would. He shook his head as he realized that Mia would actually kill Darla if she showed him disrespect. The dynamics of their little group was nothing any demon or human had ever seen before. That was disturbing and exciting to Angel and a lot of the reason he stayed. That and Mia; he liked to watch her as well as to see what she had planned next.