Subject: [darkmark_fanfic] Buffy / Supergirl: Chicago Crossover, part 1 Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 00:30:58 -0000 From: "darkmark90" This may be the silliest idea yet for a fic. But Frito gave me a challenge, and I responded. Read or pass, as you will, and view this as a Dark Horse type of crossover. Anybody trying to fit it into an established universe will be drowned. Take a deep breath... Buffy / Supergirl: Chicago Crossover by DarkMark Buffy and related characters are property of their copyright holders. Supergirl and DCU characters are property of DC Comics, Inc. No money is being made from this story, no infringement is intended. I Buffy Summers had long since forgotten about trying to get weird things to stop following her around. By now, she was just resigned to being tough enough to handle it whenever it caught up to her. Even in Chicago, it'd probably turn up. She looked out of the cab window at what she could see of the city. It just didn't seem to end. She'd been in a few big cities before, and, except for New York, you could probably put each one of them in Chicago's back pocket. The crew had told her to visit the Sears Tower, see the Picasso sculpture, take a look at that oddball building that they'd used to film RUNNING SCARED, and a few other things, and bring back the snapshots. That was, of course, in addition to taking care of what had drawn her to the city in the first place. "What brings you to Chicago, miss?" asked the Indian cabbie, pleasantly. "Oh, friends," she said. "That's all." Yep. Friends like Cordelia Chase, who gave her a phone call right in the middle of dinner and said, "Buffy. You have to go to Chicago." "I have to what? Cordelia, this is totally not the way to get on my persuaded side." "I'm sorry, look, really, I am. But this is something damned important, Buffy. I can't even get the shape of it right in my mind, but you're needed in Chicago. Definitely." "Like why?" "An image of the moon as red as blood. Hanging over the Sears Tower. I know. I looked it up to make sure." "Oh." Buffy looked back towards her plate of stir-fry and balled a fist in frustration. "I'm so glad to hear that." "Bats flying around the tower. A sense of...I don't know...inversion. Like the Hellmouth. Not unlike that, Buffy." "Uh huh." "And here's the clincher. You know that mob hit that made CNN last month? The one where they pulled the two guys out of the bottom of the river there, the ones chained together by their wrists?" "Vaguely, yeah." "No blood in the bodies. They didn't let that detail out." "How do you know?" "I know." Buffy sighed. "So how in the hell do I get to Chicago?" "Is it okay for me to wire you some money?" "Can't you get some other teenage vampire stalker to do the job for you this time?" "Buffy, please." "All right, all right. Jeez. I just wish I got class credit for this sort of thing." As it was, Cordelia had even been able to give her the addy of "the place where she felt she should go." It was a boarding house near the U. of Chicago, to which the cab was supposed to be taking her. The fee on the meter was high enough that she decided she'd either try to find somebody in the building who'd give her a lift, or investigate the El. Couldn't be any worse than a subway. The place was a big brownstone, old and dignified enough, but still solid. Buffy sighed as the cab halted by the curb. She paid the man, allowed him to get her two suitcases out of the trunk, and took them herself up to the door. Then she rang the bell and waited. Idly, she wondered if John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd would answer the door in hats and shades. No such luck. It was a smallish, gray-haired woman with a decent- sized smile. "Hello," she said. "Miss Summers?" "Um, yeah, that's me." Buffy picked up both cases, not wanting the old woman to exert herself. "You must be Mrs. Berkowitz?" "That's me, I'm afraid. Come on inside, but let me get one of those suitcases, dearie. I'm old, but that frail I'm not." Another voice came from behind her. "Oh, Mrs. B, let me handle it. If you strain yourself, we'll miss your gefilte fish tonight." "Ah!" Ida turned, and an attractive brown-haired girl, conservatively dressed in a blouse, vest, and skirt stepped up and took one of the suitcases from Buffy's hand. The blonde girl tensed for a second, almost imperceptibly. The kind of stuff she had in that bag wasn't meant to be unpacked in public. People got nerved at the sight of stakes, holy water, silver crucifixes, and all. Plus the other weapons she packed, for more conventional problems. The case was heavy enough, but the woman holding it,who looked just shy of thirty, didn't have a problem at all. Mrs. Berkowitz said, "She's in 3A. You know where that is." "Hi," said Buffy. "Uh, for what it's worth, I'm Buffy. Buffy Summers." The brunette favored her with a slight smile. "Glad to know you. My name's Linda Danvers. Follow me." -B- It's only a rumor that vampires are confined to night rising. If they avoid the sun, they can pull a day shift. The boss, John Vladislav, insisted on it. "The human world works 24 hours a day, now," he'd say, "and we can't do any less, if we want to win. Anybody that doesn't agree gets staked." So the dayshifters took care of planning and ops while the big boys and their coterie slept. They did not often travel, and, when they did, were bundled furtively into big vans and were kept covered until they arrived in the offices to which they were taken. A small force of nonconverted humans was used for the transport. The vamps handled this in the time-honored way: they held members of their employees' family hostage, to ensure they did a good job. Robert Platt, a Midwesterner who had come to the big city to make his fortune and found one of a different kind in a dark alley one night, had to admit that the four guys carrying his coffin didn't do too bad a job. A little bumpy over the threshhold, but they could be forgiven that. He wasn't working out enough to keep his weight down, and he resolved to do something about it. The forward motion came to a halt and somebody rapped on the lid. "Leave us," said the voice of his underboss. By the time Robert raised the lid, the four carriers were gone. That left only the underboss, Peter Rummo, staring into his eyes. Rummo, resplendent in his three-piece suit and long gray mustache to cover his fangs, loved doing that. "So? How did it go?" Platt grasped the edges of the box and sat up, smoothed back his hair with one hand, and brushed down his suit. "Fairly routine, Mr. R. Luchensa is still making noises about his boys, but the rest of the families are still keeping him down. So far, I don't think we've got a hell of a lot to fear in that direction." "Get a couple of hundred years on you, and then you can judge who and what to fear. Any increase in payment?" "They tried to jack me up, but I Hungarianed them down. One of their men tried to pull a knife on Woody. Woody persuaded him that wouldn't do any good." "Left him how?" "Impaired use of his left hand. Cuts and abrasions. Just show stuff." Rummo nodded, briefly. "We've much to do in the next week. The Outfit isn't wise to our ways yet, but I have no hope for that condition lasting long. I want you at the Tower, tonight." "The Tower, sir?" "It's time you got some hands-on experience with the operation," said Rummo. "You're going to help the Blood Red Moon succeed in this endeavor personally, or find yourself on the business end of a stake. With garlic." After a pause, Platt nodded. "I'll perform, boss. I'll perform." Maybe to be continued....