Summary: (Starts in
ATS5 goes AU (really AU) from there.) Angel does a spell that unleashes
Black Willow. Spike, Buffy and Dawn must escape the dimension to keep
Dawn safe from Willow. What adventures will our daring trio face as
they move through the dimensions? Will they find their way home? Follow
them as they meet old friends and make new ones. Scenario # 5 of
the
Immortal Guardian series.
Chapter 17
“May I see the vampire?” Maggie Walsh asked without greeting the
sanitarium doctor.
“Right away, Professor Walsh.” The doctor saluted his former commander.
“This one is in better shape then the last one. He’s actually alert and
feisty.”
“Excellent.” Maggie Walsh followed the doctor down a long corridor to a
security room. When they got into the room, a bank of television sets
covered one wall. “Which one is he?”
The doctor pointed to a screen where a dark-haired specimen was rolling
around the floor fighting against the straightjacket that encircled his
body.
Walsh took a seat to study her newest acquisition for awhile before she
presented herself to him. She noted that he was shouting something as
he rolled around. She looked at the doctor. “What is he saying?”
“He is insisting that he’s the Champion of the Powers that Be. He’s
quite adamant that we let him go, and that he needs to get home to
Sunnydale to his child.” The doctor tilted his head. “Can a vampire
have children?”
“Not possible. Their seed is quite dead.” Walsh tapped her chin.
“Sunnydale. That’s quite interesting. I tried to set up a base in
Sunnydale, but I was vetoed with no explanation given. This could be my
opportunity to find out more about that town.”
“Will you request to be assigned there again?”
Maggie shook her head. “No, some group in England has banned any
military interference in Sunnydale. I just wish to know about the town
for my files.”
“Do you wish for us to prep him for travel, Professor?”
“Yes, please do.” Walsh looked at her former subordinate. “While you’re
at it, can you prep him for Demon Truth?”
“Of course, Professor.” The doctor left the room. He almost felt sorry
for the monster in the other room. Demon Truth was a serum discovered
by the Initiative while on a mission in Belize. No secret could be
hidden from the drug. The demon was forced to bare all of its secrets
no matter how trivial.
Maggie went back to watching the screen. She saw the big, husky
orderlies enter the room, followed by the doctor. The orderlies held
the vampire down, careful of the creature’s fangs, while the doctor
plunged a syringe into its neck.
Angel fought the humans that held him down, but the straightjacket
hindered him. He screamed obscenities at the man that held a needle. He
fell into darkness as soon as the hypodermic entered his skin.
Angel had no idea how much time had passed when he woke up. It could
have been minutes or days for all he knew. When he tried to move, he
realized that he couldn’t move. He was strapped in the upright position.
“Tell me what your name was before you were turned,” a disembodied
voice demanded.
Angel opened his mouth to tell the voice to fuck off, but instead he
found himself telling his entire life history.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Buffy, can I talk to you for a minute?” Anne said softly to her
vampiric counterpart. She nodded her head towards the basement stairs.
“I have some news for you.”
“Okay.” Buffy nodded. She followed the older Slayer to the basement.
“What’s the what?”
“The Angel who did all this to you isn’t coming back with my mate, but
the one from our dimension is.” Anne sighed. “I understand that you
don’t want to see him. So, he’ll be going to the apartment to hang out,
but I wanted to warn you that he’s here in town.”
“Will he hurt me?” Buffy gulped nervously.
“Nah, he’s okay. Darla didn’t curse him like she did here.” Anne
shrugged. “Now, if he gets all happy, that’s a different story. His
soul has a happiness curse on it. One happy, and he’s Angelus.”
“When will they be here?” Buffy looked concerned.
“In about a half hour, I think.” Anne grinned. She really missed
William, and she was glad that they’d be together again. “We’ll have
our meeting about the Master. I think we’ll be out of your hair really
soon. We need to move on to keep away from our Willow.”
Upstairs the doorbell rang to herald the arrival of the first of the
guests that planned on attending the ‘Eliminate the Master’ Scooby
meeting.
“We better get upstairs.” Anne smirked. “Don’t want any of them to kill
each other before dinner. Besides, I need to introduce Clem to Spike.
They’re gonna be great buddies.” She pulled her counterpart towards the
stairs.
Spike opened the front door to find Xander, Anya, Giles, and Serina on
the other side. He ushered them inside, sending the women to the
kitchen with the goodies that they had brought for dinner. Xander and
Anya had been there earlier until they realized they needed go out to
find something for the potluck dinner.
Anne and Buffy ascended into the kitchen to find Serina and Anya
placing two big square dishes, and a big round foil covered bowl on the
counter. They looked at the identical Slayers, and they both smiled in
greeting.
“I made two lasagnas,” Serina said. “My specialty from my Italian
grandmother. One is vegetable lasagna, and the other is traditional.”
“Serina helped me make a fruit salad.” Anya pointed at the bowl.
“Should I put it in the fridge?”
“Sure go ahead.” Anne waved towards the appliance in question. “I’m
just glad you didn’t bring anything like what was served at the
Wedding-that-didn’t. I don’t think this crowd is ready for some of the
more exotic demon foods.”
“There’re demon foods?” Willow entered the kitchen carrying several
loaves of bread and a tub of garlic butter. When the other women looked
at her in surprise, she shrugged. “Yeah, we’re back from Vegas. The
gang is dropping Liam off at the apartment right now.”
“Oh, yeah.” Anne giggled while she answered Willow’s question. “We had
to keep Xander’s family all distracted from the moving food on the
plates at the rehearsal dinner.”
“How did you explain everything to the Harris’?” Willow went to the
counter where she started to prepare the garlic bread.
“Congratulations, Anya, you now belong to the circus.” Anne laughed at
the surprised look on her face.
“Buffy, can you come in here for a minute,” Giles called out. “There’s
someone who wants to see you.”
Buffy left the kitchen, and in a few seconds the ladies still in the
kitchen heard the turned Slayer cry out, “Mom!”
“I didn’t know Mom was coming tonight,” Anne said. She peered out the
kitchen door like she was trying to catch a glimpse of the older woman.
“Giles thought it would be a nice surprise.” Serina moved to touch Anne
on the shoulder. “He warned Joyce about you, if you want to go in and
say hello.”
“I don’t know.” Anne bit her lip. “I mean, she just found out her real
daughter is not completely dead. She doesn’t need another one buggering
up the reunion.”
“How long have you been hanging out with Spike?” Willow asked. “I have
to say ‘buggered’ isn’t really a Buffy word.”
“We’ve been together for a few years now.” Anne got a little smile on
her face.
“We sure have, luv.” William sauntered into the kitchen. He stumbled
backwards a bit when Anne leapt onto his body, surrounding him with her
legs and arms. Their mouths met in a scorching welcome.
Willow’s cheeks turned a bright red with embarrassment, and she turned
to her task of buttering the bread. Serina gave a serene smile as she
read the Immortal Guardians’ happy auras.
In the living room, the others watched as Buffy got reacquainted with
her mother. Clem had shown up with his new girlfriend, a very nice
human woman named Jack who worked as a bartender at the Bronze. They
brought along another demon that looked completely human by the name of
Richard Jones. Richard was an Uxia demon that owned and operated a
tattoo parlor in town. He was the representative for the demonic
population. The deputy mayor Alan Finch brought along Willy from the
Alibi Room as a representative from the human businessmen in the town.
Hassib and his lovely wives were the last to arrive, bringing a salad
and some news from about the other dimensions.
After a nice dinner of lasagna with all the trimmings followed by key
lime cheesecake, the group got down to business.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buffy patrolled alone that night. Angel was off doing what ever it was
he did when he wasn’t being Mr. Cryptic-I’m-too-old-for-you guy, Giles
and Willow were shelving books at the school library, and Xander had a
date. Buffy just hoped she didn’t have to kill this one. Killing her
friend’s dates was getting to be a bit boring.
“Maybe we need a Scooby dating quiz,” Buffy muttered to herself. She
twirled the stake she was carrying.
“Slayer, we meet again,” Spike snarled.
Buffy whirled around to find the bleached blond vampire standing a few
feet away. “Spike! Just who I was looking for. The fledges have been
damned boring tonight. Dusting without a fight, let me tell you.”
“So, you wanna dance, Slayer?” Spike cocked his head to one side.
“You betcha!”
The fight was on. The Slayer and the vampire circled each other for a
few seconds before one of them threw the first punch. Buffy was just
getting into the fight when a cold shiver went down her spine, and she
stopped suddenly as she looked around wildly.
“Spike, I’m scared,” Buffy said in a little girl voice.
Spike stopped fighting the same time that Buffy did. He extended his
senses trying to catch a glimpse of what had so cleverly brushed up
against himself and the Slayer. He stepped towards the girl, who was
now hugging her body and shivering. “Me too, luv,” the vampire replied.
Buffy felt an overwhelming need to step closer to Spike, and when he
opened his arms to her, she gratefully stepped into them. “If you’re
scared, and I’m scared, it must be something really bad.”
“Yeah, it’s something bad.” Spike continued to scan the graveyard for
something out of the ordinary. He noticed a blue light out of the
corner of one eye. When he turned to catch a better glimpse, he
realized it was a vortex of some kind. Turning to give the swirling
light a better look, he noticed a black phantom sliding through the
currents that made up the vortex. “There it is.”
Buffy turned to look at the creature. “I don’t like the feeling of
this. I’m feeling pretty wonky now.”
“I agree. Let’s go find the Watcher.” Spike grabbed Buffy’s sleeve, and
they ran at full speed towards the school and Giles.
Giles, Willow, and Xander looked up in surprise when Buffy and Spike
slammed into the library, breathless from running.
“What’s he doing here?” Xander demanded. He didn’t like the way Buffy
stayed snuggled up against the notorious vampire.
“There’s something out there,” Buffy panted. “It came through a vortex
thingie.”
Angel stepped out of the stacks at that moment. He could smell the fear
rolling off both Spike and Buffy, and he knew if Spike was scared then
it was something really bad. The Spike he knew wasn’t scared of
anything. In fact none of the Spikes he had ever met had been this
scared except under one certain condition. “Tell me what happened.”
Spike and Buffy looked at the older vampire, and then at each other.
Buffy spoke for the two of them. “I got really cold first. Then, I was
scared like nothing I’ve ever been before. Spike noticed some kind of
vortex.”
“A dark shadow creature came out of it,” Spike continued.
Angel gave a sigh. “I was afraid of this. The Shades have finally come
to this dimension.”
“Angel, what are you talking about?” Giles gave the dark haired vampire
a curious look.
“Let me tell you a story.” Angel descended the stairs. “A story about a
vampire with a soul who did a really, really bad thing. As Spike will
tell you, magic has consequences. It always has consequences.”