Bludhaven Hellmouth
by Redwulf
Chapter Eight
130 days ago, Cleveland
Buffy sat with her Steward impatiently waiting for the Slayers and Scoobies to arrive. Every move on her part had been carefully orchestrated to put Giles and the other Watchers at a disadvantage.
First, to remind Giles that he didn't possess the necessary monies to fund the new organization himself, she, or rather 'Mrs. Wordsworth,' had lavishly gifted everyone credit cards to be used for necessities. Then the ostentatious use of her private planes that Giles badly needed access to in order to search for his fellow Watchers. The next move involved her handling of the living quarters here at her manor. Part of her knew, she was being petty, but her Slayer-half still remembered being expelled from her own home. That would not happen here. This was HERS. Well, hers and Dawn's, and from now on it would be her way or the highway.
During the last few days, Buffy had also discovered nineteen new slayers. Buffy had already recruited them with little trouble and moved them into the manor. Several girls had been homeless children and younger teens, but two were attorneys and four had been policewomen.
Buffy had begun their training immediately, but she realized that she needed the talents of the dark haired Slayer, Faith, to truly get through to the formerly homeless ones. Her solicitors were already working on tearing Faith's conviction apart. Soon the other Slayer would be free to fight the good fight.
Buffy knew she was being ruthless in her fight, but she felt she had no choice. Either she helped place the Slayers in charge of the fight now, or they would likely return to being the virtual slaves of the Watcher's Council for all time.
Cleveland Airport, 130 days ago
Rupert Giles was quickly realizing that he was out gunned.
First, a corporate jet had flown the rag tag band of heroes to Cleveland. Once there, the group had been hustled to several different limousines. Faith, Willow and Kennedy were riding in one - just the three of them. The other Slayers were divided up in the same groups in which they normally segregated themselves. However, he had been stuck in the smallest car with Wood, Xander, Andrew, and three Watchers, whom he had found still alive so far.
Of course the other Watchers also understood what was happening, but they were as caught as he. Try as they might, they had not been able to access Council funds. Mrs. Wordsworth's work no doubt. No matter how many warnings he gave the others about this mysterious new 'benefactor,' they acted as if he were crazy.
When he had been informed that he and the other male members of the team would be living in Mrs. Wordsworth's home in Cleveland, Giles gnashed his teeth. It was another bone of contention with him. If Mrs. Wordsworth kept playing this game as well as she had been, the men of the group would be lucky to have running water. But he found his back pressed against the proverbial wall, as his strongest warrior, Buffy, wasn't around to help.
As the cars turned off the main road and down the cobblestone path to the house, Giles truly began to be annoyed. He silently fumed upon viewing a true Victorian style English manor house complete with stables and gardens. Now even his fellow Watchers seemed to be taken in, after all an English noblewoman in an English manor home was something they all understood. Giles however found himself growing more apprehensive as the cars made their way to the main entrance.
Buffy couldn't have been more pleased. So far Giles had to endure a five-hour wait in LAX, a three-hour flight, and two more hours on the road, complete with orders to her drivers that no one would sleep or eat 'til they got to the mansion. Her Steward was a genius, and Buffy knew she had gained the advantage.
From where she waited, she caught a glimpse of the girls and her former Watcher as they arrived. They appeared tired and hungry. Her Slayer side was happy. Her own Slayers were around the place awaiting Tea as the English called it.
And Tea would be positively perfect tonight. Cook had overdone herself with a simplistic but delicious American style meal, from the pot roast and roasted vegetables to the old style banana pudding for desert. Sure, she had been presented with a new battlefield, General Buffy was learning it quickly.
Even though Giles felt dead on his feet, he didn't realize how hungry he was until the front door of the mansion opened, and the smells coming from inside wafted to his senses, causing his mouth to water. The perfect model of a British-style butler greeted him and his group. The butler asked each of the arriving party to refresh themselves before Tea.
Giles was ready to concede defeat until he stepped into the dining room. Displayed over the mantel was a painting of none other than Spike, aka William the Bloody. Giles started putting together the pieces. He thought that most likely Spike was also known as William Carlyle Wordsworth. 'Did that mean that Elizabeth Wordsworth was Buffy?'
"It's good to see you Giles." Dawn's voice broke him out of his reverie. From behind him he heard, "You like the new digs?"
All thought of strategically logic evaporated upon seeing the young woman he thought of as his youngest daughter. "Thank God, you're alive!"
Giles hugged Dawn, happy now to turn control of the Slayer army over to Buffy. Truthfully he felt extremely proud of Buffy; she had learned all he had to teach.
Bludhaven, 130 days ago
"Dude, she's gone insane!" Tim 'Robin' Drake told his older brother Dick 'Nightwing' Grayson. "I mean… yeah, I can see her being mad at you; you're an ass most of the time, but me? What have I ever done to her?"
Dick smirked at him. At least this time everyone wasn't standing back and acting like he was the vile, cruel villain to break the 'oh so innocent maiden's' heart. "Please, she hacked the Bludhaven police computers and had me listed as America's most unwanted. To add insult to injury, she had doctored the picture of me with Photo Shop adding a mustache, warts and a pimple on the end of my nose."
"Yeah, but she's mad at you. I am just the innocent, kid brother bystander." Tim said mournfully. "She hacked my dad's computer. And even after I've reformatted the hard drive and re-uploaded windows, whenever he reboots he just gets a white screen that says, "Timothy Drake should be castrated for the sake of the gene pool."
"Oh my god! Good one Babs." The elder laughed. "She got Roy too. Found a load of embarrassing baby pics of him and uploaded them as screen savers at the Tower, Outsider HQ, and the Watch tower."
"Man, so not funny," Tim shuddered. "What did you do? She's like the mob. She isn't just trying to bring you down, she's after your friends and family too."
"Yeah," Dick said in a dreamy voice. "Oh man, I love her."
"You're sick dude," Tim informed him with a grin. "You probably have dreams of her. You with handcuffs and a whip. God, you're as bad as Bruce."
"Don't knock it till you try it, virgin boy."
Gotham, the Clock Tower, 130 days ago
Even though Barbara was still kind of pissed off, she snickered at her own antics. The accidental find of Roy's baby pics on Ollie Queen's computer had led the now semi-evil, fully mischievous Oracle to skim through other heroes' hard drives.
She now had 200 nude pics of Wonder Woman on sale at Ebay, which to her delight had been snagged from the Amazon's own computer. The two-dozen of the Amazon princess with a riding crop were positively scandalous. After finding found one nude of Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern) wearing only his mask and his ring, Barbara had program it as the newest desktop theme at the Watch Tower. Kyle was well built she had to admit, but he seriously came up 'short' in other areas. Why Jennie Lynn had saved this pic, she had no idea; but from the Roy nudes that Donna had on her computer, it was obvious Troia had traded down… like way down when she dumped the Outsider. But she would not be posting Roy's nudes. That would be like posting her own nude photos of Dick, more like free advertising for the guys rather than humiliation.
She was sure that Bruce would figure out where the pictures of Wonder Woman had come from. But since the news frequently linked him romantically to the Amazon, when in truth he was sleeping with Catwoman, she knew the dreaded Batman wouldn't say much out of fear of Selina's claws.
It had started as a game really. Leaving Riddler or Cluemaster style pieces of the puzzle for Dick had soon enough become Babs' way of dealing with the over-inflated opinions of her colleagues. She had enough non job-related info on just about everyone to humiliate each and every one of them. Oh, some like Wally, Bart, Donna and Clark were immune from her antics. Wally was having enough problems with his psycho wife, attacking Bart would be like kicking a puppy, and Donna and Clark were just so nice it would feel evil to pounce on them. Of course, then there was Kory. For the slut, Babs had posted her private phone number all over the web with the inscription 'For a good time call,' but hey, she blamed the hormones.
And her dreams now??? Talk about weird. Now she was dreaming of having sex with Ted Kord? It was bad enough dreaming of sex with someone she knew was a lousy lay, but it got worse. In her dreams, she had sex with Ted while pretending he was Dick. God, that was weird even for a Bat.
Gotham City the Clock Tower, present
Dick Grayson sat at Babs' second workstation pulling up the results of the lab reports he had put in this morning. As he read over it, his grin got bigger and bigger. "I've got her. YES!! I've got her."
Babs looked over at the read out. "Oh yeah, nail her to the wall."
Dick leered at her. "I thought I was only supposed to nail...."
"Hey!" Dinah cut him off, "Don't need the innuendo here, some of us are sleeping alone."
"Not our problem." Babs grinned evilly. "Didn't you say something about an escort service last night?"
"I hope Roy thought to bring his badge," Dick said as he started out the door.
"You have a costume in my closet."
"I thought you would have burned it," uttered Dick, as he reversed direction to change into costume.
"Burn it? Please, she was sleeping with it," Dinah yelled out after him.
"Did not!" Babs gave her friend an outraged look before settling back in with a pout. "OK, I did. But you weren't supposed to tell him."
New York Star Labs
Rupert Giles was being dragged along behind Dawn Summers at almost dead run. He was carrying eight pizza boxes of various types and a box of Spicy wings. It was enough to drive a man insane. He had to keep reminding himself that he loved the two Summers girls like his own daughters, so often that it had almost became a mantra.
The good news was that: one, he hadn't had to pay for this. Dawn had quickly pulled out her Wordsworth Master Card and happily paid for it all; two, his girls were happier than he had seen them in years; and three, to be truthful, he had a pad and paper in his jacket pocket and was looking forward to interviewing Spike.
As he reached the door he was surprised to see the guard. A young woman in a Bat costume cut so strangely it looked like an S&M fetishist's wet dream. Dawn skidded to a halt in front of her obviously having been told to do so by the young woman.
"Dawn Summers and Rupert Giles with pizza are here to see Spike." Dawn announced loudly.
As he entered the room he noticed the mood change quickly. Buffy was sitting on the other side of the room in a chair reading from a folder. The tension so thick you could cut it with the proverbial knife.
"Jeeze Spike, what did you do now?" Dawn asked.
"Nothing, I swear. I was just here and those nurses came in…" William began.
"Please, you were all 'hurry up girls, my woman is in the bathroom, please fluff my pillows and ogle my tight body while she's gone'," Buffy huffed.
Rupert Giles sat the food on the table and pulled off his glasses. "So the nurses made their rounds while you were out? Doing their job no doubt, and you are mad at William, why?"
Buffy dropped the file to her lap staring at Giles as if he were insane. "What? You are all hating William here, see supposed to be on Buffy's side," Buffy questioned. "And he was lying there all…" Buffy demonstrated by lying back in her chair and started making mooneyes at an imaginary nurse.
"Dawn, would you please invite the young lady from the hallway in for pizza?" Rupert asked the younger Summers.
"But I wanna see Buffy acting all uber-jealous girl." Dawn pouted.
"I am not jealous, just soo not wanting other women to be ogling what's mine." Buffy answered her sister.
"And Buffy," Giles began. "I do not hate William. I made a mistake, and I have come to apologize for it."
"Well, William here is all not remembering guy. Doesn't remember anything since seconds before Drusilla sired him." Buffy informed him.
Batgirl walked in slowly eyeing Buffy as she passed the Watcher she said, "She crazy."
"Yes quite," Rupert answered, smiling to himself.
Buffy gathered up a pizza and the hot wings and walked over to Spike's bed. She sat down next to him and opened up the food. William seemed to try to slide away from her, but one chilling look froze him in his place.
Streets of Bludhaven
She had been on the run for nearly an hour, but everywhere she turned there they were. Fear clawed up in her throat. She had planned everything perfectly, from separating him from his girlfriend to attempting to cause strife between him and his friends, but they were everywhere. A yellow lightning bolt here, a swirling Duster there, a black and blue costume ahead of her. Then from nowhere, a bolo wrapped around her ankles, causing her to trip and fall. As she bent down to unhook the freaking bolos from her feet, she heard him speak.
"You have the right to main silent, but please feel free to say whatever you want to," Nightwing said from the shadows.
"You have the right to an attorney. But I doubt one will get you off with less than a life sentence." Arsenal said from her other side.
"You have other rights, but I can't really remember them." She now saw the JLA member the Flash walking towards her eating a hoagie.
"You have the right to try to resist. Please do." This time Nightwing's voice was inches from her ear, but she relaxed.
"You really think you can convict me in this town?" Tarantula asked with a smile. "My brother is the DA."
"Well, I am a member of the Justice League, which means I am a peace officer for the UN." Flash stated having finished his sandwich. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID.
"And Nightwing and I are Outsiders, which is sanctioned by the federal government. Making us like, secret police." He smiled, "And guess what… trying to open a gateway to a hell dimension is actually is a federal offence."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Gotham City streets
Batman attacked the eyeless men with a vengeance. It was the third group he had encountered this night, and he was getting tired of their mindless attacks. His gas pellets hit the asphalt even as his rebreather covered his face. This time he waited for the squad cars hoping that they might have new information.
More and more this First Evil was making it personal. Turning innocent Gothamites into eyeless killers was enough to bring down the wrath of the Bat. If he could just find a way to make the thing solid for a while.
It wasn't even turning the normal hoods. It was turning mostly upscale Gothamites. There had to be a plan behind this madness.
Bludhaven city limits, just before sunrise
Roy Harper pulled in to gas up for the drive back to NY. His old hot rod wasn't a Bat approved model, but it got him around. It just drank a lot of gas doing it.
When he had filled up the tank he meandered into the store hoping to get some grub for the ride. As he opened the door all hell broke loose, as several men in Combat fatigues jumped him. He was still wired up from the night's patrols and was throwing them around almost effortlessly, but when he saw the dart hit his leg he knew it was over. The blur from nowhere surprised him. Roy fought the effects of the dart as he watched an unnamed woman attack and kill his would-be attackers. He realized she was a vamp, as she turned toward him. The vamp in game face bent over him and pulled out the dart, and then sank her fangs into his upper thigh where the dart had been. He passed out praying that Dick would raise Lian right.
TBC
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