Birth Right

By Alecca

Ignition

Los Angeles
2083
Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc.

He walked down the halls whistling a song, feeling a little cheerier than he usually did. He thought the reason for it was the fact that the old blood was coming back. Well, not literally...though Wolfram & Hart could have made that possible a few years back he supposed . Unfortunately - or fortunately, he couldn't really decide - nearly all branches of Wolfram & Hart had closed down after demons were outted. Too much exposure, Eve had told him during their last meeting. All ties to the superevil law firm had been dissolved, though they had been kind enough to still leave Angel the proper resources to continue his work in LA. For old times' sake, Eve had told him. He had even received a visit from Holland Manners himself on that last day when Wolfram & Hart had still been a law firm. It had been an interesting visit, he had to admit. A speech about rivalry and worthy adversaries and regrets that they had never gotten to fight on the same side, of good or evil , a last goodbye and a see you in hell. He smiled as he passed down the corridors and was saluted by various members of his staff.

"'Morning, bossy," Harmony's cheery voice greeted him as he headed for his office. On her desk, the headline of a newspaper announced: 'Book of Katurye stolen!' and under it in smaller letters: "The first ever recorded theft in the New York Museum of Unnatural History", but Angel was too distracted to even notice the newspaper.

"Morning, Harm," he returned the salute. When Harmony had first been introduced as his secretary he had been more than skeptical about her, but over the years he had come to appreciate her. Maybe not for her 'wonderful' personality, but for the mere fact that she was still there, never changing, never old, eternal, like him. Before he had gotten a soul, time passing by meant nothing to him, but after...when he actually cared for people, it had been hard on him, too hard. That was why this day was such a happy one! The old blood coming back to Wolfram & Hart. He smiled again.

Harmony entered the office without knocking, giddy and excitedly told Angel:

"They're here! They're here!" only now Angel realized that maybe he wasn't the only one missing his old friends. He considered calling them in his office, but decided against it, if he went out himself to welcome them it would be more familiar and they were family after all. He got up from his desk and followed Harmony out of the office, feeling strangely as giddy as she seemed to be, but trying not to show it on the outside.

In front of Harmony's desk stood two teenagers, a girl and a boy each holding a large cardboard box and looking around themselves fascinated by their surroundings.

"Here he is," Harmony told them all smiles. The teenagers turned to look at Angel. The girl had long curly brown hair, brown eyes, glasses on her nose and was slim and pretty. The boy, a bit taller than the girl, had short dark hair and glasses on his nose as well. They were both dressed neatly in preparation school outfits. The girl was wearing a skirt reaching down to her knees. She smiled shyly at Angel.

"I'm Angel," he introduced himself.

"We know," the girl hurried to say. They were excited to meet him as well. "We saw the pictures!"

"Great-grandmother had tons," the boy added betraying a British accent.

"But you don't know us," the girl continued and after a pause to catch her breath she said: "I'm Winifred. My friends call me Fred, but everyone in the family calls me Fred 2. Because of great-grandma."

"And I'm Wes 2. Because of great- grandfather," the boy added. They were the great-granddaughter and great- grandson of the original Wesley and Fred. Even though they didn't have children together, they had children with others, children that would marry and reunite their two families. And in the third generation of their family something had happened, a pair of twins were born, the kind that don't look alike, that had gathered inside them all the great passions and qualities of their great-grandparents. Wesley and Fred's family hadn't been involved in the demon hunting business since their retirement in their late 50s and now their family had found its way back to Wolfram & Hart and Angel through the twins, Fred 2 and Wes 2.

"My brother insists in using that ridiculous British accent ever since we found out our great-grandfather was British. I think we were 10 at the time," the girl smiled and the boy gave her a frustrated look.

"It's good to have you here," Angel said smiling. "So I assume, Fred 2 will be in the science division and Wes 2 in the research division?"

"No, no," Wes 2 smiled. "She's the research genius. A regular bookworm."

"And he's the science wizz," Fred pointed out.

"Wonderful," Angel managed to say. Looking at them, he lost himself in the past for a few moments and wondered if having them at the firm wouldn't be frustrating instead of great as he had expected it to be. They were the spitting image of their great- grandparents and surely to someone like Angel, and even like Harmony it would be easy to start confusing them with the original Fred and Wes.

"Is something wrong?" Fred 2 asked concerned.

"No, I just..." Angel sighed. "You look so much like your great-grandparents."

"You're like...almost the same!" Harmony added as well.

"We know," Wes 2 smiled. "Just the personalities are a little mingled."

"That's going to take some time to get use to," Angel admitted. "But let's put the past aside and let me show you your offices."

The two teenagers nodded excitedly and Wes 2 started walking down the hallway Harmony had stirred him towards. Before following, Fred 2 looked back at Angel and smiled weakly:

"This is really weird for you, isn't it?" she asked after a moment of hesitation.

"Yeah. You too?" he asked arching an eyebrow.

"Yup," she nodded. "I mean you used to know our great-grandparents and look at you! You're as young as you were back then. I mean I know what a vampire is, but..."

"Feeling eternity up close is scary," he understood.

"That's one way of putting it," she lifted her shoulders. "If we could just put the past behind us..."

"It'd be a whole lot easier. But the past is the reason I'm happy you're both here," Angel told her and smiled. "But if you want we could try to start fresh," he made a pause before adding, extending his hand: "Hi, I'm Angel, I run this company and I hunt demons for a living."

"Hi, I'm Fred," she shook his hand returning the smile. "And I just love what you've done with the place. I heard this used to be an evil law firm."

"Yes, but we're reformed now, we only help the good and kill the evil," he extended his hand towards the hallway. "Let me show you to your office."

"Thank you," Fred 2 giggled as she passed in front of Angel and was shortly followed by him down the hallway. As they were walking, a big crowd of people suddenly filled the corridor coming out of a conference room. "Wow, what's with all the people?"

"The research department had an all- nighter," Angel explained. "We've been trying to track down this demon that surfaces every 50 years and feeds on human brains. Mostly very smart peoples' brains."

"Is he really dangerous?" Fred 2 asked excitedly. Though she and her brother had read about demons and vampires, they hadn't really encountered any evil ones, only the reformed or peaceful kind anyone could meet in the city.

"Yeah, I'd say so...Last time he came out to play he ate half our research department's brains," he remembered the gruesome events that became the reason for Fred and Wes's retirement. They had grown old and they had told him that everything was becoming too much for them and that they needed their peace and closure. So they had left.

"He-he was here?" Fred 2 was slightly taken aback. She had always pictured Wolfram & Hart as a stronghold, an untouchable fortress, but obviously it wasn't.

"The senior partners forgot to mention that his resting place was right underneath the building. It wasn't pretty, but we made sure he never came back here," he assured her. "The problem is we don't know where he went. We couldn't kill him last time because after eating so much of our staff he was full and he immediately wanted to go back underground. We couldn't track him down while he was dormant," he accidentally bumped into a young woman in a gray suit with glasses on her nose. "Excuse me," he apologized and looked at her strangely for a moment. "Do I know you?"

"I'm new," the girl said in a hurry and walked past him towards the lobby, betraying a certain amount of impatience as she did. Fred 2 looked back after her.

"Well, she looked like she was in a hurry," she noted. "You know her?"

"No," Angel looked behind towards the lobby, lost in thought for a second, then something suddenly dawned on him and he chuckled: "She was a slayer. Vampires can always smell them. It's like a feeling of deja-vu."

"You must get a lot of deja-vus considering how many slayers there are out there now," Fred 2 smiled as she started walking down the corridor again.

"Yeah, it was strange at first - okay downright freaky - but now I'm used to it," he admitted as he followed her down the hallway.

"Does it bother you that there are so many now? I mean you lived in the one slayer era for a while. And you did know The One," she pointed out and Angel looked at her confused. "The one, you know, Buffy Summers," Angel smiled realizing who she meant. "My friends can't believe that - for a short period of time anyway - my great- grandfather was The Slayer's watcher. There's even a picture of him in the Museums of Unnatural History in both New York and London and well pretty much any country that has an unnatural history museum. And it's also handy to throw my heritage in the faces of those slayers who are too smug for their own good. They act like they own the world sometimes."

"More people fighting off demons - people who actually know what they're doing - I have no problem with that," he paused before adding: "The One," he couldn't help but smile. "Is that what they call her these days? Sounds like something out of a bad SF movie."

"That and The Slayer, she's considered the mother of all slayers so naturally she's the original and best there ever was," she paused: "To them. She was the one who made it possible for all of them to have superpowers, the ones before her don't matter."

"I wonder what she would have said if she had known all this," he said but it was a question he had mostly asked himself not Fred 2. He thought back to the slayer he had bumped into only a few minutes earlier and still found that her face awakened an odd feeling within him and it wasn't just deja-vu, there was a bad feeling there too. He didn't know how right his gut feeling had been, for the slayer he had encountered had been none other than Mina Parker, come to retrieve the relic she needed to travel into the past to fix what she thought had been done wrong.

Access to the relic archive was of course very limited, but previously knocking out a lonely Wolfram & Hart employee - one that had clearance from the science department - in a bar had been an easy job. Now she had the access, the problem was were exactly the relic she was looking for was found because the archive - as she found out after entering it - was huge. Walking through the rows of steel shelves filled with various objects she was filled with a feeling of utter frustration. How was she supposed to find what she was looking for in all that junk?

"May I help you?" a voice suddenly asked startling her. She turned to see a little old man with white hair and big glasses standing behind her in the darkness of the archive.

"I..." she quickly wondered whether the old man thought she was suspicious.

"You're the new girl, right? The black arts expert? From the Research department. Rogers told me he'd send you," the old man said rubbing his hands together. "Now what can I get you?"

"I'm looking for..." she couldn't believe the stroke of luck she was having. "The ring of Batt-hura."

"Hmm," the man let out and looked around a bit uneasy.

"Is something wrong?" she was prepared to knock him out if he suspected even the slightest thing. She had come so far, she wasn't going to risk not getting her hands on the relic because of one insignificant person now.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," he shrugged. "The ring isn't here."

"No, it has to be here," she rose her voice slightly. "I know it's here. I've looked it up. The ring of Batt-hura has been in the possession of the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart for centuries."

"Of course it has," the man chuckled. "I meant it's not here, in the archive, it's with the special things."

"Special things?" she looked at him questioningly.

"Magical objects that are too powerful to be left unguarded," he explained. "If you want one of those you'll have to talk to the big boss himself."

"The vampire with a soul," she realized. "Angel."

"That's him. Rumor has it, the safe's in his private apartment, but no one knows for sure," he lifted his shoulders. "But just tell him you need it for research, he won't say no," he assured her.

"Of course," Mina smiled and as she exited the archive cursed in her mind repeatedly. She couldn't risk a frontal meeting with Angel and even if she could, he would surely ask more of the people from the research and science divisions about her and no one would recognize her. He would definitely not give her a powerful object before checking up on her first. So she was just going to have to find his apartment and break into it by force without seeming conspicuous.

Angel looked busy entertaining a young girl when she bumped into him so she assumed he wouldn't be bothering her anytime soon. She had heard Angel had a soft spot for teenage girls - or at least that was what the rumors said - and particularly slayers. She wondered if the girl he was with in the hallway had been a slayer. A little skinny for a slayer, she thought. Then again she had actually seen and met obese slayers, so an anorexic one wouldn't be that much of a shocker. She shuttered, a vampire who had actually had The Slayer - the original and best - at one point shouldn't have to be satisfied with second pickings. She wondered why Angel hadn't used the ring of Batt-hura himself to just pluck away the slayer from the past.

"Cause it wouldn't be ethical," she mumbled to herself rolling her eyes as she headed for Angel's office. She thought love was anything but ethical, it was weird and crazy. That's why the expression was: all is fair in love and war. She thought of her present situation and considered it her own personal war. Against what? Well, lots of things, the girls that were allowed to call themselves slayers, but were not worthy of the name, the insufferable growing number of slayers, the Watcher's Council and why not, Buffy Summers herself.

Luckily, Angel's office was left unsupervised once he and Harmony had left to show Fred 2 and Wes 2 their offices. No one really thought that someone would have a reason to enter Angel's office. He didn't really keep anything of value there except maybe the elevator to his private apartment. The problem with Wolfram & Hart was that the basis of their security system was concentrated on those trying to infiltrate the building, not someone who was already in it. It was easy for Mina to sneak in the office and just as easy to use Angel's private elevator to go up to his penthouse apartment, now getting into it was a whole different story.

The door to Angel's apartment was, of course, closed and two miniature cameras, not bigger than a button, were monitoring every person that entered or left the apartment. She wondered if a woman entering Angel's apartment was something that happened rarely and if she had to disable the cameras. The truth was she hadn't come prepared for this. She had been a 100% sure that the Ring of Batt-hura was in the archive, that's where it was listed to be in the Watcher's Council's files anyway. At least she had gotten the building right...

Surely the disabling of two cameras would seem much more suspicious than a woman entering Angel's apartment. There was only a slight problem, the fact that the apartment door was closed, but for a slayer that was an easy obstacle to jump. A little hesitant she stepped towards the door and knocked, fully aware that there was no one inside.

"Angel?" she called as her hand grabbed hold of the doorknob and shielding it with her body, so the cameras wouldn't see exactly what she was doing, she gave the door a brutal shove, opening it easily. "Angel?" she asked again entering the apartment. "I need to talk to you about something..." she closed the door behind her and sighed. The damage she had done to the door was visible only from the inside. The locks or the wood the locks had been fixed in had been shattered. She knew that Angel probably didn't have any cameras inside - it was his PRIVATE apartment after all.

"Now, if I were an ancient relic where would I be hiding?" she asked herself as she began looking around the apartment. "Nice," she let out approvingly. The apartment was definitely to her liking. She thought that - maybe - if there had been only one slayer, she could have come to join forces with Angel and she would have received a similar apartment courtesy of Wolfram & Hart. Oh, the possibilities were endless...If there had been only one slayer. Which she was going to make sure would happen. Passing through various rooms she shook her head. Buffy Summers never realized how good she could have had it. She could have had luxury, a good life while still fighting evil, she could have had her beau - Angel or Spike, it didn't really matter, they were both hot - and the privileges that come with it. But no, she had to go and waste it all and ruin it for her heirs as well. "Selfish bitch," she let out as she walked into Angel's bedroom. She knew that Angel would probably realize that she had been there, not only because of the cameras, the broken door, but because of the scent she probably left - humans always leave a scent, a vampire had once told her, but it wasn't like she really needed to be discreet. By the time they figure out who she was and what she was planning to do she would be long gone in her quest to change the past. And they wouldn't be able to stop her anymore.

She touched the walls and felt that - though it seemed like it was just a wall - one of them seemed to made out of iron.

"A safe. Brilliant," she was really not prepared for this. Trying to force it open with raw physical power wasn't going to work and she didn't know enough magic to force it to open either. Well, she could at least try. Rising her hands in the air towards the wall, she said : "Ima dehare!" a powerful invisible force passed through her hands and hit the wall fully. The impact sounded dreadful and she was sure it would alert security. The wall was barely touched. The illusion of the wall was gone and she was now standing in front of a gigantic iron safe. Iron wasn't really good for magic. A tiny curve had formed in the center of the safe. She decided to try again: "Ima dehare!" Boom! "Ima Dehare!" Another boom. "Ima Dehare!" she kept repeating until she was felt spent and slumped down onto Angel's bed. She stood up slightly to see the damage she had done to the safe. A curve had been made, the size of a melon, but it hadn't reached the other side. She let herself fall back down on the bed. Security would arrive soon, she was sure, but could she leave without the relic she had come to find? And then what? Go back to New York and wait for Angel to come and question her on what she was doing in his apartment? No, she had to get the relic now. As she stood up and prepared for another shot, she noticed something sticking out from under Angel's pillow. Curious, she removed the pillow and let out a small scream of happiness when she saw what it was: the ring of Batt-hura! So Angel had been thinking about taking someone out of the past after all! She couldn't believe her luck as she took the ring in her hand. It was rather simple, a golden ring - the size of a frisbee - with various symbols on it and leather strings tied around feathers hanging on one side of it.

She suddenly heard noise outside Angel's bedroom. Security had entered the apartment. She wasn't really looking forward to what she was just going to do, but figured she had no choice. She exited the bedroom and the security people noticed her immediately.

"Freeze! Put your hands up! Now!" one of the them yelled, pointing a gun at her and smiling Mina put her hands up, still clutching the ring in one of her hands. Then suddenly, she made a run for the closest window and threw herself through it, preparing for a free fall. She heard guns going off in the apartment, but she was already falling - to her certain doom if she wasn't about to do what she had in mind. Holding the ring in front of her with both her hands she yelled the words she had learnt inside out from the book of Katurye: "Nema esta, nema deo, nema tempo ecco jero, vero nento, quera lento, en e tempo mera uno!" and hoped she had done everything right. She closed her eyes, fearing to see what was going to happen. The ring in her hands started glowing and she could swear she heard the sound of drums and something that reminded her of Indian chanting then in a bright flash of light she was gone leaving the security people staring down at her wondering where she had done.

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