Little Bitty Puzzle Pieces

By PJzallday

Regroup

Giles grumbled, "Oh ba-"

The room fell silent and it seemed as if time stopped for a moment. Buffy stood in the Hyperion lobby with her hand clasped over her mouth. Near the front desk, Dawn's mouth gaped. Spike jumped back against the wall before retreating up the stairs. Everyone else in the room was fixated on Willow.

"So what's goin' on in here?" Faith finally said as she got off the elevator. "Oh. Giles. Hey, what's up with him?"

"What the f- ah… What just happened?" Buffy glanced nervously around the room, patting herself down to confirm she was still in one piece. "Will? What did you do? You're not…?"

"Oh hey, no!" insisted the witch, whose eyes had returned to their natural hazel. "Sorry… So not a vengeance demon."

"So what was with the spooky voice?" Dawn asked apprehensively as she craned her neck to assess her friend.

"I was just… ah…" She pointed to Giles' companions, who appeared to be asleep on their feet — except that said feet were dangling several inches above the floor. "…dealing with the boys there."

"Ah," Buffy acknowledged with a nod. "Good thinking, Will." It was a relief to Buffy that her friend had things under control and that she hadn't further complicated an already bad situation with a slip of her tongue.

"It won't hold them forever," the witch cautioned. "There's an awful lot of mystical energy flying around in here. I don't want to risk disrupting the protection spells for too long."

"OK. Right," Buffy said as she tried to come up with the next plan of action. "So we need to-"

"Hang on a minute!" Dawn crossed to stare Buffy down. "What was the rule?" she demanded of her older sister, who stepped back, startled by the girl's attack. "Right after 'do not invite bloodsucking dead people into our house', we have another rule. What was it? Hmm…" She cupped her chin and tapped a finger against her cheek, feigning thoughtfulness. "Oh right," she said, dropping her hands to her hips, "never say that word."

"I didn't-"

"Buffy, we all promised- no swore, after that thing with Halfrek and Anya, never, never to say that word!" Dawn ranted. "And if that word isn't dangerous enough, did you happen to notice the guys Giles brought?" She waved her hand in the direction of the enigmatic group without taking her eyes off Buffy. "Willow may not be a vengeance demon, but we don't know anything about those guys. One of them could have been one."

***

>>You have reached the offices of the law firm of Wolfram and Hart. If you know the extension…<< a recorded voice droned.

"Bugger," Spike gritted through his teeth. "Come on… Come on… Come on…"

>>…for Ritual Sacrifices, press nine, or press zero to speak to a member of our switchboard staff.<<

"'bout bloody time." He punched the zero.

"Good afternoon. Wolfram and Hart. How may I-"

"I need to speak to Fred. Ms Burkle. Winifred Burkle," he stammered hastily.

"And who should I say is calling?" replied the sing-song voice on the other end of the line.

"Spike. Er… ah… John. No. Spike. Oh Bugger. Just put her on!"

"One moment please."

The "one moment" to Spike seemed to take ages, but eventually the call was connected.

"Hello? Spike?"

"Fred. We need your help! Giles 'as turned up with a bunch o' suspicious types. They're here to suck up the Slayer power," he explained. "Can your lot over there send some sort o' magical crack-down team or the like to stop 'em?"

"OK," replied Fred uneasily. "How many of them are there?"

"Four that I saw, plus Giles," Spike shot back hastily. "But there could be more."

"I'll get someone over there as soon as I can."

"Thanks. Appreciate it." With his heart racing and his body surging with adrenaline, he slammed down the receiver then flew out of the room and rushed back to the lobby. "OK Red," Spike shouted as he bounded down the stairs. "They're on their-" He jerked to a halt when suddenly and apparently from all sides, dozens of olive fatigue-clad gun-toting military-types burst into the lobby, putting everyone else back on the defensive. "Bloody hell. Who tipped off the Initiative?"

"It's alright everyone," calmed Wesley, who appeared from behind a cluster of commandos. "One of my searches tracked down Mr. Giles, and upon closer investigation, we detected his… associates." He reached in his pocket for his ringing cell phone. "Ah… excuse me."

"Oh. Sure," stammered Buffy, trying to at least appear she was taking all the goings-on in stride. "Of course."

"Wyndam-Pryce here- Yes Fred… Oh not to worry; we've got everything under control."

"Eech… What a day," Lorne groused as he entered from the courtyard and casually strolled through the Slayers, soldiers and civilians scattered around the lobby. "Who here needs a drink — besides me?"

***

"Alright, so we've got Giles and his guys safely locked away at Wolfram and Hart?" Buffy looked for confirmation from Gunn.

"Yeah, we got 'em," the man confirmed. Gunn had supervised the containment of the Giles and his men in the firm's sub-basement before returning with Fred to the Hyperion. After the pair arrived, the group crowded into the Hotel office to discuss the Slayer situation, away from the eyes and ears of the dozens of "guests" that kept crossing and pacing the lobby.

"Wes… um… Question." Dawn stood with a hand raised hesitantly by her face. "You knew they were here — Giles and those other guys. But what if Willow hadn't done the binding spell? How would you have gotten around the anti-violence thing?"

"It's quite simple, really," replied Wesley pragmatically. "Because Wolfram and Hart deals with a lot of mystical... situations, we are fully prepared with a virtual arsenal of anti-anti-spell… spells." Awkwardly, he paused for a moment, apparently replaying the phrase before regaining his focus. "Many power dealers use magic to protect themselves and often we have to manipulate certain factors in order to turn the situation to our advantage. We are actually able to use their magicks against them, thus rendering the subjects helpless, as it's very rare that anyone expects an ambush to be so... prepared."

"Well," Buffy harrumphed listlessly as she flopped back in her chair. "I guess that's it for this Council too."

"Gee… I can't believe Giles is in jail," remarked Dawn.

But Gunn corrected, "It's not so much a jail as… um…hell… in a closet."

"Oh." Turning to her sister, who gulped down half her drink, Dawn asked, "So what do we do now?"

"Good question," Buffy sighed. "Even if Wolfram and Hart can keep Giles and his gang forever, we've got other problems."

"Right," said Willow. "The Slayers."

"And Giles may not be the only one aware of the situation," Wesley noted.

Then Fred added, "Or the possible opportunity to take the power."

"Even without a capture of the power, I'm sure there are countless demon clans who would be eager to lure rogue Slayers into their employ," the Brit continued.

"Yeah and, according to our investigators," added Gunn, "there hasn't been a big decrease in world-wide violence in the last couple a weeks."

"Well, given the reports from elsewhere in the world, things are bound to continue to escalate if we can't cap the Slayers soon," Wesley hypothesized. "The situation for all of us could become quite grim."

Gunn turned to Dawn. "How many Slayers you got so far?"

"Um, only about a third of them," she replied. "There's about two hundred and seventy-five here, and another fifty or so on the way."

"And the ones that've been here a while," Faith interjected, "they're gettin' punchy."

"It's taking too long," Buffy grumbled.

"Buffy…" Willow hesitated. "I hate to say it, but-"

"You agree with Giles: my plan won't work," the Slayer concluded, matter-of-factly. "Yeah, I guess I've got to face that. But what else can we do? I mean, the power's out there," she whined as she flung her hand in the air and started to get weepy. "You said yourself, Will, that taking it back could kill these girls… Faith... Me." Barely noticing Willow's dour nod, Buffy took another swig of her Sea Breeze.

"Buffy, I'm afraid you've some hard choices to make," Wesley cautioned, as he crossed to confiscate the young woman's glass. "Although we may be able to protect some of the Slayers, the others — the ones you can't find or who won't cooperate — may have to be sacrificed."

After a hiccup, Buffy's eyes popped and her face reddened. "Yeah, I guess," she acknowledged reluctantly. Shaking her head, she slurred, "Will, that whole vengeance demon thing is looking better and better. There's a career choice that would've come in handy right about now." Down-hearted and light-headed, Buffy folded her arms on the top of the desk and dropped her chin to rest on her hand.

"Well, you know… changing time really shouldn't be all that hard," Willow speculated. "Vengeance demons can do it. Sure for the big stuff, they've gotta dip into the group power pool or consult with D'Hoffryn and the other elders, but they can do it." She nodded pensively. "Between Wolfram and Hart, the Coven, and me, we've gotta have more power than we really need."

"Certainly using a vengeance demon-like approach, we could perhaps remove the scythe from the equation," suggested Wesley, hypothetically, "thus making it so that the spell to release its power could never be performed."

"Yeah, but what's to stop the First from killin' all those girls?" asked Faith. "Or lettin' the Ubervamps loose on the world?"

"Without the scythe… its power," Buffy noted grimly, "we'd have been dead before the amulet kicked in."

"Precisely!" The Brit raised a finger to emphasize his agreement.

"Huh?" All eyes turned to Wesley.

"Oh… ah. Sorry. The trouble, you see, is that we don't simply want to change time randomly, as would a vengeance demon's spell; we need to be able to influence its progression in order to prevent a specific event… or series thereof," he amended, acknowledging Faith's point about the Bringers murdering Potentials and considering the destruction of the former Council.

"OK, so we can't undo what's been done," groaned Faith. "We can't turn back time-"

"I didn't say that exactly."

"Huh?"

"What I said was that we don't want to just fold back time, remove a single object or event, then allow time to progress on its due course," Wes clarified. "We want to direct its course."

She still wasn't following the man's train of thought. "Again I say, huh?"

"I'll see her 'huh' and raise it a 'come again'?'" exclaimed Gunn.

"What I'm proposing," Wes declared, "is that we send a team back in time."




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