Creator's Note: John Tripp is back, folks! He's the only one I own (although we all know that) and this is a sequel to One Dangerous Gentleman (you should read that, though this could stand alone...I suppose). I'm trying to be accurate in time-line (well, as much as I can be) and that means there is no Tosh or Owen. This saddens me, but it was a choice. There's also a bit of a crossover here with Buffy, Heroes, and Oz (just think of me casting a gem like that!). It took me a while to decide the other players, but it was worth waiting for. I think we'll all agree.
--On With the Show!--
Who else would ask how beautiful the sunset is to you? She turned and shook her head, long ringlets of black hair flowing in a slight wind. The car was warm beneath them. John had borrowed the Jeep for the day, taking his emergency cell phone just in case. This was the way of his life now; ever since Darius had gone for good.
John Tripp hadn't been left with too big a whole, but he needed constructive things to do. He had no problem holding a job, but most bored him significantly more than a normal person would admit. John supposed being touched by Torchwood did that to a person. They just never seemed to return to normal afterwards, not that John had ever felt normal.
The woman sitting next to him was his partner, Nicoletta, and it was she who gained his trust and confession. It was with her that he chose to watch the sunset and hear the crashing billows of waves beneath the cliff they were parked at the edge of. Nicoletta did not hear much, but she understood. Few words ever passed between the two. The only words she ever heard were over a keyboard or in her mind. Nicoletta was deaf. And John discovered he was an empath.
It was late summer in Italy, the heat never quite billowing through on the coast. Nicoletta watched with mild interest as some flowers were captured by the wind and floated by. The reflection of the unabashed joy of her smile warmed John more than the sun ever could have. She was taller by half a foot than him and he might never tan, but they were happy. Her head rested against his, watching the movement of his fingers as he told her the sunset lacked the glory which she created in his heart.
The cell phone beeped. Without curse or thought, they slid off of the car and she plugged the coordinates from the phone into the Jeep. The car moved back towards the Vatican and the underground base of the renegade Torchwood Four, no actual affiliation with Torchwood known.
In Cardiff, it was a much different story. There was rain and smog clinging to the dense night that descended upon them. It wasn't the same day, but the same mission that compelled worlds to collide once again. John Tripp wasn't ever sure he would see the roads and the factories again. His heart didn't ache, although the city retained plenty of its Welsh charm, but John Tripp didn't care for the city. Torchwood Three was his goal.
Voices talked behind him as he drove, and he fought to collect himself and to focus on his object. To find Jack Harkness before it was too late, yet again. "Calm down!" John growled at his team in annoyance; shifting forward on the gas.
Jack was unaware of the current movements of John Tripp. Torchwood Three was hovering over an intense stationary Rift spike that had finally given enough of a defined coordinate pattern to track. Without Tosh to define the parameters, Jack, Gwen, and Ianto had been forced to wait as the computer was updated and various hit and miss searches occurred using a manual she had left behind. Ianto himself wasn't fond of thinking she had done that "just in case." But it was just as well.
Muffled voices moved through the night in the building. They were odd and stationary, much like the object that had fallen through the Rift. Jack's feet walked swiftly with Ianto at one side and Gwen around the other end of the factory. None were thrilled with the splitting up, but Gwen had long ago stopped objecting to Ianto being at his side. Jack mentally made a note to get on with hiring new staff, no matter how much he internally objected to it.
Jack forced two beeps with his comm, tapping the temples of his forehead, and he could hear Gwen's rebuttal beep. One beep meant no door, three beeps meant another door. His beep was a check-in. Ianto's beep followed after the silence of a minute. Jack snorted at himself, disappointed. More time would have meant a better check of the schematics. Ianto broke the silence.
"Jack, I hear singing from my window. Maybe you should knock?"
Gwen's voice broke through. "This isn't a love in, Ianto. There's something in there!"
"Yes, but, we aren't sure it's a weapon. Who's to say it's not some alien soprano who's broken through the rift and just happened to be practicing scales?"
One the perpetual optimist and the other perpetually paranoid; Jack rolled his eyes. "I'm knocking on the door."
Several seconds followed his attentive rap on the metal frame. A thin piece of the door slid back, bulging eyes coming wearily through, concentrating on Jack. "Password?"
"Captain Jack Harkness."
"Never heard of him."
The slat moved backwards in annoyance. "Well, that was rude." Jack knocked again. This time the door swung open.
"Do you have the right password?!" The voice was thick, like the gentleman, and full of growling.
"Captain Jack Harkness, leader of Torchwood Three." Jack struck a heroic pose with a charming smile. "Not even a little grin? No recognition at all?"
"Get out of here before I fling you into the next century." The giant man trembled just briefly, a shudder that began from his left arm and extended further and further until he fell down.
"I didn't even get to use my trademark charm on him."
Ianto put his stun gun back into the inner pocket of his coat. "Pity for him, then, wasn't it?"
The trio stepped inside the door and Gwen gasped at what she was seeing. "Jack, I'm pretty sure this was not an alien Mozart thing."
"I'm beginning to think Mozart himself might have been from another world."
"You've watched Amadeus too many times."
"But I thought we agreed we liked that movie?"
"Fellas!"
Gwen's gun was trained on a shape in the corner. It was a man, but a very strange man. His face was pale and several deep gouges crossed it, giving him the look of a feral wolf with bared teeth. The group watched as he drained the blood, quite messily, from a small blond woman.
Great, Jack thought, vampires in Cardiff. What a night. He fired a warning shot, but the vampire finished in time and moved swiftly to the top of the corner. He jumped around quite a few times, avoiding different bullets from the gun before landing inches away from Gwen.
"There are a lot worse things I can do than kill you if you don't move away from her." Jack's nostrils flared, demanding the villain's attention.
"Are you sure you won't miss?" The vampire's voice was androgynous, a pairing of male and female chords, possibly a man of two minds.
"I've had lots of practice."
"Bet I can drain her before that. But it's not as fun if they struggle. Of course, I haven't had one struggle in quite a long time."
"Who, who are you?" Gwen's voice quivered just a little.
"Oh, that's not important. Nor is that the question you really want to ask. But, they used to call me Dalthon."
"Well, Dalthon, mind telling us how you came across this little gem you're using to hypnotize people?"
"Oh, it doesn't hypnotize them. They come to me freely. The destitute and the morally poor. The alcoholic and the drug abuser. I give them a way out and then I feed from them. They will all tell you they comply."
"You mean through this thing?" Ianto's voice called from the stage. On a platform that reminded Ianto of a place where his mum used to set art, in the days when she could still paint, was a shell. It looked almost like any ordinary shell you might pick up on a beach except it glowed bright irridescent white and yellow and looked as thought it attached itself to "devout followers". That, and a high alto pitch that descended from it.
The vampire was half a second too late. "Don't touch that!"
The spiraled jewel was fragile. One blast from Ianto's stun gun shot it across the room several times where it shattered. People began to fall, staggering and blinking, some screaming blindly and others running. The vampire glared as the last "follower" exited the warehouse.
"You lost my meal, you little peon!" The vampire moved quicker up to Ianto than he had fallen next to Gwen.
Jack's shots were accurate enough that a pair of fingers came off with each stroke that tried to move near Ianto's face or body. Dalthon howled in pain each time, but moved with fury and adrenaline. Ianto didn't risk moving and ruining Jack and Gwen's shots. Each reloaded a clip while Ianto retained a morbid fascination with Dalthon trying to come near him and being shot down each time.
"Give it a name before we shoot him, Ianto?"
"How about Singing Shell?"
Jack shrugged as Gwen put a single bullet through the back of the vampire, leaving him stunned inches from Ianto. He turned and faced Gwen again, a smirk on her face.
"Some damsel in distress you are, Gwen."
"You think I was just going to let him drain me?"
Jack paused. "It's called dramatic effect, Gwen!"
"Can we get back to the part where you all cower in fear of my greatness?"
"Yadda, yadda, yah. After you've faced Abbadon and the Master, the rest of you seem like small time crooks."
"You've met Abbadon?!"
Gwen looked at Jack, who declined comment.
The rumbled began beneath their feet. The sound of music edged in next and a spotlight shown through the open door. Dalthon gaped and suddenly Jack and Gwen felt a rush of air as a rocket moved past them, aimed at the vampire. The wall behind Ianto dissolved into pieces while the wall where the door had been was crashed through thoroughly.
"Did I get him?" A voice called through the clouds of cement and dust, a wave of red causing Jack to blink. "Well praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!" His face was dirty, but white teeth and red hair, and a fetching goatee from Jack's point of view, insured that Jack recognized him.
John Tripp hung from outside of his window over a modified AT-4 on his side of the Torchwood Four Jeep. He undid the latch and it swung back into the undercarriage while he unlocked his door and jumped down from the cab to hug a stunned Jack Harkness.
"Didn't I say I'd come back and check up every now and then?"
"John!"
"Ianto! What in the devil are you doing on that platform? Get over here and give me a hug!"
"Read any good books lately?"
"Of course, Gwen, of course. I just picked up a copy of the Federalist Papers and my collection is growing at a monthly rate."
Hugs and murmurs of joy flew around the small group. "Where is Toshiko and Owen? Vampires not good enough for them?"
The silence told John everything he needed to know. He managed to mutter a small sound, but turned his eyes down, away from Jack.
"She would be glad to know you're doing well." Ianto broke the silence first. "So, what brings you back to Cardiff?"
"Dalthon."
"You know him?!"
"Well, it would be past tense, and secondly there is quite a bit to explain. You see, I've been busy while I was on vacation." The horn blew from the car. "Get out here! I want you to meet the people that made me who I am today!"
A man with blond hair and most of an ashen beard crawled from the same side of the cab as John. He reminded Ianto of a werewolf and his grin was very wolf-like as well. His blond hair was thinning, but Jack was sure he wasn't past 35 quite yet. He was tall and muscular, rather gruff in manners, but stood comfortably with John Tripp. "Jack, Ianto, Gwen. This is Tobias Beecher. He works for me." He reached for Jack's hand.
Two other men jumped down from the side nearest the wall. They leaned in close to each other, the taller of the two appraising the group. "Peter Petrelli and Xander Harris, my medic and cultural information and weapons expert!" The two men with dark hair stood together, in front of the Jeep with the extended grill, for use as a battering ram.
"And of course, behind the wheel is my resident techie Nicoletta." Gwen waved at the tan woman still sitting in the front seat.
"I think you should probably explain John."
"Yeah, but how about some coffee first? I've brought you guys biscotti all the way from Italy!"
"I've forgotten how much I missed you."