Chapter 7: Worst Case Scenario.
"I can't believe the school's still open," Buffy muttered, as she stepped over a pile of debris that had, before the vampire attack earlier, been the cafeteria door.
Next to her, Ranko nodded. "Yeah. Well, I wasn't expectin the place to be closed, but I figured they'd hire contractors, at least."
The blonde Slayer looked oddly at her redheaded counterpart, before Ranko glanced past her, and a noticeably irritated look crossed her face. Tracing it, she noted Xander walking up to the two of them, though he would occasionally glance off at a pulverized door. "Hey," he called, waving. "Where's Will this morning?"
Buffy shrugged. "Haven't seen her," she admitted, "but she wasn't on the casualty list, so she should be around here somewhere, and why are you glaring like that, Ranko?"
Ranko shook her head. "It's not important," she answered, knowing that 'she' technically hadn't been there during the fight with Angel, but resolving to find a way to get back at the brown haired boy for his little stunt. "This place really got demolished," she noted. "Was that the library research table that was wedged in Principal Snyder's office doorway?"
"Hey, it kept them out," Buffy retorted irritably.
"That and your Mom swinging a katana like a baseball bat," Ranko muttered, as Willow came stomping down the hall towards them, wearing a wrinkled set of clothes, and with bags under her eyes comparable to Gosunkugi's. "Wow, what happened to you?" Ranko asked, before she could stop herself.
"I was locked in a closet with Cordelia all night," the normally timid girl growled, "Listening to her prey for salvation. She wouldn't let me open the door until the janitor came to let us out this morning."
"Oh," Buffy said, wincing. "Sorry, but that creepy British guy had us all tied up."
"It's no problem," Willow replied. "I didn't need my sanity or rest anyways."
"So, where is the wicked witch of the west this morning?" Xander asked, looking around nervously.
"She left as soon as we got let out, said something about how she refused to go to school in the same clothes two days in a row and how it was all my fault," the normally calm girl said, clenching her fist so tightly that it popped.
"Well, uh, at least we don't have the test we were supposed to today," Buffy offered, somewhat nervous at the redhead's uncommon behavior.
Willow frowned. "Great, and I spent all night reading the text book to try and ignore Cordelia's praying," she muttered, before turning and walking off.
HR.
"Took you long enough," Angel observed, as he leaned rather casually against the outside wall of the graveyard, Ranko stalking up to him. "I was about to go visit Buffy instead."
"Had to almost beg Mom to go on patrol tonight," the martial artist snorted. "She's been gettin pretty uneasy lately, and woulda demanded that I take Buffy or Xander with me if I hadn't run away first."
The vampire only nodded, before turning to look out over the graveyard for some of his not-so-nice kin to poke their heads out, and the area grew silent for a moment before he demanded, "Well? What kind of demon are you? I didn't taste anything in your blood last time at the Bronze."
"I ain't a demon," Ranko grumbled. "And don't call me a sorcerer, or you'll end up with a grave stone as a hat, preferably one with a cross on it."
"So... you use magic to change forms," the pale skinned man stated, rather than asking.
"I wouldn't exactly call it 'use,'" the redhead said. "It's a curse."
"And you or your Watcher didn't tell anyone because..." Angel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Mom doesn't know," Ranko confessed. "And you can't tell her."
The vampire rubbed his forehead. "All right, so you've got a curse that turns you into a guy, and the Watcher's Council, who probably raised you, doesn't know about it." He rolled his eyes. "I'm serious, I want the truth. If you're a threat to Buffy..." He started, a low growl starting in the base of his throat.
"Into a girl, actually," Ranko muttered, so softly that Angel almost missed it.
"What?" He asked, deadpan.
"I turn into a girl, I'm really a guy," the redhead repeated, this time with more clarification, "and I only found out about the whole Slayer thing when Mom showed up and recruited me for it a little over three months ago."
"Okay," Angel said. "That's either the truth, or you're a much better liar than I thought you were," he conceded, "but then it's really easy to look like you're bad at lying."
"Yeah, so of course I'd come in and make myself real obvious to the only group of demon hunters in the region if I were a demon," Ranko snorted.
"Worked for me,"Angel replied with a shrug. At Ranko's level look, he quickly amended, "Not that I plan on doing anything about it."
"Okay," Ranko sighed. "So we both got reasons not ta trust each other now, huh?"
Angel nodded.
"How about we go back to watching each other suspiciously 'n call it a night?" the martial artist suggested, perfectly used to that relationship due to years of living with her father, and later Mousse and Ryoga.
The pale skinned man's mouth quirked into a disbelieving half-grin. "You're not serious, are you?"
"What, I let a vampire run around loose, you deal with a Slayer who's actually a guy. Seems fair to me," Ranko replied.
"That's not the..." He started, and then sighed. "All right, it's sort of the same thing," he admitted, though he had a contemplative look on his face after he said it. "But you're probably not the Slayer."
"What?" Ranko asked, blinking.
"Slayer blood is kind of like a powerful stimulant to Vampires," he explained. "When I tasted your blood before, if it had been Slayer blood, I would have felt it."
"That doesn't make much sense," the redhead complained. "I mean the whole ritual, what it did to my Chi," she shook her head before mentioning the mind numbing pain.
Angel shrugged. "I honestly don't know a lot about Slayers. When they came around I usually tried to get out of the way, but I know all Slayers are female. I suppose it's possible that you've only got Slayer blood in this form, or the ritual didn't work."
Ranko shook her head. "It definitely did something," she ascerted, but wondered precisely what. It didn't really seem to make sense that a power that wanted her to destroy evil would take away her strength, especially to the level that it had been decreased lately, but the events of the actual ceremony were so blurred, and the detection spells had seemed to confirm it.
Blinking, she came upon an idea to prove it one way or another, and brought her right hand quickly down on a small jagged piece of stone on the top of the wall, opening up a small gash along her thumb.
As the thumb was thrust under Angel's nose, his eyes crossed and he blinked at it. "What?" he asked, confused.
"Blood," Ranko said, rolling her eyes. "If you start sucking, I break your jaw."
The pale man shook his head, wanting to grumble something about being a portable forensics lab, but caught a drop of blood in his mouth and tasted it. For a moment, the hunger rush through him, but he forcefully stomped it down. It was at about that point that the sensations from his mouth really started to filter through, and he blinked. "Um, why do you have huge quantities of a date rape drug in your system?" he asked, flatly.
"What?" The martial artist asked, pulling slightly too tight on the length of cloth she was wrapping around her finger. As she did so, one of the vampires who was supposed to show up tonight appeared behind her, looking very hungry, and she dismissively reached down, tossing her stake backwards.
As the newborn vampire puffed into dust, Angel couldn't help an involuntary wince, but continued regardless. "You've got a muscle relaxant in your blood. I recognize the taste of it because back in the eighteenth century, noblemen liked to catch women in taverns with it." He shrugged. "Has almost no effect on men, but weakens women dramatically. It has something to do with hormones."
"Someone's drugged me?" Ranko asked, disbelieving. "Damn, thought I got clear of Kodachi, though it would explain some things." She grimaced. "Ya know how long it takes to clear?"
"I'm not sure," the vampire admitted, and looked away. "I didn't exactly give them a chance to recover."
"Oh," the martial artist said, disturbed.
Angel was about to say something, though he wasn't sure what, to dispel the look on the redhead's face, when three shapes lurched their way from the ground in the grave yard the two had been looking into. He sighed, never having been so relieved to see newly risen vampires as he was right then, and hoisted himself over the wall behind Ranko, who had already pulled her spear from where she usually carried it across her back, and produced a flask of water from somewhere.
HR.
LeStat grinned from where he sat in his crate. The fools on the Council had been kind enough to give him a mouse. Getting an egg salad sandwich out of them was slightly more difficult, as he didn't actually need to eat. Still, persistent whining had done the trick, even if it had been rather degrading. While most vampires assumed that any ceremony worth its salt needed gallons of virgin blood, and where were you supposed to find that these days, hours of repetitive chanting, and dribbly candles that were more likely to burn the place down than anything else, he knew that all one really needed was a little quiet time with an egg, regardless of its state, and a little rodent blood, no more than an ounce.
Yes, the master vampire decided. The night of St. Vigius was going to be something special. A real once in an unlifetime event. How could he miss such an opportunity? He'd never had the chance to kill a Slayer before, and now seemed the perfect time, especially when he'd be at his strongest and she at her weakest. He may be a master vampire, but he hadn't gotten there by taking idiotically stupid risks, well there had been that time in Cleveland, but he preferred not to think about that travesty. He'd leave the risks to the fledglings, thank you very much.
Of course, there was always the slim chance that the Slayer would win, despite her complete lack of tools, but he would consider going out in such a blaze of glory to be acceptable, especially after certain recent events. One of those events was why he had forsaken the color red, as well as his last, and favorite, alias. He still had to wonder how in the name of everything holy and infernal that girl had gotten her hands on that flack cannon. He'd never seen a dust dispersal pattern quite like that before.
Still, he supposed he should get ready. He did so want to make a good impression on the girl. Such things were rather important, after all. It just wouldn't do for his dinner date to get the wrong idea. He was, after all, a gentleman, and he would not let it be said that he was rude to one such as the Slayer. Such actions were rather more fitting of the Scourge of Europe. Needlessly torturing your food was so blase. That wasn't. of course, to say that playing with one's food was out of the question.
A little wine, a little cheese, a little violin music, just a little something to help the atmosphere. Some vampires insisted that fear made the blood taste sweeter. LeStat agreed with that sentiment in so much as high emotion did make for tastier blood; he just found other emotions to be much more savory. The best meal he'd ever had was that mime girl he had gotten to laugh, though that might have just been the satisfaction of getting something other than a scream of agony out of one of those freaks.
There was one thing that LeStat had to wonder about in regards to this test, though. From what he had heard, there was a lot of brick laying being done, which probably meant that they were sealing the building, to either prevent himself or the Slayer from escaping. Considering that the Travers fellow running this whole scheme seemed to be something of a ponce, it was rather likely to be both. It did bring up an interesting question, though.
If the Council wished to test a Slayer's resourcefulness, why did it seem as though any object that could be used to demonstrate this trait was removed? Hell, his crate wasn't even made out of wood. It was some synthetic plastic material that was actually starting to give him hives. He supposed that it was to make him more irritable when he was finally let loose, or the Watchers were incompetent morons, but he was well used to such irritations, so that ploy, assuming it was one, was doomed to failure.
Ah, finally the crate opened, by remote, no less. Probably for the best. He would have hated to get blood all over himself before his big date. Hm, assuming the clock on the wall was right, he should still have at least an hour before the guest of honor would arrive. They must be expecting him to explore the house, possibly try to escape, before she was delivered. It could make a game of cat and mouse more entertaining, if he were into such things, but, as it was, he disliked such blatant mind games. It was rather lacking in class, after all. Maybe there was a book or something around here he could read while he waited. Maybe a nice bottle of wine. He could even share some of it with the Slayer before he killed her. So what if she was underage. It was not like she'd have time to get really drunk.
HR.
"I understand," Nodoka said, irritably, as she rested the phone against her ear. "I asked Ranko to be back for six thirty, but she's a teenager and it's the weekend. You expected compliance?"
She shifted the ear piece to her other ear, as she looked through the living room window. She did not want the girl walking in on this conversation, and besides, she wouldn't like anyone she cared about the opinion of to see her this annoyed. "Have you found a way for me to get her there?" She asked, jotting a note down on a slip of paper next to her. "What do you mean 'figure it out?' And how am I supposed to completely disarm her? She conceals a stake in her shirt during school."
"Yes, of course," she said, calming down slightly as the voice on the other end became rather irritated. "I think I see her coming, so I have to go."
The person on the phone said something else, but Nodoka didn't hear it as she slammed it down and sighed. She probably had another hour before Ranko came home, given the girl didn't wear a watch and tended to get distracted by her training. That meant an hour in which to think up a way to lure her adopted daughter to what could quite possibly be her death.
Nodoka was slightly off in her assessment of how much time she had, as Ranko's stomach drew her back home for some food about twenty minutes before the darkening sky would have.
As she heard the front door creaking open, the Japanese woman quickly snapped closed a book titled "How to Make Excuses for Dummies," and showing a panda paw holding up a wooden sign on the front.
"I'm home," the girl called casually, and Nodoka could hear her switching shoes.
"Welcome home," she called back, as Ranko entered the living room, and she observed with relief that the younger redhead had apparently not trained as hard as usual, given her lack of sweat. "You're back early," she noted.
Ranko shrugged. "Meditating on Chi flows can get really boring after a while," she explained, deciding not to mention that her meditations had been frequently interrupted by speculation on who, precisely, had been drugging her and what to do about it.
"Ah," the auburn haired woman nodded, and then took a deep breath. "Ranko dear, I received a call from an acquaintance of mine this afternoon," she started. "He wants us to visit him tonight."
"Huh?" the redhead asked, "Who?"
"He's... someone I knew from my school days," the Kimono clad woman explained. "I'd like you to dress nicely and be on your best behavior while there."
The redhead grimaced, looking down at her usual comfortable Chinese silks and imagining a Kimono, or something even worse. Seeing the look, Nodoka smiled. "Looking nice could consist of a nice blouse and slacks, if you don't try to conceal any weapons in them, and take off that glove of yours." The martial artist considered that for a moment, and her mother almost expected her to go and get her good kimono out of sheer bloody mindedness, but she eventually nodded.
"Sure, I'll get some of the stuff I got on that shopping trip," she commented. "It cost enough it should be nice."
Nodoka smiled in approval, and Ranko went off upstairs, returning a few minutes later in a plain white T-shirt and a pair of black slacks, her spear over her shoulder.
"Ranko?" The older woman asked, narrowing her eyes.
"I'll hide it before we get there, but it IS after dark, and this IS Sunnydale," the shorter girl countered.
"I suppose that will have to do," Nodoka agreed, leveling a glare at the phone for no reason Ranko could place. Nodding, she opened the front door and Ranko followed her out into the street.
HR.
"You sure your friend lives out here?" Ranko asked, as she looked around. She and the older woman were standing on a dimly lit side street, half way across town from the school.
"This is the address he gave, Nodoka answered, looking down at the paper she now held in her hand. Ranko just looked dubiously up at a line of darkened houses, their numbers only barely visible on rusted mail boxes.
"I'm guessing this is the 'quiet' district, " she muttered, stepping towards one of the houses. "You stay back here, I don't like this."
"Ranko dear, it's fine, now put that," The Watcher said gesturing to the spear, "away so that we don't give Mr. Travers a heart attack."
"I'm just gunna have a look around," the martial artist countered. "Somethin's giving me a bad feeling."
Nodoka wanted to object, but quite frankly the area was creeping her out as well, and she didn't know how to dissuade Ranko from her present, rather prudent, course of action without looking suspicious.
Worriedly, she watched as the girl slowly made her way to the porch of one of the houses, and peered into the window there. Seeing nothing but darkness, she approached the door and knocked on it, only for it to slide open and let dim light spill onto the porch.
Blinking in confusion, the short redhead stepped through the door, wondering how no light had come through the window, and Nodoka stepped forward anxiously, just as a giant metal plate slammed down in the doorway the with a tremendous crash.
"She's trapped," the Japanese woman said worriedly.
"Yes, but you didn't manage to take away all of her tools," a man with a British accent said as he stepped out of the bushes near the house. To be honest, he'd been a little worried when the Slayer had surveyed the area, as she'd seemed to focus on his little patch of cover a little too long, but was now both relieved and irritated.
Nodoka scowled. "If I'd had an idea where this was going to happen beforehand, or a plan from your people to follow, maybe that could have been different."
The man nodded reluctantly. Unfortunately, due to how late the higher-ups had learned of the girl's eighteenth birthday, the whole operation had been somewhat ad hoc, though the way the woman was glaring at him made him feel that she held him personally responsible for it.
"We will see how the girl does," he said, gesturing to a small white van nearby. Nodoka looked after him, confused, until he reached the vehicle and opened the rear door, revealing a set of surveillance monitors inside.
HR.
Ranko jumped about half a foot when the loud clang reverberated behind her, and spun to face the disturbance in a combat ready stance. What she saw made her curse, as there was a solid wall of steel there, having apparently descended from the second story on a set of tracks.
"Okay, if Sasuke's here with his traps, I'm killing someone," she vowed, bending to the bottom of the metallic wall, and trying to get purchase under it with the fingers of her left hand.
"I'm afraid it's stuck in an inset groove in the floor," a male voice came from behind her, and the redhead turned rapidly, nearly completely blindsided as a quick movement deprived her of her weapon, sending it flying down the hall and farther into the house.
Blinking, the martial artist withdrew backwards, startled at the reflexes of her unknown opponent, though when she finally got a look at him, she almost fell into the wall behind her. "Who the hell are you?" She asked bluntly, looking straight into the eyes of a rather old looking balding man with a pair of round glasses perched over his nose.
"Ah, hello Slayer, my name is LeStat, a pleasure to meet you," the man answered, bowing deeply to the girl.
"Uh, you Mom's old friend?" The martial artist hazarded, wondering if the door blocking trick was some sort of insane greeting. After all, Shampoo and Ryoga had stranger ones.
"Your mother's friend?" the man asked, tilting his head to the side. "Wow, they don't tell you girls anything, do they?"
"Uh..." Ranko tried, now completely confused.
"Well, this could actually be more pleasant than I thought," the man said. "I've got some food in the dining room, how would you like some?"
Ranko was still, at least nominally, inclined to think that some very odd things were going on here, and she was worried about her mother, who was out in the street at the moment. "I really should break outa here 'n get Mom," she objected. "This place is dangerous at night."
"Oh, don't worry about that," he assured her, "This place is so heavily protected against the undead that my skin itches constantly, and I'm already inside the circle."
"If you're sure," the redhead said uncertainly, as she was starting to smell the meal down the hall, and the Saotome stomach was a hard thing to deny.
LeStat nodded, noting the girl's eyes starting to glaze, and wondering if he had somehow caught that vampiric hypnotism trick off of Dracula without knowing it as he followed her into the dining room.
As the redhead looked over a table filled with noodles in broth, along with ravioli and some things that looked like Romaji letters, she blinked. "Huh?" She asked, looking at one of the plates and poking its contents quizzically.
"I had to make do with the canned goods," LeStat said. "I hope it will suffice."
"Yeah, it's fine," Ranko said, settling down at one end of the table and looking down at a cylindrical piece of potted meat dubiously before picking it up and taking a bite out of it.
"So," her host started, "you honestly don't know what's happening?" At the girl's shake of the head, he sighed. "No wonder all of those idiots could brag about this," he scowled. "Well, you deserve to know your fate, and given that you can't really stop it, I suppose I can tell you what your own people have done to you."
Ranko put down the chunk of meat she'd bitten into, grimacing and looking at the short man. He knew that her strength had been taken, and seemed to think he knew who did it. He also had something planned for her, which probably involved death or abject humiliation, but only part of her mind was focused on that detail as he spoke.
"You see, your Watcher's Council likes to perform a little experiment on its Slayers when they turn eighteen. They somehow take away your Slayer powers, and lock you in a room with a master vampire," he gestured at himself, "that would be me, to see which of us comes out the other side." He'd spoken this explanation all in the way one would mention that the weather was nice, or Ryoga had broken down a wall, which was kind of unnerving, despite his unassuming appearance.
"You're... a master vampire?" The Japanese girl asked, incredulously, before the earlier parts of his statement finally clicked. "And the Watchers... locked me in here?"
"Well it certainly wasn't me, was it?" LeStat demanded irritably. "I would have brought in some good wine and maybe classical music. If you're going to die, it may as well have been a good sendoff, I always say."
"I ain't gunna die," Ranko declared, pushing her now empty plate away, having eaten even quicker than normal to avoid the taste, "'n you're dumber than I thought if you think I'm gunna buy that Mom led me here deliberately."
The Vampire sighed. "Just because I'm a blood drinking abomination from hell doesn't mean I'm always lying, you know," he grumbled, gesturing up to one corner of the ceiling, where a grey box with some lights on it was hanging. "Look at the camera over there. That's how they see how 'resourceful' you are."
The redhead shook her head. That sounded like the dumbest test she could possibly think up, and the idea that her mother could be a part of any organization that sanctioned it seemed patently ridiculous. She stomped down mercilessly on the little part of her mind that reminded her of a certain pact.
Even so, she could see that the camera's light was on, and she didn't want whoever was on the other end seeing what was happening. Grabbing the napkin beside her, she tossed it into the air, where it sailed gently over to cover the lens.
On the other side of the table, LeStat clapped. "Good throw, fair lady," he said, noting the Japanese girl's eyebrow twitch at the words.
"Okay, so you're a master vampire come to kill me," Ranko observed. "I didn't notice any drugs in the food, so why're ya doing all this?"
"Well, it's the polite thing to do, isn't it? I mean, when I was turned, my sire just turned up, drained me of blood, fed me some of his and dumped me in a gutter in the middle of London. I mean, how's that for something to wake up to on a Friday morning in February?" He shook his head. "I always thought I may as well make things more comfortable for my victims."
Ranko just blinked. "Um, ya don't know Picolet Chardin, do ya?" she asked, dubiously. LeStat shook his head. and Ranko frowned. "Don't suppose I could get outta this without a fight? Like ya said, I ain't exactly feelin' up to it," she offered, making a mental note that her promise to let him leave if he left her alone had absolutely no hold on Buffy.
The short man shook his head, and took off his glasses. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said. "I've been preparing for this chance for over a century. Do you know how often all the stars are right for the night of Saint Vigius? I may be a Master Vampire, but it's not precisely due to my overwhelming power." He snorted. "I even had to bribe a Watcher to say how strong I was before they came out and caught me!"
"You what?" Ranko asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
"Yes, I know, but I had to," the Vampire started, apparently now falling into a rant. "Every fifty years or so I'd encounter some young upstart bragging about killing a Slayer. It's not that bloody hard, there's a new one every five years at most, but no, these bastards are so smug, 'Oi! Wilbur! You not bagged yerself a Slayer yet? I got two!' It's not my fault the Bloody Awful Poet was so damned lucky. Why isn't killing an entire village in one night enough for them? And..."
It was at about this point that LeStat, or rather, Wilbur, was gesticulating wildly with one hand to make a point, when Ranko reached rapidly for a hot tea kettle that was sitting in the middle of the table, dumping it over herself, yelping in pain, and rolling out of his chair towards the entrance of the room where his spear was all in one movement.
It took the vampire several seconds to realize that he was talking to thin air and track his guest's movement. When he finally caught sight of the 'Slayer' again, Ranma was standing, several inches taller than before. There were small rips in his pants' legs where he'd grown too large for them, and he had a somewhat pained look on his face.
"Well, that's a new one," Wilbur muttered, shocked. "Let me guess, you want to fight now?" He tried to keep his expression confident. After all, he was fighting a depowered Slayer with the power of Saint Vigius on his side, but the depowered Slayer had just done something he REALLY hadn't seen coming, and had a weapon. Wilbur, on the other hand, occasionally lost fights with his human victims.
Several minutes later, Wilbur was very sure that he was going to lose, as he stood across from his opponent, the dining table smashed, and a bowl of Jello mostly all over the clean suit he'd stolen from one of the upstairs bedrooms. He'd started thinking this about around the time the 'depowered' Slayer had effortlessly punched several holes through the solid oak of the table. Well, actually, it may have been ply-wood, but he was too nervous to really care at the moment.
"All right," he said, as Ranma looked like he was going to move again, "I'm going to lose this one, aren't I?"
"I really hope so," Ranma responded, a little surprised by dialogue like this taking place in the middle of a fight.
"I don't suppose you could make the end dramatic, could you?" the vampire asked hopefully. "You know, maybe pitch me off the roof or something?" Ranma slowly shook his head. "Could you at least make it quick and SAY it was a dramatic death?"
Ranma nodded at this, as the rather pathetic sight in front of him was making him feel just plain uncomfortable, before lashing out with his spear and taking the small vampire's head off. Oddly, and perhaps to Wilbur's appreciation, lightning flashed outside of the house at that very moment.
HR.
The screen was black. In fact, the screen had been black for at least ten minutes now, as Nodoka and Travers sat in the back of the van. "I don't think they're coming out any time soon," the man observed, as he squinted at the other cameras.
Nodoka, on the other hand, was wringing her hands and pacing behind him, at least as much as the small confines of the van would allow. "What have I done?" she muttered over and over, her eyes flickering desperately from one image to the other, until she finally saw something in one of them, near the door.
She didn't think, only pushing the back door of the van open and jumping out, running towards the house. As she was about half way there, she heard a bellow of "What the bloody hell?" from the van, and turned around in shock.
Her blood froze at what that exclamation could mean, until Travers stumbled out of the back door, his face purple with rage. "I knew there was something strange going on!" He bellowed. "Who is that boy in there? Did you arrange for this? Did you warn the girl?"
"What are you talking about?" Nodoka asked, torn between answering to her technical superior and seeing if Ranko was alright immediately. "I didn't warn Ranko of what was happening, I couldn't. I swore on my honor to obey the council, and I don't break my word lightly."
"So, the old guy was tellin the truth?" a male voice, rather similarly accented to Ranko's, asked from behind Nodoka. She spun to see a young, black haired man crawling through a small hole in the bricks that covered one of the house's windows, and looking at her in shock. As she met his eyes, she saw disbelief there, as well as betrayal.
"Who are you?" Travers demanded, "and where is Ms. Smith?"
"Just answer a question first," the boy said. "This whole thing, lockin someone in a house with a real old Vampire and locking away their strength, do you guys do that to all the Slayers?"
"How did you..." Travers sputtered, before Nodoka cut in.
"It's supposed to be a method of determining the Slayer's adaptability in a tough situation," she explained, looking down at her hands. "I disagreed with the idea of the practice, but was required to carry it out." She looked up at the strange boy, hope in her eyes. "Ranko, is she all right?"
The boy looked away, and started to walk off, not answering her question, and she stepped forward a few steps. "Is Ranko all right?" She called out again, "and who are you? Did you help her? What happened?" By this point, the worry in her voice was obvious, but the boy only turned for a moment.
He looked at her, then shook his head, and turned again just as the rain that had been threatening all night began to fall. Nodoka stared in shock as black hair turned red and height melted away, before the figure ran off.
END.
Retrospective Disclaimer: No Hellsing agents were permanently harmed in the making of this fanfic, though Alucard may want to kill us for it. He may also be laughing his fangs off. We aren't suicidal enough to find out.
We were going to call the potted meat something else, but we feared the guys in horned helmets would show up, and that would have just been silly.
Council screw-up chapter total: 4
Council screw-up total: 9
