Disclaimer: These characters belong to Joss Whedon - Thanks to those following this story.
"Fruition"
Chapter 12
"Questions"
"Yep, it's me, Rupert," confirmed Amy cheerfully, "how they hangin'? Whoa! Pretty good, all things considered. I wonder if the boss will let me keep you as a toy?"
"Amy, what on earth are you doing with this fiend? Has your magic unhinged you?"
"Oh, no, far from it, my magic has shown me who I truly am, and it has led me to my destiny. I will be the one to destroy Willow Rosenberg."
"Any luck?" Dawn asked Willow.
"Yup, lots of it, all of the bad kind. Something is interfering with the tracking spell, there is another witch involved," Willow answered.
"Can't you just like, kick her ass or something?" Faith questioned, "I mean, no way she's as powerful as you are."
"I'm sure I could, if I could locate her, but her power muddies things, I just can't see."
"But if she can interfere with you then she has to be pretty powerful, right?" Dawn postulated.
"Yes."
"Then let's call Leticia."
"Good idea," Willow agreed, picking up her phone. "Rachel, hi, is Leticia handy? Great, thanks… Leticia, are you picking up on anything in my neighborhood? Huh, well if it comes into focus call me, whoever is behind this has Giles. No, we don't know what they want with him, but they wanted him bad enough to kidnap him in public. Thanks, bye." She ended the call. "She feels something, but she's having trouble focusing too, she says the power tastes funny, kind of animal-like. She also said that most of the power is coming from outside the witch who is wielding it."
"So they aren't tapped into the stream, but if they can come up with enough juice to interfere with you and Leticia, then they must be calling on a God or Goddess," Dawn declared.
"That makes sense; the good news is that if we can find her, Dawn or I can handle her. The trouble is we don't know where she is."
"Or what she wants with Giles," Dawn added.
"One more thing," Faith continued, "what kind of witch has vamps doing her grunt work? There's more going on here. How about you witches finding me something I'm allowed to kill? Between Giles and Amanda, I'm pretty pissed off, here."
"Count on it, love," Dawn promised.
"Questions?" Buffy responded, unable to come up with anything else at the moment.
"A couple, yes," Chas confirmed.
"What sort of questions?" Buffy temporized.
"I'll start with a simple one, how were you able to lift me so easily? I'm not exactly a pixie."
"Gymnastics," Buffy said with a shrug, "I'm wiry."
"Uh-huh. Why do you have blood stored in bulk where you live? "
"You heard the Doctor, Faith has a really rare type," Buffy explained.
"Not good enough, Faith said that yours was different too, like they were the same. But if they were really the same you could have given blood to Amanda too, instead of Dr. Blake being all worried about finding more of Faith's."
"Anything else on your mind?" Buffy asked, avoiding the question as best she could.
"What were those things that grabbed Giles? You and Faith are being WAY too matter of fact for you not to know, and how the hell do you think that a few girls can handle them? And if Dr. Blake is in love with Amanda, why isn't he more worried? Don't try 'professional detachment' on me, either. He really believes that she'll recover fully, and from all I know, and that is way more than a little, she doesn't have much chance of that."
"That's more than one question," Buffy informed her.
"And less than one answer, what's going on around here Buffy?" Buffy sighed.
"I knew I'd have to pay for having sex with her…" thought Buffy.
"Answer this first, are you going to accept Dr. Blake's offer to be his partner?"
"I'm considering it; I'd be a fool not to. But things that seem too good to be true usually are. Is he gonna show up with his dick in his hand and ask for a little down-payment?" Buffy's face flushed angrily.
"I know you don't know him, Chas, so I'll let that one slide. Just this once. I like you, but me liking you and you being a great lay doesn't give you a free pass to badmouth Dr. Ricky. He'll do exactly what he says he'll do. Every time. As far as his offer goes, I was there. You just have to make up your mind."
"Sorry, but you're right, I don't know him, except by his reputation as a doctor, and I've known guys who thought a Big Mac Combo meant you owed them a tumble. So assuming the deal is as stated, fuck yes I'm in. Med school and Barney? Work with maybe the top trauma guy in the world? I'm not close to stupid enough to turn that down, hell, after I get to know him better I might give in on the tumble."
"Bad idea. Might piss off Amanda, and you don't want to do that," Buffy promised.
"If you say so, Buffy. Now are you going to answer my questions or not?"
"We need to see Dr. Blake first, come on."
"I'm a great lay, huh?" asked Chastity with a grin.
"You ask too many questions."
"We should plan what to do when we hear from whoever took Giles," Dawn suggested.
"I plan to kill them all," Faith said simply.
"Good plan," agreed Willow.
"Okay, but how? We have to consider Giles first, and a bunch of Slayers pouring in is likely to get him killed."
"We'll use the nest team, you port us in, you and Willow hold them, and Buff and I will dust them."
"I have to know where we're going before I can port us. And let's not forget about the other witch. Frankly, I'd rather get Giles out of there first if we can," Dawn explained.
"We can't really plan until we know where he is," Willow added, "but as far as the other witch goes, she's right out of her depth with Dawn and me."
Willow's eyes darkened, and white streaks flowed through her hair.
