Chapter Twenty-One
by Lionheart
I O I O I
The Sunnydale Police Force had been annihilated. What few had not been present for the destruction of the station had been hunted down in their homes when Willow and her hacker-apprentice Xander had gotten hold of the station's records out of the stolen computers.
Few indeed were the cops that had escaped that purge.
Their reason for doing this was very simple. The cops there were maximally corrupt, concerned with helping demons instead of humans. Indeed, they had a role almost like ranchers keeping human cattle for the demons to consume. And corruption was contagious, so long as they had a core of demon serving cops to train the new recruits in what they were really doing it would have been much less effort to rebuild that department into exactly what it was.
The best way to train an elephant has ALWAYS been to stick it in a yard with an already trained elephant, then punish it when it doesn't go along with the example set by the trained one. The same applies to humans.
Lacking that core of maximally corrupt cops, however, it became a great deal more difficult to recreate the corrupt department. It is a massive step to go from 'idealistic recruit' to 'selling out the human race to monsters' and it just doesn't come easily to most people. Lots of peer pressure and the occasional body bag full of those who won't corrupt are required, and both of those require a bunch of people already going along with the system.
Having to restart that department from the ground up would be the most damaging thing ever done to the mayor's plans, as so much else that went on wasn't possible without the police smoothing things along and covering up.
Of course, computers hadn't been the only thing Willow's gingerbread thieves had stolen from that station. There actually hadn't been many drugs (the cops had been using them - they'd viewed it as necessary stress relief, and a fringe benefit of membership on the force. Selling out your race to monsters does not sit easily on the soul) but weapons had been found in all varieties. Guns had been there, of course, but few of those cops hadn't possessed a backup demon hunting weapon just to be safe.
The evil side doesn't, CAN'T trust each other, and it's best to be prepared.
Unfortunately, there were also a number of cursed objects as it was one of the mayor's favorite sports to release those through the magic shops to people who'd only just become aware of the threats. So the Scoobies didn't dare use any of discovered weapons until they could perform a thorough investigation to determine which were ok, and what were the clever traps.
However, it had been the ordinary finds of wallets and credit cards that were doing them the most good. With the kind of data they'd found, it was easy to perform identity theft on those so-recently-dead-it-wasn't-reported cops and drive up thousands of dollars of bills on their names.
It was called: Total War. Every resource for hurting the enemy could be used. There was no Geneva Convention, and no treaties. In a war for racial survival you do not pull your punches or go easy on traitors. So anything goes, and pulling resources out of enemy hands to fuel your own forces was a tactic as old as war itself.
So Willow was running a money-laundering scheme using the credit cards and bank account information of those cops and other evil people they'd slain. A handful had even been pre-approved for home loans, and by selling properties that did not exist to them she could net significant fractions of a million at a pop, and cover the whole thing by setting up a bogus escrow company.
The cash was literally flowing in, although it got filtered first through a series of companies, countries, banks and withdrawals in other states - and that was just the stuff comprehensible to an ordinary Joe. Willow was in hacker heaven getting really esoteric and funky hiding her money laundering.
Already the witch was richer than Xander. There had been a lot of dead cops that needed to apply for new credit cards. Xander was helping her full-time, doing what she'd termed 'the easy stuff', while she took care of the special or complicated things, like protecting their hides from discovery.
Amy was already picking out programming books and hacker tutorials for her next hypnotism session.
Frankly, Jesse, Marcie and Cathy were all drooling over those possibilities themselves. The vampires in town more often than not had legal identities provided by the mayor's subordinates, and with their driver's licenses and other ID cards they'd been carrying, it was easy to make the creatures apply postmortem for credit cards, car loans and home purchases as well - all through demon owned credit companies, of course.
Those were what those vampires would have been using anyway, they even got preferential treatment.
Of course, her candy minions were hardly idle while the teens did this. After a whirlwind of greenhouse construction, they'd been robbing select parts of the town down to the bare walls.
The Sunnydale Public Library had lost everything, especially of all their books. The Sunnydale Mall (owned by the mayor, naturally), had also been stripped most effectively, as had the homes of dead cops. All of the banks in town (also owned by the mayor - he was a far-sighted man who'd been around a long time and knew to get in on the ground floor of valuable things like banks) found themselves victims to literal runs, as tiny thieves blew open vaults, drawers and ATMs to make forcible withdrawals: All FDIC insured, of course.
Federal Demon Insurance Corporation. In some places the rot went all the way to the top.
Gingerbread minions had stripped all of the junkyards in town for metal plus junked cars. A couple of restaurants, plus a restaurant supply store, had gotten raided (although she'd skipped the warehouse store). Calax Research and Development building had also gotten hit. The full computer and robotics setup inside was an incredibly lucky find for the demon hunting gang.
To the mayor's dismay and surprise, the lumber yard and some industrial buildings, welding and machine shops had gotten burglarized. They'd even gone so far as to dismantle some empty warehouses for the sheet metal.
All of this was spelling a candy witch who not only had imperial ambitions, but was willing to think outside the box, as there was no point to most of them in acquiring wood when they could instead use gingerbread.
Fortunately for the mayor, he had found a solution.
I O I O I
Mayor Wilkins was not a powerful man because he, of himself, was anything all that special. There were better schemers than he, and more powerful men both in magic and in politics.
No, the man was dangerous because he was connected. Due to his position as a supplier of what they truly wanted, human victims, and because he'd been doing it so long, he knew everyone worth knowing in the demonic underworld.
So when he sent out a call for help, it got answered.
Candy witches were all but extinct for a reason, and it wasn't because there hadn't been powerful ones before Willow. And it wasn't because they got too old and died - they were good at preventing that.
No, it was because the prominent ones had all gotten destroyed.
The three fire resistant, heavily over-armored demons who'd been so helpless against the candy menace guarding a vampire nest had been relocated to keeping guard over the mayoral mansion, holding the very thick doors shut. And since their own names were unpronounceable by any tongues but those of their own race, they'd taken names from human heroes for convenience, picked up from their addiction to daytime TV.
So all their associates called them: Larry, Moe and Curly.
Hey, they'd picked up those names a long time ago, back when television was a new thing. Still, having survived when so many others became casualties, those were the three on guard when the new reinforcements arrived.
The three pulled themselves to attention when the limo the mayor had sent to pick up his team of guest witch hunters at the airport pulled up. Three solemn figures getting out of the vehicle were not unexpected. That all three were wearing black from head to toe was somewhat typical in this business.
But as the demons watched the three little men, each one dressed in a long, black coat, with homburg hats crushed down on their heads, with the beards and earlocks of ultra-orthodox Jews scrambling comically out of the vehicle, they couldn't fight a sensation that something was most desperately wrong.
It wasnt actually an uncommon strategy. There were bad Jews just as there were bad Christians, people who followed the outward forms without actually adhering to the true message of the faith. But one of the more perverse approaches to demonology was to cling ever more tightly to the outward forms of one's faith, in the hopes that would be worth some kind of heavenly credit that could protect you against any errors in summoning or binding.
These people apparently never saw the inherent contradiction of asking a good God to protect you while you go out and use that protection to commit evil deeds furthering the destruction of his children. But people are infinite in their capacity for self-deceit.
Strange thing was, God is such a merciful being that as far as precautions against a major screw-up in demonology were concerned, it was among the most reliable - to a point. Actual religious conviction and devotion to evil were two opposite influences, and, in the words of Christ, "No man can serve two masters." So eventually, as with all precautions in demonology, it was doomed to fail.
But that didn't stop people from trying. Their capacity for self-deceit is, as has been pointed out previously, apparently infinite.
Larry, Moe and Curly watched, sweatdropping, as the trio of ultra-orthodox Jews muttered their way up the steps and into the building to see the mayor.
Mayor Wilkins and his much-reduced cabinet were tremendously glad to see them.
The trio of witch hunters wasted no time in getting down to business. In strong Yiddish accents they stated, "Vur el der..." mumble, mumble...
The politician's eyes crossed and he turned to one of his flunkies who knew Yiddish. The man coughed into his fist and translated, "They say: For all their potential, candy users are not the most powerful mages out there. The style has some notable flaws, not the least of these is their reliance on lairs."
The knowledgeable aid nodded knowingly. "The central weakness of all candy witches has always been their reliance on lairs. However, there are others - the lack of any kind of focus on transportation magic being among them."
The trio of witch hunters began waving their hands and the government types quieted down to listen to their briefing.
"Dert bi de..." mumble mumble...
Everyone turned to the flunky who spoke Yiddish, who coughed into his hand and translated, "That is the first great disadvantage. The second is water, but the third is fire. The greatest of all candy witches have overcome one, rarely even two of these problems, but never all three."
I O I O I
"So, what does 'Arcanabula' mean, anyway?" Jesse asked.
"Oh?" Xander wasn't hardly paying attention. "It just means 'spell workbook'. You'd think he'd come up with something loftier sounding or obscure."
"Actually, Xander, that is pretty lofty sounding and obscure for us normal mortals who don't have twenty years of Latin study under our belts." Marcie set a bow to her fiddle with the rest of them, under Amy's example.
The Scoobies were presently using their ape charms to study music from Amy, who was an expert, her wearing the master while the others copied her actions, learning how to play her instruments professionally.
Shortly, they'd be studying archery the same way.
It was ironic, really, that the girl who'd demanded the boys take care of half the overall share of cooking because she'd thwacked herself in the boob with a bowstring and needed the extra archery practice, was now their resident archery genius, having been an actual Merry Maid in Robin's band.
They had gone to school that day, done some testing, and now everyone was signed up for AP and honor courses. They'd tested out of language course requirements, which got them an extra elective slot apiece, and gotten a sort-of waiver for the Phys Ed requirement by getting course credit for the martial arts they were taking, so long as they continued taking them through the year and their instructors agreed to certify their progress with grades suitable for calculating into their GPAs.
When they'd set their bows down again, Marcie spoke carefully. "I do rather hope that Jesse's little sisters are getting that Greek Divinity candy, since it'll help them out the most; and the smarter, faster, stronger whatever else they are the better chance they don't become junior happy meals. There aren't foul enough words for how I feel about people who hurt children."
"Well, yes," Willow answered. "But I don't intend to do that for every kid in town. Granny was most firm about that - you save your powerups for those who are actually on your side. Anyone else could become an enemy, and you don't want them to use your own boosts against you. I mean, just think about it, those candies grant a form of perfection to the physical body. So what happens when someone who's had one gets turned into a vampire, and that physical body becomes the vessel for a demon already capable of enhancing it to superhuman levels?"
Jesse whistled low in respect. "Nasty."
"Four times eighteen is a great deal more scary than four times ten," Amy gave her own gulp of apprehension.
"Almost twice as bad," her mother supported. "And while there are a handful of vampires out there who took over exceptional individuals, we don't want to add to those numbers by casually supplying superior bodies for them. And the real trick is most people never know they are in danger before they're dead. So extra speed or endurance doesn't stop them from being turned."
"Couldn't we just tell them all?" Marcie asked.
Xander shook his head. "We can't afford to make everyone a full Scooby because there are selfish or untrustworthy people out there who'd sell us out to the mayor - quite a lot of them, actually. We are already a very large group for keeping secrets effectively, and according to Van Hellsing and my great ancestor, most heroes get betrayed by the people closest to them."
"Robin managed it," Amy corrected, before her shoulders sagged, "Still, in the end, it was a betrayal that got him."
"William Wallace in Braveheart too," Jesse gulped.
"Well, then what about partial-Scoobs?" Marcie insisted. "Don't let them in on any of the big secrets, just tell them how to defend themselves?"
"A good idea," Xander clapped a hand on her shoulder. "And since it was yours, you're in charge of it. Come up with a plan for review by the rest of us for how we can go about warning the citizens of this fine town about the threats here without revealing who we are - which is one of many big secrets we don't dare let out. Alright?"
Marcie paled as the weight of responsibility fell on her shoulders, and she was tasked with thinking through a solution rather than simply complaining about the problem.
Cathy couldn't help laughing at the look on the girl's face. Complaining was easy. Any moron could do it, and most morons did, whether it was a valid complaint or not. Thinking up a solution was something far different, and the girl looked shocked.
Her laughter drew attention and people began to consider Catherine Madison more carefully. The woman had joined them for all of their classes and sessions after their family vacation, substituting herself with a disguised zombie at her job at the library (no one noticed, it was THAT dull of a job!). But now Catherine Madison looked good, in fact too good. They were all looking great between all of the exercise, the new metabolism enhancement spell, training, transforming food, and the Divinity candy. But Cathy...
Willow sucked in a shocked gasp. "Cathy! When did you..?"
"Grow young?" the woman answered, finishing her question for her. Rising from her seat, she went to stand beside her daughter, putting an arm around the girl's shoulders, making the resemblance clear.
Cathy and her daughter were now of identical age.
Amy shrugged. "Mom felt I needed a bodyguard at school, someone able to use subtle combat spells where I couldn't really use archery or my sword."
Cathy nodded. "At first I was going to use a zombie for that super strong deal, after all there are plenty of unused bodies around. But there was the whole 'unable to learn and too stupid to pass classes' issue... so, this."
"Yeah," Amy nodded brightly. "She sucked a couple of dozen years out of vice-principal Snyder to get her youth again. I mean, after our first meeting with him it was clear this was an example of humanity that no one could possibly miss, so... Now mom's a teenager like the rest of us. Chill, right?"
"So... he's older?" Willow chewed her thumb.
"Yes," Cathy fluffed out her hair. "By about two dozen years. Normally this kind of youth magic is very temporary, and comes back on you with interest, which is why most witches don't use it. It's a tricky and costly bit of magic, but so long as I stay in your style of magic lair it should work out just fine. He'll 'bleed out' the extra years over the next couple of weeks, and normally they'd return double to me. But they can't get me while I'm in your lair. So... no harm, no foul, right?" she finished off with a cheer.
There was much confused staring.
"How'd you get the records?" Marcie asked in a daze.
Cathy shrugged. "You'd be surprised how easy it is to create false IDs in this town. You approach a certain bar, step up drooling acidic slime or whatever, rasp out in your too deep voice that your breeding cycle has arrived and that you need young men to devour, pay a fee and receive an identity with the full backing of the local civic government as the new biology teacher."
"That happened to you?" Jesse's eyes bulged.
"No, it was the giant preying mantis ahead of me in line." Cathy brushed his fear aside before bouncing into a smirk. "They gave her a year to learn how to disguise herself as something human. But she can already legally drive."
"What about you?" Xander inquired.
"Me? I just told them I was a new vampire coming to town and they printed out the whole set for me right there, no questions asked."
"And they believed you?" Amy asked of her mother.
"Why shouldn't they?" Cathy shrugged. "I mean, I'd cloaked my aura to hide the human parts, and cast another spell to fake a demonic one. They don't have all that accurate aura sight, so they believed what they saw. Besides, what point is there in a human faking being a vampire to get human ID?"
"Not much, I'd guess." Willow conceded.
"Well, not outside this town, at any rate." Jesse rolled his eyes and folded his arms, disgust at their local government rolling off him.
"So, chill. Now I'm legally registered as Amy's fraternal twin sister," Cathy told them all. "The house and all of the important stuff I put into a trust so I can still manage them, and the disguised zombie can still hold down my old job so we've got my old income. Everything looks rosy for us at this point. I may even make a new zombie to pose as our dad to get a job driving a garbage truck or something. They can never get a reliable work force to handle that or the post around this town; and double the income, double the fun, right?"
Cathy brushed her hands lovingly down her smooth sides, before scowling. "Unfortunately, while this spell works to get the body young, it still doesn't do anything for that part of my magic core that could make me into a good candy witch. So I'm still stuck doing spells the old way for now, if I want anything I do to be effective. Still, I can practice just to become a good cook, can't I?" the now young woman bounced into another cheering pose.
If it were anyone else, they'd be afraid for their sanity. Someone actually CHEERFUL about facing High School AGAIN?!?
But they all knew Cathy by now, and it was clear to everyone that her life had basically stopped once she'd graduated. They all thought it a bit pathetic, but they could see her wanting to relive her 'glory years' like that, and perhaps launch into a more successful life after graduation this time.
So, in the perverse way of things, it was actually sensible... well, for her.
Besides, they hadn't come this far as a group without becoming tolerant of each other's faults. And Amy was already breathing sighs of relief, as with her mom able to relive her OWN past glories, she wasn't pushing AMY to do it as much, and that reduced the pressure she put on to a considerable degree.
"Oh, and Amy?" her now VERY young mother spoke cheerfully, "We're going down to the DMV to get you to a driver's test tomorrow. Our 'zombie mom' will sign you up for that state exemption, so you can get your license early - Willow and Marcie too, if they're ok with a few disguise spells on the zombie to impersonate their moms. From what I know of those women they won't care, that is if they even notice."
While not exactly intended as a bribe, that's the way it worked, as suddenly Amy's mom had sweetened the pot to a VERY great degree for two of those girls, and those votes would sway the boys.
So, given that they'd already taken to accepting some pretty odd things as normal, they just brushed it off and accepted it along with the rest of the weirdness now populating their lives.
Suddenly the lair lights turned red in Star Trek 'Red Alert' style, along with the colorful motion graphics the camera likes to focus in on.
Without anyone asking it to, the table they were all seated around became a full color projection map covering the surrounding area, and flashing red symbols showed that not only had opposing forces engaged Willow's guardians, it was the guardians who were getting torn into pieces, slaughtered wholesale by whatever those invaders were.
I O I O I
Author's Notes:
Next chapter: Proof why candy witches don't rule the world, as Willow gets her bottom spanked (and not by Xander, so she disapproves)!
On another note, I don't actually speak Yiddish, so rather than try to write a strong accent I'm not too familiar with, I had the trio of men descend down into mumbles. So sue me, it was a needed bit of literary license to pull off a joke I couldn't otherwise manage, and I'm sure it doesn't concern 90 percent of my audience, not knowing Yiddish any more than I do.