Rainbow over Sunnydale: Chapter 7
Disclaimer: Red Storm and Tom Clancy own Rainbow and Characters. Joss Whedon owns Buffy and Characters. Anyone else belongs to me. I make no profit off the following except to have a little fun.
Spoilers: Buffy to present. Rainbow to Bear and the Dragon.
Authors note: I am adjusting the Buffy time line slightly, this fic starts just after "Never Leave Me", moving things back about a month.
Authors Note 2: With FanFic being down on Friday and Saturday, I sent out an early release of Chapter 7 to people who had reviewed Chapter 6, If you did not get one it's because I could not get a valid email address for you. If in a similar situation you wish to be included in the list of people who get an update, please send me a valid email address. Thanks!
Thanks to all that reviewed. Constructive criticisms always welcomed. Flames cheerfully ignored.
Response to reviewers:
First I would like to thank everyone who reviewed. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying reading the story as much as I am writing it.
Matt: My one failing, as writer is I have forgotten most of what was pounded into me in high school. I guess the nuns were right that I should have paid closer attention. Who knew?
Marcus: I never thought about how Anya/Mr. Clark would interact. Which is odd, as they are my favorite characters from their respective series. I guess I was paying too close attention to the Willow/Mr. Clark stuff.
X-Lander: Mr. Holtzman will be along again in Chapter 8. Andrea I am afraid won't be showing up in Sunnydale any time soon. I have lots of stuff planned for our hero's before that.
Fastpilot: I loved your write up of Faith's first meeting with Ryan, unfortunately I have something else planned. Hopefully it will be as good.
Mountain William: As long as a Clancy novel? I'm afraid that ROS won't be quite that long. What I am intending to do however is to do a 'season' of stories. With each story being an 'episode'. I doubt that it will get to 22 stories, but I have 6-8 already plotted out. Anyone, who has suggestions, or requests, my mailbox is open.
Sibling: Interesting? I suppose that's one way of putting it. And the Titanic just bumped the iceberg. When you think about the amount of illegal stuff that the Scoobies have done in the seven seasons of the show, I think that Ryan is going to have all kinds of interesting reactions.
FIC STARTS HERE**********
"Hi Buffy," Riley said. "Yeah, we have to talk."
Buffy nodded her head, more to herself as if confirming something for herself. "Where's Sam, and who are your friends?" She inquired.
"This is Brigadier General John Clark, and Major Domingo Chavez." Riley performed the introductions. "Gentlemen, this is Buffy Summers, The Vampire Slayer." Then to Buffy he said, "Sam is getting the rest of the team together; she should be here by the end of the week."
"Ma'am," John Clark said.
"Nice to meet you, please just call me Ding," Chavez said.
"Hi," Buffy returned. "General. That's bigger than Colonel, isn't it?"
"Yes it is," Riley said.
"Wow Sunnydale got promoted. So what's the Initiative sending a general here for?"
John Clark studied the small figure that stood in front of him. Up close she was even more petite than she looked when she was fighting the vampires. She was wearing black leather pants, and jacket, a white blouse, and sneakers. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. That made sense; the hair didn't get in the way that way. It did give the bad guys a convenient handle though. Then again, yanking on that hank of hair would probably be the last mistake something ever made. What brought him up short, though, were her eyes. Green, losing the last vestiges of the adrenal high she must have been sailing on. They were old eyes, eyes like he saw looking out of the mirror when he shaved in the morning; part of him grieved that someone this young could have eyes like that. It was then that John realized that even though she had just had a knockdown, drag-out fight with four people, well vampires, she wasn't even sweating. Hell she wasn't even breathing hard! Maybe there was something to this superhero stuff.
Buffy was also studying the two newcomers. She wasn't getting the same vibes off of them that she got off the other Initiative soldiers that she had been around. They had been excited by what was going on around them. Riley still had a little of that same feel, that he was playing a game, still in it for the thrill and the rush. Not these two; they had a feel of been there, done that. They wanted to do the job and go home to the family. It was a nice change. The Slayer also noticed that they did not act like soldiers. Well the younger guy did a little, but it was as if he was falling back on old reflexes, rather than using fresh training. She also would bet that these two had been partners for a while because one of them was always scanning the area; when one stopped the other one picked up without missing a beat, and they did it instinctually, with no signal between them. They were also seemed to be comfortable, well as much as one could be in a cemetery, in Sunnydale CA. Soldiers, she had discovered from her brief enlistment in the Initiative, were pack hunters; they were only comfortable while in a group. These two, however, were nervous with the situation, but not that they were involved in it. There was something else here, something she would find out from Riley when she could get him alone.
"General Clark is not with the Initiative. He is head of a group called Rainbow," Riley told Buffy. "They're a counter-terrorism unit."
"Someone is going to try to hijack the Hellmouth?" Buffy wondered. sounding slightly amazed.
"Not someone. The Initiative. Well, the rest of it anyway. From what we've found looking through papers that have been left behind, we believe that General Billingsly the old head of the Initiative is going to try to open the Hellmouth," Riley explained.
"Sounds like a long story," Buffy sighed. "There's a vamp near here that will be rising tonight, and as chasing him across the graveyard is not on my top ten things to do tonight, I need to be there when he wakes up. His grave is right over there. Let's take a walk while you explain things to me," Buffy said as she started walking up toward the top of the hill.
Clark and Ding looked at Riley who shrugged, and started following Buffy up the hill.
"Why is the general trying to open the Hellmouth? Not enough business and he's worrying about budget cuts?" Buffy questioned Riley.
"No, he thinks that the President is the Anti-Christ and wants to beat him to it," Riley told her.
Buffy stopped dead, turned to Riley with a look of total confusion on her face and said, "Huh?!"
"General Billingsly seems to think that the Devil has won the battle of Good vs. Evil and is trying to spare as many souls as possible by killing them before they can fall," Riley explained. "Kind of asinine when you think about it."
"Much?" Buffy agreed. She walked a little way farther and stopped in front of a fresh grave. Turning to John and Ding she said, "This one will rise tonight. I have to talk to Riley, but we will just be over there." She nodded to another gravestone just out of earshot. Then sounding a lot friendlier said. "Wait here please, and if the dirt starts being disturbed just call and I'll be right with you." Buffy turned and started to walk away when she stopped. "Oh, here," She said. She rooted around in her pack for a couple of seconds, then handed Mr. Clark a small bottle that said 'Holy Water' on it, and a cross. To Ding she handed a stake. She then grabbed Riley by the upper arm and started to lead him away. "Come on. Let's talk." She said.
John Clark watched as she led Riley away. It was obvious by the tight look on Riley's face that she was using more than a little Slayer strength in the grip. He then looked down at the small bottle, and cross in his hands, then at the stake in Ding's and said, "I think I have just been insulted."
Buffy led Riley to the tombstone she had indicated. She leaned up against it, crossed her arms, and looked at Riley and began. "So what's the story?"
"The Initiative was covered in the Pentagon as an Intelligence unit monitoring China. It was covered that way because when it was originally put together, it was believed that China was the major country that we were least likely to go to war with. But it was still large enough to justify a good-sized budget. When war broke out there last year, they were caught flat-footed. The info that was passed up the chain was less than stellar. The Secretary of Defense investigated and discovered that the intell that he was being given was just retread from other sources."
"Didn't the Secretary know what you were really doing?" Buffy was perplexed.
"No, General Billingsly thought that with the incredible series of coincidences that happened for Jack Ryan to become president, that there must be some outside force, either magical or demonic behind it," Riley went on and explained. "A Japanese fanatic crashed a 747 into the Capitol right after President Ryan became Vice-President."
"I know that, Riley. I may have been up to my ears in Glory when that happened, but I still noticed when the government got wiped out at the end of a war!" Buffy said exasperatedly.
"Sorry, I didn't know how much you had followed," Riley apologized. "The Initiative was set up so that if the CO was suspicious of the president, or of how he had come to power, then he had the option of withholding it's existence from the administration. General Billingsly decided that as he was the senior surviving officer, that the administration should not be informed. He also believed that the way that the war in China started was also highly improbable, and from what he left behind, he felt that it was a way to get rid of him with out arousing suspicion."
"This general thought that starting a war was a good way to get rid of him quietly?" Buffy questioned, checking to see if she had heard right.
"It didn't make much sense to me either," Riley admitted, looking around. "So what's been going on around here?"
Buffy hesitated as if deciding where to start, deciding she began, "Did I ever mention The First to you?"
"Yeah, he tried to get Angel to kill you, right? I thought you got rid of it." Riley said.
"I convinced it to leave. It can't be killed," Buffy responded. "It's back, and we aren't sure what it's after. So now isn't a good time to have a bunch of newbies running around Sunnydale, especially since I would have to baby-sit them. Thanks for the warning, but I think that I can handle myself. You just might want to get the General, and the Major out of town before they get eaten like the last group."
Riley shook his head. "This won't be like last time Buffy. I think that you'll really need some help."
"Why? I handled The Initiative all right," Buffy argued.
"Last time they had no idea what to expect, and we were generally trying to capture things, we only went lethal if we had no choice. It won't be that way this time. This time their intentions will be to neutralize you. That could mean capturing you, but more likely it will mean either killing you, or capturing someone close to you, to force you to sit it out. We've also worked out some anti-Slayer tactics. None of which include going hand-to-hand with you," Riley explained gently.
Buffy gazed at Riley, with a look of extreme betrayal in her eyes. Before she could say anything, he put a finger to her lips. "It wasn't personal Buffy, it's business. You told me yourself when I was trying to get you to date me that you had come from a long list of people that didn't live past 25. We knew that we would be dealing with other Slayers, and that we might eventually come to cross-purposes. And if Faith ever decides to break out of prison, we would be who would have to go after her.
Buffy looked away, not trusting herself to speak. "Now what's really going on?" Riley asked.
"What do you mean? I told you what's going on," Buffy protested.
Riley smiled and shook his head. "I know you Buffy. If nothing was going on what you would have said to the General and me, would have been, 'Welcome to Sunnydale, stay out of my way, and try not to get eaten.' What, you have Spike tied up in your basement, and you don't want the Initiative to know?"
Buffy resigned herself to telling Riley the truth, "No I have Andrew Wells tied up in my living room."
"Andrew Wells?" Thinking where he had heard that name before, "Isn't he one of the Nerd Herd?" Riley asked, not quite believing it. "Jeez Buffy, are you still having problems with those guys? Adam didn't take this long to finish off." Looking at the expression that started to form on Buffy's face, Riley realized that he had seriously put his foot in his mouth. He glanced down and read the name inscribed on the tombstone to give Buffy a couple of seconds to get her emotions under control. He started to look up when the name on the tombstone registered. He looked down to make sure he had read it right. Unfortunately he had.
'Tara McClay
1981-2002'
"My God," Riley said quietly, reverently, going down on one knee in front of the monument. He reached out and traced the engravings with a finger.
Buffy turned when Riley knelt and read the name on the tombstone herself, then jumped away as if it had suddenly turned red-hot. Riley looked up at her face and asked, "How?" in a voice barely above a whisper.
"She was shot last May," Buffy said quietly, emotion in her voice. "It was Warren. We had been having problems with him and the nerds all through the year," She stopped for a few seconds to collect herself then went on in a dead monotone, "Tara had just gotten back together with Willow the day before. That night I stopped Warren from robbing an amusement park. Xander had found out about Spike and me, and he took it bad. We had a fight. It was bad, he was upset, his mouth I don't think was attached to his brain, and he said some things that hurt a lot. The next day Xander came back and apologized, and we started talking it through. Warren came out of nowhere with a gun. He shot me, shot at Xander, and when he was running away he must of shot over his shoulder. Willow said that Tara was in the window watching Xander and me in the yard. She had turned back to Willow and the bullet hit her in the back." Buffy stopped and looked down, tears leaking down her face. "You where out of communication. We didn't want to leave the news as an e-mail, or a message on your answering machine."
Riley stood up and gathered Buffy against his chest. She leaned her head against his shoulder and said, "God Riley, I am just so sick of people around me dying."
"Thanks, it would have been harder finding out like that. I understand about losing people. How's Willow?" He asked blinking, his own tears away.
"She's better. It was bad right after it happened. Giles took her to England over the summer and she got some help," Buffy told him.
"Warren?" Riley probed.
"He's been dealt with," Buffy said in a voice that was a whisper.
"One less thing to do," Riley said grimily.
Ding watched as Buffy lead Riley away with him. "So Mr. C, what do you think of her?"
"Impressive," He said, as he slipped the bottle of Holy water into his pocket next to the squirt gun that Riley had handed him back at the airport. "I think I need to raise her estimation of me though," Taking a close look at the cross she had given him.
"Do you think she might consider moving to England?" Ding asked.
"Trying to beat MP?" Clark asked with a smile, nervously eyeing the mound of dirt in front of him, wondering vaguely what he should be watching for.
"How long do you think it will be till she is out here?" Ding asked him.
Looking up at his partner John said, "Depends on how impatient Ed is I would think. I wouldn't do any heavy recruiting just yet though."
"Why?" Ding demanded.
"From what Riley has said Ms. Summers has had some real unfortunate encounters with officialdom. We might not be the enemy, but we aren't friends yet either." Clark explained.
Ding just grunted. Sudden movement over by Riley and Buffy caught his eye. Riley had gone down on one knee before the tombstone. When he reached out and touched it, then looked up at Buffy, Ding said. "Ah damn, I think we lost someone." Both men were silent as they remembered there own dead. They were both looking as Riley took The Slayer into his arms, to comfort her. They ended up missing the first couple of disturbances to the dirt of the grave as if something was pushing up through the layers of dirt in the grave.
Ding glanced down to give Riley and Buffy some privacy when he noticed the dirt moving. "Ms. Summers!" He shouted.
Buffy pushed off Riley and had just started toward the two Rainbow Troopers, when the vampire exploded out of the grave, dirt flying every where! He charged right toward Mr. Clark, fangs bared!