Rainbow Over Sunnydale Chapter 9
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 of 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: Sorry this one was so long in coming. I had finals this last week, plus a 10-page web site due. The good news is I am on a 2-week break so I hope to get Chapt. 10 up before I go back.
Thanks to all that reviewed. Constructive criticisms always welcomed. Flames cheerfully
ignored.
Notes to reviewers:
Mad Minute: With the 'slaughter comment, I was looking at Mr. Clark more in a quantitative way, as opposed to Willow which was definitely qualitative. I know I have a problem with writing rules, I hope I am getting better as this Fic goes on.
Fic starts here-à
Everyone held their breath and looked at the ex-vengeance demon. Xander finally said, "An, it's generally considered impolite to introduce your friends to strangers that have a good chance of being federal law-enforcement agents as a person who have slaughtered someone."
Anya glared at Xander, "But John Kelly isn't in law-enforcement, he's a CIA agent."
"CIA!!!!!" Three voices exclaimed almost as one. The first was Dawn, she sounded excited. The next was Willow, she sounded outraged, the last was Buffy, hers came out low and menacing. Then she continued, "I thought your name was Clark?" She asked.
John Clark silently thanked the media for the misinterpretation of what the CIA was and did. Looking at the Scoobies he said, "I was born John Kelly. I had to change my name because as Ms. Emerson said, I took the law into my own hands when a gang of drug pushers who used prostitutes as their mules kidnapped and killed my lover. I killed as many of them as I could get too. During this time I was asked to join the CIA because I had been a Navy SEAL and knew an area of Vietnam that it was believed that the North Vietnamese where holding American Flyers that they were not planning on giving back. My boss at the CIA found out about my extracurricular activities. He could have turned me in but decided that I was too useful of an asset so they arranged for my disappearance and gave me a new life. I worked for the CIA for Thirty Years or so, Ding has been my partner for the last five. However we do not work for the CIA now, Rainbow is not part of it."
"Riley?" Buffy was not convinced.
"Rainbow isn't part of the US Government at all Buffy. It's part of the NATO chain of command."
"Ms. Summers," Ding said, "If we were still in the CIA we could not be here. The CIA is forbidden by law to operate in the US. In this case the Justice Department, specifically the FBI, is paying for Rainbow's expenses. The President is a real stickler about the law."
"Stickler for the law? He helped invade Columbia!" Willow argued.
"There were about 40 of us," Ding said, "That doesn't count as an invasion."
"You were there?" Xander asked.
"Yes that's where I met Mr. Clark. Mr. Ryan," they all heard the respect in his voice, "Wasn't part of the planning of the operation, but he sure pulled us out of a bad situation."
"I'm going to have to think about this, Riley must of told you what has happened in the past when I got involved with the government. Going up against The First, I can't be looking over my shoulder wondering if I can trust who's behind me." Buffy said.
"I understand Ms. Summers" Clark said, "We are not here to take over your job. Our orders are to protect the Hellmouth from General Billingsly and the Initiative. I believe that President Ryan would want us to render whatever assistance to you we can in this situation, but if you want us to back off we'll do it. We will be patrolling the town regardless though so any help we can give you, just let us know."
"Thanks," Buffy said, relaxing slightly.
"Can I ask a question?" Ding wondered.
"I might not answer, but go ahead," Buffy replied.
"What is this 'First' you keep mentioning, you sort of glossed over it in the car coming over here." Ding asked.
"Now there is the sixty-four dollar question," Willow said, "We found almost nothing on it Buffy."
Buffy sighed, "Giles hasn't called back has he?"
"No," Willow answered.
Buffy waved everyone into the dinning room, turning to Dawn she said, "Dawn could you run upstairs and get the first aid kit? Mr. Clark banged his hand up."
"Sure," Dawn said, running up the steps to get the kit.
"What happened?" Xander asked.
"Got jumped by a Vamp and Mr. Clark punched it in the mouth," Buffy explained.
"Ouch," Xander said.
"I was trying to get the cross between me and it," Clark told him. "It was faster than I expected."
"It looked impressive though," Buffy said, "Especially when the cross slapped into it's forehead and started burning."
"That must of looked cool," Xander agreed as Dawn came down from upstairs with a good size first aid kit.
"Here Buffy," She said handing it to Buffy.
"Lets, see the hand Mr. Clark," she said as she opened the case.
"I'll get some hot water," Xander volunteered as he headed for the kitchen.
"Thanks Xand," Buffy said as she started examining the wound.
Waiting for Xander to return with the water she said to Ding, "The First is what evil things are scared of. Its proper name is The First Evil. I fought it about four years ago when it tried to get a friend of mine to either kill me, or commit suicide it would have got away with it too. Except that The Powers intervened and stopped him."
"Who?" Ding asked.
"The Powers That Be," Buffy said as Xander came back in with a bowl of water.
"Thanks Xander," She said, "And yes they are exactly who you think they are."
Ding and Mr. Clark tried to digest what that implied.
"What did they do?" Ding finally asked.
"My friend was a vampire, he was waiting for sunrise, it started snowing, so the sun didn't shine," Buffy said beginning to wash the wound.
"That was Christmas in '98?" Ding asked.
Buffy sat back and thought, "Yeah I think that was it. Last time it snowed here anyway."
"How did you beat it then?"
"The First isn't a physical being, you can't fight it like a vampire or a demon. Fortunately that also means that it can't physical attack you either," Nodding to Andrew still slumped in his chair she continued, "That doesn't stop it from getting stooges to do it's dirty work for it."
"It does have these priests called Bringers. We got attacked by a bunch of them tonight, we thought they were after Andrew but it turned out they wanted Spike. They got him too."
"Spike's been dusted?" Riley asked, clearly not too uncomfortable with the notion.
"They took him, but I think he is still alive," Buffy said, choosing to ignore Riley's tone, "I was hoping to grab something on patrol to beat some info out of, but the vamps tonight were out-of-towners. I don't think that they even knew I was The Slayer till after they jumped me."
Buffy went on, "The first is held in this plane by The Bringers, they hang out underground. You can find them because everything dies directly over where they are. Tomorrow I'm going to check out where they were last time. I think there were some passages branching out from the main cave and I want to scout them out." Buffy finished washing Clarks wound out and looked it over, "I think you lucked out, it didn't get down to the tendons," She then reached for the antiseptic and said, "This will sting a bit."
Clark winced as she applied it to the wound to finish cleaning it out, "I would see a doctor about getting a prescription for antibiotics in the morning, but you should be fine." So saying she took some butterfly bandages and gently closed the wound with two of them.
Clark looked down at the job she did; it was very professionally done. She probably got a lot of practice he decided. "Are you going down there to try and rescue your friend or will you just be scouting around?" John asked.
"If I find him I'll try for a rescue, but mostly just for scouting," Buffy told him as she started putting the first-aid supplies away."
"Don't you have the underground mapped?" Clark asked.
Xander laughed, "The underground of Sunnydale has like 10,000 miles of tunnels."
Buffy nodded, "That's an exaggeration, but it is like a maze down there. Sometimes I think that the tunnels even change around from time to time."
"How deep is the cave that you will be checking out tomorrow?" John continued.
Thinking back to her first encounter with The First, "About twenty or thirty feet. Why?" Buffy asked, perplexed.
"Time to start earning our keep," Clark thought to himself, "We can get you a map of the underground, The top 30 or 35 feet anyway," Clark said, then went on to explain, "We can have a KH-12 do a couple of passes over Sunnydale. We can have them send the results here."
"KH-12?" Buffy asked.
"It's a spy satellite," Xander supplied.
"Specifically it's a radar recon bird," Clark amplified.
"Okay so you can do a radar sweep, how does that help me?" Buffy wanted to know.
"It helps because it can see about 40 feet into the ground too. It was originally designed to find hidden missile silo's." John told her. "We can have them do the runs tonight and should be able to get the results sometime tomorrow morning."
Buffy thought about it, "If you can do that it would be great. But if we don't get it by noon I am going in."
"Fair enough," Clark said reaching for his cell phone. Selecting a number Clark put the phone to his ear. Waiting as the two secure units negotiated with each other he then heard the other end pick up.
"NRO duty desk, Robert Conrad speaking, this is a secure line, how may I help you?" the voice on the other end of the line said.
"This is General John Clark, authorization code Alpha, Tango, Michael, 145876," Clark said into the phone.
There was a delay of several seconds from the NRO then, "Authenticate Echo, Lima, Alpha," Conrad said.
Taking a laminated card similar in size to a credit card from his wallet Clark scanned down the card then said, "Papa, Charlie, X-ray,"
"Identity confirmed, what can I do for you General?" Conrad said.
"I need a ground penetrating map of Sunnydale California, how soon can you get it done?"
Robert Conrad blinked; he had had some odd requests during his tour of duty. For a while there had been a general over in the pentagon that had tried to get him to put his house under surveillance from one of his KH-11 birds. He thought his wife was having an affair with their pool boy. This was the first time anyone had asked him to map the sewer system of a small American city. Oh well, the notation in his file said that the General had carte blanche, so what the General wanted, the General got. Checking the position of the new KH-12 Satellite he typed some queries into his computer then read the answers into the mouth piece of his headset, "We need to slightly reposition the bird sir, we should be able to start getting information in three orbits. It will take two more orbits to finish the map, call it seven hours sir."
"Very well. Send the information to FBI headquarters, they will know what to do with it." Clark instructed him.
"As you wish sir. Have a good evening," Conrad said.
"You too," Clark said as he disconnected, "When it's a little later in Washington, I will call our contact in the FBI and have them send the photo's to the local office, they can bring it here."
Buffy was impressed in spite of herself. She hoped this wasn't just a ruse to get on her good side.
John Clark pointed at Andrew's slumped form, he noted that they had him tied into a directors chair, "Would you like for Ding or I to have a chat with Andrew when he wakes up?" He asked.
"We already did," Buffy said, "Xander and Anya played 'Good-Cop, Bad-Cop' with him."
"How did he get hurt?" Riley asked, then looking at the two blood spots on the bandage on Andrews's neck he continued, "Those look like vamp bites."
"Spike did them," Xander told him, "Came right through the wall."
"Why?" Riley asked, then thinking about it, "How? His chip should of dropped him in his tracks."
"We think that The First has brain washed him," Buffy said, "Or at least that's what Xander thinks."
"So he can ignore the chip?" Riley asked now genuinely concerned.
"He did when he made the dozen or so vampires that Buffy had to dust," Xander supplied.
"He's been killing again?" Riley said, then accusingly, "And you let him run around loose?"
"We haven't let him run around anywhere, once we found out what was going on, I locked him up here."
"With Dawn in the house?" Riley was starting to get worked up.
"He's changed Riley," Buffy said quietly, starting to withdraw a little.
"Changed? He sounds like the same old tried and true, back to the basics Spike to me!"
"He has his soul back Riley," Buffy said, starting to fight back a little.
"The First has him programmed, we have to help him," Buffy pleaded.
Ding sat back and watched the by-play between the two people. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Xander Harris jerk back almost like someone had slapped him. It was a quick and angry movement. He did it when Buffy began defending Spike.
"The First wants him for something, whatever it is, we have to stop it," Buffy said, more firmly in command.
"We can stop The First from using him by dusting him," Xander pointed out with some heat. "We have Riley and the Feds back in the picture, it's not like we need him anymore!"
"Xander, I am not killing Spike, unless he becomes a general threat," Buffy said.
"I don't recall your being this reserved when it came to killing Anya," Xander snarled, " But then you never slept with her," He got up and stormed out of the front door.
Buffy slumped in her chair. Riley and the two Rainbows officers looked around the table for some explanation to what they had just seen.
Buffy said, "Excuse me," and followed Xander out of the door.
Willow seeing the looks on Riley and the Rainbows realized that someone needed to explain. So she took a deep breath and began, "Excuse me Anya this may hurt."
Anya just waved it off, "That's okay I knew when Buffy found out about the fraternity she would come after me."
Willow nodded, then thinking said, "Maybe you should tell the first part."
Anya shrugged and reached over to pour herself a glass of soda, "When Xander ran off at the wedding D'Hoffyrn offered me my old job back. I took him up on the offer. I figured I could punish Xander for what he did to me," Looking a little sheepish, she continued, " I kind of forgot that I could not grant my own wishes. I couldn't get anyone to help me out either, "she said glaring at Willow and Dawn.
"Hey I told you, I was off the W word after what happened at Buffy's Birthday Party." Dawn said defensively.
"Another question to ask Riley when he got the chance," Clark thought to himself. The list was starting to get extensive.
"My heart wasn't really in the job anymore though. My work was suffering, but I found I just couldn't inflict the type of havoc I used to. I wasn't enjoying it anymore either," She said, looking slightly haunted, "Finally there was a freshman who made a wish when a fraternity played a joke on her. One of them pretended to fall for her. He strung her along for a couple of weeks, then broke up with her in front of his fraternity. She made a wish and I granted it, the results where a little bloody."
" A little bloody?!" Willow exclaimed, "I found them Anya. The girl wished they would know what it feels like to have their hearts ripped out and you obliged her!"
Anya shrugged, "I reversed it. And it cost me my only demon friend, sometimes I think she was my only friend." Tears start to well in her eyes.
Dawn went over and put her arms around Anya's shoulders, "Not your only friend, after all I got you stuck when I made that wish didn't I?"
Anya smiled, "I was in the house Dawn, that's all that was required."
"Yeah but you WERE there." Dawn reassured her.
Willow picked up the story, "Buffy felt that Anya had become a threat, so she decided that she had to…" She paused trying to find a polite turn of phrase for Anya's benefit.
"Kill me," Anya supplied.
"Er, yes," Willow agreed, "Xander tried to talk Buffy into not killing Anya, and he used some of the same argument that Buffy just used to defend Spike."
"Ah," Clark said, finally seeing what was going on. He hoped that this wasn't a fatal rift. He had a feeling that Buffy was going to need all the help she could get before this was over.
Buffy came out of the front door of her house and saw Xander putting the keys into the door of his SUV. "Xander wait," she called. For a moment it looked like Xander was just going to get into his vehicle and drive away, but he stopped and looked at Buffy.
Buffy hurried down the steps and then over to Xander, "I'm sorry," She said, but before she could continue Xander interrupted.
"Do you know what hurts?" Xander began, "When you hear your own words, that got shot down, repeated back at you by the person who shot them down."
"I know," Buffy said, "I'm sorry, I was wrong about Anya. But it's not the same situation at all Xander."
"No? How is it different?" Xander demanded.
"Anya chose what she was Xander," Buffy explained turning slightly from him staring at her reflection in the paint of his SUV. She felt as distorted as it looked, "Spike didn't choose what he is now, The First did it to him."
"When Anya offered herself to D'Hoffyrn to make right what had happened, I realized that I had misread her. You where right, I was wrong, and I'm sorry."
Xander stared at Buffy; rarely if ever did she admit that she had made a mistake. He took a deep breath, "Okay, what can I do to help?"
"Come back inside?" She requested.
Offering her his arm he said, "Lets go."