Starting Over 6 - Lessons Hard Learnt
Riley grinned at his two buddies. After dropping off their prisoner at the holding cells they'd gone for their traditional celebratory post-op drink. Life was good, maybe Walsh would let him sit in on a few of the bitch's interrogation sessions. He'd love to watch her scream and beg.
Suddenly his eyes narrowed. "Hostile 17!" He'd obviously returned looking for the brunette. Instantly the spotted vampire began running, dragging his left leg as if injured. Finn grinned, tonight was just getting better and better, time to tie up some loose ends. "After him boys!"
Instantly the three soldiers charged after the vampire. Immediately Spike turned and ran into a nearby alleyway. As Riley entered the alley's mouth, he heard a noise behind him. Spinning round, he saw a huge shape tearing his fellow soldier apart.
Forrest lunged at the shape but was grabbed around the throat and thrown effortlessly into the wall behind him. Graham connected with a haymaker to little effect but the shadow snatched at his arm and yanked it violently. Graham screamed as the sound of his arm breaking echoed around the alleyway. His screeching only ended when his attacker punched him into unconsciousness with a single straight right.
Urine running a warm trail down his right leg, Riley turned to flee only to find his way blocked by a silhouette. "See Angel," said the figure. "Told you the stupid bastard would fall for it."
Finn's mouth dropped open as the man stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the alley's solitary lamplight. It was Harris, but not the Harris of ten weeks ago. He was leaner, colder, and somehow more assured than he remembered. "Xander," he croaked.
"The same," the younger man grinned. "Now all you have to do to get out of this alley is get past little old me."
Riley hesitated. The soldier glanced down, somehow in the past thirty seconds somebody had removed his gun. "Need a weapon?" a combat knife clattered to the ground by his feet. "Be my guest."
Instinctively Finn crouched down to pick the weapon up. Only for a foot to smash into his jaw, sending him crashing to the ground. Even as he attempted to shake his head clear, a pair of strong hands grabbed him around the front of his jacket, lifted him up, and slammed him into the damp wall behind him before smashing a sledge-hammer fist into his stomach.
His lungs heaving, the soldier bent over and began vomiting up the four beers he'd just drunk. In mid-vomit a fist thundered into the left side of his face shattering his cheekbone. Then he was dragged upright again and staring into the eyes of a suddenly terrifying Xander. "Please," he begged through tears of pain, "no more."
"This is the best the U.S. military has to offer?" his attacker taunted. "Makes you worry about the security of the nation doesn't it? So talk, where's the emergency exit to the Initiative HQ?"
"I don't know argh!" the soldier let out a scream as a red-hot shot down his left hand. He glanced down in disbelief at the blood pumping out of the stump where his little finger had been.
"So now you've got seven fingers and two thumbs left. Or," Riley moaned as he felt the knife jab his groin. "We could cut out the middle man, so to speak."
"It's located in a tunnel near the cafeteria in the old high school," Riley babbled.
"Near the Hellmouth?" Xander shook his head. "What were you guys at school - special needs? So what security do you have on the outside and the inside of the exit?"
Riley felt tears begin to well. "None on the inside but a palm sensor on the outside."
"A palm sensor." The young man pinning him to the wall nodded. "Then we'll have to take you with us. Or."
Riley screamed as the knife tore through his right wrist, severing his hand. The last thing he saw as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness was the knife travelling towards his neck.
* * *
"I could just take your hand." Xander glanced up at his shocked friends as he picked the hand up from the muddy ground. Angel was staring at him with a look of astonishment, Spike with respect, Wesley was vomiting what looked to be his entire last week's food intake, and Giles, well Giles looked pissed.
"You stupid pillock! Do you realise what you've just bloody done!" roared the Watcher.
"Yes I do!" Xander bellowed in return before forcing his temper under control, he needed their assistance too much to piss them off. More than that, he needed them to understand. "Look, two things. Firstly, you guys go on so much about the soldier inside me, you've forgotten all about the hyena spirit that possessed me. Hyenas are pack animals, you guys are my pack and Faith," he blushed, "well she's my mate. And hyenas will do anything for their mates. Secondly, the soldier inside me has told me plenty about what goes on in these black ops facilities what sort of things the U.S. government did to convicts inside them in the seventies. More than likely they'll start by doing DNA tests, see if there's anything unique about a Slayer's DNA. Then they're going to run tests - pain tolerance, starvation, sleep depravation, that sort of fun thing. Perhaps they'll OD her on drugs to see how they affect a Slayer. Maybe they'll throw her in with soldiers, animals, and assorted demons to see what she can do. Maybe they'll pick a lucky soldier to impregnate her, see if they can breed super soldiers from her. Then maybe they'll flatline her to see if they can control whose called next and then finally they'll dissect her to see if there's anything inside her that makes her different. And if any of you think I'm going to let that happen to my girl then you don't know me at all."
He closed his eyes only to open them at a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at Angel who raised an eyebrow. "Now you've finished, are we going?"
* * *
"See, Riley did come in handy after all." The others glared at him. Xander grinned coldly before throwing the hand away. "What, you didn't expect me not to use the pun?" he grinned again as the concealed door they'd found ten minutes earlier slid open. "Spike, you and Wes stay here."
"Bloody hell mate, I'm not missing out on the action."
"Think about it Spike, you can't fight the humans down here. Second, I'm going to need someone to keep this door open for me."
"What's this 'me'," demanded Angel, "Giles and I are coming in with you."
"You're coming in with me. You're just leaving an entirely different way." Xander grinned wickedly. He really enjoyed the worried looks on the Watcher's and vampire's faces.
* * *
"Two heartbeats just around the corner," Angel whispered.
Xander nodded his thanks before unslinging his H&K MP5.
"Couldn't we just ask for their surrender?"
Xander turned towards Giles, his eyes cold. "First of all, these bastards are the guys who kidnapped my girl so I'm not feeling too merciful. Second of all, hell why does there have to be second?" the man charged towards the corridor opening, his upper body twisting as he ran. As he reached the nearest edge of the opening, he opened fire, mentally thanking Giles for the glamour he'd cast disrupting the HQ's security cameras. His bullets tore into the guards, throwing them from their chairs, their guns undrawn.
Once his ears had finished ringing, Xander turned to his companions. "You two continue on the main corridor, it takes you up to Lowell House, the campus house that doubles as their main entrance. They hear intruders coming out there, all hell will break loose."
"Thus drawing men off you," Giles commented.
"Yep."
"And what will you be doing?" asked Angel.
Xander glanced past the crumpled bodies and pools of blood. "Entering the belly of the beast," he replied before re-loading his MP5.
* * *
One guard, no real need for guns. A bit of stealth this close to the nerve centre could come in handy. Forcing a smile, Xander stepped around the corner. "Excuse me, my good man," he said in a passable imitation of the G- Man's most supercilious voice, "could you please direct me to the toilet?"
"What the -," the guard lunged to his feet only to move into a tooth loosening right cross. His legs wobbly, the guard staggered backwards. Cursing slightly, Xander chased after him. Ducking under a clumsy left, Xander hammered a knee into his opponent's groin before following it up with a second knee, this time to his face.
"You could have just said you didn't know," Xander said after stepping over the body. "Ah, the labs. Maybe I'll just find a bottle to pee into instead."
The door flew open under the impact of a single boot. Stepping into the room, a Desert Eagle in each hand, he took out the two assistant scientists with a shot to each of their heads before striding over to a shocked Professor Walsh. "X.Xander Harris. This is a government installation."
Xander smashed the butt of his right Desert Eagle into the woman's mouth, knocking teeth out and sending her crashing to the floor. He crouched over her, his eyes cold. "Ask me if I care bitch. I warned your lapdog what would happen if he tried to hurt my Faith again. Now you get to reap the whirlwind. We're going to release her."
"No -."
Raising his right Desert Eagle he blew a leg off a near-by table, sending the table and its contents plummeting. "Imagine the damage that could do to the human knee." He nuzzled the weeping scientist's thigh with the still smoking muzzle, burning flesh. "Or we could go straight to the practical."
"Let's go." "Smart lady." Holstering his left automatic, he grabbed hold of the woman's collar and stood, dragging the scientist with him. "I thought you'd see it my way."
* * *
Faith huddled shivering in the corner of her cell, pulling the all-too short surgical down around her. The first thing she'd seen upon awakening was the gloating faces of Riley and his two buddies. Tears formed in her eyes as she remembered the things they said they'd do to her as 'spoils of war'. She'd replied with bluster but she knew there were drugs they could give her that would make her helpless. She'd sworn she'd never be helpless again.
"Hey brown-eyed girl, why the tears?"
Her head snapped upwards, her heart leaping at the sight that greeted her. "Xand!"
Her boyfriend winked at her. "The one and only." Her man turned to the Walsh bitch. "Unlock her."
"I..I'm afraid the doors only work on a time delay."
"Try again," Xander shook his head. "I'm running out of patience and I hate to break it to you but you don't have a surplus of legs."
Walsh paled, her hand shaking the scientist punched a code into the door key-pad. As soon as the door sprang open, Faith rushed into Xander's arms. "They said they'd rape me," she sobbed.
"Did they?" Faith looked up to see a stony-faced Xander she'd never seen before. Her boyfriend glanced towards one of the adjacent glass cages occupied by a huge green wormlike creature with a dozen eyes and a gaping mouth filled with three inch long teeth. "That a Karlosh brain-sucker?" Faith nodded numbly. "Unlock it," Xander growled at Walsh.
The professor quickly obeyed. The beast crawled to the entrance, its gigantic bulk filling the open doorway. "I'm coming to eat you humans."
To Faith's surprise, Xander just chuckled. "I really don't think so. I'm packing two pistols filled with incendiary rounds that'll light you up like a firework, my girl's the Slayer and," grabbing Walsh the young man threw the professor through the doorway before slamming the door shut. "I bought lunch."
"Xander! You can't -," Faith's words trailed off as her boyfriend turned to her, his eyes more intense than she'd ever seen them.
"That bitch would never have let it go. Her sort never learns. She'd have kept coming until either her or we were dead. And nobody hurts you." Faith swallowed, she didn't like what her Xand had done but she could accept his reasoning. Finally she nodded. "Okay boytoy so where next?"
"Time to get some insurance."
* * *
Xander glanced across at Faith stood at the other side of the door. "On the count of three. One, two, three."
The Slayer sent the door flying open with a single kick, the drugs they'd been constantly pumping through the vents in her cell to prevent her accessing her Slayer powers already wearing off. Charging in, Xander let out a curse when he was confronted by a tazer-wielding guard. No longer consumed by his earlier homicidal rage, he decided to go a non-lethal route. Grabbing the wrist of the man's tazer-arm he drove the butt of his Desert Eagle into the side of the man's head. Even as his opponent dropped he saw the command centre's engineer's lunge for the general alert button. Racing over, he stuck his automatic into the man's face. "Don't," he warned. "The life you save may be your own."
The bespectacled man's eyes bulged. "I won't touch it."
"Good man. Say, what's your name?"
"Carter, sir."
"Well Carter, I've got a job for you," Xander reached into his trenchcoat and pulled out a packet of twenty CDs. "I want you to copy the base's database and encryption program onto these."
"What's this boytoy?"
Xander made sure Carter had started to do what he'd been told before pulling his girlfriend into his arms and kissing her lovingly. He felt his eyes begin to glisten. "Missed you baby," he muttered hoarsely before answering her question. "The Initiative will have a ton of information on demons and vamps that we don't, could come in handy. Also, this shit will be perfect to blackmail the government into leaving us alone."
"Blackmail the government?" his Slayer grinned. "Like your thinking, Xman!"
A few minutes later, Carter looked up. "Finished sir."
"Everything?" Carter nodded. "Start the base self destruct, then sound the general alarm. "He turned to Faith. "Girlfriend, we're out of here."
Riley grinned at his two buddies. After dropping off their prisoner at the holding cells they'd gone for their traditional celebratory post-op drink. Life was good, maybe Walsh would let him sit in on a few of the bitch's interrogation sessions. He'd love to watch her scream and beg.
Suddenly his eyes narrowed. "Hostile 17!" He'd obviously returned looking for the brunette. Instantly the spotted vampire began running, dragging his left leg as if injured. Finn grinned, tonight was just getting better and better, time to tie up some loose ends. "After him boys!"
Instantly the three soldiers charged after the vampire. Immediately Spike turned and ran into a nearby alleyway. As Riley entered the alley's mouth, he heard a noise behind him. Spinning round, he saw a huge shape tearing his fellow soldier apart.
Forrest lunged at the shape but was grabbed around the throat and thrown effortlessly into the wall behind him. Graham connected with a haymaker to little effect but the shadow snatched at his arm and yanked it violently. Graham screamed as the sound of his arm breaking echoed around the alleyway. His screeching only ended when his attacker punched him into unconsciousness with a single straight right.
Urine running a warm trail down his right leg, Riley turned to flee only to find his way blocked by a silhouette. "See Angel," said the figure. "Told you the stupid bastard would fall for it."
Finn's mouth dropped open as the man stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the alley's solitary lamplight. It was Harris, but not the Harris of ten weeks ago. He was leaner, colder, and somehow more assured than he remembered. "Xander," he croaked.
"The same," the younger man grinned. "Now all you have to do to get out of this alley is get past little old me."
Riley hesitated. The soldier glanced down, somehow in the past thirty seconds somebody had removed his gun. "Need a weapon?" a combat knife clattered to the ground by his feet. "Be my guest."
Instinctively Finn crouched down to pick the weapon up. Only for a foot to smash into his jaw, sending him crashing to the ground. Even as he attempted to shake his head clear, a pair of strong hands grabbed him around the front of his jacket, lifted him up, and slammed him into the damp wall behind him before smashing a sledge-hammer fist into his stomach.
His lungs heaving, the soldier bent over and began vomiting up the four beers he'd just drunk. In mid-vomit a fist thundered into the left side of his face shattering his cheekbone. Then he was dragged upright again and staring into the eyes of a suddenly terrifying Xander. "Please," he begged through tears of pain, "no more."
"This is the best the U.S. military has to offer?" his attacker taunted. "Makes you worry about the security of the nation doesn't it? So talk, where's the emergency exit to the Initiative HQ?"
"I don't know argh!" the soldier let out a scream as a red-hot shot down his left hand. He glanced down in disbelief at the blood pumping out of the stump where his little finger had been.
"So now you've got seven fingers and two thumbs left. Or," Riley moaned as he felt the knife jab his groin. "We could cut out the middle man, so to speak."
"It's located in a tunnel near the cafeteria in the old high school," Riley babbled.
"Near the Hellmouth?" Xander shook his head. "What were you guys at school - special needs? So what security do you have on the outside and the inside of the exit?"
Riley felt tears begin to well. "None on the inside but a palm sensor on the outside."
"A palm sensor." The young man pinning him to the wall nodded. "Then we'll have to take you with us. Or."
Riley screamed as the knife tore through his right wrist, severing his hand. The last thing he saw as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness was the knife travelling towards his neck.
* * *
"I could just take your hand." Xander glanced up at his shocked friends as he picked the hand up from the muddy ground. Angel was staring at him with a look of astonishment, Spike with respect, Wesley was vomiting what looked to be his entire last week's food intake, and Giles, well Giles looked pissed.
"You stupid pillock! Do you realise what you've just bloody done!" roared the Watcher.
"Yes I do!" Xander bellowed in return before forcing his temper under control, he needed their assistance too much to piss them off. More than that, he needed them to understand. "Look, two things. Firstly, you guys go on so much about the soldier inside me, you've forgotten all about the hyena spirit that possessed me. Hyenas are pack animals, you guys are my pack and Faith," he blushed, "well she's my mate. And hyenas will do anything for their mates. Secondly, the soldier inside me has told me plenty about what goes on in these black ops facilities what sort of things the U.S. government did to convicts inside them in the seventies. More than likely they'll start by doing DNA tests, see if there's anything unique about a Slayer's DNA. Then they're going to run tests - pain tolerance, starvation, sleep depravation, that sort of fun thing. Perhaps they'll OD her on drugs to see how they affect a Slayer. Maybe they'll throw her in with soldiers, animals, and assorted demons to see what she can do. Maybe they'll pick a lucky soldier to impregnate her, see if they can breed super soldiers from her. Then maybe they'll flatline her to see if they can control whose called next and then finally they'll dissect her to see if there's anything inside her that makes her different. And if any of you think I'm going to let that happen to my girl then you don't know me at all."
He closed his eyes only to open them at a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at Angel who raised an eyebrow. "Now you've finished, are we going?"
* * *
"See, Riley did come in handy after all." The others glared at him. Xander grinned coldly before throwing the hand away. "What, you didn't expect me not to use the pun?" he grinned again as the concealed door they'd found ten minutes earlier slid open. "Spike, you and Wes stay here."
"Bloody hell mate, I'm not missing out on the action."
"Think about it Spike, you can't fight the humans down here. Second, I'm going to need someone to keep this door open for me."
"What's this 'me'," demanded Angel, "Giles and I are coming in with you."
"You're coming in with me. You're just leaving an entirely different way." Xander grinned wickedly. He really enjoyed the worried looks on the Watcher's and vampire's faces.
* * *
"Two heartbeats just around the corner," Angel whispered.
Xander nodded his thanks before unslinging his H&K MP5.
"Couldn't we just ask for their surrender?"
Xander turned towards Giles, his eyes cold. "First of all, these bastards are the guys who kidnapped my girl so I'm not feeling too merciful. Second of all, hell why does there have to be second?" the man charged towards the corridor opening, his upper body twisting as he ran. As he reached the nearest edge of the opening, he opened fire, mentally thanking Giles for the glamour he'd cast disrupting the HQ's security cameras. His bullets tore into the guards, throwing them from their chairs, their guns undrawn.
Once his ears had finished ringing, Xander turned to his companions. "You two continue on the main corridor, it takes you up to Lowell House, the campus house that doubles as their main entrance. They hear intruders coming out there, all hell will break loose."
"Thus drawing men off you," Giles commented.
"Yep."
"And what will you be doing?" asked Angel.
Xander glanced past the crumpled bodies and pools of blood. "Entering the belly of the beast," he replied before re-loading his MP5.
* * *
One guard, no real need for guns. A bit of stealth this close to the nerve centre could come in handy. Forcing a smile, Xander stepped around the corner. "Excuse me, my good man," he said in a passable imitation of the G- Man's most supercilious voice, "could you please direct me to the toilet?"
"What the -," the guard lunged to his feet only to move into a tooth loosening right cross. His legs wobbly, the guard staggered backwards. Cursing slightly, Xander chased after him. Ducking under a clumsy left, Xander hammered a knee into his opponent's groin before following it up with a second knee, this time to his face.
"You could have just said you didn't know," Xander said after stepping over the body. "Ah, the labs. Maybe I'll just find a bottle to pee into instead."
The door flew open under the impact of a single boot. Stepping into the room, a Desert Eagle in each hand, he took out the two assistant scientists with a shot to each of their heads before striding over to a shocked Professor Walsh. "X.Xander Harris. This is a government installation."
Xander smashed the butt of his right Desert Eagle into the woman's mouth, knocking teeth out and sending her crashing to the floor. He crouched over her, his eyes cold. "Ask me if I care bitch. I warned your lapdog what would happen if he tried to hurt my Faith again. Now you get to reap the whirlwind. We're going to release her."
"No -."
Raising his right Desert Eagle he blew a leg off a near-by table, sending the table and its contents plummeting. "Imagine the damage that could do to the human knee." He nuzzled the weeping scientist's thigh with the still smoking muzzle, burning flesh. "Or we could go straight to the practical."
"Let's go." "Smart lady." Holstering his left automatic, he grabbed hold of the woman's collar and stood, dragging the scientist with him. "I thought you'd see it my way."
* * *
Faith huddled shivering in the corner of her cell, pulling the all-too short surgical down around her. The first thing she'd seen upon awakening was the gloating faces of Riley and his two buddies. Tears formed in her eyes as she remembered the things they said they'd do to her as 'spoils of war'. She'd replied with bluster but she knew there were drugs they could give her that would make her helpless. She'd sworn she'd never be helpless again.
"Hey brown-eyed girl, why the tears?"
Her head snapped upwards, her heart leaping at the sight that greeted her. "Xand!"
Her boyfriend winked at her. "The one and only." Her man turned to the Walsh bitch. "Unlock her."
"I..I'm afraid the doors only work on a time delay."
"Try again," Xander shook his head. "I'm running out of patience and I hate to break it to you but you don't have a surplus of legs."
Walsh paled, her hand shaking the scientist punched a code into the door key-pad. As soon as the door sprang open, Faith rushed into Xander's arms. "They said they'd rape me," she sobbed.
"Did they?" Faith looked up to see a stony-faced Xander she'd never seen before. Her boyfriend glanced towards one of the adjacent glass cages occupied by a huge green wormlike creature with a dozen eyes and a gaping mouth filled with three inch long teeth. "That a Karlosh brain-sucker?" Faith nodded numbly. "Unlock it," Xander growled at Walsh.
The professor quickly obeyed. The beast crawled to the entrance, its gigantic bulk filling the open doorway. "I'm coming to eat you humans."
To Faith's surprise, Xander just chuckled. "I really don't think so. I'm packing two pistols filled with incendiary rounds that'll light you up like a firework, my girl's the Slayer and," grabbing Walsh the young man threw the professor through the doorway before slamming the door shut. "I bought lunch."
"Xander! You can't -," Faith's words trailed off as her boyfriend turned to her, his eyes more intense than she'd ever seen them.
"That bitch would never have let it go. Her sort never learns. She'd have kept coming until either her or we were dead. And nobody hurts you." Faith swallowed, she didn't like what her Xand had done but she could accept his reasoning. Finally she nodded. "Okay boytoy so where next?"
"Time to get some insurance."
* * *
Xander glanced across at Faith stood at the other side of the door. "On the count of three. One, two, three."
The Slayer sent the door flying open with a single kick, the drugs they'd been constantly pumping through the vents in her cell to prevent her accessing her Slayer powers already wearing off. Charging in, Xander let out a curse when he was confronted by a tazer-wielding guard. No longer consumed by his earlier homicidal rage, he decided to go a non-lethal route. Grabbing the wrist of the man's tazer-arm he drove the butt of his Desert Eagle into the side of the man's head. Even as his opponent dropped he saw the command centre's engineer's lunge for the general alert button. Racing over, he stuck his automatic into the man's face. "Don't," he warned. "The life you save may be your own."
The bespectacled man's eyes bulged. "I won't touch it."
"Good man. Say, what's your name?"
"Carter, sir."
"Well Carter, I've got a job for you," Xander reached into his trenchcoat and pulled out a packet of twenty CDs. "I want you to copy the base's database and encryption program onto these."
"What's this boytoy?"
Xander made sure Carter had started to do what he'd been told before pulling his girlfriend into his arms and kissing her lovingly. He felt his eyes begin to glisten. "Missed you baby," he muttered hoarsely before answering her question. "The Initiative will have a ton of information on demons and vamps that we don't, could come in handy. Also, this shit will be perfect to blackmail the government into leaving us alone."
"Blackmail the government?" his Slayer grinned. "Like your thinking, Xman!"
A few minutes later, Carter looked up. "Finished sir."
"Everything?" Carter nodded. "Start the base self destruct, then sound the general alarm. "He turned to Faith. "Girlfriend, we're out of here."