A New Day

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The next morning, Oz was still a little depressed about loosing Willow, but less so then the day before. Working together on the mission to save Faith helped. In the mean time, he had other things that he couldn't put off any longer. Like reconnecting with the Dingo's and apologize to them too. And then there was his Mom. Oh joy. "Why did I come back here?" he asked himself.

Locating the rest of the pack in Hope's room, he told them "Look guys, I'm going to play the old-home game today. I need to find my band and my family and think up something to say to them. I'm going to leave out the whole Garou thing. I'll probably use the "went off to find myself" routine, which is sorta true."

"That's okay Oz," said Hope, "We're going to pick up Buffy and go spring Faith out of the Hospital. We're going to have a de-brief at Buffy's this afternoon, but you can skip it. Derrick has also been talking about house hunting. This hotel is a little cramped, and if we're going to be here for a while, some better digs might be nice. We'll probably go on patrol with Buffy tonight, why don't you hook up with us by then?"

"Okay, cool."

"You'll need a ride though. We'll need the Van; maybe you can take Krieg's bike?"

"MY bike! What about Conn's?" Krieg responded angrily.

"Ach, the laddie could nea reach the pedals on me trike!"

Krieg looked at Oz, "Do you even know how to ride one?"

"Yup, no problem."

"Okay, but just this once. You scratch it, I'll take it out of your hide!" He tossed Oz the keys.

"Cool. See ya" Oz left.

Derrick and the pack went to Revello Drive to pick up Buffy. Derrick had gotten Hope a nurses outfit and he was posing as a doctor from a private rehabilitation center. While John Conn and Kreig parked themselves in front of the TV, Derrick Hope and Buffy went in to gather up Faith. Derrick strode in like he owned the place and no one seemed to question him at all. The hospitals attending physician signed the release papers without batting an eye.

True to her word, Buffy's Mom welcomed Faith with open arms. Faith cried again. Before, the love she was getting from this surrogate family aggravated her, and drove her to the Mayor. Now it felt like a warm blanket. It was like she was dealing with an entirely new set of emotions, ones that had been suppressed for a long time. Buffy and Hope brought her upstairs and got her settled into bed.

Conn fixed lunch for everyone and afterwards they went house hunting. The Slayer Mom stayed behind to watch over Faith while Buffy gave them the grand tour of Sunnydale. The housing market is Sunnydale was considered by most to be a "buyers" market, as there were usually a lot of well motivated sellers. The Red Moon pack however had some special needs considering there were 6 adults, 7 if you count Conn twice. It was as they were leaving the fourth house they looked at that Buffy had an idea.

"I know of a place that would be perfect for you guys. A friend of mine owns it. He might not be willing to sell it, but maybe he'd lease it to you guys or something. He lives in LA at the moment." She directed them to Angel's mansion on Crawford Street. On the way she already began to regret that she'd mentioned it. There were a lot of painful memories revolving around the place.

When they arrived the pack could tell from the outside that the place was large enough to accommodate their needs. The place needs some work, but not much. Buffy led them up to the front doors, and dug out her key.

"You know the guy who own's this place?" Asked Derrick.

"Yeah, Angel. It's.... complicated."

"Would that be Angel as in "Angel Investigations" in LA".

"Yeah, how did you know about that?"

"I came across the name when I was researching you and Sunnydale."

The pack toured the house. It needed a lot of cleaning up and some furniture, but was otherwise habitable. John however was getting some wierd vibes from the place and told everyone so.

Buffy made a decision. "Okay, I guess I need to come clean with you guys. You'll find out eventually anyway, so I'd rather you heard it from me. Angel is a Vampire."

That stopped everyone in their tracks. Krieg spoke up first. "So I guess the fact that you have the keys to his house means you're on speaking terms with him."

Buffy continued "I know how it sounds, but Angel has a soul. He was cursed by some gypsy in 18 whatever, and since then he's been fighting for the good guys, trying to make up for all the wrongs that he did as a vampire."

Hope came to stand in front of Buffy. She took both her hands in hers she looked Buffy in the eyes "Somehow I think there is more to this story".

"Oh yeah, lots more. He was my first.... everything." Buffy cast her eyes down at her own feet.

John shook his head and moved off to another room. Krieg was looked like he was about to make some sort of comment, but a look from Hope silenced him. "Tell us everything Buffy. If we're going to live here we'll need to know".

"We'll I guess the really big thing is that when Angel did not have his soul he was known as Angelus, the Scourge of Europe".

It only took a second for Derrick to make the connection "Angelus! Holy mis-match Batman!"

Everyone looked towards him "When I first started looking at Sunnydale, I had a chat with a Nosferatu Vamp I know. He's the one who told me about "Demon Vampires". He also mentioned a particularly nasty one by the name of Angelus. When I raided the Watchers data stores I used that as a keyword when I was indexing the data and found tons of references to him. None of them good from the few I actually read. The guy was a butcher!"

Angrily, Buffy confronted Derrick "That was Angelus, not Angel! My Angel is not like that, in fact his is a champion of the Light just like we are, only..."

"Only what Buffy" Hope prodded her.

"The Gypsy curse was just that, a curse. Angelus was cursed with a soul, in order to torment him. He'd remember all of the bad stuff he did for the rest of his existence. There was also a clause. If he ever experienced one moment of pure happiness, bye-bye soul, hello Angelus."

"And he was your first.. everything." Finished Hope.

"That's right, last year in January, I brought Angelus back. He terrorized us for months, he kill Jenny Calendar our teacher and Giles's girlfriend. He tortured Giles. All because of me." Buffy dropped Hopes hands and moveed off to stand where Acathla stood.

"Later that spring, he tried to raise the Demon Acathla and open the hellmouth. I stopped him, stabbing him with a sword. His spilled blood closed the gate and sucked him into hell. The real kicker was that Willow had been working all this time on restoring Angel's soul. Just before I stabbed him, Willow succeeded. I sent Angel to hell. It was the only way to close the gate."

Tears were coming down her cheeks now. Hope came up behind her and put her hand on her shoulders. "I fell apart after that. Mom had just discovered I was the Slayer and couldn't handle it. She kicked me out. I ran away. I eventually returned and patched things up with my Mom. Faith arrived and you know some of the things that went down with her. The "Powers that Be" saw fit to return Angel, bring him out of Hell, in October of that year. Things were never the same again between us. He eventually moved to L.A. to put some distance between us."

Hope turned her around to face her again. "And now?"

"There were a couple of guys Since Angel. Most were jerks, but I'm with an OK guy named Riley now. Things are starting to get better." Buffy wiped her eyes and seemed to shrug off the mental funk she dropped into. "Look, I was going to call Angel anyway and ask him about this Camarilla thing you guys were talking about. If I ask him about the mansion, he won't say no. So what to you think?"

John chose that moment to reappear. "The place needs to be cleansed. The Wyrm taint is evident. Between Hope and I we can take care of that. I don't see a problem with moving in once that is done. It's certainly big enough for us. Our only problem will be access to a caern. I know we won't find one here that will be suitable."

"We'll have to find some Garou in L.A. They should be able to help us" answered Hope.

Derrick added "I know a Glasswalker in L.A., he should know about the locals. I'll drop him a line."

"Okay, we'll if we're done here, lets head back to my place. I can't call Angel until after sunset anyway" concluded Buffy.

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The rest of the Scoobies came over to Revello drive late that afternoon and with Faith propped up on the couch, they had another meeting of the minds. The Slayer-Mom was the first to object. "Shouldn't Faith be in bed?"

"It's cool Mrs. S. I've been out of it too long. My body may still be out of it, but my brain is aching for action!"

"Plus Mom, we've promised Faith that she won't be left out of things anymore. She's a part of this and needs the info" said Buffy.

"Okay," looking over at Conn and Krieg Joyce added "but the minute she starts to drift off, I expect one of you big strong men to get her upstairs to bed."

Playacting, Faith leaned back and put hand on her forehead. "Oooh, I think I feel those eyelids closing now…"

Buffy playfully whacked Faith with a pillow. "Pay attention."

Hope cleared her throat. "Okay, this is called an "after action debriefing" in military parlance. We don't do this all the time, only when we're bringing in new tactics or if something plainly goes wrong for us. I count fighting along side a Slayer and her team as new tactics. We go over what we did, and then maybe identify things we could have done better."

"It worked, how could we have done better?" asked Willow.

"There's always room for improvement."

The group talked for about 30 minutes outlining the mission step by step. Faith was fascinated about what the group did for her. She felt tears welling up again. Those that did not cross over into the spirit world were equally fascinated by the description of the events.

"Will I ever be able to cross over to the Umbra by myself?" asked Buffy.

"I'm not sure. Mages can cross over. I imagine witch's can too." Hope said looking at Willow and Tara.

"I-I have heard of it, b-but never considered trying" replied Tara, "at least not physically. I've had "out of body" experiences, but not like you described them.

"There are other realms beside the Umbra. You probably reached one of the Dream realms Tara" explained Derrick. "The Dream realm is another one that overlaps with the physical world. It does not reflect the physical world's spirits, but rather the sub-consciousness of sleepers, literally."

"The answer to your question Buffy," Derrick continued, "is maybe. Ever since Oz told me about Slayers I've been surreptitiously asking around my community about them. While not mentioning the word "Slayer" I've been asking if anyone ever encountered a human with preternatural strength. The answer I almost always got was "Vampire Ghoul". And again, a lot of the powers you exhibit are Vampire-like."

Faith interrupted, "Wait, we got our Super Slayer mojo from Vamps?"

"No, I don't think so. I think that you were given equal powers to fight them by Gaia. One person I ran into though brought up a possibility that might explain exactly what you two are. A man by the name of Sam Haine."

Willow and Tara giggled. "Sam Haine?" Willow asked.

"Yes, I know. I think he was born on that day and took the name. He's a Verbena mage, and has quite a reputation. He's never in the Web, but I ran into him at the Chantry in Seattle. He was just passing though, but I try to stay in touch with him. He mentioned something he called a "Physical Adept"".

"The way he described it was that a Physical Adept was an Awakened being, in other words their Avatar is awake and aware. But a Physical Adept does not have the conscious ability to use magic, rather they themselves ARE magic incarnate."

"Okay," said Xander "I think I speak for most of us when I say "Huh?""

Derrick continued. "Physical Adepts are magical creatures with innate abilities, in this case superior strength, speed, agility and stamina. He said that he'd met one that had been captured by the Technocracy at an early age and they experimented with him. He managed to escape and overcome the programming the Technocracy tried to implant in him."

"Does he know where to find this person?" asked Giles.

"That was the very question I asked him. "No" was all he said. I tried to press him, but he wandered off the subject. Last night I contacted Hwa Sun Yun, the Akashic Brotherhood Mage I told you about. She is very intrigued and wants to meet the both of you. I've arranged for her to fly down next weekend."

"The AK's practice an art they simply call "Do" or "The Way". Do practioners believe that superior strength, uncanny awareness and unshakeable courage are fruits from the tree of spiritual perfection. Sounds like a Slayer to me. Unfortunately they also believe that violence is a last resort. I've always felt that they were the ultimate oxymoron. They constantly train for battle, and constantly strive to avoid it."

"I cornered Sunny about it once, she said that body is a cup; the soul is water. The stronger the cup, the more it holds. Thus, a Brother exercises his body constantly to strengthen the cup. His empathy for others translates into compassion for all beings, even his enemies. A well trained Brother seeks to reform his opponents, not destroy them."

"Okay, so I'm supposed to hug Vamps instead of Slay them?" asked Buffy.

"I think even the AK's would draw the line at that. They'd recognize that a demon is basically unredeemable. But they'd feel sorry for it as they were killing it. If anyone can tap into the secret of a Slayer's Avatar, it's them."

"Well we shall look forward to what she has to say" Giles replied to Derrick. "Shall we now discuss what happens next? I'm curious to know what you and your Garou friend's intensions are."

Hope spoke for all of them. "Our intentions when we came here was to uncover a few mysteries, and we've not really done that yet. Chief on our mind is; what is the Camarilla involvement here and the Technocracy Project."

"Derrick mentioned that before, the Technocracy, who are they? Giles asked.

"The Technocracy is a group of organizations that strive to keep reality static, and in their control. We Tradition mages fight them wherever we can. In the guise of "protecting humanity" they strive to make all humans conform to their version of a perfect world, which is Orwellian at best. They are mages, but hide their magic behind technology. The Virtual Adepts were actually a part of the Technocracy up until 1966 when we broke away."

"The Tradition mages believe in Dynasism. That only through constant change and evolution can human beings transcend to the next level. The Technocracy has the opposite view. They call us "Reality Deviants" and actively hunt down Tradition mages to "rehabilitate" them. There are five basic factions, Iteration X, the Progenitors, the Void Engineers, the New World Order and the Syndicate. When I was searching for info on Sunnydale, I discovered that there is a Technocracy project based here made up of IX and Progenitor operatives called "The Initiative".

Almost as one, the Scooby Gang turned and looked at Buffy.

Buffy's response was "Crap".

"Excuse me?" asked Derrick.

"Buffy is dating one of them" said Anya.

Now the Pack stares at her too. Buffy starts to sink into her seat.

Incredulous, Derrick asks "You, the Slayer, are dating someone from the Technocracy?"

"Well, in a way I guess. Riely, the guy I mentioned this afternoon, he's a U.S. soldier on loan to the Initiative. Agent Riley Finn to be exact." said Buffy. "Former Green Beret, he heads the HST retrieval teams. They basically round up demons, Hostile Sub-Terrestrials as they call them, and hand them over to the scientists. I I don't think he knows about this Techno thing though, the scientists on the project are probably your evil dooers. They put a chip in Spike's head to prevent him from harming human beings, so I thought they were working for our side. I pretty much discovered they were bad guys when they tried to kill me for getting to close to uncovering Experiment 314.""

"Oz didn't mention anything about that." Derrick said accusingly.

Willow defended him "Hey, Buffy had just broken up with Parker when he left. He'd met Riley, but didn't know he was with Buffy."

"Yeah, Riley and I hooked up after Oz left town. Speaking of which, where is Oz."

"He went to make nice with his family and The Dingos. He should be back to join us for patrol" said John.

"My head is starting to hurt again" said Derrick. "What is Experiment 314?"

Giles answered. "A demon/cyborg hybrid. Quite powerful. It killed the head of the project, a Dr. Margaret Walsh and escaped. Both Buffy and Agent Finn have come up against it and have not been able to destroy it. It actually goes by the name Adam."

Buffy tells them the whole story. Taking Professor Walsh's class, meeting Riley, discovering the Initiative, actually going on missions with them until she learned too much and Walsh tried to have her killed. Adam's escape, Riley getting almost killed and deciding to play "double-agent" with the Initiative.

"Okay, where is this Agent Finn now?" asked Hope.

Buffy looked out the front Window. By now it was nightfall, the sun setting early this time of year. "I don't know. He was patrolling with me the night we all met, but he got called away before you and the fur patrol arrived. I'm actually starting to get worried." Buffy got out her cell phone and dialed.

"How about Adam? Do you know what happened to him?"

"We don't know where he's hiding out, but the word is he's gathering other demons to him. We don't know exactly why, but it can not be good" Giles informed him.

Everyone is silent for a few moments. Derrick finally breaks it. "Okay, from my perspective, the Initiative and the Adam creature are the biggest problem right now. Figuring out the whole Watcher/Camarilla thing can wait."

Nods of agreement all around. "What about Riley?" asked Buffy.

"Well, are we sure what side he's on?" asked Hope.

"Yes, my side!" Buffy said emphatically.

"No offense Buffy, but it may not be that simple. This whole double-agent thing may be a ruse."

"No, I'm positive he's realized what they are about and he's against it." Buffy was adamant.

"Alright," continued Derrick "well, we need to find him in any case."

"I just paged him, and he's not called back yet. That's not like him."

Willow asked a previous question again. "Um, the Sun's down. Where is Oz?"

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TBC