-
(See Chapter One for new disclaimers and author's Note. 7/5/04)
-
-
-
Part 10. "Pity The Uninformed."
By OldScout
"Oh, look at the time." Billy Bob held up his bare wrist like he was looking at a watch. "Gotta go." He started heading back to the door. "Minister, if you need anything else, I'm at your service. Willow nice seeing you again, wish we had time to chat, maybe some other time."
"Not so fast mister." Willow said as she stood up. "We need to chat now."
"Miss Rosenberg, do you know Auror Hicklock?" Minister Fudge asked.
Billy Bob used the distraction to pull the door open, which immediately pulled out of his hands and slammed shut. Willow glared at Auror Hicklock who hung his head and backed away from the door.
"Oh, yea." Willow said. "Me and Billy Bob go way back." She turned to Auror Hicklock. "Hicklock? What kind of name is that?"
"It's a fine old American Wizarding name I'll have you know." Billy Bob defended his family name.
Willow walked over to Billy Bob and put her arm around him. She looked extremely small compared to the large cowboy Auror. "We've been doing business for over year now. Haven't we?"
Looking a little sheepish, Billy Bob replied. "Has it been that long? It seems like just yesterday."
"Ah, Red." Faith interjected. "Just curious; exactly what kind of business?"
"Billy Bob runs the best magic supply shop in the area." Willow said. "Well actually, the only one I've found and it's all they way in Toledo."
"No respectable witch or wizard would go anywhere near Cleveland." Billy Bob replied.
"So, I'm not a respectable witch? Which brings me to my big question, Billy Bob." Willow said with arm still around the man as she escorted him back to the middle of the room. "You knew what I was. You knew I wasn't just some want to be Wicca praying to the Earth Mother and buying crystals, right?"
"I suppose."
"I was the real deal, and apparently so were you. Now tell me why you didn't ever mention the Wizarding world to me? You know, today's been a real eye opener, and I'm sure Buffy could have avoided a lot of trouble here if she'd known."
"I'm sure Auror Hicklock has other more important things to do than explain himself to an untrained minor league Wicca." Minister Fudge interrupted trying to end this little confrontation as quickly as possible.
"Quiet." Willow said softly turning to the Minister. "I was speaking to Billy Bob."
"How dare you speak to me that way?!" Fudge sputtered. "I can still have you arrested for unauthorized entry into the Ministry."
"Oh, pity the uninformed." Faith said from her seat at the table.
Willow turned and winked at Faith and Buffy then turned back to Auror Hicklock. "Bored now." She leaned up and whispered to Billy Bob. "You'd better start talking before me and the girls start causing trouble." She returned to normal volume. "Which brings me to another question, though you still haven't answered the first and you're not off the hook for it. How do you know about Buffy, Mister? You know, that's what you were offering information on, not me." Willow crossed her arms and started tapping her foot, waiting for answers.
"Miss Rosenberg, YOU are not in charge here! I am and I will ask the questions." Fudge said through clenched teeth. Everybody in the room swore they could see steam starting to come out of his ears. He stomped over to the petite red head who really wasn't much shorter than him. "Now sit yourself down and be quiet or I will have you removed and incarcerated for breaking and entering Ministry offices, unlawful magical lock breaking, lying to Ministry Security, failure to register your wand, harboring dangerous magical creatures and anything else I can think of."
Willow smiled. "You know, it's really cute when the smoke starts coming out of your ears like that."
Minister Fudge stepped away from Willow and pointed at her. "Auror Tonks, remove this woman and place her in the heavily charmed security cells."
Tonks and Amos Diggory instinctively reached for their wands but Buffy was already half way across the room. "What did I tell you about those little sticks of yours?" The two hesitated then moved their hands away from their wands. Buffy turned to Fudge. "You," she said as she pointed to a chair at the head of the conference table. "Sit down and be quite." She turned to Director Bones and Auror Hicklock and Amos Diggory "Won't you join us as well?" Then to Tonks "And you can have the seat next Faith."
Buffy returned to the conference table and sat the end opposite Minister Fudge. "Okay, you crazy people have been tap dancing around something ever since you brought me hear and it is time to put our cards on the table so we can all go home."
"Got that right." Faith interject. She sat reclined with both of her heavy booted feet on the table crossed at the ankles. "You know I am getting way hungry. Why don't we order pizza?"
"Pizza sounds good." Willow said from the seat she had just taken. She had considered pouting about Buffy taking over but watching her put Fudge in his place was almost as much fun as what she had planned.
"What?" Director Bones looked at the women. "You call us crazy? You just get everybody ready to tell all their secrets and you want to stop for pizza?"
"We're not going to stop." Buffy said. "We'll just have your Aurors order it." She nodded to Willow who headed for the door.
"Do the local pizza shops deliver to phone booths?" Willow considered just before opening the door to call Auror Dawlish in.
After several minutes of heated discussion on what kinds of pizza to order, Dawlish was on his way to the Muggle Artifacts office to see if he could find somebody who knew how to order muggle pizza. He really didn't think the women would like wizarding pumpkin pizza. He wondered if they were still laughing at the suggestion.
"Okay," Buffy started. "We'll start with the obvious. I am a Slayer, the one girl in all the world chosen to fight blah, blah." She looked at Fudge and Bones. "You with me so far?"
They nodded.
"So is Faith." Buffy added.
"Now that's where you loose me." Director Bones said. "If you are the Chosen One how can there be two?"
"I guess we're the chosen two." Faith replied.
"It's easy," Buffy said. "When I was sixteen, I drowned, the details are not important. My friend Xander revived me but it was enough to activate my replacement, Kendra. When Kendra was killed, Faith was chosen."
"Yep, I'm the last Chosen slayer. Quite a responsibility don't you think? I keep telling them I should get paid more just for that. Plus I've never died on the job." Faith smirked at Buffy.
"Why are you the last?" Director Bones asked. "It follows that if you were killed the next potential would be called."
"Hrrmph." Auror Hicklock cleared his throat.
"Ah, it sounds like Billy Bob knows the answer, this I've got to hear this." Willow said from her seat next to him. As she spoke, he reached up nudged him with the tips or her fingers. "Go ahead; what' the scoop according to Billy Bob?"
The room stared at Auror Hicklock. Finally he said. "There will be no more Slayers chosen, because there are no potentials left to choose from."
"Gold star for the strangely dressed cowboy from Toledo." Buffy chirped.
"No more potentials?" Amos Diggory asked. "How can this be? One dies another is chosen, that's just the way it is."
"Tell 'em Billy Bob." Willow offered.
"Well," A defeated looking Billy Bob said. "We're not sure of the exact details," He looked at the slayers and Willow. "I'm sure you can tell it more accurately."
"Oh, no." Buffy said. "You're the one offering information on me, let's hear it."
"Well, according to reports." Billy Bob finally started. "A couple of years ago an entity known as 'The First' saw an opportunity to end the Slayer line by having all the potentials killed off."
"The First?" Director Bones asked. "The first what?"
"The First Evil." Buffy said. "Nasty thing, but in the end, all bark, no bite."
"But it had some pretty nasty followers doing its bidding." Billy Bob continued.
"So all the potential slayers were murdered?" Amos asked with a look of horror on his face.
"A lot were." Buffy said. "And a lot starting heading for Sunnydale."
"Why the Hellmouth?" Minister Fudge asked.
"That's where I was." Buffy responded. "They came for protection."
"But Sunnydale collapsed." Fudge replied. "Everybody knows that." He looked at Hicklock. "With all the mystical energy coming from the place, and the major eruption a year earlier, we wondered what took you people so long to finally do something about the place."
"Sorry wasn't us." Billy Bob said. "Weren't you listening, the Chosen One was in Sunnydale, we couldn't do anything. Besides, this was before the collapse. Potential slayers were heading to Sunnydale for the protection of the Chosen One." He looked at Buffy. "Apparently, Miss Summers decided to turn her gathering group of potentials into an army to help fight the forces of the First."
"Hey," Buffy defended. "We had to do something, I couldn't just let them sit around and get picked off one at a time."
"Miss Summers, don't get me wrong, we never condemned you." Hicklock said. "You made hard decisions ones the old men in the Ministry never would have had the insight or creativity to make." He turned back to the ministry people. "In the end, even our people had to leave town, the magical forces were too great they knew something big was about to happen.
"You mean the collapse?" Bones asked.
"Oh no, I mean the Hellmouth was about to open wide spew an army of Turok Han into the world."
"You knew and didn't help?" Buffy asked in disbelief. Her opinion of the Wizarding world was dropping even lower.
"What's a Turok Han?" Director Bones asked.
"We knew too late." Auror Hicklock said. "It was just days before the event. We were just starting to gather forces when you changed the time table."
"A Turok Han is a really nasty uber-vamp that is extremely tough to dust." Faith supplied.
"How did Miss Summers change the time table?" Minister Fudge asked.
"We weren't sure." Hicklock admitted. "One day we knew the final battle was just days away and the next there were two phenomenal surges of magic within minutes of each other and Sunnydale was gone and so were the potentials."
"Okay, I assume you mean Sunnydale was gone as in destroyed by the sink hole." Minister Fudge said. "But what do you mean the potentials were gone?"
"Every locator spell we did could not locate a potential slayer, anywhere. They were gone." Hicklock said. "We tried the Devon Luminology Spell, the Selig Locator Cast, the Deggion Finder Charm and a few even more obscure locator spells. Not one potential anywhere." He shook his head. "The best hypothesis was that the First had cast a spell to kill or neutralize all potential slayers and that Miss Rosenberg here managed to finally cast a spell that not only closed the hellmouth, but this time destroy it for good."
"Preposterous." Fudge exclaimed. "To even consider that this obviously untrained witch could cast such as spell is unthinkable. No wonder the American Ministry was never able to tame those hellmouths."
"She had before." Buffy defended Willow.
"She had what?" Fudge sneered at young women.
"Closed the hellmouth." Buffy replied. "A couple of times."
"Her." Fudge pointed his finger at the frail looking red head sitting next to Auror Hicklock.
"At the time, the theory fit the facts, but it's not what happened." Billy Bob said trying to avoid a confrontation. He knew the three women defended each other without prejudice and they would only accept so many ignorant insults.
"I didn't do it." Willow said.
"Do what?" Director Bones asked.
"Close the hellmouth. That's not the spell I cast." Willow replied.
"What did you do?" Fudge asked dripping condescension.
"I got rid of all the potentials." Willow replied with a deep quiet voice.
"Why, how?" Fudge stammered. This was not possible. No way could this skinny un-trained American witch a spell to kill girls across the globe. Not possible. If that many young women had mysteriously died or disappeared he would have known. It would have been all over the muggle and magical worlds.
"Why would you do such a thing?" Director Bones asked contempt and fear clouding her voice.
"Because I asked her to." Buffy said.
"Just like that, you do what she asks?" Fudge said between clenched teeth.
"Of course." Willow smiled. "She's the leader."
"That's no excuse." Director Bones replied then turned to Buffy. "Why would you ask your friend to do such a thing?"
"What get rid of all the potentials?" Buffy looked at Director Bones like she was stupid and fought back a smile. She knew these people thought the potentials were harmed or killed by the spell and she loved watching them squirm a little. Finally she said "Because I needed an army of Slayers to face the Turak Hon, not just a bunch teenage girls one of whom might become a slayer if Faith was killed." She looked at the room. "All the potentials disappeared because Willow cast a spell that turned them all into Slayers."
Buffy leaned forward and glared at Minister Fudge who and gone pale. "Listen to me very carefully. Faith and I led a group of teenage girls into hell to face an army of super vampires hoping that Willow would be able to cast a spell that would affect the whole world and change those girls into Slayers. It was our only chance to save the world. Now ponder this; those girls followed us down before the spell was cast. A bunch of teenage girls with less skill to defend themselves then one of your Aurors followed us into hell. You wonder why we laugh at you. You don't frighten us, we know fear, you're no where close."
"Now ponder this." Faith added. "There's an army of slayers out there that will follow her into hell, and has. Do you really want to mess with us?"
Willow turned and glared at the Slayers. "Would you two stop being so dramatic. Look at him." She glanced at Fudge. "You've got him so shaken up he looks like he's going to have kittens.
"You..." Director Bones said.
"Activated..." Amors Diggory added.
"All the Slayers?" Minister Fudge finished. "How? It's not possible."
"I'm sooo glad nobody told me that before I did it." Willow replied. "Otherwise we'd all be dead right now."
"Does the American Ministry know about this?" Fudge asked Hicklock.
"We figured it out." Hicklock replied. "Sometime after the collapse, somebody finally did a locator spell to locate the two Slayers and the map lit up like a Christmas tree."
"Now it's your turn." Buffy said to her shocked audience. "What great secret about your world haven't you been telling us? What exactly is going on?"
"We have to tell them." Director Bones said. "With so many they need to know."
"Would you excuse us a second?" Minister Fudge grabbed Director Bones by the arm and led her to the far end of the room and cast a silencing charm around them.
Tonks stared at Buffy. This stuff about the slayers was a bomb shell. Magical warriors created to protect the earth from evil. What an asset they would make to the Order. She had to contact The Order but how? She was too tangled into this. She just couldn't announce she had more important personal things to do and leave. That would be the end for her at the Ministry. She knew it.
"What's going on?" Buffy asked Willow.
"Their discussing if they should tell us about the Tenets." Willow replied.
"Who's tenants?"
"Wait." Tonks sat forward from her reclined position where she'd been quietly absorbing everything. "You can hear through the silencing charm?" This wasn't possible. Everybody knew the charm blocked sound totally. It just wasn't possible to hear through it.
"No." Willow replied, but her tone said, 'No, of course not you silly girl, that's impossible.' She smiled. "I can read lips."
As the two officials continued to talk Buffy pulled out the bracelet she'd bought for Dawn. The stone glowed white briefly. "Hey check this out." She said quietly to Faith and handed the bracelet to her.
Faith reach for the bracelet which glowed white briefly as her hand approached. "What is it?" Faith pulled her hand back and reached for it again watching the stone glow again.
"It's supposed to detect vampires by glowing red." Buffy replied.
Willow looked at the bracelet but missed it glowing white.
"Will it react to Red?" Faith asked.
"Hey, Will." Buffy said. "Check this out." She held the bracelet toward Willow.
Willow picked up the piece of jewelry. It didn't respond. "It has a gypsy spell on it." She said turning the thing over in her hand. "It feels like the ensouling spell." She handed it back as she looked back to Minister Fudge and Director Bones. "Probably does detect vampires and other related magic.
"Director Bones said something about helping with You-Know-Who." Willow continued her narration of the snippets she was picking up.
"No I don't." Buffy replied.
"You don't want?" Faith responded.
"Know who Bones thinks we can help with. Do you?" she asked Faith.
"How would know who they're talking about?" Faith replied. "Wasn't she talking to you?"
"I thought she was talking to Fudge." Buffy stated.
"I mean Willow."
"You think they're talking about Willow?" Buffy smiled. "I thought they were talking about us."
Eyes glazing over, Tonks could only stare as the two slayers continued their meaningless ramble. At first she thought they were seriously stupid then realized they were playing some kind word game with each other. She started to smile and feel a little jealously. Tonks had a lot of people she called friends, but no one so close they could or would revert to silliness in a serious situation just to pass the time.
"Where's our pizza?" Faith asked breaking out of the complex conversation she was having with Buffy. "I'm still hungry. Hey remember slayer metabolism and all. How long we been waiting?"
Willow looked at her watch. "Oh it's only been." She stopped and looked it at again then tapped it a couple of times. "Shoot I think my watch stopped."
Billy Bob looked over from where he'd been quietly sitting. "Is it battery powered? Most muggle electronics don't work in the Wizarding world."
"How long have we been here?" Willow asked the others at the table.
"Around three hours." Amos replied.
"Oh, Goddess." Willow replied as she and Faith started to stand.
"What?" Buffy was instinctively standing with her friends.
"We're not the Cavalry." Faith said.
"We're the advance scouts." Willow added. "I left a locator spell and control charm on the phone box. The rest are to coming looking for us if they didn't hear from us in three hours."
Buffy glared at Willow, already knowing the answer to her next question. "They who?"
"Dawn and the Slayers."
"Not just Dawn though I bet." Buffy glared at Willow.
"What do you think?"
Minister Fudge and Director Bones saw everybody suddenly getting up from the table. "What's going?" He asked after taking down the silencing charm.
"There's going to be trouble. We have to get to the to the atrium." Willow said and headed for the door.
--
Meanwhile on level eight in the Visitor's Atrium Auror Dawlish approached the door to the lift to the street. Somebody had just arrived and at first he thought it was the pizza then remembered they would use the phone. Muggle Artifacts had known a muggle pizza shop that was Wizarding aware and would deliver to the booth.
The lift door opened revealing three young women. All three had long brown hair, the youngest was the tallest and probably in her late teens. She stepped out first followed closely by the oldest looking who was probably in her late twenties. She was the only one wearing a skirt and glasses. They seemed to ignore him as they stepped off.
"Kennedy, go get the rest." The youngest said.
"We'll be right back." Kennedy replied. The lift door closed taking the young woman back to the street.
Auror Dawlish stood staring at the two women as he reached for his wand then remembered it was in pieces. "Can I help you ladies with something?"
"Yea," the girl replied. "We're here to retrieve my sister, Buffy Summers, and her friends. Would you go fetch them please?"
Overriding the lock and controls of the lift to the street had set off silent alarms all over the ministry. It was assumed only one type of person might have the ability and willingness to do such a thing.
People wearing black robes started appearing out of the fire places on either side of the long atrium while others appeared in the middle of hall with loud popping sounds.
Backing away from the two women Dawlish held up his hands. "Ladies, I don't know who you are, but you've just caused a whole lot of trouble."
Auror Dawlish looked over his shoulder to indicate the number of Aurors who'd just arrived. When he looked back, the woman with the skirt was gone, replaced by someone or something else.
Her long hair appeared rougher and had distinct streaks of blue rimming her face. The blue continued down both sides of her face and was reflected in her unnatural ice blue eyes. Her skirt and sweater were gone replaced by an amour style body suit made of a patch work of brown, black and dark red leather. She had her head cocked slightly to the side staring at Dawlish.
The girl acted like she hadn't noticed the transformation of her companion or the arrival of the Aurors. She just stood there arms crossed tapping her foot doing her best imitation of Take-Charge-Willow. "I'm waiting."
To be continued........................