Ch. 2

Squall woke up to pain. His head pounded, his chest throbbed, and every other unimaginable pain was with him. His eyes stung with pain as bright fluorescent lights shone overhead a pure white. It made his head ache even more and he was already in pain.

The young SeeD moved to get up, and found that the lights weren't as harsh when he did this. He took in all of his surroundings in a single glimpse.

Was he mistaken, or was he in an oversized cage?

No mistake about it, Squall was in a humongous jail cell, so to speak. It was the only one in the semi-small room, and was very side to allow a lot of movement.

The SeeD went for his gunblade, but found that it wasn't sheathed in his belt like usual, it was gone! He got to his feet a bit wobbly, but all otherwise fine and clutched his still throbbing head. His fingers brushed some foreign material…..gauze? Someone dressed his wounds?

Squall went to the front of the cage and looked for the lock, a key code! Damn! It would take the commander forever to break the code. He tried to think.

'Okay, I'm in cage and don't know where I am,' he started, 'Now how did that happen?'

He retraced his thoughts and started to remember what happened. The ship, the vortex, Zell, Selphie, Irvine all injured, and then the two guys, then getting knocked out.

'Those two must've brought me here,' Squall thought, 'Now where is here? And where are the others? And Seifer?'

He sat down on the ground and tried to think, he had to get out of there.

Up by the door to the room Squall was in, a camera clicked and beeped suddenly, distracting him for a moment. Now what?

Spike strode into Angel's office casually, not bothering to knock on the door, and came to a stop in front of the CEO's desk. The vampire before him was hunched over dozens of papers that Wesley and Fred had combined and given him to learn about the inter-dimensional pathway.

"What is it Spike?" Angel asked without looking at the blond.

"Just wanted to tell you that the psycho-leather boys' awake," the vampire informed.

"Psycho-leather boy?"

"The kid that attacked you. That's his new nickname."

"Ah, wonderfully made," Angel said sarcastically.

"I know," Spike said with the same sarcasm, "So what do you want Fred and Wes to do?"

The CEO leaned back in his chair, "They've already got their hands full with the other three people we found…..why don't you go and talk to the kid?"

"Me?" the vampire said, "No bloody way."

"Oh come on….it's not that bad. Just check him out. See if he's hostile, the easy stuff Spike, even you could do it."

"Up yours," was all the blond vampire would say.

"Look Spike, I'm not giving you a choice. Either do it, or miss out on another car."

"Bloody hell, come on Angel! You know the last one-"

"Was totaled by you," the CEO finished for him, "Now just please do this alright?"

Spike scoffed, "Fine, whatever Peaches."

And with that, the vampire walked angrily out of the room, now he had to talk to some kid from another dimension, just great.

The vampire finally got to the werewolf holding cells, (after struggling with Harmony to get the concept of telling him which room it was in her head) and stood by the door for a moment. He looked to his clipboard that he was given by Fred with all of the questions that she wanted him to ask and withdrew a pen from the top. Spike had gone from being the coolest vampire in the whole building, to being nothing more than a lame interrogator.

He opened the door and stepped through the threshold, for a minute, he thought he was hallucinating.

The cage that was there was bent and broken open, pieces of metal hanging at awkward angles looked as if it were in a battle of some sort. Steam and smoke billowed from them as if a recent fire had ripped through the room, leaving it charred black in places.

"What the hell….?" Spike trailed as he surveyed the odd damage done to these practically indestructible cages, then he felt a searing and sudden pain in the back of his head.

He fell to his hands and knees on the ground, his clipboard clattering to the side, and looked to his right. The kid that had once been in the cage was now over him, holding a metal bar menacingly in his direction.

Spike didn't hesitate a second when the brown haired teenager rose the bar high over his head to deal a final blow to him. The vampire rolled away to the left, the bar missing him by mere inches, and got to his feet quickly.

"Nice to see your awake," he said to the kid.

The teenager said nothing as he readied his bar again like a sword. He lunged for Spike, but was too slow. The vampire easily dodged it and grasped the metal bar in his left hand.

"Playing around with blunt objects is dangerous," Spike taunted as he kicked the boy in the chest, sending him skidding back a few feet.

"Shut up!" the brown haired kid spoke for the first time, momentarily surprising Spike. The teenager used the opportunity and landed a clean blow across the vampires' face.

Spike reeled for a moment, but then launched an all out attack. He wrenched the bar out of the kid's hands, surely dislocating a shoulder blade in the process, and proceeded to beat him unconscious.

When the boy was completely out and bleeding from his nose and eye, Spike relented, leaning back on the opposing wall, he lit a cigarette.

"Gotta love the hands-on work," he said to himself as he puffed out a bit of smoke.