Disclaimer: Since my name is not Joss Whedon, neither 'Buffy: The Vampire Slayer', 'Angel', or any of the amazing characters associated with either show belong to me. I also don't own the story line - that is taken from gidgetgirl's 'Mr Spike Challenge' (details below). The kids at the day care centre belong to me.
~*The Mr. Spike Challenge*~
Set in Angel season five. When the head of the Wolfram and Hart daycare service for employee children (both human and non-human) dies, Angel decides to kill two birds with one stone by putting Spike in charge of the daycare.
Requirements:
One of the kids must be a slayer. One of the kids must do magic At least two kids must be entirely mortal. One child should remind Spike of someone he saw a hundred years ago.

Author's Note I: I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed this story for their kind words and their suggestions. I'm sorry that this chapter has taken so long to post. I'll try to be quicker in the future.

Author's Note II: Livia's speech has been modified to make it easier to read. The character can't pronounce the letters 'v' or 'r' and she has a tendency to drop the 't's at the end of words but from now on, the baby talk will be dropped in favour of a description of what she means to say.

Words in / / = Thoughts.

Chapter 5.

Angel's Office, fifteen minutes later.

"Well," Angel drew himself up to his full height and tried to look as imposing and impressive as possible. "What have you got to say for yourselves?"

Delia, Morgan, Bradley and James, who were lined up in front of his desk, were less than overawed by his manner.

Morgan, unable to resist the temptation, gave an exaggerated yawn of boredom.

Angel pounced on her instantly.

"Young lady, do you mind telling me why you turned Wesley into a . . . whatever you turned him into?"

Morgan shrugged nonchalantly. "I felt like it."

Delia covered her mouth with her hands in a failed attempt to smother her giggles. "It was funny!" She defended, looking up at the vampire with an innocent, wide eyed appealing expression which, sadly for her, Angel was completely unaffected by. The three year old turned to Morgan with a hopeful smile, gesturing towards the disgruntled former Watcher, who was growing furrier and more animalistic by the minute. "If Mr Wesley turns into a pony, can I keep him?"

Morgan nodded indulgently.

"No fair!" Bradley pouted. "I want a pony too!"

The Wesley creature brayed unhappily.

"No!" Angel barked. "No one is going to be keeping Wesley. Change him back!" He ordered, glaring down at the four year old sorceress. "Now!"

"Can't."

"And why not?" Angel was perilously close to losing his temper.

"I don't know how." Morgan announced triumphantly.

Angel scowled at her. "Yes you do."

"Maybe." Morgan gave him a sweetly impudent smile. "But you can't make me do it."

She held his eyes in a level stare until the vampire finally looked away, knowing that he was the loser in this particular battle of wills.

"Gunn, could you take Wesley down to the Enchantments and Sorcery department and see if they can help him please?" Angel said at last, acknowledging defeat and abandoning all hope of getting Morgan to obey him.

"Sure thing." Gunn led the now very pissed off Wesley out of the office.

"As for you two," Angel moved on to Bradley and James. "If I ever catchy either of you playing with weapons again I'll . . . I'll . . ." Angel racked his brain, trying to come up with an appropriate threat. "I'll use them on you!" he announced finally. /Couldn't you have come up with something better? / His inner voice chided him.

All four children dissolved into gales of laughter.

/Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for. / Angel thought grimly.

"Yeah, right!" Bradley snorted in derision.

"Like you would hurt sweet, innocent little kids like us!" James stuck out his tongue.

/How is it that I can avert an apocalypse without breaking a sweat, / Angel thought unhappily. / But I can't get this bunch of little brats to do as they're told? Oh well / He smiled absently. /At least they're giving Spike a hard time! /

He glared down at the youngest – and in his opinion at least, the worst – of the four small offenders standing in front of him.

Delia just smiled up at him without a trace of apprehension.

For the life – or rather, unlife – of him, Angel could not figure out who the child reminded him of.

"Is there a special reason that you drew that" He waved a hand to the wall where two janitors were scrubbing furiously with just about every cleanser known to man in a futile attempt to get rid of the images adorning it. "On my nice clean wall?"

"I told you!" Delia sighed impatiently, wondering what it would take to get the message to sink into the vampire's thick skull. "I didn't do it!"

"Oh really?" Angel's coldly sarcastic tone could and had reduced many an evildoer to a quivering mass of terror. Delia was completely unfazed by it. "So who did?"

"The pretty black kitty." Delia rolled her eyes, as if this should have been obvious to even the dimmest of individuals. "He told me to tell you that the giant red monster will get you if you yell at me." She added sweetly. "So I wouldn't if I were you."

"You might want to listen to her, Angel." Fred warned, speaking up for the first time. "She was right about Knox's experiment – he's still trying to scrape the remains of his experiment off the ceiling!"

Privately, Angel didn't believe a word that came out of the little girl's mouth, but he wasn't prepared to be reduced to arguing with a three year old when the real culprit was standing in front of him.

"I want the four of you to wait outside." He addressed the children calmly. "I need to have a word with Mr Spike." Even little Livia could not have mistaken the note of scorn in Angel's voice as he spoke Spike's name.

Fred ushered the four children out of the room before Angel could change his mind. Although she never would have told them, she was secretly rather amused by the various ways in which Spike's little charges had 'livened up' the office and she wanted to get them away from Angel before he strangled them.

Morgan whispered something under her breath as she left, glaring at Angel.

Angel waited until the children had left the room before turning on his grandchilde.

"What kind of an idiot are you?" He demanded contemptuously. "Is it so difficult to take care of a few children for a couple of hours without letting them cause complete and total havoc?"

"I'd like to see you do better!" Spike retorted, stung. "And it's not like they did anything really bad – I don't think any of them nailed a puppy to a wall!"

"Very funny." Angel scowled. "I never thought that I'd live to see the day when a gang of little kids got the better of William the Bloody."

"Look, Captain Forehead!" Spike shouted, losing his temper completely. "I don't know what kind of sick joke this was but ha ha, very funny, I can't handle the little wankers – are you happy now? Find someone else to run that circus! Or at least get someone to help me!"

"No." Angel gave Spike a nasty smile. "If you can't handle those little hellions, then that's your problem. The daycare centre is your responsibility until I decide otherwise."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Yes," Angel leaned back in his chair, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "Yes I am."

"Go to Hell, you bastard!" Spike stormed out of the room, furious.

Angel sat for a moment, savouring his triumph over the other vampire.

He rose to check on the janitors' progress.

At least, he tried to.

To his dismay, Angel found that he was stuck fast to the seat of his chair.

"Err, guys?" He gave the two janitors a sheepish look. "A little help here?"

* * *

Outside Angel's Office.

The four children exchanged an indignant look.

"He can't talk to our Mr Spike like that!" Morgan was outraged.

"Yeah!" For the first time in their acquaintance, Bradley was in full agreement with his rival. "Mr Spike is the coolest guy we've ever had in daycare!"

"He's even better than that guy who used to breath fire!" James smiled at the fond memory.

"Mr Angel's a poopy head!" Delia declared with surprising vehemence.

"I agree." Morgan was decisive. "We need to teach him a lesson."

* * *

Daycare Centre, eleven o'clock.

Spike had been pleasantly surprised and understandably cooperative when all of his charges, backing up their claims that they were tired out by their exciting morning with plenty of exaggerated yawns, announced their intention of taking a mid morning nap at the same time as Livia, the baby of the group.

Naturally, none of the children had any intention of wasting the nap hour on sleeping.

The hour spent in the dormitory, away from adult supervision, was the perfect place for a meeting.

"Mr Angel needs to be taught a lesson." Morgan kept her voice low enough so that Spike couldn't hear her. "We can't let him get away with talking to our Mr Spike the way he did." The four children who had had the dubious privilege of overhearing Angel and Spike's conversation had already related the story – complete with exaggerations – to those who had not been lucky enough to have a front row seat for the show.

"We know that we have to do something." Even when they were united under a common goal, Bradley couldn't keep from belittling his rival. "But what do you think we should do, Miss Smarty Pants?"

"I could bite him." David offered brightly.

Bradley was doubtful. "I don't think that you can turn a vampire into a werewolf."

"It'll still hurt." David wasn't prepared to have his idea dismissed so quickly.

"That's true." Morgan conceded. "We might do that, if no one has anything better."

"I say we give Livvie all the candy she can eat, then sick her on him." Bradley suggested.

"Candy?" Livia was roused from her semi-conscious state by the prospect. "Candy for Livvie?"

"We'll read him, if you like." Sarah offered on her own and Damien's behalf. "Then tell you all his secrets so we can tell everyone."

"Turn him into a frog, Morgan." James was so excited that he could barely keep from jumping on the bed. "Or a duck. And take pictures for Mr Spike."

"Candy for Livvie!" The two year old was piqued that the promise of candy seemed to have dissipated.

"Later."

Had it been anyone but Morgan who spoke, Livia would have continued her protests but, after a word from her idol, she subsided.

"Delia?" Morgan looked over at the other little girl, who had been silent until now. The three year old had a peaceful, dreamy expression on her small face which, though it fooled some into thinking her a quiet, harmless little angel, told everyone who knew her that she was plotting a particularly horrible prank. "What are you thinking?"

"Mr Angel's going off to Dreamland." Her silver eyes were wistful and faraway. "We should sing him a lullaby."

It took a moment for her friends to catch on to her idea.

Morgan and Bradley exchanged a sly smile.

This was a plan they both approved of wholeheartedly.

All they needed now was a diversion.

* * *

Ten minutes later.

Spike was roused from his fantasies of turning his grandsire into Angel-kabobs by a loud wailing.

Seconds later, a two year old whirlwind charged into the room and flung herself on the floor, kicking her legs and howling at the top of her lungs.

"CANDY! CANDY! CANDY! CANDY FOR LIVVIE! NOW! NOW! NOW!"

Her tiny arms and legs flailing, Livia screamed for all she was worth, forgetting her original role as a decoy and pouring her heart and soul into wheedling candy from poor Spike.

"Livia! Calm down!" Spike attempted to restrain the toddler, receiving a fist in the jaw for his pains.

"NO FAIR! NO FAIR! NO FAIR! NO FAIR!" She was shouting it so quickly that it all came out as one word.

Seeing that her methods were proving unsuccessful, the miniature Slayer dashed over to the table and started throwing every crayon she could get her hands on at the long suffering Spike.

The blond vampire was so busy being pelted with crayons by his infant nemesis that he failed to notice his other eight charges slipping out of the room.

Once in the hall, Morgan gave a small half smile of satisfaction.

Phase One of their plan was now complete.

TBC.

Next Chapter: Phase Two of Operation Revenge. What do the kids have planned for Angel? Please keep up the reviews; it's so nice to know that someone is reading.

Once Spike gets his assistant, there will be plenty of magic from Morgan as she tortures the newcomer to the daycare centre and there will be more about Delia's origins in a future chapter.