Chapter 10

Two weeks had passed since Buffy, Giles and Willow had left for England to gather the slayers. In the meantime the remaining team members had busied themselves with renovating the hotel and fighting whatever demons forces they encountered. Kathy had supplied them with a number of visions, which had led them to nests of vampires and demon lairs but thankfully no major evil. The motley crew had reached a certain level of trust among themselves.

Gunn and Xander had struck up an unlikely friendship while they were renovating the hotel. Xander was happy to have a friend who was not female or a geek and Gunn found it refreshing to be around someone who had seen so much horror but still could joke and smile about it all. The two men spent much of their time trading war stories and cracking jokes all the while painting walls and fixing doors. Everyone living in the hotel pitched in with the renovations and pretty soon they had a fully equipped training area for the new slayers to train. They had converted the old ballroom due to its high ceilings, where it had once held many a bejewelled dancer it would not function as a training centre for an army of demon fighters.

Dawn spent much of her time flitting around trying to avoid as much manual labour as possible but after a couple of days the others cracked onto her scheme and made sure she had something to do. She had an intense fascination in Illyria and begged Wesley to let her help research the old ones further when Giles returned with his books. Wesley had agreed on the condition that Buffy allowed it, which had sent Dawn into a rant about how she was now mature enough to make her own decisions. On most of her downtime however Dawn tried to spend it with Kathy. A certain affinity had sprung up between the two and they were the life and soul of the hotel. If it had not been for these two the men would have been more subdued, instead they forced them to talk and tell stories and laugh, giving the hotel more energy than it had seen in a long time.

Kathy in turn tried to spend much of her time around Angel and he tried to do the same. For the first few days they had not much opportunity as they were either working on the hotel, fighting evil or he trained with Faith. This however changed following an encounter with a nest of vampires which resulted in a display of Kathy's fighting skills. Having lived with Watchers for the past decade Kath was more than able to hold her own and due to her powers could fight almost as well as Angel although she had the technique of a Slayer. Once he had gotten over the shock of seeing his little sister beat the crap out of a vampire before easily staking it Angel included her in the training sessions and brought Spike in as well for balance (or a punching bag as Angel preferred to call it.). It was during these sessions that the four reached a certain level of comfort with each other, although Angel and Spike still bickered incessantly the girls found it an endless source of amusement.

Angel and Kathy entered the new gym and looked around. Xander stood in front of a lighting fixture where he was turning the last screw and upon securing it turned to the where the others were standing.

"Ladies and gentlemen and assorted demons, I would like to present to you the new and improved Hyperion ballroom now to be known as the training room. Where once you could bust a move now you can learn how to bust a gut." With that he flipped the light switch and revealed the room. It was filled with dummies and punching bags and the floor was covered in soft mats. In one area there were rows of weapons each of varying degrees of lethalness.

"Wow Xander this is fantastic, Buffy's gonna freak out when she sees this!" Dawn said in amazement. "You know what would be really cool would be if we could break it in first by teaching me to sword fight."

"NO," Angel replied. "Dawn if Buffy wants you to learn to use a sword then she will teach you, I'm not going to get into argument with your sister because of it. Anyway Buffy's an excellent sword fighter as I seem to recall."

Faith laughed at them, "tell you what why don't we give this place a try just to make sure it's okay, we wouldn't want any of the newbies getting hurt now would we."

Xander rolled his eyes to heaven and help up his hands. "I'll have you know that this place can withstand a bunch of slayers training in it. I know what you guys are capable of and I have designed this place to stand up to that."

Spike stepped forward. "Well lets see if the one-eyed wonder is right, who's up for a tumble then?"

The room was lit only by candlelight, all around the walls and in corners large wrought iron candelabras stood, glowing in the soft light. Huge opulent curtains covered the large windows and deep crimson walls were bare. In the centre of the room a figure was seated at the head of a large table, it was shrouded in a deep green velvet cloak and the hood covered it. It was unclear as to whether the figure was male or female or if indeed it was even human. The figure was bent over a scroll, the scroll was covered in an assortment of different writings and some had been crossed out.

Another figure clad identically entered the room. It approached the one seated and took a chair next to it.

"Well?" it asked.

"It all goes according to plan, the Chosen one is gathering the Slayers as we speak and she is bringing them here. The vampire is preparing for their arrival. They think that they can take control of this city and prevent us from regaining our position here. I find it humorous."

"You find much humorous, however this situation is sill delicate you would be wise to restrain yourself for the moment."

"The girl is bringing us what we need right to our very feet, once they are here we can begin to act and then we will have control. The vampire will then come to our side and we can finally return to our full power in this dimension."

"What of the Them? They sent a guide to the warriors and they communicate through her. She may interfere."

"If she does then we kill her. Its not hard to solve, dear brother." The first figure pushed back the hood on its cloak to reveal the face of a beautiful woman. Her hair was silver and slick back tightly from her face. Her eyes were golden and glowed slightly in the candlelight and her teeth we slightly pointed at the canines.

The other figure also removed his cloak, underneath it was a man, he was in his early forties and had grey hair. His face had obstinate set to it and a grey beard grew from his chin.

Around both of their necks hung ancient looking medallions each bearing a different symbol. The man stood the ram on his medallion swaying slightly.

"I should let our brother know of our progress."

The woman nodded in agreement. She leant back in the chair and played with her medallion. "Yes, let the Hart know how things are progressing." The dim candlelight reflected off of the wolf etched in the metal.