Fic: What The Hell(mouth) Happened?

Author: mkcrl120

Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned in this story belong to Joss Whedon or Mutant Enemy or some other people. I own nothing and wrote this just to get it out of my system.

Summary: I'm writing some of these, as I've come up with ideas that I honestly don't know what I'll be doing when the Ultimate series gets that far. In the meantime, these won't go away from my brain unless I do something with them. Warning: It may be a standalone it may be spoilers for something later; only time will tell.

Rating: 15 by English standards (mainly for language)

Setting: Season 3 - I think you'll recognise when.

What The Hell(mouth) Happened? - 11/?

Next day at school
The Quad

Faith managed to catch up with Cordelia before classes. "Hey... so about this guy you're setting me up with?" She asked.

"I don't actually know him... least I don't think so." Cordelia admitted. "I told you all the info I had last night. Scott told me that his girlfriend died recently..."

"Yeah... his name's Pete." At Cordelia's look she added. "I was discussing it last night with Buffy. Pete's girlfriend, Debbie, was the victim of a car jacking gone wrong, well that's the official police statement anyway."

Cordelia took a brief glance around to confirm no-one was in earshot. "Huh? I figured it was a vampire attack."

Faith looked confused, "That's what Willow reckons but ho... forget that. Why do you think that? It doesn't match any of the circumstances of a vamp attack... no bite marks, no blood loss, and the cops aren't saying animal attack or gang on PCP."

Cordelia gave up. "Let's just assume I wasn't here, shall we?"

Faith pulled Cordelia along with her, to a more secluded place near the school's entrance. Most kids tended to hang around the grassier areas, or find somewhere where they could sit on benches or walls. "Buffy said she got a wiggins when she stumbled across the police cordoning off the area. Debbie's body was found just outside the entrance to her garage where it seems she was parking her car. The car itself had been rammed slightly into one side of the garage, like she'd attempted to park but wasn't paying attention and drove into one of the sides. Debbie's body was found a few feet from that. Buffy didn't know about the car being damaged and assumed she'd been killed walking from the garage into the house."

"But that wouldn't make sense. The car wasn't in the garage. And you said there were no bite marks."

"That, Willow and Jenny found out later when they hacked police files. And also the fact that Debbie's neck was broken in two places, seemingly with no struggle."

"But no bite marks?" Cordelia was confused. "So why does Willow think it was a vampire atttack?"

"Whatever snapped her neck did it very fast, so we're looking at a demon with at least some enhanced strength. Debbie drives a convertible. And Jonathan did ask her out last year."

"Still not adding it up... apart from the Jonathan angle." Cordelia commented.

"Willow thinks that Jonathan, or one of his minions, snatched Debbie as she pulled onto her drive. Dragging her out of the car as it lost control and crashed into the garage. He's then ready to feed from her when they get disturbed, unable to drink he quickly snaps her neck and runs off..." Faith shrugged, "It's plausible and it mainly fits the available info."

"Mainly?"

"It doesn't explain why the garage door is open."

"Maybe she has one that opens automatically?"

Faith pondered the possibility. "Hmmm... we'll get Willow to look into it."

"You know Pete sounds very familiar to me... like there's a rumour about him or something."

"His girlfriend probably died in your reality too."

"Yeah that must be it... though I can't shake the feeling... nah forget it."

Faith raised her eyebrows, "You're setting me up with him, you spill anything you might know."

"It must have been a rumour... like he was hooked on oestrogen tablets or something."

Faith opened her mouth in disbelief, "What sort of guy are you setting me up with?"

"Hey, that was in my reality. Maybe Debbie's death sent him over the edge and he used them to overdose or something... you can't back out on me now."

"Of course not..." Faith deadpanned, "Wouldn't want a death by oestrogen to be on my conscious... unless I was having a particularly bad time of month."

Elsewhere

"So who's the girl?" Pete asked his friend.

Scott confessed, "Cordy hasn't told me yet... but she promised it wasn't Harmony or anyone like that."

"I'm not so certain about this... I mean it's pretty soon after Debbie."

"Pete you will be in control... I warned Cordy that you might be a little... delicate. Look once I find out who it is, if it's someone I know you won't like I'll make the excuses immediately okay?"

"Okay... but, for the record, I'm still not sure."

"Noted." Scott said.

The library

"I can't believe we've come to the library." Xander whinged for the third time.

"What..?" Buffy asked him; picking up a book at random, flicking through the first few pages and putting it back.

"You asked me to skip classes. That I don't mind. But you could have warned me, we were coming here. I could have mentally prepared myself for the chemistry class."

Buffy looked shocked, "You're saying you'd prefer to play with bunsen burners and little jars of acid, than spend some quality time with your girlfriend?"

Xander couldn't resist putting on the fake voice. "Heh, henh, henh, henh. Fire... Fire. Yeah, henh... fire's cool."

"Stop it!" She instructed, playfully swatting his arm. "You know I hate those guys."

Xander continued his impression, "Yeah, heh heh henh... those guys suck..."

"You keep this up and I'll never suck again."

Xander stopped immediately, "Never seen the show, never did the impression, have no idea what you're talking about."

"Better." She replied, stretching to pat him on the head.

Xander put the book he'd been purposely ignoring, back in a random place. "What are we looking for anyway?"

"We've been searching for half an hour and now you ask?"

"I might have known at the beginning, but since then the mindnumbing dullness of this adventure has got to me."

"We're looking for anything on the Glove of Myhnegon. Ms Post's after us to find it again... says if Jonathan and Trick get it first we're all in trouble."

"That glove thingie we didn't find when she first arrived. She's not still going on about that is she?"

Buffy sighed, remembering last night's debriefing. "All the time..."

Xander thought back, "But I thought that Legos-guy was after it... I thought the plan was to stop him getting it."

"It was."

"Faith cut him into little pieces with my axe. My axe that she still hasn't returned you know."

"You're point being..?"

"It's my axe... No wait, I see what you were asking." Pausing to compose himself. "We couldn't find the glove to destroy it, so we destroyed the thing looking for it... you know... stopping the event, she wanted us to stop. Just by a slightly different approach."

"Well, now she thinks that Trick and Jonathan are likely to find it. So we ought to get it first."

"Are they even looking for it?" He asked.

"Unknown."

"Unless it's the new fashion accessory for Jonathan's next vamp-whore, I can't see them stumbling across it."

"Don't tell me... tell her. She's a Watcher; their watcher-logic does not resemble our earth-logic." She commented, picking up another book and turning away from him.

"I still want my axe back." Xander huffed.

"You're round my house most of the time. Just ask for it... or just take it back."

"Look in Faith's bedroom... without permission?"

Turning to look him in the eyes, "I trus..."

"You're not who I'm worried about." He interrupted her.

She smiled, turning back to the shelves. "Big baby."

Xander stood directly behind her, and began kissing the back of her neck. "Buff," kiss "Buff," kiss "Could you," kiss "get me," kiss "my axe back..?"

The Old Master's Cave

"What would it take to get power down here?" Jonathan asked the group of vampires in front of him.

All he got in return were a lot of blank looks and shrugs.

"Why do you want power?" Trick asked confused.

"We could get a television set, and a video player... and other cool stuff. I'm getting fed up reading books I've read before by candlelight."

"So steal some more books." Trick suggested.

"Or we could steal some decent electronics gear." At Trick's look Jonathan expanded. "Spike always told me to keep up with the times. Let's you know the most fashionable girl to eat."

"Beauty's beauty. No matter how you dress it up... they're either hot or they're not." Trick gestured towards a group of female vampires with a leer.

"These are cold... room temperature in fact. And they're minions." Jonathan informed him, as if being a mere minion made the animated corpse that much less worthy of his attention.

"Fine... so even if we steal some tvs, so you can get to watch hot women in music videos, how are you suggesting we get a television signal down here? Cos I ain't paying for shit."

"Hmmm." Jonathan mused. "I think we need to arrange something with a few companies."

Trick laughed out loud. "Are you joking... I ain't setting up no direct debit or nothing like that."

"I was thinking more of turning some of their field engineers, people who might have the skills to get us what we want."

Trick grinned at the thought, "Moonlight robbery. More my style... though we gotta keep a low profile still."

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "You're still not on about that. We are the big bads around here... regardless of whatever vibe you may be feeling may be telling you."

"I've been thinking... remember that group of vampires that came to take over a few weeks ago."

"Sure..."

"I'm not so certain they were here to overthrow us... I think they were here to wipe us out on behalf of someone."

Jonathan hadn't heard this before, "What?? Why would you think that..?"

"If you're gonna overthrow someone you take out their leaders right... but you keep a lot of their minions. Just like when we took out Wendall's group that'd camped out in that mansion." Jonathan nodded his agreement to the situation's assessment. "Well, these people were systematically taking out our minions group by group... I don't think it was a warning, I think that was the plan. If we hadn't spotted them taking out the remainder of Wendall's people then they might have been able to ambush us too..."

"No-one knows we're down here."

"And we should keep it that way. I propose we start letting reasonable size groups start taking over places... for starters we could re-populate the main three; Wendall's mansion, Spike's industrial warehouse and Kakistos dockland warehouse."

"You saying you make it seem like we're always in one of them... but whichever they hit, we just happen to be in one of the others. I like that." Jonathan mused.

"And we'll be able to hide the true size of our group." Trick added.

"True size of the group?"

Trick smiled. "I've got plans for expansion... if you'd like to hear them?"

End chapter eleven