Angel Season 6- 6x06
FANBOY
Written by: "Painbow"
Summary: The AI gang investigate a rash of crimes that hit a little to close to home.
Disclaimer: We don't own the characters. We don't get paid. Please don't sue…
A/N: Sorry for the extreem delay in getting the next episode out. RL crap and anhenious case of writer's block got in the way. The next few eps should be far more timely.
Thanks again to spikeNdru and MJ (my co-author) for the beta
Previous episodes can be found on size=1 width=100% noshade>Halloween…2003.
A man stood inside the elevators at Wolfram and Heat, whistling softly to himself in an attempt to block out the muzak version of "The Monster Mash". He shifted the giant Styrofoam skull he was carrying, trying to find a more comfortable position against his hip.
The elevator came to a halt with a ding and the man stepped forward, moving the giant skull in front of him to fit it through the doors.
Suddenly, he was flying backwards, slamming against the floor in the lobby. He looked up to see a man with a prominent brow and the look of one who spent a good deal of time brooding, reguarding him with a mixture of confusion and frustration.
The forehead-man turned to someone he couldn't see. "Ok, why does it look like we're having a party in here?"
The man focused on forehead's face. So this was Angel…C.E.O.
A voice sounded from out of his line of sight. "Well, maybe because we're having a party in here." A green demon walked into the foyer. "The Wolfram and Hart Halloween bash? Ring a bell? The biggest…" The voice trailed off to nothing. The man wasn't listening to it. It wasn't important. Angel was.
The Present…
In a dark, dank basement the man stood in front of a cracked mirror, slowly spiking his hair. He finished, happy with the results and made what he thought was a heroic face in the mirror. He turned to look at his profile, furrowing his brow.
He walked over to the corner and rifled around in a box, finally coming away with a black, three-quarter length, leather jacket. He stared at it for a moment, pulling at the leather a little, as if looking for flaws.
After a few moments he looked into the mirror again, attempting the brow-furrow for a second time. Putting on the jacket, he maintained the expression and looked up at himself again. He grinned at his reflection.
"Oh yeah…" he said, cockily, grinning widely. He tried the heroic face again, looked dissatisfied and stopped, trying an evil leer instead. His eyes brightened.
"Much better! Okay…I'm ready."
He stopped and frowned at the mirror again, this time examining his reflection.
"Huh," he pursed his lips. "Gotta get rid of that."
OPENING CREDITSDAVID BOREANEZ as ANGEL
JAMES MARSTERS as SPIKE
J AUGUST RICHARDS as GUNN
AMY ACKER as ILLYRIA
ANDY HALLET as LORNE
SARAH POLLEY as HEATHER
GUEST STARRING
VINCENT KARTHEISER as CONNOR
Spike opened the door with an axe and ran straight into a barrier. "Well, Charlie-boy, looks like this'll be a solo mission."
Gunn walked past Spike and into the house. "You sure about this? I didn't see anything."
"Vampire."
Gunn sighed. "Right." He looked back at Spike. "I'm just waiting for the day when your vamp senses are wrong. Like, there's no damsel and you're just trippin', thinking there's some—"
A low moan broke into Gunn's rant. He just knew Spike was going to say something.
Spike said something. "I guess that day's not today," he smirked. "Why don't you go check it out?"
Gunn gritted his teeth. It was too close to the end of patrol for sarcasm. Although he was fairly certain that Spike had married sarcasm a while back and the two of them were together 'til death did them part…or, you know, past it.
He walked by another terrible living room set. He wasn't sure why, but every remotely nice house he'd entered on a case or patrol had ugly-ass furniture. Maybe if they'd just let him pick stuff out for them…
He heard another moan coming from the back room. Suddenly Spike came up beside Gunn.
"Barrier's down. Owner must be dead."
"You fall on your face?"
Spike gave him an offended look. "No."
Gunn smiled, looking back towards the living room. "You fell on your face."
Spike sighed. "Yeah."
"Someone's still moaning from the back."
"Which means the owner's not our moaner." Spike frowned for a second before deciding to ignore the impromptu poetry and made a bee-line for a door near the back of the living room. Gunn was a little surprised. He'd expected Spike to at least check out the area first.
"Not so fast, Blondie Bear! I haven't scoped out the room yet."
Spike shrugged. "You do that, then. I'll go rescue the bloke in the back."
Gunn sighed and followed Spike, keeping an eye out for potential threats. He followed Spike through the door and took in the scene before him. A middle-aged man was tied to a chair, blood still trickling down his face from several wounds.
"My niece," he managed to say through his bruised mouth. "Where is she? He took her…out the door…he kept saying something about a chain saw."
Gunn went around the back of the chair and began untying the man, whose fingers were definitely broken.
Spike kneeled in front. "Is this her house?"
The man coughed, spitting up blood. "Y-yes. I'm visiting her…I'm here until tomorrow," he coughed again. "I think. I've lost track of time." He looked around the room, eyes failing to focus on anything. He turned back to Spike. "Do you think I've missed my flight back to Heathrow? It was terribly expensive."
The man lurked outside the Hyperion, peering in through the window. He could see Angel sorting through the weapons cabinet, sighing.
"Same old problem," said Angel, to himself. "How should I sort them?"
Lorne walked down the stairs, looking at the ground.
"Hey, Lorne," said Angel, looking up. "How should I sort the weapons? We did it by damage last time, but—"
Lorne cut him off, still heading to the door. "Whatever you want, Angel-cakes." He said to Angel, and then muttered to himself, "That's how it always goes."
"You got something to say, Lorne?" asked Angel, getting up from the floor. "Cause, I gotta say, not lovin' the attitude."
"Oh, you're not?" Lorne began, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Oh, I'm so sorry, fearless leader! And, yeah, I have lots to say—" Lorne stopped talking as Heather entered the room from behind him.
"Hey guys. What's up?" She smiled at Lorne, who stopped, back tensing.
"But it can wait," he said, fixing his jacket and making a bee-line for the front door.
Heather looked over at Angel. "What's his deal? Every time I get near him, he scampers. Usually to get a 'drink or ten,'" she brought her fingers up to her ears, making air quotes.
Angel stared after Lorne, looking troubled, as Spike walked in from the basement, carrying an axe.
"C'mon, luv. You need to do some training."
Heather looked away from where she had watched Lorne's hasty exit and fluttered her eyelashes. "Ooh, with you? Coming!" She winked at Angel. "I'll wear him down yet," she said, grinning, and trotted off after Spike.
Angel sighed again and looked down at his weapons. "Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."
The man saw the green demon walk out of the front doors of the hotel. He suddenly realized he was too exposed and ducked beneath some shrubbery along the side.
Lorne stopped, hearing something. He peered into the bushes for a moment but couldn't make out anything in the gloom. Shrugging, he turned away and left the hotel grounds.
The man slowly came out of hiding, hoping that the demon had truly not seen him. He guessed that this one didn't have enhanced night vision like Angel. Good to know…he watched Lorne's back intensely.
Spike swung his axe at Heather, missing her by only a fraction.
"Watch it, luv, I almost took your head off."
Heather grinned and batted her eyelashes at him again. "Oh, you can take my head off any day."
Spike stood up from his fighting stance, rolling his eyes. "Look, ducks, it's not that I'm not fl—"
Heather brought her axe around in a quick arc, taking Spike's feet out from under him. He landed on his back with an 'oof'. He looked at the ceiling for a bit, attempting to regain some semblance of dignity. Heather's face came into his view. She grinned and raised an eyebrow, which Spike thought was a thoroughly annoying facial gesture. He looked away. She was entirely too smug.
"Looks like there's a bit o' water damage," he said, gesturing to the ceiling.
Heather grinned wider.
Gunn walked into the lobby and stood next to Angel.
"Sorting weapons again?"
Angel looked up. "Yeah. Name or damage."
"They all sharp?"
"Well the mace is kinda—"
"So why does it matter?"
"Because I…you know, I'm not sure. We've always organized it a specific way and then Cordy switched it when I went away that summer and it's never been the same."
"So do you want to organize it like she did or like it used to be?"
Angel put down the sword he was holding. "I don't know."
Gunn looked down. "Well, I just killed the mood."
The two men stood awkwardly in the lobby for a few moments before Gunn reached into his bag. "Look, man, the reason why I stopped in from patrol was I've been getting wind of a bunch of weird cases lately."
Angel perked up, glad to change the subject. "What kind of weird cases?"
Gunn looked down at the sheet he'd pulled out. "Well, there was that one last week where Spike and I freed that old dude. He was tied to a chair and had been tortured for hours. When we got to him he had broken fingers and bruising all over his face."
Angel nodded, frowning. Something about it sounded familiar, but Gunn was still talking so he turned his attention to the next case.
"…heard from him later that his niece was found a day later in her boyfriend's room with a broken neck and her puppy had been nailed to—"
Angel cut him off. "Why don't you and Spike scope it out? The whole puppy thing seems to point to something demony."
"We also got a call that a blonde girl was found with an X carved into her face."
"An X?"
"That's what the guy said."
Angel was a little relieved. If it had been a cross he would have been worried.
Angel turned back to the cabinet. "I'll go check out the X one, you and Spike get started on the others." Gunn sighed. Something about all this was off. He was sure they were all related in some way, but he had no proof and it seemed that Angel didn't agree.
Heather walked down a back alley towards the Hyperion. The club had been fun, but she was ready to pack it in. She'd managed to follow a vamp from the dance floor and save the guy she was snacking on, but the bitch had torn her skirt. Definitely time to call it a night.
She stopped. Something was behind her. She hated that feeling, like something with too many legs was crawling up her spine.
She started walking again and then turned suddenly, grabbing someone by the neck and throwing him to the ground. She stood over her stalker in a fighting stance, eyeing him. Not too bad. Good dress sense, even if a tad on the monochrome side. Definitely good looking in a dark way.
He looked up at her. "Is there a problem, ma'am?"
"Um, yeah! Why are you following me?"
"Don't worry, I know what you're thinking." He grinned. "Don't worry. I don't bite."
"What do you want?"
He paused and looked as if her was trying to remember something. "The same thing you do."
Heather looked skeptical. "Oh yeah? And what do I want?"
His eyes gleamed. "To kill them. To kill them all."
Heather raised her eyebrows. "Umm…alright. That's…not what I want. I, uh, I have to go now, thanks. It's been…weird."
"You're prettier than the last one," he called after her.
She paused for a moment and then kept walking.
At a desk in the corner of his basement, the man leafed through a stack of photos. A flash of Lorne's face was replaced by a flash of Angel's, then Heather's, then Illyria's, then Spike's, then Gunn's. There were significantly more flashes of Angel and Heather.
He stopped at one of the flashes of Angel, holding it up to the light. Running his fingers through his hair, he turned to the mirror to check the results. He looked down at the picture and back up at the mirror again. Shrugging he put the picture down in favor of one of Heather walking through the lobby. He held it up and leaned back, smiling.
"To kill this girl, you gotta love her."
He frowned.
He tried again. "Well, hello, lover."
He frowned again.
"You and me, slayer," he grinned. "Yeah, that's better."
He propped up the picture of Heather, took out a sketchpad and began drawing.
Lorne opened the door to the hotel, much happier with the whole situation now that he had another five Seabreezes under his belt. He may not be drunk, but things definitely looked rosier. It was amazing how a little alcohol could make the whole world a better place.
Angel came out of his office. "Uh oh, busted!" said Lorne, a lot louder then he had intended.
"Where have you been?" asked Angel, annoyed. "It's been two days!"
"Oh, gee, I'm sorry mom. I forgot that it was your job to keep tabs on me. Oh, wait. No it's not."
Angel ground his teeth in frustration. "Lorne, would you just talk to me. What's wrong?"
"What's…" Lorne looked at him incredulously, "you're serious? You don't know?"
"No, I don't, and I'm getting really sick of…"
Heather appeared at the top of the stairs. "Guys, could you keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep." She smiled ruefully. "And I thought my days of being woken up at 4am were over when I moved out of res."
Lorne turned away, deliberately not looking at her. Heather looked hurt. "I'll just," she gestured in the general direction of the doors. She disappeared from the top floor.
Angel turned to Lorne looking frustrated. "What's your problem with Heather?"
"You mean besides the fact that she's annoying?"
"You think she's annoying? Really."
"Yes! She's always around, she dresses flamboyantly, she talks strangely," Lorne threw his arms up in frustration. "And, I just don't like her. Is there some reason why I have to, fearless leader?"
"Don't call me that!"
"Oh, sorry. What would you prefer? Mine Fuehrer? Uncle Angel? Daddy Broody-pants?"
Angel glared. "I'm serious, Lorne. What's the problem?"
Lorne turned away. "You sent me to kill someone," he said, softly.
"This is about Lindsey? Lorne, we all had to do stuff that was—"
Lorne whirled on him, and for the first time Angel could see a glint of rage. "You sent me to kill someone, Angel. Me! You knew that it was against everything I stand for, but you sent me anyway." He turned away again. "Who cares about Lorne?" His voice was bitter.
Angel was stunned. "I…I didn't—"
"What? Think?" Lorne walked behind the reception counter and rooted around underneath, pulling up a bottle of vodka. "I think that's obvious."
Angel ground his teeth again. "No. I didn't realize it would be such a problem. It was Lindsey, Lorne! He is-was-evil!"
Lorne slammed the bottle down on the counter. "You just don't get it! You don't understand why this is a problem for me. I swore to help people find their paths, not end them! Yes, Lindsey was part of the problem, always would be, but you should never have asked me to be the solution. Do you know what he said to me? 'You don't kill me! Angel kills me!' He called me a lackey." Lorne chuckled humorlessly. "He was right."
Angel tried to grasp on to something. "Lorne, you're not a lackey."
"Not about that! You've missed the point again." Lorne pulled out a cup and poured himself a glass, sipping as he mulled something over. "For a creature of gray, Angel, you view the world surprisingly black and white."
Angel clenched his fists. "So, if you're so upset why are you still here?"
Lorne sipped. "Force of habit. Lack of a better place to go. Worried that when I find said place some soldiers will take me back to Wolfram and Heart to pay for what you did. Certainty that as soon as I left one of your merry men would come a runnin' to find me. But don't kid yourself. I'm not here to help, Angel." He lifted his glass. "Cheers." Lorne walked out from behind the counter and made for his room.
Angel watched him go. "I almost miss 'Angel-cakes,'" he said to himself and walked back to his office.
The man closed the door in one of the spare rooms. So Angel and Lorne were at odds, eh? That was definitely a bonus…
He walked back to the window and waited for…there! He heard someone coming down the hall. He grinned widely, prepared to make a quick exit.
Angel punched Spike in the face.
"Ow! You son of a—"
He watched from the lobby like the rest of the staff. The boss was losing it, they all said. He'd finally succumbed to the power of running the firm.
From through the window he watched Angel take Spike by the throat after discarding the green demon. The new liaison walked in through the door and broke up the confrontation.
"Sorry. Didn't know you were…in conference."
"I was just making a closing statement," said Angel as he pushed Spike towards the door. "Unless someone didn't hear me?"
The members of his team filed out the door, and Angel called after the ex-watcher. "Goes for you too, Wes. Illyria's your responsibility. Make sure she doesn't get twitchy."
Angel's team walked grimly through the lobby towards the elevator. Lorne looked especially disturbed by the turn of events. The various staffers in the foyer heaved a sigh of relief now that the office was no longer crowded with angry champions, but the level of tension remained high. Something was going down, and soon. The man turned his attention back to the office, watching the door intensely.
"Angel!" Heather came running through the lobby and burst into the office. "Angel, what the hell is this?" She thrust a piece of paper on to the desk.
Angel sighed and picked it up. It was a crudely drawn picture of a woman sleeping. He looked up. "I don't know. What?"
"Did you do it?"
Angel looked offended. "Of course not! I can actually draw!"
"Well, whoever did needs to stop. It's bad, it's creepy, and they made me look totally fat!"
"So where did you find it?"
"It was on my pillow when I got back to bed. Next to this." She placed another piece of paper on the desk.
Soon.
Angel stared and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Heather was saying something.
"…Angel?"
He looked up, shaking off seven years ago. "I'm sorry?"
"Soon what? Cause, I mean, this is really creepy. So just tell Gunn or Lorne or Spike or whoever that I'm flattered, but there are better ways to…" she stopped. "What?"
"This isn't any of them."
"Okay, then who is it?"
Angel looked up. "Me."
Heather looked blankly at him. "Huh?"
Angel stood up. "Get Spike and Gunn down here."
Heather looked more confused. "Why are you leaving pictures on my bed."
Angel frowned at her. "I'm not."
"But you said…"
Angel growled. "Just get them."
The look of confusion was replaced with a look of annoyance. "Look, buddy, you're gonna explain what the h—"
Angel pushed past her and into the lobby. "Gunn! Spike!"
A few minutes later a groggy looking Gunn and bored looking Spike were assembled in the lobby. Heather sat on the counter looking pissed off while Angel mulled over the papers in his hand.
"What's this all about, then?" Spike asked, trying to cut through Angel's brood. "I was just about to make Blue scream 'uncle'."
Angel grimly passed him the papers. Spike looked them over, eyes widening.
"But this…"
"I know."
"How? I mean, you're not…"
"No."
"Then what…"
"I don't know."
Gunn rubbed his eyes. "Would it be possible to cut the code? It's hard for a brother to crack it at four am."
Spike passed the drawing to him. Gunn looked it over.
"Kinda crappy. So what?"
"Someone left it on Heather's pillow."
"Okay, kinda weird. So what?"
"Back in Sunnydale when Angelus was…this was how he-I-tortured the slayer."
Gunn looked confused. "You left crappy drawings of her on her pillow?"
"Yes, well, no, since I can actually draw, but yes. Angelus drew pictures of Buffy and her loved ones to taunt her."
"So you thinking we have a copycat?" asked Gunn, handing the papers back to Angel. "What about those other cases we've been getting. I keep having this feeling that they're related."
Heather jumped up. "Angelus is the evil you right?" Angel nodded. "There's someone trying to be him leaving stuff on my pillow?"
Angel sighed. "I'm not sure."
"Well get sure!" she exclaimed, sounding scared.
"Don't worry, luv," said Spike. "Angelus takes forever to actually kill someone. We've got plenty of time." He smirked at an unimpressed Angel.
Angel chose to ignore him. "We have to search the hotel. It's a long shot, but the guy who did this may still be here."
"How do you know it's a guy? How do you even know it's a person? How do you know it's not just you in your sleep?"
Angel waved the paper. "One, I can draw. Two, this doesn't smell like a demon or anyone I know. So get searching."
Heather sighed. "Shoulda just got a job at the Gap."
Spike pulled an axe out of the weapons cabinet. "Don't worry love. You can come with me."
Heather smiled a little, trying to cover up her worry with the thought that at least the situation wasn't a total loss.
Angel handed a photo to Gunn. "I think you're right. I think these cases are related."
Gunn looked down at the photo. It was a woman with a lop-sided X carved into her cheek. From a different angel it looked like a cross.
"How is this related to the art school dropout pictures on Heather's pillow?"
"This is how I used to torture victims when I was hunting with a vampire named Penn."
"And the other cases?"
Angel looked at a painting over his desk. "They remind me of…Sunnydale."
"Well that's not…" he looked up. "Don't go into brood-mode."
Angel looked up. "Hmm?"
"Your eyebrows come down all low. Then you start talkin' in one-syllable words and we barely get any info out of you. So, don't go into brood-mode."
Angel looked blankly at Gunn. "I don't have many…other modes."
Gunn decided to ignore that comment. "Look, do you have any idea who might be doin' this stuff? It's gotta be someone with access to a lot of information on you which means—"
"Watcher's Council or Wolfram and Heart."
Gunn nodded.
The man burst through the door and settled in front of his laptop. He nodded as he watched Gunn and Angel talk. They were finally figuring it out. He'd need to move on to the next part of his plan. He watched the monitor as Lorne walked into view.
Gunn looked up at Lorne. "You headin' out again, man? It's like 4am!"
Lorne didn't look up. "Too much stuff going on around here. And Heather's singing in the shower again."
Gunn looked gloomy. "I guess that means everyone's up. And this was my day to sleep in."
Angel got up. "Look, Lorne, until we catch this guy I—"
Lorne pushed past him. "As touching as your concern is, we all know y—I mean psycho guy is after Heather. See you boys later."
Gunn watched him go. "Man, does he ever not like you right now."
Angel sighed. "Noticed that, did you?"
Lorne walked through the false dawn, hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. He hated being back in the Hyperion. It was just wrong without…
He shoved that thought aside. Alcohol could be purchased, even at 4am. And alcohol was his friend.
He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Shaking his head, he started walking again. He thought he'd heard something. He was just being paranoid because of all the dangerous demons in LA.
He stopped again. This time he knew he'd heard someth—
Heather came downstairs and stood next to Angel, leaning over his shoulder to look at the papers on his desk. After a few moments Angel looked up at her.
"What?"
"Anything new?"
"Does it look like it?"
Heather looked frustrated. "It's been all day!"
Angel stood up and moved away from her. As a romantic loner he needed his personal space.
"Look, we don't have the contacts that we used to. It's going to take some time to build them up again. Until then getting information is going to take longer."
They both looked up as Gunn walked into the Lobby. "Got some info."
Heather cocked an eyebrow at Angel and then turned to hear Gunn's news.
"Some dude's been hanging around the local demon bar in a leather jacket and spiky hair."
Angel looked blank. "And?"
Heather eyed Angel. "Sounds promising."
Gunn continued. "He's human, and normally that means dinner in a bar like that, but he keeps tellin' people he knows Angelus…well."
"Alright, we'll check it out."
The blackness that had engulfed Lorne slowly began to dissipate.
He groaned. "What a hangover…that's it. I officially swear off the Jungle Juice." His head throbbed.
He lifted one hand to rub some of the throbbing away…or in theory he did. In practice the hand stayed behind his back.
"Uh oh…this does not look good."
He struggled with his wrists. "Really not good."
"Don't try to loosen them."
Lorne craned his neck in an attempt to see the speaker.
"I tied them really tight."
A man walked into view. Lorne looked into his face. A face he recognized.
"I was right. He is doing this! Sort of…"
The man leered down. "You won't be getting out of this. Once you're in the hands of Angelus—"
Lorne scoffed. "Is that the best impression you can do?"
The man's face reddened.
"I mean, Angelus is way more menacing than that. He doesn't parrot clichéd lines, and he would never wear those pan—"
Lorne was interrupted by a boot moving rapidly towards his face, then darkness.
Angel, Gunn, and Heather walked into a dive that passed for the local demon bar now that Caritas was out of business. Heather sat down at one of the tables in the front, arms folded across her chest. She scanned the room looking for what could pass as possible sneak-into-you-bedroom-at-night psychopaths. Unfortunately the possibilities were more numerous than one could have hoped.
Heather watched Angel and Gunn head up to the bar. They sat down in front of the bartender, ordered drinks, and began talking to him intensely. She sighed. This was why she was sitting over here. No patience for this film noir crap.
She heard someone walk up next to her. She turned, ready to give it to some creep when she noticed…him. She still thought he was pretty good looking, in an annoying sort of way, but she wasn't entirely sure what to think about him, especially after last time.
"Hey," he said, softly. She found herself leaning in to hear him better.
"Hey yourself," she replied, not completely sarcastically.
"You do know that this place is dangerous?…" he asked.
Heather looked around at the various demons. "Ummm…yeah."
"I'm just worried. Girl like you…could get hurt."
She frowned. "Thanks for your concern."
He leaned in. "After all, I wouldn't want something to happen to you, lover. Not yet, anyway."
Heather leaned back. She stared at the man, ready to unleash some verbal barb when he looked over her shoulder and then quickly left the side of the table.
Gunn walked over and sat down. "Got some info. The guy comes here a lot. Should be here tonight. Runs his mouth off about the slayer, and nowadays that's sort of a question of which one. He also talks like he's Angelus, though the bartender seems to think the guy knows he's not, so maybe he's just a partial nut job." Gunn watched her for a moment. "Hello? You there?"
Heather looked up. "Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "Some weird guy was just sitting here. I tossed him about in an alley a couple of days ago and today he calls me lover and," Angel walked over and sat down. Heather stared for a moment and then pointed at him, "he looks like that."
Heather closed the door to her room. This whole thing was just too freaky. Now that she knew the guy had actually talked to her…well, it made her feel far more vulnerable. She didn't like the idea that he'd been lurking around, watching her for so long.
She stepped into her closet, hanging up her jacket. She stopped for a second and frowned. Something was off.
She felt her spine itch and a sinking in her stomach. Someone was behind her, trying very hard to be quiet. Time to play it like she though she was alone.
She backed out of the closet, muscles tensing, and then she whirled on…Illyria.
"You are ready for battle. Do you wish to engage in a training exercise?"
Heather let out her breath. "We need to set some ground rules. The first one is don't sneak up on me!"
Illyria tilted her head. "I do not wish to follow your 'ground rules.' However, if you wish to train I shall be downstairs with Spike."
Heather sighed and followed Illyria. Training actually sounded really good.
He watched her leave and cursed silently to himself. So much for the second half of his plan…but he wasn't about to fight off Illyria and Spike. He turned from the window. He'd just have to make do with what he had…
Angel walked into the hotel with a police scanner. Spike looked up from the weapons cabinet where he was rooting around for a new weapon.
"Hey Peaches. Patrol was uneventful last night. One vamp. Break out the Champion streamers." He noticed the scanner. "Where'd you get that?"
"From around."
Gunn walked down the stairs into the lobby. "Cool, new police scanner. Where'd you get it?"
"From around."
Gunn and Spike shared a look. Angel caught it.
"Look, from around, okay! Perfectly legitimate, semi-legal—" both men continued to smirk. Angel cracked. "Fine! I bought it from a guy who said it fell out of a police car."
Spike shook his head. "Didn't even steal it yourself…"
Gunn played along. "Slipping. Spends all year at an evil law firm and the man develops some morals."
"Look, we have no info on this guy. He's always one step ahead and now Heather's upstairs freaking out because he actually managed to talk to her, twice! So I'll break down and buy a semi-legal police scanner."
Spike smirked. "It's just too easy, mate."
"We know, Angel. We're just having fun. I mean, we could be poking fun at your fanboy's bad hair…"
Angel ignored both of them and headed for his office. Setting it up he turned it on. He adjusted the tuner, compensating for the crackling and heard a report coming through.
"…requesting backup for a possible hostage situation in a retail building on…"
Angel listened for a little longer and then grabbed his coat.
"I knew this thing'd come in handy."
Angel scanned the sports store. The scene was familiar.
Lorne lay on the ground, unconscious, trussed up and covered with explosives. And Angel's doppelganger stood in front, scanning the room full of hostages.
Connor came up beside him. "Looks familiar, huh?"
Angel looked over at him. "What are you doing here?"
Connor didn't look up from the scene below. "Saw a report on the news, was struck by the similarity. I had to come check it out." Connor looked sidelong at his father. "You gonna jump off the balcony?"
"Was thinkin' about it. Look, Connor, I don't want you to get involved. I have Spike and Gunn coming in through the basement while Illyria and Heather hold off the front. You don't have to get caught up in all this."
Connor looked down at the man holding the trigger. "I already am."
Angel sighed and jumped down from the balcony. He moved through the display racks towards the middle of the store.
"Got this scene a little wrong," he said. "Angelus didn't do this." He stopped a few feet away from the man, wanting to be close enough to stop him if need be, but not so close that he was threatening.
The man raised an eyebrow, hand never leaving the trigger. "You think he didn't? Connor was your son, a product of a one nighter between you and Darla, raised by a man tormented by your sins. Of course he's a product of Angelus."
Angel looked back at the balcony, noticing that Connor wasn't there anymore. So much for uninvolved. He looked down at Lorne, tied up and unconscious, lying on the floor just like Cordy had a little over a year ago.
"Why Lorne?" he asked. "Last time I checked we didn't have the unrequited love quashed by impregnation via a rouge power."
The man shrugged. "You don't know?"
Angel shrugged and prepared himself for a lecture.
"Lorne was like the heart of your group. The conscience. Just like Cordelia was. And like Cordelia you've allowed this to happen to him. You put him in this situation just like you created me. How does it feel to know that you can't overwrite this event? Can't change history to suit you. How's it feel to be the victim of Angelus?"
Angel blinked. "I'm sorry, I know this is the big, dramatic monologue and everything, but how exactly did I create you?"
"By existing."
Angel paused. "Um, yeah. Okay. Look, "Angelus," I didn't create you. I didn't mentor you like Penn or drive you insane like Dru." He moved quickly, grabbing the man and the trigger at the same time. "And I don't do autographs."
The guy grinned up at him. "May want to start."
Angel turned and noticed that there were more people coming in…and there was a strong presence of leather jackets. Illyria, Heather, Gunn, and Spike were being pushed towards him, trying to hold back the crowd of wannabes without hurting them.
Spike eyed the assembled masses. "Oh, bloody hell. There's a couple here that look like me."
Gunn raised his eyebrows, trying to stay serious in the face of this army. "What, are their Klingon costumes at the drycleaners?"
Connor smirked at Gunn's line, coming up behind the man. He steeled himself for another fight.
Heather watched them all, jaw tight. One was bad enough, now there was an entire army of stalkers…
The horde of Angel look-alikes, with the smattering of peroxide blonde that indicated a Spike fan, charged. Gunn and Spike both fended them off, looking intensely bored.
Gunn, Illyria, Connor, and Heather easily blocked the look-alikes' punches and kicks. The kids really couldn't fight very well. Gunn suspected that they had learned what little they knew from kung fu movies and possibly Tai Bo. Most of the kids who were knocked over ran to the back of the fight clutching their bruises or fixing their hair.
Someone jumped on Spike from behind, and he flung the person forward only to see…himself, or at least a second rate copy.
The not-Spike grinned at him. "Well, cor, pet-luv-ducks. What have we bloody sodding gotten our selves into?"
Spike stared. "I do not talk like that, you git!"
The not-Spike grinned. "Well, bollocks, mate-ducks, I bloody well think you do…cor."
Spike charged with a growl and knocked the not-Spike to the floor.
"I do NOT talk like that!"
Angel tightened his grip on the original fake as the man started to struggle. A couple of other look-alikes charged him and he knocked them aside with ease. "Is this what you guys do? Sit around in your basements and pretend to be heroes?"
The man grinned. "I don't know about them, but I'm not interested in heroics."
Angel turned the man around, still maintaining a solid grip on his arms. "So what? You want to be a vampire but you're too pathetic to get someone to sire you so you just pretend to be me?"
The man looked angry. "Of course not! Look at you," he sneered, "you were a legend, now you're this insipid do-gooder. It's disgusting. When I was at Wolfram and Heart I saw you and I was inspired. There you were, the leader of evil, the man in charge of ultimate power with a reputation that," he grinned, "well…wow. I watched as you alienated your friends, I watched as you allowed three of your own to die and threw your inner circle out of your office, and I thought, 'he's back!' But you're not. You're off helping the hapless…again! You are so much more then that! We study you, we honour you, and you've let us down. So I decided to show you who you were again, to illustrate your past glory. This way you can see…Angelus is not dead! He lives on! He can cease to be a disappointment. He can fulfill the role he was meant to!"
Angel stared at the man for a moment, disgust colouring his features, and then he knocked "Angelus" out.
Heather pushed past a group of the clones and looked down at her stalker, grim satisfaction on her face. "Now that's what I want," she said before turning to help Gunn round up some of the injured "fans".
Connor came over. "It ended differently then I remember." He tried to grin. "There's no knife this time."
Angel looked up, pain in his eyes. "Connor…"
"Dad, you didn't make him. He made himself."
"Well, that was bloody weird." Spike sat on the poof in the lobby, occasionally spitting a little.
Heather stared at him. "What's your problem?"
Spike looked up. "Oh…well, I tried to scare one of those wankers, you know, put the fear of vamp into him, and the kid practically shoved his fist down my throat. 'M still tryin' to decide if he was punchin' me or force-feeding. I don't know what those morons eat all day, but his blood tasted like bloody corn syrup."
Gunn tried to hide a smirk. "Was that the one who kept calling you 'luv-ducks' or the one who told you that you 'belonged in the dark' with him?"
Spike looked uncomfortable. "Careful, Charlie-boy. Thin ice."
Gunn's face split into a grin. "Too easy."
Connor sat outside in the garden. He looked up at the sun, a dark look on his face.
Heather watched him from the shaded area, trying to decide whether or not to approach him. After a moment she walked over and sat next to him.
"Hey," she said. Connor grunted something that could have been interpreted as "hello" so she pressed on.
"Weird, huh? But, I mean, at least Angel got to see what he looked like. Must drive him crazy…no mirror…"
Connor stared at his hands. "Finally hitting you, isn't it? What it's like to work for a vampire."
Heather sighed. "Yeah. But it's cool. Slayer destiny, or whatever." She paused, unsure if she should broach the subject. "What…what did that weirdo mean? That you were a product of Angelus?"
Connor visibly tensed. "Well, you know…look, it's complicated."
Heather raised an eyebrow. "Mmmhmmm. You're going to have to do a lot better than that."
Connor finally looked at her, emotions warring on his face. "I'm…I'm Angel's son. And last year I tried to kill a bunch of people in a sports store so Angel changed the world so I wasn't his son, but I got my memories back, so now I have two sets of parents and this crazy world keeps dragging me back in and…it's complicated."
Heather stared at him. "Oh," she said after a while.
"Yeah," said Connor, looking back at his hands.
Lorne held an icepack to his head. His kidnapper had loosened a horn when he'd kicked Lorne in the face. Figured.
He heard a tapping at the door and sighed. "Go away."
Angel entered. "I'm choosing to take that as a 'come on in, Angelcakes.'"
Lorne didn't even turn around. "Suit yourself."
"Look, Lorne, I'm sorry you got caught up in all that."
"And it's so surprising that I did? Whenever I'm around you, Angel, I get caught up in this stuff. Of course some crazy kid trying to be you kidnapped me as a means of convincing you to become Angelus once again."
"That doesn't always happen—"
Lorne glared at the wall, never looking at Angel. "I ran a bar for years and until you walked your over-styled hair through the front door I never once had to deal with anything so strange. And my clientele was made up of demons and evil lawyers! You create these problems Angel, and if you don't create them, like that kid today, then they follow you around."
Lorne turned his attention back to whatever he had been staring at before. Angel watched him for a moment, and then left the room.
END