A/N: Thanks to my friend Siege for the loan of the Trio and KASI. And thanks, buddy, hope I can make them half as good as you did. And this is not fully betaed. You've been warned.
Chapter 23 – Adventure Seeker
Somewhere in the Alps, two men are looking at the rising sun, the light making interesting patterns in the rarefied air and the glittering snow. They are standing at some peak, clothes surprisingly clean and well kept. We have a good close up of a smiling face, the vapor cloud steadily emanating in the chilling air from a controlled breath. We can't see eyes, because they are using sunglasses.
Then, we see the same persons climbing a frozen mountain, using steady and professional moves. And we cut to the same men, using different clothes, looking to the peak, studying a map and some photos over the hood of a jeep. Then we have the jeep valiantly facing mud holes and barren wasteland.
And we cut to the logo, and the slogan: Adventure Seeker. It's not the destiny. It's the way.
The sound of clapping could be heard in the meeting room, the entire Marketing Team was making the presentation of AS Sports Ltd. new commercial. The only man not clapping was the one seated at the head of the table. His face was impassive, the only signal that he had seen it was the glittering of thoughtful eyes. More than half the table had fingers crossed under the desk, the other half had them crossed /over/ it.
"You made a grave mistake," the man said, in a serious tone, the presenter going white as a ghost over it. After a moment of silence, the head of the table said. "You forgot to add the web address of our site at the end. Aside from it, excellent job. I liked the backwards trek idea. How did you manage to catch Mr. Trublinksy in those scenes?"
The entire table gave a collective relieved breath, and the wattage from some smiles could light up New York for a month.
"We hired Jorg Hammundsen, he's the best action camera man on the planet. Cost us a fortune, but I guess it paid off in the end. Projections state that . . ."
The meeting continued for another hour and a half, discussing where the commercial would premiere, ratings and so on. When the head concluded the meeting, the entire room left, with the exception of John Mallard, VP of Marketing.
"So, Mr. Steinman, where is our dear President right now? I thought he would like at least to see the video, and give us his comment on his own performance."
Jared Steinman, VP of Operations of AS Sports Ltd, personal assistant and butler of the President of the company, looked up to the tall VP and smiled slightly.
"Mr. Kanaan was in town for a while, and asked Mr. Trublinsky for an opinion. And you know how he hates those meetings," he said, with a smirk.
We cut to a racing track, where a team is checking out the readings and times for a car that is doing laps in the oval track.
"How's he going?" a man, wearing a pilot's jumpsuit asked to a man looking to an opened laptop.
"He's good, Tony. Very good. He beat your time three times in the last five laps."
"Let me talk to him," Tony Kanaan asked. The mechanic removed his headgear, mic and all, and passed it to the pilot. "Trouble, what you wanna do, steal my job? You had three over me in the last five, man" he asked, mirth and smile in his voice.
"What's my name?" a voice was heard over the whining noise of a powerful engine. Tony smiled even wider.
"Bigelow Trublinsky," Tony replied, laughing.
"How do you spell it?" the voice returned.
"Big Trouble."
"That's right. And don't worry, if you lose your job, I can always buy a team and offer you another one," the pilot said, laughing. The rest of the team joined the banter between the friends, and laughed. "The car is going great, Tony, but I'm feeling some vibrations on the curves. Check the suspension again, I guess it is a bit too hard for it."
Tony looked to the chief mechanic, a few feet away, and he gave the pilot a thumbs-up, making a notation on his papers.
The woman looked over her shoulder again, and the duo was there, a couple hundred meters behind. She thought that she had lost them, but how wrong she was. His lungs were killing her, a thick layer of sweat over her face, her legs like molten lead. She looked at the fence a bit to the left, and she managed a bit more energy to her running, noticing an opened gate. Without thinking, she entered the gate, and she heard and felt a bullet pass two centimeters from her ear.
She screamed and ducked, but kept on running, hearing a couple more shots being fired, but somehow none of them hit her. She didn't even noticed what the large construction in her front was, her panicked mind only noticed another opened gate and behind it a large tunnel. She entered it, and a few moments later, both men were getting into the darkened tunnel as well. There was a small guard rail on the end of the tunnel, and with a last sprint, she jumped over it, landing on asphalt.
She ran a few more feet, her mind finally noticing that she was right in the middle of a racing track.
And coming straight for her was a speeding race car.
And we cut off to the intro credits.
Back in a comfortable home, in a small town called Sunnydale, a group of friends was seated around a TV screen, a giant bowl of popcorn, a few cans of soda and some other junk food spread around them. One of them was laughing out loud, pointing to the screen.
"Can you believe that? Cordy an actress? And she's looking good scared," Xander said, one eye on the screen, the other on Buffy, sitting close to him. They were both laid comfortably on the ground, with a sprawled Dawn with her head resting in her sister's lap. Willow and Faith were both seated in the couch, between them the popcorn.
Faith snorted. "From what you guys told me, she had lots'a practice around here. Just using her experience," she said, and Willow giggled. Xander looked behind his shoulder to her, and nodded.
"You know, you're right," he said, and kept on watching, smiling.
Faith, in the meantime, was noticing how the group of friends interacted with each other. They weren't family, but they behaved as such with one another, she had noticed it earlier when they were helping her move stuff out of her room.
Her room.
That was another weird experience for her. She didn't have a room of her own since Linda died, and that was amazing all unto itself. They treated her ok, apparently trusted her and offered the beginnings of something that could be friendship.
When they sat to watch the show earlier, Faith was sitting in her room, looking to the ceiling, thinking on a good reason to not be sitting down with them to watch it. That's it, until Red appeared at the door, showing her something called 'Resolve Face'.
Faith folded like a bad hand in a card game.
And here she was now, looking at this group of friends, her mind alight with so different possibilities.
"Hey, it's starting again," Dawn quipped, and they all looked back to the screen.
Trouble saw the girl three seconds before impact.
Driving an INDY car in an oval track is an exhilarating experience, the track giving him the possibility of pushing all the car limits, speed included. Only problem was that the car followed a precise course most of the time, and it was prepared to this. Making sharp corrections was pretty much impossible, without turning things into a huge accident.
Tony's team started screaming in his ear at the same time, but Trouble drone them off, and made the only thing possible, adjusting the car's angle a few degrees to the left and taking his foot out of the accelerator, praying to the girl to stay still for two more seconds.
One second.
He saw the girl's terrified face for a fraction of a second, and the race car passed only ten inches away from her.
And he breathed once again, checking the girl over the rearview mirror. She had fallen down on the track, probably because of the air turbulence caused by the car or she had fainted. He then reduced speed brutally, and finally refocused on the radio.
"What the girl was thinking?" he heard someone speaking.
"Don't know," he replied, "but I don't think she wanted to do that. Easier ways to commit suicide. Send someone to check her out," he said, while the car approached her once again, this time at a more manageable speed. Trouble stopped a couple meters away from her, and he saw a few people running to her, a couple paramedics included. He jumped out of the car, removing his helmet and kneeled down right at her side. He checked the surroundings, finally noticing the two gorillas in a suit standing in the track entrance, holding guns. They saw him and the group of people arriving to check the young woman, and disappeared back into the tunnel.
Trouble looked to the passed out woman. "What the hell is going on?"
She woke up in the ambulance, on the way to the hospital, feeling rather shook up.
"W-where am I?" she asked, over an oxygen mask.
"Going to a hospital," a man said, dressed in a race pilot jumpsuit. "I almost hit you with my car. What were you thinking?" he asked, but with no critic on his voice.
"R-running," she said, and fainted again.
"From what?" Trouble asked, but went on without an answer.
She woke up again in the hospital, feeling sore all around. "W-where . . ." she started asking, voice rough.
"You're at Miami General. Want me to call the nurse?" a voice asked, approaching the bed. It was the guy from the ambulance, now dressed in some more normal clothes.
"Water," she asked. He grabbed a cup and offered her, helping her to sit a little bit better. From what the doctors had said about her, she was just exhausted, after some rest she would be good as new. Proof of that were the twenty hours of sleep.
"Care to tell me your name?"
"Sweetie. Sweetie Brown," she sad, with a grimace, returning the glass to him. Trouble smiled, but managed to keep the laugh contained. "My parents are hippies, okay?"
"I won't say a thing. Bigelow Trublinsky. People call me Big Trouble," he said, extending his hand. She shook it after a few seconds of checking him out.
"Finally I've met someone with a name weirder than mine. You were the guy that almost ran over me, right?"
"Yeah," he said, and brought a chair nearer to the bed. "Could you tell me why did you run inside a race track without checking it out?"
She silenced, looking to her hands.
"I saw the armed gorillas," Trouble said, and that brought her attention back to him in an instant.
"Where?" she asked, panic clearly reflected in her face.
"At the track. Don't worry, I don't believe they followed us here."
"I have to go," she said, standing up. Or at least trying to, the moment her feet touched the ground a dizzy spell hit, and she tipped to the side. Fortunately, the tall brunette stood up in a flash, holding her before she crashed down on the ground.
"Wait, wait. You're still too stressed out, doctors said you have to stay a bit longer," he said, helping her sitting back in bed.
"I can't. If they find me, they . . ." she said, trying to stand up again, but his hands grabbed her shoulders.
Bigelow Trublinsky was a weird man, on everyone's account. Self-centered, annoying sometimes, and a bit of an egocentric were some characteristics that people used to describe him. But one thing all of them had to say. He was a problem solver, if you pitched him against something, he didn't know the meaning of the word 'quit'. That was one of the reasons of his almost unnatural knack to play the so-called extreme sports. He was good at them. Very good.
And another thing people liked to say, he never left a friend to dry.
"I will help you," he said.
"H-how? You don't even know my problem," she asked, incredulously.
"Why don't you tell me, then?"
Back in Sunnydale, Xander was rolling on the floor, laughing. Buffy and Willow were also suffering from an incontrollable fit of giggles. Faith was looking as if the trio had suddenly sprouted three goat heads each.
"What's so funny?" she asked. Xander managed to control himself a bit to answer.
"S-s-sweetie. . . Naming Cordelia Sweetie is like . . . " and he laughed again " like naming Godzilla . . . Cutie."
That was enough to keep them laughing for a while still. Faith focused back on the screen, to hear the actor's explanations.
"My name is Sweetie Brown. Doctor Sweetie Brown," the girl said after taking a deep breath.
"Aren't you a bit young to be a doctor?" Trouble asked, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice, for which Sweetie was thankful.
"I'm what you would call a genius child. Doogie was a nickname I got in med school," she said, grimacing.
Trouble's face struck out a small grin at her. "Ah," was all he said.
"Yeah, laugh it up. Anyway, I was working in New York, at Queen's Trauma Unit, when we got a kid, around ten, victim of a domestic accident with an alcohol bottle. It got him on the face and upper torso, his chances were slim to none, he had burned almost his entire trachea, and his lungs were severely affected. I was the one operating him, and . . . and he didn't make it. Nothing anyone could do, simply happened," she said, with a great deal of sadness in her voice.
"That doesn't explain the armed goons," he said, after she silenced for a while.
"The kid's name was Arturo Tedeschi," she said, looking back to Trouble.
"Tedeschi? You don't mean . . ."
"Little Johnny's son? Yes."
Trouble gulped, finally understanding what happened.
"But I thought that he had gone legal after all that Vanoli mess," he said.
"I wouldn't believe everything the journals say about him. He optioned to become a public persona and a model citizen, but he still has his contacts."
"And he's hunting you? Why? It was an accident, from what you said. You weren't to blame."
"DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW IT?" she said, angered, tears falling from her eyes. Trouble sat on the bed and grabbed her on a hug, letting her cry for the time being.
Back in New York, in a tastily-decorated office, a man picked up a ringing phone.
"Yeah, you found her yet? . . . Good . . . No, I don't want to know. . . You have your orders . . . Call me when it's done," the man said, and hung up.
He picked up a photo of a young kid, dressed for baseball, and touched the boy's face.
"Arturo. . . " he said, with tears in his eyes.
"You tried to go to the cops?" Trouble asked, after she calmed down a little bit.
"I tried, but they wouldn't listen to me. In New York, Tedeschi is considered a 'hero' by half the population, and his philanthropic work nowadays makes him almost untouchable. The desk sergeant laughed in my face, and called me nuts."
"I don't believe people forgot who he was until some time ago," he said, picking up his cell phone. "I have an idea," he said, pressing a number on speed dial. "Butler, it's me. What is the name of that kid, the AS hacker? Timothy? Thomas? . . . Theodore? You sure? What's the extension? Thank you . . . No, I don't want to know about the meeting. Are we still on business? Is cash flowing? Then I don't want to know. Talk to you later. Bye," he said, and hung up the phone.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"My butler, brain, personal assistant and general pain, Jared Steinmann. I nicknamed him Butler, he worked for my father for years, and now he works for me," he said, while dialing another number, this time from memory. When the line was picked up, he dialed a four-digit sequence, and waited for a few moments.
"Theodore? Big Trouble. I need a favor. . . Yeah, I need all the info you can collect on John Tedeschi. . . Yes, Little Johnny. . . Your father is a cop? I didn't know that. . . If he can, sure. . . A friend in trouble. . . Yeah, with him . . . I know what you mean . . . I'll call you tomorrow. Thanks."
"What was all that?" Sweetie asked.
"We can't run a business the size of AS Sports without some serious IT personnel. Theodore was . . . is one of the top US hackers, he had one of those weird nicks till we hired him to work for us, and he now does all of AS computer security. If someone can find some info on Little John is him."
"Why are you doing all that?"
"Good PR," Trouble said, with a smile.
Sweetie grabbed one of her pillows and threw at him, which he dodged. "Hey!"
"Be serious!" she said, smiling.
"Ok. That is a story all unto itself. My father came for the US escaping from the war, with nothing in his pockets but his calloused hands. Arriving here, he started working on everything he could, sometimes getting just enough for some scraps of food. Until one day, a man saw him cleaning the street for an old lady, a job that he traded for dinner for the night, and he asked if he wanted something more steady and paying a bit better. My father took the job, he cleaned a small market at night and worked as the cashier for the day, sleeping at a small room in the back of the market. He took every cent that he could gather, and one day he made the market's owner a proposition, and bought half the market from him. To make a long story short, my father became a millionaire, working until the day he died, and every opportunity he had he told me this story, saying that 'sometimes, all that you need is a helping hand'. And I agree with him. And you seem to need a helping hand."
Sweetie started crying, and Trouble gathered her in a hug again.
While the commercials were rolling, in the outskirts of Sunnydale, a black Lamborghini was speeding down the highway, way above the speed limits. The driver wasn't even bothering with the cops or their radars, her mind focused in her destination more than anything else.
Her cell phone ringed once, and she didn't even bother touching him.
"It's Iz," and incorporeal voice told her after a moment.
"Thanks, K. Hey, what's up?" she said to the air.
"Where are you?" another voice said, this one different than the first.
"Arriving. A few more miles to go, yet."
"Tell us when you get there, okay?"
"Sure."
"And be careful, Bel."
"I will, don't worry. Talk to you later," she said, and the connection was cut.
"She worries too much," the incorporeal voice said again.
"She's right, K, the place is dangerous."
"So are you."
"Not as much as you believe. And that's why I'm risking going there."
"You sure she can help?"
"I think so. At least, my contacts say that this one is different than the rest of the Council's goons."
"Like so?"
"She has friends, K."
"Is that so big of a difference?"
"Ask me that in a few days, ok?" the woman named Bel said and the silence reigned again in the sports car.
Trouble helped Sweetie to get in the BMW Z4, and hopped to the other side, after she was cleared from the hospital. He grabbed a folder from between the seats and offered her, while he turned the car on.
"What's that?" she asked, before opening the folder.
"Info on Little Johnny Tedeschi. Official and unofficial alike, with some police investigation crammed in there as well. Theo's father is a cop, he sent the info for free when he heard the full story."
Sweetie opened the folder, not bothering in the least with the speed Trouble was driving the German machine. She quickly skimmed through almost all the pages, stopping at one of the last ones.
"It says here that he's still under an 'unofficial investigation' by the FBI. Is it even possible?"
"I read that too, and called a friend from the Bureau. He said that they kept an agent checking on Tedeschi from time to time, because of his past, but they don't have anything solid to follow up with a full investigation."
"He knows how to cover his tracks," Sweetie said, and looked to Trouble, who was sporting a way serious look for her taste. "What?"
"We are being followed. Looks like the gorillas know how to drive. Hang on," he said, accelerating the car.
He started zigzagging the BMW around the light traffic, trying to put some distance between them and the goons, while his mind was quickly drawing a map on where he wanted to go. He gave a small smile, and looked to his side, to a terrified-looking young doctor.
"Don't worry, I know how to drive," he said, while cutting another two cars.
"I'm not worried about your driving, problem's the bullets," she said, and to properly announce her fears, they heard weapon's fire right behind them. Luckily, the bullets didn't hit anything.
"HANG ON!" he said, turning the wheel quickly to the side with one hand, while the other pushed the parking brake, making the car execute a perfect ninety degree turn to the right. He released the brake and stepped on the accelerator again, entering an alley at some blinding speeds.
The other car wasn't expecting the sudden turn, so they tried to do the same maneuver, but they were off the mark by several seconds and no real ability on the other driver, and that caused the car to hit a lot of moving and unmoving obstacles along the way. It was almost a miracle that it managed to keep on running after that. They tried to reach the racing machine, but if it got to the end of the alley, it would be the end, they simply didn't have an engine to compete.
The BMW hit the end of the alley and turned left, and afterwards it made a quick left and another right, effectively losing the other car.
"We lost them," Trouble said, looking at the rearview mirror.
"For a while," the doc said, knowing what she was facing.
"Look, you should let me go," was heard behind the door, and when it opened, Trouble and Sweetie walked inside the large mansion.
"Nonsense, I told you I was going to help, and I will," Trouble said, throwing the keys over a desk, and shedding his shoes to a side.
"But I don't want to see you dead because of me. They shot us!" Sweetie said.
"They shot at us. Small difference and I have been shot at a few times in the past," he said, darkly.
"One of those could have hit you!" she said, trying to sound more reasonable. Problem was that the tone had nothing of reason on it, even if the thinking was sound.
"Or you. Look, forget it. I never break a promise. And I don't know the word 'quit'," he said, while they walked to the kitchen.
"Do you know the word 'dead'? Cause that's what will happen if you keep on helping me," she said, still fuming.
"Hey, I'm an extreme sports practioneer. Death is a constant in this. And I have seen it too close so many times that I don't let it stop me from living," he said, grabbing some OJ from the fridge.
"Oh, you . . . you . . . man!" she huffed, and sat in one of the kitchen's chairs, while he opened the fridge again to fix a couple sandwiches. He made two of them, giving one to Sweetie, with a glass of juice. She ate calmly, trying to think on something to take him off the problem. She didn't want to see any more blood in her hands.
"What now?" she asked, after finishing both the sandwich and the juice.
"You have some clothes with you?" he asked.
"I left a few at my hotel room. Why?"
"Probably isn't safe to return there. So, we'll go shopping for a few necessities and then we can try and find some solution to this problem," he said, standing up.
"Oh, great. Shopping. My life is in danger and he wants to go shopping," Sweetie said, following him.
As any other young woman, Sweetie liked shopping, even more when spending other people's money, but the experience was being marred by the constant looks around coming from her and Trouble. They were quite sure that Johnny's goons would take a while to figure out where they went, but neither was stupid enough to let the guard down. At the moment, the duo was sat at the food court, eating some ice cream while discussing their next activities.
"You sure this . . . Theo can help us aside from what he already did?"
"I think so, we now know at least enough to search for some options besides running."
"I could always go to another country . . ." Sweetie said, thinking on possibilities.
"You want that? To me, it is the wrong decision. You did nothing wrong, that lunatic is creating a vendetta on something that you had no fault over. So, why you should be running away? He's the guilty part, if he wanted so much for you to pay for something, why didn't he sue you, like any normal angry parent would?"
"Weird reasoning," she said," but you're right. I don't want to run."
"So that's settled. I think our best course of action is trying to find the FBI agent responsible for the case, and give him or her a heads up on what's happening."
They finished the rest of their respective ice creams in silence.
"Wonder why the police didn't do a thing so far," she said when they stood up. "I've been running for two weeks, and no one seems to care, and they always end up finding me."
"Let's see what we can find, then. . ."
Trouble took them to another building, and they walked in, Trouble showing an almost unused badge to the security guard. The atrium, Sweetie noticed, was huge, and made to impress.
"The building's all yours?" she asked, a bit in awe.
"Nope, most of it is rented to an IT firm, we just use one of the floors, the installations are top notch, thou," he said, while they entered one of the elevators. He pressed the button to the eighth floor, and the doors where almost closed when a hand held it. Sweetie froze, but the doors opened to a tall woman, dressing an impeccable gunship gray power suit, and holding one characteristic laptop case.
"Sorry," she said in a serious voice, ice blue eyes scanning the duo. She stopped for a moment when focusing on Trouble, but that was it. She pressed the button to her floor and stood to the side.
"No problem," he said, and held the hand of a still-surprised doctor.
"You think Theo can find the info?" she asked in a whisper, nervously. It was their best bet, or it was back to running for them.
"Don't worry, he's a damn good hacker. If someone can find the info, it's him," he said, giving the hand a comforting squeeze.
The suited woman eavesdropped on it, and a small involuntary smirk grazed her face for a moment, but it disappeared without anyone else noticing.
They walked out on their floor, the receptionist quite surprised in seeing the owner of the place. There was a story running that if Bigelow Trublinsky ever appeared in the company wearing a suit, people should start praying for their gods, cause the Apocalypse was coming.
He never showed up. And when he did, it was forced. For him to appear without being dragged by Mr. Steinmann, it was downright apocalyptic.
Thank God he wasn't wearing a suit.
The duo walked to a room, Trouble knocking before entering. A muffled 'Come in' was heard by both.
"Theodore?" Trouble asked, entering the room.
Sitting behind a desk with two monitors on top of them, was a weird-looking man, heavyset, with reddish-brown hair and beard, wearing small rimmed-glasses, and wearing a t-shirt from Star Wars.
"Boss? What you doing here?" he said, without standing up. He had a hint of a Texan accent in his voice.
"She's the friend in trouble, Theo. Theodore, Sweetie, Sweetie, Theodore. Please, no kidding on the names, ok?" he said, making the introductions.
"Hi," they both said at the same time.
"What do you need, Boss-man?"
"I need some more digging from you," he said.
"Hit me," he said, fingers already dancing on the keyboard.
"We need to know the name of the agent responsible for the Tedeschi investigation," he said, sitting at the corner of the table.
"That's easy," he said, and after a few keystrokes and some clicks, the laser printer to the side started spitting a single printed page. "I've dug a little deeper after I sent you the file. Her name is Marissa Heiner, she's with the Bureau for the best part of twelve years," Theo said, giving Trouble the sheet. "Good agent, solid career, she got the job when her boss was shot down in a stake-out gone wrong. The investigation has a 'non-official' status, since they can't spend resources on an 'innocent' man, but if you have something against Tedeschi, she's the one to talk to," he said.
Trouble scanned the file, the woman was blonde, apparently, and good looking for someone a bit older. There was some info of her old cases on the paper, and at the bottom, the contact info.
The action sports star grabbed his cell phone and dialed the number. It was picked up a couple rings later.
"Yes?" answered a feminine voice.
"I would like to speak with Special Agent Heiner, please?" he said, politely.
"That's her. Who is this?"
Trouble gave away a relaxed breath.
"Agent Heiner, you don't know me, my name is Bigelow Trublinsky . . ."
"The man from those crazy sports?" she asked, curiously.
"You know me? How curious," he said.
"I have an . . . acquaintance that likes those crazy stunts you do. What can I do for you, Mr. Trublinsky?"
"Well, I stumbled on a situation yesterday, and I was informed that you could probably help me solve it," he said, and proceeded to give away an explanation of Sweetie's problem.
"She's with you right now?" the agent asked, curiosity perked.
"Yes, she's right here," he said, eyeing a clearly relieved doctor.
"Good, don't let her out of your sight. Give me the addresses where I can find you both. I'll be hopping on a plane first thing after we hang up. Is she willing to talk?" she asked.
"I think so, yes," he said, and proceeded to give her his addresses, home and business alike.
"Ok, don't let her talk to the police, Tedeschi has a lot of contacts in the force yet, and I don't want her talking with one of them. Finally I'll have something to nail that bastard," she said.
"Okay, I'll keep her safe for the time being," he said.
"Good, I'll see you tonight, hopefully. I have a plane to catch, good bye, Mr. Trublinsky," she said.
"It's Trouble."
"Excuse me?"
"My friends call me Trouble," he said, smiling.
"Goodbye then, Mr. Trouble," she said, cutting the connection.
"She's coming here," he said, cutting the connection.
Sweetie gave away a shuddering breath.
"Hope she can solve this madness that my life has become," she said, hope clearly reflected in her eyes.
"She will. I have faith in that," Trouble said, thanking Theodore as well. "Since we're here, want the nickel tour?"
"Sure, why not?"
After a little bit more than an hour, where Trouble surprised half his company and scared half the other, they were in the elevator, going to the garage.
"What that man said is true?"
"Said what?"
"That you're never around here?"
Trouble shrugged. "Yeah, I made this company on a whim of my father, before he passed away. I liked it at the beginning, it was a challenge, and I like being challenged. But when things stabilized and went into routine, I couldn't stay seated behind a desk. So, I turned into a poster boy slash PR for the company, and Butler takes care of the mundane stuff for me."
"You trust him awfully lot," she said, a bit surprised. The door opened and they disembarked on the large atrium.
"I do, but if your problem is that he's going to steal my money, he's one of the largest shareholders of the company, and in the end, I simply do trust him. He knows me and I know him since I was a kid. He's like a second father to me."
"Good to know," she said, while they were approaching Trouble's car. "What now?"
"You hungry?" he asked.
"Su . . . ," she said, but before she could complete her sentence, she saw a gun being pointed to Trouble's head. She froze.
"You are coming with us," gorilla #2 said, pointing another gun to her ribs.
And we fade to black and . . .
To be continued –
"Nice start," Xander said, when the end credits started rolling. The sentiment was mirrored by the rest of the gang. "Ok, time to tease Ms. Sweetie Brown," he said, standing up and going to the telephone. He dialed a number from memory, and it was picked up after a few rings. There was a huge amount of background noise, but he managed to hear a laughing Cordelia.
"Cordy?" he said, with a smile on his face.
"Dweeb? Xander?" she answered back, surprised, but still laughing.
"Hello, Sweetie. In too much Trouble?" he teased.
Instead of complaining, she actually laughed harder.
"Hey, no ribbing on the character name. People found it funny! So, you liked?"
"Yeah, I did. Where are you?"
"Premiere party for the show. It's a mess around here, wait up!"
He could almost see her moving around, until the sound dimmed considerably.
"Better," she said, taking a deep breath.
"So, where are you? Janitor's closet?" he asked.
"You wish," she said, voice suddenly taking a slightly more serious tone. "Women's bathroom."
"Ah," he said, while Buffy and Willow appeared behind him. "Look, there are people here wanting to teas . . . speak to you," he kidded.
"Oh, yeah. Tease away," she said, but only with happiness in her voice.
"I'll be back," he said, making a poor Terminator imitation, and passing the telephone to the house owner. He was happy, at least someone was safe from the madness that was living in the Hellmouth.
The van was on its last leg, but if it could hold for another few miles, he was safe. So, he did something that he never did before, and prayed to God for the machine to hold for a bit longer.
The teasing was friendly and funny, and for the first time in their lives, Willow and Buffy saw a side to Cordelia they weren't expecting. Xander was to a side, a smug look in his face that had a hint of 'I told you so'. Faith was oblivious to all of that, and all in all, she was getting pretty antsy. The night was young, and there were things to slay.
So, after the trio had teased her enough, and given her their congratulations, Faith stood up and pulled Buffy to a side.
"I'm going for some slaying. You game?"
"Sure," she said. "Guys, we're going patrolling. See ya later," the blonde Slayer said, grabbed her slay-jacket and left, Faith hot on her heels, before anyone had a chance to speak something.
"Sneaky, aren't they?" Xander said, after a few moments.
"Like an elephant," Willow giggled.
"Wanna go after them?"
"What about . . ." Willow started, turning to Dawn.
"Don't worry, Heirs. My magic might not be what it once was, but the common evil of the Hellmouth doesn't stand much of a chance against me. I'll be fine," the reincarnated Sorceress said.
"That being the case . . . ARES!"
The dog appeared from wherever he had disappeared into the house, standing to Xander's side. "Wanna go hunt some vamps, boy?" he said, patting the dog's head, which was shaking tail and barking, happily.
"Wills, you first."
"You know, I kinda like this new gig," she said smiling, removing the Sword of Honor from the pocket dimension, "FOR THE HONOR OF GRAYSKULL!"
"BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL!" Xander said, not a moment later. Dawn/Sorceress took the opportunity to cast a shielding spell, drawing on a bit of the raw power of Grayskull that both of them drew from the Universe in general. That would guarantee the safety of the house for a long time to come, in certain aspects.
"I AM SHE-RA!"
"I HAVE THE POWER!"
He-Man stopped the motion of turning the sword to Ares, eyeing the back door. "Outside, Ares, WarWolf won't fit through the door," he said, opening the door. Meanwhile, She-Ra uttered something under breath, and her small black and gray cat appeared over the sofa, startled with the sudden change of environment.
"Sorry for the sudden wake up, Scratch. Time to play with the undead," she said, grabbing the small cat with a single hand.
Once both pets were outside, He-Man pointed his sword to the dog and She-Ra aimed the jewel in hers to the cat. A few moments later, a huge armored black wolf and an equally huge and armored griffin stood in place of the common pets.
"So, we follow them or what?" He-Man asked.
"Think they'll need it?"
The muscled man shrugged.
"Let's do better. You up for some aerial recon, T-Bolt?"
The huge white griffin answered by flapping his majestic wings and taking the night air. He disappeared from normal view in seconds.
"He's following them. If something nasty shows up, I can transport us to them in a moment. Where to now?"
"Who would have guessed? Mystical AWACS," He-Man said looking to the disappearing griffin, letting some of his teenager persona spill through.
"He-Man?" She-Ra called, a bit annoyed with his distraction. He looked back to her with a sheepish look in his face. "Where to?"
"City limits? I think we could check if something is coming our way and then we could circle back in."
"Good idea," she said, and He-Man mounted WarWolf, offering his arm to her. She grabbed it at the forearm and hopped in behind him.
"Careful with the sword" he said, not waiting for an answer.
WarWolf jumped away, following his instincts and the slight motions and signals made by one of the mystical warriors on his back.
"Bel, I have something on my forward sensors," KASI said, and the woman on the wheel suddenly changed focus from the road to one of the small screens attached to the futuristic dashboard. They were almost at city limits.
"What is it?"
"A van, apparently disabled, with one heat signature inside, human."
"So?"
"The van is being rocked by some external agent that isn't showing in any of my sensors."
"How long till we have visual?" the driver asked, suddenly getting extremely worried.
"Forty-three seconds at current speed."
"Go silent," Bel said, and the car, which wasn't exactly noisy at best, suddenly silenced, engine noise disappearing entirely, the lights on the cockpit reducing to half their intensity, and the headlights closed into their housings on the hood of the black Lamborghini, turning it into a black ghost moving at an average of 120 mph.
Eighteen seconds from visual, KASI sounded again.
"Bel, we have three more heat signals on the scene, two look human but the other is a rather large quadruped."
"What now?"
She-Ra's mystical senses, so close to the Hellmouth, were acting like a TV with bad reception. She could sense the opposition, but the signal was so garbled that it was difficult to pinpoint anything. She had a general direction, but in Sunnydale, it covered almost a 360 degree arc. So, they were using the old process of 'looking for trouble' with nothing more than the eyes. He-Man and WarWolf were following the main road up to the highway, when they suddenly stopped.
"What?" She-Ra asked from her spot on the back. The large shoulders kept her almost oblivious from what happened straight ahead.
"Damn," He-Man said, and WarWolf started running again. "Tell me if that van belongs to whom I think it belongs," he said, bending slightly to a side.
She-Ra saw it a moment later, a very well-known van, being rocked and attacked by at least eight vampires.
"OZ?"
To be continued -
A/N 2: Ok, I know, weird chapter. But I wanted to introduce Cordelia's show, simply because I would like to do a fic series based on the Adventure Seeker characters, but I sincerely don't have time for it now. So, if you guys wanna drop in and write about it, drop me a mail.
A/N 3: Like any other large series such as Heirs, I'm willing to expand this single story into an Universe. So, from now on, HeirsVerse is the name of the game, boys and girls. I'm willing to share my ideas, and I wanna hear from you guys. So, if you wanna write side stories, back stories, future stories, drop me a mail or talk to me at MSN Messenger at pauloacweber at hotmail dot com.