Chapter Three

Buffy sat at her kitchen table, stirring cocoa with one hand and propping her head up on the other. Giles had just finished telling her about the Initiative's new plans to upgrade the chip used on Spike and hundreds of other vampires and demons. The upgrade, as described in the journal, would include a command sensitive program that would deliver a shock to the subjects brain when a command is being ignored.

"Buffy?" Buffy looked up to see her mother, Joyce, stepping into the kitchen. "What's wrong honey?"

"Oh, it's just something I found out today." Buffy said as Joyce slid onto the stool beside her.

"Tell me about it?" Buffy sighed.

"The commandos we've been researching. They're part of a military branch that deals with vampires and demons. They do research on them. Riley is one of them, and took me to their base. I found a journal with records on a vampire the Council has been looking for. Turns out that the Initiative does really horrible things to them, did to him."

"Oh honey…."

"And they made a chip. They put it in their brains, and it shocks them when they try to hurt humans." Joyce gasped. "They're trying to upgrade it so that the demons and vampires have to obey their commands. God think of what kind of army they could make!"

"That does sound horrible. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Giles says we can't let them develop this new chip. But I don't know how to stop them." Buffy hung her head and Joyce patted her shoulder. "There's just too many of them."

"Why don't you talk to Angel about it? Maybe he has an idea?" Buffy's head shot up and her eyes widened.

"That's it! Mom, you're a genius!" Joyce smiled in amusement as Buffy clapped her hands. "Spike is his childe, he'll do anything to help him! I think….." Buffy scooped up the portable phone from her mother's side and punched in the number for the Hyperion Hotel, where Angel was currently staying.

Buffy explained her discovery to a silent Angel, who agreed to meet her in Sunnydale the following night before hanging up. Buffy frowned, hoping that if Angel were mad it wouldn't be at her or directed towards her. "Thanks mom for the idea, he's coming over tomorrow night." Buffy said to Joyce.

"Anything to help out Buffy. I do hope you'll be careful with him here?" Buffy rolled her eyes and cleaned up the cocoa mess he she made.

"Always mom, always."

The next day was spent gathering the gang (Willow, Xander, Oz, Cordelia, and Tara) and explaining the Initiative to them. Cordelia was the only one that would not be helping them in whatever plan they came up with, mainly because she was an ordinary human.

Buffy and Giles were the only two to go meet Angel; the rest stayed at Giles' place. None of them wanted to be around Angel when he heard the news about his childe, because none of them knew how close the two had been. Buffy herself was nervous about Angel's reaction.

"Angel?" Buffy called out when she made it to their designated meeting spot.

"Hey." Buffy jumped when Angel melted out from the shadows. "Sorry if I startled you."

"It's okay. I'm glad you came." Angel gave her a half smile. "Giles, if you could explain everything to him….?" Giles nodded and began to explain - in great detail - the whole history behind the Initiative, their plans for the chip, and finally that they had found his childe.

"Spike is being held in the Initiative labs." Angel said quietly. Buffy nodded. "For two hundred years." Giles nodded. "Then they are going to die." He said simply. "I have sources that will help us. Be ready to storm them all tomorrow night."

The Next Night……

Angel stood at the entrance to the Initiative. Screams and howls filtered up from below the ground as his miniature army of vampires and demons, along with the Slayer and her crew, massacred the whole of the Initiative. "Now to find you." He said quietly as he slipped down the stairs.

Angel tilted his head and, ignoring the sounds and smells of the battle, he began to scent his childe. The smell of leather and tobacco was faint, but it was there. He followed it through the maze of tunnels and halls, some of which were lined with now-empty cells.

He followed the scent to a locked metal door and kicked it in with little difficulty, startling a pair of men wearing white lab coats. "Who are…AGGH!" Angel was quick in snapping both of their necks. He followed the scent into a second room and found himself in a round room with computer monitors and a large window.

"Now who do you think you are?" There was a woman standing by the window. Angel growled at her and she backed away as he stalked foreword. Before he could snap her neck however, his eyes were drawn to what was on the other side of the window.

Angel growled softly as he took in the thin, beaten figure strapped to a lab table. "How do I get in there?" He growled softly at the now shaking woman. She pointed to a door and Angel took off at a run. He burst through the door and ran down a flight of steps. He burst through another door, snapped the necks of the two doctors in the large room, then ran over to the lab table.

"Spike? Spike! Will!" The figure groaned softly as Angel tore the restraints off of the pale wrists. "Wake up childe." He pulled the figure into his arms and opened a vein in his wrist.

"S-s-sire?" A weak voice asked hopefully. Angel looked down to see a pair of blue eyes blinking up at him.

"Yeah Will, it's Sire. Here, drink." He pressed his wrist to Spike's mouth and Spike began to eagerly gulp down the red liquid. Surprisingly throughout the feeding, Spike didn't morph into his vamprie face. "Now let's get you out of here."

Angel carried his childe out of the maze of labs and cells and, without checking on Buffy and her crew, disappeared into the night.

END

I will be writing a second part to this. But before I do, I must say that I have the shortest attention span than most of the people I've even met….well, in any case, I think I do. I just found one of my old disks and BOOM.i find myself bombarded with old stories that I started then stopped. There's over two dozen on the disk! I'm going to be going through them all and hopefully finishing them. They'll probably be posted at some point…..