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Chapter 3: What's Going On?
Buffy led the group down the upstairs hall, and into a large room, with a conference table in the center. On the table there were over fifty different books of all size, shapes, and ages.
"So what's going on?" Spike asked, once everyone was seated around the large conference table. Buffy sat at one end of the table, while Giles sat at the other. Angel and Spike sat on either side of Buffy, and Dawn sat beside Spike. To Angel's left was Wesley, and Fred sat to Wesley's left, Gunn's right. Zander, Willow, and Faith, filled the remaining chairs.
"The hell mouth is reemerging," Buffy stated simply, and motioned for Giles to continue, ignoring the many shocked faces staring at her.
"Well," Giles began, putting on his glasses, and shuffling some papers in front of him. "I'm not sure if you're aware of the Vampiric Holiday, Erus, which is a day to celebrate the coming of the first Vampire." He stated, looking at Angel and Spike, who both nodded that they had heard of it. "Normally this celebration is not widely recognized in the Vampire world, but every hundred and fifty years large quantities of Vampires make a pilgrimage to the Hellmouth."
"That shouldn't be a problem, without a Hellmouth I mean. They won't have anywhere to go," Fred dismissed.
"Normally that would be the case," Giles conceded, "but during this gathering, there is such a concentration of evil, that they could reawaken the Hellmouth. It will take some very difficult spells, as well as some rare sacrifices, but it could be done."
"We ran into a Vampire in Italy," Buffy broke in, "after much persuasion, he told us of the plan to reopen the Hellmouth. Here, in Los Angeles. That's why we called you. We have all of our slayers here, training to fight, but we're still going to need your help."
"So what do you want us to do?" Gunn asked, looking around the table.
"We're kind of still working that part," Zander chimed in, awkwardly.
"There's going to be a fight," Faith stated, leaning forward onto the table. "We'll need your help doing the training and the research. As much as we hate to use the resources of Wolfram and Hart, we need them. We can't stop this thing on our own."
"Whatever you need, we'll do," Angel offered.
"Great," Buffy said, "Wesley, Fred, and Gunn, you'll help Giles with the research. Spike, you'll be in charge of training the new Slayers. Eliza and Conner can help you."
"Is that a good idea? That Eliza chick didn't seem to like me very much," Spike reminded.
"She'll get over it," Buffy replied shortly. "Angel, you can help Willow with the magic stuff. We will also need to take turns patrolling. We'll have to go in shifts, because we'll need people to guard the perimeter here too."
"I can get people to do that," Angel offered.
"No, I don't want anyone else from your company involved in this," Buffy stated, noting the hurt look on Angel's face. "I just don't trust them. Now, you're all dismissed." Taking their cue, everyone got up to start on their jobs. Wesley led the research group back to Wolfram and Hart, Spike went down to check on the new Slayers, and Angel disappeared to talk to Conner.
When Angel found Conner, he was still sitting in the upstairs training room talking to Eliza. As soon as they noticed that Angel had entered the room, Eliza immediately stood up for an offensive.
"It's ok," Conner cautioned, putting a restraining hand on Eliza's shoulder. Eliza, taking a hint from the look on Conner's face, left to give them some privacy. "Hey."
"Hey," Angel replied, feeling rather awkward. After a few moments, he finally gathered enough confidence to ask, "What are you doing here? I thought you were out of the demon hunting business."
"I was," Conner admitted. "Then one day I was walking downtown, and I saw this girl getting pummeled by twenty Vampires. It was Eliza," Conner explained. "I helped fight them off, and while it was going on, I realized that that's what I should be doing. I have a gift, and I should use it to help humanity. I'm not normal, and it was time I stopped deluding myself."
"What about college?" Angel asked worried that his son was giving up the future Angel had fought so hard for him to have.
"I'm going to UCLA. I just come down here between classes. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it."
"Just one more question. How does Eliza know about you being Stephen?" Angel asked, suddenly remembering the earlier encounter when she had mentioned it.
"We met in the hell dimension. We fought once, but I don't remember much about it. The whole thing's pretty complicated."
Meanwhile, Eliza had left the room to go downstairs and see how the training was going. She sat on a bench by the wall and watched the Slayers spar with one another. The girls were all very strong, but many of them were inexperienced. That's the main thing she worried about. It was one thing to beat up one another, or fight one Vampire at a time, but this was going to be different. There were going to be hundreds of them.
"So who was it?" Spike asked, startling Eliza out of her thoughts. He took a seat next to her on the bench. "Who of yours did I kill?"
"My mother," Eliza growled, "and your girlfriend killed my brother." Then, Eliza turned to Spike, before she had been looking down at her hands, deep in thoughts of the past, but now all of her attention was on the monster sitting beside her. "I will find a way to destroy you. Buffy won't always be there to save you." With those menacing words, Eliza rose and walked away, leaving a very despondent Spike in her wake.