Disclaimer: I don't own any of the League or any of the characters of 'Underworld'; just the plot. Neither do I own Katie; she's based on a friend of mine who requested a role in one of my stories
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LXG 2004 2: Lazarus
"This is your transport?" Michael asked, as he looked up at the massive form of the Nautilus before them. "It's a bit… um…"
"Old-fashioned?" Bond finished for the hybrid, looking over at his new friend from the driver's seat with a small smile on his face. "Yes, I know, but it keeps up an old tradition. The original League used this very ship to travel back when they were active, and while it may not be the fastest means of travel, it's tried and tested as a base as well as transportation."
After their conference had finished, they'd headed down to Angel's garage and taken three of his limos; the current limo held Bond, Michael, Selene, and the Doctor, with Harry, Ginny, Gwen and Turlough in the second and Angel, Eilidh, Clark, Fiona and Elektra in the third. Bond had sent a message to Captain Tyne to bring the Nautilus up as soon as they'd left Wolfram & Hart, and he was relieved to see that the ship was already waiting to accept passengers
"A sensible step to take, in my opinion," Selene said, as she nodded in approval at the Nautilus before looking over at Bond again. "After all, aeroplanes are fast, but they are limited in the areas that they can land and in the amount of baggage that they can carry from place to place. With submarines, on the other hand, more often than not all you need is a relatively stable part of the coastline, and you can take it from there."
She looked over curiously at the Doctor. "I assume that there are land-based means of transportation inside the Nautilus itself?"
"Of course," the Doctor said, nodding at the female vampire. "Some of our more efficient transports were specially designed by me; the League-Mobile- our team's prime means of getting around- was designed with the primary intention of . Ah, here we are now."
As the doctor finished speaking, the limo headed up a ramp leading into the Nautilus and entered the hold, followed by the other two. Although everything was secure, he still waited until the hold door was shut before opening his door. The limo's tinted windows had apparently protected Selene from the sun during their drive, but Bond wasn't exactly sure whether the windows had actually done so or whether Selene's type of vampire was immune to sunlight.
Still, he mused to himself, as the League got out of their various cars and began to head off to their respective quarters, I'm sure we'll learn for sure either way in time.
After all, as much as Selene and Michael wanted to end the bloodshed that was taking place in their world right now, Bond knew that it would be practically impossible to stop a war without someone getting killed...
And, when that time came, no matter how much everyone would want to find an alternative, they would need to know the weaknesses of their opponents- both vampire and lycan.
The next morning, the sun was overcast by a mass of clouds, allowing Selene to walk around on the conning tower with freedom. Michael, Fiona and Angel had joined her just to make sure that the sun didn't take her by surprise, and Harry and Ginny were playing chess on the other side of the observation deck, as well as waiting on standby to cast a Shielding Charm to help protect Selene. True, neither of them were entirely certain whether the charm would deflect something as basic as sunlight, but it might be enough to help protect Selene from the worst of the ultraviolet radiation.
Looking out ahead of the ship, at the vast ocean that lay before them, Selene smiled slightly, attracting an inquiringly look from Angel.
"Something up?" he asked, but she just shrugged.
"No, not really," she said, shaking her head. "I was just thinking… how peaceful it is up here. I never really had the time for this sort of thing when I was fighting in the war; my entire life was taken up with killing lycans, and I generally disdained all non-war-related activities."
"Must've annoyed Kraven, huh?" Michael added, smiling over at the beautiful vampiress. Selene, however, didn't respond to his query other than to turn up the left corner of her mouth in a half-smile. It was almost as though she wasn't sure how to react…
Then again, Angel could sympathise with that; after all, it had taken him approximately four years to really learn how to relate to people in the modern world after Whistler had convinced him to get out of his 'rut' and start making a difference.
Maybe that was part of the reason why Selene was denying her feelings for Michael.
After all, it was evident to everyone in the League that their two new friends 'had the hots' for each other, as Gunn might have put it, and yet they were evidently not even kissing on a regular basis, never mind going the whole way…
"So," Angel asked, looking over at Selene inquiringly, "if you don't mind me asking, how did you become a vampire anyway?"
Selene looked over briefly at Harry, who shook his head; she hadn't mentioned any details about her own family history when she was talking to the League as a whole, and Harry and Ginny hadn't thought it right to fill in the blanks that she'd left in her story. If she wanted to tell the rest of the League, she'd do it in her own time; they wouldn't break her trust.
Reaching over, Michael squeezed Selene reassuringly on the shoulder.
"I could tell him if you don't want to," he said, looking at Selene with a slightly melancholy expression.
"No," Selene said, shaking her head as she looked back at the hybrid with a brief smile before turning back to Angel. "It took place almost two centuries ago, in the 1820s. I was living with my parents, sister and nieces in our farm- my brother-in-law was away attending to business- when…"
She sighed. "When we were attacked."
"Ah," Angel said, nodding as he listened to the story. It reminded him in some ways of many of his sirings back when he'd been Angelus; attacks on large houses, with the occasional turning of anyone who showed a certain spirit. Some vampires disliked the idea of giving someone the power of immortality after the person in question had tried to kill them but Angelus had always enjoyed the irony of turning the victims into the very thing that they had hated when they were alive. "What was it?"
"Lycans," Selene replied. "Or so I was told at the time by Viktor."
"Oh yeah; the Elder who started the war, right?" Angel said, looking at Selene for confirmation. When Selene nodded, Angel continued speaking. "So, since you said that you were only told lycans had attacked, who was it really?"
"Viktor," Selene replied, as she stared out at the sea before her, apparently unwilling to look at anyone else as she spoke. "He claimed that he had driven away the lycans after they killed my family, and… and that he would give me the strength to avenge them."
"But… but why?" Fiona asked, looking at Selene in confusion. "Why kill your family in the first place?"
"He had a secret craving for fresh human blood, even though it was banned by every single rule of the Coven," Selene explained. Angel briefly joined her in studying the landscape; he may lack most of his vampire-specific traits these days, but Selene's words still evoked memories of some of the crimes he'd committed as Angelus…
And, no matter how much he wished otherwise, not all of his memories of the murders he'd committed as Angelus were classified to him as 'bad' memories.
The intoxicating smell of human fear as he held the terrified humans close to him… the sweet nectar of blood washing down his throat as his fangs pierced the soft flesh of the neck…
As much as he hated even to think of doing such a thing again, he couldn't deny that the taste of human blood had always left him drooling at the mouth; pig's blood just couldn't compare, no matter how hard he tried to cope with it.
He shook his head; Selene was talking again.
"He destroyed my family like they were animals, but, when he saw me, he was reminded so much of Sonja… the daughter that he killed to 'preserve the purity of the species'… that he couldn't bring himself to do it…"
"And he turned you instead, huh?" Fiona asked, leaning over and giving Selene an apologetic squeeze on the shoulder; Angel nearly reached up to do the same, but Michael beat him to it.
Looking at the hybrid standing there, looking at Selene with a look of such poignant longing on his face, Angel was reminded of the expression he'd often had on his face when he was looking at Buffy… back in the early days when she'd just assumed that he was a human who'd known a lot about the world of the supernatural, rather than a member of that world himself…
Selene suddenly stood back from the railed, shrugged her shoulders slightly to make Fiona and Michael release their grips, and then turned around and walked back into the Nautilus.
As Michael looked after Selene with a brief tinge of regret in his eyes, Angel and Fiona glanced over at each other, Angel raising an enquiring eyebrow as Fiona rolled her eyes. The two of them may not have known each other that well, but they knew enough about each other to guess that the same thought was crossing each other's minds right now.
"Uh… Michael?" Angel said, glancing briefly at his watch and then looking over at the hybrid. "Aren't you due in the training room for a practise fight with Clark?"
"Huh?" Michael asked, shaking his head briefly and glancing down at his own watch. "Oh… yeah, right… thanks," he said briefly, as he turned around and began to walk back down into the corridor.
Harry and Ginny walked around to look at the other League members, their game evidently having been abandoned for the moment, and smiled slightly at the part-vampire and invisible woman.
"Relationship issues, huh?" Harry said, looking back at the tower in the direction that Michael had just walked.
"Issues?" Ginny asked, looking over at her lover critically. "Harry, they need more of a wake-up call than you did!"
Harry groaned. "Ginny, how often do I have to tell you, all I lacked was nerve," he said, 'glaring' at the beautiful redhead with an exasperated look on his face. "I just needed something to make it obvious that you'd 'moved on', and-"
Fiona held up a hand to stop the young wizard. "As fascinating as your history is, Harry, we can't afford to discuss it now; we've got the immediate issue of Michael and Selene to tackle."
She glanced around at the other three League members standing on the tower with her. "Any ideas?"
"They need a wake-up call," Angel said, jerking a thumb at the door that the couple in question had just walked through earlier. "Normally I'd recommend sticking them in a room until they sort things out, but with their strength they could probably punch the door down in a few moments, so that couldn't work."
He looked over at Fiona and Ginny inquiringly. "Think one of you two could have a little talk to Selene about things?"
"Selene?" Ginny asked, looking at Angel in confusion. "Why not Michael?"
"Oh, Michael knows what he's feeling-" Angel began.
"He just doesn't have the nerve to express it, right?" Harry added.
Angel nodded as he patted the wizard on the back, sending Harry staggering slightly forward; the former Scourge of Europe's enhanced strength could be a problem at moments like that.
"Precisely," he said, before looking back at the two women. "Selene, on the other hand… she doesn't seem to know what she's feeling at the moment."
"Can you blame her?" Ginny put in. "After all, her family died all in one go, and she's been dedicated to the objective of practically committing genocide for nearly two centuries? She's not exactly 'grown up' in an effective environment for emotional development, when you think about it."
"True…" Fiona said, nodding thoughtfully, before she turned around and clasped her hands. "Well, I'll get down to business."
"You?" Ginny asked, looking at her new colleague curiously. "Why not me?"
"Well, in all fairness, from what I've heard about you, I've had a bit more experience of living on my own- or, at least, living with a single cause in mind," Fiona pointed out. "After all, I've spent the past decade or so either trying to figure out a way to make people invisible, or try and find some way of coping with my powers now that I can't get rid of them. I'd probably find it easier to relate to her than you would, don't you think?"
Ginny nodded thoughtfully.
"Good point," she said to the invisible woman.
"So, when do we start?" Harry asked.
Angel shrugged. "Now's as good a time as any," he said, looking over at Fiona. "You track down Selene and try to get a few minutes alone with her; Harry, Ginny and I will make sure that Michael's kept busy until you're done."
Harry smiled slightly as the four of them turned around to re-enter the submarine that was rapidly becoming their home away from home.
They may be heading towards a dangerous showdown with the fate of at least one species on the line…
But, right now, all they had to worry about was playing matchmaker.
And somehow, Harry was looking forward to it.