SUNNYDALE
Buffy sat at the small table closest to the stage. Willow and Tara sat with her, holding each others hands, waiting eagerly for the performance. Xander and Anya stood by the bar, each holding drinks in their hand, the same look of anticipation planted on their faces. Unfortunately, Dawn would be missing this. She had to study for a huge test the next day. Buffy had to drop her off at Janice's so they could have a study session. Buffy would make sure she would tell her sister all about it when they got home.
Giles stepped up onto the stage in front of The Bronze. He unstrapped his guitar from his chest, and sat down on the lone stool in the center of the stage. He faced up to begin his performance, before realizing that the microphone was too high. Tiny but noticeable chuckles sounded from the audience, which were only greeted by a warm smile from Giles as he adjusted the microphone. He cleared his throat, and began playing. He faced up to the microphone and opened his mouth to sing. A blaring ring echoed from his throat out into the audience. The noise was deafening. She covered her ears, wanting nothing more than for the horrible noise to stop. She looked up in surprise to see that no one was paying attention. Willow, Tara, Xander, and Anya were staring at the stage, no emotion to be seen. She soon realized that the entire crowd was doing the same thing. What was wrong with them? Could they not hear it? Giles continued to emit the blaring ring from his mouth. Buffy covered her ears tighter, and rested her head on the table. The noise was causing her head to pound.
Buffy's eyes snapped open to the sound of her alarm clock going off. She reached over and turned it off. She lifted up slowly, rubbing at her eyes gingerly. Her head was pounding.
God, this feels like the worst hangover ever. In fact, it is.
She laid there, head throbbing as she recollected the crazy events of yesterday, which ended up with her downing a whole bottle of whiskey with Spike, out of all people. She had faced a day of Hell and mummy hands, and had decided to drown all her troubles away. She had puked most of the liquor up last night, but it still left her with a splitting headache. Something was causing all of those weird events to happen to her yesterday, but nobody had the slightest clue what it was. Willow, Tara, and Giles were still doing research. She would have to check with them to see if anything turned up while she was sleep. She checked the clock by her bed to see that it was 2:43 in the afternoon. She let out a deep sigh and slowly got out of bed.
"I'm never drinking again."
"What about this one? This demon specializes in magick." Tara said, pointing to the picture of the demon on the screen.
"No. If a bright orange demon was running around Sunnydale, I think someone would've notice." Willow said, shaking her head.
"But he knows magick. You don't think it's possible he could have, um, made himself invisible?"
"I don't think so, sweetie. It says here that his species is almost extinct. The last one was discovered during the Civil War. But let's keep that option open just in case we run into any neon orange demons in the future." Willow said, smiling.
Tara smiled back, but Willow could tell it was a pained smile. They had both been up all night researching for whatever caused the wacky events last night. Something was after Buffy, causing her to go crazy: fast forwarding time, repeating days, and demons that disappeared out of thin air and everyone else's memories but hers. She felt really bad for her, and was trying everything in her power to help.
Okay, not literally everything in my power. There's still the option of trying a spell.
Willow knew a spell she could use that could help track down what could be causing it, or at least lower the search. She figured anything with the power to be doing those things must have been pulling in enough magickal energy. She knew a spell that could help detect wherever the energy was coming from. The only thing that was stopping her was Tara. Tara had nagged at her time and time again about using spells to get out of everything. Sure, it would have been a hell of a lot easier to do the spell and be done, but that's not what Tara wanted. Tara was really concerned about her. If it meant that much to her, then it must be the right thing. But still, she couldn't help it sometimes. Magick wasn't just a hobby anymore, it was who she was. It made her a valuable part of the group and she didn't want to lose that. But, in order to satisfy her sweetie, she had to do everything the old traditional boring way. And it was getting them all nowhere.
"Hey Buffy!" Tara said, snapping Willow from her thoughts.
She looked up to see Buffy walking into the dining room. She looked like hell. She had been drinking last night after going through that stressful day. She had slept most of the day. Now it looked like she had just gotten up.
"Hey, Buffy. You feeling okay?" Willow asked.
"Ugh, I wish. That's what I get for turning to Jack Daniels for sorrow. I'm doing a little better though, just got a major headache. I took a couple of aspirin, so I should be fine in a few hours. Anyways, any luck on the search?"
Tara was the one to speak up.
"No. We w-were able to find a few possibilities, but there is no way to figure out if it was them or not. Plus, it's still p-possible that it isn't a demon at all. It could be anything."
"Sigh. The best we could do is to keep looking. I'll go over to Giles' place today and brainstorm some more with him. Meanwhile, you girls keep looking."
"Sure thing, Buffy." Willow said, trying her best not to sound annoyed with the search. Buffy left the room, and Willow turned her attention back to the screen.
This is getting nowhere fast.
LOS ANGELES
Angel held his sword up just in time as Carlos' sword came down. Carlos let out a cry of frustration and began swinging his sword back furiously. Angel blocked each one. The loud CLANG could be heard over the sounds of Wesley and Gunn holding their own against a group of Carlos' vampire minions.
Angel found time to come in with an attack. The tip of the blade barely slicing the vampire's abdomen as he came in with a swing. Angel followed up with another swing towards his neck, attempting to end this headache, when Carlos brought his sword up to block the swing. He knocked Angel back, and in one swift move before Angel could register it, brought the sword down in a swinging arc, tripping Angel up and causing him to land on his back on the hard concrete.
Gunn decapitated the next vampire. A hoard of them had come after Angel encountered Carlos. Someone had called the hotel earlier asking specifically for Angel, giving them directions to this warehouse. He and Wesley had tagged along just in case it was a trap. It turned out Carlos was an old acquaintance of Angel. He controlled a group of vampires that stayed holed up in the old warehouse, and apparently he had found out about Angel living in Los Angeles. Whatever Angel did to him in the past, he wasn't too happy about. It wasn't long before about a dozen or so vamps came running out towards them. He and Wesley were busy taking them all out while Angel fought his own battle.
He took a glance over to see Angel take a nasty spill. He was just about to go run over there and help, when a vampire came out of nowhere and grabbed the handle of Gunn's axe. The vampire was a huge, ripped bald guy who kind of resembled a vampire version of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Gunn tried to hold back as the vampire pushed the handle up against his throat, attempting to choke the life out of him. He pushed Gunn up against the wall, glaring hungrily at him and baring his teeth. He started to get dizzy as he felt his air supply dwindling. He tried his best to fight back, but he became less and less strong as he tried desperately to breathe. The vampire's angry glare suddenly turned into a look of surprise until he was reduced to ash. When the ashes cleared, the grim face of Wesley stared back at him.
"You okay?" Wesley asked him.
"Yeah. Son-of-a-bitch thought he had me for a minute. But I aint gonna let no punk ass vamp take me down. I woulda dusted him sooner or later if you hadn't showed up." He replied confidently. Wesley shook his head.
Angel sat up from the ground, but stopped short by the tip of Carlos' sword as it reached his throat.
"This is what it comes down to, Angelus. Over a hundred years of torture over what you did to me. You killed my family, right before my eyes. You forced me to watch as you and your friends mutilated my siblings and drank my parents till they were dry. Then you turned me, made me one of you. Then, just like that, you left me behind. Forced me to clean up your mess and live for eternity suffering for what you had did. Now I finally find you, working with the living. Doing good. Now I…"
"You know what your problem is?" Angel interrupted. "You talk way too much. Do us all a favor and save the long bad guy speech. I mean boo-hoo, I killed your family, do you even care about people dying, regardless of who they are?"
"Hm, no not really…"
"Wouldn't you have killed your family if you met them now?" Angel asked him. Carlos shrugged his shoulders.
"Sure, I'd have my friends over for a drink."
"Don't you like being a vampire?"
"Love it, I'm 124, but ladies say I'm well-preserved." Carlos smirked.
"Then, why do you hate me again?"
"My cousin, Andrea, you killed her and I was gonna marry her. You could've sired her too. Remember her? She was the one with the…" he put his free hand cupped in front of his chest, indicating big breasts.
"Oh yeah," Angel said. "Why did I kill her?"
"My point exactly," Carlos said.
Unexpectedly, Angel grabbed the tip of Carlos' blade, and pushed it up. The hilt of the sword hit Carlos in the lower jaw hard enough to crack it. Carlos dropped the sword and backed away, cradling his broken jaw. Angel leaped up from the ground, snatching the sword that he dropped. He swung the sword just as Carlos looked up. The blade sliced cleanly through his neck, even severing the arm that was holding his broken chin. His head and forearm hit the ground before he dusted. Gunn and Wesley walked up from behind him, apparently worn out from the fight.
"Gotta agree with you, man. The bad guy speech gets a little old." Gunn said.
"Well then, I'm hope I'm not the only one who agrees that we could all use a hot shower and some bandaging from Cordelia right now." Wesley said.
"Not a bad idea, except the bandaging part. I've been through a lot worse. Let's get out of here." Angel said.
Angel kept the sword he had taken from Carlos had and walked towards the exit of the warehouse. Wesley and Gunn were way ahead of him.
---
"Try turning it. Maybe the pipe is just loosened up a bit." Fred said.
Cordelia stood on her knees on the side of the toilet, wrench in hand. Fred was sitting next to her, assisting her. Something was wrong with the toilet in the lobby's bathroom. The water in the bowl was slowly draining out and a stream of water was leaking out of the pipe in the back. The boys were out on an important call so it was up to the girls to fix it.
Cordelia placed the wrench on the pipe and turned. A gush of water sprayed right into her face. She screamed and jumped out of the way. They both screamed and jumped up. They ran back into the lobby. Cordelia was soaked from the belt up.
The front door of the hotel opened and Angel, Gunn, and Wesley came walking in. Fred ran up to greet them with an eager wave, excited to see them. Angel, especially. She had been sprung on Angel since they got back from Pylea. Angel had discovered her there stranded as an outcast living in a cave, hiding from the demons that wanted to capture her and make her their cow – or "slave" as we would call it. Cordelia got off a little easier. They made her queen of their little crappy dimension. It didn't flatter her enough to stay, of course. They ended up escaping the dimension with Fred. She had been stuck there for five years, so it took a lot of adjusting to the real world. She was doing okay, but let's face it, the girl still had issues.
"Everything go okay? We were worried about you for a second." Fred asked. "You could have all been dead or trapped somewhere. Trapped in a deep hole in the middle of nowhere where nobody can hear you except for yourselves. Nothing to eat but the occasional rodent that happens to scamper by everyone once in awhile. Soon forced to eat each other..."
Everybody stared at Fred in silence for a few minutes, eyebrows raised. Angel then looked at Cordelia, the strange look still etched on his face.
"The toilet is broken." She said breathlessly.
"Did you call a plumber?" he asked calmly.
"I was about to but we figured we could do it on our own…" Angel just looked at her, forming a small grin. "What was the call about?" Cordelia asked, determined change the topic.
Angel went to put the two swords away.
"Let's just say that I'm not trying to run into another psychotic Angelus-bent vampire from my past for a very long while."
"Angelus?"
A soft, sweet, familiar voice sounded from the front of the lobby. Everybody turned around in surprise to see who it was coming from.
Drusilla.