Title: Five by Five
Summary: Faith's long lost twin sister Hope has come to Rome in search of her sister. When two sisters meet everything seems to brighten but does something supernatural threaten to end this new reunion of sisters? And the question of whether Hope is a Potential is overpowering but will she bow down to the ways of the slayer?
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for Hope.
Author Notes: This chapter is respectfully mentioning the late Pope's death. I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone and please forgive me if you find it offensive.
Chapter 13: Prophecies, Legends and Spells
Hope woke up first. She was curled up and opposite Faith who was in the same position. She lay there for a few seconds before realising that the pain in her head had been replaced with a tingly feeling. She reached up and lifted the bandage off, as she would a sweat band, and reach around to touch where the wound was. All there was, was dried blood now. Thank god for fast healing.
She rolled over so that she could get to the edge of the bed and sit up but she'd overestimated where the edge was and fell onto the floor with a yell and a thump, taking the blanket with her, off the bed, and her twin. This woke Faith who, after a moment of confusion, crawled over to the edge of the bed and peered over it to see Hope struggling to disentangle herself from the blanket she'd dragged off with her when she fell. Then Faith cracked up. She had an insult on the tip of her tongue (It went something like: I guess you don't need me to get you out of bed, hey little sis? You drag yourself onto the floor now.) but was laughing too hard to be able to say it.
Spike ran into the room and, surveying the situation quickly, began to laugh himself. Hope looked up at him from the floor with such a death glare that he stopped, biting his cheek really hard to keep the laughs in. Then, a few seconds later, was practically rolling on the floor shaking with laughter, obviously not being able to hold it in. Then, after ten minutes, he managed to start to stop and was on his last laughs when...
Hope leapt to her feet, having disentangled herself from the blanket, and looked at him with a dangerous expression on her face. Spike's eyes widened.
"Uh oh." Was all he said before Hope started towards him and he turned and sprinted into the other room, Hope hot on his heels.
So that was how the morning was spent until Angel arrived half an hour later. All three of them tearing around the dark, huge hotel room. Hope always in pursuit and the other two laughing and yelling as they ran away from the furious girl.
They finally stopped when Angel arrived and was run into by an extremely fit girl who had managed to sprint for half an hour straight. Hope.
"Hope." Angel said and looked at Hope with a raised eyebrow after she bounced off of his solid figure and just about crashed into the door he just entered through and he stood opposite her. Hope nodded at him, panting only slightly.
"Ace." She replied and then Spike and Faith came tearing into the room, laughing their heads off. They both stopped when they spotted Angel and Faith bent over, panting heavily whilst still laughing between wheezes.
"Damn," Faith wheezed, "I really gotta stop smoking."
"Damn right you bloody well do." Hope said and stepped into their view from behind Angel. Spike smirked at her as everyone, except Faith who was doubled over struggling to breath, noted her choice of words. Course that means that, besides Spike, only Angel noted her choice of words but hey, he's a definite noter. Words or no.
"Tonight we're getting you two back to Buffy and the gang. Okay?" Angel asked and the twins just looked at him and agreed very quietly, it was obvious that they would've preferred to just stay where they were with their two favourite vamps, and people, in the world but that wasn't possible. Angel noted their quietness and knew that they didn't really want to go so he went into logical, moving speech mode.
"Look, I know that you two don't want to go back there. It's understandable. But you have to face your fears, you have to do things you don't want to sometimes. And sometimes things go a lot better when you do. If you go back there then you know that there's a place where you can be safe, a place where you can totally trust the people around you. I can't think of a better ally to have than Buffy."
"Screw allies, I feel safer here with you guys than cramped in that house that's falling apart with the potentials that are dropping like flies." Faith said and got a shocked, or at least vaguely surprised, expression from the two vampires.
"What's that love?" Spike asked and Hope replied.
"Oh, you didn't know? Two slayers died the last time we were both reasonably normal. That was what sent me into this frenzy and into a coma and eventually ended me up in Faith's body." Hope explained with a slightly flip manner that she expected Looks for but didn't get any. The two vampires had immediately become involved in their own thoughts and Faith wasn't exactly the type to go around giving Looks.
"Slayers dying..." Spike started.
"Coinciding with the Pope's death..." Angel continued.
"Bloody hell." Spike finished off as the two vampires looked at each other, truly worried.
"What's bloody hell?" Faith asked and Hope nodded and repeated the question,
"Yeah, what's bloody hell?"
"At the firm we got information that the some of the Pope's blood samples had been stolen from the hospital, not really something that made the press because it seems quite unimportant but if potentials are being killed..." Angel started only to be interrupted by Miss Impatient, Hope herself.
"Okay, still not getting it here." Hope said and Spike took over explaining.
"There's a story, well more of a legend really, that Jesus was attacked by a vampire. But after drinking one single drop of his blood the vampire died. It's a bit like this with drinking the Pope's blood. 'Cept that you have to drain all of him before dying. Drinking a single drop will give you a hall of a stomach ache but. It's the opposite of drinking a slayer. The pope's the holiest person around and the slayer's the most demonic one around."
"Best of both worlds." Hope muttered and Spike agreed.
"Tha's right pet, that's what this whole spell legend is about. There's a legend of this really old spell that all vampires know about. Even though most of us reckon it's a load of absolute rubbish there's a group that believes it."
"What spell?" Faith said, her and Hope getting a bit annoyed with the two vampires with souls who wanted to be 'narrator's and were taking the long way around to get to the point.
"If the pope's blood is mixed with the blood of thirteen slayers and you feed it to a person who has just been drained of most of their blood then they will become a super vampire." Angel continued on with the explanation and Faith interrupted him at the mention of the 'super vampire'.
"You mean like that über vamp we fought in that fight against the First?" Faith asked and Spike shook his head, more in the know at this point than Angel about exactly what she was talking about.
"No, a bloody hell of a lot worse. He'll be like the devil with super powers. A vampire, with ten times the strength of an über-vamp, having control over all other creatures of the night, he can to tear through dimensions, has the powers of the most powerful and evil sorcerer ever known, a necromancer. Worse'n an ascension..." The twins let Spike ramble on in his self important tone before cutting in at this particular moment.
"Okay..." Hope said.
"We get it..." Faith continued.
"No need to rub it in." Hope finished and Spike looked at the two twins and raised his eyebrow at Angel. Angel just shrugged back at him. Hope and Faith had gotten even closer to each other after they'd swapped memories, so much so that it was really getting to be scary.
"So is there any thing that can repel this guy?" Faith asked, "What's his bad?"
"He isn't going to be repelled by crosses or holy water or even hallowed ground." Angel said, a certain tone of apocalypse-ishness in his voice.
"Sunlight?" Hope asked, hoping that sunlight was still on their side.
"Course, super vampire can still burst into flames." Spike said and Hope sighed in relief.
"Thank God." Faith said.
"So He gets all of the thanks but we, the lowly vampires with souls, get nothin' for bein Mr and Mrs Knowledge." Spike asked and Hope moved next to him patted him on the back.
"No, you get no thanks cos you're Mr and Mrs Messenger of Bad News." She explained and put her arm around him before continuing, "Don't worry, we still love you but." That elicited protests from everyone else in the room about exactly how much they 'loved' Spike, Faith moving next to Angel, protesting explicitly, and Hope glared at them before saying.
"Fine. But I still love you." Hope said and Spike looked down at her.
"Really?" He asked and Hope grinned widely.
"Always have, always will." She said and smiled up at him. He grinned and gave her a quick squeeze of a hug.
"Who's the Mrs by the way? Just curious." Hope asked Spike and he grinned widely at Angel who looked at him with one of those dark, piercing, dangerous looks.
"I believe the magnificent poof over there knows the answer to that and that's enough for me." Spike replied smugly, looking at Angel whilst he replied. But instead of 'sinking to Spike's level' Angel chose to be the better man and ignore him and continue to talk about the ominous thought of the super vampire who would probably destroy the world.
"There's a prophecy that with this pope's death that all hell would break loose." Angel said and everyone looked at him. But it wasn't the 'Oh god, you're pissing me off shut up already' look, it was the 'Oh crap, we're in deep shit' look. Then Angel grimaced at the looks and added, "But then who really believes prophecies." Angel then shot Spike a look and Spike grimaced in return.
"Only twelve have been killed." Hope said, looking off into space at a spot on the wall behind Faith and Spike.
"Twelve? Last time I checked it was only..." Faith started and then was cut off by Hope looking at her and knew that in this instance Hope was right. Hope then returned her gaze to looking off into space, looking like she was concentrating really hard. Her arm dropped from Spike to her side and he took his arm off of her shoulder to curb all of his attention towards her with a worried expression on his face.
"He's searching for a thirteenth one right now. He's so close. She's right there. On the curb. She looks around, unsure. He's behind her. He can feel the power. It's so strong. It's emanating from her. You can almost touch it... Oh god, he has a knife. Watch out! No!" Then came a gasp and then a victory dance and what could be thought of a jump for joy coupled with a victorious, "Yes!" That confused all present as Hope went into what could be described as 'spectator' mode.
"I'm guessing the potential is alright." Faith said and the two vampires could only nod and hope. Then Hope began to copy moves, that is punches and blocks and ducks as she danced on the balls of her feet. Then came a big windup and a punch that looked like one of those knockout punches that wins boxing championships.
Then Hope stopped looking off into space and returned to look at the other three people in the room.
"What?"
TBC
You know I'm kinda wondering when this thing is gonna end. Argh! Hehe, nah. I reckon the first chapters maybe all the way to chapter four was introduction and from now on I'm going to try and have more action. Action, action, action. Broken up by some dancing and sisterly bonding. And some tragic, heartbreaking dialogue between Angel and Buffy. But that's later on. I have a feeling there will be a sequel to this. But it's just a feeling so don't get your hopes up. Til next time.
JB
