Crawford Street mansion, Sunnydale January 20th 1998
Not long after the midnight hour, within Count Orlok's bedroom, the former Billy Fordham was reading 'Dracula' the original novel in bed. The next moment, though, he bolted up and dropped the book. He could sense something very powerful and deadly having manifested itself inside the mansion.
{ So, Spike finally got the Judge rebuilt. } Orlok somehow knew that this wouldn't end well for someone, most likely him. He still had too much humanity remaining within him, after all.
The next day inside the high school library, the Scooby Gang started to make plans on how to defeat the Judge. Everyone gathered around the main table, going over a lot of books and flinging ideas at one another.
"I don't suppose we could just throw a lot of hummus at this thing?" the Oz-bot asked thoughtfully, earning himself quite a few strange looks. "Hmm, I guess not."
The Willow-bot shrugged. "It's too bad we can't just electrocute the bad guy, like we did with that Moloch thing way back when!"
The gang continued to talk and brainstorm, but the only things they could come up with was using Andrew's freeze gun - since they had that weapon on hand - and explosives, which was Cordelia's idea. She'd come up with that because her father had an old saying – 'when in doubt, kill it with fire.'
(It should be noted that it was Xander who came up with the freeze gun idea. Mostly because he wanted to freeze the bad guy, and then simply shatter the body with a super-punch. Obviously, overcoming geek mode was still a work in progress for him.)
At that moment, Jenny Calendar showed up with drinks and donuts for everyone. "Thanks, Ms. C!" Xander said gleefully, before grabbing some and offering them to his girlfriend. "Cor?"
"As if! You think I manage to look this good, by pigging out on junk food?" Cordelia said disdainfully, before grabbing herself a Coke. "And if you're going to be my boyfriend from now on? You need to avoid the carbs as well, mister!"
"Whatever you say, honey," Xander replied with a smile, ignoring Buffy's grossed-out look and Kendra's jealous one. "Not like I wanna disappoint you, either now or in the future..."
DELOS facility, summer of 1999
At Jareth's headquarters, he and Ethan Rayne were playing a Japanese game called Go, killing time while some of the demon's evil plans were maturing.
"How is Feudal Japan World coming along, Jareth?" Ethan asked, as he made his move on the board.
"The robots are almost finished, and the background scenery is coming along quite well, as a matter of fact. We might do a test run for the theme park soon, actually." Jareth took a quick gulp from the rum bottle.
"Well, I hope it goes well for you. Asia is quite the expanding market, after all," Ethan said, suddenly frowning as Jareth made an unexpected countermove.
"That it is. And did you know that recently, a seer proclaimed that an orange cheeto would one day practically declare war on the countries there? The things you humans do," Jareth shook his head, as Ethan made a new move. "Oh, Ethan, really? I thought you could give me a better game than this – another five moves, and victory is mine!"
The British chaos mage saw it too, and threw up his hands in disgust. "It's all your fault, Jareth, you and your damned distracting chatter!"
Elsewhere, January 20th 1998
At the home of a seer that was working for a recently-released ancient god, a vampire with blue hair that matched his blue eyes awaited the arrival of his master. The vampire, who had been a seer in life and still retained his gift in death (kind of like Drusilla) took off his grey robe, revealing what he had on underneath - a green pinstriped suit with a green tie. He waited for the ancient god to arrive. And right on cue, red lightning appeared in the vampire's office.
"My lord Miraak! You have returned at last," the undead seer proclaimed with a deep bow.
The evil god grinned. "Indeed! That fool Jareth took his own sweet time to free me, Alduin..." Miraak sighed heavily. "But never mind. My plan for this world is still coming along quite well! Tell me, Alduin, does Jareth suspect anything at all?" Miraak then took a seat on a leather armchair.
"No, Lord Miraak. He has no idea that you planted the idea in his head, to give the Harris boy powers," Alduin replied with his head bowed.
"Good…" Miraak lit a cigar and started to smoke it. "Excellent..."
National Guard base outside Sunnydale, January 20th 1998
Later that night, the Scooby gang arrived at the nearby army base to get some explosives. Within Oz's van, Giles (with Jenny's help) cast a sleeping spell on the soldiers that were on guard duty outside the building.
"Giles, you and everyone else is on lookout duty - just in case something goes wrong. You two, come with me," Buffy told the group before she, Xander and Cordelia headed towards their objective.
"My parents will kill me, if they find out I'm helping to stealing bombs from the military!" Cordelia sighed in disgust, it was obvious she *hated* the idea of being the backup 'distraction' – in other words, dressed up a cheap prostitute's outfit.
Buffy just rolled her eyes, as she tried not to step on a sleeping soldier's hand. { Like my mom won't do the same to me? Seriously, Cordelia, focus! }
Xander was carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder, and sticking close to his girlfriend. "Don't worry, Cordy, at least not about these guys catching us. They're out like Sleeping Beauty!" he said with a short laugh. He easily ignored Cordelia's eye roll, as the trio made their way to the armory.
Meanwhile, Angel and Kendra were paying Spike, Dru and The Judge a visit… Angel and Kendra snuck in and through the old mansion, silently avoiding Spike's minions along the way so as not to alert the bad guys to their presence.
Back at the National Guard base Xander, Buffy and Cordy found the armory. They started searching for the explosives, with Buffy hissing at her two accomplices, "Don't even THINK about making out while we're here, got it?"
"You really think we're that dumb?" Cordelia shot back in annoyance.
"I wasn't talking to you, so much as I was Xander – teenage guys only have one thing on their minds, remember?" Buffy replied.
"On behalf of my gender, HEY!" Xander said in annoyance.
Back with Giles, Jenny, Willow and Oz in the van, no trouble (so far) had occurred. The Oz-bot looked to be asleep behind the wheel, even if he only had his eyes closed. The Willow-bot was staying in character by doing homework. And Giles and Jenny were on the lookout - technically. Both of them were rather distracted by each other, after all.
Then it started to rain outside. "Bloody marvellous," Giles grunted, as Jenny smirked and placed a hand on his arm.
"I think it's rather romantic – or it would be, under different circumstances," she whispered in his ear. Distracting the Watcher even further!
Meanwhile, within the armory, Buffy sighed in relief. "Finally, found them!" she said, before handing over blocks of C4 explosives to Xander and Cordelia.
Xander put down the duffel bag and unzipped it, before he and Cordy started packing away their treasure. "Let's blow us up a Judge, ladies!" he grinned.
Both Buffy and Cordelia groaned, as the duffel bag began to get filled up. And back at the mansion, after finally being discovered - Angel took on the Judge, while Kendra worked her way behind Drusilla.
For his part, Spike enjoyed the fight. "Bloody git, you'll finally get yours!" he shouted at his grandsire with an evil smile, before Angel hit Spike with powerful side kick that blasted him across the room. "Oy! Son of a -!"
The (still-weak) Judge took a swing at Angel. He dodged the swing and side-kicked the Judge in the chest, much like he'd done with Spike. Immediately, Angel felt like his body was on fire as he howled, "AGGGGHHHHH!"
Kendra was concerned that her temporary ally was in pain, but she didn't let it affect her too much – the truth was, she wanted nothing more than stake this vampire she was stalking. But she knew the group needed the female vampire to act as bait. { I still don't get why the damned creature would save a human's life. But then, I don't need to... }
Kendra took out an ironwood cross that was roughly the size of her hand, something Giles had given her to use to knock out Drusilla with. While everyone was distracted with Angel's howls of pain, she hit Dru on the back of the head with the cross. The vampiress fell unconscious, with a slight burn mark on her hair.
{ Good, that should do it! } Kendra grabbed Dru before she hit the floor and placed the body across her shoulders. Running as fast as she could, Kendra left without Spike noticing - since he was still distracted by Angel. { I hope this works... }
Angel quit screaming in pain once he noticed Kendra gone with Drusilla, in truth he'd recovered earlier but he'd wanted to give the Jamaican Slayer the best chance to abduct their bait. { Now's my chance to distract them and get outta here, } he thought to himself. So Angel grabbed a huge table and then *threw* it at both Spike and the Judge!
The urge to duck was instinctive, and both Spike and the Judge almost lost their footing when they banged against one another. Taking advantage of this and ignoring Spike's cursing, Angel made his escape after leaving a letter for the platinum-haired vampire - which mentioned where Drusilla was going to be held at…
And yes, it had 'trap' written all over it, anyone could see that. But Angel knew Spike, and that was how he knew that William the Bloody would still come anyway to rescue his beloved Dru...
A short while later, at an old run-down house elsewhere in Sunnydale - Count Orlok found some runaways that had been living there for a while. "It's been a long time since I had some blood fresh from the source!" the Bela Lugosi lookalike grinned, flashing his pointy fangs at them!
The kids screamed in fear, even if one of the runaways tried to get past him, but the runaway was instantly grabbed by the neck. Orlok bit down on the young man's throat, draining him dry and then tossing the body away like a rag doll to the side of the living room. The other runaways backed away in fear and horror, as quickly as they could from the soulless vampire.
As if counterpoint how hard the rain was hitting the roof outside, the front door got kicked open - by a monster hunter calling himself Johnny Van Helsing.
Well, this was Sunnydale – and so you had to love the irony!
Back at the National Guard base, Xander, Buffy and Cordelia ran through the rain as they headed for Oz's van – all three of them getting soaked. Once they reached the van, Oz's eyes opened and the side door clanged open, and the trio climbed in with the bag of explosives.
"Did everything go okay?" the Willow-bot asked in concern, as she grabbed the duffel bag from Xander.
"Yeah, no problems – apart from my hair getting ruined!" Cordelia growled.
Xander took off his jacket, turned it inside out and handed it over to his girlfriend in order for Cordelia to use it as a towel. "We good, sweetheart?"
"Yeah," Cordelia smiled and thanked her boyfriend, before putting the makeshift towel to good use.
"Oz. Get us outta here!" Buffy ordered, ignoring her own state of dripping wetness.
"One moment..." Giles said, before he and Jenny undid the sleeping spell. Oz then started the van and took off, just before the sleeping soldiers started to wake up.
Jenny started to look through the duffel bag, examining the stolen C4. "Well done, all of you..."
"Thanks!" Cordelia accepted her teacher's praise with a megawatt smile, casually leaning into her boyfriend's embrace. { Feels kinda nice, actually, to have your efforts acknowledged for once – not to mention the sacrifices I make for the cause... }
Back at the Crawford Street mansion, Spike spotted the note that Angel had left on the floor. He read it, and then angrily tore the note to pieces. "Damn them bloody gits!" Spike grabbed and threw the table that Angel had thrown at him and the Judge. The table shattered after hitting a wall, leaving a huge crack in the side of the house!
Over at the old, run-down house, Johnny Van Helsing and Count Orlok faced off while the runaways quickly vanished through the rear exit of the building. Neither opponent took much notice as the vampire's intended dinner vanished, though of course Orlok had to say something.
"I'll hunt them down after I kill you, monster hunter!" Count Orlok grinned evilly at his adversary.
The former Billy Fordham didn't think much of the newcomer's dress sense - Johnny Van Helsing was dressed all in black, after all. Looking to be in his early 20s, he was wearing a leather duster as a coat, a hat that looked like Indiana Jones', combat boots, a long sleeved shirt, plus a button-up vest and jeans. Van Helsing also had a belt around his waist containing silver bullets for werewolves. Two belts across his chest were shaped like an x, with wooden stakes.
"Shut up, vampire!" Johnny growled at him.
While Count Orlok started to fight the monster hunter, elsewhere the Scooby gang set up the trap for Spike and the Judge, using Drusilla as the bait. It was a quick and dirty set-up, but then they didn't have time for subtlety...
Drusilla was chained up with the cross laying on top of her chest, burning her - she was still unconscious, though, for some reason. As the others kept an eye on her, Xander and Oz buried the 'borrowed' explosives into the ground.
Moments later, everything was set in place. All they had to do was wait for Spike and the Judge to arrive at Sunnydale's miniature golf course...luckily, the place was completely empty at this time of night. Even the lone security guard wasn't dumb enough to stick around, after hearing all the strange noises and what-not!
As they waited, Xander kinda felt bad for Drusilla - after all, she did save his life from that arrow. Of course, he didn't say anything about it; she was still a soulless monster, who had murdered who-knew-how-many innocent people!
When Spike showed up, he wasn't too happy seeing Dru being chained up with a cross on her! "You lot will all pay for this, effing asshoes!" he roared. Ignoring everything else, Spike found some dusty gloves so that he could safely remove the cross. He left the Judge and the minions to go after the Slayers and their friends; he had his sire to save first!
While Spike attempted to rescue Dru, Jenny cast some stunning spells at the vampires while Willow, Oz and Giles dusted the stunned vamps with extreme prejudice. "Okay, then -" the Oz-bot started to say.
But at that moment, the Judge stepped on some of the buried explosives! The blast wave from the C4 sent everyone up into the air - the vampires got dusted, while the Judge took some damage, but not too much.
"You humans will die for this!" The Judge sent Buffy and Kendra to the ground with his fists, cursing the fact that his strength still hadn't returned enough to burn everyone here into ashes. "You – no!" he yelled, as Giles cast a spell to try to slow the Judge down.
At that moment, Spike removed the cross from Drusilla's chest and snapped the chains restraining her into pieces. Spike glared at Angel and roared, "Another time, mate, but trust me - you *will* pay for this!" Then much to everyone's astonishment, he simply took off with Drusilla – abandoning the Judge and his minions, both.
It started to rain again at the miniature golf course, as Jenny helped Giles to attack the enemy. Cordelia fired off a crossbow at the last of the vamps, before it was dusted by Xander. "That's it -"
The Judge, ignoring everything else, walked towards the fallen Slayers – and he said, "I am ready now, you will burn..."
Xander yelled at the Judge, "Hey, Smurf Hulk!" before he threw at a huge rock at the creature's head.
"Who dares-?" the apocalypse demon started to say before the rock hit him hard in the face, sending him flying through the air. By luck and design, the Judge landed directly on the rest of the C4 explosives, and so there was a huge explosion of flame and sound -
The Judge was totally damaged, since (unknown to the others) Giles and Jenny had cast some powerful dark magic on these particular bricks of C4. "This cannot be," the Judge muttered to himself, after he crash-landed onto the ground. "No weapon forged by man can kill me..."
{ That was then and this is now, you ignorant fool, } Jareth thought to himself with an evil smile – he had been watching the whole time from the nearby administration building. { Someone ought to simply put you out of your misery, already! }
The Judge hauled his totally damaged self to his feet, wobbling all the while. "I will end you all, it is my destiny to -"
Having had enough, Xander tackled the Judge to the ground - which was now a big hole in the earth. Ignoring the pain, he took a swing at the Judge's head – and it was torn off, flying away through the air from the rest of the apocalypse demon's body.
"AGGGGHHHHH!" Xander screamed in pain, as the Judge's remains dropped to the ground. Cordelia instantly went to him, demanding to know what was wrong, the concern and panic clear to everyone present.
Fortunately, that was end of the Judge's threat potential… Angel helped the Slayers get to their feet, as Giles ordered everyone apart from Xander and Cordelia to pick up the pieces and keep them separate. Not far away, Jareth disappeared from within the shadows, laughing to himself.
"We have to pick up the pieces? This sucks," Buffy complained, her body still aching from the Judge's attack.
"Just dis once, I hafta agree," Kendra replied, wriggling and stretching her body to try to recover.
"Do I need to take you to the hospital?" Cordelia demanded of her boyfriend, ignoring the Chosen Two completely.
"Nah, honey, I should be fine," Xander shook his head, as he finally managed to get to his feet. "The pain is already starting to disappear."
"Come on, let's get outta here," Jenny said, once all the pieces of the Judge had been collected into separate garbage bags.
"We won't all fit in the van," Oz warned, "especially with extra Judge cargo."
"I can make my own way home. Buffy, see you tomorrow?" Angel asked. The blonde Slayer nodded and kissed him passionately, before the ensouled vampire vanished into the shadows.
"So, who else isn't coming?" the Willow-bot asked, looking around the group.
"Count me out, my house isn't too far away – I can walk from here," Cordelia spoke up.
"Me too, I'm gonna escort her home," Xander said, his arm already wrapped around Cordelia's waist.
"Den dat should be enough for all de rest of us to fit inside de van," Kendra said, totally avoiding looking at Sunnydale High's resident odd couple.
"Right, then let's be off – we, um, we need to make arrangements to, to send these pieces of the Judge out of Sunnydale – a-a-and the sooner the better," Giles proclaimed, and a few moments later, the van and everyone apart from Xander and Cordelia had vanished from the miniature golf course.
"Cordy -" Xander started to say, when a pair of Cordelia-shaped lips crashed onto his and cut off the rest of what he was about to say, her arms wrapping themselves around his neck as the two crazy kids frantically made out at the remains of what had been a popular town attraction.
"Take me home," the brunette told him in no uncertain terms, after the Chase girl finally had to come up for air - oxygen eventually became an issue for everyone, after all. { And if you think you're spending the night anywhere except my bedroom, Xander, you're an even bigger idiot than I thought you were! }
Naturally, this made two of the Powers That Be more than a little angry, later that night...