A/N Sorry for the delay with this chapter, it's been a busy couple of weeks. I also had trouble getting into writing this one, since it's mostly just a bridge between more interesting scenes. Still, I didn't want to leave it out, since it's an important step in the William/ Spike evolution. Again though, skipping over Riley and the Scoobies.

The cue ball sent the seven into the pocket with a loud smack. "Nine in the corner," Spike announced, as he walked around the table to set up his next shot.

Buffy leaned against a pillar, holding her pool cue. Frustrated by Spike's lovingly detailed story of his turning, and unaware of the tale of human heartbreak he'd glossed over, she quickly summed things up to try to get him back on track, "So you traded up on the food chain. Then what?"

"No, please. Don't make it sound like something you'd flip past on the Discovery Channel. Becoming a vampire is a profound and powerful experience. I could feel this new strength coursing through me. Getting killed made me feel alive for the very first time." Spike pulled a cigarette out of the pack with his teeth. "I was through living by society's rules. Decided to make a few of my own. Of course, in order to do that", he struck a match on the edge of the pool table and lit his cigarette, pausing to inhale deeply, "I had to get myself a gang."

'Bugger it', Spike thought, 'Slayer doesn't need to know it wasn't exactly my gang…'

Yorkshire, 1880

Angelus—the hulking man, or rather vampire, who had bumped into William on the last night of his life— held the younger vamp against the wall of a mine shaft by his throat, choking the unlife out of him. Watching from behind Angelus were his blonde companion, Darla, and Drusilla, the brunette who'd followed William down the alley to end his human existence and turn him.

In his Irish brogue, Angelus growled out, "Perhaps it's my advancing years that makes me so forgetful, William. Remind me. Why don't we kill you?"

"...ike," he rasped out.

"What's that?" Angelus dropped him to let him talk.

"It's Spike now", he enunciated, stalking past Angelus and their two female companions. "You'd do well to remember it, mate."

Spike's newly adopted Cockney accent and slang grated on Angelus, who replied, "I'm not your mate. And when did you start talking like that?"

Darla glared at Spike. "Look, we barely got out of London alive because of you. Everywhere we go, it's the same story and now…"

Angelus interrupted her, "You've got me and my women hiding in the luxury of a mine shaft, all because William the Bloody likes the attention. This is not a reputation we need."

Spike grabbed a wine bottle and took a long drink from it while Angelus berated him, before responding. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I sully our good name? We're vampires."

"All the more reason to use a certain amount of finesse", Angelus explained quietly.

"Bollocks!" Spike replied, a cocky look on his face. "That stuff's for the frilly cuffs-and-collars crowd. I'll take a good brawl any day."

"And every time you do, we become the hunted." Angelus crossed the room, stopping directly in front of Spike, menacing him with his greater height and mass.

Darla sing-songed to Drusilla, "I think our boys are going to fight."

Wide eyed, Drusilla agreed, "The King of Cups expects a picnic!" She giggled and clapped her hands excitedly, "But this is not his birthday."

Darla paused, giving the insane vampire a sidelong look before responding politely, "Good point..."

"Yeah, you know what I prefer to being hunted?" Spike asked Angelus, before answering himself, "Getting caught."

"That's a brilliant strategy really... pure cunning." Angelus replied patronizingly, gripping Spike's lapels and adjusting the front of his coat in a menacing fashion.

Spike struck Angelus' hands from him, angrily exclaiming, "Sod off!" Then, pointing at the fury growing on Angelus' face, Spike laughed, and played to the vampire's urge to kill. "Come on. When was the last time you unleashed it? All out fight in a mob, back against the wall, nothing but fists and fangs? Don't you ever get tired of fights you know you're going to win?"

Grimly, Angelus replied, "No. A real kill. A good kill. It takes pure artistry. Without that, we're just animals."

"Poofter!" Spike taunted.

Angelus shoved Spike back in response. Spike returned the thrust and pressed forward, looking forward to the fight he had instigated. Angelus grabbed a metal pipe that was lying nearby and broke it over his leg, before hauling Spike up by his shirt and carrying him out into the next room. He threw Spike down onto a pile of debris and stabbed down with the broken pipe, stopping just above his heart, while the two women watched from the next room, excitedly.

Spike smiled widely, thrilled to have provoked Angelus into action. "Now you're gettin' it!"

"You can't keep this up forever." Angelus pulled back and walked away, irritated that he'd allowed Spike to goad him into fighting. "If I can't teach you, maybe someday an angry crowd will. That... or the Slayer." Angelus chuckled quietly at the thought of the brash young vamp's odds in that fight.

Spike sat up, deeply curious about this new threat. "What's a Slayer?"

To be continued...