Chapter Notes: Small chapter before some action.

Date Written: 22nd Feb 2010

Demon Wars: The Magic Unleashed

--

Chapter 2

Nightstalker watched, from the shadows, as his latest in a long-line of drivers left for her home.

She intrigued him. She was still in Highschool, but had become aware of Vampires, Demons and Magic a year ago.

Now, she worked for the Mayor in secret, believing she was fighting evil. He chuckled darkly, at the thought.

She was fighting evil, for evil. She just didn't know it.

He scowled when a pair of vamps tried to stop her at some traffic lights. She didn't even know he was there, as two of his stakes flew out of his hands, and were embedded in the chests of the two, a good distance from his position. Long-range precision strikes like that, he had mastered years ago, only needing a little magic to maintain accuracy at that distance.

Cordelia Chase drove passed, the vamps hidden from her sight as they turned to dust by their 'broken down' car.

She was, direct. He hadn't expected that. The others were either too shy, too afraid or overly ass-kissing, and usually ended up dead or fired (then dead) because of mistakes on their part, like trying to make his van more homelike for them.

From what she said that day, he knew that she was going to be way different, and not do anything like that for just herself anything and everything she will do would have reason, one he couldn't exactly argue against.

--

Mystique winced, as the pain hit like a brick in a boxers' glove to the head. Starts off soft, but milliseconds later it hurts like hell.

Nightstalker was knelt before him, conversing with his 'master' over.

He really didn't like that part of his contract, serving as the vessel of for Mayor Vader to possess him.

"Another mission?" He asked, as he had never been able to remember anything about any of the possession-conversations.

Nightstalker nodded as he stood, then scowled, "Turn back."

Mystique realised he was still in the form of the Mayor, and quickly shifted to his more comfortable 'default' form, a non-descript brown-haired youth of indeterminate age, exactly as he appeared when he had started messing with magic, all those decades ago. While his current natural form was, well, not even close in appearance to a certain characters' natural form, it was sufficiently odd that he would never be able to go out without changes and not be noticed.

The pair walked out of the small room that served as the communications room in the Warehouse that had become the home of the pair, half of it served as a training ground, while the other half was divided between the garage and 'apartment' the two shared.

Mystique left for the kitchen, and started to make their drinks, while Nightstalker left for the training ground, and started his usual mayhem.

Sipping on his hot drink, he began to smile slightly as the healing potion he had made a permanent part of this drinks' recipe began to kick in.

The sound of an explosion, along with a curse, and he chuckled. It wasn't often, hell it was damn rare, that the boy let himself be distracted enough for his training regime to suffer. When he was distracted though, well, Mystique treasured those moments that he had seen the results. Nothing bad, for Nightstalker anyway.

And hell, he liked the new girl, she had spunk. A thought he dared to hold, and his chuckle turned into a snicker.

--

Cordelia scowled at her phone. It had barely been a week, and this was the fourth mission that he had gotten, and they had this thing against having more than one driver on payroll for him.

She looked up from the phone, as she put it in her pocket, and she focused back on the teacher who had continued droning on, unaware of the various students' in the room chatting away or otherwise engaged.

"Bad breakup?"

She scowled at the one who had spoken, it was that Buffy again.

Honestly, she didn't know why she stayed in school anymore. Either herself or the Slayer.

"No, just some idiot taking too much on himself." She muttered low. Slayer hearing as she knew, Buffy heard it.

"So, you and, um, Jesse, wasn't it? How are you two doing?"

Cordelia rolled her eyes. A few months ago, while fleeing from a group of assassins, she had gotten trapped with the geek in Buffy's basement. She didn't really care greatly for the guy, but she did like him enough to get the kisses when she could. Ever since the previous year, it had been hard to find, never mind keep, a boyfriend from the 'in' crowd. And she wasn't even bothered by that, not since Harmony and the others were killed.

With a sigh, she shrugged and told Buffy, "We split up about three weeks ago. Mutually agreed upon. We just wouldn't work long-term, and neither of us were kidding ourselves about what we felt. Sure I liked him, good kisser, but we just don't feel that way about each other."

"Oh. Three weeks?"

"Yeah, we've not exactly been advertising that we were together, never mind split now."

"Oh."

The bell rang, and the pair went to the library where her watcher, some stuffy git named Price-tag or something, was talking on the phone. "I don't care what the coven said, Rupert. There is not a single sign of... Hold on, Miss Summers and Chase just arrived. I'll call you back, Rupert... No I bloody well won't do that, I told the council and I told the coven, and I'll tell you... Oh. You're glad that I won't? But I thought.... Ah, right. That. Sorry, Rupert. I don't know why I forgot. Yes, I'll remember that. Yes that I will do, but not the other. Tell Madame Trudy that I send my... love."

Cordelia raised an eyebrow at the hostility that the watcher had shown about whoever 'Madame Trudy' was.

As the man put the phone down, she had to ask, "So, English Two, I take it that coven wanted you to do something, and you and English One disagreed?"

The man sighed, "How many times, Miss Chase, It's Wesley, not 'Price-tag', and certainly not 'English Two'."

Buffy snickered, and said, "Hey, It's a good nickname."

"Says the 'Buffster'."

"Now now, Delia Smith, no getting snappy." Buffy retorted.

"Whatever. Can't join you on Research tonight, got an idiot friend taking too much onto himself, and kinda have to help out."

"Same idiot you were helping the last few nights?" Wesley asked, as he opened a book.

Cordelia paused, as she saw that he wasn't asking for any particular reason other than to make conversation and be civil. "Yeah. He's kinda got way too much on his plate."

"And you wanted to help..." He nodded slowly, then spoke, "I guess Miss Summers and I can go a night without your help, then."

"Um, Actually, I kinda wanted to talk about future nights too..."

Buffy looked at her aghast, and asked, "You're pulling out?"

"Sorta. When I can I'll join in, but I gotta say, I'm not that good at research anyway, and I need to start finding ways to payin' my way after Dearest Mom and Dad fled town after what happened last month."

"Well, I had hoped the council would agree to giving you a wage," Wesley began, looking up with a sad look, "But too many of them got it into their heads that Slayers only need enough to pay for a room somewhere and a bit of food. Ever since that Travers took over it's all really gone downhill, their end and none of the support groups various families of previous slayers had started over the years have ever gotten the financial footing anywhere near the level they'd need to continue supporting them."

Buffy asked, "Is Giles still working to change that?"

A nod, and, "The coven I was speaking about? Refused to take direct action. Say they've got something else to be worried about, but aren't telling much."

Cordelia filed that tidbit away, as the conversation continued for another half hour before she left, making her way to the place that wouldn't be home for much longer.

--

An hour later, and she arrived in her uniform at the warehouse, and pulled into the indoor parking space in her car.

She saw Nightstalker waiting impatiently at the van.

"You're late."

"One, I've still got," She looked at her watch, "10 minutes before that deadline you set. And two, the Boss said I gotta keep this job secret, and if that means being as much as half an hour late, then that's fine unless he sends me the message directly."

The boy gazed at her, his outward hostility reduced, and nodded. "Fine." He ground out, "get your stuff into your bunkroom and then get us out of here. Times-wasting."

She sighed, and within minutes, she had her two bags in the Winnebago, and the engine running, waiting for Mystique to finish loading up supplies for the week-long trip.

She had already prepared an excuse to give Wes, and the school, tomorrow morning, if she had time to call it in.

--

Authors Note: I have not played Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. What you see here is either my trying to add in things I only know about the game's plot, bits of scenes I've seen in trailers and/or the bits I've seen when I went onto youtube and watched the various cinematics some users nicely put onto the web because they knew how PC-only gamers were annoyed at the console-only initial release. And no, I have not got the PC version [yet]. Next month, I'm trying to stay down to one new game every two or three months.