Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.
Feedback: Please do.
Challenge: Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you.
Other Requirements:
Keep the running gag of the Rusty character always eating/drinking something.
All characters should be at the jobs they were in the movie (Frank a dealer in a casino, Basher in the middle of another heist, Rusty teaching movie stars how to play poker, Danny/Angel in jail, Livingston working freelance for the FBI, etc.)
Angel's Eleven
A few hours later that night, several hundred miles away from Las Vegas, a van pulled up outside the institute where, according to Spike, the pinch was being kept. Certainly the sign at the entrance- "Cal Tech. HIGH-SECURITY AREA. KEEP OUT."- encouraged the idea that there was something in there that nobody wanted to get out of the facility.
Inside the van, Faith and Gwen manned the front seats (Gwen steering; Faith was better in a rapid getaway situation, while Gwen was the better choice if you wanted to remain inconspicuous while on the road) as Angel, Spike, Oz and Connor huddled in the back. It had quickly been decided that the entire team shouldn't be committed to this mission; Giles and Gunn needed to stay behind to maintain their covers as Zerga and a blackjack dealer respectively, Willow still had some work to do regarding their computer control, and Nabbit… well, he cheerily acknowledged that the physical side of this operation was never going to be a strong point.
Besides, he rather enjoyed watching the various elements of their plan to humiliate Abrams unfold in front of him as he satat the heart of the target's little empire…
As the van pulled up in front of the facility, Spike and Oz were both preparing the equipment for their raid in case the worst-case scenarios took place and the direct route to the 'pinch' proved to be impossible: hooks and a rope for Oz, and a small blowtorch and a drill for Spike.
"You two ready?" Angel said, glancing over at Spike and Oz inquiringly.
They nodded, Spike giving Angel a small grin.
"OK," Angel said, as he looked at the two of them, "We've only got a limited time frame before the alarms go off and we've got security breathing down our necks. Let's go."
The three of them instantly started out the van doors, Connor close behind them, but Angel quickly spun around to look at his son.
"What are you doing?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Coming with you; what'd you think?" Connor said, glaring at his father.
Apparently ignorant of his son's temper, Angel just smiled and shook his head, as though he was telling an eight-year-old Connor that he couldn't go to the park with his friends until he'd done his chores.
"But..." Connor began, visibly fuming, but the van door was then slammed shut in his face, cutting off any future argument on this subject.
Glancing out the van window, Faith watched casually as Angel picked the lock on the door, then he, Oz, and Spike disappeared into the lab's interior, leaving the two Raiden sisters sitting around in the van, with a brooding teenager (Almost a man, but still; eighteen was still a teenager) in the back who evidently wouldn't be in a chatty mood right now…
Aw well, Faith thought to herself, as she glanced over at her sister, might as well get started on the killing-time thing, huh?
"Twenty questions," she said, looking critically at her sister. "I've got someone already; all you have to do is guess who it is."
"Are you a woman?" Gwen asked; as always, she was direct and to the point.
"Yes; nineteen," Faith replied dismissively.
"Are you alive?" Gwen continued.
"Yes; eighteen," Faith said simply.
"Sigourney Weaver," Gwen said, a casual grin on her face as she sat back in the driver's seat.
"Shit!" Faith groaned, thumping her head briefly against the seat before turning to look at Gwen. "Okay, your turn..."
A few minutes later, as Conner slumped against the van door, trying desperately to resist the temptation to just punch through the van's sides in frustraion, the Raiden's conversation had moved on to other topics; for some bizarre reason, they now seemed to have started discussing advanced physics and the string theory of reality, despite the fact that neither of them had more than a high-school education on any topic that didn't involve theft, driving or sex.
"Co-sign squared over .0455," Gwen said casually.
"No," Faith said, sighing in frustration as she looked at her sister. "I think you'll find it's co-sign squared over .0415."
".04-five-five," Gwen retorted.
"One-five," Faith repeated, clenching her seat slightly as though trying to stop herself hitting something; she'd always been the more violent of the two of them.
"You're so wrong," Gwen said, smiling smugly as she leaned back in her seat.
"You don't know your string theory… berk," Faith retorted. Even in a mood like this, she still remembered her basic rule; never swear at her sister. Around her, yes; at her, no.
Personally Connor had never understood it; it wasn't like Gwen was a little girl anymore…
But, on the other hand, maybe it tied into Faith's theory that her sister had been… abused (Connor always hated thinking of someone capable of doing something that horrible to a small child)… in the past. Maybe she always tried not to be too hard on her sister as a result, worried that the wrong word might bring back some kind of memory of the incident if spoken to her directly…
Or, Faith could just be odd that way.
After a spell of silence (Which was greatly appreciated by Connor, naturally), Gwen finally spoke up, ruining his hope of getting through the rest of the wait without wanting to kill somebody.
"Mom told me she loves me more," she said, looking teasingly over at Faith; she had at least moved on to a topic that they could argue coherently on.
"She told me she was going to tell you that," Faith said, shrugging dismissively.
In the back of the truck, Connor groaned and raised his hands to his ears in a vain attempt to block out the sisters' squabbling.
"Stop it," Faith said briefly.
"Make me," Gwen retorted.
"Stop it."
"Make me."
Then they started to wrestle slightly (Punching each other on the shoulder, that sort of thing), and Conner finally snapped; he wasn't going to take this any more.
If 'Dad' wanted me to 'stay at home with the babysitter', he should have just left me at the casino; I've got feelings of my own, you know… he fumed to himself. Opening the van's back door, he jumped lightly out and headed for the laboratory. Unnoticed by the Raidens as they continued to argue, he slipped inside the side door that Angel's team had entered the building by only a few minutes ago and entered the facility…
And, a few feet down and about thirty seconds later, the main door of the laboratory opened, and Angel, Spike, and Oz appeared, the large clear, yellow/green and white form of the 'pinch' on a cart between Angel and Spike, Oz guiding the delicate piece of machinery as they headed for the van.
As soon as they were inside, the pinch loaded in the middle, Angel nodded at the drivers.
"We got it," the former private investigator said briefly. "Let's go."
Nodding, Gwen turned back to face the windscreen. As she and Faith fastened their seatbelts, she floored it and they began to drive away, heading back towards the location of what would soon be the greatest heist in history…
"Wait a minute…" Angel said, holding up a hand, a suddenly anxious expression on his face as he scanned the group sitting around him and noted a significant shortage in terms of numbers. "Where's Connor?"
As Gwen's foot slammed down on the brake, everyone swiftly realized that Angel was correct; his son was conspicuous by his absence.
Angel was just about to ask who saw Connor last, when sirens and alarms blared to life, prompting Angel and Spike to turn behind them and stare out of the back of the van, scanning the compound they'd just left, Angel hoping and praying that he was wrong…
He groaned.
He wasn't wrong.
"There he is…" he sighed, pointing at one of the glass staircases, currently showing Connor scrambling up the steps only a flight or so away from a duo of chasing guards. He wasn't sure which was worse; not knowing where Conner was, or knowing that he was in serious trouble that they could do nothing about…
As the young man ascended out of sight, the group turned their focus to the other side of the building, Spike cursing as they saw two more security guards heading in that direction, evidently intending to cut Connor off and trap him.
"One of us should help him," Gwen put in from the front of the car. Oz simply swore slightly under his breath as he stared at the situation before him; Spike .
Angel was about to say something, but then Spike beat him to it.
"Then there'll be two of us who need saving," he said, looking over at the group leader. Regretting it even as he did it, but knowing he had no choice, Angel simply nodded.
"He knows where we are," he said, hoping that this would be enough for his son to escape unharmed.
I promised Darla I'd protect him…
Then the guards reached the top of the staircase, meeting their counterparts from the other direction, and there was nobody there.
"What the… where'd he go?" Faith asked, staring at the others in confusion.
Glancing over at each other, Angel and Spike could see that the same thought had occurred to both of them; after all, they would have done the same thing back in the old days. Slowly, the two of them turned to look along the building, and then…
CRASH!
A second-story window exploded in front of them, a desk chair flying through it, followed shortly by Connor as the young pickpocket ran down a lower rooftop on the building in question.
Smiling gratefully, Angel spun around to look at the others.
"Alright, back it up, back it up!" he yelled, a broad grin on his face. Gwen rapidly shifted into reverse as Connor ran along the overhang, sending the van shooting back towards the building. As soon as the two of them were close enough, Connor leapt down onto the reversing van…
And then rolled along its roof and down its windshield, hitting the ground in front of them rather than simply grabbing onto the van roof.
"Looks like the kid didn't inherit your athletic ability, Peaches," Spike said, grinning teasingly over at Angel before a harsh look from Gwen, Faith and Oz silenced him.
"C'mon, c'mon..." Angel muttered, glancing nervously at the building as Connor scrambled to his feet and ran towards the back of the van. Even as Gwen began to start the engine again, Angel and Oz had opened the doors and were hauling Connor into the van, one door already shut as the guards ran out of the building and Gwen was forced to start the van…
Causing the second door to slam shut onto Oz's left hand as he reached out to grab the door in question.
"ARGH!" Oz screamed, as the van hurtled away. Clutching his hand, Oz collapsed back against the nearby chair. Spike, the one nearest to the greaseman, quickly leaned over, shutting the door to avoid accidents, before turning to examine Oz's injuries. Angel, meanwhile, just glared at Connor, his anger at his son evident in his expression.
"I say stay in the van, you stay in the van, got it?" he yelled, glaring at Connor angrily. "If you lose focus for one second in this game, someone gets hurt!"
Silently fuming, Connor could only glare at his father. For a moment, Angel thought that Connor wouldn't say anything, then the young man nodded briefly.
"I got it," the young pickpocket said simply, glaring daggers at the man who had helped bring him into the world as they began the long trip back towards Las Vegas.
Well, Angel thought to himself in annoyance, that could have gone better.