/Suffer the Children/
Stein groaned as the morning light made its way, somehow, past his eyelids, effectively destroying any and all chances he had of remaining unconscious for any longer. He half suspected that he had chlorophyll in his blood, which could explain why he was so green, but nothing in the comics said anything about that.
Groaning with the effort, which was negligible and more just cause he was a lazy SOB, he sat up and opened his eyes. For a moment he wasn't sure where he was, until he suddenly remembered getting drunk the night before. Finally succeeding after drinking 7 gallons straight of vodka, whiskey, and wine. Unfortunately, he could feel it would be the last time for a while as he could even now feel his monstrous body adapting to the concept of 'Mixed Drinks', giving him a rather . . . unique hangover. Not necessarily painful, but not pleasant to say the least.
Looking around he realized he was in the Park, and it was dawn, probably almost 7 in the morning. He groaned again as he began to (metaphorically) beat himself up for forgetting the boys. He had to get home and get them to school!
Until he remembered suddenly that it was the weekend. Well in that case, they could take care of themselves for a couple more hours.
Looking around, and then down at himself, he saw that he was still in his uniform and it if weren't for the fact that it was stretched tight over his massive body, it probably would have been more wrinkled than a brown paper bag. Grumbling he got to his feet, lost his balance for half a second before catching himself, and then trotted towards home. He took about four steps before he stopped and stood stock still.
From all over the park/things/ were moving, emerging from the shadows and various other hiding places. Some only glanced at him before apparently disregarding him as a threat, but most immediately began scavenging all over the park. From the trash cans to around benches, to the playground and trees. There were almost fifty, he realized after a quick count. Then more and more showed up as he just stood there looking at all of them and he knew it was more than fifty. Way more than fifty.
His mind, no longer focused on the problems of his body adapting so he could never get drunk again, searched for a possible explanation for what he was witnessing, and came up with a report that had crossed his desk earlier in the week. Approximately 66 families had come to the police, at first on an individual basis, but then together, saying that their children had been missing since Halloween.
Missing persons weren't exactly an uncommon thing in Sunnydale, but missing /children/ were another story entirely. Especially since the children in question were between the ages of 2 and 10. Most younger even than Robert and William.
Stein counted one more time, this time making sure not to lose count or miss any of the things he was seeing. Sixty-nine of them. He recalled that a couple of the families were missing two or more children. Children they had claimed had dressed up as monsters for Halloween. As demons.
If what had happened to him, Robert, William, and most of the town had happened to those children . . . Stein cursed under his breath. Well, it would certainly explain why he was seeing almost 70 mini-demons or other monster-types scavenge the park for food and anything else.
Some looked hurt, they were being watched over by the majority of the others, like they'd been in fights with things bigger and more powerful than even they themselves were and if not coming out the losers, certainly not coming out unscathed. They'd probably run into a few of the /real/ demons of Sunnydale, he surmised.
Stein cursed again, this time himself. He couldn't just stand here all day just /looking/ at them. He had to do /something/! He was a police officer after all, and these . . . /kids/ were just as young, if not younger than the two boys that had wormed their way into his heart. Decision made, though really it was just a decision to /do something/, nothing on what that should be, Stein stepped forward and began walking towards one of the . . . one of the missing children.
Unfortunately, as he did, he didn't notice the group of four teenagers entering the park and witnessing the same scene that he'd had.
"Oh my god," Sandra whispered in horror, unable to fully comprehend what they were seeing.
"Anyone else want to doubt what Jonathan told us?" Dexter asked his closest friends with a cold tone, his green eyes not once leaving the scene before them.
"How the hell does he expect us to help these . . ." Lance almost said 'monsters', but changed it at the last second, "...kids?"
"How about we start by finding out why they aren't at their homes and instead are scavenging for food and clothes in the park," Dexter suggested.
"They look kind of skittish, which one of us should . . . you know?" Lindsey asked.
"How about we try talking to the bigger ones, they might be the least skittish of all of them," Sandra suggested.
"Sounds like a good idea," Dexter agreed.
"Hey, how about that one?" Lance pointed. They started forward, towards the demon Lance had pointed out to them.
"Lindsey," Dexter suddenly stopped them, "Priority Command: Authorization Shion-Dex-Alpha-Alpha-13765-Delta-Anime. No matter what happens, as long as we're in the Park and are trying to talk to these . . . Demon-kids/remain/ Lindsey and do not display anything . . . KOS-MOS. Understood?"
"Understood Shion," Lindsey 'automatically' responded. She blinked once and then seemed to return to normal and looked at her boyfriend with a confused look.
"We don't want them spooked, and we want them to trust us, and if you're going KOS-MOS on them anytime one gets too near me with its claws . . ." he left the explanation hang, but they all nodded in understanding.
"Y'know, you can't blame me for being a bit protective," Lindsey whispered to him as they walked onward. Dexter simply gave her a shy, yet confident smile that made her blush.
They approached one of the larger . . . creatures, which was wading through the contents of one of the garbage cans around the park. At first it didn't even register at seeing them, but when Dexter tried to reach out and tap it on the shoulder, just to get it's attention, it jumped away and hissed at him before he could even get close.
Startled by this sudden reaction, the teens all jumped, but Dexter put his hands up and gently insisted to the demon, "Whoa! We're not going to hurt you, I swear. Not like we could either! We just wanted to talk, that's all."
Given how the creature was still shrinking away from them and hissing like some kind of snake that never ran out of breath, (or whatever it is that snakes use to hiss), Dexter began to have second thoughts on his plan. Like maybe letting KOS-MOS or Lance handle the direct dealings with the children or something to the effect where he wouldn't get hurt.
"Do you think they even understand English anymore?" Lindsey asked him.
"Of course!" he exclaimed. "They may have been transformed, but they're still children, and if they ever understood English to begin with, they should still be able to understand us!"
During his rant, the creature seemed to have paused, taking the strangers in with a new light. Finally, in a gravelly, rumbling voice, it asked them, "Who . . . are . . . you?"
They all looked at the demonoid with surprise and a bit of shock. Finally, Dexter got over his shock and answered, "Uh, my name is Dexter, this is Lindsey, Lance, and Sandra. We . . . well, we understand what happened, and we're wondering why you kids aren't at home with your parents."
The beast shook its head. "Not all of us can control the change yet. They kicked the ones that couldn't out, calling them monsters. The rest of us joined them, to help, but . . . look, none of us want to go on living this way! But until we're sure . . . that all of us can go home, none of us are going home."
"That's insane," a strange voice from behind them spoke up.
They all turned, surprised and then shocked as they saw a miniature green mountain, with a fin on top of it's head, standing there, wearing a police uniform and a trench coat.
"Whoa..." the child-turned-demon exclaimed, "You're the Savage Dragon!"
A look of annoyance and frustration crossed the block of green muscle's face, but he just gruffly nodded. "My /name/ is actually Stein. Detective Stein, of the Sunnydale Police Department. And you're telling me that all the kids that have been reported missing and as runaways these past coupla weeks . . . has been all of . . . these . . . ?" he trailed off, looking around the park at the varying number of demonic entities.
"What's your name?" Lindsey gently asked the one in front of them.
"Ch-Chip," he answered hesitantly, then with growing confidence, "Chip Bishop."
"Bishop!" Stein exclaimed. "Geez Louise kid! Do you have /any/ idea how worried sick your mother is!? She's the one that got all the parents with missing kids together! Let me tell you, she's been screaming blood murder at City Hall's doorsteps since the day after Halloween!"
If the teens and cop didn't know any better, and if they understood anything about demon physiology, which they didn't, they might believe he was blushing, not that they could tell.
"Is your brother out here somewhere?" Stein demanded to know.
Chip just nodded, still staring in awe up at the comic book superhero come to life.
"Good God," Stein mumbled as he rubbed his face in the mounting frustration and complication that this situation had brought him to. "OK, we've got to get you kids off the streets, sooner rather than later. Then we've got to call your parents . . ."
"NO!" the demon exclaimed loudly, drawing all the attention in the park right down on the small group.
"You don't understand!" Chip continued before the teens or Stein could interrupt him, "Our parents aren't going to take us in like this! It's too soon! There are still some of us that can't control the Change, and none of us are going back unless all of us are going back!"
"Change? What change?" Sandra asked. "You've mentioned it before, what do you mean by it?"
Chip looked around, seeing all his "friends" gathering in close, and they were more curious than frightened by these people that had found them, so he decided to go ahead and show them. With a grunt of effort and closing his eyes in concentration, the demon-child before them began to shimmer and morph right before their eyes. Moments later, the transformation, or Change, was complete and standing there was an innocent-looking human boy, in some ragged clothes that were both too big and too small for him.
Stein immediately recognized the picture of Chip Bishop that he had pinned to his peg board in his office at the station.
"Fuck me," he cursed as yet another facet of his life went out the window.
"You mean that you can change back and forth between your human form and your costume form?" Dexter, ever the strategist, questioned.
Chip shrugged, "Not all of us, not yet. And unfortunately, we aren't changing back into human form, we just make ourselves look human. I'm . . . I'm still a demon, I just look human, like I did before. And we aren't going back until all of us can do it! If our parents . . . if our parents ever saw us like this," he shimmered and reverted back to his demon form, "they'd disown us, throw us out on the streets, or worse give us to the government for study or something like that. Some of them /did/ throw us out on the streets, screaming that we weren't human and had eaten ourselves. And . . . we don't have anywhere else to go right now."
Stein sighed, making a stupid decision without even bothering to think it over.
"Well, for right now, you do. The YMCA is open and the owner owes me a favor or two. Your four," the green-muscled police officer pointed at the Anime Club, "escort all of these kids to the center, down off of 3rd and Bleaker. You know where it is?"
"Yes sir," Lindsey dutifully replied, her computer mind pulling up the information in a microsecond.
"Fine. I'm going to get some . . . decent food and breakfast for everyone. I'll figure out what to tell the Captain later. Go on, get outta here, I've got some thinking, and shopping to do!" the Savage Dragon growled and then turned to stalk off.
"Was that a superhero?" another of the child-demons asked.
"I do believe it was," Dexter replied with a smile, then turned to Lindsey and the continued on towards the youth center.
"It's early Marco," Rachel growled at the Hispanic genius, "Too early."
"And yet you still seem to find the time to make yourself look beautiful, huh Xena?" he retorted while maneuvering himself around some more debris.
"What's he talking about? She didn't dress as Xena?" Kevin asked Jake as they all worked their way through the remains of the abandoned lot.
"Don't worry about it Kevin, old joke," the former Star Fleet Captain explained.
"It's not that early Rachel," Cassie consoled her friend.
"It's too early for manual labor," came the nasty retort.
Everyone had gotten up early, and it was /everyone/, as all the ones from the other day's "Battle Royale" no matter which side they'd been on, was here to witness the start of something really cool and to help however they could. Marco Sanchez was the leader of this little expedition, and he was carrying with him just a modified tricorder, and an isolinear chip, to which he had downloaded all of the specifications needed for the base that they would build here that he had drawn up the night before.
"OK," Marco announced once he got to more or less the center of the destruction and flat enough ground, with everyone gathered around, "first thing's first, we've got to clear a lot of this debris, just . . . shove it all off to the side! I'll figure out what to do with it later."
Everyone just kind of stared at him for a while, ticking him off just a bit. Seeing this reaction in his friend, Jake stepped forward and shouted so he could be heard, "All right! You heard the man! In matters like this, we do what Marco says, even me! And this may seem like a lot of work for the weekend, but believe me, it'll be worth it! You all remember what we showed you earlier, right?" He referred to the holographic 3-D display of the plans that they'd shown everyone before arriving at the lot.
That seemed to get everyone motivated, but it was still Buffy, the Slayer and with her mutant-boosted Slayer strength that got to work first, everyone else falling in after her. Mostly just tossing boulders about, or throwing the debris into a large pile somewhere.
By early afternoon, a surprising amount of the garbage was cleared up, with the help of multiple super-strong individuals, at least two powerful telekinetics, and Marco and the other Star Fleet kids supervising. Enough that there was now a nicely clear staging area. Utilizing the tricorder, the young genius brought up a hologram of the basic design of the new base.
"OK, as great and fortuitous as this crater is for us, it's still not quite enough," he told the gathered, "We're going to need to do some additional excavating. But, good news is that now that this much is cleared, the rest of us can start getting to work making the walls and floors of this place."
"OK, you, you, you, you and . . . you," Tobias pointed out Willow, Fred, Prime, Captain Marvel and Robert, "start looking for every piece of metal that you can find, no matter how rusted or bent and broken, and bring it over there in a big pile!"
"All right!" Ax shouted, stepping forward with his own shovel, "You all!" he gestured to a massed up group including Tim, Buffy, and Sydney/Iczelion, "Grab what you need and let's get started digging!"
Buffy shrugged and took her shades completely off and away before turning to a caved in portion of the underground cavern and let loose with a constant stream of optic energy, pulverizing and obliterating the rock and debris faster than dynamite could. And in a more controlled form as she continued to walk forward, keeping her gaze steady as she proceeded to 'free up' the tunnel once more. Taking this as an example, those that could, quickly turned their own destructive energies against the rock walls and began to blast with real enthusiasm, enjoying themselves as though it were all some kind of game.
"Hey ice dude," Rachel called out.
Grumbling, Xander walked up and corrected her, "It's Iceman. Blondie."
Arching an eyebrow in impressed curiosity, she ignored the returned slight and gave him her request, "Think you could pop up some ice cold drinks for everybody? This is thirsty work, I'm sure you can imagine."
Scowling in outrage at being reduced once more to the snack gopher, he almost walked right out, after sending a Freeze Ball up the girl's ass, but he stopped when the other girl, Cassie came up to him and calmly explained, "Please Xander. Dehydration is a big concern, especially since we don't know how much energy everyone's using up when they use their powers like this. At the very least we're going to need a steady supply of water, and maybe something else to keep us cool."
"Oh, well, why didn't you just say so," Xander was suddenly all smiles, "Cool, I can do," he said as he transformed to Iceman and then pointed upwards with both hands. Twin ice beams converged about ten meters high and where they did, a giant ice globe began to form, until it was the size of a large building. Xander then shot one of his hands down and constructed ice-supports underneath the shadow of the globe to keep it from crushing them. Moments later, a cold wind seemed to come down off of it, cooling everyone working hard, and rivulets of melt water began pouring down the supports into icy basins that Xander had thoughtfully added.
"Anything else I can do for you ladies?" he asked with a cocky grin.
Now duly impressed, Rachel gave the teen an appraising look. "We'll let you know. For right now, it looks like Jake has a job for you," she pointed behind him. Grinning and giving a two-fingered salute to the young ladies, he turned and went towards the unofficial leader.
"He's kinda cute, huh Rachel?" Cassie teased her friend.
"Shut up! And get back to work!" the blonde beauty ordered. Cassie just laughed at her.
Those not digging, and those not scavenging for metal, and those not of the few still clearing debris, circled around Jake and Marco as the two began to make plans for actually constructing something. By mid-afternoon, the debris had been completely cleared away and a large portion of the excavating had been completed. Working together, Willow and Fred had managed to keep the shack in one piece and set off to it's own side. Jake and Marco had decided to keep the base subterranean, which would mean that the "Abandoned Lot/Junkyard" would still need to be maintained as a cover.
With ¾ of the five square acres cleared, and the ten mile trench going further out, they'd managed to stabilize the pit and discovered a few things. Not the least of which was the source of the smell they'd detected since first coming to the lot. Apparently Fyarl demon feces is rather pungent when piled together and left to fester. They finally resorted to using a combination of Joyce's and Amy's magic, Scott wishing the pile of crap didn't smell so bad, and Joyce teleporting it away where it'll harmlessly finish decomposing.
By the "end" of the day, rather than a war zone aftermath, the pit actually looked like it could eventually be something constructive. Of course the Star Fleet kids still hadn't figured out a way to rework the metal that they'd gathered, and as useful as it was, they would require a great deal many more resources before they could even technically get started on it.
Everyone satisfied with a job well done, and a day of play for those that really got to let loose with their powers for once, they went home just before nightfall, all a great deal more friendly with one another, and the beginnings of the group that, according to the Dungeon Master, would set out to change the world.
/Sunnydale YMCA/
/Evening/
"Holy bejeezez!" the Chief cursed, his eyes wide and his palm grabbing his forehead to forestall the oncoming migraine for as long as possible.
"I was a little bit more colorful in my word choice first time I saw it," Stein commented, "But it'll do. What do you think?"
"Think? What do I think? I'm not sure whether to cuss you out and demote you to cadet, or recommend you for a commendation and the next in line for my job! Do you realize . . ." the Chief trailed off, rubbing the sweat from his face as he turned and lead the Dragon out of the room and into the hallway. "Stein, are those really all of the missing kids?"
"I checked earlier and the teens, the ones that got 'em all here, got all the kids' names. So I ran it against the list at the station and with the exception that there about four more kids here than were reported missing, yeah, this is them. And let me tell you chief, they've got quite a tale to tell."
"No shit!" the Chief cursed, running his fingers through his thinning hair as he paced in front of the door. The Chief of Police was one of the very few humans still in Sunnydale that managed to escape, so to speak, being changed on Halloween, thanks in large part to him deciding to escort his own kids on Halloween and had foregone wearing a costume, instead wearing his old street-beat uniform, buying nothing from the costume shop "Ethan's".
"This could get ugly Stein, I kid you not," the middle-aged man said.
"Ya mean the demon thing Chief?" Stein clarified. He snorted in derision, "Please! After Halloween, y'think anyone in this town doesn't know already, or won't find out soon enough? So we keep the press out of it and contact the families discreetly. Besides, they can change their appearance, look normal. You probably saw some of that in there already! Worst case scenario, we wait until they can all do it. Either way, it's better than letting them stay on the streets, scrounging for food and clothes and a safe place to go to sleep! And away from the /real/ demons that are out there."
"True, you've got a point," the Chief admitted.
"But in the mean time . . ." the green finned mass of muscle lead.
The Chief sighed and rubbed his face one final time. "Until we get them back to their homes, they stay here. I'll take care of the paperwork. You've got it squared away with the director?"
Stein nodded and then gestured to the ceiling, causing his boss to look up and see a blue-furred beast hanging there. "Allow me to introduce Henry Stevens. He's an old friend of mine, and, obviously, knows exactly what these kids . . . and me . . . are going through. He's more than willing to help out, right Hank?"
"Of course David," came a surprisingly normal and even cultured voice from the blue-furred beast as it casually dropped from the ceiling and landed easily on its feet. "I'm more than willing to provide room and board for all of the children. Unfortunately, while I am the sole proprietor of this establishment, I'm far from wealthy enough to enlist unlimited resources in regards to the proper care of over fifty juveniles. And so if the Police Department is willing to provide monetary compensation, or even to, as you might put it, foot the bill on food, I assure you that there will be no unjustified further cause for recourse."
The Chief just stared at the beast for a couple of seconds, blinked heavily, before finally replying with, "Uh . . . OK then. Well, I'll, uh, yeah, go and fill out the paperwork, set up either some kind of loan or make a deal with one of the local restaurants to get the kids fed and stuff, and . . . then we'll see about contacting the parents tomorrow. Right now, well, I don't see any reason why they can't spend the night, right?"
"Of course, not a problem at all," Director Stevens waved the Chief off. Nodding one last time, the Chief of Police scurried off, leaving the two changed-individuals alone in the hallway.
"Thanks again Hank," Stein said, offering his hand in friendship.
The blue-furred man looked at the green-skinned limb for some silent, tense-filled moments before looking back up at the larger creature. "I owed you a couple favors Stein," he almost growled, his voice still cultured and intelligent, but decidedly angry. "And I feel for these kids, I really do. But don't mistake compassion for friendship."
Stein squinted in anger, withdrawing his hand, scowling at the beast. "I wasn't offering friendship, I was saying thank you. And for the last time, I was not in control! Can I help it if the Dragon was some kind of goody-two-shoes idealistic cop? Those men were some of my . . ."
"Don't say friends!" Stevens growled. "None of us were /ever/ friends! We were the god-damned black market! Still would be if half of them hadn't been killed by you and the others! I'm just damned lucky I was late and even more lucky that my wife dressed as Mystique!"
"You know what Hank, forget I said anything!" Stein growled back. "It's for the kids, and none of them deserve this, that much we agree on, right?"
The Director of the Youth Center merely growled out an affirmative, and then turned and stalked off, at the end of the hallway actually jumping back onto the ceiling and crawling off that way. Stein sighed and then turned down the opposite direction and planned to head home. Maybe grab a pizza on the way for him and the boys to eat.
Inside the room that the nearly 70 demon kids had been placed in, which actually was the open-court gymnasium just filled with cots and sleeping bags and 70+ child-sized creatures, Lindsey turned back to Dexter, having conveyed the conversation that had happened just outside in the same manner that KOS-MOS had spied on Grunide and his lackies during Halloween.
"That riddle is suddenly starting to make a whole lot more sense," the Anime-geek-turned-Go-player said.
"What do you mean?" Lance questioned.
"Lindsey," Dexter requested, and after a moment of her eyes flashing red for half a second, she repeated, in Jonathan's voice, the riddle the Dungeon Master had given them the day before.
"Trust comes hard, but help will come harder than anything. The monsters you see will not be the true demons, and the demons you see are not the true monsters. If you need aid, remember that strength /does/ lie in numbers, and friends."
"Help seemed to come easy enough," Sandra commented. "That cop and the YMCA Director were willing to help out."
"That doesn't mean anything," Chip snarled, in his human guise as were as many that could be. "They only helped us cause they're in the same boat, only they aren't demons! They're superheroes!"
"The trust," Dexter interrupted in order to explain, "was the trust of the kids here. We had to do some major convince every step of the way here. And what Stein and Stevens are doing for them . . . well Chip is right, they're doing it more for themselves than to really help anyone else. And the real help needed . . . Stein and the Police department aren't going to be able to provide it. We're going to need serious help, but from people genuinely wanting and willing to give it. Harder than anything is right."
"And the rest?" Lance questioned.
"I think I've got that part figured out," Lindsey said. "The monsters you see will not be the true demons. Stein, Stevens, even the chief of police that was just here. They're acting, and in a couple cases look like real monsters. Selfish, arrogant, evil-worshiping monsters. But they're not the real bad guys. And the demons," she gestured behind them at all of the demon kids, "is a bit self-explanatory, but I've got a really bad feeling that the real and true monsters are yet to come."
"Our parents," one of the other kids said, very said.
"Not all of our parents are bad people, and not all of us were thrown out before," Chip protested to the older teenagers. "But we all made a pact, to not go home until all of us get to go back home. And for that we need to perfect the Change!"
"Yeah Chip, you're absolutely right," Dexter agreed with a smile, patting the kid on the back. Then he turned and shared a look with the other club members, making sure none of the kids could see his face clearly. It was a look of foreboding dread. And they all shared it with him.
/Sunnydale General Hospital/
/Evening/
"You can come in now," the doctor said as he left the hospital room.
Mark almost forced his way in, his friends and girlfriend trailing in after the doctor had left to speak with the Kendall's. The last one in made a point to close the door behind him and then turn the blinds so no one would be looking in.
Mark was beside his sister's hospital bed in an instant. He looked her up and down, her body still heavily bruised, an IV in her arm and a heart monitor hooked up under her flimsy hospital gown. He didn't even need his extra senses, past experience with his sister giving him all he needed to know that she wasn't unconscious.
"All right bimbo-breath, stop faking, I know you're awake," he teased.
Her eyes snapped open, full death-glare aimed right up at him. "Get me out of here," she hissed. "I need to kill her!"
"Yeah well, the best way you're going to accomplish that is with a nuke, and I don't see you as the type that could either get a hold of one, or build one in the basement."
"Shut up! I need to get better, stronger! Gods, if only there were some ambrosia still left in the world! I could become a goddess and tear that shrew apart with my bare hands!" the blonde raged.
"Yeah, and I'd still put my money on Cordelia, the Cordettes, and the X-Slayerettes, not to mention all their other friends," her brother informed her. "Harmony, seriously, you need to stop before you get yourself killed! Cordelia held back and for the simple reason that she's still learning how to control her powers, did she wind up not killing you by accident. You're my sister. I don't want you to be one of the unexplained deaths I'm going to read about in the school newspaper."
"Shut up dweeb! Now either help me get the hell out of here, or just get the hell out!"
"Hold her down," Robin told the other two, who immediately complied, while the young brunette grabbed the blonde by the throat and covered her mouth to muffle the shouts of outrage.
"Shut UP bitch!" the girl hissed into the other's face. "Mark is trying to tell you something important, he's trying to get you to understand something, but you're too fucking blinded by your hatred of a girl that is just too powerful for you to handle. Now you WILL shut up and listen, or I promise you that you're going to be in this hospital for a few /more/ weeks!"
Harmony tried to struggle, but the "Blues Brothers" had the advantage of leverage and more pure muscle strength, and she was starting to feel the effects of Robin choking her already crushed larynx.
Finally she stilled enough that Robin removed her hands, but the boys maintained their hold while Mark looked on from the sidelines. "What the hell do you want?" Harmony asked.
"Mostly to point out common sense sis," he answered. "The Gamesmaster had his shot, and he used his power to make slaves. Buffy, Cordelia, all of them, now it's their turn, and they've started by forming a coalition, unity through difference, all that shit. They might actually have a chance. See Harm, I wasn't always the dweeby little nobody you and everybody else thought I was most of the time. I was just biding my time, waiting for the right opportunity, and the right chance, and the right . . . people."
He walked over to the other side of the bed so she could see him clearer, "Halloween was the right chance, and I've got power, almost more power than I know what to do with. For starters, I'm a daywalker, and not a daywalker version of the pansy-ass minion vamps running all over town, I'm the breed straight from comics, movies and the legends themselves. A Slayer is nothing compared to me. But, as controversial as it sounds, that's in regards to a 'regular' Slayer. Buffy Summers ain't your average run of the mill Slayer, and that was before Halloween."
He walked back to the other side, "Now she's gathering an army of people just as powerful or more around her. So I have to pick the winning side early, otherwise it won't mean anything. Chances are, it's looking that way anyway, that it's going to be Buffy, Cordelia and all of them. And whether or not they're going to win in the long run, until they do, one way or the other, they're going to be a force to be reckoned with."
He went to the end of Harmony's bed and placed his hands on the foot boards, staring right into her eyes with his cold, dead ones. "You're not going to ruin my opportunity Harmony. If you keep going after Cordelia like this, eventually they're going to stop you, or they're going to ask me to help them stop you. Now . . . /if/ I promise to help you get the power you crave so much/if/ I promise you Cordelia Chase's head on a silver platter/if/ I give you what you want the most, will you do what I say, when I say it, no questions asked?"
"Yes!" she answered immediately, without thought.
"You should think about this," he interrupted her, "You should think long and hard about this. Because I might just ask you to leave Cordelia completely alone, or I might even ask you to pretend to be her best friend again. Think you could do that without giving her even a /hint/ that you still want to kill her?"
"I don't want to kill her," Harmony said, surprising them all. She retaliated by jerking her arms up and grabbing Russ and Jamie by their throats. "I want to /destroy/ her!"
"I can help you do that to," Mark promised, "/IF/ you do what I say. Think about it. Oh, and let them go, I haven't turned them yet and they still need to breath."
Harmony sneered, but did as instructed, letting the two teenage boys fall back, gasping for air. "We're done here," Mark announced, taking Robin around the shoulders and leading the way out.
Harmony glared at her retreating brother's back, and so was able to see when Robin turned to flash her a condescending grin, pointed canines right out front and a devilish gleam in the brunette's eye. It certainly gave the socialite-turned-warrior food for thought as the doctor and her parents came in next.
Things were moving too fast and not fast enough, Jonathan thought, coming out of the trance of another vision. Why the never showed the Dungeon Master doing that on the cartoon, he still hadn't figured out, but he guessed it was just Chaos filling in the blanks.
He'd started the steps towards the HSL, the eventual evolution of the tentative alliance formed during the Battle Royale. That which would one day evolve into the very organization that would protect the Earth from wave after wave of oncoming destruction and would wipe out the scourges of the universe, among them, again eventually, the Wraith of the Pegasus Galaxy, Wolfram & Hart, help in defeating the Goa'uld, and even the Ori.
But there were many pit falls along the way, lines, choices, events where things could go horribly wrong, either stopping the League from ever being formed in the first place, or destroying it before it could even do its greatest works. It was a precarious slope, to say the least, and while he certainly wasn't alone in his quest, it was getting more difficult because of the biggest of all of the chasms, the one that posed the greatest threat to the HSL and would one day be their worst enemy, what was already humanity's worst nightmare.
He had to do more, take more steps to circumvent it, or at the least slow it down, if not outright cripple it. Which was difficult enough, given that it was already aware of him and the beginnings of his work. He hadn't done anything to Gamesmaster, but he had gathered the core sooner than they might have without his interference.
Personally he thought that it should have happened sooner, but for whatever reason, the soonest he could get Buffy and her friends, the Slayerettes, or X-Slayerettes as Xander was calling them now, to take notice of the rest of Sunnydale and get them to explain what had happened, thus opening the doorway for what was to come, was two whole weeks after Halloween was over!
Maybe . . . /it/ had already been working against him, but no, he realized. It wasn't that . . .
It had been the Hellmouth, no doubt about it. That or the Mayor had cast a spell a hundred years ago or so to blind the people from the Truth. More so than what they usually would do themselves that is. Either way, people were no longer blind. They couldn't afford to be. Chaos had spoken and they were all changed.
Now it was time to deal with the consequences.
The /Apocalypse/ was coming . . .
TBC...