Title: You're No Mr. Smith
Chapter Title: December 18: Angelus
Author: sentbyfools
Chapter Summary: Angelus finds the Initiative.
A/N: Another rather short chapter, but the next chapter which is the final one for this fic will be much longer. And smut.
Thank you to Brandi Rochon and Abigael Ryan for the reviews!
December 14
It took awhile but Angelus finally found it, the Initiative. He had more connections besides Merl but none that were such great founts of information. Angelus wasn't one for missing people, but he missed Merl. Finding the Initiative would've been done weeks ago if he had him. There was no use in dwelling on it though, and Angelus didn't like to dwell anyway. Brooding wasn't really his thing.
He stood outside the fairly nondescript building, a white concrete structure with only a basic embellishment on the front indicating its ownership ─ Nabitt Tech. The name had surprised him, but not that much. Nabitt was heavy on the assassinations; human experimentation wasn't that much of a stretch.
He stepped down the gravel covered driveway and to the entrance, whistling a jaunty tune as he did so. He opened the glass doors and entered into a brightly lit building. Angelus scanned the room. The atrium was empty save for a guard at the desk, an air vent, and two elevators leading to where he wasn't certain. He'd gotten the location of the building, but he'd been unable to get blueprints. He hadn't let it worry him too much however. He'd taken Gwen, he could take whoever or whatever else they threw at him.
Angelus did expect more security than the simple guard at the desk. For a moment, he thought that maybe he had the wrong building and that his sources had been wrong. He only thought it for a moment though because a second later the guard stood up from his desk. He held a pistol in his hands which were shaking. Fucking amateur.
"I know who you are," the guard said, his voice shaking just as badly as he hands.
"And I don't give a damn who you are. Put down the gun now, and I promise to make your death quick and clean."
The guard shook his head, and Angelus sighed dramatically. "Bad choice."
The gun went off. Angelus avoided the shot easily. The guard was too terrified and too untrained to get off a good shot. That piqued Angelus' suspicions. The kill shouldn't be this easy, not for an organization mutating assassins. He frowned as he approached the guard. The man was still shooting, bullets pinging as they hit and buried themselves in the walls. The man was sweating profusely. Angelus rolled his eyes. He'd gotten too used to people as difficult as his Buffy; quarry like this was just tiresome.
He reached the man and walked behind the desk to stand face to face with him.
"Please don't kill me," the guard cried out. By the cracked sound of his voice, Angelus stared at him, surprised the man managed not to wet his pants.
"If you know me at all, then you know begging just makes me want to kill you more."
With one well placed kick, Angelus snapped the man's neck, the force of the blow sending his victim's head reeling backwards. It was a pity Buffy wasn't there to see it. She would be sure to appreciate his mastery of the technique. Like him, she had an eye for beauty.
He started walking towards the elevators then. They pinged when he was a couple of feet away from then. Angelus waited patiently for whoever was inside them.
The doors opened to reveal seven men in grey military gear. They filed out in a well-trained manner, headed by a single man in black gear. Strapped to their waists were pistols and slung over each of their shoulders was an automatic. They looked like an actual challenge, and Angelus was intrigued.
"Who wants to go first?" Angelus asked at his most cocky, grinning at them like a cat.
The men remained silent, cool and composed, as they watched him. Good, Angelus thought. Killing one pansy was enough for one day. He waited for the men to approach him. Trying to take them all at once would make things too difficult. Angelus was good, and he wasn't stupid. He would let them come to him.
The men could just shoot him, but he knew as soon as they exited the elevator that they wouldn't. Well, at least he thought they wouldn't until they all unstrapped their automatics and aimed them at him.
"Boring," he said. He put his hands in the air in an sign of surrender. If they were going to kill him, he decided, they would have done it already. Obviously, the guns were just to keep him in check. They wanted him for something, and wasn't that why Angelus was there in the first place, to find out what that something else was?
He frowned when he heard a gun cock. A pointless gesture, automatics didn't need to be cocked. Angelus eyes moved from where he was scanning the faceless men who had circled around him, penning him in, back to the leader. He was outfitted in a gun quite different from the others.
Angelus found out why moments later when he was winged in the side. He looked down to see the dart fall to the ground before him. The dart's poison didn't take long to start taking effect. He collapses on one knee, the poison from the dart weakening his muscles.
The leader took slow steps towards him, a smart move. Angelus pulled out the knife from where it was strapped to his belt and aimed it at the man. The poison too some of the force from the blow, but Angelus' aim wasn't as affected. The knife sliced into the man's left thigh and skidded across the floor, echoing in all the but silent room. The man grasped his leg where the blade had cut through fabric and protective gear to tear through the skin beneath.
"Fuck you," the face mask muffling his words. He kicked Angelus with his uninjured leg, but Angelus barely felt it. His whole body was going numb.
The leader lifted his mask, and just as Angelus' vision began to blur, he recognized the man through his haze. Riley Finn, Maggie Walsh's protégée. And the plot thickens, is what Angelus would say if he had any energy to. Throwing the knife had taken everything out of him. Riley signaled his men and when they picked Angelus up from the floor and divested him of the weapons they could find with a cursory search, he didn't protest; he couldn't.
Angelus didn't know where they were leading him, but he would find out soon enough. The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside.
December 25
Angelus stepped out of the elevator without a glance behind him to the carnage of torn throats and limbs. There was still shooting going on downstairs, and the infrequency of the sound told him he would soon be joined by people he wasn't too keen on meeting.
His eyes hurt in the too bright room, and he shielded them with the palm of his hand. That wouldn't help at all for leaving the building. The sun was high in the sky.
He thought a moment about staying until sunset, but then he looked behind him and saw the bloody mess he'd made and changed his mind. He'd fed a lot today, but it wasn't enough.
He needed to hunt as soon as possible, and he couldn't afford to wait until sunset. Angelus sighed and exited the building. He ran over to the car with his head down. He used a pick he'd left on the ground by his car to jimmy open the lock. Nothing seemed to have changed inside of it, but Angelus did a quick look through anyway, checking for bombs and bugs and making sure the engine hadn't been messed with. When he had the all clear, he got comfortable in his seat and started the car.
As he peeled away down the gravel driveway, he watched as a blood covered woman exited the facility. She looked at him a moment before running off in the opposite direction, moving at a supernatural speed.
Angelus looked down at himself. He was covered in just as much blood as her and looking in the rearview mirror, he realized his face was covered in blood. He wiped a hand across it, smearing blood on his hand which he licked. Delicious.
He really needed to feed and fast. And then find Buffy.
December 27
A knock sounds at her door and Buffy tenses. It takes a moment for her to relax. She picked up the gun from where it was lying on the couch beside her and adjusted the knife on her belt for quick access.
"Who is it?" she called out.
"Buff, open the door."
It was Angelus' voice. How had he found her so quickly?
She considered not opening it, but he would probably break it down. She hadn't spent such a long time renovating this house to have Angelus destroy it. He probably would end up doing it anyway. He was destructive like that.
"Buffy," he said again, his voice a pathetic whine.
"Okay, okay, just stop," Buffy said unlatching the many locks she had on her door.
"What are you trying to make this a fortress?" Angelus asked when she finally opened the door.
"I -" she started to say and closes her mouth. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Staying outside like this was already starting to get to her. "Would you like to come in?"
"I would love to, lover."
Buffy stepped to the side, and let him inside.