"So, Mr. Angel, what reason do I have for allowing four monsters into this house of worship?" the priest asked smugly, leaning just inside the doorway of the temple.
"Bloody let us in you stupid bint! The suns gonna rise!"
Angel sighed. Spike was not making their travels very easy. This was the fourth time something like this had happened in the realms. It had been almost two months since they had left Sunnydale and followed the river south. As they traveled they were able to feed on various animals they could catch. Oz had caught up to them two weeks before having caught their scent. It was a little strange, but the boy never seemed scared of the trio of vampires.
"Spiky! Daddy, miss Edith is scared," whined Dru as she tugged on Angel's sleeve. "My Angel, Hot, Hot cakes and cooked dust!"
"That's not going to work," the priest said. She glanced at Oz, who had said nothing.
"Please, we'll die out here if we stay out here another five minutes," Angel pleaded. He jingled a bag of coins. "We can pay if that's what it takes."
"So, you admit to being vampires," the still smug priest said. A half elf, she seemed to lead a small convent of moon worshippers.
"I'm not," Oz said simply. "Werewolf."
"Well, that changes things," The priest said, moving aside. "You, young man, may enter. The others may burn."
"Actually, I was kinda hoping they'd live," Oz said.
"And why is that? And why have they not yet killed you and made you one of their own?" The priest asked, genuinely curious.
"No way I'd sink to drinking werewolf blood! Like drinking rats!"
"I'm not really a bad guy," Angel said, nervously glancing at the brightening horizon. They had usually been able to find caves and the occasional abandoned ruin to hide in (they had actually found some interesting artifacts and items that looked expensive and plenty of coins of various precious metals). Today was different. A flat open grassland where the only structure was this single temple.
"Yeah. He's not evil now," agreed Oz. "He got better."
"Not helping, Oz," said a very nervous Angel through gritted teeth. He constantly glanced at the horizon.
"Hey, you're starting to smoke," commented the werewolf. He turned to the priest again. "He helps me. And they're with him."
"And why is a werewolf such as yourself traveling with three vampires?"
"Safer than traveling alone."
"Bloody well is. Hell! Let us in! The bloody sun is about to bloody rise!"
The priest glanced at them for another long moment. Angel's eyes never left the ever brightening horizon. The smoke was getting stronger off the three of them. "Very well, you may enter the temple, but not the living quarters. We shall discuss this completely in the prayer room."
The three remnants of the order of Aurelius scrambled into the shadows with a furor few could manage. The priest grasped her holy symbol from around her neck, clearly prepared to do what was necessary should she be attacked. The one with the blond hair actually growled at her, but stopped when the woman put a hand on his shoulder.
"No, no, no Spiky," Drusilla said. "Dirty night sun blood."
"What's that Dru? My Love have a vision?"
"I believe what the seer means is that my blood runs with moonfire," the priest said with that same smirk. "Drinking from me, or any of the other maidens would burn you as surely as the sun you tried to escape." Still keeping the smirk, she pulled a cord which retracted the cloth roof over the walk way. The three vampires smoked for an instant before shoving themselves deeper into the shadows.
"Soddin quit it with the bloody attacks!"
"And before you try to kill me, never forget that I hold the power in this Convent," she said simply, with an oh-so-innocent face. "Should anything happen to me there would be drastic results for you three."
"Three? There's four of us here," commented Angel, glancing at Oz who simply shrugged.
"A werewolf who wishes to repent his evil nature has nothing to fear from the Church of Selûne," said the woman with that same smirk.
"Cool," said Oz. But Angel looked indignant.
"But I want to repent too!"
The priest just smirked.
"Hey," Oz said as he realized something. "You're speaking English."
Back in Sunnydale
The friendly demon looked up at the shadow that appeared in the entrance to his crypt, recognizing the figure. He waved and offered a snack.
"Oh, hi," Clem said with a smile. His ever present stash of chicken was next to him. "What brings you to my crypt?" The attacker never said a word, simply pulled out a sword very slowly from its scabbard. "W-why are you pulling out a sword? We're friends right? I mean, we get along, right? I don't eat people or hurt them. I'm just a demon."
The attacker pulled back and struck the floppy skinned demon in the neck. He tried to defend himself, he really did, but after a few strikes the demon was dead in a pool of his own blood. A moment after his head rolled along the crypt floor, the attacker cleaned the sword on their shirt and stalked out after new prey.
Drizzt was confused. That girl was alive. The concept was almost inconceivable. He knew he had saved her, but to meet her again in Sunnydale, so many leagues from where they first met…it was overwhelming to say the least. He had been in a funk for a week and seemed to be hiding from the sun.
"Drizzt, if you're going to stay sulking in that room for much longer, I'm going to have Buffy drag you out by your ankles," Joyce said, glaring at him from the doorway. He looked up at her with sad eyes. He had been sitting in the same position, with his legs pulled up, his arms pulling them to his chest. "Don't think I'm joking. I might even do it myself." When he still didn't respond, the matron of House Summers marched right over and pulled the immature elf out of the room by his ear.
"Ow! Matron Joyce, please!"
"Finally, a reaction," she said with a huff. "Now you are going to walk down those stairs, march right into the bathroom where there is a fresh set of clothes waiting for you. You will bathe and then you will sit at the kitchen table and have breakfast like a civilized individual. Do you understand me?"
A little trickle of fear shot up his spine, prompting him to quickly nod and comply.
"Adolescents, honestly," she said before leaving for work. Buffy was almost easier to deal with.
"Oh, Buffy, I wanted to speak to you," Willow called out. The blond girl turned and brightened. Willow road her bike up to her and hopped off. "So what are you doing here off your work break? I thought you didn't get out until later."
"Hey Willow," Buffy said. "What's up?"
"I wanted to tell you about what's been going on in the mages circles," the redheaded witch said. "There've been more attacks on us lately. Amy got attacked again. She really got hurt this time."
"So what was it, demons? Vamps?" Buffy asked.
"…no, it was Housecraft's people," Willow said. "You should know about this. We talked about it a couple of days ago."
"Sorry, I've just been so stressed out lately," Buffy said.
"Yeah, Angel," Willow said with a certain emphasis. Buffy just gave her a confused look.
"What angel?"
"Oh, right, not talking about him," Willow said with certain understanding. "Cuz, boys suck."
"Yeah, that's why I like men," the Slayer replied, pointedly looking at the butt of a worker passing along the other side of the road. Willow was a little scandalized.
"Buffy! He'll see you!"
"That's half the point!" The blond said with a devilish grin. "Hey, I'll talk to you later."
Without waiting for the redhead to reply, the slayer charged forward and vanished over a cemetery wall. Willow just looked after the girl confused.
"What is with her?"
"So Joyce, how is young Drizzt?" asked the mayor as he opened the door to the carriage that brought him to work each day. Climbing inside she huffed a little.
"I'm not exactly sure, he had some emotional shock last week," Joyce said, sitting down between Nabiki Tendo and Mr. Chase, the economic advisor. "Buffy said it was something to do with a girl he saved, but I've never seen someone act like that when saving a life."
"He must have had a hard life," commented Nabiki knowingly, thinking of her brother-in-law. "A difficult childhood can have long reaching affects."
"You sound like you have some experience in the matter," commented Mr. Chase.
"Let's just say that my sister and her friends were known as the Nerima Wrecking Crew for a reason," she said with a wistful smirk.
"Any hope that he is going to get back to work anytime soon?" asked Mr. Chase to Joyce.
"I hope he does something," Joyce admitted. "Sitting in the dark all the time alone is not good for the psyche."
"I thought his people were subterranean?"
"You know what I mean," Joyce said with a flat look. "Purposeful isolation and lack of proper nutrition is going to hurt him in the long run. He is still a child of his people after all."
"Perhaps he should speak with another elf about the events," suggested the Mayor. "You might want to speak with the Ambassador from the Moonwood about his reaction. As I recall, he was associated with the people Drizzt met."
"I think I might," Joyce said wistfully. Kellindil was a handsome young thing after all.
"We had a truce!" the brachen demon said, holding her hands up above her head. The sword chopped through them like a cleaver through a carrot. Absently, the attacker kicked a demon child's body out of the way and stalked forward. A few strikes later and the demon nest was cleared out. The Attacker turned and left the house, jumping into the sewers and ran off for the next hunt.
"Oh, hey," Kellindil greeted his visitor. "It's good to see you. Joyce said you might be stopping by to talk. I'm really sorry we sprung that on you."
"I thought it was time we talked about the past," his visitor said simply.
"I agree. Wine? I notice you replaced your missing blade. Who was the weapon smith?" The elf turned and poured two glasses of wine and winced as a scimitar stabbed its way through his chest. A moment later, the blade was pulled out again and the Moon elf fell to the floor, clutching his wound.
He looked up at his attacker with a shocked look. "Drizzt…Why?"
The Drow looked down on the faerie elf with distain and absently cleaned the blood off his sword with a white silk napkin. He grinned evilly.
"The look of surprise on your face was priceless," Drizzt said with dark amusement. "I wonder how your cousin is going to feel when I go after her? She is staying in the city with her lover, right? And did that poor, poor Ellifain leave already? I was planning to have so much fun with her. Oh, well, one thing at a time and a chase is much more fun with out all those other distractions."
He spun around and marched out the door, not even bothering to keep the blood from tracking across the floor. A moment later, the dwarven ambassador walked in and then charged over to fallen elf.
"By Moradin's hammer, what happened here?" He grabbed a bunch on napkins and tried to stop the blood coming from the wound. "Agnar! Get a cleric!" Axegrinder heard his personal aid run to get the dwarven cleric stationed with them. "Kellindil, it was the Drow, wasn't it?"
"…it wasn't….," he tried to say, but the dwarf wasn't listening. He heard more people run into the room, some human, some dwarven. He felt so weak. He could barely speak. It wasn't Drizzt. Drizzt would not attack him, not like this. He passed out just before the cleric got to him.
Word had gotten out to the military and a stronger guard was stationed at the visitor's residence, a new building set up to house diplomatic visitors. Innovindil and her lover were considered VIPs and were afforded the most security.
"Ma'am, I regret to inform you, that your cousin, Ambassador Kellindil, was attacked an hour ago," Riley Finn explained to the elf maiden.
"What?! Is he alive?"
"Yes, he is stable, a healer was able to get to him before he died, but he is still unconscious," the Initiative Agent explained. Like most of the Initiative agents, he was still getting used to the idea of magical healing, or magic in general. "He's currently in the hospital being treated for his wounds."
"Who attacked him?"
"The Citadel Adbar ambassador seems to think it was Drizzt Do'Urden," the expression on Agent Finn's face clearly stated the man didn't believe the accusation. "We are investigating all leads. Right now we need you stay inside. Whoever did this might come after you next so we are strengthening your security detail."
"Tarathiel! I have to warn him," The elf maiden ran inside to speak with her lover. She arrived to see tears falling from his eyes as he stared at something out of her vision. Running into the room she saw the heads of their two pegasi nailed to the walls of their room. Written in blood in the elven tongue were the words "Welcome to Sunnydale." Everything was very fresh.
"This is Agent Riley Finn to all forces, the suspect has been here, search the entire building," the man commanded into his radio. "Use deadly force only if necessary, I want this guy alive." He turned to the rest of his team. "Graham, Forest, we're going over to the Summers house." Turning back to the two elves, he gave them a sympathetic look. "Please stay with the agents here. If you feel the need to arm yourselves, please do so now." His radio crackled.
"We found O'Neil, he's been drugged with some kind of dart, he's still alive," the voice on the radio said. "Completely unresponsive though."
"Get him to the hospital and a science team working on the dart," Agent Finn commanded. "Agent Gareth, you have command while I'm gone."
"The Drow use a poison that renders targets unconscious," Tarathiel said to Finn as the agents were leaving.
"Explain everything to Agent Gareth."
"Base, this is team 14, we've got someone headed towards the prison island," the radio reported with a bit of the snap-crackle-pop.
"Major, give us a description," said the Lt. Colonel on duty.
"Yes, sir, black hair, white robes, looks like he's late teens early twenties," the major replied. "The kid's dressed like Gandhi or someone like that. Appears unarmed. He's paddling a canoe over to the island where we keep those demon orcs that survived."
"Acknowledged, Team 14, please intercept him," the officer on duty said. It was the General's day off, so he was in command unless there was an emergency.
"Sir," the radio crackled. "It's Xander Harris."
"Are you sure?" the Lt. Col. asked confused. Xander Harris, who was standing behind the Lt. Col. shrugged.
"It's not me," Xander said simply. He was being trained as the liaison to the military for the Watcher's Council, having acquired some time off from his construction job.
"Team 14, say again?"
"The man is Xander Harris, he waved to us when we called his name," the radio replied.
"Team 14, that is quite impossible, Xander Harris is standing right behind me," the Lt. Col. said into the microphone. "Bring in the man for questioning."
"Willow!" Buffy called out. She was finally on her lunch break from the construction crew. Even though everyone claimed it was going really fast, a building a day wasn't enough for Buffy. It just seemed to go as slow as school. And that was slow.
"Buffy! Are you feeling better?"
"Yeah, I guess, why do you ask?"
"Well, this morning you were acting a little weird," the witch said. "Oh, Tara's joining us again. We were going to go see Amy in the hospital."
"Amy's in the Hospital! Since when?" Buffy was positively scandalized.
"…Buffy, I told you this morning," Willow said hesitantly. "When we were pointedly not talking about Angel?"
Buffy just gave her friend a blank look.
"Willow, we haven't seen each other since yesterday and haven't talked since last night on the phone," Buffy said, clearly confused.
"But this morning, on my run, we talked and you had to go run off…you don't remember any of that," Willow said getting worried as Buffy shook her head in the negative. Willow chewed her lower lip in thought as she shared a long look with Buffy.
"Giles."
Together they ran off towards the secret base under the college.
Agents Finn, Miller and Gates were standing outside the door to the Summers house armed a little heavier than usual. Out of sight a dozen more Initiative agents were surrounding the house. Riley did not believe Drizzt was the assassin, but if he was, it was better to be armed than not. Quietly Graham knocked on the door and there was the sound of a scuffle. Riley nodded to him and the agent opened the door. Unfortunately this was the same instant that Buffy and a naked Drizzt flew through the front window, sending glass and blood everywhere. Buffy was armed with a heavy sword and all Drizzt had to defend himself was a pair of sticks from a broken chair.
Buffy brought the sword down towards Drizzt's head, chopping through the fragile pieces of wood. The dark elf spun out of the way as soon as the wood shattered in his hands. He kicked upwards, hitting Buffy in the abdomen. The force of it surprised her, even if it didn't hurt her. She stepped back a moment and that was all the time he needed. With a tumbling leap, he jumped back inside the house and ran upstairs.
A couple of minutes earlier:
"Mom, I'm home," Buffy called out as she walked in the kitchen door. "Oh, looks like there's breakfast ready. Waffles, waffles for Buffy!"
After scarfing down the cold waffles at Slayer Speed, she opened the fridge and chugged a large pitcher of water. Shutting the refrigerator door, she suddenly noticed a half naked man with black skin and long white hair with a towel wrapped around his waist.
"Oh, Buffy," Drizzt said, "those waffles were for me." He was about to protest more, but his highly honed fighting senses told him to dodge and he did, taking a Slayer strength punch on the ear instead of the nose. "Buffy! What was that for?"
Drizzt was instantly on the defensive, but the Slayer was not giving an inch. The towel was gone almost instantly. "Take this demon, your kind isn't wanted in my house!"
"Buffy, what the hell is wrong with you?!?" He narrowly dodged another punch, this one completely, ducked low and grabbed a stool. One, two, three punches he blocked with his improvised weapon before the stool shattered in his hands, leaving only the legs which he swung like his favored weapons. It was obvious that this Buffy was not playing around. Sliding along the floor, using the fallen towel as a perfect method to glide along the linoleum, he managed to get enough speed. Skidding past the Slayer, he ran into the sitting room. This only gave Buffy enough time to draw her sword. Crashing together, Buffy forced the dark elf backwards one step at a time, finally swinging hard down at him, only to have her blade caught in the cross of the two improvised scimitar substitutes. Instead of pulling back, Buffy stepped into it, using her greater strength to crash them right through the window and into the front lawn next to the Initiative Agents.
Drizzt charged up the stairs, using all of his agility to reach his weapon before Buffy could attack him again. He just barely made it. The scimitar was in his hand, but not out of its sheath, when Buffy attacked again. If he had been encumbered by anything he might not have made it. Blocking her sword swings were much easier with a real sword, but the scabbard was going to be trash after this fight. Realizing the window was right behind him, instead of blocking her strike, he sidestepped, letting the slayer charge right out the window. The frame was shattered by the impact, and Buffy had managed to drag him out with her. Kicking hard, the dark elf surprised the blonde Slayer, but Drizzt didn't wait for the result. Rolling out from under her and running back inside to the upstairs bathroom, he grabbed a handful of Joyce's bath salts and threw them in the attacking Slayer's face. Temporarily blinded, Buffy spun backwards, out of the range. Drizzt snatched up the clothing Joyce had set out for him and ran down the stairs and out the front door. He almost made it.
With a roar of primal rage, Buffy, eyes streaming with tears from the salts he had thrown in her eyes, leapt out the upstairs window and used her momentum to strike. If Drizzt had not been as experience in combat, he never would have survived. Buffy's sword landed first, cutting the blocking scimitar and striking the pavement next to the wary Drow, shattering the pavement in a five foot radius.
Drizzt was getting more than a little scared and ran behind a car across the street. He winced at the sound of the glass shattering as the Slayer landed on the roof of the car. Still buck-naked, holding a sword in one hand and bundle of clothes in the other, Drizzt dodged out of the way, the Slayer's sword cutting the neighbor's garage door in two. Frantically, Drizzt ran back to the Summer's house where the Initiative agents were converging on their location. Weapons up, Drizzt hit the ground as the Agents shot their blasters, hitting the raging Slayer. If it had been anyone but Buffy, she would have been knocked out cold. Instead, Buffy simply ran off, leaping onto a roof and then bouncing from roof to roof until she was out of sight. As soon as the other threat was gone, the weapons turned to point at Drizzt. He dropped the remains if the scimitar and the bundle of clothes.
"I-give-up," Drizzt said, finally remembering to speak in English.