Spike and Dru Part 2

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter. To clarify: Dru bit and drained Spike, but was unable to teach him to be a vampire. Angelus did that. As a result, Angel and Spike consider each other Sire and Childe.

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September 29

Spike hustled it back to the warehouse, worried that the Slayer had found the place. He breathed a mental sigh of relief when he found Dru right where he'd put her, unharmed.

This, he reflected, was going to be a hell of a challenge. He'd have to account not only for the Slayer's skills, but that of her cohort. Which meant figuring out how in the name of hell they'd heard him. He'd been entirely too far away for a Slayer to hear him ... he'd made damn sure of that. He supposed the tow-headed teen might be part-demon. There were quite a few who could interbreed with humans, and demons generally had much better senses than even a Slayer did.

That answer, however, opened up an entirely new can of questions. As did his sire's presence in the hunting party. What in the name of hell was a Slayer doing trusting a demon ... any demon ... at her back? Much less his wanker of a sire. The long and the short of it was that Spike needed information before he tried anything.

Time to arrange for some intensive scouting. But this time, he was going to make a minion do it. If Angel had warned them about him, they'd be expecting him to do his own scouting, and having someone else do it would throw them off the scent.

Were Spike any other vampire, that would have meant sending a minion to stalk the Slayer barehanded. But Spike, unlike most vampires, did not underestimate or harbor total disdain for humans. He was well aware that there were pure humans who could hold off or even dust a vampire without massive amounts of trouble. And not all of those humans were in the military. Humans, he knew, were clever blighters who compensated for their lack of strength, natural armor and weapons with an clever, inventive streak that allowed them to build technology and fighting techniques that evened the odds considerably.

And unlike the vast majority of vampires, Spike had made a point of learning to operate the technology that humans invented during his unlife. Vampires had an unfortunate tendency to stick to the fashions and technology of the era they were turned in. It tended to make them stick out like sore thumbs within a few years. Spike, on the other hand, had adapted with the times. It had contributed greatly to his continued survival, because he didn't stick out quite as obviously.

Spike reassured himself one last time that Dru was all right and settled, then headed out to the nearest electronics store. He needed a camcorder, tape, and some batteries. And a young, newly turned geek minion that would know how to work the thing.

Luck was with him. Obtaining the equipment he needed was painfully easy, of course, but he ran into a small knot of minions after he'd left, one of whom was the sort of pimply-faced teenager he associated with being a tech geek of some stripe. And they'd been turned very recently ... within the last six months or so, if he was any judge.

Like most of the minions he'd run into, the kid had the reek of the Aurelius clan on him, though Spike could tell he hadn't been turned by any of the clan Masters, but by a fellow Aurelius minion. It'd been as easy as draining a baby to get the minion to do what he wanted. If the minion survived stalking the Slayer the rest of the night, he'd consider learning, nevermind remembering, the kid's name. Until then, Spike headed back to the warehouse, snagging a couple of unwary town residents for his and Dru's dinner as he went. Provided she would eat. It had been surprisingly difficult to get her to do so since she'd fallen ill.

BTVSBTVSBTVS

Angel's intentions to hunt Spike down, kick his ass and throw him out of town were completely thwarted. Mostly because he was operating with very out of date information on how Spike did things. The last time he'd spent more than a day in Spike's company had been back in the forties, after all.

But Angel had made a mistake common to most vampires, in that he assumed that Spike hadn't really changed much. Most vampires didn't, after all. Even he hadn't, despite the soul. It was as well he didn't find Spike, as Angel hadn't done much fighting in the last hundred years. A confrontation between himself and Spike would not have gone the way Angel assumed it would.

The (temporarily) nameless minion did as Spike had bid him and filmed the Scooby crew patrolling for about an hour before they returned to the Summers house. Having been warned by Spike to keep his distance and silence, the minion managed to survive tracking them, and found his way to the warehouse Spike had appropriated for himself and Dru.

Spike watched the hour of tape, and didn't see any massive changes in how the group had handled things when he'd been watching. Somewhat reluctantly, he admitted, if only to himself, that the pathetic wankers following the so-called Anointed One might have had the right idea, waiting for St. Vigeous to do anything. At the very least, it'd give him a couple days of watching the group to figure out a plan.

September 30

There was more than a small amount of anticipation as Buffy, Jon, Willow, and Xander got ready for school that morning. The grimly determined look on Joyce's face, and the knowledge she was going to pin Snyder to the floor was probably responsible for that. Ok, not probably. Definitely.

Joyce drove them to school that morning, and headed straight for Snyder's office. The four teens followed her at a slight distance, trying to look like they weren't following her and mostly failing at it. They did, however, time their arrival such that the door to Snyder's office had closed, with him and Joyce on the other side, allowing the four teens to eavesdrop without being too blatantly obvious about it.

"Principal Snyder." Joyce said, sounding calm and at ease. "You and I have some things we need to discuss."

"You're moving, and taking that menace of yours with you?" Snyder asked.

Joyce gave the balding man a smile that was more teeth and aggression than anything else. "Quite the contrary, Principle Snyder. I am here to inform you that you will cease and desist all attempts at bullying my daughter, or trying to expel her for specious reasons. If you do not, I will be reporting you directly to the California Board of Education, and ensuring that you are not only fired from your post here, but are unable to find employ anywhere in the United States as an educator of any description."

She leaned over the desk a little, tapping its surface with one fingernail. "Do not test me, Principal Snyder. You will not like the outcome. And lest you think you have free reign to turn your odious attentions to my daughter's friends, I remind you that Willow's parents are respected child psychologists, and Xander's father is a well-respected ex-Army Ranger and current police officer. Between us, we can make your life ... very difficult."

Even if Willow's parents were liable to not get in on the fun, as they mostly seemed to ignore her, which annoyed Joyce to no end. Jim, at least, would stomp a mudhole in this idiot for messing with Xander. And Jon ... well, he didn't precisely have parents, but Joyce sincerely pitied anyone that drew the attention of Jack O'Neill and his friends, from what she'd heard of them.

Joyce didn't give Snyder a chance to respond. She simply turned and walked out of his office, only to laugh when she nearly ran down the four teens in her charge.

"All right, you lot. Class will begin shortly. You need to get a move on." She pointed out.

The four teens grinned shamelessly at her before they scattered to get to their first classes of the day, snickering just audibly as they went. Joyce shook her head in amusement and headed for her car.

BTVSBTVSBTVS

That evening, the gang got together just after dusk as had become their norm.

"Any luck finding Spike?" Xander asked Angel.

"Unfortunately, no." Angel sighed. "He's probably actively trying to hide from me, which will complicate me finding him."

"Well, I was able to find a bit more information on him in the Watcher's diaries." Giles spoke up. "Since you don't know what he's been up to for the most part." He glanced at the four teens. "We must be exceedingly cautious of Spike. He is ... quite dangerous."

"Yeah, Deadboy said that last night." Jon said. "But dangerous how?"

"He ... seems to be rather unusual, as vampires go. Vampires, for the most part, do not change much over time. They stick with technology, fashions, and the like from the general time when they were turned, give or take a decade or so. Spike is ... far more adaptable than the norm for a vampire. He has been seen using technology that simply didn't exist when he was turned with ease, has changed the style of clothes he wears several times, though he does seem to have settled on his current look roughly twenty or so years ago and not changed it much since. He is very accomplished when it comes to psychological warfare and torture, as I found several mentions of him, I believe the popular phrase now is 'psyching out' an opponent." Giles said. "And other mentions of him forcing information out of beings in various ways via torture. In fact, the only thing that seems to be consistent with him is the fact that when he tortures someone, he kills them by driving railroad spikes through their eyes and into their brains, which is evidently where he got his name from."

That made all four of them grimace and/or flinch. "So clever, capable, and ruthless as hell." Jon summarized. "Otherwise known as 'dust on sight'. Gotcha."

He made a mental note to work some more on the crossbow so that he would be able to shoot the fucker, rather than having to pass the shot off to Buffy. Loading and firing a crossbow was different enough from loading and firing even a sniper rifle that Jon was having to learn to wield a crossbow from scratch. Too bad they didn't have the time or facilities to come up with a workable wooden bullet. Maybe he'd ask Sam to come up with something. Just to drive her nuts. Or, more nuts, since the whole 'magic and demons exist' thing had to be driving her up the wall already. He was frankly shocked that she wasn't pestering holy hell out of Giles for information.

They headed out soon thereafter. Angel split off early to try to find Spike again. There wasn't all that much to do, either. It seemed like the vampire and demon population was only beginning to build back up. Jon was rather grateful for that, as it was allowing them to ease into the whole patrolling and fighting as a group thing. It did make him a bit twitchy, though, as experience had taught him that the longer things were quiet, the bigger the problem would be when the quiet was finally broken.

They were unaware that they were being followed and filmed. The minion Spike had given the assignment to managed to keep so close to totally silent that what little noise he did make got lost in the background shuffle, even to Jon's sensitive ears.

October 2

Angel didn't find Spike Tuesday or Wednesday night, and the Scoobies were unaware of being filmed both nights.

Thanks to those two nights' recordings, Spike had come to some uncomfortable conclusions. First, and most important ... this was a group that even he would hesitate to tackle. The redhead (Willow, Spike had learned her name was, through the videos) was their weakest link, but as he'd noticed that first night, she was closely guarded, never left alone for even a minute, so physically attacking her wouldn't be easy. Nor would attacking any of the group that wasn't the Slayer be easy. They were smart enough to never go anywhere alone at night, to always have at least one other person to watch their back. Even the Slayer never went anywhere alone.

And while some brand of psychological warfare might be successful, that was going to be a long-term process, as he would have to figure out where their weak spots were, where the cracks in their group armor were located. Not impossible, as every group had some sort of weak point that could be used against them, in Spike's experience, but not exactly something he could accomplish by the end of the week, either.

They honestly baffled the hell out of Spike because this was not how Slayers operated. Slayers went out alone. They normally didn't even have their Watcher anywhere close by enough to act as backup, nevermind having their Watcher and three other teens patrolling with them.

Despite his confusion, Spike was actually looking forward to the challenge of taking that lot on. If he succeeded with this bunch, his reputation would be made forever. Forget St. Vigeous. A couple centuries from now, vampires would be praying to St. Spike. Only Spike planned to still be alive.

It was the sort of future that Spike could get behind. He'd finally be forever out from under Angelus' shadow. But first thing first. If he was going to be here a while, to wage war against the Slayer, he needed to take control of what was left of the Aurelius Clan vampires. And that meant killing the Anointed One. Not that that was going to be particularly difficult.

Spike's biggest challenge would actually be dealing with Angel. He was going to have to let the wanker find him, preferably after he'd dealt with the Anointed One, and beat Angel into the ground in order to cement his position at the top of the Aurelius pecking order, despite Angel being older, his official grandsire and unofficial sire to boot.

Dru, thank goodness, seemed to have calmed down somewhat since their arrival on the Hellmouth. She was still weak and sick, but she wasn't raving and flailing anymore, and therefore wasn't wasting energy she needed to get better.

Knowing that the Anointed One's court would be in the warehouse the wanker had chosen for his lair, since it was after dawn, Spike slipped into the underground tunnels and headed for the other vampire's lair. Best to do this with as much of an audience as possible.

It was early enough that none of the minions had gone to sleep for the day yet when Spike pulled himself out of the tunnels. He shook his head at their pathetic security, since no one had even been posted to watch the tunnel entrance. The Anointed One was practically begging to get dusted, really. Pathetic.

Spike, much to his disgust, was able to make his way to the rafters unseen. He'd considered his options for making his entrance, and had decided that, despite it being a repeat of his first entrance here, dropping down on them from above was the more impressive way to go. And the bigger the impression he made, the better.

There were roughly two dozen vampires milling about in the warehouse, several of them still damp with dirt they were so newly turned. Spike shook his head in disgust before he dropped down, landing neatly on his feet despite the twenty-foot drop.

"Well now, we meet again." Spike taunted. "Y'really need to do better with your security mate. I walked in here bold as brass and none of this lot even knew I was here."

He waved a contemptuous hand at the gathered minions, but otherwise completely ignored them. All his attention was on the Anointed One. Which was just as well, as Spike saw the flicker of eye movement from the little wanker, and was able to turn slightly, grab the minion trying to bull-rush him from behind, and literally rip its head off, scattering dust everywhere.

"Now, that wasn't nice. Making minions jump a Master Vampire." Spike scolded, prowling closer to the Anointed One.

Either the Anointed One was arrogant beyond belief or had something up his sleeve, because the little wanker let Spike prowl right up to him. The Anointed One just sort of stared at Spike, like that was supposed to intimidate Spike or force him to behave or ... well, Spike wasn't sure what the idiot thought that look would do, really.

"You will ... " The Anointed One started to say, finally.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn't going to get to finish whatever he planned on saying, because Spike, annoyed and disgusted, grabbed the little wanker by the throat and hoisted him out of his chair.

"Time for new leadership, mate." He sneered, and then, with the same contemptuous ease he'd used on the minion a moment or two ago, ripped the Anointed One's head off, letting the resultant dust scatter on the ground.

As expected, a few of the minions did not take their leaders' death all that well. Three of them jumped at Spike more or less at the same time, but they weren't used to working together and got in each other's way far more than they helped each other deal with Spike. Not that a triad of minions had a prayer against him. Spike had all three dusted within thirty seconds, barely having to move at all in order to get the job done, and had only taken one rather ineffectual punch in the process. He stared at the remaining minions.

"Anyone else wanna object to the change in leadership around here?" He asked. None of the remaining minions moved. "Thought not. Now, let's move. Ain't staying in this place. Through the tunnel with the lot of you."

He sincerely doubted that the vast majority of the minions would still be in existence in two day's time. They mostly seemed to be useless deadweight, which Spike refused to tolerate. Odds were good he'd end up dusting most of these idiots out of sheer frustration, and then have to turn a few folks that had some worth as minions.

Still, Step One of his plan had gone off without a hitch. Step Two, confronting and beating Angel, that was going to be trickier. But Spike had every confidence he could beat Angel into submission. He was actually looking forward to it. The wanker deserved it, after all.