Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Five

Man-Made Hellmouth

A/N okay, this is like some crazy Minecraft situation, it wasn't supposed to be that weird.

Watcher's Council HQ: California Department, San Francisco, the world without shrimp - September 2006

Dawn stood with her arms folded and an extremely put out look on her face. Leo was standing beside her, equally scowling, trying to argue with Helen. The woman in question was standing in front of them, dressed in a red pantsuit, hair piled on top of her head and a ferocious look on her face. She was an unsympathetic woman, tough and ruthless almost to a fault. Leo had known her since he was a small child, and she was not to be messed with. He'd warned Dawn of that, but she'd been in the Council for a year now, she'd personally been battling the forces of darkness since she was fourteen, the sister of a slayer. Dawn wasn't to be messed with either.

The two women stared each other down, until Helen finally broke. "All I'm asking is that you go and see what the fuss is about. If it's nothing you and Mr Silvera can come back as soon as possible, it's not a life or death mission Dawn." It grated her when she used her first name. Dawn sucked her teeth and looked back at Leo, who had a 'I surrender' look on his face.

She folded her arms passive aggressively, "fine. We'll go to Vegas, check out this thing, see if it's legit. But just read my notes please, I can do so much more than this recon. I grew up on a Hellmouth, you know." She said, picking up her backpack and running her hand down Leo's arm, dragging him somewhat out of the room.

"I know." Helen said after Dawn, rolling her eyes and looking down. Then, "Leo." He felt her mentally pulling him back, she was like a second mother to him, he couldn't just ignore her. So Leo told Dawn he'd be out in the minute and to wait for him. Then he turned back re-entering the room and not meeting Helen's piercing gaze. He wanted to apologise for Dawn, but he couldn't do it. She held her own, she'd curse him if he did. "Look hun, I know things have been tough with your mum gone at the moment, but can you tell her to tone it down a bit. I've been trying to go easy on you." Helen said, tugging on his arm lightly, smiling down at him from her great heeled height of five feet seven.

"Noted." Leo replied, not looking up and instead leaving Helen standing in the middle of the briefing room to catch up with Dawn.

Las Vegas, the world without shrimp - September 2006

They were stood over a very giant, very angry hole in the ground. Dawn had her hands on her hips and Leo was rifling through his bag to find the camera they'd given him before dispatch. There was an almost lava-like substance oozing from the hole. Dawn thought the whole thing was spectacularly underwhelming. "Is this it?" She said, looking back at Leo. She knew it was going to go like this. She knew Helen was sending them here just to look at some non-thing and that she'd never fully trust her.

Leo took a photo of the hole and then put his hand on Dawn's shoulder. "I know it isn't much, but look there's got to be something demony in there otherwise what's the deal with all this lava?" Dawn shrugged and bent down over the pit. There was something, something glowing. Deep inside it, something small and yellow and glowing.

"What's that?" Dawn pointed and Leo took another photo. "Looks like a Dagon Sphere, but it can't be there was only one and it's long gone." Leo looked at her with a puzzling wiggle in his eyebrows. "It was a small glowy orb thing, good at getting rid of evil hell goddesses. But this thing looks bigger, you got any ideas?"

Leo made his thinking face. The one that made his jaw square off and lips pull into a quirked smile. "Could be anything, could be a Goroth demon, they glow, or a Kelkor. Could even be a torch, uh flashlight." Leo looked a little harder and then looked back through the various photos. Zooming in as far as he could, they both peered over the small camera screen and squinted to try and get an idea of what they were looking at. There in the middle was the glowing thing, not moving of it's own accord, so Leo assumed it wasn't alive. There were specks on the glowing thing, like flecks of paint, where the glowing wasn't so strong.

"What do we do?" Dawn asked, "this thing is just going to get bigger, and we can't just leave it here. As much as I hate to admit, Helen was right, we need to figure out what this thing is and get rid of it." She spoke with confidence, like this was just a Scooby meeting and this was one their Tuesday night monsters. Being a watcher was this new territory that made her nervous and excited. But that wasn't the cause of the chills running over her. It was like her energy was spiking, Tara would say the vibes were off. Tara. Vibes. Tara would be able to help with this. "Hang on, just let me make a quick call."

It was preliminary of course, she didn't know if they were actually going to need any witch powers to help with this, but it was good to be prepared. Dawn took another look at the hole. Whatever it was, it was beginning to froth and boil over and they really needed to put up some warning signs and get out of there.

"How do you think it got there? And what is it?" Dawn was pondering, asking Leo all sorts of odd questions and just generally pacing around the room. They were put up in hotel room, curtesy of the Council, and Dawn was wearing holes into the carpet.

"I've never seen anything like it." Leo replied, rubbing his forehead and rifling through several books he'd brought with him - just as a precaution. He believed Helen when she said this thing might be something to worry about. And now he could the results of Dawn's impulsive judging all over her face. She was starting to panic. She wasn't sure if they were going to be able to handle this. He took a step forward and took her hand. She stopped pacing and looked at him, "it's going to be okay. Whatever happens, you've called Tara. And Helen wouldn't have sent us here if she didn't think we could handle it."

Dawn stopped chewing her lip and examined the sprig of hair falling across his face. She brushed it away and met his eyes, "I know. I know that, I really do. I'm just- this is our first proper mission. I don't wanna mess it up." She felt a tingle go up through her spine again, "and something definitely feels off. Like I know I'm supposed to be empty of all the key energy. But I don't know, I can feel something. Energies shifting, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy." She looked down, suddenly very interested in the colour of Leo's shoes.

"You're not crazy. And call it Hellmouth-intuition. After all you were made from Buffy's blood, you might've picked up some Spidey-senses along the way." Leo reassured her, which was met with a thick scowl.

"You're mixing your metaphors babe. And I'm not sure, there's never been anything to suggest that I might, have you know, powers." She whispered it for some reason, like she couldn't let herself believe that was true. She wasn't like Willow and Tara, she had no interest in magic. But there had been things, all throughout her life, that made her feel off. Like she could sense something that didn't belong. Or maybe it was residue from living on the Hellmouth for so long, there everything felt off because the Hellmouth was always just there. Looming in the dank, high school basement.

Tara's portal appeared out of thin air. The purple edges rippling into the room like the space above fire. The thing was shaped like an undersea doorway, the edges fraying and creating an oval effect, rather than a box. Tara took one step forward in her and Willow's apartment, and took her next into an overly beige hotel room. She looked around herself, calling for Dawn, who was standing behind the portal looking bewildered.

"I didn't know you could just appear like that." She said with a tone of excitement in her voice. "And hey," she said brightly, pulling Tara into a loving hug.

"Yeah we um, well after Will's big portal spell you know to get us to England. We started practicing little portals with the coven and now we can pretty much just go anywhere in a flash. But I keep telling Willow to use them sparingly. The elevator in our building still works, we don't need to portal everywhere." She said, waving her hands around and then pulling out her bag. "So where's this big hole?"

A little while later, a la the hole... "So, what do you guys think it is? And how do you need me to help?" Tara said, her gaze almost immediately drawn to the glowing thing. She felt it too. The energy in the room was just off. Like the hole was defying nature.

"We're not sure," Leo piped up. "I think it's some kind of demon, producing the lava, melting the concrete."

"We need to close the hole, if there's a demon in there, it's not attacking us. But we can't just leave it here. Helen sent us to get rid of it." Dawn interrupted, turning to Tara and hoping, praying that she had some sort of idea how to remedy this.

"Okay, I think we can do this. We just need to call on Gaia and the spirit of the Earth to undo it. To make it so there was never a hole here. If there is anything under there it will be gone as it never was. I should be able to do it in an afternoon." Tara said, sitting down crossed legged on the edge of the hole and closing her eyes. Leo looked a little puzzled but Dawn reassured him that this was just the way she started. Checking the ground for energies and getting ready to connect with Gaia. "it's easier to feel her energy if you're closer to the ground," Tara finished explaining herself, not opening her eyes and continuing to focus her attention on the energy going down into the Earth. Dawn felt like she should be helping, so she shoved Leo to the other side of the hole and sat down too. She copied Tara's position but let her lead the incantation.

"Dear Gaia, goddess of the Earth. I implore you to heal the wrongness that has set about it's path here. There is much wrong with this unconsecrated ground that needs to be rectified." Tara was saying, and Dawn was thinking that she sounded like she was having a conversation with an old friend rather than working a spell. "I call to you deeply, undo the wreckage that has appeared here. Heal the Earth!" She yelled the last part in a very unrecognisable voice. Dawn opened her eyes a little just to check nothing about Tara was changing colour. It wasn't, everything was fine, but Tara was standing now. Her hands were outstretched, she was facing upwards, towards the sky, her feet firmly planted on the ground. But she looked frightening, her skin paling and a kind of green vortex surrounding her as the magic swarmed into the hole. Slowly the concrete began to form over the hole again. Growing by inches that became feet, Tara's mist forming a scab-like film over the hole as the concrete filled itself in.

Tara's eyes snapped open, they were glowing green instead of their usual bright blue. Her head tipped up straight and her mouth opened. The grey mist began to come away from the now healed hole and flew into Tara's mouth. The spell was over. The concrete hole was no longer a hole. The mist had no more use for Tara and she dropped like a stone onto the ground. Dawn rushed over, "Tara? Are you okay?"

The blonde's eyes slowly opened, "Dawnie?" She said weakly, but trying to get up. "I'm okay," she kept repeating over and over again until she was up on her feet again. They were going to take her back to the hotel room for some rest, but there was a general consensus of relief that the spell had worked. The hole seemed to be closed for good. Dawn seemed calm, and definitely relieved the Helen wasn't going to kick her in the ass for screwing this up. Leo, on the other hand, was worried. He didn't know how strong Tara's magic was, because he didn't know her very well. He was worried about the hole reopening. But he brushed it aside because everything looked fine, Dawn and Tara were happily chatting like nothing had happened. And very soon they were all on the road back to San Francisco.

It was only in Leo's car on the way back, that Dawn thought she saw something. Saw someone she recognised in an alley off main street. The woman in question was lurking in the dark, clutching her side, a grim look on her face. Drusilla cowered in the shadows of the fastly approaching night, she looked pained and broken. Not like the vampiric mistress Dawn once feared as a child.