SquidgeWorld Archive

(This is original creative material copyright Chris Kenworthy, based on characters that he has no right to owned by someone else blah blah biddy blah...)
Author's note: To start with, the gang got trapped in an interdimensional limbo by Queen Kaliya. Xander and Buffy are an item, to Cordelia's silent sorrow. Willow kissed Angel, which kinda ruined things between her and Oz.
Previously, Queen Kaliya attacked our heroes as they tried to get out of Limbo, killed Joyce Summers, and in a final showdown at the Bronze, Buffy shot her with an incindiary pistol, and she's dead. The vampire Giles ran off with Angel's baby. Back in Sunnydale, Xander, Cordelia, Oz, Amy, and Darrell were trapped in the school by the spirit of Catherine Madison, who took over Cordelia's body. Angel and Willow went to the copy center to try to save Lear Chase from kidnapping vampires, and Mister Tojo and Buffy went to the graveyard, where rogue watcher Gwendolyn Post broke into a mausoleum and stole the mysterious Death Star.
Oh, also, this story assumes some of the events of the Buffy novel "Blooded," by Chrisotpher Golden and Nancy Holder. So, if you haven't read it and something is confusing you, that may be it. Okay, ready to read? ;-)

Prolog

"Haiii!!" With a ferocious scream, Buffy charged towards Mrs. Post. Her Refined Britishness simply smiled, ever so slightly, and raised the heavy engraved gold star flat in her left hand.

"Stun," she muttered. A beam of blue energy lanced out towards Buffy, striking her in the shoulder. Buffy staggered and collapsed to the floor, helpless.

Gwen Post paid the fallen Slayer not a whit of attention, looking past her to Akira Tojo. "Agonize," she muttered, and a bright red beam shot forth from the Death Star, knocking the oriental Watcher to his knees and making him cry out in pain. She kept it up for several seconds, then stopped. "Yes, I think that's enough for now," the evil sorceress murmurred, the very picture of gentility. "Can't have you dying on me yet, Mister Tojo. You shall have to watch as I set the death star's most deadly rays on your precious Slayer.

Buffy struggled up to a sitting position as she heard this, scanning Ms. Post's refined face for any indication that she was joking. But she saw no hint of a reprieve in the Watcher's face. A huge dybbuk skeleton crept up behind the deadly ex-watcher, and with a whispered word and gesture with her right hand, Post sent it flying into the Vault's wall with a bone-jarring thump.

* * * *

Trying not to let the terror show on her face, Willow pushed over to Angel's side and surreptitiously nudged his arm with her fingers. Angel had told her, in Limbo, about how difficult it was to keep Angelus restrained, the more vampire-ly he acted. Was he... Willow shoved him again, harder.

Angel's muscular body shook slightly, and he pulled out of the bite, licking at the poor young girl's blood once before passing her back to the other vampires.

"You didn't kill her?" Willow could hardly tell if what she heard in the vampire Terrinon's voice was merely surprise or if it had an edge of suspicion.

"I felt it would be only polite to save some for my most gracious hosts," Angel said in his smoothest, most Angel-like tones. "Sharing goes both ways, Terrinon my good man - wouldn't you say?"

Terrinon grinned happily. "Well spoken, Sir Angelus. Well spoken indeed! With that, I drink to you, and to your lovely lady." With a nod at Willow, Terrinon bit into the other side of Emelia's neck with far greater gusto, drinking deeply what remained of the teenaged girl's blood. Willow silenced her moan of sympathy - after all Angel's self-control in not feeding off of this poor girl too far, she would die anyways. And there still wasn't anything she could do to stop it - not without sacrificing her own life.

At the same time, she noticed that Angel, if he was upset about Emelia's face, was able to conceal it quite a lot better than Willow was thinking she was. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the thrill of feeding as much now, vicariously, as he had been directly a minute earlier. Was he just conveying his role more expertly than Willow expected him to? Or, had the real Angelus gotten into control, just waiting for a chance to take Willow herself by surprise??

* * * *

After a timeless moment, Cordelia/Catherine looked up in exaggerated surprise. "New visitors!" she called out. "What fun, what fun!! We must go to meet them, must we not?"

"Uh, maybe we should wait here," Darrell suggested, for no better reason that to disagree with Catherine. "They'll be sure to find us in only a minute or two."

"Oh, but that wouldn't be appropriate at all!" Catherine chirped. "Let's go." And suddenly the rest of them were floating into the air - Darrell, Oz, Amy, the groaning Xander and still-fainted Harmony. As Cordelia/Catherine set off, skipping, the five floating figured trailed through the air after her in a bizarre game of follow-the-leader.

* * * *

Luke reached his hand up to probe delicately at the manhole cover, and winced as he saw rays of reflected sunlight stream thinly through as soon as the metal plate was lifted the slightest amount.

"Coming on midmorning," Darla pronounced disgustedly. "I told you we shouldn't have slept down there." She swung a backhand into Jasper's chest, making the other vampire wince. "If we had come to the surface immediately, we could have made it to a safe resting place before sunrise."

"Where?" Jasper countered. "Where could we know for certain is safe, besides the tunnels? We don't know what's been going on in Sunnydale while the whole Limbo escapade was proceeding. As it is, we got the rest that we sorely needed, and we can spend the rest of the day planning. Come sunset, we'll have all night to find a place we can be sure is secure."

Darla looked at Jasper witheringly. "You misbegotten know-it-all. How'd you like me to secure that mouth of yours?"

Jasper smirked back at her. "I'd love to see you try, blondie."

"Enough!" Michelle called out, interposing herself between Darla and Jasper. "Silence!!" She pronounced the word in the french manner - seelaawnce. "We weel get nowhere if we allow ze petty bickering to run rampante!"

"She is right," Luke reminded them gruffly. "If the four of us do not work together, the Slayer will work us each into the ground seperately - as she did with Kaliya."

Darla and Jasper backed away from each other, relaxing. "Then it is agreed," he said. "We work together as a team, with no contention amongst us. A council of the dead, each of us equal - until the Slayer is no more."

"And until we rule over the Hellmouth," Darla amended, sticking her hand forward. "I agree."

"Moi aussi," Michelle said in French, extending her hand to meet Darla's. Jasper quickly followed suit.

"Until none stand in our way," Luke said solemnly, completing the circle.

Act One

"Uh-oh," Vanessa muttered, looking at the doorway that she and her two young apprentices had just passed through. A simple unlocked school double door on the way in, the doorway crackled with fire and energy if one of them tried to poke a finger back out, warning of severe harm to anyone trying to actually leave the school building.

"Well, well, well," a voice rang out from further up the corridor. Vanessa looked towards the speaker, casually. The person standing there was Cordelia Chase, but the witch's senses of the supernatural told her immediately that Cordelia was currently more - and worse, than herself. A powerful and hostile spirit was possessing the beautiful young girl... probably the entity she had come to the school to help against.

"So, dearie, who are you?" Cordelia who was not Cordelia asked Vanessa, with a sarcastic edge to her voice.

"Um..." Thinking of no better identity to give, Vanessa fell back on her traditional alias. "Uh, hi. I'm Vanessa Bateman - with the history department at UC Santa Barbara. Or, well, in the department, kinda... I'm a doctoral candidate," she babbled with studied carelessness. "I'm supposed to be helping Mister Black's class with their term
projects..."

"There isn't any Mister Black!" Cordelia rapped out ringingly.

Oops. "Oh, there isn't? Maybe it was Fonderin High - I guess I should go back to my motel and make some phone calls. Sorry to be causing any trouble." Knowing that she couldn't get out anyway, she turned and moved towards the door, knowing that if Catherine was possessing Cordelia, she wouldn't even let Vanessa get that far.

"I don't think so!" Catherine called out, sure enough, paralyzing Vanessa with a spell. "I don't know if you're hiding something or if you just stepped into the wrong place at the wrong time, but you're not leaving this school for a LONG time, Miss Bateman!!"

Cordelia walked away, letting Vanessa see for the first time the figures floating in the air near her - Darrell, Amy, Xander, and Oz, as well as a frail blonde teenager - possibly Harmony Concord. Did that mean that Harmony had been possessed, before Cordelia...

"So, what shall we do now?" Catherine asked aloud, giving the matter weighty consideration. "I know - let's go to the gym and have a pep rally!!"

* * * *

Buffy watched Gwendolyn Post with a surprising amount of calm determination. Yeah, she'd been in some rough situations before, but being trapped in a mausoleum with a handful of walking skeletons and an insane ex-watcher wielding a magic golden star shooting death rays was way up there on her list of tight spots. Maybe it was even at the number one position - certainly a strong contender.

So, why am I not panicking? Buffy asked herself silently.

Because there was a solution. *There was*? Buffy challenged that thought, but it refused to explain itself. Okay, come on, don't start to beat up voices in your mind, Buffy told herself. Call it Slayer's intuition and see where you get from there.

Okay, let's see. Crazy ex-watcher. Totally homicidal, or Slayercidal. Chances of talking her out of attacking, just about nil. Chances of avoiding that ray from the death star long enough to knock her out, maybe one in a hundred. Not my kind of odds.

Force walls over the exits. No way through them but the counterspell, with crazy Ms Post currently has.

And, of course, there were the ten or so skeletons wandering around the Vault, looking for a chance to attack just any intruder they could.

"Prepare to die, Slayer!" Gwen called melodramatically, raising the Death Star.

But something was clicking within Buffy's mind. The skeletons - Post had attacked one with conventional magic - AFTER she had used the death star. Of course... if the Star called on the forces of death, it wouldn't work on skeletons, who were already about as dead as you got.

This was *feeling* like her intuitive breakthrough. But how, still? So Post couldn't use the Death Star on the skeletons. Buffy and Tojo were quite well enough alive. And Post surely had enough conventional magic up her sleeve to handle the skels.

Then, all of a sudden, it hit her. She looked around, judging positions, and jumped to her feet, moving a few feet to the side in the same movement. Gwendolyn Post re-oriented herself and activated the Star. "Death," she called out, looking straight at Buffy. As soon as she heard the word, Buffy was dodging away again, and the Death Star's worst beam, (black of course,) missed her arm by a scant fraction of an inch.

But what that dread ray didn't miss was the skeleton Buffy had made certain was in a straight line with herself and Ms Post when the evil lady had aimed. It struck the undead thing's bony rib cage...

And *BOUNCED*! Gwendolyn Post had only enough time to realize that the death ray was rocketing back towards her before it struck. With a scream that seemed to tear the air into tiny shards, Post collapsed and was still.

Buffy, meanwhile, had found out that her dodge had left her right in the battle space of another skel, and she had her hands full trying to fight off the thing with her bare hands without shattering its bones. "Tojo!" she called out. "I've done my job - scary lady dead. Your turn - get us out of here!"

Tojo raced forward towards Gwen Post's body. A skeleton was reaching for her, and Tojo kicked the bony hand away. There was no way of knowing what would happen to the paper if it was on her body as said body was skeletonized. Let him take the spell, and the skeletons would be welcome to Gwendolyn Post's body.

A few seconds later, and that was done. Taking a moment to judo-throw another attacking skel, Tojo read out the spell, and verified that the force wall was down. "Come!" he called, dodging out. Buffy took the cue and withdrew her way through the doorway.

It was approaching noon outside, the sun shining down from between the clouds. Buffy took one contented sigh at the whole of her victory - and collapsed onto the ground, dead to the world.

* * * *

"Good," Angel sighed, flashing a cool and collected smile at Willow. "We're alone, finally."

"Ah!!" Willow yelped. Angel's face turned down into an expression of warm concern, and Willow decided to try bringing up her suspicion. If he tried to deny it, maybe Angelus would give himself away... "Uh, you're... you're acting very Angelus-ey. I was wondering if maybe... when you were feeding."

The vampire's face clouded over with pain, so intensely and openly that Willow could no longer suspect that it was the vampire who was in control, instead of the human soul. "Oh," she broke in, suddenly horrified of what she had done. "I... I shouldn't have said anyt-"

"No," Angel said, shaking his head morosely. "You don't need to pussyfoot around me just because I... I, uh..."

"You did what you had to do, Angel," Willow told him sternly. "For yourself, for me, and for the mission."

"Does that make it right?" Angel asked her dully.

"What made it wrong?" Willow shot back. "So... you drank some blood that happened to come from a human being. You weren't killing her - she was doomed already. We both kn- know that," Willow said, stifling a sniffle and a sob. "We couldn't save her. You don't need to blame yourself for that."

Angel just shook his head, tears trickling down his cheeks. "I know that doesn't make it any easier," Willow whispered, rushing forward to put her arm around him and take his hand in hers.

"I'd... I'd never fed off of a human being," Angel said, sobs interrupting him regularly. "I mean... not when I was really me..."

"Shh, shh..." Willow said, holding him tighter. "I know, I know..."

And suddenly Angel's crying stopped, and he was back to business. "So, I'm thinking as soon as we've got Buffy's help, we can take these guys apart."

"Sounds good to me," Willow said, smiling, though her own eyes were starting to blur.

* * * *

Amy carefully varied the prescribed step, just enough so that her mother would be sure to notice it, but hopefully not enough that Catherine could tell it was deliberate.

A whistle blew loudly. "No, no, that's not it at all!" Cordelia/Catherine said, laughing cruelly. "It goes like this." She demonstrated the cheerleading routine all alone, then turned to laugh again at Amy. "You never could get the hang of it, now oould you Amy? Well, I'm sorry, but the rules are the rules. Into the penalty box with you!" Amy's limbs moved on their own, forcing her into a small circle on the gym floor, already packed with other bodies.

Catherine thought a moment. "Well, since it's just down to the two of us, Harmony," she said finally, "let's go and find some new people and another game to play, huh?"

"What?" Harmony exclaimed. "But... but what about... them? You can't just leave them in there..."

"I can and I will!" Catherine declared. "They messed up, they have to pay the price. They're losers anyway." She took Harmony's hand and dragged her off towards the corridor."

"Thank god," Darrell muttered once the two of them were gone. "I thought she'd never leave. Now we can finally get some planning done!"

Act Two

"Making plans would seem to be a *very* good idea," Vanessa shot back sarcastically, poking a finger through the air above the circle. Her attractive digit stopped dead right over the marking on the gymnasium floor, barred by an invisible force wall. "I take it that the spirit of Catherine Madison, at one time possessing Harmony Concord, has some shifted or transpossessed to our Miss Chase?"

"Yes," Amy replied. "But what we don't understand is how. I mean, not how the transpossession - I remember what I've learned about that. But... how could my mother's ghost have possessed Harmony? How could her spirit still *be* here? I was going to school here for more than a year after she was eliminated and I never got any indication of her presence. It's not an anniversary of her birth or doom, so how could she have manifested now??" Amy finished her rant on a plaintive note, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. Oz shuffled over to her and put and arm around her shoulder in a comforting gesture.

"Well, I'm not sure, Amy," Vanessa said. "Miss Summers told me, before we came in, that your mother tried to use a very dark and dangerous spell on her - the black gaze of Corsheth." Darrell jumped. "Ah, I'm glad you remember it, Darrell, since I never studied that spell in enough detail to be aware of its ramifications. "

"Aren't you glad now that *I* did?" Darrell sniped at her.

"I'd have been ecstatic, if that had been all you did, young fool," the redhead grumbled at him. "As it is, I'll settle for calling it good come out of folly. Buffy, uh, she kicked a mirror down between the two of them, so that Catherine's gaze bounced back to reflect her. Would you be so good as to tell us what that might have done, Darrell?"

Darrell smiled arrogantly for a moment before speaking. "The Gaze is one of the most powerful black imprecations known. When it works as it usually works, the body of the target is forever destroyed, and their spirit is bound into an inanimate object especially prepared by the caster."

"Bound?" Xander broke in worriedly. "As in, trapped forever until some damn fool comes along and lets them out into their own bodies?" Vanessa and Darrell stared at the teenager in surprise. "Don't stare at me like I can't be right," he told them. "We've come across something like this before - ancient oriental spirits getting set free from a sword and terrorizing the town." In the bodies of himself, Buffy, and Willow, though Xander didn't feel he needed to mention that.

"Uh, yes, of course," Darrell said uncertainly. "In the normal course, once the Gaze of Corsheth had been used, the witch would cast further binding rituals on the receptable object, trapping the spirit of his or her enemy forever unless certain counterspells were successfully completed. Since the spell was reversed onto Catherine, however, no-one would have bound her securely, and she might have been able to spiritually possess anyone who touched her receptacle."

Vanessa looked intently at Xander. "With your Oriental spirits... how were they dealt with? Might the same solution be used here?"

Xander dredged through the memory of that unpleasant experience, and what the others had said about it, since Xander himself had been possessed by the spirit of Sanno at the time and was thus part of the problem, not part of the solution. "They... they had a spell to draw the spirits back into the sword they came from. The... the Incantation of Sanno."

"Do you know where we could find a copy of it?"

Xander thought harder. "Umm... the library? Or the library computer?"

Vanessa nodded. "Okay, we'll try that once Catherine comes back."

Amy raised her hand in an obvious objection. "Um, once she comes back, won't she be able to order us around again and keep us from doing anything but what she wants?"

Vanessa shook her head, smiling. "By the time she comes back, I mean to cast a special spell on all of us, one that can't be broken by anyone but me. Wildness - she won't be able to control any of us. Of course, we'll be acting rather irrepressibly and unpredicatably ourselves once that kicks in, but it should be possible to focus at least part of our attention on the mission through the effects of the spell."

Darrell broke in with another thought. "There's still an element missing. If this Incantation can draw Catherine back into her receptacle object, we still need to find and retrieve the receptacle before we can work it."

Vanessa nodded. "That's true. You needed to have the sword touching the possessed individuals, right Xander?" Xander nodded immediately at that one - the sword had been in his hands at the time, impaling Buffy/Chirayoju, who had fortunately been healed as the spirit was trapped. "So we need to figure out what object Catherine might have been held in - that wouldn't have been likely touched for a long time, but that Harmony could have handled just before she was possessed."

"Should we ask Harmony?" Jim asked.

"I don't think Harmony would remember," Xander said. "She's pretty out of it. And it won't help if we have to ask her while Catherine's around..."

"Uh, you know," Oz spoke up for the first time, "Have any of you ever taken a good look at the cheerleading award in the big trophy case? The tri-county championship won under the squad leadership of Catherine 'the Great' Madison?"

Several people looked at Oz as if he had gone crazy, and Xander shook his head. "No, Oz, I haven't. Why??"

"I have," Oz said, an obscure smile creeping to his face. "I mentioned to Willow just when we were starting dating that it seemed to have eyes, looking out at you..." Oz let the sentence trail off, his meaning becoming quite clear.

* * * *

"Did you have an enjoyable nap?"

Buffy opened her eyes to see Akira Tojo smiling kindly down on her. With a start she realized that she was lying down on a couch, covered with a light quilt. "Hey - where am I?"

"My apartment," Tojo told her. "It was quite evident that you needed your rest, so I tried not to wake you."

"Tried not to wake me when??" Buffy asked. But soon enough it came back to her - the short but intense showdown with Gwendolyn Post in the Death Star Vault, Buffy fainting like a foolish girl out of those historical books as soon as she got outside. "What... what time is it?"

"Two thirty of the afternoon."

"Two thirty! We need to get going already! God knows what's going on out there while I've been sleeping on the job."

"You needed your rest very much," Tojo reminded her. "It has been a stressful day or two for all of us, after all."

"Yes, it has, and yes, I probably did," Buffy recited back in a patronizing singsong voice. "But right now, I'm awake and alert again. A bunch of people I know to varying degrees are trapped in the high school with an insane, ultrapowerful witch who has a score to settle with at least one or two of them. Including my boyfriend. Do you catch my drift, Akira?"

Tojo sighed. "At least eat something, Buffy."

Buffy huffed up again, "Eat somethin..."

"Then consider this," Tojo told her evenly. "If you choose to eat something to keep your strength up, I shall drive us both to the high school. If you choose to leave now, you shall be walking or running all the way. I somehow think you would arrive at the school at about thesame time either way." He grinned at her in that nauseatingly polite way, but Buffy couldn't help but laugh.

"Okay, I give, Akira," she admitted. "What's for lunch?"

* * * *

"Hello there!" Catherine/Cordelia chirped out as she skipped back into the gymnasium, followed by Harmony and a crowd of other teenagers, including Jonathon, and one or two teachers!"

"Hi there!" Amy called out to her from the 'penalty box.' Scattered calls of 'drop dead,' 'great to see you' and 'get lost,' among others, followed Amy's greeting to her mother.

Catherine preened in all the attention, not seeming to realize how great a spread of reaction it covered. "Okay, the game's over now," she declared. "You can come out of the penalty box now." And with a snap of her fingers, the force walls disappeared.

Almost instantly, it seemed, the seven individuals who had been constrained within were running madly in all directions. Cordelia's lovely hazel eyes focussed on one of them, Darrell, who came to a stop madly spinning in place as she looked at him, then ran over to Cordelia, knocking Cordy and Harmony over wide reciever-style, as if they were defensive tacklers.

"What's going on??" Catherine/Cordelia screeched as she floated up from the floor where she had fallen. But no-one answered her.

Act Three

"*What* in the name of all the demons is going on??" Catherine/Cordelia exclaimed, charging out of the gymnasium after the nearest wild one, who happened to be Paula.

"Haha-ha!" Paula exclaimed, as she attempted a cartwheel, almost broke her leg, got up and started jumping in place. "You know - I don't know!"

"I know??" Catherine repeated, totally bewildered now. "Talk sense, girl." And she snapped her fingers, compelling the sophomore witch with a spell.

"Certainly," Paula replied, her voice assuming all the tones of sophistication and reliability. "Let us recap. You have hijacked Sunnydale High, and the body of Cordelia Chase, with magic, using your powers to satisfy your deep-seated need for achievement and the attention of others, which has not been satisfied since your high-school cheerleading days. Possibly you have also been enjoying torturing those you have grudges with, not with any particular retaliation, but with the knowledge that they are in your power for retaliation whenever you choose. Currently, however, as your magic does not seem to be working as you wish upon us, your self-satisfaction has converted to frustration, and bewilderment at the seeming senselessness of our activities."

"I KNOW ALL THAT!" Catherine screamed out, aggrieved to the vicinity of her limits. "But--"

"You compelled me to talk sense," Paula explained sensibly. "But you still cannot control what sense I tell you."

Catherine had no answer to that, but one thought did suceed in making it through the boiling anger of her mind. "Amy!" The more she thought about that, the more it made sense. "Amy, my disloyal daughter, somehow you managed to do this to me. And I swear it, I'm gonna make you pay." With that, Catherine took to the air in Cordelia's body, zooming through the corridors of the school until she found her pretty little girl. "No more miss nice Mommy," she vowed, a long knife materializing in deadly solidity in her right hand.

As might have been predicted, though, Amy did *not* react as Catherine was expecting her to. "Kill me, mommy!" she cried, running over to Cordelia's body and trying to embrace it. Given that Catherine was still keeping said body flying through the air, Amy managed mostly to clasp two shapely legs to her face, but it was still a rather sweet moment.

Catherine kicked her away, both physically and emotionally. "With pleasure," she said, taking a firmer grip on the knife and what remained of her old heart. (In the purely emotional sense, of course - Catherine's physical heart had been destroyed with the rest of her body - through *Amy's* conniving, Catherine firmly reminded herself - but a faint trace of human emotions were with her. They would have to be firmly kept under control if she was to finish this.)

"Great!" Amy called out, a wide smile on her face. "That's so perfect. All of our fun times together - the sand castles in the park and the fifth-grade school pageant - and now it's Mommy who's gonna end it all. That's *so perfect*!"

That was it for Catherine's emotional control. The knees she had borrowed from the snobby Chase girl buckled as a wave of nostalgia rolled over Catherine's spirit. Even if all this was a totally perverse kind of reverse psychology or delerious free association - she couldn't kill the brat now. She let the knife dissolve away.

"Boy, you *suck*!" Amy called out, dodging away before Catherine could look up to see where she had gone.

"Why, you little...!"

* * * *

Vanessa crabwalked her way into the library. Okay, next to find the spell. Spelling bee knee fee to pay load bearing walls halls raul's... She shook her head in frustration. There was no chance she could find the spell while under the effect of the wildness. Reaching out with her second sight, Vanessa checked for Catherine. Chasing through the courtyard, great. With a moment's thought, Vanessa cancelled the wildness spell on herself. She was now vulnerable to Catherine's magic, any that she couldn't directly counter, (which would be most of it,) but she was rational again, and could use diversionary spells to distract Catherine if it came to that.

Two minutes' search in the library desktop and Vanessa had located the invocation of Sanno. (Good think I took that computer workshop at UCSB, Vanessa thought, and thank you Willow for keeping the folder hierarchy so nicely organized.)

She read the incantation off of the screen - there was no time to worry about a printout. Vanessa's memory was a little short of photographic, but it tended to do the trick. And with that, she dodged back out of the library, looking around again with her second sight to see what was going on.

Oz was heading back towards the main intersection from the south corridor. Vanessa hurried over to intercept him. He was loping about on all fours, somewhat like a dog or wolf, and wedged into his shirt pocket was a large gold-finish trophy.

Right, Vanessa needed to act wild as well. If Oz or anyone else caught on, Catherine would surely clue in and that would mean trouble. Twirling around, she called out "So, you got it?"

"Yaa!" Oz half howled. "On the ground, in front of the open trophy case."

"So Harmony could well have touched it," Vanessa rambled. "And Catherine would have dropped it as soon as she got out - too much else to do."

"Yeah-oww! So, what's the plan?"

"We find Catherine again, you get her to touch the trophy," Vanessa told him. "I'll do the rest."

They headed off in the direction Vanessa's Sight told her Catherine would be, Oz crawling on hands and knees, Vanessa skipping or spinning around. She had moved on to the cafeteria now, and the two of them wilded their way boldly in.

The rest of the gang seemed to have gatherd or been rounded up into the caf too, which was okay - wild yeah, but they would probably find some way to be helpful.

"Hey, Catherine the great!" Oz called out as he apewalked his way in. "I got a present for you!"

Catherine/Cordelia couldn't help but beam with pleasure. "What is it?"

"This." Oz smacked the trophy into her hand and dodged back away. Catherine yelped and tossed it away, but Darrell caught it and brought it back again, keeping his own hand on the gold statuette. Catherine brought her hand, (Cordelia's hand,) up in a fierce claw, and Darrell grabbed that one too.

Vanessa started the Incantation. Her mind was full of hesitation, though she didn't let it affect her voice. She had caught a glimpse of Willow's description of when they had used that Incantation, and it was quite dangerous. It bound a soul into the receptacle, but not necessarily the soul that had been originally trapped there. If Darrell was touching the trophy, he could be taken. For that matter, Cordelia might be, though there was no way to help that risk.

"NOOO!!" Catherine screamed out, realizing the nature of the spell. Her eyes paused in concentration, contemplating a magical counteroffensive. And Darrell leaned forward and put his lips against Cordelia's - to keep Catherine from using said lips to speak a spell of course.

It was a very strange experience for Darrell. Not the kiss - that was quite enough like any other of its kind Darrell had known. But the sensation in his hand - as if something was trying to suck him out through that hand. Darrell just set himself and hung on...

And then, after an eternity, it was over... and Cordelia was suddenly returning his kiss with a good deal more passion than Catherine had tolerated it, slipping her tongue between her lips...

"Ah-hem?" Vanessa said, trying to hide her smile. "Not the best time for a make-out session, guys."

Darrell broke it off, smiling. "Oh, why not? Catherine's under wraps."

"She may not be, if you guys keep holding on to her receptacle," Vanessa warned.

"Ooh, right." In unison, they dropped the trophy to the floor.

* * * *

"Xander!" Buffy called out with plenty of enthusiasm. They had just headed out of the school grounds, Vanessa carrying Catherine's receptacle folded in silken cloth, which she said should confine the spirit until better precautions could be taken. Before they had hardly left the building, Buffy and Mister Tojo had intercepted them. More specifically, Buffy had intercepted Xander, or she was about to.

"Oomph!" was about all Xander could say as he tried desperately to keep his balance as Buffy tackled him into a full-body embrace and planted a firm kiss on his lips.

"Hey, you two," Vanessa put in. "We've already had to turn the hose on one such display."

"No you didn't," Darell corrected her. "And cut them a break, will ya? They've each just found out that the other is okay."

"Mmph," Buffy said, then broke off the kiss so as to talk better. "Yeah. I would have been here sooner, but my Watcher has a very stubborn custodial streak in him. Now the day's almost gone."

"Yeah," Jim admitted. "Time flies when you're catching a witch. Which we have done."

Buffy took that in. "Really?"

"Yep," Vanessa said, holding up the wrapped statuette. "Safe as houses."

"Okay then," Buffy considered. "Then I've got a rendezvous with a vampire to prepare for." Xander's head swivelled around in a sudden, surprised, jerk.

"What??" he asked.

"Don't worry," she chided him. "It's just business." Xander tried to open his mouth to say something, but Buffy cut him off. "Trust me."

A pause while Xander digested that, and the fact that it was said in Buffy's best 'I'm the Slayer don't argue with me' tone. "So, what do I do in the meantime?"

"Uh," Buffy thought. "Well, you had probably better give your folks a call. You too, Oz. Willow should have done that too, but I'm betting she didn't have time before she set off for the copy center."

"What about me?" Cordelia groaned out. "I have folks too - why didn't you tell me to call them?"

Buffy's face fell. "Oh. There's something I've got to tell you about that, Cordy..." she began uncertainly.

* * * *

Angel waved the other vampire away peremptorily as he made his way through the main entrance, making a show of attending to the door very carefully himself, but not, of course, actually leaving the locking mechanism engaged. Coming back into the main room, he gave Willow a small nod, which, as they had agreed before, meant that everything was well and that the attack was scheduled for exactly one minute after Angel came back in.

"So, you okay Mister A?" Terrinon asked suspiciously. "Did you find a bite to eat?"

"Uh, yeah," Angel lied. He hadn't had time to go to a butcher's, and Buffy hadn't thought to bring anything either. He was getting rather hungry again. "Nice little girl, about eight, in a playground."

"Didn't get us any takeout, Mister A?" another of the vampires chuckled. He hated them calling him that.

Angel simply shook his head in a definitive negation. "Not much pickings out there yet. We can all go out and drink our fill a bit later." He paused, a nice insight coming in. "Or now, come to think of it - the party crowd should be trickling into the Bronze any minute now."

"No, I don't think so, Mister A," Terrinon said. "You see, we finally figured it out, *Angel*. You didn't expect us to recognize you, did you? You didn't expect us to know about the Slayer-lover, the one vampire to have a conscience. And you didn't expect us to realize you had left the door open, did you?" With a wave, he sent a vampire over towards the door - Angel had, in a pitiful blunder, moved too far away to be able to defend it!

Act Four

Angel froze in despair as a weasely vampire moved to lock the door that was supposed to bring his needed reinforcements. But, with what could only have been remarkable Slayer intuition, (for the entire building had been soundproofed by Kaliya, and the agreed-upon minute was not yet up,) Buffy pushed the door open at the last moment, knocking the vampire into the vestibule wall and staking him as soon as she had made her way through the entryway. Angel leapt for Terrinon with his bare hands, not bothering yet with the stake in his back pocket. And Willow prepared a spell for bolts of fire.

Some of the remaining vampires thought they had fairly good odds of victory. They were very wrong.

* * * *

Jerwal slipped through the security door and out into the cool night. Two of his compatriots were still alive, but their chances of remaining so for long seemed slim. Jerwal had realized quickly enough that escape was the only chance for survival, and he had made his break for the door as soon as the Slayer had left its area.

He was so busily checking behind him for pursuers that he literally bumped into *them*. One of them, the largest, quickly grabbed him by the throat - not quite as impairing to a vampire as a human, but still an excellent way to immobolize either one.

"Ah, oui," a voice Jerwal recognized all too well called out. "I recognize heem,"

"Dame Michelle," Jerwal said as respectfully as he could under the circumstances. "It is quite an honor to see your graceful self again, and to make the acquaintance of your... companions."

"Mais of course," Michelle replied, unimpressed. "He was one of Kaliya's people here in Sunnydale," the ex-Slayer said in an aside to her companions.

"What has happened to your lady's establishments here?" another of them asked, a young-seeming vampire of middling, but powerful build, and jet-black hair.

"There... there were only the six of us after she l-left at Autumn's eve," Jerwal stammered out. "We have been faithfully waiting, but... b-but the Slayer..."

"She has taken the rest, hmm?" a striking blonde lady vampire guessed. "It is of no importance. But... have you seen or heard from the vampire Rupert Giles since Autumn's eve?"

Jerwal goggled. "Why yes... I thought you knew. He said that others of our lady's officers would be returning to town. I assumed you were the ones."

"Oui, we are zay," Michelle assured him. "But, we do not know... where it is our comerade Giles may have gone, and it is vitally important for our Lady's work that we get a message to him."

Jerwall was sweating now, tensely. "But... well, he told us to arrange for him to be sent to England as freight. It was done last night - they are probably claiming him at Gatwick already..." Jerwall swallowed nervously as anger crossed over the faces of her captors.

Then the blonde smiled. "Very well. We have a mission for you now, Jerwall - a mission that you cannot dare to refuse, if you follow my meaning..."

* * * *

"Hey, Buffy," Cordelia said uncertainly as she walked with the Slayer through the narrow hallway of the copy center. "Are you sure... you needed me for this?"

"You should be the one, Cordy," Buffy told her gently. "I'm sure."

Cordy stepped up to the door, took the key Buffy handed her, and unlocked it. "Uh, Daddy?" she asked as she swung the door slightly open.

"Darling?" a raspy, but kind male voice choked out. "Cordelia?? Oh, my god, did they have you too?"

"No, Daddy," Cordy said, stifling a giggle, as she knelt down to where her father lay. "I'm... these... they're gone," she finally settled on. "The guys who kidnapped you. They've been taken care of." A pause, and then, "Are you okay, Daddy?" Do you need anything?"

Lear Chase struggled to his feet. "Something to let me know this isn't a fantasy," he admitted, smiling at his firstborn daughter, stretching his arms wide. A horribly pained cough racked his body for a few seconds. "And a drink would be nice too,"

"Oh, Daddy," Cordelia said, rushing over to hug him.

"Drink," Buffy observed from outside of the cell. "I'll take care of that."

"So, Cordelia, you're... you're back!!" Lear enthused. "My god, we thought you were lost forever."

"No, we really were lost for a while, but we found our way back again."

"Really?" Lear looked surprised at that. "We??"

"Me and Buffy and the others."

"Ah." After a second, another question occured. "You said the kidnappers were taken care of. Arrested?"

Cordelia froze, then shook her head.

"Dead?" A hesitant nod. "Well, now, exactly how does one kill vampires?"

Cordy looked at her dad for a few moments, completely unbelieving. "Dad?? You know about vampires?"

Lear chuckled, slipping awkwardly down to sit on the floor again. Cordelia slid down to join him with considerably more grace. "I keep my eyes open, eldest daughter mine. That's how I've gotten where I am in businees, and it's a habit I never let slip. It was at least ten years ago now that I realized monsters and vampires were real. And that a lot of them, for some reason, like to live in this town."

"But... but why didn't you pack up and move us?"

"Cordy, this is my home. If vampires were gonna cost me something that important, it wouldn't be because I just up and left." Lear's face turned more serious. "At least, that was what I used to tell myself. But when you disappeared - oh, I would have given up everything several times over just to have you back, and safe again. I only stayed here because of that one thin hope, that you would turn up at our doorstep one night, or the Bronze or something..."

"Oh, Daddy," Cordy sobbed, resuming the hug. "I'm so sorry for how mean I've been to you, these past few years..." she broke that thought off, another one suddenly occuring to her. Daddy knew what she had been saying, after all. "Dad... Mom was a Vampire Slayer."

"A what??" Now it was Lear's turn to be surprised.

"A Slayer. They're, well, kinda defenders of the human race against monsters. Buffy's one too. That's we Mom had to leave us, back when I was a really little baby. That's how she died."

"How do you..." Lear cut himself off. "It doesn't matter - I believe you. So... it was Buffy who saved me?"

Cordy nodded. "With a little help - why?"

"Listen to me, Cordelia - this is very important. People like Buffy - true heroes and heroines - they deserve the support of each and every one of us. I will help in my own way, but you have more to offer than I ever could. I want you to promise me that you will assist Buffy and the work she has to do, as long as she needs you, alright?"

"But..."

"Will you promise me this?" Lear repeated, drawing himself to his feet and pulling Cordy up after him.

Cordelia knew when she was beaten. "I promise."

"Then we'll go find her now." He led his daughter out of the door, only to find Buffy back on her way in - with a can of seven up. "Miss Summers, I'm told that it's to you I owe my freedom," Lear intoned.

"Not nearly," Buffy said. "It's Willow and Angel who put themselves on the line, going undercover with your kidnappers to save you."

"Your friends, your helpers?" Lear asked. Buffy nodded. "Thank them for me, then. But I think what I have to say I should still say to you, Slayer."

Buffy looked askance at Cordy. "You told him?" She asked, paused a moment, and then decided, "Oh, yeah, I guess you kind of have a right to, what with your mom..."

"I wanted to let you know, Buffy," Lear continued, "that anything you might need for your mission, that my money or connections might assist with, you should ask of me at once."

Buffy's mouth dropped open. "Mister Chase, that's an incredible offer, but..."

"Then accept it, Miss Summers, without any false modesty. If my resources can help you save lives more effectively, it would be irresponsible of you to question the arrangement, would it not?"

Buffy nodded again. "I accept. But I will only call upon you in times of true and undeniable need, Mister Chase."

"As you prefer."

Suddenly, an intruder charged into the copy center, and Buffy dodged out to catch the scrawny vampire by the back of the neck. "Big mistake," she muttered at the poor creature.

"Tarnation," the vampire swore. "I thought you would all have left by now.

"That's the last mistake you'll ever make," Buffy wisecracked, pulling out her stake.

"Information!" he blurted out. "I offer to trade my life for information!"

"What?"

"The whereabouts of Rupert Giles, whom you seek!"

Buffy considered only a moment. "Done. Where is he?"

"In England. Making his way onward from Kaliya's retreat in Rickmansworth as we speak, I believe."

* * * *

"I realize there are good reasons to stay in Sunnydale," Buffy told Tojo. "But, I made a vow of vengeance, not to rest until the Vampire Giles is destroyed. Plus, Giles had Angel's son - *our* son. Possibly still has him. We've got to go after him, now."

"Then I must go too," Tojo told her. They were gathered in the Summers (now Hank Summers) living room. "I am your watcher."

"Me too!" Willow piped in. "I'm Tojo's apprentice, and where he goes, I go too. Not to mention that I'm not about to leave either you or Angel, Buffy."

"But... what about your parents, Will?" Buffy asked.

"Well, I've called them," Willow said. "And they're having a hard time with me not being able to tell them where I went. They know I'm okay now, they know I'll come back again if I can. But... it just doesn't feel like home anymore. Home is where you guys are."

"Hear, hear," Xander agreed. "If you think I'm letting you take off to the British Isles with your ex, now that we're finally together, you got another think comin' honey."

Buffy couldn't help but laugh at that. "Your Dad chewed you out?"

"Hard to say whether he was more upset for disappearing or reappearing," Xander confirmed.

"Well, my Dad told me to help you, and I intend to," Cordelia said.

"Well," Oz began dramatically, and all eyes turned to him. "I guess we might as well make it an entire Scooby gang thing."

"Huh?" Buffy was thrown by that one. "But... why, Oz? You don't have any reason to stick around, now."

"Yeah I do," Oz replied.

"Did..." Buffy started, then couldn't decide whether to continue. Oz's family had never been mentioned before, so she wasn't quite sure whether it was an acceptable subject to bring up now.

"I'd rather not talk about it now," Oz remarked. The doorbell rang.

"I wonder who on Earth that could be," Buffy said, getting up to check. There, on the other side of the door, was Vanessa.

"Oh, hi."

"Hi," Vanessa told her. "Catherine the great is now under the tightest seal we could whip up. I don't think we'll likely need to worry about her, ever again."

"Uh, great."

"I talked with Angel an hour ago - he was saying something about you going to England..."

Buffy broke down and laughed at the sheer absurdity of it. "Yeah, we're goin' to England. You and the witches wanna come along? Everyone else is!!"

Vanessa giggled nervously, then shook her head. "No. I was thinking, if you were going to be out of town, maybe we should stay in Sunnydale, kinda vampire-sit the place? If that's okay with you? I wouldn't want to step on your Slayer perogatives, now that we're out of Limbo and past the immediate life-or-death crises..."

Buffy nodded, a load taken off of her mind. "Yeah, Vanessa, that'd be great, thanks."