Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XIV

Oct6

Part I: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1096503.html
Part II: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1100922.html
Part III: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1104619.html#cutid1
Part IV: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1108537.html
Part V: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1112216.html
Part VI: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1124762.html
Part VII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1134781.html
Part VIII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1139412.html
Part IX: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1146552.html
Part X: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1155478.html
Part XI: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1164418.html
Part XII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1173922.html
Part XIII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1178885.html

Willow frowned at Magnolia, her best glower — which wasn’t very good, maybe, but it was the best she had. “You really wanted to scare us?”

“Everyone gets scared. It’s not like, like you were sayin’, with people dyin’ and real horrible fear, or anything. It’s just, we, well, the way we are, a little fear can jump-start the systems.”

“If anything I had was gonna be jumpstarted by fear, it would’ve been jumpstarted long ago. My engines are dead, dead,” Xander quipped. “Nothing to jump here. Just plain ol’ Xander.”

“Well, there was that one time you turned into…. oh, never mind. Buffy!” Buffy’s whole body language had changed as she slipped down the hall. She was stalking something. Willow could see her reaching for a weapon, looking for something, eying the wood panelling. “Buffy, what are you doing?” She dropped her voice to a whisper.

“Willow, give me a stake. I know you have one hidden somewhere, and I’m not judging or anything, just give it to me.”

“Well, I really would, but, well, Giles said not to.” Willow slunk closer to her friend, clutching her bag closer to herself.

“Giles said not to ‘punch’ anyone. I’m not going to ‘punch’ anyone.” Buffy made the p sounds hard and aggressive. “I’m just going to stake the vampire. Will, come on.”

“Oh, Buff, I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

“Wait. Staking. Vampire? Oh, no, no, darlin, you don’t want to do that.” Magnolia hurried after them.

“You know, I think I really do,”Buffy snarled. She stomped forward down the hallway. “You see, you have your things that you do. I have mine. And one of mine just happens to be, oh, I don’t know… staking vampires”

“All right, all right. So the monsters you were fighting back home, they were vampire-like…”

“No.” Xander’s voice was harsh and raspy. “Not vampire-like. Not like that cute girl in the hot tub was demon-like. We’re talking full-on vampires–”

“Should we be?” Willow cut in nervously. “Talking, I mean. Should we be anything?”

“Ah’m saying, I’m not sure there’s anything here that is that vampire-like as to need staking. Our demons are… well, oh, shit.” Magnolia shook her hair out like an 80’s shampoo commercial. Unbelievably, the scent of flowers seemed to follow the gesture. “Could you just come with me before you stake someone? I’m not sure just how well they’d survive that, you see, and I don’t think you want to be expelled before you even start classes.”

“You have no idea how bad I want to be expelled,” Buffy countered.

“Oh, but, ah, expelling from Addergoole isn’t like ordinary schools. They don’t just kick you out and put a mark on your permanent record.”

“Do they send you to a hell dimension?” Xander offered. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s what our principal would do if he could, but he can’t even manage to expel us.”

“Me.” Buffy had slowed down but not yet stopped. “They weren’t trying to expel you two, Xander, just me.”

“Let’s be honest, Principal Flootie probably would have expelled me after the whole hyena thing, if he hadn’t gotten eaten.”

“I don’t think that anyone gets sent to a hell dimension here, but then again…” Magnolia’s voice had slowed, too, and she was frowning. “The one that I know about, nobody’s heard from him since he, ah, left.”

“Ah, left?” Willow wanted to be worried, but the smell of flowers was heavier and heavier in the air, and she was having trouble getting too worked up. “What sort of ‘ah, left.'”

“Well, the reason I don’t want your friend to go staking someone… aw, heck, ain’t gonna be nothing you three don’t know when you finally get here. Just don’t tell no-one I told you, all right? I don’t want all the upperclassmen getting sore at me.”

“Just explain.” Even Buffy sounded less testy. “We’ll keep the fact that you’re acting like a decent human being a secret, just just… tell us.”

“As far as we can tell, the one way you can get ‘expelled’ from Addergoole is by killin’ another student,” Magnolia answered in a whisper.

“…Not by burning down the gym?”

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Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XIII

Sep29

Buffy: The Invitation

Magnolia was spending a lot of time staring at them as if they were cheating. Buffy gave the girl her best vapid smile and waited to see what came out this time.

“Y’all are just totally ringers, ain’tcha?” she asked slowly. Her accent thickened the more stressed she was. “Ah mean, you study demons, you have a Mentor…”

“So we know a few things.” WIllow had her stubborn face on. “WHat’s wrong with that? This is a school, right? Learning is important.”

“Learning is important,” Magnolia repeated slowly, like the words were foreign to her. Buffy wondered — not for the first time — if she was a demon, too. “Yeah. But you’re ruinin’ all the fun. Ah mean,” she twisted her lips up. “Well, I suppose if you’re used to demons…”

“You know,” Xander cut in, “we get that. I mean, there’s always that fun moment where you get to watch the new person’s mind break.”

“Exactly!” She looked pleased. Buffy waited. That wasn’t Xander’s friendly tone.

“Yeah, like, Buffy came to town, and you know, somehow Will and Jesse and I had never questioned —”

“Jesse?”

“I’m not there yet. So Will and Jesse and me, we knew a lot of people died. Gangs on PCP, wild animal attacks, barbeque fork accidents — our school paper has an obituary section, you know, and we just never questioned it.”

“…What?” The tall girl was lost, and, more than that, she was worried.

“…And then all of a sudden, the monsters have Jesse. And there we are, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the world while our best friend is dead. Tons of fun, right, for Buff? Showing us the real world?”

Buffy almost felt sorry for Magnolia. Almost. “There was certainly that entertaining look of shock and horror on your faces. And then the way you nearly got yourselves killed.”

“Oh, oh, and then there was that thing where…” Willow trailed off.

“Oh, no, Will, she wants fun, that’s a good place to start.” Buffy waved her hands in encouragement. “Please. Tell her how much fun we’ve had, dealing with the real world.”

“…That time your boyfriend lost his soul and tried to kill us all,” Willow continued, in a much smaller voice. “And—”

Xander took over. “And you did the awful, horrible right thing and killed him. I’m sure that was loads of fun. Right, Buffster? So much fun…”

“…I freaked out and pretended that the fun world didn’t exist for a while, yeah.” Buffy managed something that could have pretended to be a smile once, in a pageant or something. “Loads of fun.”

Magnolia held up her hands. “Ah surrender, ah surrender. Ah’ll even owe you a favor for that one… mebbe one each. By all that’s holy and the Lord’s dirty laundry, you three don’ need this school and it might not survive you.”

“But the thing is,” and all of a sudden Willow was in earnest-research-mode, “don’t you see? You know entirely different sets of information than we do. We look at your friend with the bat wings and we don’t know what sort of demon she is. But I’m betting you, you look at her and think — well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? We don’t know what you think.”

“Ah beg your pardon?” At this point, Magnolia looked lost, confused, and a little bit offended. It was Willow’s turn to hold up her hands.

“Not like that! Well, all right, I’m not sure exactly what you were thinking there, but that’s sort of the point. The point is, you look at your friend, and you’re not seeing demon. So the thing is, there’s a lot we can learn from what you do see when you look at her. And if you’re thinking that people are called demons that aren’t — well, there’s a lot of world we haven’t seen yet. Maybe things are different in Sunnydale. I mean, hellmouth, mouth-into-another-dimension…”

“Breathe, Will.” Xander patted her again. “What Willow’s trying to say is that there’s probably something we could learn here, with sexy naked girls with wings, far from the Hellmouth. Buffy?”

“…We can’t leave the Hellmouth.” It was a weak protest, and, besides, she wasn’t really paying attention anymore. Something had caught her attention, the way that normally only vampires and the occasional demon did. “Well, I can’t leave the Hellmouth.”

“You can and have,” Xander pointed out.

“You know that was an awful idea.” Buffy strode down the hall, chasing the feeling.

“What’s she lookin’ for? Hey, Buffy, where’re you goin’, sweetheart?”

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The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 17 & 18 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Sep29

Part I
Part Ia
Part II
Part III
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 9 & 10
Chapters 11 & 12
Chapters 13 & 14
Cahapter 15 & 16

Sixteen: The Introduction, Part 2

“We’re too old for this place,” Sophie commented at the door. “You know that, don’t you?” She checked her lipstick in her compact.

“Yes, of course. It’s a teenaged hangout. And?”

“And nothing, of course. I just wanted to be sure you knew it.”

“You wanted to be sure I agreed with the we there. We’re not teenagers, Sophie. I’m not sure we ever were.”

They shared a long look, then shook their heads in mutual understanding. “Nah,” they agreed as one, and entered the Bronze.

The place was as advertised: A hangout for the young and, occasionally, for those who just wished they were young. Tara and Sophie were neither, but they were grifters, and in this case, it stood them in good stead. They wandered to the bar, where the bartender did them the favor of carding them.

His eyes travelled over their licenses. “Wouldn’t have believed it,” he offered chivalrously, of the entirely-made-up birthdates on their forged papers. “But you’re legal. Here you go, ladies, one whisky on the rocks and one sex on the beach.”

“You’re so sweet, thank you.” Tara overtipped and sipped her drink, watching the crowd. “So they come here often?”

“If they come out, it’s the only reasonable place to come out. Tara, what aren’t you telling Nate?”

“Nothing I’m going to tell you either, Sophie.”

“But Tara,” Sophie cajoled, “We’ve been friends for years. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“Because one, knowing could get you killed. You remember the Diamond of Saleem?”

“Oh, that awful thing? And every thief in the world wanted to steal it, but there was no way to do it without dying awfully? I remember. And I didn’t tell you, because you were having one of those weeks where you had to steal everything nobody else could. Like the Lost Tome Of Ebackanial.”

“I still have that,” Tara admitted. “I couldn’t get anyone to believe that I had the real thing.”

“-Since the real thing can’t be stolen, of course. Buyers can be so stupid sometimes. Tara, what does this have to do with the Diamond of Saleem?”

“The things I’m not telling you, I don’t think you could keep your hands off of them. And they’re dangerous, get-you-killed dangerous, worse-than-killed dangerous. Are those are targets?” She pointed one well-dressed toe across the room.

“Dorky guy matches. Blonde girl matches, and there’s the dark-haired one, pretending not to be interested. Tara,” Sophie’s voice took on a lazy, cajoling tone, “is this about demons?”

“Sophie!” Tara hissed it out in an angry admonition. “What do you think…” She took out her earpiece and dropped it in a small silk bag, then did the same for Sophie’s. “What possessed you?”

“Nobody, today, although there was that one time in Berlin… relax. I’ve known about the demonic since I was a wee girl. And here we are on the Hellmouth.”

“Here we are on the Hellmouth…” Tara agreed slowly. “Sophie, why exactly did you call me in?”

“Call you in?” Sophie aimed an innocent look over her glass. “All I did was tell you where we were going. You filled in the rest.”

“We don’t grift friends.” Tara sat up straighter and frowned.

Sophie chuckled over her glass. “Oh, look at you. I’m sorry, but you’re as funny as Nate when you think you hold all the cards. Tara, I’ve known what you are since he first time we met, but I couldn’t very well say ‘I need an expert in demons, please come help,’ now could I? You’d have shut down and stopped talking to me for months. Like the Diamond of Saleem thing. Now hsst, here comes the boy.”

The boy sauntered over, goofy smile telling the world he knew he was ridiculous and, what’s more, he didn’t care, thank you very much. He put his elbows on the bar next to Tara before turning to both of them. “Ladies.” The waggle of his eyebrow was both corny and charming. “Buy you a, um, a non-alcoholic, legal drink?”

“You’re sweet to ask.” Tara waved her glass languidly. “Are all the boys in this town so sweet?”

So they were going Russian. Sophie shifted her position and got ready for the charm offensive.

Eighteen: The Escape

Xander smiled uncertainly between the two women.

“Uh, sweet? That’s, no, not everyone here, no ma’am, that is, no miss. Lots of people might be nice or kind or even gentlemanly, but sweet, that’s all me, just Xander. That’s what my girlfriend says, oh, well, that’s the thing.” He attempted something like a bow. “My girlfriend. She’s the one over there making dagger-eyes at both of you, which is probably of course because you’re lovely. So, can I buy you a drink and return to my seat before she kills me, ma’am?”

“He is so very sweet,” the blonde one repeated. Her accent was thick. Russian maybe. “We keep him?”

“Mm. Maybe we do. And girlfriend too.” The darker one ran her fingers up Xander’s arm. “Could be fun.”

Vampire? Xander thought, but they were far too warm for that. He was far too warm. Everyone was…

Xander fled.

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1185157.html

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Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XI

Sep14

Buffy: The Invitation

Help! I’d like clever individual titles for these chapters as well – now taking suggestions for 11 and this one!

Their guide was looking at Buffy as if she had grown a second head.

“Ah just wanted to have a little fun.” She spoke slowly, as if talking to a dangerous animal. That, Xander considered, was probably pretty accurate. “This place, I mean, people are only the new folks once, and if someone spooks ‘em bad, well, that’s not fun. I figured Ivette and Anwell in the hot tub—”

“And Ardell,” Xander interjected, although he couldn’t have told anyone why, “don’t forget Ardell.”

“Yes, but Ardell don’t look like nothing except handsome.”

“..I wasn’t looking that closely,” Xander admitted. “The, uh, wings, yeah, those were a bit of a hang-up.”

“…That’s it, you see, I figured that would be, well, shocking without being terrifying. But y’all ain’t shocked. You ain’t surprised. You’re barely upset at all. Are y’all ringers?”

“Ringers?” Buffy frowned. “Like, bell-ringers? No, we don’t do that, although once I hit a—”

Willow coughed loudly.

“Ah mean,” Magnolia continued, with exaggerated patience, “did y’all know about this stuff before you came here?”

“Well, now,” Xander babbled, “that depends on what you mean by ‘know’ and of course by ‘stuff’ and then there’s ‘before’ and ‘you’… and ‘y’all’…”

“What Xander means to say,” Willow cut him off, “is that there’s a lot of stuff to know about. And it might not be all that related to, ah, demon girls doing — things, doing things — in the hot tub, which ew, unsanitary — and we’re not in the habit of sharing the things we do know with people, and certainly not to see if they freak out!”

“Ah’m sorry, ah’m sorry.” Magnolia ducked her head and offered a smile that she probably meant to be contrite. Xander didn’t buy it, and yet, he rather thought he ought to… anyway. “So you knew about… something here. Demons, hrrm. Usually when we hear people shout ‘demon’, they’re a little less clinical about the whole thing.”

“Well,” Willow explained, “you have to know what sort of demon you’re dealing with. I mean, the difference between little black wings and big blue wings, it can be the difference between—”

“Succubus or Mara?” Magnolia offered.

“What? Succubi are a — oh, I should really stop saying things are myths, shouldn’t I?” Willow’s brow wrinkled worriedly. “And mara, oh, hrrm, those are… Buddhist demons, we haven’t encountered any of those, but they look very dangerous.”

“I’d be careful,” Magnolia said, suddenly looking serious, “about that word, ‘demon.’ I’m not sure what you’re used to, but around here, calling, hrrm, mara demons could get you with some upset people.”

Willow’s frown deepened. “I’ve never heard of a demon that minded being called a demon, I mean, among the sort of demons you can have a conversation with. Oh, dear, is this a school for demons? Because we’re not, you know. We’re — maybe a little strange, but we’re not demons, no…”

“You know,” Magnolia answered slowly, “I’m beginnin’ to think that you three and I have a different definition of the word ‘demon.’ You’re talking like these are, say, people on the street calling themselves demons?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say people, not about most of them at all,” Xander put in.

“Not helping, Xander,” Buffy frowned. “So, you’re talking about people that look like demons and don’t call themselves that. We’re talking about — oh, man, Giles is gonna kill me, but he knew, didn’t he?” She turned to Willow, who made a sympathetic face. “He had to have known, that’s why with all the lectures on not… ‘punching’ people and all that. Okay.” She turned back to Magnolia. “This is supposed to be totally of the secret, but I’m talking about things from actual different dimensions, most of whom are not fuzzy wuzzy cute girls. Well, some of them are, but they like to eat teenaged boys, too.”

“That was only once!”

“Different dimensions?” Magnolia barely spared Xander a glance. “Oh, this is above my pay grade,” she complained. “Luke didn’t tell me — oh, but I bet he didn’t know, or he’d have put you with a cy’Solomon or something, not little ol’ cy’Linden me…” The despairing face she made was almost certainly fake, but Xander couldn’t help but wonder about the actual distress she’d started the sentence with. “All right, so you know demons. Different demons. Now this is quite interesting — but it’s going to make this whole tour a bit complicated, unfortunately.

“Can we settle for a little uncomplication first?” Xander put in. “I mean, not to distract from the mouth-of-hell problems and the demons, cute and not, but what’s a, um, kie-Solomon?”

“Oh, now, that’s easy.” She relaxed, leaning against the wall. Xander found he liked the way she looked relaxed, all smiling and — he mentally shook himself. “We all have Mentors. They’re teachers who, well, teach you specific stuff outside of classes and help you work out what you’re going to do with school.”

“Oh, kind of like an Advisor in college,” Willow perked up.

“Kind of,” Magnolia agreed. “And a group of students under the same Mentor is called a cy’ree. So, cy’Linden, Student of VanderLInden.”

“Oh!” Buffy smiled brightly. “So, like, we’re all cy’Giles.”

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The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 15 & 16 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Sep2

Part I
Part Ia
Part II
Part III
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 9 & 10
Chapters 11 & 12
Chapters 13 & 14

Fifteen: Next Chapter

The hotel suite was one of the nicest in Sunnydale. It still felt crowded and uncomfortable. And it was made all the more uncomfortable by the way Tara was pacing.

“First, you can’t stay in a hotel, not here. You need a place that belongs to you. A threshold. A home.”

“A home? Hells no. we’re just here for a little operation — tell her, Nate! Tell her!” Hardison had been hanging garlic from the curtain rods since Eliot and Parker started on their way back.

“We could afford a house,” Nate answered slowly. “Or we could steal on. Tara, why is it we need a house?”

“Vampires. They can’t come over the threshold of a home. Hotels, motels, those don’t count as homes, though I did see a hobo once make his cardboard fort so nice it held off vampires.”

Nate studied her skeptically. “We’re buying a house because vampires can’t…”

“Can’t enter a home without an invitation, yes.” Tara raised one elegant eyebrow at him. “Sophie called me in because I’m your expert. Do you want me expertise?”

“She’s right, Nate.” Eliot had flopped into a chair and hadn’t moved or spoken since they returned. He hardly moved now. “Vampires have a very strict set of rules, and they can’t break them. Problem is, they can do just about anything else.”

“I think you should call off this whole operation.” Tara twisted to look at Sophie. “That girl… if she doesn’t want us here, we’re not going to get much done here. She made your earpiece, Eliot, Parker, and she could hear them.”

“I’ve been looking for the hack,” Hardison complained, “and I can’t find anything.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Tara leaned forward. “She didn’t hack the comms — she heard them. She kills vampires, she can hear better than anyone has a right to… Eliot, would you say she was preternaturally strong?”

Eliot glowered. “She was strong,” he grumbled. “Even a vampire, it’s not easy to shove something through them — Parker could do it, but she’s Parker. I could do it, people like me could do it fine. That girl made it look easy.”

”Vampires,” Hardison complained. “Man, no. We fight con men. Cheats and big businesses. LIars and cover-uppers. This is… no. This is not what we do, man.”

Tara sat down next to Hardison, knees nearly touching him, leaning forward in earnest. “You help people who are up against forces larger than themselves. You help people ‘suffering under enormous weight’. You provide Leverage against things too big to move. Tell me, Hardison, one girl in all the world chosen to fight vampires until they kill her…. how does that not sound like an enormous weight?”

“That girl?” Eliot frowned. “She’s not old enough for black ops.”

“She’s not,” Tara agreed, “but you saw her. Did she look like she knew what she was doing?”

“She looked tired.” Elliot leaned forward, a frown growing. “She looked like she was bored. I’ve seen people get that look, usually just before they crack. She’s been killing for too long. She doesn’t count the deaths anymore.”

“She’s holding a weight,” Parker agreed. “So are her friends. And they didn’t buy our story at all. So… what do we do?”

Nate looked at his team. “We can pull out. Vampires—” he shook his head. “We haven’t gone up against vampires before. I didn’t know such a thing existed until today.” He looked over at Tara. “You seem to know something about them. You can serve as our expert in the field?”

That elicited a small smile from Tara. “You could definitely say that.”

“All right. So… I’m staying. What the rest of you do is up to you, but Hardison, if you’re staying, you might want to look into buying us a house. Sophie, Tara, she hasn’t met you yet, even if she’s heard you on the earpieces. I think we need to approach our friend a little differently. Eliot, Parker, we stick to the original plan.”

“And what will you be doing?” Sophie raised her eyebrows pointedly.

Nate stood up and stretched before reaching for his cane and a garish purple fedora. “Reconnaissance.”

Sixteen: Next Chapter

“And then she just bent over and staked the guy. While she was around his neck. How do I do that? Giles, show me how to do that.”

Giles coughed. “More importantly at the moment, how did she do it? And, while we are asking questions, why did she do it?”

“Well, I mean, vampire. She’d just seen me stake one, and I tossed her the stick. What else was she going to do?”

“That’s exactly it. Most people would run away, or cower, wouldn’t they?”

“Well, yeah, lots of people cower, but that’s not any fun.”

“So they can handle themselves. I think we may have to accept that they might also be ‘handling’ our missing students.”

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Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XI

Aug25

Buffy: The Invitation

Help! I’d like clever individual titles for these chapters as well – now taking suggestions for 10 and this one!

Luke made a deep growling noise in the back of his throat. “Magnolia, what did I tell you about scaring guests?”

Magnolia made an innocent expression that was ruined by the mischief in her eyes. “Wait until someone else had scared ‘em first?”

“That’s a good start,” he admitted. “Play nice, don’t feed them to any other upperclassmen, and have them back to my office in two hours. Got it.”

“Feed us?” Xander whispered. “Buff, are you…”

Buffy frowned. “Not sure. Things feel hinkey here.”

“Ah, Buffy,” Giles cleared his throat. “Please remember — things here may seem strange in ways that seem familiar. If you are in absolute need of, ah, punching someone, please do come get me before you do anything rash.”

“Got it. No punching without asking the… Librarian first.”

“Oh, ah should introduce you to our librarian. I’m sure she’d like you.” Magnolia’s smile was broad and playful.

“Magnolia,” Luke warned.

“All right, all right. Ah’ll be good. Come on, now, do you want to see the store, the pool, or the arcade first?”

She raised her answers as they all replied at once — with different answers.

“All right, so, we’ll do this in order. Pool is this way, I suppose that means you win, darlin’.” She winked at Xander, who blushed and looked away.

“Would’ve thought you’d had enough of pools,” Willow muttered.

“Hey! I resemble that remark. But, all things considered, I find I like a dip in the water as much as any red-blooded young man…” Xander trailed off to catch up with Magnolia, who was sashaying away. “Hey!”

Buffy had no problem catching up, but trailed a few feet behind to make sure Willow wasn’t getting lost. “Come on, Wills, pay no attention to Xander chasing another demon. I mean, except we probably should pay attention, in case we have to stake someone and why did Giles tell me not to ‘punch’ things? What are we going to run into down here that he had to warn me not once but twice?”

“Well, considering the wards, maybe there’s something down here that’s going to make your … s-girl senses go all wonky,” Willow offered. “And if they already know something’s amiss, maybe they know about… people like, um, like Kendra?” She flailed her hands.

“I don’t like that.” Buffy frowned. “I don’t like being underground to start with, and if I’m underground with a bunch of creepy people who might just know what I can do…” She stopped, because Xander had stopped in the middle of a doorway and was trying to back up, right into them. “Already? Xander, what—”

“D-d-devil,” he muttered, taking another step backwards, dragging Magnolia with him. She, in turn, had an amused smile on her lips and her hand wrapped around Xander’s bicep.

“Come now, that’s no way to talk about Ivette — unless you’ve slept with her.”

“Woah, woah, none of the sleeping with.” Xander put his free hand up in a “stop” gesture. “No matter what anyone’s told you, I’m not the sort of guy to—”

“Oh, come on, Xander, sometimes you are.” Buffy slid between him and the doorway, moving under his upraised arm. “Now what’s this about… oh.” There were a pair of bat wings clearly in her vision; they belonged to someone not wearing anything else, in a tub of people wearing the same thing. “Pardon us…” she slipped right back out, covering her face with her hand. It did nothing to help with the images now seared into her brain. “Was that… Were those…”

“That’s Ivette,” Magnolia purred, “with the wings. And that was Ardell and Anwell with her.” Her voice turned concerned. “That’s nothin’ strange for Addergoole, just some people having fun. The wings don’t bother you, do they?”

“It’s just that,” Buffy blinked a few times. “Okay, sorry, one moment. Wills: black-and-red batlike wings, cute ones, though, not big enough to do much. LIttle devil tail, little horns, same color.”

Willow was flipping through her notebook before Buffy stopped talking. “Skin color?”

“Freckles. White skin.”

Magnolia was looking back and forth between them in bemusement. “Y’all Grigori types or what? No-one else’s ever seen a cy’Linden party and gone ‘what type of wings did she have?’”

“Oh, hey, guys, it’s a party, maybe we should go in.” Xander pivoted and turned towards the door. He made it about half a step before Willow and Buffy grabbed him.

“Xander, Anwell and Ardell were, uh, male. quite male… Oh. Oh, the one had scales on his back, Willow.”

“Nope, nope.” Xander backed off. “Done with scales.”

“…Y’all have an interesting life, don’t you?” Magnolia frowned.

Buffy pointed a glare at her. “You knew they were there, didn’t you? And you wanted to see what we did when we saw — when we saw her wings. And maybe scale-boy’s scales.”

“Well, where did you think I was before I came to show y’all around?” she smirked. “And you should thank me. When you come here, you’ll be a leg up on the rest of ‘em if you’ve already seen it. Most people don’t get a tour.”

“All right.” Buffy paced in front of the pool door. “Wings. The girl had wings. And you were trying to see if we’d freak out.”

“GIles said not to freak, Buffy,” Willow reminded her. “So Giles knows something is going on here.”

“Oh, well, that’s no fun,” Magnolia pouted. “Not even over wings?”

“Not the first winged demon I’ve seen. I mean, usually Xander finds the pretty ones, not me, but that’s about it.” Buffy shrugged. “So you wanted to spook us. Why?”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1173922.html

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The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 13 & 14 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Aug24

Part I
Part Ia
Part II
Part III
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 9 & 10
Chapters 11 & 12

Thirteen: The Revelations

Hardison was freaking out. “There is no way. I mean — tell me, Eliot, what did this girl look like?”

It wasn’t Eliot that answered, it was Parker. “Hard. Veteran. She’s used to killing and she doesn’t like civilians getting in her way. Like Eliot.”

“What?!” Eliot stopped in his angry stomp across the parking lot to stare at Parker. “She can’t be more than five feet tall and she’s a kid. A teenager. She talks like a mallrat. Her fighting style is all over the place. Like she picked it off the buffet at the local Golden Palace… what?”

“Pretend she didn’t talk like a mallrat,” Parker offered. Her voice was angry enough that Eliot took a step back. “Pretend she didn’t look like a teenager. How old were you when you made your first kill?”

“What? In the army. Eighteen.”

“Some of us didn’t get to be kids, remember?”

“Parker?” Nate’s voice over the comms was quiet. “Tell Eliot what you saw.”

“She’s young, which means she hasn’t figured out where her lines are yet. She has friends — good sign, or a bad one, depending on what they’re doing. But they’re friends, or at least the guy is, not minions or pack members.”

Eliot started to scoff, but something in Parker’s expression held him back. “The boy’s in love with her.”

“He’s in awe of her. But we’re in awe of each other all the time. THe way Nate plans, the way Hardison hacks, the way you hit people… she wasn’t in awe of the way you hit people. What about her style?”

“What style? It had no discipline, no plan; she stopped in the middle to check her shoes…”

“And her killing?” Parker pressed.

“…her killing was efficient,” Elliot admitted. “She hits at least as hard as I do. She moves more quickly — she’s younger,” he added defensively. “Less injuries.”

“When she stopped to check her shoe, she distracted one fo the attackers. It made it easier for her to stick that piece of wood through its chest.”

“Stake,” Tara offered. She sounded subdued. “She staked the vampires.”

“Damnit, vampires,” Eliot complained. “Nate, you didn’t tell me this job had vampires.”

There was a pause. In the hotel room, Nate looked at Sophie, who was looking worried and befuddled. He looked at Hardison, who was busily googling vampires. His gaze settled on Tara.

“Eliot,” he asked slowly, “are you telling me that this isn’t the first time you’ve encountered ‘vampires’?”

“Don’t say it like that.” Eliot pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Come on, Parker, we’re getting out of here. Yeah, Nate.” He stalked down the nearly-empty halls of the mall. “Vampires. They’re some sort of demonic entity. We ran into a nest in Fallujah, another one in Panama.”

“Panama?” Sophie asked. “Really?”

“What, vampires don’t like Central America? Did you know vampires even existed an hour ago?” Eliot was stomping, paying only enough attention to Parker to pull her away from window displays. “No, Parker, we’re not stealing… hockey pads. Why would you even want hockey pads?”

“Oh, that—” Hardison fell quiet at a glare from everyone in the room.

“She’s a thief, Eliot, she likes to steal things.” Sophie’s answer came over soothing. “I wasn’t questioning the vampires’ presence in Panama, I was questioning yours.”

“Oh.” He slowed down enough to extricate Parker more gently from the top of what was probably supposed to be a statue and not a jungle gym. “It was a — a thing. Tara, what do you know?”

“I know you don’t wear heels you can’t run in and you always carry two mirrors and a hold-out weapon.”

“Tara!” Eliot snarled the complaint at the mall in general.

“Relax, relax. All right. Have you heard of a Hellmouth?” Tara leaned back in her chair and regarded those members of the team near her.

“Oh, yeah, that’s when a… no.” Hardison fell quiet at Nate’s glare. “No.”

“A Hellmouth.” Eliot frowned. “No. Heard of ‘em, but nobody would ever tell me exactly what they were.”

“Well, you’re on one. And what it is…” Tara paused dramatically. “…well, exactly what it says. It’s a mouth to a hell dimension, possibly to several. It’s a demon magnet, attracting all sorts of evils and some things that aren’t evil, just misunderstood.” She studied her fingernails. “It’s a power source. And the supernatural feeds off it.”

“Great. Just great.” Eliot threw up his hands. “We’re coming back. Nate, the kids knew something. The brunette. But the blonde made me. We’re gonna need someone else to talk to her.”

“Vampires, man,” Hardison complained. “Vampires.”

Fourteen: the Assessment.

“Well,” Xander offered awkwardly, “they were certainly friendly. Or something.”

“Chipper,” Buffy complained. “They were chipper.”

“Do you think maybe that’s the next, mmm, you know?” Xander offered unhelpfully, hands flailing.

“I’ve never seen a Watcher fight like that,” Buffy answered flatly. “I mean, Giles tries, and he still doesn’t…” She shifted into a combat stance and moved through Dave-Palmer-Elliot’s fighting moves thoughtfully. “He’s good. If they had been humans, they’d have been injured or dead. But he was either putting on a show, or he didn’t know he was fighting vampires.”

“And the girl?”

Buffy’s frown deepened. She thought about the way Kendra had spoken of her Watcher, and the way this girl — Alicia? Parker? — looked at her handler. Devoted. She twisted her lips.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1163712.html. You can comment here or there.

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part X

Aug11

Buffy: The Invitation

Help! I’d like clever individual titles for these chapters as well – now taking suggestions for 8, 9, and this one!

“So the whole school is underground?” Xander was the last down the narrow staircase, and he was taking his time, looking around as if the old barn would suddenly reveal something more exciting than a concrete stairway hidden under a trap door. “Doesn’t that get a little, oh, I don’t know, crypt-like? Grave-y? Dank and claustrophobic?”

“Spend a lot of time in crypts?” Luke shot a look over his shoulder at the three of them.

“Of course not,” Willow offered brightly. “It’s just that the whole underground thing is a bit — well, it’s a bit creepy, you have to admit. No offense, I mean, some people like creepy; it’s a valid decorating style, I’m sure, but…”

“But it’s still a bit strange.”

“Being underground lets us spread out more,” Luke offered. “And gives us privacy.”

“Oh, good. Privacy.” Xander swallowed. “Not selling me on the crypt-school here, man.”

“It grows on you.” The lights came on as Luke led them down into a broad room, warehouse shelves flanking a wide receiving area and a big Jeep on some sort of lift. “Through this way is the school. There’s some students here over the summer. Magnolia’ll show you around. You want to talk to Regine, right?” He nodded at Giles.

“I need to impress on her the oddities of our situation — ah, yes.” Giles coughed. “Yes, I need to explain to her, that is —”

“You said ‘yes’, Giles, it’s fine.” Buffy patted him on the shoulder. “I think he got that part without all the extra yesses.”

“Thank you very much for that, Buffy.” Giles frowned at her. “And this tour, I assume it will be of the grounds and accommodations and…”

“All down here.” The warehouse opened out into a wood-panelled hallway, the carpet lush and soft underfoot and the light hidden somewhere in the ceiling. “Greenhouse and dorm rooms, Store and Arcade and the pool and the weight room—”

“You have a greenhouse? Underground? The ‘green’ part isn’t supposed to be mold, is it?”

“Store? Are there shoes? What?” Buffy looked around, although only Giles was really sighing. “I was promised shoes for this trip, and then I broke a nice one when we were in — wherever we were. Also, what about the nightlife? Clubs? That sort of thing?”

“Students with suites throw a lot of parties, and there are dances every other Friday.” Luke didn’t sound all that thrilled about it. “It’s a small school. There’s plenty of chance to get to know everyone.”

“And what about computer classes? Don’t huff, Giles,” Willow scolded. “It’s just that I have a need to keep learning, and if this place is going to challenge me even less than Sunnydale High…” she shrugged. A gesture around the place suggested she didn’t think much of the decor. “Old-fashioned law firm look doesn’t mean challenging teachers.”

Luke cleared his throat. “You could come up with an independent study program with your Mentor. I’m sure there are a couple teachers here who could help you with that, although we’re kind of… old-fashioned here.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Giles muttered.

“Mmph.” Luke shot Giles a look.
Buffy sighed. “More tweed? More old men hiding in rooms and reading books?”

“Nothing lik — more?”

“I have a very interesting life, but it involves way too much tweed,” Buffy explained. “Right, Giles?”

“Ahem. Well, there is quite a bit of tweed, that is, as Buffy says. There are a number of scholars who are less than useful in a difficult situation and who have, ah, insinuated themselves into Buffy’s life. This is all going to come out in the meeting I should have with the Administration, of course, and that would include you, wouldn’t it, Mr. Hunting-Hawk?”

“What… yeah. Yeah, it would.” He rolled his shoulders. “I guess I oughta… Magnolia!” He waved down the hall. “These are the visitors.”

“Oh, I was wonderin’ when they’d show up.” The voice came first, a warm southern drawl. A moment later, they could see the girl around Luke’s shoulder — tall, taller than Xander, with dark tan skin and black curly hair twisted up into a sloppy chignon. She was wearing a halter top and shorts with heeled sandals that made her even taller. “Oh, aren’t y’all cute!”

“Tell me she’s not a demon,” Xander whispered. “Tell me she’s not a demon… ow!” He rubbed his arm where Buffy had punched him.

That left Willow to step forward and offer a cautious hand. “I, um, hi. Willow, that is, I’m Willow, this is Buffy, Xander, and Giles, our, um, our Librarian.”

The tall girl shook Willow’s hand. “Ah’m Magnolia. And the only people that call me a demon are the ones ah’m sleepin’ with, so take that as you may.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1155478.html. You can comment here or there.

The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 11 & 12 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Aug4

Part I
Part Ia
Part II
Part III
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 9 & 10

The Secrets

Eliot fought the urge to snarl at Parker, at this ridiculously perky teenager with a very distinctive style he’d never seen before, at the dust on his clothes, at the ridiculous teenagers showing up and acting as if nothing was strange at all.

He settled for the little half-smile that had gotten him through not strangling Hardison more than once. “The youth group. Alisha is here to join.” His smile morphed into his best fake smile. “I’m here to help keep an eye on things. You know how much trouble you young folks can get in.” He draped a protective arm around Parker’s shoulders and hoped they bought it. He wasn’t a grifter, damnit, and they’d just seen him fighting.”

The blonde narrowed her eyes at him. “The youth group?”

“Oh, I hear it’s a lot of fun!” Parker smiled brightly. “There’s supposed to be singing, and some sort of handiwork, right, Uncle Dave?”

“That’s right, young missy. And it’s all good clean fun.”

“Says the guy who was taking on two vampires by himself.” The blonde narrowed her eyes at him. “Who are you, and where are you from?”

“I’m Dave Palmer, and this is my niece Alicia, and we’re from Boston to help out with this youth group.” He gave them his best good-ol’-boy smile, the one that showed teeth and crinkled his face. Sophie liked it; she said it made him look genuine.

“All the way from Boston?” The brunette girl frowned at him. “That’s a long way for a youth group.”

“Aw, well, we go where the mission takes us, you know.”

“And you fight vampires.” The blonde girl was unhappy with him. The feeling was mutual.

Eliot let a little of the good-ol’-boy slip. “I was in the armed forces, ma’am. I don’t take kindly to people attacking me, and I will fight them when they do so.”

She shifted backwards. “We don’t want the government getting involved.”

He held up both hands in surrender. “Was, ma’am, mustered out and I don’t play that game anymore. But it don’t mean I can’t hold my own against some creeps.” He brushed off his clothes. “Just didn’t expect to see creeps quite like that here, in such a little town. Certainly wasn’t in the brochure.”

The last was slanted, almost a snarl, and directed directly at Hardison. On the other end of the comms, he held up both his hands, although Eliot couldn’t see the gesture. “Don’t look at me, man. Nobody told me we were fighting the undead hordes, either.”

“No.” Tara’s voice was level and calm — and more serious than Nate had heard her be in years. “They’re not kidding, and I’m not joking, either. Eliot and Parker are lucky they survived. Eliot, disengage from the woman before you offend her. I’ll explain everything I can when you get back here.”

“Brochure?” Buffy could hear the faint buzz of conversation in the earpieces, but she noted that for later discussion. “Oh, that silly thing? It doesn’t tell you anything at all about friendly Sunnydale. The vampires, the four days a year it’s not really sunny here, all of those dirty little secrets. Now, this youth group you’re here to join, it wouldn’t be the Idle — Cordy?”

“Idle Hands Workshop.” The brunette girl stepped forward, getting into Eliot’s face without the faintest whiff of fear. “That wouldn’t be you and your friends, would it? Because if it is, I’ve got some questions.”

disengage.

” Tara’s voice, on the other hand, sounded worried. “Nate, we’ve got to reconsider this mission.”

Eliot smiled even more sharply at the brunette. “No ma’am.” He offered his hand. “Cordelia, was it? No, we are not part of the Idle Hands group, but we heard they were having a spot of trouble, and we came into town to see if we could help.”

“That trouble wouldn’t involve—” Cordelia trailed off into a muffled noise of indignation as the young man slapped his hand over her mouth.

The man smiled brightly and took Eliot’s hand with his free hand, shaking it firmly but without any real grip-testing. “What Cordy’s trying to say is that we’ve heard there was some trouble, too. Maybe we’ll come check out the group with you?”

“Elliot…” Tara’s voice was down to a whisper. “This could go so badly.”

“Sure!” He smiled brightly at the young man. “Here, let me write down my number — Alisha, hon, write down my number, wouldja? I don’t remember it — and we’ll get your information. We can work something out.”

Twelve: The Warning

“You’re something else.” Buffy shook her head at the man and wrote down the library number. “Look, I’m not supposed to get calls from strange men—” She masterfully ignored the snorts and suppressed laughter from Xander — so here’s our librarian. He’s a good friend, and he can handle any ‘working anything out’.” She wrinkled her nose at the man. He was too affable, too nice, and way too good with fighting. “Maybe we can spar sometime? If you’re going to be wandering around being bait, I can show you a few things about fighting vampires.”

Most men wouldn’t like being taught by a girl, especially not army men. This guy, he just smiled wider. “I’d love that, ma’am. Ah, here.” He handed her the paper the maybe-a-new-Slayer had written on. “That’s where we’re staying. I do hope we see you around.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Tell your friends — the ones on your phone thingies — that they’re right. You’re in Sunnydale now. Things are going to go badly.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1152200.html. You can comment here or there.

Narnia Problem

Aug3

Hi guys…

I am ~stuck~ on Narnia/Cat in the Closet. I have an entire nother chapter written, but I’m bored.

And if I’m bored, well, then I expect the reader (you) will be too.

So I come to you for help. Help? Advice? Anything?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1151188.html. You can comment here or there.

Alder's Grove Fiction

The Worlds of Lyn Thorne-Alder

Archives

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XIV

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XIII

The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 17 & 18 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Sixteen: The Introduction, Part 2

Eighteen: The Escape

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XI

The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 15 & 16 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Fifteen: Next Chapter

Sixteen: Next Chapter

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part XI

The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 13 & 14 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Thirteen: The Revelations

Fourteen: the Assessment.

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part X

The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 11 & 12 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

The Secrets

Twelve: The Warning

Narnia Problem