Part 22 – From Distraction
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
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---Winters Residence---
I walk out of Mayor Wilkins' office feeling torn between amusement and apprehension.
On the one hand I'm clearly being sent down into some caves by an old man wizard to fetch a maguffin. Mark your calendars folks, I've been in this world for just over four months and I've been given a fetch quest. Anyone taking bets on whether or not it chains out into a fed-ex quest to deliver to someone somewhere massively inconvenient, yet somehow storyline relevant? I roll my eyes at the universe.
On the other hand... I'm being sent to fetch a maguffin he needs to 'fulfill a campaign promise.' There's no way that doesn't mean, 'aid me in violating rule 34 by turning in to a giant snake demon.' I mean gosh, what a pickle! My favorite Mayor wants to retire in a fiery explosion. Seems like such a waste. I'd feel bad about enabling him, but clearly he was able to find the damn thing in canon even without the extra three parts of the cipher- map- ugly ass paintings thing narrowing down his search grid. And of course he's still missing one so I still have a shit ton of cavern to search... Either he got lucky in canon, which isn't really his style, or he must have originally thrown minions at the problem until it went away. Sorry, 'Retrieval Teams.' Bah. Bands of moronic fledges is more like it. Fucking amateurs.
But... I thumb through the folder of headshots and brief descriptions of the previous retrieval team that missed their last three contact points. The 'hazard pay' bonus I'm getting is nice, but it's a shame I won't be able to collect any of the extra money he offered if I could bring the them back in 'alive' given that they took part in my blood recycling program. It's not like I can sort their particular ashes out of my growing collection in the urn. Or reconstitute them if I could.
See this is the problem with secretive organizations. If any of them had badges that said they worked for Wilkins, then I wouldn't have used them as test subjects. Probably. Granted, I'd just have staked them down in the caves instead. But hey, win some lose some.
It's hard to even say if the Mayor even knows what happened to them or not. He seemed to talk like I was just some regular human guy with a gift for spelunking. Was he just being polite? Was that flicker of surprise while my tattoos sizzled him not getting a response from some sort of demon detector? Hard to say. He clearly acknowledged the existence of the supernatural.
Of course he also mentioned that the use of guns in his jurisdiction was 'frowned upon.' I used a gun in the siege of the Amarra crypt as well as against Kakistos. Impossible to say for sure if he's referencing either or if his general spiel just includes that warning... Actually... him politely warning people off of gun usage might explain quite a few things. I suspect boxing up my munitions and reserving them for emergency home defense for the remainder of this season may be easier than dealing with a cranky Wilkins. Not like I can claim I never got the memo now.
Damned overly polite villains. Makes it so hard to tell if anything actually bothers them.
My ruminations carry me back to the house. I pause at the front door as loud yelling suddenly washes over me.
"Bitch! I will kill you!" Faith sounds angry. Not good. Normal later in the season, sure, but not good.
"Awww is little Faithy upset?" ...Why is Amy mocking an angry slayer?
"Fuck you!"
...
Okay. This can't be good. Abandoning any pretext of bothering with a key, I wrench the door knob open with brute force and charge through the door.
Amy and Faith's heads whip around at the noise.
They stare at me over the back of the couch.
I stare back at them.
Behind them the AI drives Mario over the finish line to win the race.
...
"Blue shell?"
"Uh huh." They both nod.
"So... you two aren't trying to murder each other?"
Two heads shake. "No."
I look down at the door knob in my hand. I barely felt it rip right out of the door in my haste to get in. I look back at the door that's now off its hinges. "I think we need a new front door."
Amy rolls her eyes at me. "Okay. I'll call Home Depot in the morning."
I nod. "Cool. Uh... ask them if they have anything in metal." I'd go with another vault style door like down stairs but that might give Buffy the wrong idea. Okay, so she'd be one hundred percent right about my not wanting her to visit... but I doubt she'd take it very well.
The last AI crosses the finish line. Amy starts mumbling swears at the N64.
"Count me in for the race after next? I just need to tape that thing shut for the night."
Amy nods agreeably but Faith gives me an odd look. "I uh... gotta go meet B for patrol."
And just like that Faith is gone.
A touch of déjà vu here. I stare out the open door Faith ran out and then back at Amy's matching confused look. What just happened? All this over a door?
Damn it! I forgot to give her an emergency kit.
I sigh. "I'll be down in the Lab cleaning up the mess Kakistos made."
---Winters Residence---
I knock on the door. A loud thump answers.
"Faith? You okay in there?"
The door opens. A disheveled Faith, still struggling with her blanket cocoon stares at me. "I'm fine." She's a better liar than Amy, I'll give her that at least.
"You coming down to breakfast?"
"It gonna be orange again?" She seems somewhat hung up on that.
"... some of the fruit loops may indeed be orange."
"...Okay. I'll be down in a bit." Her voice sounds a bit flat. I hope she's not still upset about the door.
"Don't take too long. We leave for school in 30."
"Right. School. Okay." The door closes and I hear Faith shuffling around.
...huh.
I really expected more resistance there. I didn't even have to mention that it was a part of getting her emancipation to go through.
---Sunnydale High - Hallways---
"Faith! Hi!" Our entry into the school is brought to an abrupt halt by a blonde missile impacting my Sister. "It's good to meet you."
For her part, Faith seems a bit shocked at being hugged by Harmony.
In her defense, I'm more than a touch confused by Harmony having any idea who Faith is.
"The shit just happened?" Faith asks as Harmony, hug delivered, wanders off to do... whatever it is she does between tasks.
With me lost in thought, Amy picks up the conversation instead. "You just met Harmony."
"That. Was Harmony? B and Red made her sound like-"
"A bitch? Yeah, they still don't really get along very well. But she's really mellowed out this year. Unicorns sneezing glitter, remember?"
I'm still pondering what I could have done to produce that reaction in Harmony when we reach the principal's office.
---Winters Residence---
I look at the newly installed door. It's nice. Sturdy. Made of metal so it won't-
"Amy!"
"What!?" comes the answering yell from upstairs.
"Did you ever figure out how to do fire suppression on a house!?"
"Of course I did! What did you think I was doing while Harmony was painting everything?" Amy appears at the top of the staircase looking slightly peeved.
Honestly..? I was busy hunting up test subjects and didn't give it much thought. I can't imagine that would go over very well though. "I don't know... Enjoying the view?" Amy rolls her eyes at me wanders off, back to whatever she's working on up there. On the plus side I can stop worrying about Amy's pyro-kinesis practi-
"Amy's not gay." Faith sounds rather insistent, yet confused.
"GAH!" Gods damn it Faith! I've gotten entirely too used to having my tattoos buzzing constantly if you could just sneak up on me like that. "No- I don't think she is anyway. Why? Would it be a problem?"
"No... I just thought you two were boinking."
"...No." Although- Fire bad! Waking up on fire extra bad.
---Winters Residence - Atrium---
"Going out patrolling tonight with Buffy?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Take this with you then."
"... what is it?"
"Emergency kit. This is an Epi-Pen I reloaded with enough magic green goop to either fix, or at least stabilize most injuries. Try not to get yourself cleaved in half, but otherwise it should help. This is a road flare because... well the usual reasons. There's also some Excedrin and this thing here sends out a page letting us know you're in trouble. Then it acts as a homing beacon so we can come help you. Amy and I are still working on how to get it to work underground, but I don't see Buffy being overly enthused about showing you anything deeper than the sewers anyway."
Faith stares at the little metal tube with an odd expression, before bolting out the door with a hurried wave. Damn. It's been two days and I'm already running low on ideas for how to convince her I care.
I continue pondering as I make my way down into the lab. At least now I probably don't have to worry about her running into Finch and having her little heroic BSOD moment. Maybe I could try some manner of sibling bonding activity? She and Amy seem to enjoy playing Mario Kart.
Picking up the Glove from where Amy and I left it in the safe after our discussion following her little break down, I set off into the caves. Maybe I can find something to vent my spleen on while I'm searching for that stupid orb thingy Mayor Wilkins wants.
---Sunnydale High - Library---
While Giles is polishing his glasses for the third time, and trying to find a way to mention that Mog'tagar Demons both fit a lot of what they know about me, and also... have no soul.
Inconvenient that, or so I'm told. I don't really seem to find it a challenge. Perhaps mildly concerning in light of my newly discovered theological information, but I have two decades of father assuming he didn't have one either to fall back on. I do find the idea of being an alien has kind of grown on me though. I blame Mother. She started it. While waiting on Giles, I eavesdrop on Buffy and Faith who've paused their sparring to talk.
"Ya know, Principal Snyder warned me to stay away from you."
"He what!?"
"Yeah. Seemed to think you'd be a terrible influence on me." Strange. Faith's usual mocking laughter and bravado are out in full force. It's really kind of night and day between Faith here and Faith at home.
"That- URGH!" Oh. I love it when she makes that face.
...Wait, what was that, Giles? "Oh. Uh. No... I don't think I've ever teleported. I can't say I can recall ever trying though." Why does that make both Xander and Willow look so upset? Did he just mutter something about Nightcrawler?
---Sunnydale Warehouse District---
"Okay. Dude. That was fuckin creepy."
I pause in tossing the room the group of fledges were staying in. It proved to be a fantastic a warm up exercise for our newly expanded trio and finally seemed to be a bonding activity Faith wasn't weirdly skittish about. Err... until now. "What was creepy?"
"That laugh." Faith clarifies. Ah. That.
I summon up my best faux innocent voice. "What laugh?" What could you possibly be talking about?
"Faith. I told you, he doesn't even realize he does it. Here, I brought that tape recorder so we could show him." Well this ought to be hilarious, come now Amy, you can't expect to play these games properly if you don't want to know about the gross stuff.
Amy takes out said recorder and presses play. Faith and Amy stare at it in consternation when my side of the last 10 minutes is completely absent.
I shrug. "I don't hear any laughter." I grin at Amy. Amy glares back at me.
...
"... Do I want to know why you don't show up on the tape?"
"Depends. How do you feel about needles, blood, and sex?"
"...That's a no then." Well, I tried.
"Okay." I stick my tongue out at Amy. She responds in kind at the same time. Awesome.
"You guys are fuckin weird. You know that right?"
"Of course. But you love us anyway." I hope.
"...Yeah." She does a decent job of sounding happy for someone who's eyes suddenly look so sad. What's wrong, Sis?
I walk out of Mayor Wilkins' office feeling torn between amusement and apprehension.
On the one hand I'm clearly being sent down into some caves by an old man wizard to fetch a maguffin. Mark your calendars folks, I've been in this world for just over four months and I've been given a fetch quest. Anyone taking bets on whether or not it chains out into a fed-ex quest to deliver to someone somewhere massively inconvenient, yet somehow storyline relevant? I roll my eyes at the universe.
On the other hand... I'm being sent to fetch a maguffin he needs to 'fulfill a campaign promise.' There's no way that doesn't mean, 'aid me in violating rule 34 by turning in to a giant snake demon.' I mean gosh, what a pickle! My favorite Mayor wants to retire in a fiery explosion. Seems like such a waste. I'd feel bad about enabling him, but clearly he was able to find the damn thing in canon even without the extra three parts of the cipher- map- ugly ass paintings thing narrowing down his search grid. And of course he's still missing one so I still have a shit ton of cavern to search... Either he got lucky in canon, which isn't really his style, or he must have originally thrown minions at the problem until it went away. Sorry, 'Retrieval Teams.' Bah. Bands of moronic fledges is more like it. Fucking amateurs.
But... I thumb through the folder of headshots and brief descriptions of the previous retrieval team that missed their last three contact points. The 'hazard pay' bonus I'm getting is nice, but it's a shame I won't be able to collect any of the extra money he offered if I could bring the them back in 'alive' given that they took part in my blood recycling program. It's not like I can sort their particular ashes out of my growing collection in the urn. Or reconstitute them if I could.
See this is the problem with secretive organizations. If any of them had badges that said they worked for Wilkins, then I wouldn't have used them as test subjects. Probably. Granted, I'd just have staked them down in the caves instead. But hey, win some lose some.
It's hard to even say if the Mayor even knows what happened to them or not. He seemed to talk like I was just some regular human guy with a gift for spelunking. Was he just being polite? Was that flicker of surprise while my tattoos sizzled him not getting a response from some sort of demon detector? Hard to say. He clearly acknowledged the existence of the supernatural.
Of course he also mentioned that the use of guns in his jurisdiction was 'frowned upon.' I used a gun in the siege of the Amarra crypt as well as against Kakistos. Impossible to say for sure if he's referencing either or if his general spiel just includes that warning... Actually... him politely warning people off of gun usage might explain quite a few things. I suspect boxing up my munitions and reserving them for emergency home defense for the remainder of this season may be easier than dealing with a cranky Wilkins. Not like I can claim I never got the memo now.
Damned overly polite villains. Makes it so hard to tell if anything actually bothers them.
My ruminations carry me back to the house. I pause at the front door as loud yelling suddenly washes over me.
"Bitch! I will kill you!" Faith sounds angry. Not good. Normal later in the season, sure, but not good.
"Awww is little Faithy upset?" ...Why is Amy mocking an angry slayer?
"Fuck you!"
...
Okay. This can't be good. Abandoning any pretext of bothering with a key, I wrench the door knob open with brute force and charge through the door.
Amy and Faith's heads whip around at the noise.
They stare at me over the back of the couch.
I stare back at them.
Behind them the AI drives Mario over the finish line to win the race.
...
"Blue shell?"
"Uh huh." They both nod.
"So... you two aren't trying to murder each other?"
Two heads shake. "No."
I look down at the door knob in my hand. I barely felt it rip right out of the door in my haste to get in. I look back at the door that's now off its hinges. "I think we need a new front door."
Amy rolls her eyes at me. "Okay. I'll call Home Depot in the morning."
I nod. "Cool. Uh... ask them if they have anything in metal." I'd go with another vault style door like down stairs but that might give Buffy the wrong idea. Okay, so she'd be one hundred percent right about my not wanting her to visit... but I doubt she'd take it very well.
The last AI crosses the finish line. Amy starts mumbling swears at the N64.
"Count me in for the race after next? I just need to tape that thing shut for the night."
Amy nods agreeably but Faith gives me an odd look. "I uh... gotta go meet B for patrol."
And just like that Faith is gone.
A touch of déjà vu here. I stare out the open door Faith ran out and then back at Amy's matching confused look. What just happened? All this over a door?
Damn it! I forgot to give her an emergency kit.
I sigh. "I'll be down in the Lab cleaning up the mess Kakistos made."
---Winters Residence---
I knock on the door. A loud thump answers.
"Faith? You okay in there?"
The door opens. A disheveled Faith, still struggling with her blanket cocoon stares at me. "I'm fine." She's a better liar than Amy, I'll give her that at least.
"You coming down to breakfast?"
"It gonna be orange again?" She seems somewhat hung up on that.
"... some of the fruit loops may indeed be orange."
"...Okay. I'll be down in a bit." Her voice sounds a bit flat. I hope she's not still upset about the door.
"Don't take too long. We leave for school in 30."
"Right. School. Okay." The door closes and I hear Faith shuffling around.
...huh.
I really expected more resistance there. I didn't even have to mention that it was a part of getting her emancipation to go through.
---Sunnydale High - Hallways---
"Faith! Hi!" Our entry into the school is brought to an abrupt halt by a blonde missile impacting my Sister. "It's good to meet you."
For her part, Faith seems a bit shocked at being hugged by Harmony.
In her defense, I'm more than a touch confused by Harmony having any idea who Faith is.
"The shit just happened?" Faith asks as Harmony, hug delivered, wanders off to do... whatever it is she does between tasks.
With me lost in thought, Amy picks up the conversation instead. "You just met Harmony."
"That. Was Harmony? B and Red made her sound like-"
"A bitch? Yeah, they still don't really get along very well. But she's really mellowed out this year. Unicorns sneezing glitter, remember?"
I'm still pondering what I could have done to produce that reaction in Harmony when we reach the principal's office.
---Winters Residence---
I look at the newly installed door. It's nice. Sturdy. Made of metal so it won't-
"Amy!"
"What!?" comes the answering yell from upstairs.
"Did you ever figure out how to do fire suppression on a house!?"
"Of course I did! What did you think I was doing while Harmony was painting everything?" Amy appears at the top of the staircase looking slightly peeved.
Honestly..? I was busy hunting up test subjects and didn't give it much thought. I can't imagine that would go over very well though. "I don't know... Enjoying the view?" Amy rolls her eyes at me wanders off, back to whatever she's working on up there. On the plus side I can stop worrying about Amy's pyro-kinesis practi-
"Amy's not gay." Faith sounds rather insistent, yet confused.
"GAH!" Gods damn it Faith! I've gotten entirely too used to having my tattoos buzzing constantly if you could just sneak up on me like that. "No- I don't think she is anyway. Why? Would it be a problem?"
"No... I just thought you two were boinking."
"...No." Although- Fire bad! Waking up on fire extra bad.
---Winters Residence - Atrium---
"Going out patrolling tonight with Buffy?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Take this with you then."
"... what is it?"
"Emergency kit. This is an Epi-Pen I reloaded with enough magic green goop to either fix, or at least stabilize most injuries. Try not to get yourself cleaved in half, but otherwise it should help. This is a road flare because... well the usual reasons. There's also some Excedrin and this thing here sends out a page letting us know you're in trouble. Then it acts as a homing beacon so we can come help you. Amy and I are still working on how to get it to work underground, but I don't see Buffy being overly enthused about showing you anything deeper than the sewers anyway."
Faith stares at the little metal tube with an odd expression, before bolting out the door with a hurried wave. Damn. It's been two days and I'm already running low on ideas for how to convince her I care.
I continue pondering as I make my way down into the lab. At least now I probably don't have to worry about her running into Finch and having her little heroic BSOD moment. Maybe I could try some manner of sibling bonding activity? She and Amy seem to enjoy playing Mario Kart.
Picking up the Glove from where Amy and I left it in the safe after our discussion following her little break down, I set off into the caves. Maybe I can find something to vent my spleen on while I'm searching for that stupid orb thingy Mayor Wilkins wants.
---Sunnydale High - Library---
While Giles is polishing his glasses for the third time, and trying to find a way to mention that Mog'tagar Demons both fit a lot of what they know about me, and also... have no soul.
Inconvenient that, or so I'm told. I don't really seem to find it a challenge. Perhaps mildly concerning in light of my newly discovered theological information, but I have two decades of father assuming he didn't have one either to fall back on. I do find the idea of being an alien has kind of grown on me though. I blame Mother. She started it. While waiting on Giles, I eavesdrop on Buffy and Faith who've paused their sparring to talk.
"Ya know, Principal Snyder warned me to stay away from you."
"He what!?"
"Yeah. Seemed to think you'd be a terrible influence on me." Strange. Faith's usual mocking laughter and bravado are out in full force. It's really kind of night and day between Faith here and Faith at home.
"That- URGH!" Oh. I love it when she makes that face.
...Wait, what was that, Giles? "Oh. Uh. No... I don't think I've ever teleported. I can't say I can recall ever trying though." Why does that make both Xander and Willow look so upset? Did he just mutter something about Nightcrawler?
---Sunnydale Warehouse District---
"Okay. Dude. That was fuckin creepy."
I pause in tossing the room the group of fledges were staying in. It proved to be a fantastic a warm up exercise for our newly expanded trio and finally seemed to be a bonding activity Faith wasn't weirdly skittish about. Err... until now. "What was creepy?"
"That laugh." Faith clarifies. Ah. That.
I summon up my best faux innocent voice. "What laugh?" What could you possibly be talking about?
"Faith. I told you, he doesn't even realize he does it. Here, I brought that tape recorder so we could show him." Well this ought to be hilarious, come now Amy, you can't expect to play these games properly if you don't want to know about the gross stuff.
Amy takes out said recorder and presses play. Faith and Amy stare at it in consternation when my side of the last 10 minutes is completely absent.
I shrug. "I don't hear any laughter." I grin at Amy. Amy glares back at me.
...
"... Do I want to know why you don't show up on the tape?"
"Depends. How do you feel about needles, blood, and sex?"
"...That's a no then." Well, I tried.
"Okay." I stick my tongue out at Amy. She responds in kind at the same time. Awesome.
"You guys are fuckin weird. You know that right?"
"Of course. But you love us anyway." I hope.
"...Yeah." She does a decent job of sounding happy for someone who's eyes suddenly look so sad. What's wrong, Sis?
