Constraints: follows ‘living dead girls’.
Synopsis: Daria and Jane deal with the changes that have occurred in ‘living dead girls’
Living dead girls 2: Corporate Seizure
.
Content: violence, some nudity.
Legal: Angel and Buffy belong to mutant enemy, Daria belongs to MTV, there are also phrases from SG1 and ‘Evil dead III’. Also, I got invaluable advice from Thea Zara, Dervish, Ostragoth, Stalker and Roentgen on this.
~-~
Daria was headed to the public library to continue her education there, since she was still suspended.
The wounds had been inflicted on areas that were covered by clothing, so she didn’t imagine having to face awkward questions from her parental units. But there might be problems come her first PE sessions after her suspension ended, although the continuing pain in her fingers (she claimed to have tripped and accidentally bent her fingers back in the fall) might allow her to skip PE.
Jane had also been suspended, but had also gone to ground, which had limited Daria’s options as to who she could discuss these problems with, since Tom didn’t know anything about any of the things she had become aware of. Attempting to describe the situation would most likely drive him away. The only people that left were Sandi and Quinn, who wouldn’t want to be seen hanging around Daria, and would probably drive Daria nuts with their talk of fashion.
Things were beginning to suck big time.
“Hey Daria.”
Daria turned to see the source of that
voice.
Daria frowned for a few seconds, then continued on her way.
“
“I’m … trying to have a pleasant conversation with you.”
“Uh-huh, right, like the last one we had at Vallie … Whatsit … ” said Daria.
“Vahla Ha’nesh?” offered
“Whatever, what do you want? Not that I care, but … ”
“Well, I’m kind of lost in your world, and my Qwa’ha Xahn has abandoned me. I need someone to help me learn how this new world works, so that I can survive.”
“Right, well, I don’t feel like helping you, I’m still mad at you for torturing me,” said Daria.
“Aww, please don’t be angry,” she said,
before moving up beside Daria and placing an arm around Daria’s ribcage,
pressing it against hers, causing the structure to flex painfully.
Daria reached into her jacket pocket and grabbed the crystal.
~-~
She had been on the floor for about 10 seconds receiving more blows before it all stopped and Daria appeared in front of her.
“Okay, here’s a little advice about getting on in this world: Manners and pleasantries make people willing to help you, instead of plotting to shove you down a rock pulverizer.”
Then Daria was gone, leaving
Didn’t anybody worship her any more?
~-~
“Gh-ohd, doesn’t anyone worship us anymore?” Asked Sandi.
“Face it, two people do not make a Fashion Club,” said Quinn.
“That case, we need to find an alternate way to make ourselves popular,” said Sandi.
“How?” asked Quinn.
Sandi looked around, then noticed the bulletin board “How about we enter American Pop Idol 2?”
Quinn looked at the poster and said “I don’t know about that. All they do is emotionally abuse and publicly humiliate the contestants, that would do more harm than good.”
“Yeah, unless someone like Daria ends up on the contest. Her singing voice and her recitation of lyrics is quite excellent I noticed,” said Sandi.
“Really? … I never noticed, are you sure?” asked Quinn.
“Absolutely,” responded Sandi, with a nod.
Sandi then looked around.
“What?” asked Quinn, she then looked where Sandi was looking, and saw Angela walking away with her hands possibly in the ‘I have found another way that will make me very, very right and very, very popular’ position (which strangely seemed to resemble the sort of hand rubbing villains are portrayed as doing)
“Miss Li, eavesdropping, I think she could use a lesson in pain,” said Sandi.
“My, we are feeling cranky today,” commented Quinn, before saying “Are you sure we should use the nukes straight away?”
~-~
“Just a few things that need sorting out right now. You and your watcher failed to report in or respond to any phone calls, and an investigation failed to reveal your own or your watchers location. Could you tell me what happened?”
Tiffany looked at Giles, trying to work out how she was going to talk about this without bursting into tears.
“We were headed to my house, and we got ambushed.”
~-~
Tiffany
and her watcher, Nathan, were discussing her performance in their last round of
exercises when 4 vamps appeared from behind some bushes in front of them, and
three behind.
“Ohhh-kayyyyy
… ” said Nathan, trying to come up with a plan.
They were
both tooled with stakes, and had a decent amount of martial arts proficiency,
but Tiffany was merely a potential slayer.
But
they were fucked if they didn’t try something, so they each picked a vampire
and engaged.
They
each splashed two before the remaining vamps knocked them out.
~-~
When
Tiffany awoke, her head felt like it was about a microbar from exploding.
She
saw a floor.
A
bare, wooden, dirty floor, covered in bits of charred foil and spliff ends,
and, Nathan.
She
also noticed she couldn’t move her arms, her wrists and elbows were tied
together, and when she tried to sit up, she felt chain links moving around her
neck.
She
was also butt naked.
Her
watcher on the other hand, was fully clothed, and free.
That
meant he was dead.
…
Or …
…
Tiffany
didn’t want to think about it, but it was possible that …
Tiffany
decided to instead work on escape. She could move her fingers, and her palms were
facing inwards, so provided she could find a knife or a pair of scissors, she
could at least free her arms, which left the chain on her neck.
She
looked around, the three surviving vamps were asleep on a sofa and two single
mattresses. Her chain led along the floor to a hole, where it descended around
one side of a beam and returned to be united to the rest of the chain with a
padlock, she estimated 3 metres of chain.
She
also saw her stuff piled on a coffee table, her feet were free to move, so she
got to her knees and made her way to the table to try to locate her nail file,
and her stake.
Neither
were present.
Not
even her CS can (some of her patrol routes led her to more mundane bandits, where
staking would be inappropriate).
Why
was she even alive? Shouldn’t they have drained her of blood by now?
Or
was that going to be her watchers job?
She
looked around some more, trying not to rattle the chain too much, she had to
escape before the vamps- “Ahh, good evening.” She froze.
She
looked to her 3o’clock position, the vamp on the sofa was awake.
“Good
news for you, you’re not going to be turned or killed, you’re going to live.”
~-~
“They found my blood to be quite tasty, so I was kept as a dessert,” ‘and a fuck toy,’ she didn’t add, either case would have been bad enough on its own.
“You wish to stop for a while?” asked Giles.
“No, might as well continue,” said Tiffany, surprised at how well she was containing her emotions while recounting the events.
~-~
“Where’s
the fucking lighter?” asked Max, the brown haired vamp.
“How
should I know?” asked Nathan.
The
other two were named Tom (black hair, slim build) and Jack (no hair, and a
goatee). This had been several weeks into Tiffany’s capture. They had been
force feeding her iron supplements and soup. Sometimes one or more of them
would fuck her too. It was getting to the point where she would go for being
dead, but she was taking these bastards with her, or she would take them out
and escape. Either way, they were going to die.
Nathan
walked up to her and lifted her by her chain “I bet you know where it is, don’t
you?”
Tiffany
was forced to stand on her toes. She looked away from Nathan, but Nathan
grabbed her face and forced her to look at him, her former watcher, now an
enemy agent that fed on her and occasionally raped her, she realised she was
scowling, and accurately predicted he would punch her in the stomach.
Vampires
hit like horses kick, and to be hung while punched that hard was a near death
experience.
But
they weren’t going to let her die.
It
wasn’t just that potential slayer blood tasted nice, breaking her down into a
caged animal also seemed to be giving them a lot of pleasure.
Nathan’s
interrogation was cut short by the other vamps, and Tiffany was dropped onto
the floor, where she coughed and tried to recover.
After
looking everywhere, the vamps concluded that it had just been misplaced by one
of them, they decided to feed her the tinned soup cold. This was done one of
two ways, either they would put it on a stainless bowl on the floor where she
would lap it up, or they would shove a funnel that had a 2cm spout down her
throat and pour it in, sealing her mouth and nose so she couldn’t breathe until
it was all down her neck.
That
will end in two days time.
She
had one chance to take them out. She fucked it up, they might amputate her
hands, confine her even more tightly, any number of things, so she was going to
wait a couple of days to be sure that they won’t be watching her while
pretending to be asleep.
~-~
Nathan
was awoken by a scream, then another joined the first as he opened his eyes. The
room was on fire … because Tiffany had the lighter that had gone missing, and
one of the butane cans for the camping hob.
Before
Nathan could do anything, Tiffany had turned the fire towards him. He tried to
escape the flame, but was unsuccessful, and was unable to locate any means of
extinguishing the fire before he turned to dust.
‘Splash
four’ Tiffany noted. She dropped the now empty can but retained the lighter. It
was one of those long nose lighters, she had used her nail files under nail
scraper to open the valve on the top, then she had used the lighter to spark
the escaping gas.
Now
she lifted the tip of the lighter to burn through the 3mm rope that had been on
her wrists for the past two weeks. The nylon rope melted and ignited, she felt
immense pain, but it was about the same in intensity as the sores where the
rope had been cutting into her skin, and nothing next to the blood rushing back
into her hands. Her wrists were finally loose, that left her elbows, which were
too tightly bound for her to just shrug off, she looked at the raging fires,
those would burn off skin and muscle before freeing her elbows, she needed to
get a smaller flame in there.
She
looked at her stuff which had been thrown into a corner, she walked over there,
and felt the chain start to pull on her neck. She sat down and reached with her
toes to pull a pen and a pencil into her reach.
She
pushed the pencil tip into the top of the pen, which split to admit the pencil,
but held it. It seemed long enough to reach her elbows, she then lit the
eraser.
~-~
“I then had to pick apart the beam with my
nail file, that took for fuckin’ ever, good thing the fires didn’t have the
fuel to ignite the structure. And then I saw the sores on my arms which were
pretty deep, I decided I didn’t want anyone to see them and start asking
questions, so I pulled all the money out of my account and I got a street
surgeon to disguise the wounds. I returned home, telling my parents I had run
off because school was getting to me. They bought it, but I couldn’t find the
number for the watchers council, so I continued to work on my own. Then I was
activated, I guessed that meant another slayer got KIA’d. Then I was found by
Faith and
“Yes, I’m surprised the people who made the first vampire slayer didn’t think of that,” said Giles, he then continued “you were very lucky with the street surgeon, a lot of them would have ended up increasing the damage.”
“I know, I just wanted any reminders gone,” said Tiffany.
“What about the mental reminders, nightmares, anxiety attacks, has anything like that presented?” asked Giles.
“Used to, but those seem to have gotten better,” said Tiffany.
“Hmm … you’re talking at normal speed now
without the magic, Faith said she had
Tiffany looked down at the floor, she then brought up the words “I was doing this drug I found that slows the brain while allowing me to fight, hence the reduced nightmares and anxiety attacks.”
“Do you feel you can come off that now?” asked Giles.
“I can try, I have been unable to replenish my supplies in the past couple of days, but I think I can come off those now,” said Tiffany.
“You can always get help if you feel you need it, there are plenty of institutions within our theatre of war that offer counselling and preserve client anonymity,” said Giles.
“I know,” said Tiffany.
“Right, well, now there’s the question of
what to do with you, do you feel up to returning to
“I don’t know … oh, crap, my parents, I’ve disappeared again, what do I tell them?”
“Oh, they think you’re helping the FBI with something you supposedly witnessed when you were missing, and that you won’t be able to tell them about it, but feel free to make something up for them if you feel you have to.”
“Thanks … I really made a mess in
“Yes, Faith mentioned that, the vampire you
were after is her friend,
“Yes, she was Daria’s friend, Daria can’t
accept that Jane is dead, and that the thing that replaced her is some vicious
killer … it’s not Daria’s fault, I should have left her alone and concentrated
on other vamps … speaking of, I should return to
“Are you sure you’re up to it?” asked Giles.
“No … but I won’t make things better by hiding out over here, I could probably use a watcher though, I’ve missed the input,” said Tiffany.
“Very well then, I have someone who has
originated from the
~-~
“And now we’re on our way back to Lawndale, where the courageous Faith and Tiffany faced off against impossible odds to save the planet from the self destructing old one.” said Andrew with irritating enthusiasm.
“Where the brave Tiffany had to use her wits to escape a nest of cruel vampires-” started Andrew.
Only to be interrupted by Tiffany saying “Yeah, a little louder, I don’t think the passengers right at the back can hear you blab my confidence away.”
Andrew looked at her infuriated face with a deep sense of shame.
“Errm … sorry,” he finally said.
Tiffany pressed her head back into her seat and said “just out of curiosity, what knowledge is needed to qualify you to be a watcher anyway?”
“Well … Okay, that was stupid of me just now, but I have proven myself capable of being a watcher,” replied Andrew.
“Right, just try to cut back on the
melodrama, ‘sides, Daria helped us save the world. I just hope she can tolerate
my presence when we get back. have you been made aware of what happened prior
to me and Faith receiving the equipment from
“Yes,” he finally said.
“I was obsessed with Jane for some reason, and I got mad at Daria for her interference. Doesn’t help that I had been medicating myself with those pills. Oh, that reminds me, now I’m off the meds, if I’m asleep when we land, do not touch me, I might break your arm before I’m awake enough to realise I’m not in that nest,” she said.
“Right,” said Andrew, he looked out the window and saw it getting dark.
~-~
Jane entered the apartment and headed for the kitchen, she glanced around the apartment, seeing those creepy dolls with the blindfolds.
It turned out that the entire north side of
this block of apartments was occupied by vampires. Some were gangsters (having
great strength and a certain moral flexibility being advantages in that field
of work). Some were ‘blood whores’, feeding off people who paid for the
experience (getting paid for what you do and enjoy anyway is understandably
attractive). And others had more legitimate jobs on the night shift (Dayshift
for those working on the
She put it in the fridge and got an older tub out and poured it into a mug. She added a load of cinnamon to it, her latest experiment to see if she could get a better taste, and stuck it in the microwave for 5 minutes low power.
She leant against the kitchen counter and looked in the direction of her roommate’s room, where her roommate was probably sleeping under a now bloodless corpse.
Her thing seemed to be pulling a man, and feeding off him while he fucked her, and not revealing her name.
She had asked the girls name numerous times since she had moved in, but had received insane rambling singsong … gibberish for an answer.
Insane girl’s half of the rent came from her victim’s wallets.
Hopefully the IRS won’t do them for failing to pay the inheritance tax.
Occasionally, one of the vamps will kill the landlord, happened every 3 weeks apparently. They’d also cook the books so that the ones that were recorded as having been behind on payments were instantly ahead.
Jane was barely tolerated by the other vamps, her attitude towards taking lives made them think she was some sort of traitor, or insane.
The unnamed girl started talking to her latest victim.
‘I’m insane???’ Jane thought sarcastically.
She wondered how Daria was doing without her, their falling out over the Tom situation had demonstrated Daria’s dependence on Jane for emotional support, and now Jane was on the run because of some vigilante vampire hunter.
She had told Jane to go somewhere SHE wouldn’t think of … She was expecting Tiffany to torture her for answers. … She had to find out the situation, but … nah, no way Tiffany would have access to call tracing equipment … or if she did, she’d use it for a paperweight.
She picked up the phone and dialled the number.
~-~
“Mystic pound, for all your stray demon needs,” answered Daria.
“Hey Amiga,” said Jane.
“Hi, how’ve you been?” asked Daria.
“Okay, got a north facing apartment, got a job, butchers, lots of free blood, and I got an insane vamp for a roommate who won’t tell me her name, you?”
“Well, my suspension’s nearly over, I’ll be
back at school tomorrow. Some really weird shit happened after you left,
Tiffany came after me looking for you, using shocks and cuts, then
“Ouch, what did she do to you?” asked Jane.
“Tenderised me, then she stretched my back out, almost to failure point. I just hope she catches something really nasty and dies a slow torturous death,” said Daria.
“And you’re back at school tomorrow?” asked Jane.
“Yep, I’m just dreading facing Morris alone,” said Daria.
“Double Ouch … On the plus side, I saw American Pop Idol 2 was going to be held at your school. Maybe Kevin and Brittany will enter and get a new one ripped out of their ego by Cowel and that green guy, assuming he’s as mean,” said Jane.
Daria laughed and said “Yeah, that might make me feel better, Emphasise the might though.”
“How about the Fashion Club? Quinn or Sandi crying, or Sta- Illyria or Tiffany turning Cowel into hamburger meat? Mayhem, mayhem, mayhem? Anyway, I’ll call again tomorrow,” said Jane.
“Yeah, bye,” said Daria, then Jane hung up.
Daria was glad that Jane was okay, it had been two weeks since Jane had left, and she had been seriously worried for her.
Jane hadn’t revealed her location, and Daria thought that prudent, even though she had the impression that the slayers had lost interest in Jane, it seemed a bad idea to tempt fate.
~-~
The plane pulled into the terminal, and the passengers started gathering their belongings.
Except Andrew and Tiffany.
Tiffany was asleep, and her advice was ringing loudly in Andrews ears. Tiffany might cause severe injury to anyone who grabs her while she’s asleep.
But if he didn’t wake her soon, one of the flight attendants would, and then Tiffany would be wanted for assault, if not arrested.
He braced himself and tapped the back of Tiffany’s hand.
He kept at it until Tiffany stirred.
“We’re at
“Right,” Tiffany rubbed her face and sat up.
Andrew felt considerable relief that he didn’t get his arm mangled.
“Any nightmares?” he asked.
“No actually, maybe those pills had served a useful purpose after all,” they got their stuff and disembarked.
~-~
Daria entered the kitchen looking a little spacey.
“Daria? You look awful!” said Helen.
“What?” asked Daria, before blinking, she then headed to the toaster to make herself some pop tarts.
“Daria, you look like you’ve been up all night, what were you doing?”
Daria turned to Helen again, shook her head, said “What?” before finally returning to her task of making breakfast.
Quinn entered the room and said “’morning Daria, ready for your first day back?”
Daria blinked at her a few times and said “What?”
“Ah,” said Quinn, before checking the kettle, switching it on, and loading a cup with 6 spoonfuls of Nescafe dilithium residue.
“Um, Quinn honey? Isn’t that a touch excessive?”
Quinn looked at Daria and said “actually, this not might be enough,” before adding two more spoonfuls.
Daria responded to the toaster ejecting the pop tarts three seconds after the event.
Soon as the kettle switched off, Quinn poured the water into the cup, stirred it a few times, and managed to get the cup to Daria’s lips just before she got the pop tart there. Hopefully the lack of food in front would get the caffeine where it’s needed in about two seconds.
Daria shuddered, and her mind was at military.
“Whoa, thanks Quinn.” said Daria, she then took the cup from Quinn and consumed the coffee and the pop tart as Helen asked “You ready to return to school?”
“I suppose.” said Daria.
“You’re not going to trash the library or something else, are you?”
“First off, that was Jane, and she only did that accidentally while trying to defend herself,” said Daria.
“If that’s the story you would like to maintain-” started Helen.
But Daria interrupted with “Besides, the amount of effort needed to shift one of those book cases … ”
Helen thought about it and said “Oh yeah … Okay, fair enough.”
~-~
“You get any sleep at all last night Daria?” asked Quinn as they walked to school.
“Yeah, I slept one out of five seconds,” said Daria “stupid post traumatic stress disorder.”
“You might think about getting help,” suggested Quinn.
“Thought about it, rejected it, on account that the second I start talking about Illyria possessing Stacy and abducting me to another dimension, slowing time, and the fact Tiffany was interrogating me in pursuit of a vampire, I’ll start getting treated for schizophrenia,” said Daria.
“Oh, right … You talk to Jane at all?” asked Quinn.
“Yeah, talked to her last night. She’s fine, got a crazy vampire roommate, a job at a butchers, north facing apartment, so no direct sunlight ever,” said Daria.
“Unless Al Qaeda hit her city with one of those missing suitcase nukes,” said Quinn.
Daria looked at her and asked “Have you been watching the history channel?”
“This isn’t history, this is the present, I was watching that survival program that the SAS guy was doing,” said Quinn.
“Still a documentary, you’re not worried about it making you unpopular?” asked Daria.
“Not if people don’t find out ab- … ” Quinn froze, looking worried.
“Relax, not gonna blackmail you, not in the mood … wonder what that’s about?” said Daria.
Marcus Hamilton appeared beside them “Morgendorffer and Morgendorffer, I see you’re headed off to school, so I’ll make this quick. Daria, the crystal you used to help you protect your fair town, is property of Wolfram and Hart, I have been asked to retrieve it.”
“Erm …
“Well, if that’s the way you feel on the matter, I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement,” said Marcus as he circled around to Daria’s side.
He then grabbed Daria by her throat and
lifted her about 30cm into the air without any tell whatsoever, and as Daria
struggled to get his hand off her, he retrieved the crystal from her pocket. He
then said “
Daria tried to say yes, but couldn’t, she nodded as far as she could.
“Excellent, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing then,” he then dropped Daria on her ass and disappeared (possibly using the crystal rather than any other magic)
Quinn helped Daria to her feet as she coughed and recovered.
“You okay Daria?” asked Quinn.
“Fine … next time I’m on E-bay, I’ll start looking for a non-metallic gun. I’ve really had it up to here with everyone else being able to attack me at will,” said Daria, as she rubbed her throat.
~-~
As Daria approached the school, she saw two people she didn’t want to see.
“Tiffany’s back,” commented Quinn.
“She was absent?” asked Daria.
“For the duration of your suspension,” said Quinn.
“And
“Showed up every day, looking like Stacy. She kept her distance from Sandi and me, but I still wish she would just disappear for good,” said Quinn.
Tiffany approached them.
“What does she want?” asked Daria.
Tiffany stopped one point five metres from them, standing with her mouth slightly open as if she was trying to come up with something to say.
Tiffany finally said “That stuff I did to you that night, I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry I did that. I’m not going to ask you to forgive me for it, and I won’t do anything like that again … I’ll be gone now … as far as my required presence at school will allow … ” she then headed into school.
Daria and Quinn looked at each other.
“At least she was contrite,” said Daria.
“She was talking faster, without moving like a character on fast forward,” said Quinn.
“So when she tortured me, she may not have been firing in all cylinders?” asked Daria.
“I suppose,” said Quinn.
“That’s not getting her off,” said Daria, before also heading into school.
A few seconds later, Quinn followed.
~-~
Angel looked in disbelief as Eve signed the form that Marcus had produced.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What the Hell’s going on?” asked Angel.
“Oh, sorry for the intrusion, I’m Marcus Hamilton, your new liaison to the senior partners,” he then pointed out another part of the contract for Eve to sign.
“You’re what?” asked Angel.
“Along with her immortality and certain other privileges, Eve has signed over her duties to me,” he then flipped to the back page and told Eve to initial there.
“This was about a contract? I thought you said you were gonna die,” said Angel.
“And now, one day, I will,” said Eve.
“The senior partners felt it was time for a change, Eve was too easily distracted. Lost sight of the big picture,” said Marcus.
“I fell in love,” said Eve.
“Yes, congratulations,” he said to eve, then he turned to Angel and said “Wonderful escape, by the way, very clever, we'll be in touch, Oh, I have some excellent ideas I can't wait to share.” Angel approached Marcus and said “This is my house, the only ideas that matter are mine.” “Absolutely,” said Marcus, not loosing his cheerful demeanor “The senior partners are behind you 100%.”
“I doubt that,” said Angel, this had been a really weird day. He couldn’t believe he had decided to spring Lindsey from that holding dimension, since he was one of those people that Angel felt deserved that kind of thing, but then, he also felt Knox could to (Gunn had brought him along especially for this after they had found out he had intended to infect Winifred with Illyria, and while someone else was still dead from that, he was still relieved it wasn’t Winifred)
~-~
“Miss Morgendorffer, are you aware that
“Yes, you have made me aware of that 4 times now. What of it?” asked Daria.
“If you enter, the damage to the library will be removed from your permanent record,” she explained.
“Yes, but my criminal record will include the sadistic murder of Simon Cowel, nice try Angela.”
“Principal Li to you, it is hiiiighly disrespectful for you as a student to use my first name,” she said.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it Angela?” said Daria before walking off.
~-~
“Tiffany?”
Tiffany closed her locker and turned to
“Tell me you don’t think that the fact both of us are now on Sandi and Quinn’s shitlist makes us friends. Because I saw you abduct Willow, then I visited her in hospital after you dislocated a large number of her limbs, then her Friend Fred, who, fair enough, is now working for Wolfram and Hart, but Willow still considers her a friend … just fuck off, Illyria, be gone.”
“Aww, come on, we were friends-” started
But Tiffany spun, putting her fist
(followed by a sizable dent) into the locker. “NO,
~-~
Winifred entered Angel’s office and asked “what’s up?”
“Apparently, the senior partners need you for a special project,” said Angel.
“You will be briefed upon arriving on location,” added Marcus.
“Okay, any hints? A list of stuff I need to bring?” asked Winifred
“All necessary equipment will be provided on site,” said Marcus.
“Okay, that case I need to select a temp for science here,” said Winifred.
“Fred, a word,” said Wesley.
~-~
“Anything the senior partners would want you for, it is guaranteed to be evil,” said Wesley when they were in the briefing room.
“Wesley, we’ve been in evil inc. for the good part of a year now, save the good, I know the drill,” said Winifred.
“Fred, this is different, your direct superior at Wolfram and Hart LA is Angel, the SPs have refrained from micromanaging us, but in this instance, what you will be doing will directly help the SPs cause, you will be isolated from friendly forces,” said Wesley.
“I know, I’ve been alone in unfriendly territory before, remember? 5 years in Pylea, on the run, eating bark, almost got dead a bunch of times?” said Winifred.
“Okay, but make sure you gather as much information as possible while you work,” said Wesley.
“I’ll try,” said Winifred.
~-~
Andrew picked up Tiffany from in front of the school.
“How was your first day back?” asked Andrew.
“Unusual, everyone was surprised to hear my
real voice. Sandi, Quinn, and Daria look at me like I’m something they wiped
off their ass, and
“Illyria, the ancient god king of the primordium, who returned to this world by infecting an innocent little girl, whose body was unsuitable for the task, and only through the co-operation of our former allies in Los Angeles, and the co-operation of a girl who became hostile to us-” started Andrew
But Tiffany interrupted with “I know the story, Andrew, I lived it, remember? And why do you have to over dramatise everything?”
“Erm … sorry … ” said Andrew.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” said Tiffany.
Suddenly the car died.
“Whoa, we just lost warp power Katherine!” asked Andrew.
“End of warranty?” suggested Tiffany.
Suddenly something smashed through the floor behind them and filled the cabin with a clear gas.
“That’s getting-” Tiffany started, but was interrupted by her falling unconscious.
~-~
Andrew was awoken by someone knocking on the window.
It was a cop.
“Sir, you’ll have to move your vehicle, it’s obstructing traffic.”
Andrew nodded, then he looked around “crap, where’s Tiffany?”
“Who?” asked the cop.
“Tiffany, Chinese girl, blue dress … ”
“Would you like to report a missing person?” asked the cop.
Andrew thought about it, then said “no,” and tried to restart the car, but it wasn’t even rotating. “Crap.” He looked behind him, then said “you mind pushing my car with yours?”
~-~
Tiffany woke up on a cold hard floor, with no clothes on.
This was not the sort of thing that brought back happy memories.
She opened her eyes and looked around.
She was in a cage, it was gloss white (possibly powder coated carbon steel), twenty millimetre bars spaced fifteen centimetres apart, cage measuring zero point six metres cubed. The floor was made of what looked like plain steel sheet, the floor was slightly concave (pyramid like) with a hole in the centre, she couldn’t see the floor through it.
There were other cages, same dimensions, all on casters, like she figured hers was. Underneath the centre of the cages there was some sort of gutter leading to a small plastic jar, she guessed for collecting urine samples from their occupants. The room was well lit, breezeblock wall painted white, grey painted floor with yellow lines marking a passage way.
The lids of the cages she could see had a padlock on the roof connecting two rings together, it looked too strong for her, but she wasn’t waiting for some guards to show up if she didn’t have to. She got on her back and pressed her feet against the ceiling of her cage.
~-~
“Giles, I have a dire situation to report, a situation where Tiffany Blum Deckler may be in severe peril, and may be unable to save herself-”
“Get to the point,” said Giles, he was getting just a little frustrated with Andrews over dramatization of his reports.
“Someone attacked us with sleeping gas and when I awoke, Tiffany was gone. I have no Idea who took her, and I’m waiting for a mechanic to show up and figure out what happened to the car,” said Andrew.
“Thank you, okay, I’m sending Faith and
~-~
“Religiously I'm speaking on the science
'cause
We've gotta live on science alone
I tell you what mathematically I'm having it
I want to live on science alone.”
Lilah was getting a lot annoyed with Winifred’s singing that song over and over and over and over and- she felt her sidearm in her handbag again, but kept reminding herself of what would happen if she interfered with the operation to corrupt team Angel.
At least they would be landing in half an
hour. She just had to hold herself for that long. Plus the time it takes to get
to the
Winifred and the two security goons looked at her.
“Did I say that out loud?” she asked.
~-~
Jane was about to head off to work, when her room mate walked past her with her latest victim over her shoulder wrapped in garbage bags.
“What exactly do you do with those anyway?” she asked.
“I give the leftovers to the nice people at Wolfram and Hart, they will be given a nice home,” replied the insane girl.
“Right,” Jane remembered the name of the
company from one of her conversations with
Jane decided to call Daria before heading out.
~-~
“Okay, that is unusual for a Law firm … I hope … but not that surprising considering they sent a clean up team after I blew a number of holes in the school,” said Daria.
“You blew up the school?” asked Jane.
“Only bits of it, epic battle with the
Slayers when I thought they were about to ask me more questions about you. Turned
out they wanted my help in saving the planet from
“Anything else happening your end?” asked Jane.
“Well, Tiffany’s back, she apologised for torturing me. Hamilton, guy who lead the cleanup team asked me to hand over the crystal, offered to stop strangling me if I did, that was very nice of him, and Angela tried to get me to enter American Pop Idol 2 in the hopes of getting me to disembowel Simon Cowel on national television,” said Daria.
“That evil, vindictive bitch. Look, I gotta get off to work now, I’ll talk to you later, okay?” said Jane.
“Yeah, catch you later,” said Daria, before hanging up.
The door opened and Faith and Andrew walked in. “Hi Daria. Tiffany disappeared on her first day back, and since you weren’t happy with her, it got me thinking that you might have motive to do something unpleasant to her.”
Thinking how much she hadn’t wanted to see Faith again, she said “Yeah, but I didn’t, Tiffany disappeared? When?”
“Just after school, she was with Andrew, their car died, then it filled with sleeping gas. Then he awoke to find Tiffany missing,” said Faith.
“So she was abducted from a motor vehicle … I couldn’t have done that, not alone anyway. There anyone else you like for this?” asked Daria.
“You mean the kind of help, like, say, a vampire who you insist on befriending?” asked Faith.
“Jane isn’t interested in getting back at Tiffany, and she only found out Tiffany was back a few minutes ago. Now seriously, is there anyone else you may consider motivated to abduct Tiffany?” said Daria.
Faith and Andrew thought about this for a while.
Then, deciding the best way to get them to stop blaming all their troubles on her would be to actually help them recover their missing slayer, Daria said “where did you put the car?”
Faith hesitated before saying “It’s still at the garage, we have the device that was used on it.”
“Uh, Faith, a word?” said Andrew.
~-~
“Faith, are you sure we can trust her? She could be doing a Seska on us”
“A … a what?” asked Faith.
“Seska was a Cardassian surgically altered to look Bajoran, she infiltrated the Maquis, then betrayed Voyager after the Marquis and Starfleet crews merged to the Kazon Nistrim,” explained Andrew.
Faith nodded and said “well that was a waste of a perfectly good explanation, so surmised, you think Daria may be playing us?”
“Yes,” said Andrew.
“Well, then, we’ll just have to keep her closer, as in, than our friends,” said Faith.
“Oh, you mean like in Voyager episode 1:11, State of flux?” asked Andrew.
Faith sort of nodded and said “Yeah, I suppose,” she then headed back to Daria’s room.
~-~
Winifred was shown the laboratory, she was introduced to her XO, John Foley (redhead man with freckles and a serious look, Winifred’s height), and the store room. Her lab was kitted out for what looked like medical experiments, it even included a full MRI sensor, with restraints, and nearer the large steel sliding door, there was a stainless steel table with restraints.
She was probably going to be dissecting a creature of human proportions, or possibly even a …
Crap, what if She WAS ordered to dissect a human?
“Okay, I’d like to show you what it is you will be looking at,” said Lilah.
They headed off to another room.
They were accompanied into the room by some guards.
~-~
Tiffany looked to the left, the direction she heard the noise from, she curled up, decided to pretend to be asleep. Maybe she could learn something from these guys.
Tiffany was wondering if she should be experiencing an anxiety attack (she had barely avoided taking peoples heads off for bumping into her or otherwise startling her just after she returned home from that vampire nest), waking up in a cage slightly bigger than her bedside unit with no clothes on should surely have her futilely struggling to escape. But she was instead feeling irritation, and was patiently waiting to gather information prior to attempting an escape.
Probably the sedatives, they have probably yet to fully clear out of her.
She also recognised that waiting too long could cause the conditions necessary for a successful escape to expire, they could close off escape routes, she could be injured in such a way that reduces her mobility or her senses. Tiffany was not into gambling, and she was being forced to by her captivity, failure to initiate an escape at the correct time would most likely result in her death. It was like being forced to walk across a minefield without so much as a bayonet and being forbidden from using any means of detecting the mines other than stepping on them. You don’t walk, you’re dead, your only hope is to take an otherwise insane risk.
And then there was the possibility that there was no way to escape, no opportunity would arise.
A brunette woman in a grey striped business suit with a scar circling her neck and a skinny brunette woman in a white lab coat and glasses walked into view, accompanied by two men in SAS costumes.
“Fred, meet Tiffany Blum Deckler, don’t let her appearance fool you, Girl’s not entirely human.”
‘Fred’ knelt in front of the cage and looked in, asking “what is it you want me to do with her?”
“Find the source of her strength, find a way to neutralise it with a chemical, mystical, or biological agent that can be placed in water, food, whatever,” said the woman in the grey suit.
Fred? …
“Right, I’m going to need a moment to think about how to proceed here. How did you come across her?” said Fred.
“We captured her. She is one of a group of people who have been causing our firm a lot of trouble lately,” said the woman in grey, before squatting in front of the cage and saying “but now you are going to help us solve the problems your group has created, aren’t you?”
Tiffany didn’t respond, she wasn’t going to escape on begging or insulting, just like last time, she was going to have to await an opportunity to escape, and take it.
~-~
“The mechanic found this when he lifted the car overhead,” said Andrew as he handed Daria the item.
“You know, if you had contacted the police, you might have some answers by now,” said Daria as she turned the item over in her hands.
The item had what looked like skateboard wheels, some motors, a cylinder, and a battery pack. There were two probes sticking out the front, and the hollow drill that had been used to deliver the sedative to the car. There was also an array of cameras.
Daria turned it upside down and mouthed “Any radiation?”
“I haven’t checked,” said Andrew, he then continued “All I know is how I found it, and the mechanic said the cars electronics were fried. Why did you mouth the question, Daria?”
“No reason,” she said, then she asked “got a stainless steel box big enough to enclose this thing?”
~-~
Jane was headed home after a night of taking goods for the butchers.
She had just gotten on the tube when she felt something burn her back. “Arrgh,” she turned to see a South American girl dressed in a blue overall, purple jumper, holding a wooden cross with a sharpened base. She turned the cross so the point came out between the middle and ring fingers. Jane deflected the weapon as she made to stab Jane with it. She kicked the girl’s right knee away from her, the girl kicked Jane back with her left foot, Jane bounced off some seats and landed head first on the opposite row, the girl was coming at her again. Jane kicked the girl back and flipped backwards, landing in a fighting pose, she then pulled a MAC 10, the girl froze, being too far away to reach the weapon.
Jane waved her back and as the girl complied, Jane got to her bag of blood tubs, she picked that up and waited for the train to stop.
The doors opened, Jane waited a little more.
Then she jumped out just as the doors were closing, waiting until the train was clear before stowing her weapon.
“So, another Vampire cliché rings true, and, I’m going to have to move again, aren’t I?”
~-~
“This looks like an expensive piece of kit, are there any large corporate entities your organisation have annoyed?” asked Daria.
Faith, Andrew, and
“Okay, what about Tiffany, she make any long term enemies?” asked Daria.
After breaking into the high school science lab, they had established that the device was not emitting any RF radiation, so they felt safe to talk around it.
“There’s Jane,” said Faith.
“She has no interest in Tiffany, and if she did, Tiffany would have stayed in the car, but would have lost her mind. Which would be decorating the cars interior about now, and I haven’t seen anything that will convince me she’s capable of killing someone,” said Daria.
“Vampires are capable of incredible sadism,” said Faith.
“I can guarantee you that the vampire
version of a person is nothing like the person they were,” said
Daria turned to them “Have you guys ever encountered a vampire?”
Faith started counting off fingers while
“Right, because Jane was exactly as I had always known her, only now her teeth are occasionally pointy. If she was as mean as you say she is supposed to be, there are a bunch of people that would have turned up dead and bloodless by now,” said Daria.
“You see her all the time?” asked Faith.
“No … look, what you’re saying about her, as far as I can tell doesn’t track … … Hang on, Illyria found her refusal to kill unusual, said something about her having a soul,” said Daria.
“WHAT???” shouted Faith.
Daria shook her head and turned back to the device, she then said “I’m gonna open this thing up, maybe there will be something inside that will-”
Faith interrupted Daria saying “ARE YOU TELLING ME JANE HAS A SOUL?”
Daria looked up surprised “well, yes, I am … Why, what’s with the dramatics?”
Faith walked back to her original position waving her arms in frustration.
Daria turned to Andrew and
“Vampires with souls, tend to be good,
those without tend to be evil. We only knew of two with souls, and, if you’re
right, we now know of three,” said
Daria looked between them, then asked “does that mean, that if I had told one of you of this fact, that JANE COULD HAVE STAYED HERE AND GOTTEN ON WITH HER LIFE INSTEAD OF HAVING TO GO ON THE RUN?”
Faith turned to her, then asked “got anything on that device?”
“Not yet, I’m gonna open it up, but first I want to get an X-ray of it, make sure there are no explosives. I’ll have to make an X-ray tube-” started Daria, but Willow said “No need, excuse me.” She stepped in around Daria and closed her eyes as if in meditation, she then said “no explosives.”
Daria looked at
As the chassis came off, Daria put on a pair of gloves and started removing the circuit boards.
“All these devices look store bought, I’m gonna fume it for prints, but those won’t be of use unless we can access AFIS,” said Daria.
“Ooh, that’s my job,” Willow said, as she set up her laptop and hooked it up to her cell phone while Daria moved the parts to the fume box.
Faith leaned close to willow and asked “AFIS?”
“Automated Fingerprint Identification
System,” replied
~-~
“So, this is my job,” said Winifred, as she prepared to carry out her first series of tests.
The first series of tests were going to be fluid and tissue samples. Hopefully this would buy her enough time to figure out how to get Tiffany out.
She suspected if it was just Lilah and the suits, she could make stuff up, but there was also John Foley, her assistant. She figured the guy knew his science, and would be able to spot if she was attempting to bullshit them, so she would have to at least take samples and perform the appropriate experiments while plotting Tiffany’s escape.
She didn’t know if Lilah knew she knew, but
Winifred knew good and well Tiffany was a vampire slayer.
The cage was wheeled in by two goons. They then closed the door to the lab, one of them produced the key for the padlock, the other pulled a tazer.
The guy opening the door glanced at the guy with the tazer, before pulling the lid open.
Tiffany stood up slowly, knowing now was not the time.
“Where do you want her?” he asked.
“On this table,” she said.
Winifred glanced at the window overlooking the lab, Lilah and a couple of other suits were standing there. Winifred didn’t know how long she could go without carrying out a destructive test on Tiffany, but if she acted before she had a plan of action, she’ll most likely get herself killed without Tiffany getting any less trapped.
Tiffany stepped out of the cage and sat on the bed, she placed her limbs in the restraints, Winifred was the obvious candidate to strap her down.
Wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck (brace), waist, knees, and ankle straps were applied.
“Okay, I’ll need to take a number of fluid and tissue samples. I’ll be as gentle as I can,” she said, before picking up a double ended needle and an evacuated tube.
“A friend of mine knows another girl called Fred, perhaps you know of her. There can’t be that many in a single corporation,” said Tiffany.
“Your friend’s name Willow Rosenberg?” she said as she wiped the extraction site with ethanol and inserted the needle.
“Why, yes it is,” said Tiffany.
“Oh, then I’m that same Fred,” she said, as she drew the blood sample.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance I can convince you to get me out of here?” asked Tiffany.
“No, sorry, they tend to do worse than fire people for that kind of thing around here,” she said.
~-~
“No one on AFIS,” concluded
Daria said “Okay … ” then she got up and headed for the store room.
She then returned with a spray bottle of Luminal and a cotton bud saying “this is a bit of a long shot, but I’m not sure what else to try right now,” she sprayed each board with it, and watched for any florescence (the main lights were off anyway so they don’t draw too much attention)
“Here we go,” she swabbed the bright spot
“But don’t we need a special … DNA thingy for that to be of use?” asked Faith.
“Yep, it’s in the security room,
~-~
The last two tissue extractions had been bone marrow extractions, which couldn’t have been done under anaesthesia because it could have interfered with the tests. She would perform the relevant experiments, but she would do them very slowly, and, when she had an idea how to get Tiffany out, prepare the devices she would need.
Then there was the question of how far Tiffany would trust her, after the pain she had caused her. Tiffany held down her expressions of pain, but had shown serious distress, and it was Winifred who had caused it. That sat very uncomfortably with her, then there was the fact that Tiffany was a slayer, one of the good guys … yeah, like that’s any different from how it would be if she were just a random stranger picked off the street.
On the plus side, her being a slayer meant that Tiffany could bring something to the escape. All Winifred had to do was to make Tiffany Tazer proof, and give her the means to cut through the doors. She suddenly had an Idea.
“It just occurred to me, it might be useful to get an ova from her, John, could you get the fertility kit?”
She should have the first escape aid ready by the next time she would see Tiffany, but in order to enable Tiffany to use it, she would have to carry out a procedure that would A: give her an excuse to have her hands on Tiffany’s crotch, and B: give her an excuse to lubricate it so the escape aid could be inserted in no time flat, that would mean doing a procedure that would … suddenly Winifred wasn’t feeling so clever, since sexual assaults tend to be a special kind of torture, this would have some seriously persistent consequences.
This wasn’t even following orders (as if that was ever an excuse), this procedure was on her own initiative, she felt like some kind of rapist.
Rape was perceived as an act of theft at one time (and still is in some places), of course, that was where women were thought of as property, not people, but she was going to steal an ova from Tiffany, indecently assaulting her, in full view and at the pleasure of the forces of evil, any more symbolism, and the act would develop a noticeable gravity well.
~-~
“Nothing on CODIS either,” said Daria.
“It’s like section 31,” said Andrew.
“The law banning the promotion of gay
rights in the British school system?” asked Faith, she and
“No, that’s Section 28, Andrew’s referring to a star fleet version of the CIA,” said Daria.
“Honestly, you couldn’t get it right?”
asked
“Well, sorry, you rant about it so often, I just tune out,” said Faith.
“Well, it doesn’t just affect lesbians, it
also affects women who can be mistaken for lesbians, and since strong women are
often presumed to be gay, it affects Slayers, straight or gay,” said
“While I find it commendable that you take an interest in human rights, I feel we should get back to the topic at hand,” said Daria.
“Okay, so now what?” asked Faith.<