"The Girl of Your Dreams..." Part II...
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Disclaimer: All BTVS characters remain the property of Joss Whedon,
Mutant Enemy, and all other owner/creators of the Buffy the Vampire
Slayer series...
Summary: Another unholy alliance of Amy and Warren Mears creates
another doorway for Buffy’s demon Anne to escape Hell…Unfortunately…
They miscalculated slightly…
“*@$H$!ing, stinkin’ human?!!”
But our Annie will find her way…
Part II…
“So…?” Amy regarded her partner…Still sitting in the booth with her…
Though quiet for the last two hours, much to the restrained annoyance
of Fred at the bar…Though the amount Amy had tipped him for her coffee
and Warren’s meal had inclined him to keep his annoyance so
restrained…
“Field test 10…Completely successful…” Warren smiled at her… “But I’ve
got to get out of Spike’s place, so hang on…” he went quiet again…
She drummed fingers on the counter…
Well, at least he doesn’t seem inclined to follow through on his plan
to seduce William the Bloody…We’d either be here all night or I’d have
to cart him to his place or mine…
“Ok…” he suddenly spoke again… “Our fair lady is out and heading for
her car…I think I can leave her to get home ok…” he grinned…
“I had him goin’…Showin’ interest in the brat really had him eatin’
out of my hand…Is it really that easy?...”
“Oh, yeah…” Amy said dryly… “In fact it’s usually easier…”
“You better restore the soul tonight…We don’t want Ms. Anderson to be
out of circulation for any length of time…”
“I thought you were going to go through with it…” Amy noted… “Was it a
bit too much?...”
“Nah…” Warren shrugged… “But something came up…I would say our friends
have had a little success with dear ole Summers…”
“What?...Those idiots?...” Amy blinked… “Buffy Summers defeated the
First…I thought at best they’d get the sample we needed…”
“Never underestimate the power of human villains, Am…The underworld
makes that mistake all the time…”
“What happened?...They didn’t…” she paused…
“I doubt it…They had orders not to…But we’d best get in touch with
them and get a report…”
Geesh…Oh, don’t let her be dead…Amy thought…
Not yet…
***
The former operations room of Wolfram-Hart Inc…Now a bit reduced…
No longer the network of death-ray and spy satellites…Though two
rented telecommunications satellites, Angel liked to point out, still
kept them in the global network…And allowed use of the big wall map in
real time…Over much of the globe if no longer every corner,
instantaneously…
No longer the series of instantaneous reports from agents of Evil in
every corner of the globe…Though still a good number on the payroll,
happy enough to switch to surveillance for the Light side so long as
the paycheck remained steady…Though if anything their tendency to
exaggerate the importance and the veracity and accuracy of their
reports had grown without the threateningly restraining hand of the
Senior Partners to keep their imaginations in check…
Still, a valuable asset, Angel liked to point out…Keeping them a
global player…And in some cases, talented agents, kept down by the
Evil glass ceiling, had blossomed under the new regime…
Ok, a very small blossoming…But still, Angel liked to point out…A sign
for the future…
“So we have piddling little from either our satellites or our people…
If we could trust in what little we’re getting…”
William noted to his fellow partners, supplemented by Angel’s son and,
holding Will Jr in her lap, Angel’s fiancée, the lovely Nina… “Do we
know anything at all…?”
Ummn…Well…Angel sighed…
“Not much…Giles called to say Buffy’d been attacked in a location he
couldn’t identify…”
“So much for the trust he places in us…I thought we were workin’
together?...” Will frowned…
“We don’t tell him everything; he doesn’t tell us everything…It’s for
the best, Will…” Angel noted… “The Black Thorn and Partners had spies
in the Council and could have learned all about our plans months ahead
of time…Our people aren’t exactly known for selfless loyalty to the
Light…”
“But we have people monitoring…” Will eyed him…
“We do…At the Council and at every major Slayer training facility…With
and in a few cases not specifically with, Chairman Giles’ consent…”
“And?...”
“She was in a guarded location where we don’t have agents…”
“So…We know nothing…” Will rose from his seat…Pacing…
Illyria, Gunn, Nina eyeing him…
Harmony frowning in her seat…
Always back to Buffy Summers…
“We know she was attacked by what seem to have been human thugs…
Possibly ordinary criminals…She was wounded…She’s alive…” Angel,
patiently…Worried look to Nina…
“Buffy Summers, mugging victim…I can go now, I’ve seen everything…”
William, bitterly…He paused…
“Where was her back-up, damnit…I thought Giles was doing everything he
could to protect her from glory seeking demons and the rest…Wasn’t the
whole thing with the Immortal so much crap for cover?...”
“So he told us…” Angel nodded… “But I don’t have much more information
than that…And…” he sighed…
“That Giles would like you to come…” wan smile…
“Big of him…What would be the damned point?...” William glared…
“Because she needs a reason besides Dawn to care whether she lives or
dies, Mr. Walthrop…”
William looked up to see the slight figure of Andrew Wells, trademark
wild hair but in suit, flanked by four Slayers, two local LA lasses he
recognized from the great Slayer charge that had saved the day…Night…
At the LA battle…
***
“All right…” Warren sat at Amy’s computer…Her small house in New
Sunnydale being a considerably better temporary center of operations
than his own grubby motel…And it being important to his thinking not
to carryout any surveillance or other telecommunications activity from
his lab complex in an old warehouse near the edge of town…Someone on
the Net from home stumbling into Watcher or Wolfram-Hart
communications, etc…Not entirely impausible and probably not worth
more than a quick check…Someone in an abandoned warehouse, recently
renovated doing the same…A bit of a sore thumb…
“…Lets consider where we stand…” he tried to spin the chair around to
face Amy as she brought over a couple of beers and some salad…It
jammed and he struggled until she set down the stuff and helped him
turn a bit…
Thanks… Note, bring a new chair from the lab…He frowningly noted to
himself…
“Fine…” Amy sat down on the couch next to the desk where he sat…
Regarding him a bit sardonically…
Still…He was all she had…Her last hope of getting back at Summers and
her crew…
“Field testing of our soul removal system and mental control
transmission has worked perfectly…Not even Angel or Spike could detect
the lack of a soul in our subjects and the memory integration even at
a distance worked beautifully…Thanks to your spell…” he nodded her
way… “I had complete access to memory and after the first glitchy
tests in subjects one and two…”
Both pictured the now insane subjects one and two…A young prostitute
and a middle-aged postman…Well, at least to all extents and purposes,
insane…Lacking souls and now subject to any wandering spirit
temporarily taking possession…
Well, these things happen in Science…Warren hastily noted… And it’s
not like their lives were going anywhere special…
Besides, the souls are probably having a ball in Heaven now…All things
considered, we did them a favor…
“Even Ms. Anderson’s friends and family accepted her…Though some of
that was the hardest part…” he frowned… “Running her with that creepy
father of hers and that psycho brother…How’d she ever become an ace
reporter with a family like that…?”
“She seemed a happy person, basically…” Amy noted…A tad wistfully…
For a mo, when I was running her on that second test…I could’ve been
happy to stay with her…Let Amy and her miserable…Heck her no-life…Amy
not really existing anymore anyway…Not since Daddy agreed I was dead,
signing me off without even a question…Go…
“Well, except for maybe a few odd memories and a mild headache, she’s
back to that happy existence with the incestuous father and the
brother who’d love to cut everyone’s throat…But now, assuming all
recordings show it really went well, we move to the next phase…We’ve
proven we can run a human body with an ersatz soul and utilize its
memories without demonic occupation…And undetectably…More or less…
Though I coulda wished that jerk Angel hadn’t blown everything with
Wolfram-Hart…It would’ve have been a much tougher test with their
monitoring…” he sighed… “But, I doubt the Council of Watchers has much
in the way of advanced wireless biometric monitoring…And even if they
do…”
“They do have good occult types…”Amy noted…
“We’ll get past ‘em…Besides…Once our girl is up and running, she won’t
need control transmissions…And your spell and my body will mask her…
Until she’s ready to join with us…The perfect anti-Slayer…And anti-
Summers…
And then it won’t matter…” he grinned…
“Worth…Almost…All the misery I went through all this time hiding out
after clone boy bought it…” he eyed Amy…
“Though this won’t just be a revenge…For both of us…” he hastily noted
to her slight smile…
Thanks for remembering I’m involved…She thought, wryly…
“This is gonna be an artistic creation…Something that will even
surpass my poor Buffybot…The ultimate match for Buffy Summers…And the
perfect rival…Run by her own darkest side…”
“Who might very well decide to dispense with our help…” Amy noted,
carefully…
“We’re taking the steps to see that she understands she’ll need us…And
the failsafes to protect us if she chooses to ignore her best
interests….” he shrugged… “But she’ll act in her own best interests…
I’ve watched Summers for years…There’s a part of her that’s as ego-
driven…Selfish…Vicious… Cruel…Sadistic…Jealous… She can play holier
than anybody but… As any one of us who’ve fought her knows…It’s in
there…She knows it, too…”
“So you’re the expert on all things Summers…”
“I’ve learned to be…Had to…” Warren said, grimly… “I don’t deny St.
Elizabeth the soul her halo, but she’s got a demon in her like the
rest of us…And thanks to the Slayer, it bubbles up quite frequently…”
He smiled at Amy’s stare… “You think I’m talking out of my hat…That
it’s just sour grapes…Well…” he shrugged… “I’ve hated her a while, so
I’ve studied her equally long…She took the only girl who ever cared
for me away…Showed her my worst side…Turned me into what I am…A killer…
Kat would never have died if it weren’t for her…She took everything
from me while mouthing crap…The same sort of crap she mouthed to her
boyfriends…
But talk is cheap...As you know all too well, kiddo…She could have had
compassion for me…Helped me…Helped others…But it’s always easy for her
to mouth the words while she kills you…”
“But she’s no better…She enjoys the hunt and the kills as much as any
vamp or demon…When did she ever help a trapped soul like Spike or that
other, Drusilla or the guy she used to run with, Angel?...The power
went to her head a long time ago and she can’t find it in her heart to
have mercy on them or on a little nerd who just wanted to have a
girlfriend…Hell, she’s had the means to help vamps for years and never
bothered…What a piece of work…
She and her Council…They have a curse that could free every vamp…Spike
decides one day to pick up a soul and bang…Don’t tell me about her
noble soul…It’s no wonder the First loved playing her…That hypocrite
soul is the worst of all…”
“We aren’t exactly on a mission from God, Warren…” Amy noted…
“No…We are what we are…And honest about it…Out for ourselves and
revenge…While she and her friends claim to care…And her compassionate
Willow leaves you for years while she enjoys having power…Yeah,
they’re better than us, sure…And Summers abandons Spike…And all the
others to suffer…Well, let her see how she likes seeing her other half
in charge of her very own Buffy…An honest Buffy…One who’ll show them
all what she really is…”
“It’s a half-truth at best, Warren…” Amy calmly noted… “Lets not go
overboard and pretend Right’s on our side…”
“Isn’t it?...Well…Half’s enough…It’s tearing at her already, has been
for years…She knows she’s losing her humanity…And the Slayer’s winning…
And that is the key, Amy…That’s what will destroy her…Is destroying
her slow even now…”
“Like all of us, she’s her own worst enemy…Somewhere inside…”
“Jealous, you said?…Of her friends…?” Amy asked…
“In a general way, sure…Of anyone who crowds her out of that spotlight…
The Chosen One, never to be seen with anything but poorly supporting
cast…Or better yet, comic relief…But in a specific way, too…” he
tapped finger to his nose…
“Ah, Love…Ain’t it grand?...Especially when you keeping killing and
betraying the object of your affections…” he chuckled… “Think of the
rage that must build up…The self-loathing…”
“Love?...”
“Love, our ultimate weapon…”
“And here I was thinking I was on the Evil side with Hate the big
bang…”
He smiled…Amy, darling…
***