Author's note: Okay, some of this is gimmicky... but I like it. ;) Oh, and I apologize right now for Akisha... it seemed funny at the time.
Website: The Scribs: Home of the Insane Fanfiction Writer Cassima
"I'm torn between a clever retort and the pleasure of hitting you over the head."
--Yvonne's daily notes
She woke up in a dark, cold room, head still aching from the earlier blow. "Well... so that's fun," she murmured, gingerly touching her head. When the lump turned out to be not as bad as she thought, she allowed her fingers to delicately peruse the injury. "We shall have to do that again sometime."
"Oh, we will, believe me," an evil voice came out of the shadows.
"Oh, goodie," she said with false delight. "Spike, old chap! My favoritest vampire in the whole wide world! Oh, I think I may burst from excitement!" She clapped her hands with false glee and stifled a wince as the echo momentarily augmented the thundering in her head.
"I thought you would want to skip this silly battle banter. Oh, joy, now we can trade insults!"
"Well, I wouldn't want to deprive you your forte."
"But..." Spike growled happily, "I have here the great Death, bane of the all realms, Diabolique!"
"We've imprisoned Death herself..." Drusilla murmured from the doorway in her dreamy way.
"Ex-Death," Lun@ corrected Dru. "I was forced to abdicate."
"Whatever," Spike cheerfully replied. "In any case, I've been ready for this for years!"
"Oh?"
"After all, it's not every day that a Vampire holds the life of a legendary angel in his hands." His grin was not pretty.
Lun@ restrained a shudder.
"So, basically, a robot walks in, picks a person up, and walks away, right in front of two of your officers, and no one does a damn thing about it? They didn't follow it or try to rescue her or something?!" Buffy narrowed her eyes at the Sergeant. "What exactly do the police DO over here, ticket jaywalkers?!"
"Among other things," the man replied, a tad squeamish.
"So, you only occasionally work kidnapping cases." Xander lifted his eyebrows. "Does that sound a little off to anyone else?"
"A giant robot appears, and all you people do is stand and look silly? Isn't that taking this self-preservation thing a little too far? What's next, a murderer is let go because he's a little too big to fit in your jail?"
"What's going on here?" A man wearing a badge displaying "Srgt. Ino" marched into the room. "This is not a circus!"
"Our friend was kidnapped, and you guys did nothing!" Buffy shouted.
"Yeah!" Xander echoed.
"Friends of the Giant Robot Victim," one of the cadets whispered to his boss. "Tourists, from the states."
Mr. Ino silently groaned. It was going to be a long, tough day.
She looked the blond vampire straight in the eye. "Okay, so... what happens now?"
"How about I torture you?"
She blinked. "What for? How do you know I won't be forthcoming with whatever you want to know?"
He chuckled. "Because you're one of the goodie two-shoes! It's not in you!"
Lun@ fixed him with a look that contained a distinct element of the previous Diabolique. "Try me."
"No need to get huffy," he cackled. "So, tell me the names of the Sailor Senshi brats!"
"That's it?!" she exclaimed, disappointed. "That's what this is all about?! Well, I'm disappointed, Spike. Frankly, I expected better. This is just not up to your usual par."
"The names!" He cracked his whip close to her face.
"Honest to goodness, take a chill pill! Well, there's Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Neptune-- I would've thought you'd've caught on by no--OW!" she yelped, holding her shoulder. "What'd you do that for?!"
"That's very good, for an ex-angel. I was actually looking for their identities. You know, Bill Clinton, Elvis Presley--"
"Elvis? I don't think there's a Sailor Elvis--"
"Madonna, that sort of thing, not their bloody call signs!" He cracked his whip again.
"I'm not going to tell you that!" Lun@ protested indignantly. "Who do you think I am, an idiot?"
"Oh, no, dear, not an idiot. Not you. You're too clever. You know exactly what I want and how to do some pretty clever tricks; fortunately, I know some even cuter bits. So, feel free not to tell me; it's been so long since I've used a whip that I'm a bit out of practice. It could be sloppy." The tip of the whip licked her cheek, and she raised her other hand to the new wound. "Now, why don't you tell Uncle Spike what's in that clever little head of yours..."
"Don't be an ass, Spike. Just hit me and get it over with."
"Oh, I will hit you, and I'll be an ass about it." He wound up and brought the whip down, hard.
Raising her arm, she caught the blow and yanked the whip out of his loose grasp. "Don't DO that!" she exclaimed, losing her good nature. "Damn it all, that hurts!" She smacked him across the face with the whip handle, and he turned with it, leaving his back to her, which she glared at balefully. "How do you like it, you big turkey?" He stood straighter, back still to her. "Look, why don't we just accept it and move on? I'm not gonna talk, and you're just gonna hit me, and I'm still not gonna talk. We're semi-civilized creatures; why don't we just agree we're at an impasse."
He turned around slowly, holding his cheek. His face was contorted into it's vampiric mask, and he growled a little. "Oh, yeah, this is gonna be fun."
She gulped a little and held onto the whip a little tighter, her only advantage.
With a sudden movement, he kicked her, and in retaliation, she swung the whip back at him. This time, though, it was he who caught it; and she was back to square one: shackled to a cold, cement floor in dirty jeans and a torn tee shirt, feeling more scared than she ever remembered being.
Mulder turned the gray stick in his hands again. It looked like a plain metal rod, but why would Lun@ throw it to him? It was seamless, solid-colored, smooth, and hand-sized.
"What is that, Mulder?" Scully asked curiously.
"I don't know," he answered, handing it to her. "Lun@ threw it to me before the tree and I met up close and personal."
Scully frowned. It seemed familiar, somehow... "Did she say anything when she gave it to you?"
"'Catch'?" He shrugged, mindful of his bruised shoulder. "Honestly, it sits there and taunts me. I can only think of one possibility of what it could be, and I don't know why she'd be carrying it around and throwing it to me."
Scully sent him a questioning glance.
"Her favorite dildo?"
She didn't give him the satisfaction of a disgusted expression, though she seriously considered it for a moment. "I don't think so, Mulder."
"What is that?" came a sudden voice. Turning toward the doorway, they noticed a tall woman of about 25 years with long black-green hair. She strode to them in large steps, snatching the wand up and looking at it with a haunted expression. "Where did you get this?"
The two agents exchanged a glance. "A friend," Mulder said. "Why? Do you know what it is?"
The woman ran her fingers along the object. "It is a... power source." She blinked and suddenly looked timeless. "I didn't know she would return," she murmured to herself.
"Excuse me?"
The green haired woman spared them a glance before handing the wand back to them. "Thank you, agents. You've been very helpful."
She turned gracefully and left them there, confused.
Scully's expression grew distracted as she struggled to recall the name that went with the familiar face. "Sailor Pluto?"
"Scully," Mulder whispered, handing her a tissue.
"Oh..." she replied, dabbing at the blood oozing from her nose.
"I've got other business to attend to, you know," Spike admitted casually. "I can't stay here all day."
"And we were just getting to know each other so well," Lun@ commented weakly, wiping a trickle of blood from her eye. "I hate to see you go, ending our lovely date so soon."
"But I hate to leave my work half-done," Spike continued with his usual predatory smile, "so I've brought in a friend."
"Ooo... toga party time." Everything hurt so...
"Not quite." A grinning man-form stepped from the shadows. He was almost demonic, but there was an air of otherworldliness that clung to him. "My name is Akisha... and you will rue the day you first heard my name!" the not-demon snarled with laughter.
Lun@ rolled her eyes. "Considering what a shitty day this has been, that's not really any wondrous pronouncement."
"Shut up!" it snapped, laughter gone.
Spike's amused look grew.
Lun@ shrugged listlessly. "Whatever."
"See, the thing is... I don't really care if you talk." Akisha's smile glittered.
Lun@ and Spike exchanged a skeptical glance. "You don't?"
"Yes, you do," Spike told him, a bit annoyed.
"I do? Well, that's no fun! Can't I just torture her for fun? Just for a little?" The demon pouted a little.
Lun@ bit her bruised lip to keep from giggling hysterically. This really wasn't funny. "You sure you got one of the best there, Spike?"
"You can have fun while you're torturing her, but the point is to get her to give us the information!"
"I think he's broken. Get a new one." She unobtrusively rubbed a bruise.
"You stay out of this!" Spike snapped.
"Like bloody hell I will!" she snapped back. "What if I change my mind and decide to spill the beans while you take your little holiday and Akky here--I can call you Akky, right?--decides to look at my entrails rather than write down the information? I want my 'out' there, even if I don't intend on using it."
"You don't like him, do you?" Spike asked in a pitying tone.
"Spike... he's orange... must you offend my delicate sensibilities?"
"Hey, do you have something against orange demons?" Akisha began. "That is so offending! You know, we have feelings, too!"
"Oh, shut your yap, you big baby! You Oranges are just a disgrace to the rest of demonkind." She turned to Spike, also offended. "Honestly, you couldn't do better than an Orange?"
"Everyone better was previously booked," Spike admitted.
"That's it, I've had it!" Akisha threw up his hands and stepped back. "I can't possibly work with a bigot!"
"BIGOT?" Lun@ squealed. "Just 'cause I think you and your Mama are ugly?! Please!"
"You couldn't beg me to torture you! I'm out of here!" He stormed out, furious.
"Fine, then!" she screamed after him, her voice still hoarse from the last time she'd screamed in pain. "Just go! See if I miss you!"
Spike's eye began to twitch. "I can't believe he just walked out!" he cried plantitively. "Just like that! He's supposed to be one of the best, you know!"
"I know it's hard to get good help these days, but that was ridiculous," she replied sulkily. "I am so offended. I'm not talking to you right now."
"Well, fine. Just sit here!" He gave her a furious kick in the thigh, and another in the ribcage, just to spite her. "I'll be back!" With that, he left to follow the soon-to-be-dead Akisha.
When he was gone, she cushioned her head with her hands against the wall. Nope, she told herself happily, you've still got it.
"Damn her, anyway!" Spike muttered, wiping orange blood off his hands. "Bloody angels!"
"Poor Spike," Drusilla sing-songed, "so alone in his torture. But, your Dru could help."
He paused for a moment and smiled. "That's right, pet. There's more than one way to break an angel..."
Somewhere in the shadows, the other prisoner lay, huddled, cloaked in the dark. Her cuts and bruises had only partially healed before being covered with more cuts and bruises. She knew she was expendable, kept strictly for the entertainment of the vampires and the Queen, but she couldn't shake the hope that maybe, somewhere, her sisters were still alive... maybe they would come to rescue her...
And she worried about the New Girl. New Girl was powerful and dangerous, and the vampires liked that combination. And she was lonely, which made her, despite her strong mind, easily broken.
So lonely...
The girl shivered in sympathy.
This New Girl... she would be broken soon... and then...
What then...?
