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last01standingTitle- The Fallen
Rating- pg-13 (violence)
(other story info on chapter one)
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
Six- Mostly Filler
They saw the sign before they saw anything else. It loomed in their view, foreboding, enormous and evil.
Kate grimaced from annoyance rather than her injuries. “Wolfram and Hart. The old bat sent us to Wolfram and Hart.”
Oz was staring at the sign in bemusement. “Wolfram and Hart?”
“It’s a law firm,” Kate explained, a look of intense distaste spreading over her features. “They do business with devils, and I mean literally. They’re bad news.” She ran a hand through her hair and muttered venomously, “She sends us straight to Wolfram and Hart.”
Oz’s brain flashed back to his dream and he unconsciously murmured, “Dreams invade visions.” He grabbed Kate by the shoulder. “Angel’s here.”
“What?”
“I saw the place,” he explained uncomfortably. “Angel in front of the sign.” He didn’t add that Angel had been saying he killed all his friend.
“Angel at Wolfram and Hart,” Kate whispered. “Last I heard of that, he was in an all out war against them.”
“This is where we have to be,” Oz said, more surely. “We’ve come this far.” He looked at her, almost apologetically.
“I’m with you Oz,” Kate sighed, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut. “It’s just me and Angel aren’t on the best of terms.”
Oz nodded mutely understanding enough to know there was a past history between them. “Angel’s one of the good guys, Kate.” He said, choosing to leave out the parts about the possible loss of a soul.
“Oz. I think I killed them. Cordy, Doyle, oh god, what if…”
He blinked, pushing the dream from his mind. “Let’s go.”
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“Cordelia,” Buffy said in surprise, crossing her arms. “I thought you were in a coma.”
Cordelia blinked, taken aback by her old rival’s entrance. “I was never in a coma. And you’re supposed to be in Sunnydale. Hellmouth ringing any bells.”
“Sunnydale’s a hole in the ground,”a voice called helpfully from the other room.
“And you didn’t tell me that as soon as you got here?” Cordelia yelled back into the other room.
“Hello to you too,” Xander muttered, moving to find a place to sit down and to Giles he said, "I thought dead boy said the hotel was empty.”
Giles pulled off his glasses. “Clearly Angel made a mistake.”
Dawn entered the Hyperion smiling broadly. “Woah. Angel’s got better taste than I gave him credit for.”
Cordelia frowned at the unfamiliar person behind Dawn. “Who are you?”
“Andrew,” he replied unsteadily, searching her face for recognition. “Remember the flying monkeys at the school play?”
Xander and Buffy exchanged a glance and in unison said. “Tucker’s brother.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Do you guys know where Angel is anyway?”
The group looked somber, Andrew finally saying. “He’s working for the forces of darkness.”
“Angel working for the forces of darkness,” an incredulous Irish voice asked, stepping into the room. “Tell me I missed somethin’ and the boss man didn’t go to the dark side.” When he noticed the room’s occupants he grinned and offered his hand to Buffy, “Nice ta see you again.”
Buffy shook his hand. “Who are you?”
“Doyle.” He answered, not expecting her to have remembered. “We meet a while back when you were in town.”
“Oh. I was big with the distraction then.”
“Not as bad as Angel I’ll bet,” Cordelia scoffed. “You had him moping around in his dark hole for weeks! Well, part of that was visions guy here kicking it.”
Xander pushed his way in between them. “Hold on. You’re dead?”
Doyle opened his mouth as if to respond, but thought better of it.
Ms. Calendar entered the room. “Hey do you guys have any first aid things? Jesse’s oozing the red stuff.”
She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the group, finding her voice only after a long moment, “Rupert.”
“Jenny,” he repeated dazed, staring at her as though sure he was dreaming.
Xander raised a hand hesitantly. “By Jesse, you don’t mean.”
He picked that moment to walk into the room, a hand still pinching his nose. “Oh. Hey Xander.”
“Jesse.”
“This is one of those weird dreams where everyone starts barking and turns into dinosaurs, right,” Xander babbled.
“I doubt very much that this is a dream,” Giles answered, still in a daze. “Andrew, contact Angel.”
“What?” Andrew asked, confused, “Who are these people?”
“Dead,” said Buffy stepping up and crossing her arms once more, “they’re all dead.” Her eyes narrowed as she made the next logical conclusion. “Which means The First is back.”
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A burley security guard stepped in front of Oz’s path. Oz stopped and stared up at him, an unspoken question hanging in the still air.
Kate cleared her throat. “We’re looking for Angel.”
“Angel’s busy,” the brute said.
Oz made a show of nodding to Kate. “We’ve been tracking a murderer, we have reason to believe that Angel has a connection to one or more of the victims. We’d like to speak with him.”
Kate caught the hint and pulled out her private investigator’s license. “I’m detective Lockley, and this is detective Osborne, we’re trying to keep this under wraps, so we’d appreciate it if we didn’t have to get a warrant to search this place.”
The guard considered it before finally saying, “His office is up the stairs and to the left,” there was a sneer in his voice. “You can take it up with his secretary.”
He left them alone and Kate grinned at Oz, “That was a stroke of genus.”
They followed the directions only to have Oz stop dead when they approached the desk in front of Angel’s office. “Harmony?”
“Oz?” She stood up and walked around the desk. “I haven’t seen you since high school.”
Oz fingered the cross in his pocket. “That’s because you died.”
Kate cleared her throat. “We just need to talk to Angel.”
“Sure.” Harmony gave them a guilty grin. “He can be a bit of a grumpy bear sometimes, and I think I got him the wrong sort of blood this morning. Not to mention the whole thing with poor Cordy.”
“What happened to Cordelia,” Kate asked hoarsely.
“You guys must have just got to town,” Harmony paused dramatically. “Cordy’s disappeared.”
Oz blinked, a brief look of pained regret passing across his features before he pushed it under the surface. “I need to talk to Angel. It’s important.”
“Sure thing.” She leaned over to press a button on the intercom. “Angel, some people are here to see you.”
Angel’s voice came back, slightly distorted with static. “Tell them this isn’t a good time.”
Harmony frowned. “Sorry, but I think he’s busy brooding right now.”
“Tell him it’s Oz.”
Sighing theatrically, Harmony leaned back over the intercom. “It’s Oz.”
Angel’s voice was louder this time, “I don’t care who it is! I don’t want to talk to anyone unless they know something about Cordelia.”
Harmony stood up. “Sorry. Bad time.”
Oz glanced at Kate before taking a deep breath. “Tell him I had a vision.”
Harmony went quiet. “Like Cordy?” She looked nervous. “I’m not breaking this news to him.”
“Why?” Kate asked suspiciously, “In case you didn’t guess, this is kind of important.”
Harmony spread her arms in an expression of complete helplessness. “Because it means she’s really dead.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Oz whispered, “Tell him!”
Harmony reluctantly leaned back down. “Boss.”
“Tell him to leave.”
“He says he had a vision.”
There was a long silence before Angel’s tired voice came back, “Send him in.”
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“First what?” Jesse asked, “First baseman? I don’t even play baseball.”
Andrew jumped back. “Get away evil fiend! You will never use your mind control on me again!”
“Can the first be in more than on form at a time?” Dawn asked speculatively as she started to move forward, intending to grab Jesse by the wrist, but Buffy grabbed her arm before she could. Dawn jerked back and sullenly glared at her sister. “I was going to see if he was, you know, touchable or not.”
Giles stepped forwards to grab Ms. Calendar’s arm and take her pulse. The unspoken verdict that this was real washed over the group. Giles cleared his throat and asked, “What do you remember?”
“I remember finding out about the cure for Angel,” she told him slowly. “I remember Angelus finding me. He smashed my computer. Chased me. I think he snapped my neck.” She swallowed to collect herself. “I woke up in the ruins of Sunnydale. I found Jesse and we came here.”
“What happened in Sunnydale anyway?” Jesse asked. “I was thinking nuked, but now, not so much.”
“We closed the hellmouth,” Andrew said excitedly before he narrowed his eyes, remembering that there was a distinct possibility that they were evil. “Then again I assume you’d remember your last defeat.”
“Andrew call Angel,” Giles snapped, still not taking his eyes off of Ms. Calendar. “As much as I loathe to work with Wolfram and Hart, we may need to use their resources and with the council rebuilding…”
“I’ll call him,” interrupted Buffy.
“I could do it!” Andrew protested.
Xander tore his eyes from Jesse. “Does Angel even know you?”
Silence swept over the room and everything seemed a bit awkward. Giles finally cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”
Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’ll go make that call.”
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“Angel.”
“Oz.” Angel stood up, looking over the werewolf’s shoulder with surprise. “Kate.”
“Angel… This is really awkward.” Kate uncomfortably crossed her arms. “How’s it going?”
“Things aren’t all sunshine and roses.” Angel noticed her bruises. “Then again you don’t look that great yourself.”
“We got in a fight.”
“Oh.” Angel said uncomfortably and after a pause added, “are we done?”
“Absolutely.”
Angel nodded before directing his gaze towards Oz with uncanny intensity. “You can tell the Powers that be that I’m done with their stupid mission.”
Oz blinked. “What?”
“I’m sick and tired of the powers getting my friends killed. I’m done with this.”
Kate raised an eyebrow. “So you’re running an evil law firm instead,” she snorted. “Now that’s a little hypocritical.”
Angel’s gaze remained fixed on Oz. “Cordelia’s dead and now you’ve got her visions. I’m not getting you hurt.” He glanced at Kate. “Either of you. So get the hell out.”
“That’s not happening,” Oz said, stepping forward.
Angel picked up the phone. “I’m calling security.”
“I saw Cordelia,” Oz said suddenly. “She disappeared from her hospital bed.”
Angel put the phone back “How do you know that?”
“Doyle’s in trouble too,” Oz continued.
“Doyle’s dead,” Angel spat, voice taking on a dangerous tone.
Oz barely flinched. “So’s Ms. Calendar. Or at least they’re supposed to be.” He went mute, waiting for a response.
“So you’re saying,” Angel started, “they’re back?”
Oz nodded. “Ms. Calendar, Doyle, Cordy, Anya, Tara.” Kate watched as Angel seem more alive with every name mentioned. “They were some others I didn’t recognized.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t think it was all good,” Oz muttered. “There’s something evil rising.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
Oz frowned. “You don’t.”
The phone rang and Angel ignored it.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Kate asked.
The phone rang again, it seemed to echo in the room.
Angel picked it up, the absurd motto of Angel Investigations briefly flashed through his brain and for a single wild second he was sure he would say ‘Angel Investigations, we help the helpless.’ But he didn’t. That part of his life was over. “Hello.”
“Angel.” The voice came like it was from some sort of dream.“It’s Buffy. I think you need to get to the Hyperion. There’s some majorly wiggy stuff going on right now.”
“Buffy?” he asked in a daze. “What’s happening?”
“Either the first has managed to become corporeal or we’ve got about four people doing an excellent imitation of me.”
“What?”
“You know that resurrection thing,” she said dismissively. “The hotel you sent us too wasn’t as empty as you said it should be. Angel, Ms. Calendar’s here. And Cordy. And Xander’s old friend Jesse. And that weird Irish guy you used to work with. It’s starting to give me the creeps.”
“I’ll get there.”
“You might want to grab Wes. I think Giles wants to do the watcher thing.”
“I’ll bring the gang.”
“None of those evil law firm people though. Because for all we know, they could be the ones behind this.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up the phone and turned back to Oz and Kate. “Let’s go.”
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| 7 |
Rating- pg-13 (violence)
(other story info on chapter one)
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
Six- Mostly Filler
They saw the sign before they saw anything else. It loomed in their view, foreboding, enormous and evil.
Kate grimaced from annoyance rather than her injuries. “Wolfram and Hart. The old bat sent us to Wolfram and Hart.”
Oz was staring at the sign in bemusement. “Wolfram and Hart?”
“It’s a law firm,” Kate explained, a look of intense distaste spreading over her features. “They do business with devils, and I mean literally. They’re bad news.” She ran a hand through her hair and muttered venomously, “She sends us straight to Wolfram and Hart.”
Oz’s brain flashed back to his dream and he unconsciously murmured, “Dreams invade visions.” He grabbed Kate by the shoulder. “Angel’s here.”
“What?”
“I saw the place,” he explained uncomfortably. “Angel in front of the sign.” He didn’t add that Angel had been saying he killed all his friend.
“Angel at Wolfram and Hart,” Kate whispered. “Last I heard of that, he was in an all out war against them.”
“This is where we have to be,” Oz said, more surely. “We’ve come this far.” He looked at her, almost apologetically.
“I’m with you Oz,” Kate sighed, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut. “It’s just me and Angel aren’t on the best of terms.”
Oz nodded mutely understanding enough to know there was a past history between them. “Angel’s one of the good guys, Kate.” He said, choosing to leave out the parts about the possible loss of a soul.
“Oz. I think I killed them. Cordy, Doyle, oh god, what if…”
He blinked, pushing the dream from his mind. “Let’s go.”
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“Cordelia,” Buffy said in surprise, crossing her arms. “I thought you were in a coma.”
Cordelia blinked, taken aback by her old rival’s entrance. “I was never in a coma. And you’re supposed to be in Sunnydale. Hellmouth ringing any bells.”
“Sunnydale’s a hole in the ground,”a voice called helpfully from the other room.
“And you didn’t tell me that as soon as you got here?” Cordelia yelled back into the other room.
“Hello to you too,” Xander muttered, moving to find a place to sit down and to Giles he said, "I thought dead boy said the hotel was empty.”
Giles pulled off his glasses. “Clearly Angel made a mistake.”
Dawn entered the Hyperion smiling broadly. “Woah. Angel’s got better taste than I gave him credit for.”
Cordelia frowned at the unfamiliar person behind Dawn. “Who are you?”
“Andrew,” he replied unsteadily, searching her face for recognition. “Remember the flying monkeys at the school play?”
Xander and Buffy exchanged a glance and in unison said. “Tucker’s brother.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Do you guys know where Angel is anyway?”
The group looked somber, Andrew finally saying. “He’s working for the forces of darkness.”
“Angel working for the forces of darkness,” an incredulous Irish voice asked, stepping into the room. “Tell me I missed somethin’ and the boss man didn’t go to the dark side.” When he noticed the room’s occupants he grinned and offered his hand to Buffy, “Nice ta see you again.”
Buffy shook his hand. “Who are you?”
“Doyle.” He answered, not expecting her to have remembered. “We meet a while back when you were in town.”
“Oh. I was big with the distraction then.”
“Not as bad as Angel I’ll bet,” Cordelia scoffed. “You had him moping around in his dark hole for weeks! Well, part of that was visions guy here kicking it.”
Xander pushed his way in between them. “Hold on. You’re dead?”
Doyle opened his mouth as if to respond, but thought better of it.
Ms. Calendar entered the room. “Hey do you guys have any first aid things? Jesse’s oozing the red stuff.”
She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the group, finding her voice only after a long moment, “Rupert.”
“Jenny,” he repeated dazed, staring at her as though sure he was dreaming.
Xander raised a hand hesitantly. “By Jesse, you don’t mean.”
He picked that moment to walk into the room, a hand still pinching his nose. “Oh. Hey Xander.”
“Jesse.”
“This is one of those weird dreams where everyone starts barking and turns into dinosaurs, right,” Xander babbled.
“I doubt very much that this is a dream,” Giles answered, still in a daze. “Andrew, contact Angel.”
“What?” Andrew asked, confused, “Who are these people?”
“Dead,” said Buffy stepping up and crossing her arms once more, “they’re all dead.” Her eyes narrowed as she made the next logical conclusion. “Which means The First is back.”
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A burley security guard stepped in front of Oz’s path. Oz stopped and stared up at him, an unspoken question hanging in the still air.
Kate cleared her throat. “We’re looking for Angel.”
“Angel’s busy,” the brute said.
Oz made a show of nodding to Kate. “We’ve been tracking a murderer, we have reason to believe that Angel has a connection to one or more of the victims. We’d like to speak with him.”
Kate caught the hint and pulled out her private investigator’s license. “I’m detective Lockley, and this is detective Osborne, we’re trying to keep this under wraps, so we’d appreciate it if we didn’t have to get a warrant to search this place.”
The guard considered it before finally saying, “His office is up the stairs and to the left,” there was a sneer in his voice. “You can take it up with his secretary.”
He left them alone and Kate grinned at Oz, “That was a stroke of genus.”
They followed the directions only to have Oz stop dead when they approached the desk in front of Angel’s office. “Harmony?”
“Oz?” She stood up and walked around the desk. “I haven’t seen you since high school.”
Oz fingered the cross in his pocket. “That’s because you died.”
Kate cleared her throat. “We just need to talk to Angel.”
“Sure.” Harmony gave them a guilty grin. “He can be a bit of a grumpy bear sometimes, and I think I got him the wrong sort of blood this morning. Not to mention the whole thing with poor Cordy.”
“What happened to Cordelia,” Kate asked hoarsely.
“You guys must have just got to town,” Harmony paused dramatically. “Cordy’s disappeared.”
Oz blinked, a brief look of pained regret passing across his features before he pushed it under the surface. “I need to talk to Angel. It’s important.”
“Sure thing.” She leaned over to press a button on the intercom. “Angel, some people are here to see you.”
Angel’s voice came back, slightly distorted with static. “Tell them this isn’t a good time.”
Harmony frowned. “Sorry, but I think he’s busy brooding right now.”
“Tell him it’s Oz.”
Sighing theatrically, Harmony leaned back over the intercom. “It’s Oz.”
Angel’s voice was louder this time, “I don’t care who it is! I don’t want to talk to anyone unless they know something about Cordelia.”
Harmony stood up. “Sorry. Bad time.”
Oz glanced at Kate before taking a deep breath. “Tell him I had a vision.”
Harmony went quiet. “Like Cordy?” She looked nervous. “I’m not breaking this news to him.”
“Why?” Kate asked suspiciously, “In case you didn’t guess, this is kind of important.”
Harmony spread her arms in an expression of complete helplessness. “Because it means she’s really dead.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Oz whispered, “Tell him!”
Harmony reluctantly leaned back down. “Boss.”
“Tell him to leave.”
“He says he had a vision.”
There was a long silence before Angel’s tired voice came back, “Send him in.”
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“First what?” Jesse asked, “First baseman? I don’t even play baseball.”
Andrew jumped back. “Get away evil fiend! You will never use your mind control on me again!”
“Can the first be in more than on form at a time?” Dawn asked speculatively as she started to move forward, intending to grab Jesse by the wrist, but Buffy grabbed her arm before she could. Dawn jerked back and sullenly glared at her sister. “I was going to see if he was, you know, touchable or not.”
Giles stepped forwards to grab Ms. Calendar’s arm and take her pulse. The unspoken verdict that this was real washed over the group. Giles cleared his throat and asked, “What do you remember?”
“I remember finding out about the cure for Angel,” she told him slowly. “I remember Angelus finding me. He smashed my computer. Chased me. I think he snapped my neck.” She swallowed to collect herself. “I woke up in the ruins of Sunnydale. I found Jesse and we came here.”
“What happened in Sunnydale anyway?” Jesse asked. “I was thinking nuked, but now, not so much.”
“We closed the hellmouth,” Andrew said excitedly before he narrowed his eyes, remembering that there was a distinct possibility that they were evil. “Then again I assume you’d remember your last defeat.”
“Andrew call Angel,” Giles snapped, still not taking his eyes off of Ms. Calendar. “As much as I loathe to work with Wolfram and Hart, we may need to use their resources and with the council rebuilding…”
“I’ll call him,” interrupted Buffy.
“I could do it!” Andrew protested.
Xander tore his eyes from Jesse. “Does Angel even know you?”
Silence swept over the room and everything seemed a bit awkward. Giles finally cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”
Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’ll go make that call.”
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“Angel.”
“Oz.” Angel stood up, looking over the werewolf’s shoulder with surprise. “Kate.”
“Angel… This is really awkward.” Kate uncomfortably crossed her arms. “How’s it going?”
“Things aren’t all sunshine and roses.” Angel noticed her bruises. “Then again you don’t look that great yourself.”
“We got in a fight.”
“Oh.” Angel said uncomfortably and after a pause added, “are we done?”
“Absolutely.”
Angel nodded before directing his gaze towards Oz with uncanny intensity. “You can tell the Powers that be that I’m done with their stupid mission.”
Oz blinked. “What?”
“I’m sick and tired of the powers getting my friends killed. I’m done with this.”
Kate raised an eyebrow. “So you’re running an evil law firm instead,” she snorted. “Now that’s a little hypocritical.”
Angel’s gaze remained fixed on Oz. “Cordelia’s dead and now you’ve got her visions. I’m not getting you hurt.” He glanced at Kate. “Either of you. So get the hell out.”
“That’s not happening,” Oz said, stepping forward.
Angel picked up the phone. “I’m calling security.”
“I saw Cordelia,” Oz said suddenly. “She disappeared from her hospital bed.”
Angel put the phone back “How do you know that?”
“Doyle’s in trouble too,” Oz continued.
“Doyle’s dead,” Angel spat, voice taking on a dangerous tone.
Oz barely flinched. “So’s Ms. Calendar. Or at least they’re supposed to be.” He went mute, waiting for a response.
“So you’re saying,” Angel started, “they’re back?”
Oz nodded. “Ms. Calendar, Doyle, Cordy, Anya, Tara.” Kate watched as Angel seem more alive with every name mentioned. “They were some others I didn’t recognized.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t think it was all good,” Oz muttered. “There’s something evil rising.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
Oz frowned. “You don’t.”
The phone rang and Angel ignored it.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Kate asked.
The phone rang again, it seemed to echo in the room.
Angel picked it up, the absurd motto of Angel Investigations briefly flashed through his brain and for a single wild second he was sure he would say ‘Angel Investigations, we help the helpless.’ But he didn’t. That part of his life was over. “Hello.”
“Angel.” The voice came like it was from some sort of dream.“It’s Buffy. I think you need to get to the Hyperion. There’s some majorly wiggy stuff going on right now.”
“Buffy?” he asked in a daze. “What’s happening?”
“Either the first has managed to become corporeal or we’ve got about four people doing an excellent imitation of me.”
“What?”
“You know that resurrection thing,” she said dismissively. “The hotel you sent us too wasn’t as empty as you said it should be. Angel, Ms. Calendar’s here. And Cordy. And Xander’s old friend Jesse. And that weird Irish guy you used to work with. It’s starting to give me the creeps.”
“I’ll get there.”
“You might want to grab Wes. I think Giles wants to do the watcher thing.”
“I’ll bring the gang.”
“None of those evil law firm people though. Because for all we know, they could be the ones behind this.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up the phone and turned back to Oz and Kate. “Let’s go.”
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| 7 |
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