Warped Reflection
Part Eight: Counter and Parry
by Ruth Quist
SUMMARY: What would happen if you looked in the mirror and you weren’t there?
RATING: FRT [V] [L] [A] [AU]
DISCLAIMERS: This fan fiction is copyrighted (2004) by the author. No infringement on the rights of Mutant Enemy, Inc., Greenwolf Corp., Lazy Dave, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, Twentieth Century Fox Television, UPN or The WB, or any other legitimate holders of copyright for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, or any other characters contained therein is intended. This material is produced entirely for the entertainment of fans. No profit is made.
SPOILERS: Spoilers for up to the end of Season 4 (In fact, it is assumed that you’ve seen Season 4. It will be hard to read this if you haven’t.). Minor spoilers for Season 5. Mostly related to characters introduced this season.
DISTRIBUTION: Please ask if you want it.
ASSUMPTIONS: (Spoiler warning!) They still haven’t explained how the Connor related mind wipe works. For the purposes of this fiction, it is assumed that all the events that happened are remembered exactly how they happened. Conner was simply edited from those memories. (i.e. Justine cut Wesley’s throat and he remembers that, but he doesn’t remember the baby being in his arms or her taking Conner.) As you can imagine, this leave’s weird gaps in everyone’s memory. People don’t question this because, as a part of the magical process to create the mind wipe, they were told not to question it. This also means that everyone’s emotional state is pretty much the same as it was before the mind wipe. Aren’t I nice to tell you? Now if Joss would just tell us!
Angel had tried to stop Buffy from participating in the fight. She’d been seriously hurt during her fight with the first evil and its minions, the uber-vamps. But keeping her away from this fight was like trying to keep a moth from a flame. She simply couldn’t walk away from a fight in which her friends were going to risk their lives. That was part of what made her special.
However, when she’d come to Angel’s office to discuss the details of the plan, she also made it absolutely clear that regardless of Angel’s friendship with Wes, she didn’t trust Wesley. She especially didn’t trust any plan even partly developed by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. She just couldn’t get past her mental image of Wesley from Sunnydale. No amount of discussion could change it.
Wesley had accidentally walked in just as she was saying, “I’m not trusting my friends to a man who screams like a girl and who might fold if things get too rough. I’m happy to help if you’re having vampire problems, kinda in the job description, and I’m sorry about Wesley’s brother, but if something happens to one of my people during this fight, Wesley will regret it.”
She hadn’t seen Wesley enter the room during her little speech, but Angel had. The two men’s eyes met, Angel’s apologetic and Wesley’s mortified. Wesley paled, fisted the papers he was holding almost into a white-knuckled wad, and then abruptly turned and walked out. Angel almost called after him, but he decided that Wes had been humiliated enough and let him go.
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Winston really didn’t like how this operation was going. Down below in the lobby a whole swarm of slayers overwhelmed the tottering vampires still reeling from the bazooka attack. Cries of surprise and pain came from the incapacitated minions. Dust filled the air giving the room below a hazy, unreal facade into which his forces rapidly disappeared. Where had all the slayers come from? And they were definitely slayers. This was ludicrous. How had the rabbit gotten so many people to help him? Damn! How annoying for his plans to go so far awry. He spoke tersely into his walkie-talkie, “Three! This is One! Go now!”
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Inside a long, large, oversized van, containing various computer panels and equipment, sat Giles and Willow watching a row of monitors displaying various parts of the Hyperion. Kennedy sat in the driver’s seat with an axe on the dash and a loaded crossbow on the passenger seat as she watched for any signs of trouble from the outside. Giles watched a monitor closely and said, “He’s talking on his walkie-talkie.” Willow exclaimed softly and pointed at another monitor in particular. Giles leaned forward, his eyes narrowed at the sight before him. Willow remarked, “He must have switched channels on the radio because we’re not hearing it now.” Giles nodded and spoke into his earpiece, “Faith, go now.”
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In the basement a group of vampires, all armed with a variety of weaponry, stood in a line on the stairs leading to the lobby floor. At the head of the stairs, a large, well muscled vampire listened as Winston’s voice ordered them into the fight. He grinned back at the others, “Let’s go!”
The door leading to the sewers which was held in place by a piece of wood wedged against it, splintered and flew across the room in pieces. Several vampires at the bottom of the stairs screamed as they were assaulted by a hail of wooden chunks and one luckless, soulless minion disintegrated from a sliver of shrapnel.
Faith ran in and leaped up to the head of the stair just in front of the shocked muscleman. She quirked her head to the side and ran a hand lightly down his muscled chest, “You’re not leavin’ without saying goodbye are you now, baby?” She punched a stake through his heart and kicked the vamp behind him, now exposed through the ashy flakes. The vampires on the stairs tumbled down to the bottom in a jumble of arms and legs as five or six slayers poured in through the sewer doorway. Faith propped her hands on her waist as she surveyed the mop-up operations, “Oh well, I guess he didn’t have any staying power.”
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Giles and Willow grinned at each other as the situations in the lobby and basement played out. Then Giles pressed the button on the earpiece again and directed Faith to stay put and watch for any other reinforcements. He and Willow smiled at each other again as they heard Faith reply dryly, “Party pooper.”
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Winston waited a couple of minutes, but when it became clear no reinforcements were coming, he assessed the situation as hopeless and backed up to one of the hotel room doors behind him. Below him, the combined group of young women and Wesley’s team slashed, stabbed, and staked the last of Winston’s lobby troops. Winston saw Wesley holding the reloaded crossbow in one hand, but ignoring it to behead a vampire by using a retractable sword extended from Wesley’s sleeve device. For the first time, he felt fear as he watched his brother’s deadly grace cut a swathe through the pack using simple economical movements. Admittedly, the vampires weren’t up to usual fighting quality because of the ‘bazooka’ attack. However, Winston had the feeling it didn’t matter. Wesley showed none of the clumsiness or uncertainty normally characteristic of his fighting skills. His face was grim and determined while he fought in the crowd. When…How had Wesley learned to fight?
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Giles leaned forward again calmly and tapped the monitor showing the balcony and Willow nodded and smiled. He began to speak into the earpiece again.
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Winston fumbled for the doorknob behind him and the vampires on the balcony with him prepared to follow. He turned and pushed open the door to discover a petite blonde girl wearing an earpiece with three girls stationed behind her, all holding stakes. Buffy smiled and quipped, “We want to invite you to dinner.” She held up the sharpened stick and spoke cheerfully, “We’re having stake.” Winston stumbled back, shoving a lackey out of the way as the women charged.
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Willow spoke into her earpiece, “Angel, the basement is cleared and Buffy is attacking on the balcony now. We don’t see any other…”
Willow was interrupted by Kennedy’s surprised exclamation as the woman in the front seat scrabbled for the crossbow, “Oh sh…” The glass crunched as a small round hole appeared and Kennedy jerked sideways as if she’d been punched. She slumped out of sight with a sigh.
Willow screamed, “Kennedy!” and started to rise as the back doors
wrenched open and a figure thrust in an aerosol can and sprayed the young witch.
Willow coughed and choked for air as she sagged to the floor. Giles covered
his mouth and knocked the can out of the attacker’s hand.
He started to rise but another figure pushed past the first attacker and pointed
a crossbow menacingly.
“Hallo, Rupert,” the older man’s crisply cultured British tone, impeccably decked out three piece suit, and old school tie seemed incongruously out of place with the fully loaded crossbow.
Giles crouched, frozen in place, and quickly reached up to his earpiece to tersely snap, “Buffy, we’re under atta…” The older man smoothly reversed the crossbow and slammed it hard straight into Giles face.
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Buffy gripped Winston’s shirt and raised the stake. The vampire was dazed and battered after an amazingly short, vicious fight in which all his minions were killed. Buffy sing-song words slipped out, “Time for din-din,” when she heard Willow and Giles’ broken off transmissions. She pressed the earpiece and spoke frantically, “Giles! What did you say? Willow?”
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Wesley was momentarily tempted to go upstairs and help Buffy deal with his brother as soon as it was clear the slayers in the lobby had the last of the vampires under control. However, he realized it would be over before he could get there as he saw the slayers upstairs efficiently buzz sawing their way through the vampires. He remembered Buffy’s opinion of him and knew she wouldn’t appreciate his presence. He saw Fred alone by the front doors watching the fight upstairs unfold and disliking her unprotected position, he moved towards her. He continued to watch the fight upstairs too and, by the time he stood at Fred’s side, he felt a lurch in his throat as Buffy raised the stake.
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The slayers in the lobby finished the vampires off and were catching their breath. Some started to move down the hotel hallways and others started up the stairs to begin to search the hotel for undead survivors. Angel’s group started moved back to the front door to join Wesley and Fred in guarding the front in case more trouble was coming.
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As they all heard Giles and Buffy’s desperate conversation, most of the people looked up at Buffy as she spoke frantically over the radio. Angel looked up and then started running for the front door. Wesley jerked the front door open, saw what was coming, and then rammed into Fred pushing her onto the stairs just as the giant black van crashed through the doors and took the doorway frame with it, spewing rubble everywhere, and soared over the stairs down to the lobby area. It broke off the stairway rails on both sides throwing debris out onto the lobby floor. People threw themselves out of the way as the van took a hairpin turn sliding around and then coming to a stop with the side of the van facing the now completely shattered and much bigger front entrance.
Angel, with Gunn right behind him, had made it to the bottom of the stairs and was forced to leap to the side with the van’s sudden arrival. He jumped back to his feet to face this new threat and found himself one of the few people on his feet in the room. He was relieved to see Gunn obviously more angry than hurt, although Gunn was sprawled on the ground like most of the people around them.
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Wesley felt the van lightly brush his back as it rushed by, and he threw his hands out to either side of Fred to prevent crushing her. Hunks and bits of plaster from the wall hit his back and showered the stairway. Instantly pushing up with his arms while at the same time being careful not to press down on Fred, he was standing at almost the same time as Angel. He grabbed Fred’s still loaded crossbow which had miraculously survived. His hadn’t. It was crushed under the fractured frames of the now flattened doors. He pointed the weapon at the van.
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The van’s side door slid open exposing the interior’s occupants. Three men in their 60’s, all in suits and armed, stood in the oversized van. Buffy could see Willow stretched out alarmingly still on the floor of the van and Giles’ head bled profusely with a slow steady trickle flowing down the side of his face and dripping onto his shirt. Although he appeared to be conscious, he couldn’t seem to stand upright. If two of the men hadn’t held him up roughly between them he probably would have fallen. One of the men used Giles’ body as a shield and held a gun to Giles’ head. The other pointed an Uzi machine gun out at the crowd of slayers, his threat clear. She could see a third in the driver’s seat pointing another Uzi out the completely broken out front windshield and at people on the other side of the van. A fourth man held a crossbow pointed at Willow.
The man with the crossbow demanded loudly, “I have come for Pryce.”
Fred, still struggling to stand upright, cried out, “Wesley? What do you want with Wesley?” Gunn stood up next to Angel, they glanced at each other, and then both men moved protectively in front of Wes. Wesley looked at them for a moment and then back at the man.
“Not him! What would I want with him?” The man waved his hand dismissively at Wesley, who lowered his eyes briefly.
The man pointed up at Winston, who grinned broadly, “He belongs to us. I am here to take him back to the council.”
Some of the slayers started to push themselves off the ground. The men with the uzis fired a spray of bullets narrowly missing the moving women. The man with the crossbow yelled, “Stay down or die!” Everyone froze.
Buffy clutched Winston tightly keeping the stake raised threateningly. She called out, “If you hurt anyone, I’ll kill him.”
The man with the crossbow took aim at Willow, “Let him go now or they die!” The man with the pistol on Giles pressed the gun more firmly against the injured man’s temple.
Buffy tightened her grip on Winston who didn’t seem at all concerned as he smiled widely at her. She remember that irritatingly arrogant, self-important look from Sunnydale when a new and incompetent watcher was assigned to her and all she wanted to do at that time was wipe the floor with his face. That’s all she wanted to do now. “How do I know you won’t kill them anyway if I let him go?”
“Miss Summers, you are the Slayer and I am from the council.” Buffy twitched at the name of the supposedly defunct organization that was nominally supposed to be on her side. The man continued, “Neither one of us normally go around hurting humans for no good reason. You give me what I want and I shall give you what you want.” The older man propped up Giles’ pale, bleeding face briefly allowing her a good look and then let it go.
His head dropped to his chest and then Giles forced his head back up as he cried out, “NO, Buffy! Don’t do it!” The older man calmly backhanded Giles’ face. Giles made a small noise and shook his head attempting to remain conscious.
The older man told the younger one, “Stiles, kill him.” Stiles tightened his grip and nodded, cocking back the hammer on the pistol.
Buffy cried out, “NO!” and shoved Winston away from her.
The elder watcher waved the young gunman away from shooting Giles. He spoke imperiously, “Come down here at once, Winston. We must go back now.”
Winston grasped the rail and laughed, “Let me think. No! You ridiculous old fool! You think I’m going back to your non-existent council?” Winston leaped over the balcony and shoved Gunn aside as he barreled out the door. Angel itched to slam a stake in the vampire as he went by, but worried that Giles would be dead before the dust reached the floor.
The older man’s face grew red and tightened with rage. He looked at the group assembled and composed himself into a semblance of calm again, “That was unfortunate.”
He glanced at Giles and continued as if nothing had happened, “This man has been an impossible thorn in my side once too often. I recommended his dismissal the day I was assigned as his advisor. He obviously had no respect for his family’s heritage or his calling. Of course, I was right. He abandoned his duties as a young man not long afterwards. I couldn’t believe it when they reinstated him after he returned to the council, overriding my well-reasoned protest, and despite his disgraceful behavior while away. Wild oats indeed! And imagine them assigning such a man to a slayer!” He looked up at Buffy, “No wonder your tenure has been such an unmitigated disaster. Falling in love with a vampire with your watcher’s knowledge and approval! Your watcher interfering with the proper completion of your Cruciamentum. Quitting the council with the support of your, by then, fired watcher!”
“Quentin Travers allowed Rupert Giles to drag the council’s reputation through the mud. The man’s faults are legion. Giles’ willingness to work with vampires, and,” the man waved his arm to encompass all the women scattered on the floor, “now his use of potentials as if they are real slayers, and last but not least,” the older man kicked at Willow who moaned softly, “his refusal to deal definitively with blatant threats to the world because of some misplaced sentimental claptrap are just a few of his numerous blunders. Such weakness cannot be tolerated in a watcher and so his fate is sealed. However, if you stop interfering with council business, I’ll return the girl unharmed. After all, we can deal with such threats at a later time if they recur.” The man started to reach for the sliding door.
Wesley moved past Angel and Gunn and towards the van with precise careful steps over the rubble, “You’re not taking her anywhere,” he aimed his crossbow straight at the crossbow holding older man, “and if you kill him, I’ll kill you. And you know I won’t miss.” The elderly man who had been pointing his Uzi generically at the crowd quickly focused his attention and gun on Wesley. Angel and Gunn stepped up behind Wesley.
Up on the balcony, Buffy gripped the railing tightly. No matter how much she wanted to pound that smug face into paste, she was afraid if she jumped down now, the men would start firing and Giles, Willow, and many others would die. But she set herself to jump down and join in the fight if it started.
The older man raised his crossbow away from Willow to point it at Wesley, “You would kill me! You’d die too.”
Wesley raised one eyebrow, “When has that ever mattered, Father?” Angel and Gunn looked at each other in dismay and then back to the van’s occupants.
A flicker of disbelief crossed the older man’s face and he searched his son’s face for the weakness he was sure he’d see. He saw none. Then Roger Wyndam-Pryce’s face shifted into a grudging acknowledgement of Wesley’s unwavering determination. Everyone stood still for a moment. Finally, the older Wyndam-Pryce jerked his head at his other two men and they shoved Giles and Willow out onto the floor and slammed the sliding door to the van shut.
Despite the size of the lobby, the van made it seem smaller as its engine revved loudly while it turned tightly in the space, causing young women throughout the room to scramble to avoid being hit and Angel’s group to leap to each side as the van bounced up the stairs and sped out through the ruins of the front entrance, screeched onto the road, and roared off down the street.
© August 2004
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