Constraints: Follows 'Living Dead Girls 4: Fighting Machine'
Synopsis: Daria and friends settle into their jobs at the No Such Agency.
Living Dead Girls 5: Twister Harvest.
Content: violence, bad language,
Legal: Casts of Buffy and Angel belong to Mutant enemy, Ultimate force to ITV, Law And Order belongs to NBC, and I ripped something off of Theonion.com (it's linked) there are also characters and scenes that belong to Diane Long and Nemo Blank in there, I've also had help from Brother Grimace, The Angst Guy, Dervish and Roentgen.
-~-
Part 1.
-~-
"Fucking hell, what have you been drinking of late?" asked Spike as he and Daria walked up to Jane.
They were in the middle of a USAF bomb range, Jane had 3 welding masks, a bow (a folded steel longbow, with a 3mm steel string, only a vampire or a vampire slayer would want the draw strength of something like that), and a quiver loaded with about 12 arrows.
"Been trying chilli, cottage cheese, brussel sprouts and beet ice cream with my blood, it seems to make it taste better," said Jane, as she pulled out her notebook and looked at the page.
"So, what we doing here," asked Daria.
"Watch," said Jane, as she pulled an arrow.
She then concentrated and did a spell.
She then unslung the bow and shot the arrow off at around 40°, it landed several hundred metres away.
She then picked up the masks and handed them out saying "you're going to love this."
Daria glanced at her mask and said "part of that sounded like a transmutation spell, and another part sounded like a timeframe spell."
"Yep, it's my Gambit spell."
"Gambit: not that frog whose secret weapon is a deck of cards?" said Spike.
"No, he's the frog whose secret weapon is the ability to make things explooooooo- Jane, ... ..." Daria was frozen in mid sentence as she visibly paled, she then calmly said "Spike, Jane, follow me."
She then shot off at a flat out run away from the arrow, a panicked, adrenaline fuelled attempt to break the sound barrier on foot run.
Jane and Spike looked between her and the arrow, then Jane looked at her watch, saying "SHIT!!!", she grabbed Spike and pulled him after her as she also ran.
"Oh fuckin' 'ell," growled Spike as he got the hint and put more effort into it.
-~-
"Daria, you know the arrow doesn't weigh that much right?" asked Jane as she caught up with her friend.
"20 grams, or thereabouts, right?" said Daria.
"Right, 0.02 times 900million gives us-"
"900 MILLION??? SHOULD HAVE FIGURED THAT WAS YOUR MISTAKE!" shouted Daria.
"900 million what?" asked Spike.
"Joules per kilo," said Jane.
"THE SPEED OF LIGHT SQUARED IS NOT NINE HUNDRED MILLION, IT'S NINETY THOUSAND TRILLION!"
"Oh, right, ... and the yield that gives us is:" said Jane.
"APPROXAMATELY TWO POINT THREE MEGATONS!!!"
"TWO POINT- JANE, GRAB HER LEFT SIDE!" said Spike as he came up next to Daria and grabbed her belt and her shoulder, Jane did the same, and they picked Daria up, carrying her like a battering ram.
"How long do we have?" asked Spike.
Jane glanced at her watch and said "23 seconds."
"That's never going to be enough," said Spike.
"Ideas?" asked Jane.
"YEAH, NEVER TRY THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE, AND QUIT WATCHING BRAINIAC!!!" yelled Daria.
"HEY! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TOLD ME ABOUT
IT!!!" responded Jane. Daria had watched the Sick Sad World-like series during
her stay in
"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO STARTED DOWNLOADING EPISODES!!!" responded Daria.
She then performed a spell that sped them up.
Eventually they were approaching the sort of distance they needed to be for any cover to be of any use (outside the fireball radius and with sufficient distance to give an actual shadow)
They encountered a target (A concrete filled tank), there were a number of craters around it, they had filled with water, the tank itself had sunk a little due to liquefaction of the soil over time, this seemed like the best thing they could get behind in the time they had.
"CAN WE USE THIS?" asked Spike.
"GET US BEHIND THAT TANK!" said Daria.
They just about made it.
Mud and water was blown into the air, the tank threatened to turn over on them, but didn't, but the fireball ascended, and was still pouring out heat by the megawatt when the angle was too steep for the tank to shade them.
The two vampires got up and looked at Daria.
She was unconscious from the heat they were being exposed to.
"Oops," said Jane, as she shrugged.
-~-
Donald entered the room and yelled "A TWO
MEGATON DETONATION OCCURRED ON ONE OF OUR BOMBING RANGES, THE FUCKING UN IS
GOING APESHIT! WHAT, YOU THINK WE WEREN'T HAVING ENOUGH TROUBLE WITH THE
Jane and Spike looked at each other.
Then Jane asked "How's Daria?"
Donald looked at her with a death glare and asked "how's Daria? ... HOW'S DARIA??? YOU JUST THRUST THIS COUNTRY INTO THE BOTTOM OF AN EXTREMELY TALL PILE OF DOGSHIT AND ALL YOU CAN ASK IS HOW'S DARIA???"
"Yes, ... Well, no, actually, I also lost my favourite bow, it got vaporised in a big nuclear fireball," Jane said, a touch morosely.
The enraged defence secretary screamed and left the room.
"So, that blood flavoring, have you always had a taste for that type of mix?"
"No, in fact, it's only recently I got such a taste, is that normal for vampires?"
"Not as far as I know, we usually prefer human or otter blood," said Spike.
"Right," said Jane.
-~-
"Boss, with respect, this is an insssssssanely bad idea, ... sir," said Rebecca.
"Maybe, but as a Vampire Slayer, you are uniquely placed to develop a course that best suits the classes you will be teaching," said Aiden.
Rebecca just about suppressed a groan, this was an order from a superior officer, but this also struck her as potentially the biggest gaff since Prince William went to a fancy dress party dressed as a Nazi, ... no, not potentially, certainly.
"Rebecca, you're not the only member of the special air service to have killed a member of the watcher's council or their slayers," said Aiden.
"They'll remember my face more clearly than anyone else's, especially if they were at Westbury house," said Rebecca.
"Rebecca, you are still the most suitable person to design the course," said Aiden.
"Understood," said Rebecca.
-~-
Buffy's confusion stemmed from the fact Rebecca hadn't actually told Buffy she was the one who had slotted Kennedy.
"Aiden sent me to advise the team that will be teaching firearms proficiency and tactics to your personal, felt that the fact I was a slayer made me essential to designing the curriculum," Rebecca stated, trying to keep as neutral as possible.
"Okay," said Buffy, she then said "I'm still not entirely happy about this, the instructors are all members of the team that attacked us, some of us are still grieving the losses, this arrangement is just asking for trouble."
"I know," said Rebecca.
"It might be a good idea to avoid using live ammo for a while," said Buffy.
"We can't, not for all the training, blanks don't have the recoil impulse characteristics to adequately simulate live fire conditions, it affects marksmanship, there are situations where we do use blanks, but we want to get everyone shooting straight first, that has to be first and a tenth nature," said Rebecca.
"I understand that our presence will be testing, frankly I'd have picked instructors from another regiment entirely-" said Rebecca.
"But the Special Air Service is considered the best combat unit available to us, and this cross training scheme is a condition of us being able to continue our activities, I understand perfectly, I just hope the others will, have you formed a lesson plan yet?" said Buffy.
"We're going to go with the normal weapons course for now, see how that works out, see if any alterations need to be made for that to work," said Rebecca.
"Alright, now, we have assembled your first class, we have purposely avoided personal that witnessed your kills or those who lost friends to you, but unfortunately, there is one person who will have to oversee the training for me from our end that has lost someone to your group."
"Who?" asked Rebecca.
-~-
"You're healing fast, aren't you?" asked the doctor.
"Witch, heal thy self," said Daria.
"I see," mused the doctor.
"Normally I'd be seeing Tiffany about now," said Daria.
"You're her watcher?" asked the doctor.
"Yeah," said Daria.
"What exactly did you do out there?" asked the doctor.
Daria sighed and said "something the NSA will want to keep top secret for, ... well, ... ever."
"Daria, thank god you're alright!" came Jakes emotive voice.
"Hi dad," said Daria, as Jake came up and hugged her "Oww, burns, burns."
Jake jumped back and said "oh, sorry." He then looked around and asked "Where's Quinn?"
"Toilet, she's been here for a while."
"Oh, ... so, how long have you got off of work?" asked Jake.
"Few days I'd imagine."
"Have you bleached your hair?" he asked, noticing that the back of Daria's hair was now a much lighter shade.
"Nah, Jane bleached it."
"Oh, ... looks nice."
Luckilly they were close enough to
From what Buffy had told her, the
Some of the slayers were qualified to function also as watchers, so that wasn't too bad for them, it just wasn't helpful to have this new structure imposed on them.
-~-
"Daria called, apparently there was an accident at work and she'll be off sick for the next few days," said Dr Barbra Saunchez.
"I see," said Tiffany.
"I'm sure she'll be around at the earliest opportunity," said the doc.
"I know," said Tiffany.
Barbra wondered what Tiffany was doing here.
Obviously there had been a few weeks where they were conducting drug assisted and hypnotically assisted interrogations to figure out what threat the First Evil's programming still presented, but honestly, Tiffany was safe for release now.
There was nothing mystical going on besides the slayer strength, there was no activity going on that couldn't be accounted for by Tiffany's personality, the two personae had remained united since the incident where Tiffany had trapped those three people in her mind, and had been progressing well in her recovery.
The problem now seemed to be that Tiffany just didn't want to return to active duty, like she had fucked it up so many times that she was now too scared that she would kill or injure someone by accident again.
There was little she could do about that, as a shrink, she would never know what combat was like.
Fortunately this wasn't just a recent problem.
-~-
Part two.
-~-
She made it.
She had to save up her energy to make this work, and that was a very slow rate of charge in that dimension, but it happened at last and she got through.
This way was at least gentler than the other way (landing in a neat crouch instead of an uncontrolled landing that fucked up her ankle and fractured her hip and upper arm), and this time she didn't have to spend all her energy recovering from 3rd degree burns.
Fucking geeks!
Fucking scoobies!!
Motherfucking good guys in general!!!
There was going to be a price for all that shit they had done to her.
She looked around for the first time since getting back, she was certain this was earth and her own dimension, but she had no idea where on earth she was.
She stood up.
There were a lot of people looking at her.
She looked around some more.
There were posters all over the walls that urged the reader to 'vote Zanu PF'.
"
A truck full of soldiers drove up to her and arrested her for something ("is it 'cos I is white?") and drove her to the police station, she just sat there recovering, she had caused enough of a disturbance without drawing additional attention from the Watchers Council, she could keep it cool for now.
Of course that might not be possible if these guys decided to get medieval on her, as they were famous for lately, but she could minimize the actual magic to simply blowing tiny holes in their blood vessels, make it look like they died from meningitis or something (it would probably take ages for the coroner to make any kind of determination), pop a few vessels in their brain stems, maybe conjure an alternating current across their hearts (that would be fun to watch, see them die slowly of a cardiac arrest).
They frowned when they saw her smile.
She just shrugged.
-~-
"Daria?"
"Incorrect." said the Daria looking figure as she continued down the hall to the library.
"Robodaria?"
The girl turned and dropped her cloak,
revealing her to be
"
"She is in the infirmary recovering from severe burns, did you not hear of the incident with the exploding arrow?"
"Exploding arrow? ... No, ... I heard of a nuclear explosion that occurred recently on a bomb range."
"That is the incident, I thought this agency dealt primarily with covert investigations, how did the details of the incident escape you?"
"The details are classified need to know, I guess I didn't need to know, ... but I do need to get to Daria, thanks," said the agent as he headed off to the infirmary.
-~-
"Doesn't look very mystical," said Wesley.
"It's a man who's flying without the aid of an airplane with laser beams for eyes," said Donald.
Wesley looked through the file and found photographs of sections of pavement where the beams had penetrated.
"Okay, but this still looks technological," said Wesley.
"So's that nuclear rocket launcher kit your Miss Burkle invented," said Donald, he then said "Answers soon, or I'm going to see if there's someone more suitable." he then left.
"He is right, there is a strong chance of
at least a partially mystical machine here, and we have dealt with robots
before," said
"Okay, I guess we need to get out there then," said Wesley.
-~-
"Daria, how could you end up in hospital over a simple experiment?" asked Buffy.
"The experiment did a Castle Bravo on my friend, who failed to mention she was trying out such an insane experiment," said Daria.
" ... That would be
"Yep: She is an artist, and this is how she will kill herself," said Daria.
"What?" asked Buffy, not getting the way Daria emphasized 'Kill'.
"Never mind, anything else I can help you with?"
"No, that's it, except for what Castle Bravo is," said Buffy.
"A nuclear shot with an expected yield of eight megatons or less, produced fifteen megatons, Jane expected a yield of 230kg, and instead got around two point three Megatons. And you make me sound cheerful, where's the depression is from?" asked Daria.
"I gave Angel and his team such a hard time over their taking over the LA branch of Wolfram and Hart, and now we're doing something similar," said Buffy.
"That mean you're going to apologize to them for the attitude?"
"Hell no."
"How's things over there anyway?" asked Daria.
"Well, we just received a number of SAS instructors to teach us how to operate a gun, we're going to be instructing them in demonology and magic." said Buffy.
"That won't be tense," said Daria.
"That's the thing about war, once you start killing, it's difficult to stop, especially where the score's so uneven," said Buffy.
"How is everyone handling this arrangement?" asked Daria.
"Well,
-~-
"Okay, two kinds of shot you can take, centre of mass, that's for easy acquisition, a whole range of organs within the torso are essential for your survival, and instant kill, where you target the brainstem, tighter target, but your enemy will be dead before he or she hits the floor, ... of course, if you want to take your enemy alive, you could hit the soft tissue on the outside of their leg so they can't run away that fast, but mostly we're going to train for situations where you need the enemy dead. Any questions so far?" asked Rebecca.
Clear in her mind was the instant those
three 45cal. Rounds had entered her girlfriends mouth and punched through the
back of her head, severing the brainstem. It had felt to
And she had then seen Rebecca go for Giles, the burst starting just above his heart and ending in his nose, the two leaders of the group.
She had then set about killing the rest of the group, who had to pile on because there was no way they could get to cover in the time allotted, she had killed a further 3 in hand to hand combat and had dislocated the arms of a couple of other slayers, crushing the throat of one, she had spent a couple of weeks unable to talk and breathing through a hole in her neck from a tracheotomy.
The SAS don't have a stun setting.
Understatement of the millennium, and we're only 4 years in.
"Okay, getting a gun to spit a bullet is a piece of piss, but getting your bullet into your enemy before they get about 20 into you is a serious bastard of a problem, which can only be solved with practice, that will start tomorrow at the SAS's very own firing range. For right now we'll be discussing the weapons we'll be training with, which will be M16A1s, because the SA80's a piece of shit."
Willow listened through her state of shock as Rebecca described the M16, a 5.56mm gas operated rotating bolt assault rifle that uses up 750 rounds per minute (10.83 continuous a second, about 2.8 seconds of firing time on a 30 round clip), 945m/s muzzle velocity, she briefly touched on the effect of gravity and wind on the bullet's trajectory, but mentioning that the course won't be as geared towards sniping as a more specialized course would be.
"
"Yeah, why?"
The slayer glanced down at her hands,
"Oh, ... sorry." She looked at Rebecca, who
didn't seem too annoyed at this development, she was patiently waiting for
Rebecca resumed her lecture.
-~-
Amy had managed to scare the cops into freeing her ("Can you kill me before I telepathically slice your brain stem the way I just did your testicles?") and giving her 4000000$ (Zimbabwe dollars, probably equivalent to 12$ American), but she could easily Obi-Wan her way through the airports without too much of a mystical signature.
In fact, fuck it, fuck paying for a ticket, she might as well have someone hand over an entire aircraft.
In fact, it would be better to avoid the hubs altogether, the Watchers Council were bound to have witches there.
-~-
"We were just about to make the arrest when suddenly our radios made this awful screeching noise, that wrong footed us so much that we didn't see them pop up until it was too late, they had these guns that shot laser beams at us, bright blue lasers."
"These laser beams, did they taper along their length, or were they of a uniform diameter?" asked Wesley.
"Uniform diameter, and bright, ... and they just went through everything, we saw puffs of flame like muzzle flashes around some of the holes, and the doc said that the burn looked like a radiation burn."
Wesley had looked at the burn patterns, as had Winifred, the burn around the exit wound seemed bigger than the one around the entry wound and on the bodies, the size of the radiation burns had increased with the stand off from the armour the beams had penetrated.
"How much radio traffic occurred just before the attack?"
"Minimum necessary, we even used code words, this gang had repelled sting operations before, I guess they just upgraded a few centuries. And the other weapons they were using were something else too, Diamond bullets, RDX propelled, weapons looked similar to P-90s, y'know, like on Stargate? ... Anyway, that's all I got for now."
"Okay, thank you, we may need to ask you more questions later," said Wesley as he and the rest of the team departed.
-~-
Donald entered the room and said "You're free to go for now."
"Yippie," said Jane.
"Finally," said Spike.
As they left Donald said "BUUUUUUT, ... if
either of you cause us any more trouble, you will regret it. You may have souls
now, but you both are going to hell when you die, even you
He waited for an answer.
He turned around.
He left the cell in time to see the two vampires finish reclaiming their belongings from the custody sergeant, they had obviously not stopped to hear his speech.
-~-
"So, where to?" asked Spike.
"You buying?" asked Jane.
"Get fucked," said Spike.
"Later, boyfriend, food first," said Jane.
-~-
"That's just sick," said Spike.
"Not yet," said Jane as she drank the cocktail that was only half blood, the other half was stuff that either didn't go together or go on a human or demon palette.
"What, you get sick often?" asked Spike.
"Pretty much every morning for some reason," said Jane.
"Uh, funny, except vampires don't get pregnant," said Spike.
Jane rested a hand on her abdomen, not for the first time feeling the organ underneath that felt like a balloon.
"Whatever's happening, I should probably see a doctor."
-~-
"Hey T, what's shakin'?"
Tiffany looked up and said "Hi Faith."
Faith entered Tiffany's room and sat down next to her saying "I heard you're still scared you'll go evil again."
"Yeah, ... You're not here because the doctor sent you are you?"
"Yeah I am, but I don't think any amount of arguing will get you out there before you're ready, and no one will think any less of you if it takes a decade, ... assuming you can endure the boredom."
Tiffany looked at her.
Faith then asked "So, what's it like here? They just talk to you here, or is there, like, bondage too?"
-~-
"That's definitely a foetus," said the doctor.
"Oooookaaaaayyyyyy, ... I thought vampires didn't get pregnant," said Jane, as she lay on the table with the sonar device pressed against her abdomen.
"That was our best knowledge on the subject," said the doctor.
"Backed by hundreds to thousands of years of vampires going bareback without getting preggers," said Spike.
"Then, what's different here?" asked Jane.
Spike sniffed and said "we have souls."
"Okay, so no more unprotected sex," said Jane.
The doctor turned to her and said "Okay, I won't attempt to compel a decision to keep or abort it, but this is uncharted territory, and, ... Well, ... I'd like to chart it."
"Hell no, breeding's Summer's gig," said Jane.
"What?" asked Spike.
"Spike, ... it's probably the antichrist or something, ... " Jane was now trying to come up with something that would stop Spike looking at her like she was the most evil thing ever created "Quit looking at me like that."
Spike sighed and said "She's right, we may have souls, but whatever that is in there, probably isn't good."
Jane eventually said "All right then."
-~-
Winifred dropped the clear fluid onto the object and watched, eventually saying "no mystical signature."
"Diamonds may be more common than most people think, but they aren't that cheap, especially those that big," said Wesley.
"So we're thinking someone made them?" asked Spike.
"There are two non-mystical ways to make a diamond I know of: bombard a target with carbon atoms, or melt carbon under intense pressures."
"Any way to determine which?" asked Spike.
"Yes, as a matter of fact there is," said Winifred.
-~-
"Well, there's nothing to keep you here on at present, you might as well get back to work," said the doctor.
"Sweet," said Daria as she got off the bed and opened the bag her dad had brought.
Pulling out the first items of clothing, she realized Dad had followed Quinn's advice.
She shrugged and pulled the curtain closed around the bed and started getting dressed again.
-~-
"Watcher central," answered Dawn.
"How's it going my whitey?" asked Xander.
Dawn chuckled, and replied "What's up?"
"Well, apparently someone hypnotized a pilot into handing over his helicopter, index Z-128CJD, apparently it was a Caucasian woman with an American accent and more scars than a cutter with a crack addiction, she's going by the name 'Amelia Airheart', either an alias, or we finally have an answer to a long running mystery," said Xander.
"I think Amelia disappeared before the helicopter was invented," said Dawn.
"There were autogyro's back then weren't there?" asked Xander.
"Different flight principles are involved with those Xander, do we have any pictures of this woman?"
"One of our witches is doing an E-fit now, we'll have it to you in-" he asked someone in the room, then said "-20 seconds, check your E-mail."
Dawn turned to her computer and opened her browser, she opened the attached file and said "got it, ... Xander, does she look familiar to you?"
"Yeah, I just don't know where I've seen her before."
"I'll circulate it," said Dawn.
-~-
"Daria, you're different today," commented
"That's what happens when my sister is put in charge of bringing me a change of clothes when I'm hospitalized, Jane and Spike were been detained for most of my stay, and now apparently Jane's found she's pregnant," said Daria.
"Jane is a vampire," said
"She assures me it's no joke and that she's not faking. So, what's going on here?"
"We're checking this bullet to see how it was made," said Winifred, she placed the projectile in the clamps and turned on the laser saying "the laser goes through points I've ground flat, I'm using high ultra violet, because I can."
Daria looked over Winifred's shoulder and commented "the bullet's transparent."
"It is diamond," said
"So it'll either be made by bombarding a target with carbon, or-"
"Melted under pressure," said Winifred.
"Yeah, melt under pressure and the crystal has fewer holes," said Daria.
"Someone has a high pressure chamber with a window in it and an industrial laser, the chamber will probably be the more expensive component, we just need to ask around all the distributers." said Winifred.
"It might be an idea to look out for anyone ordering parts that could be used to make a laser," said Daria.
"Parts that- ... oh shit," said Winifred.
"No way," said Spike.
"Way, I can think of about 20 ways a suitable laser can be constructed off the top of my head," said Winifred.
"Okay, that case, you could list them, and look for combinations, ... Hang on, Donald mentioned laser weapons," said Daria.
"X-ray canons actually," said Wesley.
"Apparently it's easier to, err," started Spike.
"Throw electrons at a magnetic barrier than to work out all the complicated optics needed to focus a coherent light source," said Daria.
" ... Yeah, ... What you said," said Spike.
"Amazing that they managed to condense the equipment for that into such a small weapon, I mean, X-ray laser of this kind uses a particle accelerator."
"Those use x-rays in the 100s of MeVs range though, you only want it in the keV range for this," said Daria.
"You would need to keep the atmosphere out of your weapon if you want to be accelerating electrons about, I'm wondering how that's being accomplished," said Winifred.
"I guess it's time we set up a stakeout then," said Daria.
-~-
Fixed wing was MUCH better than rotary wing, flying a helicopter is like balancing on a broomstick.
Amy chuckled at the analogy, being a witch, she was supposed to fly on broomsticks, but that gets draughty, and they might not come with autopilots.
Amy had to change aircraft every so often in order to stay ahead of the various police forces, but that would soon become insufficient, they were soon going to get wise to her mind control, she needed something capable of flying transatlantic soon.
She had mostly been nicking Mig 29s, loaded with nothing but fuel and drop tanks, they had a flight radius of about 1700 miles.
She was mostly tailing passenger carrying aircraft, the radar systems available to the local ATC centres weren't able to tell the shadows apart.
It would probably be better to fly nap of
the earth all the way, the terrain would hide her from most control centres and
the phone network in rural
The problem with that idea was the fuel she'd use on the deck compared to cruise altitudes, she wanted to limit the number of people she mind fucked.
She had managed to find an internet café in Zambia and managed to find out which flights went where, then asked the commander at the base she stole the Mig from what frequencies were used by what ATC centres, asking him about the centres in the middle and far east, the idea being they look for her over there while she punches out over the ivory coast, and steals an aircraft capable of transatlantic flight.
Or just stows away.
Either way, she was going to
-~-
Spike watched as two people entered from one side, carrying suitcases, and another two entered carrying briefcases from the other side of the open area between the two large buildings of the abandoned textiles factory, going nuts from the lack of smoking he could achieve (no heat sources allowed), he used the camera Winifred had made for him to record the activity.
He remembered the briefing where Winifred described the camera.
"The camera uses a clockwork spring to pull a chemical film through the focal area which is designed to work in low light, you will need to manually focus the lens because the system can't have any electrical parts, except for the mic which needs a light source to imprint the sound amplitude onto the film, that uses an electrostatic generator and a neon bulb to create the light for that, but the circuit has too much impedance to resonate clearly for any of the sensors that they would probably have, are you with me so far?" asked Winifred.
"Yes," he said.
"You didn't," said Winifred.
"No, I didn't," Spike reluctantly admitted.
"Sorry about that," she said.
"S'okay, you said something about a manual focus?"
"Yes. It uses this lever on the side to rapidly focus the lens. I'll run you through using this a few times, it's kind of a pain to use, but it works-" Spike accidentally brought the conversation to a close by tossing his used cigarette into a cup of fruit juice, to Winifred's look, he winced as he said "Bollocks, you weren't done with that?" She shrugged and said "No, but it wasn't very good, too salty, I mean, who puts salt in fruit juice?" She then returned to the subject at hand. He had spent the time between the briefing and arriving on site practicing with the manual focus, and was now capable of focusing fast enough to be able to do the job.
They had decided not to leave the cops in harms way, instead tipping off the mafia that someone was attempting to smuggle in weapons intended for use against them, getting a rival gang involved seemed better than letting cops die.
Spike watched as they carried out the deal, a briefcase full of cash for four large bags full of something white and powdered (coke, heroin, or something else).
Then the fireworks started.
Really thin, brilliant white, blue tinged lines connected to points off to the left with something in the sky.
As Spike watched, a human sized flying object started glowing bright blue and shot past with a loud bang.
There were more flashes from ahead and behind him, more of these people were flying around shooting up the place, anyone who wasn't the four in the middle was getting strafed.
The smell of ozone wafted over him.
What had Winifred said would happen to the air the concentrated X-rays would pass through?
It would get ionized, form ozone, nitrogen oxides, nitrogen dioxides.
The flying men came up more slowly, giving Spike his first good look at them, he caught wings folding up into their packs as they changed from level flight to hover, using really small jets attached to the hips and shoulders, the four hip jets produced the majority of the thrust, the four shoulder jets just kept them upright, using varying amounts of power to do so. Some of them started flying sideways around the buildings, others hovered over fixed locations.
He then noticed something on their chests.
They all seemed to have breasts.
They also wore the sort of equipment vests you see a lot of soldiers wearing on operations.
There was no way they could be controlling those things if they were human though.
Suddenly they raised their arms and started shooting the buildings with their X-ray cannons.
Had they realized he was there?
Eventually they were done, they flew off into the night and the gangsters parted ways.
Spike then headed to get the phone, he then came across the scent of roasted flesh.
He headed through the building and found someone with civilian clothes and one of those P-90 things.
The man was still alive, but wouldn't be if his injuries weren't treated.
He turned his weapon to Spike, but Spike was on him too fast, grabbing his weapon arm and saying "easy mate, I'm here to save you." He then placed the weapon to one side and said "do you have a phone on you?"
"No, they target anything that can receive a signal, who are you?"
"Errm, ... I don't know if I can tell you that, look, help will be arriving soon, what do you know of what happened here?"
"Those angels of death or whatever they are, they've been protecting our rivals and killing our people en masse, we don't know where they've been getting their tech from, but they're just, ... they can see you wherever you hide, like they can see your body heat or something."
They were right.
Spike picked up the weapon and was about to ask him where he got it when he suddenly noticed a smell.
He sniffed it, and tried to place the scent.
He then asked "What about these? The mutant P-90s?"
"Errm, ... I don't know if I can tell you that," he said.
Spike said "well, your gang just happens to be well armed enough to be considered terrorists, which means, no rights to be treated as a human." and he then pressed the muzzle of the weapon against the man's shin and discharged one shot through the bones.
"AAAAAOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!" he cried.
"So, who are your bosses?"
Spike waited a few seconds and then pressed the muzzle against his knee.
"DRUSILLA, IT'S DRUSILLA AND SHAUN, THEY'RE OUR BOSSES, THEY PROVIDE ALL OUR TECHNOLOGY, OKAY?"
"Okay then," said Spike, as he got up to get some help, he then said "Oh, by the way, anyone asks, you shot yourself by accident."
-~-
Part 3:
-~-
"Drusilla, who is she then?" asked Donald.
"Insane vampire from the Victorian era, sired by Angelus, she then sired me, last I heard of her, she was in Lawndale, subordinate to Amy Madison, a witch and an old friend of Willow's who went dark side," said Spike.
"And never came back," said Daria.
Spike continued "Anyway, it's actually them who gave us the hint that beer can sized nukes were possible, but if they're not the ones behind the angels of death we saw earlier, then who is?"
"Robodaria?"
The robot had been replaying the footage back in her CPU and analyzing everything. She pulled the SCART lead out of the back of the VCR and stuck it in her arm, and the TV activated seemingly on it's own, she played the appropriate bits as she said "their weapons are located on their back packs and in packs strapped to their arms, they didn't seem to operate any external controls for their equipment which leads me to conclude they are connected to their equipment by a non-mechanical means, as I would be to a UAV, or-" everyone's phone rang, interrupting the briefing.
They all answered, and through them, Robodaria said "your cell phones."
They all looked at her darkly.
The robot moved onto another bit and said "where they are hovering there are things that become more apparent, their hands move their fingers purposelessly when empty, their chests expand and contract, also, their eyes." She moved onto a part where one is hovering around firing at rival gang members.
The visors got a little darker for several frames where the weapon was being discharged, the eyes irises were dilated, the eyelids blinked. "They have more human mannerisms than would be necessary for their tasks. Blinking and hand movements use energy, and waste CPU runtime. And the device protecting the eyeballs would not be needed by a robot because it's less hassle to build the components into the robot's eyes. also the luminosity here is not a problem for robots, they wouldn't experience the discomfort that humans or other organic life forms would. My conclusion is that they are cyborgs." said Robodaria.
"We
encountered some cyborgs while we were working for Wolfram and Hart." said
Wesley.
"Ohhh yeah,
your dad was there for that, wasn't he?" said Spike.
"Careful! Spike." said Wesley, obviously irritated with Spike on this issue.
Daria's phone rang, and she answered "Y'ello?"
"That contraction of the words 'Yeah' and
'Hello' irritates me deeply," said
"Okay, what you got?" asked Daria.
"The gang does not appear to know who the flying warriors are, apparently they work for those who sold the gang the diamorphine. They seem to be the cheapest source of the substance available, if there are no further orders, I will return to base."
"Good, thanks," said Daria, she then hung
up saying "
"Those aren't the same as the ninja bots we encountered at Wolfram and Hart though," said Wesley.
"In that they're packing futuristic weapons?" asked Spike.
"The ninjas at wolfram and hart were genderless, these individuals have breasts, the ones we encountered at wolfram and Hart only used a glamour when they had to," said Wesley.
"Whereas these guys stand out like a sore thumb, if you want to use a glamour, why not simply cloak?" said Daria.
"We're lacking empirical data, we're going
to have to await
"Agreed, we need to plan this right away. Meanwhile, this rival gang, we don't know who it was that came up with those nukes. Amy's more mystical than nuclear mechanical, Drusilla's bat shittier than the bat section of the world market in guano. We haven't seen any nuclear incidents that weren't caused by Angel investigations actions against their opponents, either the guy who invented the weapons is dead, or they are simply saving them for something special," said Daria.
"Like what?" asked Wesley.
"World domina-, ... Amy must have told them to prepare for world domination while she distract- ... well, assuming that's true, we bought some time, but eventually they're going to just go 'Fuck it' and start taking over the world without orders," said Daria.
"It just so happens that their forces are about balanced against each other," said Wesley.
"No they're not, those cyborgs kicked everyone's ass," said Spike.
"That won't last, Dru or someone else high up in their chain of command will eventually order in a team of vampires, if they do that, there's a good chance the cyborgs will start having trouble," said Wesley.
"We need to find them both simultaneously," said Daria.
"There is another thing that concerns me," said Robodaria.
"What's that?" asked Daria.
"The amount of energy those flying warriors expended was in excess of what they could achieve with any chemical system, flammable or electrolytic," said Robodaria.
"They're nuclear?" asked Daria.
"Or mystical," said Robodaria.
"Where would they be getting nuclear materials from?" asked Donald.
"Just about any source of hydrogen available. I don't think they were packing a fission plant of any kind, that would weigh them down so much that they would struggle to remain airborne, radiothermic generators don't pack the power for the observed energy expended, they are most likely fusion electric," said Robodaria.
"If they're using mystical energy, that can be transmitted in bulk over extreme distance," said Wesley.
"If it's not, there are ways to create wormholes between the source and every unit, but that would probably be way more complicated than building fusion reactors, but it would allow them to connect their units to an unlimited sized power plant over a practically unlimited distance," said Winifred.
"Okay, it would help if we could capture one," said Donald.
"Well, if they aren't mystically aware, there might be a way to achieve this," said Daria.
-~-
"How can it not be working?" asked Jane.
"I'm sorry, it just isn't," said the doctor.
They had been trying to abort the foetus for several hours.
The first techniques tried were the chemical ones, but they weren't working (normally it takes more than a day to be certain, but they had access to an MRI, and so were able to track the drugs through Jane's system, none of them went where they were meant to), so they moved onto the mechanical ones, but all they managed to do was severely bruise Jane's cervix.
The fact that Jane was a vampire meant that by all rights, the foetus shouldn't have any food or oxygen off of Jane, but it was getting it somehow, and somehow the various chemicals they were using were being excluded.
Absolutely none of this made sense, but then most of anything mystical didn't make any sense, it just seemed to work, it was like if you encountered relativistic effects such as length contraction or time dilation without having been schooled in the relevant physics, you don't know how it works, it just does.
"There must be a mystical field around it, that's about the only explanation I got, I'm sorry, but you need to see a witch about this."
Jane sighed and said "right," Thinking 'I guess Spike will be happy.'
-~-
Daria's phone rang.
"Joy's alias," said Daria.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I was- ... Oh, wait, ... Okay,
Daria, listen, we've identified Amy Madison in this dimension,
"Okay, where was Amy last seen?" asked Daria.
"She was last seen stealing a fulcrum, it was recovered in the
"Sweet," said Daria.
"Uh, ... You are being sarcastic, right?"
"Not really, no. this might help us out a lot with this gang Drusilla's running, we should be able to follow her to base," said Daria.
"Okay, ... just watch your back, ... and watch what you pick up, or wish, ... and don't wish for songs and dances, trust me, that just, ... -"
"That was YOU???" asked Daria, now seriously annoyed with him.
"errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, .... ... yeah, that was me, I'm the asshole, can we get back to the impending doom of an insane evil witch that wants you dead?"
"Sure, but when we meet face to face, I'm going to want a word with you about that spell."
-~-
"I could use a laugh," said Jane.
"Right, just remember what her powers were like before she got sucked down a portal, you can be certain this will be a serious level fight," said Daria.
"Give me a chance to work off some of my preggo moodswings then, won't it?" said Jane.
"You're just mad that she made you jump out a 3rd story window and then you missed the look on her face when she was sucked into the portal," said Daria.
"Do faces with 3rd degree burns even have looks?" asked Jane.
"Point is that this is going to be extremely difficult, and you're 4 months pregnant-"
"Nooooo chance of a miscarry, believe me, I tried," said Jane.
"Alright then, as long as you're sure."
"Absolutely," said Jane.
-~-
"Amy was observed leaving an aircraft at a
UN depot, she now seems to be headed to
"Which means she's more interested in
revenge than world domination at this point. Okay, let's set a trap," said
Daria, she had her team assembled (Jane,
"We don't want her to detect a trap, so she
must not sense us there," said
"That means another witch will have to jam her," said Daria.
"That will be your job," said
"I've been practicing, but I'm barely above complex telekinesis," said Daria.
"We'll lend you some power," said
"'kay," said Daria.
"We'll meet Amanda in
"And how will we be doing this?" asked Daria.
"I have some spells that can drain mystical
energy, but if I get it wrong, I'll kill her, and we don't get our intelligence,"
said
"Okay then, looks like I'm going home," said Daria.
-~-
"They gave you time off?" asked Quinn, looking vaguely hopeful.
"No," said Daria, as she entered the house carrying her USAS 12.
"Okay, what's going on?"
"That's need to know," said the suit behind Daria.
"Amy Madison's returned to this dimension. Shortly before learning this, we found out that Drusilla, one of her vampire XOs was still around, and possibly building a nuclear equipped army. Amy's headed here, we're going to attempt to capture her," said Daria.
"I said-" started the suit.
"She needed to know, Amy's coming straight here, and the last thing I did to her before sending her off to another dimension was toss an incendiary grenade at her, she might go after Quinn to get at me," said Daria.
"So I just became a target for a psychotic witch whose real problem is with you?" asked Quinn.
"Yeah, sorry about that. You should pack some stuff and stay over at Sandi's place," said Daria.
"Right," said Quinn as she headed upstairs.
The agent behind Daria stepped in front of her and said "does the concept 'Top Secret' not mean ANYTHING to you?"
"She knows the situation, so does Sandi, and I will not put either of them in unnecessary danger."
"And if they use this information to enhance their image at school?"
"They won't, they've taken to studying, and Brains don't rank on the social hierarchy, neither do freaks, or anyone who associates with either, 'sides, these tales are wayyyyy too tall for anyone hearing them from a high school student to believe," said Daria.
Quinn came downstairs with an overnight bag and said "I get a lift?"
Daria held out the keys to the agent.
He glowered and eventually took the keys and headed off with Quinn.
Daria closed the door and pulled her cell phone.
-~-
The lane house was not too badly damaged in the blast, it had been forced sideways 11 degrees, but a bit of reinforcement to the damaged struts had made it safe again, and they had then repaired the damaged finish sufficiently to weatherproof the house once more, the leaning casa of Lane had survived in a uniquely Lane way.
The sections of roof that had been destroyed by mortar fire had also been repaired, Amanda was less than pleased that the contents of the attic had been sucked out through the holes in the roof by the nuclear powered compression wave, even if she had forgotten what was up there, it was still possible she had lost items of personal significance, she was thankful that the house wasn't taken completely apart like some of the others.
The Deckler house had to be completely rebuilt, having been lifted into the air by it's massive sail area with it's foundations weakened by the attempt to squash the Decklers with their own house. Then it had been sucked back onto it's own foundations by the rarefaction zone, landing upside down. It's architecture had not been built with strong winds in mind, it was a wonder it had survived that hurricane the other year.
And now the Lane house was the middle of a conflict zone again.
It had been several minutes since
"So, you take the no such Concorde here?" asked Jane.
"No, teleported," said
"That takes a lot of energy," said
"Yeah, need the whole coven to send me this
far," said
"That would have created one hell of a spike, that's probably why Amy was using non-mystical means to get back here," said Amanda.
"You and Amy were once close friends," said
"Yeah, we were, then she ended up misusing her magics, I went down a similar road, but came back, I guess she's doing the same thing only more slowly, plus she didn't have a team such as I had, if she had, then perhaps she would have been an ally instead of a mortal enemy," said Willow.
"Right." Jane pulled her phone and rang Daria, saying "game on," as soon as Daria answered.
-~-
Daria waited as Jane relayed the
information from
Quadrangle buckshot (QB8) was essentially 000 buck, except with steel wedges for balls, these were capable of slicing through armour and would do more damage than a flechette would (although a flechette would be better for penetration, the "damage" would be laughable), and while it would be inaccurate like all cluster projectile rounds, they were anticipating close quarter battle, this distance would be perfect for QB8.
Besides, this was just to divert Amy's
attention from Amanda and
Daria flipped up the sight's HUD, in case she needed it.
The sight was another perk that came from joining the NSA: a CCIP sight, Constantly Computed Impact Point.
Damn useful, but it was also a reminder that she was working for a shifty at best government agency under a stupid she hoped administration, and she might end up doing evil work or making extremely hard choices.
What was worse was that she had no idea what the nature of those hard choices would be, just that they would have to be made.
She was stood next to the corner between the lounge wall and kitchen wall, ready to erect a shield, she was already using her borrowed magic to jam Amy's senses, but she imagined Amy would come in fast and hard throwing everything she had at Daria, Willow and Amanda would have almost fuck all time to act when Amy got inside the-
"She's moving on," said Jane.
"What?" asked Daria.
"Amy passed your house, she should have gone in, she slowed when she passed, so we're certain she knows you're there," said Jane.
"Okay, where's she headed?" asked Daria.
"Hang on," said Jane.
Daria waited.
"She's headed here," said Jane.
"Okay, count down to her arrival, I'll
teleport in when she arrives, hopefully that will help distract her while
-~-
Amy headed towards the front door, ready to carry out her plan.
She couldn't sense much,