DW/BtVS: The Building Blocks of Good and Evil (13/20)
Title: The Building Blocks of Good and Evil
By: PatriciaTepes (AKA Patricia de Lioncourt @ fanfiction.net; PatriciaLouise @ TTH)
Chapter Title: Two in Hand
Links to Other Chapters: ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY
Fandom: Darkwing Duck/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer:I do not own Darkwing Duck or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of their related characters. Darkwing Duck belongs to Disney, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon. Also, I don't own the images used in the art. All is done for fun, not profit.
Author's Note: The title of the last chapter was inspired by Jay-Z's song "99 Problems." It was a variation of a line in that song. I saw a lot of funny things done with the real lyric, but I had to switch it to fit the chapter. Will things begin to look up for our heroes in this chapter? Don't bet on it.
Chapter Thirteen- Two in Hand
It was amazing, and nothing short of a miracle, that Dawn and Spike drew absolutely no attention as they entered the Cleveland House. Holding her right side, which she was pretty sure had suffered some bruised ribs, Dawn gripped the main door of the house, leaning on it heavily. Spike sighed, staring at the threshold-his cuts and bruises already healing.
"Come on in," Dawn said, as quietly as she could without having to whisper.
He hesitated a moment, unsure if her invitation would work. But, lifting his right foot, he found entry into the Cleveland House to be more than possible. He shut the door behind him, putting an arm around Dawn as she stumbled trying to make her way to the room.
"You should see Will. That one demon clocked you a good one," Spike said, steadying her.
The fight had been gruesome. Although Spike's initial guess of ten demons had been correct, there was no way he could have known the sheer ferocity with which they would defend their precious Kwoe Crystal. And they had been armed enough to do so. Each of their ten, red skinned fingers had razor sharp claws on them, each claw extending a least a foot out from the finger. They had been huge, bulky figures, with horns that were thick and black that curled skyward. And they had breathed fire. That had bothered Spike quite a bit.
He had gotten the worse of it, trying to defend Dawn while she duck and wove her way towards the pedestal on which the Kwoe Crystal had stood. Three long scratches bled down her right cheek from where one demon had caught her right before she had managed a lucky swing to take its head. Of course, that had immediately been followed by another bashing her right over the head. It had been a good thing that it had only dizzied her, and not knocked her unconscious. More cuts, bruises, and knots had followed in that fight before, finally, they had emerged victorious. Now, Dawn held the blue-white crystal close to her body, finding its weight more of a relief than a burden. She stared down at its geode-crystal like quality and marveled at its size-easily the size of her whole head.
"No," she said, shaking her head and breaking away from Spike. "I can't go to Willow. Remember? I have to get to my room… before she sees me."
Dawn put all her remaining strength into her legs, urging them around the corner, up the hall, and to her door. She leaned on the rough wooden surface of the entryway heavily for a moment before twisting the knob and all but falling into her room. She turned, only vaguely surprised to find that Spike had followed her all the way there. She planted herself firmly in the doorway.
"I can't thank you enough, Spike. But I can handle it from here. In fact, I have to," she said.
Spike shook his head. "Something about all this is setting alarms off in my head, Dawnie. And you aren't well. You need healing."
Dawn cracked a smile and even found that painful. "I'm fine. Seriously. Now, thank you, but good bye."
With that, she shut the door, making sure to lock it every way she had-which included some magic ones that Willow had implemented.
#
Spike did not like it. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong with this whole thing. He had learned from past experiences that teenagers, no matter if they were younger teens or older, craved privacy. And Dawn had been no exception. Bloody hell, she had been the rule.
But something was twisting in his insides about this. It all reeked too much of past excursions with Dawn, none of which had ended all that well. Deciding, for both Dawn's sake and Buffy's, to follow his instincts, he placed his hand on the doorknob and gave it the hardest twirl he had. And it burned white hot. He jumped back, hissing in pain.
"Niblet? Dawn?" he called through the door.
No answer. Why was he not surprised? He thought, for a moment, about ramming the door. But if twirling the doorknob burned him, what would throwing his entire weight and strength into it do? No. Time for the redheaded pagan.
He turned back up the hall, following the voices he could only assume was coming from the large room across the way from the House's entry hall. He burst in without even a knock, causing a whole lot of eyes to turn on him. Giles and Xander both narrowed their gazes instantly, but said nothing as Willow-whose back had been directly across from the door-turned. Her eyes were round as she cocked her head to the side.
"Spike? I didn't even know you were in town," she said, taking a two step stride over to him.
He tugged his leather duster, giving a small huff. "I wasn't until 'bout an hour ago. I think we have a problem."
"If you're talking about Buffy, we already know. That happens to be the problem that we've been working on for the past few hours," Giles sniffed.
"No," Spike drawled. "I was referring to a possible problem with Summers Younger."
"Dawn?" Xander asked.
"What's going on?" Willow put in.
"She told me all about what was going on with Big Sis and said that there was a spell she found that could help."
"She hasn't said anything like that to us," Giles noted.
"That's because she told me that you guys wouldn't even consider it as a possibility because of the danger it proposed, or something like that. So she called me, saying she needed my help in getting the item she needed. Naturally, I said yes."
"Why do I get the feeling that that was a bloody stupid thing to say?" Giles asked.
Spike rolled his eyes. He had died saving Sunnydale alongside Buffy, and the ponce still could not trust him.
"What was the item?" Willow asked before Spike could reply to the ex-Watcher.
"Some crystal doohickey. She called it… the Kwoe Crystal?"
Willow turned her head to the side, muttering the name of the crystal over and over, trying to spark a memory. Xander crossed his arms, his eye darting back and forth between Willow and Giles. And Giles had removed his glasses, wiping them on his shirt.
"Well, I don't get it. The Kwoe Crystal does have some inter-dimensional properties, but that wasn't why the Urd demons coveted it. They coveted it because of its supposed connection to the-"
"Its connection to the Key!" Willow yelled, cutting Giles off and zooming around Spike.
Without question, the group followed after her as she led them straight to Dawn's bedroom door.
"Dawn! Dawn, stop! Dawn, no!" she yelled, stopping short of pounding on the door.
Willow stopped, taking a deep breath. She laid her hand upon the door's surface and muttered a low word. A small click followed, but before she could do anything more, a bright flash of brilliant green light shone out through the cracks all along the door.
"Oh, no," Willow muttered, turning to Spike. "Break it in!"
He did not need telling twice. He threw his entire weight into the door, and it splintered like it was made of hardly nothing. Willow, Xander, and Giles piled in after the vampire. And stopped.
Dawn was nowhere to be seen.
"Oh, bollocks," Spike muttered.
#
Darkwing and Buffy both returned to Mindy's last known location to find the girl sitting on the hood of a car that, frankly, had seen better days. The back end of the vehicle, and the cab, had all been crushed in. The hood was the only thing left remotely intact of the once green station wagon. Except for the fires that were flickering and dying all around her, and the trussed up mortals, it was relatively quiet. She slid off as she saw the two approaching, her eyes narrowed. Darkwing stopped just at her, bending over to rest his hands on his knees.
"So, what's up? Was the Hellmouth acting up?" Mindy asked.
"Sort of," Buffy said. "Negaduck and NegaMe were there."
"And?"
Darkwing groaned, leaning up. "And they were doing some sort of spell. By the end of it, all that happened was a stupid piece of ancient paper fell down from nowhere."
Mindy's eyes widened, and she gasped, shoving a hand to her beak.
"Did they get away with it? The paper?" Mindy asked.
Buffy and Darkwing exchanged a looked before turning back to the younger slayer.
"Yeah. Yeah, they did, Mindy," Buffy said.
"What was that paper?" Darkwing asked.
"It… it's the list," she whispered.
Darkwing raised a brow. "A list of what, Min?"
But Mindy shook her head, falling back against the hood of the station wagon. "Not a list. The list… the list of potential slayers."
Buffy immediately bit the inside of her lip, feeling her stomach churn. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out what the plan was from here. After all, she had seen it before.
"Kill them all," she murmured.
"What?" Darkwing said, whirling to look up at her.
"That's the plan, isn't it? That's what NegaMe and Negaduck are going to do. Hunt down all the potential slayers and kill them… finally coming after the current slayer. You."
Mindy's face grew solemn as she nodded. She did not question Buffy's reasoning. Instead, she put her back to them, groaning as she grasped two handfuls of hair on either side of her head.
"The list is mystical. It's tough to get the names off of it, only the names of potentials known currently to the Watcher's Council, who aren't in the care of a Watcher, are visible. They are erased off if they are in the care of, or at least under surveillance by, a Watcher."
"Tough… but not impossible, I'm guessing?" Darkwing asked.
Mindy only nodded. Buffy shook her head, turning and walking a few paces away before coming back.
"I don't get it. Why… why, why, why would you ever hide the list near a Hellmouth?" she asked.
Mindy shrugged. "Made sense to me. After all, wouldn't that be the last place in the world you'd look for a list of girls who might potentially end up kicking the butts of all things supernatural and evil?"
"Can't argue with that," Darkwing sighed, pulling off his hat.
"We have to get that list back. Fast," Mindy said.
"That goes without saying," Buffy said. "But… we don't know what NegaMe and Negaduck are doing now. I mean, you said that it's tough to get the names, but not impossible. What do they need to get the names?"
Mindy bit her bottom beak. "A name. Just one."
Darkwing tugged his hat back atop his head, crossing his arms. "A name?"
"Yeah. They need to acquire a potential that's not under surveillance or in the care of a Watcher. They would use her to get the rest of the names."
"And I'm guessing that they just won't ask nicely?" Darkwing groaned.
"Well, that's okay, then, right? I mean, you said you don't know the name of the potential that's here in St. Canard. If they don't know her, they can't get her."
"That's where we encounter a problem. I lied," Mindy said.
Buffy felt her stomach sink. "What? I'll tell you what, Mindy. If ever there was a time to come completely clean with us, now is it. I've seen what can happen when evil decides to try to off the slayers. It's not pretty… and that's a major understatement."
"I know who the potential is… so does my Watcher. He was called away on other business and sent me here ahead of him to observe her. I was supposed to observe only. No moves were supposed to be made until a decision was made."
Darkwing took a single step toward the young slayer.
"Mindy… who is she? Who is the potential?"
For a moment, all Mindy could do was stare.
#
Being stuck at home sucked. But it never sucked as much as it did when you were worried about someone who was not stuck there.
Gosalyn sat, riveted, in front of the television in the living room of the Mallard home. Launchpad had told her to go to bed hours ago, and she had gone when she had been told. But he had said nothing about staying there. As soon as she could hear the snoring of her father's sidekick from the other room, she had snuck back downstairs, flipping the TV's channel to the news, and the volume to low.
The glow of the fires that were engulfing downtown St. Canard-as projected by the screen-reflected off the duckling's face as she sat as close to the set as her eyes would permit. She scanned every corner of the screen, hoping to catch some tiny glimpse of her father or Buffy or Mindy… but she saw none. All she could see was destruction. Villains, some familiar to her and others just nameless thugs, roamed the streets and filled the screens as Tom Lockjaw-from a safely undisclosed location-reported that the St. Canard Prison had been cracked open, letting the dregs of society free to seep out into the streets.
As spirited as Gosalyn was, even she knew that this kind of chaos was out of her league. Maybe, had Buffy had the time to begin her training, but without it… She might as well go out with a bull's eye painted on her.
"Where are you, Dad?" she murmured into the screen.
Unable to take the images anymore, she reached forward and shut the set off. She sighed. Her father was the one and only Darkwing Duck. If anyone could survive this mess, it was him. The thought relaxed her as she took in the sudden quiet of the house. It was one of those silences that she hated, the kind that someone could hear a pin drop in. She closed her eyes, wishing that she could catch the sound of something else, anything else. The creak of a stair, the cracking of a pipe, anything.
When the front door was blasted in by something that could have only been a bazooka, the noise had shocked her into standing without even a conscious thought. She whirled toward the source, waiting for the dust from the debris to settle as she looked for the cause of the attack. When it finally did, she gasped.
"Knock, knock," Negaduck called, moving to stand in the archway between the foyer and the living room.
And behind him, crunching over the splinters of the door and part of the staircase, was NegaBuffy, her lips set in a tiny grin. As soon as she moved to the living room, she locked her eerily green eyes on Gosalyn.
"Gosalyn Mallard of 537 Avian Way… so nice that you're home," she said.
Gosalyn gasped, her eyes wide. Villains in her home… and her without her baseball bat. Should she yell for Launchpad? But then, surely, the pilot had heard the crash. She took a half step backwards as Negaduck and NegaBuffy both took a single step forward. Her beak parted, seconds away from screaming Launchpad's name, when he came barreling down the stairs.
"I'm coming, Gos!" he yelled as soon as he took in the scene around him.
But, no sooner had he stepped off of the stairs, NegaBuffy grinned. The pilot tried to dodge around her, to get at Gosalyn, but she reared back her fist. With a single blow, Launchpad flew backwards, a little ways back up the stairs, and landed-totally knocked out. Negaduck laughed.
"Launchpad!" Gosalyn yelled as the attention turned back to the little duckling.
Her hand reached backwards, feeling for something-anything-that could be used in self defense. Coffee table, book, fake fruit… nothing remotely useful.
Run. That was the only answer. So, she turned on foot, heading for the kitchen. After all, this was her house, her domain. If anyone could duck and run in the Mallard household, it was Gosalyn. Taking a run around the couch-knowing that Negaduck chased after-she hopped the back of it, taking a running leap off the left arm. She swung herself through the archway and thought, for a split second, that she was home free. But, in the blink of an eye, NegaBuffy stood before her, and she smacked right into her too-solid legs. She landed with a murmured, "ow," on her backside and stared up at the vampire, who smirked down upon her.
Get up. Run. Every fiber of her being told her to move, but before she could get the message from her brain to the rest of her body, she felt strong vines wrap, vice-like, around her middle section. She kicked and struggled, looking back and realizing for the first time that the rest of the Fearsome Five had followed the evil doppelgangers inside.
"Let me go!" she screamed, trying to kick at Bushroot-who had her wrapped, literally, in his arms.
"Excellent. Just excellent," NegaBuffy said as she and Negaduck moved, once again, to stand side by side. "This little potential will be of great use to us in getting the names of the rest of her kind."
"Who would've thought it? I've seen this little brat follow Darkwing around… and I never thought she'd be of this much use to me. I mean, as a hostage, sure, but this little scheme of ours is just so… destructive," Negaduck said, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
"Catastrophic, really," NegaBuffy grinned. "Come on. The safest place to do this, to ensure no interruption, is the Negaverse. Let's go."
#
Dawn gasped, like emerging from ice cold water, as she sat up, trying to make herself focus. She was not in Cleveland… that was for sure. She shook her head, rubbing her eyes. Everything was just so fuzzy at the moment.
The first thing she registered was the smell. It was dank, and it made her cough. The air felt thick, like it was more than air. And it smelled dirty. When her eyes finally focused, she realized that it looked dirty as well. She shot to her feet, turning in place as she took in her surroundings.
It was tower. She could tell by the view through the high, high windows. And the city beyond those windows looked… decrepit, dirty, and almost dead. But that was not the strangest thing… Everything looked… blocky, not quite real. Almost like what Dawn imaged being transported inside of a cartoon would look like. She turned her attention back to the tower she was inside of.
It was filled, to the brim, with torture devices. A giant table, above which hovered a giant hammer, ready to smash whatever-or whoever-was to be put on the table. Various blades and weapons hung from every wall, and long, cylindrical glass… cages were littered here and there.
Well, obviously the spell she had found had not worked. Instead of transporting the Key outside of her body, she had transported her body somewhere outside of her dimension. Buffy was going to kill her. If they could ever find her.
She took a tentative step forward, eyeing some other strange torture device that summoned the word "medieval" to her mind. She put a hand out to touch it, only to draw back at the last second.
"Who lives here?" she wondered aloud.
Behind her, a door creaked open as she turned. Standing there, dressed in red leather, was her sister… but, deep down, she knew that it was not really her. It was her doppelganger. Her vampire doppelganger. Beside her stood a duck, dressed in red, black, and yellow, grimacing and growling at her.
"I don't know how you got here, girlie," the duck hissed, "but boy did you choose the visit the wrong attraction."
