Timeline: Buffy post Seventh Season, Stargate mid Fourth Season
(just because). Feedback of any kind is appreciated. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: All ideas and characters are copyright their
respective owners. I'm not trying to steal. Just going to
borrow and play for a bit. Honest.
Yay Irene, for agreeing to read yet another non Laby related fic! :)
All grammar mistakes are, as always, totally mine (Irene does tend
to minimize the damage though... LOL)
Trick-Or-Treat: Chapter One
"Damnit Daniel, hurry it up! If we loose that snake the General
will..."
"Give you a new and shiny one of your very own?" Daniel panted.
"Har-de-har har," Jack deadpanned as he waited impatiently for
their lagging teammate.
"I hate allergies. I hate Cleveland."
"And do I have to remind you whose bright idea it was to transport
our little pet Goa'uld to Area 51 from Cheyenne by TRUCK?"
"I believe that was General Hammond, Jack O'Neill. Dr. Frasier's
examination of our captive revealed that high altitude would
negatively affect the weakened symbiote. Katar's use would be
greatly diminished if he should... perish."
Jack flashed Teal'c a grin despite himself and yanked down his
cap as Daniel finally joined the rest of the team where they stood
in a damp alley on the outskirts of downtown Cleveland.
"Sir, we really, really have to hurry."
"I know that, Carter," he growled, frustrated with the situation
rather than with his 2IC.
She laid a light hand on his arm, startling him. Jack met her
worried eyes. "Its Halloween, Colonel. Kids... lots of kids..."
Jack swallowed suddenly as he shifted, resettling the comforting
weight of his gun against his hip before cursing, vividly. "Its
Halloween. Damnit! Why didn't anyone think to mention that
pertinent bit of information earlier?"
"I do not understand Jack ONeill. What bearing does the
traditional celebration of All Hallow's Eve have upon our hunt
for the escaped Goa'uld?"
Daniel blanched with sudden understand. "Trick-or-treaters... Oh
god, there'll be hundreds, thousands of people running around as
soon as its dark. Katar could take anyone for a host and we'd never
be able to find him again."
As one, SG-1 looked up through the alleyway's walls to the slowly
darkening sky. It was nearly dusk already.
"Shit, we got to move. Let's go. Teal'c, Carter, keep your spider
senses peeled for our little friend. This time we're shooting first,
asking questions later and the NID can bite me if they have a problem
with it. At least we won't have to worry too much about costumes,
huh?"
Teal'c raised a single brow. "Spider sense?"
"Spiderman," Sam replied as they fanned out to continue their
search.
Teal'c thought for a moment and nodded sagely. "Spiderman."
Alexander Harris tried to keep the Booty Gang somewhat in line as
they tromped between the cramped houses in the outskirts of downtown
Cleveland. Hopefully this Halloween would actually live up to the
holiday's reputation by remaining quiet on the supernatural front.
It'd be kind of nice to manage without vampires, demons, and the
forces of darkness for one night. He was really tired of hearing
the girls complain about how hard it was to get green blood out of
leather pants.
"Ashley, put your sword away!" The small girl, a good head shorter
than even Buffy, scowled at him before sticking out her tongue,
blonde pixie-cut hair falling into merry blue eyes. She sheathed
her sword though and surged up with the others as they rang the
doorbell of the next house.
Xander rocked back on his heels, a slight smile twitching his lips
as an elderly woman answered the door, bowl full of candy in hand.
He had no doubt that the poor woman could handle the usual
trick-or-treaters. Despite her apparent frailty, she probably ruled
generations of children and grandchildren with an iron fist. His
bunch however, was another matter entirely.
Sixteen girls ranging in age from twelve to fourteen, dressed as
the pirates they acted like the other three hundred and sixty-three
days of the year, crowded into the doorway of the rundown
townhome, their treat sacks held open wide. "Trick-or-treat,"
came the chiming command- in unison no less.
He wondered absently how long they had practiced to achieve that
effect. But, watching the flummoxed expression cross the
supposed grandmother's face, it was worth it. It wasn't often you
got to shock the elderly, at least not without any accompanying
guilt. Xander snickered at the thought and made a mental note to
have the girls give a repeat performance to Giles next time the
Watcher swung by the Booty House. It would amuse him, in a
horrified way of course, but the Englishman would be amused
nonetheless, which was no mean feat.
Lindsay, the tallest and oldest of the group, got her candy first
and skipped back to join Xander, giving her Instructor a bright,
blinding smile as she slung the considerable weight of her candy
sack back over her shoulder. "You know," she started out with a
bubbling lilt, "if you haven't gotten me a present for my birthday
yet there's this CD I saw the other day, when we were chasing that
vamp through Target, by this group... has Amanda made you listen to
them yet because she is SO obsessed..."
Xander let her familiar chatter roll around him and marveled at the
difference three years could make. Lindsay had come to them not
long after the last battle of Sunnydale, mere months after the Scooby
Gang had settled down, more or less, in Cleveland. She had been
called at eleven, a child in so many ways, but anyone who could have
survived a heroin-addicted mother and a father prone to drunken rages
learned to grow up fast. Xander could still remember her nightmares
about her parents during those first few months with them. Of the
little girl with auburn pigtails and big brown eyes throwing herself
in his arms and sobbing when she woke.
She had been the founding member of the Booty Gang in the newly
restructured, American made, Watcher's Council. It had taken almost
a year to truly sort everything out and for Giles to create The
System. In The System, the girls, newly called slayers, were split
into three groups based on age. Xander took the youngest ones,
everyone under the age of fifteen, and gave them a few years of
basic training... exercises, research background, a bit of magic,
and a whole lot of practice- staking fledglings, swarming more minor
demons together to learn group tactics.
Faith took over when the girls turned fifteen for three years of
intensive work. The fact that Faith's girls named their home the
Big House was pretty indicative of how hard they were worked. The
training gave the girls better chances then any other Slayer had has
for several millennia though, not matter how many kinks The System
might have. Xander would be the first to admit that a one-eyed
construction worker probably wasn't the best choice to train children
in the art of war, regardless of what Buffy had to say on the matter.
Though more than two thirds of all Slayers, their Slayers, now lived
to see eighteen. He and Faith couldn't be doing too horrible of a
job.
Buffy took over on each girl's eighteenth birthday. She, Giles, and
whatever potential Watcher had been chosen, went with the girl for
a month of world travel, slaying demons and vampires abroad, away
from the comfort, not matter how slight, of home and of Cleveland's
fairly predictable Hellmouth. Traveling in such close quarters
also gave Buffy and Giles a good insight into each matched pair's
strengths and weaknesses, and where they might best be stationed.
Or if they should even be paired together. No one wanted a repeat
of Faith and Wesley. A Slayer had to trust her Watcher and a Watcher
had to at least try to understand his Slayer. Otherwise, bad things
happened, like the staking of humans and attempts to end the world.
Lindsay, eleven, Emily, thirteen, and Meghan, fourteen, had been
Xander's first group of girls. Their first Halloween together, he
had dressed up as a pirate. If he was going to look like one he
could at least dress like one once in awhile. As a show of
solidarity, Lindsay, Emily, and Meghan had dressed up as well. He
remembered them mocking the Scooby Squad, Buffy's pet name for all
the older girls she was taking under her wing, a rip off of the
Scooby Gang of old. It had taken Lindsay all of five minutes to
use the pirate theme to come up with the parody of the Booty Gang.
It had stuck ever since.
"I'm gonna miss you, Kid," Xander said softly, interrupting Lindsay's
bright chatter.
She paused a heartbeat and met his gaze, her own warm eyes
suspiciously bright. For all her words, some things could just
never be said. "Ditto."
He hugged her tightly. Sometimes you didn't need the words.
"Come on Danny, hurry it up!" Jack called to the hyperventilating
archaeologist as he and his team raced down yet another damn
alleyway, desperately following their fleeting glimpse of Katar as
the Goa'uld increased his lead.
Dusk was quickly becoming darkness, and their slim chance of
recapturing a major security breach was growing slimmer by the
second. Jack wasn't even considering the likelihood of Katar
jumping hosts. Of Katar taking over some unsuspecting, innocent,
child. Just couldn't force himself to do it without retching and,
quite frankly, running was a lot more conducive to their situation
right now.
SG-1 rounded the corner of a building as they burst out of the
alleyway.
Xander's head snapped up half a second before Lindsay tensed beneath
his hands. The girls, all who had been talking and laughing, were
eerily silent as seventeen pairs of eyes, sixteen blessed with
supernatural powers- one damaged set simply more aware thanks to a
lifetime spent on the Mouth of Hell, were riveted on the man who was
running their way.
The man was dressed in pretty authentic looking Egyptian garb,
nothing very out of the ordinary on Halloween, granted. He was in
his thirties, handsome if you went for that sort of thing (which
Xander did not), but his skin was pale despite its natural tan,
eyes smudged with dark circles beneath them. Besides, glowing eyes,
glowing eyes definitely weren't normal.
It was an instinctual response for Xander to shove Lindsay behind
him and surge forward, ever handy stake extended, to deal with
whatever threat this not so human thing represented because, even
though the girls were Chosen, Xander was the only one old enough to
drive. He had the fleeting hope that the little old lady had closed
her door. Depending on how this confrontation went down, Xander
REALLY did not want to have to explain basic demonology to someone
who would probably keel over with the news.
And that was about all he had time for before the man crashed into
him like a freight train, throwing them both to the pavement with
a fairly spectacular crash.
"Damnit!" Jack swore for the hundredth time that night as they
arrived in time to see Katar take a civilian down in a mess of
tangled limbs. He noticed the gaggle of wide-eyed teenagers, all
dressed like a bad version of Treasure Island, but his attention was
all for the Goa-uld and the intended victim as SG-1 ringed the duo,
weapons raised and ready for who knew what.
Xander grunted as Mr. Glow Worm Eyes managed to grind Xander's
shoulders into the curb before impaling himself on Xander's up-
thrust stake. On purpose no less. Xander would have bet on it.
The glowing subsided as the stake slid through organs with a
sickening ease that was all too familiar, and blood coated both
men a sticky red.
Suddenly the man jerked and gasped, "Oh God, I'm sorry, I couldn't
stop him..."
Which of course made no sense whatsoever, but, then, things in
Xander's life rarely did. The snake looking creature that started
slithering out of the dead man's mouth made even less sense, but was
WAY higher on the yuck scale than a little bit of guts.
Xander threw the body away from him the best he could and tried to
scramble backwards on all fours, crab-style, but the slimy snake
thing just kept right on coming with a determination Xander might
have admired, if it hadn't been aimed at him. He was aware,
peripherally, of some dangerous looking people in uniform, but he
really was much more concerned with whatever it was that seemed to
be intent on possessing him. Or eating him. Or, mating with him.
Thanks to his track record, who knew?
Teal'c had his staff weapon rained on the young, terrified looking
civilian also dressed in pirate paraphernalia and the Goa'uld larvae
which was currently trying it's hardest to take him as a temporary
host. Teal'c couldn't get a clear shot in, and they, not to mention
the innocent man, were about to run out of time.
Daniel screamed out in denial as Sam and Jack tried to restrain the
archaeologist. The Goa-uld flung itself at the kid, who couldn't
have been a day older than twenty, and forced itself down the kid's
throat. "Jack, NO!" Daniel cried as Jack nodded briefly at Teal'c.
The Jaffa returned the gesture and started to shoot, hopefully to
stun the boy and not kill him (advanced healing was handy sometimes)
but either way, the Goa'uld threat needed to be neutralized, whatever
the cost. Jack couldn't leave something with such potentially
disastrous consequences to fate. NO ONE wanted a repeat of Seth.
Jack, Daniel, and Sam were left in baffled amazement as their team
mate disappeared under a pile of screaming, vicious, angry preteen
girls, who swarmed Teal'c like ants a heartbeat before the Jaffa
shot at the newly possessed human. Apparently, a friend of theirs.
And that was only the first surprise of the evening as the kid, now
a good candidate for Public Enemy Number One thanks to his new
parasitical friend, went rigid before being wracked by great heaving
coughs. Jack, Daniel, and Sam blinked, probably in unison, as the
kid literally coughed up the Goa'uld larvae.
Katar flopped on the ground like a rather confused trout for all of
half a second before one of the girls, twelve if she was a
day, yanked out her not so pretend pirate's sword and chopped the
Goa'uld in two.
The black haired kid coughed once, blinked himself, wiped some
residual slime away from his mouth with the back of one hand, and
weakly said, "Thanks Ash."
The cute little pint-sized blonde grinned from ear to ear, like
she'd just been given the greatest compliment in the world, and
said, "You're quite welcome."