Making my way down the street, I enjoy the warm air, breathing in as much as I can.
I haven't heard from Buffy in a few days, and she's been gone for a few days longer than she was supposed to. Usually she's pretty consistent with her check ins. It's hard to go a few hours without hearing from her, even by text. But about halfway through her visit to LA, she just stopped. That means something might be going on. She probably ran into trouble and had to do something about it. If that's true, she could be coming back here to gather the troops and take care of it. It feels like the only reasonable explanation for why she would drop off like that.
The question is what kind of big bad could it be? I know it wasn't my idea to bring this thing to us, so it must be pretty bad. I'm sure that whatever it is though, I can handle it. At least, I will if my sister and my girlfriend and the others can't take care of whatever it is. There's no way I'm letting something happening to any of them. I'll save them if I have to. It's part of why I did this in the first place. To make sure that none of us are ever harmed again. Otherwise what's the point of any of it?
All I have to do is get in touch with Buffy, figure out what it is that's after us, and then destroy it if I have to. But if I don't hear from my sister, it's hard to do that. Maybe if I talk to the others, they'll have heard from her.Buffy likes to keep me out of the serious discussions at the beginning before things get really serious. She tends to reach out to Giles, Willow, Xander and even my girlfriend these days until she has to. Even with everything we went through with The First and all that,she likes to try and keep me in the dark. It's better than it was back then and after she came back from the dead, but it's still there.
But that's okay in the short term. I don't mind being kept out of the big things if she wants to. It's only when things really start to go wrong that I have a problem with her doing that. She's been better at that lately, except when in times like now. So I'll just have to talk to my girlfriend and her friends to get the details. They're usually a little more open to giving me what I need when I want them. And if I have to, I can always just make them tell me what's going on. I don't think that's going to be necessary though. They don't have any reason to lie to me.
I make my way to the entrance of the Magic Box and go inside. When I do, I see my sister is right there with the rest of them.
Typical. They always do this to me.
"What's going on?"
My sister, my girlfriend and the rest all look my way. Faith speaks first.
"Hey DK."
Moving further into the place, I walk up to my girlfriend and we kiss. I turn to my sister as Faith and I put our arms around each other.
"You're back?"
"Yeah, just now."
Well that's disappointing.
"And you didn't call?"
"Sorry, I was kinda in a hurry."
So I was right.
"What's going on?"
She doesn't respond right away.
"Angel has a case that he needs our help with."
Angel does?
"What kind of case?"
"They've been tracking a supernatural weapons dealer. Angel thinks they might be running it out of Sunnydale."
Makes sense.
"So Angel wants us to figure out where they are and stop it."
Willow speaks up.
"I get it. Sunnydale is ground central for everything supernatural. Of course they'd want to have a base here."
Giles adds to it.
"Our task will be to understand where they might be operating from."
Anya continues the thought.
"And where they are hiding things. I could reach out to some of the Magic Box's suppliers, see if they know anyone."
"That would be an appropriate place to start, and I shall talk to a few old contacts to see what can be done."
Faith steps in at that point.
"While B and I do some patrolling and hit up a few places. See what we can figure out."
Sounds like a solid plan.
"So Willow, Xander and I will focus on researching these guys to figure out who they are and how to take them down."
There's a silence for a while in the room where Buffy looks at everyone. Xander speaks up.
"Are we getting too good at this or something? That felt too easy."
Should definitely point out the obvious.
"We're getting good at it. Definitely the first one."
Buffy jumps in at this point.
"Well we have been doing it for almost 8 years now. I guess at some point it would have to get easier."
Anya speaks up.
"Yay us."
Okay then...
"Let's get started."
We all start going about our jobs. Buffy just stays where she is, looking at me though.
Well that's pretty weird.
"Everything okay sis?"
After a few moments, she smiles at me.
"No, I'm just... happy to see you. I missed you."
She crosses the distance between us and hugs me.
"Uh... okay... thanks..."
My sister's always been weird.
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