Chapter 67

Much of February had me and Amy both up to our necks in crafting. Owlbear Musk could be used in potions that would be capable of breaking enchantments that dazed, stunned, or dominated the mind, owlbear bone and leather were of great use in crafting weapons and armor, and owlbear feathers were useful components in various rituals. Those were just the Owlbear components, we also had Ankheg Shells which could be made into extremely lightweight, extremely durable armor. Aurumvorax eyes which could be used for divination-based potions and rituals, Aurumvorax pelts which could be made into magical armor, capes, robes, or jackets, and Worg Fangs, Blood, Tongues, and Sinews which could be used for any number of potions from Elixirs of Bloodlust to more benign healing potions. And that wasn't even talking about the literal flood of components we had salvaged from the Five-Headed Hydra, all of which were valuable in their own ways.

Suffice it to say that Amy and I were very busy throughout the remainder of February. Between the crafting and the odd date night with Cordelia, I didn't have a whole lot of time for training on my own. Even with the multipliers of the various training aides stacking atop one another, I'd finished learning Te Reo Maori and Mongolian to Conversational Levels but hadn't even started on Pashto. I'd also shored up my cooking so that my Baked Chicken and Hilopetes in Red Sauce was as good as my Veal Parmesan and Turkish Pilaf Rice and my Gujarati Undhiyu Curry would get to that level if I had just a bit more time.

Chi-wise, I unfortunately only had time to finish learning the Shoryuken and begin work on learning the Fudoshin, which was a stomping attack that could break an opponent's guard from range and knock them prone. I could probably get the technique down in another five or so days of uninterrupted study using my training aides, but I didn't have that time this month. Not with my schedule as packed as it was at any rate.

Spell-wise, I only had time to research a single spell, Danse Macabre which was a favorite of various gray and black sorcerers and would cause the target to dance until their bodies gave out or the spell was ended. It was a favorite of various witches who practiced the darker sort of magic. After all, it was something of an ironic punishment to make those who earned your ire literally dance until they dropped, but it could just as easily be used to neutralize an opponent on a battlefield for later defeat.

The crafting that was the main focus of my and Amy's February allowed us to make a veritable hoard of magical items. I made for myself a pair of Owlbear Hide Boots which were enchanted to make the wearer immune to tripping, entanglement, or the difficulties of traveling over rough terrain while also providing a reduction in fatigue for the wearer. Potions of all kinds were brewed, from potions of future sight to potions of bloodrage to the more common healing potions and fatigue cures. Everyone got equipment, ranging from Worghide Belts with Moderate Strength, Speed, and Toughness Enhancements to Magical Ankheg Plate Armor. I made Hydra Fang Blades for everyone that were enchanted with my standard suite of enchantments along with daggers of Owlbear Bone and Blades chased in Blessed Silver. I also made myself an Owlbear Leather and Hydra Scale Brigandine Vest which was capable of stopping even large caliber rounds from an enchanted rifle, something which I tested at Old Man Morris'. Finally, I made a number of Enchanted Leather Dusters of Owlbear or Hydra Leather which were enchanted to be resistant to all kinds of energy, as well as magically toughened, with expanded pockets, weather-resistance enchantments, comfort, self-maintenance, resizing, and some minor strength, speed, and toughness boosting enchantments.

Speaking of my trip to Old Man Morris', After giving out versions of the Dusters to Xander, Sheila, Oz, Amy, and Myself, I had two remaining, one each of Hydra Leather and Owlbear Hide. These I gave to Old Man Morris to sell to other local Hunters who might be looking to buy. Nor were they the only thing I gave to him to sell. I also gave a trio of the Owlbear Bone Handled, Blessed Silver Inlaid, Enchanted Daggers, Worghide Belts, Hydra Tooth Swords, and Akheg Plate Armor to him to sell as well. All told, I gave Old Man Morris enough Magical Equipment to be worth just under twenty-eight-million-seven-hundred-thousand dollars American. It was more than enough money for Old Man Morris to retire off of, even splitting the proceeds with me. He still refused to do so, though.

"Ah ain't made t'sit at home doin' nothin' while th' young'uns like herself go harin' off after th' things wut go bump in th' night by yer lonesome." He refused when I brought the idea up to him.

He still appreciated the money, though and I wound up taking home fourteen-million-two-hundred-thousand dollars once the last of those items had cleared sale as my end of the sale. Nor was that the only money gained out of the whole thing. We also had around six hundred pounds of raw gold from three incinerated Aurumvorax Corpses. By the time we managed to sell off the gold from that, minus the broker's commission of fifteen percent of the sale, we'd made another seventeen-million-three-hundred-thousand dollars for a grand total of thirty-one-million-five-hundred-thousand dollars in profits for just one fight, not including all of the magical items we'd gotten out of the deal.

I chose to split everything equally between myself, Amy, Sheila, and Xander so that everyone in my group cleared seven-million-eight-hundred-seventy-five-thousand dollars, even if they hadn't been at the fight. It gave everyone an incentive to keep together even though they technically didn't need to stick with me anymore. Honestly, between this and all the other money he was getting from Hunting, Xander mentioned he was looking into getting a place of his own that wasn't his folks' basement. Good on him. By all accounts, his family life wasn't exactly the greatest. Not that I had any room to talk on that front. All I knew about my genetic donors was that one of them had been a test subject, another had been a long-dead Epirote King, and the last had been a Goa'uld Parasite. If that wasn't a fucked up family situation, I don't know what was.

Mind you, that was from my share of the reagents, Amy claimed a big old pile of her own as well. She spent time locked away in her room, where she kept her various experiments that she didn't want anyone to know about until they were ready. After she brought out the Aurumvorax Fur Coat of Displacement and the Owlbear Bone Spear of Mageslaying I stopped caring so much. She clearly knew what she was doing.

Speaking of Aurumvorax Fur Coats, I made one for Cordy. It was lighter than normal, as I'd had to enchant it to be the same weight as a normal fur coat. Fifteen pounds of enchanted, golden, fur got cordy the same protection against physical threats as a suit of magical, field-plate, armor for a quarter of the weight and a hundred times the style, plus it was fire retardant as well, providing protection from magical and mundane flames and came with self-maintenance, comfort, and weather-resistance enchantments, along resizing and glamor enchantments, an expanded pocket, and a slight boost to her strength, speed, and stamina. Combined with the necklace I'd gotten her, Cordy shouldn't have to worry about any but the most determined of threats.

I planned to give it to her as a Valentine's gift. I had a whole thing planned for our first Valentine's Day as a couple after having been told that it was a big deal. So I made my preparations for Valentine's Day and didn't worry about a training or crafting schedule.

It was the one day I took off completely in February, after all. . .

XXXX

"I love it!" Cordy exclaimed as I presented her with the Aurumvorax Fur Coat after picking her up for Valentine's Day.

"Wait till you see what else I've got planned for tonight." I grinned.

"I can't wait, what are we doing? Dinner and Dancing?" Questioned Cordy.

"You'll see." I grinned.

As I pulled out of her gated community and started driving, I grinned to myself. I'd planned the whole night to be special. I'd made sure that Amy was out of the Apartment and had let both Sheila and Xander know not to come over tonight. I'd gotten Champagne, Bollinger La Grande Annee From Nineteen-Eighty-Nine which came with one hell of a recommendation. Apparently, it was Commander James Bond's go-to Champagne, at least according to Amanda when I called her to try and get a recommendation. Apparently, she and Commander Bond had hooked up once over a bottle. She could have just been lying, mind you. She is exactly the type to do something like that, but I honestly couldn't think of a better recommendation than that if she wasn't.

Aside from that, Candles and a home-cooked dinner were in the cards. Veal Parmesan and a salad, both of which I'd made myself, while I'd gone out to LA and gotten a pecan pie from Pat and Lorraine's Diner earlier today which was supposed to be phenomenal. After all, I couldn't bake the pie myself. . .yet anyway.

Cordy seemed to notice that we were making our way back to my converted warehouse apartment because she looked over at me as we passed by the Teriyaki Donut which was only four or so blocks away from my place.

"I see we're headed to your place. I hope you don't think we'll be getting straight to the sexy part? I was promised some romance tonight." Insisted Cordy, cocking an eyebrow.

"Oh trust me, Romance is definitely in the cards." I answered as I pulled into my driveway.

As we entered, I whispered a mystic incantation and made a mystic gesture and suddenly, the entire apartment was lit up by a bevy of scented candles. Mind you, that wasn't enough light on its own to actually see by for any real period, so I wound up having to put the lights on too, albeit dimly. Cordy seemed to appreciate the ambiance well enough. She had a grin on her face that widened as she saw the table with two chairs I'd set up along with the champagne bucket and bottle.

"You charmer. A candlelit dinner, champagne on ice? You really know how to spoil a girl." Grinned Cordy.

"That's not all. The first course is a salad, the main course is Chicken Parmesan, with Pecan Pie for dessert. I made everything but the pie myself." I nodded, pulling out Cordy's chair for her to sit.

"Huh, you know there's just something that's sexy about a man who can cook." Mused Cordy as she sat down.

I moved to serve the salad and open the Champagne, making sure to serve Cordy's salad first before myself. I even showed off a little bit, taking a sabre and opening the Champagne via sabrage, the cork flying out of the bottle with a pop as I struck the bottle with the blade. The frothing champagne was poured into Cordy's glass, then mine. As I sat down, I raised my Champagne Flute.

"How about a toast?" I queried.

"What should we drink to?" Asked Cordy.

"How about to the most beautiful woman in Sunnydale and how lucky I am that she agreed to be my girlfriend?" I offered.

"Oh god, that's so corny!" Laughed Cordy.

"Doesn't make it not true." I smirked, unashamedly.

"Fair point." Acknowledged Cordy, favoring me with a beaming smile.

We drank champagne, chatted, and ate our salads as we waited for the Chicken Parmesan to finish in the oven. Cordy was only tangentially related to the hunting these days, but she still had enrolled in a kickboxing class at the YMCA. She was hoping that if she was ever caught without her necklace or Aurumvorax Coat she could hopefully try to get away from any Vampiric attackers with a surprise combo before running away. There was only a brief pause in the conversation for me to serve the Chicken Parmesan and when I finished doing that, I offered to help Cordy pick up an actual martial art that she'd be able to use to actually kill vampires.

"No thanks. I'm not really looking to get further into the whole hunting thing you guys do." Refused Cordy.

That was that, if Cordy said she didn't want to do something, I was fairly sure that no power on Earth could make her change her mind. The topic switched from there to other things, namely how with the end of her Junior Year looming on the Horizon, Cordy's parents were also starting to pressure her about college.

"Daddy wants me to go to Barnett College like he did, but I don't know if should or not." Sighed Cordy.

"Something wrong with Barnett?" I questioned.

"No, not really. It's an Ivy League School in Upstate New York, one of the best for a bunch of fields. It's just. . .I always sort of pictured myself going to LA and breaking into movies on graduation, you know?" Sighed Cordy.

"And you can't say that because you're afraid your dad wouldn't approve." I nodded.

"Yeah. Sometimes I feel like Daddy had my whole life planned out for me from the very beginning, you know? It's like he and Mom had me and then suddenly decided what I was going to be the second I was born. Daddy wants to me study business and become an Entrepreneur and no amount of me wanting to act is going to change that." Sighed Cordy.

"Sounds rough." I empathized.

"It is. I don't know, what do you think I should do?" Queried Cordy.

"I think everyone should be free to forge their own path, no matter what their parents demand of them. It sounds like you want to act, that's fine. You should be free to give that a shot. If you had to appease your father, you could always take classes in LA when you're not working." I shrugged.

"That could actually work. You know, you're a pretty good listener." Remarked Cordy.

"It helps to have someone you actually like listening to." I smirked.

Soon enough, dinner moved onto dessert and the pie was brought out. I had a single slice before bringing my guitar out to serenade Cordy with my playing. I strummed out a series of chords in A Minor, G, C, and G as I began to play the intro to Fall At Your Feet by Crowded House while Cordy enjoyed a slice of pie and listened.

"I'm really close tonight. And I feel like I'm moving inside her. Lying in the dark. And I think that I'm beginning to know her. Let it go. I'll be there when you call. And whenever I fall at your feet. You let your tears rain down on me. Whenever I touch, your slow turnin' pain." I sang out as I watched Cordy's reaction.

She was flushed and clearly into it. That was never more in evidence than when I finished the song and she grabbed me and pulled me in for a deep kiss. We stayed like that for a few long moments, just kissing and holding each other. Then, with a throaty purr, Cordy pulled me into the bedroom and we lost all track of time.

When I woke up afterward the next morning, Cordy was gone. There was a note from Sheila telling me that she'd come back home the next day to find Cordy in need of a ride back to her place. Apparently, Sheila had gone to drop Cordy off and would be back with caffeine and donuts from Teriyaki Donuts soon. Amy still wouldn't be home till later in the afternoon.

I shrugged as I went about my morning routine and got ready for another day filled with a lot of item crafting along with a smaller amount of training. When I was dressed and ready, Sheila was downstairs with a Jooky and Mochi Donut for me and a shit-eating grin on her face. As I grabbed the donut and drink from her, that grin only widened.

"Morning Loverboy." Teased Sheila.

I frowned as I realized that she was going to be calling me that for the foreseeable future, thanks to what I assumed was talking with Cordy earlier this morning. As I munched on my donut and took a sip of my drink, I could only shrug in response to that.

It was, after all, totally worth it. . .

XXXX

Aside from Valentine's Day, Crafting, and Training, the rest of February was completely quiet. Xander and Sheila had been doing a bit of sporadic hunting on their own, but outside of a single incident where they chased a vampire into the sewers and lost it in the winding tunnels, nothing really of note happened on those ventures either. A brief call over to Buffy revealed that her group hadn't run into anything major either. The most fascinating thing she found was that one of the Doctors at Sunnydale General had been found ripped to pieces after coming up with a treatment for a major flu epidemic that seemed to be hitting grade-schoolers in the area and was resistant to regular drugs. She was trying to look into potential causes, but Giles didn't have the right books and Wesley hadn't come to Sunnydale with any that could help.

It took a bit of digging into the topic in the library I'd inherited from Luthor, but I eventually found a reference to something in an eighteenth-century Saxon Bestiary he'd taken from the collection of an Immortal named Heinrich Schultz after a duel in Prague sometime in the eighteen-thirties. Der Kinderstod was apparently a demon that fed off the life force of Children in a manner that appeared as if the victims were suffering an untreatable flu. He was invisible to those who weren't ill but could be revealed with a simple detect invisibility spell.

That was a second circle spell and was therefore something I could scribe onto a scroll in the five minutes that it took for my Potions of Divination to finish steeping. I did so and handed the scroll off to Buffy the next day with the explanation about Der Kinderstod. She took it with a nod and the day after I got a call from Buffy telling me that she and Willow had taken care of the problem with my scroll and some good old-fashioned violence. Aside from that, everything was quiet. It was almost as if the entire town was holding its breath and waiting for the next clash with the New Whirlwind.

Said Clash would happen during the end of the first week of March, as we wound up facing the New Whirlwind down over another wooden box in the Sunnydale Post Office. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we have the rest of February of nineteen-ninety-eight. Mostly this was a time-skippy chapter with a bit of Romance thrown in, but Buffy did wind up getting help from Ulysses to deal with Der Kinderstod this time around, as she didn't get the Flu the same as she had in canon due to the butterfly effect.

A lot of crafting happened in this chapter. Like, to the point that Ulysses is now better armored, with just his new vest and duster, than any single soldier currently alive on planet Earth. I'm including the SG Teams in this assessment as well. Even the Trio's Laser Weapons aren't burning through his armor. Mind you that doesn't mean he's invincible. Any armor has weak points, after all, and with sufficient power behind it, an attack can still blow through his defenses. It's unlikely that anything less than the Judge is going to be powerful enough for that, though.

Other nineties stuff in this chapter includes mentions of the various monster parts and associated bits along with the second circle see invisibility spell used on Der Kindestod which are from Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons, James Bond drinking Bollinger La Grande Annee From Nineteen-Eighty-Nine Champagne is a reference to a scene in Tomorrow Never Dies, Jooky is from a nineties sprite commercial, Teriyaki Donut appears in several Quentin Tarantino Movies, Barnett College is from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, while Pat and Lorraine's Diner is from Resevoir Dogs. Finally, the Shoryuken and Fudoshin are from Street Fighter.

At any rate, the next chapter will be the next clash with the New Whirlwind, after that we'll have the Judge encounter. Once that's done, we'll only have two more chapters before we're done with this section of the Buffy side of things and can move on to other crossover stuff as the main focus.

Stay tuned. . .