Chapter 65

I was feeling pretty good about myself for about a week after first sleeping with Cordy. Not only were Cordy and I completely compatible in the bedroom, but also I finally had time to myself to train without having to train anyone else, now that Xander, Amy, and Sheila had reached the level of competency that they didn't need me anymore at. I could finally begin to really push myself once again and with Amy's Training Circlet on top of my memory enhancers and other potions, I would be able to improve faster than ever!

It was a good feeling, as I devoted the week entirely to training myself in a number of different disciplines. Magically, I set myself to learning Kasim's entire spellbook. Chi-Wise, I began work on the Ansatsuken techniques, starting with the basic three techniques of the Ansatsuken style, the Hadoken, the Shoryuken, and the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. Beyond that, I was learning a number of languages that for whatever reason weren't included in my Downloaded information, notably, Romanian, Mongolian, Gaelic, Te Reo Maori, and Pashto, as well as figuring out how to cook a limited number of recipes, in this case, Baked Chicken and Hilopetes in Red Sauce, Veal Parmesan, Turkish Pilaf Rice, and Gujarati Undhiyu Curry.

With four separate multipliers each increasing my learning rate by a factor of three, one week of training could turn into one and a half years of training if I focused solely on training for sixteen hours a day, every day this week. I wasn't quite that focused, reserving Sunday as a day off, but that was still the equivalent of a year and a third's worth of training.

I went through Kasim's entire spellbook long before that point came, and learned Gaelic and Romanian to a conversational level, as well as being well on my way toward learning Te Reo Maori to that level as well. Cooking-wise, I had Veal Parmesan and Turkish Pilaf Rice down, though my Baked Chicken and Hilopetes in Red Sauce could use a bit more work and my Gujarati Undhiyu Curry was barely passable. Chi-wise, I picked up the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku and the Hadouken easily enough, as my familiarity with techniques like the Shou Ha and the Ressen Kyaku helped greatly there, however, I was still working on the Shoryuken.

By the time I made it to my regularly scheduled Open Mic Night at the Espresso Pump, I figured I'd grown more in the last week than I had in the last month and a half of training, thanks to only having to worry about my own training. It was a good feeling, and I made my way into the Espresso Pump with a grin on my face. I spotted Cordy sitting at a table with some kind of gigantic monstrosity of a Latte in one hand as she waited for me to show up.

"Ulysses, you're just in time! You go on next! You actually have some competition this time, the Magician over there was actually really good!" Greeted Aphrodesia, gesturing over to a twenty-something blonde Man wearing a trenchcoat.

I got a whiff of actual magic from the Guy using just my passive mystic radar. To register on that, he had to be more than just a minor talent and no longer an apprentice, which meant he had to be packing at least fourth-circle spells. I could open my third eye and get a more accurate scan, but doing that runs the risk of him noticing. Instead, I decided to simply ask Aphrodesia a question or two.

"Oh yeah? What sort of tricks did he pull?" I questioned.

"A few more complicated card tricks, levitating a trio of balls in the air, causing a candle flame to spark up and turn different colors before jumping from the lit candle to an unlit one, that sort of thing. The thing is, nobody could figure out how he did it all! Derrick tried and even he didn't know!" Grinned Aphrodesia.

I frowned. Derrick was the resident Magician who always came to Open Mic Night. He was usually one of the better acts, so his not being able to figure things out was a point in favor of this guy being the real deal. From the sound of things, though, he could be using anything between Cantrips and Major Telekinesis, a first and fifth-circle spell respectively. There really was no way to be sure without actively scanning him with my open third eye. Unfortunately, that would have to wait as the mediocre Jazz Trombonist finished up his own set and my turn was up.

I made my way up to the stage and sat down, adjusting the mic slightly before beginning to strum out triplets in E Flat, cranking out the intro to Pride and Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. It was a hard song to play, but I managed with gusto and began to sing.

"Well you've heard about love givin' sight to the blind. My baby's lovin' cause the sun to shine. She's my sweet little thang, she's my pride and joy. She's my sweet little baby, I'm her little lover boy." I sang out, gazing out at Cordy in the Crowd.

As I continued to sing, I could just tell I might just be in for a repeat performance of last weekend by the way she was blushing. I couldn't help but crack a grin as I finished belting out the song. As I stood up to leave and head over to Cordy's table, though, I was stopped by the other Sorcerer in the Room. He approached me under the guise of wanting to shake my hand, but as soon as our hands clasped, he started whispering ominously to me.

"You must be the man called Ulysses. I'd heard you liked to play here on Sundays. I have a message for you from Spike." He whispered. Instantly, a shock ran through me and my good mood was replaced with seriousness.

"Oh really? What's he got to say, then?" I whispered back, frowning.

"It's not a verbal message, really. You'll find out tomorrow." Answered the Sorcerer.

"That sounds ominous. Who the hell are you that Spike's got you doing his dirty work? And why? I know he's got to still be pretty broke." I demanded, still in hushed tones.

"Name's Dave Gustafson, as for why? Well, you'll find out soon enough." Grinned the Sorcerer.

At that point, Cordy approached, forcing me to break off my interrogation of yet another Sorcerer working for Spike. Cordy grabbed my arm and pulled me away from Dave Gustafson with a throaty purr.

"Take me back to your place." Insisted Cordy as she practically dragged me toward the door.

I took one look back at Dave Gustafson, who seemed to have lit up a Morley Cigarette with a flick of his fingers. He took one puff, breathed out a smoke ring that was too perfect a circle to be non-magical, and then gave me a shit-eating grin.

"Be seeing you soon, Ulysses!" He called out.

Then Cordy and I were out the door and her lips were mashed against mine, putting all thoughts of Ominous messages and shady new Sorcerers out of my mind for the moment. We wound up kissing for a few long moments before a man walking out of Hank Junior's Liquor Mart with a bottle of J.Darby in a paper bag passed us and reminded Cordy and I that we were in public. We broke apart and wound up heading back to my converted warehouse in my Camaro.

Unfortunately, Amy was home when Cordy and I got back watching a rerun of Massive Strike starring Johnny Cage that had been edited for Cable. It was one of his earliest starring roles, back before Ninja Mime had been made, and did well enough in Europe that it got two sequels greenlit with a third currently in production. Back when he actually put legitimate martial arts in his films instead of substituting a lot of special effects for martial arts.

Of course, what this meant for Cordy and I was that we had to be quiet and not disturb the Roommate who was capable of setting us both on fire if she was annoyed enough by loud and passionate noises from my bedroom. I mentioned this to Cordy in between kisses as we made our way up the stairs. She broke off from kissing me to fix me with an unamused glare.

"So, put some music on. Between that and the TV, it's not like she'll be able to hear us." She demanded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Nodding in understanding, I went to my stereo when we got back to my bedroom and put on a burned CD with a bunch of songs on it. As the CD started up with Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers, we began stripping and both fell onto my bed, already getting hot and heavy as we did so. By the time the album hit B Movie Boxcar Blues by the Blues Brothers, we'd already moved on from foreplay. An hour and twelve minutes of music later, we were cuddling in my bed amidst the afterglow, ominous warning from a shady Sorcerer completely obliterated from my mind.

I slipped off to sleep twenty minutes later, a glowing Cordelia Chase snuggled up next to me. . .

XXXX

The next day, I was woken up by Amy shaking my shoulder to find that Cordy had left sometime before I had. That wasn't the worst of it, as I'd come to find out.

"Ulysses, get up. Buffy is here and she's royally pissed about something! She's demanding to talk to you and she won't leave until she does!" Hissed Amy.

"Fine. Lemme get some pants on." I grumbled.

"Make it quick. Also, next time you and Cordy want to do the Horizontal Mambo, either do it at her place or give me a heads-up first. You weren't fooling anyone with that stereo thing and just knowing you were in here with her doing that made it really hard for me to watch TV." Demanded Amy.

"Noted." I nodded.

Amy left me to grab a pair of flannel sleep pants and hastily get dressed. I didn't bother with a shirt, this was my house, Buffy could deal with it or leave, I don't care how pissed off she was. By the time I headed downstairs, it was to find Buffy pacing a hole through the carpet, a grimace on her face.

"It's Monday, shouldn't you be in that literal hellhole that the City calls a public school?" I queried.

"You didn't know? Of course, you didn't know, look at you! You don't even have a shirt on!" Snapped Buffy.

"All right, it's too early for this. Clearly, I'm missing something, can we skip past the normal bickering and just get to the part where you tell me what's going on?" I asked.

"Fine. Miss Calendar's dead, Giles found her this morning before school started. School's let out for the day because of it." Informed Buffy.

Dave Gustafson's ominous message from last night returned suddenly to hit me like a Russian Combat Android. He'd practically told me that something like this was going to happen and I'd ignored him and went home with Cordelia instead! My stupid teenage hormones finally bit me in the ass, I couldn't believe it!

"Son of a Bitch! It's Spike, he all but told me something was going down today, sent an errand boy with a message and everything!" I snarled.

"It's not Spike. Not unless he's suddenly gotten the band back together." Frowned Buffy.

"What do you mean?" I questioned.

"It's Angel. I. . .think I made a giant mistake and now it's come back to haunt everyone." Admitted Buffy.

"OK, hold on. I need the whole story and I need caffeine and a smoke before that to wake up fully." I insisted.

"Already on it. I'll grab Xander and Sheila on the way back from Teriyaki Donut too." Chimed in Amy, already having gotten dressed to head out.

She grabbed her keys and headed out the door while Buffy practically collapsed into an armchair. She had this look on her face that put me in mind of a kicked puppy. It was a new experience for me. Pissed off Buffy I could handle, even reasonably happy Buffy I could deal with. Misreable Buffy was a new one and I had no idea how to deal with it. So instead of dealing with it, I headed outside and lit up a Red Apple Cigarette, inhaling the smoke and breathing it out through my nose.

"I am not equipped to deal with this. The Black Dragon put a bunch of information in my brain, but how to deal with a miserable teenage girl wasn't one of them. Probably for the same reason they figured I wouldn't need to know Romanian, because they're idiots. That much is clear just from seeing them throw in with the Go'auld and the Forces of Outworld." I muttered under my breath.

By the time I figured out an approach to take, Amy had returned with Donuts, Caffeine, Xander, and Sheila. We made our way back inside together and found Buffy still slumped in the chair looking like she wanted to cry but was physically forcing the tears back into her face instead of allowing herself to cry. I grabbed a Jooky from the tray of drinks and a cruller. As soon as I'd eaten the donut and drank down around a quarter of my Soda, I nodded at Buffy.

"All right, start from the beginning." I intoned.

"It started on my birthday. Angel came over that night to surprise me. He told me he loved me, he gave me his ring, and then. . .then we slept together. Only, it turns out that doing that cost him his soul and he's gone back to being Angelus. He signed his name on a note in Miss Calendar's blood, Ulysses. It was him, not Spike. I made a bad mistake and I don't know how to fix it." Explained Buffy.

"You slept with Angel? The Guy's like two-hundred-fifty years old! And dead!" Pointed out Xander.

"Seriously, you might want to get tested, Buffy. I've been told that syphilis can persist on tissue samples after death and the stuff was everywhere back when Angel was alive." Offered Amy.

"Guys, Buff's been through enough already, yeah? Let's not make her feel even worse about all this shit, all right?" Snapped Sheila.

"Shocking as it is, I actually agree with Sheila on this one. Buffy admitted she made a mistake, no need to keep harping on her for it. Besides, I don't exactly have a whole lot of room to throw stones here. Not after I ignored an ominous message from Spike because Cordy and I wanted to make the beast with two backs." I sighed.

Whether it was the compassion from a place she didn't think she'd get it or the fact that I'd mentioned Spike once again, Buffy managed to pull herself together from the brink of tears. I wasn't sure which it was, but she managed it. She looked over at me with red puffy eyes and a frown on her face.

"That's the second time you mentioned that. Your turn to spill details." She remarked.

"All right, so last night at Open Mic Night, I'd just finished my song when I get approached by this Sorcerer who says he's got a message from Spike. A Guy named Dave Gustafson." I began.

"Dave Gustafson? Twenty-something blonde guy, wears a trenchcoat, kind of a beanpole?" Queried Amy.

"Yeah, you know him?" I asked.

"That guy was trained by a Warlock named Rack. Rack is probably the most powerful Warlock and Dark Sorcerer in Sunnydale. About the only real advice my mom ever gave me about magic before the whole cheerleader incident happened was to never under any circumstances make a deal with Rack for magical power because he always takes more than he gives. By all accounts, Dave Gustafson was a model apprentice for a guy like Rack up until last year when he suddenly got thrown out on his ass. Supposedly, Rack stopped being able to take more than he gave out from Dave somehow and decided he didn't feel like sharing anymore." Explained Amy.

"Well, he seems to have made the jump from working for Rack to working for Spike. He had a message for me. He said it wasn't in words, but I'd see what he meant in the morning. Then Cordy and I got back here and we started having sex. That sort of drove the whole thing from my mind until Buffy showed up this morning." I admitted.

I expected Buffy to explode at me about ignoring something like this, but it seemed like having this sort of shared experience meant that she could relate to me because she didn't yell at or insult me in any way after I mentioned that. She just forged on ahead.

"I think we can safely say that the Whirlwind is back together then. They've hit us first, Giles is a wreck right now. We need to hit them back. How do we do that?" She questioned.

"We'll need to figure out what they're planning first. They have to have more than just this up their sleeve." Offered Xander.

"Xan's right, everything Uly's mentioned about these guys has had them being twisty as part of it. Plans within plans and that kinda stuff. No way they're plan was that simple." Agreed Sheila.

"The problem is, how do we find them? If Dave Gustafson is working for Spike, then I doubt any Divination Spells short of a seventh circle Vision Spell or someone of an equivalent Earth-based tradition are gonna be able to magically locate them. Last I heard, Dave was capable of casting spells of at least fifth circle, which means that he'll be able to counter Divination of that Circle and below at least." Frowned Amy.

"Is Rack from an Alternate Prime Tradition?" I queried.

"I'm told his patron is an extraplanar Evil God called Memnor, who's a god of Trickery, Mentalism, Knowledge, and Evil." Shrugged Amy.

"That's interesting. Memnor is a Giant God from Alternate Prime. Giant Gods don't typically give power to Non-Giants." I pointed out,

"Yeah, but how many Giants are running around these days? I figure we'd have heard about them if they were still around." Pointed out Xander.

"What are you thinking, Xan?" Asked Sheila.

"Just that if this Memnor Guy wanted to spread his influence to Earth, he couldn't use any of the usual suspects to do it." Shrugged Xander.

"What sort of spells do guys that follow this Memnon guy usually cast?" Questioned Buffy.

"Memnor, and a lot of it is stuff you'd get from folks big into Enchantment and Illusion. Suggestion, Detect Scrying, Invisibility, Fear, Domination, that sort of thing. Combat wise? They tend to use a lot of Telekinesis, Ray of Enfeeblement, Hold Person, Domination, and the like to turn enemies against each other, and Summoning Shadow Monsters and Demi-Shadow Monsters to fight for them. Defensively, expect a lot of illusions to distract you, and maybe spells of Wraithform or blur to help in direct conflict." I answered, drawing on my downloaded knowledge.

Apparently, the Black Dragon does a brisk business with the Zhentarim trading modern goods like spices and silk that are luxuries on Abier-Toril for gold and magic items. It really was insane the sort of stuff you could get away with if you had access to other Planes, knowledge of how to use that access, and absolutely no morals to speak of. I should probably just be glad the Black Dragon had settled for ripping off the local equivalent of their own organization rather than outright conquest.

"And is any of that useful against magical detection?" Pressed Buffy.

"Detect Scrying is, so is the spell of Vacancy. Besides, it sounds like this Rack Guy had a lot more up his sleeve than just the standard bag of tricks that Memnor offers folks who pact with him. While I'm pretty sure he won't have taught much of it to someone he just tossed out on his ear when he couldn't siphon any more magic from him, we still shouldn't rule anything below the fifth circle out." I intoned.

"Which means what exactly?" Queried Xander.

"Anything from Summoning Ghouls and Teleportation to the ability to turn his body into living stone and being able to fire all kinds of elemental attacks." Answered Amy.

"So if we've gotta be prepared for all that stuff, how do we do that?" Asked Sheila.

"We don't. We're just going to have to fight this new Whirlwind and play it by ear." Sighed Buffy.

"Look on the bright side, at least it isn't a High-Tier Demon." I offered.

I shouldn't have spoken so soon on that. Two days after this meeting, we would wind up running into a C-Class Makai Demon near the Sunnydale Freight Yard smuggling a package out of a freight car. The package itself practically burned in my third eye. It was the first encounter in a chain of encounters that would eventually lead us to discover the Whirlwind's plans for the Judge.

It looked like we'd be getting that High-Tier Demon fight after all. . .

XXXX

AN: So yeah, here we have the actual start of the Angelus Arc. Ironically, Ulysses makes a similar dumb decision as Buffy did with Angel, choosing to follow the siren song of the Booty Call instead of continuing to press Dave the Whirlwind Sorcerer for answers. It's actually going to be the start of something of a reconciliation between Ulysses and Buffy as they now have something to bond over that isn't going to be divisive, since they both fell into the same trap.

Unfortunately, Miss Calendar still gets axed in this fic, though if I'm being honest, there wasn't really much of a way to prevent that from happening. Angelus coming back sort of blindsided everyone and Miss Calendar was looking for Spike or Drusilla, not Angelus. Giles has taken it pretty hard, but fortunately, he isn't the only Watcher in town. Unfortunately, that other Watcher is Wesley. Thankfully, Ulysses and his Group can step up to fill in any gaps Buffy's group might be having.

Other nineties stuff this chapter includes mentions of Red Apple Cigarettes from Pulp Fiction, Morley Cigarettes from Seinfeld and a bunch of other things, J. Darby Scotch from Malcolm in the Middle, the Blues Brothers, who are currently still in prison for another year, C-Class Makai Demons from Yu Yu Hakusho, Teriyaki Donut from Pulp Fiction, the Ansatsuken and its techniques are from Street Fighter, and Memnor and all the Alternate Prime Spells are from second edition D&D. Finally, Johnny Cage's terrible movies are a plot point in Mortal Kombat, he entered the Tournament to prove he was a legitimate fighter and not just reliant on special effects.

At any rate, the Next Chapter will cover the encounter with Makintaro at the Sunnydale Freight Yard and the piecing together of the Whirlwind's plan with the Judge.

Stay tuned. . .