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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
"That was the Los Angeles home address I got for him," Willow said. "Suite 924 of the Fahringer building. It's either part of or adjoining the Los Angeles headquarters of Chase Fashions Incorporated, but, well, there you are." She shrugged at the thought.
"I guess it's convenient," Angel suggested. "Wake up, go down the hall and you're at work."
"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "The perks of owning the company, I guess. And being as rich as hell. Well, what now? Do we just go in there and say we want to see Mister Chase??"
"If anybody asks," Angel decided. "If no-one does, we just try to find his suite ourselves."
"And what if they say go away?" Willow asked in a slightly frightened voice. "It's almost midnight, after all."
"Not for another half hour," Angel declared, leading the way. Sure enough, there was a imperturbable doorman standing watch at the entrance to the building.
"Yes??" The doorman asked forebodingly.
Rather than answer himself, Angel prodded Buffy in the ribs, encouraging her to speak up for the group. "Uh... we're here to see Mister Lear Chase."
"What makes you think he's working this late?" Door-guy asked her with an unimpressed look on his face.
"Uh... he wouldn't have to be," Buffy blurted out. "He lives in the building too, right? Suite 924??"
"Okay," the doorman said equably. "So what makes you think that he'd want to be disturbed this late??"
"Uh..." Buffy couldn't answer that one. It was after eleven-thirty, after all. Letterman was on, or Leno, or whatever a guy like Mister Chase might watch. "Could you just buzz him up and ask him?" she asked, somewhat defeated.
"Okay, I will. What's the name?"
Suddenly the reason of Buffy speaking for the group came clear. It was Buffy to whom Lear Chase had pledged his gratitude and support, (even though Willow and Angel had been the ones to first risk their lives to save him from vampires,) and it was Buffy's name that would carry weight with him. "Buffy Summers."
"Okay. You stay here." The doorman went off into a little glassed-in room off of the main entry atrium, and busied himself over an intercom for a minute or so. "I guess it's all right," he said when he came back. "Through here." He opened the door into the lobby proper with a key. "Elevators up to nine, then... well, you should be able to find the suite yourselves, right? Have a good evening."
On the ride up, Willow started to obsess nervously. "What is Mister Chase is mad that we're bothering him, Buffy? What if he chews us out?? What if he's... um, you know - with someone? He's single now, since he broke up with Cordelia's latest stepmother, and seems to be, well, uh, the kinda guy who tends to..."
"Relax, Will," Buffy said with a slight smile. "He probably wouldn't have had the doorman send us up if he was too pissed. Beyond that, well, we're just gonna have to take a chance, aren't we?"
As it happened, when Buffy rang the doorbell on Lear Chase's suite, he answered the door with a slight smile on his face. "Hello, Buffy. Um... Willow? Angel?? You're the ones who saved my life, aren't you?"
"We did what we could, sir," Angel told him modestly.
"Well, come in, why don't you?" Lear said, pulling the door further open. He was wearing a silk dressing gown and slippers, but didn't seem to be too concerned about the disturbance. "Well, I must say, it's good to see you, Buffy. But... where is Cordelia? I was growing concerned that my daughter hadn't come home when she said she would."
Buffy blinked at that. "Um, Cordelia did go home, Mister Chase, or pretty near. Back to Sunnydale. You weren't there at the time..."
Lear's eyes bogged out. "Sunnydale? Where on earth is Sunnydale? Home is here, in Los Angeles... isn't it??"
* * * *
"The mayor!!" Cordelia screeched. "You're a demon!! The mayor of Sunnydale is a demon??" She considered what she'd just said for a second. "Actually, that kinda makes sense..."
"Ahh!" Stephenson moaned, tumbling down onto an unobtrusive chair. Horns morphed into existence and away again on the Mayor's head.
"He's not a demon," Chief McLennan rebutted.
"Oh, yeah," Xander scoffed. "He's completely human. The horns clinch it."
"He's not a normal human being either," McLennan conceded, "and this is a bit of a long story. I suppose I should tell it to you, though. This way." He led the three visitors into a private room.
"The story of the Founding fathers dates back to the years in which the Americans and the Mexicans battled over the whole area that is now the state of California," McLennan started as they sat down. "There was a spanish-mexican 'pueblo' right here at this spot, as you might know - Boca del Infierno. It was a source of unusually fierce Californio resistance to the Yankee occupying forces, led, we now believe, by magicians of Spanish origin who were determined to keep hold of the mystical nexus focused at this location. So fiercely did they fight, in fact, that they and most of the 'pueblo' residents were killed, and the old Spanish buildings were burned to the ground."
The police chief waited for any questions, then continued. "But the yankee troops suffered heavy casualties, too, and after the battle of Del Infierno, five yankee officers, while taking whiskies and cigars to relax, found that they had been through virtually the same experience. Each of them, during or after the battle, had been at the deathbed of one of their soldiers, who, in dying, made a last wish - 'Don't let my sacrifice be in vain. Make sure that this patch of land, which I have given my life for, is never abandonen or forsaken by America.' Or words to that effect, there were five soldiers, of course, and the phrasing differed. So those five officers vowed to uphold that obligation, as best they could."
"They resigned from the Army as soon as they could, bringing volunteer colonists back to the pueblo site, to build an American town on the same site, which they did. But then..."
"They discovered that strange things were drawn here," Akira Tojo guessed gravely.
"Yeah," McLennan agreed. "Zombies, werewolves, skeletons, gremlins, ghouls... it was a little while before the original 'founding fathers' realized what they were truly up against, but once they did, they dived into study of the occult with a vengeance. Abandoning the town was unthinkable - it would mean forsaking the vow they had sworn. So, they determined to fight the monstrous forces as best they could. Around this time, a magical ritual was found, to 'empower a man with the abilities of the mystic creatures.' Captain Brian Stephenson, one of the founding fathers, volunteered to have it worked upon him, in the hopes that he would be able to defeat monsters with their own powers. It didn't exactly work."
"Wait a second," Xander said, picking up. "Brian Stephenson -- the mayor? The guy we just saw here two minutes ago??"
"One and the same," McLennan agreed, nodding. "The spell gave him the ability to assume monstrous forms, and extended lifespan... but he can't control the changes perfectly. Especially in troubled times... like now." The police chief shook his head. "Anyways, the other founding fathers passed on their share in the obligation to specially chosen successors, while Stephenson just kinda stayed on, changing his 'life' every now and then so that no-one would catch on that he was immortal."
"Wow," Cordelia breathed. "Wild."
* * * *
The Fireking Obayana gazed into the depths of his scrying crystal. He could make no sense of the auguries he saw inside it. Something was supposed to be happening, he vaguely thought. But it wasn't. What the heaven was going on? What was he thinking of, anyways. Nothing was going wrong. Everything was fine. His vampires were in charge of the Hellmouth. Nothing could stop Demon Samael's plans.
* * * *
"Are you kidding," Buffy breathed, staring at Mister Chase. "Sunnydale is your home town, Mister Chase." A blank and confused look came back to her from the clothing and beauty mogul. "Where you lived, since you were like in your twenties or something. Where Cordelia grew up."
No obvious response. The Slayer sighed and tried once again. "It's not a very big town, in a valley about 2 hours north of here, just off the coast."
"Hmm..." Lear shook his head, sinking down onto the couch. "Well, none of this, um, really seems familiar. But, well, it would really explain a few things."
"Uh... like what??" Willow asked, taking the cue to sit down and fluffing a lock of short reddish-gold hair behind her ear.
"Well, the fact that nobody here could seem to remember where I lived," Lear Chase admitted. "That's why I got this suite here next to the main office."
"Actually, I think the Chase Fashions Incorporated main office is in Sunnydale too," Angel commented as an aside. "The Los Angeles unit was just a branch office."
"Really?" Chase said with a bemused smile. "Uh, so, any idea what may have caused this strange memory lapse of so many people??"
"It probably has something to do with the Fireking," Willow commented. "He's, um, a magical half-vampire child who's taken over Sunnydale. He's already demonstrated some unbelievable magical power. Maybe he's been able to wipe Sunnydale out of the thoughts of anyone not inside it!"
"But why do we remember it, then?" Buffy asked.
"Because we were there when the Fireking made his move, or close enough," Willow suggested. "Right at the foot of the Dome."
"More than that," Angel suggested. "The Fireking's working for Demon Samael, remember, and Samael lives to toy with the forces of good as much as spreading evil across the mortal globe. The game's the thing with him. We're the champions of good - we have to remember what the Fireking has done or the game's no fun."
"So he gets to watch us go crazy," Buffy realized. "The only sane ones in the Asylum. Just great."
"Hillside boulevard!" Lear burst out. "We had a house on Hillside boulevard. Was that in Sunnydale?"
"Yeah!" Willow exclaimed, pleased. "A big house!"
"And the office was a four-story building - all Chase Fashions. My secretary's name was Miriam... bits and pieces are coming back to me, Buffy. But... well, why did you come to see me? I gather you didn't expect me to have forgotten about Sunnydale."
"No," Buffy admitted. "Once, you offered to lend your money and influence to my fight, if I ever needed you. Given all that we're up against, I thought we would be needing to take you up on it soon, though I'm not sure how."
"Of course," Lear said with a smile. "I'll give you my personal cell phone number - you can call me on it any time of the day or night - don't worry. I'll get you anything that you need." He sighed, happy to have been able to help. "So... can I offer you the hospitality of my humble abode tonight?"
Buffy considered that. "No, we need to be heading off tonight, I think. Thank you for the offer."
"Right now?"
"Well..." Buffy thought about that.
"We could hang for a bit," Willow allowed. "I'm a little hungry, actually. Though I don't want to be a bother, if you want to get back to sleep..."
"Nonsense. What would you like?" Chase asked, getting up and crossing over towards the kitchen.
* * * *
"Well, that went well, I think," Vanessa decided. They had negotiated a general alliance between the Sunnydale Resistance and the Mayor's special defense force. As much as Xander disliked what he had heard about the 'Founding Fathers' - keeping the secret of Sunnydale's mystic dangers, encouraging unsuspecting innocents to move to the supernatural deathtrap of the Hellmouth without regard for how many of them became monster food, just to satisfy their 'vow' to a handful of soldiers dead now for more than a century. As far as Xander was concerned, they should have evacuated Sunnydale long since. Wait a second, he had left an 'as much' incompleted back there. Oh, right. As much as yadda yadda, the resistance and the founding fathers shared a common goal now - liberating Sunnydale from the vampires, or failing that to reduce the human casualty rates.
"Yes, I suppose," Tojo agreed. "What is the time?"
"Uh..." Vanessa looked at her watch. "Well, would you look at that. Bang on midnight. The witching hour, hehe. Not," she disclaimed, "that the stroke of midnight by Pacific Daylight time has anything to do with witchcraft. Except setting the mood, sometimes."
"The things you learn," Xander commented. "Well, I think it's past time for the three of us to be running along to our order-assigned barracks."
"Yeah, definitely," Cordelia agreed. "If the vampires realize that I'm gone, there's gonna be, well, you-know to pay."
"I think we're good for now, but you're right," Vanessa agreed. And, as if on some horrible cue, just then some people appeared from around a street corner. Not people. Vampires. Five vampires.
"What are you doing here?" the lead vampire called out. "This is a curfew area, this time of the night."
"Even though it's always night," another vamp called out, leaning back to look at the pentacle of the Dome arching overhead and cackling.
"Right here," the head vampire called. "I dunno if you were looking for a tour in detention, but that's what you've got!"
"We can't let them take us in," Xander whispered. "They'll figure out who we are."
"Can't run," Vanessa replied. "They'll overtake us before too long."
"Well, guess this is it," Xander muttered back. Stepping forward, he walked towards the vampires, waited until lead guy went to restrain him, and elbowed the vampire in the face. "Take that!!"
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