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Title: IT Chapter: Nine/? Rating: R Spoilers: Up to and including the last season shown. Beta Reader: Scotty Welles Shadow Mage Summary: Alt-Buffy/IT verse and crossover. What if Willow was the seventh member of the choosen group instead of Ben. Disclaimer: Nope, don't belong to me. Stephan King owns IT. <><><><><><><> Summer Of 1989 <><><><><><><> Willow squinted at the ground, eyeing the pegged strings she'd stretched out to outline the underground clubhouse she was going to build. On the outside she'd suggested it in case they needed to hide. All they had to do was glue leaves and grass and shrubbery onto the top and no one would ever know the difference. But inside, she realized, it was for a different purpose. When they were ready, when things had finally reached the climax, they were going to have to use it as a smoke hut. The vision quest was their only real hope of getting positive answers, or to at least direct them in the right direction. Right now they were scattered chaotically, with no real path to follow. Under the Godzilla-sized tree that was their shade, she could hear Richie babbling in his 'southern hick' voice. Bill was ignoring him, watching the clouds go by. Beverly was sitting against the tree, watching her work. Stan and Eddie were reading some old comics that Stan had brought down. She picked up the measuring tape and remeasured the diameter. Satisfied that it was small, but would hold the seven of them comfortably, she picked up the shovel. Richie was beside her in an instant, picking up another shovel and helping her dig. Soon all of them were pitching in, digging where she directed. She followed behind them taking her shovel and evening out the sides of the square. Constantly taking her measuring tape and walking around mumbling to herself. Within the hour she'd called a hold, double- and triple-checking the measurements. Her brow was furrowed, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she squinted up at the sun. After a long moment, she muttered under her breath and nodded once. "That's it." Bill grinned widely and whooped excitedly. Every inch of accomplishment they made was exciting, reinvigorating all of them. They glanced over wearily as they heard someone approaching. The lean figure burst out of the bushes and dropped a picture album to the ground under the tree. "Hey, Mikey." Richie grinned widely. "What are you standing there for? Get over here and give us a hand." Mike relaxed and returned the grin. "What do I do?" Richie cocked his head at Willow, a tinge of red coloring his ears. "What do we do, mistress?" She snorted at the laughing group, and sauntered over to Oz, running her fingertips through his spiky red hair. Her left arm draped loosely around his shoulder. "If you're a good boy, maybe I'll tell you." Wolf whistles and yips of laughter broke her carefully controlled face. She grinned widely, enjoying her ability to make him blush so easily, and threw a couple of boards down to Stan. "Let's get the floor built." They fell into an easy rhythm; boards were placed, hardware fastened tightly on them, directions called out with confidence. The boys had long since shed their shirts, sweat dripping from their summer-tanned chests. Willow gritted her teeth as they put the last of the thick boards on for the roof, staring at it wearily she walked onto it, bouncing on her feet to test the strength of them. The others had backed away to give her space, waiting for her go ahead. The wood was solid under her feet, but still she walked over every inch of it, searching for any sign of weakness. There were none. She turned to the trap door leading into the pit, and cautiously stepped onto it. The wood held under her, no give at all. She finally looked up at them and smiled. "We did it." Richie did a jig around the group, scooping Willow up and swinging her sweat-soaked body around as he passed her. She squeaked indignantly as he squeezed her in a death grip, and he buried his nose in her hair. 'Okay, this is weird.' He sat her back down and danced her around the clubhouse, humming loudly and sourly. She threw her head back and laughed, winking over at Beverly as she glared jealously at Oz. Beverly grinned sheepishly back at her. She managed to pry away from Oz, and used her arm to pull his head down playfully. "So now what?" Bill became deathly serious, sneaking a look at Mike. The group's cheer gave way to a maturity that they shouldn't have known at such a young age. They sat down under the tree as Stan caught Mike up. Telling him about Pennywise, and the murders. Mike looked up from the ground when Stan was finished and nodded in acknowledgement. "I saw him twice, once on the fourth of July and the other...he was a bird." His father was a man of history. When they'd moved to Derry, he'd started to collect old photos of the town, reading up on the history, getting copies of old newspaper clips of stories that especially struck him. Putting them all neatly and lovingly into a large photo album. One of the stories he was most interested in was the old ironworks plant. On Easter Sunday of 1890, they held an Easter egg hunt for all the children in Derry. After the year of murders and disappearances they had hoped it would be good for the town. For the hunt inside the gigantic plant, they'd taken the precautions of putting up barriers on all the dangerous areas, putting employees at each one to make sure that no one that tried to get in anyway. The plant was filled with over five hundred boys and girls, all looking for the candy-filled eggs. Mothers and fathers trailed after them, gossiping and laughing. An hour into the hunt something went wrong, blowing up the plant and everyone in it. Twisted metal and shrapnel shot out over the town. Blood and pieces of bodies sprayed into back yards, onto houses, and the head of a young boy landed in the front passenger seat of a convertible driving by. For hours, rescue workers shifted through the rubble, searching desperately trying to find some sign of life. They found themselves working from late morning well into the night, and they'd only sorted through a fourth of the demolished building. Any hope of survivors had died long before they'd called it quits for the night. Body parts strewn in bloody messes, they were having trouble finding any bodies that were still in one piece. In the end they recovered all the bodies, except for eight children and one adult. Eddie shivered. "My mother told me about that. The explosion wiped out half the town." Mike had found a note one morning from his father. He'd done all his chores, and his father had to go to town for some meeting. His dad had suggested that he ride over to the ironworks, and chose a souvenir. The excitement of exploring the old ruins was enough to make the mile-long trip seem longer, but when he finally got there he changed his mind. The enormous spread of dirt and rubble went back farther than he could see. The land was eerily silent and gave the impression of being haunted. Wind danced through the metal and pipes, creating a thick whistling to pierce through the quiet. He stepped carefully around splintered drawers from old desks; legs from chairs lay split in two sticking out of the ground. Metal twisted in spirals that shouldn't have been possible, burnt and charred, sharpened into a razor-edged point. Pipes stuck out of the ground at slants, cracked, and one pipe about sixty feet long and four feet in diameter laid on its side, the bottom end sticking our of the side of a hill. Tiles were scattered around in slivers and cracks. Mike swallowed back his fear, feeling the presence of the dead around him. He leaned over and picked up a gauge, stuffing it into his pocket. He'd found a souvenir, now he wanted to get the hell out of there. An inhuman squawk came from behind him. Instinctively he ducked to the ground. Then, when nothing appeared, he quickly got back to his feet and ran, hard. Behind him, the orange-chested robin the size of a horse trailer soared towards him, its claws extended. Mike sped up and dived towards the pipe as claws ripped into his shirt. He screamed out from clenched teeth as he slid into the pipe, then scrambled deeper into it over broken tile. Getting to his knees, he turned back to the entrance, staring at the beak that was stuck in the hole, snapping at him. The bird's tongue was black, with an orange pom-pom on it. He backed away until he hit the dirt keeping him about four feet from the bird's snapping beak. In the dark, he reached around him for something to use, and his hand scraped across a sharp edge of tile. His instinct was to jerk away, but he latched onto it, pulling his hand back and throwing it. The sharp edge flew into its mouth, slicing the tongue until black blood poured out. It screeched, hurting his ears inside the pipe. Again he reached for a piece of tile, grabbing a handful of them this time. He threw them one after another, hitting the bird's mouth, part of its head, and with the last tile, its eye. The eyeball popped in a sickening squash that made the bird reel back. He grabbed more tile and waited for it to come back. He had no idea how long he sat there waiting, but by the time he'd gotten home, five hours had passed. Willow asked quietly, "What about the other time?" "It happened during the July fourth parade, I'm in the school band. While we were marching through downtown, I saw him. He was standing on the corner in this silver suit with orange pom-poms, and his makeup was..." He shivered. "He was handing out balloons to all these babies and little kids, except they were bawling like they were scared. "Then, when we went around the next block, I saw him again. I thought it was a different guy, but he looked exactly the same. Then as we passed, he looked up, right at me. He blinked and his teeth seemed to grow into two-inch long, razor-sharp fangs. He gave me the finger." "I don't get it." Stan glared harshly at them. "If this clown is the killer, than why the hell doesn't he just kill us? Why would he spend so much time trying to scare us?" Willow shook her head in frustration. "Don't you get it? Every time a Glamour has been around, seven children who were chosen battled it. Those seven were the only ones that could kill it. We are those seven." Stan paled, his face a bright white, and shook his head rapidly. "No, I won't do it. I won't. I can't." Willow sharply cut him off. "It knows. It knows who we are, it knows we can kill it, and it's scared. Which means we're going to have to act soon. Now, shut up and sit there, unless you have something productive to say!" Stan stared at her, stunned, and nodded. "Yeah, all right." Willow sighed, wondering how the hell were they going to pull this one off? <><><><><><><> "I-I-I w-w-was thinking." Willow glanced over at Oz for some clue as to what Bill was talking about, but he simply shrugged. They had gone decided to go over to the park and look around. The others had already left for home, so it was just the three of them. "W-w-when y-y-you s-s-shot i-i-it i-i-in w-w-were-w-wolf f-f-form a-a-and s-s-said t-t-they w-w-were s-s-silver..." "Bullets, it screamed out in pain," she finished, catching onto the idea. "But where are we going to get any? We can't walk into a store and buy any." Bill grinned a shit-eating grin and slapped her on the back. "Y-y-you'll m-m-make t-t-them." Willow stopped staring at the two boys in shock. "You're kidding, right?" she burst out. "What do I look like, the Lone Ranger? Hey, I want to help, and I'm a really smart girl and all, but making bullets is a little beyond me! I mean, that involves ballistics and armoring and metallurgy and all kindsa things don't anything about!" She snorted. Even if she got it slightly wrong, they might not fire...or worse, they might blow up in the hand of whoever tried to shoot them. Hell no, as Stan would say. Uh-uh, no way in hell. Too dangerous. Hell would freeze over first, pigs would fly, mules would... <><><><><><><> "L-l-looks g-good, K-k-kemo-s-sabe," Bill said, admiring her handiwork. She glared up at Bill as she opened the first mold. The silver ball bearing rolled out onto the table. They'd all agreed that making silver bullets wasn't going to happen, and in their minds silver ball bearings were the second best thing. Tossing the light silver ball over to Bill, watching amusedly as he bounced it from hand to hand trying to catch it, she asked smugly, "So now what, Big Bill?" "N-n-now, w-w-we k-k-k-kill t-t-the s-s-son of a b-b-bitch." <><><><><><><> " I signed the release waiver, so feel free to put things in my slot anytime." - Charles Angels. Odo: Madam Ambassodor, I'm not like you. Every sixteen hours I revert to a liqiud. Lwaxana Troi: I can swim. - DS9: The Forsaken. Aeris Jade Orion list mommy: erslash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx erslash-adult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx AIM: Aeris Jade ICQ: 51496263 AT&T/Pow-Wow: Jade Pow-Wow Community: Orion Web Site: http://members.fortunecity.com/aerissword/Index.html |