Mr. Gordo, Where Are You?
(Chapter 1)
DATE: 7/03
SUMMARY: Sunnydale is at the bottom of a huge crater. Where is Mr.
Gordo?
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Chosen
A/N: Download the Scooby Doo font
“And
that wraps it up for the Liam O’Connor file.”
A
well dressed Being let out a sigh. “It’s
about time, Petersen. You’ve only
been at that project for over two centuries now.”
Petersen
kept his head down as he spoke. “I’m
sorry, Sir. It’s been a difficult
case.”
The
Head Being waved his hand in dismissal and turned his attention to Patrick.
“Mr. MacPherson?”
Patrick’s
head shot up. “Yes Sir?”
“Well,
don’t keep us waiting. How did
you wrap up your assignment?”
No
one enjoyed the quarterly meetings. They
especially hated the post-apocalypse run downs, such as this one.
Apocalypses tended to make Mr. Harten terribly crabby and his anxiety
naturally trickled downward to his staff. During
the last meeting of its kind, they lost two of their colleagues due to, as Mr.
Harten put it, “extreme lack of vision and creativity.”
“Yes,
of course. Miss Summers, junior.
She is enrolled in high school in a new state, far from the Cleveland
Hell Mouth, and is doing quite well. We’ve
managed to find her a boyfriend of human descent, whose parents are just as
blind to the supernatural as her parents were.”
He leaned in conspiratorially. “I
know how you’ve wanted to keep her from sharing her sister’s fate in love,
Sir.” Patrick gave his boss a
toothy grin, but it did not last long as Harten showed no interest at all in the
blatant ‘sucking-up’.
“Good,
very good.”
At
that, Harten’s employees began packing up their papers and belongings.
Some stood to leave, while others stayed to chat a bit with their
cohorts.
“Sit!”
growled the large man. Without
hesitation, they all did just that. Petersen
sat too quickly and missed his chair.
“We
have yet to discuss one more issue, ladies and gentlemen.”
At that, he swiveled his head and focussed his eyes on a small man with
mousy brown hair who had not moved. All
eyes followed his, and within milliseconds, the entire room was staring at the
poor soul in the corner. Even
Petersen looked at his from his position on the ground.
“Thank
you for the floor, sir,” Peter Phillips said in a small voice.
Harten
gave a brief, yet heartfelt smile and nodded his head for the gentleman to
continue. No one had been able to
figure out, when Mr. Harten hated his own friends, why he would take such a
liking to a nothing man like Phillips.
He
cleared his voice. “Mr. Gordo.”
They
all looked at each other in confusion. Some
mumbled the question, others asked it outright.
“Who?”
Mr.
Harten intervened. “Surely you
remember Miss Summers’ stuffed pig?” Had
Phillips asked, they would have denied it.
However, there wasn’t a soul in that room who would admit to any sort
of knowledge deficit in front of the Big Cheese.
They all nodded their heads and murmured phrases like, “oh, of
course!” and “oh, that Mr.
Gordo!”
Mr.
Phillips retook the floor. “Well,
I’ve had quite the problem placing him in his new life since the
apocalypse.” He stopped talking
and the room sat at the edge of their seats waiting for him to continue.
Mr.
Harten was not amused. “Mr.
Phillips, please tell us what you have done with the pig.”
“Well,
you see, there was the explosion…a-a-and before that, the truck, and
then…”
Harten
interrupted his stammering with a booming voice. “You have no idea where he is, do you?”
“Um,
not exactly, Sir.” MacPherson
ducked under the table while several others placed their briefcases over their
heads, awaiting the inevitable plaster shower that usually began once Harten
started pounding on the walls.
“Well,
why don’t you tell us what you do know.”
He sounded angry, sure enough, but Phillips was still alive…and in one
piece. That was more consideration
than any other employee ever received from the boss.
“Yes,
of course, Sir. You see, it all
started…”
***************************
It
had been an interesting confrontation between Riley and Angel.
They had fought each other in a match driven by testosterone and
jealousy. Essentially, Riley won
First Place, and Angel won a proper seeing off by his ex-girlfriend, who assumed
he had returned to L.A. like a good little vampire.
He hadn’t. Angel figured
as long as he had lost the girl, he at least had the right to take home
something. A souvenir, one might
say.
Angel
knew exactly what he was after when he stealthily entered the dorm room.
“Aha” he thought to himself. The
pink prize sat on Buffy’s pillow, his snout a little worse for wear, but still
the pig he met two years ago in his girlfriend’s bedroom.
He slowly made his way over to the bed, then stooped over and picked up
the stuffed animal. “Hello, Mr.
Gordo. Miss me?”
Uh-oh.
It was that Dark One again. He
had been here just a minute ago fighting with the Fishy One.
Gordo hoped he wasn’t here to fight with him as well.
“You
and me are gonna be friends now, okay? I
need something to remember her by.”
He
looked kind of…sad. Isn’t that
how Big Ones feel when their mouths turn down like that? And what did he mean, remember her? He always was a silly Big One.
Just
as Angel began to stand back up with his trophy in hand, he heard a very
familiar voice from behind him. “So,
the criminal returns to the scene of the crime, huh?”
Angel
stood to his full height and turned to glare at Riley.
“That didn’t even make sense.”
Riley
knew it was a bit lame, but had hoped that the vampire wouldn’t notice.
“Next
time try something called wit. I
find it works well with girls like Buffy.”
“Shut-up
and tell me what you’re doing back here.
You have no right to be in Buffy’s life anymore, let alone in her
room.”
Angel
just grinned like the cat who ate the canary.
“I don’t get it. Do you
want me to shut-up, or do you want me to tell you why I’m here?
‘Cuz I can’t do both, you know.”
That
smile grated on Riley’s last nerve and he longed to wipe it off Angel’s
face. But, no.
It wouldn’t do to go gettin’ Buffy mad again.
So, he stood his ground and simply glared at the man.
“Just
came by to pick up something. Now
that I have it, I’ll be on my way, Riley Finn.”
He ground out the last two words with as much contempt as he could
muster.
Riley
looked at the leather-clad arms, noting a fluffy bit of pink sticking out.
It was that stuffed animal Buffy was so fond of.
“Hey! Not so fast, there. You’ve
got something of Buffy’s.”
Mr.
Gordo panicked. It seemed as if
Dark One was about to take him away from his Girl.
That wasn’t right. That
wouldn’t do. He breathed a sigh
of relief when it seemed as if Fishy was going to save him.
Riley’s
arm darted forward to grab the pig, but Angel was too fast and blocked the
attack. “Eh, eh, eh.
No touching my pig. He
doesn’t like you anyhow.”
Gordo
wondered to himself how Dark One could possibly know that.
He hadn’t told him.
“Why
do you have to be such a jack ass, Angel? You
left her. She moved on.
Get over it, man. Don’t go stealin’ her childhood toys. How pathetic can you get?”
Suddenly,
Angel slipped into game face, frightening the pig in his arms.
“Oooo!”
“Do
not dare lecture me, Boy.
I’m taking Mr. Gordo and that’s that.”
Angel leaped for the window, opened it and prepared to jump.
In
between feeling anger at being called “Boy” again and wondering what a Gordo
was, Riley managed to notice Angel making his escape. He dove for the man, accidentally clocking him in the face.
This did not make Angel happy at all.
Within three seconds, fists and pigs were flying.
Well, four fists and just the one pig.
And, in all the commotion, said pig met with a forceful fist and flew
right out the window.
************************
Mr.
Harten, in a rare moment of concern, shouted at the little man.
“Then what happened!?”
“Oh, then it got even worse.”
************************
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