• The site has now migrated to Xenforo 2. If you see any issues with the forum operation, please post them in the feedback thread.
  • An addendum to Rule 3 regarding fan-translated works of things such as Web Novels has been made. Please see here for details.
  • RIP @Silver Swallow
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
  • The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.

As A Consequence Of Your Action (Jumpchain) (Complete)

View content
2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 2) New
  • View content
    • Buffy POV:

    The new kid was weird.

    I know, I know. Hypocritical much, Buffy? Seeing as how I was 'new kid' too, and despite my best efforts I'd also shown up on the local weird radar a lot sooner than I'd have wished to. Stupid Slayer reflexes and stupid snooty head cheerleaders who grabbed people from behind without announcing themselves first!

    But yeah, the other transfer student who'd been processed in at the same time I was? Weird. First off, Principal Flutie was all judge-y about my transcript - look, don't blame me for 'mice chewing through the electrical wires', that's what the fire marshal had written down about why the gym had burned! - but Jonathan's had sailed through without a second glance. He was the straight-A student with the perfect disciplinary record while I was-

    Any-hoo, something had to be fake about that guy.

    First off, he was cut. And I mean cut cut. Not football player cut, not even basketball or soccer player cut. I'd been a cheerleader, so I knew what high school athletes were built like. Jonathan wasn't built like them. Now, he was still a little lanky in places but his muscle definition looked like somebody had stretched human skin over a bunch of coiled steel cables. I'd never quite seen anybody built like that before, and it certainly wasn't from any kind of workout program I'd ever heard of. Not even mine.

    Second off was the way he walked. That wasn't unfamiliar at all. In fact, I was really familiar with that walk because I was the only other student in the school I knew had it. That was the 'ready to fight at any minute' walk, the one that guaranteed you could get into a good fighting stance at a moment's notice even if you were totally blitzed from behind. The "I've totally been in combat before." walk. I had it from being the Slayer and from Merrick's training and my several months' of fighting vampires already in LA, so where did he get it from? That wasn't even 'I've been in a gang' level combat readiness. Pike had been in a gang - mostly - and he hadn't had it.

    Third off was his name. "Jonathan". Not John, but Jonathan. He wasn't remotely English - I definitely know what that accent sounds like - so why did he always insist on the English pronunciation? It wasn't hardly as huge a thing of the weird as some of the other things on the list, but whenever you made a mental list you always put all the things on the list so here's this one.

    Fourth off was his lack of pigeonhole. He was far too athletic to be a nerd or a geek, but he wasn't remotely rah-rah enough to be a jock. His grades were waaaay too high for a burnout - if he really had straight-As in everything all the way back on his transcript to the start then only Willow could match that kind of performance - but see above re: not being a nerd or a geek. And the absolute last thing he was was average, so forget faceless masses. He did not fit any of the cliques at all, and he wasn't even trying to. What sort of sixteen-year-old boy didn't want to fit in at least a little? Even Xander's own nonconformism was actually pretty conforming as far as towards acting out against certain stereotypes he hated!

    And last was Jonathan's social interaction. He was broody. Like, mega-broody. He was the king of brood, and I couldn't imagine meeting anyone else even half as broody as him. He wasn't rude, he was actually kinda nice and formal, but he did not want to get close to anybody. Not even us new kids and fellow weirdos. I mean, even though he was really handsome and all, brushing off anyone who tries to be friendly when you're new kid? Still not a survival strategy.

    "So, what do you think's up with him?" I asked the gang as me and Xander and Jesse and Willow were all at our usual lunchroom table. It was a week or so after that whole eugggggh with the Harvest had happened. There'd been fewer vampires there than we'd been expecting, at least, so that was of the good, but even so anything to do with vampires was always of the bad. Still, being caught in the middle of the Bronze by a vampire attack had shocked Xander and Willow into realizing just how nasty the things that went bump in the night were, even if Jesse was still trying to stay in Sunnydale Syndrome.

    "He's a stuck-up jerk?" Jesse said dismissively. "Guy thinks he's better than everyone."

    "I don't know," Willow said plaintively. "I mean, stuck-up people are usually angry at other people who invade their personal space, but he's not. He's just... sad."

    "Not angry? Tell that to Percy!" Jesse replied while I kept sitting back and watching the byplay. Sometimes my new friends were better than television.

    "Oh, are you actually upset that Percy West got his butt kicked?" Xander said sarcastically. "Really? How many lockers did he use to try and stuff us in?"

    "I don't think we can fairly call it a 'butt kicking'." I chimed in, being something of a resident authority on violence. "Jonathan gave him a verbal warning even after Percy had grabbed him by the collar, then put him in that funky one-handed wrist-lock after Percy started to shake him even after getting his warning. And he didn't hit Percy once after that but just kept holding him in place until a teacher got there. That's what they call a 'proportionate and restrained response' in the violence department, and that's not something an angry amateur does."

    "Y'know, Buff, I think you're on to something." Xander said thoughtfully, pointing over at Jonathan. "Because can anybody tell me what's wrong with that picture?"

    "He's... getting up to leave?" Willow asked confusedly.

    "He finished his lunch in five minutes." Xander pointed out. "Like he does every day. The only other place I've ever seen people eat like that is in a boot camp movie."

    "So, you think he went to military school or something?" Jesse asked.

    "If he wasn't the same age we were I'd almost think it was actual military." I agreed. "Because, yeah, you're right. That is the vibe I've been trying to catch off of him and missed so far."

    "Buffy, don't you have cheerleading tryouts this afternoon?" Willow suddenly remembered.

    "Ahh! You're right!" I said frantically. "Why didn't you guys remind me earlier?!?"

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    I'd been trying to keep away from the Scooby Gang as much as I could, but that was impossible when you were in their homeroom. Buffy and I had transferred in on the same day and to the same class year, after all. I imagine that's one of the reasons why my "Benefactor" had locked my age to where it had been.

    Still, just because we had social contact didn't mean we had to socialize, so I stuck with formal and broody - neither one being at all a stretch - to keep everything at a distance. I didn't quite have it in me to actually be an asshole to anyone undeserving, neither was I tactically stupid enough to deliberately burn any bridges this early, but I really wanted to take some "me" time.

    However, that was now tactically impossible. The plot of the third episode, 'Witch', was coming to a head. The show hadn't given exact dates so I hadn't known when Catherine Madison would actually do the body-switch with her daughter Amy to try and relive her youth again, or else this problem could have been solved with a discreet "random barbecue fork attack". As is, I didn't want to take the chance that I'd kill the wrong one. And that meant I wasn't going to be killing anyone.

    But neither could I just allow the events of the episode to happen without me because while they had solved it without me, it had occurred via unknowingly trapping Catherine Madison in a 'I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream' situation forever. And sure, she was a horrible and evil woman who wanted to steal the body of her own daughter, just like fucking Lucrezia had tried to-

    But even that wasn't enough to justify an eternity of sensory deprivation torture. I could kill a woman like that without a moment's hesitation- even if I wasn't going to because I didn't want the Scooby Gang chasing me out of town as the monster of the week, stupid comic book morality code- but I had my limits.

    And there was also the simple fact that even that particular victory of the Scooby Gang's had relied a whole lot on split second timing and luck. And given that I'd already been butterflying things, what with my own discreet thinning of the vampire herd outside the Bronze on the night of the Harvest, I could not just sit back and rely on even the tiniest things happening the same way. Because the prize for guessing wrong on this one would be Catherine Madison killing most or all of the gang as soon as she got forced back into her original body.

    Which is why, as soon as the near-miss accident in Driver's Ed with Cordelia Chase told me that the third episode had started, I knew that the day afterwards would be the final confrontation between the Scooby Gang and the witch in the science lab. So I made sure to 'just happen' on the scene in time, just as Catherine-in-Amy's-body was entering the scene with an axe, and of course I was able to easily put her on the floor. The gang was entirely shocked at my intervention there, and even more shocked when I was able to drop Catherine herself like a bad habit as soon as she was back in her rightful body. To be fair, once the spell keeping Buffy helpless had been dispelled at the same time the body-switch had been she could have done the same, but she was too busy covering her friends against the magical attack Catherine had been about to launch to get a shot in while I'd maneuvered for the flank attack. This is why it always helps to have two fighters rather than one.

    "Ummm..." Buffy began to stammer, apparently at a total loss for a reasonable explanation for this one.

    "Magic is real, she's a witch, you were fighting her." I said matter-of-factly. "But she's only out, not dealt with." I looked at Giles. "You're the ritualist, right?"

    "Among other things," he replied to me coolly, not surprisingly being the first person here to recover his equilibrium.

    "Then are you prepared to lay down a Savignon's Binding on this woman? Like, right now?" I said. "Because she needs to be wrapped up before she wakes up or else she'll toast us all. It's not like I can keep hitting her in the head repeatedly."

    "We were expecting to restrain a hostile witch today, if not quite that hostile." Giles agreed. "If you're familiar with the binding, do you practice the arts yourself?"

    "Only in the academic sense." I replied. "No potential for it at all."

    "What the what is going on here?" Buffy burst out beyond all endurance, while Amy still looked to be trying to reboot her brain and Xander and Willow were just silently staying in the background. Jesse had apparently begged off on the weird today or else was busy doing something else, I had no idea.

    "Mister Fairchild clearly has knowledge of the existence of the supernatural on his own." Giles said as he began to efficiently lay out the preparations for the upcoming ritual to bind away Catherine Madison's powers at least temporarily. "But it's not as if there aren't independent practitioners, as we just learned."

    "It's still really convenient you showing up just in the nick of time," Buffy glared at me.

    "Buffy, if I know enough about magic to know about binding spells then do you think I don't also know enough to have spotted yesterday in science class when you 'accidentally' spilled that eye of newt solution on Amy? The witch-finding solution?" I asked her. "And can somebody explain to me why she was trying to kill you with an axe a couple minutes ago, but as soon as you finish whatever ritual you're doing then she's the crazy one?" I pointed at Catherine. "Who is she, anyway?"

    "My mother," Amy said softly. "And she'd-" she shuddered. "She'd tried to steal my body, swap her mind with mine-"

    "Christ." I said meaningfully, and as sympathetically as I could. "I'm sorry. That's just-" I shook my head. "Are you all right?"

    "I'm fine," Amy said, in that tone of voice that meant 'No, I'm not, but thanks for asking.'

    "So." I said, sitting on a corner of the nearby desk and watching Giles finish the binding. "Are you good witches, or bad witches?" I deliberately invoked the Wizard of Oz to try and lighten the moment.

    "Can't you tell?" Xander said hammily. "Clearly we are all of us good witches." he finished, deliberately posing like a fairy-tale princess. That drew a laugh from all the girls present, even if Amy's was a little quavery.

    "You're gonna be fine, Amy." Buffy said to her compassionately as she went over to help her sit down. "It's over. We won."

    "Mr. Giles," I asked. "Is there a place that you can send temporarily or not-so-temporarily insane magical practitioners? Because the ordinary criminal justice system-"

    "After we'd determined that we'd almost certainly end up with a captive and evil witch at the end of this adventure, I'd already contacted some acquaintances of mine in Devon." Giles answered. "They're very powerful and experienced light witches. If anybody can help your mother overcome her corruption by dark magics, Miss Madison, then they can. And if they can't, at least they can make sure that she doesn't hurt anyone else."

    "But what are we going to tell people?" Amy asked. "What are we going to tell my dad?"

    "The truth, just not all of it." I said simply. "Your mom was on the edge for a long while without anyone noticing, and she finally flipped out and started attacking people. She attacked you about some crazy thing about trying to get her youth back, she attacked the girl who'd almost beaten you out on the cheerleading squad because she'd almost beaten you, she attacked everyone nearby because they were nearby. So she had to be restrained on the spot and Mr. Giles - the nearest teacher to the scene - arranged for her to be taken away and helped by some psychiatric specialists he happened to be personal friends with and thought would do a better job for her than the lousy state mental hospital would. But it was all done very very quietly, because the school didn't want any scandal or anything and neither did you."

    "You're good." Xander said appreciatively. "There isn't a single word of that that isn't true, and it still totally misleads everyone."

    "I can go summon the conventional authorities right now as soon as we all agree on a basic story to tell the police." Giles said to Amy. "The bindings on your mother will hold long enough that she can be safely restrained and certified by the local emergency room, and in my persona as a teacher I can recommend my 'highly talented specialists' acquaintances back in England to your father."

    "Okay, it's official." Buffy said to me crisply. "From now on you are composing all of my alibis."

    "In the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka, ma'am, there ain't no draft no more." I felt an impulse to snark back.

    "So you do have a sense of humor!" Willow said cheerfully. "You just don't show it to most people, but you did to us- and right after helping us fight, too! Well, clearly that makes us best friends now."

    "I-" I began to say before being cut off.

    "Nope, sorry, you have been officially friendship adopted by the Willow." Buffy said firmly. "You're not allowed to object. It is in the sacred by-laws!" she finished with a grin.

    Sonofa- how did this even happen?

    "Guys?" I said firmly. "You do not want me as a friend. Except for when it's time to be professional, I'm pretty much a terrible person to be around most of the time."

    "Because jokes from Bill Murray movies are the very epitome of professional." Xander said amusedly. Dammit, why the hell did I have to reference 'Stripes'?

    "Speaking as the number one favorite target for every mean girl in the zip code," Willow said insistently, "I know what terrible people look like. You don't."

    "... I'll think about it." I said after a long pause, committing to absolutely nothing.

    "Regardless of what you young people decide or don't decide about your personal lives... Mister Fairchild, I would very much appreciate a chance to speak to you later." Giles said. "Sunnydale is full of dangers both obvious and otherwise, and even if you are already aware of some of them-"

    "You don't want us at cross purposes by accident and you don't want me to get killed thinking I know something when I actually don't." I nodded. "That I can agree with. All right, tomorrow after school in the library?"

    "We'll all be there!" Buffy agreed.

    Greaaaaaaaaaat.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    "Looking for someone?" I said, coming silently up behind the young vampire hunter who'd been staking out an alley intersection half a block away from the Bronze. He was a tall, highly athletic teenaged boy armed with a broadsword in a back sheath, several wooden stakes and a large fighting-knife in a chest harness, and what might have been holy water vials in other loops in the bandolier. His equipment was too shiny and new to have been in this business for very long, and was entirely out of line with his age and his clothes, so I'd pegged him as some kind of preppy wannabe who'd just found out about the supernatural side of Sunnydale and thought that some workouts and tae-whatever classes made him Batman. And so I'd decided to go over and scare him straight.

    An intention that died the instant I spoke, because even if his stealth wasn't quite up to the best hunter standards and his situational awareness wasn't quite up to dealing with someone who'd been in the game as long as I had there was still absolutely nothing wrong with his reflexes. He'd pivoted and reoriented on me faster than some vampires I'd known could have, let alone virtually any normal human I'd ever met before. But he clearly wasn't a vampire and almost certainly wasn't any kind of demon I was remotely familiar with - his heartbeat, his scent, all of it spoke to warm, living human.

    And now those exceptional reflexes had a crossbow aimed directly at my chest. And now that he was facing me and I was seeing him in an alert posture, his stance and wariness suggested a lot more combat experience and mental focus than a boy his age should have or that I'd have remotely given him credit for. And his eyes- his eyes were old. Far older than his body. I had very much underestimated him. I tensed and got ready to do an arrow-catch, or at the very least to let it impale my forearm rather than my chest, and switched to trying diplomacy.

    "I'm not what you think I am." I tried. "And-"

    "I can see the 'no reflection' in that puddle." he said calmly.

    "If you know that, then why aren't we already fighting?" I asked him simply.

    "I'm not entirely sure of your name, but your face is familiar. And the local word on the street is that you're a 'vampire with a soul'." the boy replied. "But what does that mean?"

    "Exactly what it sounds like." I said, dropping the attempt to sound charming and just being matter-of-fact. "You clearly know about Sunnydale's night life-"

    "I'm not dressed like this because it's Halloween, no." the boy replied sardonically.

    "-so you know we don't usually have them. But I was cursed with one."

    "Fuck." he said, his eyes opening wide with realization as he tensed even further for immediate fight-or-flight. "You're Angelus."

    "Angel." I corrected him firmly, and then slumped down in shame. "But... yeah. I was." I shook my head. "You're far too young to have been touched directly by anything I did, but- grandparents? Great-grandparents? Family tradition?"

    "Call it part of the grieving process." he replied, clearly understanding that I'd ultimately been asking about why he'd become a hunter in the first place. And- damn it! Yes, as tightly controlled as his expression was, it was certainly something I'd seen before. That iron control stretched as tightly as a mask over the screaming, gaping void inside caused by having lost everything you'd ever loved. The face that I'd loved creating on victim after victim, until I finally ran into-

    I felt every minute of my two-hundred-plus years crash down upon me as I finally pinned down my growing sense of deja vu. Standing before me was not a boy but a young man. A young man whose intense drive, whose nigh-superhuman mental focus and whose exceptional reflexes and intellect, I'd seen only once before in a human being. A young man who despite his relative lack of years and experience had still somehow undergone the same torment and loss at someone else's hand that Daniel Holtz had undergone at mine. A young man who was walking down the same road that Holtz gone down.

    And I already knew where that road ended.

    "I'm sorry." I said as honestly as I could.

    "So am I." he replied flatly, the crossbow still aimed.

    "How long ago?" I asked him.

    "... less than a year." he answered. "But I'd already been training for something else before then. I adapted." he replied, and I felt the complete honesty in his words.

    "You can't fill a hole in your soul by piling bodies into it." I told him earnestly. "Trust me, I know."

    "I know too." he said, surprising me. "But it still beats just sitting and being alone with my- being alone." he trailed off. "Even if I'm not really helping myself any with the hunting, I'm still helping." he finished tightly.

    "That's true." I said to him respectfully, impressed that even in the middle of his own pain he could still spare any thought at all to trying to spare others from it. That was certainly something Holtz had never managed.

    "Fuck," he swore, and lowered and uncocked his crossbow. "If I'm not going to use this, then I shouldn't be aiming it."

    I thought over possible responses. I really was not any good at this. I finally decided on a simple "1750 Crawford Street."

    "... your address?" the young hunter asked me.

    "You're not ready to talk yet." I said matter-of-factly, the sheer deja vu of this encounter and one of the most regretful pieces of my old, old history having been brought to mind again by this night having made me think a little about the larger picture instead of focusing on my immediate Sunnydale concerns. "But you still need to talk to someone. Maybe that someone could be me." I shrugged. "I certainly bring a different point of view than your classmates, at least."

    "Ain't that the truth." he snorted, and then scratched his chin in thought. "Did you know about the attempt at the Harvest the other week?"

    "I'm the one who warned the Slayer about it." I told him. "Did you know she's in town?"

    "I was there, even if I wasn't with her." he asked. "Why weren't you?"

    "Having a soul..." I chose my words carefully. "It gives me a choice. But it doesn't necessarily make those choices easy. I still hear the demon every day. It still tempts me. I can walk around normally, interact with people normally, but during a fight-?"

    "You don't 100% trust your instincts to be safe around civilians if you're already in beast mode." he nodded. "So you stick to solo hunting and being an informant."

    "That's it." I agreed.

    He stood and paused in thought for a while. "You not only spotted me but you got the drop on me, and I didn't have a clue about either until it was too late. Would you mind telling me what I did wrong?"

    "I'd love to." I replied.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: If any of you called 'Angel as mentor figure' before this installment, y'all are filthy filthy liars. *g*

    But really, look at Jonathan through Angel's own experiences and mental lens. Who would he look like? Damn straight Angel would want to try and work off a little of his own guilt there. And Angel really is damn good at what he does. Do not forget that his early Buffy performance was him being massively emotionally compromised. If shocked out of that by something, then he'd be more like he was on his own show. Which was, y'know, pretty goddamn badass. You don't get to be one of the most feared vampires in all history by collecting bottlecaps.

    As for who Daniel Holtz is, he was the arc villain on Angel season 3 (time travel plot) and he was by far, hands down, the single deadliest and most implacable mortal vampire hunter to ever live in the Buffyverse. You wished Dr. Van Helsing was on your ass instead of this guy. He ran Angelus and Darla straight out of Europe for decades.

    The binding ritual is OC fanon stuff.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 3) New
  • View content
    • Giles POV:

    Young Mister Fairchild showed up as agreed the next day, right on the dot. Buffy and all of her friends save Mr. McNally, whose initial reaction to discovering the supernatural had been to withdraw from its ugliness rather than embrace the fight against it, were with me and waiting for him. Miss Madison had chosen to attend as well.

    Given that I was merely the librarian my position on the faculty should not have granted me access to student transcripts. But with the notoriously lax administration of Sunnydale High School as the only obstacle in my path I'd found it a simple enough task to access them anyway. However, Jonathan Fairchild's documentation was more than a bit scanty and unhelpful. Outside of his status as an emancipated minor, his apparent ability to cover his living expenses entirely out of his own financial resources, and a prior address and an incomplete transcript from a secondary school in San Diego, there was virtually nothing. And a quick phone call to that school had produced the knowledge that while he was documented in their records there was no memory of him in the staff member's mind at all, which was rather an odd thing considering that his grades should have made him first in his year.

    It was clearly a false background, of course. Not necessarily a cause for alarm given how common such things were amongst demon hunters, but still a curious possession for a person his age to have. Even as incomplete as it was it was still quite the professional job, and the average high school student didn't remotely have the knowledge or the connections to set up such a thing. After my initial investigations last afternoon had turned up this data I'd had a quiet phone call with one of my contacts on the Council to see if our records contained any mention of him as a person of interest or if there was anything on the grapevine about increased freelance hunter interest in the Sunnydale Hellmouth, but I wasn't expecting any immediate results there.

    And so, this interview.

    "Good afternoon," I said to him as he came and took his seat at the end of the study table that was our usual conference site. I pursed my lips and tried to think of the most diplomatic way to phrase this-

    "So, what's up with you?" Buffy crashed into the conversation. I sighed and polished my glasses.

    Jonathan's lip quirked, but he confined himself to a simple "What's up with you?" in reply.

    I cleared my throat for attention and held up an empty manila file folder I'd had laid out in front of me as a prop. "You almost certainly won't be surprised to hear that what part of last afternoon and evening I hadn't required to make the arrangements for Mrs. Madison's care, I spent trying to investigate your background. My findings were... incomplete." I adjusted my glasses and gave him my best 'level yet not hostile' stare that I'd already been practicing on Buffy. "Is 'Jonathan Fairchild' the name on your original birth certificate?"

    "No," he said unhesitatingly and forthrightly, to the surprise of everyone at the table except me. I gave him a mental point for honesty.

    "May I ask what is?" I politely continued.

    "You may ask." he emphasized in the way that clearly meant 'But I'm not going to answer.' A part of my mind idly noted in passing that he was perhaps the only student in this high school who understood the correct grammatical distinction between 'You may' and 'You can'. Apparently the grades were not false even if the transcript was.

    "Well, such things are relatively common in the rogue demon hunter community." I readily acknowledged him, both to let him know that this wasn't a hostile interview but more importantly to cut off any of the young people before they leapt to the assumption that anyone who didn't share their true name was automatically an enemy.

    "What's a rogue demon?" Xander asked, almost inevitably on cue.

    "'Rogue' as in 'unaffiliated with larger and more established groups like the Watcher's Council'." Jonathan replied.

    "How did you know I was the Slayer?" Buffy asked him suspiciously. "Because we didn't tell you that!"

    "He spent last night in the school records and on the phone." Jonathan said, nodding his head towards me. "I spent it networking with an older hunter I'm acquainted with and then on the computer."

    "And what did you find out?" Willow asked him warily.

    Jonathan took a deep breath. "Buffy's been the Slayer for only a few months. Mr. Giles is her second Watcher, only assigned after you came to Sunnydale. Your first Watcher..." he gave her a sympathetic nod. "... died in the line of duty in Los Angeles. I'm sorry."

    "Yeah." Buffy said neutrally. "What else?"

    "That's mostly it." he shrugged. "Everybody else here besides you and Mr. Giles are friends you made after coming here, and are largely a support team. When you go patrolling you patrol alone."

    "You've been stalking me?" Buffy asked, one hand slipping underneath the table-

    "Buffy!" I firmly remonstrated her. I turned to Jonathan and nodded at him to keep talking.

    "No, I don't. But we're both out hunting vampires at night - I'm pretty sure that's obvious by this point - so occasionally we hunt the same places. I've seen you out on patrol a couple of times, and so has my new... associate." he replied to her.

    "And I've never seen either of you why?" Buffy said archly.

    "Because I don't have superpowers that help me overpower vamps straight-up, so I hunt them from ambush." he said matter-of-factly. "And how keen are vampire senses again, especially at night? If I'm successfully hiding from them then I'm certainly going to be hiding from you. As for the other guy, he's the one teaching me how to sneak better."

    "... okay, makes sense." Buffy said professionally, relaxing from her suspicion.

    "As you just mentioned," I said to him, "both yourself and Buffy are hunters. And you lack Slayer abilities or a regular hunting partner. Yesterday you mentioned the possibility of 'coordinating operations'...?" I left it subtly on the table.

    "He means 'Do you want to join?'" Xander asked him eagerly. I sighed again.

    Jonathan sat and visibly struggled with his thoughts before answering "... no thank you."

    "Huh?" Buffy said confusedly. "You think you might be being just a little cocky there, Lone Ranger?"

    Jonathan visibly cut himself off from an angry remark, and after a deep breath or two turned to me. "I'm not looking for new friends, and my personal life is my own to choose and so are my reasons. If we can't agree on that much respect for each other's boundaries, we couldn't be friends anyway."

    "... not even a little friendship?" Willow asked him with- Good Lord, he actually resisted the 'puppy dog eyes'. I didn't think that was possible.

    Jonathan reached into his school backpack and tore a sheet of paper out of his notebook, then tore it into two pieces. He wrote briefly on one of them and slid both pieces across the table to me. "That's my phone number. I'll get an answering machine for it. I don't live with anyone else so you don't have to worry about what you say. If there's an emergency where you need all hands on deck, if there's something business-related that you think I need to know about, use it. Or you can just talk to me in school, of course. Mr. Giles, could I have your phone number please?"

    "Of course," I agreed, and wrote it down on the blank sheet he'd given me and handed it back. "Do you have a similar contact information for your associate?"

    "That reminds me," he said, snapping his fingers. "He said I was allowed to tell you this, so here goes. My new... associate... isn't human, he's a demon. Who hunts other demons." he said, cutting off Buffy hurriedly.

    "That's not entirely unknown," I agreed, interrupting Buffy myself. "Do you happen to know what particular variety of demon he is?"

    "Cursed-to-have-a-soul vampire." he replied to the shock of everyone at the table.

    "Are you certain he's not lying?" I asked him after a long moment.

    "About the soul? I'm mostly sure he's not." he replied sensibly. "Like I told you yesterday, I can't do magic myself even if I know about it. So even if there was a 'soul detector' spell..." he trailed off in obvious invitation.

    "In point of fact there is one, and if you'll stop by the library tomorrow I'll have it enchanted on a small glass orb for you." I told him. "All you'll need to do is get him to hold it, and if he is truly ensouled it will glow. If not, then it won't."

    "You sure you won't want me along with you for that big confrontation?" Buffy asked him. "Y'know, just in case he flips out on you like a soulless monster after you find out he actually is one."

    "You've actually met him before, if briefly." Jonathan said. "Angel, the guy who tipped you off about the Harvest that one time. So, yeah, feel free to come." he nodded. "He asked me to help make actual introductions for him with you guys anyway. He was a little skittish about walking up to you himself before because-"

    "Slayer see vamp, Slayer slay vamp." Buffy nodded matter-of-factly.

    "So, everybody's being totally professional, but you still don't wanna hang out at all." Xander said. "Seriously, you think you aren't being just a bit of a "This is my city!" drama queen there Bruce?"

    "No I don't." he said flatly, grabbing his bag and getting up to leave. "Aaaaaand I think we're done here. See you guys around." he said, and spun and walked briskly out the door before anybody could say anything. Buffy pouted and Xander and Willow sat there in shock, but Amy got up and ran after him. I could just barely overhear what she said to him as she caught up to him at the library doors.

    "Jonathan!" she said, tugging on his arm. He turned to look at her with annoyance.

    "Look, I told you-" he began.

    "I just-" she broke off and collected herself before she could continue. "I came here to- you helped save my life yesterday. Thank you." she finished weakly.

    "Oh," he said, blushing with embarassment. "Um- sorry." he apologized to her. "And, you're welcome."

    "I don't know why you're hurting so much, but if you ever need a friendly ear-" she tried.

    "Amy, you're a very nice girl." he said as gently as he could. "But I am not a very nice guy. I spend pretty much my whole life now either training to kill things or actually killing things. You don't want to get into that."

    "But you don't want to get out of that?" she asked him intelligently. "Not even just for a little while?"

    "What I want..." he involuntarily began, before catching himself. "Isn't important any more." he finished tightly, and then he was gone.

    I sighed. I knew full well what the most common origin was for a freelance demon hunter, even if none of these children did. And from the visible symptoms, 'Jonathan Fairchild' was as classic a case of it as any I'd ever heard of. This was part of what the Council had devoted its existence to preventing.

    And I hated every fresh reminder of how we weren't always successful at that.

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    And so life began making with the frustrating.

    Oh, not the Slaying part. With Jonathan and Angel out there patrolling along with me, even if not with me, the Slaying got pretty easy. Turned out that Angel had been one of the scariest vampires of all time before some gypsies shoved a soul into him to make him stop and he still brought that scary to the fighting. I was glad I wouldn't have to be fighting him, because I hadn't even known vamps could fight with that much skill. Honestly, that guy was a little scary even with a soul.

    And Jonathan- wow. The only reason I could even keep up with him was because I had Slayer superpowers. On pure skill alone I think he was beating out even Angel, who had more than two centuries' of experience on him and could only pull ahead on vampire superpowers. When I was a little girl I'd wanted to be an Olympic figure skater like Dorothy Hamill, and I had spent hours and hours and hours on the skating rink and taking all the skating lessons that Dad could afford to buy, which was all of them. But by the time I was twelve I'd basically hung up the skates because the reality had set in- I could put all the effort in the world into my skating and I could even get pretty good at it, even 'local kids' champion' good... but I was never, ever going to the Olympics or anywhere near them. As athletic as I was I just didn't have it in me to make Senior Nationals grade, any more than a million other athletic little girls did. You had to be a natural to do that. You had to be born with the magic touch on top of training your heart out. And when it came to figure skating, I just wasn't.

    After becoming the Slayer, I had started having that kind of magic touch for fighting. But apparently I wasn't the only one and it didn't even take magic in his case, because Jonathan had apparently been born the greatest natural at fighting that I or Giles had ever seen. Even if he'd been training in martial arts as far back as I'd started figure skating, he shouldn't have remotely been as good as he is - but he was. The genetic lottery had apparently given him a grand prize ticket because he wasn't just as smart as Willow but also was a ridiculous instinctive prodigy at athletics and most especially at combat.

    And then there was his whole 'obsessed' thing on top of that. Xander's joke about him being Batman was kinda on point - as near as I could tell he only came to school because he was expected to and so he made with the role-playing as a high school student for eight hours every day. Outside of that his whole life was apparently either demon hunting or prepping for same. I didn't even know where he lived yet. Giles wasn't being share-y with that info and the one time I'd tried to follow him home from school myself he'd ended up ditching me with a detour through the shopping mall.

    So, yeah. I spent hours and hours and hours working out and to get as far as I did, and then someone comes along who hasn't even been stuck with the whole 'Chosen One' gig and works out hours and hours to get further ahead. I'd managed to pull him into at least some associating with the gang outside of demon-killing hours by getting him to agree to train with us, but even then he'd been so- oooooh! It wasn't fair what he did with those little joint locks or those pressure points or that leverage thing! I had superstrength! I wasn't supposed to be the one getting pinned! Ever!

    No, not even if he did have a point that if a suitably trained human could do anything like this to me then I was in serious trouble if I ever ran into a vampire who'd been a black belt before being turned, so better I learn now. Ugh. Is there a spell to just make him the Slayer so I can get back to a normal life? You know, since he actually seems to live for this stuff? I sure don't!

    And I couldn't even get a date! That Owen boy ditched me after I wouldn't take him along on the Slaying, and I didn't do that because Jonathan had been all 'Never unnecessarily bring someone into a combat situation if they aren't ready!'. Eugh, he'd even been making Willow train in basic hand-to-hand instead of just being the audience during our workouts. I'd almost uninvited him for that until Xander pointed out to me that if he was going to get trained up, which he really wanted to do, then it would be impolite not to share with the other girls. Okay, fine.

    And the way Jonathan kept doing annoying things like saying 'If we're wondering which ones of these corpses in the morgue are actually vampires waiting to rise and we don't want to stake them all as a precaution, why not just drip a little holy water on each one and see what happens?' That's how we'd found out that there were two vampires hidden out in that whole mess from where they'd killed all the people on the bus - the big crazy street preacher guy and that poor little kid they'd turned. So we'd loaded them both into the crematorium and done. Prophecy of the rise of the Anointed One or whoever totally averted.

    Stupid angsty mopey jerk! Who does he think he is with all those muscles and all that 'ooo, look at me, I'm a rogue demon hunter' training and always thinking one step ahead of everyone and always trying to look out for everybody even if he doesn't like anybody and- euggggh! The only other time I'd ever met a boy this frustrating was-

    -oh. Yeah. That time.

    Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh snap.

    I am soooo not looking forward to this upcoming conversation.

    "So..." I said to Amy outside on the quad the next day. She'd been mostly a Scooby ever since she'd gotten caught up in things with us, but Jesse and Amy didn't get along well - something about a disastrous attempt to date each other in freshman year - so since Jesse hung with Xander and Willow, that meant that outside of Scooby business I either ate lunch with her or with them, not both at once. Although given the way Jesse was sort of drifting further and further away the deeper we all got into the weird and the less he wanted to, that problem might be self-correcting soon. "Jonathan." I finished meaningfully.

    "What about him?" she asked me warily.

    Oh the hell with it! I groaned inwardly. Who just up and cut the what knot again? Let's try that, because I'm too frustrated not to!

    "Do you like him?" I asked her forthrightly, knowing that the girl code required a straight answer to this straight a question.

    "... I do." Amy said shyly, and my heart sank. "But I don't think he likes me." she continued, to my genuinely mixed response.

    "Amy, you are like the one person he is never rude to." I pointed out. "Even Willow got verbally cut by him once."

    "Jonathan's never rude to anyone who doesn't push him first," Amy pointed out. "Willow did. I don't try to." she sighed again.

    "I just-" I waved my hands incoherently. "Friends! Who doesn't want any of those?" I gushed. "The whole Slayer gig says I'm not even supposed to have any, but that's the part I disagree with the most! Even more than the part where the demons kept bleeding on my good shoes!"

    "At least you wear work boots now." Amy pointed out.

    "Yes, because Captain Good Suggestions pointed out I was being dumb to keep wearing my fancy shoes to a dirty job." I sighed. "How can somebody be so smart and be so gifted and be so not using any of it to actually help themselves live a life?!?" I vented frustratedly.

    "Did you ask Mr. Giles?" Amy said. "Maybe the grown-up point of view can see something we can't."

    "Once." I nodded. "And he just gave me this kinda sad look and said that he hoped I'd never have to find out for myself, and then never wanted to talk about it again. Look, you actually seem to spend time with Jonathan-"

    "I'm just borrowing some of the books about magic he has in his collection." Amy said. "After Mr. Giles found out that I was trying to learn from my mom's books, he pointed out-"

    "-the stuff in there drove your mom crazy and evil, so why do you want to read it?" I agreed. "Wait, Jonathan has books on magic? I know Giles wouldn't let you into any of his when you asked."

    "Jonathan's got a lot of books on everything," she said. "Including white magic. When I asked him he said you find a lot of weird stuff when you clean out demon lairs, and even after you burn all the unsafe stuff there's a lot left."

    "I should be doing that," I snapped my fingers. "I might find something I can thrift shop to help my allowance. And so, you and Jonathan talk about books together a lot? Alone together-?" I said teasingly.

    "We're not alone. He lives with Angel." Amy pointed out matter-of-factly. "I go over there when I want to look through their collection."

    "You knew where he lives and didn't tell us?" I burst out.

    "He asked me not to!" she said insistently.

    "-ugh." I slumped despondently. "Okay, you win." I sighed. "I'm not the poachy kind of girl. Good luck."

    "What?" Amy said confusedly before she realized exactly what I'd meant. "Oh no, it's not like that! We're just-" she shook her head sadly. "I don't even think we're friends, really. He just wanted to help me not get accidentally lost in black magic while I was looking for the other kind, so after he knew I was trying to find stuff he left me an open offer that I could come over and borrow books. We barely talk about anything not related to supernatural stuff." She shrugged. "Just like how he talks to anyone else."

    "Then as God is my witness, I will crack that boy's shell!" I dramatically swore all 'Gone With The Wind' style. "Because he's just far too prime a hottie to let go to waste like that!"

    "You're certainly not wrong." Amy agreed with me. "But... good luck." she finished ruefully.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    So now I had a protege again. Now, I'd had several of those before. James. Penn. And most especially Spike. But of course those had all been vampires. Soulless demons, just like I'd been. I'd never had a human protege before, or tried to train one after I'd gotten my soul back.

    Not that Jonathan needed much if any training on the combat side. He clearly had a greater natural talent for it than virtually anyone I'd ever heard of, much less met, but in a world of six billion people somebody had to be born at the top of the natural ladder. Like Jack Nicklaus had been an inherent savant with golf, Jonathan was an inherent combat savant. Show him any weapon, any school of martial arts, and he'd master it almost immediately. And he'd clearly had access to truly excellent teachers before.

    Not that I could draw him out on his background beyond the very few bits that he'd willingly shared. Out of either respect for me as an acknowledged sensei or else as a simple acknowledgement that I was much harder to fool than even the Watcher - let alone any of his classmates - he didn't try his usual evasions or half-truths on me. Oh yes, I could hear those pretty clearly. My greatest talent as Angelus was my ability to play with the minds of others, after all, and you didn't learn how to be that good at deception without learning at least something of how to see through it. No, if Jonathan didn't want me to know anything about his background he'd simply politely not answer. I respected this degree of politeness by not pushing.

    I'd considered some of the obvious possible scenarios regarding his mysterious antecedents and presence here, of course. That he was actually someone else's trained agent provocateur, a stalking horse sent in to get close to one of us or draw us out. That he was actually a junior Watcher that Giles had sent in to evaluate me as a possible threat or asset to his Slayer and the whole 'independent' pose was a pose. Even that he wasn't any kind of hunter at all but actually an infiltrator for one of the local Big Bads. Or that he was simply evil on his own merits. After all, nothing stopped humans from being black hats even with souls. Not even all genuine demon hunters were white hats.

    But after the first several weeks I'd discarded those theories. As I'd already seen on the night I'd met him, his training as a demon hunter was incomplete. His knowledge of combat was comprehensive and thorough, both from his natural instincts and wherever he'd received his initial training, but he didn't know anything about the supernatural side of things that couldn't have come from reading through his own eclectic mishmash of a book collection and picking things up in the field. There were certain little tactics and techniques, certain things you did differently when fighting or sneaking against vampires rather than humans, that he hadn't known until after I'd shown him. And while you could pretend ignorance on academic or learned things, it was a lot harder - pretty much impossible, in fact - to make your reflexes act ignorant on demand and I'd deliberately tested for that.

    So by all appearances he really was the rootless independent in the supernatural world that he'd affected to be. Whether as Watcher, spy, double agent, or anything else, he'd have known things and reacted to things that he didn't know or react to. So somebody out there had chosen to train a teenaged boy as a professional killer of some kind for reasons not related to the supernatural, and then he'd violently crashed into our world and chosen a new mission for himself. Well it's not as if child soldiers of various varieties weren't a thing all too common in human history, as depressing as that thought was to contemplate. So I just made a mental note to keep an eye out for anyone who might look like they'd come here pursuing a lost 'asset' and to give them a very unpleasant welcome to Sunnydale if they did, and then diplomatically didn't bring it up with him.

    After our first week or so of lessons he'd brought up the idea of him just moving into the Crawford Street mansion with me rather than have to maintain his own household. I agreed, and not just because having a living human resident at the address would mean that the threshold protections would be re-established and no other vampires could enter the premises without an invitation. Even if neither of us were remotely talkers, it was still reassuring to just know that someone else was there, relatively nearby and available. Call it a quirk of the mind, but being alone in a large house together was still an improvement over being alone in a large house alone.

    And when that Amy girl had started dropping by from time to time to help go through the book collection, that had been okay too. I'd originally been happy that Jonathan was actually starting to date again until I realized it wasn't anything of the kind and he was just trying to keep a young and untrained witch from going down the same dark path that her mother had. But that was still an entirely worthy goal in and of itself, so on the few occasions she'd been willing to talk to me about it I'd been all right with sharing a few of my own experiences with and cautions about dark magic and recommending some good starting titles from both Jonathan's and my own lore libraries. I'd have recommended a decent local practitioner to her to apprentice under except that I didn't know of any except Buffy's Watcher, who'd already turned her down apparently because he was too busy training his own Slayer. As is, we could at least get her set up with the basic meditation and self-cleansing rituals to help keep the Hellmouth from getting at her while she slowly began to learn the basic cantrips on her own.

    Still, I knew perfectly well that Jonathan wasn't healing on his own. He was maintaining, but I knew the difference between getting by and actually getting over something more than anyone did. I'd spent decades failing to do the latter myself, after all. And unlike me, he didn't have decades and decades to try and slowly let things piece themselves back together. He was a mortal human with a mortal lifespan and he'd only get one chance at this. And after all the people that I'd helped break and ruin over the course of my life I wanted, really wanted, to be able to help put just one person back together.

    I just didn't have the slightest clue as to how.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Remember back when Amy wasn't a psychopath and Buffy was polite enough to ask a friend if they were interested in a guy before trying to make a move on him themselves? Yeah, about that long ago.

    You can hopefully can see how Teenaged Angst is interfering with Jonathan's ability to manage a situation, because with Grandma's Scheming he should be much more able to manipulate people into a desired holding pattern than he is. As is, while he can still deflect and spin like a champion he's just not being very subtle, because teenagers suck at that.

    And yes, I write Angel as a very intelligent and introspective guy when his hormones aren't making him into a moron. The way I see it, Angel's massive character development on his own series later is like 75% of him recovering from a regression, not him growing into a more effective person than he ever was. So, having been given a reason to pull his head out of his ass - responsibility towards a student as well as a desire to help someone who, like him, is kinda broken as a person - as well as being deflected away from crushing on Buffy himself, he's much more like AtS Angel here.

    Buffy's childhood love of figure skating and James and Penn being older vampires that Angelus had mentored before Spike are all canon. I told you I was a Buffyverse lore nerd.

    I also have way too much fun writing Jonathan derailing shit left and right even when he doesn't know that he is. Given that her mother's takedown was much less relatively horrifying in this timeline, Amy didn't separate as far as she did from the Scooby Gang. And so her development as a witch wasn't entirely self-taught and with her mother's black grimoires as her only teaching tools. Which is my headcanon for how the fuck she went from 'Nice girl' in season 1 to 'amoral witch' in season 2 and then on an exponential downhill slide from there. Sure, the period trapped as a rat didn't help any but holy crap, that can't have been all of it.

    Poor Jonathan. He's just lucky that Willow is still totally stuck on Xander in this sequence or else he'd have three girls crushing on him.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 4) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    Apparently setting yourself up with a cover story of a guy who has suffered an epically tragic loss and doesn't want to talk about it only encourages people to try and get you to talk about it. Of course it would. You don't go into fighting to save the world for no pay and less thanks unless you're at least partly compassionate at heart. What was I expecting?

    Stupid Teenaged Angst Drawback. I'm a supergenius who was a senior field-grade officer in the spec-ops department for a continental Empire and has a perk for super-Machiavellian planning and now I can't even get the basics correct anymore. It's like an invisible damn filter on my brain that is so subtle at redacting the good ideas and encouraging the bad ones that even when I'm concentrating on noticing, I don't always notice.

    This is the level of influence my "Benefactor" potentially has over me when he chooses to exercise it? How the fuck I am not just totally, irretrievably fucked here?

    At any rate, despite my having drawn epically firm boundaries in the sand regarding how I didn't want to be part of anybody's personal life or vice versa, that didn't stop the Scooby Gang. It only took one session of "cross-training" for me to figure out what Giles was up to when he invited me to do it in the first place - to get me into forced regular social interaction with a peer group my age and count on good old-fashioned human nature to do the rest. But I couldn't not show up because the alternative was letting three - hell, technically four - people my age go into deadly combat wthout sufficient preparation. Buffy could at least hope to survive on her superpowers and the training she got from Giles but he was much more of an academic than a soldier, even if he was a competent fencer and crossbowman. And Giles didn't have any time or inclination to train any of the rest. So, it was up to me to get down to business.

    At least I was able to start getting the rust knocked off of them. Willow wasn't at all interested in anything above the most basics of unarmed self-defense because, well, she didn't want to be. She saw herself as small and weak and thought I was only being cruelly teasing in insisting that she could hope to be more even despite her small frame and slight build. But it's not as if I hadn't seen a young woman about her size be death on two legs befo-

    Anyway.

    Amy actually took to the training with surprising enthusiasm. Then I remembered that this was a girl whose mother had spent years trying to push her into cheerleading even before she'd finally gone totally insane and tried the bodyswap, so she already wasn't any stranger to willpowering her way through an intensive physical conditioning program. And at least mine had a goal that she wanted to reach as opposed to just her mom wanting her to reach it. Given the training multiplier that Grindstone granted and the fact that I legitimately knew what I was doing, even with her having to split a lot of her training time and focus into magic as well as combat she was basically ready to test out as a black belt in any mundane karate dojo already. Before the end of the year she'd be ready for patrols, and that was before adding in the witch factor although we were still making zero headway on finding her a legitimate practitioner to teach her there. Giles had mentioned that it might be possible to send her away to his Devon coven acquaintances this summer, but the summer was still a good ways off.

    Xander? I had to give him credit, Xander just threw himself straight into it. I'm pretty sure that part of that was wanting to impress Buffy and compete with me for alpha male (18-and-under group) around here, but the rest of it was him legitimately wanting to get out there and start doing his part to put demons in the dirt. He'd already started out in fairly good physical condition and had a lot of natural athleticism to draw upon, so it didn't take me long to get him to where he was already good enough to back up Buffy on patrols and stand alongside any of us heavy hitters in the front line, even if he shouldn't be trying to solo any cemeteries any time soon.

    And he hadn't been set too far back by that thing where he'd somehow gotten temporarily possessed by an animal spirit. I'd entirely missed out on that one because I'd ditched on that particular field trip, but it had been wrapped up relatively quickly and quietly when Amy's detection spell had revealed that him and our school's new bully infestation were in fact under magical mental influence before they'd done anything worse than eat that pig. Between her power - Amy was turning out to have a strong talent for witchcraft, it's why 'find her an actual magical mentor' was turning into a priority - and Giles' knowledge of rituals they'd just been able to break the spell on Xander, who'd then told them it was the zookeeper behind it all. That had let them get their hands on what was necessary to break the rest of 'the Pack' loose of their deal.

    And Xander being able to be a backup to Buffy in the field was good, because I certainly didn't want to back her up there unless it was an emergency. Because while I will admit that in neither of my prior lives did I ever qualify as a master of romance, I can spot obvious signals when they are being flung at me with a trebuchet. The tight clothes, the coy glances, the 'look at me!' posing, the coquettish voice - it took me putting up with only two patrols' worth of that before I just straight up kept switching out with Angel on those nights. After forewarning him what she was trying to pull with me and how much I just didn't want to deal with it. He sympathized, and fortunately for him she had more dignity than to hit on a guy who was older than the country she was born in. Or was just still locked in on me and too stubborn to switch targets. Didn't know, didn't care.

    Not that Amy wasn't crushing on me as well but at least she was being nice about it. I'd let her down as gently as I could - as gently as I'd tried to brush Buffy off the first couple of times before I'd just started stone-facing and avoiding - but unlike Buffy Amy had accepted that and had stopped pushing. She still made sure to drop into the conversation very occasionally that if I wanted to talk or hang out as friends then her door was always open, but that kind of thing wasn't unacceptable. It certainly wasn't the 'No man can resist me! Now let's make out already!' assault of someone else. I even felt a little sad about turning Amy down consistently because I knew that pining is no fun. But we were sixteen and she was a nice, intelligent, and pretty girl. Well above average for Sunnydale High in all those categories, in fact. So somebody else would pick her up soon, I was sure. I'd even tried a little bit of nudging her and Xander together before it was explained to me that Amy was Jesse's ex from freshman year (and that those two had kinda crashed and burned) and thus the bro code forbade Xander from ever going there. Besides, he was locked in on Buffy. Which, all right, ultimately I wished he'd succeed there because I certainly didn't want to.

    Still, you can only train with people so many times, help them do demon research, see them very occasionally showing up at your house to supplement their research with your library, and do the regular joint op with them before they start being comrades-in-arms if not actual friends, and that was certainly what Giles was going for with an eye towards more. And intellectually I could get that he was just trying to be a decent human being even if emotionally I was fucking just about done with it.

    There's also that Team Slayer and Team Angel were now also tied together by a fiduciary relationship of sorts, seeing as how I was renting my old house to Giles. That was both so that he'd have somewhere better and larger than his apartment to live at and so that the Scooby Gang would have a dedicated, privately owned, threshold-protected operational safehouse of their very own. Because originally the Scooby Gang had been using the library, which - um, guys, all your research materials, weapons, plans, and everything are being kept in a publicly accessible space? And one that the authorities can warrantless search? Yeah, I can get using that as a plan if you have no other alternative but hey, now you do!

    And I'd moved into Angel's mansion full time so nothing stopped me from leasing my old property, especially seeing as how the real estate brokers I'd originally bought this house through had died in a tragic random attack by wild dogs wielding barbecue forks. Apparently killing our way down their client list had left certain business associates of theirs feeling like they'd been betrayed. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of vampire-feeding kapos.

    So, the Scooby Gang kept trying to draw me in as a full member via taking advantage of the fact that I was simply too professional not to do what would work most efficiently for demon-hunting purposes, even if I didn't like it personally. And thus I was in a slowly boiling lobster pot of unwanted social interactions.

    Angel, on the other hand, wasn't trying to boil the pot at all but was simply waiting me out. I knew perfectly well that the main reason he'd taken me on as his protege was not to train me in demon hunting - I already knew enough there that simply trading tips and occasional lessons would complete my education - but so that since I'd accepted our relationship as actual master and student, he would therefore have a legitimate reason to pry into my life and help tell me how to live it. And I was even aware on some level that I'd wanted that, or else I'd never have let myself go for it in the first place. I just didn't want it right now.

    Which, to be fair, he'd obviously picked up on as well. Hence his not pushing but just calmly waiting for me to crack on my own while simply being patient and being there. I guess when you were immortal you learned how to wait a lot. I guess I'd eventually be learning that too.

    Still, at least the hunting was going well. Buffy and Giles had learned that the Watcher's Council didn't know everything about vampire hunting when Angel and I clued them in as to how to spot 'vampire infested' by reading between the lines in the real estate listings, and while Angel couldn't come with us on daylight raids he was entirely available for us catching them on the way out of the house in the early evening. Being able to get several vampires down in the first hour or so of an evening instead of having to spend half the night crossing cemeteries and allies before finding that many effectively doubled our kill rate per week. And it was relatively profitable, because we could toss the lairs.

    Admittedly we couldn't do that constantly because Angel made the valid point that while cutting into the vampire population curve as efficiently as we could was certainly a plus, if we did too many easy nest raids like this then we'd just be selecting for surviving vampires that either forted up in entire packs in places like abandoned warehouses or instead went and sought shelter with the town's resident master vampire, imaginatively named "The Master". Although I shouldn't scoff, because apparently Heinrich Nest was in fact the oldest surviving vampire on Earth, being over a millenium old. He was so old that he couldn't even retain human form anymore, being permanently in 'game face'. And, most importantly, he was Angel's grandsire. So we knew a lot about our enemy.

    Except, of course, where to find him. Hence our current strategy meeting at Scooby HQ.

    "So, what other heavy hitters does the Master have to throw at us?" I asked.

    "Of the lieutenants of his that I knew?" Angel said. "I haven't spoken to any of them since I was ensouled at the turn of the century, so that's ninety years and more that he's had to recruit new faces."

    "Entirely true, but the Order of Aurelius values seniority." Giles said. "So barring exceptional need or circumstances, any senior lieutenants he retains should be ones of long service and thus ones you'd have known."

    "Well, Buffy killed Luke at the Harvest." Angel said. "So while I can think of a few more old and experienced fighters he'd have, as far as real thinkers go there'd just be Darla."

    Why did I know that name-?

    "You got a picture of her?" Buffy said.

    "I have a sketch," he said, and put a very excellently drawn rendition on the table-

    Wait a minute, I knew that face.

    "Her? I've seen her." I said.

    "When and where?" Buffy asked intently.

    "The night before I first showed up for class, I was scouting out the high school beforehand. She was there with a guy she'd lured in, a senior or a college kid, probably to eat him. As soon as I made her as a vamp, I nailed her with my crossbow."

    "You what?" Angel said, shocked.

    "She was pretty distracted." I said matter-of-factly, before realizing what the expression on his face meant. Aw shit-

    "I-" Angel said, absolutely shocked and momentarily wicked pissed off. "I- okay, you were hunting, but-" he tried to force himself to say, and then his control slipped entirely and he turned and punched a huge hole in the plaster of the nearby wall.

    "If I'd known, I'd have-" I began to say.

    "Don't-!" Angel said thickly, rounding on me in a visible rage while everybody else watched the byplay in shock. He caught himself before he said anything further, and visibly throttled down on his own shock and anger before saying "I- I need to go clear my head." and storming out of the house.

    "Fuck!" I said, kicking a nearby armchair pretty hard myself. "I'm not going to apologize for dusting a vampire but if I'd thought ahead-" I shook my head. "Of course he knew her for centuries, that's why we were asking him for intel on her! I should've at least broken that news tactfully!"

    "Oh, and now we're crying for vampires?" Willow sniped at me.

    "For the one who has a soul, yes!" I flung back at her heatedly. "He might be feeling grief over an absolutely horrible person who had to die, but that doesn't mean it's still not real grief to him! Am I the only person here who ever respects the goddamn grieving process?!?"

    "Oh will you get over it!" Buffy blew up at me in frustration. "I get that he's your super secret vampire kung fu master, but-"

    "Buffy," Giles tried to cut in warningly.

    "-what would you know about grieving Mister I Never Let Anyone Get Close?!?" she screamed.

    And that's when I completely lost my shit.

    Fortunately the "the inner strength to do the right thing" proviso of No Weapons, No Friends meant that I didn't do something as unethical as resorting to physical violence over hurtful words alone, but that didn't stop me from just unleashing as hard as I could.

    "Are you dense?" I hissed at her. "Are you retarded? Do you seriously not put any pieces together ever without someone to draw you a goddamn flowchart, Blondie?"

    "Hey, you can't talk to her like-" Willow began before I stared her down like a hawk on a rabbit. Xander was on his feet and ready to throw himself in the line of fire if it looked like I was going to be throwing punches but was apparently alert enough to the vibe to understand now was not a great time to be talking, and Amy was just looking at me with worry - for me, I noted absently, not for the rest of the room.

    "OKAY, FINE, LET'S TALK ABOUT OUR FEELINGS!" I roared, the cork having finally left the bottle for the first time since I'd entered this dimension. "So who wants to hear about my ex-girlfriend?" I kept going.

    "Oh dear," Giles said despairingly.

    "I'd love to!" Buffy shot back sarcastically. "It's about time I heard about whoever the heck I'm competing with!"

    "COMPETING!" I shouted hysterically. "Competing!" I began to laugh painfully. "All right, if this is gonna be a competition then hey, let's read the form card!"

    By this point I was outright crying, and I broke off from yelling to start just reciting in a monotone because I was so overloaded that if I actually tried to yell as loud as I felt I'd start spraining something.

    "Her name was Violetta," I said, facing away from everyone. "She was short, like you. She was an athlete, like you. She loved acrobatics and martial arts, like you. I met her for the first time when- we were young, okay? Like, how long Xander and Willow have known each other? That's about how long we knew each other."

    "Was?" I heard Xander murmur in realization. Amy likewise was starting to pick up. Three guesses who wasn't.

    "For years we were both in school together. For years we were both interested in each other. And for years neither of us picked up. There was this whole huge ugly drama between her extended family and my foster family, and if we'd actually hooked up then one of us would have had to pick sides. Or change sides. And she was super loyal to her family. She was super loyal, period. That's one of the biggest things that I loved about her, how loyal she was. How hard she'd work, how much she always wanted to do what was right- how much she believed in sacrifice, in honor, in not being selfish- she was a very old-fashioned type of girl. The kind you hardly find in the 20th century anymore. And she'd liked mostly the same things about me..."

    I wiped my eyes, swallowed what felt like a whole lungful of snot, and continued.

    "But hey, sometimes God actually shuts off the drama valve. Sometimes true love wins out in the end. It damn sure wasn't easy, and a whole lot of it wasn't even expected, but eventually the shittier people in her family got bounced like they deserved and the ones who were halfway decent human beings got put in charge and everything that had been in our way wasn't any more. And so all of that tension we'd had for years, all that star-crossed stuff, no longer crossed at all. And after years of only being allowed to be 'just friends', we could finally fucking admit it. We could acknowledge it. We could hold each other, kiss each other-" I started weeping again. "If I live for fucking eternity, I will never, ever forget our first kiss."

    I whipped around just in time to catch Buffy opening her mouth to say I had no idea what, and I cut her off as the rant valve exploded wide open again. "And do you want to know why I never will forget it? Because not less than three hours after that, not even THREE FUCKING HOURS- BAM!" I smacked my one fist into my palm. "SHE WAS GONE!"

    Giles was just nodding his head sadly. Amy was outright weeping, and Xander and Willow had teary eyes. Buffy's jaw was on the floor.

    "And so was everyone else." I finished icily, barely able to force out the words.

    "I-" Amy began, and I held up a hand to shush her.

    "Don't. Please, just don't." I choked out. "I- I'm just going to go and be a terrible person to be around for the rest of the entire fucking weekend, okay? And I'm going to do it away from other people. Don't follow me, don't call, and I'll see you idiots in class." I snorted. "Assuming Angel doesn't toss me right out of the fucking house because I just dissed his grieving process equally as hard, let alone fucking causing it in the first place!" I finished, before storming on out.

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    Okay, I didn't even begin to know how to unpack all that. It's like Jonathan had been a minefield and Buffy had just gone clog-dancing in it, and now we were all covered in emotion guts from where he'd been exploded all over us.

    Buffy shook off her shock and started to get angry. "What the hell? Okay, sensitive topic, but did he have to overreact-"

    "Giles, do you have that detector orb you made for Angel?" I burst out angrily, more disappointed in her than I'd ever been before in my life. "Because maybe you should toss it to Buffy to see if she still has hers!" She turned around and tried to stare me down, and I just stared back.

    "Seriously, Buff? You're going to call him the drama queen when- did you not hear the part where he just said his entire family got killed?" I asked her incredulously. "Try to imagine how you'd be feeling if vampires ate Mrs. S, multiply that by like ten, and you're probably just getting in the neighborhood of his bad day!"

    "But how was I supposed to know-" Buffy started to whine, when Amy cut in with a harder voice than I'd ever heard her use.

    "Well maybe you could have listened when he'd hinted that he wanted some time to process stuff before trying to get close to anyone again, like I know he'd already basically did to everyone in this room at least three times over!" Amy ranted back at Buffy.

    "You were crushing on him too!" Buffy said defensively.

    "But I still respected his space!" Amy yelled back. "You were the one who kept draping yourself all over him, pushing him, pressing him- even after he'd made it plain he was nothing but uncomfortable being treated like that! If a guy had treated any of us girls like that, you'd have been the first one in line to report him for harassment!"

    "Buffy, I think Amy has a point there," Willow said diffidently. "Swap the genders around, and what you were doing kinda was. And you know that I thought he was being mean the whole time, but-" she wiped away some of the tears from her own face. "If he was sitting on all of that all along and we were the ones who'd kept poking the sore spot, then he was actually being kinda nice in how much he was trying not to react before."

    "I feel at least partly responsible," Giles surprised us all by saying. "I'd thought I was respecting his privacy by not bringing this issue up earlier, but clearly I should have at least tried to make certain you all understood."

    "What, he talked to you about it and not us?" Buffy asked.

    "To the best of my knowledge he has talked to no one about it prior to tonight, save possibly Angel," Giles said. "But I already knew that the single commonest reason that someone previously unfamiliar with the supernatural takes up hunting it as a full-time career, if they were not recruited for it by some pre-existing organization like the Watcher's Council, is traumatic loss. And I clearly saw that he was displaying all the classic markers of having experienced such."

    "So it's official, I'm a complete idiot." I said disgustedly. "I mean, I'm the guy who made the joke about him being so much like Batman Jr. in the first place. How did I not put together that Batman's origin story was all his loved ones getting killed?"

    "How did none of us?" Willow said.

    "Well..." Buffy pouted, beginning to look as ashamed as we all felt but still not wanting to admit she'd been the first and worst to screw up. "He could still have let us help."

    "So, what do we do now?" I asked the room.

    "He said he'd see us in class on Monday," Amy said. "Given how Jonathan is about signaling, I'm pretty sure that means that's the earliest any of us should even try to talk to him. And I think you should be the first one to, Xander."

    "Me?" I asked Amy. "Why?"

    "Well, he's really mad at Buffy right now." Willow said analytically. "Amy and him might be complicated because of feelings. And you're a lot better than I am at talking. Plus, you're a guy. He's a guy. You can guy talk."

    "... okay." I nodded. "That makes perfect sense."

    "Meeting adjourned." Giles finally sighed after nobody else filled the moment for a while.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Well, it had to blow sometime. And of course it happens on the same night him and Angel get emotionally complicated over shit as well. Because this is BtvS and that's how their drama valve rolls.

    Note also that the way Jonathan phrased everything, it's literally true even if carefully selected to not give away the real context. (Jonathan can basically do that on mental autopilot by now.) Which means Clear Understandings has everyone in the room 100% certain that he was not lying.

    And no, it's not that Jonathan's falling for Amy... yet. It's just that somehow she ended up as the nice one in this narrative and Jonathan's just too honorable a guy to ever throw shit at anyone who isn't giving him any. She is the closest thing he has to a real friend on the Scooby Gang right now.

    Even season 1 Willow could get pretty passive-aggressive... which is of course not going to even remotely get past a man who has Grandma's Scheming, and who even if he didn't have Teenaged Angst would still be of a personality type that just didn't like that kind of thing. That's why her and Jonathan don't get along. But it's still s1 Willow, not s6 Willow, so once the true feelings are made plain she's going to go '... um, we were the bad guys here.'

    As to where Cordelia is, the answer is that since Jonathan doesn't intersect with the Scooby Gang much outside of work, while season 1 Cordelia didn't intersect with them much inside of work, they are ships passing in the night. However, she will show up soon enough.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 5) New
  • View content
    • Buffy POV:

    Okay, I admit it! I screwed up!

    Jonathan spent the next couple of weeks in school sleepwalking through stuff like a zombie. Even his grades started to slip, and he was a study-meister like Willow was! He had a photographic memory and everything! Xander talked to him the Monday after and barely got an acknowledgement - nothing rude, nothing angry, but nothing back either. Jonathan didn't have any of the coiled-spring tension he walked around with before, and none of that 'ready for combat' attitude either. He was just... empty.

    Amy gave up trying to talk to him after her second attempt, because it made her cry a little just to look at him. The worst part is that he actually tried to be nice to her - I was pretty sure that it wasn't just me competing with a ghost as to why I'd been losing the romance race - but he was so horribly fake about it that it actually hurt her more than just being ignored did. Willow didn't even try talking to him, although she did make an extra copy of her class notes for him so that he could catch up later once he got over his shock.

    Assuming he ever did. Because Jonathan basically hung up the swords at that point and didn't even patrol anymore. Angel still did, and when I asked him how Jonathan was doing... um, yeah. Not good.

    At least Angel wasn't mad at him anymore about Darla dying- he hadn't even really been mad, he'd just gotten hit with a big shock with no warning and needed a little time to walk it off- but he'd already had ninety years and more to come to grips with how he wasn't an evil demon anymore and his ex-girlfriend still was and what that would mean. Plus, he was a grown-up. And Jonathan, for all that he tried to make himself be a grown-up... kinda wasn't.

    So of course he was eventually gonna blow if I kept pushing, and boy, did I ever!

    I'd just wanted myself a cute boyfriend who was okay with all the weird, and I'd seen one, and I'd gone for one as best I knew how. I'd been well on track to be the Cordelia of Hemery High - Freshman Princess and everything - so that's exactly how I'd tried to pick him up. The clothes, the flirting, the going after the hormones- look, I was sixteen, Romeo and Juliet was just a book they made me read for English class, not a lifestyle guide. So all I really knew about how to pick up a boy was the shallow way, and I'd shallowed like a champion. But I hadn't paid any attention at all to what he wanted or what he was feeling like, and after I'd moped around for a little while hoping that things would fix themselves and they didn't then that led me directly into what was, bar none, the absolute worst conversation I'd ever had in my life.

    "Mom?" I approached her nervously. "I... made a huge mistake."

    "Is anyone hurt?" Mom asked me, having slipped into major concern mode as soon as she saw whatever expression was on my face.

    "Not physically," I said sadly, slumping down into one of the chairs by the kitchen table. "But I really, really crushed someone's feelings when I did something dumb, and now they're so miserable I can't even apologize for it because they can't even hear me."

    "Oh Buffy." Mom sighed, sitting down across from me. "Tell me what happened."

    Ugh. Um, how exactly do I explain this without getting into the supernatural-?

    "You met my study buddy Jonathan, right?"

    "Xander's friend?" she asked me.

    "No, the other one. Tall guy, muscles." I corrected her.

    "Once or twice," Mom remembered. "Buffy, you weren't mean when you were turned him down, were you?" she guessed.

    "Hah!" I laughed bitterly. "No, he shot me down. In flames. And then-" I shook my head as my voice choked up. "Okay, you probably picked up that I was in boy-chasing mode again the past few weeks-"

    "There were certain symptoms." Mom replied knowingly.

    "But he wasn't having any. So of course I was all 'Who could possibly resist such perfection of me?' and kept pushing."

    Mom tilted her head and gave me the disappointed look.

    "I know," I moaned, slumping over and putting my face in my heads. "So, anyway, I kept going and going even when he kept shooting back signals of 'Warning! Do not trespass outside the friend zone!' because what was wrong with him that he didn't even want to date a little? Was he gay or something?"

    "Buffy!" Mom said disapprovingly.

    "I know." I whined. "I was so stupid. But anyway, last study group the topic of- um, let's just say one of the tutors had had a recent loss in the family and had to ditch. And then I said something sarcastic about it, and Jonathan went off on me about what the hell did I think was doing not respecting the grieving process, and I yelled back something about what the heck would he know about losing anyone when he never wanted to have anyone in the first place-" I sniffled. "Why did I even say something so horrible?"

    "This sounds a lot more serious than just 'You said something very insensitive'." Mom said cautiously. "What went wrong?"

    "Did you know," I began tonelessly, "that the reason Jonathan's basically in the foster system now is because his whole family died?" I finished to my mom's rising horror. "And his girlfriend? Who he'd known at least as long as Xander had known Willow? And that was just like last year?"

    "Oh my God." Mom gasped.

    "And I didn't respect the grieving process at all but stepped right on that land mine!" I drama queened. "And now he's walking around school like a depressed zombie and barely talking to anyone and won't even come to study group anymore-" I slumped again. "I am such a horrible person!"

    "No, you did a horrible thing." Mom corrected me. Ouch. "That doesn't make you horrible forever, especially not since you've already taken the first important step. You've admitted that what you did was wrong."

    "Yeah." I slumped. "Very wrong. And I don't know how to fix it."

    Mom sat and thought for a while, and I just sat and sulked for a while, and eventually she started talking again. "Were you in love with him?"

    "I thought I was, but-" I shook my head. "Love isn't like this, is it? Painful?"

    "No." she agreed, nodding. "Love is never supposed to be like that." Mom reached over and took my hand in hers comfortingly. "Buffy, you're sixteen. When I was your age I thought the exact same way you did, and I didn't learn better until I was older. I never had the bad luck to run into as awful a situation as you did, but that's all it was. Luck." She sighed. "Would you like to hear what I think love is?"

    "Of course." I said.

    "Love isn't about how they make you feel." Mom said to me wisely. "Love is about how you want them to feel. It's when you want the other person to be safe, to be happy, to be emotionally healthy, and you're willing to sacrifice your own time and effort to make that happen. And that's all kinds of love - boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, friends and family..." She smiled at me. "Parents and children."

    "That sounds kinda... one-way." I replied, trying to puzzle it out. "If you keep pouring it out and nothing comes back, then don't you end up empty?"

    "You definitely learned that faster than I did." Mom agreed with me proudly. "When you love them but they don't love you back, then it is going to empty yourself out emotionally. This is why unrequited love hurts so much; you're not in balance. But when you do that for someone else and they do it for you at the same time, then you're not just coming out even. You both come out ahead." She sighed. "That's what a healthy relationship is supposed to be. And that's why most high schoolers make up and break up as fast as they change their clothes, because it takes the average person stubbing their toe a lot to finally figure this out for themselves. And Lord knows you can't teach it to anyone else just by talking, or else every parent would."

    I blinked as I was suddenly overcome by a massive realization. "Wait, is this why you and dad are-?"

    Mom's face tightened for a moment before she nodded. "Yes. I don't know exactly when he stopped and I didn't, but-" She sighed. "Eventually there came the point where I had to stop too, or else I'd have hurt myself trying not to. When push comes to shove you can't control other peoples' feelings, Buffy. You can't even really control your own feelings. You can only control how you act."

    "Oh." I said weakly. "I'd thought the divorce was because of the-" I stopped myself before I said 'vampires' again. "The gym thing, and the psychiatric evaluation the court ordered-"

    "What?" Mom said, looking at me concernedly. "No, it wasn't! Were you blaming yourself for us the whole time?!?"

    "Kinda a little?" I said weakly.

    "Oh Buffy." Mom said, leaning over to hug me. "I wish I'd seen that earlier. I'd have reassured you that it was not, not even the tiniest bit, your fault." She sighed. "No, that was on your father. Maybe on me as well, partly, but it wasn't you. It had already been building up between us all through your freshman year, well before that other trouble even started. We just-"

    "Didn't want me to know anything was wrong." I figured out. Hey, I was sixteen, not six!

    "Sometimes even the grown-ups make mistakes." Mom agreed. "Very sometimes."

    "Speaking of," I said, depressed again. "What do I do?"

    "You tried to apologize?" Mom asked me. "In an entirely non-romantic context?"

    "I'm pretty sure that ship has not only sailed but sunk." I agreed with her. "And I'm the one who fired the torpedoes. Amy might still have an outside chance someday, but I sure don't. And yeah, I tried."

    "Does Jonathan have anyone looking after him?" Mom asked me.

    "He's got a guardian." I nodded. "Older guy-" Great, now how did I describe Angel without getting supernatural? "Friend of the family."

    "Do you think he's experienced with counseling people with emotional problems? Is Jonathan seeing the school counselor?" Mom asked me.

    "I'm thinking no and no." I said after a moment.

    "Then I suppose I'd better go over there and see if they need any help." Mom decided.

    "You don't have to do that for me!" I told her. "I messed this up!"

    "And whose daughter are you again?" Mom shot back. "I'm- Buffy, I am very disappointed in what you did. But I'm not going to yell at you because you'd already figured out on your own that what you did was very wrong. And we just finished talking you through understanding why it was very wrong. And this isn't really the sort of thing I can punish with grounding or chores. Your punishment is going be having to live with the memory of what you did, knowing that you hurt someone badly, and knowing that you weren't able to fix it easily."

    "Or at all." I slumped. "And here you are, busy cleaning up my mess again."

    "You sign up for that sort of thing when you have children," she reassured me. "And when you eventually have them yourself, you'll be happy to do it for them too."

    "Assuming I live that long," I said sadly.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    Mourning Darla wasn't easy, but it's not as if I'd been truly devastated. I'd just been knocked hard off balance. If I'd had any time to brace myself then it wouldn't even have hit me that hard, but to know that someone who'd been such a huge part of your life for centuries - even if it was a horrible part you'd spent decades and decades regretting - was gone like she hadn't even been there, and that she hadn't died in some huge dramatic confrontation but had gotten taken out in passing by a freshman hunter who'd barely even known who she was- even Holtz had never managed to get the drop on Darla like that, even if he'd ambushed me twice that way. In a way, the most shocking part of it was how it made me suddenly feel my mortality again after a long, long time of not feeling it. That had been as hard to process as Darla being dust.

    So I'd gone off alone for the weekend to try and meditate and reflect a little, and also get some work therapy in on the local vampire population, and I'd overnighted in a lair I cleaned out because I'd wanted a night alone. And by the end of the weekend I'd gotten myself leveled out again, mostly. So when I got back to the mansion Sunday night I had not expected to find Jonathan visibly sunk into one of the worst depressions I'd ever seen anyone lose themselves in. And I'd once had a hobby of driving people into that state.

    Giles had given me an accounting of what had happened at the meeting after I'd left, and he and I shared a mutual commiseration at what the commonest origin story for new hunters was. And Jonathan had apparently had the worst-case scenario imaginable for it. Even Angelus would have considered it a high-water mark to take out two entire families and the star-crossed love of someone's life all on the same day. I was mildly surprised I hadn't heard of something this noteworthy on the vampire grapevine already. I needed to start paying more attention again, it would seem.

    And I nodded at the mental confirmation that Jonathan's initial training had been for purposes of non-supernatural combat until the supernatural had violently crashed into his life. The tale of 'feuding families' would suggest organized crime, except people who were in organized crime didn't remotely act like Jonathan did. You didn't get into something like the Camorra unless you were indifferent to the little rules of civilized society in the first place, seeing as how you were making a career out of busting the big ones, but Jonathan didn't even double-park. As near as I could intuit the 'family' reference had actually been a metaphor for 'politics' and Jonathan had been a part of something clandestine and government. I made another mental note to keep an eye out for that sort of thing showing up in Sunnydale and got back to pondering the main problem - what could I do for my student? Because as much of a master of psychological destruction as I was, that didn't make an expert at healing. And while I tried a couple things I knew from self-help books, they- well, you can imagine.

    Joyce Summers' own visit to the house was more of a help, as she at least was able to walk me through the basics of dealing with depression and how while forced activity wasn't a cure, it could at least keep things from spiraling any further down. So since I figured that helping channel himself into rage even further was a bad idea - as Jonathan himself had clearly realized on some unconscious level, seeing as how he hadn't thrown himself into combat practice or hunting but had instead stood himself down - well, there were a lot of home improvements around the mansion we could do instead. He turned out to be a very good mechanic when he turned his hand to things, and I'm not sure if it helped much but anything beat laying around near-catatonic all day.

    I patrolled some with Buffy, who I'd originally been very upset with until I'd seen that she'd legitimately realized where she'd screwed up and was trying to make sincere amends - and more importantly, that she'd finally ditched her romantic delusions of 'thawing and healing with love' or whatever else people that age came up with. Mrs. Summers had obviously straightened her out too, even if she visibly had no clue about Sunnydale's night life. Did Buffy not realize that her mother's ignorance wasn't any protection but only left her in danger of inviting the wrong person into the house after dark? I'd have to have a word with Giles about that sometime.

    And the Scooby Gang was able to handle a couple of major cases without us - something about a demon robot in an old factory, and then something about an old demon hunter who'd gotten trapped in a puppet. I couldn't really assist on either of those because they were daytime cases, and Jonathan was still on medical leave as it were. At least the housework was helping him keep his physical conditioning, and it was actually pretty useful learning how to wire a place for electricity or fix the pipes myself. It's not like Sunnydale was overrun with home repair contractors who worked nights.

    But things were still not going well at all regarding Jonathan's mental health. And then the Hellmouth decided it wanted to play too.

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    Wherever my "Benefactor" was, I'm sure he was laughing his ass off.

    Despite all its 'infinite' willpower No Weapons, No Friends, No Hope hadn't let me get six months into this jump before I finally rolled over and went limp. It didn't work if you didn't want to use it, after all, and I didn't. I was just done with using a willpower perk and Well-Seasoned/You Are Extraordinary to paper over the cracks and soldier on. Sure, I could do a perfect imitation of a functioning person. I could probably have done a perfect imitation of a happy person if I'd wanted to put on that act. But your outside face didn't change your inside one at all, and mine was-

    Angel had been right. You couldn't even begin to fill a hole in your soul just by piling bodies into it. The hunting was still of value as an act of service to others, I knew that intellectually, but emotionally I just didn't give a shit anymore. Buffy - the entire Scooby Gang - had cracked the seal I'd put over my grief and now I was just wallowing in it again, and I knew it was stupid and I knew it wasn't helping and I knew it was immature but I just didn't fucking care.

    So I had the decreased energy levels and the lack of self-care and the persistent down periods that all added up to depression and I dully continued to eat, get up, and go to school because I didn't care enough not to move when pushed. Xander had tried to patch things up between me and the Scoobs and I'd given him as polite an acknowledgement as I could manage, Buffy had tried to apologize and I'd managed to at least avoid getting any more mad, and-

    Amy had been the worst. Buffy had been all about getting herself a boyfriend to make herself feel less lonely, which was objectively speaking not a mortal sin in a sixteen-year-old girl even if it was damned annoying when you were the target. Amy was also a sixteen-year-old girl but she at least was partly aware that a relationship wasn't just about you, and it was legitimately hurting her that someone she liked was dealing with crap and that she was powerless to even begin to change that for them. Because, yeah, that was the worst place to be. Been there, done that, got the airship captain's uniform. I wasn't falling in love with her or anything - I wasn't even sure if I had those emotional circuits anymore or if they were as shorted out and cross-wired as most of the rest of me - but I did legitimately like her. She was the closest thing in this dimension that I had to a friend my own age - apparent age - with Xander maybe the closest behind her.

    My Spark also started to come a little - very little - out of hibernation now that I was regularly handling tools again, what with all the home repairs that Angel had added to the schedule to replace the combat lessons I'd been skipping because we were all Mr. Miyagi now apparently. Hey, as therapy notions went it certainly beat encounter groups or talking or some such crap. Being alone with a set of tools and shit being needed to be kit-bashed back together was at least something besides staring at the walls.

    But overall life was still horrible, and I still had nothing to look forward to and no confidence that anything I might come to bond with would not be arbitrarily ripped away again, and if I had any wishes or desires left in me at all then I just wanted to go home-

    "As you wish."

    And I was shocked to realize that suddenly I was lying on the floor - no, those were deckplates, and there was the hum of airship engines, and- I was back?

    My first inhale almost choked me with the smell of smoke. As the shock wore off and I became more aware of my surroundings I heard people screaming in pain and others screaming in triumph. The sound of death ray fire, the clash of swords- we were being boarded!

    I tried to leap to my feet and then the pain hit. Okay, I'd apparently had the crap beaten out of me. I staggered upright and looked around- the wreckage and the nearby fire made it hard to tell, but as near as I could tell this was the family quarters section on the command deck of Castle Wulfenbach. I coughed, and idly noted that I'd horked up wasn't phlegm so much as blood. Yeah, that was at least one broken rib and a punctured lung. Shit, what the hell had I dropped into?

    I looked around for casualties and-

    GIl!

    I ran over to his huddled body on the floor, frantically feeling for a pulse. None. He'd been stabbed and slashed and pierced in multiple places. The pattern of his wounds suggested that he'd gone toe-to-toe with Bangladesh DuPree or a swordsman of equal skill in a full-on lethal fight. His opponent had avoided closing in to where Gil's strength would have ended the match decisively in his favor and bypassed his resilience by going for limb cuts, opening vein after vein until he'd he'd eventually been bled out and worn down to where he couldn't move before being finished off with a sword thrust straight through the forehead as he lay prone on the deck. To destroy the brain and prevent revivication.

    I screamed in agony on the inside but I didn't have time to stop- there had to be other survivors- maybe the Baron himself-

    Down the hallway a red-headed woman in a fancy dress lay facedown on the deck, dead from a death ray bolt directly between her shoulder blades. I rolled her over to be confronted by the waxen face of Princess Xersephnia von Blitzengaard, who'd apparently been heading for the adjacent escape pod while Gil had stayed behind to hold off pursuers. What was Seffie even doing here-?

    I blinked at the wedding ring prominent upon her fourth finger, and my immediate memory supplied an image of a matching ring on Gil's finger. Wait, what? And-

    A faint, erratic whimpering caught my attention. Seffie had apparently died while holding a baby, and he or she had fallen hard to the deck nearby when Sefie had been hit. I examined the child - six months old, maybe a little more - and realized to my horror that they'd fractured their skull when they'd hit the deckplates. This infant, Gil's and Seffie's baby from all appearances, was dying as I held them in my hands and there was nothing I could do to change that-

    "Captain!" A joyous shout came to my ears. "Captain Teufel!" the shout came again, and I looked up to see a pair of scruffy pirates standing in the corridor behind the way I'd came-

    And then it all came together for me at once. The death ray pistol in my holster was still warm, from having been very recently fired. The bruises and broken ribs I had were from having just been in close-combat with someone of great skill and superhuman strength. The dropped and bloody cutlass nearby whose size and shape exactly matched the entrance wound in Gil's forehead and the empty sheath on my sword belt that matched the sword. Even the pirate-trained fighting style and superhuman precision it would have required to take Gilgamesh down like that- even the Baronial signet ring on Gilgamesh's hand adjacent to his wedding ring, signifying that in this timeline Klaus had already died-

    In this timeline Teufel Sr. and the Baron had apparently mutually annihilated in their final battle, leaving me to be raised in Rabennest by regents and stewards as Teufel's young heir just as Gilgamesh had been so raised as an underaged heir, each of us to eventually inherit whatever was left of our respective fiefdoms when we came of age. Only Boris had clearly been unable to maintain the entire Empire for the underage Baron, leaving him some kind of rump state that had had to ally with the Fifty Families for what stability they could maintain, while the resurgent Black Mist Raiders joined with who knew what other horrors to fatten on the chaos of Europa and bring back the Long War and eventually lead to this final confrontation between a Teufel and a Wulfenbach yet again-

    A confrontation that I'd just won.

    A terrible calm settled over me as I ignored "my" men and turned and kicked the escape pod's switch panel so hard that it broke open. Shorting together the correct leads blew the pod out into the empty air without shutting the pod bay hatch first, leaving the door open and overlooking a direct drop of who knew how many thousands of feet of altitude.

    And then I jumped.

    * * * * *​

    "You got away!" Tarvek said in desperate relief as we both met in the burnt-out ruins of Passholdt.

    "Yeah," I agreed with a quirky grin. "Lucrezia got sloppy."

    "Gilgamesh?" he asked me.

    "But not that sloppy, I'm afraid." I said calmly.

    "Damn her!" he cursed viciously. "All right. Ruxala?" Tarvek called, and the once and former Vespiary Squad officer came forward with one of the very few surviving wasp weasels on her shoulder to give me and the hand-picked squad I'd brought with me the sniff test. No reactions.

    "Good," he said, and the squad of resistance fighters Tarvek had had covering us with their death rays lowered their weapons. "All right, all of you come with me. We'll need to get you to the labs and vaccinated as soon as possible."

    "We definitely want that vaccine as soon as possible," I agreed with him, and he led me and my hand-picked team directly into the heart of the lair. Once we'd made sure the target was in sight, we acted. It didn't really take us very long.

    "How-?" Tarvek gasped out as he lay paralyzed on the floor from where I'd tased him. Lucrezia didn't want him dead, of course. Once he was suitably processed, he'd tell us everything we needed to know to finish crushing the last gasps of the resistance.

    "Lucrezia updated the wasps." I said to him, still feeling that terrible, terrible calm. "The old scent signatures that the weasels recognize don't apply any more." I finished. "And now we finally have the vaccine lab."

    "No you don't." Tarvek grinned as I suddenly wobbled on my feet. "We now have new-model revenants to update our detection methods with and interrogate. Because that wasn't the vaccine that you just drank."

    As I and all my men finished falling unconscious, a small buried part of me was at grateful that at least Tarvek was a fucking bastard weasel in any timeline- or maybe it was just that Lucrezia was a less competent commander than I had been-

    * * * * *​

    "-and that concludes my report, Herr Baron." I finished, standing rigidly at attention before his desk.

    "Unsatisfactory." Klaus said coldly. "You should not have let the situation get so out of control."

    "Sir, I could not control Dr. Beetle's reaction-" I began.

    "No excuses!" Klaus shut me down. "Clearly his lack of cooperation was because of your heavy-handed bungling! DuPree would have been more subtle than this!"

    I bit my lip on any number of remarks or justifications that I could have pointed out regarding the Beetleburg situation. As to how I'd had nothing to do with Beetle's decision to collaborate iwth the Other's conspiracy, which had clearly been made well before I'd even gotten there. As to how I'd taken the town with as few casualties as possible considering how Beetle had panicked and ordered the Clockwork Army to indiscriminate full-auto fire with no concern for collateral damages. As to how it had been Mr. Tock's stray shot and none of ours that had destroyed an obscure smithy that had turned out to contain two of the Baron's oldest friends-

    A stray shot that had not only enraged the Baron beyond all measure when he was already the worst critic of my performance and had been all along, but had so utterly alienated the girl who'd turned out to be the lost Heterodyne heir that the first thing she'd done after I'd put her in guest quarters onboard the airship was wait until enough backs were turned to suborn the nearest Jagers, then escape immediately. Now she was running loose somewhere in Europa with a mad-on against the Baron and all his works and that was my fault too.

    Everything was my fault, apparently. And I was going to be stuck here doing the Baron's dirty jobs and getting blamed for everything that went wrong and unthanked for everything that went right for the rest of my life, because it was the only choice I was allowed.

    Eventually Baron Wulfenbach finished tearing today's ration of strips out of my hide, and I quietly saluted and left. I hadn't had the slightest opportunity to defend myself. I'd long since hoped to ever get any.

    Just another day, the same as any other day.

    * * * * *​

    And so it went, over and over and over. Each new timeline was some kind of twisted horror, from the small to the large. Ones where I'd never left the pirate life behind. Ones where the Baron hadn't taken me under his wing but just sentenced me to life in the mines like the rest, and where I eventually died trying to escape. Ones where I'd married Agatha but she was some kind of horrible person, and not even in the 'possessed by her mother' way. There was even one timeline where I'd somehow been Zola's partner in the conspiracy. All of them blurred by as if I wasn't even living them in truth but just experiencing them in outline. And every single time it restarted I heard my "Benefactor's" mocking laughter.

    So, this was what I had to look forward to. Being a helpless toy of a cosmic sadist who had total power over me. Everything I loved was in one way or another mocked and desecrated. Everything I'd believed in was held up and torn apart. Everything I wanted to hang onto was taken away from me.

    Every thing but one. And I prayed more desperately than I'd ever prayed before that she would never show up.

    So of course she did.

    "Hey loser." Violetta sneered down at me.

    "Vi," I choked out. "It's... good to see you." Because it was. Even though I was a horrible, beaten, sobbing mess on the floor, even though I was entirely pathetic and she was standing over me with her face twisted with nothing but contempt, it was... still seeing her.

    "Did those idiots mix up your dose again?" she eye-rolled. "I'm not your friend, you asshole. This is an interrogation."

    "Remind me... how I ended up here again?" I asked her weakly. Because I couldn't remember... I was so tired...

    "Wulfenbach lost. We won." she said proudly. "You need any more scorecard than that? Now get your ass moving. It's your turn in the hot seat again." She cracked her knuckles. "Or you could try running away like you did last time. That would be fun." she said with a razor-edged grin more appropriate to Bangladesh DuPree.

    So. The timeline where she was nothing but a loyal soldier of the Fifty Families on the opposite side of the war and nothing mor-

    "Almost as much fun as the expression on your face when you idiots finally figured out me and Tarvek had never been on your side!" she laughed mockingly.

    I had to ask...

    "All right," I said, not even bothering to disguise my emptiness. So I was going to be stuck in some hell timeline where a vicious little sociopath wearing the face of the woman I loved was going to help torture me. I suppose I had my very own Darla now-

    "Wow, you sure broke fast." Violetta said disappointedly. "Six years and more you waited without even trying to kiss me all super romantic styles," she faux-swooned, "but here we didn't even need three months in the dungeon before you cracked like an egg!" She shook her head. "Well, you always were the best at giving up before you'd even really tried. No guts."

    "Even Gil or Tarvek gets distracted sometimes but you've always had that... that supreme focus thing you do. I really envied you for that, did you know?"

    Wait... when had she said that...?

    "But hey, you failed your real dad. You failed your fake dad. You failed Gilgamesh, you failed your little students in your little school-" she kept sneering.

    "You've never fallen flat on your butt in front of God and everyone over and over, never been not one of the first in your class..."

    Something was wrong. Beyond the obvious, that is-

    "And above all else, you failed to spot that I'd never loved you. You stupid sap. We played you like a violin and you gave us everything we needed to burn your stupid airship castle out of the sky. So I guess it makes sense that once you finally figured out how we'd played you, you'd just quit. You're used to that."

    "So of course you got lost inside your own head for weeks the first time you thought that you'd really crashed and burned. You've never gotten any practice at having to deal with epic failure! I should have figured this out earlier!"

    Violetta had said that. When I'd been despairing in Mechanicsburg- that night I'd consoled her about being disowned from her family-

    "Well, if you're going to be no fun anymore then I guess it's just time to put you out of our misery. But you deserve it, really. All the people you've failed, all the threats you didn't notice in time, all the secrets you unknowingly betrayed- you know as well as I do that this is all. your. fault."

    "And even if you were right, just because some of these things were your decisions doesn't mean its still all your fault. YOU didn't set up and build this whole nightmare situation that the whole world's caught in! You just got it dropped on top of you without asking and had to deal with it the best you knew how!"

    -and the night she'd consoled me too.

    "Good-bye, airman." Violetta sneered contemptuously, and suddenly a knife was in her hand and she was thrusting it-

    "Not good-bye," I said, as all my despair and nausea fell away to be replaced by an icy-calm focus for the first time in ages. "Never good-bye!" I shouted defiantly.

    And I slapped her hand aside like she was moving in slow motion and I disarmed her, then caught her by the throat and slammed her up against the wall before she could even react. The knife I'd knocked loose came falling back down to be caught neatly in my other hand, and I held it to her throat and screamed.

    "You are not her! You are not real! None of this is real! WHO ARE YOU?!? WHAT ARE YOU?!?"

    'Violetta' dematerialized in my hands along with the knife, my clothes, and everything else, to be replaced by the white void again.

    "Pain." the 'Benefactor' sneered at me. "Pain is my gift, that you foolishly chose to accept-"

    And then my jaw dropped as a sword blade came bursting out of the 'Benefactor's' chest and he gurgled and died, and the white void fell away from around us to be replaced by my bedroom in Angel's mansion.

    "Man, I thought that guy would never shut up." Angel said. "We really need to talk later about some of the stuff that you're keeping inside your head, Jonathan!"

    "What the fuck just happened?" I said dazedly. "How did you even do that?!?"

    "I just got the call from Giles." Angel said. "Something went wrong over at the school, and now people's nightmares are coming to life all over Sunnydale. And as soon as I heard that I got down to your room as fast as I could-"

    "I can imagine." I said, still trying to shake off the mental fog. "So... nightmares literally coming to life, you said?"

    "Home sweet Hellmouth," Angel shrugged.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Was nobody even anticipating the nightmare episode? Because of course I was building up to the nightmare episode! Who the hell in Sunnydale has more buried nightmares than Jonathan? *eg*

    Yes, somehow Buffy got fast-forwarded through much more mature advice about relationships than she ever got before in her life, simply because the topic came up far differently and thus so did the responses. I admit it, I keep failing Will saves vs. temptation whenever I chaos butterfly. I really hate butterflying things to be worse, so, you get better.

    And yes, Joyce Summers is Best Mom. Not that this remotely surprises any Buffy fans.

    As to how Angel stabbed the 'Benefactor', the answer is of course that was part of the dream. Jonathan knows the 'Benefactor' is invulnerable, so if he'd tried to hurt the dream nothing would have happened. But Angel has no clue who that guy is so his subconscious goes 'Some kind of demon, dies like any other demon' and the dream responds accordingly.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 6) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    The nightmare demon case didn't actually take that much effort to wrap up, especially given that I'd spent so much time lost in my own nightmares that it was largely over before I'd gotten there. Still, the fact that I'd responded to the call at all and was back fighting alongside the team, as well as visibly looking better than I had been for the past several weeks, was a definite milestone towards getting the band back together again.

    And so we had the reunion conversations and everything. Two in particular.

    "Buffy." I called to her as we were breaking up in the library, and waved her over to the stacks for a private talk.

    "Jonathan." she said nervously. "Look, I'm-"

    I held up my hand to cut her off. "It's my turn to apologize this time."

    "For what?" she said confusedly. "You had every reason to say what you did!"

    "I did." I agreed with her. "But there's what you're saying, even if it needs to be said, and then there's how you're saying it. And in hindsight I feel like I kinda crushed a walnut with a sledgehammer there."

    "Hey, I'm just glad you're feeling stuff at all again." Buffy said honestly. "You were-" she sighed. "I hope to God that I am never, ever any part of making anyone feel that miserable ever again."

    "You are not the person who set me up for misery." I told her emphatically. "You just-" I shook my head. "Okay, yeah, I got lost for a while, I admit it. I'd probably still be there if the nightmares hadn't-"

    "Oh I do not even want to know!" Buffy said hurriedly. "I had my own and they were hideous! Being turned into a vampire, being buried alive- yeeesh!" she shivered.

    "Yeah, mine were at least that bad." I agreed. "But hey, silver lining. At least the shock treatment kicked my butt enough to get me out of being stuck inside my own head." I chuckled ruefully. "Violetta always used to do that for me."

    "Verbally or the other way?" Buffy snarked.

    "Yes." I snarked back. "Like I said, she was really into martial arts."

    "She sounds like someone who was really awesome." Buffy said compassionately. "I'm sorry about- well, everything."

    "Thanks." I nodded to her. "But... and I know I sound like a total hypocrite when I say this-"

    "Don't beat yourself up about it forever?" Buffy chuckled along with me.

    "Yeah." I said shamefacedly, knowing full well I was the last person who could tell anyone to put down their baggage.

    "And I'm sorry about the sexual harassment, too." Buffy said, blushing like a stop sign. "Willow actually gave me one of the brochures with everything I came on to you with annotated next to the relevant item on the checklist in marker. Ugh. I feel like such a skank now."

    "That's society's double standard, not yours." I reassured her. "Not that I'm-" I caught myself. "Speaking of, is there a non-offensive way for the guy to say 'It's not you, it's me'?" I tried to make a joke out of it.

    "You just did." Buffy let me off the hook. "And look, if I'm going to be doing any penance for this then here's where I've got to start. Friends?" she stuck out her hand.

    "Friends." I agreed after a long, long moment, and we shook on it.

    "So, about the Spring Fling-" she began as soon as she'd let go.

    "Wow, three whole seconds!" I jibed at her.

    "You." she mock-glared at me. "My point was, I think Amy's going to ask you to go with her. And I get if you're not ready to go with anyone yet, and I'm sure she does too, but-"

    "I should still know about it so I can think about my answer ahead of time." I agreed with her.

    "Yeah." Buffy agreed. "I admit I was pretty much thinking only with my hormones, but I think she really likes you. So-"

    "Yeah." I agreed. This was going to be the tricky one.

    * * * * *​

    "Hi." Amy said cutely. I was sitting out alone in the quad during a break period, and she'd found me there.

    "Hi Amy." I said back. "How've you been?"

    "I found an actual magic teacher, would you believe it?" she said excitedly as she sat down alongside me on the bench. "Ms. Calendar turned out to be a witch too!"

    "Wait, the computer science teacher?" I asked her back. "She does the ritual magic thing?"

    "Would you believe there's an actual magical tradition called 'techno-pagan'?" Amy asked me back. "It's about blending symbology with logical syntax-" and she was off to the races for almost two whole minutes. Some of this stuff was legitimately scientifically fascinating, so I paid rapt attention.

    "Please at least tell me Ms. Calendar's got a solid grip on the white side of magic and isn't a mad science type." I finally asked her at the first available interruption. "Trust me, mad science types are not-" I shivered dramatically.

    "Oh no, she is all about the Threefold Law and knowing your intentions behind your spells and everything." Amy nodded vigorously. "You should've seen the expression on her face when I brought up some of the stuff from my mother's old grimoires and asked her if it was as dangerous as it looked. Turns out my mom's tradition was all completely left-hand path, even at the foundations."

    "How's Willow dealing with her favorite teacher turning out to also be as much magic as science?" I asked curiously. "She isn't getting weirded out, I hope."

    "Oh no, she's fascinated by how computer programming logic can be applied to spell design." Amy said. "She's actually starting to cast alongside me now!"

    "Two witches on the team?" I raised an eyebrow. "I guess mana levels really are higher on the Hellmouth. I hope she's staying as centered and cleansed as you are-"

    "She got a later start than I did but everything's going fine so far." Amy reassured me.

    "Good. I hate to sound like a worrywart, but-"

    "You really care a lot about us all." Amy said warmly. "And you want the people around you to be as safe as you can make them." She sighed sadly and continued on in a lower tone of voice. "I think I can understand why."

    "I still miss them." I agreed soberly. "I'll always miss them."

    "I'm sorry about your loss." she said, equally as soberly. "And I-" she stopped, and chewed her lip. "I'll... see you in class?" she finished weakly and started to get up. And I was really tempted to just take the easy way out and let her nerve fail her, but that wouldn't be fair to her.

    "Amy." I said resignedly, patting the bench next to me, and she hesitantly sat down again. "You were going to ask me to the Spring Fling, right?"

    "Who told you that?" she denied.

    I just gave her the side-eye in reply to that, because I certainly wasn't going to hang Buffy out to dry.

    "... I was. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed-" she continued.

    "Amy." I insisted. "You like me, and you were being perfectly nice about it, and we're legitimately friends. You have every right to ask." I said, and before I could let her spiral too far up into false hope, I continued. "Which is why I really hate what I'm going to say next."

    "... you don't want to go with me." she slumped down sadly.

    "Eugh!" I threw up my hands in frustration. "Stupid English language!". That actually got a brief bark of laughter out of her.

    "Amy, more than anything I want you to leave this conversation not feeling down." I reassured her. "You are the best friend I have in this school. You are by far the nicest girl I've met here, and the one who's been the most respectful of my everything. It's not fair to you that I'm still too wrapped up in-" I shook my head. "Like I mentioned that night, I did the pining thing myself for years. And right up until the end of it I had no expectation that anything could change. That I had even as short a time of enjoying an actual happy ending as I did was a gift out of nowhere." I looked at her as reassuringly as I could. "So I know how much your position sucks right now, and I really wish I could give you the answer you want to hear without being totally unfair to you in the process. But I can't do it without lying to you, and I won't do that."

    "But are you sure you can't?" Amy asked me as gently as she could. "I know that you're grieving..." she trailed off nervously before finally screwing her courage to the sticking place. "But would she want you to be miserable forever?"

    Every instinct I had told me to answer that question truthfully. To explain that the root of the problem was that Violetta, that all my friends and family, were more 'lost in dimensional limbo' than 'dead'. That it wasn't that I was afraid to hope again but that I'd have to actually give up my last microscopic fraction of hope, however vain, in order to move on. And, of course, to explain how even if I did then I wouldn't ever be allowed to keep it anyway.

    Of course, every instinct I had right now was Drawback-enforced to be a dumb teenager's, so I resolved to ignore them completely.

    "She wouldn't." I agreed with her. "But I still can't. I just can't, I'm sorry. It is literally nothing you have done wrong, or aren't doing right, or anything. It's-" I ground to a halt.

    "Then I will wait until you can." Amy said with quiet resolve. "You waited for years. So can I."

    "I was dumb and I got lucky." I emphasized. "Once. I got lucky once. I do not recommend trying to repeat my strategy. Even I don't want to repeat my strategy."

    "For as long as you can't let go, you can't tell me to let go either." Amy insisted. "You're not a hypocrite. You can ask me to please respect your boundaries, you can ask me to be as patient as I need to be, and I will. But I won't try to pretend that my heart doesn't want what it wants. And what it wants is the most honest, most decent, and most impressive guy that I've ever met in my life." she laid it all out. "Not because you're hot, or even because you're awesome, but because you're a good person. The kind of person every girl should be lucky enough to find, and the kind of person who doesn't deserve to be lonely and sad."

    And I had to admit that if this had been my first jump instead of Girl Genius, if I even just had an assurance that this would be my last jump, then Amy would probably have won right then and there. But it wasn't, and I didn't. And so I couldn't.

    "Amy, do you remember what they said in literature class was the roots of tragedy?" I asked her plaintively. "Particularly the classic Greek kind?"

    "That the protagonist's downfall isn't because they're driven by their flaws but instead by the strength of their conviction, only in the wrong direction." Amy replied.

    "And that's the path I'm on right now." I told her. "So please, whatever you choose to do with your life, do not try to follow me down it."

    "You really don't know anything about girls, do you?" she smiled sadly at me.

    "Fuck." I swore frustratedly. Yeah, I should have seen that one coming.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    "I need an adult!" Jonathan cried as soon as he came in the door from school.

    "Don't tell me Buffy-" I began disappointedly.

    "No, no, her and I are fine." he assured me. "She apologized, I apologized, she stopped trying to hit on me, everything's fine." He slumped depressedly into an armchair. "No, Amy is where I'm really not good right now."

    "I'm not really what you would call an expert in romance." I began, sitting down in my own living room chair. "But I can listen."

    After Jonathan finished running me through the entire conversation him and Amy had had, I shook my head. "I'm gonna be blunt. If you wanted to actually put her off then you should tried sounding even ten percent less like a romance novel."

    "I know." he moaned. "I saw that as soon as she answered me! I just wish I'd seen it before I'd answered her!"

    "I think the most relevant part of the conversation is where you had a perfect opening to just let her not ask you out, but invited her to keep talking anyway." I analyzed.

    "Because on some level I'm tempted to just say 'Yes'." he agreed. "I'm not that teenaged oblivious. That still doesn't mean it was a smart impulse."

    "You're that sure that it's not your subconscious trying to tell you that you might be ready to start bonding again?" I said. Hey, I had been reading those self-help books trying to figure out something to aid him with. "You did just have a catharsis recently."

    "That's-" Jonathan sighed, and suddenly looked ten years older than he was. "When you saw my nightmares, how many of them did you see?"

    "The inside of your head was a maze." I acknowledged. "There were several I had to fight through, and you kept slipping ahead of me into new ones just before I could catch up. That's why it took me so long to finally reach you and pull you out. But that creepy guy in the suit was always watching you from a distance through all of them. That's why I figured killing him would break the cycle."

    "You're carefully not asking about what you saw." Jonathan said intelligently.

    "Dreams have to make real-world sense?" I shrugged. "I'm not sure why all of them were in the same fictional world, and I never knew you were that much into steampunk, but-"

    Jonathan held up a hand for silence, and looked to be mustering as much of his considerable willpower as he possibly could. "Okay, if that asshole in the suit shows up to interrupt this conversation do not swing on him. The real one is nowhere near as easy to take, and he's a goddamned sadist."

    My already dead blood chilled even further at that one. If that figure was a real enemy from his past, if the reason Jonathan's nightmares had been so many and varied is because he at one time had genuinely been caught up in some kind of reality-warping maze, then Jonathan's loved ones had been destroyed not by vampires, but by some type of demon lord.

    "He's the one who took them away from you." I said. "And he's still- fuck!" I swore as I realized exactly what was going on. It's not like I hadn't done this myself before! "And as soon as you dare to love anyone again, he'll let it go on just long enough to be suspenseful, and then come back."

    "Yeah." Jonathan agreed stolidly.

    "He give you a name? Even a false one?" I asked. Because if we were going to kill a demon lord, we'd need a starting point.

    Jonathan sat and thought for a long, long while. I let him.

    "All right." he finally said. "You at least I can share all this with..."

    And that's when he began what was, in all my centuries of life and unlife, bar none the weirdest damn story I'd ever heard.

    We talked long into the night as he told me about the 'Jumpchain', and about his "Benefactor" - yeah, I was never going to say that thing's name without the sarcastic quotes either - and how this was the third reincarnation Jonathan was living through and how his first one had been a mundane world without the supernatural and where he'd had no real ties left to the world, and how he'd believed that his second one in that 'Europa' dimension was a new life that he'd be allowed to keep and how thoroughly he'd thrown himself into finding new families and loved ones there. How he'd actually been a young adult there, not a teenager, and a soldier and a ship captain during a war. How Violetta, the girl he'd loved, had been a 'Smoke Knight', an actual honest-to-god ninja, serving what had originally been uneasy allies and possible enemies who by the end of the war had become solid ones. I was actually amused at how close most of my deductions had been and yet how far off they actually were simultaneously.

    "... so, what the hell do I do?" he finished. "The damned thing is not only functionally omnipotent, it can - and has - fucked with everything from my mental integrity to my body at will! Just sitting and taking it is obviously deprecated as a strategy, and-" he swore and punched the air. "For all I know the damned bastard is reading every thought I think. He can certainly hear every word I say. The power disparity is such that if I have the slightest hope at all of getting out of his net it will be by guile, but I just got through outlining how impossible he is to sneak up on-" he slumped.

    And I had to admit, I felt his despair. I'd never even imagined being in pawn to such a horribly powerful entity that you couldn't even die to escape it. And Jonathan hadn't even really been given a choice about accepting the 'Jumpchain' at all, just the most threadbare illusion of one as he'd been intimidated into it. I felt sick. I felt helpless. I felt fully as bad as Jonathan did, as bad as any of the victims I'd ever-

    And then I realized that there was actually something I could do. That all the horrible things I'd done might actually have a point. It was certainly a very grim satisfaction, given the context, but if even one soul could actually be genuinely, legitimately helped by Angelus' having existed then the mere knowledge of that fact would torture my inner demon forever. And given how much it had tortured me-

    "If your 'Benefactor' feels obligated to stick to even the letter of the rules, much less the spirit, then that's an actual framework you can try to leverage." I said. "And even if it's an absolutely conscienceless, unscrupulous bastard then it still might have a reason to. It would not have bothered creating even an illusion of rules if it wasn't playing some kind of game, and even that game is just solitaire-"

    "You can't cheat at solitaire forever without boring yourself to death." Jonathan began to realize.

    "And with each new jump you complete, you'll slowly grow more and more powerful." I agreed. "So unless we assume that it's truly omnipotent - at which point there's no point in planning anyway- then eventually it has to either let you stop jumping, or else accept that you'll be as or more powerful than it and really pissed off."

    "Or it can just kill me." Jonathan shrugged.

    "So keep your karma clean enough that you end up in the good place." I said, "and at least hope to see the people you love there again." I shrugged. "Not even the mightiest demon lord is powerful enough to take away the entire afterlife. And unlike me you're still alive and have your soul- you're not locked out of going."

    "Also a point." Jonathan agreed. "If that sonofabitch is going to drag this out for an eternity, then at least I can plan for eternity."

    "But most important of all," I grinned wickedly, "we just learned that your 'Benefactor' might be vastly powerful, and even vastly able to keep surveillance on you, but he's still mentally limited enough to be capable of mistakes. Because he made a huge one when he sent you to Sunnydale."

    "No Weapons, No Hope?" Jonathan asked.

    "No," I surprised him. "That could have been just what you thought it was - him letting you have the tools necessary to let him drag this out. No, whatever else your 'Benefactor' is, whatever's behind its actions or whatever peers it might have, there's obviously an element of sadism in there for it as well. It's enjoying making you suffer, arbitrarily, for no better reason than it can."

    "And this is a good thing how?"

    "Because if that's even part of his game, then he should never have allowed you to talk to me." I declared. "I can't help you plan how to beat it. Even if we assume it's not doing full-time monitoring of your every thought, because there's nothing we could do about that if it was, we still have to assume that it's able to hear every word we say. So if I helped you work out a strategy, it would just see it coming. You've got to plan it out for yourself, and in the hopeful privacy of your own thoughts. But-" I cut Jonathan off as he tried to reply. "You gave me your life story tonight. And in return, I'll trade you mine. I'll tell you the entire story of the demon Angelus, the demon I used to be." I shook my head. "And it's going to be centuries of some of the sickest, most depraved, most monstrous stuff you've ever heard. Because when I was Angelus, I wasn't just a sadist. I was the sadist."

    Jonathan blinked as he began to realize where I was going, and for the first time in a long, long while a faint hope began to flicker back into his eyes.

    "I don't care how powerful this thing is or how long it's been cosmically torturing people. When it comes to sheer psychological cruelty then if I'm not at least a peer of the worst in the multiverse, nobody wants to know who is. And so by the time you've finished learning all about me you'll have finished learning more about how a sadistic, psychotic bastard thinks than virtually anyone else ever has. You'll know all our tricks, all our moves, all the illusions and mazes we try to build around our victim's minds-" I finished with an emphatic nod. "And all about how our obsession with pain and evil limits us. And once you've got all that down-" I snapped my fingers. "Then you'll have something to start making a plan of your own with."

    "Know thy enemy." Jonathan agreed with me.

    "At least that one little aspect of him." I agreed. "I don't know where your journey will take you or how long it will be, but I think we can agree on the goal."

    "To eventually find a way to fuck my 'Benefactor' over as hard as possible." Jonathan snarled.

    "One jump at a time." I agreed, matching his carnivore grin with my own.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Romantically speaking, we can all see exactly where Jonathan fucked up, yes. *g*

    I didn't even plan to romantically torture Amy when I started this jump, but we all know that a lot of my writing is done by letting the flow take me places. But hey, if there wasn't tragic star-crossed love around here would we even be on BtvS? Jonathan totally cock-blocked Buffy and Angel out of having such a relationship, so three guesses who gets drafted to fill in.

    Since there's no real way to have it said IC in the story short of a Benefactor POV segment which ahahahaha, fuck no, I will confirm OOC here that a lot of what the "Benefactor's" motive is here is that he is being a sadist. Whatever other purposes he may have, he's also legitimately letting needless suffering be done because he enjoys it.

    Angel, of course, is going to pick up on that because he is legitimately one of the multiverse's greatest authorities on that topic. Angelus was not hailed as the cruelest creature the Master had ever known because he was an amateur at this shit. And part of that sadism is, of course, giving Jonathan opportunities to bond to new people that the Benefactor then takes away again.

    And no, Angel isn't about to lose his soul because having to confess the full litany of his sins damn sure ain't a moment of perfect happiness for him, even if he can find ironic satisfaction in torturing Angelus with the knowledge that for once, just once, Angelus' list of sins will be put to a constructive purpose.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 7) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    "'If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?' OK, so talk to me, people. How does what Shylock says here, about being a Jew, relate to our discussion about the anger of the outcast at society?" Ms. Miller, our English teacher, lectured the class. "Mister Fairchild?" she continued, pointing at me. My penalty for actually being the person who can translate Shakespeare to teenager and vice versa.

    "He's saying that the people condemning him are hypocrites, which they are." I replied. "But Shylock himself has also become one. Shylock had a chance to get twice his money back but passed it up for a chance to - he thought - legally torture someone because he wanted to vent his grievances on a handy target. Then Portia turns around and doesn't stop with her clever legal argument to just stop Shylock from hurting someone unnecessarily and take the money instead, but goes on to twist the knife further and further and grind him into the dirt. It's a cycle of revenge where everybody starts from a legitimate place of grievance but doesn't stop themselves from going too far when it's their turn to have the upper hand, and so they keep racing each other to the bottom. And that's why by the end of the play it's no longer about who's right, just about who's left. The whole thing is a big parable on how injustice only keeps creating more injustice unless people can stop themselves."

    "So what, Shylock's just supposed to keep turning the other cheek?" Cordelia Chase, still annoyed at not being called upon despite having had her hand up, rounded on me sarcastically. Ms. Miller looked tempted to cut her off but then visibly decided that turning the end of the class into an impromptu discussion might actually help the rest of the students to pay attention to Shakespeare for once, if only out of morbid curiosity.

    "That's what Shakespeare wrote as his 'happy ending' for the play, but I'm sure nobody in the 20th century agrees with him." I conceded to Cordelia. "Like I said, the people against Shylock aren't any better than him by the end of that whole courtroom debacle. But for as long as we're on the 'cycle of revenge' metaphor then I'll point out that where Shylock should have broken the cycle was just not giving Antonio that last loan at all. If he didn't want Antonio's loan business undercutting his own then Shylock should have just let let him bury himself instead trying to deliberately booby-trap him and have it backfire. Losing your entire investment without insurance because ships get lost at sea was a normal business risk in that century; Shylock should have known that Antonio was almost guaranteed to go bust sooner or later if he kept overextending himself beyond his available cash flow like that. All Shylock had to do to win was nothing, or to just be a better person, and instead he does what he did and it ended how it ended."

    "Wow, somebody finally said something that makes sense out of this stuff!" Cordelia surprisingly agreed with me. "You're right, that was a completely irresponsible fiscal decision! If you don't want business competition, then don't subsidize it!"

    "That's a very interesting take-away." Ms. Miller said. "I've never had a class approach The Merchant of Venice before from a financial angle."

    "I know, right?" Cordelia said. "It really brought the conflict into focus for me! I'm going to have to re-do my whole paper now!"

    And then the bell rang and we all headed out. Cordelia stayed behind to talk to the teacher.

    "I've never seen anyone get Cordelia to change their mind in a classroom discussion before." Willow said to me as we headed out.

    "I just wanted to head off whatever she was originally going to say so I distracted her with money." I shrugged. "It's her second favorite topic, after all."

    "And we all know what her first favorite is." Willow eye-rolled.

    "Cordelia almost looked like she was going to ask you out to the Spring Fling there for a moment instead of Mitch." Xander cut in amusedly.

    "Oh hell no!" I burst out. "There's no way I'm turning down Amy and then hurting her feelings by going with anyone else."

    "And speaking of totally unrelated things, have I thanked you for my actual 'B' on the last English test yet?" Xander deliberately changed the subject. "Because that's definitely a new look for me."

    "If we're going to sell our meetings at Giles' house to parents and staff as a weekend study group then we have to actually study a little, right?" I gladly rolled with the subject change. "I'm naturally good at explaining stuff, it's not a thing I can take credit for anymore than Cordelia can take credit for being born with rich parents."

    "Don't you guys have gym next?" Willow reminded us. "You'd better go get changed."

    "Thanks!" Xander said, and we headed off to the locker room. Gym class was softball today, so after it was over we hit the showers.

    "Hey John." Mitch came up to me angrily as I was toweling myself off. "We need to talk."

    "If it's about Cordelia-" I began.

    "What is your deal, dude?" he said, staring at me. "You are the smartest guy in class and the most athletic, but you don't compete. Like, at all. What, you think you're so much better than us you that don't even have to try?"

    "Mitch." I said firmly, really not wanting to get into some stupid teenaged brawl. "Take your girlfriend to the dance," I reassured him, slightly emphasizing 'your', "and have a great time. I'm almost certainly not even going."

    "That's what I don't get!" he retorted. "What are you even here for?"

    "I'm legally required to be?" I said sarcastically.

    "That's not what I meant-"

    "Boy's locker room!" I called out to the plain-looking girl who I'd just spotted coming up the row of lockers behind Mitch. "Wait outside, please!"

    Mitch spun around as the girl looked at me in utter shock and then took off running. "Dude, who are you talking to?"

    "You didn't see her? She was right there." I pointed and then shrugged. "She took off like a shot when I called her out, but I don't think she'd made the corner yet when you turned around."

    "Didn't see her." he shrugged. "Who was it?"

    I consulted my photographic memory and came up with barely zilch. "I've seen her around here and there but never gotten her name. Mousy-looking, brown hair... you know, average." I finished futilely.

    "Whatever." he shrugged. "Maybe being a Peeping Tom is as close as she can get to a date." He laughed. "Do they still call it being a 'Peeping Tom' when it's a girl?"

    "Ask Ms. Miller?" I deflected, and my having successfully defused the tension we both finished dressing and left.


    * * * * *​

    Amy and I didn't sit alone together at lunch anymore, but things had shifted enough that Jesse was no longer an interference factor to her sitting with the group. Not that Willow and Xander had fallen out with him at all - their inseparable trio was still pretty much inseparable. But his first and only near-death experience at the hands of vampires at the Bronze had spooked him enough that he clung as strictly to the daylight world as he possibly could, so he was only their friend and not any of ours.

    Not that I had any objection to anybody else on the Scooby Gang actually having a social life outside of Slaying, even if I didn't. I had reasons for being wrapped up in what I was wrapped up in, but they were entirely welcome to maintain as many anchors outside the demon hunting lifestyle as they wanted to. So Amy and I had a suitably safe social space of contact to stay in touch in without... further stuff. And that meant I could pick her brains about certain sides of Sunnydale High.

    "Amy, you're still on the squad for cheerleading, right?" I asked her.

    "Until the end of this year." she agreed. "What with everything else I'm probably going to drop it, but Cordelia would never get off my case if I left a mid-season hole in her line-up. Replacing girls every school year is normal, though, so..." she shrugged.

    "That's the school's fault for not having any reserves." I said. "But the reason I asked is, if you're cheerleading then you're the group's resident authority on who's who in the sports teams, coaches, personalities, all that."

    "You are going to sign up for a non-mandatory school activity?" Buffy asked me in total shock. "You?"

    "It recently got brought to my awareness that my refusal to let myself be pigeonholed at all is drawing more attention to me than anything else I could do." I shrugged. "So it's time to roll with the punch. 'Antisocial jock' is a category people understand, and as long as I'm contributing enough wins nobody will care about anything else I do except the 'jock' part." I shrugged. "Which certainly beats being the sideshow exhibit I am right now."

    "That actually makes sense." Xander conceded. "What with my being in better shape now and all I was thinking about doing it myself next year to get the jocks and the Snyder off my back. Especially since they let you skip regular gym class if you're on a team. What sport were you thinking of going out for?"

    "Unless it's got a psycho coach or steroid freaks, the wrestling team." I said. "That's why I wanted Amy to tell me if there was any creep factor I didn't know about in there."

    "No," Amy reassured me. "They're high school wrestlers, with all that implies, but the coach doesn't believe in anything except old-fashioned weightlifting and practice. And they're nowhere near as bad as Percy's thugs on the basketball team. They're muscle guys but not bullies."

    "Then I know what I'm doing junior year." I nodded.

    "You think that might not be a little unfair, with all your training?" Willow asked tentatively.

    "That's another reason I was thinking wrestling." I acknowledged her. "Sure, if you're on the junior pro circuit then you don't join your high school's golf team- if it has a golf team. Or if you're like that kid with the World Series ring in that baseball movie then you shouldn't go back into Little League after doing that. There's an expectation of fairness there, that people only play in their league."

    "But?" Amy asked me, fascinated to hear my reasoning.

    "But wrestling is a combat sport," I said, "and there's no real leagues, just weight classes. There's a lot less expectation of fairness in combat." I held up my hand to pre-empt the obvious reaction. "Don't get me wrong. The wrestling team will still have rules and I'll still follow them there, because it's still a sport and not an actual war. But what I meant was that the essence of the sport is still an old-fashioned 'two man enter, one man leave' experience. You don't fight foul and you don't fight for blood, but you still fight. And if you go out looking for a fight then you've already accepted that your opponent can potentially be anyone or anything with any kind of experience, and that they're not going to go easy on you and it's all on you to be good enough to win. Or not." I shrugged. "As long as I obey the rules and stick to my weight class, it's as fair as any other match-up in varsity wrestling ever gets even with all my prior experience. Because if talented people weren't allowed to play sports then Michael Jordan should never have picked up a basketball. Speaking of, what sport were you thinking of going out for?" I asked Xander.

    He shrugged. "Track and field, maybe? I don't want contact sports or team sports, and you're doing wrestling, so I'll just see whatever else has an opening next year."

    "Well, I'll cheer both you guys on." Amy assured us. "Although not with pom-poms because between Slaying and my apprenticeship I really don't need any more extracurriculars."

    "I wish I could just do a sport and get over my own weirdness label here." Buffy sighed. "But it's kinda hard to do anything physical without revealing my superpowers and I already busted out of cheerleading tryouts."

    "Hey, maybe you can poach my spot back next year." Amy reassured her. "My mom had to cheat to get me into it instead of you anyway."

    "Assuming life doesn't throw me any more of the weird as interference first." Buffy sighed.

    "Wait, is that an ambulance?" I said, having spotted the flashing lights outside the cafeteria window.

    "What did I just say?!?" Buffy whined, as we all hurried to get up and go see what the latest emergency was.

    * * * * *​

    "I'm not certain this is even a supernatural occurrence." Giles said immediately afterwards in our hasty library meeting.

    "He got his skull fractured out in broad daylight on the quad." Xander said. "How does that happen without twenty people seeing it happen unless Hellmouthy weirdness is involved?"

    "He's going to be all right, isn't he?" Willow asked nervously.

    "Head injuries are always uncertain," I said, "and from what I overheard the EMTs say he definitely had a concussion. On the other hand, he was also still conscious when they loaded him in so while he might or might not have gotten his skull actually cracked he's nowhere near as bad off as he could be." I finished, rubbing my chin in thought. "Which is one of the odd things about this."

    "In what manner?" Giles said, nodding to me.

    "First off, why did his attacker stop with just one hit?" I analyzed. "It can't be that they were afraid of being seen, because Mitch was so out in the open that even their first shot should have been in direct line-of-sight of several people. It was in line-of-sight of the cafeteria windows even, if not from our row! So if you have a way of attacking someone without being seen, then why run before you're finished?"

    "Maybe they didn't want to hurt him too badly?" Amy asked.

    "You don't club someone with a brick upside the head if you're not willing to at least risk doing them serious bodily harm." I pointed out. "But by the same token, if his assailant was trying to kill him then all they had to do was hit him in a different place." I tapped one finger to my temple meaningfully. "Or just hit him again and again while he was down. Instead they lash out once, then take off like a spooked cat." I chewed my lip.

    "So, a crazy amateur." Buffy nodded analytically. "Amateur because they didn't know where to hit, and crazy because purposeful doesn't stop until after the job is done and normal doesn't go around trying to give people skull fractures for no reason."

    "There we return to the question of if something supernatural is in play." Giles said. "Because if not, this is a matter for a police investigation."

    "Our police?" Willow said indignantly. "They're horrible!"

    "Hrm." I said, prompted by the thought of an actual police investigation. "Giles, where's the stacks with prior yearbooks?"

    "Right there," he pointed. "Why?"

    "Because earlier today something weird happened in the locker room with Mitch." I said. "He stayed behind to talk to me, and there was this girl-"

    "In the boys' locker room?" Willow asked, aghast.

    "As soon as I spotted her I told her to get out and wait." I agreed as I walked over to the relevant shelf. "The weird thing is, in hindsight I think she was trying to sneak up behind Mitch. And when I saw her she was acting surprised that I'd seen her despite her being out in the middle of the floor and in plain sight. And when Mitch turned around to see who I was talking to he didn't see her, and even though she'd taken off running she hadn't quite left the room yet."

    "Somebody who's hard to see, who's all surprised whenever she is seen, and who was already stalking Mitch." Buffy said as I finished finding the yearbook I'd been looking for. "We have a suspect!"

    "We do," I agreed. "Okay, so..." I brought the book back to the table as I was already hurriedly flipping through the class photos for last year, page after page after page, until-

    "That's her." I said, putting the yearbook down and pointing at the face I'd seen earlier today.

    "Marcie Ross?" Amy said. "Wait- Willow, didn't we have biology class with her last year?"

    "I think so..." Willow said, chewing her lip thoughtfully.

    "Maybe she was in homeroom?" Xander said doubtfully.

    "I believe a trip to the records room is in order." Giles said, getting up to leave. We kept ourselves busy brainstorming futilely until he returned with Marcie's transcript.

    "Wait, we each had four classes with her last year!" Willow said aghast. "How do we not remember her at all?"

    "Some kind of power of suggestion." I suddenly realized. "Okay, did I ever mention that one of the weird bits from my past that I don't like to talk about is that I'm basically impossible to mind control?"

    "No." Giles said to me flatly.

    "Like I ask you for all of your youthful secrets." I chided him, and noted in passing that that drew far more of a flinch - however subtle - than I'd expected. Huh, hidden depths. "But my point is, if what she's doing is a 'Forget I'm here!' spell of some kind then I wouldn't even notice it. Because that's a subset of trying to control my mind, which is nope."

    "But why would anybody want to make themselves invisible all the time?" Amy asked confusedly. "If your theory is correct then it's like she's gone beyond social outcast to outright missing person!"

    "Maybe she can't control her powers." Xander said. "Maybe this is some weird cry for help?"

    "A cry for help would be 'Help me!' written on a blackboard, not trying to break a random guy's head open." Buffy said firmly. "If this whole 'girl with superpowers who isn't me' theory has anything to it, then somebody's not using her powers for good."

    "Willow, can you get into the police computer again?" I said. "I want to know if Marcie Ross is being listed as a missing person."

    "No problem," she said, going over to her terminal and booting it up. "Those listings I already have my backdoor into, and-" Willow sighed. "Yeah, she is. Lost and invisible in the middle of all the other missing people statistics in Sunnydale. If I hadn't already had a name to look for it would have taken me a huge time to narrow it down to her." She kept typing for several minutes more. "Her parents even moved out earlier this year after having 'lost' their daughter."

    I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on every detail I'd seen on her. "If her parents moved out then she can't be haunting her own house. And from what I glimpsed her hair was a mess, but that's what happens you can't go to barbers and cut it yourself. But her clothes were clean and relatively neat, and so was she, so she's squatting somewhere she still has access to laundry and showers. Plus food and shelter, obviously."

    "The YMCA?" Willow guessed.

    "A hotel?" Buffy brainstormed. "A friend's house?"

    "The nearest such building would actually be the school itself." Giles pointed out.

    "The gym showers and the laundry machine they use for the athletic equipment." I snapped my fingers. "And raiding the cafeteria for food. She could even swipe new clothes from lockers. With all the sloppiness around here and so many hundreds of kids, her petty thefts would never be noticed. But places like hotels and the YMCA actually count the towels."

    "So, we have to search the school for a squatter's nest." Buffy said. "Great. That's a lot of potential places."

    "Almost certainly not the basement." I pointed out. "You live down that close to the sewer entrance for several months without a support system and-"

    "Vampires." Buffy agreed. "Invisible doesn't necessarily mean untouchable, or unhearable, or unsmellable- eugh." she shuddered. "So, we start from the top floor down?"

    "Not we. Me." I said. "Tonight, after hours. I'm the only person we know can see her."

    "And what'll you do when you find her?" Willow asked me.

    "That depends on her." I said after a long pause.

    * * * * *​

    Seeing as how I knew exactly what I was doing, it didn't really take me very long. I ghosted back into the campus as soon as the late-leaving staff and after-hours extracurriculars were done, after the dinner hour, and let myself in with the spare key I'd long since cut myself for the exterior doors. Marcie's nest was in a ceiling space above the band room, complete with sleeping bag and bedside table.

    But since she wasn't there when I got there, I decided to get out the old rubber surgical gloves and pass the time by searching through her stuff. Clothes, books, some failed attempts at solitary hobbies, a rather disturbing improvised weapons collection - and not-so-improvised, as I recognized a pair of Brazilian fighting daggers that had gone missing from Giles' in-library supplies a couple of months ago - and a journal.

    By the end of the journal I was rather thoroughly depressed. Our theory had been correct - Marcie had developed some kind of involuntary invisibility power, and she'd been unable to shut it off. Her parents believing her gone and moving away was the start of a downward psychological spiral that she'd apparently been on for quite some time already. She'd possibly had avoidant personality disorder even before the Hellmouthy weirdness started, or perhaps the one had led to the other. At any rate, the months of isolation and the feelings of detachment and unreality showed up clearly as her writings got more and more deranged, reaching a positively serial-killer quality by the end. Apparently the only reason she hadn't done more damage already was rooted in the same fear and anxiety that had rendered her incapable of doing even the most basic reaching out and trying to connect with other people, but that restraining bolt of relative cowardice was visibly starting to fray entirely.

    And then I hit the last page and I hit the ground running in panic.
    ​
    He can see me. Finally, somebody who can actually see me, but it's too late! He's just one of Them, like Cordelia, like Mitch. The only thing he did when he looked at me was tell me to get out! I thought my new powers at least made me safe but no, the world won't even let me keep that! The group of weirdos in the library that he hangs out with, the ones with the weapons. The people who hunt things. Now they know about me. Now they'll be hunting me.​
    ​
    But I'll have the last laugh on them. If I can't get them all then I'll at least get her. The Queen Bitch. The worst one of them all. She thinks her fancy house and its fancy walls and alarms will keep her safe from me? As if! Maybe one boy can see me, but she never could!​
    ​
    Tonight. I'll do it tonight. And then I'll leave Sunnydale and they'll never, ever find me. Not even that boy who sees will find me, not with an entire world to hide in.​
    ​
    Because there really is a whole world out there, full of so many wonderful things. And if none of the people in it will want me, then that's fine. I'll just take whatever I want. ​
    ​
    And they'll never see me coming.​

    I dropped back down into the music room, shut the panel again, and hit the nearest phone extension. I'd brought Angel up to date on the current case when I'd gone home after school today, so I didn't need to waste words.

    "Angel, it's me! I found Marcie's serial killer shrine but she's already left to hit her next target. She's going after Cordelia off-campus!"

    "Do you know where Cordelia is right now?" he asked.

    "Either at home or the Bronze." I said. "Private house is a no-go for you, so cover the Bronze. I'll get her house."

    "I'm on it." he said, and hung up. And then I got moving.

    Cordelia's own sports car pulling out of her driveway and heading down the nearest side street with no lights on and Marcie in the driver's seat was a pretty obvious hint, so I killed my own lights and did a discreet tail. Marcie didn't bother driving much further than was necessary to find the nearest parking lot for the forest preserve, so I just stopped far enough up the road that she wouldn't see my car and hit the ground running. By the time I got there Marcie had dragged Cordelia's bound and gagged form out of her own car and left her lying propped up against the side door underneath one of the parking lot's streetlights. Places like this were for obvious reasons left entirely unattended after dark, so she didn't have much fear of interruption. And she was already heading towards Cordelia with a knife out and would reach her well before I could sneak within grabbing distance-

    "Marcie!" I called to get her attention while I was still approximately twenty feet away, both of my hands behind my back. "Stop!"

    "You!"     she said, turning away from Cordelia to round on me angrily. Six feet away from the hostage, maybe a little less... still way too close...

    "Marcie," I said as soothingly as I could. "If I can see you, then the spell can potentially be broken. We have people who know about supernatural things, who can actually do spells like the one on you. If you let us help you, you can rejoin the world."

    "Where were you when I needed you?" she shrieked angrily. "You're only pretending to care to try and save her life! She's the only one you care about, not me! People like you never thought people like me mattered!"

    "I'm not pretending to see you." I said. "And I'm not pretending that I want to help you."

    "Bullshit!" she sneered. "I've got her, and I've got the knife! You've got noth-"

    I brought my hands out from behind my back to clasp them again in front of me. Both Marcie's and Cordelia's eyes went wide at the automatic pistol clearly visible in my hand, the one I hadn't yet raised to firing position.

    "Marcie." I told her. "You can't fill the empty place inside you with other peoples' bodies. Put down the knife."

    "You're bluffing." she said hesitantly after a long pause. "You won't kill me. You're not like me. You're not angry. You're not justified."

    "Defending someone against an imminent threat to human life is justifiable homicide." I corrected her firmly. "And if I have to watch someone die tonight, it will not be the unarmed one." I continued. "I want to take you alive and help you, Marcie Ross. I will stop you by any means necessary."

    "But she deserves this!" Marcie ranted. "You don't know her! You didn't go to school with her for years! She's petty, and selfish, and cruel, and stupid-"

    "And as true all of those accusations are, the cops still wouldn't shoot her for any of them." I cut her off. "But they would shoot you for what you're trying right now." I paused for one merciless beat before I continued "And so will I, even if I don't want to."

    "No." Marcie said thickly. "This is all I've got left! I'll die before I let you take it from me!" she shrieked, and turned around to lunge at Cordelia with the knife-

    And I fired, and Marcie Ross died on the spot before she could take another step.

    I sighed, safed and holstered my weapon, and walked over to help the still-bound and gagged Cordelia to her feet. I mercifully carried her around to the other side of the car, where she didn't have to look at the headshot corpse any more, before removing her gag.

    "OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod-" she hyperventilated. I untied her hands and scrounged a plastic bag from inside her car to let her breathe into until she recovered her oxygen.

    "Are you hurt?" I asked her.

    "How did you do that?" she gasped.

    "I was not a normal kid, or living a normal kid life, before I came here." I answered her.

    "Then what kind of crazy child soldier bullshit makes someone like you?" Cordelia asked me perceptively.

    "Can we please not talk about it right now?" I asked her, as I finished cutting the rest of her bonds. "We're kind of on the clock here."

    "I just-" she gabbled. "Cannot process this!" she frazzled.

    "Marcie went crazy from prolonged social isolation and pre-existing mental conditions, and obsessed on hating popular kids." I began.

    "No duh!" Cordelia cut me off. "That part I got! But what the hell was up with all the invisible?"

    "The supernatural exists." I said to her flatly, knowing that Clear Understandings would help me short-circuit Sunnydale Syndrome. "Magic exists. Demons exist. And people who secretly fight all that weird stuff exist. Marcie got a taste of power somewhere and couldn't control it. And-" I said grimly. "She decided she'd commit suicide by cop rather than surrender."

    "Are you a cop?" she asked me quizzically. "Like, is your whole deal really some 21 Jump Street thing?"

    "No." I admitted. "I'm a rogue demon hunter."

    "What's a rogue demon?" she asked me confusedly.

    "Why does everybody make that joke?" I deflected. "And-" I got serious again. "Okay, first off, you just watched me straight up homicide someone. So if you want to dial 911, I'll hand you the phone." I shrugged. "I mean, I really don't want to go to jail but I am not going to go all 'no witnesses' on you. I don't hurt innocent bystanders."

    "You saved my life." Cordelia told me earnestly. "I mean, a crazy serial killer was about to cut my face off and you still gave her like multiple chances to put down the knife! You might not be a cop but you acted just like one, and they wouldn't go to jail for rescuing me like you did." She shook her head. "I admit I'm not Mother Teresa but I am not that ungrateful a witch. Oh, and speaking of the police-?" she trailed off.

    "One gunshot out in the woods at night is a car backfiring." I pointed out. "Or else I'd have already thrown you in the car and we'd be peeling rubber. But you're right that we don't want to stay here too long." I looked inside her car. "She left your keys in the ignition. The angle of my shot didn't leave any blood spatter on you or your car but when you drive out of here, make sure to go through a car wash before you get home just in case. I have to stay here and vanish the body."

    "Okay," Cordelia said, breathing deeply and fighting to get possession of herself again. "Make like a tree and leave, check. But you are so explaining all this to me tomorrow!"

    "The library, after last period." I told her. "We'll all be there."

    "Got it." she said, still ashen-faced from shock, and then she got in her car and drove away.

    I sighed and went back to my car to move it closer to the body and start getting the trash bags out of the trunk. I could in theory just leave Marcie's corpse here for Sunnydale's nocturnal scavengers but there was still a risk that the forest rangers would find it first, as relatively isolated as this site was. Much better to pack her along and leave her in the sewers for the local nightlife to sniff out, because that was a guaranteed corpse vanishing service and you didn't even have to pay anyone. Clearing out her room full of crazy tomorrow night should be equally as easy- I was the only person who knew where it was, and nobody else outside the gang would be looking for her.

    But now I was officially the first Scooby to have taken a human life. Not that I was particularly feeling twinges of conscience about it myself given how clear-cut the situation had been and after having been one of Baron Wulfenbach's top enforcers for years, but they certainly would be freaking.

    And I had no idea how I was going to handle this.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Well, it looks like not everything butterflies for the better. And the Scoobies' unrealistically comic-book code vs. killing humans had to clash with Jonathan sometime.

    "21 Jump Street" was a TV show in the 80s about young-looking undercover police detectives in a high school. "Rookie of the Year" was a 1993 kid's movie about a kid who pitched for a Major League baseball team before losing the magic arm trick that let him throw 90+ mph fastballs and going back to a normal life.

    Oh, and as to how Cordelia knew what was going on - she can't see Marcie, but she can see the knife she was holding. That was also from the original episode.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 8) New
  • View content
    • Cordelia POV:

    Okay, that was a shocker.

    Now, the whole being kidnapped by some crazy serial killer and then a last-minute hostage rescue by private security people? That one was entirely inside the mental universe for rich people in Southern California even if you never thought it would actually happen to you, so I still had a framework there. And I am so glad that she was still invisible when he shot her so I didn't have to actually see the bullet hit and the blood spray and everything because I'm sure that one would really have stuck. I sort of kept my eyes closed and looked away from the corpse afterwards too, because who wants those mental images later. So I'll probably stop hearing the gunshot in my dreams any month now. Honestly, why couldn't he have used a silencer?

    But mentally dealing with Marcie's takedown was the easy part. The whole suddenly finding out that the school weirdos and their weird little study group were actually some kind of teenaged superhero team fighting a secret war against the supernatural? Where did you find a manual for this?

    I showed up at the library after school like I'd been invited, but it probably wasn't a good omen that I got to the party just as it was sort of breaking up. He'd already made the explanations to them before I'd gotten there - so I took a couple minutes to nerve myself up, sue me - and the rest of their team was really freaked that he'd used a gun. Oh, not totally 'Get out of here!' freaked, but 'We are so gonna need a while to wrap our heads around this' freaked. Apparently there's a huge difference between killing non-human creatures because it's the only way to stop them from trying to murder people and killing humans because it's the only way to stop them from trying to murder people. Like how does that even work? I get that it's all normal society to disapprove of secret vigilantes running around but when you yourselves are secret vigilantes running round? Hypocritical much, guys?

    Anyway, I stood up for the boy who saved my life and so did the grown-ups in the room, and so did Harris of all people - who'd have ever thought he'd be part of anything important - but the other girls were still kinda weirded out. So after the official meeting broke up and Jonathan left, I dragged them all aside for some girl talk.

    "Okay, losers. Explain to me why you are ditching on somebody who according to you works harder at saving your lives than just about anyone." I glared at them.

    "We're not ditching!" Buffy began. "We're just-" She shook her head. "Kinda wigged?"

    Rosenberg was all nodding along mindlessly with her alpha, but Amy actually tried to glare back at me. "Cordelia, I need to-"

    "Stay here and listen." I cut her off imperiously. "I admit that I'm new to this party but trust me, I am the reigning expert at socially cutting people out. And there was some serious non-verbal pulling-away going on right before he left and since I kinda owe him one, I'm going to-"

    "Cordelia-" Amy tried to say again.

    "Shut it!" I snapped. "Now what you're all going to do is-"

    "I need to go talk to him!" Amy screamed at me. And oh, I felt my temper flare like a bonfire as I turned on her and got ready to tear her down to her component atoms... before what she'd just said sank in.

    "'We're breaking up' talk to him, or 'I feel your pain' talk to him?" I asked her with, I admit it, just a tiny bit of embarassment.

    "Door number two!" she hissed at me. Genuinely hissed! I actually felt a little proud!

    "Go, go, go!" I waved her out the door and she took off running like a shot.

    "Well, that's one of you with her head on straight at least." I stared at them, only to meet Buffy's stare coming the other way. We matched for a while - give her credit, she didn't back down at all - until I broke the tie by waving us to some nearby seats at the study table.

    "So. Start telling me all about this secret world of yours and why the rules are supposedly so different here." I told them as we sat down.

    Buffy nodded to me all 'Okay, if you say so.' styles and began her lecture.

    "The world is older than you know..."

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    Well, at least I didn't get kicked out. But I was definitely back to being the scary outsider to at least most of them instead of the guy who sits at the lunch table and talks about sports.

    Only to be expected, really. They're from 20th-century America and... so was I, once upon a time. And part of me still is. But my second childhood was in Europa, and they did things very differently in Europa. Even subtracting the entire Teufel experience and the shit that my psychotic sire there did for "training", I'd made my first kill in the service of the Baron at age fifteen. Which was a bit early even for the Wulfenbach Empire, but stuff happens. And I'd made many, many, many kills since.

    So putting down a psychotic hostage-taker and aspiring serial killer? I'm going to be honest, after you burned your first or second village full of revenants you didn't have any tears left for someone who still had their free will and chose to be a murderous monster anyway. Not a single one. Putting down people who'd been compelled to try and kill you by an irresistible force was heartbreaking. There were a lot of troops who couldn't make themselves go back out and do it the second time, and had to be pensioned off or put on garrison duty somewhere. Hell, the existence of that kind of shit was the main reason DuPree had originally been given a job rather than the end of a rope, but even her and her hand-picked crew of cutthroats couldn't do all of that ugly business themselves. No, we'd all had to share in the ugly in the Empire. Even though the Second Other War had had the team all safely in Mechanicsburg or fighting against willing servants of the Other in Rabennest at the end- even before that I'd still done enough of those missions myself to know what it was like.

    So I could feel no pity for Marcie Ross or anyone else who chose to be a monster. I couldn't even pretend to, and I wouldn't if I could. My regrets were an abstract sense of the waste involved whenever someone willingly chose to walk down the wrong path and refused to walk back. Along with a not-so-abstract sense of loss of the close friendship I'd started to have with them, that I was only realizing now that I'd started missing it-

    "Hey." Xander's voice cut into my moping. "Are you all right?"

    "No." I said honestly, after a brief pause for consideration.

    "Yeah." he nodded. "Look, if it helps, they're not actually hating on you. They're just a little off balance right now."

    "They're having a perfectly normal human reaction." I agreed with him. "Which only underlines that I don't have all of those anymore."

    Xander absorbed that with a thoughtful pause. "You know, way back when Willow and me had just met Buffy and we were trying to figure out Other New Kid - that's you - I made the joke that you acted like you'd grown up in military school before transferring here." He shook his head. "But it was actual military, wasn't it?"

    I nodded once, slowly.

    "And not just training." he probed.

    "Missions. Lots of missions." I said quietly.

    "Okay, how does that even happen at your age?" he asked me confusedly. "Isn't that illegal?"

    "Not in that part of Eastern Europe." I eventually conceded.

    "Damn." he shook his head. "That sounds like a- okay, forget action movie, that's full-on Ludlum novel. How'd you get out?"

    "Xander." I heard Amy's voice call from behind us. "Can I talk to him alone, please?"

    "Absolutely." he said, and before I could blink twice he was gone.

    I turned around and before I could say anything her arms were around me.

    "Amy-" I began, as my arms came up to hold her loosely. We weren't romantic hugging, we were comfort hugging, but even so I had a live, warm, and pretty girl in my arms. And I was biologically and at least partially emotionally sixteen years old so I needed a lot of willpower right now to avoid doing anything inappropriate.

    "If I'm pushing then I apologize." she said softly as our cheeks pressed together. "But I've never seen anyone who needed a hug more than you did right now."

    "The tragedy is that you're not wrong." I conceded.

    I let her linger for a bit before we separated. Some returning sense of professionalism had me check the zone for possible eavesdroppers and find a quieter corner to talk in than the hallway before we resumed our conversation.

    "How much of what I told Xander did you overhear?" I asked her.

    "Everything from 'actual military' onwards." she said. "I-" she gulped. "In freshman year, my world cultures term paper was on child soldiers. I-" she began to cry. "I'm so sorry!" she sniffled.

    "Amy." I squeezed her hand. "I'm-" I shook my head. 'Okay' would be a blatant lie right now. "They were not remotely as cruel as they could have been." I reassured her. "They didn't do it to be cruel at all, and neither were their methods. They were decent people who just wanted to protect their-our country. It was just-" I shook my head. "Desperate times all around. Very desperate. America is so lucky that they never had history like theirs."

    "You're not American?" she asked me.

    "My very early life was here. Then I ended up there. Then that phase of my life ended - catastrophically." I nodded as a callback to the tragic ending of the last phase of my life that the gang already knew about. "So... here I am." I finished, having summarized the entire Jumpchain nonsense to date in four sentences.

    "But it still hurt you." she said.

    "If I got formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist I think they'd score me crazier than Marcie on some levels. I'm just a lot more functional. Functioning through damage-" I shrugged. "This is a huge part of why I wish you'd fallen for someone else. You can't fix a broken person with love, and you'll turn yourself into a tragic ending in a horror story if you try to."

    "You don't abandon suffering people either." Amy insisted. "Not and claim to be any kind of a decent person yourself."

    "If you believe that, then what does that say about me?" I said, as I horribly mimed cocking a pistol and shooting an imaginary Marcie.

    "Marcie abandoned you, not vice versa." Amy surprised me. "She abandoned humanity when she went off like she did. You gave her every chance you could." Amy screwed up her face bravely and continued. "If-" she gulped. "If I ever had a spell backlash on me like that, if I ever went so crazy that I was just gone and it was only a monster left wearing my face-"

    "Amy, don't talk like that!" I winced.

    "Sorry." she said and squeezed my hand back. "But what I'm saying is, if you think that you're the monster-" she stared compassionately at me. "You're not. Maybe some of the others are wigged out by having realized that one of their classmates knows how to shoot people, but not me. I know that you'd never hurt me, or any of the gang, or any innocent person at all. I don't even dream that you could do that. I know the difference between 'you could' and 'you would'. Jonathan, even if you think that parts of you are broken that still doesn't mean you're bad." she insisted.

    "You're too good for this sinful earth." I chuffed sarcastically.

    "Oh no, I was a such brat when I was younger." she said affectionately. "But then I met this great guy. Who set a great example."

    "I am not a role model!" I denied.

    "Maybe not for some things." she agreed wisely. "But for the important things? Did you know that the other Jonathan nicknamed you 'Captain America' for how you kept getting in the bullies' way around the school? Everybody thinks that people who have superpowers and use them only to help other people exist only in comic books, but-" Amy chuckled.

    "Shouldn't this be the speech you give Buffy, not me?" I asked her.

    "Oh, she's amazing too." Amy agreed. "Even with how much she complains sometimes about having to do the Slaying, she never stops going back out night after night. Even superheroes need need to vent sometimes." She stopped, and continued more soberly. "Which is why I'm worried that you don't."

    "You saw me vent once." I reminded her. "And it wasn't pretty for anyone."

    "Which is why you need to do it more often and in healthier ways." she said. "So-" she stopped and swore. "Eugh!"

    "I'm sorry?" I asked her.

    "I was about to say something stupid." she replied mysteriously. "So, not doing that."

    We sat for a brief, companionable silence.

    "Amy." I said finally. "I am- okay, you're right, I'm not crazy, and I have a perfectly functioning conscience. But I am still emotionally compromised. Deeply, fundamentally, and on levels that would almost certainly require rearranging space and time to really fix. I can be your friend. I can fight for you. I can support you. I can even admire and respect the hell out of you." I shook my head. "But I can't love you. And for as long as-"

    "That's the first lie you've ever told me." Amy cut me off flatly. Wait, what-?

    "What lie?" I asked confusedly, to receive a penetrating stare in my eyes.

    "That you couldn't love me." she said. What the hell-?

    Oh. Crap.

    Of course. Clear Understandings and my habit of never telling direct lies meant that anybody who was a close friend would learn from repeated experience what my 'totally sincere' voice sounded like and how it subtly differed from normal social interaction. Which would mean that, if they were suitably empathetic or intuitive, they'd also know on some level whenever I wasn't using it. And- yeah, strictly speaking, my last statement was a lie. I could possibly love Amy Madison, if I ever allowed myself to.

    Which I couldn't.

    "I can't let myself love you." I said. And that was the truth.

    "Why?" she burst out, and then cut herself off. "No, I promised I'd wait. I shouldn't have asked." she self-remonstrated.

    I called upon No Weapons, No Friends to give me the inner strength to walk away from this conversation before I did the wrong thing, and it failed me utterly. Stupid Teenaged Angst-

    ... or maybe it isn't teenaged angst, I realized. That perk only gave me the inner strength to do the right thing. What if I had no clue what the right thing was? Or... what if I was doing the wrong thing?

    "Did you ever read 'The Odyssey'?" I asked Amy. "Not just for class, but actually read it."

    "Junior high had a teacher who was really into Greek mythology." Amy said. "So yeah, we got the full annotated version."

    "Did you ever consider the story from Circe's point of view?" I asked her.

    "The evil witch who turned men into pigs?" Amy asked me puzzledly. "What about her point of view?"

    "The witch who turned her back on being evil because she eventually fell in love with the most impressive man she'd ever met." I said. "But who knew even as she did that his heart was already committed elsewhere, and that he'd never stay. So they had their year together and then parted forever, and the story moved on to follow Odysseus and we never knew how Circe dealt afterwards with having loved hopelessly and lost." I shook my head. "Do you think it was good that she got a brief time with Odysseus before having to give him up to Penelope forever, or would it have been better for her overall if they'd never done that to each other?"

    "But your Penelope isn't alive-" and then her hands flew to her mouth in shocked realization. "Oh my God! You said 'gone', not 'dead'! But how- if your Violetta's out there somewhere then why are you even still here?!?"

    "My life in that other place - which was, legitimately, in Eastern Europe - was not really supernatural. But the event that took me away from there was." I shook my head. "Think of it like an alternate timeline. I was born on Earth, and in America, but not this Earth. Not this USA." I sighed. "Violetta's still alive out there, Amy. All of the people I'm grieving for having lost still are. I just can't-" I shook my head. "I am randomly lost with an entire infinite multiverse I'd have to cross to even begin looking for where they are, and there's not even any magic that exists in this world that's powerful enough to get me back home! Trust me, I know that as a fact!"

    "But if you can't ever get back-" she said after a long incredulous moment. "Then wouldn't the castaway rule apply to you?"

    "It doesn't matter how impossible my hope of returning is." I said after a long, long pause. "If I abandon it, then I abandon me." I shook my head. "And hell, I don't even know how long I'll be staying in this world. The force that bounced me-" I sighed. "It's theoretically possible that it might go 'Okay, we're done now!' and this is where my odyssey stops... but the overwhelming odds are that it won't."

    "How long do you have?" Amy asked me, shocked.

    "From all available data, a maximum of eight years." I shrugged. "Last time it cut out at seven."

    "... then why did you let yourself settle down there at all, then?" Amy whispered, visibly afraid I'd take the question the wrong way.

    "Because that was my first time getting bounced." I told her. "I didn't know it would end like that, not that time."

    She shook her head angrily. "Life is so not fair!" she spat out.

    "It entirely isn't. And least of all to you." I agreed sadly.

    "Well." she said after a while. "I suppose that even the worst cursed cloud has a silver lining."

    "What would that possibly be?" I asked her confusedly.

    "If your time in this world is inevitably limited, then you can't tell me not to waste my life waiting 'forever' because I won't be." she smiled sadly at me. "Jonathan Fairchild, I love you. Even if you can't allow yourself to love me back, I still do. And for as long as you're allowed to endure in this world, I'll help you do that however I can."

    "And when the time comes that I have to leave your island and sail onward alone, will all your happiness go with me?" I asked her.

    "It's already there." she said simply.

    "I'm so sorry I've done this to you." I apologized.

    "You didn't do anything." she said softly, as we hugged again. "And even if you did, I forgive you."

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    After the Marcie thing, the group kinda fell apart into sub-cliques for a little while. There was the 'me, Xander and Willow' clique, there was the 'Amy and Jonathan' clique, there was the grown-ups clique, and then there was our annoying new kibitzer.

    Not that Cordelia was wrong about some of the stuff she said. I could hardly argue with her about what Jonathan had really done on that night - she'd been there as an eyewitness, I hadn't. Or that it would have been totally of the non-freaking if he'd just been a random off-duty cop walking by, or a private bodyguard her family had hired, or anything like that. It's just- okay, knowing you sat and ate lunch every day with someone who could in theory pull out a gun at any time and start headshotting people with it was freaky! Normal people didn't do stuff like that, did they?

    I asked Giles about it and he pointed out that while the rule was that Slayers shouldn't take human life that was ultimately for the protection of the Slayers, not the people. Dead vampires and dead people-like-you hit the human mind different psychologically even if logically stopping a psychotic murderer from ripping a victim open right then and there was on the same moral level whether the psychotic murderer had fangs or not. But there was the morality and then there was the wiggins, and those two weren't always the same thing. So yeah, under normal circumstances taking a teenaged girl and telling her to put people - people, not vampires - in the ground would really, really mess her up. I asked Giles about how if that wouldn't mess someone else up too, and he pointed out that Jonathan was visibly kinda mentally distressed in some ways and we'd always known this about him. Apparently the part where all the people he loved got taken away from him was only part of his anguish. However, clearly he wasn't messed up in the ways that made him unable to know right from wrong, so...

    Poor Amy. I had no idea how I'd have coped if the guy I fell in love with turned out to actually be carrying around mental scars the size of Europe and I had no ability to fix them. I'm sure that if that ever happened to me it would end in a total train wreck. So God, please let my friend get an actual happy ending, okay? Turns out that romantic tragedy is a lot less fun to live than to read about!

    Now I'm going to be fair to Jonathan, he was totally cool with the fact that we most of us were wigging out on him a little. Now that was a man who didn't ever kid himself with false expectations. He basically acted like that if we were expected to wait him out while he got over his psychic distress that one time, he should be calm and wait us out. And Xander was actually in his corner even if he was mostly sticking with Willow and me, probably because something had shifted between him and Amy even if none of us had any idea what. And none of us wanted to pop that bubble just yet.

    And regardless of our personal dramas, and the fact that the Spring Fling was almost upon us and I still didn't have a date, the Slaying still went on. We'd never really worked out a method of locating the Master, and while we could kill minion vamps all day he could always get more and more. Not even just turning fledglings in town but having older vamps arrive from out-of-town, as the word apparently went out that something big was going to happen soon and did they want to be in on it. And with our luck, it wouldn't be anything as innocent as a rock concert.

    Giles had found some new volume of prophecy - the Perga-whatever Codex - in Angel's collection that he thought would contain vital new clues. Him and Angel and Jonathan had spent the past few days off in the research zone running down something that was apparently mega-urgent from all the effort they'd been putting into it. I was always happy to ditch on research party when I could so I didn't know what, and uncharacteristically they weren't even trying to make me do my homework, so I patrolled, and ducked the Cordettes' attempts to come around and figure out my bag now that their Queen was actually talking to me, and tried to imagine what boy around here I could actually go and dance with that wouldn't end up like, well, any of my prior attempts to date since I'd first become the Slayer.

    And that's why I was totally unprepared when I walked into Giles and Angel talking in his house, because I'd forgotten my math homework there and had to go nip out and get it at the last minute.

    "There has to be some way around it." Angel said urgently.

    "Listen," Giles remonstrated. "Some prophecies are, are a bit dodgy. They're, they're mutable. Buffy herself has, has thwarted them time and time again, but this is the Pergamum Codex. There is nothing in it that does not come to pass."

    Whoa, this sounds heavy. I crept closer and used my Slayer hearing to eavesdrop as best I could-

    "Every other book of prophecy that went wrong had to have a first time they were wrong!" Angel said. "Who says that this won't be one of those cases?!?"

    "I wish to God I could believe that!" Giles said desperately. "But this is the plainest text that I have ever read! Tomorrow night the Slayer will face the Master. And she will die."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Season finale time! Prophecy Girl is a go!

    When I started out writing this I did not intend for Amy to be more than a one-sided crush, as would be nigh-inevitable for a girl in her situation. And then these characters started writing themselves as I went along, in directions I entirely didn't plan on, to the point that they ended up as perhaps the most intense and satisfying romance arc in any of my stories. Only Hawke/Shadowheart from my BG3 fic compares... and that one at least had the canon Shadowheart romance path as a big inspiration to build off of! This was done entirely out of whole cloth - on both sides, as my Amy Madison has diverged so heavily from the canon one so soon that she's practically an OC!

    And neither did I actually have the Odyssey in mind when I started writing this. I certainly didn't realize that Amy's role in the myth cycle going on here is so correspondent to Circe's that it's goddamn eerie. But I had read the annotated Odyssey in junior high and so I'd had this data stored deep in the back of my mind.

    So yeah. My regular readers know that my subconscious and my muse collaborate to ambush me as I write all the time, but this is an ambush that waited literally decades to snipe me. Man, ain't this some shit.

    And unrelated, have you ever considered how possibly useful Grindstone might be in setting positive examples for other people, if those others are at all willing to learn from example? After all, leading and inspiring by example is, by one school of thought at least, a method of instruction. No wonder people improve around Jonathan like they do.

    PS: Yes, I am utterly aware of how ironic Buffy's musings re: tragic romance are given her canon situation. That's the point. I am ironically mocking the hell out of that shit. *eg*
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 9) New
  • View content
    • Buffy POV:

    I gasped.

    "Buffy?" I heard Angel say as they both got up from the table and started walking towards the door I was lurking behind. Damn vampire hearing!

    "Buffy," Giles called desperately, "Wait!"

    Nope. Not waiting. Not waiting at all! I am totally getting out of here!

    I tore out of the house and sprinted across the lawn. Sun wasn't entirely down yet so Angel couldn't follow me, and Giles couldn't hope to keep up. So I got a block and a half away, and then I realized I didn't know where I was running to. Where was I going to go? What did you do when you were told that this was going to be your last 24 hours on Earth?

    Part of me - ok, most of me - was screaming desperately in my ear to just get on a bus out of town right now. Clean out the piggy bank, grab the suitcase, and head for the big city as fast as I could. Nobody had ever asked me if I wanted to be the Slayer! It wasn't fair that I was going to die before I even got a steady boyfriend that wasn't a creeper, got to go to the prom, got to see what college looked like- before I got to live! Sure, I did the Slaying because someone had to but when push really came to shove I didn't really owe anyone anything! I hadn't volunteered for anybody's army, I'd gotten drafted!

    And with that thought, I was reminded of someone else I knew who'd gotten drafted once.

    Well, let's hope that out of all the places Giles and Angel are going to go looking for me, Angel's own house isn't one of them.

    "Buffy?" Jonathan asked me as soon as he saw the expression on my face. He did the whole looking-around-and-checking-the-skyline thing as he talked to me to try and spot anything might be following me. "What's wrong?" he asked me as stepped aside to let me enter the house.

    "The Perga-whatever Codex." I said. "You were helping Giles and Angel research it."

    "Until they took me off the translation team yesterday." he agreed. "It hit the section written in languages I didn't know."

    "So you don't know about the part that says I die tomorrow night." I told him weakly.

    "What?" he spit-taked.

    "Tomorrow night the Slayer will face the Master. And she will die." I quoted. "According to Giles, it's the 'plainest text he ever read'."

    "When did they tell you this?" he asked me. "And are they really certain?"

    "I overheard them talking when I went to the Scooby house to pick up the math homework I'd left there." I said. "And I bailed before I could ask them."

    Jonathan sat and thought for a long minute.

    "What do you want to do?" he asked me.

    "I don't know!" I wailed. "I want to run! I want to get as far away from Sunnydale as I possibly can! I want-" I sniffled. "I want to-" I couldn't find the words.

    "All right." Jonathan said. "The bank closes in less than an hour, so we need to hurry."

    "The what are closing why?" I gobbled.

    "If you're running away, you need cash." he pointed out sensibly. "I have some."

    "Wait, you're-?" my brain totally crashed and burned. "You are telling me to run away? To, to-" I waved my hands all wibbley. "Abandon the mission?"

    "The what just became a suicide mission, you mean?" he asked me. "You volunteer for those. You don't make other people do those. And you don't want to, so you're not going to."

    "And that's it?" I screeched at him. "No 'I expected better of you?' No 'Come on, get in there and fight?' What, you expected me to be a coward? Are your expectations of me so low that I literally can't disappoint you even by doing this?!?" I shouted. "I know exactly what you'd be doing if you were in my shoes!"

    "Buffy," he said sadly. "Of the two people in this room, which one is sane?"

    And with that, all the anger and most of the scared drained out of me as I realized that Jonathan didn't think I was being pathetic, or that ditching like a coward was the most that could be expected of me. That he'd actually understand, actually not disapprove, if I just dropped the ball and ran.

    "You're not crazy." I said compassionately, and then paused. "Okay, you're not that crazy."

    "Look, just because your first instinct doesn't look glorious doesn't automatically mean it's wrong." Jonathan pointed out reasonably. "The Master's trapped underneath the Hellmouth. If you're not here in Sunnydale then you can't die facing him, and then the prophecy becomes impossible to fulfill. I can help you do that." he said earnestly.

    "Thanks." I said weakly, and wiped the tears away. I took a deep breath, then another. Now that my head was clearer, I could see what I'd been missing.

    "Look after them for me, will you?" I asked him.

    Jonathan's relieved expression fell away like it was cut off with a knife as he understood exactly what I meant. "Buffy-"

    "I can't outrun this. I mean, maybe I can, but-" I shook my head. "We know the Master can't leave his hole until after he opens the Hellmouth, but his vampire army can leave anytime. So what will he tell them to do as soon as word gets around that there's no Slayer here anymore? We all know he doesn't really figure mortals into his calculations."

    "Buffy-" he began again.

    "So I take off, and he tells them to start rampaging after I leave. Or he finds a way to open the Hellmouth at his leisure now that he thinks he doesn't have to take me out first. And then-" I choked. "And then I'm the one who's left standing after all her family and friends are gone." I started crying. "You already know what that's like, and you didn't even choose to leave! So how can I do the same thing to me? I'm so scared of dying, but-" I sniffled. "I'm still more scared of being alive but wishing I was dead."

    "Shit." he swore. Yeah. Not much else you could say about that.

    "All right." he eventually continued grimly. "Looks like we're both missing the Spring Fling tomorrow night. Well, I wasn't going anyway-"

    "No." I glared at him. "If I go down there, then you can't." I held up a hand. "Yes, one Slayer dies, the next one is Called, but is there any guarantee the Watchers will send her here? Or that she'll even be willing to work with the gang?" I shook my head. "After-" I stopped, and started again. "After I die, the gang will still need a fighter, a champion, who's at least as good as me. And I don't mean Angel, even if he is. You've always looked out for everyone-" I nodded at him. "And I'll need you to keep doing that for me."

    "If I'm not going then you're taking Angel, and-" he began.

    "No." I said again. "I'm the Slayer. I do this alone."

    "Buffy, have you considered that going without backup might be how you're supposed to lose?" he pointed out reasonably.

    "... but it still won't work." I said after a long pause. "We can't find the Master, remember?"

    "Oh, I remember." Jonathan said disgustedly. "I should have been working on some kind of tracking network, but I kept putting it off because of my own drama, and now you're-"

    "Water under the bridge now." I said despondently. "But my point is, the Master's going to have to have someone take me to him for his big prophesied confrontation. I'm sure he knows the books as well as Giles does. And whoever that someone is, they won't take me there unless they see that I'm alone."

    "But the real reason you're doing it is because you think that anybody who goes with you will die too." he retorted.

    "Kinda yeah." I agreed. "I can't duck this- I won't duck this. But I can at least still hope to take the Master with me. And he's the only one I want to take with me."

    "So what do you need me to do?" Jonathan asked.

    "... I'm gonna be a big chicken at least one way." I admitted. "I can't face any of the others before this goes down. I can't even face my mom. I'm more afraid of the good-byes than the why."

    "You can't stick Giles with saying good-bye to her for you." Jonathan said. "He'll already be torn up enough if you're gone. Rub salt in the wound much?"

    "She doesn't even know about the Slaying yet, and yes I should have told her earlier!" I said. "But how can I fit all the explanations into the last 24 hours? How can I-" I shook my head. "If my mom knows about this then for the rest of her life one of two things will be true- either she gave me permission to go and get killed and guilts herself for it forever after, or the last thing I did to her was disobey a direct parental order and she guilts herself for it forever after. The only way she's not on the hook for this is if she never had a chance to know about it until after I already left!"

    "Christ, does that one ever hit home." Jonathan said mysteriously. "Can you at least write a letter or something for me to give to her?"

    "I can do that." I agreed. "And do you have a place we can hole up for a day that isn't where any of the others can find us? Somewhere I can rest up and you can help me last-minute train for the title fight?"

    "The abandoned factory that you guys took Moloch down in." he said after a moment's thought. "If there's any new squatters in there then cleaning them out will be a warm-up act."

    "Good." I said. "I'm sorry to dump the survivor's guilt on you, but I want to be as ready for this as I can. And you're really good at helping other people get focused."

    "It's a gift." Jonathan said bleakly, and then nodded his head once. "Get started on writing that letter, and I'll leave a note for Angel and grab some gear."

    "Thanks."

    "If you really want me to feel thanked, say that again the day after tomorrow."

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    Neither Jonathan or Buffy showed up for school the next day. We all wondered what had come up - they were both too healthy to be out sick and they never ditched - but when I found out the truth from Mr. Giles during morning study hall, I made sure all the rest of us knew as soon as possible. And then the rest of the day was just horrible. Finding the dead kids in the A/V club room was just the perfect capstone to a perfectly horrible day. If the vamps were already feeling bold enough to raid on-campus, then yeah, the big night was going to be tonight. So all day I couldn't pay attention to anything in class, couldn't eat anything, couldn't do anything but obsess. I hadn't even had a chance to ask-

    School finally ended and those of us kids who actually had parents who paid attention had to go home for dinner, so I went and helped Giles break out and start polishing the weapons. Just as the sun was going down everybody else got back to the library for an emergency Scooby meeting. Ms. Calendar was also here for some reason.

    "Has anyone spoken to either of them?" Giles asked first thing.

    "Nobody's seen either of them all day." Amy said worriedly.

    "Buffy's mom called my house during dinner asking if we'd seen her." Willow sighed. "So she didn't go home either. Mrs. Summers sounded only one step short of calling the police."

    "Jonathan never came home after last night." Angel brooded. Didn't blame him.

    "So Buffy gets a prophecy that she's going to die fighting the Master," Willow analyzed. "And- and what? She takes off running? Why would she do that? Why would Jonathan help her do that?"

    "Because even I have limits." Jonathan snarled, and we all turned in shock to see him heading in the door holding an athletic tote bag stuffed with gear. "Look, I tried to get her to run. I outright offered to fund her running." He swore and kicked an empty chair. "And let's just say I've never been more upset at the example I ever set anyone." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Amy wince briefly at that.

    "Then why aren't you with her?" Giles accused him.

    "Practically, because the Master wouldn't have her escorted to him if she wasn't alone." Jonathan replied matter-of-factly. "And emotionally, because she didn't want me to." He sighed. "I got a very brave speech from her about her wanting me to take care of everybody else if she couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't tell her 'no'."

    "You said if." I cut in, focusing on the only important thing. "So this certain death thing isn't certain?"

    "Not if you guys can help it." Jonathan said grimly. "I said Buffy didn't want anyone to come with or follow her. I didn't say I actually agreed with her." He reached into the gear bag and came out with some kind of hotwired electrical multi-meter. "Which is why the gear I loaned her had tracking tags in it."

    "Way to go, Bond Jr." I complimented him. "Now that's more like it!"

    "And I went suspenders-and-belt." he said, reaching into the bag again and coming out with a small ladies' hairbrush that he handed to Amy. "Can you use that for a tracking spell? Something that you can give to Angel to use?"

    "We certainly can." Ms. Calendar agreed for her.

    "Good. Then as soon as it's ready, I've got everything I need to follow her down." Angel said, standing up.

    "That we need to follow her down," I said to him, getting up and grabbing my axe off the table.

    "We." Angel nodded to me.

    "Not without me, you won't!" Giles insisted.

    "Giles," Ms. Calendar said firmly. "Remember the other thing we were discussing?"

    "The Master's vampire army is going to want a lot of fresh blood." Willow reminded them. "So he'll be sending them to the Bronze tonight-"

    "Why send them to the Bronze when virtually the entire student body will be here?" Jonathan pointed out. "Looks like Buffy's instincts on wanting me to stay behind and help cover the school were more on point than I gave them credit for."

    "... please do the very best you can for her." Giles asked us both weakly, as Amy and Ms. Calendar finished getting some magic supplies out of Giles' office and started a hasty ritual over one of the hairs from the hairbrush.

    "We all come home or nobody comes home, G-Man." I said to him resolutely.

    "And everybody else, saddle up." Jonathan said. "We'll have an entire small army of vampires coming straight at the school, and we have very little idea when they'll get here."

    "Maybe we should just pull the fire alarm." Willow said. "Or actually make a fire."

    "Not after sundown." Jonathan said. "They'd all be even worse sitting ducks if they scattered outside the campus."

    "Xander," Amy called to me. "It's ready." She handed me some kind of magic glowstick and explained that the closer I pointed it in the right direction, the more brightly it would glow. I traded it to Angel for the high-tech gizmo that I'd actually understand, and with a hasty goodbye to everyone we both headed out.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    I hated this.

    My new and bestest girl friend was going to die fighting the evilest vampire on Earth. My old and bestest boy friend was going to die trying to save her and the only person who'd be with him when he died would be a souled vampire. My other girl friend was busy doing spells when I could barely lift a pencil, and my only real talent was being on the computer and that was totally useless right now! Even the computer science teacher could do more than I could, both magic-wise and probably computer-wise! And Mr. Giles and Jonathan were both professional demon hunters and-

    And I was the useless tagalong. The sidekick girl. Even Xander wasn't sidekick guy any longer, not with all his new hero muscles and his combat training and his everything- now I really wished I hadn't begged off on the Jonathan's lessons after the first couple. Not that it would have helped me much, shrimp that I was.

    So now all of us who weren't going off to die at the bottom of some vampire-infested cave were going to be fighting a small army of vampires out in the school parking lot. I couldn't cast, I couldn't punch, I couldn't use a sword or an axe, so all I could do was carry the crossbows and reload them for other people, and hope to get a few good shots in myself. We all set up as best we could, and Jonathan was busy giving last-minute advice, when it actually got even worse.

    "What are you guys doing?" Cordelia said aghast, having noticed us off in the corner of the parking lot. "Seriously? It's the night of the Spring-" and then she came around the corner of Ms. Calendar's car and actually saw the arsenal. "-ohhhhh, crap."

    "Don't you have a dance to go preen at?" I sniped at her.

    "Will one of the actually helpful people please tell me what's happening?" Cordelia asked the open air.

    "A large force of vampires, we don't know how many, will be attacking sometime soon tonight." Giles said. "We're going to hold them off as best we can."

    "Where's Buffy and Angel?" Cordelia asked. "Aren't they two of your big three fighters?"

    "Both of them and Xander went after the head vampire in his lair." Jonathan said tightly. "We're really hoping that part of the plan works."

    "Hey," I cut in while I was loading crossbows. "It's nice that you want to help, but you have no training for this-"

    "Do you guys know what direction they'll be coming from?" Cordelia asked.

    "Not really, but we didn't have anyone to spare for lookouts-" Jonathan began before cutting himself off in realization.

    "Exactly!" Cordelia said brightly. "Since my date for this is still in the hospital I was only coming to show the flag anyway. And in the interests of not being devoured alive by hell-beasts from another dimension, I can be fashionably late to the ball. You know, while I wait up on top of the gym and yell and point for you guys."

    "And if a vampire climbs the building behind you?" I snarked.

    "I climb down the other way and run over here?" she shrugged. "Look, as risky as it is it still beats waiting inside to be possibly eaten while not even knowing if you're winning or losing."

    "Good plan." Jonathan agreed with her. "And good luck."

    "You too." Cordelia said without any- okay, without most of her usual snootiness, and she took off running. Great. Now even she's being more useful around here than me.

    And about ten really nervous minutes later she yelled and pointed that she saw a bunch of vampires coming from the east side across the athletic field, and we all ran over there.

    Jonathan hit the front line like something out of a comic book, tearing through vampire after vampire like he was a Slayer himself. He cut their heads off with his sword, he used judo to trip them or pull them off balance and then dust them on the ground, he even had some kind of wooden shank glued into the groove at the tip of his sword blade so he could stab them through the heart and they'd still go poof. I hadn't gone on patrol except a little so I'd never really seen him fight before, but the vampires soon focused in on him as the biggest threat on the field.

    Which meant that Mr. Giles, who was also pretty good with a sword and a stake for an old guy, had clear shots at their backs whenever they tried to surround Jonathan. Ms. Calendar didn't know much about fighting at all but was bravely running out front with a big ol' cruficix to distract and slow the vampires up to set them up to get pincered between Jonathan and Giles.

    And me? I managed to get a couple with the crossbows, which nobody else was even using because the original plan had gone all squirrelly what with there being dozens of vampires and them trying to split us up and surround us all, meaning that we couldn't just put me and Amy with our backs to one of the cars and anchor the whole group on us but were instead getting kinda pressed all-around. It was really hard to hit the heart, though, so mostly I was just hitting them elsewhere and distracting them. And I couldn't even distract them too much because I couldn't fire close to any of my friends-

    But Amy? Amy was like a superhero.

    "Incendere! Incendere! Incendere!" she kept casting, over and over again. It was only the basic fire spell, that just conjured a brief gout of flame up out of the ground, but that was enough to set a vampire on fire. And vampires really didn't like being on fire. Any vampire she hit with the spell went up like a torch and dusted on the spot, even if it wouldn't have made a human need to do more than the ol' stop-drop-and-roll. And she didn't just keep throwing the spell on whoever was closest but kept an eye out and burned any vampire getting too close to sneak attacking any of our frontline fighters, especially not Jonathan or Ms. Calendar. Man, I wish I had a cool vampire-hunting boyfriend. Well, I'd tried to but I hadn't even made him notice I was a girl yet-

    "Amy, be careful you don't overextend yourself!" I heard Ms. Calendar yell.

    "I won't!" she yelled back, her voice sounding really strained. I guess casting spells wasn't as easy as it looked-

    "BEHIND YOU!" I yelled at Amy, because she'd gotten exhausted enough to miss seeing one flank her.

    "Incend-" she turned and tried to cast, but it had gotten too close and it punched her across the jaw hard. She rolled with it like she'd been trained and hit the parking lot like she was judo-falling on an exercise mat, so she wasn't unconscious or anything, but it had still really knocked the wind out of her.

    "Ow!" the vampire said as my crossbow bolt took it in the shoulder. "Wait your turn!" he mocked me, and then turned back and kicked Amy in the stomach as she was trying to get up. I looked around for anybody to help but Jonathan was busy surrounded by almost half a dozen of them, Giles and Ms. Calendar were busy trying to keep him from getting overwhelmed, and I didn't have a crossbow left-

    "Incendere!" I yelled desperately, putting as much oomph into the spell as I possibly could. Maybe I hadn't ever done more than the basic meditating whichevers and lifting pencils up until now but I was still a witch, and right now I really really needed to help Amy-!

    And it worked! The vampire's pants caught fire, and he screamed, and he went up like a torch! I could do this!

    I ran over and helped Amy up. I felt a little dizzy after my first big spell, so it took me a little while. And she'd really taken a nasty kick from that vampire.

    "Thanks!" she gasped. "We need to go help-"

    "Hey, where'd they all go?" I asked, noticing that nobody had jumped us yet despite us being kinda temporarily defenseless right now.

    "Are you all right?" Jonathan said desperately, coming over to where I was kneeling over Amy.

    "We're okay!" I said. "Amy got a little banged up-"

    Jonathan knelt down beside me and okay, he really should have let Ms. Calendar do the first aid if he was going to touch her anywhere near there. "Ow!" Amy said, wincing as he gently laid his hand a little above and to the side of her bellybutton.

    "Yeah, that's probably a cracked rib." Jonathan said grimly. "We'll have to tell the emergency room you fell or something, because we'll need an X-ray here to be sure."

    "I can sign off on a school accident." Ms. Calendar suggested.

    "Where'd all the vampires go?" I asked again, looking around.

    "They all just took off running a couple minutes ago." Cordelia said, coming up to where we were gathered. "Even their reinforcements on the other side of the building."

    "Weren't you supposed to be looking out, Miss Lookout?" I accused her.

    "Well, by the time they showed up you were all kinda overwhelmed!" Cordelia said. "What was I supposed to do, distract you even more when you were already mostly surrounded and fighting for your lives?"

    "Oh dear Lord." Giles sighed resignedly. "How many got into the building? What sort of casualties are we looking at?"

    "Zero." Cordelia grinned smugly. "They were going for the fire escape doors on the gym, so when I saw them coming I went back down and bicycle chained 'em shut from the inside."

    "Well done!" Giles congratulated her relievedly. "Exemplary thinking under pressure!"

    "So is that it?" I asked. "It's over?"

    "It is here." Jonathan agreed. "Now we wait to find out what happened down there-"

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    Sure enough, all I had to do was stand around outside waiting and the Master's vampire goons came up to invite me to the party. I guess somebody realllly wanted to do this himself. Or maybe he was just adding up how many minions of his I'd already poofed. I was all dressed up in my steel-toed boots and army-surplus fatigues and loaded for bear. If this was going to be my last fight, then I wanted him to remember it.

    "Let's go." I told them flatly, not even waiting to hear the speech. I'd had the panic, I'd had the crying, I'd had the last-minute Rocky training montage all day today. I'd even managed to tire myself out enough to catch a nap. Now? Now I just wanted this over with.

    So we went down through caves, and caves, and more caves, and not a single bit of valid interior decor to be found, until we finally came to the Big Bad's lair. Apparently his dimensional whoopsie had left him penned inside an entire church that had fallen into a sinkhole in the Earth more than 60 years ago.

    A master vampire living in a fallen church. Complete with menacing shadows and flooded ceremonial pool and nothing but dim, flickering candlelight. Tell me my life isn't a series of horror novels.

    Anyhoo, the big bad's flunkies waved me in and then pulled the quick fade. Good. Let's just stick to one certain death at a time.

    "Welcome." the Master's voice echoed around the room. "It's good to finally meet you."

    "Well, it's not like I could ditch." I snarked. "I had an appointment."

    "Ah yes, the prophecy." the Master gloated.

    "Y'know, for a guy who's been building up to a huge dramatic confrontation for months you're really not doing any confronting right now." I mocked him.

    "Oh good." the Master replied sarcastically. "The feeble banter portion of the fight. Why don't we just-"

    "But maybe you're not fighting me yet because it's so dim in here you can't even find me." I interrupted him. "That's okay." I smiled grimly as I slipped on my borrowed pair of Ray-Bans. "I brought a flashlight."

    Jonathan's super flash gun lit the darkened room up like all the stadium spotlights at a Dodgers game put together, and I heard the Master screaming in agony- over there! I turned and threw one of the stakes from my bandolier to catch him in the heart, and swore as it impaled his hand instead because somebody had either been lucky or good enough to cover his chest first thing. I dropped the flashlight to free my hands for my shortsword and an off-hand stake and ditched the dark glasses and went straight in, stutter-stepping at just the last minute to duck the counter-attack-

    And a good thing to, because the Master was fast! I'd never even seen him move, I'd just ducked on pure instinct and luck! Even with his eyes half-squinted closed and him still seeing spots from the flash he was giving me the hardest fight I'd ever had. Even Luke hadn't been this tough on the night of the Harvest, and that guy had been the Master's chief killer.

    The problem with being fun-sized is that when you fought somebody as tall as the Master, you had to get in close. Even with weapons vs. his bare claws, he had a minor reach advantage. Add in that he had a speed advantage and even a little strength advantage as well-

    The only thing keeping me in the fight so far was that I'd practiced harder over the past six months than I'd ever practiced before, and learned not just from my Watcher but from one of the most brilliant combat naturals in the world and from an elder vampire who'd known the Master and his chief flunkies for like a century. I didn't overextend, I didn't fall for his bait, I didn't fail to keep an eye on my surroundings (always a concern when fighting a vamp in it's lair, because they knew everywhere not to trip over stuff and you didn't), and I didn't try to just trade punch for punch. Or stab for claw. I played hit-and-run, I threw holy water vials to distract and impair him, I even cheated and used the part of the room he couldn't run into because of Hellmouthy trap barrier to get a chance to catch my breath. I had to ditch that when he started some kind of funky hypnosis attack on me when he had a chance to catch his... lack of breath... and I had to rush in close and start pressing him hard again before he had a chance to finish his spell and paralyze me.

    Jonathan had been right. If I'd brought reinforcements, I'd be winning right now. I had him almost on the ropes as is. But I'd also been right- if I'd had reinforcements, the Master wouldn't have let me get close. Or else he'd have sent in all the minions he had lurking around elsewhere in the caves to peel my reinforcements off me and wear me down, then bait me down here. So woulda coulda shoulda maybe.

    But the simple fact was that even though the Slayer was stronger and faster than vampires - most vampires - my endurance still had a limit, while the undead could generally go all night. The Master knew as well as I did when the tempo of the fight started shifting his favor, which given that I'd been losing the fifteen-round split decision as is...

    Even though I'd thought I was out of tears, I still cried a little inside. I'd known I was doomed, but I'd still hoped just a little-

    All right, Buffy. If you're not going to be allowed to beat the odds tonight then fruit punch mouth here definitely isn't going to. I might have had to ditch on the Spring Fling but I'd still made it to the big dance anyway, and it would be really really rude of me to not take my date home with me.

    I let the knowledge of my impending doom show on my face - that really didn't take any acting at all - and turned to run for the exit. I deliberately slipped on some loose gravel before I'd made it across the magic barrier that had him trapped. I turned around with my last stake raised for a futile stab, with my other hand flailing wildly high, and sure enough he went for the wrist grab on my stake hand and pulled me close-

    And with my off hand I gouged my thumb right into that ugly sucker's eye. Total barroom brawling move, nothing the Watcher's Council would even dream of teaching a lady. But Jonathan had learned how to fight from commandos and assassins, and he'd taught me that anywhere outside a sporting arena, the term 'fair fight' was an oxymoron. If you were fighting for blood then it was never fair to begin with.

    And with the Master distracted by the agony for just that one critical fraction of a second, my gouging hand caught the stake that I'd dropped from my other hand and rammed it straight into and through the Master's breastbone. I'd won-!

    And then everything went blurry as the Master's fist caught me so hard across the skull that I was seeing stars. He was shrieking and dusting, but he'd still lasted long enough to get a final hit in and I hadn't seen it coming because I was used to them dusting a lot faster than he had. I tried to stop myself from falling over but everything was like I was wrapped in a thick wool blanket and I couldn't move my arms or legs. I landed facedown in the pool and, already stunned and out of breath, began to drown right away. So, this was the prophecy. I'd kill the Big Bad and then get taken out by a wading pool.

    My last thought as it all went black was Here lies Buffy Summers. She beat the bad guy, but forgot to duck.

    -and then my eyes opened as a pair of warm lips were pressed against mine, and a strong pair of hands was firmly tilting my head back as I looked up at the ceiling, and his breath flowed into me-

    Look, I did not intend to give him the tongue, okay? That was a purely involuntary reflex!

    The person giving me mouth-to-mouth pulled back in surprise as soon as- well, almost as soon as- the tongue action started, and my eyes finally focused on who it was-

    "Buffy!" Xander said desperately, kneeling over me. "Hey, you with us?"

    "Xander!" I said, crying and smiling as I weakly reached up to hug him. "You're alive!"

    "I'm alive?" he asked in shock. "What about you?"

    "I'm-" I stopped and let it all sink in. "I am so very much alive right now." I hugged him harder. "You saved my life, Xander. Thank you."

    "I- uh- um-" the poor boy blushed. Okay, maybe I over-gushed a bit.

    "You're all right?" Angel said, coming into view as he learned over Xander. As I started to become more aware of details, I noticed that Angel's clothes were all kinda torn and ripped and cut, like-

    "Oh, we had to discuss right-of-way with a few of the neighbors on our way down here." Xander said as he helped me to my feet, noticing that I'd caught on to their condition. And yeah, he looked he'd been to the races too.

    "There was at least twenty of them." Angel said matter-of-factly. "Even if the Master hadn't dropped you with his last shot, you still wouldn't have made it back up to the surface on your own."

    "Then I am so glad you two came and found me." I said emphatically. "Wait. How did you come and find me?" I asked.

    "Amy's tracking spell." Angel said quickly.

    "Jonathan put a homing beacon in your flashlight." Xander said simultaneously.

    I laughed. Okay, that hurt a little because bruises, but I still laughed. "Of course they did."

    "So this was the prophecy?" Xander asked me. "You'd fight the Master and die, but then CPR?"

    "Seems as if." I agreed. I shook my head and took a deep breath, feeling the strength starting to come back into my limbs. "Okay, I think I'm good to go." I said. "What's the route out of here look like?"

    "Clear." Angel grinned wickedly.

    As I turned to leave, I looked down at the remains of the Master on the floor. "Wait, aren't they supposed to all turn to dust when you stake them in the heart?" I said, pointing at the still-impaled vampire skeleton lying there.

    "I guess it's because the Master's really old?" Angel shrugged.

    I thought about that for a second, and then decided I might as well yield to temptation because it might never pass my way again. I turned to Xander with a grin and deliberately fed him the straight line. "It's a trick. Get an axe."

    Xander grinned wildly back at me and hefted his favorite battleaxe in reply. "Hail to the King, baby." he said in pure Bruce Campbell style before he turned and with a few quick blows smashed the Master's skeleton into bone chips. Oh God, he was such a goof when he did that, but-

    Oh, what the hell.

    As we headed back up to the surface I asked Angel "Do either of you guys have the time?"

    "About half-past nine." Angel replied after looking at his pocket watch. "I guess the Master wanted to start the show early."

    "Good." I nodded. "Then that means we have enough time to wash our faces and change and still make the last hour of the dance."

    "Ah, the dancing. Well that leaves me out, well-known social maven that I am-" Xander began, and then he stopped in shock as I reached out and took his hand and smiled at him.

    "Xander." I said to him affectionately. "If you don't already have a date, would you go to the Spring Fling with me?"

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And thus season 1 draws to a close.

    You already knew of Chekov's Gun. Now behold Chekov's Flashlight! *eg*

    And really, outside of some of Buffy's individual fights the s1 fight choreography is really kinda awful. Battles make no sense and everybody who wasn't a trained fighter should be dead. So yeah, since this is a fanfic I tightened that up a little with people actually deploying minions with at least some basic intelligence. Likewise with Buffy having her fight go against the Master entirely differently because training and preparation instead of 'Let's wing this with a stake, a crossbow, and a ball gown'.

    And yes, Jonathan just had a huge-ass vampire fight that had survivors live to retreat. His Halfwit Child protection has hit the point where it's going to start lapsing some.

    See you all in season 2!
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 10) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    This summer had been confusing as hell.

    Right after the battle at the Spring Fling I'd helped Ms. Calendar take Amy to the emergency room to get X-rayed. As it turned out she'd merely had badly bruised ribs, not broken ones, which was all to the well and good. And the ER doctors readily accepted the explanation of a gang attack in the parking lot outside the dance.

    But that isn't to say that everyone did. Meeting Amy's nervous, overprotective, and divorced dad - they'd apparently split when she was twelve - at the hospital was not how I'd wanted to finally meet the parental unit at all. He knew my name apparently from Amy's having mentioned me before but wasn't at all sure how to approach me. Fair enough, even I didn't know how to approach Amy and me sometimes.

    Amy's story - following my example of 'tell the truth but just leave out the weirder details' - of how I'd helped fight off the gang members attacking her hadn't put him much at ease until after having a female teacher vouch for the truth of the story at last managed to break Mr. Madison out of whatever panic scenario he was imagining at Amy having fallen into an abusive relationship or something. Apparently he had a lot of guilt from having let his wife have custody when they'd divorced and thus leaving her with her longtime emotional abuser unknowingly, even if a California divorce court would have been vanishingly unlikely to give the husband sole custody of a daughter under the circumstances anyway.

    And that guilt manifested in a lot of anxiety about whatever his little girl might be getting into without him to keep an eye on her, so he hovered as much as being a single father with extensive work hours allowed him to. In hindsight it was amazing she'd gotten as much time free for Scoobying as she had, although our cover story of the extracurricular study group that the school librarian ran with apparent suitable chaperonage from another female teacher had been just the thing to let her dad give her permission to hang with us because it left him free to do all the overtime that paid their bills. Even if we didn't even remotely know how we were going to begin explaining the witchcraft thing to him later, because we certainly couldn't bring it up at this point.

    To be honest, I felt more than a little guilty that I hadn't even stopped to think about where Amy was coming from during all the time she'd had to endure her mother before we'd finally taken her down, or that she might be carrying her own scars from her past at the same time she'd volunteered herself to help me carry mine. I'd blame the Teenaged Angst but to be honest, I had never remotely had a normal nuclear family situation in any of my various lives since my original birth parents had died when I was twelve. Lord knows the Wulfenbach family drama had never remotely been 20th-century normal at any point, let alone that Europa's 19th century barely even recognized the concept of 'adolescence' to begin with. So when it came to family weirdness, I began to realize that sometimes I was the fish trying and failing to notice water.

    But Ms. Calendar's having my back as firmly as she did plus Amy's own earnestness in talking me up - plus Clear Understandings - finally put me in the 'good guy' column with her dad at last. Which immediately got me a rather embarassing shovel speech as Mr. Madison joined the list of people who automatically assumed that Amy and I were boyfriend and girlfriend instead of the weird in-between thing that we actually were.

    It really says something about how awkward that meeting went that the meeting Angel and Giles went and had with Buffy's mother was, by all accounts, less awkward than ours. Buffy had never made it to the dance with Xander - another development I'd missed entirely while I was elsewhere tonight - because she'd forgotten at the time she'd asked him out that in order to get her party dress she had to go back home, which of course ran her straight into a panicking Joyce Summers who hadn't seen her daughter in over twenty-four hours and was on the verge of filing a missing persons report with the police. So as soon as Xander had seen Buffy's mother start to flip out at hearing the word 'vampires' and start saying things about calling a psychiatrist, he'd excused himself as quickly as he possibly could to go fetch our resident walking proof of the existence of vampires and the other responsible adult on the team.

    Apparently Buffy's final climactic battle vs. the master vampire Lothos in LA had required her to burn down the school gym in order to defeat a large-scale vampire attack, and when she'd attempted to explain that to her parents later that night her attempt to tell them about vampires and her duty as the Slayer had led them to believe she was having some kind of mental episode and have her committed for inpatient psychiatric evaluation. Buffy had only gotten out of there after spending several weeks convincing the doctors that she'd made the whole 'vampires' story up to try and get more attention from her parents because she was stressing about their possible divorce, thus leading them to write her off as 'not crazy, just an idiot teenager telling tall tales' and certifying her sane. Still, that near-miss with the mental health system had meant she'd never attempted to explain the existence of the supernatural to either of her parents ever again, either before or after their divorce. Not even when showing objective proof of the supernatural would have been as simple as her demonstrating her Slayer abilities - or, after she'd met Angel, as simple as inviting him over.

    Which was the solution Xander had immediately hit on himself when the crisis came to a head. Fortunately, Buffy had already given me and thus by extension the rest of the group permission to tell her mother the Slayer secret when she'd made her 'last will and testament' type preparations before heading down to confront the Master, even if she hadn't expected to be alive at the time. So she didn't hold it against Xander for doing so, especially given that he'd done it to head off what was looking like yet another quick trip to an asylum. So everything was out in the open now at last, and Joyce Summers at least didn't look to be prepping to move immediately out of town in a panic.

    Not having to attend school left me with a lot of time on my hands that I didn't quite know what to do with. Now admittedly there was all the debriefing of Angel about the life and times of Angelus - a project that was taking us a long ass time to finish because there was a whooooole lot of atrocity to go through and we had to do it in small chunks at a time both for my sake and his own. Still, I was slowly learning a lot more about the psychology of inhuman monsters and human cruelty both, which I certainly hoped would eventually be useful.

    And since we'd also received a recent lesson in how we were a bit under-gunned for larger-scale battles than normal hunting and patrolling, I needed to begin working on that. Now that I was starting to at least begin to decompress a tiny bit, I could dare to tap my Spark a little more. Becuase Sparking when in the grips of a strong negative emotion, let alone a consistent underlying mental health issue, was a bad idea.

    But I was still very strongly limited as to how much of my Spark I could reveal to people; in addition to maintaining what part of my cover story I'd managed to retain so far there was also that if I revealed anything remotely resembling death rays, war clanks, or other stuff that Europa considered commonplace I would rapidly end up on all kinds of government watch lists. It was honestly amazing that the government didn't seem to be aware of the supernatural already, given how absurdly out of statistical proportion the death rate of this town was. Europa had been restricted to relays of heliograph mirrors and fast airship couriers for long-distance communications and yet a town like Sunnydale could not have existed there without not-so-eventually coming to the notice of everybody's intelligence network from the Baron to the Corbetites. The death rate from 'death by barbecue fork' alone was ludicrously out of proportion, and yes, I'd checked. I'd even taken the precaution of driving to LA to check because I like hell wanted to trip any hypothetical Internet keyword-search monitors in the town I actually lived in.

    And those searches cross-correlated with the local stats that Willow's hacking had pulled for us out of the Sunnydale PD computer systems revealed that Sunnydale had a homicide rate over five times that of the next-worst city in the United States, let alone the national average. And that was with every possible statistical reporting trick in the book by the Sunnydale PD to not report wrongful deaths as homicides. The missing persons rate was even more ludicrously out of proportion. The high school newspaper had an obituary section. Our sleepy and peaceful little town, if statistically analyzed, was proportionately more lethal to live in than Sarajevo during the height of the Bosnian war! How was there not already high-level federal interest here from every alphabet agency on the books? Sunnydale didn't even have a normal local FBI branch office, and this despite the town being large enough to have a University of California satellite campus, an international airport, and an international maritime freight terminal!

    And yet my own computer hacking - it had taken a while to teach myself computer hacking, but I'd had Willow's example to follow and my own Spark-augmented intelligence and learning capacities - aided by my own custom-built computers, couldn't find any signs of so much as a national intelligence surveillance network here. No taps on the local phone company exchange, no fluctuations in Internet traffic as if the local trunk line were being run through the NSA's Echelon sniffers, nothing. As near as the outside world was concerned this place was as unremarkable as hell despite being infested by hellspawn from top to bottom. And that was goddamn eerie. I just couldn't shake the sense that I'd actually seen this pattern somewhere before, but hashing it out with Angel and Giles didn't turn up any ideas as to what the pattern meant.

    So for the foreseeable future I'd have to avoid hauling out the ol' death ray for anything short of a 'the apocalypse happens if I don't'. Something was wrong with this place, and while I was already on the local demonic underworld radar as a freelance demon hunter and ally of the Slayer that was still a mental category they knew and understood. Just like my plans to join the wrestling team in junior year so I could be safely pigeonholed as something understandable, I would have to keep the same thing going re: not appearing too far out of the ordinary for a demon hunter until I knew exactly what hairy eyeball I was trying to hide from. Likewise, anything I built for the group would have to conform very closely to actual 20th-century technology because even if I could trust them with some of my secrets, I damn sure couldn't trust anybody else who might see them using the gear.

    On the softer side of things, Amy and Buffy both spent a goodly part of the summer out of town. Amy was away at a summer camp that her dad had signed her up for earlier this year as a 'sorry for all that happened' present after he regained custody of her and Buffy was spending time with her dad in LA. So me and Xander got to hang out together and commiserate over our girlless state. His state moreso than mine because he'd been pining after Buffy pretty much from the day she'd showed up in Sunnydale and they were officially dating, while me and Amy were-

    "You look like a man with heavy thoughts." Xander brought the topic up one night while we were doing cemetery patrol. Without Buffy in town we had to take more shifts, and Angel was busy covering the one route by himself while Xander backed me up on mine as opposed to his usual position backing Buffy up on hers.

    "I really should just tell the entire group the full situation of my weird backstory and not just the abridged version, because you have to know the context to know the why of the heavy thoughts." I answered him.

    "And yet you don't." he replied lightly.

    "I still can't entirely shake the fear that if I talk about it too much, it'll come visiting again." I sighed. "Even if it hasn't yet, and I've already spoken to two people about it without the sky falling."

    "I can guess which two you've told," he nodded, "which pre-empts my next question."

    "If you're thinking I'm being unfair to her, you're not the only person in this cemetery who does." I fessed up.

    "Look, you have to know deep-down that you really do like her as much as she likes you. She wouldn't get to you this much if you didn't. I mean, you bounced Buffy like she wasn't even there." Xander said. "To my eventual great profit and my eternal thanks, but still."

    "When Buffy asked you to the dance, what would you have done if you'd felt like you were being massively unfair to her if you said 'Yes' but also massively unfair in another way if you said 'No'?" I asked.

    "Brood." Xander immediately joked back. "There would also perhaps be angst. And definitely lots of listening to country music."

    "Makes sense, but what would you have said to her when put on the spot?" I pressed.

    "'I'm sorry, I wish I could but I can't, and this is why.'" Xander conceded. "Which is exactly what you did say to Amy." He shrugged as we both found a tombstone to sit on. "Is there anything you can tell me about it? Help you clear your head, man to man?"

    "On top of all the other complicating factors, of which there are many, there's also that part of my training was on how to manipulate people." I said eventually. "Seriously, you guys have to have noticed how really good I am at phrasing things without actually lying. Even when I'm completely losing my spaghetti and in the middle of a rant I can still stick to a cover story by reflex. I'm lucky I have an honest voice that actually sounds honest, because-" I shrugged. "Psychological warfare is an actual field of study, and I deeply immersed in it. And Violetta had similar training to mine, or at least enough to be able to recognize when it was being pulled on her even if by a skilled oprerator. So she could defend herself against me if I'd ever tried to play her." I shook my head. "But Amy can't. As tough as she is, living through the stuff her mom did to her still leaves openings for a psy-ops specialist to play on. And even without any of that she's still a perfectly nice girl our age who's never had any spooky stuff in Eastern Europe training or secret wars crap."

    "Hey, I'm with a girl who could crush my skeleton like a Dixie cup!" Xander challenged me. "You don't get to pull the 'I'm so much stronger, I'm afraid I'll hurt them!' card on me."

    "Buffy could potentially do damage to you in ways that you'd have no realistic hope of defending yourself against, but that's physically." I corrected him. "I'm talking about having the potential capability to do the same thing to Amy emotionally. You know, emotions, the thing a relationship is actually built on? You and Buffy are on an even playing field there." I sighed. "Me and Amy... in some ways we are, and in some other ways we totally aren't, and so even if I was one hundred percent free of mental baggage on my own our situation would still be an open invitation to..." I trailed off guiltily.

    Xander shook his head. "I still don't get it. You or Buffy never ever would, so it doesn't matter that you could. And yeah, both your and Amy's situations are way more complex than high school average but you're both smart people and you've both got good hearts and you both legitimately feel for each other. So you should be able to figure something out."

    "We are trying." I sighed.

    "Don't worry, kids." an arrogant voice said to us. "Your relationship problems are now entirely over! All your problems will be over!" it continued smugly as several vampires each came into our field of view surrounding us.

    "Well, somebody's certainly will be." Xander said agreeably as we both came to our feet and got to work.

    So yeah. The vampire hunting was going as well as it ever did, but trying to solve the larger mystery of this town? Or even just the mystery of my own feelings? Still a work in progress.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    This summer was the best and the worst.

    Best in that with Amy at summer camp I finally got a chance for full-time magic lessons with Ms. Calendar instead of having to compete for time with the prodigy girl. I remember when Amy hid out at my house because she couldn't stand to be at home and I was the strong one, and now she's got superpowers and I float pencils.

    Still, at least I was actually learning real spells now. Nowhere near as many as I thought I would - wasn't Ms. Calendar supposed to be an expert on this stuff, even more than Giles? - but it was still something. And I was concentrating on building up my magical muscle a little too, so I wouldn't get all dizzy and faint after a single fire spell anymore. But then she took the last half of the summer off to go to some festival somewhere and it was back to me being alone with the magic books and my computer. And the books didn't even really have anything interesting except the same old basic stuff I mostly knew backwards and forward by now.

    Then there was the worst part. Now, even if he was all coy about being her boyfriend, Amy still got herself a super-cute boyfriend. Like, I swear I saw Cordelia be a little interested in him before she actually backed off because girls didn't poach boyfriends from other girls on the cheerleading squad. Not that I was interested in Jonathan myself what with him being all scary and intense all the time, but I still had to admit he looked good. And he was definitely all Amy's, just like she was all his.

    But I wasn't anybody's. There was only one boy I'd ever wanted and I'd totally lost out on getting Xander, and I'd known him our whole lives! Just when I think he's maybe going to finally ask me out to somewhere, Buffy goes off all tragic heroine style and then Xander goes and saves her life and now they're inseparables. Phooey! Buffy and I had had an agreement that I got first crack at him! We'd settled that just before the hyena thing happened - okay, that's when Buffy had still been sniffing after Jonathan before she totally stepped on her own foot there, but still! We'd had an agreement! I'd get first chance to pursue Xander! And even if I hadn't actually pursued yet, I'd totally have asked him out to the Spring Fling if Buffy's own drama hadn't interrupted us!

    But at least Buffy went and took the whole summer off before her and Xander really had a chance to go anywhere except the Bronze a couple times - some girlfriend she was - so I figured that this was my chance. And so whenever I wasn't doing my things I hung out with Xander as much as I could and rekindled our friendship as much as I possibly could. Darn it, what could Buffy give him that I couldn't? She didn't even really know him, except as a hot boy who went demon hunting with her! I'd already seen how she was with the other hot boy that went demon hunting with her and Xander sure didn't deserve that!

    So, by the end of the summer I thought I was finally getting Xander to remember how it used to be between us...

    "I am so restless!" Xander said as we were walking back from the ice cream shop. "I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to school starting up again!"

    "I thought you had summer patrols, action guy?" I flattered him.

    "The undead scene has been totally dead the past few weeks." Xander said. "G-Man said it's something about 'seasonal activity patterns', which as near as I can figure is a fancy way of saying 'The sunlight challenged walking corpses who are immune to being cold prefer to go out more in the winter'."

    "That makes sense." I agreed. "So... 'In the few hours we had together, we loved a lifetime's worth.'" I quoted.

    "Terminator." Xander said. "Let me see..." he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, but didn't come up with anything.

    "One more minute to think of a movie quote, or it's a forfeit." I teased him.

    "But I already used all my good ones!" he whined, and I laughed.

    "How's about 'It's a trick. Get an axe?'" a certain someone's voice came from behind us.

    "Buffy!" Xander said, his face lighting up like somebody's just told him his long-lost father was really Bruce Wayne, who was actually a real person. We both spun around to face her, him a lot faster than me.

    "I missed you." I heard her say, as she stepped forward and gave him a great big hug. Urrrggggh! I almost had him and then-

    "You too, Buff." he said all romance movie styles. And then they kissed, and kept kissing, and kissing, and kissing-

    "Um, look out for the vampire?" I said disgustedly and pointed behind them.

    "Seriously?!?" Buffy ranted as she pulled away from Xander and turned around to stomp on the incoming vampire's foot so hard it broke and left it hopping around on it's other foot and screaming. "I don't get to see my boyfriend like all summer, and just as it's getting to the good part you show up?" she kept ranting as she broke the vampire's standing leg by kicking it in the knee, then started stomping her high heels repeatedly into the vampire's head while it was down. "I get that you're soulless demons that exist only to plague the living but do you not have a limit?"

    "You probably want one of these." Xander said, handing her a stake.

    "Thank you." she said all cutesy as she took the stake and bent over to poof the vampire before handing it back it to him. "Honestly, why did I miss this town again?" she eye-rolled.

    "Because all your friends live here?" Xander said with a grin.

    "A valid point!" she smiled back at him, and then they leaned in towards each other again-

    Oh to heck with this. I might as well go home.

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    This summer had been like an out-of-body experience.

    Right after the whole big reveal to my mom, which had... okay, I'd been so scared for a little while there that I'd almost peed my pants. I'd so not been thinking when I went home to pick up my party dress. Way too much of the 'Glad to not be dead!' vibe to have my common sense catch up to me until it was too late. So she'd confronted me about where I'd been for the past day, and I decided to follow through with what I'd decided back when I'd thought I'd be too dead to actually have this conversation in person and fessed up, and sure enough, as soon as I said the word 'vampire' she'd freaked and for a short while there I'd been terrified it would be back to the asylum and the doctors.

    Not that I was afraid of my mom, I could get that she was only trying to help me and that she loved me - I hadn't forgotten the conversation we'd had earlier this year on the topic. But I was terrified of going back to the head doctors. But even though I'd tried to stay as calm and reasonable as possible, and even bent one of the fireplace pokers to prove my Slayer strength, Mom was all panicking. And it's not like she'd go to the garage to fetch the she-thought-was-crazy girl a tire iron or anything, and even she could bend a fireplace poker if she really tried.

    But then Xander, who she'd run off as soon as the private family conversation started, came back and started pounding on the door. And as soon as I heard the voice of who he'd brought with him I couldn't yell out "Come in!" fast enough. Xander had seen what rock I'd fetched the emergency house key from under when we'd come in the first time and so he was able to unlock the door - Mom hadn't shot the dead-bolt - and before you could say 'Vampire Slayer' we had a real unlive vampire in our kitchen demonstrating to Mom that yes, he could make his face go all fangy and growly on cue and no it wasn't makeup and did you want to not-see his reflection in the mirror either?

    Mom kinda broke down at that when she realized that they'd sent me to the shrinks for nothing but look, I was not holding any grudges by this point. Not at all. I just didn't want to go back there, and I didn't want to keep lying to my Mom either. I'd spent that last day before fighting the Master kicking myself for having put myself in such a stupid trap by never bringing this up before, and-

    To cut a long drama short, we'd finally cleared the air. We'd had to call in Giles to explain to her just what Slayers were, and for a moment there I thought she was going to swing on him before we made her understand that the Watchers didn't make girls into Slayers but just came in after they became Slayers and nobody knew what mysterious magic kept picking girls like me.

    So, yeah. Mom now knew that I was going into deadly danger on a regular basis because if I didn't, other people would die. I still think she's trying to figure out a way to get me out of this Slaying gig, but at least she's available now for-

    Let's just say I'm really happy I had a shoulder to cry on when I started having nightmares about drowning. I can't imagine how bad it would be if I'd had all those nightmares while having to keep pretending to everyone that nothing was wrong. As is, Jonathan had already shown me that not all my friends would dump me if I actually admitted that I was scared of something, and Mom kept hugging me whenever I started being doubty about that.

    And then came the big trip back to LA to be with Dad. Which we'd arranged months in advance and I was still dated up for. Never mind that I'd had like a week to get settled with Mom, start trying to get over the nightmares about almost dying, and most important of all, to start actually dating my new boyfriend! Nope, it was off for two months and change to the big city to be with the other parent! Who I did have to pretend everything was normal for because I really doubted he'd be as open-minded as mom about the whole 'oh yeah, I'm talking about the same thing that had you committing me last time!' thing.

    So yeah, weird. When we moved down here months ago I'd have sworn that being able to go back to LA again even temporarily would be heaven, and when I finally got back there I just spent all that time wishing I was still in Sunnydale. Sure, LA had super fancy shopping malls and dad's platinum card and theatres and Dodgers games and new shoes, and I'd made sure to stock up for the next school year on all the essentials, but-

    Well, as crazy and lethal as vampire infested as this town was, Xander was right. All my friends did live here.

    * * * * *​

    Giles POV:

    And so began the new school year in Sunnydale.

    Amy left the cheerleading squad to devote more time to her studies, and Buffy took her place there to the noticeable, if tolerable, detriment to her training schedule. Miss Chase, who had spent the summer vacationing in Europe, essentially invited herself into our group without an actual invitation but then began to show a commendable dedication to her physical training even as she simultaneously graced us with her unique approach to social interaction. Jenny and I started having regular discussions on occult lore, her idiosyncratic approach to study and odd yet extensive network of sources via that 'Internet' phenomenon meshing interestingly with my comprehensive if somewhat didactic Council-sponsored education and extensive library. Jonathan continued onwards much as he always had, but seemed to at least be somewhat more relaxed and less hag-ridden.

    Mopping up the last die-hard followers of the Order of Aurelius was as easy as allowing word of Buffy's return to spread around town. They showed up to avenge the death of their master, we fought them with all the resources at our command, and it was done. Then there was a curious case of two obsessed young men trying some necromantic experiment to create a female companion for the one young man's reanimated brother. The grave-robbing they'd committed in the process was distasteful and technically illegal but not necessarily a cause for condemnation by occultist standards, but when they'd targeted Miss Chase to harvest the last component from then it most definitely became a matter for our concern. The monster was taken apart and burned, their laboratory destroyed, and the malefactors in question handed over to the authorities with sufficient information linking them to the grave-robbing to make them spend the next several years as guests of the state. They should have been prosecuted as attempted murderers but the legal system was too often woefully inadequate to deal with crimes related to the supernatural and unlike the sad case of Miss Ross, the situation had not justified a more immediate solution.

    But then a far more significant threat arose.

    "Spike?" Jonathan said worriedly. "You're sure that's what the other vampire called him?"

    "Plain as day." Buffy said. "In hindsight it's pretty obvious that he set that mook up to get staked by me behind the Bronze, just so he could have a chance to watch some of my moves. So he's not just your average grrrr, but he's got minions and a plan. Well, I guess the vampire leadership vacuum in Sunnydale had to get filled sometime."

    "Okay, you know that Angel did a lot of bad stuff before he got his soul back." Jonathan pointed out. "I've been talking with him about it and no, you don't want to know about most of it. Hell, I barely want to know about most of it. But the relevant part here is that Angel knew this guy very well."

    "Angelus and this 'Spike' used to be associates?" I inquired.

    "Spike's his grandchilde." Jonathan said flatly. "He was the fourth member of the Scourge of Europe. Angelus sired Drusilla, who sired-"

    "William the Bloody," I realized in horror, knowing full well who the four members of the infamous Scourge had been before Angel's ensouling had broken up their pack.

    "Aka 'Spike'." Jonathan agreed.

    "Your facial expressions are not those of the reassuring." Xander said worriedly.

    "William the Bloody is a name well known to every Watcher because of his particular infamy." I said to Buffy worriedly. "He's fought two Slayers in the past century. And-" I polished my glasses. "He killed them both."

    "Oh boy." Willow said meekly.

    "This time you invite us all along." Jonathan told Buffy firmly.

    "Oh believe you me, I will!" she nodded vigorously. "But even if we don't have a prophecy problem this time, there is still the other problem. If he's all with the stalking me and with the baiting me, he won't attack if he doesn't like the odds."

    "And let me guess." Amy said worriedly. "If he's this experienced, he won't be easy to bait."

    "No he won't." Angel said, having made one of his usual stealthy entrances. "Not that Spike doesn't have a problem with being cocky sometimes. He's a risk-taker. He likes the rush. But like any gambler who's lasted this long without going bust-"

    "-he knows when to hold 'em and he knows when to fold 'em. Got it." Buffy nodded worriedly.

    "Would a tracking spell work?" Willow asked.

    "I didn't get even a tiny piece of him." Buffy said. "So what do we track with?"

    "Not Angel's blood, unfortunately." I said. "If he were directly Angel's childe the correspondence would be sufficient even after this many decades of separation. As is-"

    "You'd need Drusilla, not me." Angel agreed. "Or a vampire Spike had sired, but I haven't run into him for decades and would have no idea who he's turned recently."

    "Knows when to fold 'em." Jonathan echoed.

    "So he's skilled, he's experienced, he's cagey, he's good enough to take the average Slayer one-on-one, and he's just a little crazy." Buffy sighed. "Okay, this still doesn't sound as bad as the Master but it does not sound good."

    Angel shook his head. "And I'm worse than useless for this mission. After all my patrolling last year there aren't too many vampires in town that don't know what side I'm on, and Spike won't come near me for as long as he knows I still have my soul. I can help cover the group but that's about it."

    "If Spike was watching Buffy at the Bronze then he knows her and I are dating-" Xander began.

    "No." Buffy cut him off. "I just started breaking you in! I'm not going to lose all my hard work now!"

    "You'd be right there sneaking along behind me." Xander reassured her. "And anybody else who can sneak."

    "Spike's not like I was." Angel said. "He likes the fight, not the terror. He doesn't usually go for friends and families. He didn't for either of the other Slayers he fought."

    "Well, we don't usually have those." Buffy pointed out.

    Jonathan rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then spoke to Angel. "You and him used to be partners in crime, then you changed. How betrayed would he be feeling about that?"

    "Probably quite a bit." Angel conceded.

    "He won't go out of his way to torment a Slayer's friends or family." Jonathan said. "But would he do that for anyone he perceived as your new family?"

    "So we bait him with you?" Angel said. "That... might actually work. Assuming that he even knows you're connected to me."

    "Well, if you and I went to shake down Willy for information about Spike then we could kill two birds with one stone." Jonathan said.

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    Giving out the free information of my status as Angel's protege to the vampire underworld in town did not produce the desired results. Either Drusilla's psychic powers were busy feeding Spike info on what traps to avoid, or else he'd learned a little more about subtlety since the fists-and-fangs days that Angel had described to me. Buffy caught a couple more glimpses of him around town as she patrolled with Xander, but even though me and Angel had shifted patrol routes so that neither team was never more than a couple blocks apart and we stayed in walkie-talkie contact Spike was always gone before we could converge on his location. He was clearly trying to bait Buffy away from the rest of the group, but the Scooby Gang had been doing this for long enough that we could avoid most of the obvious mistakes by now.

    So matters persisted until just before the Feast of St. Vigeous came around. That was the day when vampires got a little extra astrological boost of some kind, and also tended to be feeling extra motivated. But Spike's self-control had to be fraying at the edges by now, so we were ready for trouble at any large gathering of people during the immediate run-up to the Feast. I'd even sabotaged the switchbox at the Bronze so that it would be closed the night of the Parent-Teacher Night scheduled at the high school when we wouldn't be available to help cover there, because all of us who were students at the high school had to be at the school. Likewise with Giles and Ms. Calendar as faculty and Angel in his role as my 'guardian'.

    Which turned out to be exactly what Spike was waiting for, as he and all the vampires he could round up hit the school. So, that was his play. Threaten a bunch of civilians with a bunch of minions and get us all split up and all over the campus. And it worked - to a point - seeing as how we did have to cover everybody. But it's not as if we hadn't gone through 'massive vamp attack on the school' before, and some of us had spent the intervening time with floor plans working out a strategy and a set of positions.

    Sure enough, Spike went for Buffy. Xander had wanted to be the one partnered with her, but in the interests of putting two of our three best fighters on the hardest target he'd swapped with me and partnered with Angel. They were busy holding the front doors while Giles, Ms. Calendar, and our two witches were busy as the last line of defense in front of all the civilians that Buffy's mom had helped Principal Flutie herd into the library.

    "Thought you were datin' the other one." Spike said arrogantly as he strode out towards us, dramatically spinning a long steel pipe around like a quarterstaff.

    "Thought you were supposed to be all fists and fangs." Buffy quipped back.

    "Oh, I like a good weapon. Makes me feel all manly." Spike smirked. "That's a really nice-lookin' sword you've got there." he said to me. "You can rest assured, I'll take very good care of it."

    "He's talking too much and not waiting too little." Buffy said to me. "They're totally sneaking up on us while he poses."

    "Aw, you spoiled it." a girl's voice sneered from behind us. I turned to see one of our former classmates, Sheila, leading a group of several other grungy-looking young vampires.

    "Seriously?" I asked Spike over my shoulder as Buffy and I stood back-to-back. "What, did you turn them yesterday? Pick of all the unemployed veteran vamps in town and you send us fledglings?"

    "Well, I don't like to share the good stuff." I heard Spike say. "All right, Slayer, they'll keep your tag team partner busy while I go for the hat trick. But don't you worry. As a personal favor, from me to you, I'll make it quick. It won't hurt a bit."

    "No Spike," Buffy replied. "It's gonna hurt a lot."

    While normally I wouldn't have any problem with three fledglings, we were in a narrow hallway and Spike had cautioned them not to rush me too hard but instead just keep distracting me and wait for me to turn my back if I was foolish enough to concentrate on Spike while they were still upright. Furthermore, I had to split my attention a lot to make sure I didn't get back attacked by Spike because he was deliberately keeping his fight with Buffy close enough that he could switch targets if need be. Likewise, Buffy had to split her attention and allow Spike to at least partially dictate her timing because if he did come at me from behind then she had to close in and press him whether she wanted to or not. It was actually a good, solid plan and a brilliant use of limited resources while still allowing Spike his glory moment of one-on-one vs. a Slayer as much as possible.

    But when push came to shove, I was one of the Best of the Best and Buffy was the Slayer who'd fought Heinrich Nest himself to a draw. And Spike was good, but he wasn't that good. In the ninety seconds or so it took me to handle Sheila and her two friends, and then the few other vampires that came running from where they'd been searching the hallways nearby and were attracted by the noise, Buffy had taken a few scuffs and lumps from Spike but had given him notably more than she'd gotten.

    And so as soon as he realized that I was freed up again, he broke away from Buffy and started to retreat-

    -and I took his leg right off at the knee with a sword throw.

    "You bloody wankers!" he screamed as he fell over like a toppled tree. He frantically scrabbled along the floor trying to reach my sword where it had slid to a stop, presumably so he could throw it back, but that ended when Buffy landed on the small of his back with both knees and slammed his head into the floor hard enough to crack it.

    "Where's Drusilla, Spike?" Buffy said as she used Slayer strength and superior leverage to put him in a full nelson and start dislocating both his shoulders.

    "Go to hell!" he shouted.

    "Tell us what we want to know and we'll let you live long enough to limp out of Sunnydale." I said to him. Of course, we'd still hunt him down outside of Sunnydale and he wouldn't get very far in his condition before we or Angel could catch up, but that was just basic.

    "You can go shove that fancy sword of yours where you'd enjoy it." Spike spat at me. "I'm not givin' her up!"

    "News flash, Spike, you're a soulless demon!" Buffy said. "When push comes to shove, you're supposed to save yourself!"

    "Is that what you know?" Spike sneered at us. "I don't need a soul to love Dru." he continued, his voice passionate and full of conviction. "And all the demons in Hell put together couldn't torture me enough to betray her."

    "Does she feel the same way about you?" I asked. "You don't even feel the tiniest bit of suspicion that she might just be using you?"

    "Wouldn't matter a bit if she was." Spike said calmly. "I might be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

    Buffy looked up at me, and I looked back at her. Yeah, this was definitely not what either of us had expected to ever hear from a vampire. I shrugged, and she nodded.

    "On your feet, Spike!" she said, getting off him and hauling him upright. "You're gonna be dust bunnies, but at least you get to go out standing."

    "Well if I had to finally lose to one of you," Spike said to her with a lopsided grin, "at least you weren't one of the bitchy ones. Mind if I have a last cigarette and all?"

    "Sure." I agreed, and since his arms weren't really working Buffy got one out of the pack in his jacket pocket and put it between his lips, and I lit it for him. We let him have a few puffs before Buffy quickly stepped aside and my sword slash took his head clean off his shoulders before he could fall.

    "Wow." Buffy said. "He actually sacrificed himself for his one true love and everything, despite being a vampire. That'll be one for the record books."

    "Let's just hope she isn't." I agreed with her as we headed back to the library.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And so begins season 2, right on up to episode three, "School Hard". And yeah, you guys kinda figured they weren't taking Spike alive or letting him get away this time. Still, I hope you agree he at least got a fair showing before going down.

    Yes, I totally nuked 'When She Was Bad'. Buffy had already admitted to Jonathan that she wanted to run away from the fight and got nothing but his support, so between that and her mom knowing about the supernatural she actually can tell someone about her near-death experience and get support in time. Plus, I hated that episode. And yes, the re-animators got skipped over; the part where 'Oh, now you're murdering live people for parts' would have got Jonathan to just do them up Klaus style if it wasn't for the rest of the Scooby Gang also rolling on that one. They're lucky he wasn't alone.

    And yes, I recycle lines from the show. They're good lines! *g*
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 11) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    I was exhausted. Between training, classes, more training, and frustrating my brains out on my several weapons research projects I was burning the candle at so many ends that it was like I was just getting up to go to bed. Embarassingly Familiar meant that I had to stay     very much on the lookout against outliving my usefulness to the Baron, so I was pushing as hard as I could. And I welcomed the distraction from any reminders of how my plans to keep Gil and Tarvek from being separated had fallen through when Tarvek's family had yoinked him back home anyway after the whole Sturmhalten incident, which I'd touched off with my tip to the Baron-

    Yet again, I mentally pulled away from thinking more deeply about that particular pile of grimdark whenever it came up. The 'Sturmhalten Rebellion', as it was being called, had been considered the most brutal act of the Baron's entire reign. Never mind that the truth was that virtually the entire town had been revenants and the reason for the full Imperial military occupation and travel restrictions and trade embargo was to keep them from spreading out as sleeper agents all over the Empire, or that Prince Aaronev had been discovered to be not only one of the key figures of the Storm King Conspiracy against the Empire but also a fanatic servant of the Other who'd been sheltering a small army of Geisterdamen in the caves beneath the town. None of this could be admitted to the general public, and so to all appearances the Baron was clamping down on a prominent vassal city much harder than even their Prince's publicly known acts of rebellion would justify. The forbearance of the Fifty Families against pressing that particular bit of political leverage against him was a large part of how 'Grandmother' had twisted the Baron's arm into allowing Tarvek back into her custody for a 'mourning year' after Aaronev's death in the first place.

    At any rate, Tarvek had finally returned to Castle Wulfenbach from Paris a couple months ago... only he'd brought someone with him. In the webcomic Violetta Mondarev had been perhaps the only person alive that was even more cynical about Tarvek's family than he was, and she certainly hadn't felt the slightest bit of loyalty to them after she'd been released from her oath of fealty. But the comic was about a future that I'd already derailed, and had been entirely silent on what she'd been like when as a younger person. She'd be thirteen right now, the same age as Tarvek, just as I was fourteen going on fifteen. The events of canon wouldn't even be starting for circa seven years. So it was far too possible that the reason she'd accompanied Tarvek back wasn't just because of her lifelong assignment as his personal Smoke Knight but because 'Grandmother' trusted her to surveil him. Especially given as how Violetta     hadn't accompanied Tarvek during his original student tenure here, because the Baron didn't want to admit more Smoke Knights - even only partially-trained teenaged ones - to his Castle than the minimum necessary, meaning that at least some arm-twisting had been applied by 'Grandmother' to get her onboard this time. And so I'd been keeping a beady eye on her from the day she'd stepped on board, and had found out largely that she was antisocial, wary, and snarky. Clearly she was not one of the Smoke Knights' social assassins.

    But despite how carefully I'd been keeping an eye out, I was still surprised when I came upon her in that unused storage room one day...

    She'd been sitting on a stool and playing what I'd later learned was a gamba, not a cello. And she'd been playing it with total absorption, completely lost in the moment. Violetta had been a scrawny, wiry kid at that age - only the roundness of her face kept you from mistaking her for a teenaged boy - and her distinctive mop of dark-red hair had been the only eye-catching thing about her, but seeing her face actually relaxed and happy for the first time instead of tensed up in a mask of caution meant she looked like an entirely different girl.

    And after having spent twenty-something years living on a modern-day Earth where a nigh-infinite variety of digital music was available at any hour of the day or night with just a button push or two and then coming here to Castle Wulfenbach where there weren't even any concerts or recitals and almost nobody actually played an instrument- just to be able to walk in on a rendition of Mozart being played at all, let alone with as much skill as she had been-

    I stood and waited, listening, hardly breathing, until she was finished. She sat cradling the gamba in her arms, eyes still closed, and just breathed in the moment for a little while afterwards. So did I.

    "Enjoy the show?" she finally asked me, her eyes still closed.

    "It was beautiful." I said sincerely.

    "Thanks." she said after a pause, then turned around on her chair to face me. "Hey, I know how surveillance detail sucks." she continued. "But at least you sometimes get moments like these, right?"

    "I'm not actually assigned to any detail." I corrected her.

    "So you just snoop freelance?" she threw back. "Did you seriously think I didn't know you were there?"

    "I should have known." I admitted embarassedly. "Teach me to overrate myself, I guess."

    "Hey, misdirection and sleight of hand is my     specialty." she bragged. "Don't feel embarrassed."

    I parked my hip on the corner of a nearby crate. "I didn't even see you bring that thing on board." I admitted, nodding at her gamba. "And it's not exactly small."

    "Like I told ya." she smirked. "So, if the Baron didn't tell you to keep tabs on me, who did?"

    "I did." I nodded at her. "Gil and Tarvek are the two closest - at one time, the two only - friends I had on this ship. And then his grandmother puts you on him for his second trip here, when you weren't on his first trip here. So part of my head went 'What changed between then and now? What new factors entered the political situation that prompted both her request and the Baron's actually feeling obligated to grant it?' Some of the possible answers..." I shrugged. "I tried to look out for them on my own."

    "Are we related?" Violetta asked me seriously.

    "War orphan from the Teufel campaign." I shrugged, giving my technically-true-but-vastly-incomplete cover story. "Mom was a British privateer and dad was... mostly absent. So unless the Fifty Families branched into there too-"

    "No, that whole thing was actually one of the few messes in Europa we're     not at least partly guilty for." Violetta said with some embarassment. "So, what do you do when you're not working?" she changed the subject.

    "... I'm pretty much always working on something." I said after I came up blank.

    "Bad idea." she shook her head. "My training was intense as hell, but right from the getgo we were encouraged to find at least one thing that had     nothing to do with what we were doing. You had to have at least one thing that would let you put it down for a while. Because if you never put it down, it'd eventually be too heavy to pick up."

    "We aren't always the people who decide if we get any chances in this life." I felt moved to reply.

    "Ain't     that the truth." she agreed wholeheartedly. "But that doesn't mean-."

    And then the alarm clock brought me wide awake. I rolled out of bed and sighed. Violetta hadn't shown up in my dreams at all since I'd left Europa except for that day the nightmares had become real. Although this dream at least had been a recollection of something that had legitimately happened, not some psychotic fiction brought to life. It hadn't been a replay of our first meeting or anything, but it had been one of the first moments we'd started connecting privately.

    So clearly my subconscious had been trying to send me a message. Now if I could only figure out what, because given the context I was operating in right now inspiring me to recall that conversation was, to put it charitably, a case of mixed signals.

    Bah. Might as well get to class.

    "So, I'm not saying I'm jealous." Xander said worriedly to Buffy as we were heading to second period. I'm pretty sure they'd both forgotten that Amy and I were walking right behind them - Willow had already gone on ahead - and while we should in theory have politely excused ourselves from the floor show, both of us had already failed our saving throws versus temptation and wild horses couldn't have dragged us away.

    "I'm just saying that this whole exchange student program is going to be making you share a house with a guy who has guy parts? For two whole weeks?" Xander continued.

    "It's not like my mom is moving out." Buffy chided him. "We will be totally chaperoned."

    "You're right." Xander conceded. "I am being a total jerk in even hinting that you'd be that kind of-"

    "Xander." Buffy insisted, lightly taking him by the arm. "I get it. Our thing is all shiny and new and had summerus interruptus and keeps getting interrupted by the weirdness. How many times do I have to reassure you that you're my guy?"

    "Well, a few million more occasions wouldn't hurt." he joked weakly. He shook his head. "I'm really not being at all mature about this, am I." he continued seriously.

    "Like you haven't seen me be immature about a boy." Buffy cracked on herself. "My mom had to give me such a talking-to after that one. And do you know what she said?"

    "Don't ever do it again?" Xander guessed.

    "That too." Buffy chuckled. "But no, the important part was where she said is that a good relationship isn't about using someone else to make you happy, but about you being willing to put time and effort into making someone else happy. And about how when two people both do that for each other, they both come out ahead."

    "Oh." Xander said wonderingly.

    And at that point Amy and I did decide to quietly nope the heck out and leave them to their moment. After a long silent walk, right outside our next classroom I finally nerved up enough to ask her. "Are you happy?"

    "Are you?" she asked me back after a short pause.

    ... yeah. Neither of us really had an answer for that one.

    * * * * *​

    Cordelia POV:

    Ugh. Life such was such a trial sometimes.

    First the squad lost Amy, who despite not being one of our squad's more skilled members was at least a hard worker and with no real negative reputation around the school. Plus, she'd been a squad legacy what with her mom having been 'Catherine the Great', the most famous cheer captain in the history of Sunnydale High, even if she'd actually turned out to be a psycho witch. And in return for her we got Buffy. Okay, I admit it, Buffy really knew her cheerleading. In fact, she'd probably be replacing Amber as our high flyer soon because she was a smaller weight to toss and her superpowers made her super athletic on the landings. But oh God, I'd spent a goodly chunk of last year helping tear the crazy new weirdo down socially and now I've got to rehab her? Why couldn't she have just done the whole secret identity reveal early enough to spare me from all this wasted effort? Joy was officially the cheer captain but we all already knew who'd be replacing her as soon as she graduated and she was not the social titan around the high school, I was, so it was my job to make sure nobody on the squad was unpopular. Because allowing the existence of an unpopular varsity cheerleader would destroy the whole point.

    And on top of that it would have been so much more convenient now if Jonathan and Buffy had remained a thing instead of crashing and burning and he rebounded on Amy instead. Even if their whole not-dating-but-totally-together thing was a mystery for the ages. Silver lining of Amy not being on the squad anymore meant that it was at least not my problem anymore. Even if I'd still try to throw her a word of advice if it started going bad because why not.

    Anyhow, the problem with rehabbing Buffy is that instead of her getting with the hot classy semi-European guy - trust me, I don't care how good his accent is, nobody raised in the USA has their everyday shirts tailored that way- who it would have been easy to leverage into one of the prime hotties in the school and thus drag Buffy up by association, she was instead dating Xander. Alexander Lavelle Harris. Yes, I knew the middle name he'd done his best to conceal from all the world, I'd gone to kindergarten with the guy for cryin' out loud. And for reasons that even God probably couldn't puzzle out Supergirl had decided to go out with the single biggest dork in the entire school district. Well, except for the roleplaying club guys. Don't even begin to ask me what went on in there, I did not want to know.

    But despite his absurd dress sense and his horrible sense of humor and his abysmal taste in everything, Buffy - who if she'd bothered to clean herself up and act un-weird could have hooked almost any guy in the school almost as well as I could have - and Xander were going so steady that you couldn't have split them up with dynamite. Okay, I get that he saved her life, but he's not the only one!

    Really, it said something about how out of balance the natural social order around here was sliding that the part where I was kidnapped by crazy would-be Dr. Frankensteins for ten minutes before the gang caught up was one of the less stressful parts of the month. But being the Queen meant that it was your job to keep everything spinning, so I soldiered on.

    "Can you please at least get him to dress in something a human being would be caught dead in?" I begged Buffy, because getting her to take anybody other than Xander to the upcoming cultural exchange dance was futility incarnate. Still, at least she had a steady, darn her. Mitch had ditched on me after getting out of the hospital, Kevin had been killed by those vampires in the A/V room, and since then I'd sort of been just not finding any guy that was really interesting. So while I could get a date to anywhere, second dates were sorta not happening anymore.

    "We all have to wear clothes celebrating a foreign culture, remember?" she reminded me. "Xander's settled on French."

    "French teenagers just dress like we do, only with actual decent fabrics and tailoring." I groused.

    "Exactly!" Buffy said cheerfully. "All part of my clever plan to get him to buy at least one set of clothes he can wear to school later that isn't Hawaiian shirts."

    "I thought you liked his everything." I said, turning to her in puzzlement.

    "I like enjoying seeing how much he enjoys his everything." Buffy replied. "That doesn't mean I share his dress sense."

    "Oh thank God, you're still at least partly sane." I gushed.

    "Gee, thanks." Buffy came back in a voice that would strip paint.

    "You know what I mean." I replied. "And speaking of dressing for the dance, what are Jonathan and Amy wearing?"

    "Yeah, about that..." Buffy began tentatively.

    "Is he still not taking her any actual places outside the friend zone?" I burst out. "How does she put up with this?!?"

    "Jonathan... sometimes I think he's the sort of guy who wants to take his high school sweetie to the altar after they both graduate college together." Buffy mused. "He's kinda 19th century in a couple ways. But between that and the tragic lost love he's still not entirely over-" she sighed. "Like he's already told Amy and anybody else who's asked he's not going to officially make Amy his girlfriend until he can do it without any mental reservations, and he can't do that yet."

    "Well, if he still considers her to officially be a free agent then maybe I should try setting her up." I thought out loud. "Either she gets over him and is happy somewhere else, or he gets off his ass and finally commits. Win-win!"

    "I'm not going to say that I agree with that plan, but I'm not going to say that I don't agree with that plan." Buffy temporized. "But if you do decide to go that route and somehow get Amy to agree with it then you make absolutely sure it's a no-creeper zone, okay? Or else the guy's probably going to get hospitalized- and I don't mean Jonathan, I mean me."

    "I promise that anything I might enable will be done with the absolute maximum of class." I reassured her.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    The world cultures dance had fatally sucked even before I'd almost gotten fatally sucked. I wasn't even a tagalong, I was a wallflower. The only reason I'd showed up at all is because I was pathetic enough to have accepted a 'go as friends' invitation from Ampata, that new exchange student girl who was staying at Buffy's. Because Buffy was so busy with all her new social life that she couldn't show anyone else around to anywhere.

    And there was also the whole Scooby Gang mystery going on with the mysterious mummy attacks. As usual I'd done most of the researching and turned up the clue about the mummy dating from 500 years ago in the Sebancaya region of eastern Peru, which meant it was linked to the museum exhibit that one of the kids on the field trip had broken open the seal on. Giles was still busy trying to figure out how to put the seal back together while everybody else was busy at the dance, and Jonathan and Amy were busy helping him because any excuse for them to not have to admit that they were too chicken to actually date.

    So, after I got bored with helping prop up the wall in my Eskimo costume that nobody was noticing, and carefully not looking at Buffy and Xander dancing all over the place, my life got even worse.

    "Well, don't you just look like a ray of sunshine." Cordelia greeted me.

    "Go away." I groused at her. "Don't you have a foreign exchange student of your very own to go make miserable?"

    "I was actually going to ask if you wanted to have a dance with him because your wallflower was growing so tall it was starting to gloom the room." Cordelia shrugged. "But fine, feel free to turn down a gesture of kindness. I'm sure that you get so many that you're positively overwhelmed with choosing among them."

    "Hey-!" I began to retort, and realized I was talking to her back as she walked away. Great. Now I wasn't even worth Cordelia's time to really insult anymore.

    "And she calls herself a queen?" Ampata said, coming back up to me from where she'd been going to get punch. "Back home she wouldn't even have been considered a princess." Funny thing how the transfer paperwork had said 'guy' but Ampata turned out to be a girl but hey, paperwork screwups are international I guess.

    "Thanks." I said to her. "And yeah, she's a real legend in her own mind."

    "Still, she is correct about one thing. You do not seem happy to be here." Ampata said kindly.

    "I only wanted to dance with one boy ever, and he's right over there in the arms of my 'best friend'." I sarcastically air-quoted. "Same place he's been ever since last spring."

    "It is always sad to look at something you want so much but know you can never really have." Ampata agreed with me. "Come."

    "Come where?" I asked her.

    "For some fresh air?" she asked. "If you are nothing but sad here, then why not be somewhere else?"

    "Makes as much logical sense as anything." I agreed, and I let her lead me backstage. Maybe some girl talk away from all the crush of everything could-

    And then as soon as we were alone Ampata was suddenly kissing me and my head started to go all dizzy and I wondered if this was some sudden weird girl's romance thing until I realized she was starting to drain my life force and oh my God, she was the mummy we'd been hunting all along-

    "I am sorry, Willow!" she said to me after our lips broke apart. "But I do not want to die! And you have so much power that your life, it will spare the lives of many of your other classmates-" And then before I could catch my breath or do more than whimper for help and wave my arms she was draining me again-

    "HEY!" I heard a boy yell, and then Ampata was being pulled off of me. "I'm pretty sure that's assault-!"

    "GET OFF ME!" Ampata yelled and turned around and punched the boy who'd rescued me square in the gut, and he went down and stayed down. She turned back towards me with her lips drawn back in a snarl-

    "Buffy! Help!" I managed to yell, and Ampata took off running right before Buffy and Xander could pile backstage. I hurriedly gasped out what had happened, and after they made sure I or the other boy wasn't dying they took off after her.

    "What happened?" he gasped as I helped him back up to his feet.

    "It's a long story." I said, still a little dizzy from the soul-sucking myself. "Thanks for the assist."

    "Glad to help." he said. "You okay?"

    "Should be." I agreed.

    And then we awkwarded a bit until he broke the silence. "Oz."

    I momentarily wondered what the heck L. Frank Baum had to do with this before I realized that he'd given me his name. "Willow." I replied.

    "Nice to meet you, Willow." he smiled at me. Oh, hey, a cute boy's actually looking at me! A boy who's actually in a band, no less!

    "Do you wanna dance?" I asked him shyly, and after a moment he nodded yes. Finally, things might be looking up for me!

    ... and hey, what did Ampata mean about me having 'so much power'?


    * * * * *​

    Amy POV:

    A little while after we'd dealt with the mummy girl who'd impersonated Ampata the exchange student after killing him and stealing his paperwork at the bus station, things between me and Jonathan had reached new levels of stalemate when Hurricane Cordelia decided to stage an intervention.

    "Look, he already told you not to wait for him but to consider yourself open, right?" Cordelia pled with me.

    "Yes, but..." I temporized.

    "You are miserable." she talked right over me. "He is miserable. You are both making each other miserable because you won't move forward and you won't step back. Be the brave one for once and break the deadlock, girl!"

    "I just feel like it would be wrong." I said.

    "Honestly." Cordelia eye-rolled. "Look, if he tries to give you the slightest bit of static for going on a date, even just one little date, after he refused to go steady with you for months? I will destroy him. Outright burn his reputation down and salt the Earth with it. The tabletop roleplaying club will collectively be elected Homecoming King before he ever gets a single bit of status again, varsity wrestler or not." she vowed.

    "It's not that." I said. "What kind of girl would I be if I went on a date with a boy when I wanted to be with another boy?"

    "Adolescent." Cordelia flatly returned. "You really don't know what the average is like around here, do you?"

    I sat and thought about it for a long while. Cordelia was correct that I wouldn't be cheating at all. That Jonathan had repeatedly said I was free to make any choices I wanted, because he hadn't committed and he wasn't unfair. And I tried to imagine the expression on Jonathan's face if he heard I'd gone out with another boy. That I might possibly have enjoyed going out with another boy.

    Yeah. That's what I figured it would be.

    "... okay, one date." I finally decided. "Just as a trial. And only if he understands I'm having sort of a relationship drama right now and he's not guaranteed anything."

    "Yes!" Cordelia celebrated. "We are totally going to turn that frown upside down!"

    "And just what kind of guys are we talking about here?" I pressed. "Because I already know most of the boys in this school and-" I shrugged meaningfully.

    "Oh no, not from this school." Cordelia insisted. "These are college guys that I found us. Very rich, very classy, and they were both at Kent Prep before they went Crestwood College. So I'm sure they'll be perfect gentlemen, and I'll be double-dating right there alongside you so absolutely nothing will go wrong."

    And so I got dressed up in my best and told my dad I'd be studying at a friend's house and they picked us up in Richard's BMW, and took us to the Delta Zeta Kappa fraternity house, and Tom and Richard were all very handsome and very polite and very charming right up until the moment the drugs in the drinks knocked us out.

    * * * * *​

    I struggled back to consciousness. I was still wearing my clothes and my underwear, thank God, and nobody'd done anything while I was out, so this couldn't be that-

    "Where the hell are we?" Cordelia yelled, and my head cleared up enough for me to realize that I was chained to a wall. I opened my eyes, and we were in a basement. But one with stone walls like a cave instead of normal paneling, and a dark well in the center-

    I gulped as I realized exactly what my mystic senses were telling me about what was at the bottom of that well.

    "We're prisoners," a third girl, who looked like she'd been here a day or so longer than we had, said to us from where she was shackled on the other side of Cordelia. "These guys are some kind of psychos!"

    "Shit!" Cordelia swore. "Another kidnapping by crazy people? When did I become Penelope Pitstop? And-" she gulped fearfully as she thought she realized what 'high school girls drugged and chained up by college guys' meant.

    "The good news is, they're probably not doing to do that to us." I said tightly. "And the bad news is, that's because it would ruin their virgin sacrifices."

    "You're very clever for a girl." Tom sneered, while coming down the stairs carrying a sword and wearing a set of ritual robes. "How'd you figure it out?"

    "Well," I grinned savagely at him. "It's probably because I can do this-", and I reached out with my best telekinesis spell to yank his foot just as it was about to touch down on a step and send him toppling down the stairs, but then something crashed into my head and instead of knocking him down I felt like I'd been dropped down a flight of stairs and everything went all blurry-

    "You're a witch!" Tom said to me gleefully while I tried to recover. "That's how you knew! And that might even have worked on me, were we not in my Master's holy place! If I were not his favorite priest, the bringer of gifts to him, if I did not enjoy his protection!" He smirked at me cruelly, patronizingly. "Don't worry. It was a very nice try. I'll make sure you go last, just as a special prize."

    "Oh, you're demon cultists." Cordelia tried to sneer through her fear. "Well, you probably want to let us go then. The vampire hunters in this town? The people who kill bad guys like you? I know them. If I turn up missing and they follow the trail to here, you guys are toast."

    "That was the most pathetic lie I've ever heard." Tom sneered at her. "Richard!" he yelled out. "Assemble the host!"

    As the remainder of the cultists started coming down the stairs I closed my eyes and tried to not be so scared. I'd fought vampires, I'd learned how to meditate and purge my negative emotions, I'd somehow earned the respect of the bravest young man I'd ever met- I couldn't just panic like some stupid damsel, like what that misogynist creep Tom was expecting! I had to do something!

    All right. None of these guys remotely sensed like they had any magical potential like I did, so they'd need a full ritual to do even the most basic of summonings. That meant I had ten, maybe fifteen minutes to finish doing something-

    Directly attacking them with magic was out. The sanctum protections here would backlash it onto me and I wasn't powerful enough to knock these many guys out anyway. Trying to escape was out- even if I could unlock these manacles there were too many frat boys between us and the only stairs out. Fighting our way out was futile- even if all three of us were black belts instead of one and a half of us there were enough frat boy cultists here to just overpower us all. No, we needed the rest of the Scooby Gang for this. I had to call for help somehow.

    I dimly heard Cordelia unleashing her best verbal venom and snark in an effort to distract these creeps from anything I might be doing. Good for her. Now if I could just figure out how to send a message halfway across town when I didn't know any message spells-

    My tracking spell, I realized. It worked by the Law of Contagion, the principle that once two people or objects had been in close contact then on a certain mystical level they would remain in contact even if physically separated, until a banishing or exorcism or other repudiation symbolically severed the bond or until they'd been abandoned for so long that the bond had faded beyond my power to mystically rekindle. That was how I could enchant a focus to track someone by using a fresh hair taken from their hairbrush, or other similar things. It could even have found Drusilla using the sire link between her and Angel, if she hadn't beat the range of the spell by scampering out of Sunnydale.

    And while I'd never had my mind directly contact anyone else's so I couldn't send a message that way, there had been one person who'd touched my heart on a level nobody else ever had.

    So I closed my eyes and I used the meditations that Ms. Calendar had taught me to do my best to rise above my fear and my doubt and my anger, and focused as hard as I could, and with a prayer to the Three-Faced Goddess and the certain knowledge that two innocent lives in addition to my own relied on this, I pushed as much of my power as I could into a sympathetic bond-spell. And I also prayed that my having chosen to go on this date tonight would not count as my having rejected our connection.

    Jonathan! I thought as hard as I could, over and over. I'm here! Please come!

    And after a long timeless moment of nothing, I could feel him nearby, feel his emotions in tune with my own, and then mental images began to transfer-

    A ringing slap across my face broke me out of my spell. Tom was standing in front of me, his face almost purple with rage.

    "Whatever you did, I don't think it-!" Cordelia began panickedly, as I returned my awareness to Earth and saw that a giant snake-demon with the head and arms of a reptile man was now rising up out of the wall. Apparently the summoning had been completed while I'd been busy casting this entire time-

    "Fool! You should have raised me earlier! Or you should at least have bound her magic before the witch called out to her would-be lover!" the demon roared at Tom. "The demon hunters are coming! Prepare the sanctum for assault!"

    "Master Machida!" Tom plead. "We didn't know-"

    "Do as I command!" the demon - Machida, his priest had named him - roared, and the frat boys nervously started to pick up swords and clubs just as the sound of someone smashing open the front door upstairs echoed through the house.

    "What's going on?" the third girl shouted. "What is that?"

    "That is the cavalry." Cordelia said smugly as the cellar door came flying in off its hinges and an enraged Buffy hit the frat boys like a tidal wave, with Jonathan and Angel and Xander and Giles right on their heels. "And it's right on time!"

    "You at least are mine, witch!" Machida roared, and turned to lunge and rip my throat out, and I gave him my best 'I'm not afraid of you!' glare as it charged- to be stopped just a couple feet short of me when Jonathan leapt off the top of the stairs to literally land on top of its head, sword first, and bring it crashing to the ground and nail it to the floor.

    Jonathan looked up at me as he crouched over the dead demon, then rose to his feet. He started to talk, then stopped, as if he couldn't find any words. Yeah, I was a little stuck for any of those either right now. Even when Richard rushed him from behind and Jonathan backfisted him to the floor without even looking, his attention wasn't really on anyone but me.

    Buffy and the rest of the gang finished pounding the rest of the frat boys unconscious, and Giles found the keys to our shackles in the unconscious Tom's pockets and let us all out. With the third girl - Callie, her name was - to help testify about how she'd been kidnapped and shackled by psychos and what turned out to be identifiable human skeletons in the bottom of the well that Machida had been summoned out of, we could call the cops on all the frat boy psycho demon cultists and get them arrested with very good odds of them being sentenced to life.

    And after everybody made sure everybody else was all right, and Jonathan drove me home just in time to make it in before my dad's curfew, we finally managed to find some words to say to each other for the first time this evening.

    "I'm not mad." he finally said guiltily. "Except at myself. I'd told you you were free to find happiness anywhere you could, and then that just means I'm busy and oblivious elsewhere when you almost get killed by demon cultists-"

    "Jonathan." I said simply, cutting him off with a single word. "I'm not mad either. You were still there when I really needed you, and that's all that matters."

    The spell I'd cast earlier tonight had almost entirely faded away by now, so only the vaguest, most ephemeral resonance still existed between us both and it would be entirely gone before we woke up tomorrow. But I didn't need it to know that the uneasy stalemate between us had been shattered, even if I still didn't know yet exactly which way it would break.

    "When the spell went wibbley towards the end," Jonathan eventually said as we stood together on my front porch, "I saw some mental images from your own life. Random, without much context, but still privacy invading."

    "If you saw them, then my subconscious wanted to share them." I reassured him. "That was an almost purely intent-based spell I'd had to improvise on the spot, and one based on white magic and empathy. It wouldn't have done anything that either of us would have thought was hurtful or wrong."

    "Did you see a similar amount about me?" he asked.

    "Yes." I acknowledged. "Just a few scattered things, like you saw with me, but-" I smiled sweetly at him. "I saw Violetta in your mind. You know, it's a little weird. I'd thought that maybe part of your reluctance was that I reminded you too much of her, but we didn't remotely look alike or act alike."

    "No, a whole lot of things were different." Jonathan agreed. "Except this." he tapped his own heart. "Devoted, and strong, and ultimately kind. Just like yours."

    "Well, they say everybody has a type." I smiled at him. And I nodded. "I also saw the dream you had about her and the memory it was based on. That was kinda really at the front of your mind."

    "It's been stuck there off and on, but I didn't want to admit it to myself." Jonathan agreed. "You know, I really feel like a heel right now. All the while I said to myself that I was holding back because I thought it would be ultimately best for you-"

    "That wasn't a lie." I told him. "I know what your lying voice sounds like, remember?"

    "Yes, but you also know that I'm really good at not telling the whole truth." Jonathan sighed. "And the truth I was keeping back-"

    "Even from yourself." I defended him.

    "Even from myself, was that I was also holding back because I was kinda in love with my own self-image as the most loyal one." he admitted. "And I was terrified that if ever made it back to Violetta and told her that my first anything with a girl hadn't been with her- because we never got past first kisses, remember- then she'd think I was a slug."

    I reached up and, very very gently, tapped the palm of my hand against his cheek in a parody of a slap. "I'm pretty sure I can speak on her behalf there." I joked with him.

    "You could." he agreed. "Because after our talking without words earlier tonight-" he nodded. "Now I know why my subconscious sent that dream to me earlier, even if I woke up before the ending."

    And I knew he did. And so did I, because that had been one of the clearest mental images in Jonathan's mind at the moment my spell had reconnected our hearts and through them our minds. Because while he'd woken up before the dream had finished, his photographic memory had still faultlessly preserved their original conversation:

    "We aren't always the people who decide if we get any chances in this life." Jonathan felt moved to reply.

    "Ain't     that the truth." Violetta agreed wholeheartedly. "But that doesn't mean we should stop looking."

    There were no words that could fully express what we felt, or itemize all the things that we already knew we were letting ourselves in for. Or if there were such words, neither of us was poet enough to find them at this moment. But in this moment we didn't need them. I loved him, and he loved me, and we'd each known the truth of the other's feelings as if they'd been our own.

    And so as we kissed for the very first time, as we each finally let ourselves express our yearning and our care- for tonight, that was enough.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Notes: Okay, those two crazy kids finally pulled the trigger. Of course, since I'm paralleling a certain canon romance with their path...

    Thanks to poster 'Matrix Dragon' on SB for suggesting that flashbacks were useful for getting more Jonathan/Violetta relationship moments into the narrative as needed, even though the jump was already over.

    Oh, amusing Buffy lore note - while Willow and Oz in canon do not speak to each other until "What's My Line" (2x11-12), the very first episode in which Oz notes Willow and is attracted to her is "Inca Mummy Girl" (2x04), because he was indeed playing in the band for the cultural exchange dance in that episode.
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 12) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    For Amy and I being in an acknowledged relationship was mostly like our previous not being in one except that we were allowing ourselves to feel a lot less guilty about it. Also there was more hugging and kissing allowed. Neither of us felt any particular need to rush ahead beyond that right now. We were both sixteen - physically and emotionally - even if I was also basically reincarnated twice, and while this school was full of people our age who'd already skipped straight to the ending they weren't exactly what you'd call the best examples to follow. So we didn't.

    Besides, I had my stuff that I was trying to recover from and Amy had hers, and I had a particularly vivid memory from my original life about an old master sergeant lecturing us in-between Basic and AIT. His lecture had been about how the classic mistake for idiot youngsters our age was to mistake the girl you were currently dating for the great romance of the ages simply because you hadn't allowed for the fact that emotions of all kinds were often magnified hugely under prolonged stress or while decompressing from same. And even Teenaged Angst had some limits, apparently. Or else I'd finally begun the 'growing out of it' process it had mentioned. Or maybe it was just that since my "Benefactor" had skipped the 'out-processing' after my last jump and I'd imported into this one as a Drop-In a good portion of my ingrained habits and attitudes were still culturally Europan, i.e., heavily Victorian influenced. Or multiple choice.

    Slaying-wise, we had ourselves a near miss on Halloween. Principal Flutie had volunteered us high school students as escorts for the younger kids to go trick-and-treating, so we all had to get costumes. And fortuitously, a new costume shop had opened up to catch that particular overflow. Having decided that decking ourselves out Europan style would not be a great idea Amy and I decided to go to the shop instead and dress in something more normal for American teenagers. Our first idea to go as Han Solo and Princess Leia was bounced when we found out that Xander and Buffy had already thought of that first, so we rolled with the Star Wars theme by going as Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade. Amy even had part of the hair color for it, being a reddish-blonde.

    However, when the proprietor of the shop introduced himself as 'Ethan Rayne'... well, my memory turned up mention of "Ethan Rayne's Halloween spell" in the Notes section of the jump-doc. A quick request to Amy to check our costumes for spells turned up a positive result, and a quick phone call to Giles about that had him basically flip out as soon as he heard the name of the guy who'd sold us the costumes. Apparently him and Ethan Rayne had some sort of history and he knew of Ethan's past as a Chaos Mage and generally malevolent person. Giles and him had a confrontation that resulted in him closing the shop and leaving town, and between that and some cleansing rituals that our four practitioners did on his Janus idol our Halloween remained blissfully magic-free.

    So yet again I realized that I was being an idiot, in that I'd had a potentially available source of foreknowledge available the entire time and had neglected it in favor of focusing on the immediate problems and teenaged drama. Yeah, I am never voluntarily taking a mind-affecting Drawback remotely like this ever. Not even if it offers way more CP than a measly 100. They are so very limiting, and so very very insidious.

    Still, I did have an eidetic memory - even if I had to actually make an effort to recall things before I remembered that I could remember them, if that makes any sense - and I had carefully read the entire jump-doc, so I was still able to transcribe it. And thus some dedicated work with paper and pencil produced a list of several things mentioned in it to keep an eye out for, some of which were more than a bit alarming in hindsight:

    • A mention of 'the Mayor' becoming an 'Old One' if something called 'the Ascension' happened on cue. Further mentions involved 'runnng a small city for a century without anyone noticing' in the plots and plans perk in the Dark line, and a picture of Mayor Wilkins underneath the perk for 'Big Bad'.
    • A mention that at least one significant prophecy applied both to Buffy - which we'd already seen at least one of - and Angel, which was a definite surprise.
    • A picture of Angel in game face underneath the 'lost your soul' Drawback. Not good.
    • Two pictures of Willow looking all powerful, scary, and evil. One of them was next to a Drawback for 'magic addiction'. Also not good.
    • The existence of something called 'Wolfram & Hart', an evil law firm mixed up with the supernatural.
    • A species of demon called the 'Mohra' whose blood could apparently turn a souled vampire back into a human being. Um... okay.
    • The existence of powerful named demons called 'The Judge', 'Lucronis', or 'Acathla'.
    • The revelation of a still-extant if 'depowered' Old One named 'Illyria'.
    • A mention of someone named 'Jonathan' as an example of a minor spellcaster on the 100cp tier. Since I'm certain this document was not referring to me, especially since I hadn't spent even 100cp on spellcasting, then presumably it was the other Jonathan in the tabletop roleplaying club.
    • Some kid about my age I didn't remotely recognize underneath the 'Physically Empowered' entry and several mentions of what he could possibly be, ranging from 'impossible human child born of two vampires' to 'government genetic engineering project'.
    • A picture of Buffy standing back-to-back with a young black woman I didn't recognize underneath the 'Slayer' entry. The Drawbacks section contained a photo of a third young woman who was apparently a Slayer, as well as names for her and the other young woman - 'Kendra Young' and 'Faith Lehane'. No idea which was which.
    • Bundled with that was a mention that temporarily dying but being revived would pass on the Slayer powers to the next host while allowing the revived Slayer to retain hers. Which definitely had a certain meaning given what had happened with the Master.
    • Several magical items mentioned under the 'MacGuffin' entry, such as a Glove of Myhnegon, a Gem of Amara, a Cup of Perpetual Torment, a Blessed Sword, or a Scythe of Vocah.
    • A mention of a demon hunting organization called 'the Initiative'.
    • A picture in the Companions section of Angel leading a team of people most of whom I didn't recognize... except for an older-looking Harmony, which was absurd, and Spike, which was mind blowingly impossible. Just how much divergence had I caused from the original timeline?
    • A very puzzling entry underneath 'The Real Key' Drawback of Buffy having a younger sibling named Dawn - who I'd never heard of - who was apparently some kind of 'Key' who could open portals between dimensions, that a being named 'Glorificus' was seeking.
    So, yeah. This was quite a lot to suddenly realize you were going to have to deal with, especially since some of it made absolutely no sense.

    The highest priority item on the list was Angel's soul curse and it's possibly finite nature. Since he entirely knew about the Jumpchain I could bring up anything on this list with him without having to explain how I knew it. We got out that little soul orb that Giles had enchanted once, had Amy re-empower it, and put that sucker in a piece of jewelry to wear at all times. I really was not looking forward to what we'd have to do - what I'd have to do - if he ever lost it, but the Baron had already taught me this lesson long ago and Teenaged Angst or not I wasn't going to back off from it now. And we certainly couldn't haul Angel's soul back from the afterlife to curse him again if he lost it - it had been an act of the blackest magic and done for the worst form of hate and revenge in the first place, that's why it was called a goddamn curse!

    But the best outcome would of course be to keep him from losing it in the first place, as Angel had already long since made the decision that cursed or not he would not actively seek out death as a release. If he hadn't chosen to bear his curse then he could have just picked any given morning to go watch one last sunrise. So simply off the 'random observation' that his soul curse hadn't come with any guarantees of eternal permanence or immunity from being dispelled it might be a good idea to look into exactly what its limitations and weaknesses might be, the nature and history of Angelus' cursing at the hands of the Kalderash Roma clan became the new research project for our resident occult scholars. It almost made me want to go out and drain a Mohra demon right now except that those things were virtually impossible to find.. Besides, Angel was still having a long serious case of the thinking it over after finding out that becoming human again was now theoretically possible, and I was respecting his right to make his own life choices at his own pace. If he wanted to talk about it, I'd be here.

    The apparent revelation that Mayor Wilkins was actually some kind of long-running master villain explained several of the anomalies I'd learned about Sunnydale and why my off-and-on researches into them had produced almost no results; I'd been looking in the wrong place (outside of Sunnydale) for the wrong thing (government involvement above the local level). We still had no idea what he was building towards or why, except that involved 'Ascension' and setting up the town as some kind of demon feeding grounds, but given how deeply wired Mayor Wilkins had to be into the everything around here if the jump-doc's hints were true then we knew we'd have to investigate this very slowly and subtly anyway. At least we'd have some time; 100 years from the founding of Sunnydale would spring semester of our senior year and we were just heading into junior year.

    Upon finding out exactly what we were researching re: Angel's soul curse and it's possibly expiring Ms. Calendar was alarmed enough to confess that she was actually Janna Kalderash, a Romany who her clan had inserted into Sunnydale as an agent-in-place to keep tabs on Angel and report on his behavior. Which in hindsight explained several of the weirder conversations she'd had with me. I'd certainly have twigged to it sooner except that she'd been so amateur at trying to pump me for information that I'd written her off as just being morbidly curious on her own hook instead of being anybody's agent. Clearly I'd spent a little too much time dealing with Smoke Knights and other such players.

    At any rate, despite Giles wigging out a bit at hearing that it turned out to be a stroke of luck for us that we had her available; she'd already sent a query back to the Kalderash clan elders asking for all available details on the spell used to curse Angel in the first place. Her alibi (which we'd helped compose) of 'I want to be able to determine if prolonged Hellmouth exposure might have any effect on it' was accepted as a valid reason to provide her with an exact copy of the spell formula, and we expected it to be arriving soon.

    Preliminary researches into something called 'The Key' turned up only a few scattered mentions of it as a precious artifact allegedly guarded by a mysterious group of monks called the Order of Dagon somewhere in Eastern Europe. However, what very fragmentary info existed always described as some type of disembodied mystic force or mysterious object, not a person. As for 'Dawn', Buffy of course was an only child as far as anyone knew. However, given one of the reasons her parents had gotten divorced was because Hank Summers had cheated on her mother it was entirely possible for Buffy to have a half-sibling that she - or Mrs. Summers, for that matter - had absolutely no idea existed. So there wasn't much we could do there except keep an eye out for anybody remotely fitting the description who might show up later.

    Giles' inquiry to the Watchers' Council regarding possible effects of Buffy's temporary cessation of vital signs got results - the next Slayer, who was indeed named Kendra Young, had been called the night Buffy had fulfilled the prophecy of the Pergamum Codex by temporarily dying at the Master's hands. She was a native of Jamaica and currently undergoing field missions under the supervision of her Watcher, Samuel Zabuto. The name 'Faith Lehane' also turned up as a potential Slayer - apparently the Council's divinations as to who the next Slayer would be were at least occasionally able to turn up probable candidates in advance of their being Called, and whenever possible they were offered training and supervision even prior to or if they weren't Called - who had just recently begun training under the supervision of Watcher Diana Dormer in Boston. With absolutely no indications available as to what might possibly kill Kendra or when it would to Call Faith as the Slayer after her, and with Kendra already being a highly talented and conscientious Slayer underneath the supervision of someone Giles unhesitatingly recommended as one of the best Field Watchers out there, there wasn't much we could do there to warn her that wasn't already being done.

    As for everything else on the list, anything that Angel or Amy or I had a good rationalization for bringing as something we could have possibly heard about or thought up ourselves for innocuous reasons was brought to the attention of the group. However, even with two instances to show me that my "Benefactor" would not intervene if I told people of the Jumpchain I still wanted to keep that knowledge as closely held as possible. If nothing else, knowledge of the existence of beings like my "Benefactor" and the ways they could play with peoples' lives was a great way to cause an existential crisis in almost anyone, and the rest of the Scooby Gang had enough reasons to have one of those as is. So the remainder of the line items on our list, the ones we couldn't rationalize to the others about knowing about, we just resolved to keep a very wary eye out for ourselves. And it's not as if we didn't all have a lot of demands on our potential research time already what with the day-to-day Slaying duties and our ongoing educations as demon hunters, witches, and so forth.

    And that was especially true after what happened when a part of Buffy's past came back to haunt her.

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    So, I had a girlfriend now. The girl I'd been drooling over, if in a perfectly tasteful way, ever since the moment I fell off my skateboard like a complete idiot at my very first glance of her. Before I'd known the slightest thing about how brave she was, or how hard she worked to protect other people, or how much or what kind of stuff was going on in her life. Yeah, kinda shallow of me.

    But my point was, I was now going steady with someone who was important to me for reasons far more than 'a hot girl is paying attention to me' and so I was busy choking all over the place because for the first time I had something legitimately important to screw up on an interpersonal level. And my two best guy friends, past and present, were kinda useless in this regard for advice. Jonathan was the smartest guy I knew for pretty much anything else but Amy could entirely testify that he needed months of angst and a big ol' kick in the butt to actually begin to get anywhere on the romance front, not that they didn't seem perfectly fine now, and Jesse was... not a guy you went to for advice about girls. And I certainly couldn't talk to Willow about this, that would just be rubbing salt right in the open wound even if her and her new boyfriend seemed happy enough so far.

    Which is why I was having perhaps the single most awkwardly painful conversation of my life right now and wondering just how desperate was desperate that I'd thought this was a good idea for even a second.

    "Look, I'm just saying that I have absolutely no idea what she sees in you! So how am I supposed to tell you how to keep making sure she's seeing it? I am being impossibly forebearing in not deliberately sabotaging you two so that she could salvage what popularity she could hope to retain!" Cordelia said.

    "You will be publicly canonized as Saint Cordelia the Sarcastic any day now, I entirely agree!" I replied lightly. "I just wish..." I continued more sobertly. "That I knew what I was doing right, so I could not stop doing it."

    "You saved her life, what more does she want?" Cordelia eye-rolled. "And-" she stopped and blinked, having spotted Buffy talking to this tall, incredibly handsome boy who I'd never seen before and grinning ear to ear like she'd just received the most wonderful present in the world.

    "I see him." I said glumly. "Are you sure the nightmare demon didn't get out again?"

    "What, did you think you were the first boy she ever dated in her life? With her looks?" Cordelia stared at me incredulously. "That is clearly a 'Oh wow, what's my ex doing here at my new school?' facial expression. So get over there and remind her that you still exist!"

    "Cover me, I'm goin' in." I agreed firmly and walked on over while Cordelia waited exactly two whole nanoseconds before deciding that she didn't actually care what happened and leaving. "Hey Buff!" I said cheerfully, stopping just short of hugging distance and waiting for a signal. "Who's your friend?"

    "Xander!" she said, smiling at me. Well, at least I still rated a smile- "Billy, this is my boyfriend Xander Harris. Xander, this is Billy Fordham. I went to school with him for seven years in LA."

    He stuck out his hand for the manly handshake. I manly restrained myself to only crushing him a little. Weird, for a guy as tall and broad-shouldered as he was he had a pretty weak grip. "Wow." he said, rubbing his fingers after I let go of him. "What sport do you play?"

    "Still deciding exactly what to try out for." I replied smoothly. "But I like to stay in shape."

    "Xander, the closest Ford and I got to dating was him being my fifth-grade crush." Buffy said knowingly to me. "So ix-nay on the ompetition-cay."

    "Competition?" I put on my best oblivious face, to receive Buffy's long-suffering pout in return before she broke and gave me a lopsided grin again. "Sorry." I apologized.

    "Look, I need to show Ford where the admissions office is so he can transfer in." Buffy said. "See you in class?"

    "Sure!" I agreed, and we both headed off towards our respective destinations. It wasn't until a couple periods later that I had a chance to talk freely, although not with Buffy.

    "What do you call it when you are absolutely unable to trust the person you should entirely trust?" I asked Jonathan.

    "Paranoia." he replied matter-of-factly.

    "And when it's your girlfriend and it's about other boys?" I continued.

    "Jealousy." Amy chimed in. "And really, Xander, you know Buffy isn't like that."

    "I know that but this Ford guy still has me panicking like crazy. I mean, seven years of going to school with Buffy. That's like what me and Willow had." I angsted.

    "It's also what you and I had and yet here we are, completely not dating each other." Amy joked.

    "For that matter, Willow's dating Oz so empirical evidence suggests that Buffy's not likely to switch back to this guy just because of shared history." Jonathan followed her lead.

    "Both perfectly logical points, but I still can't shake this horrible nightmare that Buffy's going to wake up one day and go 'Wow, I could be doing so much better!' Especially seeing as how literally ninety-nine percent of the student body agrees with that premise and just ask Cordelia if you don't believe me."

    "If Buffy cared about what ninety-nine percent of the student body thought she wouldn't be Buffy." Amy said, and then only continued more soberly after a thoughtful pause. "Xander... have you ever considered talking to the school counselor?"

    "About what?" I asked defensively.

    She looked at Jonathan for reassurance, and he nodded once to her and gave her a comforting squeeze around her shoulders before she turned back to me. "You know a little bit about what my mom did to me, and I don't mean the magic." she began. "Trying to cut me off from anybody but her, always making me feel worthless, having unreasonable expectations-" she stopped, and visibly forced herself to start again. "It's called emotional abuse."

    "I just remembered that I forgot-" I began, and hurriedly started to get to my feet when Amy's next words cut me off.

    "I didn't want to go either."

    "You're seeing the social worker?" I said to Amy incredulously as I stood there. "But you always seemed so-"

    "She didn't tell me she was going until a couple of weeks ago." Jonathan said, giving her another comforting hug. "And I entirely understand why. Therapy is a very private thing, and there's this whole irrational social stigma about admitting you need it. As if having suffered trauma was a character weakness, which it's not." he finished angrily. "I'd be going myself except I can't mention anything about my past to a psychologist without getting certified, anymore than Buffy can talk about Slayer stuff."

    "Ms. Calendar originally recommended that I go when she saw how much I was carrying emotionally into my witch apprenticeship. So I've been seeing the counselor since last spring." Amy nodded. "My point is, I think that your mom and dad didn't do you any favors either- I've gone to school with you as long as Willow has, remember? So if you went, it might help you deal with the anxiety."

    "Anxiety? What do I have to be anxious about?" I babbled, and that would entirely have worked if I wasn't receiving matching stares of disbelief from two of the smarter and more mature friends I had. "Not buyin' it, huh?" I joked weakly, sitting back down.

    "Look, it's okay not to be okay. As long as you're not wallowing." Amy said kindly.

    "You saw me when I wallowed." Jonathan admitted embarassedly. "And look at all the great stuff it didn't do for me!"

    "You're using resolve voice again." I groused. "That is so completely not fair."

    "Fair fights are-" Jonathan began.

    "We know." Amy and I said in amused unison.

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    It was nice to spend a normal day with a normal person who didn't know anything about Slaying or vampires or anything. The Scooby Gang were the best friends I ever had, or the best boyfriend I'd ever had in one particular case, but that still didn't mean I didn't have the occasional regrets over having been Called in the first place. So even if it was just for a tiny little while, being able to talk about old acquaintances and old times with Ford was like a vacation to the land of Before Slaying.

    Which is why I was just a little crabby when I entered the library to find my friends minus Willow already running a background check on Ford like a punch of paranoid CIA people.

    "Seriously?" I ranted. "Oh come on, Xander! This is too much!"

    "It was my idea." Jonathan said. "Xander was the one telling me I was being paranoid."

    "You are being paranoid." I insisted. "Ford is not some crazy demon cultist or whatever! He's normal boy from normaltown! I bet your background check has turned up absolutely nothing!"

    "That's precisely the problem." Giles said in his serious voice, making me turn to him in surprise. "You escorted him to the admissions office this morning, correct?"

    "I did." I said firmly. "So-"

    "So when I checked the records room in the middle of this afternoon, I should have found at least the beginnings of his school file instead of the complete and total absence of any documentation." Giles continued.

    "Buffy, my 'randomly Southern California' magic teacher turned out to be a gypsy and working for the gypsy clan that originally cursed Angel." Amy pointed out. "Which was a perfectly harmless and okay secret agenda to be having, yes, but she could have been like the demon-summoning frat boys and we'd never have known because we never looked."

    "So after that I said to myself, 'Why not look a little more next time?'" Jonathan continued.

    "And I can confirm for the professional snoops here." Cordelia said. "I've been hitting the grapevine since lunch and nobody saw your friend Billy in any senior homeroom or classes anywhere today. Apparently he only came on-campus to talk to you. So much for 'new transfer student.'" she air-quoted.

    "Maybe he was just scouting out the campus ahead of time!" I said to them desperately. "Maybe he actually wants to be admitted tomorrow... in the admissions office... that he asked me to take him to and pretended to go in..." I trailed off weakly and slumped into my chair, banging my head on the table in frustration. "Urrrggggh! Does the Slayer thing have to take every single thing in my life and weird it up?"

    "To be fair, we have no knowledge of anything supernatural going on with him so far." Xander reassured me. "We just know that he's a lying liar who tells lies."

    "I told him you and I were going to the Bronze later tonight, and he said he'd meet me there." I said, my forehead still on the table. "Now I'm starting to wonder if I should pack extra stakes."

    "And here I was just thinking 'You know, I haven't been to the Bronze in a while'." Jonathan said readily.

    "It's a date." Amy agreed with him.

    "It already was." Xander followed on hammily.

    "You guys are the best." I said, looking up at them. "Even when I'm desperately praying you're all paranoid and wrong."

    * * * * *​

    "And that was the story of the ninth-grade beauty contest." Ford finished, my face practically blushing in infra-red. I started to weakly laugh all 'ha-ha! See, I can take a joke!' styles, only to notice that everybody else at the table was kinda staring at Ford.

    "Wow, deliberately dredging up a massively embarassing story to toss it in her new friend's faces. That's not funny." Jonathan said flatly.

    "It was a little mean." Amy backed him up.

    "You actually had a crush on this guy once?" Xander said, giving him the stink-eye.

    "Well excuse me for not being all part of your small-town Bible study group." Ford shot back at them. "It takes a sophisticated point of view to be able to laugh at yourself!"

    "Un bon mot ne prouve rien." Jonathan smiled back at him, and Ford's face fell flat at... okay, I had no idea what Jonathan had just said but clearly Ford had.

    "Laugh at yourself? But I haven't heard you say anything funny about you yet." Xander said with the sort of smile that's really just showing your teeth. "So tell me something funny about you."

    "Look, I don't have to-"

    "Let's not match dishonesty with dishonesty," Jonathan said suddenly. "So we'll be straight with you. Your story of transferring in? We know it's BS."

    "You don't know anything." Ford said defensively.

    "Cordelia hit the gossip network for us." Xander said. "You aren't actually in senior year, not even as a transfer student. You weren't in any homeroom today or any classes."

    "And what would this Cordelia girl know?" Ford shot back dismissively. "Who is she, anyway?"

    "Now I know you haven't actually joined our student body." I sighed disappointedly. "There's no way anybody misses Queen C around here, any more than they could have missed Tegan Matthews back at Hemery." Ford startled at the mention of our old high school's resident social sovereign, the rich popular girl even I'd had to show proper deference to despite having been Freshman Princess and being well on track to becoming queen myself after she graduated, as he realized just how deeply he'd ruined his own cover story with his reaction.

    "Ford." Amy said, falling naturally into good cop to everybody else's bad cop. "You're one of Buffy's old friends and she clearly values you a lot. You don't need to lie and sneak up on us. Whatever you want her to help you with, we can help you with too. Just ask."

    "It's none of your business." Ford said angrily. "Only Buffy's."

    "Okay." I said, waving everyone else down. "So we'll talk about it alone."

    "You sure?" Xander asked me.

    "He's clearly not going to say squat as long as anybody else is here." I said. "So the most civilized way we can do this is...?" I shrugged.

    Jonathan polled everybody else with a glance, then all three of them stood up and headed across the Bronze to where they could see but not hear us.

    "Okay, Ford." I said as soon as they were out of earshot. "Make with the un-mystery."

    "I know you're the Slayer." he began.

    I almost replied "So do they." but at the last minute shifted to saying "How'd you find that out?"

    "I found out just before you left Hemery. After all the weirdness, and the fire in the gym-" he began.

    "Okay." I said, actually kinda relieved that we didn't have that secret between us any longer. "So, why does that bring you up here?"

    "Do you remember Nicole?" he asked me.

    "Yeah." I said sadly. "She died in the gym attack... oh no." I said with realization.

    Ford nodded. "I saw her just last week. She was... sort of staking out my house." he said nervously.

    "Damn it!" I swore. "I am sick and tired of putting stakes in people I went to high school with!" I sighed. "Look, this town is vampire infested central. I have to work late like five nights a week just to handle the overflow. I don't know when I'll be able to get back down to LA-"

    "I'm pretty sure she'll have followed me up here." Ford said. "She was sort of crushing on me right before she died, even if I don't think she told you, and I think that might-"

    "Freshly turned vamps can obsess on things they were obsessing on right before they died." I agreed with him.

    "And I can't fight a vampire on my own." Ford begged me. "I need your help!"

    "Okay." I said. "Tonight I'll walk you home, and tomorrow we'll meet at the Espresso Pump - in the afternoon, in broad daylight - and work out a plan. Okay?"

    "Absolutely." he said, smiling at me in relief. "And I'm sorry about the whole 'transfer student' thing but..." he shrugged. "I didn't want anybody else in your new school to find out you were the Slayer from me, so I had to think of a way to approach you."

    "And you did." I said, feeling like the biggest phony in the world.

    Because I was. I'd left Hemery High over six months ago, and if Nicole had been turned on that night - which she'd had to have been if she'd been turned at all, because I saw her get bit that night - then there's no way she'd have waited this long before making a move on Ford. Unless there was some unique level of obsession like Spike going on, the whole 'working out your unfulfilled urges from life' thing was a fledgling phase they got over pretty fast. She'd have either moved on him already or stopped caring, plus the fact that he obviously hadn't been afraid of walking to the Bronze alone after dark tonight. And, of course, the whole 'transfer student' lie was ridiculous; if he wanted to talk to me without involving anyone from my new school all he had to do was go to my house. My mom knew him, we were in the phone book, and if he knew where I'd moved to and what school I went to then getting as far as my home address would be simple.

    No, I'd long since learned enough about to think about and evaluate what I was being told to spot the obvious holes in stories. So as much as I didn't want to believe it, Ford was clearly up to something sneaky as hell. Which is why as I left the Bronze with him I made sure to wink at Xander, Jonathan, and Amy behind his back so they'd know to follow me, and counted on the fact they'd do it subtly enough that he wouldn't notice they were there. Because this was almost certainly some kind of trap, and we had to find out what kind before it caught anyone else.

    Life had been so much simpler before I made friends with former teenaged secret agent people or fought vampires.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Amy's actress is a redhead. Her character on the show is blonde. I split the difference with strawberry blonde.

    Jenny's gypsy reveal? Totally different, because Jonathan already gave the group a precedent for 'So, you were actually a secret agent. But you're still on our side'. Also, her fessing up as a response to 'Angel may possibly be a threat/under threat in the future' is a much better time to do it than to speak up only after disaster has struck.

    And yes, we blew right past Halloween with no magic. Psych! But really, it's mentioned right there in the jump-doc along with Ethan's name, and the instant you mention that name to Giles of course he's going to know what's going on. In fact, Jonathan has finally been prompted by that to go through the entire jump-doc again and itemize as many foreshadowing clues as possible.

    So here we now we are in the middle of episode 2x07, "Lie to Me", but without Spike. As well as Ford being knocked notably off balance by this timeline's notably more professional and slightly more suspicious Scooby Gang. You can almost visibly see the moment where he has to abandon his original plan and start desperately spinning... and badly.

    "Un bon mot ne prouve rien" is French for "A witty saying proves nothing", which is a quote from Voltaire. Jonathan was entirely going 'Pretend to be big-city sophisticated on me, jerkwad? I am actually Old European nobility, I can out-class anybody in this town.' Not that I speak a word of French, but poster 'ContemplativeWyrm' on SB did and was willing to correct my usage after I let Google Translate do the first attempt.

    As canon was vastly unhelpful in giving me the name of Hemery High's resident Cordelia equivalent I just made it up. Nicole is a canon casualty of the final battle of the original BtvS movie, although highly obscure.

    Lastly, the story about the old master sergeant is semi-autobiographical - that's exactly the advice an old chief petty officer gave my Navy boot camp class right after we'd graduated and as we were entering 'A' school, and I've never regretted following it. :)
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 13) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    Amy and Xander did a credible imitation of a boy and a girl out for a stroll and stayed half a block behind while I stealthed on ahead, keeping them in easy view. Ford seemed to be walking pretty slow and pretty loudly, and just about as I'd figured out he was deliberately trying to bait a vampire attack they got jumped by a pack of three.

    "Ford!" I heard Buffy yell as he fled into the nearby alleyway while she was busy dealing with a double-team. The third one followed Ford in, only to for him to whip out a cross and back it off as soon as he was out of Buffy's direct line of sight.

    "If you're still stuck here after she's done with those two, you're done." Ford threatened it. "Tell me what I wanna know and I'll let you run."

    "The fuck do you want?" the vampire threatened him back.

    "Where's the guy in charge? Who's the boss vampire and how do I reach him?" Ford asked.

    "There isn't one! Your girlfriend the Slayer killed him and the guy who replaced him! It's every pack for themselves now!" the vamp said frantically.

    "Shit!" Ford swore desperately. "There has to be-" The sounds of fighting began to die down and Ford stepped back and left the vamp running room to get further down the alley. "Go, go!"

    Without a backward glance the vamp took off running, which left it wide open for me to leap down off the rooftop in front of it, use its own momentum to aikido throw it into the wall hard enough to bounce off it face-first and leave it stunned, then stake it before it could recover. Ford gulped in panic at me and turned to run, only to meet Buffy coming the other way and be boxed in between us.

    Before he could begin to stammer out an explanation I flatly recounted the conversation I'd overheard, and Buffy turned to him with her face in a mask of angry resignation. "Ford?" she said flatly.

    "He's lying!" Ford said desperately. "It's his word against mine!"

    I spotted a trickle of blood coming out from underneath the cuff of his sweater. "Left arm." I pointed to Buffy.

    "You're wounded?" Buffy said, grabbing his wrist and rolling up his sleeve to reveal a shallow cut on his left forearm.

    "The vampire did that!" he babbled.

    I leaned in closer and saw exactly what I expected to see. "That's a deliberate knife cut, shallow and perpendicular to the forearm. He almost certainly did it to himself in the bathroom right before he left the Bronze with you."

    "Yeah," Buffy agreed, being herself an expert on edged weapons and the wounds they left behind. "So, you deliberately baited an attack..." she confronted Ford.

    "To get a chance to talk to a vampire alone without being immediately killed." I analyzed, just as Amy and Xander reached us and lent their silent stares to our own curbside interrogation.

    "You're crazy! You're all craz-" Ford desperately denied.

    "Ford." Buffy cut him off.

    "Whatever you came to Sunnydale for, you need Buffy to get it done and it's worth taking a serious risk to your life for." I pointed out.

    "So you can either talk to us like a human being or Buffy can start ghosting you until the end of time." Xander backed me up. "And then whatever scheme you've got in mind is bupkis anyway."

    "Whatever scheme I've got in mind?!?" Ford burst out. "What I've got in mind is not dying!"

    "Ford, I save peoples' lives without even needing to be asked." Buffy said exasperatedly. "It's kinda what I do! Why the whole rigmarole and why all the manipulation?"

    "Can you save mine?" Ford said to her with desperate contempt. "Can you make my brain stop melting? Can you make me stop needing to take pills every day just to be able to pretend to walk and talk without pain?!?"

    "Wait, you're sick?" Buffy asked compassionately. "Really sick? But then why this?"

    "Stage four brain cancer." he said brokenly. "I'll be lucky to have six months. And what they'll bury won't even look like me."

    "Ford, I'm so sorry." Buffy said sadly. "But why- oh no." she realized.

    "You wanted to be turned?" Xander gasped in shock. "Are you nuts?!?"

    "Would it really be so bad?!?" Ford burst out. "Giving up seeing the sun again but no more pain? No more sickness? Young, strong, and healthy forever?"

    I shook my head. "Vampires are demonically possessed corpses, not superpowered people. You die, you move on to the afterlife, a blood demon sets up shop in your carcass and walks it around from that point on."

    "They have all your memories because they're possessing what used to be your brain, they even believe they're the original person because they're all freshly born little demonlings when they move in and kinda imprint, but it's not the original human soul." Buffy continued.

    "That's religion, not facts! You don't even know for sure if the soul exists-" Ford began, to be cut off by Amy briefly conjuring up a small ball of floating light over the palm of her hand.

    "I'm a witch." she said simply. "I can cast spells. I can cast a spell that detects human souls. And so I can say as a fact that souls exist, and vampires don't have any."

    "Well, one vampire does." I cut in, and then cut Ford off. "But hauling his soul out of the afterlife to shove it back into his undead body required a curse of such epic black magic that we're pretty sure every caster of the original spell damned their immortal soul for eternity right on the spot. It's not something that should ever be done voluntarily ever again, and we damn sure wouldn't do it even if we knew how."

    "Has he ever turned someone after he got his soul back? Would that create a new souled vampire that way?" Ford asked me desperately.

    "He did once. And it didn't." I answered him matter-of-factly, already knowing about that poor dying engineer in the WWII submarine that Angel had had to turn because he was the only person capable of repairing the engines and getting several dozen other survivors to shore alive.

    "Is there any magic-?" Ford begged us, emotionally crumbling apart as we watched him.

    "If there is then I sure can't do it." Amy said sadly. "I'll ask... we'll research... but I don't think so."

    Ford slumped over sobbing at hearing his last desperate hope turn out to be empty, and Buffy drew him into a comforting hug.

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    So, yeah. That happened. Turned out our new 'bad guy' was just a scared, sick boy our age and all he'd wanted to do was not die horribly. I couldn't even get that upset about how his plan was to try and lure Buffy into a trap for whatever master vampire he could find in return for a free turning, assuming he could score an introduction to a master vampire in the first place. That was probably because he hadn't even come remotely close to actually doing it, because normally danger to Buffy made me kinda feel like smashing things with an axe, but still.

    When it turned out that Ford knew a whole bunch of stupid kids- I say 'kids' even though they were the same age we were, because I felt like a wise old grandpa next to seeing how they'd all dropped out and ran away and were chasing some fantasy of being some immortal blood-sucking love god from some bad paranormal romance- who had the same ideas about getting themselves turned and didn't even have brain cancer to blame their bad decision-making process on, we had the brilliant idea of sending our real unlive vampire expert to go lecture them on the lifestyle they wanted to join. Angel didn't have to get into more than explaining the average life expectancies of fledglings even in non-Hellmouth non-Slayer-protected towns and the standard pack dynamics of vampires to get them all to swear off on the concept.

    Apparently being a fledgling vamp was like being in the chess club in high school, except that the jocks were not only allowed to stuff you in lockers but also beat you hard enough to break bones and sexually assault you and you didn't get to graduate for several decades. I hadn't felt any guilt about staking vamps before but now that I knew what I was granting most of the fledglings around here a merciful release from I'd certainly be putting a little more elbow grease into the job in the future. So hopefully all the would be fanboys and fangirls of 'The Lonely Ones' would now all go find something more useful to do with their lives, such as get back into high school. We gave them the contact info for various runaway support organizations in LA - Sunnydale didn't have any, for obvious reasons - and wished 'em good luck.

    And Ford? A fast research run through the library and with Giles and Ms. Calendar confirmed Amy's first impression - healing magic didn't exist that could cure what was wrong with him, or if it did then neither magic gypsies, white witches, the Watchers, or souled vampires had ever heard of it. Buffy took Ford to her mom's house so they could talk, and Mrs. S helped cover for him to his parents with a story that he'd ditched up to Sunnydale so he could say good-bye to one of his oldest friends. Then she drove him back to his folks in LA to spend whatever time he had left with his family.

    "I'm sorry I was a jealous idiot." I said to Buffy as we sat together on the quad after class.

    "It's okay." she said sadly. "You were just panicking that something precious to you might randomly go away and that you'd be powerless to stop it happening. Trust me, I can really relate right now."

    "Poor guy." I agreed with her. "I mean, yeah, his plan was evil and dumb and I should be mad, but... I can't stop thinking about what evil and dumb thing I might have done I if somebody told me that was it. That my time was gonna run out fast and there was no way I could hope to change it except by doing something evil and dumb."

    "Somebody did tell me that once." Buffy agreed meaningfully. "And when I heard that prophecy, let me tell you that the last thing on my mind was doing the right thing."

    "But you did do it." I reassured her. "You risked your life for all of us."

    "I wasn't the only one risking their life." Buffy smiled at me. "And I had you to save mine."

    "I know that people our age aren't even supposed to know what the word 'love' really means." I couldn't stop myself from saying. "And I'm pretty sure that I don't know. But what I do know is this thing we have, you and me? I don't ever want it to stop."

    Buffy leaned over and hugged me, and I hugged back. "Neither do I."

    We both held on and breathed deeply for a while, and then let go. "Okay." I took a deep breath. "I need to go do something seriously immature and frivolous right now. Care to join me?"

    "You're on." Buffy agreed quickly as we both got to our feet. "Race you to the arcade?"

    "Three, two-" I took off sprinting. "One-go!"

    "Cheater!" she complained cheerfully, and then she blew past me before I'd even gotten to the corner.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    "So, that's it?" I said as our heads hunched over the library table together studying the incantation that Janna had gotten for us.

    "So it would seem." Giles agreed. "The calculations are clear. Your soul curse will end the instant you experience a moment of true happiness."

    "Not likely that's happening anytime soon with the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head here." I muttered.

    "Probably not, but can we rely on the centipede's dilemma alone for protection?" Jonathan asked.

    "No." I agreed. "I've either got to find a permanent solution for this as soon as I can, or start hunting down a Mohra demon." I sighed. "And..." I yet again flinched away from the thought of becoming human again.

    "To be fair, for as long as we don't know what prophecy requires the vampire with a soul or whether it's fulfilled or not, not like any of us wants some other poor bastard getting stuck with that job." Jonathan threw me a life-line.

    "Absolutely." I nodded. "Right. Okay, I'm going to have to leave Sunnydale for a while."

    "What are you planning?" Janna asked me.

    "You know about Asphyx Demons?" I asked the room.

    "Vaguely." Giles said. "Powerful demon shamans, who offer boons in return for... passing some sort of ordeal?"

    "The Demon Trials." I nodded. "The important part is, they're one of the few real experts in soul magics I know of in the demon underworld."

    "Do you know where to find one?" Jonathan asked.

    "No." I said. "But-"

    "Help! Help! Somebody please!" I heard a voice yelling from just on the other side of the exterior door.

    "Someone's in trouble!" I said, and everybody followed me as I ran to the door. As I yanked it open I saw a middle-aged man being strangled by a woman- no, an animated corpse, seeing as how only one of them had a heartbeat or warm blood. I stepped forward and matter-of-factly necksnapped the zombie-

    "Deirdre!" I dimly heard Giles yell as I suddenly doubled over with agony. Something was clawing at my guts from the inside out-

    After a long minute of everything being kinda blurry I got back up. By that point the corpse of the zombie I'd killed had dissolved into goo.

    "Oh no," the man was moaning. "The Sleepwalker is loose- with it's body destroyed it would automatically leap into the nearest unconscious or dead body-"

    "Oh, that explains it." I said as I groaned and started to walk off the cramped muscles. "The attempted demonic possession must have run into my already ongoing demonic possession."

    "So who won?" Jonathan asked amusedly.

    "Not this 'Sleepwalker' guy." I smiled back, to the mutual astonishment of Giles and the man we'd rescued.

    "Rupert...?" he asked Giles.

    "Ah." Giles said dryly. "Philip, this is Angel, our resident souled vampire. Angel, my old friend Philip from... London." he trailed off weakly.

    "Oh, this sounds like it's going to be an interesting story." Janna teased him.

    "Quite." Giles said resignedly.

    But as it turned out, cleaning up Giles' old mess from his youth had basically been already finished and by pure accident. The demon Eyghon was fairly menacing within its limited sphere but it was nowhere near as bound to the material plane as the blood demon within me was, and it didn't know how to exit a host except by either being formally banished or by consuming the host from within. I don't know if Eyghon had simply never jumped bodies while a vampire was standing closest to it before or if my possessing a soul had confused its targeting somehow, but either way Angelus had made pretty short work of it after it had leapt into me. My inner demon might only be a couple centuries old but it had always been an overachiever.

    So, outside of Giles' embarassment in having to admit that he'd had a rebellious youth period where he'd temporarily been a demon-summoning warlock after dropping out of Oxford until the death of one of their group from having lost control of a summoning of Eyghon scared him straight again, that particular case was wrapped up pretty handily. Huh. No wonder he'd been so reluctant to help either of our young witches with trying to initiate into white magic; he didn't feel he could after his own youthful dabblings, even if he'd since repented.

    At any rate, we had a few quiet weeks after that while I kept doing my best to turn up leads on where I could find an Asphyx Demon. When I finally got one... well, the group hadn't really needed me for anything other than normal patrolling since we'd dealt with Spike, except for the bit of serendipity that had let me deal so easily with Egyhon. So I could afford to take a trip outside of Sunnydale.

    "I already had Giles help me file all the paperwork." I said to Jonathan. "If I don't come back, it's all yours."

    "It's that dangerous?" he asked me.

    "The Demon Trials?" I shrugged. "There's a risk of death, yes. But there's a risk of death in hunting too."

    "And the comparative risk factor is?" he inquired maturely.

    "... I have no idea." I admitted. "What few stories are available about them only talk about the survivors. I have no clue about how many might have tried them and not lived long enough to talk about it." I admitted.

    "And that's assuming you can even find them in the first place." Jonathan said. "So far all you've got for a lead is 'Africa'. That's a big continent."

    "Well, it's not like I don't have time." I countered.

    "I could still come with." Jonathan offered. "You know why I don't really need the high school diploma. And Buffy's more than got the everyday-"

    "You couldn't help me in the Trials anyway." I pointed out reasonably. "And if I'm going to be gone then you need to be here and available for the not everyday. As well as being here for the people important to you."

    "You know, you've never really had an opinion on that before..." Jonathan led off.

    "That's not really something I'm an expert on." I admitted. "But..." I nodded. "Neither of you can be accused of going into this without your eyes open." I said supportively. "And neither of you did it for shallow reasons. However long your fate allows it to last, however it might end, I choose to believe that you'll both ultimately walk away richer for the experience."

    "So did we." Jonathan agreed. "All right." he sighed. "I assume you said your goodbyes to everyone else?"

    "Yeah." I agreed. "Take care of yourself." I told him, and we shook hands.

    "Clear skies." he nodded to me. "And until we meet again."

    I hoisted my luggage and headed into the airport terminal. The right timing on a cross-country flight would put me in New York before dawn, and once there I could find a maritime connection for sunlight-free travel across the Atlantic. Once I was in North Africa there were other channels that I could make inquiries on, ways to move covertly...

    As the plane took off I sat back and reflected on the sheer bizarreness of it all. Almost a century ago, the Kalderash had forced my soul back upon me as a curse, something that had almost driven me insane with guilt for decades. And now here I was busy chasing the fragments of a legend to try and keep that soul forever, because it had somehow become a blessing I didn't want to give up.

    I guess that even if you were up to potentially live forever, you'd still never really know what the future would bring.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    I left Angel's house with several of the magic books in my backpack and grinned to myself. With Angel out of town I had basically free rein of the book collection any time that I knew in advance Jonathan was guaranteed to be out. And since I was the person who helped Giles organize the patrol schedules I got to know everybody's schedule, so it was a snap to always know when Jonathan was scheduled to be patrolling... or when he took an evening off to go out with Amy.

    Okay, maybe it was a little sneaky to borrow books without asking but that was just what friends did, right? And Ms. Calendar had basically slowed down the training of both of us what with all the other research projects that the group had started up recently about demons and artifacts and things that Giles had somehow gotten some long-range warnings about, so hey, I didn't want to get stale or anything. Maybe Amy felt like slacking off now that she'd finally landed her boyfriend but all that meant was I'd have a chance to catch up.

    Ms. Calendar had really gotten on everybody's case about 'magic addiction' in the past few weeks, so I'd been doing my best to look it up. As near as I could tell it only happened in a very small bunch of cases or if you deliberately went for certain very specialized forms of magic. I mean, turns out that Giles and his college dropout buddies used to summon a demon into their bodies to literally get high but they weren't walking around all addicted to magic now, were they? And wow, talk about a shocker to find out about the secret pasts of stuffy grown-ups. If that was the sort of thing Giles did when he was close to our age then what did Ms. Calendar do? Especially with the whole gypsy thing and all.

    Anyway, I always knew that Angel was holding back some of the good stuff and now I knew that he was. Not that were any huge Black Magic Books Of Ending The World in here or anything but honestly, a chance to get into some actual advanced magic theory instead of just the basic crystal-waving stuff that was all they thought we were good for was a good thing, right? We all had to work as hard as we could to get better, right? And what with the recent project of analyzing Angel's curse and everything they'd had to special-order some of the honest-to-goodness Thoth-Hermetic spellcrafting grimoires, with actual decanic correspondences and advanced astrological modifiers and everything. I couldn't wait to start trying to mathematically analyze some of this stuff!

    But all that could come later. For right now I just needed to get these books home and safely stashed before I headed out on my own date night. And hey, what with Angel just having left on his trip to Africa Jonathan would probably think he'd taken them along so I wouldn't even have to give them back for months and months!

    Yup, things were finally looking up for me.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Not that it forgives all of Joss' overuses and less well-written uses of the trope, but I do at least partially get why he made the Scooby Gang the dysfunction junction that it was. If you clearly away most of their own-goals then you also lose a goodly portion of their plots. Just look at how quickly and easily they ripped through "Lie to Me" (2x07) and "The Dark Age" (2x08), for example. At least Ford gets a more sympathetic, if no less lethal, ending.

    Really, when the time compression starts - as it kinda has begun to already - a primary impetus behind it will be that most of the actual adventures are now turning into 'and then the Scooby Gang rolled out to shitstomp the opposition yet again'. They're notably more competent and focused than they were at this point in canon, and have double their canon magical support as well as the just a wee bit overpowered MC. Only the really tough battles will actually still be tough at all the way they're going.

    The description of what it's like to be a fledgling vamp is from @dogbertcarroll's "Mirror Mirror", gleefully stolen with attribution. And yes, that's a variant of the conversation from "Inca Mummy Girl" moved to this episode, because it didn't really come up there in this timeline but would here.

    The Demon Trials are canonical; they're how Spike got his soul back after season 6. So of course they're also useful for getting Angel a permanent, curse-free ensouling.

    As for my headcanoning on 'magic addiction', it was a horribly handled plot element on the show and made no sense. So fanfic authors have two main choices. They can either ignore it entirely or if they're actually going to grapple with that plot point then they can start coming up with rationalizations.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 14) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    I'd kept the Spark on a very very tight leash ever since I'd entered this jump. It wasn't just that I'd been worried about my problematic emotional balance combining with Sparking out, although that had been a concern. No, what had really worried me was the charismatic effects. In Europa the society had been adapted around it; people knew what to expect from and around Sparks. Minions essentially voluntered for the job, because anybody who didn't want to end up minion'ing already knew to leave. And it barely worked at all on the strong-willed because they knew what they needed to focus their willpower against.

    But in Sunnydale? No one had ever so much as heard of Sparks - even the Girl Genius webcomic wouldn't start coming out until around 2005. Even if I explained to them all up front that still wouldn't be more than just being told in an academic sense. Nowhere near sufficient prep. And the wording of the perk in the GG jump-doc was ambiguous enough it could just be 'you are charismatic' or it could be 'you are basically mind controlling people straight up'... and it was that ambiguous in the actual webcomic as well, so that wasn't any help!

    So yes, I would have to experiment sometime with exactly what the mental effects of the Spark were on baseline inhabitants of other jumps than Europa. But now was not a good time. Not when I was afflicted a Drawback for having the emotional maturity of a teenager, was surrounded by other impressionable teenagers, and was living on top of the goddamned Hellmouth. Charting the exact boundaries of any possible consent-dubious mental influences that I could wield could wait until a later jump when I was in an environment where it would be both practical and ethical to use some of the local inhabitants as test subjects. Because Sunnydale was neither place.

    Still, that didn't mean I couldn't at least start trying at least some very basic mechanical engineering, which is why I was bent over one of the machine tools I'd liberated from Moloch's abandoned factory and moved into my workshop in Angel's mansion and busy trying to perfect a pneumatic stake-launcher gun when I got a visitor. A visitor- an intruder- that I'd never begun to notice until after he was right on top of me. Which given my training and usual alertness level was a clear indicator something unusual was going on.

    "Whoa there, Captain!" said the nondescript man in the trenchcoat and the really bad hat as I turned around to face him with a fighting knife in one hand and a stake in the other. "I'm just the messenger!"

    I levelled the tip of my knife at him. "What are you, and how did you know that?"

    "Name's Whistler." the man said matter-of-factly. "I'm a balance demon. I work for the Powers That Be."

    I gazed levelly at him, noting the complete absence of tells. Great. No way to tell if this guy is full of shit or not.

    "Any relation to the 'Benefactor'?" I asked suspiciously.

    "Oh don't get me started on that guy." Whistler eye-rolled. "His kind have an arrangement that lets them insert their 'Jumpers' into this corner of the cosmos to shake things up, but that doesn't mean everybody always walks away satisfied."

    "So he does have limits." I said flatly. Well, if he knew that much then he was definitely something-

    "Well, as far as you're concerned he effectively doesn't." Whistler said. "Entities like them never give Jumpers like you anything that would actually hurt 'em. I mean, would you grant anyone the power to mess you up if you were their power source?" he shrugged.

    "But they're still not big-o Omnipotent." I analyzed. "Whoever or whatever really moves and shakes on the higher cosmic levels around here, my 'Benefactor' and whatever peers he might have at minimum find it more convenient for them to negotiate rather than just coerce. So they are still finite on some order of magnitude, even if nowhere remotely near mine."

    "I can neither confirm nor deny that you're a pretty smart guy." Whistler grinned crookedly at me. "Mind losin' the hardware?"

    I shrugged and put my weapons back in their sheaths. "So, these Powers That Be. What's their objective?"

    "They oppose the Old Ones." Whistler said. "They're the patrons of the Champions of the light side. Which you technically are, Mister No Weapons, No Friends, No Hope."

    "So despite my Jumper status, you're here and talking to me anyway because you're loopholing." I smiled at him crookedly.

    "Little bit." he said, holding up his thumb and forefinger about that far apart. "And yeah, there are strict limits as to how much we can squeak through that narrow an opening, but every little bit helps."

    "So, what's my guidance from the Powers?" I asked him.

    "Let the Mayor finish his Ascension." he replied.

    "You want the bad guy to finish whatever major play he has going on?" I asked suspiciously.

    "Hey, kill him all you want to after he Ascends and we'll cheer you on. But the way things are now, if he doesn't actually live to get to the finish line before you cap him then that's an entire century's worth of Hellmouth and a whole daisy chain of devils' bargains that's all built up but have nowhere to vent properly. And the backlash would not be fun."

    "You're asking me to take a lot on faith here." I said.

    "As augmented as you are or might become later on in your chain, you're still mortal. And the Powers are on the highest tier of reality in this local multiverse, forged in the inferno of creation itself." Whistler said. "Language doesn't exist to describe to you what's really up with their situation and your soul would explode if I tried to put it in there directly. I could give you an exposition speech all night long but you'd still have questions at the end of it that I couldn't answer; the only thing that we'd be trading is which questions you had to take on faith."

    "Yeah, well, I'm technically in pawn to another entity entirely and a naturally cautious person besides." I shrugged. "So you've got more to work against."

    "Ain't that the truth. Your mentor wasn't half as suspicious as you were." Whistler said. A part of my brain noticed that he'd delivered his official message but was still here. So, something he still wanted to communicate but I had to give him an excuse to bring up... wait, he hadn't called me 'Captain' for no reason, had he?

    "If you knew what my rank was in the Wulfenbach Empire then does your Powers' bailiwick extend there?" I probed.

    "Not even remotely." Whistler said. "I knew it because I can read your mind. You're here, so all the memories inside your head are here. But the whole sideways-to-time thing you Jumpers do where duration only exists for you in the jump you're in while on the chain? It makes it impossible for even entities beyond the Powers to synchronize with your existence enough for any 'there' to be there unless they entered the same conceptual space you did. So before you arrived we didn't know crap about you, and after you leave we won't know dick about what happens to you."

    My heart almost stopped as I realized that unless I'd gravely misunderstood what I'd been told, Whistler had 'innocently' given away that the "Benefactor" couldn't monitor my thoughts or my activities unless he entered the Jump along with me. Because apparently my entire span of time within a jump occurred all in the same indivisible instant to him. I'd only have to worry about between jumps-

    And then he 'just happened' to wink at the exact instant this thought crossed my mind... sonofabitch, I'd interpreted him correctly?

    "So, anything else I can do for you?" I asked him. I still wasn't entirely sure if he was for real, or that he genuinely knew what he was talking about even if he was for real, but any hope was better than none at this point. And if he'd gone out of his way to give some to me, then I owed him something.

    "Don't get too at home in Sunnydale." Whistler said simply, and in between one eyeblink and the next he was gone.

    Well, shit.

    * * * * *​

    Amy POV:

    I just barely deflected my attacker's punch with my forearm, his superior strength and speed leaving me feeling the shock of the impact all the way up to my teeth. Without stopping or wasting motion I immediately turned my hand over and grabbed their forearm in just the exact way you should while pivoting and pushing off with my feet, using that and the deflected momentum of his blow to send him sprawling on his face. Before he could get back up I shifted my grip to his wrist, twisted his arm up and back with just the right leverage, and put the toe of my shoe in his armpit.

    "And done." Jonathan said, as I let go of him and he got back to his feet. "You're not trying to match strength with strength and you're going for blows that disable via nerve endings they still have, so that move works on both humans and-."

    "What are you two doing?" Dad interrupted us as we were both standing on an exercise mat on their basement floor.

    "Hello Mr. Madison," Jonathan said politely but without any particular warmth. Dad still wasn't entirely sure about him, which was ridiculous. Had he seen the average teenaged boy, especially any of the jocks, in this school-?

    "Seriously, dad?" I sighed exasperatedly, having just come to realize how much of a setup this whole 'Allowing my boyfriend to come over to study with me, then having a 'sudden errand' that called him out of the house only to suddenly sneak up on us twenty minutes later' situation was.

    Somewhat nonplussed at having caught us with our clothes not only still on but fully buttoned and with a perfectly valid explanation for being flushed and sweaty, Dad waved us upstairs to the kitchen. I got everybody some Cokes out of the fridge and we sat down for the talk. "So, do you two 'wrestle' a lot?" Dad began clumsily.

    "With all due respect sir, subtle you are not." Jonathan couldn't resist himself from deadpan snarking.

    "Dad." I plaintively said again. "Jonathan's the school wrestling champion and he does advanced martial arts out of school. He's legitimately teaching me self-defense."

    "How advanced?" he probed.

    "Mixed martial arts doesn't really have a belt system." Jonathan explained. "But I was one of the younger instructors, not just a student, at the last studio I studied at before moving here."

    "So, you like to hit people?" Dad replied suspiciously.

    "Wrestling's fun." Jonathan agreed. "Strength, speed, skill, somebody wins and somebody loses, but nobody actually gets hurt. I like working out and I enjoy the competition."

    "Does Amy?" Dad asked him.

    "I like resting assured that the next guy who comes at me like that creep in the parking lot did will end up flat on his butt and asking who got the number of that bus." I answered for myself. "Dad, this isn't like what Mom did making me exercise all the time, okay? I volunteered!"

    Dad sighed and actually looked embarassed, but continued to Jonathan. "Do you understand that I just want to make sure my daughter is all right?"

    "Of course." Jonathan agreed.

    "Then can one of you please tell me what you're up to?" he begged us.

    "We're not up to anything." I insisted, feeling kinda hurt at his mistrust. And also feeling kinda guilty because the whole Slaying thing and practicing magic were both definitely things that I was doing but also hiding...

    "Sweetheart, you're both sixteen going on seventeen." he said wisely. "It's impossible for you to not be up to something. My own list of things I was up to in junior year would fill the encyclopedia of bad teenaged decisions. I don't want you to repeat any of my mistakes."

    "And we just said that's what we're doing, but you don't believe us!" I insisted more loudly.

    Jonathan threw me a meaningful look past my dad's shoulder, that I was pretty confident in interpreting as Do you want to tell him about the Slaying like Buffy told her mom?

    I didn't dare shake my head with my dad looking right at me, but I threw a quick 'Nuh-uh!' wave at Jonathan under the table. He nodded very minimally.

    Dad turned away from me to give Jonathan the menacing glare, which was... really not going to work. Jonathan wasn't bristling with confrontation or anything, but he had the sort of willpower where if you gave him a Green Lantern ring he could bounce the Death Star.

    "Is there anything you want to tell me?" Dad tried to interrogate him.

    "There's two questions I'd like to ask you," Jonathan said after a long thoughtful pause, "even if they're maybe kind of harsh. May I?"

    "Take your best shot." Dad rose to the challenge.

    "Question one: Do you have any substantial evidence that your daughter is lying to you?" Jonathan began, and mercilessly drove right over Dad's involuntary response. "Question two: Are you willing to accuse her of lying without any?"

    Uh-oh. The two most important guys in my life were both feeling super protective of me right now, and neither one was going to back down an inch. I had to defuse this before it exploded and I had to do it right now.

    "Jonathan!"     I reproved him sharply, with a guilty twitch inside as I did it because honestly? He wasn't the one being irrational here. I really hoped he understood what I was trying to do-

    -especially seeing as how it didn't work, given that after Dad visibly took a long couple of breaths to get ahold of his temper again the only thing he said to Jonathan was "Get out."

    Jonathan rose without another word to him and turned to me, his face softening. "See at you school tomorrow?"

    "Of course." I smiled at him the way I always did.

    "Mr. Madison." Jonathan said neutrally, his face turning hard again, and he left. I didn't get up from the kitchen table.

    "I don't like the influence that boy has over you." Dad said as he came back.

    "I don't like that you're trying to run off the nicest boy I could possibly find in the school!" I retorted. "Do you want me to be a nun?"

    "Amy, the last boy you dated before him tried to assault you." Dad said frantically. "You had to be rescued from that frat house! A frat house full of literal serial killers!"

    "Yes, by Jonathan!" I shot back. "And all my other friends, who came looking for me once they knew me and Cordelia were late! And I didn't even pick those guys, she did!"

    "And why didn't I know you were late and where to come look for you?" Dad came back.

    "... because I'd told you I was going over to Cordelia's house for a girls' night." I muttered guiltily.

    "And now that I think about it, why didn't your self-defense lessons help you then?" he probed suspiciously.

    "There was a whole bunch of them?" I said embarassedly. "And they had swords?"

    "All that's not really giving me much confidence in your judgment here, honey." Dad replied knowingly.

    I bit my tongue to keep from shouting at him. I fought for calm, like I did when I meditated, like I did when I did my drills-

    "Dad, in five minutes you first implied that I was lying and then you implied that I was dumb." I said as calmly as I possibly could. "And that really hurt. I get that you want to keep me safe, I get that way more bad stuff has happened to me than average for girls my age, but I'm still here, okay?" I tried to project as much confidence as possible. "And I'm not going anywhere bad. I don't want to, and I know how not to."

    "I was sure of that once too." Dad said sadly. "And then I screwed everything up."

    Don't say it, Amy, don't say it-

    "Am I grounded?" I eventually asked, because I was stuck for any way to salvage this conversation and decided that we might as well junk it for the night.

    Dad shook his head. "Just... be more careful, please?" he asked me desperately.

    "I will." I said sadly, and gave him a little hug before I went upstairs to my room.

    Ugh! Sometimes Dad was so frustrating! Yet again I felt a surge of gratitude that the first martial art Jonathan had taught me was Tai Chi. The actual combat value of it wasn't as great as some of the things he'd taught me later, but the mental focusing part of it was invaluable.

    Especially when I kept getting more and more afraid that Dad was trying to stuff me in the same kind of box that Mom had wanted me to be in, even if for totally different reasons.

    * * * * *​

    "You know, I always wondered how you explain these 'tutoring sessions' to your dad when he knows you're not really a computer person and Ms. Calendar is the computer teacher." Willow said to me while we were waiting for our magic lesson after school the next day.

    "I told him that she's tutoring me in math." I answered. "And that she was more approachable than the math teacher."

    "Speaking of, how are you getting tutored up in math?" Willow asked. "Because you did kinda almost fail at it before and I know you're not asking me."

    "Jonathan," I said with a little smile. "Did you know he can actually do calculus in his head?" I continued.

    "Sometimes I wonder if he's using enhancement spells," Willow said slyly. "How can somebody be so good at everything otherwise?"

    "You can do calculus in your head." I fired back with a little bit of edge. "And that was before you learned you were a witch."

    "Yeah, but I'm not a champion athlete too." Willow groused.

    "Look, just because you're not built for weightlifting contests doesn't mean you can't do something." I encouraged her. "You've got good reflexes and good alertness-"

    "So, your dad's still being a paranoid?" Willow interrupted me. Jonathan had done his usual stoic but I'd vented about it at lunch today, so everybody knew.

    "Ugh." I eye-rolled. "I really wish I could tell Dad about the supernatural, like Buffy finally told her mom. It would make things so much easier. As is, he's got just enough on the ball to know that I'm holding something back but he can't remotely guess what. And what little he does know about what's happened to me recently just makes all his guesses even more horrible mental images than they'd otherwise be."

    "Isn't there anything you can do about that?" Willow asked me.

    "Like what, tell him?" I sighed. "I don't know exactly how much he knew about my mom but I'm sure he at least suspected the whole black magic thing, if only in hindsight. If I so much as mention that I'm doing spells to my dad then I'll probably end up in a boarding school in Alaska."

    "No, I meant..." Willow twiddled her fingers. "Help him not worry so much?"

    "What, you mean magically?" I asked her, mouth agape. "No way!"

    "I'm not saying enthrall him like you were some master vampire or anything," Willow said. "Just, y'know, calm him down a little?" Willow trailed off.

    "If there was a spell that could actually substitute for therapy then I'd have asked Ms. Calendar to hit me with it instead of going to counseling." I snarked, and then my train of thought got caught up in the mental image Willow had just invoked. "... although maybe I should talk with my dad about finding him someone to talk to about stuff." I mused out loud. "Thanks, Willow!"

    "Don't mention it," she said amusedly, and then Ms. Calendar came in and we got to work.

    * * * * *​

    Drusilla POV:

    The stars were singing.

    Mommy had been killed by the nasty boy when he barely even knew her name. Daddy was off across the sea, asking demons to forge him new chains to wrap around his old. And the nasty Slayer and her nasty boy had killed my Spike-

    Oh yes, Miss Edith, we'd make them all cry while we laughed! Daddy had come and taken away my family, but then he'd given me a new one. But then the wicked gypsies had changed him, taken away his smile, and he'd left us. Mommy had gone back to Great-Grandfather who I'd never seen except in dreams, and Spike and I had made the world our oyster. Except we didn't have to open any nasty hard shells, because it was already soft and open-

    But then we'd come to the Hellmouth. Great-Grandfather had died and the stars were mum about who'd killed him, whether it was the living or the dead or both together. So Spike had thought it would be a glorious thing to kill the Slayer that had fought Great-Grandfather and...

    Oh, we'd chop her into messes. Yes we would.

    But before we could do that we'd have to get our strength back. Prague had not been kind, and with Daddy off to curse himself again forever and without Spike to help hold him down we couldn't do the ritual that would give me my strength back. And so we'd need blood instead, ancient blood, the blood of one of our kind but one who only had one face.

    Which is why we were here in the city where the new country had started and the colonies had started dying, to talk to the worst. And oh he was proud, and he was dull, and he didn't want to do anything but stay here and chew the ends of his old plots, but even when I didn't have any strength in my limbs I still had the stars to tell me things. To whisper to me what I needed to whisper, to help me sing to people and make them see what I saw.

    Oh, of course Miss Edith. It's only polite to speak when spoken to.

    "Yes." I replied to the question I'd just been asked. "This Slayer's a strong one. She fought the Master alone and lived when they all said she should have died."

    "Did she now." the old one - perhaps the very oldest now that Great-Grandfather was dead - sneered.

    "So she says she saw this?" the slave who was freed and made a slave again mocked me. "I can find you any number of junkies who'll see any damn thing."

    "Fool." the old one rumbled. "Drusilla the Mad is a true seer. And with the Scourge of Europe finally fallen you seek a new patron, don't you?"

    "It's a lonely world if you're a lonely girl," I smiled at him. "My old family's gone or gone. You have a nice one... can I join?"

    "There is a place for any who deserve one." the old one said with a cruel smile. Oh, for all his words I knew that I would mean nothing to him except as a tool. But that was all right. He certainly wouldn't mean any more to me...

    "Blood for blood." I insisted. "Your blood to give me strength, and only then do I lead you to the Slayer's blood to give you power."

    "Then drink." the old one said, holding forth his wrist as I bent down to bite it. "Drink of the blood of Kakistos."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Eee-yup, the PTB finally decided to send a message. Given that portrayals and speculation about the PTB are highly variable and highly debated in fandom and canon both, I'll just say I'm writing what works for me right now even if it ain't what anybody else's interpretation is, or even what my interpretation was/would be in another story.

    As for my wordings on the Jumpchain meta, they are what the Powers That Be believe to be true in this story. No guarantees for other Jumpchains because I like to keep the exact workings of jump-fiat and Benefactor-tier begoobery usefully vague, not least because we're not freaking ROBs, just being able to put this shit into words we mortals could understand involves a lof of verbal handwaving and just pushing the "I Believe" button anyway. That's the exact point Whistler was making.

    And ugh! I am never writing another Drusilla POV again if I can possibly help it! Luna goddamned Lovegood would be easier to write first-person narration for!

    And yes, without the canon ritual to restore her strength being possible I had to fanwank something, so I went with "the blood of an ancient vampire also works". And with Heinrich Nest currently dust bunnies, who is the next oldest vampire in North America?

    Oh yes, the Drusilla whackjob key translation - 'Great-Grandfather- is the Master, 'Daddy' is Angel/Angelus, 'Mommy' is Darla, 'the old one' is Kakistos, and 'the slave who was freed and made a slave again' is Mr. Trick.

    And I'll be fair to Amy's dad - while he is verging on the wrong kind a helicopter parent all he knows from his POV is that ever since he left Amy she spent several years being emotionally abused by his ex-wife who was apparently a full-blown psycho and he'd never noticed. And then in just the last year alone his ex-wife apparently tries to axe murder his daughter and several other people, then his daughter gets mugged at the Spring Fling and misses the entire dance getting her ribs X-rayed in the emergency room, then her first attempt to date the next semester gets her drugged and set up to be killed and it was only a miracle she wasn't also sexually assaulted (remember that the police found the skeletons of the prior sacrifices at the bottom of the well, so "frat house date rapist serial killers" is the public version of events).

    And he has absolutely zero knowledge of the real context behind any of the events, or any of the multiple ways his daughter has become an amazingly strong young woman, or any of Jonathan's characterization beyond 'arrogantly self-confident jock', because all of that information is all behind the Masquerade barrier that Amy's terrified to breach to him. So yeah, he's spazzing out a bit.

    As for Amy's conversation with Willow and her missing the clue, Amy was a wee bit distracted with her own drama right now and Willow was careful to keep her suggestion deniably vague. And yes, Willow was subtly testing the waters to see if Amy was up to being her partner in magical crime, as it were. But somebody is firmly on the light side path, so no fellow padawan Dark Sidery here.

    I found writing that exchange particularly amusing because by this point in the canon timeline Amy had already started her black magic moral decay by using memory charms to make teachers think she'd turned in her homework when she hadn't, while this one literally never even thought of using mind magic to make an obstructive adult turn a conveniently blind eye.

    I know that the Girl Genius comic started publishing in 2001. The webcomic didn't start until 2005, though, and that's what Jonathan read in his original life.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 15) New
  • View content
    • Mr. Trick POV:

    So, crazy new girl had talked the boss into leaving Boston and headin' to the Hellmouth and that meant it was up to me to make all the damn arrangements. I managed to get him to agree to let me go on ahead with a few of the boys to set things up ahead of time. Now, this was a two-edged sword. On the minus side, since I had extra time to prepare the boss would bitch even harder if there was one single little thing out of place when he arrived. On the plus side, it meant I got to meet and greet the local boys without him talkin' over me all the damn time. Which meant there was a legitimate chance for actual diplomacy to happen.

    And not havin' him along for the ride also meant that there wouldn't be any questions asked about my little layover in LA before I went up to Sunnydale.

    "He'll see you now, sir." the secretary said, and I got up from where I'd been coolin' my heels in the big fancy waiting room and headed on in. Now normally I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of Corporate America or rich white people, but if there's one thing I'd learned as a vampire it's that you didn't have to like someone in order to do business with them.

    And to give Russell Winters credit where credit was due, the man definitely knew how to do business. I'd first been put in touch with him a few decades ago when I was looking for a good money laundry for some of the boss' operations and lo and behold, turns out somebody out West had turned himself a big-shot banker type around the turn of the century and the man hadn't let bein' dead stop him from being an underground tycoon ever since. We'd kept in touch off and on since then; I was a little older and stronger than him as a vamp, but he'd started out with a lot more financial advantages than I'd had. Plus, I'd been picked up by the boss by then and he didn't allow anyone to quit their job except as an ash pile, while Winters had managed to stay freelance until he could build his own power base.

    And sure, back when we were both alive a man like him wouldn't have given a man like me the time of day or even considered me a fellow human being at all, but it was just about time for the 21st century and you had to keep up with the times or be left behind. Ol' Russell here was one of the few other vamps I'd ever met who'd actually figured that out for himself, and he'd done very well by it. So even if he was a patronizing asshole sometimes we could still talk.

    "You're lookin' good." I smiled at him, as I entered his big new office and we shook hands. "But what's with all the windows? Aren't you a little sunlight challenged to be havin' all that plate glass overlookin' the ocean?" Seriously, a giant glass wall facin' due west? It might be after dark now, but how did he not fry during normal working hours?

    "Necro-tempered glass." he smiled at me. "Magically treated to filter out the harmful elements of the sunlight. Even if any of my mortal employees believed in vampires, seeing me sitting in full view of the sun during a daylight meeting would tell them that I certainly couldn't be one."

    "Damn, maybe I should get some." I said, legitimately impressed. "How much does it cost?"

    "As it happens, it's a product of one of my corporations." he grinned at me. "I make it on contract for Wolfram & Hart, as well as several other clients."

    "The lawyer boys." I nodded at him in realization. "I thought your new skyscraper was gettin' a little tall, but if you're hooked up with them then that certainly would do wonderful things for the cash flow. But doesn't bein' their business partner come with a lot of obligations?"

    "They do prefer that things be done a certain way," he conceded. "Quiet, orderly, and concealed. But their way fits my style, and it certainly pays extremely well."

    "I wish my boss could go for more quiet and orderly sometimes." I nodded.

    "Speaking of your boss, rumor has it that he's packing up to leave Boston." Winters nodded at me, his smile getting a little less friendly. "He's not coming here, is he?"

    "I almost wish, just so your new business partners could teach him some manners." I grumbled. "No, he wants to move in up the coast. So I just dropped by to let you know we'd be neighbors and all, work out the boundaries in a civilized fashion, that kind of thing."

    "The Sunnydale Hellmouth?" he raised his eyebrows at me. "Well, the good news is that I have no business interests there."

    "Wait, none at all?" I asked in surprise. "It's like what, two hours' drive from here? And sure, they had their own big guy up there until last year, but didn't that position just open up? I'd have thought you'd already be movin' into the gap, and if not you then someone you'd already know and could tell me more about. It's why I came here to negotiate."

    "Oh, but there is no power gap in Sunnydale." Winters shook his head. "Heinrich Nest was certainly the dominant vampire there, before his unfortunate end." Winters nodded. "But he wasn't the ruler of Sunnydale and he never was."

    "You already mentioned the good news, so I'm thinkin' this part is what's the bad news." I invited him.

    "Richard Wilkins, the Mayor of Sunnydale." Winters explained. "He's still human, but he's confirmed to be over a century old. And a very powerful black sorcerer in multiple disciplines, and with more simultaneous pacts than I've ever seen anybody else juggle outside of Wolfram & Hart themselves."

    "Great." I said disgustedly. "So what's his game?"

    "Nobody knows, or if they do then they haven't shared that knowledge with me." Winters shrugged. "I only know about him because my business partners at W&H made absolutely sure I understood the terms of his agreement with them. Which in summary are; he takes care of the Hellmouth and makes sure nothing happens there that splashes too unpleasantly outside his borders, and in return he is allowed unquestioned rulership of his domain."

    "Shit." I swore. "So, I have to tell my boss that he ain't allowed in the 'Dale, or that he's gonna have to fight an entire separate war first before he can get down to tackling what brought him there in the first place? Now there's a conversation I don't want to have face-to-face."

    "Oh no," Winters shook his head. "I'm obligated to respect the boundaries as a major associate of Wolfram & Hart. Independents like yourself or Kakistos are under no such obligation; indeed, Wilkins literally designed the town from the ground up to be very accomodating towards all sorts of demonic ecosystems. I have no idea how the man is profiting from such an arrangement; it's certainly not in mundane financial terms. But so long as you don't intend to try and overthrow him or interfere with his particular concerns, he might as well not be there."

    "I'm assumin' you have no idea what those 'particular concerns' are." I said.

    "Not a one." Winters nodded. "But I'm sure he'll be entirely willing to tell you if you ask politely."

    "Guess I'm goin' to have to." I sighed. "Well, thanks for the heads-up. I owe you one."

    "Leaving so soon? You don't even want to know about the vampire hunters there?"

    "What, the Slayer?" I shrugged. "Yeah, she's there and she's tough enough to kill old Heinrich. That's why the boss is so fired up to get stuck in there in the first place, he really wants that trophy."

    "And she also killed Lothos here a little over a year ago, just before moving up to Sunnydale. But what's of more immediate relevance is that several of my newer employees are refugees from Sunnydale." Winters smiled proudly. "Survivors of the Slayer... and all of her new allies."

    "Allies." I tilted my head. "You mean she's got a crew besides her Watcher."

    "And a very substantial one, by all accounts." Winters agreed amiably.

    "So, I'm assumin' this information has a price?" I asked the obvious.

    "Let's just say that I'm willing to make an investment here." he replied.

    I started to smile for real for the first time since I got off the plane. Yeah, now this was my kind of language.

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    I woke up panting for breath. That nightmare had been so real- the brutal cloven-hoofed monster, the smiling black man in the suit with thunder in the background, the beautiful pale Morticia Addams type suddenly morphing into game face-

    Ugh. Who was I kidding? That hadn't been a nightmare, it had been a Slayer Dream. A real, honest-to-goodness portent of supernatural disaster. I hadn't had one of those since right before the Harvest.

    I sighed and got up and walked across the bedroom to find my school supplies so I could grab a notebook and a pen. Merrick had taught me to always write down Slayer Dreams as soon as I possibly could before the impressions faded, and I certainly wasn't going to ignore that lesson given how Lothos had almost killed me because I hadn't paid attention to all the details in the warnings.

    Unfortunately, there hadn't been much detail in this warning. Just 'Hey, watch out for these faces'. And when it came to sketching I was basically stick figure girl, so its not like I could draw a picture of them for Giles.

    "Bad dream?" Mom said, apparently having noticed my turning on my bedroom light so I could write.

    "Slayer Dream." I sighed. "Looks like the vacation's over."

    She stepped into the room, looking more worried. "Going out and risking your life almost every night was a vacation?"

    "That was just normal patrolling." I said. "No Big Bads involved, just me and the guys going out and dusting the fledglings. This kind of thing means we're getting a master vampire coming to town. And he's apparently bringing a whole crew with him."

    "Buffy, you had to burn down the school gym to fight your first vampire that powerful." Mom said. "And you needed CPR after you fought the second one! What's going to happen to you with this one?"

    "Hopefully less." I sighed. "But I can't outrun being the Slayer. There's no place in the world that doesn't have vampires, and if there was they'd probably follow me there."

    "I know." she said, hugging me. "You and your friends explained it to me-" she shook her head. "But it's just not fair!"

    "It never was." I said sadly. "But what else can I do?"

    Mom didn't answer that question. There was no answer to that question.

    And so when I brought the Slayer Dream up at school the next day, the grim outlook got even grimmer.

    "The description of the female vampire you saw sounds familiar." Giles said. "One moment..." He went and rummaged through some of the books and papers in his office for a couple minutes until he came back with a sketch drawing.

    "Yup. That's her." I confirmed.

    "So Drusilla is returning to Sunnydale." Giles sighed.

    "And she's bringing new friends." Xander chimed in. "And assuming that she's still upset about her dead boyfriend, then I'm pretty sure she picked those new friends for maximum violence."

    "Almost certainly." Jonathan agreed. "Giles, if the first vampire Buffy saw is so old that he's mutated past human form then he's almost certainly in the Council records. There's not many of those around."

    "No there aren't." Giles agreed. "I'll start inquiries right away."

    "Who's the third guy?" Willow asked.

    "Dunno." I shrugged. "Tall thin black guy in a fancy suit, that's all I saw. I'm assuming he works for our new Big Bad."

    "Y'know, I've been working on a spell that might let you share mental images. So we could see these guys' faces." Willow replied.

    "Thanks, but I'm pretty sure we're not going to miss ol' cloven hooves, Drusilla, or Mr. Fancy Suit." I demurred. "One we already have a picture for and the other two are kinda visually distinctive." Buffy said.

    "Looks like we're going back to high-threat level for the duration." Jonathan said. "No more solo patrols."

    "That's going to be a problem what with Amy's dad having gone into hover mode." I said. "Speaking of, where is she?"

    "With her dad." Jonathan sighed.

    "Yeah." I acknowledged that with a tiny bit of an inward wince, and we got back to the strategy session. "So, ideas?"

    "If this new master vampire rolls into Sunnydale then he has to let the existing vamps know that he's here, who he is, and where and why they should pay tribute to him." Jonathan said. "Which is exactly the information we want."

    "But they're not exactly great with the sharing," Xander replied. "Besides, what could we promise them in return for the info? Not to stake them? That's kinda against everything we do."

    "If the Mayor's some kind of Big Bad then he'd be spying on the vampires too." Willow pointed out. "We could spy on him spying on them."

    "How?" Jonathan shrugged. "You, Amy, and Ms. Calendar all report that City Hall has so many wards cast on it that it'd be impossible to sneak in there with hostile intent without setting off at least one. I tried bouncing a laser mike off the Mayor's office window; turns out he's magically shielded against eavesdropping somehow. You hacked City Hall's computer systems; nothing's in there but mundane city records."

    "Would it be possible to tap his phone from outside the building?" Giles asked.

    "I'd have to break into the phone company building for that, but it shouldn't be impossible. But given that City Hall has major sewer access and that most vampires don't have phones, what are the odds he'll be talking about this on the phone?" Jonathan shrugged.

    "Boy, do I miss Angel." Xander said. "He was the guy we used to get the low-down on the nightlife around here. Did he leave you any of his contacts?"

    "Just one." Jonathan said.

    * * * * *​

    "So what's in it for me?" Willy, the sleazy proprietor of Willy's Place and Sunnydale's resident demon underworld snitch asked us nastily.

    "A hundred for the new master vampire's name and when he arrives." Jonathan said calmly. "Two hundred more for a basic Who's Who on his top people. And two hundred on top of that for his address."

    "If this new guy's as old and powerful as you say, why should I stick my neck out?" Willy replied.

    "Oh, we're not asking you for anything that won't be common knowledge." I smiled at him with extra teeth. "Just stuff we could have gotten from anywhere. We're paying you for speed, not exclusivity."

    "I want that hundred in advance." Willy insisted.

    "Here's fifty, free and clear." Jonathan handed it to him. "But everything else will be performance-based."

    "Pleasure doing business with you." Willy smirked at us, and we left his bar.

    "Ugh, I need a shower." I groused as we headed outside. Sundown would be in a few minutes; we'd chosen to hit Willy's before his usual customer base would start filtering in so he wouldn't be seen talking to us, but we'd had to wait until after he'd unlocked his door to get in.

    "Willy's not even an honest snitch." Jonathan agreed with me as we got into his car and he started driving. "He doesn't stay bought. Never ask him any question that gives away anything you wouldn't want the enemy to know."

    "Well, at least 'Hey, the Slayer doesn't like you and wants to put a stake in you' isn't exactly a secret to the vampire community." I agreed.

    "No kidding-" Jonathan replied, and right then is when the world flipped upside down and everything went black.

    I struggled awake. Everything was fuzzy and I felt like I'd been wrapped in warm cotton. I hadn't felt this awful since the Master had almost drowned me-

    The mouthful of water that choked me when I tried to inhale let me know that I actually was drowning again. I admit it, I totally freaked out when that hit me. I was so lucky that I was the Slayer because that meant I was able to rip my seat belt free by sheer strength when I frantically tried to get out of the car seat, because for a little while there I was so panicked that I'd honestly forgotten how to hit the release button-

    Jonathan! After I remembered I wasn't alone I looked to my left to see that he was hanging limply in his own car seat, having been KO'ed by the impact. The driver's side door had been caved in by whatever had hit us and sent us flying off the road and into the lake, and he'd taken the impact square in his side. I knew you weren't normally supposed to move people who might have head or neck injuries, but that didn't apply when you were trapped underwater in a sinking car!

    I popped his seat belt, braced my back against the car seat, and hit the windshield with the soles of both my feet as hard as I possibly could. Already weakened from the crash, it popped right out of the housing and I grabbed Jonathan by the arm and hauled us both up to the surface and swam us ashore to the edge of the lake. As soon as we reached solid ground I laid him flat and started checking him- dammit, Xander knew CPR but why hadn't I ever learned-?

    I looked around hastily for anyone or anything that might possibly help, and saw the garbage truck that had apparently come speeding down the opposing lane to T-bone us right in the driver's side just as we were heading into the curve by the lakeside. My nostrils flared as I realized that we had to have been hit deliberately; the timing was just too exact otherwise. My suspicion became certainty as the driver's side door of the battered truck opened and the man I'd seen in my dream, the black man in the fancy suit, stepped lightly down to the road and headed up to the guard rail to stand smirking at me from above.

    "Bang." the man- no, the vampire, because he'd just morphed momentarily into game face to taunt me- said cockily, pointing at me with his finger like a kid playing make-believe with a gun. "It would've been as easy as that, Slayer."

    I reached for my stake and snarled at him. One of my best friends was dying here, so I'd have to be really really quick. "Either get on with it or get lost!" I screamed. "I don't have time for you right now!"

    The whoop-whoop of approaching sirens cut off whatever he was going to say, and he just nodded at me instead. "Catch you later, then." he said cheerfully before taking off. He'd just made it into the bushes when the cop car pulled up and the policeman got out.

    "Help me!" I yelled up from the embankment. "He's not breathing!"

    * * * * *​

    Amy POV:

    I couldn't stop crying. Jonathan had been one of the strongest of us all, and one vampire had taken him out so easily- he could have died!

    "I'm-" I stammered. "I'm nowhere near calm enough to cast something this delicate right now. You can't go into a divination when you're so desperately hoping for a certain set of results that you'd convince yourself you were seeing things. Could you please check for me?"

    "Of course," Willow agreed, and began to softly hum under her breath as we stood at the side of his hospital bed in the intensive care ward. She placed one hand on his forehead, and I felt the magic surge as she worked her spell-

    Willow frowned, then concentrated some more. My stomach lurched as I saw the pensive expression on her face. Finally, she lowered her hand-

    "Is he...?" I forced myself to ask.

    "No brain damage." she said, and I went limp with relief. "But I don't think he's going to be waking up right away."

    "Willow, after the doctor said that between the skull fracture from taking the driver's side window right into his head and the prolonged oxygen starvation there wasn't much prognosis of him waking up intact at all-" I forced myself to start breathing normally. "Just knowing he's not going to be a vegetable is miracle enough for me."

    "Yeah." Willow agreed distantly. "You're very lucky."

    I looked around at the hospital room. "I don't like the lack of threshold protections here. Any vampire could walk in, and if Mr. Fancy Suit is smart enough to steal trucks and stage auto accidents- I'm going to lay down the strongest blessing on this room that I possibly can and renew it every time I come here. Can you help me?"

    "Sorry, I'm still kinda low from the probe spell." Willow demurred. "I'll leave you alone so that you can concentrate, is that okay?"

    "Thanks." I told her, and after she left I wiped my eyes, took a couple minutes to ground and center myself again, and started my working. I might not have considered myself calm enough to get objective results from something as delicate as the mental diagnostic spell I'd asked Willow to cast for me, but all my love and worry could be channelled into a protective blessing to make it even more effective.

    "Hekate, patron of witches. Athena, lady of wisdom and war. Artemis, who blesses the hunters. Protect this brave warrior who fights the darkness, who was treacherously struck down by a servant of evil. Bless this wise scholar who generously shared his knowledge, that he might continue to share with us in the future. Speed the healing of this good man that I love, that he might return to me safe and sound. I implore you all, hear my prayers." I chanted in the ancient tongue, consecrating my hopes and desires with all the will I could possess and all the magical energy I could channel.

    I leaned over and kissed Jonathan's cheek as he lay there comatose. "You just get your rest and get better, okay? I'll keep you safe." I whispered to him.

    "Amy, what was that?" I heard my father's voice ask from the doorway behind me. Darn it, I'd asked Giles and Ms. Calendar to distract him-

    I turned to face him, my voice as steady as a rock and my chin held high.

    "Magic." I answered him.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: You know, in all my stories before this I'd never thought to incapacitate my MC and see how the rest of the cast has to do without him for a while. And to be honest, when I originally wrote this one I was hearing Grand Moff Tarkin's voice telling me that I'm taking an awful risk here and that this had better work. *g*

    Russell Winters is a canon character - who showed up for all of one episode in the AtS series pilot. Angel killed him as a bad guy of the week. But even if he's not an especially powerful or old vampire, he is a very rich and well-connected one whose schtick was, to put it in VtM terms, 'I dumped most of my dots into Resources and Influence'.

    And as one of the very few other 'modern vampires' of the series I thought that it would be interesting to fanwank that him and Mr. Trick had done at least a little business before.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 16) New
  • View content
    • Amy POV:

    "Magic?!?    " Dad shouted, going wild-eyed with fear. "What, like your mother was? Amy, how could you get involved with that stuff?"

    "I didn't have a choice, okay?" I yelled at him. "Yes, mom was a witch! I'm a witch! It runs in the blood, and I can't not be a witch! All I can do is try to use it the right way!"

    "Casting spells on a defenseless boy? That's using it the right way?!?" Dad screamed. "Is that what magic is for, to you? To cast love spells on people?!? Did that boy even get a choice to date you in the first place?"

    And that's when the conversation entirely took a turn for the weird, because you'd think that being accused of using black magic to mind-control Jonathan of all people would have made me so angry I couldn't see straight. You'd think that for my own father to believe even for a moment that I could ever do something so evil would hurt my feelings like nothing else. But instead, all I could feel was relief. My dad wasn't afraid of me because I was a witch. He was afraid of me because he thought I was being an evil witch. And that was- that was-

    "Dad, that was a protection spell." I said gently. "I don't do black magic. I burned Mom's grimoire."

    "And how could I know that?" he babbled. I tried opening my inner eye and... oh boy. His aura was overwhelmed with fear. Fear and doubt and what felt like old, old pain- a whole lot of things started to fall into place for me.

    "Mom used a spell on you, didn't she?" I said sadly, sitting down in the chair at Jonathan's bedside to try and look less threatening. Dad was just one step south of a full-fledged panic attack right now. "To make you marry her right out of high school. That's why you ditched on going to college when you had that full-ride athletic scholarship waiting."

    "You knew?" he said thunderously.

    "I just guessed." I replied. "The way your very first reaction to seeing me casting was 'She's doing a love spell!' despite the circumstances, the way you looked like you were seeing an old nightmare coming true again-" I shrugged. "Dad, Mom was crazy and evil. She hurt me a lot, and now I'm finding out that she hurt you a lot worse than I'd ever thought. But I'm not her. And I don't ever want to be her again."

    "Again?" Dad asked me suspiciously.

    "Oh, right." I chewed my lip. "For about the week before she finally got herself put away, she'd cast a body-switching spell on me. That was her that tried out for the cheerleading squad again and everything, while she was making me clean the house and do her homework for her." I shook my head. "The part the specialists said about her going crazy and trying to live her youth again through me? They meant literally."

    "Then how'd you-?" Dad asked me dazedly, having just gone beyond panic to confusion overload.

    "Sunnydale is built on top of a powerful magical nexus," I began, "and that's a whole separate explanation later. The point right now is that Mom and me weren't the only two people in town who could cast spells."

    "Mr. Giles." Dad said, starting to put together a couple pieces of his own.

    "And Ms. Calendar." I agreed. "When he noticed there was a crazy witch running around school cursing people he helped undo Mom's spell and put us back in our rightful bodies, then he called some friends of his who knew how to keep crazy black magic people restrained and try to give them psychiatric treatment."

    "Assuming that's what they're even doing." he said suspiciously.

    "The important thing right now is that Mom was still casting spells even when she was in my body, which meant that technically she'd initiated and unlocked my own magical gifts." I explained. "So when I said I didn't get a choice about being a witch? I meant that literally too. Normally it takes an active decision to pursue the study of magic to start yourself down the path, but in my case that's just another choice Mom took away from both of us. My only choice was whether I was going to let her choices keep me small and scared... or not." I sighed. "Dad, I'm sorry Mom ruined your life like she tried to ruin mine, but we can't keep being frightened of her everything even after she's gone. And yeah, maybe I sound a little like a hypocrite right now seeing as how I was kinda scared of you until this evening-?"

    "Scared of me?" Dad said, taken totally aback. "Honey, I..."

    "I meant scared of your reaction." I corrected him embarassedly. "Trust me, I've been trying to figure out how to tell you for months. But-" I sighed. "It looks like that decision just got made for us. Because even if you hadn't walked in on me right now I was already nerving myself up to come clean. Jonathan's car accident wasn't an accident." I continued earnestly. "Someone tried to murder him. And they're probably going to try for all of us now too, which is why I have to tell you what and who to watch out for."

    "What on Earth have you gotten involved in?!?" Dad sputtered.

    "Quite a lot, I'm afraid." Ms. Calendar said from the doorway behind him. "We all have."

    * * * * *​

    Giles POV:

    I hadn't used a sap for over twenty years, but it really was just like riding a bicycle. The leather-covered lead weight swung home just behind my unsuspecting target's ear and he fell to the ground like a limp sack of grain. I handcuffed his hands behind his back, hoisted him up and into the trunk of my car, and drove sedately out of his apartment building's underground garage with no one the wiser. You'd think a man in his line of work would be more alert, particularly after betraying someone almost to their death. But no, here he was driving back home from work in the morning without a care in the world. Much less with the slightest alertness spared for someone ambushing him as soon as he got out of his car.

    I'd taken a sick day from work, so I had the entire day free to deal with this little human pustule as I saw fit. And out here in the old abandoned quarry and under the light of day we'd be blissfully free from interruption both human and demonic, so-

    Willy sputtered awake at the dash of cold water I threw in his face. I'd left him propped up against the wall of the old supervisor's shack, his hands still cuffed behind his back.

    "What the-?" he blustered. "Where am I? What happened?"

    "Allow me to demonstrate." I said with a mild little smile. And then I swung my sap directly into his left kneecap with all my strength, shattering it like spun glass.

    "AAAAAGGGGGGH!" he screamed, his shout of agony echoing off the nearby stone cliffs. "What the hell?!?"

    "Ironic you should mention that." I said, still in the same serene tone of voice. "Seeing as how that's almost certainly your immediate destination."

    "You're crazy!" Willy babbled. "You're completely out of your mind-"

    "You almost killed one of the finest young men I've ever known." I said icily. "You almost killed my Slayer."

    "I had nothing to do with that-!" Willy denied frantically, gasping and white-faced with agony.

    "Nonsense!" I yelled at him. "The attack was almost immediately after sunset! He could not have been waiting for them the entire time. He would have had to know almost immediately when to move into position! Who was the only person who could possibly have told anyone at exactly what time Jonathan and Buffy left your establishment?"

    "Look, Trick's a really clever guy! He must have had someone staking out my place! You can't just go around-"

    "I don't recall saying who was driving the truck." I smiled thinly at him.

    "... oh crap." Willy moaned.

    "You're going to tell me who this 'Trick' is." I said. "And who he's working for. And everything else you think I might possibly be interested in."

    "You gotta give me somethin' if I do." the little worm tried to negotiate. "I can't cross these people! You have to understand my posit-AAAAAAAAAAA!"

    I lifted the sole of my foot from his shattered kneecap and glared down at where he lay. "Try again."

    "Go to hell!" he blustered. "You're a white hat, a Watcher! You can't just murder me!"

    That fatuous bit of nonsense got him his other kneecap broken. Willy was partly correct in that we couldn't go around casually disposing of people whenever convenient or else we'd be no better than the monsters we fought, but for someone to arrogantly assume that he could freely discard the slightest shred of human decency or scruple himself to unhesitatingly plot multiple murders, and then turn right around and beg for the protection of those same decencies when he was under threat-

    Under the old Common Law, an 'outlaw' was not as commonly believed a person who was wanted for a crime, but instead one whose open and notorious defiance of the laws of the realm had reached such a point as to deem them worthy of being placed literally outside the law. "To be dealt with as wolves are", as one poet had declaimed it. Their infamy was such as to have forfeited all legal protections and any citizen in good standing was free to deal with them summarily as they saw fit. And right now, I could understand what had led my ancestors to adopt this concept in the first place. If Buffy had been the one driving the car they'd both certainly have died; Jonathan would not have had the superhuman strength necessary to free them from the wreckage. As is, Buffy wouldn't be discharged from the hospital until this evening and Jonathan might well be in a coma for weeks, or months, or-

    Willy had fallen silent, finally beginning to understand some of the thoughts going through my mind from the expression that must have been on my face.

    "As much as I regret to say it, we have more in common than I'd wish." I began in a lecturing tone of voice. "When I was a younger man, I was in fact much like you. I was short-sighted, and selfish, and entirely amoral. Quite the vicious and petty little individual, in fact. I cared very little for who I hurt or how so long as I was gratified or amused. And at least one of my friends died from that attitude, as I almost did." I smiled down at him. "That's a period of my life that I'm quite glad I've long since gotten over. But every now and then, something comes along to remind me."

    "Remind you of what?" Willy quavered.

    "Would you like me to show you?" I grinned down at him. "Or would you like to answer all of my questions?"

    "Y-you won't kill me in cold blood." Willy said in desperate denial. "And you've already crippled both my damn legs! What the fuck incentive do I got left to not tell to you go fuck yourself?!?" he spat at me.

    "Oh, you truly are a particularly stupid and obnoxious specimen of vermin, aren't you?" I said lightly. "I've already killed you. All I have to do is leave you here and it'll be a race to see what ends your life first; exposure, dehydration, or whatever passing demon or vampire first finds the helpless meal that I've laid out for them." I let that sink in through Willy's agony and panic, before continuing on. "What we're doing right now, Willy, is negotiating whether or not you'll give me sufficient reason to save you."

    "S-save me for what?" Willy stammered.

    "The opportunity to leave Sunnydale still alive and still with two working hands." I said, slapping the sap lightly into my palm.

    * * * * *​

    "Kakistos." I said to the full assembled Scooby Gang, minus our one absent and one injured member, as we met in my house. "An ancient vampire, only a century or two younger than the Master was. Formerly the dominant vampire of Boston, he's been reported as having recently taken himself and his inner coterie and abandoned his old stomping grounds to relocate-"

    "Here." Xander said grimly. "So, what's this particular bloodsucker got?"

    "Drusilla, for one." I said glumly. "As well as the particularly clever vampire who was driving the truck and set up the ambush, who apparently goes by the name of 'Mr. Trick.'"

    "Oh, I'll show him a trick when I catch up to him." Amy muttered. "Did Willy give you an address?"

    "They weren't foolish enough to let him know it." I replied. "As for Kakistos himself, he's very much a shadowy figure. His subordinates are all terrified of him so he's clearly quite formidable, but it doesn't seem to be the same dynamic as the Order of Aurelius was. It's apparently a more simple pack dominance situation."

    "Less cult leader, more gang boss." Buffy nodded. "So, if he's got that many vamps all that scared of him and without a crazy vampire religion to give them all a big ol' bonding experience, then he's probably a real powerhouse."

    "Quite likely." I agreed. "And speaking of power, there's a particular threat that we need to cover. You have all already briefed your families not to open the wrong doors-"

    "Well I haven't." Xander admitted. "But the point is moot, because they're already aware of the night life in general even if they have no clue that I get involved in it."

    "Mine are still out of town." Willow shrugged.

    "My point was, with Drusilla back and actively cooperating with Kakistos then those precautions aren't necessarily sufficient. One of her favorite tricks when operating with Angelus' group was to use her mental powers to cast illusions." I pointed out.

    "Oh great." Buffy eye-rolled. "So, warning Mom not to invite in any strangers is pointless, because with Drusilla making with the mojo then Mom could see Ms. Calendar standing there asking to be let in. Or you. Or me."

    "Quite." I agreed. "We'll need to augment the threshold protections on our houses with some type of anti-illusion wards."

    "Which will require designing some first." Jenny said. "Giles, did you have the Hermetic spellcraft manuals last?"

    "I believe Angel did," I said thoughtfully.

    "Okay, then I can swing by his place tomorrow and pick 'em up!" Willow said helpfully. "What do they look like?"

    "Thank you, Willow, that'll be very helpful." Jenny said. "I have to go home with Amy tomorrow right after school to help finish explaining things, so if you ran that errand for us at the same time-"

    "Here you go." Amy said, fishing a copy of Angel's house key out of her pocket to hand to Willow.

    "Wait, we have a loose end." Xander pointed out. "What do we do with the snitch who helped set up the ambush?"

    "Ah." I said urbanely. "After we had a productive and entirely civilized conversation, I persuaded him to leave Sunnydale for health reasons."

    "I'm surprised he wanted to leave his prosperous little snitching business behind." Buffy said.

    "Perhaps he changed his mind after the sudden fire that burned down his bar earlier this afternoon." I shrugged. "Still, I imagine the insurance he'll collect on it will help him with his travel fund." I smiled. "Or his medical expenses."

    "Rupert, you didn't." Jenny said disapprovingly.

    "I can neither confirm nor deny." I borrowed one of Jonathan's favorite phrases. "Now, as to the larger problem facing us-"

    "How to kill a really tough vampire who isn't letting us find him until he's good and ready, while he keeps sending his minions around to ambush us." Xander said.

    "Yeah, and they're not just all fists and fangs either." Willow said. "This time it was a runaway truck. What'll Mr. Trick use next time?"

    "That brings us to the most disturbing bit of news." I said glumly. "Upon finding out that our latest antagonist formerly operated in the Boston area, I called a colleague of mine who lives there. As it turns out, Mr. Trick was well-known among the demon underworld there for his unusual fondness for modern technology."

    "He does computers?" Willow said surprisedly.

    "Modern technology?" Buffy said dismayedly. "Wait, you mean modern weapons, right? Are you seriously telling me that on top of having to go up against some big buff ancient vamp, I'm also going to be facing off against a vampire with a machine gun?"

    "Unfortunately, yes." I sighed. "Professor Dormer had at least two confirmed reports of Trick removing various demonic rivals of Kakistos with firearms."

    "And isn't it just so not coincidental that our resident expert with firearms and modern warfare is the first guy that Trick takes out!" Xander swore viciously. "How the hell did they know so much about us when we know so little about them?"

    "That's a very good question." I said, struck to the core by Xander's realization. "How do they?"

    "Somebody talked." Willow analyzed. "I mean, not somebody here talked. Somebody who's fought us before and lived talked."

    "We didn't get all of the Order of Aurelius." Buffy realized. "The Master had them casing us out the whole time in-between me getting to Sunnydale and the Spring Fling, and they didn't leave town after I killed the Master. And Spike rallied what survivors were left for round two, but after we put him down what few survivors we left from that fight all cut and ran. I suppose now we know where at least one of them ran to."

    "Entirely possible, but I don't think the timing quite fits." I mused. "But yes, clearly Kakistos and his organization have somehow been very carefully gathering all the information they possibly could before beginning to make any open moves. We'll need to guard ourselves as much as possible as we do the same."

    "We're always outnumbered, vampires being vampires." Buffy agreed. "And now you're saying we're outgunned, and that's before we factor in already being down a man for a while. And we're on the defensive now as well!" she swore.

    The room fell silent at that trenchant observation. Yes, we'd certainly gotten used to always having the initiative. Or if not, then at least having the ability to force the pace. But now?

    "Until further notice, we are suspending normal patrols." I decided. "We'll just have to accept the increase in vampiric activity for the short term. Obviously we'll need to take corrective action again if we notice that Kakistos is creating too many fledglings, but for right now we can't afford to put any more of our frontline fighters out where they can be too easily picked off."

    "We'll still have to at least camp the Bronze." Buffy said. "I can get skipping the cemeteries and alleys for a while, but-"

    "At least that's a static position we know very well and can let them come to us," I concurred. "Perhaps we can arrange some kind of counter-ambush."

    "It's a starting point." Buffy sighed. "If not much of one."

    "It's going to get worse before it gets better, I'm afraid." I agreed with her.

    * * * * *​

    Mayor Wilkins POV:

    "You couldn't approach him at all?" I asked Alphonse, one of my more presentable minions.

    "It was like trying to walk into a church," the vampire replied. "That room had a blessing on it so strong that I could start feeling it down at the end of the hallway."

    "Well," I said, legitimately impressed. "It seems Miss Madison has been applying herself very diligently to her studies. Her slacker of a mother had been a rather disappointing waste of potential, but it's so nice to see that at least some of the current generation still believes in hard work."

    "Do you think that you can take the enchantment down so we can get at him, sir?" he asked. "Or do you want me to try and hire another warlock?"

    "No, no, it was just a thought." I waved him off. "Recruiting Mister Fairchild as a high-level enforcer for our operation would have been very nice if we could do so without having his abduction openly traced to us, but it's hardly a necessity to our goals. It was just a target of opportunity for us to evaluate while he was temporarily defenseless, but since as it happens he's not defenseless?" I shrugged. "Then we just acknowledge and move on. That's how you stay successful in this business, by remembering to stay focused!"

    "Yes sir." Alphonse nodded. "And what about Kakistos?"

    "Mr. Trick was very civilized in helping work out a mutual understanding." I acknowledged. "But he also left the impression that Kakistos was sometimes a bit impatient and high-handed, and didn't always feel like he had to live up to the terms of an agreement his envoys had negotiated. So uncivilized." I shuddered.

    "So do we ramp up, or do I tell the boys to pull their horns in?" Alphonse asked me.

    "Kakistos could potentially be a long-range problem." I thought out loud. "If he's still in position during the critical time period then he might not understand just how important next year is, and might possibly disrupt the necessary balance of our arrangements. But that's next year, and this year is this year. So for right now I'm thinking we'll step back and let the Slayer and her associates have their chance, and see if one of our potential problems can't solve the other."

    "Understood, sir." Alphonse nodded.

    "Good man!" I congratulated him. "So, who wants a root beer?"

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Oh hey there, Ripper! Long time no see. *eg*

    And amusingly, it actually is a coincidence that Jonathan was the one Trick took out first - Trick was just opening the dance with a major psyche-out and if it happens to deliver a helpless Slayer to him to feed on, all the better. (Note that the impact isn't likely to kill Buffy, and that Trick can always pull her out of the car himself if he need to.)

    And yes, Willow just covered for herself with the spellcraft manuals she yoinked. She always was clever and lucky, even on the show.

    'Professor Diana Dormer' is the mostly-canonical name for Faith's first Watcher, as mentioned in one of the BtvS tie-in novels.
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 17) New
  • View content
    • Cordelia POV:

    The next several weeks were terrifying.

    It was one thing to know that you were living in a town full of vampires. It was another thing to live like you were living in a town full of vampires. Even after originally finding out about the things that went bump in the night, I still wasn't that afraid to go outside after dark. You kept up with your vampire-fighting workouts, you made sure to keep a stake and a holy water spritzer in your purse, you paid attention to your surroundings, but life still went on, you know?

    After the new vamps showed up, all of that changed. In hindsight, we'd gotten really lucky with the Master. He'd been so busy working up to his huge apocalyptic open-the-Hellmouth ritual that he hadn't had any stage in his plans for 'What if I get killed before that happens?'. But this Kakistos guy wasn't an open-the-Hellmouth type, he was a conquer-all-I-survey type, and so he didn't keep his vamps all lurking around in hidden temples and doing rituals and waiting for the end of the world. No, he was all like Genghis Khan and putting his gang of vampires out in the streets every night for a show of force and encouraging the local bloodsuckers to do likewise.

    Now by this point I'd become pretty good with a sword or a crossbow but the fact remained, these things were superhumanly strong and fast and I wasn't. Knowing what you were doing in a fight and having a weapon meant that you could still get one over on any vampire who was relying only on their strength and speed and otherwise just flailing around untrained, but that meant you only had an edge on newbie vamps. Any bloodsucker who'd survived a couple decades hadn't lived that long by not learning how to brawl, so going toe-to-toe with any vampire that had actual fighting experience was definitely not a 'plan A' for me. Unless you had Slayer superpowers there simply wasn't a substitute for having like a hundred extra pounds of muscle mass like Xander did to let you survive taking a couple of solid hits from a vampire and still be able to stay in the fight. That meant me not putting me in the front line versus any of Kakistos' gang if we had a choice, because he'd left all his newbies back in Boston.

    So during that crisis my main contributions to the gang were me sticking to what I did best - gossiping and networking. I was the one who came up with stories and rumors to spread around school to encourage as much of the student body as possible to stay in after dark and avoid places where they'd get too easily picked off. I was the one who sold Principal Flutie on starting a new school program to institute a buddy system for traveling around town because of our "new motorcycle gang". I used what students were themselves good at gossiping to spread rumors to their parents to likewise try and keep as many adults as possible off the streets, along with people like Mrs. Summers and Mr. Madison doing the same among their circle of friends. I even helped find the other students who actually knew about vampires already, such as Xander's friend Jesse and other people Buffy and the gang had helped rescue from vamps earlier, and made sure they knew where they could all score replacement stakes and holy water. Not that we were encouraging untrained kids to go out after vampires but at least we could make sure they had something to fight back with if they got jumped.

    And while that all helped, it was still like living life under siege. As soon as the sun went down you battened down the hatches and prayed for daylight. Even the parts of town that we weren't able to get any warning to picked up on the badness pretty quickly; life in Sunnydale got a whole lot tenser and more subdued.

    The Scooby Gang only went out after dark as a team and when loaded for bear, and only for the most important missions. We did our best to use places like the Bronze or the Mall as a place to ambush hunting vamps and keep trying to put the fear in Kakistos' vamps like they were doing with us. We did a daylight raid on an abandoned warehouse where a large concentration of vamps had been holed up and burned the place to the ground with them inside after blocking off the sewer exit. And that was in-between dealing all the other weirdness, like Mrs. Summer's new boyfriend turning out to be a crazy robot serial killer - just his bad luck that our living at DEFCON Five right now meant that we were checking out pretty much anybody new who tried to get close to anyone - or the egg experiment at the high school turning out to be demon eggs, euch.

    But for all the vampires we were finding and killing, we still weren't winning.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    "Actually, that explains a lot." Oz said calmly. I'd invited him over to my house so I could do the explanations; Mr. Giles had said that we all had to warn anybody who was really close to us so that they'd know what to look out for.

    "Yup." I nodded enthusiastically. "Vampires. Magic. All kinds of stuff."

    "And you help defend Sunnydale from it." Oz asked me.

    "Darn tootin'!" I said proudly.

    "What can I do?" he asked me.

    "Well, actually, fighting vampires is really hard and you need lots of training. Or magic. Definitely magic." I babbled.

    "I get it." Oz agreed. "But you're telling me that we're all under attack right now anyway."

    "We totally are." I said nervously. "This Kakistos guy just isn't letting Buffy get a good crack at him."

    "Well, he didn't live this long by being stupid." Oz said. "You just told me that Buffy once solo'ed an even older and more powerful vampire than him. If you were him, would you want to just charge at her?"

    "It makes so much more sense when you ask the question that way." I agreed. "No, no I wouldn't. But then why doesn't he just have his minions run Buffy again over with a bigger truck?"

    "Because he wants the glory of being seen winning a dramatic one-on-one showdown with the Slayer. I'm a musician; I know about playing to the expectations of the audience." Oz said intelligently.

    "You are such a genius!" I hugged him. "And Cordelia thinks she's such a PR expert. She didn't figure this out! But yeah, you're right. He can't just have his minions do all the work for him or else it's not him that gets to prove he's the biggest and baddest of the Big Bads. I wonder what his plan was if the car accident actually had killed Buffy?"

    "Most likely? Mr. Trick would have dived in and pull her out of the wrecked car before she drowned." Oz said. "From what you said, Buffy's superpowers would probably have let her survive any car accident; the truck was intended to weaken her and scare her, not take her out."

    "He's afraid that Buffy's stronger than him because she killed the Master, so he wants to fight her only after she's worn down." I realized.

    "And with the car accident having failed - even if it took out one of her allies - he's trying to wear her down by running her ragged defending the entire town." Oz nodded. "Except Mr. Giles was smart enough not to fall for that and is holding Buffy back and conserving your strength, so right now it's a siege."

    "Which means he's gonna keep stepping up until he finds something that does work to grind Buffy down." I groused.

    "You're gonna have to find some way to bait him out on your terms, before he baits you out on his terms." Oz agreed. "Can I come to your next meeting?"

    "Absolutely." I agreed. This was perfect. If my boyfriend, who I'd just recruited, turned out to be the guy who had the bright idea that broke our stalemate, then I'd finally start getting some credit for all my hard work around here.

    And it would be honest hard work, not like some people were doing. When I'd had my chance to do my mindlink spell on Jonathan the first thing I'd gone looking for was the secret of his power, because I knew he had to be using some kind of cheats. And sure enough, I'd found it. The mental images were more than a little hazy because of how jumbled up coma patient brains were, but I'd clearly seen that he'd made a deal with some kind of demon lord or something for his boosts. That he'd been an average guy just wasting away in an average life before he'd wished to be an action hero and a supergenius, and that he'd been reincarnated into Sunnydale. There was also a whole lot of weirdness I hadn't really understood about where he'd been before coming here; he'd seemed to be older too, if not that much older.

    But yeah. Amy's 'White Knight' was actually some older college-age creep who'd hocked his soul or something to get himself a second chance at high school and also to be smarter, faster, stronger, and handsomer than almost anybody else. And he went around talking about how honorable he was and everything! Hah! I'd have warned the group about him except that I'd have had to admit how I found out, which would have meant admitting all the magic self-study, which would have gone nowhere good and really fast unless Amy backed me up... which she wouldn't, because another thing I'd seen was that Amy already knew this much about him and didn't care. Ugh, what a hypocrite she was! Always with the 'Oh no, our magic has to be perfectly white!' and here she's all dating a guy who secretly made a demon pact. I should have known better- her mom was all about the black magic too, and apparently she had her own little taste for it! Or at least for guys who were into it, even if they didn't do the black magic themselves!

    Well, fine. If Amy could secretly get into secret magic stuff while convincing Ms. Calendar and Mr. Giles that she was really teacher's pet all along, then so could I! My instincts that I had to set my own pace about studying magic and not restrict myself like the grown-ups kept telling me to had clearly turned out to be correct in hindsight; our grown-up casters weren't able to notice a genuine badness when it was right under our nose pretending to be everybody's friend, and Amy was being worse than useless.

    No, some day soon Jonathan would reveal his true colors to the rest of the group and on that day it would be up to me to save everybody's butts. So I'd have to get as strong as I could, as fast as I could, and without letting any of the others know until after I'd finished doing it because otherwise they'd try to stop me.

    But that was no problem. I could do that. I had witch powers of my own, and the biggest brain in school, and a cute supportive boyfriend who was really smart too. I had so much more in my corner than I'd ever used to think I have.

    And you know what? I kinda liked it.

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    Oz had just finished explaining his theory to the Scoobies at our next meeting, and I'd backed him up. In hindsight this really was like, of all things, a Batman comic arc. Specifically, "Knightfall" - the one where Bane was intro'ed, and ended up breaking the back of the Bat. He'd been strong but he'd still known Batman might be stronger, so instead he'd stirred up all the trouble he possibly could to get Batman as exhausted as possible, and only then had he moved in for the kill. And when you looked at it that way, it was pretty obvious what Kakistos was trying to set Buffy up for.

    Not that I actually mentioned I'd gotten my theory from Batman comics when I dropped this into the discussion. I wanted them to pay at least a little attention to what I was saying. What, I could learn!

    "That's... not good." Ms. Calendar said worriedly. "We're on defense, they're on the offense. If Buffy's not as overextended as they like, they can just keep upping the ante until she is."

    "Indeed." Giles said. "And what's worse, Drusilla has yet to take the field herself. Psychological warfare such as this - deliberately harassing and terrifying a target until they were mentally and emotionally exhausted - was Angelus' greatest specialty. We can reasonably presume that as the Scourge's expert in the mind arts, Drusilla was a talented student of his in this regard."

    "Plus she's crazy." I agreed. "As in, supervillain crazy. So since the Genghis Khan tactics haven't started making Buffy crack yet, the big K's probably going to tell her to start with the horror movie stuff any time now."

    "Great." Buffy said. "So now we're trying to predict the thought patterns of a grade-A lunatic. Isn't that kinda the definition of impossible?"

    And right then the front window shattered and a flaming something landed right in the middle of Giles' living room. It hit the coffee table and burst, splashing all over and setting the couch and the rug and the everything on fire-

    "Extinguo!" yelled Willow, and the flames damped out. Ms. Calendar grabbed the fire extinguisher and started spraying it on the embers.

    "It's him!" Amy yelled angrily. "It's Mr. Trick!" And then she was up out of her chair like a shot and running straight for the living room window. An angry wave of her hand swept the curtains and the remains of the broken glass aside, and she leapt right over the windowsill like a hurdler.

    "Amy!" Buffy shouted fearfully, her Slayer speed letting her catch up to just a few steps behind Amy. I stopped just long enough to grab my axe and a sword for Buffy, then followed right after them.

    "No!" Giles was yelling at us. "Wait!". But Amy wasn't listening and she wasn't stopping, and that meant we couldn't stop either. I got outside just in time to hear the terrifying sound of a shotgun going off, and my heart leapt into my mouth at the thought that one of the girls might be-

    I had virtually no warning of the ambush. Only the hours and hours and hours of training Jonathan had given me kept me from getting blitzed; I'd done an instinctive look-around as soon as I crossed the threshold to the outside, just as I'd done a thousand times before, and even that barely saved my life. Drusilla had been waiting just outside the door to catch anyone leaving the house to respond to the Molotov cocktail; Amy and Buffy's using the window instead of the door had saved them from getting jumped, but she'd gotten over just in time to almost catch me. As is, I turned my head just in time to see her leaping, and rather than try to stop or turn around I tucked my head in, dove forward, and let her overshoot and go right over where my head had been as I rolled across the grass and came up facing her.

    No time to go axe-to-fang with her. There was at least one vampire out there with a gun and I had no idea of Amy's or Buffy's status. She came in grinning with her claws out and I feinted with my axe while I pulled a vial of holy water out of my jacket pocket with my other hand, popped the cork, and splashed it across her face. Drusilla flinched away as the water splashed across her cheeks and hissed and burned, and then she flicked a glance over my shoulder and ran.

    "Are you okay?" I heard Buffy ask from right behind me, and I almost collapsed in relief.

    "Are you?" I said, turning around to- thank God!- see Buffy and Amy both standing there unhurt. Amy was looking down, too ashamed to meet anyone's gaze, while Buffy was looking at me at least as worriedly as I had to be looking at her.

    "Did you get him?" I asked Buffy.

    "Them." Buffy said. "Two of 'em all dressed up like dimestore cowboys. I got the one, Amy burned the other one."

    "I heard the gunshot." I babbled. "Nobody got hit, did they?"

    "Somebody almost did!" Buffy said, turning around to yell at Amy. "Do you have any idea how lucky I was to be able to hit him with a thrown stake at that range? If I hadn't knocked his aim off, he'd have blown you in half! And then I had to jump him with my bare hands to keep him from following up on you!"

    "I know!" Amy yelled back red-faced. "I know I-" she broke off. "I-" she stammered. And then Buffy stepped forward to take the crumpling Amy in her arms.

    "I know." Buffy said gently, while Amy sobbed into her shoulder. "I know. If Xander had been the one in the car, I'd have charged off all crazy mad after anybody I even thought was Mr. Trick. He hurt your guy, and so you wanted to hurt him back. But that's how they almost got you."

    "We'd better all get back inside." Giles said, coming up to us with a crossbow at the ready. Oz was flanking him with a large cross out, ready to hold off any more ambushers.

    I picked up the weapons I'd dropped when I'd dived for cover and handed Buffy's sword to her. We all escorted the still-weeping Amy inside, and Giles locked the door behind us.

    "Giles, I'm thinkin' Amy might need to be benched for a little while." Willow led off. "If her judgment is going wiggy-"

    "Willow!" I objected. "Have a heart!"

    "She's right." Amy said guiltily. "I completely lost my head and forgot everything we'd ever trained to do. And I almost got Buffy and myself both killed."

    "Yeah, and you'll do better next time." Buffy reassured her. "You're too smart to fall for the same tri- tactic more than once."

    "Amy, do you want to take some down time?" Ms. Calendar asked kindly.

    "... it'd probably be a good idea." she sighed.

    "All right, then." Giles said. "If you wish, then it'll be support duties only for a while. You're still doing much better with the consecration and blessing spell than Willow is, and we'll still need those cast and renewed on critical areas."

    "I'm getting better." Willow mumbled disgruntedly off to the side, and Oz gave her a reassuring squeeze.

    "Well, they're certainly escalating quickly." I said. "Car accidents, and now arson and drive-bys. We need to step up as well or else they're going to start forcing us on the run."

    "Wait." Ms. Calendar said. "Maybe we should."

    "What, run?" I said incredulously.

    "As far as they know." Ms. Calendar replied mischievously.

    * * * * *​

    Mr. Trick POV:

    Okay, I had give credit where credit was due. For the longest while I'd thought that the boss just sat on his ass and used his muscles to bully us all around, but you give him the kind of war that he actually knew how to handle and it turns out that he was pretty good at it. Guess it wasn't just luck that let him live to be so damn old.

    So, yeah, we went old-school Mongol on these people. Shows of force in the streets, harassing attacks on places they felt obligated to defend, even the occasional terror raid close to home. New girl's idea to take those two idiot rednecks - the Gorch brothers or whoever - who'd signed on recently and go torch their clubhouse didn't pan out so hot, though. Still, it's not like anybody important was lost, and even though they'd missed their shot they did still contribute to the general atmosphere of terror.

    But for once in the boss' life he was actually willing to be patient, and patience always paid dividends. By the second month of our campaign we could already see that the stress was getting to 'em. The Slayer was getting more and more reckless, pushing herself further and further out to desperately try and get a lead on us. Her sidekick did what he always did, followin' her along like they were joined at the hip. Their one witch had basically been taken entirely out of play, and the other one was keepin' her head down whenever she could. The Watcher was makin' inquiries all over town, visibly at loose ends. The other teacher had taken a sabbatical from the school and hadn't been seen around town at all for some days.

    "So, you're thinkin' it's time for the next phase?" I asked the boss.

    "Yes." Kakistos said smugly. "Lure out the Watcher. Take him and turn him. With his knowledge of the Slayer and all her allies, we will know precisely how to break them."

    "You got it." I nodded. "Any particular bait you want me to use?"

    "He seeks to purchase our secrets." the boss replied. "Have one of the informants he contacts offer him some."

    "He'll bring the Slayer to the meet." I pointed out.

    "When you have the time and place, Drusilla will know precisely when to divert her elsewhere." Kakistos replied. "Now go."

    "I'm on it." I said.

    And so we did the setup. I laid a false trail for the Watcher to follow, the whole 'meet me alone' thing and all. With the chance to buy Kakistos' location he was ready to jump on it, even when crazy girl managed to pull the Slayer to her mom's art gallery and all just on the same night. The witches didn't know how to fight in-close, the science teacher had cut and run... at worst the Watcher would have the sidekick and the new guy along, and that's why I'd brought backup and an Uzi.

    Rather than try to lure him the hell out to some place in the ass end of nowhere he wouldn't be stupid enough to come to, we let him have the illusion of safety by setting up the meet on the UC Sunnydale campus. People all around for night school or out socializing, but still lots of nooks and crannies a man could be alone in. Rather than post lookouts the Watcher could see, I just paid off the security guard on one of the campus loading docks to go take a break for a while and then put a guy in the security office himself to watch the cameras.

    "He's coming." my man said. "Up the alley from the west."

    "All right." I acknowledged. "Tom, you go out and keep his attention on you for the meet. I'll swing in behind him once he's on the loading dock. The reserves wait inside and stay low unless we need 'em." I checked to make sure my weapon was loaded and chambered, then slung it underneath my jacket. I wasn't going to make that kind of noise unless I had to, but I wanted to be damn sure it was ready in case I did have to.

    Tweed guy walked straight in, fat dumb and happy. Oh, he had his head on a swivel and all, but that's why I hadn't put out any lookouts for him to actually spot. All he saw was Tom himself, playin' the part of the informant he came here to meet, and I wasn't going to step out and reveal myself until after the Watcher had gotten down to business... there we go.

    "I have the money." the Watcher said coldly, pullin' a big roll out of his pocket and flashin' it briefly. "Do you have Kakistos' location?"

    "Lemme count it first." Tom said arrogantly.

    "If you insist." the Watcher sighed, and handed it over. Tom smirked at him and started slowly going through the bills one by one, givin' me as much time as possible to close in.

    "Evenin'." I said smugly, as I got up behind him. The Watcher turned around quickly, his face going through surprise into angry resignation when he saw me. "How ya doin'?" I grinned toothily at him, fangs out.

    "Mr. Trick." the Watcher glared at me. "So, it was a trap."

    "Yup." I said, as Tom stepped up behind him and grabbed him by the arms. "You really were too much of an optimist to be in this line of wor-"

    "Miss, run!" the Watcher suddenly yelled in alarm, looking past me. Oh ho, a bystander-

    I turned around to see an attractive young woman, a sister, lookin' good in a nice red top and pants. "What is going on here?" she asked in a throaty accent.

    "These men are dangerous!" the Watcher shouted. "Get out of here as fast as you possibly can!"

    "No, stick around." I said cheerfully, my game face still on as I stepped up to her. "We're friendly." I took a deep breath as I drew close. Man, she smelled good- and then suddenly it hit me what I wasn't smelling. She was lookin' right at me in game face but still wasn't givin' off any fear stink at all. Somethin' was wrong!

    I went immediately for my piece, but I didn't have it halfway out before she'd suddenly crossed the six feet of distance remaining between us faster than I could see and had me by the wrist and twisting it hard enough to break my grip. I tried to club her with my other hand, but she blocked my hardest swing with her raised forearm like I'd tried to beat down a lamp post- damn it, this girl was stronger than I was!

    I managed to twist free of her grip but I'd gotten too close, my guard had been too far down, and I'd already lost my gun. I dimly heard Tom scream in pain and then heard him turning to dust, and footsteps comin' toward me, but I needed all my attention to go hand-to-hand with this strange girl who was straight up kickin' my ass-

    "Alive! We need him alive!" I heard the Watcher yell.

    "Yes sir!" she replied, and she got back to hittin' me as hard as she could. And yeah, I'd given her some good lumps too but she just wasn't goin' down! As the footsteps got closer I decided fuck it, it was time to bail, so I stepped and turned and began to hoof it-

    And then recoiled back and damn near fell on my ass with the cross that the Watcher had jammed straight into my face. That must have been what he'd had palmed all the time and used on Tom to make him let go before staking him. And all it took was that one moment of distraction- by the time I could recover, the girl had come up behind me and put me in an arm bar, gettin' me on my knees. And the Watcher had the cross on me, and comin' up behind him was a strange guy, a big hefty brother, with a crossbow out and aimed at me.

    "Are there any more?" the Watcher asked.

    "We dealt with the two waiting in the warehouse before I sent her back outside, and I just took care of the one in the dock office." the strange guy replied to him. "You have him restrained for interrogation?" he continued to the girl.

    "If you try to run, then I will break both of your legs." the girl said menacingly in my ear. "That is restraint, yes?"

    "Man, who are you people?" I gasped as the girl damn near broke my arm keepin' me from wrigglin' free. "And how the fuck is she doin' this?"

    "Ah." the Watcher said smugly. "Mr. Trick, it is my most distinct pleasure to introduce you to my colleague Samuel Zabuto. And his charge, Kendra the Vampire Slayer."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: I am well aware that the highest level of readiness on the DEFCON scale is One and that the lowest level is Five. Cordelia, however, is not. :)

    The Gorch brothers had showed up in town around this time anyway, and if left to their own devices it's reasonable they'd drift into being hired muscle for the local boss. So they came, they saw, they got dusted.

    And yup, Mr. Trick got counter-ambushed. With Buffy already decoyed out of the way he'd think the coast was clear. And the Scooby Gang had done an excellent job setting things up to appeal to his overconfidence, right down to having Kendra do the bystander act.
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 18) New
  • View content
    • Mr. Trick POV:

    What the hell was up with this 'two Slayers' bullshit?!? Everybody knew that's not how it worked!

    Yeah, except when it did.

    I had to face up to the facts. I got played. I got played hard. All that time I spent in the gang cleanin' up everyone else's messes, makin' up for all the other idiots who were all fists and fangs, and now I'm the guy who laid down on the job while everybody else did theirs. New girl got the blonde Slayer out of position just like she was supposed to, Tom lured the English Watcher out just like he was supposed to, but I'm the guy who dropped the ball because I never stopped to think that the bystander girl who walks into the middle of our crime scene might have superpowers. Hah. 'Bystander' nothin', that whole thing was a setup. Her innocent look, the Watcher's 'get out of here!' routine, all designed to keep my guard down until she got within grabbin' range. They not only knew who I was but they knew that I traveled strapped, and so they baited me right into where my favorite tricks weren't any use.

    Which is how I ended up in this damn warehouse, manacled to a friggin' post by my wrists while these assholes were busy gettin' out the tools and the holy water. Zabuto, the heavyset Jamaican guy, was layin' out a couple of knives and some pliers like he was a surgeon gettin' ready to scrub up. His Slayer girl, Kendra, was standin' there glarin' at me with a short-handled mace gettin' ready to break my legs just like she promised she would if I somehow got loose. The English guy, Giles, was busy talkin' to the other guy.

    "-Kakistos was expecting me to be turned, so we should have until tomorrow night before they expect any of them back."

    No wonder the Watcher was so damn insistent on timing the meet for an hour before sunrise. Yeah, the boss would expect me to hole up and wait out the day - and wait for English here to finish risin' back up - before takin' him back to the hideout.

    "Look, guys, I'll just tell you where he is if you let me go." I called out. "I won't even go to warn him. This whole deal is clearly going south, and I will be glad to just skip town."

    "Dat would not be in keeping with my sacred duty." the Kendra girl said flatly.

    "Well if I'm dust either way, then fuck you." I sneered. "All I've got to do is last long enough and they'll be gone as soon as they figure out I'm not comin' back."

    "The question is, can you last long enough." the Zabuto guy said as he- aw shit, was he fillin' a damn syringe with holy water? Fuck, that was gonna be bad. "I don't think you will."

    "Mr. Trick, you are a spiteful, selfish, soulless creature." English said mildly.

    "Kinda goes with bein' a vampire." I grinned at him, as his buddy started comin' over with the syringe.

    "So why would you wish to die slowly rather than quickly? And why would you want your rivals in Kakistos' gang, or your coward of a boss himself, to live on while you don't?" he asked.

    "That's very good." I acknowledged with a nod. "Nice and logical. And here's your answers; because while I damn sure don't enjoy pain I ain't gonna beg to avoid it either, and because right now if my choice is spite you assholes or spite them, I pick you."

    Zabuto jabbed the needle in my forearm and squirted just a bit of the holy water into my muscle there. Fuck! Goddamn shit burned like battery acid! I felt my fangs pop out with the effort of tryin' to hold in my screams, but I held it in.

    "Asshole, this ain't the first time I been chained to a post and beaten on because bastards like you thought I was too uppity, and I wasn't even a vampire then." I snarled at them. "And the night I got turned was the best night of my life, because it meant nobody owned my ass anymore. So you just come on!" I yelled. "I spent my whole life outlivin' self-righteous fucks like you, and I can do it again!"

    And that got me the rest of the needle.


    * * * * *​

    The girl threw a bucket of water on me- the regular kind, not the holy kind- to wake me back up. Yeah, this day had sucked. I'd kept 'em beatin' on me for a couple hours, but they could take shifts and I couldn't. So eventually it had been easier for me to just let myself pass out and waste their time that way. Now their Slayer was busy wakin' me back up while the two Watchers were over discussin' strategy in the corner.

    "-you disapprove?" Zabuto was sayin'. They were off talkin' to each other in the corner all quietly, but vampire ears were vampire ears.

    "Trick's restraints are secure enough that she didn't have to stay and watch the entire process." Giles replied. "And part of our duties is to shield our Slayers from the more ambiguous aspects of our job."

    "You're judging Kendra by the same standards as your Miss Summers." Zabuto replied disapprovingly. "She was trained for this almost from birth, as yours wasn't. She doesn't have that squeamishness."

    "My Slayer's fortitude was sufficient to face Heinrich Nest himself in single combat despite everything from the Pergamum Codex itself on down telling her that she had no chance of survival." Giles replied coldly. "Don't you dare to impugn her courage."

    "I wasn't." Zabuto replied apologetically. "I meant-" he sighed. "My Kendra would not have been able to find and bond with allies so strong that they would follow her even into the depths of the Master's lair to save her life. Your Buffy would not have been able to participate in the sort of operation necessary to obtain the information we need to defeat Kakistos. They both have their individual strengths and their weaknesses."

    "The Council would not be so torn debating over all the possible approaches to training Slayers if there was a single, unambiguously superior option." Giles conceded.

    "They're talkin' about you." I said to Kendra. "Comparin' and contrastin' you to the other girl. And sounds like white boy thinks you're second rate compared to her."

    "Do not try to distract me." she glared back.

    "Go over there and ask 'em. Then you tell me if I'm lyin'." I sneered contemptuously.

    "I said be silent!" she snapped back, and stepped forward to slap me hard across the mouth. And that's exactly what I was waitin' for.

    My fangs were already out, so all I had to do was get the timin' exactly right to twist in my chains, get my head just back out of the way of her swing, and then snap forward and catch her forearm in my teeth. I hit the vein and gulped once, twice, three times, as big and hard as I could-

    "AGH!" she shouted, and knocked my teeth loose from her arm by palm-strikin' me in the forehead with her other hand. I reached up to where my hands were manacled up over my head to the support pillar and used that support to haul both my feet right up off the ground and slam both feet into her gut as hard as I could. And seein' as how I'd just gulped a few nice big mouthfuls of Slayer blood, I was feelin' really juiced right now despite the beating I'd just taken, so my kick took the wind completely out of her and sent her sprawlin' on her ass over a dozen feet away on the floor.

    Right, that was the easy part. This was the part that was gonna hurt like a bitch. Still, I had to get the fuck out of here and right now or else I was an ash pile, so sacrifices had to be made-

    "RRARRRRGGGGH!" I screamed as I pulled and twisted with my temporarily boosted strength, putting as much stress as possible on my already-weakened forearm and wrist where that asshole had originally injected the holy water, and breakin' the two big bones in my forearm clean right through. Which meant that only the scraps of flesh and muscle were left to keep that hand attached, and since I had the strength to tear human joints right out of their sockets when I put my back into it that meant I also had the strength to tear my own left hand off clean at the wrist. The stump of my arm slipped right through the one manacle, and that gave me the slack to pull the chain off right through the mounting loop and leave me free of the pillar.

    "See you later!" I said as I took off running. The two Watchers were already grabbin' crossbows and shit, but I put both my legs into a big-ass leap that took me up to the top of one of the rows of empty shelving in this warehouse, and that gave me cover versus their shots and a nice head start on the Slayer who was only just now startin' to get back up from where I'd launched her.

    Yeah, it was daytime out but I had a plan for that. I'd already scoped out where there was a container for a fire blanket hangin' by the one door so that's where I headed. Even with only one hand I had the blanket out and draped over me while they were still takin' the long way around the shelves I'd jumped over, and so all I had to do after that was turn and boot open the outside door. This was warehouse row we were on, so as soon as I got outside and around a corner I'd basically be clear; by the time they figured out which one of the other empty buildings I'd ducked into I'd already be down a sewer access.

    This little shot of Slayer blood I'd gulped down would wear off soon enough, but until it did I wouldn't just be feeling no pain but I'd be straight up pumped. More than pumped enough to finish my getaway from these people, especially since the local Watcher wasn't nearly stupid enough to let a Slayer too deep down into the sewers of this town by herself.

    And so with a cheerful "Try Kingman's Bluff, assholes!" tossed back over my shoulder as I headed out into the daylight with the blanket over me to keep me from fryin', I got out of Sunnydale while the getting was still good.

    What? It ain't like I wanted the boss or crazy girl to outlive me or anything. Especially not now that I had to be quittin' my job here. Only reason I hadn't said shit about where the hideout was while I was still chained to that damn pillar because they'd have put the stake in as soon as I'd finished talking. I just wish I hadn't had to take so much of a damn beatin' first before I got my opening to escape, or to lose my damn hand.

    Ah well. Maybe the lawyer boys down in LA would know somebody who was into makin' vampire prosthetics or some shit. Because man, fuck this town. If I never came back to this crazy shithole it'd be at least a month too soon.

    * * * * *​

    Giles POV:

    "Is she all right?" I asked Samuel.

    "I am fine." Kendra said, gritting her teeth from where her Watcher was busy disinfecting and bandaging her arm. "He only got a little blood." She turned back to him and continued. "Sir, I am sorry. I was careless and-"

    "We were careless." Samuel replied to her. "Mr. Giles had briefed us on Mr. Trick's unusual amount of intelligence and adaptability, but I still used only standard restraints and interrogation techniques. This is at least as much my fault as yours."

    "The good news is that technically, this interrogation was a success." I interrupted them. "Mr. Trick gave us a location as he departed. Given the spitefulness typical of vampires, we can even treat the information with a degree of reliability. If he's deserting his current allegiance, he'd hardly want his former master to remain available to pursue him for his disloyalty."

    "Kingman's Bluff." Samuel agreed. "Where is it?"

    "It's the promontory overlooking the town." I replied. "I'm not aware of any structures up there, but the local geology supports cave formations. Heinrich Nest also made his main lair in one."

    "Kakistos is an ancient." Samuel nodded. "He'd find such an environment to be more familiar and safe than a modern building, and much less offensive to his pride than the local sewers."

    "And it's also remote enough that local vampires not affiliated with his gang would be vastly unlikely to stumble over it, while still within a convenient walking distance of town. The local undead subculture has long since marked most of the viable nest sites actually in town; we have to clean out some of the more commonly used ones practically every month." I replied.

    "I had been wondering about de violation of policy about de Slayer working alone." Kendra contributed diffidently. "But if you are as badly outnumbered on de Hellmouth here as you say..."

    "We've made alliances with any freelance hunter or local both willing and able to usefully contribute." I concurred. "As well as several of the local practitioners."

    "We've got until they miss Trick tonight before we risk our target moving on us." Samuel analyzed. "And I want to go in during daylight if possible, so we have a clear line of retreat. We'll need to hit the local records depository for any available topographic or cave maps of Kingman's Bluff-"

    "We can't." I interrupted. "Available intelligence has the local Mayor almost certainly in some type of alliance with the forces of darkness. Our research can't use any officially monitored sources."

    "Damn." Samuel swore. "This is your territory; do you have a solution?"

    * * * * *​

    "Got it!" Willow said cheerfully as she finished tapping on the keyboard of her infernal machine. "The archived results of the geological survey of Kingman's Bluff that Mayor Richard Wilkins II had commissioned in the 50s."

    "That looks odd." Samuel said, leaning over to peer at the screen. "Those aren't normal cave formations."

    "No, it looks more like the aftermath of a subsidence." Willow agreed. "Why does that look familiar?"

    "Because it's just like the Master's lair." Buffy said. "The creepy underground church that used to be not underground, until a funky Hellmouth earthquake sunk it down there?"

    "Earthquakes." Oz said meaningfully, before heading back into the stacks followed by Xander. After a minute or two, they came out with one of the USGS reference books on California earthquake history and flipped it open.

    "Okay," Xander said. "1937 was when the Master got himself buried trying to open the Hellmouth. Assuming this was an earthquake of at least equal severity and centered here..."

    "There's an index of them by epicentre." Oz pointed out. "Willow, what's the latitude/longitude for Kingman's bluff?" After she'd read it off from the map, Oz continued. "Here we go. 1932, one centered right on the bluff... and there was indeed a subsidence."

    That sent myself, Samuel, Jenny, and Amy into the stacks for the Watcher Diaries and local occult references for events of 1932. Soon enough, we turned up the connection.

    "1932, a demonic doomsday cult tried a greater invocation of the demoness Proserpexa." Amy said, pointing to a local demonologist's reference. "Your standard 'open the portal and end the world' type apocalypse. But instead there was a backlash like the Master's attempt to open the Hellmouth later that same decade, sinking the temple of Proserpexa and ending the attempted summoning."

    "And now dis Kakistos is in there." Kendra said forbodingly. "Do you think he is also attempting de summoning?"

    "Doubtful." I said. "Professor Dormer in Boston turned up the intelligence that Kakistos had been resident there for decades and hadn't shown any activity pattern there beyond those typical for vampiric pack leaders. Also, he's made no attempt while here to recruit any local black magic practitioners who could actually perform the invocations for him. Any interest he has in the Temple is almost certainly due just to its convenient location for a lair and the ambient demonic energies."

    "We have a location. So we go there, before de sun sets today, and kill him." Kendra said flatly.

    "That's the goal." Buffy agreed. "Now what's the plan?"

    "It's a major nest, with a powerful ancient and one of the Scourge of Europe to provide leadership." Samuel said approvingly. "Even two Slayers could get overwhelmed in there if they just charged in. How much magical firepower do your witches bring?"

    "Quite a bit!" Willow chimed in cheerfully, simultaneously with Amy's more modest "Not quite enough to handle that many."

    "Oh if it's fire power you want," Xander said cheerfully, "then all I need is one of you responsible grown-ups to drive down to the local farm supply store."

    "What would good would farm supplies do?" Samuel asked him disapprovingly. He still hadn't quite figured out how to react to the part where most of our 'local hunter allies' were still high school students-

    "Did you know that the state of California classifies flamethrowers as agricultural implements?" Xander replied smugly. "You don't even need a waiting period to buy one, just a few hundred bucks to get a permit from the fire marshal."

    "Flame throwers." Buffy said incredulously. "Where did you learn how to legally score flame throwers?"

    "From Jonathan, where else?" Xander replied, before sobering some at the thought of our absent comrade-in-arms. "You should see his collection of improvised demolition manuals sometimes."

    "Dis is what they teach children in schools here? America is a very strange place." Kendra said wonderingly.

    "No, mostly it's just reading, writing, and fashion sense." Buffy replied. "But when you're a California teenager, you learn how to make your own fun."

    * * * * *​

    Amy POV:

    For this mission, every available pair of hands we had was saddling up.

    We'd split into two teams to take advantage of the fact that as far as any of Kakistos' people knew there was only one Slayer. The old cave survey that the Mayor's office had commissioned showed two viable routes into the sunken temple. Buffy's team would take the more obvious route in to get all eyes on her first while Kendra's team would head in along the back route a couple minutes after Buffy had pulled away their reinforcements with their attack, hoping to catch Kakistos looking the wrong way and with his guard down.

    As it turned out there were only two flamethrowers available in the store; Mr. Zabuto, who'd actually used one before, spent an hour or so out in the old stone quarry teaching Cordelia and Oz the basics of how to use them. As our least experienced melee fighters - Oz wasn't even really trained yet - it had been decided to make them the heavy artillery and keep them protected in the middle of the group. Cordelia would be on our team, and Oz with Kendra's.

    As for the rest of us, each team got one of the two available witches; Willow had volunteered to go cover Kendra, so I'd be with Buffy. That left Xander and Ms. Calendar left over, and given that Buffy's team would be drawing the bulk of the opposition they'd decided to have them double up and stay with the first team. That left six of us taking the front and four of us taking the back.

    Since the Watcher Diaries had recorded previous incidents where Slayers had tried to stake Kakistos and failed due to his extra-thick hide both Buffy and Kendra were carrying spears from Giles' armory in addition to their swords and stakes, and Giles and Mr. Zabuto were carrying extra spears for them.

    And so we waited on the approach to Kingman's Bluff in the parking lot for the scenic overlook, while Buffy and Kendra went on ahead for some last-minute scouting.

    "We're back." Buffy said as her and Kendra reappeared over the lip of the path. "They had a couple lookouts posted in the shade."

    "And now they do not." Kendra grinned wickedly.

    "Well done." Mr. Zabuto acknowledged them.

    "Is everyone ready?" Giles asked as Buffy and Kendra picked up their spears, and we all nodded. "Very well then. First team, follow me." and we headed off.

    "Second team, on me." I heard Mr. Zabuto say, and they started down the path to the other cave entrance.

    Okay. Deep breaths, stay focused, stay in formation. Don't charge off half-cocked this time.

    Let's do this.

    * * * * *​

    Drusilla POV:

    They were coming. The old one still had no idea, but Miss Edith had heard them miles away. She'd heard the slave who was now free being taken last night, and heard his cry of pain and triumph as he finally broke his chains. She'd heard everything, and told it to me. It was odd, really. A lot of the times she didn't hear things until it was too late, but these things? They all rang clear as a bell.

    It was a pity, really. I'd had such hopes that the old one would kill the Slayer and her nasty boy, but the best he could do is put the one to sleep. And then the white witch had wrapped him up all nice and tight, so I couldn't even visit him in the hospital. And now the one Slayer had become two- who would ever have dreamed that Great-Grandfather would perform such a great feat as doubling the Slayer Line even as he died- and the odds had shifted, and so now the old one was going to die.

    Which is why I hadn't told anyone, of course. If I'd warned them, they'd have called me to fight. And if I'd fought, I'd get burned. No, much better to just step back and let what happens happen. Daddy and Mommy had liked the fighting. Spikey had loved the fighting. But me? I just wanted to play, and everyone just kept getting in the way.

    Ah, and now the others are singing. Screaming, really, but screaming was singing if you did it right. Daddy always loved to say that. There's the one group now, all busy being loud and getting them all to look the wrong way. It was so easy to do things if they were looking the wrong way.

    Just look at what I was doing right now, for example. And yes, here comes the other group. The dark Slayer and her Watcher were far too serious-minded to ever do anything really fun, and the boy was far too calm to push, but the little red witch? Oh, now she was the prize. I wouldn't even need to call out to her. She was already heading to the darkness all on her own, even if she was only beginning.

    And this was a very, very dark place, oh yes. And now that she'd come here once, she'd always know how to come back here later. That was the important part. To make sure that she knew where she could go.

    And now that I'd helped show her the way, I just needed to take care of one last little detail-

    I waved forward a group of the fledglings and ordered them to split the Watcher off from his Slayer. I then cast a little illusion on the boy, not a big one, just one to make him think his flamethrower was empty and that he had to stop and change tanks. That left the Slayer wide open...

    "Look at me, dearie." I sang to the dark Slayer, catching her in mid-swing. I waved my fingers in front of her eyes and kept crooning. "Be in my eyes. Be in me..." I whispered, holding her still as I leaned forward- now!

    "Flamare!"     the red witch cried, lashing out to burn me to a crisp. But I had my eye on her already, and so I ducked at just the right time for the dark Slayer's hair to catch fire instead of mine. She screamed in pain, dropping her spear to try and dampen the flames, and I turned and ran while I could instead of taking the time to rip her throat out because I didn't want to catch another spell in my back.

    And there we go. Just as planned.

    Oh, Daddy would have been so proud to see me manipulating people!

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    "Yeah!    " Cordelia cheered as she burned down another trio of vamps with the flamethrower Xander had scored. Wow, she was really getting into it. Then again, after all the weeks they'd been running us ragged we were all really getting into finally having a chance to lay into these creeps. First we'd stayed on the defensive because we didn't have a plan, then we stayed on it some more because we had to let them think they were winning for long enough they'd get cocky, and then Ms. Calendar snuck out of town to simultaneously make it look like we were starting to get deserters and go fetch Mr. Zabuto and Kendra in a way that couldn't possibly be eavesdropped upon by anything, and it had all let up to this. We'd suckered one of the big ones out of position and into our trap, we'd sweated his boss' location out of him, and now it was time to bring the fight to them. Payback was a pissed-off Slayer with her sister Slayer, our Watchers, and a really badass group of friends, and it was finally time for Kakistos to see just what kind of whirlwind he'd reaped.

    You'd think that giving one of our least experienced people the giant burning weapon would result in people accidentally being lit on fire, but to give Cordy her credit where it was due she was actually really good at keeping her mental focus even when she was wicked pissed off. Of course, that probably had something to do with her existing in a mostly continual state of pissed-off at the entire world but hey, she sorta grew on you after a while. Especially seeing as how in addition to being deputy cheer captain she also did most of the squad's choreography; she was legitimately experienced at keeping track of where everyone was on the field and knowing where not to move when, which was a great trait to have in the person shooting liquid fire all around your battle. Between that and my being the squad's high flyer for most of the past year, her and I fell into a rhythm almost as instinctive as the one I had with Xander.

    And then Amy got into the act, when she realized that using her telekinesis spell on the fire that was already coming out of the flamethrower took up a lot less energy than casting flame spells herself. Once they worked out that combo move then wow, Xander and I could basically take a coffee break because only their sneakiest and ambushiest were even living long to reach us at all. All Ms. Calendar had to do was cover Giles' back while he kept us pointed in the right direction through the tunnels and covered our backs when the vamps tried to flank us. Between that and the flame extinguisher spells her and Amy had brought to let us move through where Cordelia had just flambed some attackers, we reached the main chamber almost at the same time the other team did despite having been the heavy diversion trying to draw most of the fire.

    When we got there, however, we found out that it hadn't quite been that easy. Kakistos might have been so old-fashioned that he thought electric lights and running water were fads, but when it came to old-fashioned fighting he was no slouch at all. As soon as he'd figured out that we were a diversion for something, even if he hadn't known exactly what, he just pulled back his reserves into the main temple area and set them up in a formation so that whoever came in would get jumped from multiple directions out in the middle of the open floor. And our flamethrowers were the short-ranged kind because the long-ranged military kind didn't get sold in the farm supply store.

    But hey! No law says you can't learn from the tricks the enemy uses on you, and vampires were really not much with the picking up after their own trash. So while special-K down there was being all arrogant and speechy and trying to bait us into attacking on his own terms Giles had the idea of just scrounging up up a few empty whisky bottles they'd left laying around the living quarters, draining some of the fuel from the flamethrower tank into them, and throwing our own homemade Molotovs down from the temple balcony in the middle of their crowd scene. Worked for the cowboy brothers, worked for us.

    The big splashes of fire took out a couple dozen of the remaining ones, even if Kakistos seemed fire resistant enough to just brush out where his clothes caught fire. And with their formation broken and more vampire hunters than they'd ever dreamed coming at them out of the walls with flame throwers and magic, most of the minions turned and ran for whatever caves they thought they could go hide in. Amy used her telekinesis spell to smear the flaming fluid from the molotovs around enough to create a big ol' ring of fire around the central platform where the big guy had been posing all warlord styles, and we picked off his few remaining outriders with the long-ranged weapons. Then with a nice isolated arena we couldn't get interrupted in available for us to use Kendra and I nodded to each other, hefted our spears, and jumped down for the big boss battle.

    To be honest, if we'd come in expecting a normal vamp he'd probably have torn either one of us in half. This guy wasn't nearly as fast as the Master but dear God was he strong. Even just trying to minimally parry one of his shots felt worse than taking a straight punch in the face from the average vampire. He was hitting so hard that I didn't even bother sparing a neuron for actually listening to his big speech, I was saving all my mental effort on not getting pasted.

    I wasn't trained nearly as much as Kendra was with spears but I had done the quarterstaff workouts, so I switched to using those moves and trying to batter him and set him up for an easy impaling-

    -and then he broke my spear in half while I was trying to parry his overhand slam with the handle. I got taken down to my knees from that one, and Kendra had to go all-out attacker from his flank to get him off me long enough for me to get back up. Problem is, Kakistos managed to tag her while she was in the middle of one of her fancy combos and left her stumbling, so I had to charge back in-

    -which, ironically, is what turned out to win us the fight. With my spear broken I had to fall back on my sword instead, and I was really good with that. Like, could dodge around him all day while slashing and stabbing good. And that bought Kendra enough time to get back in the game, and when he turned his attention away to focus on the girl who could actually ram the big stake in him I taught him what a bad idea that was by suddenly dropping down low on one hand and doing a full sweep, going straight for the back of his leg.

    Now with as much force as I'd put into that swing and as sharp as my favorite sword was, I'd have taken the foot right off at the ankle of the average vampire. Kakistos was so old and so muscular that trying to cut through his leg was like trying to chop through a redwood. I barely got an inch of penetration on him... but that's why I'd gone for the back of his calf, because the big tendon ran right underneath the surface there. And I don't care how old and powerful you are, when you suddenly become the one-legged man in the middle of a fight with two Slayers then you have problems.

    Sure enough, he totally lost his balance and his rhythm as he frantically tried to support his weight on his only working leg. And even then his guard went down only for a moment, but a moment was long enough for Kendra to hit him once. And that's the thing about staking even the biggest bloodsucker - when it's clean in the heart, you only have to hit him once.

    "High five!" I cheered as Kakistos screamed and turned into an ash pile, and waved my hand up around in the air while Kendra just stared at me like an idiot. "... no, seriously, high five." I continued. "The gesture of celebration? Where two people who just won big both put their hands in the air and-?" I trailed off as I looked closer at Kendra and finally noticed what I'd been too busy to clue in earlier. "Kendra, what the heck happened to your hair?" Normally she had that really neat ponytail braid but now she looked like a cross between a drowned rat and a used campfire-

    "Your friend the little witch set it aflame." Kendra groused.

    "I was aiming at the vampire trying to kill you!" Willow shouted at us frustratedly as the gang finished up with the vamps who hadn't run. To save your life? Oh, and you're welcome!" she huffed.

    "Thank you for keeping Drusilla from killing me." Kendra said dutifully. "But you still almost blinded me! And Mr. Zabuto had to use up all of our holy water dumping it on top of my head to put de fire out!"

    "Ouch!" I said. "Xander, did you put the burn salve in the first aid kit?"

    "Got it!" he said. "Hey Amy, can you open up a gap here?"

    "Extinguo!" Amy called, and the ring of fire that had kept Kakistos trapped with us and away from possible reinforcements had almost half of the circle go poof. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Willow still pouting, and Ms. Calendar starting to lecture her - probably about having better aim when throwing fire spells into a melee. You see, this is why you normally put the fire-shooty person in the center of your group and had them aim out-

    "Thank you." Mr. Zabuto said, taking the burn salve from Xander and starting to smear it on. I didn't see any blisters or anything but parts of her head looked like a nasty sunburn. Ouch. Arm bitten earlier today, head burned now-

    "I still have a lot to learn, apparently." Kendra said, having caught me checking out her bandages. "Look at you. You don't have a scratch on you."

    "Maybe, but you should see the bruise collection." I snarked back. "And I had a lot more people covering for me than you did, as well as one hundred percent less friendly fire." I reassured her. "And after the Master I've sort of given up on trying to solo charge all the biggest guys unless I have to. But you go straight in like a Viking."

    "And yet your style works." Kendra countered.

    "Hey, you got the stake on Kakistos. I just got the assist." I replied. "And as for the finer points of fighting styles, we can compare notes over ice cream." I said. "Seriously, guys, celebration at the ice cream parlor, Watchers' treat!" I called out cheerfully.

    "I beg your pardon?" Giles said tolerantly. Yeah, I'd totally pulled this on him before.

    "Ice cream?" Kendra asked me confusedly.

    "You seriously have not had ice cream before." I said incredulously. "Okay, we have to fix this before we can allow you to leave our home sweet Hellmouth."

    "Mr. Zabuto?" she turned to her Watcher, asking permission like a little kid. Seriously, what kind of freaky training did he have her on that she didn't even get ice cream? I hurriedly polled all the guys and gals with my gaze, and the Scooby Gang lined up and started all giving him the guilt-trip stink-eye.

    "... maybe just this once." Mr. Zabuto finally caved, and I caught Giles grinning at me from behind him.


    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: I loved having the chance to write two experienced Watchers being all professional with each other, and to be able to skip over the whole catfight pissy drama that Buffy and Kendra had going with each other almost up until the day she died and just make them respected colleagues instead. Of course, as this Buffy's first impression wasn't 'Caught kissing a vampire', and Kendra was in Sunnydale with her own Watcher who was being all respectful and professional with the local Watcher and Slayer, she and Buffy had a chance to get off on a much better footing.

    As for Samuel Zabuto, he never appears on-screen (dunno about comics or semi-canon novels, haven't read) and we have very little on him besides his name, so I imagine him as an older version of Quarrel from the "Dr. No" movie in a suit and with Watcher-type diction, who's a very tough but concerned coach for his Slayer.

    And thus ends the Kakistos arc. But Drusilla and Mr. Trick both got away, even if he's not eager for any rematches.

    And no, this wasn't Drusilla's plan all along. This was just Drusilla's plan after her original plan was gong down the crapper because of sudden extra Slayer on the field. But Drusilla's good, if crazy, at planning even without psychic powers, and so she was here.

    Fun fact: Flamethrowers are indeed that legal in California. And now we probably know how the Scooby Gang canonically scored those two flamethrowers for the Graduation Day battle.

    Lastly, I wonder at people who thought that the Scooby Gang suddenly turned into fail piles without Jonathan because they are, even without him, still being far more professional and together than they were in canon. I suppose I keep forgetting that not everybody has actually seen the show, and that even many of those who have haven't reviewed it recently like I did to help me write this.

    The short version is, virtually all of the planning ahead, pincer tactics, combo moves, coordinating fire, basic military tactics, or even just basic remembering to pack a damn first aid kit on the expedition at all, is still way above what they were like on the show. Joss is great at drama, but he sucks at writing fight scenes or people who do fighting for a living.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 19) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    "Mister Fairchild." the 'Benefactor' taunted me.​
    ​
    "Go away." I said, peering around through the fog to try and find him. "I'm not dead yet, the jump's not over yet, and you can't be here."​
    ​
    "Is that what... the 'Powers That Be' told you?" his voice sneered at me. "Why would you believe them?"​
    ​
    "Well, there's a certain problem in waiting for objective proof when I'm caught between entities powerful enough to seamlessly falsify any arbitrary amount of evidence, at least on any scale that I'm capable of perceiving. So, since I've got no choice but to take things on faith then what else can I do but hope?"​
    ​
    "Such a... juvenile philosophy you've chosen to cling to." the 'Benefactor' replied.​
    ​
    "And whose fault is that?" I jeered back into the fog. "If you wanted me to think more like a grown-up, you shouldn't have 'chosen for me'."​
    ​
    "For as long as you keep blaming others for your mistakes, you will never truly improve." the 'Benefactor' replied. "I only set up the conditions to make this possible. You still chose to throw yourself in this trap."​
    ​
    "And trap's really the proper word, isn't it?" I shot back. "Two places, two honorable and strong and kind women to fall in love with, and you setting it up both times. My ignorance of the games you'd play in Girl Genius, and my Drawback-enforced decision making process here. No matter what decision I make, I forfeit my honor."​
    ​
    "Indeed. Far kinder for you - and to yourself - to simply abandon it."​
    ​
    "And now I know that I'm talking to my own subconscious, the real you wouldn't remotely give himself away that easily." I sighed. "Angel was right; this entire chain is a giant-sized version of what he did to Drusilla, isn't it? Stripping away her original beliefs and her self-image piece by piece, hounding her, gaslighting her, until she finally shattered and could be reconstructed in his image before he finally turned her into a vampire and froze her like that forever. This is a trap of honor that I'm intended to escape by chewing off my own leg, like an animal. To become an animal, living only for what gratifies me or preserves my own life. And that's your real goal."​
    ​
    "What a ludicrous theory. If I wished to change you in such a fashion, wouldn't I have the power to simply reshape your mind directly?"​
    ​
    "Drawbacks don't last after the jump is over." I shot back.​
    ​
    "And yet you remain unable to take Companions." his voice sneered in reply.​
    ​
    "But even All By Yourself still won't last after the chain is over." I said in realization. "That's the key, isn't it?"​
    ​
    "Good job of figurin', kid." Whistler's voice broke in. "But you've gotten as close as it's safe for you to get right now, and you got other problems as well. You'd better wake up!"​

    And my eyes snapped open, and I realized I was lying in a hospital bed and wired up to life-support machines.

    A quick attempt to wiggle my arms and legs revealed that nothing was paralyzed but that I was still horribly, horribly weak. I could barely move. Judging from how utterly my muscle tone was destroyed I must have been lying comatose for weeks. Good thing I had the implied physical boosts from being a Spark or else I'd barely be able to roll over right now. As is, it'd probably be like doing a marathon just to stand up and walk across the room-

    A pained whimper made me look over at my roommate. In the bed on the other side of the hospital room rhere was a ten-year-old boy wired up with sensors almost like I was, although he wasn't hooked up to any oxygen. And there was a-

    Christ, it never ends, does it?

    The surge of adrenaline gave me just enough oomph to swing my feet over and roll out of bed. I popped loose the sensor leads monitoring my heartbeat and EKG as I staggered up, and snatched the pen off the clipboard hanging at the foot of my bed. The demon kneeling on top of the boy in the adjacent hospital bed was feeding off of him via- oh gross, its eyes were literally coming out of its damn head on stalks!

    I was shuffling like a little old lady and my arms felt like limp noodles, but Well-Seasoned let me use the remaining dregs of my strength with perfect operational efficiency and No Weapons, No Friends, No Hope augmented my willpower to keep me going even on empty. And between the fact I'd had both Violetta and Angel teach me how to move silently and the demon's being so wrapped up in feeding on the kid, it had zero awareness of me walking up behind it. At which point I simply stepped- okay, more like stumbled- into the edge of its field of vision from the side, then concentrated everything I possibly had left into a single swift arm movement that rammed the pen directly into the empty eye socket and up into its brain before it could react. It shrieked, reared back up away from the kid, and then rolled off the other side of the bed and hit the floor with a thud.

    "You all right, kid?" I asked him blearily, as he stared up at me wide-eyed. He nodded slowly, once.

    "Good. I'm gonna pass out now." I said, and did just that.

    * * * * *​

    I woke up back in a hospital bed, to warm arms wrapped tightly around me and the familiar smell of someone's favorite conditioner.

    "That better be you, or I'm going to write one hell of a complaint about the nursing staff." I joked weakly.

    "Jonathan!" Amy said tearfully, and the next thing I knew we were kissing and we only broke apart after oxygen became an issue. "Hey." she whispered, staring down at me.

    "Hey." I said back. "So, what happened? The last thing I remember-"

    "We got hit by a truck." Buffy's voice cut in, and I looked up to see her and most of the rest of the gang standing around my hospital bed. Cordelia, Willow, and Ms. Calendar weren't here but pretty much everyone else was. "And it wasn't an accident."

    "Crap." I husked. "They've escalated that far? And I won't be combat-effective for weeks at least-"

    "Fortunately, that situation has been resolved." Giles said. "It was an ancient vampire named Kakistos, the latest claimant for the position of vampire warlord of the Hellmouth. He's been destroyed, his lieutenants have abandoned him and fled, his forces have been scattered."

    "You had a huge fight, and I missed it?" I joked weakly. "Okay, officially depressed now."

    "We'll save you a space at the next one." Xander said cheerfully. "And for the record, it was a lot of the stuff you helped train us in that saved our butts during this one."

    "Oh, just wait until you hear about the flame throwers." Amy said with a little grin. "Cordelia went nuts with hers."

    "You gave Cordelia a flame thrower." I said incredulously. "How much did I miss?"

    "Almost two months." Buffy said seriously. "So, starting at the beginning-"

    And so they caught me up on the whole story vs. Kakistos, and Mr. Trick, and Drusilla. Damn. Our little Scooby Gang had definitely shaped up into a crack professional demon-fighting unit. Even Willow's friendly fire incident wasn't that huge a bobble on the shape of things; while it should never have happened and while she certainly needed her overconfidence trimmed a little, our resident magic instructors had put their feet down and slammed the brakes on her studying further magic until she could finally get caught up on the combat practicals she'd been consistently noping out of. Once I was back in shape enough to teach then I'd start working with her on that; until then she was at least paying attention to Xander as he walked through her the basics.

    There'd also been something about a crazy android going after Mrs. Summers that I was unhappy to have missed; I could have done something with that kind of technology to play with. As is, by the time I was awake again it had long since been scrapped and all the stuff in its house had likewise been taken away to be disposed of by the crime-scene teams so que sera sera.

    As it turned out, the demon I'd killed before it could finish draining my roommate was some kind of invisible creature that only sick people could see and that fed on children. The gang needed Amy to do a revealing spell just so they could see its corpse long enough for Buffy to haul it down into the basement and toss it into the incinerator, but that chore was handled readily enough.

    It took me several days more before I could get discharged from the hospital, and even then I wasn't cleared to live alone. Since Angel was still out of contact in Africa I moved back into my original house in with Giles. The 5x training boost from You Are Extraordinary meant that I'd be able to get back into fighting shape in a little over one month as opposed to the five or six months it would have taken anyone else, but after almost two months' in a coma I still had a lot of physical therapy and rehab before I'd be anywhere near fit to patrol again. Compared to that grind catching up on all my missed schoolwork was no problem; between my previously spotless academic record and the understandable circumstances surrounding my absence, Principal Flutie was entirely okay with passing me to senior year anyway provided that I took enough summer school to catch up on anything I couldn't test out of. And since I could easily test out on all of it except a few of the lab requirements... well, I hadn't been going anywhere this summer anyway.

    Oz's own basic combat training, which I could at least kibitz for even if I wasn't quite up to demonstrating most of the practicals just yet, was interrupted by his developing a sudden case of lycanthropy. Turned out that his cousin was a werewolf and that his being bit while babysitting him was enough to transfer it. Fortunately, his already being part of the gang meant that he came to us immediately after the first transformation hit to get our help in dealing with it. We got ourselves some tranquilizer guns and a couple of sturdy cages to keep in both the school and Giles' house as a stopgap solution, and added 'find method of controlling lycanthropy' to the long-term research projects list alongside all our other to-do items there. The would-be werewolf hunter that came to town looking for trophies was dealt with as easily as luring him out and then calling the Department of Wildlife on him. California law was rather firm on the topic of hunting in state parks and as soon as the game wardens caught him with that high-powered rifle and those pelts in his truck out in the forest preserve he was up for spending the next five years as a guest of the state.

    As for school drama, there wasn't much that we didn't easily handle. Xander had joined the swim team on the grounds that it was the best overall conditioning experience and also that they had an opening, and when the coach had started up with the crazy steroids he'd taken it straight to Giles, who'd taken it straight to Principal Flutie, with the end result of the coach being fired and a couple of the worst offenders on the team being expelled. The swim team wasn't winning any championships now but neither was it full of the worst of the worst sort of jock bullies, so win-win. Even the bit with the tragic ghost murder-suicide teacher-student relationship thing from the 50s was a bobble for us; one of the ghosts had chosen to possess me, and Mind Control Immunity meant that it couldn't make me do anything and that I could get the whole story from its mind. So all our practitioners got together for a sort of exorcism-cum-talk-therapy session where we materialized the spirits and let them finally finish their drama with a chance to talk it out, and they both went on to whatever afterlife they were up for. And thus wrapped up a tragic tale of teenaged obsession, forbidden love, and idiots who couldn't keep their damn fingers outside the trigger guard before they'd already decided to fire.

    I'd entirely missed meeting the new Slayer Kendra or her Watcher, but since Buffy and her had become pen pals and she had an open invitation to return to the Hellmouth to cross-train and catch up whenever the press of her duties allowed I was sure I'd get a chance to meet her later. Running the after-action analysis of the campaign vs. Kakistos left me with a very good impression of where the Scoobies were even without my day-to-day input; there were a few things we could still work on and a couple of skillsets that were still largely unique to me, but overall they'd done very, very well. I imagined that soon enough - within a year or two - they wouldn't really need me at all.

    No wonder Whistler had warned me not to get too at home here. I could already dimly foresee that the Powers That Be would have other things they wanted their temporary Champion to handle- I hadn't missed the part where Whistler had apparently snapped me out of my coma at just the right moment to deal with that 'der Kindestod' demon, for example- and I supposed that soon enough they'd be asking me to leave Sunnydale to do them.

    So yeah, after Kakistos basically everything was going great and the school year wrapped up entirely without incident. By mid-summer my rehab was fully complete and I was in at least as good a shape as I'd ever been. Everything was going fine.

    Except for that one thing.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    How dare they?!?

    One mistake, one tiny mistake that anybody could have made, and suddenly nothing I do is good enough? Now I have to go back and do all my remedials again? And all those useless hand-to-hand exercises? Like my learning how to throw a punch would have helped me aim my spells better! And telling somebody my size to go and punch someone was just a cruel joke! Just like in grade school when Cordelia and her mean girls arranged for me to get the lead role in the school play knowing I had stage fright, it was pushing me out to do something they knew I wasn't equipped to do just so they could watch me mess up!

    I couldn't believe that Xander of all people would participate in doing something like that to me but I guess everybody had their price. After years and years of knowing what it was like to be on the outside like me he finally got himself a hot cheerleader girlfriend and Cordelia's approval and joined the swim team and voila, he's living the high school dream just like all the other plastic people and has entirely forgotten where we came from and what we shared.

    And let's not even talk about the rest of those ingrates. I saved Kendra's life and all I got was one barely thank-you that sounded like it was being dragged out of her with pliers and a ton of complaints for not doing it 100% perfect. I'm the one who dug up the plans for the temple-cave in the first place when nobody else could hope to get them and Buffy gets all the credit for making the brilliant battle plan of 'split up and hit 'em.' I worked harder and longer at studying and doing magic than anyone and Amy gets all the credit just because she's sucking up to the teacher and was lucky enough to get that blessing spell to work for her. Some days it felt like Oz was the only person in the world on my side or really grateful for what I did, and even he had his own life to take care of some of the time what with his music and his band's performing schedule and having to repeat his senior year classes.

    But I wasn't stupid enough to not figure out that the only thing standing up for myself right now would do is get me kicked out of the group. And that would mean my ability to learn more magic would get cut off totally, because the only people around who could teach me and the only magic libraries around I could learn from were all under the control of the gang.

    So I kept my head down and I pretended to be the good little girl and I sweated through all their stupid useless summer school lessons again and tried to pay attention to anything that might actually be useful to know later, because I could be patient and I could definitely be smart. Smarter than any of the rest of them, especially not certain lying cheaters who lied and cheated with enhancement pacts.

    I'd even thought I'd found out how he was doing it when I turned up a 'superstar' spell that would rewrite things to make anybody who cast it the coolest and awesomest around, until I figured out that the side effects of casting it would materialize a demon from the id all Krell Machine styles to start attacking people. And nothing like that had been happening around Jonathan at all so it can't have been the spell he was using. And sure, I was tempted to give it a whirl myself, but that temptation was stupid. I mean, what would happen if a new scary monster showed up? Easy answer: Buffy would charge right off to try and slay it, and then after they figured out it was a summoned creature Amy would do her little tracking spell thing to find out who'd summoned it, and boom, there I'd be all caught red-handed. So nope, couldn't risk it.

    But even if that wasn't the answer I seriously had to find something to cut myself a break with, and soon. Because a girl could only take so much of this crap.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    "You are not an Asphyx Demon." I glared at the big silver spiky guy who'd represented himself as the 'Steward of the Demon Trials'. It had taken me a long time to find my way here, chasing rumors and ghosts and a near-endless succession of guys who knew a fiend who knew a guy, but I'd finally made it here to this little hidden cave on this remote part of the African coast near Tanzania. But the guy I'd found here had not been the person that I'd been told to expect.

    "Yeah, but you're not the average demon either." he replied. "You've got a heavy destiny ahead of you, Angel. So they sent me to make sure you were guided properly."

    "I don't recall introducing myself." I said suspiciously. "So why don't you?"

    "Name's Skip." he said amiably, holding out his hand for me to shake. "I work for the Powers That Be."

    "Nice to meet you, Skip." I said insincerely, not taking his hand. "Now where's Lloyd? You know, the guy who's supposed to be here?"

    "Look, is there really any reason to be so suspicious?" Skip cajoled me. "You came here to make sure your soul curse would never wear off, right? Why would the Powers possibly be opposed to that?"

    "So, you're telling me that they sent you here to shortcut the process?" I said. "Give me a permanent soul as a reward, for all my Champion-ness?"

    "Exactly!" Skip was quick to agree. "So, do I have your permission to do this ritual?"

    "Well, I came all this way." I snarked back, and opened my arms invitingly.

    Skip smiled at me and raised both his arms and started chanting in some ancient demon language even I'd never heard before. I felt his spell start to wrap around me, and build, and the touch of some ancient Power, and then- arrggggggh! Man, even swallowing Eyghon hadn't ripped my guts out like this!

    I opened my eyes from where I'd been brought to my knees to see Skip grinning wickedly down at me. "Need a hand there, Angelus?" he said, sticking his out to help me up.

    I grinned wickedly and took his hand, starting to lever myself up, before I feinted trying to pull him down into a neck-breaker and he disengaged and ducked back. I grinned up at him. "Oh come on, I had to try!" I said with my trademark sadistic chuckle.

    "So," Skip said as I finished standing up on my own. "Not that you're famous for being Mr. Fair Play, but hopefully you'll agree that after going to the effort of freeing you my boss at least deserves a hearing, right?"

    "Well, gee buddy, here's the thing-" I said as I turned and started to walk away. "How's about we don't and say we did?"

    "Look man, just because you're a soulless demon doesn't mean you have to-" Skip said, walking up behind me, and just at the right moment I turned and dropped down into a legsweep. Given that he had at least a hundred pounds on me I didn't knock him down but I did knock him staggering, and that left him wide open for me to come up into a handspring kick that sent him back down the beach.

    "Did you think it was going to be that easy, genius?" I taunted him, reaching underneath my collar to haul out the little glowing globe that I was wearing around my neck. "Pre-enchanted Orb of Thessula, set up to catch any soul-removal curse I might get hit with and absorb 'em into there instead of letting them hit me! Because it's not like a guy heading off to make a deal with a demon in a cave might not take some precautions versus betrayal or anything! What, did you think I was fledged yesterday?"

    "You son of a bitch!" Skip swore. "And to think we thought that your soulless you would be the troublesome one!" He cracked his neck and flexed his knuckles. "All right, if we can't trick you into it then I guess I'll just have to pull that soul out of you the hard way."

    "Hit me with your best shot, cupcake." I grinned at him as I popped my fangs, and then we got down to it.

    Skip was bigger than me, stronger than me, and experienced enough at this that he didn't make any amateurish mistakes. And even as early as a couple years ago that might have been enough. But back then I hadn't met someone who'd been advanced enough at martial arts that he'd been able to show how leverage and momentum control could use an opponent's own strength against them even when that opponent was as strong as a Slayer, so all I had to do was adapt the tai chi principles I already knew for redirection instead of balance and leave Skip wasting his strength punching the air. Of course, given that he was a big spikey metal-skinned demon its not like my punching him was doing much damage either, but...

    ... ah, there we go. He was starting to huff and puff a little with the exertion. So, he was one of the demons who still breathed oxygen. And being undead, I wasn't. And here we were, fighting on a beach and all, in the surf. So I circled around to put the ocean on my back, then deliberately 'slipped' to bait Skip into charging in for a tackle. Turtle over on my back at just the right instant, kick up and out, and send him flying right over me and into the ocean- bingo!

    He went splash, I was up and on top of him before he could get to his feet, and then it turned into a good old-fashioned wrestling match. Up to our armpits in water. When only one of us needed to breathe. So I eventually got him wrapped up in a choke from behind and got him under, and held him under, and soon enough he started wriggling as desperately as possible and then started choking out.

    "All right, Skip!" I said, hauling him back up just far enough to breathe once he'd gone almost totally limp. "Who are you working for, and why are they so up for me losing my soul again?"

    "Go pound sand." Skip shot back weakly. "Oh wait, you already did-"

    That got him another minute or so underwater.

    "Did you know the Japanese tortured POWs like this in World War II?" I told him after bringing him back up again. "Almost drowning them over and over and over again. Until they either talked, or finally died, or went crazy. It was a tactic almost worthy of my demon. Now, do you want to talk, or do you want to choke?" I emphasized with another yank on his windpipe.

    "Fuck you!" he gasped. "Do you know what happens to me if I do talk?"

    "Let me guess, the old 'you beg for death but it never comes' deal? Yeah, that sounds traditional for demon lords."

    "Pretty much." Skip gasped. "So it doesn't matter how much you work on me, you won't get anything. I'd only dig myself in deeper if I tried."

    "All right then." I shrugged. "If you can't give up your boss, and you won't stop coming, then you know what happens next."

    "Yeah." Skip nodded. "Well, it's the chance we all take in this business."

    "That it is." I agreed. "So no hard feelings?"

    "See you in hell, Angel." Skip said agreeably, and then I twisted his neck a full 270 and he went limp.

    "Hey Lloyd, you in here?" I called out as I entered the cave, dragging Skip's corpse behind me with one arm. I grabbed a burning branch from the little campfire that had been set in the cave mouth and started checking around the back, eventually finding a bound and gagged Asphyx Demon shoved into the corner. Big ugly scaled sucker, bigger than me or Skip, glowing green eyes and all. Yeah, that was the 'Lloyd' I'd been told to expect all right.

    "Thank you." he gasped after I untied him. "The mercenary, where is he?"

    "Well, if a broken neck kills his kind then where he is is called 'dead'." I answered the shaman. "Although if you've got an axe I can borrow I was thinking decapitation, dismemberment, and then burning the pieces to make sure."

    "A wise precaution." he agreed. "Why have you come, and why does the emissary of the Rogue Power seek to stop you?"

    "The 'Rogue Power'?" I inquired.

    "Long ago, one of the Powers That Be was rumored to have turned against the designs of her kind. She was cast out by them, but they cannot directly interfere in her designs just as she cannot directly interfere in theirs." the shaman said.

    "I'm guessing that hiring 'mercenaries' like ol' Skip here is part of how she cheats the 'directly'." I thought out loud.

    "Indeed." the shaman confirmed.

    "So," I said. "I'm Angel, and I came here to assay the Demon Trials and make sure that my soul would remain because it was a permanent part of me, not because it's only stuck on by a doubtful gypsy curse. How soon can I undergo them?"

    "You saved my life by defeating an emissary of the Rogue Power in single combat." Lloyd the demon shaman replied. "And by doing so you have utterly derailed her last attempt to salvage her plan concerning you and this world, forcing her to wait another age before trying again. That more than counts as trial enough to earn your reward."

    "I really hope you're not jerking my chain here, because my one-shot safeguard already got shot." I sighed. "But at least you're the guy I was told to expect being here, so... what the hell."

    "Hell will have very little to do with it, Angel." the shaman nodded. "But yes. You have sought, and you have struggled, and you have triumphed. Now receive your reward." he said, before placing his hand on me and having it glow white with power. "Reaffirm your soul!"

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And that's season 2, everybody! And yes, that was the plots of 'Killed By Death', 'I Only Have Eyes For You', and 'Go Fish' being popped before they even really got started.

    And yup, that sound you heard was Jasmine's entire plan dying in a fire. Sending Skip to remove Angel's soul was the last-ditch effort to get things back on track, but Angel was one step ahead of him. So now this timeline doesn't have to deal with any of her bullshit anymore, not for a long long while. :)

    And now you know why the PTB are being so relatively generous with Jonathan. His intervention saved them a ton of trouble, however inadvertently, and in a way they were not allowed to arrange for themselves.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 20) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    "So, do you think it's vampires?" Amy asked me from where she was riding shotgun in my new car. With my old one a battered wreck that could barely even be sold for scrap once they'd dragged it out of the lake, I'd spent a chunk of my savings on buying a nice, sturdy hunk of Detroit steel for my second vehicle. I'd picked up the '87 Dodge Charger cheap on the used car lot, then bought a hunk of salvage parts from the junkyard that Xander's Uncle Rory ran and spent a solid week allowing my Spark to go off the chain tearing the vehicle down to the frame and rebuilding it into a precision-tuned barely street-legal interceptor. Anybody who wanted to run me off the road in this baby was going to have to work at it. Plus, it looked really, really cool.

    "Probably." I agreed. "One missing person at a time, every few days? Drawing only from a population of people already living mostly unrecorded and unregarded? It's more patient than the vampire average, but that kinda spells 'demonic predator' more than it spells 'the hazards of living on the street'. Still, we won't know for sure until we get there."

    "What do we do if it is normal life?" Amy asked.

    "Tell the police, and give her a ride out to somewhere safer." I sighed.

    "As bad as Sunnydale gets, you don't like to think about how bad it must be in places that don't have Slayers or Scooby Gangs." she said sadly.

    "I think the Hellmouth concentrates everything." I replied. "The bad gets worse, and the good gets better to keep up."

    "You've got a point. But isn't the usual solution to that historical dilemma for the good to start getting as nasty as the bad?" Amy questioned.

    "Not if it wants to stay good." I said softly. "But hey, it can't be as bad in LA as it is in Sunnydale, can it? I mean, it took them how many months to find new demon trouble down here? In Sunnydale they wouldn't have gone a week before the scavengers found them."

    "Here we are." Amy said, pointing out the window at the diner we'd been told to meet her at - 'Helen's Kitchen', the sign said. I found a parking spot and fed the meter, and then we both walked down the street and into the diner.

    "There she is." I said, nodding at the girl our age with long, stringy blonde hair sitting in the corner with a thin, nervous-looking young man sitting next to her. Her face was familiar; we'd met briefly once before.

    "Chantarelle?" I said to her, as we drew up to their table.

    "Oh!" she said, startling and looking away from her boyfriend to see us. "You came!"

    "You phoned Giles for help." I replied, as we both took our seats in the booth. "I'm Jonathan, and this is Amy. Chantarelle we already know... and you are?" Inquired.

    "Ricky." she introduced us. "And I go by Lily now."

    "Nice to meet you, Lily. Ricky." Amy said. "So-"

    "Take your order?" the waitress interrupted us.

    "Uh, we don't have much-" Ricky began.

    "I'll cover it." I offered, and they thanked us and we all got ourselves a hefty lunch. "So, what's wrong?"

    "Okay, you know that after the thing in Sunnydale your team gave me some contact info for the runaway people down here." Lily began diffidently. "And it helped for a little while, but then the city had budget cuts and they stopped. So..."

    "There's places you can crash." Ricky broke in after Lily had trailed off. "Other kids like us you can group up with. We find temp work where we can; we don't do anything illegal, no gang stuff. And there's abandoned buildings or unused places we make crash pads in."

    "And then people started going missing." I said.

    "Yeah." Lily agreed. "And not the normal way. People come, people leave, there's a rhythm to it. But you lived in Sunnydale; you know what it feels like when something weird is happening. When people just keep going away and new people aren't coming."

    "Lily believes that vampires are real." Ricky said skeptically. "I'm not sure about-"

    Amy waved her hand, and the silverware in front of Ricky lifted an inch off the table and stayed there. Nothing dramatic enough to catch the eye of anyone else in the diner, but more than enough to leave him staring.

    "Magic's real." I said simply. "Touch 'em, there's no wires there."

    Ricky dazedly waved his hand under and around his floating fork, then stared up at us wide-eyed. Amy cancelled her spell and let the silverware float back down to the table.

    "This is why I keep saying don't go out after dark," Lily nudged him worriedly. "The supernatural stuff- it's out there!"

    "Wow." Ricky said, still stunned.

    "So, these missing people." I turned to Lily. "Can you give us a list?"

    * * * * *​

    "Ugh, I wish we could have at least washed these first." Amy said, as she came out of the thrift store's bathroom wearing the scruffy hand-me-downs we'd each picked up there. "I know the store said they laundered everything, but-"

    "I agree, but walking around this neighborhood dressed like suburban high school students was turning out to be a complete failure to blend." I replied as we left the store. "At the rate we were going, we'd eventually get the LAPD picking us up because they thought we were uptown kids slumming down here to score drugs."

    "I'm still not used to a city where the police actually pay attention to things." Amy semi-apologized. "So, what have we found?"

    "Outside of the several homeless people we all found chanting 'I'm No One'?" I said. "Not much."

    "That was weird." Amy said. "And we're looking for weird."

    "It is." I agreed. "I called Giles and asked him to start hitting the books about if that catchphrase had any significance in prior encounters, demon cults or anything, but-"

    "Yeah." she agreed. "So, it's almost sunset. Do we find a motel room or troll the streets as vampire bait?"

    "I still can't believe your dad let you go out of town, with me, by ourselves." I replied tangentially.

    "Well, the whole Kakistos thing kinda forced the pace on us there." Amy said. "He doesn't like that my life is inevitably tied up in all the supernatural stuff now, but he accepts he can't change it. And he's smart enough to accept that if we haven't used the whole bunch of time we've already had together outside his supervision to have sex, we're not likely to just because we left the Sunnydale city limits." She whistled and shook her head. "And wow, I had no idea about half the stuff my mom had done to him. I'd thought she'd messed with my head, but at least she didn't use spells to do that." She sighed. "I guess since she was planning on moving into it herself, she didn't want to break anything."

    "He is getting help for that, right?" I asked, both of us mutually agreeing to skip right past the 'raised to be a human sacrifice' topic like we usually did.

    "Ms. Calendar had some friends who knew about helping people recover from being cursed." Amy agreed. "He's spending some time with them while we're down here, in fact. I wish Mr. Giles' friends were having as much luck with mom, but-" she shrugged helplessly.

    "From everything we've been able to find out about her past- the unstable relationships, the trust issues and disassociation, the inability to get past juvenile obsessions, the mood swings- your mom sounds like a textbook case of borderline personality disorder." I sighed. "When you're talking about someone who was already mentally troubled before starting a self-taught career in black magic, that's a really bad combination of factors."

    "Like Marcie." Amy nodded sadly. "I wish we could have helped her more."

    "I-" I started to reply as we walked down the shabby side street, then stopped myself. The heavy silence stayed for a long minute between us before I started again. "I am really conflicted on Marcie. On the one hand, I have a lot of regrets for how that ended. But at the same time, I can't feel any real sympathy for her."

    "How so?" Amy said, turning me to in shock.

    "Because the first time I went through high school, in my original life?" I said. "I basically was Marcie. My social skills were horrible, and I felt awkward all the time. It took me going through adolescence another time and several useful perks before I finally felt entirely normal and self-confident in my own skin, and even now I hardly do 'normal kid'. Back then I withdrew so much that not only did basically nobody even remember I was there except the bullies, but I didn't actually know the names of most of the kids in my class. But as frustrating and as crazy as it got, as much as I got pushed around, I still never used that as an excuse to start hurting people."

    "You didn't have magic powers." Amy contradicted.

    "I still basically don't, and I'm the most dangerous person your age you've ever met." I pointed out. "And even back then I knew where my foster parents kept the guns- it was a farm town, everybody had them. But I didn't do it. I didn't even seriously think about it. Right and wrong don't actually change even when you're in enough pain that they're hard to see, and Marcie was still able to know one from the other right up until the point she decided to not care." I sighed. "I'd still have done a soft takedown on her if the circumstances would have allowed, but I have better people than her to lose any sleep over. I'm sorry if that sounds cold."

    "You're not talking about Marcie's situation right now," Amy said, taking my hand and tugging on it so that I'd stop and turn to face her. "You're talking about yours."

    "Yeah." I admitted. "And what Whistler helped me figure out during my coma, about the 'Benefactor's' real trap for me here."

    "Me." Amy said sadly.

    "My choices about you." I corrected her firmly, giving her a reassuring hug. "You did nothing wrong."

    "I know." she said into my shoulder. "And neither did you, really."

    "This would be a lot easier if I wasn't so stiff-necked about my 'honor'." I commiserated, as we stayed with our arms around each other.

    "But that's exactly what he's trying to start you thinking like." Amy pointed out. "Even if this one little compromise isn't actually wrong by itself, if you start the habit of making excuses when it's convenient-" she shook her head. "Normally the slippery slope is just an argument fallacy, but when you're dealing with magic then it can actually come true. That's why intent and the Threefold Law matter so much in witchcraft."

    "And when you've got a semi-omnipotent entity trying to turn your entire life into an extended gaslighting session, you have to be really careful about making even harmless-seeming compromises." I agreed. "Although in this case I've already made it, and now I'm stuck. Stay, go, indulge, don't indulge; it's like I have no choices that don't involve breaking my word one way or the other."

    "I suppose you don't." Amy said meaningfully, before clinching her arms around me harder. "But I'm not going to let that take anything away from us that we already have while we still have it, and neither should you."

    "You are an amazing woman, who will go on to do amazing things with her life." I said to her admiringly. "And I really regret that I won't be here to see you do all of them."

    "You're the one that helped get me started down the right path." Amy replied warmly. "So even when you're not here, you'll still always be a little piece of them."

    That one prompted a kiss, which led us to another-

    The fading light prompted us back into professional mode. "Sundown." Amy noted, as the reddening sun slipped behind a building and the shadows lengthened.

    "Time to put our heads on a swivel." I agreed, hefting our tote bag and felt the comforting weight of the weapons inside it. "You know, I can't wait until you finish figuring out that enchantment to change a weapon's size on command."

    "Yeah, making your sword able to turn into a pocketknife and back on cue?" Amy agreed. "That would let you carry it anywhere."

    "Definitely would be handy outside Sunnydale." I agreed. "So, how long do we play bait before we go find a room?"

    "We might just want to hit Lily's crash pad rather than rent a place." Amy said. "It'd let us do some more investigating as well as catch some sleep, and then we could get up for a pre-dawn sweep."

    "Makes more sense than trying to do it all this evening." I agreed. "After this afternoon, your feet have to be getting tired."

    "Little bit." Amy agreed, and then we both noted someone approaching. Not just being one of the scattered people still out and walking places on this street at this hour, but approaching us in particular.

    "Something's off about his aura." Amy whispered.

    "He's not a vampire," I whispered back. "Reflection in that store window."

    "Hey, you kids okay?" the strange man called out to us in a friendly voice. He was a handsome-looking guy in his early thirties, dressed in a wrinkled striped shirt and office slacks. A little above the usual level of this neighborhood, but nothing massively conspicuous.

    "We're fine." Amy said as we turned to face him, deliberately putting a nervous quaver into her voice.

    "You don't look fine," he said warmly. "Look, relax." he continued, putting his hands up and stopping at a non-threatening distance. "My name's Ken. I help run a shelter."

    "A shelter for...?" I inquired suspiciously.

    "For the sort of young people who show up in this neighborhood, dressed in old second-hand clothes and carrying all their worldly goods in a bag." Ken replied. "Hey, I'm not judging. Everybody gets a little low sometimes, and sometimes the best thing to do is to make a fresh start somewhere else. That's exactly why it's important for people to help each other when they're down. What's your names?"

    "I'm John." I replied.

    "Amy." she chimed in.

    "Look, I've got a leaflet that describes who we are and what we do." he said, reaching into his pocket to pull one out and hand it to me. "Do you guys have somewhere to sleep? Are you getting anything to eat? Because we've still got a couple of open places."

    "We know someone to stay with." Amy said. "Thanks, but-"

    "No pressure." Ken agreed. "We're not just about feeding the body at Family Home. Come on by later if you want. You might find something you're missing."

    "The other kids said that the city cut off funding to the runaway shelters earlier this summer." I probed. "Aren't you guys feeling the pinch?"

    "We're a private concern." Ken said reassuringly. "We just started up a few weeks ago, trying to help cover the gap the city left."

    "That's very nice of you." Amy said. "Maybe we'll stop by later?"

    "We'd love to see you." Ken agreed warmly. "Good luck out there you two!" he finished, and we made our good-byes and parted ways.

    "A new homeless shelter for runaway youth that just started up in the past few weeks." I said meaningfully after we'd turned a couple corners.

    "And Lily said the disappearances only started a few weeks ago." Amy agreed. "And all the disappearances were people our age. And something just sensed not normal about that guy."

    "So, show up for the prayer meeting later or sneak in after hours?" I thought out loud.

    "If he is the bad guy and he is taking them, then he's not doing it as soon as they walk in the door." Amy said. "Or else the pattern would have been obvious enough that Lily would probably have noted it."

    "And we don't have all week or month to spend down here waiting for Ken to spring his trap." I agreed. "Sneaking it is."

    * * * * *​

    We'd gone and caught a long nap at the crash pad that Lily and Ricky used, then headed back out circa 3am to do the breaking-and-entering. I had no problem picking the lock on the back door and so we entered the old multi-story apartment building that had been recently bought and converted into 'Family Home', a privately-run homeless shelter. Amy and I were both done up in full vampire-hunting rig.

    "Ken at least definitely isn't a vampire." Amy whispered. "This building has threshold protections; the homeless kids are transients and wouldn't form any, and that means at least one of the permanent residents has to be a non-blood demon."

    "Up has too many residents. And bad guys like to put things in basements." I agreed, and we both headed for the stairs downward. It didn't take us too long to find the creepy ritual chamber down there. Candles, occult diagrams, big creepy pool of black stuff in the middle- it almost reminded me of the Delta Zeta Kappa basement.

    "Ugh, the energies in this place." Amy said with a moue of disgust as she opened up her inner eye to take in the room. "It's demonic, all right."

    "So the kids who disappear, they're being sacrificed." I said, staring around the chamber. "Not a vamp nest at all."

    "This doesn't feel like a sacrificial chamber," Amy said, chewing her lip as she prowled around the room assensing. "I've been in one of those. This feels more like a-"

    The surface of the black pool began to ripple more vigorously as she drew nearer to it. I put out a hand to stop her, and reached into my pocket for a penny. "Track this." I said, and Amy tapped it and whispered the incantation for her tracking spell before I tossed it into the pool.

    "The spell cut right off as soon as it went through." Amy reported as soon as the penny sank beneath the surface. "It's either really far away, or not in this dimension anymore."

    "So that's a portal." I cursed as I did another circuit of the room, making sure nothing was sneaking up behind us. "Great. And since the missing kids might still be alive on the other side-"

    "We have to go through." Amy agreed.

    "If they slam that thing shut while we're on the other side, we're screwed." I pointed out. "Do you think you can do dimensional travel?"

    "All by myself? Not hardly." Amy said, as she very carefully knelt down at the edge of the pool to touch the ornately carved stone lip with one hand, while I maintained a solid grip on her other hand and braced to keep her from potentially being yanked in. "But-" she closed her eyes and concentrated, doing the best she could to sense and study the nature of the portal's energies. "They've kept this connection open constantly for weeks, and used it back and forth a lot. I'm pretty sure I could use the strong pre-existing correspondence between points to re-open it myself even if they cut off their own spell."

    "Right." I said, wrestling with myself. "Amy, my worst-case scenario is just being stuck for a few years. Yours is being lost for eternity. You don't have to-"

    I trailed to a stop at Amy's glare, followed by her firm headshake side-to-side, once, twice.

    "Just let me leave a message for Giles." I sighed, pulling out my cell phone. He wasn't remotely awake at this hour so I put a brief summary of what we'd found so far on his answering machine, along with the address of Family Home and the existence of the dimensional portal so he'd know where to start trying to find us if I hadn't checked back in by noon today.

    "You ready?" I asked Amy, and she flexed her fingers and nodded back at me. And then we both jumped.

    "Oof!" Amy said as she hit the ground heavily, not being quite up to taking an eight-foot standing drop like I was. The floor portal was a ceiling portal on this end; some greasy, grimy underground industrial space with a thick, oppressive atmosphere and the smell of a nearby foundry.

    "Well, at least it's not full of bugs." I said, sword out and checking all the corners of the room. "You all right?"

    "Just a little bumped." Amy said, getting back to her feet and looking up. "Okay, portal's still steady for now. But how do we get back up there?"

    "Ken has to have a way up there himself." I said, looking around again. "See if there's a ladder in that closet."

    Amy went over and popped the padlock with a spell, then opened the door to reveal a perfectly normal ten-foot aluminum extension ladder like the kind you'd find in any hardware store. I kept sentry while she hauled it over to the portal and set it up.

    "Let's go." she said, and we moved off as silently as we could to find out what was going on here. A little exploration rapidly turned up that what we were in was actually a foundry, some kind of demon factory that was a big sprawling complex set up over multiple levels. The portal room was at the top, and a long staircase and a mine elevator led down into the guts of the foundry. There were a couple of demonic guards patrolling, but they weren't very alert or very heavily armed. We hid in shadows and let them slip by rather then waylay them, because we still had no idea where the missing kids were and I didn't want to start any countdown clocks until I had to.

    "What is this place?" Amy said, as we crouched on a balcony overlooking the main factory floor. At this hour of the night it seemed to be deserted.

    I looked more carefully at the layout of the floor before answering, noting the presence of a few things I'd been at least halfway expecting to see ever since I'd noted that the patrolling guards hadn't seemed alert for armed intruders and all and had only been carrying clubs instead of swords- overseer weapons, intended to let you bully and police unarmed people but not really enough to deal with serious opposition. "Notice how the workstations all have those mounting rings set in the concrete nearby?" I pointed. "I saw similar arrangements in Europa for the labor camps. You use that kind of layout when you have to keep the workers in chain gangs."

    "So the missing kids aren't sacrifices, they're slaves." Amy realized. "Then the slave quarters have to be nearby."

    "The mine elevator." I realized. "It can't be for shipping the product out, because then they'd have to carry it all up a ladder and through the portal by hand and that's ridiculous. The elevator's there to move the workforce to and from shift. The slave quarters are above us."

    The slaves were indeed kept on the level above the factory, right below the portal. It was the middle of the night; apparently the demon slavers found it easier to just run one shift. If they were taking the kids one at a time off the street, then their major limitation on expansion would be the size of their labor force. So, not a large-scale interdimensional demon conglomerate thing. Good.

    There were two demon guards patrolling up and down the length of the hallway that all the slave cells branched off of. Amy got them both looking the other way down the corridor by telekinetically knocking over the weapons rack at one end of the hall, and then I easily stealthed up behind them and backstabbed 'em both.

    "Everyone!" Amy said, waking up the exhausted slaves as soon as the guards we're dead. "This is a breakout! Get up and get ready to move!"

    Ken or whatever his real name was had taken the basic precaution of not giving the cell keys to the guards, but as they were very old-fashioned mechanical locks I had no problem popping them open with a couple of handy probes from my Traveling Toolkit. "Time to go, people!"

    "But we can't." one of them said fearfully. "It's not allowed-"

    "Who's not allowing?" I said, raising my bloody sword as they stared at it in awe. "Those two dead guys over there?"

    "No, these perfectly live guys over here!" Ken's voice taunted us as we turned to see him standing at the entrance to the cell block flanked by half a dozen big uglies with swords, axes, and really sharp teeth. With his human disguise shed, Ken was revealed as the same sort of sallow-skinned red-eyed demon as the rest of these guys had been. "Do you really think I wouldn't notice if my portal had been used?"

    "And it still took you this long to find us?" I sneered. "Jeez, you suck."

    "Oh, we've got all the time in the world!" Ken boasted. "It runs a lot faster on this side of the portal. A hundred years is like a day! We can work these healthy young people until they're too gray-haired to keep up, then shove 'em back out the portal to rot. Dead of old age before anybody even notices they're missing. Not that anybody notices missing runaways like this in the first place; that's why we harvest them."

    "Your lips are moving, but all I'm hearing is 'blah blah I'm a monster please kill me'." I mocked them as I slowly marched down the corridor towards the menacing force of demons. "Okay, I can do that."

    "Oh, you've got balls." Ken sneered. "I wonder how they'll look, rolling across the floo-" and then he hit the floor choking as I got within range to put my throwing knife square in his Adam's apple.

    "And there goes your paycheck." I said matter-of-factly to the minions. "You know, with this operation closing out now it'd be a lot easier for you guys to just loot the till for your severance pay and leave. Don't let me stop you."

    "KILL HIM!" the biggest and ugliest shouted, and they all charged. Oh well, plan B it was.

    I threw Amy a specific handsign behind my back and then closed my eyes for a second, and her flashbulb spell went off on cue and left all these guys seeing spots. By the time they got their vision back I'd already gutted half of them, and having thinned the herd the other half didn't really take me very long.

    "Show's over, folks. Time to go home!" I called out, and after using Ken's key ring to finish unlocking all the cells the surviving slaves finally rallied and headed out behind us as we marched up the stairs to the portal room. We ran into a couple of rovers on the way up, but they didn't last much longer than their buddies had. By the time we were getting to the end we'd stopped running into any; the survivors must have finally decided to take my advice about just leaving while they could. Even the big heavy gate they used to isolate the portal room from below in case of possible slave rebellion wasn't much of an obstacle; I'd kept Ken's key ring just in case, and another one of the keys on it fit a nearby keyhole that was the gate release switch.

    Of course, when we actually got to the portal room the damn thing was closed. From what Ken had said about being linked to it, he must have been the original caster. So when I'd killed him-

    "We're trapped!" one of the girls wailed, and the couple dozen teenagers behind us all started to panic.

    "No we're not!" Amy said forcefully, holding up her hand and conjuring a ball of light in it. "I can do magic, and I can re-open this!"

    "We hope." I whispered to myself, and waited for several of the longest minutes in my life as Amy got some supplies out of her tote bag to draw a hasty ritual circle on the floor and start a prolonged chant in ancient Latin. Soon enough the blank surface of the closed portal above us began to glow and ripple-

    "Got it!" Amy said.

    "Everyone, up the ladder! Single file!" I called out, and with myself acting as straw boss to keep people from stampeding it only took us a few minutes to get them up the ladder and gone. And that left Amy and I standing at the bottom of the ladder, looking up at the rippling surface of the portal and then at each other. From the expression on her face, she'd been thinking the same thing I'd been thinking ever since Ken had started his speech.

    "A hundred years to a day." Amy said meaningfully.

    "Exactly." I agreed. "I mean, not here, but the spell formula for this portal has to be somewhere in Ken's office. I could use it to recalculate a dimensional vector, you could do the casting to bounce us off of that portal and to somewhere else with the same time differential but a lot more pleasant-"

    "Yeah." Amy agreed. "From what the jump document said, your allotted time here is measured by Earth's calendar. This dimension's timestream wouldn't count, neither would any similar one. We could find ourselves another place. A place where we'd have all the time in the world... where we could have a lifetime together."

    "Where I could actually stay long enough to finish keeping all my promises to you." I agreed. "Even the ones I didn't actually make, but just implied."

    "I'd miss my dad." Amy sighed. "And you'd miss Angel, and we'd both miss the gang. But-"

    "We're almost eighteen." I agreed. "The age at which young people are allowed to move out to find their own lives anyway. And 'lost in another dimension after saving a bunch of people' isn't a bad end for demon hunters. They'd mourn us, they might keep looking for us, but they wouldn't be broken by losing us."

    "We could really do it." Amy nodded, turning to face me.

    "Yeah, we could." I agreed, and we both embraced and kissed each other heavily, desperately. Like we both wanted to lose where each of us ended and the other one began.

    And then we separated, her green eyes staring into my gray. Just like the last time we'd made a key relationship decision together, we didn't need words to tell each other which one we'd agreed on this time. I nodded to her and she nodded to me, and then I drew her head onto my shoulder.

    "I love you." I said, my arms tightening around her again.

    "I love you too." she replied, squeezing me back.

    And then we broke apart and bent down to pick up our gear, and without a further word she turned and headed up the ladder while I held the rearguard. As soon as she was clear, I sheathed my blade and slung my bag over my shoulder and grabbed the ladder rungs myself, and climbed back up through the portal, back to 'Family Home' in LA and back to Earth. Back to where we were supposed to be, and where - regardless of what it might cost us - we ultimately needed to be.

    Because thankfully, even as the teenagers we both were, we'd still been wise enough to know that the one thing you couldn't trade for your heart's desire was your heart.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And now begins season 3!

    And yes, I stole Lois Bujold's best line again. I'm only gonna be using that one until the end of time.

    I'd angsted for a while on how the hell the runaways were going to get saved from the demon slavers if Buffy would never run away from home post-s2 to be there. For a while I'd thought I'd have to have Whistler throw in again, and that's a card I can't overuse. And then I figured out '... wait, Chantarelle/Lily/etc. parted on better terms with the Scoobies this time, so when kids started going spooky missing she could just call.' And so she did, and that set up everything.

    And yes the Teenaged Angst Drawback does say that eventually, with enough time and effort, you can grow out of it. You just saw the start of it.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 21) New
  • View content
    • Buffy POV:

    Angel had come back to Sunnydale shortly before the school year began. His soul quest had been a huge success; our magic people had cast the spells on him to make sure. But it turned out that some demon lord named Jasmine had had a scheme going to try and stop him from getting his curse fixed, which case Angel had spent most of his summer running down before heading back here. According to what he'd found out from consulting oracles and tracing the background of the one demon lord's minion that had tried to de-soul him, that plot was pretty well spiked by his having his new permanent soul so hooray for not having more Big Bads scheduled in our future. Apparently having a souled vampire that lost it and got it back was a part of the scheme.

    Our own long-term research project into Mayor Wilkins supposedly being a Big Bad had also begun to turn up some very suspicious stuff. For one thing, the man was over a hundred years old; he'd been posing as his own son and grandson to get re-elected to the Mayorship again and again. 'Richard Wilkins I' had originally founded Sunnydale back in 1899, 'Richard Wilkins II' had come along during and post-World War II to revitalize the town's economy and incidentally to found Sunnydale High School, and now 'Richard Wilkins III' had been running the town for the past few years. Same guy each time, but spaced far enough apart that unless you were deliberately comparing and contrasting photos all you'd see is 'Wow, the looks run in the family I guess'.

    Analyzing the patterns of how the town had been built suggested that it wasn't just the Hellmouth that made it vampire and demon central; everything from the sewer layout to the relative positioning of the warehouse district vs. the residential areas made this place a prime hunting preserve for demonic predators. And while we had no direct evidence of its existence- the size, age, and subtlety of the spells we were guessing existed on top of the cover provided by Hellmouth emanations meant that our best sensing magic wouldn't pick much up anyway- the general pattern of obliviousness that people both inside and outside had as far as putting the big picture together suggested that the 'Sunnydale Effect' we joked about might actually be some type of suggestion spell. So forget calling in the troops from outside town, not that we'd planned on doing that anyway.

    Jonathan shared the story of his being visited by an emissary of 'The Powers That Be' a little while before he'd gotten sidelined by the car accident, and being given a warning that major badness would happen if we stopped the Mayor before his Ascension. Turns out that Angel had also met this 'Whistler' guy a couple years before; he's the person who'd helped put Angel on the path to coming to Sunnydale and helping us out in the first place. I wasn't entirely how to deal with the revelation that there actually were supernatural powers of not-evil on top of all the demons and vampires and things I already knew about, let alone the part where they didn't seem to be doing much. Then again, our brain trust mostly seemed of the opinion that the Powers were doing things, just very very subtly. Me personally, I'd have a lot of questions for Whistler if I ever met him but outside of that I was going to stick to focusing on what was in front of me.

    Which was actually pretty slack. Summer was the dead season for the undead anyway, but after Nest, Spike, and Kakistos had all died in Sunnydale there seemed to be a lack of other ambitious vampire warlords volunteering for the position. The only local weirdness was some idiot guy who'd gotten into homebrew Jekyll-and-Hyde serums trying to impress his girl by being more manly and ended turning himself into a berserking monster, and although we'd handled that almost as quickly as we'd found out about it it was still a bummer how we'd found about it. When poor Mr. Platt, the school psychologist, had gotten beaten to death by that Pete kid- well, that's what had originally put us on the trail.

    And yeah, Amy was hit hard by that- even if she'd finished her therapy she'd still seen him for over a year, ever since the whole thing with her mom. Xander'd been going since last year as well. Even Willow had been seeing him a little bit over the past couple of weeks, even if we didn't know about what. And since we had no clue when the school district would get a new psych guy...

    Kendra was too busy to pay more than a couple of visits - since she was home-schooled and had no family or guardians outside her Watcher, she could travel freely. Between that and the fact that both Mom and Hellmouth meant I couldn't go anywhere, that left her taking all the hot spots that popped up on whatever map the Watchers had in their HQ. We still got to hang out a couple times and give her a vacation from solo Slaying, and we kept in touch when we could, even if her mail was kinda irregular. Giles and Mr. Zabuto also kept in regular contact. We still had no leads on what this 'Ascension' thing might be, after all, and we'd basically run through all the books and contacts we could touch in Sunnydale, so it was up to the Watcher grapevine and Angel making the occasional out-of-town run to LA and other places to try and tap the demon grapevine to try and turn us up a new clue there.

    So basically, the long-term questions were still long-term and in the short-term, the Slaying was going just fine.

    Which left me facing with the real challenge. How the heck did I beat Cordelia out for Homecoming Queen?

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    New school year, new classes, new drama, but same old mysteries. What was the Ascension? What were Mayor Wilkins' true resources? And how could we defeat him when we couldn't afford to take him out until after his plan had reached fruition, but he could try to push a button on us any time if he knew we were coming for him- which is exactly why we had to play oblivious and do our recon of him as slowly and subtly as possible.

    Grandma's Scheming told me that the best way to get inside of what the Mayor was planning was to get one of his senior minions to sell him out, so I needed to research his assistants. The old acronym MICE applied - Money, Ideology, Coercion, or Ego, the four classic motives of informants. So I had to start compiling profiles of who was who, what motivated them, what they had, and what they wanted. That was going to be a long-term project. Even longer given that among my many skills, 'private detective' wasn't one of them. Sure, I was reading up on the subject from the basic manuals, but for a job this sensitive and against opposition this potentially dangerous you didn't want to be a do-it-yourselfer for your rookie case. Which is why Angel and I were back down in LA on a Friday night, following up a lead.

    Oh, we'd stopped off to see how Lily and Ricky were doing first. Before we'd left Amy and I had primed Lily with a story to tell the cops about how 'Family Home' had been run by perverts and human traffickers who'd all cut and ran as soon as they'd found out that some of the kids had called the police on them, and the fallout of the investigation into the missing kids case around the 'Family Home Scandal' had shamed the city into turning the budget back on for some of the runaway shelter programs. Lily had actually volunteered to be a worker at one of the new shelters and seemed to be getting over her terminal insecurity and settling down. So, at least one story was having a happy ending.

    But, that hadn't taken us long to follow up on and now here we were, walking into a demon bar that we'd been told about, a place named 'Caritas'. Supposedly it had a sanctuary spell on it so that violence couldn't occur here, making it neutral ground where any two parties could meet without hostility.

    And when we saw exactly what informant who we'd been told had at least some information on the Mayor's office we were here to meet, well, that was definitely a good thing.

    "Mr. Trick." Angel said with a cold smile. "I've heard a lot about you."

    "The oh-so-famous vampire with a soul." he said, smirking up at us both from where he sat at a table. Wherever he was working now must be paying him very well; he was wearing a very expensive business suit now in a conservative dark blue color, nothing like the getup that Giles had described him wearing. "How does it feel, workin' against your own kind."

    "That's a real Armani." I said, nodding at his clothes. "New job paying well?"

    "I know you?" Trick said, looking at me.

    "You ran my car into a lake once." I bared my teeth at him. "Then some of my friends almost cut you to pieces, and you left town." I nodded down at where two hands were plainly visible on the table, indicating that he'd found someone down here with the sort of magical resources to regrow or replace a vampire's missing limb. "Not that you don't seem to be doing well."

    "Oh, very well." he replied with cold arrogance. "To be honest, I'm almost not upset about how that ended. Killin' my old boss was the best favor anyone's done for me in decades."

    "Speaking of favors." Angel picked up. "We put the word out that we'd pay for information. You're the one bringing it?"

    "Yup." Trick smiled. "I'm the guy who did Kakistos' negotiations with the Mayor's office when we moved into town. So I can tell you about at least two of the players."

    I wordlessly removed a half-inch thick wad of $100 bills from my pocket, and put it on the table with my hand still covering it.

    "Mayor keeps his own gang of vamps around for muscle, about twenty of 'em. Some of them even wear cop suits and do night shift." Trick began. "Guy who leads them is called Alphonse, don't know where he lairs. My read on them is that the Mayor picked 'em for patience and willingness to take orders, not power, so while they're not amateurs they're not major players either. Probably just the clean-up squad."

    "That's not worth all that money." Angel said mildly. "Got anything else?"

    "Second guy I dealt with was the secretary, he did arrangements, took messages, handled the detail work. Deputy Mayor Allan Finch, little nervous weasel of a guy. Human, no mojo that I could see or smell. But he definitely knows about the supernatural side."

    "I can imagine how Alphonse is kept onside." Angel nodded. "Any idea of what Finch's hook was?"

    "Man didn't share his life story with me, but you know how the nose knows." Trick replied to him. "Finch was scared. Man had fear stink on him all the time. Not just of me or Alphonse, but of his boss. So whatever the Mayor's payin' him in, reads to me like it comes alongside threats."

    "Is that all?" I asked mildly.

    "Wrote down all the rest," Trick said, reaching down to the seat next to him to bring up a manila folder which he handed to me. I opened up and quickly scanned the two sheets of typewritten paper inside; it was a summary of observations that Trick had made when he'd been doing his own negotiations with the Mayor's office, during which he'd begun the process of sounding out the Mayor's organization for possible weaknesses himself as part of his duties under Kakistos.

    "Here you go." I said, pushing the pile of bills across the table to him. Trick snapped off the rubber band, counted it to make sure all $10,000 was there, and nodded to us both.

    "Paid in full." Trick nodded. "And just as a bonus, I'll throw in some free advice." He smiled toothily again, then turned dead serious. "I don't give a damn what happens to either of you, but whatever you end up tryin' to do with Wilkins you make sure you get it done right the first time. Because I've met plenty of dangerous people, but that guy? One of the most dangerous of all of 'em, however harmless he tries to look. And whatever blowback you might end up bringin' down on yourselves, nobody wants it splashing as far south as here."

    "Thanks." Angel replied matter-of-factly. "Oh, and while you're selling information, heard any from Drusilla lately?"

    "Ain't seen hide nor hair of your crazy ex since the night before your Watcher buddies ambushed me in that alley." Trick said curtly. "Well, pleasure doin' business with you. May all your future visits to LA be as civilized as this one." he finished, and got up and left.

    "Well, that was comforting." I said after he'd exited the bar. "He's found a new patron down here, and whoever they are they're well and truly set up. It'd take a powerful vampire or demon to be master to a guy like that."

    "Even Kakistos barely managed." Angel agreed. "So whoever he's working for down here is either a major player, or by this time next year Trick will be running his own organization in LA. Neither one of those is a great possibility."

    "Well, it's not like we could kill him here." I said. "And he's too smart to hang onto those bills for longer than it takes to launder them, so we can't even have Amy use a tracking spell on the money."

    "At least we've got some starting points for our investigation into the Mayor's office." Angel replied. "Assuming he didn't just sell us a pack of lies."

    "Well, we'll find that out soon enough when we start running these down." I shrugged.

    "Hey folks!" a cheery voice broke into our conversation, and we looked up to see a green-skinned red-horned demon grinning at us all dressed like and acting like the frontman for a Vegas casino. "Your little business discussion go all right?"

    "We're good." Angel said curtly.

    "You can't be good, you haven't even ordered your drinks yet!" he smiled. "Come on, first time's on the house."

    "Coke, no ice." I said.

    "Bourbon on the rocks." Angel nodded.

    "You got it!" he said, and snapped his fingers for one of the servers to take our order. "So, I'm your Host. Call me Lorne. And both of you guys... damn." he finished expressively. "Either of you know what an anagogic demon is?"

    "Anagogic." Angel said thoughtfully. "That's aura-reading, right?"

    "Got it in one," Lorne said, inviting himself to sit down in our booth with us- well, it was his bar, I suppose. "I can pick things up about people. Where they are, where they're going, sometimes what they need to hear- thanks, sweetie." he said to the server as he arrived with both of our drinks as well as a Seabreeze for him. "And man, am I ever picking up some heavy vibes from you two."

    I just raised an eyebrow at him, Spock-fashion.

    "Champions of the Powers That Be, both of you." Lorned continued more seriously and quietly, looking at us. "That's one heavy load to pick up. Now me, I'm a lover, not a fighter." He waved his hands expressively. "It's why I built this place; to try and ease tensions a little. Give people from all walks of life-" he nodded at Angel "-or unlife a place where they could take a load off their feet for an hour or two, maybe clear their heads. And then there's the karaoke."

    "I- I don't sing." Angel said embarassedly.

    "Ah, but that's when the magic happens!" he said cheerfully. "I can pick up all kinds of things from people when they sing! Help them untangle their destinies, pass on any messages from the higher planes that might be trying to get through- oh, don't get me wrong, I'm hardly the Knowing Ones or anything but I've still got a touch of the second sight, and sometimes it helps. And people like you, ones with destinies the Powers themselves are looking at- you're the kind of people who need that touch more than most."

    "So, what are you proposing?" I asked him.

    * * * * *​

    ("Don't Stop Believin'", by Journey)

    Just a small-town girl
    Livin' in a lonely world
    She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
    Just a city boy
    Born and raised in South Detroit
    He took the midnight train goin' anywhere

    A singer in a smoky room
    The smell of wine and cheap perfume
    For a smile, they can share the night
    It goes on and on and on and on

    Strangers waitin'
    Up and down the boulevard
    Their shadows searchin' in the night
    Streetlight people
    Livin' just to find emotion
    Hidin' somewhere in the night

    Workin' hard to get my fill
    Everybody wants a thrill
    Payin' anything to roll the dice just one more time
    Some will win, some will lose
    Some are born to sing the blues
    Oh, the movie never ends
    It goes on and on and on and on

    Strangers waitin'
    Up and down the boulevard
    Their shadows searchin' in the night
    Streetlight people
    Livin' just to find emotion
    Hidin' somewhere in the night

    Don't stop believin'
    Hold on to that feeling
    Streetlight people
    Don't stop believin'
    Hold on
    Streetlight people
    Don't stop believin'
    Hold on to that feeling
    Streetlight people    ​

    I finished the final chorus and took my bow to the enthusiastic applause of everyone in the bar, then wiped the sweat off my forehead and stepped down off the karoake stand.

    "Whoa," Lorne said disbelievingly. "I have never picked up a reading like the one I've just gotten off of you, kid."

    "I'd be damn surprised if you had." I said matter-of-factly. "So, any messages?"

    "Your future is going places I can't even begin to see." Lorne replied, "And your past- whoo!" he whistled. "But a couple things did shine through as clear as a diamond, so that much I can give you."

    I tilted my head inquiringly.

    "First off, she is clearly an amazing girl and I would love to hear her sing myself someday." Lorne reassured me. "And don't you ever regret falling for her, or her falling for you. No matter what some other people might have thought they were setting up you both are legitimately better off that you chose to let it happen."

    "But it can't last." I said sadly.

    "You were a touchstone for her when she needed one, and she's a lesson that you still need to finish learning." Lorne replied enigmatically. "And don't ask me what lesson, because that part I didn't get. Just... keep your eyes open, and don't reject it when it comes."

    "Thanks." I said. "That actually does help."

    "It's what I'm here for." Lorne agreed. "You and your big friend here both. Now get yourself back home, the big dance is tomorrow and you don't want to miss it."

    * * * * *​

    Amy POV:

    Buffy and Cordelia drove each other, and everybody around them, completely insane with their little war over who would be Homecoming Queen. I actually got why they were doing it; both of them wanted to reassure themselves that they still had some ability to be normal left in their lives, and Buffy had apparently been on track to be the Queen of her own high school before she'd been called as the Slayer. Between that and Cordelia wanting to shore up her own reputation that she'd- I can't exactly say Cordelia's rep had started slipping since she started being a Scooby, as she hadn't actually forfeited any of her student leadership positions or prominence, but it had still started changing and so she was super invested in doing something normal to re-affirm her normal.

    Which would have gone a lot easier for the rest of us, me in particular, if Buffy hadn't been super invested in doing the exact same thing. As is, they'd spent all of Homecoming Week being a pair of total brats about it. Sometimes we wanted to laugh, but most of the time we just wanted to knock their heads together.

    Xander was lucky; he was Buffy's steady boyfriend of over a year and so even Cordelia accepted that was a valid reason for him to be entirely on Buffy's side. Willow's approval was courted only by Buffy in the first place, her and Cordelia having had that long-standing feud since kindergarten, and so that was that. Oz abstained, and that meant it was up to me and Jonathan to represent Cordelia's side. Which I suppose made sense what with me being an alumnus of the cheerleading squad and Jonathan being a varsity wrestler. So, the Scooby vote had been split 2-2-1 in favor of each candidate and that meant that no matter who won the gang would still be considered neutral territory when we all got back to Slaying next week, thank God.

    "Look, I just wanted to say 'thank you' for all the canvassing." Cordelia said as we both got ready in her bedroom for the big dance. My own clothing budget wasn't quite up to matching Jonathan's and you didn't let your boyfriend buy you your Homecoming or prom dress without incurring a heavy obligation, so I was being gifted with one of hers.

    "Hey, you know who we voted for." I said diplomatically. I certainly didn't want to give my real opinion that it didn't actually matter which of them won- Oz had already tried that and gotten so much flak from both sides that he'd decided to abstain from the election on the spot. I could learn from other peoples' painful experience, really.

    "I certainly did, and when my beautiful and terrible reign comes to fruition I shall generously reward my loyal subjects." Cordelia said hammily. "And speaking of loyal, how goes it with you two?"

    "It's going great." I said with a warm smile.

    Cordelia gave me a solid case of the stink-eye. "I know that tone of voice. And I remember how much trouble you had getting him to admit it in the first place. What's wrong now?"

    "Nothing!" I said. "Just-" I sighed. "One more year of high school, and then-"

    "And then the rest of your lives together." Cordelia said. "Look, I get that picket fences out of high school are kinda out of fashion here on the verge of the 21st century, but you two are not the usual high school romance. Why so glum?"

    "Did you hear what Jonathan said that Whistler told him?" I asked Cordelia. "About not becoming too at home here? I'm almost sure that after graduation, he'll be leaving Sunnydale."

    "So go with him!" she said. "If these Powers That Whatsit have a mission for him elsewhere, why can't he take his loyal partner along? You guys already had that one mission out of town over the summer and it worked out fine! And you'll be college age- that's when kids leave the nest anyway. I certainly intend to."

    "Yeah, it is." I agreed with her. "Well, we'll see..." I trailed off.

    "That's the spirit!" Cordelia said cheerfully, before a knock on the bedroom door cut off whatever she was going to say next.

    "Miss Cordelia," the maid called out. "The limo is here!"

    "Perfect!" she exclaimed. "Okay, let's go dance with our boys and knock 'em dead! And celebrate my inevitable ascension, of course."

    * * * * *​

    "And for the first time in the history of Sunnydale High, we have a tie!" Devon, our student announcer, said from the stage.

    Buffy and Cordelia both startled at that, and then turned to each other from where they'd been standing adjacent to each other but carefully not-looking at each other.

    "A tie." Buffy said guardedly. "A tie is good."

    "I suppose I can be generous and share." Cordelia said regally.

    "Looks like you missed out on your chance to single-handedly decide who the Homecoming Queen would be, Oz." Jonathan teased him, as Devon finished teasing the audience with the envelope and finally opened it to read out-

    "-Michelle Blake and Holly Charlestone!" Devon triumphantly finished his speech.

    "What?" every single Scooby present chorused in unison, before Xander was the first to lose it and just start laughing. Eventually we all joined in, loudly or quietly as was our particular milieu, except for Buffy and Cordelia.

    "We both lost." Buffy said in shock.

    "How the-" Cordelia sputtered. "What in-"

    "Amy, is there some wiggins going on here?" Buffy asked me. "Did somebody cast a spell on the ballot box?"

    "I think it was just a case of voting for what was safe." Jonathan slowly analyzed out loud.

    "Safe? Safe how?" Cordelia rounded on him frustratedly.

    "Most of this school is terrified of offending you," Jonathan replied, "and Buffy is herself very intimidating when she tries. Given a choice of pissing either of you off at the expense of the other one, I'm thinking there was a sudden run on voting for the compromise candidates instead. That way everybody goes into next Monday knowing that you're only generally annoyed at everyone, not pissed at them individually."

    "You're saying we lost because we tried too hard." Buffy said disgustedly.

    "Eugh!" Cordelia facepalmed. "And I had all those candy baskets made up and everything!"

    "Told ya it wasn't that important." Willow snarked at them, for once fearless in the face of their matching glares.

    "Okay, I give up." Buffy said. "Message received, universe! I guess I'm just not allowed to have normal things!"

    "Nonsense," Xander said quickly. "Here you are at this normal dance, dancing with your normal boyfriend, and feeling embarassed about a normal election. So who cares that neither of you won Homecoming? Both of you still win at life, and that's what really matters."

    "For once, he's right!" Cordelia agreed. "Besides, we've still got Prom Queen to go for at end-of-year." She paused for just the right dramatic moment, and then continued. "At which I'm totally going to beat your socks off, of course."

    "You know what?" Buffy replied. "You can have it. I was actually more worried about Monday than I was about tonight. You know, when we had to get back to Scoobying and one of us would still be wanting to strangle the other one with their tiara. At least we get to duck that and still be friends."

    "I suppose honor can be satisfied with a draw." Cordelia agreed with her, before bursting out. "Somebody please tell me that they've spiked the punch by now. I am feeling far too sensible to be a California teenager at her last Homecoming dance, and I need to fix that pronto."

    "I think I saw Mitch get out his hip flask a few minutes ago." Oz pointed out. "So, who wants to join me?"

    So we drank- oh, not that much, just a little- and laughed, and danced, and eventually headed home. Jonathan's new car ran like a Swiss watch as he pulled up in front of my house, and he walked me up to the porch where we did our traditional end-of-date snog.

    And then I screwed my courage to the sticking place, hauled a little vial out of my purse containing a potion that witches of all varieties had been brewing for centuries as one of our most traditional stock-in-trades, and after deliberately pausing long enough to let Jonathan recognize exactly what it was I popped the cork and drank it. I put the empty vial away and put my arms around him again.

    "My dad- in full knowledge of exactly what weekend it was and where I was going tonight with who- swapped with a guy to cover third shift. He won't be home until tomorrow morning." I said, our noses touching.

    "Amy- are you asking me to come in?" Jonathan said.

    "I am." I confirmed. I mean, I'd been thinking about this step for a while, and I knew he'd been thinking about it as well, and- heck, there's a reason I'd brought up the topic, however tangentially, when we'd made that trip to LA this summer. But even though it was traditional to save this step for prom- I wasn't sure we were going to be allowed to have that long.

    "Don't reject it when it comes," I heard Jonathan murmur to himself under his breath, and then he kissed me like it was a promise of things to come. "Yes. Yes, I'd love to."

    I unlocked the door, and we went inside.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And then they played chess all night. *rolleyes* Yes, we all know exactly what they're doing, but that's as close as I could come to mentioning their activity on SB or on the SFW forum here. And yes, that was a fertility control potion. Amy's a very sensible young woman, so no accidents.

    So, a complete non-action character development episode. This is because for the first part of season 3, the vast majority of the action is driven by villains or plot events that have already been totally negated. The shit that hasn't been negated kicks in during the second and later parts. Also, without Mr. Trick's 'Slayerfest' to ram Buffy and Cordelia together, they'll just have to work out their issues another way. Fortunately they're more mature than their OTL versions. Thus we have our early s3 calm before the storm really starts to gather. (Oh, and that was the canon election result in OTL; Buffy and Cordelia both lost to a tie between two of the also-rans.)

    And yes, Trick's doing very well for himself in LA. Perhaps he'll be of use as an antagonist later, perhaps not.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 22) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    "Hello, Ethan." Giles said with a satisfied grin as Ethan glared up at us from the floor of the warehouse he'd rented. My foot was planted squarely on his back between his shoulder blades, pinning him helplessly to the ground.

    "Ripper." Ethan said frustratedly as the tip of my broadsword brushed the side of his neck, cautioning him against any further action. "What do you think you're doing? There's nothing underhanded here-"

    "Except your plot to provide alchemically treated candy to the school district as part of its fundraiser, hopefully to cause a town-wide wave of irresponsibility and chaos?" Giles cut him off. "We can't have that."

    "Just a harmless bit of fun." Ethan tried to smirk up at us.

    "And the-" Giles began, to cut himself off at my headshake.

    "Mr. Rayne." I said calmly. "We require your cooperation in a Savignon's Binding."

    "Like hell!" he spat at us. "Why on Earth would I ever allow you to bind my magic?"

    "This is the second time you've come to the Hellmouth, and the second time you've almost unleashed mass chaos that could potentially have killed any number of people if it had gone even the slightest bit wrong." Giles said coldly. "We will not permit a third attempt."

    "Like you would ever-" Ethan began, before I cut him off.

    "You can either let him cut off your mojo, or I'll cut your throat." I said flatly. "And before you go into that 'White hats don't kill' speech, a free piece of info; before I started hunting demons, I hunted people." I finished, allowing Clear Understandings to let Ethan Rayne know exactly how much I wasn't lying.

    "How did you even know I was here?" Ethan asked incredulously. "I'd barely started to get set up!"

    "Not telling." I said. "Now, what's it going to be?"

    After we'd finished binding Ethan's powers we let him leave, then set the warehouse on fire to destroy all the candy still inside.

    "Your certain the next part of the plan will work?" Giles asked me as we drove away.

    "Hey, you're the one who figured out that he had to be using memory spells to duck the outstanding arrest warrants on him anyway." I replied. "The hurry he's in right now, call it at least nine out of ten odds that he won't remember he can't use those anymore until after he tries to go through Customs to get back home. He certainly won't want to stay anywhere near Sunnydale considering whose contract he just failed to execute."

    "True, but he almost certainly pre-enchanted his passport with the requisite avoid-notice spell." Giles said mildly.

    "I'm sure he did." I said smugly, pulling Ethan's passport out of my jacket pocket and holding it up with a smirk. "Such a pity I snagged it out of his luggage when I searched the warehouse office."

    "And the real beauty of it is, since the tosser never saw you go in there in the first place he'll only think he lost it." Giles chuckled as he took Ethan's passport from me.

    "And without magic in the equation, the justice system can deal with him fairly." I agreed. "I mean, we give him long enough to run free and he'll eventually find someone who can take that binding off of him. But from inside a cell?"

    "Precisely." Giles said with satisfaction, as I pulled into his driveway. We made our goodbyes and I dropped him off.

    The Mayor's office was nigh-impossible to use technological means of surveillance on; his magical wards blocked out any attempt to overhear or see what was going on in there without his consent, save by being physically present. And we didn't dare to try and directly interfere with them because he'd had literally decades to enchant and reinforce them, and only a fool carelessly screwed around with a black sorcerer of unknown power level and resources on top of his own power nexus when the man had more than a mortal lifetime of prep time on you. However, his spells couldn't interfere with any means of communication that he actually wanted to use; in order to make a phone call, for example, he had to actually allow the mike inside the telephone handset to pick up his voice.

    Which is why, by placing a phone tap at the switchboard end in the phone company building, I could eavesdrop on his communications in and out. Which mostly got us a lot of boring civic business and not much else, but the automated voice-recognition keyword-searcher I'd built and programmed flagged any 'interesting' calls for us, and occasionally we got one. Such as the ones the Mayor had been making to arrange to hire Ethan Rayne for a giant distraction all over town with the alchemically drugged band candy, to allow him a free window of opportunity to kidnap multiple infants from the hospital maternity word to deliver as tribute to the demon Lurconis. A delivery that he wouldn't be able to make now, although we'd certainly be staking out the hospital tomorrow night anyway.

    Not that we wanted to have to intervene there; taking down Ethan alone could simply be a lucky break on our parts, as we'd reasonably be on the lookout for him anyway. But breaking open the second half of the plot would reveal that we'd penetrated the Mayor's network, and claiming that Ethan had told us would be risky as hell because if the Mayor hadn't told him, then interrogating him for information about that plot would reveal to Ethan that we'd already known something we shouldn't just from our asking the questions- and Ethan wouldn't hesitate to sell that knowledge back to Wilkins just to make more trouble for us. No, better to leave him in relative ignorance; what he didn't know, he couldn't squeal. And besides, if one of the Mayor's patron demons was upset at him for failure to deliver on time then we certainly didn't want to kill the demon if we didn't have to- why clear his debts for him?

    But, that was a question for tomorrow. Tonight, I had a date. So, after tossing my weapons in the trunk compartment and doing a quick clean-up, I headed over to Amy's house to pick her up.

    "Mr. Madison?" I greeted him as he answered the door. He looked shellshocked over something- "Um, is everything all right?"

    "Amy, Jonathan's here." he called back into the house dully, and shook his head. "No. I'm afraid-" he sighed. "We got some very bad news earlier this evening."

    "Hey," Amy said sadly as she arrived from the kitchen, looking at me with a downcast expression. Part of my mind noted that she wasn't remotely dressed up for a date, still wearing her everyday jeans and t-shirt, so- "I'm sorry, but-" she fell silent.

    "We just got a call from the people in Devon." Mr. Madison said quietly. "My ex-wife- Catherine- she... killed herself in custody earlier this evening."

    "Shit." I swore flatly after a brief pause. "Are you- stupid question. Will you be okay?"

    "It's just-" Amy said quaveringly, before she trailed off.

    "Date's called off, I understand." I reassured her. "Is there anything I can do for either of you? Would it help if I stayed?

    "... can we be alone?" Amy asked me hesitantly.

    "Take all the time you need." I reassured her as best I could, and after making my goodbyes I left.

    Damn. Not that I'd shed any tears for the wicked, but that was me. I knew perfectly well that Amy would, and seeing her be hurt by something that I couldn't defend her against-

    Maybe I should have just let that damned woman disintegrate herself.

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    "It's just-" Amy shrugged helplessly from where she was alongside me on my house's living room couch. "Sometimes I feel like I rely on him for everything." she said to me

    Amy had really not taken the death of her mom well. She'd always been one of the steadiest of us- even back at her most scared and uncertain she'd still kept moving forward, whether it be to go after the guy she wanted or to keep fighting the vampires or anything else. And the further she got into her witch training the steadier she became, and then after she'd finally landed her man- sometimes her and Jonathan felt like the grown-ups in the room just as much as Giles and Jenny did. So seeing her this uncertain of herself for the past couple of weeks had been kinda worrying everybody. And seeing her and Jonathan with the sort of distance that had been growing between them- oh boy. We'd all rallied around her and pep-talked her as much as she could, individually and otherwise, but something was still eating her.

    "Amy, that's ridiculous." I reassured her. "You're the one that's been setting the pace with him the whole time. Even when you-" I waved my hands.

    "Speaking of-" she also waved her hands. "Did you and Xander-?" Amy deflected back.

    "Earlier this year, on my seventeenth birthday." I admitted with a blush.

    "Wow, discreet." she acknowledged me. "We had no idea."

    "I'm glad to hear our diabolical scheme was a success." I replied. "And back to more serious topics-"

    "Why is everybody so interested in our relationship?" Amy replied defensively.

    "Speaking as the girl he completely rejected in favor of you, I like to think I can claim some legitimate interest in that outcome." I pointed out. "Even if I am perfectly content with my not-so-rebound guy."

    "I just-" Amy sighed. "Have a lot of doubts."

    "About what?" I said, completely confused. "It can't be him- you are the one person he has never been able to fool. He doesn't even try to with you!"

    "Not him, me." Amy said worriedly. "I thought I was-" she trailed off. "What if I'm not actually the girl he fell in love with?"

    "And now I am completely lost." I declaimed. "What brought this on?"

    "When I heard about my mom-" Amy began after a long pause. "When Jonathan heard about my mom dying, his only real reaction was to feel bad that we were grieving. He didn't feel the slightest bit sad about her passing away, and he didn't try to pretend that he did."

    "Like I said, he doesn't even try to snow you." I agreed. "But what, you think he'd disapprove that you're grieving over your own mother? That's-" I tried and failed to find a word more diplomatic than 'Stupid', so I just left it as a dramatic pause.

    "My mom the evil crazy person?" Amy said. "The one who raised me as a human sacrifice? Who gaslighted me for years? Maybe nobody should cry for her passing. What does it say about me that I do feel bad about someone like that? Do you cry for any of the vampires you stake?"

    "Soulless demons don't count." I pointed out.

    "Marcie wasn't, and he-" Amy chewed her lip. "He told me once that while he regretted how it ended, he didn't feel any sympathy for her. What does it say about me that I do? What if he doesn't like how I'm so... soft?"

    "Okay, you have really let the anxiety get to you if you think that for a second." I pointed out. "Did I ever tell you about the conversation I had with him the day before I went down to fight the Master?"

    "The only thing Jonathan said about that was that he tried to encourage you to run, and you didn't." Amy replied.

    "Very diplomatic," I said. "But he left out the part where my first impulse was to just take off out of Sunnydale and never look back."

    "Huh?" Amy said. "If you wanted to run, and he wanted you to run, then why didn't-?" she trailed off embarassedly.

    "Because when his reaction was 'You want to ditch? Let me help!' I went off on him like I felt insulted." I said sheepishly. "That I knew perfectly well if he'd been given a prophecy of doom he'd just pick up his sword and head down there without a second thought, and what did it say about his opinion of me that he didn't even begin to expect me to live up to that kind of standard? Did he think I was that weak that he didn't even expect me to try?"

    "What did he say?" Amy asked me, fascinated.

    "He said that no, he didn't remotely expect me to react like him... because out of the two people in that room, only one of them was mentally normal." I sighed. "What they did to his head-" I shook my head and whistled. "Trust me. I can testify of my own certain knowledge that he would not disapprove in the slightest if you weren't as ruthless as he is."

    "But you went down anyway." Amy said.

    "Yeah, because the convo cleared my head enough for me to figure out that running away from my problems wasn't possible; the Master would have just taken it all out on Sunnydale once the prophecy wasn't holding him back anymore. But that's kinda the point. He would've approved of me running, and he did approve of me staying. He's sort of an unconditional approval kinda guy- as long as you're a good person, he's got your back."

    "Am I a good person?" Amy asked doubtfully. "Or do I just keep trying to please everyone-"

    "Okay, stop." I said, grabbing her hand. "I get that you've been knocked off-balance but seriously, this is total tailspin territory you're heading into here. So-" I fumbled for words. "Think of the last time you disagreed with him on something important, and how he reacted."

    "That's the thing, we hardly ever disagree on anything." Amy said. "Am I being too- too yielding?"

    "Amy." I said. "Do you remember the first time you and him ever met? I mean, in your own rightful body and for longer than a few minutes?"

    "My first Scooby meeting." Amy said.

    "The one where we tried to recruit the new guy and he told us all to go sit and spin." I said. "Giles couldn't get past his shell, I couldn't, Xander couldn't- heck, even Willow just pissed him off! Do you remember the one person in the room he was actually polite to?" I paused and continued on without actually letting her answer. "You were! Everybody else in that room wanted something from him, and he told us all to go pound without breaking stride. Then you came up to him and suddenly he was blushing and speaking like a total gentleman. Honestly, I should have known right then and there to not even try for him."

    "Because I was the only person in the room trying not to push him." Amy said nervously. "Which is why I'm worried about assertiveness and things right now-"

    "Amy." I said impatiently. "My point is that even at his most antisocial and traumatized, he still liked you. And not because you were giving him what he wanted, because what he wanted right then was to be left alone by everyone and you weren't. He still liked you- and not because you were tough or powerful, but because you were you. Heck, he's been brought out of his tough-guy shell and learning to connect with people again mostly because of you. And you've been knotted up for the past couple of weeks because you're afraid he'll suddenly think you're 'too soft' and start bouncing you? Can you please say that out loud again so that you can hear how crazy that sounds?"

    "I just-" Amy began worriedly, to be cut off by the ringing phone.

    "I'll get it." I said, and picked it up. "Hello?"

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    Another late night at Giles' place, hitting the books. Amy had been worried and distant ever since her mom had died, and she'd asked me for a little space. I'd hated giving it but she'd always respected mine, so of course I'd respect hers. Even if I was chafing more than a bit at this damned thing having come up almost as soon as we'd taken our relationship up a level, as well as the whole general impulse I had to want to make her not unhappy-

    But, there was being supportive and then there was hovering. So I backed off as requested, even if we kept mostly in touch at school, and put my copious free time into trying to work on the problem of the Mayor's Ascension.

    The doorbell rang. I untangled myself from the book pile and opened the door on its safety chain, peering out. A thirty-ish severe-looking woman in a tan blouse and long skirt stood looking back at me.

    "Is Mr. Giles in?" she asked in a disapproving Mid-Atlantic accent.

    "He's out at the moment." I replied. He was- out on a date with Jenny, in fact. "Who might I say called?"

    "Gwendolyn Post." she replied crisply. "I'm here from the Watcher's Council, on a matter of considerable urgency. You'd better let me in."

    I checked for a reflection in the shiny ornamental number plate we'd screwed to the outside of the front door for just such an occasion, noted that she wasn't a vampire, and after a careful look at her up and down decided that I could at least hear her out indoors instead of risk a prolonged nighttime conversation outdoors in Sunnydale. I unchained the door and stepped back, and she came inside.

    "Jonathan Fairchild." I introduced myself. "I'm one of Mr. Giles' research assistants. What's the emergency?"

    "I'll need a copy of the Twilight Compendium." she began. "I'm assuming you have one?"

    "Right on this shelf," I said, and handed it to her.

    She held it up in front of her and opened it, flipping through the pages rapidly with her lips pursed in disapproval. "Damn it, the reference was clear-" she muttered under her breath, running her hand down one page, and then finally closed the book in disgust and handed it back to me. "Mr. Giles apparently has an outdated edition. Could you fetch-"

    I'd turned to reshelve the book, then stopped on noticing something was subtly off about the weight. She'd stuck something in-between two of the pages. I let the book fall open where the offending object was wedged and looked at it. Some kind of handcrafted fetish-

    "A curse-token." I heard her say smugly, as my knees began to buckle and my vision swam. "The first person other than me to pick it up and they're out like a light!"

    And then everything went black.

    * * * * *​

    "Okay, I'm here." I heard Amy's voice say angrily, as my eyes began to open. I did a hasty situation check.

    Judging by the echoes, I was in a large room with a low ceiling; sounded like a boiler room. I was handcuffed or manacled to a pillar, hands at full extension over my head... and I was blindfolded.

    "It's about time!" Mrs. Post said angrily, her accent slipping. "And you'd better have come alone!"

    "Quit posturing." I heard Amy reply. "I felt your sentry-spells. You know perfectly well that we three are the only living people in this school building right now."

    So the school basement, then.

    "You judge my spells?" Mrs. Post shot back angrily. "Don't you dare get above yourself, you damned girl! And you stay right there! Tauo freim!" she chanted, and I saw the bright flare of a lightning bolt even through my blindfold and heard the crash of thunder and the shattering of a nearby wall. "Behold the power I now wield!"

    "Jonathan! Are you all right?" she called back to me.

    "Still alive." I said as professionally as I could. "Amy- do not deal with this terrorist for me! Just cut and run right now!"

    "Very noble, Mister Fairchild!" Post called out. "But she knows what will happen to you if she does!"

    "I do know." Amy said resolutely. "But what I don't know is why are you doing this? What do you want?"

    "What do I want?" Post cried incredulously. "I'll tell you what I want! I want what I deserve! I want what you cheated me out of, you troublesome little brats!"

    "What are you talking about?" Amy demanded. "Neither of us has even met you before!"

    "Son of a bitch!" I swore as the pieces suddenly fell into place. "No wonder you don't sound remotely British! Let me guess- if I was able to call the Devon coven right now, they'd tell me your last visitor before your 'suicide' was an investigator from the Watcher's Council named Gwendolyn Post. Isn't that right, Catherine?" I finished venomously.

    "Mom?" Amy gasped incredulously, as I heard 'Post' laugh madly.

    "Hello, darling!" Catherine Madison sneered. "You thought you were finally safe from me, weren't you? Did you celebrate when you thought I was gone?"

    "Are you kidding? I cried for days!" Amy said. "As twisted and crazy as you were, as horrible as all the things you did to me, you were still my mother! I still-" I heard her come to a halt. "But you're not even alive now, are you? You actually killed your own original body after jumping into a stranger's. You're a crazy ghost, haunting a dead woman's corpse."

    "I said stop!" Catherine cried loudly.

    "You can't kill me." Amy said through gritted teeth. "You can't even hurt me. You want this body, and you want it intact. But I can hurt you-"

    "One more step and the boy you love dies!" Catherine shouted. I didn't need my eyes to see that after her demonstration shot she'd turned around to aim her new magic superweapon at me.

    "If you kill him, then nothing stands between me and you." Amy said, her voice steadying.

    "If I have to give up my leverage on you, nothing stands between me and burning you to ash with the next bolt." Catherine replied. "I want your youth. But if I can't have it, then I'll settle for punishing you like the worthless, disobedient brat that you are, once and for all! And your jock boyfriend!" There was a brief pause, and then another mad cackling laugh. "Stupid girl! Did you think I wouldn't enchant the manacles? I've had weeks to prepare for this encounter! No, it won't be as simple as freeing your boyfriend to hit me from behind!"

    "Then you've prepared the body-transfer ritual as well." Amy said. "You can do it right now?"

    "That won't work either, dear." Catherine sneered. "I linked the Glove of Myneghon to me with the binding ritual. You in my body won't be able to make it work without re-binding it, not even after you've heard the command word."

    The Glove of Myneghon? We'd dug that thing up and sent it to the Council for safekeeping months ago. Catherine must have used her time in Post's body to loot it on her way out of England-

    "But if I let you do the switching spell-" Amy probed.

    "Dammit, no!" I shouted. "Then she gets us both! Cut the losses in half!"

    "Jonathan, I know what I'm doing!" Amy yelled back at me.

    I opened my mouth to shout again, and then closed it. I- Amy already knew my opinion on negotiating with terrorists, the Scooby Gang had already done the training module on why playing along with hostage-takers was a bad idea, and she was still taking this course of action. It all came down to- did I believe that Amy knew what she was doing? Or did I think that she'd backslid all the way into being the scared, abused girl that she'd been? Especially after the past couple of weeks?

    I had no idea what I should believe. But I knew what I wanted to believe.

    I sighed and nodded my head. My fate was in her hands now.

    "If you get my body, then you let us both go. You swear to me!" Amy said.

    "You always were a weakling." Catherine sneered.

    "Why are you always complaining about getting what you wanted all along?" Amy replied. "You wanted a weak daughter, someone you could twist around however you wanted and then use for a puppet in your sick little play. You should be angry that I wasn't weak, not that I was."

    "You are weak." Catherine spat. "You always were, and you always will be! And I'm going to prove it to you!"

    "You want me in this ritual circle here, right?" Amy replied.

    "Yes." Catherine said with grim satisfaction. "Right there. Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." she began, and I swore as I saw a flaring of mystic light through my blindfold and heard Catherine begin a ritual chant-

    "Alli permutat anima kimota. Alli permutat anima kimota. Alli permutat anima kimota."

    My heart froze as I recognized those words from some of my reading. That wasn't the body-switching spell she'd used before, but an ancient Algurian ritual. One of the two switched parties would die soon after the transfer was made; even if she hadn't want to fake her own death as part of her escape Catherine would have needed to kill her original body with Gwendolyn Post's soul inside it to avoid having to flee back to her original body anyway when the spell destroyed the new one. The only way she could keep this transfer stable would be to kill Amy inside Gwen's body immediately post-transfer-

    "Alli permutat anima kimota. Alli permutat anima kimota! ALLI PERMUTAT ANIMA KIMOTA!" Catherine kept chanting, louder and louder and more frantically.

    "What's the matter?" I heard Amy say triumphantly as the light glared even brighter. "Spells not working?"

    "You little-" Catherine grunted desperately. "Alli permutat anima kimo-"

    "Forget it!" Amy said. "No more tricks, no more traps! I'm not the ignorant little girl whose head you played with, not anymore!"

    "You can't beat me!" Catherine said. "You're nothing! You've always been nothing, and you always will be- ALLI PERMUTAT ANIMA KIMOTA! Your body for mine! You cannot resist- how?" she broke off, crying desperately. "How? How are you doing this?-"

    "I'm doing this because I'm stronger than you now, Mother." Amy said triumphantly, panting with her own effort. "I was stronger than you all along!"

    "Everything you have- I gave you!" Catherine gasped. "Your power- your magic- your life- all mine! I gave you everything! And you- you-"

    "Drop the spell!" Amy called. "You can't take me against my will, and it's burning you out! Drop the spell!"

    "No!" Catherine shouted. "You want to hang on to your life so much... then it'll have to be... at the cost of mine! Die in a state of grace, or live on as a killer! Those are your only choices! This is what- you're making me do-" she gasped.

    "No one is making you do anything!" Amy cried. "You don't get to stage this whole confrontation and then tell me it's my fault you're not getting what you want!"

    "So... you admit you want me dead?" Catherine gloated.

    "Maybe I do!" Amy cried sadly. "Maybe the real reason I felt so guilty when I'd thought you died is because I was secretly glad! Glad that you couldn't hurt me again, and guilty because I didn't want to admit it!" She took a deep breath and continued. "But now I know that you can't hurt me again, alive or not. And I don't want you dead so that I can feel safer. You want to die rather than admit to yourself how you've wasted your life again and again." I heard Amy sigh. "I'm always going to regret how this ended, Mother. But you no longer deserve my sympathy, and I refuse to give you my guilt."

    "You- ungrateful-" Catherine gasped weakly, obviously at the end of her rope. "I'll kill you all- Tauo frei-" she began to incant. Damn! We'd forgotten about the Glove, and now she was going to nuke the entire roo-

    "Oh no you don't!" I heard Angel say viciously, simultaneous with the *cracking* sound of a human neck being snapped, and the sounds and lights of the nearby spell-battle ended as cleanly as if they'd been cut off with a knife.

    The next thing I knew I was being un-blindfolded and un-manacled, and as soon as I was free I rushed over to help Amy up from where she was kneeling inside the ritual circle and take her into my arms.

    "Are you okay?" we both asked each other in stereo, still embracing.

    "I-" Amy nodded. "Yeah. I wish I hadn't- I wasn't even prepared to see her again when I came here. All I knew was that you'd been taken hostage by some crazy Watcher lady-"

    "I can fill in the blanks." I said, nodding at Angel. "So. The only three living people in the school, huh?"

    "Yeah. Buffy couldn't come in without tripping her alarm-spell, but I'd noticed that she'd forgotten to screen against the undead." Amy replied. "Mom always was sloppy about details."

    "You're sure you're all right?" I said, with a nod towards Gwendolyn Post's- Catherine Madison's- necksnapped corpse.

    "Technically I killed her, not you." Angel reassured her. "And I'm sorry it had to go that far."

    "You waited as long as you possibly could." Amy answered him. "And you gave me every possible chance to talk her down. But-" she sighed again.

    "That was an Algurian body-switching ritual; I recognized the incantation." I reassured Amy. "It's powered by a sacrifice of one of the two lives involved. Your mother was doomed to die from the moment she committed to the ritual, and the only way to avoid that was for you to die instead. And that would still make it self-defense even if everything else about the situation hadn't already. You never had any chance to save everyone, and she didn't want you to have any."

    "I know." Amy said. "And-" she shook her head. "What does it say about me that I think I can process actually being part of her death better than I was able to process when I just thought she was dead?"

    "That you're human." Angel reassured her.

    "The difference between regret and guilt is the difference between right and wrong." I reaffirmed to Amy. "And you were entirely right with what you said to her. Give her your regrets if you choose to; as horrible as she was, she was still your mother." I kissed Amy briefly on the forehead and continued, putting as much into Clear Understandings as I ever had. "But never give her your guilt, because you did nothing wrong."

    "I know." Amy said, leaning into me. "But- thank you."

    "Anytime." I said to her. "Oh, and speaking of- thank you. For saving my life."

    "That's right. I kinda did, didn't I?" Amy said, starting to smile a little at me.

    "Hey, and what was I? Chopped liver?" Angel chimed in with faux-outrage, and as dark as the humor was given the circumstances, we all began to heal a little.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    Damn it! How did she keep doing this? How could anyone keep getting that many unfair, lucky breaks?

    When Oz had suggested that I go see the school counselor because of my recent frustrations I'd done it largely to not have to argue with him about it. And it had been exactly as unhelpful as I'd expected; all he did was mouth platitudes. Now, I didn't want to end up in a nut house like Buffy had that one time she'd mentioned. No, I kept it all with euphemisms about academics and popularity and everything, but I'd still laid out my grievances. And all he'd done is try to suggest that it might be my fault! Hrmph!

    But when I was sitting in his office that time after the second session it suddenly hit me; Amy and Xander had both been coming here for months, and everything they'd shared with Mr. Platt would be in those filing cabinets somewhere. And so I used my opportunity to case the place and slip in after hours, and that plus the office Xerox machine meant I could take home copies of their files to study at my leisure. And wow, had they ever over-shared. Amy in particular talked about tons of stuff. What she was worried about, what she was still insecure about, and her relationship. Oh God, did she ever talk about that. And I'd already planned to stop seeing the counselor after I'd gotten that I needed, but then that crazy boy had beaten him to death, ew.

    Now, I knew Jonathan was a phony and a fake, and on some level Amy had to as well but still wouldn't admit because then she'd lose her hunky boyfriend, ugh. But I knew perfectly well that Amy was the main thing keeping him working with the Scooby Gang, just as he was the main thing keeping her in the demon-fighting lifestyle at all. He'd be all supportive of his girlfriend, and she'd want to be brave for him. So if I could split those two up, then they'd both go away and stop getting in my way all the time.

    And when Amy's mom had killed herself, I'd seen my chance. So when everybody moved in to pep-talk her, it was totally natural I would as well, right? And from her psych files I knew exactly what to bring up and when- oh, nothing obvious, all very subtle and indirect, but just enough to get her worrying. And sure enough, it was working. She'd stopped being all cocky super-witch all the time and gotten to actually thinking about stuff, and best of all, she'd asked Jonathan for 'her space' just like I'd planned. And since he couldn't actually say no to her about anything, he'd given it to her! A few more weeks at this rate and they'd be broken up before winter break-

    And then Amy's crazy mom comes back from the dead in that ex-Watcher-lady's body. Turns out she wasn't even a real Watcher anymore but had gotten kicked out a while ago, and when she'd gone to question Amy's mom in witch jail to try and dig up dirt on the Hellmouth that she could use for herself she'd instead gotten bodyjacked and used for Mrs. Madison's escape. Then she looted that magic-glove thingy from the Watcher's secure storage. Apparently, it turned out that Mrs. Post had already been doing research into that thing for her own purposes and Mrs. Madison had 'inherited' her research notes and, being a lot stronger witch than Post, had been able to steal the glove where she hadn't. Then she brought it back here as a big gun to help her try and steal Amy's body again, using Jonathan as hostage bait- hah, how the mighty are fallen, serves Mr. Overconfident right- but that just gives Amy the chance to be the big heroine, all saving her man and now they're all lovey-dovey again and Angel beat her mom to death so Amy's not worried about her any more either and everybody is just so together-

    Really, what kind of black magic are they using to be so lucky all the time? How does everything just keep falling into place for them?

    And how can I get in on that kind of action for once in my life?

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Willow she just keeps spiraling, doesn't she? Now she's at the 'trying to split other people up' stage even harder, as was mentioned earlier as part of addiction behavior. This is why Amy's earlier fears sound so irrational; they kinda are, and they were being deliberately stoked by someone who was maliciously using her own psych records against her.

    The Algurian body-switching spell (and the part where it always kills one of the two participants) is canon, although I used a slightly modified version; it's from Angel 3x04, 'Carpe Noctem'.

    And that's episodes 3x06 and 3x07 down.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 23) New
  • View content
    • Xander POV:

    "1070 SATs? Combined?" I said, staring at my test results as they sat on the library table. "That's... that's all right, right? That's not bad?"

    "Sure!" Buffy said brightly. "It's a four-digit number, right?"

    "The national average last year was approximately 1020 so yes, Xander, it's an entirely respectable score." Ms. Calendar reassured us.

    "I got a 1540!" Willow said proudly.

    "But what sort of places can I apply to with a 1070?" I sighed. "It's not like I can qualify for financial aid with an average score, and I'm definitely not affording it on my own."

    "Don't forget about athletic scholarships." Jonathan pointed out from where him and Amy were sitting huddled together at the end of the table.

    "UC Sunnydale isn't offering any for swimmers." I said. "I asked the coach to check for me."

    "Does it have to be UC Sunnydale?" Oz asked.

    "Where Buffy goes, I go." I said firmly.

    "And it's not like I can leave the Hellmouth uncovered." she sighed.

    "Actually," Giles began diffidently. "I- I've been talking to Samuel about the possibility of Kendra moving here to cover the Hellmouth full-time, which would allow you a wider choice of colleges. The Council is still debating it, but-" He polished his glasses. "I hadn't wished to bring it up before while things were still uncertain, but now that you're approaching the point of deciding where to send in applications- don't entirely abandon the idea of applying elsewhere, is what I'm trying to say."

    "You'd do that for me? Giles, you're the best!" Buffy gushed like the sun was coming up, and I felt a little better.

    "Well, I'm not sure I can get accepted to wherever you'll get accepted, but at least I can come out with and get a job or something. Save you from having to live in the dorm." I said lightly, and then my face broke out in a blush as it dawned on me me that I'd just suggested me and Buffy actually move into a place together. "Uh- I meant, if you-"

    "If it's a college town, I'm sure they have two-bedroom apartments." Buffy let me off the hook. "And... " she blushed along with me. "Well, it'd be nice to not be alone in a strange town. Who'd watch my back when I was out patrolling?"

    "UCLA for me." Cordelia interrupted to puncture the mood. "No offense to you guys, but I cannot wait to get away from this crazy place."

    "And who could blame you?" I agreed enthusiastically, as everybody else present politely ignored my and Buffy's recent mutual embarassment. "So, where do you think you're going, Wills?"

    "I'm still thinking through all the offers I got." she said smugly.

    "Probably gonna concentrate on my music for a little while." Oz said calmly.

    "And you two?" I nodded to Jonathan and Amy, only to start frowning at the worried expressions on their faces. "Um, guys?"

    Jonathan exhaled heavily. "Remember when Whistler warned me that the Powers might have something coming up for me later? I'm- not wanting to make long term plans until I find out more about that." Amy nodded wordlessly to back him up.

    "Well that's just no fair." Buffy pouted. "Even I'm getting a choice- I hope!"

    "What sort of scores did you get?" Willow probed.

    "1420." Amy replied.

    "Wow, neck-and-neck with my 1430!" Buffy congratulated her. "And you?"

    "... 1600." Jonathan admitted reluctantly.

    "And this is my shocked face." Cordelia said entirely deadpan. "Notice how it looks exactly like my unshocked face."

    Willow muttered something I didn't quite catch under her breath.

    "Willow." Oz said to her with slight disapproval. "You know that's not-"

    "I am not talking to you about this." Willow replied to him tightly, and then she stood up, grabbed her book bag, and headed out.

    "What's up with her?" Cordelia asked in a puzzled tone of voice, staring after her departure.

    "Stress." Oz said after a diplomatic pause. "I'd better go see if she's all right." and then he followed her out.

    "Okay." Buffy said. "I'd have thought she'd settle down some after the SATs. I know she was worried about the exams, but-"

    "I think... the reality that this is the last year of the full Scooby Gang is starting to sink in for her." Amy said thoughtfully. "I mean, we'd just settled that we're not all staying in Sunnydale after graduation."

    "Yeah." I agreed, as a realization hit me. "And you and I haven't been spending as much time with Willow as we all used to back in the day, because-" I nodded at Buffy and Jonathan. "Maybe we should take a little time to renew auld acquaintance, as the G-Man would say."

    "I'm pleased that you're paying at least some attention to proper diction." Giles said dryly as he sat on the corner of the table prior to imparting the wisdom. "But yes. Growing up, moving away to different schools... it means growing in different directions as well."

    "Sometimes it's difficult to maintain old ties when that happens." Ms. Calendar agreed. "But it's still entirely possible."

    "Hey, I have tons of training- Slayer and cheerleading- you can schedule around if you guys want to take some reconnecting time." Buffy offered to me.

    "I'm still trying to figure out how to set up a better information-gathering network." Jonathan said to Amy. "I could take a little more workshop time."

    "Thanks." Amy replied to him. "Xander, do you think we should-?" she turned to me, only to be interrupted by Buffy.

    "Kendra?" Buffy burst out shocked, as all our heads snapped up to see her standing in the library doorway. "Wow! We were just talking about you!"

    "Hello, everyone." Kendra said soberly as she stepped in the door.

    "Miss Young!" Giles greeted her. "Welcome back to Sunnydale. Err, where's Samuel?"

    "In de hospital." Kendra replied, and the entire room felt a chill at that admission. "Dere is great trouble. I need your help."

    "What's happened?" Buffy replied, all business, as Jonathan started looking around to see if anything had followed her.

    "De Slayer dreams have warned me dat a dark power is rising in Sunnydale." Kendra replied flatly. "And Drusilla has already attacked us, to try and stop us from warning you."

    * * * * *​
    Jonathan POV:

    The first order of business was to make sure Mr. Zabuto's hospital room was as well-protected as mine had been- Drusilla and several minion vamps had hit them inside the airport parking garage shortly after they'd gotten off the plane- so I immediately split off to escort Amy there and back so she could cast the blessings. Meanwhile, Buffy and Xander headed out to do a daylight raid on a randomly picked vamp nest to stake-and-shake; if Drusilla was back in town she'd be recruiting more minions to throw at us, and for general vamp-on-the-street type news like that grabbing the nearest random bloodsucker and asking him to talk or sunbathe was better than doing nothing. We really could have used an informant like Willy- a reliable version of him, that is- but Willy himself had long since wheeled himself out town after Giles had broken his kneecaps for that crap he'd pulled, and nobody else had set themselves up to occupy his old ecological niche.

    Cordelia had left to start working the grapevine she'd created among the various at-least-partly-aware-of-the-supernatural students and put the word out to keep an eye open for anyone of Drusilla's description, and Giles and Jenny were working to find and alert Willow and Oz before heading over to Angel's place to start work on a tracking ritual using his sire link to Drusilla.

    After Amy finished her casting, I drove her to my and Angel's mansion where we'd all agreed to meet up for the next phase.

    "Please tell me we have a location." I greeted everyone present as Amy and I got there.

    "Something's interfering with the working." Jenny said as she and Willow and Angel looked up from the table where they'd laid out the spell components. "Then again, she already knows we could track her through the sire bond."

    "And she's more than intelligent enough to take precautions." Angel nodded.

    "Then we'll just have to find some way to counter her mojo with our own." Willow resolved.

    "You could add me to the next attempt and we could try just overpowering whatever's shielding her." Amy offered. "I didn't need to use up much at the hospital."

    "Pretty sure that wouldn't work." Willow replied hurriedly. "This feels like more of a finesse problem than a power problem."

    "It did seem rather peculiar." Jenny agreed. "I think we'd do better taking some measurements and trying to recalibrate the next ritual then just repeating with emphasis."

    "Yeah, well, mundane investigation is out." Buffy said as her and Xander re-entered the room. "We hit that house on Crawford street and caught 'em all napping. Nobody knew anything."

    "Still, you can cross that nest off the list." Xander added. "There were only three of them so, nothing huge."

    Giles nodded and made a note in one of the open notebooks he had surrounding him. "Kendra, did your dream contain any clues as to this 'dark power' that was rising?"

    "De voice in my dream said dat I had faced it once before." Kendra said. "But I could not see it's face."

    "It's not Drusilla herself, is it?" I asked.

    "From the context of the vision Kendra described Drusilla was trying to invoke this 'dark power', she wasn't the power itself." Giles said.

    "Okay, there is no way we are doing Kakistos again." Buffy said. "We blessed those ashes just to make sure!"

    "Quite correct." Giles said. "There is a possible ritual for reviving an ancient vampire- one the Master's or Kakistos' age- but it requires intact remains. Scattering and blessing them as you did utterly precludes that possibility."

    "So, how many still-living enemies do you have?" I asked Kendra.

    "Mostly dey are all dusted." she replied. "De only really bad ones who have escaped me were de ones I fought here with you."

    "Mr. Trick." Angel snapped his fingers. "We know he's still around. Maybe he's decided to come back up from LA and take care of unfinished business."

    "Makes sense." Buffy said. "Also it would explain why you got the vision and not me." she turned to Kendra. "You're the one that got a piece of him last time and vice versa, I only caught a glimpse of him the once."

    "Does Trick qualify as a 'dark power'?" I analyzed. "He's clever and dangerous, but he isn't even as old as Spike was, let alone Drusilla or Angel."

    "Depends on what he's trying to get into." Angel replied. "Some of the things we were researching on that list of potential problems were potentially very nasty."

    "Did your dream give you any idea of the scale of the trouble coming?" I asked Kendra. "Are we talking major attack or full-on open-the-Hellmouth apocalypse?"

    "Not quite de end of the world." Kendra replied after a long moment of thought. "But dere was death. And darkness everywhere, and a sense of great power. More than any vampire I've ever seen, even Kakistos."

    "That sounds like a major summoning of some type." Giles said. "Very well. Whether it really is Mr. Trick or someone else seeking to invoke this 'dark power', that gives us some starting points."

    "The astrological tables are clear for the next week at least." Jenny said. "So, not one of the 'stars are right' ones..." as we all bent over the table and started researching possible apocalypses.

    "Got something!" Cordelia interrupted us as she burst in. "And would you believe it was the tabletop roleplaying geeks of all people who turned up the clue? Jonathan, tell 'em!"

    The other Jonathan, Levinson, was pushed towards us by Cordelia and he nervously began. "O-kay. My friend Andrew? His older brother Tucker is into some pretty rough stuff. Summoning stuff. And you know how Andrew hasn't been to school for the past couple of days?"

    "What's the connection to Drusilla?" I asked him gently.

    "Andrew's, uh, kinda in the hospital right now." the other Jonathan said diffidently. "A couple days ago he had a fainting spell and they kept him for observation. The point is, the reason he's still there is because he has amnesia of everything that happened in the past few days. And when Cordelia came around asking today, she said that one of the things this Drusilla could do is, uh, hypnotize people?"

    "If Drusilla is apparently trying to invoke a dark power she could have a use for a local summoning adept who is into questionable practices. And with a recent unexplained memory loss in a possible witness..." Giles mused out loud. "Tenuous, but it's certainly a possible connection worth investigating."

    "The biggest clue here is that he didn't just vanish." Angel said. "If it is Drusilla then she's feeling a major need to be subtle."

    "I'll go talk to Andrew!" Willow immediately volunteered. "You know... geek to geek? And maybe I can undo whatever she did."

    "I'll drive." Oz volunteered.

    "Sun's just gone down, so you should take some muscle along too." I pointed out.

    "Kendra." Willow said. Kendra startled at that and gave her the side-eye. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened, all right? But what I was thinking was, everybody else has the usual teams they split up into and there's a few places that might need covering tonight. You're one of the strongest fighters that doesn't already have a partner, so..."

    "Good thinking." Kendra agreed after a pause for that. "Just, no fire magic close to my head dis time, please?"

    "I've been practicing." Willow sighed.

    "Amy and I were going to cover the Temple of Proserpexa." I agreed. "We can drop Jonathan off at his house on the way."

    "Alone together all night in a spooky cave. Don't do anything we wouldn't do!" Buffy teased us cheerfully. "Which still leaves you a lot of room to move, come to think of it..."

    "Buffy." Giles sighed on cue.

    "Got it. You, me, and Ms. Calendar stake out that apocalypse demon statue at the museum..." Buffy got back to business.

    "I'll join the temple crew." Angel said. At our disapproving look- seriously, we were old enough to not need chaperones- he replied "Prosperpexa's will be the most isolated team and the only one not within range of a cell phone tower. So we should make it a heavy team."

    "Valid point." I conceded. It's not that Amy or I would ever be unprofessional enough to make out while on stakeout anyway.

    "So, me and Cordelia mind the house and man the phones as the reserve team, plus Willow, Oz, and Kendra when they get back from the hospital." Xander said.

    "Yes." Giles said. "Xander, you'll be squad leader for that team."

    "Me." Xander said incredulously.

    "Kendra's experience and training is all for solo work, Oz is one of our least experienced, and Willow-" I began.

    "Is much smarter than I am." Xander replied.

    "Leadership does require a minimum of intelligence, but the most intelligent don't always make the best leaders. The primary qualities necessary are experience and keeping a clear head under pressure, at which you are notably superior to most of the other candidates." Giles reassured him.

    "And speaking of, how come I don't hear anyone nominating me for squad leader?" Cordelia said frustratedly. "I lead lots of things!"

    "Greater field experience." I cut her off, knowing that the actual reason of 'Because Willow would never take orders from you in a million years' wouldn't sell well, and that the other truthful reason of Xander having notably more combat experience than her was one Cordelia would actually accept.

    "One day." Cordelia vowed, but settled down. "One day!"

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    "I really wish you guys had figured out a way to destroy that thing." I said, staring up at the big ugly statue of Acathla where it lay in the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History's storeroom. Some sort of apocalypse demon key thing that could only be unlocked by the bloodline of Aurelius, we'd left it in place after figuring that part out because Angel was like heck gonna use it and we didn't want to have to try and cover up a major museum robbery just to get our hands on something we didn't know how to dispose of anyway. Giles had had to call in enough favors to let our 'appraising team' and 'student intern' get covered just to get down here as is.

    But the other surviving vampire of Aurelius' bloodline was Drusilla, so we couldn't leave this thing uncovered with her back in town and Kendra's warning that she'd be trying to raise some kind of 'dark power'. Which this ugly sucker certainly qualified as.

    "Okay, we've laid out the sentry wards." Jenny said. "So now we wait."

    "At least Buffy brought her homework along." Giles tried to joke, badly.

    "Yay." I said, holding up and waving my finger in a listless circle. "Such a horrible dilemma I face, choosing between the math and the not so math."

    "Do you really think you're the only young woman wishing that she had the night free to be with her boyfriend?" Jenny teased me with a meaningful look at Giles that got him to blush all the way to his collar.

    "You be nice." I stood up for my Watcher. "It's not his fault this is how the division of labor naturally shook out."

    "I believe that's the point she was trying to lead you towards." Giles cut in dryly. "The Romani are famed for their manipulative abilities, after all."

    "Rupert!" Jenny turned on him with mock-outrage, while I raised my pencil in salute to his riposte. Yes, he could certainly tease back as good as he was teased.

    "I really am gonna miss all this when I move away to college." I sighed.

    "Who says I'm staying here?" Jenny said. "My assignment to monitor Angel ended when his soul became permanent in the Demon Trials. The clan's satisfied that the demon Angelus will be bound and tormented forever. So if Giles is leaving with you, then nothing stops me from getting a teaching contract wherever he's going."

    "Good for you!" I congratulated them. "And-" I stopped and listened to the faint sound of approaching footsteps. I stood up and grabbed my weapons, everyone else doing likewise at my motion. "Here we go." Just as we were getting set, half-a-dozen vampires plus one big ugly green sucker stepped into the room and faced off against us. "Giles, what is that and how does it die?" I asked him.

    "M'Fashnik demon." he said after a brief pause. "Stronger and more resilient than any non-ancient vampire, slightly less swift, no especial methods required to kill it."

    "I don't see Drusilla." Jenny said, shaking some magic powder out into her hand prepatory to casting one of her spells. Giles had his own sword in one hand and a cross in the other.

    "I'm sure she'll be along soon enough." I said. "But in the meantime-" I raised my own blade and stepped forward. Their heavy muscle advanced to meet me while Jenny bought time with a temporary barrier spell, and the vampires hissed and stopped trying to surround us and instead lurked around the edges of the big fight scene while their rent-a-muscle tried to overwhelm me.

    Just another night on the job.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    (*mood music*)

    Oh, this wasn't good.

    I knew perfectly well that Andrew's amnesia had nothing to do with Drusilla because, well, I'd been the one to cast the forget spell on him. He'd caught me doing a trade with Tucker for access to some of his summoning grimoires and I couldn't afford to let word get back to the Scoobies so Tucker had agreed with my doing a harmless little memory-wipe. But then a couple days later Drusilla comes in and suddenly everybody is looking for mindwhammied people, so now the Scooby Gang is on the case anyway!

    I was so lucky that they accepted me volunteering for the job of trying to investigate and un-mindwhammy him. Or maybe it was just another example of how overlooked I was getting around here. Yes, let Willow do the boring legwork while Amy gets to guard the big powerful end-the-world spot. Feh. At any rate, soon enough we were at the hospital and we'd fast-talked our way past the orderlies and I was standing by the unconscious Andrew's bedside. And I'd bought as much time as I could, stalling for as long as I could, as I pretended to do all sort of investigations to buy time to think. But I kept coming back to the same old dilemma. What did I do now?

    Option one, I could take my spell off of him, but then I would be in so much trouble. Even if I was wliling to grovel and be all 'I'll never do it again!' again, who says they'd listen to me? Besides, I'd had a bellyful and more of doing that kind of sucking up all last summer. No. I wasn't going to go there again. I wasn't ever going to go there again.

    Option two, I could just wave my hands and pretend to cast spells and not actually do anything. Andrew would never remember anything unless I broke my spell, and the hospital would let him go in a day or two more once it became apparent he didn't have any other brain damage, just a couple of missing days. But then the gang would consider me an also-ran witch again, not able to do anything, and they'd probably send Amy in to get the job done that I couldn't and then I'd be caught anyway-

    It wasn't fair! All I was doing was trying to keep people from getting the wrong impression about me! It was their fault for always taking the worst possible interpretation of anything I did! It was self-defense!

    Option three...

    I kept pushing the thought away as I stood there by the sleeping Andrew's bedside, pretending to be studying the spell on him, and it kept coming back. Option three was I cast my own mind control spell on Andrew, and hypnotize him into testifying a set of false memories. Nothing major, just something simple like 'Drusilla was there and asking Tucker for all the books he had on failed local summonings.' Make it look like she was just in research phase so that whatever her real plan turned out to be, my clue looked like a part of it but wasn't actually contradicted by it. Like carnival fortune-tellers did when being fake psychics.

    Hmmm. Well, it wouldn't really hurt anyone, and it would keep me from being blamed for everything and from being overlooked as useless...

    I reached into my purse, got out some of the lethe's bramble I kept there for emergencies- it was an excellent ingredient for augmenting any spells about wiping memories or mind control- and started mentally composing the spell I wanted. A simple hypnosis spell, to make Andrew speak to a script on cue and not remember doing so-

    I could do it. I could do it, and it wouldn't really hurt anyone. And it would get me out of this mess!

    And so, the decision having been made, I finished working out the necessary spell factors in my head- beat that, Amy Madison- and slotted them into one of the simple mind-magic spells I'd already mastered, and murmured the proper incantations. The 'cured' Andrew spoke in his sleep on cue, just like a man being un-memory-charmed should, and Oz dutifully wrote down the fake clues he'd made and we got ready to go back to the mansion.

    "Just one minute." I said to them. "I've gotta visit the bathroom." and I took off. I had to ditch this used bramble before going back, because one of the other magic people back at the house might recognize it and it had a sort of distinctive smell once you'd used it as part of a ritual so just stuffing it back in my pocket wouldn't work.

    So I entered the nearest ladies' restroom and flushed the used bramble down the toilet. With a sigh of relief I opened the stall door-

    -and suddenly I was grabbed by the collar with crushing strength and slammed up against the bathroom wall hard, my feet being held several inches off the floor.

    "I know dat smell." Kendra said coldly. "Lethe's bramble, after it's been burnt. Dat is not used for magic to restore memories, but to take dem."

    "I don't know what you're talking about!" I denied frantically. "Oz! Oz, help me!" I called out. Surely he had to be just outside the room-

    "I sent him to go get de van ready and wait for us." Kendra said. "He loves you, and he would fight me to protect you. But he is innocent, so I got him harmlessly out of de way." She leaned in and glared at me coldly. "You are not innocent. Why did you hypnotize dat boy to give a fake story?"

    "I didn't-" I choked.

    "Do not lie to me!" Kendra demanded angrily. "Do you think I have not studied these things? My whole life I have trained to fight de supernatural! Mr. Zabuto made very sure I knew about spells that could play with minds- many demons would rather attack a Slayer via their mind rather den match physical strength against one! You were very careful to not let me see what you were casting, but I smelled it on you when you left de room! Now talk! How long have you been a dark witch?"

    "Dark witch!" I spat back at her, my frustrations finally boiling over and exploding out. "Dark witch! That's what everyone keeps saying! 'Oh no, Willow, you have to be perfect all the time because otherwise you'll be a dark witch!' 'One single mistake and you'll be a dark witch!' 'Don't try to study except at a snail's pace or you'll be a dark witch!' It's not fair! Amy made up her own experimental spell to call Jonathan to that frat house, and all she got was praise! And she's drank, and snuck out, and had sex before she was eighteen- that's illegal in this state!" I spat. "But nobody ever gives her the slightest bit of criticism for it, and everything I do is wrong, wrong, wrong! You didn't even ask me what I was doing! Just one strange smell and boom, Willow has to be evil!" I finished at a rant.

    Kendra shook her head from side to side, and opened her hand and let me drop to the ground. "We are not arguing about this. I am going to tell Mr. Giles and Mrs. Calendar everything I saw. They can find out about how much dark magic you have actually done and why. You can defend yourself to them... if there is any defense for what you have done."

    "It'll be my word against yours!" I screamed at her. "They'll never believe you!"

    "When I ask Amy to cast a truth-spell on me, who will they believe?" Kendra said coldly. "Now pick up your bag and come with me. We are going back to the house right-"

    No. No! Nooooooo!

    I didn't even think consciously about it. I was just so desperate to get away, so I reached out with all my magic and fear and pushed, and Kendra flew away from me as if she'd been hit by a giant and crashed into the opposite wall, knocking loose one of the sinks as the broken pipe began to spray loose water everywhere. But she was a Slayer, and even that kind of hit wasn't enough to put her down. She staggered back to her feet and shook her head once, twice, to clear it, and then balled her fist and started to charge forward.

    If she reached me, I was dead. That was it, purely and simply. I couldn't hope to stop a Slayer in hand-to-hand combat, and even if she didn't kill me herself she'd still knock me out and drag me back to the gang and tell them that I'd done black magic and attacked her and then they'd bind my powers like they did to Amy's mom and send me off to crazy witch jail in England and I'd eventually-

    And then I saw the solution. Kendra had told me herself- the reason Mr. Zabuto had taught her about what mind magic looked like is because it was a favorite way for people to attack Slayers. Take down the physically powerful by attacking them mentally-

    "Forget!" I cried desperately, hauling another piece of lethe's bramble out of my purse just as Kendra made it halfway across the room. Her eyes rolled up back in her head and she went comatose, collapsing in mid-stride to the floor and slamming heavily to the ground.

    Whew. That should have taken the entire past hour from her. Now all I had to do was-

    A slow, soft clapping interrupted me as I was kneeling over Kendra to try and figure out what exactly to do next, and I looked up to realize with absolute horror that Drusilla was standing and smiling down at me.

    "Oh, naughty, naughty girl." she whispered. "When the stars told me about you I'd never dreamed I'd get this lucky."

    "Incend-" I began my fire spell, and then my tongue froze solid as Drusilla caught me with her gaze.

    "No, no, naughty girl." Drusilla cooed to me. "No magic words. We wouldn't want to interrupt this." She knelt down alongside me, from where I knelt unable to move a muscle, and gently- so gently!- took the unconscious Kendra from my arms.

    "Don't-" I whispered, barely able to force my mouth to move.

    "Ssssshhhh." Drusilla said. "Slayer blood tastes so sweet. Don't want to ruin the experience."

    Wake up! I shouted as loudly as I could inside my head. Wake up, Kendra! You're about to be killed by a vampire! But Kendra didn't move-

    "Made her all nice and helpless, all for me." Drusilla smirked at me. "So generous of you. I knew you could be a naughty one if you were given the right push- I'd smelled it on you even then- but I never thought you'd help bring me a Slayer of my very own." She grinned at me in a horrible parody of a smile. "Spikey had two, and never shared. Wasn't that mean of him? He could have given me at least one."

    No! I shrieked, and then Drusilla's head lunged down horribly and her fangs sunk into Kendra's neck. I heard her gulp-gulp-gulp, swallowing Kendra's blood pint by pint, as her eyes opened too late- far, far too late- and Kendra writhed helplessly in Drusilla's grasp, her eyes staring accusingly into my own, until they shut for the final time.

    "Ahhhhhhhh." Drusilla cooed, stretching out her limbs and shuddering in ecstasy. "Slayer blood- so wonderful-"

    "Why?" I whispered, my tongue feeling thick as lead.

    "To put you in the moment, dearie." Drusilla said. "The horrible, horrible moment where it all shatters. Where you know you've been bad, and even if you didn't mean it to be bad you stlil know what you did was still a bad, bad thing. All that blood, of the people who trusted you, and all over you." she cooed. "And then you know you can never, ever be clean again."

    "Stop... making... me... do... this..." I begged her.

    "Oh you silly little tree." she mocked me. "All Mummy did was hold you still, so you couldn't interfere." She caressed my forehead with one thin pale finger. "All the wicked thoughts, all the naughty spells you've done- that was all you. Not Mummy, never Mummy." She kissed me on the head as I wished I could shiver. "It had to be you. You had to do it all yourself."

    "What do you want." I spat out thickly.

    "I've lost my family, and your Slayer wouldn't let me keep a new one." Drusilla cooed. "So I'll make one for myself, just like I made Spikey. I'll be the Mummy now, not the little girl. And my first child-" she whispered in my ear. "Will be a naughty little witch, who I turn just as she reaches the moment where it all broke for her. Just like Daddy turned me right in my moment, so I'd be broken forever too."

    "You can't have planned all this-" I said.

    "Didn't plan all this." Drusilla shrugged. "The stars told me that if I ducked at the right time, then you'd find a new path. So I did and then I did, and then I just waited to see where you'd wander." She shrugged. "And while I never expected you'd walk so far so fast, now here we are!" she giggled. "Why didn't you stop before you entered the woods, little Red Riding Hood? You knew when you should have turned around and around, but you just kept going and going!"

    I couldn't move a muscle. I could barely touch my magic. I could barely even talk, and every time I tried to incant instead of just speak to her I couldn't do that. But I knew a simple little spell that I could do without talking or walking-

    "Because I wouldn't be their meek little girl." I hissed at her, breathing heavily. "And if you turn me, I won't be your obedient pet vampire."

    "That's all right." Drusilla smirked. "Daddy had to spank me so many times before I learned how to behave. I'll just break you, just like he-" And right then the pencil that I'd finally been able to pull out of my dropped book bag finished rolling free, lifted into the air, and took Drusilla square in the heart from behind. Cut off mid-sentence, she shrieked and dusted.

    Freed of her hypnosis I collapsed to the ground, soaked by the water from the burst pipe running all over the floor. In shock, I noticed that the clear water was starting to show streaks of pink and red from all the blood. Kendra's blood, still oozing out of where Drusilla had ripped open her throat.

    If I hadn't used my memory-spell on her right then, she'd never have been helpless for Drusilla to kill. Even if I'd been knocked unconscious, Kendra could still have fought her- could have carried me back- could have-

    I was still lying curled up miserably on the floor, still in shock, when the police arrived.

    * * * * *​

    Nobody blamed me for anything. That was the worst part.

    Even most of the Sunnydale police couldn't imagine that a girl my size and no muscles could have beaten down and then torn open the throat of a girl Kendra's size and muscles, so the obvious conclusion was that we'd both been assaulted by someone else. I managed to mumble some kind of story that would sound like something, and Kendra went right into the 'gangs on PCP with barbecue forks' statistic. There was a Detective Stein or something who kept trying to make me confess to something, but all I had to do was play dumb and still in shock and not talk. I didn't even spend an hour in the interrogation room before his boss came and ordered me released.

    Oz had seen the police arrive, so he'd left and brought the gang before I'd even thought to make a phone call from the station house. Drusilla had arranged for a diversionary attack on where Buffy was staking out but they'd handled that, so by the time I was freed they were all there to be all shocked and sympathetic and everything.

    I didn't remotely have the guts to tell them what had really happened, so I even got congratulated for having killed Drusilla. Nobody even began to blame me for Kendra's death; they were entirely willing to believe a simple story that Drusilla had waited in the hospital to ambush us and that Kendra had fought bravely but gotten overwhelmed while I wasn't able to do anything first due to having been bonked on the head early on- ironically, I had the bump on my head from where Kendra had slammed my head into the wall to prove it- until I finally got in a last desperate shot on her but too late.

    So I'd gotten my wish. Nobody could prove anything on me, and I'd gotten away with all my forgetting spells. Andrew wouldn't remember anything, Oz didn't know anything, and neither Kendra nor Drusilla were around to tell anyone anything. I could even ask to be taken off Slaying duty for a while because of what had happened, so I'd have all the time I wanted to study magic by myself. For all the good it'd do me.

    I didn't have any real friends anymore, I was less and less able to talk to my boyfriend, and now I had this big ol' guilty secret to carry. I could study and train and get all the power I wanted, but what would I even do with it? God, I didn't even know how I was going to survive the interrogation Mr. Zabuto was going to lay on me about how his Slayer had died right in front of me when he got out of the hospital-

    "Miss Rosenberg?" I heard a strange man's voice say kindly, and I looked up in surprise to wonder who the heck had come into my house without me knowing about it.

    "Who the heck are-" I began, and then I fell silent on recognizing exactly who it was.

    "I know that we've never met, and that usually things like this are handled on a lower level, but I've always believed that the children were the future of any community." Mayor Wilkins smiled down at me. "And according to the educational records, you were already seeing the school counselor briefly before his unfortunate demise. And that was before all this recent trauma." He pulled out my desk chair and sat himself down on it, looking at me where I sat with my knees curled up defensively in front of me on my bed. "So as the senior civic official, it falls on me to arrange for people to fill in when vital civic services are absent, which is why I'm volunteering myself."

    "Get out." I said. "We know what you're up to."

    "Do you?" he said charmingly. "What I'm 'up to', young lady, is offering you personalized grief counseling in light of your recent tragic loss. Nothing more."

    "Why would you even care?" I shot back. "Aren't you fighting us?"

    "Fighting you?" he asked me, a puzzled expression on his face. "Who told you that I was the enemy?"

    "... Jonathan." I said with realization.

    "A young man who, according to the late Mr. Platt's files, you already lacked trust in and suspected of being involved in some type of illicit commerce." Mayor Wilkins countered reasonably. "So why would you consider him a reliable source of information in this context, if you don't in other contexts?" he smiled, spreading his hands expressively.

    I sat and thought about that for a while.

    "So if I asked you what your side of the story was...?" I began tentatively.

    "Then I'd be positively delighted to discuss it with you." he nodded at me.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Yup, Willow just did that. She of course didn't intend to incapacitate Kendra just as Drusilla was stalking them, but this is why manslaughter exists as a legal category; if you act with criminal intent but not intending someone's death, but they still die as a result of your actions, then it's still a crime even if it's not quite murder one. Willow legitimately shares the responsibility for Kendra's death.

    And yes, as Drusilla said, she certainly didn't see this all in advance; she's not even Emperor Palpatine, much less Contessa. But she did still see what rock to push to start the avalanche in motion, and the rest was just following along and waiting. And that was Drusilla's plan; to break Willow just as Angelus had broken her, then turn her in the moment of her breaking just as Angelus had frozen her as Drusilla the Mad forever.

    This was also the final Chekov's Gun of the therapists' files; Willow used them against Amy, yes, but even if her file is much shorter it still existed to be used by the Mayor against her. And it's not like he really needs that much of an opening to begin with, given his own talents and the circumstances.

    So... yeah. That happened.

    Oh, and on a lighter note, 1430 is Buffy's canonical SAT score. Xander's canon one was circa 740, so he definitely improved in this timeline. Willow's verbal score was a canonical 740 so assuming she scored a perfect 800 on the math, that's 1540. Nobody else's was actually mentioned in so I just handed out what I felt appropriate. (This is the old SAT of course, the 0-1600 one. In-setting, it's the year 1998 right now.)

    Oh yes, the 'dark power' that Kendra sensed was rising?

    Willow herself, of course. Someone who'd fought Kendra before? Willow counts, even if the friendly fire accident was an accident. :)
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 24) New
  • View content
    • Willow POV:

    "But what about all the people who died?" I pressed him. Because despite all that he'd said to explain himself, the Mayor had still set up this town to get people eaten!

    "Miss Rosenberg." he said after thoughtfully chewing his lip. "Do you think that I was ordering all the vampires and demons to attack people?"

    "You specifically invited them here!" I shot back.

    "No, the Hellmouth called them here." he pointed out reasonably. "As it would have done without my intervention. That's the nature of such things, and I'm powerless to change it."

    "But you created the town!" I insisted. "Without your intervention, they'd-"

    "-still have created a settlement of their own." Mayor Wilkins corrected me. "The Chumash tribe lived for centuries, before the white man ever arrived to settle in this region. The Hellmouth was originally called 'Boca del Infernio' by Spanish settlers, who'd founded and then lost a mission on this site decades before I arrived to found the current town. No Hellmouth ever goes unoccupied for very long; power calls to power. And people will always flock to and around the powerful, regardless of their nature. That the site of the Hellmouth would attract both a thriving demon population and sufficient humans to sustain their ecosystem is a mystical and historical inevitability, Miss Rosenberg. I can hardly claim credit for it."

    "But you're still willing to profit on it." I sulked. "At the cost of human lives."

    That actually got me a kindly, tolerant smile instead of the angry supervillain speech I'd been expecting. "Do you think that your parents have ever voted for an elected official who hasn't? Who do you think starts wars, Miss Rosenberg? Who decides that the health budget can only be allocated a certain amount of funding, because the rest of the money is needed somewhere else? Who chooses which neighborhoods the finite amount of emergency services personnel available prioritize response to? Presidents- governors- even mayors." He shrugged. "Every senior official makes decisions that, if you analyze them deeply enough, are all about trading one set of lives to try and preserve a greater number of them. Being older and with more magic doesn't make me an exception to that." He shrugged and changed approaches while I was still trying to figure out exactly where that last one had a hole in it. "Do you know why it's called 'the innocence of childhood', Miss Rosenberg?"

    "Children. Bah." I snorted. "Children aren't expected to do anything." I groused.

    "Exactly!" he surprised me by congratulating me. "You're a very intelligent young woman. Innocence, my dear young lady, is related directly to powerlessness. You're never really guilty of anything because you're never really responsible for anything. But the older you get, and the more and more adult decisions you have to take into your own two hands, the more you begin to realize that the simple black-and-white they taught you as a child doesn't seem to work anymore."

    "Is this the part where you ask me to join you and let you complete my training? And together we can rule the Hellmouth as father and daughter?" I glared at him.

    "The Empire Strikes Back." he snapped his finger and pointed at me with a grin. "What, do you think I never went out to catch a movie? But no, I'm not saying that you should abandon all self-restraint to run amok in the streets like some soulless creature. Yrch!" he shuddered. "So uncivilized! What I am saying is that you're an intelligent, powerful young woman on the cusp of legal adulthood. And that soon, very soon, you'll be ready to cut the apron strings and fly." He stopped with the motivational speaker tone and continued on, far more soberly. "But fly where?"

    I tried to think about everything he'd just dropped on me, and the whole tangle and mess my feelings had already been before that. He leaned back in his chair and waited silently, patiently, giving me all the time I wanted to think. Wow, and wasn't that a new experience from a teacher.

    "... I don't know." I finally admitted.

    He nodded reassuringly. "So it sounds like what we need to do tonight is have ourselves a goal-setting session. Close your eyes and say the first thing that pops into your mind, don't try to overanalyze it. Where do you see yourself in ten years?"

    "Powerful." I said reflexively.

    "Powerful." he acknowledged. "What type of power? Are you rich? Are you important?"

    "Magical power." I continued, my eyes still closed and breathing deeply. I let the warmth of my witchcraft flow through me and steady my nerves.

    "Magical power." he acknowledged. I opened my eyes to see Mayor Wilkins looking at me, his fingers thoughtfully steepled in front of him. "And how do you see yourself getting it?"

    "... good question." I sulked. "I thought I'd found teachers who wanted to help me, but-"

    "The man who in his misspent youth was a drunken demon summoner and the woman from a tribe whose most famous feat of black magic was an epic curse? And who moved on from there to become someone whose career was to train young women to destroy the supernatural and a computer science teacher, respectively?" Mayor Wilkins said reflectively.

    "Ugh." I said, finally seeing it when it was laid out. Of course they wouldn't really have their hearts put into teaching me, what with all that. But wait- "Yeah, but that doesn't seem to be holding Amy back."

    "Ah, Miss Madison." the Mayor nodded. "The latest scion of a long, long line of powerful witches. Her maternal bloodline's been famous since at least Salem. Even Catherine- who just between you and me was an incredibly petty-minded slacker when she was your age, and never really emotionally grew past high school at all- could still sling a very mean spell, and all that without any training except her mother's old grimoire." He shrugged. "And then there's her young man, with access to all sorts of learning resources that he's been keeping back from everyone else. Between those two factors, of course she'd be pulling ahead of you despite your having the same formal teachers of magic." He put his palms on his knees and leaned forward, encouragingly. "But that doesn't mean that you don't have the same potential that your rival does. Indeed, you might even have slightly more. It's just not being brought out properly."

    "So, where do I find someone who can actually teach? Who actually wants to?" I asked the obvious question. Because this was totally leading up to a recruitment pitch-

    "Well, not me." the Mayor said, surprising me yet again. "You don't remotely trust me or approve of my goals. That would certainly get in the way."

    "You haven't finished explaining your goals." I disagreed with him. "All you said was something about how all elected officials made compromises..." I probed.

    "They do." Mayor Wilkins nodded. "The resources any politician- anyone in charge of anything, really- has to work with are finite. There's only so much revenue, so many trained people, so much equipment or so much land. But there's an entire world worth of problems. You're always outnumbered, always overwhelmed- no matter how much you do, the next night just brings more and more." He shrugged again. "You work with a team of vampire hunters. I hardly need to tell you that it's a never-ending battle out there. And that no matter how hard you work, how many times you suffer and bleed, it just feels like trying to bail the ocean with a fork."

    "But you're on the other side." I said.

    "Am I?" he said. "Or am I just operating on a harder-to-see timescale?" he asked me. "Miss Rosenberg, if I had never founded Sunnydale- if the Hellmouth had been left to operate on a catch-as-catch-can basis- then what would have happened?"

    "A lot less people would have died." I replied.

    "Everyone would have died." he corrected me. "Last spring you fought Kakistos at the old Temple of Proserpexa. Did you research that temple's history? Particularly the events of the year 1932?"

    "Well, yeah." I said. "Her cultists tried to invoke her there and destroy the world, but then an earthquake-" I stopped and blinked. "And in 1937, when the Master tried opening the Hellmouth, another earthquake..."

    The Mayor grinned. "Two attempts to open the Hellmouth just in the 30s alone, either one of which would have led to an extinction event if they hadn't been interrupted. Gosh, wasn't it just so lucky that they both failed?"

    "That was you?" I asked incredulously.

    "Both times, and quite a few other times you don't know about yet." Mayor Wilkins said sobertly. "I'm the guardian of the Hellmouth, Miss Rosenberg. I've spent most of my life living on it and keeping it from being used to end the world. Not because I was chosen to by some spirit that doesn't care how many people it uses up so long as it can find another one, or because I chose to enslave myself to some mysterious Powers That Be, but simply because I chose to do it. I've appointed myself to this duty, but it's still a duty I take seriously. I've made trade-offs when I've had to, but I've never made myself a pawn. I've compromised when the necessities of the world needed me to compromise, but I've never lost sight of my goal."

    "Which is?" I asked him, fascinated.

    "This world is broken, Miss Rosenberg. Vampires, demons-" he said soberly. "Humanity is forever the prey of extradimensional invaders and mystical parasites. Our Earth is infected-" he shuddered, his face twisting up in distaste. "Eugh! It needs to be-" he paused and took a deep breath. "Your life goal is to be powerful. Magically powerful. But power is a method, not an end of itself. Power is a tool you use to achieve your goals. So why is your only goal right now to get yourself bigger tools?"

    "Because if I'm powerless, it doesn't matter what other choices I make." I realized. "I wouldn't be able to do anything about them anyway."

    "Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser!" Mayor Wilkins quoted. "Leo Durocher. He used to coach the Dodgers when they were still in Brooklyn." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You know, I never agreed with them moving to LA-" he mused, and then brought himself back to the conversation. "Your group has learned very little about me, but I'll confirm one of the facts that they have known. I am indeed working on a long-range plan to gain mystical power. An incredible amount of it, far more than the already respectable sum I've accumulated. And there will indeed be sacrifices made to gain that power." He sighed and continued. "I take no pleasure in many of the things that happen in my town after dark. But as I was trying to say earlier, if the monsters had not come here- if they didn't have here to come to- then they'd have just stayed where they already were."

    "It still sounds cold." I objected.

    "It is cold." the Mayor freely admitted. "That ties in to what I was saying earlier, about the death of innocence. But if they hadn't come here, they'd still be killing elsewhere. I agree that the death rate in Sunnydale is far too high for any civilized community. But by being that way, it helps lower the death rate everywhere else. And if that sounds callous-" he continued, overriding my objection. "-then consider this. Scattered all over everywhere, the vampires would enjoy so many advantages. Cities large enough to be entirely invisible in. Entire communities that had no one aware of the supernatural- no Slayers, no witches, no demon hunters. They could go on and on for decades- centuries- before anyone stopped them. Instead-" he smiled. "Miss Rosenberg, since your sophomore year alone the first and second oldest vampires alive on the planet were both destroyed here in Sunnydale, and both by the actions of you and you friends. Centuries- literal millenia- of evil, all turned to dust in a mortal eyeblink. Would any of that happened if I hadn't been here, doing what I was doing?"

    "You're going to take the credit for all we did?" I challenged him.

    "Of course I'm not. I'm just going to take credit for creating the conditions that gave you all such freedom to work." he replied. "You mentioned earlier that this town was designed to be a perfectly comfy feeding ground for demons. But what's the term for a deliberately inviting food source that lures predators into a concentration where the hunters will be able to find them more easily?"

    "Bait!" I said wonderingly. "This town is bait!"

    "Bait and a lure." the Mayor agreed. "But it wouldn't work if any of them caught on. So I represent myself as a warlock, a black sorcerer making pacts and deals with their kind, and let them all come to me. And they never notice that they all seem to lose in the end while I keep maintaining. But then again, it was a former governor of our great state who once said that there was no limit to what you could achieve if you didn't care about other people getting the credit."

    "I'm still not sure if I believe you." I said after a long pause.

    "Of course not. As I said, you're a very intelligent young woman." the Mayor agreed with me. "I could be lying to you. I could be telling you the truth. I could even be telling you all the truth about what while still totally obfuscating the why." he shrugged. "But you can't deny the actual factual elements of what we've been discussing."

    "The parts where the Hellmouth didn't open because of your being here in position to interfere? No." I agreed.

    "Or the parts where I've been allowing your group total freedom to work in my town, destroying demons and vampires left and right, despite my supposedly being in alliance with the forces of darkness and my knowing exactly who you are and what you've been up to." the Mayor said.

    "Yeah." I agreed. "You might not be the good guy, but you're clearly not just another bad guy."

    "No I'm not." the Mayor agreed. "I seek power for myself- I'm not denying that. But that doesn't automatically make me a bad person, anymore than it makes you a bad person. And if I'm forced to make the occasional compromise in how I go about it-" he spread his hands widely. "I didn't create the world, and I didn't make the laws of magic. I just work with what I can, and do what I can within those limitations."

    "So what happens now?" I asked him.

    "Now I leave you with a lot of things to think about, and reassure you that my door is always open to you if you ever want to follow up on anything we discussed." the Mayor said. "And then I let you go free, without let or hindrance."

    "What, no demands that I keep quiet about this or else?" I probed again.

    "You know as well as I do that if you tell any of your friends about our conversations before you've finished making up your mind, then they'll make up your mind for you." Mayor Wilkins said to me as he got to his feet. And yeah, I didn't want to admit it, but he was certainly right about that. "Oh, and one last thing-"

    I eye-rolled at him. Of course there'd be one last thing.

    "-I brought you a gift." he said, and reached inside his jacket to withdraw a small, leather-bound pocket book and laid it on the bed next to me. Shield Your Heart- A Guide To Protection Spells Against Divination the title read. There was no author.

    "It's a little something I picked up in San Francisco in the 1880s." he said. "One of my first workbooks. It's not a spellbook- you're too intelligent to just pick up and cast anything I'd give you. It's a set of notes on how to design your own spells, to help protect your privacy." He shrugged. "I'd strongly suggest working on at least some of what's in there as soon as you can. When Mr. Zabuto gets out of the hospital he's certainly going to look further into Miss Young's tragic death, and he might very well use truth spells."

    I drew my breath between my teeth. I certainly didn't want to just pick up and start casting strange things, but I didn't want to get caught out either-

    I picked up the book.

    "Thanks." I said reluctantly.

    "Good evening, Miss Rosenberg." he said as he departed. "And never forget- my door is always open."

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    (*mood music*)

    I stopped on the mark and lowered the coffin onto the stand. Kendra was being laid to rest in Sunnydale; Mr. Zabuto, officially her next of kin, had chosen not to take her back to be buried in Jamaica. Giles and Buffy had carried the front of the coffin; Amy and Cordelia had anchored the middle, and Xander and I had taken the back. Mr. Zabuto had been unable to be a pallbearer as he was still on crutches; one of the vampires that had attacked him and Kendra in the airport had broken his leg. Everybody else- Willow, Oz, Ms. Calendar, Buffy's mother and Amy's father- were present among the mourners. The priest bowed his head, as did we all, and began the service.

    "-and the righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." he eventually finished intoning over the grave.

    "Amen." we chorused, and we all bowed our heads. The coffin was lowered into the ground and the gravediggers began filling in the hole. After the first few spadefuls of earth were tossed in, we all turned and began walking away.

    "Mr. Zabuto, I'm so sorry." Buffy began to say to him. "I should have been there- we all should have been-"

    "Buffy." he cut her off compassionately. "You all did only what was entirely sensible under the circumstances. I reviewed all your actions with Giles. I have no criticism of them."

    "I still feel so horrible." Buffy sighed as her mother laid her hand compassionately on her shoulder. "We all do."

    "Nobody even came to the temple." I sighed along with her. "Almost half our entire force was out of position for nothing."

    "That is hindsight." Mr. Zabuto corrected us. "You know how foolish it is to judge yourself on that alone."

    "Indeed." Giles agreed with him.

    "Buffy- all of you." he stopped, leaning on his crutches, to look at us. "Do you know why I chose to bury Kendra here in Sunnydale, rather than back home?" At Buffy's headshake, he continued. "Because-" he sighed with weariness and guilt. "After we got back home, after the first time we'd been here, she talked about that ice cream for weeks. I had raised her since she was placed into my custody by the Council as a small child, in the oldest and most traditional way for Slayers, and I had thought she was happy. And while she had been entirely content- I am not a cruel man- it wasn't until after she came here and met you all that she realized what happiness truly was. Or that either of us knew that she hadn't really been."

    "Oh." Buffy said, starting to tear up again.

    "We went out for ice cream ourselves after that, every week." he said with a reminescent smile. "And other things- we would have returned for a visit sooner if the press of events had allowed-" he trailed off. "What I am trying to say is, please do not blame yourselves for having any part in Kendra's death at all. If she had never come to Sunnydale she may or may nor have continued for longer, but she would not have really lived. You- your entire team- had brought her more happiness in her life than anything ever had." he stopped and swallowed. "You had shown her that she could be happy, that a Slayer's life could be more than about just their duty. And that is why I chose to lay her to rest here. So that wherever she is now, she can look down and know that at least a piece of her is still with her best and only friends."

    I wiped my eyes clean with my handkerchief at that one, and handed it to Amy who did the same. Then she handed it to her dad.

    "She was your daughter, wasn't she?" Joyce asked him gently. "Not just your Slayer."

    "Yes." he nodded slowly. "After Kakistos- yes."

    Joyce gently drew him into a comforting hug. "I can only imagine how much loss you must be feeling. I don't know when you're leaving Sunnydale, but if you want to stop by my house before you do I think there's a few things you could talk about, with someone else who at least partly understands."

    "Myself as well." Giles offered.

    "Thank you." Mr. Zabuto acknowledged. "I- after this, and my debriefing with the Council, I believe I shall retire. I have devoted a lifetime to this- more than one lifetime." he finished, with a nod back towards Kendra's grave. "There is very little left for me."

    "I entirely understand." Giles nodded, visibly leaving unspoken the sentiment May God grant that my own 'retirement' be delayed as long as possible.

    "I- would like to stay here for a while and reflect over Kendra's grave. Please go on without me, I'll catch up." Mr. Zabuto said.

    Buffy startled a little bit at that, and then replied "I'll stay here with you. You need someone to help you get around."

    "How will you get home?" Joyce asked her.

    "Jonathan can give me a ride, if that's all right." she turned to me, and I nodded.

    "I can ride back with Dad." Amy agreed. "We'll see you later, all right?"

    After everyone had moved out of earshot, Buffy turned to Mr. Zabuto. "Okay, I heard you whisper that you wanted me to stay behind but nobody without Slayer hearing would have." I raised my eyebrows at that and she continued. "What's wrong?"

    "Mr. Giles would never tell you this, because if the Council even suspected that he had warned you then they would punish him by immediately removing him from you as your Watcher and then assigning the least sympathetic replacement that they possibly could. If it ever does come to their attention that you knew, then you must immediately inform them that you got this knowledge from me." Mr. Zabuto sighed and took another look back at Kendra's grave. "There is very little they can do to punish me now, after all."

    "This is very sounding of the ominous." Buffy invited him, and I certainly agreed.

    "Upon a Slayer's eighteenth birthday, there is a ritual- an ordeal- called the Cruciamentum." Mr. Zabuto said stolidly. "A Slayer is stripped of their powers temporarily, then confined in a test arena with a dangerous vampire that she must defeat via skill and cunning alone. The reason for the ritual is supposedly that a Slayer must prove that they are more than their strength; that they can fight evil with their wits as well."

    "Now that's just ten pounds of bullshit in a five pound bag." I immediately interjected. "You test for that with a simple training program. Or just by a review of their field record to date!"

    "No kidding!" Buffy said, incredulously. "Giles would do that to me?"

    "He would not want to." Mr. Zabuto agreed, "any more than I would have wished to do it to Kendra. But-"

    "This is how you knew." I snapped my fingers. "She was approaching the age for it, so they'd have had to tell you to start preparations- wait." I realized. "Exactly how involved is a Slayer's own Watcher in the preparations?"

    "The Slayer's strength is removed by a series of injections- an alchemical preparation tailored to temporarily weaken her." Mr. Zabuto said. "Her Watcher is responsible for making sure they are administered without the Slayer's knowledge. If he fails to do so, if his Slayer arrives at the Cruciamentum without the injections, then he is also summarily replaced."

    "I can't believe Giles would even think-" Buffy began incredulously.

    "I can." I snapped my fingers, seeing the lay of the land. "Buffy, I'm pretty sure the real purpose of the 'test' is to provoke exactly the reaction you're having- to split the Slayer away from their Watcher. That's why it's the eighteenth birthday; by that point the average Slayer will have been Called for at least a year, if not several. Just long enough to start really forming a comrade bond."

    "You are a very perceptive young man." Mr. Zabuto agreed with me. "I'd recently come to that conclusion as well."

    "It's like a gang initiation," I explained to Buffy. "You force the person to do something that they know to be wrong, that they don't want to do. If they still refuse to do it, you get rid of them. But if they bend the knee, then you've got that leverage on their loyalty forevermore-"

    "Because of the guilt trip." Buffy realized. "Hey, you did this awful thing just to stay here so now you've gotta stay here from now on or else it's not worth all the price you paid. Ugh." she twisted her lip. "So, assuming I'm not dead- which also neatly solves their problem for them because they can just start training a new girl- then they still get what they want. No Slayer-Watcher duo going their own away against the Council; she's feeling betrayed, and he's already made the decision in his heart that Council ultimately trumps Slayer. And proved it, with a needle."

    "Almost certainly." Mr. Zabuto agreed. "I-" he slumped his head guiltily. "I am ashamed to admit that I still had not yet made my decision as to how I would choose in Kendra's case. But now she has fallen in battle and I am spared that dilemma, as horrible as the method by which I was spared it is." He looked at Buffy. "And this is why I am warning you of what is to come. Kendra's death frees me to make my own choices in this regard without fearing the Council's retaliation, and I know that she would have been grateful and happy if I used part of that freedom to help her sister Slayer escape the Council's trap. That her loss- her sacrifice- would still be able to be given at least this one tiny bit of meaning."

    "If there's ever anything I can do for you- if any of us can do for you- you just call, and we'll be there." Buffy said. "I owe at least that much to Kendra, and to you."

    "And I hope that I will never need such aid again." Mr. Zabuto said stolidly. "And if you wish to make this old Watcher's heart happier, Buffy Summers, then you just live as long as you possibly can. And never forget the lesson you taught Kendra; that while duty must come first, it should never come only."

    "I will." Buffy said, and I nodded along with her.

    * * * * *​

    Mayor Wilkins POV:

    I had been amused to find out from Miss Rosenberg exactly how little that their little 'Scooby Gang' had found out about me already, despite their oracles' warning of me as early as the year before. Clearly my precautions against information-gathering were working just as well as I'd intended them to. That tap on my phone was inconvenient, though. Now I'd have to be more careful to make arrangements only in person- perhaps I could use the phone to sow false information, though...

    Now, young Mister Fairchild was clearly a potentially dangerous anomaly. I'd noted his unusual abilities almost as soon as he was enrolled in school- one of Mr. Snyder's duties was to keep an eye out for potentially disruptive elements among the student body. And his lack of an investigatable background was likewise eye-catching. Still, he'd soon enough settled into the pattern of a mostly typical demon hunter along with all the rest, so I just let him go on his way- I had many other matters to occupy my attention, after all, and the hunters were as much part of Sunnydale's normal ecosystem as the predators were.

    But then the notation in Miss Rosenberg's therapy files had caught my eye. I'd been having copies of those files brought to me from time to time as part of keeping an eye on the Slayer's little group. And while Miss Rosenberg had obviously couched all her complaints in non-supernatural terms when speaking to the therapist, a knowledgeable eye that could read between the lines clearly could see that she was referring to some kind of pact situation with Mister Fairchild.

    Now, 'using fire to fight fire' wasn't an entirely unknown thing among demon hunters, even as foolishly self-defeating as such deals often were, but given the wide range of his abilities and the suspicious omission among them I felt that I had to pay careful attention. I'd made many deals to get where I was, and many of the entities that I'd dealt with had rivals. Rivals who might not be above sending an empowered minion of theirs into Sunnydale to disrupt the culmination of my work. And infiltrating the local gang of white hats and stirring them up against me would be a logical move for a covert operative of a rival demon lord.

    Especially given that for all the capabilities Mister Fairchild had apparently pacted for, magic was not among them. It was almost inconceivable that someone willing to pawn a piece of themselves for power wouldn't get any potential for the greatest power of them all... unless they had a very compelling motive to avoid attracting my notice. I would logically monitor all other practitioners above the trivial level in my own center of power, after all, but I'd have less time to pay attention to those restricted to mundane methods.

    Likewise, a hindsight review of Miss Madison's own more extensive therapy files revealed how thoroughly Mister Fairchild had acted to entwine himself into the life of one of the two most powerful witches available to him. If he wasn't going to use any magic himself then clearly he'd need magical support, and while hoodwinking a white witch to serve his purposes was riskier in many ways than just encouraging her to walk a more flexible path then it did at least serve as an additional layer of misdirection and a safeguard against betrayal. Plus, the fact remained that he might genuinely be in love with her in addition to needing to manipulate her to being a bulwark of his plans. Young people did still get that way, after all, and I'd be the first person to have to admit that a career in dark magic and eventual ambitions to Ascend into an Old One were not entirely incompatible with good old-fashioned human sentiments.

    Still, now that my attention had been drawn to him I'd need to figure out exactly what his game was and who was backing him. As well as pay closer attention to the Slayer and her gang of friends, as they were proving themselves to be surprisingly capable. This matter would require careful investigation.

    The sort of careful investigation that could best be done by suborning a member of someone's own team. Which Mister Fairchild had already figured out, witness his own efforts to scout out weaknesses among my team. Another point towards the theory that he was someone's infiltration operative, specifically sent here to subtly ruin my plans.

    But in the category of subornation, here I'd been fortunate enough to have Miss Rosenberg fall practically into my lap. The one weak link of their group, she'd had the incredible ill fortune to have her initial fumbling experiments into pursuing power of her own so quickly lead to the death of one of her allies. Usually that didn't come until notably later in the process. A very precocious young woman in several aspects indeed, and now that I'd taken a closer look at her I'd been shocked and pleased to find out that she might possibly be a stronger magical talent than Miss Madison was- not that I could hope to recruit her any longer. Oh, if only I'd been paying proper attention earlier then the abused and abandoned child she'd been would have been so easy to scoop up, but now she'd already been scooped by someone else and I'd entirely missed my chance. My fault for assuming that she'd been as much of a useless slacker as her mother had been, I suppose. Turned out that all she'd needed was the proper motivation. Well, that was true of almost anyone, really.

    But Miss Rosenberg- she'd practically served herself up to me on a silver platter with what she'd done. And yes, she certainly wasn't ready to hear the full recruitment pitch yet or even really trusted me at all- but she was still intrigued enough by what dribs and drabs I'd revealed to want to eventually hear more. And I hadn't lied to her when I said that telling her friends right now would be her already making a final decision, because they'd certainly not let her keep in contact with me if they knew.

    So I'd given her the ability to protect herself against their divinations and investigations, so that even if they intensively scanned her magic they'd see none of the taint of darkness even now growing within her. And even if they re-investigated her story about Miss Young's death with truth spells, they still wouldn't see that she was lying.

    You see, this was where so many other people in my line of work kept messing up. They kept thinking they had to force everything to happen, as if nothing would ever occur if they didn't do it themselves. When all you really needed most of the time was a little patience. If you already knew that someone was going towards the direction you wanted, why, then you should just let them wander there at their own pace if you could!

    Not even the most arrogant and insecure teenager ever rebelled against anything that they thought was their own idea, after all.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And so, the plot thickens.

    The amount of truth in Mayor Wilkins' pitch, or the degree to which he believed any of it himself, was not one hundred percent. Neither was it zero percent. But as I've always said, the most dangerous villains are the ones who base their horrible lies on a foundation of at least some truth; it really makes it harder to argue against.

    And yes, in this timeline Samuel Zabuto and Kendra actually bonded some with the Scoobies, so he'd bother to warn them. In OTL of course there was virtually zero bond on Kendra's part and he'd never even met them. And thus the plot of the Cruciamentum is totally nuked; even if she still undergoes it Buffy will be far more prepared for it, and certainly won't hold it much against Giles.

    As for the Cruciamentum; the common fan theory is that it's there to prune uppity Slayers before they get old enough to get really independent, and that's certainly a valid point. But in addition to that, did anyone ever consider what it did to the Watchers involved? As a method of making sure to reaffirm that their first loyalty is to the Council and not to their Slayer it's a two-edged sword; he's guilty and she's resentful, and so the Watcher-Slayer bond gets weakened on either side. Even in OTL, Buffy and Giles' trust in each other was pretty damaged for a while.

    Lastly, it's amusing to see Willow's own mistaken assumption be communicated to the Mayor, and for him to filter it through his own beliefs and experiences. Although to be fair, he's entirely right in that he does have potential enemies who'd be capable of pulling this kind of shit.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 25) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    I ducked under the police tape and entered the ladies' restroom. It was the afternoon after Kendra's funeral, but it was the first opportunity I'd had to get in here; my earlier attempt had been blocked out by the forensics team still being there. But I was here now, and I'd finally get a chance to examine the scene for myself.

    Standing in the doorway, I started snapping photographs of everything. They'd obviously cleaned up the debris and mopped up all the water, but there was still the empty place in the wall where Kendra had been thrown into the sink and knocked it loose. And there across the room was the dent in the plaster from where Willow had said she'd been knocked into the wall by Drusilla, and-

    Hrm. I narrowed my eyes and started mentally plotting out the impact vectors. What was I missing...?

    I spent the next several minutes very carefully pacing all around the room, looking for further signs of impact or scraping. I paid especial attention to the paint on the doors of the restroom stalls, going over them with a magnifying glass. I stood in various places and plotted sight lines.

    Now, the entire reason Kendra had escorted Oz and Willow to the hospital was the danger that they might be ambushed anywhere, but Kendra supposedly sent Oz alone down to the parking garage while going off with Willow? It didn't make sense. Kendra was an extremely focused and methodical person; she'd never have put Oz at additional risk just for the convenience of saving a little time getting the van ready when the obvious precaution would have been to sweep the restroom and make sure it was clear, then wait right outside the door with Oz while Willow took care of business.

    Except that Oz had also confirmed that was precisely what Kendra had done, which begged the obvious question- why had Kendra done that? There was at least one anomaly surrounding this entire sequence of events, so... what was I missing?

    So. At one point Willow and Kendra were both in the restroom, even if the exact order they entered in or why is unknown. At one point Willow was tossed into the wall- no, from the pattern of cracks, her shoulders and the back of her head hit the plaster simultaneously and evenly. So Willow was picked up and slammed into the wall, probably by a two-handed neck lift. And judging from the position, she'd been grabbed and hauled just as she was entering or leaving the end stall.

    Drusilla easily had the strength to do that, but it would have left her stationary and with her back to the restroom entrance. Whether Kendra was outside the restroom or inside at this point, she couldn't possibly have missed Drusilla's entrance, and if she had a single clear shot at a standing target's back then Drusilla would be dust bunnies right then and there. So, we hit a clear physical incongruity here.

    And elsewhere in the category of physical anomalies, the busted sink that Kendra was thrown into was directly across the room from the wall Willow had been pushed into. So, Drusilla is hypothetically throttling Willow, Kendra tries to intervene, and Drusilla... backhands her over ten feet across the room and hard enough to tear loose a porcelain sink from the wall? She wasn't that strong. That was Kakistos territory. Drusilla would have needed both hands free and to land a solid haymaker, or a grab-and-toss on an unresisting target, to do that kind of damage. So, hard physical impossibility there as well.

    I cursed the clean-up that the facilities people had done. If I'd been able to see the exact pattern of wreckage then I would have been able to more precisely calculate impact vectors and perhaps do a full forensic reconstruction. As is, I felt like Sherlock Holmes trying to read the footprints of a scene that he hadn't been called to until a week later; there was only so much even the best deductions could do.

    Still, I could break this down into some theoretical cases...

    Theory: Willow's version of events was accurate in all details. Well, we'd just finished analyzing why that didn't quite work.

    Theory: Kendra was ambushed and incapacitated first, not Willow. Pro: It would certainly explain how she died before Willow could intervene. Con: That would mean Willow's own wounds and slamming into the wall had occurred without Kendra to buy her an opening to get free, which would be vastly unlikely. It would also directly contradict Willow's own version of events, and she'd have had no reason to give a false story if this were the true story.

    Theory: Drusilla wasn't alone, and her minion vamp(s) were also dusted. Pro: It would explain all the anomalies of physical evidence, including Willow and Kendra both being out of action simultaneously and unable to assist the other. Con: Again, it would directly contradict Willow's own version of events, and why?

    Theory: Drusilla wasn't alone, and her minion vamp(s) escaped.     Utterly unworkable. This hypothetical other vampire would have had no reason to not just finish Willow off, and by Willow's own account she was barely able to ambush Drusilla at the end and that only by a stroke of luck.

    Theory: Drusilla compromised Kendra with her hypnotic abilities. Pro: It would explain Kendra's uncharacteristic action in sending Oz off alone and Drusilla's ability to overcome her. And Drusilla had temporarily paralyzed Kendra once before, in Kakistos' cave, before Willow's interruption- however clumsily- had broken Drusilla's concentration, so it had already been established as possible for Drusilla to hypnotize her. Con: Why would Drusilla kill her own minion before making sure of the other target? Why physically batter Kendra and throw her into the sink at all if she already had her mind-locked?

    Theory: Drusilla compromised Willow with her hypnotic abilities: Pro: It would explain all the anomalies, and also explain why Willow's own recollection of events had so many holes. Con: Kendra certainly didn't kill Drusilla, so if Willow was under Drusilla's control then who did kill her? If Willow had been under control but snapped herself out of it at the very end- perhaps by the shock of seeing Kendra die- then she could simply have just said that.

    Theory: As above, but Drusilla hypnotized Willow into believing that she'd killed her when she'd actually escaped. Again, no. We'd checked for that one, using Amy's tracking spell and Angel's sire bond to Drusilla- that was only the prudent course of action with only one witness to the death of a known hypnotic illusionist. And the reading totally said 'dead'. Not 'blocked', as before, but done and dusted for sure.

    Theory: Willow's version of events was deliberately inaccurate or incomplete. Yeah. That's exactly what I was afraid of.

    It certainly hadn't escaped my attention that of the two other serious oversights the Scooby Gang had had on a battlefield- counting my own getting blindsided by Mr. Trick as part of that total- the other one had also involved Willow making a mistake while trying to support Kendra. Despite all the remedial work I and Ms. Calendar had done with her, she could possibly have made a mistake again and be trying to cover herself on it.

    And I really wished I could do a blood spatter for this room to try and get a better model of the fight and see how well it matched up against Willow's account, but it would be useless to try. This was a hospital bathroom; between the bleach used to scrub it down daily and the urine traces even Luminol would get nothing but false positives all over the goddamn room. But it was certainly suspicious that a Slayer and one of the Scourge of Europe had apparently gone at it in this confined space and damaged nothing but the two diametrically opposed impact points I'd already examined. There wasn't even a single dent or scratch on any of the stall doors, and those were directly adjacent to the line of the fight- somebody would have had to have knocked somebody else into one of them at least once-

    I swore. Insufficient data all around. More than enough to be suspicious, but not enough to actually have a solid case. Unless I was able to turn up something later when I re-examined the photos I'd taken, I'd need to get my hands on the police report and their crime scene photos. Which would be an entire project all its own, and one I certainly couldn't rush.

    Still, something had definitely gone wrong here, something that we didn't already know about. And I was going to find out what.

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    "Forty points!" I exulted, as I popped my final skee ball into the hole and the machine totalled up my score.

    "You still lose, dude." Jesse bragged. "One lucky shot doesn't make up for all those gutter balls."

    "I'd have won if we hadn't ruled that air balls don't count." I replied, and Willow and Amy both giggled at us.

    Yeah, that reconnecting thing we'd talked about earlier? Even with Kendra dying and her funeral a couple weeks ago to put a damper on it, we were still trying it. Because Amy had been right- a lot of us were going to be moving away at the end of this school year, and it would suck if we let ourselves forget the people we'd known all along. So the old trio of me, Willow, and Jesse were doing some hang-out time at the local arcade, with Amy- who we'd all known almost as long- also riding along. No vampires, no magic, just the original kindergarten gang being teenagers doing dumb teenager stuff.

    Yeah, as good as it felt to be doing some worthwhile with my life- fighting monsters, saving lives, backing up my favorite magical Champion when she needed it and all- it also felt good to just hang up the stakes for a night and kick back. Even Jonathan, the original workaholic, decompressed some of the time.

    "So, first place in the tri-county swim meet!" Jesse congratulated me as we grabbed a table in the adjacent diner for some burgers and fries. "And you're going steady with a cheerleader. Man, two years ago who'd have ever thought you'd make the popular table?"

    "I'm still not at the popular table." I pointed out to him. "I eat with the 'library weirdos' every day, same as I have since Buffy arrived. And I wouldn't want to be there- Cordelia, Buffy, and Amy are the only three of 'em who aren't insufferable. God knows that Larry and Percy and all their teammates are still the worst."

    "Me, the popular table?" Amy jibed at herself as Willow eye-rolled at her. "I was on the squad for part of one year, and you all know how I scraped in and why. That's a big reason why I didn't stay; my mom had cheated to get me in. I'd have quit right away if Cordelia hadn't begged me not to leave a hole in their line-up because the alternates were either Buffy, who she didn't like at all then, or even worse than me."

    "But would that really be a concern?" Willow asked her. "I mean, does it matter exactly how you got there if you were good enough to stay there?"

    "Cheerleading is what my mom wanted, not what I wanted." Amy said as she took a sip of her Coke. "And I am so over trying to be the person she wanted me to be."

    "So, what do you want?" Jesse asked. "I mean, outside of growing up to be Glinda the Good Witch of the North."

    "As in, career-wise?" Amy said pensively. "I'm not sure. I mean, that career fair last year and all the aptitude tests; not exactly helpful."

    "Tell me about it." I groused. "They said I was up for 'prison guard'. Do I seriously look like I'm up for big, brutal, and dumb?"

    "Of course not. You're not brutal at all." Jesse deadpanned, and we all groaned.

    "Look who's talking." Willow defended me.

    "Says the girl who has an open job offer from Microsoft to part-time in their software R&D right away at a big salary while they also send you to college." Jesse poked back at her.

    "Didn't Oz get that same job offer you did?" Amy asked her. "I mean, that's a big win you scored. A wealthy career setup right out of high school, college all paid for on company time, and you get to still be with your guy." Amy raised her cup to Willow. "Being honest, I kinda envy you there."

    "You do?" Willow replied, visibly surprised. "Well... I suppose you would. I mean, your guy can't really commit at all." she finished.

    "So, what are you up for?" I asked Jesse quickly to just fast-forward right over that one.

    "My folks found some open financial aid at UCLA, so between that and their savings I'm covered." he said. "Now I've just got to figure out what I'm majoring in."

    "Hey, Cordelia's going to UCLA too." I said. "Maybe you'll finally get your chance there. They say everything's different in college."

    "Me and Cordelia? Come on, man, that was just me being dumb." Jesse sighed.

    "I'm not kidding." I reassured him. "I mean, have you not noticed that the only two girls on the squad who have kept a steady boyfriend for longer than six weeks are the only two who dated outside the popular kids?" I pointed out, with a meaningful nod towards Amy. "Let's face it, most of the high school 'royalty' around here doesn't know anything about relationships. Cordy's already worked through most of the 'popular' guys in school and still hasn't found a steady; by this point she might be willing to overlook the lack of sports car and stock portfolio just to find a guy who isn't a meathead or a creeper."

    "Even if she'll never think of looking outside her zone of familiarity on her own." Amy pointed out. "Although if you really are going to try, then you'd better let Jonathan help you pick a better set of clothes first. Even if Cordelia might be willing to overlook other things, she'll never forgive bad fashion sense."

    "You guys are seriously encouraging me to ask Cordelia Chase out." Jesse said disbelievingly. "After years of telling me I was crazy to even think about it."

    "People change." I shrugged. "You're not quite as enthusiastic as you were in sophomore year-"

    "He means you're no longer a drooling horndog." Willow helpfully translated.

    "-and Cordelia's been through some stuff since then that's made her at least a little less shallow." I finished. "So yeah, live the dream, clean yourself up and ask her. What's the worst-case scenario?"

    "I get shot down in flames." Jesse replied. "Which rejection can admittedly just join the other several hundred in my already extensive collection." he finished with a chuckle at himself. "You seriously think I have a chance?"

    "Maybe this much of one." I held up my thumb and forefinger like an inch apart. "But that still beats absolute zero. I mean, look at who I'm dating. If I hadn't been willing to take a chance-"

    "Didn't she ask you?" Amy grinned at me.

    "Well, yeah, but I still had to make myself available first." I tossed back. "Very riskily available!"

    "That's how I met my guy, too." Willow contributed.

    "Y'know, you never answered the career question." Jesse said to me.

    "Well, Buffy's committed to UC Sunnydale now." I said, skipping over the exact reason why. "Which means I stay here too, which means no swim scholarship, which means no college." I sighed. "I wonder what the local job market looks like?"

    "If you don't mind working outdoors, you could talk to my dad." Amy said. "He's been with the electric company since after high school; with his recommendation you could entirely get on one of the work crews. Good pay and benefits, steady schedule to plan the night life around-" she shrugged.

    "Don't you need an engineering degree for that?" Willow asked her.

    "Not for apprentice lineman." Amy replied. "That's how dad got started, and now he's a senior shift supervisor. And that's assuming Xander doesn't go for college later."

    "Huh." I said thoughtfully. "I'll definitely keep it in mind. Beats pumping gas or stocking shelves."

    "I was gonna say you could ask my dad if he needed help in the store but yeah, that's just stocking shelves." Jesse said. "Amy's offer superior, mine inferior." he finished in a deliberate Shockwave voice.

    "Still, thanks to you both." I said. "I mean, I'd really hate to be doing this alone."

    "Oh yeah." we all agreed with a round of matching nods.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    "Yes?" Deputy Mayor Allan Finch looked at me suspiciously.

    "Gas company." I said with a smile, holding up the ID card that Jonathan had forged for me and using a set of loose coveralls, a ball cap, and glasses to break up the lines of my face and build and make me harder to recognize. "There's a pressure drop somewhere on the line in this block, and I need to look at your internal meter."

    "Come in." he finally said after thinking that over for a moment, and I let him show to me where the meter was in the basement. I pretended to mutter under my breath, wrote down the numbers on the clipboard I was carrying, said something noncommittal about how the problem must be elsewhere, and was in and out in under five minutes. I pretended to ring the next-door doorbell and then act like they weren't at home before shrugging and moving on, just in case he was watching me through the curtains, and after that much walked back down the block to meet Jonathan at his car.

    "You get it?" he asked me as we drove away.

    "Invitation and everything." I nodded at him. "And now I can get back in there whenever I might need to."

    "Good." he nodded. "At least this went better than the crime scene walkdown did."

    "Results inconclusive and all that." I said. "But I'm not sure if either of us can risk the police station."

    "Neither am I, or I'd already have done it." he agreed with me. "But the records we need aren't in the computer- I just finished hacking that."

    "You're that sure Willow was lying about something?" I asked him. I mean, yes, Willow was definitely upset and guilty about what had happened, but all that had a perfectly reasonable explanation.

    "I need to tell you about homicide scenes?" Jonathan replied. "You saw my photos and the results of my walkdown, and you heard her story. Do you agree with me that it's got holes?"

    "Unfortunately, yes." I reluctantly agreed. "It's a pity that that restroom is kept hospital clean or else you could take me back there and use my nose to look for blood traces. As is even I can't get past daily scrubdowns with bleach, especially not after a couple of weeks."

    "Damn, I should have thought about using you earlier." Jonathan swore at himself. "And it's not like we can ambush Willow with a truth spell or anything. After all the prior lectures and everything we asked Giles and Jenny to give her and Amy about the ethical uses of magic, because of the warning we got from the jump-doc-"

    "Getting caught out doing secret probes without permission would make us all look like total hypocrites there." I agreed. "Which is one of the classic ways to get your potentially reckless magic apprentice to be reckless, by convincing her that her elders are being two-faced about the rules. I've seen that one happen before."

    "At least Jenny or Giles don't sense any traces of dark magic residue during the group workings." Jonathan agreed. "So hopefully we've got that potential 'Darth Rosenberg' situation still headed off for now, even if she is still holding herself back with how impatient she's being."

    "Centipede's dilemna." I agreed. "If Willow wasn't always so down on herself about not mastering everything right away, she'd be able to master things a lot more quickly. As is, self-doubt is the big killer when trying to learn magic."

    "Yeah." Jonathan agreed. "As near as I can figure that's why Amy's been able to stay ahead despite all the negative emotions her mom originally left her with; she always approached her arcane studies with a relative sense of humility. She's intelligent, but not the kind of intelligent that never learned how to do things the hard way because all the preliminaries were totally intuitive."

    "Not to mention all the positive reinforcement she's gotten in helping overcome those negative emotions." I said to him. "Both from her therapist and even more importantly, from you."

    "I just wish Whistler would freaking clue me in about how long I've got left in Sunnydale." Jonathan groused. "As is, I can't make any solid plans without that data, and she won't make plans until she's gotten at least some idea about mine. It's put us both in a holding pattern."

    "Maybe the point is for you to decide without freezing your entire life just waiting for more data." I said in my dad voice.

    Jonathan side-eyed me at that one, but then broke off and reluctantly nodded. "I've been starting to wonder." he conceded.

    * * * * *​

    Giles POV:

    Buffy finished staking the wandering vampire that had had the misfortune to cross our path and we resumed searching the playground until we found the corpses of the murdered children, just as we'd been warned would be there. I reached into my pocket for the potion I'd brewed earlier and said the incantation while throwing the vial to smash into the corpses and splash them with the fluid within. "You gods, I call upon you! Do not hide behind false faces!" I cried out in archaic German.

    The 'corpses' of the murdered 'children' shrieked as the illusion covering them broke, the two flowing back together into a very tall, muscular demon with red-mottled skin and long claws and fangs. Buffy waited until it had just solidified in its new composite form but before it had any real time to react, then dropped down low and cut its left foot off with a sweep of her favorite broadsword. Smoothly kipping back up to a vertical position she hopped over the prone demon's clumsy swipe, stepped in close, and finished it off with a neat thrust into the throat and up under the chin. We then gave the corpse a precautionary beheading and dragged it further away from the playground, tipping it down into a nearby drainage ditch where the local demonic scavengers would take care of it.

    "And, done." Buffy said with satisfaction, cleaning and putting away her blade. "No Hansel and Gretel demon, no mind-controlling the whole town to go crazy about occult people. Which, as two resident members of that community, we are more than glad with not happening."

    "Our surveillance upon the Mayor's telephone conversations certainly was fruitful here." I agreed. "Without adequate forewarning, by the time we'd deduced what was going on and I'd researched the proper counter to its illusion it would have had more than sufficient time to get quite the pogrom going."

    "So inconvenient." Buffy agreed. "But how are we going to explain this? Running right into it right away and all?"

    "Well, the context of the conversation made it plain that this demon wasn't one of the ones the Mayor had pacted with or owed tribute." I said. "He was merely warning his people to stay low while the latest demonic visitor to Sunnydale did its work. And this playground is on our regular patrol route, so-"

    "The Mayor probably won't even care that it's dead, and if he looks into it at all then hey, we just ran into it and got lucky. I mean, would he know all about the specifics of the counterspell and know that it was something you couldn't just do on the fly? Just off the top of his head?"

    "That's very unlikely." I agreed as we got back to my car and got in, driving away to the next stop on tonight's route.

    We were about halfway there when Buffy, who'd been unusually quiet and absorbed in thought- she hadn't even complained once about my 'old people music' on the car radio- squared her shoulders and began.

    "Okay, I was originally going to do this a different way, but I finally decided that we should just clear the air this way." Buffy said in a very serious tone of voice indeed, turning to look at me. "Right before he left Sunnydale, Mr. Zabuto told me about the Cruciamentum."

    I almost rear-ended the car ahead of us at the stoplight when I heard that one. Still in shock, I barely got us off the road and into the parking lot of the nearest store where I pulled in and turned off the ignition. I removed and started cleaning my glasses, thinking of something to say-

    "If he told you that it's an ordeal Slayers are forced to undergo on their eighteenth birthday, where they must prove that they can defeat a dangerous vampire without their powers, then he was telling you the truth." I eventually said. I continued staring straight forward out of the windshield, unable to look Buffy in the eye.

    "He did." Buffy agreed. "And he also said that a Slayer's own Watcher is a big part of setting her up for it."

    "That is also true." I agreed softly, ashamedly.

    "How?" Buffy asked.

    "By threatening reassignment." I stated. "Permanent reassignment, with no contact with your Slayer- your former Slayer- ever permitted again. Since the primary reason any Watcher would choose to disobey orders about the Cruciamentum would be their... greater degree of concern for their own Slayer... then obviously threatening to remove her from his ability to aid her at all, ever, would be all the more effective a threat."

    "Catch-22." Buffy agreed. "The more someone would want to resist, the more reason that particular threat gives him not to. I get it. But what I meant was, how do you set a Slayer up for the Cruciamentum? It involves giving me injections, right? What, would you tell me they were for Slayer Flu or something?"

    "The common practice is for a Watcher to ask their Slayer to perform a meditation exercise, then surreptiously ambush them with a minor hypnotic spell or artifact." I confessed. "They 'lose' several minutes of awareness but remain entirely ignorant of the fact, as they were expecting to be meditating throughout anyway."

    "Wow. Blur up someone's memory by force, and stealthily inject 'em in the meanwhile." Buffy said disgustedly. "You know, if that happened to a girl in a bar it would be called date-"

    "Buffy, I'm sorry." I burst out. "I-" I sighed. "The Cruciamentum has been ancient tradition since the year 800, and-" I broke off. "And that seems so terribly inadequate as a defense when spoken out loud."

    "That's because it is." she said bluntly. "Look, Jonathan's theory is that the test is deliberately intended as a psych-out to try and split a Slayer away from her Watcher- if she survives. And even knowing all that I'm still not sure how I'm going to react to this."

    "There's very little reason you should be." I confessed. "It would have been a complete violation of your trust in me, and for no better reason than my wanting to keep my job."

    "What happens if I just tell 'em to go pound sand?" Buffy asked after a pause. "Like, just take your stupid test and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. It's not like they can take being the Slayer away from me- permanently." she finished.

    "There is in fact one method, but that sanction isn't invoked for anything short of the Slayer going rogue and unjustifiably murdering humans." I said, looking at Buffy to make sure she understood from my expression entirely what 'sanction' meant. "So, yes, you could in theory refuse."

    "If I wanted to break in a totally new Watcher." she said. "Which- even with this thing between us right now- I don't." Buffy finished, to my immense relief. "I mean, as much grief as I give you sometimes I am not unaware that I got really lucky with Watchers, twice in a row! I seriously doubt that if you got reassigned the next guy would go for the hat trick. Especially since Mr. Zabuto said that after a Watcher gets reassigned under these kinds of circumstances they go out of their way to pick somebody really strict for a girl's next one."

    "They certainly do. And God forbid that you ever end up with someone like Roger Wyndham-Price, for example." I said disgustedly. "To this day the rumor persists that his own Slayer deliberately sought out her own death in battle rather than continue to endure his abusive idea of training after less than a year of being subject to him. And while he's by far the worst sort of personality you could find on the Council itself, he's hardly the only one!"

    "Old, callous, and totally out of touch." Buffy sighed. "Yeah, sorta figured the kind of people who'd invent a test like that would be like that."

    "The Watcher's Council has survived millenia in a world where evil is relentless, devious, powerful, and often overwhelming." I pointed out. "This includes repeated attempts to subvert or destroy it from within. Under those circumstances a certain amount of... dogmatic ruthlessness... is not only inevitable, but arguably necessary."

    "Be under siege enough, get a siege mentality." Buffy conceded. "But you're one of the people who taught me not to get trapped in that mindset despite being on the front lines almost every night. You'd think they'd teach themselves."

    "Someone should." I agreed, and sighed. "Well, having established that I am capable of unconscionably violating your trust when ordered to, where do we proceed from here?"

    "Well, you haven't actually done anything yet." Buffy said to my relief. "That's one of the reasons I busted it open this early-" she trailed off. "I didn't know how I could handle it either if you did or if you didn't. The one way, you're still my Watcher but we've got this whole thing between us. The other way, you kept your honor between you and me but we burned it all to the ground in the process. Heads they win, tails we lose." She stopped and continued on more resolutely. "So, the only winning move is not to play."

    "You'll refuse the Cruciamentum, then?" I asked her.

    "Oh no." Buffy said. "I'll take the stupid thing. You'll give me all the injections and we'll show up for test day right on cue. It's just, we won't tell them that I was warned about the whole thing in advance. And I'll be carrying every possible piece of cheat gear or advance prep that I can remotely get away with."

    I thought about that for a while, about the prospect of cooperating with my Slayer in an active defiance of every Council regulation and tradition, and knew there was only one answer I could possibly make.

    "You'd have far better odds of getting away with it if you had the assistance of someone who knew the exam proctors and exactly the sort of things they'd be looking for." I said.

    And that got me Buffy's first smile of the evening. "I was really hoping you'd say that."

    "One might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb." I quoted the old proverb.

    * * * * *​

    Mayor Wilkins POV:

    "You confirmed their destruction?" I asked Alphonse.

    "Yes sir." he said. "Hansel and Gretel barely lived long enough to set up their crime scene. The Watcher broke the spell with ease and the Slayer cut it down like wheat."

    "So, they did have forewarning." I said thoughtfully, running my fingers along the top of my desk phone's handset. "And there's only one place they could have gotten it from. Well, we'll call that bit of intelligence confirmed then."

    "Should I tell the phone company to start looking for the tap?" Allan asked me nervously.

    "No, no, leave it in place." I said cheerfully. "Just remember to be careful about what you say on the phone from now on. We mostly use it for mundane business only anyway- we'll just keep things that way except when we want to make a strategic leak."

    "Understood, sir." my deputy mayor acknowledged me.

    "And you put the word out among the boys." I said to Alphonse. "Miss Rosenberg and Miss Chase are both strictly off-limits from now on. Even if they meet up with one of them out on patrol, they just cut and run. I don't want either of those young ladies damaged."

    "I understand about Miss Rosenberg, sir." Alphonse agreed with me. "But why the other one?"

    "So they don't know which one the Mayor actually wants protected." Allan explained for me.

    "Their little 'Scooby Gang' does sometimes like to interrogate before staking." I agreed. "And that will only be even more likely in the future, now that they're stepping up their information-gathering efforts."

    "Then we should take them out." Alphonse said.

    "No." I disagreed. "While I certainly wouldn't shed a tear if they came to catastrophe, we can't afford to expose ourselves like that at this critical juncture. Especially given that the worst possible thing we could do is to kill only some of them. And can you imagine a viable scheme for killing all of them simultaneously that doesn't involve far more noise and devastation than we want to make this close to Graduation Day?"

    "No sir." Alphonse conceded, and Allan nodded along with him.

    "Good." I said. "After the Hundred Days begin, then we can explore the possibility of being a little more ambitious if we need to. But until then, mum's the word."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And thus I handle 'Gingerbread' in my usual fashion when I can't think of anything really interesting to do with an episode villain; have the Scooby Gang easily obliterate it. Although it did at least let me fold it into the Mayor's ongoing villain development in a minor way. Because, yeah, I was trying and failing and trying and failing to think of something to do with Hansel & Gretel that had real punch, given the setup... and nothing came to mind. So, it was either stall or skip, and thus, skip.

    Buffy and Giles had the Cruciamentum talk early, her having decided that she didn't actually want to wait and see what choice Giles would actually make at fourth and last. But at least she was clued in that the real purpose of the test is to split her and Giles against each other, so she's at least doing her best to not do that.

    If people are wondering about 'twice in a row', Giles is not Buffy's first Watcher. Merrick Jamison-Smythe was, and after originally training Buffy for several months he died fighting the master vampire Lothos in LA. Which is Buffy's canon origin story both in movie and TV continuity.

    What Amy's and Jesse's parents do for a living, and Roger Wyndham-Price's own history as a Field Watcher and his Slayer straight up committing suicide by vampire rather than keep training under him, was yet another voyage of the legendary USS Make Shit Up. However, Roger Wyndham-Price is a canon character; he's Wesley's father, and as anybody who saw that episode of Angel knows he was indeed the grand prize winner in the 'Most Emotionally Abusive Parent In The Buffyverse' contest. Which, given the competition he had, was a freaking epic achievement.

    And yeah, this thing is definitely going to be longer than Girl Genius. Fuck me, we're almost certainly busting thirty chapters here. I definitely don't anticipate or want forty, though.

    BTW, anybody who thinks the ball cap and glasses can't disguise Angel has never seen the famous clip of Tom Cruise, FedEx Deliveryman.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 26) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    Buffy's Cruciamentum had come and gone largely without incident, and we'd left the Council entirely unaware that she'd been forewarned and her 'resourcefulness' in defeating the insane vampire Kralik without her powers was actually a whole lot of cheating.

    But, that was then and this was now, so back to the Slaying we went. I hefted the shotgun to my shoulder and entered the cave, muzzle up. Buffy, Cordelia, and Willow all came in behind me, rounding out our particular four-man team tonight.

    "Left!" Willow called, and I swiveled and caught the blue-skinned demon leaping out of a darkened corner square in the face with a load of buckshot. It dropped like a stone, the semi-auto action cycled smoothly to chamber the next round, and I was back in position before it hit the ground.

    "So not the bulletproof kind." Buffy noted.

    "I always like it when they're not the bulletproof kind and we're far enough out of town to go loud." I agreed.

    "Do they not make silencers for those things?" Cordelia complained.

    "You didn't put in the earplugs, did you?" Buffy sighed.

    Cordelia glared at her, then stopped and leaned her sword up against a stalagmite long enough to snatch her hearing protection out of her pocket and stuff the rubber plugs in her ears. "Do these seriously not come in any color other than Butt-Ugly Orange?" she muttered. Retrieving her weapon, she got back in position and we got back to sweeping out the cave.

    "Oh, they could be hiding anywhere in here. Hang on-" Willow said, waving her hands. "Lights of seeking, reveal the hidden!" she cried out in Latin, and little glowing balls of light shot out of her palms in an elaborate display of magic to fly into the various corners of the cave and gently impact on each of the hiding Sisters of Jhe, causing them each to be outlined in a glowing aura. Having made it impossible for them to hide from us, it was only the work of a few minutes' more to run them to ground and destroy them all. Willow and I, the two ranged attackers, just took up station at the mouth of the cave and killed any that tried to run. Buffy and Cordelia cut down the ones that stood and fought- while Cordelia didn't remotely have the physical power to go toe-to-toe with demons this strong she had the reflexes and viciousness to be a very effective flank attacker. So either splitting their attention between her and Buffy in close-combat or turning an unguarded back to Cordelia was a fatal mistake both girls were very well-equipped to take advantage of.

    "Fiat fulgur!" Willow incanted with a grin and shocked the last remaining one dead with a lightning bolt. "Woo!"

    "Not bad." I said, reloading my shotgun. I'd capped several as they'd tried to make it past us and out the entrance, but the last one had caught me on an empty chamber and so Willow had blue-bolted it while I'd been getting ready to bayonet the damned thing as soon as it got close enough.

    "Hey, that was pretty good for Gandalf!" she said proudly, and without changing expression I note up another data point among the several I'd already been collecting in the past several days.

    "Why did she get shotgun?" Willow griped from the back seat as we drove back.

    "Because next to me, she's the tallest person." I replied. Seriously, the back of my muscle car was kinda cramped; Buffy and Willow were the only two people small enough to actually be comfortable in it. "How'd the SAT retest go?" I asked, partly as a distraction.

    "Aced it!" Willow said smugly. "Perfect score!"

    "So that's two for two." Buffy congratulated her, referring to my also getting a perfect score. "Good job, brain trust!"

    "But seriously, who retakes a 1540?" Cordelia asked incredulously. "That's in the statistical zone of 'never retake ever'! The odds of improving on that a second time around are like zero point zero!"

    "Not if you're smart enough." Willow cut back.

    Cordelia was visibly about ready to unleash verbal hell when she caught Willow's resolve face in the rearview mirror and decided to reconsider. I added that to the list of data points I was collecting.

    "Please tell me that's a wrap." Buffy said as we all entered Giles 'house. "How many of these 'Sisters of Jhe' are there?"

    "I'm not certain." Giles said. "How many did you encounter in the cave?"

    "Eight up, eight down." Buffy replied.

    "Then there may still be several more." Giles conceded.

    "And since their objective is 'open Hellmouth, world ends'..." Willow said.

    "Quite." Giles said. "The astrological correspondences-"

    "-are such that their only window of opportunity to perform the ritual is tomorrow night. So, tomorrow night we all stake out the school library." Willow finished.

    "Absolutely." Giles conceded. "The best plan, given the circumstances."

    "And okay, I guess that's a wrap for tonight then!" Willow said authoritatively, and we all broke up and headed home.

    On my arrival at my and Angel's place, I reached into my pocket and took out the miniature tape recorder I'd stashed there. I rewound it and began to play back the details of the most recent conversation, checking them against my memory.

    Definitely something going on here.

    * * * * *​

    Amy POV:

    "Return whence ye came!    " I incanted, and the summoned hellhound vanished before it could reach us.

    "S-stay back!" Tucker Wells said nervously as we advanced towards him steadily. "This is private property!"

    "We just wanted to talk to Andrew." Xander said calmly. "You didn't need to unleash the hellspawn upon us."

    "But if that's how you want to play it," I sighed disappointedly as Tucker drew a nasty-looking knife from his waistband and flicked it open, and then ran straight at us. I let him bounce his nose off of a temporary barrier spell long enough to entirely break up his attack pattern, and then dropped it just in time for Xander to step forward, twist the knife out of his hand, and judo-trip Tucker into the ground.

    "You go inside and erase his summoning circle and get all his books." Xander said. "I'll stay and explain to ol' Tuck Finn here exactly how he tried to whittle on the wrong people."

    "Be nice." I remonstrated gently, and went inside to do just that. Erasing Tucker's ritual circle and then consecrating the room so that future black workings couldn't be done in here until he figured out exactly what I'd done and then found someone to deconsecrate it didn't take me very long, and my nose wrinkled in distaste at some of the titles I found in his black magic collection. There were only a few grimoires and manuals, mostly oriented towards basic low-level demon summonings and curses, but that was still just enough to get someone into a certain amount of trouble. Or create trouble for other, less prepared people. I packed the books and working papers I found in the tote bag I'd brought along for the purpose and made ready to haul them back to Giles and Ms. Calendar to go through for anything we needed to know and could safely ues before we disposed of the rest.

    Xander came in I was just finishing up. "Okay, since we're not exactly pressing charges there wasn't much I could do except take Tucker's knife away and make it plain that if he ever tried something like that again, one of us would rip his arms off. Then I told him to get lost and stay lost for the next several hours. You finished here?"

    "You might want to go search his room for any more weapons, I was mostly looking for magical materials and other things I could 'sense'." I replied. "I'm going to go see about undoing that memory spell on Andrew now."

    "Got it." Xander said, and headed off to do just that.

    "Andrew?" I said, knocking gently on the door of his bedroom.

    "Did you guys get his stuff?" he said nervously, poking his head out only now that I'd assured him it was safe.

    "Yeah." I nodded. "Some of it was pretty nasty. Thanks for the tip."

    "Well, at first I thought it looked pretty interesting." Andrew admitted. "But then after a couple things you'd said to Michael that one time filtered back to me and I put it together with some of the stuff Tucker was doing-"

    "You and Michael talk about magic stuff?" I asked him. Michael Czajak was a fellow high school student and a minor practitioner of magic. After I'd found out about him me and Ms. Calendar had kept in touch with him off and on to make sure he wasn't getting into anything horrible, but he didn't have the talent or the interest in doing a full-on magic apprenticeship.

    "The tabletop roleplaying club's been looking at it ever since Jonathan- not yours, the other Jonathan- found out magic was real." Andrew admitted.

    "Maybe I should drop by sometime." I said. "Let's see what I can do about what Drusilla did to your memory."

    "Willow already tried, and said there wasn't much that could be done." Andrew said nervously as he sat down on his bed and I took up a nearby chair.

    "Well, different witches, different approaches." I said. "Now close your eyes and relax..."

    * * * * *​

    "So, you found nothing but Willow's spell signature?" Jonathan asked me.

    "That's all." I said, as we grabbed ourselves a late-night snack at the burger place. "A pretty strong one, too. She must have tried very hard to undo what Drusilla did to him. I couldn't undo what was done to him, not right there on the spot. Whatever Willow attempted left a lot of magical residue; I'd have to gradually unravel it first unless I wanted to risk hurting Andrew."

    "It doesn't fit." he said with that usual disapproving quirk of his lip he always got when something didn't analyze right. "Why would Drusilla put that much effort into covering up a minor witness when simply turning him into a missing persons' statistic- or even turning him- would actually draw less notice? How many people each week randomly turn up dead from 'barbecue fork attack'? How many fledglings do we have to stake?" He shrugged. "Unexplained memory loss is something that would be more likely to draw magical investigation than just yet another vampire victim. Plus the idea of Willow using a high-power spell in a situation more appropriate to a finesse approach. It's hardly like she's bad at finesse."

    "I agree." I said, reluctantly following Jonathan's train of logic to the valid conclusion even if I hadn't wanted to put these pieces together myself. "You really think she's experimenting dangerously?"

    "Let me tell you about tonight's raid on the cave..." he said, and after he finished his recap of events I blinked.

    "Cordelia backed down socially? From Willow?" I said, still not entirely believing what I'd just heard.

    "Yes." Jonathan said. "I need to tell you how impossible that is?"

    "Having known them both since at least grade school, of course not!" I agreed fervently. "Everything else you just listed could be Willow just finally finding her self-confidence, but that-"

    "Don't forget the lightning spell." Jonathan pointed out. "Have you been taught offensive elemental lightning manipulation yet?"

    "The very basics." I replied. "But with just the basics alone and no extensive practice I could probably push out a bolt like that, but not without exhausting myself. You're saying she did it and was still fresh afterwards?"

    "And she did it as a snap shot." Jonathan said. "We both know Willow's a genius-"

    "Unlike me." I said ruefully.

    "I'm a genius." Jonathan said reassuringly, "and there's not much that I can do with magical theory that you can't already work out for yourself. It just takes you a little more time than I do and some pencil and paper. Scientifically I have a distinct edge, but that's my unique talent. Yours is magic, and magic is more than just this." he said, tapping his forehead.

    "Mind, heart, soul." I agreed, reciting the three elements of spellcasting that I'd been taught.

    "Which was actually the point I was leading to. Willow's mind is ahead of yours, that's always been true. But that's just one component of magical ability, and she's nowhere near that far ahead of you in the other aspects- but she's still pulling off lots of high-end stuff lately and making it look easy. What's changed?" Jonathan mused out loud.

    "You've got suspicions that you're not sharing with me." I said wisely.

    "I think that warning the jump-doc gave about Willow going dark is starting to come true." Jonathan said after a reluctant pause.

    "After all the warnings we were given?" I said incredulously. "After all the extra-special emphasis we got in our training since you turned up that clue? Willow lives for the approval of teachers! Why on Earth would she, of all people, start rebelling against them?"

    "Wait." Jonathan said suddenly. "Something you said. The approval of-" he snapped his fingers. "What her and Cordelia were arguing about in the car. Did you know Willow retook her SATs and scored 1600 this time?"

    "Willow did a retake?" I blinked. "But you never retake above 1530! That's already the cutoff for 99th percentile- there's literally nowhere to go but down, ranking-wise! You'd be risking your actual percentile just for a few dozen extra meaningless points on the score, a vanity number!"

    "And yet she did." Jonathan said. "And the way she talked about it, she hadn't felt it was a risk at all. Her tone of voice all but announced that she thought ti was a foregone conclusion that of course she'd enhance her score by that much on a retest."

    "Do you remember the other time Willow got upset about SATs?" I said slowly, prompted by a sudden memory.

    "The day we got our scores." Jonathan said sadly. "Right before Kendra-" He blinked in his own realization. "You're right. She was so proud of her score, then mine came out and entirely trumped hers even though we were both 99th percentile, and she got so mad she left the room and Oz had to go calm her down-"

    "Yeah." I said, chewing my lip with worry. "And that ties into something else I just remembered. Last semester about a week before your car crash, Willow and I were chatting before a magic lesson and she'd asked me if I thought you were using enhancement spells to be so smart."

    "Crap." he swore vehemently. "And there's the missing puzzle piece. If she thought I was already cheating-"

    "If we were already cheating." I sighed. "In hindsight, what she was really asking me was if I were casting enhancement spells for you. She already knows that you're non-magical."

    "Then that would be a valid motivation for going beyond the boundaries herself." Jonathan sighed. "It would only be 'fair' if we already were. And if you could be doing 'forbidden rituals' to enhance me yet still remain visibly fine on the white magic scale-"

    "-then that would 'prove' that what our teachers were telling us about dark magic was 'really' just scare stories." I said. "God, we've got to tell Giles and Jenny right away!"

    "Tell them what?" Jonathan said. "We have zero proof of anything. And have you sensed the slightest trace of dark or wrong magic from Willow? At all?"

    "Not a thing." I admitted. "Admittedly, I'm not actively looking-"

    "Yeah. Angel and I already discussed this, and privacy concerns." Jonathan sighed. "We have a suspicion. Right now, that's all we have."

    "Well, I'll certainly keep a sharper eye out for anything in the future." I agreed, and we rose to dump our trays in the garbage and head out.

    "... oh come on." Jonathan said disgustedly as we saw what was waiting for us around his car.

    "Nice ride, man!" Jack O'Toole, one of the most psychotic of the school bullies- even if he'd been cutting class for the past several weeks- smirked at us as he and a few of his buddies stood around Jonathan's admittedly very very nice car. "Wanna give me the keys, go for a spin?" he smirked.

    "Dude, what is wrong with your face?" Jonathan asked, pointing at the one standing at the rear. I squinted and looked closer- wait, that was advanced decomposition! I cast a quick detection spell-

    "Those are zombies." I said to Jonathan flatly. "They all are, even Jack."

    "And except for our stakes all the weapons are in the trunk." he grumbled, as Jack drew a huge Bowie knife of his own and waved it dramatically. "Except theirs." he finished.

    "Do you think you can keep them busy for a minute?" I asked Jonathan. "I need to get something-"

    "Well, let's see how macho they're feeling." he replied, before he called out to Jack. "Tell you what. How's about I wrestle you for it?"

    "Naaaah-" Jack said, but I wasn't listening because I was running back inside the burger place as fast as I possibly could. I grabbed a salt shaker off the nearest table and ran back outside, to see Jonathan busy dodging and weaving as Jack 'playfully' swiped his knife all around him and his zombie buddies stood around clapping and jeering. Jonathan was deliberately hamming it up as much as possible to keep them from noticing I'd come back, so I unscrewed the top off the salt shaker and hastily snuck around the whole parking lot fight club in a circle while scattering the salt and muttering the proper incantation under my breath. As soon as I finished closing the circle of salt, my counterspell took hold and dispelled the animation that had been cast on their corpses, and all the zombies slumped inert to the ground.

    "How long will that last?" Jonathan asked me as we hurriedly got in and drove away, not wanting to spend all night answering questions in the police station about four corpses in varying degrees of decomposition in the parking lot.

    "Permanently." I said. "Once the spell is broken, it stays broken unless the necromancer comes and raises them all over again."

    "Which will be kinda hard for them to do once all four of those guys have been autopsied." Jonathan agreed. "I'm just glad that Happy Burger doesn't pay for exterior surveillance cameras."

    "Be kinda inconvenient tonight if they did." I agreed, and we lapsed into a comfortable silence.

    "So... Willow." Jonathan said after we'd driven a while.

    "Yeah." I agreed.

    "However much we don't know about this yet, we do know that investigating the misuse of a memory spell is how the whole sequence that led to Kendra's death ultimately started." Jonathan shrugged.

    "Willow would never-" I began, and then cut myself off as a half-remembered something tried to come to mind. "Wait a minute. I need to do a meditation-"

    I closed my eyes and breathed deeply in and out, seeking inward. Temporarily reliving your own recollections of a past event was one of the basic mental exercises, even if you could only do it in brief snippets- it wasn't much use for passing exams, for example. And right now, I had a strong hunch that I really needed to remember the rest of that conversation Willow and I had had about enhancement spells that one time...

    "Ugh." I eye-rolled. "I really wish I could tell Dad about the supernatural, like Buffy finally told her mom. It would make things so much easier. As is, he's got just enough on the ball to know that I'm holding something back but he can't remotely guess what. And what little he does know about what's happened to me recently just makes all his guesses even more horrible mental images than they'd otherwise be."

    "Isn't there anything you can do about that?" Willow asked me.

    "Like what, tell him?" I sighed. "I don't know exactly how much he knew about my mom but I'm sure he at least suspected the whole black magic thing, if only in hindsight. If I so much as mention that I'm doing spells to my dad then I'll probably end up in a boarding school in Alaska."

    "No, I meant..." Willow twiddled her fingers. "Help him not worry so much?"

    "What, you mean magically?" I asked her, mouth agape. "No way!"

    "I'm not saying enthrall him like you were some master vampire or anything," Willow said. "Just, y'know, calm him down a little?" Willow trailed off.

    My stomach turned into a ball of ice. At that time I'd shrugged it off as her making a joke, because the idea of actually doing it would be entirely unthinkable, but with several strange incidents of memories going vanishing or people acting uncharacteristically meek and always with Willow as the common factor between them-

    I turned and relayed everything I'd just remembered about that conversation to Jonathan.

    "So yeah. She just might have." I finally finished.

    Jonathan thought pensively for a moment, and then started to plan.

    * * * * *​

    Willow POV:

    The evening after we finished stopping the remnants of the Sisterhood of Jhe from opening the Hellmouth- a battle that yours truly had masterminded quite brilliantly, thank you- I felt confident to move on to the next step of my plan. I was the smartest, I'd always been the smartest, and now I had the self-confidence and the charisma too!

    But I was also more than smart enough to realize that Jonathan was starting to get suspicious. And there was no way I could cast any spells on him to either make him finally confess his secrets or make him forget to stop trying to uncover mine, because of that darn immunity of his he'd bargained for. I'd already tried- oh, sneakily and from behind, but I'd tried! Good thing he hadn't thought to bargain for knowing when somebody was trying to hit him with a spell like that- I'd already known that much from the part where he hadn't even noticed that Marcie was supposed to be invisible in that locker room, not until we'd figured it out afterwards. So he hadn't noticed that I'd been testing his defenses either.

    But if I couldn't cast a spell on him, I knew exactly who could. If there was any way past his defenses at all, any way to get him to lower them, then Amy would know it. God, they were such inseparables-

    Anyway, I'd been planning to get her alone for a 'research session' so I could move on to the next step, but then she asked me for one. And sure, I was able to figure that she wanted to talk to me alone for some reason but there's no way she had figured out everything I was planning. So, I invited her over to my place so we could ostensibly start working out possible ideas for some kind of permanent ward we could use to cover the Hellmouth opening in the library and at least slow down people like the Sisterhood in the future, and after we'd had the books out for a while it was a perfectly natural thing for me to go fetch some juice. And after we drank it, we got back to work. And soon enough-

    "But the problem with everything we've tried to work out is the proximity to the Hellmouth causing entropish-" Amy paused and shook her head. "Entrop- entropic distortion of the-" She blinked confusedly. "Wow, I must be more tired than I thought-"

    "Yeah, we've been pullin' some late nights." I agreed with her sympathetically. "If you wanna rest your eyes a little-"

    "Shure." Amy said dizzily, and leaned back and started to- oh no, the last thing I wanted was her meditating.

    "Did you hear that?" I asked Amy, to break her concentration.

    "Hear what?" she said, trying to focus on me-

    And just as her eyes picked up the crystal I'd held up right in front of her face, I finished the incantation "Issulare."

    Amy blinked and then her expression went totally neutral, staring straight ahead! Hah! Success! Between the scopolamine I'd put in her juice- I'd snuck some out of the hospital where the anesthesiologists kept it as part of surgical prep- and my trance-spell, now I could finally get some answers! And she wouldn't remember a thing about tonight after we were done, so-

    "What's your name?" I asked her, getting her into the rhythm of the interrogation.

    "Amy Madison." she replied tonelessly.

    "Who's your boyfriend?"

    "Jonathan Fairchild." she replied.

    "Tell me about him." I suggested, wanting to see what came up first on free association before I started really specific questions-

    "Why?" she surprised me. Huh. I guess she had more left than I thought-

    "Because I order you to." I said, putting more power into my spell. "Tell me! What's his secret?"

    "You want..." Amy said, her voice sounding more and more natural but still groggy from the drugs. "... to know something about Jonathan... that you don't already?"

    "Yes, damn you!" I raged. "Tell me what you're hiding! What he's hiding!"

    "Okay." Amy grinned lopsidedly. "The first thing you don' know about him is-"

    And that's when I heard the shot, and felt the sting of something stabbing into my back-

    "-he's right behind you." Amy finished woozily, and then I passed out like I'd been drugged.

    * * * * *​

    Giles POV:

    Jonathan lowered the tranquilizer gun that we normally kept available to subdue Oz with if need be and immediately handed it to me, rushing forward to help Amy.

    "Are you all right?" he asked her frantically. "Giles, is she under a spell?"

    "No." I said, reaching forward myself to grab the slim chain around Amy's neck and pull it up to reveal the crystal she'd had under her shirt. A variation on the same spell-catcher crystal that Angel had used to prevent the demon Skip from successfully using a soul-removal spell on him, she'd worn one tonight for the purpose of stopping mental manipulation magic. "The spell-trap worked, Amy was unaffected by it. I don't know-"

    "She put somethin'- in the juice." Amy told us, her speech slurred. "Felt funny as soon as I drank-"

    "That miserable bitch-" Jonathan swore. "Okay, bag the glass. That's more evidence, on top of what's in the crystal. We're going to have to search this entire house."

    "Indeed." I sighed, feeling more sickened and disappointed than I could remember feeling in years.

    Despite all our precautions and warnings, Willow had still started walking the left-hand path. And out of petty academic jealousy, no less. I felt ashamed of myself for having missed all the signs. I had no doubt Jenny would as well, as soon as we informed her.

    When Jonathan and Amy had brought their suspicions to me the day before, I'd known better than to dismiss them out of hand. As unlikely as it all sounded, and as much as I hardly wanted to believe that Willow could even contemplate doing such a thing, both my youthful misdeeds and all my training and experience as a Watcher had taught me the painful truth that you did not take any chances with this sort of matter and that the price of remaining complaceent was too often a dire, dire price indeed. Indeed, the very first lesson that a Watcher learned was how to discern truth from illusions. Because in the world of magic, that was the hardest thing to do.

    So having deduced enough that Willow's jealousy of Jonathan would be the motive, and that possible misuse of mind-magic would be a likely method, it only remained for us to test her with an opportunity. Since Jonathan's own immunity to such magics meant that he couldn't play the bait, Amy had volunteered to after being prepared with a spell-catcher crystal. And Willow had not only taken the bait, but had done so with an enthusiasm and thoroughness that had shocked and appalled us all.

    It took Amy somewhat under an hour to recover from the dose that Willow had placed in her drink- scopolamine, of all things! It took Willow a similar amount of time to recover from the drug dart we'd hit her with. By that point, myself, Jenny, Jonathan, and Angel had finished searching her entire house, with Jenny and I available to spot where things had been magically concealed or influenced. Her collection of grimoires, reference works, and magical materials was quite extensive, and the majority of it were things we'd never known of. In more than a few cases, they were things we'd never have approved. Incidentally, several of the books in there had originally been the property of Tucker Wells, the malevolent young would-be summoner that Amy and Xander had shut down the other day. In hindsight, the identity of the caster of the memory spells on Andrew Wells was looking painfully obvious.

    After Amy recovered it took all three of our group's remaining practitioners to unravel the spells that Willow had woven around herself. The intellect and sophistication with which she'd designed her anti-divination safeguards would have earned my highest praise were it not for the misuses to which she'd put it and the corruption that she'd hidden with it. While she'd managed to avoid the most serious level of dark magic dependency syndrome so far- she had yet to become physically addicted to the castings, as myself and my youthful compatriots had with Eyghon- she'd already fallen into a psychological dependency. A clear and searching examination of her aura revealed more than a few questionable castings. She'd long since lost the protection of innocence; she'd clearly and repeatedly begun abusing her powers for selfish gain, via methods that she knew to be against what she'd been taught and common ethics.

    And most alarmingly, once her anti-divination spells had been unravelled we saw clear signs of an active enhancement ritual upon her. Hurried research had turned up that the spell was apparently a variant of a known ritual in our books; one that turned the caster into a paragon, significantly enhancing their talent and potential at everything but causing a backlash that summoned a counterbalance, a demon formed by all the flaws and weaknesses that the caster was rejecting in themselves but given a terrible power by the balance of the spells.

    And while Willow had weakened the spell to avoid having its full effect- she'd been intelligent enough to know that suddenly rewriting the historical record to give her credit for great deeds she hadn't performed or making everyone utterly defer to her would expose her to perception such as ours in short order- she'd still performed enough enhancement of her intelligence, willpower, and charisma to still create rather a formidable demon of the id as a reaction to what she'd invoked.

    "Do you have any idea what you've done?" I thundered at where Willow sat restrained by our binding-spells in the chair. "This spell has turned loose a demon to slay at random! How many lives have been lost because you wanted-" I trailed off.

    "None!" Willow shouted at us. "You always think I'm stupid! You never give me any credit for anything!" she finished screaming. "Of course I'd make sure the monster couldn't hurt anyone!"

    "You restrained it somewhere." Jonathan said flatly. "All right, where?"

    Willow mulishly remained silent and glared at us all.

    "You and it are linked." Amy said flatly. "And your hiding-spells are gone now. Will you at least have the minimal grace to 'fess up now, or do I have to track that thing down myself?"

    "You!" Willow shrieked. "Amy the Good, White Witch of Sunnydale! Do they know what a giant fake you are?"

    "Amy hasn't cast a single enhancement spell for me or anyone else." Jonathan said flatly. "Ever."

    "Liar!" Willow ranted. "You're using something, and I know it! I saw you!"

    "Saw what?" Amy shouted back. "Seriously, how the hell do you possibly think that you're the good guy here? You lured me into your house under false pretenses and drugged me! The last time that happened to me those guys were mass murdering demon cultists! Really not a good comparision for you!" she finished.

    "Amy." Jenny said, putting her hand on her shoulder. "This is an intervention, not a-" she trailed off diplomatically.

    "What did you see, and when did you see it?" Jonathan probed dispassionately.

    "When Amy asked me to check your brain activity right after you were in that coma." Willow reluctantly confessed. "I used my spell for transferring mental images to go looking for how you were cheating, and I saw you making some kind of pact with a creepy-looking guy in a dark suit."

    "Oh for the love of-" Amy facepalmed. "So you are saying that literally not two minutes after I warned you that you can't go into a divination already strongly wishing to see a particular result without a huge risk of biasing the casting and making yourself see things- which is the reason why I wasn't checking Jonathan's brain activity myself, because I was so upset and so hoping that he'd be all right- you went in already believing him to be some kind of magical cheater, and then convinced yourself you were absolutely right because you saw sketchy mental images of him supposedly magically cheating?" she finished.

    "In that kind of resentful mood, using an unfamiliar spell, Willow would almost certainly see what she was already wanting to believe." Jenny agreed. "But what's this about a man in a suit?"

    "Yeah, what is it with him?" Willow said spitefully.

    "I already know what creepy-looking guy you're talking about, and unlike you I also know the context! That was not any kind of demon pact." Amy said with quiet dignity. "That man was Jonathan's-" Amy paused, chewing her lip while she visibly searched for a proper word. "-handler. And Jonathan really doesn't like talking about that part of his life, and I'm certainly not going to against his wishes, so don't ask."

    "I'm beginning to understand how this situation came about." I agreed. "Willow, there was a reason we emphasized the dangers of magic misuse and the common pitfalls so much-"

    "You just wanted to hold me back!" Willow said. "You knew I was better than her, but you played favorites- you always played favorites-"

    "If your enhancement spell is still running, then use the enhanced mind it's giving you to analyze the flaws in your own argument." Jonathan said flatly.

    "The only thing I want to analyze is exactly how I'm going to prove what a lying, hypocritical, two-faced cheater you are." Willow spat back at him.

    "I made no 'deals' with demons for anything." Jonathan said. "I didn't sell my soul, I didn't pact or pledge, and I certainly didn't get to bargain. I was abducted. Molded. Shaped. Used. I'm still not entirely free of it, even if I'm not under immediate threat here in Sunnydale. I may never be entirely free of it." He sighed. "I can't say that I regret the people I've met along the way, or the opportunities I've had to be with them, but I did not choose anything that was done to me. And given the choice, I'd never have taken any of it."

    "... it's still not fair." Willow said stubbornly, still defiant- if less so- in the face of Jonathan's nigh-irresistible sincerity.

    "Life isn't." Jonathan shrugged. "But dammit, when you cheat to win- and I do believe in cheating to win- you're supposed to cheat your enemies. Not your allies, and definitely not the noncombatants."

    "And you did both." Amy backed him up.

    "Before we leave here tonight, Willow, we are going to bind your powers." I said sadly.

    "You can't do that! My gifts are mine-"

    "And you're letting them lead you down the dark path." I said. "We can't just step back and do nothing."

    "Instead, I'll be doing nothing. Forever." Willow said desperately.

    "Nonsense." Jenny said. "Willow, we are hardly going to condemn you out of hand as if you were some mere demon or vampire. You're a troubled young woman, but you're still one we've known for years. Who we care for. Who we wish to still have as our friend and student- indeed, that concern is precisely why we are intervening."

    "Amy, Jonathan, please find and dispose of the enhancement spell's demon." I asked them, both because it needed doing and to allow the people most personally aggrieved by Willow to get out of the room so that the remainder of this intervention could proceed on less confrontational grounds.

    "We're here." I heard Buffy say, as her, Xander, and Oz entered the room. I'd phoned them to come over after we'd taken care of the immediate necessities, but it had taken them some time to arrive. Given their degree of mutual personal animosity we'd chosen not to invite Cordelia. "Giles, what's happened?" Buffy said, staring at where Willow was restrained in shock.

    "A great deal, I'm afraid." I said sadly, as I began the process of catching everyone up to events and then trying to make Willow understand that she was negatively impacting her own life by her behavior and that being temporarily mage-bound until she could finish 'cold turkey' detox with an eye towards visiting the Devon Coven this summer was ultimately the best thing for her.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: No, they haven't put together that Willow had anything to do with Kendra's death. I mean, there's knowing your friend is getting into some bad habits and then there's suspecting your friend of Murder Two. There's a huge gap between those two things. They're literally not even thinking it could have been that bad.

    Michael Czajak is actually a canon character, if a very minor and obscure one. There are kids in the high school who totally dabble with spells and shit.

    Amusingly, the plot with Jack and the zombies and almost bombing the high school was totally averted because they completely chose the wrong carjacking victim. But in their defense, Jonathan does drive a very, very nice car. Not surprising they'd want to jack it.

    And yes, Amy did indeed say precisely that to Willow right before Willow mind-read the unconscious Jonathan in part 15, and Willow still did it and still saw what she expected to see. To quote one of my favorite passages from Lord of the Rings: "The Stones of Seeing do not lie, and not even the Lord of Barad-dur can make them do so. He can, maybe, by his will choose what things shall be seen by weaker minds, or cause them to mistake the meaning of what they see." Willow did that to herself.

    Likewise, Amy's meditation flashback is indeed the convo her and Willow had about enhancement spells and mind magic in part 14. Likewise, Willow brings up the Superstar spell in part 19 but refuses to use it then because its use would be traced back to her... a thing no longer holding her back after the Mayor's gift of those cloaking spells.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 27) New
  • View content
    • Willow POV:

    It wasn't fair!

    I hadn't hurt anyone with the enhancement spell! I'd even toned it down so it didn't do the history rewriting! And yes, I knew about the monster it summoned but that's why I'd originally done the spell inside the old bomb shelter that Billy Fordham had been planning to use last year to trap Buffy in before we'd convinced him to abandon that plan, the one with three-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls and a door that could be rigged so that it could only be opened from the outside. There was no way the monster was getting out of there to hurt anyone, and after I enchanted the door there was no way anybody but me would accidentally open it from the outside either. Not until Amy had tracked down where I'd hidden it and broken my spell on the door and then Jonathan had gone in and killed it, taking away all my buffs.

    Out of all the hypocritical-! Yes, I knew what Jonathan had said at the end and I even knew that it was technically true, but I also knew how good he was at telling only part of the truth and then shutting up. He'd proven that several times before. And he'd never actually denied that he wasn't being boosted by something- maybe drugs or genetic engineering from that child soldier spy thing in his past, if not magic- he just said he hadn't wanted it. Yeah, maybe not, but he certainly wasn't in any hurry to get rid of it now was he?

    And he durn sure wasn't in any hurry to stop flaunting it everywhere. What did he even have to complain about? He had the looks, the car, the grades, the athleticism, the nice big trust fund, and free pick of any girl he wanted! The entire school was full of guys who could only dream about getting alongside someone like Buffy or Cordelia, and he'd had them both interested in him and turned the one down free and clear, and left the other one not even able to go for him because he was already dated up! And it wasn't just suspicious that he passed up two more beautiful girls and went straight for the girl who was a powerful witch- the only one of the three that could give him something big that he didn't have already? He didn't need money or popularity, he already had or could easily get those himself, and he didn't need a girlfriend who could kill demons because he could already kill demons like a human blender on his own. But for a guy who supposedly wasn't interested in doing magic, he still couldn't do enough to keep a powerful witch on his string.

    In hindsight I'm surprised he never tried to play me, but I suppose he knew I was smart enough to be on to him. Amy, on the other hand- yeeesh. Show her a little approval and she'd follow you anywhere. Jonathan had her so wrapped up that talking to her was beyond hopeless- even on truth serum she wouldn't stop being his blind little fangirl. But Amy's good-girl routine was so solid that Jonathan could use her to convince Giles and Ms. Calendar of anything he wanted them to.

    God, I can't believe that I ever used to pity her. But she was hardly the only ex-friend I couldn't believe had changed into someone I didn't even know.

    "Okay, Will. I've heard their side, now tell me yours." Xander said. He'd come to me the next day after the big ol' confrontation, shortly after Jonathan and Amy had broken the enhancement spell. Of course he wouldn't come talk to me while the spell was still up. So here we were, in my living room, sitting alongside each other on the couch. Just like we'd done a million times before, only this time with this whole distance between us.

    "I didn't do anything wrong!" I pleaded. I mean, that was mostly true, right? I certainly hadn't intended anything wrong- everything that had gone wrong had done so for things I couldn't have seen coming, things that totally weren't my fault-

    "That's not what I asked." Xander said worriedly. "I-" he shook his head. "Stealing drugs from the hospital? Ambushing Amy with a roofie?" he finished incredulously. "Willow, I can't even imagine! How did things get this far?"

    "I was desperate, okay!" I pleaded with him. "There was something wrong with him- I knew there was- but nothing I was doing to find out was working! I had to find out if there was a threat to us there... only Amy and Angel really seem to know the real him, and it's not like I could hope to ambush him-"

    "Why ambush anyone?" Xander cut me off. "Why not just ask her? We grew up with her! This house, the one we're sitting in right now, is where she'd come to hide in junior high when her mom was being particularly psycho! And now she comes here to get drugged?"

    "Why is everyone so stuck on that?" I screamed at him. "Like the Scooby Gang doesn't break laws and hurt people all the time!"

    "Vampires. We hurt vampires." Xander insisted. "And demons. And-"

    "So you've spoken to Marcie lately?" I interrupted him acidly.

    "Jonathan gave her every possible chance to surrender." Xander said after a long pause. "Even our police chief would have done the exact same thing if he'd been there."

    "We only have his and Cordelia's words for that." I tried to persuade Xander. "And is either of them really a nice person? He's a self-confessed trained professional killer and she's the self-obsessed bitca that made us form a 'We Hate Cordelia' club in the first place!"

    "And Mitch almost getting killed with that brick? Are you you going to say that was really Jonathan too? He was sitting at the table with us eating lunch when that happened!" Xander objected.

    "I'm saying that I'm the person who's been your best friend your entire life." I tried to reach Xander. "And now you're taking the word of a strange creepy guy who admits he's been a creepy experimental subject, a trained killer, and a manipulative ex-spy all over me."

    "This isn't about you versus him, or us versus them, or anyone versus anyone!" Xander begged me back. "This is about why my best friend Willow is doing stuff that scares me! Like stealing, and lying, and drugging and casting mind spells on people!"

    "I was doing what I did to protect us!" I shouted back. "I was remaining alert, and investigating, and everything else our trainers claimed they wanted us to do! But no, because it's Willow doing it it's automatically wrong!" I shouted. "Even from you!"

    "Yeah, what about me?" Xander asked. "If the reason you were doing everything you were doing was because you thought we were in danger, what, you wouldn't warn us? Or warn me? Or ask me for my help, because you are my oldest and bestest friend and vice versa?" Xander sighed. "I mean, I knew that I was kinda wrapped up in my shiny new relationship for a while until I only started to remember to reconnect, but you had to know that Buffy would never actually get between me and you, right? Heck, she was your next best friend on the gang after me!"

    "... but you might have told him." I muttered. "Or one of the grown-ups, which would be the same thing as telling him. I just couldn't take that chance."

    "Okay, so let me get this straight." Xander said disgustedly. "When you need something from me, I'm your bestest friend who's known you your entire life and who should take your word over anyone's. But when it's about you risking being caught doing something, I'm the potential snitch you can't trust not to tell on you." He shook his head. "I'm not the big brain of the group, Will, but even I can spot the logical contradiction in that one."

    "I didn't say I needed anything from you!" I protested. Damn it, was even Xander not going to help me now...?

    "You weren't going to ask me to help take the magic bindings off?" Xander asked me.

    "I-" I began, and then stopped.

    "Simple question, Willow. Yes or no?" Xander said, looking at me with this 'I'm not mad, just really disappointed' Giles-like look I hadn't even known his face could be shaped like.

    "... I was." I 'fessed up. I knew perfectly well Xander could read me well enough that I couldn't get away with straight-up lying to him, at least not when I was already frazzled like this.

    "Yeah." he sighed, slumping in disappointment.

    "I can't believe you're ditching on me too." I whispered, tears leaking down my cheeks.

    "No one is ditching you." Xander said pleadingly. "Nobody's kicking you out of anywhere. You can stick with the research and hacking if you want-"

    "I don't want the group's pity!" I snarled at him.

    "-or you can take a Scooby break if you want." Xander continued on without a pause. "And just hang out at school. Or after school. And with the people you want to hang out with, and ghost the ones you don't." He sighed. "I mean, I can get that you probably don't want to go double-dating with Amy and Jonathan right now, and that's probably a good thing because she's still grudging on you a little- never mind." he broke off.

    "Gee, thanks for being all sharey with what they'll allow me to be and do." I pouted.

    "You can be and do pretty much anything with your life." Xander said. "Most of it's not even any of our business! All they're asking you to do- because of the, y'know, side effects- is not cast any spells until after witch camp this summer-"

    "Yeah, because they did such a great job with Amy's mom!" I burst out at him. "What with her not being cured in more than a year, and then breaking out body-swapping and coming back here to get put down like a dog and everything-"

    "That's because evil ex-Watcher lady was stupid enough to try busting Mrs. Madison out to help her with her own evil whatevers she'd had planned for the Hellmouth." Xander argued. "If Gwendolyn Post hadn't helped undo Mrs. Madison's own magic bindings from the outside, then Amy's mom would never have been able to pull off the body-switch and kill 'herself' to cover her tracks." Xander sighed. "As for the lack of cure before then, she'd been into the craziest kind of dark magics for more than Amy's whole lifetime! She even tried to kill her own daughter! Of course they wouldn't be able to detox her quickly... or at all..." Xander trailed off. "But that's not gonna happen to you, Willow. They're not even going to treat you like a prisoner. You only just got started doing a little bit of the dark magic stuff. And it's definitely not like you killed anybody."

    And at that innocent remark from Xander, oh, that's when it sank in for me just how much trouble I was really in.

    Oh God, I was so dead. Right now nobody in the group- not even Jonathan, damn him- had the slightest suspicion I'd had anything to do with Kendra's death, accident or not. They weren't even beginning to think it was a possibility. But what would happen after I got to the Devon Coven this summer? When I had a whole bunch of powerful elder witches examining me at length, to study exactly what I'd done and how to undo it? What if they used truth spells? What if they read my mind? Could I even remotely take the chance that they'd be naive enough to just take my word for it? Hah! Why should I? Even my 'friends' here in Sunnydale barely did that anymore!

    No, once I got to Giles' witch friends there was no way they wouldn't find out eventually. They'd discover exactly how Kendra had died, and they'd tell the Watcher's Council, and then-

    And then I'd be dead.

    I tuned Xander out as he tried to reassure me how I could put my life back together with just a little help, because he was wrong. I couldn't just go along and do the rehab. Not with what I'd really done, not with what had really happened. Because that would mean revealing to everyone what had really happened, and then-

    -and then. Yikes.

    No. I had to get out of this trap before the school year ended. Before I'd be packed off on a one-way trip to England to get turned inside out and then thrown to the nonexistent mercy of the same people who cold-bloodedly set Slayers up to get eaten by vampires on their eighteenth birthday.

    I had to.

    * * * * *​

    Oz POV:

    I'd fallen in love with Willow at first sight. It had been one of those intuitive things; you couldn't really analyze it. And my first impression had been right; she was brilliant, and bright, and passionate, and different. I knew I was a good-looking guy and a musician and pretty darn cool when I wanted to be; attracting a certain kind of girl would have been way too easy for me. But I wasn't even interested in that kind of girl. I hadn't even known exactly what kind of girl I would be interested in, but when I'd met Willow I knew I'd found her.

    I'd started dating Willow when I'd just thought she was that cute girl in computer club. Finding out that magic was real and she was also a powerful witch who helped a secret team of demon fighters hold back the darkness? Well, that was like falling in love with that cute girl from the private school up the road and then finding out she was one of the New Mutants. I was actually flattered that she'd asked me to help her with doing something that important, even before I found out some of my family were actually werewolves and then I got bit myself. At least already knowing them beforehand helped make the whole 'Can I ask you to lock me up every full moon?' conversation less awkward.

    Now, Willow had always had a healthy competitive rivalry with the other witch on the team, even though Amy was nothing but nice and supportive to her and not rivaling at all. And she'd never trusted or liked Jonathan- fair enough, he was a nice enough guy when you spoke to him but always kinda distant and more than a little spooky. When I finally heard from Xander about what Jonathan had said about his background, well, that explained that mystery.

    But ever since Kakistos it had subtly changed. Willow had gone from 'co-workers but not friends' to 'they're up to something, darn it!'. She'd used me as her sounding board for that a little, and I'd cautioned her to wait and see- patience was a proven cure for most social interaction ills, after all. After that I'd mostly thought she'd taken my advice, but as it turned out in hindsight she'd just continued her 'investigations' on her own.

    And now here we were. I wasn't entirely sure about what they were telling me about forbidden magic, because that was entirely outside my area of expertise. But I'd run a band, composed of high schoolers, for high schoolers, in southern California. So recognizing when somebody had a drug habit was within my area of expertise; Dingoes Ate My Baby had had to get rid of our first drummer when he'd gone that route and none of us had been able to pull him out of it. After that debacle I'd actually gone and read up on the topic, trying to figure out what we'd done wrong or if there was anything we could have done better.

    So when the explanation for Willow's increased frustration and furtiveness recently finally came out, and I went to talk to her afterwards, her combination of begging, deflection, and trying to split her friends up along fault lines to get at least one of us to help her get back to doing magic was painfully familiar to me.

    Damn.

    At least magic detox actually existed for this kind of thing, even if we wouldn't be able to get here there until summer. And until then she'd need all the support we could give her. Me in particular, because I could already see where she was going to blame her older friends for this mess and pull away from them for a while, and that would leave me as the primary source of support. I'd have to be an anchor and a support while at the same time not being an enabler. And I was sure that it was going to be rough. But what else could you do?

    Which would be more important than ever because even in the early stages of an addiction, the first thing that left the building was a person's ability to be analytical or self-aware. The capacity for objective thought and good decision-making was gone, and after enough bad decisions had been made the whole thing became a self-destructive spiral because when self-awareness and an acknowledgement of prior ethical standards did return then the first thing that returned along with them was guilt for prior misdeeds, which only added to the burden of stress they were already under at the same time they had diminished capacity to deal with that in a healthy manner, which of course meant they went right back to indulging in their addiction of choice to drown out the guilt. Which only made it worse the next time they started to become aware of themselves again, which only increased the urge to drown it out...

    Yeah. At least magic apparently had an effective way to prevent the addict from re-indulging for the short term. Certainly more effective then the disulfiram pills they gave alcoholics. And Mr. Giles and Ms. Calendar had gotten the restraining spells on Willow and were checking them regularly, so-

    Well, it was going to be rough, but we were all going to do the very best we could to get Willow through this. Me most of all.

    Let's just hope Willow herself would do her best to get herself through this. Because none of the rest of us would be able to get her through it without her.

    * * * * *​

    Buffy POV:

    "... aaand, dismount!" Cordelia called, and my tossers launched me and I went through a single front flip and... ugh, wobble. Yeah, failed to stick the landing again.

    "Ugh!" Cordelia groaned in time with my internal narration. "Okay, we're done for today! Dismissed!" and the girls all scattered from practice. Knowing what was coming next, I stood and waited for our angry cheerleading squad captain to come over and glare at me.

    "Where is your head today?" Cordelia glared at me.

    "Same place it was yesterday." I sighed. "And the day before, and the-"

    She shook her head disapprovingly as we both walked off together to the locker rooms to get changed. "You know I've been good at not saying it so far, but somebody is going to have to say it."

    "Why not continue the trend?" I said defensively.

    "Because Willow needs a smack on the butt, not a pity party." Cordelia replied. "Seriously, she knew what she was doing was dumb, she'd been warned a zillion times it was dumb- you even explained how the magic teachers had been super extra careful in the magic classes! And she still does it!" she finished as we changed, throwing her uniform in her locker extra hard as punctuation for her final sentence.

    "That's the part I just don't get!" I said confusedly. "Why would you do risky forbidden magic to be super smart and a powerful witch when you already were super smart and a powerful witch?"

    "Because she got beaten on her SATs by sixty meaningless points." Cordelia said dismissively, and then turned to face me off my disapproving expression. "No, seriously. You didn't go to school with her since kindergarten. Willow was always super obsessive about being better than everyone."

    "Are we talking about the same Willow who never willingly wore anything other than loose sweaters and slacks, but who could have cleaned up as one of the prettiest girls in school for a long while if she'd made the slightest effort to?" I asked as we got back to walking down the hallway.

    "That was an example of Willow not caring about the particular yardstick she was being compared to others by." Cordelia said. "But if you got into a contest with her on anything she wanted to win, then hoo boy!" Cordelia whistled. "You think I get vicious when it comes to competition? You were lucky that you were running for Homecoming Queen against me and not Willow, because she'd have fought dirty."

    "You have got to be exaggerating." I said. "She can barely put a stake in a vampire, let alone anything more aggressive! Willow wouldn't hurt a fly!"

    "Oh yeah, she's good at that act." Cordelia said dismissively. "Very good. In her own particular specialty, she's the best actress in the school. Sometimes I think she's even good enough to fool herself." she finished sagaciously.

    "What are you talking about?" I turned to her incredulously.

    "... the first example that comes to mind actually happened the day after you transferred in, would you believe it?" she replied after a thoughtful pause. "And-" she sighed. "Okay, we were being jerks, I admit it."

    "'We' being...?" I said in my best imitation of Mom's voice.

    "Harmony and I." Cordelia replied unflinchingly. "We were in computer class talking about you, of all people- this was back when I still thought you were a crazy nutbar who'd gotten kicked out of your last school for fighting-"

    "I'm going to be fair and admit that slamming you into the wall and pulling a stake on you at the Bronze was not the way for me to make a good impression." I conceded.

    "Yeah, the downside of all that martial arts training." Cordelia said knowingly. "After I got those lessons I had to be a lot more careful about my own reflexes if somebody snuck up behind me at the wrong time. Although I am glad about the part where Percy learned never to pat me on the ass without an engraved invitation."

    "Ah, the arm-twisting." I nodded along with her. "That's always a fun one when it's deserved."

    "Yup!" she agreed cheerfully, and then got back to telling on herself. "So, anyway, Willow heard us talking and butted into our conversation to defend you, and so we traded verbal barbs for a while, and she to absolutely no one's surprise totally lost. And then it came time for us to save our assignments- we were in computer lab, did I mention that?"

    "And?" I motioned for her to continue.

    "And when we asked her how to save our projects off the desktop then Willow, all sweet as sugar, said to press the 'Deliver' key."

    "What? There is no 'deliver' key-" and then it hit me. DEL. The 'Delete' key.

    "Yup." Cordelia said. "She tricked us into deleting our own comp sci projects for that week. And sure, you might go 'Well, you and Harmony were being all mean to her so yay for revenge of the nerd', but-"

    "But that would be like me setting your homework on fire because I didn't like the things you'd said about me." I said. "The things you had been saying about me, for that entire semester."

    "I know!" Cordelia said. "But that's my point! Even back when we hated each other and thought each other was the worst, we still never descended to academic sabotage! We didn't even think of it- at least, I know I didn't!"

    "Me neither." I conceded. "But Willow...?" I trailed off, still not quite believing what I'd just heard.

    "Hey, ask Xander if you don't believe me." Cordelia said. "There's no way she didn't brag to him later about the fast one she'd pulled on me and Harmony. He probably still remembers it."

    "Huh." I said. "I'm really not sure how to feel about that one."

    "Look, I'm not saying that Willow wasn't legitimately bullied- sometimes by me." Cordelia admitted with an actual, if very rare, moment of shame. "But- taking me as the example again, out of all my mean girl routines I've never really done the backstabbing thing. When I want to cut someone then I do front stabbing."

    "You and I have that entirely in common." I agreed with her. "Even back when I was Freshman Princess at Hemery, and I was the worst kind of Freshman Princess-"

    "As fellow high school royalty, however eccentric, I can entirely relate to that." Cordelia agreed.

    "I still wouldn't set anyone's homework on fire, or trick them into doing it themselves." I agreed. "That was- even when you hated someone, or were trying to socially cut them dead, there had to be some limits. Or else we'd all be total barbarians. And academic sabotage is a suspension offense."

    "Yup. But for Willow, there really aren't those kinds of limits. There never were." Cordelia said worriedly. "Oh, she was horrible at direct confrontations, which really limited the damage she'd do- or even wanted to do, mostly. But if you did ever get her really wanting to come back at you-" She chewed her lip, which was a very rare gesture indeed from Queen C. "Then she'd try anything she thought she could get away with."

    "You're worried she's still going to try something." I probed. "Now, I mean."

    "Yeah." Cordelia agreed reluctantly. "I am. So..." she paused, then continued. "You just keep your eyes open, all right?"

    "... I hate this." I eventually said as we both hit the parking lot and got ready to go home. "Just, all of this."

    "I'm not exactly celebrating either." Cordelia nodded. "God, who'd have thunk?"

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    Angel and I trudged along our patrol route in perfect silence. Our steps were synchronized, our perceptions were keyed up, and our thoughts were entirely elsewhere.

    "Where did we screw up on Willow?" I said out loud.

    "I've been hindsight gazing as well." Angel said. "And-" he shrugged. "I think we were so hung up on looking for accidental corruption or by ignorance, we'd forgotten to cover deliberate malice."

    "I'm starting to wonder if I should have shared my entire story with the group from the beginning." I said, feeling the guilt.

    "Given all the secrets I keep, I wouldn't sound convincing as an advocate for greater transparency." Angel sighed. "But if it helps, I honestly think you were right not to. Finding out about your 'Benefactor' and the Jumpchain and the whole omniverse-" he shrugged. "Kinda triggers an existential crisis."

    "Are you regretting that I told you?" I asked him, honestly curious.

    "Well I was already having one of those before you came along, so no." Angel said with a rare flash of humor. "And helping you deal with yours was actually bread cast upon the waters, in fact; it helped me a lot with getting over mine. And you had to tell Amy once you two decided to move ahead with your relationship; that would have just been a recipe for disaster if you hadn't."

    "I'm amazed she took it as well as she did." I said wonderingly. "And-" I sighed. "She's taken a lot of things, put up with a lot of things, done a lot of things for me. And what have I done?"

    "Have you asked her that question?" Angel said patiently, in his dad voice.

    "Actually, yeah." I said, taking a seat on a tombstone adjacent to the one he'd parked his hips on. "And she said that I'd been me and been there, and that that was more than enough."

    "So...?" Angel said probingly.

    "I-" I began, and then cut myself off and got to my feet, drawing my sword.

    "Three of 'em." Angel nodded, having spotted the small team of almost-certainly vampires creeping between the rows of mausoleums off in the distance even better than I had. "All right- you pull, I'll flank."

    "Got it." I acknowledged, and we headed off.

    I deliberately walked heavy-footed as I closed in on the three vampires from the rear, because the entire point of my going straight in was to pull their attention off of Angel who even now was busy stealthing up on top of the mausoleums and silently leaping from one to the other down the row to be in position to drop on them as soon as I got them all looking the other way.

    And then things diverted from the preplanned script when, as soon as they'd all turned to face me, the lead vampire took one look at my bared blade and drew a pair of very fine-looking swords from his own hip sheaths, one long and one short. Waving back his two compatriots he advanced for the big one-on-one duel, and he was surprisingly good. Oh, not as good as me good, but good enough that this was going to be considerably more involved than a simple parry-riposte-slash-stake situation.

    So, with his two blades to my one, we clashed steel for what had to be a good thirty seconds- this guy was actually quite good- before I finally managed to catch his primary sword hand across the wrist with a solid cut and leave him minus a hand and a blade. With only one short blade to my long he couldn't keep me from beating his parrying weapon out of line and giving him a neat thrust to the heart, dusting him.

    Angel walked up, having already dealt with his two and just waiting for me to finish up with mine, and picked up the now-dusted vampire's dropped swords and looked at them. "Genuine Toledo steel." he remarked. "Very valuable antiques."

    "Even more valuable with those gem inserts in the hilts." I agreed. "And he really knew how to use them too."

    "He definitely didn't pick these up in the airport gift shop." Angel agreed.

    "Vampire swordmasters." I said as we strolled along. "You ever run into that before?"

    "It kinda rings a bell somewhere, but nothing clear." Angel said. "And sure, the older and more experienced of us remember back when these were the common weaponry of the day- you know how I swing a pretty mean broadsword myself. But these are fancied up, and so was his style."

    "Like a court duelist." I agreed, having finally placed what was peculiar about them. "Well, maybe he was a one-off."

    "And maybe he wasn't." Angel finished the thought. "So, something new in town again."

    "I suppose we were about due." I sighed.

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: And we are now up to the beginning of episode 3x14, 'Bad Girls', and this jump is officially as long as the Girl Genius jump and going to get longer.

    As for Willow- well, you can see the plot complication. She just lampshaded it for us all, in fact. And everybody is reacting each in their own way, and they're all trying so hard, and yet-

    Also, yes, the questions of 'what about the Superstar spell's demon' and 'how did the Devon Coven screw up with Catherine Madison', also answered. I'll admit it hadn't occurred to me to compose an answer for the second one until someone asked.

    The bit about Oz dealing with a now-bounced band member who'd been on drugs is fanon, not canon, but I considered it entirely plausible that it would crop up given Southern California and the amateur music scene.

    The bit about Cordelia, Harmony, Willow, and the 'Deliver' key is canon- it's a scene in the second part of the season 1 pilot, 1x02 'The Harvest'. Just as Cordelia getting slammed by Buffy at the Bronze because she walked up behind a keyed-up Slayer in vampire-hunting mode at the exact wrong instant is also canon, from 1x01 'Welcome to the Hellmouth'. The bomb shelter is also canon- Ford did indeed find it and set it up that way in 2x07 'Lie to Me', although in this timeline he was obviously stopped before he actually lured Buffy into it.

    (add) Minor edits made to correct details about the scene with the 'Deliver' key- on a rewatch it turned out that while Harmony thought about copying Willow's homework, she failed to get anything because Willow was working on something else entirely. Cordelia didn't try to copy at all. The conversation was tweaked to reflect this and other contextual errors.
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 28) New
  • View content
    • Jonathan POV:

    "El Eliminati." Giles said, putting away the reference text. We were meeting in the library the next afternoon after school- we still used the school a lot of the time, depending on scheduling. Giles' house was more secure, but didn't have a convenient sewer access for Angel.

    In this particular case it had only taken us about twenty minutes of dedicated cross-referencing to finally track down the dead vampire swordsman's particular style and heraldry, but they were distinctive enough to be on record in several demonologists' codexes. "A vampire duelist cult that started in the fifteenth century, reputed to be very deadly in their day. Their once-considerable numbers dwindled in later centuries due to an increase in anti-vampire activities and, well, the eventual casualties of all their dueling."

    "Fifteeth century. That's a bit before even my time." Angel mused. "But I think I ran into one of them in Madrid in the mid-1800s. No wonder that guy's style seemed a little familiar."

    "Joy." Buffy said. "So, dueling cult? What, they heard I'm supposed to be pretty good with a sword and all came here to play Highlander?"

    "Actually, I don't think so." Angel said. "If they were here to call the Slayer out to a duel, the Eliminati that Jonathan fought wouldn't have drawn on him; he'd have just asked Jonathan to deliver a message to you. But he went straight for the kill instead."

    "So why are they here?" Xander asked. "Just random Hellmouthy goodness?"

    "Hmm." I rubbed my chin. "Historically, martial societies that don't have any firm ties to kingdom or clan and that are all about the love of fighting? They tend to eventually drift into fighting for pay. It gets you a regular supply of good fights and supports you in style."

    "And thus, literal sell-swords." Angel agreed. "That fits."

    "Great, we're dealing with vampire PMC now?" Cordelia broke in. "If so, then that begs the obvious question of who's paying them and for what?"

    "As for who's paying, there's a big obvious suspect sitting in City Hall." Amy said.

    "But not the only one." Xander counter-pointed. "Although yeah, that's where I'd start looking too."

    "Actually, they might be here for another reason." Jenny said, coming out of the stacks with another book. "It says here that the last known patron of El Eliminati was the demon Balthazar, who was the former dominant power over the Sunnydale Hellmouth before the arrival of Richard Wilkins."

    "Where's Balthazar now?" I asked.

    "No trace of him after the founding of Sunnydale." Jenny said, laying the book on the table after opening it ot the relevant page for all of us to see. "Presumably he's dead."

    "Yeah, we've all seen that movie. He's totally not dead." Xander said flatly.

    "Hmm." Amy said, reading closer. "It says here that Balthazar had an amulet reputed to give him strength. And that after Balthazar was destroyed, the amulet was taken as a prize by a man named Greaves."

    "Wait, Greaves?" Cordelia said. "As in one of the Founding Families of Sunnydale? The last Greaves only died in my parents' generation!"

    "What cemetery was he buried in?" I said, already suspecting where this was going.

    "Willow, can you hack the-" Xander began, only for a silence to fall over the entire room. "Um. Yeah." he finished embarassedly.

    "I'll do it." I said after an awkward pause, moving to the inert terminal and booting it up. It didn't take me very long to get into the county registration of deaths and graves.

    "And surprising absolutely no one, the last of the Greaves was buried in the same cemetery that we fought that guy in last night." Angel said, reading over my shoulder.

    "And you were already in among the mausoleums when you fought them." Amy agreed. "They were going for his tomb."

    "And they'll be going back tonight, and in force." I said. "But, sundown isn't for an hour-"

    "So we're going right now." Buffy said, leaping to her feet, and most of the non-daylight-challenged people did likewise.

    "Wait." I said, surprising everyone. "Before we go, and we will go, we have a big decision to make." I sighed. "Right now we're assuming that Balthazar survived, but it took him this long to recover, and he wants his old servants to recover his amulet of power before he has another go at Wilkins."

    "Yeah." Angel said, and then his expression changed as he realized where I was going.

    "So, we get the amulet so he can't power up off it, and then we go slay Balthazar." Buffy said. "Simple."

    "Is it?" I sighed. "We've had warnings for a while that the Mayor is up to something big, code-named 'Ascension'. But we've been stymied on every possible avenue investigating exactly what it is. And now we have- probably have- a situation where an old enemy of Wilkins is returning to Sunnydale to finish up on a century-long grudge."

    "Provided he's still extant, this Balthazar almost certainly has at least some of the knowledge we need." Giles said, realizing himself. "But he would have no reason to give it to us."

    "Wait, you're saying that we should actually cut a deal with a demon?" Xander said incredulously. "Aren't you all about the not doing that?" he confronted me.

    "We certainly can't just turn a major demon loose to go kill and kill again." I agreed. "But we need what he knows. So while we know how far we aren't prepared to go... we have to decide, right now, exactly how far we are prepared to go."

    Buffy pulled out her chair and sat down again, and slowly everyone followed suit.

    * * * * *​

    "Balthazar!" Buffy called, as her, me, Xander, and Amy entered the abandoned warehouse on Devereau street where he'd set himself up. We'd taken his amulet from the Greaves family tomb just before sundown, and in its place had left the Eliminati a note telling them where to get in touch with us to negotiate for its return. Sure enough, a messenger had shown up a couple hours after sundown telling us where to go.

    There were approximately a dozen Eliminati, all in their ceremonial garb and decked out with swords, surrounding a large tank full of water in which an absolutely disgusting, nearly sessile blob of flesh floated. Either Balthazar had been maimed all to hell by Wilkins and by losing his amulet, or else he'd always been this way. Honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to know which.

    "Where is my amulet?" Balthazar demanded.

    "Hey, we haven't told you what we want first." Buffy said.

    "You insolent girl-"

    "Slayer." Buffy cut him off. "Get it right. I'm an insolent Slayer." she finished, baring her teeth.

    That took Balthazar back a little, and he stopped and actually looked at us for the first time.

    "Slayer." he nodded at her. "Witch." he turned to Amy. "And each with their own loyal warrior-thane walking behind. I haven't seen a hunting party quite like yours in some time." Balthazar gloated. "How long do you and yours think you'd last against all my Eliminati, Slayer?"

    "Longer than you might think." I said. "Now, do want to hear our offer?"

    "No." Balthazar started. "Take them! They can talk, or they can-"

    "Challenge!" I shouted loudly. "We call challenge! El Eliminati, do you dare to send your champion to face ours over naked blades? Or are you jackals who hide only behind numbers and reputation?"

    The vampire duelists stopped as one on hearing that, snarling at us in game face. Yeah, they'd felt that insult.

    "Do not let him manipulate you!" Balthazar ranted. "Take them! Break them! Make them tell me where my amulet is!"

    "But Master!" the lead Eliminati swore. "The boy speaks truly! By the code of El Eliminati, a challenge to an honorable duel must be met! And when we swore to serve you, you swore that we would serve you with honor-"

    "Vincent, you insolent-" Balthazar began.

    "The boon we ask if we win is that you tell us what you know about Wilkins before you try to kill us." I interrupted him.

    Balthazar stopped in mid-rant at that, and turned to me with a cunning look on his bloated, misshapen face. "You would not ask to be allowed to go free?"

    "We know that you'd never not try to grab us and make us talk, just as surely as you know that we'd never willingly give you your amulet." I said. "If either of us ever claimed to be willing to make that deal, they'd be lying their ass off. So why waste each other's time?"

    "You want Wilkins gone." Buffy backed me up. "So do we. And while the enemy of our enemy is still our enemy-"

    "Your strategem is obvious, stripling." Balthazar sneered. "You believe yourself able to fight free of our trap after you have obtained what you want."

    "But what do you lose?" Amy pointed out reasonably. "Whether we win or lose the duel, you still order the rest of the Eliminati to take us for interrogation and that's still your only chance to get your amulet. The only thing your decision changes is whether or not you still have a hope for your vengeance against the Mayor to be executed even if you lose."

    "Which is the only reason we'd actually trust you to make with the info if we win the duel." Xander said. "It'd be in your self-interest to."

    Balthazar growled at us in such a loud, low register that I swore I felt the warehouse floor shake. But we had him mouse-trapped and he knew it. As weakened as he was, he needed his minions. The weird, aberrant honor code of El Eliminati was the main thing keeping them from betraying him- the first problem with demons was that they were demons, after all. And so he couldn't openly spit on that honor code.

    Buffy smiled and tapped the point of her sword on the ground.

    "Very well, have your duel." Balthazar swore. "It will not help you!"

    The Eliminati withdrew to one side of the open warehouse floor, and we the other. Buffy advanced with her sword out to meet their leader Vincent, her one blade vs. his two, and after a formal salute to each other they began.

    No point-scoring, no mercy, no time-outs. Vincent came in cautiously, knowing that despite her smaller size and reach he faced a probably stronger and definitely quicker opponent. Buffy devoted her full attention to her opponent, knowing that if any of the Eliminati chose to break the code duello and come at her back then we'd be there to call out a warning. He stopped just outside Buffy's arc and thrust with his long blade, probing her defenses, and Buffy parried his blade with a rising slash, her own broadsword in a solid two-hand grip, and then riposted in a swift downward cut. Vincent caught the riposte on his short blade and went for a bind, and Buffy pivoted and fell back.

    After disengaging, they each reset and came in again. Vincent this time in a whirling two-hand pattern, all-out offense, taking advantage of the fact that Buffy could only parry in one direction at a time. Buffy deflected once, twice, sidestepped instead of parrying on the third and went for a side cut- and grunted in pain as Vincent, anticipating her maneuver, broke out of the feint that his last slash had been to give Buffy a quick countercut, shallowly slashing her left forearm. First blood to him.

    "Not bad." Buffy acknowledged.

    "You fight with some skill yourself." Vincent conceded, and then they went back to it. Vincent was built like a classic Renaissance swordsman- tall, thin but strong body, long arms, long legs. He had a distinct reach advantage on the 'fun sized' (as she insistently put it) Buffy and was using every bit of it; pressing her and slashing at her when her own blade couldn't quite reach him and overbearing her when he could. Buffy was definitely no slouch, and I'd spent some time last-minute coaching her in the fine points of what portions Angel and I could reconstruct of El Eliminati's particular sword style from our own brief encounters with them, but this guy was simply that good. Buffy'd tagged him a couple of times, but superficial wounds only that didn't really slow up the dead guy, while he'd left two more red streaks on her other arm and ribs to match the one he'd already left on her forearm.

    So eventually Buffy went for the same move that had defeated Kakistos, the low sweep to the ankles... and our hearts were in all our mouths as Vincent simply leapt over the cut. He brought his heel down hard with precise timing, trapping Buffy's blade against the concrete warehouse floor and leaving her prone and pinned by the metal lever attached to her hand. Buffy could either let go of her sword and face him unarmed. or remain prone as he advanced and then stabbed here where she lay. Buffy frantically pulled and tugged as hard as she could, as Vincent slowly stepped forward while keeping her blade trapped, but it didn't move. Xander, Amy, and I all drew as tense as bowstrings- if this went south then we'd have to move fast-

    "Any last words, Slayer?" Vincent said, standing directly over the prone Buffy as he gloated, his blade raised high.

    "Yeah. If you're gonna stab, then stab!" Buffy grinned wickedly up at him as her off-hand produced a poniard from where she'd had it strapped underneath her jacket, then reached around his ankles and drew it right across the back of both his heels. With both Achilles' tendons cut, Vincent dropped like a rock. Buffy rolled to the side and evaded his last desperate slash, then kipped up to her own feet and stood over the prone Vincent. She kicked his blocking hand away, then knelt and staked him through the heart in a single savage motion. "Don't talk!" she finished.

    The remaining Eliminati each raised their blades and saluted the victor as Buffy reclaimed her own weapon, then walked across the warehouse floor to rejoin us.

    "Close one." I sighed with relief.

    "Tell me about it." Buffy agreed, shuddering. "Next time, you do the high noon."

    "We would have our boon before we resume battle." I turned to Balthazar.

    "Wilkins, the human, seeks the Ascension." Balthazar spat out reluctantly.

    "We knew that! What is it?" Buffy pressed.

    "The Ascension is the ritual by which a mere mortal can transcend their disgusting flesh to become a Pure Demon, an immortal living embodiment." Balthazar said. "It takes a full century of preparations and transubstantiation, more simultaneous pacts than most of your kind could ever hope to juggle without being destroyed by one or the other, and sacrifices. So many sacrifices..." he trailed off rapturously. "It is a feat that has been accomplished successfully perhaps half a dozen times in the entire history of this planet, in all the eras since the Old Ones themselves still walked the world."

    "And how close is Wilkins is to-" Xander began, to cut himself off. "Wait, you said a century? As in, Sunnydale was founded almost one century ago exactly?"

    "Precisely!" Balthazar gloated. "Now do you see why I desire so strongly to reclaim my power? Give me my amulet, and in the fullness of my strength I will slay your enemy for you- while anyone still can!" he broke into a rant. "Soon, very soon, he will become impossible to defeat! Return my glory to me and accept that your deaths will at least serve to help destroy your enemy!"

    "Yeah, here's the thing. That's what we were going to tell you to do." I replied flatly.

    "Still, thanks for the tip. We'll put it to good use." Buffy chimed in insouciantly.

    "TAKE THEM!" Balthazar ranted. "AVENGE YOUR LEADER! BRING THEM TO ME FOR TORTURES UNTOLD! AND GET ME MY AMULET!" he screamed. "MAKE THEM SCREAM WHO DARES KEEP IT FROM ME! GET ME HIS NAME!"

    "His name is Angel." Angel broke in menacingly, and the Eliminati all turned to see him, Giles, Jenny, and Cordelia flanking the Eliminati from the other side while everybody had been busy looking at our own drama.

    Her and Giles had come equipped with longbows and flaming arrowheads, and with Angel to stop the Eliminati from melee rushing them and Jenny using basic telekinesis and holy water for area denial they started cutting down the Eliminati like wheat. Buffy, Xander, and I hit them from the other side, not remotely restricting ourselves to formal dueling now but going straight for down and dirty anti-vampire street fighting. Balthazar, although sessile, turned out to have some fairly significant magic of his own- enough to almost telekinetically drag Angel right into his grasp, at least- so Amy was kept occupied counter-spelling him. That fight ended when Amy noticed that Balthazar had unwisely had his soaking pool- an ordinary, above-ground pool like the one you could buy at any Home Depot, in fact- erected directly underneath one of the industrial lamps hanging from the warehouse ceiling. Using one hand to neutralize Balthazar's own casting, power vs. power, she reached up with her other and telekinetically yanked loose the lamp, to fall straight into the pool and electrocute him.

    "Devious..." Balthazar gasped weakly as he died. "And merciless. Perhaps... you shall take my vengeance for me... after all..." and then he passed away.

    "You okay?" I said, noticing Amy looked a little rocky.

    "I think that's the first person- well, non-vampire," she corrected herself, "that I actually killed with magic." She sighed, not looking away from the disturbing sight of roast demon, as the sparks finally died away when Xander found and hit the circuit breaker. "I-"

    I drew her gently into a hug, turning so that she didn't have to look at the dead demon anymore. "You were already fighting him to the death." I said. "We all were."

    "I know, but is that where she started?" Amy asked me, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Xander wincing and looking away. "Thinking that this thing was clearly okay, so this one had to be too, so-" she worried. "We didn't do any deal with a demon tonight. We'd found a way to get what we needed without it. But what if there hadn't been any other way? What would we have done if it were really necessary to save Sunnydale, and what price would we have paid?"

    "The important thing is that you're actually talking about it." Buffy said reassuringly. "You're not-"

    "You're not obsessing on it all by yourself in a dark room and convincing yourself that what you want to be true has to be true." Cordelia cut in.

    "Hey!" Xander said, turning to glare at her. "A little tact, please?"

    "Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass." Cordelia replied fearlessly.

    "This isn't quite the place for this discussion." Jenny said. "But..." she stopped, and continued pensively. "When I was growing up among the Kalderash, I was busy learning how to be a witch at the same time I was learning how to be Romani. And at one point I asked my grandmother how I could safely reconcile the, mmm-"

    "Unique ethical viewpoint?" I contributed diplomatically.

    "That's a fair way to put it. "Jenny agreed. "At any rate, to reconcile that with also avoiding the traps of black magical thinking at the same time."

    "And she said?" Xander inquired.

    "That there was no one easy substitute for examining each of your important decisions when you had the opportunity to, and considering their consequences, and doing better the next time if you didn't do well enough the first time." Jenny replied. "But she also said that a good rule of thumb was this- that if you were worried about not being good and still wanted to be good, then you probably were."

    "Every villain makes themselves the hero of their own story first." I agreed. "You can't really cut loose with a total disregard for consequences until after you've seriously convinced yourself that you have the right to do so. However wrongheaded you've got to be when you rationalize it."

    "And a real monster never worried about whether it was a monster." Angel said. "Trust me, I'm talking from experience there."

    "Thanks." Amy said, buoyed at least some by all of our reassurance.

    "Yeah. I just wish we'd given all this emotional support to Willow." Xander groused.

    "We tried." Buffy said. "We are trying. She just..." Buffy slumped. "Didn't tell us when she was in trouble."

    "Well, now we know." Xander conceded. "Is it okay if I tell her what you said on my next visit?"

    "Of course it is." Jenny reassured him.

    "I'm still mad at her, but..." Amy trailed off guiltily. "You're right. If Willow needs my help then I shouldn't be ghosting her. She might not want to see me but if she does, then I'll stay mad only on my own time. Let her know that if she wants to talk, the door's open."

    "Same here." I agreed. "Even if I can't imagine anyone she wants to see less."

    "Neither can I." Xander agreed. "But I'll tell her you said that."

    We finished searching the warehouse for anything too dangerous to leave lying around, and started heading back to our vehicles. I kept holding Amy's hand for her reassurance, but started pondering what Balthazar had said-

    "Pure Demon, he said." I thought out loud. "As if that was different from ordinary demons."

    "Yes." Giles agreed. "I can already think of several tentative lines of research-"

    "And he said the Ascension had been completed several times before, if very rarely. But it can't have been recently, or in any location of prominence, or else we'd already have come across it in our researches for Ascension-" Amy began.

    "Jenny." I said, realizing. "How far back do the clan histories of the Kalderash go?"

    "Over twelve hundred years." she said. "What, you're thinking a reference to an Ascension would be in there?"

    "Given the time span involved and demographical and historical statistical distribution- okay, to skip over all the math, If Ascension has successfully occured maybe half a dozen times since the end of the Demon Age then it's very likely that at least one of those events- not counting Wilkins' current attempt- has occurred within the past millenium. So we need access to a thousand-plus year archive of lore that contains many obscure events that evaded the notice of more mainstream occult historians- if that's not a contradiction in terms-"

    "-that we haven't already consulted." Giles said. "One of which is the Kalderash clan archives. So, yes. There's certainly no guarantee that there'd be anything in there, but it's still one more chance than we have at present."

    "I'll call Uncle Enyos as soon as I get back tonight." Jenny agreed. "I've got a lot of credit banked with the clan ever since I helped find the flaw in our clan's curse binding Angelus, which let Angel fix it at the Demon Trials. Might as well cash some of that in."

    "At least we know what to look for now." Buffy agreed. "Even if it sounds really big and doomy."

    "The big doom would have rolled up on us if we'd seen it coming or not." Xander said. "And at least now, we can see it coming."

    * * * * *​

    Mayor Wilkins POV:

    I knelt in the inverted pentagram, the candles lit and burning at each point. 99 years and 265 days' of dedicated effort had brought me to this moment, and now I would reaffirm my dedication and commit myself irrevocably to the path I had set out upon.

    "Potestatem matris nostrae in tenebris invoco. Maledictum filium tuum abomni periculo custodias nunc et in saecula!" I chanted, and the ground shook beneath my feet. The Hellmouth rumbled and I could feel it link to me, the dark energies buoying within me, roiling, elevating me to a higher plane.

    "Well!" I said, rising to my feet and wiping my hands off on a moist towelette. "That's certainly encouraging! But we'll need to test it."

    "Sir, I'm not sure-" Allan began, and I waved him off.

    "Nonsense!" I said firmly. "If this didn't work, then I'm certainly not going to escape the consequences anyway. No, no, might as well find out once and for all right now. Alphonse?"

    Expressionlessly, my lead vampire minion drew a pistol. The privacy spells would mean nobody outside my office would hear any inconvenient noises, so-

    The bullet slammed into my forehead and I could actually feel my brains fly out the back of my shattered skull and hear them splurtch against the wall. Wow! That really tickled!

    "And there we go!" I said happily, as the flesh and bone of my head effortlessly reknit as if nothing had happened to me at all. "This officially commences the Hundred Days, and now nothing can harm me until the Ascension." I laughed. "Gosh, I'm feeling chipper! Allan, do I have time for a root beer?"

    "I'm sorry, sir, but the PTA meeting?" he said nervously.

    "Ah, right, of course. Just because I've become invincible isn't any excuse to not be punctual!" I said, picking up my briefcase and making sure I had all my notes for the meeting. "Alphonse, you can drive me to the school, can't you?"

    "Of course, sir." he agreed.

    "Allan, make sure someone cleans up that mess before I get back, will you?" I said, tsk'ing at all the unsanitary blood and gray matter splattered against my office wall. Perhaps I should have had Alphonse stab me to prove my invincibility- then again, he never was much good with blades-

    "Yes sir." Allan agreed nervously, and we headed out.

    Alphonse let me out at the curb, and I got out and leaned on the driver's door to speak to him through the window. "Tell you what, why don't you just take the rest of the night off? After I'm done here I'll walk back home." I laughed again. "It's not like I've got anything to worry about now, is it?"

    "Thank you, sir." Alphonse agreed, and drove away. I headed into the building and began mentally going over the agenda for this meeting. Principal Flutie had been doing a fine job overall with keeping the school on track, but there were just a couple of minor things-

    "Mayor Wilkins, sir?" a very familiar voice said to me, and I turned to see a certain young witch of my acqaintance waiting for me at the corner of the hallway.

    "Why Miss Rosenberg!" I said, murmuring an incantation under my breath to check for nearby magic. Mustn't be careless, after all-

    -and oh, goodness. A Savignon's Binding laid upon on our precocious young witch? With the very familiar and quite powerful magical signature of Miss Madison overlaying the fainter yet also familiar traces of Mr. Giles and Ms. Kalderash? Well, well, well. Somebody had been very careless it would seem. Tsk, tsk. Youth these days.

    "What can I do for you?" I continued cheerfully.

    "I need your help." she murmured to me urgently. "Your spells- they worked fine, but they snooped and spied and pushed and found me out anyway!"

    "When are you expected back tonight?" I asked her.

    "My parents are out of town again." she replied. Ah yes, Ira and Sheila Rosenberg. The ultimate believers in the latch-key child philosophy. "So I don't have to get back at any particular time."

    "Then is it all right if I ask you to wait until after I'm done with this meeting?" I said. "I can't forfeit my civic responsibilities, after all."

    "That's okay." she said, shifting her feet impatiently. "I'll meet you in the teacher's lounge after you're done?"

    "That would be ideal." I agreed with her. "Just make sure they don't see you."

    "Oh, trust me." Miss Rosenberg muttered darkly. "They won't."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: I actually don't know much about swordfighting, so when I do detailed duel scenes... well, I crib and I make shit up. Here's hoping it didn't blatantly go wrong. And yeah, Vincent was surprisingly badass, but even in the canon episode that guy damn near drowned Buffy and that was when they were brawling, not dueling. He was a meathead but a very well-trained meathead, and this time Buffy was fighting him on his terms. Oh, and the plan for 'if Buffy lost' was 'everybody just starts shooting and the reinforcements come in then', of course. As was made pretty obvious, neither side was actually trusting the other one to do more than pay lip service.

    The line "The fact that you're worried about it and want to be good means you probably are." was gleefully stolen from 'Hubris Plus' in the MLP Loops, because it's one of the best pieces of advice for redemption arcs I've heard. The several other familiar lines in this snippet were stolen gleefully from the show itself.

    Kudos to the poster on SB who pointed out earlier that Amy's mental scars from her mom leave her prone to self-doubt. They do, I've written that, and even now she still occasionally struggles with it if shit gets particularly heavy. And suddenly finding out that Willow, who she thought was just fine, had actually slipped that far without anyone noticing is definitely some heavy shit. The purpose of the scene was of course to further highlight that Willow should have just asked for help dealing with her doubts, because looks what happens when you do.

    And yes. The gang starts finding out about the Ascension somewhat earlier than canon because they're leveraging their sources, but Willow makes the decision to approach the Mayor. Wilkins is a subtle man, after all. And he knows full well that rebellious teenagers have to be convinced it's their idea. Even in canon, Faith originally sought the Mayor out, not vice versa.

    I'm also amused that I was able to work the PTA meeting in; it was indeed canon that Wilkins' day planner had 'PTA Meeting' right after 'Become Invincible'. :)
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 29) New
  • View content
    • Willow POV:

    "Gosh, that's certainly awful." Mayor Wilkins sympathized with me. We'd met up in the teachers' lounge after the PTA meeting, just like he'd promised. He'd cast a privacy spell- something I'd used to be able to do, darn it!- to make sure we weren't eavesdropped on, even by certain people with vampire or Slayer hearing- and he'd heard my entire story, everything I could tell him. "They've certainly acted in a very high-handed manner, haven't they? Aren't you a legal adult now and able to make your own decisions?"

    "So can you help me?" I asked insistently.

    "I could remove that binding spell." he replied. "But then they'd just notice it was gone the next time they checked, and use whatever amount of force they wanted to put it back on you."

    "There isn't a spell to fake-?" I twiddled my fingers.

    "Those types of spells were already in the workbook that I'd lent you, remember?" he pointed out. "The workbook that they've now confiscated. They'll know what to look for."

    "So I'm stuck this way?!?" I shouted desperately. "If I don't get my magic back before they send me away this summer-" I whimpered at the mere thought of it.

    "No, you're not stuck." the Mayor said. "But it's going to take more than just piling on more magic to solve your problems. You're going to need to think strategically."

    "Strategically," I said, frantically pacing up and down the lounge as the Mayor watched me. "Strategically..." I repeated.

    "The basics of strategy are first, clearly identify your goal. Then enumerate the obstacles between you and that goal." Mayor Wilkins lectured patiently.

    "My goal is-" I was going to say 'magic' but then I remembered what Mayor Wilkins had said in our first conversation. That power wasn't a goal in and of itself, but was a tool to use to get me what I wanted. And at that point our conversation had only gotten as far as my realizing that without sufficient power, it didn't matter what my goals were. But what were they?

    I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Even with these damned shackles on me I could still use some of the mental exercises I knew- breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Let the images of the mind well up without conscious thought getting in the way- why had I joined the Scooby Gang in the first place? Why had I risked my life fighting vampires? Why had I spent so much time studying, and working, and doing whatever the teachers told me to-

    Because I'd wanted them to acknowledge me. I wanted everyone to acknowledge me. Acknowledge my brilliance, my work ethic, the fact that I was going to do something with my life instead of be just like Cordelia and all her friends in the Future Trophy Wives club! I wanted to be popular- no, to be important-

    I remembered a scene from an Avengers comic Xander and I had read a few years ago. The villain of the month- the Super-Adaptoid, if I remembered correctly- had gotten a Cosmic Cube and had said he was going to rule the world with it, and one of the Avengers had asked a very intelligent question:

    "To rule means to dictate. What will you tell your five billion subjects to do?"

    And that was the question the Mayor was asking me. Assuming I got my power back- assuming I got all the power I wanted- what would I want?

    "What did you want?" I turned the question back on him. "When you originally started seriously pursuing magic? When you extended your life?"

    "Do you know how old I am, Miss Rosenberg?" the Mayor asked me mildly.

    "You founded Sunnydale." I replied. "So at least a century plus... several decades?"

    "I was just old enough to see the Civil War as a drummer boy." the Mayor replied, surprisingly. "Can you even imagine it? Taking a twelve-year old boy, and putting him a uniform and sending him out to battlefields to watch thousands and thousands of men kill each other right in front of his eyes again and again?" He shook his head and puffed out a breath. "Unbelievable. The next time someone lectures you about the inhumanity of demons, you try putting that in perspective next to man's own inhumanity to man and you'll be amazed at the answer you get."

    "I had no idea." I said, shocked.

    "I'm not going to go over all the things your history teachers have already taught you." the Mayor moved on. "But I am going to say that after that was over, I had a lot to think about. Maybe all the other people around me just believed what the politicians and the newspapers said and moved on with their lives, but I couldn't stop wondering; why?" He shrugged expressively. "What kind of God could possibly allow something like that to happen?"

    "What answers did you find?" I pressed him.

    "Well, first I studied history. Which taught me that 'good' men and 'noble' leaders had been encouraging people to slaughter each other en masse for all of recorded history. And I honestly didn't know which hypothesis would be was worse. Whether all that death had been for nothing but the greed and powerlust of the rulers of the era, or whether all that death actually had meant something and had brought about lasting progress. Just look at our own fine nation in the decades after the Civil War, for example."

    "The time period at which the United States historically transitioned from a collection of ex-colonies to a global Great Power, able to at least rival any other power bloc on Earth." I agreed with him.

    "Exactly!" the Mayor agreed. "It had been a horrible thing, of course. So much devastation and pain, and yet it led directly to greatness. And a similar phenomenon occurred after both World Wars- at least for the winners. Admittedly, by then my philosophy had already long been formed, but it's always nice to have confirmation."

    "And that philosophy was, sir?" I said, positively captivated by the sheer breadth and depth of the viewpoint available to someone who had lived at least three times as long as Giles had, and been such a worldly and powerful man for most of that life.

    "I mentioned earlier that I'd been having a bit of a crisis of faith as a young man." the Mayor reminded me. "So when I went searching for answers I didn't just go to university, but also went in search of the supernatural. Traveling as widely as I did, I found witches and conjure-men and all sorts of interesting people to talk to and learn from. And I worked hard, and learned quite a bit. And do you know what I found? That we'd been abandoned."

    "Sir?" I asked, shocked and confused.

    "Think about your own experiences, Willow- I can call you Willow, yes?"

    "Of course!" I agreed.

    "As I was saying, look at your own life. How many demons have you seen by now? Dozens! Hundreds, even! But have you ever seen an angel? Or any 'powers of Light' at all, beyond a few paltry spells and blessings? Even the 'Powers That Be', if you've ever heard of them, are anything but powers of light." At my attempt to interrupt he held up his hand. "No, no, hear me out before you judge, please! Regardless of what you might believe about my veracity, the fact remains that of your own knowledge and experience you can entirely testify as to how asymmetrical the mystical realm seems to be. About how 'down' appears to be so much more plentiful and easy than 'up', about how easy it is to gain objective proof of demons and hell dimensions but how you can't even clearly demonstrate the existence of angels or heaven." the Mayor finished.

    "So you are a dark magician." I said.

    "Define 'dark'." the Mayor grinned. "Willow, one of two things is true. Either your original teachers were lying to you about dark vs. light magic and they made most or all of the whole thing up just to keep you in line. Or they were actually telling the truth. But, and this is the point I'm trying to make, both possibilities should lead you to the same conclusion."

    "That being?" I fed him the straight line.

    "If you play by their rules, you'll lose." the Mayor said. "If their whole little Manichean light vs. dark paradigm is false, then obviously you shouldn't let their strictures be your life guide. But if it isn't false, then look around you. Do you think the Light is winning?" He smiled and laughed. "And that's why when I finally figured all that out, I chose the lifepath I did! Because if you don't like the rules, then you change the game."

    "So what is your goal?" I insisted.

    "Have you read Lord of the Rings?" he asked me. "Of course you have. Truly an amazing author, Tolkien." he continued. "And can you guess what my favorite line from the entire saga is? 'Evil will oft evil mar.' Such a stroke of genius, that realization."

    "Wait." I said. "You're going for tremendous power... to turn demons against themselves somehow?"

    Mayor Wilkins stood up and gave me a penetrating gaze, up and down, for a long while before he finally made up his mind. "Ascension. Your friends-"

    "Former friends." I corrected him.

    "Former friends," he nodded to acknowledge me, "have been trying to figure out what that means in regards to me. But perhaps a better translation for my goal would be apotheosis."

    "The raising of someone to godlike stature." I quoted the archaic meaning of that word, awestruck. "So... literal divine ascension?"

    "A hundred-year-long ritual, perhaps the single most complex working of magic possible to the art. And very tricky to pull off- there are so many people who have tried and failed. But I'm almost on the verge of success, Willow. I've already taken the penultimate step. Only a little more time- only a few more minor rituals to execute- and it'll happen. I'll be more powerful than anything else on the face of the Earth, and beyond mortal death entirely." The Mayor smiled widely. "And at that point it won't matter any longer how unfair the rules were or how stacked the deck was. How much misery and pain our poor fallen world has been abandoned to by an absent or uncaring God. How much the demons and the dark think they'll be running things."

    "Because at that point you'll be the demon lord, which by their rules means you'll be making all the rules." I said. "The new rules. And they'll be as fair as you want them to be."

    "Indeed." he sighed with anticipation. "You said yourself it in our first meeting. Power has to come first, because without the power to realize your goals then it matters nothing what those goals are."

    "So if you've already set it all up successfully, then what do you need me for?" I asked wisely.

    "Even after I manage to successfully become a God-King," he grinned, "the most important part of that word will not be 'God', but 'King'. Rulership is a responsibility. You have to do your best for the people who are under you, you can't just take them all for granted. And no one, not even the most experienced or skilled chief executive, can manage all that as a committee of one."

    "You'd need an inner circle." I said. "People with enough power of their own that they can contribute to the effort instead of needing you to prop them up, and smart enough to help you run things right."

    "Exactly!" he agreed. "And who am I going to get to help me do that? My driver? Competent enough fellow at fetching and carrying, but hardly what you'd call executive material. Deputy Mayor Finch? He can barely help me run a city, let alone a kingdom."

    "And me?" I said.

    "Well, you admittedly have zero political experience." the Mayor conceded. "But as we just discussed, we'd be working on an immortal timescale here. You'd have plenty of time to learn. And unlike people like Allan or Alphonse, who have already topped out at the maximum level of competence I can possibly expect from them, your potential..." he grinned. "I've been judging talent for a long time, Willow, just as I've been doing a lot of other things for a long time. By now I like to think I'm pretty good at it. And I have never seen anyone quite like you before." He stopped smiling and continued on in a much, much more serious tone of voice. "You might well be the most potentially powerful adept born in this millenium, let alone in my lifetime. You're certainly far more powerful than I was at your age. And that's exactly why, before we can get that binding off and let you get back to training up to be the arch-mage that you were born to be, I'm going to need to ask you to do something much, much harder than simply training."

    "What's that, sir?" I asked him quickly.

    "I'll need you to go back and make them think they've won." the Mayor told me.

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    After several days of self-isolating- sulking, really- Willow apparently turned a corner and rejoined the Scooby Gang as a non-magical research assistant. All of her friends of course welcomed her back into the fold and were happy that she wasn't wallowing in, well, wallowing. She was even sort of distantly patching things up with Amy.

    Now, I'd certainly liked to think that having hit rock bottom, Willow had had her moment of clarity and begun to genuinely turn her life around. But she'd hardly be the first addict to go on the wagon just long enough to try and 'earn' some easing up of the restrictions, at which point she'd go right back to pursing their addiction. Cordelia shared my skepticism; like me, she'd never been any friend of Willow's in the first place. And Angel of course had centuries' worth of seeing humanity- and himself- at their absolute worst to help color even his most tempting moments of optimism. So I kept my eyes open and my suspicions alert.

    But suspicions were all we had. My investigation of Kendra's death had gone cold- there was nothing that could be done forensically or magically at the crime scene that we hadn't already done. I couldn't risk jeopardizing our more important ongoing op against the Mayor by risking a penetration at the police station just to satisfy my curiosity here, and while I did have an alternative thread running regarding getting a copy of the original police crime-scene report that was of necessity time-gated and right now I was in the 'wait' phase. We'd already searched Willow's house, the Scooby working spaces, and even her school locker- and hadn't that been a pain to arrange without getting in trouble- and taken away any and all magical working materials, and...

    ... and there was a point at which those of us with suspicions simply didn't risk pursuing them any further, lest we split the Scooby Gang right down the middle. Willow was a very polarizing topic. Xander had been almost impossible to convince of the necessity of binding her magic in the first place- if Willow hadn't gone to the appalling extreme of roofieing Amy he'd still be arguing. Oz was somewhat more philosophical in his point of view- he had at least had some prior experience with a friend undergoing addiction- but that didn't change the fact he was Willow's boyfriend before he was a Scooby, and indeed had only met and taken up with us through her. Buffy was torn between her loyalty to Xander and Willow legitimately being one of her best and earliest friends in Sunnydale and her sense of responsibility as one of the Scooby Gang's leadership. Even Amy had seriously mixed feelings on the topic; while her faith in me and my good judgement was exceptionally high, she'd known Willow almost as long as Xander had and had more than a bit of 'There but for the grace of God go I' coloring her approach. And Giles and Jenny were simultaneously the two adults in the room with the most knowledge of how magical students could go bad and the two feeling guilty over having not caught Willow's downward slide earlier.

    In short, if I'd pushed for maximum paranoia on Willow- and believe you me, a good chunk of me really wanted to!- I could very well have started a Scooby Gang Civil War. In the full Marvel Comics sense of the word. Between the several that would be 100% for, the several that would be 100% against, and all the rest torn between conflicting loyalties in the middle... well, we might as well rub steak sauce on our necks, handcuff ourselves behind our backs, and jump unarmed and naked into a vampire lair. Starting that highly divisive an internal conflict among ourselves at any time, let alone with the whole Wilkins thing looming imminently over us, would be outright suicidal.

    So outside of binding her magic and regularly checking to make sure the bindings were untampered with, there wasn't much we could do except give Willow all the companionship and support we could get her to accept. So we did that, and I kept my eyes open, and I waited and prayed that Willow would be able to level out in time and that this wouldn't go worst-case scenario. Because as things stood, trying to clamp down any harder on her would be more likely to wreck things than to help things.

    Even if, at that time, I'd had no idea just how worst-case the worst-case scenario could really get.

    * * * * *​

    Amy POV:

    "So, tonight?" I asked Jonathan as we sat at my kitchen table.

    "That's the word." he agreed. "The Orb of Lurconis is supposed to be coming in at the airport. The Mayor's courier will be on the flight from Luxembourg. We'll intercept it, sabotage it, and then let Wilkins eventually get it back via anonymous channels. As uniquely irreplaceable as the damn thing is, he'll certainly have to try to retrieve it and the most likely use any artifact thief would have for it would be to sell it on the black market."

    "We're lucky Willow turned up that old reference as to what one of the key components of an Ascension ritual is." I said. "Even with the restriction that we can't take him out before Ascension day, with one of the components booby-trapped-"

    "Even if he spots and removes the trap- which would be damn difficult, given how much work we're prepared to put in-" Jonathan shrugged. "We don't actually lose anything."

    "Yeah." I said. We let the quiet sit between us for a while, and Jonathan snuck a guilty glance at what I'd been working on-

    Oh. Yeah.

    I'd been expecting this for a while. And even knowing it was coming-

    "The early admission packets?" he asked softly.

    "From the places me or dad had applied to." I agreed.

    "Amy." he said after a thoughtful pause. "I-" he muttered under his breath at himself. "Am really a coward sometimes. I should have said this earlier, and I kept putting it off-" he stopped, visibly gathered himself, and continued. "After Graduation-"

    "-you're leaving Sunnydale." I said, in unison with his "-I'm leaving Sunnydale." He blinked in shock, and I reached out to take his hand before he could guilt-trip himself even further. "I know." I smiled sadly. "You're- well, actually, you are legitimately hard to read. But not to me."

    "I'm sorry." he said.

    "I'm not." I said. "I mean, I'm sad." I said, still smiling as my eyes teared up a little. "But I knew- we both knew, from the start- that we wouldn't have forever. That we wouldn't have even as long as most young couples could have."

    "Which doesn't make this any less fair to you. Or any-" Jonathan began, to stop at my silent beseeching of him.

    "Jonathan." I said lovingly. "I know the trap your 'Benefactor' laid for you with me. Break it off early with me, and feel dishonorable and guilty that you were selfish enough to cut me loose to try and spare yourself getting in too deep. Don't break it off early with me, snatch every second together that you could right up to the end, and feel dishonorable and guilty that you were selfish enough to cling and get as much as you possibly could, and leave me behind with nothing but a hard break and no chance to prepare." I finished. "He thought he was so clever, leaving you with an either-or that led to dishonor and loss whichever way you went."

    "Wait, thought?" Jonathan said, shaking off his own guilt to stare at me as if he'd never seen me before.

    "If you're ever going to get free of him, it'll be because he keeps making the same mistake." I told him. "He's obsessed on you. He doesn't think enough about the places he puts you in, or the people who live there. As if we were just backdrops and set dressing to his sick little plays. As if we didn't matter." I finished.

    "You do matter." Jonathan insisted. "You all matter."

    "We do." I agreed. "And that's how you're going to escape this trap of his. You might not be able to keep your honor in this dilemma he set up, but I can give it back to you." I stood, still clutching his hand, and he stood with me and we embraced. And while I shuddered with the tension and the effort it took me to keep talking, I was proud that I still managed to say what I was going to say without a pause or a quaver.

    "When you leave Sunnydale, as the Powers That Be need you to... I'm staying here." I said. "I'm going to UC Sunnydale with Buffy, and I'll help her and Xander and Giles and Jenny keep the Hellmouth safe." I clutched him as tightly as I could, his chin on my shoulder and my forehead on his. "And we- won't be together."

    "So I don't either choose to cling to you or choose to break up with you." Jonathan said, his own voice shaking only the tiniest bit. "Instead, you break up with me-"

    "Even if you stayed in Sunnydale, we'd still break up." I said. "Not because I want to- dear God, I don't want to!" my voice finally broke. "But-"

    "But because it's the best either of us can do for each other." Jonathan said after a long, shuddering breath. "Given all the things we can't change."

    "Yes." I whispered.

    "And so this is the lesson Lorne said you had left to teach me." Jonathan finally said. "How to be able to let go."

    "You've already done so much for me." I agreed. "You kept me on track. You helped me be brave. You showed me that I could be loved, that I deserved to be-" I kissed him. "And above all else you believed in me, even when I didn't. Do not ever let yourself regret that you came into my life or how, Jonathan Fairchild." I told him insistently. "I am so much better off for having known you, even with all that we have to do now!"

    "I-" he said. "You'll forgive me if I at least occasionally I doubt that?" he asked me self-deprecatingly.

    "I occasionally doubt a lot of stuff." I agreed with him. "Just- don't stay there, all right?"

    "I won't." he promised me. "And you-" he kissed me back. "Don't pine, okay? After I go- after we go back to just being friends-"

    "We'll always be friends." I agreed.

    "And I want my friend to be happy." Jonathan said. "Whoever, or however, she finds a way to be after I'm gone."

    "I will." I promised him. "It might take a while, but I will."

    "So." he said finally. "On Graduation Day, it ends?"

    "Yes." I said. "But not a single day before then. Even if you have to go eventually- here and now, you're still mine."

    "You are mine, and I am yours. For as long as we still can be." he agreed, and we held each other close. And oh God, how deeply did I wish that we could just stay like this forever! And I knew how much he wished the same.

    But we'd already faced this temptation once, when we'd had the chance to run away together and try to steal more time for ourselves among the various other dimensions. We hadn't done it then, and we couldn't do it now. Because we both knew that Jonathan had been right then, just we both knew that I'd been right now.

    The one thing you couldn't trade for your heart's desire was your heart.

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    Jonathan had planned our airport robbery out like a master, and it went down like a caper movie. We didn't even use any magic, just in case the Mayor was looking out for it. Willow hacked the airport security systems, Buffy and Jonathan stealth assassinated the several vamps that had been lurking around to augment airport security, Giles, Jenny, and Amy did an impersonation of a 'lost British tourist family'- not that Amy could do a British accent to save her life, but she didn't have to do much talking- as a big distraction for the more conventional airport security, and that left yours truly disguised as a baggage handler to do the actual thieving. I felt like the Thomas Crown Affair as I embarked on my new career as an international jewel thief- literally, the Orb was a piece of jewelry and it was crossing an international customs frontier- and it went off without a hitch.

    So, we all got back and all started the celebration. The Orb of Lurconis was packed safely out of sight- Giles, Jenny, and Amy were waiting until the rest of us had gone home before they'd start working on it, out of the whole politeness in not rubbing magic into Willow's face thing- and we were a bit of a ways into the party when Ms. Calendar got the big email from home.

    Which just put a damper on the whole thing, because it turned out the Kalderash clan archives did have some info on the Ascension. Not the whole scoop, but certainly more than we'd had. And one of those pieces of info was that while there was at least one unique magical artifact required for one of the final prep rituals, none of them were called the 'Orb of Lurconis'. The reference book that Willow had turned up had apparently been sort of mistranslation or mistake. And yeah, that happened sometimes in doing the demon research; it's not like these crazy medieval books written by crazy medieval people were all 100% accurate. It's just, damn, talk about bad timing in turning up. Not only did we take all that risk for nothing- even if we'd gotten away with it- but Willow's first big score after losing her magic turned out to be a bust. She took it a lot better than I thought she would, but I could still see that her confidence was kinda shaken underneath the brave face she put on.

    And then there was the other news that we'd gotten. That Jonathan's hunch about at least one prior successful Ascension having occurred in the past millenium was true. And that if the Mayor's own Ascension was going to be anything like that one had been, we were in for a worse fight than anything we'd even remotely dreamed of.

    "Approximately eight hundred years ago in the Kastka Valleys above the Urals, a sorcerer successfully achieved Ascension and became the embodiment of the demon Lo-Hash." Ms. Calendar recited. "It single-handedly destroyed the entire valley within hours. There were three survivors, one of them a Kalderash advance rider who'd been scouting out the village as a possible stopping grounds for the caravan." she finished.

    "The standard Lo-Hash demon is a four-winged soul-sucker, only moderately more dangerous in single combat than the average vampire." Giles said. "A pure embodiment of one, on the other hand-"

    "The clan archives record that it was enormous." Ms. Calendar agreed. "We're talking giant monster movie territory."

    "How'd they kill it?" Buffy asked, scared pale as a bedsheet by the idea of trying to put a stake in something kaiju-sized. Yeah, I was right there with her.

    "The sorcerer had made a mistake in choosing his location." Jenny said. "To fuel the transformation required... mass. With the transformation still only mostly complete, it was vulnerable to starvation."

    "Not enough people there for Lo-Hash to eat." Jonathan translated. "However-"

    "Welcome to Sunnydale, population 38,000." Cordelia said flatly.

    "A little over 100 miles away from the Los Angeles Greater Metropolitan Area, population approximately thirteen million." Jonathan contributed.

    "And the Powers That Be said we're not allowed to cap him before he transforms?" I asked Jonathan incredulously.

    "Wait, they said what?" Willow burst in, equally shocked.

    "Oh, right, you hadn't heard that one." I realized. "Yeah, the balance demon named Whistler- the Powers' messenger- had told Jonathan that a little while before he got hit by that truck."

    "Ohhhhh." Willow nodded in realization. "So that explains- got it."

    "So." Jonathan sighed. "Come Ascension Day- and we still don't know exactly what day, dammit, just that it'll be sometime this May if our '100 years from town founding' estimate is valid- we'll go from being in a horror movie to a giant monster movie." He literally thumped his head on the table. "Christ. I'm going to have to go back into weapons engineering. I really didn't want to go back into weapons engineering-" he moaned.

    "Weapons engineering?" Willow asked him.

    "You don't want to know. Hell, I don't want to know." he said.

    "Are we talking blast radius here?" Amy asked.

    "We're quite possibly talking evacuate the town." Jonathan said. "And yes, I can build those. Well, not those those, I'm kinda minus on weapons-grade fissionable material right now, but fuel-air explosives? IEDs? Pick your target coordinates and give me some lead time, I'll give you a smoking crater." he said.

    "Getting a bit ahead of ourselves." Ms. Calendar pointed out. "Not that we shouldn't start considering worst-case scenario, but we still need at least two more pieces of intel-"

    "Exactly what kind of demon the Mayor's going to turn into- so we know whether or not an explosion will even work on it-" Buffy began.

    "And on exactly what day and time it's going to happen." Oz said. "Because the Powers That Be warned us against doing it before he transforms, but we'll need to have it ready to go the moment right after he transforms or else he'll have-"

    "Eaten enough people to 100% finish transforming and be totally invincible." I finished.

    "Precisely." Giles said, and the table fell silent.

    "Well, at least it's nice to have goals in life." I finally tossed into the gloom. "Because can you imagine if we'd only found all this out at the very last minute?"

    "That's my Xander." Buffy said with at least a little smile. "Always looking on the bright side."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: To underline the already obvious for those who need underlining- yes, Willow gave them a fake clue to make them think they'd already won. And then her and the Mayor's gambit was exploded by late-arriving intelligence.

    As for Jonathan and Amy- yes, almost from the moment I had them commit to a relationship, I'd already scoped out how it would end. Because that is a way out from the heads-you-lose-tails-I-win trap the "Benefactor" tried to set up; relationships take two people, and if she chooses to break it off at a definite point then Jonathan doesn't bear the onus of either choice. (Before you go 'Why would it even matter?', remember that Jonathan's personal sense of honor is what the "Benefactor" is trying to break, ergo the simple fact that it matters to him is all that it needs to matter.)

    Remember, I took the inspiration for Jonathan and Amy's relationship on the canon Buffy/Angel one. Obviously it had different circumstances (there was no soul curse, but a different kind of curse, and they weren't remotely as bad a pair of drama-addicted saps as the two canon principals were) but the basic theme was the same; it was beautiful, and tragic, and ecstatic, and sad, and both sides genuinely and deeply loved the other- and they never had a true future together, and they both eventually had to admit it.

    And come Graduation Day, Angel had to break it off and walk away, and he did. Just like our two crazy kids have and will.

    As for Mayor Wilkins, information on his past is so scanty that I just made shit up. So don't confuse his origin story for canon. But yes, in this story that's his motivation. And I tried to make it a mixed and complex one. Wilkins sees the world as a Lovecraftian place where humanity is forced to be a skin disease on a ball of dirt (and in his defense, in the Buffyverse it kinda is that way), so fuck it, he'll make sure he at least can rise above all that. Maybe once he's Ascended he can then have the power to change things in a systematic way. And if it turns out he can't then hey, at least he tried- and at least he's better off.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 30) New
  • View content
    • Mayor Wilkins POV:

    "Darn it!" Willow swore viciously. "It didn't work!" At my suggestion she'd taken a part-time job at the public library, two nights a week, to make our meetings easier. The library was only a block away from City Hall and both buildings had the uniquely convenient sewer access characteristic of downtown Sunnydale, meaning that we could easily meet in the library basement on either of her work nights without drawing notice.

    "No, it didn't." I said evenly, before breaking out into a reassuring smile. "Relax! I know that it's not your fault that they dug up that information on the Ascension of Lo-Hash. You'd never heard a word about them consulting the Kalderash, had you?"

    "No sir." she groused. "Just another one of the things they've been doing behind my back."

    "Yes." I said thoughtfully. "That is a problem. After all, you can't be an effective double agent if people don't tell you things, can you?"

    "Sir, they surprised me once." she begged me. "But I can do better! I can!"

    I grinned even wider, but only on the inside. Yes, Miss Rosenberg was coming along very nicely. She wasn't even being controlled by her addiction now- she'd never gotten into the sort of magics that would cause physical withdrawal, like the ones that tacky Mr. Rack peddled in his magical drug den. She'd merely had a psychological dependency, largely fostered by her deep-rooted insecurities and underlying mental issues. Not that I had anything against someone with a touch of psychopathy now and then- why, they often made the most valuable employees when handled correctly!

    But now she'd moved well beyond merely wanting her magic back so she could enjoy the feeling of power again. No, she was now almost entirely dominated by her fears. She was a highly intelligent young woman with an unbelievable potential for the mystical arts, but with a psyche as brittle as a gemstone. Almost impervious to direct hammer blows from most angles, but capable of shattering like glass if struck along the proper fault lines. And that fault line was her insecurity. Truly an inexplicable emotion, insecurity. I couldn't understand why so many people indulged in it. I certainly never had. Why would anyone want to feel something so, so... inhibiting?

    At any rate, regardless of her accomplishments or her renown she would always feel incomplete. Inadequate. She'd simultaneously be afraid that no one was paying attention to her and be afraid that they were paying attention to her- and laughing at her behind her back. And having done things that she knew would on at least some level alienate the people she'd normally seek validation from, she'd put herself in the position of having only me left to rely on. And I'd barely even had to do anything except just give her an opportunity!

    Yes, Willow really was quite the young go-getter. And powerful, too. And ambitious! A truly delightful combination! So while I didn't strictly need a new apprentice this close to my Ascension, I certainly wouldn't turn down this opportunity to cultivate one. Especially when it was one with the only-once-in-generations type talent that Miss Rosenberg had.

    Except it wasn't only once, was it? Now that I thought about it, perhaps I should do a little research when I had the opportunity as to what it might mean that two young women of such potential were both born in my town, in the same year, and had known each other all their lives. That went well beyond coincidence. And Miss Madison was entirely comparable to Miss Rosenberg in potential, and yet had developed it in such an astonishingly opposite direction. No, there was a certain symmetry there. Poetry, even. It almost smelled like fate.

    Yrch. Fate. Such a restrictive and uncaring concept. I much preferred self-determination as a philosophy. No fate but what you make for yourself, that was the ideal! Sadly not the reality, though. At least not yet.

    Ah, but enough woolgathering. I've got a young lady here who's almost ready to take that final step into freeing her mind, but the last step is always the hardest-

    "Yes. I'm sure you can." I answered her after my brief pause for reflection. I saw her go limp in relief. "But before we make new plans, we need to take into account the extremely valuable new information you did bring me. You're certain that Mister Fairchild claimed that the Powers That Be had forbidden him- had forbidden your group- to directly strike at me until after I'd started my Ascension?"

    "That's exactly what he said." Willow confirmed. "And he said that the Powers' messenger to him was a balance demon named Whistler."

    "Well." I vocalized almost involuntarily. "That certainly puts a different context on things!" I chuckled out loud, drawing a matching- if slightly nervous- laugh from her. "And that also explains what you told me about their plan- to anonymously steal the Orb and then, after sabotaging it, arrange for it to fall back into my clutches with similar indirectness." I nodded in sincere acknowledgement of a job well done. "It would have worked, too! If I hadn't had you to tell me who was responsible, I'd certainly have blamed the job on anybody except the Slayer and her gang. Not their modus operandi at all, and far more typical of the sort of professional hijackers and thieves that infest the occult artifact trade." I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "I assume that their arrangements for making sure the sabotaged Orb eventually got back into my grasp were equally indirect?"

    "That was the plan." Willow confirmed readily, and then I stood there smiling and just let the silence grow. Sure enough, eventually she asked the question I was expecting. "Sir. The Kalderash' information about the Ascension..." she paused. "Was it all true?"

    "The sacrifices, you mean?" I replied, still smiling and without the slightest trace of hesitation. "Of course." I paused and carefully judged her expression, her body language, even a little sniff of her aura. Almost there... "Willow. You surely remember what I mentioned in our last conversation about the price of statecraft. The price of progress."

    "I do." she agreed. "But..." she chewed her lip. "So many people?"

    "Oh, no!" I waved away her question as if entirely oblivious to her qualms. "Your friends wildly overestimated! I shouldn't need to consume more than several hundred within the first hour... perhaps a thousand or two total within the first several days." I nodded. "The mistake made with the Lo-Hash Ascension was being in a remote mountain village where the total population of the entire surrounding valley wouldn't break even one thousand. Then again, it's not as if guides to Ascension that are 100% complete and accurate in all details are a common thing on the market."

    "That's why they're not suspicious of me for my 'mistake'." Willow smirked. "But-" she began more pensively.

    "Oh, even if they were suspicious and checked it out they wouldn't find anything." I deliberately interrupted her. "That book I had you refer them to is an actual medieval codex of artifacts, legitimately published and distributed. It was just written by a scholar who was less than entirely accurate with their own research. There's very little reason for anyone to assume that I wasn't simply working off the same source material that they were." I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "Or to assume that I wouldn't still be looking for the Orb, because until after I get it in my hands to examine I won't 'know' that it's useless." I nodded to Willow. "If they don't already bring up the idea of continuing onward with their plan of arranging for me to get the Orb back then make sure to suggest it to them at the earliest opportunity, won't you?"

    "A thousand is still a lot of people." Willow said confrontationally.

    "It's a great many less people than have already died, I'm afraid." I said ruefully. "Or have you forgotten about the hundred years I've already spent getting this far?" I smiled again and said comfortingly. "I know what they taught you in school about the sunk cost fallacy, but do please remember that that only applies when further effort would not ensure success." I nodded to her, my manner appropriately sober and reflective. "That's not the case here. If I complete the final rituals for the Ascension, it will most certainly succeed. And I will bear the burden of all the cost in human life it's taken to get this far. You'll only have to help me carry the last few. But they will be the few that make sure all the rest didn't die for nothing."

    "It still feels..." she trailed off. "Scary." she equivocated.

    "That's good." I said approvingly. "You should feel the weight of this kind of decision. If it wasn't bothering you, then you'd be as feral as a vampire." I smiled. "I don't need another vampire. I need someone who understand the importance of what we're trying to do here." I dropped my smile. "Even if it's not always nice."

    "You're really not doing much to sugar-coat it." Willow said worriedly.

    "Sugar pills are for children, and you're no longer a child." I said. "I've already told you the stakes, and now you're fully aware of the costs. So now all that's left is for you to decide- for yourself- if you're able to go through with it." I paused, judged the effect I'd had so far to a nicety, and continued on in what I judged to be the best tone of voice and demeanor. "But if you choose not to, then you won't share in the rewards. No God-King patron and sponsor, no access to all the untold wonders and lore that will be accessible to a being such as I. And certainly no help from me in extending your lifetime to several centuries or beyond." I shrugged. "To be honest, it would be legitimately impressive in a way if you could turn all that down to embrace mortality and limitations and remaining relatively small and ordinary for the rest of your much shorter life. Very heroic." I shrugged. "But nothing would change."

    "Your transformation-" Willow said. "Of the people who'd die on Ascension Day, how many of them would be people I know?"

    "Most of them would be, actually." I admitted frankly. "The 'Scooby Gang' would certainly all prominently feature among the casualties, unless they vastly surprised me by running away." I chuckled. "But of course they won't."

    "Do I really have a choice here? You wouldn't let me go." Goodness, she really was taking rather a long while to get to the point. So many attempts to avoid just fishing or cutting bait-

    "Of course I would." I said chidingly. "I wouldn't need to stop you. After all, what could you go tell the 'Scooby Gang' about my plans right now that they don't already know?" I shrugged. "Well, except perhaps for the part you played, but that would hardly affect me materially." I smiled again. "I haven't lied to you yet, and I don't propose to start now. If you're really having second thoughts- if the Ascension is nothing that you feel you can be part of- then you can, indeed, walk away right now. No hard feelings, no strings." I shrugged. "Admittedly if you then fought me later I'd have to fight back, but you could always just leave Sunnydale before the end."

    "But if I did, then nothing." I just barely heard her mutter to herself.

    "Please let me point out that if you stay, then from this point on you are committed." I emphasized. "The knowledge I'd share with you, the tasks I'd entrust to you- they would have to be repaid in loyalty." I gave her a level gaze. "Because I simply couldn't afford to risk it otherwise."

    "Loyalty." Willow said, longingly, almost lovingly. "Both up and down?" she looked at me penetratingly. Oho! Look at those teeth! I sniffed inwardly to myself in pride. They grew up so fast!

    "As above, so below." I agreed. "And as you remain loyal to me, I will to you."

    She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Okay." She exhaled again, heavily. "Okay. Let's do this."

    "Wonderful!" I effused. "Just what I'd hoped to hear!" I grinned. "And in celebration of your officially joining the team, I brought you a present!" I reached into my jacket pocket and handed her an ordinary-looking necklace, just the sort of thing that a young lady like her would buy and wear for herself.

    "An amulet?" she said, hefting it up and examining it. "What does it do?"

    "A spell anchor." I clarified. "And with a little work, it can provide a handy receptacle that will allow me to shift the binding-spells currently on you to be on it instead."

    "Oh!" she said, staring at the necklace with renewed fervor, as if I'd just handed her the British Crown Jewels. "So for as long as I wear it, they'll think I'm still bound-"

    "They can check, and check, and check again, and see nothing but what they expect to. And they won't pick up on it as if we'd used the illusion spells, because the bindings will still legitimately be there... when they check." I smiled. "But you can just take the necklace off whenever you need to use your magic, and as long as you're careful and quiet they'll never catch you."

    "Thank you!" she gushed happily, her face lighting up like a dozen Christmases in one. "I knew you could figure out a way!"

    "You see?" I said, pointing at her and chuckling along with her. "Unlike most politicians, I keep my promises."

    "You sure do." she said cheerfully. "And the promise about power and immortality?" she said slyly.

    "Well, I'll certainly have them." I teased her. "But you'll get to share. And who knows? With enough time and effort, maybe one day you could succeed at an Ascension of your own."

    "Yeah." she said, only now realizing that the Ascension rituals were a series of spells and rituals- a series she could learn, and one day hope to cast herself-

    And why not? Even a Pure Demon- even an Old One could use allies. And the best kind were the ones you cultivated yourself.

    Oh, I could barely wait until I assumed the pure aspect of Olvikan! My future would be so bright that I'd have to wear sunglasses!

    Now, we'd hardly be changing the world into a paradise- I'd spent most of my prior recruitment pitches talking about what I could do with the power of an Old One rather than what I would do for precisely that reason. But there would certainly still be changes! You couldn't make the world run on peace and love, not even after an apotheosis. It would still take ruthlessness and blood. In the end, it was always about the blood.

    But I could at least make things much more orderly, even if I couldn't make them paradise. Then again, Milton had said it best - "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." After all... there was no Heaven. That was just a myth they taught children to make them give up on challenging the current rulers of the continuum, of accepting their serfdom and mortality rather than carve out their own place among them.

    Good versus evil- such a big lie, a lie made up and foisted upon us to control us! It was all just quitter talk dressed up in fancy clothes! The real battle, the only battle, was between victory and defeat. And no matter what it took, victory would be mine.

    Well, ours. Provided she didn't stumble over any of the bumps that yet remained in the road.

    "Now, as to the strategic situation." I refocused her. "The intel about the Powers That Be and their restrictions means our necessity is nowhere near as immediate as I'd feared. In most of their cases we can afford to lay low, wait and see, and hope for complacency to kick in. Also, that will give me time to start thinking of our next con to run upon them- one that we'll have to be even more careful planning. We certainly can't afford to get scooped by gypsy revelations or suchlike again."

    "You said most of their cases, sir?" Willow asked me sagaciously.

    "Yes." I said. "The rest of them we can put in a holding pattern, but Mister Fairchild is not a man whose feet we should let the grass grow underneath. Not if he's going to be their primary ordnance engineer. He'll need to be removed from the picture as soon as possible."

    "Give me my magic back and a clear shot, and I'll-" she began with commendable viciousness.

    "Oh no, no, not that." I held up a hand. "That would be impractical. You certainly couldn't reveal your hand in it to them. And that would mean that his death would be a mystery, and mysteries are investigated."

    "And we're trying to keep them fat, dumb, and happy, not get them all worked up and charging around tearing up the landscape for clues." Willow realized. "So, how do we take him out and have it not be a mystery?"

    "Legally." I said. "Now, we can't use the airport theft itself- they were intended to get away with that, so I didn't even have you record any evidence for later, not to mention that grand larceny in an international air terminal- of something that hadn't even cleared the Customs barrier yet, no less-"

    "Federal crime." Willow agreed. "You wouldn't be able to control the investigation, and since I was part of that heist-"

    "Oh yes." I agreed. "No, we certainly can't use the Orb theft. But according to you, that's hardly the only crime he's committed."

    "It's too late to get him for Marcie Ross." Willow thought out loud. "Two years and more gone by, no body, no murder weapon, and the only witness wouldn't testify."

    "No. But has it occurred to you that there's a felony he's committed far more recently- is committing on an ongoing basis, in fact- that is a rather serious federal offense?" I smiled. "And in his case it being a federal crime works for us, rather than against- I'm the obvious suspect if the local criminal justice process is involved at any point, but the federal government?"

    "What crime would that be?" Willow asked me confusedly. Well, she hadn't been gaming the legal system for decades, not surprising she wouldn't see it right away.

    "Before I answer that, let's make sure I have all the details right. Now, if you would? Recap everything Mister Fairchild ever mentioned about his origins." I requested.

    "Well, he told Xander one time that-" Willow began.

    * * * * *​

    Jonathan POV:

    We recycled the Orb of Lurconis into the demonic underworld's occult artifact trade, and let word of it deliberately leak to where the Mayor would pick up on it. He'd still be looking for it- he wouldn't know that his source had been incorrect until after he got the Orb into his hands to examine and realize it didn't actually mesh with his Ascension preparations the way that one codex had said it would. So, might as well still complete that thread. It didn't matter if the Mayor had thieves steal it back or just purchased the thing at a second demon underworld auction- either way worked.

    Of course, he still had over two and a half months to find and obtain the correct artifact for his Ascension, and he'd certainly be throwing every resource he had into it. I adapted some of those self-contained long-duration camera pods they used for wildlife studies and had them discreetly emplaced on rooftops overlooking City Hall's various entrances and exits, hoping we could at least mark recurring patterns of faces or match them to known players to get a sense of who was running his errands and messages.

    As a precaution both against the airport theft being traced back to us and certain other possibilities, I'd sanitized the house and our working spaces of all the illegal things. No Orb, no burglars' tools, no guns, and definitely none of my workshop projects. What could go in the Storage Facility went in, and the things the rest of the gang would still need access to even without me went into our very own warehouse- if there was one thing Sunnydale's graymarket economy did more than anything, it was rent warehouses to anonymous and irregular people at night for cash. And if the vamps could do it, so could we. Especially given that we had our very own vampire to do the renting, even if he needed a basic magical disguise to not be recognized as our vampire.

    Which sanitizing really came in handy the day I was arrested, because it meant there weren't any guns in my car for them to find.

    * * * * *​

    Ever since a certain vampire had run me off the road and into the lake I tended to be a little hyperaware of the traffic around me, so I picked up on the black Suburban with the tinted windows almost as soon as it pulled out of a side street and started tailing me home from school. I was about ready to go take these guys out on a drive up by the lake road so I could do a little vehicular homicide of my own when I suddenly realized what the particular combination of blackwall tires, extra antennas, and no front license plate meant.

    Copmobile. Greeeeeat.

    Okay, this meant three things. Surveillance detail, warrant service team, or crooked cops out to do a hit. Broad daylight argued against that last thing; yes, I'd seen 'The Winter Soldier' in my original pre-jump life but the Mayor wanted Sunnydale's daytime image to remain as peaceful and idyllic as Mayberry. His kill teams, if and when he got around to sending some, would come at night and away from public view. So...

    Yeah, this was going to suck. I deliberately looked for a store parking lot with cameras, but without too many people around, and pulled into it as if I was going to pick something up. I pretended not to look behind me but caught the reflections in the store window as I walked towards the hardware store- eeee-yup, that Suburban just unloaded four guys in full tactical gear with assault rifles who are all walking up behind me very rapidly. So, not a surveillance detail. They're here with a warrant, and given that I'm getting a full four-man team with freaking assault rifles that warrant clearly says 'Armed And Extremely Dangerous'.

    "FREEZE! FEDERAL AGENTS! HANDS IN THE AIR!" came the cry, and I stopped dead and very slowly and carefully did exactly what I was told. Federal agents? Okay, this already sucked, but now it really sucked-

    "ON YOUR KNEES! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD! DO IT NOW!" the lead agent yelled, and I slowly and carefully got on my knees. As soon as I did so the two biggest guys both moved up to get a solid grip on me, twisted my arms down, and snapped on the cuffs. The fact that the other two weren't busy cleaning my ears with their rifle barrels was at least minorly encouraging, but this still wasn't good at all.

    "May I ask what the charges are, officer?" I said politely.

    They hauled me to my feet- briskly but not brutally- and the lead agent held up his identification in front of my face and opened it.... wait, why the hell was I being arrested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service?

    "Jonathan Fairchild, you are under arrest on charges of illegally entering the United States, illegal residence in the United States, falsification of identity documents, and suspicion of espionage." the agent read, and then began reading off his Miranda card as the two beefbuses holding my elbows walked me over to the side of their Suburban, leaned me against it, and began the pat-down. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney-"

    I listened to the rest of the Miranda routine and made my responses largely on auto-pilot as I realized what this meant. If I was being picked up for these charges, then that meant that my 'former Eastern European child soldier/spy' cover story had just reached the Federal government, who'd run down my "Benefactor"-provided Drop-In identity... which had indeed been advertised as not being able to withstand detailed official scrutiny.

    So, having heard that story and finding what looked like a professionally-done skeleton ID/false paper trail - because it was one - they sent out a high-risk warrant service team to scoop me up. I'd be administratively detained on the immigration charges for as long as it took them to try and dig out my real background and figure out which hostile nation to trade me back to in return for one of their agents, or until the follow-up investigation turned up evidence of more serious crimes, or- well, it didn't matter, because no matter how hard they searched they wouldn't find anything, and that would mean they'd never stop looking.

    So yeah. This sucked. The only silver lining, and not much of one at that, was that this officially being an immigration/espionage investigation limited how far they could investigate the rest of the Scoobies. They could get search warrants for my residence, for example, but not theirs. And Angel at least already had a preset 'get the fuck out of Dodge' drill and safe houses ready in case I was ever tagged, given his even more problematic than mine legal nonexistence and sunlight allergy.

    Still, though. This took me entirely out of play and put the rest of the Scooby Gang into turtle mode for the duration. And it had only happened shortly after I'd outed myself as key guy for the battle of Ascension Day, the primary ordnance engineer. Using the outer layer of my cover story, the one I'd shared with most of the Scoobies but not Angel or Amy. And using it only now instead of two years ago.

    The Mayor had been neatly indirect in working this through the Feds- if I had total access to the INS' records right now I'd still probably not be able to trace the original tip to the Sunnydale PD. But it had to be him, and it had to be him not only knowing knowledge that I'd shared only with the Scooby Gang but also knowing precisely when to use it. Before I'd been worried that Willow might possibly have been compromised; now it was overwhelmingly likely that she had been.

    And I still didn't have jack squat I could use to prove it to anyone, in addition to my whole 'being arrested' thing.

    * * * * *​

    "Fairchild. Your lawyer's here." the guard said.

    I'd been stuck in 'administrative detention' for the past couple of weeks. I hadn't been allowed visitors, except for my attorney. Who, due to the 'sensitive intelligence matters' involved in my case wasn't an attorney I'd gotten to picked but had instead been one that had been provided to me by the court. They were a legitimate public defender, not a Department of Justice employee, but they were... not exactly the most zealously interested in my side of the case, especially given that there was literally no innocent explanation I could give them. Drop-Ins with 'minimal documents' were just too damn vulnerable to this kind of thing. I'd certainly have to keep this in mind for later jumps. And that's how I ended up in the pre-trial detention facility that the Department of Justice maintained in Los Angeles for federal prisoners in the Central California District of the US District Court. In one of its most secure cells.

    So, my standing mute during interrogation got me no slack there and also gave my attorney nothing to work with. There weren't any beatings or abuse- this was the INS and the FBI Counter-Intelligence guys, not the CIA- and my legal rights were being scrupulously observed to the letter, but I was still stuck like a bug in amber. I was already casing this place for a bust-out and I had good odds of making one, but I hadn't yet hit close enough to the Ascension deadline to accept being a fugitive from justice for the rest of the jump. I couldn't help the Scoobies arm up to defeat the Mayor if I couldn't stop running.

    I did idly consider the idea of busting out, then running back to Sunnydale and trying to drag as much pursuit as I possibly could there, but that was more Hollywood than practical. The Mayor had had literally decades to entrench himself and make political contacts at every level, and had a 100.00% squeaky-clean public reputation and a truly distinguished record of municipal service in addition to magic. So, wouldn't work.

    Not that I could afford to be in here on Ascension Day. So while I wasn't going to bust out now, I'd still prep-

    I got up and walked down the hallway, pondering yet again if there was anything I could say to start working an angle. Even Grandma's Scheming didn't do much if you had nothing to scheme with-

    And then I became fully alert as I realized the man waiting for me in the secure interview room used for legal counsel visits was not my regular attorney. And that this guy, instead of being dressed like the sort of lawyer who did pro bono work for people on immigration charges, was dressed in the most high-quality custom-tailored suit I'd seen anyone wear since our meeting with Mr. Trick in Caritas. He was a short but well-muscled guy, stocky yet giving the impression of quickness, with a salesman-of-the-year smile and a sleek self-assurance.

    Not a spook, he's far too effusive and cheerful. Not from the US Attorney's office- even if he was independently wealthy enough to afford that suit and those patent-leather shoes he wouldn't flaunt it that much at the office, it'd be bad politics. Not a phony just posing as a lawyer, he'd never survive the vetting to get in here seeing that I'm a prisoner with a 'Counter-Intelligence / Sensitive Matters' tag on his case file. No, this guy looks like he stepped out of a John Grisham novel.

    "Has there been a mistake?" I asked the guard before he could close the door with me in here.

    "No, Mister Fairchild, there has not been." the strange lawyer said in an urbane yet still distinctly Texan asset. "Okay, we're good." he nodded at the guard, and he stepped back and shut the door. I heard the bolts set, and we were locked in.

    "All right," the lawyer said. "These interview rooms are supposed to respect attorney-client privilege, but just in case they don't-" he reached into his already-open briefcase where it lay on the table, and my already alert suspicions ramped up to maximum when he brought out a glowing spell crystal of some kind instead of the white noise bug-jammer I'd been expecting, "-that will make sure nobody sees or hears anything we wouldn't want them to. Please, take a seat." he smiled again and waved me to my chair.

    I unhesitatingly sat down and looked back at him levelly. "To steal a phrase, counselor; at first you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention."

    "I'm sure I do." he said cheerfully. "So, let's get down to the heart of the matter. Mister Fairchild, my name is Lindsey McDonald and I represent the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart. We're the oldest and foremost legal firm in the city of Los Angeles, if not the entire state of California. Your name's come to our attention in several prior matters, most recently regarding your... irregular federal detention." he finished with a sweep of his hands. "And if you're willing, we'd love to take your case."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Willow just knowingly committed herself to the Dark Side knowing the entire score. The Mayor even used the 'I'm not candy-coating it for you' approach just to make sure the hook set solid.

    As for Jonathan? Well, as you can see the Mayor's working some new angles, and now some new players are starting to notice...

    ... and really. Drop-Ins are vulnerable to this kind of thing. The Buffyverse SB jump-doc says that Drop-Ins get "the minimum paperwork to exist legally" - I interpret that as 'valid enough ID to get by, but not able to survive a full FBI background check and come up without suspicious gaps'.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • 2 - Buffyverse SB (Part 31) New
  • View content
    • Buffy POV:

    "Sunnydale school library, Buffy Summers speaking. How may I help you?" I answered Giles' phone for him. Yeah, we were pulling another after-school research party. Stupid lame Ascension crisis.

    "Buffy!" I heard Xander's friend Jesse, talking like a man in the throes of a major panic. "The SWAT team just arrested Jonathan right on the street!" he burst out.

    ""What?" I said incredulously. "Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker! Now say that again!"

    "Tell me you're joking." Cordelia said dazedly after I did and Jesse did.

    "My dad runs the hardware store, remember? I just saw it happen right in the parking lot before I called to tell you guys! Four guys in tac gear pulled up behind your buddy in a black Suburban, leapt out, and they had M-16s and everything!" Jesse's voice came from the speaker.

    "Is Jonathan okay?" Amy asked him frantically.

    "He didn't resist arrest, and they didn't LAPD beatdown him." Jesse reassured us. "But they were not fooling around. They had assault rifles and body armor and everything!"

    "Are you sure they actually were the police?" Amy pressed, still pale as a sheet.

    "The police tow truck came along right after the arrest and hooked up Jonathan's car, and talked to the guys in the Suburban about it." Jesse said. "So they thought the SWAT guys were real cops at least."

    "Okay." I breathed heavily. "First off, this might be blowback for something we did." I said guiltily. "You know, in our, uh, night school." I exhaled heavily. "So you hang up, and if anybody ever asks you called about your overdue library book. You don't want to be mixed up in this and we never had this conversation."

    "But you guys'll be all right?" Jesse asked insistently.

    "Ask us that at school tomorrow." Xander said. "If we're here."

    "... yeah." Jesse said worriedly. "That's what I figured. Good luck, guys." he finished and then it was dial tone city. I hit the button to turn off the speaker and buried my face in my hands.

    "What do we do?" Willow finally spoke up.

    "What we already discussed in the event of this contingency." Giles said firmly, having come in on the tail end of the conversation. "If the police even remotely hint that they suspect any of you of anything, stop talking right then and there and insist on your right to speak only with an attorney present. If they ask you for background information on Jonathan, tell them only what would be common knowledge to the least involved of your classmates."

    "Play dumb." Xander nodded. "Got it."

    My Slayer hearing picked up heavy-footed stomping coming up the hallway outside the library.

    "Here they come." I whispered insistently. "Places, everybody!"

    "Now as I was saying, the 15th century was characterized by-" Giles smoothly began, making like the school librarian holding an after-hours tutoring session just as the doors swung open and the people with suits and badges entered.

    * * * * *​

    We got shut down hard. Giles was barely able to explain the medieval weapons, and thank God Jonathan and Angel had been so careful about stashing all the modern ones. We were all of us officially 'good kids' with good records- except for me and my little gym burning incident, but I'd obviously 'turned over a new leaf' after moving to Sunnydale- so outside of Amy, who as Jonathan's longtime girlfriend got so much attention focused on her that they put her in the interrogation room three times before finally admitting they had nothing on her and weren't getting anything out of her that they didn't already know- we eventually got back to our lives.

    Except that Giles had somehow gotten suspended from school. And Angel had had to disappear- thank God that Angel wasn't officially Jonathan's guardian, like on paper, what with him being emancipated and all, so he could do that- because he had even less legal paper trail than Jonathan and couldn't possibly afford to be picked up by the cops. They could kill him just by putting him in a cell with a window!

    So all the Scoobying was shut down for the duration. Angel could still do patrols at night but now that the Mayor was steering the law against us- and yeah, federal agents and immigration charges or not, who else could it be- we had to lay low. No vampire fighting, barely any except the most innocent-looking training- all of our really good stuff had had to be stashed in off-site storage somewhere, even, and the grown-ups weren't even telling us where it was! The clock was ticking down to capital-A Apocalypse and we couldn't even prepare!

    Honestly, the only good news is that when the Sunnydale PD did their 'follow up investigation' through the school they caught a crazy lunch lady planning to feed us all rat poison. Silver lining, I suppose.

    So, things went on like that for a little over a week. And then the absolute worst happened.

    * * * * *​

    Angel POV:

    "All right, everyone." Giles began as we began the meeting at his house. It had taken us several days to set this up, and we'd had to be very careful to make sure we weren't under any surveillance first, but we'd gotten things ready for what would hopefully be our first major break versus the Mayor.

    I wish Jonathan had been here, though. I knew how to use the truth serum he'd cooked up, but I'd much rather have had him available to manage the exact dosage and administration. Of course, I'd much have rather have had him here period. We all would have. Well, almost all.

    "Any news on Jonathan?" Willow asked cheerfully. Amy bit her lip but remained silent.

    "Angel? If you would?" Giles asked, and I started the presentation.

    "This," I said, while reaching down to the pile of documents on the table and holding up a particular folder question, "is a copy of the crime scene report and autopsy for Kendra. Jonathan and I had been trying to get our hands on it for several months, a job that was held up a lot by the extreme need for subtlety. With a little computer hacking he'd managed to generate an official request from the California Highway Patrol to the Sunndyale PD for a copy of it, even if nobody in the CHP actually had done so. After a ton of bureaucratic stonewalling they finally emailed it, and Janna managed to pull that email out of the CHP's server earlier this week."

    I noticed Cordelia measuring the distance between her and Willow with her eyes. Huh. We hadn't shared our concerns with her, so-

    "What's wrong?" Buffy asked nervously. "I mean, the way you're talking-"

    "According to the best forensic reconstruction possible, Kendra was already unconscious when Drusilla entered the scene." Giles said wearily. "There are absolutely no ambient damage patterns even remotely consistent with a vampire of Drusilla's power and a Slayer having a brawl in close quarters. Kendra was clearly incapacitated at the time Drusilla bit her, judging from the neatness of the bite mark, but Drusilla almost certainly did not do the incapacitating."

    "How could they know that?" Xander said disbelievingly. "She could've got KO'ed by Drusilla during the fight-"

    Giles pulled out the summary of conclusions from Kendra's autopsy and pushed it over to where everyone could read it. "In order for Kendra to have been punched into the wall hard enough to do the damage that was done, she would have had to have been struck hard enough to raise serious contusions on the front of her body. But note the total lack of wounds save for several abrasions on her back and shoulders, and the vampire bite that killed her. And if Drusilla had subdued Kendra with her mind powers, there would have been no need to also physically brutalize her."

    "Kendra wasn't punched into the wall." Amy said flatly. "She was telekinetically thrown. That's not a power Drusilla had."

    "No." Janna said. "It's not. That would take a powerful witch."

    "I don't know what you think you're-" Willow began angrily, and fell silent as I got up and started walking around the table.

    "Problem number two. Jonathan, the person we were relying upon to build the weapons to fight the Ascended Mayor, gets taken out of play immediately after we all come to the realization of that need." I said. "By the immigration service, using information that only the people in this room were told."

    "That was two years ago. It could have spread around since then!" Buffy said reasonably. "... you guys did spread it around since then, didn't you?"

    "Problem three. The warehouse we'd rented to stash some of our more questionable items in? Earlier tonight, shortly before we called you all to convene this meeting, the Sunnydale police raided it."

    "Let me guess." Cordelia said knowingly. "You'd only told one of us where it was, didn't you?"

    "Willow." I said, glaring down at her from within arms' reach. "We asked her for her help in hacking some of the property records about it night before last. She was the only one outside Giles and myself who'd been told where it was."

    "You're crazy!" Willow said. "Why would I help the-"

    "I don't know, maybe to get your magic bike lock taken off?" Cordelia said acidly. "Was that your thirty pieces of silver?"

    "You can't just-" Willow fumed.

    "You meet the Mayor every Tuesday and Friday night, during your job as the public library's new part-time 'database assistant'." I said. "He uses the sewer access to come and go without being seen. Did you forget that I know the sewers better than any vampire in town?" I smiled at her viciously. "But if he ever even sensed me at all, all he'd pick up on was yet another vampire using the vampire underground highway." I held up a tape recorder. "Once we'd started seriously suspecting you, we knew who to watch. And as soon as I noticed the Mayor going to the library on your work nights, I planted a tape recorder in your little basement cubicle before your most recent shift and went and retrieved it afterwards." I pulled it out of my pocket and put it on the table and pressed play, and everyone heard Willow and Mayor Wilkins start talking. She was bringing him up to speed on our latest reactions to Jonathan's arrest.

    "Don't!" Amy snarled, leaping to her feet and bringing her hands up and intertwining her fingers. We'd prompted her on what we needed her to do right before the meeting, and she acted the instant she had her cue. A brilliant rope of energy shot out of her hands and coiled around Willow, interacting with the pre-prepared fetish we'd already stuck to the underside of her chair. Willow dropped her mask of innocence and snarled pure venom and hatred at us as she realized she'd been blown.

    "You can't-" Buffy cried, jumping to her feet in shock as Xander still sat in his seat, paralyzed in horror. Cordelia was also on her feet, but looking down at Willow with grim satisfaction. Amy was the only one we'd warned beforehand, and even then we'd only brought her in shortly before this meeting. We hadn't even invited Oz for this one- breaking this to him would be its own entire separate project for later. "Oh my God. Willow? You betrayed us?"

    "Betrayal?" Willow spat. "Like you can even use that word! You all betrayed me first, you lying cheats-"

    "Shut it!" Amy yelled, bearing down harder with her magic. We'd checked Willow for the binding-spells still being in place before we'd started the meeting, of course, but you still didn't want to take chances.

    "You know, since you figured it was perfectly all right to drug Amy with truth serum, we figured you wouldn't mind drinking some yourself." I said cruelly, pouring a vial of Jonathan's concoction into a glass and then filling it up the rest of the way from a water bottle. "But at least we won't sneak up on you with it like you did with her. Bottoms up!"

    "I won't." Willow said mulishly.

    "Oh, you're gonna swallow that if I have to use a bicycle pump." I said to her, on the verge of going into game face in my outrage.

    "Pump this." Willow spat, and took a deep breath. "Xander, help me now!"

    Xander's eyes immediately went blank, then flat with suspicion and hate. In a single continuous motion he shot to his feet while reaching into his waistband for a stake, and his arm whipped out and around with the point heading directly for Amy's chest-

    "No!" Buffy said, just barely leaping over the table in time to tackle Amy out of the way and take the stake in the back of her shoulder rather than Amy taking it right beneath the breastbone. I heard her shout of pain and smelled her blood, and then Amy's chair toppled over backwards and they both rode it right out of sight and to the floor.

    "Xander!" Giles said, reaching out to try and restrain him. Unfortunately, while Giles was fairly skilled Xander had trained continuously for melee combat vs. vampires for several years underneath myself, Jonathan, and Buffy, was much younger, and was the strongest non-supernatural person in the room.

    "Get her!" Cordelia yelled, and just as Xander finished throwing Giles off of him and into a bookshelf she leapt upon his back, wrapped both legs tightly around his waist, and went for a chokehold on him with both arms.

    I was of course already moving to hammer Willow into the ground the instant I'd seen Xander's immediate threat be even temporarily neutralized, but when my fist passed through her head like she wasn't even there I swore. Willow must have thrown up an illusion of herself and ducked out of her chair the instant Amy's restraining spell was broken-

    I felt a crushing blow directly between my own shoulder blades, then another and another. Yeah, somebody had just thrown or telekinetically launched a trio of stakes into my back-

    "How the hell are you not dead?" Willow confronted me incredulously as I turned to face where she really was while continuing to hear the noises of a struggle behind me.

    "Bulletproof vest with trauma plates!" I snarled at her, and struck again. Another illusion- and then the slam of the front door opening told me that while I'd been fighting the decoys, she'd been running.

    "Giles, get the first-aid kit and help Buffy." I said, walking over to where Cordelia and Janna were still trying to wrestle down a struggling Xander and punching him unconscious. "Janna?"

    "He's got a nasty spell on him," she said, squinting at Xander. "Amy, if you're able I could use some help here-"

    "I've got it." Amy said, coming up to us and placing both hands on Xander's head. She concentrated for several comments, her fingertips glowed, and his eyes opened.

    "What the-" he said dazedly. "I- oh my God, Buffy!" he said, and we had another frantic struggle trying to hold him down.

    "It's okay." Buffy said painedly, walking heavily over to us with Giles' assistance. "That b-witch put you under some kind of spell."

    "Yeah." Xander said, still in shock. "I mean, I was still here, but suddenly you were all vampires. You'd all been turned, and only Willow and I were still alive, and I had to protect Willow-" he stopped, and then it all sank in on him. "Oh my God, Willow. She- she tried to make me kill you?!?" he babbled hysterically.

    "Xander!" Buffy said, hugging him with her one good arm while Giles moved with her to still hold the compress on her back. "It wasn't your fault, okay? She totally Drusilla'ed you!"

    "But- Willow, she-" Xander babbled. "What happened to her?"

    "In technical terms? She went totally bugnuts!" Cordelia shouted. "I guess all our dark magic precautions didn't do squat!"

    "No." Giles said, sounding terribly, terribly old. "They did not."

    "How-" Janna said, equally shellshocked. "Why would she go to a mass-murdering warlock and help him plan to kill everyone she'd known? Why would she try to turn an innocent boy, her oldest friend, into a murderer?"

    "Evil." I said simply. "Plain and simple evil. We can guess at her exact rationalizations all night but it all boils down to this in the end. She knew right from wrong, and she still chose the clearly wrong."

    "So wrong." Amy said, brokenly.

    "And I just-" Xander began to weep. "Amy, Buffy, I'm so sorry-"

    "It wasn't you." Amy said comfortingly. "Even if you had hit me, it still wouldn't have been you. Willow would have been the murderer."

    "You were just the attempted murder weapon." Buffy snarled, then winced as Giles finished changing compresses and solidly taping the new one in place.

    "It's a nasty tear in the skin and muscle but was stopped by the scapula- the bone in your shoulder. So I don't think this puncture will need stitches, not with Slayer healing." Giles said professionally. "Still, try not to use that arm or shoulder for anything remotely strenuous until at least tomorrow evening."

    "Yeah." Buffy said. "Okay. I'll wait until after then before I hunt that pint-sized psycho down and punch a hole in her head!" she finished in a rising shout.

    "No." I said flatly. "You can't do that."

    "Why not?!?" Buffy shouted. "She almost made my boyfriend, her supposedly oldest friend, have to live with the memory of killing me! Or Amy! You can't do that kind of thing and even call yourself human anymore!"

    "I'm not saying hold back for the sake of her." I told Buffy icily. "I'm saying hold back for the sake of you."

    Buffy's obvious retort died unspoken when Amy touched her arm and gave her a wordless plea. "... so what do we do?" Buffy asked plaintively instead.

    "We prepare for the worst." Giles said. "Because I'm very afraid we're about to receive it."

    * * * * *​

    Xander POV:

    "Willow Rosenberg." I said coldly into the phone handset. I was making this call from the upper level of the Sunnydale Mall- a good view of all the possible approaches, and multiple exits I could use to slip away. It was almost a week after Willow had- left us- and the Mayor had yet to launch any follow-up attacks. We didn't know what was worse- waiting for the boom to lower, or trying to figure out if it ever actually would.

    Oz had not taken the news well. In fact, after we'd finally convinced him we weren't crazy, he'd straight up vanished. Cut school, stopped going with the band, just started ghosting all of us.

    Yeah, I knew how he felt.

    "I'm sorry, sir, but there is no-" the City Hall receptionist began her standard phone brush-off.

    "She's the Mayor's new intern. Or protege. Or ward. Or whatever other official reason he put out for the little red-headed high school girl hanging around him all the time." I cut her off. "Put her on."

    "... Mayor Wilkins has taken someone like that under his sponsorship, but-"

    "But you know her number. Patch her in." I said viciously.

    "One moment, sir, while I connect your call." she said after a pause, and then I listened to the hold music for a while until-

    "Hello?" Willow's voice came cheerfully through the handset, just like it always had. Just like she'd answered the phone a thousand times before in that chirply breathless little way. Just like she hadn't-

    "Willow." I said, after taking a few deep breaths to try and keep both the anger and the crying out of my voice.

    "Xander." she said, after a pause. "Why are you calling?"

    "Well, I just wanted to let you know that your Manchurian candidate has finished getting his deprogramming done. I wouldn't want you to waste your time trying to use any more post-hypnotic triggers that aren't there any longer." I said tightly.

    "I'll bet Amy bragged about that." Willow said sulkily.

    "Jealousy?" I yelled. "Is that why you did this? Amy looked up to you, didn't you know that?"

    "Don't lie to me!" Willow shouted back, stung.

    "I'm not." I said tightly, getting a grip back on my temper. "For years and years she thought you were the brave one. You were the one who wouldn't knuckle under and try to conform to the popular girls. You were the straight-A student when she was struggling with math. Even for the first months of the magic lessons, she always thought you were ahead of her. You were ahead of her."

    "Yeah, until she started cheating!" Willow shouted. "Just like her boyfriend! Do you really think it's a coincidence that she suddenly started leaping ahead, doing better at everything, being more super focused, only after she started dating someone with boosts of their own?!?"

    "Why not?" I yelled back. "I did!" I tore at my own hair with my free hand. "Willow, Amy wasn't cheating, she was getting over her issues, with Jonathan's help and her therapist's! Just like I was able to do for me, with Buffy's encouragement and then talking to Mr. Platt!" I shook my head, even though she couldn't hear it. "She didn't leap ahead, you fell back! All because you thought you had to do everything yourself, and then start stealing to catch up instead of just asking!"

    "Spare me." Willow said coldly. "If all you can do is parrot the 'Good Guy' propaganda, why are we even talking?"

    "Because there was a girl I gave a yellow crayon to once." I said, my voice choking up. "And I wanted to know if she was still alive."

    "She grew up." Willow said after a short pause. "And stopped caring about childish things."

    "Like love?" I fired back. "And helping people instead of using them? And basic human decency?"

    "I know who you love, and it's not me." Willow spat back. "And you guys use people and do indecent things all the time, and then remind yourself about what white hats you are because you do it for a 'greater good'. Well, I'm choosing my greater good, and it's nowhere near as myopic or limited as yours!" she ranted. "I'm going to live forever! I'm going to be a goddess! And what will your super-girlfriend have, even if she survives the Mayor? Even if she quadruples the Slayer average she'll still be dead in a ditch somewhere before she's twenty-five! Brilliant move there, Xander! You'd have had better odds of a long-lasting relationship if you'd gone down and picked up a girl in the cancer ward! But hey, take heart that at least you did better than Amy!" Willow trailed off contemptuously. "Because she won't be seeing her snookum-wookums again for the next few decades except through prison bars, unless they deport him back to Russia and then she emigrates!" she finished, panting.

    "I never knew you had this much rage in you." I said, shocked speechless by Willow's voice saying such totally un-Willow things. Had I never really known her at all? I'm pretty sure if she'd gotten turned I'd still find her more recognizable than this!

    "What can I say?" Willow said, her smirk audible on down the phone line. "I'm the world's best actress."

    "How good an actress are you if you do nothing but drive away your audience?" I finished by laying down the burn, and then I slammed the phone back on the hook.

    I stood there panting with rage and horror, shuddering with the effort of dumping all the adrenaline, until I felt ready to go. I looked around to notice a lack of cops or other menacing sorts advancing, then stepped away from the pay phone and slipped out of the mall. Giles picked me up in his car, and we headed back to the new emergency Scooby HQ we'd set up.

    We arrived at the old bomb shelter that Ford had used, and that Willow had later used to trap her Krell machine demon id thing, and headed down the steps. We'd fixed that problem with the door, of course, and Amy had dumped a lot of power and effort into a tunnelling spell that gave us an emergency backup exit. But overall we figured this was the most secure place we could find; Willow knew where it was but not only had no use for it any longer herself but would only look back on it only with memories of failure, and I could testify that things that reminded Willow of past failures were things she tended to put as far out of her head as she possibly could.

    "Did you trace it?" I asked as I came down into the bottom level where Jenny had set up her backup computer setup, and spliced it into Jonathan's taps on the phone switchboard.

    "You kept her talking more than long enough." she assured me. "And they weren't taking anywhere near as many precautions as they should have. The phone trace was complete; we know exactly where the Mayor's set up her new apartment."

    "So when do we go get her?" Buffy said bitterly.

    "When we're ready to." Giles said. "And when doing so would most efficiently serve the greater objective."

    "I can't believe we're busy stocking this place for the end of the world and we're still going to class." Cordelia said.

    "Well, we still want to stop the Ascension." Buffy said. "Prepping to live in the post-apocalypse if we don't is plan Z, not B. And that means no giving up and turtling just yet."

    "Where's Angel?" I asked.

    "Out of town." Giles said. "With no word yet on whether Jonathan will be able to rejoin us, he's investigating... alternative sources of supply." He nodded. "He's also seeing if anyone in Los Angeles can actually find out about Jonathan's situation."

    "I just-" I sat down, shaking my head. "Did Jenny playback the phone call for you guys? Because I really don't want to recap it myself."

    "She did." Amy said. "I-" her voice broke. "Back when my mom was on the weight-loss rampage and not letting me eat, I'd go over to Willow's to hide. We'd... we'd have brownies..." she trailed off.

    "Did the Mayor pull out her soul or something?" I asked the room.

    "No." Jenny said simply. "We looked."

    "Ethan Rayne was once my closest friend as well." Giles said softly. "And I did many questionable things in my youth, both in concert with him and on my own." He sighed. "But there comes a point at which you can no longer delude yourself to the consequences of what you are doing. To blind yourself to the amount of harm both to yourself and to others that your reckless pursuit of self-gratification is inflicting." He cradled his chin on his hands as he sat. "And when someone close to you reaches that point, in full knowledge of having reached it, and still chooses to go further beyond?" He looked at me. "Then friendship cannot justify following them. And neither can it pull them back from over the brink."

    "I know." I agreed with him. "I didn't want to know, and if you gave me a genie lamp that could make this all go away I'd give myself friction burns from it, but I know."

    "I agree." Cordelia surprised us. "Look, I never liked her but-" she shrugged. "Not this. This is just beyond the worst." she articulately finished.

    "I'm sorry, Xander." Buffy commiserated with me. "And-" she paused, then continued. "You don't have to follow me, either." she said. "I mean, I'd miss you a lot!" she rushed to explain. "But Willow tried to use magic to make you fight us. I'm not gonna use what we have to try and make you fight Willow." She nodded. "I would really miss having my partner there to watch my back, but if it would hurt you that much to go up against her then you... you can sit this one out. No grudge."

    "Yeah." I said wearily, feeling older than Giles. "That's the problem, Buff. It's because you'd let me sit this one out if I wanted to that I can't sit this one out. If that makes any sense."

    "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing." Giles quoted softly. "John Stuart Mill."

    "Yeah." I agreed. "That's the thing."

    * * * * *​

    Author's Note: Thus we see what happened dring Jonathan's absence.

    No, Buffy didn't meet the telepathy demon; the gang had shut down patrolling. I'd originally thought to make the discovery of Willow's treachery come from the telepathy demon, then I decided 'No, let's have the Scooby Gang actually do things rather than just be lucky'. So, this instead.

    The orally-administered truth serum is from Girl Genius; remember that Tarvek's family canonically has one. Jonathan knows the basic mixture, and had some already available in his supplies for Angel to use.

    The quote actually is from John Stuart Mill; the common attribution to Edmund Burke is because the earlier reference isn't as widely known.

    And yeah, Willow went there too. The gang did their best- remember that they did all that setup still thinking her magic was bound- but Willow beat them by going ethically beneath even the floor they were already expecting. Well, that the grown-ups and Amy were already expecting.

    Using the bomb shelter is totally 'The last place Anakin Skywalker will look for his son is on Tatooine' type logic. Because he really doesn't want to even remember that Tatooine exists.
     
  • New
  • View discussion
    • View content
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top