Valhalla Can Wait [Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Original Characters]

[Death by Chains]

Everyone knows the canonical life-story of Buffy Summers, the Sunnydale Slayer; it's an epic tale of heroism, tragic romance, mental trauma, and survival despite often-impossible odds.
But everyone is the hero of their own life-story. Whether it's an epic, a tragedy, or a grim warning tale with an unhappy ending, is up to them. Of course, they also have to realise that their story is often a footnote to someone else's... or a sequel to another epic that they've never heard.
As a Slayer, Buffy is a hero from a long lineage of heroes. Here, we start to examine the story of her predecessor, wiser and stronger in some ways, more foolish and frail in others, but no less a hero, and no less beset by the odds.
You've already seen the Scooby Gang. Now, meet the Napier Volunteers.

– – – – – – –​

"The most dangerous people on the planet are True Believers. […] most of the do-gooders today? They're doing it out of anger."
– Beau of the Fifth Column, Let's talk about a cop asking me for training....

– – – – – – –​

Tory Island, Tirconnell (now Donegal, Ireland)
23 March, 794 AD

The monastery was in flames. Slain monks lay scattered within the grounds, their free-flowing wound-dew soaking into the grass. Their killers, blond-bearded men with keen axes and stout round shields, were returning to their ship. All were relaxed and jovial, laughing to each other about their 'victory' over the Christians, laden heavy with gold crosses and other pillage taken from the 'hallowed grounds'.

At their head, Steinbjørn Erling Toroldson was as flush as any of his men. Craggy of face and build, spear in one hand and a small keg of ale under the other, he was an imposing figure even to his men. Especially with the red-ale of Christians still splashed on his face and brynja, dripping from the nose of his helmet.

And yet, when he saw the figure standing under the dragonhead-prow of his ship, even this mighty drengr stopped short. She was small, pale of skin, with a river of dark hair running back over her shoulders. Clad only a simple black cloak, open shoulder-wide to show she was bare of foot and body beneath, she stood empty-handed, no possible threat to any warrior, much less one in full armour... and yet, Steinbjørn's hackles rose at the sight of her, and in that instant he almost stumbled in coming to a halt.

Behind him, his men slowly gathered, each man coming to a halt on the edges of the growing throng, their banter dying out as each beheld this woman, this slight-framed girl, standing before them, regarding the band of fifteen warriors with an expression of... mild curiosity? A hint of distaste?

"Who are you, to stand between me and my ship?" Steinbjørn demanded. It was unlikely this Saxon maid understood the tongue of the Norse, yet it was the only one at his command.

"You have done bloody work here, today." Her speech was perfect enough to jolt him, startling him into a fiery glare, then yet she remained unperturbed. "You have slain those who did no harm, who performed no act of malice, who worked only to provide for their neighbours."

"Are we not their neighbours?" scoffed Torger, from two paces behind his chieftain. This had been his first raid, and once the killing was done, he'd drunk deep of looted ale ere they left the burning priest-camp. Now, he hefted a small chest in his left hand, letting all hear the clink of the coins within. "Surely, they've provided for us! And if they lived on this island, forsaken even by our Gods much less their own, they should be grateful that we sent them on to their Heaven!"

The girl's gaze turned to him. Flat, empty, lifeless as any sea-wolf's.

There was a clap of soundless thunder, a dazzling flash of lightning of all colours and of none.

When it cleared, Torger's ill-gotten chest of coins lay on the beach, amid a few wisps of smoke. Of Torger, there was no other sign.

None dared disturb the silence that followed. These were stoic men born of hard times, men who knew that the Gods despised any who showed fear in the face of death... but in the face of magic, of such incredible and casual power, each man tried not to breathe too loud.

After long, long moments, when each man heard only the blood pounding in his ears, the girl eventually spoke. "You came as murderers and bandits and ravagers, to slay the defenceless and loot their corpses and despoil their sanctuary. You have slaughtered and plundered those whom I accepted into my domain, took as my people, placed under my protection." She considered them all for another few moments... then stepped aside, clearing the path to the ship.

Steinbjørn peered at her closely. "You say we have done all this, and yet you would let us go?"

She gave him a wisp of a smile, and that was almost more chilling than Torger's fate. "And where would you go, Steinbjørn Toroldson? For now do I pronounce your doom. Steinbjørn the Covetous, I proclaim you – coward, thief, murderer. You and your ship will wander the whale-roads forever more, unable to spend the plunder you have seized. You will never again see the Northlands, taste its meat or mead, its bread or beer. Only on this day, once every hundred years, will you be able to set foot on land again, and you will never see your Gods or their Halls. Your time in this world shall end only if you are slain ashore, in honest battle, against stout-hearted warriors – and well do I know, that is the one thing you will never seek.

"To your men, I give a choice." She raised one hand, pointing to the setting sun. "Any among you who are still on this island when the sun touches the sea may renounce their Gods and their warrior's life, replace those they slew, and make weregeld by returning their plunder and devoting their lives to the service of others. They will make yonder monastery their new home, its faith their own, its works their life's calling, never again taking up axe or shield save in defence of this island and its people.

"But any of you who choose to take ship with Steinbjørn the Covetous today will be bound to his doom."

As she spoke her last word, she blurred, seemed to shrink. A moment later, where a girl of fifteen years had stood, a crow was perched on the bow-ornament of their karvi. Then, with a flicking flutter of feathers, the bird took wing and soared for the open skies above.

 

[AstralBard.N]

Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

 

[Death by Chains]

Enlisted Mess, Price Barracks
Ladyville, Belize
07:31, Thursday, 17 March, 1994 Belize Time
[13:31, Thursday, 17 March, 1994 Zulu Time (GMT)/02:31, Friday, 18 March, 1994, NZ Time]

Hundreds of men were taking their breakfast, as they did every morning, and with DPM camouflage so favoured by all the forces involved, only by close attention to skin-tone, language, and the headgear tucked under their shoulder-straps could anyone distinguish between indigenous Belize Defence Force, British Royal Marines, and the 'Cloggies' of Whisky Company with their navy-blue berets. Amid the clatter of tableware and multilingual chatter, a Belize trooper wove amongst the tables in search of one particular man. Finally sighting his target, he stopped by the Englishman's elbow.

Steve Wells glanced up from his plate with mild interest. Well, this is outside of the usual routine. I wonder what it presages? "What can I do for you, Guerra?"

"There is a civilian at the administration building asking to see you, Lance-Corporal. He says his name is Travers, and it's about a family matter."

"Travers? Oh, bloody lovely," was the sour response. Sighing in aggravation, he hurriedly piled bacon and scrambled eggs onto a slice of toast, then stood, swung on his camo-tunic, drained his coffee-cup in one long draught, and retrieved his impromptu breakfast-to-go before giving Guerra a 'lead-on' motion. The other Royal Marines at his table exchanged smirks at his parting mutter: "First time this week the scran's worth taking time on, too...."

– – – – – – –​

Guerra pointed Wells to the empty classroom where he'd temporarily stowed the visitor. Thanking the BDF man with a nod, then dismissing him back to his other duties with a jerk of his head, the Marine took a moment to breathe and brace himself, then opened the door. This is going to be 'fun'....

Travers was much as Wells remembered him: overfed, slightly florid, balding, and dressed in a full three-piece tweed suit. Even this early, before the tropical heat truly began to build, sweat was already beading on his forehead.

He came all this way to talk to me face-to-face, and he thought it more important to 'maintain appearances' than to dress for the conditions? He hasn't changed since I last saw him! Wells nodded a greeting to the older man. "What do you want, Uncle?"

"Not so much as a 'good morning'? Your time amongst these uniformed Neaderthals clearly hasn't improved your manners," Travers noted sourly.

"But it has rather honed my sense of immediate priorities," Wells returned bluntly. "We can stand here trading empty pleasantries and barbed comments until you collapse from heat exhaustion, or we can get to business and then move on with our respective days. So, once again: what do you want?"

"... so be it." Travers grimaced in distaste as he lowered himself into a cheap plastic chair by one of the tables, then motioned for his nephew to take a seat opposite him. "I understand your time in the Marines has almost run its course."

"Partly due to Council influence, I'm sure." Wells allowed himself a saccharine smile. "It's been made clear that if I sign a fresh contract, I'll have to accept a commission and a transfer to an intelligence billet. Can't have me bringing shame to the family name by not having pips on my shoulders, hmm?"

"Or by wasting an Oxford degree and fluency in multiple languages on carrying a rifle like some... common thug from the East End," Travers agreed, with another grimace. "But that's your father's doing, not mine." He dismissed the idea with a flick of his hand, then retrieved a pocket-square to mop the sweat from his brow. "There's an ongoing situation involving the current Slayer. Taking an official interest would be... awkward, so when you leave the military, I need you to go out there and look into it, discreetly."

"'Situation' doesn't tell me much."

"We don't know very much," Travers noted bitterly. "What I'm about to tell you was meant to be restricted purely to the High Council. If it got out to the larger membership, there would be the most hideous uproar."

Council politics. Did it ever occur to you that I joined the Green Machine specifically to avoid getting dragged into that particular pit of sewage and vipers? Wells thought behind his best poker-face. "Indeed?"

Travers shot him a suspicious look, then cleared his throat. "Naturally, you're aware that the Reformationists and the Progressives have been pushing for a revision of Slayer training standards for decades. About ten years ago, they managed to pry a concession out of the High Council: before we could revise standards, we needed to establish exactly how effective the current ones are. It was decided that we would conduct a... trial programme, to establish the necessary benchmarks. The key debate was over which factor makes Slayers more effective: our training programme, or the guidance of a Watcher. It was determined that three successive Slayers would be denied one or both of those factors, thereby measuring the impact of each on the length of their tenure."

Only the better part of four years developing his professional bearing and composure kept Wells from leaping the table and dismembering the man on the spot. So you picked fifteen-year-old girls out of the crowd, threw them into battle against all the Armies of Hell and Forces of Darkness, but deliberately withheld vital preparation and support from them to see what effect it had on their lifespan? You cold-blooded bastards!

"The first candidate was Called this time last year. The expectation was that without training or a Watcher, her tenure would be only a few weeks, and we would all be free to move on to the more meaningful portions of the experiment." Travers shifted uncomfortably. "No new Slayer has been Called since then, so we presume she's still active, but beyond that... we don't know anything."

"Oh?"

"Her Watcher was injured the night she was Called, and we used her medical situation as a justification for removing her from the issue and assigning her to other duties. The Watcher's son is a designated apprentice, and he was supposed to be sending us weekly reports. None have been received. We don't know whether he's simply not sending them, or there's been some sort of breakdown in our communications. Sending any sort of official party to investigate the situation would be seen as an attempt to skew the results of the experiment —"

"— but I can go skeg things out quiet-like. And even if someone twigs, you can say to the High Council that it doesn't count as interference by a Watcher since I am not, at this time, an active member of the Watcher's Council," Wells nodded, seeing where the old bastard was going.

"Precisely."

Wells held his peace for a long, long moment, then cocked his head thoughtfully. "Just for the sake of argument... what if I were to say 'no'?"

Travers smiled thinly. "I'm given to understand that your time in the Marines has been consistently above-average, if not exemplary. You have only what, six weeks left on your contract? It would be a shame to spend those weeks tied up in legal proceedings and getting a massive blot on your service-record because it came to light that you'd enlisted under false pretences... Wesley."

You just couldn't resist, could you? You could've appealed to my curiosity, my sense of duty, my dedication to the Council's ideals... but no, you had to break out the strongarm tactics. And people wonder why I don't often talk about my family. Again, none of this reached his expression. "Well, when you put it that way: who am I looking for, and where?"

"They operate out of Napier, New Zealand." Travers produced a seven-by-five photograph — a surveillance picture taken with a telephoto lens, by the looks of it — and tossed it onto the table. "Burn that when you're done with it."

"I'm not a complete idiot, Uncle Quentin," 'Wells' muttered sourly.

"And yet here you are," the older man smirked. "I'll find my own way out."

Despite best efforts, the glare sent after him did not prompt Travers to spontaneously combust mid-step. Wells took a long, deep breath to reassert his composure, then picked up the photograph. It was a waist-up capture of two teenagers, caught on the street in school uniform, scarlet V-neck jerseys and ties over white shirts. The girl was the taller by half a head, lean and panther-sleek, her scarlet V-neck jersey and white blouse straining a little to contain what Wells' Rodox-trained eyes judged to be a C-cup chest: she was roaring with laughter at something her companion had said, curly dark-auburn hair spilling over her shoulders and down her back, emerald-green eyes squinting in her mirth. The young man with her was also athletic of build, looking up at her with gentle amber eyes; she was ruffling his close-cropped blond hair with one hand, while he tolerated her 'assault' with the patient resignation of one long accustomed to such 'indignities'. The hand-written note on the back said { 1993-02-25 TATYANA ALEKSEYEVNA ZYRIANOVA (15) PETER MICHAEL MCKELLAR (14) }

He took a long moment to memorise the faces and names, then drew a Cohiba and a lighter from his tunic pocket. It was the work of moments to light the cigarillo, then set the photograph alight. Thankfully, the classroom hadn't been used so far that day, so there was no danger in dropping the burning picture into the rubbish-bin and leaving it to finish its combustion.

Sergeant Bardon was waiting outside the door when he emerged, and greeted him with an arched eyebrow. "Everything all right, Wells?"

"It was a family matter, but nothing urgent or tragic," 'Wells' assured him. "With me coming up on ENDEX, Uncle Quentin wanted to make sure I was thinking of the family business when I started considering my next move. Apparently one of their bureaucratic pissing-matches has had real-world consequences, and they want me to take a look, see if I can fix things."

"Are you gonna do it?"

"I was inclined to even before it was... made clear that complying would be in my better interests."

Bardon grunted. "What do they say: you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family?"

"More's the pity."

– – – – – – –​

St. George's Academy
Napier, New Zealand
11:31, Friday, 18 March, 1994

"Miss Zyrianova, this is almost routine by now. I'm starting to think I need to permanently reserve a seat for you outside my office!" Deputy Headmaster Barry Gordon was wearing an expression of deep exasperation.

For her part, Taz had experienced Mister Gordon's patented Daunting Glare too many times for it to be fully effective, even when she wasn't fully content with the righteousness of her conduct, so she met it steadily. (Well, more-or-less.) Next to her, Mama was equally calm.

On the other side of the room, Friedrich Fehrmann was shooting Taz the kind of wild-eyed looks one would expect from a boy trapped in a room with a rogue tiger. In all fairness, those looks were coming from behind the tape over his broken nose and the cotton-wool stuffing both nostrils and eyes already blackening very bloody nicely, thank you very much, as well as the blood still drying on his collar and shirt-front. (The school nurse doing good work, fast, was probably inevitable after the amount of practice Taz had sent their way in the last couple of years.) Next to him, Petra Fehrmann was doing her best to indignantly glare both Zyrianova women to death for the insult and assault rendered unto her precious little darling.

"What else was I supposed to do, Sir? He did grab a handful of my arse, and there are a dozen witnesses who'll swear to it," Taz shrugged unrepentantly. "Immediate consequences are the best way to curb stupidity like that." Besides, when you've been 5' 10" and 35C-24-34 since about your fourteenth birthday, high school is always going to be an exercise in discouraging hormone-poisoned fuck-knuckles.

"You have no sense of humour!" Mrs. Fehrmann declared stiffly, her voice thick with the Ostdeustcher accent of Dresden. "When I was your age, a boy feeling up your arsch was a compliment."

"And in this day and age, Mrs Fehrmann, it's called sexual assault," Gordon snapped, turning that basilisk gaze on her. "The next time Friedrich lays hands on a fellow student in that fashion on school property or on school time, he'll have to explain his actions to a police officer. And they can't take a joke as well as I can."

"My father is with Stormhawk Security – he is the police!" protested the highly-congested Friedrich.

"No. He. Is. Not." Gordon enunciated clearly. "I don't care how much of a big-shot he used to be with the East German Volkspolizei, I don't care for the uniform he wears, and I most certainly don't care for him carrying a machine-carbine on the streets of my country. Here in New Zealand, your father is nothing but a security guard. Stormhawk Security has no mandate or legal authority to investigate, arrest, or interrogate, and they — and you — are just as subject to the laws of New Zealand as any other person in the country. Which means you, Friedrich, are going to have to learn how to accept 'No!' as an answer."

"B-but what about her!?" the boy continued, pointing at Taz. "She threatened to stab me!"

Seeing Gordon's gaze swinging back onto her, Taz raised a finger in respectful correction. "My exact words to him, Sir, were 'Fuckwits like you are why my Babusya Daryna taught me how to use a knife when I was six.' An observation, not a threat."

Barry Gordon had only recently started wearing reading-glasses; this was his first chance to look at someone over them, and he made impressive work of it. "Semantics, Miss Zyrianova."

"Misha likes to tell me 'details do make a difference', Sir."

"Not as much as you or he seem to think," he sighed, pausing to shed the glasses and massage his eyes for a moment before returning to his work. "Mister Fehrmann, you have grossly violated the School Rules regarding conduct, particularly that of treating fellow students with respect. You will serve in-school suspension every day next week, including being barred from all school-sponsored activities. While I cannot make any demands of your parents, I would recommend compounding your suspension with corresponding restrictions at home for the same period, to make the lesson stick."

"But – but the Regional Championships are on Tuesday!" Friedrich sputtered.

"'No school activities', Mister Fehrmann — you're barred from participating. The athletics team will just have to manage without you," Gordon said frostily. "As Miss Zyrianova says, your conduct has consequences."

"And so will mine, I expect," Taz said evenly. "No matter what he did to me, I still belted him."

"Just so, Miss Zyrianova," Gordon nodded. "In light of the provocation you suffered, I must admit that your counter-assault on Mister Fehrmann was somewhat justifiable, but it was also excessive, and still an unacceptable breach of the rules against violence. Lunchtime detention, every day next week."

Taz nodded respectfully. "Fair enough, Sir."

"Mister Fehrmann, return to class. Mrs Fehrmann, thank you for coming. Please be aware that if Friedrich doesn't show up for his suspension, his absence will be investigated, and any days of suspension he 'misses' owing to 'illness' or 'family obligations' will be made up at a later point. Miss Zyrianova, Mrs Zyrianova, please stay for a moment."

"You might want to change your shirt and get that one soaking as soon as you can, Fred," Taz suggested, as the two Dresdeners rose. "If you give that blood until the end of school to set, a normal wash will have a hard go of shifting the stains."

All that earned her was another indignant glare from Petra, and a slightly baffled look from Friedrich.

I was only trying to be helpful, the Slayer shrugged to herself. Heaven knows I have enough practice dealing with bloodstained clothing.

Once the door closed behind the two former East Germans, Gordon turned that exasperated gaze on Taz again. "Miss Zyrianova, your propensity to react with your fists makes up far too much of my work-load."

"Sir, if you're going to tell me to just 'grin and bear it' when some randy fuck-knuckle puts his hand down my blouse or up my skirt –"

"That's not what I mean, Miss Zyrianova, and you bloody well know it!"

"Tell that to Dahlia Everett. Sir."

Gordon took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "That was before I took over as Deputy Headmaster (Pastoral), Miss Zyrianova."

"I'm aware of that, Sir. And Mister Vincent always struck me as more focused on protecting the school than the students. He may be gone, but that doesn't change the fact that the school very carefully didn't lift a finger against Dahlia's attackers — alleged attackers" she correctly acidly "before she 'disappeared', and neither of those boys ever went in front of the police."

"And yet, some would argue they received robust punishment nonetheless. I'd still like to know how William Reisma managed to get onto school grounds overnight – much less fall off the exact same section of the roof four times in the space of an hour." Five months after his 'misadventure', and the week-long medical coma that had resulted, the boy was still undergoing physiotherapy and rehabilitation in Wellington Hospital. During his torpor, 'parties unknown' had taken a cricket bat to the legs of his co-accused, Nicholas Richards; he was off crutches now, but like most New Zealand boys he had once dreamed of being selected to play for the All Blacks, and after so much surgical work to reconstruct one ankle and the other knee, he'd be lucky if he ever again played recreational rugby, much less reached the professional level. "But, we're getting off-point. I don't have any patience or sympathy for idiots who think they can get away with sexual harassment, Miss Zyrianova, and unlike many other female students you have been... refreshingly firm... about 'dealing' with such incidents yourself, immediately and directly. The thing is, while on a personal level I applaud your willingness to stand up for yourself, in the eyes of many of the faculty, it's left you looking like a hot-head who tries to solve all her problems with violence! Some of the staff are already making a case for expelling you, and every time you clobber a fellow student — regardless of how justified you might feel, or actually be! — all you do is hand those people more ammunition. I understand your... reluctance... to leave the enforcement of discipline in the hands of the school system, but it is our job. Let us do it. And work on your self-control, while you're at it."

I can guess the name of one of the ringleaders in the 'expel her!' faction! "Then bloody well do the job, Sir," she challenged unwaveringly. "And let us students see you doing it. From what I've seen, you seem to be off to a good start, but to a lot of the rest of us right now, you're just another Mister Vincent, and the blokes with grabby hands think they can get away with whatever they like. Especially if they wear a First XV blazer, or their Dad wears Stormhawk black-and-tan."

"There is another problem," Elena Zyrianova added, reaching into her bag as she spoke for the first time since she'd come into the office. "The harassment of Tatyana is only going to increase over the next year or so. When I was going through today's incoming shipments at 'Peaches and Cream', I found this."

What now? Taz wanted to sigh... then blinked in bemusement as her mother laid a glossy magazine on Gordon's desk. "Chyort voz'mi!"

Gordon stopped short himself, then slowly picked up the magazine and examined the cover closely, visibly comparing the face of the (topless) covergirl to the teenager sitting opposite his desk. "Bloody Nora," he murmured. "The eyes are the wrong colour, the chin's not quite right, the skin is too tanned, her hair too light... but otherwise the resemblance is... striking. Do you have an older sister, Miss Zyrianova?"

"No, she does not," Elena said flatly. "She had three older brothers; the Soviet Union killed all three in 1986."

"I'm sorry," he said, and actually meant it. He passed the magazine back to Elena with a rueful expression. "I'm, ah, familiar with that imprint's work, so I daren't check the pictorials inside, but I presume the likeness is, ah, in more than just the face?"

"It is." Elena tucked the magazine back into her bag and spread her hands helplessly. "It is not an exact match, but there is a close resemblance. And yes, the pictorial is as explicit as you would expect from that publisher, considering it features two young women and four men. There is a variant cover, in English, showing that woman's face in close-up, but considering it is just as explicit as the shots within... well, I thought this one was sufficient to make the point."

"Your discretion is appreciated," Gordon said dryly. "So it seems your daughter has a doppelgänger in the, ah, 'adult modelling' profession. Do you know anything about her?"

"From little I can find out, her performing name is 'Draghixa Laurent'; she is a Frenchwoman, naturalised as a child after her parents emigrated from what used to be Yugoslavia." Anyone who felt inclined could watch the death-throes of that former nation on the nightly news, assuming they could keep track of all the moving parts. "She seems to have started performing only in the last few months. I have no idea how many shoots she has done so far, or how many she will do in future, but she appears in at least three titles that are already on our shelves at 'Peaches'. The 'tyranny of distance'* being what it is, I am certain there are more on the way."

"Charming," Taz huffed, massaging her own eyes with one hand. If they're already in Mama's inventory, the video-rental places and bookstores will be seeing them any day now. And since so many boys here — not to mention a fair few of the 'adult' males! — are basically walking stiffies with no brain-cells, they won't see the differences between me and 'Draghixa', or they won't care. Which means they'll get even more grabby and insistent, either because they think that I'm her, or that I can be their surrogate for her!

This is exactly what I 'needed' to top off all the other bullshit going on in my life! She gave Gordon an apologetic look. "Honestly, Sir, I'll do my utmost to restrain myself, but... if this goes the way I think it will, you might want to put my name on one of those chairs in the hallway, after all."

Gordon met her gaze, and things that couldn't be said aloud passed between them. Especially if a certain teacher gets in behind this and pushes as hard as he can.

Oh, he will – nothing surer, Sir. 'Mister' Grantham isn't going to pass up an opportunity like this!

Just why is he so determined to nobble you, Miss Zyrianova?

Taz shrugged. If you ever figure that out, Sir, please, explain it to me! But we both know he is firmly fixed on driving my marks into the ground — within the guidelines, of course! — and he'd love to see me chucked out of this school. "Is that all, Sir?"

"For now. Elena, thank you for coming — again — and for bringing this 'dopplegänger issue' to my attention. I'll do what I can to get out in front of it, but I can't make any promises. And you need to get back to class, Miss Zyrianova."

"Yes, Sir." As she reached the doorway, Taz paused and glanced over her shoulder. "Sir, you do realise that Ernst Fehrmann was probably not in the Volkspolizei, right?"

"Indeed, Miss Zyrianova," Both were morally certain that he'd been with the Grenztruppen, or possibly even the Stasi, before the Berlin Wall came down "but without proof, I can't do anything about it. Besides, he's a Stormhawk, now – he no longer has that degree of power."

"Does he know that, Sir?"

"... Dismissed, Miss Zyrianova."

– – – – – – –​

Somewhat predictably, the weather had gone from 'cloudy' to 'outright foul' just before the lunch-bell rang, forcing the majority of the student body to remain indoors for their break. In the cafeteria/tuck-shop, formerly the hostel canteen, most of the tables were filled by various-sized clumps of students in scarlet jumpers, mostly eating or chattering away over their food. A couple of games of Tabletop Rugby had broken out, and off in one corner, the weekly game of $2 Lolly Poker was well under way. No-one was paying too much attention to the tall girl with the dark red-mahogany-coloured French braid who was standing near the outdoors entrance, emerald eyes staring unseeing not out the front windows, not at them or the rain steadily spattering against the panes, but somehow past them, at somewhere else, somewhen else…

The perimeter fence lay almost a hundred metres behind them, almost lost to sight; ahead of them, the edge of the airfield runway, and the hangars and buildings beyond, were visible only because of their lights. Between the post-midnight darkness, her NVGs rendering the world as a grainy field in shades of green, and the steady rain further blurring everything, Taz doubted she could see more than fifty metres... but that miserable visibility cut both ways. With only a little luck, the Stormhawk sentries patrolling 'Camp Waikato' would be completely blind to their presence, and if they didn't twig until the pair of them were long gone? So much the better.

Even from only a few metres away, her view of her best friend (and lover, as of a few days ago) was fuzzy, but she could still make out Misha's lifchik and the suppressed Marlin .45 carbine in his hands, twins to her own. He'd hand-signalled for a halt a moment ago, crouching to examine something. He cradled his rifle across his body in one arm as the hand brushed grass away from... a rectangular stone, about half a metre square? His head turned her way, and even behind his balaclava and camera-like PVS-7, she could tell he was frowning in puzzlement – and concern. "Rune markings. They look magical," he breathed, barely audible over the rain. "I think it's some kind of ward-stone."

"What, like a perimeter alarm?" she responded, equally softly.

"Probably. It'd explain why we didn't see any bunkers or fire-pits between the watch-towers," he noted... then added sourly, "Well, we're stuffed. Even if I knew how to suppress the thing, it's probably linked to others, which means they'd call in the clans when this one dropped out of the network."

"We can't just give up on this!" she hissed. "This is their bloody headquarters – there's got to be something here that can tell us what they're up to, or who we should be having a go at!"

"That fence is marked 'RESTRICTED AREA – KEEP OUT', and I'm pretty sure they mean it!" he insisted. "We. Have. To. Abort. This is over!"

She drew breath to speak again, keep arguing to press on —

Kra-kra-krak!

— a fiery thump against her back, just over her left hip. She glanced down: there was a hole the size of a fifty-cent piece in the left-front of her woolly-pully jersey, below the level of her lifchik, with dark liquid welling from it.

"Oh. That... that is not good."

Misha was snapping his head around, his rifle rising to his shoulder, trying to find the shooter —

Kra-kra-krak!

— then jerked and grunted, his Marlin falling loose to the grass.

"Taz? Taz, it's me. Y'right?" A gentle hand touched her elbow.

She jerked back to here-and-now, eyes re-focusing on the cafeteria windows before her. Only knowing that voice let her clamp down on her reflexes' instinct to maim the person who'd startled her. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she turned to smile at her boyfriend, not quite as reassuringly as she thought. "I'm all right," she assured him quietly. "Just..."

"Yeah, I guessed," Peter Michael McKellar nodded, understanding in his amber eyes. He slipped his arms around her midriff to gently, reassuringly draw her close; Taz sighed and rested her chin atop his gingery-blond head as he nuzzled into her shoulder. "I'm OK. You're OK."

She dropped her arms down onto his shoulder and returned the squeeze for a long moment, savouring his closeness, his aliveness. And if anyone thinks me being six inches taller than him makes moments like this 'look a little silly', they can get stuffed!

Eventually, he let go and stepped back a little, keeping hold of her hands... but also glancing to one side, towards the tuck-shop in the corner that had once been the kitchen/server-over for the hostel students. "So... Miss Geoghan did pay up this morning, yeah?" he asked hopefully.

She laughed, in her inimitable full-throated style. "Yes, she did. A hundred dollars, across the whole class."

"Well, then, why are we still standing here? Day like this, a good, hot lunch sounds like just what the doctor ordered."

The rain had forced most of the students to find spots indoors to eat and while away the lunch-hour, so most of the tables in the cafeteria (formerly the hostel canteen) were occupied by students in scarlet jumpers in groups of varying sizes, most of them chattering away. Nonetheless, Taz spotted one table left vacant and pointed it out with her eyes and chin. As they started across the cafeteria, her left hand in his right, she gave her boyfriend a slightly sheepish sidelong look. "Yeah. Um. Speaking of lunches...."

Misha turned a gaze of long-suffering indulgence on her. The wild-eyed looks and urgent whispered conversations that were following them suddenly made a lot more sense. "What did you do, and how much detention did it cost you?" he sighed resignedly.

"... lunch-times for all of next week? Freddy Fehrmann put his hands where they didn't belong, and I, uh, kind of smacked him over for it. But Mister Gordon did give him a week of in-school suspension for conduct unbecoming, too, so it's more-or-less fair."

Misha sighed again, then lifted her hand so he could kiss her knuckles. "I love you, Taz. For all that you drive me doolally a lot of the time, I love you. But please, can you try not to draw so much attention from the Sturmfalke Jugend? We can't do our job if their Dads decide we need to 'disappear' for constantly handing their kids hidings, no matter how much they ask for it!"

"It might not be that easy." As they reached their chosen table, they both slipped off their schoolbags and dropped them into chairs to mark their seats before heading for the queue. Taz glanced about to check who was close enough to overhear; with no Stormhawk dependents within earshot, she decided Ukrainian would be safe enough for privacy. « Mama brought the latest issue of Private magazine to the meeting as evidence of a looming problem. Apparently, there's a new French girl named "Draghixa" just starting out in the blue-movie trade, she looks enough like me to be my sister... and there are enough randy idiots around here that someone spotting the resemblance is only a matter of time. Mister Gordon says he'll do what he can, but there's going to be more bullshit antics from now on. »

He arched a brow at her, mildly intrigued. « How close is the resemblance? »

That got him an old-fashioned look. « If you want to compare for yourself, Mama will probably loan you a copy of the magazine for a night or two, you dirty-minded bugger. »

« I probably will take a look, mostly out of curiosity, » he admitted, « but Taz, there is no "comparison" to you. »

"Eh?"

He actually half-chuckled before stopping again, turning to face her, and slipping his arms back about her waist, looking (up) into her eyes with utter certainty and sincerity. « Why would I waste my time reading a magazine or watching a movie starring this "Draghixa" woman and fantasising about being with her... when I can hold the reality that is you in my arms and tell you the simple truth: that whatever knock-offs might be out there, there is only one of you. And to me, you are the most sublime creature on the face of this Earth. »

"... oh," Taz finally managed, in a very tiny, shaken voice.

"I mean it, love," he added softly. "You remember the first thing I ever said to you?"

Another image flashed to mind: herself at nine, on her first day at a New Zealand school, standing in the middle of the schoolyard, facing off with a knot of five bigger and older would-be bullies who'd thought it'd be funny to steal the 'Commie's' school-bag as 'payback for Chernobyl'. Glaring at her tormentors with a split lip and clenched fists, futilely wishing she had more English — and the ehrendolch Aunt Sofiya had given her. Two boys from her new class, neither of whom she'd even said a word to yet, just appearing at either shoulder; Misha at her right, facing the goons in an aikijutsu stance, masking his fear with a wolfish snarl; Danny Gulczyński to her left, openly scared but gamely lifting his fists in a sloppy version of a boxer's guard. Jenny Mallard and Kelly Hikurangi running along the colonnade off to the side, looking for a teacher.

"Yes, I do," she admitted fondly. "Not that you've ever told me what it meant. I still haven't managed to teach myself Sindarin." Hell, just remembering to use English letters instead of Cyrillic ones is Grantham's main excuse for failing my assignments!

"It was Aragorn's oath to Frodo: 'If by my life or death I can protect you, I will. My sword is yours.' Taz, I fell for you the moment I laid eyes on you, all right? I am yours, first, last, always, forever. Even when you drive me around the twist, which is pretty much all the time," he added ruefully. "I couldn't change that any more than I could stop the rising of the sun. Even if I wanted to. And I don't. Can't imagine I ever will."

She had to swallow twice to clear the lump in her throat. "... did you practice that little speech?"

"Why would I need to rehearse saying the truth?" he asked blankly.

The School Rules had very specific things to say about 'public displays of affection' on-campus, and their embrace was already well beyond them, but right now Taz couldn't give a single damn. She cupped her lover's face in her hands, leaned down a little, and laid a deep, lingering, tender kiss on his mouth, which he eagerly returned in kind. (This, of course, drew catcalls and hoots from the surrounding students, but the news of Freddy Fehrmann's fate had spread fast, so the hecklers were fewer and quieter than they could have been, and mostly at a judicious distance.) "I love you, Misha."

"I'd bloody well hope so, after a kiss like that," he chuckled, his voice a little hoarse. "I think we'd better order, before someone starts thinking you're about to drag me into an empty classroom."

"There's an idea," she teased, eyeing him speculatively.

"And if we got caught, we'd get expelled for certain!"

"Are you saying it wouldn't be worth it?"

"I wouldn't go that far...."

Carnal temptation and simple prudence were having a brawl for the ages in the back of Taz's head. Before either could gain the upper hand, though, her stomach growled loudly, and she sighed as hunger of another kind declared the bout suspended. "Lunch first," she conceded. "We can think about dessert later."

"Oy: Gomez! Morticia!" This snooty little interjection came from a Fifth-Form girl at the table by their elbow. "What're you two doing queuing up to buy your lunches? Aren't you always going on about how skint you are?"

"Special occasion, Helen," Misha drawled. "Y'know how your Home Ec. class is doing rabbit cacciatore in last period today?" He included Taz with a nod.

And once again, thank you ever so bloody much for that, NZQA! the Slayer sourly noted to herself. Losing all my Fifth Form exam results over the holidays, instead of marking them? I'm supposed to be in the Sixth Form with Misha! It's not like keeping track of paperwork is a bureaucrat's job, or anything!

"Well, yeah – we all had to cough up four bucks each for the meat!" Helen complained, glaring at Taz. "All except her! And we'll have to stay late to finish it!"

"Right now, rabbit goes for about twenty bucks a kilo in most butchers' shops. It was only four dollars each because Miss Geoghan got a special deal," Misha pointed out. He gave Helen a crooked little smile and pointedly hugged Taz around the waist. "From the people who shot the rabbits over the Christmas holidays."

The queue moved on before Helen could finish processing that, and Taz offered a blue ten-dollar bill and a handful of silver 'shrapnel' to the student-volunteer manning the register, pointing out their selections in the various glass-fronted display-cabinets. "One steak-and-cheese pie, one chicken-and-veg, two long cream doughnuts, and two cans of L&P†, please?"

"Comes to... twelve dollars twenty."

Once their food had been duly tonged into its paper bags, Misha took his share and gave her a mildly curious glance as they made their way back to their table. "You're only having one steak-and-cheese?" he teased gently. "Small portions, today. Something put you off your feed?"

Mock-scowling, she set her canned fizzy on the table and used the freed hand to flick his ear in punishment. "Leaving room for later, smart-arse."

"(Ow!) I know, I know – we've been planning this all week. You're not the only one who's looking forward to it." Misha rubbed his stinging ear for a moment, then sat down and reached into his schoolbag. "Speaking of 'looking forward' to things? I was reading ahead for Japanese, and I found something, thought it might get your attention. Y'know how you're always rabbiting on about the Vikings and their influence on the Kievan Rus'?"

"You found something about Vikings... in a book for Japanese class?" Taz shook her head, trying to get her head around that juxtaposition.

"Bit of a shock to me, too," he noted blandly, opening the history-text in question and turning it so they could both see the page.

The densely-packed columns of characters might as well have been Martian to Taz, but the woodcut illustration facing it was clear enough: despite the Japanese styling, it was unmistakeably a group of Norse warriors in maille and helmets, putting shields, axes, and spears to their bloody purposes. Despite the best efforts of the few defending samurai, the raiders were sacking a village, slaughtering its inhabitants, and looting whatever caught their eye.

Misha ran his hand down the page as he summarised. "They showed up in 1594 and sacked a coastal village just down the road from Yokosuka Castle, in Tōtōmi Province. The area was under the stewardship of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's right-hand men, but Hideyoshi had invaded Korea a couple of years beforehand, and his forces were kind of over-stretched. The QRF from Yokosuka Castle didn't make it on-scene until morning, and of course the raiders were long gone by then, but they left plenty of witnesses, and even a couple of the local samurai survived fighting them to tell the story of what happened. Apparently, some of the raiders accepted straight-up duels with the samurai and abided by the results, so one of the samurai even had some loot to show for it: what sounds like the man's byrnie, spangenhelm, skeggøx and shield. It's specifically noted that when he killed that Viking, the man withered to a skeleton inside his gear, then the bones crumbled to dust." He arched his brows significantly.

Taz met his gaze and nodded, taking his implication. She reached for her pie and took a deep bite, giving herself a moment to order her thoughts and trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her midsection. "When was this? Exactly."

"Converting the date? Evening of March 23rd​, 1594."

Twenty-third of March? "That's Wednesday."

"Yeah, it is. But wait, there's more!" he said, in his best infomercial voice, flipping the pages a little. "They came back and hit the exact same village, a hundred years to the day after their first 'visit'. By then, the Nishio Clan were in charge of the area, and the village magistrate was one of theirs: in all, he only had four samurai and a couple of dozen ashigaru, and they were a little outside of town when the attack started, but they managed to catch the raiders as they pulled back to their ship. The samurai went at four of the Vikings in head-on duels, and three of them lost. Funnily enough, the account specifically says that the magistrate wielded an axe, forged by a smith from the Muramasa school in imitation of the skeggøx captured the previous century; the leader of the raiders, a 'huge man with a sheaf of yellow hair', claimed that axe as a prize of war. He even gave his name before he left: 'Shutainbyorun', which might be something like 'Steinbjørn'."

Taz had been told that many Slayers experienced prophetic dreams. She never had; if that psychic gift was part of the Slayer lineage, it appeared to have skipped her. What she did have was bone-deep trust in her own intuition, and right now, it was screaming at her. « Do me a favour? Try and find any more references to these jokers over the centuries. If they're gribblies of some sort, and they've got a thing for hundred-year anniversaries – »

« Way ahead of you, love. I've already hit-up Colonel Mulcahy over at the chapel, to see if he can tap into the Church records — if these are 'Mark One' Vikings, they probably got their start by going after the British Isles. It's a long shot, but it's the shot we've got, » he shrugged ruefully, setting the book aside to finally address his own (cooling) pie.

And there's no fucking point trying to ask the British Council of Watchers to do the same thing, Taz reflected bitterly, turning her own attention back to her food. Cerian fucked off to Hong Kong right after the night she Called me, and even with Misha mailing them weekly AARs, we've never heard even the slightest peep out of the bastards! At least when the Red Army conscripted people, they sent officers out into the field with them!

Misha looked up from finishing his pie, and as emerald eyes met amber across the table, they shared silent understanding — and resignation. I just hope the Padre and his people can work fast. The twenty-third's not that far away... and more to the point, it's a Wednesday. From what Misha's found in the few Watcher Diaries Cerian left behind, most other Slayers have found most of their trouble on Tuesdays, but for some reason, every time a coconut, when things go pear-shaped around here, it's either late-night on Thursday, or in prime-time on Wednesday.

Maybe it's because Napier's a Nexus point? She gave a mental shrug. Or it could just have something to do with time-zones? Eh – who knows, who cares? It is what it is. Gotta survive the 'what' to worry about the 'why'.

– – – – – – – ​

As her class filed into the Home Ec. kitchens, Taz took a single glance at the troubled look on Miss Geoghan's normally-cheerful face and knew right away that things had come unstuck. Yet again.

As soon as everyone was inside and seated, the teacher turned a sombre gaze on her students. "I know everyone was looking forward to the practical for rabbit cacciatore today, but I'm afraid it won't be happening." At the general murmur of disappointment (Taz kept a stony-faced peace; something told her the worst was still coming), Geoghan waved them to silence. "The rabbits came in OK this morning," she began, her eyes flicking to Taz for an instant, "but they still needed to thaw a little, so before I went to lunch, I covered them and left them on the bench. When I came back at the end of lunch-time... someone had snuck in, dumped them all in the rubbish-bin, and poured floor cleaner over the whole lot. They're completely ruined."

That provoked a proper outcry, mostly variations on an outraged "Aw, what!?" Sitting next to Taz, her cooking-module partner Steve Lafaele — six-foot-two of hulking Samoan beefcake — was even more specific: "Who would do something like that, Miss?"

Geoghan avoided his gaze, and Taz's eyes narrowed. "T-that's not the important part," their teacher said weakly. "But we can rework things. Taz, can you get more rabbits by next Thursday?"

"No, Miss — those were the last of the ones we shot over the Christmas holidays. We're not going hunting again until Easter." Which is too late, since that's also the end-of-term break, and we'll be moving on from Cooking to another module in Term 2, she didn't need to add.

"I was afraid of that," Geoghan sighed. "Well, I've got a little room in my budget for things like this. We can switch the recipe over to chicken cacciatore instead and give it another try in Third Period on Thursday, if everyone's willing to stay into lunch-time to finish it. For now, well, I know some of you skipped lunch looking forward to this, or wanted to take the leftovers home, so... every group, take a few minutes to discuss your orders, then give them to me: I'll ring up Pizza Hut."

Cheers and excited chatter met that... in most quarters. As the other groups started 'discussing' their orders, some with a great deal of vigour and volume, Taz snagged the teacher's sleeve as she went past. "Miss: do you have any idea who sabotaged us? Or for what reason?"

Geoghan wouldn't meet her eyes. "I-I can't say who. And I couldn't guess why."

"My question wasn't 'if you could say', Miss... but you gave me answer enough." Taz let her go, then rested her elbows on the table in front of her and buried her face in her hands, hoping it would muffle the scream she just couldn't hold in any longer. "BLYAD!!! SUKA PETUKH!!"

Mister fucking Grantham! He just can't let me have anything even looking like a fair go, can he? What the fuck is wrong with his life that destroying me is such a fixation for him!? She wondered, fighting back hot tears of frustration. He's had it in for me since last year, and I'll be fucked if I can figure out why!

"Jeez, Taz: y'right?" Steve asked gently.

"No." It was somewhere between a sigh and an exhausted groan. She was distantly aware of his hand hovering over her shoulder, and that her scream had killed the chatter and turned every eye in the room their way. "Maybe in a few minutes, Steve-oh, but right now, I am very much not bloody 'all right'."

"Aw, shit, that's right!" the would-be chef remembered. "This was gonna be tonight's tea for your whole family, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was. Emphasis on 'was'," she sighed.

He cocked his head, eyes narrowing. "You know who did it."

"'Knowing' and 'proving' are different things, Steve-oh. Anyway, you're better off staying out of it." She still couldn't find the energy to lift her head out of her hands. "Look, I'll be right. Just... give me a minute or two?" Besides, I've got to come up with a new plan for tea tonight and basically rearrange my entire fucking evening because 'Tovarishch Tommy Tarakan' wanted to play silly-buggers with a bottle of Handy Andy....

One of the unfortunate downsides of Slayer hearing was that you could overhear all kinds of things, including conversations people thought were private. At the next table, Helen Morris, Teresa Willis, Jane Karaitiana and Julie Beard were whispering back-and-forth.

("What's wrong with Morticia? We just got out of our schoolwork for this period and having to stay late to finish up, and we're getting a free feed in class time! Why's she spitting the dummy?")

("Who knows? It's probably some kind of Russian thing.")

("Maybe she actually enjoys cooking?")

("Yeah, right! She's into martial-arts and motorbikes and Army stuff and that weird D&D-magic crap that Misha keeps talking about. No way she likes cooking!")

("God knows what she sees in a short little dweeb like him, anyway.")

Helen paused for an instant as something occurred to her, turning her gaze on Taz. "Hey, Morticia! Miss Geoghan bought those rabbits from you, right? So when we had to cough up our four bucks each, we were paying her so she could pay you?"

"Correct," Taz nodded, finally lowering her hands.

"So how's about giving us all our money back?"

"That's not how it works, Helen," she sighed patiently. "I delivered, she paid, end of. Anything that happens after delivery is out of my hands."

"Aw, c'mon, what're you gonna do with it anyway?" Julie sneered. "I mean, you bought your lunch for once, so what's the plan for the rest – you gonna go down to your Mum's shop and buy a vibrator, so you can finally get what Misha can't give you?"

Under the table, Taz's left hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. Julie, did you not hear about what I did to Freddy, or are you just fucking stupid? But somehow, she took a deep breath, then kept her voice light and level. "No, I'm going to take it home and give it straight to Mum. So she can pay last month's power bill."

That took the other three girls aback; Julie merely looked confused. "Wait: your Mum is half-owner of the business that flogs condoms, dildos, blue movies, and dirty magazines to the whole Napier-Hastings region... and she can't keep up with her household bills?"

Taz gave her the look she usually turned on her nephew when he'd done something especially 'eight-year-old'. "Misha's monthly board didn't get paid on schedule. Mum basically has five of us to look after, three of us teenagers, so we're up shit creek if Cerian's cheque doesn't make the trip from Hong Kong on-time. Which it doesn't, half the time, because she's a thoughtless bitch that way." You'd think someone who goes around throwing knives at girls' heads would accept the chance of getting Jack Burton'd was just an occupational hazard, but nah, nobody ever teaches Watchers how to take a bloody joke! "Why d'you think I took Home Ec.? It gives me a chance to fix clothes and cook meals and help stretch the money a little."

Jane 'accidentally' stepped on Julie's foot. "... I didn't realise youse jokers were that hard-up."

"We manage. Usually."

– – – – – – –​

Last bell, and almost everybody was scattering to the four winds as usual. Misha was leaning against the outside wall of the Science/Home-Ec wing next to the door, waiting for Taz, a practice they'd worked out early in the year. When she emerged from the building — positively storming out, with a face like a bayonet charge — he caught up to her in three steps and did his best to match her pace. "Bloody hell, Taz, you look like a murder in search of a victim! What's happened now?"

She glanced over and registered his presence, actually slowing a little to let him keep up, then explained the situation in brief, pungent terms, liberally garnished with multilingual profanity.

"Ah, for fuck's sake," he muttered. We really need to see about setting the Ministry of Education on that prick.... "Look, Taz, if I hurry, I can get to the BNZ before four o'clock and get this money stuff sorted. You go home and try to calm down, OK? I'll pick up some stuff on the way back and we can do something else for tea. What d'you say to fettucine alfredo and garlic bread?"

"Sounds great," she sighed, still visibly fuming but giving him a lopsided smile. "You really are too good to me."

– – – – – – –​

Hullo, what's this? The usual flurry of scarlet-uniformed students were pouring from the gates of St. George's Academy, some running, some strolling and chatting, but one of them in particular had caught the eye of Constable Trevor Scott: a small blond lad who was nonetheless moving towards the CBD with distinct purpose – and at a high rate of knots. Let's see what that's about.

Scott pulled his patrol vehicle into an open car-park — a rare find in itself, at this hour on a Friday — and straightened his custodian helmet before emerging from the vehicle. They say we're supposed to be getting peaked caps soon, instead of these bloody Victorian relics. Can't happen too soon for me! He noted lightly, before approaching his objective. "G'day, mate. You right, there?"

The boy slowed a little, but didn't stop. "Yeah, just gotta get to the BNZ before the close of transactions. Got some bills to pay."

That made Scott blink. He's running off to pay bills? The kid can't be more than sixteen! He glanced back at the Falcon, then at the once-more darkening skies, and shrugged. "Easy solved. Get in, I'll give you a lift."

The boy almost wilted in relief. "You're a bloody lifesaver."

"'Safe Communities Together', right?" Scott smirked, nodding to the motto on the back of the car.

The boy conceded that with a chuckle as he dropped into the passenger seat, holding his bag in his lap.

As he pulled back into traffic - and flicked on the wipers to deal with the first spatters of fresh rain - Scott gave his passenger a quick sidelong glance. "You're a bit young to be worrying about bills, aren't you?"

"Mum's overseas forty-six weeks of the year, so I board with a foster family," the lad shrugged. "She pays the board by cheque every month, but sometimes it gets hung up in the mail, and when it does, it throws off all the maths."

"Been there, done that," Scott nodded feelingly.

As they came past Clive Square, the boy glanced in the wing-mirror – and suddenly he was a lot less relaxed. "Company!"

Scott flicked a quick look himself. A tan Isuzu Trooper with a stooping-hawk shield and { SECURITY } emblazoned across the bonnet was right behind them. Bloody Stormhawks, always sticking their beaks in when they're not wanted. "Ah, they're probably just heading up-town. Ignore 'em, and they'll go away."

"That hasn't been my experience, sir," was the sour mutter.

Thankfully, it wasn't that much further to the corner of Dickens and Hastings Streets, where the Bank of New Zealand branch stood. Again, the fates favoured them with not only one open parking-spot, but three in a row, and Scott pulled into the last of them with a smile. "And here you are, squire!"

"Cheers, mate! You're a legend," the boy grinned, ducking out the door. As he did, the Isuzu pulled in behind them, all four doors flying open almost as one.

Then things started happening really fast.

As Scott's former passenger dashed for the overhead cover offered by the canopy around the BNZ entrance, which was sadly only half the width of the footpath, a quartet of Stormhawks in tan uniforms and black tactical vests descended from the four-wheel-drive, weapons in hand. Passersby shrieked and scattered in panic, men, women, and children alike. A corner-of-the-eye glimpse warned the boy, who very wisely went very still — and increasingly pale and wide-eyed — as the lead man thundered up to him, centred the kid's face in his shotgun's sights, and racked the slide. "Get on the ground, asshole!"

Scott goggled at this for a second or so, trying to credit what he was seeing, before he snatched the Falcon's door open and shot to his feet. "What the fuck are you doing!?"

"Showing your hillbilly ass the proper way to reassert positive control of a fleeing suspect," the Stormer chortled sidelong, water dripping off the bill of his field-cap, then refocused on the kid again. "I said, 'Get on the fucking ground'!"

Stomach roiling in terror — only God knew what was going through this lunatic's mind right now! — and mindful that his only armament was a truncheon, Scott kept his hands in view and slowly stepped around the front of the parked Falcon, deliberately placing himself in the idiot's field of fire. "He's not a suspect, John Wayne. I gave him a lift uptown so he could pay his bills before the close of business!"

Oh-crap glances went between the three Stormers flanking the shotgunner, and their SMGs started to droop away from the firing-positions they'd never quite reached. Their point-man, on the other hand, simply blinked in confusion. "What the fuck? Since when are cops a fuckin' taxi service!?"

Scott stepped a little closer, then slowly raised one hand to grasp the barrel of the shotgun and gently push it up and out of line with the still-frozen schoolkid. "It's called community policing. You might've heard of it since you came to New Zealand... Corporal O'Dwyer?" he added acidly, finally spotting the double chevrons on the idiot's sleeves. "Now will you arseholes put the bloody guns away and let me handle my job my bloody way!?"

O'Dwyer finally lowered his weapon, his expression the picture of sullen reluctance. "Not like you shitbirds would know anything about guns, since you don't carry 'em."

"It also means we don't bloody think with them!" Scott snapped back, then dismissed the idiot that quickly and turned to the lad who'd been the focus of the whole debacle. "Are you all right, son?"

Still white-faced and trembling a little, the lad raised a finger for forbearance, ignored the rain to cross the few steps to the side of the Isuzu with exacting over-precision, braced both hands on the framing — and then, with impeccable aim, up-chucked all over the Stormhawk shield emblazoned on the passenger door. When he could bring up no more, he gasped for breath, then managed, "There. That's better."

Scott didn't bother hiding his smirk. I believe Sparhawk would say, 'I have great hopes for that young man and his sense of the appropriate'.

One of O'Dwyer's offsiders, a cornfed young brunet with { MILLER } on his name-strip, handed the kid an unopened litre-bottle of Coke to wash out his mouth. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about this," he offered, with genuine contrition in his voice and face. "I think sometimes O'Dwyer forgets he's not Detroit PD anymore."

The kid gave him a flat look, rinsed-and-swished with a mouthful of the offered cola, then quite deliberately spat it out — right into the centre of the already-defiled Stormhawk shield on the Isuzu's door. Miller flushed and dropped his eyes in shame; O'Dwyer bristled afresh.

"On your bike, son. Pay those bills while you've still got time," Scott cut in, before the idiot could start any fresh trouble. "I'll look after the Fuckwit Brigade from here."

– – – – – – –​

Spoiler: Chapter Notes

If anyone's hoping to see more canon characters in this fic, sorry — this cameo is all Wesley and Travers can get away with, for now. Between Wesley's commitment to the RM and some other stuff he 'needs' to do before he heads Down Under, the logistics just aren't there (anyone who's been following my postings knows he comes along in a later story, which I may have to rewrite a tad), and Travers has to stay hands-off for reasons of Council Politics.

British service slang, in case the subtitles don't come through:
Scran: Food (Royal Marine slang)
Skeg: To investigate or conduct a reconnaissance (Royal Marine slang)
ENDEX: END of EXercise, the finish of any activity (British Forces slang). In the Falklands War, the troops involved semi-humourously referred to the capital settlement of Port Stanley as 'EndEx'.

* 'Tyranny of distance': a colourful phrase for how being so far from 'civilisation' in the UK/Europe helped set the early definition what it is to be an Australian or Kiwi, since technology, news, and other cultural influences took so long to reach the South Pacific. Can also refer directly to those delays in anything coming from 'the Old World' (or latterly, the US) to the Antipodes. The world of the 1990s didn't have nearly as much logistical bandwidth as it does today; things like movies and print-magazines reaching NZ shores four, eight, sometimes twelve weeks behind their release dates at 'home' was... just how things worked.
† L&P: Lemon and Paeroa, an iconic Kiwi soft-drink.

I swear, to any and all dieties you care to name: when I originally storyboarded Stormhawk Security Enterprises, back in 1999(!!!), I did it mostly out of childhood brain-bugs from watching V and Red Dawn and Robocop 3 too many times in the '80s(!), strongly seasoned with the Familiars from Wesley Snipes' Blade. The commentary on the ease of free societies being subverted by fascism was quasi-deliberate; they were never actively intended as an observation on the institutional culture and practices of American policing. And yet....

 

[AstralBard.N]

Glad you gave some definitions, cause I was a bit lost.

 

[Death by Chains]

95 Vigor-Brown Street (Zyrianov residence)
Napier, New Zealand
15:41, Friday, 18 March, 1994

Taz stalked down the driveway, her mouth a hard line. Even Miss Geoghan's impromptu pizza party (she and Steve had split a large meatlover's) and Misha's quick thinking to solve the problem of dinner (after she'd spent almost an hour coming up empty, probably due to the amount of impotent rage still tangling her brain) hadn't quite abated her fury, and the renewed rain had caught her barely fifty paces out of the gate, leaving her little choice but to set her teeth and keep going at best speed, trying not to swear at those around her (or the world in general) and keeping mental tally as each part of her body and item of clothing got progressively soaked through.

Cutting through Nelson Park, the foot-route between St. George's and home was about eight hundred metres. Taz normally kept the speed down a little for Misha's sake, so they normally clocked times in the ten-minute range. This afternoon, it took her eight, and even at that pace, the only things on her body that weren't plastered to her by the rain were the ALICE-pattern backpack she used for a schoolbag (which she'd had Uncle Andrushka oil-treat for weatherproofing, foreseeing days exactly like this) and the Blundstone safety-shoes on her feet, their black leather shielded by their weekly polishing.

She tried not to stamp too hard coming up the concrete steps on the back veranda, swung off her bag and dropped it by the external door to her bedroom, then sighed in resignation and opened the back door to shout down the corridor. "Hey, Danny, y'there?"

"Yeah!" came back from the dining room, over the faint sounds of the afternoon cartoons. "Twins are, too. Y'okay, Taz?"

"Depends on who you ask!" she snorted. "Look, I'm soaked to the skin. I'm gonna spend some time out in the shed to dry off, maybe give the heavy bag and dummies a hiding or two. Give us some time alone, alright?"

"Yeah, sure!" His acceptance was slightly puzzled, but neither that nor the request itself was anything unusual. "Wait, what happened to that rabbit dinner you were supposed to bring home?"

"Don't ask, Danny," she called bleakly. "Misha's worked out a back-up plan, he'll bring it by later."

"Awwright. Seeya then."

Thankfully, the laundry was on the other side of the verandah from both the spare bedroom (where Danny slept so much of the time) and the outside door to her own. Taz leaned against the wall to unlace her shoes, set them on the rack next to her bag to air out and dry, then began to methodically strip off her sodden garments and drop them to the wet concrete with a series of splatch sounds. The white woolen socks with their twin scarlet rings at the top, which had to be folded over after you put them on to keep the overall length below the knee but the stripes visible at the top. The scarlet V-neck jumper with the St. George's crest embroidered on the left breast. The knee-length pleated scarlet skirt she semi-despised. I mean, hullo, you idiots: a lot of women wear actual trousers these days? I swear, if the extra attention was worth it, I'd join Sandra's crusade to get the uniform regulations changed. But I can't – not when it might mean the lives of my entire family! The broad scarlet neck-tie with its Simple knot. The long-sleeved white blouse required year-round – this was plastered to her upper body and all but transparent anyway, so it was just as well she'd still had her jersey on during the walk! Finally, reluctantly, the burgundy silk-and-lace teddy Misha had so loved helping her put on that morning, knowing he'd be helping her take it off that evening. (She normally preferred more athletic-style undergarments, but Mama must have mentioned to Nicki that Misha's sixteenth birthday was on Sunday; the two women had gotten together and decided to 'spare' a few things Taz could use to help make the occasion 'memorable'.) Every last soggy stitch slapped down onto the concrete, and she took a moment to wring some of the worst of the water out of her hair before gathering up what she'd been wearing, giving it all a quick squeeze to get rid of the worst of what they'd soaked up, and carried it all into the laundry to join the rest of the week's washing in the basket. Just as well we're having Mufti Day* on Monday. This stuff will have an extra day to dry.

While she was there, Taz glanced at the toilet against the interior wall and quickly made use of that, too. One of the first things you learn in the bush: never pass up an opportunity to take advantage of indoor plumbing, she thought dryly as she washed her hands in the neighbouring tub.

Five full-length running strides took her off the edge of the veranda, across the small courtyard, and to the smaller personnel-door of the garage. A quick twist of key and handle, and she was inside again, standing just inside the threshold to strip the worst of the water from her bare limbs and body with her hands. It's a lot more fun when Misha's the one doing this to me! She thought wistfully, closing the door and turning to glance about the main shed. They'd long-ago converted the place into a home-dojo, complete with padded mats for the floor and a heavy punching-bag hanging from the ceiling-joists near the back, though that was mostly concealed from street-view by Mama using the front half of the place as overflow storage for 'Peaches' stock. I wonder what the Watchers' precious High Council thought when Cerian told them how their Slayer's mother keeps the lights on? Did they have one mass heart-attack, or take it in turns? she wondered, feeling a distinct lack of sympathy for their pearl-clutching, moving around the near-wall of boxes that stood against the formica partition to consider what lay behind.

As she went, her fingertips unconsciously went to the marks left by her career to date. The coin-sized mark above her left hip-bone, the through-and-through where that Stormer sentry had clipped her with his first burst during the Camp Waikato recce. The straight, flat line trimmed across the outside of her right thigh, back-to-front; given the foul conditions, his second attempt had been nearly as good as the first, the cut left by a 5.56mm 'graze' almost enough to lame her. Triple parallel slashes across the back of her left shoulder, souvenir of the forepaw of a damned chimera with snow-white fur they'd run into while hunting red deer in Nelson Lakes National Park last winter; what the hell that thing had been doing outside of Greek mythology or a Dungeons and Dragons book, much less lairing in the Southern Alps, none of them could piece together, but they hadn't dared leave it on the loose to prey on other bush-goers! (Thankfully, it hadn't realised firearms were a thing, let alone a threat, and trying to recover from its failed 'pluck and carry off' manoeuvre had given Misha and Uncle Andrushka enough time to empty their Simonov carbines – the ones they very much weren't supposed to have, what with the post-Aramoana bans – into the thing. Twenty rounds of 7.62×39mm would put a hurt on just about anything, and with the dragon- and goat-heads thoroughly ventilated, stabbing the thing's lion-head through the brain had been refreshingly straightforward. Not that it had stopped Misha somewhat manicly breaking out that old chestnut from Doctor Who in the aftermath.)

Her eyes drifted across the wall of racked live- and practice-hardware – speculatively lingering on a leather-padded box sitting in the corner – before she looked back to the weapons. Nah, I need to work off some of this 'mad' before I think of bringing Sebastian out to play. Abco Research Associates might build 'em tough, but something tells me their design tolerances didn't account for "sixty-five kilos of murderously-furious Slayer trying to fuck some of the 'angry' out of herself". That'd be a really humiliating way to put myself in the Emergency Department, she snorted.

Instead, she took two of the bokken down from the wall, polypropylene twins to the Cold Steel wakizashi 'machetes' that she and Misha took into the bush when they went tramping or hunting, and turned to address the wooden blade-dummy in the corner. Offering the traditional pugay salute she'd learned from Guro García, she fell into stance and considered her imaginary opponent for a moment. Shame that arnisadores† didn't face more Europeans with shields – it'd certainly help me practice for these Vikings of Misha's, since those woodcuts suggest they were mostly blade-and-board! – but with any luck, they won't be expecting twin-sword forms, either. With that, the first flurry of blows started hammering both plastic blades against the already-well-battered wood.

– – – – – – –​

"Wizards" video parlour, Hastings Street
That same time

Misha took a deep, steadying breath, then gave Danny's mother a steady look across the change-kiosk, trying to keep his temper under control. "I'm sorry; I don't think I heard you correctly."

"Oh, but you did, and that's the problem," Isabella Gulczyński smirked. "Danny's already working more hours than you lot pay him for, looking after those two kids of yours, and that ends now. His rate per-hour is also going up, as of right now, to compensate for all that unpaid time he's done for you. You used to pay him five dollars an hour, three hours a day, five days a week? Now you're going to pay six dollars an hour for four hours a day, which is what he actually works when he's at your place. I mean, I know he's your friend, but he's also your employee, and I have to look out for his interests," she finished piously.

Jacking up the rates sixty percent on a baby-sitting contract in the middle of a pay-cycle, without any notice to look for alternatives? That's not business, that's a rort in progress! Misha straightened a little and looked his mate's mother square in the eye – she wasn't any taller than his own five-foot-four – and her eyes widened in alarm as the 'small teenaged boy' she'd been ready to bulldoze somehow seemed a lot bigger and more menacing, even though he hadn't actually moved an inch. When he spoke, his voice was still as quiet as ever, but as cold as a glacier and harder than steel. "Missus Gulczyński, I don't know if you realise it or not, but getting to the bank today to sort out our household finances, including Danny's pay? Almost got me my head blown off by a Stormhawk with a goddamn shotgun," he returned. "Compared to that, you're not nearly as intimidating as you clearly think you are, so for starters, I would appreciate it if you would approach these 'negotiations' with just a little less fucking condescension in your tone."

Between his sudden looming presence and trying to credit what she'd just heard, Isabella was still trying to catch up with the state of play. "N-Now listen here –"

Misha ran her over. "Even if Danny wasn't being paid, he'd spend most of his time at our place anyway. Your husband sleeps days and works nights at the control tower at the Airport. You spend most of your time trying to keep this place staffed and afloat. And your mother, the Frill-neck Lizard, can't accept the fact that she doesn't live in Italy anymore and keeps trying to turn Danny into a loud and pious Italian Catholic kid, rather than a bookworm Aussie expat living in New Zealand who doesn't give a damn about the Roman Catholic Church."

"'Frill-neck Lizard'?" Isabella sniffed, finally getting her feet under her for an instant. "You've been talking to my husband."

"When was the last time you did?" Misha noted stonily. "So, here's the counter-offer: Danny's pay is going to stay at fifteen dollars a night, just like it currently is. Any 'increase' beyond that, you can write off as the cost of us providing his dinner five nights a week. Considering we do that anyway and how much money it must save your household, I'd call that a pretty bloody decent trade, wouldn't you?" He turned away and reached for the bag he'd set down by the kiosk door, then paused and glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, and for pity's sake, can you occasionally at least try to take an interest in his life? For some reason, he's still under the impression you actually give a damn, and I'd rather not see him disillusioned just yet."

"... You never used to be this disrespectful, Misha," she managed eventually, shaking her head in 'sadness'.

"You mean 'this is the first time I've ever called out for your bullshit'," he returned instantly. "There's the mistake so many adults make, Missus Gulczyński: you say 'you should be respectful' to a teenager when what you mean is 'you should shut up and eat shit any time an "adult" talks to you'. You assumed that the reason I've always been peaceful around you is because I don't know how to be unruly. All I ever needed was the right reasons – and your little standover routine gave me one. How about you do us both a favour, and don't repeat it, awwright? Have a nice day."

– – – – – – –​

95 Vigor-Brown Street (Zyrianov residence)
Napier, New Zealand
18:17, Friday, 18 March, 1994

Misha might have been the one to pick up what was needed for dinner at Balmoral during his return journey from Wizards, but that had been about the end of his role in proceedings. Taz had taken one look at him coming through the door 'looking like a drowned rat' and immediately declared him sidelined until he stopped shivering, all but manhandling him into the bathroom so they could share a brief hot shower. (With Danny and the twins right in the next room, they'd reluctantly agreed that anything more steamy than letting the water thaw them both out would have to wait.) Freshly dressed in track-pants and T-shirts, they'd emerged into the kitchen, where Taz had promptly dragooned Danny as assistant cook and made Misha their supervisor, which meant he'd been relegated to standing around and telling both of them what to do while he sipped hot Milo (she really hadn't liked how pale he'd still looked).

Thankfully, Mama had made it home on time tonight (Nikki and another employee handled the Friday-night late shift at 'Peaches'), so they'd been able to start cooking, dish up the food, and sit down to watch the TV3 news together on-schedule. Of course, that had its own pitfalls.

"– just saying, there's something off about the bloke since his 'medical episode'," Danny declaimed, aiming his fork over his shoulder at the TV, currently in the middle of the 'international news' segment. Olive-skinned and dark-haired, he was slightly taller than Misha, but between his fondness for food and dislike of exercise, he was also a little flabbier. "'Mild stroke', they tell us? More like 'complete personality transplant'!"

Elena gave him a reproving look, silently skewering the (lack of) table-manners he was showing in front of Katya and Kolya. All too typically, Danny completely missed the signal.

From her own place on the couch, mopping the final dregs of sauce from her plate with her last slice of garlic bread, Taz shrugged at her friend's claim. "Mitchell had a brush with death. President or not, it can make you re-evaluate your priorities. Maybe he decided life was too short to waste it being miserable?"

("Been there, done that,") Misha noted beside her. "Besides, whatever's going on with Mitchell is a problem for the Americans, not us. And even if it wasn't, they've got their hands full already, what with pulling out of Somalia and the Balkans looking for another Franz Ferdinand to assassinate and the fallout of that whole Waco schemozzle."

"Don't get me started, Mish," Danny snorted. "They are not telling us the whole story behind that mess."

"Oh, nuthin' surer. But I don't think you're going to read much better in Jane's Defence Weekly or Soldier of Fortune, either," Misha pointed out. Danny spent a lot of his life with his head in a book or the games at Wizards – which meant his contact with consensus reality could be a little uneven – and as a part of that, he biked to the library every second Saturday to catch up on the latest issues of JDW and SoF, then finished with 2000AD comics as a palate-cleanser. "Jane's are fastidious about reporting semi-reliable facts, so they're SOL until they can actually find some, and they've got defence news from the whole world to cover, so they're stretched a little thin. And those Second Amendment types at SoF? From the very first chance they got, they've been too busy using Waco as an excuse to beat up on Mitchell and push their conspiracy theories about his 'liberal Gun Gestapo' to even bother with 'facts'. Like the timeframe meaning that the whole raid had to have been the work of people hired and trained during the years their Precious Ronnie Raygun and 'Saint' George Bush were in charge!"

"That reminds me – I did get something interesting out of JDW a short while ago." Danny twisted in his chair, half-looking over his shoulder at his two best mates. "Y'know those last two frigates that the Aussies and us were building for the Arulcan Crown, their version of our ANZAC-class? Turns out there's been a problem with the payment schedule, so Templar Shipbuilding are withholding delivery – they're gonna keep 'em here in our ports until Arulco coughs up the rest of the money. But they are gonna be nice about it and let Arulcan Navy bods train on them over here while the whole thing gets sorted. I'll give ya one guess exactly who got the contract to do the training."

Misha sighed deeply, massaging his eyes with one hand. "'Come out, ye Black and Tans, come out and fight me like a man....'‡"

"Give 'im a Krispie," Danny nodded. "And the Yank State Department just cut 'em a big cheque to start helping out the Croatians with training and organisation, too. I guess Uncle Sam finally decided who the 'good guys' are."

"Who the 'underdogs' are, maybe. I'm not sure there are any 'good guys' in the Balkans anymore. If there ever were to start with," Taz noted cynically.

Misha shook his head again. "They're all over Africa, they're here, they're in South America, now the Balkans – is there anywhere the Stormers aren't raking in business?"

"They seem to be staying out of the Middle East, for now," Danny shrugged. "Which is weird, since I would've thought the oil trade would be a natural fit for 'em."

"Maybe the Mogadishu thing scared 'em off."

Taz flicked him a glance, and they shared an unspoken thought. Or maybe they think being elsewhere – like here – is more important than bilking easy money out of the Gulf states.

The questions then become: 'what the hell is so important out here in New Zealand that they think it's that valuable? Why the hell is this country worth sending forty thousand of their blokes out here? And what the hell are they planning to do with them, now that they're here!?'

– – – – – – –​

After Star Trek: The Next Generation finished (even if Danny wouldn't shut up about how Worf's son could be so big so soon after K'Ehleyr's death), Misha and Taz repaired to the shed again, ignoring Danny's leer and Elena's sly smirk. The Slayer moved to retrieve her wakizashi once more, but hesitated when Misha frowned. "What is it?"

"I've been thinking about the right tools for this particular job, and I'm not sure blades are it," he murmured thoughtfully. "Look at the cases. That woodcut shows that as late as the seventeenth century, these Norsemen were still wearing the same gear they would've had if they were at the Sack of Lindisfarne, right? Maille shirts, round wooden shields, Gjermundbu helmets – all of them fairly good protection against slashes and stabs. Slayer strength being what it is, you and the Cold Steel could probably power through that regardless" (The Ventura cutlers made their 'machetes' from 1055 high-carbon steel, superior to almost anything forged in the eighth century) "but there might be a smarter way." He crossed to the rack and took down another weapon.

"A shestopyor?" Taz arched intrigued eyebrows. Misha might have been teasing her earlier about her 'fixation' on the Kievan Rus', but after the KGB had 'taken' her father and the surviving Zyrianovs had... 'left' the Soviet Union, she'd certainly done all she could to learn about Ukraine's pre-Bolshevik history from Western sources, exploring the background of Aleksey Zyrianov's homeland to spite the Soviets who'd tried so mightily to erase it. Time and again, she'd come across mention of such weapons: maces with flanged heads of iron or steel had started appearing in the twelfth century and proven devastatingly effective against foes in maille and even plate armour, their six rounded 'blades' not just giving them their name ('six feathers', as the flanges were shaped like the flights of an arrow) but also concentrating their striking power into one or two points, transmitting the impact through armour to break the bones beneath. "They were a symbol of authority, weren't they? For Cossack regimental commanders, y'know, colonels?"

"And sotnyky," he nodded, offering the handle to her. "The centurions of regional militias across Ukraine. And let's face it: what are we, if not a citizen's militia?"

"If anything, you're the one in charge around here; I just hit what you tell me to!" she returned dryly.

He chuckled once and nodded to the dummy. "Then get to it."

Just as she squared up, a thought occurred to her, and she turned back to her lover, eyes narrowing in sudden suspicion. "This isn't you setting me up so you can have a laugh, is it? Some kind of joke or metaphor about my personality or preferred methods?" I mean, I guess it's not entirely wrong, but still!

"C'mon, Taz: would I do that?" he asked, the very picture of innocence.

"I have a counter-question. Nicki and Mama helped me pick out some things I was planning to wear for your birthday on Sunday night, so we can 'celebrate' you turning legal. Do you want to see those things this weekend, or do you want to find yourself waiting a couple of months?"

"... shutting up now."

"Khorosho."

– – – – – – –​

Nelson Park
Napier, New Zealand
10:17, Saturday, 19 March, 1994

Napier City Rovers' junior-grade try-outs were well underway, and from what Misha could see, Katya and Kolya were holding their own. Or at least, they were having fun running up and down the field chasing the ball, which was mostly the point of football for eight-year-olds anyway. Competitive and technical stuff could probably wait a year or two – or at least until they found out if they made the team or not. It'd be nice if sprigged boots weren't quite so dear, but at least we managed to find some decent ones second-hand. And if they make the grade, the named jerseys will be worth the price just to see the grins on their faces!

He caught sight of a familiar face on the opposite sideline and nudged Taz to get her attention. Following his chin-point, she nodded in agreement, and they excused themselves from Elena for a moment to make their way around the perimeter of the pitch, careful not to step into the field of play or linger behind the goalie too long.

Father Francis John Patrick Mulcahy, S.J. (Chaplain-Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.)), smiled gently as two of the more colourful members of his flock at St. George's made their way to his side. White-haired and bespectacled in his old age, he still carried himself with dignity, humour, and gentle understanding... especially when he saw things in the eyes and faces of a young duo that he'd seen in far too many other young eyes and faces during his time in the Korean War. "Good morning to you both! I see your children are enjoying the game."

"They're enjoying being kids while they can," Taz noted, more than a hint of wistful jealousy in her voice as she turned to watch the progress of play again. "Here's hoping it gets to last a few more years."

"Indeed." Mulcahy glanced to both sides, careful about being overheard. "If you're hoping for an update, I can't help you just yet. Perhaps on Monday or Tuesday morning I might have something –"

"Yeah, yeah – time-zones mean the request only just got where it's going, and the speed of bureaucracy means we've got Buckley's of getting an answer in time," Misha nodded understandingly, likewise keeping his gaze on the field. "I'm not looking to rark you up, Padre – it's not your fault the wheels turn slowly. If we had a trained Watcher out here, they might've spotted this thing coming a couple of weeks ago and we'd've had a proper library to search for references, so we wouldn't have to lean on you in the first place. Just... please, whoever you're talking to about this, ask 'em to rattle their dags, eh? We didn't set the clock on this one, and it's ticking fast."

"I've made the urgency of the matter as clear as I can, but...." The septuagenarian spread his hands helplessly.

"All you can do is all you can do," Taz shrugged. "We do appreciate the effort, Colonel, it's just –"

"Frustrating?"

"Yeah, that's one word for it," Misha snorted. "'Bloody hindering awkward' would be closer. If your mob have any way of passing word to the Council, you might want to see about giving them a curry-up, too. Things are bad out here, and We. Need. HELP! It's been a year; they should've been able to find someone to come out here by now! I mean, cripes, bad shoulder or not, Mum should've been able to at least stick her head through the door months ago!"

"She might've been worried about getting it taken off," Mulcahy observed blandly. He'd been witness to the tempestuous relationship between Taz and Cerian McKellar since Taz's arrival in Napier seven years ago; the two had not-so-cordially detested each other on sight, and it had only gotten worse as the years went on. Cerian's attitude towards children was very much 'they should do what they're told, when they're told, how they're told', whereas Taz had seen far too much of Communism, far too closely, to meekly buckle-under to any kind of authority simply because 'it said so!'. Russian culture reviles goats for being obstinate, headstrong, and entirely too contrary to meekly do as their masters tell them; Taz took such 'despicable' qualities as points of pride and traits to be cultivated. I probably should be glad that she and Hawkeye never met! I rather doubt Margaret's blood-pressure would have ever recovered.

Taz chuckled, though there was very little humour to it. "Lead me not into temptation, Father. Maybe if I did, they might send us someone who'll actually turn up and do the job."

Misha answered that with an old-fashioned look and singing a couple of bars of Dave Dobbyn: "'Don't fool around, what you believe could come true/Don't ho-old your breath....'§"

– – – – – – –​

When they returned to the Vigor-Brown Street house, a slightly-battered Datsun hardback ute was parked kerbside out front, and Taz and Misha traded glances. As normal, its owner had let himself in and made himself a cup of tea while he waited, and glanced up from his place on the couch as the small band gaggled inside. "G'day, everyone. 'Ow were the football tryouts?"

"I had a shot on goal, and I missed," Kolya noted despondently, shoulders hanging as he sat in one of the chairs around the dinner table. Both twins had left their mud-caked sprigs outside the back door, and now the younger of the two started peeling off his socks and pads. Taz squeezed his shoulder reassuringly as she went past; she'd spent most of the walk trying to console him, not that had done much good.

His sister Katya was in far higher spirits, waving 'hi' with a bright smile. "I think they're going to pick me for the team, Uncle Andrushka!"

"We'll have to wait and see," Misha told her cautiously. "They'll need a few days to think about it."

"You two ready to go?" Andrew Hazelton asked him, nodding a greeting to Elena as she came into view. Saturday afternoons for the Slayer and her consort were usually spent at Andrushka's place out at Whirinaki, out beyond the turn-off to Taupo and the Pan-Pac paper-mill. Both were working towards their 'Restricted' motorcycle licences, not least because their 'part-time job' took them all over the Napier-Hastings axis and hitching a ride wasn't always an option, and Andrushka had 'obtained' a pair of '92 Kawasaki KLE500s for them to practice on, and eventually own-and-operate once they both passed their tests.

"Yeah, pretty much," Misha nodded, ruffling Katya's already-messy hair as a 'see you later' and smiling at her growl of vexation.

The trio were buckling their seat-belts in the four-wheel-drive when Andrushka glanced into the rear-vision mirror to address his two teenaged passengers. "I'll need an 'and shiftin' some stuff before you two can get carried away with anythin' else."

Taz cocked her head. "Why's that?"

"Bloke I know from me Army days is 'avin' 'is fiftieth this week," Andrushka shrugged, starting the ute and checking his mirrors before pulling into traffic. "Met 'im at Terendak in Malaya, back when I was 'elpin' 1 RNZIR do pre-deployment trainin' for Vietnam. This particular bod went over to Phước Tuy with 'Victor-Two' Company in '67, and when I ran into 'im after 'e came back – with a war-bride, no less! – 'e told me my trainin' was the difference that kept most of 'is blokes alive and that when it came around, I was invited to this 'appy occasion. I ran into 'im at the RSA a few weeks ago, and 'e reminded me of the offer. A fair few of 'is squad are goin' to be there, too, and I offered to 'bring a plate'¶. 'E was talking about 'just' doin' a hāngī, until I told 'im about that red deer you dropped over the Christmas 'olidays and 'e decided a spit-roast would be a good complement –"

"– but you need to get it all to him this weekend for the prep-work, digging said roast and the other meats out of the freezer and carting it over to his place is a multi-person job, and just like when Taz shot it, oh, look: we've been volunteered," Misha finished blandly. "Willingly or not."

Andrushka wasn't much shorter than Taz, and for all that a decade as a longshoreman at the Port of Napier had left him grey of hair, weather-beaten of complexion, calloused of hand, and not much short of sixty, he was still (mostly) lean and vigorous. And even over his shoulder, he could deliver an old-fashioned look with some of the best of them. "More or less – smart-arse. It gets you two invited to the party, though."

"What's the point of having a Slayer for a niece if you can't shanghai her to do your heavy lifting?" Taz sighed in good-natured resignation, then glanced out at the still-grey skies. "Hāngī and an open-pit barbecue, you say. You're being a little optimistic on that last one, aren't you? When's the party?"

"Wednesday."

And that sucked all the humour out of the ute's back seat.

The two teens traded looks; it was Misha who asked what they were both thinking, for all that he tried to kept his tone light. "Where's this joker live?"

"Bay View."

Taz massaged her eyes for a moment, suddenly feeling very tired. We get invited to a party, and it turns out it's going to be another 'busman's holiday'. How'd I fucking know? "On the beachfront?"

"It's right across the road from 'is driveway, yeah. Why?"

"Because we won't be the only gate-crashers," Misha sighed wearily. "He's gonna have a boat full of eighth-century Vikings show up at the door, looking to do their rape-pillage-and-burn routine."

"'Ow can you know that?" Andrushka scoffed.

Taz lowered her hand again and met his eyes in the mirror. "Because it'll be a Wednesday, Andrushka."

"Oh, for – Taz, this fixation you've got on Wednesdays is bloody ridiculous! I did eight years with Them, and I'm less paranoid than you are!"

"'Paranoia' would imply the universe isn't out to get us," she sighed. At least now we know 'where', along with 'who', 'what', and 'when'. "Tell him, Misha."

The drive-and-talk took them out through Pandora and Westshore, almost to the airport. As they went past, a helicopter in Stormhawk firebrick-on-tan livery took off from the 'Emergency Services' hangar and went whirring off to the south. Andrushka tracked it with one eye as they went, then shook his head as Misha finished. "And you're convinced they're coming 'ere... on the strength of that? It could just be coincidence!"

The ginger-haired youth spread his hands, helpless but holding his ground. "Andrushka, I believe in coincidence. Coincidence happens every day. But of all people, you should know better than to take 'coincidence' at face value."

"Eh. At least this food delivery will let us get the lay of the land before we have to fight over it," Taz noted.

"Five'll get you ten you're worryin' over nothin'," her uncle insisted.

Misha snorted. "You're on. Fifty bucks says it turns into a supernatural shitshow."

Taz slipped her hand into his and squeezed gently, thanking him for the support. "I'll match that. If we're going to have a 'night off' ruined, we might as well get paid for it."

"I 'ate to take money off you kids, but if you insist on throwin' it away...."

– – – – – – –​

An hour or so later, they pulled into the driveway in Bay View and dismounted. As they started opening up the ute for unloading, a Eurasian boy their own age emerged from the house, looking them over curiously. "Can I help you j- Oh, g'day, Mister Hazelton! If you're looking for Mum and Dad, they're in town with some old mates."

"'Ullo, Jack," Andrushka smiled. "We're just droppin' off the meat for Wednesday. But why aren't you with 'em?"

'Jack's' bearing instantly got a lot more sullen. "Grounded," he muttered sulkily. "Got into a fight yesterday. The school give me a week's suspension, and Dad decided he needed to add his own lesson on top."

"Hey," Misha said, waving 'hello' with one hand as the other opened the ute's tailgate. The washing-line was barely visible beyond the house, and he caught a glimpse of a familiar navy-blue uniform and blue-and-gold jersey amongst the other clothes, in what looked like Jack's size. He goes to Central Napier College, then – that'd explain why we don't know him. Maybe Danny does? "What started the fight?"

"A classmate started running his gob about my cousin Jen, saying she was the school bike# and all that. I had to belt him, didn't I?" Jack shrugged.

"And good on yer for it!" Taz grinned sincerely, emerging around the far side of the Datsun. "You can't let 'em get away with shit like that."

Jack stopped in his tracks and stared for a few seconds, clearly trying to process 'gorgeous girl in white T-shirt over navy-blue fatigue-pants standing in my front yard'. It wasn't until she noticed the goggle-eyed look, then shot him a wink as she casually draped an arm around Misha's shoulders, that their host unfroze again. (Though he did give Misha a brief evil glare.) "... yeah, I tried telling Dad that, but he wasn't interested. Something about a 'higher standard'?"

"Heard that one before," Misha nodded feelingly. He cleared his throat, and Taz released him, giving him room to open the chilly-bin||, produce the wax-paper-wrapped joint that would be the meal's centrepiece, and swing it onto his shoulder (with a mild huff of effort).

"My manners are shockin'," Andrushka grimaced. "Jack, meet my niece Tanya an' 'er smarter 'arf, Misha. They'll be 'ere on Wednesday, so you won't be too lonely. D'ya wanna show us where the freezer is, so we can get this stowed away?"

"Right, yeah." Jack started towards the shed, and Misha duly fell in behind the taller boy. (Unnoticed behind them, Taz brought the chilly-bin itself, containing more cuts of venison and boar. The whole thing was a good fifteen kilos, all up, but if Jack was too busy to notice her Slayer strength letting her carry the thing one-handed with no visible strain, so much the better.) "What is that, anyway, pork?"

"Venison," Misha smiled proudly. "We went out after red deer over Christmas" Barely a week before both of us got shot, no less! "and Taz dropped a ninety-kilo hind. Three hundred metres, iron sights, and she sconed it clean through the temple."

"... bloody hell," Jack murmured, glancing back at Taz. "Calamity Jane, or something, are ya?"

"Pretty routine shot, really," she shrugged, opening the chest-freezer for Misha. Hell, it would've been easy enough even before this whole 'Slayer' nonsense! She added privately. "You said 'cousin Jen', a minute ago. That wouldn't be Jenny Mallard, would it?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah." Jack peered at her closely as Misha laid his burden in one end of the freezer, then stood aside and watched as the two other teens unloaded the chilly-bin into the other end. "I only met her when we moved up from Invercargill at the start of the year. You know her?"

"Since Primer One, in my case," Misha nodded.

"When she was your first crush, you mean?" Taz teased gently, smiling as he went a little pink. And I know she'll always be a little special to you.... "I came along a little later, but we were all at Marewa Primary together. Years went by, she got packed off to you lot at Central, we got zoned into St. George's, and we haven't seen her since... the last interschool, I think? And from what I remember, she wasn't exactly built like Pamela Anderson, so I dunno what the 'school bike' talk would be about!"

Jack coughed and scratched his neck. "She, ah, filled out over Christmas, I guess. You'll see for yourself, her Mum's bringing her along too."

This deal is getting worse all the time. Misha flicked a concerned glance at Taz, under cover of transferring the last bundle of deer-steaks; she nodded a fraction, but spread her hands helplessly. The Jen they remembered was gentle and bookish – not someone to put in the way of rampaging Vikings if at all possible – but what could they say to warn her away without sounding like they belonged in straitjackets?

A sharp whistle from Andrushka cut off their silent conversation. "C'mon, you two, let's get movin'! Back to the coal-face with ya!"

"Nice to meet'cha, Jack," Misha shrugged, "see you at the party." I hope you're lucky enough to survive it!

As they remounted the ute, Taz glanced at him intently. "Is your shoulder OK? You winced when you lifted that deer-haunch."

Despite himself, Misha's left hand went to his right deltoid, fingering the spot where a Stormer bullet had punched through-and-through during the Camp Waikato recce. Well, 'fiasco' might be a better word. "Eh, just a twinge. We can still train this afternoon – and we need to."

– – – – – – –​

Stormhawk Security Enterprises Napier Headquarters (former Napier Hospital), Hospital Hill
Napier, New Zealand
15:23, Saturday, 19 March, 1994

Seated behind his beautiful oiled-rimu desk, Regional Director Sebastian Worthington turned a page in the manila folder before him, shaking his head in disbelief. The after-action analysis of that debacle at Camp Waikato had only this week been released to all Regional Directors, and while he lacked the military background necessary to catch all the nuances, even the bare facts were depressing in themselves. Two fighters and three helicopters written off, five men killed and two dozen more wounded on the flight-line itself, plus the vampire sentry slain on the southern perimeter. He looked across his desk to the uniformed officer sitting before him. "Your thoughts, Steinmann?"

"I think whoever did this is entirely too clever for my comfort, Sir," the human officer noted, glancing up from his own copy of the report. For all that he looked like he'd stepped straight out of a recruiting poster, the Lieutenant's English was heavily accented; by the same token, it was rather better than Worthington's East German. "They tried to slip a probe through the Camp's southern perimeter, tripped the wards, and at least one of them was wounded in a skirmish with the nearest sentry. After they dealt with him, they knew the alert had been raised, so they called for a 'distraction' to cover their escape, which another portion of their group eagerly provided from beyond the northern perimeter."

"By dropping artillery rockets on the flightline. Hardly the height of subtlety."

"But they did it with one-oh-seven rockets and launchers stolen from us, the stocks we smuggled into the country under Operation MATCHBOX. They were meant to go to indigenous rebel elements to attack government forces, not Stormhawk installations!" Unfortunately, even the most extreme of the 'disgruntled indigenous population' hadn't been, and still weren't, ready to start shooting at people. Who would've thought that Māori grievances would actually be sufficiently redressed by government concessions, negotiated settlements, and reparation payments that their resorting to violent means was never a realistic option? "And letting the New Zealand authorities know that field-grade ordnance was even in-country, much less being turned upon us, would prompt far too many awkward questions even if they didn't manage to trace it all the way back to us. So we can't even use the attack to make a case to the government that they have an insurgent problem and need to grant us more leeway to deal with it!" Steinmann shrugged philosophically. "Unsubtle? Perhaps, Sir, but still clever. Covering the whole thing up and explaining the damage and casualties as resulting from a complex taxiing accident was the only way to prevent the whole affair from blowing up in our faces."

"As it were," Worthington drawled. "Any thought as to who might be responsible?"

"My guess would be Arulcan rebels, looking to distract us from our operations in support of Queen Diedranna's forces. If this had been done by anyone loyal to the New Zealand government, there would've been backlash by now — a termination of our contract, certainly demands for an inquiry, that sort of thing." Steinmann hesitated, then tried a piece of mild humour. "Sir, I noticed that at one point you, ah, verbally dismissed the idea of the British Watcher's Council being involved. May I ask why?"

Worthington snorted. "You seem to forget that I was a Watcher, Steinmann, before Herr Baron 'recruited' me. I know their training protocols, their preferred methods and weapons — and a commando-style raid like this? It's completely outside all of their accustomed patterns and precious 'traditions'. Sound-suppressed firearms, probably explosives, the use of an outside element with heavy weapons for such... crudely spectacular cover for their getaway? No, that's... just not how the British Watchers think or do things, and their counterpart organisations either have their hands full, or wouldn't want to antagonise the BCW by playing around on Commonwealth soil. I'd sooner believe Martians were involved than a Slayer."

"Indeed, Sir," Steinmann conceded, yielding to his superior's expertise. "But that does remind me: an alert arrived from the Arcane Projects department while you were, ah, meeting with Inspector Hammes."

Only the fact that he didn't need to breathe let Worthington control a sigh of aggravation at that memory. Corporal O'Dwyer's public moment of braindead aggression had made it into the Saturday morning papers, which had been hitting peoples' breakfast-tables about the same time that Hammes, Constable Scott's station-commander at the Dalton Street 'nick', had stormed into this very office and spent almost an hour giving him a world-class earbashing. He'd had to grit his teeth, endure the blue-uniformed little twerp's vocal outrage, and make all the right soothing noises, and that galling necessity was still acid on his tongue hours later. "And what do our magical brethren have for us today?"

"It seems they're tracking a locus of magical energy out to sea, to the east of the city, moving on-shore at about fifteen kilometres per hour. A Panther out of our 'search and rescue' base at Napier airport did a discreet flyby and confirmed an unusual fogbank at the approximate location. ARCPRO's research suggests this may be a visitation by a boatload of Vikings; apparently, they're under a Druidic curse to only touch land once every hundred years, and they're on a course to complete the next century-cycle somewhere on the shores of Hawke Bay. Probably Wednesday, probably north of the city itself, but ARCPRO are still trying to refine their track and timetable. Shall I prepare a team to meet these fellows and, ah, explain to them the rules we operate under?"

Worthington opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated as a thought occurred to him. "... No. Have a heliborne QRF standing by, but when these wayward Norsemen make landfall, let them have... call it two hours of free rein before we drop the troops on them."

Steinmann paused himself. "... may I ask why, Sir?"

"Simple: the O'Dwyer business is weighing on the national consciousness right now, making New Zealanders start to question our methods, our armament, and why they continue to tolerate our presence. But if a 'rampaging bikie gang' decides to tear apart a small outlying hamlet, and our troops are instrumental to bringing them to justice when the police didn't even know anything was happening, these people might just remember why they hired us and be just a little more thankful about our being here."

"Very well, Sir."

– – – – – – –
– – – – – – –
– – – – – – –​

Spoiler: Chapter Notes

Just in case anyone needed confirmation that Stormhawk were actually bad guys.

* Mufti Day: I've modelled St. George's uniform code on that at my old school, lo so many decades(!) ago. Junior students (Forms One-Four, now Years Seven-Ten) had one uniform, Senior students (Forms Five-Seven/Years Eleven-Thirteen) had another, though at my school (and St. George's) Seventh Form students were allowed to wear 'mufti' (i.e. civilian clothes, within certain guidelines) day-to-day as a privilege of their seniority and, notionally, preparation for workplaces that didn't have uniforms. At many schools with uniform codes, Mufti Day is the one day per term where students of all Forms/Years are permitted to wear non-uniform clothing, provided they cough up a 'donation' to the school (usually a gold-coin, i.e. $1/$2). God help the parent who forgets that date and sends their child off to school in uniform or without the 'donation'!

† Arnisadores: practitioners of arnis de mano, also known as escrima or kali, a Filipino martial art sometimes over-simplified as 'stick-fighting'. Villeneuve's 2021 interpretation of Dune famously used the Belintawok school of kali as the basis of the Atreides fighting-style, complete with the pugay salute used by Duncan Idaho and Paul Atriedes Muad'Dib. Guro is the title for a teacher of kali, like the Japanese sensei or Chinese shīfù.

‡ A song originally sung by Dominic Behan and made famous by the Wolfe Tones in 1972, celebrating Irish Republicans fighting British 'oppression'. 'Black and Tans' originally referred to the British-backed police-forces in Northern Ireland, who (sadly) didn't always take the lightest hand with the community they were nominally protecting and serving, though in the song it's a pejorative for all pro-British Irishmen. For the Volunteers? Well, Stormhawk uniform consists of tan fatigues under steel-grey body-armour and black tactical vests, making it a short line to draw.
Incidentally, a Krispie is a brand of biscuit (cookie to you Yanks! ), so Danny's Kiwi'ism more or less means 'Give him the prize'. Krispies aren't my first preference, being the shameless chocoholic I am, but I won't turn them down, either.

Yes, that's a special guest appearance by a M.A.S.H. character. Father Mulcahy's going to be playing a supporting role in this universe, being a holy man who knows how not to be holier-than-thou, a man who makes allowances for how people try to cope with combat-stress, and a very good boxing coach — all three being things the two chief Volunteers have needed in the last year or so.

§ Don't Hold Your Breath, Dave Dobbyn and the Stone People, album Lament for the Numb, © 1992. Dave'd had a rough time since recording his last album, and it kind of showed in writing Lament.

¶ I don't know how much people still do this, but it was once common practice for Kiwis to send out invitations to parties etc. with the request (usually to the ladies of the invited group(s)) to 'bring a plate' (the unspoken part being "of food", i.e. 'it's a pot-luck dinner (or near enough), please contribute'). The assumption/omission of certain key words was known to trip up newcomers to the country, especially ESL speakers, who often arrived with shiny-clean (but empty) plates under the impression that this was some obscure NZ custom or superstition. If nothing else, such misunderstandings were usually good for a chuckle and breaking the ice.
A hāngī is a Māori feast for large occasions, pit-cooked over hot stones and covered with earth for insulation/even cooking. I haven't had the pleasure recently, but they're good eating.

Confession: the 'Wednesday fixation' is a bit of a meta-joke, on the order "Dawn's in trouble... must be Tuesday!". I'll spare you the long version, but when it was on free-to-air TV out here, S1 Buffy started out running on Monday evenings, shifted to Thursdays for Seasons 2 and 3, then shifted again to Wednesdays for the rest of its run. On the other hand, in 2000 or 2001 (I believe) the subscription-TV service Sky TV made it a mainstay of the Sky One lineup, playing the whole show from S1 onward (even doing a 24-hour Slay-Ride to repeat the whole of S1 through twice, to get people caught up before they launched into S2!) before giving it a standard slot... on Wednesdays, IIRC.
So, yeah: Buffy can kind'a-count on Tuesdays; Taz generally has Wednesdays, but also knows that Finagle likes to vary his schedule 'occasionally', just for the additional embuggerance factor.

# 'School/town bike': pejorative for a woman of easy virtue, so-called because 'everybody's had a (free) ride'. Not an expression you use about a woman unless you're looking to start a punch-up.

|| Chilly-bin: what an Aussie would call an 'Esky', or an American would term a 'beer-cooler'; an insulated plastic carrier for keeping meat or drinks cool.

I think those are all the translations needed, but if anyone finds any other Kiwi'isms that aren't fully decipherable by context, let me know and I'll make the necessary edits.

Yodayo has been a godsend for creating 'good-enough' images of non-main characters, but I have very specific concepts for Taz and Misha and a few others that will probably require the services of human artists. I have a couple of candidates in mind, but any kind of professional commissioned art costs like, whoa, so that may take a while.