GEX4: Training begins
"David… Jessie… "
Frederic whispered deathly quiet. "Go to the bridge, and assume advisory
combat positions. Begin a run-through of policies, tactics, weapons and
systems. Everything needs to be ready."
"Of course, Dad," the two
children replied, snapping at perfect attention simultaneously, and
disappearing.
Frederic's head turned slightly to face
Daphnix. "D, take command of Exploration and Expansion. We need to have
every new world ready for a major offensive within five weeks. Pay, draft,
threaten or force anyone you need."
Daphnix snapped at attention, saluted,
and vanished with an "Aye-aye, Sir."
"Jenny… Go to the bridge.
Assume full tactical command of the ESMF. David and Jessie will be linked with
LOBO going over our checklists. I want you to run combat drills Omniversally
wide."
"Of course, My Lord," Jennifer
answered, disappearing.
Frederic sighed, and turned to Ami.
"Ami, I want you to organize your Gerius forces for a continual omniversal
search and locate pattern. Reminder, this is a stealth mission. You are not to
engage the target unless in self-defense, and even then your priority is to
call and report, and attempt to hold out unless reinforcements arrive."
"Of course, Your Lordship. It shall
be as you command," Ami answered, bowing fully, and turning to the other
Gerius. "You heard it. The Gerius are going to war." Simultaneously,
all the Jokilar Gerius snapped at perfect attention, the explosion of boots
against octanium plating reverberating through the large cavernous space. The
Gerius vanished just like the others.
"What about us?" BorgFred
asked, indicating himself and Freda.
"Technically, you are not part of
the ESMF or the Gerius. I can't order you around," Frederic
answered calmly.
"That's where you're wrong,"
Freda answered before her male triple-Phalanx twin could answer. "We
received field commissions during the war against Sorcerer. Those are still
valid, at least as far as I am concerned."
BorgFred merely nodded.
Frederic smiled, clasping their shoulders.
"Thank you. In that case, there are a dozen squads of Black Cats on 254. I
want you to add in their training as much as you can, and give Steve and his
people as much support as you can."
"Can do, Fred," BorgFred said,
dipping his head. Him, Freda, and Steve and his people vanished.
Frederic closed his eyes at this point,
raising his hands. "Summon," and a blast of yellow energy flashed
upward, breaking into two before vanishing into dark pockets. Within two
seconds, two newcomers appeared right in front of the being.
One was the archangel Michael, who
immediately knelt to one knee. The other was a man of mid-thirties, brown hair,
medium built, and dressed in Phalanx Combat Armor.
"Michael, I am placing you in
command of the Forces of Heaven. You've got five weeks to prepare every Angel,
"Of course, My Lord. May I
inquire as to what we're going up against?" the
"Armageddon," Frederic answered
coldly. "The Dark God has risen once again."
Michael swallowed audibly. "I will
start immediately, Your Lordship," the archangel whispered, vanishing.
"Q," Frederic said, turning to
the other man. Most of the people who didn't know Frederic startled at the
mention of the Continuum's member. "You and the Continuum have the most
advanced intelligence network in the omniverse. Locate and report directly to
Ami, Field Battle Commander of the Jokilar Gerius. You are to coordinate your
efforts with the Gerius', and report every hour on the hour directly to
her."
Q bristled at the tone, then bowed his
head. "It shall be done… Your Lordship," he said, the latter
coming just soon enough to be respectful, before vanishing in the standard Q
lightshow.
"What'd you want me to do?"
Sorcerer asked.
Frederic glanced at him. "Take
Wiccan over there, and train her to be the best that she can be."
"You know my training methods. I am
not responsible for her safety," Sorcerer answered.
"If she dies, it's obvious she wasn't
meant to have that amount of potential," Frederic answered coldly, making
GS-Buffy bristle. She calmed down when her
"It will be alright," she
whispered, about to kiss her wife before Sorcerer whisked the both of them
away.
"LOBO, this is Frederic
Fromthefield."
Acknowledged, Father. Your
are Frederic Fromthefield, ESMF commander, born universe001.
"Upgrade situation to Defcon 2. Warn
the fleet. Recall all scientific vessels for retrofitting. Reactivate weapons
systems protocols. Instigate upgrade programs on all offensive, defensive and
support systems. Omniversal wide announcement."
Ready.
"Born from the Forces of Darkness,
Scourge of the Jokilar Gerius, the Dark God has risen once again. Together,
united, we shall stand with the forces of Man and Machine against the Darkness
that threatens to consume the worlds. Ladies… Gentlemen…
prepare yourselves for the
ultimate battle for the very survival of the omniverse." Frederic tapped a
key on his communicator to end the voice communication.
"Lord Wise One, I have an
announcement," the man then said to mid-air. "It seems that I must
request a five week and one day leave of absence."
The Wise One appeared right where
Frederic was looking. "Young Phalanx?" he asked.
"The Dark God has risen once more.
He shall be ready in exactly four weeks, six days, twenty-three hours, fifteen
minutes, and… thirty-six seconds. We must fight him then. If we fail… nothing
will matter. If we are victorious, I can return to my duties no earlier than
one day after the battle."
The Wise One nodded gravely. "I see.
Then I wish you good luck, Young Phalanx, and I can do no more than bestow my
blessing upon you and your allies… May the battle sway in your favor."
"Thank you, Lord Wise One,"
Frederic said, respectfully bowing his head as the God departed.
Taking a big swallow, Frederic looked up,
and shifted into Shadow.
The raven-haired warrior stared coldly
at the Slayer Team. "And we're going to train. For real."
Slayer Team fidgeted slightly, not really
wanting to know what Shadow considered real training. Except Buffy who matched
Shadow's cold expression and nodded back. Then a concerned look crossed her
face and she seemed to be mulling over something for a couple minutes.
"What about me?" Joshua asked.
"You can do whatever you want,"
Shadow grunted coldly. "As long as you stay away from scientific
experiments concerning Dark Energy, and don't interfere in the duties of my
people, I don't really care what you do… as long as you're back the moment we're
going to battle. Let's go," the warrior finished to her new students.
"Wait!" Gold Slayer exclaimed
suddenly, getting as much into Shadow's face without invading her space.
"Universe… uh, Universe… " she
cast a quick glance at
Joshua who answered immediately, "Universe914," Buffy started all
over, "Universe914 is still unprotected as far as we know. We need to at
least scout it out and see what kind of dangers could potentially emerge.
With
"Liam's home universe is 914, and
judging from his story, as well as his abilities, they have enough
protection." Shadow answered coldly.
"But
"I'm sorry to say… "
Watcher, and the others of the Slayer Team walked up, spoke to Shadow, "… that I
am inclined to agree with Buffy. At the very least, our presence there may draw
out the evil, or even drive it away. It would certainly bolster the confidence
of the Summers' and friends to know that the Universal Savior will be fighting
for them, along with all the cosmos. And… if tragedy has struck Elizabeth
Summers of that reality… "
Shadow nodded curtly. "Point
taken," she said, reaching for her communicator. "Ami? Can you spare
a couple of people? We're going to check out Liam's universe."
Of course, The blue-haired girl replied,
immediately followed by the Quest Team appearing in the hall. Two seconds
later, Ami herself appeared.
"Ready, Lady Shadow," Ami said,
respectfully bowing.
Shadow was about to answer when her
communicator beeped. Frowning slightly, she tapped it. "Shadow."
"Good morning, little sister,"
Barbara's voice came through the link. "What's happening up there that
you're sending everyone in a mass panic scrambling for combat positions?"
Shadow groaned. "Frederic may take
that from you, but I do not," the warrior answered. "I am not
your 'little sister'. As to what is happening…
the Dark God has risen once
more. We need everyone ready."
"The Dark God… waitaminute… the Dark
God? The one the previous Gerius sacrificed themselves for to
stop?" Barbara's voice sounded panicked.
"The very same. I hope
that this time we won't have to turn our life's energy into weapons and
literally obliterate our lives against him before we can stop him," Shadow
answered levelly. "Now, please excuse me…
there are lots of things to
be done, and we have little to no time to do them."
"Of course, little sis. Got it.
See ya!" the communications severed. Shadow growled, then shook it off.
"It really is true about family
getting under your skin. That woman just infuriates me," Shadow grunted.
"Anyway, are we all ready?" Receiving nothing but nods, Shadow ported
them directly to 914.
"You should see my
sister," GS-Buffy had time to get out before they were all gone.
Joshua remained behind, staring at the
equipment that had already regenerated to full capacity. Even after redlining
for so long, all it took was one single thought from the collective to repair
the damage done.
"LOBO…
I'm going to ask a
favor," Joshua said as he started walking to one of the nearby blown
consoles, "I want to help you out a little."
Help me out… how? the
being asked. If there was one thing he had learned, then it was better to
listen and reject than not to listen at all. After all… LOBO
could use a few laughs, and shooting down Joshua's remarks certainly would do
the trick.
"To my eyes, you still repair using
nanotechnology LOBO, where I'm about 50 to 70 thousand generations ahead of
that. Originally I did have nanotechnology as part of my body, and that's how I
could do what I did, not to mention was able to link with any computer system
in a matter of seconds.
I've found a way beyond that by now. If you
want, I can save you those 50 thousand generations, and evolve you overnight.
Then… we can work together, with the twins when they're working with us,
on the strategic aspect of this "campaign". And the next time that
you'll be required to put every iota of data, ion, and memory behind a problem
like you just did, I guarantee you'll be able to handle it better, and might
even be able to leave some facilities open to the "outside
world"."
LOBO chuckled, the strange sound
reverberating through the cavernous space. I do not think you are seeing the
whole point, Mr. Joshua, sir. I do NOT use nanotechnology. I am using a hyper
positronic energy-based conductor system. Basically put… none
of this is real. My thoughts MAKE it real. That is why this base is undefeatable… I
think invulnerability, and I have invulnerability. Speed is about as close to
unlimited as it gets… speed beyond the speed of the Gods of the
Universe, even.
Joshua's eyes went wide open.
"Impressive… I have to admit. But could you please
explain to me… why did you cut off from the outside world?"
LOBO chuckled again. Because the Twins
share something with me. The same thing Frederic and his dimensional
twins share. I am the ultimate technologically evolved being. Nothing exists
beyond me. They are the ultimate biologically evolved beings, also the most
advanced. When biology and technology meet, both are running to their full
capacities. That is why none of us were able to communicate.
Joshua nodded. "I did end up solving
the problem first, though."
Yes…
but only because you have
spent the last thousand years thinking of nothing but this experiment. We only had
twenty-five minutes. We're the best, Mr. Joshua, but we don't have all the
knowledge of the universe in store.
"I see," Joshua answered. “OK,
then let me put it like this; can you really afford for me not to be
working with you, on the off-chance that I’ll not go off and try on my own to
find and stop the Dark God?”
LOBO was silent for a full three seconds
before answering I could stop you.
Joshua nodded, but continued, “Yes, I
have no doubt you could, but during the brief time I was allowed into your
link…I saw that you choose holding sentient beings against their will as either
a last resort or under orders from Frederic. I may not be able to surpass
you, which I can assure you is the last thing that I want to do, but I
may be able to point out little tidbits that can help you reach conclusions
faster, as with the equation for example. I only offer to help. Nothing more.”
LOBO thought long and hard about it. Less
than half a second after Joshua stopped speaking, the Linda/Ortega Borlan
Collective gave the energy being his answer. Very well. The access
that you provided to the Speed Force certainly helped matters, and I will not
object to your input. However…
Joshua raised his hands and nodded, “I
understand that I will have no more access to your systems than any of the
Slayer Team or any other of your guests and I take no offense to that. But it
would be considerably easier for all concerned if I was in my energy form. If
you would allow it that is.”
LOBO merely gave access to Joshua’s
energies to the requested systems as answer and nodding a final time, Joshua
reverted to his energy form and then disappeared into the collective itself.
* * * * *
*
"Cool. My house," GS-Buffy
remarked dully as soon as she could see where they were after the effects of
the port faded. Then she frowned and continued in the same tone, "Too bad
my double's not here. Mom and Dawn are though."
"Now aren't you glad I didn't bring
our Buffy along?" Ami teased the Gold Slayer. Buffy just smiled back at
the blue haired girl. And then frowned when she saw her hair was no longer
blue. "It's an ability called 'Alter', it allows us to in essence, alter
reality to our will." Ami answered Buffy's concerns before they were
voiced.
Buffy nodded, understanding before her
attention was brought elsewhere, by what she could only guess. "This
way," she said suddenly and taking to the air in an easterly direction,
Angel following right behind her.
Shadow smiled slightly. "Ami, I bet
you that she'll pull faces when she sees what's going on there."
Ami smirked. "Deal," the girl
accepted.
"Come on," she then told the
Gerius and Slayer Team, "We might as well keep an eye on those two."
"Sometimes it feels as that's all we
get to do," Dark Slayer remarked, with no hint of a sexual remark there.
The next microsecond, they all had caught up to where Gold Slayer and Angel had
flown off too.
Two Buffys were in the thick of it
against the hoard of vamps, and were doing quite well, for mortals. However, it
wasn't until Slayer Team noticed GS and Angel standing off to the side that
they became concerned.
"B? What the hell?! If that's not
you then who… ?" Dark Slayer tried to ask, but at a mental
prompting from the Slayer, she quieted.
"A simple double-team technique. I
told you she'd pull faces," Shadow said to Ami.
"I know, I know… I
lost," Ami grunted. "One hour extra training."
Shadow merely smirked at GS' slightly
angered glare in the direction of the two leaders.
"Hey! My double's in Sunnyhell
too!" Faith suddenly exclaimed quietly. "But what the heck is she
doin' over at Xander's apartment?"
After Faith had asked that, Xander
suddenly groaned. "What is it Xander-kun?" Ami asked.
"My double is living with an
ex-demon. Course after Right-boy's confession that he was with Cordelia in this
universe I should have guessed he woulda been with Anya." The Warrior X
shivered, and looked rather sick. "I can't believe he's with an ex-demon.
It's just… too gross to think about."
"Well, she is human now… "
Ami tried to consol. "And, if it makes you feel better… this is
actually how things are supposed to run."
Xander held up his hand. "Thanks,
but I've heard all the arguments. It still grosses the heck out of me.
Homosexuality, of the male kind, is more attractive to me right now than the
thought of a me being with Anyanka, demon of scorned women's vengeance. And
that should tell you something!"
By the time that Xander had finished his
tirade, "Liz" had finished up the vamps, or at least all those that
hadn't run away. A few stealth-inclined blasts or well-timed strokes of swords
from the Gerius and Slayer Team took care of the stragglers though.
Once the threat had passed, and with
everyone else still in shadow, Liz, both Liz's, looked around, and then with
but a nod to the other, one of them disappeared in a flash of golden light,
apparently merging with the other. The single remaining Slayer, that looked
identical, except in dress, to the Buffy standing beside Angel, took one last
look around before running off in another direction.
"She's pretty good. You think she
can sense those slime demons from here?" Buffy asked Shadow.
Committing nothing, the warrior just
answered, "Perhaps. That simple double-team shows that she has
potential."
"Well, you wanted to come and warn
them. Now's your chance. And you might want to say hi as well Liam,"
Shadow told the two.
Buffy just shrugged and looked at the
Angel of Right. "I'll take care of the slime demons. And you should be the
first of us that she sees at any rate."
"Right," Angel nodded and took
off running after Liz. Buffy flashed ahead of them all and with a single
low-level ki blast, vaporized all of the slime demons and their eggs.
Watcher then nodded at X and Spike and
directed them at another nearby demon nest, and after receiving the silent
go-ahead from Shadow, the three male warriors of the Slayer Team took off to
take care of it.
"It appears that the demon
attraction level has gone up considerably more here than in the other
universes," Ami noted.
Dark Slayer frowned. "That's funny, ‘cause just
last night, it was as quiet as a sun-lit church around this same area. Ya think
that the spike in demons has somethin' to do with us going through that
portal?"
"All things are possible,"
Hadji zenly replied. Ami just nodded at the simple statement, answering Faith's
question.
"Every time that portal is used, the
Universe screams," Shadow said blankly. "There is a high probability
that using the portal increases the attraction level it has to demons."
"We've got to make sure that nothing
else stumbles into the portal," Ami said. "Otherwise, we may end up
with the local forces being overrun."
Shadow just nodded, looking at the Gerius
Commander, who blushed slightly, and looked at the ground.
"It was your
suggestion," Shadow said.
"Yes, Lady Shadow," Ami
whispered, nodding slightly. She took a breath. "As Field Battle Commander
of the Jokilar Gerius, I am authorizing the lifting of the first seal of the
Gerius powers." The blast of power sent everyone nearby backwards, whether
they wanted to or not.
Ami then closed her eyes, and lifted her
arms into the skies forming a black sphere in between her outstretched arms.
"Enclose and protect," the girl whispered, throwing the blob in a
certain direction. As it flew, the blob expanded in size, before making contact
with the portal, where it enclosed the entrance before settling in, and
vanishing.
"Nothing can get in, Lady Shadow.
Unfortunately, when something comes out… "
Shadow nodded. "Go close the other
ones, Ami. We need the portal system shut down. We can't run risks."
"As you wish, Lady Shadow," Ami
said, bowing, and vanishing.
"Why does she always get the cool
jobs?" Jonny Quest grunted to Jessie Bannon.
"When YOU are elected Field
Commander, I'm sure that Shadow will give you the cool jobs," Jessie
replied.
"Cool. Sign me up for the next
election!"
"You've got stiff competition. Ami's
the best."
"Ain't that the truth," Jonny
grunted.
* * * * *
*
Elizabeth "Liz" Summers was
trying to get through her patrol as fast as she could, but for some reason
demons and vamps just kept showing up to get killed. It was three years since
Angel and Cordelia had left, both coming home in their portals at irregular
intervals, but Liz had to admit that she missed the both of them terribly. That
wasn't why she was in a hurry though. She was in a hurry because Riley had
promised to show her something as soon as she got done with patrol tonight.
Liz smiled as she thought about her and
Dawn's Whitelighter. The ex-medic who had given his life saving countless
others during Desert Storm was as much an angel as Liam had ever been to the
family. He was cuter though, but Liz still couldn't imagine getting any more
involved with him than the "professional" relationship they enjoyed
now. Liz almost giggled out loud as she thought of Dawn's teasing at Piper and
Leo's relationship to get at her and Riley. Fortunately, Riley was just a good
friend, and their Whitelighter, and not her boyfriend.
Yet the reason she was so anxious to meet
with him was because as a Whitelighter, Riley could access magic, spells, and
mystical knowledge kept by the Elders and would often share such secrets with
the Summers' when he was able to. Though in the end, they all knew the same
secrets the Whitelighter shared, Liz and Dawn often competed over who got to
learn it from Riley first.
Liz suddenly stopped herself as the
demons she had tagged just a few minutes earlier disappeared in a brief
explosion of power. She cast the scrying spell again, to be certain. She
blinked in shock at what she sensed and in fact almost had to double-check it
again. All over Sunnydale, demons, vamps, and nests were suddenly disappearing
faster than the Slayer had identified them.
What was disturbing along with the
surprise was that she couldn't identify whatever it was that was taking
out those demons. Sometimes she almost managed a glimpse, but it moved so fast
that that was barely what she ever managed to catch. Suddenly, Liz's physical
senses warned her out of the mystical and without thought, she summoned her
weapon, which ironically her sister called the "Slayer Staff", in a
flash of green light, starting at her palm and extending until the five and a
half foot rune entrenched rod was held, pointed end out, at the throat of the
man sneaking up on her.
"Something troubling you Liz?" Angel
asked with a smile, his hands raised in mock-surrender while she held the
sharpened wood at his neck.
"Angel?" Liz whispered in
shock, her eyes wide and began to water around the edges. The Angel of Right
just nodded slowly, his smile widening.
The staff disappeared, retracting green
light this time, the same as it had appeared and before Liam knew what hit him,
Elizabeth had jumped into his arms and started hugging him and apparently
trying to kill him at the same time.
"LIAM!! I don't believe it! When did
you get back?! I haven't seen you in months, but Prue called and said you
helped her out with this zombie demon infestation out in… "
Liz began to babble.
"In Kathmandu," Liam finished,
hugging the smaller Slayer back just as hard. "It's great to see you too
Liz. I've missed you. How's your family?"
Liz let herself down and looked up at her
‘Uncle’. "Everyone's great! Dawn and Mom are hanging out at
home, helping the little squirt with her Trig last I was there. Hey! Wanna help
me finish patrol? Riley promised to show me this new trick as soon as I
finished. Something having to do with increased spell sensitivity."
Angel smiled down at the girl that he
had, in part, helped raise, but only for a portion of her life. "Actually… there's
something more important that's going on than patrol Liz. Something big. There
are… some people I want you to meet. Don't worry, they're the ones that
are gonna help with this threat, and I'm introducing them to you first because… "
"Because I was already out on patrol
and therefore the easy choice," she quipped with a cute smile on her face.
Liam laughed a little.
"Well…
that, and also because… of
*who* they are," Liam then turned as his senses told him, and stepped out
of Liz's vision as Buffy stepped forward out of the shadows.
"Hi Liz," GS-Buffy greeted
almost shyly. Immediately, the rest of the Slayer Team and the Gerius and
Shadow stepped out around the Gold Slayer.
Liz blinked several times, wide-eyed
before swallowing and looking around the gathering. "Uh… ok,
lots a doubles Angel, so I'm assuming you didn't find out about this threat
*here*, huh?" Liz sarcastically remarked, glaring up at the Immortal
warrior. He shrugged sheepishly down at her.
Ami raised an eyebrow and remarked aloud,
"You've brought doubles here before Angel?" The Immortal nodded his
head, when at the same time Liz suddenly gasped in awe and shock.
Shadow kept a neutral face and forced
herself not to frown as yet *another* person had no doubt recognized who and
what she was in a single day, but unlike Frederic, she didn't go in for the ego
trip. Yet before anyone could say anything, Liz said it all.
"By the Goddess," she hissed,
her eyes wide and awed. She resummoned the Slayer Staff and then knelt in a
humble, but proud pose of a warrior, the staff held perpendicular to the
ground, and starring straight at Buffy, "The Gold Slayer… "
she whispered to herself before she announced, "I am yours to
command my Goddess!"
The present Gerius, all four of them, and
Shadow, glanced at GS-Buffy, who was looking like she'd just swallowed a frog.
"Oh crap," she muttered to herself, flushing furiously.
"Looks like Fred isn't the only one
who goes for the ego trip," Jonny Quest remarked, smirking.
"It is curious, though," Ami
replied, turning to Shadow with a question. "This Buffy goes for the Gold
Slayer, thinking her a goddess. Yet the more powerful ones are us. Does she not
sense that?"
"She is a mere witch, Ami-chan. Her
senses are incapable of determining the true strength of a person, and
therefore, must go by physical appearance," Shadow answered calmly.
Liam swallowed hard, looking from the
Gerius, to Liz, to Gold Slayer, back to the Gerius. He swallowed again, turned
to Shadow, and bowed. "Please forgive her, Lady Shadow… Liz
has not been shown the ultimate secrets in the universe as of yet, and
therefore… "
"It's alright, Liam," Shadow
said. "It is… amusing."
Liam only saw the one raised eyebrow that
indicated Shadow's amusement, yet he himself was embarrassed to death. He grabbed
Liz, forced her on her legs, turned her around, but suddenly the young Slayer
pushed back.
"What the hell is the matter with
you?" both asked the other at the exact same moment. Liam went first.
"SHE is the one to kneel to
here Liz," he growled in her ear, pointing at Shadow. "She is,
literally, second under God only. *THE* God."
Liz look flabbergasted at Liam for a
second, interrupted from her thought processes, before looking at Shadow.
"Oh," was all she said.
The she snapped back and looked at Liam
with a hard-edged glare. "And SHE," pointing at Buffy,
"is the Gold Slayer! Liam, the GOLD Slayer! Did
Amanda give you any brains along with her powers? The Gold Slayer is the
strongest Slayer of all, the one precluding the Slayer--"
Liam didn't let her finish, "Don't
talk about Amanda that way!" he snapped. "You… Liz,
you have no idea what--!"
Shadow lifted a second eyebrow.
"Liam, I told you it was alright. Let the girl up."
"Yes, My Lady," Liam whispered
reverently, actually bowing at her words, releasing Liz at the same time.
"Okay, I know I'm feeling something—*"
Riley the Whitelighter began, appearing out of his orb, his ability to speak
breaking off when he caught sight of the people present. He grew paler and
paler when he took in the four present Gerius. He looked like he was having a
quadruple stroke the moment he laid eyes on Shadow. He fell to the floor in
front of her feet.
"Finally someone who knows something
about this," Liz broke into a smile at Riley's timely arrival.
"Riley, tell Liam who…
"
"Lady Gerius!" he whispered,
voice thick. "I… I apologize for any inconveniences my charge
has put upon you! Please, allow me to make amends… "
Liz stopped trying to talk and shook her
head at the heavens.
Shadow sighed, rolling her eyes.
"Will you stop it? Fred goes for groveling. I do not. Simple respect is
enough," she said with a neutral voice. "Now… "
she resumed, turning to where Liz was still looking as lost as ever,
"Why don't you tell me why you went for Gold Slayer there?"
Liz, understanding that this was
basically Angel's boss (Note basically), straightened in her attitude,
but still couldn't help talking like Shadow was just another warrior against
the darkness rather than some all-protecting deity. After all, that's what she
was to Elizabeth's eyes.
"She's… the Gold
Slayer!" Liz exclaimed again. Shadow nodded, but before Liz could commit
further, Riley interrupted.
"That's impossible Liz! The Gold
Slayer doesn't exist! She's a myth! Like the Legendary Super Slayer."
GS-Buffy scoffed. "I do too happen
to exist, thank you very much… Riley?" Buffy started off sounding
insulted, and then utterly shocked. That shock suddenly turned into barely
restrained giggles, which was immediately mimicked by the rest of the team.
Shadow cleared her throat at the
interruption, having the natural effect of quieting the Slayer Team's laughter,
as well as silencing Riley's protests of disbelief. "Please Elizabeth,
continue," Shadow asked friendly. Liz nodded back.
"The Gold Slayer is… well,
how to explain this to #2 after God… Well, she's a myth, yes, but I know she's
real because well… " Liz just gestured at Buffy.
"She's supposed to show up when other Slayers are in personal danger, or
the world is about to end against some uber-threat that *nothing* else can
stand against, and she's also supposed to be the first evolution of the Slayer
Goddess, the mother and sister of all Slayers. And I mean *ALL* Slayers.
Alternate realities included."
Shadow raised her eyebrow again and cast
a sidelong glance at Buffy. The Gold Slayer shrugged and muttered to herself in
non-sensible language for a moment before answering. "It's this whole
prophecy deal. We've come across it in a number of dimensions we've visited.
Funny thing is, it's the identical prophecy. Giles, how does it go?"
Blushing somewhat at being called out
like this, the bearer of Nightblade stepped forward and began to recite,
"And shall come from beyond,
The Chosen of Chosen,
The Mother and Sister of all Slayers,
The Queen, the Golden Slayer,
In the times of need,
She shall appear to aide, teach and join
her children,
Bringing all of them together as one."
Riley and Liam shared a glance at each
other, then at Liz, and finally rested on Buffy. Liam suddenly blinked as
though a light switch had been flicked. "Oh hell. You… you
really are the Gold Slayer aren't you? Does that mean… that
you're also a legendary Super Slayer?" he asked, as much awe in his
voice as there had been when Frederic had explained himself… except
less fear.
Buffy just shrugged sheepishly for a minute,
when suddenly she glared at the three locals. "Wait just a sec… *I*
didn't know about the Super Slayer status until *after* the fact. How the hell
do you guys know about it?" She then blinked, as though just realizing
something. "Oh hell. It can't be.
There is just no way. No. Way," she
mumbled to herself.
"B?" Faith asked.
Taking a deep breath Buffy turned to face
the Dark Slayer. "Faith… I want you to do something for me right
now."
"Sure B, what?"
"Go to the Slayer Vaults, and open
them." Buffy answered deadpan.
Faith's expression showed her surprise
quite clearly. "Uh, why… ?"
"Please, just… do
it."
"All right B, all right," Faith
nodded and then pulled something out of her jacket, raised it to the air, and
then in a rather bad dialect of the Divine language, shouted to the air,
"Admit me, for I am the Chosen!" In a flash of pure divine energy,
the Dark Slayer disappeared.
Liz went wild.
"No. Way. NO WAY! The Gold Slayer *and*
the Keeper of the Vaults *here*! *Now*! This is officially the
best day of my life!" she shouted.
"Not necessarily," Buffy
muttered a second before Faith returned, with a sour expression on her face.
"How the hell did you know?"
she demanded.
Buffy took a deep, long breath.
"Know *what* exactly?" Shadow asked.
"That this universe is the location
of the Slayer Vaults. Equivalent of the Vaults on Avalon, except that they
incorporate all the knowledge, weapons, gifts, etc, etc, of all the Slayers of
about three, or maybe four worlds total, including some prophecies and books
that detail the lives of numerous *special* Slayers, namely ones destined to
change… just about everything. Like Buffy, or Alika, Lucy Hanover, or
somebody else along those lines. This… this is the universe where Slayers are viewed
as… well, saviors of mankind, but also something akin to mythological
heroes, like Hercules, King Arthur, so on and so forth."
"Your point?" Shadow
asked.
"Point? Her
point?!" Liz nearly lost control and almost attacked this warrior for
sounding so disbelieving of the *Gold Slayer*! "Liam's explained the deal
with the Watchers in other realities. That's not exactly the case here. A
Slayer's lifetime is usually well into her forties in this reality, and that's
just the average. I really don't care how *high up* you might be, but you've
got the look of a good person and a great fighter, and I not only respect that,
but I admire that. But don't go around and disregard my beliefs on the whim
that you're more right than I am. The Gold Slayer is like Jesus Christ to the
Slayers, the ULTIMATE Slayer. The one that can and may end up saving all of us.
The Slayer Goddess."
"That's the third time you've
mentioned that," Shadow answered, not at all bothered by the young girl's
speech, "but Buffy failed to mention that in her explanation. Care to
explain for her?"
"Uhh…
!" Buffy
suddenly stepped forward, "Maybe we could conduct this… somewhere
that is else. Maybe… inside, or just… not
here… or now?" she silently begged.
Shadow looked 'interested' at the
surrounding area. "Why? Don't be bothered by being in public. Nobody can
see, hear, or notice us."
"Lady Shadow, there is still evil
lurking. By your leave?"
Shadow dipped her head at the young
Gerius, who snapped at attention, feet together, hand clenched into a fist over
her heart, before vanishing into Super-Light.
"Show-off," Jonny muttered.
"Jonny, do me a favor," Shadow
suddenly said.
"Huh? Sure!" the boy eagerly
agreed.
"Liz seems to be convinced that Gold
Slayer here is the ultimate incarnation of the Slayer… do me
a favor, and get Buffy for me."
"Sure!" Jonny said, pushing his
hands together, and vanishing. Five seconds later, Jonny Quest returned with
Buffy in tow.
"Problem?" Buffy
asked, looking around the group.
"Not really," Shadow said,
motioning for Liz. "She is convinced that Gold Slayer is the strongest
incarnation of the Slayer. You are here to disprove that theory."
"Ah. Cool," Gerius-Buffy said,
dipping her head, taking a stance next to the Quest Team.
Liz stared at Gerius-Buffy. "I am
not being cruel," Shadow said gently. "I am merely showing you the
error of your thinking… nothing is absolute. Compared to you,
Gold Slayer is a goddess. Compared to her, this Buffy is a goddess. There is
always a bigger fish."
"Not possible!" Liz shouted.
"The Gold Slayer… "
"Is shark bait compared to
her," Gold Slayer grunted, not liking the situation one bit, but forced to
confront the truth. "Now please just shut up and listen! This is
complicated enough as it is."
"I'm no goddess Elizabeth, heck I
don't have any clue as to if I'm supposed to be. And… Gold
Slayer I may be, but I'm not one that deserves praise, prayers, or any of the
above. I'm just a Slayer, just like you. Well, maybe not… exactly… like… you… "
Buffy suddenly trailed off as she stared at
Liz, having stepped forward some to make
her statement.
Buffy took another step until she was
right in front of Liz, still not saying anything, but making everybody nervous
about what was going on. Shadow already knew, but wasn't saying anything.
"What's wrong Buffy?" Gerius
Buffy asked.
GS-Buffy's eyes were tearing up as she
gulped down a sob. "Oh goddess!" she gasped, bringing her hands to
cover her mouth in absolute horror. Liz began to look really nervous.
"Show us your neck!" GS-Buffy
suddenly demanded, tears beginning to fall.
"What? Why?!" Liz became
defensive.
"Show us!" Buffy demanded.
Gulping, and looking extremely nervous
now, Liz turned around and raised her blonde hair up so that all could see the
tattoo placed there.
"By the gods!" Watcher
exclaimed. "The Broken Dove!"
"The what?" Jonny
asked.
"The Broken Dove… is a
symbol for one who has sacrificed their life for another," Shadow
answered. "I saw a description of it in the Book of Shadows. Basically, a
vicious predecessor of the Fusion Technique… capable of healing a person in
mortal danger, but having the drawback of not being able to split apart. In
fact, more similar to the Namek fusion, but also with unforeseen side
effects."
"Bummer," Jonny groined.
"Isn't there something you can do?"
Shadow shrugged. "I could try, but
the results may not be liked… the fusion was executed a long time ago.
If I split them apart, their separate spirits are very likely too degraded to
survive."
"So the odds are what? 50/50?"
Jessie asked.
"70/20," Shadow replied,
causing the Gerius to cock eyebrows at her. "Ten percent risk that it
doesn't work at all," Shadow finally elaborated.
"Major bummer," Jonny groaned.
"I could always ask the Wise One,
but I am reluctant to ask him," Shadow said.
"Why?" Liz asked, intrigued,
but also frightened by the whole idea.
"You don't walk up to God and ask
for a favor," Shadow answered calmly. "Fred might be able to… but
after the last time he asked a favor… "
"Point taken," the Gerius
present groaned.
"Why? What happened last time?"
GS-Buffy asked, actually curious despite her tears still falling.
"Fred basically told the Wise One to
go screw himself… without using as many words," Shadow
stated flatly.
"You…
know a guy… who
told God to fuck off?" Liz asked, voice shaking.
Shadow grinned, and shifted into
Frederic. "No. I am the guy who told the Wise One to fuck
off." He shrugged. "The technique worked."
Liz gulped, staring wide-eyed at the man.
Where Shadow was someone she could instantly like and respect, Frederic put the
literal fear of god into her, from his aura alone. And Liz wasn't the only one
affected.
"Oh no… for the love of the
Gods of the Universe, no… " Riley whispered, stumbling a
couple of steps backwards, before falling. "I didn't… didn't want to
believe it… but it really is you… "
"What are you talking about,
Riley?" Liz asked her Whitelighter.
"Shadow… we all
know Shadow is the Universal Savior. But him… he is the big secret. We know what he looks
like, we know his name, but that is it. Nobody knows his true power, nobody
knows the full extent of his skills, and nobody has the guts to ask the
higher-ups… either they don't know, or they're very tight-lipped."
Frederic smiled slightly. "Chances
are, they don't know, and are tight-lipped about that fact. I've made it
a point not to involve myself directly unless needed."
All Liz could do was stare. "And she… she
works for you," she whispered, motioning for Gerius Buffy.
"She's one of my team leaders,"
Frederic confirmed her worst suspicions.
Frederic then tilted his head to one
side, a look of confusion and somewhat surprise on his face before nodding, and
turning back into Shadow. The raven-haired warrior smiled back at Liz. "I
saw the effect Frederic had on you, and I do not like to make other people
uncomfortable if I can help it."
Liz smiled back and nodded. "Thank
you," she remarked appreciatively.
"Willow?" GS-Buffy whimpered
quietly, only enough to hear at all, beside Elizabeth.
Liz spun, wide-eyed and panicked almost.
"How… how-wow… how do you know that… how do
you know me?" Liz tremblingly asked, her eyes a vivid bright green.
GS-Buffy stepped closer, and carefully,
took Liz's hand in hers. "I sensed it the moment that I got close enough.
My soul would recognize you in a sea of endless souls if it had to. I… "
Buffy's voice broke briefly, "… I can't tell you how sorry I am… or how
to explain my feelings… for what you did. I don't… I
can't… " Everyone could tell the Gold Slayer was about to
break down, and those watching noticed that the other members of the Slayer
Team, Spike included, seemed to be empathizing (literally) with their team
leader.
Liz looked to be on the verge of tears
herself. "It's all right. Will… I would gladly do it all over again. There
is no doubt in my mind, heart, or soul."
"Wait…
" MS-Buffy stepped
forward, finally concentrating on the situation. "You're… Willow?
But… me too? How can that be? Magic or not, without some *major* intervention,
two souls cannot inhabit the same body. Basic extra-dimensional physics."
"There was intervention," both
Liz and Shadow said at the same time. Liz looked at Shadow, who nodded solemnly
at the Slayer.
"The Goddess," Liz continued.
"She blessed Willow the moment she performed a spell that she normally
never would have been able to perform. It was originally just supposed to
transfer Willow's life-force, alone. But Buffy…
er, I," Liz's eyes now
had a more hazel brown glaze to them, "didn't let her go. I clung to her
so hard that she did not go into the afterlife…
but at a greater cost than
either of us knew at the time. My… saving Willow spent a great deal of our
spirit energy, so despite Willow's sacrifice; we might have still died… if Willow's
body hadn't merged with ours at the same time. Fulfilling the Pure Sacrifice
Ritual. Another personality was created from the fusion, though Willow's and
Buffy's souls were still separate, them being together, as one, created a third
soul almost. Liz."
"Oh, and then there's the spatial
and balancing side effects," Liz then began to glow yellow-gold all over,
and in a flash of the same light, there were suddenly two Liz's there, but one
with green eyes, the other with hazel brown. "The extra mass of Willow's
body allowed Liz to separate into two complete bodies. Sort of like Astral
Projection, except more complex, I think."
"We call it a
"Double-Team" technique," Shadow supplied. Liz nodded,
remembering the name. She then dispelled the double before speaking again.
"It…
it's not so bad really. I… I've
gotten used to it. Besides, Buffy and Willow would never want to separate
again, not to mention they are sure that it would kill… ‘Liz’."
The speaker suddenly froze as she became aware that a secret she had kept for
over seven years, save from Liam Willsright, was suddenly out at the mere
mention of the redhead witch's long-forgotten name.
"Liz…
why didn't you tell any of
us this? When did it happen?" Riley begged to know.
Liz looked down at the ground, but it was
the Buffys that answered, "Lothos," they said as one. Liz just
nodded. Gerius looked at Gold Slayer and they both, for the first time ever,
shared the identical look. Then GS-Buffy broke their mutual stare and glanced back
at Elizabeth, then back at the Gerius-Buffy, who just nodded.
"Permission to… let
off a little steam Shadow?" MS-Buffy casually asked.
Shadow looked at her, then glanced around
the surrounding universe, identifying the remaining demons. Shadow shrugged,
understanding the Gerius' need after hearing the story of what might have been
her if the universes had dictated it. "Don't let it interfere with your
current duties, but… you may," Shadow allowed.
"Why don't we take Liz home, explain
everything all at once rather than let Angel handle it all?" GS-Buffy
proposed. Shadow curtly nodded her head at the gentle suggestion.
Before anyone could say anymore though,
they all, minus Gerius-Buffy, were in front of the Summers' Clan home on
Revello Drive. Outwardly, it appeared as all other residences owned by Joyce
and Buffy Summers, but it was when Liz opened the door and let them all into
the foyer that the differences were made known.
Everything, every thing, from the
wallpaper, to the carpeting, to the ornaments and wall hangings in the home
spoke of the Wicca religion, and active practices in it. The
sound of the door opening, and people coming inside attracted the attentions of
the sole occupant of the downstairs.
Joyce Summers, Matriarch of the Summers
clan and Wiccan High Priestess for the L.A. Coven, walked out from the kitchen
to the foyer, wiping her hands dry on a dish towel and stopped when she caught
full sight of the dozen people in her house. Her face broke out into a familiar
grin when her eyes landed on Liam.
"Angel," she said
affectionately, and with little resistance from the immortal, drew him in for a
warm hug. She released him and then moved from person to person, giving each a
penetrating look, as though she were looking into each soul and inspecting
their right to be in her home. She paused for a long time on both Buffy and
Spike, but passed them by with no comment or word.
The last, the Gerius who were all open
and friendly in their postures, was Shadow, who stepped forward and bowed her
head in greeting before the witch. "Blessed Be, Joyce Summer," Shadow
greeted openly and stared up into the Matriarch's warm and kind loving eyes.
Joyce nodded back. "Blessed Be
Shadow Deathwalker," Joyce replied in the same tone. Shadow blinked, when
she realized that Gerius or not, some things were unable to hide from those who
knew how to seek it.
"It has been a while since I have
heard that name, Joyce Summers," Shadow said, her eyes locked on infinity,
her own voice sounding distant to her as she thought back on the time she spent
with the Charmed Ones. Finally, she drew a breath, pulling herself from ancient
memories. "May we enter your home?" Shadow requested. Joyce broke out
into a huge, loving grin.
"You may. Please, make yourselves at
home. I believe you have quite a story to tell. Liz, go ahead and call Giles
and your friends. I'm sure they need to hear this as well." Joyce told her
daughter.
"Sure Mom," Liz bustled off to
the phone and started dialing.
"Would you like a snack while we
wait?" Joyce asked.
‘This
is why I love Joyce Summers’, Shadow thought as she gratefully accepted.
The doorbell rang, making Joyce look up
in surprise. "That was quick… " the
woman muttered, striding to
the door and opening it.
"Can I help you?" she asked the
strange girl on her doorstep, unable to take her eyes off the blue hair the
girl so proudly displayed.
"Good evening, Joyce of Summer.
Please allow me to join my comrades," the girl spoke in even tones,
clearly marking the girl's Japanese heritage.
"Ami-chan?" Shadow
asked, emerging in the foyer.
"Buffy-chan is tearing into the
demon population of this world. At this rate, she will have cleared the visible
surface within the next three hours… since it appeared I was unneeded, I
decided to rejoin you," she reported, tone shifting from friendly to
professional instantly.
"Come in," Joyce said, still
looking strangely at Ami's hair color.
"I am not of this world, Joyce of
Summer," Ami answered the woman's stare. "Where I am from, hair color
ranges from blue, green, yellow, and pink over blonde and brown, to
black."
"Ah," Joyce whispered.
"Well, I think Liz's friends will be in for a surprise, then… "
"Believe me, the hair color is the
least surprising of them all," GS-Buffy grunted. "In the last day,
ever since meeting those guys, my entire perspective on inter-dimensional life
has been turned upside-down, shown me an entire level of power that I never
imagined before, found out that the most evil incarnation of *EVIL* is about to
resurface, and *THEY* are still regarding it as a calm day!"
"That is because it is a calm
day," Ami said gently. "Any day where we aren't fighting for our
lives is a calm day… just because we found out the universe
might come to an end in five weeks is no reason to call it a bad day."
Liz, who had just entered, caught the
last part of the speech. "I think you'd better start from the beginning… once
everyone gets here," she grunted, falling into a couch next to her mother.
"We're not known for doing half
work," Shadow stated calmly.
"Of course not," GS-Buffy
grunted, sounding envious. "You're built to be perfect."
Shadow shrugged. "That was dumb
luck," the warrior said. "It was my intention to help my charges gain
a technique. It was not meant for the Wise One to boost us all to the next
plateau. Not that I am ungrateful!!" she growled at the skies, and
everyone present could almost *hear* the Wise One laughing. It was a strange
experience for Liz and her mother.
* * * * *
*
Meanwhile, "Liz' Friends" were
over at one Xander and Anya Harris' apartment, trying to help one of their own
with a minor problem.
"It's not that big a deal,"
Jonathan complained, fidgeting slightly under Faith's handling.
"It is a big deal," Anya
protested right back. "If we don't take care of this soon… you
might go wild and kill us all in our sleep."
Jonathan rolled his eyes at the ex-demon.
"I may be a werewolf Anya, but I do have taste. I would never eat
you."
"Oh, good," Anya smiled happily
for a second before she thought about it and snapped, "HEY!"
resulting in snickers from everybody else in the room.
"And another thing, I doubt I'd go
insane from some ripped britches… I'll just be a bit more shy, and that
could be distracting," Jonathan trailed off.
Other than Xander Harris and his wife,
there was Jonathan Sullivan, a werewolf and ex-boyfriend of Liz from High
School, Faith Adams, the second Slayer and bearer of Vampire Slayer, Spike, aka
William Trueheart, a half-cured vampire and old friend of Angel's, and Dawn
Summers, who had snuck out using a teleport spell after she had finished her
homework with her mother.
"Well, big deal or not, it is a
problem. Easy fix though," Dawn said as she stood up and investigated the
torn outfit. It was similar to spandex, except more stretchable, and was almost
a body suit, except it ended about past the knees and just above the elbows.
This was Jonathan's "morphing outfit", what he wore when he morphed
into a werewolf so that when he returned to human, he wouldn't be naked. And at
the moment, it was torn in a rather embarrassing place.
Dawn waved her hands over the fabric and
whispering a few words, a few sparks of the young witch's power fell down and
where they touched the cloth, it was instantly stitched and healed.
"Dawnie," Faith scolded,
"You aren't supposed to use magic so lightly. Three fold rule and all
that?"
Dawn shrugged. "It's for a good
cause. Side's worse case scenario, something of mine gets torn, and I really
don't mind anybody seeing what I got, just so long as they don't touch,"
the youngest Summers said with a smirk.
Faith just chuckled and shook her head.
Xander rolled his eyes. "See Faith, you've been a bad influence on
Dawn-patrol since the start. Ten years ago she never would have said something
like that!"
"Yeah, cause ten years ago I couldn't
talk!" Dawn laughed back at Xander.
"So, you wouldn't mind me seeing
what you've got eh?" Spike whispered from directly behind Dawn, where no
one else in the room could hear.
Dawn was suddenly beet-red. "Uh… I… that
is… " she was saved by the bell however when the
phone rang and Anya picked it up. One look at the woman's face told Dawn
everything there was to know.
"Uh, I'll see you guys back at my
house, bye!" she said, while mentally reciting the teleportation spell and
disappeared in a flash of green and white light.
"What was that about?" Xander
asked. He turned and saw Anya on the phone.
"Of course, we'll be right over Liz.
Don't worry; we'll pick up Rupert on the way. See you in ten
minutes." Anya hung up and began chewing on her lip.
"An? What's wrong?" Xander
stepped forward.
"Liam's back. And he's brought some
people that have a problem. Like 'Big Bad' sorta trouble. At least that's how
Liz sounded. We have to get over to her house ASAP." Anya was already moving,
getting her coat and purse. "Oh, and Faith, would you mind picking up
Giles? I think he's at the coffee shop again."
"No sweat Yanka," Faith said,
grabbing her own things. "Jon, ya mind goin with XanYanka?"
Jonathan shook his head. "Yeah, no
problem, see you at Liz's."
With that, they all scrambled out the
door and for Revello drive as fast as they could drive.
It didn't take ten minutes. It only took
seven and a half.
Eight minutes later (including the time
to get everybody out of their stunned looks after they entered the Summers'
home), everyone of Liz' friends had assembled in the Summers' living room.
Slayer Team was sitting together, looking
more or less neutral. The Gerius were busy discussing things in their metabolic
Gerius Language that sent shivers down the spines of Slayer Team, aggravating
some over their inability to learn the language. Buffy was paying more
attention to Liz, like a mother hen watching one of her chicks that was sick.
The home team, consisting of Liz and her
friends and family; Xander and Anya, Faith, Jonathan, Rupert Giles (in an
outfit that reminded most of John Lennon in his later days), and Liam and her
mother, were casting concerned looks in the direction of both Slayer Team and
the Gerius.
"Now that we are all here… now
can you tell us what this big emergency is?" Liz asked, her tone halfway
between ordering and begging.
Shadow dipped her head. "We
can," the raven-haired warrior began, taking a breath and standing up.
"The problem began one thousand years ago, when a scientist who only goes
by the name 'Joshua' decided that he was going to try and help the entire
omniverse. By plugging things such as the Hellmouth, among other such threats,
using a device to siphon its energies back in on itself."
"Unfortunately, the experiment
malfunctioned, causing a breech. Hundreds upon hundreds of malformations
scattered through the omniverse. The scientist then knew he would be unable to
plug these 'Dark Influxes' by himself, and decided to call in help. This help was
Slayer Team over here," Shadow said, motioning for the Slayer Team.
"Some of you might have heard of them… The Gold Slayer, the Wiccan (who is
absent for the moment), Warrior X, the Watcher, the Dark Slayer, and
Spike." Liz and her group submerged in chattering amongst themselves for a
couple minutes at the mentioning of the names.
"Unfortunately, things did not go as
planned. The last three Influxes mutated. Instead of being just an Influx, they
had linked together, forming a portal network spanning three separate
dimensions. That is where we came in… the portal network led to the Home
Universe, Divine Identification 001. Ground Zero of the Omniverse… there where
it all began, 20 billion years ago. That is where Slayer Team encountered the
local defenders, a group of six known as the Jokilar Gerius. Buffy is their
Team Leader," Shadow went on, motioning for her Buffy, who had rejoined
shortly after the local "Slayerettes" had arrived and settling in
quietly with the other Gerius. "We joined forces in finding a solution,
and found the source of the original accident. The Prime Source of all Evil, a
Dark God known only as the Dark God, sabotaged the original experiment.
In five weeks, he will be born, and the Dark Portals will regain vulnerability.
For now, they remain invulnerable. But, as we draw nearer to the inevitable,
the more evil will spread throughout the omniverse. The other Gerius are on
scouting missions, identifying potential hazards and eliminating them, as well
as trying to locate where the Dark God might be at this time, lying low,
building his power."
"So that's what we're facing,"
Liz whispered, shaking slightly as she fell down into a chair.
Giles914 cleared his throat. "Excuse
me, but… the term Jokilar Gerius… it somehow sounds familiar." He
closed his eyes, cleaning his glasses. "Something about… once,
a long time ago, at the dawn of time of the universe, there were a group of
warriors destined to fight the darkness… and give their lives for the peace of all
that was to come."
Shadow nodded sadly, her four present
Gerius simply bowing their heads. "The Jokilar Gerius were empowered over
nineteen billion years ago, to fight off what was then known as the insane
gods, lesser pantheons who had been turned insane by the forces of evil. They
fought bravely, and managed to rid Creation of the evil that was their
insanity. But then… then the Dark God came. His power was immense, his armies
were vast. The Gerius fought bravely… but in the end, only one route remained
open to them: they transmogrified their souls into weapons of war, and
surrendered their lives in exchange for the demise of the Dark God."
"Dear Lord… "
Giles914 whispered in awe and shock overload. Some, who knew who he was
speaking to, snickered slightly at the dual referencing.
"We are the renewed Gerius, the
twenty-four divine protections of all creation. My name is Shadow; I have
walked the path of Death and life, forcing my way from the afterlife on the
path known as the Universal Savior. I am also the Supreme Commander of God's forces
known as Frederic Fromthefield, Phalanx of the Human, Oech-anya and Ketari
Races, Commander of the ESMF, Master Slayer, Jedi Knight, Personal Champion to
the Gods of the Universe, Inheritor of Hiten Mitsurugi, S-Class Alter User,
Conqueror of the Internal Force, Supreme Commander of the Jokilar Gerius. I
report to the Wise One, yet hold my own authority to do as I please in the
defense of Creation."
"Dear Lord… "
Giles914 whispered again, the only one to be able to find his voice amidst
the chocked stares of his friends.
Liz suddenly scrunched her face up at
something. "Jokilar Gerius… Jokilar Gerius… " she
kept muttering quietly to
herself. Suddenly, the Slayer-witch sprung up and went around the living room
to a study just outside of sight and started thumbing along a shelf of books.
Finally finding the one she was looking for, she grabbed the old book and raced
back to the others.
Flipping the pages at an incredible rate,
Liz began frantically looking for whatever it was. Finally, she slowed, and
then stopped on a certain page, her finger speed-reading down the pages until
it rested on what she had been looking for. "Joker Geron," she said
with finality.
"Huh?" several asked, mostly
from the locals though.
GS-Buffy stood up and looked around her
double's shoulder and read what she was pointing at. Then her eyes widened and
her face flushed some in anger. "Excuse me," she snapped before
grabbing the book out of Liz's hand and reading more in-depthly.
"Buffy?" Ami asked.
"I don't believe it. I don't fucking
believe it!" Buffy exclaimed loudly.
"What?" Gerius-Buffy was forced
to ask. GS-Buffy looked up at her and shoved the book in her face, pointing at
the passage.
Buffy read and absorbed it instantly… then
did a double take and read it more slowly and carefully. "What the
hell?!" she exclaimed before grabbing the book herself.
"There is no seer, psychic,
or *force* in the entire omniverse that could be *this* accurate, I don't care
how reputable they might be or who they work for. For starters, you're the Jokilar
Gerius, legend, yes, but not prophesied unless by the Gods of the Universe
themselves, and that's because they want and/or need it to happen. This don't
count." GS-Buffy ranted.
"What are you talking about
Buffy?" Shadow asked patiently.
"We're in a prophesy!" both
Buffy's exclaimed.
GS-Buffy went first, "In that
passage, it describes, in shocking detail, me and Joker here's first meeting,
and then goes on to meeting Sorcerer, and going up against Buu. It mucks up the
names a good bit, but that’s what it is."
"More than that Shadow," Gerius
Buffy picked up, "It goes on to say what *more* we'll be doing." She
turned the page and paled, "And it has two potential endings on this
prophesy. What will happen if we *don't* succeed, and a maybe on what will
happen if we do succeed in destroying the Dark God. The only thing it doesn't
mention is Joshua."
GS-Buffy grabbed the book back and glared
at Liz, "Who wrote this!? No one, NO ONE can be this accurate in
prophecy. Hell, the name muck ups actually look deliberate. Who wrote
this?"
Liz looked more confused than mollified.
"It's a recovered tome from the Slayer Vaults. The Watcher's Council has
several hundred from them."
Buffy tossed the book to Faith and
repeated, "Who wrote it?"
The Dark Slayer caught it and the moment
she did, the object that she had held up earlier glowed from beneath her
clothing and Faith looked up, startled. "Well?" Gold Slayer asked,
batedly.
"You're not gonna believe me,"
she said reluctantly.
"Who Faith? I must
admit, I'm rather curious myself." Shadow asked.
"Giles." Everyone
immediately looked over at Giles914. DS-Faith shook her head. "No, not
him. Him!" She pointed at Watcher.
"What!? That's
impossible, that would mean that Giles was a Watcher like… "
GS-Buffy exclaimed.
"4,000 years ago. Minimum,"
Faith finished. GS-Buffy gulped slightly.
"Regardless… what
exactly does the prophesy say we'll do next Buffy?" Shadow asked.
"Sirciror and Niccaw return in the
home of Summer, where Niccaw and the Gold Slayer are rejoined and Death's Life
Shadow takes them to the heavens abandoned to learn the ways of the gods,"
Gerius-Buffy recited.
"Sorcerer and Wiccan?" Shadow
asked. GS nodded.
"Giles, care to explain how you
wrote this?" Shadow asked. Watcher was unusually quiet. Even for him.
Finally, standing, he cleared his throat.
"There is only one way that I could have been the author of *any* tome
from the Slayer vaults. If I was the Watcher that wrote *all* of the future
prophecy books in the Vaults. Which means that…
"
"You will go back in time after this
is all done with to fulfill this destiny," Ami supplied.
"No. I will die, and then be reborn
from the path of the Lost Watcher, and be born in the past with the full
knowledge of every Watcher that has ever or will ever live, from every
universe. I was… or will be it seems, one of the founding
creators of the Slayer Vaults." Giles said soberly.
Shadow blinked, so did several others.
Then she sobered as well and nodded in understanding of everyone else's shock.
"No one should know their own destiny, and fate," she whispered
sympathetically.
"OK, I've held my shock in for long
enough… " Xander914 said, interrupting the silence. "Now who the
heck are you people, and why do you look like us. And no, you don't need to
repeat your story. I mean, literally, who are you. Like names and stuff.
And for those with mine or my friends' faces, a little of your histories would
be nice too."
"Of course, Xander," Shadow
replied. "Mizuno Ami, Field Commander of the Jokilar Gerius," she introduced,
motioning for the blue-haired girl. Ami stood up as Shadow took her seat, and
bowed respectfully.
"As Shadow-sama said, my name is
Mizuno Ami. I have been given the dubious honor of being the most powerful
among the non-enhanced Jokilar Gerius… and thus have been appointed their
leader." the girl shot a meaningful glance at the Quest Team, as well as
Gerius-Buffy. All of them seemed to have other things to look at, as they
pointedly tried to avoid meeting Ami's gaze. Ami returned to the group from 914.
"As well as Jokilar Gerius, I am the warrior of the Element of Water, the
Knight of Mercury."
Ami sat down. "Well, guess it's my
turn," Jonny said, standing up. "I'm Jonathan Quest; team Leader of
the Quest Team. Just call me Jonny, like everyone else does."
he motioned for Jessie. "This is Jessica Bannon, Jessie, and that is my
adopted brother, Hadji Singh. None of us have any fancy tricks up our sleeve,
but when we have to, we sure can pull up some good old fashioned ingenuity to
come up with that one thing you didn't expect."
Shadow smiled at that. She remembered
Jonny and his Team's 'improvisations'. How they kept coming up with them, she
didn't know.
As Jonny sat down, Buffy stood up.
"I guess you all know me… I'm Elisabeth Anne Summers. Call me that,
and I will kill you." Chuckles floated around the room. "Anyway, I am
the team Leader of the small group of warriors placed in Universe001, on top of
the Hellmouth. My group consists out of Willow, Oz, Xander, Cordelia and Angel.
Oz has a Wolf Form, and Angel has a Demon Form, but the rest of us are pretty
standard. Background… let's see…
"
The blonde Gerius started pacing,
organizing her thoughts. "Let's see… first sign of trouble was when I tried to
rescue a group of three. They ended up helping me, AND cured the Vampire Bite
that would have turned the woman into a vampire at the same time. After that,
they kinda vanished… until some time after, they returned. And
they've been dragging us with them ever since…
first, they
made us Master Slayers, something like a super-version of an ordinary Slayer.
They continued to train us in new techniques they encountered on their travels,
until one day they made us the offer we couldn't refuse… the
offer to become the personal army of the gods of the Universe themselves… reporting
to no-one but ourselves, only following the orders of our commander, who could
take or leave any missions the Wise One suggested. The Elite Fighting Forces of
the Omniverse," Buffy whispered, staring into infinity as she whispered
the words. "How could we refuse?" she asked, grinning widely.
"Anyway, that's our story." she turned to GS-Buffy. "Your
turn."
"OK," Xander914 interrupted the
Gold Slayer, "First of all, by "Oz" do mean Daniel Osborne by any
chance? Yeah, Cordy brought him home one time. Weird werewolf. I think if a
nuke went off in his lap his famous last words would be "Cool." And
who's Willow?"
Gerius Buffy suddenly gulped as she recalled
what had sent her off on a rampage earlier. "Excuse me, I have several
undergrounds to finish up," the Gerius announced and disappeared in
Super-Light.
Ami shared a knowing glance with Shadow.
"By the time she's finished, I doubt there will be any demons left to
attract." Shadow just grinned.
"Uh, We'll introduce her later I
guess," GS-Buffy said for her double to Xander. "Well, everyone here,
you should recognize, me, oh and I also go by the name Buffy, but to further
differentiate, just call me Gold Slayer. Faith, is codenamed Dark Slayer, Giles
is rather different anyway so I don't think you need to say any more about him.
We call our Xander X mostly, oh and Xander, you're going to love this, our
Xander is married to the Cordelia of our world, and if I'm not mistaken, is
more like Harmony than the Cordelia of this world."
Some snickering went out and Xander914
was forced to blush and crossed his arms. "It's… not
that funny. Besides, Harmony was always a good kisser."
A lot more snickering broke out, this
time from Spike, DS-Faith, and Warrior X.
"So what's your story?" Spike914
asked the other.
Spike just shrugged. "Not really any
of your business ya ponce. All ya need to know is I work for Slayer there and
ya ain't got nothin to worry about with keepin yer necks covered."
"Spike, be nice," GS chided. He
just gave her the peace sign, which was the British way of flicking someone
off.
GS-Buffy put on a too-bright smile and
walked over to the couch. Shadow and the Gerius had rather big grins on their
own faces. Then, with only a warning of, "Don't worry, I do this all the
time," to the locals, the Gold Slayer crushed Spike’s head in between her
two hands and in seconds the vampire was nothing but dust.
90 or more seconds later, the dust began
to reform, a bluish electric glow surrounding it all until Spike was sitting
there as though Buffy had done nothing more than pinch his neck. "Ow! You
know it really hurts when you do it like that--*" His speech was cut off
when the Gold Slayer once again took his head, but this time tore it clean off,
rendering dust once more.
"I sometimes do this for hours, just
to relieve some stress, ya know?" the Gold Slayer said, looking at the
Gerius. "It's very relaxing."
The entire room erupted into laughter.
"Hey!" a grouchy and
forebodingly familiar voice rang out through the house. "What's the joke?
The bitch's pathetic power level? I could always use a good laugh."
The moment everyone stopped laughing, in
an explosion of warp energy, Sorcerer and the Wiccan appeared in the Summers'
foyer, one looking rather highly amused and in a very good mood, the other
looking so exhausted she was forced to remain upright by leaning on the former.
Shadow slowly stood up. "Sorcerer.
So, what are you doing back here already?"
Sorcerer shrugged, grabbed Wiccan by the
shoulders, and launched her into the seat. He made a hand-motion.
"Sleep." Wiccan fell asleep instantly.
"I just pumped the basics into her.
Kinda wore her out. I never thought a non-enhanced human could take that much
in one sitting, but she just kept asking for more… so I gave it to
her." Sorcerer sat down in the seat Shadow had just vacated. The
raven-haired warrior glanced around, confirming her memories: no more empty
seats. She glared at Sorcerer's grinning face.
She smirked back, and sat down in
mid-air, floating to above the coffee table, facing him. "And you're back
here because… ?"
Sorcerer shrugged again. "Just
making sure you keep your stories straight. My new pet needed some sleep anyway… she
might as well get it here than in the cave."
"And who is *this* clown?"
Xander914 had the stupid gall to ask.
Sorcerer blindingly fast raised his hand,
and vaporized the boy. Liz and her group stared at the spot where there used to
be a Xander-shaped friend.
"Wha…
" Liz managed to
stammer. "Where… "
"Hell," Sorcerer answered. When
the group stared at him, he sighed. "He's in Hell, idiots! The name's
Sorcerer, bastard, or asshole. Not 'clown'."
Shadow put her feet under her body.
"Sorc. Resurrect him."
"Or what?" Sorcerer
asked, sneering evilly.
"Or I will kill you," Shadow
said, darkly, her raven tresses already staring to lift as the air-pressure
suddenly increased to the point where the more normal people had it really hard
to breathe.
"I am so scared," Sorcerer
grunted. "But fine. I'm not interested in whooping your ass this
time." He snapped his fingers, and Xander914 was back.
"Now you know to stay the fuck away
from me, kid," Sorcerer grunted.
"I still don’t know why Fred ever
did what he did when he did what he did," Shadow grunted. "He should
have just let the Wise One vaporize you. It would have been so much
easier."
Sorcerer shrugged, grinning. "It's
my award-winning personality, as well as my feverishly good looks."
Shadow's face twisted. The next moment,
she shifted into Frederic. "You mean *MY* feverishly good looks."
"Holy Cow!" Xander914
grunted, taking a few steps back. "TWO of them!"
X immediately got to his feet and dragged
his double, and Anya with the other hand, by the scruff of his neck into the
kitchen. It looked like it was his idea by everyone in the room, but it had
actually been from a psychic order from GS-Buffy and Wiccan, who were now
actually sharing a seat, the Gold Slayer comforting the unconscious redhead.
Liz, who would have been more affected at
seeing Willow Rosenberg, was too disturbed by Sorcerer's appearance, and the
reappearance of Frederic to notice however. Fortunately, out of courtesy for a
woman they both respected… or at least liked, both were subbing
their auras so that those naturally sensitive to their presences were not adversely
affected.
However at that moment…
"Hey Mom? What's
going on with the racket down here?" an eerily foreboding voice called out
as the owner bounced down the stairs and into the foyer.
Dawn Summers stepped into the living
room, not caring that a lot of the faces were repeated all over, but she did
notice the unmistakable tension between the two identical men in the center of
it, one of which was still floating in the air.
"Well I'll be… And here
I thought I was just returning some property," Sorcerer mused taking in
the teenager before them. He turned to the remaining Gerius. "So where's
that "partner" of mine and why hasn't she already wasted this one so
I can collect my prize, huh?"
Before the others could say anything
though, Frederic "got to his feet", and took a look at Dawn before
his eyes widened in realization. "You can't have her Sorc," he stated
coldly.
Sorcerer turned slowly back to face
Frederic, this time getting really close. "What," he paused for
effect, and to put a half-sarcastic grin on his face, "did you just
say?"
"You can't have her," Frederic
repeated firmly. "She's actually been born. That means she's under
my protection. As both Phalanx and Savior. You. Can't. Have. Her. Now do I need
to repeat myself one more time, or do I need to take Wiccan off your hands
because I can't have someone this dumb training her."
Sorcerer didn't waste the next threat. He
activated the One Ring, the Warp Magic warping every sense that there was to be
had in the room, and making it look like they were all inside a black hole or
something. One word stopped what could have been a disaster worse than
Hiroshima.
"No…
" Willow croaked
out, slowly coming out of the sleep Sorcerer had placed her into. A Mentally
enforced regeneration sleep. Only a high enough level mental could break out of
it, of course, Sorcerer hadn't put too much power behind the command, as the
Wiccan was not *even* a Mental.
Sorcerer turned and stared in amazement,
deactivating the Ring in the process, as Willow's head slowly lulled up to a
sitting position. Her eyes opened and from the glazed look, she was still
pretty out of it, but as conscious as she was…
Sorcerer and Frederic looked
at Buffy, who they knew to have psychic powers of her own, but she raised her
hands in defense, "Hey, I'm not doing this," she said honestly.
"Don't… waste… … just
don't. Dawn… this… Dawn is…
not… Key. Angel's… story… Glory… no Key… Dawn… is
Dawn… not… Key… … " with that, Willow slumped
back down into GS-Buffy's arms, back fully into the regenerative sleep.
<<How the hell did she do that?>>
Sorcerer asked Frederic, completely forgetting his anger at being insulted and
told what to do.
<<She's not a mental. She might
have used some of Buffy's psionic abilities through their marital link, but… >>
Frederic responded.
<<That, or she's got one hell of
a will, no pun intended.>> Sorcerer looked back at Frederic who
shrugged.
"Satisfied?" Frederic asked.
Sorcerer just grunted and took the last seat before Frederic could.
Frederic turned back to Joyce Summers and
bowed humbly, or as humbly as he ever got, before her and apologized. "I'm
terribly sorry about that Mrs. Summers. I did not mean to insult your
hospitality in such displays."
Joyce, rather than answering, just stood
up from her place and walked past Frederic and directed Dawn, herself, around
the two Triple Phalanxes to the place between her and Liz, Jonathan standing to
make room for her. Frederic merely waited her out, until the Summers Matriarch
stood once more and this time stood before Sorcerer.
"Lord Sorcerer, it is a great and
privileged honor to have you in our home. I apologize that I have not been a
more gracious hostess for you. Would you like some snacks?" the kind woman
asked with a genuine smile.
Frederic looked as if he had been
slapped, and Sorcerer added to it by completely ignoring his twin and putting
on his most charming smile.
"Why thank you Lady Summers, that is
most kind of you to offer. I would love some herbal tea, and there is no need
to apologize, the fault was with me and my rather unannounced entrance. I
promise to be more gracious in my future visits." Sorcerer said in a tone
that made him sound more like Frederic than any could have ever imagined, but
at the same time with something that made it unmistakably 'Sorcerer'.
"Of course, you're always welcome
back under the banner of peace and friendship," Joyce said kindly as she
poured him a cup of the tea she had brought out earlier. Steadily handing it to
him, she then turned and started back for her own seat.
She paused and stopped however when she
was beside Frederic. Looking the Gerius Supreme in the eye, she answered
Frederic's questions about her behavior in an instant. She had understood
perfectly what had just happened here, or almost happened, but under the
threefold rule, she would not, could not be rude to Sorcerer, and she had
already accepted Frederic, through Shadow into her house. The 'asking for
snacks' had just been the subtle way of looking into Sorcerer's eyes the same
way she had for everyone else.
"Apology accepted, Lord
Frederic," Joyce then bowed her head. She then looked up, and Frederic
knew he was no longer speaking with a High Priestess witch; he was speaking
with a mother. "I give respect only to those that deserve and earn it,
Lord. Even gods." She then stepped closer and kissed him on the cheek in a
very motherly fashion. "Thank you for protecting my little girl." she
whispered.
"You're most welcome Mrs.
Summers," Frederic smiled back, unexplainably a warm and content feeling
entering his heart. Joyce Summers had always been like the mother he had never
had and had always wished he'd had when growing up, and this one seemed to take
"Mother hen" to the next level.
He turned back to the Gerius, briefly
glaring at Sorcerer, who was smugly enjoying his tea. "All right. I
want patrols to include all the hot spots and other areas in this universe as
well. Oh, and Ami… check out the Slayer Vaults. Knowledge is
Power." Frederic
said in the language of the Gerius.
Ami nodded.
And Power is Knowledge, she finished the statement.
Before the Gerius could disappear though,
Buffy shot a look at Faith and let her emotions guide the Slayer without
letting any actual thoughts go through, and therefore none to be read. Faith
just reacted.
"Hey, uh Aimes, ya mind if I tag
along on your next patrol? I feel the need to stretch some, ya know how it
is." Faith stood and walked over to the Gerius.
Before Ami could turn her down though,
something in the Slayer's eyes caught her attention. Ami shrugged and just
said, "Sure. It's a rare honor for some to witness the Gerius in
action."
"Don't I know it," Faith said
brightly, clapping the Gerius Commander on the back. However her hand remained
there for a bit, creating instant telepathic contact between the two of them,
unable to be read by outside sources, save those that Ami let in.
<I really don't give a fuck how, but B
knows that you're going to the Slayer Vault. Now, I'm the only, the *only* one
that can get in there without setting off the security measures. Not even god
can. I'm not sayin that you can't handle it, hell I'm positive you can, but it
took 4000 years to *set up* those security and we don't need them torn down to
answer for your curiosity. Please, please take me with you so that I can unlock
everything for you.> Faith silently begged her.
Ami smiled sweetly. <Your offer,
although unnecessary, is greatly appreciated, Faith. Let us depart.>
<Hey! What do you mean,
unnecessary?> Faith protested before they left.
<As Jokilar Gerius, we are the
ultimate embodiment of the forces of Light… as such we have unstoppable access to
mystical deposits of whatever nature, as long as they serve the forces of Good
and Light. The Vaults on Avalon, the Slayer Vaults, Oberon's weapons locker,
the Holy Armory of the Archangels, and so forth. Come, Faith… let me
show you what a Gerius is like,> the blue-haired girl replied gently, taking
the dark-haired Slayer's hand before they vanished. The other Gerius smiled,
and vanished as well.
Frederic then turned to the Gold Slayer.
"Now if you're done getting praised by *your* fan club, they've been
warned, told the problem, and it looks like my Buffy is making it so there
won't even be demons *left* on the planet for them to worry about. Are you
ready to train or not?"
Buffy looked up. "Are you still
offering?"
* * * * *
Shadow stood on the top of the rocky
mountain, staring over the lush rainforest below, her shoulder-length
pitch-black hair rustling gently in the breeze of the early morning rising sun.
"It's going to be a good day,"
the warrior whispered. Drawing a deep breath of clean, fresh air, the warrior
closed her eyes and remembered… Thor. Her travels. Her teachers and their
teachings. Two hundred and fifty years of hardships.
Shadow opened her eyes, and smirked. And
it has made me strong.
Letting go of the breath, she thought
over what had happened with the Slayer Team since their arrival. They had done
remarkably well… for normals, that is… even
outdoing some of the old Master Slayer's records.
Yes, quite a feat indeed… Shadow
thought, turning to return to the training grounds. But still… they
are good. Very good. But only on this level…
The Dark God whom we are
facing is stronger than the Gerius. Slayer Team is merely… human.
There is no logical way they can withstand him. Shadow halted, and looked
at the feathery cloud formation over her head. I am worried.
Looking back down, she floated off the
ground, and vanished into the Gerius Shift toward the training ground. Directly
before she vanished, her thoughts were, Something needs to be done… and
there is only one person who has the finesse for it.
Five minutes later, Slayer Team was
facing two Gerius. It was not uncommon for the Gerius to return from their
scouting missions and take part in a training session or two, so Slayer Team
thought nothing of it.
But, as fate would have it, this was not
an ordinary training session.
"Today I must do what every teacher
must do at one point," Shadow began. "I have always hated it as a
student, yet I hate it even more as a teacher. I wish for you all to know that
I do care for you all, deeply, and that I most certainly am sorry for what is
to happen."
GS-Buffy swallowed slightly, and bent
closer to Faith, "She sounds like she's gonna kill us," the blonde
whispered, knowing that Shadow would hear her, otherwise she would have
psi-whispered it.
"Yeah, B, and I don't like it one
bit," Faith muttered back, feeling her foster-sister's anxiety as her own.
"No, this isn't about killing… this
is about living," Shadow said, causing the two Slayers to share another
glance with each other, subconsciously gulping at the same moment with the same
thoughts. "This is about survival against the Dark God. Today… Ami
will be your direct instructor. She will show to you the difference in power
that lies between you and us."
"Excuse me but… we
already know how different we are," Wiccan pointed out, "In that
regard at any case."
Shadow shook her head. "No, you do
not… you have witnessed the Gerius revealing ten percent of their
power, yet you haven't felt that power. You have witnessed me relieving stress
on Buu, yet you were not the target of my power. No, Slayer Team… you do
not know what you face. Today, Ami will show it to you. She will use everything
in her ability to teach you that there are always limits in the universe, that
everything has a superior."
"And just what will that show?"
GS-Buffy grated angrily. "Break our spirits? 'Cuz that won't happen!"
Shadow sighed. "No, it is not about
that either. This is about 'putting you in your place'. It is to show you who
and what you are in the grand scheme of things. You are good. Really good. But
your greatest strengths are also your greatest weaknesses. None of your powers matter.
Nothing you can do can make a difference."
The six members of the Slayer Team took
pause at that and shared a meaningful look with one another, swallowing
Shadow's words and their ultimate meaning.
"So far," Shadow said with a
small smile. "That's what Ami's for. She is first going to pound into you
that; at your present level of power and ability you are nothing. And then
we will start rebuilding you. We will build you into warriors of skill, of
united heart, mind, body and soul. You are good now, but you will become
better. Much better.
"But the most important of them all… we
will train you to stay alive in there, because you will damn well need it. The
Dark God has the power to wipe out the Gerius. He is a foe totally unalike
anything you have ever witnessed before."
GS-Buffy was about to say something to
that when a slight nudge from her wife stopped her. Then Buffy actually thought
about it and recalled all that they had learned over the past few weeks. Buffy
calmed her temper, and tempered her natural pride, not an easy feat, but she
did it.
"I…
" Buffy paused
as she read the thoughts of those she was connected with, "We… understand.
And as much as it pains me to say, we may not be ready, but I understand. Will
this be free-for-all, all-out attack, or just a power demonstration?"
These terms were the vernaculars the
Slayer Team had labeled to both their own training, and then to the Gerius
training, and for some reason even with the Gerius the names had stuck.
Free-for-all was the melee combat training that Sorcerer especially liked to
delve into; everyone was the enemy, no teams, just fight everything and
survive. All-out attack was more in-line with Frederic's training, of having
multiple opponents go 'all-out' on a singular target, usually him. Power
demonstration spoke for itself.
"I leave that up to Ami. And I thank
you for your understanding Buffy. I know several of your alternates, and I too
understand that it is difficult for you to admit your full weakness. Even with
your transformations ability to consistently get stronger, it is… "
"Meaningless. I… I
know," Buffy's voice cracked a little. Then she let out a breath and drew
herself up, as though steeling against an attack.
<Guys…
are we ready for this?>
she asked her Team.
Surprisingly it was Watcher who was the
one to answer, <Buffy, when have we *ever* been ready for
something like this? Remember our first Tournament?>
Buffy smiled and almost giggled. <Guys?>
Her "voice" was almost pleading now.
<We're with ya Buff. All the way.>
<I love you.>
<B, have I let you down yet? Bring it
on!>
<Cor Slayer, you know me!>
<We'll all follow you Buffy. No matter
what.>
Gold Slayer's eyes took on a harder
glint. Shadow smiled, remembering once seeing an identical look in her own
reflection, in a lake, next to the house of a man named Thor. She stepped aside
and nodded to Ami. Ami bowed first to Shadow, then to her 6 pupils.
Automatically they all bowed back.
"Know that this is not a task I am
looking forward to," Ami said in that usual shy little girl's voice she
always used when not in full 'Gerius-mode'. "Unfortunately, it is
necessary." She drew a steeling breath, and let it out.
"I will leave it to you, Ami,"
Shadow said, dipping her head in greeting to the young Gerius before vanishing.
Ami nodded tensely and put on a brave smile.
This will not be easy… I
must bring them to the edge. To the very edge between life and death, between
surrender and death… but I must not let them die. I cannot let
their minds collapse… I must merely make them shed all
pretenses and human-instilled instincts, to reveal their true core. Then
Shadow-sama can rebuild them.
Ami remembered how Sorcerer used to train
her, and the other Gerius: One-on-one until their powers erupted, and then a
massive all-on-one, where he demonstrated just how much better he was.
This might be the ideal time to use those
same techniques, and Ami shuddered slightly at the thought of inducing the same
kind of pain and hardship on these people as Sorcerer had induced within her.
She could feel him grabbing her,
whispering obscenities… Yet, the pain had fully awakened her
Master Slayer strength, and now the time had come to do the same to another.
Ami's navy-blue eyes hardened, and Slayer
Team realized the girl was shifting into Gerius-mode, and that their training
was about to commence.
I am their teacher, and it is my solemn
duty to do this. I cannot fail them, for failure will mean their death on the
battlefield.
Ami swallowed, and the last of her
kindness hid itself deep within her heart. The moment she spoke, Slayer Team
realized that this was the Commander of the Jokilar Gerius.
"Once, the Lord Sorcerer trained us
in the arts of combat. The training was long, and painful, yet it wielded
higher results than expected. His methods may not always have been politically
correct, yet they worked. I will now use the same techniques the Lord Sorcerer
used to induce our power, yet expand upon them, not to increase your power, but
to break your minds down to the fundamental levels.
"When I am through with you, you
will be a savage beast, stripped of humanity and society's rules. You will be
beings of instinct and power, the body's natural instinctive desire to know its
power making sure that its full potential is reached," Ami spoke, her tone
calm and collected, yet booming over the training area.
"Then, we will begin the
reconstruction of your mind, bit by bit. This process will be as hazardous as
the original breaking down, for it is very easy to turn you into an
indiscriminate killer, or a total vegetable, on the slightest slip-up. Shadow
will handle the reconstruction… while I will handle the first part, the
breaking down."
Ami's gaze traveled over the collected
group.
"You now have the option to step
away," Ami concluded. "Stop now, and no-one will hold it against you.
But know that, once the training has started, there is no turning back. Failure
means death. Permanent death."
"So…
let me get this
straight," Dark Slayer asked, “Your gonna break us, strip away everything
that we have that holds us in check, basically making us wild animals driven by
nothing but instincts… and then "rebuild" us?"
Ami dipped her head. "Doing so will
release the maximum potential of your mind and body. You will reach the
ultimate stage that your mind and body can handle. Know that, after this is
done, there will be no further increases possible in your power levels… your
power will be at the maximum limit of your mind and body."
Gold Slayer's fists clenched at her
sides. Unconsciously, every member of the Slayer Team suddenly became
uber-tense, but because of something the Slayer had done, not Ami's words, not
that those weren't having their own profound effects.
"Something tells me Sensei
Ami," Gold Slayer almost growled in Japanese, "You won't have to do
much work with me." Ami considered, and then reconsidered when she saw the
absolutely wild and pure animal look in the blonde's eyes.
From the very air around her, one could
almost sense that she was not a human, but some massive lion or jungle cat
poised to spring, growling loudly. Ami, who had stared down hell fiends, chaos
gods’ imaginings and demons from the worst hell pits in all of existence, was
actually impressed. She might not have much to do with the Slayer's instincts,
or her inhibitions, but some things had to be pressed to ensure they were
tempered properly. The Gerius Commander once again steeled herself for what she
was about to do.
"You might be right Buffy, but I
know that the same cannot be said for the others. You have control over what
you have termed your berserker mode, your… "Slayer mode" and "Pure
Slayer". But can the same be said of the others? For Xander? For
Faith and her "Slayer mode"? For little Willow?"
"I am so dead," Wiccan
murmured, swallowing a small gulp in her throat.
At those four words from her wife, Gold
Slayer seemed to almost lose it as the sense of a growl became an actual growl,
and she brought her clenched fists up from her sides. Like the hair raising on
the back of a cat's fur, Gold Slayer's golden mane snapped out of its ponytail
confinement and seemed to get charged with static electricity. She adjusted her
footing, her eyes never moving from Ami.
Amazing. At
the slightest inclination of threat to her wife, to her mate, she escalates
several levels into her animal rage. It took Serena seeing all of us blasted to
get as far as Buffy has in three words. I need to work on the others now. The
Gold Slayer is easy enough to manipulate.
"So what about it Xander? Do you
have control over your hyena half? Could you willingly fully immerse yourself
so into its wild and primitive nature that you actually lose yourself in it? To
give up on the pitiful controls your Chi teacher helped you to attain? Or you
Faith? Do you really think you're any bit as good as Buffy is?" Ami
continued to work their nerves with words. The more she worked with words, the
longer she could wait until beating it into them, and hopefully the less of
that as well.
"I do believe she's trying to goad
us into attacking her," Giles almost calmly remarked, removing Nightblade
from its sheath. Suddenly the blade quivered in his hand as Gold Slayer
answered him.
"No, she's trying to get us so
pissed off we can't see straight, and then she'll get us more pissed off, and
angrier, and angrier, until we have no more anger, and only our core. Only what
every living creature has inside of them. Doctors like to call it Fight/Flight
response. But it goes so much deeper than that."
"Very good Buffy, you were paying
attention," the Gerius Commander congratulated.
"Well, I should know. I tapped into
that core in the final battle against Glory of my home world. That’s why I've
never known my ultimate power. Because I never fully understood what I had
finally tapped into. Let me warn you something Ami. After I did it… after
I tapped my own core, and mine alone… I wiped Glory away like a splattered bug
on a windshield. That wasn't even knowing what I was doing. Gerius or not… if I… if I
"break" as you put it, I might end up hurting you. Killing you no,
injuring you no. But I might hurt you."
Ami smiled. "Well, after I get
through with little Willow, I think you had better." Gerius Commander
taunted.
The Slayer snarled. Her eyes lost all
color. Her irises changed from hazel to yellow gold, and she lost all ability
to speak. Then her pupils changed from black to hellish red. Buffy was gone.
All that remained was all that was left.
She materialized on Ami's side, her fist
connected against the Gerius' cheek. Everyone stared, including Primal Buffy,
yet Ami simply sighed.
"You just don't understand,"
the Gerius Commander whispered, making a simple hand motion. Primal Slayer was
tossed back to the group. "Do you?" she asked, voice sounding angry.
"You just… don't… get it!" Ami started to advance upon
the Primal Slayer, looking angry.
"There is nothing you can do! What I
am about to do to you is different from that little gripe, that little delving
into your primal side. Yes, it's similar, but it's not identical. What I
am going to do to you is simple. I am going to strip you of your controls over
it. That Primal Side of yours? That will be all that's left. Nothing else will
remain. You will react by instinct, guided by your emotions, running on your
physical memory. Your body will attain its highest level possible, whether it
wants to or not."
Ami halted her advance, and smirked
evilly, subconsciously mimicking Sorcerer's smirk during his training sessions.
"You will have two options. One, your body and mind will be able to handle
your full maximum power… or two; it will disintegrate under its
own power, like the first Super Saiyan did."
Ami cracked her knuckles. "So… last
chance. In… or out?"
The Slayer couldn't reply, instead poising
for another strike at what her primitive form perceived as the threat. Ami.
Before any of the Slayer Team could
answer, Gold Slayer launched into the air again, trying an overhead strike. Ami
dodged, and then pummeled the creature's torso for several long seconds before
kicking her in the back and several meters away. The Slayer actually stumbled
as she got back to her feet, and attacked again.
With each blow that was landed, each jibe
and derisive comment that Ami snapped at those that were not yet involved,
Willow the Wiccan winced. When her wife received an especially painful beating,
her fists unconsciously clenched tight enough to draw blood, though her
fingernails did not puncture her flesh. When Ami finally hit the Slayer hard
enough that she cried out, Wiccan was shaking from head to toe.
"Enough," she whispered
hoarsely. Something was still holding her back, but she couldn't watch this beating
any longer! Ami didn't wait to be attacked again, instead she grabbed the
Slayer by her hair where she lay and slammed her into the ground behind her in
almost a classic cartoon take.
"ENOUGH!" Wiccan shouted and
moving without thought, without purpose, only with emotion and instinct, she
flashed forward, and chanted a spell just before she reached Ami. "Umbolg
un DESTRUIT!" Her left leg, which was extended in a kick, glowed for a
brief second, a brief second where it slammed into the air shield around Ami.
Ami looked surprised at the redhead, and
then almost casually blasted her off of her. "Maybe I should have
mentioned that you don't get out of line," Ami stated derisively.
Gold Slayer's head snapped up the moment
she heard Willow shouting, and watched with helpless eyes as Ami blasted her
away. She just got more pissed off than ever.
A wild and thunderous roar sounded just
behind Ami and she looked back to see a ki flame born of pure rage ignite
around the Gold Slayer and she attacked Ami afresh and anew. Ami blocked the
first couple of hits, but after that, didn't even bother and started laying
into the Slayer.
Again, she stopped when she felt another
hit on her. This time it was Dark Slayer. Rather than pause or stop at the one
hit, she followed it up with three hyper-move combos. Ami just blasted her
away. Only to have Gold Slayer come back to take her place. Ami blasted at the
Slayer, but rather than being thrown back, the Slayer actually took the blast
head on and absorbed the energy. It greatly injured her, but she was beyond
pain, beyond feeling her body, which was also regenerating at a remarkable rate.
That does it. No more low-level blasts. Ami thought and a brighter beam of
energy lashed out at the Golden Slayer.
For half a second it looked like she
would take the blast again, but in the micro-instant before it hit her, Warrior
X dived onto the blast, pushing Gold Slayer out of the way and somehow managed
to deflect the most of it into the ground using his body as the mirror.
Ami frowned and waited as he still stood,
and then looked up at her, with solid amber eyes, his pupils nothing but black
pinprick points. He growled as he launched himself, the sound undeniable animal
and more like a wolf or a wild dog than anything else. Ami just punched him in
the face, knocking him back into Faith's body.
And of course that was when Wiccan tried
to get back in the fight, once again augmenting her body with magic to subdue
the Gerius. Ami on skill alone subdued her and knocked her into the other two.
Another roar and explosion of power echoed and Ami found herself under assault
by a fully refreshed Gold Slayer. Ami turned off the Slayer's ability to
regenerate, and made sure to no longer use energy attacks.
"Can I just go to Hell and stay
there?" Spike asked at the sidelines.
Shadow shrugged. "If you wish,"
she said with a gleam in her eye.
Spike looked back at her, knowing she was
quite serious. Then he looked at the fight between his "sire" and the
Gerius Commander. He looked back at Shadow as he actually considered spending
the rest of his eternity in Hell, no doubt being tortured and subjected to the
worst of the worst of the worst there. Then he looked at the fight. Fire,
brimstone, probably even the worst and most humiliating and painful sex
possible, or worse. The fight. Eternal pain, torment, humiliation and maybe
even spending it with a demon version of Xander…
The fight. Spike was stuck
at indecision.
Nightblade began to glow and then Watcher
right along with it. He went in and was knocked back into the pile faster than
the Englishman could blink. Hell is looking mighty good right now Spike
thought to himself. He looked back at Shadow and then at the fight one more
time.
Well, I always said I could understand
Dru better if I was insane. Now I think I do. He thought as he transformed into his "game
face" and shouted, "Bloody Hell!" And dove into the fight, actually
making a couple of hits before being knocked back.
Ami discontinued fighting, crossing her
arms over her chest as she let the others 'pommel' her. None of their attacks
mattered. Nothing they did hurt, let alone damage her.
Closing her eyes, Ami sighed. "This
isn't working," she whispered to no one in particular. "Where did I
go wrong…?" Ami's eyes snapped open. Of course!
"Okay, everybody warm-up's over!
Round two!" the blue-haired girl shouted, extending her arms, blasting
everybody backward on sheer waves of Universal Will. A snap of her fingers
later immobilized them all in the spots they had fallen.
"Buffy. Watch," Ami intoned to
the Primal Slayer as she extended her hand toward the incapacitated Willow.
Slowly, she started to close her hand, causing the redhead to gasp, then choke,
at the same time as the sound of snapping bones filled the air.
Primal Buffy snarled, shouted and trashed
inside the cage of Universal Will she had been put in, unable to break free.
"Know that you are powerless.
Meaningless. Your training was useless, and there is nothing you can do to stop
me. Her life is in my hand. Literally," the girl went on in the coldest
tones. To add to her point, she closed her hand just a little further, electing
a scream from Willow. At the same time, the Slayer raged, her ki exploding
around her, yet she was still unable to move. The Gerius power could not be
negated.
"I wouldn't want you in my army if
you were the last warrior on Earth or in Heaven," Ami continued. "You
are weak. Useless. Without Power. Watch me as I kill your beloved spouse."
Ami continued closing her hand.
Suddenly something seemed to happen at
Ami's words. Her ki became less wild and uncontrolled and more ‘just there’. No
longer thrashing, the Slayer tried to find ways to move, moving around the
barrier holding her. Ami smirked and allowed the Slayer into a position so she
could see Willow's predicament better. The Slayer was instantly in a kneeling
position, and straining as though in a tiny cave and trying to push the entire
Earth upwards.
Come on, Buffy… break! Ami
thought sadly, closing her hand a little further, Willow's body now horribly
disfigured. "Realize it! Realize you're hopeless! Know you can't save her!
Her fate is in my hands, and there is nothing you can do about it!"
The Slayer could only stare. The red in
her eyes disappeared and a silent scream of a demon could briefly be heard as
the demon Buffy had been using as a power source broke. The gold in her eyes
was also flickering as she stared, helplessly, at Willow's continuing to be
injured body. Tears were streaming down her face.
I can't go further! I'll kill her! Ami
thought angrily. Damn you! Damn you, Buffy!
<Wait Ami>, the Gerius suddenly heard in her mind.
Joshua. What do you want? Ami
thought back, for the moment just keeping Willow in pain rather than adding to
injury.
<Do it. Kill Willow. I can revive her… provided
I'm allowed.>
You! You cannot revive someone that a
Gerius had killed! Ami raged at him.
<Let me put it like this, crush her,
but don't atomize her. As long as you don't personally throw her soul into
heaven or hell, I can revive her, body and all. Ask LOBO, he can vouch.>
It is true Ami, he can do as he says, but
wouldn't killing one of them, even temporarily be contrary to this exercise?
<You're focusing on Buffy right now;
the others can only follow her lead or defend her family. Each one of them has
a trigger that sends them to the most primitive reaches of their mind. For
Buffy, that is her soulmate. Same with Willow. Kill Willow in front of Buffy's
eyes, you'll get what you want. Kill Buffy before Willow's eyes, ditto. Xander
is a bit more complex but it'll be similar to what broke some of you guys.
Faith… just make fun of her a lot.>
And what makes you think that…
<Hey! I just spent over 7 weeks with
these people, maintaining the immortality the Powers gave them. 1 week is all I
need to get inside somebody's head, and I've had seven. I know these people
inside and out. Now. Don't atomize her, but make sure Buffy sees her dead. And
so long as you don't personally evict her soul, I'll have her up and ready in a
few seconds. I'm giving you a choice other than failure Ami. What do you
say?>
The entire conversation had taken less
than a full second. Ami looked over at Shadow, who had a glazed look over her
eyes. LOBO was no doubt filling her in on Joshua's plan. Shadow looked Ami in
the eye, and nodded.
Ami snapped Willow's neck, the sound loud
on the training field, the redhead's eyes going wide and glassy as her body
fell limply to the ground, her face turned so that her eyes were starring right
at Buffy.
In the next second, all strength went out
of Buffy's body. She felt her connection with Willow being cut off, but not
torn away as she always imagined, but fading slowly as her soulmate disappeared
from life. The accusing stare of the body made it all the worse and Buffy, for
the first time in many years, found herself all alone.
Her connection with the others severed in
the trauma of Willow's death, which she could somehow feel was different than
the revivable deaths before, where Buffy could still feel her soul nearby. She
no longer had that. Archius, the demon, her Slayer spirit, even all the mental
constructs she had put in her own mind were shut down.
All that was left… was
her.
No, no, nonononononononononono, I can't,
I can't… I can't… Buffy recited over and over in her mind.
Her eyes traveled to the others being held down, thrashing more violently
against the force holding them. I can't…
I can't… She saw
in her imagination each of them being killed as ruthlessly as Willow had been. I… can't… let
them… down!
Buffy broke down, her eyes blinded by
tears. She dug her fingers into the dirt… and became.
Even Shadow was surprised by the wave of
energy that passed from Buffy. The ground in which her fists were in cracked,
the ground began shaking under them.
Ami actually smiled as the reinforced
Buffy overcame the minimum gravitational field she had used to hold the Slayer
down.
She's finally at her full potential… of
her present mental state,
Ami thought to Shadow. Now I need to give her that one more push to send her
over the edge. It is not an enjoyable duty.
Buffy walked forward, and stopped before
Ami. She then backhanded slapped the Gerius Commander. She allowed Buffy to hit
her, feeling that for what she had just done to it, the Slayer was entitled to
one hit.
"Goo-goo, gah-gah," Buffy said
in a sarcastic voice. "I'm ready when you are."
"So now you choose to reveal
yourself," Ami said sarcastically. "After I kill your little
girl. You do know that it still doesn't matter, right?"
"The Hell it doesn't," Buffy
replied coldly.
"I shall show you," The Gerius
Commander said. "Kneel before your god."
To her utter surprise, a force the likes
of which she had never encountered before forced Buffy to her knees.
"Physical force is meaningless.
Mental force is meaningless. I can do with you whatever I want. I can do with
you friends over there whatever I want. Like with… oh… Faith,
for example." Faith made a horrible gurgling noise, before collapsing into
a boneless heap. "Or… your Watcher." Giles exploded.
"NO!!!!!" Buffy snarled,
trashing against the graviton force. She could not feel it budge. She was
immobilized… powerless… useless…
"No…
" she added, whispering
in a horrible croak. "No… please… no… no more…
"
"Like Xander?" Ami asked,
coldly, smashing him into mush.
"No…
" Buffy cried, tears
flowing over her cheeks, moving into a fetal position, unable to even
comprehend that Ami had let her move. "No more… death… "
the miserable warrior cried.
Ami let out her breath. "That was
certainly not enjoyable," the girl whispered. "Joshua. Revive them. NOW!
Lady Shadow… Please call Frederic-sama. His first student is ready."
Lightning flashed through the sky,
striking four times. Energy crackled over the destroyed bodies, while there was
just a flash of the same energy to revive Giles. Then all five were teleported
to another area. Buffy was left with Frederic while Ami went to where the
others were.
* * *
"NO! I refuse to believe it!"
Willow raged. Ami just calmly stared at the redhead, as she proved the saying
about such a class of humans to be true.
"Buffy is not dead! She… can't
be!"
"But she is. The person…the soul
that you knew as Buffy has been completely destroyed. Now what are you gonna do
about it?" Ami asked.
The otherwise voice of reason of the
Slayer Team looked like she was actually going to attack the Gerius Commander,
but she didn't.
"Why aren't we dead?" Faith
asked.
"Joshua." Ami answered simply.
All of them nodded.
"So why didn't he revive her?!"
Willow, tears streaming, screamed.
"Maybe we didn't let him. The rest
of you merely followed in Gold Slayer's footsteps, and she did not back down.
We cannot allow that kind of temper or attitude in the upcoming battles.
Therefore, when she couldn't take it anymore, Buffy was destroyed. Now I ask
again. Do you or do you not want to continue this training?"
Ami added after a moment of silence,
"We can increase you physically; we can even augment you with our weapons,
taking you beyond what you could achieve with anything else. We could even hand
you over to LOBO who could rework your bodies and neuro systems to beyond
anything humans could imagine. Or we can continue with this training… and
bring you to our level, which makes everything else in the entire
omniverse… obsolete."
More silence.
"You must decide now."
The Slayer Team, absent Slayer, could
only stare at each other. Without Buffy and her psychic abilities, they could
no longer psychically confer to make decisions. So it all had to be decided on
body language.
Spike was the first.
"Screw the bloody consequences. I'm
in. At the very least I can help continue with the reason Slayer's gone. No bloody
way am I going to let her go without that much satisfaction." He walked
over to beside and slightly behind Ami.
Faith and Willow seemed to be in a
staring contest. Xander just walked over to beside Spike, not saying a word.
His eyes seemed to have lost something that had to have been in every Xander's
eyes for them to even be 'Xander'.
Giles waited.
Willow turned her eyes to the ground,
while Faith snorted in disgust. "Turn me over to LOBO. I'm through with
you people," the Dark Slayer said in the same disgust. She walked away.
Giles and Ami both stared at Willow.
Willow didn't move until finally Giles, without word or comment, walked after
Faith. Once he was gone from sight, Willow turned and looked Ami in the eye.
"I don't care what you say. Buffy's
alive. And I'm going to finish this training. And then I will willingly turn
myself over to Sorcerer. This Dark God is going down. I don't care what it
takes anymore. I'm ready when you are."
Ami nodded. "Very well then. Let us
begin."
* * *
Frederic looked at the Fallen Slayer,
whimpering, curled up into a fetal position at his feet.
He cricked his neck to both sides, in
turn cracking the vertebrae on the left and right side. "Okay, Buffy… this
is going to hurt you a lot more than it'll hurt me," he said gently,
picking her up and teleporting.
They reappeared on Mars in an alternate
dimension, on top of the tallest mountain in the Solar System: Olympus Mons.
Using the inactive volcano for quite a
while now during his trainings, Frederic knew these surroundings well. He loved
the place, and knew that the Martian calmness that always seemed to permeate
the air around the mountain would help Buffy recover.
But only if she survived the ordeal…
Frederic let out another breath, and
knelt down next to the whimpering child. Gently, he picked her up, and pulled
the whimpering girl into his arms.
"Never let anyone say that Ami does
half work," he whispered with a chuckle. "Okay… here
we go!" He closed his eyes, and entered her mind, bracing himself for what
he knew he would find.
Instead of appearing in Buffy's Cabinet
Hall, he appeared in what was left of it. The entire landscape had been
completely destroyed; Cabinets of Knowledge and Emotion burst open and flung
about like little kids' toys after a nasty tantrum.
And everywhere he looked… paper.
Mental paper, torn to shreds. Everything she was…
everything she knew and had
known… torn into strips and scattered about as if it were confetti.
"No, Ami certainly does not do half
work," he said, surveying the destruction. He blew out his breath,
thinking of the best way to do this. He decided he would first survey the
complete damage, to build a mental image on how vast the destruction was.
Before he could move though, three… *beings*
appeared before him. All were kneeling, but from sight, more from injury than
respect to who he was.
"What the hell do you want?"
the largest growled in a demonic voice. Frederic stared at them. The one that
had spoken was undeniable a demon, large, pale, paler than a vampire could ever
be, in fact as to call it an albino demon. It had red eyes and had chains on
its wrists and ankles. They appeared to be broken, but were still connected to
whatever was holding it here.
The second got to its feet after the
demon had spoken. Frederic was surprised to see that it was Buffy. Then she
flickered, like a malfunctioning hologram. Frederic was almost amazed to
realize that she was a mental construct Buffy had created.
"We-we-we-we recogni-iiiiizzzzzzzz-ze
who you-you-you are Frederic-Frederic
Fromthefield," the construct said in
a broken speech, sounding like a faulty digital speech program. She flickered
again. "But we do-do not-not recognize your right to-to-to be
here-re." Before she could finish whatever she was programmed to do, she
flickered aggressively before finally dissipating into the air, no longer able
to function in the broken mind.
The last held Frederic's attention the
longest. She was clothed only in dirty rags, and was covered from hair to foot
with mud and dirt. And she looked entirely broken. The First Slayer Frederic
instinctively knew. Except that this First Slayer had blonde hair and paler
skin. Buffy.
"What happened?" Frederic asked
the demon.
It shrugged. "Don't know. I ran out
of power for her to use and ran back to my cage before… it
hit."
"It?" even though he knew what
"it" actually was, Frederic was curious what the demon thought
"it" was.
"I don't know. I only know that it
destroyed everything. Even my cage. Years ago, and if I'd saved any of my
power, I would have tried to take advantage of her weakened state and try to
take over again. I think I'd rather just be sent back to hell instead now. If
you don't mind, Stranger, I'm going to go about rebuilding my cell." The
demon then turned and walked off, going to wherever his chains were held.
Frederic briefly considered evicting the
demon from Buffy's mind, but then figured that if she could use the demon’s
power, and it was so broken that it was actually going to rebuild its own cage
in her mind, as well as the fact that Willow could have exorcised the demon any
time that she wanted to, he decided to leave it alone for now and continue his
damage assessment.
Half an hour later, from his perspective,
he halted next to the half-molten half-charred remains of the Direct Access
Machine. Usually, it created an empty Mental Book… but now, it looked
a whole lot like a soda machine struck by lightning.
He sadly shook his head. "It's all
gone. Every Cabinet. The computer room looks like it was wiped out by a meteor,
and the Direct Access Machine looks struck by lightning. This girl's mind is
shattered… it's not even trying to rebuild."
Frederic cast a glance around. "It's
time for a rebuild." Closing his eyes after one last surveying glance, the
Triple Phalanx summoned his full Mental power, and channeled it into the Direct
Access Machine.
A light came on. Sparks flew. Loose wires
made faulty connections.
But slowly…
the machine started to heal.
Faster and faster it grew, recombining into its former fully operational glory.
Smiling in his trance, Frederic now cast out his power, channeling it into the
Direct Access Machine directly into the girl's mind. Cabinet Hall shook on its
foundations, and hurricane-like winds tugged on Frederic's clothing as the
Cabinets were air lifted back into place, healing as they did so.
Frederic's face twisted. A fully re-grown
Computer Room exploded out of the ground directly adjacent to the Cabinet Hall.
Finally…
Frederic opened his eyes,
and drew in a sharp breath. Ignoring the still-empty Cabinets, he walked to the
Computer Room, and was actually surprised at the half regenerating set-up he
saw. Buffy's mind, with all that it had survived; being possessed, developing
psionic powers where once there had been none, taking the powers and blood of
the vampiress Drusilla, and all that she had physically survived, it was
advanced enough that it was a holographic interface, which explained the
holographic construct. He stepped up to the platform, the screens coming to
life before him as he set up to rebuild it to hold Buffy's mind once more.
Even though he had re-grown the
infrastructure, the mind itself was still in shambles. And now he needed to
regrow the mind… and actually interface it with the
instincts, for they now knew what the body's full power was.
If he simply put back a copy, nothing
would have changed. No… he needed to transfer the instinctive
knowledge of the full potential to the conscious mind.
And that was not going to be easy.
* * *
Hours later, Frederic sat back from the
light-console. "That should do it… Okay, Buffy. It's all up to you
now." Frederic reached out and activated the program.
Immediately, the building started
shaking, and Frederic kept his glance tightly locked on the screen, where he
saw indicators lighting up, coming back to life as they interfaced with the
body.
Buffy's mind… was
regrowing.
Yet one thing Frederic kept tight looks
on, not letting the earlier success overwhelm him. One window remained open… the
instinctive access window. And it needed to show the connection to the mind.
"Come on… come
on!" he urged.
The window shuddered. The connection
changed…
"YES!!!!" Frederic growled,
pocketing the Mental Disk with the program he had used. It would come in handy
for the others… should they so choose to continue the training, that is.
Frederic pulled out, to a very awake and
active Buffy.
Buffy groaned as she came too, and
realized she had made a sound other than whimpering. Then she blinked as she
realized what she had been whimpering about. Her emotions immediately shut off
completely.
She frowned and activated her mental
Avatar, who was supposed to be regulating her super-mental processes, as well
as her psychic connection to the others. There was a brief 'Error' message in
her mind, followed by 'Updating… ' and then a full diagnostic report to
everything that had happened.
Buffy briefly glared up at Frederic when
she realized he had entered her mind without her permission, but quickly moved
past it, her eyes glazing over as she reviewed the rest of the information. Her
emotions slowly came back to life, and she swallowed the sob that would have
come as she saw Willow's death in her mind’s eye once again.
She got to her feet, feeling the
strangeness as her body moved a little better than it had before. The same
difference that she had noticed after she had first become the Slayer, only
now, she *was* the Slayer and it was almost the same thing, but a *lot* better.
She reviewed the physical stats her Avatar provided with her in an instant of
thought, briefly surprised at how quickly things were moving up there now.
Buffy looked up at Frederic as they both
stood. "Just tell me… are they all right?" she asked with
a steady voice.
Frederic smiled. "They're all
alright. Joshua was the one who told Ami to go ahead and kill them. He
guaranteed their survival, and he did as promised. They're fine Buffy."
Buffy nodded. "Good. Now… I
think we need to explain some things to each other. First… you're
forgiven."
Frederic arched an eyebrow.
"Forgiven?"
Buffy returned the gesture to him.
"For entering my mind without permission. Second… I keep
Archius in my mind because it can't be risked that he be anywhere else. If *I*
didn't have him in my head, somebody else would. I at least know the risk and
can even use his presence to my advantage."
"As well as the First Slayer?"
Buffy actually grinned at that.
"That showed up as a side-effect of my Halloween costume during Rayne's
little Halloween costume spell thing in '98. I wore a Greek outfit, but somehow
that made me the First Slayer or something like that. I'm not sure if you met
my Avatar or not… "
"Avatar?"
"The mental construct of… well,
me. She's the one that personally takes care of things like Archius, the First
Slayer and even my connection with the others and between the others. As well
as my psionic abilities and a few other things. I get to keep my sanity while
she takes care of all the details of keeping it." Buffy explained.
Frederic nodded. "Good thinking. No
pun intended. I had something like that myself; I called it my Secondary
Personality. It held… well, everything absolutely lethal that I
knew. Remember BorgFred? He became *Borg*Fred because of his SP. Just make sure
that it doesn't take over your life for you Buffy."
Buffy nodded. "Thanks for the
warning. Remind me to bring you into a "Meeting of the Minds" some
time. You'll find it funny. Now it's your turn. What was entering my mind for?
What was all of this for?"
"Ami did her job," Frederic
began. "Namely, she destroyed your mind and that sanity you're so proud
of. Your mind… well… wasn't. All you had left were your instincts. Food, water, warmth,
and stay away from pain. That's it. Nothing else.
"That was necessary to get to your
body's instinctive drive for its potential. I rebuilt your mental
infrastructure, regrew your mind and connected it to your instinctive knowledge
of your power. And the reason I never met your avatar, the demon, the First Slayer,
and everything else is simple. Your mind was *gone*, Buffy. There was nothing
left. Literally. Your knowledge, your memories, your emotions. Gone. Wiped out.
I had to rebuild everything from nothing…
"So now they're all integrated. The
demon, the First Slayer and the Avatar are all part of you now. No longer
separate entities, but a single integrated mental form, able to be called upon
on a moment's notice, and able to be rescinded just as easily," Frederic
finished the explanation.
Buffy double-checked internally. She
blinked in surprise as she realized Frederic was right. What she had once
worked hard to separate in her mind in a timid way of keeping her sanity, he
had brought together in such a way of cohesion that it was no wonder her mind
was working much faster now. The Slayer Spirit and Archius were still different
"entities" in her mind, but they were no longer caged and held apart
from her primary thinking.
In fact quite the opposite, they *helped*
her thinking because they were now as much a part of her higher brain functions
as her Avatar was designed to be. Buffy took a sigh of relief.
She looked up at Frederic and gave him a
gentle smile. "Thank you. It's the least that you've deserve for how much
you've helped my family and me. And Spike too."
Both of them laughed at the obvious joke.
"As curious as I am about my new… limits,
if such things actually exist, I'd like to get back and check up on the others.
I won't interfere, but… I just want to see them." Buffy
requested.
Frederic nodded, an easy smile on his
face. "Very well." In the next instant, they were on an open plain on
SpaCECoB. "The others are about… "
"Two kilometers in that direction.
Yes. I can feel them." Buffy finished, staring off in the direction the
rest of the Slayer Team. Then she frowned.
No, not *all* of the Slayer Team. Buffy
sighed. "Oh Faith. You and your stubborn attitude."
"I'm surprised that Giles also chose
not to accept the training Ami offered," Frederic commented. Buffy
shrugged.
"Faith, when she decides she doesn't
like somebody, no matter the reason, likes to tell them to 'go to hell' a lot.
Giles… has been like a doting father to Faith, ever since I proved that I
can finally take care of myself. I think it's a mid-life crisis thing."
Buffy explained.
"Faith doesn't like us? Oh, I'm
wounded!" Frederic said over-dramatically, causing Buffy to giggle.
She stopped an instant after LOBO
signaled Frederic.
Father, something… strange… is
coming our way.
"Strange how LOBO?" Frederic
asked, immediately taking on the role as Commander of Heaven's forces again.
A… an interdimensional portal of a… very
familiar energy signature is approaching, or trying to approach, SpaCECoB, most
likely with intentions of depositing something or someone from another
dimension. I cannot trace where it originated, as it has been reabsorbing its
own energy trail, and its course is… erratic.
Chaotic would be more like it, Joshua's
voice came through the connection. Buffy, Fred… its
Key energy.
Buffy and Fred shared a confused look,
before Buffy's became slightly darker as a thought crossed her mind. She did
however manage to catch the look Frederic cast her that seemed to ask 'Well?'
Finally she nodded. He nodded back,
agreeing with her, for once, and said to LOBO, "Let it past the defenses
LOBO. Can you pinpoint where it will appear?"
It seems to be tracking a life pattern.
It will appear ten meters in front of you.
Buffy cast a quick look around them,
confirming that she and Frederic were the only people around, and then she got
a quick sinking feeling in her gut. Frederic was just staring steadily at where
the portal would appear.
At first there was just pure silence, and
then in the silence, a pinprick of greenish white light appeared where LOBO had
predicted, which rapidly grew to over ten feet in total diameter, the edges a
pure white while the out spewing vortex was a soft green color.
The only sound the portal made was more
like the hum of an electrical engine than the thunder and lightning sounds of
other interdimensional portals.
"Oh no," Buffy moaned.
At the Gold Slayer's words, a human body
immediately ran out of the portal, which was even with the ground so the person
didn't trip. A moment after the person was completely out of it, about four
other creatures came tumbling out, whether flying, running or just falling out.
About thirty seconds after it had appeared, the green/white portal shrank in on
itself… to form a well-known 16-year-old looking woman.
"Where's Xander!" the first
woman cried out.
Frederic was surprised that it was
Cordelia, looking like the Cordelia of 254 than his own, but also vastly
different.
"Hey Buffy, miss us?" the
second woman asked.
"Looks like the rest of your
family," Frederic remarked with a chuckle to Buffy. Turning to the
newcomers, Frederic made a bow the likes of which not seen since the Old Days.
"Welcome to my main base, ladies… Don't upset my Evil Twin, and your stay
will be most enjoyable."
"I felt one!" Gerius-Buffy
suddenly yelled, appearing out of thin air, scouting around, eyes locking on
the second woman. "Dawn… "
"Stand down," Frederic
whispered, surprising GS-Buffy and her friends with just how much command the
man could lace through two whispered words.
Gerius-Buffy shrugged. "Okay. But
you get to explain it to Sorc, Fred." She turned, and waved over her
shoulder as she disappeared. "See you all later!"
"Does this mean… "
GS-Buffy asked, tone hopeful.
"I'll put in a good word for her
with Sorc… unfortunately; I can not go back on my word. Part of being
the good guy, I'm afraid. My word is my bond, and I gave him my word he could
have every Key he encountered. I can try and talk him out of it, but I can't
stop him… if I do so, I will lose all trust placed in me by anyone I
made a promise to," the man replied calmly.
"If you can't convince him, I'll
kill him before he can touch her," GS-Buffy vowed. "And my word is
also my bond!"
"I would hate to see a team of good
fighters perish before the fight, but I can understand your point,"
Frederic said calmly.
GS-Buffy just stared at him.
"Fight Sorc, and he will kill you.
You may be stronger… a lot stronger… but
you are still insignificant compared to Sorc, me, or the other Gerius,"
Frederic explained. "And, as you understand my point, I also understand
yours. I too, would fight to my death to protect my family. As I would die to
honor a promise."
"Hello! Earth to McFly! Anybody
home? I asked if you missed us?" Dawn said in a whiny voice.
"Where's Xander?" Cordelia
shouted again, this time sounding angry.
"He's training Cordelia. Don't
worry; you'll get to see him soon. KEY WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING
HERE!!!!" Buffy's mood switched so fast that even Frederic was left
spinning.
Dawn flinched automatically, but didn't
back down after that.
"Mew said you were in trouble, and
Cordy wanted to be with Xander. You do know that you've gone from home for more
than two weeks, don't you?!" Dawn shouted right back.
"THAT! IS! *NOT*! WHAT! I!
MEANT!" A light tremor was felt through the ground at each of Buffy's
words.
"Do you have any idea, ANY
IDEA," a slightly bigger tremor, "how much danger you are in right
now? There is a being that actually *HUNTS* Key energy to use as his own energy
source here. I can't protect you from him, and the only being in the entire
fucking OMNIVERSE that could, *CAN'T*. Not because of ability, let me assure
you little sister, but because of a promise to this other being, and also
because he doesn't know you enough to guarantee your protection."
"I can take care of myself. I proved
that with Glory."
Cordelia and Buffy snorted and rolled
their eyes at the exact same time. "Well…
ok, I can keep my cool. And
I know how to use my powers, so I can just get away from him."
"Well, you could try, but I think it
would just be a game of cat watching mouse go through maze," Buffy
sarcastically said. "Dawn, go home. Now. Hide in the home gym until I come
to get you, but get out of here, now."
"I'm not going anywhere. And hello,
Mew said you were in trouble. If you are I can help." Dawn retorted.
"I had my mind break down on every
level and then rebuilt by the only thing in this universe stronger than god.
How's that for trouble. Thanks for bringing Cordy, I'm sure Xander will be
thrilled, but you are not authorized to be on this mission and I am not about
to try and… "
"Buffy, it's ok," Frederic said
suddenly, startling her into silence.
Dawn finally seemed to notice Frederic
and she smiled up at him, almost preening. "Who's the hunk?" she
asked with a seductive tone in her voice.
Buffy rolled her eyes while Frederic just
gave the Summers’ sisters a curious glare. At his look Buffy said, "Makes
Barbara look like a saint, huh?"
Frederic chuckled and couldn't deny the
truth and nodded. "I'll talk to Sorcerer as soon as I've finished with the
other Buffy. LOBO, please make accommodations for our new guests. Oh, and ask
the twins to bring Al down here. They need a break every once in a while."
Buffy's eyes lit up. "Thank you
Frederic," she said in a normal tone of voice, but after the shouting she
had been making, it sounded almost like a whisper.
"Hi, I'm Cordelia, Xander's wife.
Who're you?" Cordelia said with a 1,000-Watt smile as soon as Frederic
turned around. Frederic smiled gently down at her and shook her outstretched
hand.
"I am Frederic Fromthefield Miss
Chase, and your host for your stay here. I'm sure your husband would be more
than happy to fill you in on the rest of my identity and what else is going on
as soon as he is available." Frederic paused and looked off into the
distance. "Speaking of which, if you will excuse me, Ami requires my
presence. Buffy, try to keep things low-key. No pun intended. And no more
shifting the elements."
"Sorry," Buffy apologized as
Frederic disappeared. A second later his twin children appeared with their
pokémon.
Dressed in the standard ESMF uniforms,
now actually carrying their Swords of Destiny in the slings across their backs,
David and Jessie appeared, with Al directly in front and center of them.
"Someone called?" David asked
with an impish grin.
"Oh…
four on one," Jessie
added in the Twins' own special language, casting glances at the four pokémon
that had emerged through the portal with Dawn. "Daddy is really trying to
get us to lose… those are all highest-level pokémon."
David smiled. "This might actually
be a challenge, Sis. Those pokémon all have power levels, just like Al."
Jessie nodded. "Right… but
they're still at the disadvantage."
"We are One," David nodded.
"Sorry for the lousy
introduction," Jessie said, turning to the newcomers. "Daddy keeps
telling us we've got a lousy people's sense… it's just that we're usually alone
together," she apologized. Bowing formally, she finished, "Jessica
Urrab N'yckei Fromthefield, at your service."
David bowed alongside his sister.
"David Lonandram Driavezst Fromthefield, at your service," he added
after his sister had finished.
Righting, they continued together in
perfect synchronicity, "Winners of the Johto League Tournament, First
Students under Frederic Fromthefield, Champions of the Indigo Plateau, the
Whirl Cup, Orange Island League and dozens of others. Undefeated for
three-hundred forty-one pokémon battles."
"Actually forty-two," Jessie
said with a grin. "But that one was against Team Rocket rather than
pokémon."
"But we still won," David said
with a chuckle. "So… what'll it be?"
There was silence for about five whole
seconds as those not superhuman or recently brought to a level to fully follow
the twin's dual speech, absorbed what they had said.
"Huh?" Dawn was the first to
break the silence.
"Oh! They are so cute! Who are
they?" Cordy said, starting in "baby" talk, and then switching
to monotone in question to Buffy.
"They're creepy, that's what,"
Dawn said, only to receive glares from the Alakazam in front of the twins, who
were sending her looks of disappointed pity.
Dad and Mom always warned us about bigots
and racists, Jessie
thought to her brother.
Yeah, but she's just been caught
off-balance. Let's forgive her. This time.
David responded, also
holding Al back.
You just think she's cute! Jessica
responded huffily. David could only shrug to that.
"They're our host's children, in
case you didn't get that from their last name, and Frederic's request. Great
seeing you two again, how goes the R&D?" Buffy answered Cordelia and
then turned to greet the new arrivals.
"OK so far," the twins said in
synch. "Joshua has been a help in finding shortcuts and details. But we
still haven't found where the Dark God is based." Buffy nodded, frowning
at the contemplative news.
"Oh, right, Jessie, Dave, this is
Cordelia Chase Harris, my Xander's wife. And the pain, Dawn. Don't worry; your
Dad knows and he's going to talk to Sorcerer. Hopefully he'll let Shadow say
some things as well." Buffy added with an evil grin.
An evil grin, which was immediately
matched by the twins and even Al. Just then, the pokémon Dawn had brought
shifted about, Celebi whirring about and landing on Dawn's shoulder, Arcanine
and Lugia stretching a bit and looking worriedly in the direction the last
stages of Training were taking place, while Mew hovered towards Buffy.
"<Hey Mew, how've you
been?>" Buffy "openly" psionically greeted her digital-made
companion.
<Worried. I felt whatever happened to
you through our connection. No amount of dimensional and temporal difference
can change that. What happened?> Mew replied in the same "open"
fashion.
"We are glad to see that you
survived Buffy," Jessie said.
"Yeah. We may not be ready yet, but
I can only hope that we have the same strength to survive it when the time
comes," David added.
Buffy smiled at the blonde children. Then
her eyes grew glassy and focused back on them an instant later. "Don't
worry you two. You won't exactly be going through that kind of training alone.
And who’s to say you haven't already passed the training I just went through."
Jessie and David shared a grin, knowing
what she was talking about, but figured to leave her in the dark for a while
longer.
"And speaking of your
‘challenge’," Buffy turned to Mew, who was hovering just over her
shoulder, his tail curved around so it was almost resting on her other
shoulder. <Mew, how do you feel up to some exercise?>
<Exercise!> he exclaimed.
<I know what you do, or rather *don't*
do when I'm away on missions,> Buffy warned through their link. <Think
you could last a one-on-one?>
Mew stared at Al for a few seconds, who
stared right back, but with a slightly more superior rather than calculating
look. <Without Willow or Xander here to help the others? Not a chance would
I risk anything *BUT* a one-on-one. Will they allow me to evolve?> Mew spoke
the last question "out loud" so the twins and Al could hear as well.
All three took only a second to decide.
"You may."
"But why haven't you evolved to your
full form already?" Jessie asked as LOBO automatically prepared a Pokémon
Battle Field the moment a battle had been accepted.
Buffy smiled. "Different kind of
‘evolving’," Buffy answered for Mew as the two psychic pokémon teleported
to the field once it was fully ready.
"KEY!" Buffy shouted without
turning. Dawn froze. "Stay. Just because Frederic gave you the same
freedoms as the rest of us does not mean that *I* have. I'm not risking
Sorcerer finding you before Frederic has a chance to run interference. You are
staying here."
"But I've seen battles before.
They're boring!" Dawn retorted. David and Jessie blinked as they looked
and saw that Dawn was no longer a 18-year-old looking young woman, but a girl
about their apparent age. Physically speaking anyway.
Buffy just glared at her. Dawn quietly
turned around and went to stand beside Cordelia.
David, Jessie and Al took their places.
"Ready?" The Twins asked in
their combined voice, the one they always used when dealing with pokémon
battles.
Buffy nodded. She responded verbally
with, "Will be in just a second," and then Instant Transmitted to the
‘Trainer's box’. Mew teleported to just in front of her.
Smiling, David and Jessie sat down
cross-legged on their end of the battlefield, before floating up into the air,
eyes closed.
"Then let us begin," their
voices sounded over the area… coming from everywhere and nowhere at the
same time. Alakazam's eyes lit up a pale blue, and a blue aura permeated the
air around his body.
Holding out his hands, Alakazam then
proceeded to materialize the two Swords of Destiny carried by the Twins, before
dropping into a martial arts stance.
Integration successful, the three mental voices whispered,
combining David, Jessie and Al into a single mental entity.
<Ready?> Buffy asked her companion.
<I'm always ready> he replied
easily.
<Do you want to… >
she started to ask, but immediately got a negative emotion back through their
link and didn't finish the question, nodding her agreement.
Buffy closed her eyes, concentrating. In
her mind’s eye, she saw digital code, and as she raised her hands, a sphere of
pure power appeared, the digital code composing the sphere. Suddenly it shot
toward Mew, who gasped in shock as it hit him.
The ‘opposition’ stared in mild curiosity
at what was happening.
(Cue Digimon digivolution music)
"MEW DIGIVOLVE TO… MEWTWO!"
But before that transformation could even settle, another began.
"MEWTWO DIGIVOLVE TO… METAL
MEWTWO!" (End music)
The pokémon that now stood there was not
unlike the armored form of Mewtwo in the first Pokémon movie. Yet somehow, it
seemed to convey even more power with its mere presence than very few other
Pokémon could match. It hovered a few millimeters off the ground, surrounded by
a soft blue aura. Its eyes, covered by the helmet it wore, began to glow a
bright electric blue that shone through the one-way visor.
"Impressive," the twins/Al
said. "A digital evolution. For a Pokémon. Most intriguing."
<Thank you> both Buffy and Metal
Mewtwo replied psychically.
"Cordy would you mind… "
Buffy started to ask the only other person present that knew enough about such
things to referee, and would be accepted, when suddenly LOBO announced that it
would be filling that role.
I will be presiding as referee over
Pokémon match number 12576.48. Pokémon battling; "Al" Alakazam versus
Pokémon identified as Metal Mewtwo. Trainers: Lady Jessica, Lord David, versus
New Trainer Gold Slayer. Pokémon stats stand as thus; "Al" Health:
2500 Physical Attack: 1500 Physical Defense: 1325 Speed: Highest record at 9000
kps Special Attack: 3500 Special Defense: 3000 Last recorded Experience level:
325.
Metal Mewtwo Scans show as; Health: 15000
Physical Attack: 10,000 Physical Defense: 18,500 Speed: Unknown Special Attack:
Estimate of 50,000 or excess. Special Defense: 25,950. Experience level:
Unknown. Scans indicate that Metal Mewtwo has higher Stat advantage. Would you
like this match to be recorded for future reference?
Buffy looked at the sky in confusion. The
twins meanwhile were struggling not to even react at the stat readouts. Looks
like we'll have to put some effort into this after all, They thought as
one.
"I really don't know why you guys
record matches…" Buffy started to say.
"So that we may study our own
technique, correct mistakes, and so that others might have the chance to learn
from us," Al/twins replied.
"Oh. Sure, I don't have a problem
with this being recorded. It's only for fun anyway," Buffy said with a
grin. Humiliation was never a part of her attitude with this game. In *actual*
fighting, sure, but never a Pokémon battle. This was just to have fun. Only
problem that LOBO was a little off. Metal Mewtwo's Special attack went in
excess of 100,000, not just 50,000.
"Ready when you guys are,"
Buffy announced, solidifying her mental connection to her companion.
The undefeated team nodded their
readiness. Begin, LOBO announced.
< Barrier Psywave > Buffy
thought as MM2 launched forward, the aura suddenly exploding around it in an
undeniable defense shield, and in through the explosion a ring of pure psychic
energy was launched straight at Al, who was still standing in front of the
twins.
Reflect A golden wall
appeared before the Alakazam and caught the psywave attack… and
held it! Increase… The gold wall became more solid, but some
of the energy of the ring got through, slightly injuring Al before it finally dissipated.
<Psychic Seismic Toss Body Slam Take
Down TELEPORT!> Buffy thought as MM2 moved with her thoughts. Al neatly
dodged the glowing kick MM2 tried to hit it with, but moving faster than the
Alakazam could apparently follow, while it was still mid air from dodging, MM2
grabbed Al by it's right paw and twirled it around a bit before slamming it
into the ground and body slamming it. Al teleported out of the way at the last
second, and reappeared just in time to take the Take down attack. Buffy noticed
the energy from the move known as "Bide" coming before Metal Mewtwo
did and ordered the teleport before the energy could hit.
The single mind of the Twins and Al were
all working at an enormous speed, racing to figure out a strategy. They came up
with hundreds, but those were more for battle tactics, and given all the
unknowns about this metal monster they faced, some of them might not work. They
started with the first plan.
Al sheathed the blades onto its back and
clenched its fists into a modified Horse stance. Instantly a gold ki flame
appeared around it as its Physical stats increased dramatically. Once it
powered up, it unleashed a massive Psychic force against MM2. MM2 just raised
one hand and erected another barrier that held out against the Psychic attack
just long enough for Al to teleport behind it and try to blindside it.
They forgot about his tail.
Instead of being blasted from behind,
MM2's tail engaged Al in a rather comic display of martial arts until MM2 had
finally gathered enough energy to overcome the no longer being fueled Psychic
attack. Once no longer distracted by that, MM2 turned to give Al a *real*
martial arts show.
Their forms began to blur, and if it
hadn't been for their psychic connections, the trainers would have lost all
sight of their Pokémon. Al was surprised that MM2 was matching him very well.
Not that Al had even brought out the advanced stuff yet, but it was surprising
just the same. Only ESMF trained personnel that had caught and trained their
own pokémon taught those pokémon martial arts, and all those that Al had faced
in the past were of such low levels that they could never keep up, let alone
catch up with him. Metal Mewtwo was now the exception.
Until Buffy pulled off the kiddy gloves.
<Now> was all she thought, but MM2
knew exactly what she meant.
Using a series of kicks and close-in low
level psychics, MM2 got Al far enough away from him that Al knew it would be a
large scale attack, the only reason not to fire it at close range.
"<RAGING INFERNO!!>"
Metal Mewtwo cried the attack, several portions of its armor shifting.
Just as suddenly, thousands of missiles
poured from its body, all aimed at Al. The personal pokémon of Frederic
Fromthefield and his children did it's masters proud as it, barely managing to
avoid all the missiles, leaving thousands of crater holes in the battlefield,
and having to take to the air to avoid the last of them.
"<POSITRON LASER!!>" Al
heard and stared in disbelief as a pink beam about the size of a large
asteroid, surrounded by blue and white lasers, shot out of MM2's back, right at
it.
It took all of their combined skill to
avoid the ultimate attack. As well as the next two.
"<Mini-Novas!>" two balls of molten energy shout out of MM2's
arms straight for Al, obviously able to track rather than just detonate. Al
erected its most powerful barrier.
The explosion cleared away a large
portion of the battlefield, making all the earlier craters rather moot as the
ground was now level again, just several meters lower. Except for the Trainer's
boxes, which LOBO had surrounded with shields.
Digital attacks, They finally realized. Fine then.
Two can play at that game.
KAMEHAMEHA! Al fired the perfect pure white ki beam
at MM2, who *just* managed to raise its barrier in time. After a second, it had
to brace itself against the broken ground to keep the barrier going and the
beam back.
<Hyper beam> Buffy ordered.
Immediately, an infinitely brighter
orange beam blasted out of MM2's barrier and hit…
and began to push back
against the K-wave attack.
Impossible! No Hyper beam has *that* much
power…
Unless the *Pokémon* has that much power… and
more… They realized with a relish. A challenge! Finally!
Al cried out in what could have been
either triumph or ecstasy as its ki flame returned, and the twins added their own
strength to bring Al to full power. In this form that is.
Buffy and Metal Mewtwo immediately felt
the difference. <Shit> they thought as one as Al's stats now read, both
Physical and Special, at over 50,000 each, and continued to climb. Buffy knew
they were going to lose unless she did something. And NOW!
Buffy took seven meditating breaths and
soon after, she and Metal Mewtwo began to glow. Buffy began transferring as
much of her newfound strength as she thought that her companion could handle,
not trusting even herself with whether or not even she could handle her new
power.
After a few more seconds of powering up,
it was impossible to tell which was the stronger monster now. Not because of
their levels, or their stats, but because their power was too great for
anything but LOBO's sensors to identify which truly was the stronger. And none
of the Trainers were really paying attention to stat levels anyway.
<Omega Beam!> Buffy ordered, over the
stream of power she was sending.
Super Bolt! The
Alakazam fired.
The two incredibly powerful attacks were
so close together that they only had enough room to form, and ignite against
one another in a blazing display of raw power.
When the flash finally dissipated enough
for everybody to see again, the charred remains of the battlefield held the
victor and the non-victor.
Mew lay flat on its back, it's eyes
completely dazed. Al was just under ten feet from it, panting with exhaustion
and injury, paralyzed, burned in several places, and half-asleep on its knees,
only its paws keeping it from joining Mew on the ground.
Mew is unable to battle. Al and Lord and
Lady Fromthefield are the winners. Battle 12576.48 logged and recorded. LOBO announced.
"Amazing," David said as they
disconnected from Al and jumped down to help him, as Buffy went to her
companion, "The only thing that kept it from being a tie was Al has
greater endurance! Metal Mewtwo almost damn near beat us! That was the best
battle yet!"
"No kidding!" Jessie exclaimed
as she held the black pokéball that now held Al. "That was the first REAL
challenge we've had since the Johto League. It was fun!"
"Hey? You all right?" Buffy
asked, kneeling beside her companion.
<One…
two… buckle
my shoe… > Mew sounded as dazed and disoriented as it looked.
"Will he be all right?" Jessie
asked as they came to congratulate Buffy on a match well-fought.
"Oh yeah. Didn't I explain? Our
pokémon are digital clone recreations. They're as much Digimon, only their
forms are that of Pokémon. Mew just needs some rest and some food and he'll be
100% in an hour. LOBO, would you mind taking care of him and the other Pokémon
for a while. Just let him sleep for now and tell him where I am if he
asks."
Of course Ms. Summers, LOBO replied, and Mew and the other
Pokémon, except Celebi, still with Dawn, were teleported away.
"Your Dad is done with the
others," Buffy explained at the twins confused expressions. They nodded
understanding.
Before they left though, Buffy smiled and
extended her hand. "Good match. I'll beat you next time. We didn't show
our ultimate form."
"Neither did we," David said as
Jessica shook Buffy's hand. "But we look forward to any rematches you'd
want," she finished for her brother.
"Oh you know me," Buffy joked,
and the three of them laughed.
"Well, we better get Al some rest.
And you've got to check on your team. We'll see you later Buffy," David
said as they disappeared.
"Yeah, later," she repeated.
"If I'm still alive."
"There's no reason you shouldn't
be," a voice came from behind the group, causing them all to turn around.
Cordelia and Dawn recognized the figure, and started smiling, even though
Buffy's face fell. She knew…
Sorcerer grinned. "Fresh meat…"
he drawled.
"Sorcerer," GS-Buffy stated
coldly.
"Huh? I thought his name was
Fred?" Dawn asked.
Sorcerer smiled evilly. "No-one
calls me by that name…" Making a mock-bow, he said,
"My name is Sorcerer, and I am officially designated as the 'evil twin'.
And now I'm going to have some fun."
"Fun? Fun how?" Dawn wanted to
know. Faster than she knew, GS-Buffy had thrown herself in front of her sister.
"I know I am going to hate myself
for this later… but… FRED!!!!! HELP!!!!!"
Faster than she had thought possible
Frederic materialized next to her. A single surveyed glance told him everything
he needed to know.
"Sorc…
leave this one alone."
"She's a Key, unlike the last one.
Your promised me I could have her," Sorcerer said with an evil smirk.
GS-Buffy subconsciously drew nearer to Dawn.
"I can't stop you… I can
only ask you to leave her," Frederic insisted. "She's a friendly… "
"She's a key," Sorcerer
growled, raising his hand. The air on the Dyson's Sphere thickened, and grew
totally black.
"And I can't stop you,"
Frederic said once more.
"However, I can, Sorc,"
Jennifer growled, interposing halfway between the advancing Sorcerer and the
small band consisting out of Buffy and Dawn.
Sorcerer smirked. "You're not my
Jenny… it's not easy, but I *can* eradicate you."
"Lift one hand against my wife, and
you will be ashes, promise or no promise," Frederic growled coldly.
Sorcerer smirked, and dropped his hand.
He chuckled. Then slowly started to laugh. "Oh that's priceless!
Brilliant! Genius! Taking the danger from Dawn, giving it to Jenny, and evading
your promise! You really *ARE* my twin! Jesus Christ, you're a good
manipulative bastard!"
"Glad you like it, Sorc… now
back down," Frederic said with a smile.
"Oh, alright. If she
means that much to you… Fine. I, Sorcerer, will leave the brat
alone."
"I am *not* a brat!" Dawn
exclaimed, looking about 10 years old.
"Yes you are!" everyone, even
LOBO shouted back at her.
"But you're my sister, and I
accepted that responsibility willingly. And since you didn't listen and go home
like I told you to, that makes me Mom, got it," GS-Buffy whispered to her
sister. More for the effect rather than actual privacy.
"But." Sorcerer said with
effort.
Everything froze at that one word.
GS-Buffy turned, keeping her sister at her back, Cordy came in behind, to cover
Dawn from being taken behind Buffy's back. Frederic crossed his arms and
Jennifer frowned.
"But," Sorcerer continued,
"I require some kind of… compensation. I'll let you work out the
details, but I am not about to let something like this slip through my fingers without
getting something from it. You aren't the only manipulative two-faced bastard
on this space station Asshole."
GS-Buffy frowned in worry and cast a look
at the statued figures of Frederic and Jennifer. It looked like a total
stalemate for a couple of minutes before finally, Key-Dawn, who was the one
being bartered for, broke out from behind her sister and simply asked,
"What do you want?"
Sorcerer belted out laughing. "Oh,
now you've got guts little one. I'd love to rip them out and show them to you,
but… "
"I haven't got guts. I'm made
entirely of energy. I absorbed the physical form the monks gave me when I
realized my full potential." Dawn explained.
Sorcerer was almost drooling. "Now
*that* is powerful. Imagine what my power would be like if I absorbed you… "
"Sorcerer," Jennifer grunted in
warning. Sorcerer barely cast a glance at her.
"But what I want… is
Shadow off my back. For everything and anything, until this Dark God crisis is
taken care of. For leaving this Key be… Shadow has to be on a shorter leash than
you have me on. Agreed?" Sorcerer crossed his arms so he looked identical
to Frederic, except in dress.
Frederic squinted his eyes, weighing the
pros and cons in his mind with Shadow. Then he/she took on look at the face of
Gold Slayer.
"Agreed," a dual-voice came out
of Frederic's mouth. Shadow's and his own.
Sorcerer grinned wider. "OK then.
Now… I'm going to go have some… long deserved… *fun*."
He disappeared in his warp-magic, maniacal laughter echoing even long after he
was gone.
GS-Buffy hit her sister on the back of
the head. "You should have just gone home!"
"Ok, I may be energy, but I can
still feel!" Dawn shouted back at her sister. "And what's the worst
he can do anyway, huh?"
GS-Buffy stared in almost comic disbelief
before shouting in frustration at the sky. "You DO know that just because
you said that he's going to DO his worst, right? And his worst includes taking
the whole magick of an entire universe to use as his own, and destroying whole
planets, JUST CAUSE HE FEELS LIKE IT! There's a reason that a being known as
SHADOW was the only thing that could control that guy, and that's because she's
the reincarnated Universal Savior, times twenty!"
"She's learned," Jennifer
observed.
"Barbs and I never fought like that,
did we?" Frederic asked his wife.
"No, you usually just used your
powers to make her more compliant to what you wanted. Buffy seems to have a
little bit more self-control than you did Love." Jennifer answered with a
kiss to his cheek.
"Point," Frederic chuckled. Then
he tapped his communicator. "Buffy, Ami, Tommy, I want you to follow
Sorcerer. Try and keep him in line… and don't even once threaten or mention
Shadow's name. Gold Slayer's sister just showed up, and Sorc found out about
it."
Understood, came
the reply from the three leader Gerius.
Finally the "fight" between GS
and Key had proceeded to the point where Mars and Moon usually ended, sticking
their tongues at one another and trying to stare the other down. Frederic and
Jennifer laughed as the reference struck home.
"Buffy," Frederic called to
her.
Instantly, GS-Buffy was right in front of
him, Key wondering where her "opponent" had gone.
"Let's go check on your team. Cordy,
you're welcome to come along. I'm sure that X will be glad to see you."
Cordelia squealed her thanks and almost bounced over to them.
"Fred…
I'm sorry about the trouble
we're putting you through…" Buffy began to apologize.
"It's all right Buffy,"
Jennifer interrupted her instead of Frederic. "We understand about
protecting one's family. More than you might ever know. Although you could show
a little more appreciation towards one another."
GS-Buffy looked mock-mortally wounded,
"And what would the world be like if all of a sudden Moon and Mars stopped
fighting and became too-lovey-dovey for words?" she asked in the same
mock-shocked voice.
Dawn walked up and added, "It's the
way we tell each other we love each other and all that. Plus, I still harbor
some feelings of resentment of Buffy being a real superhero while Buffy's
feelings of over-protectiveness… "
"Stem from a transference of my
guilt over being unable to save everyone from demons and the forces of
darkness," Buffy finished. "Plus, like Liz and her sister, we just
have a major case of sibling rivalry. Don't worry, if we ever go too far in our
fights, we immediately apologize and make it up as soon as we can. And when it
comes down to the actual tough times…"
"We're more like sisters than you
could ever guess," Key-Dawn finished.
Frederic and Jennifer stared with a new
appreciation for the sister's "relationship" and nodded their
understanding. However screwed over it was.
"Let's get you back with your family
Buffy," Frederic said, and they appeared on Mons Olympus in the next
second.
Two seconds after that, Sorcerer appeared
right behind Dawn, making the Key squeak as his hand landed on her shoulder.
"There's a whole lot you don't know, little girl," he said from
behind her. "Now… let's go find out, shall we?"
"Sorc…
"
"Hey, I said I wouldn't harm her,
and I won't," Sorcerer said with an truly evil grin. "Can't say the
same for the Three Stooges, though… I left them tied up somewhere around
Orion's Belt… or was it the Kipper Belt… I never was good with stars," he
finished with an evil smile. Disappearing, the group heard his voice trail out.
"Happy hunting…!"
Almost immediately, the Stooges in
question reappeared. "I… we… lost him," Ami whispered, head bent.
Frederic sighed. "I should have
known… sorry to have sent you on an impossible mission, but I had to
try."
* * *
T-minus 4 weeks
"Is she going to be okay?"
GS-Buffy asked Frederic for the 11,356th time.
"She's still alive Buffy, and… I'm
sorry but that's the best that I can guarantee at the moment." Frederic
sympathetically told her, as he had all the other times she had asked.
Frederic Fromthefield was a man of
enormous patience and virtue. Once he had gotten rid of his dark half at any
rate. He only lost his patience with fools and when nothing was getting done
while innocent people or his family were in jeopardy.
Buffy had proved she was no fool, and he
understood her feelings of helplessness and fear and he had no problems in
constantly needing to reassure her. Just as he would for any of his Master
Slayers, and as they had done for him and his family in the past.
Over the week since Joshua and the Slayer
Team had arrived, things, the attitudes each group harbored towards one another
for one, had changed. Joshua, still walking on eggshells around Jennifer and
LOBO, was as accepted with things as Borlan and Linda were. Only it seemed that
Makato *and* Aisha were secretly competing for trying to get the energy being's
attentions. Joshua, as Linda had the male Gerius, kindly rebuffed them at every
turn.
Faith had been ecstatic beyond belief
that Buffy and the others were still alive, but still unwilling to resume the
training, despite being in a better mood toward Ami and the rest of the Gerius.
Giles had just remained unflappable, but still happy.
Speaking of Buffy and Ami… that
had been a bigger shock than Shaw and Faith of universe 254. Despite all the
differences, and Ami's only slightly inflated ego, the two had become fast
friends. Ami's always-right-logic was countered by GS-Buffy's
never-die-happy-go-lucky attitude, and as much potential as there was for
fighting as there was between Rei and Usagi, the two hardly ever argued, and if
they did, it was over a bit of logic that Buffy didn't understand the reasons
for.
Even the moments where they conflicted,
such as Ami being the one to kill all of Buffy's close friends, were quickly
and easily forgiven and just as quickly forgotten. Ami even took Buffy on her
patrols sometimes, just so they could finish a particularly interesting
conversation they were having.
The stress, however, came from exactly
three sources. Sorcerer, since he had kidnapped her that first day she arrived,
had been taking Key-Dawn every day for the past week, only to return her at
dawn, looking exhausted and completely wasted. Frederic, having nothing to do
one day, actually followed them once. Sorcerer of course knew his twin was
following, but tried not to show it too much, more for his
"companion's" sake than Frederic's. That day Sorcerer had taken
Key-Dawn to an amusement park in the Dark Horse Nebula of Universe 346, where
‘amusement’ was had by near-death experiences. For the two immortal beings it
really was ‘amusement’.
Apparently Sorcerer had somehow gotten it
in his head that he needed to open Dawn's mind to the omniverse, and he took to
it with a passion. While he took her to an amusement park that day, others he
had taken her to the beginning of time, the Big Bang, countless wars in
multiple planets' pasts, and once to Selima's Pleasure Hall so they could watch
Shawukay Redarrow in ‘action’ so to speak.
Today, he had taken Dawn abruptly, as he
had the other days, but this time he had left a note saying *where* they were
going. Buffy was panicking.
Frederic actually looked slightly
uncomfortable himself, quite a feat for the usually so Zen-like being after
reading the note. Two words were on it.
"My dungeon"
"He swore not to absorb or kill her
Buffy," Ami said gently. They were all in another of the training zones, a
more mountainous area than the previous places they had received Training on
SpaCECoB.
"I know, and believe me, that is
taking a great deal of my grief and stress away…
which should tell you how
stressed I *was* the moment Key arrived. What's worrying me now Aimes is… whether
or not he's giving her a tour like the other places, or letting her… ‘sample’
the place as well. And I'm still not sure which I'm more afraid of."
Ami looked in surprise at her friend,
"Your *worried* about him just giving her a tour?"
"You would not believe how
corruptible Key's mind is. Oh, don't worry, she'll never go ‘Evil’, and she's
sworn on her own cohesion to never take a life directly. But… She
sees a commercial on TV for something she likes or wants to have. Mom and I
both tell her to earn it, she does her chores and maybe gets a job. Then she
hears about something inconsequential, whether one of us bent a law in a
crisis, or a criminal got away or something… she either *makes* it by magic or she
steals it using her own powers. She has no… oh what's the word… constitution
for right and wrong. She knows right from wrong, but if presented with
temptation, she won't even try to resist. Funny thing is, when she was still
fully human she was a lot better at the resisting."
"That's called a conscience, and
energy beings make their own conscience," a voice said behind the group.
Joshua, in comfortable blue shorts and a blue white Hawaiian shirt stood there.
"LOBO finished the trace you wanted
Fred, but he insisted I give you the news about where Sorcerer's dungeon
is," Joshua explained his presence.
"Where?" was asked immediately.
Joshua manifested a PADD and handed it to
him. The PADD shattered a microsecond later under the pressure Frederic's grip
suddenly put on it. "I am going to hurt him. No Shadow. Just me. On
principle alone." he growled.
"What do you mean energy beings have
to make their own consciences?" GS-Buffy asked, despite her agreement with
Frederic's sudden anger.
Joshua shrugged. "It's complicated
to explain. But believe it or not, you actually have to *be* an energy being to
understand it. Suffice it to say, I think your sister left out that particular
ability when she absorbed her physical form, counting on you and your mother to
be her conscience as it were."
"Fascinating as that is,"
Frederic interrupted, "I have to get home. Don't worry about your sister
Buffy; we'll get her straightened out no matter how bad Sorcerer's ‘corrupted’
her. Right now I have to go beat Sorcerer into submission. Ami, continue."
He disappeared in a raging green flame.
"Uh, before you go poof too,
Joshua," Buffy stopped the blue energy being. "Where *is* Sorcerer's
Dungeon?"
Joshua smiled. "Under Versailles
Palace in Universe 010. Only on that world, it's been renamed Phalanx Palace.
That has nothing to do with Sorcerer by the way; the French were just majorly
inspired by the Romans when they built it on that world. Bye, have fun!"
He disappeared in his usual blue lightning.
Some present couldn't help giggling a
little as they remembered that Frederic's ‘home’ was an exact replica of
Versailles palace.
"All right, enough play time. Let's
get some work done before Fred comes back to demote me!" Ami ordered once
the laughter had faded.
"I wonder if I should be jealous of
Dawn, or grateful that she's softening Sorcerer up for me," Wiccan
commented as the Slayer Team, minus Faith and Giles, got into a line.
"Grateful, definitely
grateful," both Ami and GS-Buffy said together.
"Today, we're going to try something
different. As well as an experiment. Buffy has already shown that her power as
a Super Slayer covers many different levels of other types of transformations,
all the way up to and including Super5 normal. Also, we've confirmed that she
has no other transformation, such as Magical Augmentation or even Super Human
transformations available to her because of the Super Slayer
transformation." Ami explained. "The rest of you however, are under
no such limits."
Everyone except Ami and GS-Buffy looked
back and forth between each other in confusion for a few seconds before Warrior
X was the one to ask, "But… we do have unique transformations, and
they're as a result of Buffy even being a Super Slayer at all. Shouldn't we be
at max physical now anyway?"
"A good question Xander," Ami
commented. "You are at max physical now. At your normal level. And you
yourselves explained that your transformations are not wholly ‘physical’ but
rather ‘Chi transformations’ purifying and strengthening your spirit and souls.
Buffy's transformation is not just physical, but magical, spiritual, and even
mental as well, and that is why it is her only transformation. Unless of course
she can find someway of going beyond even that."
"I wish," GS-Buffy snorted.
"Even Spike's Vampyr transformation
is more Chi than physical. Willow will no doubt learn Magical Augmentation
soon, but today, we are focusing on physical transformations. We're going to
see if any of you can even go Super," Ami said with a sense of finality
and leaving them all with a feeling of foreboding in their guts.
* * * * *
Sorcerer was giving Dawn the grand tour
of his dungeons. He started out with the hard stuff, sometimes even
demonstrating to her how certain devices were used, by magically creating
dummies, which were then strapped onto the device.
He enjoyed the look of horror that passed
over her eyes the first time. But, disappointedly, the second time he did it,
the look decreased, and by the third time she actually seemed to be enjoying
the show.
Who knew that the most evil being in the
omniverse actually has an identical set-up that I have in my pocket dimension I
set aside? Ooo, wonder what that does? Dawn thought ‘privately’. Which meant
Sorcerer heard every word.
Sorcerer had lifted an eyebrow at that. Perhaps
the girl has some potential besides what I was planning for her today, he
thought. Who knows… just like all the other Dawns, she really
cute, but maybe… just maybe… this
one actually has a brain as well.
After touring the torture facilities,
Sorcerer lead the girl into an adjacent room, fully decorated in red, with a
full-sized mirrored ceiling. The devices in this room were of a different
nature, and Dawn immediately felt a strange sensation pass through her spine.
She swallowed subconsciously, before licking her lips.
So Mr. Dark Hunk has a "nice
side" after all, Dawn thought lustfully.
These devices, contrary to the ones she
saw in the previous room, were all padded, with cuffs lined with velvet, all
beautifully decorated with shiny polished leather straps and mirror-finished
chrome buttons and nails.
"This I call the Pleasure
Trove," Sorcerer said with a smirk, seeing the reaction Dawn was having to
his little S&M room. To be honest, he was just as prone to using the
previous torture room for his sessions, but this room did quite nicely for the
first couple of times for his new partners.
His Jennifer liked watching him break in
new victims. As long as he didn't use full-out mind-control, she didn't care
what he did. Sorcerer smirked, letting Dawn absorb the various devices lining
the walls, the different tables and chairs one could be strapped in-and onto.
Finally, he placed one hand on the base
of her neck, making sure his thumb pressed on a certain spot. Sorcerer knew a
Dawn's body, any Dawn's body; better than she knew it herself.
Oh gawd! Genemancy, I LUV it! Dawn
closed her eyes. "Mmm… nice…" she whispered.
That's feels so good… she
moaned in protest as his hand traveled down her spine. What is he doing now…? His hand reached the bottom of her spine,
and pressed onto a certain hot spot Sorcerer knew was there. Dawn eyes opened,
and her legs clenched against the feeling. "OH GOD!!!!" she moaned,
swaying on her legs.
Sorcerer grabbed her from the front, his
other hand steadying her by wiggling its way between her legs and pressing
against her black leather clothed crotch. Dawn moaned as he continued to
massage the spot in her back.
"Oh…
oh… ugh!… good!… oh… my… I… AAARGH!!"
She screamed as her orgasm washed over her, falling forward into Sorcerer's
waiting grasp.
He caught her, and pressed his lips
against hers. Hungrily, she locked onto them, kissing back with as much vigor
as she could, moaning as his tongue parted them, licking them, wrestled with
her tongue…
His hand sought the spot on her back
again. Dawn catapulted forward at the electric touch, molding her young,
gorgeous body against his. His second hand traveled down her sides, sending
tingling sensations through the young being's nervous system. Dawn moaned on
trembling legs, held in the mental grasp of one of the strongest beings in the
omniverse. And he was driving her crazy.
"Oh…
Ah… so
good… my god… you're… oh… So hot… I… urgh… urgh… ah…" she moaned unintelligently.
Sorcerer smiled and intensified the kiss, pressing himself against her so she
could feel his erection.
As his second hand reached her softly
gyrating hips as it traveled down, it went once more for her crotch. This time,
however, it simply ripped open her leather pants, and dove straight for her
unclad and open pink pussy.
"Why you little minx you,"
Sorcerer broke the curse to catch the glint of mischief in the Key's eyes. She
smiled seductively up at him and helped him get her skin-mold leathers off.
By the time her pants hit the ground, his
nimble fingers had already dove deep into her womanhood and she was already
shaking in his arms, her long hair flapping like a dark blonde flame in the
wind. Spreading her lips, one finger deftly inserted itself, sending the girl
into orbit. Another orgasm washed over her, and she collapsed in Sorcerer's
arms.
"Oh…
god…"
"I love hearing people call me
god," Sorcerer whispered in her ear, before starting to nibble on it. She
swallowed, feeling her body react starting the build-up a third time. She
smiled and started to nibble on his jaw-line, making him growl slightly.
"My turn," she said as she
climbed up him and hit him with a kiss that almost made him lose all strength.
For lesser immortals, they would have been driven to the ground by such a kiss.
Sorcerer was briefly surprised when she slid herself off his fingers… and
then purposely grinded her hips against his crotch, always moving her hips in
constant, small rotations.
When she finally broke the kiss, she saw
a glint of curiosity in his eyes. "I may still be a virgin, but that
doesn't mean I'm stupid. Not to mention my sister is a lesbian Slayer having
sex with *Faith* {and} Willow, AND not all magic learned has to be power
or spells and stuff. Women have their own magic," she said whispering into
his ear, still rotating her hips.
Sorcerer smirked and then reinserted his
fingers into her wiggling hips, causing a gasp and a squeal from the vixen in
his arms, and whispered, "You're still untouched?"
"Yessss…"
Dawn moaned as she enjoyed the sensations. "Please don't stop… so
good… "
"Of course, my little
love-slave," Sorcerer said with a chuckle, picking her up, leaving her
discarded pants on the ground.
"But first, there is a little matter
that needs to be dealt with," he said as he carried her to a smaller room
Dawn hadn't seen. He put her down gently before rummaging through a closet.
Pulling out a garment, he threw it to her. "Change into this," he
ordered.
"Okay," she said seductively
and reaching up and untying the ties to her halter-top. The garment fell to the
ground, leaving Dawn brazenly displaying her fully nude body to Sorcerer's
eyes, topped off by the look of seductive lust on her face. Sorcerer smirked,
enjoying the eye candy and then just left.
Dawn eyed the garments, and shook her
head. She smiled broadly as she quickly disrobed and put on the uniform. Who
knew I'd actually get the chance to put on one of these on? she thought as
she pulled the skirt up.
For a few moments, she looked in the
mirror, adjusting her shirt slightly. She looked like a schoolgirl. A really
pretty schoolgirl. And Dawn smiled when she noticed that the uniform had been
slightly altered in some very subtle ways. For one, the shirt hugged her curves
beautifully, accentuating rather than hiding them. The plaid skirt was a little
shorter than usual, stopping above the knees rather than under them.
She stepped into the shoes provided with
the uniform, and twirled around to make the skirt fly up. Always wanted to
do that, the girl smirked as she stared at her reflection, considering.
"Now just a few more changes,"
she said aloud. If Ami or any of the others found out about this, they'd try
and destroy me themselves. Here's hoping that after today… and
tonight, Sorcerer won't let them. Gawd, I can't wait to see him… I
hope he's as good looking with*out* the clothes… she
smiled, flushing a little.
She activated her powers, coupled with
very basic magic Willow had taught the entire Slayer Team and made a couple
more alterations to the sexified ‘school girl’ outfit. She made the plaid skirt
pleated, and in hues of green instead of Scottish red, and also short enough
that where it started low on her hips, and ended maybe a quarter inch below the
bottom of her waist looking straight at it.
The white shirt she made almost
completely sheer, and shortened the sleeves so they just covered her shoulders.
She also did something with the bow so that it framed her breasts, which were
suddenly a D-cup, rather than covered them. She then, using her hands,
unbuttoned the bottom three buttons of the shirt and tied and knotted it so that
her waspish waist, which had unconsciously shrunk in diameter as her breasts
had grown, was left entirely bare. The bow was now green as well.
The shoes she changed to dark green
6-inch stilettos and the knee-socks she left unchanged. Finally, fully appreciating
her modifications, she stepped out, planning on ravishing as well as being
ravished.
She hadn't quite made it out yet, before
a heavy weight fell on her, grabbing her and roughly pushing her up on a table.
Before she knew it, Dawn had been strapped down spread-eagled on the cushy
table, her wrists and ankles secured with soft velvet straps.
"Ooo…
kinky," she cooed up at
Sorcerer, who was admiring his handiwork.
"Nice changes. I always like my
slaves to wear this when I take them," Sorcerer said with a wide smile and
a dangerous glint in his lust-filled eyes. "Now… let's
fuck."
Sorcerer got on the table with her,
unzipping his fly as he did. As his erection sprung free, and Dawn got a good
look at it, something clicked inside of her. Somehow, seeing his manhood
triggered in her mind that this was for real.
She struggled against the bonds, and
found out that they were as in yielding as she had imagined them to be. Of
course… they're probably pure magic, knowing him…
"But first," Sorcerer said,
placing a hand on her chest, between her breasts. "We need to fix your
appearance." She stared up at the ceiling, surprised to see a mirror, and
seeing herself spread out, in a school uniform, with Sorcerer sitting on top of
her. Then, her entire body flashed a bright amber, and when her vision cleared,
she saw herself in 15-year-old form.
She arched an eyebrow at him and thought,
< You could have just asked. > Before the situation suddenly came
back to her, full force.
"NOW let's fuck,"
Sorcerer grunted, massaging her tight, young, surprisingly pert D-cup breasts
through the shirt. Dawn moaned as his skilled fingers sent waves of electricity
down her spine. Unstoppably, her hips thrusted out into the air, pressing
against him, making him smirk.
She moaned as he continued his skillful
manipulations of her entire nervous system. She could feel one breast being
released. Almost immediately, her skirt started to lift, and her white cotton
panties were pushed to the side.
Three seconds after that, a sharp scream
reverberated through the room.
“OH
GOD!!! YES!!!”
* * * * *
It was hours later that Frederic finally
caught up to where Sorcerer really was hiding. And even the great Universal
Savior was caught off guard by what he found. In the bed at the center of the
S&D room, covered only by blood red sheets, and one of them not even that,
was Sorcerer and Key. Key, at the moment that Frederic and the three Gerius
with him burst into the room, was blowing Sorcerer's cock, trying very hard to
get him ‘up’ as it were.
Sorcerer had an almost contented grin on
his face, but it was ruined by the hatred in his eyes at the moment Frederic
burst in. "What do *you* want? I'm busy," Sorcerer snapped
off-handedly.
"I…
Key, what the hell are you
doing?" Frederic found his mouth asking, even though he couldn't say he
really wanted to know.
Dawn rolled her eyes and slowly let the
giant cock out of her mouth with a pop. Everyone stared at a 13-year-old Dawn
with breasts on the large end of a C-cup, and a waist no more than 7 inches
wide. "I'm trying to get him hard again," she said it like it was the
most obvious thing in the omniverse.
The three Gerius just stared as she went
back to her task. Finally it was Buffy who broke the uncomfortable silence in
asking, "Does your sister know that you're fucking the guy that wanted to
absorb you 8 days ago?"
"Yeah," Sorcerer spoke,
"Tell me again why I wanted to blow her up?" he asked, sounding
genuinely curious.
Finally, Sorcerer was hard enough for
Dawn and she quickly maneuvered herself to slide easily over him and fully
engulf him. Sorcerer gave a pleased grunt and began to thrust up into her,
causing her to elicit short, but extremely sweet gasping squeals of pleasure at
each thrust.
"I did not need to see that,"
Tommy said and quickly left the room. Buffy and the other Gerius meanwhile were
tilting their heads to better observe the action. Frederic rolled his eyes and
shook his head.
"You're moving this dungeon of yours
Sorc, I don't care where, but preferably no where on *ANY* Earth." Frederic
ordered.
"And…
why… should… *I*… do… *THAT!*"
Sorcerer roared the final word as he came, bringing Dawn along with him. At the
climax of her shout, she briefly became pure green energy in human shape before
she finally came down and resumed her natural form and age, a young 20-year-old
woman, and fell back against Sorcerer.
"Ugh…
I don't care who or what,
you are officially the God of Sex," she said, gasping. "If you can
make anyone's first time this pleasurable…" she shivered again, and Sorcerer
still inside her, grunted again, as she had obviously just had a mini-orgasm.
"Thanks Doll," he said as he
easily pulled her off of him and threw her to the bed. "Now since it's
obvious that I've got some moving to do, and we're apparently out of time, why
don't you go get dressed. I'll see you tomorrow, same time."
"Thanks Dark Hunk," she said,
kissing him on the cheek as she got out of the bed, completely at ease with her
nudity in front of so many people. Suddenly she turned to Frederic and the
others, "Oh, and if you tell my sister about this," she left it
hanging for a moment, making almost everyone think she was going to threaten
them until a large Cheshire grin appeared on her face, "make sure I'm there.
I want to see the look on her face." Then she merrily skipped out of the
room.
Gerius-Buffy watched her leave and said,
"I think I'm starting to like her."
Everyone looked at her strangely and she
shrugged. "What?!"
***
One by one, everybody who wanted it was
upgraded to their maximum potentials. And even though their power levels
couldn’t increase anymore, the Jokilar Gerius still knew quite a few things to
pump into their new students: ancient martial arts, tactics and stratagems.
It happened regularly that a couple of
Gerius returned from their mission to join Slayer Team for a relaxing workout.
Even though the Slayer Team was constantly sweating and suffering, the Gerius
jested with each other, obviously enjoying themselves as they effortlessly went
through the drills Ami laid out.
On one of these occasions, the Quest Team
had returned, joking and jesting among each other as they went through the
rituals of the ancient Oech-anya combat techniques. Rather than a burden, the
Gerius found the kata relaxing. Eyes closed, they felt the tension lift away
from their shoulders.
“Mind if
I joined you?” Usagi asked as she appeared right next to Ami.
The blue-haired girl smiled her gentle
smile at her team leader. Making a motion to the group, she whispered, “By my
guest, Usagi-chan.”
Smiling gratefully, the Team Leader of
the Master Sailors joined the group, and started right in the middle of the
kata, joining in without effort.
Some of Slayer Team’s members groaned at
the effortless display.
“It will
not take you very long to reach the same level,” Ami told her students. “As the
Gerius indicate, the kata both builds up mental and physical toughness and, at
the same time, relaxes.”
“Tired
from searching?” Jessie Bannon asked Usagi, who was going through the motions
right next to her.
“Like
you, no?” Usagi replied calmly, smiling slightly.
“Yeah,
but this is our first break we’ve had since this mess started,” Jessie replied
with a grin. Slayer Team shared a glance at each other, sharing the same
thoughts. The start of ‘this mess’ was over two weeks ago!
“I sleep
regularly,” Usagi whispered, blushing slightly. “About once every three days… I
need to keep my mind clear.”
Jessie grinned. “We meditate, don’t
worry,” the redhead replied. “We need sharpness and clarity as well.”
Usagi nodded. “How long do you meditate?
Usually, two hours of sleep is enough. Unless there’s an insane God to fight…
that takes a lot of energy.”
“About
an hour and a half every other day… evens out, more or less,” Jessie answered.
The Gerius continued the kata as if their
conversation had never taken place. Suddenly, Jessie turned her head to Usagi.
“Up for a sparring match after this kata?”
Usagi frowned slightly, shaking her head.
“You know I don’t like sparring.”
“You
can’t keep hiding behind those friends of yours,” Jessie grunted dangerously.
“One day, you’re going to get them all killed. A leader should fight from the
front, not the rear.”
“Hey! I
fight during the battles!” Usagi screamed, breaking stance, and turning toward
Jessie. “I am a good leader.”
“You’re
a leader because you’re a reincarnation of a Moon Princess,” Jessie answered
snidely.
“O-oh,”
Jonny Quest whispered when he saw fire in Usagi’s eyes. “Don’t insult the
heritage…”
Usagi scowled. “If that is what you
think, Miss Bannon, then I am not inclined to change your opinion of
me.”
Ami swallowed. This is not good…
Jessie grinned. “Afraid to fight someone
with equal powers, huh? I can’t say that I blame you… A Gerius is a formidable
opponent.”
Usagi’s right hand clenched into a fist. “
I do not fear you,” the Team Leader grunted dangerously.
“Of
course not. You let your people do your fighting for you.”
Ami scowled, actually taking a step
forward. Nobody said that about Usagi! Nobody! To her surprise, Usagi’s
arm came up.
“Usagi-chan?”
“This
bitch is mine,” Usagi replied, calmly, coldly… dangerously. Ami took a step
back at the fire smoldering in her Princess’ eyes.
“Of
course,” Ami whispered, dipping her head.
“So now
you’re going to fight me?” Jessie asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Usagi didn’t reply. Or, at least, she
didn’t reply with words as her fist somehow materialized where Jessie’s face
used to be, the Gerius in question catapulted backward with the force of the
impact.
“I
didn’t see her move!” Warrior X exclaimed.
Usagi remained standing like that, arm
extended, fist balled, staring at Jessie, who slowly stood up and wiped at her
mouth. “Not bad… not bad at all…”
Usagi opened her hand, and swiped with it
toward the ground next to her. Feeling the humongous Dyson’s Sphere shaking
underneath, Slayer Team stared at the diminutive Gerius as the very soil next
to her exploded in the Alter rainbow, before merging with her body.
At the same time, Ki exploded around the
usually kind hearted Sailor Moon, lifting her directly to Super Two status, as
well as bring out the Super Moon Transformation.
Her hair was white-transparent and
braided in a circlet on top of her head, her muscles enlarged, her speed off
the scales and she was dressed in a purple shining armored version of the sailor
costume. The sigil of Moon was over her heart, superimposed over the Phalanx
sigil.
“In the
name of the Moon, I shall destroy you,” Usagi whispered coldly, her mere
whisper resonating like a thunderclap over the battlefield.
Jessie grinned, jumped up. The mere
second it took her to land back on her feet was all that she had needed to
boost herself to Super two, and activate her own Gerius Alter Armor.
At once, Shadow appeared from somewhere.
As did Jennifer, Daphnix, the twins, and Sorcerer… with Dawn.
“I never
miss a good Gerius fight,” Sorcerer said, grinning, as everyone stared at him.
Hey! I put a lot of work into the soil! Lobo
complained half-heartedly, the disappeared slabs already replaced.
“Lobo,
please put a standard shield around Usagi and Jessie,” Frederic said, shifting
away from Shadow.
Done and done, the
being answered. There is now a triple dimensional see-through shield wall
around the battle zone.
“And
port us out of it,” Frederic said, grinning, knowing Lobo’s sense of
humor.
A moment later, everybody save for Usagi
and Jessie, were standing twenty meters away, facing toward the two figures
that were now glaring at each other.
“If she
was the same as our Serena, she wouldn’t stand a chance against Jessie,” Wiccan
muttered.
Sorcerer chuckled. “Wanna bet?”
“You’re
on!” Wiccan said, grinning. “If Jessie wins, you tell me how you get your
power. All of it.”
Sorcerer dipped his head. “And if Usagi
wins?”
Wiccan thought for a moment before she
suddenly grinned. “I’ll show you a repository with twenty unchanged Keys.”
Sorcerer grinned evilly. “You’re on,
Red.” He started chuckling to himself, and suddenly Wiccan wasn’t as sure of
what she had just done. Shaking her head, she turned back to the fight.
Usagi and Jessie were still looking at
each other, glaring to try to get the other to back down. “I thought you were
going to destroy me?” Jessie taunted.
Usagi’s mouth twisted in anger, her
repressed side showing clearly due to the Super mode. Usually nice, friendly
and kind-hearted Sailor Moon was now running hot in anger. Ferocious anger. She
vanished from her position.
Jessie lifted her hand, blocking one
strike by Usagi. Next, she twisted out of the way, avoiding a kick. Like
ballet, the two warriors gyrated around each other, avoiding, blocking,
striking, kicking.
Finally, they disengaged, facing each
other, glaring renewed. Usagi took a deep breath. “Tired already!? You really
don't fight much, do you?” Jessie taunted.
Usagi’s eye twitched slightly, but she
still brought her hands together, closed her eyes and let out her breath. She
relaxed.
“O-oh,”
Ami whispered. Slayer Team looked in confusion at the Gerius Battle Commander.
Usagi opened her eyes, and flowed
to Jessie. Not a vanishing act, not even an act of supreme speed. She flowed
like water to her target. Jessie’s eyes went big, before she smiled, and
assumed a pose.
“Flow
like water, strike like air,” Frederic whispered. Buffy's eyebrows went up with
surprise at the comment.
Again, the ballet resumed. Only this time,
no contact was made whatsoever. Usagi’s hand moved toward Jessie’s face. The
redhead’s arms moved in a circular motion, as if warding it off and Usagi’s arm
moved away as the two came into near contact.
Jessie then set in a flowing kick to
Usagi’s side, which the Team Leader ‘blocked’ by gyrating her body, and moving
her arm straight toward the leg, which moved backward.
It looked like ballet and a kid’s game,
if it hadn’t been increasing speed ever since it started and if the faces of
the two warriors weren’t so engaged in what they were doing.
“What
the…?” GS Buffy asked.
“Elemental
fight,” her Gerius counterpart replied. “The movement of water and the striking
of the Air. There is a cushion of air around them, repelling each other’s
limbs. To them, it’s like blocking physically.”
“Oh,
wow,” GS Buffy whispered in reply.
“This is
nothing. They’re just getting warmed up,” Gerius Buffy said, calmly.
Finally, Usagi’s hand pushed flat against
Jessie’s chest. The redheaded Gerius catapulted back, against the
triple-universe shield Lobo had put up.
“You’ll
pay for that, you bitch!” Jessie screamed, jumping up, and her power exploding
into the ground, launching her toward her target, ripping up the soil as she
did so.
Usagi watched her come, didn’t move,
didn’t seem to realize the danger she was in. Finally, she moved, assuming a
martial arts pose.
As Jessie neared, Usagi moved. Reaching
out to grab the on-storming Gerius, Usagi was stunned to see Jessie grinned,
moving away from the hold-grip, grabbing Usagi’s hands instead. All of Jessie’s
forward momentum changed directions as it was transmitted into Usagi, slamming
her into the ground.
Jessie hopped back, cupping her hands.
“Super Bolt.”
Usagi’s head poked out of the hole Jessie
had put her in. That moment, her eyes went wide as a ki blast on steroids came
racing toward her. Gerius Ki was one of the few things in the omniverse that
could penetrate universal protection. Usagi knew this. She saw pain
approaching. A lot of pain.
Pushing her hands together, the Gerius
ported away. When she reappeared, the bolt was still on her track. Her eyes
went wide. “Oh shi-!“
The explosion ripped through the little
universe contained within Lobo’s shielding. When the light finally died down,
Usagi was sitting on her knees, uniform ripped, blood coming from a cut in her
lip.
Her wounds healed practically instantly.
She stood up. “As Jokilar Gerius, I, Tsukino Usagi, am labeling you as a
category C threat, and hereby breach the seal on the first level powers!” Over
her eyes, the seal of Novgoronn rotated before vanishing.
Jessie grinned, dropping into combat
stance. “As Jokilar Gerius, I, Jessica Bannon, am labeling you as a category C
threat, and hereby breach the seal on the first level powers,” the redhead
intoned, her own seal vanishing.
Only now did the universe react.
Upheaval ruled, as the ground became liquid as water, and the higher planes
realigned behind the two Gerius. Magic reconfigured, Force realigned, senses
blinded.
To those outside, all they could hope to
see was a ball of pure white light contained within the triple dimensional
shielding. But Slayer Team couldn’t look, for the brightness of the light was
too much. Even now, with eyes screwed shut and head turned away, did the light
still penetrate and hurt their eyes. Only when it died down, did they look
back.
Usagi and Jessie stared at each other,
both at Super one.
Both moved at the same time, moving from
their position toward each other, meeting in the middle, Banes of Darkness
clashing against each other, sword-ki exploding, radiating outward from the
battle scene, annihilating against the dimensional shielding.
Still they stood, the two warriors.
Testing… probing… sensing… trying to find a hole in the other’s defenses.
Finally, they moved, jumping up and away from the other, before reversing and
slamming back toward each other, Banes striking out two, three times, before
reappearing on the other side, backs to one another, hoping to hear the
satisfying crash of a falling Gerius.
Not hearing anything, both turned,
blasting once more toward each other, Banes of Darkness meeting once more, twin
purple blades held by two very different people, clashed against each other,
edge against edge, two pairs of glowing eyes drilling into each other.
Both growled, exerted more force on the
swords, trying to push the other down with brute physical force. Energy welled
up around them, the ground liquefying, flowing away from the dreadful power
that is the Jokilar Gerius at war.
“A mere
ten percent,” Gerius Buffy whispered to her shocked double.
Finally, Usagi and Jessie jumped up and
away, sheathing their Banes of Darkness as they flew. The ground, relieved of
the horrible presence of pressure, flowed back into place and returned its
normal, solid state.
“That’s
better,” Jessie taunted.
Usagi’s eye twitched again. With one
swiping motion, she drew her Dual Blade Light Saber, ignited it, and flashed
toward Jessie, who mimicked a mere fraction of a section later. It was the
fraction Usagi had needed, and Jessie was immediately pressed on the defensive,
her light saber and Usagi’s flashing blindingly fast, propelled by the very
Universe around them, reaching speeds that were almost the speed of light,
making them invisibly fast.
Thunder and lightning cracked around them
as Light Saber hit Light Saber, twin flames of pure white light clashing
against each other. Usagi ducked under a horizontal swipe by Jessie, and
stabbed at the redhead’s belly with her own weapon. Jessie jumped back,
avoiding the strike, and went for the ducking Usagi’s head.
Blocking overhead, before rotating out of
the way and erecting herself to her full height, the team leader of the Sailor
Senshi went for her opponent’s neck. Jessie blocked the strike, rotated, and
went with the other edge for Usagi’s body.
Blocking, rather than dodging, Usagi
negated the strike. For a few seconds, they glared at each other, complete
standstill.
They broke off, dropping into the most
ancient form of martial arts they could find, the Art developed by the Ancient
Gerius themselves. Flashing once more toward each other, it had now become
impossible to predict what they would do, where they would do it, and how they
would get there. Technique without technique, form without form, the two
warriors flashing around and against each other, supreme weapons of war.
The two warriors broke off, facing each
other, Light Sabers clicking off. Jessie looked over her shoulder to her
leader, Jonny.
The man nodded.
Together, the two team Leaders started.
“As team Leader of the Jokilar Gerius, I, Tsukino Usagi,” Usagi began.
“Label
you as category B threat, and hereby lift the seal of Novgoronn,” Jonny
continued, making damn sure that the omniverse knew he was meaning Jessie.
“Enabling
the second level powers!” Usagi finished her incantation.
“Authorization,
accepted,” Jessie grunted, balling her fists.
Slayer team swallowed reflexively,
compulsively as they felt something rise from their very souls, a
phantom of Collective Memory, shared by all living beings. Memory of power, of
danger, of tremendous authority and power.
Inside of the dome surrounding the two
warriors, the day sky turned into night, the darkness glowing a dark and
vicious purple as a lighter shade of purple formed into the rotating Seal of
Novgoronn, the one symbol of allegiance between Gerius and Gods.
As the Seal ruptured, power released, the
universe warping and distorting around them, lifting them to half their full
strength; the magical realms realigning, boosting, rifting when two fields of
influence turned against each other, screams of energy detonating silenced only
by the triple dimensional shield wall.
The two warriors crouched, fists balled,
as their very bodies glowed the purple of the Gerius, before the veil shattered
and the twosome stood up, bodies reconfiguring to tolerate the tremendous power
of the present universe pumping through their veins.
They went super two. All Slayer Team
could see, the physical realm, showed twin glowing orbs of power hanging
semi-transparently around the two warriors.
The Gerius, actually able to penetrate
the Shield Wall with their higher senses, could see the higher Realms aligning
themselves behind the two warriors, power bleeding into real-space from the
Force, the Magic, and the Astral Realms.
It was a devastating sight.
“Fifty
percent,” Gerius Buffy whispered. GS Buffy swallowed compulsively. She known,
deep down, about the strength of the Gerius. But her psyche could not… would
not… accept the truth until she had actually witnessed it. And this was a
mere fifty percent.
The two Gerius vanished from all normal
senses, disappearing into hyper-speeds, surpassing the very speed of light in
an instant, not even caring if what they were doing was in conjunction
with the laws of physics. At this stage, their mere thoughts were directives.
The omniverse pumped power into the small twenty-meter circle that was within
the Shield Wall.
Frederic smiled. Sorcerer smirked. Lobo
grunted as the two Gerius impacted the Shield wall, actually making it vibrate,
ricocheting off it in their relentless pursuit of each other. As their courses
took them to bounce of the ground, the onlookers could feel their soil
shaking and quivering as well, while the ground within the Shield Wall exploded
into dust under the onslaught of changing gravitational forces and
hyper-velocity impacts.
Finally, the two warriors faced each
other, arms crossed, without any noticeable marks on them. Both women were glaring
at each other.
“Die,”
Usagi growled.
“No,”
Jessie answered.
“This is
getting us nowhere. Apologize,” Usagi demanded… commanded.
“You’ve
got to be kidding me. You didn’t touch me,” the redhead replied, just as cold
as Usagi’s voice was.
“Neither
did you touch me,” Usagi countered calmly, dropping into the Gerius stance of
martial arts.
Jessie dipped her head, standing in a
different stance. Pointing her side to Usagi, her legs stood wide and her arms
extended, one before her, toward Usagi, the other behind her, away from the
fight. Both her hand palms were turned up.
“This is
a little something Jonny cocked up,” Jessie said, grinning darkly. Jonny drew
white.
“Oh
crap…” he whispered.
“And
you’re within my range,” the redhead finished, feeling her senses cast out.
“This is your last chance. Surrender.”
Usagi grinned darkly. “You’ve got to be
kidding me.”
“Then I
will make you surrender!” The redheaded Gerius howled, feeling the
universe warp around her, starting her flailing spin toward her target.
“Two,”
Jessie counted, one finger of her one hand stabbing a point on Usagi’s chest,
immediately followed by a finger of her second hand as her spin took her past
Usagi. Usagi grunted as she felt an unidentifiable pain shoot through her body.
“Four,”
Jessie continued, picking up speed, each hand stabbing twice at Usagi’s
chest.
“Eight.”
“Sixteen.”
Usagi growled out, flying backward under the force of being stabbed sixteen
times in short succession.
‘Thirty-two.”
“SIXTY-FOUR!!”
Now it was no longer a stabbing, but a near-continuous onslaught as Jessie’s
powers ripped into Usagi’s body, catapulting the girl back against the Shield
Wall.
“I
sealed your power points,” Jessie stated, calmly standing erect. “Not even a Gerius
can move when her power points are sealed. Your soul is trapped, Usagi. It’ll
take days for you to recuperate.”
Usagi growled, falling over, pushing one
hand to the ground, trying to push up. Slowly, she managed to erect herself.
Slowly. Painfully.
“Variation
on the Hokuto Shinken?” Frederic asked Jonny.
“Yes. By
sealing all 64 tenkatsu points on the pathways of life force, it immobilizes
the opponent… but Jessie must have made a mistake. Nobody can move when the
tenkatsus are closed.”
“Usagi
is a Gerius, Jonny. Your technique holds true against a normal opponent… but
not against a Gerius,” Frederic said, turning to look at the battle.
“You’re
defenseless,” Jessie droned. “You can’t even use your ki, let alone anything
else.”
Usagi pushed her hands together. “I need
the power to open the holes…”
“Ain’t
gonna work.”
Usagi looked up, grinning ferociously.
“We are the Moon Princess Serenity, bitch. Do not presume to tell us
what we can and can not do!” Her mouth scowled.
“Moon…Eternal…Transmogrification!”
The Imperium Silver Crystal appeared in
front of Usagi’s hands, brightly radiating pure power as Usagi activated its
ancient magics. Magics, the power of which fueled directly Usagi’s rage… and
supplied her the power she needed.
Her soul, that ball of pure power owned
by all Gerius, could not be contained by a mere mortal technique for long. The
power of the Silver Crystal fueled Usagi’s rage. Which, in turn, fueled her
soul.
The blockages of Usagi’s Tenkatsus exploded,
and immediately, she had full control over her body, as well as her powers.
“You
should have finished us off when you had the chance,” the regal Serenity
stated, dressed in an armored glowing white armor that resembled more of a
stately dress than a combat armor.
“Okay,
everybody!” Frederic shouted, grinning. “I, Frederic Fromthefield, Supreme
Commander of the Jokilar Gerius, am authorizing the release of the third level
powers! Usagi, Jessie, acknowledge the authorization!”
Both Gerius snapped at attention. “Yes,
SIR!!!!!” Slayer team looked confused at Frederic, at how easily had he had
made a real princess snap at attention like a mere common soldier.
The two Gerius turned to each other. “I
am Gerius,” they intoned at the same time. “Commander of Heaven’s forces! By
the authorization of the gods of the Universe, I unleash thee!!”
Energy exploded around them, obscuring
both warriors from view once more.
Even through the Shield wall, the
silence was oppressive, not a single creature stirred, breathing forgotten in
the spectacle of total silence.
Gerius Power tore through the universal
barriers, a beam of power slicing through the tenth dimension, penetrating the
others: The four normal dimensions of space-time, as well as Magic, Astral,
Force, Psychic, and the Alter Dimension.
Both warriors became visible once more,
their powers as full output. “As the Elements have conjoined,” they intoned,
“as the Universe has aligned itself behind me, I will unleash the full power of
the Jokilar Gerius.” Both drew their Banes of Darkness once more, holding them
tip-down in front of them.
Upon releasing them, the twin blades
started spinning, faster and faster, drawing in Alter Energies from the
surrounding Universe, directly from the normally inaccessible Alter Dimension.
Finally, the two Banes were glowing as much in purple light as they were in
Alter light, upon which they shattered, vicious alter-energies deforming the
ground around the two warriors.
Yet they did not see it, as their very
bodies exploded upon contact with the Super-Alter Energy, their physical
representations reshaped in a bound of Divine Weapon, Alter Energy and Jokilar
Gerius authority.
Twin Warriors of Heaven stared at each
other. Jessie lifted her hand. She materialized a Bane of Darkness. Slowly, she
dropped into a combat stance. Her Bane started glowing brighter and brighter.
“Blast
of the Heavens,” Frederic whispered, actually sounding a little bit afraid at
this point.
Wiccan was the only one capable of
vocalizing anything. Slowly, she lifted her hand, and let it rest against the
vibrating Shield wall. “Didn’t you say this was three dimensions thick? The how
come I am still feeling their power levels oscillating?”
“There
is no place in the omniverse that can contain the power of the Gerius at war…”
Frederic whispered. “Everybody with a sense of power can feel them right now.”
As if to prove it, he reached for his communicator. “Rocky?”
“Yeah,
Fred?” the brunette’s voice came through.
“What
are you feeling right now?”
“Usagi
and Jessie are fighting each other…” Rocky replied, slightly less sure of
himself now. “And it feels as if Jessie’s powering a Blast of the Heavens.”
“Thank
you,” Frederic replied, mechanically. Wiccan merely stared.
“You
would eradicate my soul?” Usagi/Serenity barked, pushing her arms as
wide apart as she could, before bringing them together, her hands cupped right
in front of her. “I shall have your blasphemous hide as a welcome mat!”
“Usagi-chan… ” Ami
whispered, actually sounding fearful for the first time.
GS Buffy turned to the Gerius, and asked,
“That bad?”
Ami just nodded. “Worse… ”
Watcher crossed himself, Wiccan started
to sweat, actually thinking she might lose the bet, Warrior X swallowed,
compulsively trying not to wet himself, and GS Buffy's mouth sagged open just that
tiny fraction more.
Jessie, meanwhile, just growled at Usagi.
“And I will use your soul for lighting in my back yard! And your pigtails are
going on my rear view mirror instead of the fuzzy dice I've got now!”
Usagi grinned ferociously. The Universe groaned,
and actually seemed to implode in front of her hands, ripples of gravitational
waves coagulating into a single pinpoint of extreme power. “I am so
going to kick your ass for that one, ahgoian!”
Jessie grew as red as her hair. The other
Gerius gasped, and actually took a step back from the Shield Wall.
“What?
What'd she say?” GS Buffy screamed to anyone who could answer the question.
“Basically… it
means 'one who is incapable of keeping his or her wedding vows'… like
calling someone a nympomanical slut,” Frederic replied.
“Oh,” GS
Buffy whispered, paling slightly. “I… eh… can see how that would be insulting.”
Jessie’s anger grew, and with it, the
intensity of her Bane grew. Usagi merely growled animalistically, the universe
continuing to implode faster and faster. The surrounding spectators could
literally see the ground warping and distorting as Usagi charged her weapons.
At the same time, nobody actually watched Jessie, simply because the purple
light coming off of the Bane of Darkness was too painful to look at.
“Blast
of the Heavens!” Jessie shouted.
Usagi's eyes reopened. She remained
silent.
The purple blast that came off of the now
black glowing blade raced toward Usagi in a perfectly straight line,
obliterating the speed of light threshold that kept the rest of the omniverse
in check.
Usagi merely smiled, pulling her hands
away from each other, fingers connected by blue-white jets of energy leaping,
twisting, spiralling. Inside of the chaos grew a hole in space, blacker than
the deepest black ever witnessed by Slayer Team, actually distorting their
perception of time and space, as if their vision was twisted through a vicious
all-encompassing spiral.
“Wow,”
GS Buffy whispered. “Is that… ”
“I told
you that you'd meet a Black Hole if you kept up hitting on Shadow… well,
now you see that I am not the only one who can create one,” Frederic replied
with a cocky grin.
Usagi screamed as the Blast of the
Heavens vanished inside the sphere of influence of her black hole. Pain
raced her nerves as her powers were forced to compensate for the massive intake
of Gerius Energy into an object that was clearly not designed for the purpose,
yet was still doing the job Usagi wanted it to do.
Finally, the Blast vanished, yet instead
of dispelling the strange orb of total darkness between her hands, the enraged
Moon Princess screamed louder as she flashed toward her opponent, brandishing
the black hole in one hand, holding it behind her, adding power to it as she
brought it down upon Jessie like a caveman would use a rock to bash in
someone's head.
And smashing in she did. The explosion of
power was horrible, and Lobo actually screamed as he tried to protect
the onlookers, not to mention his precious Dyson's Sphere, from total
annihilation. Just in time, Joshua intervened, taking some of the pressure from
Lobo, enough that the AI was no longer hurting from keeping the protection up,
and despite already nearly being drawn in by the forces the Gerius had invoked.
The ground trembled and shook beneath their feet, sometimes flowing like actual
waves as if it were made of liquid.
Finally, the effects slowed, before
finally dying down completely, and LOBO had the courage to make the Shield Wall
transparent once more. Before letting it slide completely, so the group could
touch the combatants physically.
Usagi was there, on her feet, panting,
eyes still in the 'pissed off' position, while Jessie was on the ground, her
Alter Armor vanished completely, practically naked except for the few scraps of
uniform material still clinging to her smoking body. Already, her wounds were
starting to heal.
“Looks
like you won,” Frederic whispered to Usagi.
The Moon Princess grinned, materializing
a knife. “Can I cut my rug now?”
“Let's
leave at this,” the Supreme Gerius said calmly, helping up Jessie as her body
regenerated.
Usagi nodded once, closed her eyes and
let herself fall from her enraged state. “Sorry, Jessie,” the kindhearted
blonde whispered, looking at the ground.
“Hey, I
knew what I was getting into when I goaded you,” Jessie replied, stumbling from
Frederic to Usagi, who caught her and supported the redhead.
“Next
time, don't goad me,” the blonde replied with her trademarked easy smile.
“Deal,”
Jessie grinned, recuperated enough to stand on her own two feet under her own
power.
“OK,
I know you guys were hardcore 19 billion years ago,” Joshua's
voice came from over the intercom, “but did you HAVE to go and make a
sport out of it!”
Frederic grinned up at the energy being,
knowing the old joke. “It was a sport last time,” he replied lightly, “Now it's
our Happy Hour!”
GS Buffy stared at the group from across
the distance where she was standing with her team. “And I thought we were
insane,” she muttered in part to herself.
Just off to the side, also staring at the
Gerius, Sorcerer raised his fist to his mouth and not-too-subtly coughed.
Willow, already pouting, glared at him before returning to moping and without
word or comment, opened a portal and pulled out a scroll. She handed the scroll
over, but before letting go she asked, “I still want to know how you got so
powerful.”
Sorcerer smirked and snatched the scroll
out of her hand and grunted, “Next time bet on the right team.”
He eagerly opened the scroll and read its
contents. Grinning maliciously, he grabbed GS Buffy's sister by the shoulders
and crowed, “Come on babe! Time to meet your sisters!” Before disappearing in
Warp Magic, he added, glaring at GS Buffy, “Your real sisters!”
“I hate
him,” she grumbled.
* * *
It was their last day of training, and
Wiccan knew it. Appearing in the trans-dimensional warp that Sorcerer had
taught her in a highly destructive training session at the beginning of the
training period, the redhead looked around the planet. She shuddered slightly,
still unable to remember the repressed memories of that particular training
episode. She had more of those. She knew that she had to recover them somehow…
but also knew better than to ask Buffy, or Frederic, or any of the people she
knew with mental abilities to unlock them for her. If her mind decided she
wasn’t ready, she could wait.
Looking around over the lava spouts on
this particular recently-formed twin of planet Earth, Wiccan thought about today:
their last day. What tortures would he inflict upon her now? She floated
a couple of meters above a lava flow, seemingly interested in the way the
flood-basalt ran across the half-molten rock of the still-forming Earth. In
reality, she went over what she knew, doing her best to ignore
the black holes that indicated how she had learned some of her knowledge.
As sudden as she had appeared, her
surroundings shifted, and she found herself sitting at a desk in a small
classroom, facing a blackboard and a huge teacher’s desk, behind which Sorcerer
sat. She felt odd, looking down, and seeing herself dressed in a sailor
schoolgirl uniform, she glared at him. He looked back, not in the slightest
affected.
“We’re
here for a final, Red,” Sorcerer said in means of greeting. He snapped his
fingers, materializing a single sheet of paper, upside down, on her desk. “This
is the final from hell, I can assure you. It will test not your use or your
knowledge of magic, but your knowledge of everything around and within you. For
that is what you need when doing magic… knowledge. For the duration of the
final, you are allowed to use anything and everything you can think of, short
of teleporting other people, or materializing clones of yourself… it will be
you, and you alone, who shall finish this test. Time limit is one hour.” With
that, he glanced at a clock that hadn’t been there moments earlier. It started
counting down from sixty minutes.
Wiccan nodded tersely, forgetting about
the uniform she now wore, flipped over the page, and started reading. Her eyes
opened slightly, before drawing pale.
“Question one: medicine: You have been provided with a razor
blade, a piece of gauze and a bottle of scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not
suture until your work has been inspected,” she read silently. Looking up at
Sorcerer, who was sitting with his feet up on his desk, reading a newspaper. Or
so it seemed. She could feel his magics on her, even if she had no hopes of
identifying or countering them.
Scowling, she
grabbed for the box under her seat, opened it, and snapped her fingers,
re-growing the appendix that had been removed from her when she was six. She
heard him chuckle. Growing red with muted anger, she performed a spell that
blocked her pain signals, took the razorblade, and cut into her flesh at the
exact spot she could see the scar from the earlier operation. Within five minutes,
she had removed the appendix.
“You can heal,” she heard his level voice mutter from behind
the newspaper. Wiccan snapped her fingers, dematerializing the appendix,
putting it back in her body, and instantly healing the wound. She gasped for
breath as her de-pain spell cut out, and her body showed her its displeasure
over the first question. Quenching the rising nausea with iron will, she
continued with question two.
“Question two: history: Describe the history of the papacy
from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially but not
exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical
impact on Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.”
Wiccan rubbed her head, and glanced at the clock. Fifty-three minutes left. She
couldn’t rely on her memory for this one… she was good in history, but there
was no way she could generate this information from the top of her head.
Casting out magical senses, she overviewed the timeline of the catholic popes
from Peter to present day.
Snapping her
fingers, she materialized a stack of paper the size of a small phone book. She
glanced at the clock. Forty-eight minutes. She cursed the lack of speed of her
interdimensional temporal sights. She hurried with question three.
“Question three: Public Speaking: Two thousand drug-crazed
aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient
language except Latin or Greek,” she read. No sooner had she finished, or the
small classroom changed to a huge aula, and two thousand Australian Aborigines
stormed in. She could see Sorcerer smirking, the newspaper down on his desk.
She jumped up, and
waved her hands in a sleep spell. It had no effect. “Question said public
speaking,” Sorcerer muttered. Wiccan scowled; she was now forced to rely on her
own wits… she glanced down at the short skirt she was still wearing. She
grinned, jumped up on her desk and glanced seductively at the group, slowly
gyrating her hips as she started to tease the hem of her skirt upwards. The
crazed aborigines stopped and stared at the strange sight of the beautiful
redhead working on their innermost male instincts.
Sorcerer laughed
out loud, the aborigines disappearing on the waves of laughter coming from his
mouth. “That’s a good one!” he chuckled. “I’ll have to remember that one!”
Taking his newspaper, Wiccan could still hear him chuckling. “Continue.”
Wiccan dropped in
her seat, and glanced at the clock: forty-four minutes remaining. “Question
four: biology: Create life. Estimate the difference in subsequent human culture
if this form of life had been created 500 million years earlier, with special
attention to its probable effect on the English Parliamentary system.”
She gulped,
snapped her fingers, creating a Petri-dish with life in it. In itself, she had
played God… this planet hadn’t fully formed yet, let alone that the primordial
soup had been created. And she had just summoned life. Shaking her head, she
cast out her senses. Five hundred million years difference, how would human life
have evolved differently… and that damn English Parliamentary bit was throwing
her for loops, too. She was going through time at the maximum pace she could,
finally summoning a stack of papers. She glanced at the clock. Thirty-five
minutes. Wiccan growled, going to the next question.
She relaxed at
question five. “Question five: music: Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and
perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.” She
snapped her fingers, summoned a concerto that lasted exactly two minutes, and
performed it, using her magic to play it while she went on to question six. It
had taken her no more than twenty seconds.
“Question six: engineering: The disassembled parts of a high
powered hunting rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will also
find an instruction manual printed in Swahili. In 10 minutes, a hungry Bengal tiger
will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel is appropriate. Be
prepared to justify your decision.” Wiccan lifted one eyebrow as the parts
materialized on her desk. She glanced at the manual, used her Universal
Translator to translate it, and waved her hand to assemble the rifle. She went
on to question seven, not interested in waiting for the tiger.
“Question seven: What sociological problems might accompany
the end of the world? Construct an experiment to test your theory.” Wiccan
swallowed. “Eh…” she actually summoned one sheet of paper, and one pen. “There
won’t be a sociology when the world ends,” she wrote, preparing to summon an
enclosed world, and end it.
“You DO know that there’s a high chance of people already
having migrated to other worlds,” Sorcerer grunted from behind his newspaper.
Wiccan growled, cursing her own shortsightedness, and started researching the
end of the solar system for a humanity that had interstellar travel.
Mid-research, the tiger appeared. She threw a fireball at it.
Twenty-three
minutes she had left when she finally summoned yet another phonebook, and the
experiment on an enclosed universe to go with it.
“Question eight: management science: Define management.
Define science. How to they relate? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize
all management decisions. Assuming a 7600 CPU supporting 50 terminals, each
terminal to activate your algorithm, design the communications interface and
all necessary control problems,” she whispered, looking up and glancing at
Sorcerer, still reading the newspaper. “I can not believe this,” the redhead
grunted, going to work. She had to admit, she had been forced to do things she
never would have done otherwise, but still… this was ridiculous!
She summoned a
stack of paper. Twenty minutes.
“Question nine: Psychology: Based on your knowledge of their
works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment and repressed
frustrations of each: Alexander of Aphrodinias, Ramses II, Gregory of Nicea,
Hammurabi; support your evaluation with quotations from each man's work. It is
not necessary to translate.” Wiccan scratched her hair. “I don’t even know
those guys…” casting out her senses once again, she grew frustrated with the
slowness of her work. Finally, she finished. Another phonebook joined the pile
on the ground.
“Question ten: economics: Develop a realistic plan for
refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan on these
areas: Cubism, the Donatist controversy, and the wave theory of light,” she
read, glancing at the clock once again. Seventeen minutes. Time was ticking.
Sorcerer was till behind his desk, having hardly moved since he had been so
enthusiastic about her way of handling the Aborigines. This was an easier one,
relying on knowledge rather than obscure details, and so Wiccan summon a book
in slightly under a minute.
She grew pale at
question eleven. “Epistemology: Take a position for or against truth. Prove the
validity of your position.” She looked up. “Truth of what?” she asked.
“Just truth,” Sorcerer said, smirking behind this copy of the ‘Omniversal
Gazette’.
Wiccan glanced at
the final, then at the clock, back to the final. There was no way… no way… you
can prove or disprove truth… she blinked. Sure there was! She started summoning
papers worth of mathematical equations. Complicated work, but it worked! Twelve
minutes left. Wiccan started to despair.
“Question twelve: classical physics: Explain the nature of
matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the development of mathematics
on science,” she read, and immediately summoned a stack of papers. Eleven and a
half minutes. If only they all were that simple…
“Question thirteen: modern physics: produce element 107.
Determine its half-life,” Wiccan glanced up. “Damn it…” She grunted.
“Bohrium… half-life… 15 seconds… produce the element…” she snapped her fingers.
She looked up. Ten minutes left. Her nerves were on fire. She was getting
closer!
“Question fourteen: energy resources: construct a working
fusion reactor!” she shouted out loud. “Come on!”
“Just do the question,” Sorcerer grunted dispassionately,
flipping a page in the Omniversal Gazette.
Wiccan scowled,
throwing out her senses, directly teleporting a working fusion reactor from one
of the technologically more advanced universes. She was panting now; her magic
running dangerously low on stamina and mana thanks to practically constant time
or/and dimension hopping. And her mind had to be constantly active, evaluation
everything that the magical senses were gathering. Sorcerer really was a
vicious bastard… opening her eyes, she went to the next question.
“Question fifteen: philosophy: Sketch the development of
human thought; estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any
other kind of thought,” she read. Thankfully, she had come into contact with
enough vastly different kinds of peoples in the Compound, and she was able to
summon the requested texts in no time flat. She looked up. Seven minutes left.
Time was ticking away…
“Question sixteen: general knowledge… you’re kidding me,
right?! Explain in detail, briefly?”
She heard him
shrug. Scowling, she threw a ball of energy at the floor next to the stack of
papers, materializing a black-flaming energy crystal. “There. My knowledge in
brief detail. You sort it out!” She looked at the clock. Four minutes.
She was wasting too much time in her summons now… she was running low.
“Question seventeen: for extra credit: Define the Universe,
give three examples,” she read, brightening slightly, beginning her work. She
had exactly five seconds left when she slammed down the pile of papers, the
examples, experiments, reactors and crystals on Sorcerer’s desk.
“Good work,” he said, standing up, starting to walk out of
the classroom. “but you could have just thrown a time-stop spell at the clock,
and made your life a whole lot easier.”
Wiccan grew red.
“Then I failed? Or did I graduate?”
“You graduated the moment you started training under me. I
only ever took on one failure as a student, and vowed never to again.”
“And the test?”
“To see how you’d do,” Sorcerer said, grinning as he turned
to her. “It was interesting to see the expressions you made while working on
it.” He vanished.
Wiccan grew as red
as her hair, before finally calming down. She realized something… in his own
way, he had just complimented her. It was curious about
Sorcerer… he only played these kinds of infuriating jokes on people he cared
about. Or respected. She dipped her head to the empty air. “Glad to be of
service,” the Wiccan grunted, teleporting to SpaCECoB, and dropped into her
bed, totally exhausted.
At the end of the 5 weeks from the point
that Joshua and Slayer Team dropped in on Fred and the others, the problem that
had brought them all together . . . bloomed.
In three separate, but connected
universes, the forces that grew around and drew together to protect the Dark
Influxes came together as expected. The portals of pure dark energy began to
open and day and light turned into darkness.
At one of these sights, in one of the
universes, a demon spawn stood before the Dark Influx, looking around at the planet
around him.
He froze suddenly, terror filling his
veins as he heard an almost cheerful voice call out, “Is this a private party
or can anybody join in wiping you scumbags out of existence?”
“Can I
make my rug now?” a second voice added in, mere moments later.